West Coast Customs is an American car customization company that was founded in 1994 by Ryan Friedlinghaus and Quinton Dodson thanks to a $5,000 loan from their grandfather, Jaret M. Friedlinghaus. The company gained fame as the former location of the MTV show Pimp My Ride hosted by rapper Xzibit.
Ryan had originally gotten his custom vehicles on the covers of car magazines when he was 14, but he became frustrated with having to deal with multiple specialty shops, causing vehicles to take a long time to build, and According to Entrepreneur, an American magazine, it was this frustration, along with his love of custom cars, that led him to open his own shop.
For the year 2000, specifically on October 20, WCC was registered under the name West Coast Customs International, LLC.
In its early years, WCC moved many times, but it was in Inglewood, California that WCC began to gain a reputation for quality, prompting celebrities to modify their cars there. According to Ryan, one of his first clients was Shaquille O'Neal, who wanted a custom Chevrolet Suburban, and this relationship helped him network with other celebrities looking to customize their cars. Because of this, MTV offered Ryan the opportunity to film a reality TV show at his business with co-founder Quinton "Q" Dodson as the star and rapper Xzibit as the host. Accepting this deal led to the television show Pimp My Ride in 2004, in which the format was for the producer to find Americans with junk cars, interview them with Xzibit, Ryan and the WCC team to find out their interests and hobbies, and later the staff would fix the car to turn it into a customized car based on the interests of the owner.
This show was hugely successful, so much so that CBS News reported that the show was #1 in views among 12-34 year olds in a 9:30 pm time slot and this substantially raised the profile of West Coast Customs.
Due to the popularity of Pimp My Ride, West Coast Customs had an appearance in the 2005 street racing video game "L.A. Rush" as the car's improvement mechanism, and according to the "Chicago Tribune" newspaper, Midway, developer of the video game, paid "handsomely" to be able to use the brand.
By 2005, during the airing of the second season of Pimp My Ride, rumors circulated that the show's location would change and Ryan would part ways with MTV to host a show on a different network. These rumors were confirmed by MTV and Ryan in 2007, after the fourth and final season with WCC as a store.
In this same year, Ryan thanked Pimp My Ride for helping him build his brand, but said he felt the television show damaged his relationships with his other clients; changed his location to Corona, California and almost immediately after leaving Pimp My Ride, Ryan began his "Street Customs" show on Discovery Channel and The Learning Channel, in which, instead of building the cars for the people chosen by MTV, the new program recorded the customizations that were made for West Coast Customs customers. To this, Ryan mentioned “I want to build cars on TV, not for TV”, he also announced a WCC franchise in Dubai to be owned by Al Ghussein Global Investments, which is still in business today. This franchise was opened with a right of AED 18 million which is equivalent to US$4.9 million to use the brand.
For 2008, specifically on September 14, another franchise was opened, now in Friedrichshain, Berlin, but it was declared insolvent on August 14, 2009. That same day, the Program Tunéame la Nave was broadcast for the first time on Tv Azteca as part of a new franchise in Mexico. In this program Mauricio Hernández was the presenter, after having worked for the American company.
In 2009 the “Street Customs” program was renamed “Inside West Coast Customs”.
In addition, From 2009 to 2012 West Coast Customs mentioned a Japanese franchise on its website where merchandise could be purchased, but an address was never provided, no Japanese media wrote about the opening of the franchise, and WCC has provided no more information about it, so it can be assumed that this franchise was only for the sale of merchandise and not for customization.
In June 2013, Fox Sports Network took over production of the show, dropping the word "Inside" from the name, and continued to produce new seasons of the show through 2016. Additionally, during the filming of West Coast Season 5 Episode 12 Customs, Ryan began moving the shop to its current location, Burbank, California, opening in December 2014.
Additionally, a 2013 video released by technology brand HP (Hewlett-Packard) interviewing Ryan mentions a franchise in Malaysia under the Malay name: Pantai Barat Customs. In this case, the owner of this franchise stated that it would bring "official WCC merchandise to the shores of Malaysia" in 2013, but the Facebook page is no longer available and no further information is known about this franchise, so it can be understand that this franchise, like the Japanese, was solely for the sale of merchandise.
On January 14, 2016, Ryan announced a new franchise in Shanghai via a Facebook post, and it was opened on August 18, 2016.
Finally, and as a curious fact, in an interview with Dana Florence for “Active Open Air Show Carsse” a Russian franchise is mentioned under the name Russian: Вест Коуст Customs, but there is no indication of its opening nor of its website, for which follows that this franchise never existed.
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