Mat Watson: The TRUTH on CarWow, Past Controversies & Electric Vehicles

Mat Watson: The TRUTH on CarWow, Past Controversies & Electric Vehicles

I remember once going to the doctors and so I’ve got this doctor with his hand around my nuts and he’s like looking at me a bit funny and then he basically just says Matt Watson. I’m Matt Watson and you’re watching Carwow. Carwow has surpassed 10 million subscribers. You’ve driven just about every single car and every single brand on the planet. Oh super I drive cars and I say things about them. But it does look a little bit like a cat doing something else. You’ve got over a million subscribers on your Matt Watson channel as well. I’m a little bit like a wasp. You know, you can back me away, but I’ll keep coming back. I love cars. I’m the person within my friendship circle and family that will come to for the car advice. I get a job on a car magazine. I was actually told by my editor, Matt, you and I, we’re not really made for reviewing cars, are we? This is more of our thing. You know, the investigations, that kind of stuff. I couldn’t read. I actually don’t think that I was a particularly good presenter. Chris Harris, Henry Catch Pole, and I think they’re just much better presenters. Matt Watson, the biggest automotive YouTuber in the world. Recently, Carwell has surpassed 10 million subscribers. You have driven just about every single car and every single brand on the planet. And you also have built a personal collection that’s epic, too. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg from my perspective. But Matt, in your own words, who are you and what you do? Do you know what? I’ve I’ve watched your podcast so many times and I haven’t even prepared that. Okay. I drive cars and I say things about them. It’s it’s as simple as that. That is what I do. Um I do have um there’s probably a bit more to it than that, but basically that’s it. I I drive cars and say things about them and I do it in a relatable way so people watch. Do you find when you meet people out and about that no doubt would have seen you through the many lenses that you present to in your life, do you find that they are all like Carwell, Carwell, Carwell? Do they know you for like just as Matt Watson? Do they put the two together in one thing or is it I’m Matt or is it oh it’s Carwell Matt? It used to be Carwow guy from Carwo but then it became Matt you’re just Matt Matt Watson. Yeah, but it’s generally it there’s been some strange instances where I’ve met met people because if you think about YouTubers, often a YouTuber will have like a a following and be known for creating content. But what I also do is I’ll review cars which people just use as a resource when they’re buying a car. They’re not going to watch the videos other than as finding out which is the right car for them to buy. So you end up with two kind of audiences. There’s the fans and then there’s people just I know you from somewhere. Did you come and did you with the guy that fixed our washing machine or you know that kind of I remember once going to the doctors and I was I ended up in hospital had MRI saying had to do a swab and they do a swab around by your groin. So I got this doctor with his hand around my nuts and he’s like looking at me a bit funny. He’s like what’s wrong with my nuts? And then he basically just says, “I bought a Scod TV VRS cuz of you and he’s got his hands on my nuts.” But do you like that in any way? Um, well, he was actually quite gentle, so it’s fine. Um, yeah, I do like it. So, basically, I’ve I meet people or people come up to me because I’ve helped them choose the right car for them, and so that’s nice. or they’re they’re into cars. So, walk down the street, it’s not like you’re on TV. It’s not like TV famous. It’s kind of people who know know. So, if you’re into cars, you’ll you’ll probably have come across my work. And um and so that’s quite nice. It’s not like being like proper famous. I think this kind of niche YouTube famous is the right balance of fame at my level. I mean, if you get into Mr. beast, it would be crazy. But if it’s like kind of niche, it’s quite a nice thing cuz people generally watch cuz they like it or you’ve helped them. As you said at the start, you almost struggled to answer the question because I gave you so much positive news about yourself like it makes you do that a little bit. But if I had 15, 20year-old Matt sat opposite me right now and I was interviewing you in the past and I read him that line of the things that you’ve achieved, how would he have reacted? So this again makes me feel a little bit teary almost just like kind of amazed. But me when I’m in it, it’s not enough. And you all know what it’s like cuz you I’m sure you’re the same. You got all these different ventures going on. It’s not about it’s about where next. So it’s about the journey really, isn’t it? Than where I want to be. Because actually if you’d have asked that that Matt of 20 years ago, it’s like so what’s the internet? you know, didn’t even know this job existed. But this is why I love to do what I do, and it genuinely was why I kind of smiled when I saw the title of your new book, because your new book, the title, an A to Zed of cars. Yeah. What I like to do is an A to Zed of my guest. And I think there’s so much that you do that is present in the moment. Whether it’s selling a Suzuki Jimny and figuring out how to import them into the country or getting them around or whatever car has just been released or whatever Drag Race has just been filmed. Like everything that seems to be done and put out is very present with Matt Watson. And what I want to find out about today is actually the Matt Watson that’s led us up to that present because there really isn’t a lot about that. And believe it or not, people do find you very very interesting because of all these videos that you’ve created. So was there a moment that you can pinpoint for me in those earliest years that lad that I would have interviewed at 15 20 to tell him about what you’ve done now? Yeah. That you think was the most fundamental moment that set you on the trajectory to doing what you’re doing now? Okay. So I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Right. Maybe if you’d have asked me when I was a kid, I’d have liked to have been an actor, right? Um but how from just some lady goes to just a normal comp. um just very average kind of background. How you’d ever be an actor, I don’t know. People tell you you have to have like a a proper job to be able to afford a house, blah blah blah blah blah. And when I was growing up as well, you go see the careers advisor. It was basically, okay, you’re either going to do like blue collar stuff, so like laboring and stuff like that, or maybe if um um if you do a little bit better at school, you’re going to do things like maybe an accountant, a lawyer, a teacher or whatever. And sure enough, I’ve ended I actually ended up being an accountant for a period of time. Um, so but you’re an accountant that hid in a drawer whilst playing hide and seek by your Zeno, right? Okay. Sort of. Um, so it wasn’t the accountant in the sense that we all picture in our heads. Okay. So, what is it? What is there anything that I did early on? I always managed to kind of get to do what I wanted to do despite what was around me. Um I sometimes describe myself and a lot of the PRs might like who work in the motor industry like will probably laugh at this a little bit. I’m a little bit like a wasp at a picnic just like you know you can back me away but I’ll keep coming back and I’ll end up with that jam sandwich. You know it’s kind of that thing. And so I always had that in me that kind of like driving determination. I’m sure you’re very similar, but that drive and determination is an ingredient that goes into a recipe and you need all the ingredients to come together to make the recipe. So, like you just mentioned there that you went to go and see the careers advisor at school to kind of figure out where you were going. Okay. But you remember that moment more than kind of springing to mind saying my mom or dad told me that I could go and do this or want to go down that path. There was there was none of that really. So your horizons like when you growing up in the 80s like I did 80s 90s um there was there was none of that you the possibility of what’s out there was more just quite a narrow horizon and you’d look at what your friends um dads did. So one of my mates my best mates his dad was an MD of a company that made casters for um seats you know on like office chairs and stuff like that. um plenty of teachers um the wealthiest people that we know one was a lawyer did like divorce law so things was quite narrow you didn’t think about all the possible jobs out there which you know now you can just go on your phone and find out lots of different things that you could do um so it was kind of like just just like bouncing your way to end up here but there’s a couple of things one is I wanted to be an actor so I like to perform You’re quite extroverted early on. Am I extroverted? Probably not. Some ways introverted. Well, accountants normally are. Yeah. So, introverted but also extroverted at the same time. So, a little bit of a kind of contrast. Um, so yeah, it’s quite funny. I didn’t know we were getting so deep, but once again, I’ve I’ve like listened and watched so many of your podcasts and so it’s quite funny like getting into the depths of it because it actually does make you think about it sometimes. Sometimes it also proves that we don’t have the answer to everything. Sometimes stuff just happens without us even realizing. But to get to where you are, there has to be a certain element of passion. And to get passion, which is an ingredient, you have to capture it from somewhere. Like it’s very hard to have passion when you come from backgrounds that don’t really have a lot of color or vibrancy about them. You just mention, oh, I’d look at what the friends dads did and sort of pick out. Where did your passion come from? Where did like that love of like, oh, I want to do that. I could be better. I could I could do something like that one day come from or did that come later? I was good at forcing myself to do things which were like hard. So I could do graft like I um from an early age a good example is my father, right? So my dad would um give us from an early age pocket money and he had the opportunity to either spend the money or he would keep it for you and then it would multiply slightly and then you could have it all in one lump sum in the summer. So, I learned to delay gratification. You learned dividend. Not not so much dividend, but it was like I learned that you could put something off today and it’d be worth a bit more in the future. So, I got that and the ability to not just take something straight away to work for something in the future. Did you know that nine out of 10 cars in 2025 are bought on finance? And this is usually done from the main dealership that you buy the vehicle from rather than a private finance company. Now, we are all guilty of it, myself included over the years. 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Once you’ve saved yourself a bit of money, come back to Road Success and thank me later. Thank you to Lillian Stanley for sponsoring this podcast. So, your dad taught you to kind of wait for what was coming rather than just take it all at once. You’d kind of delay what it was that you got. Do you think that actually helped you out then in your earlier years in like your teen years? I I guess so. I mean, you don’t enjoy it at the time, but you you learn that you don’t have to have everything immediately. So you can put off like you can put in some graft knowing that it will reap rewards in the future. What about cars then? Because alongside like what you wanted to do career-wise and who you were going to become the passion and like the energy for cars already began. Yeah. So always loved cars from as long as I can remember like friends and family that had cool cars. My dad had a cool car but he sold it before I was born and I never forgave him. So I always wanted one. I mean, you might not think it’s cool nowadays, but it was an MGB Roadster, a chrome bumper model. And he had that and um he sold it just before I was born and then he sold it to his mate and his mate crushed it within a day, wrote it off. So, I was and I never forgave this mate. Um he had friends who had like Jaguar XJS, Jaguar Eypes. Um my mate’s dad had an M535i. So, I had lots of friends that had cool cars, but my dad never really did after the MGB, even though he liked cars. Um, my mom had the better car, so she would have things like XR2s, XR2i, and stuff like that, which I eventually got to drive, but my dad didn’t so much. But I was always into cars and toy cars. And one of the first toy cars that I remember was a remote control Porsche 924. That’s when my love of Porsches began. My uncle, my godfather, had a 911 SC. So, always surrounded by people who had cool cars that I really liked and just wish that my dad had bought some more cool cars. Do you remember what you’d watch on those cars alongside just knowing people that had them? So I’m so old it would be like the original Top Gear but like like was it even before Clarkson’s days? Probably not like his early days. So I remember watching Clarkson and Clarkson was just different. So I would watch Clarkson for Clarkson even if there hadn’t been cars involved. And so really was watching original Top Gear, the segments in particular with Clarkson that really helped get me more and more into cars. And he also from the early days like telling you how to tell stories about cars in a way that isn’t dull. Did you become sort of more interested in how something was written and kind of dissect the stuff he was doing rather than just kind of laughing at the thing itself? No, not at that point. I just thought m tall oddlooking man with like curly hair very funny. Just the way he says things very funny. Did you think I want to do that one though? later on in life, but not when I was watching it back then. No, I wasn’t thinking that. Did you get, if we just make a jump for a second before I come back, did you get a moment when you got into So, at the beginning when you were at Dennis Publishing, your first channel grew over to like 800,000 subscribers. Am I right before 600 or something? Something like that. Did you get like your first video that you can think back to that you thought I’m doing it. This is this is it. This is this is like Top Gear. Like, did you get that pinch me moment? No, because probably shouldn’t say this. If you go online and look at something like um Auto Express HID gas discharge bulbs, it’s my first video that I ever filmed. Now, anyone who thinks, “Oh, I’m not going to be able to ever do this.” Go and watch that video because you will see the worst presenting in your life. And I’m not joking. Not joking. It’s so bad. I actually don’t think that I was a particularly good presenter when I was especially when I was watching like people like Chris Harris and Henry Catchpole and stuff like I think they’re just much better presenters. Um, and I was really I really had to work and try until I didn’t give a and then just easy. So what made you stop giving a Overexposure. So I stopped overanalyzing it by just doing it over and over and over again. just over and over and over again. And I was so used to doing it that now I can do it. Have you ever read anything like the don’t give a kind of ethos, the mentality that as soon as you stop giving a it’s when the comes around? Um, no. I’ve probably, but like with all the kind of like those self-help kind of books, you read them, think that’s a great idea, then you forget about them. It’s funny that video, you want to hate it, but a small part of you, I know, doesn’t because it was the video that sparked what you do now, which you clearly love. So, like, what what made you stood there presenting a video about light bulbs? How’d you gone from accountant hiding in a drawer to light bulb changing on car video? Okay, we probably need to explain the accountant hiding in a drawer because it’s almost sounds like a metaphor, like I’m just an accountant hiding in a drawer. I don’t want anyone to see me. No, what actually happened? Shall I explain it? Okay. So, I used to work for one of the big accounty funds, Price Warehouse Keepers, and we do these really long late night group consolidation audits. So, you I’m like 24. We’re locked in a room. We’re checking facts and figures about these companies till like 2:00 a.m. in the morning. It’s insane graft, right? Um anyhow, um there’s people a couple of other people my age as well. So, you end up having a bit of a laugh with them. We we’re so bored. We’re waiting for some documents to come over from the States. We decided to play hide-and-seek in this rabbit warren of a building, which was the company’s headquarters. Anyhow, I go into the FD’s office and lock myself in there, uh, in a cupboard, waiting for my mate to come and try and find me. The FD comes back cuz he’s forgotten something, opens his cupboard, and there’s the accountant like in there hiding. And so I just looked him in the eye and said, “We leave no stone.” And turned and walked off. Now, he found that really funny and kind of let me off, but I was reported to my senior manager, but the guy I think the guy said, “Yeah, don’t I thought it was for don’t fire him.” And so, I think I think I’ve done quite a few things and got away with them like that. But that’s that’s the story of why I was hiding in a drawer cupboard. I hope you enjoyed the video. If you did, give it a like. Let me know which guest you’d like to see on the channel in the comments below. And if you haven’t done so already, subscribe now and hit the bell icon to turn your notifications on. So then how did that transpire to be stood in front of a camera poorly presenting light bulbs? Okay, so before then I become so basically I’m being a motoring jour. I’m being a child accountant and it pays well. So it pays well and I get a job in London which is quite a decent amount of money from someone coming from Warsaw. My parents are dead please. But I’ve got a mate at PWC whose Mrs. works on a local evening newspaper and she’s the only person I’ve ever spoken to in my entire life who talked about her job with any form of passion. And I just thought this sounds so cool. You know, you’re going off like interviewing people, finding out about them, hearing them tell their stories, then you get to tell their story to everyone else. I want to do that. So I decided at the age of about I just qualified as an accountant. So I’m qualified chart accountant and I thought sort it. I’m now going to do a journalism course and um did a journalism course qualified in that within I think I did a fast track for like half a year got NCTG qualification I can do 100 well I could do 100 words a minute shortorthhand so then I got a job in a local even newspaper for about a fifth of what this job offer was in London and my parents were just like what are you doing what are you doing my dad more so who got his friend to like talk to me about it um my mom less so because my mom probably figured out that he’s probably going to do better at something that he likes. Did your mom and dad love what they did? So, they were both teachers. My dad actually wanted to My dad wanted to be an actor. So, he’s he was super bright. He like um got he was in like two or three years above his age group at school, which actually probably went against him in the long run. But back in those days, you had to pay for your apprenticeship. and his dad who was a doctor died and then his family was skint after that. So he couldn’t afford to apprenticeship so he went and became a teacher but he’s also he was brilliant at maths but also brilliant at sports. So he like play county tennis and and so he became a PE teacher and then a maths teacher and then a deputy head um doing the school finances. So he was kind of I think he might have in some ways you could say his skills weren’t fully utilized in some ways but he he inspired some boys to go on to do um do the same kind of job as him be teachers be PE teachers and some going and work in actual sport and stuff. So, you know, but I can’t believe it was 24 before you were almost captivated by a story of like somebody else saying to you like your mates misses to think I could actually go and do something that I’m really passionate about. I’m willing to jack all this in to do it. It’s kind of like a Eureka moment. Yeah. Cuz then you’re exposed. Okay. So, normal people can do these jobs. I never really thought about it. And if I’m brutally honest with you, I didn’t read. I couldn’t read. I couldn’t sit still to read. I was in like a specialist which is quite funny now right in front of you. So I’ve been talking about my new book here autobiography and a toz of car. So I I talk through all the car manufacturers from A to Zed. Finding Zed was quite interesting and you’ll see how I did it in this book if you buy it which you can do now. You can pre-order it on Amazon. Okay. There’s a link probably in the description. Maybe there is. But people might be watching this after it’s actually out. So you might not have to pre-order it. Oh yeah. So So yeah. So it will be available on Amazon. Go check it out. I mean, I’m so proud of it. I’ve always wanted to write a book and here we are and I hope you enjoy it. I think you will. I put my heart and soul into it and yeah, and he clearly wants you to buy it because he spent an hour and a half in the back of my van just to talk about it. I used to be so I used to be in the in the like the like very b like me and a couple of other kids would be taken out of our math class to be taught like reading because you can really read that bad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s so funny like some people are either really good with numbers or really good with English words and some of them like myself are just useless with all of it and just have to sit here talking all day long. So I think I’m actually I’d rather be a specialist but I think I can do everything but only to a certain level. So an example of that is like in the end I ended up getting an A at GCSE English lit and language but one of the language now the lit might have had a bit of cheating involved so I found a cheeky way around it. um probably wasn’t the right thing to do, but that was, you know, I’d always find a way of making things work. Um then I was good at maths and science, but then when I went to university and I studied chemistry at university, I realized then that I ain’t going to be anything in science. When you see people who are actually good at stuff, you know, when you see people that are good at like you think you got a talent for something, then you see someone who’s actually good at it. I do you play golf or anything like that? Fishing. Fishing, as you know. Yeah. Okay. So fish have How do you be good at fishing? Isn’t it just luck? Hey, look. You’re talking to a man that wanted to record this at my lake. So you’re hiding something here. No, I’m not I’m no good at fishing cuz you have to be patient for fishing. You don’t seem to be someone that’s patient. How can you fish? You are. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I’m I’m very patient. You have to keep this bit in because cuz the thing is I think when we’re watching when I when people watch this what I like about it is it’s not just one way like you you learn about you as well. I I can’t stand in a queue at all. If if there’s a queue I can’t do it. It will it will absolutely kill me. But if I’m using patience as a superpower to calm my mind to make a better judged decision on something that will then get me further quicker, I’ll be fine with it. Okay. So that’s different. You’re not patient. You’re actually not patient. You are someone that is kind of doing mindfulness through fishing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s someone who’s driven and a journalist has just picked me apart for it. So again, how though does that all that transpire to you be stood in front of a camera presenting with that light bulb video fit? Okay. So, um, so I’m I’m working on the local even newspaper. Job comes up on Auto Express magazine. I love cars. I’m the person within my friends friendship circle and family that will come to for the car advice. So, I’m the one that researches cars and finds out about them. Not necessarily like reading magazines so much, but like watching this like Top Gear and just, you know, chatting to people who are into cars who have cars to find out about them to then pass on that information. And then I get a job on a car magazine which is freaking brilliant. Right. So now I can get access to cars only. I didn’t get access to cars because the job that I got on the car magazine was the stuff it was a section called watchdog which is you’d have like people would write into the magazine who’d have had problems with their car and then I’d help get um compensation from manufacturers. So I’d help negotiate their case. Now the reason I was I was quite good at that one because of the wasp analogy. again I wouldn’t go away but secondly because as part of my accountancy degree I understand I used to audit big car dealership groups so I understand how that worked and their profit margins and stuff like that I also used to um I did business law so I understand like contract law so I I came from a place of being able to negotiate um from like a legal point of view and a business point of view so I was really quite good at this um and I sort of got pigeonholed into because I was good at this and it was a job that you join a car magazine, you don’t want to be doing that job. You want to be in the the cars, right? So to fill that job’s hard. So I was kept in that role. I was actually told by my editor who was similar to me, he worked on national newspaper and he wasn’t necessarily slagging me off or putting me down. I remember him saying, “Matt, you and I, we’re not really made for reviewing cars, are we? This is more of our thing, you know, the investigations, that kind of stuff.” I mean, I used to get stuff in the national newspapers and go on TV with like my investigations. Um, and obviously he didn’t want to lose that role from the magazine, but I, you know, it always stuck with me. You’re you’re not the kind of person who can review cars. It’s like, well, let let’s find out about that. And so what happened was I um on my magazine, it wasn’t really possible. My face didn’t sort of fit really for like the the car reviewing side it and but I had a girlfriend who worked on Maxim magazine and Maxim had a car section. So I made friends with the editor of Maxim who was a bit more kind. I was a bit more like had the he was more my kind of person than I’d say than my my car magazine editor was. So I kind of got on with him. He gave me the Maxim um car pages. So I’d then get cars stream Maxim. So I’d start like reviewing cars for Maxim rather than auto express. And obviously the rich Maxim was bigger. Um and then Maxim got a video camera to record their cover shoots with the girls when they were like doing their their cover shoots. And this is in like the late ‘9s. This is No, no, no, no, no. Please Ben, you went all high pitch then. Goodness, how very dare you know that this was like mid naughties. Okay. Right. So mid naughties and um so they’d only do these shoots once a month. So this camera and the camera operator which they’d hired would have nothing to do for the rest of the month. And so they thought why do we film cars? Now a lot of the car journalists didn’t want to mess around with filming stuff that’s just showing off. We want to give our we want to write our opinion on these cars. Yeah. And I was like, I’ll do it. You know, I’ll get access to some more cars. I’ll get to drive some more cars. Plus, you know, like I said, I quite fancied being an actor when I was a kid. I used to be like Scott plays and local am drunk kind of stuff. So, I didn’t mind showing off a bit. And so, I did it. And um that video was the first thing that I did. It wasn’t a review of a car, but it was the first thing that I did for Express. And then after that, I did more and more and more cuz people didn’t want to do it. And the truth is there’s a lot of the journalists who didn’t want to do it. Whereas if you went and filmed if you look at their videos compared to my early ones, they were better than me. It’s weird that, isn’t it? Because even I I know the kind of journalists you’re actually referring to cuz they’re the kind of journalists that that are very very hard to get on something like the podcast cuz when they see this form of media, they almost look at me as like this young age crypto probably selling a course somewhere entrepreneur that’s doing a podcast to help vlog their courses or something. And I think they’ve all got that like tinted glass. What’s he doing with making these videos? like I don’t understand it because it’s not like writing or or proper I’m talking about maybe the days of ecotty and stuff like that you know even I struggle to sometimes get those chaps to like come and give me their time in the seat and it’s only when you kind of prove who you’ve had on and kind of work through that you earn the respect to be like oh actually I think this is this is something like this is actually a proper thing but that that’s kind of the push back I find it sounds like there’s almost like a similar thing those guys just looked at the camera and looked at sort of new age stuff as that’s not proper motoring journalism. That’s back then. Back then that I mean some others did like for said I’m not talking about like Henry Catchwell was like late. I love Henry. I met him at Caffeine in a machine. He’s fabulous. Yeah. So he’s he’s late. I’m talking he’s like when was it? I think it was 2007 my first video. 2008 something like that. And so he’d have been super junior then anyway but it was more like the older guys weren’t so interested in it. Um and and no one knew where it was going to go. No one knew what was going to happen with YouTube. I mean, you could say with hindsight, it’s pretty blooming obvious, but it’s like like you just mentioned crypto. It’s like with crypto, you know, who who knew that it was going to be where it is today? And like in the future, we don’t know where it’s going to be either. When did you start to know about YouTube, though? Obviously, it launched in 2006. You grew that first channel to north of 600,000 subscribers that you built. When did you start to really get it though in that perspective? So I knew it was an opport now before I really really got into like the YouTube thing. YouTube was more just a place of where we’d like just upload the videos as well. I actually did this digital magazine called IM Motor. So it was it was based on like Flash and you know what Flash is? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So it’s like a um some form of HTML, right? Uh and it’s like it’s like page turning kind of thing on your computer screen. So using your mouse to turn the pages and you could interact with bits of it and part of it was a video player. So you’d have a video player and that’s when I really started getting to producing the videos and trying to do them slightly different than a normal review. Uh anyway, we launched that and it was funded by ads and we launched it just as like the 2008 global economic crisis hit. So no one was spending money on ads. So it went it actually had quite a good reach like 150,000 people to open it an issue uh which was pretty decent. So, and we saw how many people watched the videos and how much interacted with like the the written content which was really quite short, but we’d have like games in there. I did um uh certain flash games which actually got picked up by blogs and got like shared all around the world with like millions of views. It was like kind of crazy. Um I don’t know if I can say this right. We did this it was remember when Jeremy Clarkson did this whole thing about truckers and prostitutes? Yes. We did a game which is like a sidescroller where you’re Jeremy Clarkson in like a a truck and you had to like dodge I don’t know I think dodge the you were in a truck you had to dodge the police and like run over the I don’t know it was something really dodgy. Anyway, it’s basically GTA in your car. It’s kind of Yeah. And we but really poorly done but it got shared on loads of the blogs and stuff. So, you know, it it did decent numbers, but that’s when I really got into doing the videos properly and trying to find and do them in a way that was more engaging than probably how uh a standard written review in a weekly car magazine would have been structured. And did you have a video though that you uploaded to YouTube that was like one of your Christ, what the hell’s happened to that when you like that then? It wasn’t quite like that then. Um, now I didn’t have access to the cars that people like Steve Suckliffe, Chris Harris would have. Those are the ones where they really went mental because no one else back in those days could get access to these cars. Uh, it’s different now. You I mean, they had the weight of the magazine behind them and they were known personalities on the magazine. Now, I wasn’t. And so, I got some of the scraps and so you didn’t really get the like, you know, I wouldn’t be in the Ferraris and stuff like that. I might, if I’m lucky, get an M car. I actually then once that thing went bust I set up car buyer videos all the videos for car buyer so it’s it was basically a ripoff of um what car in a way um and we decided to have like videos a core part of its content strategy and I set up what the videos are like and how they’re delivered and I just basically was just consumer related reviews but dinner in a way and I still use this format in a way where I’m just your car expert mate and I’m going to talk you around the car and we’ll have some fun while doing It’s not going to be stuffy. It’s not going to be like pulling teeth trying to do your research on this car. I’m going to try and make it easier and fun for you. My uh girlfriend can’t get in and out of a car with a water bottle without mentioning your name. Just going to do the Matt Watson test into the side door, whatever. But that’s obviously transpires cuz it comes across to people. Do you know where that comes from? No. Okay. So, the water bottle test, which some people think is stupid, but I think it actually came from a BMW, the original X3 or the second generation X3 launch when they said they redesigned the door bins on it so that you could fit a one liter bottle after a focus group. And I thought that’s absolutely right. The old car was a real pain, whereas this is and so I thought that’s important to people. And so I thought I I gathered a lot of this kind of information that I thought from various sources would be important to consumers, what they’re going to want to know about when they’re doing their research on which car to buy. And this this isn’t car fans, it’s normal people buying cars. Okay. So that’s where it comes from. And I knew that we’d kind of we had a bit of reach when I was on the train somewhere and some guy who was actually um on a placement from China came over and just put a water bottle on my on the on the table and goes, “You’ll be needing that to check out the door bins and then just walked off.” I was like, “Oh.” But after you had success with things like the water bottle and people recognizing it and clearly the things that you were doing in videos and your strategy behind them worked, would you then start to get more and more access to those other cars and those other brands? Yeah. So, I mean, basically, you get more reach, you get more access. But it’s not it’s not strictly the case, though, because depends if someone likes you or not. Yes. Well, or likes the way that you do content, which Mazda doesn’t, which Mazda didn’t know. And I can understand their point of view. Um, cuz you compared their car to a cat to a a cat having. So, so it’s so this is Mazda 3, right? Um, and by this point I’d realized that you had to have a like a hook at the beginning of your video, right? I mean, this sounds like basic stuff now, you know, but everyone’s like delving that do YouTube into Carwell’s videos and like how the hell do they do the start, the middle, the end? How’s it doing? You’re just like, well, we need a hook. Yeah. But this is what it was like early on. We didn’t really think about this because you were coming at it almost like a written journalist. And so it’s more about a worthy title rather than a hook. And I kind of learned all this on the go. Like if we go back to like early videos of being told, don’t do this, don’t do that, and like someone telling me who’s more senior than me that you shouldn’t do like, you shouldn’t do it like it’s not on brand. It’s not quite right. And someone then going look at their video, you should have done it like their video. And then me going back to that person going, they got five times the views. What’s what’s the what’s the game here? What are we trying to achieve? Are we trying to say things in a certain way or are we trying to get as many people to watch our video as possible within reason? Obviously, we’re not going to just set fire to the car to get clicks, right? But but that learning different things that will get people watching the video for longer. Figuring out this whole balance between um watch time and uh thumbnail and title. Figuring all that kind of stuff. hawk at the beginning of the video to like um hook people in and looking through like we didn’t even I don’t think we had the view through graph at the very beginning either. Imagine not having your view through graph. There’s definitely none of the clickthrough rates and um reach graph. It’s just like oh this one seemed to do better than this. It’s like these are your views. But would that mean that you’d also learn that sometimes you’d have to actually overstep the mark to kind of learn from it a little bit? Um I learned I knew that if there’s two things, right? One is getting people to expect the unexpected. So, we try and do things that, okay, I know he’s going to review a car in a certain way, but I don’t quite know what he’s going to say or how he’s going to say or how he’s going to like compare this car to another car, but I’m still going to get all my information about this car. And then there’s the other thing of like, yeah, are you trying to piss people off? No. So, I don’t think I’m necessarily like someone who’s trying to be controversial. I think it’s more the other thing that that first thing that I said was is what’s important. The second thing is you want to have fun when you’re doing it. So it’s got to be fun. So it comes back to I’m your car expert, mate. I’m going to talk you around this car and we’re going to have fun. So it’s just like I’m showing you around the car. I’ll say things that I would say to my friend. Now a lot of people probably or motoring journalists a wouldn’t think of the things to say that I might say or they just wouldn’t say it because it’s a bit too silly or crass. And I was willing to say that stuff and let it go in the video. Even from an early early stage, I would let my fluffs or cockups or errors or stupid things go in because it would make me more relatable. See, that’s all right when you’ve got your own business and you’re in charge of your own destiny. So for most people, most people’s train of thought is that’s fine if it’s my thing because who’s going to take it off me? But at this point, you are fully employed by the companies. So I’m fully employed by Dennis Publishing that’s a little bit like not sure about it. So and then what happens is Carwow comes along. So my mate, you probably know him, James Bagger, car dealer. He met James Hind who was the founder of carwow at an event. Um James Hind was saying to Bagger um listen we need someone we really want to do video. James suggested me. I had a meeting with James Hyde and he was because it was a startup um you know willing to take risks. This is back in 2016. 2016 bang on 2016. Willing to take risks. What can we do that’s different? How can we make a name for ourselves? So I’m here going listen I’ve got this idea of how we could really escalate our content. I don’t feel like I’m I’ve got the freedom to do this. And we’re not talking like really obtuse like crazy stuff. It’s just a little bit more freedom. And also another thing was focus. So still at Dennis Publishing the the videos were a secondary or third thing you know what’s more important is getting the magazine out then the web stuff and then videos like this afterthought. So it doesn’t have much prominence and I completely understand that for that point in time because when you look at the income like the ad revenue and doesn’t make any financial sense. So it takes a really strategic um person and with it with it aligning with that overall strategic vision to be able to go let’s invest in this because you could argue that someone like EVO could have had this whole thing wrapped up ages ago um because they were pulling in big numbers had access to cars. Same with auto car. Autoc car more so dropped the ball. But when you look at it from a financial point of view and what their how their businesses were monetized, they actually made the the right decision at that point in time. It’s so funny you talking about having access to cars because it’s like along this timeline. I try and do these podcasts and envision it as like a timeline. You’re sort of working so hard to gain access to these cars. Like you’d be happy with an M car where some are getting into the Ferrari stuff. And now on the drag races, what we see is actual private individuals cars going up the runway a lot of the time. It’s kind of funny how that’s sort of spun on its head that now the thing that the access of cars go to is actually you’d rather have a public members car than a brand’s car. It it depends. Okay. So, we’re jumping forward quite a bit, but um we’ll take the cars where we can get them. Um depending on what we’re doing. If it’s like a tomb car drag race, then we definitely need punters cars. If it’s a Ferrari, needs to be a Pontto car because Ferrari will not let me cars. Just won’t. Used to, but won’t. Um, but fortunately, we have all sorts of demographics watching us. Um, so, and they will lend us their cars. It’s easier getting cars from a manufacturer, but over time, their fleets have shrunk and shrunk and shrunk, and the ask for their fleets has grown and grown and grown. If you think of it from a car manufacturer’s point of view, um, in the past they’d probably have to deal with 15 titles. You’d have your major magazines and some newspapers. Now it’s it’s so many different people, so many different media, so many different platforms and and their budgets are shrinking as well. It’s honestly, it’s the guys at the PR departments work their asses off. It’s really tough. And also they’re next on the line when they lend you a car. You know, you have some idiot like me says something and they will get they can get into serious trouble if we say the wrong which is mad when a lot of the people that do the best in what we do almost have that don’t give a kind of attitude alongside as well. Yeah. Because people want to watch the truth, right? They want they want it to come from someone that’s is telling them the truth or what they think is the truth. Sometimes people escalate stuff. So there’s there’s various online creators will escalate stuff or try and find a problem where there’s not one. I don’t do that. It would more be along the lines of if something would annoy me, I’ll point it out and I might take the piss out of it. Like I’d take the piss out to you, but I’m not overly sensationalizing something. You had the idea in that 2016 here’s my if I could just do everything I wanted to brief. Yeah. Was drag racing part of that? So the reason behind drag racing is because I wasn’t a good enough driver to do track battles. So when I was at um Dennis Publishing, we would have like a racing driver on the magazine. You’d have on autoc car you’d have Steve Suckliffe um on Evo. You’d have Dicky Megan or something like that. Randy in the States. Yeah, Randy. So these guys, right, they can get in a car and they can put in a lap time within couple of tenths, right? So how can I as someone who my own lap time in a single car I’m not terrible, right? But I my own lap time can vary by and we’re not talking about tires affecting it or heat soak or anything like that. my own lap time would be seconds depending on if I’ve nailed it or not, right? And so, how can I analyze a car and and give a verdict based on a lap time? How can I do that? I can’t. And so, what I can do though is accelerate in a straight line, right? Like most people can. Now, the beauty of it though is that it’s actually harder than you think to go at the right time sometimes with that kind of thing. So, actually, but through practice, you can do that quite easily. so we can time it cuz when we drag race, we’re trying to get the car to leave at exactly the same time so the the viewer sees a fair representation of how the cars perform side by side. Now, one of the things about the drag races which is quite interesting is that within the motoring journalist world, they thought drag racing was a bit dirty. Drag racing, it doesn’t show off the handling of the car. Um, and you know, the motoring journalist would prefer a track battle. And you could almost say that I personally, as a car geek, in some ways preferred a track battle. Um, but visually it’s not as interesting because you have one car go around a track on its own, gives a time, and you have another car go around the track on its own, gives another time. In a drag race, you have them running side by side, so it’s a competition sport in a way. So they’re racing side by side, so it’s quicker, it’s snappier, and once again, it’s probably more relatable as well because you got a bunch of like real hardcore like car fanatics will watch would rather watch a uh a a track battle, but a wider audience would rather watch a drag race cuz anyone can say to their mate, “My car is faster than yours.” Or they can find out which car is the fastest in a straight line and anyone can do it. You put your foot down and go even up to a Bugatti Chiron owner versus a Formula 1 car. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Which must be a bit of a challenge occasionally because if you’ve got 10 people sat across the line like we all have these things that we don’t really always think about just watching the videos etc. But the things that properly do, I’d imagine get on your nerves now and then. For me, I find dealing with people or multiple people can be a challenge. if you’ve got a day of shooting god knows how many drag races. I’m imagining that it’s not always every take makes the video that you’re going up the runway. So, we tend to show everything cuz it’s we’ve moved away from in the early days it tried to be like this is the best things that we could show and this is how the when the cars performed at their best. But then obviously YouTube likes longer watch time. More and more people are watching on TV so you got to give them more of an experience. So now we’re showing it warts and all. This is this is the story of the drag race and how it all worked. As much as you’ve had manufacturers that have not wanted to give you their cars anymore for various reasons, have you had individuals that have come and done the drag race that didn’t want the video to go out afterwards? Not really. It’s pretty decent on that one. Yeah. I mean, there’s been a couple that haven’t been so sure of who weren’t so sure after it went out go, “Oh, I’m not so happy about this.” But no one has said, “I want you to take it down.” No one has had any real problems and they’re there on the day. What we find is is that sometimes people want to drive their own cars, which is fair enough, right? And we’ll probably let them have a go and if they’re good enough, they can keep on having a go. But if they’re not and they can’t quite launch, it’s like, mate, listen, do you really want your car to not perform as well? Maybe we’ll put racing driver Sam in it or one of our guys to just launch it. But we’re happy for people to drive their own cars if a they’re insured and b they can show them off in the best light. And how many are you recording on a single day? Well, it can depend from one to I think we did eight once. Eight drag races in a day and some of them are with like eight cars in the same drag race. No. So, you can figure it out that the more the more cars you add, the more variable, the more that can go wrong, the more false starts, more problems with the cars won’t go into launch, more problems with, oh, this one’s got a puncher now. You know, all the kind of stuff that can happen. How many drag races are you like filming in a month? How many days do you head to that track? So, we try to do two two a week. That’s the aim. At one stage we were doing a total of we did I think seven videos a week where we did daily videos for maybe a month once and then we probably do five or six but the videos were shorter. So YouTube was working differently then like in 2016 2017 we were told by YouTube it’s all about regular uploads. Upload every day upload every day because they wanted to pump their platform full of content. So they’re telling all the content creators to do that because there weren’t so many content creators. Now there’s a lot more content creators. They’ve got too many content creators and that’s why the algorithm changed from, you know, if you subscribed, if you had subscribers, it would be pushed to all your subscribers. Now it’s not like that. It’s all driven through the home feed, isn’t it? Do you remember though when you started to upload those videos? Yeah. The first time you’re like, I got this plan right? What I what I said to them, this goal, this vision I had for what I wanted to do with the Carwell channel, this is going to work. this. Would you ever have those moments? Would you just kind of roll with it? Yeah. Do you have those moments? Definitely. Okay. So, I don’t I’m crap at that. I’m crap at celebrating success. I move on to the next one and the next one. So, it’s done. Like 10 million. It’s just a number. Is that because someone else has got more out there? So, you may as well just go and chase the next one. Are you cha are you actively chasing the next number or is that number just a thing on the journey to end? only thing that you chase is the next video upload. How’s that doing? And that I mean YouTube was so smart with their ranking from if you don’t do YouTube yourself, they have this ranking where it shows how your videos perform to your last 10 and that basically feeds on your dopamine cycle, right? And it just hooks you in and so you’re watching it, monitoring it, but usually you can tell unless you package a video wrong with the title and thumbnail, you can tell um where it’s going to come out in the long term. And so even though you know that, you’ll still keep going back to check the numbers. But it it’s it’s quite funny how it does just and they’ve got loads of people hooked. How often are you on your studio app a day? Too much. And in a way that it does I’m not learning from it like I don’t I’m not necessarily learning like vaping. You’re just open because you need to see it again. Yeah. So yeah, I don’t know if you’re like that. Are you like that? Yeah, very much so. And it’s you don’t feel satisfied. It’s a bit like It’s a bit like doom scrolling Tik Tok. You get this, you got the same kind of hollow feeling after doing it, which is mad because also you’re uploading not just on the Carwell channel. It gets on to it. You’ve got over a million subscribers on your Matt Watson channel as well and have to find time to create the content and regularly upload on that as well. We get on to time. I’ve got four-year-old daughter as well. Yeah. Which is insane to be able to fit all of the stuff that in a lot of people on the outside world will see that as an insane challenge. So like what is your driving force behind that much stuff? Dopamine loop. The YouTube what? That sounds awful, but it probably is. If you like really go base down into what is driving it, it is probably that. When did you start your Matt Watson channel? Ages and ages ago. I just upload some stuff. So was that pre-Carwell? Yeah. Yeah. Was it motoring along precar? No. Okay. Cuz I didn’t do it enough. Um, and it didn’t really have a strategy for it, whereas it sort of does now. Hence the Jimny there. I was going to say was the strategy behind it in the early days, not the thing the relationship with you and car cuz you’re owner of Carwell now shareholders. You’ve got shares in car. So I’ve got shares in car. So let’s make this clear in case there’s like some videos or something that come out later. Know whether I’m an owner. I was going to question this in another way, but we’re here now. So So Carow, right? is carow is a it’s it’s a car changing platform, right? It’s a marketplace where people can go and sell their current car and buy their next car or lease their car. You can do all your car changing through car be a new car or a used car, right? And you can you can find out all the information you need to know about cars, check different offers, sell your new car through it and buy or lease your next new or used car. Um the YouTube side is like a big part of it as well. It’s um it generates income and it also um is great marketing. Yeah, it’s literally marketing that’s paying for itself and then some. Um and and you know, you know, it’s kind of like my baby. I’ve been in it from the beginning. Me and Jack, hello Jack. Um if you’re watching, probably won’t be probably editing the video. Um but yeah, so we’re um you know, it’s like been doing it for so long. It’s like my baby. you’re doing 50 to 70 million views a month. It’s a significant baby. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s a lot more people involved in it now um than like the early days. But, you know, we started it came with the concept and um so I’m guessing it was a collective like you should have a part of this. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And to to also hook you in, right? Cuz you don’t want it doesn’t make sense to invest all this money into the channel and then I just bugger off. I mean, I have no plans to bugger off. And I’m guessing cuz from an outsider that’s say a casual viewer because on YouTube it’s almost like rings. You have like viewers that watch every single video, then you have your casual video viewers, and then you almost have your sort of more semi-casual viewers, and then you have new new viewers that come in. But those kind of casual rings, I could imagine they would potentially think like, why doesn’t he just upload all of this on on one channel, like everything on Carwell versus like what what what to put on Matt Watson versus what to put on car. But I’ve now started to realize with your content that a lot more of the stuff that you really nerd out on and absolutely love goes on your channel. Yeah. So, it’s more about the cars that I own. So, um, like my old Porsche, my old Mazda, my old B126. I knew you were going to list out those cars before saying a 992 GT3 RS, which is now a 911 ST. 911 ST, cuz it was the 3 RS, which was in your big video with all the cars in the background, but now it’s 911 ST. And I knew you were going to read out all those other cars first. Why? Because you wouldn’t start with the biggest thing and the most shiniest object first to read out. So, this is the weird thing about me that the best car that I have or have ever owned is the 911 ST. In fact, I’d get to drive loads and loads of cars and if you just said you can have any car in the world. You you you can’t sell it and all maintenance and everything is free. Um, which car would you have? 911 ST would potentially be in there just because of how it is to drive. I say if I’ve got to have it, got to keep it, can never sell it, and it’s just about how it makes me feel, it would be the 911 ST. I’ve driven loads and loads of hypercars and no, it would be that. What was your first supercar purchase? GT3 RS. Is that even a supercar? There’s a debate on that. Was it a significant car to you to make it feel like a supercar? I say it’s a super. No, because I don’t think I had that. When I was a kid, right? Um I like Porsches at first, but then I like Ferraris. 308 GTS. I’d have loved one of those. Or 355. 355 Berlinetta. I still want one now. So Ferrari would be like a a a supercar, but did I want a supercar? I was more into driving. I went through a phase where I kind of went a little bit off cars, more into bikes. And if I’m brutally honest, bikes are more fun from what I can remember, but they’re also a lot more dangerous and a lot less practical. So I came back after having a bike accident, I came back to focus on cars, but I was more me and my mates were more bikes because they’re just faster and more nimble. There’s something about a bike where when have you ridden a bike? No, don’t ride a bike. No, I’ve dealt with too many fatal accidents on my road. Okay. Don’t ride a bike because it’s like don’t don’t take heroin. Yeah, it’s crazy. Don’t just don’t do that cuz you might like your sense of speed. You must get that with a lot of the cars that you drive as well. You almost get the sense of freedom and the way that to turn. Sorry, I’m just talking cuz I’m so passionate about bikes. It’s it’s the way you drive a car by pulling these levers and doing these things and you do like certain cars you feel like they’re part of you or the way they rotate. You know, you feel like you’re dancing with them in a way, but the bike is it’s part of you. It’s almost like being able to run really really quickly. You know those dreams that you’ve had when you’ve been flying or you’ve been able to run really fast. I don’t know if you’ve had those. I don’t take that much acid. Okay. And so, um, but it’s like that. You just the freedom and just the way you you just you Yeah, it it feels like another body part. It feels part of your body feels totally natural for free. There’s bike wow coming anytime soon. No, because I won’t get back on a bike. Yeah, because Yeah, but as much as I can tell that the kind of massive significant moments that mean a lot to others, you kind of gloss over them cuz it’s all about the next thing, the next video, the next everything. What I’m trying to get at was, was it quite cool for you to buy your first like big car like a GT3 RS? Did you go like, “Wow, look at that.” Yeah, it it was tell me about it. So, the problem is I was filming it at the time. So when you’re filming it, it takes the edge off because I’m thinking about what what’s it looking like? What’s the story like? While also trying to enjoy it. So it does cuz I’m thinking about filming that. You’re getting bothered by a wasp, aren’t you? No, it’s fine. He’s gone. He’s gone. So it’s probably not the same as if I was just going to buy the car um without having to film it. So filming it takes the edge off. I think the specking was fun was more fun. the ST. Interestingly, getting the covers off that because I’d already done the GT3S video. It was basically the same format. Didn’t have to think about that. So, I got to enjoy the experience more. But you’ve also got to remember I’m I’m a very privileged person that has I work for a magazine which like you’ve got a lot of these like YouTubers have come up and they’re trying to get cars from manufacturers and stuff like it’s real hard doing off your own back. I had the luxury of being part of a title that was just given cars. So, I’m used I was used to being around these cars. So, it’s different for someone else who’s just, you know, you’ve worked really hard and now I’m buying my dream car because I’ i’ve driven the 3 RS many time, you know, quite a lot before. I’ve driven it on track. So, it’s not the first time I’m seeing this car. It’s not the first time I’m experiencing it. So, it’s not quite the same. Is it hard for you to get excited about driving a car anymore? No. And and this can probably come back to why I listed those other cars off first. One, because I don’t want to seem like a bit of a no 911 ST, but also because those other cars give me pleasure in in a similar way like that Jimny, right? The Suzuki Jim. I reviewed it. I said, which we should probably talk about now 55 minutes into the podcast. The fact that there is a Jimny in the back of the shop. Yeah. So, I’m selling Jim. I did a video on about importing gymnast. I started importing cars from Japan because lo I love Japanese cars. I love Japanese culture. I love the Japanese people. Um and so I started I just went over to Japan to do some stuff for CarW. Went to an auction, bought a car, imported it back. Then I thought that was a Honda S660. Always wanted one of those. Didn’t really get them in the UK, so I imported one back. Then I got Toyota Century, which is Japan’s only V12, so I thought I wouldn’t mind one of those. And it’s it’s it sums up everything I like about the Japanese. Understated um supremely wellbuilt. Um and so I imported one of those and I loved importing that as well. And it’s more each of these cars have a very special character to them. So this has a character. When I reviewed this car, I said a lot of people be looking that going, do you know what I could do with like a little SUV that looks like a mini G Wagon that would be perfect for my life. Actually, no. You have to be a bit of a car fan to like a Jimny cuz there’s a lot that’s about it when you’re driving on the road. You’re constantly having to steer it. The back seats are a bit cramped, but it’s got character. And all the cars I have have character. Now, if you’re interested in buying a Jimny, you can check out my new car dealership. So, it’s called Japanese Dream Machines. It’s Japanese.co.uk. And you can email me at [email protected]. Got loads of stock. Go check it out. Do you think that’s the most important thing in a car? Yeah. Character. So, what you pulled in in today, what we actually I had to follow you in all the way down into where we are now was an electric Chinese car. It’s a new JQ5, right? So, would I So, electric cars. Um, electric cars. I’ve got an electric car. I got a Tesla Model 3. Um, Chinese electric cars. That car in particular. Would I buy one of those? Not me personally. Would I recommend it to someone who wants a good value for money car who can do pretty much what they all they want for an insanely good price? Yes, I would. So, there’s two different elements. There’s Matt Watson, the car fan himself who’s buying cars for himself, which is what my channel’s all about, and the sheranigans that I get up to, like starting a Japanese car import business. Does anyone ever tell you no? What do you mean? Because of like your time, like family back home, like Matt, what are you doing now? Ah, yeah. But I got like you’ve got a hanger somewhere with loads of Jimnies in it and they’re all for sale suddenly. But you’re also doing karma and you’ve got your own channel and you got this going on. And by the way, you just brought a book. Yeah, but I don’t understand time very well. Well, it’s taken me a year to get you to see it. So I’m not very good at time. So like But it doesn’t stop you. It doesn’t stop. So I don’t understand how long these things are going to take. Right. So even like meeting you this here today, I think a lot more is possible in the space of time that I have than there is in reality. So, I get myself into these situations and then you have to sort of follow them through. I mean, you you’ve got a lot of things going on. There’s quite a few plates spinning, aren’t there? There is, but I I it just kind of happens and just kind of do it. And I’m the same thing. Like, this morning I thought that, okay, my journey’s X. I need to get up. It will take me 15 minutes to leave the house. It took me 35 minutes to leave the house. It’s like, it’s so hard sometimes to manage time when you have so much stuff going on because the unexpected could happen. you know, you need a boo. It’s one of those things. Those skirt wings. Yeah. All that buffalo sauce. But that is genuinely the stuff that actually causes like me to be late now cuz like time’s down to such a finite thing is the the kind of unexpected that goes along the way. With all of the stuff that you have to encompass under a certain amount of time, what is your biggest challenge that you face in like your day-to-day life? It it is that juggler time and where to prioritize it. Um, in some way sometimes I can get distracted with the things that aren’t so important and get hung up on stuff. It’s, and this comes down to in some ways why I can be good as a car reviewer because I will spend an unnecessary amount of time with that car that I’ve got there JK5 driving it on various surfaces of road to find out exactly what it’s like. Even though really the people that are going to buy it probably as long as it’s not I just need to find out if it’s or not. And if it’s not I can just say it’s not Whereas my motoring journey side wants to know how it how where it where it ranks compared to everything else I’ve ever reviewed in terms of the driving dynamics. Who’s your great leveler? Does anyone ever tell you like no or makes you think about something? I think they do, but I don’t hear it. I don’t know. Sometimes I have to say no myself. Um other people like when you ask for stuff they say no and then you Yeah. My my partner sometimes you know when you talk about like me spinning plates for example because you see that’s that stuff. I don’t have a little one. So has that like been something that because if that was 2016 when Carwell started and started to motor and take off, would you say that that’s been one of the hardest things for you to balance is kind of I so I’m if the timing was about right. So if it had have happened sooner I don’t think I’d have been able to put the same amount of energy in you require in the initial push. like the the amount of drive and work that went into like the first five six years at CarW was pretty insane and I’m still working hard hard now but more comes to you now just because the numbers more opportunities come so the the hunt for the opportunity I don’t we don’t have to do it quite so much what was the hardest moment that you’ve had to overcome in your career you ever thought like like Jesus this week’s been tough or this moment ‘s been tough or no there’s certain times where you you overbook and you think oh god I just can’t what have I done or I’ve taken on too much stuff you know you wake up in the night and you go oh I’ve got too much stuff going on here but you said at the start of the podcast that you actually through doing all the law stuff especially the early car magazine you got really good at learning to say no and also going back to people like a wasp like going back to them I’m not so good at saying no um but I’m I’m kind of don’t give up so that’s the thing I I can sometimes take on too much stuff but I am good at like if I think something is worth doing, I don’t give up too easily. So, what was your driver behind doing this? So, someone actually contacted me and go, “Matt, you should do a book.” And I was like, “Yeah, right. That’d be awesome.” Cuz there’s one thing about doing So, there’s one thing about doing like videos and stuff. You can’t really to show someone a video. You have to go on your phone and go like that. There’s just something to it might be my generation as well to just have a book. Such a tactile thing. just a thing like you no one can ever turn that off, you know, that can never be that’s always going to be there that I’ve written a book. Um I also really enjoyed writing it and like remembering like so basically I go through Did you do a lot of the writing yourself? Yeah. So like it’s all like my take on different manufacturers and my experience with different cars and manufacturers and so on and so forth. So it’s something you can like What’s your favorite page? Open it. This is actually a dummy book cuz it’s only being printed now. Caught him out. What is my favorite? Do you know what my favorite I know my favorite page actually? It’s it’s the one where I dedicate it to my daughter. So I said this is for my amazing daughter, Grace. Um I always thought it would be cool to have a book dedicated dedicated to me and now you do. So I can go look that’s for you and she’ll be and she likes cars. That’s the main thing. We talk about those moments that I feel for like most the podcast hitting 10 million subscribers, hitting a million subscribers, numberry kind of moments, and you just, oh yeah, yeah. No, it’s not. Sorry, that’s a funny flip of me going. Well, it’s more the fact of when I sit down and look at it and go, oh yeah, that’s really incredible that we’ve done that, that we’ve been able to achieve it. But it’s almost because there’s so much going on, you don’t have the time to sit and appreciate and appreciate it. did do you guys do when you hit 10 million subscribers? Cuz there’s a big team at Carwell. It it took a while, but the the video team went and had a meal and I cuz I was off filming somewhere else. Make it. Do you find that quite pretty bad? I feel really bad that I didn’t that we didn’t have the time, but then they’re more like we would need more videos out, get out. You know, this is it is just a really tough balance. It’s just Yeah. I mean, this is one of the things I think as well, looking back at YouTube from how we started and how we structure the channel. YouTube has changed and in hindsight, I would structure it differently, but that’s YouTube. We spend so much time talking about YouTube. We’ve already mentioned the words Top Gear once. Top Gear obviously become the Grand Tour. And we know recently they’ve gone out and taken on three new presenters or a team of new presenters. If the phone rang from Amazon, they’ve got your book listed, but to have you listed on their screen, Yeah. check it out on Amazon. Would you be saying, “Yeah, sure.” Well, I think you’d be mad not to. And it’s quite funny. Like, have you um have you read Chris Harris’s book? So, he basically goes into how he um he thought it was a poison chalice, but he took it because you could not not take it because some time you he led on your deathbed. Yeah. And it has worked out for him, you know, it’s elevated him and it’s also Yeah. you know the experience to do it to do something different because you’d always wonder with a phone call like that or an opportunity like that what would happen if you didn’t do it there is one thing that’s different though I would not give up I’d figure out if you want me to do it how do we make it work alongside car is that still a goal of yours in the back of your head to do one of those I know you’ve done TV before I’m talking about the grand tour top gear no it’s not but if I so I wouldn’t go hunting And I would ra and this is part of the thing of one thing I love about YouTube and yeah I don’t own carwow but you know I’ve got full autonomy of what goes on the channel same with my own channel right the control that you have I’m not you know especially not my own channel I’m not going to ever fire myself you know you don’t have that you you can decide you make the calls you can decide whether you’re pushing it too far or not you’re not justifying it to anyone else you’re making those decisions and I think that one of the problems that I would find and I did find it with TV. There’s two things I I I found a problem. One was I the creative not entirely I like creative control. The second thing is the standing around. I can’t stand around and so I’d find it very hard with all the camera setup and stuff like that. Yeah, I could get over it. But that whole standing around for the shot because one of the things that’s very different I think for YouTube and yeah strong production values really really do matter now more than ever cuz people are watching TV but ultimately I think what YouTube still comes down to the story is the king. So be it the car or the narrative that is what matters. As long as your audio is okay you can’t have audio can you? Do you think you’ve recorded your best ever video yet? Do you know what? All these questions that you’re asking me are not kind of things that I really think about. So do I think about have I recorded my next best ever video. What is what define best? So you got to define the terms of best something that you are very proud of and that you go back in the same way that you open that studio app multiple times and that’s the one that you click on to be like we did this. No, but I so there’s not that I don’t think I’d do that. Do you not think when you’ve lined up a Formula 1 car and a Vathy Chiron next to each other on a oneway and sent them down there multiple times beaming start smile on your face that that’s not what I’m describing. Turning up to that shoot and seeing the Formula 1 car and the whole team there and just thinking, you know, last thing I was like reviewing Kia Picantos. Here we are. Look at this. This is amazing. So yes, sometimes we have that, but then you’re into the shoot and there was all the drama of that shoot. I don’t really want to go into the details of it now, but you know, as you can imagine, it wasn’t all plain sailing. Formula 1 car is pretty tricky. You’ve got little windows of opportunity of when it can run. Then there’s various things can happen on a runway and things happen and so then you’re into the you’re into the battle. I mean, I say my job quite a lot lot of the time when you film it is a bit like an episode of the apprentice, isn’t it? Do you know what I mean? Like it’s this challenge kind of get this thing done. Um, and so you’re not necessarily in the space of enjoying it. Then when it comes out, it’s great when the video flies. So when that Formula 1 video flew and you know, you know when you’ve got your usual kind of that’s doing well, that’s doing well, you know, like the day like it spike first day, then it like tails off. It’s when it goes it just keeps growing day after day after day and you know it’s being spread out. And that’s the bit that your dopamine chases. Yeah. And you’re always chasing the passion. The bit that makes you passionate. The bit that makes you want to do it again. It’s also the cars. I’m passionate about the cars. I really love finding out about these new cars and going on these launch events. But and it’s not just the performance cars. It’s also just normal, simple, everyday cars. And you’re still excited about the stuff coming out now? Yeah. You don’t think the world’s like cooked for? Cuz a lot of my favorite stuff, everybody talks about their favorite kind of era of cars. say my stuff is 2002 to 2020. The stuff that was in there for me cuz I love lightweight hardcore mid-enine supercars. That’s my thing. And from 360 CS all the way through to 48 pista, that’s that’s my thing. And I just can’t get excited by like the 296 GTE 400. Do you know I’m with you in some ways, but I wonder if you ask someone who like my dad’s age was like, modern cars got a little bit too safe and simple. I preferred, you know, my 1960s, my 1970s cars. I mean, for me, peak car is around mid naughties where easy enough to live with, don’t break down, lots of performance, not too much intervention, lots of feel with hydraulic power steering and stuff like that. But now I’m being like a a car geek, right? I mean, that’s got hydraulic power steering and it’s shite. The steering is shite, but it’s good for off-road. Um, so do I I think as a motoring journalist, what has become tricky is a big part of what we would analyze in the car was the powertrain. So the engine and the gearbox and how they interact, it’s gone with electric cars. That’s gone. So this is one of the things that I find interesting with like Rolls-Royce. I remember when Rolls-Royce they like announcing the the Spectre. Oh, the Spectre is going to be the most perfect Rolls-Royce because it’s going to be even quieter because it’s got an electric motor. It’s like Chinese can do a very quiet, very smooth, very powerful electric motor. What they can’t do is a V12 coin. A coin. They can’t do that. And it’s like, what watch have you got on? They just Okay, so there we go. I mean, why why it’s got it’s got like cogs and springs and all that nonsense in it. you just like the mechanicals and you appreciate the mechanicals of it and the look of it as well. And so that for me as a motoring journalist, as a as a car guy, I miss that. As someone who’s reviewing cars, well, it’s just changed the parameters slightly. So it’s it’s more like, you know, what’s the what’s the energy consumption like? What’s the charging rates? What’s the the um human car interface like? there’s an element which gave the variation in the car that’s gone. I also think that people are becoming less interested in cars because they are ultimately now you’ve taken away the engine and um gearbox thing. They’re becoming a bit more just like consumer tech. Does that worry you having chairs and pushing something forward like Carwell? No, cuz people are going to buy cars and there’s loads and loads of cars coming out so that people need advice. In fact, in some ways, because less people are into cars, there’s less people with in a social circle that know about cars that can get advice. So, where can they come? Car wow. Everybody’s talking AI. Every single conversation, every single podcast, everything in it is AI. AI, AI, AI, AI. You’re at the forefront of testing everything that’s coming. I’ve recently just been to LA and I drove around in a Whimo. Yeah. All week. And it was better. It was better than taking an Uber. It was a better experience. We felt safer. It’s cheaper. It’s going to come to the UK. It’s probably going to land here next year. Do you think that will take away passion for cars? Or do you think passion will live on through your children being excited about cars because of you? Well, one of the things I think is that as cars have got better and better, less people have to work on them. So, less people have to know about cars. And because less people have to know about cars, less people are interested in cars. So, you know, you find that if you have like I test all these cars and then when I So, I own cars. Don’t need to own cars. A lot of motor journalists don’t own cars. I own cars because I bond with them more. I find out their personality. I clean them. They, you know, I I love them and they back, but you know what I mean. You spend time with them, you bond with them. I think as cars have become like you don’t even work on your cars yourself. People don’t even like change tires or that. People are less bonding with their cars. So general people are less interested in cars as they were. People are still interested in having nice stuff and things that make their life easier and things that um say something about their their status. Do you think the big brands, the big European brands, Mercedes, Audi, do you think they’re in for even tougher times than what they’ve got now because of the Chinese coming? Hell yeah. Do you think we’re going to lose one or two of them? I don’t know about that. But one thing, so that JQ5, right, is a good example. The often when I drive these Chinese cars, build quality, fit and finishing side is good. Tech is generally pretty good. They’re a bit overcautious on the safety systems. Um, but where they they don’t quite get it is the steering, the brakes, and the throttle mapping. They just haven’t quite got that. And it’s like, and I think normal people can notice it when they back to back the cars because you want a car to do exactly what you expect it to do. That’s an interesting point that there. The back the back to back of the cars. Yeah. I just find that quite because that’s what people should do a lot more is probably go dealer to dealer and just hard to do and they rely on people like me to be able to like do that for them. The thing is they’re fixing it pretty quick. So that is much better than the JQ7 and there’s 7 months between the cars landing in the UK and then it’s just going to come down. People are less and less um brand loyal. So they’re already sweet. We see that on car people, you know, cross shopping all the time with these Chinese cars. They’re um less expensive. They’re sorting out the the back. They’re really on it on battery and motor technology, on like the tech within the car, build quality and design. And now when they get that last piece, the driving dynamics, are you still excited about the videos you’ll make in five years? Yeah, cuz there one thing there’s one we don’t know what’s going to happen fully with like EVs and two years ago everything was going to be EV. Now it’s like Maybe Porsche there with their can making their sustainable fuel. Like come on. Or even or even I mean they’re just you know what I mean my from my point of view get away step away from like the environmental concerns and stuff like you want a car that’s right for the for the task at hand. Now electric cars are right for very many tasks. An electric car is low maintenance. It’s brilliant for short trips cuz you’re not heat cycling an engine. As someone who’s like got mechanical sympathy, I hate going on short trips in an internal combustion engine car because I don’t like to heat cycle the engine, right? This is one of the things like we drag race like these people’s cars and people like fire. No, but no, people like send it. I’m like, no. I’m like, no, we need to warm it up properly, get some heat through it, and then I’ll do a proper cool down. I’m an absolute anorak about it. Like, is your car running yet? They’re like, no, and I’m like, no, I’m not running. I’ve sent cars away because they haven’t been running cuz I don’t want to damage them. I’m an absolute honestly I can’t help myself and that’s on a day where you need to filmate drag races. Yeah. My team are like just race it and like but I just can’t do it. I just Yeah. And it’s someone else’s thing and I wouldn’t want someone to do it to me. Anyway, backing up to to electric cars are really good for certain jobs. Now, if you’ve got if you’re someone who does a lot of miles, you want a diesel. You just want a diesel, right? You want a bit you want to not have to keep on filling it up all the time or remember to plug in at home. You want 600 miles in your tank and you drive it and if you run out cuz you’ve been working late up north, you want to get in your car and you can fill it up immediately. There was a video recently um that I was absolutely hooked by as my friend Joe Achilles did one which was he drove a thousand miles in a in a pat challenge and I was like I I know like doing it you’d feel like that but it does wake you up to the fact that like a thousand miles a car can do a thousand miles in like one drive. like it’s these things we just don’t hear because our world is dominated by 280 350 like constantly because that’s the stuff that’s coming into our world. But I’m glad to think that you still think that there is hope for the videos that are coming in 5 years. It’s quite funny. I spoke to Andreas Poinger at um Porsche GT and he he I was like he I asked him about the future of like GT cars when eventually they become electric and he said do you know what it’s not for me but it’s for the next generation. They will figure out engineers jobs are to solve problems. They will solve the problem of how to make a car fun. Well, I think that that is a pretty good way to close up this episode of Road to Success. And the fact that there is actually some hope out there for your children that might be into cars and mine in the future and all the rest of it. But Matt, I think to put your story of actually how you got to where you are today on this podcast because there really isn’t that much out there is a lot of people will thank you for that because there’s so many things in there that are relatable to so many people. I think that’s good. I think it’s good to give people hope just like cars in 5 years. So, thank you so much for joining me in the back of my van. No, it’s lovely. And um if you want to find out a more kind of like like linear linear path of how I got into it, there’s some in the beginning of this

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In this incredible episode, we sit down with Mat Watson, the automotive world’s biggest YouTuber, to discuss his journey from a childhood dreaming of acting to running a multi-million subscriber empire at Carwow. Mat opens up about his humble beginnings, why he took a massive pay cut to become a journalist, the full story behind him being an “accountant hiding in a cupboard,” and his philosophy that made him one of the most relatable car reviewers in the world.

Don’t miss the story of his worst-ever presenting video and find out what his 15-year-old self would think of his life today!

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Timestamps:
00:00:00 | Introduction & Matt Watson’s Phenomenal Career Success
00:01:29 | Matt Watson’s Philosophy: “I Drive Cars and I Say Things About Them”
00:02:49 | The Famous “Doctor’s Visit” Story & Meeting Fans
00:04:02 | Current Success vs. His 20-Year-Old Self’s Expectations
00:05:58 | Childhood Dreams (Actor) & The Wasp Analogy for Persistence
00:09:18 | The Origins of Passion and Delayed Gratification
00:10:27 | SPONSOR SPOT – Car Finance & Refinancing with Lilian Stanley
00:12:30 | Why Matt Watson Never Forgave His Dad for Selling a Car (The MGB Roadster)
00:14:19 | Watching the Original Top Gear & Jeremy Clarkson’s Influence
00:15:41 | The WORST Video Matt Watson Ever Filmed (HD Gas Discharge Bulbs)
00:17:19 | The Full Story: Accountant Hiding in a Cupboard at PwC
00:18:42 | Quitting Accounting for Journalism (Taking a Huge Pay Cut)
00:21:11 | The Eureka Moment & Promoting His New Book: An A-to-Z of Cars
00:24:50 | Why Matt Got Pigeonholed Into “Watchdog” Journalism (Investigation focus)
00:44:03 | The Power of Drag Races: Why they are more relatable than track battles
00:45:30 | Why Carwow shows the ‘Warts and All’ story of a drag race
00:53:23 | Motorcycles vs. Cars: The ultimate sense of speed and danger
00:58:34 | Thoughts on the rise of Electric Chinese Cars
01:00:17 | Dealing with his biggest challenge: Time Management
01:02:19 | Who is Matt Watson’s “great leveler” and balancing family life
01:03:34 | The hardest moment he’s had to overcome in his career
01:06:33 | Would Matt Watson Join The Grand Tour/Amazon?
01:20:29 | Closing Thoughts and Hope for the Future of Cars

Contact: dan@driventalent.co.uk