I love my American restoration shows!

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I have moved on from the auction shows in the US and now on to car and restoration shows, American Restoration the latest decent one to arrive here, another reality documentary from the TRU TV universe, which includes the Discovery and the History Channel in America. They run shows like American Pickers, Counts Customs and Pawn Stars on the Dave, Blaze, Quest and ITV networks here and the various characters in those shows cross over now and then to help build the brand and familiarity with the stars and network. I’m also a huge fan of American Pickers although just repeats here at the moment. These guys in the shows run their own everyday businesses for real and no their stuff although for the actual TV shows it’s a heavily edited version of day-to day events for timeline reasons. Always read the wavers at the end credits for pointers on just how contrived the shows are. Its television after all. It gets a bit predictable with the locker auction shows and planted goodies so this one a bit more refreshing and less cynical as they work their magic. I’m not a big fan of the comical stuff to pad out the shows though. American Restoration is another show based in Vegas but different in that less of the going out to buy restorable stuff but stuff bought into the workshop by the customers to be restored by blue jean jacket wearing grease monkey Rick Dale ( a man who also needs restoring). It’s not about American classic cars this time around but all about restoring stuff like Americana and sentimental antiques of all shapes and sizes (like the people who bring them in), from a golf cart style vehicle used in the 1956 World Fair to old cash registers and rocking horses. A lot of the stuff people bring in to be restored often costs a hell of a lot less than the very high restoration quote and you do scratch your head why they would want to spend $1500 on bringing back an old Garden tool grinder worth fifty bucks. A cynic would say they just want to get on TV. It certainly does have that familiar artistic license to these shows where some scenes and customers seem contrived. The best thing about these shows apart from the reveal of the fully restored object to the customer at the end is seeing the guys do their work. I like the whole restoring thing of bringing value back to something old and used or the re-purposing side of things and you also learn new tricks here to do your own restoring. Old stuff was built to last, a lot better looking and often had style. Some of the 1950s and 60s Americana stuff is gorgeous. Who wouldn’t want a cool neon sign in their bedroom from the 1950s or Pepsi machine in the den? .