Man, what did you get us into now?
Same thing I always get y'all into, right?
-A lot of work. -Exactly.
[Terry] 1952 Chevrolet wrecker,
seventy years old,
it's time to bring it back to life.
Man, this is original as it gets, right?
What we're gonna do is make this a tow truck,
show truck.
This thing is way over kill that you're gonna be needing four hours on this thing.
[Richard] '72 Cuda.
This is badass, you know, every kids dream car.
[Richard] The interior need some work.
There's a lot of parts and pieces
that have to go together for this puzzle to workout.
We're gonna do a rear seat delete in this car.
Don't kill the Cuda.
And it's naturally this color?
It's naturally this color.
Oh, my God!
[Bill] I'm Bill Carlton,
I built my first truck when I was 16,
and ever since
me and my guys have been out here creating with our hands.
Building the biggest, lowest
baddest custom trucks and cars in the game.
People don't come here for what they need.
The come here for what they want.
This is Texas Metal.
-What's happening? -How you doing, Bill?
-Richard, nice to meet you. -Nice to meet you.
-That's a cool looking car, man. -I appreciate it.
'72 Cuda.
Man, you got the, the classic muscle car,
this is badass, you know, every kids dream car.
-Oh, it was mine, it was mine. -Right?
Always liked 'em,
ever since I was little.
My favorite Hot Wheels car.
This is kind of something that you always dream about.
Being able to get your,
the car that you loved as a kid
and build it up and, and make it as
cool or badass as you want it.
How long have you had this?
I've had it for about six months.
That's a cool looking car, man.
I love the stance of it, love the black, of course.
You know, of course, you can always be a little lower,
but that's just me, but--
I understand.
I mean, you had it for about six months,
you're riding around, so runs good, drives good, just,
what's the, what the issue?
Well, the interior needs some work.
It's pretty stock
and not much of it works.
It needs to be, uh, updated.
Driving around on it, the interior kinda makes me
feel like I've had the car since 1972.
So your only issue with is, is just mainly interior.
For now, yes.
-Shoot, let's check it out. -All right.
You know, I definitely see what you're talking about,
I mean, don't get me wrong, this is a good looking car,
I mean, it's in really, really good shape...
-Yeah. -...but, you know, early 70s.
That's true.
-[Bill] Has a lot of plastic. -Yeah.
-[Bill] I mean, same with the door panels, I mean-- -Yeah, the door panels, too.
-Definitely get rid of the, the plastic feel to it. -Yeah.
And just give you some, some modern touches in it.
-Maybe do it in leather or something. -Well, we can.
Maybe a little black and some suede.
I wanna upgrade the whole thing,
but still keep a little bit of the,
the old school muscle car feel.
-Oh, man, most definitely, I totally agree with that. -Um--
Looking in this car, you see
just plastic everywhere.
It does has some style to it,
but for as cool as this car looks,
it could be way, way, way better.
So what's bothering you on the interior?
Really the interior here is,
uh, not enough bucket in the seat.
-You sliding around a little bit? -Little bit.
And I wouldn't replace these buckets,
just maybe reshape 'em a little bit,
change the foam, still have that flow to it,
but just a little more ergonomic...
-[Richard] Yeah. -...more user friendly,
and a lot of style.
And the console, you know, you,
you can't get your elbow on that,
it's, it's worthless
for a armrest.
-Right. -And this whole...
...plastic thing here,
shading over the shifter,
I know it's the classic Cuda thing,
but I'm not really a big fan.
I know exactly what you're looking for.
-Yeah. -Give it some, some style.
-[Richard] Right. -Give it some little more modern
-style to it, but still have that... - [Richard] Right.
...muscle car feel to it.
You know, it's really cool when a person gets to a point in their life
they can afford their dream car,
go back and actually purchase it,
drive your dream around,
and come to a point to come to a custom shop
and really make that dream
just expand and really come true.
If you're ready, man, let's go do some...
-I'm ready, let's go do it. -...do some paperwork.
-Make it official. -[Richard laughs]
This car right now is really, really cool, I mean,
it's a good looking car,
but in this world,
there's always room for improvement.
You know, to a, a custom car guy,
once you drive around in something like this,
once you get used to it,
you're always thinking in the back of your head,
"Hey, it'd be real cool to do this."
Or, "Man, it would be really cool to have this."
We all get it around here.
You want something new,
you want something improved,
you want something that nobody else has.
When you're driving around in your custom car,
what you see most is the interior,
so it just makes total sense.
If you're a car guy,
that's one of the first things you're gonna change, you want that the coolest.
So we're gonna start with the interior of this Cuda.
When it comes to a old muscle car,
making it cool and adding to the style,
that takes a little more thought,
a little more engineering,
a little more
everything to make
a car like this stand out...
...and make it even cooler.
What're we doing, Johnny?
[John] Trying to look at this really nice car and see what's going on.
This is what you think of when you think of old school muscle car.
-[John] Yes, absolutely. -[Bill] This is it.
[John] '72 Cuda.
[Bill] Yeah, man, this thing is cool.
-It had a pretty nice restoration done. -But, you know...
-It's stock, yeah. -[Bill] Custom car guys,
you don't really like stock.
No, it doesn't matter how clean and nice the stock is,
-it's still stock. -Exactly.
That's why he brought it here.
-I'm gonna make it cool, huh? -To make this cool.
-These seats go with this car, go with the style. - [Richard] Right.
[Bill] I think retaining these buckets
in the front will be the way to go.
Yeah, bucket seats are iconic in these old muscle cars,
so we definitely don't wanna take away from that.
-Yeah. - [Bill] Same with the console.
-Cuda's gotta have the buckets with the console. - [Richard] Yes.
-But re-imagine this, man, make it look modern. -Okay.
Okay, come up with something really cool in here,
shape it out,
add into it,
and just work it all up into something new.
-Same with the dash. -[Richard] Okay.
[Bill] You know, this just all looks like a,
just a piece of plastic.
[Richard] We'll do something on the doors
to tie it into the dash, and work our way across,
now I'm in, maybe even all the way into the rear corner,
so everything will tie together and flow,
-and have some really cool lines in. -Exactly.
And you know, Johnny,
no good interior
is done without...
-Audio. -...some audio.
Gotta have it.
All right, so basically, we're just gonna take the inside of this car
and completely re-imagine it
and just give it a whole makeover
and make everything current, new, neat.
But still have that muscle car feel.
I like it, I think it's gonna be cool, man,
this is a badass car.
All right, I know what to do.
-I know you do. -All right.
[John] This guy want something that's more modern and up-to-date in this car,
so we have to get all of this out
and start all the way over from new
because we don't do restorations around here.
Take a little bit of time to get it all apart,
but it's always worth it in the end.
Easy.
Don't kill the car.
Don't kill the Cuda.
It takes a whole toolbox to take this thing apart.
These older cars are kinda more tricky to get apart
because they're just more solidly built,
whereas newer cars, pop a panel off,
couple of screws, and you can just swipe anything off a new car.
That's done and out of the way,
so few more things, and we'll be ready to start building.
And once we have our idea locked in on paper,
then you have to come inside the car
and start putting that idea into real world action,
so I've got this board cut here
just so I can get a straight line across the dash,
it gives me an idea of depth
and where I'm at with parts and pieces in here.
So basically it's just time to sit in here,
take the picture from my head and build all the pieces.
There's a lot of parts and pieces that have to go together
for this puzzle to work out,
so take some time, sit in here,
build it out in my head,
figure out where it's at and what I need,
and go from there, so.
Coming out.
Got an idea,
it's time to make it happen.
This step I'm gonna do
is I'm gonna take a piece of chip board
and start working up a profile of the dash
to give me an idea of my depth
and where everything is gonna need to lay out, so...
...I started getting some roughed in,
and finished working out our idea.
So I think that's gonna be the profile we're gonna work with.
That's what we need.
One of the important things you wanna think about
when you're designing a dash or a console
or anything like that in a car,
any car for that matter, muscle car, new car, old car, it doesn't matter,
any of that, you have to take into consideration
the accessibility, usability,
putting things where you can reach 'em,
you don't have to reach way over,
you wanna keep it functional,
you get things too out of whack,
and it makes it very difficult to drive.
[Bill] That '72 Cuda is just a iconic muscle car.
The trick on this interior is to do a full custom build
while also keeping some of that classic style.
That's what's John is trying to do on this hand built dash.
All right.
This is the last of the ribs.
I'm gonna start laying it out,
get the structure put together,
then we'll start making all the fun bits.
You know, there's a lot of things
that you can appreciate about muscle cars.
The lines,
the stance , the sound,
you know, the pure power of it.
I mean, personally, what brought me into this industry
was mini trucks,
I'll be a mini trucker at heart,
but I can still appreciate on the same token,
the work and the time, the effort
that goes into building
a really nice muscle car, a really nice hot rod.
All right, it's starting to take shape.
This is just gonna be our base, we'll skin this,
this will give us our base to work off of,
then we can add our cluster,
center console, any trim or anything we want,
longer AC vents,
defrost vents,
all that can add, be added in right on top of this, so...
Like I said, we're just working to get the main structure in here,
once we have that, then we can dress it up.
Case in point, the Cuda,
wouldn't be the first thing I'd pick to build,
still it's here,
I'm gonna put my heart and soul into building this car
'cause this is the passion that the customer has, it's for this car,
so just adapt your passions with their passions,
and make it all work together.
You know, looking out in the parking lot,
I see this big old brand new wrecker
with this old,
old, old, wrecker on the back.
-Hey, Bill. -How you doing, man?
-How have you been? -I'm doing all right, man.
What do you got going on here?
[Terry] 1952 Chevrolet wrecker.
-[Bill] Yeah? -Seventy years old,
it's time to bring it back to life.
Where did you come up with this at?
Found this one in Missouri.
Been sitting for the three years in front of my business,
people really stopping by, taking pictures, and looking at it,
so I decided it's time to
bring it to life and, uh,
make it a little shinier, a little prettier,
-and, uh, more drivable. -Right.
Do you know any history on the truck?
[Terry] The truck was basically built as a wrecker new
from Ernest Holmes' factory.
And it's basically still all original,
the way it went off the factory floor,
except for a little extra rust.
[Terry] I came to Ekstensive
and brought my '52 GMC tow truck
for Bill and the guys to do a throw down job
on a tow truck show truck.
I picked the tow truck because I own tow company,
and I three locations and a lot of brand new trucks,
so I'm gonna take this old truck
and bring it close to new as possible
and fit it into our business.
So you wanna take this
antique and just transform it
-into something cool to look at. -Yes, sir.
I wanna drive it anywhere and everywhere.
Starts and runs, motor starts and runs, you can drive it.
-You kidding me. -No, sir.
I wouldn't expect this car to run. [laughs]
-You know what I mean. -Starts and runs.
But, uh, it doesn't start and run the way I want it to.
So, Terry, what do you see in here?
Are you wanting to
keep the patina look, just make it run good or...
No, patina is cool, but I want this thing flashy.
-You want it shine. -I want is shining,
I'm gonna wanna polish it and keep it clean and,
-you know, just really enjoy the-- -You want a new truck.
Yes.
And suspension?
Put it on the ground,
I want it to be down low on the ground.
That's what we do best, man,
it's just rip out all the all suspension
and just start fresh with new, clean frame rails,
and we'll just build everything.
Add air suspension to it, so you get a nice, nice ride quality.
Big four link in the back, so,
you know, you can, we can put as much power as we want to under the hood,
and it'll haul this big heavy truck.
When you leave the car show, you always gotta do a burnout.
-That's right. -Gotta have some horsepower.
We'll leave four black mark behind this sucker.
[Terry] Hot rod six cylinder.
[Bill] Man, straight six,
but I don't know about the hot rod.
[Terry] Probably was 70 years ago,
-definitely not what we need. - [Bill] Right. No.
You got any idea? Do you want gas, diesel...
We're gas.
-You want a gas engine? -Six liter plus, lots of power.
Yeah, for sure, man, so,
you know, taking a late model LT,
putting it down in here
would be the way to go,
that way it's plenty of power, reliable,
and it looks real good when you pop the hood, too.
-'Cause that's bad. -I don't wanna see any of this when I open the hood.
No, no.
100% brand new.
Good deal.
Man,
this is original as it gets, right?
-[Terry] Yes, sir. -[Bill laughs]
I mean, straight '52.
I mean, even-- What is...
That is reflectors that uses flares back in the 50s
to keep cars from hitting them
when they were on the side of the road,
-hooking up a vehicle. -Wow.
There ain't much salvageable in here.
Rip everything a 100% out.
Sounds good, make a lots of room for a big guys.
Talking about throw back in time
looking at this interior,
but every single piece,
every nut, every bolt, every screw
gotta go, it's gonna be a 100% brand new,
and we're gonna have our challenges
to make someone of Terry's size fit in this old truck.
Man, man, man.
[Terry] Looks like a mess.
[Bill] You don't care about any of this?
No, not so much,
I want it to still look like a wrecker
and function to somewhat,
it doesn't have to be exactly like this,
but I still want the wrecker look.
-So we can just rebuild the whole bed if we need to. -Yes, sir.
All right, now, now you're talking.
-Keep the same skin... -Now you're talking
...but just bring it up to today's world.
I know exactly what he wants,
you know, all in all, what we're gonna do is make this...
...a tow truck, show truck.
It's gonna be really, really cool.
Fast, low, and tow.
Terry, man, stuff like this gets me excited, man.
I, I love working on stuff like this.
It's gonna be a cool project.
I'm looking forward to it, Bill.
[Bill] You know, projects like this are what I like,
you know, this project's old,
it's patina and everything,
it's a cool, cool truck just in its own state,
pulled right out of the history books.
The challenge of making something old and rusty like this
to something that's pretty much
a work of art that you can drive,
you know, excites a fire in you, man,
and it just, it makes those creative juices start flowing,
you'd get some ideas and it gets you excited.
Projects like this
make you wanna come to work
and, and just build cool stuff.
I love stuff like this.
Every project has its set of challenges,
but a project like this has
many, many, many, many challenges.
I mean, from picking the right paint color, wheels, tires, stance ,
and just getting back and getting the overall feel of the project
and, and making the proportions fit right,
every aspect of it is a challenge all in itself.
[Jamie clicks tongue]
Man, what did you get us into now?
Man, the same thing I always get y'all into, right?
-A lot of work. -Exactly.
So basically what I wanted to do is just get it in the shop
and just pick the cab of the frame
and build everything else.
-Okay. -[Bill] I mean--
By the time you weld up all this...
-Uh-uh. -...modify it, body work it,
man, it's just not feasible to use
anything here.
-Yeah. -That was gonna be my, my first question
is if we're keeping that.
-Yeah, definitely not. -[Ryan] Nah.
I mean, Jamie can go shrimpin' with it.
So we'll build everything from scratch.
-[Ryan] Okay. -[Bill] From the chassis, suspension,
you know, the wrecker bed to the custom boom,
everything.
[Jamie] So you wanna do like a heavy duty frame on this thing?
-Low on air? -Oh, absolutely, man.
-All one ton running gear. -Okay.
You know, big bags,
adjustable, so it sets low to the ground.
And some big wheels on it, too.
What size wheels?
Twenty-fours.
-Dual wheels in the back, I mean... - [Ryan] Yeah.
-[Bill] It's gonna be cool. -[Ryan] Nice stance .
We're laying it all the way the flat
-or is it gonna have nice little raised look? -It's gonna really low.
-Yeah? -Heck yeah, man.
It's gonna be nice on the ground.
It's always a cool thing, man,
whenever we get to just set out your own parameters
and just do whatever you want, I love that.
I mean, that's, that's what he wants,
to just, "Here, build me a cool truck."
-So damn right, we're gonna build him a cool truck. - [Ryan] Yeah, buddy.
Good deal.
[Bill] Ready?
When you put it like that, I don't know.
Oh, man, inline six.
-No bueno. -Yeah, we ain't having that.
Well, we're gonna leave it all in there
and just lift the cab, so we ain't even gonna take this out.
-Cool, that sounds amazing. -We're gonna roll it out.
But what's going in it...
...you guys, is gonna make this build.
-[Jamie] What are we talking about? -LT4.
Super charge?
Yeah, buddy, yeah, that's gonna run.
-Yeah. Yeah. -That's gonna be fun.
So, we just got a little bit of work to do.
-Just a little bit? -It's not a little bit.
Let's get busy and build some cool stuff.
-On with it. -Let's go.
This '52 wrecker's just been essentially sitting on the side of the road
in all the elements for some time now,
so we gotta tear off all the bad,
which at this point, pretty much the most of it.
[Ryan] Getting the wrecker floor down.
We're just gonna do it the same way that we do everything else around here.
We gonna leave the front end connected to the cab
take it up and trash the rest of it
and start over.
The challenges with this are getting all this
rusted ass bolts off of it they've been on here for,
like, 70 years, so.
Tilt it back like this, so it won't spill.
I gotta cut the steering column and uh,
get these front core support bolts loose.
wherever I can find them.
♪ Yo! ♪
-♪ Hey! ♪ -[Jamie] Ready?
Yeah, it's loose.
[chuckles]
[chuckling] Yeah, we're good.
♪ Hey! ♪
-Boom. -The fan right there, it's gonna catch the--
-[Ryan] No, we're good. -[Jamie] No, we're good.
-Everything's good. -Cool.
-♪ Hey! ♪ -That was too easy.
♪ Hey! ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Hey! ♪
Well, we got an old tow truck completely stripped,
tore down to bare cab,
and front end,
so the next step on this is,
you know, building the chassis.
We're gonna totally construct the bed
from scratch, from nothing,
so I'm gonna put up my string line,
so I can kind of establish
where the ground is gonna be,
and we'll take all the measurements off of that.
Go down a little bit.
Down, down, down.
There's no, really, wheelbase established,
so trying to find that right wheelbase,
and then, build the bed to that wheelbase,
is gonna be pretty critical on a job like this,
this tow truck.
Yeah, we might cut two inches off that fender.
That way, we can get it up
a little bit more, so that it's...
And then if we make a running board right here,
it's gonna be way off the ground.
We can cut it, and make it lower,
and look way, way better.
We're gonna lay out the main beam in two by five,
and then we're gonna come back to two by four over the axle,
so it's gonna be very rigid, and very strong.
I know he's not gonna haul a car,
but if he ever wanted to,
the frame's there for it, you know.
The foundation is set
for whatever you want to do with this truck,
50 years from now.
Go up in the back.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's pretty damn close, though.
Back up, towards the back of the truck.
Yeah.
Something that looks proportioned to, you know,
that cool wrecker bed that we're gonna build...
That looks good.
...to the stance it's gonna have,
super low to the ground,
you know, all that is super critical,
having that right wheelbase.
Okay, man, I think that's gonna be...
This is gonna be the wheelbase.
So, on this, we established, you know,
the wheelbase that we all want to go with.
We got our basic frame shape, so we're gonna go back
to the table, lay it out on the table,
cut some chipboard, and get to cutting.
Old muscle cars, like this '72 'cuda,
were just a lot more roomier than today's cars.
You know, that's a whole lot of space
for John to fill with that custom interior.
[John] So, we got the center monitor
placed where it needs to be.
Now, we're gonna work on getting our console built,
underneath it and around it, so we can tie in to it,
so I've got the size of the console
already cut out and ready to go.
I'm gonna kerf him, so we can get some shape to it.
Once that's done,
we'll start putting it all together,
getting it in the car, and keep working.
On the rear deck, I use the kerf technique,
because that's the only way to bend MDF.
You can bend other woods
using a steam box, and steaming it,
and it makes it pliable, but MDF, you get it wet,
it just crumbles apart, so kerf the back,
it relieves the tension,
you can work it in, get it built,
and body work it from there.
All right. We got our console in place.
Everything's laid out nice.
I know where my monitor's gonna go,
so I'm gonna get this set back up in place,
get it where it needs to be, and the next step
is just to box in around it, get tied in to the dash,
work it down to the console.
All right. Everything's all dry.
I'm gonna pull this out, and get it over on the bench,
and start body working.
All right.
Last fit.
Perfect.
This section of the dash is done,
body worked, and ready to go.
I've got the pod made for the instrument cluster,
so now, I'm gonna get it in place,
get it mounted up,
get it lined up nice and straight,
and we'll start body working this to the dash.
All right.
Keep sanding!
[Bill] John's finished building the front
of the '72 'cuda interior.
We originally planned on keeping the rear seats,
you know, but after talking with the customer,
we decided to go with, you know,
a little bit better audio setup.
[John] So, the next project we're gonna work on
in the 'cuda is the rear seat section.
We're gonna do a rear seat delete in this car,
and build something really cool back here,
so I'm gonna start out
by making a template of the rear deck.
Once I get that template made,
obviously, we're gonna transfer it into some wood,
make some pieces, start stacking stuff up,
and see what we come out with.
All right.
All right, well, there's the first piece of the puzzle.
Got the base down.
So basically, this base is gonna turn into a template,
and I'm gonna use that to make all the rest of the pieces
for this rear deck,
come from the rear deck forward,
and then, tie it in all the way down,
across the floor, all the way in to the console.
All right.
So now, what I'm gonna do to help get my shape,
I'm getting some chipboard, get that glued in here,
fiberglass over it.
I'm just gonna take in...
Precut all my pieces.
That way, when I start
wetting all this out, I don't have to worry
about stopping what I'm doing to cut anything.
I've already got it all cut out and ready to go,
and I can just layer it up, piece by piece.
Yeah, it's gonna be a fun one to do.
So the rear deck, pretty much all built.
All I need now is just the baffle and the trim rings,
so I can body work those in.
We'll get all that tied together,
and that way, we can move on
and start on the subwoofer enclosure,
and the rest of the rear seat delete.
Building all this stuff on the computer,
drawing it out,
and letting all the machines make your parts,
it's interesting and convenient,
but I still like the feel of being in a car,
and making the pieces by hand,
and actually bringing it together
piece by piece.
Knowing that you did that with your hands
and that came out of your head
is way more satisfying than cutting all those pieces,
and letting the computer do everything,
so they might try to take our jobs,
but it ain't happening.
They ain't getting mine.
All right.
Everything is dry, and ready to go.
Let's take it out, and start body working.
You know, I'm a suspension guy at heart,
so on a ground up build, like this '52 wrecker,
it's job one to get this chassis right,
'cause everything else sits right on top.
Well, we got our drawings all laid out,
we know what the frame's gonna look like in the end,
so I'm gonna lay it out on the table here.
and use the chipboard to have a perfect pattern
to transfer over onto the metal.
There's no chance of mismeasuring anything.
I mean, that's the most efficient way
to transfer this drawing onto the table,
over to the saw,
and then, back onto the table.
There we go.
All right, so as you can see,
we've started off with our frame on the table,
got all of our little chipboard templates here.
Transfer it to the metal, make it easier on ourselves.
Just make a line, mark it out,
whatever we gotta do,
and get them all cut the same exact way.
Get them over here, clean them all up,
and start building our frame.
Okay.
So, when Bill was in high school, back in '36,
-his brain came up with this little trick. -What we're gonna do...
What we're gonna do is run this string
to make sure our...
You know, the frame is so long,
it has joints in it.
We're gonna see if it's perfectly straight.
When you pull the string super tight,
you got a perfectly straight line
every time, so I'm gonna run a string
all the way down, from end to end,
and then, we'll have washers in between it,
to lift the string off the tubing
just that eighth of an inch,
so then we know the frame is 100% straight.
Ooh. Ooh!
[Ryan] I feel pretty good about this.
This is, really, it's tight, it ain't going nowhere.
I can hit it around, and it's not gonna move.
I'm gonna once-over it, make sure everything's,
you know, where I want it to be,
and then, we'll attack it, get it stood up,
put some cross members in there,
and take it over to the truck.
[thunder rumbling]
[Bill] When we're building a custom chassis,
like the one that's on this '52 wrecker,
you know, we tend to overdo it.
You know, I want it to last another 70 years.
And just like everything else in the custom world,
this thing is way overkill.
[chuckling] It's way overdoing it, like,
I mean, you could pull a house with this thing, so...
[Bill] We established the wheelbase.
Now, we're gonna build a two by five frame.
All right, first thing first, now, is fit up, attack it,
throw a couple stitches on it,
make sure it's good to move around.
The cool thing about this one is gonna be just that
it's different than the rest of them.
You know, we get a lot of the same stuff.
Most of the time, a lot of seats, and now,
that's the majority of the chassis
that I get to build, so this will be kind of fun.
I'll get to do
a little bit different things on it,
four link it, and all that stuff,
so that would be a pretty cool build.
All right, now that I got it stitched up,
I'm gonna make our truss now.
I'm gonna go grab some two-inch pipe,
clean it up.
So, ladies, this is actually, like,
probably about 200 pounds, that pipe right there.
And doing chassis work is always really cool,
because it's the first, initial build.
You know, you can do all your sheet metal work,
and all that stuff, and that's cool,
but, you know,
setting the foundation for anything
is always, like, a really cool deal,
because you're setting the scale
for what the build is going to be.
You know, you have something so beautiful underneath,
you don't want to skimp out on that,
and waste your money, or waste your time.
You want to go all-in,
and, you know, make it worth it.
All right. We got this marked out where we want it.
We'll let the bender do the work,
and bend this at 45.
[Bill] You know, I'm an instant gratification guy,
but ground up builds like this wrecker,
well, they take patience,
not to mention a lot of hard work.
We started with this frame, and that's gonna give us
all the strength and rigidity that we need.
You know, from there, we're gonna go on and do
custom suspension,
and then, a bed,
and then, on and on.
You know, I'd like to see it done tomorrow
more than anyone, but that's where
the patience comes in.
When this '72 'cuda came out,
there was a lot of crazy colors
that you could choose from.
One of those colors was "grape ape purple,"
so John's heading out
to find some purple accents for the interior.
[John] Hey, what's going on, Greg?
Hey, how's it going? Good to see you again.
-Yeah. -What you after today?
Oh, John's a regular customer of ours.
He comes in every now and again,
needing some wood for his cars.
It's great to see
our wood used in such beautiful projects.
We're doing a '72 'cuda, and the guy wants
to pay homage to Mopar,
and honestly, I can't do the grape ape that they do.
-Sure. -So, I'm thinking dark purple,
and the purpleheart, being naturally purple is...
I think it's gonna be perfect.
-[Greg] Oh. Yeah. -So, I brought some templates,
and figured I'd come through, and see what you had,
and try to match something up.
Okay. Yeah, sure.
-We got some purpleheart right back here. -[John] Awesome.
Right in here.
Look at that!
And it's naturally this color?
It's naturally this color.
Real nice hardwood.
This first section of purpleheart
is their milled lumber,
which is great, except for it doesn't fit my template,
so let's see what else he's got.
We got some boards that will be
right up your alley.
[John] Man, look at that!
That's a nice one.
This purpleheart is gonna be our statement piece
inside of this car.
Everything else is black,
but that purple's gonna pop against that black,
and really stand out,
not to mention it's gonna tie back
to that hemi purple that the customer's looking for.
Oh, that's gonna be perfect.
I mean, I don't need all of this,
but I can always find a use for it.
-[Greg] Sure thing. -Not to mention, that board,
there's gonna be extra left over,
so I get to make something else out of it,
so I'm pretty stoked about that.
I like it.
-[Greg] Okay. -I'll take that one.
[Greg] Now, for the hard part.
I'm gonna let you carry it out,
so I don't break anything in your shop.
From where we started with the 'cuda to now,
I had to throw out a lot of the old plastic,
and start over,
and I just finished making
the last of the big pieces on the rear deck.
All right. Perfect.
Now, just everything else.
Yeah. Let's do it.
It's all the little detailed things at the end
that take a lot of time and patience,
like installing the carpet,
which is a little bit more challenging on this one.
I've got the floor all flattened out,
foam smoothed, I got the jute padding in it.
It's looking great, so the next step,
to get the carpet in here,
start laying it out and getting it cut in,
heat formed, and glued down,
so then, I'll be sanding down all of the pieces I made,
and wrapping everything in leather,
and only then
can I get to installing it one last time.
The types of vehicles that come into the shop,
they're from one end of the spectrum to the other,
you know, from muscle cars to vans,
trucks, lifted trucks, mini trucks, tankers.
Whatever it might be, every car tells its own story.
Every vehicle has its own voice,
and once you get into that vehicle,
and start designing and working with it,
it kind of talks to you, and gives you those ideas
that you can carry that into the inside of the car,
and complement the rest of the car
with what you're building,
sometimes utilitarian,
sometimes over the top,
sometimes clean, classy.
Really, it just depends on
the style of the build that we're after.
No two cars are the same.
We don't build the same vehicle twice around here.
Every one of them's different, so to be able to sit back,
look at a car, get a feel for it,
and know where we're headed with it,
and adapt to that, and, you know,
just bring that to life inside of the car
really, really just hits home.
You know, that's the reason I wake up
[Bill] John's been working long and hard
on that interior in the 'cuda, and today's the day.
Customer's here, ready to show it to him.
I know he's gonna be excited to see it.
Hey Bill, how are you doing?
What's happening, man?
I hear you got something for me.
-Man, I do, man. -[Richard] Good to see you.
-How you doing? -[Richard] I'm doing well.
I can't wait to see the interior of this old car.
Old John's been working hard back there.
Well, John's a magician,
so I can't wait to see what he's done.
Let's go check it out.
Awesome.
Exciting day for me.
Got a call the other day from Bill.
He said my car was ready, and I can't wait to see it.
Say, Johnny!
Oh, hey, what's going on, man?
How you doing, John?
Man, I'll tell you what. I've been working day and night.
You got here just in time, though.
Why don't you check it out?
-Open that driver's door. -[Richard] Love to.
Oh.
Damn.
When you said you were gonna wake it up,
you woke it up.
-[Bill] Yes, sir. -[Richard chuckles]
[Bill] That was the plan.
[Richard] Oh, this is awesome.
Oh, this doesn't look anything like the old-school one.
-Oh, I love it. I love it. -[Bill] Awesome.
I don't even want to get a fingerprint on it anywhere.
[Bill chuckles]
When I opened up that driver's door,
holy cow.
It looked nothing like it used to look.
He did a fantastic job.
He did exactly what I wanted him to do to it,
and I couldn't be happier.
Started out by ripping the entire dash out,
and built that straight from the beginning.
There was nothing there.
So you guys took the whole, original dash,
and just tossed it away,
-and built that all from scratch. -[John] Yes, sir.
Found a really cool little screen setup
that is an LCD display,
so it's very modern-looking.
Your center screen is actually a touch screen.
It controls your AC. It'll have your audio in it.
Well, I'll tell you what. The screens are beautiful.
I can't even imagine
what it's gonna be like driving this thing.
It's gonna be like driving a new car.
This looks nicer than most new cars,
-to tell you the truth. -[John chuckles]
You know, center console,
bringing that color down into the console
all throughout the car.
You know, that purpleheart wood,
you know, that was just a nice touch,
and just, you know, wakes up that whole interior.
It just completes the whole inside of the car.
From the dash, we moved into the center console.
You know, when you came in,
you didn't have any place to actually rest your arm,
so we got that problem solved for you.
You've got room for a couple of drinks
when you're out cruising around.
[Richard] One thing they didn't do in '72
was drink holders.
-[John] Yeah. -And the seats, what an upgrade!
Yeah, no. Those came out of a BMW M4.
A nice, sporty seat.
It's got high bolsters on it.
You don't have to worry about sliding around in the car.
They're gonna keep you planted,
so you go cornering,
you won't go cornering.
Well, I appreciate that.
Whoa!
-That back dash is clean. -[Bill] Yeah!
[John] Yeah, that rear deck is, you know,
that's fully sculpted from top to bottom.
We basically made it modular,
to give it some depth, some feel, some life,
instead of just being flat and plain.
Everything's got movement to it.
There's nothing just sitting still back there,
-kind of like the car. -[Richard] Nice.
[John] The car, when you look at,
it looks moving...
-[Richard] Wow. -[John] ...so we had to do the same thing inside the car,
and get everything flowing
with the body lines of the car.
The rear deck lid is amazing.
You know, I love the fact that he got rid of that back seat,
'cause frankly,
you couldn't really get in that back seat, anyway.
Tell me about these speakers.
[John] You know, back in the '70s,
it was all about wooden speaker enclosures,
visible speakers, nothing covering them up,
so kind of went with that feel.
Put that in there, got the exposed speaker,
and it gives it that chrome look
to help tie it in with the era of the car.
Well, I told Bill you're a magician,
and you brought the magic.
[John] Awesome. Thank you.
And, you know, last but not least,
the door panels.
-[Richard] Oh, yeah! -[John] A lot of work went in there.
We were able to take your factory door panel.
That way, we kept some of that stuff in place,
and then, we just added on to that.
We got the speaker molded in...
-[Richard] Yep. -[John] ...to carry on from the back.
Everything ties in together.
Well, if there's anything from the old door on this one,
I can't tell.
You wanted to wake it up, right?
-Just the man to get that-- -[Richard] He woke it up.
-For sure. -Yes, sir.
[Bill] It still has that old-school feel,
but definitely modernized.
-It's still a '72 'cuda, but it feels new. -[Richard] Yeah.
I tell you what,
the car's always been beautiful from the outside.
Now, it's beautiful on the inside.
-Yeah, we... -Like my heart.
-[chuckles] -[both chuckle]
Overall, he did a fantastic job.
There's nothing in this car
that I'm not totally jazzed about.
I mean, I can't wait to get it out on the road, and drive it.
Now, the inside of that 'cuda
is prettier than the outside of that 'cuda,
and that's pretty hard to do with a 'cuda.
[Bill] You know, John, once again,
he just killed it on this one.
Richard opened the door,
you know, he was just blown away.
You know, all that old plastic's gone.
Nothing but new, nothing but custom,
nothing but clean, smooth, and sleek.