At $15,000, Is This 1953 GMC Pickup A Rat Rod Riot?

A lot of cars may have “bells and whistles,” but today’s Nice Price or No Dice GMC has wings and horns and lights and stripes—most of which are primarily for show. Let’s see if this wild rat rod truck has us wanting to buy a ticket to that show.

Our good friend and self-claimed purveyor of “the dumbest automotive channel in all of YouTube,” Tyler Hoover, just bought himself a last-generation Lincoln Town Car, much to the chagrin of his status-conscious daughter. Hoovie paid $7,500 plus ups and extras for his 2010 Signature Series with remarkably low miles, which he claims makes it quite the big boat bargain. We all would likely beg to differ since we had a pretty clean, albeit higher mileage 2003 Lincoln Town Car asking a mere $3,500 yesterday, proving that even better deals can be had. Most of you felt that was not just a better deal but a great one, giving the Lincoln its due with a massive 90% Nice Price win.

Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve sought service or interaction only to be shut down or, worse, totally ignored? Maybe it was trying to get the bartender’s attention so you could get your drink order in, only to have them skip you and focus on that hipster dude with the man bun and the weird glasses. Or perhaps it’s the discovery when driving that people are universally failing to yield the right of way or are trying to occupy the same lane as you, forcing you to lay on the horn to make your presence known.

I can’t help you with the bartender issue. They’re often heavily put upon, so I tend to want to cut them some slack if they get the order of patron requests wrong. And honestly, it’s not like a deli where everybody takes a number, but wouldn’t that be great?

I can, however, aid in the solution to being more noticeable on the road. Based on its looks, this 1953 GMC convertible rat rod pickup is the ultimate panacea for anonymity. Think about it—no matter where you go, you will stand out on the street. You will also become the talk of your neighborhood for being the guy or gal who has the weird vagazzled woody pickup. It’s an attention-getter akin to getting a swear word tattooed on your face only, without the investment in pain and time or falling from your grandma’s good graces.

Built in the tradition of the shabby-chic rat rod, this truck really is a grab-bag special. The nose, decapitated cab, and shorty bed are all early Fifties GMC pickup. The rest, however, comes from all ends of the General Motors parts bin. The present ad doesn’t give us much background on that, but the truck was previously sold by a shop called Auto Barn Classic Cars in Concord, North Carolina, and that more informative ad is still up on its site.

That tells us that this “GMC” is actually riding on the frame of a 1972 Chevy Monte Carlo A-body and sports a 5.3-liter Vortec V8 out of a 2002 Silverado. That carb-topped blower popping through the hood? Yeah, that’s just for show. The Vortec’s intake is a cobbled-together affair that sits in an ever-lasting imitation of the Rockford Move under the hood. Those hood-mounted exhaust ports? Those are fake, too. The truck actually dumps its exhaust through glass pack-equipped dual pipes that exit ahead of the rear wheels.

There’s a heck of a lot more going on here. The present seller uses a collection of pictures from the Auto Barn ad, as well as some later driveway shots that prove the truck exists outside of the dealer’s inventory. Those latter shots exclude images of the pickup bed, but for those thinking about using this truck as a funky home center hauler, get that idea out of your head. The bed is filled to the brim with the fuel tank, air pump and reservoir for the air suspension, and what looks to be an entire wiring loom. On top of all that is a nitrous oxide bottle mounted to the bed cover. That does not seem to be plumbed into the engine and so is likely also just for show.

The cabin is a mad melange of old-school rot rod bits, including my favorite part: a sixties foot-shaped gas pedal that the passenger can use as a brace. Modern gauges have been set into the original dash, and while the current ad lists mileage as 479, the older ad shows an odometer reading of 4,262 miles on the speedo’s digital readout. The title is clear, and the seller claims the truck “runs great.” It’s titled as a 1953 GMC, so it should get through new-owner transfer with little to no problem.

The question, though, is who would want to go to even that trouble? Based on looks alone, this truck has a very narrow audience. If it were a comedian, it would probably be Tom Green. That unique and non-universal appeal is reflected in the $15,000 asking price. The seller says that it is a firm price and claims that the truck cost more than that to make, which seems reasonable.

What do you think? Is that $15,000 asking a reasonable enough price, given the truck’s presence and over-the-top personality? Or, despite its presentation and the obvious amount of work that went into it, is that too much to spend just to get noticed?

You decide!

Nice Price or No Dice:

Chicago, Illinois, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.

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