If you took he Mona Lisa, cut it up to make your art piece and you made it better then yes it could be considered artistic, but if you made it worse well... Rat rods by definition are typically slammed together messes. There are certainly a lot of very nice hot rods made from original cars (what else would you use) and made it look and perform well above the original design.
I didn't think that I alluded to just one medium. There are video artist, but they create video based art that is designed for gallery use only. Yes there is a difference, Commercial Art and Fine Art. There is some cross over but it is very rare that a commercial art piece would show in a gallery. But it is fairly common that a Fine art piece is used within a commercial environment.
Being that there was talk of the truck as fine art, that is what I responded to in my answer.
I am also not saying that a car can not be considered a piece of art. Couple years ago my animation was used in the lobby of the High Museum of Art Atlanta where the show highlighted car design. Attached some pictures below. Was a great show.