Social Media Thrilled Over Teutul Family Reunion on ‘American Chopper’ Return

After five years off the air, American Chopper returned to the Discovery Channel on Thursday, airing the first episode of a new season that will start in May.

And while the fans were happy to see the show back, they were even happier when they learned that the iconic father-son duo of Paul Teutul Sr. and Paul Teutul Jr. would be working together again to help revive one of their old bikes.

The show started off with Tuetul Sr. speaking to his other son Mikey, who told him the best person to talk to about getting a new-front end on a bike would be Teutul Jr. The show cut to a phone call between the two, where they agreed to meet at the Orange County Choppers shop. Teutul Sr. admitted that the two haven’t been close since he started raising a family and left the shop to run his own business, Paul Jr. Designs.

Later in the episode one of Teutul Jr.’s workers gets contacted by someone who owns one of the bikes the father and son duo made back in 2005. Known as “The Yankee Bike,” the custom-made ride was decked out in New York Yankees colors and was signed by dozens of Yankee players.

However, in the years since it had been created it had been poorly maintained and was a broken version of its former self. Teutul Jr. then decided this was be a perfect restoration project the two could work on together.

“Someone like malous-ly destroyed this thing,” Junior said when his dad came to see the bike at his shop.”What I had in mind was restoring it completely, but even more importantly I was hoping that maybe you and I could do this as a restoration project. I don’t know, just to try and have something to do together.”

“Yeah, I mean we could do it right here,” Senior said.

Teutul Jr. was overjoyed that he gets to work with his father again on something.

“For me it’s huge,” he said in a confessional. “The Yankees Bike in some way represents our relationship in how damaged our relationship has been. What an opportunity to actually physically repair this and at the same time hopefully begin to repair our relationship. And I think it’s something we really need. It’s something I need, I know that.”