Will we hate the "ratrod" years after its gone?

When the hype goes away will we still despise the days of the rat rod?

Look around myspace and the rat rod trend is obvious... there are many 20 year olds whose profiles state they like things like Old Skool Rodz, Rat Rods, Rockabilly music, Hot Topic clothing, etc.

In my eyes, it appears the trend has also "jumped the shark"-- cause a lot of the "Old Skool" shit is beyond cheesy. The next step is dying of the trendy part of "the scene...." It'll go the way of the macarena dance.

When this trend goes away, and the real remains. This is great, but does it make the trendy time as bad as many hate it now?

I've been a skateboarder for about 25 years now (fuck, im getting old) and lived through the same trend in skateboarding in the 80's. I may have "hated" the trend at the time because i thought i was too hardcore (lol, but i still suck at skating,) but now looking back I realize I had a GREAT TIME. It was great going from an outcast weirdo to being a cool kid for a couple years because i was a skateboarder. I had more fun during that time than any. Hell, even some girls liked my ugly ass....

My answer-- i'd rather have a kid in the "rat rod", rockabilly trend than the tuner / electronica or "emo" one...

i be getting philosophimical on your ass huh?

-scott noteboom

 

are you the noteboom from the Choppertown DVD?

 

such a fitting question nope, im actually the other noteboom.

 

I'm a hippie, I will love everything, even fifteen minutes from now....what was the question?

 

I've thought the same thing. I'm sure it will die down some just like custom vans, VW's, mini-trucks, ricers. Not that there won't still be large followings, I think the trend will go away and return again a few decades from now.

Regardless, I'm still in love with the raw engineering and challenges and seeing some of this tin being rescued however temporary it might be.

 

Truer words were never spoken.

 

.....HOLY CRAP notebooms.......let's not get too mental! HaHa!!

Stuff comes and goes, I've been doing this crap since the sixties and have seen things evolve from one thing to the next. I think the "rat" thing will more or less go away on it's own and guys like me will still be toiling away in our little shops building what we always have built......our own rods, just because we like to do it.

 

One word: minitrucks.

 

hahaha...god I hope so.

Amazing how skateboarding and hot rodding are so similar...they both get in your blood and stay for life. While I've had downtimes in both, I always came back and always will.

P.S. The Sac skatepark is open...if you don't skate anymore, check it out, you will!

Bryan

 

Well here is what is happening in the chopper arena.

The days of overpriced billet crap is past so now everything is overpriced unnaturally aged crap. When the posers and pricks with pressed leathers who feel it necessary to wave at anybody with two wheels go on to the next fad. Those of us who actually like the stuff will be left with a lot of inexpensive fodder to continue to make unique things from.

Same with the Old Skool Kar craze. the things that are truely cool will survive and become cheap when the GoodGuys crowd moves on to the next trend that they wink will garner them respect. The Muscle car trend is sadly the same way. I can't wait until I can pick up a $100K Mopar for $15K, so I can make it the cool daily driver it should be.

Of course I could be wrong 50 Mercs have endured and cannot be found for under $10k unless they have four doors, no motors and a pack of mice living in them. then again that is the best way to get them. Making stuff from inexpensive stuff and starting from something few people want, and making it draw a crowd creatively is the true heart of hot rodding in my opinion.

Heck I even see a slight resurgence of the Mini Trucks around here, and they were lame when it was the THING to do.

 

I love Ratrods, Deathrods, Beater rods, Crustrods, ....what ever you want to call them. I was driving a beat up, rattle-can primered '40 Ford back in 1973 ....no one gave me shit about it then, nor should they now.
I see it this way, I have 3 sons, 24,23,19 of whom all love HotRods. They want to have one, but IF it had to be painted and have a nice interior, and a period correct drive train, etc,etc......they will never be able to afford to have one.
Thus, we will build LOW-BUCK, beater-rods so they can enjoy the HotRod life. This is what built the HAMB.

 

Don't look now but the next trend is on the horizon: Billet, pastel colors painted bumpers, doo wop and crying dolls. It's gonna make you wish you had picked up all that billet cheap when it was being discarded at swapmeets. Don't even bother to check Ebay the prices it's going out the roof! Trends? whatever. -stick

 

Interesting subject...
But I am afraid this thread will go south and you will be sorry you posted. J
The idea of the rat scene really derived from those who carried the traditional theme through our hobby. A lot of younger guys in traditional cultures hate this popularity. Maybe they feel their love of the traditional hobby is being threatened and mis-represented by the rat culture.
I was tickled to death (old saying that dates me) to see the younger crowd get interested in the older cars and the idea of building them from whatever they could afford.
It told me that our hobby would never cease, as long as there is old tin lying around.
I hated to see the young tuner crowd more into the size of their speaker and fart can than the size of their engine and the sounds that emit from them.
After this popularity leaves us, there will be a new group who never existed beforehand that will carry the traditional theme. If it wasn’t for this rat rod culture…. Maybe the true traditional hot rod may very well have gone with the next new rice burning tuner car.
I am glad to have lived long enough to see this “new thing” come and go.

 

I don't know the Asian chicks are pretty hot sometimes.

In all seriousness I hate the "rat rod" now. The definition has been discussed but I really just build what I like. I am not very good a following a specific genre or era. In fact the hardcore tradtionalist here will hate me for that. I think it is about execution, style and having a hell of a bunch of fun with old cars. If it scares the shit out of the neighbors then it has to be fun....

 

Your new signature line?

 

I agree, I have been doing this stuff since the 70s myself. I always built cars that made me happy, not because it was trendy. At times it has taken me so long to build a car that a trend that fit my car came and went before I ever finished it, but I never lost sight of my original goal to build what made me happy. A very important lesson I learned in racing was to never pay alot of attention to what the other guy is doing, it is wasted time, instead spend your time on your own car/project/life and you will be happier and more sucessful in the long run.

 

due to the very cyclical nature of the american pshyce the rat rod should dissappear from the commons in about 4 years, it will be a understood part of automotive history, one that may even be spoken of with a certain amount of reverence. This will lead to a slight rebirth of interest about 2022 with a full blown revival of "ratroding" about 2040.

I base this on the current round of american automotive trends. the 50's saw the growth of the american hot rod, but it was still very secular and not really main stream: to much work for the average guy (and was already supported by 10 years of very . But by the 60's detroit made hotrodding available for everyone. the 70's roll around and its gone.

Now somewhere in the middle of the 1980's the street rod movement starts going (I intentionally skipped the show rod thingy of the 70's) and by the early 90's the whole vintage car craze in full swing and really growing. But now where near the full height of what it will attain when the baby boomers and the war babies desires to own a piece of thier childhood just happen to conincide with a unique point in american history when everyone is really flush with lots of dot.com cash, and thus we come to the actual boom: muscle cars and certain hotrods (read the most popular of vehicles to hot rod)

Now with any growth in society will usually be mirrored with opposite growth in someother direction, usually started or motivated by those who cant afford to be part fo the mainstream yet with a desire to be part of it. It could be said that some of this counter culture is catalyzed around the "rat rod" or that it could be said that the "rat rod" is one of the by products of this movement.



i typed to much and didnt really think it all out, but i am sure that there is an arguement in there somewhere.

maybe there is a thesis here...

 

I Like Cars!!!!

 

I think the term "rat rod" will die eventually, but if you like cars then you like cars and I will always love the traditional era hot rods if that's even a correct term.

 

I don't wanna live in a multi-noteboom world.

There's always going to be a place in the world for cheap, fun, castaway cars. It was Model As about ten years ago, but now they're not cheap. So people are working with whatever they can get. Call them what you want, but they're not new and they're not going away.

 

"Never trust a hippy" - Mr. John Lydon. Ha!

But in the words of Mister Jalopy on Hooptyrides:-

"Everything you love, everything meaningful with depth and history, all passionate authentic experiences will be appropriated, mishandled, watered down, cheapened, repackaged, marketed and sold to the people you hate."

Sit tight.
It'll pass...

 

Will we end up hating it? Some of us are already there, but there's always a backlash to anything popular. I think what we'll come to, and in some case do now, regret is the cartoon excesses of a good thing gone wrong.

I see the "rat" thing fractionalizing and the bandwagon jumpers fading fast in the next few years. Those that are still around will probably draw a deeper understanding and love for rods and step back from the "I can do it dirtier than you can" attitude and building rods more in line with the way things were really done.

There will always be those who thumb their noses at convention - rodders do that you know - and build shock value cars. Likewise there will always be the misinformed or those that are naturally UNtalented and build the unsafe rides we shake out heads at simply because they don't know any better.

Rodding won't fade, but I see us 20 years from now, collectively smirking and saying, "What the hell were we thinking?"

 

Hey,,,it will go, come back and then go again. Hell man,,even the MEL engine came back into flavor..........LOL

 

I liked the custom cruiser Mini Truck era because people were actually CUSTOMIZING, something at least!
They were slicing and dicing chopping and molding new looks on them instead of the only dicing being the fuzzy trash hung on the rear view mirror of a turquoise and white '57 Bel Air.
It was an era of imagination and rolling artwork that pre-dated the "Buy a ground effects kit to make your Civic different", just like everybody else, because there was/is only a handfull of "different" parts available to bolt on...
Besides, it kept guys thinking about doing SOMETHING creative to a vehicle other than put gas in it or hotglue Barbie heads to it and call it an Artcar....

Now some trends have gained a cringe factor in retrospect, sometimes but not always deserved, Like the '70's cars weren't all over the top "'70's Showcars," (like that Nomad Custom I "asked for" on the Custom Nomad thread.)

I think other than the vanguard of the "rat rods", the first and "best" items of the style, the rest of the copycatratrods will also eventually fall into the "what were they thinking?" category along with "'70's Showcar" "'90's BubblepackBilletmobile" and "BoltonEurostyle".

Seems some guys have looked thru the books of old race jalopies and conveniently isolated the few cars that were tossed together the week or night before a race meet and weren't exactly "finished" and claim that that was the norm instead of the abnormality of hotrodding and then build a ratrod "just like it usta be" only lower, and rattier, just to drive the point home.

And then they think they should be able to and allowed to drive what was a trailered to the drylakes race jalopy clone on the street?

I used to like the regional differences in cars.
I was up in the Rockies in Canada talking to a guy with several acres of "car collection" and saw a channelled but not chopped '32 Chevy hotrod and I said "You bought that from somewhere back east didn't you?" He said "Yes! How did you know?" I said, "Because it's an East Coast style hotrod, channelled and not chopped. If it was West coast it would be the other way around, but the resulting height of the roof would be equally low."
Now, everyone all over the world is making "East Coast Cars" but they are leaving them with a California desert rust patina.
I remember East Coast Cars as being shiny almost to the point of being gaudy with chrome and paint.
I wish guys on the West Coast would clone the West Coast Styles and let the East Coast guys have the right to their past also.
If you don't go to TJ and barter for your own Donkey Blanket seat cover, use an Army blanket, like in the pre-eBay days!
Ratrods will just be a passing phase, as soon as they are sold to someone else for way more than the pocket change they were built on the new owners will want to do something to them to keep them from becoming wind blown iron oxide on the highway.
Or will just be parted out and built into a street rod of unrecognizable origin.
Hotrods may be refinished, but are never finished...

 

Rat rods arent new, the trend is. When the trend dies their will still be ratrods. Not every body likes a finished car. Street rodding has trended out somewhat with the gold chainer rat rods we are now seeing. Its always been about hot rods and custums in one form or other but trends come and go.

 

All I Can Say Is I Always Liked Cars Customs,hot Rods,choppers Caddy,s In That Order I Drove A Primed 56 Ford Y-block In The Early 60,s Had A 57 Chevy Show Car, A Chop Merc In The Early 70,s When Nobody Wanted It ! But Had Fun With Had A Custom Van Late 70,s Early 80,s If Your A Car Guy You Will Always Like Grass Root Rod,s And Cars[don,t Like Name Rat Rods] The Tends Come And Go But The Real People Will Always Be There

 

Dr J - You hit the nail on the head.

 

Here's your problem....your surfin' MYSPACE??? hahahaha!

Whaddya gonna do when that TREND is over????

I've SERIOUSLY been thinking of selling ALL of my crap and getting back into 4x4's............less DRAMA......

Anyone wanna BUY my SOUL?????

P.S.-----Minitrucks ruled the late 80's-early 90's!!!!hahahaha

 

That's what I thought fifteen years ago.

The only thing to come out of Asia worth a squirt of piss is computers and porn. Especially porn.

 

no, but i'll buy that intake!