04/16/2026
📣📣📣 2026 Adirondack Nationals Car Show Celebrity will be📣📣📣
➡️DAN SHORT - FANTOMWORKS⬅️
Here is the Official Bio of Daniel R Short, Creator of FantomWorks!!
In 1967, Dan was 5 years old. He saw the new Camaro, and that vision never left him.
Military Background:
• Born 7 Sep 1962. He was the son of an Air Force officer who’d served in WWII as bomber crew. Dan graduated in 1980 from high school and joined the US Army 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) serving at Fort Bragg NC, as a medic with advanced surgical training. Assigned to a Military Free-fall Team, he learned French & Arabic, and performed surgery during combat operations on US and foreign nationals throughout North Africa. In 1986, Dan attended Special Forces Underwater Operations training followed by becoming a sniper school instructor.
• In 1987 he received a scholarship and completed a degree in biology with follow-on training at the US Army Flight School. Upon completion, he was reassigned to Ft. Bragg where he received his Master Parachutist Qualification and an assignment to attend the AH-64 Apache transition followed by the maintenance test pilot program. In 1996, Dan was assigned to combat duties in Kuwait, followed by an assignment to Naval Postgraduate School at in Monterrey CA. In 2002, Dan was assigned to Special Operations Command as Program Manager of the Spec Ops “Little Bird” fleet with brief Combat duties in Afghanistan. Dan’s final assignment was the program manager of the MH-60 fleet’s conversion to the MH-60M configuration.
It was while Dan was stationed at Ft. Bragg NC the first time, he saw a smoking, beat up, 1967 RS SS Camaro running down highway 210 in Spring Lake NC. After chasing the owner down and badgering him into selling it, Dan spent a few years hanging out at shops and taking classes to learn everything he could about restorations. Two years later, it was the showpiece that would ultimately inspire the creation of FantomWorks. And yes, it resides inside the FantomWorks shop today.
Dan retired from the Army and with his best friend and wife, Melissa by his side, created an amazing restoration shop that was "discovered" by New Dominion Pictures. The production company hired the creator of Myth Busters to film a 3 minute video that was picked up by Discovery Velocity channel. In 2012, the Television Series began that would air in 67 countries & 190 million homes. The series Set global viewership records and received 4 National awards. Unfortunately no good deed goes unpunished and although the series was a global phenomenon, the toll it took on Dan and the crew was staggering. Employee turnover skyrocketed, crew happiness vanished, and the stress of maintaining a hit series and keeping more than 100 cars in build at a time was staggering. On top of that, the production company refused to adequately fund the series which magnified the stress of production. After nine seasons, the shop had suffered millions of dollars in losses because of the show and was grossly in debt. At that time, Dan was forced to either go bankrupt or quit the show. At the height of the success of the show, Dan wrote a letter to the production company and the discover network informing them that the series had to end. Dan’s concerns then shifted ensuring the termination of the show would not result in the termination of his company.
Today, FantomWorks is the company that Dan had always dreamed of. The employees are happy and retention is basically 100%. We build about 60 cars at a time, and overall, the customer satisfaction is close to 100%. We’re opening a second shop to repair boats, large equipment, and RVs.
Quitting the show was the toughest and best thing I’ve ever done. Although most would think that building stunning cars on a hit television series would be high on their list of dreams, I awoke to find that the show’s success was the biggest nightmare I’d ever faced. It is for this reason, I’ve adopted this mantra below.
“Few will ever realize just how many people will come to hate you, for nothing more than perceived success…”
Dan Short
See you All the "Weekend After Labor Day" at the Adirondack Nationals Car Show & you too can meet the famous Dan Short!!
