Rat Fink Stuff

Rat Fink Stuff

The Rat Fink is one of several hot rod characters created by artist Ed “Big Daddy” Roth in the late 50s and early 60s. Ed was a car guy with a weird sense of humor. You know, our sort of guy. One day in 1959 Ed dreamed up this critter that he named, the Rat Fink, who was kind of an anti-hero to Mickey Mouse or if old Mickey was on some really bad cheese.

Rat Fink is usually drawn in green or gray colors, with a pus gut, grotesque look on his mug and a few flies buzzing around him. Kind of like an x-wife when the check’s late. Most often he’ll be drawn wearing overalls with the initials “R.F.” on the front and driving a cool set of wheels.

Not only was Ed a pretty good artist, he was also had a head for business, creating a line of “weirdo” T-shirts that he sold at car shows and in ads in the hot rod publications of the day. I remember the ads from when I was in Jr. high school and was just getting into cars, cool shirts for us cool kids.

Sometime around 1963, the Revell Model Company got in on the deal with plastic model kits of the of The Rat, starting a run of the Rat Fink and of Roth’s other creations, that ran well into the 60s. I don’t know when the fad faded, most of us were out of town in Viet Nam that day and missed it.

Well, a lot of you old car guys still like that stuff so, I found us a couple places to buy it. New products include: T-shirts, key chains, wallets, toys, clocks, decals, and whatever else they dream up. There’s a link at the bottom that will take you to a site on Amazon where you can order all kinds of it… cheap.

BTW, the chicks still dig it.

You can also find Ed’s Kids and other licensed dealers at the larger auto events around the Country. Tell them The Old Car Guy sent you. Maybe I’ll get a free shirt out of it.