Is This The Ultimate American Custom Car

Ridiculous Rides

EVERYONE LOVES a cool conversion – but in the latest episode of Ultimate Rides, Danny Koker reveals five that have pushed their creators’ imaginations to the limit. First we meet Walter, a two-storey VW bus that was once an airfield firetruck, but is now a full-on party bus that’s a regular at the wild Burning Man festival. We see a road legal Plane Car that’s merged the body of a Cessna light aircraft with the chassis of a GMC Sierra 2500 pick-up, and an old fairground rocket ship that’s been transformed into an incredible speedster capable of doing 100mph. And continuing the fairground theme is a family from California who have created a fleet of road legal bumper cars! Finally we meet a road legal boat car – created by mounting a speedboat body on the chassis of a Chrysler LeBaron.

Transcript

00:00The car was built over a course of six years. It took 22,000 man hours to build it. Just

00:06a lot of blood, sweat and tears.

00:09This fully customised Buick Riviera has been a labour of love for Canadian J.F. Launier.

00:15He's been renovating vehicles since the age of 13. But in 2014, this Buick finally earned

00:21him the coveted Riddler Award for America's most creative and innovative custom car at

00:27the Detroit Autorama. The project began with a 1964 Riviera bought from a junkyard for just

00:36$400.

00:37People always ask me why a 64 Riviera. Well, the long and the short of it is when I was

00:4221 years old, I had a 64 Riviera. I sold it to start my first business and I thought to

00:46myself, I'm going to have another one of those cars one day. I didn't really know I was going

00:50to take it this far.

00:52What followed were countless modifications to the original Buick body.

00:58A 1971 Riviera roof, with its unique shape and sloped rear window, was fitted to the 1964

01:07chassis. The car was shortened by removing sheet metal from behind the doors and rear wheel

01:12openings. The front wheel openings were moved forward to make space for a 6.2 litre Chevrolet

01:17V8 engine, which provides 784 horsepower. J.F. estimates that he spent $300,000 on the

01:26project in total.

01:27J.F. The car was built over a course of 6 years. It took 22,000 man hours to build it.

01:34It was everything I could afford. It was my parents' house got remortgaged, my house got

01:37remortgaged. The math's pretty simple. It's 22,000 hours, 75 bucks an hour shop rate. You're

01:44looking at a million and a half just in hours.

01:47J.F. named the finished car revision and in 2014 he proved that one man's trash is another

01:55man's treasure by winning the Riddler award. But despite his success, J.F. warns that budding

02:01car customisers shouldn't take such projects lightly.

02:04J.F. It was ups and downs. It was always a battle to try to get enough money to buy

02:09parts, to find enough time in the week, to balance family, business and a project of

02:14this magnitude. I always felt like giving up. There wasn't a day where I didn't feel

02:19like it was too much. We had taken on too much and we had just gone too far with it.

02:23Be very prepared. Don't just build your first car and think it's going to win. This is our

02:29fourth attempt at it. You've got to be prepared. You've got to be prepared to give up everything

02:33for a long, long time.

02:34J.F. There's no doubt though that he's proud of turning a rust bucket into his most prized

02:40possession.

02:41J.F. There are people that love it. There are people that hate it. There's kind of nobody

02:45in the middle. This car is what I wanted in a race car. This car is what I wanted in a

02:50show car. And it's beyond that on all aspects. I have drag raced the car. I have road raced

02:55the car. I have won the biggest award in the world. Those three have never been put together.

03:00And I drive my kids to school in it and take the kids for ice cream.

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Transcript

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