5 Hagerty Videos That Moved the Needle: YouTube at 20

Founded in 2005, YouTube is celebrating 20 years of hosting videos. While Hagerty has been around for much longer, the brand’s YouTube channel came around a couple of years after the video-sharing site was founded. Today, the channel boasts 3.5 million subscribers who keep coming back for shows that highlight car culture, show off the newest performance models, and teach about the ins and outs of classic cars and their engines.

We spoke with Ben Woodworth, the videographer behind the scenes of Redline Rebuild, who plans and executes the fascinating stop-motion shots and seamless transitions that make each episode so intriguing. He’s also frequently lending Davin a hand during the process, so he also makes a few on-camera appearances. We asked Woodworth why the Chevy Stovebolt episode is the most-viewed Redline Rebuild. “It took us by surprise,” Woodworth said, noting that he’s still not sure why that one struck a chord. “It was the first one we legitimately rescued and dug out of the dirt to save. In the first few seconds, the truck is buried up to its frame in the dirt,” Woodworth theorized.

The Stovebolt six wasn’t the first Redline Rebuild. That honor goes to the Chevy small-block V-8, a natural pick for the initial installment, 10 years ago. A Ford flathead V-8 and an air-cooled VW flat-four followed. Maybe those popular engines get lost in the noise of all the content centered around them. Perhaps the Stovebolt’s relative obscurity helped it stand out. Woodworth chalks the video’s popularity up to the fact that it was “resurrecting something that was left for dead.”

Let’s take a look at that Redline Rebuild and four other videos that are the most-viewed of their respective shows.

Rusty to running: Chevy Stovebolt 6 engine rebuild time lapse

View Count: 50,000,000

Years after that Stovebolt was brought back from a rusty heap, the general concept of Redline Rebuild is the same. Woodworth noted that viewers seem to appreciate the educational aspect as much as the entertainment value. Because of that, each video shows all of the major steps in a rebuild. Some have even commented that they’d watch several hours of the process. With its constant state of flux, YouTube always keeps our video production crews on their toes. “Every time we think we have it solved, we just don’t,” said Woodworth. We do know that Woodworth is always incorporating new and interesting stop-motion shots and editing tricks to add excitement to each video.

The World’s Quickest Cars: Lucid Air Sapphire vs. Bugatti Chiron vs. Tesla Plaid

View Count: 12,300,000

In Jason Cammisa’s most popular video to date, he pitted the quickest internal combustion hypercar, the Bugatti Chiron, against the quickest EV on the market, the Lucid Air Sapphire. Along for the four-wide drag race was the 210-hp Ducati Panigale V4 SP2 and the EV that the Sapphire unseated, the Tesla Model S Plaid. We won’t spill the beans on how Jason’s film crew creates the stunning quasi-slow-motion visuals—we don’t know how they do it either.

Part 1: Greatest barn find collection known to man

View Count: 9,000,000

The 46th episode of Barn Find Hunter brought Tom Cotter and his team to inspect the collection of Billy Eubanks. Cotter was amazed by the variety of vehicles, even after knowing that the collection contained rare and unique cars. Winged Mopars sat next to ’50s pickups and ’70s land yachts. A 1941 Lincoln Continental used in the filming of The Godfather was also parked inside. We checked—there were no signs of the gun or the cannoli. Along with Redline Rebuild, Barn Find Hunter was an early hit that put Hagerty’s YouTube channel on the map and helped it grow to include shows with Larry Chen, Henry Catchpole, and Jason Cammisa that reach a wider audience than ever.

Tokyo Drift in real life: Underground car meet downtown Tokyo

View Count: 3,300,000

Larry Chen has traveled the globe photographing Formula Drift, Drag Week, Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, and the Baja 1000. He’s also featured amazing custom car builds during his far-flung travels. His videos for Hagerty, chronicled in Capturing Car Culture, take a look at some of these custom car niches as only he can. As always, Larry’s visit to Tokyo in this episode delivers stunning visuals, this time of amazing custom late-model sports cars, from wide-body Porsche 911s to retina-burning Lamborghinis. The trip also includes fantastically detailed lowriders. Besides the video and stills showing the wide variety of customs, this episode also has an amazing soundtrack thanks to a glorious flat-plane Ferrari V-8.

EXCLUSIVE: GMA T.50 finally meets McLaren F1

View Count: 791,000

The GMA T.50 is Gordon Murray’s eagerly anticipated follow-up to the divine McLaren F1. Henry Catchpole, former rally racer and test driver, was the first to review the new lightweight sports car alongside its beloved ancestor. Few experienced reviewers were qualified to speak on both cars, but Catchpole managed to get the two cars in the same place, at the same time, and drive them back-to-back on he same road. Almost a year later, no other reviewer has been able to do the same. Enjoy this video with the volume turned up, as both of these machines have a glorious sound.