Vanishing motoring YouTube channels

2,723 · May 26

I keep my YouTube viewing time short, as I'm a bit time-starved. In the last year I've found Mart's Garage, the bloke has been doing videos for a few years, but crucially uploads videos on what he wants to do and not what creates views. He's recently commissioned a Ford Anglia 100E, bought site unseen on eBay, (episode 1 shows him putting in the bid in the closing seconds of the auction - it convinced me it wasn't fake or hammed up into a drama). When the Anglia arrived, it was in a shocking state, but he's stitched it back together over time in his (messy-but-it's organised-because-I-know-where-everything-is) garage/workshop in the garden. The videos are quite long-form (most are 30-40 minutes) but show him working on bits here and there. It varies from welding in new sills, to remagnetising a speedometer or repairing a voltage regulator. The bloke has no fear, and will have a go just about at anything, with an emphasis on repair rather than replace. A sort of next-generation Fred Dibnah if you will, but without the sequence of wives, traction engines and chimneys. There is a very small bit of 'life stuff' outside fixing up and recommissioning cars, mainly his two dogs which are hilarious, and the odd repair/improvement to the workshop. He also has a wide array of stuff in the garage and on the drive, there's a Ford pickup, a 1933 Sedan and a 57 Thunderbird, and at least one other thing that I can't place (I'm no good at identifying 1950's US cars). He reminds me a lot of Grandad_Boom, his way of working and manner of speech.

Seaside Garage (I know others have mentioned him) is a recent thing for me, his videos are shorter, but still long form if you get my drift. He has quite the skill in editing - a bit like Aging Wheels used to be, lots of entertaining jump cuts. His projects are weird and wonderful, a Volvo 440 bought from a viewer, a Saab 900 Commander (which I am watching closely as his is frilly in all the same places as mine) a Citroen CX, an early Acadiane, at least one Mehari, a Lancia of some sort and several diesel/multifuel mopeds. It's a real mixed bag of stuff. It's just him, Seppo, his amazing beard and lots of hard work. He lives on an island in Denmark, you don't see anything of his life, you look over his shoulder as he chats and grafts. Again his set up is simple, just one camera, with him talking and explaining. Other than the entertaining editing, he mainly works on one take.

Johnny Smith gets on my wick, it's as if he is spinning for time, trying to eke out a few more minutes of your attention. At least there are some gems with his stuff, now and again. The recent 2CV snow racing video was very entertaining, for example.

I watched one Scotty Kilmer video and it was one too many, the bloke just pisses me off. He can't stop trying to create a drama out of everything. When I first started watching YT, I watched that one video and it turned me off it for a few months, I thought all Youtubers were like that! As for him whining that he wants to quit YouTube, I wish he would, but he knows which side his bread is buttered.

I also watch a few non-motoring YouTubers; Jago Hazzard, Geoff Marshall, Plainly Difficult, BigClive (occasionally BigCliveLive) and Adam Savage.
I try to keep my motoring and non-motoring YouTube watching down to fit my lifestyle. I can’t commit to watching all of the content that each channel provides. YouTube replaced the TV for me a few years ago, but I can’t let it take up too much of my time.

11,931 · May 26

3 hours ago, Mrcento said:

Hoovie, for example, has a format nailed to the point of monotony.

EP 1. 'I bought the cheapest X in the country (Sometimes do something silly with it or have some sort of calamity)'

EP 2 'Take it to the car wizard, find out what is wrong' (Has started to combine 1 and 2 now and then)

EP 3 'This was what was done and how much i paid, Let's get updates on some other cars and drive it home'

EP 4 'I'm selling my X on Dougs website'

He's lurched into the typical US clickbait thing now though.

Ah yes, the US click bait.

One of the things that used to get constantly reccomended to me on YouTube were these utter shart horses who'd drop £xxxxxxx amoint of money on a Ferrari/Lambo and have a stupid clickbait still image of their head in their hands with titles like "I BOUGHT A "usually extremely expensive" CAR CHEAP AND ITS GONNA COST ME A FORTUNE" 🙄 🤨

Or another one, someone buys a 20/30 year old car, say a 1995 Toyota Corolla, and proceeds to take it to a Toyota Dealership and pretends to get "shocked" at the prices Toyota wants to repair the car to a (what the dealer would want) saleable standard.

Yeah, it's fucking dealership, what were you expecting, they charge just a tad more than your average back street mechanic.

It's like making a video about a hot country, in a hot country and being shocked that it's hot. Is this viewing for the hard of thinking or something?

1,942 · May 26

This thread just goes to show just how many motoring shows there are on youtube as the only ones that I have noticed that have gone quiet or vanished are VHS Rallies - most likely because he has posted virtually every rally and rallycross video from the late Seventies through the Nineties he could get his hands on.

The other being BOM as they are clearly focusing on their actual business rather than Binky/C1 racing/ Escargot etc and were they have branched out into other things classic car reviews etc its been kinda crap.

Everything else I watch and I confess I watch a lot of you tube things seem to be going okay...

37,457 · May 26

This is one of my favourite channels for a quick bit of racing entertainment

And here's a screen shot of the subscriptions that I have watched a video from in the last month. Most in the first column I watch at least a bit of all their out put, in the second column I only watch videos that I think will interest me. I subscribe to 287 different channels and pretty much only watch stuff that comes from them, rarely to I stray into the depths of the home page to see what is recommended to me as my subscriptions put out more than I have time to watch.

5,669 · May 26

10 hours ago, CaptainBoom said:

I also watch a few non-motoring YouTubers; Jago Hazzard, Geoff Marshall, Plainly Difficult, BigClive (occasionally BigCliveLive) and Adam Savage. But I am fairly discriminating on what I watch from them.

I sub to all of those, as well as 3DBotmaker as said above. Another not-always-motoring one I love is Ruairidh MacVeigh, who does short documentaries on all sorts of aspects of transport history.

Others I like include Fascinating Horror, which looks at famous disasters and accidents in history and how and why they happened and is presented in a totally calm and deadpan way which perfectly suits its subject matter, and Amglimpse, which looks at famous and not-so-famous scammers and scandals in history.

17,010 · May 26

15 hours ago, dozeydustman said:

However I don't just think it's car channels which are going off the boil. Some of what were my favourite channels haven't produced anything of interest to me. Techmoan hasn't produced anything which really captures me for ages, LGR is mainly about The Sims and Windows 3.1 and later, whereas until 5 years ago he covered a wider range of systems. 8-Bit guy throws mostly crap out once a month now, normally something which just happens to have a port of one of the games he's written.

We have a similar taste. I stopped watching 8-Bit Guy after the 'paperclip incident' and then finding out about him taunting the parents of children that had died in school shootings.

Techmoan still does some decent stuff. LGR has definitely tailed off but I like Clint.

Action Retro started off great (discovered him when he was first releasing) but has just got repetitive now.

One channel that I am fond of is and continues to be interesting is Usagi Electric. Generally his videos are about one of several different minicomputer platforms that he owns and he rotates between them. The Bendix restoration (which he doesn't own) is particularly interesting as it's looking at a computer from the 1950s.

17,505 · May 26

1 minute ago, GrumpiusMaximus said:

We have a similar taste. I stopped watching 8-Bit Guy after the 'paperclip incident' and then finding out about him taunting the parents of children that had died in school shootings.

Techmoan still does some decent stuff. LGR has definitely tailed off but I like Clint.

Action Retro started off great (discovered him when he was first releasing) but has just got repetitive now.

One channel that I am fond of is and continues to be interesting is Usagi Electric. Generally his videos are about one of several different minicomputer platforms that he owns and he rotates between them. The Bendix restoration (which he doesn't own) is particularly interesting as it's looking at a computer from the 1950s.

8-bit Guy shags his sister. I swear she looks too much like him to not be related before marriage.

Techmoan a few months ago put out a video saying he was stopping doing videos to a schedule. So everything coming out isn’t as planned and a bit more sporadic. I think that’s improved it for him.

Usagi Electric is great. Can’t remember how I got on to him but I’m glad I follow him. And he has some interesting cars too.

17,010 · May 26

2 minutes ago, St.Jude said:

8-bit Guy shags his sister. I swear she looks too much like him to not be related before marriage.

Not going to lie, I may have spat out some tea at that. Can't stand the guy.

61,656 · May 26

I quite like the reviews on inside China auto, I don't think he'd be massively critical of a car as he might get told off by the regime, but I do like to see what EV's China has in the pipeline

https://www.youtube.com/@InsideChinaAuto/videos

A smoll shiter like channel is Jimmy JimJims he had a Ford Contour on for a bit

https://www.youtube.com/@jimmyjimjims7483/videos

Marty's matchbox makeovers still one of my faves

https://www.youtube.com/@MartysMatchboxMakeovers

When Gavin uploads on Petrolblog, I watch.

https://www.youtube.com/@MartysMatchboxMakeovers

Sometimes Regular Car Reviews is hilarious, other times his obsure US cultural references go over my head

https://www.youtube.com/@MartysMatchboxMakeovers

Thames TV sometimes put out old car related and traffic vid

https://www.youtube.com/@ThamesTv/videos

25,092 · May 26

16 minutes ago, GrumpiusMaximus said:

We have a similar taste. I stopped watching 8-Bit Guy after the 'paperclip incident' and then finding out about him taunting the parents of children that had died in school shootings.

Techmoan still does some decent stuff. LGR has definitely tailed off but I like Clint.

Action Retro started off great (discovered him when he was first releasing) but has just got repetitive now.

One channel that I am fond of is and continues to be interesting is Usagi Electric. Generally his videos are about one of several different minicomputer platforms that he owns and he rotates between them. The Bendix restoration (which he doesn't own) is particularly interesting as it's looking at a computer from the 1950s.

I subscribe to usagi electric but only really watch the Centurion videos. Not even that interested in it as a system but I discovered him during episode 2 or 3 of the series when he first got them, and I like seeing scrap random things saved, then kept watching! I like his slant on preservation where sensible but modern upgrades where needed.

1,770 · May 26

11 hours ago, CaptainBoom said:

I watched one Scotty Kilmer video and it was one too many, the bloke just pisses me off. He can't stop trying to create a drama out of everything.

I once interviewed Scotty Kilmer for an article in the Express. I know what you mean, he's either pretending he's dying or the car industry is about to implode. However, I have to say, he's a very genuine person that took a big interest in what I was asking.

For the record, Jonny Smith and Richard Porter were just the same. I never felt like I was wasting their time by chatting bobbins about old Citroens.

When I've got some downtime I mostly end up sticking on an 80s Top Gear, but when those have dried up I'll watch The Late Brake Show, Smith and Sniff, Big Car (I love how much detail he goes into) or Ed's Auto Reviews (Dutch guy who tends to cover worldwide motoring quirks).

11,931 · May 26

14 hours ago, St.Jude said:

Stopped watching that when most of the videos being submitted were people deliberately driving like cunts.

I can see that a lot of videos are basically cammers driving like dicks and incriminating themselves, also videos of "no giveway on a roundabout" are pretty tiring, but it's good for something to have on in the background and reminds me of the terrible driving we face on the roads everyday.

14,026 · May 26

1 hour ago, GrumpiusMaximus said:

'paperclip incident'

If I recall it wasn't him that soldered (or because US, SODDERED) the paperclip into that circuitboard to fabricate a repair but someone he knows who knew* about CRTs and high voltage stuff.

1 hour ago, GrumpiusMaximus said:

taunting the parents of children that had died in school shootings

Yeah that did stop me watching for a while but most of his content at the time was still vaguely of interest. He's still not finished the history of Commodore series, and his content dropped once he started designing that X16 computer, another thing he plugs into almost every episode.

People do brilliant YouTubePoops of him, they are worth watching. Normally involving him being trolled by Techmoan or LGR.

1 hour ago, St.Jude said:

8-bit Guy shags his sister. I swear she looks too much like him to not be related before marriage.

🤣

1 hour ago, GrumpiusMaximus said:

Techmoan still does some decent stuff

1 hour ago, St.Jude said:

Techmoan a few months ago put out a video saying he was stopping doing videos to a schedule.

Earlier I said he hadn't done much to interest me recently, but yesterday's Tefi video and last week's HiFi video monitor I did find interesting.

1 hour ago, Pieman said:

Another not-always-motoring one I love is Ruairidh MacVeigh, who does short documentaries on all sorts of aspects of transport history.

Again I subscribe but I pick and choose, as not all subjects are my bag. It's great in-depth stuff but he doesn't vary his vocabulary much which grinds me a bit. Starting nearly every sentence with "Nevertheless", or "Furthermore" drags a bit. His recent stuff about the rise and fall of BL and its various divisions were really interesting.

3,911 · May 26

Is the advert proliferation something that the channel owner controls/influences, or is it 'the algorithm'? Can they choose to ratchet up the frequency (potentially more money but potentially pissed off viewers) or decrease it?

There are some obscure videos that never ever have adverts - I often put videos of test card music on screens/projectors that I'm testing at work, they never have adverts (presumably because they're not being actively watched or interesting enough!)

17,010 · May 26

5 minutes ago, dozeydustman said:

If I recall it wasn't him that soldered (or because US, SODDERED) the paperclip into that circuitboard to fabricate a repair but someone he knows who knew* about CRTs and high voltage stuff.

The video I'm referring to is the one with the rare IBM workstation. He went on for about 10 minutes about how rare it was, then (because he couldn't get it switching on) decided to bridge the connection with a paperclip, which (I think) blew out the main board. Amateur hour. It seemed at the time like he was desperately trying to get content out as quickly as possible at the expense of any kind of quality and in doing so destroyed a rather rare computer.

It was this one. Note how the comment section is disabled:

14,026 · May 26

5 minutes ago, N19 said:

Is the advert proliferation something that the channel owner controls/influences, or is it 'the algorithm'? Can they choose to ratchet up the frequency (potentially more money but potentially pissed off viewers) or decrease it?

There are some obscure videos that never ever have adverts - I often put videos of test card music on screens/projectors that I'm testing at work, they never have adverts (presumably because they're not being actively watched or interesting enough!)

Watching Atomic Shrimp he said in one of his Comment Positivity bits he chooses not to put adverts on his videos, which when I'm at work on a Saturday with nothing to do an Atomic Shrimp binge is often on the cards, and I only see ads between videos, not part way through.

I think it's up to the content creator, and that over a certain video length the location on the timeline for the ads can be picked.

5,669 · May 26

23 minutes ago, dozeydustman said:

Again I subscribe but I pick and choose, as not all subjects are my bag. It's great in-depth stuff but he doesn't vary his vocabulary much which grinds me a bit. Starting nearly every sentence with "Nevertheless", or "Furthermore" drags a bit. His recent stuff about the rise and fall of BL and its various divisions were really interesting.

I hadn't noticed that but I probably will now you've pointed it out!

17,505 · May 26

25 minutes ago, N19 said:

Is the advert proliferation something that the channel owner controls/influences, or is it 'the algorithm'? Can they choose to ratchet up the frequency (potentially more money but potentially pissed off viewers) or decrease it?

There are some obscure videos that never ever have adverts - I often put videos of test card music on screens/projectors that I'm testing at work, they never have adverts (presumably because they're not being actively watched or interesting enough!)

Fairly sure they can. You get the options of what sort of adverts you can have on the video, but you can also tell YouTube/Google to choose how many adverts are shown during the video etc. Like I said earlier Aging Wheels lets YouTube dictate the frequency of adverts whereas AvE and Plainly Difficult choose when and where the adverts are shown.

YouTube channels like mine that are nowhere near the threshold of earning from adverts only get a choice of showing adverts or not. I choose not to, because fuck YouTube getting money from me. But I don't think that option is going to be there for much longer.

9,152 · May 26

1 hour ago, MiniMort said:

When I've got some downtime I mostly end up sticking on an 80s Top Gear, but when those have dried up I'll watch The Late Brake Show, Smith and Sniff, Big Car (I love how much detail he goes into) or Ed's Auto Reviews (Dutch guy who tends to cover worldwide motoring quirks).

I watch Mighty Car Mods as and when they put something out and Moog revealed he's just hosted Top Gear Australia,which is now the only English speaking version of the show....

29,836 · May 26

Good to see Geoff Marshall mentioned. He comes across as a genuine transport enthusiast and is great at interacting with random people in his videos. I don't live in London but I find the rail infrastructure, past and present, fascinating.

I enjoy High Peak Autos 'I bought a cheap....'. Not where he buys a newish Golf for £4000 but the genuinely cheap ones, like a Navara for £500 or a Kia Rio for £450. Quite often it ends in calling the scrappy but the £300 05 Mondeo he bought was an unexpected peach.

61,656 · May 26

21 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

Good to see Geoff Marshall mentioned.

I like Geoff doesn't buy cars too, but wish Vicki was still on the channel. But I think they split up?

18,576 · May 26

On 24/05/2024 at 05:26, Rod/b said:

Marvelous Lara is a great channel i found recently - follows a young roadside mechanic around the South East in his shitty Citroen van. Very funny lads and its amazing to me some of the repairs they do without a lift. Also lifts the lid on some of the less honest parts of the motor trade.

I do like Jon Coupland’s channel too - not because of Jon himself but his dad is a proper old school engineer who gets stuck right in.

I do enjoy Not Economically Viable too. Mainly because he’s a total mechanical fuckwit but gets stuck right in with good results (I actually think he’d fit right in here). He also shares my hatred of car cleaning. Buying the cheapest, crash damaged L322 from copart and restoring it on his drive with limited kit and eBay parts was inspirational. He’s now also moving towards roffling off the finished rammel to fund the channel and to make more frequent vids, and good luck to him.

Have to say Marvelous Lara is a bit marmite for me, firstly for the stupid clickbait videos "garage tried to scam my customer out of £1000" and also due to the fact he does seem to spout some absolute horseshit at times 🤣 - aside from that, not a bad all round channel but it's not one where I'd personally drop everything to watch the latest upload

Have to agree on Jon coupland, I suppose any sort of "annoying"/boisterous presenting always seems to go down a treat on YouTube, which Jon has down to a tee! (see also, Alex Kersten and his team) - his Dad is legendary and needs to be preserved at all costs

17,010 · May 26

26 minutes ago, egg said:

I like Geoff doesn't buy cars too, but wish Vicki was still on the channel. But I think they split up?

Yeah, divorced back in about 2022.

5,450 · May 26

I liked The Savage Garage-young bloke working on cars on his driveway. He changed a Bini headgasket, a gearbox change on a Vectra, loads of stuff on Mondeo's and Astras.

Then one day he just stopped. At least his old videos are still available.

17,505 · May 26

50 minutes ago, GrumpiusMaximus said:

Yeah, divorced back in about 2022.

It’s been 2 years, I guess that’s long enough to wait until slipping in to her DM’s.

I’ll be back

61,656 · May 26

'all the stations' was one of the few times me and the Mrs actually watched YouTube together, that was a good series.

18,576 · May 26

Been following salvage rebuilds uk since they started (even in the days when Chris would hide from the camera)

It's nice to see that they have remained an exception from this topic, I'd say the content has remained almost constant all along, they're just hard working blokes earning a wage, no silly clickbait videos, and they still do the normal down to earth cheap cars as well as the more upmarket stuff as of late

I suppose it could be said that it's all getting a bit "same-y" but I still like watching the videos nonetheless

The constant carvertical adverts are a bit annoying and definitely repetitive but they have whored themselves out to pretty much every automotive channel so it's not just these guys. Who can blame them as I imagine they're earning themselves a pretty penny for the 2 minute advert snippet in every video, as well as the main advantage that they are doing the checks on the cars they buy FOC, saving a tenner or so per time.

They're obviously very lucky as they are able to buy vehicles at giveaway money from channel viewers, plenty of them at that, and do quick flips while still leaving plenty of margin for someone else to make a buck, so YouTube has definitely worked wonders for their business. Not to mention the fact they can probably sell whatever vehicle they like for a healthy profit within 10 minutes of it going live, and have queues of people falling over eachother to do so, again, from the sheer volume of their viewers

Long may it continue

18,576 · May 26

Anyone else been watching shifting metal? A nice fly-on-the-wall documentation of day to day life in a small independent car dealer

One thing I disliked was their "dirty laundry" being hung up persistently in recent videos as they had evident staffing issues, the manager bloke seemed pretty immature in his interactions with selected staff members, but also had obvious favourite members of staff who he would speak to differently which was cringeworthy to watch

It's nice that it's stopped, but only because those members of staff have since left...

Aside from that, all of the weekly fly on the wall episodes as well as the intervening auction footage and high peak auto style "I bought a..." videos are well put together and reasonably engaging, in my opinion

20,690 · May 26

Ones I do like to watch:

Japanese guy shouts at the camera like a mad car detailing episode of Banzai.

https://www.youtube.com/@agingwheels

slightly Autistic guy owns & drives (for America) some weird shit and does even weirder shit with an old school bus & jeep thing.

Chris*, a guy with a beard you could hide in makes very long vids where he swears and battles endless really shit vehicles

*Yeah, alright, hes a mate so Im biased.

17,010 · May 26

Anybody else a fan of NitroSilvia? I particularly like the Diesel SD1 series that’s been plodding on for years. Totally unpretentious and factual. Dry and slow paced but somewhat compelling.

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