(upbeat electric guitar music)
- [Host] Welcome to a lot of really cool stuff here.
It's going to be a challenge going through here.
Have a lot of fun. Enjoy the show.
(upbeat electric guitar music)
- [Host] All right, guys. We're going to have a chance
to take a look at all the cool cars and trucks out here.
Anything stand out?
- [Participant] The '56 Dodge mail truck.
Those two guys found it in a junkyard.
It had been there for 42 years.
It's just natural rust right now.
Built it from the ground up.
Had a tree growing through it.
They just cut it off, repaired the roof.
- It's kind of a popular thing right now,
the old Datsuns.
- [Host] He was showing us pictures of his daughter
standing on parts and stuff.
- [Participant] They found it, bought it, shipped it to him,
and then they started building it here. He's local.
- Well, I like that bubble top El Camino.
- [Host] The El Camino had a great story to it.
That was actually the second car built.
The first one was a yellow one.
I don't know if you went through the photo album,
but it was wrecked in '04.
They built another one, him and his brother.
- Good? All right. Wrap.
(upbeat electric guitar music)
- [Host] Hopefully, you had a lot of fun this morning.
This is like the biggest attendance,
the biggest amount of cars, trucks
at any of these Legends events.
This has not been an easy job to go through
and pick a winner.
I'm glad that we had the help
of the Gas Monkey Garage guys today.
- Definitely, thank you for the help.
The winner is Nestor Mendoza
with his Datsun 1200.
(applause)
(upbeat electric guitar music)
(light techno music)
- [Nestor] My name is Nestor Mendoza.
We are in my house. Well, actually the garage.
This is where everything happens.
I don't really do this for a living or anything.
I got tired of waiting on people to fix my cars
and to work on my cars.
I had one car that went
from shop to shop for about two years.
They didn't do anything to it,
and I just decided to start doing it myself.
The car's a 1989 Datsun 1200,
or in Japan, it's known by Nissan Sunny or Datsun Sunny.
In this case, I had the front end of a '72 Skyline.
It has the differential of a Toyota Corolla '86 driveshaft,
and also the engine, as you can see.
I started customizing Hot Wheels about two years ago.
It's really more of a hobby. I make them for myself.
Here in my shop, the one that helps a lot is my daughter.
Back in 2000, that's when I first went
to a Hot Import Nights.
I had a 1993 Honda Civic, and I took it with me.
There was a lot of guys and models and everything.
She seemed to enjoy it, so basically,
that's how everything started for us.
Garage spirit would be, I really love what I do.
I try to pass that on to my daughter as well,
and basically just have fun doing what I do.
- My name is Arwen Mendoza.
We're in my dad's shop right now.
This is where his imagination goes wild.
I like cars. I'm really into them.
I get to spend time with my dad and bond with him.
Hot Wheels ... when I first thought of it,
and you look at the car at the store,
none of them are the same.
They have no rules to them. They're all crazy.
That's what my dad likes.
He's all about being unique
and not following the crowd.
This is pretty much the truck that matches him.
I want to become a photographer.
I really like taking pictures of cars.
Whenever we go out to car shows or something,
I'm always on the floor, taking pictures,
trying to capture the right moment
or capture the right angle.
I try not to take pictures
that everyone would take with their cell phone.
- Hot Wheels is about family.
This really is just a family affair for us.
- We got up really early to make our way
over there to the show.
My dad was really excited.
I was really excited for him, too,
because we worked hard on this truck.
- Yeah, we didn't stop until
almost 4:00 in the morning, this morning.
When we're working here, we really enjoy music.
All kinds of music.
It doesn't really matter what language
or what type of music it is.
We really enjoy it.
Both of us start singing, or I sing one part,
she sings the other,
and it makes everything a lot easier.
- I would consider the perkiest moments would be
when we're both frustrated, and then out of nowhere,
we just start laughing, and everything turns out to be fine.
I would say there was a really strong competition.
I had seen the way people
looked at the truck.
I believe that his truck was the best one there.
- When they said my name today,
I wouldn't believe it.
I couldn't believe it, and I said, "Huh."
It really means a lot to me that my work
has been noticed by someone,
and it makes me want to try harder.