[S8, E5] What Happened To The OG Car YouTubers?

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You're all going to hate me, but to start this,

just for people's nostalgia,

because I think that's what this whole trip's about,

can we do our YouTube intros?

I will start because it's embarrassing enough,

but hello one and all.

Welcome to Seeing Through Glass,

even though this is actually a behind the glass podcast.

Tim.

Hi guys, I'm Schmey.

Hello and welcome to Data Monaco.

We should have done each other's.

No, no, that's so bad.

Really?

Tim does it to me all the time.

Did you ever have an intro?

I had a few, but the one that probably most people would link to

is like, what's up guys?

Welcome to Supercars of London.

Yes.

It was a what's up guys.

Yeah.

Straight in.

Jim Chapman S.

What time is it set?

Morning.

Which was often set at about 2 p.m. when Seth actually woke up.

That was his body.

That's actually how I would start my day off-camera also,

as I walk into the room for you guys.

Morning.

I've got videos to say otherwise.

I have been trying to work out the last time all four of us

were on camera together.

Literally like five minutes ago.

Most of today.

Most of yesterday.

Before this trip.

Thank you, sir.

I think we did one of these.

Some sort of podcast thing once.

Not all four of us.

I generally think if you really think I've been thinking about it

quite a lot this whole trip.

Yeah, I think the last time all four of us.

What are you going to say, Paul?

I wasn't there for Tenerife.

Oh yeah.

Awkward.

The Bentley trip James was there you weren't.

So I think it would have been top marks like 2016.

The all four of us were on camera at the same time.

The audience will know.

I find out.

In my memory that's when I could.

That was the last time I thought.

Obviously sociably we've all hung out.

I don't know if we've all hung out.

I don't know the last time all four of us hung out together.

No, they haven't been moments.

It would have been bumping into each other at Goodwood

or something like that at some point.

Go on, Tim's got something.

Abu Dhabi F1 2016.

Surely after that.

There's a few stories we can tell from that trip.

Here they are.

Well, Abu Dhabi F1 2016.

Is that the one where Trey songs?

Oh yeah.

When we all together.

Okay, we're going to distract it.

My point being we haven't been together on camera for a long time.

So listeners, viewers, what a treat.

If you haven't clocked what's going on.

Welcome to a special episode with what we like to call ourselves

the OG Automotive YouTubers.

Maybe it's a bit crass that we do that.

Is it a bit sad that we call ourselves the OGs?

A little bit.

Whatever.

Tony's not here.

Sorry, we were pacing Tony to that.

Yes, I've already warned them.

Don't worry.

Because a lot of people do like to complain when Tony's not here.

But if Tony was here, we'd all be in serious trouble.

And know what we're going to wear.

He'd be slagging us all off.

It is going to be hard to get words.

And there are four of us.

But just in case you need a reminder, at the moment, myself, Tim,

a trip celebrating the 10-year anniversary of a trip we did,

10 years ago, surprisingly.

Which is nuts.

I mean, when you first, I can't remember who brought it.

I think Tim, it was you who brought up the reunion tour.

Yeah, I think I suggested it with Sam.

Just having a chit chat.

It was like, what about it?

And it was like, it's 10 years time.

I was like, what?

10 years?

It's flown by, hasn't it?

Yeah, I remember when I came to film the SF90XX,

we were talking saying, it would be good to finally do something.

Because we have tried so many times.

Over the years, and we're going to get into it in this podcast,

why it's taken us so long to all appear on camera again together

and to do one of these adventures.

But we have tried.

But yeah, when we were sitting there, we said, what should we do?

And then you were the one who clocked.

Oh my god, it's literally 10 years to the day in October

that we did that initial drive down.

And it felt like, yeah, a good...

Well, I think we needed a reason, right?

We needed something really significant

that we could all work towards and align our diaries to

and be like, that makes sense.

Because up until this point, it was like, oh, well,

I want to do a trip, guys.

You want to come along or pull and say, we're like, hey,

we're going to go to Monaco.

You guys want to come.

We could never make it all happen.

This was a good glue to stick to us.

When you have a fixed date, a very specific date to start,

it's very easy to stick to it, isn't it?

Yeah, no changes.

No, no, can we move that a bit?

OK, we can get into this because I feel like Tim's still

holding it over me.

Just a bit.

We were supposed to do this trip 10 years to the day.

We were supposed to literally do it 10 years to the day

after the original trip.

I shifted that by one day because I had a commercial commitment.

You had everything booked and you had to move.

I hadn't even booked my Euro tunnel and my hotels and everything.

Because I was alive.

What you were just saying, right, it was that specific.

We were all like, this is actually kind of a moment

that links to a specific time.

So if you're going to do it, you're going to do it.

It's not let's do it in six months.

Let's do it two months ago.

But I was like, what's a day?

No, no, a day is good.

You've made my life difficult because we've just had our very

busy two days and then tomorrow morning I'm off again

or tomorrow afternoon.

Isn't that your life though?

I try to make it last time it hasn't been like that.

OK, when have you ever heard Tim say, yeah, I'm just chilling tomorrow?

Oh, yeah.

Anything planned?

Yeah, I think so.

What are you doing tomorrow?

Because I've got no plans.

I've never heard you say that.

You might remember this.

That month, October 2015, that was for me an absolutely chaotic

month because when I took delivery of my FF675LT GT4, we did

this trip, was flying backwards and forwards everywhere.

I made a document on my computer that I called ultimate carnage

because I felt like that best described what that trip was.

That same document is still in play and it's still called

ultimate carnage because that's just life.

Do you know, you snuck away.

Do you remember you snuck away at something like after like three

days you're like, I have to go somewhere.

Right, press trips.

But what was it?

It was something that you didn't tell us and then you came back

to the launch of this.

The trip that we did 10 years ago.

No, 10 years ago, once we'd got to Monaco, we were hanging out

and then suddenly Tim disappeared for like three or four days.

Do you not remember?

You went off and you did a press trip for something.

That does ring a bell actually.

Tim's going to find out what it was.

I could find out.

I definitely went to the R8 V10 Plus.

Maybe.

Press was it V10 Plus?

That feels less exciting than I remember.

Whatever generation that was.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was some silly schedule of hopping

from one press to another.

Because you left us.

Because we were at a race for pizza.

You left us.

Well, at that time, right, I was just getting started figuring out

the kind of rotations with manufacturers going to different events.

I think even manufacturers were figuring it out because I used to go

to events and sit there with all the magazine journals that we've all read and watched forever.

So it was very much a whirlwind, I was going to say.

It was really last minute manufacturer might be like,

can you come to this thing in three days?

Okay, I'll figure it out.

Because you were kind of the guinea pig, really, weren't you?

At the start for manufacturers inviting.

And at the time, what would you have called yourself?

Or what were manufacturers calling you?

Because I think we were YouTubers, right?

At the beginning, when we got invited, it was like the vloggers or the YouTubers.

We weren't, there was influencers, wasn't a thing.

We weren't influencer rotations.

We weren't invited on lifestyle waves.

Lifestyle wave.

Yes, sometimes the end.

I sat with, you know, it would be Chris Harris or Steve Sutcliffe or Andrew Frankle,

you know, the magazine guys, like the well-established magazine journalists.

We don't know what he's talking about.

Just to clarify, we are currently now sitting in Seb's apartment here in Monaco.

This has been the destination for this trip, which is right in the thick of it, let's say.

And Paul is nervously twitching because every now and again we hear an exhaust or something

drive fast and he is desperate for this podcast to end.

So he can run outside with his camera.

So we are depriving him of that.

This is actually Paul's bed.

That would be great.

This is your bed?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It falls down.

I didn't realize he was just sleeping here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that he can be close to the action.

In the middle of the night, he gets up in his pajamas and runs out for the balcony.

Yeah, yeah, perfect.

That's the way it kicks off, actually, in Monaco.

So yeah, so initially you were writing the figure with the sort of, you know,

A-list automated journalists.

But did anyone, did any manufacturer call you a name?

Because I think when we all went on the McLaren launch,

because the first one that a group of us did, sorry, Paul,

was the 502 GT in Tenerife.

And I think then, I think we would just call the YouTubers.

It's an interesting question.

I don't think it really had a title.

Maybe not.

I think we're trying to give it a title that it didn't necessarily have at that point.

What is it now?

What's the title?

Influencer, right?

I think globally we are classed as influencers,

whether you have 2000 followers and doing yoga in Dubai or you're MrBeast.

I think we are classed as influencers.

I wouldn't class myself as an influencer.

No, I was going to say, find not many people in the influencer category

would call themselves an influencer.

Influencers, yeah.

Because it's quite pretentious, also, as I word.

I think the phrase influencers.

It's like OG car YouTubers.

The phrase influencers has all these connotations of,

like, reaching out to a hotel saying,

I'll make a post if you let me stay there for free, doesn't it?

Which is not what any of us do at all.

Oh, really?

Okay, let's skip past that point.

I DM'd the Emirates not long ago to go for a really long flight.

That was really expensive, but...

Okay, well, what I wanted to do in this podcast

is if we're here celebrating the 10th anniversary of a trip,

which I think if we now look back,

was monumental for many different reasons, right?

It was kind of pivotal in all of our careers,

but it represented sort of the peak of that era,

of us all collaborating together and doing loads of trips together.

It was a sort of...

We've spoken about it at a golden time

where we could kind of film anything.

Our creativity was kind of running wild.

And because of that,

there was this kind of excitement and movement

of, like, this group of us and everything we did

and the audience got behind it,

and we all kind of swelled in growth,

sort of in the coattails of Tim's growth,

if we sort of think about it,

and yours at the time, Paul,

because you were in this sort of daily vlogging era,

so your channel was exploding.

And I think Seb and I were trying to bring something different

or new underneath that,

but all four of us kind of got up and flew,

and then James joined along not long after,

then Emma Walsh, Archie, TG, all that lot.

So it was kind of that, for me in my mind,

marked the start of that real upswell

in kind of automotive content creation,

at least for me.

So we can go back and decide whether we all think that,

but I wanted to go to before how we ended up doing it.

Why did we end up doing it?

Because it was a year after I started my channel.

It wasn't the first time we'd all been on the road together.

If you remember the sort of six or so months before,

we did the original trip down to Monaco for Top Hux.

It was a whereschme.

Was it a whereschme tour, officially?

I always done.

So I was going to say a couple of things.

I did every year from, I want to say, 2012,

I always did a big trip in April,

and we just jokingly called them whereschme,

because it was that kind of carnage

of going from one city to the next so quickly

that people watching couldn't figure out

how that was possible.

But we would try and do it for two weeks,

maybe three weeks.

They eventually became like four weeks

going to cars and coffee in Italy

and coming here to Top Marks

and going to a ton of different things.

And then I think that year,

we planned that even more people,

we'd all have been here for Top Marks,

so we'd all go on this extra drive together, right?

I didn't really have any.

It was a drive home from Top Marks, wasn't it?

Oh yeah, it was after Top Marks.

It was Monaco back home.

You had the 4C.

I had the 4C, which we'll come onto in a second,

but go on, explain more to them.

No, so I think that was about 17 cars.

It was a huge group.

It was great fun.

It was a huge group.

Now, we were joking about it earlier.

It felt as a new YouTuber, new to the scene,

very special to get the invite.

And Seb just mentioned the 4C,

because prior to the 4C, I was having my Audi TT.

I definitely wasn't invited when I had my Audi TT.

And I don't know if it was you, Paul or Seb,

who said, oh, I spoke to Tim and he said,

now you have the 4C.

You might be able to come on the trip to Monaco.

I was like, oh my God, so exciting.

And then I had this, you know, this honoured phone call

came through.

Smea went, oh, hey, do you want to come on the trip?

I was like, oh, yes, please.

So how did you decide who was coming?

Like, who was that group?

No, but I think even before that, right?

So Seb and I had done quite a few different tours

and drives and things.

How come?

Seb had joined on the previous years

where Smea tour, and we had done Gumball.

You came along and...

Tim helped me out a lot because I was obviously very young,

didn't know the way around any of the YouTube stuff.

Tim, you're older than I was at the time.

Yeah, exactly.

But had an understanding of YouTube

and the potential business of YouTube

and how producing multiple videos and all this kind of worked.

I was finding myself and having that guidance in a way

helped a lot, even just justifying it to my family of,

look, no, look, this guy, Smea, he's making a living out of it.

How did you meet?

I promised there's something.

We met just because we were kind of...

No, I came to Monaco.

I think I came to Monaco.

Was it 2011?

Yeah, I think I sent you a message

because I'd watched your videos.

But it must have been a message on YouTube

because that's before Instagram.

Yeah, it must have been on YouTube.

That's how we first met.

So I've slipped into my YouTube DMs as well.

I've just been sliding into DMs.

Nothing's changed, by the way.

I still slide into Pentium DMs.

That's just now on Tinder.

But anyway, so, you know, honestly,

credit where credit's due, it really helped me a lot.

And then I was editing your videos for a little bit.

Do you remember that?

I mean, that's basically where it kind of started from myself.

Because I was like, if I'm doing this full-time, right?

Because at the time, I still had a job.

It was like, I need some help to turn all this stuff around.

So how on earth...

Now, we're not going to say easy

because it's still hard to find a good person.

But now there are people who go out looking for a career

of helping to edit online content.

Go back to 2011, 2012.

That was not a thing, right?

That was not a job.

No, no, no, no. Of course not.

No, you want to be a YouTuber.

Yeah, first of all, just being a YouTuber wasn't a thing.

Being someone who would edit for a YouTuber

wasn't a thing at all.

But no, it was incredible.

And one of the perks of having this role

was being able to join you on all these trips.

And you very kindly invited me on a bunch of these trips.

I dropped out of uni not long before

and didn't really know what I was doing.

And then all of a sudden, I found myself on Gumball.

I was going to say, it was Gumball 2015, wasn't it?

Stockholm to Las Vegas.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so you invited Seb because he was your editor

or just because you knew him or like...

Well, putting a little team together for Gumball,

my primary objective as well as enjoying it was always

how can you feed the best content as quickly as possible, right?

How can you get to the audience what I wanted to watch

was like a real feeling of being inside the rally.

And to do that and also to drive all day every day

is really difficult to do on your own.

So it was always, how can we actually do this?

And you need basically myself and somebody helping to film.

You need to look after the cars

and somebody else to help deal with the video side, right?

So it was always, I guess there was no specific plan,

but how can you have the right people to make that work?

And that you're going to be spending a lot of time with

in quite an intense environment

so you want to be getting along well.

But Tim always let me have my channel alongside as well,

which was very kind of you.

To do more behind the scenes vlogs and stuff.

Yeah, well, just listen, I have these videos

and if you can help out with making your videos

and even just the logistics of the cars

and what was going on throughout the trip,

then if you want to make your own videos once all that's done,

no problem.

And that obviously helped me launch my channel a lot

because I was on Gumball, on Weshmi,

so I had this unbelievable content.

I was learning a lot about how to make the videos

from hanging out with Tim.

And yeah, so ended up on these first Weshmi tours.

I mean, we started hanging out a lot too.

Again, same dynamic of you had a much better understanding

and YouTube was evolving so quickly.

I mean, you guys especially were kind of writing the rule book of,

okay, at first you would just upload a video,

no title really, maybe a title, no thumbnail.

Then it became thumbnails or something you need to look into.

Then it became watch timers,

maybe something you need to start thinking about.

But there wasn't anyone really explaining that to you.

Yeah, exactly, you were figuring it out completely as you went.

And it was a fascinating time.

I mean, I can go even further about you.

I remember sitting in McDonald's in Knightsbridge.

Well, I was talking about having me having worked out

that you need to start presenting to a video

and talking to Paul about it.

And it's funny because like you say,

there was no guidance anywhere.

Same for all of us, same when you started running around

with the POP vlogs.

There was no guidance of here's how you make a YouTube video,

here's what you need to do.

It was literally have you tried something and it worked

and you struck gold and off you go,

or do you happen to know somebody who could give you some advice,

who happened to have given you some advice

about how to do something?

Which I think is maybe why the bond between all of us

grew so strongly so quickly.

Because it was and it still is an incredibly lonely job

being a YouTuber.

And you're out there sort of fending yourself,

battling the algorithm and trying to figure things out.

So when you find somebody who's in the same world

and can share your stresses, your concerns,

ask for advice, did you try that?

Oh, I tried this.

Or you know what I found out?

It immediately creates sort of bonds.

And people often ask you, oh, who's, which YouTuber's a dick?

And I was like, the thing is, no one really, you know,

are we all friends?

Some, yes.

A lot of them are like work acquaintances or colleagues.

But whenever you walk into a room at a press launch,

and there's somebody else who is a YouTuber,

immediately you kind of connect.

Because you have so many things you're like,

hey, have you found that AdSense is really low of a spot?

So I think at the beginning.

It's a natural bond.

Yeah, when we were in that upswell of growth and excitement

and trying different things.

The fact that we could all sit there at breakfast,

and again, we'll probably move on to this,

but sit there at breakfast and go,

why wasn't it all on a film today?

And everyone was like, I'll film this.

Oh, what about that? I'll help you with this.

Well, have you tried that?

It was, it was amazing.

But you just touched on it there.

We've heard the origin story of, of, uh, Schmeleini.

Um, I'll just make it up there.

That's romantic.

That's a good name.

I assume that you two, Paul and Tim, met on the streets.

Oh, yes.

Oh, the slums of Nice Bridge.

I'm going to ask you Paul first.

Were you, were you arch nemesises at the beginning?

Because surely at that point you were the two, right?

If you class Supercars of London as there was two of us,

and then Schme 150, I remember meeting you for the first time

and you were like, oh, you're the guy that's sending me loads

of messages on, on Instagram and going like really angry at me.

And I was like, no, no, not because it was the other guy

that I ran the channel with at the time.

There was trolling, building this arch nemesis.

No way.

Oh, I didn't, I didn't know this.

No, you spoke to me like when you came on the show before.

So these private messages that I had no idea

were being sent to Schme 150.

And then we bumped into each other because at the time,

the other guy that was doing it was up a uni in York

and I was basically doing it day to day,

filming cars and stuff.

And you basically confronted me in a very polite way.

It wasn't.

And that's literally what it is.

So like I kind of had to go back through and be like, I'm so sorry.

This is not how I represented my brand.

I'd love to see those messages now.

I mean, we could pull those up one day.

Do you think we're incredible?

Probably.

YouTube messages still exist?

I've got my entire email history from well before I started.

Yeah, I think email, I don't know if you can still

actually get the YouTube message function.

But you got an email which happened to sort of basically

summed up the text.

I think it was a bit because this was so early

and there was basically the Supercars of London channel

like 2009 and there was street supercars

also uploading some videos from London.

A chap who lived in central London who was in uploading.

He's gone.

He hasn't uploaded.

He stopped uploading like in 2011, 12, something like that.

Put it on the real job.

Good for shout out.

Street supercars.

And I think the guys who were doing it felt like,

who's this new kid and why is he uploading something every day?

Because I lived around the corner from Nicebridge.

I went to university at Imperial College,

which is literally right opposite Harrods.

So I only had to walk around the corner

to go and film something, right?

So it made it so easy to see everything every day.

I didn't have to travel into London like you guys did.

But I think the clever difference was,

all I was interested in was the car and the sound.

That's all I wanted to film because I thought

that was what would get the views.

And then seeing your first videos and seeing you present them,

I was like, well, I could never do that.

Like imagine what all my school friends would think

if I was even in London filming cars.

It was so nerdy that I just wouldn't tell anyone at school.

But that came later.

It did, yeah.

It came later.

No, no, no.

Because the rivalry, we were already on good terms

long before I started talking to a camera.

I think I started talking to a camera in maybe 2012 somewhere.

But we were definitely on good terms already before that.

It was only summer 2010 and maybe halfway into 2011

that there was this rivalry.

Competition.

I think we had probably seven or 8,000 subscribers each

at this point.

It's funny when you look back.

But it was really like, I remember,

I remember the time when the two channels were about the same

and it was like, that felt like,

it just felt like an enormous challenge

to upload the first video.

Manchester United versus Manchester City.

Who are you?

Real Madrid versus Barcelona.

Do you want a flaming vendor door or a streaming forfeit?

Pre-eventing or something.

No, it was Marcia Largo's.

Of course, that makes a lot of sense.

Okay, so you two are on the streets.

I mean, so we're talking years.

You said 2010, 2011.

You, Tim and Seb, again, similar sort of timeline?

Sorry, actually, 11, 12.

11, 12, maybe.

And then I came along sort of, well,

end of 14 is when I started my channel.

15 was the kind of first proper full year of it.

And we all sort of met fairly quickly.

So I think, did I meet you?

Well, Tim won't necessarily remember that.

You do remember this or you do know?

I know how we met, yeah.

How'd you think we met?

How I think we met is you were filming a video

and I was driving in a McLaren.

No.

How'd we met before that?

Oh, it's the glasses or something, no.

No, there's a few weird stories.

Firstly, the only reason I ever knew who you were

is your ex-girlfriend came and did work experience

at the PR firm that I was working at.

Oh, funny.

And we were sitting there one day and she was, you know,

saying, oh, my boyfriend films cars.

And I was like, oh, I like quite like cars.

Well, what was he doing filming the show?

And you just bought your van to join it,

what you now have back, I guess.

But the blue convertible montage.

I was like, that's kind of cool.

And I started watching the videos,

thinking what's going on.

And then I went to London Concord,

which must have been 2014 when it was in artillery barracks.

Anyway, early 2014, pre-me starting the channel,

and I saw you there and I came over and I said,

oh, by the way, hey,

and you're ex-girlfriend used to work at my PR firms.

I've been watching your videos.

He's just a fan.

And to be honest, you were pretty much,

you were quite rude.

Probably.

You were one of those people

when I'm in the middle of filming a video.

You just came up.

What kind did you come in that in 2014?

Toffsy.

Was it the 12th?

But it wouldn't have been at the event.

I think you would have just got the 12th.

I would have been at the event on foot, I think.

Yeah, you were on the event on foot.

If you had the...

It might have been you had the R8.

I think you'd still have the R8.

You were about to get the 12th.

Because didn't you get the...

Oh, sorry.

Can you get it for Christmas?

Wait, I was thinking 2014.

So what year are we on here?

2014.

I thought you got the 12th at Christmas that year, no?

Hi, this is Christy from Back to the Bar.

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But it Christmas end of 2013, 4th of 2014.

Oh, I remember.

I think when it's McLaren.

So on Christmas 2014.

The 650S, 650S was Christmas 20, end of 2014.

Yes, I remember that.

Was your 12C black?

It was black.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That one, yeah.

So, oh gosh, I mean, we've all had these stories.

I did the reveal of the 12C when it was wrapped

and then uploaded the video afterwards

of collecting it before then wrapping it.

I've done that once.

Nobody could get the head around it.

Yeah, okay.

People were like, you've got two?

What's the story here?

Yeah, this is so bizarre.

Okay, so we had some weird meetings

before I was seen through glass,

which of course you wouldn't remember.

And then, yes, we met on the side of the road

after SevenEye had done our collaboration.

So we definitely met post SevenEye.

You reached out, I've told the story quite a few times,

YouTube DMs, pretending that you were a very successful man

from Monica, very good connections,

led to meet up in a Starbucks.

I thought that was questionable.

Went to Mason and then a 12-year-old child walked in and said,

hello.

I was like, oh god.

And then Paul, was it the bond thing?

Or had we met on the street?

Do you remember the bond thing?

I think we had met on Sloan Street

when I had my baby blue R.A.

Yes, yes, you're right.

And I think off the back of that,

maybe you invited me to the bond thing as,

hey, do you want to come to this?

Yes.

This was a premiere.

Wasn't it our premiere we all went to together?

Oh, yeah.

What was that?

I can't remember.

There was definitely, yeah.

There was some premiere.

We went to something in a gala or something like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What was that?

All together, I can't remember what that was.

It was in London.

Oh, I wouldn't have been at that.

Wasn't that a jet?

Not black tie.

Anyway.

Okay, well, basically, I was still working

when I started the channel,

but I was trying to grow.

And yes, somebody posted that you'd parked up

in the Baby Blue R8 on Sloan Street

at the time I literally lived

around the corner from there.

So I jumped and my car drove down,

had my camera strap to my head.

I think I came over and said hi.

Yeah.

And then I was doing the PR for Bond in Motion,

which was an exhibition of all the bond vehicles.

And they were like, oh, we'd love to get some coverage.

And I thought, well, I do know this.

I know, I'm very good friends with this YouTuber.

I sent you that email and said,

do you want to come down?

And that's how it all sort of began.

So that was all, yeah, end of 2014 into 2015.

And then we did the initial Top Marks trip in early 2015,

which was the 4C trip and we all made movies

and we did the long drive back and Samors was there.

And obviously James was there as well, JWW before.

He really became Mr. JWW.

And I think that we all maybe subconsciously clocked

that there was something quite good

in all being together and around each other.

And maybe the audience liked us all being in each other's videos.

I don't know what, but something clearly made us think,

let's do this again, because it was six months later

that we did what I'm now calling this monumental trip,

which we're celebrating right now.

So I don't know what happened in that six month period

that made us think, let's go and do a trip altogether again.

I think a lot of it comes from the planning that I was doing.

So obviously you have gone a lot further than I ever did

in terms of actually organizing rallies and road trips.

But I always loved the idea as you might remember,

I even made like a bound document folder with route plans

and everybody who's on it and all their cars and everything.

I think I do actually, yeah.

I've got copies of it there.

I've got the spare one.

I'm sure you do.

But I always enjoyed that, I always enjoyed it.

I mean, even so when I was 18, 20 years ago,

first thing I did when I finished at school, literally,

day we left school, next day a friend and I drove

around Europe, did a full tour.

And I gave the tour a logo and did a route book and everything,

just for us.

I was a loser.

Yeah, but I enjoyed it.

Hey, it led to where things are now.

Yeah, since I was relieving such a...

Yeah, when we ended up doing that tour,

and obviously I spent a lot of time with Seb in that year

and he still had the place here.

So we had been talking about these crazy new cars.

Obviously we had been talking before I had even bought the FF

but you knew the LT and the GT4 were coming

before the internet did because that was a fun secret.

We had been talking about wouldn't it be so cool

to take all three of the cars down here.

So we had been putting that together already

and we did one big tour.

You must have been on the tour with the LT and the FF.

Yeah, it was the hour of coming to collect the FF,

were they?

We picked...

Oh yeah, you came up to McLaren Manchester

with the LT, of course.

Yeah, LT, we collected together the FF.

And then we shipped out...

We drove the FF, I remember,

via Strasbourg on the way to Singen.

We had the LT shipped out and then we drove the LT

and the FF through to Italy, first day I drove the 675 LT

which for me was way too much money

in one car type situation.

That was not...

When you had the LT delivered, I remember thinking to myself,

like, I hope he knows what he's doing.

This looks expensive.

I don't know what I'm doing.

That's a lot of carbon fiber.

I've also bought a Ferrari.

I'm like, what?

Yeah, it was just a crazy journey.

And then so we did those two cars, came down here

and then I got the date.

That was already booked.

Then I got the date for the GT4

which was going to be like 10 days later.

So we were already kind of right,

going to fly back to London to drive back down again.

And we had been talking simultaneously.

It was like, why don't we line this up?

And we make it so that I can get the GT4 in the morning,

join you guys at the Euro tunnel

and we'd all drive together back down here.

Because when did you buy the Gallardo?

Beginning of September.

Okay, this is now making more sense.

That was a trigger for you to jump into the F type.

And then join two cars.

That's exactly what it was.

That now is making more sense that it was as well.

This is 2015.

Yeah, 2015.

You launched the F type.

Have you forgotten the 10 years?

Yes, I know.

I was just thinking how old I was.

I literally, we went and picked up the F type

the day before the trip.

So like, don't worry, we filmed the reveal

in Westfield Basement and then, yeah, literally.

Yes, dude, I was here for all your reveals.

Every car collection.

I've never owned a car, guys.

I'll just come along to all of your connections.

It's actually quite nice.

It means for the big cars, you've been there since.

You always need someone to film.

I'm here for you guys.

It's just a little mascot.

So I think that makes it, because obviously, Paul and I,

you and I did lots of trips in that period.

Because we came down for F1.

Was Barbados that year or the year after?

We did.

We did a beige and Evo Road trip.

We did Barbados, we did F1.

I think in that period, you and I were doing a lot together.

So I think we were talking, we had the new car as well.

Obviously, you guys were doing your plans for it.

I think it all just came together.

Somehow, it was like, oh, well, let's just all go down

with our new cars and spend a couple of weeks there.

For me, I've mentioned it in the content

which should be going out on the main channel.

But obviously, I was still, part of the time,

it was still a side hustle for me, right?

I think I came on that trip with 45 or maybe 50,000 subscribers,

something like that.

It's still very much, I had to get a couple of weeks

away to put my out of office.

I'm so sorry to my clients.

You guys were still already doing it professionally.

I think Seb, you were trying to as well, same as me.

But it was kind of a bit of an experiment.

I'm like, yeah, let's go down to Monaco for a couple of weeks

and just do as much as we can and see what we can make.

And then I found it super inspiring seeing you

to run your channels as a business.

I think the creativity of all four of us,

the environment, the fact that it all went so well,

apart from the smoothie challenge.

I came back going, this is what I want to do.

And it did feel like from there,

we kind of all just were able to ride this incredible wave

and work our ass off for the next few years

and then end up with these channels

that we've all branched out over the last 10 years

and now found our way back to each other.

So romantic.

So on that, that actual trip,

Tim's found something on his phone that he's making him smile.

Tell me.

No, no, I just, I'll chat history from 2015

because these days you still have everything.

But it's interesting to, I've completely lost

where I was going with it.

I had something on my mind.

You were trying to find out the reasons

as to why we did the trip, I guess is why.

Or how we all ended up on it.

The planning, yeah.

It must have been a sort of-

No, I know what I was going to say.

I had a previous experience,

so back in 2012, in the very early days of YouTube,

I rented an apartment very near here for a month

and basically sent invitations back then

to every single YouTuber, car person I knew

or could find on the internet.

Is this when you had the Z4?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, you came down, I remember, with the Z4.

So I had set up then just the idea

of bringing everybody here to come car spotting.

So we'd wake up and every day for like a month,

I'd wake up and go and walk around town

and film videos and upload them.

Who are you with?

Anyone that we-

This is people like Alex Smolek and Makatino and-

Okay, who are still around today.

Is Alex still doing?

Alex isn't.

Marco still does content.

But like lots of different people,

lots of people from the Netherlands

because I had done a few stops

for different events at the Netherlands before.

So I already had, I guess, that idea of,

let's bring car community to this place.

YouTube's house.

And we spoke about this loads of time.

I mean, that was when we first met,

our whole bond was,

let's get the automated community collaborating

because we shared this kind of

interest in the UK early,

the Brit tubers, as they call it,

Zoella and Alphydage and all these people like that.

We were fascinated by what they were doing.

We're like, why can't we do that?

And we've collaborated.

It was one of the first in the UK,

casting was our little collaboration

of spotting London versus Monaco.

Because I think we shared that ideology there.

I remember that.

And so that's maybe how it came in.

I mean, we obviously had the advantage of

Serb you having the house.

Well, I am my parents.

A huge thank you to my parents

because they were very welcoming to all of us.

In that period of time, my God,

they literally like opened the doors to

the spand of people.

Our legends.

Legends.

They're still after me.

In that period of time, they were.

And how did I have my own place?

You stay at a hotel.

A basketball.

Yeah.

He's still here.

That's a good point.

I'm in the Delaney family now.

Paul's part of the family.

Because it taught me through each of you

your memories of that time.

So it was two and a half weeks, I think, right?

That we were all down here.

Here for a long time.

Yeah.

Two and a half weeks.

And I'll say, Tim, you definitely disappeared for.

No, I disappeared and came back.

I spent a lot of that three months here with Serb.

I think you came and went.

Until, I don't know, three months or something.

And the male team, the LTA.

Dimmy was here at that point.

Was Dimmy here?

Or somebody, we did have somebody else knocking around.

Dimmy came down with the R8.

I think.

I'm not sure about the Gallardo.

I feel like there was somebody else.

Would it have been Josh?

There were definitely a couple of other people with me.

Was that when I had that?

Yes, Jason.

Jason.

Sam was also with us, even with the Gallardo.

So on the 1st of October, 2015, you said, Sam,

can you let me know the details for your driving trip

for the first days in Monaco?

I want to look at hotels, et cetera.

So I must have planned it.

What we are actually doing is just a 10-year reunion

of another Welsh meet-all.

No, no, no.

It was my ultimate carnage tour.

That was my ultimate carnage tour.

Okay, yeah.

This is called, yeah.

O.G. Oldtwick.

I did do a video, which was like,

what happens when it rains in Monaco,

or something like that, which I'm trying to find now.

Yeah, because we did Halloween collaboration.

You drove my Gallardo, or I drove you in it,

and then I went out in this-

How did we make a joke about something being spooky?

Six, seven, five LT.

I think I bought like a Halloween outfit for it,

because it was around this, obviously,

around this time, which is Halloween.

You could do such silly little ideas back then,

and it was just new and fun.

So yeah, you say you had feet on your shoes.

Yeah, well, that was a house tour.

Well, there's a reason why it got us worse

when we weren't gone out enough before.

Oh, so he pulled a knot sled,

and it was probably still quite intoxicated.

He's doing a video, he's saying.

Thankfully, that was the day that I chose to do a house tour.

Dimmy was on that trip.

I don't know, he must have come down with me in the Gallardo then.

Look at this.

Can you remember the vibe of that house where you would-

As you said, not even-

Because you're saying go down to breakfast,

it would be you'd wake up, see who's awake.

I remember times where you would still be lying in bed.

I'd walk and be like, I've had an idea.

There's no this video today, and you'd be like, all right, fuck.

Was that the year that I just pranked you all day?

I think so, maybe.

That, that-

And then he said, all day.

Yes, yeah.

The prank war, the prank war.

I mean, that two and a half week period, anything was possible.

Essentially, we were there, and it was very much a YouTube house.

So just to clarify, by the way,

Dimmy used to work with Paul and a lot of stuff

if you're on OG or an old school.

Dimmy won 6-4.

Yeah, Supercast London viewer,

you'll know who Dimmy is, but just in case you don't.

Yeah, so he'd knock around on a few of those early trips.

But yeah, as you say, it was literally,

you'd wake up and the creativity to start flowing.

And you just think, what are we going to do?

And who can I use?

Can you help me with this?

And we bounce ideas and someone will go, I know what that is.

Or you know what you should do or change this?

And it was just such an insane time where

not only were we all bouncing off each other,

but we were lucky that the audience were receptive to it.

It was a time when the audience would kind of watch everything

because there wasn't much choice, right?

You know, this was pre, I mean, let's think automotive scene,

that pre Matt Armstrong, pre Joe Achilles,

pre J.M., pre Archie Hamilton.

But like, it was essentially us four.

Pre the magazine's doing really, really, really high production videos.

Chris Harris was doing his stuff.

And maybe every now and again.

But in terms of the vlogging scene, there was so little.

So I think the audience kind of had to watch.

Well, I think it was the authenticity of it too.

So if there were videos, they were maybe slightly more journalistic.

Whereas ours would be very just raw.

Raw and silly.

Tim's giggling.

I'm giggling because I'm looking at our WhatsApp chats

on your old number.

Okay.

So you changed 10 years ago.

This is obviously before.

So you can leak it now.

And I'm literally reading the conversation from mid-August 2015

of me basically every day saying buy a guy Ardo and come to Monaco with me.

No way.

I didn't remember this at all.

But there are so many messages of me being like the devil on your shoulder.

That's amazing.

I was saying like, I'll help you with the shipping.

We'll get it sorted.

Like just get it.

So it's you who were to blame for my ears being ruined.

I feel very, and I'm persuading you to put an army tricks on it.

Like, like.

No way.

This is so shmey.

I feel guilty.

But I was actually going to say like, I remember flipping between the R8 and the

guy Ardo that month was daily vlogs, like 12 minute to 15 minute videos.

All of a sudden my ad sense is shot through the roof because there was the delay on the payment.

So I was running like a 45 day delay on all of my payments.

So I was basically, you said that here.

Basically like breaking even with my R8.

Once I sold that, put all of that money into the guy Ardo.

And I said to Tim, I said, I don't think I can afford to come down.

And you were basically like, don't worry, I'll cover it.

I'll cover it.

I'll sort it and we'll deal with it later.

Yeah.

And in terms of size.

So yeah, I think I was at like 40 odd thousand subscribers.

Were you, I think you were like 350.

Because daily vlogging was flying for you.

I don't know, but it was.

I think it was like 350.

And I think Tim, you were either just broken half a million or did on the trip or something.

It was around half a million.

I'm sure.

So I specifically remember October, 2015 was the month my channel grew the most

subscribers in a single month, even to this day ever.

How much was that?

How many subscribers?

I want to say it was like 50K or 70K or something like that in one month because

newspaper articles were writing about me buying these three cars and whatever.

So it was like, it was, I guess, hitting much bigger audience than our normal YouTube videos.

Mine was selling the guy Ardo buying the AMG GTS.

I still remember it.

55,000 subscribers in a month.

Wow.

People will have hated that guy.

I got my car stolen.

Oh my God.

I forgot about that.

And then I was at my, at my, well, my parents house.

I was, I'd left one just up the road.

Yeah.

I'd left.

Yeah.

I was the only one that stayed because I had a crack in the windscreen.

So I was getting that replacement.

So you were in my, were you guys not staying?

No, I had rented a different Airbnb.

Oh, yeah.

I was like 4M.

And I remember and it was like, we should probably post about this.

You know, we should probably try and see if we can find this car.

So it was after top marks.

I was very tired and I didn't wake up that day until like 11 or something.

I guess I'd gone to bed at three and I woke up really early.

And I woke up to so many messages on every platform being like,

you're such a bad friend.

You're not even posting about this.

And I was like, what, what's happened?

Yeah, what's happened?

But I was inundated with really rude messages.

I'm like, I've been sleeping.

Yeah.

No, I fault.

And then we went into full overdrive.

I mean, we found the car.

Mark and I were like, we called everybody.

We knew obviously you were dealing with everything.

And I remember calling everybody and saying, just post about this,

post about this, post about this.

If people don't remember,

said you essentially carjacked at gunpoint, weren't you?

In Paris for your folks like, yeah.

It was a crazy story.

There must be content when you're trying to still, right?

Honestly, I haven't spoken about it that much since it happened.

But yeah, I mean, it was a weird, obviously,

like a creepy experience.

But the moral of it now is the power of social media to find the car.

But I remember just that when we thinking back to it being,

okay, what do we do now?

Do we just this happen and whatever?

Or shall we try and get the car back?

If so, maybe just maybe social media at that point.

It was, well, there's about four YouTubers that are staying at my house

or close to my house right now.

You know, I was in the police station like, give me a second.

Quite cool.

Like guys, do you mind posting it?

All of a sudden, I can't remember what it was.

Someone gave me the stats of it,

like how much reach it got within 24 hours.

And we ended up finding the car and everything, but obviously.

But for back then, like that was so early.

Like now, you never want to happen.

But if a car got stolen in the social media world,

you see it happening, posts get made,

it reaches tons of people very, very quickly.

Back then, nobody had ever seen that.

That wasn't even an idea that you could reach people like that.

And it was also the, I mean, one of the reasons it also happened

is because we were, you know, I thought it was a subscriber

coming up to the car.

I don't know if I ever, we've probably spoken about it before,

but literally five minutes before it happened,

it was in my lotus at the time, which was a bit recognizable.

So, you know, it happened that someone would come up to the car

and so I see someone walking up to the car and I'm like, oh, cool.

And then all of a sudden, obviously,

I realized, pretty quickly, I was like, yeah.

This is not a subscriber.

Oh no, I'm John Lennon.

Okay, but sorry, not to completely dismiss that story

because it was quite traumatic for you.

I don't know if this is a therapy podcast or not.

I haven't decided yet.

Going back to the trip that we're celebrating now,

so let's, we can touch on, you know, your,

have I got feet on my shoes?

So why that happened?

Because in and amongst the content,

which I think we have spoken about,

there was so much fun being held at that time, right?

Like we were all pretty young.

I think we were, no, you were definitely with your now wife.

I think the rest of us were single.

Oh, sorry for not.

But we were having fun.

We were definitely in this kind of upswing

of just like young, free cars, Monaco off season.

And so we were off season.

What do you mean off season?

We're not at fun drivers.

Sam was in a full-time employment.

Yeah, exactly.

We were on off season.

What does that mean?

Off season.

I've always run, I've run from the very early days

around the advertising calendar.

So October, November, December is full go.

Exactly, exactly.

Well, I was in off season.

My training program was out the window.

I still am.

Oh, but there was a lot of fun.

Wasn't that the time we went go casting

and Felipe Massa and his son were there?

That was, that was his memory in the back of my mind,

because we went with Mass who had,

at the time, you know, Olson's Mercy SV.

Was it just a mercy line?

With a kit.

It was a mercy lago.

They were all driving with a kit.

And they'd real well drive converted

but put an SV kit on it.

It was, yeah, John Olson, very famous YouTuber.

To Ventimiglia Go Carter.

Went to Ventimiglia Go Carter

and we all just like twatting around

and subspeeding all of us because he always does.

And then we'd get out because there's like

somebody else in the track

and it was Felipe Massa and his son.

And I think Massa was still a current driver.

Well, he was like retired for a year

or a current driver was Williams.

And then he just went around like he was like teaching his son

and we all just sat there watching

for the whole session.

It was such a cool thing to see

and it felt like quite an honour.

So that's when I had disappeared

and I was very jealous.

Yes.

I wasn't there with you.

You were.

So this was all the same trip.

This was, I think so.

I remember coming back and being told that.

Because it all becomes a bit of a blur.

I don't know if it's the same for you.

There were so many trips.

So many trips.

But okay, so that trip.

So there was that, as I say, the big night out

that led to Paul's feet on shoes.

Well, first of all, Paul doing the worm across an entire couple.

I remember one point being like, you know,

you guys were here.

You kind of feel a bit of a responsibility

as the host, the local, you know.

I hope they're having a good time.

And then I just hear like,

wait, wait, wait, wait.

And I'm like, oh, what's going on?

Turn around.

And Paul's just doing the worm.

We're like the whole club.

Yep, they seem to be having a good time.

Yeah, I think we're good.

That night was Halloween.

Like it was, it was the Halloween night.

Was it?

Yeah.

So we went down to the swimming pool area to Raskas.

Not in Halloween outfits.

We're dressed up in our smarter shirts

and got rejected from everywhere

because one, we had no females with us.

And two, we weren't in fancy dress.

So we were walking around car-spotting outside Chip Riani's

mass turned up in his F12.

It's just the same night.

No, it's not the same.

Because there's a night where you went and put a key on a table.

Do you remember when you did that?

Yeah.

That's a Ferrari key.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

To that point.

Everyone was nervous to go talk to this table of girls.

I was like, I've already got a girlfriend.

So there's a Ferrari key.

And they were like, the key on the table goes,

that's those guys over there.

Sure enough, they came over.

But some of these are memories that I think

have stayed within the group and with all of us

for the last 10 years over and above work.

And I think that's why let's move on to

as our final chapter of this podcast.

Why maybe the audience have been sad

that we haven't all been able to continue that camaraderie

and direct or intense friendship and on screen.

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What are you about to interact with?

It's a car, are we kidding each other?

Like, what is that?

The damn spot is on the end.

I'm there trying to wax lyrical about our experiences

and you're like, I think it was an M-G-G-G-R.

So let's try and figure out why we know why it stopped,

essentially, is what I'm trying to get to.

Because if that was the golden era,

if we have all these amazing memories

and we can laugh and giggle about

and we're doing it 10 years later,

I think the audience have always wanted to know

what happened?

Who fell out with who?

Where's the bad blood?

Why did it all fall apart?

And I've always tried to explain

that, sadly, the story is a lot more boring than that.

And as far as I've ever been concerned,

there was never a big falling out.

It was, in my mind, the fact that life took over.

We all became busy with our own channels.

As each of our own channels grew,

we were demanded individually more and more

by brands and manufacturers,

opportunities presented themselves in different ways.

All of our lives changed and where we lived

and things like that.

So the opportunities to hang out together changed.

And also, let's not forget,

there was definitely a period of time,

a good 18 months after the trip we're celebrating now,

where the audience did start to say,

guys, we like it when you hang out,

but we don't want to always see you guys

doing all the same thing together.

Yeah, four times the same video.

So we started to think about it more, didn't we?

I remember there was a trip when we went to with Bentley.

It was the Bentley trip.

Do you think that was the nail in the coffin?

No, I don't necessarily think so,

but we...

I don't think there's a coffin in the coffin.

I was trying to be dramatic for the clickbait.

That was my clip at the start of the...

I do remember the Bentley trip,

because it was building up to that point

where we were creatively struggling to think,

how can we reinvent the wheel

that we had been spinning each year?

Because it was always around April time with top marks,

okay, let's come down to Monaco.

That was the kickstart to the season.

But then we kind of felt like we're just filming

the same thing from four different angles.

From four different angles,

which would work one time

for a supercars versus spotters type video,

because everyone would want to see each individual angle,

but for an entire week's worth of content,

and obviously the start and growth

of other automotive creators around the world.

I remember the Bentley trip,

because we sat down after the press conference,

we were like, right, how are we going to make all of our...

We're fundamentally filming the same car

on the same roads in the same country at the same time.

So how do we make something different?

So our audiences can enjoy all of our content.

And that was...

So were you on that trip or was that with James?

I think I wasn't on the Bentley trip.

I think it was with James.

It was with James, yeah.

And we all shot a car.

And you shot a car.

Everyone, I think we all four of us shared a car, didn't we?

No, we had two different cars.

I shot with James and you two shared a car.

Fine, okay.

But we all ended up in the car.

I remember filming us...

I remember, my video I think had all four of us in, I think.

Yes, yours was like an interviewee type video.

I remember sticking the cameras on the glass roof.

Yes, there you go.

Mine was like a review.

Yours was like a first drive experience.

Like a vlog, didn't I?

And I think James was somewhere between our videos.

So we had kind of planned this four different content pieces.

Yeah, but it was almost too hard work, wasn't it?

It stopped failing natural.

It wasn't as exciting.

And I think even then the audience were a bit like,

and so we were all so on our own part in such a great way

and excited to be so that, yeah, when we got back together

or we were brought together, it was like,

is this what it was?

I think it just naturally evolved, right?

That's how I see it.

How do you guys see it?

From my side, there are two things, I think.

Number one is around that time, 2016, 2017,

is when I started doing so much more with manufacturers.

So then my content was much more a test drive in a car

with a brand under embargo until whenever.

So it wasn't content that lent itself to collaborations

in any form.

It just, you have to almost follow the schedule they give you.

And then the second side of it was the road trips I was doing

because of the way that I was creating content

and getting more of a team behind it,

even more and more of a team than had been in 2015,

meant that it was so logistically complicated

to plan our own things that it didn't even leave space

for saying, hey, does someone else want to come with this?

It was more the occasional collaboration

than continuing what we had all done up to that point.

And it's also just how the platform changed, right?

You just touched on it.

Audience, the core audience,

probably some people who are watching or listening right now,

were super supportive when collaborations happened.

But the reality is that we could all see

in the stats side of things that people would watch one or two.

They wouldn't watch four videos.

That's, it just, it just faded out over time.

There was so much more choice,

more people making content, more stuff starting.

So there was so much more choice.

And it's even now, you know,

we've joked about it a little bit, right?

It's a massive nostalgia thing.

And we've been so grateful for all of the comments

and things that people have been getting involved with.

It's been amazing that while we've been on this little drive,

but I think if you did it every week,

you'd get boring and then nobody would care anymore.

Yeah. Yes.

We're tapping into nostalgia for ourselves and for the audience.

You know, we hope everyone's going to enjoy the content.

I guess, you know, lots more probably still to come

by the time this episode goes out.

But yeah, it's, it's that we're, we're doing it

because we want to do it firstly.

We want to celebrate it,

but also hopefully to give back to the audience

because a lot of you have been here for 10 years.

That's what we've seen in the comments, right?

We've approached people like,

Oh my God, I remember the original trip.

So the fact that you're all still around,

still supporting us,

we're doing this as a way to celebrate all of our journeys,

right? The audience's journey and our own journeys for sure.

How many comments have there been

where somebody was like,

I remember watching that trip 10 years ago

when I was a teenager and now I've got two kids.

It's okay to talk about it too.

Life changes, right?

And it's, it's for everyone.

It's an opportunity to look back and to think about the past

and to think about good, exciting times.

Agree. I think the, the point where I actually started

to reshare these 10 year anniversaries was around the Gallardo.

So we had had conversations about this trip.

And I was like,

well, that would have been a fairly significant year then

because I bought my first Lamborghini.

So I then started to repost and bring that back up.

And that's where I just got this immediate connection

from so many people online.

I've spoken to thousands of people on my Instagram DMs

where they've just told me about what they've done

in their last 10 years.

That has honestly been like one of the best things

that has happened.

And you forget because you're constantly having to keep moving

and you're, we're like,

none of us have really stood still in the last 10 years.

And we've all gone and achieved some amazing things,

but it's actually in the last month or so that I've stood

still for the first time.

I'm like, yeah, like everyone's just been on some wild journey,

but even everyone that's watched us.

And that's like, in a way, the, the, the nicest thing

that I've been able to take away from this.

What everyone's achieved, us and audiences.

Yeah. It's a man.

And so sharing that, I mean, everything you guys have said,

I don't want to repeat that, but also sharing the moments

off camera, just us having, like you spoke about at the beginning,

that the brainstorming and talking about what's going on

in the industry.

And I missed that a lot, the moments where we're all helping

each other also.

I mean, back in 2015, I remember it being,

we'd sit down for the brainstorms of what's your video

going to be.

Okay, we've decided that.

Right.

Now, Paul, what's your, and we would all turn on,

okay, Paul, watch, how can we make this video interesting

for you and your channel?

How can we film it?

If you film this, then you can go at the same time,

film those two videos at the same time.

That's been really nice, you know, getting back to that

and us being able to have those chats.

And also it gives you different perspectives on what's

going on, not just in the YouTube world,

but in the automotive industry as a whole.

Even our lunch that was part filmed,

but also just us having a chat as mates.

And you sit there at the table and you're like,

over the last 10 years, our most valuable commodity

individually is our time, right?

And that's how our business fundamentally functions.

So to be able to just sit and have an hour's chat

where we're not thinking about what's happening on emails

or what am I doing tomorrow?

Or what brand deal have I got to do next week?

Or if I've got to post some content from last week's

brand deal and us just having a conversation,

having some food, like we've not actually been able to do that.

No, because we've, you know, as you say,

we eat food as well.

In the last eight years, the end times,

we have seen each other, whether it's been three of us

or two of us or maybe all four of us,

and then we're just forgetting, you know,

it has been in a manufacturer event or a Lord

or a party or something like that.

So you are distracted.

You're right.

It was nice to tap into that.

And I think there's a lot going on.

Other than just sitting down and being able to chat.

So just in case, because I am aware,

obviously the audience come and go, right?

Not everyone's been watching continuously for 10 years.

They might have been here 10 years ago,

but they might not have watched all the time.

So maybe some of them haven't seen you or heard from you

since the adventure 10 years ago.

So let's just finish off with a quick repack of where are you now?

Who are you now?

Right now in Monaco.

That's a good point.

As you said, we should start with you

because we are in your flat.

So what are you doing?

What in the last 10 years?

No, I'm joking.

What are you doing right now?

Well, that's half my life nearly.

But no, so I'm still making YouTube videos.

I have a French channel.

So I make a lot of content in French,

but I'd like to bring back more English.

I've moved back to Monaco full time,

but also what's taking a lot of my time

is I have a textiles business

completely alongside YouTube

that I don't really talk about online much,

but that's taking a lot of my time.

I really enjoy it.

Garage-wise, I have a 458 Spider,

which we've seen on this trip.

A 67 Mustang Fastback,

which has always been a dream of mine,

and a 135i BMW.

The Daily.

The Daily, which someone else here also has.

Yeah, do you still have that car?

Yeah, my wife drives it, yeah.

Really?

Yeah.

Oh, well, Paul, let's segue nicely into you.

What are you doing?

Where are you?

Well, my wife's driving an M135i.

You're sorry.

I have about 50% of my time operating Supercars of London.

I should probably spend more time doing it.

But I've got three projects

that then take up the majority of my other time,

but the production, content creation company,

helping companies in the UK essentially

have a social media platform.

A lot of businesses just don't see

or realise how much work or effort it takes.

So we work on the strategy.

We create the content.

We post it.

It's a cool thing that keeps me very busy,

but it's exciting.

Nice.

And Tim?

From a YouTube side,

the main thing is, of course,

still the Schmiel 50 channel.

But a big thing that I really kickstarted earlier this year

was the Schmiel Museum, my second channel,

which the idea of which was very much

to make it like Schmiel 50, 10 years ago.

So that's a big part for me,

why this trip has worked,

that kind of just film everything,

figure it out later,

still have a bit of a plan

because at the end of the day, these days,

you do need a plan for a video.

Do you?

Well, amazing.

Well, news to you.

That's why you're posting this trip then on the Schmiel Museum.

This trip is on the Schmiel Museum

because it's a hard psychological thing

because the audience, I would imagine,

will say, why isn't this a Schmiel 50 video?

But I moved Schmiel 150 more to being

the first look at a new car or a test drive

or covering an event,

something that's a lot more structured

and a lot more planned.

But it's great to have two different viewpoints to it

because it means mentally, I can say,

right, I'm doing this today or I'm doing that.

It avoids the confusion because it does get that way.

You forget what you're doing sometimes

and where it's going.

It just changes the way you film,

what gear you need, what mindset you need.

Try two languages.

I don't know.

But between those two, it's still a minimum of four,

if not five or six videos a week.

So that's still a lot of time.

That's a lot of content.

It's insane.

Yeah.

It's, well, 16 years of basically,

well, it's still over every day for 16 years.

Over every day.

It's still, it's thousands and thousands and thousands of videos.

That's worth it for you.

For anyone who's doing like a sound effect.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good.

But not so much of a genuine one.

Genuine one, like a slow clap.

You have to record it.

Another YouTuber out there that's done that.

I'm not sure you could.

Yeah, well, I mean, it's over a day.

Yeah, over a video day.

I'm not, I'll be fascinated to know

how many YouTubers that have done that.

Individuals, not like course.

What's your record like over Geneva Motor Show or something?

Because you used to run around like crazy there.

That was just epic.

Was 81 videos in a Geneva Motor Show?

81 videos.

But it's how long?

Who days?

They were shorter than today's videos.

That's a big, that's insane.

No, but I remember seeing, and the process was,

I would watch him film the video.

The memory card would come straight out the video camera.

It would go to someone that was basically

waiting next to him.

It would go off to get edited in a back room somewhere.

By the time that video is on the internet,

Tim's already shot another four videos

from four other memory cards.

So they're all getting simultaneously edited up.

Like it was unbelievable.

I wrote out to like buy the five minute plan for the days.

So it was literally, we knew exactly what we were doing.

Anyway, it was, it was.

But how many cars in the garage now?

There are a few.

I understand why.

I was going to say those two Niva days became my,

of like you guys, a couple of other projects.

But the biggest project that takes up time

is exclusive car registry,

which is kind of an enthusiast automotive platform

turned into a data platform

with a lot of interesting information

about these cars that we love.

So working with that and having a big team of now

and growing it is consuming more time

and trying to work it all out.

But somehow it's, it's all going very well.

And the garage has a lot of cars in it.

Too many.

How many do you say it?

It goes up and down all the time.

But at the moment, I think it's 24, 25, maybe 26.

I thought three was meant to be.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's a full time job servicing for things.

Yeah, I'm not surprised.

I think you pay someone to do it.

It must be something every week.

If you've got 25 cars, something must happen every week.

Oh, for sure.

By the time you factor in every car gets a service every year,

bunch of them swap back and forwards from winter to summer tires,

then you have all the things that get broken because they do.

Whether it's punctures, whether it's smash windshields,

whether it's car has an issue, add it all up.

It's a lot.

Well, as you know, as I say, 10 years, things do develop.

Obviously, yeah, we're still bashing out the main channel,

but we have the driving tour business now.

And of course, this podcast,

which is very kindly supported by a lot of different people.

But anyway, this has been,

I think everything we hoped and wanted it to be right.

So far, the ship's not over.

You know, we're recording this as we've just arrived into Monaco.

I'm down here while we're another day and a half.

So you guys are sticking around for a little bit longer.

So, and we've discussed it.

We hope this is not the last time.

It's not like a 10, 10 year anniversary.

Yeah, definitely not.

So watch the space.

And we've touched on all the other YouTubers and creators

and people that have been characters over the years

and that we've had on these trips or we've done.

So it'd be great to get so many different people involved

and to not always need to celebrate another trip,

just to do some more adventures together and collaborate.

So I think we watched the space.

Thank you all for sitting down at the long end

of a very, very long day and before dinner to do one of these.

I hope you all have enjoyed this kind of special episode.

And yes, check out all the channels.

I don't know what content's already online.

[S8, E5] What Happened To The OG Car YouTubers?

About this episode

McLaren 675LT

press trips

Audi R8 V10 Plus

Alfa Romeo 4C

Audi Tt

Gumball

Mclaren 650S

McLaren 12C

Ferrari FF

Chevrolet Corvette LT

Porsche 718 Cayman GT4

supercar

carbon fiber

Lamborghini Gallardo

Jaguar F-Type

BMW Z4

AMG GT S

Lamborghini Murciélago

SV kit

Felipe Massa

BMW F12

Ferrari

Ford Mustang

BMW 135I

BMW M135i

exclusive car registry

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