Edd China has left Wheeler Dealers.

Well that sucks. Not a surprise. I haven't watched the show from the very beginning, but certainly the past 6 or 7 years now. My wife has always watched with me. Even she recently said "The show is very different now, they don't show much of the repair work anymore. I don't like it anymore." I totally agree. If what Edd is saying is true, which I would have no reason to doubt, then all I have to say is: berkeley you Velocity. Be proud of yourself for screwing up the most popular show you had. Have fun with that.

SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote: I really would like to know the corners that velocity was trying to cut. They've been doing the show for 13 years, I have such a hard time believing that such a small production company was able to produce such a great show and a giant production company has a difficult time producing the show in the same format. This is actually quite disappointing, because this is one of the few car shows that I anticipate watching on my DVR. This is actually quite disappointing, because this is one of the few car shows that I anticipate watching on my DVR. Add really knows his stuff, so he will be greatly missed. Edd really knows his stuff, so he will be greatly missed.

I wouldn't put it as cutting corners- it's more a change perception of what people want to see. That's the big issue going from one producer to the other.

And that's the problem with the change, too- they are going to take out what was popular in the first place. That's what attracted me, anyway.

So to make money, WD may change like many of the other car shows that used to be good- it will be far more about product placement and not real work. And that would kill a great show.

Electric Maseratis. Camping Humvees. Hyper mile Civics.

Yeah, Velocity is going after a different audience and it ain't me.

Funny how the opposite has happened to Graveyard Carz. In-house production. Had to follow Velocity's directives when it started with fake drama and paintball battles. After it generated an audience they were allowed to make the show they wanted and I think it is far better today than it was originally. I don't see Mark Worman selling out to an outside production company like WD did.

Seems like an interesting catch-22. It's not too hard for a show to make money when the production crew is only a few guys. Bump it up to a few dozen or so and now it needs some real money coming in to pay for it all.

To me, the show started to decline when they dropped the owner-example segment in the beginning before Mike went looking for their own to fix up. I also remember seeing a couple of shows where Mike did a lot of the work and Edd was hardly on camera and wondering if this was the beginning of the end.

In reply to ddavidv:

Mark Worman is enough of a prick that the show doesn't need to manufacture drama. While I totally get the man is a walking encyclopedia on Mopars, watching that show made me want to punch the TV at times. Reading about the changes made to S6 gives me hope.

Fantomworks is another one that can be interesting to watch. While they don't show every detail of a restoration, at least they don't give any illusions to how long the work takes or costs.

Product placement is king in American TV & Movies. It's all the rage because it's free money and it trumps content every time.

My daughter is in TV & Movie production and it's so much money that it becomes the overriding concern for programming. They don't look for good concepts or or content so much as a vehicle for product placement and when one product placement vehicle gets weak there are a thousand others ready to take it's place.

It's the new bottom line folks and why foreign TV is better

I'm really unhappy about this. Like the rest of you, I watched WD to see Edd work on the cars. I really could care less about the "dealing".

Product placement and trying to leverage the shows is ramping up exponentially, just look at West Coast Customs now. It's basically an hour long product placement informercial.

I immediately went and found Edd's channel an subbed. You should too. He only has 23k people following him at the moment. This needs to get to a few hundred K to keep him afloat.

I hope Edd comes up with some amazing new content (first thing I did was sub his youtube channel!) He's absolutely right - his in-depth wrenching details made WD the best car show on cable. No product placement or manufactured drama. Very grassroots with an appreciation for a wide range of vehicles.

This might be the last straw that makes me pull the plug on cable. I guess I'm too niche for the major networks. Lots of interesting things to stream over the net...

singleslammer wrote: I immediately went and found Edd's channel an subbed. You should too. He only has 23k people following him at the moment. This needs to get to a few hundred K to keep him afloat.

At that same moment Mike Brewer only had ~700 people following his channel...

SniffPetrol checks in on the matter.

Edd China is to leave the hit TV programme Wheeler Dealers after admitting that he can’t understand a single word Mike Brewer says. ‘For 14 years Edd hasn’t followed anything that’s come out of Mike’s mouth,’ said a source close to the 7’8” gloves wearer. ‘He’s basically spent the last 13 series’ just smiling and nodding, and then fitting some new wheels and hoping that’s okay.’ ‘Edd tried his best to understand what Mike was on about, but he was never sure if it was some kind of East London patois or if he’d had a stroke,’ another friend of the 9’10” standing-underneath-cars fan revealed. ‘In most cases he’d just say “absolutely” and then de-cloud the headlights and hope that was alright.’ ‘Edd is looking forward to moving on to new projects involving his three passions,’ revealed a producer who worked with the 11’4” too-many-consonants enthusiast. ‘Which is to say, cars, engineering, and being able to have conversations in which he’s not just saying “uh-huh, uh-huh” and hoping the other person goes away soon.’ China has publically wished his replacement, Ant Anstead, the best of luck whilst privately he has emailed him details of a Linguaphone course for Cock-er-nee along with a note reading, ‘This probably won’t work so just give a thumbs up and bury your head in the engine bay until he’s gone’. Wheeler Dealers will continue on the Velocity Channel who bought the format for an unusually low price, re-built the cylinder heads, had it re-sprayed and sold it for a profit margin that didn’t really seem to account for all the work put into it.

singleslammer wrote: I immediately went and found Edd's channel an subbed. You should too. He only has 23k people following him at the moment. This needs to get to a few hundred K to keep him afloat.

It's growing fast. It was under 6K when I subscribed last night.

In reply to Tom_Spangler:

I found it amusing Edd posted a link to that on FB. Didn't try to deny any of it.

While I lament the loss of the "Real" Wheeler Dealers, good for Edd. What he did takes a big set of stones: he stuck up for himself and his integrity. Most of the time in that line of work, that's called career suicide. I have a feeling he will come out on top. Also, Mike's FB account for Wheeler Dealers has been nothing but clickbait garbage for a few months now. I figured something was up.

I have a hard time watching much of what's considered "car guy TV". Pre-scripted "reality" car TV is a format that I don't like. Like many of you, I'm too close to the hobby, and that ruins it for people like us. We know when they are BSing, and if you are like me, you end up spending too much time mentally (and sometimes vocally, to the chagrin of whoever else's in the room) correcting their on-screen errors and info spewing to let the show be enjoyable.

Two more things:

-John Welsh, you are full of good ideas. Are you a TV producer? I knew of a pitch for some other people in the industry that I know that was VERY similar, but with different people.

-Get Edd to the Challenge!!!

I hope he makes it work in whatever venture he's doing, or maybe can land another TV cable show that will take him back to his "roots". I also hope he made a good bit of money while he was on the show.

I'm afraid this will wind up another case of a symbiotic relationship, where one really can't live without the other. While it's two very different subjects, it makes me think of Jillian Michaels and The Biggest Loser on NBC. I'm into health and fitness, so I liked the show. She was unquestionably the star. She made the show wildly popular, and the show made her a superstar. And I didn't mind looking at her for 2 hours... They made some changes to the show, and she left (don't know all the specifics). The show went downhill really fast and now is gone. And I have no idea where Jillian Michaels is now, but certainly not front and center like she was. Hope this turns out much better for Edd. So how tall is he anyway?

By far my favorite car show host/co-host other than James May. I have no feelings about Velocity channel as I don't have it, but I did have Speed and I'm still annoyed that Flippin' Fox Blues Sports replaced it. I really hope Fox Blues Sports goes bust because ESPN is far superior.

AMC Pacer = Jumping The Shark.

I'm a dyed-in-the-wool red-blooded American but I pray that Edd keeps his stuff coming from the U.K.

I couldn't stand that they moved over here. There's already too many shows from the States (though most of them suck and are just clones of themselves).

Edd and Stacey David need to get together and make a no BS, no drama program about building and creating. Instead of The Grand Tour it could be The Crapcan Caravan where they travel to events like The Challenge, Lemons races, AER, Chumpcar, regional rallies, rallycrosses, hillclimbs and ice races in a few vehicles they've pieced together and assist others at the events either with stillborn projects or in repairing mechanical failures that occur in competition. To insert an element of humor with the 2 highly capable wrench turning straight men, either Bill Caswell or Chris Duppliesis could host. I'd DVR the E36 M3 out of that program.

In reply to captdownshift:

I really like Stacey David too

I hope he does not join up with Stacy David. His relevance seems to be on the decline while ed seems to be on the up swing.

I like Stacy David, but he has to get rid of that silly laugh/chuckle thing he includes in nearly every sentence.

Subscribed to Edd. Sounds like velocity just killed what made them successful

In reply to MugenReplica:

Nonsense, Fox Sports One is fantastic, and just added Doug Gottlieb, while ESPN is a bunch of tired retreads.

In reply to stuart in mn:

A little less redneck would help too. But yeah, I like the notion of him and Edd.

singleslammer wrote: I immediately went and found Edd's channel an subbed. You should too. He only has 23k people following him at the moment. This needs to get to a few hundred K to keep him afloat.

29,651 with me on board.

stuart in mn wrote: I like Stacy David, but he has to get rid of that silly laugh/chuckle thing he includes in nearly every sentence.

Hahaha. I stopped watching him for that very reason.

I'm more broke up about this than TG, because TG broke mainly because Clarkson is a tool.