Car Masters: Rust to Riches (2018) s01e01 Episode Script
Outsmarted
1
[Mark] You know that story about
the kid who started with a red paper clip
and traded it up 14 times
until he got a house?
Here at Gotham Garage,
we use the same “upgrade and trade” model,
but it’s ten times harder
and we make a lot more money.
The game is to start with something
that costs about $500 to $1,000.
Then I turn it into a cool car.
Then I take that cool car
and I trade it for a badass car,
put the Gotham Garage stamp on it.
Then I take that badass car,
and I’ll turn it into a ride
that I can sell for six figures.
And then I go all the way back
to the beginning and start all over again.
[power tools buzz]
[machinery rivets]
[engine starts]
[groans]
-Hey, hey.
-[Mark] All right, you guys.
-[Constance] What is that?
-[Caveman] It’s a parts car, right?
[Mark] No, it’s not a parts car.
This little jewel is our next project. The
beautiful thing is we’re not painting it.
-Not painting it?
-[Mark] We’re not painting it.
-We’re chroming the whole car.
-You’re gonna chrome the car?
We’re gonna have it chrome-wrapped
so it looks like a jet.
Mark, he’s smart and talented.
The ideas he can pull out of his head,
I’ve never worked with
anybody like this guy.
[Mark] Regular builds and restorations,
it bores me.
Anybody can do that.
That’s not what I do.
I’m an outside-of-the-box builder.
I once used a toilet-bowl ring to seal
a rocket tube on the back of a jet car.
It’s all about fixing problems in
a different way. You gotta get creative.
I wanna take this car from the future
and take it back to the past
and make a space-age looking
rocket-style car out of it.
In 1955, Ford introduced their Thunderbird
as their first true sports car.
It was a huge success for them
and instantly became iconic.
The Beach Boys wrote a song about it.
Even JFK used more than 50 of ’em
in his inauguration parade.
And then in 1964,
they screwed it up and made this box.
It’s just a giant shoebox.
This car is not desirable,
and that’s why we’re picking one up
for just a thousand bucks.
[Tony] It’s a ’64.
I like ’em when they’re finished out,
but they don’t bring a ton of money.
These are not big-money cars,
and I see a lot of work.
-I don’t know we’re gonna get our return.
-[Mark] That’ll be Shawn’s problem.
We’re all trying to get to the six-figure
car. This is just one of those steps.
Everything’s a step. You gotta
walk up the steps to get to the landing.
Trust me, you guys.
Have I ever misled you guys?
-[Tony] Well, I mean--
-[Caveman] You want an honest answer?
-[Mark] No.
-[all laughing]
[Mark] The reason it works
with everybody that’s involved in the shop
is because everybody here
has skin in the game.
When we do those big payout cars,
everybody gets their big piece of the pie.
Well, all in all, I think we got a plan,
so let’s just get to it.
You guys know what to do.
We can make
the most badass ride on the planet,
but if Shawn’s got no one to trade it to,
we’re dead in the water.
If you look at the board,
we can do this truck, and then
that gets us over to the Goat over here.
[Mark] He’s just this madman.
He knows everyone
in the automotive community.
He knows a guy, and if he don’t know
the guy, his guy knows a guy.
One trade doesn’t get you anywhere.
You gotta do multiple trades.
[Mark]
Shawn is the best wheeler-dealer there is.
People like him
because he doesn’t take himself seriously.
He’s always got an angle.
He’s always coming at you from the side. But he’s always joking.
He makes you feel good about yourself.
You have to be that way
to be successful in this business model.
[Shawn] Oh, man, we get that,
oh, we could--
Oh, we could--
Oh, we could put that together.
Boom, we’re in business.
You’re like a squirrel with a bag of nuts.
Just dumb it down for me.
[Shawn] All right,
let me put this into perspective
with what we got going on
in the shop right now.
We picked up a ratty old Thunderbird
for a thousand bucks.
We’re gonna fix that T-Bird up
and make it one badass car
worth $30,000 to $35,000.
-[cash register dings]
-I think we could trade that T-Bird
for that Chevy Fleetside pickup
I’ve had my eye on.
The guy’s tired of working on it,
and his wife wants it out of the garage.
[tires squealing]
[Mark] And after we put some work into it,
that Fleetside will be worth about 70K.
Then what?
[Shawn] We’ll be able to trade it up
for that rare Zephyr. [Mark] And once we’re done with that,
we’re into the six figures.
[Shawn] That’s how we turn
a thousand bucks into well over 100,000.
So what is the grand, glorious scheme
of your POS here?
We’re gonna cut this roof off right here,
flush with the lid.
Whichever direction works best,
just cut it off.
If you have to cut it twice and grind it,
cut it twice and grind it.
I just want the entire roof off the car.
So I have to think how I’m gonna make this
valuable to the person we’re trading with.
The guy we’re trading it with
grew up in the ’60s,
so we’re gonna have to give it
that nostalgic feel.
The space race, the man on the moon,
where we were going,
where technology was headed.
This needs to be a shiny,
rocket-style car.
We’re gonna replace the windshield
with twin wraparound canopies,
just like a fighter jet,
and retain that rocket-age look.
We’re also gonna
turn this car into a two-seater,
but we’re gonna do it Gotham Garage style.
We’re gonna take the back seat
and move it into the front seat.
Our buyer grew up in the ’60s,
and he was dreaming of space and rockets.
This is gonna tap into exactly that.
[power tools buzz]
We are good to go.
Ah! Ah!
There is no way I could build the cars
that I build without the crew that I have.
Constance, she’s one of the best
motor girls I’ve ever seen.
Tony, he’s a machinist, he’s an engineer.
Then there’s Caveman.
He can rip anything apart,
and he can put it back together.
Ah! Yeah, it’s off!
Ah! [Tony] I guess we’re not using
that again, huh?
[Constance] I was gonna say.
-Ready?
-[Tony] Let’s go.
[Mark] I left Constance
to deal with the motor in the Thunderbird.
That girl knows how to put a motor
together. She knows how to tear one down.
[Tony] We’re out.
I guarantee this has been sitting
for the last 20 years.
At least. It’s pretty rusty.
What do you think it is? Didn’t they have
a 390 or something like that?
Yeah, they did. I mean--
[Tony] I don’t even know
what else they put in these.
Like a 427, but super rare.
I’ve been working on cars
since I can even remember, I think.
My dad had me in a race car
very early in life,
and I spent most of my childhood
at the racetrack,
and the weekdays were spent in the shop.
I’ve done drift racing and drag racing,
and kind of always
gravitated back to build.
I like working on engines.
That’s what I love to do.
What do you think we should do
with this motor, in your opinion?
I mean, to be honest, everything on here
is just completely rusted.
The lifters don’t even move anymore.
We even tried to crank it over,
and it’s solid.
You’re better off getting something new.
So we’ll just use it for a boat anchor.
It’s probably gonna pull
the whole boat under, but--
-Yeah.
-[laughing]
I’d rather just go get something else,
get Shawn to find something else.
-Something running.
-Whatever. What do you think it should be?
I personally like, like a 302.
-I think that’d be perfect for this car.
-I’m good with that.
So I guess I’ll have to get Shawn
after finding something real fast.
Ford came out with the 302 in the ’60s.
It’s great for a lot of applications.
They used it in the Le Mans races.
It says a lot
about what that motor is capable of.
Because it’s small, it fits
in a lot of different engine compartments,
which makes it really easy
for how we’re using it in the Thunderbird.
We’re gonna make this car fast, and now
we’re gonna be able to make it stop.
[groaning]
[Tony laughing]
Yeah!
[Mark] Caveman is one of the most
appropriately named human beings
that I know.
There we go. I didn’t have a rock.
[Mark] Engines, cars, suspensions,
you name it.
If you can put a wrench on it,
he knows how to make it work.
I guess when they invented wrenches, he
dropped his club and picked up a wrench.
There it is.
Such a mess.
Look at all that rust and dirt and grime.
Yeah.
Don’t forget the blood.
And blood. It now has blood.
That’s the same color
we’re doing the interior.
-Oh, yeah?
-It is.
Do I got lobster blood? Lobster blood.
Oh [bleep] man.
Don’t do that.
-You just got me, or you just gooed me.
-I gooed you?
I need some cleaner now.
Disinfect that.
I don’t know what Caveman’s got,
but I don’t want it.
[tires squealing]
[Tony] Oh, whoa!
Hey, did you bring us a pizza
in that thing?
Hey, that thing’s cute, man.
I didn’t know that was your style though.
What company are you interning at?
I just got it for him. He’s gonna
commute to work in it every day.
[Constance] Oh, that’s so cute!
-Well, we got ourselves a new project.
-This is our project?
Yeah. We just got back from a winery.
So I’m hooked up with these guys
that actually own a vineyard.
[Mark laughing]
That’s it, huh? A smart car.
They need something small and nimble to go
up and down the aisles of the vineyard.
We’ll just probably get into
widening out the fenders.
Lift it up in the air a bit
so you got some clearance.
Give it a little wider stance so it’s
a little stabler than it is right now.
We’ve just got to address the loud factor.
It has to be loud.
We’ll give you some racket.
[Shawn]
Our normal business is upgrade and trade.
But since that sometimes takes,
like, three months
to get our first car
to our six-figure car,
we do side work
to get money coming through the door
and into everybody’s pocket.
I’m good with being first to do something
pretty crazy to a smart car.
How much wine did they give you
to sucker you into something like this?
Hey, you know what?
It’s a damn good project.
They want us to make an off-road car out
of it so they can mob around their winery.
So the guys at the winery, they need
something with a lot of ground clearance.
So we’re gonna give this thing
a monster suspension and wheels and tires,
and we’re gonna make this little car
like a big monster truck.
To make it a workhorse on rough terrain,
we’re gonna give it an exoskeleton
and a trailer hitch.
And they pick their grapes at night,
so I want huge LED lights
all the way around this car
so that they have 360 degrees of light.
It’s gonna be a smart car on steroids.
I’m gonna drive this thing.
[Mark] Drive it now.
You can’t drive it later.
And if you break it, you own it.
Get out of my way!
-I’m gonna stand by something steel.
-[Caveman] Whoo!
[Shawn] Please don’t break it.
What is wrong with you?
[Mark] Hey, dude, don’t hit the welder.
[Caveman] Hey, wait!
[laughing]
The turning radius on this thing sucks!
At least it’s got good brakes.
[Caveman] Oh, look! Oh!
Yay!
[Mark] All right, stay back.
[Tony] You’re lining up to crash.
Stop, stop, stop, stop. Out.
[all laughing]
[Mark]
You’re scaring the [bleep] out of me.
If you guys can get it up on the lift,
then we’ll start blowing it apart.
-Just get it on there.
-I gotta be careful about taking it apart?
-I-- You don’t touch it till I get back.
-[Caveman laughs]
So what is it? You want me to rack it?
Not touch it? What?
What? [sighs]
Caveman.
Yes?
-Don’t blow ass right here.
-[Caveman laughs]
[Mark] So on the ’64 T-Bird,
now we’re gonna start on the hard part,
which is the fabrication
of all the sheet metal.
This is the part that makes
Gotham Garage stand out more
than all the other shops that are around.
We actually build the panels
from a flat piece of steel.
This is like the old days,
back in the ’20s and the ’30s
when cars were actually built
by human hands.
They weren’t stamped-out forms.
The master right here.
It’s amazing watching him work.
The way things go off of his head,
I don’t know.
-I wanna get in and do what he does…
-[man] Yeah.
…other than just being a wrench.
[Mark] If I can make it, I make it.
If Tony can help me fabricate it,
Tony and I fabricate it.
If it’s beyond my capabilities,
then I just hand it off to Tony
because he can go to the technical side
and make something with a machine.
My medicine
that helps me get through all of this
is Constance, Tony, and Caveman.
They’re the glue
that sticks all this together.
So now all we have to do
is spot-welding this all back together,
and then grind it all down.
And then we can move on
to the windshields.
So knock yourself out.
I’ll see you when you’re done welding.
All right. Next week sometime.
We have two builds right now,
so I’m gonna divide and conquer.
Constance and Tony,
they’re gonna go work on the Thunderbird,
which is our trade-up car.
Caveman and I are gonna work
on our quick flip, which is the smart car.
[hydraulics whirring]
Let’s get this little car torn apart.
The smart car being a client build,
when it leaves the shop,
it has to look like
a Gotham Garage build 100 percent.
[Caveman] Here, slide it to me this way.
[Mark] We’re trying to get into this group
of winery guys to get a new client base.
They expect it to be over the top.
That’s what I do.
Oh, look at this cute little front end.
Reminds me of my son’s Bigfoot
when he was little.
Here. Let me grab-- Grab this.
Let me grab your shocks with these.
-No.
-Give it a squeeze.
-But you got something bigger now.
-The tool’s bigger than the car.
Like, whoever built this car
had three fingers and a half a thumb
so they could get
their little hoof in there, like,
“Hey, you wanna be a smart car mechanic?
Let me see your hands. Put your hand out.”
Whack, whack.
“You don’t need that. It’s in the way.”
-It’s an Oompa Loompa car, right?
-They got tired of working for candy.
Yeah.
[Mark] I’m a hot rod guy.
I like carburetors and the smell of gas.
This is not that car.
This is a computer-driven mini German car.
This is going to be a huge challenge,
but I like a challenge.
[motor whines]
You can tell it’s a Mercedes. It’s got
100 bolts holding in a piece of plastic.
That’s interesting,
how that brake’s put on there.
Huh. So when you get the first time
on a vehicle like this,
where I’ve never seen one, never
touched one, never tried to work on one.
They’ve got ten pounds of [bleep]
in a five-pound bag underneath here.
It’s so confusing because it really is
new technology in a different way.
I’m kinda curious how this shock works,
and I’m, like, really lost.
Every one component
seems to have ten different functions.
Oh, it’s a cap plate.
Plastic cover?
I was gonna say what the hell.
I’m like, “How do you get the bolt out?”
So, basically,
I’m an analog person in a digital world.
Apparently,
the smart car is outsmarting both of us.
[both laughing]
So, to make this little smart car
a badass smart car,
we gotta rip out the suspension
and put in a more aggressive suspension.
We’re going out here
with a big tire with aggressive tread.
Then we’re gonna go through the wiring
and we’re pulling out everything
we don’t need for tough off-road driving.
We’re not worried about the e-brake cable
right now, right?
-What do you need an e-brake for?
-Right. It’s an off-road vehicle now.
Don’t need an emergency brake. There’s
no emergency when you’re off-roading.
[Mark] Then we’ll replace the shocks,
tires and wheels with oversize parts
that can handle this tough,
rugged vineyard terrain.
Oh, my God! Yeah!
You can so tell it’s lifted,
it’s unbelievable.
[Caveman]
We gotta go find a smart car dealership
and ask if we can get an oil change.
[laughs] [Mark]
Tell ’em the alignment feels a little off.
After seeing the tires go on, it just--
Everything is coming together.
Now I want to hurry up and finish it.
[Mark] So, get your helmet on.
-All right, we have drive.
-[beeping]
I think it’s a go.
I think we have a green light.
[beeping]
[Mark] What the hell is wrong?
[beeping]
It’s not staying in drive.
I have absolutely nothing.
There it is in park.
I get the “P.” It “P’s” good.
Apparently, we did something
with all of the sensors and the wires
that are connected
to its electronic brain.
We’re now giving it a meltdown.
What I was kinda reading, it said stop,
turn the key off for 30 seconds.
[Mark] Turn the key off 30 seconds.
This is funny. We’re in this lifted
smart car [bleep] reading a book.
[laughing]
It says, “Press the brake pedal,
restart the engine.
Three bars instead of a ‘P’
after an unsuccessful teaching--
Three bars instead of a ‘P’
appear in the multi-function display.”
[Mark] We’re gonna go back to the shop.
We have modified this car so much,
and we have disconnected so much
and rerouted so much, that
it can’t handle what we’ve done to it.
And so now it has a problem.
We’ve obviously not put something back
that this car needs to read
in order for the tranny
to shift correctly.
[Caveman] It says here, the speed sensor
controls the transmission.
Did we hook up the speed sensor?
[Mark] It goes backwards great.
[Shawn] Mark sent Constance and I
to go pick up a 302 motor for the T-Bird,
which I did.
In the process, I happened to pick up
a killer deal on the car that it came in.
-I’ll just take the whole thing for 42.
-You can drive this outta here.
-I’m gonna shake your hand on that.
-Cool.
I can’t pass that up.
[horn honks]
[Shawn laughs]
-[Mark chuckles]
-[horn honks]
So-- So, whose-- whose thing is this?
[Shawn] Just what the doctor ordered.
Ford 302
backed up
with a three-speed automatic transmission. [Constance] It’s super clean,
it’s ready to go. We can pop it right out.
What would we normally pay?
25, maybe 23 for this setup?
Yes.
I got it with the handsome carrying case
for a measly little figure of 4,200 bucks.
So you spent twice as much money.
He does this to me all the time.
Send him out to get a motor, I get my 302
and my transmission
and four wheels and a T-bucket,
and a whole bunch of [bleep]
I can’t use right now.
-I knew he loved me.
-You’re in trouble.
-[Constance] It’s what he wanted.
-Get the door for me.
[hydraulics whirring]
That’s hilarious
that it’s this little wire.
If that’s all, but--
That’s all it’s gonna be.
It’s just, it can’t read the wheel speed.
-You think that--
-I think this will fix it.
I’m pretty confident.
-That’s what those holes were for.
-That’s why I put them there.
I knew that’s what you put them there for.
That’s that. And down it goes.
[Caveman] All right.
It already feels better.
[Caveman] All right,
take it for a spin in the parking lot.
Ooh! We get it? We get it?
Yeah, we got it!
Now come back! Let’s mount that baby!
Let’s go for a ride!
[beeping]
Oh. No?
I thought that was it.
[Mark] No, I-- I’m--
Might as well clean the windshield
while I’m standing here.
Because humans have gotten
so stupid over the years,
they make the cars shut themselves down-- -I can fix it.
-I’m ready.
I want Thor. Go get me Thor.
I want the big hammer.
[Caveman] Okay.
-So, okay, so start--
-Where’s the self-destruct button at?
“Do not continue to drive.
Turn off engine.
Engage parking brake.
Contact roadside assistance.”
[Mark]
I’m not contacting roadside assistance.
I’m just reading the book.
[Mark] You know what?
We put speed sensors on it.
It should work better, not worse.
I know right now it seems
like this little car is kicking my ass.
Eventually, I will win.
If I have to put a rubber band in there
and you have to push the car backwards
to make it go forward, I will do that.
Whatever it takes,
this car will see the dirt.
It will get airborne, dirty, muddy,
and I will beat it into submission.
[hydraulics whirring]
-What’d you learn from your little book?
-This?
I mean, yeah. It’s worth that much?
You know, it’s not telling me anything--
anything we haven’t tried.
Yeah, well, I think we should
just do the old-school start at the front
and figure out,
did we forget to connect something?
Is there something
that got disconnected on accident?
Did we cut a wire?
Did we weld through a wire?
Yeah. A million different things.
So, this was supposed to be one of those
down and dirty, make a quick 16 grand,
no big deal--
I have a feeling I’m gonna be in a field
with a little head flashlight on
picking grapes to pay for my mistake.
I’m not seeing any damage
to any of this front.
That’s all good. Let’s go to the back.
What is this?
That’s the motor.
They put everything back here.
It’s so tiny, it’s like one big piece.
So what else got ripped off,
or did we not connect back here?
-Hey.
-What?
[Mark] The ABS sensor
is not hooked up to the wheel.
Well, I’m hoping that that’s what’s
screwing up this whole program back here.
One stupid little sensor that goes
on a wheel that’s not connected.
Plug this ABS sensor back in,
see what happens.
Apparently,
the smart car has a two-for-one deal.
Their anti-lock brake sensor
is actually the speed sensor.
ABS stands for
the anti-lock braking system.
That should not keep the car
from moving forward.
All right, got my fighter helmet.
[Caveman laughs]
[Mark] One more time.
This car will not win.
None of these cars will ever win.
-Everything feel good?
-[Caveman] Wheels are still on.
[Mark] Ignition on.
I have a “D” for drive.
[Caveman] We haven’t had that in a while.
Let’s rock and roll!
[Mark] Let’s go. [Caveman] Go!
-Ooh! Ooh!
-[Mark] Moving.
[Caveman] It’s moving!
[Mark] All we have to do is get 2nd gear.
We get into 2nd gear, we’re golden.
-[Caveman] Damn! Damn, it’s going!
-[Mark] Brother, it’s working.
-It’s working!
-It’s working.
[Mark] Let’s get the lights
and the exoskeleton on this thing
so we can finally be done with it.
But first, I’m gonna check on Tony
and the ’64 Thunderbird.
[Tony] Here. Check this out real quick.
-Which one’s the exhaust?
-[Tony] This one right here.
What I wanna do is off the edge, following
the line of the body up and down.
I’m gonna stack up some rings
and space ’em out,
but make the exhaust come through that.
So I’ve got this big four-inch tip,
and I wanna--
-Just the tip, just to see how it feels?
-I just wanna put the tip in.
-Nothing more. Just the tip.
-That’s all you wanna put in?
-So it’ll be--
-Just to see how it looks, right?
Yeah. It’ll be a series of rings
that are all holes that the tip is inside.
Behind your tip
you wanna put some rings on it.
Yeah. On the other side of the tip we’ll
have the whole exhaust shaft welded to it.
The whole shaft will come. Then you’ll
have a shaft and some rings and a tip.
And then it’ll look like a little jet pack
coming off the outside.
[Mark] That’ll be badass, bro.
This little smart car,
it’s finally coming together.
We’re gonna complete it
by wrapping it with the Doffo logo, so that they can have a driving billboard
anywhere they go.
Then we’re gonna put
this exoskeleton on it.
It’s gonna lend itself to attaching
anything they want to this little car,
including some giant LED bars
so they can pick their grapes at night.
This car has been a huge pain in my ass,
but I’m kind digging how it’s turning out.
No one’s gonna mistake this car
for a regular smart car.
It’s a really badass off-road machine.
[laughing]
-[man 1] They’re sneaking out on us.
-[man 2] Oh, my God.
-How you doing? Good to see you.
-Good to see you.
-Look at that.
-[Shawn] There it is.
-[Mark] This is it.
-[man 1] Oh, wow.
[laughing]
-[man 1] I love it.
-[man 2] Bitchin’.
-[laughing]
-[Mark] That’s a smart car on steroids.
-How cool is that?
-Yeah, that’s awesome.
-That’s super cool.
-Does it scream “I can go pick grapes”?
These are awesome.
[Mark] Got the hitch, got the spare tire.
Got a can for gas, a fire extinguisher.
The lights,
you can see ’em in the daylight.
And the shovel for digging out if you
need to. Hopefully, you’ll never need to.
[man 2] It’s ridiculous. I love it.
[Shawn] That look great or what?
[laughing]
[man 2] Oh, it’s awesome. [laughing]
-Shall we?
-[Shawn] Yes, you shall.
[man 2] Just don’t hit any vineyard posts.
[Mark] Safety first, right?
[men laughing]
[man 1] Ah.
[Shawn] There they are. Yeah!
I can see a smile.
-[Shawn] So, how’d it feel?
-[Mark] Well?
-[man 1] Beautiful.
-Wow!
The smart car budget was $16,000.
We spent $10,000,
leaving us with a $6,000 profit.
But learning how to work on a smart car:
priceless.
The ride is actually surprisingly good.
And you guys look good in that thing.
So we’re pretty happy
the way things turned out here, so--
The Doffos are happy with it.
-Nicely done.
-Glad you’re happy, man.
-Thank you. Thank you.
-Pleasure.
But that’s what happens
when a fly goes into your mouth
when you’re talking.
What is--
Even the fly knows
when you’re talking [bleep]
Somebody got a mint?
[Mark]
That retrorocket futuristic Thunderbird
is now turning out exactly
how it looked in my mind when I started.
One, two, three.
Go ahead and set it down real slow,
Constance.
It’s not done yet, but it’s really close.
It’s actually coming to fruition.
-[Constance] Connect this back--
-[Tony] Oh, beer time.
[Constance] Oh, what?
Thanks, brother.
-Thank you.
-[Mark] You’re welcome.
I want it.
This thing is gonna be blinding
running down the freeway.
[Mark] That’s the best part of it all.
It’s just gonna-- Middle of the day,
sunlight poppin’, it’s just gonna glow.
I wish we could keep ’em all.
I’d love to just have a collection of a
warehouse full of every car that we build.
Not me. I’d rather have the money
and build something new,
and then give it to the next guy and build
something new, give it to the next guy.
’Cause I wanna get on
to this truck that Shawn found.
He says it’s a pretty cool project,
which is what we like.
It’s a never-ending saga, right?
[Caveman] Right.
-One more car down, one more car to start.
-[Caveman laughs]
What would you do if there wasn’t
a new project coming in the door?
I’d have to get a real job.
Yeah, yeah.
Have to get a haircut and get a real job.
[all laughing]
[Mark] So the biggest challenge with
putting chrome wrap on a vehicle is,
the bodywork has to be
pretty much perfect bodywork.
It’s the same stuff
they put on Lamborghinis and Ferraris
and all the high-end cars.
If it’s not perfect and flawless,
you’re going to see every little flaw
and every single imperfection.
The chrome
let me take this Thunderbird from 1964
and bring it into the present.
And now I can put it back in 1964
where it belongs.
[engine roars]
[Mark] This ’64 Thunderbird
is the definition of Gotham Garage.
Everybody put their blood, sweat,
and tears into this car
to make this silver rocket ship a reality.
Admittedly, on this project
I went extremely overboard
and cut the roof off of it.
We sheet-metaled in the entire back seat.
We put wraparound
aircraft windshields on it,
18-inch smoothie wheels,
and then we had the audacity
to wrap it in chrome.
So when you’re sitting
in the driver’s seat of this car,
you already feel like you’re in an
aircraft and a time machine of some sort.
You know this car will haul ass.
You can drive it down the road at 160
if you want to, but you don’t.
You just lay back and cruise.
This car comes from the era
of when I was a kid,
and now I get to play with it as an adult.
You just get lost in the car itself.
You get lost in time.
That’s what makes this a time machine,
because it sends you back into 1964.
The connection of this car is really cool.
It brings a childhood dream of wanting
to be an astronaut and fly to the moon.
I can now do that.
I’m not really going to the moon,
but it sure feels like it
when I’m mobbin’ this thing
down the highway.
[Shawn] Right now we’ve spent $15,000
in order to get the T-Bird to this point.
-Which, if we sold it, we can get $30,000.
-[cash register dings]
But instead, we’re trading it
for a ’70 Chevy Fleetside truck
that could put us north of $70,000
when it’s done.
Then we’ve set ourselves up
for that six-figure payday.
How did you meet this guy Mike?
Oh, just another one of my connections.
I mean, he’s a car guy.
This guy’s been building cars for a while.
He’s got an old ’50s Merc all flamed out.
-He built that and another couple of cars.
-Yeah.
And it’s just a project
he kind of got stale on.
He wants something done,
so we’ll give him something done.
[Mark] So you know what street it is?
[Shawn] Yeah. It’s right down here.
-[Mark] Right down here.
-[Shawn] Right down here.
[horn honks]
[Mark] All righty. Let’s go meet the man. -Holy [bleep]
-[Shawn] Mike, buddy.
-Geez, Shawn.
-[Mark] Shiny enough?
[Shawn] Mike, what’s going on?
This is Mark.
[Mark] How you doing? Good to meet you.
-Wow.
-Here it is.
[Shawn] You’ll need your sunglasses.
[Mike]
I’ve never seen anything like this before.
[Mark] Yeah?
-Think Mike’s smiling?
-I think Mike is smiling.
I think we should get it off the trailer
so that Mike can really be smiling.
Right now I’m looking at Mike and his
reaction to the car, and he’s diggin’ it.
It makes me feel good when
somebody appreciates the amount of work
and time and effort
that we all put into our cars,
and that my idea and my vision of
this Jetson car was spot-on for this guy.
[engine starts]
-[Mark] You look like it fits.
-[Shawn] Yeah.
-You look like it fits, man.
-You’re a natural in here.
-Feel free to rev it up a little bit.
-Get that Cherry Bomb going.
-There you go.
-[engine revs]
-There you go.
-There you go.
Yeah.
-[Shawn] Are you in love?
-I love it.
Heck yeah, he’s lovin’ it.
-Can’t wait. Here’s your keys.
-[Mark] All right.
Let’s go take a look
at what we traded it for.
There you go.
You’re gonna be pleasantly surprised
when we get in the garage too.
-[Shawn] Heck yeah.
-[Mark] I’m hoping.
Let’s take a look
at this beautiful truck in here.
[Mike] What do you think?
[Mark] Don’t take this personal.
This is not intended to you.
This is intended
to my redheaded stepchild over here.
Seriously?
Where’s the complete truck?
When we use the word “complete,”
it means that it’s actually together.
“Car in parts”
is completely different than “complete.”
-It’s all here, right? All the pieces?
-[Mike] It’s all around here.
[Mark] I mean, I see--
I’m seeing it’s really all around here.
Right now, Fleetsides are super desirable.
This has a potential to bring us 70 grand
when we’re done with it.
But I’m extremely frustrated
with Shawn right now.
It’s just a ton of work.
It’s weeks to put this back together,
if everything fits.
[Shawn]
Mike put a ton of money in this thing.
Mike, show him what you got in the box.
[Mark] Yeah, I saw
the FAST Fuel right there.
-[Mike] This is the other end.
-[Mark] I was hoping you had it.
-’Cause this little piece of jewelry--
-That was a big nut to crack.
Yeah. That’s five to eight grand with
all of it, whether you got a deal or not.
I didn’t see it at first,
but now as I’m going through this stuff,
he really has hit the nail on the head.
So I like the fact
that you’ve done the center console.
All the work’s pretty wicked in here. It’s
already got the shifter mounted in it.
I like the fact
that it has a Corvette rear end in it.
It’s all quality parts.
There’s no cheeseball going on back here.
So all of those pieces equate to
$40,000, $50,000 in parts on the ground,
not including his labor
that he’s already spent on it.
And the Bird’s worth 30 grand.
So if I’m trading 30 grand for 50 grand,
that’s a pretty smart trade.
So I will say, Mike,
you’ve done some really good work.
This is the way cars are
supposed to be made. It’s “custom” custom.
So you’re saying you like it.
I knew he’d like it.
I’m saying that any parts that are missing
are coming out of your hide, Shawn.
-I was afraid he was gonna say mine.
-[Mark] No.
Shawn,
this’ll be the one time you get dirty,
’cause you’re loading this whole thing
on that trailer while I sit in the truck.
Get the paperwork,
give him the other paperwork.
We’re gonna find all the parts.
We’ll get everything for you.
That was an amazing trade
for us to take the T-Bird
and take it up one more level
to the ’70 Fleetside,
which is much more valuable.
You can explain that to Constance,
Caveman, and Tony.
-Knock yourself out. See how that flies.
-They need something to do.
You’re the one always bitchin’ about
how long it takes me to do stuff
and how much more work
I’m gonna put into it.
I have to put more work into it
just to get to the point
so I can put more work into it.
-The amount of work--
-That’s twice the work.
The amount of work
that’s gonna get put into this truck--
Twice the work.
[Mark] You know that story about
the kid who started with a red paper clip
and traded it up 14 times
until he got a house?
Here at Gotham Garage,
we use the same “upgrade and trade” model,
but it’s ten times harder
and we make a lot more money.
The game is to start with something
that costs about $500 to $1,000.
Then I turn it into a cool car.
Then I take that cool car
and I trade it for a badass car,
put the Gotham Garage stamp on it.
Then I take that badass car,
and I’ll turn it into a ride
that I can sell for six figures.
And then I go all the way back
to the beginning and start all over again.
[power tools buzz]
[machinery rivets]
[engine starts]
[groans]
-Hey, hey.
-[Mark] All right, you guys.
-[Constance] What is that?
-[Caveman] It’s a parts car, right?
[Mark] No, it’s not a parts car.
This little jewel is our next project. The
beautiful thing is we’re not painting it.
-Not painting it?
-[Mark] We’re not painting it.
-We’re chroming the whole car.
-You’re gonna chrome the car?
We’re gonna have it chrome-wrapped
so it looks like a jet.
Mark, he’s smart and talented.
The ideas he can pull out of his head,
I’ve never worked with
anybody like this guy.
[Mark] Regular builds and restorations,
it bores me.
Anybody can do that.
That’s not what I do.
I’m an outside-of-the-box builder.
I once used a toilet-bowl ring to seal
a rocket tube on the back of a jet car.
It’s all about fixing problems in
a different way. You gotta get creative.
I wanna take this car from the future
and take it back to the past
and make a space-age looking
rocket-style car out of it.
In 1955, Ford introduced their Thunderbird
as their first true sports car.
It was a huge success for them
and instantly became iconic.
The Beach Boys wrote a song about it.
Even JFK used more than 50 of ’em
in his inauguration parade.
And then in 1964,
they screwed it up and made this box.
It’s just a giant shoebox.
This car is not desirable,
and that’s why we’re picking one up
for just a thousand bucks.
[Tony] It’s a ’64.
I like ’em when they’re finished out,
but they don’t bring a ton of money.
These are not big-money cars,
and I see a lot of work.
-I don’t know we’re gonna get our return.
-[Mark] That’ll be Shawn’s problem.
We’re all trying to get to the six-figure
car. This is just one of those steps.
Everything’s a step. You gotta
walk up the steps to get to the landing.
Trust me, you guys.
Have I ever misled you guys?
-[Tony] Well, I mean--
-[Caveman] You want an honest answer?
-[Mark] No.
-[all laughing]
[Mark] The reason it works
with everybody that’s involved in the shop
is because everybody here
has skin in the game.
When we do those big payout cars,
everybody gets their big piece of the pie.
Well, all in all, I think we got a plan,
so let’s just get to it.
You guys know what to do.
We can make
the most badass ride on the planet,
but if Shawn’s got no one to trade it to,
we’re dead in the water.
If you look at the board,
we can do this truck, and then
that gets us over to the Goat over here.
[Mark] He’s just this madman.
He knows everyone
in the automotive community.
He knows a guy, and if he don’t know
the guy, his guy knows a guy.
One trade doesn’t get you anywhere.
You gotta do multiple trades.
[Mark]
Shawn is the best wheeler-dealer there is.
People like him
because he doesn’t take himself seriously.
He’s always got an angle.
He’s always coming at you from the side. But he’s always joking.
He makes you feel good about yourself.
You have to be that way
to be successful in this business model.
[Shawn] Oh, man, we get that,
oh, we could--
Oh, we could--
Oh, we could put that together.
Boom, we’re in business.
You’re like a squirrel with a bag of nuts.
Just dumb it down for me.
[Shawn] All right,
let me put this into perspective
with what we got going on
in the shop right now.
We picked up a ratty old Thunderbird
for a thousand bucks.
We’re gonna fix that T-Bird up
and make it one badass car
worth $30,000 to $35,000.
-[cash register dings]
-I think we could trade that T-Bird
for that Chevy Fleetside pickup
I’ve had my eye on.
The guy’s tired of working on it,
and his wife wants it out of the garage.
[tires squealing]
[Mark] And after we put some work into it,
that Fleetside will be worth about 70K.
Then what?
[Shawn] We’ll be able to trade it up
for that rare Zephyr. [Mark] And once we’re done with that,
we’re into the six figures.
[Shawn] That’s how we turn
a thousand bucks into well over 100,000.
So what is the grand, glorious scheme
of your POS here?
We’re gonna cut this roof off right here,
flush with the lid.
Whichever direction works best,
just cut it off.
If you have to cut it twice and grind it,
cut it twice and grind it.
I just want the entire roof off the car.
So I have to think how I’m gonna make this
valuable to the person we’re trading with.
The guy we’re trading it with
grew up in the ’60s,
so we’re gonna have to give it
that nostalgic feel.
The space race, the man on the moon,
where we were going,
where technology was headed.
This needs to be a shiny,
rocket-style car.
We’re gonna replace the windshield
with twin wraparound canopies,
just like a fighter jet,
and retain that rocket-age look.
We’re also gonna
turn this car into a two-seater,
but we’re gonna do it Gotham Garage style.
We’re gonna take the back seat
and move it into the front seat.
Our buyer grew up in the ’60s,
and he was dreaming of space and rockets.
This is gonna tap into exactly that.
[power tools buzz]
We are good to go.
Ah! Ah!
There is no way I could build the cars
that I build without the crew that I have.
Constance, she’s one of the best
motor girls I’ve ever seen.
Tony, he’s a machinist, he’s an engineer.
Then there’s Caveman.
He can rip anything apart,
and he can put it back together.
Ah! Yeah, it’s off!
Ah! [Tony] I guess we’re not using
that again, huh?
[Constance] I was gonna say.
-Ready?
-[Tony] Let’s go.
[Mark] I left Constance
to deal with the motor in the Thunderbird.
That girl knows how to put a motor
together. She knows how to tear one down.
[Tony] We’re out.
I guarantee this has been sitting
for the last 20 years.
At least. It’s pretty rusty.
What do you think it is? Didn’t they have
a 390 or something like that?
Yeah, they did. I mean--
[Tony] I don’t even know
what else they put in these.
Like a 427, but super rare.
I’ve been working on cars
since I can even remember, I think.
My dad had me in a race car
very early in life,
and I spent most of my childhood
at the racetrack,
and the weekdays were spent in the shop.
I’ve done drift racing and drag racing,
and kind of always
gravitated back to build.
I like working on engines.
That’s what I love to do.
What do you think we should do
with this motor, in your opinion?
I mean, to be honest, everything on here
is just completely rusted.
The lifters don’t even move anymore.
We even tried to crank it over,
and it’s solid.
You’re better off getting something new.
So we’ll just use it for a boat anchor.
It’s probably gonna pull
the whole boat under, but--
-Yeah.
-[laughing]
I’d rather just go get something else,
get Shawn to find something else.
-Something running.
-Whatever. What do you think it should be?
I personally like, like a 302.
-I think that’d be perfect for this car.
-I’m good with that.
So I guess I’ll have to get Shawn
after finding something real fast.
Ford came out with the 302 in the ’60s.
It’s great for a lot of applications.
They used it in the Le Mans races.
It says a lot
about what that motor is capable of.
Because it’s small, it fits
in a lot of different engine compartments,
which makes it really easy
for how we’re using it in the Thunderbird.
We’re gonna make this car fast, and now
we’re gonna be able to make it stop.
[groaning]
[Tony laughing]
Yeah!
[Mark] Caveman is one of the most
appropriately named human beings
that I know.
There we go. I didn’t have a rock.
[Mark] Engines, cars, suspensions,
you name it.
If you can put a wrench on it,
he knows how to make it work.
I guess when they invented wrenches, he
dropped his club and picked up a wrench.
There it is.
Such a mess.
Look at all that rust and dirt and grime.
Yeah.
Don’t forget the blood.
And blood. It now has blood.
That’s the same color
we’re doing the interior.
-Oh, yeah?
-It is.
Do I got lobster blood? Lobster blood.
Oh [bleep] man.
Don’t do that.
-You just got me, or you just gooed me.
-I gooed you?
I need some cleaner now.
Disinfect that.
I don’t know what Caveman’s got,
but I don’t want it.
[tires squealing]
[Tony] Oh, whoa!
Hey, did you bring us a pizza
in that thing?
Hey, that thing’s cute, man.
I didn’t know that was your style though.
What company are you interning at?
I just got it for him. He’s gonna
commute to work in it every day.
[Constance] Oh, that’s so cute!
-Well, we got ourselves a new project.
-This is our project?
Yeah. We just got back from a winery.
So I’m hooked up with these guys
that actually own a vineyard.
[Mark laughing]
That’s it, huh? A smart car.
They need something small and nimble to go
up and down the aisles of the vineyard.
We’ll just probably get into
widening out the fenders.
Lift it up in the air a bit
so you got some clearance.
Give it a little wider stance so it’s
a little stabler than it is right now.
We’ve just got to address the loud factor.
It has to be loud.
We’ll give you some racket.
[Shawn]
Our normal business is upgrade and trade.
But since that sometimes takes,
like, three months
to get our first car
to our six-figure car,
we do side work
to get money coming through the door
and into everybody’s pocket.
I’m good with being first to do something
pretty crazy to a smart car.
How much wine did they give you
to sucker you into something like this?
Hey, you know what?
It’s a damn good project.
They want us to make an off-road car out
of it so they can mob around their winery.
So the guys at the winery, they need
something with a lot of ground clearance.
So we’re gonna give this thing
a monster suspension and wheels and tires,
and we’re gonna make this little car
like a big monster truck.
To make it a workhorse on rough terrain,
we’re gonna give it an exoskeleton
and a trailer hitch.
And they pick their grapes at night,
so I want huge LED lights
all the way around this car
so that they have 360 degrees of light.
It’s gonna be a smart car on steroids.
I’m gonna drive this thing.
[Mark] Drive it now.
You can’t drive it later.
And if you break it, you own it.
Get out of my way!
-I’m gonna stand by something steel.
-[Caveman] Whoo!
[Shawn] Please don’t break it.
What is wrong with you?
[Mark] Hey, dude, don’t hit the welder.
[Caveman] Hey, wait!
[laughing]
The turning radius on this thing sucks!
At least it’s got good brakes.
[Caveman] Oh, look! Oh!
Yay!
[Mark] All right, stay back.
[Tony] You’re lining up to crash.
Stop, stop, stop, stop. Out.
[all laughing]
[Mark]
You’re scaring the [bleep] out of me.
If you guys can get it up on the lift,
then we’ll start blowing it apart.
-Just get it on there.
-I gotta be careful about taking it apart?
-I-- You don’t touch it till I get back.
-[Caveman laughs]
So what is it? You want me to rack it?
Not touch it? What?
What? [sighs]
Caveman.
Yes?
-Don’t blow ass right here.
-[Caveman laughs]
[Mark] So on the ’64 T-Bird,
now we’re gonna start on the hard part,
which is the fabrication
of all the sheet metal.
This is the part that makes
Gotham Garage stand out more
than all the other shops that are around.
We actually build the panels
from a flat piece of steel.
This is like the old days,
back in the ’20s and the ’30s
when cars were actually built
by human hands.
They weren’t stamped-out forms.
The master right here.
It’s amazing watching him work.
The way things go off of his head,
I don’t know.
-I wanna get in and do what he does…
-[man] Yeah.
…other than just being a wrench.
[Mark] If I can make it, I make it.
If Tony can help me fabricate it,
Tony and I fabricate it.
If it’s beyond my capabilities,
then I just hand it off to Tony
because he can go to the technical side
and make something with a machine.
My medicine
that helps me get through all of this
is Constance, Tony, and Caveman.
They’re the glue
that sticks all this together.
So now all we have to do
is spot-welding this all back together,
and then grind it all down.
And then we can move on
to the windshields.
So knock yourself out.
I’ll see you when you’re done welding.
All right. Next week sometime.
We have two builds right now,
so I’m gonna divide and conquer.
Constance and Tony,
they’re gonna go work on the Thunderbird,
which is our trade-up car.
Caveman and I are gonna work
on our quick flip, which is the smart car.
[hydraulics whirring]
Let’s get this little car torn apart.
The smart car being a client build,
when it leaves the shop,
it has to look like
a Gotham Garage build 100 percent.
[Caveman] Here, slide it to me this way.
[Mark] We’re trying to get into this group
of winery guys to get a new client base.
They expect it to be over the top.
That’s what I do.
Oh, look at this cute little front end.
Reminds me of my son’s Bigfoot
when he was little.
Here. Let me grab-- Grab this.
Let me grab your shocks with these.
-No.
-Give it a squeeze.
-But you got something bigger now.
-The tool’s bigger than the car.
Like, whoever built this car
had three fingers and a half a thumb
so they could get
their little hoof in there, like,
“Hey, you wanna be a smart car mechanic?
Let me see your hands. Put your hand out.”
Whack, whack.
“You don’t need that. It’s in the way.”
-It’s an Oompa Loompa car, right?
-They got tired of working for candy.
Yeah.
[Mark] I’m a hot rod guy.
I like carburetors and the smell of gas.
This is not that car.
This is a computer-driven mini German car.
This is going to be a huge challenge,
but I like a challenge.
[motor whines]
You can tell it’s a Mercedes. It’s got
100 bolts holding in a piece of plastic.
That’s interesting,
how that brake’s put on there.
Huh. So when you get the first time
on a vehicle like this,
where I’ve never seen one, never
touched one, never tried to work on one.
They’ve got ten pounds of [bleep]
in a five-pound bag underneath here.
It’s so confusing because it really is
new technology in a different way.
I’m kinda curious how this shock works,
and I’m, like, really lost.
Every one component
seems to have ten different functions.
Oh, it’s a cap plate.
Plastic cover?
I was gonna say what the hell.
I’m like, “How do you get the bolt out?”
So, basically,
I’m an analog person in a digital world.
Apparently,
the smart car is outsmarting both of us.
[both laughing]
So, to make this little smart car
a badass smart car,
we gotta rip out the suspension
and put in a more aggressive suspension.
We’re going out here
with a big tire with aggressive tread.
Then we’re gonna go through the wiring
and we’re pulling out everything
we don’t need for tough off-road driving.
We’re not worried about the e-brake cable
right now, right?
-What do you need an e-brake for?
-Right. It’s an off-road vehicle now.
Don’t need an emergency brake. There’s
no emergency when you’re off-roading.
[Mark] Then we’ll replace the shocks,
tires and wheels with oversize parts
that can handle this tough,
rugged vineyard terrain.
Oh, my God! Yeah!
You can so tell it’s lifted,
it’s unbelievable.
[Caveman]
We gotta go find a smart car dealership
and ask if we can get an oil change.
[laughs] [Mark]
Tell ’em the alignment feels a little off.
After seeing the tires go on, it just--
Everything is coming together.
Now I want to hurry up and finish it.
[Mark] So, get your helmet on.
-All right, we have drive.
-[beeping]
I think it’s a go.
I think we have a green light.
[beeping]
[Mark] What the hell is wrong?
[beeping]
It’s not staying in drive.
I have absolutely nothing.
There it is in park.
I get the “P.” It “P’s” good.
Apparently, we did something
with all of the sensors and the wires
that are connected
to its electronic brain.
We’re now giving it a meltdown.
What I was kinda reading, it said stop,
turn the key off for 30 seconds.
[Mark] Turn the key off 30 seconds.
This is funny. We’re in this lifted
smart car [bleep] reading a book.
[laughing]
It says, “Press the brake pedal,
restart the engine.
Three bars instead of a ‘P’
after an unsuccessful teaching--
Three bars instead of a ‘P’
appear in the multi-function display.”
[Mark] We’re gonna go back to the shop.
We have modified this car so much,
and we have disconnected so much
and rerouted so much, that
it can’t handle what we’ve done to it.
And so now it has a problem.
We’ve obviously not put something back
that this car needs to read
in order for the tranny
to shift correctly.
[Caveman] It says here, the speed sensor
controls the transmission.
Did we hook up the speed sensor?
[Mark] It goes backwards great.
[Shawn] Mark sent Constance and I
to go pick up a 302 motor for the T-Bird,
which I did.
In the process, I happened to pick up
a killer deal on the car that it came in.
-I’ll just take the whole thing for 42.
-You can drive this outta here.
-I’m gonna shake your hand on that.
-Cool.
I can’t pass that up.
[horn honks]
[Shawn laughs]
-[Mark chuckles]
-[horn honks]
So-- So, whose-- whose thing is this?
[Shawn] Just what the doctor ordered.
Ford 302
backed up
with a three-speed automatic transmission. [Constance] It’s super clean,
it’s ready to go. We can pop it right out.
What would we normally pay?
25, maybe 23 for this setup?
Yes.
I got it with the handsome carrying case
for a measly little figure of 4,200 bucks.
So you spent twice as much money.
He does this to me all the time.
Send him out to get a motor, I get my 302
and my transmission
and four wheels and a T-bucket,
and a whole bunch of [bleep]
I can’t use right now.
-I knew he loved me.
-You’re in trouble.
-[Constance] It’s what he wanted.
-Get the door for me.
[hydraulics whirring]
That’s hilarious
that it’s this little wire.
If that’s all, but--
That’s all it’s gonna be.
It’s just, it can’t read the wheel speed.
-You think that--
-I think this will fix it.
I’m pretty confident.
-That’s what those holes were for.
-That’s why I put them there.
I knew that’s what you put them there for.
That’s that. And down it goes.
[Caveman] All right.
It already feels better.
[Caveman] All right,
take it for a spin in the parking lot.
Ooh! We get it? We get it?
Yeah, we got it!
Now come back! Let’s mount that baby!
Let’s go for a ride!
[beeping]
Oh. No?
I thought that was it.
[Mark] No, I-- I’m--
Might as well clean the windshield
while I’m standing here.
Because humans have gotten
so stupid over the years,
they make the cars shut themselves down-- -I can fix it.
-I’m ready.
I want Thor. Go get me Thor.
I want the big hammer.
[Caveman] Okay.
-So, okay, so start--
-Where’s the self-destruct button at?
“Do not continue to drive.
Turn off engine.
Engage parking brake.
Contact roadside assistance.”
[Mark]
I’m not contacting roadside assistance.
I’m just reading the book.
[Mark] You know what?
We put speed sensors on it.
It should work better, not worse.
I know right now it seems
like this little car is kicking my ass.
Eventually, I will win.
If I have to put a rubber band in there
and you have to push the car backwards
to make it go forward, I will do that.
Whatever it takes,
this car will see the dirt.
It will get airborne, dirty, muddy,
and I will beat it into submission.
[hydraulics whirring]
-What’d you learn from your little book?
-This?
I mean, yeah. It’s worth that much?
You know, it’s not telling me anything--
anything we haven’t tried.
Yeah, well, I think we should
just do the old-school start at the front
and figure out,
did we forget to connect something?
Is there something
that got disconnected on accident?
Did we cut a wire?
Did we weld through a wire?
Yeah. A million different things.
So, this was supposed to be one of those
down and dirty, make a quick 16 grand,
no big deal--
I have a feeling I’m gonna be in a field
with a little head flashlight on
picking grapes to pay for my mistake.
I’m not seeing any damage
to any of this front.
That’s all good. Let’s go to the back.
What is this?
That’s the motor.
They put everything back here.
It’s so tiny, it’s like one big piece.
So what else got ripped off,
or did we not connect back here?
-Hey.
-What?
[Mark] The ABS sensor
is not hooked up to the wheel.
Well, I’m hoping that that’s what’s
screwing up this whole program back here.
One stupid little sensor that goes
on a wheel that’s not connected.
Plug this ABS sensor back in,
see what happens.
Apparently,
the smart car has a two-for-one deal.
Their anti-lock brake sensor
is actually the speed sensor.
ABS stands for
the anti-lock braking system.
That should not keep the car
from moving forward.
All right, got my fighter helmet.
[Caveman laughs]
[Mark] One more time.
This car will not win.
None of these cars will ever win.
-Everything feel good?
-[Caveman] Wheels are still on.
[Mark] Ignition on.
I have a “D” for drive.
[Caveman] We haven’t had that in a while.
Let’s rock and roll!
[Mark] Let’s go. [Caveman] Go!
-Ooh! Ooh!
-[Mark] Moving.
[Caveman] It’s moving!
[Mark] All we have to do is get 2nd gear.
We get into 2nd gear, we’re golden.
-[Caveman] Damn! Damn, it’s going!
-[Mark] Brother, it’s working.
-It’s working!
-It’s working.
[Mark] Let’s get the lights
and the exoskeleton on this thing
so we can finally be done with it.
But first, I’m gonna check on Tony
and the ’64 Thunderbird.
[Tony] Here. Check this out real quick.
-Which one’s the exhaust?
-[Tony] This one right here.
What I wanna do is off the edge, following
the line of the body up and down.
I’m gonna stack up some rings
and space ’em out,
but make the exhaust come through that.
So I’ve got this big four-inch tip,
and I wanna--
-Just the tip, just to see how it feels?
-I just wanna put the tip in.
-Nothing more. Just the tip.
-That’s all you wanna put in?
-So it’ll be--
-Just to see how it looks, right?
Yeah. It’ll be a series of rings
that are all holes that the tip is inside.
Behind your tip
you wanna put some rings on it.
Yeah. On the other side of the tip we’ll
have the whole exhaust shaft welded to it.
The whole shaft will come. Then you’ll
have a shaft and some rings and a tip.
And then it’ll look like a little jet pack
coming off the outside.
[Mark] That’ll be badass, bro.
This little smart car,
it’s finally coming together.
We’re gonna complete it
by wrapping it with the Doffo logo, so that they can have a driving billboard
anywhere they go.
Then we’re gonna put
this exoskeleton on it.
It’s gonna lend itself to attaching
anything they want to this little car,
including some giant LED bars
so they can pick their grapes at night.
This car has been a huge pain in my ass,
but I’m kind digging how it’s turning out.
No one’s gonna mistake this car
for a regular smart car.
It’s a really badass off-road machine.
[laughing]
-[man 1] They’re sneaking out on us.
-[man 2] Oh, my God.
-How you doing? Good to see you.
-Good to see you.
-Look at that.
-[Shawn] There it is.
-[Mark] This is it.
-[man 1] Oh, wow.
[laughing]
-[man 1] I love it.
-[man 2] Bitchin’.
-[laughing]
-[Mark] That’s a smart car on steroids.
-How cool is that?
-Yeah, that’s awesome.
-That’s super cool.
-Does it scream “I can go pick grapes”?
These are awesome.
[Mark] Got the hitch, got the spare tire.
Got a can for gas, a fire extinguisher.
The lights,
you can see ’em in the daylight.
And the shovel for digging out if you
need to. Hopefully, you’ll never need to.
[man 2] It’s ridiculous. I love it.
[Shawn] That look great or what?
[laughing]
[man 2] Oh, it’s awesome. [laughing]
-Shall we?
-[Shawn] Yes, you shall.
[man 2] Just don’t hit any vineyard posts.
[Mark] Safety first, right?
[men laughing]
[man 1] Ah.
[Shawn] There they are. Yeah!
I can see a smile.
-[Shawn] So, how’d it feel?
-[Mark] Well?
-[man 1] Beautiful.
-Wow!
The smart car budget was $16,000.
We spent $10,000,
leaving us with a $6,000 profit.
But learning how to work on a smart car:
priceless.
The ride is actually surprisingly good.
And you guys look good in that thing.
So we’re pretty happy
the way things turned out here, so--
The Doffos are happy with it.
-Nicely done.
-Glad you’re happy, man.
-Thank you. Thank you.
-Pleasure.
But that’s what happens
when a fly goes into your mouth
when you’re talking.
What is--
Even the fly knows
when you’re talking [bleep]
Somebody got a mint?
[Mark]
That retrorocket futuristic Thunderbird
is now turning out exactly
how it looked in my mind when I started.
One, two, three.
Go ahead and set it down real slow,
Constance.
It’s not done yet, but it’s really close.
It’s actually coming to fruition.
-[Constance] Connect this back--
-[Tony] Oh, beer time.
[Constance] Oh, what?
Thanks, brother.
-Thank you.
-[Mark] You’re welcome.
I want it.
This thing is gonna be blinding
running down the freeway.
[Mark] That’s the best part of it all.
It’s just gonna-- Middle of the day,
sunlight poppin’, it’s just gonna glow.
I wish we could keep ’em all.
I’d love to just have a collection of a
warehouse full of every car that we build.
Not me. I’d rather have the money
and build something new,
and then give it to the next guy and build
something new, give it to the next guy.
’Cause I wanna get on
to this truck that Shawn found.
He says it’s a pretty cool project,
which is what we like.
It’s a never-ending saga, right?
[Caveman] Right.
-One more car down, one more car to start.
-[Caveman laughs]
What would you do if there wasn’t
a new project coming in the door?
I’d have to get a real job.
Yeah, yeah.
Have to get a haircut and get a real job.
[all laughing]
[Mark] So the biggest challenge with
putting chrome wrap on a vehicle is,
the bodywork has to be
pretty much perfect bodywork.
It’s the same stuff
they put on Lamborghinis and Ferraris
and all the high-end cars.
If it’s not perfect and flawless,
you’re going to see every little flaw
and every single imperfection.
The chrome
let me take this Thunderbird from 1964
and bring it into the present.
And now I can put it back in 1964
where it belongs.
[engine roars]
[Mark] This ’64 Thunderbird
is the definition of Gotham Garage.
Everybody put their blood, sweat,
and tears into this car
to make this silver rocket ship a reality.
Admittedly, on this project
I went extremely overboard
and cut the roof off of it.
We sheet-metaled in the entire back seat.
We put wraparound
aircraft windshields on it,
18-inch smoothie wheels,
and then we had the audacity
to wrap it in chrome.
So when you’re sitting
in the driver’s seat of this car,
you already feel like you’re in an
aircraft and a time machine of some sort.
You know this car will haul ass.
You can drive it down the road at 160
if you want to, but you don’t.
You just lay back and cruise.
This car comes from the era
of when I was a kid,
and now I get to play with it as an adult.
You just get lost in the car itself.
You get lost in time.
That’s what makes this a time machine,
because it sends you back into 1964.
The connection of this car is really cool.
It brings a childhood dream of wanting
to be an astronaut and fly to the moon.
I can now do that.
I’m not really going to the moon,
but it sure feels like it
when I’m mobbin’ this thing
down the highway.
[Shawn] Right now we’ve spent $15,000
in order to get the T-Bird to this point.
-Which, if we sold it, we can get $30,000.
-[cash register dings]
But instead, we’re trading it
for a ’70 Chevy Fleetside truck
that could put us north of $70,000
when it’s done.
Then we’ve set ourselves up
for that six-figure payday.
How did you meet this guy Mike?
Oh, just another one of my connections.
I mean, he’s a car guy.
This guy’s been building cars for a while.
He’s got an old ’50s Merc all flamed out.
-He built that and another couple of cars.
-Yeah.
And it’s just a project
he kind of got stale on.
He wants something done,
so we’ll give him something done.
[Mark] So you know what street it is?
[Shawn] Yeah. It’s right down here.
-[Mark] Right down here.
-[Shawn] Right down here.
[horn honks]
[Mark] All righty. Let’s go meet the man. -Holy [bleep]
-[Shawn] Mike, buddy.
-Geez, Shawn.
-[Mark] Shiny enough?
[Shawn] Mike, what’s going on?
This is Mark.
[Mark] How you doing? Good to meet you.
-Wow.
-Here it is.
[Shawn] You’ll need your sunglasses.
[Mike]
I’ve never seen anything like this before.
[Mark] Yeah?
-Think Mike’s smiling?
-I think Mike is smiling.
I think we should get it off the trailer
so that Mike can really be smiling.
Right now I’m looking at Mike and his
reaction to the car, and he’s diggin’ it.
It makes me feel good when
somebody appreciates the amount of work
and time and effort
that we all put into our cars,
and that my idea and my vision of
this Jetson car was spot-on for this guy.
[engine starts]
-[Mark] You look like it fits.
-[Shawn] Yeah.
-You look like it fits, man.
-You’re a natural in here.
-Feel free to rev it up a little bit.
-Get that Cherry Bomb going.
-There you go.
-[engine revs]
-There you go.
-There you go.
Yeah.
-[Shawn] Are you in love?
-I love it.
Heck yeah, he’s lovin’ it.
-Can’t wait. Here’s your keys.
-[Mark] All right.
Let’s go take a look
at what we traded it for.
There you go.
You’re gonna be pleasantly surprised
when we get in the garage too.
-[Shawn] Heck yeah.
-[Mark] I’m hoping.
Let’s take a look
at this beautiful truck in here.
[Mike] What do you think?
[Mark] Don’t take this personal.
This is not intended to you.
This is intended
to my redheaded stepchild over here.
Seriously?
Where’s the complete truck?
When we use the word “complete,”
it means that it’s actually together.
“Car in parts”
is completely different than “complete.”
-It’s all here, right? All the pieces?
-[Mike] It’s all around here.
[Mark] I mean, I see--
I’m seeing it’s really all around here.
Right now, Fleetsides are super desirable.
This has a potential to bring us 70 grand
when we’re done with it.
But I’m extremely frustrated
with Shawn right now.
It’s just a ton of work.
It’s weeks to put this back together,
if everything fits.
[Shawn]
Mike put a ton of money in this thing.
Mike, show him what you got in the box.
[Mark] Yeah, I saw
the FAST Fuel right there.
-[Mike] This is the other end.
-[Mark] I was hoping you had it.
-’Cause this little piece of jewelry--
-That was a big nut to crack.
Yeah. That’s five to eight grand with
all of it, whether you got a deal or not.
I didn’t see it at first,
but now as I’m going through this stuff,
he really has hit the nail on the head.
So I like the fact
that you’ve done the center console.
All the work’s pretty wicked in here. It’s
already got the shifter mounted in it.
I like the fact
that it has a Corvette rear end in it.
It’s all quality parts.
There’s no cheeseball going on back here.
So all of those pieces equate to
$40,000, $50,000 in parts on the ground,
not including his labor
that he’s already spent on it.
And the Bird’s worth 30 grand.
So if I’m trading 30 grand for 50 grand,
that’s a pretty smart trade.
So I will say, Mike,
you’ve done some really good work.
This is the way cars are
supposed to be made. It’s “custom” custom.
So you’re saying you like it.
I knew he’d like it.
I’m saying that any parts that are missing
are coming out of your hide, Shawn.
-I was afraid he was gonna say mine.
-[Mark] No.
Shawn,
this’ll be the one time you get dirty,
’cause you’re loading this whole thing
on that trailer while I sit in the truck.
Get the paperwork,
give him the other paperwork.
We’re gonna find all the parts.
We’ll get everything for you.
That was an amazing trade
for us to take the T-Bird
and take it up one more level
to the ’70 Fleetside,
which is much more valuable.
You can explain that to Constance,
Caveman, and Tony.
-Knock yourself out. See how that flies.
-They need something to do.
You’re the one always bitchin’ about
how long it takes me to do stuff
and how much more work
I’m gonna put into it.
I have to put more work into it
just to get to the point
so I can put more work into it.
-The amount of work--
-That’s twice the work.
The amount of work
that’s gonna get put into this truck--
Twice the work.