BELLE — The 1949, ‘54, ‘60, and 2000 model rat rod owned by Dillion Dingley of Belle is a project he and his four-kiddo crew of Hooligans love to work on together. The idea to build the assemblage was born two years after the Dingley family started attending car shows.

“I started going to car shows, me and kids did, and I wanted to build something,” Dingley said about his family’s pre rat rod days. “I started looking on Facebook Market Place and found an old Chevy cab and I bought it from a guy I knew in Rolla. It was sitting in the woods next to the guy’s shed.”

The single-cab truck had been sitting for a lot of years.

“It was in a hundred pieces when I pulled it out of the woods, brought it home, and started creating,” Dingley said.

He built the whole truck before he realized it wasn’t what he wanted.

“Then my dad said ‘you may go look in the barn, there’s some old fenders and stuff in the barn.’ When I looked down in the barn, it was the whole front end to the cab I had. So I tore the whole, entire truck apart.”

Dingley’s uncle restored a truck back in the day and the old fenders and hood he never used were still stored in the family’s barn. As it happened, the family has a love of the same make and model designs, because Dingley found what he needed to start the rebuild.

“I started this project in 2020, then got divorced and put it on hold,” Dingly said. “I finished it in 2021-22. Once I really started on it, it only took nine months to get done to the point it is now. But it won’t ever really be done.”

Why won’t it be done? Because he buys it. Fabricates it. And adds to it…one piece at a time.

“Nothing belongs together on it,” he said. “It’s all different trucks and parts and pieces. Everything is homemade, all the brackets and mounts and everything.”

“There was a 1954 front-end that came out of my barn,” he said. “Parts left over from my uncle’s restoration.”

He wasn’t sure how long those parts had been in storage, but he had a pretty good guess.

“I know it’s been in the barn for 33 years because that’s how old I am and it was before me,” he laughed.

Finding the cab and front end separately was a deal, but the truck didn’t have a frame. Dingley wasn’t bothered by it.

“I found a 2000 (Chevy) S10 chassis on Facebook Market Place for as cheap as possible,” he said. “The small block Chevy motor is from the ‘60s.”

Dingley won the motor from a fellow derby enthusiast who raffled it for $40 a ticket.

“I thought, yeah, whatever,” he said. “I won the motor on a raffle and he called me a couple of weeks later. Had to drive to Kentucky to get it.”

The most expensive parts on the truck are the black wheels  — which are one of the first things people comment on.

“They’re nothing special,” he said. “Just black steel wheels. I ordered a set online because I liked the way they looked.”

The Dingley family spent a lot of time making the pieces fit together.

“The best part is my kids helped me the whole time,” he said. “I don’t have hardly any money in it.”

Once the front end was put together, Dingley had a choice to make. Flatbed or regular?

“I built the flatbed. The mud flaps are old road signs, and (made) the aluminum gas tank. The tailgate for the bed is at the end, stationary,” Dingley said.

The fabricated gas tank bolts down to the wooden bed, along with a small storage trunk with a roll of Duct Tape and other necessities. The biggest challenge is packing everything into a single cab, flatbed rat rod with four children.

“I contemplated putting a regular bed on it and this and that, but it wouldn’t be this truck no more and I like this truck. It’s definitely a head-turner,” Dingley said. “With a regular cab and a flatbed, we can haul everything. With four kids it’s hard to bring everything you need to a car show and not forget something at home.”

He doesn’t want to worry about the condition of the truck or what the kids do to it.

“Doing the least (amount) as possible when I built this thing,” Dingley admitted. “Just necessities. Bare minimum wiring and everything’s switches. I have oil pressure and temperature gauges. The exhaust comes out of the front fenders. I’m a welder, not a wirer. It’s gonna break someday and I wanna know how to get to the point of what broke and since I put it all together, I’ll know how to get there.”

Dingley’s skill with welding and fabricating runs in the blood.

“My dad has been a welder my whole life and I followed suit,” he said. “My dad was hunting and fishing and I’m derby cars.”

His 8-year-old son Deagan also seems to be following in his footsteps.

“My son was TIG welding at 5 years-old,” Dingley said. “He loves it

Keeping with the kid-friendly vibe, Dingely said he didn’t want to paint the metal beast, preferring not to worry about scratching it. He considers it one of the truck’s best features.

“I’ve never painted it, so I bring a bucket of chalk and let the kids draw all over the whole truck,” he said, acknowledging it goes against the traditional car show vibe. “I get a lot of dirty looks at the car shows that I let the kids draw with chalk on my car. My kids will be on the very top of my truck and taking pictures and stuff. Not gonna hurt it. There’s no paint.”

Just because they play doesn’t mean they aren’t mindful.

“The kids know what everything does, though, so they are pretty careful,” he added. “Some highlights from the inside of the truck — it tells the story. There’s little things everywhere. Handles that hold the toolbox shut, a door latch on the side is pliers. Little things are everywhere on it. I would see how something needed to work and, sitting in the shop, would go look for what I needed. I don’t see how people can go spend $15,000 just for fun.”

The sky really is the limit with a rat rod.

“There’s no right or wrong way with them. You can lean on ‘em. That’s my favorite part, you don’t have to keep it in the garage or upkeep the paint. Just leave it outside and use it.”

Dingley’s children, 14 year-old Cali, 10 year-old Braylee, 8 year-old Degan and 2 year-old Ayvin, love rat rod. Ayvin came along after the family started on the rat rod, but Dingely says she’s a big fan and loves the rat rod the most out of all of them.

“We get home at night and she says ‘rat rod! Rat rod! I wanna go for a ride!’ Every night.”

The inside of the rat rod is just as unique as the outside.

“The whole dash is covered in different state license plates, the seats are made out of old tractor seats, and it doesn’t have a gas pedal. Just a hand throttle made out of wrenches,” Dingley said. “It’s different from getting in my daily driver and hopping into this thing to go for a cruise. It takes a minute and two hands to drive.”

The rat rod has little in the way of safety features.

“It’s a historic vehicle, there’s no inspection or nothin’ for ‘em,” Dingley said. “Don’t have to have no blinkers because there was no blinkers in 1940s. I use hand signals and have brake lights, headlights and taillights. It’s road legal.”

The cheap build has turned out to be the center of the family’s social life.

“Doing the hotrod stuff got me into the car club I’m in now,” Dingley said. “On weekends, we go to car shows on Saturdays. We went to Illinois with it twice last year and every weekend in the summer it was somewhere. We know a huge bunch of people in the car community. Deagan got brought up on stage at one of the biggest shows around when he was 3 years-old. He was outgoing and wanted to sit in everybody’s rat rods. Everybody knows who he is and he was prancin’ around like he owns it. When Cali was 12, we went to a show in New Florence that lets you do burnouts all day. She’s out there doing better burnouts than grown. It was awesome. We got pictures and videos of that. She says she’s gonna drive this truck to school when she turns 16.”

She blew a tire out at that event.

The truck doesn’t have a radio, but it has Bluetooth speakers with an antique design. When they get to where they’re going, they blast their own music.

“We call it the rat rod,” Dingley said, adding that the kids have never given it another name. “We go cruising around town and gravel roads. It’s hard to legally pile all the kids in, but I’ve been known to ratchet strap a car seat inside and go uptown or to car shows with the baby.”

It’s not just the proud dad moments of seeing his kids learn new skills and being raised within the car community. Although he doesn’t mind proclaiming that he takes pictures of his kids and his truck. Two years ago, the family joined the local chapter of the Hooligans Car Club, where the only requirements were anything built before 1972 and made in America. The result has led to more teaching moments — such as using something they love to raise funds for good causes. The Hooligans Car Club regularly adopts causes.

“Last year, we raised $5,000 for Phelps County Community Partnership and the show we are putting on next month (April 26) will go towards scholarships for all the students graduating,” Dingley said. “We are doing another show in September to go to veterans. Hooligans is a nationwide car club with different chapters in different states. The president of this chapter is Chris Yarbrough. Our car club, we do for local communities — for kids and vets. It’s kind of our motto. We are a not-for-profit, so we keep no money that we get. It’s cool to be a part of something that helps people out. That’s the coolest part about it.”

Hooligan’s Car Club partnered with Belle Community Betterment Association (BCBA) for the April 26 car show on South Alvarado Avenue in Belle. Dingley has been advertising the event.

For the Dingley family, building their rat rod has been about making memories.

“I always wanted a side-by-side, but I built the truck. It’s a little bit more fun and we go to car shows with it,” Dingley said. “I’d say every time it’s out it does a burnout, so it doesn’t get good mileage. I use a stick for my gas gauge. I’ve only ran it out of gas one time. It gets a lot of smiles per gallon.”