Original subtitles

On this episode of Counting Cars, the mistress of the darts stops by with a

nightmare of a project.

She darts sometimes, sometimes she doesn't. So you can be my satanic

Devin calls for a Torino and starts making crazy offers.

Would you take $35 ,000?

Would you take $45 ,000?

God hits the wall when I take on an impossible restoration.

It's a 71F100.

Look, this is labor!

I know that. That's his labor.

Vegas is a gambling town.

Most people bet with chips.

I bet with rides.

Look at this. And I always go all in. Wow. What would you take from this?

I'm Dan, a .k .a. The Count. And this is my all -star team.

We find them, fix them, flip them, and sometimes I eat them. This is 30G. I

can't help myself.

For my crew, every job's high stakes, and we can't afford to lose.

This is Counting Cars.

Today

I'm

cruising with Big Ryan. He's been a close friend and my project scout for

He's always finding hard -to -find vehicles for the shop, and sometimes

lead to some serious cash.

So where are we going now, man? What are we looking at?

Getting there is the fun. See the thing I'm telling you, right?

Every time we do go look at something, I have to say, you usually find

the cool stuff.

Yeah, yeah, I think you gotta give it a little...

Shut this thing up, bro.

This ain't what you brought me out to see, is it? No. Because you know me, I'd

just cut it up, turn it into a hot rod.

Brian! No, I know.

Gary, what's happening? Hey, everyone.

How are you?

Hey. Hi, Gary. I'm Danny. Danny?

What do you do, brother? I worked on those doggone old Model Ts.

Okay. Yeah. So this is one of yours? It's my 1924, and it's original.

Wow. I have been working with Model T for about 60 years.

Not telling you exactly how old I am, but that's pretty close.

All right. This one we're looking at right here. Yes.

There's my baby.

We're going to give you a really good deal.

This is an early Ford.

71. 71 F -100. Okay. I like the body style of these trucks, man. 71 is a good

year for this truck. It was. And this is why when you're busting my balls about,

why aren't you telling me what it is? Because I sound like I want to. You're a

little bitchy, but it's okay sometimes.

This 71 F -100 comes from a long truck heritage.

The first ones rolled off the assembly line in the early 50s and served as our

nation's early tow trucks and fire trucks.

And to this day, the F -Series Ford truck is still the number one selling

in the world.

It looks like we got the rest of the truck back here.

This was a complete truck. It is. It's all here. I like the fact that it's

already sandblasted so I can see what we got going here.

We got some rust, you know, that's eaten through, but we can replace all of that

over at the shop. We're not going to charge you extra for the rust out, you

know. That kind of goes with a project like this.

Even if this truck was put together, I'd have to disassemble it the minute I got

it back to the shop. The fact that it's already completely taken apart and

sandblasted puts me way ahead of the game. Saves me time, saves me money.

If I can get this truck for around a grand and stay on schedule, I stand to

about a 5G profit on this truck.

The question becomes, what do you want for this?

Well, I'm going to say around $1 ,500. How does that sound to you?

How about this? Would you take $1 ,300 in cash, $100 bills, because I've got to

feed him, and that's going to cost me at least a couple hundred. Don't get me

involved. Well, since you put it that way, let's do it. You're a gentleman,

Gary. Big Ryan really came through on this one. In my business, you can't

to pass up opportunities like this. $1 ,300 for this F -100, it's a no

I will turn this trash into cash in no time. That's a nice truck.

It's a short bed. It's what everybody wants. I agree. It's all good. Good

Yeah. Am I getting fired? What are you two doing in here?

Actually, Danny has a little friend coming in. I got a VIP coming in, man.

Who's coming in?

I have the Elvira on her way down here. Oh, my God, dude.

Today, I've got a longtime and way cool friend of mine coming by the shop. Her

name is Cassandra Peterson, but everybody would know her as Elvira,

the Dark. She's got a way cool project that she wants me to work on here at the

shop for her.

Frankly, I cannot wait to get my hands on it.

It's hot out there. Hey. How are you, darling? How are you?

Wonderful. My mistress of the night.

Love this girl. How you doing, darling?

I'm good. I'm hot. Hi, I'm Kevin. This is Kevin. And this is Scott.

Scott Cassandra. Wow.

You're not worthy.

I am not.

Let's go look at your car.

Oh, yeah, please.

Look at this.

59, right? 59 T -Bird with a permanent no top because we chainsawed that off.

The Thunderbird was Ford's answer to the Chevrolet Corvette. It was designed

with such grace and elegance, it actually coined the phrase for the first

a personal luxury car. And it was so cool, it was owned by a lot of

People like Marilyn Monroe, JFK, even Frank Sinatra had a T -Bird.

This is the original car from my movie, Mistress of the Dark. Awesome. This

ornament on the hood is a blow -away piece. That's amazing.

That's you.

That's me. That's me. You should have yourself as a hood ornament on your

Lay in that same pose.

Somehow,

I don't think it would look very good.

This is awesome, too.

Thank you. Isn't that cool? And then my spiderweb grill. Did you check that out?

I love the grill. She's got a great pair of headlights, though, doesn't she? Oh,

boy. I'm sorry.

Are there things that are not working properly? Oh, yeah. It overheats. She

starts sometimes, sometimes she doesn't. There's kind of some loud noises going

on. She's got a little attitude situation?

Yeah, little.

So you can be my satanic mechanic.

Perfect.

I don't know, honestly, what it's going to take as far as budget is concerned

until I get it up on the rack and check it all out. I mean, I don't know how

much you could do for, like, around...

$10 ,000? That's great.

We can make that happen, Donna. We really will. I have no doubt that we can

this done.

But I actually might have an idea up my sleeve that will just blow her away.

Something I've always wanted to do, but I've never had the right customer for

it. And trust me, Elvira is perfect for what I have in mind.

Tell that.

George! Where do you see this baby?

What in the world is this thing?

I was told to go pick it up.

Where's the rest of this truck? I told her it was there.

Let me go see if Danny's in his office.

Figure it out, and we'll load it if we have to.

When I first saw the F -100, I didn't know what we had there, and I didn't

what we were getting ourselves into.

What's up, Scott?

What'd you do? What did you do again? This is a good deal. It's a 71F100.

It's in great condition.

Look! A little bit of... Look!

It's rock solid. Look, this is labor. I know that. This is labor. Dude, our guys

will knock that right out.

It's not something we can't do.

I don't think we should do. People forget how much work we gotta put into

make it look right, to sell it to a customer fairly.

I don't think it's gonna add up.

Trust me, brother, this is going to be beautiful.

You can't deny it. You can't deny it.

You know, the Caddyshack dance isn't going to get you out of everything

Put it in bed for me.

Thanks, Scott. Charge!

I scored. I know I did. I've been doing this for a long time.

Don't forget, signing a waltz is Cal's custom, not Scott's custom.

What a...

We've been working on the 1959 Thunderbird that Cassandra dropped off

shop. So far, things have been going real smooth. And my secret edition is

really starting to look kick -ass.

Meanwhile, Kevin and I are running some errands for the shop.

Did I tell you the other day a pint of paint dropped off somebody's car and

spilled right in front of me and it got all over my truck?

Oh, you're kidding.

Dude, what is this up here in traffic? Oh, yeah, yeah.

That thing is wild looking, though.

Dude!

That is an old Ford Torino, like before Starsky and Huntsman. This is a cool

car. That's something you just don't see very often. Here, pull up. Hey,

brother, nice car.

What year?

Man, that's beautiful.

Oh, dude, he's gone again. Man, that thing is gorgeous.

Let's see if I can't talk to him. Oh, you can't talk to him? I'm going to try.

You've got to have him pull over. I'm going to try. I'm going to give it a

Can we talk to you about your car for a couple minutes?

Can you pull over up here somewhere?

Awesome, dude.

I appreciate that. I can tell you right now, I look down in there, it looks

nice. It looks beautiful.

This could be a money car, man. This car is excellent.

I love the lines. I love the look. And for once, I was really happy that Danny

didn't give up.

Man, thanks for stopping. My name's Danny. Clint. Clint. Kevin.

We're total car fanatics, man. Look at this thing.

Man, 70 Torino.

The funny part is about this car, it looks like a pretty mean hot rod muscle

car. But back in the day, this car was made for a basic family, husband, wife,

couple kids. And this was a way for the husband to get something that's kind of

a hot rod muscle car, but still a family car, too.

I love the black accent.

The type Northwest Torino come with the black hood. That's where it came out of

the Northwest. Washington, Oregon, and Idaho Ford dealers.

How rare is that as an option? They only made 357 of these cars. There's

probably less than 30, 35 of them still in existence.

This is a family car I could get interested in right here. If I made you

reasonable offer on this car, are they somewhere in the...

$35 ,000 range?

Would you even consider that? You'd have to be up there closer to around $50

,000 or $55 ,000, $60 ,000. That's what I think it's worth to me. I understand.

I really do.

Take $45 ,000?

Yeah?

I've known Kevin for almost 20 years, and he never makes an offer on a car.

always the one trying to talk me out of spending money on cars like this. I

don't know what got into him.

But I kind of like it.

If I make you an offer literally in cash, in $100 bills, would you consider

Gs on this car?

I wouldn't because I've got three grandkids that want this car as soon as

graduate. However, they're going to have to graduate when they're four years old

because I'm not done driving it.

I love it. I love it. Thank you.

My Torino is not for sale because...

It's made too many memories in my life. I mean, if they started talking stupid

money, like around $75 ,000 to $100 ,000, well, maybe, but I could never

with myself for selling it.

Dude, what about you coming out swimming on a $45 ,000 offer?

Apparently, you got into this car. Yeah, I liked it. Totally shocked me, man. I

got caught up in it all. I think you did.

Pauly D.

What's going on?

How are you, my man?

We've been rebuilding this F100, and I got a great idea for a custom piece on

this truck. It's going to add some cool flavor. So I got Pauly in here to help

me out in creating a really one -off custom piece.

I'm sure Scott's just going to love it.

Do you have something you can show me?

I do. Why don't you go grab it? It's not quite finished yet, but I'll grab it.

If you don't mind, man, that'd be great.

You see this bed?

I'm thinking about doing a fake bedside on it, like three.

And it'll waterfall down.

Danny, Danny, we talked about this truck. Right, right, right, right.

A steak bed is a bed that has removable sides, which is even more for a

commercial use.

They can be very expensive, up to about $5 ,000.

If that's what we're doing on this truck, you can blow the budget.

We're deep in this truck already.

A steak bed's two to five grand worth of work.

Huh?

I got a buyer lined up. They already put their money down.

They're flying in in three days to pick it up.

And in the ninth hour, Danny wants to put some custom rails on it. I know

they'll love the look. I don't know if they'll love the added cost.

This is the dumb right here that makes me look bad.

I think it should work. Check this out. Get the out of here. You already had to

make it. That night.

Look at this. Just look at this, Scott. What the is it used to talking to you?

You don't ever listen. Come on, Scott. Look at this, man. It's beautiful.

Every time you say come on, it costs us money.

Come on.

A few weeks ago, Big Ryan found me a Ford F100 project that was just way too

cheap to pass up. My initial plan was just put it together and flip it quick.

The problem is, I fell in love with it. I went all out on this truck, and it is

sweet. The good news is, Scott found me a buyer.

Bad news is, they flew it from Jersey, and the truck ain't quite ready yet.

You're going to love this.

Joan, she loves old trucks, and we like what we saw on the pictures they sent

us, so we came here today to...

Pick it up. This is Tom and Joan.

I hope you're digging on it,

man. Check it out.

It's beautiful.

Yeah, it's gorgeous.

I knew you guys were coming, but we just couldn't get it quite perfect done yet.

We're not there?

Almost. We're almost there. Because, you know, we're like on a time schedule. I

know, I know. It's not ready to drive it. How do we know?

The motor has a warranty.

The transmission has a warranty.

Scott, I live in New Jersey.

Joe needs to get service on the truck. It's under warranty. So what do I tell

Joe? Oh, Joe, listen, just drive three days to Las Vegas to get it fixed and

he'll come back.

Tom is right. By us not having the truck done, he takes a risk. Here at Counts

Customs, I always make sure the customer's happy.

So I'm pretty sure he's going to fall in love with it.

Take a look at the engine.

Wow.

Whoa.

You want to fire it up, honey? Bob, she's okay to start it, right?

Now you tell me it won't even start? Oh, no. Go ahead, Joan, hit it.

I bet you get a ticket when you get home.

You know, my original budget on the F100 with the customer was about $35 ,000 to

$40 ,000. But we're in this truck $37 ,000 since they flew across the country

and the vehicle wasn't ready.

We'll be lucky if we break even on this build.

Is everything you want? Yes, yes. I wish it was done, but... I do too.

So what are you thinking, Tom?

To be honest with you guys, I'm pretty happy with about $32 ,000.

Whoa.

It's not that bad.

We're in it more than 32 ourselves. Oh, yeah, we are. Okay. Scott, where should

we go with this? How about 43?

No. You've got to come in a little more than that.

Well, how about you come up, and we'll find somewhere in the middle.

Okay. Um, 33.

Yeah, that's still a little light.

I think if the truck was ready and we were able to roll out of here, Joan was

driving today because she was all excited.

I think you have to discount at least some bucks off for the excitement

Okay. Yeah, where can we go?

35, we got a deal.

Joan's happy at that. Are you happy at that number?

We're happy.

We're happy.

Sammy?

You call it. It's your shop. You know what? As far as I'm concerned, it's a

deal. Okay. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, buddy. I appreciate that very much.

It's our fault that the truck wasn't ready, so we had to settle for $35 ,000.

Now, I'm in the truck $37 ,000, so I took a hit.

But sometimes it's all about the reputation and just making sure that the

customer leaves happy.

I'm glad you all like it because I know it's going to a good home, and that's

awesome. Yeah, it's a good home.

I'm going to have to do that again.

You know whose upholstery check this is right here? Jose's. Okay. Hello.

Oh, my God.

You look great.

Thank you. The count called me and told me that my ride was ready.

Pardon me.

You are amazing.

Thank you. You look very excited. I'm very excited.

Either that or that's a pack of mints in your pocket. It's everything you want

it to be.

When I was a kid, oh, my God.

She was hot.

Seeing her now in person, she's even hotter.

If Danny would have been nice, he would have told me she was coming. I'd have

busted out the nice clothes, hit the hot dog neck a little bit.

If I'm sleeping, don't anybody wake me up.

Come over here. I'm going to pinch you. How are you doing?

I'm good.

I'm good.

Yes, you are.

Kevin's sweating on his head a little bit, too. Are you ready to see your

I am ready.

Stop doing that. I'm going to lose control.

We fixed this 59 Thunderbird right. We did a lot of engine work on it. Gave her

a whole new paint job. We did one more thing. And I think that's going to push

this project right over the top.

Are you ready?

I got it. All right. Come on, Roly.

Come on up.

This is how I call.

I've always wanted it to be.

But yeah, she's beautiful all the way around. All the chrome, everything is

done. Look at that upholstery. My God, the upholstery's all new.

Now you've got your sofa -style seat back there again.

Looks really comfortable.

And then... Oh, no.

All of this custom body work, paint and polish, it's par for the course at my

shop. And I'm glad she likes it. But I always love to go over and above for all

my customers.

So I added a special feature to this car that Elvira is just going to die for.

Your own coffin truck.

To get this car the way I wanted it has been a quest for me that started in

1989. The car was in the movie. It was a prop. It disappeared for 10 years.

Now the car is back. It's mine, and it's more fantastic than ever.

I'm a little scared.

What'd I do? There's no way you did this for $10 ,000. I mean, that's what I'm

worried about.

No. There's no way in hell.

You're good. Yep. You're good. We're square. Oh, my God!

You guys did a freaking awesome job. Thank you, darling. I'm so glad you're

here. In order to keep the restoration cost within her budget, I cut Cassandra

break on the labor.

But it was worth it to see her reaction.

Not to mention the reaction of everyone around here who is absolutely in love

with her.

What do you see me and you go for a cruise?

Oh, yeah. Let's do it right now.

I'm going to take one second and get ready, though, okay? You get more ready

than this?

I'm going to slip into something less comfortable.

I will be right here. I'll get this for you. Did you need any help?

No, thanks, guys. I'll just check it. I'll just check it. This gorgeous

mobile with Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, and myself, the talent.

The Las Vegas Strip at night.

There's no better way to cruise.

To have this car actually looking beautiful and working.

Absolutely. It's my best nightmare.

And now we're driving down the strip. Hey, what's up? What's up? What's up?

I love it.

It seemed like everyone dug this car, and it was a real special project for

shop. And I'm just so happy to take this special car and get her back on the

road.

I have this feeling they think we're lookalike.

It's true.

It is true. God.