Who is Stef AB?

Hi everyone!

I’m Stefano, an automotive lifestyle content creator. Some of you may recognise me from YouTube or Instagram as Stef ABTV. This article explains how Stef ABTV all started and how it is now a huge part of my life. My automotive journey began at a young age. I was fortunate enough to have been exposed to many fast and exotic cars courtesy of my dad. He had some mean cars over the years including a Peugeot 205 T16 and a Ferrari 355 F1 Berlinetta. This meant that I spent a lot of my younger years drooling over supercars, performance cars and anything automotive! I was that young kid at Silverstone wearing those ridiculous oversized ear muffs smiling each time a combustion engined car would fly past the hanger straight! It was evident that I was destined to not only love cars but also have them as a major part of my life.

At 33 years of age i still drool over supercars and the GTC4 Lusso is one of my favourite cars

At 33 years of age i still drool over supercars and the GTC4 Lusso is one of my favourite cars

Many years down the line and after blowing my savings and student loans on a number of cars such as Civic Type R’s, Audi S3’s, a 400bhp Evo 8, 380bhp Evo 6, two E46 M3’s and a B7 Audi RS4 I decided it was time to scale down the engine size and begin doing the sensible adult thing and start saving for a house. I decided to buy an Abarth 595 competizione. This was a big change for me going from such highly strung performance cars back down to a 1.4 litre hot hatch. It was in fact this car that lead to a huge change in my life. The Abarth was a great car that reminded me of my youth and cars such as the fiesta RS turbo and the Renault 5 turbo. Both of those cars have an ASBO feel to them and the Abarth was no different. It didn’t take long for me to decide that the little 1.4 turbo charged engine on the Abarth was going to go under the knife and receive a full turbo upgrade later to achieve 250bhp / 288 ft-lb of torque. It was and still is the only car in the UK running this custom turbo conversion. A power to weight ratio that makes a lot of performance cars feel relatively tame!

My old 250 bhp Abarth. A project i invested so much time into.

My old 250 bhp Abarth. A project i invested so much time into.

I always knew I wanted to do this project and decided it would be a good idea to document it on YouTube but also to share the lifestyle and car culture that goes on amongst the community. This is when Stef ABTV on YouTube was born.

At the end of December 2016 I picked up the camera for the first time and pointed it at my face and filmed my first vlog. Lets just say my video production and camera presence has significantly improved over the last 20 months! I was filled with excitement to show my journey to the world but at the same time very apprehensive and anxious about what everyone would think. I was ridiculed by my friends at the time for vlogging and creating content, “whats the point” they said. I knew that creating content was something I wanted to do and so I stuck with it. Now I look back at my journey and feel proud of how far I have come in such a saturated niche with so much competition. My content has been viewed by 2.1million people to date on youtube. Its completely mind-blowing to think how many people have kindly invested their time to watch my automotive journey.

Getting to grips with my new vlogging set up

Getting to grips with my new vlogging set up

I am now fortunate enough to now be in a position where I am collaborating with brands. Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Lotus and BMW all being in the mix. Having access to press cars and being invited to press launches and events both in the UK and abroad is something that i still feels almost dream like rather than a reality. Now I find myself here on DriveTribe, where I will begin to write about my journey through the automotive world and bring you all along with me! Buckle up for plenty more content to come! Join me on the lifestyle tribe where i will be contributing more articles very soon #WorkHardDreamBig