Not A T 25 said:
I think the original term Rat Rod referred to Bid Daddy Ed Roths cartoons where the car was chopped and cut so radically that the creature sat thru the top of the car :mwink: But those were cartoons not real
...and I have said that in the past. It was a joke that some people took for a real, new building style. If anything, it goes against human nature to want to have the crapiest looking of ANYTHING.
Would you purposely trash your house? Would you buy a house that was trashed out and leave it that way? Everyone, no matter what level of society, works to have nice things. Nice being, clean, kept up and PLEASING to the eye. I don't care who you are, no one can convince me that they woke up and thoght it would be cool to drive around in a rusted car with crap screwed to it. I ain't buying it. Early rat rodders just need to tell the truth. They thought the joke that rolled into the Nationals that year was real and went out and built one. They didn't get it. The newer breed of rat rodder needs to admit that they thought hot rods were cool and didn't have the bucks and/or skill level to get into it, so they thought that a rat rod could be done cheap and the worst it was done, the cooler they would be. Both groups failed. They will always be a curiosity and will gather a crowd. Mostly people trying to figure out why someone would do that to a car.
As for Roth, he was an artist way before he was a hot rodder. In fact, if you look at his early work, that is not car related, he would be considered an abstract artist. He saw a hot new thing going on in SoCal and did what he did best. He built his artistic INTERPITATION of it. Abstract roof chops, way out paint jobs and bodies. He was giving the world a rolling statement of his view of hot rodding. They actually weren't meant to be driven and few actually could!
Now, if a rat rod is done to make a statement, I'd sure as hell like to know what it is. The response, "If I have to tell you, you'd never understand." is a cop out. Just tell the truth, go home and add a couple inches to the roof, fix the scrubline, put a floor and firewall in it, patch the rusted panels and please.... put some front brakes on the damn thing.
The sad thing about the "industry" getting into it is that they don't care what happens after the buyer buys their product. Most are out to just feed the trend and reap the financial rewards. The fact that rat rods are being promoted by SEMA ( an organization that basicly sets and judges the higher standard) should tell you that they are feeding a youth market to get all the money they can. As soon as they found out people were trying to build a cheap POS, they figured out a way to sell them a cheap (but marked up) POS.
Rat rodders can and will build what they want, but are they doing it for the love of the hobby or because they always wanted to fit in and a rat rod is the cheapest way to do it.