A rat rod is a style of hot rod or custom car that, in most cases, imitates (or exaggerates) the early hot rods of the 40s, 50s, and 60s. It is not to be confused with the somewhat closely related “traditional” hot rod, which is an accurate re-creation or period-correct restoration of a hot rod from the same era.
Most rat rods appear “unfinished” (whether they actually are or not), with just the bare essentials to be driven.
The rat rod is the visualization of the idea of function over form.
I hadn’t heard the term “Rat Rod” until recently, and didn’t know that it was a genuine classification of custom vehicle. We called ‘em “beaters” but they were nowhere near the awesome extremes pictured here.
Chopped and channeled and lowered and loud fits right in with
The Overnight Open Thread.
Tags: beaters, custom cars, hot rods, Overnight Open Thread, Rat Rods
My partners and I are working on a 37 ford pick-up that is a rat rod…
IMHO, the rise of the rat rod as a cultural phenomenon is largely a push-back against the growing commercialization of street rods, which have become largely high-dollar pro-built cars, instead of low-dollar, owner-built cars as were the original hot rods.
Rat-rodding is a back-to-basics movement, and sometimes it goes overboard, with shoddily-built cars that the old-time rodders would scorn.
I have a ’29 DeSoto coupe that would make an excellent rat rod. All I need to build it is time.
Alberta Oil Peon wrote:
We have a week long celebration of Rat Rods here at our local drag strip. It’s big time pseudo-50′s retro.
@ doriangrey:
And how’s that other Hot Rod coming along!
@ doriangrey:
I kinda figgered the BlogMockMobile might fit in this category. (That’s the Rec Room Haus Frau top center.)
Felix Mendelssohn’s “Prelude and Fugue”
Macker wrote:
We should be picking up the engine from the machine shop Friday.
11:5.1 custom made pistons, .590 degree cam… It should have enough rump a rump to stop you’re heart… 
We’re looking at 560 HP with 600 fpt… 
Bunk X wrote:
ROTFLMAO… Looks like one of my partners wife’s…
@ doriangrey:
Gotta get one of these retro hood ornaments.
@ Philip_Daniel:
Do you know his Variations Sérieuses?
@ Philip_Daniel:
Okay, Philip, you really didn’t think I’d let you off the hook for posting that on a Rat Rods Tribute OOT, did you?
Classical geeks have Bunk outnumbered for the moment.
Echo Sonata for 2 Unfriendly Groups of Instruments
@ Da_Beerfreak:
I was a big PDQ fan back in those days… I probably have that on LP somewhere.
@ Moe Katz:
I like classical.
@ Moe Katz:
Oop. I meant Classical.
@ Moe Katz:
Here’s another one of my favorites.
@ Bunk X:
Carl Perkins, now THAT’S classical rockabilly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6BhNMzg9Ts
How about some real Hot Rod music…
@ Da_Beerfreak:
Victor Borge.
I had a rat rod long before the term was invented. My first car was a 1932 Model B Ford 2 door coupe. And I got it when I was only 14 years old to run around between a couple of our farms that were a few miles apart. Of course I was not allowed to take it to town or any such thing.
The reason I call it a rat rod was because, well -- it really was ratty. Didn’t even run when I got it, so I had to figure out how to fix it up a bit. One night I came home and looked under the hood and saw that the exhaust manifold was glowing. Adjust the carb. And playing around with the ignition timing also perked it up a bit. Amazingly, I never killed myself with it and have lived to tell this tale.
One something like this
@ Moe Katz:
He showed us how to have fun with classical music.
@ Da_Beerfreak:
Indeed.
@ Da_Beerfreak:
And for generations before ours, classical music often WAS associated with being a stuffed shirt, not appreciating jazz, etc. That’s all changed now.
Forgot to make my point—that the classical music humorists post WWII like Borge, Schickele et al. contributed to relaxing that attitude.
@ 2soonold2latesmart:
Some days I look back and wonder how I managed to survive my youthful indiscretions…
@ Da_Beerfreak:
Me too. I think mine weren’t even that original, but they could’ve easily gone wrong.
@ Da_Beerfreak:
I’m saving my youthful indiscretions for my second childhood.
One of the few good things about getting older is the ability to think of even better indiscretions to try…
@ Da_Beerfreak:
If there are any left…
Never did “get” hot rods, a condition that got worse as I got older. 95 % of “custom” bikes leave me cold as well. 4 wheelers with almost no ground clearance and 2 wheelers with extremely raked and extended forks are especially unappealing to me since they are almost useless except in a straight line (2) or on a very smooth road (4.)
The things that always caught my eye in my younger days were MGs and Triumphs, Lotuses and Jags, Austin Healeys and Sunbeams; stuff like that.
@ Mike C.:
Here’s a parody from MAD Magazine when I was a young lad:
M…G…!
I live just to touch you!
When I double-clutch you,
MG, you give me a thrill!
Back when, I spent a lot of time in (and under) a 63 MG Midget…
Meanwhile, anybody else having recent trouble with The Volokh Conspiracy? Twice in 5 days opening it also produced one of those malware pop-up windows that required either a browser kill or a total crash to stop. Not happening on any of my other daily sites.