What do you do with the rotted out British car that’s sitting behind the house? Well, you could build one of these! A 1949 Triumph Mayflower provided the body for this funny car. Someone did a ton of work here and the result is wild. I’m not sure how it would do on the track, but it did well at a car show it recently attended – taking home a six and a half foot trophy! Now, it needs a new home so the builder has listed it here on eBay. It’s located in Delaware, Ohio and thanks goes to Barn Finds reader George G for the tip!
With the body tilted up, you can see what’s going on underneath. There’s a blown 454 up front and everything is riding on a S10 chassis. The seller mentions that it drives like a bagged s10… Not sure if that’s a good thing or not, but this thing is impressive nonetheless. Some safety gear would probably be needed before they would let you make a pass, but it would be fun to take this creation to the drag strip and see how it goes. Do you think this was a good use for this derelict?
How Bizzare! Drives like a bagged S10? You’re right, I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, but I’m sticking with the later. If unique is what you like this is a winner.
Looks like junk to me……..and I have a high tolerance for it.
Good use? How about hilarious. I’d rock it.
Best Engineered?!!! I think not. “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”.
This is nothing more than an endless supply of beer, a welder, cutting torch, and a lot of time. I think it’s great, but tis’ no dragster.( parachutes are usually for under 10 second machines, I was told, and this ain’t no 10 second machine, although, I bet it goes pretty good.) Minnesota is known for crazy stuff like this. If you’ve ever been to the “zoo”, at Brainerd during the drag races, you know what I mean. Cool car.
I had a comment to post, but then I remembered the “no profanity” rule. So, I’ll take a pass!
omg !!!
Rat rod, nothing more.
I think I would have visited the “Anglia/Fiat Topolino type Gasser Genre” before building this Frankenstein…… Sheesh
Build a better one..
poor thing….
Did the first pilgrims really arrive in this?
I’d rather see it crushed.
I wouldn’t be too surprised to see body panels flying off and sailing through the air as the thing went down the strip.
The Farmall (sp) grill kind of gives it away as a spoof machine.
Some things seem like a great idea after a 12 pack of beer…….
Should it be built or not? Not up to me but I get it. For someone to take worthless junk along their time and money and build a Rat or what ever It does take talent and a large amount of creativity.
Many purists despise a Rat Rod and all that it represents. Could it be that a former parts car or pile of rust garners more attention then their blue chip muscle car? Not sure but no reason to be a hater. They are NOT for everyone. It started when a group of young guys making fun of traditional car shows by rolling in with their anti show cars. They were called everything but a car however It took off in a big way. Now every show has a class for rust and primer.
There are traditionalist that build high quality authentic period rods that command premium money. There are those that are based on specific time period. It has also mushroomed into complete zombies to everything in between.
A Rat is simple interpretation. Regardless it has done several things for the vintage car hobby.The most notable. It has renewed interest in old cars. All one has to do is look around . Not only gray hair and big bellies attending car shows..There are now young guys many with their families.
Someone on a minimal budget can make one. There are no rules.. It has given otherwise hopeless hulks a reprieve and given them new life that otherwise would no longer exist.
It has also provided acceptance for those who have an old car but might leave it at home feeling it isn’t good enough. So instead of beating this poor Austin down be glad there is one more on the road original or not. You don’t have to like it but respect what it represents.
I agree. Rat-Rods are the ultimate expression in creativity, auto-wise, that is. Anybody can buy parts from a supplier ( take your pick) and there’s nothing wrong with that, but this, and rods like this show how far one can go, and still be considered a car. I like them.
Bravo! You took the words right out of my mouth.
Agreed rat rods are fun. I saw a terrific one at a big car show recently that had a sign stuck on the open drivers suicide door that said “Have a seat”. There was a long lineup of kids who were there with their parents—yes, mostly parents, since it was Father’s Day—waiting to take a turn in the driver’s seat. That was great to see, and fun for everyone.
Different people have different reasons why they will never have a rat rod — time, money, space, fabrication skill/equipment, etc limitations. As much fun as rat rods can be, I would not be interested in owning one, mainly because life is too short—especially what’s left of mine—and what I want is cars that you can drive on the road and that will perform better as a car than all the Mc-cars that crowd the roads these days. And to be honest, even if I had built one I wouldn’t trust it on public roads.
Ahhh the essence of Hot Rodding. How soon you all forget…
I read ‘suicide doors’, and thought, no, these had conventional doors … I had to pore over the photos for quite a while before I could figure out how they had seamlessly achieved that conversion, though I guess their garden gate is just leaned in place now.
So we have a blown V8 driving a home made suicide door conversion that has no footwells … this car will, quite literally, blow it’s own doors off.
I would NOT “make a pass” in this thing til I was sure it was safe. Rats are cool to me, buthte engineering sometimes is sketchy or unknown. I’d have to play with it a LOT before trying anything too radical in it. With that said, I don;t really care for this one.
I’d hop in that sucker and nail it!
Nice that they kept it stock.