Rat look. This combination of words, as hundreds of other English-language terms are firmly rooted in the use of people familiar with the currents of styles in the car and motorcycle industries. What does "Rat look" mean? As you know, Western culture always comes to us with an obvious delay. But here everything is not so unambiguous, because even in the U.S. and Europe there are a lot of contradictions among people. In fact, very often under the screen of "rats" hides unwillingness or lack of opportunity for the owners to bring their equipment to "mind", to give it a complete and aesthetic look. After all, the question "why your bike is so rusty" is convenient to answer with a typical label about style, etc. In this article we decided to understand where the truth is and share it with you.
The concept of Rat look itself does not have a specific and clear definition. Nowadays, it is so wide that if you are completely objective, you can't talk about it as a style - because this is the direction that serves as an appeal to dozens of different styles, one way or another related to the rat look. Depending on the desire and position of the owner, rat bikes are called a variety of options: there are any technique that has traces of rust or soil, oil leaks that have preserved the original appearance, survived to this day, bikes, lowriders with specially "rusted" elements and details, cars, painted matte paint, motorcycles in post-apocalyptic style, the latter, according to fans, is the "most".
Many people agree that a deliberate deterioration of the appearance cannot be correct and beautiful, but the term itself has appeared only recently, and has been popularized in the last 5-7 years. The very interpretation of the word Rat is associated with Ed Rat Fink. There is an opinion that it is thanks to his pictures that the name of the machines with a characteristic appearance appeared.
There is another opinion that Rat is an abbreviation, and it is deciphered as Recycled Automotive Transport - recycled machines, which returned to us from landfills and other places where their history should end. However, many knowledgeable people tend to think that this option is very far-fetched, and in fact it is more affected by the association with rats than with smart transcripts. What are the motives and reasons for the emergence of all the variety of techniques that we now call rats? For or against what they have got such ambiguous, in something stylish, but at the same time absolutely unpresentable kind? Let's try to look at things in different directions, and we will distinguish three main variants of development of events.
- The first option. The bike is very old, and its aging is caused by the natural way - it is a lot of day to day exploited, passed from father to son. Of course, in order to maintain the working condition of the equipment, it received no maintenance, but there was no talk of overhaul and complete restoration with painting. Of course, in order to attract attention in this case, limited to low costs, it is necessary to build a lowrider or custom in the style of Rat. This can also include the equipment, which for a very long time stood idle on the street or in an inappropriate garage, after which it was bought from the old owner and put back into operation.
- The second option. The bike was not finished after the beginning of the global changes. This is often the case in the construction of machinery aimed at participating in some technically oriented activities rather than aesthetically oriented. One owner just can't wait to try the projectile in action as soon as possible, others are not bothering with the appearance of the principle of "rolls - and nice. As is often the case, the bike is painted after a huge amount of time after construction.
- The third option. A deliberate desire to mislead others with the look of your bike. First of all, it concerns fans of racing. After all, this is really cool when an unassuming pile-up is able to resist, especially when there is a race with a new shiny polished technique - the disgrace is provided. A similar situation, however, is associated with cars, described in Remark's novel "Three Comrades": it is a sports car, for the daily use of which was mounted an old body in a not too good condition.
In general, the appearance of style may be closely related to the hot-rock culture, in particular, the appearance of rat births. After all, if after the Second World War, such machines were built by anyone, then in the early 80's the situation began to change, and the production began to be engaged in huge workshops, and the results of their work were not suitable in their pure form, neither for racing, nor for moving on the roads of general use. Towards the end of the 1980s, the industry began to fade and needed a breath of fresh air. In 1987, it was the vintage Ford Faeton, with no wings and a rusty body, assembled in 28 days by Jim Jacobs from a spare parts dump. There was a boom, the consequences of which we see to this day.