MAT Armstrong has built up an enormous following thanks to his impressive videos showing the arduous step-by-step process of restoring motor vehicles.
He’s carved out a career for himself on social media, helping him add to his large car collection. Here’s everything we know about Mat.
Who is TikTok star Mat Armstrong?
Mat Armstrong from Leicester rose to fame through his social media profiles.
He’s built up a following of 51k on his TikTok page @bmxmatarmstrong.
Meanwhile over on Instagram, Mat has a huge 1.1million followers, with his bio stating “I ride bikes & film stuff on cars”.
He is also active on YouTube, where he boasts a whopping 4.1million subscribers.
After leaving school, Mat became a professional BMX rider, complete with numerous sponsors.
Even so, he ended up working at Indian restaurant Spice 45 in the evenings due to the low pay.
During the day he used the restaurant’s car park to work on his pal’s cars, teaching himself how to fix them.
From there, Mat went to work at a garage where he was put in charge of social media, posting videos of himself with cars online.
Through working during the day at the garage and in the evenings at the restaurant, Mat managed to save enough to buy his first home at the age of 21.
After renovating and refinancing, he rented the property out and was able to buy a second property with his girlfriend Hannah, who he met through BMXing.
[bc_video account_id=”5067014667001″ application_id=”” aspect_ratio=”16:9″ autoplay=”” caption=”I rebuilt Rashford’s wrecked Rolls-Royce” embed=”in-page” experience_id=”” height=”100%” language_detection=”” max_height=”360px” max_width=”640px” min_width=”0px” mute=”” padding_top=”56%” picture_in_picture=”” player_id=”default” playlist_id=”” playsinline=”” sizing=”responsive” video_id=”6361733592112″ video_ids=”” width=”640px”]He did the same again and bought a third property.
What sort of content does he create?
Mat posts videos and photos related to his car renovations on his social media.
His TikTok is full of videos where Mat purchases run down cars that may have been involved in some sort of crash.
However, he is able to see the potential in the messed up cars and does them up to make a profit.
He also keeps his followers updated with what else he has been up to, including a visit to Silverstone to watch Formula 1 in July 2024.
[quote credit=”Mat Armstrong” credit-meta=”Instagram”]Nearly 1M of you guys following my journey on here and what a journey it’s been couldn’t be more grateful[/quote]On May 27, 2024, Mat shared a sweet post where he thanked his Instagram fans for almost a million followers.
Along side a photo of some of his super cars, he said: “Nearly 1M of you guys following my journey on here and what a journey it’s been couldn’t be more grateful.”
When did he buy Marcus Rashford’s car?
Mat bought Premier League football Marcus Rashford’s car in early 2024.
The purchase came after Rashford crashed the car in September 2023 and it was written-off.
Fortunately neither Rashford or the other driver were injured in the crash, which also saw the car knock over a traffic pole.
The accident caused a lot of damage to the left side of the vehicle so it was listed for auction.
Mat was contacted by the England international’s team to help restore the vehicle.
They even provided him with a secret code to start the car as well as a spare key.
A message from Rashford‘s team said: “Hi, I deal with all of the cars from Marcus, I believe we still have a few bits from the car you might need.
“We might have the v5 spare key and a couple more bits from when the car got recovered.
“We also have the ghost code and tracker information if you want us to get them to you?”
Mat bought the vehicle for £185,000, after Marcus paid £700,000 for the custom car.
The car had less than 1,000 miles on the clock and Mat bought another £90,000 Rolls-Royce to help with the restoration.
Mat shared a video where he restored the car and revealed the overall cost of the project was £324,000.
What other cars has he restored for his channel?
Mat’s career restoring written-off cars began when his girlfriend Hannah was involved in an accident.
Mat began restoring the smashed Audi TT – and documented his progress on his YouTube channel.
During the process he fell in love with rebuilding cars and filming the work.
He then bought an Audi S5 and restored that, garnering more fans online.
Matt has gone on to post numerous videos of himself restoring cars on social media since then, all while working full time at the garage.
However, when the pandemic forced the UK into lockdown, Mat was furloughed and with time on his hands bought a crash-damaged Bentley Continental GT – and rebuilt it.
And he soon started earning more money from the videos than in his day job.
After discovering his true passion, he took a risk and quit his job to work full-time filming and editing videos of his car renovations.
His girlfriend eventually joined him in the business.
He made a £15k profit doing up an Audi RS6 which had a severely damaged front and a smashed windscreen.
The car usually retailed for £46,000 but he paid £20,000 at auction.
After forking out another £6,789 to restore it, Mat made a profit of £15,211.
Mat’s Instagram showcases several car renovations he has done.
He posted in May 2024 that he had done up a Porsche GT3 which he took from smashed up to painting it fuschia.
Mat also shared a before and after post of a BMW M4 which he completely transformed.
He often raffles off his rebuilt cars to his followers, which he says is his favourite part of the job.
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