not my cup of tea and cant realy see the atraction, ive seen dubs done before but its oldskool beatles ect and some do suit, more moderen rides dont suit it and i realy think people shud start gettin inspiration from elsewhere or even cum up with there own ideas rather than ripin off the dub scene, this is gunna start sum shit but just airin my opinion guys, love ya all

i quite like rat, providing its done perfectly

---

ignorance is the root and stem of all evil

LoL! The Dub scene rip off a lot of different motorsport styles including 'rat look'. It actually started with racing hot rods in America where they concentrated more on the tuning then the appearence of the motors.

The Dub boys get more credit than they are due...

---

Top 20 Mod God

Eastside Cartel...

Agreed but the dub scene take on Rat Look is different with things like roof racks full of crap etc where as the traditional rad rods are closer to the spirit of the original hot rodders of the 1940s.

Old aircooled dubs with sun bleached paint really look the part but I'm not convinced a that a recent model car is rat look because you've stripped a bonnet back and made it rusty and slapped a roof rack on it.

Im from the Dub scene and into both the aircooled (beetles) and watercooled side of things so im gonna ad my bit.

Ratlook isnt about fucking up perfectly good paint and sticking shit on the roof. its about patina and sunburnt paint, showing age of a car and originality. To be honest i think the recent cars that have been featured just look like blatent, poor rip offs of Vdubs, but to be honest i dont like the 'fake' ratlook thing in the Vdub scene eitha.

now whoever said the Vdub scene dont deserve any credit is wrong. i remember a few years back when not one 'kroozer' would go near wheels smaller than 18s and ripped the piss outta dubs in their little circles for the wheels we role. But now i see loadsa fords and vauxhalls with design 90s, 928 rims and schmidts and reading in the articles 'never done before.' dream on, we've been doing it for years :).Im just waiting for someone to stick Fuchs on something

A lack of bodykits and smoothing has allways been a watercooled Vdub thing. Theyve been doing it in germany for god knows how many years. The 'clean' look was started by us.

 so thats all i want to say.

 

 

Its more Nu-Rat than rat look, but i like the fact you can build something cheap, drive it and get some looks as well.

---

Glenda
Fast Car Online Editor.
e-mail: glenda@futurenet.co.uk
www.fastcar.co.uk/glenda

"I'll make you famous!"

ping_allan:

Im from the Dub scene and into both the aircooled (beetles) and watercooled side of things so im gonna ad my bit.

Ratlook isnt about fucking up perfectly good paint and sticking shit on the roof. its about patina and sunburnt paint, showing age of a car and originality. To be honest i think the recent cars that have been featured just look like blatent, poor rip offs of Vdubs, but to be honest i dont like the 'fake' ratlook thing in the Vdub scene eitha.

now whoever said the Vdub scene dont deserve any credit is wrong. i remember a few years back when not one 'kroozer' would go near wheels smaller than 18s and ripped the piss outta dubs in their little circles for the wheels we role. But now i see loadsa fords and vauxhalls with design 90s, 928 rims and schmidts and reading in the articles 'never done before.' dream on, we've been doing it for years :).Im just waiting for someone to stick Fuchs on something

A lack of bodykits and smoothing has allways been a watercooled Vdub thing. Theyve been doing it in germany for god knows how many years. The 'clean' look was started by us.

 so thats all i want to say.

Those are some good points, but i never said the Dub boys dont deserve any credit i just said they dont deserve as much credit as they get. Granted some of the coolest and subtle mods sit on VAG motors and Im a sucker for 'euro'd' Golfs in particular. Its just that a lot of people think that they started the rat look but its simply not true.

 

 

---

Top 20 Mod God

Eastside Cartel...

ping_allan:

Im from the Dub scene and into both the aircooled (beetles) and watercooled side of things so im gonna ad my bit.

Ratlook isnt about fucking up perfectly good paint and sticking shit on the roof. its about patina and sunburnt paint, showing age of a car and originality. To be honest i think the recent cars that have been featured just look like blatent, poor rip offs of Vdubs, but to be honest i dont like the 'fake' ratlook thing in the Vdub scene eitha.The Toby Inn is just off the A19/A689 junction (next to the BP/ McDonalds/ KFC /Travel Lodge)

Agreed, there is some photos on the 'net of a rat look mk5 Golf which is ridiculous as it's too new to have picked up anything other than supermarket trolly rash.  Having read the article Jimmy's Corsa Van IMO isn't rat look - without the rusty bonnet it would be a very cool ride in it's own way and it would be a shame for it to get more ratty. The Nova is borderline but would be cooler without the roof rack and that horseshoe.  I'm still trying to take in the Astra - given what they had to play with!  I think there is too much work gone into it - the install is OTT, it is good and imaginative but the whole point of rat look is you build something that doesn't take any time or much effort and take it to shows to upset the concours buffty boys .

ping_allan:

now whoever said the Vdub scene dont deserve any credit is wrong. i remember a few years back when not one 'kroozer' would go near wheels smaller than 18s and ripped the piss outta dubs in their little circles for the wheels we role. But now i see loadsa fords and vauxhalls with design 90s, 928 rims and schmidts and reading in the articles 'never done before.' dream on, we've been doing it for years :).Im just waiting for someone to stick Fuchs on something

A lack of bodykits and smoothing has allways been a watercooled Vdub thing. Theyve been doing it in germany for god knows how many years. The 'clean' look was started by us.

 so thats all i want to say.

 

I'd agree with that too cars like Danny Allen's orange mk1 golf stick in my mind as an inspirational car.

Fast Car have credited the smooth look as being influenced by the  VW scene though so fair play to them.

 

What concerns me is that in general modding circles there is always a 'fashion' surely if you build a cool car you build a car that will look cool in 1 year or 10 years.

 

absolutly on the money with that one, i realy think people need to start coming up with there own ideas again and stop ripping off other trends, im not saying that everyone should go crazy again with huge rims on small cars but what ever happend to the true british show car,  every where you look at shows now its just all full of jap style rip off, euro rip off ect ect, lets get the brit scene back on track, ive got sumat up my sleve ready for some shows and its certainly gunna get some attention cos you wont see anything else like this at a show

fruitbat:

The Nova is borderline but would be cooler without the roof rack and that horseshoe. 

the nova needed more power, more tucked in wheels, lower, and a couple of years parked in a barn  

it was built with no cash at all

arrived at mine as an aborted body shop restoration project

 

 and left structurally solid welded up and painted matt black

 

Didn't have much to start with did you.

 

I would have looked more 'rat' if you'd left the holes in the front valence and just painted over the other crusty bits (structural repairs aside).  I must admit if I was building it, it would have taken alot of determination to leave the imperfections and not try and repair them.

 I prefer the bonnet in matt black without the rusty bit in the centre. 

eurorob:

absolutly on the money with that one, i realy think people need to start coming up with there own ideas again and stop ripping off other trends, im not saying that everyone should go crazy again with huge rims on small cars but what ever happend to the true british show car,  every where you look at shows now its just all full of jap style rip off, euro rip off ect ect, lets get the brit scene back on track, ive got sumat up my sleve ready for some shows and its certainly gunna get some attention cos you wont see anything else like this at a show

 

Don't get me wrong I'm not against 'rat look', I quite like it but it's always been around for ages in one form or another - UK Bikers have been building matt black 'rat bikes' for years, even before the 'rat look' hot rods came back in vogue. Mick Rogers has ran a matt black cossie powered mk 3 cortina on the drag strip for about 10 years and there is a really ratty vauxhall firenza running a turbo'd red top out there too - both prime examples of rat look.

 

Their just seems to be a big 'the next big thing'  about 'rat look' and it's going to be applied to cars that aren't rat material. Painting a newish BMW satin black is not rat look.  Putting a roof rack full of shite and a load of stickers on a two year old focus won't make it rat look either.  I just see loads of people building missmatched cars trying to be at the front of the latest new trend.

I have a massive respect for the whole vw scene and asrat I agree isnt true rat like some of the old air cooled rides. but it was built for a laugh, to take a knock at the whole elite groups at shows who think build cost mean the bigger they are the better the car, the people who sit there and run cars down that have been a massive labour of love by owners ect and what better style to base it on but rat look, Would it really have been as funny if the car was painted mint and treated as a serious show car? I very much doubt it Its all about enjoyment and fun something that has seriously been lost in most modifying sectors, And the whole style ownership euro can only be VAG cleaned to VAG rat look to air cooled Motorsport to ford ect is a load of bollocks. Do you genuinally think that VAG were the first shun aftermarket kits, On the continent there is a massive rivalry between opel and VAG both going out there ways to out do each other, The whole smooth panels ect has been around since the early hot rodders, small wheels and massive drops on old skool tuners and early lowriders. If we had gone out and said look this is proper rat look ect and built a serious rat car using a mk3 estate we would have looked like a right pair adding the comedy value to the car not only gives us a cheeky grin but also makes others laugh to

. Asrat wasnt a mint car when we brought it, it was destined for the scrap yard.  The whole faked paint thing I a agree you can never do waht mother natrure has done over the years but to be honest it aint that a bad job.

We enjoy and so do others it was fun to do thats all that matters

fruitbat:

Didn't have much to start with did you.

 

I would have looked more 'rat' if you'd left the holes in the front valence and just painted over the other crusty bits (structural repairs aside).  I must admit if I was building it, it would have taken alot of determination to leave the imperfections and not try and repair them.

 I prefer the bonnet in matt black without the rusty bit in the centre. 

lol the holes are still there under the bumper, it needed the rear chassis legs welding up (the rear tow eye and part of the leg had been ripped off!), front tie bar mounts and loads of other bits that were rusted through, i was going to sand blast the whole car but kayll wanted to last more than 12months