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Graveyard Carz Season 20 Episode 9
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00:00Hey everybody, I am Mark Warman. I am the majority creator of Graveyard Cars.
00:07I'm Aaron Smith. I am the co-creator of Graveyard Cars.
00:10Not co-small and much, small and important.
00:12No, I'll give you the majority. That's, yeah.
00:13I'm the majority, yeah.
00:14Absolutely, yeah.
00:15I had the idea.
00:16I mean, I helped.
00:18We have taken the best moments of some of our favorite builds.
00:22You can see a car from the very beginning to the very finish when the customer takes possession of it.
00:27In the past, we've done mashups with cars where we're revealing them and we show all the work that's taken place over the many years in one episode.
00:34But this time, we're doing two cars in one episode.
00:37These two cars, like the first two that we did, have a common thread.
00:40What is a common thread in these two cars?
00:41In this case, these are kind of like famous Mopars.
00:45So one famous for TV and film and the other one famous for the drag strip.
00:49Yep.
00:49So we are featuring the Mark Warman's Little Dead Wagon and?
00:54The General Lee.
00:55The General Lee.
00:56The General Lee, just remember, this is the actual freeway jump car from the movie, the 2005 movie with Jessica Simpson.
01:05Right.
01:06So it came to us as a complete mess and it left here as a complete dream came through.
01:11You ready to roll?
01:12Let's do it.
01:13Let's watch this one.
01:14One of our favorite cars that just showed up here, 1969 Dodge Charger.
01:18This is a Dukes of Hazzard car.
01:19This car holds the record for the longest jump of any General Lee in any of the Duke television series and or movie.
01:26If you remember the freeway jump in the movie with Jessica Simpson, you'll remember this car.
01:31That's what we got going on at Graveyard Cars.
01:33You got any questions?
01:35Good.
01:35So this one was a factory Hemi Orange car, interestingly enough, but it was converted over to be one of the stunt cars in the 2005 movie.
01:45And so, you know, amazingly, when that car came down, it actually held up pretty well.
01:49And I think a lot of it has to do with the inner structure.
01:51Yeah, it did.
01:52As messed up as the car was, that's why it ended up at Graveyard Cars, because that's what we do.
01:55We restore dead cars and bring them back to life.
01:58They just haven't all been shot out of a cannon.
02:00If you recall, we had a hard time back then getting anything done in the shop.
02:04You remember why?
02:05Yes, I do.
02:05Besides for equipment, we had other problems staying on task.
02:11So now we're getting ready to start disassembling the 1969 Dodge Charger from the Dukes of Hazzard movie.
02:17This is the actual freeway launch car.
02:20This is really cool.
02:21It's got a great backstory on it.
02:22Hazard Productions had actually ordered the car to be built by a gentleman back in the Midwest.
02:26This particular car has some reinforcements in it so that it would have survived that big jump that you see at the end of the movie.
02:32We're going to try to take those out carefully, clean them up, straighten them out, and put them back in as the car is getting restored.
02:38So right now, this is kind of a fun part.
02:40We've been looking forward to doing it for a while, and the guys are actually in a really good mood, and everybody's getting along really well right now.
02:46So it looks like a new day at Graveyard Cars.
02:50Well, the thing like on that particular car, disassemblies typically are just assembly in reverse, right?
02:56I mean, they had already welded things in place, like the front bumper was welded in place.
03:00The front bumper brackets, the frame rails were welded to the brackets.
03:05I mean, it was quite a bit bigger job.
03:07So it probably was best that you and I were involved.
03:09My guess is there would have been nothing but a molten pile of orange dust with two screaming idiots in the middle of it.
03:15Ah!
03:16Ah, stop it!
03:17And by then, they'd be dead.
03:18Yeah, they'd be on fire.
03:19Yeah.
03:21Woo!
03:22Are you okay?
03:25You've got to be careful when you're using a torch in tight places.
03:27That's what was happening there with the torsion bars, is you're in the side of a pocket.
03:31There's no room to move around.
03:33So I'm trying to cut this thing.
03:34The oxygen and the acetylene blow up and blow back at you, and then that causes a miniature explosion.
03:39That's why I was taking these spark showers.
03:42You know, the average guy would have all this protective stuff on.
03:44I have my bullies on just because my eyes are invaluable.
03:48They're the best set of eyes in the world when it comes to restoring cars and muscle cars.
03:50Oh, God, I should have seen it.
03:57Oh, man, everything's bent right in the way.
04:00Oh, no.
04:01Ah, Darren, will you stop that?
04:03Oh!
04:04Darren, what the?
04:05No, what the is wrong with you?
04:07Yeah, hold still.
04:08No, what is wrong with you, really?
04:10A guy's trying to take the front suspension out, and you're trying to tip the car.
04:14You sick bastard.
04:16Did anybody get hurt?
04:16You sick?
04:17You're sick.
04:18Oh, no.
04:19I think that son of a bitch is welded in there.
04:23They actually welded the K-member to the frame rails, so the most dangerous part right now
04:27will be cutting those welds loose and hopefully not dropping the engine on your hand, because
04:31you've got to have it up in the air a little bit to be able to get onto it with a torch,
04:33so.
04:35Can you roll that forward?
04:36Roll what?
04:38See, Mark just wanted to ruin a call.
04:40Get away.
04:41Watch out, man.
04:42He's a crazy man.
04:44Well, he wanted to cut the call.
04:45No, I was going to cut the coupler, you idiot.
04:48They make new couplers.
04:49You're so stupid.
04:50Let's go over the row, right?
04:52Ice, man.
04:53I don't know.
04:53We're getting close now, though.
04:55We're just finishing on the, uh, probably 25 minutes.
05:02I think it's loose.
05:04Loose, Bill.
05:05After we got that car disassembled, I called the owner and I let him know that, uh, we
05:11were going to be in a bit of a hiatus, because, as you recall, there was quite a change to
05:15graveyard cars.
05:16Not just the fact that we had to move, but we had staff changes.
05:19Oh, yeah.
05:20We had equipment changes.
05:20We had employee changes.
05:23So, uh, it got put on the back burner.
05:27In the interest of saving time, we chose to go with what you see behind me, which is what
05:32we, in the business, call a front clip.
05:35This is the donor front clip.
05:38If this, right now, sitting the way it's sitting, we could put fenders on it, a hood on it, a
05:42front bumper, a grill, and it would look from the front like it's a complete car.
05:45But this is the inner structure, the skeleton, that we're going to be grafting onto that
05:49car.
05:50But imagine you're going to marry this windshield post with this windshield post, and it's going
05:57to be seamless.
05:59Therefore, it has to be stepped out.
06:01This will be cut down to here.
06:03Then it'll have an inner structure piece that steps up to here.
06:05Then another one that steps up to here.
06:07And when you're all done, you'll put an outer piece back on it, all from original Mopar sheet
06:11metal, either that pillar or this pillar.
06:13And you will have this grafted together with the front end.
06:16So where we're at right now is the body man has already started cutting and trimming the
06:21front inner structure that you see here.
06:22He'll continue to cut and trim.
06:24But you can see all of his measurements are here.
06:26All of his marks are here.
06:28These would be areas where they're making the step.
06:30So you have it going from here to here to here.
06:33He'll get this whole piece ready to go on the car.
06:35Then he'll cut the car part off, get it all cleaned up and prepped to receive this, and
06:40the two can become one.
06:41So right now, Will and George are getting ready to help me and Ryan lift the front section
06:47of our charger off.
06:48So far, he's cut down here at the rocker on the outer portion, the inner portion of the
06:53rocker back here, because remember, he has to step it.
06:55He's got one more cut on the A pillar.
06:57I'm going to let him do that now.
07:02Beautiful.
07:02Doing a good job, Georgie.
07:07You drilled out a lot of those spot welds, right?
07:10I am going to bless the union of this original 1970 Coronet front clip onto this 1969 Dodge
07:18Charger.
07:19So where are you coming?
07:20You coming right up through here?
07:21Is that what the paint mark is?
07:22Yep.
07:22So we're going to come through here like this, and then you're going to just go to the
07:26outside of this.
07:26That'll get you your access to your spot welds, right?
07:28Yep.
07:29And then just blow the whole thing off of there.
07:31This particular car, as you know, had so much trauma, so much blunt force trauma to it,
07:36that literally everything throughout the car was misshapen.
07:39The pieces that we've saved, we've saved well, but the ones that are sacrificial, those
07:43are the ones we're replacing.
07:44And then where you cut through the rails at?
07:46I'm going to come right through here.
07:48Yep.
07:49All the way up through here.
07:50Beautiful.
07:50Save all that.
07:50Yep.
07:51Just like a line.
07:52Just exactly.
07:53Okay.
07:53So, and then you'll have to dissect out the rest of the trunk pan and the frame rails for
07:58that.
07:58Okay.
07:59And you know this is the part that's really important right up here.
08:01This has got your numbers in it.
08:03So we're saving and replacing this entire trunk gutter.
08:05I've got new ones, but I would rather just put this entire piece in there.
08:09That's not a problem.
08:10Is that right with you?
08:11Okay.
08:11So you're going to mirror the same exact cuts on the other side.
08:13And the car's established at the front by the frame rails in the rack.
08:19So you shouldn't have any height problems.
08:21Nothing should move when you cut this stuff off.
08:23So basically I've given George the green light to go ahead and cut the back half of the car
08:27off.
08:27That's what he's doing now.
08:28We got a Miller plasma cutter that makes it a real nice clean job.
08:33The General Lee is going to be back getting this new sheet metal before you know it.
08:43Our General Lee has already received its used donor front end.
08:50That is completed.
08:51It's done.
08:52It's welded off.
08:53It's metal finished.
08:54So from a standpoint of structurally speaking, that's done.
08:57We can now move to the back part of the car.
08:59Now, again, on this car, doing the big fly through the air and coming down, hitting that
09:04front corner the way it did.
09:06We've taken care of all the immediate damage, the initial damage that you could see visually
09:10with your eyes.
09:12You already know from the other ones you've done, we're going to do full quarters all the
09:16way up to here.
09:17All right?
09:17The remnants of the outer wheelhouses, I want you to drill out all those spot welds through
09:21this quarter inner structure, just like we're getting ready to install the new pieces on it.
09:25I want you to go around, cut, trim, clean.
09:28I'm going to start across this back panel here, removing this off of here, and then I'm going
09:32to go down through here and use the plasma cutter and trim this out slowly on both sides
09:37to kind of drop this apart from it.
09:40And then I'm going to jack it up and finish out the cut down through here, and then I'm
09:44going to start prying this apart from this back panel to put the new frame rail sections
09:47in.
09:48It should go pretty fast.
09:53You're ready to weld?
09:54I'm ready to weld.
09:55Beautiful.
09:55Right now, he is all finished tacking everything in place.
09:59They've already pre-fit everything, so they're just going to go through there and begin welding,
10:03plug welding, all the original holes that were once spot welds.
10:06After that, when they put the new pan on, then they can go to full spot welding.
10:10So your green light, go.
10:11Everything fits good.
10:13Solid.
10:16Good job.
10:17Great job.
10:19The guys right there, make it happen.
10:21Guys behind the scenes, they don't get none of the glory.
10:25On an RB engine, a 413, a 426, or a 440, they have this pad up here.
10:31So if you walk in here bright and early, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and you look
10:36at that, you see that code right there with 440 behind it.
10:40What year is this engine?
10:41A was 65.
10:42Yes, sir.
10:42Yes, sir.
10:43So B was 66.
10:44Yes, sir.
10:45C was 67.
10:47Look at him go.
10:48D was 68.
10:49Yeah.
10:50And then E is 69.
10:51Perfect.
10:52And if you look down here in this lower corner, do you see those little two letters there?
10:55What do they say?
10:56I see an H.
10:57There you go.
10:58And a P.
10:58I'm assuming that's P.
10:59Nice.
11:00It's a P.
11:01That's a high-performance 69.
11:02So this one goes the Hemi Orange.
11:04He's a great painter.
11:05I taught him everything he knows, so if you're watching.
11:08All right.
11:09So we got our motor here for the General Lee.
11:12It is all going completely Hemi Orange.
11:15So it's all ready to go.
11:16That was good information that Mark gave us with the little numbers that are up there.
11:19All in all, that's still a couple hours worth of talking to him before I got the actual
11:24color for this.
11:25But I got it.
11:26Motor's in here.
11:27Everything's good to go.
11:28So I can go ahead and get the DP90 on this and then start to hit it with the
11:32single stage.
11:33So the street Hemi Orange that we mix up with PPG, all we do is we mix up the EV2 Tor
11:38Red Hemi Orange, exterior body color, but we leave the metallic out of it because the
11:43engine wouldn't have metallic.
11:45And so that changes the hue a little bit.
11:47It turns out a little bit reddish orange over the original one, but as soon as the
11:51engines ran for a while and it cools down, you noticed it with your turquoise one in
11:54your Poop Box 67 Coronet.
11:57As soon as it got hot and cooled down, it's hot and cooled down.
12:00Sorry about the Poop Box thing, but...
12:01It's okay.
12:02I mean, it's a nice car.
12:06Once the metal work was done and the body work was done, it was time to start doing
12:10the jam work.
12:11When it comes to the jam work on these cars, some of them are simpler than others.
12:15It depends how much metal work that car had a lot of metal work.
12:17So you've got gussets and reinforcements.
12:20You've got frame rails.
12:21You've got a Dutchman panel that has to be jammed on the inside.
12:24Wheelhouses.
12:25All that has to have the sound deadener put on it before that goes into place, and then
12:29it gets the paint over the top.
12:30So right now, I have the General Lee all masked up.
12:33It is in the booth.
12:34The quarters are off it so I can paint the inside of the quarters.
12:37The inner and outer wheelhouses and underneath the package tray.
12:39We've heard Hemi Orange, Hugger Orange, Torch Red, Flame Red.
12:45Nobody actually knows what color this particular car was supposed to go.
12:48We've been trying to get in touch with the guy that actually built the car.
12:51I haven't heard back from Mark yet, so I'm going to go check with him, see if he's heard
12:54back, and see if he has an answer on what color it's supposed to be.
12:57Hey, boss.
12:58I got the General Lee in the booth.
13:00Do we know the color yet?
13:02Those cars were painted 1975 Corvette Flame Red.
13:06Okay.
13:07How do you have a Hemi Orange factory charger and say, no thanks?
13:11It's a sin.
13:12They didn't paint that Hemi Orange.
13:14I got the underside buffed.
13:15I checked it to the color, and the color is off, so I'm going to grab Mark, see what
13:19he thinks before we go any further.
13:21How does that look to you?
13:22Well, the deck lid's got metallic in it.
13:24And the deck lid's EV2.
13:25That's what I was thinking, too.
13:26So the car's a 70, even though in the show they're 69.
13:30They converted a 70.
13:31I talked to J.R.
13:31Barton, which was available on 69.
13:34That's why it's got the E in EV2, except in 69 it would just be V2.
13:37In 70, they have to refer back to the original date.
13:39So I was thinking about flipping the deck lid over.
13:41Anyway, that's going to be the wrong color.
13:44Now, interestingly, a lot of people thought that the General Lee was EV2 Hemi Orange.
13:48That's what I think is crazy, that they took a...
13:51They just got lucky and had an original deck lid.
13:53Yeah, how cool would that be?
13:54Or do you think the whole car was...
13:56Oh, this whole entire car was this?
13:58Who knows, right?
13:59Could have been.
14:01But, you know, panels get switched all the time.
14:02But this deck lid definitely started life on a car that was coded for V2.
14:07So Mark came out, agreed it doesn't match the bottom.
14:09We flipped the deck lid over, buffed the top.
14:12Matches the top perfect.
14:13That's when we realized this is a true original Hemi Orange Charger.
14:16Which kind of sucks because if they would have just painted Hemi Orange, this person would have a General Lee factory Hemi Orange and it would still be an orange car.
14:25So, kind of sucks having to paint a Corvette red.
14:28I was actually wrong.
14:30I was thinking that I was remembering what I read about the General Lees back in the TV days.
14:34Back when they were making the TV cars, I guess the cameras, the TV cameras, they pick things up differently.
14:40They show colors differently.
14:42And so back then, Corvette Flame Red, which was the color that they painted the TV cars, looked bright orange.
14:49Huh.
14:49I didn't know that.
14:50On a TV camera.
14:51But in the movie, times have changed and they used different cameras to make the motion picture.
14:55That color looked too red.
14:57It looked like it's real red.
14:58They had to paint it big, bad orange to make it look like it did in the TV series when it was flame red.
15:03Yeah, who came up with a big, bad orange?
15:05That's an AMC color.
15:07I'm excited to paint this car, A, because it's a General Lee.
15:11B, it was actually in the movie.
15:13It was a cool launch car.
15:14And C, the Vati guys have been waiting for two weeks kind of at a standstill because I haven't been able to come up with the color yet.
15:20So there's a bunch of reasons why it's exciting to get it done, but it's very nice to have this thing painted and back to the body shop, have the quarters put on.
15:27So obviously, I did the texture coating on the quarter panels already, so that way, because once the quarters are put on, you can't go past the wheel wells.
15:34So now that that's done, when you actually paint, you're actually able to get paint all the way across, where if the car's put together, you can't do it.
15:41And if you can do it, it's not going to be that good of a job.
15:44So this way, painting those hard-to-reach pieces are actually fully clear-coated.
15:47It's never going to rust.
15:48It looks like the outside of the car.
15:50So when this car is assembled, if the owner ever wants to take it apart and look underneath there, the inside looks just as nice as the outside does.
15:56So it's a huge benefit doing it this way.
15:58Once the metal work was done, and the body work was done, it was able just to follow the same suit any of the restorations would.
16:11Okay, so it was, once that was done, of course, we had the engine and everything painted.
16:15We were building the drivetrain over in the machine shop.
16:17You just do it once.
16:18I think that's the best part about the car, not the pool door.
16:20Well, do you remember the General Lee doing it over and over again?
16:52Well, hello, it's nice to meet you.
16:55Finally, pleasure to meet you.
16:56Nice to see you.
16:56Yeah.
16:57Hey, Royal.
16:58Good to see you, buddy.
16:59It's been a long time.
17:00Good to see you, John.
17:00Let's go see it.
17:01You want to go see it?
17:02We're ready, man.
17:02We're ready.
17:04There it is.
17:10This is perfect light.
17:11This is beautiful.
17:12Sons up.
17:12That is amazing.
17:13Is that absolutely gorgeous?
17:14I love that big, bad orange.
17:16You nailed it, man.
17:17You nailed it.
17:18It was unbelievable.
17:19It's unbelievable.
17:20This was the Tor General Lee.
17:22And it's just perfect.
17:23The color's perfect.
17:24PPG single stage paint, acrylic urethane.
17:29There's nothing like it.
17:30It looks wet when it's dry.
17:32Absolutely gorgeous.
17:33Yeah, the same guys that built the roll cages for some of the movie cars and stuff came
17:38down and installed that one for us.
17:40Got the Vector wheels that were actually on the car when it did the jump.
17:43The same wheels?
17:43Those are the wheels.
17:44That jumped 174 feet?
17:46They did.
17:46And they were beat to death, and they were bent and chipped.
17:48And so we sent them out, and we had them completely redone, balanced.
17:51Had the new tires put on, which those are the correct ones for the movie.
17:54That's amazing.
17:55I can't believe.
17:55I mean, this car was bent up and twisted and rusted.
17:58Oh, we had a hard time.
17:59If you go back and you talk to the body men about that, this thing was shoved up to here,
18:06so we had to get all the sheet metal off it and make direct pulls just down on that
18:10A-pillar to get it square again.
18:11But that's your original roof right there.
18:14Golly, buddy, I cannot thank you enough.
18:17Oh, I love that steering wheel.
18:18It just came out perfect.
18:19You know, this car came out of Kansas.
18:21Originally, it was in a field in Oklahoma.
18:24We bought it off eBay.
18:25We brought it back to Denver.
18:26I called you.
18:27I think you called me back in 10 minutes when you heard it.
18:29Yeah, I had a general leave.
18:30Yeah, yeah.
18:30Next thing I know, we sent it up here, and here we are a couple years later, and it just
18:35looks amazing.
18:38You nailed it, Mark.
18:39I'd like to say you did the steering wheel with the actual one they used in the movie
18:43because it was different than the TV series.
18:45Just exactly.
18:45Just little details that they changed.
18:47We tried to keep some old and some new, and, you know, you and I talked about that at
18:51great length.
18:52What do we do?
18:52Do we restore it to the movie car?
18:54Do we restore it to the TV?
18:55And for the most part, it's a movie, but there are some throwbacks to the TV in there.
18:59Certainly, this car is built out exactly like a 69 Charger RT.
19:03So, if you go over here and take a look, which you haven't even seen yet, under the hood,
19:07if this was an XS29L code, which is a 440, that is what you'd have.
19:14So, just a few things to point out here because I know you're into all kinds of cars, not
19:20necessarily diehard Mopar.
19:22So, I'll point a few things out that are very, very correct about what you're looking at.
19:26So, we went with an actual date-coated 69, 440 Magnum, 375 horse, and it's all dressed
19:33out.
19:33Date-coated spark plug wires, date-coated PCV hose, date-coated heater hoses.
19:38This is an original 054 radiator, which would be correct for a 69 big block with a 26-inch.
19:44We had to change the core support out because it was destroyed.
19:47So, when we did, we put in a 26-inch.
19:49Both aprons have been replaced in portions of the firewall because, if you recall, this
19:54thing had that big boxed-in square channel.
19:58Support when they did that jump.
19:59And I wanted to try to preserve that, but when they put that in there, it never once held
20:04a complete 440 because it wouldn't have had room for it.
20:07So, when I was trying to mock it in place and mock the 440 in there, it just didn't work.
20:11And so, we lost that little bit of inner structure and nostalgia.
20:14Hey, we should go take off.
20:15You guys should hop in there and go for a ride.
20:17Oh, I'm ready.
20:18Let's go tear it up.
20:18Oh, I feel like Bo Duke already.
20:25Yeehaw!
20:32Look at this baby.
20:34Yeehaw!
20:34It's just incredible.
20:38I feel like I'm Bo Duke.
20:4016 and just got your driver's license again.
20:43Absolutely.
20:44Look, they even got the horn working.
20:47Oh, that's the best part.
20:50Listen to it.
20:53Shift's fantastic hard.
20:55Well, it's smooth, too.
20:56Probably end up being one of your favorite toys.
20:58Absolutely.
20:59I waited a long time, but it was worth the wait.
21:02It's absolutely gorgeous.
21:06She's gorgeous.
21:07She's perfect.
21:07I love it.
21:08It's fantastic.
21:09Me or the car?
21:10Yeah, you, sweetheart.
21:12It's perfect.
21:12I think they did a fantastic job.
21:14We really appreciate it.
21:16You guys nailed it.
21:17Graveyard cars.
21:17Oh, shit, I think there's a cop back there.
21:21Let's just go for it.
21:22Nah, no, I better pull over.
21:35You want to hit the trouble, boy?
21:37What you out doing, running to shine?
21:39Welcome back.
21:43For the second half, we are featuring Mark Worman's Little Dead Wagon, which is an homage to Bill Maverick's Little Red Wagon.
21:51I love the name on that, by the way.
21:53I do, too.
21:53I love the graphics.
21:54I love everything about it.
21:55It's one of my funnest builds.
21:56I still own the vehicle today.
21:58It's a 1964 Dodge A100 pickup.
22:00I bought one that was in really nice shape, and we took the guts out of it.
22:04I custom-built everything for everything's custom on that car.
22:07I would like to point out that it has a Ray Barton, 931 horsepower, I believe, 426 Hemi, with a blower shop 671, lots of holly and comp all over.
22:19It admits every dream, every kid that cruised the gut back in high school's dream, represented in the stickers in this vehicle.
22:26I don't want to spend a lot of time.
22:28No, let's show rather than tell.
22:30Show them one of the coolest trucks you'll ever see.
22:32Get it.
22:33In 1965, a racing legend was born.
22:36A Hemi-powered, wheel-standing beast of a truck known as the Little Red Wagon.
22:41Created from the Dodge A100 truck, this monster of a race truck was owned and driven by Bill Maverick Golden, a man even more famous than the truck he drove.
22:49Bill Maverick famously won over 1,800 trophies, thousands of races, and set an astonishing number of records during his racing career.
22:57It wasn't until Frank Wiley, which was Chrysler's chief of public relations at that time, took Maverick to the shop of Dick Branster, that they had a match made in heaven.
23:07Chrysler's A100, which is a cab over engine style of truck, hadn't been selling as well as their D100, which is a cab behind engine style.
23:14In the 60s, the best promotion a car could get was to win races or do something everyone would be talking about.
23:21So Chrysler decided to do both and had Branster's shop engineer a custom A100 with a bigger engine in the bed of the truck.
23:28Chrysler also changed the engine of the custom truck to the enormous 426 Hemi and removed anything in the car that would add weight.
23:36That included the front bumper, the heater, the spare tire, the dash panel, and even the body sealer were all removed, which is just crazy.
23:44They even switched out the stock doors for fiberglass.
23:47What they ended up with was a back-heavy truck that, as soon as the supercharged engine was given some gas, would have a tendency to wheel stand and tear down the track like a bat out of hell.
23:56Sounds pretty cool to me.
23:58Bill Golden was in love.
23:59He went from winning races to winning hearts and minds in what has become one of the most famous Dodge trucks ever built.
24:06So famous, in fact, that in 2009, Sotheby's auctioned off one of the last surviving Bill Golden little red wagons for $550,000.
24:15That vehicle is going to be the end of your father.
24:18So, yeah, you might want to take out a real...
24:20Are you going to kill yourself in it?
24:21Well, it's going to be 1,000 horsepower built by Ray Barton.
24:24It's got a blower shop 871 blower on it.
24:28It's got dual-demon 850 carburetors that are designed to go on a blower.
24:32Custom-built Zoomy headers.
24:33But it's only on two wheels and you'll be fine.
24:35Yeah, as long as I don't have to steer it, it should be fine.
24:37It's a straight line is all you need.
24:39The little dead wagon is really going to be the little dead wagon.
24:45This is a really solid, super solid truck, as in zero rush.
24:50This is a 1964 model truck.
24:52Everything is real steel back then.
24:55It's not the stuff that we deal with today that's a really, really thin gauge, high-strength, low-alloy steel.
25:01So trying to get in here where it's a double panel is impossible to get in there and knock that dent out.
25:07It's much easier just to cut it out, lay it upside down, hammer it out, and weld it back on.
25:11That's what we did where you see this mark in the valance here.
25:14Everything that you see right through here, all the way around the corner, we had this lower valance piece off of there.
25:21And we were able to straighten it out really nicely on the actual bench, then put it back up in there and metal finish off all the welds.
25:28So that's why that looks so much better.
25:30Before, it was caved all the way in back to here.
25:33Now our nose, it was caved in too, but we have full access through here to it.
25:38I was able to put a port-a-power in between this wheelhouse and that wheelhouse with a bar and push this area out while I was stress-relieving it.
25:46That's why you end up seeing so many of the little dent marks.
25:48Now, originally, this had a 15-inch tire that was like a little cookie cutter.
25:52Okay?
25:53You can see that we now have these Hoosiers in here.
25:56They have almost 20 inches across the face of them.
25:59They're 33 inches tall.
26:00This is very similar to what they were running on some of the wheel standers and dragsters, top fuel, back in the day.
26:06You see that most of the bed is cut out of it.
26:09You see the engines out of it.
26:10If you look straight down here, you can see that all that's out of the way.
26:15Starting at the front crossmember that you see the little spiderweb gussets,
26:19that area right there is what's going to hold the second-generation 426 Hemi.
26:23I bought a Mopar Performance 426 Hemi for it.
26:26I sent it back to Ray Barton.
26:28Ray Barton's building the hell out of it.
26:29He's going to put a Blower Shop 871 blower on it.
26:32We've got some Holley carburetors going on it.
26:34So we think it's going to put out about 1,000 horsepower.
26:37So all of that heavy 2x4 and 2x3 and 2x2 box tubing that you see starting all the way back here going forward
26:45is the reinforcements that we need for this truck to be able to stand up to that much brute horsepower that's coming out of it.
26:51Even though it probably won't get much of a bite, meaning it won't hook up and really do a lot of damage,
26:57what little bit it could do, what kind of flexing it could do when it does get a bite,
27:00could twist the little truck up.
27:02So that's what all that reinforcement's for.
27:04We went out of our way to do the little cool spiderweb gussets everywhere that we could.
27:10Mosier connected with us and put an 8-3-4 style housing.
27:14They narrowed to my specifications.
27:18Over here you've got the wheel tubs.
27:19I just got one of these in.
27:20We built a quarter by 1 inch by 1 inch square framing for this to set down in.
27:27It's just sitting there right now.
27:28We have to do some welding to get that all in place.
27:30We have to level it a little bit.
27:32But this is what both sides will look like as soon as we're done.
27:35So as soon as we have these in, we'll finish off all of our metal work.
27:38And then I can send this out, have it dipped, and when it comes back we can start doing body and paint on it.
27:44As soon as we can get the body and paint work done, hopefully Barton's done with the Hemi.
27:48The rest of the guys are done with the other things.
27:50We're building a 727 torque flight for it.
27:52As soon as all that's done, we'll be able to marry it together because our goal is to be able to get to SEMA 2018.
27:57This is our Road to SEMA car that we're doing this year.
28:00So one of two actually.
28:01We've got another one we've got going, but we can't talk about that yet.
28:04So that's kind of the meat and potatoes of where our 1964 Dodge A100.
28:08Where Little Dead Wagon is at.
28:10And stay tuned, we'll keep you guys caught up down the road.
28:13We've been waiting for the sun to come out so that we'd be in a position to do some soda blasting.
28:17Normally we dip these vehicles, but in this case it's too tall for the dip tank, number one.
28:22And number two, it has a lot of boxed-in channels.
28:25So if it goes in the dip tank and it comes back out, we may not be able to neutralize all of that stuff that would get in those channels.
28:31So soda blasting was the actual answer.
28:34I got the A100, so now it's time to get it in the paint booth and get it primered.
28:50Primer work looks pretty good.
28:51A couple little things to fix.
28:53Nothing major.
28:53But at this point, we're ready to block it out and get it ready for prepainting.
28:56So I have about three-quarters of the A100 painted.
29:07The cab, a bedside.
29:10I know a lot of times we'll just paint the whole thing.
29:12But where we are, it's such a time crunch this year.
29:15It's real time.
29:16We're that far behind.
29:17So if it's ready, I just paint it.
29:18So the whole truck was kind of done in parts and pieces just so that way we can get it put together and get it delivered on time.
29:27You know, when I paint the doors and hinges, it's pretty much the same process as when I do the car.
29:31The only thing a little bit different is you have to take into consideration your panel painting the whole car.
29:35So you've just got to be very thorough.
29:37If you put seven coats on that cab of that red, which is a very transparent color, which I did, you make sure that you put seven coats on those doors.
29:44So the only thing that's critical is just having that number in your head and going through that whole process so when it's actually all bolted together, everything matches correctly.
30:01I got the inside of the bed completely painted black.
30:03Came out great just like we were hoping.
30:05Now that that's done, I can jump over and wrap up the paintwork on the last bedside.
30:16Now that all the pre-paint work is done, it's time to get it all blocked out and sanded and ready for final paint.
30:27Now that the truck's all blocked out, it's time to roll it in the booth and get the final paintwork done.
30:35Now that I got the color all laid out and it looks amazing, I can jump in there and get the clear coat all done.
30:48I'm going to lift that here for a little bit.
31:00Once that's done, I'm going to start the cut and buff process and then get it over here for assembly.
31:06And now it's Mark's problem from this point forward.
31:08I'm excited to get this rolled over here because I am the paint and body side, so our part is done over there.
31:24I'm still going to help out over here, but the problem we're going to run into is Mark said everything's been pre-fit, this thing's just going to fall together.
31:30He did all the mock-ups, so to speak, what he considers a mock-up.
31:34Problem is, I watched him do the mock-up.
31:37It's horrible.
31:38This thing's not going to just fall together.
31:40So I just want to be around for all those little problems that are going to come up.
31:46My name's Brenda Kellison.
31:47I'm a pinstriper.
31:49Mark gave me the opportunity to letter the little dead wagon, his version of the little red wagon, and so I couldn't pass it up.
31:57So Doug and I are working on getting the engine mounts in position.
32:01I've already pre-mocked all this stuff up, so now it's just a matter of putting it on the engine and getting it ready to go in the A100.
32:07It's not just a matter of dropping it in there like it is on some cars or just dropping the car down around it like we do on the other cars.
32:14God, I've got a bad feeling about this.
32:23So the doors are all assembled.
32:24We've got the locks, the handles, we've got the latch assemblies in, the new weather strips.
32:28With all that done, that really allows us to button up a good majority of that cab.
32:32This particular case, this is a true unibody.
32:35The frame rails are built into it like a unibody would have, but everything in it, the framework for the instrument panel and for the radio,
32:43the things that will bolt into it that will make it a street-functionable unit, they're actually welded into the body itself.
32:48So I can't take those out and put them in a sandblaster and blast them all up and make them pretty.
32:52We'll have to do all that stuff in place.
32:54To be able to move forward with getting the rest of the interior in the truck, we've got to be able to put the back window in.
32:59It's going to be up to our team to get it installed.
33:01So with these back glasses, you don't have to urethane them in.
33:05They just really set into place and the molding holds it into place.
33:07So therefore, we can just do it ourselves.
33:09Back glasses in, looks great.
33:11We had it tinted, so we can move on to the next step.
33:15The windshield installation, way past my pay grade.
33:19That's very, very precise work.
33:21This is a dual windshield with a split.
33:24So if you look at it, you've got a right-hand windshield, a left-hand windshield, and then you've got a nose piece down the middle.
33:29Putting all that together and not breaking one of those pieces of glass with less than four days to have the car ready to go to SEMA, not my idea of fun.
33:37So that's done.
33:41It looks absolutely gorgeous.
33:42That's a huge thing to have out of our way, because with that out of our way, we really just have a few things left, and we can load that thing on the truck and head off to the show.
33:49So firing up the Mopar Performance Ray Barton 923 horsepower Hemi, I thought I'd have a little fun.
33:56Will, if it's going to leak, it's going to be out these back bowls right here.
33:59Okay.
34:00So you might see it better from this side.
34:02Okay.
34:02Well, I don't want to...
34:03Oh, this is dry.
34:04This is a dry run.
34:04Yeah.
34:06Okay.
34:06So just crank over, see what's happening.
34:08923 horsepower in a vehicle that probably weighs 3,000 pounds and all the weights over the back tires?
34:35Yeah.
34:36Bring SEMA on.
34:37I am ready.
34:38I am ready for the red carpet, and I'm ready to set the world on fire.
34:42And you just make sure you get my insurance paid up.
34:45Accidents.
34:45So we're getting ready to install the seats in the 1964 A100 Little Dead Wagon.
34:53I like looking at the camera.
34:54I guess it kind of punches at home.
34:56Anyway, it's not the point.
34:57It's not all about me.
34:59These seats are customized.
35:01I'm glad that's done because now the seats are in it.
35:03We can set in it.
35:04We can set the height to figure out where the shifter is going to be.
35:06So we can really start moving forward with the wrap-up.
35:08So on our Little Dead Wagon, there are a lot of moving parts, and there's a lot of choreography
35:16because there's only so much room for so many people.
35:18Now, the engine's in it.
35:19Certainly, that means the drivetrain's in it.
35:21But the wood has to be stained.
35:23We bought a really cool floor bed kit from Yogi's.
35:26We're staining it with a dark walnut, and then we're using PPG clear over the top of that.
35:30So that's Will's job.
35:32The rest of the team are working on getting the stainless steel trimmed and fitted, cut,
35:37and put into place for, like, the wheel tubs and the insides of the bed.
35:42We're pretty lucky to have a really cool metal shop right down the road from us.
35:45The guys at All Pro, they just roll out the carpet for us.
35:48They have all the brakes and all the slip rolls and everything.
35:50They're the ones, really, that are pre-cutting and pre-shaping a lot of the stainless steel
35:54that's going inside the bed.
35:56It's big pieces.
35:57So, you know, inside that bed is six feet long.
35:59And it has to have a certain shape and a certain contour to it.
36:06So when you're talking about clear coating over an impervious substrate like metal,
36:11it doesn't take nearly as much paint because the paint has nowhere to go.
36:14It can't soak in.
36:15But this is wood.
36:15So that stain, while it goes on there and it soaks into the wood, the clear is coat after coat.
36:21Typically speaking, you would want to put three or four coats of clear on, let it set for a week,
36:25sand it, then re-clear it, and continue to do that until you had a nice flush finish.
36:32So the Little Dead Wagon has kind of been an ongoing change.
36:36And so from what I had envisioned originally to where it is even right now is different.
36:40The basic structure of it is the same.
36:42It's a great big Hemi in the back of an A100 and it's painted red and it, you know,
36:47got a little dead wagon going onto it and all that stuff.
36:50But the stainless steel inside was more of an afterthought.
36:53Originally when I did it, I thought I would do body and paint work inside of there.
36:57But as we started running out of time for SEMA and that date kept creeping forward,
37:02I thought, you know, the stainless would look pretty good and it will.
37:05But it also saves me on my end a lot of time.
37:08The body and the paint that we'd have to do inside there would be an enormous amount of time.
37:12Frankly, we just didn't have that time.
37:17So the kit from Yogi's for the bed floor, I believe, is for a regular eight-foot bed.
37:22That doesn't leave us a lot of extra wood and a lot of extra stainless.
37:25It does leave us some.
37:27But what we've got to be careful of is making sure that when we make our cuts that we don't overcut.
37:31You can't put wood back on.
37:32You can keep taking it off, but you've got to be careful when you make your measurement and you make your cut.
37:37Now at the same time that you've got this specific piece of wood that needs to be, say, 54 inches long,
37:42maybe it only needs to be four inches wide and originally it's a six-inch wide piece.
37:47So then we have to do a radial cut or a lineal cut down.
37:49That's where guys like Royal come in because he's done a lot of woodwork and so is our new greenhorn.
37:55But when you're done, you've got to be able to stack this tongue and groove in together with the stainless steel separators.
38:00They also have to be precision cut.
38:03You cut too far, you can't put it back on there.
38:05With no time left for SEMA, it's just a very crucial time.
38:08Even though we're rushing and normally you can make compromises in a rush, this stuff you have to stop, take your time,
38:14not just double measure, triple, quadruple measure.
38:17It's so important that we don't make any mistakes because we can't next day out a whole other kit that weighs 300 pounds, right?
38:23It takes a long time to build a car.
38:24And it's just a shame that all that prep and all that time and all those dedicated hours still come down no matter how hard you try
38:31to that last murderous week, hell week, where you're just doing back-to-back suicide shifts trying to knock one of these things out.
38:39Maybe one day we'll have a perfect system and we won't have to do that.
38:42But right now, I don't know any way to avoid it.
38:54What's that face for?
39:13We'll never make that face in public again.
39:15Yeah.
39:24That's a bad boy, bad boy.
39:28What you gonna do?
39:29What you gonna do when it comes for you?
39:31What do you think?
39:33It came out great.
39:34This thing is absolutely beautiful.
39:36It came out just like I wanted it to.
39:38It has so much of the spirit of the original one that I grew up watching.
39:43This thing's awesome.
39:44The car came out great.
39:45We got it ready for SEMA.
39:47And it's ready for the red carpet.
39:48Absolutely gorgeous.
39:50Ray Barton builds the nastiest engine on the planet today.
39:53It has 923 horsepower on pump gas.
39:57And it fired right out.
39:58Yep.
39:59871 blower shop blower.
40:01Dual holly carburetors.
40:02Just beautiful.
40:04Yep.
40:05That's a good feel to it.
40:06Got our Yogi Bear floor in there.
40:08Absolutely beautiful.
40:10I mean, is there anything you'd do differently?
40:12Not a thing.
40:13And look at the lettering Brenda did on that.
40:16I mean, just a local talent to capture the spirit of what I wanted, which was...
40:20I wanted it to look like the lettering and the cartoony kind of a feel to it.
40:25It wasn't until she started putting the shadows on it that it really started to pop.
40:30No, this has that old school feel to it.
40:32Hoosier, Excel, Eat My Ship transmission guys.
40:36Johnny Lightning.
40:37Johnny Lightning was the original sponsor of the little red wagon.
40:42Oh, was it?
40:42Yep.
40:43We are going...
40:43And I didn't tell you this.
40:44This is the cool stuff.
40:46Notice my pistol grip shifter.
40:48Yeah.
40:50My crushed velvet tuck-and-roll interior.
40:54Oh, that was spawned from my brain.
40:56No, it wasn't.
40:56This dude was cool.
40:57Mom used to say I had a fertile mind.
41:00You probably did at one point.
41:01No, I still have a fertile mind.
41:02There's nothing wrong with my mind.
41:03You just said you were delayed.
41:04You know what I did is I did that for you because I feel sorry for you.
41:07You just realized...
41:08You come up with lies.
41:09And then I just tried to get you a back door.
41:11So driving this thing is amazing, right?
41:25First off, you're driving a bomb.
41:26I feel like Wile E. Coyote driving around on a skateboard with a rocket strapped to it.
41:30I mean, it's just not going to work out good one day.
41:33But just playing with a little bit, hitting the throttle.
41:35Remember, it's got 923 horsepower.
41:37And it's going right to the ground.
41:39I mean, there's no slop.
41:40Monster Transmission 727 Torque Flight that just shifts like that.
41:44Lightning, right?
41:45Ray Barton, 923 horsepower.
41:47Holley, dual Holley carburetors with an 871 blower shop supercharger on it.
41:51Diamond brand pistons.
41:53Melodon oiling system.
41:54I mean, you name it, this thing is built.
41:56This thing is ready to rock and roll.
41:58Out on the road, you know it's ready to rock and roll because every time you hit the gas,
42:01the front end comes up in the air and I get scared.
42:03I'm not used to be doing these down the track.
42:05I had a motorcycle that's different.
42:06This is a big rig.
42:09This is my town, right?
42:10I grew up here.
42:11All of the memories that I have in life are of this town and these roads.
42:15And I was thinking that, you know, I built this model when I was a little kid over on 14th Street.
42:22And when I'm driving it, I just kind of flash back to that.
42:25You know, here I am, 56 years old, driving the same streets that I walked and drove as a kid.
42:32Driving a real-life version, my own version, of a model that I actually built.
42:39So at 56, I've made at least one trip back around.
42:43So I'd be anxious to see where I'm at when I'm 66.
42:46There's some other stuff I want to build with some really neat cars.
42:49Cars that I remember as a child building the models.
42:53And Boothill Express is one of them.
42:55Christine's another one.
42:56So with that...
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