My initial reaction was hate, hate, hate when I saw a photo of this 19-year-old standing on the hood of a brand-spankin’ new 2018 Acura NSX but then I realized these Youtubers just might be what Acura needs.
As a self-proclaimed Honda and Acura fan, like so many car enthusiasts, I’ve put the NSX on a pedestal. So when I saw a photo of this youngster standing on the hood of a brand new NSX, it made my blood boil. Marcus Dobre, half of the Lucas and Marcus youtube channel, posted up a photo of himself standing on his NSX earlier last week (Feb 11, 2018.) With his curly blonde highlighted hair and nonchalant devil may care stare, without knowing anything about the kid I immediately assumed he was pulling off some kind of prank photo. Surely, a kid this age couldn’t afford a new NSX. But then I remembered this is 2018 and there are Twitch streamers and YouTubers regularly buying Corvettes and GT-R’s.
Not wanting to spend too much of my precious time /s researching who this kid is, after a bit of googling around, I learned as much as I want to learn about the Youtube duo that is Lucas and Marcus. Gifted with athletic abilities, they’ve made a name for themselves first, off the new defunct Vine, then transferred over to Youtube where they both now have 7 million subscribers. That’s huge. That also means a lot of money. According to Social Blade, they’re pulling in somewhere between $300,000 to $5.5M in advertising money a year. Good for them.
It doesn’t stop there. Their older Dobre brothers also have their own Youtube channel albeit with ONLY 2M subscribers. Looking at Social Blade again, they may be pulling in anywhere between $100,000-1.7M annually.
It’s safe to say that all four brothers combined are millionaires. Again, good for them.
It looks like the older brothers decided to treat their younger twin brothers with a new NSX, which is surprising to me. When I think of young YouTubers choosing an exotic car to treat themselves with or to gift, Acura does not come to mind.
Apparently, the Acura NSX name and more importantly, the second generation NSX, has made quite an impression with a few of the younger crowd.
And here’s my point. Acura’s got a whole bunch of younger millennials scooping up the first gen NSX’s, mind you, at a premium because they can afford an Acura supercar in the $30,000-$50,000 range (crazy…but that’s another story.) But a $150,000 to $200,000 supercar? Most millennials can only dream of that.
But to get these Dobre brothers into an NSX is important for the NSX name and for Acura. Acura needs a youth demographic if they want to stay relevant. They’ve brought the tech, a new look, and the speed. But bringing the cool is a whole different story.
I hope these Dobre brothers do more with their NSX on social media, youtube, and whatever social media platforms they use, more than standing on its hood that is. Have some fun with it guys. Don’t break the law obviously. But get it out there.
The NSX is fast. The NSX is fun. The NSX can be for the youths.
