[Shorty] We've made a lot of headway on the '56 Corvette,
but there's still a lot to be done.
[whistles]
This is gonna be a four-tone car.
Very unique combination. I've never done one.
Not gonna lie, I'm a little lost right now.
-[Shorty] Fire it up. -[engine starts, revs]
Oh!
[Shorty] 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 livin' that dream
with my own custom shop and a team that builds
the coolest cars on the road.
[man 1] Oh, dang!
-[man 2] My God! -[laughing]
[Shorty] We make dreams come true.
-[all cheering] -[man 3] Yeah!
We're doing this '56 Corvette for Rick
in honor of his grandson, Caleb.
Coming up two years, Caleb's involved in a race car accident.
There's a lot riding on this car to get it ready for auction
to raise money for Rick's foundation.
There's a lot more to do to put this car back to its original condition.
We've got electrical, mechanical, interior,
and a lot of paint left to do.
This is a rare car,
and it might be one of 111 special racing editions
that GM made that year with a high-lift cam motor.
This is the moment of truth.
We found out that it has a rebuilt cam,
so we're gonna put a pin in the motor for now
and finish up the body.
We'll see if we can source an original cam,
or go a totally different direction with the motor.
So what I'm doing now is the actual
pocket where the headlight bezel goes into.
It's got some cracks where the bolts actually go to.
I gotta get some fiberglass, uh, mat,
put about three layers behind there. Make it nice and thick.
So that way it'll have a nice bond in there
whenever the bezel does go in, and it'll have enough meat on it
for the screws to bolt on to.
This is not fiber tech like the other stuff that I normally use.
It uses actual resin with actual mat.
I typically do it eyeball.
I don't use a measuring system.
I've done it for 20-some years.
And this stuff here, typically you just mix it.
It color changes, so keep on mixing
until you start seeing it get into a green color.
Then I know that the resin is ready to apply to the, uh, fiberglass mat.
[rock music playing]
That was pretty much the last area
that I had to do any kind of fiberglass work.
So all of the major stuff is pretty much done.
All the fiberglass matting and repairs have been done.
We have the Corvette interior that we're fixing to tear down.
They're just gonna do it original
because this is gonna be a high-end car.
Matching numbers.
When somebody wants to do a matching number car,
we have to order the original OEM covers
because all this, it has to be in order.
You got the burlap, you got the cotton,
a little bit of foam, so it all has to match.
It's not gonna be as comfortable as using all foam,
but it's gonna be like the way it was made.
What I'm gonna do is tear down everything to the frame.
[grunts in disgust] This is toasted.
Almost done. Just trying to get these little odds and ends.
We'll probably wash 'em and then paint.
[air hissing]
-Hey, Short Dog. -[Shorty] Yeah.
I think she's ready to go, man.
-[Shorty] She? -She.
This car's a she?
To me. [laughs]
[Shorty] All right, let's move it.
[whistles loudly, chuckles]
Let's get it! I'll get it in the booth.
Get it in the booth and get it primered.
Big moment right here, Jose!
-Big moment. -[Shorty yells] Big moment!
Let's get it. Look at that, man.
[both] Goin' in the booth.
Finish time, man. Almost.
[Shorty] You looking forward to the block party, man?
Yessir. Yessir.
That's pretty good right there.
-Yello! -Brother Vic.
-Vic, Victor! -[Victor] Hey, mornin', baby.
[Joel] You ready?
-Born ready. [chuckles] -Buenos días, señor.
[both speak Spanish]
[in English] Victor just showed up to the shop
to pick up the chrome parts for Rick's '56 Corvette.
There are a ton of parts, and he's got his work cut out for him.
[in English] That... [indistinct] ...look at the grill.
I'm gonna take... [mumbles] I gotta take it apart.
You can't dip it like that?
-You gotta do each one? -[Victor] Each one.
Damn.
-You gonna take care of me? -I'm gonna take care of you like I always do.
Oh, I know you do.
[Victor] You're the man, Shorty.
-That's all the Corvette. -That's it.
-Yeah, that's it. -Okay, sir.
So Noel, this is a old-school restoration.
-[Noel] Uh-huh. -[Pedro] We're gonna have to hit this
-indention right on spot. -Yeah.
Okay.
Everything's gotta be right on the T.
-Yeah. All right. -Right on the money.
There it is, right there.
-That's gonna feel better than my mattress at home. -[chuckles]
[Pedro] We got the covers in. They're original as they could be.
Even the squares on it, where it's been pressed.
Here's this, what you were talking about.
You're gonna need some wire so you can push that indention in.
-Yup. -And keep it level and straight.
Since it came with these new reinforcements to tie down the cover,
I am taking the old ones off.
As you can see, it's real brittle.
Compare that to that.
So, I gotta take this off.
You hog ring it to the frame itself,
and it also helps secure the springs in place.
And there you go.
Now I gotta do this to all of 'em.
[Pedro] We do have the dash here.
The original stitching that it's supposed to have for the Corvette,
which goes right here on the side of the door post.
The new dash cover, it has this proper stitching,
side stich right here.
We've gotta just start wrapping it.
But before that, we gotta start
taking this off and cleaning it up.
I'mma get this cleaned up.
[clicks, hisses]
[rock music playing]
I'mma glue all this up.
Fold it over, glue it in place.
Put some hog rings in some sections
to hold it even better.
And then, um, ready for the cover to go on.
Let that dry for a bit.
Then we'll tack it on.
So we have our, uh, 1956 Corvette in the booth.
The goal right now, to get it taped up
so we can put it in primer and move on to the next step.
I feel pretty confident that it's gonna be pretty nice.
However, I think that we're gonna do two rounds on this one.
We're gonna block it down and then prime it one more time.
And then we'll, you know... It'll be ready for paint at that point.
[rock music playing]
This is a '59 trunk
that was given to me by a friend of mine.
This is for a Biscayne.
This car would've been the lower end of the Impalas.
I'm not gonna put it on a car.
I just wanna paint it badass and put it on my wall.
I kind of like to do stuff like this
to rejuvenate me, you know?
To give me a little bit more, more juice.
It just relaxes me and, uh,
it's fun, and it just kinda like, you know, your mind is,
"What can I do to make this look cool?"
I had a friend, custom painter, Danny D.
He passed away.
He did some custom jobs that I saw
that were, like, just wicked.
You look at 'em and you're like,
"Man, I wish I could do something like that."
And so the colors that I'm gonna put on this trunk
are inspired by him.
[rock music playing]
[Shorty] This is called Sunrise Pearl.
This is called Sunset.
I'm gonna fade the Sunset into the Sunrise Pearl.
When I get done with these two colors,
I'm gonna take the tape off,
and then this area's start gonna have, like, patterns.
It's gonna have some lowrider patterns.
The normal mixing ratio on a base color is 50-50, one-to-one.
But if you're gonna use it to do a fade into something,
you need to mix it a little bit thinner.
Overall, reduce it 10%, 15%.
That way when you do your fade,
it's nice and crisp mist.
[rock music playing]
[Shorty] Inside here, I wanna use some Candy Golds,
and maybe a cool pinstripe going down the center
of both of these right here.
Just a really nice, clean pinstripe.
You always wanna change it up a little bit
and make it interesting.
Just put some off-the-wall colors
that a lot of times you don't think they jive
with the other colors, but they do.
I mean, that just looks awesome.
[upbeat music playing]
We have Rick's '56 Corvette loaded up,
headin' over to Dave's shop.
We're gonna do an extensive amount of more work.
He's gonna take the frame off the car,
uh, restore the frame, bring it back to its original specs.
That way when it goes across that block,
we can advertise it as that.
And hopefully it'll bring a lot more money for Rick's cause.
We'll get this, and we're gonna put it on that.
[rock music playing]
[Shorty] What's up, T?
Check it out, man.
Ready for you to get busy, huh? [chuckles]
Ooh-wee!
Remember, this is a full-on factory rebuild,
not something we always do here at the shop.
There's a lot at stake here
since we're doing it for a client's foundation,
which he launched in honor of his grandson who passed away.
Let's take the straps off of it, unload it.
Right now, we have a Corvette body off the frame,
and the next step is the cleanup,
especially underneath of it.
The reason we're cleaning underneath the car
is because Rick wants it painted under there
back to original specs.
-What's going on, guys? -Hey.
Is this the place where I'm gonna get educated on Corvette?
We're out here at DMS today to work on Rick's Corvette,
and see if Dave can show me a few tricks
on these Corvettes and putting this frame together,
and get this car rolling forward.
So, I see you guys got ahead already, huh?
We got it painted, um, the correct color and everything for judging.
We went ahead and stenciled the frame on the other side with the bill date.
Hey, dude, it's upside down.
-It's supposed to be. -Really?
When that car was built, it was upside down on the assembly line.
And a guy held a stencil up, did this.
And then when it got to the end of the line, they flipped 'em back over.
All the suspensions were put on upside down
-and they just settle down. -Everything?
Everything.
-Okay. -[Dave] So, man, we get you to help us...
-[Joel] Yeah. -...put this thing together.
Definitely, man. Let's do it.
An old kingpin front end like this
doesn't have any caster to make the car handle real well.
Starting in '56,
Zora Duntov came up with this shim
to set the crossmember back a little bit
to give it a little bit of caster in the alignment...
-So you have adjustments. -...to make 'em handle better.
This is definitely the way to get the value of the car in an auction
because, I mean, this will be a correct,
dated, matching number '56 Corvette that is,
you know, built the best we can build one.
[Joel] Look at that, man.
[Dave laughs] Rebound straps are good for assembly.
[Joel] It's pretty unique, though.
The old timers will tell you they put those straps on there
so when you jump your car, the drive shaft won't fall out.
That's awesome, guys.
They pump it full of oil, you're good to go.
[Joel] Man, this thing's gonna be awesome, man.
We got the Corvette seats here.
We've got the padding on.
So now, I'm just gonna hog ring it,
and then get it covered.
I'mma need a little help here,
so I'mma let this sit out in the sun for a bit.
That way they could stretch.
All right.
Sure enough with that Texas heat,
that's gonna let it stretch real good.
That goes where it needs to go.
[rock music playing]
[Noel] Hog rings makes it real easy to get the cover real tight
on the actual seat itself.
That's a cover.
-That came out good. -[indistinct]
Uh, new padding.
-I like that pattern, that design. It looks good. -Yeah.
We good.
Who is that?
-Damn. -Oh, look who it is, man.
[Joel] That boy done stepped up.
[Shorty] Good morning, brother.
-[Joel] What's going on, man? -[man 4] Hey, Joel.
-[overlapping chatter] -You remember...
-Oh, yeah, I remember. -[Joel] My man, I feel like he's getting bigger, man.
Here, let me help you, man.
[Victor] Oh, no. I got my helper.
-You grab the other... -Is that all we sent?
Here, feel it. [laughs]
[Shorty] You brought it.
-[Joel] It's the motor covers. -[Victor] Yeah, those are... [indistinct]
[Shorty whistles] This is a piece that goes around the front, Joel.
-Oh, around the light. -Around the front fender.
The chrome looks badass, Victor.
Thanks for bringing it, brother.
[Joel] Thanks, brother.
Let's go take care of you, man.
What's going on, Jose?
-Hey, what's up, Shorty? -How's it coming?
It's getting there. There's a piece left over here, and I'll be done.
I've already pretty much blocked the whole car.
I've already got it all sanded
except for the access into this front piece.
That's literally all I got left.
And, uh, I'm just trying to get it all 100% done
before the block party starts later this evening.
We're just gonna go ahead and finish it up.
And then we'll just have a grand old time at the block party.
This is gonna be easy block party for 'em.
-They ain't gonna have to do nothing but... -All they have to do
is show up and eat.
[horn blares]
Block party time.
Shorty usually don't let me sand anything
'cause I got grease all over my hands all the time.
-[sizzling] -Hey, guys, we got some good news today.
[man 5] Oh, yeah?
[Shorty] The Corvette, the car, the one that you guys
supposed to be helping us sand on,
a little tender.
-So, it takes... -[Joel] Kinda like this burger, Shorty.
-I was thinkin' it. -[indistinct chatter, laughter]
You know, we went ahead and finished it up.
That way we can just hang out today
and have fun and have a good burger.
-[man 6] Awesome. -[man 7] Sounds good.
[man 8] Watch Joel do all the work.
It's a little chilly out here.
[man 9] We had that cold front come in today.
-I think it's only 104 today. -[all laughing]
-Yeah, yeah. -It's only 104, I know.
On a day like today here in Texas, that's pretty good.
[upbeat song playing]
[Shorty] Time to eat!
This is a real good healthy burger.
No carbs but just beef and lettuce.
That's it. Cut!
-Hey, Shorty. -[Shorty] What's going on. How you doing, Rick?
-Good, good. -It's good to see you again, buddy.
[Rick] Good to see you too.
I've been anxious to see what's been going on.
We basically have, uh, a couple of samples.
You know, the colors that you want.
Right now, we just have a sample of the blue and the silver.
And if you like 'em, then we can make a big batch of it.
-Perfect. -[Shorty] Yeah.
This is the blue.
[Rick] Yeah.
Those would go great together. Absolutely.
I think that's dead on.
That's just what I imagine the car to be.
What really excites me about this is,
this was Caleb's favorite color right here.
-Was it? -[Rick] Yeah.
-Well, there you go. -[Rick] Yeah.
That's what really excites me. Just makes it...
-It just makes it even more special. -[Rick] Yeah.
Yeah, I'm excited.
Saw some of the chrome, the windshield, all that looks great.
-All right, man. -I appreciate you coming over.
Rick chose the Arctic Blue for this 1956 Corvette,
and which I think is beautiful.
And then, we're gonna add the silver teardrop on the side,
which is gonna make it an even better-looking combination.
Plus, we have a red and white dash,
which makes that four colors all together.
If we're in the booth and we have a car in here,
that's another good day in the kitchen.
The car that we have in here is a '56 Corvette.
This car is gonna be a unique combination.
You know, we haven't really done one like this in a while.
I'm gonna start off with the dash.
The dash is a two-tone.
I'm gonna paint the bottom half of the dash white.
This is a nice off white.
Almost creamy.
This is the red. Beautiful red.
They made a few cars with this color combination,
blue car, red interior.
It's kind of a unique combination.
We're gonna get down, get that there,
and we're gonna try on the blue tone and get to cooking.
[rock music playing]
[Shorty] Now we cover the white on the bottom of the dash
and finish with the red on top.
With a two-tone exterior,
that's gonna make four different colors.
We have the dash on the Corvette painted up,
so now I'm taking the paper off.
I'm gonna cover the red part so we can start putting blue.
This is actually gonna be four-tone car.
Very unique combination. I've never done one,
but so happens that this is one of 'em.
The top half is red, the bottom half is white,
the car's gonna be blue,
but it's gonna have a sliver teardrop.
I better mix up some blue, man. Whoo!
This is called Arctic Blue.
It's supposed to be pretty close, you know,
to an original formula they would've had back in '56.
Whoo-ooh-ooh.
Look at that.
Two tones are usually separated by a molding.
You gotta make sure that your molding's gonna cover that two-tone line.
That's where the test comes in.
This looks awesome man. Could be a blueberry shake.
Just put the straw in there and... [slurps]
All the reducers do,
is just help you spray it out of your gun.
You know, just thin it down so it can come out of the gun.
[rock music playing]
[Shorty] We're gonna put the doors back on the car because
part of the fender is silver, and this teardrop right here is silver.
And they have to line up with each other,
so the only way we can do it and have the lines line up
is to put back on the door and paint the color on the car.
Anytime you're doing a two-tone car, it's a big process.
You have to mock it up, you have to put all the panels on it.
It's very tedious.
I try to stay away from it as much as I can but sometimes you can't avoid it.
[whistles]
-[Shorty] What's up, fellas? -[Joe] What's up, Short?
-You got the blues or what? -[Joe] Got the blues.
This is the craziest color combination I've run into.
-That does not look bad. -Yeah. I'm not mad at it.
[Joel] I like that combination right there. That looks damn good.
But it still don't make no sense why the dash is red and the bottom half is white.
I mean, I'm not no car designer...
Well, you might be surprised. You might love it.
It might end up pop... It might pop.
You're saying it's gonna knock my socks off?
Hopefully, it'll knock all of our socks off.
We got our '56 Corvette on... on the rotisserie.
So, it's basically a frame table.
Because the body doesn't have the frame underneath it,
and so, it needs something to stabilize the body.
Rick wanted the bottom painted,
you know, kinda like they are from the factory,
so, that's what our goal is right here right now.
You know, the rotisserie is nice but you still have to be careful.
Yeah, it's gotta be balanced really good.
The Corvette and all the GM cars from back in the day
had a really cool underhood color
and we wanna kinda duplicate it.
The formula's calling for 419 grams of reducer.
We got, uh, some UR3 and then we got some UR2.
So, one of them is faster than the other.
It's very intricate in there, you have a lot of holes in there.
A lot of crevasses that you gotta pay attention to and make sure you get coverage.
So, if we put just the one fast reducer it's gonna dry too quick
and we're not gonna have enough time to go around the whole thing.
This paint job was inspired by a good friend of mine, custom painter, Danny D.
He used to come up with this, you know, combination of just
really nice colors and patterns.
He's one of the guys that I looked up to as far as custom painting
and he, uh, left was way too soon.
This is just a, uh, decorative piece that I wanted to make
so, every time I see it, every time I look at it I see Danny D.
I've used a lot of tangerine already
which is beautiful and looks badass.
But now, we got some magenta.
Kinda my own brew.
I think we got it.
-[Joe] Ooh-wee! -[Shorty] What do you think?
Man, it's gonna look really good.
[Shorty] I mean, I just changed it up very little.
Just like that.
If you're doing something like this and you screw up
that just personalizes your work.
I don't know the whole story about patterns,
but the story goes that this guy painted a complete car
and he made a few mistakes on the paint job
and he didn't wanna go back and repaint the whole thing 'cause it was candy,
so, he says, "You know what? I'll just add to it."
And he started doing a bunch of patterns on it, like, different candies and stuff,
it turns out that it looked great.
That's how the patterns came about.
Sometimes a mistake can be the coolest part of the paint job.
-What do you think, man? -Oh, yeah.
That's it.
We have a lot going on today here at the shop.
It's a... We have a class going on. It's a pinstriping class.
And we have some of the best pinstripers in the industry, Lokey and Bugs.
These guys are gonna put the finishing touches on this trunk.
Appreciate you guys, uh, collaborating on it with me.
[Lokey] Yeah, man, we're happy to do it.
Danny D had the vision that could,
you know, whatever graphics he would lay out they just flowed.
And, so, that's what inspired me to do this, uh, this trunk.
This will be a piece that I'm gonna hang here at my shop.
Every time I look at it I'm gonna think of all us
-that we got together and got it done. -[Lokey] Yeah.
And then, obviously, Danny D, so...
Every time I look at it I'm gonna remember how hot it is out here.
[all laughing]
[Lokey] With the paint job, you know, you have laid out on here,
-I mean, it definitely needs some silver leaf in there. -Nice.
[Bugs] You wanna put it as flat as possible.
[Lokey] Yeah, you gotta just spread it out, make sure it lays out smooth.
You don't wanna put your hand on it and smear it like this.
You wanna pat it down.
-[Bugs] Okay, Lokey, do your thing over here. -[Lokey] All right, brother.
[Lokey] If you wait too long on the tack it will dry up on you and
it won't grab the... the leaf.
[Shorty] Look at that, man. Awesome.
Just one little bit right there and see how much character it gives the trunk.
-[Bugs] Yup. -[Lokey] Mmm-hmm.
[Shorty] These guys make it look easy but it just takes a lot of practice.
[Bugs] Stuff like this is what sets you apart from a regular pinstriper.
The little embellishments, you'll see that like, "Wow, that is so tasteful."
Bugs and Lokey,
you can't go wrong with them, man.
[horn honking]
-What's up, fellas? -What's up, brother?
-What's going on? Doing all right. -[Joe] What's going on?
Somebody call for a '56 chassis?
-Made to order, right? -[David] That's it.
Our own in-house body.
Well, we should have one in there. Yeah.
Our friend, Rick, brought a '56 Corvette into the shop.
We tore down the motor and it looks like the camshaft is a replacement.
So, we decided to put in a reproduction numbers matching motor
with the high lift cam option.
The motor that's in Rick's car is a 265 two four Braille option.
There were a 111 of the race car editions
of what this car would've been.
The factory race cars all had the special high lift cams.
Like, right there in about the same distance from the front mount.
We take a plumb bob and drop it down out of the body mount hole
and that gives us a good idea of where we need to, like,
bump the chassis over to square it up.
So, when we set it down we're not moving a lot of stuff and messing it up.
-All right, hold up. -[man 1] Gonna miss the frame over there.
Pretty close on this side.
Doing good, doing good.
-[man 1] Good? -Yeah, that thing's dead as a narrow strait.
[exclaims]
-[Shorty] What's up, fellas? -Hey.
-[Shorty] How're y'all doing under here? -We're just finishing up.
-[Shorty] That exhaust looks good. -[David] It does, doesn't it?
-Looks good. Looks good. -[Shorty] Wow.
And you said it was supposed to be black like that?
-[David] Painted black from the factory. -[Shorty] Really?
-Now you look up under here and it looks new. -Brand-new.
[Shorty] That's crazy, right?
[David] And this is one of the few cars that has, uh, a factory crossover pot.
Yeah, that kinda like a race car like back in the day. What do they call it today?
-'50s version of an X pot. -Thank you guys for coming.
-All right, man, we're gonna leave it in your hands. -Hit the Southern road.
-Coming together real nice. -[David] Looks good.
[Shorty] I need the forklift driver expert over here, man.
-What do you think? -Love it, man.
It's gonna look good hanging up there in the shop.
All right, start coming forward a little bit.
-Tell me when. -[Shorty] Just a hair more.
Come down a little bit.
I think we're good.
What do you think?
Man, you got to put, like, a little light on it now.
Little spotlight, right?
-Yeah. Yeah, looks good. -[Shorty] I like it.
Let's call Joe over here. See if he likes it.
[whistles] Hey, Joe.
Ooh-wee!
Looks good, man.
-[Shorty] You like it? -Yes, sir.
-I like how all the colors came together. -[Joe] Yup.
It's crazy, man, how you got something in your mind,
I mean, you already know what you're gonna do and
it never fails, man. It comes out badass.
This piece has so many things, you know.
The people that help you, the people that are in mind, lowrider culture.
And then, the reason I did is just remembering our buddy
and that was, like, really more important to me than anything.
Yeah.
[Shorty] Thanks for helping me hang it up.
Oh, man. It was too easy. Looks good.
Oh, yeah, man. I like it, man.
We're over at DMS. We brought the '56 Corvette back over here to David.
-You miss it? -A lot. I did.
I went ahead and rubbed the areas
where we're gonna put the trim, just going around,
make sure that once the trim is on that we don't have to go and sand to close to it.
That'll be great. That way if we scratch it you can go and fix it.
[speaking indistinctly]
It happens all the time. You guys can have at it.
Let's get it unloaded.
[speaking indistinctly]
There we go.
All right, David, so, look, man,
looks like you got a few pieces to put on. You're the Corvette expert...
-We got a few pieces. -...I'm not.
But at least we're down... we're over the hard part.
Body's on the car, everything looks good, nothing's cracked.
-So, we're just down to assembling the car. -Yeah.
-You've already got most of the parts refinished, so... -Yeah.
...you make us look good. We're just bolting on.
Well, hopefully, we'll make the trailer look good, right?
Whole team's gonna jump on it. Um...
and we're gonna assemble this car as quickly and as best as we can.
I've intentionally cleared my whole schedule this week.
Our focus is to get it done as soon as possible
so, they can raise money for their foundation, their awareness,
uh, that they're trying to do.
I'm just happy that Dave and his crew are available to give us a hand.
-What's for me today? Hi, man. -Uh-oh.
-What's going on, fellas? -Here.
-Oh, I'm right on time. -There... there. Fix that. There you go.
So, we're here at Dave's shop and we're here to work on the '56 Corvette.
Dave is an expert on these cars
and I'm here to soak up whatever he puts down.
[David] We need to pull the wiring.
[Joel] We need to pull the wiring? Hey, I can handle that part.
If you can help us with that we can get a lot done.
-Real fast. -[Joel] Let's get to work.
It's definitely a little different from what I'm used to.
You don't really lay this one in, you kind of fish it through.
If you ever had ground issues you're gonna have it on this car
because the car is mostly fiber glass so, you gotta be really careful
and think these things out before you start running the harness.
I got one side in.
This is like a special surprise that I got for ya.
Open that up. Merry Christmas.
[chuckles] This is a... No way.
[David] It's the whole wiring diagram to the car.
[Joel] This is old school right here.
David handed me a map...
to some lost treasure but
I don't need a map, I need a wiring harness manual.
I'm not gonna lie, I'm a little lost right now.
So, we got red.
-Gray. -Is that a gray?
[David] Told y'all y'all's gonna need that road map.
So, gray...
I only got dumber every time I look at it.
This has to go this way.
This has to go here.
That makes more sense to me.
It takes... takes a lot of this.
This takes more of this.
-You gotta have heart. -[David] You gotta want it.
You gotta want it. You gotta have heart for it 'cause, uh, this is not easy.
[David] If it was easy everybody would do it.
Yeah. I tell myself that every morning.
[David chuckles]
We're coming along really good on this Corvette.
Especially, on the hood. Check it out.
It's slicker than a baby's butt right here, man. I mean...
Ooh-wee!
The color's beautiful. I'm super happy the way the hood came out.
In order to, uh, to make it look like this, it's a big process.
So, we got a few different pads.
This one is obviously for compounding,
this one is for polishing.
If you touch this one it feels like sheep's wool.
This one here, on the other hand,
it feels more like a cow hair.
You know, this is a little bit more aggressive
and at the end of the day you put your foam pad on there
real nice and soft and it slicks it up, makes it look like a mirror
a 100 miles deep, like you could jump in, you know.
If you put in the work you can see the result.
-[David] That looks good. -[Joe] Put the lid on first.
[David] That fits pretty dang good.
-[Shorty] Oh, that's David, man. -Is it done?
[Shorty] We have the motor on the Corvette wired up.
We have the dual carburetors, the high lift cam,
and now, we're gonna fire it up to see what the motor sounds like.
This is the primary. This is what it runs on on all the time.
This is the secondary. This is the most important one.
So, when you open it up that other one kicks in?
[David] Right. So, it's a progressive link.
So, once you get so far into the throttle
then this one will come in, give it more power.
-[Shorty] Fire it up. Damn. -[engine starts]
-[Shorty] That thing sounds good, man. -That even surprised me.
[engine roaring]
I'm not real big on carburetors but this you gotta admire.
I mean, it's a double setup. You know, primary and a secondary
working together to make this thing make some serious power for 1956.
Get a little gas on it.
[engine revs]
Ooh-wee!
-It sounds awesome. -[David] Y'all did a great job rebuilding it.
I mean, this is as about as good as it would get in '56.
This is the most collectible and sought-after cars right here.
Rick's coming in tomorrow so, let me, uh, finish it up
-and get on with it. -Let's do it.
We're rushing on this car to get it done.
We don't have a whole lot of time.
And so, everybody's here putting trim on
and I'm over here, uh, buffing, trying to get this car cleaned up
and ready to give it back to Rick.
Let's shut her down and see what it looks like. Yeah, it fits.
[Joe speaks indistinctly]
[David] Looks good.
So, this was a pretty cool dash we did.
It's the smallest dash we ever did and
we're excited to see it put together for the family here.
I think the car looks amazing. I mean, I'm pretty stoked.
You know, everybody pitched in, everybody helped.
I'm excited for him to see the car in memory of Caleb.
You know, the grandpa's love for a grandkid, well, there's no words, you know,
so, that's why we're doing this today.
The cool thing about this, uh, Corvette is that Rick and his family,
they were gonna auction off this car.
So, they don't wanna do any custom work to it.
They just wanna keep it clean and simple.
So, this was a little different change for us.
There was a tremendous amount of work on this... on this car.
It's very tedious when you do a car
that has to be the exact specs of the factory.
-[David] That looks good. -[Shorty] Yeah. That look good?
[Carl] They wanna auction this car off and
create a foundation in Caleb's honor
and this is something that's near and dear to my heart.
I didn't actually know Caleb but I knew
within probably an hour of his accident.
We show up at the racetrack and we expect
that everything is operating and running like it should
and all the safety equipment and everything is in place.
And it's not always the case.
But that's what their plan for is,
is to try to raise awareness in his honor.
Oh, boy, here we go.
We're here and really excited to get to experience it.
[Shorty] You know, just want you guys to know,
Caleb was with us every step of the way.
You know right now he's looking down and... yeah.
[woman 1] He's excited.
Wouldn't have been anything here he'd rather be doing than out here doing this.
Thank you.
-You guys ready to see the car? -We are.
-Oh, absolutely. -[Shorty] Let's go look.
[Rick] Let's go.
[speaking indistinctly]
You ready to rip that cover off?
-We're gonna see here. -Sure.
And I couldn't sleep last night, at all.
Every one of these guys worked really hard
in getting the car to where it is now. Especially Jose.
And then Dave, uh, and his crew were a tremendous amount of help.
Without them we couldn't have done it.
You guys ready to see it?
[Rick] You bet we're ready.
[man 2] You ready? All right.
Well, let's do it.
-[all exclaiming] -Oh, my gosh.
-Oh! -Oh, my goodness gracious.
-Wow. Wow. -Oh, it's beautiful.
-Oh, my gosh! -[Rick] Look at that. Oh, my goodness.
-[Shorty] What do you think, Sawyer? -I like it a lot.
[Shorty] Is it the way you guys envisioned it?
Better. So much better.
I just didn't really have and idea. This blue is... is
-Oh, my God. This is... -Perfect.
...breathtakingly beautiful.
That blue, that's one of Caleb's favorite colors.
The color combination of the car is really rare.
313 of them were produced with the blue and the silver cove
and the red and white interior.
There's a handful of them out there left.
This is a really special car.
The whole frame and everything is... it's like new from the factory,
so you guys take a look.
[Rick] That's awesome.
Oh, my God. You just wanna pet it.
It's just beautiful.
[engine revs]
Wow.
Whoo! That sounds great.
[David] Every square inch of the body has been redone.
All the chassis has been perfectly restored.
Numbers matching, date-coded stenciled
top to bottom, inside and out.
It is an absolute phenomenal car.
We know all of you worked really hard on it,
so, we really wanna thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
How much this really does mean to us.
It was an honor to be able to, to do that for you guys
and for you guys to allow us to do that, uh, in memory of Caleb.
[Rick] The best thing that can happen to someone is
for people to remember 'em.
That's the best legacy that they can have.
And so, we appreciate and we thank all y'all for helping us
to be able to tell Caleb's story.
We'll take the car, auction it off,
and the money will be going into a foundation
to bring safety awareness
to young people that wanna race and
be a part of the car world
where, you know, we all wanna feel like that
everybody gets to come home safe at night.
[Shorty] You know, just to share that moment with them
and what they wanna do and their reasons,
uh, for doing it, uh, was, it's... it's...
it's awesome, you know. We were glad to be a part of it.
I hope that we continue to be around them
and support their goal and their foundation as the years go on.
Sawyer, you just wanna drive it, don't you?
[chuckles] Yeah.
In case you don't know, it's pretty doggone hot here in Texas.
I think it's hotter than the devil's butt.
[Joel] Hotter than the devil's butt?
I'm trying to... I don't even know how to picture that.
[all exclaiming]
A little dirt ain't gonna hurt.
There's more than dirt on there.
Nah, man, just a little primer.
Yeah, well, I don't want... I don't need no primer inside of me.