YouTuber Cody Detwiler has made a name for himself — and a small fortune — by buying expensive vehicles and destroying them. His channel, WhistlinDiesel, has 9.9 million subscribers and growing.

Detwiler made headlines in August 2023 when he shared a video of his $400,000 Ferrari catching fire while driving through a cornfield in Waco, Texas. The apparently unexpected blaze also caught his crew’s nearby rental van on fire and drew a quick response from the local fire department to put out the burning field.

Though he expressed some regret at the half-million-dollar loss, it wasn’t all bad considering he landed a contact with topflight artist management agency CAA two months later. He’s since added over 3 million more subscribers, and his net worth is estimated to be between $3 million and $5 million.

Detwiler’s most recent pet project has a distinct Grand County connection: He has now recreated the Killdozer, the modified Komatsu D355A bulldozer that Marvin Heemeyer used to destroy 13 buildings in Granby on June 4, 2004.

Killdozer YouTube series begins

On Jan. 18, 2024, Detwiler shared the first installment of his Killdozer YouTube series in which he travels to Montana to purchase a D355A from a farmer. He then shipped the 115,000-pound machine to Tennessee — but not without a 14-hour detour to Granby along the way.

For the second Killdozer episode posted Jan. 25, 2024, Detwiler and company rolled into Granby on a cold winter day to speak with local residents and workers about the bulldozer attack. Through impromptu interviews with local gas station attendants, employees at Mountain Parks Electric and Granby Town Hall, and the staff at Sky-Hi News, Detwiler explored the destruction Heemeyer caused and the reasons behind his rampage.

After losing a lawsuit against the expansion of a concrete plant across from his muffler shop, Heemeyer secretly armored his Komatsu with steel and concrete over the course of 18 months. Via the homemade tapes and improvised manuscripts he left behind, Heemeyer documented a history of the grievances against town officials, neighbors and local business owners in Granby that inspired his unprecedented assault.

This oral history combined with the mechanical prowess of his built-out bulldozer — and the sheer audacity of his plan — has led to a cult following that continues to resonate with a new generation of both engineering and anti-governments enthusiasts.

Heemeyer ultimately shot himself after the bulldozer became stuck in the basement of Gambles hardware store. Miraculously, no one else was killed during his onslaught. Although Heemeyer was the only human casualty of the day, the event changed the history and town of Granby — and all of Grand County — perhaps irrevocably.

While Detwiler seems genuinely curious about “both sides” of the story, the postscript of episode two reveals something about his personal feelings.

“My goal in the video was to personally step foot into the town where this incident occurred and attempt to uncover the truth about the situation,” the text at the end of the video states. “Almost every publication I have found online about the Killdozer incident is biased against Marvin or written by people that are said to have wronged him. At the end of the day, only you can form your own opinions on Marvin and the town of Granby. But there’s a reason why so many people idolize Marvin, and that’s why I am doing this.”

A Komatsu becomes a Killdozer

In the third episode posted March 24, 2024, the Komatsu arrives at Detwiler’s expansive property south of Nashville, Tennessee.

After driving through his gate and over a few trees, he and his crew begin initial maintenance to the machine, including a $1,300 oil change during which they purposely spill many gallons of oil over the new concrete floor of his shop, to humorous effect. They spend the rest of the day crushing objects with the dozer, including basketballs, 2x4s, a fire extinguisher, concrete bricks and an aluminum rim.

“The goal is to built it exactly how Marv did it with a couple of exceptions,” Detwiler says.

The fourth episode of the series published June 24, 2024, Detwiler reveals that he allegedly purchased the original hatch of the dozer — bullet marks and all — for $5,000. The Killdozer had been demolished and scattered into pieces in the months after the attack in an attempt to prevent people from collecting and commemorating the event.

The package also contained historic newspapers about the incident and a snowmobiling club sticker from Heemeyer’s estate sale. He sold or gave away the vast majority of his assets in the lead-up to the rampage.

After a much-needed tune up, Detwiler then takes the Killdozer out to demolish a crew member’s beloved RV before taking to a hilly field to battle industrial-size tires, a $10,000 used car and an SUV. And there’s the running gag where Detwiler accidentally runs over his grandmother.

He then checks up with WhistlinDiesel mechanic Tyler Fever, who designed the armor for Killdozer 2.0 on computer-aided design software down to a hundredth of a millimeter. They plan to add two layers of steel plating with concrete in between, the same way Heemeyer did on his own over the course of a year and a half.

At the end of the episode, he drives the bulldozer into a bonfire and spends the rest of the day clearing a field.

Two new Killdozer YouTube episodes released

The two newest installments of the Killdozer series that were released earlier this week have already racked up close to 7 million views.

In the fifth episode released July 25 called the “Grand Reveal,” Detwiler invites 35 welders to work on securing the dozer’s two layers of bullet-proof armor before filling it with concrete. The triple-proof armor added a total of 38,000 pounds to the Komatsu.

Fever then builds out the inside of the dozer with gun portholes and video cameras, emulating the original design. He also installs an outside-activated kill switch in case anything goes wrong for the driver inside as well as an escape hatch through the engine.

One improvement the crew makes to the Komatsu is the installation of additional cooling and venting systems. According the documentary “Tread,” part of the reason Heemeyer’s destructive tour of Granby came to end was because he blew out his radiator after several hours of demolishing the town.

Then, Detwiler takes his lawyer, “Sweet James,” on a joyride around the property to total a few more cars as he gets used to driving with only the cameras to see. Later, the souped-up bulldozer battles a tank in a tug-of-war and wins.

At the conclusion of the episode, Detwiler says he plans to shoot at Killdozer 2.0 and bombard it with explosives to test its durability ,before making a pitch to anyone with a mall or shopping center that he can destroy with his new toy.

In the sixth episode published July 26, Detwiler drives the Komatsu into the woods at night using only the cameras. After finding a suitable spot to camp, he uses the bulldozer to clear the ground before opening a white awning he installed on the side of the armor.

Detwiler spends the night sleeping inside the dozer, rifle by his side. Before leaving, he remarks on how well he slept and that deer visited during the night.

“It was lovely hearing the birds,” he said.