8-WHEELED WONDER
THE SIXTH TIME’S A CHARM FOR THIS TALENTED BUILDER
If it’s true that the more you do something, the better you get at it, then Miami’s José Lugo’s skill in creating imaginative rat rods might be approaching perfection. José already has five hand-built, patina creations in his past and each was better than the last. This one is trophy-rat numba-six!
José works in the family electrostatic industrial painting business, specializing in powder coating. Although customer projects pay the bills, his real joy is the creativity involved in building oneof-a-kind, radical rides. In addition to dispensing with such traditional touches like chrome and paint, the rat rod builder’s challenge is assembling an imaginative collection of unrelated parts and adapting them to traditional roles. Need to sit down? How about a pair of re purposed tractor seats? Need a shifter for the trans? Let’s use the nozzle from a gasoline pump. You get the idea. It’s not a glitch. It’s a feature!
First steps first, José always begins with a custom chassis, this one fabricated from 2 x 4 rectangular steel tubing and strengthened with multiple cross