How auto enthusiasts find joy in 'carspotting' expeditions

On a recent warm spring evening in New York City's Soho neighborhood, Gail Longstreth and her boyfriend Will Thibodeau went on a "carspotting" expedition.

"It's actually a beautiful day for carspotting, so I'm hoping we see some good stuff," Longstreth told ABC News. "And it's Friday evening or afternoon so hopefully people will be out driving their fun stuff."

Longstreth and Thibodeau are both full-time automotive influencers, making videos for Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Longstreth -- better known as "Gail's Garage" online -- is known for her "carspotting" videos, which consist of her walking around and documenting the cool or notable cars she comes across.

"I'm really enthusiastic about air-cooled Porsches, and I would say Land Cruisers and any old Japanese SUV, or JDM [Japanese Domestic Market] cars in general, so those two things -- and then cool BMWs," Longstreth said.

It didn't take long for the two enthusiasts to stumble upon their first spot: a bright red Mercedes Benz SL from the early '80s parked on a downtown cobblestone street.

"Old SL -- that looks really nice," Thibodeau said.

"It looks perfect on that street -- see that's the fun thing about New York," Longstreth added, noting that the city offers images you can't get in suburban settings.

Longstreth recalled that she started filming carspotting videos about a year and a half ago.

"I was doing the carspotting in my head on my commutes to and from work and everywhere else and just decided to start documenting it one day because I was thinking I have so much fun doing this, and I think other people do too," she said.

Car enthusiasts responded in a big way. Gail's Garage videos get anywhere between 20,000 to, occasionally, over a million views.

"For the most part from me, in any given video you're going to get pretty much the same thing, and -- doing exactly what we just did 'oh there's that cool thing' and then explaining it a little, and then moving on to the next thing," she said.

Recent Gail's Garage videos have highlighted top-end Mercedes S-Classes, modified BMW M3s and imported Mitsubishi Delicas.

"You hear stories all the time of little kids that are peeking through the window of the dealership and seeing a Mustang for the first time -- that's carspotting in its purest form," Jeremy Malcolm, public relations manager at the classic car insurance company Hagerty, told ABC News.

He says the carspotting hobby has been around as long as the car itself, but first cropped up online in the mid-2000s.

"There was a website called ExoticSpotter.com. And that was one of the first outlets for carspotters to take photos, publish them, and share them with the world," Malcolm said.

He noted that the website was where a lot of the biggest names in the modern automotive space got their start.

"You think of Doug Demuro, who's one of the biggest car reviewers in the world," Malcolm said. "Guys like Schmee150 started his YouTube channel as a carspotter -- he's got millions of followers now."

Back in Soho, Thibodeau -- known as "Captain Crankshaft" online -- recalled how his history with carspotting started in those early days.

"Like Gail, my first word was 'Car' -- I loved cars. And again I would just walk around and see cars and be so excited," he said. "I got into photography at a pretty young age so it was just me taking pictures of all the cars I saw and documenting them on social media."

But Thibodeau noted that he came of age during a time when it felt like his generation was losing interest in cars. Experts have told ABC News that people born after 1996 -- commonly referred to as Gen Z -- are waiting longer before getting their drivers licenses than previous generations.

"It was a bit of a dying hobby especially when I was getting into it. I was the only kid in my high school who cared about cars. I started a car club and I think three people joined and we didn't have any meetings," Thibodeau said.

However, Malcolm said it's a common misunderstanding that young people don't love cars. According to a 2024 survey from Hagerty, 60% of Gen Z are interested in one day owning a collector car.

"So more than millennial, more than boomers -- like Gen Z are bigger collector and enthusiast car fans than any other generation," Malcolm said.

Gail's Garage videos document everything from vintage Bentleys to the latest Ferraris, but Gail herself said the best spot she's made in the city is a lot more down to earth: a Mitsubishi Pajero Mini.

"It was so cute -- and also I think a very practical city car. Because it's still an SUV and it's older so it has a good amount of interior space, but it's very compact little car. And it looks good on the streets. I mean that's hands down the best car I've ever seen on a New York City street," Thibodeau said.

Longstreth and Thibodeau noted their focus on unusual cars is driven by a real enthusiasm, but also by the fact that unusual and quirky cars are often more accessible to the average person.

"I think showing off cars that are cool and charming and still scratch that enthusiast itch but maybe don't have that price tag that a lot of hypercars have is really compelling," Longstreth said.

Thibodeau noted how those are the kinds of cars he likes "buying and building" for his videos.

"It's really fun seeing someone getting excited over something that you actually could have," he said.

To that end, Longstreth recently made a car purchase of her own. Next to her daily driver, a Toyota RAV4, now sits a used, first-generation Porsche Boxster from 2000, which she says she purchased for $4,000.

The old German sports car "does not currently function," according to Longstreth. Her next series of videos will document getting the car roadworthy again.