I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the twenty-year-old dull-green Holley 4150 4-barrel sitting on my workbench in my cramped, single-car garage. Amazingly, this small, nondescript part speaks volumes about my taste in cars, what I think of muscle cars, and who I am as a car person. The 670cfm carburetor is purposefully low-tech. This Holley is a mechanical double-pumper, opening up the secondaries at the snap of the throttle, not when a rubber diaphragm registers a prescribed vacuum draw. There’s no guesswork. It’s all screws, pins, and springs. It’s gloriously unrefined. It’s old school, exactly how I like my classic muscle cars.

Years ago, a good friend of mine insisted that I meet his grandfather. A holdover from the days long since past when Southern California was still welcoming to hot rodding, Grandpa Mark wears his love for old school street rods on his sleeve, still choosing to wear cuffed jeans over black leather shoes, plain white t-shirts and his hair usually slicked in a part when occasion (and wife) permit. Mark’s ever-changing collection of Blue Oval rods and pickups quickly earned him the nickname “Flathead Mark” with me (which works great since he calls me “Mopar Kevin”), and we’ve been friends ever since.

One day, Flathead Mark and I got into a conversation why hot rodders – such as himself – didn’t unilaterally ditch from the horrifically inefficient flathead motors to an overhead valve small block Chevy or something equally superior. “Mark,” I remember saying, “even the 225’s topped out at 140 horsepower – at the very best. Why stick with something so outdated?” Taking in a long, slow breath, he said, “Kid, it’s not about horsepower. If we all wanted horsepower, we’d all be running blown alcohol motors. It’s about style. It’s about class. These are hot rods. And hot rods have flathead Fords.”

Oh, the '32 semi-gloss deuce. The red steel rims with polished caps and triple carbs couldn't be more iconic.

I can remember the look of pity on his face; a look communicating that, whatever it was, I surely didn’t get it. It’s taken me years since that evening to really get what Mark meant. Hot rods, particularly by the generation who created them and protected them, are composed of certain key ingredients, be it a flathead Ford 221 with an Offy intake or a Chrysler Firepower 392 HEMI. I think this is why “Rat Rods” have become so wildly popular. Intentionally lacking all the prim and polish of a six-figure Foose ride or a Riddler Award street rod, Rat Rods are a violent throwback to the days of junkyard rodding. Rat Rodders are – by definition – purists.

Hot rodders – and by association, rat rodders – have separated themselves from street rodders. It would seem that street rodders are not hindered by things like tradition or a sense of purity, choosing to supplant modern LT-1’s, 4.6L, quad-cammed modular motors, and electronic 6-speed overdrives. Modern air conditioning? Sure. Rack-and-pinion steering? Why not? 18-inch rims? Are they available in billet? While this might appear as laughable hair-splitting, the difference to these core communities is polarizing. Hell, one of the Internet’s leading rat rod forums is called www.KillBillet.com.

Rat rods, versus the glossier street rods, are purposely deglamored. Why? Because rat rodders are making a statement as the purity of hot rodding. There was once a time when billet was not associated to hot rods. Rat rodders want to remind you of those days.

Lately, particularly the more invested I become, the more I see the same chasm fracturing the muscle car community into those who would call themselves “traditionalists” and those who couldn’t care less. It’s this stance that alienates me from my fellow staffers at powerTV. While I will never besmirch the positives of a centrifugally-blown, multi-port fuel-injected LS6 with water/methanol injection running on a steady diet of 107 octane, I really have a hard time stomaching it beneath the hood of a ’68 Super Sport Chevelle when a four-bolt 454 with a bitchin’ solid-lifter cam, a good pair of rectangle port heads and a big stall converter will run low 11’s all day.

The strongest sales pitch that people have for trying convert traditionalists to modern technology is the lure of convenience. “Think of it: no more jetting carburetors. No stuck floats. No idle screws! Why on earth would you want that lousy carburetor when you can have modern fuel injection?” Then I think of my old dull-gray 4150 sitting on my workbench. I bought my ’69 Charger because I wanted it to be an old car. I didn’t want to be Dr. Frankenstein. I wanted a ’69 Charger so I could build a ’69 Charger. Sure it’s not going to be restored, but it’ll be pretty period correct.

One day. Oh yes, one day she will be mine. Maybe with a single carb and a tall single plane intake manifold, but never with fuel injection, a side-mounted centrifugal supercharger or nitrous. Call me stubborn or ignorant, but it's all motor or not at all.

A couple of times I’ve had to stave off suggestions of dropping a new 5.7 or 6.1L HEMI into my ’69 Charger. When asked why not, I reply, “Because it’s a ’69 Charger.” I guess that kind of traditionalist obstinateness just doesn’t communicate to people who just don’t get it.

Light ’em up,

Kevin