Mike Fernie - Leaving DriveTribe and Going Solo
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Car
Ford Fiesta
The Ford Fiesta is a small car made by the company Ford. It’s known for being easy to drive and not using too much gas, which makes it a good choice for city driving.
Term
drive-trade
Drive‑trade means a company gives cars to people who write or film about them so they can talk about the car online. It’s a way to get more people talking about the vehicle.
Brand
Mercedes
Mercedes is a famous car company from Germany that makes fancy, high‑end cars. They’re known for good safety and smooth driving.
Brand
Subaru
Subaru makes cars that can drive well in many weather conditions because they have power on all four wheels.
Term
5600 horsepower
Horsepower tells you how strong the car’s engine is. 5600 horsepower means it can do a lot of work and go very fast.
Part
boost hose
The boost hose is a tube that sends hot, pressurized air from the turbo to the engine. If it breaks, the car can lose power.
Brand
MG Rover
MG Rover was a UK car maker that made several popular cars in the 90s and early 2000s, but it went out of business in 2005.
Brand
MG Motor
MG Motor is a car brand from the UK that makes budget-friendly cars with sporty looks.
Car
BMW M5 Touring
It’s a BMW car that looks like a regular sedan but has extra power and can pull off sporty moves. Think of it as a fast family car with a big engine.
Car
Jaguar XJS
The Jaguar XJS is a fancy old car from the 1970s and 80s that people still love for its smooth ride and classic look.
Part
Jaguar AJ 16 straight-six engine
This engine is a strong, six‑cylinder power plant that was first made for diesel cars but later changed to run on gasoline. It’s built tough and gives a lot of power.
Car
Jaguar AG 16
Jaguar AG 16 is a special, fast version of a Jaguar car that was made for racing. It has a very strong engine and is used by people who like high performance cars.
Term
V12 car
A V12 car has an engine with twelve cylinders in a V shape, which makes it very smooth and powerful.
Part
two-liter V10 engine
A two-liter V10 engine is a very small engine with ten cylinders, designed to be powerful but not too big.
Term
dyno
A dyno is a machine that tests how much power a car’s engine can make by putting a load on it. It helps people see if the engine is working as expected.
Brand
Red Bull Racing
Red Bull Racing is a racing team that builds fast cars for competitions like Formula 1.
Term
non-turbo
Non-turbo means the engine pulls air in on its own without any extra fan or compressor.
Company
Cosworth
Cosworth is a company that builds powerful engines for racing and high‑performance cars.
Term
naturally aspirated
Naturally aspirated means the engine takes in air from the atmosphere without extra pumps or turbochargers. It gives a smooth power delivery.
Concept
Group E rally cars
Group E rally cars were special race cars from the 1980s that could be heavily tuned and had a lot of tech for speed.
Term
V12 engine
A V12 engine has twelve cylinders in a V shape, which makes it very powerful and smooth for high-end cars.
Part
exhaust port
The exhaust port is a hole that lets the hot gases from the engine leave the car, helping it run smoothly.
Brand
Aston Martin
Aston Martin makes fancy, fast cars that are often seen in movies and on the road.
Term
supercharger
A supercharger helps a car’s engine make more power by squeezing extra air into it, which can make the car faster.
Concept
combustion engine
A combustion engine is the type of engine that burns gasoline or diesel to make a car move; it’s what most cars use today.
Concept
high speed runs
High speed runs are when drivers take a car to very fast speeds, usually on a track or closed road, to see how it handles and how fast it can go.
Brand
Michelin
Michelin makes car tires that help cars grip the road and stay safe. They’re famous for racing tires that give good speed and control.
Brand
Bhagati
Bhagati is a company that makes very fast, fancy cars in India. They’re famous for building unique, high‑speed vehicles.
Term
F1 V10
An F1 V10 is a special kind of engine that has ten cylinders in a V shape. It’s used in racing cars and can make a lot of power very quickly.
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What time is it, Ben? It's Fabric Darn!
Hi, I'm Sam Moore. Welcome to the car chat podcast. And with me to say, I have Mike Ferney, who you may have come across before.
If you haven't, he was an engineering student and car fanatic. The dabbled in a bit of journalism and then found himself working at Drive Tribe and then became head of video there.
So he was working with Clarkson, Hamna May, and then Natalie Hammond, a lot making YouTube videos and all the stuff that went behind the scenes with all of that.
And if you've watched the Drive Tribe, you'll see he's done a lot of videos on like real in-depth stuff about engines and just generally kind of nerdy car engineering type stuff.
And we had him on the podcast and he has recently left Drive Tribe to start his own YouTube channel. So we have a good old chat about that, about making videos, working at Drive Tribe, working at all these places.
It was a great chat. He's a proper car guy, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I hope you do too.
Hi, everyone. Welcome to the car chat podcast. I'm Sam Moore's and with me today, I have Mike. Hello. Hello. Welcome. Can you tell the listeners a sort of short summary of who you want, what you do?
Yeah, my name is Mike Ferney. I am a YouTuber who generally creates content around like the nerdy side of the car world. So mostly getting stuck into car engines, how they work, what they do, why they're good, why they're bad.
But until quite recently, I've been the head of video with Drive Tribe, I worked there for eight, half years. So I've made that move fairly recently, and I'm going at alone now. So yeah, to simplify it, car YouTuber used to be Drive Tribe.
Yeah. So, I mean, that's a big change. So you're going, you're writing it now. I think you all, when was your first video on your channel? Wasn't that long ago?
My first video was, yeah, a couple of weeks ago. I'm three uploads in now. But yeah, aiming top loads once a week. We'll see how that goes. But yeah, I'm just tracking on, but I've actually been away from Drive Tribe for a few months now.
I know this period to work out and stuff. So I've had a bit of time to accumulate videos. So the stuff that's going out now is filmed a few weeks or months ago.
And so going from working for someone else for a long time on a massive channel, like Drive Tribe, what led to that point? What was the, I've got to leave or did you get kicked out? I don't know.
How come you're on your own channel now?
Yeah, I definitely didn't get kicked out. It was very much my own decision. And to be honest, I was, you know, as I said, I was like eight years into working there. My head was just down and tracking on with the job.
It was quite an intense daily job work here, Drive Tribe, kind of covering everything that was going out video wise. And yeah, I was just nuckling down, getting on with it.
And then it was kind of some other YouTube friends that I was trying to be with. And they would just bring clear never so often. So when are you going to leave Drive Tribe there?
And I was just totally laughing off and be like, oh, you're just trying to, you know, mess with my head and stuff. And they kept sort of tapping away. And but then there was a few conversations that were getting a bit more serious.
It was like, no, no, wait a minute. Like you've kind of got yourself to a level on the Drive Tribe channel where like you could have the go at your own channel and you'd probably do pretty well.
And again, I was just, I didn't really want to hear it. It wasn't that bothered by it. But then just, yeah, the way kind of life progresses and the way your mind changes.
And a few over those conversations and something it was like, okay, this could actually be a thing. Let's have a thing. I think with my sort of engineering content on Drive Tribe, although some of it was like Hammond Centric, Rich Hammond is still the boss of Drive Tribe.
And a lot of it was kind of just me and my car nerd stuff. Yeah.
So I kind of looked at that and thought like that could transplant out of Drive Tribe and survive on its own. The titles, the thumbnails, the ideals themselves.
There's nothing that like fully branded them as Drive Tribe videos in the way that Hammond or Top Gear type or Grand Tour type video would be.
So that was the thing that was like, okay, like that, for example, I did a video about why the four decouple extension was such a disaster.
And that did, I think 900,000 views. Nice.
And I would look at that and be like, well, cool. That's, that was my idea, my title, my thumbnail. I went and filmed it with my guys. And yeah, there was no reason why that couldn't survive on its own channel.
And with that, those sort of video views suddenly start to talk, okay, like there's maybe actually something behind this.
So yeah, I then had a chat with my family, chat with my girlfriend and thought, okay, it's going to be incredibly scary.
But let's give this a go.
And yeah, informed Richard and just kind of all all live from there. So it's, it's been, I would say it's been like nine times out of ten, really exciting.
Yeah, getting on with it though. I've got no choice though. I've, I'm going.
Yeah. And what, um, so you're, are you aiming for how often you aim to put that videos?
Yeah, I'd like to upload every Tuesday. And we've got quite a decent amount of stuff in the can, as I say, because I left our trip in August.
So there's been a few months where I've just been keeping quiet doing my own thing. So yeah, I'd like to upload weekly with some other stuff on the side.
Like some other sort of business aspects to what I'm doing as well. Some of my YouTuber pals have laughed at the fact that I'm looking to do some other stuff as well.
It's uploaded once a week there, like there's you, you will do that for about a month. And then you'll definitely have to pack those things in.
But it's going okay so far. I'm reasonably organized.
Yeah.
So yeah, well, we'll see how it goes.
Yeah, that's a big, that's a big shift.
And then you, um, because when you drive tribe, you had a film crew.
Did how many people?
This is like a few. It was quite a few in that.
Yeah, drive drive always have like an in house video team.
Um, we kind of took over a production house called centric creative.
And so immediately with a video team of like four to six guys.
Um, so yeah, compared to a lot of other YouTube channels that that was pretty chunky.
Um, but I'd like to think it also meant like our stuff could look, um, a couple of levels up from, from some of the other YouTubers out there.
And that then attracted, um, some bigger brands because they wanted their stuff to look better.
And so yeah, that, that was definitely a cool team to have.
Um, but now it's me and, uh, two other extra tribe employees from that original merger that are cracking on there.
And he is your aim because I've watched your V4 video the other day.
And that's, that's like quite, that's like high music, high production value.
Like a lot of effort has gone into that.
Is that your sort of strategy moving on?
Like to sort of follow that.
Yeah, absolutely.
That, that was me and one of my camera guys.
And what's great is we've worked together for so long that I'll get a sort of V1 version of those sort of first edit.
Of that sort of video in like three or four days, which is just an awesome turnaround type.
But that's just because we can know exactly how we work with each other.
We know what kind of animations we like to get in.
So yeah, that, that's the type of quality I'd like to edit.
As I said, because they've come, because they, they were the guys that made drag trend videos look the way they did a few years ago.
And the fact that I can sort of immediately come in at that level is, um, it's a really nice thing.
Yeah, yeah.
And when someone comes to your channel and they're like, yeah, we've got two, three videos, but they all look like this.
Like, you're like, okay, this is, this is what we're all right.
Yeah, was it a bit, um, was it quite, were you quite apprehensive when you like uploaded the first video?
They're like, how's this going to go?
Absolutely.
Um, you know, yeah, there's, there's spots being good for me.
There's been a lot of templates of people leaving big issue channels over the last like four, five years.
Also, Alex Kirsten being like the big first one from Carthorotl.
And I used to work at Carthorotl as well.
Yeah.
I was chatting to him quite a lot about all that.
Um, but then the guys from Donut and all that stuff that's, that's happened in the last couple of years.
You can look at that and be like, right, that well, that's how they've done.
But it's kind of different drive drives, always been a very different channel to those channels.
We were kind of, I guess more similar to Donut having numerous presenters, but, um,
there's been no way of predicting how it was going to go.
But what was nice is when I listened to interviews like this one, but I'm from those guys.
Every single one of them always underestimated by a mile.
How much things we're going to grow and how quickly they grow.
There I took that on board.
I was like, right, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to be a bit more realistic.
Not to be our again.
I'm just going to be a bit more realistic.
The drivetrain is this size.
Well, you know, I reckon we'll hit these numbers.
My genuine goal was 100,000 subscribers by January.
Nice.
And then we've popped over that in two weeks.
Just absolutely ridiculous.
And the videos, yeah, the video views have kind of blown my mind as well.
I'd be honest, like the drivetrain leaving video.
Like, I think that one was always going to get traction and because people love that sort of YouTube drama,
or whatever, even though it's on that dramatic, frankly, the stuff I've said that.
But the performance of the second video that V4, one that said your words for that too,
that's actually surpassing the drivetrain drama video, which I just think that I don't know how that's happened.
But if I can continue that, I'll be a very happy boy.
And that's super cool.
Because that's like, yeah, the one that's like, I'm leaving is very attached.
Obviously, it's you.
You're saying leaving.
But it's also like a drive-tried audience.
A hundred percent will be like, well, why is he gone?
You know, but whereas the next video is, this is what we're doing.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly watching.
And sick.
And then my upload has just gone live a couple of days ago as well.
Like, badge tracking really well too.
I had the discussion I had with the auto Alex crew, so I've been quite tight-knit with them throughout this whole process.
We kind of settled being like, yeah, I reckon the videos will do between 70 and 120,000 views.
That was the kind of educated guess.
And yeah, so far, they're kind of all blasting past that.
So if I can keep that momentum, I'll be very happy.
Yeah, yeah.
And when you were working a driver, I definitely want to go back, but this just sort of popped up.
You're saying that the advertiser's certain advertiser's favored the high production value content.
Did you notice it's like a quite a big difference in what people wanted?
I guess a lot of that was high production value kind of all the way through.
But is that your...
You're like, we're going to go down the same route.
Yeah, I think it's...
There's two sides to it, because I would also say when you...
When the production quality gets to a certain level, it can also cause like a bit of like audience detachment.
Because when you watch other YouTubers, where it's much more casual, say single camera man, they feel like they're there.
Well, the second we were making stuff that like I would quite call it like TV level, but like not far off it.
You definitely don't form that kind of same level of community teams.
That's maybe something I need to look at going forward instead of just like the way I've done it all throughout these years.
Maybe I could shift it a wee bit.
But I think like brands weren't majorly demanding in terms of the visuals.
They just do immediately that they like towers and that they prefer to have that loop compared to some other channels.
So to be honest, in terms of what I'm doing now, I wouldn't think about like, oh, if I make it look amazing, it's all about the brands.
I think I'd much rather it was about the community and how people like the vibe around the channel rather than like the corporate site.
Because I think in the long run that will pay off way more than like, oh, I've got a big brand and yeah.
Yeah, yeah, it looks amazing, but I've got this size audience or I've got a really tight knit community that's.
Yeah, hopefully much bigger.
Yeah, yeah.
So how you studied engineering, right?
Is that right?
Yes, okay.
Engineering.
And so how did you end up with the YouTube channel talking about cars?
Like it's so similar, but quite not.
Where did that?
Where did that?
So how did you first end up with car throttle and before that?
Yeah.
So I was always a car guy at school and my dad has a couple of classic cars.
So we were always a bit of a car family, taking me to Silverstone or the NEC classic car show.
So I was always in and amongst cars growing up.
And then that kind of dictated from school for I was going to look at job wise and engineer kind of came up.
But I thought, right, I'm going to be designing cars and sorting out their engines and coming up with new suspension setups is going to be amazing.
And then you actually go to university and I don't know what your experience was like when the kind of engineering but like the second you go to university and you're like you're like two one level.
Like you're passing stuff.
You're having an okay time, but like there's people there on your course that are getting like 99 out of 100 in exams and stuff.
And you're just like cool.
You guys should be engineers.
You're like you are nailing everything.
You're making zero mistakes.
Well, with me getting like, you know, like 63% in an exam.
I'm getting 37% of that wrong.
That's not good.
So I'm just amongst these high flying, you know, a grade engineering students thinking like wow, like I don't think this is fully for me.
And to be fair, there's been loads of people that got two ones in my course who have gone on to be fantastic engineers.
Does that, does that worry you when you look at magic manufacturers and go there's a bunch of people in there that got a 30% stuff wrong.
Some of it, some of them less.
Some of them, yeah, exactly.
One, you know, 60% on the dots.
And it's just like, wow, but I just thought just the way my mind worked.
I was just like I, I can probably exploit my brain better elsewhere.
And the kind of real kicker for it was Bidway through University.
I had a bit of a nasty breakup.
And that was bored like right, okay, what's going to make me the happiest day today?
What will I do, sit down and do the start of every day and it almost doesn't feel like work.
And it was fundamentally driving cool cars because at that point.
And this was like 2014, 2015.
That was when channels like evil magazine were just nailing it.
Like the top gear'd been great.
But then suddenly you had evil Chris Harrison cars.
And even some of the other magazines like auto car and auto express.
Some of the stuff they were putting out was just magical.
My favorite person, my favorite car journalist that was kind of my Clarkson at that point was Henry Catchpool.
I still do.
I think he's the man.
And the content he was putting out, whether it was fronting evil car of the year or some of the road trips he did up to the Highlands and stuff.
That was just I was like, I have to do that.
That is the dream.
So I knew I could write a bit from school.
I was always quite good at creative writing.
And then I had the technical background from the engineering and sort of car knowledge.
And so I thought, right, okay, I'm going to have a good car journalism.
I think that's what I want to do.
So file all my engineering pals were applying to mostly defense.
Yeah.
Babcock, BAE, Lockheed Martin, all these places.
I was applying for my summer internships, auto car, auto express, EVO, car throttle, basically anywhere that I could find an email address for.
I feel like, right, I wanted to do it.
And what was quite cool is being an engineering student.
That just made you stick out that wee bit more than someone who's just like, I like cars.
I think I can write a bit, give me a shot.
So immediately when the replies came into those, there was two that came up, it was also expressing car throttle.
And they really honed in on the fact that I had that sort of technical background.
So I entered there, had a great time.
But the main one to stuck out was car throttle because they were compared to also express, which is, you know, a weekly magazine that's this very old school.
And car throttle was just this huge breath of fresh air, like proper, like social media generation.
Car journalism, their channel was one of the biggest in the UK.
If not the biggest at the time with Alex, fronting it.
And that's somewhere in the trip when so well with car throttle that they basically offered me freelance work while I was finishing my degree.
So it's a five year degree.
So the final two years when I was not doing engineering stuff, I was sitting there,
opening my laptop, writing articles for car throttle about how a V12 engine works, how a V6 works, how this gearbox works, etc.
And I was awful as a mechanical engineering student for those final two years.
I feel so bad to the people that I was in group projects with because I was just awful, you know, I do barely any work just because at that point it was like, right, just get the two one and nothing else matters.
Yeah.
Which I did manage to do, I managed to get my degree, but then it was it was straight into car journalism.
But unfortunately at time, car throttle being quite similar to drive tripe, like London car media startup fluctuations in the business are just crazy from month to month.
And when I was leaving university, I said, right, can I have a full time job?
Sorry, no, like financially, we can't take you on. You have to stay as a freelancer, which is not the best thing to do when you've just left university.
So I then applied for just at same time job came up content editor at evil magazine.
And I was like, right, nevermind car throttle.
I'm going to get the dream job.
I'm going to be hanging out with catch pole, ballington, meeting all those like top level evil guys.
I went in for interview and I got the job.
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And I was like, great.
I'm a professional car journalist. Let's go.
But then, then like the contract came through and evil and auto express were under this company called Dennis Publishing.
And what they've done is given me the job at Dennis, but then shifted there across.
So there I was actually going to be content editor at auto express.
And that is the new Ford Fiesta, the new key.
Yeah, quite different.
E up all that kind of stuff versus go on evil car of the year.
You know, very, very.
And actually, I still I know the guy who got the evil job, Jordan Katzianis.
He's he's, I think he's at auto express now.
But yeah, I immediately was like a bit bummed, but the same time I was like, well, wait a minute.
This is my first job.
I've got it.
You're in it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I can maybe try and transition to evil.
Imagine that's what most people do.
They get auto express.
So that was all good.
And I was two weeks away from starting there as a magazine journalist.
And then I got this Twitter DM from a guy called Malcolm, who was absolutely this thing.
He was head of content at drive type.
And I was like, oh, yeah, I've seen these like adverts for this drive type thing.
I've seen clocks and say, this is drive type.
But it was quite hard to figure out what the hell this thing was.
And I imagine were you one of the like early, early access people?
I was quite early.
And I definitely.
Yeah.
Pushed content.
The thing I remember about drive type when it started was you had to log in through Facebook.
And that was one of the most annoying things anyone could ever do at the time.
But it was.
I love that.
I love you.
So a very good memory.
It's the negative stuff that you remember.
Yeah.
Yeah, obviously.
And then I remember thinking like, oh, this is a new community.
Obviously, it's got like a big name backers.
But it's not like, what could this be?
This could be a new platform.
This could be a new massive platform.
I don't know.
Yeah.
That was the main thing.
It was like great.
If you.
The early line for a drive type was like it's this is the Facebook for cars, which is always fraught with.
You're basically saying you're taking on the big boys, which is a hell of a thing to come out with.
I think that the premise was, I think there was something like 15 billion cars in the world.
And the premise was that, you know, we only need 1% of those to be.
They dragged me into it.
Exactly.
It'd be on the into having car social media as like its own platform.
And the app would fly.
I can't remember the exact numbers of the amount of people that actually got drive trim accounts and were frequent users.
But it wasn't half a billion people or whatever that percentage is.
So yeah, I suddenly looked at this thing and I'm like, well, do I want to work for auto express or work for Clarkson Hammond and mate, which is what it looked like.
And it was like, right, well, this is an absolute little brainer.
And also being a startup, the salary was pretty punchy compared to the old school.
And magazine salaries was like, okay, I'm going to go do that.
So I sent an email to auto express with two weeks to go say, hey, sorry, I've got something else.
And I went for drive drive.
And so that's where all started.
I was a writer, a drive trip originally, just doing what I did for car throttles, drive trip, engineering technical articles and got stuck in.
The really again, the coincidence of me getting the job of drive trip and then realizing that my hero's evil magazine had also jumped ship.
And I've gone to drive drive because drive drive basically just said, who do we want?
Yes, through money at people and got like a hell of a team going.
But then as I arrived, that shows how quickly I've startup changes.
I think they'd been there a month or two.
And the week I started at drive drive, catchable, involving didn't got the heat.
So I was, I was going, I was finally going to work with my complete coincidence.
And then basically the video team got completely cleared out overnight, which was just insane.
But that I guess I then paved the way for a 14, a couple of years later with me.
But yeah, that's how that's how I got the job of drive driver.
And then that evolved that evolved quite a lot.
And then the website and the sort of business, I guess, evolved quite a lot whilst you were there.
Yeah, so it was very much at first.
Yeah, the website, it was, it turned into democratizing car journalism.
So essentially anyone could set up a tribe and start writing car content.
And it would get published.
If it was good enough, it would be shared on the drive drive social media platforms like Facebook and stuff.
And you'd have a view counter on every article.
And I don't know, it seemed like a very cool, interesting idea.
And I think it was, but I think at the end of the day, there were also some fairly fundamental issues in terms of growing it.
But being on the start up, there was millions of pounds being pumped into this thing to then find this sort of 100 million pound idea.
So I think that the number that the newspapers quoted a few years down the line, I think it was 21 million pounds, was basically put into this, this platform to find something that would blow up and become viral.
But it was very, very tricky, but the community was amazing.
There was so much content going on there.
And yet it kind of ticked that box.
You could start and almost build up a CV of articles, content that people could send around.
There are numerous people that are in full-time car journalism jobs now that were drive-trade people.
They were just simply drive-trade users who are no car journalists.
So I guess on that front, it did kind of work.
Yeah, that's quite cool, isn't it?
The ability to post an article on the web on a platform that people know, and then you can go, my article got 10,000 views.
That's more than a magazine sold last week.
It did also work the other way, but we drive-trade essentially fell out with every single press office in the industry, because people would rate three articles, get, you know, yeah, like 10,000, 30,000 views.
And they would go straight to press at Ferrari.com and be like, hey, I don't know if this is true, but I think in the early days, I heard a rumor that someone got behind the wheel of a la Ferrari because they convinced Ferrari that they were a journalist.
Really?
When in actual fact, they were literally just someone, like an Instagram user, or a Facebook user, they literally signed up, created some content.
Because the PRs hand quite figured out what our trip was yet, they started handing out cars.
That's a good rumor.
That was the big one, and I know Mercedes were also the happiest back in the day, and there was a couple of others that had to kind of been duped, I guess, into handing out press cars to essentially complete public.
Understandably, we had to rebuild those relationships, which are much better now.
But yeah, drag drives soon started to change so they cleared out the video team to concentrate on the app.
So YouTube, Henry and Jethro, I think I've got the drag drive YouTube channel to 200,000 fairly quickly because people just kind of come straight from evil and come and subscribe.
But then it's sat dormant for a couple of years, really, about a year and a half.
But then commercially, the demand for video, such as go through the roof and drive trip at that point was like, okay, we spent a lot of money on building this app.
We kind of need some folk to start paying us brand wise to do some integrations.
So the demand for video went through the roof and they started filming complete ads, like some brands they would come in with briefs and they would make full on adverts.
And then put them out on the YouTube channel and the comments, predictably, we're awful.
Because people have come from seeing these lovely eloquent pieces with Jethro and Henry.
And we're suddenly being served like five minute, like for a few hours.
Yeah. And there was a legitimate meeting. I wasn't in it, but I was told afterwards that there was about to be a call made that the channel was going to get deleted.
And they were going to start again with these ad type content and building audience from that building audience.
You're never going to ever. It's never going to happen. Who's going to want to watch that stuff.
Thankfully, we didn't delete the channel and I stuck my hand up and said, well, okay, if we need to do like branded content, let's do that.
But we need to also give the audience something to watch.
So alongside that stuff, can I have a budget to just start creating stuff that I think could be cool and hopefully the audience will watch as well.
And that got given the thumbs up. So I started creating first videos as there was a series called Drive Tribe in detail, which was me going to like iconic cars and kind of going through them engineering wise, like what makes them interesting from an engineering perspective.
And so that kind of kicked things off thing. I was 2019. I did my first couple of videos and I am, I am trying to be Henry catchable.
I'm trying to be like all eloquent and like talking really smoothly, which is just not I've not with the voice for it. I've just no other to me there. It's just not me.
But it's it's quite painful as it is for all content to look back. But yeah, that was a start of it. And it's kind of all just built up from there.
And I guess at that point, if you like working for Drive Tribe, you could literally go on the Drive Tribe website and go, I don't know if you did this, but what are the most popular articles that we have top 50.
And then you know, I can make a video about that one. Can make a video about that one. Can make it. Did you do that?
That's exactly what I did. And the correlation between what did well and what didn't do well on the platform versus what then translates into video was like quite symmetrical.
And that kind of came from the fact that Alex Carthrottle did that with some of my articles. So it was very cool to see that I would write an article.
So I thought eight things, why BMX5 sucks. And he would then literally take that as a script and then do a voiceover.
Exactly.
So I then kind of took that. I didn't do voiceover stuff by then presented my articles. I almost had like ready made sure it's ready to go.
And I kind of kept that five ever since I was all not that I write articles anymore, but I feel like I could kind of take my videos scripts now and kind of reuse them as articles.
That's such a good little test. I know you're not doing that now and you've done you've had so much experience of doing that sort of loop that you know, okay, this this sort of stuff works.
But being able to throw put together a short article, test it, see the feedback and then go, right, well, now we'll put all that effort into making a video that is that and then chuck the chuck the video out.
I guess now you just want to make a video.
It wasn't like absolutely foolproof like there is a difference in the audience between people that want to sit and read something versus watching it.
I would see eight out of ten times if it formed well in an article that was got posted to Facebook, you could translate it and it would do very well.
And when you're making content, there's those sorts of videos, which like if I was making a video, I historically being really bad at following the data and what works, because I'll go, I don't want to make like the five reasons why blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But those sorts of things historically have always done well as videos, top 10 this blah, blah, blah, blah.
And then I go, I don't want to make a top 10 video.
Do you have that sort of battle of like what you want to make versus what does well?
Not really. I feel these days, you definitely have to have like a big punchy title, but I think to be honest, you have to start there and then build it down from that.
Like these days, you're fighting an uphill battle if you've just got this great idea, but then you're kind of struggling for a title and thumbnail for it.
I feel like some of my worst performers off on DriveTrip came from that.
Oh yeah, we should totally do this and do it this way and do it that way.
And then once you've done it, you're then like, OK, how the hell are we going to market this for the title?
Well, if you start with title and we actually did this in our ideas meetings at DriveTrip and I still do it now, it's like an idea cannot be brought up.
It cannot be talked about unless you start with what the title is going to be and what that thumbnail is going to look like so that you almost don't need to then explain the idea.
The guys sitting there and you're meeting immediately, they can almost see it in the YouTube feed and they're like, yeah, I would click on that.
That's kind of where you need to go now.
You can get away with it sometimes, but you're just rolling the dice a bit if it's just like idea first and then how do we market it?
Sometimes you'll go to market and be like, oh God, we've actually nailed this.
Look at this title, look at this thumbnail. This is great.
But you make your job so much easier if you start there and then flesh out the idea of the back of it and then off the back of that, it then like your script itself, nice punch intro, then where are your key points down the video?
How do you get people to know that that key point cool bit is coming, but not quite coming yet. So stay tuned.
Just all these little rehoops you have to do the best person at it and it shows in his video performance is Matt Armstrong.
His hooks he has about 12 hooks per video and the initial one is just so strong that you're almost at the almost don't need the other 11, but they're in there anyway, just to keep you going the way.
Matt's almost become I would almost say he's influenced the industry the car media industry so much that you could almost stencil out a template and match it up to quite a few channels videos.
Yeah, but Matt was very this sort of very much the sort of pioneer of that amongst us lot he's absolutely nailing and still is.
So it'd be interesting to see what the next move is because things always evolve but right now I could literally jot down like right here's how to do a big hitting and get it from style video and it's so it's just metronomic but he's absolutely nailed that template yes.
Yeah, because I remember like this sort of Mr. Beast format was like obviously you've got the title thumbnail and within the first I think I can't remember exactly what he said it was but he was like in the first 15 seconds you've got to show that you're about to not only deliver on what you're promising but you're about to smash it like by 100 and then it was like shit.
Yeah, yeah, exactly and yeah, to be fair, yeah, you could probably trace it back exactly to him literally world's number one youtuber yeah so.
It's it's in terms of to answer your question turns like is it frustrating creatively and I'm not sure my brain really like goes down that route and thinks oh I wish I could do this really eloquent boring thing I think it's for just like no that that that's the way it is like do I want this video performance that the most important.
Yes, but at the same time like do I want it to seem authentic and interesting for me as well yes to so like there's definitely a balance but I think these days you can almost take any.
Any idea or content strand whether it be freaking pottery or candles or watches and apply that formula to this kind of no reason why the sort of mr beast that Armstrong.
Template can be applied to like virtually anything rather than like oh well that's just a naturally boring subject this I know like if you just find what is needed for that template within your niche there's no reason why it can't be a punch you.
Yes and I and if you can I definitely believe that any subject can be interesting if you've got the right person explaining why 100% 100% yeah passion is like the number one thing you can be you can do a video about.
World or two bullet casings or battle.
I'm literally anything yeah and if that guy is nuts for it you're going to say much and incredibly good at knowing the bits they're going to tell you and not going down the 40 minute ramble about the exact specific bits of whatever it's like these are the key information that can engage you.
And then you'll get drawn in and we carry on and then we'll just cut it.
Yeah absolutely the way I do that especially with some of my engine stuff is you you kind of convert on that title and thumbnail.
Right at the start but also like that first say 10 minutes is giving the audience the development of that title and thumbnail so I did have a video recently about quad turbo V12 that's just come in Italy.
And there was so much other amazing stuff in this workshop I made sure that first like eight minutes was about that quad turbo V12 kind of from start to finish.
But then you add in your like extra hooks and continue on with the other crazy stuff that was happening so you can.
YouTube wants you really to make 50 minute ish videos these days because it's replacing television so much.
You basically make things full on TV episode length and if you've got your kind of formula and your hooks right is absolutely zero reason why people aren't going to sit and watch the entire thing.
Yeah and what you might find I don't know I kind of think so it's because now you're on your own channel.
And it's just you the audience will be your for your subject matter but they will also be for you and they'll be willing to listen and you probably found this I don't know whether you found this on drive tribe as well you had your own sort of like sub audience that was like your audience on drive tribe.
Whereas like you might be able to talk for 45 minutes on something and people are more interested because it's you as well as the way you're doing it.
Yeah I think that's having a YouTube channel with numerous presenters on it I think is it's a tricky thing you can kind of look at it same with with donut and drive tribe is definitely that case as well I think.
At the modern YouTube audience they don't really like surprises they like to know exactly what's coming and like what to expect they like consistency which the second you're a YouTube channel with one presenter who has a certain style and who dives into certain subject matters.
You're just immediately taking all of those boxes it's going to have people coming back again and again well drive tribe you know you would as you say you naturally have sub audience is within your audience so there's going to be you know the biggest bubble being well Richard Hammons in that from the old title going to click on that.
And then you had my videos you had Isis videos you had Ben Collins ever so offer on the channel as well there's been some tiff detail recently there's this like almost.
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Yeah there's some people would look at it and be like oh well we're creating this like smorgas board of content and you know it gives people choice and people like coming as as much flexibility and content as possible a bit of this a bit of that but that's I'd say maybe that's more TV audience in terms of YouTube audience the as I say they want to do exactly what's coming and it would be the number one bit of feedback I got.
As I had a video at drive tribe was there's we're just going to know clue what's coming next yeah and they would they wouldn't say that in a positive way they'd say that and I like oh I just I never know if I'm going to click which is not the healthiest thing for a channel so be actually moving away to my own thing it should actually help both.
Yes it'll mean drive track and streamline down to originally and as as you say with my audience know it's my face and my titles and thumbnails the people that come subscribe that's exactly what they want to click on rather than something having someone else's face do something completely different yeah hopefully it should help both sides.
Yeah totally and your algorithm if you've got like I don't know what the try try audiences big but let's just say it was a million and you've got five different styles of video.
You might have 200,000 people kind of wanting to click on each one is not going to quite well like that and so if they go your audience is a million but only 200,000 people click on this type of video whereas if your audience was 200,000 and 200,000 people watch it they go this is a great video let show this to more people.
Yeah exactly it's almost like for the different sub audiences like they could work against each other yeah on the same channel and because yes if someone for example say one of my videos goes up and a bunch of the audience doesn't fancy it so they don't click on it.
That means the next time a drive track video comes up on their feed it's just the subtly a little hurdle in the way to to click it.
Well they might not even get shown that one well that said they don't click that one then YouTube starts to think ah that's been two in a row I don't think we're going to bother serving it to the person and then that can snowball so and that then leads to big fluctuations in views throughout the time and what I'm kind of discovering on my channel right now is how how consistent it seems to be when it's just my face and an engine and an interesting title having that consistency.
YouTube appears to be looking at my channel thinking right well everyone loved that first time out so we're going to serve it to all of them so I don't know if that's like essentially a fundamental not issued but like a but almost like a fundamental flaw of a channel that has numerous presenters on it so again if you look at the donut channel depending on who is presenting the video they all had like series that they made you know up to speed and all the all the different.
So it's a series that they had and that would dictate whether this amount of people would click or that amount of people would click is that I think it's it's kind of based on channels that have a lot of big brand deals I think because it allows them to commercialize those chapters those different series so like you know I'm a different commercial prospect to.
I'm indefinitely but also to Ben and is a like it's all different so it's almost like for a business from that perspective you have a bit of a marketplace a bit of like a almost like a pricing sheet that you can send to brands instead of having just like one solid thing so maybe business wise it's actually better to have that you know have have those different aspects of the channel but in terms of like pure algorithm channel performance these days it seems to be.
The better called to be one man give the audience yeah and then you get to the question which a lot of channels I think of experiments over the years and we seem to see me a lot now which is like the idea of a when do you make a second channel.
Like for you for example you might go well my engine videos do amazing I'm just going to do engine videos and then you start doing one that's like a bit different it doesn't do so well you know do I keep that on my main channel or do I just keep doing engine videos on main channel all do I have a sub channel that's like.
Like for me to or whatever you know and then that question because some of these second channels are absolutely killing it.
Absolutely and we had a.
Us I kind of non car channel at dry tribe called what next it used to be food tribe with James may but we kind of rebranded it yeah and we just called it what next and that basically gave us.
A complete open book in terms of what the ideas but it was essentially if we are interested in it will go and make it and what's quite interesting is it is you if you ask the driver cameraman from that time.
What were their favorite videos they made they never choose a drive track video they always pick the one that was like someone completely brand new so like we did a steam train video we did a nuclear bunker video we did some travel stuff it was just like.
Suddenly this like complete fresh air idea and they always picked those so I I think if I was to start another channel it would be almost like Mike Furnay other stuff yes because i'm kind of a nerd about loads of other things like all war two planes nuclear bunkers yeah.
I like snakes you know please yeah yeah i like the great content and but well I say but I think the expectation for that second channel would have to just be metered versus the original one because as I say that that sort of concept immediately becomes a bit more scattered yes then you've got the consistency of the presenter but.
The subject matters being all over the place versus like car engines and cool engineering and that can certainly be a bit of a role of the dice so I would I would really like in future to be able to expand things to other subject matters and if the audience is there for me then hopefully they would click but i don't think i would do anything that rash anytime soon I think i'll I'll they wanted right now get build like a really nice community around it and then go from there I don't think I would do a.
Mike Furnay mark two channel that was like literally still car stuff that just another channel sort of the same channel yeah yeah exactly i think it's as as you said some channels i mean some of it's outperforming the main channel was just an instant but yeah i think i'd rather concentrate on that one whether it's it's also a function of how old the main channel is.
If you've got a really big main channel but it's 10 years old and you do a second channel second channel is going to get disproportionately large views versus any new channel.
YouTube is just so algorithmically based now that people almost don't even need to subscribe anymore it's so clever now but if you've watched a video and you've liked it and you've watched another two after it's just going to serve it to you and you don't really need to subscribe the worst thing.
The audience can do for you to channel is subscribe to it and not watch it because you tube it's just a red flag for for all their mechanisms in the background so yes like big old channels with like a shed load of legacy subscribers you could call them who are not watching anymore because they moved on and it totally happens like you kind of realize it yourself like the people you subscribe to suddenly you realize you haven't watched you just be obsessed with that channel you haven't watched.
So it totally happens but it's yes it's the almost the ideal way to start to sort of affect the channels for sure yeah it would be an interesting feature that YouTube would never do it because it would sort of go against everything the viewers goes well I've subscribed to that but if a channel had the option of like maybe seeing what percentage of their audience had him watched a video in a time period he looked and then you have the option of unsubscribing them.
100% like I think channels we jump at the chance to do that I think the channel performance versus just having that big subscriber number to save through it brands I think the balance is way more towards channel performance so yeah I think if that was a feature I think people would go straight through and just carve those subscribers out and kind of have their channel even yeah yeah I would always think of it although yeah I'm drive tries about to go past two million subscribers.
I only really ever thought of the channel in the last couple of years in terms of like what I thought that algorithm size was that actual pool of active watchers because yeah like you can say to you million but you're just left constantly disappointed if something gets 800000 views because you're like well wait a minute over two thirds of our audience hated this video but which is just not the case it's you know how many the YouTube even serve it to it might have been a million and therefore.
800000 over a million so amazing so yes I have that became a feature I think even the likes of mr beast and some of the big boys would definitely and they go you go whatever I've got three million subscribers to be honest over two and a half or whatever the number you pick like that number doesn't really doesn't change that much so what we're going to do is we're going to act 50,000 people every month just like chop them every month so your number doesn't maybe doesn't necessarily change.
that much but you're just slowly calling the older whereas if you had 100,000 subscribers and you're like 30,000 of these are like quite old you probably made you may it'd be better for you but the optics yeah I also think like I can't remember what for does it but I've never had some
memberships for like if you don't touch them for a while you get an email saying like we're about to delete your account I think it's some of the streaming platforms I think it might be like ITV hub or something I got a notification for a couple months ago that was like you have more to anything on here in like two years
unless you do something about it we're going to delete your subscription and that would almost be quite good because it would kind of probably re-energize if people would be like oh well no I still want to be up as a speaker.
you should get a notification that's exactly what is you should get an email something be like you've not watched this channel for that's also a cheeky way of getting people to watch your channel isn't it but
exactly you're about to get booted off and you go oh no let's see what they're up to and you might watch a few videos yeah so I that could be really effectively of like re-engaging or it'd be like yeah yeah there's a reason
yeah all they just remove themselves or whatever like job done yeah yeah yeah that would be neat yeah that would be good that would be neat what anyone listening to this video is works at YouTube and what's your what's the favorite your favorite video you ever made um yeah I think weirdly like I was mentioning earlier I think it was our nuclear bunker video which is nothing to do with cars and favorite car video I would see it was it was actually
on the same trip and the bunker was up at Scotland and we built Richard's Grand Tour Subaru to be a bit more monster and we got it up like 5600 horsepower and and you did like my alleged put on it and to kind of sort out you know get get oil around the engine do oil changes just get some proper like break it in
essentially and instead of doing you know 50 miles around the workshop where it's built I decided to basically do a massive road trip it all the way up to Scotland have we took it to my favorite place in the world which is an island off the
west coast called Aaron and I see almost as like Scotland's Isle of Man because there's a one big single ring road right around the island which immediately you're like oh it's got a lap yeah and the
roads are fantastic this scenery is amazing it's called Scotland in miniature because there's like a geographical line that goes all the way through Scotland like Loch Ness and it comes
diagonally through Scotland and it ends on my lover and and it's called like the sort of Highland divide so above it you've got loads of mountains and below it it's like lowland Edinburgh are
glad these are places so it cars straight through this island so that the north it's almost like um what's that forza rising the the north of the
island super mountainous and fox and so and then literally just there's this line and you come down to the south of the island and it's
something like the lowlands of Scotland so you've got everything all the wildlife um it's got Scotland's big five wildlife like gold
needles and everything um it's a beautiful spot so I thought right we're going to take riches Subaru there because a Subaru
in pretza where it's been like semi sort of ups and we'd quite rallyish on twisting Scottish roads it doesn't get
much better than that so I'd say that that video is probably my favorite on drive type taking riches Subaru for that
shake on on that island um but yes the nuclear bunker video we were basically talking about um like could you actually survive
uh an atomic blast if you're in one of these bunkers um so it was pretty dark video and like super
science and stuff but um it's worth a watch I think we we put it out just as the open time removing
was coming out so it got a million views down very quickly um so it was just insane um but it was just
nice having that kind of reset and sort of you're suddenly scripting about some and completely different to
horsepower torque yeah to it engine the sound of it and so it's refreshing it's like the yeah
refresh your brain that maybe every every now and then you've got to do something different just
just for yourself I did a yeah I did a podcast with a someone that made really super high-end audio
equipment and I I loved it it's exactly the same concept isn't it it's like I do this all of the
time and then you do something different that you're also interested in you know yeah that's great
great for my brain yeah after that I think that then helps you with like your more data these
exactly it just gives us slightly different perspective on it yeah so that that Subaru was it
reliable did it break down do you know what it was yeah because we we bought um we wanted to get
the other two cars from that special so Jeremy had a ODRs 4 and James had an EVO 8 and the ODI
got bought by member of production and it's actually on sale on ebay like now or something yeah
yeah literally got put up uh I think he's like gone through it and he did so much work
god knows how much he's spent on that like engine out the fuel supply yeah um so I imagine he
wants a pretty punchy figure for it because of that uh but the EVO obviously famously had an
enormous crash with James by the way um right into the bee pillar where his head was pretty gnarly crash
and that car we saw it there's like a grand tour facility um the it's on a farm somewhere there's a
big bar that's full of all the cars that come back from the specials and we looked at this thing
and it's one of the most bent cars I'd ever seen like the whole floor pan the whole chassis
has moved about three inches inwards it was it was really not good no chance you were bending it back
out and normally Amazon would let like the trio gets like first dibs on their cars they never
get sold to the public but they always get they if the trio don't want them they'll go to members
of the production team and then it's kind of a bit grave whether they can then sell it which is
what's happening yeah um so we asked for the EVO and they said sorry like in terms of like liability
for Amazon we cannot let you have this car because if something goes wrong again yeah that car is
just going to crumple in on itself it's going to be bad so instead we bought our kind of exact
replica almost exact same color of EVO 8 and did a build on that as well and out the two cars
the super in the EVO the Subaru was just an absolute tank and virtually I think it it popped one
boost hose once and apart from that it was completely solid all the EVO was all over the place it
was an absolute disaster so I so I think if you build a Subaru properly yeah I mean from stock
like they're up they're pretty good but then when people like slightly mess with them that's when
they go to hell yeah you know they blow head gaskets this and the other but then if you go that
step further and spend far too much money properly building one of these things it then kind of
comes out the other side does a really solid car and I gather the Subaru has recently popped a drive
shack it's been launched too many times make of that what you will considering who owns it
but apart from that it's been very very solid yeah that's that's reasonable a friend of mine has an
EVO 10 I think and that is just repeatedly blowing up but he's now got to the point where he's done
the full he spent all of the money and he's like it should be fine now you're like yeah sure whatever
like they're better to drive the EVOs are much pointier car like on a British B-roads you're
going EVO most of the time but for the sake of just a car that works most days of the year versus
on the dozen you'd probably go super every time yeah if what is if I said what is the car that you
most sort of have an affinity with would it be something like that what what's the like
what does Mike Ferney like tie it in the closest with um my my thing is really
MG rovers outside this house there's two basically as as a kid growing up the classic car in the
family it was an MG an MGC from the 1960s not meant my the first car I wanted hey what's up
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but and that was essentially a Rover 25 with the body kit on it and some lower suspension
but the insurance on the MGZR versus the Rover 25 which is like the granny car yeah
it was four times the price despite being the same thing yeah and so I ended up going
with the Rover 25 but yeah I'd say fundamentally I like I like stuff that's not like crazy
performance I like really mundane cars that are just slightly turned up but like
another car like a monday ost that's almost the exact epitome I like like four monday
like the most fundamental dad car of the 90s ever but they suddenly put like a big V6 in it
and make it a bit spicy that I really like that aspect of it and there's quite a few like
British steering cars from that era that have those road-going versions where it's you know proper
mom and dad school pickup car but they just put slightly spicy or engine in it that's what I like
but at the same time the best car at my time at drive-trip was easily our E61 M5 touring
that car was but I mean we spent 19 grand on it which made it good
so I imagine like normal ownership which Chris Harris is going through yeah yeah it's maybe
a bit different but we did all of the jobs on that five liter V10 what a car and yeah I would say
that was the best car we had on the drive-trip channel and we did like quite a few project cars
but yeah that M5 touring like you can get a five liter naturally aspirated V8
who got 500 horsepower you know how did he did one but it's like 380 BMW like 5 510
of the cars um but we bought for 18 grand it's just like unbelievable and revving all the way to 8
2 yeah 4 ton motor and that that kind of got me even more into like special engines especially with
its special engines and cars that are fundamentally I mean it's a five series right but suddenly it's got
a five liter V10 and that's that's right on my street yeah the sort of car you look at and you go
it's very similar to all these other ones but then you know you're like yeah yeah but it's
gone absolutely loony engine in it it shouldn't have that silly un-economical possibly worse
than the one engine down to live with in reality but it's cool yeah but also what's quite
cool to see is the the top head center boys I've just bought a V10 RS6 twin turbo V10 and that seems
to be a couple of levels worse really the V10 got like anything because there's because there's
got twin turbos and all the packaging involved in that virtually any job it seems as engine out
yeah well BMW to be fair to them they are fantastic at engineering a car that can be worked on
quite easily you know they they have certain hold to go all the way through the engine so you can
get at that nut yeah I need a big extension all the way through because they've felt through it
well I would be just packed yeah you know twin turbo V10 into an A6 essentially and that seems
to be just next every single job's like 15 grand 15 grand like insane so lots of channels
go down the project car I mean obviously at the moment rebuilding smashed off is obviously huge
but I don't know where that I don't know how that keeps going and where that ends have you got some
some project cars or a project car lined up in your own yeah when's this going out when roughly
will this podcast go this will be probably like two weeks okay the project I'm cracking on was right
now is I feel like the hype for the Jaguar XJS is starting to creep there's a few big names out there
Chris Harris being one of them it's just started buying up some of these cars so I have an engine
that I'd like to the Jaguar AG 16 they're straight six it started off as a diesel and then midway
through development they swapped to it being a petrol and because the engineer did it from the
bottom up the bottom end of these Jag straight six is brutal it's really heavily built for that
diesel torque and I had someone look at it and be like that's not far off at all uh two jz or
or b265 to mend top end you know not quite there but bottom end that can take some serious power
so I'd quite like to I've actually trying to accompany right now about getting a turbo the size
of my head and attaching it to a Jaguar AG 16 and having basically a big turbo XGS
yeah and aiming for 600 700 horsepower probably it's not like you know 3000 horsepower super stuff
but still very very punchy so I'd like to have a go at that because I think probably sometime next
year you know the TWR car yes the supercat though then being my big turbo I know Chris Harris has
got plans for his I think Harry Metcalf he had wanted me I think he might have just sold it but he
had one yeah um and then Tom Lenthal who's kind of very much part of the auto-alcoholic
universe and I've done some work with him as well um he's got a racing XGS it's pretty punchy
like a V12 car so suddenly it was like this collection of cars that you know nobody cared about
the XGS even like two or three years ago like they were 1500 quid some of the like the real bad ones
but now I think the tide's really turning on them so I had to quite like to do that and the one
I get that people always comment about is the V10 MX5 that was a project that started a drive
and it basically we're developing this two-liter V10 um you can lift it up like with your own
how it's tiny this thing yeah and uh actually I've taken a picture on my Instagram it's like the
point we've got it to now but I think we fundamentally underestimated it's like engine development
like a no EM can do it in like a year two years where five years into developing this two-liter V10
and I've been told it'll be running by January um but that's the one like if you look at the
comments and all my videos everyone's like yeah yeah cool but what's happening to me then um so
that car should be coming soon the car is ready we just need the I've been told the engine's
going to be on the dyno in like the common reach yeah running properly by January so that'll be
a world first weirdly there's loads of V8 MX5's LSS and stuff there's one V12 MX5 in South Africa
someone's built a Toyota century V12 in Toyota MX5 but no one has done a V10 yeah and so that
that'll be cool to be a first one you could do and and how are you gonna film that part so you're
gonna do like a project binky star 500 videos um or you go one bang yeah well sadly again the way
modern YouTube works you cannot have so and so episode 12 just can't like detail just move on
and they'll just never watch your channel again so it's almost like well I think we've probably
done six or seven videos I guess in that style yeah on uh in in in the past on that car
but we've never got it to the point where it's like okay cool and here it's finished so I'm just
gonna set film a bunch of content but yes it'll be one big hit that says we finished the V10 MX5
and it'll be a full video where you see the engine go in you see it running on the dyno you see it
being broken in and then you see that first drive it all that's so yet it'll probably I know we're
been a half long but that's kind of a modern YouTube wants it so that'll be it and on a on like an
hour long video do you get significantly more YouTube revenue or how does that work do the people
pay more to advertise in it or you just have more slots yeah like um it's kind of both kind of
both really yeah the second you've got a video that's seen 90 minutes long you can just physically
insert more ads obviously not to like spam your audience and constantly break up the video but
there's just the sudden real estate to insert a hell of a lot more ads um and then if people are
watching it for as long say if they're watching it even for like 40 minutes say of that hour and a
half the CPMs you're gonna be ripping on that video because advertisers like wow look at how long
people are watching this video for yet yeah these are really like solid followers we want to be
attached to that so we'll pay more for it um say that's good and then yeah if you can push
to a brand saying you're basically gonna get a TV episode worth and possibly even more from this
say for example on a project car say it's a tool sponsor and it's like right but like here's an
hour and a half for every single time a tool is used your brand is pointing to the camera that
can be really tasty for brands like that um or Ethan uh like I don't know an energy drink sponsor
um or say energy drink replacement like holy yeah sponsoring a lot of people um again like
I've used have this entire video where like just throughout it some holies getting swigged
yeah the entire way through the video just quite casually again you've just got that real estate
to have a lot of those little mini integration so there's numerous ways you can play it
yeah that makes that makes sense if you're have you sort of tracked out you go okay well if
if we got to this number of audience and then maybe in two years time let's say you might you were at
like oh we've got a million subscribers or I guess the main number really is how many views
of the video is getting because that's that's the real the real thing if you've gone things I would love
to do if we were earning silly money because you take your sort of my arms like thing
starts off is and same with actually Alex a little similar sort of thing if you start off they were
doing cheap cars real like enthusiast which are anywhere like quite a hundred percent works but
I think there's a certain audience that just loves cheap cars cheap builds because they go everyone
goes I could do that and then ask people's channels get bigger and they have more money they're
like well let's do something crazy let's do something crazy and then you end up with
Tavarish rebuilding in 918 and a P1 I know this is nuts but like how does that track and is there
anything you go well if if we can make the channel big enough I'd like to do this stupid thing
yeah I think you have to be careful with that because um I think if you're if your channels
fundamentally rooted with like a certain value and a certain scope of content it's quite
I've seen many channels do it with a reach certain figure and they basically like they almost like
overreach their audience yeah and suddenly the relatability just disappears yeah so yeah I think
you have to be quite careful I think what would work the best for me is that my how I was
going to say struggle is hardly a bloody struggle but um I well I would love to get involved in
engine projects at OEMs right from the fundamentals like for example during the the portion 919
the Le Mans car was V4 some I would love to do with a manufacturer would be in there in like
the meeting where they sit and decide what engine the next upcoming cars to have because there'll
be some such fundamental decisions and arguments being made about power, fuel efficiency,
packaging all these different things even like what the brands should be showing like should
Porsche have a V4 like in the end there's a pretty weird call they made in the end um but I would
love to be in there at that point for example like Red Bull are building that RB17 hypercar right now
they drew a one they've opted for I think it's a four liter V10 thousand horsepower
I would love to be in there at Cosworth day one where it's like right here's a sheet of paper
Adrian's handed it to us he wants a four liter thousand horsepower V10 right lad how are we going
to do that and just the sketchbooks come out the calculators come out and they immediately
what's the the angle going to be a part of our cylinder head is going to look like what's not
sort of airflow do we need turbo non-turbo right okay but just all those like really like simple
but like incredibly important decisions the the thing right now is I'm I'm asking these questions
but there's just no way a lot of OEMs would give you the access to to get in there but I'd like to
think that the latest video um with that supercar is called turbo V12 that maybe that's the first step
because I've been going there quite early no one else has created content about that specific engine
um I'd like to think that's maybe the first step and showing an example of what we can do because
yeah um it might be you know a complete you know no go and it'll never happen because NDAs
would have to be worth about a hundred million quid or whatever but I'd love to me that's the level
up yeah yeah yeah I think that's I think you could get a long way there and by doing that sort of
thing working with the the small exotic companies hype car with it like those sorts of things
a lot of them most of them they want to tell the the why and the story and their reasons they're
probably less it's not going to be as nuanced and complicated as your why does the F 80
have a V6 in it that conversation on the Ferrari board must be that's quite interesting
yeah it'd be nuts like look like Begati so like Matti Remak has gone to Cosworth and be like
I want the V16 lands yeah you know what what was the reaction in that meeting and you could just
imagine like the sort of matrix coming down the screen of these engineers being like right it was
a V16 well it's going to have to be this displacement and it's going to be naturally aspirated
right well the car will need to be two feet longer and so all these things will suddenly
be jotted down a bit of paper I would yeah I would love to be in the room when that sort of stuff
and then like hang on to the content and follow it all the way here's the
sort of the vein of V16 so the chances are there's a four cylinder new engine just an inline four
that they then multiply up into a 16 I want to be there when that thing first fires up this like
God knows how high RPM four cylinder that will then become a V16 and then they might have an
inline eight as the next one that then gets doubled up and oh I just that I cannot
get more height for that sort of stuff it just be amazing so yeah I don't know how to navigate
that maybe again someone will listen to this and be like well I work at Cosworth let's
let's freaking do it you know I don't know but I would love to be in there I had a conversation with
Bruce Wood of Cosworth and what a man we were talking favorite people he's a cold dude we were talking
about engines and I I thought when someone like you know Gordon Murray goes I want you to make a
blah blah blah blah engine V12 like this blah whatever I thought they'd just go kind of
did it did that that there we'll design a new engine thank you very much I've done and it sounds
like that's not that the process of designing an engine that works is so complicated and so expensive
that there's sort of like well we've got like you say we've got a V4 that's like about right
for what you want okay we can make that a V8 or whatever it rather than they just go you just
told us what you want and we're just going to start completely again they kind of like have we
got something that's close enough that you're not going to have to pay 300 million pounds to make
an engine or whatever it is well I I go in a bit of trouble with the maybe this is why I've not
been included in the 16 conversation I go in a bit of trouble with Cosworth and as to Martin
because I had a very nice conversation with Mr. Mr. Bruce Wood's absolute legend and I essentially
found out that the Valkyrie V12 when they design engines nowadays but back in the days they
like the Ford DFV days the people would come to Cosworth was just a power figure really right I want
a 500 horsepower engine go and they would be like right okay well let's do this many horsepower
personal and they're therefore that means it's going to be a V8 let's do the calculations from
there it's almost from like the bottom the crankshaft bump thumbnail title first yeah exactly right
nowadays it's all about this I don't really like the phrase but it's the combustion system
which is basically like they start with the chemistry that's happening within the combustion chamber
and then extrapolate it from there so that's from the top interesting right yeah do you remember a
car called a Jaguar CX-75 yes yeah like a purchase Jaguar supercar that like never made it on movie car
yes well that had a twin charged four cylinder engine in it well I'll explain how this
is yeah yeah yeah two two in charge four cylinder engine so turbocharged and supercharged like the
old Group E rally cars and if you listen to this thing on YouTube it screams it's like a 10,000
rpm four cylinder is boosted that weight 500 horsepower and then the hybrid attached and made it
a 900 horsepower car and although it said Williams advanced engineering Cosworth made that car
sorry made that engine and it was so efficient the combustion system that was happening in that
four cylinder was so good in terms of horsepower per liter and the efficiency of it the emissions
coming out that that when Ashton came along and said can you build us a V12 for the Valkyrie
they basically went into their cupboard got out that Jag engine and started there so we've done
a video on drive-trip where get a jump on next summer with Verbo's early booking deals don't wait
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linkedin.com slash quality start hiring today with LinkedIn there's a four cylinder Jag engine with
one cylinder blanked off they've literally got tissue paper shoved in the exhaust port of this
of this engine and that is how the Valkyrie V12 started so that Valkyrie V12 is essentially four
Jaguar CX 75 this is what I'm talking about he's still in does yes
um so I I then said that in a video and asked him Martin lost the absolute
as you can imagine because they think you know we spend billions of pounds on this amazing
yeah that everyone's laughing it's bespoke made by aston Martin yeah yeah but you you learn
that the engine industry whenever someone says bespoke engine you can immediately call
bullshit on it essentially like but a lot of it is it starts somewhere because the real
thing an engine is so difficult that the chances are there's at least a new engine somewhere that
starts it with something a lot more mundane so yes again that that piece of content is exactly
the sort of stuff I want to do maybe not like you know blowing the the top off of stories like that
and the knowing manufacturers but being in the room and having cooperation with the manufacturer
and it means that it's telling those stories these days as I say it might just be impossible but
definitely smaller manufacturers they're up for that sort of stuff yeah yeah absolutely
more the more bespoke small crazy what's your favorite engine uh it's uh
it's got to be a Porsche like a GT3 engine I don't know whether it's a it probably is like a
Metzger something like that um it's just like straight into my soul that sound absolutely love it
do you still have as a 996 you know no no seven still got it yeah it's um I've sort of
slimmed down the number of cars I've got and I've only got that's my sports car now although
I've not seen it for six months waiting on discs anyway um but no that's the like that's the
never sell yeah I'll never say never but like you know I do it's kind of just like me in a car
now for whatever reason cool um I'm done with that yeah no no it's it's these sort of
your point about designing an engine around like you know the way the combustion works and what
I feel like we're we're at that with the like the new 992 turbo s has crazy hybrid electric
turbos or like I presume you've seen all the bump for about that that engine and that they have um
see I just can't remember it has to burn at a specific level of like lean whatever what's the
value called something equals one air air fuel ratio um in terms of how much it's like you're either
overfueling or not and it yes yes it's extremely cleanly whereas rather like normally you'd
put in a bit more fuel just to keep it cool and and whatever and so I think the new the new 992
turbo has like quite a different engine to all the previous ones like it looks really different
and I yeah I think it's all based around that what do you think about these sort of hybrid
engines with things like big electric turbos and stuff yeah it's definitely going to be the next step
I kind of feel I've actually got a video coming up soon that's like at each stage of the internal
combustion engine we feel like we've peaked like when the V-Rong came along 1000 horsepower
w16 it was almost like everyone was like well this is it because all the other supercars were like
500 horsepower around about that um but then it just the game just keeps moving on and suddenly
being added you know it's 1800 horsepower yeah that jimaru v12 2000 horsepower it's like it
just keeps going and I think Porsche are almost always at the forefront of these things so I've
not quite done I've not dug a deeper into because like Formula One had electric turbos
years ago so I I would like to do the sort of connection between the two and see if like they're
basically the same thing and this is basically the first time it's come to come to a road car
but the challenge is that the guys like Porsche have to face because they need their
they want to what does that put out is it 700 horsepower that sort of amount isn't it
something yeah but it but it has to pass you will that and also not be too loud and it's like
cool without 700 horsepower from the engine but it can't be too loud like yeah what do you want about
um so I do not end the the engineers having to sort that out that's a hill but coming up with
solutions like that like that's that's what's going to keep performance cars going and going and I
I can guarantee you won't be long until there's a two and a half thousand horsepower engine it's like
drivable like it's not going to be some silly thing in America that's got a super charger
the size of a fiesta you know it will actually be like usable like 2000 horsepower which is just
sounds insane do you think we've seen the end of a sort of standard manufacturer combustion engine
high-speed record do you know what I mean because we've got the yang one yeah um the the fact of the
matter is you have to work so much harder if you're having a nice EE engine um basically with an EV
turned up the power as much as you want as long as the aerodynamics are vaguely all right
you can you can probably smash it out um so yes I'd say I don't I have Bugatti said whether they're
going to have a punt with their new turbo or I I don't know I think they're sort of
pre the yang Wang
Kerning's egg and everyone were like yeah we're going to keep you know it's kind of fun like we'll
just keep nudging along and then I feel like you know someone like BYD coming out and being like
well we've got 3000 horsepower and like we've just done it we didn't talk about it you kind of
go where they could probably do three and a half thought thousand horsepower couldn't they there might
be us do for like it's just by me thinking the electric motor just making bigger motors and a better
power pack and better technology like I think they're kind of I'd be the end it's not it doesn't
excite me at all no no because you watched you watched the onboard of these things and it's just
wind noise oh yeah oh wait up to the exact right okay well if you go back it even it seems
archaic now but actually just two days ago I I rewatched that video of Andy Wallace taking the
McLaren F1 240 is it 241 he takes it to yes and my god like that now thanks it's all over the
the front end is doing this and you get yourself to be steering in it like 204 miles an hour
it's absolutely insane this that BMW V12 is like off the freaking limiter against right round
awesome piece of kit well yeah you watch that back to back with Mr Yang Wang like this
hearing Andy Wallace talk about doing high speed runs and then you know I can't if you went up
to the blood hand level it's the same thing it's like the stuff he talks about that's happening
and he's always talks about like you know the the bolt on the wheel is blah blah blah blah blah
because this one's spinning that way and that was not spinning you know you started getting
weirdly crazy talks to you above 230 or whatever it is yeah the scariest thing I heard recently was
um like Erylsian has like one it has a bridge that goes over it like mid to mid to mid okay yeah
the street and he says you could feel the bridge like punch the air pressure coming off the car
and then because engineering wise back off the bridge actually like shunts the car like
that's just ridiculous it's so nice like absolute legit yeah
and then those sorts of stories and the engineering explanation behind those sorts of high runs
like even I'm sure even the Yang Wang because no one's going 300 miles an hour without like
some engineering you don't want to take off you don't also don't want to smash through the road
like what sort of control systems extra controls are they doing in the car to keep it going in a
straight line at 300 like probably quite a lot oh god yeah terrifying absolute terror and like
what are they Michelin because that's always been the huge factor as well the tires what
what tires are on the Yang that's a very good question I don't know because I remember
kern exec were always just running like cup twos because their car was like 1,300 kilos
whereas the big atti it was like they've taken 4,000 tires and then they've picked this bespoke one
that's like reinforced with titanium and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
well that to be fair with the turbion like that's supposed to be a hell of a lot lighter so I wonder
um is it though if that that could help it in that respect it's got all the high breads batteries
and stuff well let me know cool car though turbion when that came out I was like you
yeah I can't wait yeah but I don't I don't even if they don't go for the record I might have
so they'll still do like a top speedrun yeah and hearing that things singing all the way hopefully
it's our man and it's behind the wheel yeah um that would be sick but yeah v16 there's not been one
of them since like the 1950s so that that would be epic to see on the road it's funny out
and you don't know whether what was in the line but having someone like mattay involved in
bhagati bhagati just seemed to be seeing so much cooler stuff now then it was cool but I think
like believed and like all this sort of stuff oh that's just pretty bonkers yeah but it's totally
big sense because I think it was a top gear video I think it was top gear yes and the
there was only q went round um his car collection yeah yeah yeah it's like it's it's like
our generation it's the stuff car collection but he's like a billionaire yeah it's not what we
would all do if we had like hundreds and the the thing that I thought was amazing with that because
that is now big old company and he's part of a big group is you I don't think you would ever see
a CEO of another company like CEO of Ferrari showing you that Ferrari collection even if they owned
a CGT it would never be in the video yeah yeah but he's like here's my e463 love it hell fricken yeah
you're one of the boys you know yeah exactly it's very cool to know someone with that level of
power and same with uh Voncon exactly yes he does it he does it looks it's just free and like
MX-5 you know delis and MX-5 it's like yes you are you are the man yeah and you're not a lesser person
by saying that this other stuff is sick that was around in the past and like yeah I want to own that
it's not like I get that as one of the questions shock are it's like five car garage and I when
if it's for someone who works for a sort of manufacturer it's the most important thing ever
because they're like I've got at least five cars from my manufacturer and you're like
well that's it I feel I feel like I turned up uh say I've I the V10 MX-5 is finished I feel like I
could turn up a current executive HQ and turn up a Bugatti HQ and like Matty or one current
executive and some of the engineers would club out and be like holy shit look at this yeah well like
as you say if you turn off at Maranello it's like jeez rookie park that can yeah you're not that park
if it's not Ferrari you're not going through the gates all right okay yeah if we're not
going to be atta then yeah right well I know we wrap these up with five questions and since I
that was Norman the last question we might as well hit that up five car garage unlimited value
it's got to fit into your life so if you do have a daily you've got something you drive daily
there's kind of three supercars that come straight in uh jaguar actually 220
Porsche Carrera GT and then like my attainable one which I'd love to do in the next couple of years
you're asking like where do you want the channel to be in terms of where I want myself to be yeah
I've always loved the V8 Taudi R8 ever since Clark's in Drove on top here I've never actually
been that bigger fan of the V10 cars but the V8 manual just epic so I'd love to sit on one of them
one day and I would daily the hell out of that like I would drive that a lot and so yeah hopefully
that'll that'll happen fairly soon then like it turns out like family dad car E61 M5 to yeah
um I would need the unlimited budget to keep it going yeah yeah but yeah family car with that
engine in it R1 be manual swapped as well just phenomenal um and then I probably you know keep
things rounded and outside is my little mgz R160 from the VVC Rover K series in it um that's my
little track car I've sort of upgraded the brakes on it it like when your car has that little
power and is that light basically uh brake lines race brake fluid that won't boil over and then
some meaty pads and you're done yeah um so I think I've had my trophy yellow mgz R160 nice nice
um do you watch your most memorable driving trip or journey oh um I think the Aaron trip
my love Aaron trip with the Subaru is up there and then I'd say there's another couple one of them
being in me and my dad drove a Morgan 4-4 from the Morgan factory to the Le Mans classic that was
amazing and then at the very start my journalism career when I was blogging this was like
yeah mid-car throttle I guess I got my first press car which was a Subaru BRZ and a ticket
to do the North Coast 500 um before it got crazy busy so it was actually quite nice nice um so yeah
but yeah I think I love Aaron I think that'd be my top one yeah so uh what do you think is the most
undervalued car at the moment what should be worth more jaguar etch it's not not to ring my own bell
but like I'm doing this build for a reason yeah um I think they they've just been cars that
you see rotting in hedges for years and I think because of that there's actually suddenly
it's not like they're super rare now but there's definitely significantly less of them
and significantly less really nice ones so I think they've gone from like British Leyland
to rend us to actually something if you'll want to invest in so jaguar XGS um to give an answer
that's less slanted towards my channel um what do I think is undervalued maybe it's as you mean it
if you've bought one yeah I guess yeah that's the best um I think it to be fair um because classic
car prices went so nuts yeah a few years ago you know e-types going for like quarter of a million quid
um I think there's actually some pretty amazing deals to be had with some of the like early
jaguars so I've actually I did a talk yesterday I didn't plan this for this but I was checking
about how I got into cars um this is a corgi jaguar actually it sorry xk 120 yeah um
if you look at them now that they win nuts with e-types yeah but now you can get I think I saw an
sk 140 for like 50 60 grand when they used to be comfortably six figures yeah so although that's
a hell of a lot of cash and actually see if you're into classic jaguars and there's some deals to
be added there all right every time I see an sk 120 I just look at it and go that's just an amazing
looking vehicle it's it's one of the best things guys with me yeah definitely Richard's got one
he's got one that's in it's immaculately restored but it's all in bits so it just used to be like
legoseted together and I've said to him like when you do that and if you film up for a drive drive
like please invite me back for a car meal yeah because that like David Gandhi did his yeah and I feel
like Richard was like cool I want to beat that I want to do a better one than that because it's black
as well like Gandhi's one was yeah and yeah sk 120 and they're like kind of people say the mirror
was the original supercar but that thing back in 1948 was pretty bloody incredible pretty cool
that we'd if I if there was a six car garage at bnksk 120 one of them there what is the most interesting
car to you at the moment could be googling could be technology it's probably the Porsche LMP 2000
when everyone says the Carrera GT has a Le Mans slash f1 derived v10 that was the Le Mans car
and Porsche very recently got it back going and got Alan McNishback by in the wheel around the
Vysach track so that thing it's got a different displacement to the one that ended up in the
Carrera GT because they kind of changed it all about to make it worthy for the road but yet that's
it there so v10 naturally aspirated Le Mans car and yeah some of those pictures are like brand new
they've got they've got it back going so I am in the midst of you know in my in my journey to get in
with OEMs and get super into the engine meetings this is one from like oh you you want to advertise
all this work you've done to get this v10 Le Mans car that never made it to Le Mans going I can
help spend hours like licking that car yeah it's so nice especially because I've not painted it
it's just in that like carbon black like so so cool so I would love to basically tell the story of
the Carrera GT's v10 it's like the classic thing I can't you know when you're over here a different
people telling stories and around certain cars yeah whenever you're next to Carrera GT someone more
pay what being like oh yeah that's called f1 v10 it was on the shelf and this and the other I would
love to actually tell that story yeah yeah those those v10s like have you seen I can't remember what
the guy's name is there's a drifter that put a judge v10 in what was it Ryan Turk Ryan Turk
in it what was it some sort of super wow wow yeah well like yeah ridiculous build and like he got
it like it works he's absolutely it works but I think he did it was supposed to be a I didn't know
there was supposed to be a drift car but he time attacked it it is a drift car and he did do a
time time to time things right I think right okay yeah and Jesus the sound of that thing yeah I'm
actually I'm planning a video with Judd I'm quite pally with them doing like a sort of stark finish
building up one of their f1 v10s and so start with it like all over the floor and end with this like
f1 block together it's actually be quite cool but yes to be fair in terms of where I'd like the
channel to go like if I can be doing builds like that that would just be next I feel like that would
still be within my real house yeah totally crazy numbers got big enough and whatever and sponsors
and whatever and you're like but this would be cool that yeah exactly that for me is almost like
kind of peak YouTube it's like where the personalities and the stuff they've created enable someone
who's clearly car nuts to go you know what would be cool this is gonna be real expensive but you
know what would be cool let's do that like you never see that in a TV show yeah yeah basically
like these days you just need the sheer either a very good friend a big brand who just has a lot
of decision-making power yeah I don't know who you did Ryan turks while it might be motel or
so like yeah you get like an oil sponsor on who's just like yeah cool what you need for that car
right here it is go for it like we want to have that thing in good wood we want to have it
looking a sicker like that's the way the brand sees it yeah you can make some serious stuff happen
there was some projects that nearly got going at Drive Tribe that would have been absolutely insane
because like the sponsor was big enough there was a financial heft behind it they just didn't quite
happen so yeah maybe I'll keep them in the back pocket for a later line that they could be pretty
silly all right well thanks so much for coming on the podcast now thank you it's been awesome I
I'm a genuine listener I listen to your podcast but it's very cool to be on yeah it's been awesome
awesome thanks for watching
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About this episode
Mike Fernie shares his journey from being head of video at DriveTribe to launching his own YouTube channel focused on car engineering and culture. He discusses his experiences working with automotive legends like Clarkson and Hammond, the challenges of creating engaging content, and his plans for future projects, including a unique V10 MX-5 build. Fernie reflects on the evolution of car media, the importance of community, and the balance between creative freedom and audience expectations. His passion for cars shines through as he explores the intricacies of automotive engineering and storytelling.
Original notes
Mike Fernie spent 8+ years at DriveTribe, became Head of Video, and helped build some of the channel’s most-loved nerdy engine deep dives — now he’s gone solo on his own YouTube channel.
We talk Clarkson/Hammond/May behind-the-scenes, how YouTube actually rewards consistency, and what Mike’s building next (including a big-turbo XJS and the infamous V10 MX-5).
https://www.youtube.com/Mike_Fernie
Enjoy.
Show Notes:
00:00 Mike Fernie: the quick backstory (engineering → car media)03:06 Leaving DriveTribe: why he went solo (and what changes)06:05 Making videos people actually finish: workflow + production choices08:56 What the audience really responds to: retention, comments, feedback loops12:10 DriveTribe’s evolution: what worked, what got harder over time14:58 From mech eng to car journalism: how Mike got in18:02 Did DriveTribe change car YouTube / car journalism?20:55 The next phase of content: personal brands vs “channels with presenters”23:54 Favourite videos + experimenting creatively (what he’d do more of)56:00 Icon cars: reliability, running costs, and what’s actually worth owning1:00:48 Mike’s car taste: the stuff he’s drawn to (and why)1:04:09 Project car plans: ambitions, budgets, and “bad ideas”1:08:54 The business of YouTube: strategy, revenue, sustainability1:12:19 Dream gig: building engines with an OEM / real R&D access1:18:41 Engine design shifts: what’s changed (and what’s coming back)1:25:14 High-speed records: what’s possible now, what’s myth1:31:57 Five-car garage: the keeper list + standout car journeys
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