[Snake45]

Anyone see Hitler Channel's three-show mashup last week? Pretty cool, actually. Bullethead Rick of Pawn Stars wanted to give his dad, Grumpy Old Man, a restored '57 Chevy 150 in the "Black Widow" paint job for his 70th birthday. So he sent Moose and Squirrel from American Pickers out to find him one to restore. They finally located a ragged out, non-running (no engine or tranny) one in Arizona, then had Other Rick of the Restorations show (the guy who looks like Doc Sevrinson) and his crew (and the Bret Michaels-looking bike/hot rod builder guy, too) completely rebuild/refurb the thing in three months for GOM's birthday.

Very cool idea, very cool project, and it was interesting watching them all work together. BUT! The car ended up costing Bullethead Rick $77,250! I am pretty sure that if you gave me a $77K budget and three months, I could locate a nice, clean, already rebuilt and running '57 150 Chevy (not an original Black Widow, of course) and have it repainted in black and white and have many, many thousands of dollars (and probably weeks of time) left over.

Cool show, though. Funny to hear Grumpy Old Man be-yotching and whining all the way to his surprise birthday party.

 

[bestseller92]

I only saw the AP part of it. Don't really care for PS all that much.

 

[IrishCop]

I watched the "trilogy. I confess to watching "American Pickers" ("Moose and Squirrel"...:cryinlaugh and "Pawn Stars". Haven't checked out "American Restoration" yet (I kept wondering who that guy reminded me of!) and been waiting for headband car guy to get his own show.

Anyway, yeah, when they quoted the price, I cringed. I thought you could probably find one on the open market ready to go, maybe even with the right paint job. But then you wouldn't have a trilogy. (Wanna bet the production company picked up the tab for the Chevy?):wink:

 

[guntotin_fool]

Have you been pricing clean solid 57's lately? Originals are still in the 75 k market.

 

[Snake45]

Have you been pricing clean solid 57's lately? Originals are still in the 75 k market.

That one wasn't original, and it isn't original now. It wasn't even restored to "as original" or even as a Black Widow clone.

Here's a clean, solid, already re-done driver that sold on eBay recently for $21K. Seems to me that such would have been a much more economical starting point for Rick's project:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1957...1076621?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item4aac77418d

Of course, then they wouldn't have had two "exciting" hours of TV programming (for which $77K is prolly actually cheap). And Hitler Channel prolly picked up the tab anyway. You'll notice that Rick, after dancing with Mike about the price of the basic car, didn't bat an eye at Other Rick's quote of $70K to pimp it up. He didn't even try to negotiate down a dime.

 

[SpecialEd]

I'm sure it was a windfall for all involved and the prices were probably decided long before any filming started.

(I loved the "Moose & Squirrel" referrence)

 

[Fernando Coelho]

I'm still laughing over the Hitler Channel name. Classic!