To me Rat Rod speaks of the "Shifter's" style cars, like the shortened chop'd 'n channel'd Tudor with Blown somthing or rather, much taller than the roof, which (I think) looked so dang tuff!! but not legal or practical, there are other works of art, which aren't so extreem, which I reckon fit the category also.

I would say, somthing which is 'well built' (read 'safe') in primer, brushed/rolled/sprayed-on or what ever, using 30's/40's bits, a traditional rod. Somthing which was built in the 'backyard' using scrounged/swap meet bits, to the owners taste, budget (??) and has the 'look' of an early jalopy, gow job, jigger, hopped up crate, or whatever you choose to call 'em.

I know that many times in the early days, safety wasn't usually at the front of the minds of those building 'hot rods'. ie. book shelf brackets used to hold a coupe body up after a channel job etc.

traditional vs nostalgic?

I would say maybe nostalgic is a rod which has 'nice' paint, built to early specs??

What do you reckon, these are just some of my thoughts.... I'm only a young'n gettin into all of this 60/70 years after the event.

Outback.

I'd happily call my model A a traditional rod.