Wichitan and his cars will be the stars of a new TV show premiering this weekend
Tyler Hoover is making the jump from computer (or phone) screen to the TV screen.
The Wichitan, who has become internet-famous by his popular YouTube channel, “Hoovie’s Garage,” is the star of a new prime-time show that premieres at 9 p.m. Saturday on the FYI Network.
The show, which was filmed in and around Wichita early last year, is called “Car Issues.”
In a span of 12 episodes, Hoover finds and buys 24 rare and otherwise interesting cars from around the country that are being sold at suspiciously low prices. It follows him picking up the cars and taking them on various adventures — off-roading, visiting Midwestern roadside attractions and the like.
Then, if the car makes it back to Wichita without breaking down, Hoover takes it to “The Car Wizard,” (his longtime mechanic, David Long, of Newton’s Omega Auto Clinic) to diagnose whether he bought a winner or a loser and decide whether to keep it or flip it.
Some of the more interesting cars he bought for the show include a “heavily modified” Mustang Fox Body Saleen, Buick Grand National, Porsche 944 Turbo, Corvette ZR1, Dodge Viper and a military Hummer.
“For the car enthusiast that wastes hours online shopping for affordable classics and wonders what it’s like to actually pull the trigger, ‘Car Issues’ documents exactly what happens,” Hoover said.
Filming took about six months, Hoover said, and it involved trips to “pretty much everywhere within a day’s drive,” including Denver, Houston, Memphis and Omaha.
“It was an incredible amount of work and travel for these short little episodes, which are my tributes to the great ‘Top Gear’ cheap car challenges of old — and I’m thrilled that it’s finally seeing the light of day,” he said.
Until recently it was unclear if the show would ever be aired, Hoover said.
It was funded entirely by Verizon, which intended to air the show on its Go90 streaming platform — but by the time the show wrapped last year, Verizon had shut down the service.
“This left us with a completed, and fully paid for, reality show without a home,” Hoover said.
Verizon gave the show’s team the ability to broker the rights to air the show on other networks — which was a slow process, Hoover said, because the producers had to pitch the idea to networks all over again.
FYI Network, which is part of the A&E family of networks, was the first one interested.
“They were launching a new block of shows completely devoted to car enthusiasts and felt my show was a great fit,” Hoover said. “Of course I wanted it to see the light of day — we’d already been paid and I kept a lot of the cars. It’d be sad if nobody ever saw it.”
According to A&E, FYI Network is “dedicated to celebrating people who pursue their passions, bringing them together to share their experiences.” It airs shows with names like “Tiny House Nation,” “My City’s Just Not That Into Me,” “The Ride That Got Away,” and “He Shed She Shed.”
The network will air two consecutive episodes of “Car Issues” at 9 and 9:30 p.m. Saturdays through July 13.
Hoover said he hopes the show does well enough that the network will order more episodes.
If nothing else, he said he was able to learn cinematography lessons from the film crew that he’s now applying to his YouTube channel.
“It captured a moment in my life when I was completely unhinged and had the ability to explore the depths of my insanity for cars,” he said. “We didn’t find the bottom of my automotive masochism, but it was certainly the closest I’ve ever been.”
FYI Network is Channel 256 on Cox, 266 on DirecTV, and 199 on Dish Network.
