Читать книгу The Illustrated History of the Rat Rod - Steve Thaemert Jr. - Страница 4

Early Influences

The automobile. It’s hard to imagine a time when we couldn’t jump in a car or truck and head off down the road. The first legitimate steam-powered automobile was built in 1768, followed by the first car powered by an internal combustion engine in 1807. It wasn’t until 1886 that the first gasoline-powered car was produced in Germany. From there, the first production vehicles hit the market; by the early 1900s, there was an automobile boom in Europe and the United States.

Henry Ford launched the Ford Motor Company in 1903 after leaving his first company—the Detroit Automobile Company, which later became Cadillac. By 1910, gasoline-powered cars were being produced by the thousands. Rat rodding has roots here, in the “vintage era” between 1918 (the end of World War I) and 1929, when the stock market crashed. The Ford Model T was the dominant car during this time, and many of these original bodies are still used today throughout the hot rod world. While rat rods didn’t exist back then, the Great Depression of the 1930s pushed Americans into creative uses of the automobile. This “forced ingenuity” led to the birth of the “doodlebug.”

When tracing rat rod culture in search of its roots, it would be an injustice to overlook the doodlebug. Like “rat rod,” the term “doodlebug” also has its gray areas and different interpretations. The definition that’s relevant to rat rod culture describes automobiles turned into farm implements (sometimes called “doodlebug tractors”) during the material shortages and economic hardships of the Great Depression through World War II. Farmers often took their family vehicles and modified them to be used for plowing fields, hauling loads, or serving any number of purposes for which they were not originally built.

The American doodlebug is a symbol of automotive ingenuity inspired by necessity, a remnant of which lives on in today’s rat rod community. Like those who created doodlebugs in the past, rat rodders of the modern era often repurpose parts and components that are rare, broken, irreplaceable, or simply used for purposes other than those for which they were intended.

Gas Power

Karl Benz, of Mercedes-Benz lineage, produced the first gasoline-powered automobile in 1886: the Benz Patent Motorwagen.

An original 1930 Ford Model A.

The need for such functionality was very obvious during the world wars as well as during the Great Depression, but during the early automotive boom, there was also another growing element: the need for speed.

Mother Nature has programmed every living being with the drive to be better, faster, and stronger than his neighbor. Therefore, it makes sense that the invention of the automobile was followed closely by automobile racing. The earliest documented “races” were more like endurance trials to prove that these newfangled machines were capable of making it from point A to point B with a minimal amount of trouble. This was no small feat, considering that there were few roads as we know them today. Automobile owners gave no thought to modifying these early vehicles because the point was to prove their roadworthiness as-is.

Fast-forward a few decades after the automobile had become a part of everyday life for the majority of American households, and you’ll find that automobile racing had become immensely popular. The races had morphed from cross-country endurance events to competitions held on oval tracks. What had once been a hobby for the super-wealthy was now within reach of a wide audience because there was now a rich supply of old cars in junkyards to use as raw material.

The aftermarket as we know it today did not exist, so there was no available “bolt-on” horsepower to make home-built racecars go faster. In fact, people were doing just the opposite. The less weight you had to move, the faster you could go. By removing things like lights, fenders, doors, and glass, you could free up the available horsepower to move the vehicle forward with more urgency. These racecars of the common man were known as “jalopies,” and jalopy races were a mainstay of the American racing scene from the 1930s until well into the ‘60s.

Take a look at an early hot rod, and you can easily see the jalopy influence. The modern-day rat rod definitely takes cues from the old jalopy racers. The parallels are simple—low cost, do-it-yourself, vintage iron. Many people refer to rat rods as jalopies today, which is almost a slang use of the term, but somewhere in that sea of gray, the dots do connect. Doodlebug, jalopy, hot rod, rat rod … all part of the same automotive culture that was born well over a century ago.

A vintage photo from the early days of car racing.

So, where does hot rod culture begin? Rat rodding, after all, is a part of hot rod culture.

What we commonly refer to as the hot rod culture started to take off in the 1920s and ‘30s as automobiles became more common (as opposed to a luxury of the rich and privileged). The price of new cars was declining, and used cars could be found rather cheaply. Junkyards and used-car lots began to spring up, offering inexpensive entry into the fraternity of car ownership. Hot rod culture and jalopy racing are close kin, and, along with the necessity of the doodlebug, these automotive ideals all ran parallel.

Some saw the car as more than just a means to get somewhere. They saw the car as a way to explore the world, to have fun, and to express one’s self. Inspired by the popularity of automobile racing, owners began to tinker with their cars, finding ways to make them perform better, go faster, and look different from everybody else’s cars.

By the end of the 1930s, manufacturers had abandoned the “form follows function” approach to designing automobiles and began to put a lot more thought into how cars looked. They had flowing lines and graceful curves that easily lent themselves to further augmentation and customization. It is here where hot rodding began to diverge into two paths. There were those whose main goal was speed, and there were those who saw the automobile as more of a showpiece. For the latter group, everything had to be finished and shiny, and performance (outside of general “streetability”) became secondary.

A classic hot rod at on display at a vintage car show.

Above and beyond everything, the automobile represented freedom. If you had a car, the world was yours to explore. The rebel element of hot rodding was always there from the beginning. Deserted highways and dry lake beds were common gathering spots for those wanting to prove their mechanical skills and manhood by driving their modified cars faster than the rules of the road would normally allow. Adrenaline junkies—both drivers and spectators—craved the intoxicating rush of high speeds coupled with the ever-present specter of danger. Those choosing to cruise rather than race formed car clubs with aggressive-sounding names like “The Diablos” or “The Phantoms,” suggesting that their group was one to be reckoned with.

The advent of World War II put a hold on the further development of the culture as the call of duty sent a great percentage of America’s young men into the service. On top of that, everything related to automobiles was being rationed as part of the war effort. Gasoline and tires were very difficult to obtain, and there certainly wasn’t much of anything available for something as frivolous as hot rodding. America’s car manufactures even ceased the production of civilian automobiles soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, meaning that there are few 1941 models, even fewer 1942s, and no production automobiles for the years 1943, 1944, and 1945, with regular production resuming for the model year 1946.

Once soldiers began to return from duty, the hot rod culture picked up where it had left off and then exploded. Guys coming back from the war had three things that fueled this rebirth: disposable income, a plethora of new mechanical skills, and the pent-up desire to get back to doing what they loved. And then it happened: rock and roll music.

A pair of Ford coupes from 1939 and 1940 at the 2015 Lonestar Round Up show for cars from model year 1963 and earlier

The country’s youth had never had a common voice, but they found one with this exciting, albeit taboo, new music. The kids were driving mysterious-looking loud cars and listening to what was called “the devil’s music,” and the teenagers of America were indeed in full rebellion.

As auto customizers stretched their imaginations further and further, a funny thing happened. Detroit began to take notice. The cars of the late 1940s were more or less recycled designs of the late ‘30s and early ‘40s. Once manufacturers began to focus on automobile production after the end of World War II, this started to change. Of course, we were also entering the jet age and soon would be entering the space race with Russia. These two factors alone would have a great influence on the cars that would roll out of Detroit during the second half of the 1950s. But there is no denying that the creations coming out of the customizing shops and garages around the country also had an influence on what was showing up in new-car showrooms. Cars were lower and leaner—chopped and channeled from the factory. Paint schemes and interior treatments were wilder than anything that anyone had ever seen on a new car.

A highly modified custom 1951 Mercury coupe.

Pushing the Limits

Rat rodding at its basic roots is a break from the norm. It shoves its finger in the face of the hot rodding establishment and says, “I’m tired of the status quo.” It’s all part of a constantly evolving process. The original hot rods and customs were a way for people to differentiate their cars from everybody else’s. But, eventually, even those building custom cars needed to further distance themselves from the rest of the crowd. Leading the charge was a man who would become the pied piper of those everywhere who dared to be different: Ed “Big Daddy” Roth.

Roth was born in 1932 in the center of what would become the flashpoint of all things “kool” in the automotive world: Southern California. Roth immersed himself in the SoCal hot rod scene, amassing a collection of cars. His artistic nature led him to his first foray into car customization by learning how to pinstripe. This helped him make ends meet while trying to support a wife and five children by working at a department store during the day. He soon gained a reputation as a gifted pinstriper, and he eventually left the retail world behind to forge an automotive career.

The first car of Roth’s that gained significant notoriety was Little Jewel, a mildly customized 1930 Ford Model A Tudor. But it was the invention of fiberglass that cemented Big Daddy’s place in hot rodding history. This revolutionary material allowed anybody with enough mechanical know-how and determination to design and build the car of his dreams without having to learn how to perform the metalwork that was previously needed to customize a vehicle. Any design you could imagine was now within reach, and Ed’s second creation, The Outlaw, was unlike any other custom that anybody had ever seen. It caused such a buzz that he was able to open his own garage and start cranking out other mind-bending creations, including Road Agent, Mysterion, and the famous Beatnik Bandit. None of these cars (except Outlaw, for which an argument could be made that it was loosely based on a 1920s-era Ford) were based on production vehicles. They were all from the mind of Ed himself.

Kustom Kulture

The use of the term “kustom kulture” was born of Southern California roots sometime in the ‘60s and was generally used to describe the hot rod lifestyle as a whole. Although kustom kulture has evolved over the decades, it has always had an artistic and rebellious undertone. The term (and improper spelling) is still used today to describe the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s hot-rod lifestyle.

Building these cars wasn’t cheap, and much of it was financed with the airbrushed T-shirts that Ed sold at car shows. Images of his grotesque monsters, often shown piloting equally wacky custom cars, were selling just as fast as he could create them. His most popular monster was Rat Fink, which was intended to be a direct jab at the wholesome, clean-cut Mickey Mouse. Rat Fink was everything that Mickey Mouse wasn’t: bloated, dirty, smelly, and just plain ugly. The word “fink” in the character’s name was a slightly less vulgar derivation of another term used to describe someone of, let’s say, less than altruistic values. The outrage that these shirts caused only served to exponentially broaden their—and Ed’s—popularity. Model-car kits based on his creations sold by the millions at the zenith of their popularity.

Ed’s interests eventually turned to building custom motorcycles and three-wheeled “trikes,” but his initial visions helped usher in a new era of free-form car customization. Other luminaries of the day, such as Dean Jeffries, Gene Winfield, George Barris, and Darryl Starbird, also began to shift their focus from more traditional, organic designs to more fanciful, abstract creations with features such as asymmetrical pieces and bubble tops. Roth, along with Kenny Howard (better known by his nom de plume, Von Dutch) could also make a case for creating the primordial ooze that eventually evolved into what is now known as the “lowbrow” art movement.

Lowbrow Art

Lowbrow art became popular in the 1970s and referred to the pop surrealism movement that was heavily influenced by hot rod culture, punk music, and “comix” (underground, self-published comics).