Corvette Stingray Coupe

Make
Chevrolet
Segment
Coupe

We recently wrote a piece about how to start up your own car YouTube channel. Having a job where all you have to do is drive expensive cars and talk about them is the dream of many car enthusiasts. Everyone wants to be like Jeremy Clarkson, and many have tried. YouTube is filled with channels that talk about cars either in simple reviews, or as a sort of blog. In many cases, these channels have become highly successful, enough so that the host can go out and buy themselves a fancy supercar. Seems simple, right? Well, it might not be so easy.

If you read through the comments sections of these videos, you'll find quite a few interesting posts that all basically ask the same thing: How can you afford this car just by making YouTube videos? YouTuber's earnings are extremely difficult to calculate because they depend on so many things. Subscribers and views are certainly important, but many channels are able to monetize through the use of sponsorships and crowdsourcing. Still, we will take our best shot at answering the question "How can these YouTubers afford these cars?" Using the website Socialblade, we decided to look up the estimated YouTuber earnings for a few of these channels to see if the numbers really do add up.

Maybe more so than any other comment section on YouTube, Vehicle Virgins is full of people asking how a college student was able to buy a Lamborghini Gallardo. We watched a few of these videos, and the explanation given by channel host Parker Nirenstein is that he worked as an engineering intern for Ford and Toyota, all while building up the YouTube channel. The Gallardo, purchased used, was around $100,000. The Lamborghini sits next to Nirensein's E39 M5 and Mercedes S550. According to Socialblade, the Vehicle Virgins channel can make anywhere from $14,000 to $226,000 per year. Not a bad sum.

This means that, to the surprise of many in the comments section, the Vehicle Virgins channel might actually provide enough revenue to afford a Lamborghini. We also wanted to check out a fairly newer channel, Salomondrin. Unlike many other channels, Alejandro Salomon, aka Salomondrin, doesn't claim that his YouTube channel is the source of his wealth. According to Social Blade, Salomondrin's channel earns anywhere from $10,000 to $162,000, nowhere near enough to afford the cars in his garage including two Rolls Royces, a Viper ACR, and a Porsche 918. Salmondrin is very open about the fact that he is not on YouTube to make money, and that his career as a film producer paid for the cars.

This made us think, how many YouTubers are really like Salomondrin? There are a bunch of people on YouTube that drive crazy cars that were apparently paid for by their YouTube channel. Although few people come out and say that they had a huge head start in life before they ever appeared on YouTube. This has led to witch hunts for people like Parker Nirenstein (Vehicle Virgins). Angry comments flooded the internet when people found out his father was, allegedly a billionaire. This throws a wrench into the whole "funded by my YouTube channel facade."

We have no idea how much help he received from his father, but the skepticism on the internet may be well deserved. Angry comments on the internet are part of life, and people don't really like it when people get handed anything by parents. However, perhaps this anger could be diverted with some simple honesty. Other YouTubers have wealthy parents, like Matt Farah, who's father was personal friends with Ralph Lauren. However, Matt doesn't represent himself as someone who came from nothing but a crappy camera and good ideas. People seem to respect him for it. Perhaps the message here is to just be yourself, who ever that may be, and no matter how cheesy that sounds.

We have no definitive way of proving where any of these YouTuber's money came from, and frankly, its none of our business. Perhaps if you keep yelling at them on YouTube they will tell you. If you really want to know how someone could afford a Lamborghini with a YouTube channel, why not go out, build up a successful channel with a million subscribers, and post us a link to your bank statements! We would love to see it! We are not here to condemn any of these YouTubers, although, like anyone, we don't like it when people pretend to hit a home run when they started on third base. Maybe you can go out and start a channel from nothing, although having a 918 would certainly make more people watch it.