> The friend who saw conspiracies everywhere built a following. Then an audience. Then a 7-figure income stream.

That person is almost certainly a grifter. If I was dishonest enough to do it, I would to.

It isn't that difficult if you are reasonably articulate, look reasonably tidy and can upload a 20 minute video once day to get an audience. A lot of these people are simply choosing a "side" and then repeating the talking points.

There are people that make 10-20k a month just reading the news and many of them aren't even good at doing that.

> A lot of this goes away when you stop spending so much time on social media, which is a very poor reflection of "reality."

It mainly "too much time of political social media". You can always tell.

What you find is that a lot of people will be repeating talking points and/or catch phrases without putting much thought into it. A lot of this is fed to them by people who are essentially evangelists and many of these people I am convinced are given they talking points, because they all say the same thing at roughly the same time.

> Prominent figures on social media change their minds all the time, but they'll re-sculpt their reality around the basis that they were always right anyway

They can do that if they are getting a decent turnover of new viewers. That doesn't work too well when their fanbase is declining.

If you look into the UFO land which is the worst for this and the most obvious because often the claims are ridiculous. What often happens is that someone will be outright exposed for being a fraud e.g. someone proves that a video was fake. They will then disappear for a few months or maybe a few years. During that time, many more new people would have filtered into the community and many won't look into that person's background.

There is a large number of people that appreciate being told the truth. That model actually works better over the long term.

Grifting (which is what is often seen on social media platforms by many of the personalities) can give you large rewards quickly however you are always at risk at being found out. Once they are exposed, it is often usually over for them.

You can't, unless you a Saudi billionaire. These things are completely custom, are hugely expensive (why they have sponsors all over them) and often they will have work lined up for literally years.

You also wouldn't want one. They cannot be driven on the road really as they aren't legal. They will also break a lot. Generally the more tuned a car is the more maintenance it needs.

If you are interested in cars, you are better getting an older vehicle and somewhere to work on it e.g. a garage and working on it as a hobby at the weekends. You will learn a lot more and can actually enjoy it.

You can have one built; you just call Vermont Sports Car lol.

Yes, price is a major factor.

No, you are completely incorrect on street legality; and way far from the truth lol

The basis of a WRC rally car is that it is indeed street legal; and is required to be driven on the public roads with a proper license plate in between the stages of the rally.

While I agree with your comment about learning more by doing the work yourself, you don't need to be a billionaire to acquire one of these. Yes, they are expensive. A typical pro-level WRC spec WRX STI rally car from Vermont SportsCar goes for about $600k. They are actually very reliable though. And thats a bargain compared to just about any modern hypercar.

Rally cars also must be street legal because they are driven on public roads between stages.

It isn't that simple. I've been learning to work on my own car over the last few years. I'm not even doing anything crazy just fixing up an older vehicle and modernising some parts of it (mainly interior).

I had to fix the wiper system. The wiper system you would think it wouldn't matter much whether the parts are aftermarket or not. I was very wrong, parts that even look almost identical may not work properly, due to differences in tolerances.

There is also different revisions of particular parts and it will become obsolete. You can lose an afternoon on the internet just doing that.

Then there is the tools. I've spent about a small fortune on tools. I have 3 torque wrenches, 3 sets of sockets, 3 sets of spanners and loads of weird specialist tools like special pliers. There are many jobs I can't do myself because they needs specialist knowledge to do properly e.g. gearboxes.

You have to be prepared to spend potentially years on it and huge amount of money, even on relatively simple projects.

There is a reason that a lot of guys get into old 4x4 pickups and do those up, because they are a known quantity and parts are readily available.

As someone building a particularly stupid car in a genre almost but not entirely unlike the OP (a turbo LS1-swapped Rover P5), I am not totally making stuff up when I say that this:

> You have to be prepared to spend potentially years on it and huge amount of money, even on relatively simple projects.

is not at all mutually exclusive to this:

> Honestly, just learn it like anything else.

I didn't really know what I was doing when I started my project. I had an idea and the desire to make it happen. I barely knew how to use a MIG to do the fab work, so I got good (enough) at it. I knew nothing about LS engines, so I learned enough about them at each point I needed to know something about them. I only have a vague idea of how I'm going to do the next phase of it; I know that I can figure it out with enough thinking and by making all the mistakes I need to make. I don't know how to TIG, and it'll be really useful if I do, so I am learning how to TIG.

Start somewhere, and the more you do, the more you can do.

> As someone building a particularly stupid car in a genre almost but not entirely unlike the OP (a turbo LS1-swapped Rover P5),

I have no idea why people do this stuff to a nice car like a Rover P5. It isn't my car though.

> Start somewhere, and the more you do, the more you can do.

Obviously. But I had to do a lot of stuff that I wasn't prepared to do far quicker because the previous person who doing this took short cuts. I almost had the dash catch fire because someone did a bodge job on electricals instead of paying £15 for the correct part (a plastic plug).

The point I was making is that you are making it sound far simpler than it actually is. There been a good few weekends that have been sunny and I have honestly felt like I was wasting my time and couldn't face working on it.

I had to fit a new turbo and it took me about 3-4 weeks. Not because it was difficult (actually it one of the easier and nicer jobs IMO), it was sourcing parts around the turbo such as gaskets, copper washer kits and other dumb stuff like that.

There was constant trips to tool shops because I was always missing like a tool, trying to find a fitting/gromit in Halfords (they never have it) or a parts supplier 40 miles away in the sticks. It all adds up in both time and cost.

Now I know roughly who the order from, what I should order from etc. But that is going to be different for almost different manufacturer and worse if the stuff is more niche/custom.

The amount of the projects that get given up, suggest it not that easy.

(I don't know why your comment got flagged. I vouched for it; whatever we might argue about here, I don't think you're out of line in any way.)

I actually feel everything you have said apart from this P5 being "nice" (it was fucked). Like turbo delays - I had that on my other project, and going from "I need a new turbo" to "I have a new turbo and things adjacent to the turbo" took damn near a year by itself. I know how this goes!

So I hope I did not appear to say that it's EASY. I've put in enough hours to know that it's not, and if it was everyone would be doing it anyway. It does in fact take a lot of time, and willingness to learn, and plain old determination, and money. I will say it's something that IS possible, and that I still agree with this:

> Honestly, just learn it like anything else.

But...I suppose we'll know that for sure once I have an actual working car, right? :)