Brian Scotto’s 321 Action Action Aims to Free Car Creators
Brian Scotto, who spent about 13 years running Hoonigan, says many automotive YouTubers are stuck on a “hamster wheel” and have no room for ambitious work. His answer is 321 Action Action, a production studio now housed within motorsports media group F=ma, according to a profile from the outlet that covers talent collectives.
From Hoonigan to a Studio Model
Scotto co-founded Hoonigan with the late Ken Block and directed its Gymkhana films, which were once-a-year events. He argues that format no longer suits a YouTube that favors repeatable shows posted on a daily schedule. He founded 321 Action Action in Long Beach, California, in 2024. Under a deal announced in September, it keeps its own brand but acts as the creative production studio for RACER, GRIDLIFE and The ID Agency, and Scotto joined F=ma’s executive team.
The Single-Creator Squeeze
Scotto says automotive creators moved to YouTube in a “land grab” between roughly 2015 and 2022. He says larger media-style companies such as MotorTrend, Hoonigan, Donut Media and Car Throttle are now gone or much diminished. In their place, he says, are small teams run by one or two people who also handle bookkeeping and copyright strikes. He says some newer creators burn out within a year or two, while successful ones report flat CPMs even as views grow.
He believes platforms reward creators who can do everything: perform on camera, edit and pitch advertisers. Gifted storytellers who lack business skills lose out, and that gap is what the studio targets.
How the Studio Works
Scotto describes three types of creator he wants to work with: all-rounders at capacity, burnt-out creators with strong on-camera presence, and personable creators who lack a breakout idea. He develops ideas and casting in parallel and pairs creators whose audiences overlap little. For brands seeking a specific demographic, he assembles creators whose combined reach fits it.
He stays platform agnostic. A single project might run as a multi-part YouTube series, a feature documentary on streaming and vertical clips on Instagram. He says data suggest viewers rarely leave their main platform, so content must meet them there.
Funding and Sponsors
Scotto puts the endemic automotive market at $55 billion and says sponsors often already appear naturally in builds, using Toyo Tires on an off-road truck as an example. He says he steers clients away from forced integrations.
F=ma CEO James Schiefer reports that RACER reached more than 450 million devices and 1.5 billion impressions in 2025, and that GRIDLIFE draws about 110,000 attendees a year, roughly 70% under 35. The four companies have separate CEOs and P&Ls, though a shared commercial team works across them.
Scotto says he is in “selling season” and expects to start production in January. His pitch rests on his record: “Everything I’ve built to this day has always been sold on the project I did before.”
Source: netinfluencer.com
Image: netinfluencer.com
