Lets see some Bobber Trucks

+3 here

 

Wish I had pictures. In 65 a little old lady made a sandwich of my
stock 37 ford 1/2 ton PU as I was stopped behind a car at light.
After removing the running boards a saber saw trimmed the front
and rear of the fenders and last foot of bed. Threw the hood away
and installed a stock 265ci Chevy.
Fast enough for me and the proportions wern't bad.
Everybody I knew called it a HOT ROD.

 

Doooo-hoooo-hoooodz Someday I'm gonna make one of these wikkid bobber trucks and then I'm gonna take it over some sweet jumps!

 

I'll propose a theory:
Same as with ratrod coming from the original term ratbike which was a chopper that had an other than vtwin engine although triumphs were also respected as choppers not ratbikes. the ratbike was a chopper knock-off using parts from jap bikes. a Rat bike was the same thing to traditional bikes that a Rat outfit is to a union shop. Ratbike was a slur until people forgot what it meant. The newbies back then that didn't know getting your bike called a "Ratbike" is like saying "get off my union job you filthy rat" They liked the gritt and started calling grungy hotrods ratrods instead of the older term jalopy. I suppose now the trend continues in ascribing scooter nomenclature to 4wheelers. The so-called Bobber truck is just a hot rod truck same as any other except in dressing, maybe shortened up a bit. the old style of the bobber bikes compared to choppers and glamor hogs is actually the traditional hotrod asthetic isn't it?

 

So now, bobber truck is the politically correct name for a RATROD?

 

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?????? That's news to me. Back in the 60's and 70's a rat bike was a (usually road worthy) bike that looked like it was held together with bailing wire. Then folks started adding junk just for the effect.
Didn't know it had anything to do with metric choppers.
Larry T

 

And I'll be right there at the BMX track, rooting for some Ol'Skool Endos...

Traditional or not... Goofy is goofy...

 

exactly!
A rat was a ratty looking beater, a daily driver that was neglected in appearance
later folks started hanging frying pans and obvious junk on them

 

+4 here too!!

I cant believe this OSR type shit has lived on the HAMB so long. Its an embarrassment.

 

That is a strait 8 not a strait 6

 

I aint been everywhere i'll say it first i dont know it all or even alot of it. ive never seen a bike intentionally goobered up with junk. Ive always heard harleys and triumphs called bikes dragbikes customes bobbers and choppers and heard metrics called ratbikes no matter how nice they were done. there were even a few choppers around with nice chrome, paint custom frames and 6' springers that didnt get respect for having a yamaha or honda mill. and most everyone into the harleys and triumphs and even the guys who owned them called them rats.
For a long long time any outfit or workers undercutting union jobs have been called rat shops and rat labor or just rats. rats that cross a picketline to work during a strike are scabs. It has been like a badge of dishonor second only to cockroaches likened to a disease, plague, cutthroat, snitch, dirty, low-life, unclean, scummy and all that jazz. Companies will have you working for them for nothing if they could.
So like...theres the norm of a genre and then a silly or tasteless departure from the norm is Gay and in the opposite direction an angry cheap or scuzzy departure is Rat. That not gay as in I love you man its as in the old sense where someone or something was out of place like being overly happy and flambouyant in times of stricture and misery.
nomenclature being used from one thing and crossed over to another instead of traditional terminology because the bad boy anticulture bike stuff is trendy??? but...being anticulture has it's own cliche and is an inverse charicature of the culture it rebels against and it can get to the point where the only individuality is vocal and the rides all look like jokes from some angle. Form being elevated to a godhead over function screams a lack of knowlege of function.
I started getting annoyed when I first started hearing elcaminos called el-dogs and baseball players calling themself a-rod like wtf is that? it makes nothing more cool it just calls it more cool and Hype makes me yak.
It doesn't bother me calling the truck a bobber. I don't know where it came from just looks like an ordinary hotrod pickup to me. You say Bobber and I think an indian or knuckle or panhead styled to look older with a short springer front, maybe lowered looking like it rolled in from the 40's or 50's but not stock, raked out, dragged, chopped, or a custom. I think maybe what I might be missing is it could be the aura of the retro bobber cycle style that is being imparted onto the hotrod pickup vocally where the styling cues called bobber are traditional hotrod stuff... not to be confused with modern hotrod stuff.

No hard feelings if you know better. Please, correct me where I'm wrong, it's just an opinion. like larry T, he had a totally different perspective than I've been exposed to and it was a great reply

 

Exactly !!!!!!!!!!!!! made the same post few days ago

 

Anyone ever build a revvin seven or a wined nine

 

I guess you haven't been to Daytona or Sturgis in the last 25 years then.

 

So a chopped, channelled, hoodless and fenderless coupe is a rat rod.