Ultimate Restorations

In 1926, Kansas City ordered a small fleet of Ahrens-Fox fire engines. They were the finest most expensive fire engines ever built, glistening pieces of functional art, never to be duplicated. At his own fire engine museum in Estes Park Colorado, volunteer fireman Doug Kilnk and a small group of volunteers attempt to restore the last Kansas City Ahrens Fox back to showroom condition.

The intricate, multi-million dollar restoration of one of the world's rarest railroad cars, the Badger No.2 Fish Car. During the Depression of 1911, these railroad cars brought fingerling fish in tanks from the East Coast and Midwest to stock lakes and streams in the West. The drama of getting this massive and priceless piece of history back onto the tracks is riveting entertainment.

Host Bob McNeil's restoration of the 136 foot Cangarda, the last American built steam yacht. Watch as Bob and his crew of talented shipwrights revive old construction techniques as well as utilize new ones to restore this beautiful vessel and then they risk it all when they launch her for the first time.

A tale of two carousels. Early in the 20th century Charles Looff and Marcus Illions were creating magnificent carousels. The Illions Supreme is considered the most beautiful and valuable carousel ever built, and we follow its discovery and beginning restoration in Los Angeles, as well as the final restoration and installation of the Looff Playland carousel in San Francisco.

At Vintage Wings Air Museum in Toronto, Canada, a crew of volunteers restores a rare Lysander spy plane from WWII. With its unique flying characteristics, the Lysander saved hundreds of members of the French Resistance by landing behind behind enemy lines . Follow the work from disassembly through the first roar of the huge Merlin engine.

The world's largest pipe organ begins its restoration at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City after decades of silence. With some pipes soaring 64 feet high, it is a nearly impossible challenge, from removal and cleaning of pipes to moving the huge air blowers. We learn how these intricate monsters work, and hear the sound equal to 3 symphony orchestras.

Host Bob McNeil joins yacht restoration expert, Jeff Rutherford in Newport Rhode Island, to tackle the restoration of the 135 foot wooden schooner, Coronet built in 1885. During her first five years, she earned fame as a trans-Atlantic race winner and circumnavigated the globe as one of the first U.S.registered yachts to round Cape Horn. It is a woodworkers dream.

Built in 1891, this beautiful steam locomotive ran continuously at the Jamestown Railroad. Along the way she starred in movies like High Noon and TV series such as Petticoat Junction. Finally disassembled in the late1990s, we follow a colorful crew of talented craftspeople as they restore her, and she gets up steam once again.