Rust Buckets that still move.
VW Rat Rod by JC Magana
Rusty cars are looked down upon in this new age of cars. We expect everything to be nice, shiny, show quality, with perfect lines, built with premium grade materials and unbreakable parts. In a way you can say that our generation of car enthusiast are spoiled. But what happens after time sets in and nature takes over the materials that our whips are made of? Rust, broken parts, non working stereos, motors that run like garbage, is it time to take it to the local scrap metal yard and watch them crush that old school car into a square that sponge bob would be jealous of? Most of us would say yes. To a certain few enthusiast this is a dream come true, the perfect time to unleash a rusty monster that only a mother could love, check it out.
Rat rods, ahh where do I begin. This is one car culture that just doesn’t care. Influenced by function over form, and a greaser mentality, many of the early rat rod guys bought older hot rods from the 30’s to the 50’s that were unfinished and deemed the idea to have more go than show. They wanted their cars to be driven instead of babied and taken out for a quick bite to eat with the family. The appearance of the beast just didn’t matter to this early punk culture. Taking parts from other types of cars to finish their own was nothing new to these guys, and to completely throw off body panels and channeling the body over the frame was the norm. Often chopped down roof lines for a lower profile and adding skulls, Maltese crosses and other accessories were the only type of “show” pieces added onto these cars. People saw the designs and the rusty exterior and thought anarchy. Was this the case? Were the rat rod guys a bunch of ruthless Mad Maxers from an earlier time? Or were they the smarter ones in the bunch?
Rat Management by JC Magana
In this modern age rat rods are still alive, they are mainly kept to a few scenes. Its very rare to see Japanese rat rod with the exception of the baby Scions. Where they can be found is in the older Muscle car scene and the Euro scene. The mentality for the new crowd is rusty body panels like the old days but with a twist. Lets crack the windshield, rust the whole car, slam it to the ground and equip wheels that out value the car. This is the way adopted by the younger scene, just as interesting as the old days. A lot of V-Dub buses, bus trucks, Square Backs and Beetles. Expand further into the scene and find Mercedes with rusty fenders, Bimmers with whole body rust jobs and the new kid on the Block the Scion XB with rusty, flat paint and broken trim. Turn over to the muscle scene and find your self seeing Vegas with no floors, T-Buckets that will not longer hold water, and even some Mustangs that should have been put to pasture but still stamped with the best of them.
If you think of what it really takes to make a rat rod, its all in your dreams and in the owners hands. The rat rod guys were smart, very smart. Take a rolling chassis of a car, check. Get a motor with drive train, check. Grab some good suspension, check. Now let your mind run wild with stripping, welding, and modifying anything you want! Cheap, creative, and most of all fun. That’s all these guys wanted and all they were, a bunch of car nuts that didn’t fit into the normal crowd of muscle cars at the time, the punks, greasers, the bikers, the rockers, the rat-rodders!
VW Rat Rod by JC Magana
1 Comment
The article is well written. But for the stance taken i would have included pictures of the muscle cars / VW vans you speak of. Not just a single scrubbed over and hung out to dry mk2.