All-time best (and worst) passenger rides: McLaren F1, a stolen Vauxhall & broken ribs | Episode 40

I'm driving really quite hard and I have been for quite a long time and nobody's noticed.

Hello and welcome to episode 40 of the EVO podcast. I'm here with Henry Catchpole,

Dickie Meaden, John Barker. How are you doing? Good, thanks. You guys have been having some fun in

some old French hot hatches recently. Yeah, we did. Well, it's an issue that's about to come out

or maybe is out by the time this is uploaded. But yeah, we did that just before the end of

the year, actually. Yeah, it was a fun day. Yeah. So we've got three kind of iconic late 80s,

maybe just into the 90s, cool them 80s for convenience, hot hatches. So

really early Citroen XGT, 205 GTi, 1.6 and a Renault 5 GT Turbo. So we've got three kind of

three A-list French hot hatches. Yeah, I wasn't on this one, but the pictures look incredible.

Just like the lean angles and the sleep and everything. Yeah, it's when French cars were

very French, weren't they? Yeah, I think that's what you notice, actually, isn't it? When you go back

that far, if we'd had the equivalent like golf or something, it would be very

straight laced and well built and still fun to drive, but totally different character and the

design of it and the national kind of automobile traits and attributes are very much there,

certainly with the French cars. And yet they're all very French, but they're all completely

different from one another. I'm quite familiar with the 205 GTi because we had one of those on the

80 series tests. Yeah, that was 1.9 wasn't it? Yeah, but the other two I haven't had any exposure to

really. Are these all quite obtainable cars these days or are they kind of on the up

value wise? They're all on the way up. The AXGT is super rare, I was looking at. It's partly the

reason why the test came about, actually. So I know we mentioned the driving heroes guys quite a

lot, but they've been super helpful to us recently. So Lloyd gave me a call to say he just happened

to have taken into stock this sort of Timewalk AX. I think it had been in storage for 20 years or

something and it had been recommissioned, but it had done 39,000 miles and it was an early car,

so if you're a real AX nerd, it's a phase 1A. So steel wheels and no like a small,

very, very small wing or maybe no wing on the tailgate whereas the later ones which

more the car I remember had the quite distinctive four spoke black and polished alloy wheel and a

little sort of dinky little raised wing on the back, fundamentally the same car. Do you have

Gen 1 and 2 for the 5 GT? Phase 2. Yeah, phase 2. So body colour bumpers, different wheels,

body colour bumpers and didn't have that sort of tweet it's own overheat question.

Yeah, basically. That's better, better calling and the other charming attributes,

tend to forget. Did it overheat on the test? No, no. No, because they fixed it,

because there's a Gen 2, I don't see, go keep up, please. I think we had a little bit more

power, 5-force power, more something. This one had a little bit more than standard. About 20%.

So were these three like the big hitters in period for hot hatches? You had GTI as well.

Of the French ones, yeah, and then you'd have the four, you know, various Fords and Vauxhall,

so Astra GTE and XR3i, I suppose. So I mean, yeah, if we could go back and do an

era's test with 80s hot hatches, it would be hilarious. There'd be all these weird and wonderful

things experimenting with turbocharging or like the Renault engine.

It's like a 1960s, originated in the late 50s. It's like push rods and yeah, overhead valve,

which they then put a little T2 Garrett turbocharger on. This one had a period upgrade,

yeah, it had a side part. Yeah, I think it had had a turbo rebuild. The engine had been looked at,

but not upgraded. So it was running a bit, I'd probably 20 horsepower more, actually. So it's

140 horsepower rather than 120, which is quite a big gain. And it was running, they used to do a one

make like Renault 5 turbo cup thing, which had a side exit exhaust, which it had as well.

But it fundamentally, it was still very true to what the standard car would be, just had a bit

more of it. Yeah, it's quite amazing how the hot hatch has evolved, isn't it? Because now we've

got Civic Type R, which is almost like a Super Tourer rather than a traditional hot hatch.

Yeah, it's a big saloon car, isn't it? I mean, grapes and things. Yeah, these were very much.

The AX, I think, spoiler alert, but the AX was the one that John and I fell in love with,

I think, because A, because it's rarity, because it's super quirky. And I think the AX as an example

of a super mini just across the range, it was, I think the diesel did a hundred MPG.

Really? I was on the launch. That's how well it was.

I think they drove from Dover to Barcelona or somewhere, but it's a thousand miles and they

did it on 10 gallons of fuel. So it wasn't some weird hypermiling, hypothetical thing.

They feel brimmed it with that amount of fuel, drove it to Barcelona and did 100 miles to the

gallon. That's really cool. In the mid 80s. How does your release weigh? 745. A little bit more than

but there were some models that were under 700 kilos because it came out of, they had this

French partly government sponsored development idea to make cars more efficient. So the AX,

although it looks fairly conventional compared to most. It had a super low CD, like drag value,

but Tony designed it, I think, and then so super cool little car. Yeah, yeah. So it came out of

that. So, you know, very light and very efficient. Driving those quickly must be like a total reset

compared to modern stuff. Well, I wrote in the story, he said John and I were doing the driving and

the driving heroes guys had helped us out as well. So there were three cars, obviously,

and asked them doing the photos. But from time to time, John and I would scuttle off and we'd be

chasing one another on. And it's a perfect road. So some of our kind of favorite local roads ideal

for for those sorts of cars. And I wrote in the story, but it occurred to me, I'm driving

really quite hard and I have been for quite a long time and nobody's noticed.

That's like, why is that tilted over like that? We weren't going very fast at all.

But you discovered that on the 80s test. Exactly. Down a good road, you're so involved with what

the car's doing. The speed is irrelevant. Yeah. And then you look down, you're sweating and you

look down, it's 50. Well, it's perfect for the road. But you just have to plan like the

some of them have got I think the Renault five was the only one with discs all around.

So the 205 and the AX had drums on the back. So the brakes still fine because they're like cars,

but no brake turns. Nothing kind of stops and changes direction like modern. So used to just

turning the wheel and the car goes what you want. And the balance is very neutral and the bits

that aren't so neutral are kind of softened by the electronics with ease. They're much,

they're softer and they're, you just have to predict and just make your inputs earlier and

then feel what the car's doing. And actually, I can't, I'm sort of committed now. So I can't

to lift off. So everything's really quite gentle. So the inputs are probably more

critical than they are in a modern car. But the consequences, unless you get it

catastrophically wrong, are that you're just in these playful cars aren't going at offensive

three-figure speeds. Because on the one hand, you're getting lots out of the car,

but you're not going that quickly. But at the same time, you're kind of committing

so hard relative to the limits of the car that you really don't want to make a mistake or misjudge

something. But you say that, but as you discover from your release, you can correct things,

things come back to neutral more quickly. This is less mass. And more slowly as well, isn't it?

Yeah, and they're much smaller. So you've got, you probably got 15 and AX or well any of them,

actually you've got 50 or so, more of your own lane. You've probably spin it in the lane if you

find. So I know they're fab things. Yeah. I mean, what was the most horsepower I think it was

probably must have been the Renault. The Renault 5 was like 120 horsepower, like stock.

And the diesel one is talking about that in the electric version of the Renault 5 in period as

well. Really? Yeah. Yeah. It was a manual North America, did they sell it? But it's basically

led us in batteries underneath the bonnet. Yeah, it's kind of, yeah, it was them. That must have

terribly. Yeah, but led in the nose. Yeah. Range of like 30 miles or something. But

did you guys drive them in period then? And was this more like a revisiting or?

Well, yeah, you put you. I didn't want to look at John, but

phrase your question. Yeah, go back to black and white passing you guys.

But I actually for a long term, I think it was one as auto car motor, I had the choice between

an AX GT or a Daihatsu Shura GT-Ti. Oh, that's a cool car. Yeah. Another cool car. And I took the

AX and I kind of wish I'd taken the Daihatsu just because you just don't see

the dirties or anything. And that was that was a three cylinder 12 valve turbo engine 99 horsepower

and it handled probably lift off oversteer. So that was fun as well. But the AX was a bit

disappointed because it came with the other wheels. I always thought the steelies were so much cooler.

But that car we had so light and when you're cleaning it, all the bits of body work. Yeah,

the quality of the interior, I mean, it's, you know, we wouldn't stand for that. It's amazing how

much the equipment's gone up and the quality that we expect from just the most humble cars.

Red pinstripe round the glovebox. Which was like sort of food packaging.

Yeah, Mr. Kippling. And the teeniest, tiniest little rev counter. It's probably a smaller

Daihatsu than the, well, microphone, the wine bottle. Yeah, two liter door bin.

But yeah, it's a clever little car. Yeah, I think it's sold fairly soon after the test,

didn't it? Yeah, some blow. Chris Harris, I think. Never heard of it. You ran it in for him.

Yeah. No, so he snapped that up. He's already got one. I think he's trying to corner the market.

Have a monopoly on AX duties. So they've all gone. So the 205 was for sale and I think that's

sold. I think the five had already sold, but the guy brought it along to the test. The other thing

about those cars in period, I think the 205, one of my long term cars was a CTI, which is a convertible

version. You can imagine how wobbly that, but it was still fantastically live and agile.

But they all had this, all the tariff hives, GTIs had this driveline shunt that you had to learn

to drive around because you come off the throttle. It's just an early fuel injection, wasn't it? I

think that's the issue again, the quality that we expect these days. I remember the one on the

nearest test that got in and I was like, it's just broken because it was just like trundling

around and not happy either. On a throttle, they were always like that. Well, you had one on the,

I'll crash one and win this stage.

What? I beat you in the sore of firsts.

Literally. It's not into the stadium, but in the stadium.

In the stadium. Oh, right. Okay. It was a race of champions.

It was Miami Blue on 0.9, that was. Yeah, it was. Yeah. Well, yeah. With one headlight,

with one headlight. Yes. Yeah, that was great. We're on that test. We were, we'd managed to

blag our way into the race of champions. They misunderstood grand challenge, basically.

Oh, right. Yeah. So they'd laid the course on the actual pitch. Zyna Neal Carey bought a football

and because he wanted to play football at Wembley. Great idea. I took a call from my no ex

and she said, what are you doing today? I said, well, I'm at Wembley. She said,

what are you doing there? From that point, the ball came out, trapped it, kicked about.

It's a plain football course. That's bizarre. You've got to change your rooms.

On off. Yeah. How's your clear going, Henry? It's, yeah. What's going?

It's going. It's driving me. They drive it every day. So yeah,

every day is a French hot hatch day for me. So, yeah, it's going much better. So I took it to

Beanie Sport, who actually fairly close to here. I don't even know if you existed until kind of,

by chance. So you've got a 1-8? 1-2-2 cup. Yeah. We've both got packs on it. So,

and yeah, it's great. It's kind of, because it just got to that point where it was,

everything was starting to feel kind of noticeably more baggy. I knew there was,

there were lots of little things that we kind of needed doing, but I kind of needed a specialist

to have a look at it. And yeah, lo and behold, 15 minutes away, was Beanie Sport and took it

there one Saturday morning and yeah, just pushing in like, the brake lines go across the rear axle

there and they eventually kind of go through. There was a needed engine needed, probably sort of

doing stuff. So, got all that done. Yeah, proper refresh. So I start stuff like the

passenger seat, the runners doesn't sit down. So it's like a 90s DTM car with movable ballast

is done. He's happy, yeah. So I've been belting that in for a while. Just loads of random joy.

And so, yeah, took it in there for a couple of weeks. Awesome. And it was nice as well,

because it was, he was able to have a look around it and actually go, yeah, it's going to cost,

you know, this much. So it's three grand, I think in the end put into it. But it was work,

he was like, it's worth it. It's not kind of, it's not a car that where the rest of it's,

you know, rotten and going to fall apart in the next, you know, 5,000 miles or something. So,

so, yeah, it was really, it's great. It's really nice. That was such a nice reset after driving

modern stuff. Oh, it always is. Yeah. It's dropping that simple front drive, great chassis.

Yeah. It doesn't like this time of year very much, because you kind of have to leave it for a day.

Quite the insiders and wheelchairs. But yeah, it's great. Big old engine, tiny car.

It's great. Your golf's going well with Caprice. Oh, yeah. Being recommissioned.

Yeah, the golf's over 170,000 miles. Well, the funny thing was chatting with the

Chris Porritt. Yeah. One of the earliest tests, he bought his M3 along, didn't he?

And Jen, I said, yeah, it's still on the original dampers.

It's still on, yeah. Wow. It feels great, your car. I know. It's 170,000 miles,

it's still on the same dampers. So yeah, hopefully it'll keep going forever, because I just love it.

Yeah, you know. Yeah, if you're a passenger in it, it just, you could knock the one off and you'd

believe him that it's done 70,000 miles. It still feels really tight. Not many squeaks or rattles,

or they're those like on that squeaks. Oh, what's that? Now he's not in here. It's perfect.

My set chord was the same, actually. No squeaks or rattles. Yeah, 1.9 TDI. Yeah.

This goes strong. That's so funny. Whenever I see you drive off in that car.

There is a growing rust patch on the front wing, though, which I need to get sorted,

but other than that, don't even service it, just drive. Getting lighter all the time.

Shedding weight. Cordova Scuderia. Yeah. It's like a sorbet, isn't it? Yeah. Between these,

you know, rich courses. Yeah, absolutely. I do need to pitch that to Stu, actually,

maybe doing a sleeper project with it. Yeah, RS5 engine spot. Oh, RS3 engine spot.

Four-wheel drive is the works. Yeah, we've got the RS3 in the car park.

Yeah, we can try it right after this. That's probably a good point to have a break.

Yeah, join us after the break. We're going to have, we haven't got your biscuits this time,

John. See, nobody else brings anything. Yeah, that's fair. Well, we'll search for some biscuits

and be right back. As you can see, we found some biscuits. And second off.

Furiously masticating.

Right, okay, back on topic. So we're going to go through some of our most memorable passenger

rides. Before we do that, because whilst I was having biscuits, I looked up the name of the

electric Renault, which is called the Electric Leopard. Electric, not electric.

Sixteen.

Good trivia. Too good not to share.

Wonder why I never put on. So, John, you've got a list of passenger rides that you've had over

the years. Yeah, obviously, I've got more than anybody else, because I've been around a long time.

Does he reforge in the Model T? Carl Benz before. Yeah, in the Benz patent motor riding.

A bit breezy.

So we'll, yeah, just run through them.

Sorry, Paul.

Anyway, anyway, yeah, so, yeah, well, I'll give you the first three and you can pick one if you

want to.

Yeah, Stefan. Stefan Rosa and a Yellowbird on the launch life. Very cool.

A chap called Gordon Ableton who had a 2000 horsepower Pro-Mod Camaro, which is the pod

just down the road, or Jonathan Palmer in a McLaren F1 on the roads around Castle Coo.

Okay. I mean, Yellowbird is corking out. Yeah, let's copy that.

Okay, so I wasn't actually going to go for a passenger ride. What we did, I think you

remember this, Dickie, we did a feature on the video that Ruff put out.

And we printed this thing and we got a call after a while from Roof saying,

so you ran a feature on our video, did you? Because they tracked where the magazine had

been gone to different countries and they kept getting these calls from people asking

for a copy of the video. VHS.

VHS video. So we got chatting with them and we persuaded them to let us run a competition

for a couple of readers to get a ride at the Nürburgring Nordschleife with Stefan Rosa.

Wow.

So that all got arranged and it was a chap called Tim Kelly. I think he's some sort of

car insurance assessor type guy. So he and his buddy, I think we actually lent them a car and

they drove down. We met them and then next morning at the Nürburgring with the Yellowbird

with Stefan Rosa. Was it the Yellowbird? It was the Yellowbird. Was he wearing V. Loford?

He was wearing them, the white socks, yeah. So it was all cool. Back then this would be the mid-90s,

a lot quieter on the Nürburgring. In fact, I don't remember anybody else being there.

So Stefan had turned up with his car and we had a quick chat and then put Tim in the car

and he went off around and he came back and he was grinning for me. Really? He said,

that was fabulous. He said, you've got to have a go. And I said, well, you know,

I wasn't that keen. But he said, go on, have a ride. So got in the passenger seat.

And it was fantastic. If you watched the video, the length of the slide and the amount of smoke.

But it wasn't scary because it was like he was driving in the rain. It was all so pinched

and so predictable and so long. It was just fantastic. So yeah, that was brilliant. And then

photographer Don Fraser, I said to Don, you've got to go for a role in this.

And so he went off a few corners later. A few memos. Exactly.

He'd been going round, had some back down the straight, the double right-hander,

rising right-hander. Over flue plots. Yeah, he was going through there and the rear tyre blew.

So he managed to bring it to a halt on the side of the road.

Did it go in the wall or was it? Was it fine? No, it was fine. Okay. And we were sort of,

well, what do we need to do? He said, well, bring the spare. There's a couple of spare tyres in

Bocalon boot with spare wheels. And then he said the classic line. He said, oh, this always happens.

So yeah, you get three laps out of them and then you get an explosion.

So yeah, it was every bit as good as you would hope it would be.

Did it scare you at any point? No. Because like I say, it was like

some really talented driver top of his game in the wet. The speeds didn't feel that great.

I remember Dom saying it was scary after they changed the tyres because it threw the balance

of the car around. It had more grip at the rear than it did at the front. So he couldn't

make it. Neutral. And then it was just really... He said, I hate understeer.

It was so far ahead of its time that film, wasn't it? Yeah, great.

Last time we had a really good story about that issue because they had,

they kind of thought we're going to do all this and they had the helicopter there,

which is a pretty big investment they're doing. Same as our first time. And this

video guy had never really sort of done this before, hanging out this other helicopter.

Comes back down and they're like, oh, you must have got some amazing footage. You went,

no, my shoe came off of the vest and let you go. He got nothing the first time at all.

So he sent it up. He had to send it all up again to do the whole thing.

So sure, come on, spread out the door. He's so worried about kind of...

Stop everything. Stop the cameras.

Yeah. So it was great. Yeah. So yeah, brilliant.

Dickie, what have you got?

Ah, loads. I've got... I rode with Mark Webber in the Arrows 2-seater 4-1 car of Dalginton.

I look back at the pictures and stuff. They're very fresh-faced Mark Webber.

Was this like early 2000s? 2000s. I think it was 24 or something.

I think it was Arrows test driver and it was a Formula 3000 driver, I think, Ben.

So that, what else have I got?

U-Haul Cancunen in a... Again, quite a long time ago, in a Celica...

Castro, Celica, WRC car. Or Keckie Rosberg around the Nürburgring in a stolen

Vauxhall I would pull over again. That one's ticked my interest.

Which only came to me when we were thinking about this. So

Opel used to do a big annual launch of their motorsport season. So across all the different

categories in the good old days when manufacturers did lots of different formulas and disciplines.

So they had like super touring cars it would have been then because it was in the mid-90s-ish.

Vauxhall Lotus or Opel Lotus single-seaters and they were doing DTM as well. So that's why

Keckie Rosberg was there. Because he was driving a Calibro DTM car. So they had all these people

there and lots of older drive, ambassador drivers and stuff. So you get, we had a few

passenger rides in different things. And then somebody said, oh would you, they knew Keckie

Rosberg better. I was just tagging along and they said, oh would you take us for a ride around the

Nordschleife. So I was like, oh you know, okay, yep. Don't have a car but I'm sure,

I'm sure Opel have got one somewhere. So we all tagged along and it, you know,

four of us plus him all squeezed. It's, oh look, the Sora, this big Omega estate car. And it was

open, the keys were in it. So Keckie said, oh I must be one of the PR guys car or something in the

paddock. You know, there's a lot of stuff in here. You know, like sweets.

We all got in it, drove round and we had to pay because it was a tourist day. So we paid the

money and then we got in. He's going really quite quick in this tire's howling and we're

like sliding across the back seats. And he's telling us about racing there and other stuff.

And then they used to run DTM cars there. So he was explaining about that. And we were like,

Jesus, this is getting, our car's getting a bit, our brakes are smelling a bit.

Kept going and he got to the last, last corner and it was lucky was a comedian because he built

up to this. Oh, I remember in Formula two, I was qualifying as Galvan. Galvan Cof. So the last

corner and so there's dotting of straights and I tried to, I thought I could take this flat and

qualify just as we're approaching the quarter out of the mini carousel under the hill.

And he left it and we're like, and, and, and he said, I crashed.

Ready to come down, down the straight, back off. Broke, brought this kind of smoke, like tires

were shot, brakes were smoking, just pulled up, left it in gear, walked away and it transpired.

It wasn't there. There's nothing to do with, though, Paul at all. I think it was some bloke who

just was like cleaning the ground. It's got no brakes and tires.

Brad, that's not my car.

Yeah. Yeah. So we just, well, this car, we put it back where it was with no petrol, no tires,

for a blue brakes. That just wouldn't happen today, would it? No. Wow. That was a good one.

That's so good. Henry, what have you got? Nico Halkenberg in the AMR Pro Valkyrie.

Pro around Silverstone, pretty mega. Sebastian Loeb in C4, on gravel. That was

very cool. Jean-Pierre Nicola in 9-11, they were cheering on open roads. That was pretty wild.

And wasn't he called Jumbo? I didn't call him that.

His nickname was Jumbo. I don't know why, but it's just a thing, he's doing Mrs Nicola.

I don't know.

So now we've got to hear about that one.

So many good passengers. I still remember as well as a slightly different tack, but

so many of my early days at Evo were sitting next to you two, round Bedford Autoday or

Milbrick. But it was the best time. It's on deadline now.

It's kind of different sort of throat. But that was, so many of you have had memories of actually

spending, I used to love that because it was, I learnt so much from just sitting in the passenger

seat and watching most of you on what not to do. It was so expensive to see like switching from

completely sort of, particularly on those fast club days where you'd have a complete mix of

machinery and just going from one to the other and just being able to sit there and feel what

the car was doing, seeing how to get the best from it. That was amazing.

So what are we going to get, Henry, to off his sebblobe sounds?

Where was it? Was it on a little stage or an actual stage?

So it was on the sort of test stage just near Parallel, about two hours away from Paris.

And he was, as you'd expect, like super cool kind of just hanging out all day.

And it was the main thing I remember about, see things, how calm he was in the car,

just completely relaxed. It was the year I was doing the rallying and the Suzuki Swift as well.

Yeah, we were good.

Chat to him about it's a common thing. That how calm they are.

He was beyond kind of chilled. Yeah, given, especially given what the car was doing,

because it's sort of quite rutted towards the end of that as well. This is weird sort of natural

jump. You go straight down the steps, you sort of take off going down into the step and you

can't the other side. And the pictures in the mag literally look like you can walk underneath the

car to the point where you sort of take off, go, wow, this is a big jump. And then you can see

to go, this is still a big jump. And you knew there was a corner up there somewhere. Because

it's co-driver seat is nice and low. So he's thinking kind of just land, hit the brake, turned in,

and it was sort of you're breaking all the way through this left hander up into his hairpin.

I just remember he seems to take an absolute age to sort of pull the handbrake. It was just sort of

down he is and just, you know, yeah. And then there's a long right hander which had all these

ruts. And remember, this is the side slide window sort of dust coming in through there.

He got something in his eye half with it and he just didn't, no lifting, just absolutely flat out,

just kind of breaking. Just like a pirate. He did the lobes of pull the belts down at one point

as well. And just remember how he, it's like, he has that gymnast background, but his feet didn't

seem to sort of almost rest his heels on the floor. It's like they were just up there the whole

other side. It was absolutely that we needed to pull the seat for.

Same problem as your Clio, isn't it? On the run.

Yeah, exactly that. Was that your first time in a proper WRC car?

I think I had possibly was actually. I can't remember. I've been in, because I sat next to

Chris Meek a few times over the years. Actually, that was another Chris Meek in a van.

Yeah, he's Meg. It's a Citroen Dispatch van because I turned next to him so we kind of knew each

of them well. And it was just a press thing. It was down at Silverstone. And the last time I'd

been there, I drove his Persia that he won the IRC and we sort of got in it. Paul Nagel was there

as well doing absolutely nothing because he wasn't needed for the day, but there was 2016. So it's

just before they were about there, just signed their big contract for the following year and

rule changes stuff. If we got in this Dispatch van and it was a completely standard van, so it

presumably went back into the system after this. It was off road. And we just approached his corner

and it was, I mean, Chris is unbelievably, one of those sort of lots of rally drivers and I was

loathing up that he's pretty naturally talented in terms of just the speed he carries into corners.

Incredible. And then just this van sort of, and we just laughed the whole way around,

local radio. I genuinely had no idea how he made that van go so fast, so sideways.

And he was on the loose. I was on the loose as well. Yeah. And he's just thinking like, this is right.

Standard engine. It was absolutely hilarious. Cool. I've got two options. So I've got

Yari Matty Latvala in a GR Yaris road car on snow. And then the other one is my

brother-in-law around Blyton Park in a Mark 2. Yeah, that's the one.

What were you in? So the backstory was he'd never done a track day before. This was his first track

day and he'd bought this Mark 2 MX-5, like totally standard on different tyres at each corner.

But we just thought, right, it'll do the job around Blyton. And I've got a little sim at home,

and I had him in that around Blyton Park for like a good 40 or 50 laps. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not

the best model, but it's vaguely like tells you where the circuit goes. And I remember for days

we were just on this sim and he was getting actually really good. He'd never driven quickly before,

never driven a sports car. And I was like, he's like on the pace now. He's really like surprisingly

good at this. So he was really confident going into the day. And first session he went out and

it was like he'd done maybe five or 10 track days before. He was absolutely on it, like comfortable

with the car moving and everything, braking late, right lines. And I was like, oh, he's really,

I was just silent in the passenger seat watching him. And then he was getting into the groove as

well. And then second session is where it started to go a bit wrong. So my dad was on the same

track, but he was in like a little kick car, like a seven style kick car. And my dad, like halfway

around the lap, he'd spun and gone to the inside of the circuit on the runoff. So like nowhere

near the track. And my brother-in-law was going through this corner with a long left handers.

And I see like the orange little kick car on the inside. And I'm just thinking, I hope he doesn't

lift now because he's fully loaded up. And he's seen the danger and he looks at the car and he

lifts. And I'm like, oh no, what do I do now? I can't grab the wheel. The car loses the rear.

And we're going straight for the kick car. And I'm thinking this, this can't be happening. Like

there is no way. This is near the end of the lap. I think it's called bunga bunga.

Yeah. So we're going for it and like doing a good bit of speed, like 40 or 50 miles an hour.

And I'm just watching it and fall thinking this, this is surely not going to happen. Like there's

no way. And we smack into the side of the car. Yeah. Yeah. Like full speed. And we're fine. Like

I'm in the car thinking, damn it. That's really annoying. Like we just damaged both of our cars.

And I just hear like my dad wailing in pain. He's broken his ribs in the car. Oh no. And I'm like,

this is, this is just insane. And I think the thing that gets me with that is. Is he son-in-law

at that point? He was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it was quite early. I was like, good luck, mate.

So yeah, I think the issue there was like, first of all, it was just totally surreal,

like red flag, cars had to be traded away, chassis was bent on the kick car,

MX-5 was nearly written off. So it was like bad hospital afterwards with my dad and the passenger.

So it was like really, really bad. But I think the issue was that he'd, on the sim, he'd got to

a really good level where he knew how to drive quickly. But then he didn't have the experience of

kind of don't look at the thing you want to avoid. Yeah. Because you get that with experience,

don't you? You kind of learn that. But he was driving at a speed that was beyond his experience

in a way. So when it came down to that moment where he looks at the car and lifts, those are

the two things you kind of don't want to be doing. But it just, it just caught him out of it. So yeah,

that's a, I still tease him about it. Right, John, what have you got next? Well,

there's, let's see if there's JP and the McLean F1, but there's Walter Rawl in a 907

turbo on a, I don't hear about Johnson Palmer in the F1. That's kind of, yeah.

Let's do that. Let's do that. That sounds spicy. So before, before we were allowed to have the

McLean F1, we were kind of arranged with McLean that we were going to do a feature on it. So there's

a bit of a, you know, learning about the car and meeting the people all the rest of it.

So they invited us down to Council Coom to have a ride with JP who was doing all the customer

demos at the time. So myself and Jason Barlow, who was the sub, went down there because obviously

there's two seats. And JP was doing some, I think he was doing some damper testing and it was slightly

damp. And at one point, there's one of the technicians was standing on a tail lift,

slipped over and really tweaked his wrist. So JP came in, he's, oh, oh, oh, oh. And this guy was like,

he said, what's happening? He said, you tell me you're the fucking dog. Which I thought was quite

rude. Anyway, so he broke off from his damper test, dude. Broke off from his damper test, you know,

me and Jason got in the passenger seats. And you do, in a McLaren, you do feel like your

saddlebags, you know, if somebody had pretty close to the edge, outside edge of the car on you at

that point. And you also, because it's got a roof air intake, you get the full noise of the V12.

And it is epic. So we, we got circuit, we come to a little T-junction, it's all very nice, you know.

And he's going, well, it's probably tractable, you know, fifth care and all that. And then we

get to this junction. But we go sideways at this junction, hair off down the road. And we're,

we go like a couple of three miles down the road. And I look across at Jason and Jason looks at me.

And we're both thinking the same thing, which is, well, at least if we die, we're going to make

newspapers. So, so we go down the road and he turns around, he comes back again. And I'd never

forget. It was a 90 rides and then a very short straight and then a 90 left. So we come hearing

through the 90 right. And there's a, there's a hatchback just about to break and turn left. And

the next, and I think, no, no, can't, no. But overtake the catchback before it gets into the

corner. Oh, Jesus. So yeah, that was, that was the full JP experience with plan F1.

I think JP was the, he would demonstrate it to prospective customers, wouldn't he? So I think

that's why there's a few of them, he sold 100% of them. He was their sales prevention officer.

Well, I think he was relieved of those duties some time later. But yeah, JP were full, you know,

hair on fire. Yeah, yeah. With the full performance of McLaren F1 on the road. That was

unforgettable. But he kept it on it. Yeah, kept it on it. Yeah. Yeah. Just ridiculous.

Dicky, what were you thinking? A more, a more recent one. Definitely. I know we've

spoken about your Bergmeister before, but bloody hell. I was going to mention, we both have the

same, and I've had one since as well. Two corners in full body sweat. Yeah. 992 GT3 RS

launch. Oh, wow. On the GP circuit, Jesus. It was on our cup ours. So a step up from the tire that

we'd been on driving. But I met him once or twice before, but don't know particularly well, but he's

such a nice guy anyway. So you just get in and say hello. And I said, right, I want a full,

qualifying, absolute maximum quality. You don't have to ask. I don't know. Maybe they're just

You see the driving. Yeah. And the same flat out. Go out and we're chatting, we're building up,

first flying. Building up. We'll come through cops and we hit a C goal. That's like,

Oh, so look at one of them. Does he give us food?

Carry on. It was, and then it just got like a better stroke worse. I've never,

I've never been in a road car that's been driven. I don't think I've been in a race car that's been

driven that hard. Well, the way he could break into corners into the apex.

It's like everything, every system was kind of screaming that to try and keep the car

like the ABS tires and he's the big sausage car. Well, the inside and

changes. So that way at the end of the, the one that you just think the one you don't hit exactly

that is the abuse he gave him. There's an absolute absolute beast. You can't believe you go so

quickly, but you can't believe the car can do what it's doing. You're on. I know a couple hours

are kind of street-ish, but they're still street tires and he was, we were coming down the Wellington

straight at Silverstone, which is into the sort of complex, isn't it? And he looked across and said,

I'm breaking as, I'm pretty much breaking here as late as I would in a, in a GTE like,

wow. And it was just the best thing. And he was playing around with the DRS and he was

saying how he uses it in places like, yeah, it overrides the car system and is just so good.

I remember I came back in after Mike, because you had your passenger right

first and I came back in and I came and found you in the pit lane because I was so sort of

discombobulated by it. I'm thinking, well, that was just sort of absurd. It's so far sort of,

and I've never raced it, so I was saying, yeah, can you just tell me that you were quite repressed?

To me, we're like, it was like a different car on a different circuit to what we've been.

You kind of come in and say, I have done well on the limit. If you saw the beta.

Oh, no. It's crazy. I've been in with him in a GT3 in the dark on a Porsche Silverstone

Experience Center. Sorry, not Silverstone. It was Germany somewhere. And what struck me was,

you think of racing drivers as really smooth and economical with their inputs,

but the way he was hustling it and just like, he turned in four or five times and feel the grip

and yeah. Because I always say, he and Walter were pretty much exactly the same lap time,

but in totally different ways. And from a filming perspective, you know absolutely

which one you want in the car. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So I got a ride with

David Leslie and Anthony Reed in the same, it was the Nissan Primera GT launch around,

is it Anna, the one on? Sicily. Sicily. Yeah. Were they on the circuit at the same time?

Well, you had a ride with David Leslie and then you had a ride with Green. Oh, I see. Okay.

And there's a bus stop there, which is all, you know, they've cut the corner many times. So there's

massive dips if you're off the lock. David Leslie, precision, smoothness. And he read.

Bang over the first one. Bang over the centre one. Probably doing the same lap time. Yeah. Yeah.

Car is probably going to last. I mean, it's brilliantly, brilliantly deranged.

Yeah. Yeah. The Yorg is going to be my life in cars.

Into the next issue. Oh, very cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's a lovely guy. His personality is the

total opposite of his driving style. Yeah. Yeah. He's not the angriest man in the world,

doesn't he? Where the buyers have come to sell. And then he presents like, hi, guys.

Yeah. He is a good man. Right, Henry, what have you got last one?

Mark Higgins on the All-I-Man, TT Poe. Yeah. So this wasn't the famous kind of sort of,

I wasn't the poker face of the first sort of, I was there that day and I saw,

saw him or Mark come out of the car and just like, whiter the sheet and go give his toe the hug.

Because it was just like, that was nearly it. This is a famous YouTube clip. You can see this.

It's worth finding the one where it's got, there's one out there that's got the pedal cam

in there as well. And you can see just how busy his feet are. It's like, exactly.

Think at some point. It's kind of silly. Yeah.

But no, this was when he went back and they did the full-on pro drive.

And that was a proper thing, which he said was much better because it was actually designed to

cope with everything. So, although it's much faster, but the pressure of doing those laps was

obviously that, you know, they didn't wind it all the way up because the last thing I wanted was for

the cut to have an accident or for the engine to go off and dump a load of fluid on the circuit

in front of it. So he was, yeah, properly, I think he didn't really want to go back and do it.

Because you could only get on the circuit at certain times, couldn't you? So he had minimal

laps before, you know, having to go for it. Yeah. So he'd wait up by the pub sort of,

up there and that's where they parked the car because he had to, they couldn't afford the

time to go and do, obviously, full laps. You could see the helicopter and he was literally

sort of like almost sort of down and wall just trying to keep absolute sort of focus about

what he was about to do. But the reason I sat next to him was they had between

times sort of after the races, they'd do the sort of the course closing cars or course

opening cars and they had, you know, kind of two or three Subaru in practice to drive round.

And I jumped in with David Evans, the rally correspondent and we went round and we were

the first car out and Mark would then talk us round the lap there and he was again, it's closed.

So you could actually, you actually got a proper sort of look at the full TT circuit and sort of,

yeah, right, you're picking up this curve, picking up this curve, you're all way out into the bus

stop there at the, coming into all sort of Ramsey and stuff and then up over the, and we had a,

when we come out towards Windy Garden as well as the left hander and it's proper sort of fresh air

sort of off into the morning. We came through there and it all went very quiet on the car

and the hearing's fine.

And yeah, that was, because that's three times the length of the Nurburgring,

yeah, that's 37 miles. Great thing where they put all the different circuits inside the

TT circuit so you don't get one of these bits of wall art. What did the car feel like?

Car felt sort of, it was four up and kind of,

I thought it was a well, yeah, but it was, no, that was, that was a really,

that was an amazing experience for a sort of, for both, obviously here with Mark and

knowing for some time by that point, but

Yes, either of those things in isolation would have been great then, but together.

And one of the, I'd gone across there actually,

under my own steam, because I'd been sent to my father for years,

oh, you know, we've got to go, I'd been a couple of times before,

you have to go and sit and he loves the TT and watch stuff, but he'd never been there.

So I'd, for his birthday, bought the fires we found to the airport, got a bus down to Douglas

and we'd stayed there and then went stood at the bottom of Great Hill. Then after I'd booked all

this, the invite came in sort of from Subaru saying, oh, you know, John, to cover this.

And I said, well, I'm kind of on holiday, but I'll kind of, I'll go and sort of,

you know, I didn't know there was going to be passenger riders.

And then I'd been out in the morning session and then in the afternoon section, I'd

sort of go out and we'll see if there's a spare passenger seat in one of these

cars. So he didn't go with Marby, he went in on the electric. So his only time to go

there and he had a lap of the circuit, which was, and sort of, you know,

literally as they were about to go out, sort of taps on the windows,

spare seat and bundle them in there. Exactly. So no, exactly. But yeah, it was one of those sort of

lovely things to be able to do for him, sort of like, you never repay your parents for kind of

all the stuff that they've done for you. But that was kind of sort of one thing where actually

she's frightened the living day likes how to. Yeah, exactly. And this is

yeah. Come out all gray. You never did buy me the right.

Cool. I think we'll all probably call it there. Thanks, guys. Thanks for tuning in and see you on the next one.

All-time best (and worst) passenger rides: McLaren F1, a stolen Vauxhall & broken ribs | Episode 40

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