Are these Vloggers just a scam? SOL or Shmee etc? (Vol 2)

[ReaperCushions]

Shmee said:

Punio said:

This is incredibly interesting. I think I am right in saying that because of the unforeseen clash which results in an lower viewing count overall it will also affect the next uploaded video as well. So expect if you had planned to release the next upload that you expected to do really well, you now will hold off until you've got a few, say relatively less expensive videos to get you back on track. So to maximise its potential.

100% correct.

I know you guys all talk and keep in touch. Would it not be sensible for everyone to coordinate release schedules somehow? Even as simple as a google spreadsheet? Surely this problem is the same for each of you if you all release at the same time?

First come first served, reserve a release spot etc...?

[Beefmeister]

Obi Wan said:

PantsFire said:

It's sad to see him so shaken, he said "I'm talking to someone" so I take that to mean he's seeing a shrink, and being that shaken it's probably what he needs to do so good for him.

Agreed. Someone once smacked into the back of my car at a very low speed but I couldn’t stop shaking for hours afterwards. It must really mess you up if your car suddenly bursts into flames. I hope he can get past this.

Lots of people are saying how he shouldn’t get rid of the CGT because it’s so special with the paint job and he spent so much having it done so recently.

I’d wager it didn’t cost him a penny given the amount of work he does with GAS who did the work. And besides, this May all be a smokescreen, who knows.

[Shmee]

ReaperCushions said:

I know you guys all talk and keep in touch. Would it not be sensible for everyone to coordinate release schedules somehow? Even as simple as a google spreadsheet? Surely this problem is the same for each of you if you all release at the same time?

First come first served, reserve a release spot etc...?

To be honest the network I'm look at in regards to this is Salomondrin, Vehicle Virgins, TheStradman, Doug Demuro, Streetspeed717 and a few more global accounts, and much less what the UK guys are up to.

But then what's relevant to me is not the same as what's relevant to the next channel in the same way.

[lemmingjames]

Beefmeister said:

Lots of people are saying how he shouldn’t get rid of the CGT because it’s so special with the paint job and he spent so much having it done so recently.

I’d wager it didn’t cost him a penny given the amount of work he does with GAS who did the work. And besides, this May all be a smokescreen, who knows.

If you read the comments in the vid posted way earlier. He reportedly wasn't driving (drunk) and his wife was, someone piped up that in USA, on something so expensive it'd only have one named person on the insurance unless he out it through the company or doesn't that work in the USA?

[lemmingjames]

Beefmeister said:

Lots of people are saying how he shouldn’t get rid of the CGT because it’s so special with the paint job and he spent so much having it done so recently.

I’d wager it didn’t cost him a penny given the amount of work he does with GAS who did the work. And besides, this May all be a smokescreen, who knows.

If you read the comments in the vid posted way earlier. He reportedly wasn't driving (drunk) and his wife was, someone piped up that in USA, on something so expensive it'd only have one named person on the insurance unless he out it through the company or doesn't that work in the USA?

[Shmee]

lemmingjames said:

If you read the comments in the vid posted way earlier. He reportedly wasn't driving (drunk) and his wife was, someone piped up that in USA, on something so expensive it'd only have one named person on the insurance unless he out it through the company or doesn't that work in the USA?

I can only assume he has a setup like mine, but I pay a small fortune to name many drivers on my policy. I can't speak for million dollar cars in the US, but for more regular supercars they tend to have much more open policies whereby anybody can drive the car with the owner's authorisation. In Germany that is totally the norm too and everybody I meet there finds it odd that to drive my UK cars I'd have to add them officially first.

On his own website he talked about how he had insured it at the 'market value' which covers the purchase price paid 12 days prior to the incident. As he has also mentioned for his case, I have a guaranteed value against all of my cars (even the Focuses) that is updated approximately quarterly and believe that to be pretty normal for this type of car.

[SydneyBridge]

Tim, I assume you have no worries driving your Senna around, given the value and the fire to the other Senna. I have heard of no other similar fires, so could be caused by a dozen things.

[ashleyman]

Shmee said:

I can only assume he has a setup like mine, but I pay a small fortune to name many drivers on my policy. I can't speak for million dollar cars in the US, but for more regular supercars they tend to have much more open policies whereby anybody can drive the car with the owner's authorisation. In Germany that is totally the norm too and everybody I meet there finds it odd that to drive my UK cars I'd have to add them officially first.

Do you really have to phone and name drivers individually?

I’ve recently driven a RR Ghost where all that was needed was the owners authorisation and to be over 28 with less than 6 points and the other time I borrowed a Transit Tipper from a mate with a gardening firm and his was owner authorisation, over 25 and no other restrictions.

Do you end up paying less because you need to call and confirm every driver compared to a policy where anyone could drive with your permission?

I also find it very weird that as a content creator you don’t watch other people’s content. As a photographer I’m constantly consuming media, looking at books, videos and other stuff to keep up with what’s happening. I personally get a ton of inspiration from music videos old and new and am constantly watching various videos. My post also wasn’t supposed to sound as aggressive as it perhaps came across as it did. I understand that if you’re constantly working in a field you perhaps don’t want it to also be your entertainment.

Edited by ashleyman on Friday 11th January 23:21

[Shmee]

SydneyBridge said:

Tim, I assume you have no worries driving your Senna around, given the value and the fire to the other Senna. I have heard of no other similar fires, so could be caused by a dozen things.

Honestly, there are 2 other cars in my garage I'm much more worried about than the Senna in this respect

Of course there's so much attention at the moment on this one specific incident because it's widely documented after happening to a person with a huge following. I'm sure upon thinking about it people will remember the Ford GT incident in Munich 6 months ago, and I could count on more than one hand the number of such 675LT incidents that I know of - although I don't believe any of them have been public.

For the time being, one just has to be cautious and aware but ultimately McLaren believe they have sold a car that's fit for purpose and any one of a huge number of things could be responsible for this incident. No doubt they are monitoring the situation closely and if there's cause for worry they will request customers to not use them or issue a recall after completing the investigation.

Of course I'm privy to a lot of things from customers, but equally there's been a lot of market coverage in recent years on this kind of topic. It takes minutes to find images of fire incidents in a huge list of cars: LaFerrari, F12tdf, P1, 918 Spyder, Aventador, 911 GT3, 458 Italia - here's a quick Google Search

LaFerrari:



Ferrari F12tdf:



McLaren P1:



Porsche Turbo S:



Lamborghini Aventador



Ferrari Enzo:



I'm going to stop now because this is depressing!

[Shmee]

ashleyman said:

Do you really have to phone and name drivers individually?

I’ve recently driven a RR Ghost where all that was needed was the owners authorisation and to be over 28 with less than 6 points and the other time I borrowed a Transit Tipper from a mate with a gardening firm and his was owner authorisation, over 25 and no other restrictions.

Do you end up paying less because you need to call and confirm every driver compared to a policy where anyone could drive with your permission?

I also find it very weird that as a content creator you don’t watch other people’s content. As a photographer I’m constantly consuming media, looking at books, videos and other stuff to keep up with what’s happening. I personally get a ton of inspiration from music videos old and new and am constantly watching various videos. My post also wasn’t supposed to sound as aggressive as it perhaps came across as it did. I understand that if you’re constantly working in a field you perhaps don’t want it to also be your entertainment.

Edited by ashleyman on Friday 11th January 23:21

You can certainly add 'any driver' extensions in the same way you can have an extension to 'drive any car', no doubt just a case of establishing the cost for that with the insurer/broker and based on the specifics of what way it will be used. The value of the car is definitely an issue, I've had no problems with the AMG GT R, GT3 level cars etc but get to the 675LT and a wobble starts, get to the GT and the Senna and it's a no go short of doubling the policy price (which is already high).

I don't mean to say that I never, ever watch anything else, I would say I watch the important bits - for example Salomondrin's Senna content, some of the recent JWW videos, the TGE content around Modball UK etc - but I can't sit here and watch 10 YouTubers daily uploads or I wouldn't have time to do it myself as it's already a 16+hr a day job 7 days a week. Honestly though, I hear the same from pretty much every other full time YouTuber, nobody regularly follows anything else beyond just keeping little tabs on what's going on.

[ReaperCushions]

Shmee a question for you (As you are online and doing somewhat of a Q&A)

Based on the success of various individuals, yourself included. What do you think the end game is for the channels? Obviously, workload/burn out has already been discussed. But do you think there is scope for some kind of company (Media maybe) to buy up successful channels, keeping the content creators in place (Shmee150 wouldn't be Shmee150 without Shmee!) and running them for profit?

For example, if someone offered $20m (Or some other large number) for your channel... would you take it? Maybe you wouldn't, but I can bet some others who might be seen as struggling recently (SOL) would take a wad of cash to offload it.

What do you think?

[Shmee]

ReaperCushions said:

Shmee a question for you (As you are online and doing somewhat of a Q&A)

Based on the success of various individuals, yourself included. What do you think the end game is for the channels? Obviously, workload/burn out has already been discussed. But do you think there is scope for some kind of company (Media maybe) to buy up successful channels, keeping the content creators in place (Shmee150 wouldn't be Shmee150 without Shmee!) and running them for profit?

For example, if someone offered $20m (Or some other large number) for your channel... would you take it? Maybe you wouldn't, but I can bet some others who might be seen as struggling recently (SOL) would take a wad of cash to offload it.

What do you think?

It's rather turned out that way for the evening; anything that's a nice break from catching up on a huge backlog of e-mails!

The GT and Senna have raised this as a rather big question in my own mind as to what exactly is the endgame here; I would say one of the major motivators to push all the time for me has been the dream to one day own and be able to use such cars and of course while one can keep purchasing more it is no longer the same excitement as it was beforehand.

Back around 4 years ago a contact (and hypercar owner with whom I'd filmed a video) did offer me a figure that touched just into 7 figures to purchase Shmee150 at the time. Even then I was very quick to say "no, thanks" to as I felt excited about its future - which of course has turned out very much to be the right move.

One of the biggest issues is that a channel is as you say, no longer that channel without its original presenter so even for Paul, he couldn't really sell SOL as a YouTube channel in its current form as the audience would backlash against any new owner/presenter. This is what I tested with a view to the future around 15 months ago with great initial success, quickly followed by very poor ongoing results and ultimately total failure of the idea. The other problem for the YouTuber is that their job is also their life; so while $20m would be incredibly tempting, I'd also have a complete life shift and in my case I would most likely decline such an offer.

There's also the reality that the future won't be this; it's working in a big way right now but it won't last because invariably something else will come along and take over as the new big thing almost overnight. In the mean time, as much work as running a social media channel is, it's also exceptionally fun so for Paul for example, even if times are harder, he will absolutely stick with doing this as long as possible.

[KHK]

Someone posted this in a FB group:

"someone told me he insured the Senna for what he paid (including the 500k overs) and for another 500k on top of that so he's smiling all the way to the bank on this one and will end up buying a Chiron or something similar when that dust settles."

Now the question everyone is asking is did the Senna have a mod of some sort? Possibly an exhaust or bypass to shoot flames? Only time will tell what happens with all this but I spend around 6 months in LA and one thing I learned living Stateside is they don't F around when it comes to any sort of insurance fraud. It's a felony and you can end up in jail for a long time. I personally don't think he's dumb enough to commit fraud but they'll definitely be a CSI type investigation on the part of the insurance company and McLaren to see what really happen and surely for McLaren they want to know because you don't want another Senna going up in flames and you got yourself a large lawsuit you have to deal with.

[AstonV]

KHK said:

Someone posted this in a FB group:

"someone told me he insured the Senna for what he paid (including the 500k overs) and for another 500k on top of that so he's smiling all the way to the bank on this one and will end up buying a Chiron or something similar when that dust settles."

Now the question everyone is asking is did the Senna have a mod of some sort? Possibly an exhaust or bypass to shoot flames? Only time will tell what happens with all this but I spend around 6 months in LA and one thing I learned living Stateside is they don't F around when it comes to any sort of insurance fraud. It's a felony and you can end up in jail for a long time. I personally don't think he's dumb enough to commit fraud but they'll definitely be a CSI type investigation on the part of the insurance company and McLaren to see what really happen and surely for McLaren they want to know because you don't want another Senna going up in flames and you got yourself a large lawsuit you have to deal with.

Maybe that's possible, but I have never heard of an insurance company allowing you to insure your car for more than it's worth. A million dollars over its value? Then burns down 2 weeks later. Lot of red flags there.

[e46m3Mark]

KHK said:

Someone posted this in a FB group:

"someone told me he insured the Senna for what he paid (including the 500k overs) and for another 500k on top of that so he's smiling all the way to the bank on this one and will end up buying a Chiron or something similar when that dust settles."

Now the question everyone is asking is did the Senna have a mod of some sort? Possibly an exhaust or bypass to shoot flames? Only time will tell what happens with all this but I spend around 6 months in LA and one thing I learned living Stateside is they don't F around when it comes to any sort of insurance fraud. It's a felony and you can end up in jail for a long time. I personally don't think he's dumb enough to commit fraud but they'll definitely be a CSI type investigation on the part of the insurance company and McLaren to see what really happen and surely for McLaren they want to know because you don't want another Senna going up in flames and you got yourself a large lawsuit you have to deal with.

If it's on FB it must be true.

[RobDown]

I think the Senna (and the 600LT) naturally do produce flames from the exhaust (guessing they are tuned to do that as a marketing thing).

But from what Salomondrin was saying there were sparks coming out and staying on the road behind the car. That’s going to be metal. So sounds like the engine was disintegrating

[Shmee]

RobDown said:

I think the Senna (and the 600LT) naturally do produce flames from the exhaust (guessing they are tuned to do that as a marketing thing).

Every model they've released has done it, from the 12C and P1 to everything else since. I always understand it to be due to the temps the engines are running at with the twin turbos, and when the first models launched they were quoting figures like 900 degrees - hence the solid blue flame you get.

[RobDown]

ah interesting. Far less of a McLaren expert than you Tim.

But my point was more that the fact the car was shooting flames from the exhaust was "standard" not some modification. "they all do that sir".

Rather, with my ex-Chemist hat on, its the flames/sparks being left behind on the road from his description that would interest me more. They come from magnesium (but i'm not sure McLaren use that around the engine do they?) or a ferrous alloy - which i think they do use to toughen up the aluminium parts - cylinder heads etc.

Either way, it looks like the engine lunched itself. And to be honest every manufacturer gets that with an engine now and then, particularly one under stress. So it just looks like bad luck. Would be more worrying if it had been glue being set alight on one of the panels - that's more a design fault that might require a recall.

But hey its all just conjecture at this stage...

[jayemm89]

AstonV said:

Maybe that's possible, but I have never heard of an insurance company allowing you to insure your car for more than it's worth. A million dollars over its value? Then burns down 2 weeks later. Lot of red flags there.

It is possible in the USA, not unlike an agreed valuation here. Hence I mentioned the incident with the Veyron and the Pelican.

As it happens I also upload videos in the week at 6pm. My logic is my two biggest audiences are here and the USA, at 6pm they are all awake. If I put a video out at 12pm half my audience is asleep and I might get lost amongst other videos.

I do however put Saturday releases out at 10am as I figure on a weekend people are more likely to watch YT videos during the day

[Burwood]

AstonV said:

KHK said:

Someone posted this in a FB group:

"someone told me he insured the Senna for what he paid (including the 500k overs) and for another 500k on top of that so he's smiling all the way to the bank on this one and will end up buying a Chiron or something similar when that dust settles."

Now the question everyone is asking is did the Senna have a mod of some sort? Possibly an exhaust or bypass to shoot flames? Only time will tell what happens with all this but I spend around 6 months in LA and one thing I learned living Stateside is they don't F around when it comes to any sort of insurance fraud. It's a felony and you can end up in jail for a long time. I personally don't think he's dumb enough to commit fraud but they'll definitely be a CSI type investigation on the part of the insurance company and McLaren to see what really happen and surely for McLaren they want to know because you don't want another Senna going up in flames and you got yourself a large lawsuit you have to deal with.

Maybe that's possible, but I have never heard of an insurance company allowing you to insure your car for more than it's worth. A million dollars over its value? Then burns down 2 weeks later. Lot of red flags there.

Correct
Utter bullst

Insurance never covers profit. It covers loss of value. ‘Someone told me’ you mean he made it up.