Tondeleo: I know next to nothing about cars. I like them, but of course, Americans seem to LOVE them. To me, a car is a luxury and a means of getting from point A to point B. In America, a car is an extension of the owner’s personality, a status symbol, a means of self expression and more.
Someone sent Doc a link to a Corvette/ 39 Dodge that had been joined together and made into a “rat rod.” To me it is horrid and disgusting. It was for sale on Ebay this past week and got a lot of attention and comments. He also had some strong feelings about it. He had Marilyn forward the email to me, and that prompted me to ring him up.
Doc: Tondy, did you see what that guy done? He
cut off the front of a perfectly good 39 Dodge pick up and stuck it on the front of a Corvette! Why would a man waste a pick up truck like that?
Do you think that Dodge front end is happy with a Corvette stuck on his hindparts? No!
Tondeleo: I DID see it, Doc, and it is a monstrosity… I don’t know why he did it.
Doc: Well it’s some guy down to Alabama and them guys is southern boys what generally know how to build hot rods. This ain’t really a rat rod, neither.
Tondeleo: I must confess, Doc, that I don’t fully understand what a rat rod is; I’m clueless about all that, aren’t I?
Doc: OK, a rat rod is a hot rod what you made outta what you have sittin’ around the garage or out in the field. It ain’t meant to be crazy. It is just the way a poor man has to build a car cause he ain’t got enough money to do it like a rich man. He uses what he’s got sittin’ around. This ain’t that.
OK, he mighta had a Dodge pickup out in the field. He coulda fixed that up and made a hot rod out of it. He mighta had a wrecked Corvette in his garage. But here is something you don’t do, Tondy. You don’t mix Mopars with Chevies and Fords. You can put a chevy motor in a ford or Mopar, but you don’t mix the bodies. It ain’t right.
Tondeleo: I hear what you’re saying, Doc, but I don’t understand why it’s ok to mismatch some things but not others. What is a Mopar?
Doc: A Mopar is a Chrysler product. Plymouth, Dodge, Chrysler. They’s Mopars. And you don’t mix ‘em with Fords or Chevies and you don’t mix Fords and Chevies with each other cause they are competition to each other. So,it just ain’t right. Dodge gets Mopar. Ford gets Ford and Chevy gets Chevy.
I can tell you more about this one why it ain’t right. The nose of the grill is higher than the bottom of the windshield [windscreen] on the Corvette. It should line up, so you could put a hood [bonnet] on it. It has to line up.
Also, the stylin’ is too different. The Corvette flows and is smooth. The old Dodge is round and fat. They don’t go. Like a woman with a big old head like a pot roast, and then a pretty body and at the end, some big old feet like a man. You wouldn’t do that. She got to flow.
And the back end don’t haul nothin’. It’s a Chevy pickup
tail gate screwed to the back. It just don’t go together, in my book. And he stuck deer’s antlers in it! What for? It aint really a rat rod, it’s somethin’ else what I don’t know a name for. Big Dave said it is like a scoop of ice cream on an out house. It just don’t go.
Tondeleo: What would you have done, Doc, if you had a wrecked Corvette and an old Dodge pick up truck like that? That bloke may have been like you, without much money and two vehicles that weren’t drivable. Maybe it IS a rat rod…
Doc: Well, ok, he mighta been broke. I know how that is. Maybe it was the best he coulda done. But I can tell he knew how to make things, and cut metal and put it together.
I wouldda taken that Corvette motor, trans and rear out of that Vette and put it in the Dodge pickup. I woulda used the front part of the frame of the Corvette, and welded it to the Dodge frame. I’d cut that off in front of the cab and join it up. You just gotta make some plates for hookin’ up the rear into it. Ain’t nothing too hard. And it woulda gone together. People do that kinda thing all the time. Then I coulda had a fast pick up truck what looks right and would handle like a Corvette.
The inside of that Vette weren’t no good, and he put road
signs in it for an interior which looks worser than plywood what he coulda painted black, if the inside of the Vette was that bad. This was worser than that.
Anyway, Tondy, that’s just what I woulda done. But I ain’t him. With cars, a man can do what he wants to do to express himself, and that is what this guy done. He might not like what I’m doin’ to my old panel truck, but that is why they make strawberry, chocolate and vanilla.
Tondeleo: Strawberry, chocolate and vanilla WHAT?
Doc: Ice cream.
