You wanna cut the roofline off of
what is said to be the most beautiful car in the world.
I wanna do it.
Boy, oh, boy, is this an exercise in trust.
[Bill] To build this '37 Bugatti
is 20 times the project of the buggy.
[Ryan] This is intimidating.
[Bill] This '23 Denali is gonna be something special.
We're gonna lift the truck 10 to 12 inches.
[Ryan] Man, that's a cool design.
It's a lot different than what we usually do around here.
[Dustin] It's gonna get very intricate over here.
[Ryan] Looks like it'd be a factory part
that came on this truck after we're done.
Hey, what is all this black and gold?
[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, and baddest
custom trucks and cars in the game.
People don't come here for what they need.
They come here for what they want.
This is Texas Metal.
Man, I see you over here, rubbing your hands.
-Mmm-hmm. -It can only mean one thing.
Those wheels are turning.
Man, they are. For sure, man.
Cena really threw us for a loop dropping in this '37 Bugatti.
Yeah, I would say so.
[Bill] After finishing John Cena's MGC,
he surprised us with that Bugatti 57.
This is your new challenge, should you choose to accept it.
What is this?
[John Cena] This is a recreation from Delahaye USA coach build
of the famous Bugatti 57.
Are we gonna do some business?
I'm always up for a challenge.
[laughs] Excellent.
Any time a customer drops off a vehicle
and gives us free reign to create,
you know it's a major compliment.
But it's an even bigger responsibility that I gotta take super seriously.
You know, first of all, we're known for our metal fabrication,
but here, what little we do have is mostly fiberglass.
Yeah, there's not a whole lot to it here.
You got shells, some pieces, and a little bit of suspension, I guess,
but not much else.
[Bill] Yeah, and I think I finally got the vision I need
to really get going on it.
A '37 Bugatti is arguably the world's most beautiful car.
You know, to mess with those body lines
-are just, you know, kind of dangerous. -Yeah.
-Make or break. -For sure.
I mean, it's got body lines from the front all the way to the back.
It's nothing but curves. It's constantly moving.
-It's moving standing still. -[Bill] Right.
And the key is to keep it that way.
You know, one of the things we wanna do, man,
after looking at it, you know, I wanna cut the roof off of it.
You wanna cut what off?
Okay, that's a bold plan.
[Bill] It's cutting it in the right spot, you know,
not just haphazardly just getting Sawzall out.
But, man, I think as long as it's cut in the right place,
made into the right shape, we can definitely do that.
-[John] It can go wrong real quick. -[Bill] Right.
[John] Speaking of going wrong real quick,
you've stood next to the guy; you know how big he is, right?
Man, it's gonna be easier for him to get in and out of it, anyway.
Only thing's a hazard, the doors, and you just step over it.
It's got a long, long, long way to go
-before we're there, that's for sure. -Yeah, it does.
[Bill] So we gotta come with it,
and you definitely gotta come with it on this.
[John] It'll be challenge, for sure, but it'll be fun, you know?
Staying kind of period with the car
and getting something that's updated and still classic, and...
-[Bill] That's the whole key to this, for sure. -It'll be fun.
You sure you wanna cut the roof off this car?
-I'm gonna go check with him first, make sure. -Okay. All right.
[Bill] Just so we're all on the same page,
so we don't need to be putting the roof back on it if we do cut it off.
Yeah, it's time to get some lines on here.
I'll get you a couple things to cut the roof off.
You can make the phone call, but I want you to cut if off 'cause...
-[Bill] Yeah. -...he's not gonna see me cutting his roof off.
[laughter]
[Bill] As a builder, I love being challenged with something like this,
but as far as business, I try to balance those big jobs
with things that I know are in our sweet spot, like lifting a truck.
We've customized a lot of shop trucks over the years,
but this '23 Denali is gonna be something special.
We got it in the shop and got it all tore apart
got the front end all mocked up.
It's looking really good.
Took it all apart, got it off to powder coat.
You know, we're just really getting started.
Obviously, we have a long way to go.
Building the rear suspension, building that four-link,
with the hangers, the bag mounts, the shock mounts.
Having that adjustability of air bags is definitely key on this.
That, with installment of a new flatbed and changing the headache rack,
putting the factory taillights in,
it could give it that different, cool look.
And going from four wheels to six wheels.
Putting all four of those wheels on the back of the truck.
You know, it's super important to constantly revolve the fleet.
Getting a new shop truck every year is definitely key.
We have to show everyone how to transform their vehicle and yet still use it.
I'm really excited to get this truck finished up,
to get it out on the road, put it to work,
and show everybody what we got going on.
So, we got the '23 GMC 3500.
We're gonna lift the truck about 10 to 12 inches, something like that.
So the rear suspension, we're gonna totally hand-fabricate
and have a parallel four-link,
so what I'm doing here is making a front hanger
that attaches the four-link bars to the frame itself
and allows everything to pivot.
So these have to be super strong, heavy, and perfectly lined up.
So instead of bolting onto this,
we're gonna make hangers that weld to the frame,
and then we're gonna paint everything
so it looks like it'd be a factory part
that came on this truck after we're done.
You know, when I hold a piece of chipboard up here
and just kind of take everything into consideration...
The height of the vehicle, the length of the bars.
I mean, I've done it so many times,
I kind of know where everything should lie
and where everything's gonna work really well together.
Gonna take this over to Jessie, let him do a little work this morning
and cut them out for me.
So, these gotta be super strong,
so burn these out a quarter-inch for me.
All righty.
As usual, I'll just take it, you know, do my measurements around it.
Get all my construction lines going.
Then I'll put it in the computer.
Now it's time to burn some metal.
Seems like every year or so, we work on a new shop truck,
and it just comes to show everybody that we can do it
to newer vehicles that are coming out.
That's what's good about working at a custom shop.
We get to customize something that just came out, like,
straight out of the assembly line,
and we get to customize it our own way.
All right. So, Jessie did a good job cutting these out.
So we're gonna punch some holes now.
We'll get our misalignments in there,
get these two plates mocked up.
Then we can put it onto the frame
and see exactly where it needs to go.
Put some tags on it.
We're gonna make some link bars.
We can punch these holes here. We can line this up.
That way, all of our points match all the way through.
When we put our misalignments, it's a perfect fit-up.
So, these misalignments here.
This spacing that I need, it's gonna be what goes into this Heim right here.
I like to use a washer just because this is all gonna get painted.
Make sure it's tight, and then you know that that right there
is where it needs to be, and then you can install it onto the truck
instead of trying to piece this one at a time
and hoping that you get it right on the money.
Looks pretty straight, huh?
Perfect.
I'm just gonna go ahead and tack that.
Now we have our hangers tacked onto the frame now.
So we can duplicate it, do the same thing to the other side.
We'll box all this in, get it all welded.
But now we have points that we can go off,
so we can make our link bars now.
And those will, you know, be our new suspension.
All right. Now that we have our hangers done on the truck,
we're gonna start working on our rear end now.
We got our tabs made for it, and we'll get these put on to the rear end,
centered where they need to be, then we can start building our link arm.
Put it right there. Line up that line with that line.
That looks great. Tack that in.
Helps if you turn it on.
I did turn it on. The breaker's off.
I'm gonna tack this side first.
Placing this in the exact spot is very crucial
to making sure that this thing goes straight and it's not off-centered.
All right. So you can see, we got our tabs tacked in here on our rear end.
Spacers in. I'll pop these out. Put some Heims in there.
And then we can take our measurement
from the hangers to the rear here
and continue on with the suspension.
[whistles melodically]
Dude, that's so cool.
35 and an eighth right there.
Whoo!
It's a 32nd under.
Love [bleep] like that.
Take these bungs 'cause they're so hard not to get perfect
'cause the shanking of the bung is so long.
It goes in so far, it's hard for it to not be square.
Most of the time, we sand them and do all that
and tuck our bungs in, weld them, and then sand them again.
I'm not sanding them twice 'cause I hate it, so...
Only doing it once.
All right. Let's go.
Now that these are sanded, I can put my Heims back in where they were.
Heims are gonna be a good fit for what we got going on.
Into the truck, and bolt it up.
Now you can see the suspension,
and this is our geometry, getting that right,
getting everything centered, pinning the angle right.
Now we can go on to doing our lower bracketry for our bag brackets,
upper bag brackets, and all that good stuff.
Shocks, Panhard bar.
The whole nine.
[Bill] The thing about the '43 Denali,
I want it to look cool and custom.
But as a shop truck, this thing is gonna be driven real hard.
You know, and that's why we go through them so quick.
So the suspension has to be super strong.
Ryan's getting busy with those extra heavy-duty bag brackets.
Gonna come straight up off the rear end here,
and we'll have our bag directly over this link bar right here.
Center the load. This is probably the best point that we can mount this at.
Looking at everything and realizing
that these are just kind of in our way
for where we wanna put our bag,
so we're gonna redo these.
We're gonna make the mounts two-part.
It's gonna be a bag bracket plus our upper mount for our four-links.
So kind of got an idea of where we want them to be,
but in order to get there, we need to make some brackets.
That is three and five-sixteenths.
We'll get these punched real quick.
I'm gonna pop this off here.
Knock these tabs off.
Now I got my new tabs made up.
These are in the exact same spot.
Put these on, and line up my center line,
and then I can just add my bag bracket on top of these brackets here,
and it looks like we meant to do that the first time around.
All right. So now we got our bag brackets done.
I'm just gonna plate the backside of these.
I'm just gonna continue on, doing all the fillers for the lower links
for the side, for the front, and all that,
and then our gussets for the side.
And then we'll move to upper bag brackets.
[rooster crows]
John, what's happening, man?
All's well. How about you?
Covered up over here. We got a ton of work to do.
I've been contemplating a lot on your '37 Bugatti.
It's been keeping me up sometimes, man.
Yeah, I didn't even drop you off a project.
I kind of dropped you off an idea.
Exactly, and I'm really thinking of something
that's just gonna blow your socks off when you see it.
When I originally bought this, what drew me to it
was obviously the shape of the 57 Atlantic.
It is very unique,
and it's one of the most sought after cars in the world.
And I knew it needed a lot of work.
I didn't feel there was any other shop that could handle it.
So I'm hoping you're telling me
that you're still okay with it.
Most definitely okay with it.
-But you threw me a huge curveball on that. -I did.
I got a little curveball for you on this one.
Okay. This should be good.
What do you think about just chopping the roof off of that?
I don't know if our connection is good.
What I'm hearing is you wanna cut the roofline
off of what is said to be the most beautiful car in the world.
-Is that right? -That's it.
Man, the connection's good. I wanna do it.
Why did you come up on this choice?
[Bill] Once the car is assembled
with the right stance, the right color, the right interior,
man, I can see you going down the road
with a big old smile, with no roof on this car.
I don't know if that smile is the first thing that comes to my mind.
Um...
John, you're gonna have to trust me on this one.
I gotta admit.
I bought the car for the lines of the car.
And the roofline, especially down into the tail,
makes that car what it is.
But if you think that taking away that roof
is the best way to present the car,
boy, oh, boy, is this an exercise in trust.
If there's any shop that can do it, it's Ekstensive.
I've seen you guys rip the frame out a new Camaro.
I've seen you craft new beds and new cabs for really old trucks.
Wasn't what I had in mind, but I bet me dropping that hunk of junk off
-to your garage wasn't what you had in mind. -[laughs]
[John] As much as my instinct tells me to keep the roof,
I will meet our curveballs right in the middle, and I will say yes.
Man, I love it. I love the confidence, man.
It's not just cutting the roof off, either.
It's cutting in that exact right spot
that just makes the lines continue to flow around the car
and just enhances the look of it.
If it was anybody else but you or Ekstensive, I'd say, "No, absolutely not."
But you guys crushed it on the MG. Have fun.
I do appreciate the trust in it, man.
I want you guys to make something you can be proud of.
Man, I'm getting excited about it.
I can't wait to get out there and get on it.
Get in the shop, and get to work.
You got it, man.
I will talk to you real soon.
I'll send you a picture of that roof laying on the ground.
Yeah, and I'll Photoshop in my broken heart next to it.
[laughs] Okay. All right, man.
He really trusts you.
I guess we earned that on the MG, huh?
Yeah, you're gonna really have to earn this one, too. It's gonna be nice.
I can almost immediately figure out what to do on a vehicle to make it cool.
But just finding those right little custom touches to do on this car
isn't just so easy.
It's not cut and dry.
Taking a car with such beautiful lines on it,
you just can't start chopping anywhere.
You really have to have a set plan and a goal to reach,
so it's taking me a little while to sit back
and really come up with something real cool, but I got this figured out.
Let's move forward on this. I got a plan now.
I'm ready to get the team together, ready to get those tools fired up
and give John something really special.
Man, this is...
...huge, huge, huge, huge, huge project.
I just wanna get the whole feel of the car, you know?
Just kind of see how it looks with the doors on,
and we don't really have a door.
We have a door skin.
So I'm just taking the outer door skin
and gonna screw it to the body itself, just kind of hold it
and then kind of get back and look at it and see how it flows.
That is definitely a weird shape.
[Ryan] It does look super weird.
I just put the fenders on the back, fenders on the front,
and mocked up the hood real quick so you can kind of see everything.
Is this supposed to go like that down here?
Or is it supposed to go all the way at the top? Do you know?
I'm thinking the body line's gonna be there, right?
Building a car from absolutely zero, nothing,
where nothing matches up, nothing really makes sense.
Cheese and rice.
[Bill] To take what's here and build this into a car
is 20 times the project of, like, for instance, a buggy.
[Ryan] Yeah.
So, we have nothing here.
Unless the fender goes there. Does the fender go there?
[Ryan] Would it get that close, do you think?
Bang on. Go. Can you push it back any?
-It goes there, huh? -No, dude. There's no way.
That wheel would hit everything when it turns.
-Well... -It's, like, almost touching right now.
Who knows that this frame is even for this, you know what I mean?
I think we're on the right track here. I think that's good.
I think that whoever built this frame, this is too far forward.
I think that needs to come back.
-You know, my son just got into models, right? -Yeah.
He's building all these models.
So he's got a bunch of leftover parts when he's done.
I think we got a bunch of leftover parts out of a couple of models,
and we're trying to build a damn car out of them.
[laughs]
-A bunch of different model parts. -Yeah.
-But we're gonna do it. -[Ryan] I know.
I think cutting the roof off is probably gonna be the easiest part of this.
Looking at this... Like, this is intimidating.
[Ryan] Air line on the outside or the inside?
Think it'd be better on the outside
because the inside is running straight to the frame rail.
We've done a bunch of custom lifts over the years.
But not every truck get the same, exact lift.
Because of the design of the '23 Denali,
we're gonna mix it up a little on the upper bag brackets.
Instead of doing pipe like we always do
and rolling it and bending it.
it's gonna be quite difficult to do it on this truck
just before of where the upper bag bracket lands
in relation to the frame rail here.
So we're gonna make it look like the hanger
and kind of resemble something that we got going on here.
I'll just take the chipboard, and I'll get kind of a rough sketch
of where the frame rail is.
Right here, you see how it connects the frame
to the upper bag bracket here, and we'll box this all in,
and this will all be one piece with our airbag here.
I'll go find a piece of metal and get these cut out.
Man, that's a cool design.
It's a lot different than what we usually do around here.
I like it. I'm a big fan of it.
And we can also box this and then give it a little roll
so we can get into our bolts here.
All right. So we got these tacked in the front and the back.
They look great.
Really flows with the hangers and everything else we got going on.
I like the look of it.
So, now what we're gonna do is just continue on with this.
We'll cap those in.
Then it's just welding this stuff out, and the mounts will be done.
[Bill] You can weld on any table,
but when it comes to building something 100% true, 100% square,
you really need a perfectly level, perfectly true table.
We got a lot of welding tables at the shop.
Some of them were around when I was a kid.
But it's time for an upgrade.
What do you know. there's a company called Texas Metal Works
right here in Houston.
These guys don't make cars. They make welding tables.
-Welcome to the shop. -It's a nice shop.
[John] Thank you. Thank you. We do our best.
When we are building these tables,
the first step in the process
is to take some really great steel and cut the heck out of it.
[Bill] Hell, yeah.
Man, this is absolutely unbelievable how fast that cuts.
[John] It's scary, isn't it?
This is the mack daddy laser.
It is the most powerful, fastest thing
-in North or South America. -[Bill] Wow.
The plasma tables at the shop, they do a great job for us,
but, man, just seeing that laser zip around from hole to hole to hole...
That light is actually vaporizing the metal that it's pointed at.
Man, it's unbelievable.
[John] I wanna show you this tube laser
because it does everything that one does,
but it's spinning things around
-and moving them in and out... -[Bill] Yeah.
[John] ...all at the same time.
It's like a symphony of lasers.
That's really cool. When you're seeing the actual tubing
flip back and forth and the laser down on it cutting holes,
I'm definitely jealous.
Cool, man.
-[John] But you see how clean that hole is. -[Bill] Yeah.
-Looks like you drilled it. -[John] Yeah.
Let's see what the boys are doing over here.
Well, actually, we got two different tables that are in process.
One of them, you can see, is kind of getting there,
but this is how it all starts out.
We've got a series of intersecting ribs.
Now, these are all laser-cut.
So we know they're super, super straight.
You'll see they're just bolted everywhere, all the way through the table.
-[Bill] Mmm-hmm. -[John] So we're holding the ribs and the side walls
all in place, and we torque every single nut to exactly 30 pounds.
So that way, we've got uniform consistency.
I think I'm definitely, definitely gonna need one of these.
I'll be able to know if everything's perfect, 100% straight, true.
-Let's make it happen. -Let's do it.
As a shop truck, the Denali's gonna do a ton of hard miles,
so we're gonna make than Panhard bar have a little bit thicker DOM
for some extra rigidity.
[Ryan whistles]
What's up, little man?
All right. So, we finished up doing most of our welding and grinding
in places that we knew we weren't gonna be able to get to
once we go on building.
We're ready to do our Panhard bar now,
so we got our rear end centered with the chassis,
and everything's where it needs to be.
So now we're gonna just get a template
and start making a design.
We want our Panhard bar to be as parallel with the road as possible.
We always want it, you know, horizontal if you can.
Have to make something that comes up here.
And the same for this one.
Gonna have to miss a bag here.
We'll do something funky.
We'll figure it out.
So, I got my tabs welded in here for my Panhard bar.
So I can get my spacers in here,
and then I'll be able to start making my Panhard bar link.
Now I'm going to measure, and I'm gonna make my Panhard bar link now.
So, now I'll go find a piece of DOM
to fit over this bung right here that's 15 and three-quarters long.
Fit these bungs, and we'll tack it together.
All right. So, we got everything built for our Panhard bar now.
You can see the lower tab connected to our axel,
and the upper is connected to our chassis.
This right here is the best application
for what we got going on here
because of the towing and everything else
that we're gonna be doing with this.
[Bill] We're changing things on the bed of the 2023 Denali.
You know, I wanted something with a little more rugged look.
So we're gonna lose that stock bed and go in with the flatbed.
So, we got this brand new bed for the shop truck.
But he doesn't like the way any of this looks,
so I'm gonna go ahead and get rid of this whole void here
and we'll just have this open window.
And we'll have sliding back glass and all that.
It's just a different look. Maybe we'll throw something in there.
Maybe we won't.
But we're gonna get it out of here right now, clean up the weld,
and throw it onto the truck.
These beds are super cool.
They got a lot of cool stuff going on.
They got the Gooseneck hook-up, boxes in the sides.
I mean, there's endless amounts of things you can do to them.
D-U-N. Done.
To get rid of these holes in this little void right here,
gonna put a piece of sheet metal in there
and then weld it up, grind it, and then I'll clean up this whole section right here,
and then the guys over there can bodywork it and paint it.
So, I got both sides tacked in now.
We're gonna get some weld on there and grind it all down,
and then hopefully, it looks like it's supposed to come like that.
That'll work. Looks good.
It's flat, square. Everything looks good.
Got rid of the holes and that little void where the bend was.
So, once the body guys are done with doing this,
it'll look like it came like that.
So, this is gonna be something totally different than any other flatbed.
Not many people, or anybody, have their stop tail lights in the back of a flatbed.
So, first thing's first, we're gonna get all this old stuff taken out,
and then we're gonna get to cutting.
So, we got this nice, big hole here. Got everything cut out.
We'll get the light where it needs to be
and start building off of that.
-Bottom looks like it needs to go out a little bit. -Yeah.
All right. We got our light put in.
Now we're gonna start boxing everything in.
This is gonna be a pretty simple piece here,
and then it's gonna get very intricate over here.
Probably four, five, six different pieces.
So it'll be a lot of work, but it'll be worth it.
So, we're gonna start drawing some stuff out.
Putting some brakes in it so our light doesn't just hang out.
Make it look nice, kind of factory-looking.
All right. We got our first panel in.
It's looking good.
We'll get the top trimmed back to match,
and then we'll start on the fun side.
We're gonna make a template out of our chipboard.
Gonna throw some brakes in it.
Trying to mimic the factory bed a little bit.
You know, you don't wanna just have it flat.
That's not very appealing.
So, I think I got a good starting point, at least.
So I'm gonna throw some Tek screws in it,
and then we could keep building off of this from here.
So, we'll throw a brake there the other way,
and then that'll help us match this angle here.
Man, it looks really good. That was the last piece.
Definitely not an easy piece to do. Looks really good.
-Came out nice. -Yeah, thank you.
[Bill] I spent a lot of time thinking about this 1937 Bugatti.
And now we're about to take that first step into doing something.
We cleaned out all the parts in the car,
laid them all out, kind of stuck them in place where they go.
It needs to go down in the front.
Got kind of...
I wouldn't even say the front end.
We have the parts of the front of the car
kind of where they're gonna be at.
I was hoping for a lot more parts,
but we're working with what we got.
Go to plan...
What plan was that?
-Like, E. -E?
-F, something -We had J.
-We're way up there now. -[laughs]
I'm not saving any of the roof.
We're cutting the whole thing off.
So I wanna just kind of leave this just as a reference point
where the glass should start.
Kind of need to go like that.
We're gonna keep that same look of the arch of the window opening
just 'cause that's part of the body shape of the car.
Many people have said this is the world's most beautiful car.
Just the lines and the shape of this car is iconic
and probably something a lot of people wouldn't mess with,
but my man here loves cutting fiberglass with a Sawzall.
-So... -I'm itching. I can't wait.
-[Bill] We're gonna go with that right there. -[Ryan] All right.
How do you wanna do the...
-Just straight across right... -Right here.
Oh okay. Right there. All right.
[Bill] Cutting up a 1937 Bugatti
is not a thing you should do unless you have a lot of experience.
Come on, man. I'm ready to go.
Ready to go. I wanna cut it.
'Cause once we make the cut, there's no going back.
[Ryan] Bill's got everything lined out real nice.
We're gonna keep this window trim right here
just so we have a reference to go off of.
Whenever you're cutting fiberglass, just take it easy.
You know, especially when you're using a Sawzall.
It's gonna bounce a lot and all that.
Just kind of take your time, and keep it as straight as possible.
Hey, I'm wearing a mask 'cause fiberglass is bad.
I mean, dude, I think it's all cut out. I'm pretty sure.
I'm gonna keep my mask on 'cause I know if I take it off,
then I'll have to put it back on and cut again.
Hey, you gotta walk around.
[Bill] Man...
We can see why now we never stay on schedule.
-[laughs] -[Ryan] I do see now. Yeah.
[Bill] I think in the end, this is what had to be done for this car.
I'm loving how it's taking shape, though.
You know, with the little dainty window surround here,
Bucket seats in here with plenty of room for him to get in and out of.
-I can see it. -[Ryan] Yeah.
-I can see it. -Yeah, definitely.
-We just gotta do it. -[Ryan] Yeah.
I know that he's gonna be very happy with the head room.
-Right. [laughs] -[chuckles]
We're rounding third on the 2023 Denali.
Next up, we're going black-on-black
from the front to the back.
[Patrick] I'm gonna get this paint mixed.
And we have, like, five different toners in here
to make this black.
Now we finish off with the clear.
And this is actually just a base converter,
turns all of this to a base coat.
I'm about to get this party started.
Give it a few minutes to dry,
we'll come with that black.
So you see that pinky finger stuck out the side like that?
That's balance.
Gives you a great stir, no splash.
All right, second coat. We're completely covered.
Let's give it a second to dry,
and we're coming back for clear coat.
[Bill] We got all of our parts and pieces back from the powder coat.
Man, them things are shiny gold.
Everything's going back together
on the 2023 Denali.
We'll go ahead and start assembling the front end of this truck.
Then we'll move into the back end.
Too slow, man.
I was, I was ahead of you, actually.
Now it's time to start assembling this rear suspension.
You know, I can't wait to see this bed on here.
It's just gonna really stand out.
We couldn't leave the Denali with the factory pontoon steps,
so we're going with a lot sleeker retractable steps.
[hums]
Air guitar.
[Bill] Looking back where I started at,
16 years old,
not even knowing what I'm getting myself into,
just kinda figuring it out along the way.
You know, that's what we've been doing all this time,
the last 25-plus years, is figuring it out.
It's a testament to every guy in the shop
who is still here, getting to work,
you know, solving the problems.
And now we're back here building John Cena a car.
It's John Cena's car behind me.
It's, it's unbelievable.
You know, having a car like this in the shop
and having that, that trust,
having that relationship,
you know, that isn't built overnight.
I mean, that is built upon years and years and years
of turning out good quality work.
I can't say that I enjoyed every single little step of the way,
but it's really cool to get to this point in my business,
this point in my life,
to get to do cool stuff like this
-and still enjoy what I do. -[laughs]
[Bill] It's daunting, projects like John's Bugatti.
Projects like this take 20 times longer than a normal project,
especially when nothing lines up.
You have to make every part and piece.
Then you have to make every part and piece line up.
A lot of projects, when you take them apart,
you know exactly where everything goes back in.
You pull a seat out, you cover it,
you know where to put it back in.
There's no seat brackets for this.
There's no seat holes for this.
There's no seat reinforcement for this.
There's, there's nothing.
You're creating every step of the process
along the way of the process.
The customer wants a timeline.
You say, "Oh, man, probably 12 months."
More than likely, double that.
Every day at the shop, you're learning.
You know, there's many problems along the way
and there's many problems to figure out.
That's part of what we do around here.
Solve the problems. Figure it out.
Keep moving forward no matter what it is.
I'm sure we're gonna get knocked back down a few times.
We're gonna come right back up,
chip away at those problems,
and give him something just unbelievable.
To think back where I started
and where I'm standing right now
has just been amazing journey.
Just been blessed to get to do what I love,
to share it with the world.
Thank God we still have big projects like this coming in the door.
Thank God we have those super small projects that go in and out the door, also.
You know, keeps the lifts full
and keeps Ekstensive going.
[man laughs]
Just keeps us excited about the next project coming in.
You know, it's an exciting day.
It's time to show off the black and gold fleet at a car show.
You know, we're all loading up,
getting ready to go to the show,
and who just happened to roll up?
Whoa, what's going on, Bill?
[Bill] Old Doug Scott.
[Doug] Man, what is all this black and gold?
[Bill] Man, that's the latest shop truck,
the 2023 Denali 1-ton.
-Shop truck? -Man, you know, you gotta come on with the freshness.
[Doug] Man, you definitely made it cool.
I'm swinging by to get shirts for the grandkids
and come up on black and gold paradise.
-[Bill laughs] -Man, that is awesome.
It looks really good, Bill.
I haven't seen the black and gold theme for many years,
since the '79 Trans Am,
but Bill really brought it back.
It looked absolutely amazing.
Man, that thing is fine, Bill.
Hey, man, we had to make it match, right?
What all did y'all do to this?
You know, one of the first things we had to do
was get it in the shop and get it all tore apart
-and install the front lift kit. -[Doug] Right.
[Bill] You know, it's a 10-inch lift.
It's not too high
-so it's a pain in the butt to get in and out of. -[Doug] Right.
[Bill] You know, we can still use it on a daily basis.
Got rid of the factory pontoons on the side.
-I can't handle them factory steps, man. -[Doug chuckles]
[Doug] May not be too high for you,
but could be a challenge for me
-when I get this truck in about six months. -[all laughing]
It looks amazing from the front,
especially this bumper, man.
[Bill] Yeah, man, we had to get rid of the stock bumper
and just replace it with the Rogue armor
and have way too many lights, and that's what I like.
And then the next thing we had to do is just de-chrome everything.
I love it all monochromatic,
just looks mean coming down the road at you.
I love the front end of this thing,
typical Bill fashion.
The only thing stock is the emblem.
-It's been painted, too. -[Doug] It's been painted, too.
-Nothing's stock on the truck. -[both laughing]
[Jamie] First time seeing it really outside the shop,
seeing everything gold, it's the cherry.
Man, if you like all this, Doug, come check out the back.
Wow, Bill, that's incredible.
What did you do, just throw away
the whole back of the truck and start fresh?
Man, pretty much.
You know, I couldn't find a dual-wheel truck,
so instead of trying to put dually fenders on it
and make that work,
-I like the flat bed look. -[Doug] I do, too.
But I'm not just gonna put a factory bed on the truck.
-Of course, right? -Not this guy. Not this guy.
[Bill] So we had to switch it up a little bit, you know,
modify the headache rack a little bit,
get rid of the bars.
And as far as, like, the lighting on the back also,
you know, the trailer light style looks good on a ranch truck.
But on a custom truck, you gotta change that up.
You got just what you wanted. You just had to build it.
-Right. -[all laughing]
-That's a lot-- -Gonna modify and change it up anyway.
-That's right. -Of course, we had to install air suspension on the back.
We have that adjustability of pulling up to the trailer or dropping it,
hooking up to it, taking off without using a jack, right?
And of course, we had to finish it off
with the 26-inch dually wheels.
It's all about the ride and the look.
-I get it, man. -[Bill] Yeah.
[Doug] I think the truck looks great.
I love the black and gold theme.
I love all the customization.
And if I know Bill,
it would be for sale within the next 6 to 12 months
to build another shop truck.
Truck looks absolutely amazing, Bill. It really does.
Hats off to you and your team.
-Appreciate you, Doug. -Speaking of hats,
I'm gonna get some stuff for the grandkids.
-[Bill] All right. -Take care. Jamie, y'all have a good show.
Once again, all the guys at the shop kicked ass once again.
Come through for me time and time again.
Now it's time to get the whole black and gold fleet loaded up,
attach it to the truck, and off to a show
to show everybody what we're all about.
[laughs]
-What'd he do? -[Jamie] Back up about a half inch.
Got it there.
Projects like this get me excited.
To be able to take a truck into the shop
and just totally transform it,
use the skills that you have with your hands,
that vision that you have in your head,
turn it into something you can actually use for your business,
and to go out and show everybody what you can do with it...
Man, that's exactly what Ekstensive does.