A MASTER mechanic has become the unofficial king of rat rods in New Zealand, after building a series of incredible rat rod masterpieces in his home garage. David Jeffery, of Rolleston, has always had a passion for cars, but started making his own creations seven years ago, when he produced the award winning ‘BellaRat’. Named after his daughter, Isabella, the vehicle took a year to build and wowed the crowds at the 2012 Beach Hop – an annual New Zealand festival and car show where BellaRat scooped the overall prize for top car. David has since single-handedly produced five other incredible cars, including a converted Semi Truck, appropriately called ‘SemiRat’ which would lead David to yet more award success at Beach Hop 2016, where it too won the top prize. He now specializes in building rat rods - the spectacular custom cars that mix old and new parts and often emulate the hot rods of the 1930s, 40s and 50s.
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MotorTranscript
00:00Building cars is just fun to create as you go.
00:03You don't know how it's going to look until you're finished.
00:05And it's the end product that you hope to achieve.
00:21I don't like to copy what other people have.
00:24I like to build cars that stand out from the others.
00:28My name is David Jeffery and I build Rat Rods.
00:32Car enthusiast David has always had a love of cars.
00:35And for the past seven years he's taken that passion
00:38and turned it to creating some incredible and unique vehicles.
00:51I like Rat Rods because they're different to what you see in all the magazines.
00:55You see the standard 32 roads to it and they're just different colours
00:59or depends on how much money you put into them is how they look.
01:03And yeah, they're just fun to drive.
01:10The original Rat Rod, built by David, was named Bella Rat.
01:13My daughter's name is Isabella and we call her Bella for short.
01:16So Bella and Rat.
01:19Bella Rat took about four months to complete.
01:22She's a small block Chevy, worked so she can move when you need it to.
01:27She runs into the Zoomies so you can make it loud or quiet at the time, depending on your mood.
01:32Put the old shotgun shells on there as an airbag system.
01:35So as you can see it's sort of made up of just lots of different parts
01:38but together they sort of make up a car.
01:41Even got the luxuries of a stereo system and a sunroof.
01:45The cost for Bella Rat was probably around the $12,000 for individual parts.
01:51We've been offered some good money for Bella Rat but it's a personal car and I want to keep that.
01:56David's wife Suzanne has been a fan of his work since the beginning,
01:59often helping him by pitching in on projects.
02:02I think I'm really proud of what he creates.
02:05It's amazing what he does in the garage.
02:07It's not, you know, it's not something that he just works in the garage and then switches off and then comes inside.
02:14We built Bella Rat first.
02:16We've built the diesel one since then.
02:18Still trying to get that through the system.
02:20And the Rolls Royce we've just finished in the last few days.
02:24Favourite would be Semi-Rat because it was done as a family car.
02:31It tows beautifully.
02:32It's got a big long semi-trailer that normally goes behind it.
02:37Cars are always finished in some aspect but most people think they're not finished
02:41because they're not painted or...
02:43I like the best deal because it shows its history.
02:45It might be a hundred years old.
02:47Why cover that up?
02:49Yes, he has won a few awards.
02:52He has won Beach Hop 2012.
02:55We've won Beach Hop 2016 with Semi-Rat.
03:03I'm very proud of David.
03:04I think he's achieved a lot building these cars and he still continues to achieve a lot.
03:11Winning the awards is a big achievement.
03:15The demand for a Rat Rod here seems to be growing against the wishes of our transport industry.
03:20But people like something different.
03:22They like to stand out.
03:23Most people, you know, want to stand out in some way or another.
03:27I'm not in some way or another.
03:32What is it that you do?
03:34Who wants to stand out?
03:35Have you seen that?
03:37No, no, no.
03:38How would he do this?
03:39Have you seen that?
03:40I'm not in any sense.
03:41I've seen it today.
03:43I've seen it.
03:44I've seen it...
03:45You do what it is.
03:46I've seen it.
03:47I've seen it.
03:48I've seen it.
03:49I've seen it.
03:50I've seen it.