Looking Back at 10 Years Ago

TL;DR

2016 was when Doug DeMuro pivoted from writing silly car videos to reviewing other people's cars, which built the foundation of his entire YouTube career.

Key Points

• 1.Doug started 2016 as a Jalopnik writer who made YouTube videos only as companion pieces to articles, barely paying attention to his 100,000 subscribers
• 2.A 1997 Land Rover Defender video in April 2016 was his first major breakout reviewing someone else's car — it blew up and changed his thinking
• 3.He drove 8 hours to Toronto twice in two weeks to film a TVR Tuscan and then a Ford GT (after owner Zach emailed him), both going viral
• 4.A Mercedes AMG GT video taught him the key insight: audiences loved *new* cars just as much as rare exotics, because coverage was sparse on fresh models
• 5.By late 2016 he had fully abandoned making videos with his own cars and committed entirely to reviewing other people's new and interesting vehicles
• 6.From 2017–2022 he was the undisputed #1 car reviewer on YouTube, regularly pulling 7–10 million long-form views per video — numbers almost impossible today