Youtube for the discerning gentleman
 

So the thread on the Gears and Gasoline road trip episodes on Youtube brought up a lot of comments about how crap Youtube can be. True, but there's a LOT of gold out there as well.

I watch a LOT of Youtube and have a giant pile of subscriptions. I like QUALITY content - shot and edited well, good tech content, good audio, etc. I'm not a fan of the trend of "guy carrying a Gopro around as he goes about his day, also some car stuff" - LOTS of channels like that. Some I will watch a bit of on occasion but in general that isn't going to make me start watching immediately when a new episode pops up.

Also, if you do watch more than an occasional Youtube clip, for the love of god pay the $9.95 a month for Youtube Premium. It's a whole new world without ads. I see SO many people that bitch about the ads. I watch more Youtube than Netflix or other streaming services, it's well worth the money for the content.

While there are some RX-7 channels out there (and some are quite good) most of the content I watch is other automotive channels. But, a lot of the same principles apply - if you show someone doing quality work, being smart about it, using the right parts, and it's a well edited and produced package, I'm all for it.

These are some highlights. I'd love to see what channels you guys are in to as well.

AUTOMOTIVE

Bad Obsession Motorsport - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHv...B7NyU5tIiEZHBg

The channel has mainly been following Project Binky, 2 British guys taking a vintage Mini Cooper and putting a Celica All-Trac 4wd turbo drivetrain in it. All the workmanship is beyond impeccable, the videos are of outstanding quality, and the content is often very funny and light hearted. This is a must-watch when a new episode comes out. They are FINALLY nearing the end of the project - maybe.

ChrisFix - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCes...KU4sY_UEavndBw

Guy tackles most anything you could want to do/fix on a car, does it with simple tools, and shows every step of the process in an easy to understand fashion. One of the top auto Youtube channels, I've learned a lot of great tricks here.

Contempo Concept - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC90...tXdC1Fe9klf-lQ

New-ish channel, SUPER high end detailing shop that details and restores mainly JDM cars. If you like seeing a car fixed up with a GIANT pile of OEM parts and getting top notch detailing, this is it.

Haltech - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU8...BDWTOORKRwLqvA

Quality content, mainly focusing on their ECU's. But lots of solid tech and how-to.

Legit Street Cars - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT-...P8j4nEKW3DXpOA

Mainly Mercedes content and some American muscle, but dude is a top notch mechanic and puts out a lot of great content.

M539 Restorations - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLL...T8275nBXODXyqw

German guy who buys sad, neglected BMW's (mainly 12-cylinder) and does an amazing job repairing the RIGHT way with the RIGHT parts. Not into BMW's but this channel is superb.

Mighty Car Mods - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgJ...6XFxq9Ga8W2J3A

One of the oldest and longest-running auto channels, 2 Aussies who modify cars. Super high production values and their trips to Japan are killer. Some videos get a little "we are talking as we are working on the car" but in general it's a great channel.

Motive Video - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHY...IDVrED-Y76_ksA

Another Aussie channel, they do a lot of GT-R stuff. Some amazing tech in there, focused on GT-R's and drag racing.

Restore It - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYS...z0uIBRYlophvNw

Some of the videos are long chill-out videos, but he's been doing a lot of BMW restoration, going through each part, cleaning, painting, etc. Lots of good "learn by showing" on restoring and repairing parts.

Speed Academy - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKn...iMjXNWFnYCAXlw

Lots of neat and varied content. Some of the tech is a little light sometimes, and there is some sponsored stuff, but in general there's a ton of good content.

Tom's Turbo Garage - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPb...xk8a_4xXzyqepw

SUPER good content, mainly DSM's and turbo stuff. Lots of clean, step by step, quality stuff. He's not been putting stuff out much lately but has a HUGE catalog of videos.

Velocity Labs - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCno...2S0KSjma9oWZXw

Another channel that rarely has updates any more, but some of the old content is awesome. DSM stuff.

VinWiki - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCef...ZmljwZTE2KrcdA

Pretty popular channel, he gets various people to tell some great auto-related stories. Some are GOLD, lots of supercar/Cannonball stories, in general you will find some good stuff here.

If you guys like this I'll follow up with some more stuff.

Dale

Time is worth more than money...

I've watched a bunch of those channels as well. Let us know what else you're watching and I'll add anything else that I have too.

The SavageGeese channel is one of my all-round favorites for reviewing new cars.

its hard to do quality vids if you dont have proper gear and help.... dedicated videographer and editor...
the whole process takes a lot of effort and time.. and unless its your fulltime gig and have a budget... its extremely hard...my two cents

I’m familiar with some of the ChrisFix stuff and enjoyed it. I value content over production quality. And someone else previously mentioned Project Binky. Maybe it was stuff like the aforementioned “Douches and Bags Road trip” that turned me off. I’ll give these a look. Thanks for the suggestions.

Always appreciated, Dale. I've watched a few of these channels before, but some there I haven't seen. I don't need high-end editing and sound. I look more for genuine content. I like to watch Eric The Car Guy, even if he is Honda-centric. He does a good job explaining what he is doing. I also like Larry Kosilla's AMMO channel. Some good detail tips and content there.

+1 for Bad Obsession, its great. I think for two reasons, the first is that they have British accents, which is cool, secondly its not just two talking heads, a lot of Youtube is just talking heads and it gets tiring/boring. BoM keeps things fresh.



i've been occasionally watching https://www.youtube.com/user/jackpe10 and i like it because his project (a 308 Ferrari) has the same one step forward two steps back that mine do....

Great thread! There's a lot on here I haven't seen before.

I have two I think some folks here would be interested in.

Opera Performance, the Japanese tuner, has a YouTube channel that gets barely any views, and they respond to comments in English!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZK...eD4AYYw/videos
I don't think they've built an RX-7, but they've gotten some fame for their super-lightweight S2000's. It also looks like they're collaborating with Spoon on one of the JDM Built by Legends cars. The production quality is minimal, but seeing a Japanese shop up-close like this is cool.

And I'm a big fan of Papadakis Racing. This channel gets views, so I'm sure some of you have watched him before. Stephan is the team owner (they're very successful in Formula Drift), and he's extremely knowledgeable, detail-oriented, and great at explaining racecar components and fabrication.
This teardown and explanation of a NASCAR transmission is great

Another +1 on Bad Obsession
another couple of my faves and no doubt you'd know anyway as we'd be all getting the same recommendations, but Hillclimb Monsters: footage only of Group B, space frame silhouette madness,11,000rpm DFV v8 swaps, you name it being used in anger.
also Bozzy: seems to hang around Monza and sometimes Spa, and again, nothing but excellent footage of exotic race cars cutting sick. Literaly think of any obscure or significant race car from any era of top echelon racing and hes probably covered it.
https://youtube.com/c/HillClimbMonsters
https://youtube.com/c/19Bozzy92

edit: also Noriyaro. About the only vlog style channel i can tolerate, an aussie expat living in Jaapan, drifting shitbox cars, checking car shows, speaks fluent Japanese, knows everyone, everyone knows him, reslly greast insight into Japanese car culture.
https://youtube.com/user/noriyaro

I have YouTube as my main source of "things to watch". Below are my regular stuff. Those in bold are favs that have a priority when i got time.

Car Stuff:
The Skid Factory (Oz guys building cars)
Speed Academy (mentioned above, watch when in out of other stuff)
Bad Obsession Motorsports (ofcourse)
Soup Classic Motoring (Lotus rebuild)
Ronald Finger (Fiero Restoration)
Geoffrey Croker (Land Rover rebuild, very detailed)
Tavarish (Crashed and cheap supercars restorations)
Throttle Stop Garage (Old Canadian rebuilding a Volvo Amazon, in carbon fibre)
Rob Dahm (watching on and off)
B is for build (watching it less and less)
Lights up Lights Down (vblog from a UK based MX-5/Miata repair shop

Machining and metalworking:
This Old Tony (high production value and very fun and interesting projects)
Abom79 (used to lvoe this, but now its only filler content for me)
Alec Steele (Blacksmith / Weaponsmith making stuff)
Fireball Tool
Timothy Dyck
Clickspring (very detailed and fun to watch build of ancient clock mechanisms)
Made in Poland (Lots of DIY tools)
Steve Summers

Misc:
Baumgartner Restoration (paint and art resotrations)
Sampson Boat Co (rebuilding a sailing yach from scratch)
Kurzgesagt (infotainment)
Letsdig18 (a guy and his excavators, surprisingly interesting to watch people work)
AvE

Here's a few of mine (not including obvious content like Petrolicious and Carfection):

JDM Masters (in-depth car discussion): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrV...mxME5SnB2q5PHA

Junkyard Dave (FD owner and FC restoration): https://www.youtube.com/c/RoadBashTV/videos

Fullboost (Australian tuners): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKB...WsuTFPJPgCIOGQ

Russ and Adam's Garage (driving Vettes and Firebird at Nürburgring): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbT...6LUI9rrkNBpW5g

Ammo NYC (detailing and paint correction): https://www.youtube.com/c/AMMONYCdotcom/featured

WatchJRGo (Car repair, etc.): https://www.youtube.com/user/lumbjoh

Casey Putsch (driving instruction, kit car construction): https://www.youtube.com/user/putsch1

Harry's Garage (ex-Evo Magazine publisher Harry Metcalfe): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIB...WWzTOw6guIMYCg

Car Wizard (fixes Hoovie's hoopties): https://www.youtube.com/user/OmegaAutoService

JayEmm on Cars (Lotus Evora ownership, UK reviews): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkw...oaaXZSilir6qsg

Fezza (the joys of Ferrari ownership): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIu...fC7zR41yCpx8mQ

Davide Cironi Drive Experience (Italian supercars): https://www.youtube.com/c/davidecironi/featured

Best Motoring (English-subtitled playlist): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...tFql5G_wQTlytC

sad to say it but I too have become a Youtube junkie, do more watching than fixing or racing now, but there is so much good stuff on there!

Alan Millyard. Does exquisite work basically adding extra cylinders to vintage bikes.
Softly spoken genius.

this is off topic, but have you heard of the Honda Rc166? Mr Honda decided he wanted to go racing, and in the late 60's everything was two stroke, but Mr Honda didn't like two strokes,
so the engineers did a 4 stroke that just revved twice as high. its a straight 6, 20,000 rpm, its nuts....

Lots of good recommendations here guys!

Here's my take on some of the channels that others have mentioned -

B is for Build - this channel started pretty strong and newer episodes aren't as good IMHO. The series where he rebuilds a wrecked Lotus was REALLY good, lots of detail, really makes you think you could do the same thing with some trial and error. His FD series was so-so, felt bad for the car, but I did get a personal shout-out in the video so there's that :).

Fingerprints Workshop - SUCH a good series on rebuilding a Fiero. Never thought I would be captivated with watching someone take one of the worst built cars of the 80's and restoring it. It's entertaining through and through.

Clickspring - that channel is incredible. He rebuilds an ancient Antikythera mechanism from scratch and also shows how they could have done some of the processes in BC times. Really makes you appreciate machining and what all can be done with a lathe.

AMMO NYC - love this channel, also really well put together and focused with quality content. Mainly detail work on high end cars, but he also has some cool clean up/restoration of barn finds, a crazy over the top repaint on his Porsche, and some good garage build videos.

Casey Putsch - I have enjoyed some of his videos but some of them are kind of him blowing hot air, lots of talking without much action. But it's definitely worth a dive into, watch the videos that interest you in the series.

Hopefully tonight will get some time to watch some of these good recommendations! I have some more channels to share as well.

Dale

Yeah I can only imagine the reaction those things got back in the day, because even by today's standard they are f****ng mental. Honda really pushed things forward back then.

Just back to this Millyard chap again though, I don't think it can be overstated the level of awesome the stuff he's done. He turns single cylinder classic british bikes into v-twins, straight 4's into 6's and v8's, cuts the blocks up with a hacksaw! He made a 5 liter v-twin out of a Pratt & Whitney radial airplane engine and built a bike around it, did another one wih a Viper V10.
Here's a v12:

Tyrrell's Classic Workshop is a channel that I haven't seen mentioned yet. He's located in the UK and works on older sport cars including Harry Metcalf's cars (Harry's Garage). He is very knowledgeable.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2p...qbMHSVLtbJBvyw

As an engineer, I really Wesley Kagan's channel. Hes doing some impressive stuff!
/WesleyKagan

ive been watching a lot of PFI Speed lately, mostly honda tuner stuff, but they walk you through dyno tuning and troubleshooting process
https://www.youtube.com/c/PFISpeedtube/videos

Richard Holdeners channel also lots of cool dyno tests, but mostly v8 stuff
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8u...Sx6XbnQ/videos

Banks has interesting technical dyno testing also, but mostly diesel and v8 stuff
https://www.youtube.com/c/bankspower/videos

Team Oneil rally school!
https://www.youtube.com/c/TeamONeilRallySchool/videos

So much good stuff! I've been watching the guy restoring the Land Rover, that's been fantastic.

I was going to put down Banks and forget. That dude is a bad-ass, he's CRAZY smart and he has a lot of videos that really show some of the nuts and bolts science to making power. His series on the diff cover is also crazy good.

Dale

the killing a duramax series was really eye opening

Yeah, he is very good! So much so that even my brother who is not much in to cars enjoy it when i put it on friday evening entertainment.

And i have spent the last two weeks looking at the BMW guy. If you have a look at my «title» you can guess that it was just spot on for me :D

in!

subd

thanks for the thread Dale and all the awesome links in here from everyone else as well.

this is a great thread, thank you all, especially Dale!