Shmee150 is the personal brand of Tim Burton, a.k.a. ‘Shmee’. He travels the world to seek out the greatest and most exclusive automotive content possible sharing his story of living the supercar dream starting from within his personal ‘The Shmuseum’ venue where Tim’s Shmeemobile car collection lives.
With a vast social media following across the world, Shmee is known by everyone from like-minded car enthusiasts to serial hypercar collectors across the globe. They follow Tim’s daily adventures including road trips, events, car rallies and many other automotive adventures further afield, while also maintaining and using his own personal car collection at The Shmuseum.
Tim shares his personal experiences in the luxury automotive world via content with an honest and personal touch that is not found elsewhere across the automotive social space connecting with fans, friends, subscribers, followers and partners via many social media streams, channels and in particular long-form YouTube video content.
Within the global world of Shmee150 you will come across many experiences featuring keywords such as exclusivity, automotive, luxury, high speed, and sportiness. Many of his fans and friends will characterise Shmee as being extremely hardworking, enthusiastic, aspirational, courteous, respectful, honest, polite and committed. Tim uses his experiences, enthusiasm and articulate way of speaking in his content to showcase the world of supercars to his fast-growing global audience.
HOW IT ALL STARTED?
The brand Shmee150 was started in January 2010 by Tim, a chance stumbling into two brand new cars that at the time you would not expect to see on the road: a Ferrari 458 Italia and Lamborghini LP670-4 Superveloce. Little did Tim know that the short film of those two cars would eventually develop into the venture it has become now.
Tim’s online following started out small, but began to grow over the next years, allowing him to leave his main job a few years after his first video. Tim did not appear in the camera frame in his first videos, instead capturing special cars. His first video on camera was driving his V8 Vantage Roadster. The video was released on July 9, 2011. In 2016, a book written by Tim called Living the Supercar Dream was published by Blink Publishing about his trips and experiences. At that time, he also started to accumulate a car collection, which we refer to as the Shmeemobiles.
Ever since that initial video, the main YouTube channel grew and grew, and is now complemented by The Shmuseum, ShmeeBites and Shwatch150 YouTube channels covering different aspects of Tim’s interests, personal collections and experiences. Shmee150 includes a network of social media channels on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Twitter.
All of Tim’s automotive content we know today is created while travelling the world, covering the most exclusive automotive events and filming some of the most incredible luxury cars in existence, or being at home at his UK-based farm and The Shmuseum personal venue. Tim might well be the only person in the world who has pretty much driven every single supercar or hypercar ever created. Can you guess which one he hasn’t driven yet?
HOW DID Tim START HIS JOURNEY?
Educated at Rugby School, Tim left school at 18 after completing A-levels and immediately set about growing an online electronics retail business that developed into a London high-street shop. The business quickly changed hands and he traveled abroad training to become a ski instructor (Tim doing tricks on skis) before teaching the sport in New Zealand. Following the effects of a major injury Tim returned to the UK and set to work with a permanent position in the technology team of an Investment Consultancy in the City of London. This proved to be hugely decisive while working in a successful and rapidly developing company in terms of the experience and drive to succeed going forward.
Alongside his retail business, being an instructor and his daily work in the City, Tim has always pursued the challenges of a life as an entrepreneur running smaller businesses and ventures. He never did one thing at a time, and when opportunities proved to be profitable, he challenged them and made sure they were expanded or acquired by other interested parties. A similar thing can be said about the period at the investment firm when Tim’s love for cars developed beyond just posting pictures of car spots on internet forums, into the ever-expanding Shmee150 platforms and all surrounding it.
When Shmee150 as a project begged for more time, proved to be profitable and capable of making a living, he took the decision to make the move away from a full time position to being able to spend time across various connected platforms to the supercar video theme; from freelance video and media work to involvement in car events and sourcing for promotional purposes. To be a little more precise, for instance Tim undertook some freelance tasks for a tech company under Non-Disclosure Agreement, some catalogue work for an auction company, got involved in a few car sourcing / commission operations, some social media consultancy tasks and ran a few websites in the car world that you might know about.
Since that move away from a daily office job, Tim has pursued many different ventures allowing him to fund the Shmee150 project and expand it up to the level it now is. The gradual growth of the brand over the first 15 years has allowed Tim to thoroughly brainstorm on how to smartly invest into his garage lineup, create The Shmuseum and build a team around him of highly capable people that currently work behind the scenes.
The latest chapter in the Shmee150 story line is Tim acquiring a private farm home in the UK countryside hosting The Shmuseum venue, which offered Tim the opportunity to place all of his Shmeemobiles, automotive memorabilia and other car-themed items in a venue displaying them to the audience who is following the Shmee150 journey. The Shmuseum and his new home also offers a place where content is made and the world of Shmee150 is coming together.
WHAT IS THE SHMUSEUM?
The Shmuseum is the physical home of the Shmee150 world. It brings the Shmeemobile car collection, memorabilia, garage projects and content production together in one place, with dedicated YouTube, Instagram and Facebook channels. Want to learn more? Explore The Shmuseum here!
