Mat Armstrong

Mat Armstrong is a popular automotive YouTuber.

He has more than 2.2M subscribers on his eponymous YouTube channel.

Mat was a professional BMX rider.

Introduction-

Mat Armstrong was born on 11 June 1993 in Leicester, England, United Kingdom, and grew up in Leicester.

At a young age, his parents split, and he started working at various jobs.

His father, Tony Armstrong, is a mechanic, and Mat’s stepmother’s name is Karen Kay.

Mat learnt repairing cars from his father and at a young age, developed a passion for cars.

He has a sister, Holly Michelle Armstrong.

Mat did his schooling from Lutterworth College in Lutterworth, England.

Love for BMXing-

Even though Mat started playing football at a young age, later, he shifted to BMXing, and fell in love with it.

Initially, he was slow at riding on the racetracks, but nonetheless enjoyed performing BMX tricks, and started performing on the skate parks.

Eventually, thanks to his continuous practice, Mat became proficient at BMXing.

At 16, after finishing his school, the only thing which he enjoyed was riding his BMX bike.

His YouTube channel-

On 7 April 2013, Mat started his eponymous YouTube channel.

At the time, he had no intention of becoming a full-time YouTuber, he just started his channel to produce BMX videos to send to the BMX competitions and sponsors.

At the time, Mat used to shoot videos of himself riding his bike and learnt the basics of video editing which later proved invaluable when he became a full-time YouTuber.

Prior to publishing his videos onto his YouTube channel, he used to publish his videos onto Facebook, but later shifted to YouTube.

Thanks to his love for cars, in addition to the BMX videos, Mat started publishing car videos on his channel.

Competing globally-

Mat got sponsored by Madd Gear MGP and competed in many BMX competitions all over the world.

While studying sixth form at school, he participated in competitions in France, Germany, Barcelona, Dubai, etc.

From 16 to 20, Mat did BMXing for a living, and coached BMX in Dubai.

Even though he competed internationally, BMX was not financially viable as mostly the sponsors would just cover the travel costs.

The end of his BMX career-

While participating in the qualifying run in BMX World Championships in Germany, Mat dislocated his shoulder while performing the 720 tailwhip trick.

Even though he qualified in the 16th position, he could not compete in the finals due to the injury.

And from then on, Mat’s shoulder used to randomly pop out while sleeping and this forced him to quit BMX.

Career-

While BMXing, as Mat was not able to earn a decent income with it, he started working at multiple jobs.

He did a part-time job at Halfords, and then worked at Evans Cycles.

Mat also worked in his father’s garage, and thanks to working on his father’s cars, he learnt basic mechanical skills.

At 17, he started working at Spice 45, an Indian restaurant in Leicester full-time.

Thanks to his love for motors, Mat secured a job at Graham Goode Motors in Leicester; Graham Goode was a ‘Ford Performance’ place.

Here, his job involved managing social media channels (he worked on Graham Goode Racing YouTube channel), and his job also involved designing websites, running Amazon and eBay shops, etc.

As this was a full-time job, he started working part-time in evenings at Spice 45, delivering food.

Mat used to deliver food by driving long distances in his car, and his car occasionally gave him troubles, so he got into car repair.

Initially, he used to drive a Ford Fiesta, and then shifted to a Volkswagen Lupo.

These were modified cars with very low ground clearance due to which Mat was unable to deliver food to certain locations, and this made him shift from delivery driving to working behind the bar.

Later, he also worked part-time with Mallory Performance Ltd.

Love for tinkering cars-

Since a young age, Mat has been a gearhead, and loved tinkering cars.

His goal was to save enough money by working at various jobs and invest in properties and earn passive income from them, and finally, retire from work, tinker full-time with cars, and ride his bike.

At 21, Mat bought his first project house, with a plan to renovate, refinance, and rent it out, and earn a passive income from it; later, he bought a few more houses.

But this could not earn Mat enough money, so he continued working at Graham Goode Motors, and Spice 45.

At the time, he was also tinkering with his, and his friends’ cars.

Becoming a full-time YouTuber-

Even though Mat was busy working multiple jobs, he continued working on his YouTube channel on the side and fell in love with producing videos.

Initially, he was not earning from his channel, but continued working on it.

Mat has been passionate about learning the working mechanisms of cars, and self-taught himself to fix the cars.

Once, his girlfriend crashed her Audi TT going home from work, and he bought the car back from the insurance for £600, and this was the starting point for his salvage rebuilds.

At the time, Mat used to film his videos on a GoPro, and his YouTube audience helped him to rebuild the Audi TT by helping him to get the parts.

During the COVID-19 lockdown, Mat was furloughed from Graham Goode Motors, and he had no knowledge of when he would be called back into work.

At the time, Mat had saved enough money to deposit on a house but as during the time, house prices were inconsistent; and he loved working on his YouTube channel, he invested his money to purchase a crash damaged Bentley Continental GT for £10,000 from eBay.

Thanks to this car and his dedication to his YouTube channel, his channel skyrocketed, and he crossed 100 thousand subscribers; Bentley car rebuild also got him featured on Daily Express.

Thanks to the Bentley video, Mat secured his first high-paying sponsor, and signed a year-long contract with them; and five weeks later, he was called back into work at Graham Goode Motors.

Even though he returned to his job, he could not stop thinking about working on his YouTube channel; and at the time, he was earning a lot more with his YouTube channel than with his regular job.

So, Mat quit his job, and, at the end of 2019, he also quit his restaurant job to become a full-time YouTuber.

After quitting his job, he bought a Mercedes-Benz AMG A45, and did a road trip to Monaco in his Bentley.

Currently, Mat publishes videos of rebuilding and tinkering cars.

A successful YouTuber-

Initially, before getting monetized on YouTube, Mat was irregular at publishing videos; but after getting monetized he started consistently publishing videos.

Richard Hammond, a popular automotive journalist, reacted to one of his cars and this greatly helped in the growth of his channel.

As of January 2024, he has 2.27M subscribers on his eponymous YouTube channel, 461K followers on Instagram, and 622K followers on his Facebook page.

Mat earns through a variety of sources, advertisements on his YouTube videos, merchandise, sponsorships, and affiliate marketing.

In addition to his primary YouTube channel, he has three other channels, ‘Mat Armstrong MK2’, ‘Mat Armstrong Shorts’, and ‘Mat Armstrong ES’.

Personal life-

Mat is in a relationship with Hannah Smith.

They met through BMXing; and much like him, she too left her job to become a full-time YouTuber.

She has an eponymous YouTube channel.

Mat has a pet dog, Kevin.

He lives in Leicester, England.

Some interesting facts about Mat-

• His first ever car is a 1993 Ford Fiesta Mk3.
• Mat’s favourite car is Bentley Continental GT and his favourite car rebuild is Volkswagen Golf.
• He loves German engineering and frequently works on Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Maserati, and Bentley cars.

So, how are you inspired by the success story of Mat Armstrong?

Share with me in the comment section below.