Gary Minchin’s 1933 Dodge “Rat Rod”

Johnny Cash sang of the hardships of trying to assemble a Cadillac from stolen parts of many model years in his 1976 hit, “One Piece At A Time.” As the song says, there was a little bit of every Caddy from the 1950′s through to the 1970′s.

With all due respect, the late, great Mr. Cash couldn’t hold a candle to Gary Minchin’s 1933 “Dodge.”

That’s because Gary’s car wasn’t built from various years of other cars; it was built from various makes of car. The body and most of the frame came from the Dodge Brothers, but the engine is a small-block Chevy, retired from a blown drag-racing ’55 Bel Aire. Behind that is a TH350 3-speed automatic from an ’84 Pontiac Grand Prix and a rear axle from the same donor car.

Now sure, engine and drivetrain parts from The General are par for the course in hot rodding. It’s not unusual to see Chevy engines in everything from pre-war cars and trucks to hotrod Fordson 9N tractors. However, Gary didn’t stop his multi-brand mashup with the drivetrain. In total, there’s a little bit of eight different manufacturers and brands in this sedan: Chevy, Pontiac, Ford, Dodge, Toyota, Nissan, Freightliner, and Peterbuilt. ”It’s artistically put together,” Gary explained “you’d never know where the parts all go.”

The first hint of this multi-manufacturer madness starts with the grill, taken from a 1998 Peterbuilt and cut down to fit the radiator shell from a 1930′s Chevy truck. Atop this is the distinctive “Flying Swan” hood ornament borrowed from an old Freightliner semi.

Underneath all those old truck parts, the front suspension of a ’74 Mustang II was grafted to the original depression-era Dodge frame. And while GM running gear gets the car going, brake system components from a Toyota truck plumbed into the Pontiac drums and Ford discs bring things to a halt.

Toyota wasn’t the only Japanese automaker to have a hand in the construction of this far-out rat rod. Through a perfect alignment of the planets in charge of auto interiors, Gary came across a 1984 Nissan whose seats were a perfect size match to the ’33. Nearly all of the Nissan’s insides were transferred over, and were left virtually unchanged.

Many people would probably wonder how so many makes and brands would come together in one car. For Gary’s sedan, it was a matter of random parts coming from friends. The headlights were a gift, the transmission and rearend were a gift, and even one of the rubber hood rats were a gift. According to Gary, “Friends helped along the way; stuff I didn’t know was coming just showed up.”

However, the charitable giving isn’t going to end with this car. Gary is known throughout the Winnipeg cruisin’ community for his willingness to give back to anyone who needs it. In fact, Gary even keeps a couple of toy cars handy just in case of a child in need.

Johnny Cash may have been the first to sing about mixing up car parts to get the machine you really want, but Gary Minchin found a new way to one-up the Man in Black. ”Johnny only used one make of car,” Gary remarked, leaning against a fender at Ill Conformity’s 2009 Summer Shocker car show. ”But I used nine different kinds to make my car.”

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