Half Rat Half Rod

History of the Half Rat Half Rod

The three parts shown below constitute what remains of the initial implementation of various customizing ideas for a street rod my late brother and I had toward the end of our modeling experiences as teenagers in 1959. He was off to college and I pursued high school sports, so our hobby went into a very long holding pattern for years. These three parts languished for at least 60+ years in a stash consisting of just a couple of barely-started hot rod bodies and scant parts. Finally I set my mind to building up the model street rod parts as a memento for old time sake.

Hope you enjoy the before and after pics. Thanks for looking....

BEFORE

the 60+ year old stash of hot rod bodies and parts

with all three original parts: the modified body, the modified grille and the Corvette dashboard

with modified grille unattached:

with Corvette dashboard:

The completed Half Rat Half Rod (HRHR) represents what the original model was supposed to look like, sort of, except for the fact that at that time there were no "rat rods" to speak of and it would have been more refined and finished finer. Back then, pretty much all model building attention for us was focused on customized cars and cool-looking hot rods, as they were what was trending in popular culture. We were more into custom automotive concepts and ideas then, and suffered in the precise and exact execution of those. Ideally the HRHR was supposed to have been a highly customized hot rod based on a '32 Ford coupe, extremely low slung with massive rear slicks, blown engine, customized interior, side exiting header pipes, and especially featuring a rear body section and a frontpiece from some appropriate modern car or cars of the times. My memory doesn't recall what particular car or cars those two elements are from, possibly a Studebaker Avanti, or perhaps a stylized Thunderbird front end from a 3in1 kit. But in the end, our bold intentions for the final version of the model being built got caught up in the shuffle and never happened as time moved on and life circumstances changed.

Fast forward to 2025. To complete the HRHR model, I had to build this as a "rat" rod due to my lack of sufficient and available parts and materials. Notice the rough, old and damaged front tires, the crudeness of the build and all the other inadequacies. I had no massive slicks to use. No interior floorboard or pedals. No firewall. No chassis. No suspension system. No rear or front axle. No window glass. Most everything was scratch built. Materials used included bamboo, plastic film, wooden toothpicks, metal wire, card stock, spackling compound, synthetic felt, aluminum, and clear tape.

Even though it took much head-scratching to figure out how to construct, what materials to use, how to sequence building operations, and how to be patient in allowing time for things to cure and develop, there is now a genuine satisfaction knowing that the HRHR is finally complete. And it rolls.

This is a special tribute to my late brother Ted.

AFTER