Flat paint in contests

[Pete J.]

Living in SoCal I have a lot of friends who are really into hot rods and that is a major part of the car culture here I thought I would try to shed a little light on the subject. If I recall, the base story behind the rat rod is that it was an attempt to take hot rodding back to it's roots and as a counter to the multi-thousand dollar rich boy rods of the Chip Foose/Boyd Coddington genre that the hot rods had evolved into. In other words go back to creating a cars that were done in a back yard or under a tree that was a low budget hobby. In these cases the builders could not afford a high end paint job or the crate motor from a big name builder and had to fabricate a lot of the bits and pieces themselves. (kind of like low budget modeling were you build it yourself instead of buying aftermarket). So these cars may appear "ratty" but they are really low budget attempt to make something that is fun to drive and will go fast without an eye toward the what looks nice. Now the genre has evolved since then but this was the orignal intent, not to make an insult to the eye or and unsafe vehicle.