It Looks Like Speedhunters Is Dead
It might be time to memorialize Speedhunters. As much as it hurts to say, the car culture site that highlighted the global automotive scene better than anyone else in the late 2000s and early 2010s has been dormant for months, with its last story being published on April 3. Its online storefront has gone dark, and so has its Instagram account, with no new posts since March and an all-black profile photo. A source familiar with the matter told The Drive that the site has shut down, and I've reached out to Speedhunters' owner, Electronic Arts, for confirmation.
A Reddit thread on r/ShootingCars pointed out the lack of activity just last week. Upon seeing that, I reached out to a handful of contacts who might know more about Speedhunters' fate. One responded, saying they heard from several contributors that it had shuttered operations.
Former contributor Paddy McGrath spoke out in the Reddit comments to express his feelings: Comment
byu/thefinancejedi from discussion
inshootingcars
Speedhunters was founded by Rod Chong in 2008 with backing from EA. It quickly blew up, with creators from every corner of the globe posting original content there daily. That's where so many of us saw photography from Larry Chen and Dino Dalle Carbonare for the first time, along with too many great shooters and writers to list. The brand was even in Need for Speed video games, collaborating with artists like A$AP Rocky thanks to its EA tie-in. Simply put, if you were into cars on the internet from the time it was founded until the late 2010s, Speedhunters influenced you.
As McGrath indicated in his comment, some of the site's most familiar faces started popping up less frequently around 2020. Chen actually left in 2018. Carbonare stuck it out, however, as his most recent Speedhunters post was published on March 28 of this year.
It's unclear what's next for Speedhunters, though the answer might very well be, 'Nothing.' So many of the creators who made the site what it was have gone on to different projects. Chen, for example, just published a book with 20 years' worth of photos in addition to YouTube and shooting for Pikes Peak, Formula D, and various automakers. Carbonare has his Dino DC channel on YouTube with nearly 200,000 subscribers, showing the sickest parts of Tokyo's automotive scene.
For the sake of everyone who loves the site, let's hope that it's preserved in some way. It would provide at least some consolation for folks if we could look back on all the great insider stories that you just couldn't get anywhere else at the time. With EA being the giant it is, though, it may shrug this off like it's nothing. We'll see if that's the case.
Got info about the Speedhunters situation? Contact me directly: caleb@thedrive.com
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