Sometime before we finished up our evening in the company of one of Royal Oak, Michigan's finest , we made a new friend by the name of Bill Jagenow from Brothers Custom Automotive. Jagenow's driving what to one of our untrained eyes is a "rat rod," a term that came from an article written in Hot Rod Magazine by Gray Baskerville about cars painted in primer. And although a lot of rat rodders do not consider their cars to be rats, but actually "hot rods" we've yet to meet someone who so vociferously argues the point as Bill here does. Check...
...out the video to hear Bill explain it for himself, but the gist , as a fellow Jalopnik-ite explains in the video, is that he didn't customize the jalopy to look old, it just wasold. Ok, fair enough — so there's no external mods made to look delapidated — but it's still got plywood and mexican blankets for upholstery and although he's got a couple of "security modifications" — you know, like a fire extinguisher and encasing the drivetrain (it's still frigging sitting there next to your leg) it still is rat-like. But as long as Bill here's happy with it — he should call it whatever he likes. All we know is it's cool as hell, and we've got to see some more of his stuff.
Related:
More 2006 Woodward Dream Cruise [internal]