Philip Fibiger

Monster Garage on The Discovery Channel is one of the coolest programs I’ve seen in a while. Jesse James is given 7 days and $3000 to turn an ordinary vehicle into a monster, and it gets raced against the vehicle it’s emulating. Day 1 is planning with experts and automotive designers, day 7 is the race, so the team of 5 mechanics/welders/customizers he puts together has 5 days to do things like turn a Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer into a garbage truck, or a Mustang into a lawn mower. When done, the vehicles have to appear stock.

The garbage truck was incredible. It was built so that the entire top of the truck pivoted up, revealing the garbage bin, and then a hydraulic arm extends out and grabs the trash can and pours the contents into the bin, and then tosses it away. When done, it closes back up and looks just like an ordinary explorer, albiet one that has 20″ custom chrome wheels and an amazing custom paint job.

These guys (and girls) really are artists, the work they do is inspiring to a shade tree mechanic. If they can weld a subframe into the explorer that allows the roof to pivot off using hydraulics, I can tear down and rebuild the carburetors on my motorcycle! You get the sense that for them, at least when it comes to machines, anything is possible. Missing a key part of a fire truck water pump you’ve never seen? No problem, just grab a cylinder of aluminum and machine it!

Oh, and while sometimes the work is more or less smooth sailing, and the group really clicks, other times there is some pretty interesting human drama.