Rattle Ella ready to roll

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After six years of hard work, Ron Storey finally completed his rat rod, nicknamed “Rattle Ella,” and took it out for a spin in early June for the first time.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/07/2020 (1364 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After six years of hard work, Ron Storey finally completed his rat rod, nicknamed “Rattle Ella,” and took it out for a spin in early June for the first time.

Even though the custom vehicle’s exterior is skeletal and worn down by design, Storey told the Sun this past Tuesday that the truck’s chassis, taken from a 1989 Dodge Dakota, provided an extremely smooth ride.

“The Dakota is actually a pretty good frame for that,” the 61-year-old said. “It’s got power rack-and-pinion steering.”

Brandon resident Ron Storey poses for photo next to his rat rod nicknamed
Brandon resident Ron Storey poses for photo next to his rat rod nicknamed "Rattle Ella" this past Monday near the Keystone Centre. (Kyle Darbyson/The Brandon Sun)

Of course, Storey revealed that the journey to arrive at this point was anything but simple, since he has been toiling away in his garage to get this custom truck roadworthy since 2014.

While the Brandon resident had never undertaken a project like this before at that point, he was struck by a bolt of inspiration after stumbling across a 1938 International Truck cab for sale online.

Not only was the cab’s weather-beaten look perfect for a rat rod, but it also bore the name of “Peter Leitch Construction,” a prolific Winnipeg-based contracting firm responsible for building the Polo Park shopping centre and other landmarks.

After towing the vintage cab back to Brandon from Ste. Anne, a town located southeast of Winnipeg, Storey got to work fusing the International Truck body with a Dodge Dakota frame. However, this process was a lot easier said than done, since the two halves were not easily compatible.

“This is probably a lot more work than getting an old car and just restoring it, because you have to engineer pretty much everything,” Storey said. “Where your motor goes, motor mounts, tranny mounts, even the drive shafts had to be shortened. It’s not like taking a car apart and repainting it.”

Throughout this process, Storey decided to embrace Rattle Ella’s lack of compatibility rather than fight it and actually got creative with its overall design.

Ron Storey tricked out his rat rod with plenty of custom accessories, including this Crystal Head Vodka bottle that contains the vehicle's antifreeze. (Kyle Darbyson/The Brandon Sun)
Ron Storey tricked out his rat rod with plenty of custom accessories, including this Crystal Head Vodka bottle that contains the vehicle's antifreeze. (Kyle Darbyson/The Brandon Sun)

Not only did he store the vehicle’s antifreeze in a bottle of Crystal Head Vodka, but the 61-year-old also used a beer keg as a gas tank and mounted it on the back of the vehicle’s flatbed.

He also decided to get wild with the truck’s overall aesthetic by including plenty of skeletal decorations and other Halloween-flavoured kitsch.

Even though Storey didn’t have a ton of automotive experience before taking on this project, he simply learned along the way and wasn’t afraid to ask for help when he reached a roadblock that was above his pay grade.

“There was a lot of welding involved, and I’m not a great welder,” he said. “But I happened to have a son-in-law that’s a Red Seal welder, so he helped me out.”

Thankfully, Storey said all this struggle was worth it in the end, since he has been taking Rattle Ella out virtually every day since that initial drive in early June, and has been getting a great response from members of the classic car community.

If anybody wants to follow in his footsteps and build their very first rat rod, Storey warns that these projects can be both mentally and physically taxing, requiring lots of patience and persistence if you want to make it all the way through.

A rear shot of Ron Storey's rat rod this past Monday, including the beer keg he uses as a gas tank.  (Kyle Darbyson/The Brandon Sun)
A rear shot of Ron Storey's rat rod this past Monday, including the beer keg he uses as a gas tank. (Kyle Darbyson/The Brandon Sun)

“You’ve got to stick with it,” he said. “You might get discouraged every once in a while, but then you just have to walk away and go back to it and then you’ll find the solution to the problem.”

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @KyleDarbyson

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