Best Boring Car? | The Car Podcast #79
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Brand
Aston Martin
Aston Martin is a company from Britain that makes fancy and fast sports cars. They are well-known because their cars appear in James Bond movies.
Brand
Porsche Motorsport
Porsche Motorsport is the part of Porsche that makes race cars and racing gear. They also sell clothes and stuff with their racing logo on it.
Term
M5
The M5 is a big highway in England that helps people drive fast from the middle of the country to the southwest. It has many lanes and is used when people want to get somewhere quickly.
Term
A303
The A303 is a big road in England that goes from London to the southwest. It has some parts with two lanes going each way and some parts with just one, and people like it because it can be more interesting to drive than the faster highways.
Term
M4
The M4 is a big highway in England that helps people drive fast from London to places in the southwest and Wales. It has many lanes and is used when people want to get somewhere quickly.
Brand
Leonardo
Leonardo is a big company that makes helicopters and other aircraft. They took over a British helicopter factory to keep it running.
Concept
commuting
Commuting means driving from your home to your job and back every day. People often pick cars that are good for this kind of driving.
Car
Renault 5 Turbo
The Renault 5 Turbo is a sporty small car made by Renault in the 1980s. It has a powerful engine placed in the middle of the car, which makes it fast and fun to drive.
Car
Peugeot 205
The Peugeot 205 is a small car made by Peugeot that was popular in the 1980s and 1990s. It was easy to drive and came in sportier versions too.
Term
IS badge
The IS badge on a BMW means the car is a sportier version with better handling and looks.
Term
sat nav
Sat nav is like a digital map in your car that tells you where to go using satellites. It shows you the way and helps you find the best route.
Term
straight six engine
A straight six engine is a type of car engine with six cylinders lined up in a row. It runs very smoothly and gives good power, making cars feel nice to drive.
Car
Jaguar XK six engine
The Jaguar XK six engine is a famous six-cylinder engine used in Jaguar cars a long time ago. It helped Jaguar win important races like Le Mans.
Concept
Le Mans
Le Mans is a very long car race that lasts 24 hours. Cars and drivers race to see who can go the farthest without stopping.
Concept
F1
F1 stands for Formula 1, which is the top level of car racing in the world. The cars are very fast and use the latest technology.
Term
company car
A company car is a car that your work gives you to use. In the past, having a car with a six-cylinder engine from your job was seen as very special.
Term
inline six
An inline six is a type of car engine with six cylinders lined up in a row. This setup makes the engine run very smoothly and gives it a special sound that many people like.
Brand
BMW
BMW is a car company from Germany that makes sporty and smooth-running cars, especially known for their six-cylinder engines.
Term
six cylinder engine
A six cylinder engine is a type of car engine with six parts that make power. It usually runs smoothly and gives the car good strength.
Car
BMW E30 M3
The BMW E30 M3 is a sporty car made in the 1980s. It has a four-cylinder engine, which was surprising because many people thought a six-cylinder engine was better for fast cars.
Term
four cylinder engine
A four cylinder engine is a car engine with four parts that make power. It is usually smaller and uses less fuel but might not feel as smooth as bigger engines.
Concept
Nürburgring
The Nürburgring is a very famous and hard race track in Germany where many cars are tested and raced.
Car
Porsche 997 Cupcar
The Porsche 997 Cupcar is a special race car version of the Porsche 911 made for racing on tracks. It has extra parts to make it faster and safer for drivers.
Car
McLaren Senna
The McLaren Senna is a very fast and special car made to honor a famous race driver. It's built to go very fast on race tracks.
Concept
pole position
Pole position means starting a race at the very front because you were the fastest in the qualifying round.
Car
Toyota Corolla
The Toyota Corolla is a small car that many people trust because it runs well for a long time and doesn't break down often. It's good for everyday use and is very popular all over the world.
Car
Ford Focus Mark I
The Ford Focus Mark I is the first version of the Focus made by Ford between 1998 and 2004. It looked more modern than earlier Fords and came in different styles like hatchbacks and wagons. It was very popular because it was practical and had many engine options.
Brand
Ferrari
Ferrari is a famous car company from Italy that makes very fast sports cars and races in Formula 1, which is the top level of car racing.
Term
podium
A podium means finishing a race in first, second, or third place, which is a big achievement in racing.
Concept
regulations in motorsport
Racing has rules about how cars can be made and raced so it's fair and safe. But sometimes one team figures out a better way to follow the rules and gets ahead.
LIVE
Hello, and welcome to the car podcast for Chris Harris and his international friends.
Manish Padney is in Tokyo, North London. Chris Cooper is in Tokyo, Hertfordshire. Neil
Clifford is in Tokyo, Tokyo, and I'm in Tokyo, Bristol. So thank you for the old no idea
what time it is over there. It's early for us. It must be sort of late, late morning, early afternoon
for you there. He's got a right-hold adventure. We might ask him about it, actually, because it
does sound like a petrolhead's dream. This is episode 79. Here we go. Factoid. I've just had
to scrabble around for this one because I came ill-prepared, as usual. My learned fellows went,
where's your factoid, Harris? And Manish stepped in and said, here's one for you. He said,
did you know there was no official Aston Martin X pack in the 1980s? It simply denoted
the 580X engine. You can all come in and scrabble about that one. Who was it? Charles Churchill,
who gave us that? Charles Churchill. He shows your grey masses working. I remember all of that
quite quickly without hesitation. So moving on. Our agenda this week is going the long way home.
Now, this could mean several things, actually. And I did one of them last night on my way back
from a job. Look, I've got a Porsche Motorsport top I just found. It's got a zip. It's got a muscular
top. Yeah, it doesn't really suit me. So talking about the long way home, let's start with Chris
Cooper, please. For me, this is always and forever A303 or M4 M5. Yes. It's in England,
Tester Shire, travelling from London to the southwest of the country, where actually all
of us kind of go quite a lot. We're very lucky to be able to do that. And the irony is, the long
way home is sort of the easier and faster, sort of mostly the M4 and the M5. So if you just got
to get there, you do that. But I almost never do. Because the A303, which is an old, proper old
English trunk road, some dual carriageway, a bit more dual carriageway now, and some of that's a
bit of a relief, because sometimes it's just nice to release. When you've, it's all pent up,
you can release a little bit of squeeze and flow. You can release on those nice dual carriageway
bits on the A303. Why do I prefer the long, the longer way? Because it's a car journey.
And it just, it just shows you more of the car. And it's more distracting and there's more to see.
And you can stop at places and you can point at things. And unlike an motorway, we can point at
things and it's gone and you can't do anything about it. Even I, with my extraordinarily well known
hatred of stopping when you're going somewhere. If I could get somewhere instantaneously,
most often I'd take that choice. But the A303 is different. You can meander. You can stop and
go and see people. There's a lot of people that you sort of know, think they live five miles off
the A303. Go and see them on the way. You couldn't do that on the motorway. So I think it's the joy
of getting more from the car and using all of the car, the acceleration, the gears, pulling away
from a roundabout, using all of our faculties of, you've got to concentrate more. You've got to think
about the flow of traffic, being considerate to other road users, working together. And I think
that just brings out the best of us in cars. There'll be tractors with trailers on bits of the A303.
There'll be hay bar, hay trailers. There'll be people with work trailers and a road roller on a
little trailer bouncing around. You know, there's where there's little very, very short trailers
do it above a certain speed. I don't know what the dynamic effect is, but they start that rocking
moment and bouncing from one wheel to another. And you get any minute that it's going to come. It
never does. You see those helicopters at the helicopter place and Salisbury Plain and Stone
Henge. But that's a very good point. The best, almost the best experience is a bit where you
go and pass Stone Henge going westbound. And there's an initial bit of dual carriageway.
And that's a big release because you've gone through
past Stone Henge, the little village at the bottom of the hill, and you sort of work your way back
up the hill. There's a dual carriageway. And that's a big release when you go off to that
dual carriageway. And then there's a brow of a hill. And there's this wonderful ski, you know,
that long, long, long downhill bit that feels quite steep.
Towards Amesbury.
It's west of Amesbury. Actually, it's not the Amesbury one. It's almost because it's narrower
sided. It feels faster. And you see some people sometimes breaking because it feels fast.
Once going down there, as you go over the brow, it's just, I was making progress. I'll leave it
at that. And then over the brow, coming the other way, over central reservation, at about 50 feet
was an Apache gunship. That's right. And it was just, I had to stop because he was like doing stuff.
I thought, I'm going to have to stop and watch this. If you didn't take the long way home,
you wouldn't get that stuff. It's not Yovaltown, is it?
No, just further. There's an army helicopter base. Somebody will tell us where it is.
There's an arm, I think the headquarters of army air things, just outside soils,
beyond this. So they're often, the patches are often around there. Yovaltown, where the,
we all call it Westland. It's Leonardo now, which I think has been saved.
Just, yeah, just been saved. We finally ordered some helicopters, I think.
Exactly. Wonderful for the people of Somerset and Dorset and that fantastic historic Yovaltown
factory being saved. So if we didn't take the long way, you wouldn't know all this stuff. You
wouldn't go that bit. We can look over to the left and you can see Yovaltown and Royal Naval
Air Station and the factory and all that wonderful stuff.
Yeah, I think we agree with that. Where are you with this, Manish?
I'm the world's worst person at reading sat nav. So I inadvertently always take
if there's a junction I can miss or a road that I've got wrong. But I have to say I did this
slightly on purpose. When I went to pick Lola a couple of weeks ago, I've never driven from Kent
into Central London. So I had to get from Kent to Islington and I decided to actually
slightly ignore the sat nav and make up my route, sort of gently looking at it. As I came through
East London, kind of south of the river, I put it on a map and it was extraordinary. So
I'd never driven up the old Kent Road, which is kind of extraordinary. You know, the old Kent
Road and then went into Southwark, turned left at Borough Market. It was the most extraordinary
thing, you know. Which bridge would I have gone over? It's London Bridge. London Bridge Tower Bridge.
Yes, London Bridge exactly. It came up over London Bridge. It was just what a fantastic route. In the
end, probably the journey was an hour longer than it needed to be, strictly speaking.
Lots of 20 mile an hour zones, but just bits of London I'd never seen. It's really enjoyable to
do it in your car when you've got her back after four weeks. And she was driving rather well,
even though it was not 20. But it was topped off, I thought, rather brilliant. And when I got to
where I was getting to, I don't know that bit of Islington at all. I got to the road that I
get to and I should have turned right. I turned left. I suddenly found myself in massive school
traffic, had a bit of a panic, turned left, turned left again, suddenly found myself back
where I was meant to be, took the correct right turn. 10 days later, got two tickets for going
through one of those, you know, the closed 20 mile an hour zones. Is that the LTM?
Yes, exactly. I was looking at the satin, I was so mad thinking, oh my god,
I'm lost, there are school kids everywhere, all kind of pointing at the car. I just wanted to
sort of get out of there. It's terrible, you get the two envelopes. By the way, why do they write
Dear offender, we're going to do you a huge favour. If you pay in the next 14 days,
we'll give you 50% off. But if you take more than 14 days, we'll pay you the full fact. Who
came up with that? Who do you think? And the worst thing is that to the two tickets I got,
we're on streets that were barely 100 metres apart, one at 519 and one at 522.
We probably should talk about that new tunnel at some point because I think they're raising about
400 grand every couple of months, aren't they? One in 35 is getting the fine
because it's deliberately impossible to understand it.
We need to come back and talk about that. If that tunnel was a bank, there'd be a
there has to be compliance around them and then actually you wouldn't pay it.
Yeah, and then they wouldn't raise their revenue. I mean, it did feel very harsh,
it did feel very harsh, but I'd say I love the drive. There are bits and I think London is
just such a fantastic city. And actually, I am the one who takes quite a lot of public transport
to get to meetings and things like that. But I have to say just going on a jolly,
you know, the very long way around might well be my MO on the weekends because it is just so
enjoyable, even at 20 miles an hour. And in fact, when you get out a little way,
a lot of the zones are 30 and some even 40. It's a fabulous way to see the city,
better than upstairs in a double deck of us, I would argue.
Man, talking about the long way around and journeys with you, it was actually this weekend
just gone last year. There we go. That when we all tried to go down to Cornwall as a group,
that the rest of us had to travel a long way around because you'd broken down. So we had to
go back down the road and go the long way around, round and round about and back again and so forth.
So, you know, we... I'm going to stop there. There's absolutely no need for that at all.
Remind me of the sign. Remind me of the sign. We're going to discuss that. We can raise one of
the 72 crashes you had at the Nürburgring in the late 60s and the late 60s. I'm going to get to that.
Don't worry because that comes up later. So, you don't get to lob rocks in this
particular greenhouse, Cooper. Was it literally a year ago, as we can?
Neil Clifford, the long way home.
I was thinking, you know, what works for me here and I've been doing it ever since I've
owned a car or ever since I've had a job where I've got a commute, maybe, let's say that.
I've got... It's almost like having two stomachs for savory and sweet. I've got the commuter brain,
so I've got this slot in my head that says I've got to go from here to here for work.
But then I've also got a separate stomach or a separate brain, which is the pleasurable driving
section. So it doesn't matter if I drive four or five hours, six hours in a day,
if I've got to get somewhere, if it's like a task, a work thing. I've still got enough left in my
other brain where I can go for a little drive. And my wife often says to me, what do you mean you
went for a drive? You've only just got back from work. Why would you want to get back in the car?
And I've got big memories. I had a job in central London and I lived in Portsmouth.
This was sort of 89 to 93. I had a good mate, Paul, still a good mate. And he lived in Winchester,
I lived in Portsmouth. And every single day I would commute from Portsmouth at 4.35am in the
morning, pick him up from Winchester. We'd take turns who would drive. I'd have the Renault 5
Turbo, he'd have either the 205, but he was older than me and another level than me. So we went up
to 318 is. It was actually slower, which you thought was better, but was slower. I know,
but it had the sunroof, it had the head restraints in the back, it had the badge,
you know, they're all going on, the IS badge. We had it nicked actually, it's another story.
And then we would commute from Winchester at 6am all the way into Oxford Street
and all the way back every single day for four years. And now, if I think about it,
I think, crucky, that was a lot of commuting. Maybe the traffic wasn't so bad, you know,
as long as you got past sort of Kingston or wherever it was on the M3, you were in Oxford
Street at quarter to eight to Nick, someone else's car park. You didn't actually have your own car
parking space. And but when I'd come back to Winchester, this would be maybe seven,
seven o'clock at night, I would always then say, okay, I'm going to take the long way home.
This is after spending about five hours in the car. And I would, I would cut across that are
going down the M3 on the M27 and back to Pompey. I would go across the 272. Yeah. And I would,
I would go that way. Yeah, I would go to West Meehan and Extern and Wickham and over the hill
into Portsmouth. It's another sort of 40 minutes. Yeah. You'd have quadrophenia on the tape,
and you'd have the windows open. It's just fantastic. I still do it. You know, I've got
this commute up the A41 down the M1 into work back home every day, like a complete robotron.
But often, I carry on up the A41 for two junctions further. And Emma's watching me on
find my, you know, find my phone or whatever it's called. And she's like, what are we doing?
You've gone past the house. Dinner's ready. It's coming, idiot. Well, I've done my commuting
section of my brain. Now I'm going to do my driving enjoyment part of my brain. So I think,
I've always thinking of the long way home, because it's a different part of driving.
Therefore, it's not, you're not exhausted by the other bits. You add them together and they're
different. Oh my God, where to begin with all of that? It's so true. I don't think I have the same
brain. The long way home can stand for so many things. Actually, one of which I was reminded
of last night, and I think Chris Cooper touched on it in what he said, it doesn't always mean
you're taking the longest route or an alternative route or a more romantic route.
It could mean that you're stopping or doing something that you wouldn't ordinarily do. So
I was filming the Top Gear test track yesterday, which I've only done a couple of times since
that rather nasty day. All those years ago, I don't like going there really. But I was driving
Gordon Murray's T50S, which I'd turned up to Hades to drive that. So I drove that. And on the way
back, I've got a fairly standard route, which I would normally call the Bracknell GP. So I go
M25, A3, M25. I come off at the M3, go down the M3, come off at the Bracknell Tony and then link
that up to the M4. Because that for me is a little bit of a, it breaks up the monotony. I've got a
little bit of dual carriage racing roundabouts. And I call it the Bracknell GP in my head. I've
been doing it for 30 years or something. And I really enjoy it. But I thought, actually, there's
some people that live near there that I've not seen for a while. They've been really good to me.
They're good friends. I'm going to stop and see them. So this time, the long way home,
actually getting organized, saying to them the day before, I'm driving past your door.
And it's going to be about whatever time o'clock. So you can give me a free meal. We'll sit down
and have dinner. And then I'll go home afterwards. And it was my friend Alex and Christina West,
who I've not seen for a while. They're very, very good to me. And I just, I don't normally do it.
I don't normally have the foresight. I'm normally so hurried and rushed. I don't make the phone
call. Then when I drive past where I know these people live, I have this sense of regret. I go,
I should have, I should have contacted them, but I didn't. But this time I actually did.
So the long way home can also mean people, not just the road. And that's an important one for
me because I forget people. I bit of a hermit. I found out that someone called me the submarine
recently. I said, what do you want me to submarine for? Is that some sort of weight
reference? They went, no, you go underwater and disappear for six months. I was like, oh, great,
thanks. Probably not untrue. But the actual, the literal meaning of this phrase
is probably at the heart of the reason why we do this podcast and why the few poor barters that
listen to it still do. Because actually it is all about defining yourself as someone that would
rather be in a motor car than sitting in a room, isn't it? So every time you can see an opportunity
to spend a bit more time in the car to do something else, you tend to. Neil's left brain, right brain
description there is so right. Because to do that, sometimes you have to accommodate your
working life. And if you've got to get somewhere, you've got to get somewhere. And that really,
that's non-negotiable. But either on the way home or when the journey is less pressured,
you do take the long way home. And one of the other things that you can do, which I worked
out a long time ago, is you can set your sat nav to help your condition. So I used to deliberately,
in press cars I had for a while, I'd set the sat nav to avoid all motorways or I'd add a little
tricky bit of circumlocution that would mean that I'd always end up not just taking the motorway.
And I could justify it by saying, the computer told me to do that. So I had to do it that way.
So if you want to go and look at your sat nav, there's all sorts of ways of making your journey.
Yeah, that's a good idea that.
Like the line of maximum resistance, if you so wish. So, yeah, it's a really important concept
this for me. Because I've never had, well, sorry, that's a lie, not for a long time if I had a
regular commute. So I know that Manage doesn't have one and Chris doesn't really have one either.
But Neil, you do. And sometimes I'm immensely jealous of your routine. Anyone that follows
you on Instagram will see that you wake up very early and you make us all feel jealous because
you're industrious. You always then get into some car that we all wish we owned. Not necessarily
expensive, just cool. You always stop at Salvino for your morning coffee and chat with your mates.
Then you go off to the tennis wherever. That idea of routine both terrifies me and I find
incredibly appealing. But also, it's a journey. Every morning you wake up and you have a journey.
And I think that's very healthy, actually. I think that idea of dislocation, getting out of your home,
getting some air in your lungs, wrestling with a battery that isn't bloody working,
getting in a car. I think it's really good. I think we were designed to do that.
Yeah.
I really do.
Yeah. It's good thinking time as well. It's good scheming time. It's good. You feel like you're
ahead. There's two things about it that have slightly nixed me because I was going to ask
all of you to do something for next week. I'm going to ask you to do it now, actually.
I flew into Bristol Airport on Saturday, late on Saturday night. And you come in right over
where I grew up and where my late mother's house was.
You're so low that you can really see every single lane and road. And I flew over this bit
and I thought to myself, I've never been down that lane. Why have I never been down that lane?
So I want all of us in the next week to go to a place that you've driven past but you've never
driven down in your life. And I want you to drive down that lane and I want you to report back on
what you find. You might find absolutely nothing. But I want to, and when Manish said he'd never
been down the Olken Road, that's what resonated. That's a really good idea.
Why have I not driven down that lane or that road? So that's your homework for next week.
Go down a road that you've, not just one that you're inquisitive but one that you've driven
past repeatedly and you cannot explain why you've never been down it.
Great.
There's a thing about a map. You talked about satin out there. There's a thing,
that long way home bit and that stopping and seeing people. Quite often in the summer,
the road works on the A3, A3, particularly if you, like me, tend to travel in the evening.
And it'll be shut and there'll be diversions. Sometimes I don't really work.
Excuse me.
If you had a map in the car, which is sort of we stopped doing, haven't we?
You look at the map and say, okay, I know I can't go down that bit of the A3,
let's make the most of this. Where would I like to go? Let's take a longer,
longer way around because the diversion we fill of other people who are lost and can't follow the
arrows. We need maps in cars. Well, you've got one. Isn't it just a digital one?
Yeah, but you can't look. The thing, it's that, if you're like me, where maps always face north
and you want to be able to see the whole thing in your hands like that thing, right? Okay,
where's the A272? And actually, where's the A36 and the A35? And actually, I could do that and
that and that. And maybe at some point, AI will help sat nav say, I want a nice picturesque road
where it won't be too busy and maybe a couple of nice viewpoints and somewhere to stop. Do that
because if chat GPT did sat nav, you could probably do that, couldn't you?
That's right.
Or you could have a map.
Yes.
Take the long way home, go and see some people, go and see some things, go and explore some roads.
The next one, here we go. The straight six engine, all right.
The straight six engine is the coolest. I mean, bloody hell, how do you call that?
Manage have a go at this.
So the last time we did something is the coolest, right? I said, no, it's not. And then I got into
lots and lots of trouble because I didn't get that of the actual question. I think you bollock
me, Neil. You said, like, can't it just be the coolest this week? Next week we'll do another one.
Ah, okay. So I have to say, I quite enjoyed reading around this a little bit rather than just
sort of going, oh, well, these are my favorite cars with the straight six. So the straight six
was apparently invented by a Dutchman in 1903. Do you know that? I wrote his name down. I don't
know where it is. I didn't know that. And Ford from 1906 to 2016, they had the longest running
straight six that they stuck into all of those wonderful trucks that was basically indestructible,
which is quite interesting. The other thing I didn't know is the firing order
in a straight six is symmetrical. So one, two, and three mirror four, five, and six. And I mean,
I wrote it down. It's one, six, three, four, two, five. So you get 120 degrees of crank movement
per explosion. Perfect. Yeah, very, very smooth. And for that reason, very, very smooth. So I
loved all the bits. They said it's smooth. It's simple. It's cheap. The manifolds are all in one
direction. I mean, it's, it's, it's the, it's the most wonderful thing. And I, I just listed
then just a few cars that really appeal to me with a straight six. And these are my thoughts,
the Mercedes three liter, I mean, I, you know, I'm looking for my perfect R 107. And I think in my
dreams, actually, I do think it's the 300 SL, I get the latest possible one. The idea of that,
I don't know why that appeals to me more than a 48, it just, than a V eight, it just sort of does.
The BMW 3.5 liter straight six, in an M one, in an M five, in an M six, I didn't know in the M one,
because they wanted such a low central gravity, they just rotated it 45 degrees is to get that
thing. I mean, that versatility is that you can just do something like that. And the final one,
the, the legendary XK six engine in everything really from 1950 wins three Le Mans in a row,
and they keep using it till the late seventies. I mean, really, and I know V six,
do you know, beautiful thing, more compact, I get all of that. But there's something very
romantic, isn't there? You open up on a beautiful straight line. Love it. Just love it. So
why the, why the straight six is the coolest? It's because it is the coolest.
A strong piece of advocacy there. If you were my barrister, I'd be sitting down now thinking,
well, we've got this lick, this argument. Neil Clifford.
I just think it's about balance. It's about harmony of the car really. I think there's not,
it's not by accident that many of the best straight sixes are Japanese, because they really get,
you know, I'm here in Japan, I'm here in Tokyo, having a bit of a car a few days,
they really get harmony and balance. And I think I can't remember which bear it was.
It's probably the little bear, isn't it? The baby bear, you know, the V 12 is too hot porridge.
The fourth cylinder is too cold porridge. I just think it's the balance. It's not too much,
you know, the V 12, the V 10, even often the V eight, they're overpowering of all other
parts of the car, the steering, the suspension, you know, too noisy sometimes. I think,
you know, when someone pours you a fizzy water and lime, which, you know, I'm not a big drinker,
so you want to do it yourself because you want to get that right balance of the fizzy water and
the limes. Sometimes it's too much, you know, it's a bit too limey or can't taste the lime.
I just think the straight six Jaguar engine, let's be honest about it, it's probably,
if not the best, one of the best engines. Extreme amount of smoothness, beautiful power,
but it doesn't overpower all other parts of the car. And I think, I think sometimes bigger engines
do. I don't think you get the harmony of enjoyment of all the steering, the suspension, the ride,
the noise is lovely, but it's not too much. So I think, I think it is a lovely harmonious balance
of a car. And I think the Japanese who are less emotional, they choose that for the right reasons.
You know, those GT R32s, R33s, 34s, 35, incredible engines, go on for bloody ever. You drive around
in Tokyo, walk around in Tokyo as I'm doing at the minute at midnight, you hear them a mile away
and they're just fantastic bloody things. So I think it is a gorgeous, perfect solution of an
engine. And in that Jaguar, I mean, you can't beat it really. We're going to see a lot of those,
hopefully on May 23rd. Yeah, I think you'll see a few of them. When you see an original
Land Cruiser, the ones that have been doing moon miles, they have straight sixes and they don't
have the eights. Chris Cooper. Neil, do you think, because I agree that I agree that you just said,
and I was listening to your love letter to the Jaguar straight six, do you think,
do you think that's the sound of Britain at its best when it comes to cars?
When it comes to cars, yes. Yeah. Spitfire, then a Jaguar straight six. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So before COVID, and before Twitter went mad, there was a Twitter account called We Rate Dogs,
and it basically rated people's dogs, marks out of 10. And every dog was 11 out of 10.
Because we love all dogs. Yeah. And that's how I come to this question, really. I love all engines.
And whichever engine you put with me, that's the best. That's 13 out of 10.
Doesn't matter. It's an engine, particularly where we'll talk about F1 a bit later,
where the engine has sort of become a bit confused and lost. The particular reason why
I think the straight six is the coolest engine. When we were growing up and Britain was still
barely out of rationing, most cars had four cylinders. And then once in a while,
you knew somebody who had a Jaguar, or very, very, very rarely, BMW, because they were
unbelievably exotic in the 70s and into the early 80s. And you just knew, and you'd say,
Neil, when you and I were starting to climb the professional corporate ladder, there were job
adverts that said, when he got to the company car bit, six cylinder company car, you thought,
I don't need to know anything else about that job. That's the job for me. It's got a six cylinder
company car. I mean, how cool can that be? So I think it is, it's 13 out of 10. We rate engines,
13 out of 10. I think the Jaguar XK engine was built, it was the last, can anyone remember
the last vehicle that XK six cylinder engine went into?
Not really.
X, V6 from 78, 79, something. The last car it went to, I'm going to give this away. It was last in
limousine. Was it? Was produced until 1992, according to Wikipedia, early this morning.
I mean, the original, that had the widest rear seat of any car made in the UK,
do you know the widest rear bench? There's a factoid for you. How do you know that?
Because I used to have, because it was a bit of a standing joke. And if you speak to Andrew
Frankel, their family used to laugh at 420G and he tells a lovely story about how his father would
buy them, leave them for 500 quid and leave them at the airport for them. So they had to drive them
back home and be embarrassed or something like that. It's a great story. So I had a bit of a
lucky turn a year ago. We're still ongoing with my XGS project, by the way. It was on hold for a bit,
but we're playing with it now. So I had the joy of taking apart a six cylinder Jaguar engine last
year, a bit by bit, literally taking it apart from taking the head bolts off, having a look inside.
And what a thing of beauty. What a thing of balance. The cranks just gorgeous. I mean,
these bits of metal are so accurate. You forget what an amazing thing an engineer is. It's just
lovely. And the six cylinder engine, I'm not an engineer, but it sort of ticks all the boxes. And
the reason why I think it is the coolest is that it's the perfect confluence of
shit that keeps engineers happy because it's pragmatic and it makes sense. So it's in balance.
It's not too long. So the crank doesn't bend. The straight eight, as it was called,
the straight eight was the big engine in America. The reason it became the VA was the cranks have
been quite simple. So half the crank length and stick it in a V. It's only got one set of heads,
one head. So it's practical, it's usable, but it can be made sexy. So you're keeping your
million mile people happy, but you're also keeping, as Manage says, your BMW performance
people happy. It's sort of the Venn diagram of sexiness versus worthiness. The straight six
sits nicely in that middle territory. And if you Google it, there's lots of really great articles
of sort of proposing why this engine is so great. It's got its issues. It can be very tall.
It's a packaging disaster really in a family car. And I think the reason why
six cylinders or inline sixes were so rare is that they didn't really work.
Stick it one in a three series is not a clever thing, actually. But if you can get the weight
distribution right, you end up with a bit of a monster. And you also, you've got an engine that's
less complicated. A V six on carbs, looking back, wasn't really a very clever thing to
having a family car because it was constantly needing adjustment. So yeah, just a sexy thing.
And if you read about them, they really are just a clever solution. And there's also,
I think that we all associate noises with engines. And I think there's something about,
maybe it's just particular car makers that have given us this, but a very raspy inline six by
BMW or Jaguar. There's something about them. There really is that noise. It's not a V12 sounds
expensive. A four cylinder for the most part sounds cheap. And inline six at the right
volume intake noise exhaust just sounds right. It's not affordable. It's just awesome.
And I do that when Chris mentioned the idea of a car, sorry, a job advert
that boasted of a six cylinder engine. I can totally see it because actually,
I'll give you my example of how seductive the six cylinder was. When I was younger,
and a bit younger than you guys, but you'd have known about these cars,
BMW in about 85, 86 launched a car called the E30 M3. Now, all the car makers went loopy for it.
But because I was conditioned to the hierarchy of cylinders, I wanted my daddy to have a 325i
more than an E30 M3 because it had a six cylinder engine. I couldn't understand the fuss over this
car because it had a four cylinder engine. To me, it was almost, it was dead before it started
because it was going to sell it. Whereas the silky smooth six cylinder engine would be the one to
have. You were right. Yeah. We ought to one day definitively have this,
this discussion. M3 versus 325. Yeah, I know. Well, I can do that. I'll do a video and you can
all come along and educate it. Yeah. I think that I, you're so, there is something about the straight
six. There really is. Here we go. Using car numbers as passwords or other things. In other words,
inserting car data and car vernacular into our lives. Numeric vernacular. It's probably not even
a phrase, is it? But you can understand what I mean. Let's go for, I'm going to go for Neil on
this. I've got a funny feeling he might be the worst, the worst affected. Well, I mean,
this is almost not a discussion because it's, everybody does it, don't they?
I think we might find they don't. It's just us and those like us.
You know, the only slightly annoying thing is often you need four digits. And therefore,
you often have to put a zero at the beginning or the end because you're just working your way
through all of the Porsche numbers, aren't you? You know, if I go in a gym and there's a padlock,
0356 or 0993. I just, it's my, if I buy one of those shitty padlocks for whatever,
have a garden gate or something. 0991. All the time. And I don't know, passwords, if you have to,
it's fucking passwords. How annoying. You must have a funny, you know, you've got to have a capital,
you've got to have a number, you've got to have an exclamation mark. You'd have thought in the era of
chat GBT and taking over the world and so many. You'd think this password thing would be a little
bit easier. I know people would say it is, Neil. You use the one that they suggest to you and then
it just does your face. I suppose it has moved on a little bit. But I think whenever I've got to use
numbers, I use cars. I just use cars, car data, car numbers, car things are always
at the front of my mind in whatever situation I get myself into because it is my obsession,
whether it be F12 or 812. You know, those that follow me on Instagram and I have a love-hate
relationship with Instagram. I'm often in places where I'm jet lagged because, you know, I travel a
lot and I'm often walking up Madison Avenue at 4 a.m. And it's wonderful that there's number 993
Madison Avenue. I just get a smile, I get a joy and then you see 812 and then you see
812. It gives me extreme pleasure. I giggle to myself. I mean, you've got to enjoy your own
company, haven't you? You're a bit fucked otherwise. Or it's a sign of madness. I'm not really sure.
I'm very happy with myself walking along looking at numbers of doors on houses that have got car
numbers. It's extremely pleasurable. I remember, I remember once for an entire week,
good God, the things you've met on a podcast, I left home at 9.10 in the morning so that I could
see 9.11 come up on the digital clock of my car. I did it for an entire week once and I loved it.
And even now, if I look at my phone and it says 9.6 whatever, you know, something comes up, that's
obviously Porsche. I on my phone, I go, oh, look at that. Or even with someone, I'll just go
and quite often that person has no idea why I'm doing it. They'll go, why do you show me? I'll go,
well, that's a Porsche from the 70s and they'll go put the put the jacket back on him.
Right, so it's five to four. No, it's not. It's three, five, five.
Yeah. Chris Cooper.
I mean, Neil's so right. It's lap times with me. And before Mr. Harris, you say you must have bloody
long passwords because you're so fucking slow. Six digits. He once did a lap that was about four
hours long because they had to dig him out of the barrier. I mean, it was longer than that. In fact,
I think one of them, the clock is probably still running.
24 hours of Le Mans. It does one lap. It was probably at the ring that I started doing this
because, you know, there's, it's the same track and there's lots of people there.
And when we were rating the 997 Cupcar, Mantaid, special thing, there's about 12 or 15 of them.
And you look at some of them and you think, actually, how do they get so much faster? It turns
out a bit better than us. But it's already had a good day and a good quiet because I used to
mostly do the calling to like constantly destroy the car. I was banned from doing it.
I won't say what it is. It's obviously something like 0645. It wasn't that fast.
It was nowhere near that fast. But I still have, if I have to have a four digit password or code,
and actually, I shut it thing how long ago this time was measured 15 years ago, might be 12 years
ago. I still use it. And every time I have to type it in or click around the little, I think, about
happy times at the ring with Mr. H and I'll make geese fur and that kind. And it all comes flooding
back when I see a number. I was going to say, you have to get up quite early in the morning to
get it, but you nearly did. I actually love four digits and used to love them on the basis of
engine capacities. So padlocks are a very good example. Safes in hotels, four digit safes are
fantastic examples of mine. So the Contash was always my favorite, 3929. You had to do that,
3929. And then the equivalent Ferrari, which was 4390, Rolls Royce 67050, weight of the Contash,
1315. But my slight madness, I remember when we were making Senna, we used to watch some of the
clips so often, you'd be exactly what Mr. Cooper was saying, remember lap times. I think, I still
think, his pole position in Brazil was 116394. It was something like that. It was a 91, you know,
we used to almost memorize them because he saw these clips over and over and over again. But
pole position times, I think, you know, if I was on a desert island, I might actually love to commit
his 63, 64 pole positions to memory. That would be a lot of fun to know.
Remember when the late, lovely Henry Hope Frost went on that game show
and memorized all of that stuff. Have you ever seen that clip? HHF went off and just blew
everyone's minds with what he could remember. And the other person in that, Jonathan Williams,
what he could remember about. Jonathan, yes. Jonathan said, well, on Friday testing,
when we ran a bit more wind, we did, and he'll tell you to three decimal points,
what they did, it's phenomenal what he could remember. Can I say a quick Jonathan Williams
story? When we had to interview Frank Williams for Senna, I went up to Didkert and I'd spoken to
Jonathan a couple of times on the phone. And I was going through an extremely nerdy phase then.
And anyway, I met him early and we were just chatting just outside the room. We were going to
film Frank and they had all the little Tamiya Williams cars there. And Jonathan and I went on
to a complete nerd off about this. Just had the, just the best time to talk about that,
the aluminium monocoques and the first time that they had proper carbon fiber and Keckie
Rosberg's time at Donnington and Senna's time. And I remember they wheeled Frank up and
he saw me chatting to Jonathan. He was being so nerdy. He said to Jonathan,
I'm going to be filmed. I'm going to be filmed in a little bit for this Senna film. Do you want to
pop in when you finish chatting to your friend? And it was in that moment I realised I had arrived.
He didn't think I was there to film him. He thought I was Jonathan's mate because we were so into
every number for every Williams car. I think for me this is about
finally understanding numbers. So I'm largely just numeric so I couldn't really get past
certain things at school because I couldn't add up and I sat back at the class, couldn't behave,
didn't get GCSE maths first time. I just really struggled with it. I wasn't entirely stupid in
other areas but I really struggled with numbers. I just couldn't see any patterns. But at the same
time I had a burdening love for the numbers in the back of car magazines. I suppose this is why I
do have great faith in modern education systems. I think most modern teachers or teachers these
days would spot that and go well if you can do that there must be a way we can make this interesting
enough that you can understand it but no one made the connection back then. So they just allowed me
to carry on being thick but then I could recall all the data for every single car in the back of
what car from about the age of eight. So there must have been something going on. And I now realise
that part of the love of numbers is I don't have a number of love of mathematics. One of my children
is brilliant at that and actually enjoys numbers. But like Neil I like the shape of numbers. I like
the symmetry of numbers. I like the way that some combinations of numbers are cool and smart. Why is,
for example, three two three I so good looking. Why does it look? It looks and sounds great in a way
that 240i doesn't to me. I don't know why but it just does. And I so there is something sexy about
numbers and combinations and I have I think one of the great dark arts of car design and production
is the naming strategy. When you make you when they F40 when they sat in the room did they realise
that just by writing on a piece of paper one letter and two numbers they create an iconic
looking name without actually resorting to creating anything. It's incredible really.
I understand that repetition is important as well like you know if it was called the 287
GTO 288 is a sexy sounding. It's a lovely cadence. It bumps out of your larynx doesn't it? But you
know if it was called the 287 GTO you'd be like no no it's not quite the same. So I love all this
but I think more often than not I'm a bit more like Neil. I just I process on a simple level
it's comfort food. It means that I can be walking somewhere quite foreign and I can spot something
that centers me back to my love of cars. That's what it is about. Even a register of a time on a
phone reminds me that I love cars. I can go well that's it's for it's 412 in the morning. I still
have one of those but I'd like it with the manual gear. Everyone else is thinking why are you up so
early but I'm thinking manual or automatic that's probably where I'll leave that conversation. I
think and most of you listening are probably afflicted with the same problem. I'm just wondering
whether your emotional attachment numbers there's some coding that goes on there because the people
I know who are scarily good at numbers I mean scarily good at numbers um they they almost
have no emotional attachment to numbers. It's got a very very objective you know nine six to the 54
there's nothing there's nothing at all and I wonder whether that's what you were doing you were sitting
there going oh my god that that's this car so if you add this car together with that car you're
thinking car you're not thinking about adding seven and a four and making 11 you're thinking
seven series but they don't make a four series so how does that possibly imagine the great numeric
question of our time we've not discussed is what's the what is the next 911 going to be called I mean
it's a massive problem it is going from 992 they've already done 993 does 994 sound right I'm not sure
it does it doesn't I think it will be 994 yeah but do you know that Neil have you got intel please
share no he's surely the only one that might have intel here but even if I did know that if I said
that if I said anything now I'd get shocked but I'm just I don't know what the answer is
but I'm not sure why they're running out of 9 9s well that's the point yeah they're running out of
four five and eight haven't they I suppose they've got nine we can't really have 9 9 9 can you
well maybe you can maybe in Germany push in 9 9 9 maybe they should do 99 red balloons
yeah okay uh what's the best what time is it now oh okay me well what's the best boring car
that just does what it says on the tin it's a car no more no less
yeah that'll do I won't read the rest of it um so uh Chris Cooper talk about the golf mark seven
again no because I mean this this is quite a teasing question isn't it because it's a bit like
everything's 13 out of 10 I don't like the boring bit and a golf mark seven mark 7.5 is definitely
not boring it's definitely not boring but and all cars have got a purpose and a you know
you know a value and a and you can love them the part of it you can love the experience of
so but if the question was if you got the boring bit what's just it just does what it says on the
tin it's no more no less it's reliable it's dependent but it's always there when my dad retired
and he had he had a couple of Rover 3500s st ones that's the rock star car
it's a rock star car that's the one but when he retired and he lost his company car scheme
um he did exactly what this question says it's I need a car no more no less just
got to do a car because he wasn't it wasn't like we my brother and I went to car he bought a tow
to corolla yeah yeah and at one level it was sort of hmm it had a three speed automatic gearbox
to boot it was a five door hatchback this would have been late 80s um and yet and yet
it was really good it was a great car even with a three speed auto in it um it it did all the
things you wanted the car to do which is why I bought it and I think you know the empty to hear
what Neil says and what what all of you say but if you need a car it just does what it says on the
tin I think you end up with the Japanese car you think you might be right by the way that
reminds us and I will put a link up now to the infamous craigslist advert for the Toyota Corolla
which is the greatest car advert ever written yeah it's been certainly been floating around again
like a very welcome turn actually um for the last week or two because it it is just fabulous it
really is um and it it totally explains why why the corolla is in many ways the cockroach of cars
but it has so much about it so uh Neil Clifford now where do you stand on this I do my brain
particularly as I've just spent the last four days in Tokyo and and the the sort of quiet
obsession with perfection that rubs off on you slightly when you spend time in Japan and Tokyo
and you realize oh my god you know you realize what a country is for good and bad but certainly
you experience the neatness the organization the obsession with detail the tidiness the
the engineering perfection for me the perfect the perfect logical cars are taken away and
that's why sometimes I do struggle with the love of Japanese cars because they're almost too perfect
and I think cars like humans that to love them they maybe have to have a flaw or two which is why
we love Jaguar we love Ferrari whatever it may be because they do have flaws Japanese cars don't
really have many flaws and maybe they can be a little sterile a little boring but if you if you
just want a car for car's sake it takes me to Japanese and then you spend time walking around
Tokyo and then you fall in love I can't show you on my phone because obviously I'm talking
into my phone the chimney for me you know I'm so annoyed that I had one and then sold it but that
car I know you could see you could say there's an element of cool there's an element of not just
being a pure car because it's but the design of it the size of it the fact that it has got a
practicality you know if it snows here which it does in Tokyo you got your winter time it's going
to do everything it's never ever going to let you down it's the dog of cars it's it's just
you're going to be your best friend forever and yeah I think I think my my brain takes me to the
purity of a Japanese engineered car I manage can I just suggest that Neil doesn't share any of
those thoughts with Fernando Alonso right now because I don't I don't need I don't think you
depreciate that eulogy it might strangle you with two numb fingers I am maybe the English part of
his car is the problem though not the Japanese bit I'd suggest you don't share that with Adrian
Nuri ditto so I actually think and it's again it's an experiential thing for me
it's a car my mum thought about buying because so many women of a certain age men of a certain age
bought these cars but it was a Ford Focus mark one yeah for me and I just it was not just
it so it had that sort of Ford car aesthetic suddenly you had these curves and straight lines
and we didn't we didn't see that that much in Ford up to then you know everything was sort of
straight line a little bit boxy and suddenly Ford they didn't call it the escort did they they
created a new name for it and you you got it was so practical and there were just so many
variations of it and I think in some ways you could argue the aesthetics perhaps were a little bit
Japanese but certainly wasn't straight out of the Ford box I didn't I didn't read about the design
but I I remember that there were three three doors five doors there was an estate
every engine size you can imagine I don't think these cars particularly went wrong
the interiors looked just upgraded if that makes sense and I remember a neighbour of my
five door and looking inside it it reminded me of my father back in 1976 I think he he bought a 1.6
Ford escort gear I remember buying that looking inside and feeling so excited by the interior
and by the cloth and well this could have been too exactly an early mark too so 22 years later
you know the focus appears and I think it's just a car that did everything just about right and it
was a little you know I mean it's a bit boring but also just this side of boring perhaps that
aesthetic and that sort of you know forward I mean it's it is a great company it was a great
company and to get a car quite alright they sold just in their millions didn't they millions
just a popular car so it'd be focus mark one for me yeah it's interesting so there's some
obvious answers here golf escort fiesta you know the the cars of the people of the answers in many
ways and when you've been presented with engineering simplicity it was designed for the masses it can
be quite humbling to realize that actually it's often presented as being the few that are privileged
to have the best engineering but actually it's the many that normally are in fact one of the best
discussions I had and managed was around the time with Luca when we made the film about him was
going out in his Renault 4 and then later that evening over dinner I suddenly realized how much
passion he had for ordinary car design he was much he wanted to discuss the ubiquity of the
beetle the Renault 4 these great people's cars and how they had sold in such great numbers and how
simple they were and his understanding of them was much deeper than mine it was he understood
them from production capability as well so I love all those but they're quite obvious to me
I suppose one of the things that I was looking for when I answered this was
what car have I owned or what car have I been in the presence of that just sort of made me
rethink the way that we interact with cars and I was I only drove one of these
my mother had one of these when I started driving and it's a Renault Spass now I know this is a
bit of an odd answer but because it's quite a complicated car you know it's effectively a metal
space frame with panel strapped onto it but the first one we had I realized now completely altered
the way that we as a slightly weird family group interacted with the car we suddenly had this thing
that was it was huge but not very long it was hugely spacious but didn't take up an awful lot
of space on the road it was incredibly versatile my father who was one of those weird generation
that wouldn't drive the estate car because he had his own BMW actually unfortunately quite enjoyed
driving it so suddenly it was an exciting car but when you looked at it it was a van so it should
have been boring you know you everyone looked at it and everyone had sort of snobbishness about
this spass to start with but why would you have one of those it's one of those mini vans it looks
ridiculous and then you show them around it they go Jesus that's clever I might get one of those
do you remember they suddenly exploded like Japanese knotweed every other car was in a spatter
in about two years they were everywhere the market one was quite rare wasn't it yeah the
facelift the facelift of the first gen car was the one where they suddenly sold that's right yeah
yeah and I I still maintain that it was it was the boring car that just sort of rethought the way
that we interacted with motherboard because in fact I don't think there's a car as clever as the
spass on sale now no I don't think there you go there's my answer to that let's move on fairly
briskly to the formula one I'll go to our formula correspondent first Manish give us your thoughts
on what happened at the weekend so without the rehashing the Grand Prix I just want to talk
about this formula because I'm starting to understand it a little bit better and
the big criticism of the last formula was really DRS trains the cars were big they were heavy the
downforce came from under the car and that by the way was supposed to be the solution to the DRS
train so that you know what because the downforce is under the car you can follow closer and eventually
with your DRS you can you can pop out and it didn't work and it just slightly has occurred to me that
what this formula might do with its two modes overtake and boost
the first mode is all about being within a second of the car in front of you
and being able to access a bit more power so you can squirt past it the guy in front of you
doesn't have it you do but it still costs you your battery you don't get it as an extra you get it
as an option if that makes sense and I think the second mode which is the kind of really I think
slightly crazy formula E mode where you just press the button you've got a huge amount of power
but you massively drain your battery so the guy just gets you back I think the combination of these
two might lead us to a formula when these cars become more reliable of having results which are
two by two by two by two by two because what you're going to basically do is you're you're
getting rid of racing and what you're effectively doing is allowing someone to basically not get
caught in a train and revert to their quote unquote natural position based on the speed of their car
and if you add to that this is new technology it's going to take a while for people to converge
we had a field spread where the winning team was basically 30 seconds ahead of the second team
who were 30 seconds ahead of the next team a couple of people Peres included were lap twice
so we're now into 80s territory where you know people were banging Cosworth old Cosworth engines
into an old chassis and trying to race a Ferrari or trying to race an amazing Williams or a Brabham
a works car they were the ones who got lap twice where we've suddenly got a formula where everything
is a works car and some of them getting lap twice now Graham and his team will do a brilliant job
I'm sure the Cadillac engine will come but for the next period of time it's just occurred to
me that this is what's going to happen and again not to denigrate Toto Wolf he was really rather
I thought full of himself when he spoke to Kimi and said he started reading out the list of
criticisms people gave him about employing Kimi he said you know don't get this driver he's too
young he's this you've proven them wrong Kimi brackets I've proven them wrong Kimi but what I
would say is it's a strange formula isn't it where a guy in his second year with three podiums before
this year is put into a car and slaughters Max and slaughters the world champion Lando and you
know George made it George had a technical problem so he couldn't out qualify him gets into the front
and off he goes now you can say ever was it thus but you know is Kimi the next Max is he
Senna good is he could he be maybe I didn't see too much last year that convinced me of that but
maybe you know he's had some kind of epiphany I would argue this formula but basically to simplify
it I think there's a 12 year old out there who if you got him fit enough could sit in one of these
cars and win all 22 races and that's my worry about this formula this squeeze push the computer
decides when you're gonna when it's gonna lift and take it it there's something desperately
artificial about it and I tried so hard this time to just go you know nothing about it just
enjoy the racing for the racing sake what somebody I mean I even saw that sort of Ferrari dual I
don't mean to be a cynic but don't you think it just that worked out rather beautifully the Ferrari
dual you know Lewis got his podium Alahakinen's first win you know got him over his kind of
podium virginity for Ferrari at his best track I mean if I was Charles Leclerc did maybe Lewis beat
him in a fair fight it looked to me like stop fighting it's not going to give the team any
more points you're squabbling for third you know you had seven last year Charles Lewis had none
let's let's be a good team there was something just very I just got at the end of the race and
went yep Mercedes wanted to if the McLaren's had been running either they'd have been third and
fourth or they'd have been fifth and there was just something very something didn't quite feel
right about it or okay so I think we could say that Manish is an unconvinced punter.
Look at it, did you watch it?
Did I watch it? No. No, but the
Pardon? We couldn't watch it. No we couldn't find it. Isn't it always that it's the car that's the
best thing and the drivers are all about the same apart from Max that may be a little bit better
the fact that I just think it's great that Lewis is back on the podium I think you know I'm sad for
McLaren because I like McLaren because they're British and I'm a bit of a British person but
it's always thus that the car is always much more important than the driver isn't it? Isn't that just
always the case? It's that percentage Neil that seems to have just gone even further we're only
hoping they pull it back a bit rather than push it out. It feels like 20 to 30. Even though I don't
understand all the sort of because I'm literally not interested enough to understand all this
electrics it would be great if there wasn't so much electric stuff and they were just racing
with engines basically I mean that but maybe I'm just a bit of a dinosaur I'm not really that excited
about the cars or the noise or I just you know if they were just racing with the same cars it'd
be better but maybe I think it's good to see some new winners on the podium we've got a bit maybe
got a bit bored with the whole Max show didn't we? I mean he's going to throw his toys out the
pram now in a sort of quite funny cool way isn't he and say I'm going to go and race shopping carts
or whatever he's up to and I'm sure he is the best driver but I'm sure Kimmy is as good as
the others really if you put them all in the same cars I think the good news for me Mr Narrow
Lewis fan is he's in with an outside chance yep not sure anyone's in with a chance unless you're
going to Mercedes this year but we'll see and they were talking about a more immediate rule
change but the FIA have just decided not against that so Chris Cooper what do you think?
May I talk about something slightly different in Motorsport Corner? This week first time in
nine years it was announced that the World Rally Championship is coming back to the UK.
Yeah yeah it's going to be WRC Scotland. Unbelievable support from Scottish Parliament
Aberdeenshire Council and Aberdeen City Council. Clearly I'm biased I sit on most of you will
probably recall I sit on the board of most of what you care I'm an independent non-executive
director a lot of work has gone on for a lot of years to bring World Rally back to the UK
last was in 2019 so David Rickard is our chair a former World Rally Champion himself
and the last year of his chair stint I'm super chuffed for him that we've got WRC back
a few chambers and Colin Clark our CEO and head of events and and commercial done an
unbelievable job with lots of other people in Bistra and lots of other people in Scotland
and WRC Simon Larkin who's promoter to bring it back it's wonderful it starts in 2027 I can't wait.
The stages up there are amazing it's just beautiful that border country they're
playing around there and then you go or sorry a locker room and then you go all the way up it's
absolutely amazing stages lucky enough we should do that's great yeah it's gonna be wonderful I
agree I think first of all I didn't get up to watch the race which I'm a little bit embarrassed
about but I did that classic set my alarm for the wrong time got up at six all confidently
and realized it started at seven and thought I like cuddling the dog but I'm not I'm gonna
get back to bed and I and actually there wasn't enough pregnancy and the potential action to really
keep me interested you know it was so obvious kind of what was gonna happen I have a lot of sympathy
for where they are in the technical cycle of the sport I think we have to afford them a little bit
of leeway and it's it's only natural that if you if you give these people these regulations you are
on balance going to have one team that nafs off into the distance it's now the sports job to encourage
or facilitate the others to catch up or to reign in the leaders that's what happens it's in motorsport
I'm afraid it's always been that way so I'm not too surprised at what we've got at the moment
my problem is that we've the the the technical regulations so let's just left the sport in a
place where the racing is no longer organic in other words there are there are technical factors
that interfere with the basics of getting down as straight as fast as you can stopping the car
as late as you dare and turning into a corner that and when when you speak about it that way
racing is almost as simple as football it's a lot more going on but that's the basics of the sport
we've now got and this is what I totally agree with Max when you see cars pull off overtakes that
don't look right to your eye and that's happening the whole time now quite often for me the visual
language of the car is before would have been always got a problem you know you just like always
backed off or is it got a problem with the engine but and then suddenly they're after the corner
they're going fast again I find it very confusing um and I don't I don't really like it if I'm
around it but I can't see how they can with all of this boost and super clipping and the other stuff
that's going on um commentators are having they're earning their money at the moment to you know to
sell us this and I do appreciate what they're doing but yeah it's not for me at the moment I have to
say I've I've watched the bit of the first one I don't have more second one I'm I might struggle
to watch the third one I but Japan is next Japan is like normally it this is for me very difficult
circuit to overtake on you can almost remember the number of overtakes they're always in one place
or one of two places this is going to be like a 70skellextrex it could be you suddenly see this
and then you suddenly you suddenly see that it's going to be very weird no I I think they're sorted
out and I want to give them as much support as possible I don't want to complain about it but
it's not I suppose it's not what I signed up to it's a bit like going to your favorite restaurant
and as a new chef and you order the you know you order the the chicken minnaise and it comes out
and you go well that's not how I like it I like it a bit crispier than I like I like an egg on top
but it's not there is it so but I'm convinced they'll find I'm convinced they will find the
correct chef in the meantime they're not going to change because we've got the middle east races
cancelled that there was potentially a change of rules in between but they were talking about
they were talking about a rule change before Miami but they're not going to do that now right
what's going to happen is the big change now Neil is before we're going to before June right
before Monaco basically there's going to be a new compression test for the engine so I think
everybody with a Mercedes engine in theory will be losing a little bit of power so if Ferrari can
hang in there maybe they'll find you know a little 2 percent or whatever by the time they
get to Monaco and we know the chassis is very good we know the cars quick off the line so you never
know let's move on to our two car garage now our classic are currently hosting something called
their collector's edition number two you might remember I did a video sitting in a lovely Bentley
Monano saloon car to introduce the first generation of this before Christmas but they've got a load
of very cool new and old metal I think there's 38 or 40 cars they're currently live there's about
four days to go so we decided this week we're just going to choose our favorite two for these
cars from this bunch of cars because it really is a slightly dreamy set of cars there's some really
interesting stuff everything from rest of modern 11s to Montreal to a new edition our 34 GTI it's
all there so let's have a let's choose two from here manage you can go first I'm going to hold
mine up simultaneously I'm going through a British and I love them red phase we're going to all love
everybody else's cars but that is my two car garage this weekend series three v12 open jag
and a db4 oh but it's red just look can you imagine those in a garage just imagine those in the
garage um love them and they're spaced by exactly 10 years 1963 and 1973 so I could actually have
used them last week as well love them but there is an sp2 monitor in here we can't choose that
so don't choose that Cooper you go no I didn't choose that but I did choose the series three v12
jag good actually it's done 35 000 miles yes really really good mileage and condition
um and I'd just love to take that to Bista for our great British Jaguar day the other one
which I have to say and it's it's a six cylinder and it's just I just think it's the most I grew
up thinking is it possible to have a cooler car than that yeah so I just thought that was
unbelievably cool and dreamy and I the auction all of these auctions finished on Saturday so
you know day or so after this goes out on Friday god hard not tempting not to wade in on that
uh look at it right my um my color is custard so I've gone for the two custard cars some people
will know I have a nickname of custard so I've gone this beautiful little 356
yeah it's classic but you know what those things never break down you know you're good you could
drive to monaco and back in that I once saw you in the I once saw you in the paddock at Goodwood
and you were saying my bloody 356 has broken down you know what that's another story and that
it's another story it's another hour-long podcast we could talk about that 356 and it's um
the invoices are ready the cars in isn't but um anyway we'll come to that on another day
I've then gone obviously we all need to have this love of Jaguar look at this
look at that it's the very very first Jaguar um the SS in custard originally ordered in that color
originally ordered in 1936 in beige with blue leather what an amazing thing if you're going to
rock up on Bister on the May the 23rd in that baby and actually we've got a couple of X um got a
couple of these coming so too very practical but they definitely won't break down convertibles
as my two car garage in custard yellow how practical I love the idea of that Jaguar SS
paint to sample they've gone in there they've they've taken the cat with them so it could be sick
there they go oh one of that color yeah there that's get the cat to be sick
ball drink how did you get that sick out of that cat yeah right so uh okay I mean there's a lots
there's a bit there's a lot of stuff here for me there really is there's a bit tricky this one
um I'm going uh first of all I really do like the R-type Conti I'm a bit obsessed with them it's
quite rare that you see them come up R-type Conti is just I saw that I left that to you yeah thank you
it is one of the most beautiful cars for you
it's very kind of you R-type Conti and I have to say other than that I don't really know where to
turn here it's too much for me but at the very top but I'm not normally into these there's a there's a
Resto Mod 2.8 RSR in blood orange and I there's something about the stance of this one that just
makes and the arches look just right fabulous fabulous I just think that is you know there's
a lot to be said for having fakes you know you can pretend that you've got a £2 million car can't
you can pretend you got a £2 million car um so uh oh so I'm trying to find a way there I'm um
we'll do some music quickly before we go because I've got to get in the car and leave um I'm in
trouble uh because I'm going to be late uh wait there one second uh music I'm going to start off
by giving you my here we go now I listened to this on the way home last night because I stopped off
for my dinner and I drove a bit later Swedish house mafia from the early 2000s don't you worry child
now listen to it you'll be very familiar with it but it's a very very very good uplifting slightly
sort of electronic dance music track to listen to uh later night uh Neil Clifford I've gone randomly to
my thousand songs spotify playlist that is very creatively called songs and I'm I'm just going
to choose a random one don't give up Peter Gaber on Kate Bush it's a very cute song
and we love Kate Bush um I love bossa nova and there's a great guy I've mentioned him once before
on the pod Jorge Ben Hor and there's a piece of music which I put right up there with you know
girl from Ipanema it's called Menina Mulair the Pele Prata it's beautiful I mean honestly your
guest is good as mine all of you all listeners no idea what he's on about there but I'm sure it's good
um Chris Cooper last week I wasn't at my best and Mr Harris also always says
never look at the comments on YouTube or whatever and I and I I felt bad about
letting a lot of life get the better of me but by the end of the week actually probably yesterday
my wife Lynn said to me you need to read the comments and I was bowled over by the kindness
and generosity that everyone showed to all of us but particularly me so my song this week
is My Friend by Groove Armada very good very good very good and I'm given that Lynn asked you to
read the comments I'm really gutted that my Nils planned to write You Crashy Wanker 50 times on
YouTube didn't come to fruition we are in there somewhere you just don't know what we're called
exactly a good note to end on thank you everyone enjoy this have a look at these auctions because
there's some right there's some very good tat in there that really is I'm actually I'm
I'm heading off down there now this is Tuesday I'm gonna go and have a look at them all because
they've got there's a crazy there's a there's a Montreal so you gotta have a look yeah okay
love to you all and we'll you'll have for us next week bye bye
About this episode
The hosts explore the theme of 'the long way home,' sharing personal stories about taking scenic or unconventional routes to enjoy driving more fully. They discuss the appeal of the straight six engine, praising its balance, smoothness, and iconic status in cars like Jaguars and BMWs. The conversation touches on the evolving nature of Formula 1 racing, expressing mixed feelings about the new regulations and technology. They also debate the idea of the 'best boring car,' highlighting practical, reliable models like the Toyota Corolla and Ford Focus. The episode wraps with picks from a classic car auction and personal music recommendations.
Original notes
Get your tickets to the Great British Jaguar Day at Bicester Motion below!
https://bicestermotion.com/calendar/great-british-jaguar-day
Download Car & Classic’s app today to see our 2CG’s, and our weekly pick of our
favourite listings: https://candc.li/App_Download_
(00:00) Intro
(00:06) Going the long way home
(22:55) The straight six engine is the coolest
(36:25) Using car numbers as passwords !
(50:13) What’s the best boring car
(1:01:00) F1
(1:14:09) 2CG by Car & Classic
(1:19:28) Music
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The Car Podcast with Chris Harris & Friends
Chris Harris
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