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Automotive Lifestyle
AUTOS: Inside The ‘Car Warriors’ Marathon Build, One Team Tells What It’s Like
The six-man crew from Hot Rods by Dean toughed out the grueling 48-hour, non-stop construction of a complete custom car.
The Phoenix team hoists out the old drivetrain from the Pontiac Trans Am to complete the engine-challenge portion in 'Car Warriors.' (Photo: SPEED)
PROGRAMMING NOTE: A new season of Car Warriors on SPEED airs Friday, February 24 at 10 pm ET / 7 pm PT after the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race LIVE on SPEED. (7 pm ET / 4 pm PT).
When Car Warriors cranks up Friday for its second season on SPEED, it will be with an even-tighter format and a whole new set of challenges.
The unique custom-car reality show will also introduce SPEED viewers to a new contingent of car-building teams who will race the clock and each other to produce the best hand-built vehicles they can manage in just 48 hours of non-stop action.
One of those six-man teams is comprised of Dean Livermore and his crew from Hot Rods by Dean of Phoenix, Arizona. These seasoned pros are well-known in the hot-rod community, with multiple top national awards to their credit for superbly designed and well-built street rods and custom cars.
But could the crew from Dean’s do it under the intense pressure of a two-day build from start to finish? Even the Car Warriors host and judge, famed car customizer Jimmy Shine, calls it “a ridiculously short amount of time.”
Hot Rods by Dean faces off in the fourth episode against a team from Chicago called Chaotic Customs, but according to Livermore, the challenge was more about proving to themselves and to the world what they could do.
“We were six individuals going to the show and seeing what we could do to impress ourselves,” Livermore said. “Because we do it every day, just not under that time frame, not under those conditions.”
Livermore ticked off the multiple pitfalls that faced them during their 48-hour marathon.
“You walk into the shop and you don’t know what tools there are, you don’t know anything,” Livermore said. “Everybody deals with it differently; everybody’s persona changes. The aggravation of being in a strange shop, the aggravation of lack of food, then the lack of sleep, that’s a whole puzzle to work with aside from doing the car and all that stuff.”
And for that exhausting period of time, you feel totally cut off from the world, he said.
”You’re in a building that has one little mail-slot window. There’s no sense of reality or time. And there is no clock. You have no watches, you have no cell phones, you have nothing.
They take your phones away because they don’t want you using them to find out Internet information about a car. You have to come in knowing.
“But that’s why I picked the guys I picked. They all could cope with it, they’d all been pressure cooked before in different situations.”
Livermore chose for his crew five members of his Phoenix operation, each of them with his own specific skills as well as general knowledge of what goes into building a car:
• Chris Walker, the shop’s expert painter.
• Matt Andrews, a free-lance airbrush wizard.
• Charlie Sullens, an ace mechanic and metal fabricator.
• Glenn Kramer, the upholstery expert.
• Tony Arme, Livermore’s lead man for the crew, audio-system builder and fabricator. In the real world, Arme serves as shop foreman at Hot Rods by Dean.
Livermore described his team members as “the guys who could put up with the 48-hour treacherous ride, the guys who wouldn’t give me grief, the guys who wouldn’t fight me on anything, the guys I could just point and shoot and they would do it, regardless of the circumstances.”
“Everyone put their egos aside,” he added. “We had a common goal and we as a team, the six of us, we did it. It’s an amazing amount of work in such a short amount of time.”
When Car Warriors cranks up Friday for its second season on SPEED, it will be with an even-tighter format and a whole new set of challenges.
The unique custom-car reality show will also introduce SPEED viewers to a new contingent of car-building teams who will race the clock and each other to produce the best hand-built vehicles they can manage in just 48 hours of non-stop action.
One of those six-man teams is comprised of Dean Livermore and his crew from Hot Rods by Dean of Phoenix, Arizona. These seasoned pros are well-known in the hot-rod community, with multiple top national awards to their credit for superbly designed and well-built street rods and custom cars.
But could the crew from Dean’s do it under the intense pressure of a two-day build from start to finish? Even the Car Warriors host and judge, famed car customizer Jimmy Shine, calls it “a ridiculously short amount of time.”
Hot Rods by Dean faces off in the fourth episode against a team from Chicago called Chaotic Customs, but according to Livermore, the challenge was more about proving to themselves and to the world what they could do.
“We were six individuals going to the show and seeing what we could do to impress ourselves,” Livermore said. “Because we do it every day, just not under that time frame, not under those conditions.”
Livermore ticked off the multiple pitfalls that faced them during their 48-hour marathon.
“You walk into the shop and you don’t know what tools there are, you don’t know anything,” Livermore said. “Everybody deals with it differently; everybody’s persona changes. The aggravation of being in a strange shop, the aggravation of lack of food, then the lack of sleep, that’s a whole puzzle to work with aside from doing the car and all that stuff.”
And for that exhausting period of time, you feel totally cut off from the world, he said.
”You’re in a building that has one little mail-slot window. There’s no sense of reality or time. And there is no clock. You have no watches, you have no cell phones, you have nothing.
They take your phones away because they don’t want you using them to find out Internet information about a car. You have to come in knowing.
“But that’s why I picked the guys I picked. They all could cope with it, they’d all been pressure cooked before in different situations.”
Livermore chose for his crew five members of his Phoenix operation, each of them with his own specific skills as well as general knowledge of what goes into building a car:
• Chris Walker, the shop’s expert painter.
• Matt Andrews, a free-lance airbrush wizard.
• Charlie Sullens, an ace mechanic and metal fabricator.
• Glenn Kramer, the upholstery expert.
• Tony Arme, Livermore’s lead man for the crew, audio-system builder and fabricator. In the real world, Arme serves as shop foreman at Hot Rods by Dean.
Livermore described his team members as “the guys who could put up with the 48-hour treacherous ride, the guys who wouldn’t give me grief, the guys who wouldn’t fight me on anything, the guys I could just point and shoot and they would do it, regardless of the circumstances.”
“Everyone put their egos aside,” he added. “We had a common goal and we as a team, the six of us, we did it. It’s an amazing amount of work in such a short amount of time.”
Goodwood Festival Of Speed
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