My Son and I got turned on to the Rat Rod thing about a year ago, because we saw the opportunity to build a couple of "back to basics" hot rods, without the fuss we usually put into grinding each component (even ones you never see) until they are perfect, and chroming every little piece.

So he picked up a '29 Fordor body, and I found a '39 Dodge pickup cab. We've built a couple of seriously Z'd frames, and they are up on wheels. He is working 12 hour days to get his done for the Turkey Run/ Thanksgiving. It is 40 inches tall, bagged,455 olds tripowered, and Bitchin'.

But when we started building our Rats we found it just wasn't in us to build a car that wasn't well built. I think that is what bothers me the most about some of the Rats running around out there. They just are plain dangerous, because of poor construction, lousy welds, undersized brackets, etc. I see some of these cars on Ebay that I would be afraid to drive around the block.

Alot of the people building these Rats feel they are copying what 40's and 50's Hot Rods were like, and in some cases they are right.......some really bad cars were built back then. (I bought a '32 roadster in about 1961 where the guy used water pipe to build the rear radius rods. No bushings, just a hole drilled through the pipe.

But we did the best we could with the money and tools available to us. To build an unsafe car in 2005 is inexcusable, even if you have very limited funds. Vo-techs will allow you to bring your project there and build while you learn. Plus you have access to good equipment and help.

Rat Rods can be cool, especially when you draw a bigger crowd than the mega-buck billet cars, but crappy workmanship isn't cool.