An eight-year-old and his parents have embraced his enthusiasm for everything cars and have created what might be the most endearing automotive channel on YouTube. Each video opens with “NATHAN REVIEWS CARS” unevenly written in crayon before Nathan gives a walk-through of the car he’s reviewing — don’t worry, no illegal test drives included. It’s not just for entertainment, either, he points out interesting facts throughout each clip. Watch out, y’all, Nathan is coming for our jobs!
With the internet and media continuously shouting that kids don’t like cars, it’s nice to see that kids like this still exist, and it brings back familiar memories of my upbringing. When I was a kid, going on a long car ride meant that my parents would be inundated with factoids I had learned about cars via the internet. I couldn’t tell you all that much about the water cycle, but I sure as heck knew that a 1.8T Volkswagen Jetta produced 180 horsepower, more than my mom’s straight-six Ford Econoline. These car rides involved pre-pubescent me talking about car factoids and offering up all sorts of driving opinions like I was a mini Car and Driver editor, despite being a decade away from driving age.
When you’re that young and overloaded with curiosity, though, you don’t need to drive a car to talk about it. It’s cool and new just to be able to explore its features and look at the engine, and Nathan’s channel is a great display of that. Surprisingly, he’s one of the only kids out there talking about cars. Sure, there are plenty of eight-year-olds on YouTube doing toy unboxing or talking about Jojo Siwa or whatever, but it’s unlikely you’ve seen one reviewing a 2020 Jeep Gladiator.
Nathan has a whole car review channel, “Nathan’s Car Reviews And Stuff.” And no, it’s not just toys or pictures of exotics, it shows off actual, real, mainstream cars that people buy every day.
Like a mini Doug DeMuro, Nathan is funny, cute, and more importantly, informative. Nathan’s not just any eight-year-old, he’s giving you real advice and information about these cars.
His most popular video is his review of a 2005 Honda CR-V special edition. He can’t even reach the pedals and the steering wheel at the same time, but he’s very critical of the CR-V’s tiny door handles. Honestly, I didn’t realize it until his video, but those CR-V’s do have weirdly tiny door handles! Interestingly enough, Nathan’s parents mentioned that this video is popular in Mongolia, for some reason.
I reached out to Nathan’s parents to find out how this channel came to be:
“Nathan was a huge fan of car videos on YouTube, especially Doug DeMuro,” they told me through Twitter direct messages.
“One day his mom said ‘I bet you could do your own video,’ so we tried it out and it took off from there!” Nathan loves car YouTube, and his parents say his favorite channels are VINWiki, Hoovie’s Garage, and TFL.
That doesn’t mean that Nathan can’t be a kid, too. He also has toy unboxing videos on his channel, and the most recent video is a creative stop-motion Smithfield 400 Cup Series race with die-cast cars. He clearly enjoys cars, and I’m glad to see kids enjoying cars.
Nathan’s favorite car? “Oooh, that’s a hard question,” he told his parents. “The Ford Mustang,” he said, after some deep thought. Right on, my man. Nathan wants to be a car reviewer or a stop-motion artist when he grows up.
Just don’t take my job, OK?
