We start our rat rod truck adventure in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where our man Jesse Kiser attended the Heavy Rebel Weekender rockabilly music festival and car show, a hardcore Mecca for ...

Roger Rentola and Bryan Dagel don't worry about waxing their quirky vintage vehicles. They are, after all, rat rods. Unlike their more polished cousins in the antique and street rod family of older ...

Regardless of being admired or mocked, rat rods are a work of personalization. They harbor innovation instead of conformity, functionality instead of precision, and enthusiasm instead of refinement.

If so, your opinion on rat rods—and by extension, diesel rat rods—may be informed by whether you are already invested in traditional hot rod building (pre-1949 hot rods) and the long history of ...