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Vidpros Insiders
Auto Archaeology Reveals His Most Insane Discoveries and Algorithm Hacks
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Meet Ryan Brutt, better known as The Auto Archaeologist, as he shares how he built a unique niche documenting rare and forgotten cars hidden across the country and turned it into a storytelling-driven YouTube channel.
If you've ever wondered how niche content can still attract massive attention, how storytelling makes even the most specific topics engaging, or what it takes to build a content brand around pure curiosity, this conversation is packed with insights on what actually works.
In this episode, Ryan breaks down how a random discovery of a classic car flipped a switch in his life and led him into a 20+ year journey of finding and documenting barn finds, junkyard treasures, and rare vehicles that most people never get to see. We talk about how he transitioned from blogging and journalism into YouTube, why his first video unexpectedly hit millions of views, and how he built a loyal audience around a very specific niche.
Ryan also shares the detective work behind tracking down hidden cars, from analyzing shadows in photos to using maps and visual clues to locate vehicles no one else could find. He explains why storytelling is more important than the car itself, how emotional context keeps viewers engaged, and why these forgotten vehicles matter beyond their price tags.
He also dives into the reality of monetizing niche content, how the collapse of traditional media pushed him into YouTube, and why staying focused on a specific audience has been key to his growth.
Ryan Brutt is the creator of The Auto Archaeologist, a platform dedicated to uncovering rare and abandoned vehicles while preserving the stories behind them. Through his work, he combines journalism, photography, and video to document automotive history before it disappears.
Whether you're a creator trying to grow with purpose, someone exploring niche content ideas, or just curious about the stories hidden behind forgotten cars, this episode is for you.
Learn more about Ryan:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AutoArchaeology
Blog: carsinbarns.blogspot.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/TheAutoArchaeologist/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheAutoArchaeologist/
Website: http://www.barnfinds.org
Email: TheAutoArchaeologist@Yahoo.com
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#cars #barnfinds #classiccars #autoarchaeologist #youtubestrategy #contentcreator #storytelling #automotive #creatorbusiness #youtubegrowth
Most people think our culture is all about speed, horsepower, and restoration. Brian Rod shows there's a whole different world behind it. In this episode, he breaks down how he tracks down forgotten classic cars across the country, uncovers the stories behind them, and turns iron finds into content people cannot stop watching. So nice to meet you. I'm Victor and I work for VidRos. Thank you so much for saying yes to doing this. Sure, why not? More information is never a bad thing. That's true, that's true. It's lovely to hear that. Awesome. So, Ryan, for people discovering your work for the first time, how would you describe what you do today and who you are? Hello, my name's Ryan Brutt.
SPEAKER_01I, in my own mind, call myself the auto archaeologist. That is a long story. But uh what I do is I drive around the United States for the most part and document vintage cars in, as I say, neglected situations, like barn finds, junkyards, uh, garages, you know, some of them for 40, 50, 60 years sitting untouched. And I usually record the oat the I take pictures and do video and then produce it for YouTube and other outlets.
SPEAKER_00Awesome. I I know you said it's a long story, but if you could like summarize it, why are you called the auto-archaeologist?
SPEAKER_01It's actually a dumb story, but it's funny. Um, back over 10 years ago, Facebook, I think it used to limit you to only like 500 friends or something like that, like a thousand friends. And I filled that up because I at the time I was writing for a magazine called Hot Rod Magazine. It's the number one vintage car magazine in the world. And I filled that up. People wanted to be my friend, and I'm like, you can have a business page, but you had to name it something. And I'm like, what's something that I can parlay into? Like you read the name and you know what I do. And I thought about a few, and I came up with the automotive archaeologist as a business name, yeah, and made the Facebook page to work with that. As it was before YouTube and all that, and then I just went on Instagram and YouTube and claimed it on all the different services, and that's how it all started.
SPEAKER_00Awesome. So, from what you're saying, you've actually been working in this industry uh before you started posting, right? So, what actually pulled you into classic car and barn find world? Yes, I've been doing this for 20 years.
SPEAKER_01Um I can actually tell you the exact moment I got into old cars. Please. I was, I'll make a long story short, I was getting a radio put in my old in my daily driver, and I wasn't a car person, but the shop where the car was having the radio put in had this old 1971 CUDA buried in the middle of the shop. I mean, it was covered in garbage, old interior parts, and I'm like, man, this thing is so cool. It was black with huge tires and had that cheese grater grill, and that just flipped the switch in my head. And every that was 2001, roughly, and I was driving a 1990 Taurus wagon. I was really high class there. Um, but that got me going. That that little flip of the switch, I'm like, if I found this, which I later learned it was actually a pretty rare car, if I found this car by accident, what other cool cars could I find if I put a little bit of effort into it? And that just started the whole snowball going.
SPEAKER_00In that moment, did you know that this could be uh a business, or were you approaching it as a hobby only?
SPEAKER_01Um, I was still in high school, so I was just approaching it as some little side hustle. I was borrowing, my mom worked at a school, and she had the very first like easy digital camera. It was about this big and it had floppy disks. You would actually put a floppy disk in the side of the camera. And so I would always carry a stack of floppy discs. I would borrow it on weekends and go around to Chicago. I'm in Chicago, Illinois, which is in the Midwest here in the United States. And I would just drive around and I had friends who my dad's friends were car guys, so they knew of stuff. So that's how I started my initial just fun seeing cool cars kind of thing. So I joined a car club, and no one believed me when I told them of the stuff I found. Like, oh, sure, you found this really rare CUDA. And I'm like, no, I have pictures of it in a like, oh, where are these pictures? I'm like, they're on my computer. And so I started a blog, and that's really what started the whole journalism, um, photography, video. It was one step after the next after the next.
SPEAKER_00Is there a moment that you realized this was actually a business and you could make money from it? I wish I could make money out of it.
SPEAKER_01Um no, I'm just kidding. But I mean, it always seemed like just fun stuff until I got into college and I like went for journalism. Like I went to be uh, you know, a writer, and I knew that there was money in writing. But unfortunately, that was right before the collapse of the magazine market. So my journalism was very easy to parlay into YouTube and all that, but I mean I knew there was money there. I mean, I saw other people doing not me, but other jer automotive journalists doing car stuff. So I knew you could support yourself if you worked hard enough.
SPEAKER_00What was the first uh discovery that you actually documented online? Online?
SPEAKER_01Um, it's still up on my blog somewhere. I have I still have the blog. I update it like every year. When I was in college, I documented a find out in the middle of a rural community, and they had a very rare car, a superbird. And superbirds have are they now go for about a half a million to a million dollars, roughly. And there was one in a barn, like legitimately sitting on a gravel floor, was an old barn, there was tractors in it, and nobody believed me. And so I put the pictures up there. I'm like, here, here's the first blog. You can see here's the car with all these other cars on this farm out in the middle of nowhere, and that's really what put me on the map. Was that find to begin with?
SPEAKER_00And also, you said that you still have your blog up. Um, what is it like today? Do people still visit blogs?
SPEAKER_01People do. Um, a lot of I actually have been seeing some pretty decent traffic in the past few years because that kind of long form, like, I'm not writing for a lot of car magazines anymore. Hot Rod has shifted away from that kind of stuff. All the other car, there's no more muscle car magazine anywhere in the United States. There's only one muscle car magazine in Canada. So there's no real written published outlet other than I do some stuff for like Mopar Collector's Guide or Mopar Connection magazine. So I it's my social media and the blog and YouTube, of course, that really keep me going.
SPEAKER_00And did you actually expect the barn ne barn find niece to become such a huge interest in the car community? And do you think it is a big interest in the car community? If you would like to rank it.
SPEAKER_01Oh no, absolutely. I mean, what I'm doing isn't anything new. Before I got into this world more heavily, uh, there was a website called CarsInbarns.com, and I knew that that they had a huge following. I mean, all the car guys would would drool waiting for the most for updates on that website. Uh, and it unfortunately died because of some ownership issues. But I mean, to this day, I still see stuff from that website popping up in my feed from people rediscovering it now, you know, 20 years later. But even before that, um, Steve Bagnante, another journalist friend of mine, he did uh articles for a magazine called Car Craft called Junkyard Crawls. And he would go find these. I mean, in the 80s you could find stuff a lot easier, and in the 90s, I mean, there was stuff still coming into junkyards. So he would go to a junkyard and see KUDAs and sh Chevelles and GTOs and go pick parts from them. Um, so he was one of the beginners in this entire hobby, and I'm just further down the lane uh the track than he is.
SPEAKER_00What what would you say that makes a car discovery truly special? Like, what is the first thing that you see? If you're a content creator and editing is eating up your week, pay attention. FitGirls is a professional video editing service built specifically for creators, not random freelancers and not an AI tool. You get a dedicated human editor who learns your style, facing, and brand from day one. Film your content and upload the raw footage. Your editor handles everything. Cuts, captures, color grading, sound design, and short form clips. We deliver everything through Google Drive Link and Frame.io so you can leave timestamped feedback and requests in limited revisions. We start with a $100 trial week that includes 10 hours of editing. Go to vidbros.com and start your trial today. Stop editing and start growing.
SPEAKER_01Um, the first thing is the condition. What is the story of where it is right now? I mean, is it a Camaro sitting in a garage underneath blankets for or in like a car trailer for 30 years that ended up being a Yanko? Or is it a Hemikuda sitting in a guy's backyard, or a super bird in the rafters? I mean, it's the situation the car is in right now is the beginning of the story, but it's not the beginning of the tail of the adventure. Because you got to tell why is that car there? What's the story? Why is the owner kept the car in this building or in that yard or whatever for you know 10, 20, 30, 40 years? So you slowly peel it away like an onion to show everything associated with it to the best of your abilities.
SPEAKER_00Is there any specific story that is still in your mind from a car that you found? Something that you were like, oh, this is really cool. This hit there there's actual history here.
SPEAKER_01Oh, there's a ton. Um, I was fortunate enough a few years ago to document the uh the missing rapid transit system from Plymouth. They did a traveling car show and they had these extremely custom cars done for it. And there was, I'm like, I I think there's five cars total made. There's 70, 71, duster, there was four, and then they had some other stuff, and there was one missing, and I was brought in to document it as found, had like 70 miles on it. It was ridiculous. Literally off the radar, like nobody knew where it was, and so that was a lot of fun. Um I've been uh so see oh the uh just two years ago, uh friend of mine had um a Yanko Camaro, and they only made a I I mean, I don't know the exact number, let's say they only made like a hundred of them. And he had always told me about this car. He's like, Yeah, I got the Yanko, I got my car in a trailer in a storage lot out in Timbuktu. One day we'll go check it out. And I'm like, great. Unfortunately, my friend passed away, and you know, I'm not I'm not one of these guys that jump on, you know, a grave robber. I'm not one to go, you know, bother people who are grieving. Um but later, a few years later, the wife and our friends, who were we're all friends, contacted me saying, Hey, we're gonna go move the car. Do you want to come check it out? And I did, and we did go check it out, and I did a whole big video on it, and it was one of the missing Jack Douglas Yankos, one of I think like 13 built. I mean and it was definitely incredible to see and do and to honor my friend, and it is go undergoing a restoration right now, and it's probably worth like $500,000 when done.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, what would you say is the the rarest um discovery you've done?
SPEAKER_01Like, would you say the rarity is there's a spectrum of rarity. Like, I found cars that are one of one, like they only made like the the Yarti Skudo. That car is unique, that is the only one that exists. But then I've also found like a Deucenberg in a shed in Indiana, and Dusenbergs, I mean, every single one is unique, but like for money-wise, I mean I found a Ferrari in behind a dentist place, like a it was a house dentist place in a shed. That car, I think, from my I I don't know what happened to it, but I know similar ones go for like $13 million now. Um, the Duesenbergs multi-million dollars. I mean, I found a few muscle cars that aren't quite in that realm, but like I found a Mercedes uh SL 190, which is the baby of the th the 300 with the Gold Wings and all that. Um I found a few muscle cars that are million dollar, half million dollar cars. So I found some pretty unique and rare stuff.
SPEAKER_00How often do you actually discover something valuable versus something that just looks cool?
SPEAKER_01Um, I mean, I'm out there, I I will say, right now has been an outlier here in the United States. Yeah. Um I haven't been hunting all winter because the winter was such garbage here. Like I tried to go even south, like towards the like the southern United States, and they had ice storms and all that, so not lately. But normally when I'm hunting, I will find something of value of some form. Like just this weekend I went and documented um some old muscle cars, and there was nothing over, let's say, fifty thousand dollars, hundred thousand dollars, but it was a collection. There was a bunch of them, so they're a million dollars as a whole, so you never know.
SPEAKER_00Would you say there's still many cars hidden away in barns and garages?
SPEAKER_01Oh, absolutely. There's cars scattered everywhere if you're willing to put some effort into it. I mean, just as an example, I think it's 1965. I might be getting maybe 66. They made a million Chevy Impalas. They built a million of them. So, I mean, okay, even if half of them don't exist anymore, that's half a million impalas. So there's plenty of room out in the United States to, you know, there's plenty of rural communities with cars and barns and all that and fields. I mean, I've been in places where you're in a valley, you don't think you're ever gonna get out, and there's a row of cars down there. So there is stuff scattered everywhere if you're willing to put the effort in.
SPEAKER_00Where would you say most of these discoveries come from? And is there any country in the world that you feel like you'd find many more options that you feel like, hey, I want to visit this place someday and hunt over there?
SPEAKER_01Mexico. I would love to go south. There, I mean, it's it's dry for the most part, and a lot of you know, muscle cars when they became gas guzzling in the 70s, people went south. You know, they sold them to Mexico where gas is cheaper. And so I've seen pictures of, you know, one of the uh missing um not going to 60 seconds, um, bullet. One of the bullet mustings was found down there a few years ago. I mean, I have plenty of leads down in, especially like the you know, right along the border, maybe a little bit further south, Mexico City. There's tons of stuff hidden out there because you can go rural pretty easily. It's dry, it's desert, and you could have stashed tons of cars real easy. I wish I could go down there, but I've I've only been to Mexico once 20 years ago for like a day and never been back, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you should do that. I feel like you're gonna find so many different uh cars all over this world. There's like I believe so.
SPEAKER_01I mean, even in Brazil, um, I mean, there's Dodge had an entire lineup of cars, of muscle cars, that were unique. There still is. There's unique uh vehicles built down there. They had chargers that were based on darts and all kinds of cool stuff. So I would love to go into South America. Uh, not this much Canada, because once you get up into Canada, it gets cold and rainy and a lot of wet. So a lot of cars didn't survive. Yeah, but it's so rural that you can find stuff out there, but I've it's so spread out that it's really hard to hunt um economically, I should say.
SPEAKER_00Do people usually reach out to you or do you actively hunt for these cars?
SPEAKER_01Oh, a little bit of both. I mean, I have people who are constantly like, hey, you know, I follow your stuff. I've got a Camaro in my backyard. I'm like, okay, cool. And uh every lead I get, I have an online map through a program called Mango Maps. And I take, let's say you say I'm in, you know, Madison, Wisconsin at 1234 Street. I'm like, okay, I poop put you onto my map with, you know, Bob Joe has a 69 Camaro in his backyard here. Email him or call him at this location. And what I can do is I can look at that map, I can zoom out and see all my options, and then when I travel, I can quickly bounce through and see a bunch of cool stuff while also hunting and talking to people.
SPEAKER_00How much detective work is actually involved in tracking this down? Like, because in a way you're kind of like a detective, too, right? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it depends on the quality of the lead I get. Um, an example is a few years ago, I mean, many, many years ago now, I knew about a purple Hemikuda, which is a very rare muscle car, sitting in a backyard out on the like Utah area. And through years of research, I was able to narrow it down to two cities in Utah. And I'm like, okay, I know it's in one of these two cities. And then randomly a picture of it popped up. Like someone had gone in the guy's backyard illegally, taken a picture, and posted it online, and I'm like, ooh, but okay, so in the picture, you can see in the background there's a sporting stadium light set up. One of those big multi, like a football stadium light. And I'm like, oh, that's interesting. So I went to both towns and I looked up sporting fields. Because they're not big cities, neither one of them were, but they all, you know, one of them had a college, which the lights didn't match, and the other one had a soccer field nearby in the in the town that the lights didn't match. They were the same style. And I'm like, okay, and from the picture I got, I could see it was either late in the morning, or it was either early morning or early afternoon from the shadows, or something like that. Like the way the shadows were going, I could see that the sun was behind the guy. So it was either yeah, early morning, like I was looking west, or it was late in the afternoon and I was looking east. So all I did was I went to and also for in the picture you could see the different garages and all that. They had three different color roofs. So all I did was I went on the map on Google Earth and looked in the northwest corner or the southwest corner of the stadium. I just went up and down the streets looking for these three-colored roofs, and I found it. There, I found the red, blue, and white or black roof with a shed in the middle, and there was the cuda sitting there. And I I was fortunate enough a few years ago when I was going out west for uh delivering a car, I was just happened to be going right by it, and the owner was cool and he let me see the car, and it was exactly where I figured it to be, where I found it to be.
SPEAKER_00One thing that actually stands out about you and your uh content is actually your storytelling abilities. Like what are the stories behind this car? Why are the stories behind this car so important to you?
SPEAKER_01Because it gives you context to why the car is where it is, why it still exists. Because, like I said, with the with the Impala, they made millions of Impalas. Why does this why is this one special enough to still exist in the modern era? I mean, uh for a 66 Impala, that was 60 years ago. I mean, what is so special that did the owner take, you know, date his wife in the car? Did he bring his you know son home from the hospital in it? You know, these cars are a physical connection to a time in their lives that they cherish. And that's very rare and unique. That's why the cars usually are sitting. So I want to share that. That yeah, it sucks the car is you know, like that that Hemikuda. It sucks it's in the backyard, but you know, it still exists. The guy might not take care of it the best way everyone wants it to, but it still exists, it has meaning to him and his family, and it won't be destroyed at this time. So the future, who knows what? But right now it's safe, it's good, just keep an eye on it.
SPEAKER_00Do you feel like you're preserving history before it's lost?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. I love documenting these collections or junkyards before they're crushed out, and I've been fortunate enough to document a few different yards that no longer exist. Uh, there's one out in the town of East Troy, Wisconsin, just west of it, and it had like a Corvette sitting on top of a bus, a vintage Corvette sitting on top of a bus, and buildings full of Imperial, big cars and little cars. And I was able to go through as they started crushing out and document it, and now it's nothing but a farm field. It just blows my mind.
SPEAKER_00How would you say your content evolved from photos and articles into video? What was that process like? What what did you have in mind like when you first started doing videos for YouTube? Like, was storytelling the first thing that you prepared, or were you more focused on the visuals?
SPEAKER_01I'm always I was and still am photography first. I love taking pictures, documenting it, you know, getting the lighting right and all that. Um, with the magazines, they started moving towards video content, so they were asking me to shoot some while I was out on these adventures, so I dabbled in it a little bit, but unfortunately, because of legalese stuff, um, I couldn't share it on my own page, and they never really got behind it on their platform. Like, I I wrote for Hot Rod, which evolved into Motor Trend like YouTube and the Motor Trend, like Roadkill, Roadkill Garage, and all this stuff. But back on the Hot Rod magazine actual website where my video content was going to live, they didn't do anything. It was basically they would take whatever video I sent them, you know, no editing, just throw it up in the video. So that's where I then had to step in and start editing it for them. But then they get all the clicks and views. So I'm like, okay, well, this isn't benefiting me. I'm not getting paid anymore to do all this work. I'm getting paid for the article, which is great, but the video and the time behind it just isn't worth it. So they didn't really care that much. They were asking for it, but I'm like, hey, I'm like, you know what? We worked on an agreement that as soon as the article was published in the magazine, like it was on the store shelves, I could go on my YouTube and publish the video as an ancillary thing. And like share and like put the link to the article on the because it would also be on their website. So I would take the article from the website, put it in the link, put it in my video, and that's how it evolved from photography for my blog to the magazines to YouTube.
SPEAKER_00And what kind of response did you first get when you started posting on YouTube? Was it something that happened fast? Were people fascinated from the start? What was it like?
SPEAKER_01It was really funny. It was actually, I just saw yes, it was 13 years ago yesterday. I'd recorded my first full video for YouTube. And it's not even on my YouTube channel. It was actually, I had a just a personal page where like I put up my cat videos, or I'm also a train fan, an old vintage train guy. So I had training, so I threw up this one video of me walking around a barn full of extremely rare cars, ironically enough. But I just threw it up there and it got two million views within a few months. Blew my mind. I'm like, wow, so there really is a market for this, but I think it's still the case. Like, I couldn't move it. So I'm like, I don't want to put it on my private page. It's not private, but it's just it's a personal page. Like, no one needs to see my cat or my friend's sister singing frozen. So I'm like, let me start a full-on auto car page. And so that's when I created the auto or auto archaeology on YouTube, like the hat page. It just sucks that I couldn't move that video over there, but it is what it is. But then I started posting all of my automotive content on that page specifically. And unfortunately, like I said, things with the magazines kind of made you know timing terrible. But uh in 2019, all the magazines collapsed and we were all let go, so that no longer was a problem.
SPEAKER_00Why do you think so people uh so many people are fascinated with abandoned cars? I mean, we know why you are, but why do you think people care about it in general from what you've seen from your audience?
SPEAKER_01Because it's the rarity and it's the uniqueness, like the Hemikuda. They only made uh, I think a hundred Hemikudas, and they're all cool cars with unique stories, and they're worth a lot of money. And these were the cars that you know a lot of people, even nowadays, you know, you watch Fast and the Furious, and there's KUDAs in that, or Chargers, or Camaros, or whatever. So people can easily identify with them, and they're seeing this car that's been sitting for 40-50 years in a barn or a field, and that makes it unique all to itself. There is no other car like that anywhere in the world. That car has been sitting there for 40 years, creating that dust in that situation, is unique. So people love hearing those stories and seeing the cars that they dream about finding themselves, and also that's the other thing. That's the main reason I do this is to have people do what I do. I want people to go out there and find these cars and save them. Because if we're not doing it, then no one is, and then they're gonna get scrapped in the long run.
SPEAKER_00Would you ever consider creating some sort of documentary film just uh recording all your discovery and your detective process? I would.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it would be very interesting. I mean, I don't know how I would format it, but definitely I could see that like having a third party, like someone, because all of my videos are just me. All the editing is me, all the filming is me. Sometimes I have friends with me who will help me a little bit do some, you know, b-roll or something like that. But having it re I'm still learning. My videos are are fine, but they're not great. I wish I had a third party to give me perspective and be able to keep track of it. And having a documentary or something, you know, showing the step-by-step what I should do, you not like made up, but like what shots are the best ones to get. I mean, I'm still learning that and making sure I can try to hit the beats. I write down, I listen to podcasts all the time when I'm traveling. I take notes on, you know, what I should do. And having a documentary or, you know, people who are experts in that would, I think, be a wonderful addition.
SPEAKER_00Because I actually imagine whenever you were actually traveling and hunting, that you actually had a team with you or a friend that would help you, and then you guys would find the stories together. So it's interesting to know that most of the time you do it by yourself, right? Um, whenever you're shooting everything, how important is storytelling? Is it something that you're already thinking of, or is it something that you think in post-editing?
SPEAKER_01Oh no, it's it's it's I automatically think of that because context is king. And just having a car sitting in a field, that's just a car. But having the history behind it, telling the story of the car, is far more important than anything else. Because people go crazy when there's no contact. Why is this half million dollar car, quarter million car? Why is this car that's been in my dreams sitting there? And when they hear the story about, you know, the owner bought it new in 1969 and you know took all these kids home from the hospital, you you get that connection to them and are showing them why that that is in that situation. And it's they are a little bit kinder.
SPEAKER_00Is there any discovery that you found that you feel like you didn't find enough context about it? And how do you approach it? Do you record it? Do you post it? I do.
SPEAKER_01I mean, there's absolutely uh cars that I I've been in situations where the owners have died, and so there's only the lightest amount of information on the backside, as I call it. But you can go, you can detective out some information. Um, I research, like if it's an owner that passed away, okay, who are his friends? What you know, you know, Bob had this friend, Steve, and Steve had an old car too, and then Steve would tell, oh, you remember when Bob used to drag race that car? And so you still get context, and it's not very often, um, especially lately, with that age group aging out, but it does happen, and I just try to give as much context as possible from any sources I can so people aren't upset about what's going on.
SPEAKER_00When it comes to your YouTube strategy, do you think niche channels like yours benefit from going deep instead of just trying to reach everyone? Was there a moment that you ever thought like, hey, maybe I should do more uh like a different type of content invol involving this car, but uh or were are you more like no, let's focus on this and this will work, this has always worked.
SPEAKER_01I mean, this doesn't always work. I mean, I definitely my views fluctuate pretty significantly. But for my niche, I try to focus 90% of it. I do dabble in other stuff because there are stuff that's ancillary to finding old cars. Like I do in November, I do a car show, which is the largest muscle car show in the world. Um, we do a barn find display. So it's a um it's an event coverage, it's barn finds and hidden gems at the muscle car and corvette nationals. Um, so it's it's a step removed from my normal, and it's usually it's okay received usually. Um, but I'll be doing um there's another car show coming up this September where I'll be doing a a smaller display, and it's gonna be interesting to see how that goes. But I do try to do stuff in the same like I have an old car as well that's been sitting for 20 years or more. I don't know the numbers exactly. It's kind of scary. But my blue car, my new challenger, has is about to hit 300,000 miles, and I'm building the green car, which is a 71 challenger, um, to replace it in in theory. So I'm trying to do a little bit of coverage of that, but separate time frames. Like I'll I always do in all the YouTube video all the YouTube podcasts I listen to, they say be as stable as possible in your posting. So try to do it the same time every week so people get used to that. Um so my usual game plan is 8 a.m. Central Time in the United States on Mondays. Um, but I do little videos throughout the week, like little shorts. But if I have a uh separate, but like I said, when I do my car build videos, I'll do those on Friday. That way it's kind of like bookends. So I am trying to expand slightly into that field. I tried to do some train videos, which are not barn find or junk train videos, but just vintage train videos on the page, and they never did well, so I discontinued doing that. But you gotta experiment, so you never know.
SPEAKER_00What is your filming and editing process like? Do you usually think about the shots that you feel like would work best? Because I know doing it by yourself, it's much harder. And then how long does it take for you to edit your content and still be consistent?
SPEAKER_01I do try to do the best shots. Um, I have friends, like I said, I I have friends who were in the TV, like roadkill and all that, who are editors and all that. So I've talked with them and I try to do A role and B roll to the best of my abilities, but the main limiting factor I'm always under is time. I don't have a ton of time wherever I am. Because I'm either especially if it's in Chicago itself, there's not a lot. Because with being in a major city, there are laws against junk cars. So you gotta go rural and away from the city to get good content, and that means I'm usually in hotels and spending gas. And so even if I'm at a huge find, I have maybe one or two days at it before I gotta either go home or move on to the next thing because I don't have the time to spend there. So I do I have a shoot, I have a shot list on my phone. I try to, you know, make sure that I get you know this shot, this shot, this, you know, get a full side shot, you know, get context, get, you know, the barn or the building, get, you know, the owner if you can, if not understandable. So there's definitely things I try to hit while I'm out there. And what I'll usually do for my own sanity is I'll do all my b-roll is with GoPros lately, especially. I have a GoPro 10 and a GoPros, a GoPro 10 black and a GoPro 7 black. But my newest, my newest hotness is that I have a DGI, pocket 2, and microphones. People don't realize when they're starting a YouTube, audio is actually the most important thing. People will will watch garbage you actual video at 48 480p, but if the audio is bad, it can actually make you sick and actually make it hurt. So I got I mean, I had terrible audio for the longest time, and and now I have um lavalier mics with little um microphone packs, and I got receivers, and with this little gimbaled Go um DGI camera, it's been absolutely wonderful shooting. And then I'll have the GoPro on a little handheld unit um in my pocket, and their stabilization's okay, but it's uh in-camera stabilization, so it's kind of but it's great for B-roll. I can shoot B-roll, I have flashlights to make sure that it's lit at least decently enough to see. So it's like I said, go this all going through my head, even me just telling you now, it's a jumble. Just trying to-that's why I have everything on lists in my phone. Yeah, so I try to keep everything straight.
SPEAKER_00What is like some of the biggest challenges that you find once you actually arrive at a barn or a junkyard or a node building? And usually are the owners willing to speak to you about it? Do they feel like it's a weird thing that you're asking questions about the cars or are they open about it? It's a little bit of everything.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I've been doing this for almost 20 years now. There are people that say no, we're not interested. And I'm like, hey, I understand. You have a good day. And I go on to the next one because I have plenty of finds on my map that I can just go find something else. But there are people like, hey, you know, I'm like, and I but I'll show them. Like, I have uh you can't see, I've written two books on like actual published books, and I have all old magazines of from Hot Run. I'm like, hey, the I show people that I'm there to tell the story of the car, but I don't tell people who you are or where you are. Just that, you know, Bob had this Camaro, he drove it in high school, dated his wife, blah blah. I don't tell where, like, it's not Bob, Bob, you know, Nick's. It's not Bob Nick's in blah blah blah, Missouri or whatever. It's just Bob did this to protect the owners, and usually that and also I'm not trying to steal the cars from them. I'm not trying to buy the car, I'm not trying to take it away from them. I show up in a Dodge Challenger, so it's not like I'm pulling up in a rollback and I'm like, hey, I'm just here to document the history of why this car is here. And I'll say 90% of the time they're cool with it. As long as I keep it, you know, don't share where it is, don't share who it is. They're more than they want to tell the story, they want people to see that why this rare car is sitting in a neglected state. And so that's usually an open door. Also, but they like the challenger, usually like, oh cool, you're driving your challenger, and blah blah. So that's usually in my in all the years I've been doing this, I've only had one really bad reaction to me showing up, and all the others like I understand. I show up out of the blue and they don't want to talk, that's not a problem. So I just go on.
SPEAKER_00If there's a find that is miles away from you, but it's only just one discovery, do you do you go there? Is it worth it, or do you wait until you find more in the same area so you can actually explore the area?
SPEAKER_01I I don't unless it's something extremely, extremely rare, I will usually wait until there's other stuff. Like I'll do loops on my map. Like if there's like there's I know of stuff in Iowa, but not enough to make a whole trip out of it. So if I have oh, all of a sudden another thing popped up in Iowa. Oh, I can do four different things in Iowa and do a big loop through. I'll plan one. Like I just did one in I did a loop through Missouri recently. Literally just got back. That's what we had to reschedule. I had to do uh I was in Missouri up until Tuesday of this week. Um, and I did four days down, around, and back and hit up a bunch of cool stuff. And I'll do the same thing in other places, but more usually my fines are within, I will say, like a two-day like if you're on rural roads and you drive away from Chicago for two days, that's usually my range of exploration. I've gone all the way to Ohio for some stuff. I do a bunch of stuff in like Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, obviously. Wisconsin is only a few miles north of me. I'll may I'll go to Iowa. Like Iowa I'll do like once a year, Missouri I'll do like once a year. Um, I have friends who but also I use my I uh I how should I say I use my good friends to the best of their abilities. Like I have friends who live in uh Tennessee, which is over a two-day journey from me. And I'll but I'll go stay there for a week with them and we'll all hang out and do trips through the mountains and all that. Or I have friends who live in by Detroit, and I'll stay there for a week and we'll go do stuff through Detroit. Same thing in Missouri, like my friends in Missouri, they they live in Missouri, and so we bombed around Missouri for a few days while staying at their house. So I do within reason, I'm able to hit up a lot of stuff in a short amount of time, but there are plenty of stuff on my map out way west, like the Hemikuton, Utah, that I've only been there once in 10 years. I haven't been to California in I was in California for once 20 years ago for a week. But I have tons of stuff out there, stuff in the Northeast, stuff. I mean, America in the United States is huge. So it's unfortunate I'm not able to hit up as much as I want because especially now, gas prices have skyrocketed. And my whole plans, I I had a plan to go to Michigan for a week, and that's been dashed because gas prices are insane.
SPEAKER_00When you're actually traveling, how do you balance balance actually documenting the moment while just like with just uh enjoying the discovery? Because I know it's hard. Sometimes we live uh so much for social media we forget about real world. How do you balance that?
SPEAKER_01The big balance the for me at least, the balance is time and light. If I have time to s like I told him, like, hey, I'm willing to go most of the time I'm like, hey, I'm willing to chill and sit down and hear the story and do whatever. Um, but I gotta shoot this before I lose all the light. And that's usually the big time frame is the big issue is always time for me. Do I have time to do what I need to do? And I'll talk to the owner while I'm shooting it, and then we'll like I said, once the sun sets and I'm we're you know, things are cooling down, I'll go sit with them and really absorb it in. And that's my big unafortunate limiting factor. Like, I wish I had unlimited money and the ability to go, you know, go there for three or four days. I mean, I was at a place legitimately last sad Sunday. Other places never been before. Guy's a multi-millionaire. He goes, Oh yeah, look over the hill. Go over this hill, and there's a row of like Dodge Chargers and Chevelles and all that. And I'm like, and the sun was setting, and I we only gotten there like an hour before. And then there was another building full of nice cars that we barely touched on because I was spending all my time. I literally, as he was telling me the story, I was filming the cars as we walked by. It was and then that was it. Then the sun set, and I, you know, we were done, then we got to chill and you know talk. But shooting is for the most part my main purpose to be there.
SPEAKER_00How has creating content changed your career compared to traditional automotive journalism? And would you say it's more adventurous?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, because if you ever there's a guy named David Freiberger, he was on a TV show gold road, his adventure videos are far more engaging than my like my stuff is good and I enjoy it and it's fun. But the the way he that people and I see this on other channels, people want to connect to me as well as the car and the story, because I'm the the I'm their lens to the situation. So I wish I had the time to be more adventurous in my videos about the world around the car. Like here I am traveling to Missouri, I'm going to this cool gas station and all this stuff. I enjoy that as well, but time is my issue on that as you know, also. But it definitely makes it a lot more fun. Like, if you're a writer and you go do it, you only have a thousand words to tell a story. But with the video, I can edit whatever I want together as long as I have the time to do it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. What role do social media and YouTube actually play in the car community today? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Uh it's a ton nowadays, especially with younger people, it's wonderful. Facebook, Instagram, but Instagram not a lot now because it's been in a spiral lately. YouTube is the number one media company. Um, Facebook and Instagram are my or I'm sorry, Facebook and YouTube are my main two outlets, and it allows you to build a community around the content and you as a personality. And it's definitely wonderful. I know people on there I would consider friends who started following me 10, you know, 15. Years ago, and you know, they followed me from my blog. Actually, even before the blog, before the blog, I was on a website called Moparts.com, and I would just tell my adventures. And then I moved on to the blog. And I know I have friends now who have been with me since then. And the social media, you know, Facebook, Instagram, not as much TikTok or Snapchat or anything like that, but like YouTube. I'm able to connect to so many wonderful people in our community in so many different ways. It makes it so rewarding.
SPEAKER_00Do you see yourself more as a journalist, a historian, or a content creator?
SPEAKER_01All the above, I guess you could say. I mean, a journalist is a content creator. I mean, that's what we were doing in the I mean, that's what we were doing before you call it a content creator. Yeah. Um, a storyteller, I mean, that's that's all journal. I mean, that's all it is, is telling a story. Uh, I'm all the above. I mean, content creator is a much more modern word for it, or influencer, even though I'm I don't consider myself an influencer. Um, I just try to tell. I did this back when it I was doing it for free. And I knew and I could support myself with regular jobs. So I always knew that I could circle back to that if this didn't pan out.
SPEAKER_00If anyone who's watching this, they in and they're actually like, hey, I want to do this, how do you monetize this type type of content? Like, do brands or companies in the automotive industry actually pay attention to the barn find niche? Is this something that they're usually open to sponsoring?
SPEAKER_01Not with this very unique niche, not really. I mean, I've talked with like AMD and some other companies, but like you can't promote like in the automotive niche, you can't promote a Holly carburetor on a barn find. Like, that's why I'm also trying to push out into like my car build, because there you can have you know sponsors, like you're putting their your their parts on your car and you're showing how it works. Like AMD, we were thinking about trying to do something, but the that's always the problem is there's no after. Like, we're not actually taking that Camaro and putting a new quarter panel on. I can talk about it and I can show it in B-roll. Oh, here's a 69th Camaro quarter panel. But people already know that, and they if they want something, they Google it nowadays. So my unique niche is very secluded. But anything, if you even branch out a little bit, like I said, in the car builds, absolutely, car companies will work with you no problem, as long as you can show that their return on investment is worth it. So you just gotta, you know, get take your content and build it and put it out there and show it's good quality content, and then you take that and you take it to let's say Holly or AMD or QA1 suspension, show hey, this video with real views is you know, it's not a ton, but it's a good quality video, and they'll work with you. I mean, they'll either give you dumb and they'll discount parts for you, they'll give you parts for free, not all the time, but sometimes. So there are definitely ways to do it. Just rusty old cars is not a great way.
SPEAKER_00Do you think the younger generation is also getting into classic cars as much as the older enthusiasts, or do you think it's shifting a little bit now? Depends on what they can get.
SPEAKER_01The biggest barrier to entry for younger people into classic cars is price. And not even just price of the car. Like, even if you had because we I talked about this recently on something else on uh uh talking with friends, even if you bought the cheapest, decent 65 Mustang, a notchback with a inline six, okay, even if you buy that for you can usually pick them up for under 10 grand because it's a bare bones, nothing special car. Okay, you have a 10 grand car. Insurance for that at a teenager, even with an inline six, is outrageous. Yeah. And then it needs premium gas. And then it doesn't have, you know, it doesn't have airbags, it doesn't have crumples. Your knees are the crumple zone. So yeah, I mean, younger adults are getting into young adults and teenagers are getting into classic cars if they can. Like I said, if they have to ar that's why the truck community is exploding. OBS trucks and Ford trucks and Dodge trucks from the 70s, 80s, and 90s are exploding on the scene because you can still pick them up relatively cheap, and they're most of the time a V8 rear-wheel drive, two-door, maybe four-door car that you can still go to a find at a farm that's in you know a little beat up for 500 bucks. You go, you take it home, you put a junkyard LS engine out out of a 2002 Tahoe or something, and you get something that has 400 horsepower for under a thousand bucks. So there are ways of entry, it's just not as easy in the classic car world than it used to be.
SPEAKER_00Because now we have electric cars and modern technology changing the industry. Like, do you think the interest in classic cars will grow or fade?
SPEAKER_01It will only grow. I mean, as everything, as time goes away, especially with TV shows and the Fat and the Furious and you know all TV stuff. Um, it's funny, I I have an old minivan, a very early 90s minivan, and I have TV productions wanting to buy my old minivan because now they're shooting vintage TV from the 90s when I was a kid. And they don't there's no minivans out there, so they want mine to fix and put in TV shows. It's just funny the way it all comes around.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because um I I was actually gonna ask you right now, like if you actually think that barn fines will eventually disappear as this car is become more documented. But in a way, I feel like it's gonna be like a cycle that's never gonna end, right? Because what's new now in 20 years from now, it's gonna be vintage in a way.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. I mean, there's right now, uh Buick GNs, Firebirds, Camaros, I mean, there will always be cool stuff out there to find. Um, just like I said, it's a shifting scale. There's less like I've in all my travels, I haven't found very Model A's or Model T's, but that's because a little bit of the war effort, you know, a lot of them were scrapped. But muscle cars, 50s cars, I'm still finding them all the time. Um, trucks are becoming more prevalent, so yeah, it's definitely a very wide spectrum. You just gotta make sure that you put the effort in to find it yourself.
SPEAKER_00What trends are you seeing right now in the classic car world? 80s cars.
SPEAKER_01A lot of 80s cars are really doing well. Like I said, the the the General Motors G-body stuff, like the Buicks, the Buick GN's, the cutlasses, um, those are really hot trucks. Trucks are insane. Like I said, if the there's an entire market called OBS, original body style trucks, which aren't even original body style, they're later. Not the point, but they're blowing up. Like I've seen I watch listen to podcasts about automotive vintage trends, and I know multiple different companies that are working on you know 93 Chevy pickup stuff like crazy because people are buying it up like it's in like it's going out of style.
SPEAKER_00Do you do you think you to YouTube actually changed how this car culture is documented?
SPEAKER_01Or absolutely with the collapse of automotive media, everyone oh, there is no real automotive TV being produced right now. There's a few, but it's mostly garbage. But there's no actual automotive like Discovery Channel, no more, there's no fast and loud, there's no street outlaws, there's no none of that. All that's done, all the motor trend stuff, roadkill, roadkill garage, you know, hot road garage, all that ended. And all that talent went on to other things. Most of them are on YouTube, so the landscape has drastically changed where that content is now on YouTube in a bunch of different locations. Like we we've all talked, and I'm friends with Freiburger, Finnegan, Lucky, and all that, and we make sure that we don't overlap, like Freiburger's Thursday at 3 p.m. Pacific time, I think. Finnegan's on Sundays, Lucky's on Tuesdays, but that's quality content being produced on YouTube in mass in bulk. Like Freiberger just did a video, it was two and a half hours long. Finnegan did one that was in hour. Those are real TV shows that they're producing weekly on YouTube, and that's just one market. There's tons of other channels, uh build channels and barn-finding channels like mine. So absolutely the ease of use of YouTube has drastically changed the landscape in the last 10-15 years.
SPEAKER_00Why do you think uh mainstream media actually stopped producing this type of content? And also, who's your audience now when you actually uh check your demographic?
SPEAKER_01What happened was consolidation and people who ran the media companies not understanding automotive, they're not car people. I remember being in a meeting once, and the executive, I won't get into details, but they're like there was motor trend shows which were mostly driven by we were coming from the magazine world. We're journalists and magazine people first, who just happened to look to do good on you on video, and then there was the other channel, the other like Fast and Loud and all that, that have fake drama and are made up and all that. So what he told us was they want all television is made for women, because they're the deciding factor in most households, even if it's uh a husband and wife. Usually, if the guy's watching an automotive show, the wife is there with him, and she's the deciding, so they have to keep the the wife interested long enough to sell her stuff because she's the one that goes shopping, so that's why there's all this fake drama on these on those shows. And I'm like, wow, that's insane, but that's what their market is, and that's all they cared about. They just wanted people to stay on their stuff and for them to buy ads. And that's it, that's why that's what killed it. Like, that's why Motor Trend got shut down, is because they did they were car shows for car people within reason, and it all died because the people in charge had no idea what they were doing. I mean, look, uh, velocity channel used to be called it was speed vision, then velocity channel. I know they were different, but that they the evolution of so there's speed vision, auto uh velocity, then motor trend channel, and now it's Discovery Turbo Channel. I mean, and it it blows my mind because I don't get it. There's like 50,000 home and garden channels. There's all there's there's like seven or eight different fishing channels. I don't know how there could be such a small how automotive, which has such a wide following, is like a desert for content on regular channels, but that's me. That's why everything went to YouTube.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I get that, and I mean uh it just shows that there's room for more people to join this community, right?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, there's always room for someone everyone's um how should I say it? Everyone's view is different and unique, and it be and if you can parlay that and show it in a meaningful way, people will watch.
SPEAKER_00If you could go back and find any car in history sitting forgotten in a barn, what would it be?
SPEAKER_01Like what is your discovery? There are some good ones out there. Um I think it was found in Cuba. The all-aluminum 300 SL race car was found like in a shop abandoned. It wasn't abandoned, but it was like in a shop in Cuba, I think. And when Cuba, you know, kind of got more democratic a few years ago, someone went in and got it. But I love those Goldwing cars. I actually have one. Uh you can't see it's off screen, but I have actually a little mod. It's the only import I actually like love. And they only made, I think, three of them, and that was one of them. Oh man, I would have loved to have seen that thing. Uh such such a cool, unique car.
SPEAKER_00And what advice would you give someone who wants to start documenting car culture online right now?
SPEAKER_01Go and do it yourself. The internet can only take you so far. Go join a car club. Go to, I mean, there are car meets within not during winter, like in the Midwest, but if you're anywhere else, there's car things going on all the time and and make it a wide spectrum. Don't just go to like a Ford show or a Mustang show. Go to those exotic shows. Go ever, because as long as they have an automotive passion, they're your people. And talk to them and be like, oh, look at this. I don't know, look at this Ferrari 458. Oh, that's a beautiful car. And the owner will tell you, like, oh, blah blah blah blah blah. And oh, that's interesting. And then you that's more like I said, as I said in the beginning, more information is always better, and absorb it to the best of your ability, be a part of it, be in that world, and then if you can, part put that onto YouTube.
SPEAKER_00And what is the biggest misconception that people have about this industry?
SPEAKER_01That everything has been found, that all these cars, that they've all been found, all the cool cars are gone, that there's nothing out there to be discovered. And every day, every week, I mean, on my map, I have it over here on my side screen. I have over, I think 1,500 different finds I have not documented yet. And that's just the one that I know about. There's stuff everywhere. As but it takes a little bit of effort, takes a little bit of time, but if you put in that effort, you will be surprised by the stuff that you will uncover, and then hopefully, you know, share with others in a meaningful way.
SPEAKER_00And if someone is watching this and they actually want to get in this industry, but they have no idea how to start when it comes to storytelling, equipment, and where to go and how to find the community, what is the first thing they should do to start? Like, let's say they want to start a channel this week. What should be the process to get this channel done and their first video done?
SPEAKER_01Uh, easiest thing is to go on YouTube and just search. Like, if you're looking for bar and finds, you go on YouTube or on um YouTube search, type in bar and finds, and if you can't, you don't play with it. Go into the settings and be like, oh, what's the most recent ones? What are the most popular ones? And see what's already out there and see if you can put your own personal twist on it. And nowadays it's so incre the barrier to entry is so low. Any modern decent cell phone will shoot good video and good audio within reason pretty easily, and then know where your weaknesses are. Like, I know that like I started, I do some stuff with camera with my cell phone in tight spaces, but I know that the audio as I get away from my you know, if as I'm putting it in cars, the audio will get worse. So, okay, then that means you get microphones that will, you know, work at range. Okay, I'm in a dark space now. Okay, you need flashlights. It's just as you as as you go through and you learn, you'll find what you need and where what you'll do. Just start with the basics. Like I started with what did I start with? I started with oh I had an old, an actual old can I had my old digital camera with the floppy drives. Then that evolved into ah you can't see it. I have uh I have all my old cameras just off screen. It it did it went to a little point and shoot camera that did video also, and then it went to a better point and shoot, and then I got a big camera, and then I got video, and it just it's stepping stones as you develop where your weaknesses are. But just start with a basic camera, but start with your cell phone, you know, do some research, see what the market, see what that market is, and then go from there. Then you you if you have a car, if you know of a car, just go shoot it. Be like, here's this Camaro that's sitting a block away from me. The owner Steve is a cool guy, and he told me used to drive his kids to high school, you know, baby you know, young kids to school in it, and then you you can edit on your phone if you have to, or do it in one shot, and the but then you'll see what that first step is, and then you'll do another video and be like, oh, this sucked. Okay, well then I'll do it better next time. Oh, I'll get microphones or whatever. And that's how basically it all goes.
SPEAKER_00I mean, that's the greatest thing about social media, right? It's inclusive, it's there's enough room for growth and for learning, and you can always improve. You don't need to start as a professional. So that's actually really great advice. And honestly, thank you so much for doing this today. It was really nice talking to you. Thanks so much for saying yes and for being so open to talking about your business. Honestly, I cannot thank you enough.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm happy to be like I said, I'm as I said, more information is always better, and I'm happy to share it. I mean, there's I mean, yeah, I can't share where the cars are, but I can share, you know, the world around it, and I'm happy to put that into the world so people will hopefully do what I do and find cool stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And if there's anything you want to promote, your social media, anything at all, just please feel free to promote it right now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like I said, you can find me on all the social platforms for the most part. I'm on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, The Auto Archaeologist. Um, I'm on TikTok, but I don't use that much anymore because of lots of reasons going on, obviously. Um, not on Snapchat, but I whore as I say, I whore myself out on most social media platforms.
SPEAKER_00I'm around. Awesome. Thank you so much for doing this, Ryan. Oh, thanks for having me. If there's one takeaway from this episode, it's this there are still incredible stories hidden in forgotten places, and the people who know how to tell them will always stand out. Subscribe, leave a comment, and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye.