Rat Fink models by Revell from the 1960's

Rat Fink was the brainchild of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth back in the1950's. Ed was best known for wild custom cars, hot rods, and chopper bikes. But later Ed became better known for "Rat Fink", a cartoon character of a huge rat that lived in a junkyard. The proto "anti Mickey Mouse".

Ed had for years had also been a sign painter and graphics artist who painted graphics and lettering on cars. Trying hard not to digress or get boring, it's important to know that the nose art of the US WW II bombers had become infused into American culture. As had the basic white tee shirts worn by US Navy sailors under their standard uniforms. Young men would peel off their outer shirts to cool off and the image of these men in nothing more than their standard-issue underwear became the classic look of the "Rebel Without a Cause" made famous by Marlin Brando and James Dean. The plain white tee with no other overshirt. Well, it was destined that these two icons of the post-war era would come together, and soon the basic tee had crazy graphics printed on it. And so, Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, king of crazy car graphics soon became Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, king of the crazy graphic tee shirt. And the most popular shirt was always, the Rat Fink tee.

In the 1960's Ed entered into deals with Revell models to make 1:24 scale models of his best-known custom cars and hot rods. Interestingly Revell skipped his well know chopper bikes as they felt them inappropriate for children. But Rat Fink, not so much, so they also started making models of Rat Fink and any other Roth "monster". And this was a home run for Revell.

The basic Rat Fink model consists of just nine parts. It builds in a few minutes. and then becomes a painting project. ANYWAY, let's take a look at one of the many releases of "Rat Fink".

https://www.ratfink.com/