Cool Cars with Chris: Car Talk, Driving Tips & Auto Life Jan 26, 2026

018 | Why Big YouTube Car Channels Are Burning Cash (And Indie Creators Are Winning)

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Company

Vector

Vector was a car company that made fast and stylish sports cars in the 90s and early 2000s. They are remembered for their cool designs and powerful performance.

Brand

Ferrari

Ferrari is another luxury car brand that makes very fast cars. They're known for their racing heritage and stylish designs.

Car

The Chevrolet Corvette is a fast and stylish sports car made in America. It's famous for being fun to drive and looks really cool, making it a popular choice for people who love cars. Many people talk about it because it's a great mix of speed and price compared to other fancy cars.

Car

Mercedes-Benz SL

The Mercedes-Benz SL is a fancy convertible car that is both powerful and very comfortable. It's known for looking great and having a lot of cool features, which makes it popular among people who want a luxury driving experience. Many people mention it because it's a symbol of high-end cars.

Car

Nissan 370Z

The Nissan 370Z is a sporty car that many people enjoy driving. It's known for being fast and fun, making it a favorite among car lovers.

Term

embargo

An embargo is like a rule that says journalists can't share their reviews about a new car until a specific time. This helps companies control when news about their cars is made public.

Car

Ford Bronco

The Ford Bronco is a type of SUV that Ford brought back after many years. It's popular for driving off-road and has a tough look that many people like.

Car

Nissan Z

The Nissan Z is a sporty car that many people love to drive. It's fast and fun, and a lot of car fans make videos about it because it's exciting to talk about.

Car

Lamborghini Diablo

The Lamborghini Diablo is a famous sports car made by Lamborghini. It was built in the 1990s and is known for being very fast and having a cool look.

LIVE

Over on YouTube, you've probably seen a lot of super cool car collections.

I mean, YouTube is filled with amazing rides with amazing content creators.

But did you know that each and every single video they make costs thousands?

I mean, thousands and thousands of dollars to make each single video they produce for their channel.

Now, that adds up real fast.

I guess the real question is, if you spend that much money on a YouTube video, is it worth it?

Is it worth it to them?

Does it actually bring in the eyeballs to your channel?

Well, maybe, maybe not.

We're going to find out all that and more on this episode.

Let's go.

Okay. I got the legend himself.

Mr. Big YouTube Courage on the line.

What's up?

Hey, Courage.

How are you doing today, buddy?

Hey, I'm doing well.

Given that we're going to be talking about big YouTubers,

I don't think I can wear that hat today.

But I guess I'm in that crowd, so I'll take it.

Oh, most.

You know, you've been doing YouTube for a little while,

and then you've done YouTube with other things and other projects.

And when you create a video on YouTube, you have to think about all the structure,

all the things, paint it all out, I guess, or draw it all out and figure it all out

and do the thing.

I know that you've done a lot more on shorts versus long form type stuff.

Do you find one easier or about the same to do?

Or what do you like better, you know, going back and forth?

Yeah, it's a bit of a mixture.

Like I definitely am fighting for the long form content because I just know that that's

one that's just, I enjoy making that more because you just,

you have the ability to really like tell a story and you have the time to tell a story.

And to be totally honest, like I just, I really get frustrated with like filming things in portrait mode.

It's my biggest thing because obviously with shorts and Instagram reels,

like, you know, your videos have to be in that nine by 16.

Yeah, but you can crop it that way.

I've done that too.

I did a video test run yesterday with my camera in the studio here,

and I was going to clip it and make something for Instagram.

And I thought, like, well, maybe if I can edit this in my photos or whatever on my phone,

and I was able to crop it into that long, you know, length phone version style.

And it'll get okay. I think it does. Okay.

You know, so you can crop things and edit things for, you know, social media clips.

Yeah. No, there's definitely ways to make it work.

And yeah, I've had a few clips where, you know, I've maybe shot it as a long form

and I'll go back and go back and reframe it for more like a real or short.

But I definitely, I like both.

I think they really do both have their place.

I tend to now like, I actually just recently put out a short, just a small plug on just a car

company that I feel like people just have forgotten about this company Vector from like the 90s,

early 2000s, and just came, you know, researched some cool facts and pulled it together.

And it actually is doing pretty well.

Like it's one of my shorts in a while where like the overall engagement has been really strong.

And it was just, you know, it's cool to kind of, you know,

get back to maybe something that I was doing before and actually see some,

you know, see some fruition from that.

But I still am, you know, toying with, you know, now,

how do I want to structure the channel where I do want to continue to do long form?

Like I want to continue to come up with ideas that allow me to make a longer form video.

Well, we see long form on YouTube.

What is like a time limit for like a long form?

What would you consider like a long form video?

Basically it's anything over.

I think the YouTube actually considers anything over four minutes.

I think it's a long form video.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, I mean, you could make, yeah, like, you know, technically,

if you made just a four, because the limit on shorts is three minutes.

You used to be one minute, I thought, or it was one and a half.

Yeah. They extended it a few years ago.

But yeah, you're right.

Before it was, it was a minute and that was, you know,

you figured out how to get whatever point across you.

You wanted to get across in a minute, but now it's three minutes.

But yeah, anything longer than that is considered a long form video.

Really for, you know, three minutes and beyond.

So, I mean, we're talking three minutes.

We got people now that do like, you know, 30, 40 hour long videos now,

you know, all of those get clumped into that long form

type video style now at this point in YouTube's mind.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I love watching some YouTube,

although I have not watched as much YouTube.

Honestly, I haven't watched as much YouTube as I did a while ago.

And I think a lot of people, generally speaking,

probably haven't watched as much as they did, like say during the pandemic.

When a lot of people were locked up during lockdown and what do you do?

You watch Netflix, you watch whatever's on TV,

watch the same movies you've seen years ago

because they were not making new movies.

And then you watch tons of YouTube content

because you're sitting home, sitting there,

physically in front of a screen, doing your Zoom calls for work

or school or whatever you're doing.

And then you just sit there and watch whatever YouTuber is doing

great, wonderful YouTube stuff.

But unfortunately for a lot of those guys,

if they were like car related content,

there's only so much stuff you can do as a car content creator.

I guess if you're like in the multitude of like very well off,

very, very wealthy where you can buy Lamborghinis,

Ferrari's, Corvettes and just, you know,

flip them, trade them, work on them, showcase that stuff.

Or perhaps maybe even like a big, like a big media company

that has a big YouTube channel that covers the kind of same stuff.

Yeah. It's an interesting space.

I definitely have some go-to YouTubers that I watch.

I really enjoy their content.

I feel like they find ways to really tell stories

with their content that almost sort of transcends

the car industry itself.

I really love history of car companies

and learning about things about either certain cars

or that company that really defined maybe like an era of cars

or like a genre of cars.

And so there's some YouTubers that I feel like

really have carved out a niche of bringing something to the table

that's not just maybe the generic,

I bought a supercar and I'm like modding the supercar.

I'm taking it to these events.

They found a way to really sort of transcend that a bit,

but it's costly to figure out what really works.

And if the algorithm changes or people's interest level changes,

if you're not able to roll with those punches,

like I think we were talking about previously,

you have to be able to adapt or else you're gonna find yourself

in a situation where you're just sticking to something like,

oh, this is gonna work forever.

It just doesn't. We've seen that multiple times.

Especially as a content creator,

whether you're doing content for cars or content for anything,

really, I guess it kind of depends on getting new people

interested in your content and what makes people

interested in your content and what makes your content

greater or better than somebody else's content.

And I think in the car space,

when it comes to cool cars and cars on YouTube

car content creators,

a lot of my found are either the average people

that are like wrenching on their cars in their garage

and showing you like modifications they've done.

And it seems a little more like grassroots,

a little more like in the garage with a buddy kind of a thing

working on a car.

And then he got the exact opposite,

which is like these multimillion-dollar collections

of these like, you know, rich YouTubers

that are taking their Ferrari out,

their Lamborghini out,

they're going to the dealership,

talking about trading cars and looking at cars

and they're going to car auctions

and they're going raceways.

And they got these like big production companies

that are making these YouTube videos

that are very, very well produced.

They are literally the cost to make one of those YouTube videos

has got to be maybe $100,000 per video to make that,

just to create the video.

You got multiple cameras.

You got, you know, I mean,

lots of people that are paid on the payroll

that are there, multiple locations,

and some multiple vehicles you're using,

you know, paying for the vehicles,

maintenance of the vehicles,

buying the vehicles, even renting the vehicles.

You know, you have all these moving parts

that it's literally like a movie production

every single video.

So you have to have a solid return on your investment.

And what the funny thing is,

is that the guy who's doing the little shop in his garage,

you know, working on his old like VW bug or whatever,

he might get just the same amount of eyeballs

on his videos as the mega shows do.

But the mega shows cost way more to produce.

So they're probably, yeah,

they're probably hurting in the long run.

If the views go down, the algorithm changes,

something happens, then what do they do?

Yeah, yeah.

No, I think you're really hitting the nail on the head there

because I mean, if you're looking at this really,

you know, because people do look at YouTube as a business.

Like it's an opportunity, you know,

if you're taking it seriously and you're willing

to get to the requirements of doing so

with like YouTube's algorithm and everything,

like if you're looking at this as a way

to generate some type of income, whether big or small,

like you kind of have to look at it like a business.

And ROI is obviously one of the biggest parts of a business

is, you know, what's my return on investment

for when I'm investing in the product

that I'm bringing to the market,

you know, obviously of video and content

and things you're bringing to the YouTube platform

and you're looking for some kind of monetary benefit from that.

Even if it's something you really enjoy,

you got a passion for, like the reason

why you're really building out the videos

because you want to bring that to people

that are probably going to enjoy it.

And yeah, what you said about, you know,

people that are kind of doing this,

they have more of that grassroots mentality

to, you know, creating content,

they have that ability to max out their ROI with,

you know, again, it's just them filming,

like maybe they have a few different cameras,

but, you know, they're not going crazy

with a whole production team and editors

and things like that, writers and all of those kinds of things

versus, you know, I think there was a wave of,

you know, maybe more corporate entities

seeing just the growth that some of these channels

were having and saying, oh yeah, we can create this,

you know, and, you know, we got the resources

to create, you know, to fund it

and have all of these production teams

and things like that.

Let's pump money into this and create this,

you know, grandiose content that, you know,

on the surface, like, I mean, you would think,

like just put more quality and production into it

and it'll make it awesome.

But at the end of the day,

I think we really started to see that, like,

you know, those channels started to just blend

right into the grassroots channels.

And like for like, one, does it make sense

when, yeah, you spend $100,000 on a video

and get X amount of views?

Whereas like the other guy down the street

that's just got a couple of cameras

and filming something in his garage

can do the same view count

and didn't spend anywhere near that.

I think you just got to-

Yeah, but on that same note though,

like the bigger budget companies

have the bigger marketing teams behind it

where the smaller guy, like you, me,

we don't have a big marketing team

so we can't spend, you know,

an additional $100,000 on marketing

because a lot of those bigger YouTube channels,

I know they got to be pushing marketing somewhere,

ads and stuff everywhere.

Doesn't YouTube allow you to buy ads for your channel?

You can do that, right?

Have you ever thought about doing that

or how does it work?

I looked into it because when I was getting,

you know, really getting serious about it,

I do actually use a course that, you know,

sort of gives you the ability to kind of look through,

you know, do title analysis

and different things like that.

But I looked into it, but I really have, you know,

tried to do both sides of things.

The positives of doing that, which, you know,

are obviously you get more views

or, you know, you drive more traffic,

but I've saw a lot of negatives on the side of,

you know, it's because it's inflating

really the numbers and it's technically artificial.

I've seen that work against a lot of channels

as I've done more research on it.

And so it's, it's not something I've done yet.

And really as I've started to research it more,

it's I'm leaning towards not really doing that

because it seems like in the long run, if, you know,

without creating that general,

general organic, you know, traffic to your channel,

anything that's pumped in and inflated

is really short-lived.

And it doesn't really bolster

the overall growth of the channel.

But that's just my opinion.

Yeah, but you also have to have like that sticky factor.

I mean, getting people to press play

once is easy.

Getting them to press play twice, that's a little difficult.

Getting them to subscribe way difficult.

And so even if someone's subscribed to your channel,

I've noticed this too, there's plenty of channels

I subscribe to in car related shows.

And if the algorithm is kind of a one and done.

If the algorithm isn't seeing me like watch that type of content,

it's only going to feed me content.

It sees me interested in or watching in the moment.

And that's the thing with these algorithms.

They kind of change around.

So a lot of these shows, all these YouTube channels

are constantly pivoting,

trying to find ways to get people interested in their content.

And like I said, one way is they could probably dump more money into production,

dump more money into crazier cars, crazier stunts, crazier stuff.

I mean, look at Mr. Beast videos where we're crushing a Lamborghini

or we're giving Lamborghinis away or whatever a crazy stunt is.

And that's kind of how I think in the car space,

it was what people don't really think about is that

if you were a content creator in the car space,

especially on YouTube, is that when you're filming content,

what kind of content is that?

And can you like easily recreate that content week after week,

video after video easily?

And if you're doing like, oh, we're buying a new Ferrari this week,

or we're going to take our Ferrari to this track,

or we're going to be racing this,

or we're going, if it's a lot of production, a lot of stuff,

that's a lot of money, man.

Each video could cost like $100,000.

They'd be more than that.

I don't know, but it's very expensive.

And to try to do that week after week for SL Indie creators,

it's impossible.

We can't keep up with that.

We can't try to compete with that kind of stuff.

So I'd say like, why try to compete with that kind of

production level as an Indie creator,

I think we find your own way and do what works best for you,

what you can control.

Yeah, I think that's it.

There maybe are some things that you can pull and take away

and try them out on your channel to see how that drives growth.

But in terms of thinking like, oh, that recipe of just

keep going bigger, keep going bigger.

I think people are knowing now that that really just isn't,

that isn't the way.

Unless you just really have the expendable income to do it.

Right.

Or maybe like a big name too.

Cause I think that like, say Jay Leno's garage or whatever,

you know, he's got a big name celebrity kind of stuff.

It pulls in celebrities and a lot of these YouTubers,

a lot of these even podcasters and stuff too,

that have big names on their show and they have big celebrities

that come in and it's all shot and camera.

It looks great and everything.

I like great stuff.

But just because you make this wonderful like piece of content

that looks great and everything and all that great stuff,

doesn't mean that anyone's going to listen to it or watch it.

There's no guarantee anyone's going to like it.

Doesn't guarantee you that stuff.

You know, it's like people in the, you know, film industry.

When you create a movie, like a real movie,

you spend, you know, $200 million to create even like an average movie.

I mean, there's no guarantee it's going to make anything back.

It can be told a lot.

Flops happen all the time.

It's probably very, very risky.

So many examples of, yeah.

So many examples of, you know, we hired all the right cast,

all the right everything and then that movie flopped.

One example I keep hearing about is the,

the Lone Ranger movie that came out with Johnny Depp.

Did you see that movie?

No.

I saw in the theater, it was kind of,

it has a good action in the beginning,

slow in the middle and good action at the very end.

That's basically what the movie is.

And so it did not that great.

It was, it was basically considered a flop really,

but they spent a ton of money on the movie.

And one thing I keep hearing about with that particular movie

was that Disney said, well, maybe nobody really knows about the movie.

It's not the movie.

It's, the movie is great according to them.

It's a great piece of great movie.

Maybe the problem is nobody knows about it.

So let's dump more money into marketing.

So they dumped more money into marketing and it's basically still flopped.

So they didn't create the problem,

which was making a good movie in the first place.

They decided to dump more money into it,

more money into it, more money production,

more money and that kind of stuff,

paid Johnny Depp a ton of money, that kind of stuff.

And so, but I thought I was okay.

I took the kids to see it, you know, and they're real little, of course,

but you know, I mean, sometimes when you think about like your content,

whether it's a YouTube channel or even Instagram page or something,

you think like, oh, just dump more, more money into the content,

more money into the cars, more money into the builds,

more money into the cameras and the angles

and all the, all the crazy special effects and crazy transitions.

I don't know how well today, if that really makes a difference,

as far as like people really like connecting to your content, you know, like,

like when I see, when I was just watching some of those, like,

I guess big time YouTubers have always car collection

and they're talking about their different crazy cars

and different things that I could never relate to.

Like things that I will never do.

I'll never drive Ferrari down the road or whatever.

Like I'll never do that stuff.

So it didn't feel very relatable to me.

So the car content that I used to watch a lot on YouTube

was stuff that I could relate to.

Oh, they got a 370Z, I have a 370Z.

Oh, they're doing that on the Z.

I can do that on my Z, that kind of stuff.

That's what was the channels that I like to watch

and the channels that I like gravitated towards.

Yeah, no, I, relatability is, is at the end of the day

is I think the word that we, we have to do,

we as, as any kind of creator that you strive for is like

to make something that's relatable.

And the, the tricky thing is like, you know,

you really have to ask yourself relatable to who, you know,

if you never really know really where your content lands,

like, you know, you never really know who gravitates to,

you know, maybe you'd like your example,

maybe in your, you know, in that specific space,

like obviously if, you know, somebody does content on a car

that somebody has, like that group of folks

that are in that realm are probably more likely

to be the who in that situation.

But, but relatability is what I'm really seeing

is, is kind of the ticket to really start

to really get engagement with your content.

For me personally, like I, and I think we talked about this too,

is, you know, I, I, I definitely have noticed that,

you know, anything that gets people to, you know,

ask a question, answers a question for them or, or again,

just again, the relatability factor,

like I've been through that experience before,

something of that sort.

I feel like is really the content that starts

to really grab eyes and, and get people to really engage with.

But it's, it's, it's really just, unfortunately,

the biggest thing is just the time and effort

that it takes to really start to, to, to find,

like where, where do you relate to people in a way

that you can then duplicate over and over again?

I think if, you know, really for my, you know,

just this couple of years of this journey,

you know, doing content, like the two things

that I think are like what, what I strive for with content is,

is, you know, duplication and relatability.

Like how do you find like the perfect intersection

of those two things?

And when you do find it, how do you, how do you hold on to that?

While also keeping your eyes on the swivel to know,

like, should I adapt in a certain way?

Do I need to maybe slightly, slightly pivot

in a different direction if things are changing?

But you're always still searching for those two intersections

of relatability and, and duplication.

Yeah, I'd have to agree.

And that's why I think that when you're trying to do a YouTube

channel where you are constantly taking, you know,

these very expensive cars out for repairs or maintenance

or drives or whatever it is.

And if you're trying to keep up with that every single week

or whatever you do videos, it can get very expensive.

Just the, just the payments alone and the insurance costs

alone, not to mention any kind of video production stuff.

I'm talking just the actual car itself costs money.

And if you have multiple cars like this,

and if you're taking them out on multiple things,

that's why I saw a lot of car, car YouTubers

kind of go into that, like a collective video,

like review route, you know, like Doug is a good one.

There's a few other ones out there that do that.

They get press kits. I don't know how this happens,

but they actually get a press kit where they actually get to go to,

you know, a, I guess a press thing of whatever new cars

getting coming, coming out or whatever, by whatever company.

And they get to do their whole review, their GoPros,

their stuff. They get to do all the video stuff of that car

for the day, do their whole review, their whole video.

But I noticed that they don't release them until they're told

they're allowed to release them.

There's a big, you know, the embargo concept is real.

Right.

I know that like when the new Bronco came out,

we heard about the new Bronco coming out for years

and the day he actually got released by Ford,

all the YouTube videos dropped that same day.

I noticed all their viewers dropped all their videos

on them the same day.

So they went somewhere in secret and got to see them all

and do their little video about it and stuff.

And then the second that Ford says,

says it's okay to talk about it,

then they all dropped their videos at the same day.

So, you know, I mean, even that like takes money

to travel to wherever that event is being held at.

Yeah.

Doug's talked about that a lot.

Because yeah, that embargo deal is pretty real

and still pretty common with a lot of different reviews.

They, you know, will sort of do it differently now where,

I mean, even if they don't film them all in the same location,

it's still like if it's a car, you know, an upcoming car

that, you know, that company wants to, you know,

kind of set a press date where people are allowed

to drop their videos, it doesn't really matter.

Usually they're still going to provide them the car at some point,

but it doesn't really matter if all of those were filmed

on the same day or in the same location.

But they do have strict, you know, requirements

that you can't talk about certain aspects of the car

or you can't release videos on the car

until that embargo date hits.

And, you know, that's a lot of legal around that.

So, you know, people were really tight lipped

when they, especially when it's a hot car on the market

about, you know, I can't say, I can say maybe

that I've had the experience of, you know, checking out this car

and like, you can maybe say little things and that,

but they're really, I think the real big thing

they're really hesitant on is like sharing opinions,

because sharing an opinion ahead of an embargo,

I've, you know, I've heard of people getting

in pretty big legal trouble around that.

And that's usually when they really make themselves.

Not just cars, it could be like, you know,

tech stuff too.

Tech reviews, okay. Yeah.

Like the latest, whatever computer and stuff like that

and later whatever gadget and stuff like that.

So, I mean, I get it.

It's all the company probably uses to their advantage.

They use these YouTubers to help get their information

about their car.

Because you think about years and years and years ago,

before there was even a YouTube really,

or even YouTube baby YouTube back in the day

that there was not a lot of like car stuff

on whatever particular car was coming out,

you might find like a commercial or promo spot

from the car company.

But that was pretty much it, really.

There wasn't any like deep dive YouTube,

you know, creator content stuff.

In fact, one of my videos that I shot back at the audio,

auto show back in, gosh, it was 2009.

It's on my YouTube channel.

One of the most popular videos I have.

It was like literally a one minute clip of the 370Z

when it first got announced.

It was at the auto show.

I don't turn table and they were spinning around

and the girl was talking about the car

with her microphone out, doing her thing.

I thought a one minute shot, shot on a crappy camera

way back in the day, of course.

And I was kind of thinking because back then

I put that video up, you know, and it's doing fairly well.

But it's not very good.

It's only a one minute clip, but not in detail, really.

It's not much too, but it's probably back then,

it's all that we really had.

Because I don't think there was much YouTubers

doing car related content back then.

I don't think there was much of that at the time.

And like there is today or whatever.

But I do think that is a really easy way

to get content out there.

If you can figure out a way to get a press pass

to go to these events and do your filming,

do your thing, do your stuff.

And then, or even I've seen a lot of other YouTubers

do the same thing where they get in this rhythm

where they have a relationship with a certain dealership

and they're allowed to take out whatever car they have

to do a video on.

You seen those two?

A lot of guys do that.

Rady, Rady's Rides does that.

He does a lot of reviews on a lot of his stuff.

In fact, I got to get a guy on the show

speaking of which I can reach out to that dude.

But I've seen that happens where it's very repetitive.

So when I see those kind of videos like that,

at least my perspective anyways,

when I see a channel like his

or any of those channels like that,

is that if there's only,

if there's a car that I'm actually interested in,

I'll watch maybe that video.

But if it's another car I don't care about,

I'll skip.

Do you do the same thing

when you see videos like that?

Yeah.

Doug's big on that.

Rady's Rides, usually with those two.

I love Doug D'Amio's content,

so I do tend to watch some cars

that might not necessarily have been interested in.

I'll watch it just because I know

I'm going to learn something interesting

or quirky about it.

But more of like the,

yeah, like the, you know,

Rady's Rides, like some of those

are more like, yeah, I'm just curious.

I might be curious about that particular car,

but I'm not like kind of binging that content

because it's, you know,

it's just facts and things that I'm not like,

you know, it's just not really what I'm looking for.

One guy though,

I'm not sure if you're familiar with him,

Forest Auto Reviews.

He does, he basically kind of mastered like,

basically doing car reviews, but in short form.

He, he's like super good.

He's got a, he had a camera guy from the start.

Him and this guy, like you would tag team.

Like he was one of like the first like real rapid fire.

Like, you know, here are the facts about this car.

Like here, here's this feature.

Here's that feature.

Here's the stats.

Here's this, a quick little like acceleration video.

Like here are the power figures.

And he'd do that all in like about a minute or so clip.

And he really mastered that to the point

where like he's, he's one of the top auto reviewers,

but he purely does it in short form.

Are you sure he doesn't take long form and cut it down?

No, I mean, because he's,

he has some long form videos on his channel

and he actually started to, you know,

three, two, three years ago.

He actually started, you know,

he did a couple of like longer form views and videos.

And they, you know, at the time,

they didn't perform very well.

They've performed well now

because his shorts were so popular.

But you can tell that like when you go to his like video history,

he, he still, you know, makes new shorts now,

but the last long form video he made was like two years ago.

Really?

So he, he fully committed to this sort of short form rapid fire auto review style.

And it's, it's worked for him.

But you know what's interesting when you say that,

I just thought about this is that

you take say a one minute video,

like you're saying a rapid fire review video

and shot very well.

It's one minute long.

It's in that short form, you know, vertical, you know, format.

That same video.

I do the same thing is that you take that same video

and it's not exclusive to Tik Tok YouTube.

It can be on all the places.

They all can take it because it's,

it's set up designed for social media.

It's designed for that format

and it sits under like the one minute mark

or if it's around one minute or so,

most platforms take it.

Some platforms go longer or shorter.

It just depends what platform it is.

But I think that if you can keep your videos

in a like universal package

that can be used across multiple platforms,

you can grow, I think easier.

You can have audiences all over the place

versus say one place YouTube is like YouTube long form.

YouTube long form video

is only ever going to work on YouTube.

On YouTube.

Yeah.

It's not going to work on it.

I mean, you could put,

I've seen some people take,

like you can tell,

tell it's like a long form video

that was supposed to be for YouTube.

I see them,

somehow they put it on like X

or they'll put it on Instagram somehow.

And they'll do that.

I've seen them do that

because you can tell it's not cropped or anything.

It's the standard like 16 by nine format or whatever.

Yeah.

And so you say, okay, well I see that.

I see them do that.

And I guess that works too.

But maybe you have to have so many like viewers

or how subscribers or whatever

to even get to the level.

To get, yeah,

to get to make that,

you know,

that type of content work on something

that's more tailored towards the shorter form nine by 16.

Like,

Right, right, right.

So I think that if,

if you were a content creator listening right now

and you're thinking about doing like short form video,

I would try to aim for somewhere around the one minute mark

just so you can have access to put that same content

on all the different platforms.

And it isn't a trick and tip I've heard is that

if you can somehow keep any of the other logos off the video,

I know like TikTok, for example,

the very end they had that TikTok logo

at the end of their videos.

Or I think some,

is the TikTok,

does TikTok put like a logo on top of their video

like a watermark?

I'm not sure if they do.

They do.

Yeah.

Instagram does as well,

which,

you know,

I'm guilty of this because I,

you know,

I pull a lot of my like,

if I'm doing like for like B roll,

like, you know, or things like that,

I'll use,

I'll just pull it off Instagram

because certain videos allow you to actually download them.

I've heard that the algorithm sees that

and it kind of pushes it deeper in the file.

It's, it doesn't,

it doesn't,

I mean,

I'm saying if you pulled the TikTok video

and put it from TikTok directly on Instagram,

Instagram is not going to favor that video

over our different video

because they see somebody else's logo on there,

especially a competitor's logo in there.

Can you imagine that you see a competitor's logo on something?

It's like,

it's like if you were to like,

walk into the Coke store drinking a Pepsi,

they're like,

get out of here with that, you know?

Yeah.

So they're not going to be too happy about that.

So,

so if you're going to do that,

try to make a clean copy

that you can put it all in different places

that,

I mean, it's the same copy,

it's the same version,

the same video,

just move it to different places.

You can go to different platforms.

Yeah.

But I know some people say,

oh, I just like to upload it on here

and like in TikTok or whatever,

and then I can share it out that way

or some whatever,

make it easy.

I get it.

I get it easy,

but the algorithm does not like you to do that

because they want to make sure that

whatever you post on their platform

is only for them.

They don't want you cheating

with other platforms.

They don't want you doing that.

And so if you,

you are doing that,

they frown upon that.

That's one thing I've heard.

They've got this assumption

and that they're the only ones.

Oh yeah.

Definitely.

These other platforms don't exist in our mind.

Oh no.

And that's kind of why I think YouTube

started doing shorts in the first place.

That's why we're also doing that kind of content.

And they can kind of master and tailor the algorithm quicker,

probably that way too.

I'm sure the algorithm for these short form platforms

is way different than like long form algorithm stuff

because you don't know,

you're almost playing like,

like roulette or whatever,

when you flip them through your phone

on like, on reels or shorts or whatever it is,

you have no idea what's coming up next.

You don't like,

I tend to like,

when I'm going on YouTube as a consumer of YouTube,

I say like, you know, those,

the way, at least,

because I'm usually on my phone,

like, you know,

every once in a while,

if I'm using my computer for something,

I'll be on there,

but for the most part on my phone,

and the, you know,

the way the initial page is when you open it

is usually you're recommended like four random shorts

or depending on who you subscribe to,

if you're subscribed to like a bigger channel,

like they might be part of that,

like for four short,

you know,

kind of grouping that they put up top,

but usually there's like a couple of long form videos,

but then like right in the middle of that screen,

you'll have like four shorts recommended.

And usually depending on whatever short you,

you click on initially,

if you go,

if you're going down that rabbit trail,

is going to lead you down like a different path

of what's kind of recommended after that.

Yeah.

The algorithm kind of kicks into place

and starts doing a spin.

Yeah.

And I tend to not necessarily scroll

like to an additional real or additional,

you know,

short that's this kind of selected

after the one that I selected first.

Usually I'm like,

I'm clicking on that one specifically

because I was interested in that.

And then I'm going back to like my main page

because I was looking for something specific.

But, but yeah, to your point,

like, you know,

some folks are just there in the loop.

And so once they start,

once they start watching it,

they're going to whatever's next,

whatever's next, whatever's next.

And again, yeah, the algorithm is kind of evolved

to that point to like say,

well, you were interested in this right now.

So let's just keep you down that rabbit trail.

Let's recommend some things around that.

But just to backtrack,

I mean, I think your advice is really solid.

Like I'm listening to this too,

as obviously somebody that's actively making content

is that I really do think that,

finding a way to have,

at least on the short form side,

to have something that's duplicatable

over multiple platforms.

And yeah, ideally,

you're not maybe shooting yourself in the foot

by having your remnants of those other platforms

on the new platform that you're uploading to,

but having content that can really be cross-platform,

because it makes sense.

All of those platforms have sort of this short mentality.

So why not have something

that works on all those other platforms?

The long form sector of it,

like I said, really only tailors to YouTube.

And so if people still have that ambition to do that,

let the algorithms from all of these other platforms

start to feed into your long form content

and drive traffic to it.

And then you start to maybe experience growth on both sides.

By, I tend to, when I post a short,

it gets a lot more views

in a lot shorter amount of time on the short side,

even specifically on YouTube,

than they do on the long form side.

And my mind always goes to let the short form drive

possibly newer traffic to the overall channel

to then hopefully if your content really gravitates

with them and is sticky enough

to then get them to click on the long form content.

Now, just if you can multiply that

and have that over multiple different platforms,

Instagram, TikTok,

have all of that now working towards your favor

on the long form side of YouTube,

I think you really kind of add on to your odds

of creating some type of traction and growth in that realm.

But like I said,

I think you're pretty spot on with that mentality for sure.

You know, one thing that like with podcasting,

for example, here, like I call it podcasting classic,

which is my definition of it,

which is basically like a typical audio podcast,

like the original podcasting, you know,

how most people think of a podcast,

think of like an audio podcast.

Now, there's many different places

to listen to this podcast.

You can listen to on Spotify, Apple, iHeart,

Amazon, so on and so forth,

go down the line.

There's a bunch of places to listen to this thing at.

And you should do that, by the way,

if you have to listen to it.

And the thing is, is that if,

if whatever reason we say something that

Apple does not like for whatever,

or you can't say whatever, you know, or something,

and Apple says your show is kicked off, right?

Well, it can still be played on Spotify, Amazon,

go down the line of whatever places you want to listen to it.

You can still listen there.

Versus if you're on YouTube and you get those three strikes,

you're done.

Like you are done off YouTube.

What do you do?

Go down to the YouTube down the street?

Well, what is that place?

It doesn't exist.

They own the monopoly.

I mean, is it Vine?

Is it Vine?

I'm thinking of what's the other video place

that does like similar to YouTube?

There's another place out there.

Oh, I don't know.

There is another one.

Oh, yeah.

It was like Vimeo or something like that.

Maybe that's what it is.

I'm thinking of.

But I thought there was another one out there,

very similar to YouTube, but not as popular.

I mean, I mean, YouTube is a mega giant, you know.

And so, yes, there are other places you can go to.

And I guess the same thing with podcasting too,

like Apple's like the big guy.

And if Apple kicks you out or whatever,

you know, Spotify or whatever else is out there,

you can still listen.

If possible, you're not completely dead in the water.

But I just think that like with the YouTube channel

is that if something goes wrong,

you do get the platforms on YouTube.

It's very, very hard to like get that back.

I guess it goes with any social media.

The thing about social media, even with YouTube,

is that like really you are at their mercy

of their algorithm.

And you're at their mercy of like playing nice.

You're at their mercy of that.

Something doesn't go wrong.

Where they kick you out.

They're restriction terms.

Right, right.

You could do something.

Even it's an accident.

You can do something that you were intending to do.

And if they kick you out, you're screwed, you know.

That's why I think it's important to have your content

spread across as many places possible.

If possible.

Like if Instagram kicks you out,

say you got TikTok.

If TikTok kicks you out,

say you got YouTube shorts or whatever.

And go down the line, you know,

of different places.

And I think no matter where you put your content,

I think that the core thing

is that your brand and your content

should really like be like the main thing, you know.

And I think being like a car, a YouTuber,

I said, unless you have like repeatable content

that you can do over and over again,

that's not just repeatable.

Like it's good too.

It has to be good, of course.

You can't put out crap, boring stuff.

You don't matter how much you repeat,

you know, crap is good.

It's still crap.

Right, right, right.

So I think there's that too, of course.

You know, there's a format to all this stuff.

But I think the thing about audio podcast,

I shared this with you, but is that

there's no typical algorithm in an audio podcast

versus a YouTube channel or Instagram

or TikTok or those kind of things.

Algorithms all feed that stuff.

Algorithms, you know, push your content out

to everybody, you know, to see it.

With an audio podcast,

there is no typical algorithm.

So we have to use other tools and other means

like social media and other algorithms,

other places to help like get it out there

to more people or marketing it.

I said this to somebody recently,

I was saying how like, you know,

About this episode

Exploring the financial dynamics of YouTube car channels, this episode reveals why many big creators are struggling despite high production costs. Chris and guest Courage discuss the contrast between lavishly produced content and grassroots creators who achieve similar view counts with minimal investment. They delve into the importance of storytelling in video creation, the challenges of adapting to changing algorithms, and the sustainability of different content strategies. The conversation highlights the evolving landscape of automotive content on YouTube and the potential for indie creators to thrive.

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Original notes

This episode of Cool Cars with Chris explores the real cost of car YouTube, breaking down how big YouTube car channels spend thousands of dollars per video on production, cars, marketing, and crews—often with poor ROI. Chris and Courage discuss car content creation, YouTube algorithms, indie car creators, short-form vs long-form video, and why relatable automotive content often outperforms high-budget productions. Topics include YouTube car reviews, automotive YouTubers, car podcasting, content marketing for creators, platform risk, video monetization, podcast marketing, creator burnout, and sustainable growth strategies for car enthusiasts building YouTube channels, podcasts, and social media brands.

With YouTube filled with million-dollar car collections, massive production teams, and cinematic car content, we ask the real question—is it actually worth it? And more importantly, who’s really winning right now: the big-budget car channels or the indie creators building content from their garages?

This conversation dives deep into the real cost of car YouTube, exploring ROI, production expenses, algorithm dependence, and why relatable, repeatable content often outperforms flashy productions. Chris and Courage also unpack the differences between short-form vs long-form video, how algorithms shape visibility, and why creators need to think beyond just YouTube to protect their content and audience.

If you’re a car YouTuber, podcaster, or content creator, this episode offers a grounded, honest look at what actually works in 2026—without chasing burnout, debt, or unrealistic expectations.

In this episode, we cover:

Why big YouTube car channels spend thousands per video
The real ROI problem with high-budget car content
Indie car creators vs massive production teams
Short-form vs long-form video strategy
Why relatability beats production value
How YouTube algorithms impact car creators
Platform risk and creator dependency
Sustainable ways to create car content long-term

00:00 🚗 Why Big YouTube Car Channels Cost So Much
02:00 🎥 Short-Form vs Long-Form Car Content Explained
05:00 🏎️ Million-Dollar Car Collections vs Garage Builds
08:00 💰 The Real Cost to Produce Big Car YouTube Videos
11:30 📉 ROI Problems with High-Budget YouTube Content
14:00 🔄 Why Relatable Car Content Wins
17:00 🎞️ Film Industry Flops & Content Risk
19:30 🔧 Grassroots Car Creators vs Mega Productions
22:30 🚘 Press Cars, Embargoes & Car Reviews
26:00 📱 Why Short-Form Video Drives Discovery
29:00 🚫 Logos, Watermarks & Cross-Posting Mistakes
33:00 🧠 How Algorithms Really Control Visibility
36:00 🎯 Marketing vs Relying on the Algorithm
40:00 🎙️ Podcasting vs YouTube Platform Risk
44:00 🔁 Repeatable Content Without Burnout
47:00 🚦 Standing Out in a Crowded Car Space
50:00 🌱 Passion, Longevity & Finding Your Audience

#CarYouTube #CarContent #AutomotivePodcast #YouTubeCreators #IndieCreators #ContentCreation #CarCommunity

Cool Cars with Chris: Car Talk, Driving Tips & Auto Life

Chris Smith

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