Bentley and Jaguar, holiday drivers

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Next thing I know, I heard a rip.

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Have a blast with Mountain Dew Baja Cabo Citrus.

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Hello. Welcome to the AutoCard podcast, My Week in Cars with Pry here.

Stephen Cropley over there.

Hello, Stephen.

How are you going, mate?

Very well, mate. Happy New Year to you.

And to yourself.

Well, and technically still, mate.

Happy Christmas because it's the 12th day of Christmas as we record on Monday,

the 5th for this Wednesday, the 7th, our first episode of the new year.

It is our first episode of the new year, isn't it?

It is, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. So this is the 12th day, is it?

Today is, yeah.

Today is 12th day of Christmas.

I can never figure out when you've got to kick out the Christmas tree.

Oh, well, I think in Sweden, mate, they leave it up to like the 12th or 13th or something,

which I'm all for.

So I'm going to have a bit of Christmas cake and maybe with a cup of hot chocolate later,

and that'll be up to quite a bit.

Love to be said for it.

Yeah. You can write to us, reader, AutoCard at haymarket.com.

Oh, well, before I do that, I should say thanks to our sponsors who joined us again in 2026,

which is Anderson, the designer EV charging company.

If you switch to Intelligent Octopus Go, you can now claim again they have brought back

by popular demand their offer, which gives you the equivalent of 5,000 free charging miles.

Wow.

If you buy one of those.

Oh, I thought that was time expired.

So it's gone back.

Those come back for January, now we're running until the end of Jan, at least.

So Anderson-EV.com is the place to go for that.

And they're very nice people, and they look after you very well.

This is, this uncovers one of my new year resolutions, which is to ring them up and

ask them about Octopus.

The thing is, I have this strong feeling that I've been chucking away money on my

own charger by not being with the right tariff.

Not on the right tariff.

I don't know whether Octopus is the choice, but they can apparently advise me, can they?

Yes, they can.

And in fact, Anderson do have a full concierge service if you buy one of their charges.

And so, yes, but you can write to us listener autocartataymarket.com as Gareth Tarr has

done to say, I sympathize with Steve Cropley's issues with the tyre pressure gauges on his

Mini Cooper, which told you your tyres were going flat when it was cold.

Yes, well, it got, you know, it measured them at eight degrees and then

rang the alarm bells at one degree.

Yeah, I've had similar issues with my master says, Gareth, returning from Christmas holiday in the

north, the dashboard showed a warning light for low tyre pressure.

As I crossed the penines, the tyre pressures went up, presumably as they warmed up,

but the warning remained on after I stopped mid-journey.

There was no warning light showing, but the warning light continues to show,

but it has been even colder.

A friend I met over Christmas had a tyre pressure warning on Hermes 80s too.

Clearly this is one safety feature that requires a bit more development.

Well, I think it does.

Yeah.

We need Gareth.

Gareth, as I happen to know, is a bloke that takes a load of pictures at Brooklyn,

so we need him to be mobile.

Oh, really? Excellent.

There was a Brooklyn's meet over.

Is it New Year's Day?

Yeah, New Year's Day.

It was a winner.

I went there and met some mates and I went there in a modern, you know, the orange pickup

modern that you might know about.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

The Raptor.

The Raptor, yeah.

But there were loads of really excellent cars.

They're just everything you want, everything from your sort of chop top 32 forward to a,

you know, pristine maestro and, you know, porches and nastens and everything in between.

It's great.

That's cool.

Did you do much driving over the festive people?

Yeah.

And did you enjoy it?

Well, there was one phase that I enjoyed more than I expected to,

and it was a very early trip into London, you know, the first business day in effect.

And I left home at 5am.

I'm about 100 miles from London.

And I discovered that there's a whole different motoring society almost,

a group of drivers who are on the M4 between 5 and 6.

They're completely different from the people who are on between 6 and 7.

And the people, if you go early enough, you're in amongst this group who drive quite quickly,

but just want to get there and they understand that you want to get there and they tend to

either get out of your way or, you know, get on with it.

And everybody, it seemed to me, can drive.

The trucks are not around yet because they seem to show up after 6.

And it was just, it was like traveling at relatively high speed with a bunch of friends.

I really enjoyed it.

So, and yet other times of the holiday season, as we know, there have been lots of people

who only kind of get the car out twice a year and, you know, they all do, I don't know,

62 miles an hour on the fast lane and all that.

Yeah.

I went out on New Year's Eve, drove over to Essex and back, which is sort of two hours each way.

There's not a lot of people on the road, but I reckon 60 plus percent of them were sitting

middle lane or worse.

And it's just, this, as you say, makes people who don't drive the rest of the year something

get in the car and head off.

It's, I don't know, when I was young, I sort of thought that driving over the holidays seemed

to be nicer just because there was less traffic, but I'm not sure that's the case anymore.

It seems to be more frustrating than during the rest of the time.

Well, it goes in pulses, doesn't it?

If you're lucky, you can strike these times when it's not too bad and that is a bonus.

But other times you do, you just get in these, these God awful sort of collections of people

who just don't think about it.

It's not that they're outright incompetent.

They just don't think about anyone else.

No.

God, it annoys me.

They just don't, it doesn't matter to them.

I mean, that's, it's clearly a thing.

It doesn't matter to them.

It's of no importance.

It's just they get in the car and they get out the other end having not thought about

anything in between.

No, no, no.

I find it a bit frustrating.

Actually, it was funny.

I was, I found myself a few times in this situation just thinking, remember, this is

a season of goodwill, you know, so I tried to, I tried to be sort of friendly and understanding

about it, but it's a bit of a challenge.

Yeah.

Do you, you don't do much on two wheels this time, yeah?

No, nothing really.

I mean, well, I've got two motorbikes at home and I start them up and go around the block,

really.

Yeah.

But as you know yourself, you've got to be pretty sensitive about the surface, don't you?

Road surface.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they're always greasy.

And if there's a bit of diesel about to, you can drop it pretty easily.

Yeah.

And actually, if there's been any salt on the roads, it's just, I don't fancy that.

Also, on my advanced age, you know, I get to the point where I can't feel my fingers and toes.

And you know, there's a fantastic time of the year.

There's a moment in the year, isn't there?

Sort of March, late March or something where suddenly you realize that

the breeze on your face is nice and it's not exactly warm, but it's annoying.

Yeah, yeah.

And you think, God, I'm going places now.

I do see people riding this time of year and I look at them and I think,

it looks calm and it looks serene from the outside, but I know what they're going through.

I know how cold that wind is.

Even if you're well wrapped up and you've got a bit of electric heat there and there and there,

just that gap somewhere between helmet and collar or something else.

Just, you know, you just go, that is going to be annoying.

That's it, around your ankles or somewhere.

What have you been driving?

Oh, well, as one of the joys of our job is that test fleets get a bit easier to access

at this time of the year for people like us.

And we, AutoCart finished up with a Bentley Flying Spur, a lovely car, beautiful,

specified in a traditional way.

And that's been my wheels, apart from my own cars, which I must say I've driven a fair bit,

but I've so enjoyed it.

Honestly, it has to be the quietest and best riding Bentley I've ever been in, I think,

just because, you know, they progress every year and this car brings the latest V8 hybrid powertrain

and so on, you know, 600 plus horsepower and loads of performance, but more than that refinement.

It's so refined.

The thing I love in this car is, is the, what I have come to call the first bump test.

You get in the car, you start it, you find it's nice and quiet and comfortable and beautiful.

But then you drive it down the road and you, you see the first bump coming and you just

enjoy the way the car negotiates the first bump because it's so quiet and smooth.

Yeah.

I love that.

It wasn't.

So early Flying Spurs, that wasn't always the case, was it?

I know the car's been around for a long time, you know, the Flying Spur as a product.

Yeah.

It's been through several generations.

This is the third, I think.

The very first one probably wasn't as refined as it needed to be, but these days it.

Well, it was based on a VW.

Do you remember the Fayton?

Oh, okay.

It was related to the Fayton.

I was it.

The Fayton was a good car, but it wasn't.

There's, I just see a clear margin between the, the ride refinement of, of this car now and other,

you know, even other expensive cars.

They just seem to be good at it.

And I don't think the original Spurs had that, had that margin.

And the, and the, this powertrain, this, this, you know, four litre hybrid powertrain, just

out of this world, you can, you really can't tell most of the time whether the engine's

running or not, whether the motor's running or not.

Sorry, whether the, it's on electric only or, or with a V8 as well.

And, and you get 50 miles, nearly 50 miles of electric range.

So there is a point where you just forget about what mode of propulsion you've got.

Yeah.

So terrific.

As we speak, reader, there's, we're outside the British Motor Museum and there's an electric

sort of truck dragging a couple of bins across on wheels, three, three, three trailer bins behind

it.

Did you see on the middle of those bins, somebody has put a big, you know, the, you know,

the fact that it says Land Rover across the front of the, of a Defender Grille.

Do you see somebody's put one across the front of one of those skips?

Excellent.

Bit me.

Steve and I are ostensibly talking our auto car columns over the next 50 minutes, 40 minutes,

whatever we've got remaining this pod.

But part of your column is the Jaguar that you drove, you had a passenger ride in.

Yes.

Towards the end of last year as well.

Does this flying spur, because that Jag is going to be expensive, isn't it?

The meter, the range they thought was about 120.

Did one ever say that to you?

Yeah, they were hoping for, trying to remember how it was put, but they were hoping that people

would pay 150.

Yeah.

And this was a flying spur start out.

I think about there and goes into 200.

Yeah.

And their Jaguar have done quite well in the past, haven't they?

They've identified these sort of little gaps where nothing else sits.

And maybe they, well, we'll come onto the name in a minute.

We've got a letter about it, actually.

But maybe that will sit below this, but usefully, sort of usefully so that somebody might have a,

in the same way that the Jaguar Coupe was usually cheaper than the equivalent Aston Martin.

But they kind of did the same sort of thing.

Yeah.

Tell me more about riding in that Jag, mate, because we touched on it last year.

But I don't know whether we...

Well, the thing that...

You hadn't spent any time in this at the time.

No.

So I'm intrigued to know what you think of the two having spent a bit of time in each.

I thought a lot about it over, because, you know, in our job, you're suddenly sort of relieved

of the usual day-to-day stuff.

So you think about features and so on.

And I find a lot of parallels between this and that car, that Jag that I rode in,

because they have got the same long-wheel-based sort of suppleness,

but with body control.

And the thing I was thinking is that what they tend to do is to extend all the compromises

that you're used to in a car.

So it's soft, but it's controlled.

You know, it's sporty, but extremely quiet.

And the Bentley and that car had similar characteristics, I feel.

The car I was in was very much a prototype.

But there was a relationship.

I really felt there was a relationship.

And one of the things I got talking, thinking about a lot, was whether or not...

There was some debate in the other coverage of the Jag ride about whether or not

you can tell whether a car's good by riding in it, i.e. not driving it.

And I contend very firmly that you can tell if a car's good in many ways,

because you're relieved of the need to control it, so you're just an observer.

You can still feel the ride quality.

You can still hear the noise or lack of it.

And of course, the seating and where you are in the car and the way it rotates around you and stuff.

That's all perfectly valid.

So I felt that I could tell pretty well that this was a good car,

but I was rather surprised to see others who had the same experience saying,

well, they sort of spent quite a lot of their stories managing expectations.

And I didn't see the point of that.

And the thing I was busting to do today is talk to you about this,

because you've done as much riding in prototypes as I have, if not more.

Do you feel that you can still feel what's going on?

Yeah, I reckon you get a decent...

So a few things that I'm reminded of.

I got a ride around approving ground or something in a...

It was a defender, but it was...

I don't know if it was like a rally spec defender, something like that.

And then we were given a...

But the way it went over sort of lumps and jumps and then settled incredibly quickly,

in that way that when you watch Dakar stuff and they have this...

Or any of these kind of big race trucks or something,

they seem to sort of take a...

They jump and then they land and you think, well, that's just...

And modern rally cars do it as well.

You think, well, that's just going to bounce and bounce and bounce.

But they don't, they just land and then they carry on and it did that.

And you can see that, you can feel that from inside.

You can feel how quiet they are.

Even if you just watch a racing car on the telly,

you can see when somebody turns in and if it does something...

If he turns in and it oversteers really quickly,

you think, well, that looks lively.

Yet here you are actually inside the car getting a better sense of what it's like.

I think you can certainly tell enough to make it a really worthwhile exercise.

And you were talking about Mitsubishi, weren't you?

Yeah, I once went on a...

There was an Italian cross-country rally

that Mitsubishi has some show guns into, I think,

and they went, I will give you...

After the sort of stage of the rallies done,

we've got one of them jumping the passenger seat

and our test and our race rally driver will take you across this field and back.

And I was looking at this field going,

I don't know where he's going to take us

because I can't see anywhere that is suitable to drive in this car.

And he'll hop in and he sets off across this field,

which is just a sort of grassy plane,

but had lumps three foot tall and then ditches.

And I was thinking, we can't drive across this.

And he just started pinging across it at an alarming rate of knots.

And just from inside, you just go, well, we can't do this.

Surely we can't do this.

And it just goes across, turn around, came back the other side

with this level of isolation and suppleness and everything.

You get out again, I can't, but you experience the noise,

you experience the ride, you experience the isolation,

you get a sense of the handling and stability of it.

You get a sense of the ergonomics of it.

What you don't get is the steering and the feedback.

So I think you get enough that you don't have to apologize for the coverage.

Yeah, I think that very thing that you're talking about,

where you see what's coming and you think you know what the reaction is going to be,

and the car behaves differently.

That's what happened in the Jag.

And we were doing some of those broken bitumen,

sort of horrible concrete tracks that they've got there

that test the Range Rover on and the car just ate them for breakfast.

It was amazing, or at least far beyond what I expected.

Yeah, I mean, that said, we'd always rather drive it.

Of course, yeah.

But I think it's worth while enough.

Desperate to feel the steering.

I mean, Bentley, the other joy of it is it's big cars,

as long as the Raptor is 5.4 meters long, so big car.

But because it's got four rear wheel steering,

it still feels agile, and the Jag's the same.

Same length, also four wheel steering.

Of course, yeah.

So I kept on seeing parallels between the two,

and I think that's a pretty decent come.

You know, it compliments the Jag that.

I keep seeing on the road and on Tele, previous Gen XJs,

and I just think they look fantastic.

They do.

I might see one.

There's some Netflix drama I was watching called,

I don't know, The Diplomat, I think.

And it was, and they, you know, the Jag was in use

as a diplomatic car in the UK still.

And it just, every time you see one, you go,

God, that looks good.

That looks really good.

Do you remember when it came out, Ian?

It was always seen as a bit, you know, a bit odd.

And Ian Callum said, we will get used to it.

This is a car that will live a long life, and it has.

Yeah.

I find myself looking at them as well, thinking,

in fact, because I'm addicted to auto-trader,

I tend to look them up now and then,

and they honestly have such a good value.

Yeah.

I mean, I totally don't need one.

But if I did, if I did need a car of that type,

I would totally, I would totally have one.

And I think you just look at it, every time you look at it,

you go, that's a nice, that is a cool thing.

I was thinking about it.

I don't need anything like that, ridiculous,

but they are cool.

Over the Christmas, I was thinking about cars you don't need.

I was trying to figure out how many,

if I indulge myself by buying all the cars I really would like,

but don't need, how many that would be?

I think it would be about 20.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Being fun to compile a list one day of cars that

you'd like to have, but don't need.

We know somebody in the business who I might

won't name on air, who keeps a list of sort of dream garage

list on his, on his, in a note sap on his phone.

But that's a daily.

Well, it changed all the time.

It would change every day for me.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, the dream 10 car garage.

Yeah.

Yeah, I, I like, at some point, we'll probably write about it

again at some point, the idea that you,

you said it a state of grace with a car collection

where you're happy with what you've got.

Yeah.

And I really, I'm getting close to that, you know, I think.

Fantastic.

I'm pretty close to that.

Yeah, it's good.

Because the A2 is every car, the Audi A2 is every car I need.

Also, it's been a, it's been a real joy to you, hasn't it?

Because it's been tremendous.

No expenditure.

Yeah.

Loads of miles, different, understood by people who understand.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And every time something goes wrong with it,

but not a lot does go wrong with it.

But anytime it needs something, it tends to be 50 quid.

Whereas every time something goes wrong with the Land Rover,

it's like 800 or something, you know.

And it's just, I don't know if we've talked about it on it.

I don't know if you've talked about it last time around or not,

but that fix I did to the windscreen wiper wasn't good enough.

But there's a guy in the owner's club who refurbs.

Did I talk about it last?

Because it's been two weeks or three weeks since we...

But this very morning, as we speak, two days before sending this out,

another bloke has contacted, hasn't it, with the same...

Yeah, suggesting the same guy.

Yeah, so there's some 3D printed bits on it,

but there's also, it looks OEM.

He just sends you a refurbished wiper, but it looks OEM to me.

And he's like, this is how you fit it.

By the way, you might want to put a couple of drops of oil

on the sort of pivot points once or twice a year.

Have you used and now got this?

I've now fitted it, and it's fantastic.

It's just, it works like a brand new windscreen wiper.

And I've taken off the old one, sent it back on these,

you know, refunds the deposit for sending the old one back.

So it wouldn't, you would be...

Because I think it's a hobby, effectively.

You would be blown away.

If that was a professional service, you'd be delighted.

You know, you'd be just, you'd be just as thrilled.

Something arrives in the post really quickly

with instructions on how to return it, instructions how to fit it.

You fit it, send the old one back,

and you get a deposit back straight away.

And all in, so it's all in, it's cost like 50 bod quid

to get a wiper which should last for another 20 years.

Some lucky owner somewhere is going to get...

Yeah, we refurb my arm with 3D printed bits

and then painted so it looks just like it's come out of a factory.

I mean, that is the joy of owning,

one of the joys of owning the A2

is because they're so well supported by an owner's club.

I think you can probably sort out pretty much everything.

But a mate of mine,

Ella Jason, was talking to me over the last few days

because he was thinking about buying one for his daughter

who's just passed a driving test.

But I said, great idea, but do check the insurance

because I've had somebody else said it to me.

He said the insurance can be twice as much as some other cars

because they're aluminium, because they're hard to repair.

And he's found exactly that, which is a shame.

Oh, it is a shame.

Because the one thing we know about them

is that they live a long life, don't they?

Yeah, but they are...

They're still really good value, but my mate was looking at one

that was four grand.

Somebody else sent me a link to one that was six

and then somebody sent me a link the other day

which I thought was going to be to this one that was six.

It was a 28,000 mile example

that somebody wanted 12 grand for, which is...

You've cocked up the market mate by talking about these things.

Yeah, maybe HMS Autocon has been talking about the A2s too much.

I think you're low in the market.

Maybe you need to get yours on the market

and turn a quick profit.

Well, I mean, if somebody would like to offer me 12,000 pounds for it,

I will take it, I'll be honest.

Or even six, perhaps.

But yeah, probably six, four.

It's interesting though, four.

Would I take four for it?

I might not.

It's 4,000 pounds worth of use of value to me.

What would you...

I suppose I'd buy another one.

Yeah, it wouldn't be interesting.

But whatever you bought wouldn't be as interesting.

No, it wouldn't.

Let's take a very short commercial break,

which is me telling you that Anderson,

the designer EV charging company,

has extended its offer due to popular demand.

So if you switch to Intelligent Octopus Go,

when you buy one of the charges,

you can claim the equivalent of 5,000 free charging miles.

That's the Anderson-EV.com for more details.

And I have been in the archive a bit over Christmas,

but I can't remember why or how or what for.

But if you go to themagazineshop.com,

you can find access to the new issues of the magazine

and all of the 131-year archive as well.

131.

131 years in November this year, it will be.

God.

And there's so much nonsense elsewhere

when you search for anything.

Just the prevalence of AI slop is taking over everything.

And can I just think that going to a trusted source

that you know good stuff is going to be there?

I think, obviously, I'm slightly biased in this,

but I just think it's better than it.

But it's the truth.

More value than ever.

Yeah, more value than ever.

There's so much absolute...

Well, slop is a good way.

Slop.

And I'm just so tired of it.

I put it in a search the other day

because I wanted a new strap for a watch

that my parents bought me a long time ago.

I was like, oh, just some pulsar, something or other.

I just...

I wouldn't mind a new strap for that

because I haven't worn it for a long time.

What's the...

And the steel ruler was down the shed

and it was quite cold.

So I thought, I'll just...

I'll search online.

And of course, AI says that it's 22 millimeters.

That width, I think.

Okay, fine.

And then other bits on the internet,

more trusted sources you would think go,

no, that's 20 millimeters.

Actually, not 22.

I thought, okay, I'll go and get the ruler.

It's 20 millimeters.

The AI just gives completely the run.

I'm so...

There's some headline on YouTube.

20% of videos presented to new or unlogged

in YouTube visitors is AI.

A complete AI.

Slopped videos.

And it's just like, just...

I'm sort of hopeful that publishers will go,

look, if you want trusted stuff, here it is.

And...

Well...

Anyway, themagazineshop.com.

Your message is the one, isn't it?

I mean, that stuff has stood the test for 131 years.

You've been to...

Oh, no, we've got another letter.

So let's do that first,

because we'll finish talking about the Bentley and the Jag.

Ian Barclay writes to say,

Steve Cropley's ride along it in the Type 00 concept

confirms its classic Jag levels of riding.

Speculation abounds about what it should be called.

Jago MD Roden Glover says,

we've given some pretty good hints already.

And as you say, Steve, A-Type or Type 1,

discounting E-Type is too holy.

And the same Ian thinks could also be the same for D-Type.

After some thoughts, as Ian,

I would agree with the Type idea,

which Jag has other history with.

And I would propose J-Type.

This echoes earlier class defining models such as XJ,

but is a bold and simple reflection

of what the new Jaguar stands for.

Plus the J-Type name was trademarked in 2018.

There was speculation at the time

that it would appear on a all-new,

definitively Jaguar electric vehicle.

That time, says Ian, is now.

J-Type wouldn't be bad, would it?

Wouldn't be bad, wouldn't be bad.

Yeah.

But was there a hint that it was going to be

a redefining name?

Did Roden say that?

He was like, it's going to reflect the fact

that this is a new...

Yeah, this is a beginning.

A restart.

Yeah.

And I guess, place to start, isn't it, J?

J would be...

J, K, L, L.

I mean, it starts with J.

I mean, it's the first...

I mean, it starts as in Jaguar starts with J.

I mean, that wouldn't be a terrible thing.

No, no, no.

I think it's a best suggestion so far.

Yeah, pretty good.

Thanks, Ian.

AutoCart at haymarket.com listener for your letters.

We've had a load over.

We've just...

Steve and I have just come out

of our first editorial meeting of the year.

And there are lots of correspondence to catch up on

which Chris Cullmer, our chief sub is...

Waiting through, right?

Waiting through to put into the letters page

as we speak, I would think.

Let's...

Well, what do you want to talk next, mate?

Do you want to talk Mercedes-Benz World or LeapMotor B10?

Well, Leap...

Well...

Let's go with the LeapMotor.

Let's go with the...

What is a LeapMotor B10?

Well, a LeapMotor B10 is a very sort of cheap low-end,

I guess you'd say Chinese electric car,

which is being sold by the same people

who are handling Vauxhall, Stellantis.

The company is 20% owned by Stellantis in China

and majority owned by Stellantis outside China.

So if they decide to put up a LeapMotor factory

anywhere else but China,

it will be a majority-owned Stellantis entity,

which means that the car is not just another Chinese car,

backed by the Chinese government, as it were.

And I found it interesting, a little car.

It's just mainly interesting for the number of measurables.

It's full of instrumentation and adjustability

so that it's almost a hobby to own one.

You spend a week on one set of settings

and then change them all and do something else to see.

And there's enough measuring equipment in the car

to allow you to see whether you were more efficient

or less efficient and so on.

I find all that stuff quite interesting.

And it was a nice, quiet, well-built,

well-equipped, extremely well-equipped little car

for not exactly a giveaway price,

but their claim is that it's top value.

So you get, at the money, you get more stuff.

Yeah, what sort of size is it?

Well, the B series car is a sort of fiesta and a bit,

I suppose you'd say.

It's a big B-class, a B6.

For puma size or lower or...

Yeah, just about puma size, I would say.

Yeah, similar.

Do you drive a C-10 as well?

Yeah, there's a C-10, which is...

I had to go in a C-10, which was a range extender.

So it had an electric propulsion,

but a generator motor sort of sitting over the top of it,

which is, to my mind, quite a good format for an economy car.

And completely, it was odd because it was bigger C-sector,

different in character in that it was much softer riding.

It was vast inside because, I don't know, because it was.

You know, the generator motor was small

and the passenger compartment was enormous.

There'll be, I don't know what the comparisons are,

but as big as a big car inside.

A bit, you know, not a sort of enthusiast, immediate enthusiast choice,

but an interesting car.

Yeah.

Are they all on passive suspension?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Somebody, I drove that BMW iX3 towards the end of last year

and somebody sort of made the point then.

They said, look, the thing about,

and that's all on passive suspension,

but it's really nicely damped, rides really well.

Call of springs, regular dampers with no electronic intervention.

I think you could change the steering weight, but nothing else.

And some said, well, the thing is that in a car with a combustion engine,

they generate a surplus of electricity, really.

They generate more electricity than you need.

So actually you can power fancy suspension systems with them.

So you can, you know, you can have electronically controlled this and that and the other,

and then you can configure them and blah, blah, blah.

But actually in an EV you might not want,

because every thought was precious, I suppose.

You know, you don't want to waste battery power on doing those things,

which then puts the emphasis back on,

because a lot of EVs do have sort of passive suspension systems.

Yes.

With no active rear steer or none of this and that.

And so actually just really well set up passive suspension is becoming a thing again.

Yeah. And I thought it was quite a good thing.

I X3 drives really well.

I thought the best thing about it was the way it drove.

Drove, yeah.

And how, and I like the sort of honesty of a well set up,

no non-adjustable, you know, no active anti-roll bars,

no active dampers, no fancy springing, anything else.

You know, just a car that's just really well set up in the first place.

The sort of honesty about it, I really like that.

Well, even in this Bentley that we're sitting in, you know,

who's just about as far from an iX3 as you, or fairly far,

you know, it has four suspension settings,

but the one they recommend is called Bentley.

And you can drive the car, as soon as in the first half hour that you drive the car,

you try comfort sport at custom and then you go back to Bentley because it's the best.

And just leave it there.

And you leave it there forever.

Yeah.

And this car, if I owned this car for the next 150,000 miles,

it would sit in Bentley.

Oh, really?

Because it's best.

Yeah. Yeah.

You went to Mercedes-Benz World, did you, over the year?

Yeah, I'm trying to remember why I finished up there.

I think I was just meeting a mate, that's right.

Were you, did you go at the same day you went to Brooklyn's for the New Year's Day?

Yes, of course I did.

I just wandered over that, so I can.

And I didn't know this, but somebody told me, somebody who works there,

told me that the place is now, or in 26, is going to be 20 years old.

And it doesn't seem that long to me since it opened.

But I was wondering about and looking at the latest reorganizations and sort of tasting the way

it had, just how busy it is these days.

And it's this, I guess, unique combination of a dealership, a service department,

a museum, a place where you can take your kids and where they can learn to drive,

a place where you can go yourself and have a go in the sort of maddest AMG coupe there is,

on a circuit that where a really good instructor will show you how to do it.

And, you know, it's all, they've got their own track and so on.

But, you know, so the whole thing is very impressive and self-supporting.

But the other great thing is, of course, is that it's a tremendous asset to the

Brooklyn's Museum, which is walking distance away.

Brooklyn's being the world's first dedicated racetrack opened in 1909,

still parts of it there, but it would have trouble with either viability or, you know,

keeping its integrity without the help of Mercedes-Benz.

So this, as well as being a thoroughly viable business entity, Mercedes-Benz World, also

supports one of the world's most important motoring artifacts, I suppose, or, you know,

iconic track, you know. So I just came away with all these nice warm feelings, new year feelings.

Yeah. And you can't just wander in, can't you? You don't have to, it's just, it's not,

it's not like a museum, is it? It's just, you know.

You arrive at your sproggs, they will.

You can buy a car from them. It's a car sale's location, too.

Yeah, but there's a, they've, they've now segmented the place so that

you are very aware when you're walking into the, into the showroom that you're fair game.

You know, there's a bit over there where, where the sale will say, how about this AMG, sir?

Yeah. But you can, there's an enormous amount of space where you can just, which is just a,

a realm to look at things. You can look at the latest Benzes. Nobody's going to mind you wandering

around the showroom. The other thing is that there's this superb

scale-extric track, which is as big, which is, mimics the handling track outside where you're,

you know, you can attack it, as I say, in an AMG coupé. But, you know, for two quid,

your kids can have a go on the scale-extric. And it is a big impressive layout, really good.

That's cool.

Had a little go.

Excellent.

That was useless.

I should go. I haven't been for a long time.

Are you any use at that?

Scale-extric.

Yeah.

No, no, no, no. Well, it's been a long time since I've tried it.

It's just so good. You, you just got your timing and speed, you know,

of, of a sort of manual dexterity has to be up there.

Yeah. Felix Page, our deputy editor, did a feature on a slot car racing club.

That's right, I read it.

Just before, is it one of the Christmas issues, I think, just gone?

Yeah, the first double, I think.

Yeah. And yeah, I think you had a great time.

But yes, we found exactly that, that, you know, there's a real,

because when you lift off the throttle on these, on the, on the fast, you know, on the

more professional ones, they just stopped really, really quickly.

So I think it's a real, yeah, skill to, wasn't, wasn't the lapse something like 15 seconds or

a lot. So you, so if you're five seconds away, you're quite a long way away.

Yeah, that's right. I think he said, that was it. He said, you know, a lap time is 15 and

he, his first go was 19 and that was considered to be quite good.

Yeah. And he obviously got quicker.

Yeah.

Because he's a, he's a young bloke with good reactions.

Well, he's a young bloke with good reactions and knows what he's doing.

Yeah. No, it's been a, it's been a long time since I've.

I see the appeal though. I must say, you know, the, not to drop him right in it.

I'm, I'm under, I understand it. Mr. Richard Bremner, the, the, the, um, the well-known

motoring journalist, Austin Rover nerd and general, you know, knower of all facts.

Yeah.

He's, um, he's, seems to be building a large scale.

Oh, really?

Which, um.

Space is the issue, isn't it, at this kind of thing? I think you kind of need a.

I think it was all caused by the fact that his misses,

I'm trying to remember the story. This is shocking to, to come into a story like this

with so few facts, but, but he, his missus bought him a, a model of,

of the Le Mans start line superstructure as it was in the fifties or so.

Oh well. Yeah.

And it was a beautiful thing. And he, he became inspired by this.

And now he has in the basement of his house, he has a large layout.

Well, I think, yeah, that's the key is to have a, there was a, I think I saw a,

a post of some house that is for sale and the previous owner has gone into a care home or

something and the house is being sold intact with the model railway that he left behind.

So you go up into the attic or into the basement or some room or other,

and the whole thing is given over to this extraordinary layout.

Unbelievable.

Which is fine if you have room and permission.

Yeah.

I mean, but there's a, I saw somebody else who's, they've put a,

they put up a new fence and around the top edge of the fence,

they had put a model railway that runs all the way around the outside.

So it's very, I mean, inside the, inside the garden, but around the outside,

around the outside thing. And actually is a way of,

is a way of getting one done. That's a very low intrusion version of it,

because you're putting up a fence anyway.

You just put up a little effectively a shelf all the way around.

You run a model railway all the way around.

It doesn't take up that much room.

Definitely see the appeal.

Doesn't take up that much room per se, but you have a large layout.

Well, you do it. That sounds like quite a good idea.

If you're into that kind of thing, that sounds quite good.

Many years ago when he was, when Sir Alec Isigones was still alive, very old,

I went with another friend, a bloke called steady bar Ron Barker,

Stanley Steady Barker, to visit Isigones and his house in Birmingham.

And he'd converted the laundry room into a kind of workshop

for a next, for a backyard railway. And the, and the,

there were two holes punched in the wall. So the, so the,

so the railway would come into this laundry room and it could be maintained under cover.

And there were these large windows and you were able to observe it going around the garden

without getting wet.

Because that is superb.

Or indeed cold.

Was he, was he still working on cars at that point?

Yeah, he had a specials when he was younger, didn't he?

Yeah, it was amazing. I mean, it was many years ago, but I had,

I went there, he was very old and the only thing he would eat was steak and kidney pudding.

So we had to, on the way, we had to stop off at this favorite,

favorite, favorite butcher, buy a steak and kidney pudding,

go up there, prepare it in his kitchen.

And he and Steddy were communing about the sort of times past,

because they'd, you know, Steddy had gone around them,

met in the original Mini and so on. A story in auto car, in fact.

So I was out with this, his tame mechanic, a bloke called Jack,

I can't remember his other name. But what he had was a gearless Mini,

the car that was, you see, going as proposed as the

successor to the Mini we all know and love,

which was even shorter and had a kind of torque converter transmission.

So it was called the 9X. In fact, here we are in a BMM and there's a 9X inside.

Oh, it was there?

Downstairs, yeah. Probably the car I drove.

And were there two of those?

Yeah.

Because there's, isn't there the other one in that museum in Wiltshire?

No, I was just going to look up the name of it because it escapes me.

The one we had a letter about before Christmas and it's got two names.

The...

Oh, Atwell?

Atwell Wilson Museum, yeah.

I had a feeling another one might be in there.

Maybe, yeah. But there were a few, I think, yeah, that's right.

But it was, you know, seemed extraordinary just to be given the keys to this thing and

allowed to trundle around that locality because it's a bit of a property now, as you can imagine.

But I just love this idea of two holes punched in the launary wall so that the train could come

in and go out. It was steam, the live steam.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

He was, he was, but then he was a somewhat unconventional bloke, as we know.

Yes, yeah. Well, anyway, it's still something to look forward to at any time.

Yeah, maybe.

It's, you know, drilling large holes in laundry room walls.

Indeed.

Let's talk my column for a bit, which is, I'd forgotten, yeah, listen, the way this works is

Steve and I, well, I file my column for the 7th of January issue.

I think I filed it on December the 17th, so it's been a while since I've done it,

so I've read it again this morning.

But it was just about functionality cars.

You said earlier, you spent a long time driving your Ranger Raptor over the festive period.

Yeah.

Just because it's really easy to jump in and drive and get out and not worry about it.

And I've done a lot of miles in the A2 for that, partly for that.

Well, I do a lot of miles always in the A2 for that reason.

Yes.

And I started thinking about some supercars and hypercars and stuff that I've driven.

And I wonder if, having talked to a few supercar owners, if the fascination with really modern

ones that are really fast generate loads and loads and loads of downforce,

whether the novelty is starting to wear off, and that is partly because their road

going functionality is just limited by the fact they're so low to the ground.

And you sort of scrape and launch them all the time, pulling in and out of car parks,

and the turning circles are rubbish.

And I just, I don't know, mate, I think if, on road, given these are road cars,

if manufacturers went, you know what, it doesn't make 800 kilos at 150 miles an hour of downforce,

it only makes 400.

But actually, it sits an inch higher off the ground.

Yeah.

And the splitter at the front isn't 20 grams worth of carbon fiber.

It's actually 300 quids worth of rubber.

And that just made it more usable and functional and a bit more sort of peak supercar era, which,

if you drive something like a Ferrari 355, I might prefer that as a road going Sunday

day out car than a modern.

Yeah, not too long in the overhangs and all that.

Yeah.

I mean, I think the car that proves the truth of this is the Porsche 911, which

doesn't have long overhangs, which is, you know, the seating is a bit higher than it is in a

Mercedes-Benz or something.

And I also think that just sitting a bit higher allows you to, well, as you said,

you can see the radii of the bends better.

And I mean, surely part of the challenge of driving well and quickly is to be able to spot

what a corner is like and the lower you sit, the harder it is.

So there is a point where you're working against yourself.

And the other thing I hold against some supercars is width and visibility.

You know, you can't, as for going backwards, God, you know, you can't, impossible,

isn't it?

Reverse park in a, you know, in a Lambo.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I did one of the first supercar sort of experiences I had was watching a bloke in,

this was in the early to mid 90s when Goodwood was still, was,

when the circuit wasn't used for racing.

They did the odd track day down there.

I remember going, I remember going down, I might have cycled over from where I live to go and

look at the, watch this track day on a bank holiday Monday and seeing a guy reverse around

the paddock in a Lamborghini Countach door up, sitting on the sill, because it was the only

way he could see what was, what was out the back.

Yeah, look over the rear deck.

Look over the rear deck of it.

Yeah.

It is, it is remarkably cool if you can do it.

But you, I, and I did have a few goes at that because I drove quite a few Countaches in the

day, but, but the, the thing that comes to you is a bit of a concern about your pedal,

your feet slipping on the pedals and, you know, because it's not really built for you to sit on

there, on the side.

Were they good Countaches?

In some ways, in some ways a lot better than you would think because they were,

the mass was very central.

You know, it had the engine driving forward.

The transmission was under your elbow, literally.

And then back, the drive went back through the crankcase to the diff.

So the, the, the actual mass of the, of the heavy bits was right in the center of the car.

So it didn't need to be very, very long.

It was crude car, you know, not particularly well developed in modern terms, but

quite, quite surprisingly agile.

And, and I mean, I can remember going around Castle Coom.

I'm not a hero driver, as you know, but, but I can remember doing a few laps of Castle Coom

in the, in the last 455 horsepower version, Quattro Valvelia, what it was called.

And thinking could just do with a bit more poke.

And that's quite encouraging.

Yeah. And it was, by then it was a well developed car, I think.

So I liked them a lot.

The only, the big issue was packaging, because

you, the driver was very sort of, the driver accommodation was a long way down the priority

list. So if you were tall or long in the body and you, you drove over undulating rows, you were

forever worried about bashing your head on the roof and the visibility was terrible, absolutely

terrible. But, but good car and in the, in the, but with the body control in the end and so on

was brilliant.

Yeah. I think I'll make Maro Callo, who was a bit of a hero driver.

Oh, he's really knows what he's doing.

I think he drove one for and Tele program.

I can't remember which one, but I remember him saying he liked it a lot.

He thought it was, you know, much better than he'd expected it to be.

I think the weight distribution is, it is the ultimate expression of mass centralization in that

the, as I say, the gearbox was under your elbow in the car and the, so there wasn't a sort of

weighty bit behind the rear wheels at all. And the, the effect of that was to make it agile.

Yeah. Manual steer, of course, you know, just a, so fair bit of effort needed. I'm a big heavy

clutch, lots of attack needed on the brakes, but, but you could tune into it. I, I liked it.

I liked it and I don't like all of them.

No, no, would you have, would you have a modern supercar in your 20 car, cars you don't need to

I think unlikely. I can't think of anything I would honest to God want.

But I might have one of them, but I think it goes back to

some of it's to do with your, your sentimentality. I mean, the first Ferrari, very lucky, the first

Ferrari I ever drove was a BB, 365 BB. And that was actually, I can remember what we were talking

about, this business of not being able to see around the, or not be able to pick

particularly well the radii of long bends. That was when I first noticed it, but that was a car.

I think I, I would like now, but it just seemed to, it was the big Ferrari then you look at them now,

they're tiny. And it was flat 12, you know, race related flat 12. I just

loved the way it went and sounded. And I wouldn't, you'd never drive the

what nots off it, would you? You just sort of give it six tenths and enjoy it.

You'd have a great time. Yeah, you'd have a great time. Yeah, I know somebody's got one actually.

I think he really likes it. And just every time I see it, a picture of it, it looks small.

And it's, yeah, terrific. Shall we finish this week's pod by saying that

some UK car bosses should have a happier new year, a happier 2020.

I just, having had my recent Jaguar experience, I was just wanting to wish a happy new year.

And the bloke, the most deserving of a happy new year in 2026 to me is the managing director

of Jaguar, Rodin Glover, who has rather boldly, bravely taken a lot of

criticism, you know, difficult times, I suppose, representing the company and the new car.

And he's done it, you know, statesman-like way, I think. And he's, you know, what we know now

is enough to say that, you know, that in many ways are on the right track. The car, at least,

is going the right way for me. And I think that should, you know, well done him for staying

the course, I suppose. They've still got a hell of a lot to do, but he would tell you that.

But the signs are more encouraging than I thought they were a month ago.

Yeah. What I find interesting about that too is that he, I think in speaking to you, he said,

we realized we could have communicated differently when we did it. And now a lot of their online

ads that they're running at the moment have E-type or XJS in it. Yes.

Showing, you know, and then the new car, and then the concept, you can't sort of a back-to-back

to show there is a lineage and there is a legacy. What's the word for heritage?

Yes, but he, yeah, that's right. He said, but you know, the thing we failed to make clear is that

Jaguar always moves on. And it is a fairly clear message when you look back in there through the

history. Yeah. So happy new year, Rod and Glover. Yeah. And it is to other UK car manufacturers too.

Yes. And it's because it's not easy, is it? But most UK manifest, most UK based car companies

are sort of low volume sports car companies, you know, in the majority. It's not the easiest time

in the world, I think, is it? No, no, no. And, uh, no, very, very, I think, basically. So again,

all the best to them all. Yeah, we need them. Because when you add up their contribution,

it is enormous. And, you know, both in money terms, but also in terms of

advanced engineering and training the right people for the right jobs and so on.

You know, you're Morgan, look at the contribution of Morgan over the years.

It's a wonderful company. It needs to prosper. We want to hear good things from Morgan in the

future. Yeah. I think, uh, if you look at the last couple of years, results Morgan's

haven't been amazing, but I think since they got taken over by

invest industrial in a couple of years ago, I think they've, I think they've,

I think they've invested a lot of money. I think they've spent a lot of money. Yeah.

And the results all show later, I think, really. Yes. Because the products now are

excellent. They're really good, aren't they? Yeah. And I think they've gone,

they've clearly gone further with development because the super sport, when they first started

talking about it, was going to be a plus six facelift. And then at some point they went,

no, we've got to do more than that. And likewise, the super three was going to be a

three wheeler facelift effectively. And then something that went, no, we need to do

a bigger job than that. So I think they've, they've, they've spent more to get,

to make much better products. Yeah. And the results of that will come later, I think.

I feel excited by Morgan, just, just knowing the talent, you know,

Matt Hull, the boss who's such a brilliant engineer and, and John Wells, the, the design

chief who, you know, is another remarkable guy. And, you know, those people and all the people

that surround them are, are capable of fantastic things. Yeah. Yeah.

Lower volume again, the old noble M 500, I think is about ready for full road test.

Oh, good. That should be coming in the coming weeks. Oh, glad to hear. Yeah.

So anyway, yes, happy new year to everyone. Steve and I will be back this time next week.

There is not a bonus episode this coming Saturday, but there will be, we hope,

in the next, they'll, they'll pick up again as we start chatting to the leaders and

movers and shakers in the industry. We'll have the bonus auto car meets episodes

Saturdays coming up. But in the meantime, Mr. Scramble on Sunday. Yeah. Coming forward.

I am. In fact, that reminds me, we need to talk to the boss, Dan, you know, Danny.

Oh, we do, don't we? Yeah, let's do that. Let's do that and find out how things are,

because we haven't spoken to him for. Yeah, because they, they had, you know,

pretty severe setback, big fire, but they've rather immaculate recovery given the tragedy

of the thing. And, but he is volunteering to tell us, you know, what the next phase is going to be.

So yeah, I think there's a, there's a story to tell there. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll catch up with

Dan. We'll catch up with you listener this time next week. In the meantime, you can find us over

at auto car.co.uk. You can find us on the newsstand. So we have been weekly since 1895. And if you

want access to all of those magazines, you can go to the magazine shop.com, where you will have

full access to the entire auto car archive. Our thanks again to our sponsor, Anderson.

If you go to Anderson-ev.com, or if you just put Anderson into your favorite search engine,

you will find their website. And you can see the entire range of designer chargers. And if you

have one this month, if you switched to intelligent octopus go, you can claim the equivalent of 5,000

free charging miles. That's Anderson-ev.com. We need to have a catch up with them anyway,

yeah, that's right. I think, in fact, I think they're suggesting it. Yeah.

Thank you, Steve. Cheers, mate. See you next week.

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