General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20264 min read

Car Masters: Rust to Riches

Car Masters: Rust to Riches is an American reality television series on Netflix that follows the crew of Gotham Garage, a California automotive restoration and customization shop, as they overhaul older cars and trucks and trade their way up to showpiece vehicles they can sell for large sums. Produced by MAK Pictures, it premiered on September 14, 2018 and ran for six seasons and 48 episodes before Netflix canceled it in 2025.¹

Key fact	Detail
Premiere	September 14, 2018, on Netflix¹
Run	6 seasons, 48 episodes, 8 per season; final episode October 23, 2024¹^•²
Subject	Gotham Garage of Temecula, California, restoring and trading up classic cars³
Main cast	Mark Towle, Shawn Pilot, Constance Nunes, Tony Quinones, Mike "Caveman" Pyle⁴
Production	MAK Pictures; TV-14 rating; episodes about 37 minutes¹^•⁴
Status	Canceled after season 6; no season 7¹

Spoilers

Premise and format

Each season follows the Gotham Garage crew as it buys or takes in low-value project vehicles, restores and reimagines them, and trades the results for progressively more valuable cars. The stated goal is to reach a showstopper build that can sell for a six-figure sum, which the team divides among itself.⁵ Alongside the main trade-up chain, the crew takes on side projects for customers seeking a specific kind of rebuild, and some trades fall through or produce vehicles that fail to attract buyers.⁵

The builds emphasize custom fabrication, including techniques such as cutting metal sheets by hand and adapting parts of non-automotive equipment to make a design work. Earlier seasons devote more screen time to the retrofit process itself, while later episodes give more attention to the trades and how profit is made on each retrofit.⁵

The crew. Mark Towle, the owner of Gotham Garage, leads the team. The other central members are Shawn Pilot, the deal maker; Constance Nunes, an engine specialist; Tony Quinones, a machinist and fabricator; and Michael "Caveman" Pyle, a mechanic and handyman.⁵^•⁴ Later seasons added further fabricators and car brokers, including Nick Smith, Brian Reich, and Jake Cerveny.³

Seasons and production

Season 1 premiered on September 14, 2018. After a gap, new seasons arrived annually: season 2 on March 27, 2020, season 3 on August 4, 2021, season 4 on July 27, 2022, season 5 on December 13, 2023, and season 6 on October 23, 2024.³ Season 2 shows the garage opening a second location; season 3 broadens the business strategy beyond upgrade-and-trade as Towle courts clients with larger budgets; season 6 shifts the crew's focus to the luxury car market.⁶

Netflix renewed the series for its sixth season in June 2024, at which point What's on Netflix reported that the 48-episode total would make it the second longest active reality series on the platform, with only Queer Eye ahead of it. Filming on season 6 began in October 2023 and wrapped around March 2024.⁷

Cancellation

In October 2025, What's on Netflix reported that the show had been quietly canceled and would not return for a seventh season. Cast member Constance Nunes confirmed on Instagram that Netflix had pulled the plug, saying it was "canceled a while ago" and citing a mix of reasons, including cast members moving on and networks wanting fresh ideas.¹

Declining viewership was the reported driver. Netflix's weekly top-10 data show opening-week views falling across the run: season 3 drew 2,900,000 views in its first week, season 5 drew 2,400,000, and season 6 drew 2,200,000.¹ The cancellation fit a broader pattern in which Netflix quietly ended many of its unscripted series, and the same outlet later noted that ending its longest-running car restoration series suggested the service might be re-evaluating the genre's return on investment.¹^•⁸

Reception and criticism

The series holds a rating of about 7.4 on IMDb, but it drew sustained criticism from car enthusiasts, particularly on Reddit, where viewers questioned the quality of the finished builds, the plausibility of the on-screen sales, and how much of the show is staged.¹ Common complaints included visible paint defects such as orange peel, builds completed in implausibly short times, and dramatic storylines that outweigh the mechanical content.⁹ Defenses of the series note that it follows a continuing storyline rather than standalone episodes, shows a substantial amount of the build process, and that the crew did donate a Plymouth XNR replica to the Petersen Automotive Museum as depicted in the season 2 finale.¹⁰^•¹¹

After the cancellation, the main cast members remained active on Instagram and YouTube with their car projects, including Nunes (@constance_nunes), Quinones (@tq_customs), and Pilot (@shawnpilot).¹

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026