When my wife and I saw the announcement for the return of one of our favorite Rustoration shows in mid-July, we couldn’t wait to buckle down and binge.
This season opens with Mark Towle rummaging through dumpsters at a local junkyard, something I am all too familiar with. Going to the yard is – as Forrest Gump would say – “like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.” As my wife pointed out, the opening “was cute and fun” but turns to its scripted-formula quickly, picking-up almost immediately after the epic-fail of the online auction for Gotham Garage’s supercar and motorcycle “concept pair” from Season-3.
From this moment on the number of times “250-grand” is said in the first 4 episodes could easily be turned into a drinking game, we get it… you want to get paid for your creation. Selling a one-off concept car in a post-covid, economically downturned, near recession climate has to be tough. As outsiders looking in, we understand why someone would want to invest their money in more common or better known classic and collector cars. It makes good financial sense.
But hang on… because in typical Car Masters style Shawn will wheel’n’deal until we get there, because after all… there’s an ass for every seat. And let’s face it, what would a Car Masters season be without some: Upgrade & Trade until the 6-figure pay day, right?
Gotham Garage is known for it’s gothic-inspired over-the-top near cartoonish builds and this season is no exception. The team comes out of the gate trying to make up for lost time with a 1928 Essex Rat-Rod build (as seen in the clip below), hoping to turn a $30k profit on what’s being touted as a $0 build.
I must drive flat-out!
Out of seemingly nowhere, Mark and Shawn get a call from a local avid Porschephile, who wants to take his VW Beetle based “Elite Laser” 917 Kit Car and make it track ready. OK! – you have my attention. Mark and Shawn visit the customers garage to inspect the car, and find that it’s a barely together rolling chassis, with an early 911 2.2-litre flat-6 waiting to be installed. The owner claims $40k upfront for the build and a bonus $10k if the car is capable of a sub-2-minute lap time at the “Streets of Willow” configuration at Willow Springs Raceway about an hour north of Los Angeles (below).
It goes without saying that the Gotham Team are out of their element with most European cars. Do you remember the Smart Car off-roader? (Season-1). Granted, this Classic Beetle-based vehicle isn’t the most sophisticated, but they immediately run into issues with the Porsche engine and its ignition system. Having worked on early 911 engines with my father, I can sympathize.
In the end, they were able to get the car “track ready” with some subtle Gotham touches. No spider webs from what we could tell, but mostly a replica of Steve McQueen’s Gulf-liveried 917 from the movie LeMans. I will admit that outside of the engine being oriented the wrong way for a 917, and the goofy exhaust, the car looked much better than when they started the build. Performance is what stands between the team and the extra $10k.
Despite the awkward seating position and terrible hurst-like shifter (above) that the driver had to contend with, the Elise Laser 917 was able to complete a hot-lap of Streets of Willow in a 1:52.29, shattering the driver’s previous benchmark time of 2:03. #imustdriveflatout
Did he say Rocket Car?
The ho-hum; woah-is-me vibe continues through Episode-3 where we add a couple more projects to the mix. We can’t even explain the T-bucket+Ranchero mash-up (above) during the first part of the episode, so we’re not going to… but, crampt is the first adjective we’d like to use, but you’ll just have to check it out for yourself.
“Now that’s a cool car!” exclaimed my wife as the team takes on a ’57 Chevy 2-door Wagon build on the second half of the episode leading into Episode-4. This was a well done and “subtle” #restomod with a brilliant red & alpine white paint scheme, beautiful interior, and build quality that we came to expect from earlier seasons of the show.
The car, in our opinion, was almost too good for the deal that Shawn presented “in-trade” whereby the new owner of the wagon would allow the team to select from any number of “classics” in their salvage yard. At first glance it seemed like there wasn’t going to be any fruit to pick from his yard, as Mark says “there’s nothing here but late models” – but we all know the good stuff is always kept in the back.
After some expected bartering the proposed trade is for a ’69 Camaro Coupe, ’62 Cadillac Coupe and a 1996 Lakester Bonneville Salt-Flats racer in return for the ’57 Chevy. The Camaro is quickly taken off the table with a story about #roundtoits. The Caddy gets chopped into a more desirable convertible, and flipped, while the Lakester gets turned into a “Rocket Car.”
And if by rocket car you mean, attaching a couple of MAP-gas propane tanks with mini flamethrowers pushing out of some dryer vent… then YES!, we have achieved rocket car status. This build was disappointing for the team, as well as for the viewers. It was such a womp-womp moment followed by a $15k loss on the sale. Personally, this car should have just been sold as-is, to a collector or museum since it had racing pedigree and a legitimate Oldsmobile Aurora IndyCar powerplant.
What where they thinking?
Episode-4 somehow turned into PIMP MY RIDE, taking a pristine near-museum quality US Military Ambulance and turning it into a gaudy gold wrapped disco party bus. A tidy $17k profit was made from the build, along with an additional $13.5k profit from a MK5-based 5-cylinder VW Beetle Cabriolet morphed into a modern “Baja Bug” for an up and coming female off-road racer.
Unlike the Smart Car debacle, Mark and Caveman were able dismantle the Bug and not cut any wires keeping it 100% functional. Next, the team turned a brand new Polaris Slingshot into a ’69 Camaro big wheel for Caveman’s best-friend.
Redemption
FINALLY… the wait is over. We can all breathe a sigh of relief. No more lamenting about these concept vehicles and the debt surrounding them. Beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder, and Nick Smith (below) who you might recognize from ClassicAvenue.com and appearances on other Motortrend shows as an “Automotive Appraiser” represents an undisclosed client that was willing to pay $285k negotiating down from $315k with that suspense driven minimum of “over $250k or nothing” which we’d been hearing about for nearly half the season.
We’re glad the shop got their 6-figure pay day on these cars, and that they could move on to other projects, and in doing so the audience could also move on. Godspeed.
Jumping the Shark
Then comes the Oppenheimer commissioned “build me a muscle-car for $100k” project, which included one of the most forced/awkward negotiations on the show to date. Mark chooses a C3 Corvette as the base for this build. My feelings on the C3 Corvette continue to ebb and flow – some days I love it, others not so much. The overall plans inspiration comes from the Mako-II Corvette concept car, and that’s great idea, we like this idea a lot! The Mako-II was sleek and sexy, and we were hoping that the team was going to follow the precedent they laid out during the Lincoln Futura build from Season 1 and create a near replica of that one-off concept car.
What we ended up with was more “hotwheels” – and Mark admits at one point he’s known for “cartoonish cars” – OK! … We need to constantly reminds ourselves of that this season. But here’s my personal take on this build, granted I’m not a designer or even an artist, but… why not start with a motorsports-inspired Bondurant-style wide-body Trans-Am GTO kit then graft that Shelby Daytona (Mako-Shark) rear end to it? Talk about a unique, menacing and aggressive car.
The carbon fiber front-end (above) was interesting to see come together, the technical prowess of the team is always top notch, but it just didn’t seem to fit the rest of the lines. The rear fenders are cut short because of the double side exit exhausts. Mark has a real talent in the paint booth. The paint scheme is undeniably fresh, you don’t see too many gradient paint jobs anymore. It goes from a dark blue on-top and changes to silver at the bottom, just like the body of a shark. Gorgeous.
We did take issue with the design, and as Jason Oppenheimer put it “it’s not subtle.” As long as he’s happy, everyone is happy, right? Once the car was revealed, my mind wandered back to the C3 from the movie ‘Corvette Summer’ (above) that we reviewed with EILFM. I’m not sure which I would choose in a contest, especially with a $100k price tag. In the end, the sale of this vehicle left the team with a solid $55k profit.
Upgrade & Trade, then Sell!
Finally, around Episode-6 we got back into the rhythm of Season-1, and the recipe goes as follows… take a base Chevy Silverado K5 Blazer in late ’70s brown, and turn it into a rolling version of Darth Vader’s helmet. Super black with hand painted red ghost flames, add a dually rear-end and matching flares and you have “one badass truck.” The Blazer was traded for a 1957 Kenworth Big-Rig that becomes a personal passion project for Mark in-honor of his relationship with his father. The Kenworth is slated to be sold for a “6-figure pay day” hoping to fetch a tidy $100k.
Progress on the ’57 Kenworth was halted due to a timeline shift for the Lincoln-Zephyr Service Van build that started around Episode-5. Speedway Motors (the named sponsor for that build) asked if production could be sped up by 2 weeks before the annual Southwest “Good Guys” Car Show/Meet in Arizona. The team was faced with a tough decision: Put the Kenworth on hold and find another buyer? -or- Miss the opportunity to have the Zephyr (below) featured on the latest Speedway Motors catalog cover?
The Red Coats are Coming!
After the success of the photo shoot and the reveal of the Zephyr at the Good Guys show, the team was relived to get back to the shop and focus on their remaining projects. If we jump back to the $285k sale of the “Concept Pair” for just a second … remember Nick Smith, from Episode-5?
He steps back into the picture and proposes a new kind of deal, in-short, merging his shop/efforts with Gotham Garage. This means adding a few new faces (below) and pairs of hands to help “ELEVATE“ the results and move things along.
We’re not a 100% sure what the loaded term “elevate” means just yet, but inquiring minds want to know! #keepitclassytemecula
We close with the teams from the two shops meeting each other and throwing some shop talk (shade) around, a hearty laugh and a handshake, and it becomes a “Stay Tuned… To be Continued” ending with the ’57 Kenworth incomplete. As my wife pointed out, Episode-8 (the season finale) wrapped up rather quickly, leaving Season-4 feeling half baked, “where is the rest of it?” she asked.
Final thoughts…
I want to wrap up this season of Car Masters first by saying, we love this show! The people, the work, the creativity are all top-notch. Some of this review might have come off a bit cynical and jaded, but after 3+ years of faithfully sticking with these builders… they set the bar really high in Season-1 and first impressions are lasting impressions. We hope that you take this review with a grain of salt. And if you’re new to the show, understand that Season-1 was so amazingly good, we’re always comparing any future builds to it.
Even though it didn’t continue through the entirety of the season, the show did add something new: more “office-like” 2:1 moments where team members like Constance and Caveman are seated with a blurred background, breaking the 4th wall, giving us more behind the scenes and emotional input between stages of each build. We hope to see more of that as it gives the audience a break from following all the work.
At the end of the day, Car Masters: Rust to Riches is still a great show that my wife and I completely and thoroughly enjoy watching together, and we wish the team the best of successes, and can’t wait for Season-5!
