We have bad news for motor enthusiasts, especially those who love drift cars. For them, they must have seen some video of Hoonigan, a brand that was more than just a car brand.
Created in 2010 by Ken Block and Brian Scotto, it became famous for selling products related to motorsport, but even more so for its videos on Youtube where modified cars performed incredible manoeuvres on closed circuits. Hoonigan became synonymous with “wild” stunts on the tracks and became very popular among the online car community. However, now, this brand has declared bankruptcy with a debt of 1.2 million dollars…
What happened to Hoonigan?
Hoonigan, as we say, had one of the largest automotive YouTube channels in the sector and had millions of fans around the world, becoming a sponsor of Mr. Block’s rally races, but, in 2021, everything went wrong. In an attempt to jump on the bandwagon of the popularity of this company, they signed an agreement with Wheel Pros (another company that also owned wheels for cars), owned by Clearlake Capital, with which they ended up merging. Everything seemed like a great opportunity for both to continue growing but things did not go as expected.
Beginning in 2023, Ken Block died in a tragic snowmobile accident, and that is when the decline began, without its leader, the brand lost the direction it had taken in recent years.
Where does the crisis come from?
Let’s keep in mind that Ken Block was the visible image of the brand, and, after his death, which was a hard blow for everyone (both company and followers), many of the people who ran the company also left it, so it ended up having repercussions in the social media and YouTube environment.
During the pandemic, product sales were quite good, but, with the arrival of the economic crisis of 2022 and the increase in Wheel Pros production costs, sales began to fall and dragged Hoonigan into the same problem. In 2023, Wheel Pros decided to take the name Hoonigan to take advantage of the brand’s popularity, but the nosedive had already begun and there was no way to stop it and it was now when they declared bankruptcy.
Does Hoonigan have a future?
The company has launched a restructuring plan (meaning they want to reduce their $1.2 billion debt) and will seek investment to try to stay afloat.
Johnston, the current CEO of the brand, has announced that they intend to advance in the leadership position and that, if they get the new capital, they will be able to boost their financial performance.
After this announcement, Brian Scotto (the co-founder of Hoonigan) posted a story on his social networks in which he seemed to imply that he would return to YouTube to recover the original spirit of the brand.
We’ll have to wait to find out for sure what the future holds for Hoonigan. Will it return to YouTube? Will they manage to rekindle the flame that so caught the attention of their audience? Despite all the ups and downs along the way, the Hoonigan community continues to support the brand, hoping that they can reinvent themselves. Who knows if this isn’t just the beginning of Ken Block’s true legacy. Goodbye? We hope it’s just a “see you soon.”