5 shows on car restoration

Dive into the world of cars and know how to restore them

Monster Garage

Overhaulin’

Wheelers Dealers

Rust Valley Restorers

Rust Valley Restorers

Fast N’ Loud

There are many US and UK shows on automobile restoration. From refurbishing cars and reselling them for a good profit margin to surprising someone with a car makeover, these shows walk us through the process of giving an automobile a new life.

Monster Garage

Often considered one of the most entertaining shows, ‘Monster Garage’ has two teams working together to design and create the most impressive car restorations of all time.

The show works in a way that the car is altered and transformed into something else. For example, a Volkswagen Beetle doubles up as a pop-up bar or a police car that doubled up as a doughnut shop. These designs don’t just impress but are fully functional too.

The show is hosted by Jesse James. It is for all those who like to tinker with things and give them their special touch.

Overhaulin’

Overhaulin’, a car makeover show has a team working on cars that were nominated by the owner’s peers and family. The show is a fun journey where the nominee’s friends and family struggle to keep the soon-to-be-renovated look a secret, till it is reunited with the owner. The cars are obtained by some ruse — like ‘someone’ stealing the car or it being towed away by the ‘police’.

Unlike many other shows, the final result isn’t too whacky or out of the box here. The renovation work is more focused on basic fixes and shares tips about what one can try themselves. The show is hosted by automobile designer Chip Foose.

Wheelers Dealers

This British TV series is presented by car enthusiast and dealer Mike Brewer. In each episode, Brewer purchases a vehicle, takes it to his mechanic for repairs and then sells it on. All this is done on a limited budget — while the show in its first series started with a budget of £1,000, it is said to have risen to up to £20,000 in the later series. Each car project has followed a similar TV format till now.

Fast N’ Loud

The show features Richard Rawlings and his team from Gas Monkey Garage in Dallas, Texas, as they are on the search for cars that have been run down, and restore them. To most others, these cars might just look like a pile of rust and junk, but these motorheads work hard on bringing these back to life and sell it to the highest bidder. The team is as energetic as ever and the show has its light-hearted and entertaining moments, yet the show is often-rated as showing a true-to-life depiction of car restorations.

Rust Valley Restorers

A Canadian documentary series, Rust Valley Restorers, is shot at South Shuswap, an area in Tappen, British Columbia. The place is referred to as the ‘Rust Valley’, because of its vintage car community and junkyards.

The show is set in a vintage automobile restoration shop, where skilled people restore automobile scrap, turn them into collectibles and sell them. The group is led by Michael Hall, owner of Rust Bros Restorations. Hall began collecting cars in his teenage and owned hundreds of cars, which are parked on his property near the Trans-Canada Highway.

These shows are available online