(gentle music and birdsong)
(engine noise)
- Remember when old cars were just old
and doing burnouts was encouraged by your buddies?
And when ripping your Plymouth 'Cuda through an
Alabama field was good clean fun?
Well, I don't, 'cuz I'm from Brooklyn.
But Austin Griggs here, the founder of Riding Muscle Cars?
Not only does he get it, but he's making it his mission
to show the rest of the world how it's done.
(country music)
(racing engine)
- [Austin] I always had a ratty muscle car.
Before the name was coined, I just,
that's what I exemplified, and all of my buddies
did it too.
I've got many friends that have had these things
sitting around, and they have dream cars.
These are the cars that people want,
and they weren't doing anything with them.
So I kind of felt the need to just kind of showcase
what people had that could be driven.
- [Mike] He's probably one of the nicest guys
you're ever going to meet, and he grew up
wrenching on and driving stuff like this.
This is a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda.
(engine revs)
- [Austin] It's a very fun, rewarding car man,
and I don't worry about what's going to happen to it.
If I break it I'll fix it.
It's a '70 'Cuda.
I own it and I can turn the key of it
and take it wherever I want.
(twangy music)
- [Mike] Austin didn't want just any Barracuda,
he wanted this Barracuda because this car
actually has some pretty cool history.
(country music)
- [Austin] I got this car just over like,
two and a half years ago but I've been
after this car since I was 16, 17 years old,
when I met a now friend of mine - has been for a long time -
ah, it used to sit out in his yard
and I'm not kidding when I say this thing
had goats on it all the time.
There'd be goats running around, jumping on the hood
and on the roof.
It broke my heart to see it always sitting
on flat tires, but every time I would think
that it was down for the count he'd crank it up,
put air in the tires and take it down to some local
show, and I wanted the car so bad.
One day when the car finally went for sale
and I knew it was going to a different owner
I had to steal it out from underneath him,
and uh, he knew that if I kept it, it was going to stay
local and it was going to stay looking
just like his car forever.
And he could drive it whenever he wants,
so it kind of worked out for him, ya know?
(engine screaming)
- [Mike] Austin, he always wanted an AAR 'Cuda,
which, AAR, if you don't know,
that's All American Racers, that's what it stands for.
- [Austin] The AAR 'Cuda was meant to be in Trans Am
series racing. It's a racing car, that's what it was for.
So even though it's not a real AAR, I've made it an AAR.
(engine revs)
I use it for racing and I like to beat the dog out of it.
(laughs)
(twangy music and engine sounds)
- [Mike] Austin knew he was never going to be able to afford
an AAR 'Cuda.
I mean, those cars right now bring in big money
and they're really tough to find.
And while this car, at first glance, kind of has that
double-AR look, it's obviously not.
But look at some of the things that he's got on this car.
He does have the cowl hood on this car.
He managed to get the hood off a real
AAR 'Cuda when that particular car
went through the car wash with the hood pins
pulled out of the hood.
The hood, once he got back on the road, flew up.
It broke the corners off the hood, and well,
ya know, Austin got it for a good deal.
The rear spoiler on the back, that's also
off an AAR 'Cuda.
If you look at it, it's got a big crack down the middle.
But it doesn't matter, because it looks cool.
- [Austin] It's a factory white car with a blue interior,
but over the progression of it's life
it changed colors many a times.
It's been black, it's been blue.
Honestly, I think it's aged well,
and if you were to paint this
it would be a travesty.
(engine noise)
(sound of hydraulic lift)
- I beefed this up and I didn't finish
- Didn't stop there?
- [Mike] When you look underneath the car, you look
at the sheet metal and then you look
at the sheet metal screws that come through
the extra sheet metal that was supposed to be there
when the new sheet metal was screwed into the
sheet metal that's missing.
If that makes any sense.
Basically a lot of this car has been replaced
with sheet metal screws and well,
just sheet metal.
There's even a license plate under this thing.
As far as functionality, what we're talking about is,
a small block 340,
a 727 with a reverse manual
valve body in it, an 8-3/4 rear end with 355 gears,
and that's it.
It's a motor, and a transmission,
and a rear end, three gauges and a tach
with a 'Cuda body on top with steering
(laughs)
- [Austin] It's so much fun and it's so rewarding
to lay in the throttle.
340s don't get a whole lot of credit, but when
they're just warmed up just a little bit, man,
I challenge any warmed over big block
to come tango with this thing 'cuz it'll run.
It runs really good.
It's intoxicating to hit that pedal. (laughs)
(engines racing)
- [Mike] I have to mention that one of the guys
that Austin gets his inspiration from
is his buddy, Mike Colboch.
(background chatter)
You go to his place and it is just a mecca
for old stuff.
You'll look at it and you will see cars
that will blow your mind.
Old Impalas and Camaros and Darts and Dodges.
Things are kind of lining his property that you're like,
oh my god, what are you doing with these things?
- [Austin] He has had big block Chevrolets
strolled around since I met the guy in my teens.
He's constantly chucking motors in cars
that are just dilapidated, ratty muscle cars,
and I've been watching that since I was a kid.
(background chatter)
- And it's been inspiring to see, cuz' I've seen him
just stroll down a road, baking tires in a car
that I've watched come out of the field
get a big block that he pulled out
from underneath a work bench into it,
jam a 4-speed into it and be like,
"Aw, yeah, I'll just uh, I'll change that,
and this, that and the other, and"
Oh, okay. You talk to a normal person regularly
when they tell you that you think six months,
there's going to be a car on the road.
Give it two days.
- [Mike] One of the cars that we've kind of
played with a little bit is Mike's red Camaro.
Now, that car is a 1968 Camaro Z28, and it kind of
follows the path of Austin's AAR 'Cuda, where
this was like a Trans Am clone that he made.
Mike Colboch's Z28 is a real Camaro Z28
but when you look at it, it doesn't look like any
Z28 that ever came out of the showroom.
Right?
It sits like a 4x4.
It's got these cool old kind of center-line
style (unclear) wheels from the 80s.
The tires on it are probably 30 years old
and it's got this crazy tall ram with
dual carbs on top, and an intake
that's just to die for.
(cars roar by)
- Going to a place like Mike Colboch's house is like,
I dunno, going to a family member's house.
I mean, we've known these guys for a day or two
and they already treated us like family.
- [Mike] Everybody's huddled over the hoods of these cars.
Everybody's trying to fix stuff.
Everybody's asking questions, drinking beer, laughing,
and just generally having a good time,
and the cars are always secondary.
And then the stories come out
about when they busted this knuckle
or broke that foot because the tranny fell on it
or something happened like that.
The car is the catalyst for that.
- [Austin] Oh, the importance of my friends is huge.
I was the silly one that was just like,
I just buy a bunch of muscle cars.
I've had 'em forever, we'll wrench on 'em
and people are going to love to see 'em.
My friends come from states away.
Fly in, drive in, just to lay under these things
and come out and enjoy these things with me.
I can't say enough for my buddies Tim Heck and Randy Goust
and my brother David, and my buddy Anthony Former.
Like, these guys, they've turned wrenches night after night
just to ensure that my cars make it.
Sometimes, you just don't know how
to thank somebody enough for that.
(background chatter)
- I'm very appreciative of it, but they know
that when their cars are down, whatever they got going on,
I'm right there for them too.
- [Voiceover] Austin's ability to amass a crew,
keep them together,
and create a ratty car movement, well,
part of that talent stems from his time
in the armed forces.
(background chatter)
- [Mike] Austin was a crew chief for an F-16
in the Air Force.
- [Austin] What made me join the Air Force was,
I'd just gotten out of high school.
I didn't know how I was going to make any money
to do anything.
I've always had hot rods but I couldn't afford 'em.
I remember I worked in a grocery store and I bought
an expensive after market distributor
for my Monte Carlo.
It took everything I had.
Like I had worked for a week, like saved after
paying my bills, you know, and I'd worked
for weeks to buy a distributor, and I was like,
I can't work three weeks at a time to buy one part.
(laughs)
So ya know, I needed a career.
(jet engines)
Airplanes and automobiles go hand in hand.
The core principles of them is the same,
and it's fun to wrench on something and get to go
watch it dance around in the sky.
I was an F-16 crew chief.
What you do as a crew chief is ya change engines,
ya change landing gear components, hydraulic components,
troubleshoot any of the aircraft's systems.
And you're also responsible for an airplane,
and they are the protection of this country, so,
if it needs to be called on, it has to be ready.
- [Mike] A pilot gets in that thing and he can't make it
through his mission, and more importantly,
can't make it home, there's a problem.
What that did was that told Austin, ya know what?
When I go home I don't want everything to be
perfect, I want to relax, I want to unwind a little bit,
and I want to play with my cars.
- [Austin] Ya know, the whole time I worked on
these airplanes, my 69 Dart was sitting
right there at the flight line.
I could be at my jet working and
I could look out and see my 6-pack hood
sitting on my 318 Dart with the big
275 60s out back just in eyeshot.
There's my hotrod.
Get out, turn my toolbox in, get in my
rag tag muscle car and just thunder down
til I get off base 'cuz ya can't
act a fool on base, but uh, soon as I hit that gate, man,
it wasn't nothin' but black marks
through the covered bridge. (laughs)
(country music)
- [Mike] Time and time again we get
submissions for this show where people go
I would love for you to drive my car
but I don't think it's nice enough.
And the fact is, well, what is nice enough?
To you, even if your car is a bit
on the rowdy side, it might be the nicest thing
in the world, and to us that's really all that matters.
- [Austin] I can park right up front
at the grocery store.
It doesn't matter to me if somebody door dings it,
adds character, don't care.
I'll remember if there's a red mark on this thing
but if something else is sitting there (mumbles).
And when I'm mad I'll just go,
(clicks tongue) Mmm, ah, dang, oh well.
(engine roars)
- [Mike] Austin's philosophy was so great, in fact,
that we flew across the country to Alabama
to check out his event on the
No Shine Shit List.
(engine rumbles)
- [Austin] I felt the need to make some cruises,
make some races, jut kind of showcase
what people have that could be driven.
I don't know why you're here, alright?
(laughs)
I don't know how many times a hundred hot rods
gets out but I have never seen this before.
- [Mike] He figured that he was going to get
30 or 40 cars to show up.
- We showed up this morning and there
was like 105 cars.
- [Austin] We're going to keep doing this again.
(cheers and applause)
- {Randy] Man it's, it's humbling to see how many
people have shown up.
Grass roots pick up, ya know, out of the automotive world.
- [Austin] Alright, so what we're going to do
is we're going to pull out of here
as organized as we can, without hitting each other.
Remember, these are ratty muscle cars.
(engine noises)
- Make sure you're giving room.
Don't drive up somebody's tailpipe.
Don't do anything stupid.
Let's not get hurt today.
When we get to the drag strip
it's all skinny pedal all day.
(engine noise)
- [Mike] When you have a hundred muscle cars
and muscle trucks rolling down the road,
that's a sight to be seen.
There are a couple of guys from South Carolina,
couple of guys from Virginia that rolled in
and their cars were far from perfect.
One guy showed up and his car didn't even have any windows.
There were a couple of like, rat rods that
they didn't have any windshields.
There were cars that were pickup trucks.
There were cars that people drug out of the weeds
that hadn't been moved in 25 years
and they got them ready just for this event.
- My dad, we built this car together
when I was 14 years old, literally.
- [Mike] Fathers and sons.
We had sons and daughters.
We had cousins, we had brothers, we had friends.
People came together around this,
this ratty muscle car movement in cars that,
a lot of people would look at and
just kind of discard and be like,
well, why would you drive that?
Why don't you paint it?
Why don't you do this?
And I've been in that position where
somebody comes up and like they'll look around the car like
well don't you think you're going to paint it?
It's like, man, eff off, I don't have to paint
a damn thing, it's my car.
(engine noise)
- We came to the mecca.
For a Saturday morning, to bring together 105 cars
that all kind of look like this?
(knocks on metal roof)
Sound like this?
That are kind of dirty like this?
If you don't think people are having fun
and enjoying these old cars
in the states that they're in,
you guys are crazy.
(engine noise)
- [Voiceover] I need you to look closely at the
individuals and the vehicles you saw today.
Look at the camaraderie, the smiles,
and the sense of family, and then consider this,
These are not show cars.
They are not objects of status or wealth.
But instead, they're an outlet that helps one leave
the problems of the daily grind outside the garage door,
which is exactly where they belong.
(easy country music and engine noise)