Jason Cammisa: Worlds Greatest Drag Race Host On Being FIRED From Motor Trend

This is pro linebacker TJ Watt, and I'm back with YPB by Abercrombie for another Activewear Drop.

My second co-design collection has new shorts and tanks that keep up with all my in-season workouts,

and their new Restore collection is a game changer off the field too,

because even pro athletes like me need rest days.

Shop YPB by Abercrombie in the app, online, and in stores,

because your personal best is greater than anything.

Today is why we wear the uniform.

ABC Tonight, the rookie returns.

To ensure the safety of all Angelenos, trying to mess it up.

I'll do my best.

But don't do your best, do my best.

And for the first time ever, this is a global operation.

It's an international sting.

LAPD has agreed to help the FBI track down terrorist targets.

Last thing like a day in the job to remind you how quickly life can change.

Get out of there.

The rookie season premiere tonight, 10-9 central on ABC.

Next day for Hulu Subscribers.

How did I open that video?

This is not your father's episode of Head to Head.

That cost me $50 to produce and got me fired.

Jason Camisa.

My first ever appearance on the Motortrend channel.

I just looked right at camera, I'm like, oh, you thought I was Carlos.

You know him from the Hagerty channel, Automotive Journalism.

When did your passion for cars begin?

By the time I was two years old, I was completely obsessed with cars.

And I got fired continually.

I was in a couple of horrendous car crashes as a passenger.

I said, do you want to talk us through what happened with that crash?

The headlights were totally mis-aimed.

We could see barely anything on this twisty back road.

And then we see the sign, the 25-mile-an-hour left turn coming up.

And right where we went off, it was a 17-foot total drop.

From there, we're just airborne and then the landing.

Two girls were coming the other direction, pulled over and said,

just call the coroner.

There's no way they lived.

Jason, when people talk about what made them fall in love with cars,

they often recite a moment from their earliest years.

Maybe Top Gear.

Everybody speaks of that one moment that really stood out to them.

And for me, one of them was actually a YouTube video.

And it was all the way back in 2012 now.

And that video has now amassed over 133 million views.

Can you guess what it was?

It was.

This is not your father's...

How did I open that video?

This is not your father's head-to-head.

Because it was the Bugatti Veyron drag race video.

That was...

And I just remember the thumbnail so profoundly of the Veyron

sat next to that white Lamborghini event still.

And they were like the two heavyweights at the time.

And we're not going to gloss over 133 million views.

And as a reference point, because it's almost impossible to even

visualize that amount of people watching something or you.

The UK population, where I'm from, 70 million people are smidge under.

So that is twice the entire population of the UK watched a drag race video

that you guys got to do and have fun without in the middle of the desert.

A terrible drag race that cost me $50 to produce and got me fired.

There's your...

There's the opening for the episode.

Camisa tells what got him fired.

But before we get into that, how does it make you feel that you can

meet a random car enthusiast like me?

And a video like that when on the day it must have just

seemed like another day recording, another day having fun,

another day dicking around.

Maybe there's more to it.

A video like that could have such a profound effect to someone's

young or whoever at the beginning of something they're passionate about

that's led them all the way to sat here with you opposite.

Like, does it...

How does that make you feel?

I love that.

And what it does is it forces me to think of the people who did this for me.

Right?

To me, that moment was Tiff Nadel, E39M5.

Everything Tiff did make me laugh.

He just tickled me because his delivery was hilarious.

Be very happy you're British.

There are things you can do with the English language that I'm not permitted to do

because I'm American.

I mean, I can't use big words.

We sound like idiots when we try.

And I've always said I will do an entire Icons episode at one point

with a British accent so I can use all sorts of flowery language and whatnot.

But just watching Tiff between the childish nature of his slides

and then the sophistication of all the words that he's able to use

because he's British just fucking tickled me.

Oh, am I allowed to curse?

Okay.

Just absolutely tickled me.

And so that moment for me was Tiff.

So to hear you say that that moment for you was that video is crazy

because the backstory, what happened with that?

That was just a moment in my life.

I think it was that video was one of like two or three of the most profound bits.

You picture the YouTube thumbnail tester we open now

where you can do three different thumbnails.

And my three different thumbnails would have been Top Gear, that video,

and probably hanging around with like a few of my dad's friends

that had some crazy cars.

Like that for me was the combination of everything that collected

in my earliest years to form the passion that I had for vehicles.

You mentioned Tiff, but where was that on your timeline?

Because I've looked into your story and it's not straightforward.

You moved around a hell of a lot as a kid.

So when did your passion for cars begin?

And was that pre-tip?

Probably, oh yeah, that was pretty tough.

And it was probably in utero.

I mean, so I don't, I don't really remember being a baby,

but I am told that by the time I was two years old,

I was completely obsessed with cars to the point where I was driving

my twin sister crazy by like, look at this or look at that.

And you know, two, I could tell every, I knew every car on the road

and which is a little bit of weird thing, two, three,

because you don't read yet, but I knew what a Buick looked like

and I knew what who knew, who knew.

I mean, so by the time I was five, it was fully formed.

All I talked about was cars in school, drove everyone crazy about that

and then discovered car magazines when I was 10 or 11

and that was like a big deal.

Like then it was just, and then you sort of find your niche.

I went to a very small school, there were 68 kids in my grade.

And so to find anyone you fit in with was difficult.

I was not a popular student, I was not popular at all,

but I did find my sort of people because of the cars

and that sort of amplified the car craziness.

You sit opposite me and when I see you on screen,

you talk and present with so much energy, so much enthusiasm.

But that wasn't you when you were like 9, 10, 11.

I mean, I was enthusiastic and had energy,

but it was just the wrong energy.

Like it wasn't, I wasn't a jock, I didn't play sports.

I was super nerdy and loved like math and science and cars

in a school where everyone was like,

if you're a guy, you're playing football,

which I was also the smallest, second smallest kid in my school.

And so there was no, my parents made me play basketball,

which was a comedy routine.

It was just half the size of all the other kids.

Yeah, it just wasn't popular.

I was nerdy and weird.

And that time luck wasn't on your side then.

Where, where was you?

Was that New York?

That was New York, yeah.

That was right outside of New York City.

It's insane to hear a small school outside New York City,

which to us, especially maybe one of the visually biggest places

we could imagine you as.

So when you leave New York City limits,

you go along North, along the Hudson River,

and you have a bunch of small river towns.

And these were towns that existed for shipping

and they had small industries in the 17, 1800s.

And this was just one of the little river towns.

And it was, I think population, a couple thousand people,

four, five thousand people.

And so each town had its own little school district.

Still does.

And the school was tiny.

I mean, we had four digit phone numbers.

Everyone, I know everyone's, I could probably list out

of the 68 kids, probably 50 of them

with their phone numbers to this day.

It was just that small tight knit of a place to grow up.

And being near to the Big Apple,

would you see stuff at that age driving around

that you're like, I want to have a go in one of those one day.

I want to have a go in one of those one day.

I think, yes, but, and it was a sort of,

it wasn't by any stretch like a wealthy town,

but it was a sort of, you know,

upper sort of professional,

like a lot of professionals lived in this town

and then commuted to the city.

There were a lot of soap opera actresses

in our town for whatever reason.

And they sort of hop on the train into Manhattan,

which was a 25 minute ride.

But there was not a lot of extreme wealth,

like, you know, a Mercedes was a thing.

You know, it's in the US today,

especially come to an event like car week,

and there's, it's just a billion dollar car.

I'm exaggerating, obviously, big, big stuff.

That didn't exist.

I mean, when my friend's dad got a 300 D turbo Mercedes,

it was like, oh my God, oh, Mercedes.

It wasn't like, oh yeah,

he got the base model with this, whatever.

It was just a different time economically.

And we had one car dealership in the town

and it was a Peugeot dealer.

So there was, I mean, that was a fancy car.

And yeah, so there was definitely stuff

that I would see that's, whoa, what's that?

But never super car stuff,

never exotics, I never saw any of that stuff growing up.

So you've painted us a picture of the place,

but it was only one of many places.

But before we go to the next few places

that made up your earliest years,

can you paint us a picture of the who?

Like, who were your parents, your siblings on?

What did that life look like growing up?

And were any of them remotely

had any petrol flowing through their veins?

No.

I mean, my dad had bizarre taste in cars

when he was younger.

And so we somehow wound up with a Saab 900 turbo in 1981,

900 turbo, which was just a spaceship.

I mean, who know what a Saab was.

And it broke down continually.

But yeah, and my parents were from Brooklyn originally.

So we're Brooklyn Italians.

So everyone talks like this.

It's just how it's done.

Most of my family is still in Brooklyn and Staten Island,

which is the sort of like Italian ghetto of New York.

Ghetto in the traditional sense, not that it's shitty

because they beat me up for saying that.

They have somebody whack me.

Can't get about that for a while.

Break my fucking legs.

Yeah, Brooklyn.

And then when I was right before we started school

in earnest, my parents realized it was not the best place

to raise kids.

So we moved out to the suburbs, which was there.

My dad, when I was born, was slinging tires at a tire shop

because that was the best way to work out,

like just complete fitness and nut.

And he was like, well, if I can just throw tires up onto

warehouse shelves, it's like an all day workout lunatic.

Wound up, mouthing off to his boss.

So his two jobs were a tire slinger and a warehouse

and a bicycle courier for cardio,

between two offices of an editing agency.

And he mouthed off to his boss at one point and said,

you know, your editor is a fucking idiot.

I could do a better job.

And being the sarcastic New York Italian that his boss was,

oh yeah, show me.

So my father pulled an all nighter, edited a documentary,

and they released it as he finished it and it won an Emmy.

So that was the sort of beginning of his career.

And he's like, oh, I'll just do this.

Wound up being an executive producer on Madison Avenue,

you know, a madman, literally, in for TV commercials.

And that was what sort of enabled us to move out of

kind of an apartment into a small little house.

And the sob, which was crazy.

And the bourgeois that followed, which was even crazier.

And my mom stayed at home with my sister, me.

I have twin sister and it's just the two of us.

So just sort of normal, nothing was normal about my family.

But on the outside, it appeared to be a normal,

you know, suburban life.

What happened around the time if we accelerate a bit further forward

that you wanted to get into your first car?

Because there's a story there, right?

Well, you're talking about a 14, I bought a Super Beetle.

You couldn't really drive.

I did, but I couldn't, but I did, but I couldn't.

Yeah, I think by, I assume that's what you're referring to.

So when I said the magazine, the car magazine sort of solidified

like, you know, my friend group, that was my best friend, Jason.

We're still friends to this day.

We actually, I said something nasty.

He was a new kid to school and anyone new,

anyone who came after second, first or second grade in the school district

was new forever.

But Jason was like, new in seventh grade.

I said something, he said something to me and we were going to fight after school.

And that was it.

We were meeting on the playground and I was like, oh, like this just

never ends well for anyone, because usually whoever didn't get beat up

gets like suspended from school and whatnot.

And I was tiny.

Thank God he was tiny.

And I'm like, okay, let's just go.

And we wound up sat next to each other in the next class

in a social studies class.

And I pull out a car and driver magazine, put it on the desk and he's like,

whoa, hold on, you're in the cars.

And boom, it's the best friends.

The fight was canceled and replaced with us hanging out,

like talking about Chevy Cavaliers and other weird shit box 80s cars.

And so at that was, we were 12 probably.

And then two years later, he's like, dude, let's buy a car.

And so we found this little blue 72 Super Beetle

flat wing screen Super Beetle that was for sale at the top of the hill

above the school and it was 200 bucks.

He kicked in a hundred.

I kicked in a hundred.

We walked down to the car parts store, bought a battery,

which weighed as much as either one of us did,

carried it up this huge hill, started, I drove around the block

and then my parents found out about it and sort of went away.

No, they weren't happy.

My dad, who's kind of a lunatic, was like, that's amazing.

My son bought a car and my mother wanted to kill him and me.

And then my father's like, what are you going to do with it?

I'm like, well, we don't know.

Of course, 14, you have no plan.

And he was like, let's go get it.

And I'm like, well, I can't drive it home.

I'll do it.

So he drove it and we had a garage, like a small one car garage

that he had two motorcycles in and nothing else.

So we threw it in the garage and Jason and I started working on it,

which really meant breaking more stuff than we were fixing.

And at some point, my father got very frustrated

because he couldn't find any of his tools or anything

and kicked the blue piece of Smurf shit out of,

get that blue piece of Smurf shit the fuck out of here.

Yeah.

So that was the end of that.

Went to Jason's house and then eventually went to a junkyard.

I'm guessing then as soon as the opportunity came

round to actually get your license and do it legally,

you were all over it like a rash.

I was, but I had been dealt quite the blow because at 15,

I moved to Germany.

And so 17, I would have been able to drive in New York.

Germany is driving at ages 18.

And my last two and a half years of high school were in Germany

and I graduated at 17.

So was never allowed to have a car in high school.

Which was the biggest haul in your story.

Oh yeah.

I mean, it was just a heartbreak.

Didn't stop me from buying another Volkswagen Beetle.

This was a 73, 1300 that I bought with another friend

in Germany for 100 marks.

So $60 at the time.

But yeah, there was no driving to school.

My high school sucked.

No, but Green wasn't quite open back then.

Let's go and do a couple laps.

Oh, was it?

I mean, we're not talking the 1920s here.

Not at all.

Misha wasn't tearing round at that point.

But also Jason didn't have a license.

So, you know, my dad had an Audi 9020 valve quattro,

which was super hot.

And my mom had a Cadet, a C Cadet, D Cadet,

D Cadet, GSI Cabriolet.

So like we had two fast cars and I couldn't drive them.

Except one.

My parents went out of town and I would drive them around.

To all my loyal listeners listening on Spotify,

Apple and other streaming platforms,

I urge you to do me a quick favor that you might not know

that you could do.

You can actually follow if you're listening on Spotify,

the Road to Success podcast and also rate it

with how you feel these conversations have been,

how they may have helped you,

or if you're just enjoying the one that you're listening to today.

It really will help us if we're able to grow

our streaming platforms beyond hundreds of thousands

of monthly listeners.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the podcast.

And I really hope to bring you some more inspirational guests soon.

So being in Germany was that when, because you love BMWs, right?

I love a lot of different car companies,

but yeah, there are many BMWs that I love.

I've seen many a photo of you next to BMWs,

so as part of your story,

I've seen that you were desperate to get into a BMW

as like one of your first proper legal driving cars.

And what happened?

My bitch mother, I love her.

She wouldn't, I had put my life savings in her account

while I was moving across country.

And I found and this is, so now this is now college.

This is my second year of college.

So my first year of college, no car.

So I went all the way through high school not driving

and first year of college not driving

was in a couple of horrendous car crashes as a passenger.

And then finally I'm done.

I'm going to get a car.

And I had moved down to Florida.

And I found this is 1994.

And I found an 87, 325 I sedan,

black with tan interior, 68,000 miles.

The woman wanted $12 or $14,000 for this car.

I got her down to $5,000.

I gave her this cock and bull sob story,

most of which was true,

that I had just finished a year of physical therapy,

following a crash.

And I just said my dream car and blah, blah, blah, blah.

So I give her $500 as a deposit.

And then I go back home and I said to my mom,

like, hey, hand me, give me a check

because I'm going to go get my car.

And her biggest fuck up as a parent

was saying, you're not having a BMW.

Like your first car is just not going to be a BMW.

And I'm like, yes it is.

It's my money handed over and we had a bit of a war,

which she won because I was sort of in this ridiculous,

not ridiculous, but there's a phase at 18

where you're half an adult and half a child

and you still don't realize you can bulldoze your parents.

Like you still want to listen to them

and you think you should.

And so I lost the car because by the time I convinced

my mother that I was going to call the police on her

for stealing my money, I didn't do it.

But that was like, come on, look, what are you doing?

This is not fair.

By the time I convinced her to give me the money,

the old lady had realized what I had done

and re-listed it for $14,000, kept my deposit.

And that was the end of my BMW E30 story.

But I showed her because I have two E30s now.

At that time, and the story leading up to that time

of everything that happened, the good, the bad, and the ugly,

did you have a trajectory?

Did you know what you wanted to do?

Was you completely lost?

I mean, at that point, I was first year of school,

so I was a mechanical engineering major in college.

And I knew I wanted to work with cars.

I just didn't know what that meant.

And so my thought process was go into mechanical engineering

and then let it all figure itself out.

Which, you know, doesn't really work that way.

Many of you might not know this,

but away from the recordings that I do in my van studios,

I've actually got a digital marketing agency.

Now, we specialize in a lot of automotive clients,

but we cover everything, really.

Our team is made up of PPC specialists, SEO specialists,

and the most talented designers I've ever seen,

which have done work like the Starnagloss website,

the TWR website, and many more.

We've actually just built icon box

for the auto Alex crew as well,

meaning that people that watch their channel

can buy their favorite merch seamlessly and in style.

So if you're interested in starting a project

and you'd love to speak to us,

just tap the link below and let's hop on a call.

Did you have, aside from that though, like a dream?

Like did you have like, oh,

if I was to achieve my dream, it wouldn't be this?

No, I'm not much of a dreamer, I guess.

No, I just was sort of, my thought always was,

I don't need to know exactly where I'm going,

but if I sort of want to get over there,

and there is this sort of place on the horizon

that's happiness and financial stability,

I'll just walk whatever direction leads me there

and go with whatever opportunities present themselves.

And that's sort of how I've traipse through life.

Like, okay, if this works, I'll just go in that direction,

as long as it's leading me towards productivity or happiness.

And sometimes something happens along that road

that you just don't expect to happen

and can knock you right back.

So do you want to talk us through

what happened with that crash?

There were a couple of them, but there were.

There was, yes.

I've got this whole shape.

The big one.

The big one was three weeks after the second biggest one.

The second biggest one was a Billie Joel concert,

actually, with my girlfriend at the time.

And she had this habit of loving to bury the needle

in her Chevy S10 pickup.

So it went to 90 miles an hour and then you didn't know.

And we were on a back road.

They had shut down alcohol.

That's interesting.

Shut down alcohol sales at the concert an hour in.

And Billie Joel came on stage and said,

look, my friend was just killed in a DUI accident.

We're stopping alcohol sales

and you guys need to all get home safe.

Fair, no problem there.

We weren't drinking.

We made it about an hour and a half from the concert

and she was coming down a big hill needle buried.

And there was a four way,

a three way intersection, I guess,

with a Ford Tempo waiting to turn onto this road.

And as we were entering the intersection,

the guy just floored it

and just pulled out right in front of us

and there was no time.

And so we hit the back of the Tempo hard enough

that it crushed the back bumper

was basically at the back of the front seats.

And there was a girl in the back seat

who was, thank God, lying sideways across the seat.

So we were able to pull her right out of the car,

unscathed.

She was totally unhurt.

But it was a probably 90 mile an hour impact.

It was huge.

They were at the concert

and they were drunk,

which was just the irony of great.

Thanks, Billy Joel.

Like didn't work.

Great, great idea to stop alcohol sales,

but these fuckers were drunk.

To me, it was fascinating.

The G forces were like indescribable.

Like I was like fascinating.

What a word to describe.

I remember the scientific part of you

from when you're young.

I was in engineering.

Okay, this hurt like hell.

And this is really screwed me up.

But, but you think,

you know, you're like in a little car crash as a kid.

Like I was in a couple of fender benders.

And you're like, oh, okay, whatever.

Nothing prepares you for that kind of impact.

I remember, clear as day, she blacked out.

She doesn't remember any of it,

which is probably for the better.

But I distinctly remember like,

oh no, we're going to hit that guy hard.

And I remember flying forward,

getting caught by the seatbelt

and then having my arms punch the dashboard

in this like moment.

And I was like, this is,

that was unbelievable.

Look over.

She's just glazed over eyes.

No response at all.

I turned the ignition off, put it in park.

And we just to a stop in the middle of the road.

We have no lights.

We're in the middle of nowhere.

And all of a sudden she starts screaming,

my truck, my truck.

And I'm like, really?

That's your fucking concern right now.

But, you know, like she was in shock.

And long story short,

neither of us got really hurt,

but whiplash concussions,

the sort of normal stuff car protected us.

Everything's fine.

Three weeks later,

we're in the rental car

while they're still processing the paperwork

to total her pickup truck.

And it was a Plymouth Sundance,

otherwise known as a death trap,

five-door hatchback,

this white thing with red interior.

And she was, a friend of ours fell down the stairs,

hurt her knee,

and we were going to the store

to get her a bag of ice.

And she was bitching,

this fucking thing is so slow,

it won't even do 100.

I'm like, of course, me.

I'm like, yes, it will.

It's electronically limited to 112 miles an hour.

And she's like, watch.

That's to hold my beer line

that everyone you guys at home know

do not fall for the trap.

The headlights were totally mis-aimed.

We could see barely anything

on this twisty back road.

She floors it.

I'm like, we hit the limiter.

It's 112.

Told ya.

Everything's fine.

And then we see the sign,

the 25-mile-an-hour left turn coming up.

Locked them up,

locked up the rears,

and kind of fishtailed went off.

And right where we went off

was this left-hand bend.

It was a 17-foot total drop.

So it was four feet to a service road

that was coming up out of the field

and then 13 more feet into the field.

We took down a bunch of small trees

and a bunch of sign posts,

hit the lower, that access road,

sort of front-on.

That fired her airbag.

It was only one airbag in the car.

And then from there,

we're just airborne

and landed somewhere in the field.

And it was negative 40 ambient air temperature that night.

It was low.

So it was probably minus 38.

Thank God we hit on all four wheels

and not on the roof

where we'd both be dead

and rolled five and a half times,

which they determined

by looking at the scuffs

in the frozen ground side-over-side

and landed upside down.

Meanwhile, again,

she's blacked out immediately,

has no recollection of any of this.

That first hit,

I was like,

holy shit,

like that was almost as hard

as the pickup truck.

Like that was genuinely,

wow, ouch.

And I was like,

why is my right hand burning

gas from her airbag?

I didn't realize they expelled

to the side so much hot air.

So that happened.

And I was like, whoa, oh my God,

that, whatever.

And I reached for my seatbelt,

not realizing we are flying,

while this is all happening,

we're flying through the air.

And I'm like, oh God,

let me get out of this thing.

And then the landing.

That landing down on the field

on frozen solid pavement,

this was 12, 9, 93.

I'll never forget that date,

December 9, 93.

That impact was a downward G-Force.

You know, we landed,

and both of our seats completely broke

and collapsed and reclined,

which then means you only have a shoulder,

a lap belt, no shoulder belt.

So from that point on,

that knocked the,

I mean, I saw stars from that impact.

What the fuck was that?

And then the side over side

and the G-Force is in every direction

and it's pitch black.

I have no idea

where, what the hell is happening.

I thought we were stopped.

And it was just impacts from every direction.

I just, I got hit in the face

with the bag of ice

and I know this only because it was wet.

And we just bounced around the car

and then stopped.

And I thought, holy shit,

like where are we?

What just happened?

What's going on?

And why is it so cold in here?

Well, the back hatch had flung open.

And I didn't realize I was upside down.

I was just kind of dazed

until I hit the seatbelt button

and smashed my face right into the,

right into the roof of the car.

And I'm like, she's not breathing.

What, like what's going on?

And so I crawl out of the,

I tried to, while I was hanging,

I tried to kick in the glass on the side,

which I couldn't do.

And one of crawling out of that hatchback,

burning my hand, other hand,

on the exhaust pipe,

which I used to stand up.

And I just heard,

and you know, my mind Hollywood,

like the car's gonna explode.

I look and I can kind of see,

it's just a tire making that noise.

So I jumped back under the car

to grab her and she starts coughing

and then face plants on the ground,

which I still have a six sense of humor,

so that's funny.

But she's, and the first thing out of her mouth,

where are my shoes?

Like, so her shoes flew off in the accident.

We have no idea.

We never found them.

Whatever.

So we walked up to the closest,

I saw lights and we crawled up the hill

and ran down the street.

And it was freezing.

It was 40 below zero,

which 40 below is the interesting fact

of being minus 40 Fahrenheit and Celsius.

Somewhere around minus 40 in both scales.

And we ran over to this farmhouse

and just I banged on the door

and the lady answers the door.

She doesn't know where we are.

She doesn't know, like, she knows who I am,

but nothing else.

She's just, you know, concussed.

And the lady opens the door.

I'm like, hi, we were just in a terrible accident.

Can you please call an ambulance for us?

And the lady was like, they survived.

There were two girls in their house

who were coming the other direction,

saw us go off and pulled over and said,

just call the coroner.

There's no way they lived.

They were going like, they estimated 130 miles an hour.

That's it.

Plenty of Sundays could do 130.

But I don't even remember ever seeing that on coming car.

So that started many, many years of physical therapy

and just a lot of pain.

But at the end of the day, we lived,

like lived without any genuine serious injury.

Did you grow up with any sense of fear?

Yeah, I was always a scaredy cat.

Minus 40, north 100 mile an hour.

Haven't you read?

You're not in control of the car.

Is there any, like, any sense of like,

this could go very badly?

Especially after just being in a crash.

Of course.

And she just wasn't listening.

She was just like, you know, I didn't know the road.

I didn't know where we were.

And so I didn't know that this curve was coming up,

but there was a straightaway.

I was always a nervous passenger.

Still am more so from that day on than I was before.

But I was a nervous passenger the whole time

I lived in Germany, which is before this.

You know, I didn't like really high speed stuff.

I don't like, I'm just a terrible passenger.

And that made it worse for the rest of my life.

I can imagine that made it extremely worse.

But did it not deter you from getting

straight back in cars and still being your passenger?

Oh, it was a while.

I mean, as a passenger, remember, I had no car.

This was the problem.

My parents did not allow me to have a car

in my first year of college

because they thought that was the safer option.

And you know, there I am calling them

from the emergency room again.

Like, you know, guys,

I think you've made the wrong choice here.

Like, everyone has beef with their parents, right?

Everyone has something, something, something.

My parents are not perfect.

They're wonderful people.

I love them both.

They, they fucked up as parents in certain ways.

And, but they did the best.

They did what they thought was the best.

They always had the right intention and a good heart.

Mostly.

Almost always.

The only thing that I really think they fucked up was this.

Like you don't take a child

whose life is obsessed with cars

and not let that child have a car

in the false pretense that their friends

are somehow going to be safer than like,

I just don't think they realized like,

you're not going to force me to stay in a dorm.

Like I'm going to be out in the world.

And I was a responsible kid.

I never drank.

I didn't do any drugs.

I didn't like, I never really gotten to any trouble.

Why would you put me in cars

with people who are drinking?

Like that was what their side effect was.

Now she was not drinking

in either of those crashes.

But at the end of the day, look at what happened.

Two major crashes in three weeks.

You know, then my father was like,

go light a candle, go to a church.

And then the joke of this whole thing

is bad things come in three.

11 months later, I was finally allowed

to get back on my bicycle.

And I was always a big biker.

And the first day I got back on my bike,

I got hit by a car,

totaled the car with my body.

And that was when my father was like,

see a priest, there's something wrong with you.

And I'm like, well, there's my third.

That was another couple of years.

Well, I do keep living from all this.

So maybe I'm immortal.

Maybe, yeah.

No, no.

Immortals would not have felt that pain.

Yeah.

So was it that sort of year and a bit

was a rough point in my life, physically, especially.

But as much as you hold some anger

about those circumstances

and the fact that they could have been different,

your life wouldn't be what it is today.

We're doing a lot of things

that you enjoy very much.

So it might have been,

but your journey has led you here.

Do you think that was a significant part

of your journey that's led you here?

And do you think if it was any different,

you'd still be here?

I know.

Because we talk about that word

from the start, again, trajectory.

Yeah.

And do you think that that has always been

something that has been in the back of your mind

through doing everything that you've done?

And that's how we all trajectory.

There are a lot of points in my life

where decisions were made by me or by others

that very clearly altered the trajectory

of my life in a very positive way,

moving to Germany, for example.

My first business was not in the car industry.

His first business sort of at the end of college

into my early, all through my 20s

was an e-commerce startup

that I started with friends in Germany.

My sister married her high school sweetheart

from Germany.

My mom and dad both wound up with people

they met while we were in Europe.

So clearly that decision to move us to Germany

when my sister and I were 15,

which was a really tough age to do that,

paid off in a big way.

I don't think that string of accidents

added anything positive

because I was already a nervous passenger

and I was already a cautious.

I mean, I appear online that I'm not that cautious, right?

That's part of the persona of the professional idiot, right?

But at the end of the day, I'm far more cautious

and measured than you think.

And that was already the case.

So the accidents I don't think helped that.

When was the first time you started to realise

what it was that you could potentially do?

You talk about having the automatic magazines

on your desk and you're a kid in school.

When did that become more than just reading magazines

like in your career?

I would say that,

I mean, I was so car obsessed that of my friend group,

which were all car people, right?

Car guys, car girls.

I was one of the more car obsessed.

And there were a lot,

when I noticed the difference was

that a lot of them were one make,

sort of one make one model.

They were either into Volkswagen Sorakos

or just Volkswagen's, for example,

where I was interested in everything.

Like I wanted to own all of them

and I wanted to work on all of them

and drive and drift and all the other stuff,

all of these different cars.

And so that was kind of a big difference.

And I was, I studied,

I read Car and Driver cover to cover every month,

like it was a journal.

Like this was like what I'm going to study

and I'm going to learn everything.

And it wasn't until after I sold the business,

I went to law school and then got an opportunity

to run the business effectively

of Automobile Magazine's website.

And it was effectively a business position,

but it was editor sheet of the website.

And I thought, there it is.

There's my, there's my foot in the door.

And the first month I was there,

I wrote a bunch of things,

one of which won a winning an award.

And that was when I was like,

I think I can,

I snuck in to do this.

So I can build that confidence.

Right.

But I think I can actually be pretty good at this.

And what age was that?

30, 30, 31, somewhere there.

Which I think is always like a great time

to just pause for a second.

Because there's so many people also listening to this

that are like me,

that you can beat yourself up so much

at so many different points

in your like 20s for argument's sake,

for feeling like you're starting something again

or starting from scratch at a different age

or a different point.

But it's amazing to see how much success

you've gotten yet that started from say,

those big moments there around 30.

I mean, everything sort of,

I started to start up.

I did not do anything fun for eight years.

It was just, you know,

so we grew 10% per month every month

and just trying to stay out of that.

It was a big business.

It was a big one of being,

I mean, it was three of us to start

and 180 of us at the end.

Wow.

And it was just this wild ride.

But when it ended,

we sold the company to one of our competitors

and I just wanted nothing to do with them.

I had no respect for any of them.

They were publicly traded.

There were a bunch of like

sort of corporate dick bags is how I saw them all.

And I thought, I need to engineer my escape.

Like I have to get out of there.

So I just wrote a non-refundable check

for tuition for law school.

And I'm like, oh, I guess I start on August,

whatever it was and bye.

It's the only way that I was able to rip that bandaid off.

And law school was actually,

that was amazing,

but it was the best mental workout

that I've ever had.

But it trained me to be a really good writer.

Or sorry, I shouldn't say it.

Trained me to be a much better writer

than I otherwise was,

because you have to be precise

when you're writing any legal anything.

And so these decisions sort of fell into each other,

but actually the eight years of non-stop work

allowed me the time and the finances

to go back to school and do that.

So they sort of layer on top of each other.

And it's not this like,

I wasn't reinventing myself,

but it was just what comes next.

How different were you at 32 to 22?

Not much.

Even after that whole journey building the business?

I was a terrible employee then.

I'm in a terrible employee now.

I'm a child.

I was a child.

I'm this weird combination of born as an adult, right?

I always wanted to hang out with my friends' parents

more than them, like mostly.

I was just very mature and very responsible

and like never got into trouble

and paid my bills on time.

I was just always sort of like a good adult in that sense,

but then I have the sense of humor of a 12-year-old

and that has never changed.

And I have the mischievousness of a 14-year-old

that has never changed.

And so really I'm the same person.

When did that transpire into all of those things

coming together and being in front of a camera lens?

The big moment was that video, the Drag Race video.

That was wild because we...

So I was at Automobile Magazine.

Even though that was your last video with...

No, that was my first ever video.

Was that the first one?

The one with Drag Race?

Yeah, the 130 million.

Yeah, that was the video that got you fired.

And then unfired.

So there are egos everywhere in this business

and there are big personalities.

And I worked at Automobile Magazine,

which was run by Gene Jennings,

who sadly passed away this year.

Gene was a fucking force.

I present to whomever you want to me, Gene was smarter.

She was better read.

She was funnier.

She was bigger.

She was louder.

She was more brass.

She was fucking walking genius.

The flip side of that was,

you did not want to be on our bad side.

She was also vindictive in...

Maybe vindictive isn't the wrong word.

No, I mean probably...

I love Gene.

I adore her.

There was just that element of...

Don't mess with it.

Don't fuck with Gene Jennings.

That like everyone knew this.

And I got on our bad side at one point.

Because it really wasn't intentional.

When I was hired at Automobile,

there's this person named Josh,

who was my boss,

who was actually not part of Automobile Magazine.

He was part of Automotive.com,

which was back up.

Publishing companies were struggling

to figure out this new internet thing.

And so the publishing company,

which was Primedia,

it was called,

somebody on Wall Street told us

that they needed to have an internet presence.

So rather than just say,

all right, we're going to make a website

and start doing this,

they purchased a company called Automotive.com

and gave a.com as we called it,

full power over all of the websites

for the magazines,

which was idiotic to say the least.

A similar thing happened in the UK,

I believe, with Car Throttle.

They got purchased,

it was a big automatic media brand.

They got purchased by Douglas Media.

And I'm pretty sure it then went to like,

someone just thought at the top,

this is going to work.

And it just didn't.

It didn't.

They, the problem was they just,

you know, some executive in New York

was like, well, we'll buy a web.

And so they bought this company,

not realizing that Automotive.com

had nothing behind it.

So before the anti cyber squatting laws came in,

this is law degree talking.

Cyber squatting is the practice of just

buying a domain and doing nothing with it

and holding a hostage

in the hope that you'll be able to sell it.

This is, I looked at my partner

because she's just bought one

that would have been,

but that was being held hostage

at the minute for a new brand.

They still exist, right?

But there are now laws that govern cyber squatting.

So if somebody has a real claim for something,

this, there was two guys that in college

had purchased a bunch of domain names

and they looked at when the cyber squatting laws,

anti cyber squatting laws were passed,

they realized they had to do something with it,

it was shit or get off the pot, so to speak,

like do something with it or let it go.

And the site that had the most organic traffic,

meaning people would just find it,

was Automotive.com.

So they revved that up

as a content producing farm,

basically, where they just took

press releases and just regurgitated

in the form of reviews that weren't, right?

Just a ton of content.

It was quantity, quantity, quantity, quantity, quantity.

And that organization was put in charge

of the editorial of the magazine's websites.

So if you think about that,

I'm an employee of Automotive.com,

but I'm writing or I'm organizing

all the stories that go on AutomobileMag.com,

which should reflect the magazine

and the magazine's ideals

and the magazine's level of quality.

And that's what Automobile did,

was just the highest quality writing,

the best fact checking.

It was not my favorite magazine to read,

but I really appreciated the magazine craft

that went into it.

And I was stuck in between two worlds

where I had Jean saying,

it's my fucking brand.

I started this magazine in 1987 with David Davis,

and you're not going to fuck it up

with these shitty stories.

At the same time as I had my boss

saying to me, don't fucking listen to her,

she has nothing to do with this.

It's quantity, quantity, quantity.

No one cares about quality on the internet, Jason.

And I got fired continually

because I sided with Jean.

She was right.

It's her brand,

and the right thing to do for this brand was that.

The problem was, Josh had a big payout,

and if he made it three years,

he got a huge double-digit chunk of millions of dollars,

I think it was,

if he hit all of these ridiculous profit numbers,

which meant I could literally

not expense a cup of coffee, nothing.

I had no account at all,

no expense account, no budget, nothing.

So I was stuck in the middle

and I would just go spend money and do stuff.

How difficult is that?

I must put it into someone

that had been running their own business

and in charge of themselves

for like eight years of their 20s.

Nightmare, nightmare.

I couldn't imagine doing it,

and I've got that entrepreneurial flag like,

working for someone.

I'd be fired so quickly.

I was fired constantly.

And I have no discipline,

and I'm potentially thinking maybe from the law stuff.

Would you say that you're more disciplined?

I'm very disciplined,

but what I am is unhappy with anyone standing in my way.

I have a very clear vision.

I have a set of things that I need to do, right?

This is my goal,

and I'm going to make this video.

And to do it, I'm going to do this,

get out of my way.

And the get out of my way attitude didn't work

in the publishing world

where everyone was like,

well, you can't,

I'm going to do my Michigan accent.

You can't,

you have a printer in your office

because we have this, whatever,

and I'm like, I need this for that,

or whatever.

I would just go to the store

and buy what I needed and expense it,

and then I would get in trouble.

And I'm like, I need to do my job.

So I bulldozed my way through hurdle,

after hurdle, after hurdle, after hurdle,

and made a huge enemy of my boss.

The problem was, at the same time,

I was making a huge fan out of Jean

because she saw what I was doing

and was like, thank God he's fighting these people.

He's doing what's right for the magazine.

And then so eventually I got fired on my birthday.

It was the fourth time.

And I was like, you know what?

One of these days,

this motherfucker is going to get what he wants.

Like I just, I was not a fan of this,

of this man.

Understood his motives.

His motive was rip the drywall off the walls,

leave this as, you know,

a shell of a company,

and he retires off of the money.

But that was flew in the face of what I wanted to do.

And so I thought the best thing for this company

is me to just fight him, fight him, fight him, fight him.

So he fired me on his birthday.

His assistant had already called me and said,

we've already undone it.

Like just tell him to fuck off.

Like don't even answer the phone.

Then Jean calls me and she would always say,

Jason, Josh is calling you do not engage,

do not engage.

Which is like, don't answer the phone.

And I'm like, you know what?

One of these days he's going to get what he wants.

I'm out.

I'm done.

And I made the very difficult decision to quit.

Very difficult.

And I walked in her room and you know,

you have those moments where you just the tears start

and you're like, oh, this is really embarrassing.

But I waited my whole life for this.

I wanted my entire life to work for a car magazine

and do this.

And I can't believe I was given this opportunity.

And now I'm saying bye, but I can't,

I can't live here anymore.

I can't live in Michigan.

I can't be fired all the time.

I can't be stuck between you and Josh.

Thank you for everything.

I love you.

But I'm going to move to California.

And she was like, what?

No, no, you're not.

No, no, no, no.

As of right now, you report to me and we're just

going to put you on print.

Like I'll find a way.

And I'm like, really?

You do that for me?

And she was like, yes.

So she gives me this big hug.

And Jean's hugs were the best because they really, she was very,

when Jean stabbed you, it really hurt.

But when Jean hugged you, she meant it.

And that meant everything.

So I walk into the office and I come right back in again.

And I'm like, I can't, I can't live here anymore.

I can't live in Michigan.

It doesn't work for my cars.

It doesn't work for my love of cars.

I'm just moving.

And she was like, fuck, what do we do?

And I said, well, we have a West Coast editor position open.

And she was like, what makes you think you can do that?

And I'm like, do that in my sleep.

It's this, this, this and this and this.

And she's like, but that's an LA based position.

And I'm like, and I'm moving to San Francisco.

But here's the thing.

San Francisco has better roads, better photography,

better weather, more varied geography, more varied real estate.

You know, magazines, you need weather.

You need beautiful backgrounds, great roads.

And they have a better airport and a huge fleet of press cars

with no motor trying to compete with.

Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional?

Just speaking into the void.

But with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching

the right decision makers, a network of 130 million of them.

In fact, you can even target buyers by job title, industry,

company, seniority skills.

And did I say job title?

See how you can avoid the void and reach the right buyers

with LinkedIn ads, spend $250 on your first campaign

and get a free $250 credit for the next one.

Get started at LinkedIn.com slash campaign.

Terms and conditions apply.

Do you think that you're able to talk to your bosses

in that way because the fact that you're an entrepreneur

for so many years?

Yeah, I came in like, I started my life as a president

slash managing director slash founder.

So like the idea that I was going to like listen

to corporate structure, like this is why I'm a terrible employee.

I'm like, no, I'm just going to do what I need to do.

Fuck off. Like, I got this.

I don't need you to micromanage me.

I don't need you to tell me what to do.

I don't need to fill out a fucking report

to request a pen.

I bought it already.

And is that because you almost just didn't care

in the sense of like, you knew you'd be okay

from that previous life and the fact

that you could just go and do your own thing

and have the confidence to be like,

I'm going to be fine no matter what

because my path writes itself.

Well, I'll go off and start another company.

I'll just go off and do this.

Were you not thinking like that?

No, I wasn't quite that confident

and I definitely wasn't that secure.

I think it was more,

I didn't understand corporate politics

because I had never worked in a big,

you know, in a big office with other people.

And so I just didn't know.

And I just, I'm like, I'll just bulldoze everyone.

Like, I'll get everyone out of my way

because I'm right.

And, you know, I have a, for better or worse,

I have a New York Italian argumentative nature

and I love to fight.

Like, I don't find a fight.

I love to argue.

Law school was a fluke,

but the, when I went in, there was like,

I was three months past the deadline to apply.

And it was three days before the start of classes.

And I went up with the headmaster

talking about, you know, this ultra late admission

and he was like, what makes you think you could do this?

And I don't remember what the fuck I said to him,

but the guy was like, you should have,

you need to be a lawyer, right?

Yes, you're in.

Like, I just convinced him.

I just persuaded him with like a logic flow

that was just like hilarious.

And so I've always sort of managed to just have a big mouth

and use big mouth and a chain of logic

to tell the story to get where I needed to be.

So how did those skills transpire

into you becoming the on-screen persona?

So it was that San Francisco?

So San Francisco, actually, yeah,

it moved to San Francisco and I was West Coast editor.

So that worked, right?

So I got that job.

Jean took that whole thing

and her nurturing nature and like, don't leave,

literally quote Jason,

babe, don't leave me is what she said,

which is the fucking terrible thing

to remember now that she's gone.

But it was, babe, don't leave me.

Babe, don't leave me.

She knew that I like at that point,

I was writing a lot for the magazine

and we loved each other and wanted to work together.

And so she made the West Coast editor thing happen.

But then the flip side of that scorpion

is the tail and the stinger.

And she went after me to get pay cuts

and made all these rules like,

well, if you're going to be in San Francisco,

you are never allowed to expense a hotel in LA.

And that's what you get.

And so we would be doing stories in LA.

Like something would happen in LA.

Down there.

And it was 400 miles away, right?

I mean, it was 400 miles

and I would have to drive on my own,

not expense the gas in one of my own cars,

which I don't ever mind,

but then stay with France

because I wasn't allowed to expense anything in LA.

Which would that drive you mental?

Because to me, I'm very logical in that sense.

Like, so if something doesn't make sense to me

or I perceive someone to be unreasonable

or just unlogical, I go mental

and it's just like, but why?

Like, I don't understand because this benefits you so.

And I think it's just a deep-rooted,

like logical people get frustrated

with people who make emotional-based decisions.

And was that what was happening?

100%.

But I had, we had two Joe's as senior editors,

Joe D'Amatio and Joe L'Oreal,

and they would both call me and be like,

fucking shut up.

Just shut up.

She's on a tear today.

You're going to get it.

We're going to be on a Zoom at the time.

Like, we're going to be on a call later

and you are going to hear it.

Put your phone on mute.

Scream all you want, but don't say a fucking word.

Because they knew.

Jean was a creative and she was very emotional

and she was very sort of unstable is the wrong word,

but unpredictable.

And so I drove me nuts.

And it was like, at the time,

I was writing more than the rest of,

I was writing more than half of the other pages

of the magazine some months, right?

It was me plus the entire staff,

me versus the entire staff,

I wrote more than all of them did.

And I was doing 50 press launches a year.

And I was winning all the awards that the magazine got.

And my thank you was this vindictive shit

of like, no raise for you again.

And oh, really?

You're unhappy that you went to Europe twice last month?

You're going three times this month.

And there was, I did it.

I did it.

I put my nose down and I just did it,

but it was tough.

And it all came to a head on that video.

So I went on a Bugatti rally.

As you do.

As one does.

Leaving Monterey was one of my,

I think it was my second car week ever.

And I was invited to drive Peter Mullins 1933 type 51C.

So, you know, an actual like GP car.

And a Veyron together, like on this rally for like three days.

Long story short, the 33 car breaks.

I fixed it on the side of the road.

It was just, I work in cars.

That's what I do.

I was like, it was no big deal.

And the guy who was in the car with me is a German

who I didn't realize he didn't know I spoke German.

And I have like no accent in German,

which gets me in a lot of trouble.

And so I'm just kind of traipsing along.

And then the Veyron broke.

And the Veyron breaking was a big problem for me

because I really wanted to drive that car.

So we pull over on the side of the road

and the mechanic has the whole back end of the car apart.

And he's like, yeah, it's what is broken

in this cool and temperature sensor.

And it's leaking.

And so unfortunately we cannot start the car.

And I look at the cool and temp sensor and it's plastic.

And I realized that the thread pitch and size

of where it screws in is identical to a transmission drain plug

on all the get drug transmissions, right?

From all like VWs and BMWs and shit.

And I'm like, just get a plug.

And I'm like, there's a BMW dealership down the street,

or a VW dealership down the street,

just get a Mark 1, Mark 2, Mark 3,

trainee drain, 020 drain plug.

And it'll plug it off.

You won't have cool and temp sensor, but who cares?

You're crazy, whatever.

And this, you know, this German was like having no part of me.

And I finally turned around and let him have it.

In German.

I'm like, listen, you asshole, you're costing me this rally.

I'm really pissed off about this.

PR is going to lose out on this story.

Everyone's going to lose out on this.

Just fucking go and get it.

So he calls and now he's the, Julius, the, the, the

mindor who did not know I speak German is like,

why did I like the Germans do like, what is going on?

As I'm like yelling at this guy, not yelling,

but I was sternly speaking to him.

And so he calls the Volkswagen dealership

and they don't have one.

So I pick up my cell phone at the time, which is probably

like a flip phone or something.

And I, and I call the BMW dealership, which is even closer.

And I'm like, I need a drain plug for an M20 transmission

and, you know, five speed and a knee 30.

Oh yeah, we have like 30 of them.

Okay.

So I drive down and get it and put it in.

I'm like, there you go.

There's your fix.

Have a nice day.

So they're all like, what is going on here?

And then I hear Julius on the phone that night on the phone.

I'll do it in English.

I don't understand it.

He has the accent of a Bad Humberg millionaire.

Okay.

So I lived in this town called Bad Humberg in Germany

and I was clearly not a millionaire.

Look at me.

But, but I learned German from all of the locals.

And so I have a slight Bad Humberg accent, Hesse accent.

And he picked up on it immediately

because he's from the same town.

So while we're in the car, he's like,

hold on, wait a second.

I lived on this street.

You lived on, we were like three blocks from each other.

So we became friendly and he kept telling everyone,

like a journalist, an American who speaks German,

Hesse, really, Hesse accent in German.

Like that doesn't exist.

And the fucking journalist fixed the Veyron

when the mechanic couldn't do it.

I owe you one big time.

And I'm like, great.

I'll tell you what, I want to do a drag race

of your car versus the other carbon supercars.

I want to do a story of what them.

And he was like, yeah, whatever you want.

So Bugatti didn't give anyone else cars.

So now I have a car coming and permission to do with it,

whatever I want.

Amazing.

As a payback for saving this rally, right?

At a time where YouTube was also taken off.

Like YouTube was just...

People were subscribing to channels

because they didn't see it as a monetary transaction.

Like they do now, like people subscribe.

It costs absolutely nothing,

but I feel like they think they're paying

100 quid for that subscription.

It's hard to get.

Back then, people were so much more open to...

Yeah, it was new.

And it was, and Motor Trend, which was our same company,

had just gotten the one of the million dollar handouts

from YouTube to start seed money to start a channel.

I've heard about these.

So my pitch was, so Lexus owed me a favor for something.

I remember what I had done.

But one of the guys is like, I owe you one, noted.

Something happened with McLaren and I knew those guys something.

And then Lamborghini, I knew the head of PR very well.

His wife, as it turns out, was my employee at my company

in the e-commerce field.

Like it was just crazy.

The world is very small.

So I call all four companies and pitch the story

that I want to do a story of the only four

carbon-tubbed cars in the world.

And I'm going to write it sort of as a comparison,

but it's not a comparison test.

And this is today the story that I wish

I had done more than anything else.

So the idea was to get the four cars,

but start in order and just walk through the process

of how you make these cars out of carbon fiber.

And so the oldest of the bunch was the LFA.

Oh, what a thing.

Right.

And then the next was a vented door, then Veyron, then MP412C.

Only four cars, right?

And so they are made out of space-saged material,

was my thing.

Turns out at Mojave, which is two hours north of LA,

Bert Routan's company, which was,

my God, why can't I think of the name of it?

They were making spacecrafts that people

were going to be able to go and do space flights with.

And so they had SS1, which was a spaceship one,

and then SS2.

And SS2 was about to debut.

So I called Routan's people and I'm like,

I am from Automobile Magazine.

I have four carbon fiber supercars.

You are making a carbon fiber spacecraft.

Could I please have it?

Take a picture of the cars together with the spaceship?

And he was like, well, actually, I'll do one better.

We'll wheel out SS2 and the debut photo of SS2

will be the four cars under the wing.

And then, by the way, I'll put you in charge

in touch with Virgin Galactic,

because the Virgin Galactic spaceport in New Mexico

is where this is going to take its Virgin flight

out of their Virgin flight ever.

They've just finished paving the runway,

or they will be just finishing paving the runway.

You, I will get your permission.

You will be the first person to ever set foot

on that runway in a vehicle

and go do a top speed run in the McLaren, in the cars.

And I'm like, oh my God.

So I start doing research.

Turns out the Virgin Galactic spaceport

is, was designed by an architect

who's the same architect that designed

the McLaren Tech Center in Woking.

And it's the same building.

He just cut paste over there.

And I'm like, this is unbelievable.

So the story that I pitched to everyone

is I'm going to go chronologically

and talk about how carbon fiber has,

you know, developed through the years

using these cars on a road trip from LA up to Mojave.

And by the time we get to Mojave,

because you're weaving in travel with everything else,

I will have come to the conclusion that

the 12C is the only car to make good

on the promise of actually being lighter

than its competition.

And therefore I will take a road trip

to the Virgin Galactic spaceport,

which is the same building that it was built in.

It was like, it was just this unbelievable thing.

And Jean said, no.

Oh, and by the way, while I'm on the way there,

I'm going to stop at this airfield,

Chuckwalla Airport in the middle of nowhere

and do a drag race of the car and for video.

And Jean says, absolutely not.

Now, why?

The scorpion, right?

This is a, no, you're not doing it.

I don't get it.

And I'm like, what's not to get?

The cars are made of the same material as the spaceship.

The spaceship is going to be there.

The buildings are the same.

It's a fucking runway.

I get to race the goddamn SS2 down the run.

Like what, what don't you understand?

And it was a hard, absolutely not.

And so I had done probably two months worth of research

and I sort of pre-wrote half of the sections

and I sketched out with the photographer

exactly what the shots would look like.

And I laid out this whole story and she said, no,

you're just going to get in the cars and drive them.

And I'm like, no, no, no, no.

These are all personal favors

that I got to get all four of these cars,

which no one was allowed to get.

And that's the reason the video did so well.

No one else was allowed to race these cars.

And it was before the influencer thing started.

So I'm like, if I don't do the story that I pitched,

we don't get the cars.

And she was like, you're not doing it.

I'm like, well, then I'm out.

So I canceled the cars and I canceled the story

and she called the car companies and they agreed to give them back.

And I had not.

So I handed over all my research to one of our other coworkers

and I'm like, good luck.

You do whatever you want.

I'm out.

But I insisted that I do the drag race video.

And so I got Motor Trend to get the runway for free

because it was just this old runway

that no one had been using in years.

And we got the cars and I spent $50 on lunch.

That's what I spent on that video.

And I just did it out in the sunburned

in those horrible shorts

with the same chain around my neck,

which is hilarious.

Actually, if I think about it,

because I always look at those video

and make fun of what I look like

and did the video in like two hours

and just banged it out.

And when they found out that I did that,

I got a call from HR and my direct boss

who was between me and...

So then you did it.

I did it.

You got an editor and then you put it live

on a channel that you were fired from.

Well, so remember that Motor Trend,

it was the channel that got the money for YouTube

was Motor Trend.

And the Motor Trend editor-in-chief

who was a nudge higher than Gene on the org chart,

just one little notch higher said,

yes, do it and I'll pay for it.

So I got a bunch of camera guys

from Motor Trend's YouTube channel showed up.

I bought lunch at my company credit card

and then the automobile guys showed up,

had no idea what was going on.

And I'm like, shut up, sit down and you drive, you drive.

I had Carlos from Carlos Lago

from Motor Trend drove one of the cars

and then Eric Tingwall,

one of the automobile guys

drove one of the other cars.

And that was it.

It was just...

Well, the thought's not going through your head

from getting to know you and reading your story

and seeing what you've done over the years.

If there's like million pound offers from YouTube

going around to fund channels and ideas

and you could sell literally anything to anybody

and the guy that you spoke to when you went to law college

just allowed you to do it straight away

because it just seems that you can talk your way

into any situation room or podcast fan

that there is in the world.

Was the thought not there to like go big,

go hard and launch your own channel?

No, no, that never, A, never entered my mind

but B, it wasn't even possible.

I mean, there was no monetization at that point.

YouTube was just a thing.

And I don't think AdSense had started.

I mean, I wasn't in that world.

I was working for Car Magazine.

So it never occurred to me.

But looking back on it,

I don't even think you could make a living off of YouTube.

I think that's why YouTube gave the seed money

because they were starting ads.

Because I'm not sure if this is true

but I think maybe Chris Harris got in quite early

with that kind of thing from the UK.

I think they did with the...

Chris and Matt were on The Drive.

Right? The Drive?

God, this is so long ago.

Yes, it was The Drive.

And I think they were another recipient

of some of that seed money.

These were all channel names that I

just remember just like clicking from one to the other

to the other to the other to the other.

And that was my earliest years of cars,

which is why it's crazy

because it still doesn't feel to me

like 2012 was even that long ago.

And those cars are still so iconic.

I know.

My last person to sit in this van,

luckily enough, owns a Bugatti Veyron.

Oh my God.

Zed Boliam and Ben Wickett.

And it's still just as cool as it ever was.

Yeah, it's a Veyron.

It will always be that cool.

So where do you go from that video?

So that video launched right at about the time

that on the Motor Trend channel,

right at the time that I was being written up

and then fired from automobile.

And before I could be fired,

the editor of Motor Trend intervened

and was like, hang tight.

The video drops.

How many lives did you have?

I mean, I was just like, find him out.

Fuck you.

I was so mad about the whole thing.

I was so upset that I had put so much work

into convincing these car companies.

So I had to get special permission from the CEO of McLaren

to drive the car that far,

because it was a 1,000 mile drive

to go from Mojave to the Virgin Galactic spaceport.

So there was just so much work in there.

And I was so excited about this idea

that I was just fucking devastated.

And when they were like, you know,

we're basically performing, we're setting you up to fire you.

I'm like, good.

You know what? Package me the fuck out.

It's been great six years.

Fuck off and die.

Like I never want to see you guys again.

But then motor trend is like, wait a second, hang tight.

The video hits and within 48 hours

is the number one video of all time on that channel.

And so he goes to HR and was like,

this is some vindictive shit going on at automobile.

Watch what's going to happen here.

And then it was the number one video on across.

They didn't have trending,

but like you could see the number one videos those days

and it was number one for weeks.

And he's like, we just got more eyeballs on us

from that $150 video than anything in the past.

They're wrong. Jason's right.

Saved my job.

Saved.

But it was just at that point, I was like, you know what?

I'm done with the vindictiveness.

I'm done with the, you know, I've paid now.

I think it was three and a half years in California

of just sort of whipping boy stuff.

And I'm like, I'm done.

And he chipped away at it.

It feels like it's constantly being chipped away.

I like the non logical of it.

Right.

And I was just exhausted.

I was exhausted from being overworked out of,

and they were doing it clearly as,

I think Jean was just saying, give it to Jason.

Give it to Jason.

He wants to move to California.

Give him to Jason.

So I would just do these like five trips.

He thinks he's the Mr. Big Man telling me what he wants to do.

I'll give it to him.

Meanwhile, I never strong armed anyone.

I just, I came in in tears and I said, I'm quitting.

Like I can't do this anymore.

I'm so sorry.

I'm heartbroken over this.

Well, I love hate relationship.

Right.

So that was Jean.

And so long story short, my job was saved.

But then I got a phone call from Rodentrack

who was just doing a full reboot

and they wanted me to run all road tests.

And I said, yeah, so I left.

And that was about a month after this whole thing went down.

Timing couldn't have been better.

Did two, three years at Rodentrack

and then got a call from Motortrend saying,

Carlos Lago has left or don't tell anyone,

but Carlos is leaving and we need somebody to replace him.

And I'm like, oh, great.

The old fat version of Carlos.

Because Carlos and I looked a lot alike,

but he was younger, thinner and far better looking.

And I'm like, oh no.

And Randy was Motortrend.

Randy had been, Randy was a contributor to Motortrend.

But yeah, yeah.

So Randy was there on my first day, first shoot.

And so, but I came in replacing Carlos

and they were like, the audience is going to hate you.

And I'm like, I know.

They do.

People on YouTube hate change.

They absolutely hate change.

They think a channel that does X should always do X.

Oh yeah, you should never do anything else.

And they wanted, they pulled me into meetings

to like prepare me for the ire that I was about to.

And I'm like, I got this.

We're good.

And they're like, what do you mean?

And of course I'm shitting.

I was so nervous.

But my first ever appearance.

So I always wear a black v-neck and so does Carlos.

So I did black vina jeans.

And he always had like converse shoes on.

So I bought a pair of Converse and I showed up and we filmed

the first segment is just a big dynamic.

It was Porsche Cayman.

It was terrible episode, but that's irrelevant.

Sort of slide the car around, slide the car around

in the script and then open the car door, get out,

pull the helmet off and realize,

and that's when the audience would realize

it's not Carlos, but it's some other guy.

And I just looked right at camera.

I'm like, oh, you were expecting Carlos.

Sorry.

I may not be Carlos, but at least I'm not Johnny.

And then we did a compilation of cuts

of Johnny going, hi there, hi there, hi there.

You know, he does it.

And Johnny was the other co-host.

So those shows were Johnny and or Carlos.

They didn't work together.

They were separately.

And so immediately all the first 3,000 comments were,

oh my God, this guy's great because I'm self deprecating.

And I'm saying acknowledging their feelings,

which is that like you guys are going to miss Carlos.

Carlos was amazing.

That's a really interesting point there because

I think that I've learned that through a lot of successful

people that have gone on to YouTube and even with what I've done myself

is rather than just try and be this person that is sometimes you're not,

you've got to just acknowledge the situation

and say to the audience, look, I know I might be ship.

I might not be as good as them.

I might have disarmed them.

Disarmed.

I'm a human.

I know people look at you like you're a celebrity, right?

You walk around and like, oh, I know you.

No, no, no.

You don't know me.

You know a version of me or a curated part of me

that I've allowed you to see on TV, but I'm a person.

Like, I understand.

Like, I have the things that I've said about like celebrities.

I'm not that I really follow anything in the past,

but like, fuck that person, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But that's a person.

And so my thought is immediately interact

and just introduce myself as a human being

and also make fun of Johnny, which did well.

I mean that it was the right way of coming in with a bang.

Was it a yellow Porsche Cayman?

It was.

That shows you because one of my earliest cars,

my first ever Porsche, was a Porsche Cayman.

Oh, really?

And I remember watching that video

and I remember that appearance in that video.

But then that's me all across the other side of the sea

on an island where the biggest video on that channel

would do twice, no, the other channel,

would do twice the amount of views of the actual population.

Like, it is insanely impact that a piece of content

can have on someone.

Even though it's entertainment,

do you think that those moments are important as well?

Do you feel any sense of responsibility

to deliver something to that audience?

One of the things that Jean did best

was belittle you into realizing that you are not,

as a writer, right?

You are not important at all.

I don't care and no one cares what you think.

You are there as a journalist to decipher

whether this car, to figure out

what the intended purpose of this car is

and whether the intended audience for it

will like it, right?

So it doesn't matter whether she never let me talk in,

any of us talk in first person,

you are not part of that.

And your duty, you are being paid

to be as objective as humanly possible.

There's a big asterisk there

because we're humans and we're flawed

and we can't be fully objective.

And I feel that huge responsibility

on everything I do.

The podcast that I do have a podcast,

a weekly podcast called The Car Mudgeon Show

and I just don't filter, right?

And that's part of it.

I'm allowed foul mouth, terrible human being.

My co-host is a quiet foul mouth, nice human being

and with a really bad temper.

And we just let each other have it

and let the cars have it.

Is that almost like a sense of therapy

in that section?

Totally.

They are aren't they?

Because when I write a script,

look, the best, the worst thing I ever did

was the fucking Tesla Cybertruck video.

So I, okay.

Really?

Okay, look, it was an amazing opportunity.

The guy who was running,

sort of secretly running a small PR thing,

he was a project manager in Tesla,

but he was trying to get comms,

communications done on Cybertruck,

came up with this fucking genius idea

to give it to three people.

And it was Marquez to talk about the tech,

Marquez Brownlee to talk about the tech.

It was Top Gear to talk about the driving

and it was Jason to talk about the engineering.

And so they wanted me to do a,

or they called me and said,

would you do a know it all episode?

None of these know it alls were like.

So you sat on the the vehicle,

I remember, even with parts

that were excited showing it to the people.

But they wanted me to do it in the studio,

not, I wasn't supposed to drive the car at all.

And I was just going to go through

point by point by point by point by point.

And so they opened up the factory

and the engineering facility to me

for a full day, 12 hours of meetings,

and showed me everything.

It was full.

It was 100% on the record.

No one held back a single piece of information.

So if I asked them, like, why'd you fuck this up?

They'd be like, we fucked it up because of X, Y, and Z.

They were just beautifully honest

with me about everything.

The summing.

It was amazing.

It was amazing to have that much insight

into a product that is revolutionary

in terms of its engineering was amazing.

So what I then hooked them into doing

was let me film it on a racetrack

where I can show the rear wheel steering,

the Sear by wire,

in a race with Randy Popes while he's behind me

in a go-kart.

And then I can do a quarter mile drag race

against an R1T, Rivian R1T,

which was the previous fastest pickup truck in the world.

And I'm like, I can sit in a studio

and tell you all of these things,

or I can show you.

Let me show everyone everything.

And so they took a little bit of convincing,

but they went for it.

And I think it was the right thing for them to do.

Where I fucked up is I didn't clearly enough,

especially the way the episodes titled,

say this is not a full review of this car.

This is a walkthrough of that car's engineering

and all the amazing things,

all the amazing new engineering the world has never seen before

and how this will then influence the way cars are engineered.

And the whole thing came across.

I wrote the whole script in a quarter of the time I needed to do it

and it all came together quickly.

And then we, on the thumbnail,

it said full review and something,

whatever, drag race or whatever it was.

And it really wasn't a full review.

The truth of the matter is I think it's ugly.

But again, gene, doesn't matter what you think.

I think it's horribly ugly.

It makes a political statement

that I don't want to get involved with.

That's not why I'm here.

But at the end of the day,

it's not as good of a consumer product as an F-150 Lightning

or a Rivian R&T.

I would have a Rivian 10 times out of 10 over a Tesla.

That didn't come across in the video.

Once Elon's activities got highly politicized,

then it just became a nightmare.

It was bad enough I went up on Matt Farmer's podcast

where Matt called me out publicly

on all these things that he thought I got wrong

and I revved up my law school diploma

and wrote a fucking dissertation.

And just, sorry, Matt,

I fucking destroyed his credibility on that podcast.

I don't know if you've seen it.

It was terrible.

It was terrible for everyone,

but I just went point by point by point by point.

Everything that he thought I made a mistake on,

I proved that I didn't.

There are certain things that-

Why was that important to you?

Because I was being accused of being a shill.

And if it's one thing that irritates the fuck out of me,

it's watching influencers make millions

and millions and millions of dollars

pretending that they love something

or, hey, guys, I'm over here and isn't this amazing?

And the camera goes down and they're like,

fuck this guy, fuck this shit, whatever, blah, blah, blah.

They're making 10X what I'm making

or insert in multiple.

And I'm killing myself,

making stuff that could be just switched on

and put on Netflix with no changes

because we do everything to Netflix standards

on YouTube budgets.

And that just takes a lot of time and effort.

They're winning and getting all the money

and now I'm accused of being no better than them.

That really pisses me off.

And so that Matt saying,

well, clearly Tesla paid Jason

and all the car companies calling me

and saying, how much did Tesla pay for this?

How much did Tesla pay?

It just incensed me.

I was just furious at everyone.

So I'm going to go on Matt's podcast

and I'm going to clear my name.

Does integrity mean more to you than money?

Oh, 100%.

100%.

I turned down, I mean, the industry now knows

I'm not for sale.

You're not going to pay me anything.

There is an ad department at Hagerty,

who's my employer.

They will sell ads for Valentine more sponsorships

for Valentine run radar detectors in the Drag Race show

or Fredestine tires.

And Fredestine keeps sending me tires to test.

And the annoying part is last year

I spent $3,000 two years ago

mounting and balancing tires

because everyone's sending me tires to test

and they're free tires.

That's great.

But now it cost me a couple hundred bucks

and I do all my own work.

So I'm going to take the tires off

put the car on the lift,

take the tires off,

bring them to the shop.

It costs me money to get free tires.

I don't even want them.

Like I'll put the tires that I want on my car

when I want to do it and when they're worn out.

And I turned down all kinds of stuff like that

because that's not journalism.

So to challenge on that,

on the story,

because there's some parts of the story

that have set you on that trajectory

that you've absolutely loved doing what you've done.

And you actually reflect on some parts

like what happened with the first car situation.

You were like, I wish that was different.

It would have been even better.

Do you think it's been maybe one of the biggest mistakes

not pushing your own channel as much

and delivering content on that to those high standards?

And is there still time to do that?

There's always time.

I'm not that old yet.

Forming my own channel is a very difficult conversation

because what I do with my team,

so let me be very clear about this.

I am an idiot and I do,

I'm the guy on camera

and I'm the guy behind the wheel

sliding the cars around

and I write the scripts and whatever.

But this product that we create

is not me in an editing bay.

This starts out with me and Anthony Esposito

whose name I've mentioned many times in different ones.

He's my best friend

and also my business partner effectively.

We left Motortrend together

and then started Icons for another person

and then we're brought into Hagerty.

I was brought into Hagerty

and I said, well, I come, he comes.

Like we're a unit.

Everything starts from Anthony and me sitting down

and making each other laugh

or figuring out what the world needs to see.

And then I go away and research and write

while he starts to plan out locations

and whatever else.

And then he comes in

and forces me to make the script better

because he's an asshole

and he can see all my faults and flaws.

And we fight like brothers

and then what comes out of all of that

is a script that works.

Then it's on him to translate that into visuals.

Now he's as much of a car guy as I am

but also in equal measure a film person.

And so then-

Invaluable.

I mean, that's what we're creating is film.

At the end of the day,

what I realized at magazines

is you need car people at the magazines

but you also need a magazine people.

And magazine craft is its own thing

that has nothing to do with cars.

Gene was 80% magazine, 20% cars.

Joe, who is my direct boss,

one of the Joe's is two, 10, 5% cars,

90% magazine craft.

English writing, layout, whatever.

Then you have art people who are art people.

Anthony is that film person.

And then once we're done filming,

when he's shot, listed it and everything,

he comes up with the schedules

and whatever, I sort of hand over the reins to him.

And then it turns over to-

It turns into him and Rob,

who's our editor, fighting for weeks

or weeks or months on end

to get the final product out the door,

to be the vision of what Anthony

and I and Rob have all collectively seen.

And so it's not just me.

It's three of us.

To do what we do is really expensive

by YouTube standards, right?

I mean, when I do a 35-minute

or 30-minute icons,

that could literally be switched right into Netflix

and that's not my-

I mean, that's-

The world believes this and I agree, right?

This is-

It's close to Netflix quality

you're gonna see on YouTube

and that's our goal.

We are spending maybe a tenth or a fifth

as much money as any production company would

who is doing TV.

We are really scrappy

and we're really cheap

and I built a minivan as a camera car

and a crew car and a gear transport van, right?

And it was 20,000 bucks for a used minivan

versus $10,000 a day for a Russian arm camera,

whatever.

We were very scrappy

but at the end of the day,

what we do is not appropriate for YouTube

in terms of production budget, right?

YouTube is, you know,

hey guys, I'm here in front of whatever.

It's what Marquez does

and it's, you know, even what Jason Fenske does

with Engineering Explained

is that's what YouTube budgets should be like

or Throttle House.

Love my Throttle House boys.

But they do, that's the upper limit

of what's appropriate for-

But if you get the views,

there's now guys that are buying

coatings eggs, P1s,

guys, or is that because in your eyes,

they're selling out doing the influence

everything on the brands?

No, I mean, what they're doing is

they're pandering to views,

which is the right thing for them to do

and there's no judgment there at all.

But if Freddie Tavaresh ever saw what I-

what the amount of work

that we put into a 30-minute episode,

he would tell me immediately to stop doing it.

Like he, you know, if anyone in this business

saw what a production, our productions are,

they're fully scripted,

they're fully storyboarded,

they're produced like television

and it's a very different art form

to do what all of those guys do,

which is great.

But that's a, you know, show up

and just do it and fix it and edit the situation.

And why are you putting it on YouTube?

Because that's where the world is taking.

Remember what I said before,

you sort of look towards the horizon,

like, okay, well, this works, let's go.

You talk about Tiff, Tiff was very much TV based.

The type of content you're making is TV worthy

and it seems that you're really good

at knocking down any door that you need to.

Creating films like that

as you're describing them

and putting them on YouTube

sounds a little bit,

if you're not playing to the algorithm

and the metrics that YouTube needs

to get a video to do views,

a little bit like getting dressed up

to go to McDonald's.

You're right, you're right.

So is there not that conversation

around a fire pit with the boys

after filming something?

Could we make this easier?

Could this go into the right place?

So what has ultimately happened

is we fell into the haggardy thing where,

I mean, you seem to be great.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I wouldn't work with them if they were not.

I just hit five years with this company.

It feels like 30 seconds.

At the end of the day,

haggardy came up with the idea

that people should know what their name means

or what the name is, right?

And so they decided to create a media,

small media empire to do this as a marketing arm.

Now, I've been told a million times

from different,

a million different people internally

that we're not marketing.

That's bullshit.

What I do for haggardy is a marketing function.

If you think of the marketing as a funnel

where at the very top,

you have just brand awareness

and at the bottom,

you have the person making a quote

to get insurance and buying insurance.

I am top of the funnel marketing.

All I want to do

is give people a great time

and then at the end of that episode,

boom, boom, boom,

never stop driving haggardy logo.

That's it.

That's all I want.

And if I can get 500 million people

to watch all of these videos

that they then go say,

oh, that's the haggardy channel.

And then they find out

that haggardy has an insurance.

Maybe they,

maybe they'll bite.

And that was my thing.

I didn't want to talk about insurance.

I didn't want to advertise anything.

I've been fighting against sponsorships

on these things

because I think attribution

for what I do

should go 100% to haggardy.

And at the end of the day,

if you look at what I cost,

what my shows cost

with my whole team

and our full production

per eyeball that they get on,

we are a fraction

of what traditional marketing

and advertising would cost.

Even at the outrageous expense,

outrageous by YouTube standards

of producing them.

Do you hate compromise?

Some people are motivated by money,

not to my detriment.

Some people are motivated by fame.

I'm definitely not.

I did not get into this

to be in front of the camera.

In fact, I don't want to be,

but it works.

I am motivated by the pride of

doing a great job.

This is in life.

I'm the only one who works

on my own cars

because I want to say,

I did that.

I built that engine.

I work on my house

because I want to look at it

and say I painted it.

I planted that.

I did this.

I did that.

So that's my motivation.

And I'm not motivated by

compromised products.

I love things that are

like we did everything we could.

It's to my detriment.

And Anthony Esposito

was wired exactly the same way.

And so we have to be

checksums for each other.

It'd be like,

okay, sometimes good enough

is good enough and stand down.

Like stop.

He does it to me and I do it to him.

You spoke to your mother now

about the first car situation.

Oh, I have.

Does she still think...

Because she's seen everything

that you've done,

who you've become

and that you've got to work

with your dream,

which is cars

in ways you never thought

imaginable.

She still thinks she was right.

I don't...

Actually, that's a good question.

I think she would probably

phrase it as,

listen,

I did what I thought was best.

Sorry.

Like my mom accepts no shit

about that.

And I understand her.

She's right.

She did.

She thought she was acting

in my best interest.

Maybe I would have been dead

if I bought the Nissan Centres.

You know, that I really wanted.

To you was an logical way

of thinking,

potentially emotionally driven,

which is a little bit

like what Jean ended up becoming.

I mean,

yes.

Jean was far more emotional than my mom.

My mom is pretty rational

and pretty,

I mean, we're Italian,

so on that scale.

She's pretty levelheaded

and pretty,

pretty overly cautious,

I would say,

as a mom,

if anything.

She, you know,

the answer was always no.

And then if I could come back

and convince her,

maybe I'll think about it.

But I don't think she

fucked up that badly.

Like they're, you know,

parents can really do damage

to their kids.

And I'll give credit to both

my parents for,

especially my mom,

for really thinking about,

I'm going to do this

because I think it's best

for them long term.

And just,

how did she know

that I was this into cars?

Are you content

with where you are now

and everything that you've achieved?

Yeah.

I mean,

I'm not ever content with anything.

I don't,

yeah,

I'm very proud of

what we've accomplished

and, you know,

a billion

easy,

a billion views just on YouTube.

It's pretty,

pretty amazing.

You talk about you wanted

from your earliest years

along this timeline,

it seems to be that

everything that we're talking about

is that,

it is it.

It is it.

But is there still the little piece

just missing

in the back of your head?

Yeah,

there's always pieces missing.

I mean,

what's really difficult for me

is I think the car industry

is falling apart

and that's tough

because I'm no longer

geeked

and super excited

about the next

in certain name of car.

And this is the first time

in my life

that I remember

being that way.

And it helps me a lot

to when fetuses such as yourself

when young people

say the same thing

because I get this,

like I look in the mirror

and I see an old man

standing back to me now.

I'm like,

I don't feel old.

I don't act old

and then I

realize I'm not young

and shit,

maybe I'm doing this

for 20 something years

maybe I'm just getting jaded

maybe I'm just like

get off my lawn

old man

and it makes me feel better

when you say that.

You talk about BMW

we spoke about the start

but you say like love everything

but we've all got that one brand

that like means the most to us

and mine is Ferrari

always has been

ever since I saw a LaFerrari

on the M25

which is the big ring motorway

that goes around London

in the UK

when I was 12 years old

probably

around the same time

that I watched that first video

so it was all kind of

collating together.

And Ferrari

are losing it

and as a car person

that's so passionate

and cares so much

about that stuff

I cannot believe

that my favorite brand

from Italy

is effing up so badly

like I'm lucky

that I've managed

to own a few of them

and some I think are brilliant

and one really wasn't

that everyone else

thinks is brilliant car.

Which one?

812

Oh I kind of like it 12.

I really didn't like it.

Okay.

And I can tell you

why in a minute

and it's part of the reason

that I think that cars

are losing

and Ferrari have lost

that special touch.

I love even being young

stuff with hydraulic steering

stuff with good brakes

especially good gearboxes

and like those things

coming together

it's because they're all fast

so you have to have

the added value

which is reversed

from what it was

years ago

and for me

you hop in an 812

and the only thing

that's got any

blah

in that car

is the engine.

Is the engine?

Yeah.

You can't tell me the exhaust

as because

for them to sound good

you have to put different one on it.

Right, exactly.

Which isn't Ferrari

is the truth

and then you get in

and the steering is just

a bit number

than the other ones are

so it's not as good

and you've just paid

God knows how much money

and it's got to be

as good as it was

and it seems like

we spoke about a word

a minute ago

compromise

when we're talking

about it in terms of career

but every new car

that's coming out

there is some sort of

compromise

and when you go back

to that original video

which was the inspiration

behind everything

I've done with cars

but thank God you created

to me

every single one of those vehicles

in that video

were uncompromised.

Absolutely.

The I'm with you

first of all

F12 was better than 812

which is the problem

right and this is the problem

you say Ferrari's lost it

I mean

you've brought

BMW up a lot of times

BMW is actually

not my favorite ever

but BMW is the brand that I

had the furthest to fall

and man did they

Volkswagen has fallen

Mercedes has fallen

Audi is falling

Porsche

clinging on

GT cars

the rest of them know

but the GT car division

yeah

yep

I'd say that they're

they're kind of on top of the world

and there's an interesting line

that I used in a podcast

the other day

and I'm going to ask it to you as well

when did they become super cool

Porsches

yeah

right at the same time

they became

dickbag weenie mobiles

I mean Porsche became so great

when everyone else dropped the ball

right

Porsches were always great cars

and you know

even 996

you know what that about

say that

ugly

but from an engineering perspective

great

they drove well

right now

Porsche has just consistently

gotten better

and better

in a world

where all of the other car makers

are just

off the cliff

and so

the differential

between Porsche

and everyone else

is just enormous now

I hopped in a Waymo

the other night

I've done this several times

and I love them

amazing

I think they are

absolutely fascinating

brilliant

and they're taking

technology

that sometimes

we really criticize

because from a

notional

emotional standpoint

when we're behind the wheel

as the operator

it actually limits

our experience in it

yet

when you're in another seat

with it as the operator

enhances the experience

and you think

this is absolutely incredible

100%

in that way

I feel like

there is

there is some level of hope

because there is still a

level of an excitement

about being driven around

with no operator

but I'm sure that will wear off

I mean

I take Waymos regularly

I will never

choose an Uber or a Lyft

or a human driven car

over a Waymo

other than San Francisco

they're everywhere

they're faster

smoother

safer

more efficient

it's a better experience

100% of the time

including I finally just had

a bad experience

where it got stuck behind

a parked car

because it thought

it was in a traveling

even that was better

I hit a button

they called

they're like

okay we'll drive around it

and took 30 seconds

but so I'm used to that

and I'm no longer

fascinated by the fact

that this thing is driving itself

what I am

is excited

to get all of the

the other drivers off the road

who a. don't want to be there

but b. don't care

aren't paying attention

aren't looking

have no fucking lights

on the outside of their car

which is one of my

pet

pet peeves at the moment

no turn signals

no lane discipline

just following whatever rules

that they think

that exist

but don't

because they're from somewhere

else

services

because they're a melting pot

of cultures

it's just a

fucking disaster

American roads

are just a disaster

to drive on

because no one knows

what the rules are

and they certainly

don't follow the ones

that are there

and so

I think get all of those people

out of my way

replace them with waymos

that are predictable

and follow the rules

and I'll just drive around them

so if a self-driving

electric car

that you

and this brilliant

that you use

can give you that

level of satisfaction

to say that

this is absolutely brilliant

why does it matter

that we cling on to the other stuff

why does it matter

that the top automobile brands

are going in the direction

that they are

why does it

why does it matter

to cling on to the past

because we used to be able

to combine

two very disparate functions

there's pleasure of driving

and then there's transportation

and for a long time there

we were able to

to get one car

that did both

right

there were plenty

20 years ago

especially

plenty of cars

that were great to drive

acoustically interesting

fun to interact with

beautiful to behold

all of these things

and got us to work every day

and what's happening now

is the

the trans

we're separating out

the fun and the transport

in the same way that

this is tired old

corollary

but to horseback riding

right horse

riding horseback

is now a pleasure activity

and not used as a

transportation device

and we're seeing exactly

the same shift

starting to happen

where we're going to separate

out transportation

and transportation is just

going to be in some

self driven electric pod

but you go out for a drive

for fun

and it's a difficult thing

it's a difficult thing to know

that I used to be able

to get into a three series

and just

drift around a corner

and have fun

to on my way to work

and listen to a magnificent

straight six

and feel great steering

and now

no a Tesla

is always like a Tesla

it's set out to be

what it is

a Porsche

didn't set out to be a Taycan

no

and they're having to

compromise to make that happen

they're into compromise

to put smaller engines

in 718s

do you think

those brands will survive

I think most of the brands

that we know now

are on death watch

almost every traditional

car company

and I think what's

what really scares me the most

is that the pushback

against electric vehicles

that's happening politically

right now

especially in the U.S.

I mean it's happening everywhere

but my perspective is that

in the U.S.

from both from

from a sort of individual level

and the governmental level

right everyone

we're sort of rolling back

emissions standards

and fuel economy standards

and just saying

V8s for everyone

great fine whatever

what that's really doing

is attempting to stop progress

and I feel like progress

is like water coming down a river

you're not stopping it

the world has experienced electric cars

and I'm sorry

if people don't get this yet

they're just a better

transportation solution

period

and we will come to the decision

the world has already made

the world's sort of

governing bodies

have made the decision

we're going electric

the mass market consumer

will also come to that decision

as soon as they're really exposed

to an electric vehicle

it's the way it's going to happen

full stop

by pretending

that that's not the case

you're damming up a river

but what's really happening

is you're just increasing

the amount of pressure on that dam

you're just holding water

and holding water

and at some point

that dam is going to break

and what I'm really worried about

is any car company

especially the American ones

and American market perspective

that are saying

oh fuck yeah

now we can just put a V8

and you know every compact car

and not care about fuel economy

and not care about emissions

whatever

and stop the development of EVs

is going to find themselves

that much further behind

when the dam breaks

and when the dam

the dam is going to break

when for example

Europe can't hold out any longer

and says we're getting rid of

combustion cars

now you have companies

multinational companies

that make a worldwide product

that works everywhere in the world

or that only works in the US

but nowhere in the world

they're fucked

they have no chance of survival

so the ones that are forging ahead

with their EV plans

and sort of bifurcating

and having their ICE engine car plans

have a shot

but at the end of the day

if they're not looking at what China is doing

as a Chinese manufacturer is doing

which is amazing stuff

they're just getting left

that much further behind

which is just ensuring their death

in Monterey

where we are now

we're surrounded by millions

of car spotters

and people that have the same passions

as both me and you

for cars

my friend Scoop

shout out Scoop Supercars

I was watching his story last night

and he is

up in a canyon somewhere

overlooking the sea

road legal

road legal sesto elemento

just being driven around

and I'm like oh my god

but it's very young

do you think

the people with that passion

about the stuff will still have a place

in 50 to 60 years?

Hmm

will they be allowed to drive those cars on roads

is the question

and I don't know the answer to that

I don't think it's that far off where

cities will start to outlawed

human driven cars

and combustion cars right

I mean London's congestion fee

was not really about congestion

that was about emissions

and so and we know that

because EVs are exempted

from that right

so is that really a congestion thing

or are we encouraging the death

of the combustion engine

and so I don't think it's that far off

before even American cities

like San Francisco I'm surprised

hasn't started to move towards

no combustion engines

and then eventually no

human driven cars

and I don't like this

but I understand it's just

the march of progress

and we just don't have a choice

we're gonna have to get used to it

all of the people here

are really celebrating

old cars

right

I mean Monterey car week

is based around the pebble beach

concor

which is about really old cars

but at the end of the day

every you know

like there's just

combustion cars

there's nobody's bringing

electric anything here

and it is the years

of the resto mod

at the minute

I feel like

I get as excited

when like a resto mod is released

as what I do

when

like Ferrari

used to launch their new model

now because we've peaked

care less

like TWR

have you seen the super cat

TWR is a V12 Jaguar

oh yes of course

the one that's Kaisal

yes

great yeah absolutely

Kaisal Magnus

worked on it too

and lucky enough

my digital marketing agency

does all the website build

and supplies everyone

does some of the marketing bits

and bobs

and like what a thing

like even hearing it go up

the head would

good would hail

was insane

so I kind of feel like

we are living

the years of the resto mod

but even that

will come to an end

which is quite sad

so

maybe

I'm not sure if we have the answers

where it's going to go

we don't

I think the answer is clear

it's going electric

but I think

at the end of the day

all of us are here

I'm here with

40 year old car

everyone's here with old cars

and if it's

you know

a set to Alimento

that's

still an old car

right at this point

this is

20 years old

old thinking

these are combustion cars

and I have no problem

continuing to celebrate this

right

I have

who knows how many years

left on this planet

we never know

hopefully a lot

and I fully intend

to burn a lot of gasoline

and destroy a lot of tires

and

and I'm uniquely positioned

at a classic car

insurance company

let's face it

to sort of pivot

as the new stuff

gets less and less interesting

and I don't really

want to talk about

another hybrid

four cylinder turbocharged

two liter

Honda Accord

whatever it is

I can go and play

with something old

and that

that is

the answer to your

YouTube channel

I don't have to chase

the views

to to earn my salary

I can think a little bit

longer out

and say

what is the best thing

for Hagerty

and

can that influence

my choices

of what I'm going to cover

right

should I cover

an F-150 Raptor

look I'd love one

I'm you know

I guess a redneck at heart

but I don't think

that's really

going to appeal

that much to our audience

so as a tiebreaker

instead I will

to our

is not going to appeal

that much to the audience

of potential people who will

write an insurance policy

so if I have to choose

between an F-150 Raptor

and like an Alpine A110

the original one

I probably should do

the Alpine A110

now there are times

when I just say

fuck it I don't care

like I did

ZR1 episode

I did Cybertruck

right

I've

any of these opportunities

that I think are really

interesting

and I think

a story I want to tell

I'll do

but I'm

I don't eat

I don't live or die

by that

sort of

level of scrutiny on

eyeballs

and I get to 10

towards the old

cars which benefits

my employer

so I'm lucky

well you mentioned then

that every single one

of those cars

has a story to tell

and I'm so glad that

not just the cars

have told stories today

but you have told yours

because

someone that has had

a massive influence

are not just

my shape

and what I've become

with automotive

but probably

tens of thousands

if not millions of others

without even

consciously realizing it

inside

a very humble self at heart

I want to say

thank you for coming on

telling your story

on road to success

and meeting me today

and I hope that everybody

listening to this

enjoyed the episode

please hit that like button

don't forget to subscribe

and make sure

you're subscribed

to Haggerty too

so Jason

thank you so much for coming on

I'm very interested to see

what the rest of your journey

has in store

me too

because who knows

thank you

great thank you so much

Jason Cammisa: Worlds Greatest Drag Race Host On Being FIRED From Motor Trend

About this episode

Bugatti Veyron

Saab 900

Type Super Beetle

Volkswagen Beetle

Audi Quattro

BMW E30

Mclaren MP4-12C

Volkswagen Routan

Porsche Cayman

Tesla Cybertruck

Ford F150 Lightning

Model Tesla Paid

Ferrari LaFerrari

Porsche Taycan

Honda Accord

F-150 Raptor

Alpine A110

Request an Explanation

Want to learn more?

Help improve this episode

More from Road To Success with Benedict Fowler