Hot Rod Roadsters
[Jim will have flyer and photos of the finished phantom Roadster Pickup for the January 20, 2007 San Antonio car show. The car, if not previously sold, will be entered in Austin's Lonestar Roundup in April 2007. Pictures will be added as the chassis, sub-assembly, body, and vehicle are finished. Sales or Custom Build inquires may be sent through the Contact page.]
Roadsters
Jim builds phantom Roadster Pickup derivatives. They are truncated, stylized, and detailed versions of cars in the Rat Rod style, with current Street Rod quality and craftsmanship. The trick is to take a car that has never existed, build it in the Rat Rod style with the fit and finish of a Street Rod so it is street legal, safe, and a pleasure to drive.
The current Roadster uses a 1929 Model A sedan cowl, pickup quarters and back panel, with a custom made shortened pickup bed. The frame is custom built from 2" x 4" rectangular tubular steel, with a 1" x 2" modified x-member to allow the body of the pickup to be channeled. The rest of the chassis consists of a 4" dropped tubular axle with Ford spindles, Chevy metric calipers, Mustang rotors, traverse spring, and radius rods. The rear suspension consists of a 10-bolt 3.08 ratio Chevy axle with coil-over shocks, radius rods, and a pan hard bar.
The engine is a mildly built 350 cubic inch small block Chevrolet with cast aluminum valve covers, the standard chrome dress-up items, new water pump, starter, fuel pump, aluminum intake, and Eldelbrock carburetor.
The transmission is a rebuilt turbo 350 with a Lokar 6" shifter.
Rat Rods
Rat Rods are derived from the Rat Bike build style. Both are crude, duct taped, and bailing wired heaps of battered chrome and peeling paint. Rat rods don't usually represent any specific type of car or particular period. They were built cheaply and hopefully fast.
Rat Rods are a Modern interpretation of the Hot Rods that kids might have built in the 1930s - 1950s, using current parts, more creativeness, and the rockabilly influences brought up to modern day VH1 tones. Rat Rod designs and styles take quirky shapes from any era of car and use these shapes to hopefully build a radically designed car. There are no real standards or set in stone rules for Rat Rod influenced style.
Hot Rods
In the past Hot Rods were usually built by removing or not including anything that didn't make them faster. Many, if not most, were unsafe to drive for anyone but the builder. The builder of a specific Hot Rod may have been the only one who would know the machines quirks and how to compensate for the fabrication shortcuts he took. The rare exception was the well thought out and constructed Hot Rod that have become the iconic classics that are emulated by today's builders.
Street Rods
Street Rods are the modern day refined versions of past Hot Rods. These vehicles embody all the refinements and luxuries of modern transportation. Usually designed to encompass the technology of current and future automobiles with the elegance and style of earlier automotive design. Street Rods go well beyond the common man's gotcha factor of, "Hey that's a neat old car." And, are usually more no an old car than a Ferrari is a dump truck.