Editorial: Things Change, Things Stay The Same

Recently, I can’t help but reflect on how we consume media and how much things have changed over the last decade.

As car enthusiasts in the early ’00s, we flocked to message boards all across the internet to join like-minded individuals and talk about and share our automotive experiences. At first, these online communities were usually region-specific car clubs, so you could befriend other car people local to you. But over time, these boards started to become more and more specialised, with regards to region, vehicle manufacturer, model etc., and became absolute treasure troves of information.

It was on these boards and forums that countless iconic projects were immortalised forever in build threads. Well, at least until Photobucket threw its toys out of the pram. Anyone remember the likes of ‘E30 M3 minor rust repair’ or the ‘Driftworks S15 Silvia – 2JZGTE’? They could be seen as tame by today’s standards, but I remember checking in every day to see what (if any) progress had been made on these and countless others.

The knowledge share was second to none, as we often mixed with users from around the globe who would shine a light on what was happening in their part of the world. We would talk shit about all sorts of things from all different perspectives, but cars were the one thing that united us all. We would make genuine friends in these places. In fact, it was through the wonderful Final Gear forums that I met Alok, and through Driftworks that I first encountered Jordan (he was just as angry back than, but had a sweet FC3S Mazda RX-7 so at least had that going for him).

Then, social media came along.


It’s worth remembering that Instagram didn’t even exist when Speedhunters was founded in 2008, and Facebook was only four years old. The transfer of information and knowledge from dedicated sites and forums to social media didn’t happen overnight, but slowly occurred over the last decade. Today, most of the forums I’m a member of are shadows of their previous selves. It’s a shame, but we all share the blame as we too migrated to social media for that instant automotive hit.

While there’s nothing wrong with social media (relatively speaking, at least), the feeling of community amongst enthusiasts has eroded. Instead of being part of a larger group, that for the most part looked out for each other and the overall community, social media has brought narcissism to the fore. Too many people are just in it for themselves, rather than for the greater good. People are more secretive about things that they previously would have shared, perhaps so they don’t have to share the spotlight?


When all of this is taken into consideration, it makes me realise just how different a world Speedhunters exists in today. Where others are just re-blogging, re-hashing and often times just outright stealing the content of others in order to get more clicks and likes, we’re still here every single day and night, grinding and putting that effort in to make sure we keep making the kind of content that makes Speedhunters, Speedhunters.

Are we perfect? No. Do we always get it right? Also, no. However, we won’t stop trying to improve ourselves while creating original content which we’re proud of. Hell, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.


Throughout this post, you’ll see just a small selection of what you can expect on Speedhunters in March 2019, along with your new monthly desktop calendar captured by Jordan Butters at Caffeine & Machine recently.

While everything is changing, you can still rely on us to keep doing what we do, and maybe even the odd time something which you won’t be expecting us to do, either.

Have a safe March, folks. We will speak again, soon.

Paddy McGrath
Instagram: pmcgphotos
Twitter: pmcgphotos

About an hour before this post was due to be published, we learned of the untimely passing of Alex Mills AKA ‘Viper007Bond‘, the founder of Final Gear. Our condolences to his friends and family. Thank you for everything, Alex. RIP. 



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Thanks for the wallpaper! :D Happy March!


I think those desktop calendars are perhaps the best kept secret around here!


I'm going to collect them all and then when i 80 i can tell the local car scene all about how gasoline dinosaur powered fire machines were all the rage while there in there atomic powered, intergalactic , planetary , space shuttles.


I would buy a printed real Speedhunters calendar! For 2020 maybe? We leave you with the hard task that will be picking only 12 pictures :P


why pick 12, just do a collage of the best of every article for each month.


Paddy how about a 356-day one...


I feel this article 100%. I like the content you guys bring just because it feels more in-depth and there's a level of story that you guys bring that others simply don't. There is personality in each story and I think that's what makes speed hunter so engaging to read.

keep up the good stuff!


Had the privilege of seeing said 'E30 M3 minor rust repair' (https://www.e30zone.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=112&t=108356) in the flesh. Owned by a friend of my fathers in Dublin. Would love to see a feature of it on SH sometime....or perhaps that's something I could muster the confidence to shoot on IATSH...


You know the door is always open, Ross...


My early experiences with online communities were mostly positive. It was really cool to link up with like minded individuals from my own city, as well as, afar. The problem with allowing people to join a group without properly vetting them meant that a few $hitheads inevitably ruined the party. Too many egos would get in the way and the voices of the passionate few got drowned by those who were the loudest.

Social media compounded this problem. It has created narcissism that is fueled by ‘followers’ and ‘likes’. The updates from these ‘influencers’ seem more concerned about peddling a sponsor’s products rather than genuine love for the scene. Whatever ‘scene’ you’re into.

I honestly don’t see things getting any better as we get more, not less, ‘connected’. Wanting things to go back to the way they were is obviously not possible so I’m not sure what the solution will be as we go forward.


geuinine, scene, you mean like following the formula of real racers, by using carbon fiber correctly and looking for lighter rims?

does anyone know what a knife edged crankshaft anymore is, or the fun of buying stronger valvesprings? does anyone do engine work anymore or is it all rims and a drop and an exhaust and a bodykit?

. - .

cause legit, if you live on IG this is the formula, if you go to autocross or a trackday its a different more hardcore story, ig is mainly the showcar scene/ showing off/ attracting followers/ hardpark/ sticker collecting/ minor updates. forums are where the community is at. keeping the way it used to be alive is where its at too, without the rice.

it should be more about having fun and being unique and whats under the hood and pushing the limit like the OLD TAS and stuff used to do.

remember when automakers like jun cracked the 2009 launch edition ecu on the GTR or the evo x was just an infant? I do. those days were great.

remember this though, everytime a new performance car comes out, its going to look ugly people are going to flame and theres going to be a small market for it.

if theres demand the car will grown parts wise, if people dont work at it, then we wont get anywhere and thats what keeps things like manuals alive and smaller more niche cars getting performance parts. its up to the consumer to dictate what the market needs and if we dont buy it or keep a demand for it, it wont stick around.

someone correct me if i forgot anything.


I think the simplest option is that we have protect the community we have as much as we can. This is why you'll often find me in here calling people out on bullshit, as I won't let the comments here descend into the absolute

For the most part, our comments section is pretty much self moderating thanks to the good folk who visit and read the site everyday. We get the odd troll passing through every now and then, but the regular commenters do a lot to keep this place civilised. We're lucky.


These photos are just top notch
Speedhunters is the best!


I remember hitting up a few forums in the past, mostly model specific, but as my taste developed and my personal 'wants' from the chassis began to differ from the accepted norm of the community I began to see a change in attitude about things, until I did one of the upgrades I said I was going to do, and it worked. After that, it seemed like I had their full attention, but I also started to see a big push to get my build into the 'paid membership only' area of the forum, basically putting my build behind a paywall to help generate income for their forum. I'd much rather be open and public about my build and the steps I've taken to make things work, and maybe inspire others to 'try' new things, or learn a new skill to try new things.


Alex MIlls



OS Giken TC24!! Enough said.


Nailed it. I got away from cars for years because of the damage social media did to everything. Now I'm back at it, bringing my outlook back to where it was ten yers ago when things were good. I'll just pretend the social media narcissists don't exist, because really they're irrelevant.


o mundo automotivo como conhecemos morrerá a cada dia...


Would speeedhunters ever take a step back from social media ? People seem to think that they need likes and shares and it's a measure of quality / success of there product.

I've closed all my social account bar one, which will go shortly and I've started buying print media once again, after a near 10 year gap since my last purchase.


yeah sure when EA stops making video games.


I miss active forums. Social medias are interesting if you are looking for short-term, persishable content and infos. Forums have a great "archive" layout. You can categorize and easily find infos there, it can be very detailled. Like a proper library. Social medias, such as the facebook "wall" : infos lifetime is only a few minutes, until dozens of useless and ramdom infos come to replace and dig it away in the timeline. How many great things are you missing on facebook for example? Someone may post progress on their built, it will be immediatly replaced by boring and unintersting things like your coworker discovering how to open oysters or idk what.

What I love about Speedhunters is that it stayed the same since a decade. Some would say not evolving would be a problem, personnally I believe this is the strength of this website! You are one of the rare website I don't check on my mobile phone, I always wait to be back home, comfortably installed on the sofa with my laptop, to properly enjoy your articles.

Also I have noticed something among the people around me. I don't speak for everyone, but here, people it seems are really growing tired of social medias... facebook, instagram... (snapchat does this thing still exists?) I used to check tumblr almost daily, this place seems to be more and more dead with every month. My 2 nieces are 16 and 17, non of them have fecebook and most of their friends don't either. When you asked about it, it's like you are talking to them about MSN messenger or Myspace lol


This is exactly my issue with social media as the medium for sharing information on builds, or your collected knowledge and wisdom. I'm active on both the E38 section of Bimmerforums, and the E38 Empire Facebook page. Luckily both are active, but the amount of times people will post the same question on Facebook is insane. You can search there, but it is usually so unstructured. Whereas there is so much collected knowledge on a forum, and if you don't find the answer you need, you can bump a relevant thread and usually get the info that way!


There are great enthusiast-run message boards that are stronger today than ever before. I've found that they are mostly related to older cars. BMW2002faq, jolapyjournal, ratsun, thesamba, etc. Dare I say that your understanding may have been clouded due to working mainly in media? As you allude to, message boards continue to be a great resource that will hopefully still provide a great place for us to digitally connect.


"hopefully continue to provide" edit.


All hail speedhunters. I have been following since 2010. Hope u never ever change. I don't "gram" or "face" and sure as hell don't "Twitter".


I never left the forums (there are currently four I regularly keep up with and have build threads on), I never started a single social media account to know what any of those are even like (unless you count YouTube)... and I still read print magazines. New doesn't always mean better, and I like that I can go out with my phone rarely leaving my pocket. Old fashioned, and proud of it, haha.


forgot to add the only thing you should be constantly upgrading on car wise is things like the top of the line sclass, because merecedes and those high end luxury cars are what drive innovation for the entire car market and make new things.

a company like honda isnt going to have millionares backing them to make wild things like airscars and electro reactive tinted glass.

thats how innovation happens at the top and trickles down.


people upgrading and constantly buying every little thing is whats leading to the decline of cars themselves, because people keep upgrading when they make a little change to a new car model year instead of letting the manufacturer wait, people have iphone syndrome with everything, its mental.

People have a I need it now mentality with everything instead of being patient about it.


That's a beautiful photo of a NR750 Dino! It's definitely my wallpaper on my phone now!


Joined my favorite message board circa 08', I literally got to see what social media did to not only forums but print as well. Instagram made it too damn easy for people to share and see things on a global level.


that desktop calendar is so nice