I have been on television numerous times over the years, talking about restoring cars, investing in classics, collecting automobilia and designing hot rods and customs. And, in all cases, it has been a pretty positive experience.

I never thought television could have a negative impact on the business I am in, nor do the entire industry a disservice, but of late, this is exactly what is happening.

Reality television has invaded the world of classic cars, restoration and even the hot rod culture. Unfortunately, it is giving people a fairy-tale view, despite the reality nametag.

Shows about automobiles, unless well-produced historical documentaries, have always bored me to tears and I can rarely tolerate more than a few minutes watching two guys and a carburetor before going in quest of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer rerun. But lately, I have made myself sit down and watch a few.

I inflicted this torture on myself for a couple of reasons. The first was that I get dozens of inquiries and questions from people who are experts because they have watched an entire automotive reality series from beginning to end and, secondly, because I am guilty of actually having participated in 26 episodes of a reality series myself.

But don't make the mistake of thinking I sat and watched all 26 episodes because of my involvement, it bores me more than most others because I was there. I watched the first two episodes and the last one and the rest of the tapes sit in a stack.

(Once, I was flipping through the channels during a stopover in Long Beach, Calif., and came across my own mug looking out on me from inside the box. Even then, the charm wore off in moments and I continued on in my quest for entertainment.)

In their quest to make a fairly long, drawn-out and pretty boring process palatable, reality shows do anything but show reality.

For the show I was involved in, the entire shop was stopped from the reality of real work to create work that looked good on screen. To get any progress on the project, it had to be attacked with great ferocity whenever the cameras weren't rolling and there was no producer, director, cameraman or continuity person around to tell us how to restore the vehicle.

Many of the current shows are in fact more like game shows in which everyone behaves badly, throws temper tantrums, says rude things to one another and in general, try to emulate the infamous Teutuls family of American Chopper fame.

Watching American Hot Rod actually made me embarrassed for hot rod designer Boyd Coddington, who was trying desperately to emulate the Teutuls' brawling and came off looking ineffectual and unable to control a staff made up of inefficient misfits who must cost their customers a lot of money.

While I felt embarrassed for Coddington, I also felt sorry for his customers, whose cars were being so royally screwed up on an ongoing basis on national television. Not to be outdone, Canadian production companies are also guilty of making reality automotive television which ranks as some of the very worst created.

You can watch one show, largely comprised of eight-second long road tests where unqualified people give their opinion of a vehicle's abilities again and again and again, or another in which three fairly untalented individuals take some unsuspecting individual's vehicle and, over the course of a half-hour show, pretty much wreck it -- or at least render it virtually incapable of passing a ministry inspection.

There is one American TV show where people's beaten-up cars are actually stolen and then, over a week, fully restored and customized to be given back to the individual just as they were no doubt dreaming of spending the insurance money. One can only guess at the quality of a custom car created in one week.

Unfortunately, I now have people approaching me who think their cars can be restored in a few days and for just a few thousand dollars.

When I try to dissuade them of the notion and point out most restorations take six months to a year and encompass tens of thousands of dollars in labour and parts, they fix me with a knowing stare and inform me I must be wrong, as they have just seen it done on TV and it only took a half-hour.

I still get requests from production companies to get involved in shows with automotive themes so harebrained they could only be thought up by film students who have never owned any vehicle more complex than a 10-speed bicycle.

So far I have resisted further temptation, but you never know, someone may ask me to put together a team of cheerleaders, accountants and retired hairdressers to restore a 1969 Mustang in 10 hours or be thrown into the fiery pits of hell.

Faced with a challenge like that, how could I refuse?

David Grainger owns an automotive restoration company