Every gearhead dreams of having hundreds of cars in their collection, yet very few of them can face the challenges which such a lifestyle brings up. That’s not the case for Mike Hall, whose journey of restoring and selling his collection of hundreds of cars was featured in “Rust Valley Restorers” for several seasons.
While there’s a lot to say about Mike’s mission of getting rid of his collection one car at a time, his lifestyle also brings up many questions regarding his financial situation and other personal details which are unfortunately not revealed in the show.
So is Mike Hall as rich as we think? Stay here to know all about his finances, life whereabouts and so much more!
Contents
How Rich Is Mike Hall?
According to online reports, Mike Hall from “Rust Valley Restorers” has an estimated net worth of $2 million, resulting from business Rust Bros Restorations, TV appearances, sponsorships, and merchandise sales.
Though Mike’s fortune might sound quite impressive for a reality star, the truth is that it’s not far-fetched to think that most of it comes from his car deals. In fact, most of Mike’s efforts to sell his collection come from his worry about leaving his family with too many car problems to deal with, including any future financial hassles it could cause: ‘Even if I drop dead tomorrow I wouldn’t feel bad’, he told InfoNews.ca in late 2022, referring to the fact that he felt he’s prevented his family from going through many troubles by selling dozens of his cars.
While it’s unclear if Mike is involved in any other business besides his restoration shop, there’s no doubt that he has made a good living out of it.
How Much Does He Earn From The Show?
Even though reality TV is often believed to be quite a profitable industry, that isn’t the case for Mike Hall and “Rust Valley Restorers”.
While Mike hasn’t given out information about the financial aspects of the show, his employees and co-stars Cassidy Mceown and Sarah Ward took on TikTok to shed some light on the finances of the show, revealing that their income from it was close to zero, and their only salary came from working for Rust Bro Restorations.
As they explained, “Rust Valley Restorers” was rated as a documentary and was produced by a Canadian company, which played a role in how there wasn’t much money invested in the project compared to American productions of a similar genre.
As well, the duo revealed that Mike and Avery Shoaf earned better than them for being owners of the businesses featured in the show, but their salaries weren’t large amounts of money either. Though appearing in “Rust Valley Restorers” gave the cast some benefits such as sponsorships and discounts, Cassidy and Sarah also affirmed that those were the only real advantages they were getting from it.
All in all, Mike’s fortune might be an impressive one, but it certainly doesn’t come entirely from his appearances on TV.
Did He Sell His Cars?
A couple of years before debuting his show “Rust Valley Restorers”, Mike Hall was already on a mission to sell his massive collection of over 400 cars. As early as 2016, Mike was putting his cars to auction, but it wasn’t until 2017 that his story took the attention of a local production company in British Columbia, Canada.
Before realizing it, by 2018 Mike was premiering a show on Netflix, and lots of people around the world had their eyes on the activities of his business Rust Bros Restorations. As well, “Rust Valley Restorers” did a good job of attracting a wide variety of customers, slowly but surely helping him to accomplish his mission of selling hundreds of cars, and lifting that financial worry from his family’s shoulders.
The most recent bulk sale took place in October 2022, when Mike was left with around 40 cars to deal with. That was an incredible accomplishment for Mike, considering that at some point he had owned over 500 cars, and stored them in four separate properties.
It wasn’t easy for Mike to part from the cars, which he’d spent decades adding to his collection, but it’s also worth it.
Unbeknownst to many fans of “Rust Valley Restorers”, the show wasn’t Mike Hall’s debut on TV. Back in 2017, Mike appeared for the first time on the small screen in the documentary series “Highway Thru Hell” as he helped crews to get the roads cleared. Nevertheless, he wasn’t introduced into the show with his name but as Rasta Blasta, owner of the rock blasting company Chimera Springs Rock Works, which is still active nowadays.
While Mike’s appearances in “Highway Thru Hell” were very brief, his personality and on-camera presence made him quite memorable. Later in 2021, Mike appeared in several episodes of the first season of “Backroad Truckers”, as a member of the additional equipment crew.
Even though Mike doesn’t often talk about his appearances in other shows besides “Rust Valley Restorers”, it’s great to see that he’s got these brief but memorable moments on TV for something other than having a larger-than-life car collection.
What Happened To The Show?
Following the “Rust Valley Restorers” premiere in 2018, the show aired several seasons both on Netflix and later on MotorTrend, with a slight change in format in the middle of the second season. That meant that a normal 12 episodes season was split in half, so that the show appears to have premiered four and five seasons, depending on the network which promotes it.
Nonetheless, the most common question regarding “Rust Valley Restorers” has to do with whether the show was canceled or not. As it happened, the last time we saw Mike Hall and his crew on TV was in mid-2022, but no news about a renewal came for the following months, and that was very out-of-character for a show which had premiered at least one season per year.
To address the very common doubts about the show’s future, in July 2023 Connor Hall took to Instagram to explain that by then, the newest season of “Rust Valley Restorers” was already filmed and ready to premiere, but that the production company and networks hadn’t given it a release date.
Connor’s words brought back the hope of seeing our favorite Canadian restorers on TV again, but only time will tell when that’ll happen.
What Is Mike Hall Doing Now?
Although it’s already confirmed that “Rust Valley Restorers” is coming back for a new season at an unknown date, fans of the show have been wondering what Mike and the rest of the crew have been doing lately.
While the fact that Mike doesn’t have a social media account makes it hard to keep up to date with his whereabouts, in July 2023 his son Connor affirmed that neither he nor his father had been working on cars since the beginning of the year, focusing instead on operating their construction and rock blasting company Chimera Springs Rock Works.
Despite taking some time away from the restoration garage, Mike has been recently featured in several YouTube channels such as JF Launier’s Killer Kustoms and Roadworthy Revivals, on top of also appearing in an episode of Avery Shoaf’s podcast.
That being said, Rust Bros Restorations is still up and running, with Cassidy Mceown and Blair Smith often showing their activities and projects in the shop. As well, Avery is still working in his shop, and also attends some car events and exhibitions while promoting the show.
All in all, the future of “Rust Valley Restorers” remains unclear, but it’s for sure that Mike Hall and the others are still moving forward with their projects.
