Tex Mex Motors

I watched the first season of NetFlix’s Tex Mex Motors. It is a series about Borderline Customs, a car restorer and customizing shop in El Paso, Texas. The owner is Mike Coy, the former auto painter for Gas Monkey Garage. They buy mostly classic cars cheap in Mexico and then restore and customize them in El Paso to sell for a profit.

It was interesting to see some of the cool cars they built, but all of these shows feel the same now. It makes me wonder if maybe the same writers and production companies are doing them all.

While I do think Borderline Customs is an actual business that is being run, I have a feeling that what is going on with the show is completely different. I think they film the day to day operations until enough stuff happens that they can build a semi-true narrative around it and then film a lot of scripted scenes to fit that narrative. So, you get a very exaggerated version of what really happened in the shop.

This interview between Mike Coy and Richard Rawlings, owner of Gas Monkey Garage, is very telling in many ways. From what they both say about the filming of the shows I got a strong impression that there are basically two worlds going on, the actual buying, restoring, and selling of classic cars and the one the production company has created and packaged in a way that they think will please their viewers and of course make them money. I’m not saying that these shows aren’t entertaining, but after a while they all are so much alike that you can pretty much predict what is going to happen each episode.

1. Show at least three cars each episode

2. Always have some emotional drama between the crew, the seller, or the buyer, and all three if possible each episode

3. Always end each episode on a cliffhanger, negative cliffhangers are best.

I don’t know hardly anything about buying, selling, or restoring cars, but I do know a lot about fly fishing. And I get the same impression from these shows that I used to get when I watched fly fishing shows. The ones done by professional production companies are scripted beyond belief.

I know this because they often show things that I have done while fly fishing and it is nothing like what you see on the show. I imagine it is the same when a combat veteran watches a lot of the war movies that are out there.

Like I said, these shows can be entertaining, but I think more and more I will probably be simply watching the scenes with the cool cars and ignoring the rest of the fake drama and bad humor.