David Freiburger is a stalwart defender of footwear of questionable safety and muscle cars that might give you tetanus. The latter is what keeps us coming back to his YouTube channel. His latest video features his 1971 Plymouth Duster, which was previously showcased on Roadkill Garage. The Red Duster started life with a slant-six and a three-on-the-tree, about as far from muscle car powerplant as you could get. Freiburger and his Roadkill Garage co-host Steve Dulcich swapped in a 5.9-liter Magnum V-8, a four-speed manual, and an 8-3/4 rear axle, but it was still quite rough around the edges. In Freiburger’s latest video, he addresses some of those issues.
This video is a great example of Freiburger’s “don’t get it right, just get it running” mantra, as he improves the Duster in small ways with little more than elbow grease, hose clamps, spray paint, and a few well-chosen parts that prove to be well worth the investment. Well, that and a hammer. Like most of Freiburger’s videos, it’s peppered with interesting facts about Los Angeles’s San Fernando Valley, which serves as the backdrop for most of the video before he heads north to take in some historic sights in California’s Central Valley.
Frieburger’s final stop in the refreshed Duster is a visit with Dulcich and some reflection on past Roadkill Garage builds. Hopefully, this video inspires some viewers to make some progress on their projects. If anything, it reinforces that it’s more fun to cruise a beater muscle car than to daydream about the numbers-matching Hemi ‘Cuda that has become unobtanium.
This is more about survival.
Dave has lost tge print media and now television as they both have turned their back on the auto culture.
I hope Dave finds web success and just keeps the content running as we auto fans are still here and still want out media and media folks.
The former hosts have wisely been guest-appearing and crossing over their channels which is building traffic and subs.
Mike Finnegan just passed 1 million subs.
Derek Bieri’s channel was big before his foray into “Roadworthy Rescues”.
Mike Cotton and Lucky Costa I actually find their channel content more interesting than the shows they did.
Steve Dulcich was working with Wiley Stevens as “Shifted” and the production values were top notch most of the time, but that has reverted to “Dulcich’s Garage” and he is doing a Dart build with his daughter which is good content.
One people might not think to look up is Dave Chappelle (Dirthead Dave) his channel is The Dirthead Shed and has a great range of content that is very relatable. Meanwhile he is a very skilled fabricator, but just ultra chill.
If you watch Freiburger’s videos about where the Roadkill and Roadkill garage cars went you’ll get breadcrumbed to many other channels and instragram posters.
Some of the connections have ended up at Hagerty in the past few years. The article writer Brandan Gillogly was a Hot Rod staffer with several of them way back in the day (Hot Rod magazine being a main root of the Motortrend TV universe).