Thread: is Gasser style considered a rat rod??

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Originally posted by knuckledragger
I am building my 55 buick in a gasser style street rod, and he considers any type of classic car construction, as a rat rod.

Man, that makes my head spin.

If you look near the top of the page you'll see a link to the search function. Pay attention to the instruction on the search page about needing to use the wild card to get to the 4 letter minimum, e.g. rat* rod*. Search your other terms too as there's been quite a bit of discussion.

Briefly though you demonstrate what has happened over time with the gross misuse of terminology. In one sentence above you've boggled my mind. Here are some quickies.

Gasser= high nose, lower tail, but not overall as low as a taildragger custom. Based on early '60's drag race concepts of improving weight transfer. The "standard" Willys look of Stone-Woods-Cook for example.

Street rod= term coined by National Street Rod Association to define street driven rods based on cars built BEFORE 1949 model year.

Classic= originally a label used only to describe high quality, elegant luxury cars from the '20's and '30's. Now so grossly bastardized that ANY car is refered to as a classic by it's owner if he thinks it's worth more than it really is.

Rat Rod= relatively new terminology used to describe a car built on the cheap (supposedly). When it first came into use it was intended to signify a car built in a similar style as those done by rodders of the late '40's to somewhere around the late '50's to early '60's. Disregard for accuracy has become so blatant that in short order almost any guy who sprays any "old" car with flat paint considers his car a rat rod, even though it may be stock otherwise or newer than the time frame noted. There is also a subset of people, usually those that weren't around at the time and too lazy to do any good research, that believe for a car to be representative of the period noted above it has to look like a piece of junk. Rust out on various panels, broomed on paint, ratty or no upholstery, dirt accumulated all over, and generally appearing to have little "sophistication". Some have done this to be humorous, some as a counter statement to the billet style of rod. Unfortunately some have become ponderously tiresome in their belief that only a rat rod appearing car can be "authentic". In reality, just as today, rods of the period came in all levels of quality. People with skills and an artful touch produced some very high quality cars with nice paint, upholstery, and accessories. Those possessing less talent, or talents of a different stripe, produced cars with less "quality".

I admire your willingness to ask for clarification rather than assuming you already know it all.