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EFV-8 Club Forum / General Ford Discussion / RAT RODS

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Posted By Discussion Topic: RAT RODS -- page: 1 2     Old Henry 11-05-2010 @ 1:33 PM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 738 Joined: Apr 2010 Or, how about this one? It sold for $14,300,000.00. How does it compare to some rat rods you've seen? Still Old Henry Old Henry 11-05-2010 @ 1:28 PM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 738 Joined: Apr 2010 Speaking of "the eye of the beholder" - at least one eye (or maybe it was two) thought this sculpture was worth $104,300,000.00. It is the most ever paid for a sculpture. What do you think? How much would you pay? Would you trade your early V8 Ford for it? Wanna see some more similar sculptures that are apparently worth millions in the eyes of other beholders? Check these out: http://www.theartwolf.com/10_expensive_sculptures.htm Still Old Henry wmsteed 11-05-2010 @ 9:39 AM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 613 Joined: Oct 2009 A stock Early Ford V8,is in the eyes of a street rodder, a prime example of car that needs some serious modifications to make it pleasing to the eyes. Women tend to be the same; a fat womam needs to trim down where-as a skinny woman needs some meat on her bones. Some people would say that the statues of "Venus and Michael" are art, where-as other people think they are pornography. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" Bill 36 5 win delx cpe ole_Bill 11-05-2010 @ 8:06 AM reply profile send p.m. New Member Posts: 165 Joined: Dec 2009 I don't know how this thread deterioated into a discussion of "young vs old". My only point was that rat rods are just so d*mn UGLY! Old Henry 11-04-2010 @ 10:32 PM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 738 Joined: Apr 2010 Can I weigh in on this for just a moment? It's a little diversion from the inital topic but the issue of old verses young in this club has come up enough in this thread I've got to speak. I am new to the club and the St. George event was my first event. I didn't know what to expect but was very surprised at the first night gathering to discover that half of the people there were 10 years older than me and the other half were 20 years older than me! I don't think I counted more than a dozen people out of the 700+ that was there that were my age or younger! Judging from the profiles I just went through of those posting in this thread, no one is still working for a living except ME! So, does anyone have any statistics for this club of the demographics (age profile) of the club? Is there anyone out there under 60 besides me? If not, we definitely need to do something about attracting some young people or this club could fade away as the members die away. My 15 cents. Still Old Henry trjford8 11-04-2010 @ 8:43 PM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 4222 Joined: Oct 2009 gzrcpe32343, I agree totally with you. Most of these young people are respectful and they do like to pick the brains of old guys about hotrods. I recently had a couple of young guys and their girlfriends tour with us to a V-8 national meet. These kids had a great time and are really into flathead powered cars. They are enthusiastic and even signed up to be judges at the meet. These young folks are welcome anytime to go on one of my tours. We have to look to the future and any of these kids that like flatheads are probably going to be the ones who take over from us old guys. gzrcpe32343 11-04-2010 @ 6:05 PM reply profile send p.m. Member Posts: 1 Joined: Nov 2010 if these kids use flathead fords, why not encourage them, embrace the fact that they saved aflathhead from the scr*p iron pile. remember if we are not able to remember what it was like to not be able to afford what we wanted way back then, well we should at least be tolerant enough to appreciate their ingenuity and effort. if you just take little interest and engage these young guys in a little conversation ,i think you will discover, as i did acouple years ago, they are for the most part, respectful to their elders. the tattoos dont always mean gangbanger. we all grow older but we dont have to growup. wmsteed 11-04-2010 @ 9:44 AM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 613 Joined: Oct 2009 Is the EFV8 Club Forum the wrong place to have a topic about 'Rat Rods"? I don't think soooo! Actually the majority of the cars we built in our youth, that is for the 65 plus age group, would generally fall into the rat rod class. If it was not for the Hot Rods, the early V8's would have faded from view many years ago. I find it to be very interesting that many of my friends that have cars that are restored to better than new levels have either built, and/or are currently building Rat Rods... Their thinking being that the cost to restore a car has gone off the charts, where-as a rat rod requires no paint or upholstery. I also find it to be very interesting that a vast majority of Rat Rods are based on a early Ford chassis and powered with a Ford flat head. A couple of years ago me and a friend of mine were at a car show at Nick Alexanders..... Lots of beautifully restored early V8's and many rat rods... My friend looked the rat rods over, stating.. these cars are the same things we put together when we were kids using parts we gathered up from the junk yards in the Vernon area of LA. Everything changes, yet nothing changes.. Bill 36 5 win delx cpe Stroker 10-31-2010 @ 3:35 PM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 1460 Joined: Oct 2009 I too am old, and probably getting grumpy. My 32 pickup in the late 50's might today have been called a "rat rod", although its appearance (primer) was more a result of economics, and the realization that gloss paint which would have highlighted ALL the warts. I find it interesting that some of these creative folk go to great lengths (and expense) to add "patina". From the onset, my 54 year love affair with my 38 has been focused on getting it back to the way it was when dad bought it. Having said that, there have been a couple of trends in the past that I have found to be frustrating to me, probably because I never seemed to have enough discretionary income to run with the big dogs. The first were the "factory hot rods", which sort of came into being with such examples as fuel-injected Chevy's, McCulloch-blown Fords, and of course the famous 409's and Mopar monsters. My contemporaries and I felt that the ability to simply buy your way to performance was somehow "wrong". The second, was the high-tech approach to traditional hot rods, wherein stainless steel batwings Superbell axles, and air-conditioned, tilt-wheel rides became the standard. At this point, I had a nice steel 29 roadster, and was seriously thinking about building the "period correct" highboy hot rod I never had in the fifties. This project would have been flathead powered, used a narrowed 32 frame, had split stock wishbones, a column shift trans with Zephyr gears, and virtually no chrome. I collected a nice 32 grille sh*ll, a Jack Hageman fabbed 3-piece aluminum hood, a Halibrand V8 quick-change, and a lovely set of original Ardun heads. Time, job requirements, kids and family postponed this project to the point that I finally decided to part with everything except the heads. In retrospect, what I would have created would have been too primitive to appeal to the "hot rod set", and too sophisticated to appeal to the "rat rod set". I'm a long time Bonneville racer, and records generated in that venue have eclipsed any possibility of being competitive today with such a combination. So...Do rat rods have a place? Any automotive endevour has a "place". Some would view our group as being a little "retentive". For now, I'll keep plugging on my first love, and try to keep her as close to "as dad bought it" as is economically feasible. This forum and the V8 Times have been the best source of great information I have ever experienced. I joined the EV8 Club back in the late 60's, and my only regret is that I didn't continue my membership until I rejoined about 6 years ago. Be kind to the "rat-rodders", as I believe what they are trying to express is that "more is not necessarily better". bobs36 10-31-2010 @ 11:42 AM reply profile send p.m. Member Posts: 42 Joined: Oct 2009 no difference from the late 40"s to the 50", people said the same thing, about what "Kids" did to there cars etc.

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