Back in Tune

Pimp My Ride gave West Coast Customs national prominence, but it almost drove them into ruin in the process. Now, WCC is rising from the ashes of reality TV and blazing a radical new trail in the quest for the world’s sweetest ride. Hint: It’s called a Corvelle, and it’s like no car ever built.
By Chuck Tannert Photographs by Michael Ballard

A little over a year ago, Ryan Friedlinghaus faced a life-altering decision: To pimp or not to pimp? The CEO
of West Coast Customs had to choose between his 13-year-old custom-car shop and the stardom and profits that came from his four-year stint on MTV’s Pimp My Ride. “I should’ve been happy with all of the success and worldwide recognition,” he explains. “Instead, I was embarrassed. I kept thinking, If we ride this wave any longer, there won’t be a business left.” In 2004, the 31-year-old and his streetwise crew of automotive artisans became overnight superstars as the heart and soul of MTV’s Pimp My Ride. Ryan, Big Dane, Ish, and Mad Mike transformed beaten-down clunkers into slick street machines, wowing young viewers and spawning three spin-offs for the network. “Shit, we had the highest-rated show on cable for three years” says Friedlinghaus. “We were even hotter than Jackass.”

But as Friedlinghaus found out, reality, TV fame-even from the kind of show that sets out to merely document your job, comes with hidden service charges. “The segment producers were out of control” he says. “They were telling us how to paint cars, what types of interiors to use, pushing us to do all sorts of stupid shit.”

In one episode, they pitted Big Dane against the diminutive Ish for a sumo match in the middle of the shop. “I was told it was great for TV” Friedlinghaus says. “But what the fuck did it have to do with building cars? Nothing. It was a fucking nightmare.” The demands of the show caused dissension within the shop. Certain people got airtime, while other, the grunts doing the work behind the scenes, received little, if any, recognition.

Meanwhile, the show had begun pushing away the shop’s core business. The WCC crew worked from 9 A.M. to 9 P.M. on MTV projects, then till 2 or 3 A.M. on their customers’ cars. The demands of the show were put ahead of the shop’s clientele; even those, like Shaquille O’ Neal, who helped build Friedlinghaus’s business in the first place. “We built something like 30 cars for Shaq” he explains. “When the show came around, we just didn’t have the time to meet his needs. Eventually, he went elsewhere.”

And if that wasn’t enough fallout, the show began corroding the shop’s reputation. Friends in the industry were begging Friedlinghaus to drop Pimp My Ride. “They’d say it makes you look like you can’t do anything serious” he says. “I spent way too long build ing this business to let it go down in flames. My grandfather, God bless his soul, gave me the $5,000 to start this shop in 1993. I wasn’t about to lose it for a TV show.”

Still, exactly who instigated the actual breakup is murkier than a pan of spent oil. Friedlinghaus decided to move from the relatively small Inglewood, California, shop into a larger, state-of-the-art facility in Corona, knowing full well that it would be a problem for MTV. However, it would finally make WCC a one-stop shop; able to do everything from performance upgrades and fabrication to paint and electronics.

When MTV heard about the move, they balked at making the daily trip from L.A. to film the show. Friedlinghaus decided to rally the troops, insisting that if they all stuck together, the production crew would have no choice but to make the drive north. Instead, MTV made offers to certain key players to continue the show from a new shop. And some of the guys, such as Pimp My Ride host Xzibit, went with MTV. Friedlinghaus says it still stings: “I support any move to better oneself. It’s when people stab you in the back that pisses me off.” Before PMR, Xzibit was just another guy hanging around the shop, a middling rapper with an easy charm and a modicum of fleeting success. PMR made him a star, and it was Friedlinghaus who handed him the job. “I’m not looking for thanks, but I expected some loyalty” the car builder vents. “He should’ve followed us. Instead, he spit in my face.” (Xzibit did not respond to requests for comment.) And it seems like every time the rapper does an interview, he takes a jab at his old friend. “He went on Big Boy’s Neighborhood [a show on L.A.'s Power 106 FM] recently and blasted us” rages Big Dane. “Saying shit like, “I wouldn’t take my car to them, they do shoddy work.” Come on. We built several cars for both those fools.”

Today, Friedlinghaus is happier and more confident in the work he’s doing. He’s doing it his way again. The new shop is hopping with activity and back to doing what it does best-building some of the coolest, most talked-about cars in the business. They are in the process of opening shops in Dubai and Russia, and have even landed another reality-TV show. “Lightning does strike twice” Big Dane chuckles. TLC, the same network that does American Chopper, American Hot Rod, and Dirty Jobs, is producing the new show, which will follow a typical workplace-drama formula. “Now the world will get to see what we really do here” says Big Dane. “The heart and soul of this shop will be revealed.”

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