There have been a lot of successful shows on The History Channel over the years, but not many that have been as popular as Counting Cars.  The show is a spinoff from Pawn Stars. Rick Harrison, who is the main guy from Pawn Stars would go to a particularly colorful car expert by the name of Danny Koker, whenever he needed a car to be evaluated. It became pretty obvious rather quickly that Koker had some star appeal so the History channel gave him his own show, which has now been on the air since 2012.

The show follows the daily activities of Danny and the other guys at Counts Customs which is a company that restores and modifies cars. The show is popular for a variety of reasons, one of which is all the cool rides one gets to see being worked on, and the other is Koker himself is quite the character, as are some of the other guys on the show.

Counting Cars is still going strong but there are some things that you need to know before you check out the show, even if you have been watching it for a while, knowing these facts will make the show more enjoyable.  Here is what every Counting Cars fan needs to know.

20 Being Famous Makes it Hard to Haggle

Fame is truly a double-edged sword. On the one hand, Danny makes a whole lot of cash for being the host of Counting Cars and it also helps his other business ventures, which we will touch on later on in this article. But on the negative side, for a guy who makes a lot of his money being a good haggler and getting the best price for the cars he works on, being famous kind of blows up his spot. He has found that a lot of people that he used to be able to get a good price from on a car now push for more money because he is rich and famous.

19 Danny Played A Vampire On TV

The whole "Count" thing didn't just come out of nowhere. Back in the day, Danny used to play a vampire as the host of a cheesy horror show, he was known as "Count Cool Rider".

Danny would come on stage speaking in a bad Transylvanian accent wearing a cape and talk about the movie people were about to see.

The set had a coffin in the middle of it and Danny would wear a cape.  Yes, all of that is totally lame, but it is also the type of thing that plays well on these types of shows.

18 Danny Can Get Attached To His Cars

People that star in successful car shows aren't usually just a bunch of actors, they often totally love the cars that they work on, and Danny is no different. He truly is into cars. He has said that he gets attached to the cars that he works on and actually even has a hard time selling them because of how much he put into it, and by that he doesn't mean work hours, he means his heart. Sure, he might be rich because he works on cars, but you know he would do it no matter what.

17 Not Everyone Loves Them

The cast of Counting Cars is very popular, they all seem like the kind of people that you would want to hang out with no matter what the situation was, but not everyone is so enamoured of them.

Well, at least the people that tour the shop in Vegas.

One guy said on Yelp "This I would almost refer to as a borderline scam. Then, they get you where you have to buy drinks, appetizers, food, etc. while you're waiting for the crew to show up. The crew was 40 minutes late in getting there. And then, they sell you pictures you can have autographed for $10. And after waiting for that long amount of time, you get up there, just to realize Danny isn't even there."

16 Danny Has One Car He Wants More than Most

To be a true car guy, there has to be a car that you really want that you don't have, sort of the unicorn of cars so to speak. Danny has one of those. It is the 1972 Lamborghini Miura SV, a car he has wanted for a long time. Once he almost bought one, but the deal went South. That makes sense as this car is very expensive and part of that is the fact that they are really hard to find. Sometimes you see models of this car for sale going for well over a million dollars. No wonder he hasn't bought one yet.

15 Danny Isn't Perfect

Even for people who are considered total experts on cars there are still going to be some issues around them now and then. Not everyone can know everything about cars and Danny is no exception.

Sometimes he will say something about a car on the show and people will jump all over him in forums saying how wrong that he is.

This is mostly just jealousy. Anyone can get something wrong and no one is perfect and that includes Danny But he still knows his stuff.

14 Danny's Dad Was Important To Him

We all have our inspirations in life and some of us are lucky enough for those people to be our fathers. Danny is one of them, he said his dad was his best friend.  His father was really into cars, and when he passed away Danny had a really hard time. As he told the  Las Vegas Review-Journal, “I'm just now starting to dig out a couple of the very personal vehicles that were my father's that now belong to me that I haven't been able to think about, or look at, or touch for a long time.”

13 Danny Loves The Leader Of The Free World

A lot of famous people like to keep their political views to themselves. Danny is not one of them. He came out during 2016 and said that he was picking up what the orange haired candidate was putting down. He told Fox News that “We’ve been dealing with an administration that has not done its job for the past seven and a half plus years right now. And in my opinion, as a businessman, I need somebody that’s going to help fix that. I’ve got several businesses based out of Las Vegas here, try to create jobs for real people that have real families and they’re paying their real bills."

12 Vince Neil Is Not Danny's BFF

Back in the day the band Motley Crue was one of the coolest in the whole world. That was a long time ago and now they aren't that popular.

That is true with the guys from the show too.

While Danny apparently is kind of friends with the bands lead singer Vince Neil, other guys on the show, especially Scott Jones, were not impressed that Neil has been taken in for his actions against women. Jones has called Neil out on this publicly and told Neil to come to visit him at the shop if he had a problem with it.

11 Danny Isn't All That Worried About The Environment

In today's day and age, a lot of people are worried about the environment and climate change and all that. Danny is definitely not one of them.  He once told The Morning Show, which is televised in Canada that he could care less about hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius because they don't have enough power saying "If it gets four miles to the gallon and has 800 horsepower, I’m thrilled. We’ve got more oil than we can shake a stick at.” Don't expect to see him at any climate change marches any time soon.

10 Doc Got Ripped Off

Joseph "Doc" Duggan is the guy on the show who tries to drag the others into today's high tech age, with varying degrees of success.

At one point his house was broken into, and when I say that, I mean they took everything except some clothes and some dirty dishes.

It has been speculated that he was ripped off because he was famous, but who really knows? You would think someone that was so high tech would have a burglar alarm but hey, who am I to judge?

9 Why Scott Jones Left

Scott Jones was one of the more popular members of the show, which made it all the more surprising that he left. One never really knows how much these guys get paid, but it is for sure a lot more than your average guy does that works on cars, even if they are more the manager type like Scott was.  So why did he leave? No one really knows for sure although there have been a lot of rumours floating around out there about it. All we know for sure is that he left Vegas and went back home to the South.

8 Roli Got Ripped Off Too

What is about this show, does everyone end up getting ripped off sooner or later? Roli is the shop detailer. He had a tricked out trailer with all of his detailing equipment in it, that even had his name and face on the side stolen from him. That takes a lot of guts to steal a trailer of someone kind of famous that even has a picture of them on the side of it. Then again, I suppose if you have a trailer and basically advertise what is inside then it might be more than likely to be stolen.

7 The Shop's Accountant Took From Them

Speaking of getting ripped off, yes it happened another time, except this time it was the whole shop that was taken from. The Counting Cars guys must be pretty paranoid at this point.

A man named Joseph Frontiera was said to be taking $75,000 from the company which he spent on things like a Range Rover and plane tickets.

He was supposed to be their accountant. Even worse he had been charged with embezzlement before. Talk about hiring a fox to guard the hen house, what were these guys thinking?

6 Their Production Crew Is Enormous

A lot of people don't really think about what it would be like to be on a reality television show, but let me tell you, it wouldn't be a whole lot of fun having a huge production crew following you around all the time. And I do mean all the time. Danny told the Las Vegas Review-Journal “As far as production is concerned, they've gotta keep rolling on all this stuff, or they're going to miss something vital on an episode.” Imagine if you were being filmed all day at your job. No fun at all.

5 Pawn Stars Got Them Rolling

Pawn Stars is one of the most successful reality shows of its kind ever. Rick Harrison, who is the host of the show, has been friends with Danny for a while, so when Pawn Stars needed a car expert, he knew right where to go. The History Channel knows star power when they see it and before long started thinking of giving Danny his own show, and the rest is history. Sometimes who you know is really more important than what you know and this is one of those situations.

4 Danny Owns A Bar

Danny is a true entrepreneur, and one of the ways he makes money is by owning a bar. It is in Vegas, of course, it is called "Count's Vamp'd Bar and Grill," and their slogan is "eat, drink, rock!"

Sure it sounds a little like a tourist trap, but hey, it's in Vegas, the whole city is a tourist trap.

It has an outdoor patio, and live music. It sounds like a good thing to check out if you're in Vegas,  but who am I kidding there are a whole lot of things that are fun to check out if you're in Vegas, and they are legal there too.

3 Danny Rocks Out In A Band

Danny's whole rocker thing is not just a look, he is a rocker in real life too. So many people try to just cultivate an image to be cool, but Danny is exactly who he seems to be. The band is called Count's 77, so apparently, Danny is down with the "Count" branding thing for real. Blues Rock Review says, "Catchy hooks and classic looks define Count’s 77, a hard rocking Vegas-based quintet set to headline today’s classic rock revival. It sounds like a pretty cool band actually.

2 Kevin And Danny Are Pals For Real

Danny Koker and Kevin Mack seem like pretty good buddies on the show, and there is a reason for that, and that is they are actually pretty good buddies in real life too. They used to be a part of a bunch of guys that rode their motorcycles around California, and when Danny opened up his own shop and it started making money Kevin ended up working for him and the rest is history. It is nice seeing two dudes that have become successful that have each other's backs.

1 The Business Is A Success

For all of the magic of television that makes things appear different, the business that the show is based on is also a total success.  There used to just be a couple of people working in the shop, then the number went up to 7, and by the year 2017, the ship employed 50 people.  Of course a lot of that is because the shop is now famous, people want to be able to say the guys at Counting Cars did some work on their car, but whatever the reason is, Danny has made it in the car world for sure.

Sources: History.com, IMDB.com