YouTuber who makes up to £8k a month road testing multi-million pound supercars says the flash motors ‘don’t impress’ the ladies
Tom Exton bagged every lad’s dream job after blogging about his adventures online
Tom Exton bagged every lad’s dream job after blogging about his adventures online
A YOUTUBE star makes up to £8,000 a month road-testing flashy supercars – but says the multi-million pound motors don’t impress his girlfriend.
Tom Exton, 30, from London, has hit the road in a £1.7 million McLaren P1, a supped-up metallic purple Pagani Huayra BC and a custom Range Rover.
Tom, who works in the city and co-founded fitness company LDN Muscle, bagged every lad’s dream job after blogging about his adventures online.
He now shares his exploits with his 145,000 fans and 80,000 subscribers.
“I had a reasonably large social media following for LDN Muscle, predominately lots of young guys,” he exclusively told The Sun Online.
“I started putting loads of car content on my social media and it spiralled from there.”
Brands get in touch with Tom and let him loan new releases and custom-made models. He is paid to share videos and photos on his channels.
“You can make money from it. I can make up to £8,000 a month, but not all brands pay,” he said.
Tom’s most memorable test drive was a bright yellow McLaren P1.
“I took it through a Starbucks drive-thru,” he said. “That was pretty scary, it was pretty narrow to get into there.
“The front bumper that catches the floor was £35,000 or something stupid. I was sweating.”
Tom, whose first car was a £450 Renault Clio, says his favourite motor is a Ferrari.
He’s also tried out a £250,000 custom-built Lamborghini Aventador, a Porsche GT3 RS and a BMW M4 DTM.
“I feel so lucky to do it. It’s an absolutely crazy hobby,” he said. “I was in Barcelona with Maclaren a little while back driving around the mountains in a convertible thinking, ‘What the hell, how am I here doing this?’”
Tom, who tries a couple of new cars every month, has also been flown to Majorca by Kia to test drive the new Kia Stinger GTS, and has been gifted a limited-edition Mini Cooper.
But it’s not all fun and games. “A lot of the time I get stuck in traffic in London. The Lamborghi I’ve just got is impossible to park,” he said.
“You cannot see anything out of it. It’s so noisy wherever you are a crowd forms around it as well. It’s stress, first world problems or what. It’s so wide, you can’t leave it anywhere.”
Tom says the flash motors also give off the wrong impression.
“People assume you’re a bit of an arsehole,” he joked. “If you’re in a supercar you just get looked at like you’re a flash git and the wrong sort of lady will take an interest, ones that can smell a bit of cash.”
His girlfriend is not impressed with his petrol-head hobby.
“She thinks I’m an idiot,” he said. “I’ve got a test. If a girl gets in a car and starts taking a selfie with the logo of the car on the headrest behind them, they’re probably bad news. If they get in and complain its noisy, chavvy and stupid, it’s good news.”
Tom believes anyone could bag his dream job.
“You need to build up your social media numbers to get people to pay attention,” he said. “The best way to do that is be consistent with content you put out, try and collaborate with people with a bigger following if you can.
“It’s really tough, it looks easy just posting pics of cars but you need a lot of luck and to be quite persistent. I was quite lucky, I had a following from the early days I was able to convert to YouTube, without that I don’t know if I’d be able to do that now.”