Projects: Rat Roaster

Rat Roaster

1932 Ford Roadster

The trend in Hot Rodding for the last few years has been to build a car that had a ‘40’s or 50’s vibe to it... And that’s a cool look. However, I have always liked the late ‘60’s era when Drag Racing was King and you had some really wild things running down the strip like Blown front engine dragsters and Fuel Altereds.  During this time, their weren’t a lot of Hot Rods roaming the streets because the Muscle car was King. So the idea behind the Rat Roaster was to take the thought of American Graffiti and drop in into the late ‘60’s instead of the early 60’s. If the Baddest car in the Valley in 1969 was a ’32 Ford roadster,... what would it have looked like? The Rat Roaster  was designed to be THAT car.  The criteria was pretty simple, number one...It would have to be something that would out run the hottest Muscle car on the street or strip by at least a second or two. Number two... It would have to have enough “WOW” in the engine to make people walk past Hemi’s and Tri-powers to come and stare at it.  Number three... it would still have to be affordable for a young Hot Rodder to build and own, so no exotic blown Hemi’s or Cammers. The only engine that would have fulfilled all three of these criteria in 1969 was a blown small-block Chevy. 

It would also have to have more visual pop then a GTO Judge or Mach1, or Roadrunner, so a bright candy looking paint job was a must. It also had to reflect the Rock and Roll mentality of the times so bobbed fenders, side pipes, diamond tuft upholstery, and guitar and music accents were a must.   

Paint Code

Rat Roaster Green

Credit:
Custom Color created by Stacey David and Ron Payton of PPG

1 QUART FORUMLA