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A patient who is a retired Col. is a serious car collector who has 20 cars at this time ranging from a 930 Turbo slant nose Porsche to a GT350H Mustang to a Caddy Eldorado convertible that is about 30' long and has wings like a B52 (white with red interior of course) to a "perfect" '34 Ford Coupe body on a hot rod Mustang lower (full leather, air conditioning, electric window, 302 Boss engine....etc) and many others of all kinds...this does not count the motorcycles.... He has a garage that is three wide and 3 cars deep with lifts so that he can stack cars three high. Like I said, "serious".

He has a retired full Col. pension, a retired high level civil service pension, Social Security and his wife has a civil service pension and Social Security. This amounts to a lot of mail box money in addition to 50 years of wise and effective saving and investing on his own. He's rich.

He has been telling me for awhile that the new hotness in the "hot rod" crowd is the "rat rod" concept car and that he had his eyes on a good one.

He recently completed the purchase and has been the star of the small town cars shows this summer in his new "rat rod".

He proudly bought it by the office today to show me and take me for a ride.

No bueno for Byron! It has a 375 horse small block, dubious brakes and "vague" steering and drag slicks in the rear. The grill is off an old Oliver tractor. He indicates that at wide open throttle the front end will come a "little bit" off the ground. WOW!
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That baby needs sooooo much work to even get an approving glance around here.

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I find the whole rat-rod thing to be pretty ironic. Back in the day, we built "rat rods" because that's all we could afford! If dangerous lack of engineering was going to kill me, I would have been long dead before I hit 30.

During the build of my 1933 Plymouth coupe with a 383 and Torqueflite tranny, we had to go for a test drive. No floorboard so we laid 1x6 boards across the frame rails, and set two metal milk crates on them to sit on. Then we ran a coat hanger through one of the many holes in the firewall, and hooked it to the carburetor. We fired the engine, used a stick to bump the tranny pawl into drive, and gave the coat hanger a yank. :-D

PS: One of my last cars was a really nice "T-Bucket" with a hot 350 with three deuces on it. If one floored it from a dead stop, it would flip over backwards, literally. So it was fun to get it rolling, *then* give it 3/4 throttle, and carry the front wheels for 10-15 yards. Oh... It had motorcycle wheels up front, and no front brakes. :-D

JLF

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You only need brakes if you plan on stopping.

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It was a rolling chassis with the stripped cab and the core support on it. No other sheet metal. With 3.73 posi rear end and a massaged 4bolt 350 it would accelerate with that little weight. But It was hard to hold on with no doors setting on milk crates.

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That is cool.

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it really needs a flathead Ford V-8 with triple Stromberg 97's.

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Most beautiful engine ever!! Add a set of polished edelbrock or offenhouser heads and a big beehive oil tank
And you're set!!

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There seem to be a lot of gearheads in the gun world. I ain't one of them and never will be. I think it is a neat hobby, but not one I have time nor dollars to pursue. I'd have to learn way, way, way too much to even start.

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I remember having ribs with you and Boge in Kansas City shortly after Caitlyn had been killed. It was a black time for me and you guys really helped lift me up. Thank you.

Boge had just bought a black hearse and had flown into KC to pick it up. I was so thankful to meet you guys and have a chance to visit and have lunch.

After lunch we went out into the parking lot and you and Boge were coon fingering a couple of really nice knives. Then the unspeakable happened and you presented Boge with a box he had mailed to you that contained a stupid .22 single action derringer for "protection" (he's behind the wheel of 5000lbs of lethal metal on his way home) on the drive home. My natural tendency was to become abusive but under the circumstances I bit my tongue.

Still, it was great to talk ribs, knives, guns and cars in that little café.

Personally, I don't care for "rat rods" either. You remember my ride? Boge liked it.

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Byron

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Not enough time or money here either. I do love the look and style of the old rods. I've read way too many magazines in my youth, though! I can talk it with the best of them, but have little hands on experience with cool hot rods! I've spent many an hour working on boring cars and trucks, though...

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Turning it into a full time career! I used to eat, sleep and dream street rods. Now, when I see one come in the parking lot I get all defensive, put my fighting face on, flare my nostrils and make darn sure they don't dare come out and ask me if I want to..., or how much! If I set the terms and the price I'd love it because 99% of them would leave insulted that you don't want practically work for free just for the privilege of touching their cream puff (which is usually a pos!). I can change intake gaskets on a clean new Chevy truck in 4 hours, take my time and do it perfectly and beat the clock or I can put the shiny new high rise on a 69 Chevelle in 1.5 hours and spend 6 more fabricating every piece that goes on top of it. I'll pass.

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Yep, the Stromberg is the "other 97". I ran six chrome ones on my bucket for awhile, found the whole setup at a swap meet. I still have one as a paper weight.

JLF

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It is what the sport looked like in the early years, but these days it is a protest against everything becoming billet. In my youth we did have to build cars something like that because that's all we could build. My father was building hotrods well before I was, back in the original days of hotrods. When I was young I looked at his photos and wondered why the cars were so crude. Now I know.

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I'm big on the traditional style rods, myself. I do appreciate some of the modern conveniences that have been integrated. The whole hot rod deal is big on rebelling, so I can understand why there would be rebellion even within the ranks. I like the look of the 'unfinished' rat rods, rough bodies, old looking paint, etc, but the welding on of various parts and pieces just to be different? I'm kinda 'meh' on that end. I'm all for running what you brung and constantly working to improve, getting it out of the garage before it's 'perfect' and all, but some of those guys do a lot of work to make them look half finished! I think it was Dolly Parton who sad something along the lines of "It takes a lot of money to look that cheap"!

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You made it. There was no Jegs catalogue or Harry's Hot Rod Shop.

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. . . there was Warshawsky or J.C. Whitney . . . which were actually the same place in Chicago, just that one was allegedly "retail" and the other was allegedly "wholesale".

Oh, yeah, and Honest Charley.

I still have the catalogs.

Memories . . .

:-D :-D :-D

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFCv69ujMOQ

Video of some TV show taped in Emporia a couple of years ago. Larry Hall, the owner of the rat rod, is a friend and a shooter. Think he applied the bullet holes himself.

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In southern Iowa that thing would look like just another redneck-mobile.

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Especially the bullet holes (?) in the door:) However, rat rod or not, if that was mine the sun would not shine on that rat's nest of plug wires. I'm getting a headache just thinking about those wire ties and that unkempt starter wire wrapped around the back of the head...the pain, the pain...make it stop. It's hard being a perfectionist with obsessive tendencies:/

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