Those who hang out in the automotive corner of YouTube are likely to get excited when you mention Jeremiah Burton and Zach Jobe. The two auto enthusiasts gained a major fanbase thanks to years of work with Donut Media on popular YouTube series like Bumper 2 Bumper. Now, the two have parted ways with Donut to launch BigTime, their own channel, which has raked in 1.5 million subscribers since it launched in July.
In a chat with Playboy, Jeremiah and Zach fill us in on what they learned at their time at Donut, what they have planned for BigTime, and how they are not, in fact, the same person.
Answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Playboy: How did you each of you get into cars and making auto content?
Zach: I got into cars as a little kid. My dad had an old an Audi b5 chassis, I think it was a 99, and he got involved in a car club where guys with similar cars would meet up on on the weekends. He would take me with him, and I fell in love with it. And that was around the same time that the first Fast and Furious came out. I was already sort of into it, and then I saw this whole world in this movie, and I was like, “Oh, that’s it. That’s the rest of my life.”
Jeremiah: I think I started liking cars when I liked Hot Wheels. I still think today they’re probably the best toy for a buck. You can’t get anything much better than that. And my grandfather was very mechanical. He was a mechanic in the Air Force, and so he was always tinkering with stuff in his shop in Arkansas. And so I’d always see him welding. He had a bunch of unique kind of cars and trucks. He wasn’t necessarily a car guy, but it just fueled my passion for liking things all mechanical. And then by the time that I started looking for cars, I wanted a Chevelle. I love the old timey stuff. And that really got me into that period of of the automotive world.
Zach: And I wanted my first car to be an old muscle car so bad. And I still really never had one.
Jeremiah: Me either. We’ll change that soon. We’ve driven a lot, I think, over the years, and we get in and be like, oh, yeah..
Zach: Right, right, all kind of crap.
Jeremiah: Yeah, they’re not all that great, but they are fun, so one day we’ll get one. But yeah, that’s how it started for me. And then, of course, Fast and Furious.
Playboy: Tell us the story of how you started working with Donut. Were you prepared for how successful the content became?
Zach: I think we kind of came to Donut at the same time. Donut posted a casting call on their Instagram, right? This is when I lived in Ohio, and I was working at a place called ECS Tuning, working on car stuff, doing development on aftermarket products. And me and some of my coworkers would watch YouTube on our lunch breaks. We’d watch Donut every once in a while. And so then I followed them on Instagram, and, you know, some months later, saw their post for a new host. I was making YouTube videos at the time at ECS, and I was like, “Oh, guys like, should I?” And everyone’s like, “Yeah, dude, do it. You’ll probably get it.” And so I shot an audition tape in my studio at my place, sent it over. And one thing led to another pretty quickly, and I moved to LA.
Jeremiah: I also saw an Instagram post. I was in the comedy world, and was writing a lot of sketch and doing a lot of web series and TV and film, and I was more or less trying to get my foot into the entertainment business. I was doing a lot of commercial acting, and so I saw it, and I was like, okay, I’ll submit. I was out here in LA, and they made me come in and do a audition in person. I think probably one of the reasons why I got hired is because when I read it, I edited it, and I was like, “I don’t think this makes a lot of sense.” So I started changing it up while doing the audition and doing some jokes and stuff. And I think that put me over the edge a little bit.
Playboy: How long were you both with Donut?
Zach: Just over five years. I think I moved out here in the first quarter of 2019, I think maybe second quarter.
Jeremiah: We got hired at the same time, but I was there for about nine months to 12 months, writing behind the scenes, but we’ve been there the same amount of time.
Playboy: So when you guys wanted to forage out on your own, it was probably like, a no brainer to do it together.
Zach: And people already think we’re the same person.
Jeremiah: I’ve signed Zach’s name a whole bunch on people’s stuff.
Playboy: What was on your mind about walking away from Donut and starting something that’s uniquely yours?
Zach: So we officially launched on June 21.
Jeremiah: We had been mulling over doing this for at least a year. When Donut got acquired, there was a little bit of writing on the wall on the future and how we fit into their structure. And it wasn’t as integral as we wanted it to be. We lost some creative freedom. I think that was super important to us.
Anytime you get acquired by a company, they’ll let you run it the way you want to run it for a year. But then after that year, they come in and things start to change a little bit. So once that started to happen, you know, Jobe and I kind of were like, I don’t know how this is going to go down, but maybe we should start thinking about doing something on our own. Behind the scenes talking about it, more or less getting each other amped up. Because once you let that cat out of the bag, and you let everyone know at Donut that you’re leaving, then you’re leaving. And so it was a longer process to actually get it done. But we were contractually still obligated to be with Donut, and we were upping our new contract. And so part of that negotiation was: I think what we’re going to do is go off and do our own thing.
Zach: The timeline of things, when we started talking about this over a year ago, was like, “Oh yeah, that would be great. We could totally do that.” And as time went on, and it got more and more real, I think it got more scary. Coming up to this spring and having conversations with Donut about leaving and doing our own thing made it real. And we realized the risk we were taking, which was frightening, right? Like we’ve spent so much time building this thing, it’s successful. It had gotten to the point where we maybe had lost some creative control, but in some sense, it had gotten easier, right? Like we sort of just had to show up on the day and shoot, we got a paycheck. So as time went on, it was like, “Okay, we’re really going to do this. We’re going to walk away from this thing that is successful, that we’re very intertwined in.” Are we insane? I can’t even tell you how amazing it was for it to go off like it did the first week. Was just such a such an extended breath of relief for us all. It was great.
Jeremiah: What’s the fun part? The fun part is really getting back to making kind of the content that we want to make, and because we’re so small, being nimble to make decisions kind of quickly. We bought a semi truck recently, and that was just like me on Facebook marketplace, and then sending it to Zach and sending it some of the other guys, like, Hey, I think I want to buy this. And they’re like, What are we going to do with it? And I was just like, we’ll figure it out, I think!
Playboy: What have been your most rewarding experiences for making auto content and why?
Zack: Talking to fans. It’s unbelievable to me that we have as many fans as we do, and it’s incredible to meet them. When we when we really started getting our footing at Donut was during Covid. I think we had two episodes out before Covid hit. So it was a really strange time in the world. We were pretty much locked down, and there were no car shows, there were no industry events, nothing. So we spent two years making all this content and building this following, and we had never met any of the fans. So then coming out of Covid, going to car shows, going to events again, it was incredible to meet all the fans, and especially like young fans.
Yesterday on our shoot, Chris, a PA that we hired, told me that he had watched Money Pit since back in the day, and he’s like, you’re actually why I became a mechanic. That kind of thing really knocks my socks off. I’ve had a lot of guys tell me “you’re the reason I got into reason I got into cars.” That really hits me in the heart. And I think it’s important too, because I feel like sort of the last of a dying breed when it comes to tinkering with cars and stuff. Cars are getting more and more complicated, and I think it’s really cool to be able to keep it alive and pass our passion on to the next generation.
Jeremiah: The show that I ran, Bumper to Bumper, was a more of an engineering-focused, science-based show. And so one time I took my dad out here to the California Science Center in downtown and two little kids came up who were gushing. Their mom was there, and she was so excited that they had someone on YouTube that wasn’t like your typical influencer, but could inspire kids to want to go work with their hands and learn and be technical. And I think, like, that’s by far the most rewarding thing.
Playboy: Which automotive makers are your favorites and why?
Zach: I’ve always been partial to BMWs and Audis, a lot of European cars, and I think that stems from my dad having a real affection for European cars growing up. That always stuck with me. And then my job previous to Donut was ECS tuning, like I mentioned, which stands for Euro Car Service, and it’s one of the biggest, like distributors and manufacturers for European car parts. So I just got a huge dose of European cars over there, and BMWs. I like rear wheel drive stuff, and BMWs have historically been rear wheel drive.
Jeremiah: I’m the dumb American car guy. I grew up with Chevys and Fords, and my pride and joy is a 2001 Camaro. So I think I just got a BMW, what, two years ago?
Zach: As I recall, you’re really happy with it. One of the best cars of all time.
Jeremiah: I bought it and I was like what am I doing supporting catfish Camaros when I should be supporting these. But at my core I love American V8s, and Chevrolets and Fords are probably my thing.
Playboy: What are your hot takes on the industry right now? What needs to change?
Jeremiah: I wish that people would take more of an approach to hybrids. I think they’re the best of both worlds. I can’t speak for Zach, but [hybrid sports cars] are definitely some of my favorite cars.
EVs are in this weird space right now where they’ve been politicized. And if you like EVs, then you’re on one side of the fence. So I think culturally, getting a shift towards making that seem like it’s a little okay. I just think the great thing about what we did at Donut was just like, all cars are cool. And we carry that same sentiment over into BigTime. It’s just like, if you like it, then we like it, you know. I think if we could just be more welcoming to those types of things, I think it makes for a better community of enthusiasts.
Playboy: What do you think are the biggest mistakes people make when they buy cars?
Zach: Well, it’s really easy to get sucked into the moment from an enthusiast perspective. Common storyline is that you come up with something that you really want, then you’re on the internet looking for them for a long time, then you find what you think is the one, and you get all amped up, and then you go look at it with rose-colored glasses on, and often buy a piece of junk (laughs). I’ve done that a bunch of times.
Jeremiah: I used to buy and sell a lot more cars than I have recently, just because it’s time consuming. For a while in college, that was the hustle. That’s how I had extra money. I was just buying, fixing things and then selling them. So when people ask me if I they should buy a particular car, I always say no. They don’t want me to tell them. They don’t really want me to advise them. They just want me to, like, gas ’em up and make them feel good, because most of the time, they’re already seeing what they want…I know you’ve got some nostalgia built up in there. You got money in your pocket. You’re ready to pull the trigger and buy this thing. But what you don’t realize is the months, years even—how long does it take you to actually drive that thing and work on it? So be cautious of my future car buyers out there, especially on the youth market.
Playboy: Lastly, when you go out to enjoy a drive, what are your some of your favorite songs or albums to rock out to?
Zach: Ooh, I love driving to electronic music, [like] Kavinsky, or a cruise, especially like putting on Pacific Coast Highway while I’m on the Pacific coast.
Jeremiah: I guess it kind of depends on what mood I’m in, but most of the time, if I’m driving by myself, I get super nostalgic and sad. So I go towards Willie Nelson or Conway Twitty, or even George Jones, you know, like road trip music I used to listen to when my parents would take me from my home in Florida to visit my grandparents in Arkansas. So I, I’ll put on, I’ll put on some old school country.
Zach: Classic Americana is the best for road trips.