By Neil Farrell

They say everyone is born with a hidden talent, and frankly, if a person can discover what that is and make a profession out of it, they’ve a step up on most folks.
That’s what TV personality and brand new Morro Bay businessman, Ben Bright, has done. And with some luck and a ton of hard work, his new little classic car fabrication shop will allow him to continue to pursue his life’s passion — working metal and custom car fabrication.
The “Old Soul Speed & Custom” shop held a grand opening Saturday, May 2 timed with the Morro Bay Car Show. With his whole family celebrating the event, Bright explained that his dream was always to work on cars, which he perfected working in TV.
“I was on more than 50 episodes of ‘Overhaulin,’” he said while standing in what was about the cleanest auto shop ever (he had yet to move his equipment in). “And I did everything from disassembly, to fabrication and re-assembly. My passion is actually sheet metal shaping.”
In meeting Ben Bright one notices a few things. First he is really tall, has pretty distinctive sideburns, a welcoming smile and huge, strong hands.
Overhaulin’ is an American automotive reality TV show that ran from 2004-08 on TLC and starred Chip Foose a custom car designer. Bright was there at the beginning. He was in college at Wyoming Tech, he explained, when the show came to town to do an overhaul.
He and another student were picked to help out and they turned a 1956 Bel Air 4-door into a 2-door roadster.
He’d auditioned for the student part on the episode in Wyoming and he auditioned again for a spot on the show, filming in Huntington Beach, which he got, but he still had to finish school, part of which was building a custom car, a sort-of mascot vehicle.
“After I graduated, I started working for the show. Most of my experience working on cars was out of Huntington Beach working for Chip.” The show didn’t make the man in this case. “Chip had a good reputation for design before the TV show,” Bright added.
The show called for stealing some guy’s unfinished dream-car project, transforming it into a custom ride and returning it — all in one week. The work was brutal.
“What they didn’t show was that I’d put in 120 hours at the shop over seven days,” he said.
Overhaulin’ took a hiatus for about four years and got resurrected in 2012 for season six on Velocity and Discovery Channel. Bright, who also spent time working at Nelson’s Garage in Cayucos in the interim, was not keen on returning, for a couple of reasons, like the long hours and a production company that rubbed him the wrong way.
So when it started back up, he wasn’t there, but then “Chip called me and said he needed a hand,” Bright said. He was one of just three people on the old show who returned.
The production schedule was changed so a 1-week build was spread over three, 40-hour workweeks, which better suited what he had in mind to do.
“I came back and did all the sheet metal work in the first week,” he said. He added that the show just wrapped a couple of months ago. All told he appeared in nearly 60 episodes of the show’s 100, spread over nine seasons.
In the shop on open house day, was a car that Overhaulin’ did for a Paso Robles man. They did the ride because the man and his dad, a CMC employee for many years, had bought the car to rebuild together. But his dad was killed by a drunk driver and the car sat until the Overhaulin’ crew stole it.
“We built this car for him,” Bright said. “There’s no feeling like getting to do something for other people, something they can’t do themselves. It’s what made all those hours worth it.”
With the show wrapped, Bright said it was time to fulfill an old dream. “I turned 35 yesterday [May 1],” he said. “It’s been on my bucket list to have my own shop by the time I turned 35, and I think I can chalk that up to a win.”
The Santa Cruz native, whose parents moved from Wyoming to the Central Coast about 14 years ago, believes in the old fashioned way of making cars, something he calls “coach building.” In the 1930s and 40s, he explained, they would mass-produce the chassis and motors but the bodies were done by hand, by coachbuilders.
“That’s what I’m specializing in — coach building,” said Bright. As an example, he worked on building a Duesenberg for Jay Leno and, well there just aren’t many of those left. They found two, he said, and using pictures of the cars built one for the former king of late night TV.
He’s got a couple of project cars in the shop now and isn’t really soliciting more work, though “It’s hard to pass up any work.”
One of the projects is a ’55 Ford T-Bird (shown here) that right now looks like a pile of rusted junk but Bright has big plans for this baby. In 1953, he explained a Ford designer, W.P. Boyer, produced drawings of a concept car based on the Thunderbird that was never put into production, so it doesn’t exist.
Bright plans to build that car out of the hulk sitting in his shop. He pledges that in one year that car will be finished and he wants to debut it at the Detroit Autorama Show in March 2016.
If all goes as planned, the one-of-a-kind car will be on display next year, when he holds another open house. “It’ll give people something to look forward to,” he said with a smile.
He also wants to take on a couple of the local high school kids as apprentices, teaching them the craft of custom metalworking. He did that before on the Jay Leno build.
“I was lucky enough to work with great people,” he said. ”And I picked up some special skills.” He still has to work out details with the school principal but looks forward to teaching the next generation of kids with a passion for working with metal.
“When you teach someone else,” he said, “it reinforces your own skills. I want to pay it forward.”
Being a TV personality, he’s a little worried about getting distracted by curious fans; this is after all going to be a working shop. He’s willing to meet with people on an appointment basis and will welcome all during the annual open houses he plans to hold.