The King Rat is a creation by a man named Keith Ball. Of course you already knew that.
I have a couple of photos I took of it back in the early nineties around here somewhere.
He told me he got it from Hollywood after it had been wrecked.
It was the Corvette that the couple on 'Love American Style' hopped out of to run down to the beach.
I met him several years after he created it, so the only things I know of its history before then are only what he told me.
But, I washed the car and worked with Keith for a few years.
Here are a few facts that may have been missed:
The lights are aircraft landing lights, because as Keith says, "When you are going 222.222222 mph, you want to see as far ahead as you can!"
It went 222.22222 mph on the salt flats (I think it was in 1972).
I can't find a copy, but his first wife was the model in the pictures for Hot Rod mag.
It has submarine batteries in the floor (they drop in by the kick-plate near the door).
It has sheepskin seats and interior (he had a mouse chew through a water line in his garage and it flooded the Rat one summer).
The day it flooded, he told me to hop in and we'd take it down the highway to "dry it out'. I declined (wish I hadn't now ... it's complicated).
I thought he was kidding me about his custom jobs in LA until he went to his closet to get something one day and a pile of trophies fell out.
There were pictures of the Vettes he custom built for Sonny and Cher, Charlton Heston and a few more that I can't remember.
We worked together around 1992.
Oh yeah, the color is not just yellow ... he clear-coated it with blue pearl.
As to his life and private matters, those are his business.
All I know and will share is that he was a good friend (he's still around the last I heard, but that is personal information as well).
