The Hoonigans: GROWING, SLAYING TIRES, AND KEEPING IT REAL FOR OVER A DECADE
STORY | Morgan Gales
PHOTOGRAPHY | Leif Bergerson
When content is king, you can build an empire with six GoPros and a Canon 5D. Hoonigan started in 2010 as no more than a t-shirt logo designed in a New York City apartment. Eleven years later, the brand exists as a motorsport powerhouse occupying half a city block in Los Angeles. From clothing to car builds, YouTube videos to live events, Hoonigan challenges the status quo and continues to outdo itself, growing and resonating with masses of new fans because they just love cars and think you should too.
The story of Hoonigan starts with Gymkhana, Ken Block, and Brian Scotto. Ken Block co-founded DC Shoes, eventually selling the brand in 2004 for a cool $88-mil and buying a racecar. Within a year, Block was ranked fourth in Rally America. In 2008, still working as the Chief Brand Officer for DC, Block hired Scotto’s magazine 0-60 to produce a film that captured the unique style of precision driving he had honed in rally racing but was presented like the skate videos DC had been making for so long. With four people and two days, the first Gymkhana film was made.
Block soon transitioned from privateer gentleman racer to factory-sponsored driver, and the Gymkhana series played a key role. During this transition, he and Scotto saw an opportunity. In the often-rigid world of racing and high-end motorsport, they could stand out as a beacon of fun and accessibility. Block’s action sports background and knowledge of youth culture meshed perfectly with Scotto’s incredible knowledge of cars and automotive culture. That punk rock energy from Block’s world of skateboarding, BMX, and snowboarding might actually work in automotive, they thought. It would certainly be different. It was only stickers and t-shirts at the time, but Hoonigan was born.
“Looking back, it seems so damned easy,” says Ron Zaras, part of Scotto’s original 0-60 team and now Hoonigan’s VP of Brand. He sits with his back to a large computer monitor inside the motorsport nesting doll that is his office—a 1950s Spartan camper trailer within a huge garage-turned-meeting room. A massive Garrett turbo lays next to his sunglasses and a box of pens on his desk. “Just one other guy and I would go out there with a 5D and six GoPros, make a testing video, and it would get a million views because really nobody else was out there doing it to that level.”
Zaras’s office walls are covered with race numbers, Hoonigan artwork, flyers from events, and mirror hangers from car shows. Outside the trailer door is a large conference table, a pinball machine, a skeeball machine, and more cars. Walk past the content locker filled with cameras, hard drives, microphones, and everything else needed to make epic videos, and you enter the first of three garages. Fifty-year-old relics, monsters of displacement, sit next to turbocharged flat-fours and shiny new crate engines on the shelves. Engines that look like they were picked from a junkyard neighbor with race-only mechanics and unobtanium that laymen only dream of. That’s part of the magic here. Come Camry or Koenigsegg, it’s more about authenticity and creativity—knowledge and skill— than about your car’s price tag.
This line between accessibility and exclusivity must be walked delicately, but that’s an act that Hoonigan has always balanced well. Video series like Daily Transmission and This Vs. That break down shop builds into multi-segment series or pit cars from employees, fans, and customers against each other just to see who will come out on top. It’s content that shows top-level knowledge and engineering but remains fun and entertaining for any level of enthusiast.
“From the get-go, we had this full spectrum of Ken Block, who’s a WRC driver—he drives and races half-million-dollar World Rally cars on the world stage,” says Zaras. “At the other end of the spectrum, we were doing things like buying $300 E36s and showing everybody that you could have a shit-ton of fun in a car with an angle kit and hand brake.” And that message is still key: whatever you show up with, whatever your budget, you can have fun with cars.
In September of 2021, Hoonigan merged with Wheel Pros, a company that owns several aftermarket wheel manufacturers. This merger meant that Hoonigan could not only invest further in its online presence and up the quality and quantity of videos being produced, but it also allowed the company to develop and move into its new headquarters in Los Angeles.
Growth and mergers often mean compromise and, for a company founded on genuine interest and enthusiasm, they threaten to turn “lifestyle” into a four-letter word. When the uninitiated seek to label or emulate something unique and authentic, it’s a “lifestyle.” But with Hoonigan, it’s something different. Like the brand exists solely to fuel the mechanics and madmen behind the controls. That hasn’t changed. At the Hoonigan compound, there are no ploys or gimmicks. There is no pandering. A sign in front of each parking space says: “DOPE CARS ONLY.” Not sure? Not you. Don’t park here.
The front shop is built out like a NYC bodega to show the brand’s East Coast origins, but with two-tiered lifts holding a couple of million dollars’ worth of cars inside. Killer Mike’s Buick Grand National is stacked over “The Scumbug,” a $2,500 Baja Bug used in a video series and yes, actually run through the sands of Baja, Mexico. An 860-horsepower Subaru GL wagon with active aerodynamic bodywork, rumored to be the next Gymkhana car, is parked in the corner in front of large black doors with “Closed Set, Absolutely No Admittance Without Permission.” These doors lead to the first garage.
In a single garage, it’s hard to keep future projects under wraps, so Hoonigan now has three separate production workshops. This allows projects to be filmed and develop independently without ever giving an unintentional glimpse of something that’s yet to break cover. But the real magic, the real fuel for Hoonigan’s punk rock permanence, lies just past these rooms.
The employee garage sits at the far back corner of the Hoonigan building. Three bays for the original founding members are filled with wild budget drift cars. Two bays next to them are open for employees to work on their own projects. Outside the large steel roll-up door is a large section of groomed pavement that has been burnished by thousands of tires spinning at a rate vastly exceeding the speed of the vehicle they’re mounted to. It’s a playground. Build it here. Test it here. If this is what you love to do, Hoonigan makes it seem so easy.
“Every single person on the shop side has some kind of personal project, personal garage, something that they’re working on. Even guys that we have on the other side, down to our accountants, they may have not been automotive enthusiasts previously, but it’s so much in the air here that they want to be,” Zaras says, leaning forward in his chair and motioning with his hands. “We’ll put people in cars like, ‘You’ve never driven stick before? You’ve never done a donut before? Why not both at the same damn time?’ When they’re in it and they feel it, the passion is around them and everything—you can’t help but get into it.”
Hoonigan adds high-octane gas to the fire of enthusiasts at every level. The excitement and passion are intoxicating, but you don’t need to be at the headquarters to feel it. Watch along from home. From kids that can’t drive yet to old-time gearheads, there’s something for everyone and you don’t need to look hard to find it. It’s fast, loud, smoky, but welcoming and fun. With each “Holy shit” moment, each “You know who’s gotta see this!?” share, the brand continues to push the limits and make the best product it’s capable of, whether that’s car parts, videos, or t-shirts. The passion and creativity of these Hoonigans bleeds through into everything they do. Long may they hoon.
