The Car Podcast #81 blends wild personal car stories with serious enthusiast talk. Neil Clifford shares a stolen-shoes chase involving his i3 and a bizarre encounter with Bernie Ecclestone. The crew gears up for “Great British Jaguar Day” (live podcasts, awards, merch, and a big Jaguar display) and teases a secret prototype drive. Chris Harris revisits the Aston Martin Valhalla and admits he was wrong—calling it world-class. They also debate car finance mis-selling, rallying’s UK return, and Formula 1’s “harvesting” tech making racing feel less authentic. The episode ends with music picks and upcoming track events.
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(00:00) Intro
(00:06) What have you done in cars recently
(21:55) Cars news that caught your eye this week
(35:20) You need to budget extra 10% to the car bargain you just bought ...
(59:55) F1
(1:18:02) 2CG with Car & Classic
(1:26:42) Music
Welcome to Chris Harris on Cars. The platform where Chris Harris (of Top Gear & automotive journalist) explores the obsessive world of cars. From in-depth reviews a hilarious podcasts, to pushing a car to its limits and debates on the future of the automobile - Chris and his friends bring their unfiltered passion, expertise, and humour. Whether you're a die-hard petrolhead or just curious about our world, this is your go-to destination for everything on four wheels.
"And we do want a little update from you on whether that steering column is as fixed as I told you it was."
The steering column is the part that connects your steering wheel to the rest of the steering system. If it’s “fixed,” it means it’s not loose or wobbly anymore.
The steering column is the shaft and housing that connect the steering wheel to the steering mechanism. When someone says it’s “fixed,” they’re usually referring to play or looseness that can affect feel and safety.
"And I'm like, Oh, that's quite a cool number plate. Then Bernie Eccleston shows up."
A number plate is the license plate on a car. In the UK, some plates look especially cool or valuable, so the speaker is noticing that one.
A number plate is the vehicle’s license plate, and in the UK it’s often a point of personal pride or status. The speaker specifically reacts to a “cool” plate, suggesting it had an interesting or desirable format.
"I'm basically lobbing the ball up to you inside the center. And you've got Manu to a langy coming at you to clatter you because this is a hospital pass."
A “hospital pass” means you’re passing someone a tough play that could go badly. Here, it’s a joke about giving Manish a problem that’s hard to handle safely.
A “hospital pass” is a sports term for a throw/pass that’s risky and likely to get the receiver hurt. In the transcript, it’s used metaphorically to describe a difficult situation being handed off to Manish.
"I've got to talk about a pothole. Talk about some janguas. Do you remember we did that emergency podcast about potholes?"
A pothole is a hole or broken patch in the road. Hitting one can be rough on your tires and suspension, and it can even mess up your wheel alignment.
A pothole is a damaged section of road surface that can form when water gets into cracks and then freezes or when traffic breaks up the pavement. They’re a common UK road issue and can cause tire damage, wheel alignment problems, and suspension wear.
"The central display of Jaguars is going to be extraordinary. The next few days, weeks or two, we'll start to tell you which Jags we've got coming, racing cars, classic cars..."
Jaguar is a car brand from the UK. They make cars that are often seen as stylish and sporty, and this episode segment is about an event where people bring their Jaguars to show them off.
Jaguar is a British luxury and performance car brand known for models like the E-Type, XJ, and F-Type. In this segment, the hosts are talking about a Jaguar-focused event and the cars that will be displayed.
"Next week, the four of us are going to Gayden, super, super secret, to see the new amazing prototype. We're going to drive. Not that secret. They've already been driven."
A prototype is a nearly-finished early version of a car. It’s built to test how the new ideas work before the car is sold to the public.
A prototype is an early, pre-production version of a car used to test design, engineering, and performance before final production. The hosts are describing a “new amazing prototype” they plan to see and drive, which implies active development and evaluation.
"...going back to Landau and really hammering the shit out of an E39M5 just reminded me how utterly brilliant they are as cars. They do everything..."
This is a BMW M5 from the E39 generation. It’s famous for being both comfortable to live with and exciting to drive.
The BMW E39 M5 is the M5 generation from the late 1990s to early 2000s, known for blending everyday usability with serious performance. Chris Harris is emphasizing that it’s comfortable yet capable, which is a big part of why people still rate the E39 M5 highly.
"“my brother. I mean, win on Sunday, sell on Monday. It works. We need to do that.”"
It’s a saying that means if a brand wins races, people will want to buy that brand’s cars afterward. The racing results are used like advertising.
“Win on Sunday, sell on Monday” is a motorsport marketing idea: racing success is used to boost brand sales afterward. The hosts reference it as a strategy that links on-track performance to consumer interest.
"...the Scottish Parliament and the FIA and the F1 promoter, Simon Larkin. They've all been incredibly supportive. Malcolm Wilson, who is the deputy president for sport of the FIA..."
FIA is the big organization that oversees a lot of major racing. They help set rules and support events across different motorsport categories.
The FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile) is the main governing body for many forms of motorsport, including Formula 1 and rallying. In the segment, it’s referenced as supporting rally events and leadership within the sport.
"It doesn't have a boot. I don't understand why modern cars have this at all."
A “boot” is the trunk where you put bags. They’re saying this car doesn’t have one, which is surprising for a modern road car.
A “boot” is the trunk area for luggage. The speaker notes the car “doesn’t have a boot,” which is unusual for a road car and highlights how packaging choices can affect practicality.
"what you should do is budget 10% beyond what you've spent, as the inevitable cost of just making the fucking thing get you home"
They’re saying when you buy a used car, you should expect extra costs after the purchase. A simple way to protect yourself is to save about 10% more than the purchase price for repairs and getting it sorted.
The speaker is describing a practical rule-of-thumb for buying used cars that may need repairs: set aside extra money for inevitable costs to get the car running reliably. It’s essentially a “contingency fund” approach to avoid being surprised by maintenance and fixes after purchase.
"Well, I sort of said something similar to this the other day when we did the car restoration thing. Do you mean it is possible to buy cars where you only need to budget an extra 10%?"
Restoration means fixing up a car that isn’t quite right yet. It can be anything from replacing worn parts to making the car drive smoothly again.
Car restoration here refers to the process of returning a used car to a better condition through repairs and refresh work. It’s often a mix of maintenance, replacing worn components, and sorting drivability or handling issues.
"So how much more would it cost to get the DCT put in?"
DCT means a dual-clutch gearbox. It shifts quickly because it’s ready for the next gear before you ask for it.
DCT stands for Dual-Clutch Transmission. It’s an automated manual with two clutches that pre-selects the next gear, usually giving faster, more consistent shifts than a traditional torque-converter automatic.
"should I find somebody who can put a manual gearbox in her just to go for complete perfection"
A manual gearbox is the one where you use a clutch and shift gears yourself. They’re talking about wanting the car to be set up that way for maximum driving “purity.”
A manual gearbox uses a clutch pedal and gear lever, giving the driver direct control over gear selection. The conversation frames it as a “perfection” goal—swapping to a manual when the car is otherwise configured differently.
"And we had a Bentley Continental GTC. We persuaded them to spend some money on some cars."
The Bentley Continental GTC is a luxury convertible. In this story, it’s mentioned as a valuable car they wanted to keep safe during filming.
The Bentley Continental GTC is a grand tourer with a convertible (GTC) roof, combining Bentley’s luxury with a powerful engine. The speaker references it as part of the Morocco shoot and as one of the cars they planned to use rather than wreck.
"I think there's a sort of a kind of line and it, it is, and I've said it before, I think there's drive survive. I think there's a Formula One movie and that's absolutely fine."
Formula One is the highest level of open-wheel racing. Cars are very advanced, and the race isn’t just about driving fast—it’s also about smart strategy.
Formula One (F1) is the top tier of open-wheel racing, with strict technical rules and heavy emphasis on strategy. The sport’s modern hybrid power units and energy management make race outcomes especially strategy-driven.
"You know, Lando took Lewis at the chicane, Lewis got him straight back on the first corner. I saw the fight between Charles and Lewis and it was fantastically close."
A chicane is a part of the track where you have to change direction quickly to slow down. It’s often where drivers can try to pass or defend because it affects braking and acceleration.
A “chicane” is a sequence of alternating turns designed to slow cars down and create a safer, more controlled cornering section. In F1, chicanes are common overtaking/defense points because braking and traction determine who can exit faster.
"You know what you're watching isn't everybody on maximum go or even just, you know, they've got to save the tyres, but they're all trying as hard as they can."
“Save the tyres” describes managing tire wear by driving more conservatively—often by easing throttle/braking, adjusting lines, or using energy deployment differently. It’s a major part of race strategy and can reduce how hard drivers can push.
"[4898.9s] stance and the length of the bonnet and the angle of the boot and the angle and the slide of the [4905.2s] horches."
“Bonnet” is just the UK word for the hood. Here it’s mentioned because the hood’s length affects how the whole car looks.
In UK usage, “bonnet” means the hood—the front hinged panel covering the engine bay. The speaker references bonnet length as part of the car’s overall visual balance, which is a common way designers critique coupé shapes.
"[4986.5s] you said. I think it's about the proportions of the bonnet to whatever the quasi-boot is, [4993.2s] how long that front windscreen is."
A “windscreen” is the windshield. The speaker is saying that the size and shape of that glass area affects how the car’s overall proportions look.
“Windscreen” is the UK term for the windshield. The speaker links the windscreen length/shape to coupé proportions, since the windshield and roofline determine how the cabin sits visually between the hood and rear deck.
"The proportions of this car, I think it looks better than a Mark IV Golf, same time, same platform."
They’re comparing the Audi A3’s look to a Volkswagen Golf from the Mk4 generation. The idea is that these cars can feel visually similar because they’re built on related engineering.
“Mark IV Golf” means the Volkswagen Golf Mk4 generation. The speaker compares the Audi A3’s proportions to the Golf Mk4, noting they share the same general platform architecture, which is why the shapes can feel related.
"The car doesn't need to work. It's a pure design exercise. You're right."
They’re stressing that they’re judging the car’s styling only. They’re not talking about it like a normal buyer would.
“Pure design exercise” reinforces that the evaluation is aesthetic only. In this context, the speaker is separating the car’s visual success from brand politics or typical ownership concerns.
"Ironically, it was given in Mercedes-Benz's centre in Brooklyn's after he'd left BMW."
BMW is the car brand mentioned here. They’re saying Bangal worked at BMW before moving on to give a talk at Mercedes-Benz.
BMW is mentioned as Bangal’s former employer before he gave the talk at Mercedes-Benz. In this segment, BMW also connects directly to the earlier reference to the BMW Z4 M Coupe design.
"Ironically, it was given in Mercedes-Benz's centre in Brooklyn's after he'd left BMW."
Mercedes-Benz is the car company mentioned here. They’re saying Bangal gave a talk at Mercedes-Benz’s facility in Brooklyn after leaving BMW.
Mercedes-Benz is referenced as the company that hosted Chris Bangal’s talk in its Brooklyn center. The segment uses this to frame Bangal’s career path and the broader automotive-industry context of design thinking.
"Seven grand for that. Done 74,000 miles. Other one was 25."
Mileage like “74,000 miles” is a key factor in valuing used cars and estimating remaining wear items. It also helps contextualize whether the price mentioned (“seven grand”) is reasonable for the car’s condition and maintenance history.
"Last year we did a track day at Thruxton, and we had lots of lovely cars in there and lots of noise."
A track day is an event where drivers take their own cars onto a closed circuit for timed or practice laps. Rules often cover noise, safety equipment, and how the track is shared among participants.
"Thruxton, a very, very, very kindly and extra specially, allowed us to have a no noise limit day. If you have an F1 car, you can bring it."
Normally tracks limit how loud cars can be. This day is special because the noise rules are relaxed, so louder cars can run.
This refers to a track-day rule that relaxes or removes the usual sound limits. It allows louder cars—especially race cars—to run without being turned away for exceeding decibel caps.
"Dear crew, it's Toyota with an adult sized third row. Everyone's welcome in the Grand Highlander."
Toyota is the car company being advertised here. They’re highlighting several family vehicles—an SUV with three rows, a minivan, and a compact SUV.
Toyota is the automaker behind the Grand Highlander, Sienna, and RAV4 mentioned in this segment. The ad framing emphasizes Toyota’s family-oriented lineup across minivan and SUV categories.
"Slip into the RAV4 with available all wheel drive and let's go."
All-wheel drive means the car can send power to more than two wheels. It helps the vehicle grip better, especially in rain or snow.
All-wheel drive (AWD) sends power to more than just the front or rear wheels, improving traction when conditions are slippery or uneven. Many crossovers offer AWD as an option, which can be a big deal depending on where you live and how you drive.
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Two of my loaded friends have helped me here with information pertaining to
the significance of that number. 81 was 1981, was when Duran Duran released their first single,
Planet Earth. That was from Managed Pandy. Neil Clifford then climbed in with 81, could be 81
on a W or an X. Chris Cooper told me, for now, that's 69 plus 12. It's frankly grotty, and we've
got to get over it, Chris. Moving on to our agenda this week. What have you done in cars
recently, which is normally endemic of the fact that we've not had much time to think of any
agenda for this week? It's a broad brush question that allows us to just demonstrate what a colorful
world we have in our relationship with the motor car. Let's go first with Neil Clifford, please.
Oh, my God. I was hoping you would say Managed Pandy then, so I can figure out what I was going
to say. Look, we went to Bentley. That was not this week, was it? Week four, but that was a
really jolly good laugh. I've been finalizing the design and delivery of Chris Harris on
cars' t-shirts, one of which will be available, I think, from about Wednesday. And remember,
chaps, there's only 100. We're only making 100 of every t-shirt, so please look out for that.
The other good news is, I sold my Winnie Bego. No! Yes. Now, the funny thing about this is
there was only one buyer for this Winnie Bego. No shit. When it was for sale last time,
and his name was Neil Clifford. So the irony of the story is, when we spoke about this and the
fact that Nigel, Nigel who metaphorically pulled my pants down when I bought it in the Brent
Cross car park, Nigel sprung back up after listening to the podcast. And of course,
pulled my pants down again because I invested 14 grand in it and he's bought it off me for less
than I paid for it. That was the only thing we could do. It couldn't respond to a better owner.
It's absolutely bloody fabulous. He's actually got a Ridgeback like mine. He's already taken photos
in it. I don't know how he's doing that because he hasn't picked it up yet. I think the dog is AI
or something. But nevertheless, Nigel, good luck with the Winnie Bego. And we do want a little
update from you on whether that steering column is as fixed as I told you it was.
I'd say it's been quite busy actually. Also, this is a weird situation. I haven't told anyone this
story really apart from people at work. And I won't tell all of the story. I was playing tennis
this morning, looking at my car. And there was a young man looking at my car, looking at my car,
looking at my car. And then my i3 BMW, then whether I hadn't locked the car or whether he
managed to open it or one of those machines, opened the back of my car as I was playing tennis.
Can you believe it? So of course, being a very sensible chap, being brought up in Portsmouth
and was used to chasing shoplifters in Woolwich in 1997, I chased him down the street in Highbury.
And he stole a bag out of my car, which had a very lovely pair of shoes that I had made
for a very special man that runs a Ferrari and specialist classic car pace in Southwest London.
And I had them signed by that wonderful person that we know who they choose in Ancona.
So I was like, oh my God, this is going to be shit if these shoes get stolen.
So off this gentleman went with his bicycle with my shoes. So I threw my tennis racket at him.
Now, unfortunately, I'm quite a good shot, but I missed him. But he ducked, fell off his bike
and dropped the shoes. He then zoomed off on his bicycle. God knows what he was going to do with
a bright orange pair of size 12s anyway. But nevertheless, these are all scattered on the road
in Highbury. I managed to pick them up. The box is a little bit dented, but nevertheless,
I got the shoes back. And these shoes will be finally delivered to our lovely man
of specialist car dealership in Southwest London very, very soon. So that was quite an
eventful afternoon, morning yesterday. So I've been quite busy in cars.
Well, all I can say is J.M. is going to get his shoes. That's a brilliant story. And sadly,
this podcast is only going downhill from here with regards to anecdotes, because that's not going
to be better. The idea of you wearing your finest Boris Becker whites, lobbing a graphite tennis
racket or carbon, whatever it may be. The whole genuine people thing that I have these sort of
super weird experiences. I think we all do. But this was this was a weird one than normal.
That's brilliant. That's the best story I think I've heard on this podcast.
Got Neil, you've just got one quick thing to add, right? Neil, who does Neil bump into this
afternoon in London? You've got to tell him. Well, then then I was at a lovely, a lovely
little meeting in a department store beginning with H. And I parked around the corner because
I needed a quick escape. So and I was worried about the Westway because that was bloody closed
because that's all the drama. And they need to get back to the cars. So I parked in a quick exit
street near near near Harrods. There. Well, there was a I think a Defender four or a Freelander or
something something not quite as cool as you'd like it to be really. But anyway, F one X X X
number plate. And I'm like, Oh, that's quite a cool number plate. Then Bernie Eccleston shows up.
He sort of semi recognized me and said, Hey, how you doing? And I'm like, Oh, Manish says hi.
He said, Oh, yes, I'll give him I'll give him a call. And then I think you spoke to him Manish
or maybe you had a chat. But anyway, I saw the King, the King of F one on my way home this afternoon.
Well, we're supposed to go. I once had to give a best man speech on a beach in Portugal. I mean,
it wasn't the best speech and it did blow out my hands down down the beach. But I had to follow
the father of the groom who gave one of the best speeches I've ever heard in my life. And I remember
thinking I'm goose as I stood up to even say anything. I feel like that now. Neil Clifton
has stolen it there. We're gonna have to work quite hard here. I'm gonna look I'm gonna throw this
hospital pass to Manish. I'm basically lobbing the ball up to you inside the center. And you've
got Manu to a langy coming at you to clatter you because this is a hospital pass. Manish, what
have you done this week? I just remembered how much I used to hate rugby as a kid. I remember
being sort of five feet 12 years old, five feet two and about four stones. You know, they'd always
put you in that 10 meter by 10 meter box with someone and you'd have to tackle them was just
Manu Manu. And I was always with the eight stone six foot tall kid with big knees and big fists.
That's exactly what this feels like. Actually, one serious thing I've done this week. I got a
really good preview of Joe Twyman and Ronald Stearns the art of racing, the helmet box.
No, he double you're gonna believe this. Do you know who's calling?
Answer it. Answer it. God. Hi, Bernie.
But we're great. You're gonna, you're gonna laugh. You bumped into Neil, didn't you?
Today, this afternoon, he described your car. And you bumped into Neil.
I said hello to him. I was in the yellow Bentley. He was in the yellow Bentley.
It's a banana Bentley. Anyway, we do a podcast weekly. And Neil has just told two of the funniest
stories. And I was asked to follow and there was no way anyone could tell the stories that Neil
just told that were funnier. But actually, you phoned me live on the podcast, Bernie.
Yes, I'm on the podcast. They can't hear you. I won't put you on speaker because if I do,
you'll get annoyed. Can I call you back right after the podcast?
Okay, I'll call you back in about an hour.
Chacha. He's the king. Okay, thank you, Chacha. I definitely can't follow this.
Right, this is getting out. This is out of control now. What is the probability?
Manish, I hate to say it. You win. So, we don't care about the rest of your week.
And I'm sure Ronald and Joe's book is brilliant in their videos. But they've had their plug.
We're moving on to Cooper. What can you do? Well, Difford, Bastard, Pandy, Bastard.
Almost. I've got two things to say. I've got to talk about a pothole. Talk about some janguas.
Do you remember we did that emergency podcast about potholes? Yes, you go. And I took life
and limb in my hand. And I stood down the road and sort of pointed to a little pothole on the
road in Kings Angley. We all bemoaned the state of British roads. Apparently, the following day,
that was a Sunday, on the Monday, one of the chaps who works in the office that I was standing by
recognised the big pothole outside his office. So, we took a photograph of it, sent it to the local
authority and said, what are you going to do about that? What did they do about it that afternoon
on the Monday? The only one who bloody fixed it was podcast. Yeah. But what I would like to talk
about is the Great British Jaguar Day. So, we announced it a couple of weeks ago. We sort of
forgot to tell Jaguar we were doing it. Sort of deliberately. We thought it's our love letter
to Jaguar. It's about them, not sort of them. But amazingly, the lovely people Jaguar got in touch
and they're super excited about it. And we did that, obviously that thing we did at the classic
the other weekend. So, we're now long way into some amazing cars, collecting together. The central
display of Jaguars is going to be extraordinary. The next few days, weeks or two, we'll start to tell
you which Jags we've got coming, racing cars, classic cars, some really amazing ones that
haven't been in public for a long time. I think we're going to have the best collection of Jaguars
that's sort of been seen together at one time in public or in private. So, it's going to be a
central display of Jaguars, which is going to be fantastic. If you've got a Jaguar, bring it along.
All Jaguars, we rate Jaguars, they're all 14 out of 10. They're all brilliant. If you haven't got
Jaguar, bring any car. They're 14 out of 10 as well. It's going to be wonderful. So, part your
cars and your Jaguars. We're going to have a little podium thing where we're going to select some
cars that have arrived on the day and some other ones. I'm just going to showcase them and say,
this is a 15 out of 10 Jaguar because it's really, really lovely especially. It could be one of
yours. It could be one of the special ones. We're going to have some fireside chats and be some
quite, I think we can say Ian Callum is going to come, we hope. A whole bunch of other people
mentioned some names shortly. Mr. Harris or Mr. Pandy or Mr. Clifford or me, if you're unlucky,
we'll be talking some lovely people about their Jaguars, their life in Jaguars. Really, really
wonderful. There'll be a live podcast, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. So, it's,
we'll be talking about Jaguar stuff, other stuff. Ends and takes our fancy stuff we've seen.
Everyone will get to come to a live podcast show that we do, not recorded, won't be broadcast.
There'll be some fun awards. We're going to walk around with roving microphones around the car
and the car parks and everywhere. We're going to leave little, we might gift some of our special
Jag merch to those we see and we'll get you up on the stage and congratulate you on your Jaguar.
Neil is doing some fantastic merch and some t-shirts and stuff for it.
There's going to be their special Jag merch coming. Really good. Only available at that event.
Only at that event. You've got to come by ticket. There's going to be a little garden party here.
We actually have got a white picket fence where you can come and have tea, put your rug out,
get your deck chairs. We'll come amongst you, sort of, and we'll talk about what you're having for
tea. Nice little sandwiches, lots of cake. There'll be other people there showing their cars off,
blah, blah, blah. It's going to be just wonderful. The Jaguar people are amazing. They're going to
bring some lovely cars along. We'll tell you more about that in the next few weeks from the Jaguar
Daily Heritage, from Classic, Jag as well. Next week, the four of us are going to Gayden,
super, super secret, to see the new amazing prototype. We're going to drive.
Not that secret. They've already been driven. Well, we're going to drive it.
Are we? Are we? Other people have driven it. I don't like being the first. I think it's much
cooler being the eighth. We're going to do that. I'm going to do a bit of filming about that as
well. I'm going to be the 11th. It's all coming together. The links are on the YouTube or Spotify
or our social media. So, yeah, seven and a half weeks ago, any booster packs will be available.
Rather than making a cake, I'm planning to make my, just, you know, even though I do
halo myself a bit with this, but my mango and stilton quiche. I'm going to build some mango
and stilton quiche. That's the most random thing I've ever heard in my life. Listen,
Neil, I swear to God, Clement Freud, back in the day, he was the guy who first put me on to
mango and stilton. She's on toast. It's unbelievable. He's the guy that told the greatest joke ever
and then got cancelled because he got up to some bad things. Yes, he did. But I swear to God, mango
and stilton quiche. So tasty. So tasty. So Manish will be down the road at his own Jaguar and curry
party, but you can come to Bistra and have our cake party if you want. Chris Cooper, thank you very
much for all the hard work that you and your flock are putting into this event. It's very good fun.
We had a really good fun. Bistra was great. It was wonderful. Well, some other surprises coming
as well. It's going to be a really, really good celebration this. Now, I know I've had quite a
week actually, so when you write it down that you realise how much you've done. So a week ago,
I drove back from Edinburgh in my E39M5 and the Vanoss went a bit wonky. So we had a bit of an
adventure there, but that's now been fixed. And today it completed a photo shoot for the road
wrap and going back to Landau and really hammering the shit out of an E39M5 just reminded me how
utterly brilliant they are as cars. They do everything. They're comfortable and they're
at the same time. We did not overrate that vehicle back in period. Some people think we did. We
underrated it. So I started off doing that. Then on the last week, I went to London on Friday
to the launch of an electric van, something I've never done before. I went along with my buddy
John McGinnis because one of his sponsors has launched something called the EVC City Sprint.
It's an electric van for what's called the Last Mile Delivery Service. So effectively,
they buy a lot of it in from, you can imagine what country, but they assemble it
in Clithero in the UK. I wouldn't normally go along to such an event, but because John said,
hey, come along, it's one of my sponsors, I actually rather enjoyed it. And it made me
try and think about urban transportation a bit more. And actually, when you look,
there was lots of speeches given. And most of the time, I'm falling asleep. I'm not very good at
that stuff. And John was making some interesting annotations to the faces on the brochure in front
of us, let's say. So we were being a bit childish and the shoulders were going with the giggles.
But it did make me think, how much empty space is there in the average delivery van that's going
around the place? And actually, there's a lot of stats that say that most fans only use the front
seat for their deliveries. They just have the parts of the front seat, then you've got a
bloody transit driving around. You don't need them to be that big for that last mile delivery.
So yeah, I went along thinking, I'm just going to get pissed. I came away thinking,
this concept of the last mile in terms of delivery is quite important to all of our lives.
That was a pause for thought. I then went to the Devonshire that afternoon, where Finley
served us loads of points of Guinness. Cleared my head, woke up, went to Goodwood for a Salon
track day. Bernadette put on a fantastic day, really good. And I drove the Alpha Sood that I'm
going to be racing in the members of me, flat 450 horsepower, whatever they are, what a little
so obviously came home that night and spent most of the evening looking at Alpha Soods
on classic, which is a bit of a problem for me at the moment.
I then yesterday went to the launch of the train show that I'm doing in Francis called We Save
the Train, which is airing at 9pm next Tuesday on Quest. Was that like a film premiere moment, Chris?
No, they showed some clips, but we went to the London Transport Museum,
and of course they got that shop where they sell all the, you can buy all the caps in the fabric
with all the seats from the different underground lines. As ever, Sean with his knowledge and was
mega. Oh, before that, I drove the Supercat, the TWR Supercat at Landa. That wasn't supposed to
happen. They were there and I jumped in the thing, did a couple of laps. That was fascinating. That
looked so much better than it did in the pictures. In the pictures, I found it a bit much,
but when I saw it in the RAW and the V12 sound, of course that night, you might have seen on the
comments section, the Kaiser who designed the thing had a bit of a lot of things and they had
a bit of a shit fight, which was always good to watch. We like people having this shit fight.
We need more shit fights. That was good. We hope they're bringing that car to the Great British
Jaguar day. Yes, yes. I'm sure they will be. Then today, I drove the M5 at Landa. I mean,
I've done a shit ton, but I haven't, as far as I can see, had a phone call from Bernie Eccleston,
had something stolen. No, someone parked outside my unit the other week and I used the M3 Touring
to drag their car down the road. I thought, I find that quite funny. Leave it in the middle of the
interview. Then trying to think, no, I can't beat Neil Clifford. I can't beat Manish. I've
not done anything as worthy as Chris Cooper. You've been busier. You've been busier in cars than we
have, which is crazy. I've come an unworthy fourth. No, you've been doing Chris Harris things in a
Chris Harris way. No, I'm an unworthy fourth. I've done my cap to all of your busyness.
So one other thing, I've got a new place to store my cars. It's all secret,
but there's something called the Cross Country Company, a guy called Will, and he serves the
Bristol area. You can't say where they're kept, but he comes and picks them up, takes them outside
Bristol, and he puts them in there. So if you've got any storage needs in my part of the world,
he's bloody brilliant. I went and actually went and saw where the cars are stored.
It's like seeing your dog has gone to a five-star canal run by the Ritz. What is that, Cooper?
Well, you know, we're going to have lots of lovely cake at the Great British Jaguar Day.
I wore that cake. I'm glad you asked me this. I feel a bit like Test Match Special.
Mrs. Tyler from Harpenden has sent me a lovely coffee and walnut cake. Look at that.
Look at that. Isn't that just oozing goodness? That was a good guess. That was a good cake guess.
Very good. I know what I know a lot about cake.
Coffee and walnut is my favourite cake.
Yeah. It's also the rudest looking cake.
Do you know what? I'm just going to have to sort of... It's got
unctuous loveliness. I'm just going to hang on.
It does not be round the bush. It looks like a jobby, and it tastes like heaven, but it looks
like a jobby. Now, we're going to move on. Oh, dear me. Here we go. That was ridiculous.
Car news that caught your eye this week. So let's start with Manish.
Well, I'm going to whizz through it. The thing for me this week was definitely the car finance
business, only because we have talked about it. We've talked about it in some depth, and
there was just a quote from a comment in the Financial Times saying,
that bloody Martin's going to make sure that any judge who reads this is definitely going to find
in favour of the plaintiff. I mean, there was a really brilliant, angry comment. And it's kind
of true, isn't it? I had to look up the word fiduciary once more, the reason being,
originally people were speculating that this could be up to 40 billion pounds of terrible
misselling. And actually a judge did rule a year ago that car dealers do not have a fiduciary duty
to their customers. In other words, car dealers do not act for the benefit of their customers.
It's Fidas, isn't it? It's from the Latin Fidas, isn't it? Or someone like that?
Exactly. So the bottom line is, do car dealers try to get the most money out of you that they
possibly can? Do they occasionally tell semi-porkies? Do they lead you down the garden path? And the
answer is probably yes, yes, yes. And I think Mr Cooper sort of said this at the time. Occasionally
there are really egregious examples of people being missold things. But actually many of these
are probably not that bad. Just the two things that caught my eye is that the ultimate settlement
pending an appeal is going to be about 11 billion pounds. And that works out according to Martin
Lewis at 830 pounds a claim. That's quite a lot of money that also, and I didn't know this,
this is a mass redress scheme. So the bottom line is it's up to the lender almost to go and find the
victim, even if all the paperwork is lost. And I saw the Martin Lewis video on this today,
and he was explaining that you need to become a complainant if you want this to go anywhere.
And it does look like I think probably the lenders will lose their appeal. And this is going to cost
the car industry a lot of money. And the reason I bring this up is because obviously recent events,
you know, petrol is now going through the roof. Interest rates have not gone down. We're not going
to be spending, you know, we're not going to suddenly go into boom time. We're quite possibly just on
the edge of a bit of stagflation. And I think this is probably the worst time for the industry to be
kicked in the balls by a massive, by a massive collective fine. And that's all I'd say. I don't
think people should missell. I think that of course we should, you know, people who sell cars,
I think in some ways do have a duty to their customers. And I think most decent people do,
actually. But I think this is a very bad time for the industry to have to be fighting this.
That's really all I was going to say. Thank you, Manish. Neil Clifford.
There's a new Lola. Yeah, there is. And I really, really like the look of it. I think they're only
making 16 designed actually by a friend of mine, Neil Ferrier, for Discoman. Neil lives in South
Caroline. You thought it was designed before that, though, wasn't it? Well, of course, they've modernised
it. It's a T70, but he's taken the original shape and helped make it a new car. They haven't
RAC at the moment. And it's just very, very beautiful. I mean, a Lola T70 is beautiful. So I
suppose that the thing you have to do is not fuck it up. And he hasn't. It's beautiful. And
rule Britannia, basically, lovely. Chris Cooper, in the news. Well, I was going to mention the
new Lola, same as the old Lola, but better. Is it available in the shops, Neil? Or is it only
available to the very special? They're all sold. They're all sold. The only Lola that's available,
email Manish.
That Lola is never for sale.
Put your offer in the comments. No, they're all sold, I think. Apparently that Lola might be
for sale. Anything's the right thing to do. So I know I've mentioned this before, but I did want
to mention this properly. It's now all signed, sealed and delivered. It's public, big launch
the other week. The World Rally Championship is coming back to the UK in 2027 in Aberdeenshire
in the northeast of Scotland. Rallying has come home. If you grew up like I did in the 80s,
the best rally drivers in the world all drove in the British Rally Championship, late 70s,
Ford Escorts, Hannu, Michela, Ari, Vatternan, Stig Blom, Chris, they all did it. Roger Clark,
is that before? Roger Clark, 70s, yeah. He was won the RSV Rally in 1976, I think it was.
With Tony Mason in the famously Cossack sponsored. Yeah, I went to that in my football. I was 11 years
old, my brother. I mean, win on Sunday, sell on Monday. It works. We need to do that. We need to
talk about when we were growing up. What was the stuff we bought on Monday? Because we saw it win on
the Sunday. This is a bit of a ninja. Not that bloody Google Doc, I don't understand that.
I'll just say, there's a bit of a ninja joke here. Manish, cover your ears for a minute.
Manish is trying to drag us into the 21st century by having a Google Doc we could all share.
Neil and I just have a very long list that we cut and paste into our WhatsApp group.
The cut and paste of a long list is one, anyway.
The only thing I bought on a Monday in the 70s was a Kearney Whirly.
How much was that? Was it two pints? Ten pints. Okay.
So eight. I can't really emphasise how important this is. Not just for the North East of Scotland
and not just for rallying, but for British motorsport. I think if we talk about that enough,
we might get invited. Well, you know, obviously I'm involved with the governing body
and we've been following this and the people in Bista and the management and leadership there
have done an extraordinary job with the City of Aberdeen Council, Aberdeenshire County Council
and the Scottish Parliament and the FIA and the F1 promoter, Simon Larkin. They've all
been incredibly supportive. Malcolm Wilson, who is the deputy president for sport of the FIA,
is obviously a great rallyist like David Richards, our chair, who was world champion in 1981 with
Harry Vattenen. So I'm so pleased for David and for the sport. Are we going to get invited?
So I'm, well, I'll make sure we can all go. Please. Can I bring that? You've got to bring a rally car.
Hang on. You've got to bring... You can't just do that. Show us that again.
So it's an intergarly Hot Wheels car with fancy wheels. Doesn't that look good? You
wait till you see mine. It's magic. Now, before we just move, just quick, quick, little, quick...
You've had your turn. No, sorry, just a little addendum to, just an addendum to Chris's...
So apparently... Sorry, sorry, sorry. Apparently Max Mosley, back in the day, was trying to,
you know, as the FIA took over rally, he really wanted Bernie to go and attend a rally.
So Bernie apparently drives out to a rally. He opens his door. He had a pair of Gucci loafers on.
He takes his foot out. He puts it in this mud. He looks at the mud on his shoes, goes back into
his car, pulls the door, says that I'm not permitted to drive so... Yeah.
He read The Times in Pratermange, opposite Harrods, for 15, 20 years on the chart.
Yeah. Yeah, sure. Yeah. So the news for me this week is that I couldn't talk about what I wanted
to talk about last week, which is this Aston Martin Valhalla, a video which all the videos
went up on Monday at midnight, because that's no Sunday midnight, Monday at one minute past
whatever it was. I always get confused by this. So I've not really been a big supporter of this car
for several reasons, and we have slightly ridiculed it on this podcast for the following reasons. One,
it's about a decade late. We've known about it for a long time, and it had a cameo in its finished
styling format in the Bond film, which came out in 2021. Would have been 2020, yeah.
Which has been around a long time, and we knew about it before then. So Son of Valkyrie was
a bit of a metaphor for the fact that Aston was in a bit of trouble. I think we also,
I understand that we thought that maybe Aston's future lay in a front-engined GT cars, and that
no one really understood what a rival for an SF90 would be, or why Aston Martin needed to be there.
I've driven it. I couldn't have been more wrong. It's a brilliant film, by the way.
It's arguably the most impressive, very, very fast car I've driven in years. It takes a load of
the technologies that all the others have been wrestling with, and not quite managing to calibrate
or refine, or to turn into gobsmacking performance. And it does just that. It works on road and track.
It's a finished product. It feels more finished to me than something like the V8 Vantage I drove
two years ago. And I thought this car was going to be launched as a bit of a bit embarrassing.
The SF90 has actually come and gone in the time that we've needed to launch this. Instead,
I think it's a triumph. I think it shows that Aston Martin has a lot more life in it than we
realise, and maybe we've been too cynical. And it also shows that if you've got, you know,
three million quid on an F80 Ferrari, this is not quite there, but it's much closer than it is
to the performance of a 911 Turbo or something. This is differently, incredibly refined on the road,
very usable. It doesn't have a boot. I don't understand why modern cars have this at all.
But if you drive on your own, the passenger seats, the boots, I don't worry about that.
I just came away so impressed, and I came away feeling, frankly, fucking guilty that I didn't
give it more of a chance beforehand. Statutory lesson, I'm too cynical, and I need to be more
open minded. So fair play to you, boys and girls at Aston Martin. You know who you are,
and especially the person I had dinner with, who was very involved in the way it drives,
to his name I won't mention, but Simon, you've done a fantastic job. And I'm really,
and I'm really, I'm immensely proud of all of you, because it can't have been easy over the
last few years there to get that thing out the door. But it is world-class and built here.
It does look fantastic as well. It does look fantastic.
You were right, Chris, about why did they show it in that Aston Green colour?
For some reason, it doesn't work as well. The one that I saw at the Dick Love It lovely event
earlier in the year, the Aston Martin Bristol, which was actually, that's a bit of car news,
Aston Martin Bristol, was announced as the best Aston Martin dealer in the world,
which I thought was great. Well done, though. They worked really, really hard. The nice people
have worked really, really hard. Mike Kenafiki runs it and he was colleagues, and they brought along
of our hella to Swindon, and it had nice silvers and greys and silver wheels.
It was amazing, it looked lovely. I'm in agreement, but I don't understand the
launch colours, and I'm a bit done with the green with the sort of yellowy bit,
the AMR performance colours, a bit done with them. But ultimately, I don't trust me on aesthetics,
because yesterday I wore a gilet for half a day inside out, and no one told me.
Let's move on to our next, oh god, I've missed it. There we go. Where are you, little bugger?
The next thing is, ah. Now, this came about because I've bought a few cars in the last year
that haven't been as reliable as I might have wanted. I should have known full well they
wouldn't be reliable, because no example of one of those cars at that age without mileage
has ever proved to be reliable. So why I thought I should be the exception to the rule,
if I don't know. But I was discussing with Neil, and I think to the wider group afterwards, that
what you should do is budget 10% beyond what you've spent, as the inevitable cost
of just making the fucking thing get you home, probably, or maybe complete the journey after
the one where you drive it home. So that means that if you buy a £30,000 car, you should probably
have £3,000 set aside. But as I say it that way, 10% is nothing like enough. I mean, that was,
I thought you missed a number in your question. Yeah, I know. So I'm going to go straight to
Chris Cooper here, and see whether he's ever been involved in this man-mass situation,
where you convinced yourself you bought a value car. But actually, you know, full well,
you're going to spend a good percentage of the purchase price again, just to make it work.
Well, I sort of said something similar to this the other day when we did the car restoration
thing. Do you mean it is possible to buy cars where you only need to budget an extra 10%?
Can I buy one of those next time, please? And I sort of think, is it because,
this is an interesting exercise, isn't it? And I'm probably guilty of this, because
I do like to buy a newer sort of obviously nicer conditioned car, because I'm generally
risk averse and wary. So I'd rather get one I know is right. But there is something amazingly
fun about making it right, knowing you've added, you've added to the gene pool of healthy cars
that somebody would reward 14 out of 10, because it's one of the goodest cars we love.
You know, we talked about, we love, we rate dogs. Somebody who listens to this podcast,
the set up a website, we rate engines. Yeah. I mean, sir or madam, I think it's a sir,
congratulations. So the SL 63 that I bought a couple of summers ago,
is an interesting exercise, because I did probably think I'm going to have to spend a bit.
So I went to
Before you bought it, you mean?
If I'm honest, because it was a 10 plate car.
I thought it's going to need a little bit of a bit of love and attention.
And it did, it needed bushes and some steering stuff.
One of the suspension sphere things, he's in a couple of tires, blah, blah, blah,
blah, some little bit of, there's a gearbox bit needed doing. So I probably spent 20%.
I bought it for 25. And I probably spent another five doing it. But now it's perfect.
It's absolutely perfect. And it's sort of somewhere between 10 and 20.
I think the advantages, and this is the great bit about it, you know, you've improved the world.
You've enjoyed it. You've saved a car that the next person might say, do you know what,
I can't, I can't, I can't do it. I can't, I'm not motivated enough.
So, but I would like next time to get, if it is just an extra 10%.
If it, if either of you do, because it's basically giving me one of you two, sorry to
manage the next time you see the third one of these a day where I only use 10%,
just, just give me a call and, you know, I'll dive in there.
Well, manage, manage spends 120%.
Well, no, I was going to say, it's a time to neatly move on to the 170%.
That is true.
Who takes the value of the vehicle. And then, I mean, I, my, my E 61 M five is going to
definitely rival Lola by the end of this process. I'm pretty sure about that.
But, but I've, but I've put two new engines, an interior and all new suspension in it.
I still might not get there.
Have you, are you going to do the DCT gearbox thing?
No, no, no, no, Dara wants me to do it. You've driven it. Tell us what you think of it.
It's a different car. I mean, I quite like, I quite liked, I was an earlier doctor of the
E 60 M five. I had a one or not 55 plate. So it was a late 2005 car. So quite an early one.
Silver, silver, gray thing, black leather. It was just, it was,
there's a roundabout, I won't say where it is. And in fact, it may not even be in the UK,
Oxford. Before they put traffic lights on it, it was the nicest car to balance in just a little
bit of a, that's the angle, but that is the angle you adopt when you've just got it moving a bit.
It was, are you saying the gearbox is good or good? I can't work out what you're saying.
Speak amongst yourself viewers. We're a broad church.
No, I don't have a genuine question. I know it is. I know it is.
Should we go back to bullhorns? You, that's our common ground, you and me.
That's brilliant. But to be clear, what, how, this DCT thing, did it make you go, that's really good?
Yes, 100% instantly. Oh, okay.
I don't want a bloody thing. I've just, I could buy my, I could buy a brand,
UM3 CS touring for this. So how much more would it cost to get the DCT put in?
12, 10 grand, 10, 12 grand, 10 to you.
I'd have 150,000 pound ECS-1M5, which would be worth at least 20 in the trade.
Yeah, I think it's usually, it's a, it's a catastrophe of a car that I love to bits and I
haven't driven it in 15 months because we're still going. Anyhow, it's brilliant. I don't know who
we love this shit. Anyhow, I'm going to pass over to manage with this, with a little
preface, which is this, you're the only one among us that has really only bought two cars
and your second car you bought, you didn't really give a shit about any of this. You just wanted
your car the way you wanted it to be. And I don't think I've tried to do that with my E61,
but I've got other cars. So I've got, I can be distracted. You just went, I want it to be like
that. And when we all went, you guys, why would you do that? You went, because I want it that way.
Now, I think there's a purity of thinking there that you might need to help us with,
because we probably should adopt it. Yes. Or some would argue a simplicity of thinking.
So I would just say, look, let's just put the upholstery aside and get back to the pure question,
which is somebody tells you, I mean, a lot of people said to me, don't get a 456 because
effectively, yes, the mechanicals are fine, but all the auxiliaries are going to give you problems.
They just are. That's what they did. And you've pointed out, there's another tier to that, which
is wait until the shoebox size electric start to give you trouble. There is actually a company
in California that I've found that does replace these. So I am now half a millisecond ahead with
that one. But the real question is, should I just for my next and even before we prospect onto my
third car, should I find somebody who can put a manual gearbox in her just to go for complete
perfection and put another 20 round into it? Because I mean, can you imagine that then Lola
with a six speed manual box, just easily doable. Yeah, of course, they don't have to rip out all
of that upholstery. No, you wouldn't make. Nope. I mean, that's what you'd end up doing,
but you wouldn't have to. Well, look, all I'm saying is that, you know, if I really thought I
was going to be as in love with this car as I am, and I am, you know, it isn't something that I
consider as a really moronic or stupid thing to do. It takes her to that final level. I mean,
you're talking about putting a DCT in to this to this wounded car that Chris has got. I mean,
why would I not consider putting a manual gearbox into her? Because then she's finished,
basically. She is finished. There's nothing more to do. And then prospecting that, you know, I've
been, I've been, you know, I can't help myself. The probably half an hour a day, I spend looking
for my R107. I've had some very nice friends fire me quite a few links. And I've had a few other
friends saying, are you sure you want an R107? Are you absolutely sure? Because there could be
better ones. And other people have views on what, what better thing. But I imagine when I sit inside
her, it's the same feeling, I think, with the R107. When I sit inside Lola, and I hope that cabin,
as I said, you can't see the outside of the car from the inside. What you have.
Sorry. Are we back to Clithero again?
No, we're not. You guys are so pure.
But minus you are currently inside her. So carry on.
When I sit inside my car, when I sit in the cabin of my car,
and I inhale that leather, and I, I literally, I just, I, my hands are on a beautiful steering wheel.
Possibly.
You have read Finn Bar Saunders in this, haven't you?
I have read Finn Bar Saunders.
Yes. Okay. Well, you have just gone full fa-na fa-na.
What I'm saying is that the R107, I would love that to be a commensurate experience. I've been
looking at them, and I've been thinking to myself, would I do anything differently for the next car?
And the answer is no. And I'm sure it's not a purity of thought. I'm sure it's a simplicity of thought.
I think, you know, I'll never have 30 cars or plus like Neil or, you know, 30 plus like you, 20.
I mean, I'm going to end up with single digit cars, but it wouldn't it be beautiful
if when I croak, every single one of my single digit cars is about as perfect as I can possibly
make that car. And that's the joy of this. You know, that's the absolute joy. You sit inside,
and no one who's seen Lola says to me, you're mad, you're stupid. What the, you know, what the hell
are you doing? You've got more money than said. No one says that. They go, well, you know what,
I get it. I do get it. Like, you know, I get it every time I get inside her.
Fana fa-na.
Manish.
Chris, we, when we... You've made me this person. I'm the respectable doctor.
Again, the manager's got straight on the lady petrol with ice. He's, he's guzzling,
so we apologize. Now look here, I think what this points to and Manish, I just think, hit the zeitgeist
when he, when he bought Lola, which is who gives a shit about whether you lose a few
quid on this stuff. It's ridiculous. There's no logic to any of this. And I think what Manish
did is almost, almost invites people to say, oh, but you're going to lose a load of money. So you
can reply, who cares? I'm doing this because I want to do it. It's not about that at all. And,
you know, it's not, it's not, to be clear, it's not an outward display of losing money because
you can. That's grotesque and uncouth. But it's, it's the idea that what you want to achieve
doesn't, doesn't have a rule book. And it certainly shouldn't be judged by the rules of the market
or car values. Neil Clifford, what do you think? When we were talking about this, I can't remember
the car you were talking about, actually, but we, we actually, the figure was not 10% if you
remember, the figure was 10 grand, we were like, you re, you get very deep
very quickly. And I, and I never very naive, sort of, I know I'm being naive, I'm sort of lying to
myself. Basically, I'm sort of consciously incompetent. I know there's going to be more money to be
spent. But I, I turn, I turn the other cheek. I ignore it. I pretend it doesn't happen. It's the
ultimate man maths. When I, when I, when I stupidly buy a car, I convince myself, this one's going to
perfect. This one's going to not need anything. So it's completely the opposite of Mr. Cooper.
I recently bought a galaxy of bloody 1964 Ford Galaxy, which actually, there's, there's a really
good story to this, which I'm not going to tell now, but a really magnificent, brilliant story
about this car's restoration. But I was convinced it was perfect. And actually, it looks perfect.
It really is an amazing restoration. It looks fabulous. And of course, in my little head,
I bought it cheap. Because you always convince yourself, what an entrepreneur you've been,
this, you know, you're going to, you're going to be able to sell it, even though these cars,
you know, old Jaguars are the same. All the buyers are dying now.
Also, can I clarify one thing? When you bought this car, you would immediately forget that it's
been for sale for three months. And the fact that it's been for sale for three months means
no one else is looking to buy it apart from you. Yeah, but no one has been smart enough
to spot the value that is available in this Ford Galaxy. Now, so it arrives. My lovely friend Guy
Broad picked it up from commentary, sold on bought it unseen Saturday afternoon on the sofa auction.
What could go wrong? You know, what really could go wrong? You're on the iconic auction website.
You know, you watch Harry talk about it for at least nine seconds. It's obviously going to be
perfect. There's nothing wrong with it. And then Guy goes and picks it up on the Monday and says,
actually, I think it's a good car. I think I think but do you realise there isn't an exhaust?
It's not actually got an exhaust at all. I'm like, well, they did say it was a little loud.
There is no exhaust on the car. It is actually got a dragster exhaust. The exhaust is one inch
long from the headers. You've got no chance of this thing ever passing even the most friendliest
of MOT stations. So now I'm having to build a brand new a whole exhaust system custom made for
this bloody thing. And then I thought, okay, well, I'm doing the exhaust and I'm going to,
you know, I'm going to get it sprayed that white heat resistant thing, you know, like
John Serti's Honda. Yeah, it's going to be a white car. We're going to have a white exhaust. It's
going to look so cool rocking up to revival. So then Graham, my good friend Graham is doing it.
And then I get this text message today. Hi, Neil. We do have a bit of a problem with the galaxy.
The rear, the rear main, I mean, this is true. I'm not making it up. This is my
No, no, not that not that bad. The rear main spring, but I don't even know what these things are.
The rear main spring bolts are damaged because the nuts have come off and damaged the thread.
There are these are special bolts made for this anti-tramp kit it has on the rear. Yeah,
you need that. Can you look through the history file and let me know who restored it so I can
speak to them. I've spoken to MS classic cars in Miami because of course I made it really simple.
This is cars come all the way from California who sold it two years ago, but they couldn't
really help me and weren't interested. Thank you very much. Oh, shit. I'll buy it from you.
Just before this podcast, I'm going through this book to find who made the bolts for this car.
Fantastic. But it's a bit like and of course this is a patronizing thing to say because only any
women allowed to say this. You forget the bad you forget it's like childbirth. You forget the pain.
You've had an awful situation with the car, but then it's all gone. The next time you're on car
and classics or you've got the sniff or you've got the itch for something, you're still the
optimist. It's going to be perfect. I, wow, a perfect summary and just shows how different our
definitions are. Mine's different to all of yours. I have got a moth to the light bulb
masochism about me here in that I think I don't do this consciously. I think
I enjoy the phone call to my specialist. I've got a man that sorts out all the different brands
that I know. I enjoy that phone call more than buying the vehicle. I must know that when I buy
an M car, I get to phone Dara and go, oh, this is wrong because it starts process again. And I've
got another car to talk about and win about and make his life miserable with. And I,
I can't help myself to the point where I think if you gave me a fault free used car,
I'd be mortified. I'd be, I'd be over the moon. Then I'd go, but there's, there's no
chat here. I don't know what's that connection with anyone customizing it. You might have done that.
Oh my God. I mean, I mean, it is beyond the beyond that masochism, which is different to
yours. I actually, I think I want that contact. I think I use buying cars as a conduit to the
world of mechanics and people that I love watching do their stuff. I find them a fascinating group
of people. Do you think that could be true? Do you think that because I've often thought this,
when you turn on the television, there are umpteen pro programs about people doing what you've just
described to houses. In fact, yeah, sort of all that people do with houses right now is that
sort of thing. And talking about that, I meant to say this earlier on, in terms of my weekend cars,
is every house in the Cotswolds for sale on some charity thing on Instagram? When I get looking
for cars and car launches, and all I find is you could win this house in, there must be no house
not for sale in the Cotswolds right on these things. But I think that could be your algorithm.
Could be your algorithm and be grateful for it. There's probably, you can probably find a couple
big car dealerships there as well. So there's that side of it. But I've written the word
certainty down here. When Mr Cooper was talking, I don't have the benevolence he does. I don't want,
I don't really feel any great joy in improving the world by having my car leave my care better
than when it arrived. I'm not that kind. My version is I like certainty. I'm not very good at doubt.
And if you, if, for example, you sell me a car and you say to me, it's a BMW,
the van has just been done, the rod bearings have been done, everything's been done. But there's no
real evidence of the fact that it was done or when it was done. In my head, they've not been done.
And I'm going to do them anyway, because I've had too many things blow up on me in my life.
So when I talk about 10%, you're right, it's Boloch, it's 10 grand. So if I buy
M cars, as I seem to do every other week, in my head, they're having rod bearings done,
they're having the van all done, they have everything that is on the checklist. I want to
do it. And then in my head, I zero the mileage at that point, then I can start again, then I know
the car works. Otherwise, at some point, it's going to shit itself because I didn't do the work.
I've got, you know, I have no idea who did what, do I trust it? Probably not.
You've just reminded me of something that did happen. And it was you. When I bought the SL 63,
the first thing you said was cam chain. Yeah. So I went to it's George Fraser, George
in somewhere in Uxbridge, really, really lovely guy specializes in old Merckx.
He usually got the Mauritian Ambassadors S class outside.
He actually, when I left it there once, he gave me the keys to the Mauritian Ambassadors S class.
He said, Oh, yeah, I always get those two mixed up. You and the Mauritian Ambassador. I mean,
you said cam chain. So I went down there, I said, we need to with the cam chain. He said,
no, be fine. I said, no, we need to look at it. So I said, because my mate told me to
worry about the cam chain and now I can't worry about it. He did that to me because I found
the most amazing BMW M3, I think, E46 or what's the V8 one? 92. 92. 92. If you remember, Chris,
that was Rod Berings. That was Rod Berings. It's non-metallic blue. It's convertible,
but it doesn't really matter. Lovely. No one's ever seen this car. I found a bargain. I found a
bargain, 40,000 miles. And then you're like, Rod Berings. I'm like, what the fuck's a Rod Berings?
Is this someone's name? Is this Mr Rod Berings? Who is this?
Rod Berings. So it's funny how you learn these things. The penultimate top gear film I ever shot
and it never got published, broadcast, was in Morocco. And we had a Bentley Continental GTC.
We persuaded them to spend some money on some cars. And we're going to sell them. So the idea was,
I could drag them into an area where we weren't wrecking cars because they were too valuable to
wreck. So everyone was winning. So we used budget to buy an SL63 like yours and Conti GTC,
a nice early one. And what the third car was? It was something nice like an Aston V8 Vantage or
something. Nice cars. We were in Morocco. And I said, I'd done a bit of research into my SL.
And I said, just make sure that the engine's good on these because they can get very rattly top end
and the timing chain can stretch. And then you've got problems. And everyone was like, no, no, it's
fine. They're tough as old boots. It'll be good. They didn't look into it. After day one,
no, my engine went in. So I blew one up. Absolutely went. And we had to spend,
I had spent the next day and a half pretending the car worked. And then I, and then we did,
and then we had to give it up and say, no, he's Merck's fucked. And there was a Golf GTI
somewhere lying around. And I jumped into that. But it did. The reason I've warned you is I just,
I thought that M156 engine didn't have that problem. But the tensioner goes. And then the thing,
you're done. Yeah. So actually, when you, when you look, when you see what it takes to actually
do that remedial work, you think, why wouldn't you? Why would you just, why would you, you got,
if it goes wrong, the consequences are £10,000. Why wouldn't you spend a grand just to not have it
happen? I've never really had an engine blow up on me ever though. Well, let's, we know we all drive
a bit differently. But, but I've, I've had several go, if you know, to, you know, I like using them
properly. And they do go, if you don't. Yeah, I don't use them properly, but they last longer.
Yeah, you, you, honestly, you're, you're in the right here in many ways. Yeah. You know,
now you have just set yourself up in the most appalling way. And I'm having four of you.
That's such a bad, bad vibe that now. What could possibly go wrong? The Ford Galaxy 454.
You wait till you phone up for that F12 engine in warranty. And they go, what's that is a warranty?
A warranty. He play in 66 the World Cup. No. Right. Let's, we're going to miss out.
He doesn't play in this World Cup. They got knocked out again. They did. They did. Look,
we've got one more. I'm going to pass over the next one to the next podcast. We're running quite
long here. It's, it's excellent fun, but I've got a Telecon carny to eat, which looks very,
very good. So let's go on to the Formula One. I'm going to go first on the Formula One. I haven't
been first yet today. I woke up in good time to watch the race. And I was, for the most part,
very disappointed by what I saw. I, I don't, I don't enjoy the synthetic nature of the racing
because I think there are lots of overtakes, but it, what it does is it, it does two things this
racing. First of all, it totally exposes the fallacy of judging the quality of racing by the
number of overtakes you see in a race. That is no way to judge how good racing is. And
second of all, if you overtake someone and they can overtake you straight back, straight away,
it's almost like one counsels the other out. You almost, you start to forget
who overtook who and how it works. You become quite confused. In fact, I was discombobulated
for a while. I, if you overlay the recharging strategies and the fact that they are a bit
mismatched on a lap with the tired degradation story as well, it all becomes a, it is that
paint palette of the seven year old child that starts out with yellow, red, crimson and something
else. And 10 minutes in, they've just got mud color. So I was a bit lost with the whole thing.
I, I didn't like, obviously, Ollie Beerman's incident, which let's face it, many voices in
the sport have absolutely predicted. And when that happens after a prediction, particularly
Carlos Sainz, who deserves, I think some, some accolades for being the most outspoken all of
this, he was proved right in an awful way. And I just came away a bit hollow. I should have
been over the moon that we have this young driver doing so well. I know we love that stuff,
but I'm really, I was the one that tried to be very positive about this year. I really struggled
with that as a, as a, as two hours of my time. I really did. I know they'll sort it out. I believe
they'll sort it out. But for now, fucking hell. Sorry about that. Manish, you have a very different
opinion. And I like that off you go. But I don't, don't have a different opinion. I think the,
I think there's a sort of a kind of line and it, it is, and I've said it before, I think there's
drive survive. I think there's a Formula One movie and that's absolutely fine. If that's
product that people create to promote the sport of Formula One. And we know it's also business
and we know it's entertainment. But it's a, you know, it's an interesting Venn diagram. And for me,
the biggest circle in that should be sport. And I've, I mean, you know, commerce is incredibly
important. These are expensive things to produce. And once you start getting manufacturers in,
you add a zero to everything. And then it feels to me like both of those have been pushed out
by the entertainment clause in this. And if you were a casual viewer, you'd completely disagree
with what you've just said, Chris, you just go, it's fantastic. You know,
Lando took Lewis at the chicane, Lewis got him straight back on the first corner. I saw the
fight between Charles and Lewis and it was fantastically close. And, you know, and,
and anyway, they're the same castle. It must be fair racing. And, you know, it can't not be. And I
think, I mean, I wrote five things down here, just five notes. I wrote dangerous as number one.
And this stuff does matter to me because my favorite driver, my absolute hero of all time,
was killed racing. And it bothers me. It does bother me when I see things that are dangerous for no,
for no great reason. But more importantly, you know, before Senator I.T. said half a dozen times
to half a dozen reporters, these cars are dangerous. It's going to be all right.
I really don't want to interrupt your flow, but you said something's really important. I want to
get your view on it. In 1994, after Imola, when Roland Ratsenberg and Edson had died,
Max Mosley was the FIA president and lots of views about who he was and individual and so forth.
But as a result of that, at the Belgian Grand Prix that year, he put cones in O'Rouge
because he was so worried. Do you think in your mind we're at that point here?
Yes, I do. And I'm finding this a bit uncanny. What actually happened, and you know, there are
lots of good and bad things about Max, and I don't want to make this story about Senator. But
actually, what a lot of people are forgetting is that before the 1994 season, when people were
testing these 94 cars, just to put people in to give them a little bit of context, in 1993,
cars were full of electronic aids. They had lots of things that stopped them spinning off
doing this and doing that. And what happened was in 1994, to make it a driver's formula again,
all of these electronic aids were removed. They were just all removed. But what they didn't do was
make the engine smaller. What they didn't do was totally change the circuit layout. So what you
had were effectively super fast cars on circuits that had existed for ages with no modifications
at all to any of the circuits. And then what happened was people drove these cars and went,
oh, goodness me, these are very, very hard to drive. In fact, dangerous. Actually,
just to correct you, Max mostly didn't change everything when Senna and Ratzenberger died.
Sadly, it took Carl Vendlinger's accident at Monaco to do it. Okay. And that's the point.
So I was just going to go back. When somebody as smart as Andrea Stella, when somebody as,
in my opinion, the most intelligent driver in Formula One is Carlos Sainz. I talk about this
all the time. He is just, for me, he is just the ultimate test pilot. I would drag him into my team
as a driver. I think Ferrari wouldn't have half the problems they had if they still had
Carlos. Because Carlos, I mean, first, he's got the perfect genetics apart from maybe Max.
Secondly, he's just got this amazing brain. Thirdly, he is so quick. He kept Max honest.
There aren't that many people who've kept Max honest. It's taken, how'd you have to do this?
But these guys are all saying, when you press this super duper, duper massive 350 kilowatt
button, you will at some point do that when the guy in front of you, not because he's chosen
to slow down, not because he's lifting and coasting, but because an algorithm on a computer's
worked out that that is the best place for his car to slow down to harvest energy.
They will have a closing speed that is really, really scary. And I saw that accident. First,
like all of us, we didn't really know what happened. We just saw the car in the arm code. Then
afterwards, when you watch the replay, Colour Pinto's car is harvesting. There are double
flashes. You see it flash, you see it flash again. Some people are criticising him for slightly
moving into the middle of the track. He wouldn't have, he would have gone, oh, is it harvesting?
He would have been just looking in his mirrors, trying to take the best line for him. But the
bottom line is, Olly is not an idiot. If anything, he's proven he is an absolutely top draw driver.
He's a fantastic driver. And for that guy to have to take to the grass and go through those
meterboards, those polystyrene meterboards and lose it in that way, I mean, I think,
you know, it's like, it's just got to be the top priority. How you can have, when I was a kid,
Nelson P. K. Nigel Mansell used to have a turbo boost button on their Williams and they could
have it. It cost them a bit of fuel, but they had the best engine management system. So in the end,
it didn't cost them maybe as much fuel as it would have cost somebody like Senna, but
they could press the button. And just for a short period of time, I think
they got somewhere between 50 and 60 horsepower. This button gives you probably
five times that for a second or two. It's an enormous amount of power. That's why these guys
are wheel spinning coming out of corners. You know, they press a button, they've got almost an
unmanageable amount of power. And everybody's just been saying, you know, you got to watch
these closing speeds. You got to watch these, imagine that happened at Monaco. Where would he
have gone? Where would he have gone? He's going to, let's just say he's going into Tabac. You know,
he's going in very, very fast. The guy in front of him derates slightly.
Where's he going? Or they come out of Sandoval, they're going up the hill.
You know, he decides, yeah, I'll do a little squirt here. And then the second point is just
what Lando said about his skirmish. He said with Lewis, he said that he lifted going into 130R.
So the left hander before the chicane, he said, but he did press his super duper button before
he did that. He lifted to get through the corner, but then he found the power was still coming.
So he came out of the corner. He didn't mean to overtake Lewis. The power was so great.
He just drew up alongside him, got through the chicane. Then when he was on the straight,
because Lewis had a different power algorithm, Lewis went flashing by now, great on television.
But imagine being the driver and going, oh, I didn't mean to do that. My car did that.
The next corner, I think so. I don't mean to be negative, but they need to sort this out.
This just needs to be sorted out. They're five weeks to do it. You just, in Formula One,
you shouldn't have placing speeds of 35 miles an hour, close to 50 kilometers an hour. You just
shouldn't have them. You just shouldn't. Before we pass on to Chris Cooper, I want to just challenge
one thing, because you used a fabulous phrase there. Unmanageable amounts of power. I don't
have a problem with that. I like the best drivers in the world to have unmanageable amounts of power,
because they should be able to manage it. It's that in combination with the harvesting.
So if they all just had 2000 horsepower and skinny tires, great racing, but you cannot have that
if at any point in time, one of their competitors could be trying to charge their batteries up,
that's the thing they've, so they can't, what they can't do, and they can't remove one without the
other. And they have to remove one, and that has to be the unmanageable power, because they've
got to keep the region, otherwise there will be no electrical power. So all they can really do
is slow the cars down. Well, what they're saying is that if that becomes boring, what they'd have
to do is change the aero rules, so then they could become driver operated aero, because at the moment,
remember, the wings flip up all by themselves when they go into a corner. So what you do is you'd
have a button that would allow you to kind of go, we don't have maximum downforce. So if you're on a
faster corner, you can have slightly less wings, so you can push it a bit. The thing is that I think
I wouldn't mind any of this. If this, if some people hadn't boxed themselves in with this silly
marketing phrase, 50% electric, 50%, I see why not 70, 30, or 80, 20? Formula one doesn't have to
be a slogan. Motor racing has been around for around 100 years. And I get it. I get the commerce.
I really do get it. We can have carts powered by elastic bands and go and see them every
Sunday and see how that goes. And I get there wouldn't be a global audience for that. But I'm
I complained about size of the cars, etc. I agree the cars are prettier now. I think there's no doubt
getting rid of all of that air force underneath, downforce underneath the cars
makes the whole thing much more exciting. It's lovely to see somebody coming out and almost
opposite lock in Formula One. It's beautiful. It reminds me of those photos of the 60s. But
this balance, this fundamental balance between electricity and petrol, that's the root of the
problem here. And it would be an easy fix, I think. It would be not an easy fix, but it would be a
grown up fix to turn around and say, look, use a bit of electricity, but mostly use an internal
combustion engine and we'll find a way to market this. So it works. I think, yes, a lot to absorb
that. But I agree with quite a bit of it. Chris Cooper. I'm sort of with you. For me, the spell
is broken. You know what you're watching isn't everybody on maximum go or even just, you know,
they've got to save the tyres, but they're all trying as hard as they can. That spell is broken
and it's heartbreaking, really, because you know, I didn't watch the race. Because I thought, I know
I'm watching now and it's sort of, Max is right. There's, and for him, the spell is broken, which
is why when you see him at the ring, he was there again this week testing for the next VLN race,
NLS racing. He's loving it. Absolutely. And when you, there's quite a few clips on social media,
and he's just another person loving racing, racing with some other people in his team,
the team mates and the team members, blah, blah, blah. He's at the rings, having a great time,
slightly different level and skill and capability. But that just reminded me of all the fun times we
had there. It's just that racetrack, all that fun. And there's Max. He's one of us. So when Max says,
honestly, I know people say I'm grumpy because I'm raising a seventh plate. If I enjoyed it,
I like it. It's got to be fun. And for him, if he was in a Mercedes, he wouldn't be saying it,
though, would he? Well, he says he wouldn't. And I have to say, I think he works. He's four times
world champion. He doesn't need to win again. And that's the art. And Toto's been over. I mean,
Toto's clearly trying to get him out of the red ball because he wants him in a Merck F1 car next
year. That's pretty transparent. But Chris, you've met him. We haven't. My sense is, he's actually
a reasonably uncomplicated kind of person when it comes to cars and driving. He's saying what he's
feeling. Can you imagine in the post-race press conference, if he'd won the first three by sort
of 25 seconds, you could imagine his mono. So, you know, that was easy. What's the next question?
Boring. He would say that. You'd see it in his face. You'd see it in his, you know,
fighting to win is, you know, Senator used to say, nothing to me has ever come easy.
That's what makes life worthwhile, working hard for something. I think Cross found it quite easy
at times. Pushing yourself. Sorry. Cross found it quite easy at times though, didn't he?
Beating Senna. He was, he was good. He was good. He didn't make a fuss about it.
I think it's interesting because Max actually has demonstrated a lot of the time that he loves
winning by margin and not being, and not having people come anywhere near him. So,
it's complicated. We can never hypothesize, can we? But yeah, the best driver, when your sport is
about to lose the best driver because they, they're not enjoying it. It's quite strange that not many
other sports have that because not many sports have such a dependence on the technology that
they're working with. You know, people at the top of their game don't, don't tend to just go,
you know, I'm, I'm giving up tennis. I don't like it anymore. It doesn't happen very often,
does it? Footballers might have an injury, but they don't want me to wake up and go,
I'm done with this. It's shit. So, you know, it's another, it's another complication of, of the
sport. I did watch it. You know what? I, I have to, I have to really bow to you guys on all of this
because when I watch it, I'm really the analogy of what Manish said. I've, I've, I've learned
really that I've got, I've got this sieve in my brain that quite a lot of things. I don't take
really much interest in. Yeah. And I thought, I thought it was because I was a bit thick
when I was a kid, but actually I've worked out that it, I only really take in things that
I really care about that much. And I'm not, I just don't get this technology thing.
When I watch it as a real layman, the racing, as you said, Manish does look
quite good. So it's sort of designed for people that really aren't really into the technology or
the, you know, the detail of how they drive, or in fact, like driving on a track at all.
So I'm, I'm totaled the spectator in a very shallow knowledge point of view. And in that respect,
if you did a, an AB test of this year, last year, and put a couple of Muppets like me
to watch the Formula One in 25 and 26, you would say 26 was better.
Yes, but maybe because it looks more sporty, but clearly there are, and I still don't really
understand the cars or all of that. But if it's dangerous and you're not getting the best out
of the drivers, it's a bit of a problem. So I have to sort of acknowledge that you guys are
flagging a very valid issue that hopefully FIA Formula One deal with.
I think they are. A few things happen, I can't think, I've got this where I just
totally ask you to say this. There were a number of communications on Sunday
about, particularly in the aftermath of Ollie Berman's awful accident. Fortunately, he's fine.
So I think, you know, I think it's beyond the liability that there's an issue.
Two car garage this week.
You're a professor of automotive design who's been tenning cars for 50 years.
Your perfect era was the 90s through to the early 90s. Your university has asked you to
choose two iconic coupé designs from this era with which to educate your newest students.
These coupés should have flourishes that you can feel and explain.
Choose stylishly. Budget, brackets, you aren't teaching at a private university
of £30,000. You'll make your choices from car and classic where I am now spending
so much time, I'm actually going to speak to my therapist about what's going on.
So let's start with Chris Cooper. I think coupés are just, they're all 14 out of 10.
The first one is a 2000, it's not quite early notice.
It's a 150 version of the XKR coupé. It's just perfect. It's got all the right proportions and
stance and the length of the bonnet and the angle of the boot and the angle and the slide of the
horches. I think that, I mean, that's just your professor of, professor of loveliness in coupé
design. I think we'd love that. And the other one, actually, in fact, Philly and I have been talking
about one of these. The Sharknose 635. So the Jag is on Starts Auction sometime just after Easter.
This one is got, will be three days after Friday. This will be, this will come to the gavel to the
block. But just that 635, that shape, how you could spend, you could do a degree course.
You could. In that. Yeah, you could. But how you get both of those for £30,000?
I'm spending that. Yes, I'm a little confused by the Jag here.
If you live in Coupeland, it doesn't apply. You see? You're right to believe.
Manish. Manish. How are you going to spend 80 grand? I found a 2007
Maserati Grand Sport. Yeah, I nearly did that as well.
Yeah. I think you'd probably get it for £20,000. And I think I completely agree with everything
you said. I think it's about the proportions of the bonnet to whatever the quasi-boot is,
how long that front windscreen is. But I also think the back window is critical. The shape of
the back window. The excessive back window. He's obsessive about when it's, and they're wrong.
Well, yes, exactly. But that is a very perfect back. The best back window in a Coupé ever,
if you want to know, is the Berlinetta Boxer. If you just have a stare at that, the straight line,
it goes down like this. It comes back. It's perfection. That's most beautiful back window.
Are we in metaphor territory again, or is this literal Manish?
It's literal. But Neil Clifford's face went, I've never thought of it that way. And I've got one.
Now, so that was the easy one. Now, this is the most subtle
university design course, because take a blocky car and really make it look elegant. And for me,
it is this rather beautiful 2000 Audi A3, the S3. Now, I think that's a really gorgeous
piece of blocky design. It's a fucking hatchback. No, no, no, no, no.
Manish, you should church me again so I can. I'll give you an objective opinion. Church me again,
please. Look, here we go. That's a fucking hatchback. Just listen. It is one call that
owns an Audi A3 for fuck's sake. It's a design exercise. It's a design exercise. The proportions
of this car, I think it looks better than a Mark IV Golf, same time, same platform.
I love this. This is the answer to whatever question you want, time.
What do you mean by that? It's a beautifully balanced car. It's a beautiful, the A3 from 2000.
The Audi S3 Coupe, I'm just going to phone Volk English stat now and find out if they ever made
one. So Manish has gone Audi and Maserati. Neil Clifford, what are you going for?
Come on. Oh, yeah. Oh, come on.
Under 30,000 pounds. Yes, plenty under 30. That's the thing.
You're right. It comes with a headlamp. Is that 30,000 or 10,000?
Just add 10,000 after. We're not adding the 10,000 after in the two-car garage.
The car doesn't need to work. It's a pure design exercise. You're right.
Honestly, I was so bummed about this car came out because it was all a bit property developer
and football. We were blinded because it's the perfect coupe. I could actually do this
professor thing because it's got all of the elements of all the classic Bentley's,
all in one car but done with such an integrated beauty. It's bloody fantastic and actually
rare in red. And then Dupé. You know what? I've gone 70s even though I can't because the thing was
I think an underrated car of my childhood. I dreamt of one. I never had one. It's the Capri.
That's a good-shaped Capri. He's showing us a red early Capri.
Early on, Mark one. Yeah, Mark two. Maybe right. Yeah, but one had a smaller back window.
Yeah, yeah. And round the back.
What a bit. The back window is critical, Chris. It's critical.
There's such good value Capris now. This is a 1,600-hour and it's 24,695 pounds.
You spent 60 grand as well. What's the point in having rules here?
No, the wheels look a little bit small but apart from that.
Okay, I've actually for once adhered to the rules. I look like an absolute mug here.
So the story of car design of the last three decades
would not be in any way complete unless you included the man that designed this.
Yeah. Yeah.
So that's Z4M Coupe as designed by...
Chris Bangal. Bangal.
So the reason I'm doing this is I've actually imagined the role and that is one of university
professor. You'd get the chance to invite Chris Bangal to come and speak.
By some margin, the best public speech I've ever heard from anyone in the motor industry
was given by Chris Bangal. His talk on his approach and the fundamentals of vehicle design
and the effects they have on society was profound for me. It was absolutely amazing.
Ironically, it was given in Mercedes-Benz's centre in Brooklyn's
after he'd left BMW. It was probably one of those but it was amazing.
So you'd have to invite him along to then explain what went on here with the Fiat Coupe turbo.
I like that.
But every five years, I change my opinion on it, for five years I think it's brilliant
and then I see one and I go, well, fuck up there and I can't, I do this with it.
It's very, very wheel size dependent, that car. The non-turbo version of it with small wheels doesn't
work. But that's a 20 valve with the bigger wheels. 25 with the bigger wheels is proper.
Seven grand for that. Done 74,000 miles. Other one was 25. I'm two grand over
and I've got the educational element into my story as well. You Lata are a shamble.
Absolutely, you won that one.
I know. Next week, we're going to be choosing SUVs and Manage are going to choose a Ferrari 296.
Right, here we go. Let's choose some music. Let's choose to manage, redeem yourself with some music
that makes you look very intelligent. No, hopefully this can make me come across for our
audience as very empathic. I went to see Project Hail Mary and could I just beg everyone listening
to this podcast and I'm going to actually slightly break the standard to the sexist.
Could I beg every male that listens to this podcast to go and see that film? Men need to
go and see this film. Exactly. Bring your female or male other half partner to this,
but men need to go and see this film. This film is about loneliness. It's about male mental health.
It's about talking. It's about working together with people who may or may not be like you
to make a real difference. The hero is the greatest profession, in my opinion, of all,
which is a teacher. The hero of this film is a teacher, one of the two heroes, and teachers are
heroes. It's a beautiful film about a teacher who has to go into space to save the world.
It's the best film I've seen in five years. It's that good. Go and see it on a great big screen.
The soundtrack absolutely blew me away. It's written by the composer Daniel Pemberton.
It's mostly choral. It's very beautiful. The track I want to pick from this is called
You Were Loved, Brackets Burial, and it's such an emotional, massive, perfect piece of music.
It is this podcast. It is the deep structure of this podcast as a space movie. Please go and see
it. I beg of you. It's all believable until that last sentence. Right, let's go for Neil Clifford.
Driving a convertible at night in the cold with the electric, with the heater on, and if you've
got heated seats, heated seats on, is one of the most wonderful things you can do, and playing Hello
Earth by Kate Bush. It's the second to last track, actually, on that amazing album, Hounds of Love,
and it takes you right up into the sky. I like that. I'll have that one on tomorrow. Chris Cooper.
I've chosen a different kind of music and noise this week. I have. Last year we did a track day at
Thruxton, and we had lots of lovely cars in there and lots of noise. This year we've gone one better.
Saturday the 6th of June. Another event. Saturday the 6th of June. Thruxton, a very, very, very
kindly and extra specially, allowed us to have a no noise limit day. If you have an F1 car,
you can bring it. Literally, you can run what you brung. There's no limit at all to what you
bring on the day. A Galaxy 500 with no exhaust. A Galaxy 500 with no exhaust would be most welcome.
If you could find the right suspension bolts. Chris and I were doing fast laps and stuff.
We're hoping to have some really, really, really special stuff. If you've got really
special stuff, come along. Can I do slow laps? You can do slow laps. We'll have a special lunchtime
break. Everyone can watch the 35 minutes your lap will take. I'm going to bring the Galaxy.
You've got to bring the Galaxy. Brilliant. We're going to have a barbecue, have meals
during the day. There'll be other special merch. All four of us will be there. Chris and I are doing
some fast laps and stuff and a podcast in the evening on the track. Thruxton Racing.co.uk.
Put the link in the thing. Sixth of June. Right. Queens of the Stone Age. Better living
through chemistry. Go and listen to that as an intro to a song. If you want to drive slowly,
do not listen to anything by that particular band. But that song, wow, I've forgotten how
bloody good it is. That was a marathon podcast. Housekeeping covered. T-shirts next week, limited
release, 100 units only. Look at Instagram pages and stuff to find out where they are.
Jaguar event, 23rd of May. Buy a ticket, bring your Jaguar. Otherwise, I'm going to get hassle
off Cooper. Thruxton, 6th of June. It's called the Howl, which is named after the noise that
Lear made when he finds out that Cordelia's popped her clogs. So yeah, sign up, bring your F1 car.
But I really enjoyed that. That had everything. Bernie, it had silliness and it had some heartfelt
stuff as well. Tune in next week for more Tosh Around Cars.
Dear crew, it's Toyota with an adult sized third row. Everyone's welcome in the Grand Highlander.
From sports fans to eco buffs and movie fans. Seen back in the Sienna with an available rear
seat entertainment system. Slip into the RAV4 with available all wheel drive and let's go.
Toyota, find yours at Toyota.com. Toyota, let's go places.
ACAS powers the world's best podcast. Here's a show that we recommend.
They're right. Like it's just one bombshell after another. You know, you're like, what?
What? The story of a PlayStation, a brain eating amoeba, and the relentless pursuit of justice.
Off duty, out now. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
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