The Very Best Car Customisation Shows Ever

Check out our list of the coolest and craziest Discovery Channel custom car shows. These next-level mods – transforming everything from everyday supermarket sedans to the meanest, funkiest, fastest and most expensive rides ever – have got everything you need to satisfy your passion for petrol!

Fast Facts Petrolhead Zone
11 February 2021

Welcome to our run-down of the best Discovery Channel custom car shows. Here you’ll find the coolest, craziest custom car builders on TV who have the mad skills to turn hunks of junk into some of the raddest road-legal rides on the planet!

From the custom car TV shows where the guys transform normal, everyday runners into one-of-a-kind crazy cars to customising the hypercars of the super-rich and famous, whatever you’re into, with our custom car building shows, we’ve got you covered!

Overhaulin’

Custom car building TV shows don’t come any more popular than Overhaulin’! With superstar designer Chip Foose and his A-Team of metal magicians, they hunt for worthy ‘marks’ who deserve to have their rusty old rides given a brand new lease of life!

Overhaulin’ is one of the best American custom car TV shows as it celebrates community stars and local heroes, military vets, survivors, the incredible emergency service personnel and some truly incredible people who go over and above for others. These guys are the stars and Chip and his team transform their cars from tired old clunkers into concourse kings and queens, including the awesome Camaro build in the video.

The Overhaulin’ crew are some of the best custom car builders on TV and these hardcore metalwork maestros work around the clock to create life-changing surprises for those who most deserve it.

Overhaulin’ Chronicles Vol. 4: A team of talented mechanics and designers work hard to create a life-changing surprise for unsuspecting vehicle owners.

Fast ‘n Loud

Richard Rawlings is one of the most famous custom car builders on TV and as well as being the head honcho of Gas Monkey Garage in Dallas, he’s the star of Fast ‘n’ Loud, one of the best custom car TV shows on the Discovery Channel.

‘Bottom line, if we’re gonna have fun, it better have a motor’ and he finds his motors all over the place, from small town swap meets, broken down barns, forgotten car lots and even overgrown fields and each vintage vehicle Rawlings and his crew find has one thing in common – they are screaming to be given a brand new lease of life from the Gas Monkeys!

Check out the video to see Richard and Michael hitting the classic car jackpopt!

This is proper custom car TV. The long hours, tough builds, hard-to-hit deadlines have kept these guys busy for years on one of the most popular custom car building TV shows on the box and whatever car they’re working on, you know for sure it’s gonna be fast ‘n’ loud!

Fast N’ Loud: Motoring experts Richard Rawlings and Aaron Kaufman tour America, looking for old and abandoned cars that they can restore to glory in their garage in Dallas.

Bad Chad Customs

Chad Hiltz is the proprietor of the Hiltz Auto Company and the king of Bad Chad Customs, one of the best custom car TV shows on the Discovery Channel. From his backwater workshop in Nova Scotia, he creates some of the most awesome, one-of-a-kind creations you’ve ever seen.

He’s a hardcore Willy Wonka – if he can think it up, he’ll build it, whatever it takes! Small budgets, a basic toolkit and old junk from the scrapyard (including kitchen cabinets, bits off an old rusty boat and even school lockers), he creates some of the most mind-blowing builds in one of the best American custom car TV shows. Check out his awesome custom hot rod for the Rockabilly Car Show

This is one of the most outrageous Discovery Channel custom car shows and it’s all about Chad, the guy that could build a Ferrari from a fireplace!

Bad Chad Customs: Chad Hiltz is the boss of builds. With his trusty Green Goblin Customs team, he takes scraps of metal from the junkyard and turns them into award-winning cars.

Extreme Car Hoarders

‘When it comes to building a Kustom car, Rick Dore is in a league of his own’ James Hetfield, lead singer of Metallica

This is custom car TV taken to the extreme! Guru of the Gearheads Rick Dore teams up with former WWE wrestler-turned-custom-car-mechanic Chuck Palumbo on a crusade to save some awesome American classics from the crusher – but it’s not one car they’re after, it’s entire hoards!

Here’s the deal – Rick and Chuck will tow away a forgotten fleet, sell what they can and use the cash to restore one car into a showstopping concourse queen. Few American custom car TV shows match up but can they persuade these hardcore hoarders to part with their collections of classic iconic cars such as Corvairs, Chevys, VW bugs and Impalas to hit the paydirt?

Coming up with the idea for Extreme Car Hoarders was the easy bit as you’ll see in the video, the hard bit is making money from the hoards. Watch one of the best Discovery Channel custom car shows to find out how it’s done!

Extreme Car Hoarders: Car experts Rick Dore and Chuck Palumbo are on a crusade to save some of the world's most precious classic cars from oblivion by overhauling extreme car hoards.

The Auto Firm with Alex Vega

Art, music and style collide head-on in Miami and The Auto Firm with Alex Vega is the beating heart of all three. He’s the car guru to the stars and anything is possible in one of the hottest new custom car shows on TV.

This is next-level business and Alex Vega takes you inside the ultra-exclusive world of high-end car customisation as he transforms unbelievable cars into works of art in an attempt to trump even the world’s best looking motors. Zumba creator Beto Perez brings in his 2017 Lamborghini Aventador for a facelift, Cleveland Indians’ pitcher Carlos Carrasco’s rare Ferrari 488 GTB gets a cool customisation, music legend Akon gets an uprated Polaris General and Latin star Marc Anthony gets a brand new. Miami-style limo van built from a Mercedes Metris people carrier.

The Auto Firm with Alex Vega is custom car TV at the top end – no-one does it better!

The Auto Firm with Alex Vega: Alex Vega's Auto Firm stands out as the go-to, one-stop for celebrities and car enthusiasts alike. With his incredible vision and hand-picked team of specialists, cars are transformed into highly unique works of art.

Iron Resurrection

Former Great Biker Build Off winner Joe Martin scours the backwater sheds, abandoned car lots and the vast Texas wilderness with his wife Amanda and best mate Jayson ‘Shag’ Arrington for rusty roadsters and broken-down bikes in one of the maddest Discovery Channel custom car shows. The three musketeers are pickers, wheeler dealers and incredible metalworkers and their awesome builds speak for themselves.

The Martin Bros Customs crew in Johnson City, Texas transform their forgotten finds into some of the hottest hot rods and craziest choppers in the Lone Star State and once they’re done, Shag sweet talks his way into getting the best deals for the best wheels.

Iron Resurrection is one of the best new custom car shows on TV and they do exactly what it says on the tin!

Iron Resurrection: Joe Martin brings new life to old iron at his shop Joe Martin Customs. Working with his wife Amanda, and best friend Shag, this custom shop oversees every phase of restoration from design, fabrication and mechanicals, to the final paint job.

Car Fix

From new engine overhauls to turbo-charging the classics, Lou, Jared, Bryan and Jeremy are the stars of Car Fix, one of Discovery’s coolest custom car building TV shows. They’ll even teach you how to do some awesome customisations from the comfort of your own garage!

These award-winning auto wizards know all the key things to look for in second hand cars and they soon go to work on some classic cars, including firing up a Ferrari 430 and unleashing it on a half-mile hot rod track, building a custom exhaust for a 1,400 bhp Toyota Supra and in one of their hardest custom jobs, fixing the convertible roof of a ’64 Lincoln Continental.

Not only do the Car Fix guys fix and customise cars, they also share their recommendations for parts and tools and you’ll get some of the best insider tips, tricks and hints on how to customise your own car from the some of the best custom car builders on TV.

Car Fix: From modifications and upgrades to repairs. Explore the extraordinary step-by-step work behind hands-on, automotive projects that use high-end performance and aftermarket products.

Inside West Coast Customs

Ryan Friedlinghaus is the OG of custom car builders on TV and to go Inside West Coast Customs in Burbank, California is to step into one of the most famous customisation shops in the world.

Ryan and his WCC crew turn the ordinary into extraordinary, one-off custom showstoppers that will blow your mind. This is outside-the-box car customisation that pushes the boundaries of what’s possible, including an awesome resto for Kid Rock’s Cadillac, Post Malone’s tricked-out Texas Slab and Green Day’s old tour bus entrusted to WCC for some hardcore TLC.

You can also see what the guys do to YouTuber Logan Paul’s old school bus and without wanting to be outdone, his brother Jake brings in a massive truck for the guys to transform into a merch shop that doubles as the ultimate rescue vehicle!

Inside West Coast Customs set the benchmark for custom car TV shows and you can watch full episodes now!

Inside West Coast Customs: Ryan Friedlinghaus and his team transform ordinary vehicles into one-of-a-kind showstoppers. With tight deadlines and complex builds, they do it all from rendering to reality.

Unique Rides

Will Castro and Team Unique are custom kings and stars of one of the top-rated custom car building TV shows. In their Long Island resto shop, his crew deliver the goods to some of the biggest sports and music stars on the planet who all expect serious bang for their buck.

They put the full-court press on NBA superstar Carmelo Anthony’s Jeep Wrangler, they colour change Ice T’s 2018 Karma Revero and they upgrade Billy Joel’s classic Jaguar. They even transform 80s icon and CHiPs legend Erik Estrada’s wood-panelled 1983 Rolls Royce limo and take DJ Khaled’s 4×4 with the brief to make it the most unique ride ever!

Unique Rides only deals in one-of-a-kind custom whips for the super-rich and uber-famous which is why it’s one of the best new custom car shows on TV.

Gear Dogs

Welcome to The Doghouse, home of Nate Boyer’s Kultured Customs and Gear Dogs, one of the most original and innovative custom car building TV shows. At his hot rod and car resto mod shop in Gardner, Kansas, find out if he’s got the guts to juggle his business, his family life and a cool custom car TV show!

This is a Discovery Channel custom car show with a twist – Nate opened up the Doghouse as a community garage where car and truck owners from far and wide bring in their rusty rides to restore and sell, ably helped by Nate and his amazing team of mechanics, fabricators and paint specialists, but will these super-cool customisation jobs pay off?

Watch Nate as he risks everything betting on a guy with a ’67 Belvedere. Will the pressure of finishing a 1970 Chevy C-10 on time cost him his business and when he’s offered a 50/50 split on a rare 1956 Chevy Nomad, is he prepared to put everything on the line to get the job done?

Gear Dogs is custom car TV at its most real!

Trans Am

When General Motors closed Pontiac’s doors, Trans Am, the most famous and iconic name in  American automotive history was gone for good…or was it? Muscle car obsessives Scott and Tod Womack risked everything to buy the legendary brand and Trans Am, one of the best American custom car TV shows was born.

Scott the builder and Tod the businessman go head to head as they put the king of the muscle cars back on the road. They gamble on engines, sibling rivalry boils over in a race between a 1978 Bandit and a brand new Trans Am and a massive risk on a Vista Cruiser puts Scott in a $100,000 hole. Will he climb out of it in time to save the business?

These guys are two of the most passionate custom car builders on TV – they wouldn’t have risked everything to buy one of America’s most iconic car brands if they were anything less!

Trans Am: Scott and Todd Warmack are obsessed with muscle cars. They set out to build brand new Trans Ams for the public, while also modifying and restoring other classic muscle cars on the side.

Hand Built Hot Rods

Steve Strope and his team at Pure Vision Design in Simi Valley, California are the kings of Hand Built Hot Rods, one of the most hardcore custom car building TV shows on the box. Specialising in American muscle cars from the 60s and 70s, Steve and his team create some of the most unbelievable magazine-cover street machines and hot rods you’ve ever seen!

These guys have a passion for racing history and auto heritage and you can feel it in every American custom car. TV shows don’t get more exciting than this, they’ve even built cars for the Fast & Furious franchise.

They combine classic design with state-of-the-art tech and you can watch as they work their mechanical magic racing against the clock to get a ’57 Ford Wagon ready for SEMA, they work on Joe Rogan’s Corvette and they transform a forgotten 1971 GTO for a client who gives them free reign to do whatever they want…

Hand Built Hot Rods: Pure Vision in Simi Valley, California is a custom shop that specialises in one-off hot rods. Steve Strope and his extraordinary team put their skills to the test and work their magic.

Wheeler Dealers

Discovery Channel custom car shows don’t get more popular than Wheeler Dealers, the British cult classic starring fast-talking car dealer Mike Brewer and his two mechanical maestros Edd China and Ant Anstead. From wartime VWs and rare BMWs to American classics from the 50s and boy-racer legends from the 80s, these wheeler dealers buy, fix and flip almost every car you can think of combining custom style with classic car restoration – usually for a profit!

The boys have transformed some automotive legends from scrapheap to superstar including taking this old-school ’63 Chevy Corvair from $2,000 dud to the ultimate beach cruiser.

Edd and Ant are two of the best custom car builders on TV and with each build they hope to make a tidy little earner, but do they? Tune in to one of the most popular custom car building TV shows on the Discovery Channel to find out.

Wheeler Dealers: Experienced car dealer, Mike Brewer, is joined by multi-talented mechanic, Ant Anstead, in a monumental motoring mission: to find and restore iconic cars to later sell for a profit at their LA-based shop. In the series, Mike has the challenging jo...

Wrench’d

In the quiet Midwest town of Watseka, Illinois, Justin Nichols and his team at Nichols Paint & Fab are making a big noise as the stars of Wrench’d, one of the raddest Discovery Channel custom car shows. He started aged seven with a 1931 Ford and has become known and respected through the industry as a creative genius, building and customising some of the most insane cars and bikes you’ll ever see.

From transforming the engine of a 1963 VW Beetle into a post-apocalyptic-inspired bare-metal trike to creating a fully customised race car from a 1969 Saab 99 and an unreal ‘see it to believe it’ custom paint job for a 2014 Chevy 1500, Justin and his crew are hitting the automotive headlines for all the right reasons.

If you’re looking for one of the best American custom car TV shows, get Wrench’d.

Carspotting

Entrepreneurial brothers Carlos and Pedro Becerra, owners of Cascadia Customs in Washington scour the remote and desolate mountains, forests and farmlands of the Pacific Northwest for abandoned American muscle cars to customise and flip for a fast profit. This is Carspotting, an all-American custom car TV show at its best!

Along for the ride is their best friend Niko – a walking ‘car-cyclopedia’ – and the three musketeers hunt and hustle for the holy grails of the car world. Once they’ve got them it’s back to the shop where they get down and dirty bringing their forgotten relics back from the dead.

Watch them turn a rotten 1970 ‘Cuda into a $65,000 Hot Wheels car, a rusty, broken down ’57 GMC truck into a wheel-screeching hot rod and a 1955 Bel Air that has the awesome power to make or break their business.

This is custom car TV at its best!

Driving Wild

Former McLaren F1 mechanic Marc ‘Elvis’ Priestley knows quite a bit about the world’s fastest cars and he’s the star of one of the best custom car building TV shows on the box, and this is customising taken to the absolute limit. Getting up close and personal with the world’s coolest, strangest and most extraordinary motorsports, Elvis is going back to basics, but not like you’ve ever seen before. Can he live up to his reputation in the world of motorsport?

He is of the most talented custom car builders on TV and you can watch as he transforms a scrapyard Saab into a Swedish Folkrace car to take part in one of Scandinavia’s biggest motorsport events, he builds a hopping low-rider in Mexico in under a week and he pulls out every one of his F1 skills to build a tractor capable of high-speed racing!

Custom car building TV shows don’t come any better than Driving Wild. Can he live up to his stellar reputation in the world of motorsport or will he stall on the starting grid? There’s only one way to find out…

RMD Garage

Described as an ‘automotive alchemist’ and a ‘vehicular visionary’, RMD boss Ralph Holguin hustled as a kid washing cars to make a fast buck. Now he creates some of the hottest hot-rods out there and is the star of RMD Garage, one of the best Discovery Channel custom car shows.

This is the true American dream and he has created an environment where only extraordinary exists! A former Truck of the Year winner, Ralph and his team have crafted some truly sensational builds, including the coolest ’67 Beetle to cruise the SoCal beaches, a world-class customisation of the iconic ’57 Thunderbird and the best-looking Bel Air Bubbletop in the world.

Check out the video of their 1955 Ford F100 build, it will blow you away! This is one of the best custom car building shows on Discovery.

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