I was behind the scenes for a whole day of Truck U show with Bruno and Matt. They were doing a promo for one of our products that came out on the show. Bruno is a driver, and from what I could tell he is not much of a mechanic or an enthusiast, Matt was no better. When I asked Bruno what he drove he said that a BMW, LOL. They film in the Tampa area in a very small warehouse. That is the same warehouse they use to film All Girls Garage, and I think the other one is 2 guys garage. The warehouse is set up in such a way as 3 corners are used for filming. One corner has Truck U, one corner has 2 Guys Garage (I think), and the other corner has 3 Girls Garage. The guys you see on TV, in Truck U's case it would be Bruno and Matt, literally do nothing but talk to the camera. They have 2 other guys there that do all the wrenching. On the day we were there they were installing custom bumpers on a Truck. These 2 guys would basically remove the bumper, then put it back in with a couple of loose screws, so that they could then go in and film Bruno and Matt taking that last screw off the bumper and removing it. Immediately after that the 2 unknown guys would go nuts putting in the aftermarket bumper and they would leave the screws loose, then they would film Bruno and Matt just tightening the screws down. Neither Bruno nor Matt ever got their hands dirty. They never wrench on those cars, it is all done through the magic of film. If at some point Matt or Bruno could not get something in, they would stop filming and get the 2 background guys to put the part in, so that they could continue filming.
I was with one of our employees and I guess her whole world was rocked when she saw this. She told me that she had watched 2 Guys Garage since she was a little girl and she idolized those guys. She basically figured out, from seeing what we were seeing, that it was all a show, and that they actually did no wrenching on the show.
More interesting than that is that the whole show is paid for by the manufacturers of the parts they are putting on. Every single part that is put on one of those cars is given to the show for free, and the manufacturer is paying a pretty penny to have it on the show. They have a list of cars that that they give you when you want to advertise with them. They have which vehicles are coming up next and what they already have setup in parts for them. You then choose what parts you make that can work on the cars they are working on and pay them for it. The cars are privately owned by locals and are provided to the show for free.