On tonight’s Bad Chad Customs, practice makes perfect as our genius Canadian custom car builder Bad Chad Hiltz reveals how he used his own oven to make a bubble roof prototype — before creating a much bigger bubble roof for a brand new “space age” custom build.
The coolest part is that his mini home-baked roof bubble worked, although it might only fit on a toy car. However, it was part of the homework he needed to do before turning his hand to creating the biggest bubble roof he’s ever made.
Below in our exclusive clip, leaning inside his rig that he plans to gut and rebuild, Chad takes a whiff and says: “It smells in there.”
He explains: “First. I have to figure out how long we want the bubble. We will cut it out of a piece of plywood the shape that we want.”
He then reveals in a separate b-roll interview the details of a previous bubble-roof prototype he made ahead of this ambitious design.
Holding up a smaller version of the bubble roof, he says: “This is a practice bubble and I made it the first time I blew a bubble.
“I took a little piece of plywood with a hole in it…a piece of plywood with a shape cut out of it.
“I put a piece of plexiglass in between the two pieces of plywood, sandwiched it with vise-grips I put it in my kitchen oven actually in the house. I did this right in the house for a test-pilot and threw it in the oven at 375 [degrees] for a half hour.”
Continuing, he adds: “[Then I] pulled it out. I had a little air pig [a small horizontal air receiver compressor with outlets on either side used as an air distribution for several sorts of tools] with me. I plugged it in like that and turned the air pig on and that’s the bubble I made. Cool! I still got it!”
Bad Chad Customs, Discovery’s hit new car series from up North, features Colton Hiltz, Chad Hiltz, Jolene MacIntyre, Alex Rand, and Alex Gould.
In scenic Canning, Nova Scotia, a small, hand-built shop is where Chad Hiltz, aka “Bad Chad,” performs magic on cars and other vehicles.
Bad Chad’s one-of-a-kind creations spring from his overactive imagination, a mind in constant motion, and a can-do Canadian spirit that inspires many like-minded car build junkies.
A bit removed from the mainland, Chad is isolated with few big-city resources and without a ton of extra cash. But his calling card of creativity and final product have earned him a TV series, and he amazes his fans and clients with his creative and resourceful tenacity to get the job done.
Using basic tools and his mind, Bad Chad can “MacGyver” anything into a custom car build. Parts from a plane, a boat, any old scrap metal — even chicken wire — will do.
Bad Chad Customs airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on Discovery.