Long before Car Masters: Rust To Riches, where Gotham Garage is at the center of the series, came to Netflix and streaming, and frankly even before streaming was a thing, there was a TV series called Wrecks To Riches. It debuted on Discovery in 2006 with its first season and its second and final season wrapped up in 2007. The show focused on Barry White and his custom car-building shop, Barry’s Speed Shop in Southern California, located in the town of Corona. Yes, we know. No, it’s not a pun.
Anyways, each episode usually focuses on White getting his hands on a beat-up old car and then slowly and painstakingly reviving it, to ultimately sell it for a profit. Of course, sometimes, he managed to sell it for a loss as well. Because that is the way things are sometimes.
But the show could last only two seasons and a total of 16 episodes before “rising costs” ended the production. Plenty of fans lamented, this was a show they liked and Netflix and Motor Trend hadn’t quite flooded the world with car reality TV.
So what was the story behind Wrecks To Riches and Barry White, and where is he now? Here’s what we could dig up about Discovery’s 2006 car show and the man behind it all.
Meet Barry White: Drag Racer & Hot Rodder
In an interview with FuelCurve, Barry White dips into his family’s automotive history, in that his dad was a drag racer and built modified roadsters in the family garage. Barry and his brother would play in that garage and building cars just slipped into his blood then. He began racing and building from an early age, but unlike some car builders who get attached to the final product, White only loves the process. So when he turns a beat-up wreck into someone’s idea of a dream car – it's easy for him to move on because the car was someone else’s dream, his vision was simply the realization. Works perfect for a man running a custom car building business, no?
After more than 15 years of Wrecks To Riches having come and gone, Barry’s Speed Shop is smaller today, in a 10,000 square-foot building in Corona. And Barry likes it this way because it's more hands-on. Today’s builds are also more different, and while owners only want something “b**ching” made, they also want cars to be safe and have as much tech as possible. Along with good looks, the classic restomods of today have to be up to date with the best and most recent of them all.
What Happened On The Show
In Wrecks To Riches, Barry White and his team usually bought old beaters, classics from the ‘60s and the ‘70s in pitiable states, and then began the long process of converting them into modern resto-mods. For each car and each episode, the crew predictably runs into some problems, and then they have to put their minds and money together to resolve the issue. At the end of the episode, the restomod is auctioned off for profit, which usually was in the ballpark of $30,000-100,000. Of course, sometimes, the car did not sell and Barry White ended up losing all the money he had put in.
There was a bit of drama in the show but overall the language remained clean enough for it to be a family show, so this is one show you and the kids can watch together with watching someone build cars is an interesting niche for you.
The show seemed to be popular enough and when it was canceled, six episodes into the second season, the fans were shocked, because it seemed to have everything going for it. But apparently, the production costs were sky high and the viewer ratings not so much, which is why 16 episodes were the swan song of Barry White’s Wrecks To Riches.
Over the years though, perception has changed, and some fans do feel that there was a lot of fake stuff about the show.
The Goings On At Barry’s Shop Today
Barry White may have stopped being a TV star, but his car-building prowess has only gotten better with time because he says he has learned from all those earlier mistakes he made.
Today, his builds are not as high-end as they were on the show and he also does a lot of engine swaps and such, but he’s happy to be doing what he loves to do, so which is why the future is still bright and car-filled for him. His wife Rebecca handles the office and is the go-between him and the customers, and also handles the financial aspects.
He also has a dedicated team with him, some of whom have been working for him for more than a decade. Barry White admits that the world of car building is changing and there are fewer young folk trying to do what Barry’s Speed Shop does, but for now, he’s still in the game, even if it's not on TV.
Sources: FuelCurve, CommonSenseMedia