Roadkill started out simple. Hot Rod magazine stalwarts David Freiburger and Mike Finnegan came together to wrench on cars, roadtrip, and create enormous clouds of tire smoke. The show quickly found a diehard fanbase that came to love the camaraderie and adventure as much as the endless V8-powered shenanigans. Now, sadly, we’re being told that it’s all over.
On Sunday night, we received the news that time was up for the Motor Trend show that started it all. Host Mike Finnegan took to an old Reddit post to announce the end of an era. “I just learned that it’s over,” said Finnegan. “After the end of Season 13, which we just finished filming a few weeks ago, there will be no new episodes of RK filmed.”
According to Finnegan, it’s not just Roadkill on the chopping block. “The Motor Trend production company is shutting down… No specific reason was given to me for its demise. ” said Finnegan. “We had a 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 of who owns the Roadkill IP or who to ask why it ended,” noted Finnegan.
End of an Era
Roadkill first debuted on YouTube in 2012. The first episode El Paso to LA: The Hard Way, would set the tone for the series to come. Freiburger and Finnegan set out to buy a junker for just $1,500. They aimed to drive it back from Texas to LA with minimal investment, relying on their wits and wrenching abilities along the way. This became the bedrock of Roadkill—the duo buying a rusty heap, before repairing it or executing some bonkers engine swap, followed by a roadtrip or a (usually unsuccessful) track event.
Endless jokes and banter would flow back and forth between “The Guys,” as they tackled each junkyard rescue or near-hopeless rebuild. They’d tangle with blown head gaskets and thrown rods, along with plenty of mouse droppings and the endless threat of hantavirus. As episodes racked up views in the millions, the success started to spread to the rest of Motor Trend’s shows, too. Roadkill even spawned multiple spinoffs—particularly the excellent Roadkill Garage that paired Freiburger with the Mopar legend that is Steve Dulcich. There was even a magazine, too, at one point.
While the series started out as free-to-watch on YouTube, it didn’t stay that way forever. Motor Trend eventually moved the show exclusively on to Motor Trend On Demand, its in-house streaming platform. Eventually, this would end up a part of the discovery+ in the wake of Discovery’s purchase of Motor Trend in 2017. Over time, some fans around the world were cut off from the program as Motor Trend ceased allowing users outside the US and Canada to access the service.
In recent years, Motor Trend had been putting a number of shows to bed. 2022 saw long-running off-road romp Dirt Every Day draw to a close. Other fun properties, like Hot Rod Garage and Faster with Newbern and Cotton came to an end, too, leaving fans speculating as to the seemingly bleak future ahead. Many hosts ended up producing their own content via personal channels on YouTube, suggesting the passion was still strong even if their production company wasn’t backing them any longer.
Roadkill had a way of turning cars into characters. Fans fell in love with the Disgustang, the Mazdarati, and of course, the ever-beleagured Rotsun.
Nevertheless, Roadkill persisted until now, the gem in the crown. Unsurprising, given Freiburger and Finnegan had unlocked the sort of chemistry as hosts that is rarely seen outside the hallowed Top Gear trio.
Keen-eyed fans would have seen the writing on the wall some time before today. Notably, Mike Finnegan took to Reddit a month ago, and prospects looked dire, even then. Finnegan seemed to suggest that the problem was a corporate decision from above—somewhere in the Warner Brothers/Discovery organization that has owned Motor Trend since 2017. In his own words:
We just wrapped up the end of our 13th “season”. Roadkill has never had a traditional “seasons”. Since its inception, we have shot a new episode each month of the year (we usually produce 13 or more episodes per calendar year) and never took any significant breaks from filming of more than a few weeks. Around July of each year somebody from the Motor Trend team would tell us we were to continue filming into the new year, meaning we had been “greenlit” for another season.
This year is different; So far, nobody I work directly with at Motor Trend seems to know whether or not any of the MT car shows will continue because now that we are owned by WB/Discovery, there are other people in involved in those decisions. I don’t even know who the decision-makers are. What I have been told is that the process for shows to be “greenlit” is different at WB/Discovery and that it takes longer for the decision to be made whether or not to continue with a show. I don’t know whether this is the end of Roadkill or not but the lack of communication doesn’t give me hope that the show will continue. Wish I had better news, guys and gals. Right now the best thing we can all do is support our favorite out of work gear heads by watching re-runs where they are available and also watching everyone’s YouTube channels and cross our fingers the shows all return in 2025. 🙂
More than most, David and Mike knew how to have a good time powered by gasoline.
Time comes for all of us, and it seems that the Roadkill story has now drawn to an end. It’s a sting this writer feels personally. Mike and David showed us all the simple joy of taking an absolute wreck and bringing it back to life—even if you only got it barely limping with a bad tune and torches for headlights. More than that, they showed us how great it could be to share this joy with friends. They inspired me to try my own hand at rescuing old bangers with raw eggs and a dream, and that’s some of the most fun I’ve ever had under the hood of a car.
Fans and pundits will naturally speculate as to why this came to pass. Amidst tough times for many media outlets, no cancellation is ever a true surprise. Ultimately, the sad thing is simply this—there will be just one more season of merriment and all-American adventure to take in before the Roadkill story ends for good. Vale!
Image credits: Motor Trend via screenshot
Shame to see it come to an end, but like others, I stopped watching shortly after it moved to MTOD. The same goes with Dirt Every Day, which I absolutely loved, seeing them put 54″ tires on an OBS Ford and drive a Jeep under water really blew my mind.
Yeah, Fred and Dave did some great stuff. Real wholesome guys. Loved the weird RAV4 thing they did.
That one was an absolute revelation. When I was in HS, there were a fair few body-swapped 4wds in my little city, but I had never seen something actually turned into a working 4wd. Turns out it’s very non-trivial.
plus, I love Fred & Dave for their low-key delivery
I honestly haven’t watched it since it left YouTube. Watched every episode before that…after, it just wasn’t accessible. Years passed, and now it’s on Discovery+ up here in Canada. I haven’t gone back to it….perhaps I should.
Freiburger and Finnegan don’t have the IP, but they do have a chemistry that should allow them to go back to YT with something else automotive.
I want a show where they unironically found a burger restaurant and they’re going under because Finnegan’s on delivery duty in that big block Impala and they’re spending $5000 a month on gas and tires
Finnegan has had his own YT channel for years and Frieberger just started his about a month ago. Now that RK is dead, I’m sure they will start appearing on each other’s channels.
Shame, been blocked OS for some time but there “ways” around it.
David changed my car ethos, his motto of “don’t get it right get it running” made so much more sense and meant I got to enjoy cars much more.
hopefully they work together on some private projects for theeir own channels some more.
There’s no need to speculate… this is entirely Discovery Networks doing. They have been in financial difficulties for years so this is just corporate cost cutting. Cable TV is slowly bleeding to death but streaming doesn’t bring in nearly the same profits so Discovery (not Warner Bros, which is just a brand at this point) has been scrambling to figure out how to keep their Wall Street overlords less unhappy.
This timeline just keeps getting worse. No more Top Gear (GT). The people elected a figurehead that literally tried to overthrow our government with zero repercussions. Now no more Road Kill.
>pours out 40<
Surprised you didn’t link Finnegans comment using the “an old Reddit post” as an anchor
https://www.reddit.com/r/Roadkillshow/comments/y22hxz/comment/lxl3hfr/
Fix’d!
That makes me sad. First MTOD was the only thing I ever had a paid subscription for, and watched it all the time. When it swapped over to Discover+ I thought that the variety would be great, but the result was the polar opposite. The shows there were uninteresting and there were fewer and fewer car shows I could get into.
Additionally, living overseas and using a VPN to watch is really annoying because it more often than not doesn’t let me in. As soon as I read this headline, I went and cancelled my subscription. It was long overdue. Youtube is good enough for me when I have some downtime and want to shut off my brain.
Felt like great value for how many great shows they had in the MTOD days. And light years better than the regular Discovery shows.
Embittered me when they cut Australia. I couldn’t be bothered figuring out a VPN. I decided if they weren’t going to take my money I’d just move on.
Living behind the great firewall of China, and being a cheapskate, I have found quite a few free, reliable and useful VPN that have servers in America. I probably have sold all my personal data to the lowest bidder, but at least I get to listen to Spotify and watch car videos!
My favorite thing on You Tube these days is:
Camel Toe Yoga. And the strange chick who throws pottery stuff.
YMMV.
So is this the end of Motor Trend? I always figured this video stuff was their “new media” lifeline with the whole magazine/website business not being easy these days.
Or more likely Discovery just keeps the hollow shell of the brand around and sells it at some point.
or you mean like other “financial engineers” did to Hoonigan etc Use the brand name to borrow a ton of money (I am sure it is worth more than the billion Hoonigan is worth), then bankrupt it https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a62121632/hoonigan-backruptcy-billion-dollar-debut/
My guess is as long as they continue the Car Of The Year Cinematic Universe, MT will still be with us in one form or other.
This was inevitable once Warner got involved. I had been subscribed to MTOD, but once it all moved to Discovery+ most the shows that were worth watching had been cancelled and I can honestly say nothing else on Discovery suited my fancy.
As far as I’m concerned, Warner getting involved in any small production company means the inevitable heat death of all content.
Very sad but not surprised. I saw the writing on the wall when Freiburger started posting his own content on YouTube. I know Finnegan had already been doing that for a while, but once I saw the “face” of Roadkill posting his own content I knew something was up.
Yeah I like Freiburger’s YouTube channel, he shows interesting places and starts sharing a lot of the cool facts he knows and things he’s done.
They cancelled it because they have enough episodes in the bank to run forever as reruns on a FAST (free ad supported television) network and not see an appreciable decline in ratings.
Man, this is frustrating. Damn those A-hole, know-nothing, VP-types in media! Just as with commercial broadcast radio, when you have a good thing going that people love, some jackass blows it up because they think that the corporation can make MORE money doing something else. There was a time when I thought that I was going to work in radio – BOY OH BOY am I glad that I took my bachelor’s in Electronic Media and went in an entirely different direction!
Bailed on radio in 1993 or so. After 20 years invested. Best decision ever!
Good decision on your part for sure…good luck.
Motor Trend canceled Road Kill? They can’t do that. It’s Un-American. And besides, it’s not a very nice thing to do. Maybe MAVTV could pick up the show. Motor Trend has really gone downhill lately with the constant reruns from 10 years ago. There does not appear to be any new content on Motor Trend TV. Could WBD be planning to shut the channel down?
Well, shit. At least I’ve still got the magazines. Guess they’re collectible now.
I never could figure out why they launched a magazine. Even at the time I remember thinking that so many mags were closing up due to waning readership . . . why invest the time and money?
The only reason I could ever come up with is MT was all magazine people at that point, and it’s what they knew.
I’m not at all surprised by this. The writing was on the wall when they de-platformed from YouTube, and the odds didn’t get any better when MTOD got buried on Paramount+.
They thrived away from YouTube, it was the Discovery deal that killed them.
If they thrived by moving away from YouTube to a subscription model, that is what did them and the entire MotorTrend thing in. It’s the same thing that has killed so many automotive content creators.
Oh man this is sad to see. I’ve been a big fan of Freiburger since he and Rick Pewe did the first “Dirt Every Day” in the magazine a long time ago – maybe1999? He and Finnegan were a fantastic combo on-sceen, and great friends off screen too.
Motortrend were on such a winner in the early days of these shows on youtube, but as an outsider it seems that the downhill slide started when they switched to Motortrend On Demand and only got worse when they made it US/Canada only. The sale to WB/Discovery only made things worse, one by one presenters left and shows were axed, now here we are Roadkill is gone as is MT itself.
We’ve seen it with other creators too – Hoonigan and Donut Media to name a couple.
Could this be the definition of corporate killing creativity?
Sad day indeed……
It’s wild how many good presenters they were able to turn up.
The BBC was never able to find anyone to replace the three musketeers from the golden age of Top Gear.
Meanwhile, Motor Trend had Freiburger and Finnegan, then Freiburger and Dulcich had their own magic…
…and Tony and Lucky, who rocked.
…and Fred and Dave on Dirt Every Day.
and probably a few others that I never got around to watching.
Like… literally FOUR kick-ass presenter combos in one organization. All making shows at the same time.
Couldn’t agree more!! Not to mention Steve Magnante, the man is a literal walking encyclopedia of bizarre automotive factoids.
I think the key to it was that all these guys are passionate car guys first and foremost. I would bet my last dollar that even if there were no cameras Dave, Mike, Fred et al would all be doing the same thing in their sheds, tinkering away on whatever car/jeep/truck they have.
MT seemed to have the winning formula, then managed to completely fumble it several times over.
I loved this show when it first came out but quit watching when they switched to MTOD. I get that MT thought they could make more with their own platform but it also felt like those of us that watched on YT from the beginning were being taken for granted. I know they started posting some stuff on YT again later but by then I’d already moved on. Freiburger and Finnegan seem like cool guys though, hopefully they find something just as good.
This sucks, I liked this show and what was built from it.
Damn, this is a real shame. I’ve watched RK since the very first episode, and Freiburger and Finnegan were great hosts. The whole “don’t get it right, just get it running” ethos has really driven me to fix more stuff on my own. Unfortunately, nothing good lasts forever.
Sad to read this. I’ve not seen many of the shows but it’s always bad to lose some automotive media. The ‘using torches as headlights’ triggered a weird word association image in my Bain.
Things had been looking increasingly more bleak over the last year especially. I’m maybe a little bit surprised, but just a little. I know I jumped ship when MotorTrend on demand was folded into Discovery+ back in the spring at an increased cost. Sure, I supposedly got more, but not things I wanted or was willing to pay for. I bet many others jumped with me.
David Freiburger’s sage advice, “Don’t get it right, just get it running,” has been my mantra for getting my old Buick back on the road. Today it drove farther than it has since 2015 … All the way to the gas station and back! 🙂
Yeah, their way of doing things was really fun.
I was forced to stop watching after Discovery kicked Australian customers off the platform back in 2020 or so. I was so sad. “What, my money’s no good?”
That’s even weirder.
Yeah i too stopped watching when they transitioned to the MTOD business model. It was a shame since I really enjoyed their content (along with Fred at DED). Sucks for them how it was shut down so quickly and without much warning or explanation.
Dirt Everyday ended up becoming my favorite show, even though I don’t do any offroading myself, because Fred and Dave were just so great together.
Their checklist is a concept I will be using when I can afford to do something on my own project.
Congrats! That first trip after a long hiatus is always memorable!
Thanks!
Yeah, that’s pretty much my story. I perused the hundreds of shows Discovery+ offered. Outside the flagship Motor Trend shows, I found a whole seven more that captured my interest, and those were largely one season shows that ended a decade ago. Finally dropped my subscription last month.
I couldn’t even figure out how to transfer my subscription to Discovery+ for the remainder of the month I had already paid for. Or perhaps I was too bitter to bother to figure it out?
It’s sad to see it go, but at least it seemed like episodes started lacking except for one or 2 good ones a year.
RK Garage has been noticeably better than mainline RK for a couple years now. Sucks to have yet another “automotive network” dead. YouTube really seems like the best home for automotive content.
Dulcich is the coolest dude.
Aw damn, I discovered all those shows during the worst of the pandemic. They are so much fun. Booo corporations.
When Velocity became Motor Trend TV, it no longer had content I cared to watch. It’s been ruined, and I’ve never been a fan of almost any of it, including Roadkill.
I doubt I have watched it once since they stopped covering the Isle of Mann TT.
Auto Mundial was the last for me.
It’s almost like taking the show off YouTube years ago was a terrible idea. Who could’ve seen this coming?
I remember them saying that move came down to money. It seems like, to some degree, it’s difficult to make these shows pay. At the same time, though, given how many of their presenters are able to do it themselves on YouTube with far smaller budgets…
The difference is that for a Youtuber there’s no money flowing higher up. It’s just you, not layers above you who each take a chunk.
It was Jonny Lieberman on the smoking tire Podcast a few years back. All of those MT shows (Roadkill, DED, Head 2 Head, etc) were initially funded by the YouTube Original Channel Initiative, and when that funding went away, the total yearly income from ads and views for the entire Motor Trend channel accounted for about 10% of the budget of a single show. That’s why MTOD and the transition away from YT became a thing once the Dodge sponsorship happened.
Could they have lowered production quality and cut budget to get the same effect? Probably. Would they have lasted this long? Longer? Who knows.
And personally I had no issues with the subscription based system. 5$/month was probably less than people used on snacks _per episode_. However the platform they used sucked ass. Also I don’t think the decision to cut internaltional customers off was a good think, I atleast stopped at that point, I had no interest on getting Discovery+ as there was nothing else there.
Also the quality of the shows was dropping quite lot. Things like Head to Head and Ignition had already stopped.
Certainly fair, MTOD was about 5 years behind technologically. It seemed to start fine, but at a certain point (Discovery acquisition) they clearly stopped investing in it and it got super stale.
As for non-US customers, that definitely sucked. I can only assume there were contractual or distribution agreements that came into play that they decided not to proceed with due to cost, but who knows.
it’s when the production arm of Motor Trend was purchased by Warner Bros Discovery. They have been ruining a lot of channels/shows