This is the week that Aaron Kaufman announces he is leaving Fast N’ Loud and Gas Monkey Garage on the show. But why is he leaving and what is he going to be doing next?
It’s clear that there were some professional differences on the show, and these certainly contributed to Aaron’s departure. Aaron seems to be the kind of guy who has a principled approach to his work.
This is apparent in Martin Feigen’s interview on Art of Gears in which Aaron, referring to the difficulty of the Pantera build, says: ”It surpasses what can be done on TV in time and budget…I wanted to build cars that were that big or bigger, and then TV needed cars that were much smaller than that.”
He added: “On top of that there were some growing personal issues and professional differences of opinions and so I decided the time had come and I could see the fork in front of me.”
Aaron also says that the pressure of turning the cars around on the show in such a short period of time was getting to him.
Speaking to Cary Darling of the Hamilton Spectator he said: “We’re building cars that most sane, normal car shops wouldn’t attempt in less than six, nine months or possibly even a year. We’re building the cars in six weeks.
“If we run over our time budget, we’re building them in seven and eight weeks…a hundred per cent, building cars at that rate at that speed does take its toll. It takes its toll professionally, takes its toll emotionally and physically.”
Does he still get on with his ex co-star Richard Rawlings, Cary asks? He replies: “Me and the gentleman have had some good times. We’ve definitely got some stories.
“But, as life does, we definitely went different directions. Of course, we are cordial and we talk about business stuff but we don’t necessarily have any dealings going on.”
So it’s clear that this is a clean break and it doesn’t seem like Aaron has any plans to go back to the show in the future. He has been speaking about what he wants to do and his ideas are pretty exciting — especially if you’re a Ford fan.
Aaron has his own company, Arclight, that makes parts for restoring Ford F-100 trucks. He’s keen to fill what he sees as a gap in the market and his ideal situation is to be helping customers with big builds, maybe branching out into non-F-100 builds.
He’s also toying with the idea of a new TV show, but details are few and far between for now — and nothing is confirmed.
The basic premise is pretty mouthwatering though, as he explains to Cary: “The framework of the next program, should we do one, will be fun with cars, it will be very spirited, it will be a tremendous amount of fun to watch, and we hope to do more interesting cars and more in-depth builds.”
Among these exciting plans, Aaron is also finding time to devote to his own projects — something he hasn’t managed to do for some time. What we would give for a glimpse into his personal garage!
Update: It was recently revealed that Aaron is going to be starring in his own new auto show on Discovery called Shifting Gears.