Does Ed get any money for work done?

Seems like Chasing Classic Cars spends more time locating cars and selling them over showing how they are fixed up. With Wheeler Dealers, the show gets the locating part out of the way quickly and spends more time with Ed fixing the cars. Ed is easier to watch than Carini's cranky/crusty mechanic.

How does Ed's hair stay in place? It's a mess but somehow stays put.

Doubt they are really counting on the money from the car sales to make a living, they are both radio/tv show personalities who have done other projects and get paid for "Wheeler Dealers" by Discovery/BBC so they probably have and make a nice amount of money. I have seen Edd China on Top Gear a couple times. Glad we get both shows in the states as they are very entertaining and there is nothing really like those shows in the states. Chasing CLassic Cars is good and I like Wayne and how he goes to all those nice shows/auctions(especially Monterey)but they don't go much into fixing them up.

@love_cats_hate_dogs:

To be fair, where Edd does use expensive kit, he usually points out you can hire it if you can't afford to buy it, and roughly how much it would cost per day to hire.

The restitution of life is no great feat. A variety of deaths may well enter into your punishment

Mike does the buying & selling and often helps source parts as well as give the car history bits which I find pretty interesting. I think it takes different folks to really make a concept like this work. You need someone willing to low ball offer on a vehicle and really haggle over the price. "For The Love of Cars" (which was a great watch and just finished it's first run) had the mechanic going out to do the deal on the vehicle and it was pretty boring overall as he mostly just paid what was being asked without any haggling. What made that show was despite showing a fair amount of the work they gave the historical/fanclub side of each vehicle about 1/2 of the episode which meant a little less time in the garage. So a similar formula, yet somewhat fresh. Still, overall I prefer seeing more time put into the restoration since a lot of what I watch WD for is to help me decide what classic car I may want to purchase and what kinds of mechanical tasks I can expect (as well as stuff to watch out for). I'm currently leaning towards a Triumph Spitfire. I love the simplicity of it and how the hood and fenders all raise up out of the way to make it so simple to get at most parts on the car.

Certainly Edd's mechanical skills would be critical for someone wanting to fix-and-flip cars like they do on WD. However, for most home mechanics it's Mike's end of the deal that is probably missing. As Edd displays, a good mechanic can usually translate that skill from one car to the next, even without being previously familiar with the particular model.

Aside from a great deal of charm, what Mike brings to the show is experience, knowing the market and what can be realistically be accomplished on both the buy ans sell ends... not to mention knowing when to walk away from a car that is priced too high or needs too much work and knowing when to cut his losses if the end result won't bring the expected profit.

I've seen way too many private sellers and curbstoners asking far too much for older cars ("curbstoner" being a term I only recently learned - meaning someone who regularly engages in flipping cars for profit, but without a dealer license or lot - i.e. selling cars beside the curbstone as though they were a private seller offering their own used car for resale).

I recently saw an online listing where the seller said "I know the price I'm asking is too high, but it's because I paid too much for the car". WTF do I care if you paid too much? Doesn't mean I'm going to! Brewer would have cut his losses and priced to the market.

I really like Mike, especially the way he negotiates without ever being antagonistic. The show would definitely not be as entertaining without him!

they actually painted it bright yellow :-) and the buyer loved it and thought it looked retro/period. I thought the brown was hideous, you really only ever see it on really old Toyotas and a few other cars in the U.S... and obviously even by advertising it as "original paint" and all that. it simply needed a change.

they painted a couple other cars green so it's easy to forget.