History of the American Rat Rod

To understand why the "Rat Rod" phenomenon has become big lately, you need to understand the beginnings of the hot rod. First of all, a Rat Rod" is a hot rod that usually imitates or exaggerates the looks of a hot rod from the early years. Rat rods are usually rusted or painted with primer, and look like they are just put together by found pieces in the junkyard "unfinished". This was what the first hot rods were like in the 1920's and 1930's, so let's start there.

Most associate hot rods with the 1950's, but the hot rod scene started in the 1920's in California. By the mid 1920's, there had been millions of cars sold, so it was easy to find olders cars for sale and parts were readily available. California young men who wanted to race their new cars found the salt flats East of the CA cities a perfect place to race. The first engine sold in Model T's had only 20 horsepower, so to make their cars faster to race, it had to be stripped of any unnecessary weight. This included running boards, extra panels, ornaments, etc. By the mid 1930's, the flathead V8 engine was available on the new model A, which included a sedan series which made for a great looking car once modified into a hot rod. These new flathead V8 engines had 80 horsepower, making for a dramatic increase in horsepower from 20 horsepower. By making a few modifications, some hot rodders were getting around 160 horsepower out of the flathead engines. By removing the muffler and straightening and shortening the exhaust, speeds were reaching over 100 miles per hour.

By the mid to late 1930's, the depression was in full swing and hot rodding slowed down. Sinking money into your race car was not as high on the priority list as to eating and providing for the family. This is where the looks of the rat rod come into play. The sometimes rusted out body and odd parts thrown together to make a functional car was all that could be done by many drivers during the depression, and rat rods depict this part of history. What also makes rat rods fun is that nearly all rat rod projects are done by the owner themselves, since owners do not have to worry about specific paint jobs, chrome, new body parts, etc. It's all about the art and how you build it. Most rat rods use V8 engines since that was the original power plant of the first hot rods, but some can be found with other engines. Technology today can squeeze even much more horsepower out of the V8 than in the 1930's.

The rat rod is designed to "have fun" with the original hot rod look. Rat rods may perform well if they have larger engines and are tuned, but the fun is in designing and building the rat rod for the looks. Some great rat rods I have seen at cars shows over the years have had some unique styles, including one rat rod with a "doorknob" for the car handle, a large pliers for the gear shift, and an actual "trunk" for the trunk. That is art in my mind, very creative. Building a rat rod can be fun, and it allows someone new into the hobby of cars to build one easily and for cheap. More than likely the rat rod will never be "finished" to your standards, and no one else will ever know. It just looks like a "work in progress". Because paint jobs, new machined body parts, and new interior parts are not needed, nearly anyone with some simple mechanical ability can build one. As long as it runs, doesn't fall apart, and is road safe, a rat rod is fairly easy to build.