Criticism of Carwow presenter Mat Watson: “Lost all respect”

Many car enthusiasts know the British Carwow, who gained fame with his drag racing videos. Mat Watson is the face of the popular platform, but after a somewhat brutal parking operation he is now receiving a lot of criticism.

Watson’s job did him no harm. For example, he recently bought a brand new Porsche 911 GT3 RS. An expensive jewel that he obviously doesn’t want to damage. For this reason, he occasionally takes up two parking spaces so that no one can park too close to him.

10,000 reactions to the anti-social parking campaign

This action has now brought the Carwow moderator a lot of criticism. Mat Watson’s parking habits didn’t come to light by chance. He posted a video of it himself on Instagram and asked his 1.2 million followers: “Am I evil or would you do the same?”

Check out this post on Instagram

A post shared by Mat Watson (@matwatsoncars).

That call probably didn’t get the response Mat Watson was hoping for. While his other posts have dozens, sometimes hundreds of comments, this video has more than 10,000 comments and they don’t lie. “No, that is unacceptable. It doesn’t matter what car you have. “You bought it, so you take the risk,” reads one comment with more than 5,000 likes. “Shameless behavior,” says another.

Applause for Carwow presenter Mat Watson

“So because others paid less for their car, they can suffer the damage, and because you bought an expensive car, that doesn’t apply to you?” Another popular answer is: “You have the respect of 99 percent of your followers right now lost.”

This seems a bit excessive for an anti-social parking campaign. There are also people who support Mat Watson. “I would do the same thing, sorry,” someone wrote under the video. And: “This is allowed with a GT3 RS.” Another joked: “I park my M4 in two parking spaces. If I had a GT3 RS, I would be split into three sections.”

The solution

Whether allowed or not, it only increases the risk of damage – for example from intentional key scratches – as some Mat Watson followers point out. That’s why most people agree: “Just park your car a little further away and walk the rest of the way.” Sjoerds van Bilsen also has a clever solution to prevent parking damage.