Station wagon-driver Joanna Schroeder doesn’t care about automotive repair, but is crazy about Discovery’s reality show about transforming rust bucket classic cars into one-of-a-kind works of art.
I don’t care about cars or automotive repair, but Discovery’s Fast N Loud is my favorite reality TV show ever. And my husband, who is obsessed with fixing up old cars and motorcycles agrees.
The show is about a garage in Dallas, Texas called Gas Monkey, where owner Richard Rawlings and head mechanic Aaron Kaufman (who sports an epic Biblical Beard) cruise around Texas with a flatbed trailer looking for a old cars to fix up and sell. They jump fences, dodge junkyard dogs, and in one episode where they got stranded on top of a car in the middle of a scrap yard, they slide down the side of a rusted vehicle (“Like Ducktales!” Aaron yells).
And while the transformations the old cars go through is awesome, what makes this show great are the guys. Richard is a charming, smooth-talking wheeler and dealer and Aaron is his opposite—a clever and quick-witted creative visionary with very strong opinions and awesome red Ray Bans.
The other guys in the garage fill out a cast of characters who are witty, brutally honest and talented mechanics, paint specialists and body experts. It only gets better when they work through the night on tight deadlines and start spouting delirious nonsense and spying phantom raccoons.
What’s interesting about this reality show, unlike most others, is that there is no drama other than impending deadlines, unexpected repairs, deadlines and wondering whether the guys are going to break even in the no-reserve auctions they enter.
Fast N Loud evokes the genuine charm and humor of NPR’s Car Talk combined with the stunning artistry in the transformation of heaps of junk into gorgeous, one-of-a-kind collector’s items.
Readers, what’s your favorite classic car?
About Joanna Schroeder
Outstanding show! My brother had a new 1964 Riviera similar to the one they showed on the video but his was blue. That’s of two of my favorite classics. The other is a 1962 Cadillac convertible. Black with red leather interior. It’s amazing what these guys do.
Hey look! We’ve got something in common after all!
Come on guys, kick some ass in the biker build off, Jesse james is a loud mouth punk, thinks his the greatest thing since slice bread, all he is is washed up shit the women don’t even want him, senior doesn’t do a damn thing but shut out orders, so he shouldn’t be in this in the first place cause he’s not building the bike his guys are , I don’t think he has it in him to build a bike , and junior without a theme forget it , KICK THERE ASSES, BUILD ON
LOL, yeah … we do. Do you have a favorite classic car? Being as old as I am, I remember when cars actually had real chrime. And I could look at a can and know it was a Buick, Olds, Ford. Now-a-days, they all seem to look the same. Maybe you can ask the readers for their favorite classic? Has to be at least 20 years old.
I know I’m getting old when I take kids to the classic car show in town and the “classics” were new when I was growing up.
I just added that question!
I don’t have a favorite classic car per se, but my favorite thing on the show is when they take cars that are classically considered ugly, like a Lincoln Continental from the 70s, and make it look really cool.
My husband runs Phipps Auto (Gas Monkey Garage’s neighbor) and has been in 3 episodes so far. He has had a blast working on the show. Glad you are enjoying it. Loved your review! Thanks for sharing it. And our favorite classic car is my husband’s dad’s 1951 Ford, made into a hot rod with a Cadillac engine. It has appeared in the background on several episodes of the show. His dad, who passed away in 2004, would be tickled by that.
Hi Patty!
I’m so glad you wrote in! Ivan and I have seen the episodes with your husband and we both remarked on how cool it is that the Gas Monkey guys are close with the neighboring shop. Your husband seems like a kind and talented guy. Tell him we’ve enjoyed his appearances and to keep up the good work!
I have to say that although I don’t have a favorite car, my husband’s favorites are the old Ford trucks, 60s and early 70s. He was DYING when the guys restored that one they painted green. Amazingly, I saw one JUST like it on a canyon road here in Los Angeles yesterday and wondered if there could possibly be two just like it or if that one somehow ended up in LA!
Ricard Rawlings is a crack up , guy is never short on words,, i really enjoy their quest for looking for cars. Its my all time favorite car restoration show on TV, I hope DC keeps this show on for a while.
Went to the street view on Google maps and low and behold there is a police car in the Gas Monkey driveway….I’m sure the boys were looking for advice on making their ride Fast and Loud !!!
Richard reminds me of Bert Reynolds in his prime. He’s got all the confidence and swagger but avoids coming off like a cartoon character like so many reality show stars. Great show.
When they show the little clips of him talking to women (which they only show as outtakes, if you can find them) he is HYSTERICAL. Just classic.
You need to have some interest in the show theme or focus, but yeah, its the people. Before Ice Road Truckers, I had forgotten that during summer much of Alaska’s interior becomes a giant slushy mire, and that the only way to get the bulk of supplies to people is to truck them over ice in the winter. Interesting enough, but it’s the drivers, and their management, working against the challenges and sometimes each other, that gets you hooked on a show.
Plus, the rhythms of speech and other linguistic conventions in the trucking business are similar to what you hear in the construction business (Get ‘er done!)
With IRT’s season over, I’ve started watching Fast and Loud. Who can resist these glory-days rust-buckets transformed. Mine was a 1970 Camaro, with the biggest Goodrich Slicks I could get on it, a full restoration under the hood, cloud gray with a black vinyl top, and a personalized license plate, “The Count.”
I think it’s compelling because they actually create something. It’s a team, and they take an old hunk of crap and make it fantastic. Even when the aesthetic is ridiculous, it’s still a work of art.
And all 4 of the guys in the garage as well as Sue and even the neighbor Phipps (whose wife, Patty, is here in the comments!) are just these great personalities. It makes the show.
Thanks! They just aired the last episode of the first season of Fast N’ Loud a week ago. They made 12 episodes for the first season but have ordered 15 more for season 2, and they are busy filming those episodes as we speak.
Meanwhile, Gas Monkey Garage was invited by Discovery Channel to take part in this years Biker Build-off versus Jesse James and both Paul Teutel Jr and Sr. Aaron Kaufman of GMG is busy building an awesome bike in our shop, which we are leasing to them for this project. He has until the first weekend in November to finish it, then Discovery’s people will go through all the footage they’ve shot at each of the 4 build-off garages and put it together to air in early December. The bikes will be revealed in Las Vegas on December 11th and the winner announced on December 12th.
This doesn’t change the focus of GMG’s TV show, which is still on cars, but Aaron has built some great bikes in his day, and this is a good fit for him. Glad you’re enjoying the show and the people on it. They are all pretty much exactly the way they seem on TV.
(Sorry, I got the dates wrong — December 10th and 11th, not the 11th and 12th)
would the gentlemen of gas monkey garage be interested in a 1962 studabaker y chance i know for a fact tha it runs and that it is in really god shape.
I can try to pass that info along to them, or you can submit it to them by email at info @ gasmonkeygarage.com and see what they say. They get tons of people telling them about cars they might like, so it can take them awhile to go through them all. Where is this particular car located, and how much are they asking for it?
Joanna- I really enjoyed your post on Fast & Loud that is exactly how I feel. It is amazing to see how they bring these cars literally “back to life”. I am not much of car person but I am very into the creative process and shows about it such as Project Runway, Top Chef etc.. and Fast & Loud is even better becaues there is no real compettive drama. It is just a bonus that the guys are not hard to look at and all have a great sense of humor!
Patty I also want to thank you for the posts you have made on this site and a few others I have been to. It is fascinating to actually hear from someone who is observing the aftermath of a reality show hitting it big. I really hope it does not keep your family or anyone else from getting things done but you are right in saying that it is definitely good exposure. I am very much looking forward to season two and think it could not have happened to a a more decent and talented bunch of folks!!:)
I love Fast and Loud as a female I like antiques now with this show I like old cars too excellent program
What is the truth going around about this Rawlings guy not knowing zip about cars?
But knows a thing about spanking someone else’s monkey?
I like the show but do know they like the father son motorcycle builders don’t actually do the work. Building a car means doing the engine, bodywork means painting, but they send it out n only reassemble it
I would like to see an actual video ,from start to finish them doing a complete vehicle
I love the show, Aron and Richard are awesome Richard is sexy and hot.is he married richard is who I ‘m asking about.
a worthless ‘car’ soap reality show without any redeeming values regarding actual mechanical rebuilts… do some searches on respected hot rod/kustom forums such as hotrodders.com and h.a.m.b. [jalopy journal] and even if you’re a laic who can’t see for oneself how cheap and tacky those ‘car build’ they do in fact are, you’ll see opinions of experienced builders rip a major one in that blowhard richard’s credibility… he’s an annoying narcissist whose b/s can’t be piled up much higher and what’s his greatest sin – he gives a real bad name to the scene by inflating his prices outrageously to clueless wannabe ‘rodders’… do a search on hotrodders.com under ‘gas monkey garage is giving away a free hot rod’ and you’ll see what a shameless, dispicable stunt they tried to pull in the name of blatant self-promotion… such tacticts don’t fly well in the true hotrod/kustom scene however…
This show is good for entertainment value and that’s about it, even that is lacking in my opinion. I have been restoring cars, hot rods and motorcycles for years and what is plainly obvious with show like this one and the short lived desert car kings is they are full of crap. You cannot restore a car in a week. You can barely paint a car in a week if done properly much less allow for proper curing and reassembly. Then they claim they buy a car for 13k, add another 10k and they’ve fully restored it with interior, paint, wheels etc? Bullshit. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.
While I find Richard and Aaron to be okay tv personalities, the show itself is a joke and is detrimental to the customers car business. Watch a show like American restoration, that is a good show about restoring items. Nobody finds it strange that gas monkey can restore an entire car in less time and for less money that it takes ricks restorations to restore a simple vending machine? At least American restoration quotes realistic prices on the show.
I wish all of these car shows would actually show the work they are doing, but I guess they don’t want to admit to the gallons of bondo and rushing through each process. When the camera is showing the finished car, they always pan over it fast, or take very low angle shots, the kind of shots that will hide dust, runs, dents, misalignment in body panels etc.
So enjoy the show for what it is, but please don’t mistake what they do for a real restoration. Flipping cars by splashing some paint on them and washing them is way different than restoring or building a hotrod.
Dealt with Rawlings a few years ago. He’s a dick.
I have a 1964 Biscayne that has been about half way fixed up. My Son and some friends had started but did not get to finished it. It has a new 350 engine,7 new bluetop optimal batteries, 4 new tires and the hydraulics had been started but not finished. Would like to sell car to someone who could finish it and enjoy the car. It aslo has a cool paint job. will send pictures if you are intrested. Thanks Pat Taylor
I want to know if you can fine me a 69 SS or Z28 camaro to restore it can be a rolling shell. I am disabled for 15yrs now and i can find a camaro anywhere so i was hoping that u can for me. I don’t have a lot of money so it has to be cheap or maybe donated to me. So please make my dream come true and fine me one in good shape.Thanks Ray
dude, who are you addressing this to??…. this is a comment section to an article written by some lady on her blog here….
a ’69 z28 or ss camaro isn’t going to be cheap… best bet is to look on auto-trader and other on-line classifieds… and buy a shell of or rough shape ‘vanilla’ camaro then clone it to look like a z28 or ss model… i’m a quadriplegic since 1990 and only own/drive old cars [currently have a kustom '60 fairlane and '36 studebaker coupe hot rodded]… sold my hopped up ’68 cutlass daily driver [with a 455 big bblock] a year ago… but being disabled i can’t work on my cars myself much less restore/rebuild them… how disabled are you to want to tackle a rolling shell?…. you have to make your own dream come true anyway, save your dollars and look for a running car… but you won’t find a ’69 z28 in fair to good condition for under $20k… set your sights on something realistic like a late 60s muscle but without the exclusivity of a factory z28, ls-6, 427 engine options or you’ll just keep dreaming….
I don’t check back here very often, and I see there have been several more comments since I did that last time. So, as far as restoration goes, that’s not what Gas Monkey Garage is about. The basic premise of their garage and the show itself is to find abandoned or forgotten old cars and work on them to get them in decent enough shape to sell them. At no point do they ever claim they are doing a restoration like some of you are referring to. They don’t care about bringing the car back to what it looked like originally; they want to make it “fast and loud” and make a few bucks on it. I know that drive the antique and classic car collectors nuts, but it’s what they do; some of these cars (like the Gasser in one episode of season 1) are literally just junk heaps sitting in a field, but the GMG guys got them back to being usable cars that look cool. That’s all they’re after.
The other side of their business is picking up cars at low enough prices that they can get them running and flip them quickly without doing much at all to them. That money is what has always helped keep them in business.
As for the publicity stunt they pulled a long time ago, that thing has haunted them ever since. It was bad judgment on their part and the part of the guy they were working with when they were trying to promote their business at the time. Everybody makes mistakes. Most people learn from them and move on, and that’s what GMG did.
Finally, Richard has never claimed to be able to work on cars himself. He does know something about cars, but he knows enough to hire good mechanics to do the actual work on them. Aaron has worked on cars (and bikes) his whole life. He is an excellent mechanic and fabricator. He did so much of the hands-on work during season one of this show that he frequently actually spent the night at our shop rather than trying to go home for a few hours of sleep. Now that the show is wildly popular, they have hired more mechanics, and Aaron has been overseeing a lot of it, but he still does his share of hands-on work.
They moved to a much bigger place in mid-January, so they are not at our shop anymore. Definitely slower and quieter without them back there monkeying around. We kind of miss them, but we’re also kind of glad to have our normal business operations back.