‘I was born into cars’ says Mike Brewer as he opens up about cleaning tools at dad’s garage before launching car empire
WHEELER DEALER Mike Brewer has opened up about cleaning tools at his dad’s garage before launching his car empire.
The British dealer is renowned for his success in the motor industry but many aren’t aware of the graft he put in before hitting the big time.
Finding and buying a classic (or soon-to-be classic) car at a good price, doing it up and selling it for a profit may be Brewer’s forte, but his work wasn’t always quite so glamorous.
Reflecting on life having been “born into cars”, Brewer recalled how his first experiences with motors came from cleaning tools for his dad.
Speaking to Forbes, he said: “My dad was a car customiser, so when I was born and brought up by my amazing father, my great parents, I was born into the car world.
“Through my schooling years, up until the age of about ten, during the school breaks when you had holidays, my dad would have to look after me.
“He’d take me down to the garage and ask me to hand him a number ten and give him it back. I’d have to clean it and put it back in the tool chest.
“I had no real interest in cars whatsoever, but just being around my dad all that time and going to car shows and seeing the notoriety my dad had… I sort of had an interest to it.”
Brewer soon found that he’d developed a lot of skills as a result of spending time in his dad’s garage, despite never having the intention of doing so.
By the time his 17th birthday rolled around and he’d bought his first car, Brewer said “he knew exactly what I was doing”.
“I knew what to look for, how to repair it, how to fix it. I don’t know how I knew all this stuff, but somehow I knew it,” he said.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Brewer now finds himself at the top of the car trading business tree and boasts has two eponymous “Mike Brewer Motors” outlets in the UK.
Located in Sheffield and Luton, he sells around 600 “high quality used and nearly-new” cars per month.
Prior to becoming the first presenter on “Wheeler Dealers“, Brewer enjoyed successful stints on British television shows “Deals on Wheels” and “Driven” in the early 2000s.
Since his initial season of Wheeler Dealers in 2003, Brewer has sold more than £1million worth of cars, garnering himself a handsome profit of over £200,000 (not including labour).
The TV star recently revealed his picks for the most underrated cars.
Speaking exclusively to Sun Motors, Mike and co-host Marc Priestley explained how you can pick up a cheap hatchback that “drives like a sports car“.
has recently urged petrolheads to pick up a little-known classic Porsche that he says is “more affordable to own and maintain” than a 911.
Brewer has a few models of the German brand as part of his incredible classic car collection, but he’s revealed that he’s looking to sell two of them.
Who is Mike Brewer?
MIKE Brewer is an English car trader most notable for presenting Wheeler Dealers.
Born in Lambeth, London, on August 28, 1964, Brewer has become one of the most renowned faces in the British motoring scene.
Having emerged on television in the late 1990’s, Brewer has appeared in a number of motoring programmes.
Brewer’s television shows have included Driven on Channel 4, Deals on Wheels, Pulling Power, Wrecks to Riches and Auto Trader.
He has also appeared in a series called Revved Up, in which cars are modified, and presents coverage of the British Rally Championship on Sky Sports.
Brewer was hired as the presenter of Wheeler Dealers in 2003 and has featured in all 18 series since its launch, including two spin-offs series called Wheeler Dealers Trading Up.
January 2020 also saw the premier of another spin off series called Wheeler Dealers: Dream Car, where Brewer and former Formula 1 mechanic Marc “Elvis” Priestly help car owners trade up their unwanted vehicles to get them the car of their dreams.
For the first 14 years of Wheeler Dealers, Brewer co-hosted alongside mechanic Edd China.
After China stepped down in 2017, Brewer was joined by his replacement, Ant Anstead, on the show.
Outside of Wheeler Dealers, Brewer boasts has two eponymous “Mike Brewer Motors” outlets in the UK, located in Sheffield and Luton.