Model A Diesel Rat Rod: Brandon Patrick’s 1928 Ford
Sometimes the best stories find you when you stop looking for them. We spotted this Model A diesel rat rod in the show field at RPM Revival last weekend, snapped a few photos, and figured that was the end of it. No owner in sight, so we filed the images away for social media and kept walking. Then Facebook did what Facebook does, and there was Brandon Patrick with that exact car as his profile picture. We love sharing the reasons behind these builds rather than just shoving tech sheets at you, and this one gave us plenty of reasons to dig in.
What Brandon Patrick Built In His Father’s Shop
Brandon calls it a “HighClass Rat,” and that phrase does a lot of work once you hear everything that went into it. The concept started as a blend of patina and traditional rat rod styling, the kind of raw look that lets the steel tell its own story. Like most builds that start with a clear vision, it grew into something more involved the deeper they got into it.
The foundation is an all-steel factory Model A sedan body, professionally chopped and channeled to get that low, aggressive roofline that makes pre-war Fords look like they mean business even sitting still. The original Model A frame was fully boxed and Z’d, which adds rigidity and drops the body lower over the rails for that slammed stance that catches your eye from across a show field. The custom 1932 Ford grille was hand-fabricated by Pop’s Garage, which is Brandon’s dad, and that detail matters more than it might seem at first glance.
A chopped and channeled Model A diesel rat rod with a hand-built 1932 grille speaks the same visual language that builders were using in the 1940s and 1950s when California dry lake racers started cutting up pre-war Fords. Brandon’s dad understood that language and built the grille to fit the car’s personality, not just to fill the hole in the nose.
The Chassis And Suspension Work That Makes It Drive Right
Getting a Model A diesel rat rod to handle correctly takes more than lowering it and hoping for the best. Up front, the suspension runs a Pete & Jake’s dropped front axle, one of the most respected names in traditional hot rod front suspension, paired with a disc-brake conversion. Pete & Jake’s dropped axles lower the front end without sacrificing geometry or feel, and they hold up to real-world use rather than just looking good in a show setting.
Out back, Pop’s Garage fabricated a custom triangulated four-link rear suspension with a dual airbag setup. The triangulated four-link keeps the rear axle located properly under acceleration and cornering loads, which matters on a car running the torque a compound-turbo diesel puts down. The airbag setup gives Brandon the ability to adjust ride height and dial in the stance depending on the situation.
Wheels, Tires, And Finishing Details
The wheels are one-offs, hand-built by Pop’s Garage, running 21-inch fronts wrapped in Lester 4.40/4.50-21 tires with 3-inch whitewalls and 16-inch rears shod in Lester 7.50-16 rubber with 5-inch whitewalls. Skinny tall fronts and wider whites out back are classic traditional rod proportion, and the Lester bias-ply tires reinforce that pre-war aesthetic all the way to the ground. All wheel finishes came from Bearded Customs Powder Coating out of St. Joseph, Missouri, the same shop that handled several other finishing details on the build.
The Engine In This Model A Diesel Rat Rod Is Not What You Expect
When you see a pre-war Ford body sitting this low with that kind of attitude, your brain goes straight to a flathead or a small block. Brandon went in a completely different direction. Under the hood sits a 3.9L 4BT Cummins diesel engine pulled from a Case backhoe. It runs a compound turbocharger system producing approximately 50 pounds of boost.
The bottom charger is a Holset HY35W sourced from a 2001 Dodge with the wastegate closed off. That forces all exhaust energy into building boost rather than bleeding it off. That pressurized air then feeds a 64mm non-wastegated turbocharger on top, stacking boost in a compound arrangement that builds significantly more pressure than either turbo could generate alone.
Fuel System And Tuning
Fuel injection and tuning were provided by St. Joseph Diesel and David Layman at Diesel and Turbo of Iola. The 4000 RPM governor spring, fuel pin, and delivery valves came from Evan Ratcliff of Ratman Performance, known in the diesel community as “The VE King.” The governor spring and fuel pin raise the engine’s rev ceiling and increase fuel delivery beyond the stock calibration, which is where the real power lives in a VE pump diesel.
The 4BT Cummins fits this build for practical reasons, too. It sits compact and upright, which makes it easier to package in an old chassis than most people expect. Fifty pounds of compound boost through a backhoe engine in a 1928 Ford Model A diesel rat rod is the kind of thing that stops conversations across a show field.
The Interior Tells The Story Better Than Any Spec Sheet
The inside of this car gets personal in a way that goes well beyond the build sheet. The bomber seats are finished in bright white by Bearded Customs Powder Coating, a deliberate contrast against the raw exterior that reinforces the “HighClass Rat” concept. Those white seats surround a custom shifter linkage that showcases Brandon’s grandfather’s vintage L.C. Smith double-barrel shotgun, a family heirloom passed down to him.
The door panels are made with handmade cowhide. The headliner uses a custom saloon-style stamped material that ties the whole cabin together with a period-correct western feel that suits the car perfectly. A five-speaker stereo system with a custom compact 10-inch subwoofer rounds out the interior, tucked away cleanly so it does not fight for attention with the craftsmanship surrounding it.
Why The Shotgun In The Shifter Matters
The shotgun mounted alongside the shifter is not a styling gimmick. It connects every mile this car travels back to the family that made it possible. Every time Brandon drops it into gear, that heirloom sits there as a reminder that this build belongs to more than one generation.
A big thank you to Craving Cars for stepping in with additional images on this one. We had interior shots, but since we did not originally plan to write a full feature on this car, we kept moving through the show without slowing down for proper interior photos. The images we had did not do the craftsmanship inside this car any justice. Craving Cars filled that gap the right way.
Why Pop’s Garage Is The Real Heart Of This Build
Brandon is straightforward about where the credit goes. “None of it would have been possible without Pop’s Garage,” he said. “My dad is the heart behind the project and the reason the car exists today.” The custom grille, the four-link rear suspension, the airbag setup, the one-off wheels, and all the paintwork came out of his dad’s shop in St. Joseph, Missouri.
When you add up the major fabrication touchpoints on this Model A diesel rat rod, the chassis work, the suspension, the wheels, the grille, and the paint all trace back to one set of hands working out of a family shop. That level of involvement goes well beyond helping out on weekends, and it shows in the way the build holds together as a cohesive piece rather than a collection of parts from different sources.
That kind of father-son collaboration builds like this one to every backyard shop project that came before it. The hot rod movement was built on exactly this relationship, knowledge passed from one generation to the next through shared work and shared time under a car. The technical merits impress, but the story behind it is what makes it worth the drive to a show.
From Show Field To Cross-Country Miles In This Diesel Rat Rod
Brandon did not build this car to sit in a garage and collect trophies. He and his fiancée Sherri have logged real miles in it, cross-country hauls and weekend getaways included. “My fiancée Sherri has been a huge part of that,” Brandon told us. “Always ready for a cross-country haul, a weekend getaway, or the next show adventure, no matter how far away it may be.”
A compound-turbo Model A diesel rat rod with hand-built suspension and bias-ply whitewalls getting driven hard across state lines rather than babied onto a trailer says everything about how Brandon views this build. The road trips have become just as important as the build itself, and that perspective separates people who build cars to drive them from people who build cars to look at them.
Brandon Patrick’s Life In The Diesel Industry
Brandon joined St. Joseph Diesel in 2003 as a diesel technician and spent nearly two decades turning wrenches before moving into the Parts Manager role in 2022. That hands-on background shows in every mechanical decision on this car. He understands what these engines do under load and what it takes to make them reliable in a custom application.
This year marks St. Joseph Diesel’s 50th anniversary. Steve and Rosemary Webster founded the shop in their garage with a straightforward goal: honest work and dependable service for the agricultural and performance diesel communities they served. Over five decades, that small operation grew into a highly respected business with a reputation that carries real weight in the region. The same philosophy shows up in the car Brandon drives to shows, a hand-built machine put together by people who know their trade, built around a working engine, and driven the way a hot rod is supposed to be driven.
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