On a warm July morning in Portsmouth, Scotty Kilmer, 72, clips his video camera onto a tripod.
“No talking now!” he says to a watching reporter, as he lines up a shot in his driveway. He wears a denim shirt with “Scotty” emblazoned in red embroidery above his left chest pocket. Behind him, a shiny white KIA Soul SUV awaits his judgment.
It’s a routine Kilmer has practiced thousands of times.
Over the past 19 years, the auto mechanic-turned-Youtuber has uploaded more than 7,000 videos. His car repair advice and candid commentary have attracted more than 3 billion views. Along the way, he says, the videos have earned him about $20 million.
His formula isn’t flashy. Most of Kilmer’s videos are filmed in his driveway, garage, or basement, using a simple camera setup. Kilmer riffs straight to the camera. When he presses record, he thunders a continuous stream of car know-how and jokes (“The hamstermobile is no more!” He quips about the Kia Soul) into the lens.
But underpinning the operation is a philosophy that has helped Kilmer cultivate millions of loyal viewers.
“People like the truth,” said Kilmer.
His audience isn’t just looking for repair tips. Many see him as an advocate against an auto industry they don’t always trust.
"I'll say, 'This is the worst car ever made,'" Kilmer said. "And I'll explain why. So people don't get ripped off."
Becoming a mechanic
Kilmer’s fascination with fixing things started long before YouTube.
Kilmer grew up in upstate New York. His father ran a Texaco gas station where his grandfather, Elmer Kilmer, was chief mechanic. Kilmer began working at the family business at age 14.
Kilmer recalled asking his grandfather to teach him to repair cars.
“He said, 'I'm not gonna teach you a darn thing, but you can watch,'" Kilmer said.
Watching was enough. Kilmer went to school, but would fix cars in the summers and holidays.
When he grew older, he considered a career in academia — even beginning work on an anthropology Ph.D. studying motorcycle gangs — but ultimately decided against it.
Instead, he returned to what he knew best. He married his wife (“The hottest babe in Niagara Falls!” he exclaims) and moved to Houston to open a repair business.
It was a risk. His business had an unlisted telephone number. Kilmer relied on handing out flyers to attract customers.
"I think the first week I made 500 bucks," he said. "So I thought, ‘Well, there's gotta be certainly an opening for that kind of business.’"
He enjoyed running his shop solo.
"My wife said nobody could work with me," Kilmer laughed.
An unexpected television career
Kilmer's career in front of a camera began almost by accident.
Following the death of his brother in the late 1990s, Kilmer's wife encouraged him to stay busy. He wrote a book called “Everyone's Guide to Buying a Used Car and Car Maintenance.” The guide taught readers how to avoid being swindled at dealerships, offering practical advice on spotting signs that cars had been flooded or battered in wrecks.
The book caught the attention of the Houston Chronicle, which featured it in a story. Soon after, a producer from the local CBS television station invited him to appear on-air giving car advice.
At the station, Kilmer, who had always gone by “Scott,” adopted a new moniker: Scotty.
Kilmer still spent the majority of his time at his auto shop. But now he also hosted a recurring segment, “Crank it up with Scotty Kilmer,” in which he demonstrated inexpensive repair techniques.
Television came naturally.
"(It) didn't bother me at all," Kilmer said. "It's just a camera."
The show was a hit, lasting 13 years on air.
Then, in 2007, the station informed him it could no longer afford to pay for the program.
"I said, 'Well, I'm not gonna do it for free,'" Kilmer recalled. "'Bye.'"
Instead, he turned to a relatively new platform: YouTube.
Going online
Kilmer calls the decision to move to YouTube a “no-brainer.”
“In Houston, Texas, … I can get over a million people to watch me talking about cars,” he said. “There's billions of people with cars on the planet. And when the internet started to get big, hey, there's a wide open market.”
His timing couldn’t have been better. In 2007, YouTube expanded its partner program, which allowed creators to earn advertising revenue from their videos.
Kilmer launched a website where people could ask him car questions, and started posting videos. He adopted a new on-camera catch phrase, “Rev your engines!”
Within months, Kilmer realized there was real money to be made.
"Within a year I was pulling at least six, $8,000 a month," he said. "I thought, 'Man, maybe we got something here.'"
His strategy was remarkably simple.
"Make more videos," he said with a laugh.
By the end of 2011, Kilmer's videos had accumulated roughly 9 million views. By 2019, they had surpassed half a billion. Today, they have topped 3 billion.
Asked why he thinks his channel succeeded while countless others failed, Kilmer has a straightforward answer.
"Because I have a unique personality."
He also credits lessons he learned during his television years.
"You don't want to stay on a particular subject for more than three or four seconds. Then you want to get a different angle,” he said. “You've got to make it so people’s mind and their visual acuity is being used. And put some humor in it!”
Kilmer readily admits another part of his strategy: clickbait.
"Yes, admit it,” he said. “People are lazy… You've got to trick people sometimes to learn.”
“It’s entertaining, but it’s showing you something that’s real,” he added.
Kilmer found he preferred producing videos online to cable news.
“What I loved about it, and I still do, is … you can actually tell people the truth about stuff. And nobody's saying, ’You can't say this against our advertisers,’” Kilmer said.
In videos, Kilmer discussed planned obsolescence, cars that are made to break and go out of date, forcing customers to pay for repairs and buy new cars. He called out mechanics and dealerships for selling customers maintenance and repairs they didn’t need. And he reviewed cars, discussing whether they were actually worth their price tag.
Kilmer takes pride in producing videos without sponsors. (His YouTube channel is monetized, so advertisements do run before his videos, but he does not give endorsements or contract any advertisements personally. He also reviews products sent to him for free.)
The approach also earns him the faith of viewers, like longtime fan Joseph Weickert, who lives in Vermont and traveled to Portsmouth to meet Kilmer.
“I’ve watched pretty much every video he’s uploaded,” said Weickert. “He’s real. He’s authentic. He doesn’t lie.”
The 21-year-old fan said Kilmer’s videos taught him to do his own car maintenance. When it came time to buy a car, he purchased a Toyota Camry, because that was what Kilmer drove.
Still doing what he loves
In 2021, Kilmer bought a home in Rhode Island to be closer to his grandchildren. He splits his time and his filming between the Ocean State and Tennessee.
Despite becoming a millionaire through YouTube, Kilmer's lifestyle hasn't changed dramatically.
The first brand-new car he ever purchased was a 2026 Toyota Camry Hybrid.
Before that, he estimates he spent less than $7,500 combined on every personal vehicle he owned throughout his life.
Perhaps most surprising, Kilmer says he doesn't even particularly love cars.
"Not particularly," he said with a laugh. "I'm just good at it."
Retirement doesn't interest him either.
Kilmer continues to post 6 videos and 2 livestreams a week. He has the production down to a science: no second takes. If a story is “cut and dry,” Kilmer says it takes about half an hour to film and 45 minutes to edit.
It’s fun. And at 72, he says it keeps his mind active.
"It's not work," he said. "If it became work, I'd stop doing it."
