This 1947 Chevrolet Pickup is Half Rat Rod, Half Racecar

BOLD RIDE

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Posted by Zach Doell 

 

                                

Despite being radically unconventional, today’s “rat rods” have become relatively formulaic and dare we say it…conventional. Chop an old coupe or pickup, lay it flat, add a big engine, stretch it out, and voila! A rat rod. 

 

This jaw-dropping creation bucks that trend however. It began life as a 1947 Chevrolet pickup truck and along the way has morphed into a V8 powered, roll cage boasting, big-winged monster.

It recently appeared on eBay and it makes a compelling case for this week’s “coolest thing on four wheels”…if someone was keeping track.

The lunacy of the rat rod begins at the front. The truck’s builder took a previously chopped Chevrolet pickup cab, grafted it onto a 1995 Chevrolet S10 chassis, and sanded the body down to bare metal. It was then clear coated with a touch of Copper Pearl paint over the top to give it a nice shimmer, all while the chassis was lowered to the ground thanks to Bilstein drop spindles.

 

However, that apparently wasn’t wild enough…so the builder cut off the rear springs and part of the frame, swapped in a 1995 Mercury Cougar independent rear end, sewed the whole package together with a roll cage, affixed a big racing wing, and dropped in a 5.3-liter V8 from a Chevrolet Tahoe. That certainly did the trick, and now the rat rod looks like something that ought to race up Pikes Peak.

The stock Chevrolet V8 puts its power to the ground through a Turbo 400 automatic transmission, which is shifted–wait for it, wait for it–using a crescent wrench in place of a gear knob. The “shift boot” at the bottom? That’s a Crown Royal Purple bag. Somehow it seems fitting.

All tallied up, it would appear that at least four cars gave their lives so that this rat rod could exist. And what a machine it is.