Rat Fink Rides Again

Back in the day, there were some great customizers. Most of you are familiar with George Barris. His fame seems to stem from the original Batmobile and other customs. However, there was more than one famous builder of the time. One of my favorites was Big Daddy Ed Roth. I spent many hours sketching out my version of his cars. There was his Beatnik Bandit and my Beatnik Mother-In-Law! He was also responsible for the anti-Mickey Mouse cartoon character, Rat Fink. I have remained a fan of the Rat.

What does this have to do with Ford Aero cars? Well, I will explain. When Katrina and I trailer one of the cars to car shows, there are always rows of white and light silver enclosed car trailers just like ours. We laughingly, and sometimes quite seriously, ask which silver trailer is ours?

We have spent many hours driving home asking each other how we could make our trailer stand out so we could more easily find it. Since we often haul vehicles made by others than Ford, we wanted identification to be gender-neutral, if you will. We also did not want to especially advertise what might be in the trailer. We have heard way too many stories of trailers and cars being stolen out of storage lots and hotel parking lots at car shows.

One day I had a brain fart and decided what we should do. we have seen some trailers with a big wrap on the rear door that duplicates the inside of the trailer with some expensive car in there. Well, based on our warped sense of humor, we decided our Rat Fink hero should grace our trailer’s rear.

I took lots of photos, talked to our local wap friends at Front Street Sign Company in Smyrna, TN, and came up with an idea of how to make our trailer stand out amongest all the look alikes as well as honor our friend the Rat Fink all in one easy, but expensive, way.

What do you think?