Guys, I think we are taking this 'way too serious, it's TV! As far as ''phony deadlies'' go, look at it this way. Over the past few years you have built 5 cars for the same customer, all of which cost somewhere between 75 and 100 k. If that guy comes in and wants a car done in 8 weeks, are you going to do it on a deadline or lose the job?
Add the melodrama of TV and you have just what you are seeing, Yeah, Chip does it differently and does it damned well but everybody has their own style and their own way of doing things. I don't know Boyd but the story in the industry is that his bankruptcy problems were the result of going public and getting involved with majority stockholders who were only interested in mass producing wheels and couldn't care less about hot rods or customs. They are the ones who milked all the profits, ran it into the ground and then bailed. My $.02

 

For car shows Pimp My Ride Rules! I love that they put a massager in the passenger seat of that purple Honda(?) for the girls Grandmother

For truck build-ups you have to love Stacy on TRUCKS! and that, "Huuuuuuuge Dodge Powerwagon!"

I think American Hot Rod is probably real, and here is why:

Boyd comes off as kinda of paranoid, I think he WANTS it on film when he fires someone for legal reasons, no one can sue him, and we end up seeing the edited highlights that makes that scene SEEM more intense than it really ever was in the first place. Boyd is happy he has a record of what happened and Discovery is happy they have a really good commercial for the next show....

As for the finished cars sitting in the background, I think they are probably back for repairs or to have things finished that were missed in the first place by the over-worked-under-paid crew....

Anyone know what happened to the spin-off of Monster Garage - Monster House? They did a kitchen like a garage would be done, with stainlees diamond plate, and air-powered kitchen gadgets, rubber flooring, and red tool cabinets for kitchen cupboards, with a fold-down off the wall car-hood for a dining table!!!

 

I think both Boyd and Chip destroy classic American Iron by Kustomizing it. Chip and the Challenger R/T on Overhauling was a crime, and Boyd cutting up the beautiful '59 Impala, or chopping the restored Model T to make a "rat" rod (and it was ratty), disgusting! Once these two morons get done "fixing" up those cars, a piece of history is gone forever. It's like letting Andy Warhol repaint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I know the attitude "Well it's my car and I can do what I want", and that's true, but do it to a Honda Accord 4 door sedan, not a 442. Preserve what will never be created again, we're caretakers not vandals.

 

Yeah when Boyd ran the 289 HI PO out of that Mustang GT tears were streaming down my cheeks. What an idiot.

 

There are enough ''preserved'' cars in museums and garages all over the world, losing one of the 4 million model T's is no tragedy, we seem to forget how many millions of these things were made and how many of them there still are. In addition cutting up a Honda is no tragedy either, even if it was the last one. Hot rods and customs are a huge part of our tradition and heritage, period.

 

yeah, I don't really like american hot rod b/c of the whole rushed deadlines stuff, and Boyd trying to look like a god manager whilst firing people and messing up all the time. To be honest, he seems to be more paper pusher than mechanic. He gets his guys to do the work, and he just orders parts and pushes paper around on his desk. Then he tries to keep his "street credit" for lack fo a better term by doing some really bad work. And yeah duane is a brownnosing turd, but that's par for the course in the work world if you asked me, maybe I've been working for the wrong people. As for overhaulin' they rebuild a car in a week, and that's worse than any of boyd's deadlines, they just have the staff to do it.

Just my .02

 

Sorry Fatfender, we'll just have to agreed to disagree! They may have made millions of Model T's, but very few were in the condition the one Boyd murdered for that "rat" rod. Also, while there may be preserved cars in museums, these were running cars that were cut up, and I like to see them on the road too. Hot Rods may be part of our tradition, but I'll turn the argument around, enough original cars have been hacked up, leave the ones that are left alone.

 

Probably what hurt most on the Model T was that they stood the listing to the previous owner tell all the stories about it, and showing all the love and care he put into the restore. All the while they knew they were going to take an axe to it. I wonder if the (bleep)-canned the old parts (engine, rear end etc) or offered to give them back to the old owner so he could build another one.

At least on Myth-Busters, when they bought a primo corvett to let a couple of dead pigs rot in it for 3 or 4 months, they told the old owner what they were going to do.

 

I would have to aggree with ggarahan. Though many running classics and some not so running may be in grandmas shed, more and more each month are disappearing, now mind you that its possible to find one in a junk yard that may be restorable, that is a concept seldom seen today.
My stuff my way is fine, your opinion but to me people who chop these classics up the way they are done on these Hot Rod shows really have no sense of what they have. Muscle Cars and even old family Sedans and Coupes have become more toys for the rich due to rising prices out of reach for the working man unless you find one in a junkyard or grandmas garage.
To me a classic Muscle Car, Sedan,Truck or SUV should be restored to its complete original specs where possible , they are worth more that way. I would love to own a perfectly restored 40 Ford Coupe, the ones you see in so many news reels and movies from the 40s-early 60s. This includes the original restored engine.
A show should be done on complete restoration of a vehicle with a subtheme of how to restore a vehicle yourself.
Maybe once I retire in a few years, thats what Ill do, restoration.
To each his own

 

I love that show, the thing with the Vette was to prove or disprove a theroy which is a scientific way of doing things. They based some of the how to on that one with the help of the local CSI. If I remember right they sold it for $2k to a fabricator who really wanted they engine and tranny.
Two other cool shows to watch are Dirty Jobs and Weird US. Some interesting things can be learned from these.

 

Wow...this thread is huge. I love Overhaulin'. That girl Courtney....gggrrrrrrrrrr. Smokin'. And they did a 1970 Monte, so I like it even more. American Hot Rod is good too, but I typically watch it on mute. I can't stand the guys that work for Boyd. I think they are all hard workers, I just think that it's time for Boyd to step back and handover the reigns. He shouldn't be as involved as the show makes him out to be, he should stay on the customer end of things. He works his guys too hard, even though they all seem to be good mechanics, but then he lets them get away with stupid stuff, and doesn't know how to keep them under control...they can be plain idiots at times. His pep-talks? They don't even know what he's talking about when he does them. The cars look nice, but that doesn't say anything for the quality. I think they should be a little bit more realistic with what their time frames are going to be, and I think Boyd should get out of their hair.

 

That old wives tale mantra of the restoration purists is so far from the truth it's not funny. You can buy your pristine stock 40 Ford Coupe for less than 1/2 the going price for as well done a hot rodded one. I will agree with your last sentence tho.

 

What happened to American Hot Rodding show? I noticed it's not on anymore. At least for the past two weeks? I've been reading some of the posts and it's pretty humorous. Someone mentioned "Pimp my ride" was a hot show. OK??? LOL... Taking a car and putting 24" wheels, hydraulics, and stuffing the interior with 15" Woofers to blast "P diddy" is not my idea of customizing cars. Some of you got mad at Boyd taking a perfectly original vehicle and butchering it to make a street rod. It comes down to this. What do you like? Do you have the money to do it? It's that simple. It's what you like. Original cars or trucks are awesome and collectors items. Driving them to me is boring. I personally prefer the restor-rod look. I love fast cars and need that rumble from the engine, not Snoop Dogg. It's all a matter of what you like and what you can afford to do. Unless your cousin is Chip Foose.

 

I checked out the Pimp My Ride website, and in the application section it says the person must be between 18-22 years old. I'll send my kudos to Xhibit and WCC for giving some joy and excitement to a persons beloved only means of transportation. As for the styling, not everything they do is to my taste, or to yours, but styling in the Hot Rod world or "Ricer world" as well, be it from factory, owner, or custom shop, is not always to our tastes anyway...

It is what you like, original is nice too, but who ten years from now would want to be driving a fully restored Explorer, complete with possibly exploding tires and a master cylinder switch that could burn your house down??? We have all heard of TSB's(Technical Service Bulletins) that tell the dealers what parts are recalled and to be replaced, so in ten years from now you will not be able to buy those tires or that switch to "restore" your expy. I use the Explorer to make a point, that "original" cars are NOT original, they use modern fluids and are painted with modern chemicals and if they need replacement pistons in the engine, guess what-modern metal matrices that have been heat treated and cold frozen to stabilize the metal so they will last for "future generations". Some of you will get technical with me on details, but for this point, unless your at Pebble Beach the car is not 100% original, IMO.

What does the driving is boring to you imply, was it a typo?

 

I think that a lot of the strife on those shows is scripted, vanilla doesn't sell in primetime.