Pat Ganahl - short rant about TRJ

I love Pat's work. I love TRJ. But shit, did he have to use the term rat rod - and so frequently - in the latest issue? The article in question is about a damn fine A coupe on a deuce chassis built at SoCal Pomona.

I dunno, it just irks me and kinda sends the wrong message.

Maybe I shouldn't care.

Rant done.

 

thank you.

 

No, he said So-Cal DOESN'T build rat rods.

 

SoCal said they don't build rat rods and Pat conceeded that, but...

 

X38,

I for one prefer the term traditional hot rod for the early style rides being build now. The term rat rod was coined by a magazine writer when primered cars started to take a bigger stage in our car kulture and we can't seem to shake it off. Your right it sends the wrong message.

CRUISER

 

Cruiser, I think the mag writer in question was Gray Baskerville. I loved his work too.

 

Pretty sure X38 knows the history and origins of the 'rat rod' phenomenom.

Just think, mate. Keep driving your roadster for a few more years and it could become a rat rod too! Although... after 10 years or so you're not really making much progress on adding the required Puh-Tee-Nuh.

 

TRJ is the best. period.
NO complaints here,,,,,,,

 

....it's cause they look ratty......

 

And it ws in an article about the Burbank Choppers no less!

 

I just look at the pictures...

 

The term is here to stay...one way to avoid it is to build a quality car with shiny paint and not try to make a bumper out of horseshoes, an air cleaner out of old frying pans and a ride that is not safe...cars that fit the prior description are a ratty rod or rat rod...a hot rod is finished in a nice style, with shiny paint though a flat color looks nice too and is safe and well engineered...RAT ROD is here to stay but HOT ROD was here first and its up to us to build hotrods.

 

A lot of people went to a lot of effort to distinguish 'Traditional Rods' from Street Rods and Rodders... Big-time rebel ethic...

We call them one thing... They call them another...

Should we be surprised?

Let it go. Waste your time on something more satisfying.

 

I'm not sure why they have to put a term to the car in the first place. It's a cool coupe. It's a hot rod. Why do they have to call it anything else.....the "Exaggerated look" term is just stupid...what is exaggerated? You might get away with calling Death's Doorstep exaggerated but this one was just a nice car, well proportioned, nothing incredibly extreme. It's like he intentionally created artificial drama so people would argue over it on the internet.

That article (and a few other things in this issue) really seemed to have a very "holier than though" attitude. They were too way good to stoop to using a disgusting small block, but not above buying some cheesy off the shelf Speedway seats? I don't get it.

Hell....he even says the flathead is a crappy motor to use in the car because "every other rat rod has a flathead in it." In the very same issue the first car featured has a well dressed appropriate small block in it and the article doesn't complain.

Also, I hate Desoto bumpers. So I guess I don't know shit about customs because I don't think they are the ultimate modification. Oh well.

Don't get me wrong....I love TRJ and will continue to buy every issue. This one just seems very preachy.

 

I really like the way you put that, I agree. I won't even take anything of mine out in primer anymore. I have customers all the time that want a "rat rod", I have to take the time an educate them that I will not under any conditions let anything that is not quality leave the shop. Hell I've turned down work that I didn't want the shops name attached to. Now I don't mind a little satin paint, but I'd rather have it a color than black. I'm probably gonna have to do a customers truck flat purple, It's a nice truck too, I feel bad for the guy and that he's gonna have to hear it all the time...

 

I think the big distinction is becoming the use of actual car parts to make a car; A proper rod nowadays is made almost entirely of official streetrod parts, and that's that.
Use of actual early Ford bits on an early Ford equals ratrod...doesn't matter how it is executed.
Streetrodders actually loathe anything that was once on a real car!

 

....brilliant minds think alike....agree

 

We will have to agree to disagree on that statement.

 

Legend has it George Barris punched a guy in the mouth once for calling his cars "lead sleds". The term used to stand for poorly designed/built customs with metalwork so bad it took a ton of lead to get 'em "straight". Now, that term stands for an entire genre of car. Whether it's crap or gold, nobody seems to care if it's called a "LEAD SLED".

Most of the "customs" back then were hideous. Goofy interpretations of milestones like Sam's Merc created by folks having fun, getting the wrong idea or just flat out losing it. The entire custom part of the culture is populated by a lot more "crap" than "gold", always has been. Same thing with the "Hot Rod"...or "Rat Rod".

Ganahl says whatever he thinks. He likes what he likes and vise versa, then writes about it. Love it or hate it, he's good at it and has definitely helped the culture evolve by saying things like this. Last I heard, he digs primer (and just about anything else) when it's done in his version of "right". Same as us.

In the end though, WHO defines what YOU build? That guy Barris punched or YOU?

 

from my experience with the noitalls around here, bruce you are right on.

 

Anything with actual Ford in it is routinely dismissed in the streetrodder press as either a ratrod or, condescendingly, "nostalgia rod". That old stuff don't work nohow...

 

I'm not sure if this relevant but I found a rod rat in my roadster pickup yesterday . Big one too . He's no longer with us .

 

One of the best replies to a "rant" I've read since joining the HAMB. I could not agree more.

 

Thanks I copied it from the goofy kid with glasses sitting next to me in first period...wait I was the goofy kid with glasses...thanks to lasik surgery I am just goofy now

 

Don't like someone "'labeling" your car ..
Stay home keep the doors closed and don't post pics ..
Verbal expressions are how people communicate thier brilliance or thier stupidity or the undefined line between either one.

Nice " dune buggy "
neat model a (39 ford)
is that a mustang?

Whatever ... Most people will get it wrong .. Its a big world out there ,,, our group(if i can include myself?) is not a big part or will ever change the unwashed .. Enough

heck deuce prices are to high now!

 

I consider myself a Hot Rodder, and a Racer, but I don't have a problem being called a "Street Rodder". I used to race my hot rods. Now I drive them on the street. The above comment may describe some in the hobby, but it does not describe me, or a great many people I know. And when did "Street Rodder" become a four letter word??

 

Hey,

Once upon a time, the term "Hot Rod" wasn't considered a term of endearment. If you called someone's vehicle a "hot rod", ya may as
well of called it a p.o.s.! The Antique & Classic brotherhood looked
down their collective noses at the "Sports Car" brotherhood, who
looked down their noses at the "Hot Rod" brotherhood, who looked
down their noses at the "Kustom" brotherhood, who looked down
their noses at the "Streetrods" who are now motherfuckin' the "Rat-
Rod" and its' day in the sun. Who cares what they are called, if one
builds a car, with consern over what it will be called, or how much
ink it will score, that's sad! If one builds a car for the need of attention,
hell he outa buy a puppy, they're cheaper and less work.
As for Pat and TRJ, Pat is jus' doin' what he's always done, selling
magazines. Who knows, maybe the "Dub" look will really stick in the
future, and we will have to add it to the list?

Swankey Devils C.C.
"Meanwhile, back aboard The Tainted Pork"

 

No, it was a story about the Shifters.

I've been writing since about the time that story came out- and NEVER saw the need to use the term because despite all the arguments because I didn't want to play into the negative attention it brings. Others have made careers and complete magazines out of it in the mean time- if you enjoy it so be it.

 

I think I first saw the term "rat rod" or something close to that in one of those early 60's Special editions that sold for .75 and the the caption was under a photo of a couple of kids pushing a hacked up coupe into the lot of a shop where several very nice rods were sitting at the time.

The lot belonged to one of the premier hotrod shops / hangouts of the day in Cal.

I'll have to see if I can dig that one out of the archives next weekend when I have some time. Time to get out of this Holiday Inn Express and head back to work.

 

Yeah, that bothers me too Dean. I'm the same age as the Shifters and the Choppers and most of us were raised around Street Rods- some of us with VERY active "Street Rod" parents who were also "Hot Rodders" in the '50s and '60s. We loved the cars but wanted to return to the roots we saw in our parents old magazines and photos of their early cars stuffed in a drawer. There's a disconnect with the new guys that got motivated off the "simpler" cars we built in the late eighties and early nineties where they want to trash the street rodders. They don't know them or know how important they were at keeping this all alive. Great examples like Pete & Jake that were '60s hot rodders in their very young days and then progressed to two of the BIGGEST heroes of the '70s Street Rod heyday. Those guys are still two of the most dedicated hot rodders I can think of but it's hard for a guy that's been weened on Ol Skool Rodz to get that.
History needs to be taught- and it's not about how many times you say "rat rod" in a story.

P.S.- Pat Ganahl's body of work is untouchable by any human for it's accuracy, scope and knowledge. That man knows more, and done more than any hot rod journalist. It's an honor to read his work.

Speaking of things that don't translate to different generations I was at an event this weekend and it's run by some nice people that are definitely up there in years. The guy gets on the microphone to promote the fifties dance and says pretty much "We will have a band playing all the great oldies, none of that RAP- so young people you don't have to kill anybody." If he wasn't eighty years old I think some people would have been pissed.