From the very first day, Christie jumped right in, tackled everything I threw her way, and then managed to give me s—t about how much most of the chicks I was seeing looked just like my ex-wife, Sue.
Every man should have a Christie in his life. Honestly. I don’t know what I’d do without her.
K.C. MATHIEU
K.C. came into the mix and just fit in from day one. He also filled a very important role for us in the short time crunch we were under to get Gas Monkey up and fully operational. We knew we were gonna need to be painting cars, and K.C. has a paint booth at his house. That allowed us to skirt all the rules and hoops we would’ve had to jump through if we wanted to try to paint cars at our newly rented garage space. It would’ve taken us six months to get the permits to do that. So K.C. was a lifesaver.
K.C. COURTESY OF DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS.
The fact that he’s still here is a testament to what a cool guy he is. Honestly. He’s the only one who’s survived this ride from day one besides me and Aaron.
He’s got a crazy fan base, too. Maybe they’re drawn to the fact that he wears tall socks with his shorts or something. I dunno. But he gets recognized everywhere he goes. People are always shouting at him in his truck and asking him to do donuts. He’d be going through a new set of tires every two days if he answered every request to do a burnout in that truck of his.
The fact that he’s been able to hang with us while juggling a wife and two young kids is pretty remarkable. The hours he put in during the first year alone would’ve caused most marriages to crumble. I guess his wife deserves a lot of credit for being so supportive of him taking this risk, too. Neither Aaron nor I were married when the show kicked off, and we both understand it’s a whole different thing when you’ve got a full-time family at home.
K.C.’s dealt pretty well with some of the weird parts of this whole ride, too. Like the fact that fans sometimes look up his address and just show up at his house. Having some stranger knock on your door and act like they know you is a pretty weird experience. He’s kept his cool, though, and seems to embrace the whole thing. He’s also just really good at his job. When you think of the builds we’ve done, and how crucial the paint job is to our success, I’m just glad to have a guy like K.C. working on my team.
DAPHNE KAMINSKI
Daphne. COURTESY OF RICHARD RAWLINGS.
What can I say about Daphne? She’s my sister. She’s been with me since, well, since I was born, technically. She has worked for me at all of my companies, pretty much. Like I said, I couldn’t take her with me right away when I came back over to Gas Monkey Garage because she was in a critical spot of the growth mode at my ex-wife’s health-care company. But as soon as I was able to, I snatched her up and set her up here in the offices at the garage in Dallas.
There were originally no plans to show Daphne on TV at all. She was really just supposed to stay behind the scenes and take care of the books and business side of things. Once the cameramen caught a glimpse of the way she and I interact, though, it was just too tempting for them. We give each other s—t all the time and keep each other in check. It’s just a fun dynamic for the audience to watch, because I’m sure everybody who’s watching has a sibling like Daphne whom they get along with and bicker with in equal parts. The thing about having Daphne on board as a part of Gas Monkey is she’s family. I know I can trust her. Always. She’s great at keeping the books and doing all sorts of managerial tasks around the office that need doing. She also keeps tabs on my credit-card spending and reels me in when I’m spending too much money. (I have a tendency to do that sometimes.)
I sound like I’m repeating myself here, but truly: I don’t know what I’d do without her. She’s been there for me through all of the big ups and downs in both my business and my life. It’s a pretty amazing thing to have her right there with me every day like that.
TONY TAYLOR
Tony very quickly became an integral part of Gas Monkey’s success.
When I first met him he was running the service department at a local Lamborghini dealership, until it got sold. I met him through Dennis, and actually Dennis and I would sometimes go over and hang out with Tony and all of those $200,000 supercars on our Wacky Wednesdays, back when I owned the print shop. I gotta tell you, being around those cars makes you want one. That helped fuel my desire for big success right there.
Tony. COURTESY OF RICHARD RAWLINGS.
Anyway, Tony really takes care of a lot of the day-to-day operation. Now that we’re a success, we get loads of calls and e-mails from people all over the country and all over the world who want to sell us their cars. It’s way too much for me to handle by myself, so Tony’s the guy who makes sure I see the really good offers. He steers me clear of the four-door Chevy Novas, or the 1972 rusted-out four-door trucks from Nova Scotia, and all of the crazy junk people are hoping we’ll take off their hands. He filters through all of it to get to the good stuff.
Then, when we get cars in, he assesses them, does all the research, and double-checks the VIN numbers and everything to make sure everything’s legit. “Is it really a ’65 Buick 425 four-barrel?” or what have you. So Tony is instrumental in helping me filter through a lot of information that I just don’t have time to sort through with the other craziness that comes with making a TV show and running Gas Monkey full-time.
Tony’s also our go-to guy for searching out great cars, great deals, and great hard-to-find parts when we need ’em. The funny thing is, he didn’t know much about doing any of that kind of stuff when he first started. He was a Lamborghini guy! But Tony’s a quick learner, a hard worker, and he figured it all out and quickly became one of the best in the biz. That makes him a Gas Monkey through and through.
SUE MARTIN
All right, technically Yu-Lan Martin, aka Sue, isn’t a part of our crew. She’s just a lady up the road who does upholstery work, and who’s always done a good job for us. She’s also turned into a fan favorite. It’s not uncommon for fans to stop by to see us at GMG and then drive up the road to see Sue at ASM Upholstery. Sue’s great with the fans, too. It’s kind of hilarious to think that her shop, which was right next to our old garage—close enough for us to push a car to if the engine wasn’t running—has become a tourist destination.
One thing I’ve noticed though: Sue used to do all of Gas Monkey’s upholstery jobs cheap and quick. Now, ever since Fast N’ Loud started to get popular, her pricing is all over the place! She claims that I’m cheap. Well, you know what? Sometimes I am.
There’s no question that Sue’s interior work helped build the Gas Monkey reputation. So I guess that makes her an honorary Monkey. I could do without her calling us “Ass Monkeys” all the time, but I’ll continue to put up with it to remain on her good side. After all, they don’t call her the “Dragon Lady” for nothing.
Sue (with me and Aaron). COURTESY OF DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS.
We’ve got a bunch of other great guys and gals working in the shop these days—from Mike and Jonathan and Keenan (who’s been here since Season 1) back in the garage, to the girls out front selling T-shirts and merchandise to the public. I could sit here and say something about each of them one by one, but I gotta tell you: all this chatter is making me restless. I want to get back to the cars. I want to get to talking about some of the best episodes! So if you want to get to know more about the Gas Monkey crew, go check out our Gas Monkey Instagram and Twitter feeds, or go like our Facebook page. There’s all sorts of fun facts and photos and videos and more on there from just about every one of us.
You won’t find any pictures of Christie’s feet, though.
Sorry, pervs. That s—t’s just wrong . . .
OUR FAVORITE EPISODES
People always ask me what my favorite build was. You know what my answer is? My favorite build was the one that made me the most money! I try not to get too sentimental about much of anything when it comes to the vehicles we work on in the shop. If it makes me money, it’s my new favorite vehicle.
Every. Damned. Time.
I have become attached to certain builds, though, and I’ve even gone out and repurchased and retrieved a few that I’m really glad to have in my personal car collection. I’ll talk about some of those a bit later. Of course, I wish I could get my hands on some of the cars I drove in my youth. I’d give anything to go reclaim my ’65 Mustang fastback. I never should’ve sold it. I mean, how cool would it be to still be driving around in the car I got shot in?
Another thing people always want to know is what my favorite episode of the show’s been so far. I’ve gotta say, my answer is pretty much the same. I don’t have a favorite. I like ’em all! I’m more interested in which cars made me the most money. I’m working to try to keep this shop open and make a great TV show at the very same time, so I’d much rather leave the choosing of favorites up to our fans.
If there’s a type of car we’ve worked on that gets me most excited, though, it probably always goes back to the ’32 Fords. That’s my favorite hot rod, period, because to me, that’s where hot rodding started. When the guys came back from World War II, there were cheap old ’32 Fords everywhere. They were easy to change over. They were easy to put new motors in and hop up and all that kind of stuff. We’ve only found and built maybe three of those ’32 Fords in Gas Monkey history, so I was thrilled when we got to feature one on TV.
Besides that, it’s hard to choose! So what I’m putting in this book aren’t necessarily my personal favorites. It’s really more of a look at your favorites. These are the shows that not only earned big ratings the first time they aired (thank you very much), but the shows that still draw thousands of crazy comments and tweets and Facebook posts every time Discovery decides to re-air them. What’s crazy is how many fans out there will go online and argue about which episodes and builds are the best! I love it!
Checking out the ’32 Ford three-window upon arrival at the shop. COURTESY OF DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS.
There are plenty of other episodes and specific builds and flips that aren’t mentioned here, of course, and everybody’s got a different favorite. So if you don’t see one of your favorites here, please feel free to let us know. Head on over to our website or Twitter feed or Facebook page and make an argument for whatever you think was the best episode ever. We’ll read ’em. We read every single word that gets posted. Plus, you can be sure to get in a heated argument with other fans about which episode’s the best, too, because that’s what people love to do on the Interwebs. Fight. Have at it, people. It’s all good. The fact that so many of you feel passionate about which car or flip or show or individual Gas Monkey crew member is the best just means that we’re definitely doing something right.
“MODEL A MADNESS”
I have to include this one, just because it’s the first. Episode number one. The start of it all.
Man, I was nervous when this thing started up. I’d spent five crazy days getting everything in place just so we could start filming, and then we had to do this show when we didn’t even know if we were gonna be on air, or if the show was gonna suck, or anything. It wasn’t like we had this air of confidence as we started. We had more of an air of fear!
“Holy s—t! We’re making a TV show! Make every second count! Try to make it good!” It was crazy.
The 1931 Model A, in a garage where it sat untouched for years. COURTESY OF DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS.
Starting out with a Model A made so much sense for us. We do a lot of Model As. In fact, it’s fair to say that Model As are what put Gas Monkey on the map. Heck, as I’m sitting here writing this, I had another Model A delivered just today. A ’31 roadster. Indented firewall. All original, except for the wheels. Been sitting in a garage forever. There are still thousands—if not tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands—of Model As sitting in garages all over the world, but especially here in America. They sit in barns because they’re not worth anything to people. They look back and go, “I bought that car for ten bucks.” So they don’t care that it’s sitting there rotting away. I come in and buy it for $400 and they think I’m some sort of a sucker. They have no idea I’m gonna turn around and sell it to an interested buyer in some other part of the world for $5,000 or even $10,000.
Those really old cars always have a story to them, too. Even if you don’t know the story, you know there’s a story there and you can feel it. That’s one of the reasons I love to chase them. There’s all those questions, you know? How do they get here? Where do they come from? Why has it been sitting here for forty f—king years? What in the hell does somebody do for forty years that they can’t go clean their car off and take it for a ride?
So there’s that part of it. Then there’s also the nostalgic part: Why did they design the car that way? Where did it come from? Why did the guys at GM or the guys at Ford or the guys at Dodge decide they were gonna lay the windshield back or they were gonna expand the doors or they were gonna make the car bigger, smaller, faster? There’s so much there that is part of the history. It’s one of my favorite things on the show, to tell them the history of where the car comes from.
Admiring our finished product with K.C., Aaron, and Scot. COURTESY OF DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS.
Anyway, I found that Model A just hours before we started filming this first episode, and Aaron and the guys got started on a build that would happen faster than anybody else in the business could ever imagine. I knew I’d have a chance to sell it for a profit at the Good Guys Swap Meet in Fort Worth, which was happening just nine days from the day we got the car. So I thought that might make for some pretty good TV.
Apparently, I was right! Suddenly we were off and running.
Fast N’ Loud was on its way.
“HOLY GRAIL HOT ROD”
Six grueling months full of 120-hour weeks flew by as we cranked out the first eleven episodes of Fast N’ Loud. Everyone was exhausted. We’d found and flipped and built more cars in that period than most shops would do in three years. We’d been through a Galaxie, a low-riding Lincoln, an amazing Impala, a ’48 Chevy Fleetmaster, and more—and to be honest, I was finding it a little difficult to get fired up about what we might do next.
That’s when I saw it. I did a double take when it popped up on Craigslist on my computer screen. I scrolled through every picture as fast as I could, I read the description, I immediately e-mailed the seller and got his phone number. I simply could not believe it: a ’32 Ford three-window. An all-steel car. The Holy Grail Hot Rod!
The 1932 Ford three-window completed. COURTESY OF DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS.
We’d hit a point of overtime with the film crew. They live by Hollywood union rules and such, and we were about to break early so everyone could rest up and start fresh the next day. I couldn’t have cared less about any of that.
I ran out and grabbed Aaron and told the film crew, “We’re leaving.”
Everybody got in an uproar. “No, we need to schedule this, and da-da-da-da.”
“This is a ’32 three-window,” I said. “So f—k y’all. I’m leaving!”
The Hollywood crew saw the error of their ways pretty quickly and jumped on board. They knew this was gonna be some great TV.
So off we went, making the two-or-three-hour drive up to Oklahoma City. I called the guy from the road. “Will you hold it for me until I get there?” I asked him.
“Well, you know, there are all these other people calling,” he said.
“Look, I am on my way with cash. I will not beat you down on your price. If the car is what you say it is, I’m taking it!”
“Well . . . all right. I’ll hold it for you,” he told me. Still, I punched it. We hauled ass the whole way. I did not want to lose that car. And I didn’t. We took that beauty back to the shop and Aaron put his personal spin on it. As it turned out, Aaron’s personal spin wasn’t what the marketplace was looking for at that moment.
For all the hard work we put in, and the incredible job Aaron did turning that car into a one-of-a-kind hot-rod that any one of us would’
ve loved to buy for ourselves, I lost a lot of money when we took that car to auction. I poured $54,000 into that car thinking it would sell for upwards of eighty grand—and it only fetched $46,000! That made for good TV, I suppose, and we get tons of e-mails and tweets every time that episode re-airs, but losses of that magnitude were putting Gas Monkey in serious jeopardy. Not to mention it was causing all sorts of stress in the garage.
It was right after this episode that Scot decided to quit. He just couldn’t take the pressure anymore, and I don’t blame him. I really don’t. Everybody had reached their breaking point.
THE ROAD TO CHOPPER LIVE
Aaron on our second-place-winning bike from Chopper Live. COURTESY OF DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS.
The next two episodes would be dedicated to a special event we did, in which we’d build a motorcycle in direct competition with Jesse James and the Teutuls—the very builders whom I’d set out to best with my TV show from the beginning. It was a big deal, and a stressful time, and I’m not going to get into my feelings about how things went down or say anything negative about anybody. All I’ll say is this: in the end we absolutely proved that we could hold our own and even beat those guys, despite the fact that we were still the new guys on the block. We beat out Jesse and Paul Senior . . . with a pink bike! Can you believe that Aaron built a pink chopper and still came in second place? That bike rocked. Aaron rode it all the way from Dallas to Vegas, too, just to prove that this wasn’t some show bike for TV. It was a bike that any rider would be proud to own.
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