Jolene MacIntyre gained prominence through her participation in the Canadian reality television series called “Bad Chad Customs.” Discovery Channel launched the series in 2019, that chronicled the activities in the car customization shop, Hiltz Auto Co (formerly called Green Goblin Customs), which she co-founded with fiancé Chad Hiltz. It generated much interest from car enthusiasts, as it featured Chad’s unconventional way of building cars from scratch or abandoned rusty classic cars using trivial objects found in the junkyard or barn. Jolene might not be as creative or skilled as the rest of the crew, but she was acknowledged as the brains in the business operation of the shop.
What was “Bad Chad Customs” all about?
While there have been a multitude of car customization reality-TV shows created these past couple of decades by cable and mainstream TV networks, “Bad Chad Customs” offered something uniquely different from the rest of them.
How did it all start?
Jolene MacIntyre was instrumental in having Chad Hiltz’s car customization skills become known to the public. One of the reasons why they started dating in 2017 was their love for cars; he knew that she admired Ralph Lauren’s 1938 Bugatti Type 57 SC, which was reportedly valued at $40 million at that time, so he built a replica of the luxury car for her, using cheaper materials. As his girlfriend, she was aware of how great a car builder he was, and felt it would be such a waste if she couldn’t share it with the world. Jolene documented the whole car-building process, and posted the videos online – people were amazed, as his way of doing things was quite different from other car restorers out there. From this, he gained an online fan base, and these awesome videos reached the keen eyes of one of the executive producers at Discovery Channel. It didn’t take long for Chad and Jolene to receive an offer to do a reality TV show.
The basic narrative and TV premiere of the show
Unlike other car-themed unscripted series on TV, “Bad Chad Customs” didn’t restore classic vehicles to their former glory using original parts, and it was for this reason that Discovery included this show in their programming menu. Chad would chop a vintage car and use unconventional parts of whatever he could get his hands, on such as recycled metal, even a coat metal hanger, to rebuild a car with a design that he drew from his imagination. He went around sheds, farms, and junkyards to purchase rusty old cars, and had them delivered to his shop, so his crew could help him transform them into something entirely different. His mantra is ‘One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.’ The show made its TV debut on 1 January 2019, and the first season had six episodes, generating decent ratings that persuaded Discovery to order a second season. The TV show made the small village of Channing in Nova Scotia popular, as more viewers became curious about where Chad’s shop was located.
Meet Bad Chad Customs Crew
Aside from Jolene, whom Chad described as ‘smart, beautiful and mine,’ the other members of his main crew in the show were Aaron Rand (builder), Alex Gould (mechanic), and Colton (apprentice). They were joined by other skilled individuals depending on the type of project being handled. Aaron was Chad’s childhood friend; they were both country boys who grew up on a farm, and shared common interests such as building cars. His main expertise was doing upholstery work on the interiors of automobiles. Alex was the shop’s machine whisperer and could fix any machine he would lay his hands on as he was one of the best mechanics in town. Colton wasn’t only their apprentice every summer but also Chad’s only son from his ex-partner. He was being trained to be a car builder, so Chad could pass on his legacy to him. Jolene described this crew as a small team with a big vision.
Small-town car artist “Bad Chad” is a genius builder like no other. Bad Chad uses limited resources, basic tools, and his endless ingenuity to bring his crazy ideas to life. You don’t want to miss Bad Chad Customs, coming to @Discovery on New Year’s Day! https://t.co/zVOOegWP07 pic.twitter.com/rnM8Zu9PUk
— Warner Bros. Discovery (@wbd) December 18, 2018
From Green Goblin Customs to Hiltz Auto Co
Many people wondered why Chad Hiltz changed the name of his business when it became quite popular after the first season of “Bad Chad Customs” was aired. Apparently, due to licensing issues, he couldn’t make money using the name. Fortunately, his fiancée and shop manager, Jolene Macintyre, was quite adept at handling finances, so she immediately made the necessary changes, and they chose Hiltz Auto Co, so it would easily be associated with the master car builder, and incorporated most of his creations including merchandise into their online shop, without any copyright issues. The new name also became convenient when they tapped into their international market. This signified that their brand had become a lot bigger than the one they’d started many years ago, in a small town in rural Nova Scotia, Canada.
10 fascinating facts about Jolene Macintyre
Initially, viewers of “Bad Chad Customs” thought that Jolene would be just another pretty face in a customization car shop, with the main purpose of putting some glamour and hotness into the drab and greasy garage. However, she was way different from the models, actresses, or former Playboy bombshells who were often included in reality shows to be its eye candy. Aside from being pleasing to look at, she was also proficient in producing financial strategies, and a quick learner, as she developed car-building skills just by assisting Chad over the years.
Played sports in college
One of the reasons why Jolene remained physically fit through the years was because she’d been heavily involved in sports when she was still in college. She was a midfielder for her soccer varsity team, Saint Mary’s University Huskies, for two seasons from 2014 to 2016. While she never really enjoyed sharing personal stories either on the show or in her social media accounts, there was one time that she posted an old photo of her playing soccer on her Facebook account. She tagged a former rival coach, Butch Collins, and asked him if he could still remember the time when she let out her temper on the field, which led him to award a penalty kick against her. Apparently, at that time, the coach told her ‘Wait, you’re not gonna yell at me for that call?’ Butch replied to her post, and told her that she was a beast on the pitch.
Backed by her university degree
Some people thought that when Jolene was included in the cast of “Bad Chad Customs,” it was due solely to her personal relationship with Chad, as she was his fiancée. However, the main reason she was asked by Chad to manage his operations was that she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Commerce, majoring in Finance, from Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. While her fiancé was busy handling the technical side of the car building process, she ran the day-to-day operation of the shop, saying ‘My role was to keep everybody in line, manage the money, and to make sure that they were always going forward.’ After earning her business degree in college, she immediately went to work as a Supervisor at a golf course in her hometown of Centerville, Nova Scotia. She also worked at a Pool Hall as part of its staff in New Minas, Nova Scotia, where she initially met Chad. When they started to date, she joined him to manage his little customization car shop, Green Goblin Customs.
Her love for learning
When she was asked during an interview about her favorite life lesson quote, she shared, ‘The greatest investment you can make is in yourself.’ Jolene had always believed that education wouldn’t betray anyone. Aside from earning her finance degree, she also studied kinesiology, the study of human body movements based on scientific research, which can be used to treat people with diseases and injuries, to help them achieve or improve their quality of life. The 5ft 3ins blond was pretty practical about it, and said that the more she learned, the more she earned.
Her fascination for motorcycles
Jolene’s love for vehicles didn’t stop at classic automobiles, but extended to vintage motorcycles. She loved the freedom that riding her bike in the countryside gave her, and didn’t mind getting her hair messed up. In 2019, she used to ride a vintage 1974 Honda K7 CB-450, a middleweight bike that was produced to rival the British 500s and 650s back in the day. It was just the right size and weight for her petite body to handle. However, a year later, her fiancé Chad bought her a Honda Repsol jacket, and so she decided to match it with the Honda Repsol CBR250R motorbike. She proudly posted on her social media account, ‘Chad bought the jacket last weekend, so I had to buy the bike to match (true story).’
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Jolene and Chad’s relationship impressed fans
Not all couples who mix business with pleasure end up successfully; sometimes its a recipe for disaster. However, Jolene and Chad’s relationship endured from when they first met in 2015. They initially saw each other when she was still working in a pool hall, and Chad wanted a poster put up in the venue. Their love for cars was the initial spark, then it grew into something stronger, and Chad asked her to marry him in 2017. They became engaged, and then went on to become business partners. She was the one responsible for his growing online presence, which led to his dream being fulfilled. When people asked them what their secret was as a couple, they both said that it all came down to respect. The two were always together 24/7, but they rarely get annoyed because they let each other breathe. They also followed the simple rule, ‘Don’t do unto others what you don’t want others to do unto you.’
Jolene’s impressive honesty on the cars that they built for the show
Fans became curious when they noticed that all the cars that were supposedly built and sold at the end of each episode during the two seasons of “Bad Chad Customs” were still with Hiltz Auto Co, Jolene addressed the issue truthfully in a video she uploaded on their official YouTube channel – that Chad’s contract with Discovery stated that all the cars they built in the show would remain with him. Apparently, they were given a limited budget and deadline to build the cars – each car had to be finished within a month. One of Jolene’s tasks before the filming even began was to find the “clients” who would commission Chad’s shop to build cars for them. She said most viewers believed that reality TV shows were real, but they weren’t; she referred to them as formulated products. However, not all of the aspects of the show were fake, because the car-building process was real along with the tension between the crew when things went wrong. Any scene that depicted friction inside the shop wasn’t scripted, as it was just a direct result of the deadline that Discovery Channel gave to them. People naturally became crankier than usual when things didn’t go as planned.
Her golden rule in life
Jolene had taken a positive approach to life; she said it made things easier when a person did things the right way. She always tried her best to follow the golden rule, which was to treat people the way that one would like to be treated. ‘I personally use the golden rule as my compass when making decisions — personal and business.’ Jolene firmly believed that if people would only live by this rule, it would be a better world for everybody.
Jolene’s recipe for success
As more people got to know Jolene and her contribution to the success of Hiltz Auto Co, she motivated many people, especially women entrepreneurs who wanted to follow in her footsteps. She shared that effort would always inspire success; the more that she was willing to put into her work – whether it was time, intensity, or commitment – the same would be given back to her. After working for so long to make their business a six-figure brand, she discovered that in the end, it only cost her time and effort. She compared the YouTube platform to the stock market, and their official channel as a dividend stock portfolio. Instead of putting money into it as her investment, she gave time to create content for it.
She helped organize the “Bad Chad Customs” crew
Many viewers were surprised to learn that the Green Goblin Customs shop was indeed quite small, and that in the beginning it was just her and Chad working there. When they were offered a reality TV show by Discovery, they were asked to build a team to serve as the garage crew. Initially, some of the first people they talked to were Chad’s friends, but most of them couldn’t be a part of the team as they were so busy with their own careers. Having Colton onboard was Jolene’s idea, and when she broached the idea to Chad, he was quite reluctant at first because his son wasn’t equipped with the appropriate skills. However, Jolene said that it was the perfect time for father and son to bond together, by making Colton his apprentice. She said it was difficult to have a team ready by the time the production crew from L.A. arrived, but they managed to get people with the right skill set, and at the same time were on a similar wavelength to Chad.
https://www.instagram.com/p/COTMZSSnJmV/
She turned her mistakes into opportunities
One of the main reasons why Jolene continued to inspire people long after the reality TV show was off air was her intense passion to succeed, and turn negative happenings into something positive. For instance, she treated mistakes as something that was meant to make a person better, by embracing them and being accountable for them. She already trained herself not only to learn from them, but also to have the strength to move forward. There was a time during the start of developing the Hiltz Auto Co brand when she hired a graphic designer to come up with a logo and certain type of branding for the company, but after paying four figures for the artist’s services, she wasn’t satisfied with the result. That mistake allowed her to dig deeper into her artistic side, and create the logo herself. It was with this mindset that their official YouTube channel generated more than 85 million views, and helped their business flourish. They included merchandise with the customized cars that they sell on their online shop.
Jolene never backed out on any task that was given to her. While she would give her all to become successful, which was what she dreamt of as a child, she wasn’t stingy when giving credit to those who helped her along the way. One of them was Chad, whom she considered her greatest influence. When she was asked to elaborate, she said that she was planning to do that by including them in her wedding vows in the future. She also said that she was backed by an empowered team. ‘We have a very creative working environment, where everyone’s opinions and ideas are valued, and so far it’s working out great.’ She advised upcoming entrepreneurs that the easiest way to empower people around them was to give them the platform to voice their thoughts.
