Jamie from Officially Gassed on The Crash That Forced Him to Change His Content | EP49
Talkin' Shop
Talkin' ShopJan 14, 2026
Jamie from Officially Gassed on The Crash That Forced Him to Change His Content | EP49
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Car
Mercedes A45 AMG
The Mercedes A45 AMG is a fast and sporty version of a small car called the A-Class. It's designed for people who want a fun driving experience with a lot of power.
Formula 1, or F1, is a type of car racing that takes place on special tracks. It's very popular and features fast cars and skilled drivers competing to win championships.
FL2K is a car event where people race their cars in a straight line to see who is the fastest. It's a fun event for car fans to show off their vehicles and compete against each other.
The Porsche 911 is a famous sports car that has been around for a long time, known for being fast and fun to drive. It has a special design where the engine is located at the back, which makes it different from many other cars. People often talk about it because it's considered one of the best sports cars ever made.
The Volkswagen Golf R is a fast and sporty version of the regular Golf car. It has a strong engine and is good for both everyday driving and fun on the road.
VMAX 200 is an event where car owners can see how fast their cars can go in a safe environment. It's a fun way for car lovers to enjoy their vehicles and compete with others.
The Shelby Cobra is a classic American sports car that is famous for being very fast and powerful. It was made in the 1960s and is loved by car enthusiasts for its exciting performance and unique design. When people talk about it, they often mention how thrilling it is to drive.
Hypercars are super high-performance cars that are very expensive and often made in small numbers. They have the best technology and speed compared to regular cars.
The BMW 2 Series is a small luxury car that is fun to drive and looks stylish. It comes in different versions, including a sportier one called the M240i, which has a powerful engine. People talk about it because it offers a nice mix of comfort and performance.
The Audi TT RS is a fast and stylish sports car that offers great performance. It has a powerful engine that makes it exciting to drive, especially in races.
The Toyota Supra is a well-known sports car that many people love for its speed and style. It's been around for many years and is famous for being fun to drive and easy to modify for even more power. The mention of a specific engine shows how some versions are especially powerful.
Crash testing is when cars are deliberately crashed to see how safe they are for passengers. It helps car makers improve safety features to protect people in accidents.
The Bugatti Veyron is an incredibly fast and expensive car that used to be the fastest car you could buy. It has a huge engine that produces a lot of power, making it one of the most powerful cars ever made. People talk about it because it's a symbol of speed and luxury.
The Aston Martin DBX is a fancy SUV that combines luxury with sporty performance. It's the first SUV made by Aston Martin, a brand known for its beautiful and fast cars. People mention it because it offers a high-end experience while still being practical for everyday use.
The Lotus Emira is a new sports car that combines great performance with a stylish design. It's made by Lotus, a company known for making lightweight and fast cars, and it's meant to be fun to drive while still being practical. People are excited about it because it brings back some classic features in a modern way.
The Volkswagen Tiguan is a family-friendly SUV that is comfortable and easy to drive. It has a lot of space inside for passengers and cargo, making it great for everyday use. The R-Line version is a sportier version that looks and feels a bit more exciting.
The Hyundai Ioniq 5 is a new electric car that looks very modern and cool. It's designed to be spacious and has a lot of technology inside, making it a great choice for people who want to drive without using gas. The mention of its name shows that it's becoming popular among new electric cars.
The Porsche Cayenne is a fancy SUV that drives like a sports car, making it unique among other SUVs. It's popular because it offers both luxury and performance, and now there are new electric versions that show how car companies are changing to use less gas. People talk about it because it's a blend of comfort and speed.
LIVE
I picked up my phone, my phone's always on silent,
and I had so many messages.
WhatsApps, I had a message on Instagram.
One of the first messages I saw was,
I'm so sorry for your loss.
I'm like, what?
I'm like, who in my family's, what's happened?
So, it's so weird because there were so many messages,
I was like, this is crazy.
I'm like, I'm trying to inquire, I'm like, what?
Like, what, like to this person?
But then open another message and say,
someone sent me a video of Drey crashing his car.
Hello and welcome to another episode of Talking Shop.
Today, we've got Jamie from Officially Gassed,
and we are gassed to have him on.
Please make sure to like, comment, and subscribe,
and let us know who you are on Talking Shop next.
But no, thank you ever so much for coming on, mate.
Amazing.
My pleasure, thank you.
Traveling all the way up the M1 to come and see us.
Do you know what that is?
It's something I kind of do for a living.
I'm driving for a living.
My Mrs. R, she's like,
how the hell do you do all that driving?
It's nothing.
Yeah.
Makes it a little bit easier if you enjoy a space, doesn't it?
And to be fair, when you get to drive the cars you're driving,
that also makes it a little bit easier.
Do you know what's crazy, actually?
It's like, you know,
talking about the cars that I drive,
and we had a nice little chat about my X4,
that's the only one I drive.
Believe it or not, the other cars that I have,
if you see me in one of my other cars,
it's either because I'm going to a shoot,
coming back from a shoot, or shooting,
and then they get tucked away.
So I don't always get to drive the cars.
It's kind of the gift in the curse.
Got these cars.
It's a beautiful thing.
Never gets to drive them.
Never gets to drive them,
because I'm so, so busy.
That's the thing.
And the X4s are daily,
so it's the don't pick my boy up from nursery,
drop him off,
and my little kind of A to B journeys,
and perhaps up to the OG battles,
and that's pretty much it.
What car to do it with as well?
It's a decent car to do it with, does it really?
We were talking about the smell,
the pure, the beautiful smell,
when it came through.
The smell of power, isn't it?
So for anybody who doesn't obviously know you,
which will be far and few between
of the guys watching this, guys and girls watching this podcast,
tell us, you know, who you are,
and the story behind the channel.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
So yeah, my name's Jamie.
I'm an automotive YouTuber,
started about seven and a half years ago,
maybe closer to eight years ago now.
Basically making content on my own car to start with,
which was Mercedes A45 AMG,
and then kind of moving on to review
and other people's cars,
and then drag racing,
and kind of just crazy experiences
within the automotive world.
And basically it's just,
I'm an adrenaline junkie.
So anything crazy, wild, powerful,
you know what I mean?
I'm around it, I do it,
we showcase it on the channel.
And yeah, that's pretty much me.
It was birthed out of a passion.
I love cars, I live and breathe cars.
We were speaking off camera about
my kind of previous career,
the HDV mechanic.
So I've always been around the nuts and bolts
and the workings and things.
And going back as far as I can remember,
it's always been about how fast I can go,
how fast we can make something go,
how something sounds.
And yeah, it's grown into what it is today.
So if you were a young lad then,
and somebody said to you,
if you could make a YouTube channel,
what would it be?
Pretty much would be,
how fast can I make a car?
That's actually funny,
because no one's actually said that before.
But I think if I could,
I mean YouTube wasn't a thing when I was young,
but if it was, and someone said,
when you get older,
you could have a channel, what would it be?
It would be this.
I think it would be this.
You're living the dream.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's like what,
Lando Naras obviously just won the F1 championship,
and he is literally, like he said,
I know I am privileged,
I know I am lucky to be doing
literally what I love.
Yeah.
And yeah, obviously then he never works there
in his life, does he so?
That's it.
Fair play to you.
What does,
what does success mean to you?
Ooh.
Nice warm up question for you.
Right like that, yeah.
That's the warm up.
Straight in, straight in.
That is the warm up.
Where are you going with this?
What does success mean to me?
So, so being a petrolhead and loving my cars,
definitely the cars I own is success,
but I don't think that's the measure of a person.
Yeah.
It should never be.
For me, I think that like,
there may be the boring answer,
and maybe the cliche answer is,
I've got a little boy,
got my misses,
success to me is to be able to provide
my son not want for anything,
and us to be able to do stuff
without worrying too much about money
and bills and basically living a,
a nice but humble life.
To me, that is success.
Yeah.
With my little cars on my side.
Yeah.
Of course.
Yeah.
Good answer.
Good answer.
So I started as a HGV mechanic,
which is obviously right up our street,
but so how did that happen?
How did you as a young lad get into,
you know, fixing things?
Well, do you know what,
like the HGV mechanic thing was actually,
not an accident,
but it wasn't something I,
it wasn't my chosen path.
I don't want what my chosen path was,
if I was honest.
Cause going back to school,
I was trouble.
Like trouble in,
I would never listen in class.
I would bunk off.
I just,
I was good at the physical activities.
I was like great at football,
great at basketball,
believe it or not,
being like five foot one,
four foot nine,
I was taller.
But basically I couldn't sit down
and listen to people.
So it got to a point where
GCSEs had come and went,
and I left with none pretty much.
And it was,
it was the summer holidays.
It was like the last summer holidays
before people would either go into college
or their apprenticeships
or work or whatever they were doing.
I had nothing.
So I'm not sure if you guys are of the same age
and even if it was a thing up here,
but in London,
there was a place called connections.
I don't know if you heard it.
So connections was like a shop that you could go to
if you're struggling for work
and you needed some help,
someone to write a CV,
find your career.
Someone so forth.
And I think there was about two weeks left
to the summer holidays
and I was like, I need to do something now.
And actually, actually,
going back a little bit,
I had applied for a plumbing role
to try and be a plumber.
In fact, to get a plumbing position
in a college or something like that,
so I could learn like that.
I didn't get it.
So then I was like,
Oh, now we're in trouble.
So I went to connections on a whim
and I remember the lady at the desk,
she was like, so what do you like?
And I was like, well,
at the time I had a moped.
So I was like,
I like moped, I like cars,
like mechanical stuff.
And she goes,
well, on the board here,
we've got a position for a HDV mechanic
for an apprenticeship.
And I was like, honestly,
this might sound so stupid.
I was like, I didn't think that was a thing.
I didn't think people fixed trucks.
I didn't know that there was a specific role
of people that just fixed trucks.
I thought just mechanics do that.
That makes sense.
So I was like, wow.
So it's kind of cars,
but bigger and cooler, right?
So that kind of got me.
So I was like, all right, let's go for it.
Plus I had no other options at this point.
There might have been one or other,
like two other things that she put forward,
but I went for that one.
So I went for the interview
and pretty much got it.
But what I realized
and what maybe not a lot of people know
that when I got to this place
to do the interview,
it was a refuse place.
So it was a company called Onyx at the time, right?
So they were based out of Northwest London
in a place called Hanger Lane.
And they basically turned into a company
called Viola,
which probably a lot more people know.
It says on the bins outside.
So it was refuse vehicles.
Dust wagon, bin trucks and dust carts, sorry.
And wagons, all that kind of stuff.
And I'm like, ah, it smells a bit mad.
You know what?
I haven't got any other options.
And they were really nice to me.
And I got the job.
But it made me feel good
because it was the first time.
In school, it was such a,
I was against or for it.
But it almost seemed
from the, from day doc, speaking to the manager,
he was cool.
He was on my side.
This is going to be a cool place to work.
Like, you know, we see it out.
So yeah, I've done it.
And you know, it's really interesting,
although like it was dust carts
and kind of big dirty work.
This company looked after me.
Like I've never been looked after
in any other company.
Like, you know, and I guess coming
from the apprenticeship role all the way up,
they saw me grow too.
Because like the staff barely changed,
which is quite a good,
I guess is quite a good indicator
of a good kind of working environment.
Right.
If he's got a high turnover of staff,
you know, there might be something wrong with it.
It's the management or the work or whatever.
Don't get me wrong.
The work wasn't nice, but we were a team.
But I must admit,
one of the things we used to have to do
is clean out the hopper.
Now.
So you know, you know what it's basically
for the people at home that don't know
that is cleaning out the back of the truck.
Like literally.
So it did dawn on me quite a few times.
My mum back in a day,
and there's nothing wrong with being a bin man.
If you're out working, making that money,
you know, get your money.
But my mum used to joke around and say,
get your qualifications.
Otherwise, you'll be a bin man.
And I just remember a couple of times, bro.
I'm sweeping out the back of this hopper
and I'm thinking, it's worse than a bin man.
I'm actually touching it.
There's maggots dropping down and everything.
I'm like.
Bind juice.
Bind juice.
Physical bind juice.
Like people think that the bind juice in the bottom
of their bin bags.
But hey, there's levels.
But yeah.
And I was just like, what's happened?
What have I done?
But you know, it was all part of the process.
I was learning.
That was a small part of it,
although it was a part of it.
Summertime was smelly.
Summertime was smelly.
That's the bind juice final boss.
I'm telling you, man.
It was definitely an experience,
but it definitely, it put hairs on my chest.
You know what I mean?
It made me a man.
And it taught me how to graph.
You know, going back to me, not liking authority
and always kind of being against the man
and so on and so forth.
It was the first time that I found that if you're good,
i.e. a boffin at your job,
which was kind of frowned upon in my circles at school,
but at work, if you're a boffin, you were rated.
You were good.
He's well good at his job.
And everyone was like,
everyone gravitated towards that person.
He was good at their job.
So it made me want to strive to be good at my job.
So I really kind of, I put the work in.
And I worked with Viola for probably about seven or eight years
and the product was mainly Mercedes
and felt like I had got to a point where kind of
not outgrew the place, but I learned all I could learn.
And I wanted to expand it.
So I went to work for Mercedes main dealer,
which later on or kind of after the interview
and I got the job worked out was a franchise of a main dealer,
which is kind of do the job at the same time as the main dealer.
But with not the facilities and crappy tools and it was,
it wasn't the one.
So I was there for about six months
and then a job opportunity come up with London Fire Brigade,
which again was a full fleet of Mercedes.
So I went and done that.
They were based out of rice lit.
Have you been there?
Yeah. Yeah.
They've got loads of our kits.
And they got like 10, 15 of them.
Yeah, go there.
The customer of mine.
That's crazy.
In fact, I was going to ask you as well then,
what was the Mercedes dealership you'd?
RYGLE.
RYGLE commercial.
He's right.
Yeah.
Sold them kits, haven't we?
Yeah.
What do you think of it?
I haven't been there for many years.
I'm like with like a bit of a dive.
I know.
I like, no, no, no.
You've got a good place.
I get to see all ends of the spectrum.
So I do get to see look like the man in,
in his van who's literally up all hours,
you know, doesn't have any of the niceties,
doesn't have a coffee machine.
Let's put it that way, you know,
in the, in the, in the waiting room or whatever.
So the dealership, you know,
the dealerships have their positives
and they also have their negatives
and equally to work there as well.
I get to deal with people
who have been there, done it,
either gone back to it
or started their own business
and like compare against,
I suppose working for the man.
But no, no, Mercedes,
Mercedes is definitely one of the,
one of the better ones.
Yeah.
Cool, cool, cool.
But yeah.
Better than iVico anyway.
Yeah.
Sorry everyone.
Sorry iVico boys.
So I've worked on a few iVicos too.
That's basically Fiat, right?
And it's FCA or whatever it is.
They're like a big group.
Is it Chrysler in that group too?
Yeah.
Fiat Chrysler.
Yeah.
Or is it just Fiat Chrysler Automotive?
Is that what it is?
FCA.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Kind of the cheap and cheerful.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
You know what I mean?
So I don't think, I don't think,
I haven't seen any cheerful.
There's one chap, James Berry,
I'll shout him actually,
wiki mechanic.
And if I'm ever with a customer
who's like,
struggling on iVico,
I'll always recommend him.
But sometimes I even ring him.
You know what I got?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm ringing him like,
I need you.
I need you.
On this iVico.
But yeah, other than him,
I don't meet many cheerful iVico.
Guys and girls.
Yeah, man.
But do you know what,
like, so going from my,
my first job
and saying they,
they treated me well
to London Fire Brigade.
Well, not the Fire Brigade
because it's actually franchised
or taken by Babcock.
Yeah.
And working in that workshop,
it was quite interesting
when I first actually got there.
This is something I've never really
spoke about
because it's never really been
relevant.
But it was,
they were very old school
in their working kind of way.
They were very traditional.
But also what had happened
is like,
it went from me
moving at a million miles an hour,
trying to meet these kind of times
for certain jobs being done
to slow down.
You're making us all look bad.
Do you know what I mean?
Because it was,
you know what I mean?
It was,
loosen that bolt,
go have a cup of tea,
come back,
there wasn't no job card designated times.
But what was happening is
you had all the old boys there
who had it great
all on different contracts
and then you had a load of new guys there
and it was a massive divide
between the workshop.
The old boys barely spoke
to the new guys
and this at the other side
was really weird.
Yeah, it was really weird.
The old boys,
I think,
saw some value in my knowledge
of the Mercedes product
and some of them
kind of accepted me
if that makes sense.
And others just straight
wouldn't speak to you.
You'd say hi to them,
they'd just look at you
and keep walking.
It was like that at work
and it was quite a big workshop too.
So like, you know,
it could be quite clicky.
I was just there to work.
I think like most of us
go to a day job.
We like to make it as easy as possible.
Like no one really wants to be there
if you're not doing something
that you absolutely love.
So why not make it easy for everyone?
But people didn't want to do that.
But anyway,
so I was on a workshop floor there
for about a year and a half
and although it was a bit
of a weird dynamic,
I actually liked working on a product
because it was the first place
that actually took real pride
in the product.
You know what I mean?
It was,
they had to look good.
You know,
they needed to serve a purpose.
They like,
No bing juice.
No bing juice.
And also,
do you know what I did like about it?
They were almost,
this sounds probably real corny,
cheesy,
and it probably ain't true.
But they were like,
if there's a sports car
of the truck world,
it's a fire engine, right?
Makes sense.
They were running straight out
and then blasting down
or you don't see any other trucks
driving like that.
Unless it's a race truck,
like you know.
So I was like,
I'm working on a product
that is kind of,
it's quite cool.
Also no speed limbers.
Yeah.
They've got a race speed limber.
I think they can do 70 odd,
but some of them don't have speed limbers.
Yeah.
Some of them don't.
So anyway,
done a workshop floor
for about a year and a half
and then the opportunity came up
of being mobile
for the London Fire Brigade.
And I was like,
I was at a bit of a crossroad now
because I'd been on a workshop floor,
floors for,
you know,
14 years or so.
Well, maybe not 14 years.
I'm talking about a show
about nine years, I think,
at the time.
So I was like,
do I want to do this full time?
Like, you know,
you're growing up,
you're kind of looking at
where the ceiling is
and what you do.
You're like,
I could stay on a workshop floor
and I don't know,
might get a pay rise,
might become master tech,
this at the other,
but how much can I earn?
Because right now,
I'm trying to work out
how far I can go in life.
And then this opportunity
come up being mobile,
it paid a lot better.
A lot better.
And it was something I hadn't done before.
So I thought,
as a kind of a,
not that I'm falling out
of love with it,
but as something new
and something fresh
to maybe really-
Change environment.
Yeah.
Let me try it.
And I went for it.
In fact,
I got the drop
that this position
was coming up quite early.
And that's because
I think the guys
in that department
knew that I kind of knew
my stuff
with the products.
So they teed me up for it.
So I got it straight away.
And that,
I would probably say
was the best job I ever had.
Nice.
In terms of,
like work life,
I had a van,
I worked from home.
I ended at home.
I basically felt
more part of the fire brigade
than I did
when you were there.
Because I didn't go to the workshop.
The only time I would go
to the workshop
would be
literally to pick up parts.
And that was it.
And that might be once a week
for an hour.
And I would get in
and out as quick as possible.
And it was just
literally you work
with a whole different department.
So the people that I had contact with
and the people that I was speaking
to the most
was the firemen.
You know,
I'd be up in the mess room
like chilling with them
and so on and so forth.
And it was really chill,
paid well as I say,
no fuel bills going to and from.
And it was also at that point
that I kind of crossed
over into YouTube.
And it was because of that job
that I was able to
cross over into YouTube.
Now,
in this day and age,
with like the normal person,
like they've got a nine to five
and then some,
you know, over time
and so on and so forth.
It's almost impossible
to start a channel
and dedicate everything to it
because you'll literally have
no time at all.
And it can be physically impossible,
especially trying to be consistent,
which is key in this game.
And what I would do some days
at work would be,
I would basically say,
I'm ready for work
because that's how it worked
in the morning.
I'll send an email.
I didn't even have to call.
I was emailing ready for work.
They'd either send me
a couple of jobs.
Sometimes it might be
three or four different fire stations,
but it would all be
usually within one area.
I could knock them out
in like a couple of hours,
like all of them,
because they're only small jobs, right?
If they're big,
they go to the workshop.
Certain days,
they'd send me nothing.
They'd go just stand by in the area.
So I'd be standing by
and I would go to work
and not do anything
for the whole day.
So I'd go to the gym.
I'd go shopping.
I'm so bored.
And at this point,
I was switching over
into YouTube.
So I would film on the weekends
and mate,
I'll get a whole day's editing
whilst I'm at work.
I'd sit in the van,
just editing a whole video.
Like just,
and I'm like,
no one gets this ability.
There'll be jobs out there,
but it's such an opportunity
to be able to grow
my YouTube channel.
And it really, really helped.
But again,
I was still flat out
because not every day
was promised to be editing, right?
So some days,
you'd come home after work,
you'd edit weekends,
Saturday and Sunday,
I'd be out filming.
So like the pressure was still on.
And yeah,
it allowed me to grow
the YouTube channel to a size
that I was able to actually kind of,
it wasn't so much a leap of faith.
It was kind of a calculated step,
if that makes sense,
because it was already
quite a well-oiled machine
before it kind of,
or before I came to that kind of
crossroads to jump over
into full-time YouTube.
So yeah.
And now a million subs.
Thank you so much.
Outrageous.
It's crazy.
Now, you know,
looking back at the journey.
Do you know,
it's very weird.
It's very weird.
Because you probably know, right?
That everything is enticing
until you get it
or seems better
until you get it.
I've been talking about cars.
Novelty.
Novelty.
It's almost like,
what will it be like
when you get this thing
or item or achieve something?
It's just like,
you know,
for instance,
I've got a super car,
I've got a McLaren,
which is crazy to even say, right?
But you've got it
and it's cool.
But nothing really changes
after that,
if that makes sense.
So when it came to the million,
I've been striving so hard
just to,
just to keep on pushing
and pushing and pushing.
And, you know,
after a hundred thousand,
the next goal is kind of a million,
but that's 900,000 subs difference.
So it's a hard, long slog,
or it was for me to get there.
So achieving it was like,
man, this is crazy.
A million people have hit that subscribe button.
Like to watch my videos
or they've connected with me enough
to want to hit that subscribe.
And you know they're stingy, right?
They'll watch your video.
They'll love the video.
They still won't press subscribe.
They might forget
or they might just want to watch five
to make sure you are legit
before they press subscribe.
See, I did that for years
and it wasn't until really,
we started doing what we do,
then I realized,
ah, this is hard.
It's really hard to grow
your subscriber base.
I think it was much easier
back in the day
when there's way less competition,
but still, obviously,
I'm not taking away anything away
from any creators
from back in the day.
They've still done a phenomenal job.
Look at like people like Mr. Beast.
Like what?
Just like not even on this planet.
But I now have like a new fan respect.
So the first thing I tend to do
after a couple of videos,
not even that,
like with the first video,
I'm like like commenting,
I'm subscribing,
just because I'm like,
I get it.
I get it.
That's how I feel.
You know, certain times like,
I watch videos and I'm like,
ah, this guy absolutely smashed it.
And I click off the video.
And I'm like, what am I doing?
Click back on like it.
It's so,
do you know what I mean?
It's so easy to do,
but it's also so easy to forget
because content is just so,
it's a dime a dozen.
It's in its abundance.
It's free.
You can be picky.
You don't have to thank someone
after they make it.
It's still going to make.
Do you know what I mean?
So it's a weird one,
but going back to that million,
like I was,
I've still am buzzing to say I've done that.
What an achievement.
But I feel like for me,
so I'm always,
my head's always ticking over.
I'm always trying to find the next best thing
or trying to push on and do this and do that.
Now the million for me is like,
it's a bit of a,
it's a,
it's a tricky one because I've got a million subscribers.
I don't get a million views per video.
And I'm not saying that is normal.
Right.
I mean, like,
I know a lot of people with millions of subscribers
that don't get their full amount of subscribers
or however much,
or maybe even half watching each video.
But for me,
it's like,
I got a million subscribers,
but I ain't got a million people watching.
Do you know what I'm saying?
So I'm now in a battle with trying to get them views up.
Do you know what I mean?
Try and make sure those subscribers
are paying attention.
Like, you know what I mean?
So, yeah,
we've hit the million.
I'm,
it's stupid.
It's, it's,
it don't,
it don't make sense.
No.
It's not reality.
I bet you'll never get those figures
and that's,
that's what's sort of a shame about it,
but you,
you talk about a million subscribers,
but I bet you actually,
if you were to look at what,
what your coverage is,
I bet it's way more than a million.
That's what's mad about it is if,
yeah,
if just people just hit subscribe
and watch consistently,
your views would be insane.
Yeah, man.
But as you,
like,
going back to it, man,
it's,
it's very hard, man.
Like there's,
there's so much good content out there.
Yeah.
So much good content out there, man.
And there's,
there's,
there's so many people doing it now.
Who's your favorite?
Who's your,
who's your,
you know,
who's,
like you said,
that guy who's killing it,
who's the,
who's Jamie's killing it guy?
Do you know,
there's,
there's a few.
Yeah.
But believe it or not,
there's not a lot of automotive YouTubers
that I check in for all the time.
Just because I'm really, really busy.
I'm really busy.
And I feel like when I do settle down with a little YouTube video,
whether it be before bed or something like that,
just to take me away,
it's usually not automotive.
Cause I live and breathe that life.
That's my job.
That's my job and some, you know?
So it's,
it's generally something like,
I don't know,
like I'm not even into it,
but it's just peaceful.
It's like,
I don't know,
like camping outdoors,
you know,
those videos like below 50 degrees and all this travel kind of channel.
Or,
or like,
you know,
beard meets food,
food challenge,
just silly stuff,
you know,
but within the automotive space,
someone who I definitely think needs one,
like really,
really big shout out to,
to,
to know that he's doing well,
but I think he knows he's doing well is,
and I could call him my friend too,
is Mark McCann.
Yeah.
He,
he's built his channel into something that is more than,
it feels like I'm watching more than a YouTube video.
Like a documentary.
It's a documentary.
Yeah.
It's,
it's journalism,
it's detectiveness.
Yeah.
What goes into it is,
it should be commended.
Like,
you know what I mean?
And,
I don't know if you guys have had much dealings with Mark,
but I know people that perhaps have met him would,
would be able to vouch for him being a top guy.
Just kind of what you see is what you get.
The way he is on camera is the way he's,
he's almost too nice.
Yeah.
And like Mark,
he's so nice.
Like, you know what I mean?
But he's just a lovely person.
Comes across really well.
He misses his lovely too.
His daughter.
They're just good people.
Yeah.
So I definitely think that's an honourable shout out there,
but there's,
there's so many people killing it, man.
There's so many,
and there's so many people killing it.
Don't get the flowers they deserve.
Yeah.
Because it's such a tough environment.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
It's so tricky.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you think over the years,
there's been a reason for your content evolving?
Is it, is it,
is that just trying to get the next number?
Or is it just a case of just the way the contents,
again, the audience want,
for example,
you started with car reviews,
modified car reviews,
drag races, car bills.
Do you think that's just natural progression?
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So most of it's natural progression,
but also some of it is
seeing the way
kind of the,
the landscape's changing
and trying to direct it into that.
But you've got to be very careful when you do that.
And this is something that I've struggled with.
It's trying to give people something that feels new,
that isn't too indifferent
from what they subscribe to see.
Because you do too much of a left turn
and they're like,
What are you doing?
What are you doing?
Yeah, sure.
We want to see,
and then you give them what they want to see.
So you went for a JLR on it.
You went for a JLR.
Not that,
not that,
not that pretty,
but you know,
I've tried some stuff
within YouTube.
In YouTube.
And,
yeah, man.
I mean,
it's just hard.
It's just hard to gauge what people want.
And it's,
I'm almost at a bit of a crossroads now with that.
It's like,
what I used to do,
which is my passion of like,
speaking to someone about their car,
hopping and going for a rag,
that doesn't work anymore.
It doesn't work.
It's too easy,
which,
I don't think,
I don't know,
it's like the YouTube algorithm doesn't like it,
or it's not what YouTube wants to push.
YouTube now is about stories.
It's about journeys.
It's,
it's the new TV.
You know,
we live in a TikTok generation.
And I say that in,
in terms of people have got short attention spans, right?
So
YouTube can't,
they can't compete with TikTok when it comes to their shorts
or their reels, right?
And neither can Instagrams tell the truth.
But YouTube have got a way
that they can out-compete TikTok,
which is long-form content.
So they've taken,
it seems like they've taken a different kind of route.
And it's to push people towards longer form,
kind of more TV-like content.
And that's what it seems like gets the views.
It seems like the people that are doing,
your Matt Armstrong,
Mark McCann's,
you know,
the people who are building stories,
involving family members and,
you know,
doing that kind of stuff that,
you know,
seem to be getting the views.
Whereas,
you know,
the kind of the easier,
shorter content doesn't seem to be doing as well,
which was a lot of what I used to do.
Although it didn't feel easy and it felt like it was,
you know,
at least,
at least what I wanted to see.
And I'm sure a large portion of my audience wanted to see.
It doesn't seem like that works as well anymore.
So it's tricky,
but I'm trying to just add little elements
to make it a little bit more,
let's do it,
engage in,
kind of just feel a little bit more,
just a little different,
if that makes sense.
And your gauge from that,
what works, what doesn't.
100%,
100%,
and I may,
I battle with it, man.
It's really tricky,
especially like a million subscribers, right?
Yeah.
Like,
I recently went to America
and I have done maybe about four or five times
in the last three years.
And I would say my first three videos,
or sorry,
first three visits
and the videos I made
were pretty successful.
You know,
we had some videos that didn't do too well,
but at least every kind of visit,
I'd do like a,
a video that would do like a million views,
or close to.
And it's like,
it makes it worth it in that respect.
And the last visit was really strange.
I went out there and I went to an event
that wasn't a pinnacle event.
So maybe that was part of the problem.
And the original idea for me going out
was to actually bring one of my cars out to America.
That was going to be like the big thing
and flying one of my cars out to America
and I was going to compete.
And the event was called FL2K.
For anyone who doesn't know what that is,
but has heard of TX2K.
TX2K is based in Texas.
These two events aren't actually related,
believe it or not.
They've got very similar names,
but FL2K is in Florida.
TX2K is like a humongous pinnacle drag racing event
for like street cars and,
or more street looking cars,
because there's levels to drag racing, right?
But FL2K is kind of like a smaller one,
you know,
that gets some fast cars,
but not crazy, crazy, crazy cars.
So it was a great starting point to fly out there,
you know, test the waters with the American audience
with my car.
Well, about a month before we were meant to go,
my car wasn't ready.
We had a massive hold up on my gearbox.
So it was like, do we still go?
And it's like, we're kind of getting hyped to go.
Like, let's go anyway.
So we went, I thought, you know what, I'll change it up.
I'll just make some content on other stuff while I'm there.
But what I won't do is I won't follow the event
because what you also get when it comes to following the event
is you've got the YouTube channels out there
covering these events that are known to cover these events,
American channels that will have what happened
on that day uploaded that same day.
I've got to wait until I get back from,
American might be two weeks.
And I might have three other videos that need to go live
before that video goes live.
So I can't win like that.
My video has to be engaging in some other way.
So what I usually do is follow someone's story
within that event.
But if I'm following the cool car,
it gets covered anyway by these other, you know,
so this time I was like, I don't know many crazy cars
that are going to be there.
Let me not cover the event.
Or in fact, let me do a vlog of the event,
just a one day vlog of the event, put it out.
See if people like that kind of content
because it's something I don't do.
And it's going back to like testing the waters
and seeing what works.
So I've done that, put our video up.
Absolutely flopped.
Which I was like, I quit doing that again.
But the other videos are done.
We're like just reviews on people's cars, you know.
And in my opinion, relatively cool cars.
But this is where I think I went wrong.
Because relatively cool doesn't do it anymore on YouTube.
You're in America.
People are expecting mind blowing, crazy, absolutely
out of this world builds that they've never seen before.
And I come back with cool builds, but not that.
So not only did it cause a disconnect
between my UK audience and I guess what they're used to.
The cars that they're seeing were cool,
but no one really was watching.
And like, I want to say I filmed like seven or eight videos
out there, probably the most consistently
worst viewing videos that I've had in the last,
maybe five, six years.
That's how bad it was, which made me like,
oh boy, we've got a problem.
And I was like, is it the videos?
Is it me?
Is it YouTube?
Is this my demise?
Is this the end?
Do you know what I mean?
Shadow band.
Do you know what I mean?
But this is where ego takes over.
Sometimes you do need to step back and say,
hang on, is it YouTube or is it more realistically you?
Which is a hard pill to swallow.
You want to put content out that people want to watch
and a view or the views or the lack of views
is reflective of how much people
actually want to watch your video.
So with a million subscribers,
one of these videos hit 50K, scraped 50K.
Bro, like percentages, quick math,
I don't even know what that is,
but I'm going to say that's like,
help me, that 5%, not even that.
5% of subscriber base, yeah.
5%, that's terrible.
10% of what some of your like,
average videos would do.
And then some of your videos got like 5,
7 million on them.
It's crazy.
And I understand you can't win with everyone,
but it's nice to see that a majority
or a bulk of your subscribers are tuning in.
So that made me think like that
and realize that we're at a crossroads here
and those kind of features don't work.
And if they are going to work,
it needs to be the craziest of the crazy, you know,
there just needs to be more to what I put out now, you know,
and I'm trying.
But of course with the big builds that I do,
I'm at the mercy and it's to my detriment
that I don't work on my own cause,
but that's something we come onto
because it's something I'm going to be doing.
But right now I'm at the mercy of
when a garage can get my car worked on,
waiting for parts, waiting for this, waiting for that.
And you know, it's hard to keep consistent with these builds
or really build the journeys.
So moving forward, what I'm going to be doing
is I'm just going to be getting my hands dirty.
For me coming off the tools and being behind the camera
and recording someone else work on my cars was the dream.
But now I feel like it's time for me to get my hands dirty.
And I feel like people will gravitate towards that too
because we're all going to learn together.
Before it was like, oh, we've done this, we've fitted that,
we've done this and now it works.
Now we're going to find out how it works, why it works,
why we've done this.
Do you know what I mean?
I'm just going to graph.
I'm just going to make it work.
And that does feel natural progression to what you've done.
And it's back to your roots.
100%.
100%.
Everyone's going to realise I'm a terrible mechanic.
This is not a Mercedes truck.
That's it, hammer and chisel.
Because a lot of, if you don't, if you are from the car world
and you see what the, what are the differences really,
it's still an engine, whatever.
Trucks are built so they can be fixed easily.
They're not as intricate or a pain in the arse as cars are.
I used to sit on the engine when I used to work on it.
And that's no light.
It's literally like it's heavy duty stuff that you bash around
and you're not too precious about if a little bit of paint gets scratched.
It's a workhorse.
Do you know what it's a workhorse?
And that's what it is.
So there's differences, but it's the workings aren't too indifferent.
You aren't sitting on the engine bay with 911.
No, no, no.
You ain't seen me try a workhorse.
Tune in.
I suppose, sorry, over the years,
after you've done many different projects,
right back from the Cooper build, the Vesta ST,
which was big one at the time,
if you could have kept any of those builds, just one.
What could you have gone back with and gone,
kept that one.
I'll kept that one rather than selling it all.
Moving it on some way.
There's a couple.
Yeah.
But for different reasons.
Okay.
So the first one that's quite easy for me
was my first 911 Turbo S.
That car, had it not been for content sake,
I don't think I'd have got rid of it.
I love that car.
It was beautiful.
On the web.
It was also my first super car.
I think we could call it a super car.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It kind of, it meant a lot.
Yeah.
But for content, I had to move it on.
But I've got a weird one that people will probably think,
really.
So it was actually, it's crazy how quickly things progressed.
Cause I kind of, there was a few cars in between this
or a few kind of side projects,
but it basically went from a A45 MG to a Golf R.
Kind of a side step, I guess,
to a BMW M3 to an RS5 to a 911.
So it was quite,
and that was all kind of within maybe two,
two and a half years or three years.
But my BMW M3,
I don't feel like I gave the time of day.
I don't think I gave it enough love,
if that makes sense.
And I quickly realized that,
so it was an F80 M3.
I try to remember what that was.
So it was actually purple too.
It was purple and they had white interior.
And that for me, right?
That car, like the Porsche was a massive jump.
That was a pinnacle moment.
But believe it or not,
the jump from my Golf R to that F80 M3 was massive.
And at that point,
and it might sound really weird because I've,
and again, maybe to my detriment,
I've only really been attracted to what I can,
I feel like I can reach out and grab.
That's within my grasp.
And an M3 was on my radar,
but I didn't think I was going to get one anytime soon,
if that makes sense.
And to get one, and if I got one is massive.
And then I got one,
but not only did I get one,
I got one was like individual purple, silk, paintwork,
ivory interior.
Beautiful interior.
It was like,
I remember sitting in that car thinking,
this is insane.
Whose car is this?
I can't believe I've got this car.
And it was an expensive car for the time.
Again, compared to what I've got now,
perhaps not,
I want to say it might have been 38 grand
or something like that.
And that's a big jump from my 20 grand Golf R.
You know when you're like nearly doubling
the value of your last car with the next one?
That's a big jump.
And I got mixed up in things moving too quickly
and concept moving too quickly.
And I didn't have the car longer than maybe nine months.
Saw an RS5.
Oh, an RS5.
No one's made content on that.
I guess it was just trying to be the first
to do something with something, you know?
And I moved on to the RS5.
And I honestly, honestly, I want to say,
within two weeks of driving the RS5,
I thought, what have I done?
Oh, really?
The RS5 is a back step.
Yeah.
Honestly, it was just not.
Come on, BMW.
Yeah.
I'm not even a BMW fanboy.
That is a crazy thing.
I'm not a BMW fanboy, man.
Like, if it drives nice, if it makes the right noise,
if it makes me happy, I like it.
I am back for just one team.
And that's all right.
There's two clips.
Yeah.
You guys have got a lot of that.
We're going to click this up.
This is a short.
This is a short.
It's all coming out today, boys.
You're the first.
Exclusives.
But yeah, now, so, yeah, I mean, look,
I just appreciated the fact that I was in that car
and it really was driven home.
I guess you only can appreciate something when you realize
that what you've got now wasn't as good as what you had.
But because it was content, I kept a brave face
and there was good things to be had from this RS5 content.
I cracked on with it.
But I did.
Like, honestly, that through my whole ownership of that RS5,
up until now, I'm like, you know what?
That was a proper car that I should have done a little bit more with.
I really like that car.
Things happen for a reason and all the rest of it.
But yeah, certainly up to that 9-11, the first 9-11,
I mean, what an absolute weapon that would turn into be at the end.
The relationship with ES then, was that someone that you already knew
or did you just bond the relationship because of that car maybe?
Bro, I bought the car because I looked up to ES Mo.
So this is another thing.
So I remember I was, had I even started YouTube?
Yes.
Maybe the very, very early days of YouTube.
I had made friends with someone who had a BMW M6
and he was going up to a race event.
It was VMAX 200, basically.
Yeah, I forgot.
Kendrick Barracks, right?
Basically a mile, I think it's at 1.2 mile standing kind of
who can go the fastest.
And I basically went to this event with him in his M6
and with us in the gang was a Porsche 9-11 Turbo.
I think it was a Turbo, I think it was a Turbo S, but it was a 997.2.
And it had ES Mo on the side.
And this thing, so it was all convoying up.
This thing was just absolutely laying waste to everything.
Then we got to the event and it like broke the VMAX record.
And it was almost like other ways kind of been a vibes person.
And maybe if people admit it or they won't admit it.
If you're in a crowd and the car pulls up,
it's mad stuff, it's crazy.
And everyone's going, man, that's the car, that's the car.
You're going to be like, oh, that's the car.
It was a bit like that at VMAX.
Everyone's like, hey, that Porsche boy got ES Mo.
Yeah, his whisper is like, you know what I mean?
It's like, ES Mo will want big, big, big out there like that.
But if you knew about him, you knew.
So I'm like, boy, it is that boys.
So again, I couldn't see that far ahead.
You know what I mean?
I was go far.
I'm nowhere near.
By the way, it was like, even then, what a car.
That's the thing about the Golf R.
Amazing car.
I remember when I said I like from A45 to Golf R,
I hopped into the Golf R, although I loved the A45.
Like what it represented to me was like, it was sick.
And again, it was another milestone, believe it or not.
I was like, am I taking a sidestep?
Maybe.
But then I drove the Golf R and I was like, oh, it's a better car.
And I've done that level of sort of power,
not quite, but power level on a Cobra.
And yeah, it's like nothing else you've driven.
It's really weird to explain.
Yeah, just what you can do to a standard engine.
Yeah, it is mad.
I don't think ever sort of initially knew that that engine
would do what is doing that.
It's pleased performance.
And again, taking nothing away from these cars,
because bro, like humble beginnings,
like as I say, in the back of a hopper cleaning up,
you know, I mean, whatever it might be from dust cars, bro.
Like this is crazy to even be here.
And I'm a realist.
So I'm in my 30s now and I didn't start YouTube until I was like 28.
Like my life was, that's how my life's going to be.
I thought this is Jamie.
Like, you know, this is, I never thought you'd take a twist like it.
I couldn't have imagined.
You're on the bins thinking I should have been a plumber.
Should have been a plumber!
Should have been a plumber!
But if you were a plumber, the chances of you doing what you're doing now,
like, surely not.
Well, everything happens for a reason.
I've been in predicaments in my life and I'm like,
why has this happened?
So like losses, this, that, the other.
I'm like, why has this happened?
But I've got to stick to everything happens for a reason.
That's happened because in the future this is going to happen.
I wouldn't be here now if that didn't happen.
You know what I mean?
Of course, some things I wish they never happened.
But yeah, it's crazy to think where I am now.
And could I, do you know what?
I know you're like, sorry, this and we got off on time.
Kind of just deep in it as we were speaking.
But 17, 18 year old Jamie, like, you know, with these dust carts,
you know, had I been walking down to the cafe or whatever
and I'd seen 30-odd year old, why don't I keep it?
I'm 37.
Had I seen 37 year old Jamie driving by in a Porsche,
I wouldn't even, that's not obtainable.
I couldn't, I wouldn't be able to even put myself in their shoes.
That's not something that's coming in my life,
unless I get a lottery win or something happens.
So to deeper and to even be sitting here with you boys right now
and telling my story and hopefully people watch
and are actually caring about what I'm saying, it's mad.
Life is mad.
Life is crazy.
We've said as well, what we like about your content
and I'm sure others do is actually,
and I've said this about supercars,
I love cars and I love supercars, I love hypercars,
but they almost feel like that's just ridiculous.
That's just a dream.
Whereas I love about your, don't get me wrong,
900 horsepower super is just like mental,
but it is obtainable.
They are real cars, if that makes sense.
And I think people can relate to that.
That's what it is.
And again, going back to YouTube, it's about, for the most part,
because some channels do the wildest,
unrelatable stuff and they get millions of views.
But for the most part, it needs to be relatable.
And going back to it, like supercars are great.
I love Mama Claren.
Like what a cool car.
But really bro, if someone held a gun to my head,
take every car but my Honda.
Like there's cars, I've been lucky enough.
That's that question answered.
I've been lucky enough to drive so many cars,
supercars.
I don't think I've driven any hypercars,
but cars are boring on hypercars.
And I've driven them all and I tell you now, man,
like engineering is cool when you see these manufacturers
that do them and they come out of the box out of that,
but man, there's nothing better than Rob Danner
back in the industrial state has built a,
I don't know, 1200 brake horsepower car
that probably won't stop at the end of the runway
because he ain't done the brakes yet
and you might die every time you go out.
That's cool.
You can't get a, like,
for me, it's about how a car makes you feel now.
You know, whether it be a million brake horsepower,
500 brake horsepower stripped out or whatever,
it's how a car makes you feel.
And unfortunately, supercars can't do that.
I've realised now.
You know, it can't.
And that's what the drag races have such a good view.
I just realised this has been played out.
Exhibit A.
Get an M3 in that one.
Another one or two.
But it's people's own bills, isn't it?
You know, it's not a M3 out the back, out of the packet.
That's what it's going to do against a,
I don't know, a similar Audi.
But it's people's own cars.
They've done their own things too.
And that's why that M3 was faster than that M6.
On paper, I suppose,
an M6 probably would be faster than M3.
But what he's done to that car makes it faster.
And that's why people can watch it going,
yeah, well, I've got an M3.
I've done that to it.
And that's how it costs.
Yeah, so that's why it's so much more relatable
than standard car drag races.
And it's interesting because, you know,
there's obviously an industry for standard car drag racing.
Yeah.
Of course.
Car walls are kind of a testament to that.
But for me, that's like, man, it's like,
all right, cool.
That's what we can do out of the box.
That's cool.
What can I do to it?
That's what we really make this car.
And that's what I want to know.
Yeah.
You've got Tom when we tune them too there.
There's absolutely.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
And this is what it's about,
especially if you're in that deep kind of
cartoon or customization kind of scene.
For one, about having something that other people
perhaps haven't got or haven't done yet or can't do or,
you know, it's just so much variety.
Like, and this is why when it comes to the OG battles,
it's a great platform because it's like, all right, cool.
So the M6.
Yeah.
Great car, right?
850 brake horsepower.
Yeah.
All right.
Cool.
Let's put you up against an M3 then that someone's tuned
to 800 brake horsepower because online,
these numbers sound big, right?
And maybe the M6 is going to be the faster car in fact,
whatever.
But, you know, when you put it into real life
and driver reactions and owners and this, that, the other,
which, you know, is so many variables.
And that's what it's about.
Absolutely.
And that's what makes sense.
But I suppose let's not forget as well.
Gaston track.
Yes.
That's another direction of the content.
We're wearing it's gone recently.
But yeah, let's be going now.
There's a couple of years.
So Gaston track has been going publicly for two years.
Yes.
Yeah.
We've had three events in about two years.
The first event was kind of a dipping your toe in the water
publicly and see how it goes.
And it rained the whole day.
It pretty much got rained off.
But a lot of people still turned up.
So we was like, all right, cool.
This is, we've got something.
And then, and that was at Donutton Park, by the way.
Yes.
And then we've done two at Silverstone now.
That's it.
And our, our one that we done last year,
massive success bigger and better this year,
massive success going to go even bigger and better next year.
But Gaston track actually was born from a thing that we
started called gas gang, which was like a,
or is a paid membership site.
And if you were a member of gas gang,
you could come to our track days.
So we started a few little track days.
They started at Castle Coon.
We done two or three at Castle Coon.
And then we moved on to Cadwell.
We done, we done a few tracks around the UK.
And we enjoyed it.
But it comes to the point where it was like, this is so cool.
Let's, let's open this to the public.
Let's make this an event.
And yeah, it was born.
And now it's just like, it's absolutely crazy, man.
You know, over 10,000 people this year.
And again, at the home of British motorsport,
like Silverstone.
Yeah, mad.
What a call, what a call location, you know,
and going back to it, bro.
I'm going to let's see how many times I can use this today.
Little young Jamie in the back of a bin truck.
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
Now we're at Silverstone, you know,
Silverstone are working with us.
They want us at their, at their location, their facility.
What an achievement.
You know, and it's a, that's something that is, it's interesting.
Like right now I'm like, let's see where this can go.
We're still in that kind of stage.
Let's keep pushing.
Let's, let's see where it can go.
We've, we've, we've done something with it that we felt that other events are
lacking and we've brought everything together.
We've brought all sides of the automotive community together.
There's literally everything, you know, rally cars, drift cars,
show cars, stance cars, F1 cars.
We've got motorsport mixed with tuner cars.
We've got like, do you know what I mean?
And that hasn't been done or executed in my opinion as well as we've been
lucky enough to have executed.
And, you know, the, the, the feedback from these events is like, I know like
people like, yeah, you're going to say this.
Like, you know what I mean?
And it's quite interesting because at the, the events of the previous two,
I got people coming up to me like, this is the best event we've ever been to.
Best event.
It's like, cool.
You're going to say that to me though.
You're not going to walk up to me and say, oh, this is crap.
What's going on?
Do you know what I mean?
All you're going to say nothing.
But we had so much positivity.
I'm like, cool.
The comments online, when this is done, we'll tell the story.
Mate, carried on that way.
It's like, this is the best event we've ever been to.
Mate, definitely going again.
Absolutely.
Like, you know what I mean?
And it's just been like that.
And the ambition again, it was just, mate, I like, I enjoy it.
Like, you know what I mean?
It's like, and when, when you can create something, you really,
really enjoy being at and witnessing and being part of that.
And I think you're on to it.
And it's your own event.
It's crazy.
Like, you know, so yeah, man, I'm really looking forward to 26.
Yeah.
I went to, I couldn't go this year.
I went to the year before.
Okay.
And yeah, that, that sort of atmosphere.
Yeah.
Everyone's having a great time.
Yeah.
Everyone's in their own cars, but no matter what it be.
Yeah.
That's it.
See, that was the other thing.
Right.
So it's also like taking nothing away from the events that cater to,
I don't know, people who are a little bit more wealthy or the grassroots people.
We're bringing all that together, bro.
We had Conan Zegregeras.
Conan Zegregeras.
Is that what it is?
Yeah.
I know about Hunters.
So we had the Conan Zegre.
We had Zonders, Pagani Zonders, you know, 918s, bro.
We had TDI bloody clapped out smoke machines.
You know what I mean?
Everything there together, enjoying it.
Everyone equally enjoying the space.
And the thing that we love about Silver Students, right?
So we've got the track because obviously Gaston track,
there's public track time available.
But our events within that.
So you've got this, you're encapsulated in this kind of noise machine, like, you know,
and there's always something going on.
Because if the track time stopped, then our live actions going on.
If the live action is not going on, now we've got like our fun fair.
We've got a full fun fair.
It's all free.
You know, it's great for the kids too, right?
But there's always action.
There's always something going on, not a dull moment.
So I love the fact that once you're in, there's always noise ripping off.
And it's just like, if you're a petrolhead, this is the place to be.
It was immediately sort of obvious of walking from the car park into the van.
And then first thing I hear is you on the microphone.
That's it.
That's it.
That's it.
That's it.
That's it.
That's it.
That's it.
That's it.
That's it.
That's it.
That's it.
That's it.
I do have to tell a little bit of a funny thing.
I'll just notice.
So when we, me and Aaron, obviously, we put questions together because now the one of
us, like, we sort of get overwhelmed a little bit with what we're going to ask.
It's just like, yeah, we just come out and get really excited about what we're going to
ask.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
And what we do is we use chat GPT to like structure.
Yeah.
To make sure that like the conversation flows.
And my chat GPT, I've nicknamed Sydney Sweeney.
So on every question, it's like, Sydney, you should ask about this.
Sydney.
Sydney.
Sydney.
Sydney.
Sydney.
In my mind, I made it my own car.
I thought it was cool.
And then you bring that out.
Yes, yes, yes.
This is the thing though, bro, like to kind of,
to be different, you have to kind of do that crazy stuff.
And it's not, I don't want to do it, right?
It's just like, obviously it's a bit of me,
but yeah, it's wild.
And it's quite interesting you asked me about that now,
but it's very relevant at this time.
Cause we've literally just got the car back on the road
or the strip and, you know, it's kind of performing,
but I don't want to say too much, right?
It was wad of you touch.
I don't want to say too much, right?
So I'm so positive when it comes to cars
and everything I put out, yeah.
But there's some things right now going on behind the scenes
with that car, that if I was not the person I am,
I'd be out in some people right now.
Yeah, as we do the kind of bit of a left turn,
cause it's not me, but it's definitely not Osprey.
Like Osprey who built the car, like 10, 10, you know what I mean?
Like Chris and the team, they are spot on.
It's other people, sponsors and things like that.
Nightmare, anyway, I'll flash back to me saying
my car was meant to go to America, never went to America.
It was the M240i.
Oh, we know.
You know, so, yeah.
So with that anyway, I mean, right now,
the car is kind of working, had a big race the other day,
didn't go to plan so much because of the weather,
but should still make an interesting video,
don't know how well it would do view wise.
But yeah, that car is absolutely wild.
And the story to it is actually quite,
it's a sad one.
It's a tragic one.
It's physically a tragic story,
but I've kind of been,
well, it's just like I've been wrapped up
without wanting to be.
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Essentially for the people who don't know
and haven't heard the story,
going back to TX2K, that event,
it was last year, last year in March.
Basically, I went out there and I was filming my stories
and following people's journeys,
and met up with a young fella called Dre,
who went by the name of One Stock.
And Dre was known online previously
for a lot of street racing, calling other cars out.
He had a very fast M240i and a very fast Audi TT RS,
and doing a lot of street racing.
Street racing for money, taunting other people,
and usually winning.
But what you've got to understand is street racing,
definitely like in the UK you say,
it's like, oh, street racing is marmite.
To a lot of the culture, we're like, yeah, that's cool,
but then it's very frowned upon also.
To a lot of people.
But people need to remember, not that it makes it right,
that the structure of street racing at in America
is a lot different to street,
or what we call street racing here.
It's organized.
It's in their DNA.
They've been doing this.
It's very, very different.
They'll meet up, I don't know,
one o'clock in the morning on a road in Timbuktu,
like closed the road, prep the road, and properly.
They get like seven second cars out on the road,
six second cars out on the road, and they race.
They race for money.
It's like proper, it's usually properly done.
So he done a lot of that.
I'm not saying it was executed as properly as that,
but again, a lot better than like a lot more organized,
and it would be here in the UK.
And yeah, so we made a video on his M240i,
and at the time I had, I kind of,
I was done with the BMW community in terms of toxicity.
It's a very, very weird place to be, the BMW community.
And I, like the reason I had kind of actually said,
now I've had enough was I had a MOT5 Supra,
and a B58 inside it, right?
So, and didn't everyone remind me every time,
I'll die in a BMW Z4, like, you know what I mean?
Like great.
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, you know what I mean?
Yeah, thanks for that.
Thanks for telling me.
Just wait, just wait and look at that.
Just look way cooler.
And yeah, basically seeing all the toxicness
that kind of came with that,
and obviously having a few BMs prior,
I was like, I'm done with the BMW life.
Like, I don't need it.
Anyway, hopped in his car, we've done a feature.
I drove this car, I was like, oh my God, I did not do this.
Like the car was like 14, 1500 brake horsepower.
Let me drive it.
He was on slip.
He only had one seat in the car.
So I was like, you can let me drive it.
He's like, yeah, I want you to drive it.
Full power, I want you to feel this, man.
You got this.
Bro, it just started like trickling with rain.
Yeah, I remember this video.
And bro, you've got slicks on the back.
He's like, no, you'll be right on that, bro.
I don't know, I will be all right.
Anyway, I'm gonna try it.
Like left hand drive and everything, not my car.
But anyway, had a go with it and it blew my mind.
Blew my mind.
Video done really well.
And that made me pivot so hard on what I thought about BMs.
And of course, at this point, sorry,
no one in the UK was building any 240s to that level size.
That's cool.
We've got a plan.
Dre, literally physically on the video is that, bro.
You're gonna build one.
We're gonna do this together.
We're gonna let you know what you need to do.
You're gonna have to fast this M240 in the UK, maybe Europe.
Like, you know what I mean?
We're gonna do this together.
Him alongside M Powerhouse, which is kind of his shop,
or the shop that he worked with or built his car.
The main man there is Merrick.
And shout out to Merrick because I'm still in contact with Merrick.
Not as often as now because my main point of contact was Dre.
However, got back and set to going out to get an M240i
and purchase this M240i.
And it was at a point now where I feel the stages in builds
had kind of been played out.
Like, wait for a new video to see me do a stage two.
It was like, no, we're going to town now.
Now, like, yeah.
Balls deep on this one, you know what I mean?
So we went to work and that's where Osprey came in.
And man, their work ethic, their fit and finish of what they do
and everything they've done for me is honestly 10-10.
Like, and don't get me wrong,
this is like the biggest build they've done.
So everyone's learning along the way.
But anyway, interestingly, that same year, which was,
gosh, a little bit earlier on, no, sorry, it was November.
So it was at SEMA last year.
So I was at SEMA and I didn't actually film any content.
I was there for a company and something anyway.
It kind of went a bit weird and I was just out there.
And I remember, I remember this quite strongly
because obviously it is massive, but it was very weird.
So I was in America, I was in Las Vegas
and I was in my hotel room and I just couldn't sleep that night.
Or I could just, I was tossing and turning, eventually fell to sleep.
And then I woke back up at like maybe five in the morning or something.
And I'm always one of those people who don't like,
if I wake up early and I know it's not time to wake up yet,
but my alarm might go off in 10 minutes and I might fall back asleep
and I might feel like I've slept for five hours.
Like, you know what I mean?
So I won't check my phone.
So I laid there for what felt like an hour or so.
And I'm like, this ain't working.
Just pick up my phone.
I picked up my phone.
My phone's always on silent.
And I had so many messages.
WhatsApps, I had a message on Instagram.
I've told this story before.
One of the first messages I saw was,
I'm so sorry for your loss.
I'm like, what?
You're saying I'm thinking like, obviously it's like this, but like...
I'm like, who in my family's, what's happened?
It's so, it's so weird because there were so many messages like this is crazy.
And so anyway, so I kind of, I'm like, I'm trying to inquire.
I'm like, what?
Like, what?
Like to this person, but then open another message and said,
someone sent me a video of Dre crashing his car.
I saw that video.
And I wouldn't say it's too graphic and seeing Dre,
but the crash is quite graphic.
Like he's went out street racing and he's lost control of the car
and he's crashed and the car's pretty much ripped in half.
He's been ejected and he's lost his life there and then.
And I had loads of messages coming through and it was like,
I'd made friends earlier that year with this fella who was such a nice guy.
Like maybe not to the people who he taunted and so on and so forth.
And when I first ever met him, I was a little bit unsure how he'd be.
But as soon as I started speaking to him, you realize now this guy's,
he's like the life of the party.
Yeah man, he's such a cool guy.
And to see like how he was a pioneer within the B58 scene.
Ask anyone.
Like, you know, I mean, as much as they probably didn't want to admit it then,
I'm sure now he's not with us and there's no egos involved.
Everyone will admit it now.
How much he pushed on and what he'd done for that scene.
But to have seen someone so full of life.
So with a bright future, really his socials are really building up and
someone that I felt like I could call.
Although this is the other thing, although we weren't like best mates and friends,
someone who was now, someone who was like, I guess I kind of a new friend.
Like, you know what I mean?
Not best pals hanging out all the time, but occasional message and
we're doing this build kind of in partnership to see that come and go just like that.
Man, it's killer.
It's killer.
So, yeah, of course, after that, my build was already, already sorry,
underway and well in the swing of things.
And what had happened in between me getting my car and me driving Dre's car.
So Dre used to have a black M240i and then I bought a purple one.
Well, Dre actually crashed his M240i at the, at the strip.
He crashed it and rid it off.
Luckily, it was a big crash.
It was like a 160 mile an hour crash.
No roll cage.
And I think that was to his detriment again, his new one that he bought after this.
No roll cage, but because you're in the confines of the track,
bounce off the wall, bounce off the wall, bounce off the wall, spun round.
He was good.
Car was totaled.
So then he went and got a purple one.
So we both had purple cars.
So with his passing, my purple M240i that people knew we were kind of building together,
now become in homage to it.
It was like in, in his memory.
So now there's kind of a, I love, I love that hopefully his name can live on through what
I'm trying to do, but with that comes pressures and his car was fast.
Yeah.
And we haven't proved that yet with ours, you know, but this is cars and tuning.
This is 1500 brake horsepower cars that left the factory with 300.
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
It's, it's, it's pushing the balance.
So you're no really.
It's the unknown, you know.
So things can't always go as smooth as perhaps they appear on TV or on social media,
but we show it warts and all for us.
The journey hasn't been that smooth, but you know, shout out to Osprey once again.
We're trying.
Yeah, but it will be worth it in the end.
What hopefully so.
I suppose for, I mean, I've never driven anything that hasn't, that isn't standard,
to be honest with you.
Like it hasn't been tried.
I shouldn't, I don't want to test to that.
And even the state call me a shit driver.
There you go.
I probably shouldn't, but what people don't realize when these maybe see your titles
like 1500 horsepower BMW M240i like insane, but what are the safety implications?
Because you have to admit your, when you're getting in these machines,
they're not tried and tested, you know, with a crash dummy in it,
50 times over to work out exactly where it crumbles and where they need to do this
than the other.
That project that you're making is a killing machine.
Bro, do you know, it's so true.
It's so true and it's something that's not spoke about enough, right?
And I don't want to kind of act like I'm, I don't know, like risking my life every time I go out,
but these cars are no joke.
Like honestly, I drive in this M240i, it feels like anything could go wrong at any minute.
Like these cars are like, when you, like there's fast cars that drive themselves
and this car is full drive, but when you're driving this car, like,
like you honestly are, you're dicing with death with this car.
Granted, I'm not driving it on the road, but even on these drag strips,
all it takes is it to spin, dig in and flip.
You could be, you could be in some trouble.
So, you know, with, with my cars, I have with these big power cars implemented cages
and so on and so forth and harnesses.
But again, sometimes that's not enough to save you and people need to know that.
You're driving these cars, anything can happen.
And although I love it, that, you know, make sure you hit that subscribe button.
It's dangerous.
It's dangerous.
It's dangerous, you know, but do you know what is, is, why was it sounds?
That's what makes you buzz.
That is what makes you, when you hop out at it and you're buzzing, you're like,
man, that's adrenaline, right?
Drenaline junkies, that's what they do.
That's why people climb buildings.
Like maybe half of the time fall off these buildings or
walk the tightrope or whatever they do.
It's a buzz, man.
Like, and that's why we do it.
It's a bit like you're jumping in, into that car with a grizzly bear or a tiger or something.
You're walking out like, I just tamed.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's what it is.
It's either you tame it or it explodes.
That's my cars.
Like, you know what I mean?
I'll tame it.
It doesn't work or it explodes.
Well, one of the two or three.
Yeah, but yeah, no, it's, it's, it's really interesting.
But also people need to be aware that there's a lot of people driving very powerful cars on the road.
Do you know what I'm saying?
And bro, things go wrong like that.
Yeah.
Like, you know, and like, and this is the other thing.
All right.
Like, I don't want to sound like an old man because I, I've been guilty of tearing up on a road many times.
You know, I have, people will notice I've steered away from doing on-road features.
You might not want to get catch me out on the road, but I generally do it the runway.
And that's, that's for many reasons, but safety is a massive concern.
And with a, with a channel of over a million subscribers,
kind of want to put out the right message, you know, but right now,
not everyone has access to track.
So I get it, but there's a lot of powerful cars out there on the road
that people don't need extra driving certifications to be driving.
These channels with money, building thousand brake horsepower cars,
have no clue how to drive these cars.
Do you know what I mean?
And things go wrong for the most part.
And most of the time they don't.
When they go wrong, man, they go wrong quickly.
Yeah.
And big.
Yeah.
Big.
Go wrong big.
If you, if you, half a sort of brain cell, I suppose, you have to respect the car.
Yeah.
And I think people jump from something with not a lot of power
into something with a hell of a lot of power and don't know how to treat it
or how to handle it when it all goes wrong.
And the worst thing is too, not the worst thing is, but like you all know, look,
and I'm guilty of it.
And it's all been part of the fun.
Like this is, this is the thing I'm never sitting here telling people like
how to behave, but of just spare a thought.
Like, you know what I mean?
Coming from someone who's seen, like, or lost people and seen crashes.
Like, you know, stuff can go wrong.
But if you sat there with your mate in a thousand brake horsepower car
or two of your mates and you're out and bro, like, it's, you want to show them what it can do.
Of course.
Find these last words.
Watch this.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's, it's, it's crazy.
But again, it's part of the buzz.
But yeah, stuff goes wrong.
And, and like we're at a thousand break is the new 500.
I know.
Where have we gone now?
How does that even think, you know?
Base spec Ferrari is a thousand.
A thousand.
Yeah.
There you go.
A thousand brake.
Yeah.
We used to watch, I mean, Bugatti Veyron's a thousand.
Thousand horsepower.
Oh my God.
WB 60.
It's like, yeah.
B6.
Yeah.
Easy.
I've got four cylinders that makes more than that.
So no, I mean, like, people don't even get people.
Like, yeah, that's cool.
There's three cylinders.
I think there's Yaris GRs making over a thousand.
Yeah.
Like the what it's gone stupid.
And they slap.
And they do.
But where do we go?
Yeah.
Well, we're physically going to be driving rockets or riding
rockets.
It's like 2000 brake horsepower will be a normality.
Yeah.
When you're going, when you're making cars where the tires,
you know, there are the, there are the tire technology or
tires aren't capable of doing what the car is capable of.
That's when, yeah, we've reached the whole new level.
The tires in half of my car like, what is going on?
Yeah.
They can't believe what's going on.
They do not sign up for the abuse.
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
Yes, I give up it.
Because, because modern cars are like overengineered.
They're so good.
They're amazing.
I was, you mentioned the M240i.
It's like mass produced, done so well and made so well.
Are there, you know, flip it over.
You do everything you've done to like 240i.
Are there certain systems that actually you'll think, you
know what, this for a standard car is there to keep you
safe?
Well, actually this could kill me.
Like, is there a part of a modern car that actually just
doesn't work for what you're doing?
I mean, airbags are probably one of them.
Yeah, airbags.
I mean, the thing is, I feel with race cars, you see, like,
let's say GT cars, British touring cars or something like
that.
Like, you realize they haven't got airbags inside there.
They've got other safety devices.
They take those out because it just doesn't work alongside
what they're trying to do.
For what reasons?
I don't know.
And actually to say that, okay, we're taking an airbag out
because it won't work with what we're doing.
Like, I think it's just part of the process of building a car,
why they come out.
I don't know if they would still work being there.
But I don't actually know.
But, you know, when I've got a clip off steering wheel and
things like that, you can't have an airbag in out.
We've got bucket seats.
You can't have decide airbags and things.
So they just generally came out as new things go in.
But I can't, you know, there'll be people out there and
they'll be able to say, no, well, it's dangerous at this point
to have XYZ in your car that is like an OEM product.
And this is why we've taken that.
But I can't, off the top of my head.
Think of one, like in particular.
Yeah, I'm sure it will come to me there.
Yeah, you're right though.
We did look at Formula One is the one for me.
It's like the pinnacle of technology and whatever and
racing on the edge.
But these things are insane.
Like you, the Roman Grosjean crash.
And if you ever saw it in like 2021, I think it was towards
the end of the season.
And he literally hits a barricade, like a metal barrier
and splits it.
And the cockpit that's designed essentially to keep them safe
is that it just literally goes straight through.
Fuel tank blows up.
Like the whole thing sets a lot.
And he's absolutely fine.
Yeah.
They can make some serious, serious kit now that can keep
your life.
And that halo, so the halo that they put on F1 cars.
Do you know what, do you know what, like, I think the
pinnacle of safety is?
It's rally cars.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They're mad.
The way they clap them cars and roll those cars and like,
you know, granted, don't go as fast as F1 cars.
Like, man, they really put those things together.
They sound like they do.
Yeah, you know what I mean?
When the sideways is rattle, I'll roll it and they'll go, yeah.
I've seen them like clap, smack off one rear wheel and keep
going.
Yeah, like nothing.
Crazy.
Like, you know what I mean?
But yeah, yeah, safety now, and this is the other thing.
Safety or our cars, it's obtainable, it's not obtainable,
but it's there.
There and it's abundant.
Again, it's expensive, isn't it?
You know, you can pay, like people care about making their
car go fast.
It might cost 10 grand to build your engine.
It might cost 10 grand to get all the safety equipment too.
I know what you're going to do first.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
That whole thing of power breaks.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Isn't it?
Yeah, it breaks.
I'll do breaks first for you.
Yeah, I will do the power.
Yeah, we'll do it.
Yeah, you know what I mean?
Hopefully I just have a mile run off.
Exactly, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's interesting.
I suppose one of the, I suppose ongoing stories really is the
whole Cooper, isn't it?
I still, I mean, that was, that was really started years ago,
didn't it?
Years ago.
Still going on really.
Yeah, man.
That is, ah, man.
A few hours along the way though, really.
Yeah, I continuously take hours, man.
Look, all I will say is that car, you know,
something just right themselves.
Yeah.
That is a story that would write itself.
And you know, like I say, there's certain cars I'd put guns in my head.
I wouldn't want to get rid of.
I feel like the Cooper is also high up in that list.
Yeah.
Just because of what I've been through with it, where it's,
where it started and where it is now, the companies that I've worked with,
who I've been almost betrayed by with that cars building, you know,
seeing people come and go, seeing people change and just,
yeah, it's a mad journey to see where we are now, which is,
again, a very one-off build.
You know, casually 1200 brake horsepower in a Cooper.
Sequential four-wheel drive, 3.6 turbos.
Ridiculous.
Only problem is the car was tearing itself apart when we were launching it.
It was breaking props.
I think the last video that people would have seen on that car
was probably about three months ago, maybe even a little bit longer.
We tried to launch it, its first test launch,
and it left its prop shaft on the floor behind it.
It just wants to be two-wheeled.
You know, I mean, it literally is like, what have you done with this thing?
I can give some people some idea of the level of power.
Is what were you running on yours when we went out?
It was 412, something like that.
And literally, you know, obviously you're in a front-wheel crowd,
and the wheels are banging back.
The front axle is just like, no, I'm going to go.
It's actually slapping.
It was a 300, so same generation sort of thing.
You think 400 and like, whatever it was.
Yeah, that's fast.
That's fast.
But then your car couldn't handle that.
Yeah, I mean, it's just, he's screaming at 400 brake.
And then again, I'm crap at maths.
But like, how many more times?
Three times.
Three times.
Yeah, I mean, you're talking that now.
It's like, I can't even imagine what that is for your car.
It's crazy.
But again, it's going back to the buzz.
Like, you're hopping that car, but you don't really know what's going to happen.
No.
It's like, but that's what you love.
And this car now is like, again, it's just had such a journey.
And it is a one off because bro, this stuff ain't easy.
You've either got to be a workshop who are building it as their own demo car,
or you've just got to be absolutely stupid because the money also that goes in,
like, don't get me wrong, I work with some companies.
And sometimes I might, I might nick a little something free.
Half price, whatever.
But the money, even so, still involved in these bills,
100,000 pound plus out of my pocket in these bills.
Like, you know what I mean?
God knows any, any same person would do that to a Coupre.
No.
Because they'd go and buy an R8 or something.
Yeah.
I mean, and that's what makes it better because it's like, it shouldn't be.
No one's really going to do it.
No.
I'm stupid.
I'll do it.
Like, you know what I mean?
But it hasn't been easy.
No.
And do you think that's maybe why people have let you down is because it isn't their car.
It isn't their product, if you like.
They're just given, there you go.
Yeah.
I think, I think it's, we give it a try.
I reckon we can do it.
I'll give it a try.
Yeah.
Get doing it, it's like, oh boy, it's as easy as I thought it would be.
This is not my cup of tea.
It's not, yeah, you know.
So, yeah, with that, where we are now basically is, yeah, a little update, a little exclusive.
I'm not sure when this video is going to go live or...
Probably couple of weeks from now.
Four weeks, yeah.
Four weeks, yeah.
Okay, you might, this might be an exclusive if not people know by now.
But basically, so we were having major problems off camera.
I say we, Turbo Elite, which if people don't know who Turbo Elite is,
Turbo Elite are the company that were my saviours basically.
Only problem is, they're in Austria.
Yes.
So they are not close.
But sometimes you've got to take it to the right person
to get the job done right.
And these guys know what they're doing.
And they built one of the most awesome bills I've ever owned
in an unimaginable short period of time for such a build.
And they executed it amazingly.
However, it's got one or two Tevin problems,
but literally only one or two Tevin problems.
And it is literally that China, like stop breaking prop shafts
when we're launching it.
And it's not their first rodeo.
They've kind of had cars on that platform, namely the Mark VI go far.
And I think they've done a Mark VII too.
So even the same platform.
But if done for all drive conversions with VR engines, you know,
and things like that, and they've made them launch,
but my one was putting up a massive fight.
So it's been breaking prop shaft, twisting prop shaft,
breaking drive shafts, it couldn't work out why.
I won't give away too much, but these guys are like their mapper
or the fellow who works on their tuning is a wizard.
He's not, he's not just a mapper.
He is like a scientist.
He builds the ECUs.
It's not like we've put a Cyvex in that car.
It's not like we're using OEM management or any other standalone ECU.
He is building the ECU on his own software,
his own built product himself and implementing it in.
Ain't no Bosch ECU on this.
It's not going to be wrong.
The Bosch is sick.
Hey, you know what I mean?
Especially Bosch Motorsport and all that.
But this is, it's got the functionality of that.
It's got the functionality of a Cyvex,
but it is made and tailored only to turbo elite.
You could only get that.
So I say that to say that they've actually made a trick bit of kit
to control my four wheel drive,
which is another standalone system that they've built from the ground up.
And I can confirm about a week ago,
Klaus sent me, Klaus is the main guy at turbo elite,
fitting name for an Austrian.
He sent me a video of the car doing a maddest launch ever.
We're in one piece.
Only problem is after that, he sent me a big invoice.
Yeah, that's it.
So here you go.
Also this.
Here's the product.
Here's the product.
That pain.
Again, to Klaus, you know, completely labor free.
The labor is free.
He does this because he wanted to help.
He had built a friendship and a relationship just before,
believe it or not, as I say, everything happens for a reason,
just before I got mugged off with the previous guy.
And he wanted to help.
You know, at times I know he's been cursing my name.
He's like, why did I take this on?
Because it has been troubled, but he's made it work.
He continues to make it work.
And I'll be flying out hopefully if the weather is good
in about a week or two to film an update on that.
Nice.
What a place to go as well.
Yeah, look out for that one.
Do you, does it, obviously you've got it now to a point
where it's done, it's finished, but do you not like fall out?
I love a little bit with a car when, you know, yeah.
Yeah, I do.
I do, I do because I think I am able, it's a gift that occurs.
I'm able to take my mind off it for long enough
to forget why I liked it in the first place
because I'm caught up in my other builds.
So I have fallen out of love with builds.
But usually what it takes for me to fall back in love with them
is just to hop in it and just take it down the street.
And you know, the Honda has been one of them.
Man, it can be a love-hate relationship.
That car, man, it's put up a fight every step of the way.
But again, it's because myself on auto talk, we stepped into this,
not having done it before.
It's like we give it a go and they've tried their best,
you know, but we're learning, learning every step of the way.
And that again, the money in that car is 150 grand plus.
And I get looked after, do you know what I mean?
Yeah, this is it.
You're not paying, you know, well, you are paying,
but yeah, you've been looked after on that.
I'm being looked after, bro.
And still, yeah, that's all.
And don't get me wrong, that is again, partly because
I started out wanting a 500 brake horsepower car.
And then I blow up that engine and it's like,
maybe if we build a 750 brake horsepower car,
I'll try to run a 1,000 brake through it, blow that up.
So it's been like a lot of trial and error.
If you wanted to build the car I have now,
it costs you half the price.
Like, you know what I mean?
But it's trial and error.
But again, you know, all these times when they break
makes the times when I go right that much sweeter, you know?
So I've fallen out of love with that a million times,
but I know deep down in my heart that is, that's my car.
That's my baby.
Next time you drive it, it'll be born with it.
So seven, eight years deep, a million subscribers,
projects going on galore, McLaren's that you don't even get to drive.
Obviously, you mentioned going over to the US
like four or five times last three years.
Is there a little bit of like,
where do you draw the line on work-life balance?
You know, is it take over?
You know, it's literally taken over your life in some ways.
I've put this into perspective.
So this, it is seven days a week.
Like, this is no joke.
Like, people probably know who have YouTube challenge yourself.
You know the graph that you need to do behind the scenes.
And what I do-
No, you just get a bend.
And a sneeze.
That's what I want to do.
You know, I've dropped the mic in some of the years.
Like, you know what I mean?
I need a bend.
But yeah, man, it's a lot.
It's a lot of work.
And I have a young family.
I've got a Mrs.
and I've got my boy who's turned to a little while ago in September.
And there's, I'm seven days a week, as I say,
there's so many little moments I could be missing.
To give you one, yesterday, I was so busy.
Like this weekend, believe it or not,
when the weekend comes, it's like,
I can knuckle down and get my editing done.
I've got an office at home.
I will be in that as my cave.
I'll be in that.
You won't see me.
Luckily, it's at home.
It's a garden office.
So I'm to and from the house.
And, you know, I'll come in for 15 minutes
or whatever, play with my boy.
And so it's kind of like I'm there.
But yesterday, I'm editing away.
And my Mrs. sends me a couple of pictures from the house.
My boy, him and her cooking cakes for the first time.
It's like, I should be in there.
Yeah.
I should be in there.
But I was like, I need to finish this at half an hour.
I went in and that little moment and passed.
Missed that.
You know, and luckily I did catch on to a little bit of it
after, it's like five, 10 minutes.
Yeah.
I've got to go again.
How old is he?
He's two, two years and two months, basically.
Obviously loves cars.
Loves cars, mate.
I'm like, I can't believe he loves cars.
I wonder why he loves them.
It's because he's shot down his throat all the time.
Are you buzzing to sort of like,
for him to get old enough to sort of experience them with you?
And yeah, I can't wait.
I can't.
Do you know what I noticed?
I guess your mom or your dad, they,
you should look up to them and at some point in your life,
hopefully your mom, your dad, your uncle or family member,
whoever it might be, you look up to them and you could maybe even say
that you're a hero and you like them because they're really cool.
For me, I want my boy to know that within this scene, your dad's cool.
Or at least people think some of the stuff your dad does is cool.
I want him to know that he's got a cool dad.
And for me, it's going to be quite a few years before I'm able to
properly take him along to something where we're really going for it.
And he understands what's going on.
But I pray that hopefully things are as fruitful as they are now
and still going.
And if they are, I think at that point there, when he realizes that,
oh man, this is crazy, that would be a big one.
But yeah, 100%, I want him to love cars,
but also I want him to love football.
I want him to love what he loves.
Yeah.
I want him to, and I will nurture that.
Yeah, your, your lads connections.
Literally.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for cars.
Yeah, yeah, it's, man, it's, yeah, it's a wild ride.
And I, the main thing is, I want him to like cars and I want to continue
pushing what I do.
But I think if you strip everything away, going back to home work,
life, balance and that, the main thing is your family.
Because this is not promised.
No.
You know, but your family are there.
You know, YouTube's a weird place to be.
A weird place to call a boss, a weird place to make a living.
It's faceless.
You don't think, bro, I could post free videos that all get copyrighted
and get strikes and I'm gone.
And that's the end of me.
Plus social media is so, it's, I guess, in its
inventory and it's, and it's changing so quickly.
I don't know how long this will be.
The main thing is you build that foundation with your family.
And that is what I need to really knuckle down and do.
Because I don't want to miss moments that I will regret five years from now
and I won't be able to get again.
You've got to find that balance.
Yeah.
It's like, you look at my Armstrong as a great example of somebody.
I mean, he doesn't have kids obviously or doesn't seem that way,
but he literally must just work 23 hours of the day and have no time for anything
else.
Because how else would you be able to put these projects out in 24 hours
and then also he's got stuff going on at home.
It's flying to him.
It's mental.
I think like there was a time in YouTube and I don't think this exists anymore
or definitely not as in the same way it used to.
Probably 10 years ago where people, I feel like you could just
blow up so luckily and just make the odd video and just get millions on your phone.
Barely put in any work.
Yeah.
Road of games changing.
Do you want to be successful man?
Like within this, you've either got to be super grafting
or you've got to have a team that are grafting for you.
Yeah.
But somewhere down the line, someone's grafting to make these videos
or to grow your channel.
It's not easy.
No, it's not easy.
When you're working so hard, I mean, to be honest, I don't know,
but do you have any negativity in the comments?
At least so, how do you deal with that?
Do you know what's interesting?
So this is something that's actually quite interesting because I see this video on right now.
So, and again, this is kind of to answer your question,
but kind of going off on a bit of tangent because I want to address something.
If you don't, I will.
I want to address, we've got a public service announcement.
So basically, now and again, I'll get a negative comment
because you can't please everyone.
And I learned that very, very early on with YouTube, but I would say 90% of the comments are positive.
It's always the negative ones that get you.
You know, that's how it goes, isn't it?
Like, you know, you kind of put out the video and you're like,
you probably, you put it out and you usually think you've created something pretty cool.
So for someone saying, oh, that was a cool video, you're like, yeah, it was cool.
Like, you know what I mean?
Or thank you.
Like, I appreciate that.
But it's negative one is like, especially if they hit something that's actually right.
It's kind of a constructive criticism, but sometimes they might put it like,
in a proper negative way.
But I had something on this video, but not on.
So let me set the scene.
So I bought this car, UK's cheapest Porsche, 911 Turbo, 911.
And I bought it from a dealership called Brooklyn's Car Sales.
And they've got their own social media presence.
And it's kind of like sales, like they'll have someone call up and
can't be on TikTok.
Yeah, that's right.
And I didn't actually know them.
I knew of them because I'd seen a couple of their videos before I saw this car,
but didn't know this car was related to them until I kind of was like,
researching a little bit more and clicked on the socials.
Oh, it's them.
Oh, great.
Yeah.
You know, so.
When I've went down there, sorry.
So I've broken a deal on the car before I've went down there.
Right.
Because obviously I'm not going up to film and bring the videographer and so on and so forth.
So what they naturally do is they record all the calls that come through.
So initially when I had a call with them, I said, look,
I know you're recording this because I know it's what you do.
But I said, is it all right if we just have an off the record chat about this car?
Like, you know, so we don't just that.
And I said, when I come up, we just do a call.
Like, you know, I mean, we make it as dramatic as you want.
It'd be better for you guys.
So I went up and very of the mind, we'd already broken the deal on this car.
So walking around the car, me and him and negotiating is a little bit.
Just adding some entertainment to the story.
We kind of know where we're going to end with it.
And that was cool.
And I think people kind of got that bit tongue in cheek.
But what people didn't seem to understand is the way this video was going to play out.
What was going to help them with this was the day before I released this video,
they would release an anonymous call from a YouTuber or someone inquiring about the car
on their socials.
So this call that we done, which for everyone at home, I was actually at the bloody dealership
when I made the call.
Like, you know what I mean?
Brilliant.
So it was a fully staged call.
But they were like, yeah, just be like, act like a bit of a villain.
And I'm like, it's not really in my nature to do that.
And I know people will take that wrong.
Like, you know what I mean?
It's like, nah, go on, it'll be all right.
Dylan, you know, I'm like, it's against my better judgment now.
It's against my better judgment to say all this kind of stuff.
So I was like, Amir from ES Motor, the main guy, he was with me.
I was like, record this call just in case this gets out of hand.
And people actually think I'm like a wrong off camera.
Maybe I'm thinking way too deep into it.
But I'm like doing something that feels unnatural.
Yeah, sure.
So we recorded the whole thing of where we are and him doing it,
just in case it ever got out of hand.
Anyway, so I've done this call and I'm like, yeah, I'm like,
I'm giving it the big one.
I could help you out this at the Yavan.
I'm talking all this smack.
And so it's like, if you haven't seen it, go on there,
go on there, Instagram.
Basically, it's just like, you'd think this guy's an absolute bell in.
Like, I don't think it's a proper weapon.
And it did it.
Got the backlash.
Who is this?
Like, who's he thinking is that sounds like Jamie from officially gassed.
Some people are like, yeah, this is obviously fake.
Other people, I'm getting messages on YouTube videos,
But then also another channel, a bit like Carwell.
Kind of.
Kind of, a copy of Carwell are doing,
but it's a good idea.
Is just focused on maybe some of the best drag races I've done,
but in shorter form, packaged shorter,
but almost repurposing content, putting that out.
So a couple more channels, get my hands dirty.
And yeah, just as always, continuing to push,
graft and just enjoy it.
The main thing is enjoying it.
At the moment too, with a little bit of a crossover,
trying to really find stories and work,
a little bit of a way that's slightly unnatural to me,
I'm trying to find enjoyment in it,
because it's hard right now,
but I want to get to a place where it feels easy
and it feels natural, and I'm enjoying it.
And other people enjoy it too, you know?
But that's pretty much it for now.
And of course, Gaston track.
Let's see where we can take that.
Absolutely, yeah, look forward to it.
Yeah.
Brilliant.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, thank you, mate.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
No, it's been a pleasure, man.
It's cool.
It's a cool set up you guys have got.
Oh, thank you.
It's a shame that I've only just met you now,
but everything happens for a reason.
It does.
And no, I honestly wish you guys the best,
what you're doing.
I did check out a few of your podcasts.
Again, it's like going right back to the beginning
of this podcast.
It takes a lot for people to want to subscribe,
but I think you guys deserve people subscribe.
So if you're not subscribed right now,
hit that subscribe,
because it costs you guys nothing, right?
Yeah, thank you, mate.
What you guys are doing here, sorry,
and the people and the guests that you've had on
is commendable.
So let's keep going.
We're trying.
Thank you, mate.
Yeah, it does.
It does mean a lot coming from you.
Yeah, thanks, mate.
Well, if you've enjoyed this episode with Jamie,
please make sure to like, comment, and subscribe,
and let us know who you want on Talking Shop Next.
About this episode
Jamie from Officially Gassed shares his journey from HGV mechanic to automotive YouTuber, discussing the impact of a tragic accident involving a friend and fellow racer. He reflects on the evolution of his content, the challenges of maintaining a work-life balance, and the changing landscape of the automotive community. Jamie also touches on the importance of family, the thrill of driving powerful cars, and his plans for future projects, including a new channel and the Gaston Track events. His candid insights into the pressures of content creation and the automotive industry make for a compelling listen.
In this episode of the Talkin' Shop Podcast, we sit down with Jamie Sonuga from Officially Gassed— the man who built a YouTube channel from making content on his own Mercedes A45 AMG into a million-subscriber automotive powerhouse. Jamie opens up about the calculated risk of leaving his stable job as a mobile mechanic for the London Fire Brigade to pursue YouTube full-time. He talks candidly about the grind of editing videos in his van while on the clock , and how consistency was key to growing his audience. Jamie lifts the lid on the changing YouTube landscape, discussing the pressures of constantly pushing boundaries , battling for views against a million subscribers , and the need for story-driven content over simple car reviews. He dives into his insane, multi-hundred-thousand-pound car builds, the emotional connection they hold , and the dark side of high-horsepower tuning, sharing the tragic crash that turned his M240i project into an emotional homage. We also dive into his automotive passion born from his time as an HGV mechanic fixing dust carts , the wild success of his Gassed on Track events , and the difficulty of finding a work-life balance while being an "adrenaline junkie" seven days a week. If you want laughs, hard truths, real talk about the automotive scene, and the story behind one of the industry's most dedicated creators— this episode delivers.
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