Bringing Relics To Life

Dustin Jennings doesn’t see many lost causes.

When he sees old cars and trucks parked in places where previous owners gave up on them, Dustin sees a resurrection story.

Not a miracle, mind you, but close.

The laying on of hands, wrenches, pry bars, solvents, pressured air, oil, starting fluid and sparks, can continue for months before ancient motors leap to life.

Dustin catches it all in digital videos that he posts on YouTube for viewers that have numbered more than 11 million on a single project.

His diligence has netted his YouTube channel — Jennings Motor Sports — more than 290,000 subscribers.
Collectively, YouTubers have viewed Dustin’s videos 37.9 million times. His video lineup at this writing features 81 vehicles that hadn’t started in times ranging from 20-76 years.

“I remember getting my first cell phone when I was 13 and my first new welding rig not long after that,” Dustin says.

“When I bought the welder, I learned how to weld watching YouTube videos.”
Likewise, he learned most of what he knows about old motors on YouTube. He was attracted to the niche found online easily with the search criteria “will it run?”.

“There’s a lot of trial-and-error in what I do,” Dustin, now 23, said June 21 as he mopped lines of sweat from his face at his shop in Calico Rock.

Some of the error he learned from his competition on YouTube. Dustin talks to viewers constantly during his videos. The viewer seldom has to guess about the place on the motor where Dustin is working because he is talking about it.

When he pulls oil plugs from the side of an engine, he tells the viewers what he sees inside because there are places on an old motor where a head-mounted GoPro camera or cellphone camera simply cannot go.

Dustin brings a voice with a unique Southern cadence to the work and a pith that seems to enthrall many of his subscribers, like the project that “hasn’t caught on fire – yet.”

Or, the 1929 GMC truck on a factory wooden frame that almost fell apart “when the termites stopped holding hands” as it was loaded onto a car hauler.
The same truck cleared his work area of mosquitoes with a cloud of smoke it belched out after starting.

The online world rewards him for it.

The GMC with a 310 Buick motor has collected more than 11 million views since its launch in the midst of the COVID pandemic more than two years ago.

The 2019 Timbo graduate’s most interesting project lately may be a 1923 Franklin Model 10. The resurrection happened online about a month ago before myriad unbelievers.

Read the full story and view the photo page in the June 26 issue.