Hoovies Garage has 1.3M subscribers compared to AARs a little over 300K subscribers.
Streetspeed717 has a seven figure subscriber list and has a bunch of expensive cars including lambos.
So yes the popular guys channels seem to rake in cash.
I watch Dave Ramsey videos sometimes and he could invite Randy from AAR on to his show and say “don’t be like this guy” as Randy seems to manage his finances the polar opposite of what Ramsey preaches.
If Randy was to get demonatarized by YouTube he’ll be back living in the trailer park he rose up out of within a matter of weeks!
However I was talking to Ryan aka Auto Archeologist here not long ago about his barn finds channel and he said he’s lucky to get $100 from an episode. He said a lot of some channels big subscriber lists and views are inflated by being able to buy fake views, and reports of how much some channels make is highly exaggerated. So hard to tell where the truth lies.