C.R.E.A.M. #52 - Ben Bought An S2000, Crashing Cars And Dyno Stories Ft Charlie @ SRR
C.R.E.A.M. (The TDC Podcast)
C.R.E.A.M. #52 - Ben Bought An S2000, Crashing Cars And Dyno Stories Ft Charlie @ SRR
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90:02
Car
Lamborghini Gallardo
The Lamborghini Gallardo is a fast and stylish sports car made by Lamborghini. It has a powerful engine and is designed for high performance on the road.
Car
Mercedes-Benz CL500
The Mercedes-Benz CL500 is a luxury car that is both stylish and powerful. It has a comfortable interior and is designed for a smooth driving experience.
Car
Honda S2000
The Honda S2000 is a small sports car made by Honda. It's popular for its fun driving feel and powerful engine, making it a favorite among car lovers.
Car
Porsche Cayman
The Porsche Cayman is a sports car that is designed to be fun to drive. It has the engine located in the middle, which helps it handle better on the road.
Car
Ferrari 550
The Ferrari 550 is a sports car made by Ferrari that was built in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It has a powerful engine and is designed for both speed and comfort.
Car
Porsche 944
The Porsche 944 S2 is a sporty car made by Porsche in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It has a stronger engine than earlier versions, making it fun to drive and a good option for people looking for an affordable sports car.
Car
BMW E34
The BMW E34 is a version of the 5 Series sedan made in the late 80s and early 90s. The number 3.8 refers to the size of the engine, which is larger and more powerful than some other versions.
Term
MOT
MOT is a test that cars in the UK must pass every year to make sure they are safe to drive. If a car has a fresh MOT, it means it has just passed this test.
Term
rust
Rust is what happens when metal gets wet and starts to break down. It's a problem for cars because it can make them unsafe if it gets too bad.
Car
BMW E46
Car
BMW M3
The E46 M3 is a sporty version of the BMW 3 Series made between 2000 and 2006. It's popular for its great handling and strong engine.
Car
BMW 840 Ci
The BMW 840 Ci is a stylish two-door car known for being powerful and luxurious. It's part of the BMW 8 Series, which is a line of high-end sports coupes.
Car
Vauxhall Monaro
The Vauxhall Monaro is a powerful coupe car that looks strong and sporty. It's loved by many for its performance and unique design.
Car
Holden Commodore VTS
The Holden Commodore VTS is a sporty version of a popular car in Australia, known for being fast and fun to drive.
Car
Holden Commodore
Holden is a car brand from Australia that makes different types of cars. It's well-known in Australia and has a long history of making popular vehicles.
Term
LS1
The LS1 is a powerful V8 engine made by General Motors. It's known for being light and fast, and it's used in cars like the Corvette.
Car
Chevrolet Corvette
The Chevrolet Corvette is a fast and stylish sports car from America. It's famous for being fun to drive and has been around for a long time, making it a favorite among car lovers.
Car
Ford Model T
The Ford Model T was one of the first cars that many people could afford. It was made by Ford and helped change how people traveled in the early 1900s.
Term
horsepower
Horsepower is a way to measure how powerful a car's engine is. The higher the horsepower, the faster and stronger the car can be.
Car
Chevrolet El Camino
The Chevrolet El Camino is a car that looks like a pickup truck. It's known for being useful and stylish.
Concept
BMW Compact Cup
The BMW Compact Cup is a type of car racing where drivers compete using BMW compact cars. It's a fun way for people to race and enjoy motorsports.
Car
Land Rover Series 2A
The Land Rover Series 2A is an older model of a tough, off-road vehicle made by Land Rover. It's famous for being able to handle rough roads and is often used for adventures or work in difficult places.
Brand
Land Rover
Land Rover is a car brand that makes tough vehicles, often used for off-roading. They are popular for their ability to handle rough roads and conditions.
Term
chassis
The chassis is like the skeleton of a car. It holds everything together and keeps the car strong and safe.
Part
TSW Venom
TSW Venom is a type of wheel that you can put on a car to make it look nicer and sometimes improve how it drives.
Company
Super Sprint
Super Sprint is a brand that makes exhaust systems for cars. These exhausts can help the car run better and sound cooler.
Car
Ford Mach 3
The Ford Mach 3 is a concept car that Ford designed in the 1990s. It was meant to show what their sports cars could look like in the future.
Car
Peugeot 405 MI-16
The Peugeot 405 MI-16 is a sportier version of the Peugeot 405 car. It was known for being fun to drive and had a powerful engine.
Car
Volkswagen Astra
The Volkswagen Astra is a small car that many people use for everyday driving. It's known for being dependable and good for getting around town.
Car
Opel Astra
The Opel Astra is a small car that is practical and good for everyday use. It's popular in Europe because it's reliable and easy to drive.
Car
Volvo 440S
The Volvo 440 is a small car made by Volvo that was sold in the late 1980s and 1990s. It's known for being safe and reliable.
Car
Volvo 850
The Volvo 850 is a safe and practical car that was made in the 1990s. It's known for being reliable and comfortable for families.
Term
turbo
A turbo is a part of an engine that helps it get more power by pushing in more air, which lets it burn more fuel.
Term
losing the back end
Losing the back end means that the back of the car starts to slide away from where you want to go. This can happen if you turn too fast or go too quickly on slippery roads.
Brand
Subaru
Subaru is a car brand from Japan that makes popular vehicles, especially known for their all-wheel-drive systems and sporty models.
Term
rolling road
A rolling road is a machine that helps test how powerful a car's engine is by letting it drive on rollers. It shows how well the car performs in real driving situations.
Car
BMW E63
The BMW 6 Series is a fancy car that is both comfortable and fast. It's designed for people who want a luxurious driving experience.
Car
Porsche 911S
The Porsche 911 is a very famous sports car that has been around for many years. It's known for being really fun to drive and has a unique shape that many people recognize.
Car
Nissan R35 Gtr
The Nissan GT-R is a super-fast sports car that is known for its advanced features and technology. It's popular among car enthusiasts for its speed and performance.
Car
Plymouth Barracuda
The Plymouth Barracuda is a classic muscle car from America that was made a long time ago. It's known for being powerful and has a cool design that many people love.
Car
Shelby Cobras
Car
Ford Gt40S
The Ford GT40 is a famous race car that was built to win big races in the 1960s. It's known for being very fast and has a cool design that many people admire.
Car
Toyota MR2
The Toyota MR2 is a small sports car that is fun to drive and has the engine located in the middle of the car. It's popular because it's affordable and offers a sporty experience.
Car
Toyota Supras
Car
Audi Rs3S
The Audi RS 3 is a small but very fast car that has a nice interior. It's known for being powerful and fun to drive, making it popular among car lovers.
Car
Nissan Leafs
The Nissan Leaf is an electric car that doesn't use gas, making it better for the environment. It's popular because it's easy to drive and helps save money on fuel.
Car
BMW M5
The BMW M5 is a fast and luxurious car that can seat several people. It's known for being powerful and fun to drive, making it a favorite among car fans.
Car
Ferrari 612
The Ferrari 612 Scaglietti is a fancy sports car with a powerful engine and a beautiful design. It's made for people who want a luxurious driving experience.
Car
BMW 850I
The BMW 8 Series is a luxurious and powerful car that looks very stylish. It's made for people who want a high-end driving experience with lots of features.
Car
Ferrari 400i
The Ferrari 400i is a stylish sports car that can fit four people. It's known for being powerful and comfortable, making it a special choice from Ferrari.
Car
Nissan R33
The Nissan Skyline is a famous sports car that is known for being fast and customizable. Many car fans love it, especially the GT-R versions.
Car
Chrysler Daytona
The Chrysler Daytona is a sporty car from the 1980s that looks cool and is designed for speed. It's a classic that many car fans enjoy talking about.
Car
Chevrolet Novas
The Chevrolet Nova is a small car that was popular in America for many years. It's known for being simple and affordable, making it a good choice for many drivers.
Car
Aston Martin Db12S
The Aston Martin DBS is a luxurious and powerful car that looks very elegant. It's made for people who want a high-end driving experience with lots of style.
Car
Aston Martin DB11
The Aston Martin DB11 is a fancy car that looks really nice and is very powerful. It's made for people who want a comfortable and stylish driving experience.
Car
Aston Martin Vanquish
The Aston Martin Vanquish is a beautiful and powerful sports car. It's known for being very luxurious and is a favorite among people who love high-end cars.
Car
Aston Martin Valhalla
The Aston Martin Valhalla is a new supercar that combines electric power with speed. It's designed to be very fast and has a unique look that stands out.
Car
TVR Cerbera
The TVR Cerbera is a lightweight sports car from Britain that is known for being very fast and exciting to drive. It's a special car that many enthusiasts really enjoy.
Car
Mazda Rx7
The Mazda RX-7 is a small sports car that is known for its unique engine that works differently than most cars. It's loved by many for being light and fun to drive.
LIVE
And by Madrid, my wife was pretty much ready to divorce me at a 40 degree.
So I just went, does it work? He went, yeah.
I said, we'll drive on to the trailer.
I'll give you some money and off we went.
Young people shouldn't drive fast cars because they'll crash some in.
In my case, very true.
It's like watching someone stress test your nan in front of you.
Hello and welcome back to the 52nd one whole week of the year every year.
What of cream podcasts of the cars are living around me podcast.
We are joined today with a special guest Charlie from sorry rolling road
before we intro you and get into your life and your cars.
We have to answer the question whether cars rule or ruin everything around us.
Will you like to demonstrate for Charlie?
What is that?
It will be a rule for me this week because well, one,
there is still a Lamborghini glada on my drive, which you bought quite recently.
Which I put, you know, I don't know if I haven't let everyone know that.
But you like you've just bought a car so you don't need to buy another one.
No, no.
I am going back to Scotland on the next Friday because I might have bought a CL500.
Well, technically I haven't bought it yet, but we'll next Friday go and look at that.
But yeah.
So you daily?
Yeah, that's well, maybe.
We'll see.
We will see.
Charlie, was it a rule or a run?
I'm going to go with a rule this week because nothing has dropped off any of my cars this week.
That's always a rule, but it's only Wednesday.
There is time.
There is time.
So, okay, Ben.
Yes, rule.
Big rule.
No, I was having.
I don't know.
So for the audio, for the audio listeners, why is it a rule?
For the audio listeners, if you look over Edwin's shoulder and you listen very carefully,
you'll be able to hear my Honda S2000.
Very good, Benjamin.
Now, do you want to tell a quick story?
Because you've been here.
Now, right now with some of this is Wednesday of the day before the podcast last week went out
for you guys.
So what you will see is the fact that we put a bid in on a Cayman.
We?
We did together.
I think you did that.
Okay, I do.
I'm just going to get a photo up.
And that went well.
Yeah.
Why was that?
Well, I got bullied on the podcast into doing it.
I then put a bid on it and felt really happy.
Next morning, I was like, I'm going to have a look at some photos.
Just tell my dad about it.
He was excited too.
Look at the photos.
In the images, I look closely at the temperature gauge.
It's just in the red, just overheating.
And running as well.
Running and running.
So obviously, what we think happened was, front end was hit,
radio was hit, all the coolant leaked out of it.
And then the co-part decided to just leave it running
whilst they were taking photos.
So it was overheating.
Whether it survived that or not, I don't know.
Then ensued two days of panic because I was winning it,
hoping that I didn't win it.
Now, I got a phone call from Ben on that Friday
and he was the most anxious human being on us.
I could really get in there and twist a knife on that day.
It was nice.
That was what the...
And you know what, Ben?
You know what, Ben?
It's a good spot.
Yeah, it is.
Because we didn't see it.
We missed that one.
We did miss that.
So yeah, for context, Ben, we found the co-part listing
on the podcast and, of course, did no research on the card.
Just went, Alex, great, Ben.
How much are you putting on it until he caved and did it?
So now, did you not reduce your bid at one point?
Yeah, so you can't take your bid off,
but the one thing you can do is you can reduce your max bid.
So it hadn't reached my max bid yet.
So I just put it down to 50 pounds higher than the current bid
and just prayed someone bid 100 pounds.
But yeah, so I got that one.
Luckily, you got out of that and instead...
And after the whole conversation last week,
saying that I wasn't going to buy S2000, I bought S2000.
I want to hear your recollection of what happened
yesterday morning, please.
Yesterday morning?
Yes.
I actually wanted to thank you, too.
Okay.
I'm not going to do it.
I'm just going to get rid of it.
I'll go on.
I'll go on, please.
What is it?
No, I want to give everyone more some credit
because we have a very busy work week of stuff
and this car was in Southampton, which is far from me.
So I was like...
Base came in yesterday saying...
About like 40 minutes from where we are at now.
Yeah, yeah.
I was like, I want to buy the car,
but I don't have time this week to go look at it.
It was quite cheap.
It'll probably go.
So I said to these guys, let's go.
No, I didn't say that to them.
Sorry.
Yeah, well, I said, I'll go and call the guys what I said.
No, no, no, no.
Yes, I did.
No, no, no.
This is why...
The manipulator.
This is why I wanted to bring it up because Ben said,
yeah, it's nice, but I don't have time.
I can't go to it.
So I said, okay, Ben, what about before work?
Because it's 40 minutes away.
You could feasibly work out.
He went, yeah.
I said, what time has he said so far he can do?
He went, I haven't called the guy.
I was like, okay, we'll have our after work then.
He's like, I can't do it.
I can't do it.
So there was no...
I don't know.
That's what I want.
I want to remember my comment before about...
We also have Ben's video footage of all this.
Yeah, exactly.
We filmed the pain.
I walked out and I looked back and the auto trader was up.
The ad was there and the guy's phone number was just sitting on your phone.
I could see the big green call thing and you were like, I can't do it.
So we made Ben call him and Ben had to leave.
He didn't want to be with us when he called the man.
And we said, make sure you ask him some questions.
We came back and we said, did you ask questions?
And he said, yeah, I'm not an idiot.
We said, okay.
Well, did you ask him about the tabbing chain?
He went, no.
Ben, what did you ask about?
I just asked about rust.
That's it.
That's the whole...
That's all.
That's the question.
It's a fair thing to ask.
I mean, yeah, but among other things, I'd say.
Perhaps.
He went, as it got rust, he went, no.
He went, oh, well, I'll take it.
I'll take it right now.
But after that, we went and looked at it.
He bought it.
Yes.
There will be a video on it.
Send me soon.
So we won't reveal too much about it, but are you happy?
Very, very, very happy.
I drove home last night and so I've done like 250 miles in the last 24 hours.
That's it.
Tuck it away for winter now.
Yeah.
Well, probably might have to with when they rust.
So...
We make dreams come true here.
Yeah, bullying becomes cars.
So thank you for bullying me into it.
I do appreciate it and taking me there and somewhat helping me.
We will take lots of the credit.
I'll take it home.
Cheers.
And also to everyone who...
Because I got...
I put on my Instagram story last night and I had hundreds of messages
all from podcast listeners.
All of them are from podcast listeners.
All very excited.
Big famous Ben.
That wasn't all I was saying.
Literally just saying because it was all podcast people.
Well, good job, Ben.
It is...
For me, it's a rule.
Yeah, fine.
It's a rule.
There's nothing that much has happened.
And no reason to ruin.
No reason to ruin, which is always good for me.
I'm sure I'll think of a reason.
Still nothing from Jeremy yet.
Come on, Jeremy, man.
Jeremy, let's get that moving along.
That's the...
That's the crashed Ferrari, the one I've shown you.
Yeah.
It's scary, but I'm still excited by it.
Now, Charlie was one of the people you messaged about the 550.
About the 550 because there might be ITBs for the 550.
That no one's ever fitted before.
Yeah, that no one's ever done enough.
Yeah, it's a bad idea.
But shall we get into the meet?
The reason that we wanted to have you on the podcast, Charlie,
is because you're a very interesting man,
even more interesting stories,
but even more than that, an even more interesting car collection.
You have one of the best car collections of anyone we know.
And that's not just monetarily, that's taste-wise.
It's TDC.
Can you run through what is the current fleet?
The current fleet, gosh.
I think it's about 20 now.
It's a nice round number, though.
Yeah, of a sorted tat that I've collected over the years.
It's not that I don't like supercars.
I just can't afford supercars, so I just buy shit.
Who does that sound like?
God, that sounds like a YouTube channel that I watch.
Yeah.
And it's been over 20 years of collecting.
Most of the stuff I own was, I've had for a very long time,
when things were cheap.
So, and obviously, getting older and having kids and everything,
you tend to have less available income to buy cars.
I still seem to manage.
But I tend to wait until something comes along
that you just need to be in the right place at the right time.
During COVID, I was walking my dog and I passed a garage,
which is local to my house.
And out the front was a 944 S2, looking rather sad, had rusty sills.
And I inquired once I put my mask on.
How much?
And he said, oh, £1,500 and you can have it.
So I said, done.
And I got the 944 and it's now all been welded up
and did the suspension on it.
And it's been sprayed as well.
And it's a great car, but I don't really go out and seek.
I was going to say, if you saw one at 9 grand, you wouldn't be interested.
I wouldn't be interested.
No, maybe 20 years ago, but then things weren't worth.
Yeah, I bought, I've got an E34, 3.8 and 5.
One of the best things I've done.
Daytona Violet, I bought it from a chap in North London.
This is 20 years ago, it's probably slightly naively,
who assured me that had a fresh MOT and had no rust.
And to give you an indication of how much these things were worth back then,
I paid two and a half grand from a dealer for it.
Gee, it had done 190,000 miles.
But yeah, no one wanted them.
You couldn't give the stuff away.
And this was a car, I mean, it was only 13 years old.
Yeah, exactly.
You know, I mean, I had an E46 M3 at the same time,
I bought that in about 2004 or 2005, I think,
which I'd given good money to a dealer for.
And I actually sold the E46 M3 and kept the E34 because I enjoyed driving the E34.
Because it is, in my mind, still one of the best cars I've ever made.
I've now, it's now done 230,000 miles.
I used it in my daily for seven years.
I was going to say, that's a recurring theme with your cars.
You like high mileage cars?
I do like high mileage cars.
The eight series is on?
I've got an E31, that's on 235,000.
And you'd keep going with mine.
It's not like you get it with a load of miles.
I don't buy cars to look at.
I mean, they've got to be used.
The only problem I'm coming to now is having,
I had all these cars for a long time and use them.
They're starting to get to the point where,
if I don't start dealing with some of the issues like the rust and everything,
they're going to die.
They're going to die, yeah.
I've just had the E34.
We spent two years restoring it.
And massive sections were cut out of them.
Because it was just so raw.
Having actually, because the chap had assured me he had no rust.
When we got it back to my work 20 years ago,
you could run a screwdriver down the inside of the sill.
And you just daylight.
It was just, but for two and a half grand, you don't see a cares.
And I had an MOT.
If you've been to, sorry, Rowling Road,
you will notice just to the left of the diner,
there's a two post lift.
There will be some form of long-term projects on the go.
Yeah, I don't rush them.
You know, they take as long as they take.
I often don't have time to the mechanics of myself
and probably not that talented the mechanical.
So I have a group of friends who come and help me out.
And you know, VH series is on there now.
I bought that in 2012 from a friend of mine called Aussie Pete.
His name is Pete. It's an Australian.
And anybody who's met Aussie Pete,
he's a bit of a legend in BMW circles.
But I was up at his in Sloughway and he's got his...
Sorry to hear that.
Yeah, we saw Eva, sorry, Eva.
Oh, that's nice.
And he's got about 40 cars in the garden.
And he's an absolute legend.
And in the corner, I just popped in, he had this 840 CI,
one owner from New.
And it's Barbados Green?
No, it's Velvet Blue.
Oh, it's the Velvet Blue?
I've never heard about that.
And it had done 206,000 miles.
And he just paid two and a half grand for it from a guy.
And I gave him three for this thing.
And usually it's my daily.
And then a couple of months later,
my wife said that we were going on honeymoon.
I should have got married then.
And my wife said, what are we going to take on honeymoon?
And we took the eight series.
And the air con didn't work.
And we were going to the south of Spain.
So I took it to a friend of mine.
And actually a friend of mine,
because we were so busy preparing for the wedding,
I took it.
A friend of mine took it to a mother mate
to get the air con sorted.
I got it back.
And it got to Calais, the air con broke again.
And by Madrid, my wife was pretty much ready
to divorce me at a 40 degree.
And then I got to the south of Spain
and pulled the front bumper off on a speed bump.
I mean, the rest of the honeymoon was fine.
And the batteries, there's two batteries in an 840.
One of the batteries was obviously faulty
because it kept emitting quite bad fumes
in the middle of Spain in the 40 degree heat.
And my wife almost died.
But apart from that, it was a great honeymoon.
And for that reason, the car's sentimental or whatever.
It's sentimental to me.
Probably not to her.
Yeah, she was a girl.
But so yeah, I think I've got the eight series.
B&W has always been a recurring thing for me.
The Monaro.
I've got it.
Well, no, not a Monaro.
It's a Holden Commodore VTS.
It's one of 50 they brought in.
TWR Racing brought 50 in, official cars.
In about, I think it was about 97, 98.
They brought 50 over.
None of them were rust-proof, so they all rot.
And I bought that from Liverpool about seven years ago.
For a very nice chap.
The same color and it needed welding.
But I love it.
It's such a British car.
There's no finesse to it at all.
So that's 5.7.
5.7 LS1.
And they said there's no finesse to it.
It's just very British, but so much fun to drive.
And they go sideways very nicely as well.
You wouldn't know on the road.
You wouldn't know.
It's pretty much a Corvette saloon.
It's so much fun.
And you just, every time you get into it,
you're just waiting for it to say, all right, mate.
So what about, so the car that it would have gone out by now, Ben?
The Model T video?
Yeah.
The Model T.
What's the story on that?
Because that's...
Model T.
As I get older into my more advanced years, I actually have become,
I had a Porsche Turbo after the M3, actually.
I bought a 996 Turbo and had, we put Turbos and stuff.
And it was like 500 and 80 horsepower.
Loved it.
Then my wife got pregnant and we sold it in the next five.
And these days, I actually, despite my job,
is telling people how fast their cars are.
I pretend I like the older stuff more now.
And I'm going older as I get older.
Yeah.
So I've got obviously the Camino, which you gave us,
which I bought about eight years ago and that's how I restored.
And then I've always wanted a Model T for what I don't know what it is.
I've always had a thing about them,
just because they're so obstinate to drive.
And a little bit of a challenge.
Oh, yeah.
And they're dirt cheap.
Yeah.
You know, I paid £8,000 for their car.
And it was last Christmas.
And having wanted one for a while,
my wife went to visit her family over Christmas for a couple of days,
left me and my son together alone in the house,
which is probably never...
With access to eBay.
Yeah, eBay and a car and a tow car is a setup.
Something's going to happen.
So I woke my son up and I said,
look, I found a Model T forward in Swindon.
And I ran one of my customers actually,
who does races in the BMW Combat Cup, the 116 Cup.
And said, can I borrow your trailer?
I bought a car in Swindon.
So I went to Thruxton, picked the trailer up,
went up to Swindon and this bloke drove this Model T out.
And I thought, well, there's no point test driving it
because I can't drive one.
So I just went, does it work?
He went, yeah.
I said, we'll drive onto the trailer.
I'll give you some money and off we went.
And it turned out the guy had done no maintenance at all
in like 20 years.
They don't do it.
I mean, Everett, the bill was black
and it was just lots of things needed to adjust it.
Did you say he took in the battery with him?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I paid him the money, put the car on the trailer,
hiked the battery out and said, see you later.
I said, why?
He said, oh, I only put the battery in it
to put it on the trailer.
It's not included in the sale.
I was like, all right, mate.
See you later then.
Okay, cool.
Lucky I'm not driving at home then.
Can we get one of the Euro car parts?
I just, you know, it was, I mean, as it happened,
the battery was just balanced on the back seat
with a couple of leads on it.
But, you know, I kind of, you know,
you kind of expect a car to come with a battery.
The battery is not included in that case.
It might be a really shit battery,
but it should still come with a battery.
So, you know, we got it home and then we got
CCTV cameras at home, which on the ring and my wife
messaged me as we were unloading this.
My son and I were unloading this thing at home
and I just got, what have you bought now?
Okay, so that's a few of the cars you've got at the moment.
What was your first car?
My first car was the Land Rover Series 2A.
Okay, so you're 109.
Left field.
I think this, I have a theory.
Anyone that starts with an English car
is destined to carry on with them forever.
Yeah.
I believe this.
It's like, it's like Rory, even though Rory didn't have it.
But like anyone that starts on the path of
dealing with English shite goes,
I'll live with this forever.
If it gets in the veins early, it's in there forever.
It's sticking around for life.
I mean, it was in the, I mean, I grew up with the countryside.
It was natural for me to, but again, naively,
I wanted a car and my parents said, you know,
you should buy yourself a Golf or something like that.
And I went, no, I'm going to buy a really shit old Land Rover.
And we went, my mum and I went to buy this thing,
not knowing anything and being very naive.
I bought this one at 1960, something one and I still have it.
Really?
Yeah, it's in a shed at my parents' house.
And we are, we do that's plan on restoring at some point.
That's so cool.
I mean, it's only been 28 years or something.
But we got it, we got it back.
And this thing was a big part of shit.
It broke down every time we drove it.
And then grew up near Dunsville Land Rovers, took it in
and they just ran me up.
They ran my mum up and said, look, your son's car,
it's just, you could put your fist through the chassis at points.
It's just, you know, so then I bought a Golf.
So a 1.8 GL, which was, which I put a TSW Venom.
See, that's, you know what?
Now I know why I love Charlie at a super sprint exhaust.
No, that's, that's the real first car.
Back when super sprint exhaust were affordable.
And I went to the Guilford cruise.
Was it a Mach 2?
No, Mach 3.
It was a Mach 3.
It was a Mach 3.
Yeah.
I mean, I just look at it, I have a picture of it somewhere
and I just look at it now and go, what were you thinking?
But a bit back then, you know, it was, it was fine.
And I, my best friend at the time had a 405 MI-16.
So we talked around in those.
And then I, sorry, well, I got my first, I started working after that
when I was 19.
I'd already been working part-time, but I started full-time in IT.
And I bought myself a E36-323 coupé.
Nice.
Which was.
So that was the beginning of the BMW belt?
That was the BMW, the BMW and the Audi Doug.
And my mum said, you'll crash that.
And I went, yeah, all right.
You're on.
And I'm, and behold, I was at, in Hatfield outside the university there.
And I driving along quite happily and a lady and a quite frankly immaculate
16 valve Mark II anniversary pulled straight out in front of me and I T-boned her.
As you wanted to.
The car was, the car, it was a bit of a mess, but they did fix it.
And I did get it back and I kept it for a couple of years.
Then I had a company car, which was a Volkswagen Astra.
Nice.
Outwear Astra as we used to call them.
And then I had that for about a year.
And I went to, I'd moved out of house, my parents house by this point.
Went back for Christmas day.
I arrived on my mother and she will argue this blinded the face.
Demanded the rent by order from when I lived there.
So I hopped in the car and drove to the local village to go to the cash point.
And on my way, I probably, I mean, I was driving too fast.
I mean, let's be honest about it.
I came around the corner to find that the bridge telecom was closed off the road and
we're working on the lines.
And a little old lady in the Volvo was coming the other way on my side of the road.
And I put my foot on the brake, skidded, went up the bank, barrel rolled onto the roof.
Nice.
Where upon the little old lady, the Volvo drove into me.
That's when she accelerated you.
So I was in the seat upside down, looked to my left and there was a Volvo alloy.
You know the ones that came on like the 440s?
The Volvo right in the window was there was a Volvo alloy.
And I went, oh, so, so I got out the car and phoned my boss and said,
I've just written off your car on Christmas day.
He wasn't very pleased.
And he said, you're not having another company car.
So I said, okay.
So I went and bought myself a Volvo 850 T5 estate.
You looked there and went, all right, my turn.
Absolutely.
Which was a car I absolutely adored.
Yeah.
Because we were doing, we were working on our team.
We were doing huge mileage just around the country, 75,000 miles a year.
But Petrol was so cheap that then you could have a 850.
They paid mileage allowance.
So, you know, you could always make money out of it.
And I, it was, it was in red and I bought it off TGI, TGI who was still there I think.
And I absolutely adored that car.
And sadly, after a couple of years, what the turbo went on it,
and instead of actually getting it fixed, which is what I should have done,
I part exchanged it for a 406SRI.
Which is the eight valve.
Yeah.
It should possibly be the worst car I've ever driven.
I mean, the thing was a big part of shit.
And in the meantime, I'd bought myself an E36M3.
Oh, nice.
Evo in historical blue.
Oh, okay.
As a suspect.
As a toy.
And my mum said, you'll crash that.
And lo and behold, there's a running theme here.
Lo and behold, I was driving back after work one night
from the Farnan to Heinehead road, which is quite a twisty road.
It goes south of Farnan, all the way down to the Heinehead.
Well, the use wasn't a tunnel back then.
But it would be where the tunnel is.
We're two friends in the car in an E36M3 in slippery roads.
Recipe for disaster.
Driving too fast.
And people say, you know, you shouldn't...
Young people shouldn't drive fast cars.
Because they'll crash some in.
In my case, very true.
And I came around the corner and lost the back end.
And it straightened up and went straight up an eight foot earth bank.
And it went up about 10 foot in the air, the whole car.
And we were doing about 80 by 80 miles, way too quick.
And it came down on its roof and it barrel rolled down the road.
I mean, there was just bits of body work everywhere.
And we came to a stop.
And the three of us looked around and we were all totally uninjured.
Really?
We got some cuts from getting out the car with all the glass.
There wasn't a single panel on the car that was not dented at all.
It was a whole lot of God.
And we got out and the police arrived and said, you know,
where are the people in the car?
Have they gone to hospital?
And we're like, no, we're here.
And the traffic officer arrived and went, like he said, you know,
he said, if you hadn't bounced up the bank, I'd gone into something hard.
He said, I don't see.
So I phoned my mother and she said, I told you so.
And then I bought a Subaru Legacy GTB.
Oh, those are nice.
Which you still, is it that same car?
No, no, actually a friend still owns it.
But that is where the rolling road started.
That's going to be my next question.
How did that come about?
I quit, basically.
It was the good years of IT.
It was from 1999 to 2005.
They were very good years.
I didn't have any dependence.
And I thought, you know, if I'm going to start business on my own,
now is the time as well.
So I left the business.
Not a clue what I was going to do.
I just literally went one day to my boss.
I said, I'm going.
And he went, thank you very much.
And I had the Subaru.
And I got into like the Subaru tuning scene slightly.
I was interested in it.
And I had a chap who serviced it.
And he wanted to expand.
It was right around the time when Subaru tuning was getting really big.
And there were loads, about 2004, loads of tuning packages,
mapping had become big and everything.
So try the origin of stage tuning.
Stage tuning was, that's when it became a thing, you know,
stage one, stage two, stage three.
Does anybody know what it means?
No one's got a clue.
Still, 20 years later.
And so I said, I said to the guy, look, you know,
if we want to start a business together doing Subaru tuning,
you know, I'll put the money up and, you know,
we'll get a big unit and we'll do all this.
And we spent about six months planning it.
And it became apparent during it that the chap,
who I won't mention, but lovely guy,
a little bit unhinged in terms of,
not mentally, just generally his life.
I guess you'd have to work on Subaru's though.
Yeah.
And things like you turn up, he'd just disappear for three days.
And after a while, it became apparent.
I'm very glad that it happened that he just wasn't going to work.
And while doing the business plan,
we kind of worked out that we could,
I'd worked out that we could make more out of the dyno
than we could out of the ramps.
Interesting.
So I went and bought a dyno.
So there you are.
Basically, we got, I mean, me and my two best friends,
we got shitfaced in the pub one night.
And at the end of it, next morning, I bought a dyno
for £100,000 from Australia.
And didn't have a unit to put it in or anything.
No business plan.
No, nothing at all.
But it took a small loan to, you know,
what a big loan actually, to buy it and thought,
okay, so we rented a unit in Canberra, or I rented a unit in Canberra.
And we were just going to be an independent rolling road,
you know, because at the time,
lots of carriages had bought rolling roads, you know,
and there was a big thing, the dinos were a big thing.
Most of the tuners were buying them.
And I thought, well, I'll be independent, you know,
I'll be the guy in the middle who doesn't give a shit what your car makes.
As long as I'm honest, you know, and we got a unit in Canberra,
which is way too small, you know,
and it was between two other businesses.
And we built a soundproof cell,
which is mainly made out of steel and sort of rubber blocks.
And we didn't know what we were doing.
And it was three mates.
We were mostly powered by big tasties.
And we made this cell, and I mean, the doors were,
the doors, when you open the doors, they sort of fall off.
It was just so Heath Robinson.
And we opened it up.
And the response was absolutely huge.
You know, we had Dino Day booking straight away, you know.
Were you one of the first to do that, where you could just rock up to a Dino?
Power engineering in Uxbridge had been doing it a long time.
And GeForce in Ellsbury had been doing Dino Days for a long time.
And they actually had a Dino Dynamics Dino,
which is the one I bought.
And I actually, they were very useful to point me in the right direction of what Dino to get.
There were only a few in the country.
So the concept for those listening that don't know,
so you run the rolling road where you can rent it for a full day of tuning on your car,
but you run days, which is always Saturdays?
Yes, it's Saturday.
So things are slightly, we're on a business slightly different now from back then.
Back then, it was like, we're renting a building, we're paying business rates,
you know, let's make us, we need to get some money and quickly.
So it was like 30 quid a car for the clubs.
But it was all, it was all internet forums back then.
There was no Facebook or anything.
So, and the internet forums, like Scooby net and everything, they all did Dino Days.
And I would, I did 50 a year, sometimes 70 Dino Days a year.
With how many cars would turn up anything from 20 to 40 cars?
So you're getting through, so basically a Charlie would stick a car on the Dino,
tell you your power figure onto the next one.
And you just, so you have that print out piece of paper for all your mods.
Because it's the early 2000s, you don't have a list of mods on a Reddit thread
that tells you exactly how much power your car is going to make.
It's people guessing mods and then working out how much power their car makes after.
Guessing badly most of the time.
And, you know, so we started out and it was, it was very successful.
It didn't make any money.
You know, I mean, because I didn't really have the tuners of the week.
So it was only the weekends we were doing and it wasn't really making any money.
I mean, I didn't, I was young and didn't really need a lot to live on, luckily.
But it was about two, three years before it started making any money.
And then I started to get to know particularly Subaru tuners.
So Patrick Herbal knows who's a Subaru tuner.
He came down to map a car that one of my Dino customers had got a mapper in.
So he rented the Dino for a few hours.
And I got to know Pat, the late, great Simon Rowe who, Jolly Green Monster, I got to know him.
And after two or three years, still doing, I thought 2007 to 2010,
I had the Dino and used three or four days a week.
We were doing 13 Subaru's, mapping 13 Subaru's a day at a time,
probably, which in hindsight was probably too many, if I'm honestly, you know, we were,
and then we'd do 20 cars on a Saturday and sometimes we'd come in and do 15 more on a Sunday.
And they were very good years and then we started making some decent money.
And then we've continued that really over the park next 17 years.
The only difference now is after COVID, I have another business as well,
which I'll get into in a minute if you haven't all fallen asleep.
And that business has been really expanding over the last few years.
So I took the decision over COVID that the mappers who I'd been sitting next to for the past 10,
15 years, driving on the Dino for them all day while they mapped cars.
Because of COVID, we couldn't do that. So they decided to drive on the Dino.
So after COVID, I really established that they could just pay me the money for the renting the
Dino and I could set up, it doesn't count it. And from that I don't really do any Dino-ing during
the week now. I've got three, four mappers, a chap called Chris Todd, he does a lot of all
forward stuff. In fact, Chris does anything. He's very good as well. Duncan Graham, he does
Subaru's Race Dynamics. We used him at Overdrive when he came to you guys.
Yes, he did. It was a few years ago. And Tim Cox, he does Subaru's. I've got a couple of
other guys as well who visit. And they just got keys. They just turn up and then...
We'll get a set of those from you, Charlie.
We're going to put the Cadillac on, you know.
You have some Dino-related questions, right, Charlie?
Oh, there are a few. Hold the line. I'm just bringing them up. Now, what is...
We've obviously had our Cadillac on the Dino, which I'm going to assume is one of the worst
you've ever had. But have you ever had a really bad Dino fail? Something that's blown up or
something along those lines? I think we're approaching 20,000 cars now. We've done it
in 20 years. Yes, there have been some classics. I used to do Dino days for the Passion Ford.
Lovely people. I say that because I'm probably about to offend most of them.
Because you could buy a SAF for probably about five grand back then. And unlike now where the
love is lavished on them. And the cars are being restored and they're very, very nice.
A lot of them back then were complete shitters. And a Dino day, you'd have at least one head
gasket go on a YB. I don't even mean they drove there. We had an alternator fall off. That was
quite fun because it had to be bolted on properly. The bolt fell out. It fell off on the Dino run.
I had a wheel fall off a Ferrari race car that had to be bolted up while it was on the Dino
while spinning on the rear. Luckily, the wheel went up into the wheel arch.
I have had the little O-ring at the top of a Subaru oil filter on a drag car blow out at 8,000 rpm.
And the whole lot went up. It was still on fire 10 minutes later when we pulled out the Dino.
Some of them were quite scary. I mean, you can also tell in those situations,
you could tell who your friends. Because when we'd tend to do the big stuff back in the day,
it would tend to be in the evenings and you'd have lots of mates around and everyone watching
around. And the people who ran away didn't get invited back because you get a couple of mates
who grab the fire extinguishers and actually try and put the fire out and you see what it made of
20 years off down the road. I've seen most things. We've had engines. I mean, generally,
during Dino days, these days, certainly, it's incredibly rare for a mechanical failure because
generally, they're cars that are used. When cars are being matched, you do get a failure. I mean,
bottom end's going, Subaru blowing rods through blocks, stuff like that. It does happen.
I was going to say, I mean, if you cut your teeth on Subaru's, you've seen every car that you could have.
Yeah. I've seen bits of Subaru engine eject out of most of Subaru, but the part was in
out the front, out the back, out the top. Evo Rod snapping. So you've met before.
Well, not snapping, but you know about that. I had my Evo and actually, I was going to say a few,
I've had a few of my cars on your like, I think it was a £40 Saturday at the time,
but I used to go there all the time. It was just the thing that it was like, if I got out of car,
people had a car that go, I want to know how much power it makes. And then you make mods and...
The amount of times that car throw all that will come in after a week and went,
well, I was Charlie's all the weekend, found out how much car I found my car made.
It was just great. I remember, I went with my friend actually, again, this is Ford.
He had a Focus ST that he'd been told was running 350 horsepower on a standard turbo,
and I warned him at the time, probably not. And we both came to one of your days
and he extract it to the dyno. I think it made 300 horsepower and you told him,
it's very unlikely that your car will be making that. He's like, no, no, I'm stage nine and a half
and I've been told it's 350 horsepower. So it's quite good seeing those days. You can really
put some people down. I was going to say, this is one of the questions we have on there is,
which owners do you love telling the most that they made less power? Now, they're not necessarily
the worst customer, but they are people that you're like, come on, it's not going to be what you
think it is. So over the years, things that... Obviously, I still do the Saturdays and I
pretty much only on the dyno. You only find me on the dyno on a Saturday for that, because I
still enjoy it. Amazing. I don't know why, but after 20 years and being the still the demand
to do it, but the cars I do have changed. Back in the late 2000s, it was all JAP cars, 200 SXs,
Subaru's, Evo's, it was all JAP stuff. And the occasional E30, it's E63 and everything.
I do a lot of random stuff now, but a lot of it's German. M140s. So I was waiting for it.
And Golfars. And I probably do 250 M140s a year. They're just ambiguous. I mean, they're very good.
I can't really argue it. Do you go to sleep with B58 just stuck in your head?
It's a great engine. It is a great engine. Stage one, stage two, stage two, D-Cat, stage one.
I usually tell them what it's going to make with a stage one or stage two before they go on the
dyno. And most of the time, I'm right. But who do I like disappointing? Other than TDC?
Vauxhall owners. Oh, nice.
Because they invariably, especially the course of VXRs, they'll come in and they'll go,
I've done this, this, this, and it's this power. And I'll sit there and go, I don't think so.
And then it doesn't. I go, right. And then they start, then they start, then they start going.
And it's not, I'm not slagging off all Vauxhall owners. I essentially have one.
But it's like, you try and impress on people the mindset. You're paying for a service.
I don't give a shit what your car makes. I will do my job to the best of my ability.
To give you an honest reading of your car. If it isn't what your expectation is,
it's not my problem. I had a guy recently, actually, and I'm not going to end the car,
because he probably watches the channel and he's a nice chap. Didn't make what it should have done
the car. It was supercharged. And he went off and actually went to another dyno, where it made
less. He wanted a second to pin. It made less.
No. And he went back to the tuner who blamed the dyno.
And then he went back to the tuner again. And they found eventually, actually,
it was quite a colossal boost leak. And it actually came back fairly recently and made
exactly what it should make. But that's the use. It's not a vanity thing. It's a health check.
Absolutely. It's to work out if your car's working as it should.
The figure at the top, the power figure at the top, is one of the most meaningless things.
Yeah. And I say that. And I know it sounds strange for me, it's running a dyno.
You're looking at, well, I'm looking, but the customer's normally looking at the figure at the
top. I'm looking at the torque curve. I'm looking at the fueling curve. I'm looking at the power
curve, the shape of the power curve. I'm looking for any indentations in the power curve, because
usually, debt or misfire, all of those things are important to me. And it's my job to impart that
to the customer when they're sitting there going, big number, big number, because you can get cars
that make huge power that aren't very fast because they make it somewhere up there. And then you get
big, lazy things that make loads of torque and no power, you know, diesels. But it's,
that's the job. But I still try, you know, I still, I'm still interested by it. I still
enjoy what I do. You know, we'll become a time where I come not interested in give up and leave
the country, probably at some point, but not yet. As long as we've got keys by then, that'd be fine.
That'd be okay. I remember seeing an MX5. This was actually a devil developments dyno day. They
did like a Ford one. But in the middle, they did a couple of random cars like Saabs and whatever.
But there was a Mark II MX5 that went on, 1.6. And I've never seen a more disappointing dyno
graph. It went up and then just went flat all the way along. And it was both torque and power.
It was, I looked at it, I thought I would sell that car instantly after that. But it was quite,
he was like, okay, with it? No, it was, I was like, that's great. It's perfect. But it's just,
it's quite funny seeing a dyno one. It's, it's incredibly stressful to watch. It's like watching
someone stress test your nan in front of you. Like it's just, just stretching around and
making it. It's like watching someone do a, a health check in front of you. They're on the,
on the treadmill, sprinting and running. And the car is screaming because you never see your car.
You never see your car in that condition. The car's doing 100 and something mile an hour,
according to its head. If you, if you do a big, obviously you do it in the correct gear for as
close to one to one. So it's usually a higher speed anyway. But like, if you do one big pull
in your car, it's the exact same as it being on the dyno. But yeah, when you see it on the dyno,
you're like, no, no, that's too much. That's going to go bang. Surely that's going to go bang.
And then you also have the stress of, oh, it hasn't made the number I wanted or the something's not
right. But yeah, the, the dyno number thing is always the thing that you always have to explain
to people that don't worry too much about the number. So it's also really good for a before
and after as well. As long as like you come to the, I did it with my EVO with you before I had
some bits done. I came to you before made 380 or whatever, then you come after and it makes
a different number, but the power, the curve is different. So it's, it's good for that.
A dyno is a tool, you know, it doesn't affect, dyno is not there to hurt your feelings,
you know, don't feel offended by it. It's there as a tool, either as a tool for tuning cars,
or as a tool just literally, you know, I get quite a few guys with at least series ones
who fit cams, the K series. And I'll do it before and after they go and do the cams,
you know, and it's, we can, we can overlay the two graphs and see where you've gained and
where you haven't. And things like it works really, really well for, you know, there's
things, some, some stuff, these days, you can't dyno, you know, or I can't dyno, PDK,
Box, 911s. And that's because, is that because of the front wheels have to be moving?
Yeah. I mean, we had a sort of similar thing with the Crossfire, which is not even that modern.
Yeah. I mean, certain cars, a lot of them, a lot of the newer dyno's have links,
so the front wheels turn and the back wheels turn at the same, you can run them on those, but
on the Porsche, unless the front wheels are moving and the PDK, like 911s, they won't go into third
gear. So probably someone somewhere has found a way of making it happen, but I haven't yet.
So that kind of rules them out. But I get asked about them, someone says,
why don't you find a way of doing it? It's like the same as the 911 Turbos, very difficult to
keep cool. Unless you have big fans at the back, you know, they're very difficult to keep cool.
And when they're hot, you don't make the numbers. So as a result, I just don't do them.
And someone said, well, why don't you get all the fans to do them? And I'm like,
because for the two cars, I get asked. Yeah, exactly. It just isn't worth it.
Have you, have you ever refused a car from going on the dyno? Someone's come with a car and gone,
you've gone? Absolutely. Yeah. At least two or three times a year.
What does it tend to be that you generally, if the smoke coming at the back before it goes on
the dyno, yeah, you know, it's not a good, not a good sign. I mean, I've had cars turn out on
three, you know, not on all six. I've had a, you know, just when there's oil leaking at the bottom
fast and it's going in, you can hear big ends rattling outside. It just, it's easier just to
go, I'm not doing that. You know, it's just, it's just not worth it. No, yeah. I don't want to
clean the mess up. Uh-oh. Oh, Cadillac might not be going on the dyno after all.
What's that? On the Cadillac. Yes. What? Now, what is the slowest slash lowest power car you've
had on the dyno and then the highest power car? Because I know you've got, there was a picture
at the dyno, which I think is a Subaru, but I don't know what is the highest power car you've
ever had on them. So that was in our 35, the one on the one, the one on the wall is a Subaru.
Yeah. Drag car, which we made about a thousand something with them without the nitrous.
And that was actually done, but I wasn't there when that was done. That was on my friend of mine,
and because he's a friend of mine and likes to take the piss, he, he framed it and put it up
on the wall and it's still there many years later. The highest car I've ever done would have been an
R35 GTR back in the, when the R35 was launched and the big tuning wars started. And again,
there weren't that many dinos around. So it was, you know, they used to come and use me.
And they're an absolute twat to dyno, the R35. I mean, that, you know, again,
link dyno situation, if the back wheels and the front wheels aren't moving at the same speed,
the forward drive, how does it kick out? So then they're not, I don't do them anymore,
mainly because can't bother, but, you know, back then it was a thing and, you know,
when you're trying to push a business forward, you'll kind of push yourself, you'll do stuff.
And these things was like eight straps on them. And we had one that did 1380, I think.
And it was mid pull. I mean, the four drive clutch kicked out.
Oh, that was a bit scary. I've done loads of Holden's and stuff at like 900 a thousand.
I did, I did one of the, I think it was Andy Robinson's cars, which was a green
Barracuda drag car. And this thing's like that two and a half thousand horsepower.
Yeah. And it arrived and it fired up and I went outside the unit. I just looked at it and went,
shit. I'm sitting there going, this needs like a big American dyno jet or something.
It's not suitable for my dyno. Got in this thing and I just like scared the shit out of me,
quite frankly. Got it on the dyno, put eight straps on it, loaded it up and it just snapped
all eight straps, just drove off the dyno. Didn't go very far because as I explained to people,
on your dyno, the car's got no inertia. So if it comes off, you just put your foot
at the brake as long as you stop the wheels moving, it won't go anywhere.
And it did. But after that, I just went, I think it's still made about 900 horsepower,
even just that. And I just went, you know what? I'm going home to change my pants.
But, you know, it's, I think I suppose these days I do choose a pick.
Yeah. That's the beauty.
I won't do, generally, I won't do dyno. The only thing I still do during the week is the historic
stuff. I do the Cobras and GT40s and Vizzerides and stuff, the various historic race teams.
One of the reasons is that they arrive with a big truck. They put the car on the dyno,
you do one run in like 10 million quids worth of GT40, which still gives me a bus.
Yeah. And then they go, right, can you give us a couple of hours? We just want to change some
things. So you wander off for a couple of hours and you come back, Charlie, would you mind giving
us another run, please? And you give them another one. And this is all day. And I still,
the historic stuff I still love doing. I guess, yeah, that versus I've got a Wicked Stage 2 plus
map on it. Can you give me seven runs until I get 400 horse? It's a little bit nice.
It's a little bit different. It's a little bit different, but they arrive with mechanics and
everything. Yeah. I mean, it's probably, the owner of the car is probably going to show us
three or four grand a day for this because they've got the mechanics and everything.
But I, you know, I really do enjoy the stuff. We've done some over the years. There's a lot of
stuff I can't talk about, but it's, we've done some really nice cars and they tend to, the owners
never come. Yeah. So it's just the mechanics and everyone else. The owner's probably on his holiday
yacht in Barbados or somewhere. So you get a lot of banter and, you know, you just have a little
bit of fun. It's serious because obviously there's a lot of money at stake. And the noise of an
open pipe GT40 at 7,000 RPM is something. I did a 512, I did the toner winning 512S
for about 15 years ago in Wembley and Long Cross, Wembley and the old unit at Long Cross Studios.
We had the doors open and I had a noise complaint for five miles away on Wembley
and that night. It was the loudest thing I've ever done.
I was going to say, I was probably, it's pretty good that you're next to an airport now.
Yeah. We don't, well, because we've got to say, I mean, the cell we're in now is the third iteration
of designing cells for dinos. Yeah. And I stood it up, you know, it's, you learn every time you do
it and other things that I would have done differently. Yeah. But it is, I mean, I spent
some money on that, you know, I mean, the doors were like eight grand or something just for the
doors because I had to. But the difference is now and the best thing I ever did was after I got
kicked out of Long Cross in 2014, I bought the unit I'm in now. And it's the best thing I ever did
because A, you're paying a mortgage, you're not paying rent and B, no one can tell me what to do.
You know, so I mean, we're next to an airport, we're next to a diamond cutting place that makes
noise anyway. And I just, as I said, it's really the best thing I ever did. Because otherwise,
we'd still be bloody renting. And I'll probably go through another premises because
landlords hate dinos. I mean, landlords hate the motor trade. Let's face it.
So it's, you're only destined, I said, it's really business wise, the best decision.
Have you got any other ones on the dyno list?
You said your most powerful car was like 1300, right? What is, what's, how much could you put
on there? Is there a limit? So let's think about the S2000. Well, the problem is there's not torque
limit. So probably the S2000. Is there a torque limit? Well, we're about to find out.
But yeah, so I mean, the dinos are rated at two and a half thousand horsepower.
That's actually is what it can break in terms of the brittatas on the dyno, what they can break.
The problem is not with these type of dinos, it's not what the dyno can handle. It's the tires.
Yeah. So there are obviously things that moved on. You've got, you know, you've got other types
of dinos. You've got the hub dinos, which are very good for the big pad stuff. They use them a lot
in the Middle East, a lot in America. You've got the big old dyno jets, which the Americans love,
but they've got much bigger rollers. So you've got the tires so they can, you can actually run
more power. So in terms of mapping a car, if you said I want to map a 1000 horsepower car,
I'd say go to a hub dyno. Yeah. But you know, all one of the big dyno jets, because it's so much
easier to do and you won't have the wheel stem to improve. Yes, I can power on it. You know,
yes, I can get a reading off it. But if you're going to repeatedly do runs, you'll just melt
the tires. And once, once the tires get too hot, it's game over. But no, no micro car on
trials that will, will, will overload it. I like that dinos have a power limit, but it's like,
so someone comes to you and says, what's your, what's the limit? And you go, it's two and a half
thousand. You go, how much power are you running? Well, I don't know. That's fine. That's fine.
So we've got to put it on the dyno to find out it's making 3000 horsepower and I need a new
dyno. Excellent. It's when you strap them down and you sit there and you go, right, okay, we're
good. You're right. Let's put it in gear and you put your foot down and then you first run and it
just goes like that. And you're like, oh, my fats will spin on that run because in the winter,
the tires are cold. The rollers are cold. So you have to get some heat into the tires to grip.
Yeah. In the summer, it's less of a problem. But yeah, you can very easily, I don't know
if it's just a spirit. You can, you can kind of tell if a car isn't very powerful on the dyno.
By the way, it's sort of sitting in the way it's reacting. If you put your foot down and it just
sits there and goes, you're still going to sit there and go, this is pretty cheap.
If it sits there and just wheels spins his arse off, you're like, it's got some beans.
Now, speaking of big power, I think we've got to say speaking of beans.
I haven't mentioned beans just yet, but maybe we'll go on to that. For the audio listeners,
there is next to Charlie and Edwin, a quite a big bottle on the floor.
Yes. Now it was in the last episode, but not for this. Now it's actually something we need to
speak to your off camera. We have mentioned it, but we have a plan for the Cadillac to restore
some power to it. Well, I've just seen it in the car park. It's resting away.
It's that, that will be the car's final movements. The engine we will take with.
If it survives. If it survives. We have a plan to put it in something English,
Olden England. It's going to be a Jag. We want to put that Cadillac engine in a Jag
with maybe some different heads and make somewhat of a burnout machine.
We want a teeny seat burnout car. Entertainment car.
Because that engine is so horrific. When we brought it to you, it made 115 horsepower from
8.4, is it? Absolutely ridiculous. Just ridiculous.
For anyone who's an enthusiast of American cars listening, we're not selling the car because
it is so rusty. It's been sat for a year, right? Since we've seen the video and it,
which quite is a long time, but it's not been sat in a field. It's been sat in a car park
and it is significantly more hot. Jolly, you're a connoisseur of shit cars.
Would you let anyone drive that car on the road? God no. Yeah, that car.
It's beyond anything. It's incredibly dead. You can see through from the outside into the back seat.
From the outside, you can look through the rear quarter through three different layers of metal
to the back seats. It's behind the B pillar. When we picked it up or the bottom of the B pillar,
whether actually chassis is, there was just a hole there and no one's moved it. No one's touched
it. It hasn't moved at all. It's just been sat still. It just fell into the hole on the accelerator
pedal. I do like that because I moved it the other day and when I went to hit the accelerator,
the pedal moved so much with the flex of the metal that I over accelerated. So I jumped back.
I was like, Jesus. Whoa, 115 horsepower. We'd better watch out.
Although potentially a little bit more actually now. We've had some timing bits.
We might have cracked one, to any. Surely. Surely not.
But with a little something up his nose, he might make a bit more.
So downstairs is Surrey Rolling Road, but you have something quite cool upstairs.
I do. Massive pornography collection.
That wasn't untrue, but it's not untrue. Going back to,
I mentioned earlier, the other business. So through one of the mappers I met
through the Seabroo business was a chap called Patrick Herborne, who is a streaming calibrator.
And he was showing me some ECU stuff back then. It was about 2007. I thought it was very interesting.
I said, why don't we potentially do some ECU stuff with the business, this business,
but they were primarily race-based LMP cars, stuff like that. Would they be interested in
working with us to develop a road car version for all the stuff? Because a lot of the stuff
out there was complete shit. And so that's like a standalone ECU that you could run a car on?
Primarily for Seabroos. You had the thing called a six-row link, which is basically six rows of
the thing, and they were shocking. And we went to them with a cap in hand and said,
do you want to do this? Thinking they'd tell us to fuck off, quite frankly. And they said, yes.
So we started off in the business plan. I mean, and on all best business plans,
it was made in a curry house in Nap Hill in Woking. Because we shed many curries about it.
I was going to say, actually, that is how TDC started. We went for a curry.
It was a bit of the best business that started the curry house.
And so we started off and we bumbled along for a couple of years,
and we sold maybe, I think, 50, 100 ECUs a year. We did a general purpose version of the Subaru
balls, the plug-and-play balls, which started going to Supras. And through the Supras in MR2,
I had a young cocky lad. It came in called Ryan Griffiths, or Ryan G, as he'd like to
be called now. We still take the piss, but he'll hate, but I mentioned that, by the way.
And so he was mapping at mine anyway. So he's about 10 years old. He must have been in early
20s at the time. And he, after a while, decided to... He got quite involved with us,
and he bought himself an R35 GTR, one of the first ones. And then after a while,
we developed a kit with him to... Well, he'd actually be fair to Ryan.
Him and Pat developed the kit completely on their own. I think it took Motech two years
to do a kit for the R35. We did it in six weeks. And we made a load of these kits. We did a
rather poor, in my opinion, still deal with American dealer to sell them. We sold a lot of them.
And then Ryan became part of Cyvex. He became... Which is the business. I should have mentioned
that, probably. So it was originally called Solaris.
What I was going to say, if you're into modifying cars, especially in the UK,
you have heard Cyvex. Yeah. Cyvex is like... Focuses, lots of focuses.
Even if you don't know the ins and outs of what a Cyvex is, many of you will have heard
big power car. It's running. Then there's Cyvex. R35s, Focus RS, lots of different cars.
Subaru's, lots of Subaru's. You hear Cyvex and I go, whoa.
Oh, okay. Hold on. You spent some money on that, I think.
You're serious. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, over the years, Ryan joined and
over the years, we did the R35. We started developing our kits. We started developing
our own products. And so almost 18 years later, we're still going, we're growing,
still growing. We do all sorts of cars now. We primarily specialize in things like the
YRS3. We do loads of kits because you can't, you can map those, but only if you change one
of the chips in the ECU. But we do kits for still the R35, still sell kits for the R35.
So you see lots of the drag cars in that. I've seen on, I don't know if this is a recent thing,
but where obviously it's a four wheel drive car, the R35, but people like to use it for drag racing.
But they now, bonds with Cyvex can go rear wheel drive for a burnout and then back to four wheel
drive for that. So we do little four wheel drive controllers. We just do that. You don't even need
to buy the ECU. We would like it if you buy the ECU. But yes, we've probably got two or
300 products now. And I've got a team of staff. Ryan decided that he didn't like the UK anymore
and now lives in Dubai, where he concentrates on developing the products. And from technical side,
Pat Bourne and I, you know, we're all still involved. I do the sales and run the business
side of things. So if you get, have had an abusive email from the sales address at Cyvex,
it was probably me. And it's one of those things that it was started off literally as two blokes
in a, in a curry house as a bit of a, let's see how this goes. And it's now, and it's why I don't
do the dyno generally drink anymore because it's my full-time job. All of us, it's our full-time
jobs. And we really enjoy doing it. It's, you know, it's a real challenge and it works. We all
have our own specialities. You know, mine's mainly that we don't go to prison, you know. So
that's Ben's job for us. But it's growing and it is my, it's my primary focus now.
Just to, just to develop new products, we've just literally released a,
we've got a couple of new Bluetooth units and DPS and track logging software and things we've
just released. Have a look at the website or Facebook or Instagram or whatever you look at.
But yeah, and that's, you know, that's where it was, it was, it was all three of us look back
and think how the hell, you know, has it, has it been this successful over the years?
Well, I have actually had this conversation before where we said, if the day that TDC has
something CYVEX is the day we've made it. That's when we're really building something cool.
Well, if you stop buying shit cars, then I'm sure we will never be in contact.
On the focuses, because that was the kind of thing I always, that was the first time I ever
saw it was big power focus RSS is that they were able to, like things like traction control
systems were way more advanced compared to a standard Ford one on cars over five,
five, six central horsepower, but you'd always hear it whenever you hear a really big power focus
RSS taking off, you can hear the traction control cutting in. I mean, that was Lee at Devils.
Yeah. So Lee, because obviously, I mean, the core team, the three of us and those people
worked for us and all have made a massive contribution. But there's a lot of friends
and tuners over the years, certainly in the early days, who came along to us and went,
you're making an ECU. I'm specializing in this or I'm specializing in that.
Can I do an ECU? And with Lee, it was the Mark II focus. And I met Lee because he kept
bringing really shit forwards to my dyno. And then they fall apart on the dyno.
And he decided to get his own dyno. So because he'd had enough of me. I don't blame him, to be
honest. And he, at that point, he said, can we do an ECU for the Mark II focus? And we said,
absolutely. And that and that and Lee at SRD was another one with the Supras. Again, he was
one of Ryan's customers. And him and a chap called Jamie P. He wanted a Jamie P. We'd like to get on
the podcast. He will be at some point. Yep. Lovely man. Has had many Symexes over the years. And
again, it was, I'm building a big pad Supra. I'm one of the, you know, one of the ECU for it.
And there've been the numerous people that support scuba clinic up north,
which is where Pat was originally working with all the Subaru stuff. And over the years,
we've had just massive support from, I mean, we've had a lot of wankers as well,
quite frankly, people who just want to see you fail. But that's the same in every business.
We try to have a rule that we never, we try never to slag the competition off.
Because they're happily slag off us. Because if your products are good enough,
they'll speak for themselves.
Well, to be fair, literally, an example of characters that I asked you about this Ferrari
project about doing ITBs on it. And you said, don't go with us. You will be better off going
with one of the competition. Yeah, because for the money and what it needs to do,
there's simpler solutions out there that will work. The stuff we do is very good.
Don't get me wrong. And it's very high-ended. It's very technically advanced.
But if you just want to run a V12 on ITBs, there are simpler solutions out there
without spending like nine grand on an ECU. And I've always tried to over the years
be honest with people about stuff. I think from watching, if you've seen any video of Charlie,
you know that he is quite honest. I think that's maybe one of the one words I don't,
up front. Do we have any anecdotes from what such?
Oh, we got some anecdotes. Starting off with a scary one that I spotted on Instagram that I
have to say I've done no further investigation into. So I'm going into Ben territory here.
This is a Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG police car. That's quite worrying.
And it also has a private plate as well. Because all police cars have private plates.
Yes. It concerns me. Not that I'm looking to go on a high speed pursue anytime soon.
Now, isn't one of the things that if they're a real police car,
they have to have a number on the rear quarter panel. Isn't that a thing?
Is that a thing? I think that is. So if they're real, they will have like XP3NL.
So we could be looking at a fake here. It could be someone doing it for a charity rally.
Again, we're not willing to do the research. We want the audience and the listeners to do it for
us. But if I was being chased by that, I'd probably pull over anyway.
Probably being seized from Bradford. Yeah. That was my first thought with a private plate.
Cease car. Let's slap some battenberg on it. Off it goes.
Off it goes. That was chasing down RS3s. Especially because there's a sort of the,
not really a myth, but with police cars being tuned. Because they've got a stage one E63.
They've got rent shorts on the E63. Got a 700 horsepower E63 rocking around streets.
Although it's for intimidation tactics way better than like a Corsa.
Have you seen the electric ones, the little leafs?
The what? The police cars like a Nissan leaf. The left eye, you mean?
What's the plural of leafs then? Leafs.
There is a whole argument about the plural of the seven.
I mean, when you see one of those, it's not, I don't think it scares people off
running away because, you know, they're not very quick enough to run out of charge.
Whereas if you see that, you're thinking twice.
If I was an unhinged criminal, I'd see it as a challenge.
Interesting. That's very well, because that's very well.
I'd beat that.
If, yeah, but again, you like to say you're in your RS6,
so you might have an M5 and think, I don't like AMGs, and you see the AMG police car,
you go, what better to race than an AMG police car?
Who tuned it? All right, one V1 me. Let's go.
Put it on Charlie's dyno. We'll see how much panel that makes.
But that was quite worrying. It does say it's West Yorkshire though,
so it should be all right.
Ah, we'll find down here.
Yeah, safe.
Just astros and leaves according to him.
Some more misinformation potentially from me.
The Ferrari 612 from Jose Mourinho that I talked about.
But not only, well, so for the reason that you mentioned before,
which is, so the reason that it was a misinformation, is it not the club?
Apparently, and it's very disappointed about this,
because I am actually a football fan of sorts,
is that apparently it was nothing to do with Inter Milan.
It was given to him by Roman Abramovich at Chelsea.
You read a headline and didn't research it.
Crazy. It wasn't a headline. It was possibly a comment.
And do you know what the other thing is about it?
It is a Susanta.
It is a Susanta. We literally said in the thing,
is it a normal spec?
And we were like, yeah, it's just black.
It's not like a stupid special edition like a Susanta.
And yet here it is. If you don't know,
612 Susanta has a two tone, the bonnet,
and that's a bonnet and smiley mouth is in a different color.
And the other is absolutely horrible.
Don't they?
I'm not a fan of 612.
They are.
Oh, so then the 612 is, I actually think it's a bit underrated.
There was a time when they dropped to late 30s.
Yeah. Well, there are still some for that.
Because Robin, Robin of Viking Detail is obsessed with them.
He will have one. He has told us he will have one.
And we're excited for the day he does.
But he was, we were shown going through Carlser cell.
There's a couple still in the 30s.
Are they auto-auto or is that F1?
Like this.
I think they're F1.
I think there might be, let's do some research.
They are a dual, not dual clutch.
Let's have a look.
I think they're too early for dual clutch.
They're too early for dual clutch.
Are they a single clutch?
I don't know if they're like, because an auto seems like it would fit it more.
But if you've got, you know, F1 spec gear changes.
6-speed Graziano automated manual.
So it's an F1 there, I think.
So it's one of those ones where you put your foot down, pull the pedal in guys.
Yeah. And you're lucky you're a 4-seater Ferrari.
But at least he does have the polished wheels, which I like.
He has the proper challenge wheels.
I just think they look so gormless.
You know what? It's completely spec dependent, that car.
If I see one on a good spec with those wheels, I'm okay with it.
And then I see the one with the little five spoke wheels.
God, what an awful thing.
It's the caster wheels thing with the eight series.
If you get the 850i, the early ones, they look horrible.
It's not a looker, is it?
No.
I mean, the 550 is, don't I know it?
Yeah. It's got to be one of my favorites, the 550, to be honest.
But also, it's that similar gen to a 599 and sort of similar design language to a 599.
But that's like a 599.
It looks like, have you ever seen the, it's like online misinformation photos of it's like
someone, a half-man, half-sheep has been found somewhere.
And they look all deformed and weird.
It's that it's a weird AI slopped image.
A 509 has been born with problems.
And two extra seats.
For a 4-seater Ferrari, the 456.
Would be mine every time.
The 456 is good.
I actually quite like a 400i.
I think that the thing is with 4-seater Ferraris is they have that period
where absolutely no one cares about them.
They get to sort of like 40, 50 years old.
And everyone's like, jumps back in it.
You know, that's classic.
That's great.
I mean, the 456 is, I mean, I say you buy a bad one, it'll break you.
That'll break you.
No, we are.
They're notorious for being absolutely ruinous.
But I think one of those in green, I think I would love.
There is the one of the Brunei wagons was originally green.
And that color is a mate in the 456.
Yeah, it's like a dark green.
I can't believe it's green.
It's cool, but it's a lovely dark green.
Also shout out Larry Chen at, well, it was for Hagerty.
He recently put out a video on the Brunei collection.
He didn't get to go in the collection,
but he got to go to some of the ex royal family cars that are
stored outside the collection.
Some of the abandoned ones.
The very good video for me.
I saw it pop up.
I was away with my girlfriend for her birthday for the weekend.
She was like, I don't sit down and watch that.
I went, there's a Brunei video from Larry Chen.
Of course, I have to watch this.
So I did.
But yeah, very good video.
So yeah, a bit of misinformation on the old 612 there.
Next up thing I have written here is the Chris Harris M5,
which was kind of revealed this weekend gone.
I guess it'll be a couple of weeks old by this point.
Chris Harris of journalism and sliding fame
has any 61 M5 actually touring, which is spent a lot of money on, I think.
So it was originally a carbon black over black interior.
Interestingly, sort of normal spec.
But now I actually deliberately haven't looked into it because I saw
you post this in our chat.
So I didn't look into it.
But is that BMW British racing green?
Did it say anywhere?
Because there is a BMW E36 with many colors.
I didn't write this down.
Oh, okay.
You're going to have to research this.
I am sure that I might have been on the configurator
for BMW the other day on an M3 touring.
Because I was seeing how much you could get one for.
And the answer is they're quite large.
And I wanted mine in Daytona Violet to match my 34, because it's my favorite.
It is that and BMW Avis Blue are my favorite colors.
I've got an R33 GTR, which is braided in BMW Avis Blue.
And all the purists said you can't pay it in the BMW car.
It's a Nissan.
And I just went, yeah.
Also, it's a Nissan.
Come on.
As usual, as usual with our three GTRs, it's currently broken.
But I was playing the configurator and I did actually come up.
And I'm sure one of the individual colors, because you can still have your car painted
in any of the individual colors that BMW have done.
Daytona Violet, Daytona Violet, Dakar Yellow.
I've got an E36 M3 Evo in that convertible in Dakar Yellow,
which is a car that most people absolutely hate.
And I absolutely love, even though it's three shades of different Dakar Yellow,
because you can't match the color.
But I'm sure in the configurator, there was a BMW British Racing Green set available.
I think it is, because I've seen enough 36ers in it,
and the shade looks nearly identical.
But either way, so that car is now British Racing Green Gloss, not metallic,
but with Cordroy Red Interior.
Ben, surely this is your car?
I don't want to speak if I'm in trouble.
You don't like it.
I respect the build.
Do you, is it, okay, respect all builds?
No, absolutely not.
No, I don't like, is it that it's gloss?
I think it's because it's not metallic.
It's same as Will's Clear.
I would have liked that if it was in...
So if it was in Oxford, you'd like that one.
That means yes in my language.
Yeah, but that, I saw all the Instagram posts on the weekend.
Irish Green.
It's Irish Green, interesting.
Irish Green, I had to delve into Instagram for that one.
That could also be misinformation,
but four people said so, so I believe it.
You'd have real problems driving past pubs in that,
without stopping for a Guinness.
But it's an interesting combination for sure.
I have to say it's not to my...
Not to your taste.
I respect, I love it that people paint things different colours.
I think it's great, and I've done it myself.
It's just not, it's those two colours.
I mean...
They do clash a bit.
They're a bit...
I'm sure my mum would say it's...
It's a flat green, and I just...
If it was on interior design,
she'd say it's, I don't know,
it's probably some French word or something that's, you know...
It's very 2025 Instagram.
It would be Oxford or Boston Green for me, I think.
It is a bit London.
Yeah, yeah.
Although you probably can't drive it into London,
because you let it all out.
Actually, O7...
And O7, it'll be alright.
Yeah, you can drive it.
Yeah, you can take your V10 into London, that's fine.
This is posse misinformation,
but I'm pretty sure it isn't the engine rebuilt as well.
Yes.
So basically, it's a brand new car.
Yeah.
So just in time to spend about 50 grand getting it good again,
as with all E60.
I think if that was metallic green, instead,
and it had the corduroy was a little bit less saturated.
Because it's almost orange.
Yeah, it was darker.
That would be, that could be the guy.
The corduroy, I want to feel it.
See, when we get Chris, you know, on the podcast,
we'll let him know that you hate him and all his car decisions.
No, that's not why I said it at all.
Ben won't be there for that one.
No, he doesn't like it.
You're not actually telling me.
This is a very big moment in the fact
that Ben has decided to stay with the guest.
He usually leaves on the day that the guest is in.
He hates them.
This is a sign that you like to...
I don't like this, I feel privileged.
I don't like this sign at all.
What else we got?
Now, Ben, some news from you here,
which could go downhill for you.
You've put in there something about a Mansourie 12-cylindry,
which I can already tell I don't want to look at.
Absolutely, we'll look at that.
She's horrible.
Holy shit.
That's a injury which I already don't really like.
Ben, describe it for the audio listeners.
Okay, imagine the new Ferrari 12-cylindry.
I think that's done well there.
Now, ruin it to the every way.
Make everything bigger.
It's Batman's.
Now, make it purple, wheels black, yellow calipers,
big stripe down the middle,
and then have the purple fade to black at the rear,
and then move to Dubai.
Okay, yeah, you've got it.
But that rear is tough.
And then also, what is it?
Forged carbon.
Oh, God, I just hate it.
All of it glued on with Pritt Stick.
Also, the worst thing is the wheels,
they just look like standard GT3 991 wheels.
That feels like a downgrade in the wheel department.
But I get it.
It's A, as a statement,
but B, it's to get people talking about it.
They build the first one to be mental enough
so that everyone goes,
whoa, look at this thing,
and we talk about it on a podcast.
Also, aren't they silly money, those kits?
Oh, everything is silly money.
But that car built is worth loads of money.
And there'll be some...
Listen, I'm not saying my opinion is right here,
but if you have less taste, perhaps,
then the average person, maybe you like that.
If you have less taste than you have money, perhaps.
But that's literally what it's for.
You meet someone and they go,
I have a 12-cylinder, and you go, that's cute.
I have a Mansory.
12-cylinder.
Hey, listen, what color is our Mansory?
12-cylinder.
Is it purple and black and yellow?
No, I don't know.
Kind of thing that would potentially become cool,
again, in like 20, 30 years.
This is...
Because you're looking at, like,
you're thinking about Koenig kits.
Oh, gambler.
Yeah.
You look at that then.
But then you look at some of the stuff that Techart did
with the K and Turbo and stuff like that,
and they were horrible back then,
and they're still horrible now.
Yeah.
But that's, I wonder that.
Do people think that about Koenig stuff?
Or was it still cool?
But Koenig stuff is, I think we've gone backwards.
So these days, it's more about purist stuff.
So the cars that have them,
it's the same with the French hot hatches
or the Vauxhall Novas or stuff like that.
The problem is you can't find a decent one now
because people like me and my friends
buried them all 25 years ago.
So finding a decent car now,
and it's the same with the Testaross and stuff,
like people want or a 512 TL.
People want a completely standard car now.
Yeah.
Same with the BMWs.
Same with all the Fords.
Try finding a standard SAF
that hasn't got a massive exhaust,
although actually a lot of SAF
a massive exhaust is kind of like rolled up to nothing.
But it's things that go, I'm not sure that will,
in my mind, or bearing in mind, I probably have no taste,
that will never be cool in my mind.
The other thing I think is that
if you look at like an old Koenig or a Gambler
or something like that,
the modifications are,
they're basically a race car wide body without delivery,
which is always cool.
Like a dimmer kit.
It's a T16 without a delivery.
That's cool.
Whereas that does not look like a race car.
It just looks like a car that you've stuck bits to.
And I don't think that will ever age well.
Yeah, it's not.
Yeah, again, it's stuck on bits.
The exception is people like Brabis.
Yeah, which in some cases look great.
And Alpine and all the tuners from,
a Brabis will never not be cool, quite frankly.
Even I know some of the stuff they do today
is a little bit questionable.
But the stuff they did in the 90s
and with EV12 and stuff like that,
I mean, you know, and the Rocket,
they were proper cool cars.
You know, we are going to take a Mercedes
and we are going to ram the biggest engine we can in there.
You know, and I still think they're awesome.
But stuff like that, I could take on the EVE, quite frankly.
Because it's never, as far as I'm aware,
they never do anything performance either.
Because I always, the Novitech stuff
was always a little bit like this,
where it was, I never quite liked the kit.
But then when you hear the ridiculous exhaust
and they do a little bit of engine work or whatever,
you're like, okay, all right, I can see why
the entire theater of this thing might appeal to some.
But that is truly disgusting.
It really is vile.
It's surely coming to the Manchester United Car Park.
Oh yeah, that is a footballer's car.
And then it's going to be sold to a drug dealer.
And then, yeah, that's...
And then it's going to end up on TDC.
For eight brands.
Probably along with the footballer and the drug dealer.
Another piece of news from you here, Benjamin.
DB12s.
DB12S.
S, sorry.
Not plural.
Yeah, it was a small S.
Well, they have many of them,
but this is the new performance one.
Tell us about it, Ben.
I've got no idea.
Haven't seen this news yet.
That's tough.
Oh, pulling out the phone, are we?
This is the only thing I put in this week
that I haven't researched.
Of the two things he's put in.
Also, that doesn't help your case.
That's like pulling up to class.
And with each going, have you got your homework?
And you go, no, no.
But this is the only class I didn't do my homework for.
Let me pull up.
That means 50% of my work I didn't do.
This is the 2026 Aston Martin DB12S.
No, I'm doing it.
I'm doing it.
This is the 2026 Aston Martin DB12S.
Just say what Will says after him.
Okay.
Joining the family is the new crown jewel of the DB12 lineup,
complete with Ben's idiotic news section.
Oh, still researching.
Okay, I'll carry on.
The power output has been stretched from 671 to 690.
Is it still a V12?
Sorry, it has 700 horsepower.
Well, we'll see.
Are these V8?
These are V8.
Oh, I didn't know that.
They say these V8.
Yeah, it's the full later one.
See, I'm still, because this is now, this is,
there's no more DBS Superleggera, right?
Perfect.
No, because that was built on a DB11.
Is this technically the biggest grand touring Aston you can buy right now?
Well, you've got the vanquish.
What's that?
What does that look like?
Is that new one?
Is there any vanquish?
I don't know anything about Aston anymore.
You've seen this and you like this.
A vanquish is like a super car.
The last van they're going to make.
See, now I'm okay with it.
Because in my head, I thought that was the,
yeah, not the hyper power.
Well, you mean like a Valhalla Valkyrie?
Valhalla Valkyrie.
All right, Nordic people talking.
There's people on the podcast going,
I actually wanted some news and they just tuned out.
So my point was going to be,
if the DB12 is the biggest one they have,
a V8's not allowed,
you must have a minimum of V12.
Oh yeah.
You must not go below that.
If that exists, if the vanquish exists,
I'm fine with the other one being a V8.
I do, however, I like that vanquish.
A hell of a gob on it.
But I keep looking at first-gen vanquishes.
I love them with my heart solid.
Why are you shaking your head?
Second-gen vanquish.
What?
The second-gen vanquish.
No, because the thing is the problem is the vanquish is cheap.
If that was manual.
Not for a first-gen really.
You'll get a second-gen for 60, 65 grand,
and I've looked at them and gone and kind of thought that.
But while I'm sitting there dreaming in my magic fantasy world
where I can afford all these nice cars,
actually, similar year to maybe a 599 or something,
or actually probably an F12 I would think actually.
F12 is about 150 grand and you can pick it up for 65.
And the good cars.
The first-gen, James Bond first, James Bond one,
a lot of them he converted to manual now
because the automatic was horrific or the touch of the first.
Didn't they not do a second-gen automatic in that?
S. So the S I think had some updates to it.
Yeah, but even so, yeah.
They were converted.
It's the interior on those as well.
Interior stuff.
That is what would bug me the most about the vanquish.
I would, I know there is the, is it the Ian Callum one?
Yeah.
The vanquish.
But anyway, there is a Resto mod vanquish mark one.
I could leave all of the exterior mods
as if there was just a little bit update to the interior.
That is one of my perfect cars
because that is, that's childhood.
My first James Bond was dying the other day.
So for me, that vanquish is the Aston Martin of all time.
Other DBS.
But I'm slightly older and it's got to be the X-Pack Vantage.
That is cool.
From 1988 to 1989 X-Pack Vantage.
They are stratospherically pricey now.
And I think, you know, if you were to say,
have some money, pick any car, I think probably one of those.
It's a skis car.
Yeah.
Knowing, of course, it would break because they do.
I've got a customer who has one as a daily
and he's dailyed it for the city.
He bought it new in, it was actually, so it's an earlier one.
It's an early 80s one.
He bought it new in the early 80s and it's still his daily.
That's so cool.
200,000 miles.
He's also got, he's got some other very nice cars as well,
but he's still, he must be in his late 70s, 80s now.
Still daily.
Tooling around a bit.
That's so cool.
I think it's had three restorations at the time.
But he said, no, I'm not going to give it up.
Why would I?
And I love that.
I think that's absolutely.
We live in a cars aren't built to last these days.
No.
You know, the stuff from the 80s, it may rust,
but the rest of it, you know, it was good to go.
Apart from dances.
Straight out of a factory into the rust repair shop.
My first James Bond was Tomorrow Never Dies.
So what's that?
Seven series?
Yeah.
That was, it created an obsession with the seven series as a child,
which is quite bizarre.
It's just not a car you should be.
You should be.
I remember seeing it and finding a 740 on Gran Turismo and going,
they've got, that's one of the, that's James Bond's car.
It wasn't, but it's very similar.
Five year old years going.
What's interesting is it's a preface, but it has the M parallels.
It was the first time you saw the parallels.
There's a preface, I've come off today in the 75.
The cars in the film were 740s.
BMW wouldn't give them 750s direct.
So they, the cars, but that, the one I've brought today is actually,
did the same spec as the James Bond.
It's a different color, but it's the same spec as the James Bond ones
without the guns and stuff, because apparently they're not loud.
Mr. DVLA, please sir, it's for accurate representation.
I wonder if we can control the Nokia phone.
Really good gadgets.
It's just a shame it was, I like a BMW seven series,
but it's not really a James Bond car.
But the BMW badge that comes up with the, with the,
with the spray car, yeah.
Oh, great.
Yeah. It's, it's, it's not a fear, though.
I, I, my first, probably, there were a couple before,
but Octopussy was the first film I really enjoyed as a James Bond fan.
And I always wanted an Alfetta.
Yeah.
To do music.
And about 17 years ago, I took a little trip down to the New Forest
where I found a chap who restores them and stuff.
And he, in the corner, he had this little Alfetta GT Silver, GTB6,
which is, which was okay.
Oh, it drove and everything, 1500 quid.
Really?
And I bought it naturally because you can't walk away from something like this.
And the noise was fantastic.
It was just, I mean, it wouldn't start most of the time.
And I decided to take it drifting at RAF Odeon with a friend of mine.
He was in the RAF and they gave us a bit of a corner of RAF on Sunday morning.
I ripped the shock in it.
I snapped the shock in half on the back.
I was driving back up the M3 and it cut out.
It was a mighty bang from the back and it cut out.
And I was close to the edge.
Open the boot.
Where's the battery gone?
And the battery tray had rusted all the way around.
And obviously my drifting had fallen out.
Is it?
Fast and furious, danger to verify.
It just pops right out.
Luckily it wedged itself under the car and hadn't gone very far
and it pulled the leads off.
So I sort of jerry-rigged it back together and took it home.
And then after that, I decided to go and do a track there in Bedford.
It was Evo.
Did you fix anything on it before?
Yes, we changed the shock and we welded the battery tray back in.
And it was an Evo magazine track day at Bedford.
They used to do Evo track days at Bedford.
Took it up there that bumbled up here.
And I arrived and I'm in the Alpheta, lovely car to drive.
They're quite tail happy.
Yeah.
And as I arrived in the car park at Bedford Autocutrion,
it, the heavens, absolutely, there's a tonic rain everywhere.
And I spun and crashed on the sighting lap.
Yeah, because I got to the end of the straight,
but we thought in the break and it just went like that off the end of the thing.
So I thought, well, this is not great.
So we sort of drove what was left of my Alfa remote back to the pit.
We're upon the few spots caught fire in the few pits.
So once we put it out, I did actually get some laps,
took it out and deposited it in a barn.
And sadly sold it to a very nice Italian who for 800 quid,
when I had to move my, when I bought my unit,
I had to sell a load of cars 12 years ago.
I had to sell, I had a TVR Cerbera that went the Alfa.
When I had a suit, cup of two brews, they were everything.
I basically was one of those, we're buying a unit,
get it going, things getting sold.
And that went, I sold it for 800 quid and it was, it worked.
You know, it wasn't the tiniest car in the world.
And it's one of, it's my, one of my biggest regrets was selling it
because the noise and to drive was such a nice car.
And, and you know, it was the same with RX7 FCs as well.
Had two of those.
I paid a grand for one.
I was given one for free.
You know, and we used to track those, you know,
massive flames out the back.
Just put a, put a pexiparousy in it on them, turn the boost up.
And they were so much fun.
And I'm one of them.
I put one JZ in it, which just completely wrecked it.
And then I sold them for peanuts.
And now you try, you try finding an Alfetta or an RX7 FC
for anything less than 10 grand or even 20 grand.
And it's hindsight's a wonderful thing.
I've been secretly over the last few weeks,
I keep looking at GTV6, even shells.
Because I, I'm, Alfa is my blood.
That's my dad's.
That's my dad's thing is what I was raised on.
So I have a, and he's into the older stuff.
So when he was trying to get me into the older stuff,
I was always looking a little bit newer.
And the GTV6 is, is, is the thing.
It's just so cool.
You know, I love that shake.
I mean, you can drop the three,
you can drop the later 3.2 liters.
Yeah.
I mean, like the, the Alfa 166.
Yeah.
Now that is a car you can still buy fairly cheap.
And a manual 166.
And I remember when they came out,
it wasn't that long ago, was it?
And I, if someone, and this is,
goes back to the, how do I find the cars?
If I happen to come across a 166 manual 3.0
or a 3.3, 3.2 is one thing.
There is one out.
There's one, Chris, the, our merch guy,
he drives one around.
That's his, that's his thing.
One of the lovely car.
I'll probably buy it.
It's a 166.
It's a 166.
What is?
Yeah.
So the bigger, the 166 is the big one.
166.
Is that the big 156?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's later than that.
What Chris has.
This is a 164.
Please excuse my, excuse me.
Yes, no.
164.
Well, that's just a bit more profit.
Which is asking for trouble, quite frankly.
Sorry.
Yeah.
The big 166.
Okay.
Yeah.
The one, I love the side, but,
but the Alfetta really regrets selling that.
Yeah.
There is a company in, I can't remember if it's Italy now.
It might be in Italy.
It's, they're called OK Tech, Alfa Romeo.
And they've built a setup for the GTV6.
Look at the fitment on that.
If you're all the over viewer,
just imagine Ultimate Chonk.
The other thing they do as well, which I've been,
my dad has, that's his kind of halo car that he has,
is an Alfa Montreal.
And they have a set of wheels.
Look at that.
That is perfect.
That's literally perfection.
It's just ultimate meets with a deep dish wheel
on an old alpha.
That's, at some point, we've been talking about doing
alphas or Italian cars.
That'd be great.
The TDC, the GTV6.
It would be not.
It would be two alphas though.
That would be the problem.
Yeah.
It would be two alphas.
Or a Delta.
In which case, I can't afford it.
Yeah.
Problem is, finding one.
Yeah.
I think there was, I had a look the other day, actually.
I don't know why Hazers have,
we've got loads of money to spend it,
and then waking up.
And I was looking at GTV6s and FCs,
thinking, revisit, and they're just on.
I think there's one GTV6 in the UK for sale at the moment.
And it's 25,000.
It's a lovely car.
But 15, 20 years, you couldn't give these things away.
I sold them.
In my E46 M3, I had done 65,000 miles.
And I sold it just at the financial crash, 2008.
I sold it for nine grand to a dealer.
That if I'd kept it, it would have been worth more.
Yeah, exactly.
You know, 30 years later.
And, you know, I don't know whether they just
people free stuff away back then,
but it was just nowadays, it's,
everything is still become really pricey.
Yeah.
Silly money.
Are we, I think that's all she wrote for anecdotes.
And what's that?
That's very nice.
Well, Charlie, thank you very much for coming over.
I think this will probably be your first appearance
on cream podcast.
I don't think it will be our last.
I think we've got more stuff to talk about.
But thank you very much for coming on, talk about cars.
Thank you very much for having me and letting me waffle on.
That's part of the reason why you're on here
is because we like listening to you talk about car stuff.
Which my wife said that.
If you need a ridiculous ECU, check out Cyvex.
And if you want to see how much car,
how much car your power is making, interesting,
how much power your car is making,
and you're kind of down towards the south of England,
check out Sorry Rolling Road, turn up to a Saturday shoot
and let Charlie take this out of your car.
Because he will.
It doesn't matter what you turn up in.
He will.
Thank you very much for listening.
Cream, get the money.
A doll doll belly hole.
Dinos.
About this episode
Ben shares his recent purchase of a Honda S2000, detailing the excitement and stress of the buying process. Joined by guest Charlie from Surrey Rolling Road, they discuss various car stories, including a near-miss with a Cayman and the trials of buying project cars. Charlie shares insights into his impressive car collection and experiences with dyno tuning, while the group debates the merits of various automotive modifications and the quirks of car ownership. The episode is filled with humor, camaraderie, and a deep love for cars.
Aston Martin DB11
Aston Martin Valhalla
Aston Martin Vanquish
Audi RS 3
BMW 3 Series
BMW 5 Series
BMW 6 Series
BMW 8 Series
BMW M3
BMW M5
Chevrolet Corvette
Chevrolet El Camino
Chevrolet Nova
Chrysler Daytona
Ferrari 400i
Ferrari 550 Barchetta Pininfarina
Ferrari 612 Scaglietti
Ford GT40
Ford Model T
Holden Commodore
Honda S2000
Lamborghini Gallardo
Land Rover Series
Mazda RX-7
Nissan GT-R (R35)
Nissan Leaf
Nissan Skyline
Opel Astra
Peugeot 405
Plymouth Barracuda
Porsche 911
Porsche 944
Porsche Cayman
Shelby Cobra
Toyota MR2
Toyota Supra
TVR Cerbera
Vauxhall Monaro
Volvo 440
Volvo 850
Original notes
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C.R.E.A.M. (The TDC Podcast)
Cars Rule Ltd
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