Visibility is amazing on the “Farm Rat” that John Eilers built for use around his Pana, Ill. farm.

Eilers has a reputation for putting “the unusual” to work, such as the dog house he made out of an old Deere tractor cab, featured in FARM SHOW’s Vol. 34, No. 5. This time he made use of another Deere tractor cab, mounting it on the chassis of an S-10 Chevy pickup.

Fitted with big truck tires and running boards made out of wood planks, the Farm Rat is mostly used as a “command” vehicle around Eiler’s place. However, it’s licensed for road use and can often be spotted in the local McDonalds parking lot.

“People tell me I should give it a coat of paint and put a hood over the engine. But I tell them that if I painted it, I couldn’t call it the Farm Rat anymore,” Eiler’s jokes.

He was amazed at how well the tractor cab fit onto the truck chassis and over the front edge of the truck box. “It almost looks like it was meant to be there,” he says.

To give it a different look up front, the truck is fitted with a 1930 Model A Ford pickup radiator. And the engine cover on top is a cooking pan he sneaked out of his wife’s kitchen.