If you haven’t seen the promos for the new show Motor City Motors, you haven’t been watching the Discovery Channel lately.
Motor City Motors is produced by Emmy Award winning Thom Beers, the same reality king who’s brought us several of our favorite shows on TV. Beers’ credits include Deadliest Catch
With Motor City Motors, Beers looks to bring yet another hit show to the Discovery Channel. Set to debut on Monday, December 28th while millions of viewers are off on holiday vacations, ratings for the new show could be very strong.
While Beers’ shows have been put into the ‘reality’ category, that term doesn’t do his shows justice. If you’re a Deadliest Catch addict like I am, you know what I’m talking about. While we love girls in bikinis, you’ll have a hard time finding one in any of his shows.
Instead, Beers’ productions tend to revolve around dramatic relationships wrapped around extreme situations that actually happen in real life. When you combine strong, unique personalities with difficult or dangerous environments, the result is much more engaging. These are the types of characteristics that set Beers’ shows into a category which are clearly different from prime-time network reality TV. It’s also why we’ll bank on just about anything the guy does.
Motor City Motors Summary
Take two brothers that build custom bikes in downtrodden Detroit. Add personalities, bad attitudes, machines, fire, cars and big chunks of metal to a tight deadline, and that’s the basic premise of the show. The brothers are Dave and James (Jamie) Kaye, owners of Detroit Brothers Custom Cycles.
The guys admit to a failing business about to go under (like everything else in Detroit), when along comes Thom Beers and Motor City Motors. Just in time it appears. While I have no clue about the amount of compensation these guys are getting, no doubt they’ll be doing well if the show becomes a hit.
In the first episode (airing December 28th) the guys take a 1926 Ford Model T and turn it into a rat rod. They have 5 days to build the beast, and beat a stock Model T in a drag race. Hot rod versus stock Model T is too easy you say? Well, it should be easy…if they meet the deadline without killing each other in the process.
Tune in to the Discovery Channel to watch tonight at 10pm ET.
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enough with all the crap back and forth you guys……………….this show is the REAL DEAL! as builders we were given a virtually impossible task to complete in a ridicolously short time with JUST what we had on hand. .. let me ask, HOW LONG does it take YOU to just change your oil? or perhaps its cold outside or your ass hurts or the wifes cat crapped on your wrenches ……..did you take it to be done or use your shoe for a jackstand crawl under that beast and break that drain plug loose with your teeth?…………THATS what IM talking about! frikkin DEE_troit grit!
Agree with TonyT this was too much of a copy cat show. Tired of watching shows that go crazy trying to beat a some make believe deadline. Give us a break, Americans are smarter than producers realize! Too bad they destroyed a vintage automobile to construct one of the ugiliest rods I’ve ever seen.
As a bit of an auto historian I have to agree with the admin here. Many, many cars have contributed to the progress of automobiles and certainly the model t is one of the great pioneers in the industry. However, model t’s are not a rare enough breed to worry about a single hack job. I can think of 25 other automobiles I would cry about before a model t. No disrespect to this machine, but the t is not an endangered species like will is trying to imply.
I also think Ford would’ve more interested in progress and current vehicles if he were alive today, than he would be about saving one of the tin lizzie’s.
As for the show, I thought it was fun and I’m going to keep watching to see where they take it. Jamey looks like a big flake, but Dave has his head in the right direction. I think dad is going to play a bigger part too, seems more like Dave I think.
Thanks.
We’re working up a new episode in which a bunch of old T nuts get together to rehab an old hulk of a T before one of them has a heart attack. Should be good TV. “Where the hell’s the square nut driver?!?”
You’re right, all this negative publicity probably fuels the producers. I’ll leave you be.
Yet, there are soulless men whose hand and brain
Tear down what time will never give again.
-ANDERSON M. SCRUGGS.
(especially on this, the centennial year of the T)
guote: “yeah, and there’s 3 million Americans over the age of 85 but I’m not about to hack one of them to pieces so I can steal something of theirs.”
When I’m 85, if you want to cut me up and make me 10 times faster and stronger, slice away!
The car may have historical value, but if thats the case – why are they so readily available, and so inexpensive? Many brand new parts, I mean like, 80 year old brand new parts are still available for T’s today, and cheap too.
Will, like I said in a previous reply to you, I appreciate where you’re coming from. You’re clearly a Model T nut. Cool, I dig that. I’m a Ford guy myself. My great great grandfather was a close personal friend of Henry Ford’s and I worked for Ford for several years. I’m also a convicted car nut, and have a serious love affair with cars young and old. While you seem to think I’m someone you need to battle with on this, you’re wrong.
With that said, I have a different opinion on what these guys did and you can raise your voice and holler from the rooftops but it doesn’t make you any more right than me or anyone else who see’s this as less damaging to the ‘species’ of Model T than you do.
Could they have used a repro T? Sure they could have. Could they have found a better project? Sure they could have. But, is this something worth going onto all the forums and websites and getting all offended over and ruining your day over? Hell no. Get over it man, there are still 249,999 more of these around….relax for a sec.
And btw, is this last sentence “But let me post your response on the Model T club forum and see what they say” supposed to be a threat, lol? I mean really, you’re just proving my point about your bias and overly passionate attitude. As a Ford guy who loves cars, even I can see that you’re too fanatical. Btw, I’m not going to post all your forum guys posts here. Really, do you guys expect me to post a zillion posts trashing the show? This is a fan site, for people who want to discuss the show in a reasonable manner, not a bash site. You guys are welcome to discuss the show here, but leave your biases at your forum and be a bit more reasonable.
haha
yeah, and there’s 3 million Americans over the age of 85 but I’m not about to hack one of them to pieces so I can steal something of theirs.
yes, 250k/15m would be less than 2% of the original vehicles still around today. Species often go on the endangered list when they drop below 20% of their natural population, and critically endangered when below 5%.
Those quarter million still around represent the care their owners give to maintain them. Lots of people would have given good money to have pieces of that car to keep their historical vehicle running and correct.
‘By no means rare’ ..? How many cars have you driven that have wooden wheels? Do you own a car with an engine you can hand crank if the battery dies? I bring my Model T to the monthly Coffee and Cars show in my city, and among the dozens of duplicated Ferrari, Lamborghini, Bentleys and other beautiful pieces of engineering my T is the only one there, and attracts quite a crowd of its own.
It would have been so easy for the show’s personnel to order the required modern reproduction sheet metal, zap it together, and have the exact same effect without such destruction.
But let me post your response on the Model T club forum and see what they say.
Will, while I appreciate where you’re coming from, keep in mind that there are still 250,000 + Model T’s on the road today. You’re right when you call it an ‘historic’ vehicle, but by no means is it rare. If there were only a few thousand of these still around I would feel your pain but I don’t think one sacrifice out of a quarter million is so bad.
“Hacked?” How else do you do something like this in 5 days?
In the first edition of this show that I saw, there was shown a beautiful and historic Model T unceremoniously and really rather unskillfully being hacked into the ugliest and most useless hot rod I have ever seen.
Building something from nothing is a wonderful thing.
Destroying something with more history than any of those people could ever appreciate and turning it into some idiotic misrepresentation of style and speed was truly disgusting.
There’s plenty of reproduction tin out there that could have been used to the same effect without destroying that original and fully functional Model T.
I truly hope this series is not about the needless, sensationalistic destruction and uglification of historic objects. Go use your skills and make something, not destroy things.
“NOT the whole article, JUST YOUR PICTURE. whats up with THAT?”
Ha, amazing how TV makes people hotter isn’t it?
note to dave k………………….my daughters are now OFFICALLY smitten with you. they saw the news article and cut it out ….NOT the whole article, JUST YOUR PICTURE. whats up with THAT?
congrats jeff by the way for having been picked for the all-star team! chris sorgatz ,our tech expert was on that team also (im sure you remember HIM). everyone here is in breathless anticipation of the premiere, the producers were nice enough to let me bring my wife and 7 daughters to the set during filming. THANKS BRECK! as people and my customers learn of my association with the show it has added “street crediability” to our buisness at “detroit custom paint” we are still hanging on by a thread, but now have hope to survive 2010. or as my best friend says “youre STILL a nobody, but NOW you have crediantials that prove it!”
Hey Patrick. I think one of the biggest differences, and one of the things that really sets Motor City Motors apart, is the fact that they abandoned the rule that completed vehicles had to look stock until someone flipped the “monster switch.” That also goes back to what TonyT said…the comparisons are eliminated pretty easily, because most of the Motor City Motors builds never would have been attempted on Monster Garage. I think this show will set itself apart from any/all other build shows once viewers have a chance to see the first few projects.
first of all hi jeff, …..i too was on a build #6 and agree that the complexity of the builds far surpass anything “jessie JANE” had done. this will be a raw grit, get it done with what ya got kinda thing. the focus on the vehicles is there, and so is the element of “family” yet in a positive , “with our backs against the wall” way. it was fun watching the california film crew be amazed by our motown dogged determination!
Thanks for the info Jeff. We’ll be adding a ton of content over the next few days, and continuously after that…hope you come back and contribute again.
Having made it on two episodes of the show (Episode 4 and the end of season All Star build) I can tell you that while the concept is basically a reinvention of Monster Garage a lot of the builds are way past the level of difficulty and complexity than the ones on Monster Garage.
I’m looking forward to seeing how it all plays out on the air, and I’m pretty sure anyone who was a fan of the old show will like this one more. The All Star build will probably amaze everyone, and in my opinion it was the most ambitious and ridiculous project ever done on a build show.
This looks like a cool show…def like monster garage though., I wonder what they’re gonna do to separate it from that show and eliminate comparisons? Bike builders building crazy machines out of regular machines is too similar, there must be something else to it. Still looks fun though, what self-respecting man doesn’t like big machines and lots of power?