C.R.E.A.M. #56 - They Built Gordon Murray's Car, Dream Restomod Builds and First Car Stories
C.R.E.A.M. (The TDC Podcast)
C.R.E.A.M. #56 - They Built Gordon Murray's Car, Dream Restomod Builds and First Car Stories
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Company
Retro Power
Retro Power is a company that takes old cars and makes them better by adding new technology and features. They focus on improving classic cars while keeping their original look.
Concept
restomod
A restomod is an old car that has been fixed up and updated with new parts to make it drive better and be more comfortable, but it still looks like the classic car it used to be.
Car
Mercedes-Benz CL500
The Mercedes-Benz CL500 is a fancy two-door car that is comfortable and powerful. It's known for being stylish and having a lot of nice features inside.
Part
amplifier
An amplifier is a part of the car's sound system that makes the music louder and clearer. If it breaks, you might not hear any sound at all.
Car
Land Rover Range Rover
The Range Rover L322 is a fancy SUV made by Land Rover. It's known for being really good off-road and having lots of luxury features inside.
Car
Ford Fiesta
The Ford Fiesta is a small, budget-friendly car that's easy to drive and park. It's a good choice for city driving and is known for being economical.
Part
starter motor
The starter motor is a part of the car that helps start the engine. When you turn the key, it makes the engine begin to run.
Car
Porsche Cayenne
Concept
black flagged
If a driver gets 'black flagged', it means they have to stop racing because they did something wrong or unsafe on the track.
Term
horsepower
Horsepower is a way to measure how powerful an engine is. The more horsepower a car has, the faster it can go.
Car
Volkswagen Golf
Part
radiator
A radiator is a part of a car that helps keep the engine cool by removing heat from the engine coolant. It works by allowing air to flow through it, which cools down the liquid inside.
Car
Peugeot 504
The Peugeot 504 is a car made by the French company Peugeot. It was popular for being tough and comfortable, and it came in different styles, including a pickup truck version.
Car
VW Polo
The VW Polo is a small car made by Volkswagen. It's known for being easy to drive and park, making it a great option for city driving.
Car
Opel Manta
The Opel Manta is a car made by the company Opel. It was popular in the 1970s and 1980s for being sporty and fun to drive.
Car
Ford Sierra
The Ford Sierra is a large family car that was made in the 1980s and early 1990s. It was popular for its unique shape and different engine choices.
Car
Gm Sierras
Part
cam cover
The cam cover is a part of the engine that keeps dirt out and holds oil inside. It's important for keeping the engine running smoothly.
Part
Weber 38 DCOE carburetor
A Weber 38 DCOE carburetor is a part that mixes air and fuel for the engine. It's designed to help the engine run better, especially in performance cars.
Car
Ford Capri
Concept
engine swap
An engine swap means taking out the engine that came with a car and putting in a different one. People do this to make their cars faster or to fix broken engines.
Concept
bespoke cars
Bespoke cars are specially made for each customer, meaning they can choose exactly how they want the car to look and perform, unlike regular cars that are made in large numbers.
Concept
halo car
A halo car is a special car made by a company to show off what they can do. It's usually very fast or looks really cool, and it helps people notice the brand.
Company
Gordon Murray Design
Gordon Murray Design is a company started by a famous car designer. They create new car designs and focus on making them lightweight and fast.
Car
Mclaren F1
Car
Gordon T50
Term
IVA
IVA is a process in the UK that checks if a car meets safety and environmental rules. It's needed for cars that have been changed from their original design before they can be driven on the road.
Car
Ford Escort
The Ford Escort is a small car that Ford made for many years. It's known for being budget-friendly and reliable, making it a good option for everyday driving.
Car
Retro Power Alpha Junior
The Retro Power Alpha Junior is a special car made by a company called Retro Power. They create unique cars that often combine classic styles with modern technology.
Part
Millington Diamond Engine
The Millington Diamond Engine is a powerful engine that helps cars go fast. It's designed to be lightweight and is used in racing and performance cars.
Company
Recaro
Recaro makes special car seats that are designed to be more comfortable and supportive, especially for racing or sporty driving.
Car
Toyota Land Cruiser
The Toyota Land Cruiser is a strong SUV that can handle tough roads and is great for both daily use and off-road adventures.
Concept
independent suspension
Independent suspension means that each wheel on a car can move up and down separately. This helps the car handle better and makes the ride smoother.
Car
Allegro
The Austin Allegro is a small car made in the 1970s. It's known for its unique look and different ways it can perform.
Car
Honda Integra DC2
The Honda Integra DC2 is a sportier version of the Integra car. It's known for being fun to drive and having a powerful engine.
Car
Honda Civic Type R
The Honda Civic Type R is a fast and sporty version of the regular Honda Civic. It's designed for people who want a fun driving experience with extra power and better handling.
Car
BMW E9
The BMW E9 is a stylish car made by BMW in the late 60s and early 70s. It's famous for its good looks and sporty performance, especially the racing version called the 3.0 CSL.
Car
Volkswagen Id7
Car
BMW E30
Car
Lotus Esprit
Car
BMW E30M3
Car
Volvo V90
Car
BMW M2
Car
Toyota GR Yaris
Car
Renault 5
Car
Honda That Honda
Car
Citroen Sm
Car
Ford F150
Car
Ford Explorer
Car
Ford Ranger
Car
Aston Martin DBS
Car
Chevrolet C6
Car
Aston Martin Dvs
LIVE
So your first car, you engine swapped. Yes. So, okay. So that's a good, a good indication of
things to cover. So I just want to turn up to, to, to a light. So I'm going,
stuffy old dude and then just,
we just thought some man named Gordon Murray was going to be here.
We're here. What would you like from this car? I don't want to survive it.
Cool.
It certainly won't be slow.
Hello and welcome back to the 56th cars rule everything around me podcast with William,
to my right, myself, Edwin and then Nat and Callum from retro power cars. Actually, if you're,
if you're a viewer, you can see that we're not in our workshop. They have very kindly lent us
their podcast set at the den because we've been having a tour of retro power today
and we've been, we've been nerding out. Oh yeah. It's been great.
But we, we kind of came to you guys with the intent and purpose of having your podcast because
we thought you guys would be very interesting guests. For those of you that don't know, if
you're listening, you've never heard of retro power before, I'm going to say something that
maybe you'll take offense to. I don't know. But the way I've always described it is that you are,
you are singer, rest or mods for, for any car on earth that you want. Is that fair to say or is
that? Is that a dirty word? No, I'll take that. I'll take that. Funnily enough, I've
said that to a lot of people in the past, but then a lot of people have said to me,
you're kind of doing yourself a disservice, but compare using them as the benchmark,
but I think they're absolutely amazing. They've inspired me massively, but
they're a pretty good benchmark. To me, it's not bad.
Yeah. It's the singer are the most accessible thing that everyone knows when you say the word
rest or mod, you associate it with that. But the cars that you guys, guys build are
absolutely next level and we've both been huge fans. I will get into it a little bit later in
the podcast, but I even tried to apply for a job. Well, I used to watch your website every day for
jobs to leave car for all, not a joke. Yeah, sorry. Before we get into any of that though,
we always ask the question whether cars rule or ruin everything around us this week. Will,
as a, as a, as a flavor for the guests, do you want to start?
I was going to go with the rule because there's no major reason, but I am actually going to say
ruin because the CL500 that I just recently bought is going great. I'm like 15, 1600 miles deep in
that car. All wonderful, but I'm still driving in silence. I have the amplifiers failed. I sent
off to get fixed. The people that fixed them said, yeah, no, that's knackered. We can't fix that.
So I look for another amplifier and then 900 pounds for a used one and I could fit that and
that could be knackered and I'd be in the same spot. There's not really a proper solution yet.
So I'm talking to a few people about dealing with that. So I'm searching for braking cars.
It's a very small ruin, but yeah, the silence, it does become deafening after a while.
I've done many hours of silence. I was about to say you did a two hour journey up here today,
right? Yes. On phone music. No, I, this was silence today and the odd ways. That was it.
So just like that. What about you this week? Definitely, there's a bit of ruin going on,
I'd say. A little bit of ruin again. There's two-fold ruin. One is we've got an L3,
me and my wife have an L3-22 Range Rover. So that's always ruined. That's an ongoing
like flat line of ruin. But then also just at the point, I thought, oh, the fabrication
is nearly done on my autographs car. Yeah, they've changed the rules. I've got changed
a load of the tube frame now. So yeah. I mean, that's like classically what's killed lots of
homologation cars in the past, right? It's building a car going, we're ready and then going,
Oh dear. Actually, we've got to change that. We have to change all of it. So a little bit of ruin.
It's a roller coaster and I think this is basically the whole point of this
ups and down with car thing. But we get it literally on a daily basis. There's highs and lows.
I think at the minute, the ones that are clear in my mind are yesterday was a massive high,
because an engine that we've been involved with developing was on the dyno for the first time
yesterday. And we were all slightly clenched that it might not go to plan because it's the first
time it's run at all. And it is a completely scratched design block, everything. The whole
lot is for one off design. And it went so far flawlessly and made an immense amount of power.
So that was a massive high. I'm going to go with the negative this week being my daily car and
shame is going to be poured upon me here. I do drive an EV as my daily car. I have a VW ID 7.
And for whatever reason, since I got my new car, yeah, that's the ruin. That's it.
Since I got a new phone like a couple of weeks ago, my Google, Apple CarPlay, whatever it is,
Android Auto, that's it, is just flatly refusing to do what I want it to do.
Oh, you're with Will. It's just like, normally voice control, perfect. You press the thing,
it says it makes a noise, you ask for what you want, it works. Since I got my new phone,
constant irritation with it. Half the time, press the button and then it bongs again immediately
afterwards, resets as if you've not said anything. No, this is not what you expected me to talk about.
There's world problems.
Just say, oh, an engine blow up, something didn't work and you can't have an electric car.
The voice control of it is not working optimally.
Do an update, turn it off in the back on again.
Or possibly just set fire to the bloody thing.
For me, it's a rule because we have just started our next series, which is,
you'll see in the coming weeks, but it is Will and I buying back our first cars,
not our exact first cars, unfortunately, they're both scrapped. So we went out and bought identical
versions of, we'll actually get onto your guys' first cars soon. But Will, what was yours?
A 1.25 Fiesta style.
A recent acquisition, we bought it in the week. It also was a great buying experience,
because you went in with an offer. Do you want to explain the offer?
Yeah, I don't know. I think things like the CL500 Glada skewed my view of the value of parts on
things. So the Fiesta, it's been a long time since I've had a Fiesta. It was up for $13.95,
I think it was. It was a little bit rough. When I looked at it, it was rough. And the guy came out.
I mean, it wasn't the best sales experience, I'll be honest. A guy came out, gave me the
key and walked off. He went, so there somewhere, please take it away.
But then his parting message was, and he's a starter motor or something,
and then just walks off. And I was like, what do you mean? But then we started it, fine.
Drove around this little car park, fine. Turned it off, turned it on, turned it off, turned it on.
I was like, okay, starter motor is starter motoring. So I don't know what's going on here.
But I had an MOT that was up in like six or seven days or something.
So we offered 900 quid. And I said, look, you don't need to deal with those things. We'll deal
with them. And then I thought, well, actually, I don't want to deal with those things. I just
want to modify it as my first car. So I offered them 1200. I don't know where the 300 extra pounds
came from for the starter motor and an MOT. But nonetheless, Fiesta mark six.
Fiesta mark six. And then I've got only car I've listened to music in the last month.
And then I've got a Mark IV Golf 1.6 16 valve. So you know that bad boys going on Porsche wheels?
You know, it's got Cayenne brakes coming. I'm going stance boy, like I was when I was 17.
But more than that, it's a rule. It's a rule, but also a rule. We have to, we have to
a little aside for an apology. Thruxton is very nice to us. You've heard us go there multiple
times. But we, for the end of the video, it's quite funny. We went on a track day. We got black
flagged. Well, I've got black flagged and kicked off the track. Sorry, Thruxton.
It wasn't for noise either. It wasn't for noise. It was because we were in practice.
Because we kind of, look, when you're 17, you act like a prick in a car. And something about
being back in your first car, we were being pricks again. So it wasn't anything too bad.
They just said, you're getting a bit hot under the collar.
Fortunately, we're in very slow cars, which is part of the issue actually. And overtaking is
when 70 horsepower is trying to overtake 100 horsepower, it doesn't happen at pace.
No, no. It's a drawn out. For the time you're overtaking, the next corner is coming up and you
have to concede the space again. The next lap or not. So that's what they thought. So yeah,
we said, we're very sorry, but it was quite fun. And luckily, there was no one else on track.
Yeah, I know. It was just like we'd rented the place. It was wonderful.
It was also mainly because that was going to be my other little part of ruin.
Because I went in at 8am to pick the car up. We both turned up to go to Thruxton.
Ben was there for ready to be there at the track 9.30am. And I noticed a pile of coolant
underneath the Volkswagen Golf because it has a Volkswagen badge. That's the reason why.
And it needs a radiator. It's trying to become air cooled.
Pretty sure my ID 7 could even manage to have a coolant under it.
So I had to do a radiator at 8 in the morning, run to your car parts, get a radiator,
forget the fact that the Mark 4 Golf requires the entire front end to be taken off to do a
radiator, which was fun. Did it, stressed and made it in the end. So it's a real first reason.
It's just like being back with the first car though, to be honest. That is the experience.
I need to get somewhere and it's in bits. Somehow I have less experience than when I was 17.
I don't know. But yes, so that's our rules and rules for the week.
Please stick yours in the comments as always. This is a quick shout out to NordVPN for sponsoring
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cream pod or just hit the link in the description. Let us get on to the matter at hand of you guys.
First, I want to start with where did it start? So your passion is not only modifying cars,
restoring them to use the very 2020, well it's not even 2020. No, it's probably the 2016 word
of rest-o-mod. Where did that start with? What were your first cars? What was your
start in the business? Well, that's much older than me, so I'll let him go first.
Start with us or start with the business. I mean, the start with us was sort of,
to be honest, it's not really cars. It's more just anything mechanical, anything with engines for me.
I'm kind of engineering background. Anything with an engine, anything with wheels, I've always
just messed about with it really. And I grew up around farms, not on a farm, but might as well
have been messed about with tractors and trailers and stuff since I was sort of seven or eight or
something and that sort of thing. Just growing up in that environment, I'd always messed around with
things and we drove cars around. My parents had a bit of a small holding in the middle of nowhere
and we drove cars around the field, their little field at the back and that sort of thing and sort
of, you know, all that sort of stuff. The single-digit age or just getting in double digits?
Probably just into double digits, I think by that point. Yeah, that sort of thing. And I'm
working at the farm, I kind of, I remember one of my early motoring experiences. I've
had been in early teens, I think, Peugeot 504 pickup round a stubble field sideways
and that sort of thing. So, yeah, that sort of growing up, that sort of experience probably had
a few influences. And then, first car? First, I like to say second car more because it's more
interesting. The first car was a VW Polo, which I own for a very, very, it was a saloon, a classic
saloon. Rare. Rare. Even would be really cool now. It could be really cool now if I hadn't
totaled it within a couple of months of having it. So that, I was, yeah, I was 18 and that ended
up end over end and on fire. That's the best way for any first car to end. And then I bought an
Opel Mantre because I decided that I only needed a proper car that drove the correct wheels and
I got a Mantre and had that for a while, actually, and that was good fun. And then
my first modified car was, which would have been, show me age now, 96. Got a newer Mantre and
exclusive. So it was an 88. So it was eight years old and already needed welding everywhere,
which is just crazy. And then I put a 16-valve on throttle bodies in that.
So was it, was the basis, were you a voxel man? Were you voxel man?
Opel kind of, just, it kind of graduated to that because I like Mantres. And so between us, we've
had many Opels, basically. I don't know how many, but lots.
Well, I was going to say, I mean, Mantres are like the basis of Retro Power, where you guys kind of
began. Was yours also a Mantre at the beginning? No. My first car was a Sierra, which sounds
seems an odd first car choice, but impressed the young ladies with a massive family saloon.
So fighting within the family, Ford versus Voxel slash Opel, that's, that's,
Sierra, it was a 1990, I think, 92 or 93 Sierra, a zero when they were doing,
the Mondeo was due any day soon. And so they were arting up the crap old base model Sierras
with fancy names and spoilers, even though I had a 1600 Pinto in it, which is like the worst engine
you could possibly have. Well, maybe a 1300 Pinto like in the early ones. But yeah, I had that.
And then we put a, well, I bought a, I bought a two liter Pinto off, was it?
Phil and Mick Squires, rally competition equipment. That was it. And then as he was putting it in the
boot, I lifted the cam cover off, which was loose. And he looked at it and was like, oh,
oh, no, that one's had like different cam put in it and stuff. And I was like, yeah, too like now.
He's on double valve. We had like a Weber 38 D gas carb off a three liter Capri on it.
And so your first car, you engine swapped. Yes. So, okay. So that's a good, a good indication of
things to cover. Because that is so in your, in your own words, how would you in a sentence or
to describe retro power without my, my shoddy magazine title, you know, tagline.
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There's two ways to describe it. There's the down to earth way that I would, I see retro power,
which is a load of guys messing around with cars in a shed, which is ultimately what it is.
And we've always been key not to put an overly corporate polished facade on things,
because there are so many companies out there that do that, but there's no substance behind it.
And we want to be the other way around, like have the substance, perhaps not polished corporate
facade. If I was being all marketing minded, I would say we basically build bespoke cars for
people where off the peg is not good enough. And those clients come from all around the world.
Yeah. I mean, just from some of the stuff we've seen today, not only because I've
followed you guys for a long time, but even I wasn't aware, and I'm sure you weren't aware,
some of the lengths that you go to from literally building entire bodies from the ground up,
and entire engine blocks from the ground up, as opposed to even buying something and then
fashioning it to how you want it to, you're bypassing that and creating it from scratch.
Is that fair to say? Yeah. And it's this eternal striving to
exactly match the car to what that client wants from the way it feels, the way it feels,
the performance, the way it looks, every detail of it. And when you get to a certain point,
you're just like, well, actually, I know exactly what this guy wants. And none of the things I
can buy off the shelf are going to do that. We'll always look at it and go, that was a compromise
because we couldn't. And we're very grateful that we've got to this point where these people
come into us with the budgets and the trust to say, just build it the best you can build it,
which is amazing. It's a position we never envisaged from the start. There was never a
plan to be where we are now from the start. At the start, we were just like, we like messing
around with cars, should we rent a shed and mess around with cars in a shed? And we couldn't
build enough, we couldn't do enough. So we started getting other people to help us and
taking on more people. And then we wanted to build more cars. So we surrounded ourselves with
a team of people who are like us, basically just love messing around with cars. That's it.
And for those that don't know of you or don't know of a car that you've built, what is a halo car
that you would explain to someone else? This is a retro power car.
There's a few. I mean, I think every time we achieve what we see as the halo car,
then it resets the benchmarks. So then the next thing was driving after the next halo car.
The one that I think a lot of people discovered us after we built and that a lot of the guys,
probably myself and that included, would consider to be the sort of pivotal moment
from the reference point. The pivotal moment in retro power's history was when Gordon Murray
approached us. So Gordon Murray, for those who don't know, it was the chief designer at McLaren
for the F1 team. He went on to design or be heavily involved with the design of the McLaren F1.
And now, of course, has his own company, Gordon Murray Design and Gordon Murray Automotive.
And he sees amazing super cars like the T50. So he approached us to build what was essentially
going to be a regular use car for him, a regular loose road car, which was he wanted to go to
work and back in it, which was a modified Martin Escort. And that's also where we
kind of properly went onto YouTube because we've always wanted to do some kind of visual show
that showed the detail involved with building a car rather than just glossing over the details.
And we thought, it's Gordon Murray, it's a Martin Escort. The audience for that combination is going
to be enormous. If we don't do this on YouTube, we're never going to do it. So if we backpedal
slightly on that, when you were saying about wanting to show the detail, that's on a background of
up until that point, much less so recently, but up until that point, we had quite a lot
of approaches from TV production companies saying, oh, we want to do a series. And can you,
approaching is basically about doing rehashes of wheelie dealers almost continuously. And we
basically said we don't want to be involved with any of those things because they just don't show
the real world. And then that got really as thinking, well, actually, we want to do your own
YouTube channel, then we can just show how it really is. And that gave us the opportunity to
do that car. And then we pushed things really hard doing that car. There was another background to
it, which was that we tried to have a financial discussion with Gordon on that car, and he wouldn't
entertain a discussion. He just refused to discuss money. We said, we must have an idea
really what you want to spend on the car. And he just said, no, it doesn't matter.
Just want it right. I mean, that's ideal. It is, but it's actually quite difficult,
because then there's never an excuse of, well, we only had the budget to do this.
Yeah. So where do you go? There is no limitation. Yeah. So, well, do we do a live axle? Well,
it seems a bit silly to put leaf springs and a live axle on a car that's where there's no
budgetary constraint. So what were we actually trying to do with the car? What's it actually for?
And then we're doing a wiring loom, but we're not going to put an old fuse box bought from the
motor factors in it. Are we all selling like that? I was going to say, the man who famously,
his biggest gripe on potentially one of the most perfect cars on earth, is that there was a bracket
mounted to a bracket. He's not going to overlook anything. No, he's not going to go, that'll be
fine. At the same time, really easy, really nice guy to work with, really straightforward to work
with absolutely brilliant customer. You couldn't get a better person to work with because he knew
the background of what you were doing. It was easy to explain things to him because,
obviously, you understood most of it anyway, and he would understand the reasoning for things
immediately as well. But equally, we would never, yeah, do not attempt to pull the wool over that
man's eyes on anything. Fortunately, we're very transparent with everything. So that would be,
but goodness me, that wouldn't work well. It's amazing that he came to you. We kind of said
this downstairs, but you didn't have to pursue him. There'll be a lot of companies that will want
to go out there and get those clients by saying, look at what we do, look at what we do. But he
just came, I mean, was it an email or something that came through? Just a phone call from somebody
who worked for him. He says prank call. We just thought some man named Gordon Murray was going
to be here. He looks a lot like Gordon Murray. So yeah, that was definitely a pivotal moment,
as I sort of explained when we were chatting earlier, there was an upward curve already there in
terms of the level of ambition of the project. So as more people kind of entrusted us with more
ambitious projects, but then that curve suddenly had a kink in it, which zoomed it up very steeply.
Cool thing about that is he actually, because he does use it as a regularly used car,
because we registered that as a new car, we can do the MOT check on it each year.
And you can see the Mali's going on. So that was as in like the...
It was 2019 registered that car. Okay, so okay, that's...
Although it's had a historic plate, but then put on it, but it's actually a 2019.
So do you have to then jump through all of the legal group goals? Because it's not even type of
proof. No, we had to IVA and put it through type proof. So what is that registered as?
A retro power twin cam. Oh, that's cool. That's really cool.
Manufacturers retro found the models twin cam. And do you know how many miles he's got on it by now?
I don't know now, but I know. It's reasonable. It's a good few thousand.
So he is using it. Oh, yeah, yeah. That I think is... That's something that I...
We fairly regularly get photos and emails from people that have seen it out and about.
Because the thing with Bresto mods that I think is...
It's a blessing and a curse at the same time is that the people that start doing them are the
people most passionate about the car. They're the person willing to put the time and all the money
into getting it built because they love the car and they want it to work.
But then it becomes a little bit trendy. And then you see the singers where they are...
They're bought and then they immediately go out for sale or they immediately go into a garage.
That wasn't the whole point. The point was to perfect the car.
And that's the benefit of doing one-offs. What we do is that you're only building one
and that person's got to be passionate about it because they're never going to sell it.
Yeah, it's their car.
It's their car.
So I've got some questions. We've got what is the either of you,
the favorite car each of you have built so far at Retro Power?
No. That first?
It's a tricky one now because it's a bit of a...
I still do really like the blue alpha that we built.
That's my favorite.
It's not the most perfected, the most refined car we've ever built,
but I do love the combination of the sledgehammer under the bonnet but the beautiful, the pretty
body. It's the pretty body with a massive stick that it hits you with.
And that's probably the most me sort of car that we've built.
I think over the one, my favorite would probably be Gordon's Escort just for the whole experience
of doing it. But I kind of... My favorite, as in the one that wins my heart the most,
I think is still the alpha probably.
So for those of you that don't know, back in... We think it was 2016.
Yeah, I think so.
I was working at Carthroal. We were working together and I had been following for some years a
company called Retro Power and I begged and pleaded our manager Jake to please organize a
filming day where we could come down and film anything. I didn't care what we were doing.
I just wanted to come and have a look and we ended up filming the blue Retro Power Alpha
Junior, which is also one of my favorite cars on earth. It has the Millington Diamond Engineet,
which is 2.7 for that year, making nearly 300 horsepower.
Just a bit over, yeah.
Just a silly amount of power. But then the interior, you're using pole positions at that time, right?
The Recaro's just... Have a look online. We'll put some photos on overlay right now,
but it is beautiful. And the reason that we came back here as well, because I know you guys.
And then, Callum, what's yours?
It's really difficult because it's a bit like asking the question of what is your favorite car
full stop to anyone. Every car has a job it has to do and we're designing the car to fulfill
that specific role. So having an overall favorite is quite hard because it depends on what I'm doing
with it. So that gray Jag XJ coupe we built, it looks stunning. It's amazing to cruise in.
If I was going to use any of the cars we've built as a daily drive, I think that would probably be
the one. But then the Land Cruiser that we've built, which you've probably seen it does,
it's just... I love it because I love the simplicity of it. It's not like... It doesn't
shout modified car at all in any way whatsoever. Yeah, almost every part of it is bespoke and
machined and the detail on it, I love. But then driving the Escorts that we've built,
Murray's probably even more, Project 1, which we finished more recently because it had a BD in it.
I always felt the DuraTek was just... There was like 10% missing on the DuraTek, I felt,
in terms of the noise and the aggression from it. But it was an amazing car to drive. But I felt
Project 1 was a little bit more aggressive and a little bit just satisfied that for a country
lane thrash, when you want to just hammer it down some country lanes, incredibly so stable because
it was independent as well. So yeah, really, unlike the Allegro, which I've not driven yet,
imagining how the driving experience is going to be because I'm expecting it will be like a DC2
Type R. So I think that is the most well-rounded, complete package. It's always difficult to say
this because it's not like any of the cars we're building are incomplete, but I just feel on that
one. It's such a usable car. I still got the split folding rear seats. It's got a usable boot. It's
like 200 horsepower, but it's going to feel like a Honda to drive with the same level of sort of
NVH. It's going to be light. It sort of ticks almost everybody. If you were trying to pick
your favourite car, if you could only have one car forever, it would have to sort of do all of
those things reasonably well. And I think that's probably the car we've built that is going to
do everything pretty darn well. So for those of you that don't know, that is an Austin Allegro,
which if you're not from the UK, is a bit of a joke car. It's kind of seen as a, I don't even
know what the right word is, but they're at the butt of the joke. It's synonymous with the worst
of the British motor industry. Exactly. And yet you've turned it into one of the coolest looking,
but also a functionally very well-driving car that's basically grafted with a Type R,
which is ridiculous. I'm proud probably, again, let's get it driving, but I think,
yeah, as an overall thing, I'm probably the most proud of that as an all-round product of anything
we've done. It's the closest we've come to an off-the-peg OEM car in terms of fit and finish,
and in general, it obviously helped drastically by using a lot of Honda. And all of the bits,
all of the slightly sort of, we think this should work. We've done a few checks, everything stacks
up, but you never quite know till you come to do it. But all of the things stacked up perfectly,
really well, and everything fell into place as we'd hoped it would. And it was one of those ones
where the boxes all just tick nicely as we built it, and everything just worked right.
The idea with that was that you'd take the worst possible car and make it into the best
possible car. Do you get that often with client, with customers, or is it often...
So I was going to ask if there is a general client that you get that's like, they're normally this
tight, but from the cars we've seen, they're so varied. Yeah, hugely wide-ranging. And that's
one of the things I most enjoy. Now, my role has transitioned away from being, obviously,
we used to be hands-on. It was just not an art to start with. So literally, we did all the work.
Now, I do almost none of the work. But the thing I enjoy most now is probably the meeting such a
broad spectrum of people and having so much involvement with them and seeing how these
totally different visions of what a car should be come out of different people. And that's,
yeah, that's amazing. So there isn't any one type. Yes, the Allegro was somebody thinking,
I suppose if we backtrack a little bit, a lot of our clients have got a fair amount of money. It's
fair to say, when you get to that position where you can basically buy any car, what car do you
buy that then feels special? Because, yeah, okay, a GC3 RS is pretty handy. If you want to go on a
track day, a Rolls-Royce is going to take you very comfortably somewhere. But if you pull up
outside the Casino in Monaco in any supercar or any luxury car, it doesn't really raise any
eyebrows. There's already one there. If you pull up outside the Monaco Casino in a wide-bodied
Austin Allegro, that is a lot more of a talking point. And also, people can't form an opinion of
you because there is no benchmark. People drive something like a Ferrari and, yeah,
that's an awesome car, but a lot of people will think you're a bit of a ball end.
They just form that assumption in most cases unfairly. But you turn up in an Austin Allegro
and people don't know what opinions they form. There is no preconceived opinion for that car.
So they're just like, that's awesome. Or I don't know what that is, but there's never negative
because there's no benchmark for that being a negative thing. Will, what's your favorite
that you saw today? It's a difficult one. It really is. I don't know if we can talk about the Saab
with the Audi underpinning. That was really cool. What I really like is when you
seeing those cars that you've put another car underneath basically. So it looks like an old
car, but underneath it's all functioning like that. That was pretty cool. We'll put the
renders overlay here because the renders of that car, remember when I first saw it, when you first
released those renders, I was like, nah, there's no way that car looks obscene. If it's even 20%
of what it looks like on the render, that is going to be a absolutely mental car.
What was I've got next? Super customer as well. I mean, obviously,
pretty much all our customers are super customers, but he's very interactive. We have a lot of two
and fro with the owner of that car. And yeah, he's great. He's a great customer to work with.
Yeah, really, really nice chat. Have you ever had to say no to someone,
like an idea to it? Not necessarily on like taste, but on like, this is a, you can't do this.
All the time. All the time. Well, not from a this isn't possible point. I don't think we would,
as far as I'm concerned, basically anything is possible. But we have had to say no all the time.
There's different categories of no. So there's no two inquiries. Like somebody approaching us and
saying, can you build this? And I was going, no, not because we can't just because I don't agree
with the idea of it. You know, we have to, that's a very important thing when we're taking on new
projects is it's a really long term relationship with, you know, and it's, there's a lot of money
involved. There's potentially a lot of stress involved. So got to be somebody that we align
with, we get on with, we share the vision for the end product. That's, that's like number one rule
really, that we've got to understand the end vision. But then there's also the nose during the
process in terms of usually in terms of design choices. And yeah, there will be occasions where
people will say, I think we should do this. And I will have to say no, because from my design
perspective, if you or any of the, any of the, any of the team, it could be an engineering thing,
could be George or Luke doing a cosmetic design thing. If we think that choice won't produce,
it doesn't, isn't in keeping with the overall ethos of what we're trying to achieve.
Yeah. Yeah, definitely say no. It won't be a blunt, no, we're not doing that. But it would be,
maybe you should, maybe you should think about doing it like this. Maybe you should think about
the right way, because that's, that's part of what we would do. It's a bit like hiring an architect
to design a house. You know, there will be points that architect will go, you don't want to do it
like that. I can see how you want to live in that house. That isn't going to work. And in the same
way, we're looking at how somebody wants to use a car. And if they've already told us that, and
they say, I want to do this, and we're like, that isn't going to give you the car you want.
And yeah, also your, your name is not that the work could be any poorer, but if you start putting
out some really bad looking stuff, in terms of like aesthetic, people go, I think it's,
ties back into going right back to when we were talking about first cars this bit, quite nicely.
And the thing you learn when you first start messing about with cars, sort of, you know,
18, 19, 20, whatever, messing, modifying cars is the bit you don't know at that age,
or I'm certainly speaking from my experience, is what you actually want to do with it. You just
go, I want to put this engine in it. I want to put these bits on where you don't really think,
why do I want to do that? What am I going to do with it? You just go, I want to do this. And what
I learned a long time ago was I kept thinking, what if I want to do this? I want to make it
faster. I want to do this. Actually, what I really want to, what do I want it for? What do I want
it for? And that's the key to all of these projects is asking the customer, what do you want to do
with it? What's it for? What, why do you want to do this? And then that gives you the reasoning to
work your way through the project and work at how to do it. If you don't have that clear picture at
the beginning, then that's definitely a no. Because there's no point building the car if you're not
not building the car you want to build. Because of that, for me, I would, if it was me, I'd be like,
no, no, no, you want the comps. You want the comps, mate. You don't want those wheels.
Can I make it pink? Can I go, it's better in green. Do you ever struggle with that? Or are you
quite happy to? I don't really know. I think very rare. It must be, it must just be the way
my brain works, I suppose, is I'm always thinking about what it was the customer originally said
they wanted. And kind of putting myself in those shoes. And therefore, I'm making my choices,
but not for the car I would be specifically choosing. Yeah, exactly. If I wanted the car
that that customer's asked for, what would I do? But then that is doing what the customer wants.
So no, not really. In the odd time, there is a car that would literally be like a dream car of
mine. And they do crop up. So the BMW E9 we're building at the minute,
the customer pretty much said to me, you like BMW E9s, don't you? Because we did an episode,
I think, where we talked about that. And he said, well, I quite like him as well. Do you want to
build one? And we were like, yeah, okay. And he was like, okay, source one. And then he was like,
well, how would you build it if it was yours? And we were like, well, S54 engine, six speed manual,
you know, kind of listed off the basics. And he was like, build it like that then.
Which is amazing. Would you prefer to do it where you provide the car rather than
there must be some difficult conversation sometimes where someone says, here's my old car,
make it better. And you go, your old car is a colander now because it's full of holes.
We're used to the fact that whoever sources it, they're all scrapped to start with anyway.
We're pretty used to the fact they're all pretty poor. And the roller coaster starts
pretty early on in the blast room, you know, you get it blasted and you go, yeah, that's full
of holes, but they all are. And I mean, I remember one of the, there's a classic moment, one of the
escorts that we built, one of the, the pair of Martin escorts that we built,
we sourced a pair of cars for those. And I remember one of them came in and I remember
a few of our teams sort of looking at it and saying, oh, it's perfect, this car, it's been
rude to cut it up. It's, I think the word unicorn was used and, oh, we can't be cutting this up
and doing all this. And then you blast it and you go, yeah, there might only be small holes,
but basically it needs every panel. There's unicorn car needs every panel.
I put it in the booth, where's it gone? It's in the booth.
Yeah. And it didn't look that bad from a slight distance, but as soon as you get
close up, it's just like any other car, it's still full of holes and it all needs replacing.
And they're all, they're all much of a muchness really. They can get pretty bad before they're
notably worse than any other one. They've had one or two odd ones where they were really good,
but they're definitely the exception to the rules. A couple of my golfs, a VWs,
I had a couple of golfs actually that came, have come through the ranks over the years that have
been, not Mark IV stuff. Yeah, a pair of Mark IIs that Mark I cabrio and a Mark II that came
through that barely needed any metalware. No one's retropowering a Mark IV yet.
If, okay, you guys are now the clients, what would you have you build?
Oh, God. We'll build it for you.
So I start. What budgets have I got? How many cars can I choose?
That's completely up to you, but one car that you'd like to see.
Easy one for me. So I'll start, because that's an easy one for me. Range Rover Classic.
The Range Rover Classic I'm building, but done on a proper budget, not my budget.
And that's the one that's getting an LS. It's got the LS in it.
Sorry, this is really geeky, but I just want to know for me, what gearbox are you using?
On that, it's a 6L-IUT. Okay, so it's staying GM on that.
Okay, cool. So it's a Range Rover Classic, and then for you, come.
Even with that amount of time to think about it, I still don't know. It changes like...
Is it an electric car?
Yeah, it's an ID7.
Definitely not. Absolutely not. That's an easy one.
It's an ID7 with a working car flag.
Yeah, right now, that would actually be perfect, but...
What would you have? Because you're mid-2000s, it's your area.
But you like Mark I, Mark II Escort?
Mark II Escort is perfect, like with a more of a rally look, that that with a proper high-revving
ITB engine of some sort.
10 to 13s on the back.
Yeah, just sideways. I always forget the name of the driver. I think it's Simon,
something else. Just a video of a guy absolutely herring around a rally stage.
He doesn't really have any sponsors on it, so it just looks like a road car.
It looks like a bloke just turned up to a rally stage and started throwing it around.
Unfortunately, I'm sure I'm thinking he's dead.
Yes, he is.
Simon McKinley.
Yes, that's the one.
That is the one.
It's unbelievable.
For that video, just once a month, I watched him go...
It's a count.
Yeah, I doubt I'd be able to drive it quite like that.
No, no, no.
But his foot in the headland.
In your head, are you doing that? You're just going around around about the A4 and 4.
I won a 90s Continental. I'm not a Bentley man, but the 90s Continental are on the T and all of
those ones. But I won it with a Hellcat. I won it with a Hellcat motor connected to just a ZF8.
Nothing that special with line lock. And I wanted to look mostly standard.
And then they had the Muller and the Widebody just with filled out arches.
And I've always had... I've had a render that I made when I was 17 of that car.
But with the... You know, they asked in V600 wheels, the 5G spoke.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Those filled out the arches.
We had a customer come over in one of them, didn't we?
That is basically a standard interior.
Just looking all like normal, nice leather and wood.
I don't want to absolutely melt the rear tires at any point.
So I just want to turn up to a light.
Someone goes, oh no, oh boy.
Stuff you all do in a Bentley and then just...
I can't see the appeal of that.
That's more along the lines of the sort of thing I'd probably go for.
I'm more inclined in the direction of something that'd be comfortable to cruise around in.
Because it goes back to, again, what would I use it for?
With the Mark II Escort. I love driving Mark II Escorts,
but I don't think I'd use it that much.
It would be like that.
Maybe on the odd sunny summer's day when I want to get the back end out
and crash into a ditch like I did with my E30, then yes.
But for normal use, I mean, there's probably one that's been on my mind a lot,
which I'm really hoping somebody commissions with us.
So this is often what... The cars I want myself are the ones
I hope somebody comes along to commission.
Rover Sd1. Oh, yes.
I'd love to do an Sd1 and maybe with a Hellcat in it,
or an LT4 or some sort of supercharged modern V8.
Like fairly standard looking, maybe even with the old mesh wheels they had on the Twinplan and ones.
A retake on the interior, but looking almost how it was,
but the material quality is all spot on.
Or maybe we've just had somebody inquiring,
and I think probably likely to book in with us,
a Mercedes 500SEC wide body project with an AMG C63,
basically full restore mod based on one of them.
I think that would be really hard on my list.
That's very cool.
Ran thought off the top of my head.
I just remembered, have you seen the Christian Von Tönigsegger spree?
No.
So he has bought an Esprit. It's a V8 in twin turbo, Jen, right?
It's a V8, I can't remember.
It's one of the really latest sprees,
but he's then gone in and through just doing stuff from his own factory,
built in like a new Apple CarPlay.
He's used S1 Esprit, recovered seat.
It's almost a restur mod.
We nearly booked one.
We actually did some concept renderings for an Esprit a while ago
because a customer was approaching us about it.
Unfortunately, it never went ahead, but I really liked those.
I like the late ones, the rounded.
Are they Peter Stevens, is it?
Especially like, is it the 350 Sport?
It's got yellow with the green writing on the side.
I absolutely love those.
So that, so, you know, Gordon Murray first,
maybe you get a CVK email saying,
I want my spree done again.
That would be cool.
Did you have a Mark IV Golf Cup holder?
Yeah, of course.
You'll know this, what's the, you know, that center air vent.
Is that Gamera?
Or it had some Koenigsegg, like he used the air vents from a Koenigsegg.
He's going to have a few bits lying around.
Which is funny to think, like, that part is probably worth
five grand less price.
He's like, ah, chuck it in the Esprit.
Can you tell us a story about Redux?
Is that, can you talk about that?
We can, yeah.
We probably wouldn't be able to go into massive detail on it,
but yes, it's not, it is public knowledge.
So yes, there is a man who came up with the
concept of doing a RestoMod E30M3
and built one that we weren't involved with at all.
And having handed that one over,
I believe the client that car was for said,
have you met us?
Talking about that and our retro power.
So he approached us because the first one had been kind of done
by approaching a variety of different subcontractors.
So he wanted to try and do it as a one-stop thing,
but approached us and we basically went kind of back
to the drawing board with it and worked with him to
develop his vision for it,
which was basically an all carbon bodied reshaped M3
where everything is elevated to the highest level.
So every, although it's, but it's subtle.
So like all the interior,
all of the fascia panels that would be plastic
and the controls that would be plastic
are all machined from the fillet.
There's an entirely new engine been developed for it,
a 2.7 liter nationally aspirated kind of total reimagination
of the S14 engine that used to be in it.
And yeah, it's been a project that's been amazing to be involved with
and it's, I think, I can't speculate too much about the
exact cars we're building at the minute,
but I would say watch this space over the next couple of years
because there's some extremely spectacularly 30 M3
is going to be doing the rounds at some point.
Just from the ones that we looked at,
obviously we can't talk about them,
but they are absolutely mental.
Oh, like ridiculous.
Like just so cool.
There is, there is.
I want to shout about the one that you're probably thinking about,
but I can't yet.
But when it's out there, yeah, I mean, I'm...
It's hypercar detail.
It's unobtainium spec.
It's genuinely very, very cool.
Cool.
But it looks like an M3.
I said when you said that it was, you know,
it's still flying on the radar,
my uncle or someone would go,
oh, that's an E30 M3.
And then he'd carry on walking.
He'd have zero, you know, zero idea
that there was anything even slightly more special
about it than a standard one.
That to me is one of the coolest things about a Resto mod.
Doesn't need to have 17 wings and be, you know,
with liveries and all that sort of stuff.
Going back, and this is a two-pronged going back,
going back to what you were talking about
about the Allegro earlier outside the casino
and nobody would...
You wouldn't get any negative reaction to it
because nobody really knows.
The same with something like those M3s is, you know,
you don't really know.
It could be somebody insanely wealthy
or not insanely wealthy.
Nobody knows.
It looks like an M3.
Yes, obviously it's not a cheap, cheap car,
but it's a fairly anonymous car in a world of supercars.
It looks fairly anonymous.
And that's also ties in with when we were talking about
what would you build.
The Range Rover Classic,
and we've had this conversation a few times,
I think they're one of the few vehicles that in standard form
you can park.
You don't know.
Somebody driving one of those could be living in a tent
with no money whatsoever, slightly less so now.
But going back a few years, you know, they were cheap.
Oh, yeah.
And yet you can park one outside a very, very posh hotel.
And you would not be able to make any judgment
about the owner of a Range Rover Classic.
You cannot tell.
They're totally anonymous in that respect,
and yet look really cool.
They're classless.
The one way that you can tell which one is which
is that the poor one will have a One Life Live It sticker on it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And the funny thing is on the way to this very building
from your other building,
a Bob-tailed Orange Range Rover Classic
came round the round about puffing black suit out
One Life Live It.
And the front letters rearranged to hangover probably as well.
You're saying that I'm spotting a car around here.
One that left me like gobsmacked not long ago.
It was in the Morrison's car park,
which is literally at the back of here.
And there was a Monteverdi Safari, is it?
The thing that looks kind of like a Range Rover.
But I was like, how is there one of those
just randomly parked in Morrison's car park?
Johnny Smith is currently hunting down this Morrison's.
Yeah, yeah.
He won't like it unless it's absolutely knackered.
Yeah, exactly.
It's not got any rust holes.
Sorry, Johnny, we'll see you on the podcast soon.
What else have we got?
Let me pull up my next question.
The Monteverdi one, isn't it?
In that they develop the Range Rover,
the four-door Range Rover.
And yet they never got to reap the rewards of it.
Is there a sort of a regular road car
that you see every day that you look at and go,
because it's not the sort of car
that a client's going to come to you and go,
I've got one of these.
But you look at it and go, I'd like,
because I remember my dad always asked me this question
and he said that RCZ Peugeot is ripe for it.
Because it looks like the body.
No, but it looks good.
Yeah.
But everything underneath is just crap.
Like it's got a diesel engine and it's front-wheel drive.
But if that was mid-engine and rear-wheel drive
or four-wheel drive, you'd have like a little French
sports car or supercar.
But is there a regular car you look at?
There are.
Yeah, like the Volvo V90, is it?
I think that's a really nice thing.
Nice looking car.
We talk about it most weeks.
We love them.
Really?
I genuinely didn't know that either.
I think they're ridiculously nice design.
Weirdly, and this is totally...
As a BMW fan, I want to like most modern BMWs,
but I don't.
I hate most of them with a passion.
But the new M2, I actually think is a really nice design.
I'm generally approaching these from a cosmetic point of view,
because I haven't driven most of them.
Yeah, they're definitely two.
Everybody will say this, but I wouldn't mind a GR Yaris.
What else do I see that kind of catches my eye?
Sometimes it's like ridiculous mundane stuff, though.
I can't even think, what?
But you just think, oh, that's unusual.
That could do nicely with a wide body.
And then do you look at those, something like the Yaris or the M2,
do you look at that and go, we'd do a good job on that?
Something that no one else is doing now or is it too modern?
I'll tell you what we said recently.
I was just trying to think there's not much that I see,
but I'll tell you what we've said recently that would be the interesting one,
would be to do the IC conversion of the Renault 5.
Yes.
Oh, yes.
Engine convert a Renault 5 EV.
Well, that might break the internet if we do that.
But what engine?
I reckon maybe the Megane R26.
Yeah.
Something like that.
It's possibly, but...
So we will got one from Renault, because we want to test it.
And even as an EV, it was quite fun.
But we've popped the engine.
There are engine mounts.
I think they knew what they were doing.
I think they were like,
someone's going to rip this out and put an engine.
It just looks like an engine bay for an engine.
Yeah.
It looks like you take all that stuff out.
I'm sure the floor is probably where all the batteries are.
It might be the hardest bit.
I would love to do that.
We could definitely solve that.
Yeah.
And the Alpine version with like,
it's just got those extra little like intake bits in front of the rear wheel,
which looks so good.
Have you ever had that electric car?
I mean, or something?
As opposed to a project.
We've had a few passing inquiries.
I mean, despite driving an EV as my daily,
I don't necessarily agree with that.
Essentially, it has to be matched to the use,
as with all the projects.
And most of the projects we're building are fun cars,
not the person's everyday car.
And this is where, for me,
the EV is a perfect car for me to just get 10 miles to home and back each day,
because, you know, I can press a button in the house and warm it up and de-ice it
and then get into it warm.
And it costs me absolutely nothing to run.
It's a company car.
So the company car tax thing,
there's basically no company car tax or it's a small amount now.
So it makes a huge amount of sense.
But I never get into that car or any of the EVs I've owned and think,
like, oh yeah, I'm going to take the long way home for a fun drive.
Yeah, like, even in that Honda Legend,
you know, since you met me last time, so nine years,
still even in that, I would occasionally go, you know what,
I'm just going to go like 20 miles out my way on the way home,
because I'm enjoying driving it.
It's a surprising me fun car on that Legend.
And so, yeah, we've never really done one because there's never been somebody
approach us with an idea that I thought was sensible for an EV conversion,
except one, which, frustratingly, we never did.
But we were approached by somebody to do a Citroen SM EV conversion.
And I thought that was the perfect car for it,
because the whole ethos of the original was to remove you from the driving experience.
You were supposed to just waft along.
It had this crazy power steering system that had zero caster.
So it didn't, like, it didn't self-centred, did it?
You have to steer back to centre.
It's sort of, to me, that was so designed to just waft around effortlessly.
It kind of made sense.
So I think if the right car came along, we would do it.
Yeah, it's just nobody has ever come to us other than that one,
which didn't go ahead for other reasons.
Nobody has ever come to us with an idea that I thought made sense.
I had somebody say, somebody talk about minis, for instance, and it's like,
yes, I get a small car to get around London with an electric engine in it.
But putting a, oh, you get like 300 horsepower off this little motor,
it's like, why do you want to put 300 horsepower through the front?
I've driven a 250 horsepower Red Top Power.
Horrible.
It was terrible.
It was absolutely vicious.
It's like talk, literally, you had to be in the middle of the road,
because it could go two metres that way or two metres that way
every time you press the throttle.
Yeah, there's so much, this is one of the, I mean,
going to try not to rant now.
But it's one of my pet hates is this sort of EV classic conversion thing,
where everybody says, oh, yes, but it's really fast.
Yes, it will be, and it'll be really fast.
And for a week, it'll be the best thing since slide spread,
and then you'll be bored, and then it'll be crap.
Yeah.
And that's exactly what will happen.
Guarantee that, I imagine there'll be maybe some people
listening to this who have done this,
and probably in that situation, reluctantly admitting that actually,
now they've experienced it going really fast in a straight line,
it's actually a bit crap.
Ford BlueCruise, hands-free highway driving,
takes the work out of being behind the wheel,
allowing you to relax and reconnect, while also staying in control.
Enjoy the drive in BlueCruise-enabled vehicles,
like the F-150 Explorer and Mustang Mach-E.
Available feature on equipped vehicles,
terms applied, does not replace safe driving.
See Ford.com slash BlueCruise for more details.
Yeah, it gets, it does the same thing every single time over and over,
it never changes what it does.
No, no, there's no heart, there's not the soul,
there's not the changing noises from the engine,
there's not all the things, the smells and whatever,
there's not all the little things that make it worth having,
the things that make it fun.
It goes really fast, and you can say,
oh yeah, it dusted a Porsche off the line in Mini the other day,
and it's great, that's great, and yeah,
now it's done what it can do, and yeah.
You've touched on it there briefly,
with electric car conversions in RestoMods,
but what's your biggest gripe with the wider RestoMods world?
My biggest gripe at the minute is just that it has become such a thing,
and like it felt, I distinctly remember the first time I heard that phrase,
when we were basically just mucking around building modified cars,
that's all it was, it was just modified classics,
and you restore a car and sort of want to make it better,
so you use more modern stuff in it, it seemed like a logical thing,
and then it gained this title, and now there are so many people,
and I think largely thinking, oh, there's loads of money in this,
when there isn't really, the big number of price tags,
doesn't mean for those companies are making loads of profit,
because there's a ton of work that goes into those cars,
and now it's become this thing, like what's the next thing we can RestoMod,
and then market it as a thing, and it's almost becoming irritating to me,
because I feel it feels like we're now enveloped in with all of these other people
who are doing RestoMods.
Who are sticking eBay halo lights on a Defender.
That is, I was going to say, that's my gripe,
is the halo, I have rested in one of the cars,
I've rested in one of the cars, what have you done?
I've put eBay lights on it that have a xenon bulb in the middle,
that's it, that's all it means now.
Yeah, I remember, I distinctly remember the conversation,
I can't remember exactly when, but it was before we set up Retropart,
and we set up in 2009, and I remember having the conversation
with my parents at their house, and I remember saying to them,
just this was before we even considered doing this as a business,
I remember saying something along the lines of,
there's got to be a market for people that want classic cars that work,
and that sums it up for me, is yes, I know there's a lot of more detail to it than that,
but that's where it all starts, is you want the classic car because of how it looks,
really, you want to have how it looks, and maybe a bit of how it makes you feel.
Beyond that, you just want the bloody thing to work, and that's that,
and there's an awful lot of flannel and flouriness put around that,
but that's the actual core idea of the thing.
It makes sense now while you're putting an LS and a Ranger of a classic.
Do you want the flipping thing to work?
That's what always surprises me with some of the,
I think it's more the bigger ones you hear about,
like the Diablo one we saw out in Monterrey,
that I was like, I would, again, I haven't got the money to buy it,
so I'm probably in the wrong here, someone has said I want that,
and that's why it's being made, but it's not looking like a proper Diablo,
I would want a Diablo that looks like a Diablo from that era,
but it starts with the button, I can listen to my music and things work.
You've hit the nail on the head with that as well, because the Diablo and Countach,
both are massively flawed cars, like immensely flawed cars,
and yet that's the only reason to own one, is because they're so flawed,
and if you get rid of the flaws, they're not that car anymore.
The only reason to own one of them is really because they're a flawed car,
you know, they're horrible, driving positions are pawling,
you don't actually get your feet on the pedals,
but that's kind of what makes them the car they are,
and almost kind of why they got elevated to the station they're in,
is they were such excess, if you kind of, it's one of those,
it would be lovely, it would be interesting to do,
to make some changes to something, and try and improve some of those things.
He's talking us out of an entire business model.
Just leave these cars standing, because they're shit, and that's what people look at.
No, but I think there's certain examples where they're only unique because of the excess that went in,
if you take some of that excess away, I think a lot of cars,
there were just improvements you could make, and they weren't improved,
but with something like that, unless I doubt that in this Resto mod,
they've completely removed the underpinnings, and made it so it actually drives properly,
it's relatively standard.
Yeah, and at that point, you've still got all the flaws,
and you've messed around with it, it's not really as well.
And it looks, it doesn't look modern, but it still looks like a Diablo shape,
but they've changed so much of it.
Yeah, it's not identifiable as a Diablo from that era anyway,
and that was what ruined that one for me.
Yeah, I think there was the one with the 550 or the 575 Ferrari that was similar.
But also, but the Diablo one, there's a video of them driving,
I might be top care, I think we've talked about it before,
they drive an original, I think it was a VT Diablo, and then they drive the Resto mod,
and he mats it in the proper Diablo, and the carbs are right there,
and they make the, like almost in the Claren F1, the Nox noise,
and he does the same thing of the new one, doesn't make any noise.
I assume they've gotten rid of the carbs, or they've done, you know, even ITBs,
but the sound's gone.
Your whole mission to Resto on the car is to bring out the qualities that are there that are good,
but get rid of the things that are annoying, and you've made it a modern car.
With the Diablo, it seems a bit of an odd one, because it looks so far removed from it,
that makes sense if you're aiming for it to be a completely new car,
but it still retains enough of the original, it has the downsides of the original,
so it seems like it has the downsides of the original, and no upsides, really.
I think that's kind of better explaining what I was trying to get, but then you look at,
I mean, this links quite nicely into a car that's caused a lot of controversy recently,
that I'm a massive fan of, which is that Ring Brothers Aston DBS,
which everybody is, well, a lot of people have slated it because it doesn't look like an Aston
DBS, but if you take that out of the equation and just go, just treat it as a car, it's absolutely
stunning. The level of detail, the level of execution on it, I've not driven it, of course,
but I can see how the underpinnings have been done. I imagine it drives pretty damn well,
especially compared to an original DBS, and for me, the design of it is awesome if you take
out of the equation that it's supposed to look like a DBS.
My only question mark with that one would be throwing the catch back amongst the pigeons,
though, is what's it for?
Driving, cruising in America, I mean, what more could you want? We supercharged Coyote in it.
Well, we talk about this quite often, that all three of us, we drove, well, Will and I drove,
was it this year? Yeah, it was this year, a C6 Corvette, a Procharged C6 Corvette,
that had the 7.0-litre LS7 in it, and I loved it. It had zero use on the UK roads, absolutely no
point, but Ben is obsessed with C6, C6, 06s, so am I. I'd love to own one, but they have no use here.
You can't use the 7.0-litre on the road. Such a fast car.
Especially Procharged, but take it to America, it would love it. Just doing pulls on the highway
all day, that cars have different uses in different places that they go. So I can imagine
the Aston that you're building will probably drive and be completely different from male.
That both their owners will probably be just as happy for what they're doing with them.
Yeah, I think that's the nail on the head. And this is that we've gone round and round
with our one discussions about the engine, initially with the customer and ourselves,
trying to work out what to do with it. And we've ended up with a Chevy LT1 in it,
which a lot of people view as a bit of a cop-out, because it's only an inverted commas,
450 horsepower. But the remit was never to make a brutally fast car. It's going to be cruising
around the UK, Europe. A lot of the roads aren't going to be massive, straight American-style
freeways. And we wanted to keep the wheels quite small on it, so we couldn't put massive brakes
out. I say quite small, 17-inch, but we couldn't put ridiculously big brakes that would cope with
like a two-ton car with 600 horsepower. So actually, when you take all of these different
factors into account, often the sort of path is just laid out in front of you. And that is the
obvious choice. It's a light, reliable, well-proven engine that you can get with a factory map that
makes the power that he wanted. It doesn't create like clickbait YouTube headlines.
But that's not what we're doing. We're building cars to suit a specific job. And in this instance,
that was the perfect engine for it. But I would say for the Ringbrothers one,
I would imagine that person is going to be cruising some highways on, you know, supercar
tours with a load of mates and having a... It's ridiculously powerful. I can't believe there's
a thousand horsepower there in that car. And also, because of the way it looks, you can't have the
car looking like that and not have a shit ton of power. Whereas ours is going to look exactly
like an Aston Martin DVS. So 450 horsepower is faster than they ever were originally.
Maybe their goal was to put it in a hedge.
Well, yeah. What would you like from this car? I don't want to survive it.
Cool.
A thousand horsepower.
It certainly won't be slow.
Will you have any other questions? If not, I think we're...
I think we're pretty happy there. If you leave us any longer, we will get into deep car
nerdery. And I know you guys listening can only tolerate so much. But thank you guys both for
not only welcoming us here, but letting us do the podcast here on your set. It's been very,
very good. We will definitely be back for, well, more just to poke around. We'll say it's under
the guise of doing a podcast. But thank you very much for listening to this episode of
Cars Roll Everything Around Me. We will be back next week, as always. Remember, cash,
get the money. Dollar, dollar, dollar bills, y'all. There it is. Goodbye.
About this episode
A lively discussion unfolds as the hosts welcome Nat and Callum from Retro Power, a company renowned for their bespoke restomod builds. They dive into their personal car stories, including engine swaps and first cars, while sharing insights about their impressive projects, including a modified Gordon Murray-designed Escort. The conversation touches on the challenges of restoring classic cars, the nuances of customer expectations, and the evolving landscape of the restomod scene. With humor and camaraderie, the episode captures the passion behind automotive craftsmanship and the highs and lows of car ownership.
amplifier
bespoke cars
black-flagged
cam cover
engine swap
Gordon Murray Design
halo car
horsepower
independent suspension
IVA
Acura Integra
Aston Martin DBS
BMW 3.0 CSL
BMW 3 Series
BMW M2
BMW M3
Chevrolet Corvette
Citroen SM
Ferrari 575 M Superamerica
Ford Capri
Ford Escort
Ford Explorer
Ford F-150
Ford Fiesta Active
Ford Ranger
Ford Sierra 3 Doors
GMC Sierra EV
Honda Civic
Lamborghini Countach
Lamborghini Diablo
Land Rover Range Rover
Lotus Esprit
McLaren F1
Opel Manta
Peugeot 504
Peugeot RCZ
Porsche Cayenne
Renault 5 E-Tech Electric
Toyota GR Yaris
Toyota Land Cruiser
Volkswagen Golf
Volkswagen ID.7
Volkswagen Polo
Volvo V90
Original notes
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