THE EVOLUTION OF MATT FARAH
STORY | Ben Abrams
PHOTOGRAPHY | Karl Noakes
If you’re an adult working for a living, you have likely wondered what your “dream job” might be. As a reader of this magazine, it’s safe to assume you may dream of working in the automotive industry. Whether it’s selling cars, working on cars, or driving cars, finding a way to make a living doing something you’re passionate about is a most worthy dream. Unfortunately, dreams often escape our reach for one reason or another and those who try to turn their passions into a job must battle the question, “how badly do you want it?” Those who have survived this trial, who evolved their passion into a career, are among the privileged few who never work a day in their life.
Photo by Larry Chen
Matt Farah is one of these people. While he admits that, due to his parents, he was “born on third base,” he still makes the pursuit of happiness look easy. As a content creator, Matt is authentic; he doesn’t change into a different person when the cameras are rolling. As a YouTube personality and car reviewer, he’s objectively trying to help enthusiasts make car buying decisions. After more than a decade of doing his dream job, he understands there’s an inherent responsibility to what he does. He recognizes that cars are a significant expense for most people and that his reviews carry weight. He’s begun to use his influence to highlight what he considers misleading marketing terms from car manufacturers, encouraging people to read the fine print and not be swayed by unrealistic claims. He’s diverse in his preferences, not interested in shock value or schtick, and he can actually drive quite well. He’s an automotive influencer of a different kind.
NATURE AND NURTURE
His grandmother used to say that, before he entered kindergarten, Matt could identify cars just by looking at their wheels. One of Matt’s earliest memories is seeing a DeLorean with its doors up on the cover of a Road & Track magazine. While, at the time, he had no idea of the shoddy quality of the car or the suspect reputation of the manufacturer, he couldn’t help but be fascinated by the image. Matt realized a car wasn’t only something that takes you from place to place, some cars were just special. Bait... nibble. When his parents brought home a go-kart for his ninth birthday, it was only natural that his driveway became a hill climb course. Hook... set. Matt’s future was going to involve cars.
Matt with his go-kart in 1993
As he grew older, the DeLorean firmly imprinted, Matt dreamed of writing for Road & Track but assumed it was out of reach due to his subpar writing skills and lack of connections. He intended to study mechanical engineering in college, but was enticed by photography, a more creative pursuit. Architectural photography attracted him, as did graphic design, but either the money wasn’t there or his heart wasn’t in it. This is a common story. Many will graduate from college but still have no idea how to make a living doing something they enjoy. For some, it lasts a lifetime.
The difference with Matt is that he knew what he wanted all along. He just had to turn it into a living. After graduating, he found his way into the automotive industry and, after a few stepping-stone jobs, was offered a sales position in a family friend’s dealership. With early memories of his parents indulging him in trips to an exotic car dealership, it seemed like Matt may have finally found where he was meant to be. As a kid, he remembers impressing that dealership owner with the knowledge that he absorbed from car magazines. He could have easily turned that passion into money through selling cars. But, instead of jumping at the opportunity to be around Porsches and Audis all day every day, Matt turned it down. It wasn’t the daily grind he didn’t want, it was the suit. He didn’t want to wear a suit. He still doesn’t. Hates it.
CUTTING THE CORD
Matt originally started producing “The Smoking Tire” videos on YouTube in 2009 with the hopes of eventually creating a cable TV show. He knew that Los Angeles was the place to be if he wanted to make money in the entertainment industry so he and his friends, who were also his film crew, moved into a big house together. They spent their days filming press cars, going to product launches, pitching shows, and shooting “super shitty commercial gigs” to pay bills. While the first few years were slow going, when people started recognizing him, he knew he was on to something. Fans. He had fans. By 2011, the popularity of TST had gotten him a hosting gig on “The Car Show” on The Speed Network, and, from 2012 to 2014, he was a correspondent and host on two others, “Attack of the Show” and “Esquire Car of the Year.” But, after years in L.A., he had a bad taste in his mouth about cable. Something still wasn’t right.
It was at this time that Matt’s friend, JF Musial, had started the /Drive network through YouTube’s “premium content initiative.” While Matt and his crew were “living like a rock band in a big house in Playa del Rey,” he was striking out finding something that could consistently pay the bills. Matt elaborated, “We would spend like 4-5 days making a video, and it would bring in like $2,500. We were like ‘Yay! We made $2,500’ instead of recognizing ‘we made $14/hour working on that.’” Serendipitously, JF recruited Matt and his guys to help produce shows on his YouTube channels. In the nick of time, there was money to support their content creation! It was all working according to plan ... until YouTube killed the initiative.
Matt filming the Countach that he would subsequently purchase 5 years later.
JF had built up a head of steam, was clearly good at what he was doing, and opted to gamble on a new strategy, offering his online content through a subscription model. Car folks were willing to pay for print magazines, why wouldn’t they be willing to pay for high quality digital content? Really, there was no choice but to try the subscription model. This was in the early days; selfie-stick-based vlogs weren’t a thing yet. It was (and still is) hard to shoot cars without a budget, and the revenue YouTube offered from views alone wasn’t covering production costs. Unfortunately, the audience revolted at the idea of paying for content, calling the producers and even the hosts like Matt greedy.
Matt felt that the ire from the audience was misplaced. This was corporate greed, he argued. Why are they mad at us? After trying to reason with people (pro tip: angry people on the internet can’t be reasoned with) Matt reacted, “What if I made videos without cameramen? What about without any production? No music, no exterior shots, no b-roll, nothing. I’m nobody special, but if I have one skill, it’s that I can drive at 90% pace while calmly narrating for 20 minutes without sounding like an idiot.” This is how Matt’s “One Take” videos were born.
CORPORATE OVERLORDS BE GONE
Getting behind the wheel of whatever was offered to him, from press cars to friends’ cars to anyone-in-betweens’ cars, Matt began pumping out four videos a week, and he did that for years. “Between 2015 and 2018, I personally reviewed more cars than the entire staff of Motor Trend,” Matt adds. This combination of low overhead and high volume pushed Matt to the top of the stack of automotive content creators. In December 2020, after 11 years of being on YouTube, he received the famed gold plaque signifying he had reached one million subscribers. It was the commitment to his craft, an unstoppable work ethic (no suits!) that continues to this day, that has allowed Matt to build a substantial following and be recognized as an automotive influencer.
After those three years (and the ten before that) and almost 1,500 videos, Matt felt himself starting to burn out. Even in cars, there can be too much of a good thing. Had Matt found it—the cliff that passion and work drive off together? In response, he opted to trim his workload where it felt most natural—no longer was he, in the pursuit of volume and views, going to review every car that was submitted to him. He was going to curate more carefully, ditching the enthusiast owned/built cars and focusing on the press cars provided by manufacturers. Matt feels better doling out critiques to the OEMs, meeting the people who build and design for a mass market, and ultimately seeing his critiques make a difference in future cars. This has been a step towards healthy balance and has helped him hone in on the elusive car enthusiast’s dream job.
While YouTube has been instrumental in his success, he hasn’t been wholly satisfied being along for the ride. In 2011, Matt started The Smoking Tire (TST) podcast to give his audience a “BTS” look into his video. The long-form conversations also contrasted nicely to being alone in a car and talking to a camera. Lastly, it didn’t require him driving into the middle of the desert four days a week. While the podcast has provided a better return for less work, it hasn’t been without its own lessons. Assuming that the Google overlords would view more uploads positively, he added the podcast videos to his existing TST YouTube channel. Unfortunately, YouTube’s faceless algorithm didn’t reward him and instead he saw his viewership suffer. To this day, it hasn’t recovered.
Learning the algorithm wasn’t the only challenge. Social media has broken down the walls between influencer and audience and Matt acknowledges the accompanying negative effects. As he is a straightforward, nothing-to-hide kind of guy, Matt often leaves himself open for the wrath of keyboard cowboys. He goes on to admit, “I’ve learned that if I had the self-control to never read a comment from anyone ever, for the rest of my life, that I would be a happier person. 90% of the anger in my life comes from people on the internet I’ve never met and could care less about.”
GOLDEN BRICK AND MORTAR
To diversify away from the pitfalls of the digital world, Matt decided to take an analog step towards something more controllable. He was getting dragged down by the grind of content creation, and he needed another car-related pursuit that could provide consistent income without requiring unending commitment. He explained his frustration, “The only gig that matters is the next gig. On and on, forever. You can spend so much time on a project, launch it, and then two hours later it’s ‘what’s next?’”
Enter Westside Collector Car Storage (WCCS), a state-of-the-art storage facility meant to provide a real solution to a real problem for people like Matt, car enthusiasts of Los Angeles. For five years, he poured all available resources into building the 11,000-square-foot facility and it paid off quickly. WCCS reached full capacity within six months of opening its doors and he’s already started building a second location.
The success of WCCS has allowed him the time to reflect. Matt has driven ALL the cars and he’s gotten paid to do it. He still wants a go in a 250 GTO and an F50 if anyone who is reading would kindly oblige. He has gotten to meet many of his heroes and participate in and create car adventures many of us could only dream of. He understands that his words influence others and that responsibility comes with that. He’s admitted to still not being very good at a perfect work/ life balance and, while the loaner Aventador Ultimae isn’t a bad place holder, he hopes to create time to drive his beloved Countach more often.
Matt sums it up with, “I don’t need to own the world, I just need to take care of my family, have a nice life, and a few good toys.”
A most worthy dream indeed. He remembers when he was stopped on the street in Hollywood by a fan. It was early on in the TST days and he was walking with his father, a man he regards as “highly ethical and a genius in business.” It was then that his dad, who didn’t think much of the internet at the time, realized that his son was on his way to “being a somebody.” That clearly stands out in his mind as a highlight. And lastly, as if the universe wanted to give Matt its own fist bump, Matt was recently named Editor-at-Large for Road & Track magazine. To come full circle, he is now in a position to create DeLorean-like memories for countless other impressionable kids.
Matt didn’t need to grind his passion into a career, but he made it clear long ago that he wanted it badly enough ... perfectly illustrating how never to work a day in his life.
