I must agree..these guys are flying low and loose and ought not to have the following the media market is gracing them with..it is all just one thing..hype..so called reality shows are not real..they are created to spin the audience and to that end they are evidently doing a good job as they seem to be a million and one reality TV shows today..I cannot really comment on details as I never watch any of those shows..sure give me or basically any hobbyist in the car world an unlimited budget courtesy of ads/sponsors..40 back shops under my direction..we can build some cars quick...

What would be an interesting thing to do would be to follow several of these creations for a couple months after the new owners get them, or to check them out 1 year later.  I think your points about workmanship would be easily identified.  Even the overhauling cars would be interesting to see i year later.  You know previously on "counting cars".  Maybe somebody like the guy up in Canada who uncovers and fixes all the shoddy home improvements suposidlu doe by reputable contractors.  Maybe even old Plymouthy could be the host/ investigator. 

yeah..go ahead Greg..paint a target on my chest.....lol You do however have a good point on following up on the car or the after build "build" to make it safe and dependable..and the amount of rust that is going to rear its ugly head after a few adventures in the rain or possibily even driveway wash jobs...Holmes on Homes is a good show and probably the only one I have seen a couple time..but it amazes me as to all his discoveries yet the bureaucrats at the builder inspector office do not get involved or do anything to assure the homeowner has an avenue of relief...that is exactly the reason for permits and the so-called licensed inspections..the same guys who ripped off the owner are more than not on the next street over still working their trade.

Does make you wonder about what all they really did (or did NOT do) to the

cars.  At least Overhaulin tears them way down and rebuilds pretty

thoroughly.  

A followup with owners of these cars would be verry intersting....as said.

Probably could not find any producer or sponsor for a show about that...... 

Tim politics as usual. When I got my new furnace the inspectors came by. They asked who did the work looked at it for less than a minute and signed off on it. I've never seen the show being talked about but I would hope some of the safety items are being done off camera as they don't make good ratings but still need to be done.

Besides the somewhat shoddy craftsmanship on these shows, many people think a vehicle can be transformed into a real nice car in a week.

I have 2 friends who have fabrication shops and the work they do is top notch. But the problem I hear from my friend is the customer thinks a car can be built in a week with all the details. And they always bitch about how much money it costs. I told him to hang up this sign............Good work ain't cheap, and cheap work ain't good........which one do you want.

O my I got to put y two cents in on this.

Holmes on Homes is a great show and I think he is legit, but its reality TV the same go's with the car shows they are for your entertainment and to sell items on TV.

I knew of a guy that was taking unibody cars cutting them in half and putting them together with a second doner car made him money but they didn't stay together and people got hurt.

TV I watch for entertainment and I understand its just that.

You must pray that the people understand that its TV but if we must I vote for Tim and I would wish he could set these show and the people that watch them straight, if anyone can its Tim LOL.

Sorry Tim I just had to yank your chain.

I love those shows for their entertainment purposes only. I think "count" builds quality cars as he is a true hot rod shop and spends more than a week building cars. As for Gas Monkey, the show is funny but would not buy one of their cars. More than anything I watch the shows for ideas that I could incorporate into my build, just like DIY and HGTV for the house..

Plain and simple it is all about the money. That is the only reason these (lack of) reality shows are produced. Weather the cars are built to any standard (safety, realiability etc) does not matter. Only thing that matters is they are shown as being built in one hour and hit the street or auction block at the end of the show.I get mad when I hear them call an engine a motor and a paint job a restoration. If we all wrote letters to these shows explaining our discontent most likely the drama would boost the ratings. I would rather laugh at Archie Bunker for a hour as watch these shows. He is the real deal.

To me it's all 'entertainment'. I quit watching because of the negative bantering between fathers and sons. In somewhat the same vein, I quit my subscription to Classic Trucks because all the trucks featured were those that had used products they advertise. 

I do like American Pickers mostly because of the people who have been collecting for decades. Just amazing what some folk kept.

Globe Classic Cars bought 240 + Chryslers between the years of 1952 and 1970 all from ONE collector. Just amazing. I will see that collection in a week or two. They are now moving 20 cars a day from Turlock, CA to Fowler.  

You have to realize this is tv. Do you really believe they build these cars in one week or even one month.

You have to realize this is tv. Do you really believe they build these cars in one week or even one month.

Some of it I can but take a look at the number of staff  that can be assigned to a project. 30 or 40 people putting in 8 to 10 hrs a day can cover a lot of ground and when all the parts are on hand before starting there's no waiting or sourcing the hard to find part.  

All Hollywood! And big bucks!

I have a love/hate relationship with these shows.  I agree I find what they call a restoration a travesty, but I find it entertaining to see what they do.  But I also am smart enough (most of America isn't) to know it's mostly all staged.

As for American Pickers, I LOVE watching to see all the stuff (saw a Dodge truck ornament last week), but hate the way they (mostly) try to take advantage of people.

I like watching the British show, Wheeler Dealers. They actually did a series of shows where they followed up on previous projects. What I thought was interesting is that none of the cars were still owned by the person who purchased the car in the original episode.

Jim Yergin

I like the Fast and Loud show but I agree on the prices. They bought a 60's T-bird for $6K, put a few bolt on goodies on the engine and some bags & wheels and sold it for $22K????? I dont deal in Fords but I dont think I've seen those years of T-birds bring anywhere close to that money. Somebody must want a Tbird really bad.

I love when he sells stuff to a friend for an outrageous profit.  I wonder what the friends think when they see him bragging about how much money he made on the sale

Channel surfing the other night, Overhaulin was on.  It on one of those HD cable deals here, so mayot on general cable.  they did a top ten where they brought the cars and owners back for a reunion at the beach.  The owners seemed pretty happy with thier cars and what was done.  One fellow had made some other small changes, but it seems that they were not getting driven much.  One guy said that he get his out for about 25/30 miles a couple time a month.  Another said he only uses it for taking the family out for diner or ice cream run once in a while.  One fellow did mention he gets to some cruise in on a weekly basis.  But apparently they do drive and run, although the fellow with the 426 Road Runner convertible says he gets no more the 5MPG.

The promo for the new Wheeler Dealers is for a season where he buys the cheapest car that he can find and is goig to try to trade up into an Aston Martin of some such thing.

I was just watching what i believe is the latest episode of Fast and Loud, the one where they feature the Pontiac Bonneville. When Richard goes to look at some cars to buy amongst them in the background is a Pilothouse truck, looked circa '48-'50 judging by the quick glimpse of the grill and rear fenders. Anyone else see this?

actually TWO of them.  Red and whitish...grills make them 48-50

I like the shows. they are great for ideas.  I know a guy near me that won the '57 Chub from O'Riliey's a few years ago.  It was the last car started and finished on American Hotrod. Sad thing was that he got a 1099 for over $350,000.00 He was scared to drive it and had to sell it to pay for the taxes.  30-40 people working 8-10 hour a day custom fabricating for several months is expensive.  I oftern wondered what the tax liability for the cars don on Overhaulin' was and that may be why they are not driven very much.

did anyone see the travesty of the sweptline they are doing?  blaming the truck for their inabilty to measure and check things befor starting a build.....even my dad (staying over while mom is inthe hospital) was thinking they are stupid.

did anyone see the travesty of the sweptline they are doing?  blaming the truck for their inabilty to measure and check things befor starting a build.....even my dad (staying over while mom is inthe hospital) was thinking they are stupid.

Haven't seen that one, don't have satellite or cable, just antenna television, got tired of wasting scarce money for iffy programming.

Anybody tackling a Sweptline better know what they are doing... That body series is notorious for the levels of rot that crop up in them. And replica body panels are pretty much nonexistent. Turning mine into a farm stand for the time being, at least it can earn its keep while the wiring, upholstery, floor and door rebuilds, etc are going on.

Your average Swepty is going to have rotten door bottoms, rotten or missing floorpans, rotten cowl, rotten wooden bed mounting blocks, suspect if not outright disastrous wiring issues, tweaked if not cracked frame (they got used, hard, like trucks should be)... Bad gauges, bad fuel system components (tank seams rot, even in the cab), dried out rear wheel bearings (greased, not splash lubricated, not common anymore so overlooked)... Nearly impossible to repair windshield and back glass leaks, rotten hood lip, damaged irreplaceable grill panels...

Good trucks, but you really have to love them to justify the expense in time, cash and materials. And plan on a few years to fix the issues, I've owned and been driving/working on mine since September 2004 and it has a long way to go to be "right", let alone "restored"...

Which shop bit off more than it could chew this time?

I like Fast and Loud for the most part. They are about the only car show on tv where people admit they screwed up and that they lost money on a deal.

Also,you have to understand this show and all the other shows are about shops that build cars for a specific market. They are after the upscale buyers who want what is cool and trendy,not gearheads that like working on cars and driving them. It's all about being stylish and being able to brag that you have a car built by a famous tv car shop. It's about status and bragging rights,not cars.

Yeah,you can build a car in a week if you have 10+ people in a fully equipped shop that know what they are doing,and are willing to work 20 hour days 7 days a week. It also doesn't hurt if you are like that one show was in Ca that used to call Art Carr when they needed a hot rod auto transmission,and Art Carr himsef would show up with it and a 4 man crew to install it for you. This doesn't happen for most of us.

Fast and Loud mostly caters to the sytlish rat rod crowd,so they don't worry much about rust or scrathes. Or paint and bodywork. They have a formula where they use late-model Chevy truck engines in all the cars they build,and they buy them complete with the transmissions and wiring harnesses. Which means they don't worry much about rebuilding the engine and trans.

They use modern Ford LTD front suspensions that they buy out of junkyards.

It's all a combo they know and understand that is reliable and inexpensive.

I like watching these shows mostly to check out the tools they use.

Haven't seen that one ...

 

Anybody tackling a Sweptline better know what they are doing...

 

Your average Swepty is going to have rotten door bottoms, rotten or missing floorpans, rotten cowl, rotten wooden bed mounting blocks, suspect if not outright disastrous wiring issues, tweaked if not cracked frame (they got used, hard, like trucks should be)... Bad gauges, bad fuel system components (tank seams rot, even in the cab), dried out rear wheel bearings (greased, not splash lubricated, not common anymore so overlooked)... Nearly impossible to repair windshield and back glass leaks, rotten hood lip, damaged irreplaceable grill panels...

 

Which shop bit off more than it could chew this time?

That was the Gas Monkey guys on "Fast N' Loud." I just watched the episode during a marathon today. They overpaid for the truck -- though just $750, but it looked about $350 worth -- and it was a constant source of frustration for them.

They did just what Knuckleharley said, though: Crown Vic front end, Chevy crate engine and transmission. They just sanded and clear-coated the paint. They did spiff up the interior, which doesn't take a whole lot as there isn't a whole lot to that interior.

Indeed the frame was bent all sorts of ways. And the Ford clip didn't want to mate to the original frame rails of the Dodge, so the frame went under the torch some more. They also had trouble fitting a new gas tank, which made me wonder why they didn't just try a different tank. Do they not measure before they order? Were they cheaping-out by trying to use something they already had on-hand?

Ultimately the Boss Monkey won a coin-toss with a salvage-repurposing interior designer (from whom they bought the truck to begin with) and sold it back to the guy in essence for $10,000 and a $40,000 industrial-art redecoration of the garage's new office space. ... Wouldn't surprise me if that wasn't a negotiated deal all along.

I liked the truck better when it was done than I thought I would. I still would have gone with a Mopar drivetrain and I didn't like the wheels on it. Gas Monkey spends a ton of money on wheels that I usually hate.

I didn't like the way most of the crew sort of belittled the old Dodge throughout. Aaron, the main builder, apparently dislikes Mopars. He said it was "a Dodge he could stomach," or something like that, because it was out of the ordinary. But in the end he even pried the DODGE lettering off the hood and left just the empty holes and the letters' outline in place. He was glad it wasn't a Mopar named after a fish or something you throw at a board, and that they didn't build it with a Hemi.

On a '59 Rambler wagon build, I was puzzled by their decision to facilitate a slammed look on the bagged chassis by just cutting three inches off the depth of the oil pan on their supposedly high-performance engine. ... How much oil capacity is lost? Will the car still have enough oil to lubricate itself?