Best European Car Event? | The Car Podcast #72

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Well done, Mr Cooper. Or as you said to me, with a slightly impish look in his eye, 69 plus three.

Is there no end to this? There is no. But then you said three some and I went right, hold on there.

Come on, we're going too far. Right. So we are now episodes 72. We're so proud.

Big old week in cars. Everyone's been running around and of course it's

RetroMobile Week as well and we'll be coming to that later on. The world's greatest classic car show.

Neil Clifford's spiritual home. So we'll begin in this week with what's happened

this week in cars. I like this. It's open end. Doesn't mean what have you done.

It could be anything to do with the world of cars that you might or might not have been involved with.

Let's start with Chris Washed My Mouth Out This Open Water Cooper.

Well, I have two things to say. First of all, the first thing is one of our lovely listeners,

Lee Boyman, who is a production manager on Viz magazine or comic, which I think I mentioned

and one of us mentioned a while ago. So he sent us some goodies and he sent a lovely little note,

handwritten note, because I'm slightly dyslexic. When I read Viz, I thought, oh, some lovely V12

goodies. Yes. Nice. So there's some fantastic, there's our favorite, our absolute favorite,

Viz Top Trumps and Roger's Profanothorus. Look at the size of that. Look at the profanity and smut

in there. So Lee, thank you very much. I'm going to distribute. Last time somebody very kindly

sent us something. It might have been chocolate. I might have eaten them all. Yeah. So I promise

this time I will distribute it. I like this game. Hold on. So Neil Clifford's got some

t-shirts coming. Managed to not be in control of any of our contraband. Chris Cooper's got

chocolate that he keeps. And I think there's a Bentley coming at some point. So I'm going to

keep that. Yeah. Okay. That sounds like a fair deal. No change there then. Oh, no. I'm getting

on to the bloody question. Neil is going to talk about one of the things that he and I went to.

I'd like Neil to talk about that because it was his thing and it was lovely. I might chip in when

we go to that. But the main thing I want to talk about this week is the motorsport UK night of

champions. It happens every year. It is the start of the year. It's when the motorsport industry

and body and community in the UK gets together to celebrate all of the national champions

from the previous year and volunteers and the great and the good and recognized people whose

contribution has been extraordinary. And I wanted to talk about it because it kind of

chimes with how I felt at this thing that Neil and I went to, which I know he'll talk about,

its community. There was an unbelievably lovely and wonderful passion and community feel at the

night of champions in Palma on Saturday. So we recognized everybody from winning a hill climb

championship and the trials and British touring cars, British GTs, all those kinds of things.

And Derek Bell was there to receive a lifetime achievement award. I was very, very honored to

be able to speak at the beginning of this thing and present some prizes to those national champion

of all winners. And very, very lovely guests on my table. Jason, who's the CEO of the mission

of Lewis's Mission 44 charity and a really, really extraordinary and uplifting and wonderful

conversation with him. Lewis's dad was there. Really, really amazing. It made me feel that the car

is in rude health. The passion for the car and the good it can do right at the top of the peak

of our mountain of motoring motorsport felt as strong and as vibrant as ever. And this year,

most sport UK, we're trying very hard to think about how do we get more people enjoying their

cars more often in racing and other situations. So hopefully you'll hear more about that this

year from us. But there was one moment in the night that I wanted to share. There was one of

the awards. It's the Keith Duckworth Award, which is for great technological engineering

achievement. And this year, it was awarded to a chap called Peter Wright. Now, Manish,

you'll know his name and some others. Chris, maybe you know his name, but most people won't.

He was a Formula One engineer. And he was arguably the father of ground effect. He was the person

who led all of the work the FIA did on safety in the awful aftermath of Ayrton Senna's death.

He invented the balance of performance, which is essentially is allowed modern GT racing to exist.

When we discussed as a motorsport UK in the autumn, who we felt to guess it, I,

I and other board members felt very strongly that Peter, who's been a very low key character,

he's not a big personality. He does it because he loves it. We thought you get it.

In November, very sadly, he died very suddenly. So his widow Dorothy came and gave a lovely,

amazing speech. There wasn't a dry eye in the house. So I wanted to remember Peter. And I said

to his widow Dorothy afterwards, if he'd been born 30 years earlier, it would be his name

alongside Barnes Wallace and Frank Whittle that we would remember because it was his

extraordinary engineering prowess that would have helped save the free world

80 odd years ago. So metaphorically, otherwise, we all raised a glass to the extraordinary

Great Britain, who was Peter Wright. And it was a very, very fitting example of how

the motorsport community is such an extraordinary place and group to be in. So my weekend cars

was extraordinary and emotional and lovely. And God bless you, Peter Wright.

Excellent. Manish, what's caught your eye or you've done?

Can I just say something about Peter Wright? There's a really lovely story that

actually Uncle Bernard told us, which was when they had really got ground effect working.

Part of Formula One is all about putting people off the scent. So one of the clever things they

did was they got somebody from Lotus to walk around the paddock with a differential in a blanket

with bits sticking out of it. And they convinced, especially Ferrari, were totally convinced

that the Lotus going around corners very, very quickly because it had a trick diff.

They literally put everyone back six months. And Peter Wright, the thing that maybe doesn't come

across because of his genius and, you know, and because he was so underspoken, just his massive

sense of humour. He and Chapman, I mean, they had a proper sense of, I think that's just, sorry.

Hate. I hate in any way adding to people's stories. However,

we did a piece on the Lotus 79 on Top Gear. And this scenario, we tried to recreate because it was

such a great part of the story. It's actually even better than you say. Because Dinege, who was,

I think Chris Dinege, who was probably a T-ball or something, it wasn't a differential.

They wanted to make out that it was a differential that was causing the performance gain,

but it was too heavy to carry. So it was a kettle.

They had a kettle. Every time they finished a session, someone would run from behind the garage

to the truck carrying a kettle under a bit of towel or some cloth or something. And everyone

else would try and work out what it was. And it was a kettle. Sorry, man. It's just genius, isn't it?

I got invited to something. I'd love to talk about it for a moment. Neil and I were invited to

something which was a very hush-hush evening where Alpina, the new BMW Alpina,

like I can't say very much other than they showed us some rather beautiful photographs,

gave us a rather wonderful dinner. And we had some, you know, you don't often get invited

to a very small dinner with a few extraordinary people, where they start off by giving you

Don Perignon 2016. And you move on to a massive Chassez Montrachet. I didn't even see the red.

I was too busy with the white. And I have to say, unlike you guys, you are all Alpine connoisseurs.

This is a very new thing for me. And I'm not losing anything by Alpine going to BMW because

you've all owned Alpine. So what I'm about to say is probably really uninformed. But it seems to me

to be in great hands. The thinking, the presentation, the respect for its past, the idea that it isn't

just some takeover where, you know, something is just effectively going to be rebadged. It's just

very funny stories were told. I met the man who loaned his Formula One Ferrari. Do you remember

that Shell advert where it starts with an old Ferrari, it gets newer, it gets newer, it gets

newer and they fill up. I met the guy who had the 1960, I think it was a 1967 Ferrari. That's his car

and he drove it in New York, including the bit where he gets all four wheels off the ground

going off park lane. We were just chatting away, an extraordinary human being. There was another

human being that you know very, very well. And he told me the story that, well, I can tell you

actually, it was Lord March. I had no idea when he left school, he was one of four photographers

on Stanley Kubrick, still photographers on Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, which is my

favorite film of all time. And he would literally have a meeting with Stanley Kubrick every single

day of the shoot to go through his photographs, tell him how to become a better photographer. I mean

it was, I have to say, cars, they're not just in rude health, they're connected to everything.

And that is, that's the best way to stay alive, because you know, everything keeps cars going

and cars keep everything going. It's a wonderful thing, wonderful evening.

Very good. No Covid. Cool. That's two things I've forgotten I've done.

Let's talk about them then. Yeah, obviously our peanut dinner, lovely. Thank you very much,

Avié and the gang there. And I second Manish. I walked in a bit cynical, a bit worried thinking,

oh God, you know, oh, they don't cock this up. And I walked out thinking, actually,

they might not, which is really good if they don't, because it's really, really important.

And definitely the guys we met from BMW totally understood the importance and the

all of the DNA of the brand very well, a lovely little presentation, which was really,

everyone was nodding along thinking, thank God they get it, which is really good. Yes,

I helped, actually it's lovely just to know, a year ago, or no, three years ago,

I didn't know anyone that made films about cars. And now I know two, really good. I've got two

great friends that make wonderful, wonderful films. Manish obviously being one and also now,

Ben Batucci, who made this lovely little movie, which totally bites and I was in Los Angeles

and went to the premiere and he was an Instagram friend, wasn't a real friend, but actually made

me Instagram friends are real friends now. And I bought a ticket and we went along and I thought,

this is really just a gorgeous little movie, wonderfully done, took him seven years, put

his heart and soul into the whole thing. I think you can watch it on Apple. So, so please watch

it because it might give him like 50p if you watch it, be really good. And or like 10p probably.

And I organized, helped him organize a lovely little London premiere with the help of Selfridges

and the help of Ben and a few other people that just sort of, we all put it together.

And we had 150 wonderful car people and it was just a really lovely, relaxed, joyful, positive,

happy evening surrounded by and a wonderful, great, super cool movie, a movie that like

Manishes movies, frankly, just the just total silence for 82 minutes. Now, maybe that's what

movies do. I don't go to the cinema much. So maybe that's what all movies do. But it was, it was,

I suppose it was, we had the right audience and the right film and a film that really was a

an antidepressant, just a just a really gorgeous little story. And in the end, it's always about

people, you know, we all talk about cars and best steering wheels and, you know, watch two car garage

and we love all the sort of nerdy bits of cars, but actually fundamentally it comes down to

emotions and people and joy and connections, not just with cars and travel and freedom and

all of those things, but just great people that you meet on your little journey. And we'll all

be pissing in our trousers one day in our wheelchairs. So I think the more we can do

joy ourselves on that journey and cars are really a catalyst for all of those things. It's

really bloody good. In addition to that, I put Apple CarPlay in my mini. These are the things

I actually wrote down that I've done, which was fab because putting CarPlay into a 2012 car

just makes a 2012 car really great, but maybe I'll sell it one day to actually it's got everything

I need now and it's better than a new car. I'm going to keep it forever. So that's really good.

And I've been bumming around in my little rocketeer in London the last couple of days.

One annoying thing that happened to me, and I won't mention the dealer yet, is I had a car service

and it came back yesterday. Very nice. You know, first world problems,

back to my office. Zero, zero petrol in it. We hate that. And you know what? It's like,

what the fuck? You're paying for a service. They do all the things that get an invoice printed.

Right? So they send you, oh, shall we change the brake fluid? I know it's not, but it might be

worthy. Oh, okay, do the brake fluid. 270 quid. You know, they nudge you for all the little things

that you want to pay for, because that's their job to sort of get up the average transaction value.

But no one in the service department or the mechanic that was doing it says, you know what?

We're delivering this car back to him. And by the time we get there, because it's 20 miles away,

and the car's got 27 miles on the range, it's only going to have four miles when we get there.

No one does that. They're just like, you know, it's a bit annoying. So now, today, literally,

I can't get to a petrol station because it's 50% chance I run out to get in another car,

drive to the petrol station, buy a can of petrol, bring it back and put it in the car.

Please, can people that are involved in car servicing think about petrol? Because without

petrol, it's really difficult to enjoy your car, even when it's been serviced.

Do you know why this happens? This is because, we talked about this before, there's a process.

You just have to think about the customer. It's why your business exists.

But there's a tick list that they've done. But on that tick list, it doesn't say,

please check, there's enough petrol in the car for the customer.

I'm going to play devil's advocate here. I've got split views on this.

We can't have a split view on this.

No, no, no. I really, I mean, I really can. I really fucking can. Right, here we go.

Let's get into this. Yeah, you buy a car from someone and in that car are vapours. Whoever

sold you that car should either be euthanised or allow you a free Chinese burn on both of their

arms. I mean, a proper Chinese burn, like you'd give to one of your friends. Or maybe even a

Curly Whirly, like one of those off the back, Curly Whirly's burn, right? But if you take

your car in for a service and it doesn't require extensive road testing and you leave it there

with 25 miles on it, don't expect to get it back with an awful lot of fuel in it.

I think it's the responsibility of people dropping their cars off to be serviced,

unless it's going to be heavily road tested to make sure it's got enough fuel to come back to you.

If you give your car to someone, it's got half a tank of fuel and it comes back on vapours,

that is unacceptable. But if you leave it with 27 miles on it and it comes back before, I'm sorry,

you're all much cleverer than that and you know that if every car that was serviced, the garage

had to put five litres of fuel in it, it would cost them about another 7 million pounds a year.

Fucking free petrol. Yeah, they could charge for it. But they've got to take the car, drive it to

the garage. Listen to my story. I organised, which took me three weeks longer than I wanted,

because I was a bit busy and I was going around the world, please, could you come and pick up my

car from my office? The service place is about 16 miles away. So it had about 40, 50 miles on the

range. Okay, it wasn't, it wasn't full, but it had decent petrol. They came and picked it up,

very nice of them, by the way. They then serviced the car and brought it back, the 17 or 18 miles.

I just wish someone would have said it had some petrol in it. And now when we're taking it back,

it's not going to have any in it. That's my little situation. I think it is. I think

when your car's being serviced, you have to assume it will never go near a petrol station,

because if you run a service department at a garage and every single, let's say every single

car the customer needed to have some fuel put in it, you would lose half your working day

to filling cars up. I just don't think you can do that. Well, I just think that it might be a way

of keeping your customers really, really happy by doing something unexpectedly positive.

I give you, and as an alternative, I give you Mr Clifford, who will tell everybody he meets

about that garage. Who knew that in his absolute soul, Chris Harris was a really hardcore venture

capitalist? You really should be running some kind of little, you should be big time.

I can remember, it's funny when you get into the money show, I helped someone sell a car recently,

and cars that you sold as seen, I'm not getting involved in selling cars anymore.

I love it, actually, it's my other addiction, love a deal. And this car has been sold, and

it's a nice car, I won't say what it was, a very high performance vehicle, a state car.

And I just, I knew it was probably going to go to someone in the motor trade. And the moment

that's happening, all you're thinking of is what's, you know, I don't want everyone to do well

out of this, the person that's selling it can have a convenient moment to get out of a car,

the person that's buying it will be a motor trader, and they can have some good margin in the car.

The problem is that the squeeze on margin in this country is so desperate, doesn't matter what

industry you're in, whether you're selling a pint of beer, if you're selling food in a restaurant,

or if you're selling servicing on a car, the margins on everything are so tight that when

you start to nibble away at those, the situation becomes desperate. Now, this car, I don't know,

it's a heavier state car, but what's the thing, what's the things you have to watch out for,

their tires and brakes, or any of these big German things, that they can be the difference

between selling a car and a profit and not, because the brakes are two and a half grand's worth of

iron that are going to warp in two minutes anyway, and the tires are bloody expensive too. So you

have to assume they're goose. So when you get down to an integrative in someone, you know,

let's say hypothetically, someone goes, oh, I didn't realize the brakes weren't very good,

doesn't mean you just, you think, well, I know, but they're always good, you know,

but also if you take that, if someone has to pay for that or contribute towards that,

then the deal's all wrong, isn't it? The moment you ask for contributions from people in the kind

of place we are, by the way, that person didn't, it was actually great, it was good. The moment

you're sort of going, well, why couldn't they do that? Well, you think about it, it's a journey,

that takes time, that someone's paying that, and you've got to put the fuel in the car,

and if everyone wants that service, I don't think you'll have your car service, is my view,

but I've got the goodwill thing. I get that, but I suppose I'm in the world of always trying to

think about, and you know, we fail sometimes, and we succeed sometimes, doing things that

customers, A, expect, but also trying to do things that people, customers don't expect,

and those are the things you remember, the extra things that are not on a tick list,

that are just more human. I'll tell you what, I bought an E39M5 off Merlin at Duke of London,

because I just saw this thing, and it's got the heritage interior, and I'm a total sucker for it,

and away you go, and I just thought I've got to have one of these, so he delivered it,

just before an event in London, so he said, I'll leave it in a car park for you, and I went back

to the car, and he blessed it, he'd left some sweeties in it, and it's just all round, I mean,

talk about surprise and delight, but what they do is exactly what Neil's talking about,

they're trying to make you feel good, and they do a great job of it, but the best thing was,

when I turned the key, it wasn't just full, the needle, and the old BMW 4G, it was a bit

beyond full, you know, when you think, this person's actually gone beyond the first click,

he's had two or three clicks at this just to get a bit extra in, and the feeling of,

I'm agreeing with me, no, but I've told you, I've been very clear, I separate a new car

purchase, or a used car purchase, totally from servicing, they're totally different things,

because, but it's the same outcome, totally different things, and Neil Lyre, it's the same

outcome, and it's, in a world seemingly being overtaken by AI, and automating all of this stuff,

it just seems, there is an extraordinary opportunity, you can charge for this stuff,

I'm a firm believer, if you do a good thing, people value it, and will pay for it, because the

outcome is, they feel happy, pleased, their life is simpler, well, my little episode with the AI,

I talked about a few weeks ago, I know the AI quite well, and my firms work with them,

and I know the chief executive, and I told it, I had a cup of tea with him the other day,

and I told him this story, and I said, he said, have you, if you talked about it in podcast,

I said, yeah, we did, and he said, I said to him, it felt like somebody had said,

organizationally, we're going to think about the customer, we've got processes, we have to

do things consistently, because we're doing it at scale, but it doesn't mean you can't think

about the customer, when it comes to a car, he said, that's exactly what we've done,

we didn't used to do that, we've changed it, and that's why it works.

End of sermon. Mr. Harris, what did you do in class this week?

Jesus Christ, I've done quite a lot this week, started off, I drove an ASGT to my unit,

it got so much attention, I actually stood outside talking to people about old French

hatchbacks, which I loved, the next day I flew to Dubai, for the launch of the super sports,

met Travis for quite a while, Travis Pastrana, who's an absolutely superb individual,

who probably appears to be held together with Jubilee Clips and Hope, and then I went to the

launch event of the Bentley Super Sports, which was great, and met lots of very cool people.

Dubai remains a totally perplexing place to me, so full of ambition and money, not necessarily

Hope, but it's a remarkable place on the planet, and obviously it loves the motor car,

so we probably have to celebrate it for that, it loves the motor car, the Bentley look fantastic,

and the film that was made by my friend, John Richards, who used to be the director on Top Gear

is lovely, don't have a look at it, it's skidding around the Bentley factory,

like a sort of Gymkhana light around the Bentley factory, it's really cool,

and then I came back from there and I went up to, then I started a right old adventure in the

M3 CS Touring, which I'm currently knocking around in, I've had one of those experiences,

you know, when you spend a lot of time in a really good car, you sort of fall head over heels in love,

this is really special, this car, it's a bit choppy at low speed, I don't like the screens,

other than that, it would average more than 30 miles to the gallon, fully loaded with myself,

question the cameraman and all our gear, we drove from Heathrow to Bristol to the Y Valley,

then all the way up to Anglesey, did a bit of filming in the bad weather, we then did a track day

for Mission Motorsport, you'll be hearing that name a lot this year, because great charity,

so recovering service people, think of it as the four-wheeled arm leg, whatever you want to

call it, to help the heroes, so we had a, so Jim Cameron, who organises these things, and he's

not sort of limited by normal ways of thinking, because he used to run a tank regiment, he started

to have a night track day, which had the actuarial industry, obviously tearing its hair out and

running for new borders, it actually went off really smoothly, it was a fabulous event full of

all the right people, and the M3 CS pounded its way around, and a hammy laps it did, and it's only

when it got dark, that people came up to me and said, have you seen the brakes on that thing,

when you're driving around, I went, uh, no, they said, doesn't it look like they're glowing Chris,

it looks like they're on fire, and the carbon ceramic, it's got carbon ceramics, the rotors

were just glowing red, when you see the video, anyhow, we started at 6.37 in the morning,

we could be stayed in Wales, having got there at one in the morning and night before, we did all

the day with the track day, we finished at about eight o'clock at night, sorry I had to leave early,

and then we drove straight to Edinburgh, and got there at sort of one-ish, what a demonstration

of the modern motor car, you pile this thing full of crud, it then goes to a track, is it as quick

as a GT3, no it's not, if you've got an idiot like me behind the wheel with a little bit of adventure,

you can get quite close to them actually, and then you, and then you end up sitting in it for five

hours listening to audio books and get to your destination, and then I had a day filming on

another project that I'm doing with the lovely Francis Bourgeois about trains, and we did that,

and then I flew to, no I come back and I flew to Paris, went to the best of the best dinner,

really should have been serving drinks there, I've never felt so out of place in my life, but

thank you Uncle Ferrip for inviting me along, it was magic to see people, and

I have just remarkable motor cars, I didn't manage to go to the show last night, so I've got a TGV,

that's my highlight of the week, I've never been on a TGV, why have I not been on a tram?

Tram Grand Vitesse, so it's the greatest name vehicle ever, and I looked, I was at a bit of

time to go in Paris and I thought, you know what, I'm going to take the later train because it's the

TGV, and I booked my ticket, obviously Francis has completely got me his trains now, and I just

took so much, double decker, and it's quite, it's a little bit claustrophobic in the cabin,

but I love that, you feel sort of, you sit quite low, it's like you're in a sports, they've made

it feel like you're in a sports car, this thing did, gather less to reams in 41 minutes, now in

a car that would have taken about two and a half out to three hours old I thought, and for some

reason, and someone that was bringing the Bentley Continental T that I happened to be

larking around in at the moment, the disc podcast is out of control, we need to have a reset, don't

we, and just as I basically got off the train, and the Bentley just drove in, and I got into it,

and all these French people were thinking, who the hell is this man? He just got off this thing,

and of course as Christian arrived, he put the horn into, out of town mode for the dual horns,

and gave it a massive beep, and we drove off like a pair of Mr. Toads, but I'm currently in the Moven

pick, a hotel in Stuttgart Airport on my way to Austria, and I'm going to go, do you know what,

I'm going to do something that I know, at least, all of them will appreciate this, a bit of a tight

schedule, but I've not been to the Portion Museum for several years, and I just think I'm, I'm no,

I'm 15 miles away here, so we're going to take a bit of time out, we're going to go to the Museum,

we're going to have a cup of coffee, and we're going to have a look at some lovely old porches,

now my old, you know, the old me would have just driven straight past and gone, we haven't got time,

but you've all, Pasha, Pasha key ring, I'm going to get you all, I'm going to get each of you a

gift, it won't be the same gift, because I'm going to get each of you something different, lovely,

but the most important thing is, can I have a Porsche, could I just have a Porsche,

an old one of your choice, could that be my gift? Okay, we'll get you one of those,

um, I just, there's, I'll, one of my motos was, there's not, there's not enough time,

there is enough time, it's, yeah, maybe the thing about the motor car, and what we talk about here

is, the ultimate way to make time is the motor car, because it's infinitely flexible, so when

you're going past something and you see a sign, that's what we should all do this year, don't

drive past the sign, go and investigate, be nosy, go down there, I heard a brilliant story about

someone who did just this, the last thing I'll tell you on this subject, there's a bus lane,

if you live in Bristol, you come out on the M32, there's a brand new bus lane,

anything they built many years ago, that goes down towards UE, I think it's, so the University

of West England, Bristol Poly, and so the bus goes, it's, it goes straight to their campuses,

it's a really good idea, it means the bus can go straight to the campus and come back again,

and our friend of mine got three points on his license, because he's a curious type,

he's not, he's not into speed at all, but he just, he just wanted to have a look,

because it was a new road, so he just, it did say not for normal traffic, but he went,

when he got prosecuted, he said, I had some time, and I wanted to see where it went,

so I just drove down it, yeah, that's very British, I think it's really good sometimes

just to have a look, so go on, use your cars to have a look. One other thing on, I've been doing

this for you, I meant to mention earlier on, Cameron and I have been working with loads of

other people out there on some exciting events we're going to do this year, so can't say anything

yet, but more and on shortly, looking forward to seeing people at some of them, so yeah,

watch this space. Here we go, here we go, so it's Retrimer Bill Week, I've sort of covered my

Retrimer Bill story, which involves not making it to the show, so I've not done very well there,

Neil Clifford, tell us why Retrimer Bill is really exciting, and also we need to acknowledge the

fact that all we've done is talk about billionaire lifestyle, so we've got to bring this back.

Well, I think very briefly, because there's quite a big chance I'm not actually going to get to

Bloody Retrimer Bill this week, which I suppose pleasure becomes, pleasure before work should

only be in the dictionary, and I've got a lot of work, so it's a bit of a bitch, so I'm trying

Friday, but it's like 50-50, and my point on this Retrimer Bill, which Retrimer Bill is amazing,

if you haven't been, go because it's just fabulous, is that the excitement of going on the Euro tunnel

was my reference here, and we all do that for many, many reasons, don't we, and I wanted to

articulate that for about 30 seconds, because I'm so excited when I'm doing it, but I'm all,

I'm sort of 51% excited, 49% nervous, and I don't know whether other people get this,

I get this nervous thing a lot, to be honest, whenever I'm doing a journey, particularly if

I'm sort of trying to corral and organize people, and normally that is the case, because

classic Le Mans, or going to Le Mans, we're going to do a little sort of trip down to the Pyrenees,

and I'm desperately trying to organize my friends and Bloody Book in the Hotel, so I've got a good

friend James that also does it actually, but the relief of the fact that it's the morning of the event

can't really sleep, I set my alarm for, I don't know, 4.30, because we're planning to get the Euro

tunnel at 7, and I'm awake at Bloody 3.30, thinking, shall I get up now, you know, is it time, should I

do it, and then looking at your little Apple Maps or your Waze, how long is it going to take me,

it's two hours, two and 10 minutes, two and seven minutes, or got to get moving quickly, because

I don't know if there's traffic, if you know the bridge has fallen down over the Thames,

it's going to fuck things up, I'm always thinking bad things are going to happen,

have I got my passport, check my passport about 50 times, have I got my little blipper thing for

the bloody tolls, you never know where that is the night before, you're sort of upheaving the kitchen

to find this bloody thing, it never runs out, you never have to charge it, it never goes wrong,

that bloody thing is a miracle, it's fucking Star Trek, that thing, they last for 20 years,

I don't know how that happens, and then you're driving down around the M25 and then Waze is

going a different way to the Apple Maps, because there's that thing that's like the M20 or the A2,

and you're like, fuck, which way is it? Never the A2. But there's that thing that it takes the same

amount of time, but there are two little routes that all, and I'm always thinking, shit, am I going

the wrong way? And then have I got enough petrol? And then there's the thing about, shall I fill

up a petrol in the UK? Shall I wait till I get on the other side? Is it cheaper? Will I waste time?

I'm a bit nervous, then you're like, fuck, have I forgot that fucking triangle thing?

And then, you know, am I going to get arrested? If I get stopped by the police because I'm

speeding and then I haven't got the triangle, bold, bloody thing. So you go into that service

station in Kent and you buy another one. And then when you get home after your trip, you've got about

nine of them, because you always bloody buy one, because you never forget or know where the bloody

thing is. And then you get to, because you've paid for Flexi Plus, and then actually, probably,

it's a rip off, because I never know how much it, non Flexi Plus, because I'm always there early enough

just to get the train and plan. I've never missed that 702. But I've got the Flexi Plus just in case

I miss the 702. And I've probably paid £400 Flexi Plus, as opposed to 59 quid for the 702.

No, I think still a good idea. I like the Flexi Plus, you walk in, you've got the pictures of

Nigel Mansel in the bog, and it's all quite nice. And with those black and white pictures, you know

what I mean, with Concord and Margaret Thatcher, and you know, it's all the more, yeah, it's all very

British and Royal Britannia. And then you, you know, you have that little coffee, and then you

maybe have another one, and then you nickle the sandwiches, and it's all quite exciting, and you

get an apple, because it's free. So always get fruit if it's free. And then you drive on to the

Eurostrain, and that feeling of, fuck, I'm going to scratch my wheels. And it always feels narrower,

doesn't it? You're like, it's got narrower, because we've got wider. Got narrower, and your friends

have gone on there really quickly, and then you're nervous that you're not going really quickly,

and you're then you're thinking, oh, the gate is going to come down, and I'm going to be, I'm going

to be, I'm going to be blocked for my friends. I've got to go through that funny door with the

button, and you don't know whether it's going to open, and there's so many things to worry about.

But then once you come off the train, and you don't scratch your wheels, and you're also nervous,

come, because it always feels very tight, that thing, and you've got to get off the train, and

you make it, and then you've had your passport checked, and you haven't gone into that security

thing, and you've got there, and your friends are there, and it's suddenly the sky's blue, isn't it?

You drive off that thing, and it's cloudy in Kent, and the sky's blue in France,

and off you go, and it's just wonderful. But it's nerve-wracking, but it's wonderful.

All these things that reward have to have an element of destabilisation about them,

so that you can ultimately reach a high. You can't reach a high with that bit of a lower

worsen trepidation. I want to add one thing about the Euro tunnel, right? So I'm a big fan of La

Shuttle. I don't know how many times I've done it in my life, but I'm not as good as a sort of

haulage company, but let's just say I've been good from over the years. I love it. I do use the

Flexi. By the way, Flexi Plus has now gone up, too. I'll look it up as I tell you the story.

We've booked one last week for this Bentley to come out here, and I was going to drive it,

but I was just knackered on Sunday night. Didn't get back to really late. I thought it was a good

idea to actually get Christian to drive the car out, and I'll fly to Paris. It's just a little

easier, and it's a full Flexi Plus. We hadn't put the driver's name in delivery, so Christian's

turned up to take this thing 24 hours late because it's a Flexi Plus and it's not a problem at all.

We've paid $692 quid return. That's what it is now. $692 quid return up, and Christian goes,

sorry, yeah, it's me, not him. And they go, yeah, tough titty. He needs to buy another Flexi Plus.

And he tried to talk to them kindly and said, look, we're pretty good customers for yours.

And they went, don't care. He said, well, would you like to give us a normal fee,

give you another $400 quid, will you give us a Flexi Plus? They went, no. So I'll continue

using the Shuttle under the year return off, but I think they're a bit fucking off, frankly,

and I didn't like it at all. I thought the ticket was associated with the car.

No, they now, after Brexit, you have to give passenger details beforehand.

So if one passenger wasn't, because I remember when you and I first met, it was when we did that

little training trip to the Nurburgring, an auto car magazine had bought a ticket

for the two cars. And we got on and said, we're not doing that. We're going to do Flexi Plus.

And the look of joy on your little face is like, hang on, because it's the anxiety thing.

I don't know whether they do it deliberately, because you can turn up at any time.

You put like a time on it, but it doesn't make you turn it at any time.

And as you drive into the little cabin where the free apples and the flapjacks and those

lovely little French yogurts, and they have a quite taste the same when you buy them over here.

And there's a little dot matrix board that says when the next train is, and you think,

if I go now, I could get an earlier train. Do I stop? How many sandwiches can I collect?

Or can I only collect one sandwich? And I'm well known for being early and wanting to be even earlier

by all of my family and most of you. But that little dot matrix thing, and you walk in there

and the person says, you have five minutes until the next train starts boarding.

The sense of excitement, anxiety, nervousness, or worry, will I won't I make it? Or it makes no

difference. But finding the Flexi Plus thing, I think I've certainly in France, I go round that

roundabout and they're trying to keep on moving it on a movie. It's trying to get you to the shops.

And then you've got to get that pin code. And then you're then, you know, you're putting it when

you print out that thing for your window, which now doesn't go on your mirror because it's better

and it's sticky. Those buttons don't really work. And you've got to press them twice before the

buttons. Is it is it number plate recognition? Do I just wait? No. Does it confuse it?

Everyone takes a photograph of their car on the u-turn. It's almost like it's an addiction.

So the moment Christian came through, of course, I got this.

Everyone takes a photo. It's like a it has to be done. You have to take a photo.

You imagine you're fed in Instagram with all the great cars that go on there.

They can create great content that you do. You always take a picture.

I'm a massive fan of the service, but I tell you, I'm probably pissed off with them.

I can tell you what, I have one other do and don't. And I always think about this.

Is it really enjoyable as you get off the French side? And that is, I think it's total,

isn't it, the petrol station? Yeah, on the left. On the left. Yeah. Do you stop there or don't you?

Do you? All of my senses are saying, I want to go. I want to get going. I want to come off

because a lot of British travellers will be, maybe first time travellers,

are quite nervous and are doing sort of all 60 kilometres an hour. I'm afraid I don't.

It's a really good garage to stop at at Classic Le Mans because it is the place where everyone

groups and all the wonderful French kids that are creating the car content for France,

they're all there. And you just go there and you buy that little packet of Madeleine,

little spongy, biscuit-y things. And that French Jaffa cake, whatever it is, but it's just a little

bit nicer. And you just hang out and you have the little coffee and the great coffee in their

services. I'm afraid I'm with Cooper here because you've just basically spent an hour waiting at

the terminal on the other side. And they've charged you another 700 quid because they're

wankers. No, they just charge you that. No, no, no, no. Don't interrupt the story, Cooper.

But so they've just charged you 700 quid because they're wankers. And then you've taken the trains,

you've sat stationary for another half an hour, you've just got going. I'm with Chris. You don't

want to stop again. Yeah, that's right, really. But it's just you're excited. Do you want to have a

chat? Yes, exactly. And there's that French motorbike behind you. And on that right hand,

when you're going up towards Dunkirk Way, up that way rather than south, and it's all beautifully

smooth. There's a lot of combinations, but it's smooth. And then as you peel right, and you look

over your shoulder the wrong way to see, and then the French motorbike just goes like 230 kilometers

and anything. Just for a minute, I'm just going to absolutely nail it and follow the French motorbike

and then we'll start behaving. You can't do that anywhere else other than coming off the Euro tunnel.

50% of the time I'll go the wrong way then. I don't know why. Maybe it was Tom Tom as opposed

to Waze or something. It all takes a bit too long to adjust. Do you think, why is Beloyne that way?

Beloyne should be that way. And that's a bit like ice-af-fusing.

Is it 16 Paris or what the f***?

Paris is the wrong way. Right, children, I'm going to have to get control of this. This was supposed

to be about retro-mobile. We've totally lost now, and we're also running out of time.

So manage. I'm going to make three retro-mobile points if I may. Yes, please, manage.

Okay, the first one is, as you know, I talked about the helmet book and forgot its name,

which was the dumbest thing I've ever done. So it's the art of racing that will be kind of

launched there. That's Joe Twyman and Ronald Stern, and that is a, I can't wait for you guys to see

this book. The second thing I noticed was there's a DS70, I don't know, the Citroën DS

at 70 years old exhibition with a chandelier designer called Matthew Leustreri, and that looks

like it's going to be stunning. Absolutely stunning because I am going to try to get there before

Friday. But there is also some great comedy because they're doing a retrospective of the French

in Formula One, and that is going to be the funniest show you can imagine because the French

in Formula One is a comedy. It's a comedy. How long did it take them to win anything? We just

go through Renault, Ligier, let's go through Alain Prost, all the great guys of the 80s. It's

brilliant. It's brilliant. They've got one minute to celebrate. Did they invent it or did we invent

it? It depends on whether you think that the first proper Formula One race, which was Silverstone

1950, is British or not. I think it is. I think it's one of ours. But just honestly, the whole of

the 70s and 80s was about the French going, oh, we've almost won. Oh, we've almost won. We're

throwing loads and loads of resources into it. We've almost won again. I can't wait to go and

see this. Prost was French, wasn't he? Yeah, they had a winner. He was amazing. He was the best winner.

Pollux. This really is like being a buddy. Here we go. So we're going to move this on now.

We're going to move this on too. This came out of a WhatsApp conversation, like so many of these

things. It's a working title. Never puts pineapple on a pizza. Essential consumer and life-lover

will make you happier. Or really, a list of don'ts. Is this a list of don'ts, is what we're talking

about? Or we're talking about a list? I think it's a list of don'ts, isn't it? I'm going to go to a

Chris Cooper first. Well, the world has been waiting for me to provide it with style and consumer

advice. So no, it really fucking hasn't. But this is, I've seen this before and I saw it on Sunday

and I thought that is never put pineapple on a pizza. And I know this is going to upset some

people, some of whom are lovely friends of this podcast, but never put teak floors and floorboards

in a Defender or a Land Rover series. I'm sorry, it's just no. Teak floors are lovely.

Landrovers are lovely. But if anybody knows anything about teak floors, if they go in a

boat or a dinghy or super yacht, the first thing people would do if they own one of those lovely

things is tell you, can you take your shoes and socks off, please? Otherwise, you'll scratch it.

A teak floor, wouldn't it? It's slippery, it's scratchy or get, you know, particularly in a

Land Rover. I'm really sorry, it's a no. That's to the Italians, that would be like putting

pineapple on a pizza. Yes. Even if it's in the back of the sort of low load a bit. That's even worse.

I've never done it. I'm not going red here. I've never done it. No. But I always think

it looks quite nice sometimes. So just pineapple on a pizza. Yeah, that's true. But you've got,

hold on, so you've got the teak floor. I'm thinking back to the Press Audi Q7 V12 TDI.

That was a press car. It was white. And we drove it to somewhere to do a test.

No, it was cool thing actually. But it had the teak floor in the back. But it had raised

rubber runners. So you didn't actually, that's the word. So when your suitcase wouldn't touch

the wood. And it did look quite good. That is slightly different. But I think, you know,

the back of a Land Rover, you can have dogs and people and boots and stuff in there. It's a

Land Rover. And if I have to explain this, you've just, you're all lost. No, we just enjoy watching

you trying to explain it. As you realise, the look on your face was, my God, I'm putting myself out

there as the arbiter of good taste. And we're all going, what you really are. That's a risky place

for anyone like me to be. But on this one... Before I move on to my learning colleagues,

I'm going to list one. It's my one above all else. The ultimate pineapple on a pizza for me

is Shields on a Ferrari. I just don't get them. Sorry. I don't get them. Why would you put the

bloody things on a Ferrari? They're nightmare. Can't stand them. Off we go, Neil Clifford.

It's so true. It's so true that. And I'm, yeah, I'm, I'm Shield Regret hashtag.

It actually looks like a piece of pineapple as well, but it could have been more perfect.

And you pay for it. It's a fucking two grand. I'm so stupid. I've even looked into, if I change the wings,

how much is it? Because obviously the wings, you know, it's like 57,000 pounds. Oh, God,

this is really good, Mr. Coop. I love this. I've got so many, but my number one really is the

optional sticker pack on the 911 purchase. Yes.

You know, the Germans are brilliant at many things.

Even though Porsche has got a bit boring, I think we need to talk about that at some point.

We do actually. What's happened to Porsche? They need some creativity and new cars. I know they've

been a little bit stuck in their electric strategy and it's all gone a bit Pete Tong.

But I think it's a little bit boring. We talk about that now. Sticker pack. Now, it's okay.

Let's say if the car is fundamentally designed to have the stickers, and there's only one car

really with that, if you're a Porsche, it's the 911 R. Of course, I'm talking my own book here.

That's okay. But if you're then getting your, the world's longest name and you've ordered the 911

GTS for Targa exclusive thing, and then you all I'm going to write that down the side of the car

in a really shit font. And even worse, there is the worst one, which I never thought was a real sort

of OEM thing, but it is that sticker that just goes down the nose and goes down to the badge

and comes back. What the fuck is that? And also you're paying money for it. And in addition,

please don't buy the watch. Because if you buy the watch, it's really bad. So 911 should be about

pure understated German design. Don't put stickers on a Porsche. Okay. What if it's a

911 R with just Porsche written down the side in the Porsche logo, the Porsche font?

I just want to tell them all off. If the original one of whatever there was, 29 28, if the original

R had it, which it did actually, then it's then I think it's just a low over the line of acceptability.

Because it's, you know, it's a reference back to that sticker pack of the R. But apart from that,

they didn't come like that though, right? It was only the stickers over the roof. It didn't come

as the Porsche down the side on an R. Well, all the press cars did, but I think they did.

Man, it's what your chunk of pineapple. The first little point is that did you know a place

called lube? I Google this because I remember this from somebody. There was a place called

Lupo Pizza in Norwich. And what it did to discourage people from putting pineapple on

their pizza. Yeah, they charge you 100 pounds. That's right. This is what we do. Of course,

you can have it, but it's 100 pounds for this little site. I think that's great. Best topping ever,

isn't it? So no one has that. I actually think there are two things, oversized wheels on cars.

That's something I just, they just, they don't look good. Can't drive badly. You get a

pothole and you scratch them up. It's just the over oversized wheel on a car. And the other one's

anything where you've got to pay a subscription. You know, that is just, you know, do you keep up

with your subscription? Do you not keep up with your subscription? Oh, this won't work because

subscriptions run out. Can't do very much when you're driving with this. So that's what I would

say. Can I just say quickly, before I get lynched by everyone in France F1, they do make very good

engines. Renault used to make very good engines. Can I just say that quickly? The way that you

were just laughing at them, you probably bit too late there. You just think you may be right.

The horse is bolted and you're playing with the latch is what I'd say. I'm going to go to Retro

Reveal in a Prost mask. Maybe that is the way to do it. Yeah, you could do that. I could do that.

We'll be there as well. He'll look forward to seeing you. Right. So I've got, I mean, the list of these

is long. For example, I mean, I've never seen a set of black wheels on a car that I think look better

than silver wheels. Correct. Yep. I just couldn't do it. There's one that I really don't understand.

And I need you guys to help me understand this. Those sort of wind deflector things that people

put on the outside of their driver's door, you know, the extra bit there. So now in the 70s

and early 80s, these things were considered to be, they were the subject of a somewhat

classist judgment, I think a lot. Basically, if you had a cheap Ford, it was a way of keeping

your elbow out the window. So you could drive it with the window down and this and it was sort

of slightly slightly part of that sort of elbow out of your Ford Cortina, pretend that you had

an American muscle car, but actually it was a Ford Cortina. And then you had these things.

They disappeared for 25 years and out of nowhere, they reappeared. They have no idea where the trend

came from. And I don't understand what it's for because most modern cars have got air conditioning,

so you don't need to have a wind deflector so you can have your elbow out the window.

But but they're considered to be sort of cool things to have on your car. I think they look

ridiculous. They've always looked a bit odd. I assumed that the reason they existed in the first

place was with some sort of anti-buffeting thing. So you have your window open without the buffeting

and you can sit there with a cigarette and all the smoke would go out rather than just

funneling around everywhere. Beyond that, I've no idea. They do look a bit weird and you wonder what

aerodynamic engineering expertise has gone into them. Why the people of the Flares? It's Flares

That's style though, isn't it? You'd see you'd have a Cortina that would have two bloody

earthing strips out the back of it, hopefully. It would have Kevin and Rita as a sort of sun visor

strip up there and the wind deflector would come out half a foot. It was a massive, it was basically

a separate vehicle. These new ones, these new ones are about four or five centimetres. They

the earthing strip is interesting. I've been in cars recently that have just started giving me

static charges again because those little Halfords, Richard Grant, whatever they were, little earthing

strips everybody had in the 80s. Was it 80s, 90s? 80s. They all went. Now I think sometimes I think

actually what am I going to touch when I put my foot on the ground? I don't think I have

one. I was always a bit jealous. I thought they looked quite cool in about 1980.

Have you considered moving to a cotton trouser, Mr. C, moving away from the Polyester Farrers?

They can light up. They haven't worn out yet, so why would I get rid of them?

Stretchy Farrers. Maybe a lot of fire at a petrol station.

What is your, we've got 15 minutes left, children. You're very difficult to control

today. It's not easy hurting you lot. What is on your current itch list of cars to dream about

and buy? This came about because I just wrote, there are three cars that I'm looking at the whole

time when I can't sleep, which is the whole time on Car and Classic because I'm on there the whole

time and I listed three of them and everyone went, yeah, I've always got a hit list and I think it

changes by, but the car that you love, that changes by the day, but your hit list is a bit

different. You have a hit list that you're looking at for quite long periods of time.

And I can tell you at the moment, I can't stop looking at F12s. I can't stop looking at first

generation vanquishes and I can't stop looking at 365 GT4 2 plus 2s. So there's mine. Neil,

what are you up to? You've obviously got a bit of a V12 thing going on there.

BMW Z1. Yeah, I just really want one. I just, you know, it's the doors. It's the,

just everything, just really, I'm really, and yeah, I'm always like every night I have a look

for Z1 and you're hoping a blue one pops up, you know, you don't really want a red one. There's

almost a bit too obvious, even though the green one's quite nice.

Yeah, so you want an off color one really and there's always one, but it's in

Lil or it's in, you know, fucking Switzerland or something and you just can't be asked because

you don't understand the tax and you're going to get ripped off. So Z1, what else am I looking at?

I'm always looking at the Aston Martin Zogato. It's an itch that is deep and I will hopefully

have one one day. I'm talking about the 88 car, not those stupid fake ones that they did later,

the proper one and I want to cater them again. I want to cater them. I just,

I just got to find the, I really want a full on stainless steel one, you know, the polished alloy,

the polished alloy, maybe with a green nose, they're all a bit shitty specs, you know,

too many stripes, too many wrong, wrong things. I did see an ultraviolet, the last ever,

probably still for sale because they're always still for sale and they're always the same price,

is the last one they made in the old factory. I don't even understand the factory, but there's

a new factory now, but anyway, the last one made in ultraviolet. It's like a Lamborghini color,

wasn't it? Well, no, it's the Porsche ultraviolet. That one, okay. The purple, non-metallic, you know,

the cool. Just buy it, just buy it. It's impossible not to have fun on a catering. No. There's a t-shirt,

there's a t-shirt, it's impossible not to have fun on a catering. So there's my three and I'll have

a new three next week. Good lad. Manage, what are you looking at? I keep talking about this R107,

that's the first one. 308 GT4, 2 plus 2. I'm a little bit in love with that car and stroke a

Spree S1 because I'm now happy to put it to free. I think they are, they're right there,

aren't they, those two? And I just, I don't know what, I think it's those postcards that Ben gave

us. I've absolutely fallen in love with the Conti T. I just, I lost an hour looking at four

different websites yesterday to see what you could get, how much they would cosmetically. They're not

just such magnificent cars, aren't they? Imagine having a perfect Conti T. Imagine that.

Well, I've got, well, yes, let's just say I'll defer on the sides of this, but I'm driving one

at the moment, wow, it's a piece of kit. The colour of your thing, which green is that?

This is Irish. It's stunning. The way that it sits at 100 miles an hour.

It's probably a wise investment of what may well be happening with that car.

The interior, the brushed, you know, literally that polished aluminium interior,

it's just, it's so pretty. Everything about that car is perfect.

Chris Cooper. The way this works is, everybody else's itch list becomes your itch list.

Yes. It's catching. Very true. I would never have thought of some of those, but now I can't

unthink them. Yeah. And I'm going to, the other ones I'm going to add, E3325 cab. Yeah. Like the one

that JK used to have. Original boxer spider. Yeah. W124, technically S124, 320 TE estate

with the lower, with the contrast colour mouldings at the bottom. Always. And a really nicely done

96, not an RS, a 964 C2 on the cup alloys with a little bit of fettling.

I often think sometimes the answer is questions on this podcast. The answers are always Porsche 911

or a Rolls Royce Cullinan. If you bought it down, that's a t-shirt. But the itch list is, it will

just be everybody's. So we've got a bit of time very quickly for some F1 chat, but we're going to

have to go through it quite quick chaps and chapses. So Manage can update us on Hadjar's Crash,

on Williams being overweight, on Mercedes being the quickest, and Ferrari perhaps not being as

fast as they want to be. Go on. That's it. And then the only thing I can add to that is gloss seems

to be back. That Ferrari is gloss, red and gloss white. How good is that? They don't absorb the

light, they reflect it. There's one other thing, maybe, that Christian Horner has been sniffing

around Otro Capital's 24% of Alpine. So the Otro Capital is a company that basically represents

quite a few sporting superstars. These people have got so much money, they're constantly investing in

all kinds of things. And Formula One seems to be one of them. And it looks like Christian Horner

has been in the United States, sat down in a room with a bunch of people and said, would you like to

give me your money? And I will buy a big chunk of Alpine. I'm going to keep a little bit of the

equity, bless you, myself. And I wonder whether he's got some traction because all of the, all of the

the magazine's articles and websites are full of this. So maybe we may well have, can you imagine

Christian Horner and Flavio Breatori in the same team? Can I put my director's hat on now? So I'm

imagining a scene where there's a boardroom table, there are 80 floors up in some amazing building

and through the glass, you can see Manhattan stretched out, Christian Horne walks in, sits down,

he presents to this board of people and they all look a bit like Neil Clipper because they're like,

they're trendy CEOs like him, but they know that underneath that sort of jokey fun exterior,

they fucking steal it hard and they do deals. And then he presents, he presents his pictures,

we want to buy this from you. And they all lean back and they look around, the camera moves around,

manages one of those things where he deals with that, that negative space. And then one of them

means forward and goes, okay, Christian, just one question. Was it your cock or your finger?

It's his finger.

I mean, that's box office, that is that. So yeah, I do know what F1 needs Horner,

isn't it? He knows how to win and him and Flav together would be, they should just call themselves

the vampires and walk around wearing black coats with massive teeth and just be the baddies of the

paddock, just be awesome. Yeah. Walter, you were spot on about the engine. I mean, this car has

done sort of 150 laps with a brand new red bull engine. You know, it took some balls,

turns to get that program and that is how many people they recruited from Mercedes.

Yeah, who started that? That was Christian, wasn't it? He basically had a field which they now got a

500 million pound facility on. They recruited over 130 people from Mercedes. Yeah, they stole,

but that's what you do, isn't it? You go out and you. Wow. Neil Clifford, your thoughts?

When's the first race?

March.

Six weeks away.

When's the practice that you can actually find stuff about? Next week and the week after.

Okay. I mean, will that be exciting? I just hope the engine sounds better.

I can't tell. I've got all these friends and WhatsApp groups and they're talking about all

that stuff. I don't know whether they, they look the same, the cars. They're slightly smaller,

but the same. I do wonder whether, I'm going to show you that picture. Manish will know who that

man is. His name is Nicholas Tombers. He is the man who, he's the mad professor behind the whole

of the rule changes that go back to 2021. They first think about it. My bet is by the end of

this year, everyone will know who that man is because there'll be so much chaos and discussion

and intrigue and fuss, blah, blah, blah. And then we'll say, well, what, how do we ever end up here?

Good or bad? So he's the new, he's the new Michael Massey, isn't he basically? He's that person you'd,

you'd never heard of before. You'd never heard of. Exactly. Yeah. So I think,

if I had a fiver, I'm going to, I think we should do a bit of betting, all of us. I think we,

I think what we should do in the next two weeks, we all have to go walk into a William Hill and

film ourselves doing it. And you have to go and place, you're allowed a 10 pound bet on a driver

and you've got to place it now. And you're not allowed to say what you did until the last race.

Okay, we'll do that. Right now, Merck's looking pretty strong, aren't they? Because

they've got the R&D, they got on with his engine sooner than everyone else,

all the talk is that they, that they're a bit ahead and they might have taken advantage of some,

some, you know, interpretations that other people are whinging about. I don't know what,

it's always Seth Wine, isn't it? But they've also got George. Now, he's under the radar a bit for

me, George, because I'm obviously on my newfound max obsession. There's no doubt about two things

in Formula One last year. Everything else was up for questioning, but the best driver in Formula

One was Max Verstappen and the second best driver was George Russell. I just, I don't think there's

any question about that. Now, if the second best driver isn't very far behind the best driver and

he's got the best car this year, I think George could run away with this, don't you? I think there's

a chance that George could run away with this. That would be great. Yeah. So, I think it's,

isn't it strange? I don't really think of it that way. So, Chris Cooper, what are your thoughts?

So, I think, if you had to say right now who you pick, I think you pick George. You pick Mercedes

and then you pick George on balance. I fear that the whole Aston Martin thing will turn out to be

really, really chaotic, because there's no break on, in this environment, there's no break on Adrian.

Lawrence has said, whatever that guy wants, we give him. Whereas in Red Bull, there were people

saying, well, you know. So, yeah, I think it's, they should sound better. It looks like it's smaller.

It's going to be chaos. It's going to be great. I'm looking forward to it.

Yeah, I think it will be chaos. Okay, let's move on to our two car garage. Neil needs to be

away in 10 minutes, everyone. So, we've got to get this sorted out. I need to be away as well.

Yeah, we'll be fine. This is quick. This is good. Chris, Neil wrote it first. Come on, work it out.

Here we go. I love this. You are, you just jumped on his emergency there. That was his emergency.

You've got to let him own it. I know his emergency's boss.

Here we go. This reminds me of reading Alan Henry's F1 column in Autocard Magazine in the 90s.

You're an F1 journalist and your editor has told you that you're going to be on the road

for the European F1 season, which is a journalist. It must be the most romantic thing you can do.

Get in a car and go off for the European side of the season. You'll share the car with another

F1 journalist who's a buddy and arrival. That's well put. Think about my world as strangers that

a lot of your friends are actually arrivals. It needs to be able to transport you reliably in

some comfort, often for 18-day stints for triple headers. Triple, I'll get it, yeah. The second

car is your Sunday convertible for those UK Sundays when you're not away. It doesn't need

to be effortless, just stylish. Budget £50,000. I'm going first. Here we go. There's been too much

talk of alpinas. I'm going to say that the best, here we go, there's an Alpina D4 for sale at

Ramley. I just think if I was going to do this, it would have to be. I'm going to find the photo

for you now. You can afford it. You can afford it. It's bloody expensive, but it's a good car. Here

it is. Alpina D4. Yeah. That will do, as I know, because I've got the Saloon one. That will do

45 to 50 miles per gallon easily. When you're in Germany for the German stuff, you can do 170 miles

now on the Autobahn. You can get it to any city because it's Euro 6 and you won't get congestion

charged or ULA, whatever it's called. He wants £40,000 for it, old Brownlee does. I've done two

Brownlee cars in four weeks. I have no affiliation with them whatsoever. I just like this just happens

to be two good cars. Yeah, Simon needs to get some money off Simon, basically. I know Simon. I know

Simon, but I'm not trying to win. I'm not trying to curry favour. I reckon you're buying that at

£37,000, probably, £36,000. Then I'm having a little 205 CTI, thank you very much. I love a CTI.

Also, white cars got overexposed recently, but for me, the two best colours for a 205 GTI

are white and silver. I really like them, especially silver. Rare and silver. It's rare.

I'm going a bit more classically niche, risky, might break down who cares. I'm going to write a book

after it because I'm a journalist. There's a fantastic Daimler, double six, with original

Rome number plates at the infamous or famous Graham Hunt. Look at that.

Even got the optional wooden steering wheel, but you know what? It's 40,000 miles from new.

You're going to get its service because you've got a few Bob left over from these two options.

There's nothing more comfortable. Go back to the car magazine of the 80s and the aircraft area,

the Daimler, double six is the one. British racing green. Look at those original number plates.

Look at that. His little corner of car and classic at the moment is outrageous. Have you seen the

Brewster green with tan turbo? Have you been to his current place? It's such a rabbit warring

lovely stuff in there. Yeah. No, he's good. He's a good lad, Grave. Then the key words,

the only important word in the second car was stylish, wasn't it? Yes. Everything else doesn't

matter. If you need style, it's got to be Italian. If it's going to be stylish, it needs to be

60s or 70s Italian. So I'm going Fiat 124 convertible in hearing aid beige original with tan

leather, 120,000 kilometers. Look at that. Super pretty thing. Just get your AA membership sorted

out. Don't go too far from home because you miss your roast dinner on a Sunday. But you know what,

it's only I think 14,000 euros. You've got about 10 grand left to pay for the repairs on both of

them when they break down. Manish. So I know we give Audi's quite a hard time, but I found this.

I thought it's a 2008 C6 RS6 Avant, you know, the five liter thing V12 five liter thing.

Look at that. It's only got 113,000 miles on the clock. What could go wrong? What could possibly

go wrong? But it is such I must admit, I had a bit of a thing for the sixes. I would almost

have got a six over a four, but I just thought London that extra nine inches of length and two

inches of width parking was a pain. Now I think this what did you not like the look of them? I

thought they look great. What? Manish, you just said something far more controversial, but we won't

go into it. Carry on. Okay. And and and I think this is a I know you've got a little rule that if

a car's got four seats in it as a convertible, it can't be cool. But I think the 1995 look at that.

Can you see that? Merck. Yeah. Yeah, the Mac. It's gorgeous. E220 cabriolet,

Sportline W124. What a beautiful car to go out on a Sunday. Get the dog in the back.

They look fabulous. They drive like shit. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter. If anyone would like to buy my 320 Sportline that I've had for

20 years as of this spring, give me a ring. I've easily the worst money pet I've ever had in my life.

Classified. Yeah, exactly.

Because the lovely Simon won't sell you that alpina for that price and you guys won't get there.

I'm going to be the only person who writes anything about Grand Prix this year because my

travelling car is going to be this. It's a very nearly new BMW 230. It goes on auction

beginning next week, 5th of February. That will be, that is the equivalent of the car that

Jenks or Alan Henry would have used in the 70s and 80s. It's brilliant. I think I've won the

rest of this because this isn't the classifiers at Car and Classic.

Look at that. An MGB. Hang on. An MGB with a beautiful VA engine in it.

Oh, they're good. That's a pretty good car. How much is that? 15,000?

14,950, yeah. That is lovely. It's a very pretty car. And I get all the stories.

All right. I've got to go in four minutes. My music. All right. Here we go. A bit of music.

You go music first then. I've been listening to Avalon by Roxy Music this week. What a stonking

album and more than this is such a great song in the car. No, give you that. Manage. Time.

Hans Zimmer. Great piece of music. Neil Clifford. The man in the corner shop, the jam.

What? He was a poet. He is a poet. He's actually not dead. I've got a pretty good

of it. He's been it. He went in my M5 CS. How weird was that? I've held his shoes.

Yeah. That's another story. I was in that Bentley. I think quite often you think what's the song

the best describes? What this car is doing right now? Can I get this right? And often you find a

song that's so close. But I think for once I've nailed it because it sounds right and the words

are right. It's keep on moving by soul to soul. When you listen to that in that Bentley and you've

got those gauges and the needles are moving, the dials are moving. It's a bit special that. So,

well, thank you very much for listening along. Chris Cooper's got to run away because he's

terribly important. And Neil Clifford's got to do the same because he's right for important.

Manish and I, because we're in the media, aren't important. And we'll probably have a cup of tea

and just swan about a bit. Have a lovely time and we'll catch up with you next week.

Whether you're new to audio or ready to sharpen your skills, our self-paced courses fit your

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Best European Car Event? | The Car Podcast #72

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