The wait for Season 5 of Rust Valley Restorers ends this week.
For the past year or so, fans of the Tappen, B.C.-based History Channel series have had to rely on Youtube to keep up with the activities of Mike and Connor Hall, Avery Shoaf, Cassidy Mceown and the rest of the Rust Valley Restorers gang. But they'll all be back Thursday, Sept. 19, with the premiere of Season 5 on the History Channel, and streaming on STACKTV.
"We didn鈥檛 film last year and everybody has been waiting and waiting. I was starting to forget what cars we built there for a while," laughed Mike, who is eager for Season 5 to air.
"The season that鈥檚 coming up, we did some amazing builds鈥�," said Mike. "We kind of extended our horizons, we did a really wide range of vehicles of sentimental value just because they were cool. Some I should know better to start. But we had a lot of help, a lot of people on this season coming up."
While there was no filming last year, Mike kept busy doing blasting work along Highway 1 in Chase.
"We had the contract with CN Rail," said Mike. "Connor runs that and he just picked up that gig in Chase."
Mike also kept busy producing content with Rust Brothers creator/producer Matt Shewchuck for the YouTube channel, Rust Bros (Official), while Shoaf did the same for his channel, Wild Man Garage. Among their online adventures, Mike and Matt drove across Canada in Mike's '64 Chevelle Malibu.
"We just went to a car show in Fredricton and they lined up for four hours 鈥� the further east we go the more rabid the fans are," said Mike. "Newfoundland was insane. People would chase us down to give us canned moose meat. It was just wild."
Since the last season of Rust Valley, in which Mike auctioned off about 500 vehicles, paring his collection down to 40, the passionate car collector accumulated a few more vehicles. He suggested another auction may be in the works.
"Since the first auction, I鈥檝e accumulated about 160, I got rid of 100 and then I鈥檝e accumulated another 40 or 50 in the last 13 months. I don鈥檛 know how it happened," said Mike. "I鈥檝e quit a lot of things in my life but collecting the cars鈥� its almost a disease, it鈥檚 like a malignant disease that never goes away. It goes into remission for a while and then blam, it comes back full tilt."
Not wanting to give too much away about what's in store in Season 5, Mike shared a little bit about one build, an "easy project" for Avery 鈥� a 1974 Austin Mini, complete with Union Jack on the roof.
"When you look at Avery, he's more of a maxi but he likes the minis," said Mike. "He鈥檚 had a bunch of them and he finally decided he鈥檚 going to get one done鈥� That鈥檚 going to be one of the coolest episodes, especially when you shove me and Avery in the car and we go for a drive."
Mike acknowledged the past six years of Rust Valley have been a "pretty wild ride," enabling him to continue his dream of collecting and rebuilding cars, and get paid in the process.
"I started filming at 60; next thing you know we鈥檙e on Netflix in 190 countries and what the hell just happened, you know what I mean鈥�," said Mike. "I'm almost 68 years old, I worked for 50 years, the rest of my time I like playing with cars. I've still got 100 left and I don鈥檛 see me running out of projects anytime soon."
Catch new episodes of Rust Valley Restorers on Thursdays at The HISTORY Channel and streaming on @STACKTV. Don't miss new episodes every Thursday at 6 p.m. PST.
