According to a lot of well known motoring websites this craze involves going against everything we've ever been told about looking after your car.
After a bit of frantic internet searching I came across some forums and websites which reveal the true horror of this automotive fashion.
The 'forced-rat' look involves stripping off paint, lowering, defacing and adding various 'enhancements'. These can include old roof racks, tacky seat covers, stickers - the kind of junk you might find down at your local tip.
The 'rat' or 'natural/genuine rat-look' is slightly different, and seems to be about preserving the weathered and deterioated look of old classics, but with enough solid parts to scrape through that all-important MOT.
Now I've always been one to prise open the wax and spend the day turning each panel of my car into a mirror, but this would be going against everything I've ever done.
Just imagine buying a new car and stripping off that fresh layer of beautiful paint for the specific aim of attracting rust, kicking in the door to achieve the just-crashed look, or replacing your indicator stalk with a beer pump handle.
Nowadays you have to look pretty hard to spot rust on most cars, but purposefully encouraging it? That's just plain wrong.
Maybe this is what we should have expected, the result of years of preening and cleaning, the final rebellion against the showroom finish most of us strive for.
I do have mixed opinions and actually fall in favour of the 'genuine rat-look'. The old VW Beetles and Mercs do carry a lot of character and do look cool in a bizarre and arty sort of way.
Most of these creations seem to be old classic VWs and vans, which probably don't need a great deal of encouragement where oxidations comes in.
So, will I be cracking open the paint stripper and praying on some rain? Er, no. I'll leave it to the rat-pack and watch on... in disbelief.
