Goodbye Hoonigan - Full Story

[Applause] that's it leaving Honan I think some of you guys out there have expected it I've gotten a lot of DMS I've gotten a lot of comments on videos about it and I wanted to take the time to address it a lot of you guys have been following hoonigan and myself for so long and I owe it to you to tell you why I'm leaving and what I'm doing next so I wanted to take the time to make this video talk a little bit about how I got here what I did at hoonigan why I'm leaving and what I'm going to do after it'll probably be a pretty long video I mean if you guys know me I'm pretty long-winded I'll break it up down below you could just skipped to the part you want to see but if you're ready for the Long Haul buckle up it's story time going to talk a [Music] bunch so a lot of you guys along the way have asked how do I get the job here how do I end up at hunigan I told this story on Matt Farah's podcast and and I don't know if everyone saw it so I'm going to kind of tell it again this is how it worked I grew up in the Volkswagen scene I lived in Long Island New York the town over from me there was this dude named Eric Ang also known as ASI he was the biggest Internet troll before internet trolls really existed he was a generation older than me he was about 10 years older than me and he had a really cool Marv he kind of got me started on like how to flip things buying and selling car parts to get things that I wanted and stuff we quickly became buddies he was connected to auto which was Brian Scot's car club they were buddies one day Eric G hits me up and goes hey any of your friends writers or photographers my buddy has a car magazine he's looking to hire someone and I was like actually one of my good friends Alex Bernstein just graduated school he had a degree in journalism and he was also a car photographer I put him in touch he ended up getting a job at 0 to 60 magazine 0 to 60 was Brian's magazine that Alex worked at Matt tasillo Ron zarus and a t other guys that you might know with that I kind of got like adjacent to the circle so every time they would have like parties in the city and stuff I'd be out with them I'd hang out and I would literally just bug Ron and Matt and be like yo get me a job with kemach one day Brian Scotto text me in the most in the most Brian Scotto way ever yo it's Scot job opening at hoonigan I was working some job at the time and literally was driving I had a green 07 Jeep Wrangler I remember driving I pulled over to the side of the road and responded immediately and said hell yeah I'm in what do you need from me and I got nothing cuz that's SC does he just texts you and forgets right away I blew him up a little bit he called me one day we spoke for a while it was really cool I had no experience in marketing nothing at all I think graduated college with like business management was real degree I was kind of doing odd jobs here and there I was doing like business development for business I never actually took off so I had no real world experience Scot literally said Matt and Ron speak highly of you Alex did well at 0 to 60 so let's give it a shot what do we do next I ooh Get Right to Work type it on my resume send it to Brian nothing he doesn't he later admitted that he never even looked at the resume which is great he hits me up and he's like hey we're doing this thing for zumies uh it's going to be in New Jersey I lived in New York it was about hour and a half away it was actually at eTown place of gone to a ton of times so he's like we're doing this thing with zomies why don't you just come out just meet the team and help out I was like what do you want to do he's like just interact see how you do with everyone it'll be like an informal interview no doubt let's do it like a day before going he's like hey do you have anything you could pick up 35 tires in so I'm like no I have a twodo Jeep Wrangler and a E36 M3 uh but let me try to find out so we like rent the box truck all the whatever so I drive out there and I'm like I got to take something cool so I take my darar yellow 95 E36 M3 out there and I'm like hell yeah sit in traffic no AC 2 hours brutal commute over there pull up to the hotel call Brian nothing I had Ashley's phone number I think she text me about something call her nothing they probably booked me a room I'm just going to go check in so I go to the front desk check in they're like oh yeah you're already checked in you have um Eugene Herr already checked in for you I'm like boy cuz I didn't know her at this time Alex and Tony harmer they were good friends with her that's one person I forgot to add at the 060s Tony harmer but Tony harmer and Alex were good friends with hert they hung out all the time I like knew him BR proxy but I never met him he definitely had no idea who I was so I'm like this is weird walk upstairs key in go to my room her's just sitting there in his boxers eating pizza like it's what you think he would roll into hurt in a hotel room being like I'm not making it up and he just looks at me and he's like what the is this guy doing in my room and I'm like hey man I'm Vin uh I know Alex and Tony I'm here for like a job interview thing at hoonigan and he quickly like lightened up because at first he thought Brian just had one of these contest winners staying with him and he was really pissed but he quickly warmed up like we chopped it up we went out with Steve angerman Jeff stoneback like all those East Coast guys and hung out with them like her welcomed me with open arms so it was really cool but I love telling that story because it's just absolutely ridiculous we do that we go through the event it was cool Turk forsburg stonach like all those guys were out there was really rad to get to hang out with them like right off the bat I wasn't super big into Formula Drift so I didn't Fanboy them which was cool seems to go well even though I was just like helping out I didn't really do anything couple weeks go by I hit up Scott I'm like yo what's next nothing couple weeks go by keep pastoring them I'm like right in between get my own place and move out and do stuff I'm like what the is going on finally hits me up he's like yo can you start August 15th it's like August 7th at the time and I was like no I have to move cross country I cannot do that and he's like when can you start I was like how's the following Monday like 15 the 17th cuz he wanted me to start I think it was like it was weird it was like a Thursday or something which makes no sense but part for the course and then I ended up starting that Monday the 17th which was my birthday and I was actually really stoked so I packed up all my stuff I had a motorcycle that I sold I threw the rest of my crap into my Jeep Wrangler and my E36 M3 like just packed them out shipped them out here and then me and my ex-girlfriend at the time drove across country in her Ultima at the time that was a furthest I've ever been away from home in New York I went to LA once before to visit Alex and that was it and then I just moved out here so it was kind of crazy so that's how I got the job my time at [Music] Honan my birthday I think I turned 25 or 26 going to hoonigan living on Alex Bernstein's couch in Culver City Driving Brian's F350 Mondo Superduty OBS thing parking it in Culver City Super stress F but thanks for letting me borrow cold truri he could just like the most Hunan stuff like this all seemed I guess weird at the time but like the more I was around the more this all feels natural is I get there in the morning I pull up Brian's not there I meet Steve Demars couple other homies I I met chase the first night I pulled up and my boss Emily blood who I think now works at DC she just got there too it's her first day we pull up no one knows we're starting we don't have computers there's nothing there for us to do so we just kind of like hung out and this was like all day so was like her Christine Demars kakawa John Chase and Item B worked there at the time so it was like really small crew and this dude Eddie and uh it was cool I mean we just got into 621 into the donut garage and it was pretty much a big open space like garage doors open there were no walls like you guys saw probably in Daily transmission stuff it just a big open Warehouse T stallion just parked like 3 ft from the desk and like Brian's Nova so it was like weird but it was a super cool Vibe and coming from a dude who like worked in an office job and then did some BS like this was already sick like the fact that I could sit at my desk and like look at a turbo LS RX7 was like awesome I started as a entrylevel marketing coordinator position which is basically like a marketing assistant so I did everything from like Ecom sales helping organize photo shoots and this is like pre video on Instagram so we were like doing photo shoots and like doing Ecom marketing and you know setting up sales figuring out like cool shoots to do and little marketing campaigns handling some of the athlete ambassadors which basically at the time just meant like making sure we were sending them promo gear they were doing posts for us we were rehar their content like doing some really simple stuff like that then I started uh started doing some social media hurt and Item B and Brian and I all like worked in a group chat where basically every time I wanted to post something I would have to like send the photo and the copy and they would riip it apart until I learned the voice and tone of the brand which honestly worked great like it was just super Grassroots like Saturday I'd be texting them and someone would respond and make an edit and after a couple months like I knew exactly how to talk hoonigan and I ran that Social account from a little over 500,000 followers to 1.3 million hoonigan was was popping it was really exciting to do that and it was really cool to get to like have that be my job even though it meant like on the weekend I'd be out trying to have fun with my friends or going driving I'd be like hold on guys I got to post this thing on Instagram real quick talk to her he'll have the same complaints after that I mean I was sort of this kid that was like a jack of all trades do a little bit of everything we decided we wanted to get into hot rods because at the time we really cut our teeth with two things and it was like rally with Ken Block and drifting on both Grassroots level with like hurt animal style and things like that and then FD but Brian wanted to get more into hot rotting John Chase was into hot rotting Brian's been into hot roding I grew up really loving muscle cars cuz my dad we were like they did Power Tour the year before Brian was like we're going to do Power Tour again I was like I'd love to go I'd even buy a truck for it and I've always wanted a C10 so I picked up 69 C10 long bed patina perfect like the coolest truck ever to me it was a big block had a 468 a 3-speed and Rally wheels on it I got it for 4,000 bucks which is insane especially by today's standard with C10 I bought it uh right in Mid City Brian took me there we drove it straight to his house and then I drove it to work the next day and like we started tearing into it and I didn't have the money to build a thing at the time we were doing some content so Brian was like hey uh we could get some parts sponsored you're going to do yours John's going to do his I'm going to spruce up the Nova and we're going to do Ashley's F100 he said you can go and get the Partnerships here's where you can promise them I did that and I was quickly getting us parts coming in that was awesome this was like mind-blowing to me that you could even get sponsored parts we were like all right well now we got the parts how how do we pay to go on this trips we even had no marketing budget Brian was like let me introduce you to some people who also go on Power Tour we can do this this and this make some content make some content for them tag them some of our stuff here's how some of that works let's get after it I did my first ever like brand deal it was $10,000 for MagnaFlow and I worked with Richard wus and Katherine Reinhardt we traded out media for dollar to go on this trip and that was the first deal I ever did crazy Brian was like pretty stoked he thought I handled myself really well so he you know kind of made me like his backup Guy Brian's brilliant super smart dude just really disorganized and doesn't like follow up with people so I was kind of the dude that just came with him I was like his sidekick and I would do the follow-ups and all that stuff and uh that was sort of where I got started Scot like likes throwing people into the fire For Better or For Worse and for me it was for the better one day he's like yo we're going to go talk to Ford come with me he's like I'll already be out there fly out I came out to Ford have no idea what to do so I go out Ken and Matt toilla are there and Brian I meet them downstairs in this hotel lobby me and Brian go back to our room together we shared a room cuz hoonigan and hrd were separate so there's different budgets hoonigan 2016 sharing a room together because we don't we didn't have budget to split rooms like that it was just what it was so we went into Ford and Pitch them on a project to do with Ken and it was like absolutely insane and I like looking back on it cuz like Brian was older and more established but like the grind mentality of like you're willing to like bring someone else out have them sleep in your bedroom and do that was just kind of crazy I don't know I just remember that vividly I think I fell asleep like around midnight Scot stayed up and then I woke up in the morning and he was already up doing stuff my first my first taste of professional Scot I guess then from there it was really like how do you follow up on these things and close these deals so Scot pretty much took me under his wing we worked as a team it was like we did followed up on Creative built decks built creative to work on what the clients want we started doing rfps and we were really grinding and that was when I sort of started understanding the business more and I was like I can do this and our Focus was always how do we get paid to do something that benefits the audience it was never about us it was always like we want to do cool stuff for you guys but we can't afford to do it so how do we get other partners involved so that they could spend and we could benefit them while serving right that really worked really well for us for a long time and I don't think people understood that a lot I think that's because we were doing a good job we would come up with Concepts that were really authentic to hoonigan and you guys really enjoyed we were integrating partners and getting them to to help fund us create these things that are amazing and some of that stuff is crazy I mean like we came up with this concept for carcane abroad as a joke and then I was able to go out and get companies like FCP Euro and rotaform pre-acquisition to sponsor it and that was like nuts that was all part of this like we want to do fun stuff and we want to be able to show our bosses that we can get paid to do this stuff that is fun and builds audience and we were able to do that all over everything from drifting to going to another country to buy stupid slow cars it was really fun getting to do that and throughout the years it was like we worked with everyone from every single brand in the automotive endemic aftermarket to some of the biggest brands in the world got to do things like build the Huna pigasus with mobile one and build the Indie truck with penoil and launch the 632 crate engine with Chevrolet performance custom build a body kit with the designers from Chevrolet like some of the craziest craps I would have never imagined and it was really cool to get to do that because I was growing professionally I was really learning a ton of like experience I never thought I would have gotten to we got to do some really fun stuff that I was really proud of um but yeah I don't know I mean the biggest thing I think I learned at hoing is just like how to make it work in the pandemic didn't know what the hell was going to happen we were all terrified that like hooning would just go out of business we were just terrified that like literally one day the doors would just be closed we didn't know what to do when we had to start working from home we were like how do we keep all the guys that work in the shop employed right because hooning it was owned by someone else it wasn't just Brian Ken you can't just let these dudes stay at home when their jobs are build cars so what did we do we were like all right we're going to do a couple different things to make money and keep these guys employed and keep all of us sane we partnered with eBay to build a donk during the pandemic when you were allowed to go into work in small groups we zon the building as Automotive so that you were in a central worker so that people like Dan could go in and wrench on cars and then actually before that we did a thing called the Corin stream where we took our current partners and they sponsored live streams where we all just got on Twitch but we did that because we were like we don't want to abandon our our audience but we need to make something and we need to keep all the guys employed that was just something that I wanted to talk about because it was one of those things where I realized that like unigan will live forever because nothing could stop us like anything that got in our way we were like we'll find a solution we have a killer team we know how to make this work and we always did and I just thought that was really cool and like I Lov that mentality of like the core team was so dedicated to making it work that like we would do anything whether it was like stay at work until midnight in Endless meetings or you know I don't know I was a really special time for hoonigan so yeah I could talk forever about crazy projects we've done or good times we've had I mean everything from like going to Baja to all the daily transmission episodes that we got to make with the whole crew I mean it's been an insane time and uh it's been really hard to make the decision to leave this has been a massive part of my life like it's uh it's so sad to think about it ending and I think we all sort of sought It Coming For Us individually um over the last couple years but once you decide to actually move on it's really sad so that'll move into why I'm [Music] leaving it's it's been a doozy of a decision to make uh this has been such a big part of my life and I've learned a lot I've lived better life than I probably ever thought I would have I've done more things here than I could have ever imagined and got to call them all work it's truly insane and I'm so fortunate to have built this life you know recognizing that it's no longer going the direction you want it to go is is okay and it's just it's tough so I've changed a lot and I think what makes me happy has also changed a lot and when the company got acquired I thought maybe I'm too old for this whole internet thing like I'm 35 now I'm kind of boring I'm no longer the crazy kid that was on daily transmission like I'm sort of washed up in that aspect but I was like maybe I just don't belong on the internet anyways let me just do this corporate thing I'll grow and help build the brand from the background and that'll be satisfying and I did the corporate thing for a bit and it's not for me I don't see myself being happy in a situation like that and there's nothing against it if you work a corporate job if you work a des job if you shovel for a living no judgment everyone does their own path but it wasn't for me I was really not happy being in an office I don't really enjoy the whole aspect of the big business lots of drama and politics and things and it really curates an atmosphere of like people just not liking each other and it was not really good for my mental health like I was super depressed and started not liking all these people that I really loved previously and that wasn't cool so I'm not not blaming wheelpros for it I just think that like you you take these things and you try to smash them into a another thing that they weren't meant to be in and it doesn't really work out so it's fine but yeah it was uh it was just one of those kind of realizations that the content plan for hoonigan has sort of shifted we don't get to do that same stuff we did the corporate life just wasn't for me I mean I'm sure there could be a lot of upside to it a lot of promise but like step back and think about like what I want in life it's like I need to make money I want to be rich but most importantly I want to be happy every day I don't think the middle one matters at all and I know I can do the first and the third easily and I think the second one will happen it it's really important to me that like every day is great and I wasn't living it and for that reason alone it's just like it's enough it's scary to go out there and try to do something else and have no guarantee of a paycheck and no guarantee that any of you guys will give a about me or follow along or support whatever I do next but I mean I got to try because if you don't try you're just going to always sit there and regret it worst case scenario I think I could get another desk job I'm pretty qualified to do stuff I'm just going to give it a shot I got to go try to do my own thing try to be happy try to make my own next era of Life dreams come true I hope you guys all stick around and support and I'll talk about a little bit more about that now so but before I get into what I'm doing next I want to make one thing clear this isn't like a anti- hunigan or anti- wheelpros anything a lot of people didn't realize is like hoonigan's always been owned by people other than Ken and Brian we had other investors we always had to answer to someone people always dictated what we had to do as a brand and it was always about making money we had to serve our bosses you know this is nothing new it's just different we all knew all these changes were going to happen we all were signed up for it Brian and Ken made educated decisions that like this is the right way to go none of us are mad or angry it's changed we've done done a lot of cool stuff and I think Wheel Pros now hoonigan will continue to evolve and be great just like us the people at wheelpros who started the company and the people who are in charge at least most of them are dieh hard car enthusiasts I mean Randy got into Wheel Pros because he was into cars Brian Henderson has some of the coolest cars I've ever seen I used to joke that he was like what I did on flipping cars but like 10 levels up but he's like a dieh hard car guy and there's a lot of people up there who really care about automotive and this industry it's not just a bunch of corporate suits that don't give a there's no slander hoonigan as you know it may change it may never come back there's never going to be daily transmission again but I think hon will go on to evolve a lot they're now a two almost $2 billion your company and they're not going to disappear it's not going to be the brand that you signed up for that I signed up for but I think that that's okay and it had to evolve and I'm excited to see what they do with it I just wanted to make it clear that like I have no hard feelings against soon again EV against wheelpros I'm still going to show up still going to be in some of their content definitely still going to see all the guys I'm sure I'll be on some of this for sad episodes and uh help transition out over like a really long course of time we doing some Partnerships and stuff there's nothing hard there the only hard feelings here are my own feelings about what the hell I have to do in my life and what I got to do to make myself happy I don't know if that makes any sense but it does to me and I guess that's really all that matters here's what I'm going to do this is an embarrassing part for me because I wish I were better prepared I have a lot of things going on now nothing that is super ironed out or ready to be debuted I was super focused on unigan and have been for the last Almost decade and the reason why I've been so successful here is that this is my life I dedicated everything to it and like sure I did some Social Media stuff for myself and bought and sold cars but like my professional life was dedicated to hunigan I didn't build up anything on the side to launch for when I left stupid should have now I am going to for the first time in a decade not have a paycheck which is terrifying that's not going to stop me from doing what I haven't done in a very long time which is I'm actually just going to take a vacation I haven't taken more than like an extended weekend in my entire time that work at hoonigan so we're going to go to Japan and just go off for a little bit enjoy some car culture there enjoy just some life try to clear my head and just think about kind of what's coming next a little bit on that is I have a lot of stuff I'm going to double down on my social media content I love making content now it's one of these weird things where like I hated being on camera I always thought it was kind of stupid but it's really fun to make content with the cars that I have doing the stuff that I like to do with people that I like to do and I want to continue to do that so I guess you would say double down but hopefully more uh I'm going to really focus on creating content for myself I don't know if I'm going to do like a YouTube Vlog I think there's enough of that there my life on day-to-day isn't that interesting so I don't want to try to do like a daily Vlog a lot a lot of good daily vloggers out there in Automotive I don't need to compete but I am going to start two Brands they're not launching yet one of them is going to be a brand that's near and dear to my heart it's called the drivers era I started as a car dealership but quickly realized it's not what I want to do I have plans for it I haven't had time to focus on it if you want to follow their social handles do it we're going to launch something big later on in 2024 I know it's going to be really cool and I think you guys will enjoy it I wanted to make this video while people were interested in kind of all the changes that were happening and wanted to address it and if I had done marketing correctly I would have built all these things up in the background and I would have made this video and then launched those things to drive you over there to do it but I didn't what an idiot right uh the second thing I'm doing is there will be an actual YouTube channel that I'm starting with some friends from another company but that won't be until mid next year as well like I said I wish I had somewhere to send you guys I wish I had some way keep you guys all involved so what I'll say is sub to this YouTube channel I'll make some stuff go follow me on Instagram Tik Tok YouTube shorts all that stuff I'm going to start making a ton of content and then when I'm ready to launch my next thing I hope you guys follow along and enjoy it but for now this is it if you have any questions hit me in the comments I'll try my best to stay on top of it and answer it looking forward to next year of just like driving my cars more I'm really stoked to got my E36 done really happy to make that from a gym kind of grid car into a timeattack car really easy got the drift car going so I want to hit a bunch of drift events might be doing some racing professionally with some other people so I mean there should be a lot and I hope to hit a bunch of events and see a lot of you guys out there and just kind of get back to enjoying life and uh the money will come we'll figure it out that's it so yeah if you got any questions hit me up otherwise uh this is the end of an era for me at hoonigan thanks to everyone who supported over the years and like I said earlier I think it's ridiculous I even made this video I can't believe anyone out there even cares enough about any of this uh so and I mean that like in a very sincere way of like I don't know how to actually feel important to other people but it's uh it's really awesome and thanks to everyone who's you know supported the channel the brand myself over all these years it's been really awesome and your support means everything so thanks for that and I'm going to stop talking so get up

Channel: Vin_ tra

Views: 1,213,722

Keywords: hoonigan, dailytransmission

Id: zsfU4oEjSzg

Length: 26min 10sec (1570 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 14 2023