Youuuuuu dirty rat

Normally a car is brought to me so that I can make it look better. For a complete change of pace, I present to you this 1962 Chevrolet pickup. This truck has been brought to me to … well … to make look worse.

The owner of this truck is the same customer that owns the 1971 Custom-Rod I worked on a couple of years ago. Where that truck was built, to the best of my abilities, to be perfect, this truck will be built, to the best of my abilities, to be the opposite of that truck. The worse it looks the better the owner will like it.

Scott is starting his rat rod project with a good foundation. This truck is, as you see it here, basically has he bought it, complete with the flat and faded or missing paint and a general look of disrepair. But looks can be deceiving because the truck has the full rat rod treatment under the skin. This truck features a fresh Chevrolet 383 small block, turbo 350 transmission with an upgraded shift kit, 3.73 rear end, and for that little extra something, it is dropped 3 inches. Oh, and everything works … right down to the cigarette lighter. I have personally seen this truck simply boil the back tires, both of them, for the better part of block.

So, what can the JMC AutoworX shop offer? We are going to smooth some of the welding … not smoothed as to make ready for paint, but rather to make the welds look like they have been there a long time. We are also going to spray some good old-fashioned red primer on the truck in such a way that it looks like the paint has faded away to reveal the primer underneath.

The owner asked us for suggestions and we have been talking around the shop about adding a bit of character to the truck in the form of a bullet hole … but that might be going a bit too far. I will have to run that one by the owner first.

In any case, by the time we are done with this truck it will look like warmed over death. It’s going to be great!