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REIDSVILLE — If you’re not a regular reader of Car and Driver magazine — even if you’re not a car lover — you’ll still want to pick up the October issue.

Flip to Page 32.

That’s where you’ll read about a young man from Reidsville whose hobby of making car videos is raking in big cash.

In 2008, Kyle Lindsey of Reidsville, a 2007 Rockingham County High School graduate, turned his infatuation with cars into a pastime. He started making videos about new and used vehicles that he found on car lots and then posted them on his YouTube channel, SaabKyle04.

Now, it’s a business that is pulling in $5,000 to $9,000 a month.

Not bad for a 22-year-old in his second year of pharmacy school at Wingate University.

“I’m almost making a pharmacist’s salary now,” Lindsey says. “It’s mind- blowing.”

Growing up, Lindsey knew he wanted to be a pharmacist, but his part-time-job was detailing and taking care of the cars around his dad’s used-car dealership, Car Connections, in Reidsville.

When Lindsey started making the videos for fun in undergraduate school at Campbell University, he already knew his way around a car lot. Back then, he’d film cars on his dad’s lot, at car auctions and at dealerships he visited with his friends.

His style developed, and he has settled on an easygoing, no-sales-pitch presentation of the car, taking viewers on a bumper-to-bumper tour by demonstrating every button, knob and latch, tooting the horn, counting cup holders and talking about the car’s performance data and mileage.

“I do a little research before I go,” he says. He even makes a point of trying out the backseat, if there is one.

From the beginning, viewers liked his “kick the tires” approach.

“I was just a kid with a camera,” Lindsey says about those early days. But the number of people viewing his videos began to grow.

In late 2009, he got an invitation to be part of a revenue-sharing program by Google AdSense. (Google owns YouTube). At first, it netted him very little — about 30 cents after several months.

But all that changed in 2010, when he became a full revenue-sharing partner with pop-up ads on his YouTube channel. You have to have a large number of subscribers to make the cut for the program, and Lindsey’s fan base was growing. The first month, he made $400.

“It went up every month after that,” Lindsey says. In June, he made more than $6,000. That’s when a writer from Car and Driver magazine called.

But that wasn’t the call that really put the lump in his throat.

That call came from a staff member at the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Michigan, part of the agency that grants wishes to children with life-threatening illnesses.

A 5-year-old boy in the Michigan program had a wish to meet Lindsey and make a car video with him.

Lindsey is working out the arrangements with the foundation staff. They plan to fly the child and his family to Charlotte to meet Lindsey and make that video.

There were other phone calls and email messages.

“Usually they want me to review a particular car,” Lindsey says. He tries to oblige, searching for certain makes and models.

A mother of a child with autism phoned Lindsey to tell him that her son, who has an interest in cars, is increasing his verbal skills by watching the videos.

With the magazine article and the money pouring in, Lindsey is working harder than ever.

“I thought, 'This is my time to go all out.’ ”

He’s making 10 videos at a time and uploading several each day, giving his unbiased presentation of cars for sale.

He has presented everything from a 1948 Ford convertible — the oldest he’s filmed — to a 2011 Maybach 62 selling for $520,000 — the priciest.

Lindsey has great relationships with about 35 car dealers in the Charlotte area. He walks on the lot, they turn over the keys, and he starts filming.

His YouTube views now? His channel has 37.4 million — one of the top 10 most-viewed automotive channels in the world.

Already there are some copycats out there, but Lindsey says he’s not worried. He has loyal fans, and being the first with the idea has given him a boost.

“I hope this turns into a full-blown career,” he says of the business that is now officially SaabKyle04 LLC. The name incorporates his name and his first car, a 1997 Saab 900.

As for pharmacy school?

Well, that’s going fine, too, although Lindsey isn’t so sure he’ll end up in the white coat, deciphering prescriptions, counting pills and compounding formulas.

But it certainly gives him a backup plan .

Contact Myla Barnhardt at 627-1781, Ext. 116 or myla.barnhardt@news-record.com