[Javier] Look at all these guys coming over to help, man.
We're halfway through this very rare 1960 VW panel van,
but we still need to prime it,
paint it, interior, mechanical.
I told Shorty this part was easy.
[man] Man, why you said that?
[Javier] So I'm working on our '57 Triumph TR3.
That's an awesome looking car.
I can't believe it. This is so cool.
Let's do it.
[man] There we go. There we go.
[whoops]
[Javier] 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 the team that builds the coolest cars on the road.
We make dreams...
-Wow! -[Javier] ...come true.
[all cheering]
[Javier] We bought this van from Flipper Dave.
So I picked up this bus a few years ago.
It's a 1960 double door panel.
And since Eliot loves this VW busses,
he just had to have it.
Dude, this is a unicorn, man.
[Javier] Eliot dropped by the shop to see
how his panel bus was coming along.
We primed the top of the van already,
but we still have a long way to go,
so we're going through what's left to do.
The other thing that I wanted to talk to you about
this is like a gray in here.
-[Eliot] Primer. -You want it back the way... the way it is, right?
I want it to get back just the way it is.
Okay, so I have... I have a gray primer already.
Actually, it looks like you painted it,
-but it's matte clear. -Okay, cool.
We're still gotta clean up the bottom.
Over there in the other shop,
we can actually jack it up pretty high.
Okay.
And so you can get underneath it.
I heard you're the rattle can king.
Yeah. Yeah. I can do it. Group no cliff, man.
You know, do some tagging, dude. That's how I do it.
The good thing about these
is they make a lot of these parts.
How can they be so rare when they make a ton of parts?
Well, the bus itself is not rare.
The double door panel is rare.
Oh, okay. So just the doors are rare.
[Eliot] Yeah, the doors is what makes it rare.
Not having the seat over there makes it ultra-rare, you know?
[Javier] Yeah. Yeah.
You know, Eliot is amazing.
I don't know if there's anyone else in this world
that knows more than him about VWs.
But the other question I have for you
is, do you have a code number or do you wanna pick one?
Nah, I'm gonna get you a code number
'cause it's real important that we get this back right.
This is called Sealing Wax Red is what this thing
-would have been. -[Javier] Okay.
And it's a iconic Volkswagen color.
We're gonna do those safari windows right,
get this thing to pop up.
-Mm-hmm. -[Eliot] Yeah.
That open up all the way like this?
-[Eliot] Nature's AC. -Yeah.
And what I wanna talk to you about is,
you know, the brackets and stuff,
-do we wanna weld 'em in? -[Javier] Mm-hmm.
Sometimes they screw 'em in.
So, you know, I'm gonna let you look at it.
If there's a good way to bolt 'em in, whatever,
then there's nothing wrong with it.
[Eliot] It might be the way to do it.
[Javier] Now that I know what Eliot wants.
We can finish priming, sanding and painting the van.
Then him and his crew will come in
and knock out the mechanic work.
Can't wait to see what happens.
It's coming along really nice as you can see.
I think you're gonna be stoked.
I have a client coming in to see about
a very special car.
I asked Raul to give me a hand,
and I bet he's never seen anything like this before.
Man, what is this thing?
It's a go-kart?
[Javier chuckles]
It looks like a go-kart, don't it?
-Yeah. -It's not a go-kart.
It's a Triumph TR3.
It's a British car.
This one is a '57.
I painted this car inside out, top and bottom.
It's back for me to finish putting it together.
So she's supposed to be bringing me
some more parts for it.
And that way we can get on it.
And maybe I can get you to help me...
-Yeah. -...you know, finish it up.
[horn honking]
-Somebody is here. -There she is, man.
Hey, I'm Lisa Richardson Vincelli.
And my car has been with me since childhood.
It's a '57 Triumph TR3.
I brought you some more pieces.
-[Javier] Did you? -[Lisa] Yeah. Are you ready for it?
My father owned it, and unfortunately,
my father died when I was a young teenager,
and I had the car bug. Since I was so young
and wanted to keep it and couldn't afford to fix it.
I put it in the barn of one of my uncles.
It was in there for a long time.
This is the original grille with all the...
-[Javier] Okay. -[Lisa] ...mount pieces.
Okay.
The headlights.
-Okay. Okay. -And these are all new.
Today I'm over at Shorty's shop,
dropping off a lot of components
that need to go back on the car.
These cars, there's... there are certain parts
that are very specific to this car.
And so you wanna make sure
that you're putting on everything that's original.
Wow. That's huge.
One bumper, the back is just a couple of little things.
Yeah. Okay.
So it's... that's very tedious to put it back together.
-This is Raul. -Hey, Raul.
-[Javier] And-- -[Lisa] Nice to meet you.
He... he come over here and asked me
what it was, and he asked me
if it was some kind of a go-kart.
[laughter]
You will feel like it's a go-kart when you're in it.
These cars were hand-built,
so he was gonna be hand building the car,
even if I bought every body panel
-from somewhere. -[Raul] Yeah.
They get hand-built on the car.
[Javier] I like the banjo steering wheel.
-I know. -So what is this...
-so what is this for? -[Lisa] That is the trafficator.
-[Javier] The what? -That's your blinkers.
This is like having a little mirror,
-this little thing, it's like-- -[Lisa] I know.
I mean, this little mirror looks like it belonged in,
-like, in your pocket or something. -[Lisa] I know.
-[Raul chuckling] -You know, not even on that.
-All basic stuff. -Yeah.
And here you thought you were just gonna get on
by knowing American-made cars.
I'm excited.
This car the way it was, I mean,
who would have thought it was gonna have
a beating heart again and on the road?
I knew. I got a lot of flak for it,
but I was determined this sucker was getting back on the road.
Well, thanks for bringing all this stuff.
We're gonna get on it.
I'm excited to give it back to you.
Cool. I'm excited, too.
And after 13 years that's been under construction.
My goal is just to finish it up,
give it back to you so you can enjoy it.
I'm ready.
[Javier] So we're coming along really good on the panel bus.
I put some polyester filler
on the biggest panels on the van
to make sure that these come out nice and straight.
Finish up the back. Go over it with a little over 220.
I've been doing this bus in sections.
The roof is already done. It's ready for paint.
And then once we finish this,
we'll KD-3000 these right here,
along with the front and the inside of the vent.
Once we do that,
then we go straight to paint.
[whistles]
Hey, guys. This is Isaac.
Isaac, this is Raul, and this is Charlie.
Isaac is from the same class with Mr. Tyler
and he's in the same class as Julia.
Oh, okay.
And so he's also
a classic car lover to the bone.
Yes, sir.
I think the best thing to do is get him wet right away.
Get him dusty.
What do you like doing the most?
Oh, man, I love painting.
I love doing bodywork, too.
Ready to get dirty.
We can get him on the bumpers for the VW.
We love working with kids and...
and, you know, keeping the... the trade alive.
Yeah, now I want you to go around the bumper,
look for little dents.
All right.
And then you see all this green?
-Yeah. -That's...
And that's primer. That's a little dent here.
So, yeah, man, just take all that green off,
do it with 80 primer.
All right.
Isaac did a great job on the bumper on this bus,
and now Raul is gonna take him
and do a little bit of work on the door.
I haven't done very big panels.
I've done a few.
Yeah, the key is not to put a lot of filler on the panels.
You did pretty good, man.
I tried.
He's gonna take over.
I'm working on our VW panel bus.
I just got done
with my last section of primer,
which is the floor.
I wanted to do the floor separate
just because I wanted the floor
to come out really nice
because it's potentially
we're going to leave it the way it is.
The customer wanted
a kind of a grayish color on the inside.
We are ready to start blocking,
get it ready for paint.
All right.
-We're having a block party today. -Okay.
We got some reinforcements coming in.
Hopefully, they give us a little help.
You guys are gonna be the teachers tonight.
These... these are just friends of ours that come in.
They wanna help. They just wanna be a part of it.
I'm going to sound the... [speaks Spanish]
So you cover your ears, man.
-Y'all ready? -[man] Yes, sir.
[honking]
[Raul] How come he can't call us
like normal people, man?
Oh-oh, that sound like it's time to work.
[Javier] Look at all these guys coming over to help, man.
-[man] Cavalry is here. -[Javier] Look at that.
-[Raul] Yeah. -What you got, Shorty?
-What do you want us to do? -[Javier] Hey, man.
-Well, we got some panels over there. -Okay.
Yeah, just start at one end and stuff it really good...
-Okay. -...all up in here, you know?
-Just don't miss a spot. -Okay.
Look at all these people, man.
I'm gonna paint this van tomorrow.
So start right here at the top and start Scotch-Briting your way over.
You know, every time when it's time to work,
he'd always leave, don't he?
[man] Maybe he's just not in the block parties.
[man] If you would have told him there's food,
he'll be here.
[laughter]
When you get to the... to the hinge here,
you know, just Scotch-Brite it
'cause if we can't get the sandpaper up in there,
the only thing that gets in there is a Scotch-Brite.
It's always nice when,
you know, a lot of guys wanna
come and get together and help us out
and have some fun and have some food at the same time.
And as you can see, it's a party.
It's a block party over here, man.
[laughter]
Joel and Charlie got some bad ass burgers
going on here on the grill.
Come on, guys. Come on, boys.
[Javier] Come on, PG, let's go look at the seat.
I got a really big job for you.
-[Pedro] A big job? -Yeah, the...
Probably the biggest job that we have here in the shop.
Look right here.
Is that all? Really?
This is for the Volkswagen?
[Javier] Yeah, this is for the Volkswagen.
For the bus.
And you can see it's probably gonna be the simplest job
-you ever had to do. -[Pedro] Yeah.
I mean, it's in really good shape.
-Really good condition. -[Pedro] Yeah.
[Javier] But I see a slider.
-Like a slider-- -Yeah, I think it's kind of the slider. Right.
You know that this right here is swivel.
It's 100% original hardware.
The cover may not be a 100% original 'cause it's,
you know, the van is... is pretty old.
One of the unique features on this bus that I love
is the swivel seat.
You can sit in there.
Once you get to the place where you're gonna deliver it,
you swivel around it and get out
whichever way you were going to and you make your delivery.
Take the seat,
get it all cleaned up, get it painted.
It's up to you, man.
[Pedro] So Shorty just got through showing me the seat
for that panel van, the Volkswagen.
We love these Volkswagens.
And my wife and me grew around all this Volkswagen,
so I'm excited to work on it, especially on this van.
-I just need it done. -All right. Yeah.
It's not heavy.
[Javier] Yeah, it's a little seat, but it's got a punch.
So the plan with this Triumph is to get it assembled
because PG needs to do some interior work on it.
So I need to put all the panels on it
and get it back over here so we can get it running
and hopefully deliver it to Lisa as soon as possible.
I never thought I would like this little cars,
but I actually love it.
I mean, I have something similar to this car.
It's a little Volkswagen Karmann Ghia.
I'm working my way from the back to the front.
Just be really careful.
We're gonna have to hold this up like this.
Yeah, just like that.
Let it down.
There we go.
-Oh, okay, you got it? -[Raul] Yeah.
Let me put on another couple of bolts here.
Okay.
Literally, every single panel on this car has been reworked.
It's definitely been a journey working on this car.
It's been a lot of fun.
I like it because it's kind of
not your regular old classic car, you know?
This is an English car.
I hardly ever work on anything else
but American-made classics.
I think once it's done,
it's... it's gonna be beautiful.
This is kind of tricky.
So all I need you to do is hold it
'cause I have to put it under here.
This car, it's little, but it's feisty.
It fights you all the way.
Like these fenders are kind of awkward,
and you have to manipulate 'em in there
because it's got so many ways
you can screw it up if you're not careful.
Needs more?
There it goes.
We're good.
Let me put a couple of screws in it.
I'll let you get back to whatever it is you were doing.
We're just getting the final bolts on this fenders,
but we still have a long way to go on the assembly.
Back over here in my kitchen,
I'm about to mix the paint for our Volkswagen bus.
That's the beauty of this... of the system here.
I have a ton of toners here.
I can mix up just about any color that I want.
In this case, Eliot wants a specific color for the bus.
So he just happened to send me a code that goes to this bus
but in a modern formula.
I'm gonna mix it up and get it ready for paint.
1440 grams of the first toner.
The machine takes care of everything for me
except doing the pouring.
38, 39...
1440.
Yellow oxide.
These scales are pretty sensitive,
so you can't really have
any fans blowing or wind coming in
because the scale will fluctuate
and kind of throw you off.
331.
There we are.
We're gonna see what the color looks like.
See, there we go.
Anytime I'll get something in...
in my kitchen and it's ready to paint,
it's where I get excited.
We've literally stripped this van inside and out.
This is certainly a big, big moment.
Already have all the parts in there.
-Is the guy here, Joel? -[Joel] Yeah.
Dude, that color, you were worried about it?
[Javier] I was worried about it.
Nah, man, that's perfect, man.
When we got the 1960 VW bus with Eliot,
we thought it was a good idea for him
and his crew to come in and help us
with the mechanical aspect of it.
They are experts in their field.
They eat and breathe Volkswagens.
Well, now that we got it on the lift,
we can start dropping out the transmission
that will all come out as one unit.
We'll drop out the... the front beam.
Let's just get the suspension out of it.
All right.
Let's get to work.
Let's get these wheels off.
[Eliot] Yeah, let's get this stuff out of here.
[whooping]
-[Javier] Are you ready? -Mm-hmm.
All right. Tell me when it's good.
[Eliot] You're out. You're out.
Success.
[Eliot grunts]
[Javier] I got a big one.
What I'm doing here is I'm just prepping to get the front end.
We're gonna take the front end out, everything,
the hubs and everything's just gonna drop down as one unit.
-It won't budge. -I told Shorty, this part was easy.
Yeah, I know.
[chuckles] Man, why you said that?
[Eliot grunts]
[Eliot] All right, we're out.
All right, boys.
Good job.
We're gonna get this tore down, G.
All right.
Yeah, see if you could get it all pulled off
and take it off to the bare metal.
-Okay. -We're gonna have to
put new foam and save these patterns
'cause I'm just gonna get them an idea.
I'm not going by this because you could see
how off and crooked it is.
-Oh, yeah. -That's...
Man, it looks... it looks real terrible.
That's kind of worn out.
It's uneven. Feel it?
[Gavino] Yeah.
I'll let you get going and tear it down.
-[Gavino] Okay. Okay. I'll get it going. -I'll see you up there.
We're gonna get this modernized.
So first we gotta break it all down.
It looks pretty bad. It's in very bad shape.
All your lines are off.
If you look at it, this side is way higher than this side.
So we're gonna have to straighten everything up,
refoam everything, make it look new again.
First we gotta get rid of this nastiness.
This is still original.
You can tell by the materials that they use.
You have bits of 1960s flying around in the air now.
There it goes.
That's it.
That's the burlap.
It does look like it's leaning.
[Gavino] Yeah, it does.
This car must have been leaning to one side.
-This way. -Yeah.
That's the side it swivels to, too.
-He was doing this, right? -[laughs]
So Manuel is gonna start from scratch and make a pattern.
Yeah, one piece going that way and notch it in.
We're trying to pick up the van and put it on the lift
that we have outside so we can clean the bottom.
The bottom needs to be pressure washed.
[Joel] We set this on there.
Boom, it's done.
And it grabs so much surface that it won't teeter-tot.
[Javier] Okay. Well...
[Joel] So let's do that first.
We gotta touch down here.
[Javier] This thing is heavy, man.
Can you see, Shorty?
'Cause I can't see nothing.
[Javier] Yeah. All right. We're good.
-[Joel] We're okay? -Yeah. We're good.
Now the dirty work.
Just getting the underneath of the bus cleaned up.
We're just gonna wire wheel,
get the grease off of everything.
[Javier] I'm in the process of putting the bonnet on.
I had the pleasure of working on it for Lisa.
It's got a super cute looking little face.
It looks like a car from a cartoon, you know?
[Raul] All right, get your side first.
-[Javier] My side? -[Raul] Yeah.
Okay, Raul, hold on a second.
Hold on a second.
Okay. Go ahead. Put it in that.
Pinch it together with your hands.
Yeah. There you go.
Let's go a little bit up.
Cool, man.
Okay, Raul.
Thank you, man. I appreciate it.
And the gap is pretty good.
As you guys can see the hood looks really good,
and put all the hardware back on it,
the car looks super cool. I think we're good to go.
-[man] What's up, Eliot? -Hey.
Eliot, this is, PG.
This is Elliot, man.
What's up, man? Doing all right?
Hey. Good to see you.
-Nice to meet you. -PG. How you doing?
-Hey, you got that seat, huh? -[Gavino] Yeah. Yeah.
It gave it that original look.
[Eliot] Oh, yeah.
We gave it that side stitch instead of the welt
because you sliding in and out could wear that out.
[Eliot] Yeah, that looks really, really good, man.
We found some original pieces and original cover.
-We went by that pattern. -I think it's perfect.
I told you he was the right man for the job.
-Hey, that's awesome, man. -So it came out good, man.
I'll get it going.
[man] Yeah, we'll get it in there, man.
-[Eliot] Appreciate it, brother. -Thank you, man.
-I'll let you check it out. -Nice to meet you.
-Thank you. -All right, PG.
Here it is.
Great.
That... this goes on first, that second.
PG's and tier guys, Noel and Gavino
are some of the best interior guys I've ever seen.
There is no car,
foreign or domestic, that they can't do.
Hey, guys.
-How's it going, Shorty? -Lisa sent the treasure map.
Hopefully there's money at the end of it.
-Okay? -Oh, yeah.
This is an original documentation of a precise
backseat mounting on this car, and she wants it to the tee.
All right, so looking at this diagram here,
what's gonna sit in there if it's a back seat?
This seat here is not gonna sit you or me
or anyone else in here, okay, for that matter.
I think that this seat right here
was meant for a cat or a dog.
Okay. That's making more sense.
So I think that...
[laughter]
I'll let you guys get to it, man.
I'll see you later.
So we're gonna transfer over
these templates onto half inch plywood.
[Raul] Now we're gonna staple the material onto it.
Right now I am setting up the rear door panels.
There was some misalignment to it, so I am just...
I mean, doing what I do best, make it fit the car.
So what I had to do was trim a bit around the wheel well.
That way these holes line up to the bolt holes that
which is for the top frame.
Once I do that, wrap the material
and we should be good to go.
There you go. Got the seat in.
Got its all new caps on. Got the door panel pieces on.
Screwed on and everything.
I'm pretty excited to see what she thinks about it
after she sees it, knowing that it's been in her family
for quite a bit.
We'll see how she... how she reacts to it.
-Hello. -What's up?
Oh, man. This thing's bad ass.
Look what I got, man.
Look what they brought us, man.
Yeah, they brought some good stuff.
[Javier] The wheels.
These are a Porsche pattern.
These are called gas burners.
You can see 'em on 914s
and like the old Porsches and stuff like that?
-Is there anything that goes in the center? -Yeah.
There's a little Porsche center cap
that goes over the centers there.
[Javier] Heck, yeah, man, I love 'em.
They're not real blingy. You know want I mean?
Because this is an industrial kind of a bus.
-[Javier] I like the low key of 'em. -Yeah.
This blush kind of looking like a black chrome kind of...
The front one is that, like,
considerably smaller than the rear.
-[Eliot] Yeah. -It's gonna be the badass.
[Eliot] There's some meet in the back, have to be a little bit staggered.
I love 'em. They look badass, man.
Cool, man. I see, you got all the gear, man.
[Javier] We got all the suspension that Joel and I
were just checking it out.
Obviously, we're replacing everything that's stock.
My buddy Nate up in Oregon, he did the beam,
built the transaxle, and he shipped it
to his caliper to caliper, man.
So all we gotta do is throw it in there and go.
And then this is a Beetle transaxle.
Okay.
So they do that because the busses
had reduction boxes that actually made 'em sit a little higher.
So that's all you really gotta do to the busses
is put a Beetle transaxle in
and we can get 'em down on the ground.
Really.
And then the spring plates are adjustable too.
That's real common in the Volkswagen scene
Porsche bolt pattern five by one thirties.
It'll be tough to get those tires underneath
the... at the back because it's kind of mid skirt.
Well, I'll tell you what, it looks like
you got some killer drive train.
-I can't wait, man. -Yeah.
We can compliment everything else on the bus.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's gonna be cool.
The motor, when does that come in?
They... He fired it up last night.
-He was running it on the stand. -[Javier] All right.
[Eliot] So we'll bring it over in the morning.
Okay. Nice. Nice.
This front suspension is pretty kick ass.
It's gonna get us low.
It's gonna narrow us up for the front breaks
that we've got going here.
We've got it all prepped.
Right now, we're about to try to
roll the beam underneath it,
and I think we're gonna try to set the bus down
into the beam and then get it all bolted in
so that we can start routing the shift rod
and all that kind of good stuff.
So I'm thinking about pulling this thing
all the way down to this end,
and then we'll build it up with these two by fours a little higher,
and then we'll just lower it down into the beam.
So this beam is an adjustable beam.
It's set up to be lowered, but we can also dial it in with this little...
this little alligator teeth.
Basically, what this is doing is this is pinching
a set of spring packs that goes down the middle.
It can pinch it in different locations
to change the angle of the control arms.
-Pull that lock. -Yes, sir..
Go slow.
Stop, stop, stop, stop.
Eliot, I think come back up a little.
And we're just trying to line up the first hole
to get the beam started.
-One at a time. -[Konstantin] Okay. Ready?
[Javier] Right there where the wheel sits,
how much further is it gonna go up there?
Let me put it this way.
If there was a passenger seat and I was sitting there,
you might have a problem.
Let's pull the lift down a little bit.
Let it sit on it a little bit. See what's--
Okay. Okay. Yeah.
[Javier] Damn, Eliot, that's almost all the way down.
-[Eliot] What? -[Javier laughs]
Damn. Oh, man, that thing is stiff.
It's a little... little neck breaker.
Not about the ride, it's about the look.
-Ain't that right? -It's the look.
That's all that matters.
[Joel] Take a look at that, Shorty. These boys coming.
They're coming in hot.
[Javier] Oh, damn.
Elliot and his guys are coming in like a hurricane.
They're bringing in a new... brand new motor,
a bunch of other components,
and they're getting ready to install it.
It's gonna be a monster day today.
Look alive, baby.
[Javier] You got the rescue dog?
[Eliot] Look what we got, dude.
-[Javier] Yeah. -Dang, man.
[Eliot] Motor and the motor lifter.
We think that's gonna look good under that bus.
[Javier] Man, that's... that's awesome.
We've gotta get the motor into the bus,
and then we gotta hook up
all the electronics and the fuel
so that we can fire the thing off.
And so today's a huge day.
We got a lot of people to get it done,
so there's no reason that it shouldn't happen pretty soon.
Me and Joel,
we're super glad y'all are here...
-[Eliot] Yeah. -...to help us get this bus going.
There was no shortage of help.
They brought the dream team over here to...
to help us with this little bus.
[man] Three, two, one.
Hey, that's pretty good, Shorty.
The dream team for your dream shop.
[man] Got it.
So we got a new reproduction tank
true to original.
So 10 gallon gas tank
that sits directly behind the engine
and the fuel line goes straight to...
straight to the back of it.
So these are the adjustable spring plates
that just came in from powder coating.
They're part of the suspension components for the rear.
So we're working on putting that stuff together.
And after that we can go ahead and get the...
the transmission stabbed in as well as the engine so.
So what I'm putting on now are the transmission mounts.
So these go in before we actually put on the cradle itself.
The way Volkswagens work same applies for Beetles as well,
but the actual motor itself
is supported by the transmission.
So this obviously has to go first
and then the motor next.
[Konstantin] Let's align to the right.
All right.
-I'm in. -[Konstantin] Good? All right.
[Javier] Those plates came out pretty good.
These are obviously custom built to lower, you know--
-[Eliot] That's a custom piece. -Yeah.
And so what that does is
the... the Beetle gets it pretty much where you want it,
being a straight axle
and puts it right in the position here.
And then these are just fine tuning it, right?
So sometimes your...
your torsion bars getting 'em up,
you have a little bit of sag or something like that,
so you can jack this one back up
and kind of level, just level 'em back up.
So this is where... This is the adjustable one.
[Eliot] Yeah.
You know, all these guys are very knowledgeable,
I mean, extremely knowledgeable on VWs
and we couldn't have had
a better crew out here to help us.
And think the... the magic part about
it is the way they work together.
They're almost as good as us.
Almost.
-Almost, Joel? Yeah. -Almost.
Well, as far as VWs they are pretty good.
They'll kick our ass on VWs.
Yeah.
-[Konstantin] Ready? -[Ethan] Yeah.
Way too close. We're just trying to get the motor
into position,
maneuver the motor in a way where we tilt it up...
up and in and... and be able to bolt it up.
All right. It's going down just a little bit.
It looks awesome.
So we're hooking the shift rod up on...
on the front here, this area on the pitman arm.
Check this out, Lazaro.
Why don't you get the... the original one?
Let's compare it to this one.
This one's an aftermarket one.
The bend is just a little bit off
and... and it doesn't take much to be off
for it to be... to hit
'cause it's hitting right here.
See, this one's longer
the distance from here to here.
So we gotta straighten that bend out,
you know, this thing is...
-[man] All right. Let's hold. -[Lazaro] ...just a little bit.
Man, I think I've bent it already.
Let's see. Let it loose.
I'm gonna give that a shot. Let's see what that...
what that does.
Get in there.
Okay.
-I think you're good. -Look.
When you bolt it up...
[Lazaro] I think you're good.
I think we're fine. We'll just do the bushing pin.
[Ethan] Okay.
How they did it in the factory,
if something didn't fit right,
they just made an adjustment on the spot.
Made it work.
We're scrambling on Lisa's 57 Triumph.
Joel is working out the taillights.
We're putting the last pieces of trim on it
and we're gonna clean it
and make it look sharp for her.
This is a big moment for Lisa.
She's waited a long, long, long, long, long time
to get this car where it is today.
You know, you work and you work doggedly
to get something done and then it's happening and it's kind of surreal.
So I'm very excited about it.
There she is.
Hi, guys.
How are you feeling?
[Lisa] I'm feeling shaky, actually.
I can see that.
-I know. I know. -How are you doing?
I'm good. Glad to be here.
-I'm a little bit sweaty so-- -Hey, Joe.
This is a long road.
You've been waiting a long time to get here.
A long time.
And this is a family heirloom.
Yeah.
It was my dad's when we were teenagers,
and I haven't driven it since then.
So you ready to see it?
I'm very ready to see this.
Hey, Shorty.
Wow!
[Joel] Give it a little honk there, Short-dog.
-[laughs] -[honking]
Oh, my God.
That's an awesome looking car.
[Javier] What do you think?
You look awful good in that car, Shorty.
That is a gorgeous car.
[Javier] Finally, right?
[Lisa] What a job you guys did!
Oh, my!
-Today is the day. -I know.
And, you know what, we can't tell you
how glad we are to be a part of it.
We know how much it means to you.
I don't think I could have gotten anybody better.
[Javier] Pedro and his guys, I mean,
they did a beautiful job on the interior.
This, I think,
was the original color for the car.
-It is. -[Javier] I did all the bodywork.
I did all the fitment on the body,
painted the car for you and everything
and basically put the car back together.
It was a pure pleasure working on this car for you
and trying to get it back to how you wanted it.
[Lisa] This is exactly how I viewed it would look like.
[Javier] For us to be able to revive your memories,
-you know, thanks for that. -You definitely did.
I didn't expect such an emotional feeling
when it came out, but it's... it's a stunner.
And now I can get in that sucker
and go for a drive, man.
-Yes. -Way over time for that.
Yeah.
[engine starts]
Yep. It's a new car.
Oh, this is crazy.
Haven't driven it since I was about 17.
My dad died a couple of years after that
and I just vowed that I would get it fixed one day.
So getting it out about 15 years ago
and getting it back on the road
and getting it completed is very exciting.
I can't believe it. This is so cool.
-What's up, Tanny? -[Tanner] What's up, man?
-[Javier] How are you doing, brother? -Good. How are you?
-Looks like you came ready for work, man. -Yeah.
Eliot wants a logo on his VW bus,
so we're gonna call in my friend Tanner
so he can throw it down and get it done for him.
And so this one here
is, like something that he had talked about.
This is what's coming to my mind right now.
[Javier] All right.
This here, panel it out with a pinstripe like this.
-[Javier] Mm-hmm. -So it creates a box.
Yeah.
So... so you wanna put this on here?
-Yep. -And then outline it.
Make it look like a sign.
I think he would love it, man. I really do.
[Tanner] So I'm gonna put this down first
and get that outer perimeter started,
and I'll probably do some decorative
stuff in the corners.
Got a logo marked up where it's gonna be.
It's really detailed.
So I'm gonna use this basically transfer...
this basically graphite paper just white.
Balancing is, I feel that's the most important part.
You can have this really awesome logo and it's like,
"That's so cool, but does it fit in the area?"
I know Eliot very well
and I know that he's into this kind of stuff,
so I think he'll be surprised to see this on there.
[Javier] Everything on the bus is hooked up
and we're getting ready to fire it up.
I can't wait to get this thing on the road.
So we're gonna prime the fuel system,
get the electric pump
to fill up the carburetors with some gas,
and then we'll get the timing...
timing light ready
and then try to fire it off and then
get it idling good enough
to get the carburetors to idle.
-[Joel] Go ahead, Konty. -Here we go.
[engine sputters and starts]
Man, it's good enough for a test drive, I think.
It sounds really good.
-[man whooping] -Yeah.
[Konstantin] We need to lower the back end or something?
-A little bit? -It's a little too high.
[Javier] Yeah, I would say about another inch.
-Okay. -All right, look at that.
-There it is right there. -[Joel] Wow!
So the good thing about these spring plates
is they've actually got...
they have it drop welded into the spring plate.
[man] Okay.
And so you retain the... the spring and the torsion bar.
-So it still rides good. -It'll still ride really good.
[Joel] Wow, that's crazy, man.
[Javier] Can you do that to an Impala?
[Joel] Yeah, put a little air ride system on it.
[Javier] Yeah, it looks a lot better now.
It's time to take this bus over to Eliot.
Today, Eliot's gonna see the final version of his bus.
We've done a couple of things that he doesn't know about.
I can't wait for him to see it and see his reaction.
Well, Eliot... Y'all ready?
Am I ready? Come on, dude.
Are y'all ready for it?
-Bring that bus in, dude. -Come on, man.
Are you all ready for it or what?
-[all] Yeah. -Yeah.
Now, we're talking right.
Now, we're talking.
-[Joel] Here it is. -[Eliot] No way.
[Joel] Look at that thing, man.
Dude, they got the safaris in.
-[whoops] -Oh, yeah.
Hell, yeah, dude.
-Oh, boy. -[Joel] That's bad ass.
Hot dog, boy!
[chuckles] Good to see you.
-[Eliot] Man-- -[Javier] What do you think, Eliot?
Oh, my gosh!
Did you change the stance, man?
We changed the stance a little bit.
Where your you guys did,
you know, they thought it was a little... it had a little bit of a rake.
So we changed the stance a little bit.
This is the way it's supposed to look.
[Javier] And then we called in Tanner
and he did that little logo on for you.
What do you think?
That thing right there, dude, is on point, man.
Look at the brush marks and stuff,
man, it's insane.
-[Javier] Yeah, it's just-- -Midlothian man.
That's what I'm talking about right there, dude.
Man, it looks phenomenal.
Tell the truth.
This paint color is scared you, didn't it?
-It sure did, man. Yeah. -What do you think now?
[Javier] I love it, man. I love it.
I love the color. It looks beautiful.
-This is the marquee, man. -Yeah.
You know, this is the one when you pull to the shop,
this is the one that's sitting out.
It's awesome. Oh, you got the safaris on now.
So the coolest thing on Volkswagen busses
is the safari windows.
And you can just roll in in that thing
with the windows open like that,
and it just turns heads.
-You got 'em painted in time. -[Javier] Yes.
Obviously, everything is a scramble,
you know, when you're trying to do something like this.
When you told me the color and I got it...
I mixed it and I opened it up,
I said, "Man, I screwed up on the mix."
Hang on, hang on.
"I got four missed calls from Shorty."
This is the quintessential
Volkswagen color called Sealing Wax, man.
[Javier] Wow.
Just a little bitty dots chrome here and there.
-You know what I mean? -[Javier] Yeah.
All the seals, you know,
they... they bring it up, you know?
Oh, just noticed that.
Yeah, you've got the... all the window seals, they--
Yeah. All the window seals make the color pop.
You wanna see that one seat?
PG, I think he had the hardest job of everybody.
Well, this is all the interior we did.
Yeah, you worked for like months, night...
nights and days to get this seat done.
We found out that this was the original look
-that was underneath... -[Eliot] Yeah.
[Pedro] ...all their covers and all of that.
[Eliot] You said there was some original material in there, right?
-Yeah. Yes. -[Eliot] Swivel seat, man.
Yeah.
From what it looked like then to what it looks like now,
it's night and day.
This thing is extremely, extremely rare, man.
Well, why don't you sit in that, man?
See how you look.
-Look at you, man. -Dude!
It's nice in here, man.
You actually spent a lot of time in here,
actually, body working and stuff, didn't you?
Oh, man, you have no idea.
I can't wait to drive it, man.
-It's gonna be awesome. -[Javier] I know.
You have no idea how bad ass this bus looks from the front.
It's less than a foot off the ground.
The headlights, the emblem, all the little signal lights.
This thing is amazing, Shorty.
Your team did, I mean, knocked it out of the park, man.
Thanks, man. Appreciate that, man.
[Eliot] This is really cool, man. I appreciate it.
Both teams came together for a labor of love
for somebody that deserves it.
My team, you know, they did their job.
And then your team, they did their job,
so they got it running nice and crisp.
[Eliot] Dude, man, you got the tails to match
the bumpers in the inside!
Talk me about it, Ethan.
It's a 2.3 liter, 44 Weber IDFs.
So how many horsepower you think that thing's making now?
Probably somewhere between 140, 160.
You can get it on a freeway and... and do six...
570. No problem.
You even painted the inside of the engine compartment, man.
[Javier] We had to slick it all up for you.
This van, I wanted it to be a representation of my shop,
my little museum here.
And man, that logo, like, I haven't had a logo.
I played around with some ideas and things,
and you guys pulled it off, man.
Shorty brought it back to better...
better than from the factory condition.
And it is amazing.
You look down the side of that thing
and it looks like a mirror.
And you guys killed it, man.
I mean, this is... My guys had a blast.
-[Joel] Yeah. -That's all I've heard about...
Well, we had a blast, too.
...how much fun they had coming over to your shop.
It was awesome, man.
It was awesome working on the bus.
Especially for you and the collection you have,
man, it's truly amazing.
You know, this is much better than a museum.
You guys take this to heart as far as
the... the hobby of fixing up VWs and stuff.
So it was a pleasure for all of us
to be able to do something for you.
Thanks to your guys, I mean, bottom of my heart, man.
-[Joel] What is it gonna sound like, Shorty? -[blows raspberry]
-Like that? -[Joel] There you go, man.
[laughs]
Hey, hey, T, put some turbo to it.
-Hey. Hey, hey, hey. -[Joel] There you go, man.
-[Javier] Yeah, that's it. -I didn't spit on you.
Man, what the hell is going on there?
[laughter]
What in the hell...
[laughter]
-Oh, my gosh, dude. -[man] Rock, paper, scissors.
Should I ask?
Who'll get to drive it first?
[laughter]