YMMV / American Restoration

• Fandom Rivalry: In what Rick calls another example of the great Coke vs. Pepsi debate, a customer brings in a 1940s Coca-Cola coin changer machine for restoration... but, being a Pepsi fan, he asks Rick to repaint it in Pepsi blue rather than its original Coke red.
• Growing the Beard: Not the show itself (which has always been of consistent quality) but Brettly, who went from comic relief/George Jetson Job Security to actually becoming competent. The turning point was likely when he restored his own truck and the show couldn't hide his true talents in any believable way any longer.
  • Brettly has, in fact, literally grown a beard.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Brettly went from being the show's Chumlee (who himself is no longer portrayed as such a buffoon) to being just as competent as anybody else in the shop. It may be that he is actually learning stuff, though, as opposed to a decision by writers. This is an actual business.
• Squick: In one episode, Kowboy finds that the sandwiches he's bringing to lunch keep disappearing from the fridge and has enough of this, so one day he wraps the sandwich in tape and writes his name on it, and keeps an eye out. Of course it turns out to be Ron, who ignores the name and blames the theft on ignorance. Kowboy reveals he'd mixed his own mucus into the sandwich. Ron was hoping he was joking; Kowboy's comments to the film crew suggest otherwise.
• Tear Jerker: When Rick's talking about how hard it is to give up the old shop to move to the new one. At one point in talking about how he's spent the best years of his life there, he becomes so emotional he has to drop out of view of the camera to collect himself.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Brettly makes a Rob Ford joke when restoring George Clinton's piano ("this [soundboard] has more cracks than the mayor of Toronto"). A few weeks later, Rob Ford, due to health reasons, took his name out of the mayoral race.
• The Woobie: Tyler. It's true that he screws up a lot, but he actually does try to work, often showing initiative and a willingness to do the job that some of the adult employees lack. While it makes sense to scold him for messing up, he's also never given credit for having a good work ethic in the first place.