Words & Photos: Tommy Parry
As Rydell sat at his desk, browsing Craigslist on a Thursday afternoon, his eyes widened as he found this stunning four-door Essex with all four doors proudly suicidal. After stewing for an hour, Rydell decided to leave before five to grab the car, which he managed by appeasing his boss with a box of doughnuts. The car was so appealing that the three hours each way seemed like fifteen minutes total, and by midnight that night, an Essex sat in Rydell’s driveway.
Having four seats was important to Rydell since he has two kids and a dog, and he needed to make sure there was room for everyone. On the flip side, he knew how he wanted to build the car and he didn’t want to compromise. These two concepts clashed at times, causing major problems and headaches, but he soldiered on.
The car had been sand blasted, primered, and inside storage for the last 30 years, but Rydell needed a little rust so he let the car sit out in the rain to develop a natural sort of patina. He’d bought a Mopar 440ci in the 90’s for $80 and kept it around, waiting for its calling – and the Essex was it. Rydell topped the beast with a modified air cleaner from a Town & Country station wagon. With big block power, a set of Speedway disc brakes with machined spindles were called in to keep the car safe and willing to stop.
As this was Rydell’s first major build, there were plenty of ups and downs involved. First, he had to redo the panhard mount, as the frame was resting on the ground, and the mount on the axle would hit the frame. Then, after forming the airbag mounts in the rear, Rydell found that the four-link was too short, thereby putting the bags in a bind. With a bit of tweaking he put the upper mounts on the carrier frame, thereby creating a slider system. Inventive, sure, but it raised the eyebrows of a few discerning friends.
It didn’t work as well as intended, and the rear end was reluctantly scrapped after six weeks. Throwing away weeks of work further illustrates the kind of builder Rydell is: If something isn’t right, it’s not right. Rydell found the solution in the form of a three-link-plus-panhard setup, which sorted out all his problems with the cramped back end – this is a four-door car with four seats, anyways. Adorning the posi rear end is a 9 1/4 rear end with a 3.55 gears.
Then he turned his attention from the rear to the body of the rat rod and channeled it. It is resting on the frame in its final position. The loops on the side of the frame go under the main part of the body, then the floor cross runners sit on top of the main frame rails.
He mounted the gearbox and motor, and in a similar vein, a Mopar steering box was chosen for the cowl steering. Connected to the gearbox is a shifter made entirely from wrenches – never short on style with this build. Moving on to finish out the interior, Rydell laid the floor, quilting the sheetmetal in the process, and finished the seats in faux alligator skin vinyl afterwards with matching inserts in the door panels.
Rydell then focused on the finer points at the rear of the car, adding a set of 16″ LED taillights. Following that came the rear brake retrofit. With the drums touching the body, Rydell opted to use a set of rotors and calipers from a 1992 Lincoln Towncar, and built the mounts himself. Moving laterally, the wheels came next. Calling his brother to sandblast the wheels, Rydell then painted them bright orange to match the engine, and in conjunction with the 10′ wheelbase, the Essex began to stand out strongly.
That wheelbase makes the turning radius suffer, but the 440’s 550 lb/ft and the posi rear end should help rotate the car on command. The length of the Essex gives it some real presence that can’t be denied – so much, in fact, that it began winning awards as soon as Rydell began showing it at car shows.
The front shocks were then mounted – the Speedway Shorty T shocks – via a plate mounted to the radius arms to mount to the bottom of the shock, which should strengthen the arms somewhat. The rear shocks were picked off an ’85 Toyota Pickup with 7.5″ of travel to allow for ride height and being lowered to the ground, plus offering the car a certain amount of squat to try and aid traction, which will be tested with all that torque on-hand.
The aesthetic of the car was all-important; Rydell didn’t want the car to look thrown together, but nor did he want it to look like the builders spent more time trying to make it intentionally ugly. In fact, this ride oozes style and flash, and uses a diamond theme seen throughout in the grille, the quilting on the inside, the “speed holes” above the windshield and in the frame, and in the shape of the headers themselves. So as opposed to calling this a ratrod, Rydell prefers to call this a “Squirrel Rod,” or a “High Class Rat” – both of which seem fitting.
