In late 2024, fans of Roadkill, Roadkill Garage, and Hot Rod Garage started seeing cancellation announcements, a streaming service shutting down, and a corporate sale — all at once. It’s easy to look at all of that and think “MotorTrend is done.”
But that’s not quite the full picture. What’s actually happened is more complicated than a simple shutdown. Some major parts of MotorTrend are gone. Others are still running. And the brand itself has changed hands.
This article breaks down exactly what has ended, what still exists, why these changes happened, and what MotorTrend looks like going forward.
MotorTrend Is Not Shutting Down Completely — But Large Parts of It Are Gone
Let’s clear this up first: MotorTrend has not been liquidated. The brand still exists as a cable TV channel, a website, and a content archive. What has ended is a different matter.
Here’s what’s actually gone or winding down:
- In-house original show production has stopped
- The MotorTrend+ subscription streaming service is being discontinued
- Most print magazines under the MotorTrend umbrella were cut years ago
In December 2024, Warner Bros. Discovery sold MotorTrend Group to Hearst. That’s a sale, not a liquidation. Hearst already owns major automotive journalism brands like Car and Driver and Road & Track, so MotorTrend is now part of a larger publishing portfolio.
The distinction matters. A business can close major divisions without the brand disappearing entirely. Think of it like a restaurant chain that keeps the name and lets people order from the old menu — but has shut the kitchens and stopped creating new dishes. That’s roughly where MotorTrend sits right now.
MotorTrend.com and its apps remain active with free digital content. The cable channel still airs existing episodes. The back catalog is accessible. What’s gone is the engine behind creating new content.
The Shows Are Canceled — Here Is What Was Confirmed
On November 18, 2024, David Freiburger publicly confirmed that MotorTrend told him his shows would no longer be produced. Freiburger was one of the most visible faces of the MotorTrend original programming lineup.
The shows affected include:
- Roadkill — 13 seasons
- Roadkill Garage — 9 seasons
- Hot Rod Garage
- Faster With Newbern & Cotten
- Roadworthy Rescues
Episodes that were already filmed but not yet aired will still stream on Max and Discovery+, and will air on the MotorTrend cable channel in 2025. So there’s still some new-to-you content coming through the pipeline — just nothing being actively produced.
Past seasons remain available to watch. Fans aren’t losing access to the archives. But under current ownership, new episodes are not being made.
It’s worth being clear on one thing: what’s confirmed is that MotorTrend has stopped producing these shows. Whether any of them could ever return in some other form, under different ownership or on a different platform, is not something any source has confirmed. Stick to what’s known.
MotorTrend+ Is Being Shut Down as a Standalone Service
If you were a paying MotorTrend+ subscriber, here’s what you need to know.
Warner Bros. Discovery officially announced that MotorTrend+ will be discontinued as a separate paid subscription. It’s not being replaced — it’s being absorbed. Around 1,000 hours of MotorTrend content have already moved to Discovery+ and Max, with thousands more hours added through March.
Current MotorTrend+ subscribers are being transitioned to ad-free Discovery+ at similar pricing. So you won’t lose access to the content — you’ll just access it through a different platform.
What’s staying free is the digital side: MotorTrend.com and its apps continue to offer news, car reviews, and shopping tools at no cost. That part of the business is still running normally.
This kind of move has become familiar across the media industry. Small niche streaming services are expensive to run and hard to scale. When the parent company is under financial pressure, consolidating niche platforms into larger ones is often the first cost-cutting move. MotorTrend+ is just the latest example of that pattern.
Why This Happened — Warner Bros. Discovery’s Debt Problem
None of this happened because MotorTrend specifically failed. It happened because the company that owned it was under serious financial strain.
Warner Bros. Discovery has carried roughly $37 to $41 billion in debt, as widely reported in financial coverage of the company. That level of debt led to credit downgrades and forced aggressive cost-cutting across the entire business.
WBD’s response was to consolidate. Fewer platforms. Fewer niche operations. Content moved onto larger services where it could be bundled and monetized at scale. The MotorTrend Production Studio — the in-house arm that created new original shows — was closed as part of that broader reduction.
Niche content tends to be the first thing cut in this situation. Automotive enthusiasts are a passionate audience, but they’re a comparatively small one. When a conglomerate is trying to pay down tens of billions in debt, a car show with a dedicated but limited fanbase is not going to be protected.
This is a pattern that plays out across industries, not just media. When large parent companies face financial pressure, the specialized divisions that serve narrow audiences — even loyal ones — tend to be the first to go. MotorTrend’s story fits that template almost exactly.
For a broader look at how media and business restructuring tends to unfold, Master Business View covers these kinds of corporate shifts in practical terms.
What About the Magazines?
The print decline at MotorTrend actually started well before the 2024 changes. Back around 2019, TEN Publishing — the magazine arm within MotorTrend Group — announced it would discontinue 19 of 22 automotive print titles.
That list included well-known names like Automobile, Lowrider, Truck Trend, Vette, and 4-Wheel & Off-Road. Those magazines are gone from print.
So while the 2024 streaming and production changes feel sudden, the truth is that MotorTrend has been trimming its business model for years. The magazine cuts in 2019 were the first major wave. The streaming and production cuts in 2024 were the second.
What Still Works and Where Things Stand Now
Here’s a quick summary of where things actually stand:
- MotorTrend.com and apps: Still active, still free. News, reviews, and car shopping tools continue.
- MotorTrend TV cable channel: Still airing episodes, including already-filmed content through 2025.
- Back catalog: Available on Discovery+ and Max.
- New original shows: No longer being produced under current ownership.
- MotorTrend+ subscription: Being shut down; subscribers moved to Discovery+.
- Print magazines: Mostly gone since 2019.
- Brand ownership: Sold to Hearst in December 2024.
Under Hearst, MotorTrend’s future will likely look more like a digital journalism and brand licensing operation than a standalone TV and streaming producer. Hearst already runs Car and Driver and Road & Track, so the editorial infrastructure is there.
The Bottom Line
MotorTrend is not going out of business in the traditional sense. The brand isn’t being shut down or dissolved. But it has shed a lot of what made it distinct — original car shows, a dedicated streaming platform, and most of its print presence.
What’s left is a media brand with a large content archive, a cable channel, and a digital outlet, now sitting inside Hearst’s automotive publishing portfolio. That’s a very different business from what MotorTrend was five years ago.
For fans of the shows, the practical reality is straightforward: you can still watch old seasons on Discovery+ and Max, but new episodes aren’t coming from MotorTrend under the current setup. For anyone watching this from a business angle, it’s a clear example of how niche media gets squeezed when a heavily indebted parent company decides to simplify.
The brand survived. The business that built it largely did not.
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