Pimp My Ride Guys Wow KnowledgeFest

The reunion of the Pimp My Ride crew during KnowledgeFest drew hundreds of industry members who listened to Mad Mike, Jason Ewing and Cabe Sipes reveal behind-the-scenes antics from the iconic MTV show.

Hosting the event, Mobile Electronics Assoc. President Chris Cook, said Pimp My Ride had a major impact on the car audio industry.

During years 2004 -2007, fish tanks were put into cars, as well as coffee makers, snow blowers, 80-pound, 42-inch screens (that’s how much they weighed back then), roulette wheels, ice cream makers and more.

Would they do it again? “Sure,” said the trio.

Before a packed house, they described builds such as a 1970s Cadillac with a coffin in the back, and a barbeque pit in the coffin. There was the Vegas Van from Season 3 where they put a card shuffler in the muffler. Wayne Newton joined them for that episode.  The team fabricated a slot machine with a drop tray for the van and added a baby grand piano.

There was a huge budget for the show. When Sipes saw the workshop for the show, he said, “‘I need a dust collector.’ They said fine. I picked out a $150,000 dust collector and the next day they were installing it. I never filled the bag up more than 2 inches…I said I need four routers because I didn’t want to have to change the bit.  The next day they showed up.”

The builds generally took three weeks and the crew worked on three at a time. “I didn’t have time to get a haircut,” said Mad Mike. The budget was about $80,000 per car.

Ewing’s favorite build was a 1965 Impala from Season 3. It was a frame off restoration where the car was converted to a bio-fuel engine.  “I was awake for 72 hours,” said Mad Mike on that build. Arnold Schwarzenegger was involved in the car, which basically ran on vegetable oil. “We had 30 guys working on it at one time,” Ewing said.

For just about every show “Mike would roll up in the car and say, we’ve got to do this, and I would say, ‘You’re an idiot,'” Ewing quipped. “He’d say, ‘If you don’t want to do it, I’ll find someone else.’ Literally every build,” said Ewing.

Sipes’ favorite build was a Chevy Blazer with a snowblower and TVs in the mudflaps. The entire dashboard was fiberglass. It was the only build he was allowed to design on the show.

Today, Sipes owns the shop Custom Car Audio Reimagined in Indiana on 2,000 acres of his own land.  Ewing is International Trainer for Firstech. He’s also a fire fighter and member of the local school board.  Make Mike is Customizing Supervisor at Galpin Auto Sports and is also active as a DJ.  He helped Tesla design one of the first touch screens for the car.  He was one of the first to put a computer in a car, he said. “I started at Al & Ed’s in Compton…In 1985 I did my first install during lunch at Compton High School.  It was an alarm a deck and a pair.”

Mad Mike said it was an incredible time. “We could take our talents and the world gave us a big hug. And you all here, I thought there would be like ten people here.”  Nope, we estimate there were more than 300 people in an audience that was standing room only.