Fantom Works

[day1glo]

Bruzilla, I agree. i think Ed Chia should just do a show by himself.

My nephew just posted on facebook how Counting Cars has inspired him to go into the car building biz. Sure, selling cars for 30+ thousand dollars sounds great on TV, but i tried to warn him about how much it woul cost for the equipment and shop of his own and that he will be probably end up working for a chain collision body shop lucky to make about 30k a year.

When i see places like the Count's it looks like the car sales have to pay him, his bald buddy and the fat guy that drives the mercedes, none of which ever lay a hand on the cars. good for them. thats the benifit of owning and running a buisness. I visited a shop like that here in Savage, talked to two different Office guys, pushing the full blown high dollar build and given a tour of shiny cars being built by rich guys. during the tour i was tempted to ask what they paid the guys actually doing the work.

The guy doing my bodywork is the owner and the only person doing the work. he was welding a roll cage in a mustang and I felt bad interupting him. nice guy. He didn't give me a tour, opened with his hourly rate and how he logs the hours for each job. He listened to my goal for the car being a bare bones streetable drag car built on a budget. then showed me his 67 nova he used to race. said he wasn't interested in painting anymore, but had some people he liked to use. later i goolged him and saw two 50's trucks of his featured in hot rod magazines that he never even told me about.

 

[Ghosty]

...and why he painted the 57 Chevy wagon a dull green???

Yeah I didn't really like that either. If it must be green, I've seen some tri-fives that look incredible, not that dull. Unless the owner wanted that for the old-school stock look, who knows. I also hated the yellow wheels, even though it looked "classic", not my taste. Even the owners didn't seem to like it!

 

[YY1]

I don't really care for the "John Deere" treatment on anything but John Deere's.


Recipe for a classic car resto business, ala "The Count":

1- operate a profitable bar and restaurant

2- operate a profitable tattoo parlor

3- use the profits to purchase and resto-mod classic cars.

 

[YY1]

After watching a few more episodes...and

Starting to see where the "added" drama is...and

Looking at the show through my professional project manager lens...

I like it more now, and possibly more than the others.

 

[HYRDGOON]

Is this show still on? Was just recently told the owner is my GF's stepdad's cousin. Her mom and stepdad visited last year and I wouldn't mind making that trip myself.

 

[Brandy]

IMHFO the Phantom Works show is good on the fab end of it, but the rest is total BS. There will never come a day when I would pay 90 to $120,000 for a restoration, even if I had the money. the owner seems like a total d**k head. I would never work for an a** like that, what a clown. If he came to me and said some BS about how the owner doesn't matter, only the car, he would not be touching mine. He is WAYYY to stuck on himself. Then again, perhaps it's all scripted and he's really a nice dude. Hmmmm....not likely. LOL.

 

[440SportSatellite]

If anyone's interested, the kid doing the metal fab stuff for fantomworks on the first season, Kyle Yocum, left there and opened his own shop, which just happens to be right around the corner from my work. He cut some metal off the inside lip of my rear wheel well where the 295/50/15's I had were rubbing just a bit and you can't even tell that it was worked on. Gave me a real good price and knocked it out in a couple of hours. Super nice guy and some of the work he does is beyond incredible, especially for someone his age. Real master craftsmanship type stuff. Anyone looking for some custom metal work near the east coast of VA, this is the guy to talk to. You can check out his website at www.yocumsrodshop.com