Motorized rodents temporarily infest Brewster

BREWSTER – Giant motorized rodents? In Brewster? True and true. Last Sunday, Sept. 12, a corner of the Chevron station was infested with a half dozen of the mechanical beasts – rat rods to be more precise – completing the final leg of a 1,900-mile tour that took them from their starting point in Spokane through several Northwest states on a circuit back to Spokane.
The official name of this group of rat rod enthusiasts is Rat Sh*t Crazy Rat Rods (Facebook.com/rscratrods/) and members are spread throughout the Northwest. Drivers in the Brewster caravan hailed from Spokane and the Tri-Cities in Washington, Sand Point and Priest River in Idaho, and Wallowa, Oregon. While in Okanogan County the vehicles put on a virtual drive-by parade through Winthrop.
Aaron Post, a welder/fabricator from Wallowa was driving his 1937 International truck powered by a 12-valve Cummins diesel engine. Just a few of the vintage truck’s creative add-ons include a pair of aluminum beer kegs welded together to form a 31-gallon fuel tank, crosscut saw blade for a front bumper, vintage sleeper cab for storage, mill conveyor belt rear fenders, welded chain link mirror arms, and 36-inch flagstone pull-out grill.
Post said he picked up the original truck near his Oregon home for $300 and spent another $4,600 and 35 days spread over six months to create the road worthy machine he drives. He recently sold it for five figures and is already planning his next conversion.
The mother-son driving team of Chance and Chris Eberle from Sand Point was driving a pair of Chance’s creations. One is a rod built from a partial Model A body on a 2000 BMW G3 frame and powered by the original BMW 2.5-liter engine. A distinctive feature of the rod is the pop-up bat wing door that Eberle, an auto mechanic, said took some “800 hours of pain and suffering” to build by itself. The entire car accounted for 1,758 hours of Eberle’s time over five months.
The pickup driven by Eberle’s mother, Chris, is a 1937 Chevrolet built on a C6 Corvette frame that Eberle purchased as a wreck at an insurance auction. Its power plant is the original Corvette engine.