Rat Cinq?!!?

Lol!!

i love these rat golf's

Back in the 80's me and my friend's cars would look like this because this was all we could afford. This is what 1970's cars looked like when they got to 10 years old! Then we'd spend hours with Halfords spraypaint and bodyfiller trying to make them look nice again. Now it seems as if people WANT to make their cars look like a rusty old heap barely clinging on to an MOT?!!!

For those into guitars it's similar to deliberately making a new guitar look like a 'relic'. You take a good condition guitar and spend ages/ money trying to make it look like a beat up relic that's seen better days. Relics are big news and I really can't get my head round it! An original but well used 50's/ 60's Fender or Gibson that had been beaten up over the years has a charm to it, but making a new guitar look like that? See pic below for an example.

As for rat cars, I thought that in general they used to be a sign of a 'work in progress'. They were cars that were scruffy but sound and were gradually being brought back up to scratch whilst still being used on the road. That meant being painted (often by hand) in primer only, or having very rough paint but nice shiny wheels. Again, back in the 80's a paint job was hellishly expensive so sometimes people would just paint the whole car in matt black until they could afford a decent paint job. But of course, it was the engine and suspension/ brakes that had seen the most work and as such these cars were also sleepers (these I DO like )

However, with the UK climate the last thing I'd ever do is allow rust to get onto bodywork. The cars would dissolve in a matter of months!

My mk1 Golf looks like that

and i'm going to cut into chunks as it looks Nasty!!

majority of them are all euro, you would never get away with that in the uk especially the one with the oil drum on the roof

You see quite a few rats coming straight outta the USA, reading through my VeeDub mags, i find many a car that people on holiday have seen whilst travelling, theres a split screen camper known as the ACME bus in cornwall or devon that was plucked straight out the desert, been there so long the paint has just burnt off. Its been fully covered in lacquer though so shouldn't get any worse in our climate really.

Another one of my fave rat veedubs is a uk built one, this guy has restored a camper bodyshell to be solid and then took it bare metal down the beach and chucked sea water all over it and left it there for a while – it now looks so old its untrue but is all solid still and properly protected from the element again with matt lacquer all over. The lengths some people are going to is extreme.

And just recently there was one that was again found in the desert wriddled with bullet holes, quite blatantly been used for target practice by some rednecks. Has had all the running gear sorted and now runs round California – where these cars can really be used as its bone dry all the time and no salt on the roads so they are fine, if you like the look obviously..

look at this caddy LOL it has a yoshimura bike can.

i just love this caddy , and i know the camper aint ratty but its soooo nice

do u think i could get white walls for a cinq ? cheers

yes tyre paint or equivalent

That was Built buy Neil Hunt who used to write for Revz I think....Looks pretty awesome IMO

I'm half and half with "Rat Look" cars. If its got a genuine aged patina then fine but its all the people painting there cars matt/satin black and calling it rat look that annoys me.....

Those 2 centos (red CC & blue SC) from last year have just rusty bonnets, finally other guys whos using fiberglass to make bonnet curently finish it in black colour

Blu73 has the right idea on the Rat Looks as far as im concerned..
A lot of the Ratty VWs are well looked after and cherished cars and are not by any means heaps. I think, in part, the rat scene is strong with VWs at the minute due to the overall cost of buying an aircooled VW.. by the time you have bought one, you dont necessarily have the money for the show winning paint job and interior, so ratting it makes it look cool for a lot less money.

Have to put in some pics of our VWs.. just because I can..

I love the rat, my black cinq came within inches of getting the paint and galv stripped off, I've just stripped the paint off the bonnet of my diseasel this weekend and have been applying salt water at regular intervals in order to accelerate the process, this pic was taken Saturday morning when it was still fresh metal


By this evening it's starting to go quite orange on the unpainted bits, it's a marmite mod, no doubt.

Rat cars are the old origanal Hot Rods of the1940s in the U.S.they were called that cos people siad they look ratty because in them days they didnt have the the styling shops like nowdays they were just old cars that the G.Is
got there hands on when they came home from the war because it was all they could afford and just uprated them with bigger engines stripping them down to the bear essentials to go faster, personly I dont think the Euro type cars suit it ie: Golfs but I am not slagging anyone off who likes them, here is some pictures of what I ment