Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Rust Valley Restorers’ On Netflix, A Reality Series About A Man Trying To Restore His Collection Of Rusting Classics

There’s something about watching makeovers and restorations that hit the pleasure centers of our brain much the way eating a big plate of gooey mac and cheese does. We just love seeing a dining room being transformed, or an old dresser being stripped of layers of paint and restored to its original glory. So Rust Valley Restorers, a Canadian reality series debuting on Netflix this week, should hit all those pleasure centers, especially for people who love seeing rusty classic car carcasses made into super-hot show cars. But what’s a restoration show without a little personality mixed in?

RUST VALLEY RESTORERS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A man in dreadlocks walks along a massive field of rusting cars. He says in voice over: “My name is Mike Hall, and over the last 40 years, against better judgement, I’ve managed to amass over 400 classic cars. These cars are my legacy.”

The Gist: Hall, who has spent the last 40 years building a successful business dynamiting rocks and cliffs — he’s known as the “Rasta Blasta” — has been collecting classic cars, mostly non-working rust heaps, since he was a teenager. Now he has over 400 of them, sitting on a massive piece of land at the foot of the Canadian Rockies in Tappen, B.C. Now he’s in his early 60s and he’s decided it’s now or never; instead of doing restorations as a hobby, he decided to sink hundreds of thousands of dollars into a restoration business called Rust Bros, so he can restore and sell his collection.

Joining him is his son Connor, who always has to rein in his father’s spending on new heaps, as well as his inability to keep within a reasonable budget during the restoration. Also there is Avery Shoaf, who also wants Mike to think of this as a business, but is mostly there because he can fix just about any car.

In the first episode, Mike pulls out a 1970 Dodge Swinger he thinks he can turn restore for a decent profit. You see, he’s got a payroll to meet, and if he doesn’t have any cash flow going, he’s toast. But Connor and Avery know he falls in love with these projects and has problems letting them go. Will he be able to restore the Swinger for a reasonable amount and squeeze some decent profit out of it? He also is looking to part with a restored Nova SS at a swap meet, and he knows he won’t get the $25k he put into it. But he needs cash.

He also takes on a 1965 Lincoln Continental convertible owned by a man who has owned the car since he was paralyzed in a ski accident 15 years ago. He quotes $15k for the job, and wants to do right by the client, but realizes that there’s more rust on the car than originally thought, sending labor costs skyrocketing. He even invests money he doesn’t have in a metal-forming brake in order to speed things along. To help him stay on budget, he not only calls in favors from people in the car-loving area of “Rust Valley”, but he also swallows hard and tells the car’s owner that he’ll need to shell out more money to get a certain rusty part fixed.

Our Take: Rust Valley Restorers debuted on Canada’s History channel in 2018, and if you read the backstory on Hall and his car collection, it shows that this 62-year-old white dude with dreads is a legit character. He tried selling the car collection and the land they were on for almost $1.2 million, then when he got no takers, he raised the asking price to almost $1.5 million, which got him a ton of media attention, and attracted executive producers Tyson Hepburn and Matt Shewchuk.

We’re actually surprised that History’s U.S. cousin didn’t pick up the show; it seems like this is the kind of thing that’s right up their alley and would fit right in along with Pawn Stars and similar shows. Personalities, classic American cars, the transformation from rust heap to hot rod… it’s catnip for fans of shows like this.

One thing that would have benefited the show is to not have three storylines going on in one episode. Because of the swap meet story, which admittedly was a great way of showing just how car crazy that area of British Columbia is, we saw a ton of skipped steps in the restoration of both the Swinger and the Lincoln. But it was fun to see the purple-pink Swinger roll out of the garage, and the look on the Lincoln owner’s face at his redone pride and joy was also great to see.

But the show is going to ride on the outlandish personality of Mike Hall. Connor and Avery are there to try to keep him in check and treat this business like, you know, a business. But this isn’t going to be the Teutels on American Chopper, working out familial difficulties while building bikes. Most of the conflict is around Hall’s overspending, but it’s all good-natured. Sure, Hall would kick himself if Rust Bros goes under, but it doesn’t seem like it’s a desperate situation where he’d be out on the street if the business didn’t make it.

So there’s not a ton of pressure there. But seeing Hall dip his dreads into a pile of rat poop to take a back seat out of an old Dodge that he can use on the Swinger shows just how nutty Hall is. The more of that we see, the better.

Sex and Skin: The show, like many of this ilk, is a bit of a sausage-fest. The only lust we see is men getting all hot and bothered over cars.

Parting Shot: We see the Nova, which Mike sold at the swap meet for $10k and a pile of parts he can use in other restorations, drive through the countryside as Connor pats his dad on the back for finally letting one of his cars go.

Sleeper Star: Not sure what the guy’s name was, but one of Mike’s mechanics took a crowbar to the face as he tried to reinstall the Lincoln’s soft top, his lip started bleeding profusely, and he looked more annoyed than anything else. That’s pretty tough.

Most Pilot-y Line: A little more of Mike’s backstory would have been nice. When he says “I’ve put $2 million into this”, we’re take him on face value. But that $2 million includes what he thinks the collection and land is worth, plus the $300,000 he invested to start the business, plus operating costs. How much he’s actually put in is anyone’s guess.

Our Call: STREAM IT. If you like cars, goofy white guys with dreads, and the Canadian Rockies, Rust Valley Restorers is your kind of show.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Stream Rust Valley Restorers on Netflix