The Little World

Relax – no sex here. And surprisingly, not a lot of sex at the burlesque shows either…but that is another tale.

The business of making a jalopy or rat rod is quite fashionable today. I see them at hot rod shows all the time and like to look at the details. For vehicles made by individuals they fall surprisingly well into categories:

a. The Neglected Daily Driver. This seems to require nothing more than a Mexican blanket on the upholstery and a slurry of McDonalds cartons on the floor. There may be a nodding Elvis or a string of prayer beads from the mirror, but essentially this is a show car with nothing to show.

b. The Retro Rod. Every cliché of hot rodding since 1948 may show up on the overloaded Retro Rod. In some cases it is as if they have emptied a fifties speed shop and bolted it onto the car. This can be charming and evoke a tear of nostalgia for those of us who grew up on Rod & Custom magazines when they were the size of the Reader’s Digest. But you can’t get past the fact that if something was crass, ugly, and unnecessary on a car in 1958, it is still just as icky in 2018. The 60 intervening years have not made it better.

c. The Patina Patootie. This can be any car in any condition, but need not have any extra power or running gear – the whole style is in the paint job. It has been layered and distressed to look as if it is a junker just out of a barn. It is not, of course, and the paint job is a work of art. You can love ’em or hate ’em as you like. The owners are artists and do not care either way.

d. The Death Sled. Hot rodders and teenage goths are like in their fascination with skulls, bats, and spider webs. Also demonic possession, though I doubt that a self-respecting demon would really want to drive some of these cars. They are piled and packed with images and style designed to shock – which means that they look foolish. The most striking of them are dedicated to dead people or to long-past military service. I tend to avert my eyes and brush past.

All of which I am not going to do with the Ford. It’s all a matter of history and reading it accurately. A cheap ’31 Ford two door in 1937 would have been six years old – six years on the prairie and on roads that are salted in winter. It would have suffered, but not to the extent of the rat rod. Coming into the hands of the Stein Boys, it would have been a cheaper car by then – all they could afford. And it would have been asked to do any number of tasks in Montana. Things needed to be hauled, and if they were not exactly burning along Route 66 to California, they were looking for work out at Fort Peck or Flathead Lake or on to Idaho. All that takes a toll.

The trick will be to suggest wear and tear without being torn to pieces or ending up a clown car. To that end, I will be putting in subtle damage and wear that is starting to become serious…but fixable. Uncle Jack once got a car home from a fishing trip with no oil in it by slipping bananas and eggs down the crankcase…

I’ll start fresh, and then see what happens.