I'm really excited about cutting a Ferrari bumper.
A bag Ferrari in Houston. Yes, sir.
-Can you picture that, man? -[Ian] Man, I'm excited.
[Bill] I'm not real sure why most people are afraid
to do anything with these cars.
It's like any other cars, just has a dancing horse on it, you know?
It has nothing like I've ever seen before.
[Bill] We got a really cool GTO we're working on.
Totally custom.
And let me guess, that thing is gonna be low to the ground.
[Bill] I didn't even have to say that.
You ready for this?
Oh, my God! This looks sick.
[upbeat music playing]
[Bill] I'm Bill Carlton.
I built my first truck when I was 16.
And ever since me and my guys have been out here
creating with our hands
building the biggest, lowest and baddest
custom trucks and cars in the game.
People don't come here for what they need,
they come here for what they want.
This is Texas Metal.
[music concludes]
[engine revving]
-How you doing, man? -How's it going?
-[Bill] That's a cool car you got, man. -I like it.
You know it's a cool day
when a customer rolls into the shop with a new car.
It's already really unique.
You know, I'm really excited for the custom that we can bring into this Ferrari F430.
What are you doing with this thing on the north side?
Man, you know I've had this car for a little bit, Bill,
and I kind of wanted to make it unique and make it my own and something different.
And I know you're the person to come see for it.
So, I'll just kind of see what we can do with this thing.
Just a Ferrari riding around just ain't cool enough for you, huh?
No, no, I got to do some stuff that I like to see on it.
[laughing] Right.
[Ian] What I really like about the Ferrari F430 is the looks of it.
The sound is absolutely amazing.
As soon as I get a car, usually I like to take the stock aspect of it away,
and make it customized.
I wanted just to look a little bit more aggressive
and just a little different flavor than what it has currently.
-Personalize and make it your own and make it stand out. -Absolutely.
[Bill] You know, I've seen you rolling up.
Man, it's a beautiful car. Don't get me wrong.
But it's lacking a little bit in the front, man.
-So there's a little bit of room for improvement up here. -Okay.
-[Bill] It looks too sleek. -It needs something.
It does, man, it needs something down here low.
What do you think about building a new front lip underneath here?
-Bringing it out a little bit, a couple of inches. -Yeah.
I mean just comes all the way off to the side, too,
maybe bend up on the edges.
-I think that would just wake the whole front of your car. -I agree.
That way when it's coming at you, man,
-people are just like, "Damn, here he comes." -I like that.
You know, one of the obvious things we have to do
-is upgrade the wheels and tires. -For sure.
[Bill] And if we're doing that,
let's step it up to a 20 inch, man,
to really make it stand out.
[Ian] That would look awesome.
Something like that is a must on this car.
And you gotta get the stance just a little bit lower, too, right?
Yeah, I agree.
All these streets around here aren't made for a car like that.
No, it's not.
[Bill] A low car that we're gonna make even lower with a front lip.
-Right? -Yep.
So, what do you think about putting air suspension on this,
so you can just drop it on the ground,
then you can raise it right back up
to get around those potholes.
A bag Ferrari, you can do that to this?
Man, absolutely, man.
Where do we even put the tank?
-Well, that remains to be seen. -[laughing] Okay.
That's the way to go on this.
I mean, to have that adjustability,
man, we got you on that.
Whether if it's a full size Chevy or Ferrari, it doesn't matter.
Bagging this thing is no problem at all.
We'll make it super reliable,
make it ride really good.
This is what we do here,
so, you know, that's not a problem at all.
Bagged 'Rarri in Houston? Yes, sir.
Can you picture that, man, just pulling up and then dropping it on the ground.
Yeah, the visual is there.
[Bill] So, front lip, wheels and tires,
and air ride suspension on this thing.
You wanted something to set you apart from everybody else,
-right? -I did.
Well, it don't get any cooler and more personalized than that, right?
Man, I'm super excited. That's gonna look amazing.
-You ready to get it going? -I'm ready.
-[Bill] Let's make it happen. -All right, Bill.
Man, it's gonna be cool.
[Bill] You know, there's no argument. Ferraris are cool car.
But they all pretty much look the same.
Right out the box, you can go purchase this car,
and instantly be a lot cooler.
But, you know, there's gonna be somebody
that's gonna park theirs right next to you,
and just be the exact same.
Surpassing the normal quality,
the normal engineering,
you know, they go above and beyond on that.
You know, they exceed every expectation on that.
But when it comes to customization,
that's where we go above and beyond.
Most people, when they have a high-end car like this,
and they wanna customize it,
they put wheels and tires on it.
Maybe rapid.
That's not gonna cut it.
You know, the owner, he wants some actual customization on this.
He wants something a little bit more.
He's in the right spot. I got a thing or two in mind.
I'm not real sure why
most people are afraid to do anything to these cars.
You know, if you want a cool car,
you do what it takes to make it a cool car.
Man, I see you got a Ferrari in here.
Yeah, you don't get these in the shop too much, right?
[Jamie] Not at all, man.
What are we gonna do to this?
We're known for air suspension.
-Of course. -[Bill] That's our thing, right?
-Yeah. -So, that's what he wants.
He already got a super cool car.
It's already low, but he wants it lower.
Right? But you gotta have that adjustability to drive it around Houston.
Houston is like the worst place ever to have a car like this.
The roads are terrible.
[Jamie] Man, yeah, dragging that bumper off, that would hurt.
So, definitely have that ride height adjustability to get that look
or to have that clearance
would definitely be a nice option to have in a very expensive car like this.
It's good to be in the air suspension business in Houston.
-Mm-hmm. -[Bill] Right?
[Ryan] And the hard part is figuring out how to run
all these lines and everything.
Well, I know one thing, we're not putting their metal back here.
-[laughs] -No, melt the tank right here on top of the engine.
I don't think so.
You know, not only that,
he wants a lot more aggressive look on the front end.
So, we're gonna build a new custom front lip out of aluminum.
Oh, so even lower.
I don't know what it's gonna be yet.
It's kind of being dictated to how everything's flowing together
once we start building it.
To top it all off, we got to have those new wheels and tires.
Yeah, it's definitely gonna set the stance off
give that nice look to it.
-Impressive. -Mm-hmm.
You know it's gonna be real cool, man.
There definitely won't be another one like this around Houston.
I don't know about you, but I'm super excited to see one of these things around.
- That's gonna be something right here. -[Ryan] Yeah, buddy.
All right, man. Y'all ready to get on our first Ferrari?
Yeah, not intimidated.
Something new, something different.
[all laughing]
[Bill] Just like anything else,
so we're gonna get after it, get it done,
and make it happen and make it safe to be on the road.
[Ryan] This thing will probably go up so high
that we need to get a six foot ladder.
I can put a whole another Ferrari on top of it.
All right, first thing is first with just about everything we do.
We'll get the wheel out of our way, get all the wheels off.
The way you get to what you're working on,
you got all your room.
There's nothing in there anymore. I already got that one.
I was making sure you all were paying attention.
[machine whirring]
One of the cool things about working here is to be able to see all the different kinds
of suspension components
on all the different makes and models of vehicles.
-Is that 18 or-- -[Jamie] It's a 19.
Nineteen?
[Jamie] Actually take it apart, see how it works...
Oh, yeah!
...modify everything.
We're just not gonna stop till it's just right.
[Ryan] There's my Ferrari strut coming out of my Ferrari
going on to my Ferrari table.
We'll get some measurements in here, we'll figure out what we got.
That looks longer than 14 inches.
It is, it's 17 inches.
Here are the stock struts that we pulled out of the Ferrari.
A front and a rear, you can see they're different links.
But these are adjustable.
So, this is a shock and an airbag in one.
It's why they call it a strut bag.
But we'll start off with making it match these measurements here.
Throw 'em back in the car,
and then with wanting to go lower,
we can pop this guy out, adjust it up higher.
And then, once we get done later with running
and plumbing and all that stuff,
we'll have the additional five inches of travel from wherever it's set
to lowest to the highest point.
So, these things are actually easier to work on
than what most people would think.
'Cause what we did here in an hour
would take me 14 on something else.
Now, we're running all the lines and figuring out routing
and all that stuff.
That's gonna be tricky.
These cars like, Lambos, Ferraris,
all these really low cars,
they'll have these belly pans
completely covering the whole underside of the cars.
All your members and rockers and everything,
this keeps all that stuff safe.
Plus, aerodynamics keeps the wind from getting up underneath the car.
So, we're gonna take this stuff loose, let it hang
and then, Jamie and I will be able to see exactly where to run these lines.
This is actually the front of the motor right here.
You can see everything from the front going to the rear.
So, this is what we're gonna use to route our airlines.
Pop that frunk.
There's limited room in this car
because it's a mid-engine car, so there's no room in the trunk.
You don't wanna put the air tank right in the car.
This is really the only place to put it.
So, first thing is start pulling the stuff apart,
see what we are working with.
That's nothing like I've ever seen before.
After I pull the panel, I can see that it doesn't have a steel piece on the cowl.
It's just got this styrofoam.
So, trying to attach a chain compressor to this right here
is definitely not gonna work.
[Ryan] So, we come up with this little plan here.
We make a frame for the frunk here,
and then we can mount the tank and everything to the sort of frame.
You wanna throw this in that frunk?
We got our angle tacks up,
we got it fit in the car.
Kind of judging what we can do with it.
Jamie's gonna go ahead and start making some mounting brackets for this.
We'll get the tank put in here, the compressors put it in here
kind of play with them, see whether we like it,
and then we can see what we have to build
to make those fit to the frame.
That look pretty swell, huh? You like that?
So, we're gonna put that guy in there.
I'll lay everything out, Make sure it's perfect.
Mark all my holes.
I can take the sheet metal out, drill on my holes.
-Hey, Dustin, can I use your welder? -Heck, yeah.
[Ryan] And then, I can put it back in and spot weld it to the angle,
grind it, smooth it out, clean it up.
And not desert any notes that I plan on using.
Now, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make a brace
just to strengthen the center of it up.
Once I put my compressors there,
and I mount my manifold,
the center of this is gonna wanna check.
All right, so now that I have it all together,
you can see the vision come to life.
This is like the ideal way of doing this
just because it simplifies everything.
I can make everything right here,
and then just go put it down into the car,
and plug in my lines and we're in business.
All right, it's in, now it's time to make some braces.
You know, it's not every day we get to bag a Ferrari F430.
One of the biggest challenges of the suspension setup
is figuring out where all those airlines go.
[Ryan] The struts on the Ferrari have a lot of movement,
so you can't run a hard line into the back.
So, now that I have my braided line fastened,
now I can run my hard line up
from the front to the back, back here.
Everything's gonna have the rundown the center.
I'm gonna have to consolidate as much as I can.
Getting that fish through is probably gonna be the trickiest part.
Other than that, it's like any other car
just has a dancing horse on it.
There's really nowhere to run this line at all.
We're having to fish it through one hole and hope it hits another hole.
[machine whirring]
It's kind of tricky, it's also fun,
like, I like this part of it.
So, I got all four lines ran from the backs from each corner.
They ran behind this panel right here.
So, once I get everything installed deck in here,
I know exactly where I can pop all my holes from my bulkheads.
This front panel right here that covers the brakes and all that good stuff
are where our airlines are.
So, I'm gonna make a little bulkhead right here
for our four airline bulkheads
that we're gonna be using to go from our manifold to each bag.
We'll just take some aluminum,
drill my holes here.
[machine whirring]
There she is.
It's gonna be something like that.
So, I was strolling through the shop over there a little while ago,
checking out that beautiful Ferrari.
They're doing a great job on it.
I got this bulkhead here.
Not bad, but it is a Ferrari.
So, figured we dressed up just a little bit better.
I'm gonna take a few measurements, draw this up in the computer.
Then I'm gonna cut a piece out of acrylic,
we're gonna have the logo on it, lines around,
just to dress this thing up a little bit,
so it's not so plain and boring.
All right, everything's looks good.
Let's run it.
All right.
That was easy enough.
Everything lines up good.
Get this thing cleaned up a little bit and get it over to Ryan,
and let him put it on the car.
[Ryan] So, I got the little cover back from John,
I'm gonna drill holes here.
Then I can mount the plate and my bulkheads.
Classy. I like the way, John's piece gives a little bit of character.
You know, today, Marcos, a longtime customer
good friend invited me out
to his house to see his car collection,
and then, we're off to a high-end coffee and cars.
We built a Lambo, a Camaro,
and a '68 Ranger.
-Good morning, man. -Good morning, dude.
Man, I appreciate you having me out, Marcos.
Thank you for coming and giving us support like always.
[Bill] Man, you got quite the collection.
How do you pick which one you're gonna drive, man?
Well, man, it's a little hard sometimes.
But it's like, best thing to do he has to take them all out,
and take every single one.
You know, Marcos has a really impressive collection
from Lambos, Ferraris, Porsches,
and even to Pagani car.
[Marcos] Pagani is like art on wheels.
[Bill] Absolutely, man.
It's kinda like what you do.
This is basically, built on the hyper car.
-[Bill] Definitely, man. -[engine revving]
So, what you got going on on the shop, Bill?
Man, we actually got a Ferrari.
-An F430. -[Marcos] Nice.
[Bill] Totally custom front bumper, one off.
So, now you're working on an exotic.
Some black cars and coffee, they give you some inspiration.
Yeah, man, yeah.
So, what else have you got going on?
[Bill] We got a really cool GTO we're working on,
totally custom, I mean, every part and piece has all been touched.
We got it all stripped down right now.
We got a new frame built,
mounted a brand new LT4 engine and trans,
and this V8 should be getting about 650 horsepower.
Now, we can get moving on our custom suspension.
And let me guess, that thing is gonna be low to the ground.
-[Bill] Absolutely. -Yeah, for sure.
-[Bill] I didn't even have to say that. -[laughs]
[Bill] Once we finish this suspension,
we're gonna move on to building this unique one off engine bay.
Then, we can get it off the blast.
When it comes back, there's gonna be a ton of bodywork,
and a full custom interior and paint,
wheels, tires and a whole lot more work to do after that.
Man, I'm sure after you guys get done with it.
And there's gonna be a really really unique piece,
like everything that you guys do,
keep that motivation going in.
I got a little surprise for you.
You ain't driving your truck today.
I want you to drive a Ferrari today.
Man, let's get it.
[car alarm beeping]
[engine revving]
[whirring]
Now, we have the custom chassis built,
and mounted on the GTO.
Today is the day, Ryan's getting started on the suspension.
So, we got our Wilwood spindles and brakes in and everything today.
We're getting it leveled, making sure my spindles are level,
my tire rod end is level,
get it centered exactly where we want it to be.
See where my wheels turn.
It's a good looking wheel. I like it.
I got this little half-by-half right here,
and tack it in to place.
Make a little mock up.
And just like that, now we have this point to this point,
and we know exactly where it needs to be
to have that wheel centered and the spindle in the right spot.
So, we got to arm up the car.
First thing is first...
to tack these guys here.
Now that this is all tacked in place,
what I'm doing now is just drawing me some lines.
That way I can pull all my measurements off of all this right here.
That way whenever I do my driver's side,
I can duplicate it.
I cut this stuff up,
put my new balls joint cup on.
That's now all cut up and dinged up and everything.
And I start making my arms.
Man, the control arms came out really nice.
I like the way it looks with that roll pipe like that.
Way better than just straight run.
- Normal stuff. -[Dustin] Yeah.
Now, the lower is in, we got it set up,
we can start working on the upper control arm.
[machine whirring]
[Ryan] So, I got the upper control arm bolted in right now,
got our upper and lowers done.
Already got it mirrored to on the table.
So, ww can jump on the other side and start doing that,
knock the steering out and get all the rest of this stuff done up here in the front.
[Bill] On bigger builds, like the '68 GTO,
I consider every step forward a big step.
And right now, we're almost done with the front suspension.
The last little part of the front suspension is mounting the coil over,
so we got our control arms notch style,
we got our thick wall DOMs,
so we're gonna place this, weld it in the arm itself,
then our coil over will have a place to mount to.
So, these washers in here,
stimulate our pullover width,
welded all in place, slipped all thread out,
and we got our place for our coil over to mount on the lower control arm.
[Dustin] Now, we're gonna move on to our upper mount,
and that's gonna go on the top of the frame.
We'll have it come over a little bit,
so that our coil over spring never rubs or impedes
throughout the travel of our suspension.
We'll get some tap drawn up,
transfer that to metal, come and try it out.
[machine whirring]
[Dustin] So, I got all our tabs cut out on the bandsaw
which is all done by hand.
So, there's little differences between everyone.
So, I went ahead and stack them all up on the table,
clamp them down, and then, I'd dub them all at the same time,
so that they're all identical whenever we go to put them on the car,
even though they're handmade, hand built,
they'll still be all identical.
We got our template with our hole location in it.
We're gonna put that on here, center punch every piece,
and then drill those to five eighths for our bolts on our coil overs.
[machine whirring]
I'm just stepping up the sizes as I go.
[Dustin] We got our upper coil over brackets cut out,
cleaned up looking nice.
We're gonna get them on the frame, see how everything fits.
[machine whirring]
[Bill] We got the control arms done,
pull overs mounted.
Front Suspension is a wrap.
We've been bagging cars for about 30 years now.
But this is the first time we ever run airlines on Ferrari.
And this is part of the challenge and the fun of working on this thing.
[Ryan] All right, so we got the pan rack.
I'm just gonna put the tank, compressors,
the manifold, everything, get it all bolted down.
[machine whirring]
Looks good, time to throw it in the car.
So, I got my tran. I'm gonna run my electrical through right now.
Putting the tape there, so I can mark my holes where they need to be drilled
instead of marking a black mark on black carpet.
Probably, one of the best ideas I've ever had.
[machine whirring]
Time to do some airlines now.
It's a cool part.
I just get like a rough measurement of the route that I wanna go,
and start bending.
If I like it, keep it,
move on to the next one.
Whenever you open this, the first thing they're gonna look at is the lines.
So, if you just got a bunch of plastic line thrown in there,
it's just gonna ruin the whole look of it.
And doing a hard line is a really slick idea.
But you can mess that up, too.
You can start somewhere and kind of have a good idea of what you want,
but what you think is gonna work is not gonna work.
And you got to scrap it and start all over.
Really, it's just aesthetics,
kind of trying to continue the look of whatever
you are building at the time.
Trying to find a good groove to get in.
And once you get into that,
and everything just seems to kind of start falling in place.
So, I got all the airlines done,
coming from my manifold up to the bulkhead on the firewall,
looks really clean.
Got their logo, got all the Ferrari stuff in here.
Nice little display, whenever he pops the hood open.
All I got to do is just plug up my accessory wire,
put air in the bags, make sure they don't have any leaks.
And we get this thing on the road.
You ready for this?
[exclaims] Woo-hoo!
Man, this thing is good to go now.
It can handle all the roads and driveways,
and anything else.
And it will look cool doing it.
[Jamie] You can see somebody has already fixed this.
These things are super low to the ground.
That's how you shove across couple of sidewalks.
But now, we're not gonna have that problem
with the suspension being adjustable.
Drill.
[machine whirring]
After being around all those Ferraris with Marcos,
I got to thinking about the best ways to changing up that front bumper.
We want something really, really cool.
So, I'm gonna have Jamie make the lift out of aluminum,
and make it a lot more aggressive.
Okay, so I've got skid pans taken off now.
Next I need to get my dimension for where our skid plate is gonna go
for the front that we're making.
Once I get that cut out, we got to sand this edge...
[machine whirring]
[Jamie] ...put it up on my jack stand right here.
So, I'm gonna put these in the corner real quick, you know,
real sharp, it's about the same height as my eyes.
So, Bill's got this mocked up right here real quick.
We'll use the pieces that we cut off the bottom of the factory bumper
for our template to trace.
Som Jamie is about to cut this out, and then, we'll see how it fits.
[machine whirring]
Putting some dish soap on here actually helps when you're cutting aluminum
because aluminum gets hot.
This will make it not kick up on your blades.
So, you know, it's got multiple purposes.
Clean the dishes, you can cut aluminum, wash ducts,
you know, it does it all.
[machine whirring]
You know, you can't really put this piece of aluminum underneath the car.
This is all wavy.
So, we're gonna screw this aluminum tubing,
it's extruded, so it's perfectly straight.
Let's see if that works.
I'm gonna take his, put it underneath the car,
and that should be a nice straight edge to build everything off of.
We're about to attempt to do this.
I've never cut a Ferrari bumper all up.
I don't know what's behind this.
I don't know the inner workings of the framework.
My thought process is cut this up,
and then figure it out along the way.
I'm really excited about cutting a Ferrari bumper.
[sighs wearily]
Well, the reason we're doing it this way
is 'cause we don't get very many Ferraris in here.
We don't have a template for this.
Shoot. That's most stuff we do.
You know, you have that general idea,
but one idea feeds on the other,
and then you eventually connect all the dots,
and something special will come out on the end.
I'd say we're past the point of no return.
[machine whirring]
All right, everything looks good, it's all symmetrical.
Now we can actually start bringing Bill's idea to life.
So, the most important thing is,
now I can say, I cut up a Ferrari bumper.
Anytime we're creating something we've never done before,
like a whole new lip for the bumper of the Ferrari,
it takes a whole team to figure it out.
And that's definitely true today.
I wanna give the bumper a little more squared look at the bottom,
and there's nothing there to attach this aluminum to.
So, I'm gonna make a quick little template.
We'll transfer this template on to fiberglass.
[machine whirring]
Then we can bolt the fiberglass to the aluminum,
then we'll start molding the fiberglass
that's on the aluminum to the bumper itself.
So, now, we have our base here.
Our fiberglass laid out right where we want it.
[Jamie] We can't just put the wild west right to the paint.
You got to add some for the fiberglass to adhere to,
so gonna make this nice edge rough,
so we can put fiberglass on it, smooth it on out.
Now, grab that side and help me throw it up here.
Cleve, move.
[Bill] I think we're gonna leave these air and take pieces
because the radiators for the car is actually right here,
so we can't restrict this at all.
Establishing what that opening is gonna look like is gonna be the first step.
Then I'm gonna have John Burgess cut out some acrylic trim pieces,
and then we're gonna incorporate the trim pieces into the bumper
and build out from that.
[John] Oh, well, you know, it's never a dull moment at shop.
Come over here, you can find cars cut in half
or you can find a Ferrari with the front end cut off of it.
I got a template. I can see I've got some parts to make.
So, we're gonna get on the computer and do some drawing.
I've got to make a ring,
and the purpose of this ring is somewhere to hold mesh grill,
and have somewhere to bodywork, too.
First thing we'll do is take a picture of this,
and put it into the software,
draw over top of it.
That way we'll be able to take it, size it to make rings, plugs,
any part we need.
Everything is good to go,
so we get some quarter inch acrylic into the machine.
We got to focus the laser beams.
All right, we're ready to cut.
And go.
Look at her go, man.
Ferrari bumpers in the making.
[machine beeps]
Microwave is ready.
All right. So, these will work.
I'm gonna take some glue, glue 'em together,
that's gonna leave us a lip in here
to be able to inset our grill mesh.
So, we'll get these over to the car.
[Bill] You know, John made me a cool little template.
We vise gripped it right here and vise gripped it right here.
We're gonna get our outer dimensions,
and then we got a nice clean crisp cut mark for it.
So, now that Bill and I have got the outer edge scrubbed out,
I'm gonna go ahead and start cutting this out.
Get this piece removed, so we can start bottoming our new outline on here
to get to shape this front bumper.
This is actually how the bumper mounts right here.
So, I might have to recess these pieces,
then we'll build it off that.
[machine whirring]
[Jamie] It's starting to take shape. I can see the frame.
That's where our mesh is gonna go once we get our mesh on.
There's gonna be plenty of air here, still have a guard over,
so nothing but the radiator.
And it's gonna look a whole lot better,
like you ain't seen one of these look.
We finished up the front suspension on the GTO.
Now, it's time to move to the rear.
[Ryan] All right, so we got our rear end in.
We got it mocked up, it's centered,
it's exactly where we needed to be
in order to start building our suspension.
We like to use these tabs because I can level it.
I can put it straight down.
I can put it out in different angle if I wanted to.
So, starting off with it here,
and then we can take our measurements from here,
the frame rail for our link bar.
[machine whirring]
That's one.
Now, let's do that three more times.
So, these are to use the right hand and a left hand,
threaded heim here.
Let's say, you can have your adjustment in your four link
without having to take your bolts out,
and do like all that whole extra step.
This allows you to just bust that jam nut loose,
and then you can adjust it whichever way you need.
So, man, this will have a ton of adjustment in it.
This is ideal for doing this stuff, like, right here.
We're gonna drill some holes through the frame for some frame mounts.
[machine whirring]
[Ryan] The reason that we got to DOM in here with all thread
is to ensure that our two mounting points,
and the tabs, everything lines up.
I'm gonna draw two lines on there,
and it tell us exactly where we need to put our tabs,
probably lowers and our outers.
We can line 'em up, square 'em,
and they're right on the line, they're perfect.
All right, so now that we got the four links finished up,
We got our tabs,
we're gonna add a crossmember in here.
We're gonna take some measurements,
we'll cut some pipe, clean it up,
make some bends, and hopefully we can make that match right on the money.
[machine whirring]
[Ryan] So, the reason why we draw the level on here,
'cause if we just put that in there,
and it's hanging like that and I just go bend it,
then your bends are gonna be way off.
Nothing will line up, it'll look bad.
We don't want that.
So, we use our level here.
And then, whenever you've bend this side,
it shouldn't have any issues.
I got this in here, and now we got it bent.
I got some marks made here with the soapstone.
I got it kind of level,
just kind of eyeballed it and got it pretty close.
So, I'm gonna have to trim again one more time.
[machine whirring]
[Ryan] And then we could do our final cleanup and adjustments,
and get it tacked in.
All right, so we got our center crossmember tacked in,
it flows into our existing pipe that we already had there.
Looks good, everything flows.
It's gonna clear our drive shaft.
It's gonna clear the rear end over here.
And tubs, and the floor, everything, it's all good.
I like the way it looks.
[Bill] You know, a lot of times,
we go with air suspension on our builds,
but it really depends on what the customer wants.
So, we're going with coil overs on the '68 GTO
because that's what the owners prefer on this build.
The only thing is we don't have enough room.
We got the perfect place for the coil over,
but it's not a perfect place because there's no room for it.
The floor pan of the car, we need to cut out that,
and give us the room we need for the coil overs.
The last of the pipe in the hole shot
that we found and had to clean it up, so.
We can't mess up.
-Hit that button right there. -That one?
You can say you did something today.
[Dustin] I did something today.
I bet a piece of pie.
[machine whirring]
Tack it up.
-Good job there, buddy. -Thanks.
[Bill] This is basically gonna hold the whole weight of the rear of the car,
so it's gotta be super strong.
[Dustin] I got some cabs drawn up here,
and these are lower coil over mounts
that go on our axle.
We're gonna have Jessie burn 'em out.
A lot faster than me doing it by hands for sure.
[machine whirring]
So, Jessie got us hooked up on some bracketry.
We've got our lowers, we got our upper mount,
all made out of quarter inch material.
Next thing is just placing it in the perfect spot.
Do a little welding, that's a wrap.
[Dustin] All right, we got our lower mounts on the axle.
They're good to go.
Put our coil overs back on and do the top mount.
Okie dokie!
Got it, man.
[Bill] Now that the suspension is done,
I'm really getting excited for what's next.
We're about to fabricate something in the engine bay
that's completely one of one.
It will really make this build stand out when you open up that hood.
Then, it's to body, and then full paint.
John over interior definitely has his work cut out for him.
By the time it's done,
just about every guy in the shop
will have put some time in on this thing,
and it will definitely show.
You know, the Ferrari F430
is gonna get the all hands-on treatment
just like the GTO.
The custom bumper started out as a metal fabrication job,
but once we started cutting that fiberglass,
John jumped in and knew exactly what to do.
[John] They got the front end of this car cut wide open,
and called me when it's time to fiberglass stuff together.
So, the first thing I'm gonna do is take the acrylic rings that I made,
I'm gonna attach some fleece to the backside of that.
It's good and stretchy, so I'm just gonna get it glued down.
That fleece is gonna give us something
to create the contour in the shape that we need,
and it gives us something to hold our fiberglass.
Gotta make sure I get this stretched good enough,
so it's not going to sag.
All right, so kind of see where we're headed.
We'll get that piece where it needs to be held in place.
Once that's done,
lock it in place good and solid.
Time to mix the goo.
We're using a fiberglass reinforced body filler
that will bond to the fiberglass bumper and to the acrylic,
so when it's in place, it will be in place.
So, in order to maintain the curve in front of the car and all that geometry,
I'm gonna reuse pieces that they cut off.
Cut this here on this corner.
Get it match we wanted.
We'll build a fill in all the way through here.
[machine whirring]
[John] It's pretty important to make sure you do all your trim a little at a time,
get everything exactly where it needs to be.
We need to know that this car is gonna be symmetrical.
[machine whirring]
Once that's done, I'll get some fiber off,
get 'em locked in place.
Some of that down there.
I've got some foam that is resistant to chemical.
We'll have to worry about fiberglass,
anything melting it or anything like that.
I'm gonna get it in here, use that as a filler to bridge the gaps.
Once I get that, we'll get some chopped strand mixed up.
A-ha.
Let's do this without making a huge mess.
I'm filling this in with chopped strand
was definitely the way to go.
Not only does he fill it in,
but it gives it a lot of strength.
So we won't have to worry about any crack out or anything like that.
You know, it's not gonna move now,
so the next step is get this ring positioned where it needs to be.
Ah... Yeah. Like that.
[John] Once that's done, we're gonna wet this out with some fiberglass resin.
What that's gonna do is it's gonna give us a nice hard solid base.
So, once the resin dries, our parts will be stuck where they need to be,
so we can start laying up some fiberglass mat.
It will give this plenty of strength.
I'm gonna let that get good and dry and nice and strong.
Once that's done, fill up a couple more spots on the bumper.
If I can get this in here without making too big of a mess.
I like to work in the tight spots.
And for those of you following along at home,
that's step 193.
I'm gonna go around, like, over the top of this with some filler.
I'm choosing my trusty razor blade here,
as a piece of sandpaper.
It won't hurt the acrylic,
and it keeps these corners nice and square for me.
And you know, it was a lot of work to get to this point,
but turned out looking pretty good.
So, next stop, body shop.
And that my friend is how you take off a Ferrari bumper.
Bill and John did a good job at forming everything for me.
So, it's my turn to go ahead and beautify everything.
First, I'm gonna take like 36 grit
to knock down all the rough edges.
Finish up with 80 grit.
Go straight into blocking.
And primer.
Probably finish off with a 180.
Primer again.
After I get it in the booth,
and get a nice shiny black Ferrari paint job.
Some shops just focus on one type of car,
but this shop, you never know what's coming through that gate.
Yeah, I'm glad we don't just do restos
or stick to one certain era of vehicle.
[Jamie] We're always breaking stuff apart
that's brand new that nobody's taken apart.
One day we're working on Marcos' Lambo,
and then the next day we're turning a water truck into a barbecue pit
with a cooler n the back.
[Jamie] Yeah, and like taking that old milk truck,
and making a showstopper.
We have like a Lotus and a Porsche.
[Jamie] We got the Grumman, the new electric lightning,
you know, the international.
Yeah, it doesn't matter what it is, new, old.
-And sometimes we get a Ferrari. -[Ryan] Yeah.
Being able to get your hands on all these different types of vehicles,
you get to see what they've done.
You can take that and put it into another build
later on down the road.
No matter what make, model, year,
you know, we're definitely gonna find a way to make it look cool,
make it stand out, make it one-off.
Mm-hmm. Whatever comes to the gate,
-we're all in. -That's it.
The bodywork is done on the custom bumper
for the Ferrari F430.
So, Patrick is gonna get it ready for paint.
So, now I'm gonna go ahead and get the paint mixed.
It's just a regular black,
but it's made by Ferrari, so it's a little different.
We've got, like, four different toners in that color to make this black.
First one is black, the second one is weak white,
and then you have a yellow and a red.
So, it's just small amounts of each color
to complete a black for the Ferrari.
This black actually being so dominant,
I won't have to put, maybe two coats on it.
It's a little bit different working on a Ferrari bumper.
Of course, it's very expensive,
but it's been a great adventure for me.
The neat style and a new concept
that Bill and John came up with.
So, I'm gonna make it look real pretty.
Go straight into the clear coat process.
All right, I've got my last color clear on.
Looking spectacular.
Everything is proportioned.
Everything has got a nice glow.
If I let it bake for a couple hours,
I'll go and get it down and get it on the Ferrari.
[Bill] The paint is dry, so now we're gonna add that mesh,
along with getting the custom wheels and tires on.
[machine whirring]
You know, customizing a high-end car like this
definitely comes with a lot of risk for sure.
But the reward is building something different
that nobody else has.
-What's up, Ian? -What's up, Bill? How is it going?
Man, doing good, man. What's happening this morning?
Man, I'm excited to get this car back.
Ian, you know, when you came in, you had little problem.
You had a Ferrari F430
just like everybody else's.
You know, everybody has got one of those. You wanna be different.
-Right? [laughs] -[Ian] Right.
Well, me and the guy has been busy at the shop.
We got you hooked up, man.
Man, I'm excited, Bill, I'm so ready to see this car.
-I know you've been waiting while patiently. -Yeah.
-[Bill] Come on, Ryan. -[engine revs]
Oh, my God!
Bill, this looks sick.
Are you serious right now?
Look at that front bumper, man.
-Oh, my God. What? -[engine revving]
-Oh, man. -[exclaims] Ooh!
That's like, music to my ears right there, Bill.
Y'all went way over the top and, like, killed this thing.
Thanks, man. That is awesome.
-I think he likes it. -[laughing] Yeah.
-[all laughing] -I think you're right.
I can't get enough of it.
I don't even know where to begin.
I know when we talked about,
you just wanted like a front lift to change up the front end a little bit.
Well, got it in the shop,
started looking at it a couple of different ways
we could change some things suddenly.
- But in this case, subtle went out the window. -[Ian laughs]
We got after just chopping the factory bumper totally up.
Made the openings a lot bigger,
a lot more aggressive.
Put some mesh in there.
So, this is the factory bumper?
Yeah, it's factory bumper.
[Ian] It looks completely custom.
[Ryan] If you don't know what you're looking at,
it just looks like a regular bumper.
But this thing was in, like, 30 different pieces.
[Ian] That's exactly why I come to you guys.
Y'all make factory looking pieces,
but yet they're custom which sets it apart from everybody else.
Now, the other Ferrari dude has gotta compete with you.
[laughing] Exactly, man. I love that.
It was super cool.
You know, you got the new wheels and tires on there.
They give this car a really cool look.
And behind those wheels and tires is an airbag now.
[Ian] Man, a stance bagged out Ferrari is awesome.
Man, it gets it down low.
And I'm sure it's gonna ride well.
And you know, you're gonna be turning everybody's heads when you roll in and slam it.
-[laughs] -It's gonna look so much cleaner.
[Ian] I love it. The lowness that it gives,
the aggressiveness that it gives,
just really sets it apart from everything that I've seen.
[Bill] And the advantage of that also is protecting this new front bumper.
-You can raise it right up off the ground. -Yeah.
-The air struts in there worked out perfectly. -Awesome.
Ian, if you're liking that, you're probably gonna like underneath the frunk.
-Show 'em what's underneath the frunk. -You're gonna like that.
Oh, my gosh!
This is incredible!
[Ryan] Ain't that sick?
[Ian] It looks super clean.
Let's put you on, man. You want some just thrown in there, right?
[Ian] No, that looks incredible, guys.
That looks like it was made for this car.
And then, the little details, the lines.
-Is that a Ferrari badge? -[laughs]
Wow! Y'all went over the top on this?
Yeah, like you said, we could have just thrown that stuff in there
and ran the plastic line that it comes with and all that.
But honestly, this is my favorite part.
The reactions are always nice.
You can tell the amount of work that you put into this.
It's really a piece of art, it just looks incredible.
Appreciate that, man.
Customizing the F430 for me was something that I wanted to do.
I called a few other shops and they didn't really
look at the same vision that I had for it.
When I called Ekstensive, they knew exactly what I wanted for this car.
I think y'all knocked it out of the park.
You definitely got a one of a kind now.
Straight killed it.
You know, just riding stock is ain't cool.
And either it'd be in a Chevy truck or a Ferrari,
my guys step up every single time.
Ian, get this car out there,
show all them peers they don't know what they're talking about.
Man, enjoy.
-Thanks, guys. I really appreciate it. -Let's get to it.
[Ian] Oh, my God!
Sorry, but I gotta look at...
-Oh, my God! -[Bill laughs]