LONDON — Former “Top Gear” hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, who are preparing to launch a car show for Amazon, have partnered with tech entrepreneur Ernesto Schmitt to create DriveTribe, a digital media platform for car enthusiasts, Variety can exclusively reveal. Former “Top Gear” executive producer Andy Wilman is also on board the venture, which has been co-funded by the five partners.
DriveTribe, which aims to become the digital home for motoring fans worldwide, is structured into different “tribes,” each with their own characteristics and personality. Each tribe will be hosted by stars, bloggers, writers and videographers, including Clarkson, Hammond and May, who will generate and curate their own content for fans. Users sign up to the tribes that reflect their personal motoring interests, and can also create their own tribes. “What we are looking to do is build a next-generation vertical that is dedicated to motoring, and that really combines content, social and commerce,” Schmitt said. The content will be produced both by professional content creators, and the users.
Speaking exclusively to Variety, Hammond said: “We know we can do, and are doing, and always will do the high-production value long-form TV stuff. That’ll never change, that’s us at heart. But we are doing that, of course, in a world that has now allowed a whole raft of different ways for people to consume their media, not just sitting down and watching beautiful, delicious TV but also bite-sized chunks of media in whatever form many, many times a day, and obviously given our subject being motoring, which is incredibly broad and exciting, especially right now, we figured, well, it’s time to do this, it’s not been done, let’s do it, let’s do it first and let’s do it really, really well: pull the whole subject together for a whole bunch of people all over the world.”
In a statement, Hammond said: “Gamers have got Twitch, travelers have got TripAdvisor and fashion fans have got, oh, something or other too. But people who are into cars have got nowhere. There’s no grand-scale online motoring community where people can meet and share video, comments, information and opinion. DriveTribe will change that. And then some.”
May said: “This is pure digital inclusivity. Some of the world’s most endangered tribes — Volvo enthusiasts, for example — will now have a voice as loud as everyone else’s.”
Clarkson said: “I didn’t understand DriveTribe until Richard Hammond said it was like YouPorn, only with cars.”
Slightly interesting, not sure how successful something like this would be. But tbh I only posted this because I laughed at the last sentence.
