• Projects on "Fast N' Loud" take longer to complete than the show portrays.
• The car shop is not empty and there is usually plenty of work.
• It has been incredibly successful season over season.
• It has two spin-off series.
• Christie Brimberry is a cancer survivor and Richard Rawlings has a busy romantic life.

Over the years, “Fast N’ Loud” has been one of the top Discovery’s shows, and when it comes to this series the furore is certainly well deserved.

From fixing, taking apart and even modifying the most incredible cars, it’s difficult not to be enthralled by the work the crew of Gas Monkey Garage does.

Such complex projects shown in the program require a high level of excellence, thus it’s not surprising that the Gas Monkey’s crew hides quite a handful of secrets. Do you want to know them? Let’s discover what are the things you might not know about “Fast N’ Loud”.

Projects Take Longer Than What It Seems

Regardless of what the term ‘reality TV’ entails, it’s obvious viewers can’t see many things. “Fast N’ Loud” is not an exception from this rule and the audience often has doubts regarding what they see on screen.

Although this might be obvious, Gas Monkey Garage’s crew takes several weeks to work on every car which enters the shop.

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Knowing this confuses people who watch “Fast N’ Loud”, and have no experience at this type of job, due to the fact the series usually shows that each project is finished quickly.

Then why does the show portray things in this unrealistic way? That’s easy to explain. The format of “Fast N’ Loud” is built to catch the attention of the audience by showing things in the simplest way, focusing on the exciting parts and leaving aside many technical aspects.

Editing and cutting out the mechanical parts of the work done by Gas Monkey Garage’s crew is not the only thing the production of “Fast N’ Loud” does regularly, as also the legal hassle of buying and selling cars is deleted, or simplified as much as possible.

Real or Not?

More often than not, people notice inconsistencies in the shows they watch, thus it’s only obvious they often wonder whether what they see on TV is real or not.

Reality shows are even more questioned when it comes to this topic, as the nature of the genre is based on the authenticity of the situations.

“Fast N’ Loud” not only fits the reality series category, it’s actually centered on Gas Monkey Garage, which has been proven to be a real business with real, normal employees in it. However, is everything in the show genuine? It’s already been said every episode is heavily edited to make it more exciting, so it’s also safe to assume “Fast N’ Loud” is scripted.

Why is this? Selling or buying a car is not something done overnight. Paperwork and legalities make it a long process which takes from weeks to months to be finalised. Yet it’s noticeable how deals and negotiations in the show are usually extremely simplified, completely disregarding the real nature of these processes. This leads people to assume that what they see during these situations is staged.

This doesn’t mean the entire show is fake, though it answers many questions.

The Car Shop Is Not Empty

“Fast N’ Loud” gives off the impression that Gas Monkey Garage’s crew concentrates on finishing one car at a time, and that there are few-to-no cars in the shop. The reality is that Gas Monkey Garage is a physically large and established business in which jobs aren’t necessarily scarce. However, as misleading as it is, the fact that the series makes the audience believe that the crew only has a limited number of available projects to work on, is deliberate.

Rushing to finish restoring or repairing every car after facing seemingly endless and unexpected problems while doing so, is also a plot over-used in the show. Actually the shop has plenty of time to finish every project, and every car which leaves Gas Monkey Garage has probably gone through days to weeks of dedicated work. If the series shows otherwise, it’s probably because the production staff wants to spice things up quite a lot.

Despite the way “Fast N’ Loud” portrays the inner workings of Gas Monkey Garage, the business website’s Live Cam feature allows people to watch the car shop and crew in real time. This should be enough to satisfy fans’ curiosity of how the car shop actually functions.

It Has Been Incredibly Successful Season Over Season

When “Fast N’ Loud” premiered in 2012 on Discovery channel, it wasn’t surprising that it became an instant success, as the network usually has at least one show topping the US’ TV ratings every season.

On average, the first season of “Fast N’ Loud” had 7.3 rating points, which led the show to be renewed for a second season in 2013, almost surpassing its predecessor with 7.0 points. For the next four seasons, the show achieved high rating points, but not to the point of surpassing the success of the first.

That is until the seventh season premiered in 2016, when “Fast N’ Loud” reached a new high with a rating of 7.4 on average, a record even surpassed later that year when the ninth season achieved 7.5 points on average ratings.

To date the tenth season has been the most successful, as it reached an impressive mark of 8.0 rating points on average. This season also contains “Bye Bye Beardy”, which is the most watched episode throughout the entire series, with 8.7 rating points.

These numbers and ratings are the reason “Fast N’ Loud” is internationally known, and also explains why Gas Monkey Garage is regarded as the best car shop in the world.

It Has Two Spin-Off Series

Having one successful TV series isn’t enough. The proof of this is Richard Rawlings and his former associate Aaron Kaufman, who surely enjoyed the recognition “Fast N’ Loud” brought to their business, but still wanted much more.

An all-new #FastNLoud starts now on @Discovery. pic.twitter.com/Gi8vZpleYw

— Fast N' Loud (@FastNLoudTV) June 2, 2020

Maybe this was the reason they accepted Discovery’s offer to create the spin-off series “Demolition Theater”, premiered in April 2014. The new show was centered on random and sometimes cringe-worthy clips related to cars, which Rawlings and Kaufman would review. Granted the show is not everyone’s cup of tea, but it surely entertained fans of “Fast N’ Loud” during four seasons until its cancellation in 2018.

At the same time “Demolition Theater” premiered in 2014, another “Fast N’ Loud” spin-off series entitled – “Misfit Garage” – was created by Discovery. This series goes around the crew of Fired Up Garage, formed by former employees of Gas Monkey Garage who were fired.

Fired Up Garage was led by Tom Smith and Jordan Butler, who had the goal of surpassing Gas Monkey Garage. Although they didn’t necessarily surpass it, “Misfit Garage” was aired for six seasons. The show isn’t officially cancelled, though plans for a seventh season haven’t been announced since 2018.

One Of The Cars Was Seized

Many eyebrows were raised when in the 2013 series of “Fast N’ Loud”, the Gas Monkey’s crew restored a classic Ferrari F40 from 1991. The project was led by the star mechanic and former co-owner of the car shop, Aaron Kaufman, who took more than a couple of risky decisions in the process.

Setting this car apart from other cars of the same model was the definitely the goal. Besides the mechanical modifications, what shocked people the most was the fact that this Ferrari F40 passed from having a traditional red color to being completely black.

Regardless of the diverse opinions these changes generated, the Ferrari was sold for $742,500. However, the owner sold it a year later for $643,500 to Richard Scott, a businessman from Los Angeles. However,  Scott pleaded guilty to fraud in 2017, which led the US Department of Veterans Affairs to seize all his assets, including the modified and sought-after Ferrari F40.

The car was in the hands of authorities for two years until 2019, when it was auctioned and sold for $760,000. Hopefully, the handsome Ferrari F40 has found a long-term home this time.

Christie Brimberry Is A Cancer Survivor

You don’t have to be the number one fan of “Fast N’ Loud” to know who Christie Brimberry is, as she has been working in Gas Monkey Garage for years and has appeared in “Fast N’ Loud” several times. However, in 2016 Brimberry took a break from her work and in consequence, from the series.What most people don’t know is that the cause of Brimberry’s disappearance was her health, diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2016, leading her to undergo chemotherapy and surgery to remove a lymph node located in her throat.

The post-surgery process was long and difficult for Brimberry. Complications during said surgical procedure caused one of her voice box nerves to be cut.

Due to this, Brimberry spent several months without her voice, in addition to further chemotherapy. In December 2017 after many months of fighting for her life, Christie was declared cancer-free. Since then she has been healthy and returned to her job in Gas Monkey Garage as Richard Rawlings’s assistant.

In August 2020 she welcomed her first grandson Ashton Lynn, and is currently living happily with her husband and six children.

Richard Rawlings Has A Busy Romantic Life

Even if you’ve watched “Fast N’ Loud” only a couple times, the name Richard Rawlings surely rings a bell in your mind. Although he’s actually a successful businessman, his professional accomplishments are not the only interesting thing about him. Less well known but just as fascinating is his romantic life.

Rawlings married for the first time in 1990, to Karen K. Grames, though the relationship didn’t last long and they divorced one year later.

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It took Rawlings several years to find love again, but he did it better this time, marrying for the second time in 1999 to Suzanne Marie Mergele, entrepreneur and founder of Home Health Agency. The marriage lasted until 2009, when they divorced, however, it was a shock for everyone when they reconciled and remarried in 2015. At that point everything seemed to be peaches and cream for the couple, that is until March 2019, when they filed for divorce for the second time.

The reason for the split it’s still unknown, though this time Rawlings didn’t have any problem finding love again. Weeks after the separation he started dating the model Katerina Deason, to whom he proposed in August that year, finally tying the knot in early 2020.

Interestingly enough, and despite being married four times, Rawlings doesn’t have any children.

Aaron Kaufman Left The Show For Better

If you have been watching “Fast N’ Loud” since the start, you were probably heartbroken when Aaron Kaufman left the show during the tenth season.

However, even before the episode aired, Kaufman’s exit was well known in the media. In an interview in early 2017, the former co-owner and star mechanic of Gas Monkey Garage confessed his departure was caused by creative differences and his disagreement with the way the work was done in the shop.

In his words, he wanted to work on big cars while Discovery preferred to keep the projects small, so the projects given to him were definitely not challenging enough in this regard. Kaufman also mentioned the peace of work was uncomfortable. Cars which required weeks of extensive work to be restored were finished in days, turning every project stressing instead of exciting.

Fortunately for Kaufman, his passion led him to where he wanted to be. In 2018 he went on to star in “Shifting Gears”, a series centered on his own car shop Arclight Fabrication. His new show truly showed more detailed and long-term projects, which proved to be beneficial for his career. He later appeared in “The Gymkhana Files”, and nowadays stars in the series “Aaron Needs A Job”.

Unfortunately… The Show Is No More

“Fast N’ Loud” has come to an end after eight years. This to some shocking news, was announced by Richard Rawlings in December 2020, during an interview with the podcast The Joe Rogan Experience.

What‘s the reason for its end? It’s not clear what happened between Discovery and Rawlings, though it’s assumed it was he who took the decision to end the series. As he told Rogan, his desire was to expand and prove new things with Gas Monkey Garage, and sticking with Discovery meant he couldn’t do any of these things.

Despite having good reasons to take this decision, it was still sad for fans of the show to find that “Fast N’ Loud” had ended. It was also a surprise, as the thirteenth season of the series was aired in early 2020, and at the time there wasn’t any indication of it being the last.

Is this the end of Gas Monkey Garage’s TV adventures? Not likely. Rawlings affirmed good things were coming for the car shop in 2021.

Although no one knows what will happen next, it was undeniably a great ride while it lasted.