“I can’t watch Leepu and Pitbull. It is complete BS. There is NO way to build these cars for the money they quote.”
Those are my thoughts exactly.
Overall, my reaction to that show is…Wake me when it’s over…
Thanks missileman. I’ve thought of plugging my computer into a serious monitor, but I spend too much time on it already. I need to get out and exercise instead. Even if it’s a short walk.
MB - It’s on the History channel. The history channel is part of the basic cable package…because that’s what I have.
I just finished a 6 +/- bike ride that was supposed to be 10+ @tsm. But the heat here is tough this summer.
And on reality television I believe the weather channel was on as it often is here and a group of young men in some cold climate, likely Alaska, were assembling junk to make a human powered battery charger. Using an old derailer bicycle they cobbled up the rear free wheeler hub to an automobile alternater and mounted it to the bike frame so that peddling would supposedly charge a battery so they could watch television. They actually stated that the battery was charged using the Rube Goldberg contraption. When you consider that an alternater has only marginal output at 1,000 rpms and it is unlikely that pedalling could result in even 400 rpms the unreality becomes obvious. And when you consider how simple it would have been to merely mount the alternater with its original pulley contacting the rear tire and POSSIBLY result in charging the battery the show becomes a real dud.
Mike, the history channel isn’t part of the basic package we get in my town. I wish it was.
Rod, years ago they used to sell a bicycle headlight powered by a generator that was spun by the bike’s rear wheel. I bought one. It was an excellent object lesson in how much energy it actually takes to generate enough power just to light a bicycle headlight. Way too much.
MB - You with Comcast/Xfinity?
Mustangman is correct about the show being total BS. Even shoving all technical aspects aside I find shows like that to be embarassing to watch. The bar can never be set too low…
Anyone who knows anything about bodywork will also know what happens when you slather on 5 gallon buckets of Bondo; with a little use it’s going to crack and possibly fall out in chunks once subjected to road use.
The bikes the Orange County guys build are also rolling junk designed to gleam at some function.
About 10 years ago a farm show was held here at the expo center. A friend of mine is the shop foreman at a large farm implement and Grasshopper dealer. Some OC guys were going to appear with the Snap-On and Grasshopper bikes.
My friend acted as the rep at that show and before the doors opened to the public got a chance to look over both bikes. The friend is a lifetime mechanic and motorcycle guy. He said the bikes may look good on TV or from 20 feet away but up close the welds are crap and various things have grind marks from being cobbled to fit.
It probably doesn’t matter; they’re never going to be ridden anyway other than for the photo-op.
Anyone who has ridden a rigid frame with raked forks and very little seat padding knows they are going to be suffering inside of a 100 miles.
Sad as it is, he was asked to disable the bikes so they would not start. I guess that job was over the heads of the OC guys who were there.
40 years ago while living in Oakland CA I worked with a man who built choppers at a shop behind his house and they were as basic and simple as possible. He had some GO/NO GO gauges cut out of plywood and had a formula for the rake angle and used a plumb bob and a grade school protracter to set up the front end. The suicide cluth and lack of a front(hand) brake kept me from ever getting on one. Choppers were popular then in the Bay area but all appeared to be mostly bare bones basic. No one would have spent tens of thousands of dollars for one.
Most of those shows seem like very long advertisements to get more business. I think more of the non-automotive shows are like that than car-themed shows, but they are still meant to drum up customers.
My two bikes (owned for well over 30 years although others have come and gone…) have foot clutches and handshifts. I wouldn’t have anything but on them. The only problem is on bikes with no front brake and stopping at the top of a hill.
That requires some speed and dexterity to get the bike rolling forward before it rolls backwards down the hill and falls over or bangs into a trailing vehicle before the foot can go down again.
Best to make sure the front brake is operative… 
Yup Mike, I am. Different areas get different channels.
I didn’t think much of Leepu and Pitbull. I’ve seen the show about three or four times now, and frankly I would be embarrassed to be seen in one of their creations. Obviously, most, if not all of the various crise that they encounter are staged, I get that, and accept it. But just from styling standpoint, the finished product usually looks like something a ten year old might doodle in class.
When it comes to car restoration on TV, I like Wheeler Dealers much better. Yeah, there’s still some fluff about having to make a “profit” but it’s nowhere near as bad as your typical car restoration shows. And they seldom do anything really tacky or offensive to the cars they put back together.
The first thing Foose did is scrap the original 327 and replace it with a boring GM crate engine. That right there just eliminated the "numbers matching" part of it and ruined it.
Well, the original 327 wasn’t exactly a thrill machine to begin with. I’d be willing to bet the crate motor was a significant upgrade in a number of aspects. Besides, are you sure he actually scrapped it? See below…
and ruined it
This is a bit of a sore spot w/me having spent many years enduring the criticisms of the fanatical Corvette crowd. Deviate one bit from the original factory configuration and they start to twitch, a vein pops out on the forehead and they start in with the butchering history cr@p.
First of all, I am against producing trailer queens. For what?? To preserve for all eternity and not enjoy it? My life is too short for that and I don’t really give a rip about what I leave behind after I’m dead. It’s my life and my money. If these history buffs want to preserve stuff, put your money where your mouth is, buy it yourself and do what you want with it. I promise not to come by and tell them what to do with their stuff 
That being said, I do remove all original engines, pickle them and put them on a pallet in the event I want to put it back in at some point. Then I build something with a bit more oomph and flog that rather than risk the original engine. Later someone sees my ride and starts in on the non-original configuration rant… Amazingly, when asked, most of them don’t even own one themselves! Bar stool critics…
Having fully restored a few cars and restified many others, I find no sense of satisfaction just putting the car back to the factory configuration. I want to change it, make it better or make it suit MY needs. I don’t want to go to a show so I can park my car next to three others that look almost identical to it just because that’s the way it was originally built and then have some buffoon come by criticizing the lack of factory correct inspection marks…
I have since discovered that it can be an almost unlimited source of amusement to purposely push their buttons. For the truly CDO (that’s OCD but with the letters in the correct order purposely messing with them can be quite entertaining.
Well certainly to each his own. But a 34 Ford with a small block Chevy V-8 and TH-350 transmission is no longer a 34 Ford it’s a hot rod as is a 59 Corvette with a 2015 fuel injected V-8. And while I’m much to poor to be called a “purist” I do have a much greater appreciation for those who restore automobiles rather than just bolt in a crate SBC like so many others these days.
@TwinTurbo I have to respectfully disagree about butchering an original anything and also disagree that the 327 is a dog. A local guy ran a 327 in a '65 Malibu drag car for some years and he ran consistent 10.15s in the quarter; and that’s with no blower or nitrous.
A friend dropped a bone stock 327 in an old 4 door Chevy and I’ve been with him when he barked the tires through the first 3 gears.
They not only changed the engine in that Corvette but the suspension, brakes, interior, radiator, and Lord knows what else. That clean piece of history ceased to exist.
What may not be widely known is that the car owner is responsible for taxes based on the value of what was done to car. Imagine what Chip Foose would value that Corvette at and the owner being handed a bill for well into 5 figures.
When the Overhaulin’ show was being run the part about taxes was even stated on the website; it was just buried and I’m sure the car owners had to sign off on it.
This is true of any of those revamp shows.
Butchering an original car is like yanking the Mona Lisa off the wall of the Louvre and repainting it or sending some sculptors out to Mt. Rushmore to give Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt a shave with jackhammers.
Butchering an original car is like yanking the Mona Lisa off the wall of the Louvre
Oh come on now! That has to be the most ridiculous comparison yet. Those are ONE OF A KIND artworks, we’re talking about mass produced cars.
And a 327 IS a dog compared to any big blocks of that same vintage…I’ll take on ANY naturally aspirated 327 you can build against one of my 454s or even a 427.
I’d also prefer ANY crate motor over a rehashed original motor by those guys on TV shows. I wouldn’t trust them to do it justice. Instead, leave my original motor alone, give it back to me and put in any crate motor you choose…
Often the original engine is not used because it isn’t worth usin. I have occasionally seen shows where they explained this after getting letters chiding them for ruining a perfectly good car with a crate motor.
Still trying to figure out why/how they broke the Mercedes SL camshaft on phantom works show. I gotta believe the cam grinder tried to grind it and turns out it was worn too bad? So they broke it so they could bitch about it during show and had a replacement already lined up?
@TwinTurbo You’re comparing small blocks to big blocks and of course in most cases the cubic inches will win.
In that Corvette build they substituted one small block for another; a 350 for 327.
I wouldn’t trust them to build an engine either. That’s why the engine goes out to a pro engine shop while the body is done.
What I would love to hear is followups a few years later on some of the butcher jobs they did about taxes due, regrets over the mangling of an original car, and so on. That won’t happen of course.
I do believe there some volatile controversy over one of Fooses’s hack jobs that involved a 442 convertible although I do not remember the details.
This idiocy carries over to other shows also including Gas Monkey and American Hot Rod where Boyd Coddington mangled his share of originals.
One in particular on AHR involved an old pickup that the ex-military owner had spent 8 years redoing and it was a beauty. They bought the truck and proceeded to gut it; scrappng everything on it except some body panels.
I have to wonder if the guy who sold it to them was horrified to learn his 8 years of work went to the dumpster inside of a day.