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#WhyWeWeld: Backspeed Boys
Lenny and Noah, better known as The Backspeed Boys, are fabricators from Southern California. They got their start on their YouTube channel in 2019. Today, we talked with Noah to learn more about them.
In this interview, we’ll see their early life, social media growth, favorite car projects, biggest challenges, and plans in the car industry.
Buy, Repair, Sell
We started by buying a broken car, fixing it up, and then selling it to make some money. The whole intent was to get enough cash to buy the next car. With each flip, we made a little more money and got closer to the dream cars we wanted, the ones that cost around $10,000 to $20,000.
Noah says they just kept rolling the money into the next car — that’s how they slowly built everything up.
Our first car was around $1,800. After fixing it up, we sold it for $3,000 and used what we made to buy the next car. Then we bought a car for $3,000 and sold it for $7,000. That’s pretty much how it all started for us, and we were able to keep moving forward from there.
Creating the Backspeed Boys
After Lenny and I got into the groove of buying and flipping cars, we thought, “Hey, let’s start doing some TikToks, it’ll be fun!”
Once we started doing that, everything went really well, as we were telling a story of what anyone could do when buying and selling cars for profit. That only pushed us to keep going further, as we wanted to keep pushing that story.
It started to evolve into more than just buying, fixing, and selling. It turned into us showcasing full engine swaps with the cars we picked up, or even simple jobs like fixing a set of headlights.
The channel was growing fast, so we knew we had to post more. We started sharing our videos everywhere — TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts. That’s when we decided to turn it into our full-time business. Sponsors started reaching out, and we began earning money from YouTube. We quit our jobs and went all in.
The first year was really tough. We worried we might have jumped the gun a little and moved too fast. From there, we decided to post short-form videos every single day — no breaks. One short a day, seven days a week, for all of 2023. That consistency helped us build the audience we needed and really get the ball rolling.
Once the channel had enough traction, we got a shop. Now, our biggest focus is YouTube long-form videos, and the shop is strictly for making content for YouTube.
Building the Dream
Lenny did a full LS swap on his 1972 Jaguar XJ6, where we put an American V8 into it. We were lucky to work with many different companies on that build, and lots of sponsors provided parts. The car turned out really nice, and it absolutely rips.
The hardest part was fitting that big LS engine into the small engine bay of the Jaguar. We took our time with that one, as it is one of our first dream builds we were able to fulfill.
Right now, Lenny and I are working on a Chevelle build. I built the motor, and we’re swapping it into the car. The transmission is ready too — a strong T56 Magnum. Typically, we upgrade everything, not just the engine. Once the engine and transmission are in, we’ll add new brakes and upgrade whatever we can. These projects take a lot of time and money, but the channel we’ve grown makes them possible.
With our channel, we go through so many cars that we’re constantly cycling through new builds. It lets us really learn each vehicle inside and out.
As a car guy, it feels amazing to have the privilege of being able to own and work on so many different cars. Without the channel and our audience, it really wouldn’t be feasible. We’re grateful to be able to see that vision through. Currently, we own about 15 cars.
New Vehicles Present New Challenges
We had a steering column that we had to wrap the headers around, and that was extremely difficult. Then we had a V10 BMW M6 that was very challenging, as it presented so many obstacles that we had to overcome.
Oftentimes, the biggest challenge with any given vehicle is one of the dumbest things you can imagine. One time, we refreshed the motor on a 1974 Camaro. We did the headers, cam, full suspension, and brakes. We did everything to that things, but we were still having issues.
It turned out to be a small wire with a bit of corrosion that nobody would normally look at, and it had to be replaced. When I first saw it, I didn’t think it was an issue at all.
Driving Forward the Future
For most cars, we don’t really miss them when we have to sell them. Once we’ve made all the content we can, we usually release it back into the wild. We just don’t have the room to keep all of these cars.
So our rule is simple: sell a car, get the next one. It keeps us moving forward and pushes us to learn more about each car we work on.
We’ve taken some of our cars to the track and thrown on sticky tires, but we’ve never really put down great lap times. We don’t mind — we just love the cars. A dream car we really want to get our hands on is an older Ferrari, like a 360 Spyder or one of the more affordable classic Ferraris.
Learning from Classics
We learned everything we know from classic cars. They’re the easiest cars to work on, so the classics were our go-to originally. We learned the basics from those cars, and then began to try German cars. That meant dealing with some serious German engineering, like the CL600 with its twin‑turbo V12. We also got our hands on a BMW V10 and another BMW twin‑turbo inline‑six.
We’ve gone through some of the scariest German cars to own, and we had to learn about them and figure out how they worked. For those, we would have to scour forums online that would explain how to do things.
One time, Lenny had to replace a solenoid valve on his BMW M5. He could not find any information online at that time. So he had to ask BMW directly. It was really hard and challenging. Sometimes we have to contact specialized technicians and mechanics for specific jobs just to figure out what to do.
Join the Backspeed Boys’ Community
Our community on YouTube really determines what we work on next. We’re always checking the comments to see what our audience wants to watch and what kind of cars they’re excited about. It’s very important to us — we make the content for our audience at the end of the day, and we have to do what they want to see.
If it were totally up to me, we’d probably be doing more classic cars. They’re easier to work on, and they’re my favorite things to work on. We enjoy all kinds of cars, but we always prioritize our viewers.
We also want to inspire people. We have no formal training — we’re not car geniuses, and we’re not mechanics. We’re just two guys on YouTube who want to show people they can work on their own cars, too.
The Backspeed Boys can best be found at their website https://backspeedboys.com.
You can also follow them on YouTube @BackspeedBoys.
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