This has to be the worst decade of being a car enthusiast. No positive news at all and if there is, it’s always gets outweighed by the bad news. I’m going to miss the early 2010s car culture very deeply.
It’s a sad day for longform automotive content. I know video is the most popular form of media nowadays, but I really miss reading a well-written article with nice photos.
Very sad. I visited SpeedHunters basically daily for over 10 years now, and I haven't found any alternative that comes close in terms of the breadth and depth on the subject. Photos were always great too. I even thought that the quality of the writing went up the last few years.
I do wonder why their actual last article was deleted though. It's still on the wayback machine.
Narita Dogfight good example article is the closest thing I've found in terms of similarity,
The good: It's focused exclusively on Japanese Time Attack cars, so all the cars are properly fast. Speedhunters has featured some iffy builds before, these are all tested machines. Photo quality is good.
The bad: It's focused exclusively on Japanese Time Attack cars, so while there are some German and American cars they're rare. The pace of the articles is much less.
Really, really sad. I owe a lot of my understanding of car culture to this site back when it launched. Here’s hoping it’s preserved, and better yet, that this is just a slump.
IIRC, this was dead for a while after Larry Chen sold it soooo long ago. I grew up in the OG days of this site and the car community.
It was a fantastic site back in the day as social media wasn't big yet. Finding coverage of any car events or builds was hard, let alone ones with quality photos. So many car photographers were inspired by this site.
He put in good, hard work building up the following. Building a recognizable brand from the reputation, and then sold it. Moved on.
There were lots of other great talent on that site, but it was obvious the new owners (idk if it was originally EA) just wanted to buy the brand name and collect money.
The site served it's purpose for LChen and the car community at the time. Larry was right to sell it and move on, like a textbook example of entrepreneurship. No big surprise EA ruined it long term, but I doubt it did much damage to people's livelihoods thankfully, because I'm sure everyone saw the writing on the wall years ago once EA bought it.
The good: It's focused exclusively on Time Attack cars in Japan, so all the cars are properly fast. Speedhunters has featured some iffy builds before, these are all tested machines. Photo quality is good.
The bad: It's focused exclusively on Japanese Time Attack cars, so while there are some German and American cars they're rare. The pace of the articles is much less.
Very sad to hear but not entirely unexpected looking at the frequency at which articles were being published. Like many, the articles on Speedhunters had a big impact on my love for cars, at one point I'd spend every Sunday morning reading all the articles from the week with a cup of coffee and they were truly some of my fondest memories at a time when my life was pretty chaotic.
I hope they find a way to persevere in some form or the other; it seems like social media is doing to these websites what they did to print media, although weirdly it seems like print media is making a comeback for more niche avenues, maybe it's something speedhunters could pivot to, perhaps a biannual issue. I would certainly appreciate being able to oogle at the pictures as a physical copy and there's definitely more collector value to that over a website.
Speedhunters was such a goldmine in the glory days. It helped me level up my automotive photography, and I was lucky enough to have my own car featured, as well as a Porsche I photographed on there.
That's a damn shame. Speedhunters was always one of the sites you could rely on to have fantastic photography on every article. Even if I wasn't necessarily interested in the cars I used to love reading the articles just for the pictures.
CertifiedAngler@reddit
This has to be the worst decade of being a car enthusiast. No positive news at all and if there is, it’s always gets outweighed by the bad news. I’m going to miss the early 2010s car culture very deeply.
Wingbreaker2@reddit
110%. I feel like everytime I hear news it's stuff closing, things going away, brands being discontinued etc...
The-Rizztoffen@reddit
Horrible news for your neighbor with the speedhunters sticker on their car
StrangeSmellz@reddit
What about hellaflush, canibeat
D00dyHead@reddit
I feel attacked lol
boomerangutan21@reddit
MAXIMUM ATTACKED!
Nodnarb_Jesus@reddit
Critical Hit! SAVAGE! Flawless Victory! FINISH HIM!
2Drogdar2Furious@reddit
He specifically mentioned your name 🤣
phxbimmer@reddit
It’s a sad day for longform automotive content. I know video is the most popular form of media nowadays, but I really miss reading a well-written article with nice photos.
TheGentlemanRacer@reddit
Some of us are still writing. But it’s an ever shrinking group.
Stabmaster@reddit
Sucks for sure. Have all the books and even bought hoodies before the shop closed.
Funny-Dragonfruit116@reddit
They brought back the shop like 4 months ago for a week, sold out and closed it again. I should've taken that as a bad sign.
Danteska@reddit
Sucks that they only offered shipping to the States the last time they opened it :(
chewie_were_home@reddit
Yea I got a couple of books. So good. Very well made. End of an era man.
phalanxs@reddit
Very sad. I visited SpeedHunters basically daily for over 10 years now, and I haven't found any alternative that comes close in terms of the breadth and depth on the subject. Photos were always great too. I even thought that the quality of the writing went up the last few years.
I do wonder why their actual last article was deleted though. It's still on the wayback machine.
MachineTeaching@reddit
Speedhunters was awesome with all the great stories and content from across the world with many different car cultures on display.
Really nothing else like it out there. Very sad to see the site go.
Funny-Dragonfruit116@reddit
Narita Dogfight good example article is the closest thing I've found in terms of similarity,
The good: It's focused exclusively on Japanese Time Attack cars, so all the cars are properly fast. Speedhunters has featured some iffy builds before, these are all tested machines. Photo quality is good.
The bad: It's focused exclusively on Japanese Time Attack cars, so while there are some German and American cars they're rare. The pace of the articles is much less.
samurairj@reddit
Really, really sad. I owe a lot of my understanding of car culture to this site back when it launched. Here’s hoping it’s preserved, and better yet, that this is just a slump.
exyia@reddit
IIRC, this was dead for a while after Larry Chen sold it soooo long ago. I grew up in the OG days of this site and the car community.
It was a fantastic site back in the day as social media wasn't big yet. Finding coverage of any car events or builds was hard, let alone ones with quality photos. So many car photographers were inspired by this site.
He put in good, hard work building up the following. Building a recognizable brand from the reputation, and then sold it. Moved on.
There were lots of other great talent on that site, but it was obvious the new owners (idk if it was originally EA) just wanted to buy the brand name and collect money.
The site served it's purpose for LChen and the car community at the time. Larry was right to sell it and move on, like a textbook example of entrepreneurship. No big surprise EA ruined it long term, but I doubt it did much damage to people's livelihoods thankfully, because I'm sure everyone saw the writing on the wall years ago once EA bought it.
pedey67@reddit
Larry never owned any of SH, it was always completely owned by EA, and founded by Rod Chong who was an employee of EA at the time.
72corvids@reddit
Wasn't it Rod Chong that started it? With EA's support?
Larry shot cars and wrote articles for Speedhunters along with Dino and Paddy and more. But as far as I know, he didn't own it.
377ci@reddit
^Rod Chong
exyia@reddit
Ah. I stand corrected!
DonkeyFuel@reddit
Feel like the death of Speedhunters is the end of an era and moment in automotive enthusiast time.
zhiryst@reddit
Speedhunters and Hoonigan were an era. That era has now passed.
_dankystank_@reddit
I still rep Hoon for Kens memory. He was such an awesome dude.
DarkMatterM4@reddit
Streetfire was an era. Speedhunters and Hoonigan were too clean and mainstream.
clickstops@reddit
Nah dude we’re just old.
Streetfire / sport compact car / original phpBB forum days were indeed unrivaled though.
zhiryst@reddit
Lol, those were the days. Don't forget Cardonain. It was Instagram for cars a decade early.
Kiwifrooots@reddit
RIP getting paid to scroll :(
JALbert@reddit
TIL Speedhunters was owned by EA. Always thought it was just Dino's project.
DonkeyFuel@reddit
Seriously had no clue EA owned Speedhunters until this moment...
Mousetrap94@reddit
Explains why it was featured in so many Need for Speeds
Brno_Mrmi@reddit
And practically no other game franchise at all
DonkeyFuel@reddit
No kidding.
Funny-Dragonfruit116@reddit
For those asking about similar sites, I find Narita Dogfight is good.
Good example article.
The good: It's focused exclusively on Time Attack cars in Japan, so all the cars are properly fast. Speedhunters has featured some iffy builds before, these are all tested machines. Photo quality is good.
The bad: It's focused exclusively on Japanese Time Attack cars, so while there are some German and American cars they're rare. The pace of the articles is much less.
flyjum@reddit
They should sell it to the photographers that built it up. Larry Chen put out absolutely fantastic high res car content on that site for years.
Mugen887@reddit
Very sad to hear but not entirely unexpected looking at the frequency at which articles were being published. Like many, the articles on Speedhunters had a big impact on my love for cars, at one point I'd spend every Sunday morning reading all the articles from the week with a cup of coffee and they were truly some of my fondest memories at a time when my life was pretty chaotic.
I hope they find a way to persevere in some form or the other; it seems like social media is doing to these websites what they did to print media, although weirdly it seems like print media is making a comeback for more niche avenues, maybe it's something speedhunters could pivot to, perhaps a biannual issue. I would certainly appreciate being able to oogle at the pictures as a physical copy and there's definitely more collector value to that over a website.
P38ARR@reddit
That’s buggered all the nonces with the sunscreens
13DGMHatch@reddit
That’s a bummer, I really liked looking through the articles and pictures on there years ago.
boostleaking@reddit
Their picture library is the best part. So much HD pics to choose from for the odd desktop wallpaper change.
Fiiv3s@reddit
Damn that’s actually sad.
MakingYouMad@reddit
Dam, that’s sad. Admittedly I haven’t been on there in quite a few years, but it was on my daily rotation of websites to visit for almost 10 years.
apx7000xe@reddit
Speedhunters was such a goldmine in the glory days. It helped me level up my automotive photography, and I was lucky enough to have my own car featured, as well as a Porsche I photographed on there.
End of an era. :(
furrynoy96@reddit
Damn...that's sad
ZaheerAlGhul@reddit
First the news of Forza motorsports now this...
meh_whatev@reddit
Damn… I just hope the website stays up :(
liamd99@reddit
Is it possible to archive / mirror the site? I come back every few months and I've pretty much grown up on Speedhunters at this point.
juwyro@reddit
Wayback Machine
DJMagicHandz@reddit
Hit up the data hoarder sub
79QUATTRO@reddit
TIL speed hunters was owned by EA
opkraut@reddit
That's a damn shame. Speedhunters was always one of the sites you could rely on to have fantastic photography on every article. Even if I wasn't necessarily interested in the cars I used to love reading the articles just for the pictures.