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Following the UK's Top Gear and The Grand Tour shows ending as we know it, MotorTrend's Roadkill will also be winding up.
After 13 years, MotorTrend's popular online hot rodding show Roadkill will come to an end.
Co-host of Roadkill, Mike Finnegan, took to online forum Reddit to make the announcement – commenting on a two-year-old thread – following confirmation MotorTrend Productions was being shut down.
"I just learned that it’s over. After the end of season 13, which we just finished filming a few weeks ago, there will be no new episodes of [Roadkill] filmed," Finnegan wrote.
"The MotorTrend production company is shutting down. No specific reason was given to me for its demise. We had an excellent run and I’m proud of what the team accomplished, but this does seem to be the end of [Roadkill]. I’m unsure who owns the [Roadkill intellectual property rights] or who to ask why it ended."
Roadkill launched on YouTube in 2012 with Finnegan and David Freiburger, just as the video platform was maturing into a home for content creators, with the show featuring the two buying and modifying project cars, travelling across the US, drag racing, and providing a look inside the country's hot rod scene.
It's been a sad year for lovers of car shows, with the UK's Top Gear being put on indefinite hiatus, and Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May retiring from The Grand Tour. Online media has also suffered, with popular presenters leaving Donut Media and Hoonigan after being purchased by new owners.
In 2017, Australian YouTube channel Mighty Car Mods travelled to Los Angeles to produce a series of shows where hosts Marty Mulholland and Blair Joscelyne built a Subaru WRX ute to go up against Roadkill's V8-powered 1968 Chevrolet Bel Air.
"News has just surfaced announcing the end of Roadkill – one of the best made; most entertaining YouTube-originating car shows. News coming in suggests that MotorTrend is shutting down, taking [Roadkill] with it," Mighty Car Mods announced on social media.
"Certainly in the early days of YouTube there were limited options when it came to quality car content and it seemed that you had Mighty Car Mods, Top Gear and Roadkill on MotorTrend. If you were into cars, chances were you were watching one (or all) of these shows."
Though the collaboration was posted to both channels, shortly after MotorTrend was purchased by Discovery, and the previously free-to-watch Roadkill was moved to a specific streaming platform behind a paywall for several years.
"While we had a brilliant time over there, the main memory for us after meeting the boys was a couple of hard-working blokes, who knew cars better than anyone else around, were kind, thoughtful, friendly and consistently working their [behinds] off," Mighty Car Mods wrote.
"Anyone can make a few YouTube videos about cars. But making top-notch content, professionally produced and for well over a decade? Dave and Mike are the real deal and inspired millions to explore a more adventurous spirit when it came to automotive content."
Despite Roadkill – and the MotorTrend channel – seemingly coming to the end of the road, both Finnegan and Freiburger have their own channels on YouTube, so it won't likely be the last audiences will see of them.
Curiously, while a handful of automotive shows online and on television have come to an end, car-related films are seemingly in a boom at the moment, with movies about Initial D and Matchbox said to be in development, as well as Bullitt and Days of Thunder reboots, and Brad Pitt's F1 film in post-production.
Ben Zachariah is an experienced writer and motoring journalist from Melbourne, having worked in the automotive industry for more than two decades. Ben began writing professionally more than 15 years ago and was previously an interstate truck driver. He completed his MBA in Finance in early 2021 and is considered an expert on classic car investment.
