How to Create A Car Review Channel?

BML

New Member
I had the idea recently to create a car review channel. Its something I'm interested in and have some knowledge, and in my recent shopping I viewed many of these videos. A lot of them have thousands of views so they seem pretty popular. I have experience with video production so I'm not afraid of that part and also social media to some degree through my online photography.

The big question is how would I get cars to review? The manufacturers have a press fleet but there's no way they'd consider giving ME a car when I have zero videos or views of that.

Obviously I'd start by reviewing my own car - luckily I have a 2017. But from there?

One option I thought of is to rent a car. They usually have current models. That would require laying out money for 1 or 2 day rentals to shoot videos and drive. But the problem there is that the rentals don't usually have all the cars that would be of interest in a video. For example... Hondas are typically not rental cars.

So I don't have many ideas of how I could get this going. I would need many cars/videos in order to build up a subscriber base before it could make some money.

Here's another question. I have a Youtube channel now but its my personal channel and not monetized. I've shot a number of airplane flight window view videos that have gotten me several hundred views and a few dozen subs. If I did the cars, could I start that on my personal channel in order to start getting views and after I build up more subs move them to their own dedicated channel?
 
I had a reasonably successful channel in this field.
I was quite lucky that I work for a dealership that has 11 franchises under one roof so supply of cars was not a problem. A friend of mine that does the same thing had to fight for about 2 years before the manufacturers would release any of the press fleet to Him because they didn't see His view count / subscribers /twitter followers / Facebook likes as enough to warrant their time and expense of taking a vehicle to Him.
You would also have to join the back of the pecking order. If a new car is released then the likes of Evo and Top gear etc get 1st pick. Then it filters down from there. This could mean you'd be getting a car 6 months after launch and all the hype is gone by then.
It's a tough field you are trying to break into but if you have the determination it can be done.
The best advice I could give would be to get some nice business cards made up and go to your local dealerships. Introduce yourself to the Sales Manager and explain what you want to do. Offering them the footage from your review to use on their website will go a long way as getting a customised review is expensive for a dealership.
Good Luck
 
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