We're meeting Matt Judon, a star linebacker
for the New England Patriots.
We're here to pick up the Caddy...
[Matt] Eldorado.
[Javier] It seems the car doesn't run.
Training day starts today.
[laughs]
It's just a matter of time, Freddy Krueger is just dying to come out.
[Joel] This manifold's cracked.
I'm saying put some heat on that sucker.
It's clear as day, I could shave on it.
Wow.
My name is Javier, but most people call me "Shorty."
I was born in Mexico.
And when I was four years old, my parents moved to Texas
in search of the American dream.
Now, I'm living that dream with my own custom shop and a team that builds
the coolest cars on the road.
We make dreams...
Wow.
...come true.
[all cheering]
[Terry] Well, Shorty, let's go get our Cadillac, man.
[Javier] All right, man. Let's go.
We're going to Matt Judon's house to pick up a Cadillac.
He's a star linebacker for the New England Patriots.
He said that his stepdad had this car, when he came into the family.
And obviously, he had to put it on the backburner.
It came into their lives when he was just a young boy and took over the job.
That's a man right there, Shorty.
[Javier] Yeah.
What's going on, Matt?
Shorty, what's up, baby?
How you doing, buddy?
Well. How you doing?
I'm doing all right, man.
Good to see you.
Got my buddy "T" with me, T-Money.
-T-Money? -T-Money.
Yeah. Okay.
You' re the one we need to talk to then.
Well, we call him T-Money 'cause he ain't got none.
[laughs]
We're here to pick up the Caddy for your dad.
Yeah, man.
We got his Eldorado, and he loved this car.
He had it since I was born, but he always been fixing it up and trying to get it right.
So you used to ride in this car when you were little?
Me and my older brother, Marcus, he used to take us on car rides.
It's a lot of memories that happened in this car
throughout the years, and the age on them.
You know, I am one of 10 siblings, so, uh...
[Javier] That's what I was telling T.
[Terry] When he said this car went to the backburner,
it went to the very backburner...
-[Javier] Straight to the backburner. -Yeah.
[Javier] Let's go and check out the car.
This is it, man.
Really the old school.
He just redid the top, so he put a cover on it.
Okay.
Do you want to, you know, put some new interior in it, new carpet, new headliner.
I want to do everything we can, you know,
just get it back to the original.
[Javier] I see some pearl in this paint.
Tell me about it.
My dad, his name is Earl Hairston Jr.
And when he was young and athletic, they used to call him the Pearl
because he could, yeah, he could do everything to paint this white pearl,
and then the head rest, I was trying to stitch the pearl.
Are you okay with those, the wheels and tires, you know,
that it has and just put the hubcap back on it?
I know he loved the white walls.
He loved the white wall tire.
[Javier] So, you want to go back with the white wall like it is?
-[Matt] Yeah. -Open the hood, T.
Let's take a look at the engine.
Oh, yeah.
[Terry] Shorty, that's a big motor.
[Javier] Four hundred and twenty five cubic inch.
[Terry] Wowie.
It looks like someone has kind of gotten in here
already and done a little bit of cleanup.
I'm telling you, he'd do a lot of work on this car.
We just got to make sure that everything, you know, looks better than what it does
and then make sure the engine runs good.
All the chrome that we see on the car,
you want to go to send it out and get it rechromed.
-[Matt] Yeah, re-do the chrome. -[Javier] Okay.
I'm excited for it, man.
I'm excited too, man.
You know, I don't think, I don't think I've ever seen him cry.
And if he don't cry when he get this back, you know,
I'm gonna send it back with you, Shorty.
Well, it looks like we've kind of gone over
everything that you want to do to the car.
Since the car doesn't run, training day starts for you today.
I've seen Derrick Henry doing it, so I might as well push the car up the hill.
[Javier] You want to get some more help?
Yeah. Come on, man.
All right. We're in neutral.
[all] We are neutral.
We are in neutral.
I'll be honest with you. I didn't do nothing.
I didn't push it at all.
I see... I got to see what he can do.
[laughs]
What you bring, dog?
What's up, Joel?
-I'm scared. -You're all ready?
That's a big boy.
Golly!
There you go.
Let's see under the hood real quick.
[Joel] Man, this car is in really good shape.
Look how clean that is.
Give a little gas, Joel.
Go ahead. Try it. Try it.
[engine sputters]
Junior, get that starter fluid.
Try it, Joel.
[engine whirring]
Ho, ho, ho.
-What's up with that? -Hey, the AC don't work.
We just need to make, like, a major tune up in the motor.
You know, make sure we change all the liquids, make sure the car is running good.
Hopefully, the, we don't have too much trouble with AC.
It looks like it ain't cutting on, but, I mean,
it's probably, we could check it.
I mean, it can't be that serious.
[Javier] Do the antenna, Joel.
That, will it go back down?
[Joel] Yeah.
So, we just picked up Matt's dad's '77 Cadillac Eldorado,
and we're pretty excited, man.
You know, if you bought a Cadillac any year to this day,
they're the granddaddy of all, everything.
You know, Cadillac is the big dog.
It's really exciting when you bring something like this to the shop.
It's just refreshing and...
and just awesome to, to run into a car like this that just about
everything works on this car.
Matt told us about his dad.
You know, his dad is very meticulous.
He's had this car for many, many, many years
and he's always had it covered up.
He was telling us that he put a new vinyl top on it,
so he took it upon himself to cover the vinyl top, so it wouldn't get messed up.
You know, just him doing that and tells me that, you know,
he wanted to take good care of this car.
You know, just to see all those things from an old car like this
and then kind of having that visual of how the car, you know,
hopefully it'll look when we give it back to Matt, so he can give it to his dad.
That's just the ultimate high, you know.
It can't get no better than that.
[whistling]
I need some manpower.
Big day for the Cadillac Eldorado.
We're going to get in the shop and tear this thing down,
assess it, and see what else we find.
[man] I'm ready for it.
[Javier] Man, I should have been pushing.
[Joel] This is a new Cadillac.
We got our '77 Eldorado here.
Seventy-seven, that's two years younger than me.
My first car was a Cadillac.
I worked on Cadillacs for 13 years straight, bro.
So, what's the plan on this big, beautiful Cadillac?
The guy that we're doing it for, uh, his name is Matt,
and he is doing it for his father.
Nice.
"Earl The Pearl."
He was telling us that his stepdad was a very good athlete.
He could play football, basketball, I mean, you name it, baseball.
And that's why they called him "Earl The Pearl."
So, guess what color we're going to paint the car?
Pearl white.
We're going to go pearl white.
Yeah, pearl white.
We're going to get PG to embroider the pearl...
-Okay. -... on the headrest.
This is his baby, so he wanted to hook him up and give back because
of what he did for him and his family.
So, the plan for the car is to restore it, obviously,
an all-over paint job, he'd like to have new interior.
We're going to clean up the body like we do on every single one of them.
Matt wants every single piece of chrome polished and chromed.
[man] Boy, Victor's gonna have heyday with that one.
[Javier] Victor's gonna have a hell of a day with all that stuff on this one.
You're gonna make me do the tires for that.
I know it.
And mechanically, we need to look it over.
Yeah, give it a heck of a tuneup.
He wants his dad to drive it
and feel good like it's, you know, when he drives it.
-That's the plan. -Let's break it down, let's tear it apart.
[Javier] You know, we'll start taking off all the trim and take off
what needs to be taken off to get to the trim.
And once we do that, then we'll start taking off the bumpers
and everything that's chrome so we can send it out.
Fiji is not here, so when he comes, yeah, we'll wait till he gets here
to take the doors apart and all that.
We got all the trim off of it for the most part.
Next up is this big piece of jewelry on the front of this bumper here.
We're loosing it up to the nuts right now.
Taking them out, too.
Yeah, the ones on the end, right?
Okay, there we go.
Something is still grabbing it.
Oh, it needs to come down.
Oh, I see.
There we go.
Thank you.
This thing is heavy, isn't it?
It took every bit of that two-ton jack to hold that two-ton bump.
Yeah. [laughs]
Wayne, man, I think you're half man, half amazing, man.
I'm glad I had Wayne.
If I had Junior over here, he probably would have crushed me.
I trust Terry.
I know he wouldn't crush me.
He needs me here to help him finish this car.
[laughs]
Basically, all pieces that are sent out
to the chromer have to be cleaned up.
The bumpers are no exception.
We have to tear every single thing down to make sure that when it's chromed,
everything gets chromed the way it's supposed to be.
Right now, I'm going to open up this bumper
and we're going to see what's in it, because it never ceases
to amaze me what comes out of these bumpers.
Oh, my God.
Look at this.
Keep in mind, this car is a '77, so it's not as old as I am,
But it looks worse than me, though.
And so right here, it looks like we've got, we've got a fresh nest.
I mean, it's not that old.
-Hey, Joel. -What's up, bro?
Check this [bleep] out.
[laughing]
What is all this, man?
We had something building a condominium inside
this bumper here, but overall,
the shell's still really good, so.
I guess I could just blast it, treat it, and start the curling process on.
Well, you know what they'll do with this?
They'll dip it.
They'll dip it in acid to clean it up really good.
And the real side, it really doesn't matter.
Especially on this one, because it's covered.
-So, you'll never see anything... -Oh, I know.
But Jesus, man.
After the chrome...
We're in the shop working on Matt Judon's '77 Cadillac Eldorado,
and PG is in here assessing the interior on it.
From what it looks like, it's super clean.
Matthew is on his way, so we're going to discuss what the plan is.
Okay, hold on.
We're pulling the seats out of the '77 Eldorado.
They look good, but we have to do some work to it.
Good to see you. How you doing?
I'm good, man.
Well, y'all, come on in.
This is my mom, Pieretta Hairston
And this is my son, Leonidas Joshua Judon.
And we came by to check on Eldorado.
What do you think?
It's looking worse than when I gave it to you now.
It's... but I like it, though.
I've not told him about everything.
The headliner and the new carpet.
Same thing on the front seats.
You want everything to go, you know, just the way it came?
Yeah.
[Javier] The embroidery, you would want it like in red?
Yeah, some that will match the trim.
Maybe with this curve stuff right here, something like that...
Yeah, I like that.
And as far as, like, the engine and all that stuff, I noticed it's got a leak.
We just need to get under there and see what it is.
[Matt] Okay.
And then a super good detail inside the engine compartment
and stuff like that, and we just leave it.
Earl is a beautiful person and he deserves it.
Sure.
We just can't wait to get it back and see my dad's expression.
Thanks for coming and have a good trip back home...
Thank you. Thank you, thank you.
Only when it's finished, finished product.
And he come in and see it, it'll light up his world.
We just got to do a little bit more cleaning.
The good thing, there's no rust.
I mean, it's in good shape.
No holes or anything.
It looks great, man.
Now, we can get it to the body work area.
-Let's vamanos. Let's get going. -Yeah.
[Javier] Vamanos. Vamanos.
Little by little, I'm finding little surface rust on this area.
We just found, there wasn't even surface rust,
it was more holes than rust going through.
Now I just got to tell Shorty,
and it's just going to put it behind.
What's going on, Raul?
Any surprises for me?
Found something really bad.
-Bad? -Yeah.
On the fender, I got to do a patch panel for it.
-[Javier] You do? -Yeah.
Oh, man, Raul.
We all know it's just a matter of time when you work
on all these classic cars, Freddy Krueger is just dying to come out.
And that's what this is right here.
I guess you're going to make a little patch panel right around here.
[Raul] Yeah.
Just remember, you see how this is right here?
[Raul] Yeah, really sharp.
It's, it's really sharp and the molding kind of fits in the groove.
For as big as the car is, I'm kind of surprised
we haven't found any more critical stuff.
I mean, at least it's not, you know, not a big spot.
Even though it's not a big area, it's a very intricate area
because you have curves, you have body lines.
And then right here where the wheel opening more than goes,
you have a very intricate stepdown.
I mean, just do the best you can.
I was hoping we could just breeze right through this car, but the word breeze
doesn't exist when you're working on classic cars.
The Cadillac seems to have a little bit of rust on some of the panels.
So, Raul is going to get on these panels and patch 'em up the way
they're supposed to be.
It had a bunch of rust and rod like going through.
So I'm using the B Roller to create those body lines that I need for the fender.
Now, it's time to cut.
I'm gonna wire wheel all the surface rust from the raised inside,
put some primer and then I'll start fitting the, my new piece.
What's that, Shorty?
Hey, guys.
-Come check out our ride. -All right.
Today, we are tackling the '63 convertible Impala SS, aka,
"The Peanut Butter Jelly." We've got a brand new top.
We've got a brand new interior, new disc brake kit.
So we're just going to continue going down the list,
so we could tackle this, because I got a customer that's very interested.
Got the new nice soft top.
Damn.
The new style interior.
I love the color...
Back to the factory specs, but unfortunately we're not done with the car.
So, what all we got left?
I mean, we got these ugly-ass wheels on it.
The wheels got to go.
I'm thinking, let's get some 20s in the front, 22 by 10s.
We'll try to get every inch that we can on the rear.
Wayne, need you to lay this car out on me.
-[Wayne] Now, we talkin'. -Yeah.
[Wayne] Yeah, we need to air it out.
Now, we talkin'...
-Right up, right up your alley... -Yeah.
Gets you excited when you start talking about laying out a car.
Hey, you can't get no better than the '63 Impala convertible.
Woo!
Joel, you know, we have to take care of on the,
on the audio, and the bluetooth,
we have to put a panel on the back.
[Joel] Cool, we'll knock it out.
You got some for me to do?
You don't have to paint it, but I got something for you to come check this out.
Come on, man, it ain't going to be good, Short-dog.
[man] Aw!
Ah!
My God almighty.
Hey, so much for not touching it.
It's right there on the corner.
Yeah, that's not easy.
I don't know if I can take that out, man.
That's the original trim.
Anytime you start messing with the trim,
it's just more a chance that something happens.
But you know what? We can't let it go like that,
so at least we're gonna try to get it out.
All right, well, take it off.
Let me, let me work on it.
And I guess we need to get it in the shop.
I'm just doing the final tweaking on the metal.
I just got grind or cut a little bit and that's it.
It's ready to weld after that.
How are you coming over here, Raul?
I'm about to fit the fender to the car.
You need some help?
Yeah, help me out.
It's kind of heavy.
Ah.
-Yeah. -This is heavy, man.
I think it's good.
Look at this area and then we'll be good.
Other than that, everything looks pretty good, though.
That looks awesome, man. I love it.
It had a big dent here.
What I'm trying to do is make everything flush.
What I'm using is a dent puller, creates a little welt
to the metal, and I'm using this thing as a sledgehammer
and then pulls the dent out.
Raul got down on it, man.
He, he really did a fantastic job.
It's basically ready to go.
I think the only thing he has to do now, he's got a little body line
right here that's supposed to continue on to the door.
So now that we have the fender back on and he's going
to take care of that, once he does that,
then we're good to go on this side.
Oh, man.
I'm trying to finish this little beast, man.
Thing is big.
You think you ever going to finish it?
-I want to. -That's a big engine.
-Yeah. -This is bigger than the car itself.
We can see that it had a few dents on it.
What you did is, it's badass, man.
The '77 Eldorado is ready to be primed and it's time to get it in the booth.
And right now, we need to come this way as far as possible.
That way we can have enough radius.
Come on, fellas.
Watch the door over there.
All right, hold on.
Hold on.
Yeah, that's a big girl.
The good thing is that it's in the booth.
What does that mean, Raul?
Priming time, man.
You know, every time we get one step closer,
I'm always thinking about Earl The Pearl.
I want to give Earl a badass car back.
You know, that's what I pride myself on.
The reason sometimes I do black primer is because I want to see
how good we've done as far as bodywork.
It lets me know right off the bat if we have to do any more work.
That's good, Joel.
The Peanut Butter Jelly '63 Impala is coming out amazing.
I got a potential buyer. His name is Rick.
I'm going to go give him a call right now.
[Rick on phone] Hey, Pete.
Hey, Rick. How are you doing, brother?
I got a '63 SS that's about to get wrapped up.
I'm going to do some 20, 22s on it and I'm going to lay it down,
an Impala with the rag down, brother.
[Rick on phone] I'm really excited.
Now, I can't wait. If it is what you say it is
I'm taking it home Thursday.
All right, Rick. Thank you, man.
Take care, brother.
-[Rick on phone] Bye-bye. -Bye-bye.
We're doing the air right on this '63 convertible.
I got this line, ran through the top so I can hook up to the bag.
So, we lost the 14-inch white walls and we went
to 22 in the rear and 20 on the front.
This wheel is pretty big, so it's a little tough to get it under that.
You have to maneuver it.
Make sure that the rear end is all the way down, the body's all the way up,
so we can kind of squeeze it in there.
I just mounted the tank, the compressors, the valve, and then I'm going to hook up
this line and then we'll turn the key on and start messing with the controller,
and have it go up and down.
The last part right here, I'm going to hook this up.
It's a wrap.
You got your work cut out for you, bro.
What happened?
Here, you're going to see right now what I need.
And I don't think you're going to be able to find this thing.
What happened?
This manifold's cracked.
I've been going down the list.
I'm trying to get everything.
There's a few parts that I'm struggling with finding,
and Joel calls me and tells me he found another issue.
-Right there. -Oh, no.
There's no way to fix that, man.
I mean, if we weld it, it's going to look like, you know, doo-doo.
Now, we're dealing with the passenger side manifold
that has a major crack.
The way these are built with the motors, the way they're compressed
to the side of this frame right here...
Yeah.
...there's no way to even put an aftermarket
in it without coming down right here.
We can't do any adjustment on that, and we're going back to stock.
So now I have to add it to the list.
Pete and I are looking for some hubcaps and some manifolds.
Me and Shorty are conversating and he keeps on saying Rick and the back of my mind,
I'm thinking about this potential buyer for the '63 convertible.
Also, we're on our way to meet a guy named Rick
for some parts for this Cadillac.
Hey, Shorty.
-You all doing okay? -Doing all right.
This is my friend, Pete.
-How you doing? -Hi, Pete.
Nice to meet you.
Thanks, Shorty.
[Javier] Rick has an amazing collection of cars here in his shop.
But we're really here for some Cadillac parts.
You guys have a beautiful place here.
I mean... Look at that.
Look at all the stuff you got, Rick.
Holy smokes.
It is awesome.
Rick, you have an amazing collection.
You know, I could stay here all night and day and look around
and everything, but our hope was that to come by
and see you for some parts that we need.
And I think I've got exactly what you're going to need.
You want to go look at that?
-Yeah, let's go take a look. -All right.
I think I stored them right up here on top of these tires.
And there's hubcaps for a Cadillac.
Is that the one?
I think so.
I see a Cadillac emblem.
I've got the exhaust manifolds for that same year up here.
These are the ones we need, Rick.
Looks like they're all the same.
I mean, I don't see why we can't get them refurbished.
If you all could use them, I'll take $600 for the hubcaps and the exhaust manifold.
Is that fair?
[Javier] I appreciate that.
Thank you very much.
I'm just glad I had what you needed.
-Yeah, me too. -Awesome.
Hey, Pete. Run, Run!
Yeah, I know, right?
[all laughing]
We finally got the Eldorado over here.
There's a lot to do here.
We're going to start with the most obvious.
It needs a radiator here, that's for sure.
The radiator is basically like a cooler, so it runs through
and the fan pulls air across it and it cools it down.
That's actually what maintains he temperature
in your car as you're driving it.
So we definitely want to make sure they have no leaks.
You know, we've got good pressure and most parts look better than this one.
This one looks bad.
Me and Junior are replacing the radiator in the '77 Cadillac.
Junior actually found a replacement, a factory replacement.
Trying to get these transmission cooler lines off this radiator,
so therefore we could get it out.
I don't think these lines have been off since 1977.
Man, if I didn't give you that easy one, I don't know
how you'd be doing it right now.
The plan with this manifold is to get in here and heat these up really well.
Try to get them off without breaking them.
If I break one, I'm going to get it from the dog, so,
I want to try not to break any.
We're swapping the mainfold out because it has a hairline crack
and eventually from driving it, it will open up even more.
Luckily, Pete was able to locate one,
better just to swap it now and wait.
As you can see, that thing has been in there for a long time.
Fingers crossed they all come out that smooth.
This manifold, man, the cracks were least of my worries at this point.
I mean this manifold is putting the one, two on me.
Would you handle it for me, Joel?
-Yeah, dog. -This...
I can't get this top one to come off, man.
You want me to do it for you?
Well, hell, yeah. You want to do this?
Not really.
[laughing]
Fire the torch up, Joel.
I'll show you.
Okay, so you got a nut, and then you have the, the stud.
So why don't we get the nut off of it,
so we can get the pipe off of there?
You're saying put some heat on, huh?
Yeah, I'm saying put some heat on that sucker.
Just get it cherry red, Joel.
I learned some of this stuff from old timers back
in the day working on these cars.
And here I am in 2022 and what I was working on back in the early '80s...
keep heating it up, yeah, yeah.
That's not enough.
Really?
Let, let me, let me give it a go.
[Joel] Got it, bro?
[Javier] Yeah, look, see.
-[Joel] Wow. -[Javier] You see those turn.
Slowly come.
You just, you got to have experience when messing with stuff like this.
Now, it's coming.
Ain't nothing like good old heat.
So, we got the tram pulled off the '63 Impala.
It's almost all the way out.
But when you hit it, you put a lot of marks in it.
So the sanding is going to take those marks off
and then I'm going to go to my polisher.
The dent was right here.
And that looks a lot better.
What's up, Pete?
[Pete on phone] On the '63 Impala,
how are we looking on that panel?
I'm working on it right now.
We only have a problem, though.
We don't have enough material.
[Pete on phone] I have a customer that wants to come at 4:00.
All right. I'm on it, man.
So, Pete's running around trying to find his material.
I'm wrapping this thing right as we speak right now.
Grab the glue gun.
We end up finding some material.
So, what we're going to do is we're going to get this thing
wrapped before Pete gets here.
What's up, guys?
What's up, Hollywood? We got the material, man.
Oh, boy.
Got to wrap this up. We got 15 minutes.
-Fifteen minutes. -Here you go.
-What you give me this for? -All right, let me get it right.
-Tell him to pop the trunk, man. -We got issues.
-Pop the trunk. -Yeah, we got big problems. Go pop the trunk.
-I only got 15 minutes... -Don't give me that look.
-Really? -[chuckles]
I kill another hour and drive just to get here?
Here you go, bro. I'll give you this back.
I actually would have been mad.
But you can't be mad. I mean, they got it done.
They got exactly what I wanted, and it came out awesome.
Let me go take it for a spin, and hopefully, everything is good.
That test drive, hopefully, it went well and that the customer
is going to show up and...
Yeah, the customer is showing up.
-Oh, shoot. -[laughs]
What's up, Rick?
Hey, Pete. What's going on, man?
-How are you doing, man? -For coming out of your busy schedule, brother.
-Thanks for having me, man. -Thank you.
-I appreciate you coming down. -Hey, where's that car man, I'm excited.
He told me the other day he's got some peanut butter and jelly.
You know, I brought the bread.
Let's make the sandwich.
-Oh... -Let's make it.
-That's what I'm talking about. -My kind of dude.
You're my type of guy.
Oh, I hear the car coming, man.
Wow.
Man, that car looks good, Pete.
My wife's gonna love this.
So this is it, Rick, '63 SS convertible.
-[Rick] Yeah. -Let's start with the wheels.
20s in the front. 22x10s in the rear.
All the interior is brand new.
[Rick] This thing looks really, really good.
Let me show you what we got underneath the hood.
We kind of spiced it up just a tad bit to flow in with the whole vehicle.
It's a clean '63.
I told you you'd like it, Rick.
Let me show you what we've done in the trunk also.
Joel went back and closed up the upper section of it.
With a little detail on the Impala.
Yeah, I see a little over there.
It's everything he said and more.
And I'm excited about taking it home.
I can't wait to drive it this weekend.
We're wrapping up this motor and this Cadillac.
We're going to paint it inside the bay.
Normally, we pull them out.
There's plenty of room in here.
There's a lot to clean up in this engine bay.
The problem is that it's old and all the wiring coverings all over falling off.
Some of it's half on, some of it's half off.
We've got our work cut out for us to make this thing look good.
Painting this motor really brought this motor to life.
Now, it's to the next step, and that's AC time.
And as you can see, this is one hell of a compressor.
This thing will probably cool Earth if we hooked it up somehow.
I'm going to put a little color on the compressor.
And I've seen you've taken all these lines out.
What'd this look like?
Dirty.
Yeah.
Junior's going to get this thing flushed out, put new lines on it,
put new seals on it.
We'll hook it up to the machine.
Pull some vacuum on it and see if we got any leaks.
We got the compressor in.
It was kind of a challenge just because it's so big, it's so heavy.
Everything fit well.
I got the lines on there, so now it's onto the next part.
Getting the condenser dropped in.
Put this baby together.
So, we're in my kitchen right now brewing up some paint for our '77 Cadillac.
We're brewing up a really cool white pearl.
I have this cool mixing machine here.
I actually just punch in a formula and in my computer here,
and it gives me the whole thing.
And then I take it and make it my own.
"Earl The Pearl."
We just got this in.
All right, PG, what we got, man?
It's supposed to be five hides.
Good news, our leather is here for Earl The Pearl, '77 Eldorado Caddy.
Oh, yeah.
You think he's going to dig it?
Oh, yeah.
Leather, too, boy, you can just smell it.
Look at that.
That's going to look good.
That's perfect right there.
We got to get this cut out.
We need to start getting the pattern made.
We got to get the buttons.
Also, on the buttons, we got to cover them ourselves.
So I'm going to need y'all to wrap these up and make them fit.
That's our first time.
I've never seen anybody do that.
Whoa, man, that is beautiful.
It's time for the block party.
[blowing horn]
I think it's too loud.
[laughs]
Do you have any idea what to do?
I have an idea of what to do.
-I'll tell you what you need to do. -I watched you do it.
You are in charge of him.
My name is Mike Porter, and I've been friends with Joel, 20-plus years.
I work in an office all day.
So when you actually get to work on a car,
it is like a sense of accomplishment.
Like, you can now go and say, like, "I did something. I touched that car."
You know, it's kind of a neat feeling.
Block party ain't over yet, we just got started.
We have to come over here and get some food, man.
-Yeah. -Get some of this delicious chicken.
Mm-hmm.
We're getting ready to paint the Eldorado,
and we need to mount the hood on it.
This hood is huge, so it's going to take at least
three or four of us to put it on.
Go first.
Come this way, roll.
This is a beast.
Go ahead.
Looks pretty, pretty even.
Should be an exciting day for this old man right here.
This is the pearl that we're going to put on the car.
I'm thinking about adding a little bit of extra bling bling for Earl The Pearl.
This just looks so badass that I just think that it would pop.
I'm just going to put a quarter of a teaspoon.
I mean, look at that. Doesn't that look like a million little diamonds in there?
Hopefully Earl notices it and he loves it.
-Waiting for you, man. -Waiting for me?
-You got the Cadillac stuff? -Yeah.
We had a ton of pieces for this car.
And we always got to look at this, you know.
The old rust on them...
Remember, remember, this is the one that had the rat's nest.
Oh, man, I remember now.
It was bad. It looks great, man.
He did an amazing job.
I can see myself on it really good.
Look at that.
It's clear as day I could shave on it.
These bumpers are no joke on these Cadillacs.
That bumper weighs...
oh, man, it's a whole person.
And probably even more.
This '77 Eldorado is heading towards the finish line.
We got a few more pieces of trim to put on it.
I'm putting some of the trim pieces
on this Eldorado, and literally like a puzzle, man.
I mean, this car has so many parts, so many trim pieces.
So even just this one little half takes two, two pieces.
It's, it's just crazy, man.
Putting on trim on this Cadillac is no easy task.
Some of this trim has to be bolt on
and some of it has to be glued on.
And each piece you have to put in individually by hand, very carefully.
Since we sent this trim out to get polished and stuff,
all the black has come off of it,
and you can tell that inside the center of it it's pitted, and it's pretty ugly.
That's one of the main reasons I'm redoing it.
It's these small touches that if you take your time
and you try to put the car back as it was.
If I do that, I know that Earl would be that much happier.
This is a Cadillac emblem.
This stands for a lot of tradition.
You know, if you drive a Cadillac, you're somebody.
I'm fixing to put this on the trunk.
Just make that trunk that much better looking than what it is right now.
This is basically the car of kings.
Back in the day, every king had his ride.
As time progressed, the Cadillac became
the king's choice of transportation.
This is a crown jewel for Earl The Pearl.
Hubcaps are kind of a lost art form.
So we've got Pete running over to our polisher and he's going to see
what he could do to make them all just look original.
All right, Steve, that's what we got here.
There are a few scratches and stuff like that...
-Yeah. -...stainless dents, kind of the usual.
[Pete] Yeah. I'll go through. I'll get all that out.
Kind of stoked about it that we brought them here.
And I'll let you work your magic, man.
Yeah, I'm gonna get to it.
If you flip over and you look at the back side,
you can see the basic shape that made the dent.
So basically, you just want to reverse that,
just kind of whatever shape it needs to be, put it on that.
You want to stay on top of something hard.
A lot of people that try this for the first time
think they should do it on a sand bag or something.
It's the opposite of what you want to do because you're just going
to immediately make hotspots.
-Oh, yeah. Big difference. -Yeah, yeah.
Remember all those real deep dents that were in there...
Yep.
...got all that out, worked it slow and careful to make sure not warp it.
And this is all about patience, taking your time.
[Pete] Slow, patience, yeah.
Just amazing work, man.
-I really appreciate it. -And, I mean, I'm already seeing the difference on it,
so I know it takes a lot of work.
So much respect for what you do, man.
-Happy to help you, man. -Thank you, man.
Enjoy the rest of your day, man.
Yeah, man. You too.
All right, one down.
Three more to go.
Think she's coming along, we actually got our new relay in
and that's what I'm swapping out right now.
Once I swap that out, will be that connection.
Hey, see if that's cold?
Yeah, it feels cold, like, 50 degrees.
Then we're good.
So we got the Cadillac AC system finally up.
Ended up being a bad relay.
Got that thing swapped out.
Everything's good now.
You gonna put this on there?
This is new.
This wasn't available, so it's a combination.
It's a big day for the Cadillac.
PG is putting the seats and the carpet, everything else,
just making it look great inside.
That's awesome. Did you do that?
No. Richard, the embroidery guy.
All right. I think he hit the spot.
Man, that's awesome. Earl, he's going to love it.
We got all the interior installed.
We have the door panels looking real beautiful and clean, completely leather.
We were able to save all this wood grain, which was a one plus.
They look great. They feel good.
Everything else inside the headliner, all that is,
I mean, he did a fantastic job.
And then not to mention the headrest.
[Pete] Locked in, so we're good to go.
Pete, I love it, man.
It came out great.
Wowie.
Today is a big day.
We're about to show this Cadillac to Earl.
I think he's going to be really excited.
We're getting ready to load it up on the trailer and take it to Matt's house.
I don't know what all Matt's told him,
but I can't wait to see the reaction.
Fellas, I think we're here, man.
[automated voice on phone] Your destination is on the right.
[doorbell ringing]
Shorty, what up?
-How are you guys doing? -Good.
-You must be, Earl? -Yeah.
Man, how you doing, man?
What's going on, buddy?
-Good to see. -Good to see you too, man.
My son has a surprise for me.
I don't know what he got.
I'm more excited to see his excitement.
He really loved his car, and we all know it.
You and Matt have been through a lot together.
Yeah.
And, you know, he's told me a little bit of, of the family story.
Me and my wife, Pieretta, we have 10 kids.
We've been together 25 years.
And Matthew was five years old when I met the little fella.
And he's been a blessing ever since.
I just wanted to get to a point where he could just
turn the key and not think about it.
But for us, it was just much more than, like, a car.
You know, for him, it was much more than just an automobile.
It was something that he cherished
and he loved and he was passionate about.
I think it got a little bit of overwhelming to Earl there for a little bit,
just him looking at his car and processing the memories.
I think they both felt the gratitude for each other,
for how their journey has been throughout their lives.
[Matt] When I got the opportunity, I was for sure to take it
and make his dream come true.
Just a humble kid, man.
Let's get the guys to take the cover off it and let you look at it
and see what you think, man.
Wow, it looks just as good as it did the first time.
[laughing]
Wow...
Wow.
[laughs in amazement] You did it!
Wow.
Thank you, man.
Wow.
Hey, the Pearl looks nice.
Wow, wow.
This is actually a 2022 Cadillac color
with a little bit of ice pearl added into that.
This is nice.
So if you look, go to the other side,
you'll see that the pearl going ahead a lot more.
Wow.
Love it.
Hey, no problem.
Hey T. Where are you, T?
You want to hit the hood for me?
We put new hinges because I don't know if you remember
your hinges we're kind of, like, shot a little bit.
Oh, wow.
Oh, this is new.
-It's got a new AC compressor. -All new belt?
All new belts, new batteries, new headlights.
And headlights too.
And obviously new, new hardware.
Seeing him open that hood, all the paintwork and new belts, it's so wonderful.
Beautiful, even shined the chrome up.
[Javier] We took it all off and we sent that out to get re-chromed.
[Earl] I noticed it, it had more of a gleam to it.
[Javier] They did the upholstery for you.
New leather on both the front and the back seats.
New leather on the panels.
New carpet and new floor mats.
[Earl] Most beautiful interior work I've ever seen.
The leather, embroidery, custom working, I love it.
He knows his car, he knows all the detail on it.
-Yeah, he... -He knows.
Yeah, he doesn't skip a beat.
I'm telling you he does.
The Coker American classic tires.
-By Coker? -[Javier] Uh-huh.
[Earl] Ain't they nice with a big tire.
So Shorty, you had to put the black paint in there also?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Now, he knows this everything, man.
Obviously, everything went out.
When they come back, they don't have anymore black left.
So I hand-painted the, the black in between all the moldings.
It would just be kind of a dull looking stainless piece,
but painted that black in there just kind of brings it out.
For my son to do this for me, it was just,
it was just so emotional and I love it.
The original decals and finished paint, the custom Pearl logo
I've seen, that was nice.
That was something I wish I'd have thought of. [laughs]
Honestly, I think it came out perfect just for the look and the esthetics,
to restore it to its natural glory.
[engine whirring]
Earl, what's your favorite part?
My favorite part?
The whole car.
[both laughing]
Hoo, yeah!
Next thing you know, I see Nacho Libre come out from behind the curtain,
and I'm like, "Man, I think that's Wayne."
But I couldn't tell.
The only thing that gave it away was the skinny jeans.
You don't get it?
You're about to see who is the best one, who's true best one!
-Who has got the grit to fit? Yeah! -[all chuckling]
Get him, get him, get him, get him.
-There you go. -There you go.
You got it, man.
Ah, Wayne.