Speedhunters Was a Car Culture Juggernaut. This Is How It Died

The Drive

4 hours ago

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Speedhunters, as we know it, is done for. The car photography site that shaped a generation's automotive imagination went out with a whimper, not a bang, when publishing quietly froze in April. After I reported the news last week, past contributors flooded my inbox with notes as they sought to share their side of the story. Now that I've sat down with them for hours, talking over the phone and email while reaching out to other key figures in the Speedhunters saga, I'm publishing all my findings here.
One thing I want to make clear straight away is that this isn't the comprehensive follow-up I hoped to write. Several high-ranking staffers failed to respond to my request for comment, and Electronic Arts—Speedhunters' parent company—didn't have anything to say, either. Still, I gained a ton of insight from five contributors who were willing to speak with me, four of whom asked to remain anonymous, citing professional and legal concerns. What's important is they worked at the site during its heyday and managed to stick around until the bitter, uneventful end.
The story is tragic, but it can be summed up in one line: Speedhunters was never supposed to be so big in the first place. Here's an incredibly early version of the Speedhunters site, archived on the Wayback Machine with a date of May 17, 2008. Internet Archive
Speedhunters was founded by Rod Chong in 2008 with backing from EA, the video game company that still owns the site now. It was created to connect EA with automotive culture, helping inform the content choices for its Need for Speed titles. In short, Speedhunters tied the games to the real world while building credibility among actual car people.
The site's involvement with NFS was far deeper than most outsiders realized, as several contributors told me. They would attend massive events—think SEMA and Tokyo Auto Salon, but also the Nürburgring 24 Hours—then report back to the game's creators. One former Speedhunters contributor told me the access they had was 'unreal,' so much so that getting press credentials for virtually any car event in the world was a given.
Boots-on-the-ground content capture then made its way into games like NFS: Shift , with early Speedhunters blogs featuring screengrabs and clips from the motorsport-focused title. This continued for more than a decade, across multiple NFS entries. Peep the Speedhunters windshield decal on this drifting Subaru BRZ from 2015's Need for Speed reboot. Electronic Arts
One former contributor explained to me, 'I joined the creative directors in the making of one of the [NFS] games. We went to Miami and I set up a list of eight shoots that they joined me on, and so they just followed there.' They said the game's creative director was on location, looking for insight on world-building, along with several other Need for Speed crew members. 'There were cool moments like with that team and stuff, but they were completely, completely removed from Speedhunters. They didn't even really know what Speedhunters was. And I think that was kind of the problem,' he explained.
Indeed, it seemed like most people outside of Speedhunters were clueless about their association with NFS , or at least didn't want to speak on it. One EA game developer told The Drive , 'Even when I worked on NFS , they didn't like to talk about the relationship between EA and Speedhunters. It was [expletive] odd to say the least.'
Most of the site's audience was totally out of the loop, too. Comment sections and Reddit threads filled with people learning Speedhunters is owned by EA just last week prove it. On one hand, this proves that Speedhunters was something special, given that its corporate tie-in was so obscured; on the other, it meant that its future was always tethered to Need for Speed.
To the rest of the world, Speedhunters was the go-to spot for authentic car content. The staff wasn't filled with pandering marketing majors; instead, they were real gearheads who went everywhere you wished you could. Household names like Larry Chen and Dino Dalle Carbonare filled the pages with beautiful and, honestly, inimitable shots. A fantastic team formed around them, and for years, Speedhunters was the dream outlet for shooters everywhere.
'I submitted my first story in 2009 to Speedhunters, and was offered a 12-month contract in 2010 to contribute regularly,' explained Paddy McGrath, one of Speedhunters' most prolific photographers, over email. 'It was a junior role, but I was straight out of college and pretty much into my dream job.'
Of course, it was. Everybody—myself included—wanted to be a part of what was going on there. I remember pitching a story about a built Mk5 VW GTI that was local to me in hopes of being published on Speedhunters. (Spoiler: I never was.) A close friend of mine was just getting into car photography back in 2015 or 2016, and I wanted to become an auto journalist. Erik Cullins was kind enough to let us drive and shoot his crazy VW, even though it never resulted in any coverage. Ah, to be a teenager again. @jasonthackerphoto
By then, Speedhunters was everywhere. McGrath covered European events, while Carbonare hopped around Japan and captured lore-worthy meets like the Daikoku Parking Area. Chen was usually in North America, shooting everything from Formula Drift to Baja and King of the Hammers. Meanwhile, Brad Lord was holding down the fort in New Zealand. And if a full-fledged staffer couldn't make it to an event, photographers lined up to work for free as part of the IAmTheSpeedhunter program. This was a clever initiative that enabled readers to post their photos on the site, effectively giving Speedhunters free content and also netting them some solid full-time talent down the road.
'Like so many people, I read Speedhunters nearly every day growing up,' another contributor told me. 'It had the perfect mix of drifting, JDM tuning shops, crazy builds around the world, projects, and brilliant adventures. It was so influential in my life and shaping my automotive hobby, and I even got in trouble in school when I changed the background of the school notice board PC to a Speedhunters watermarked pic.'
McGrath stepped into the role of Editor in Chief around late 2017, where he served for roughly two years. Every contributor I talked to spoke highly of his tenure, saying that the Speedhunters Slack was super active and engaging throughout that time. That same creative energy regularly spilled onto the pages of the site.
'As my progression into taking pics of cars and motorsport grew, the goal always remained to just have a picture published on the site,' that same anonymous photog told me. 'By 2018, my brain melted when I had the first piece of my own published under the IAmTheSpeedhunter program, and it was like the best day of my life in 2019 when I got asked to become a full-time member of the Speedhunters team.'
Things were moving, and fast. Speedhunters was publishing four to five stories a day at this point, every one of them featuring original reporting and photography.
'It wasn't always easy,' McGrath admitted. 'There was nearly always some sort of internal politics at play, but I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunities Speedhunters afforded me. I got to experience things I never would have otherwise, got to work with some of the very best in the industry (Dino was one of my biggest influences long before Speedhunters), and it gave me the opportunity to grow and learn as a photographer that I likely would not have been able to do otherwise.'
All the while, Chen's automotive celebrity grew. One of his last contributions to Speedhunters in 2017 proved that, as he was invited up Pikes Peak to capture Ken Block conquering the mountain in his Hoonicorn Mustang. 'Behind the Scenes of Climbkhana' featured some genuinely iconic shots, including the one where Block nearly slid off the 14er, only to save it at the last second.
You could make the argument that, during these years, Speedhunters hit its peak.
While everything was humming at Speedhunters in the late 2010s, big changes were set into motion. Chen left the site in 2018 for Hoonigan, and a year later, he started his own YouTube channel. While that was the most visible switch-up, another was taking place behind the scenes.
'EA, whom I had been dealing with for payment on stories from the start, were replaced by Scene-Media, and their people suddenly became involved in the running of the site and handling payment,' a contributor told me. 'All creative ideas suddenly became directed by Scene-Media, it felt, rather than the editorial team.'
This is where Ben Chandler comes in. Chandler, the director of Scene-Media, had long been associated with Speedhunters, having contributed there since 2013. His company eventually took on a much more active role, elevating him to Speedhunters' commercial director. He was put in charge of handling sponsorships and other business relations, as his title implies, but several sources tell me the transition was a massive flop.
Now is the time when I say that I reached out to Chandler repeatedly for comment, but did not hear back. As such, it was impossible to verify these claims made by several ex-colleagues. Speedhunters Creative Director Mark Riccioni, also of Scene-Media, failed to respond as well.
'[Ben] was a fun guy,' one photographer told me, 'but working with him was very difficult.'
Another said that once Scene-Media took over regular operations, 'the wheels started to come off the Speedhunters project.'
The most common gripe amongst the contributors I spoke with was that Scene-Media not only lacked communication but made it next to impossible for others. This allegedly involved disabling the key Slack channels that creators used to pitch stories so they could 'save a few bucks.' Site output was stifled as a result, and the collaboration that made Speedhunters what it once was faded away.
Several people told me that Scene-Media's communication problems went beyond the pitch process, too. It allegedly resulted in delayed payments, with contributors receiving mixed instructions about invoicing. 'With communication taking weeks, it turned out to be impossible to pitch stories, and getting actually paid for them seemed like a myth,' one creator explained.
Indeed, another told me that 'money went into this black hole at Scene or something and didn't reach people doing the work.' They said they were paid $150 for a story that took three days to assemble, but people from Scene-Media 'still suddenly had multiple sets of TE37s' on their cars as a result of corporate partnerships.
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One major point of contention was the Speedhunters merch store. For one reason or another, the site was never able to get that part right, at least not for long. Scene-Media had a deal with 'a designer guy in LA' to get the online storefront up and running, one source told me, but it never resulted in any gear being sold.
Contributors even went as far as volunteering to run the merch site in hopes of getting some of the money, but Scene supposedly shut that down. They pointed fingers at EA, saying the company 'won't let us' due to 'licensing.' Suspicion grew among the contributors that Scene didn't want anyone else controlling the merch since it was such a potential moneymaker.
All the while, activity on the site slowed as a result of the pitch bottleneck. The work that did get published was stellar as always, but without most of the main personalities that drove the site to stardom, it didn't get the same recognition. This is when Speedhunters began disappearing from public consciousness.
Speedhunters survived the pandemic years and even managed to post daily through 2024. It did so with a host of new faces and names on the site, some of which simply appreciated the chance to be published. Others, however, quickly picked up on the dysfunction.
'I had the (questionable) honor of being an 'official contributor' after writing multiple stories over the course of around two years,' one photographer wrote in. 'When they asked me to become official and therefore paid, I thought I made it big, only to find out none of the glitter was actual gold.'
Another creator who had been there for years told me they were 'kicked out after [they] questioned some stuff internally that didn't make sense.'
By the end of it, contributors say Scene-Media was micromanaging photographers, down to telling them what camera presets to use. Certain wheel brands allegedly weren't allowed to be shown on the site, and one photographer told me that Scene even imposed a ban on all Hoonigan content. Scene allegedly passed it off as Hoonigan's rule, but when the photog asked a Hoonigan employee about the ban, they claimed they never heard of it. When I asked why they would do that, the source said, 'I think it was to make Larry [Chen]'s life difficult, practically, because he was doing so much' with the brand.
Now, Chen's work shows up everywhere. He has a regular deal with Hagerty , as well as several major corporate clients, from Pennzoil and Acura to Yokohama, Sunoco, and more.
With the usual content now off the table, contributors struggled to get stories published. According to more than one person I spoke with, they have hundreds of photos and multiple stories that could have been posted years ago, but now they're left to sit on hard drives because their sell-by date is past. It's wild to think that high-quality work from internationally recognized photographers wasn't enough to be published in the last days of the site.
From what I'm told, sirens started sounding internally after NFS: Unbound launched in late 2022. That game received its last update in February 2025, and EA put out a press release saying no more would follow. With NFS on pause indefinitely, EA apparently has no use for the car culture site that influenced millions.
'I've read the comments online, and it seems that everyone is pretty quick to lay all of the blame on EA, which I don't think is right or fair,' McGrath said. 'Speedhunters would never have existed without them, and they kept it running for 18 years, despite the fact that Speedhunters never really adjusted to the times.'
EA even built a new Speedhunters site that was set to launch in early 2025. However, it never went live, and the last glimmer of hope was a merch store relaunch that saw all apparel sell out before things shut down again.
'At the end of the day, EA's business is selling video games, and if the NFS franchise is on hiatus, then it really doesn't make sense for Speedhunters to still be around when NFS isn't,' McGrath added.
Eventually, in April, the last story was published to Speedhunters—one about installing ITBs on an NSX Project car. Each person I spoke with said the site shut down without so much as a word from Scene-Media or EA. One photographer said they only found out after flying internationally for a story; he was told through a group chat started by some of the other contributors. Speedhunters, as it has sat for the last several months. Speedhunters
And even after we reported the news last week about Speedhunters going dark, none of the site's bosses have posted about it online. Brad Lord, the site's editorial director, was the lone member of leadership to respond to my request for comment. He politely declined.
In theory, if another Need for Speed game drops in the future, Speedhunters could return. It's completely dormant for now, though as one source tells me, the site isn't being managed or monitored closely. While the most recent post that's visible now is titled 'A How-To Guide to ITBs With Project NSX,' another was supposedly published after that by a rogue contributor and later deleted.
'Any contributor can hit publish on a story,' the source said. 'Like, I could go on there and publish something right now, almost certainly, unless my password's been deactivated,' which they admitted is 'probably likely at this point.'
Other parts of the site remain frozen in time. 'If you go to the top banner and you hit 'More,' and you look at the photojournalists and Speedhunters crew, it's an old list from like 2017,' they continued. 'They couldn't figure out how to edit that.' Speedhunters
At least one former contributor wishes that Scene-Media would turn the site over to people passionate enough to carry the torch, even if they don't get paid. 'I can almost assure you a group of the contributors would have carried it on and said, 'You know what, fine. We're gonna take IAmTheSpeedhunter submissions, we'll review them, we'll publish them, we'll publish our own free stuff, this can just become like a free blog. And it's like nobody's getting paid here, everyone understands that.' The passion was there, but not with the people who actually control the budget.'
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McGrath acknowledged that Speedhunters' unwillingness to evolve beyond written words and photo content may have been its undoing. 'We did try going the video route, but ultimately the budget wasn't there and at the time, the formula for 'YouTube Car Guy' content hadn't really been figured out,' he recounted. 'If anything, I recall the low-quality style vlogs being a bit cringeworthy at the time, and we wanted video to match our high standards of photography. As we now know, that wasn't the correct path, and quantity over quality is the way forward now.'
Ultimately, Speedhunters is still a valuable property with real brand cache. That's likely why EA is holding onto it, even though practically nobody there knows much about it. 'I would be shocked if it doesn't come back in the future,' McGrath admitted. 'Perhaps the time offline will be good for Speedhunters in the long term, and that it can regroup and come back with a fresh approach.'
Here's hoping it's not gone forever.
'Speedhunters always tried to shine a light on parts of the car world that others wouldn't touch, and I still don't think there's another outlet out there like it,' McGrath reminisced. 'It's a damn shame that it's gone (for now anyways) but that nobody really noticed it was gone for almost three months is telling.'
Y'know, I don't think I could sum it up any better than that.
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