Counting Cars is a show on
The History Channel.
After several appearances on
Pawn Stars, Danny "The Count" Koker was given his own show focusing on his shop, Count's Kustoms, and his crew of employees as they buy, restore, customize, and sell various classic cars and motorcycles.
The cast includes Danny's right hand man and best friend Kevin, the shop air-brush artist Horny Mike(so named for his obsession with putting horns on anything he makes whenever possible), the shop detailer and local
Funny Foreigner Roli, project scout Big Ryan, bookkeeper Scott, and bike-shop manager Shannon. Episodes regularly show the team's various hijinks, conflicts, and occasional screw ups, but in the end it's always obvious why Danny refers to them as his "all-star crew"; they're very good at what they do.
A major part of the show is how Danny, while cruising around Vegas with Kevin, will go out of his way to chase down every classic car or bike he sees on the road with the intent of making an offer on the vehicle, sometimes following people for miles just for the chance to talk to them. He's variously met with enthusiasm from fellow car fanatics to suspicion from those who don't like being followed. While he doesn't always make a deal, he always makes an offer, and if that fails leaves his business card, securing a new customer for the shop. Whenever possible, he'll take the car for a test drive, leaving Kevin as collateral, much to Kevin's annoyance.
Other aspects of the show include Danny's temptation to keep the vehicles he buys instead of selling them for profit; it's mentioned his personal collection is comprised of over fifty automobiles which are on display in the shop. Also touched upon is Danny's relationship with various celebrities and the work he does for them.
This series provides examples of:
- And Some Other Stuff: Danny installs an anti-theft device on a customer's car which was stolen - twice - and turns off the cameras while showing her. In all likelyhood, it's a switch hidden under the dashboard in series with the ignition coil, published by Popular Mechanics every decade or so, all the way back in February 1925
. - Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Danny.
- All There in the Manual: Roli can't figure out how to back up a Lamborghini Countach with a ludicrously tiny back window. Danny reveals that when you buy the car, the dealer and/or factory has to teach you a special method for doing so, leaning out the open door.
- Audience Surrogate: Roli, being from Europe, isn't well versed in American automotive history, so will occasionally serve this roll for Danny's exposition.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: The guys at the shop are quirky, to say the least, but they are all damn good at what they do. Danny specifically lampshades this with Kevin, who is, in his words, "an asshole", but he's very good at his job.
- The Chessmaster: Danny. Whenever he and Kevin are rolling around Las Vegas to look for cars to buy or flip, he often tries to get drivers to pull over or to talk to the drivers. Even if he doesn't get a deal, he'll leave his business card. More than once, he has gotten customers to come to his shop to either buy his cars or to request a job from his shop. All thanks to simple, albeit weird, networking.
- Cool Car / Cool Bike: Pretty much many, if not all the cars, bikes, and trucks seen on the show.
- Crossover: With Pawn Stars, especially when Rick Harrison requests to make a car into the car from Bullitt.
- Determinator: When Danny wants to look at a car, it's extremely, extremely rare for him to stop before he's convinced its owner to pull over and talk with him about it, which frustrates (and occasionally frightens) Kevin to no end.
- Do You Want to Haggle?: In terms of the family of shows stemming from Pawn Stars, he does more actual haggling than Rick Dale, but not as much as Rick Harrison.
- The main difference between any of the other History Channel reality shows where this is involved, Danny definitely has a problem with knowing when to stop. If the owner is willing to sell, he'll generally buy, no matter how much it costs... he just loves cars too much to pass one up that catches his eye.
- He gets caught off guard when someone gets him to pull over and offers to buy his 1973 Plymouth Sattalite Sebring Plus. Because they were obvious car people, he sells it for $34,000.
- Doing It for the Art: Danny & crew are out to make a profit. However, Danny will eat in to that profit margin when it means going the extra mile on a project to make it up to his artistic standards, and to see to it that the vehicle in question finds a home with someone who'll love and appreciate it.
- Heterosexual Life Partners: Danny and Kevin.
- One of Us: Danny's a huge fan of old horror movies, and once cruised around Vegas wearing vampire fangs. And driving Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. He even used to host a Las Vegas TV slot that would show old B horror movies under the name Count Coolrider.
- Real Men Wear Pink: Kevin owns two small lapdogs and will baby-talk with them. Danny himself has a soft spot for small animals as seen both on this show and once on Pawn Stars.
- Swapped Roles: Danny is always flagging down cool cars and bikes that he sees on the road and offering to buy them off the owner. In one episode, however, a guy actually flagged down Danny and tried to buy his car, insisting that he loved it and had to have it. Danny was caught off-balance and admitted that it felt very weird being in the role of the owner rather than the buyer, but much to his own amazement he did end up selling his car to the guy for $34,000.
- Those Two Guys: Roli and Horny Mike.
- Tranquil Fury: It's fairly rare for Danny to get truly angry, but when he does he maintains his composure well; still, its easy to see how much it's seething beneath the surface.
- Possibly the best example of this was actually on Pawn Stars, when he was called a lousy mechanic for saying a Porsche Boxster engine (stored outside unprotected for a long time) was likely seized and in need of a total rebuild, and not worth the asking price.
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