WCC, also known as West Coast Customs, is an automobile repair shop and simultaneously specializes in the customization of vehicles. It was started by founders Quinton Dodson and Ryan Friedlinghaus in the year 1994 Ryan has said that he started the business with a loan of $5,000 from his grandfather, but according to other sources he got the seed money for the business while he use to work at his father’s liquor store.
WCC received funding from celebrities such as Shaquille O’Neal and Sean Combs, along with appearances in the reality TV show called Pimp My Ride and Street Customs, the company has received a high degree of notoriety and also has become a multimillion-dollar company.
Inception
The recent publishing in Los Angeles Times revealed that WCC was created to a whole in the year 1994 or in 1998, which is still in doubt, by the respective founder Ryan Friedlinghaus. According to an article released in 2008, USA Today declared that the company was founded in 1997, but there is no authentication regarding the same. West Coast Customs’ duties were legal in California, United States, and officially started working from 20th October 2000.
Young Friedlinghaus worked very hard even when he was just in his teens, and managed to gather his custom vehicles to be published on the covers of auto magazines, but Ryan became frustrated with the very slow process of dealing with multiple specialty shops, which also led to longer times to build the vehicles.
West Coast Customs uses to move many times in its early years, but WCC began to gain a reputation for quality at Inglewood location, which also caused celebrities to have their cars modified, thereby WCC. According to Ryan, one of his first celebrity and customers was Shaquille O’Neal, who wanted a customized Chevrolet Suburban, and this relationship with O’Neil helped him get contacts with other celebrities who were looking for custom modification of their automobiles.
The famous channel brand MTV offered Ryan the eligibility criteria to have a reality television show filmed on his company with co-founder Quinton “Q” Dodson as the protagonist and rapper Xzibit as the host of the show. He accepted the deal offered bt MTV, and it led to the 2004 TV show Pimp My Ride.
Evolution
Ryan left the show Pimp My Ride and soon after leaving the show, Ryan immediately started a new TV Show that aired on both the Discovery Channel and The Learning Channel. His new show was called Street Customs, which was produced by Pilgrim Films & Television. According to the previous shows, they use to create new cars from the ash for the people chosen by the channel, in the new show they showed the ongoing modern techniques of the vehicles done for consenting customers of West Coast Customs.
While the breakup was described as friendly with MTV, others at WCC were not so happy: Sean Mahaney, an employee at that time of WCC, reportedly has said, “Most of the MTV people are not real car guys… They pay us to build the cars, that’s why we do so, but what they want it sucks.”
Street Customs changed their names twice, and networks name four times, but the style of the show remained the same. In WCC, Cars were built for peoples, by the release of each new episode were devoted to brands as the show ran on. Since the channel was no longer in heavy-duty of the new show, all-new episodes of the series were on buzzing on the to charts of building cars for people who could give enough money for renovation.
Some of the notable vehicles were also built for celebrities in Street Customs such as one for Carroll Shelby, a Cadillac for Shaquille O’Neal (according to Ryan, O’Neal had 30 cars built from WCC till July 2007), WCC has modified Range Rover for an unnamed member of the royal family of Dubai, they even have built a Cadillac CTS-V for Justin Bieber.
Awards & Achievements
West Coast Customs was not able to win any awards till now, but they can in the future as it also has a show on TV about them. WCC has achieved a high position in the modification of vehicles and is also recognized by many celebrities such as Shaquille O’Neal, Justin Bieber, etc.
Net Worth of West Coast Customs in 2024
West Coast Customs has a headquarter in Burbank, California. They are building and modifying vehicles for a long time. They have a total of 40 employees working for them. WCC became a multi-million dollar company after the release of a TV show on their business. WCC got big help from Shaquille O’Neal for becoming popular. As of December 2024, The net worth of West Coast Customs is estimated at $20 million.
It will not be wrong to say that WCC is very good at their business as they have moved at a top position of building and customization of vehicles. They also have a show which is based on their business. Ryan has been in this line of work from a very young age. WCC has also gathered happy customers for their excellent work and will continue to make people happy.