C.R.E.A.M. Ft Al Clark - Filming a Bugatti With a Bugatti, Banned Adverts and Meeting Legends

You've had three adverts banned. Yes. Sometimes the feedback is extremely welcomed. And then

sometimes you're just like, just stop talking. You're just talking to talk. Shout out to all my

customers. You've worked with a lot of sort of big stars and big cars, but has there ever been a

pinch yourself, like the standout pinch yourself moment or person or car? One was the biggest

surprise, which was

hello and welcome back to the cars rule everything around me podcast, not episode 72. Like you might

think this is now a bonus episode. Episodes with guests will now be coming at you on a Tuesday

on top of your normal Thursday creaming this week. If you're an audio listener, we have Al

Clark with us. I'm going to do the thing that is, you know, every bad podcast does. Can you

introduce yourself, please and give us a very quick rundown of who you are, what you do. Absolutely.

My name is Al Clark. I'm a film director by trade. A bit of a driver as a side hobby and a bit of a

sort of a side quest for work sometimes as well. I pretty much spend all my working life around

cars going quickly. That's my job. I think it's a pretty good intro. I wish I could say that's

the same thing. I think we're just low rent YouTubers. Going quickly is the we're not really

doing that. A lot of my jobs become an office based job, which is also rubbish, but we can

do that at the same time. I mean, you say that, but at the same time, we're surrounded by some

of your personal cars. You've got quite a good collection, which we'll get into later. But the

beginning of all every cars rule everything around me podcast, we answer the question,

do cars rule or ruin everything around you this week? Have they been good or bad?

Always been good this week. Yeah. Well, I've just come back from Finland,

drifting for the best time on public road. No. Oh, sorry.

My lawyer has advised me not to finish that sentence.

We just got back from Finland. We spent a week out there with some friends in old

rear wheel drive Japanese cars and M3s and stuff just on like private proving ground,

snow drifting, blasting around for an entire week.

And that is you've got one chaser behind you here.

So that is a Mark two, not a chaser technically. Wow. I'm actually not done.

I've been done. Everyone makes the same.

Everyone makes the same initial mistake. And the problem is when you say I've got a Mark two,

they're like a Mark two chaser and you like, no, it's just actually called Mark two.

So that's, that's fun. So you've got two of those. That's a two J car. The other one that

I took out to Finland is a one J car. So that's good fun. And that was like perfect. It was just

like 300 horsepower, a diff. Yeah. And that's it. That's it.

As Japan promised, that's all you need. Just the baseline.

Meanwhile, Americans out here doing like 900 horsepower going, yeah, no, that's it.

That's what you need. It is just to run around.

That does have 900 horsepower. But, you know, I haven't had a good chance to try that properly yet.

So that's, that's, well, you know, after the podcast wraps, you know,

we'll just head on down the road. Just have a quick go.

You know, perfect pub car four doors, exactly what it's built for.

We have a litany of questions to get through.

Obviously your, your professional life is around the filming of automotive.

Well, in automotive filming, but then your personal life, you have these cars.

Do you want to start or shall I with my questions? This is going to be an interrogation.

Oh, yeah. You start the interrogation. I'll chip in.

Right. I'll lock in. First things first. Can you explain how everything started

from renting out track day cameras to where you are now?

Yeah. So I'd, I'd exited the music industry, the horrible place that I don't want to be,

didn't want to be part of anymore. It started off really good.

And then you realize that it's just, just disastrous for everyone.

I think it's got worse. And then I tried some other bits and pieces,

which are very strange. And I ended up with a friend starting a track day business.

And this was in the like early days of the track day business when there was still

not a lot of TDOs operating. And we started a little Mazda on track.

The idea being that MX-5s were just becoming popular.

Right. What sort of year was this?

Oh my goodness. This would be 2000 sort of.

Wow. Okay. So yeah, definitely early days.

Yeah. So really early days. The company's still running under, under Nick and

someone else at the moment. But the, it was, it was kind of based off the back of the owners

club that I joined when I bought an MX-5. And they were a bit of a sort of a group of polishes.

And we were like, why are you not using this awesome car? And everyone's going,

madness. Yeah. So MX-5 people.

MX-5 people. Yeah. And we decided to sort of like buck the trend and actually,

you know, on the back of a small little event, we'd sort of test drove.

We thought like, actually people do want to use these cars and they're brilliant for it.

As you know, you know, even now they're still reliable, fast, reasonably cheap and they were

perfect. So we, we had that running on the side of that. I quite fancied, you know,

it was a sort of a semi attempt to do something that I actually wanted to do that was creative too.

And I'd been given a small amount of money from an inheritance, you know, just a couple of

thousand pounds that I put towards buying these little bits of equipment, which at the time,

GoPros didn't really exist. Yeah.

The idea was I could rent these little cameras out, pop them in people's cars,

run them to a DVD and then there you go. And that was sort of track day footage.

And that was kind of the only way that people were getting track day footage.

And that was the theory in the plan. I bought a second camera and the second camera was designed

for a bit of B roll. So I could shoot cars from the outside because I thought actually

people would quite like to see their cars being driven past well, and you could just put the

clips onto the DVD as well. And that was great and all happy. And then a racing driver asked me,

he said, Oh, would you be interested in doing like a little promo film for me? And I shot that.

And then I started filming some drifting. I started filming some other bits and pieces.

And eventually, through a contact at the Nurburgring, where I spent pretty much most of my summers,

I went to, they said, did you want to come and shoot a video for car magazine when car

magazine was just starting to do their first online videos. And this was in the days when

people were still not sure if YouTube was the platform for them. Yeah.

People were pulling off on Vimeo. They were going for their own websites as well.

And I remember that was the kind of the idea of like, oh, are we putting this on YouTube? No,

we're going to trumpet it on carmagazine.com where it was. But yeah, the first sort of page

I did for them was the Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport. I was filming MX-5s the next week.

It was quite the jump. And I still kind of like

think I don't know how that kind of all, but it was such a cool start and it was such a chaotic,

hectic time. But it was really, really was that inception of trying to film like a car review,

especially in the back of them having to sort of shoot like a 10 page spread,

because the car was such like a seminal thing at the time. So the magazine was,

you know, they needed photos, but we still had the limited amount of time and you think like,

how quick do you want to make a film for a car? You know, you have like

the photography trying to do the like a huge amount of spread, big rig shots.

Yeah, exactly. So I was fully in the way and trying to make something that was vaguely

cinematic. And we sort of, you know, butted heads a little bit about priorities. But we

both got the job done and we managed to produce the film. And that sort of snowballed into another

one, which then snowballed into being asked by an old magazine editor who ran an agency said,

would you like to come and make an advert for Jaguar? And when we turned up on the shoot,

the track owner was expecting a panelux lorry to turn up like the whole family. And they were

like, okay, cool. So where is everyone? Hello. It's just me. It's me. Yeah. With my two little

cameras and a smoke machine. And that was it. No, because, but then that snowballed because

you did some of the Jaguar villain commercials, right? We did little bits of helping out on those.

Yeah. So the main campaigns, there's lots of little sort of subsidiary content around that. So

I ended up shooting a lot of sort of stuff that went in as like hand inserts or like car drive

buys and bits and pieces for like the wider campaign. Right. So I didn't end up doing the

main directing on that. That was a wonderful man called Piggy Lines, who's, I think he was

just, it was just the best idea ever. So I was sort of like, yeah, loosely, loosely based around

that. It was really good fun. I think I did some shoots with that. There was a lot of,

that was a time when Jaguar really knew who they were and all the content they were producing for

two years was built around that, that whole premise. So all the cars were just shot in

like cool gangster locations. It just looked, it looked how Jaguars like are reflected to car

people. Yeah. It is a baddies car. It's what they're for. And, and it was, it was, it was,

still feels bad to me that they lost such a strong identity that no one else was really

picking off. And so you just got to go and just shoot the cars looking as cool as possible.

And everything that sort of came out was built off that theory. So it was, yeah, good time.

So we touched on it there, but your, your kind of bread and butter now is

for OEMs doing commercials. Do you call them commercials? What do you call them?

I think commercial is probably the simplest framing for them. It's not for Kia. It's not

for, well, not that you don't do it for them, but you're doing the big boys.

Yes. Because I think we're very lucky in the UK that essentially all of our manufacturers are

things like, you know, McLaren, Bentley, after Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover. So we've got like

quite a good selection here. And then we're very close to, you know, your Porsche's,

your Bugatti's, your Ferrari's and stuff as well. So all of those are just kind of,

you know, within like a thousand miles of here, which is kind of crazy when you think about it.

Now you've said the word. I know it's the thing that you get asked the most, but you, you were,

well, you were essentially the person in charge of that share on commercial.

That's right.

And you do a quick explanation of what it, what that commercial was.

Absolutely.

People are going to recognize it the moment you explain it. And also how stock was the

Supra that you used.

So the idea came around. The whole, the whole film sort of came off at the back of an idea

that when I was, it was, I used to go and shoot launches as well. When I was kind of just

sort of trying to shoot and do as much shooting as I possibly could, I was doing the sheer on

launch as a bit of a favor, kind of long after I'd sort of stopped doing them. But I was like,

actually, this is quite a good car to go hang around with for a week.

And then we were heading back from the countryside into, into Lisbon.

And there were two of us, two cars sort of running alongside each other.

Andy Wallace, you know, fantastic.

Amazing, yeah.

Winner, you know, next to me, and then another driver on the left. And we were just driving

all these cars back and I was just looking out the window, just casually just sat out the

passenger window as we sort of, you know, speeds were.

Speed of speeds.

Speed of speeds. One of the speeds of all time.

And we carried on. And I was just looking at it. I was thinking like,

this would be really cool to try and film this like properly. Like how do we do this?

And we started talking about like, do we go and do this on like Sunday morning,

just before, you know, church opens.

And, and we thought, we'll try it.

And then we thought we won't try it because that's a really silly idea because it attracted

so much police attention around Lisbon that it was impossible to move without anything.

So we're like, right, okay, where can we do this? Fortunately, Volkswagen had this

in perfect test track, which a lot of people will know, Aerolus N, which is this physically

flat track that not just a flat road, but it is a flat level track that cuts through the earth.

It is that flat so that it's completely flat, like true level.

And it is the most like outrageously long straight that you can just barrel

around this bank corner and then crack on. And we didn't need that.

The car just needed to do zero to 400 kilometers an hour to zero again to beat

some arbitrary record that they had invented. And what we decided was we were going to do

that and attach the camera to do the big main shot. It's like the whole film was built around

this one singular shot of the car launching, reaching its top speed, then overtaking basically.

And we attached the camera to the back of another car, did the shot, got up to 400 kilometers an

hour the other year and actually carried on past us and went well past like 430, 440 or something

like that as we were blown off the road. Then we parked up, added some other shots in, made the

film, put it out and the internet exploded.

Because that's still the most viewed?

Yes.

Yes, it is.

Like car video.

It is the most, it is, yeah, it's the most, I guess, not even organically, it is organic,

but it was the most viewed car commercial that is on YouTube completely.

With the exception of the Jean-Claude Van Damme truck commercial, which is not technically

listed under cars and vehicles.

Because I can't take them away, because that was an amazing commercial as well.

Because we would have been at Carthrop, I think.

I remember it because I think, because it ended up being kind of a press thing,

I think Carthrop obviously shared it when we were doing it and it just being,

because it was Koenigsegg who came out not long afterwards and said that they just did the same

thing or beat it by however much, but it was still the Bugatti one that people are going to

remember the Bugatti one.

That's exactly what I was going to say, is that even though Koenigsegg beat it,

they didn't have that cinematic look of what the Bugatti did.

So therefore, it was just, that was just a news article that came up that went,

are Koenigseggs beat it?

I went, cool, I'll go with my day.

I don't remember that Koenigsegg one though.

I can see the shot of them both launching at the same time.

Yeah, and the Koenigsegg one didn't have the meme attached to it.

No, exactly, it was just a stock suit for it, just running alongside it.

Which I just love the fact that that came out of it because that kind of,

aside from the fact that you had people always questioning what it was,

no one figured it out.

The most obvious are hundreds of thousands of comments and not one of them seemed to just go,

might they have had another one?

Yeah, and we actually had three on the shoot, which was a bit bougie,

but one of them was just for sound, one of them was just like there for doing the car to car

shot, and the other one was the sort of the hero car.

And in fact, it was quite helpful having them because it actually rained

on the morning of the second day when we really needed it not to.

So we just sent out all these shirons doing high-speed runs,

constantly just lifting the water off the ground.

It was an amazing sight.

What a great job for the morning, mate.

I need you to just go out and do a couple of 200 mile an hour runs if you can,

just get off the water.

And they do.

Do I have to?

Oh, really?

Who drove the camera car?

Because it was the...

It was one of the test drivers.

It was the test driver, because it was one Toyota.

Yeah, so Juan Pablo Montoya.

Which this is, I mean, there are endless cool facts about these cars, but

when we were in the pre-planning stage for the shoot, we said,

well, we have to be in like a helmet and a race suit and a racing seat.

And they're like, why?

And I said, oh, because he's going really fast and stuff.

And they were like, it's designed to do it.

Yeah, it's a car.

Yeah, it's not a race car.

Well within operate.

You don't even need the second key to do what we're doing.

Yeah, there's the airline pilots.

Yeah.

I'd be quite concerned.

Like he's all my pilot go, I don't have full fire, so I'd be like,

what are we up to today?

This is actually dangerous.

And that's the thing that kind of the engineering overtakes

a lot of other things.

There are loads.

I mean, you get Honda Civics that can go faster than a Chiron.

Like they exist.

It's fine.

We can all imagine what they sort.

So things are, you know, dragsters can leave them, make them stupid.

But the point is, is you get and get in your big Atty Chiron.

And it will do all of that constantly, forever.

And it just needs servicing.

And that's the whole point about them.

They're not stressed.

They are, and I'm not trying to just blow smoke up Big Atty here,

just for sake of it, but they are, you know,

anyone who's actually been out in one will tell you,

they're just like a turbo s, s, s, s, s, s, s, s, s, s.

You know, they're just phenomenally normal.

You know, when cream buys one, when we get a company car, we always test that out.

It is one of those cars that is, it's a halo, it's just a Veyron.

A Chevron will do, but a Veyron's like the one because it's the,

it's the top gear car.

It was like that Concorde car where it was that unobtainium.

You never saw one.

It was the, you know, the top gear thing.

So it would absolutely love to, I didn't even like to be a passenger in one.

Yeah, passenger experience is just as hell.

In my suit.

Well, you know what I was just saying?

Well, once they hit that sub 30 grand,

when they find when they're like depreciating,

it's going to happen.

It will take around five years.

Now I'm going to go back ever so slightly, ever so slightly.

But you said that you did a few jobs before you started getting into the car stuff.

One of those was training to be a fighter pilot.

That's right.

I know this is a car podcast, but that interested me when I had that.

Cause I was like, what happened there?

Cause it was a weird like technicality.

We meant that you couldn't become a fighter pilot.

That's correct.

What happened with that?

So went to join.

So it was actually a friend of mine who was a commercial pilot and he said,

you know, would you like to, would you consider it and I was like,

yeah, actually, that's, that is quite cool.

Yeah.

But I didn't want to fly commercial.

I don't want to sit in a tube in the sky for the rest of my life.

So I, I was like, actually that would be pretty cool.

So I went to do an interview and they said, yeah,

you sound sound like you're sort of semi competent enough at this stage.

And then you go to Cranwell and you do all the aptitude tests.

You do the little listen, they give you a load of computer games that you do.

They burn your eyes with a bright light to make sure that you can look at the sun for

a long enough.

And also, which I barely scraped through.

I think I was 0.1 seconds off being able to like actually hold my eyes open.

Cause you know, you don't want to shut your eyes whilst you're looking at the sun.

And then a few other little bits of pieces where like, yeah, it's all good.

And then you go through all of this eight months of process

when you actually get to the point where you get inducted.

And at the very last second, you sort of end up with this final little chat that you do.

It was like a, a bit like a personality check.

I think, you know, they, they ask you just some, just some normal questions to make sure

you're kind of like a normal person and or not, depending on what they're looking for.

And I was too old by 19 days or something.

No way.

That's annoying.

So they thought I was a year younger than I was.

So you never actually got to fly.

I never got to touch it.

It was all just, cause they do seven years of training

and they spend umpteen millions doing it.

And there is a very, very strict cutoff.

And they were like, this is just crazy.

So like the problem is, is like, it didn't feel like anything.

It was like 19 days.

Yeah.

It's like, you know, it feels like it's kind of like, you could probably go,

hey, I think it'll be fine.

These 19 days aren't, they shouldn't make a difference.

How did you feel turn a bit weeks ago?

If you feel, no, I felt better than that.

Yeah.

I kind of, I mean, you know, my, my cousin, sorry, family friend, cousin,

he is a Chinook captain.

And he wrote to, wrote to them and said, you know, like, this is,

this is madness.

Like we're desperate for pilots at the moment.

And they just went, we have to have a cutoff.

Yeah.

Rules are rules.

Like what about the guy who's only 16 days?

Yeah.

He's only one day past.

Like there have to be a point somewhere.

Yeah.

And of course, it was just unfortunate.

So my mother was very relieved.

And then you went, oh, I'm going to go and film a Bugatti doing this.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

I was like, not again.

Just need something a bit dangerous.

But it was, it was nice to kind of have that sort of very,

kind of like immediate stop.

It was like, all right, well, shit, I actually,

what am I actually going to do now?

Yeah.

You know, what is actually the plan?

And I ended up just again, that was sort of based on the wanting to start my own

business and do something creative again.

Because I had the whole creative side.

Also, wow, what a generational downfall from fight a pilot to MX-5.

I know.

The Bugatti's fine.

You're back up on that level.

But to look at an MX-5 and go, that's not where I'm at, am I?

Not quite as fast then.

Yeah.

You're polishing an MX-5.

Yeah.

I can't do that.

Is it at least a 1.8?

And it was, you know, it was a life that, it's a life that wasn't to be.

And I'm, you know, it's allegedly, you know, I would have been quite a lonely life as well.

You know, you're kind of like, it's not traveling the world in quite the way that I

think people expect it.

No, exactly.

It's not just top gun all the time.

Unfortunately not.

That's not what I hear.

But, you know, at the same time, I don't worry about it.

I'm so happy doing where we're now.

We're sitting in a unit full of very cool cars.

It's not, yeah, it's still pretty, it's pretty cool.

Also, I like something you said on, this is more to do with the sort of work you're doing now.

But where you said that the car poster is not really a thing anymore.

People blue tacking stuff to, but that's what media is and videos and even photos on Instagram

and whatever to an extent.

I quite like, I've never made that kind of connection because I think we would have

both had some posters, but we would have grown up seeing a clip on YouTube.

So what replaced a poster for us was someone driving a Mercedes-Benz Lago at top speed on a

motorway is that that's why I want that car rather than having the thing stuck on the wall.

Obviously, that adds some influence on you making content you want to make.

That whole thing, that whole sort of change from, you know, the magazine industry,

saying dying whilst the media industry sort of picks up and then all of a sudden you've got this,

you know, again, I don't think people have posters on their walls at all like they used to.

Maybe I don't think the magazines even come with, they don't even have pages to come with a poster.

They have a wallpaper on a phone.

A wallpaper on the phone.

But also, you know, those iconic, I always remember that I had an iconic,

it was a Diablo SB yellow and it was in like a black studio and it had just this kind of

like orange light.

But I remember that the poster very, very specifically, I can't remember where it was

from.

I think it was like, you know, it could have been a car magazine or some sort.

But I remember thinking like that's the coolest thing I've ever seen.

And it just, it was there.

And now you can, with the power of video, you can create more iconic moments on top of that.

Because I always think that when you look at a photo, you kind of feel like

yearning towards that car.

You think, oh, maybe one day I'll get that car.

But when you see a video, you can almost put yourself in the driver's seat.

You're like, I'm doing this.

This is the coolest thing in the world.

And, you know, the fact is that now you can hear the engine and you can see the physical

speed and you can kind of see different angles of the car.

And you can also see it in places that perhaps you didn't quite expect.

You know, the gloves truly are off now in terms of like where and what you can do with stuff.

People are putting their cars through crazier places to kind of do more extreme things with

them to kind of maybe raising the bar as the wrong word, but to kind of keep

something fresh and interesting and new without trying to sort of break laws,

which are getting ever and just, you know, ever and some more strict and as we go,

you know, car adverts haven't been good.

I'm going to use the word for quite a long time.

Like I can't remember.

I mean, you look at the old 80s and 90s stuff of like Peugeot.

Oh, the Citroen X.

It's just been dropped out of a plane.

Yeah.

You know, handbrake turning.

When was the last time you saw a handbrake turn?

It used to be a staple of the hatchback adverts.

And where's that gone now?

That was one of the...

So I heard in Sam Walsall's podcast, you said you've had three adverts banned.

Yes.

What were they?

So Jaguar XFR, S.

Oh, it was an S.

Yeah, XFR, S.

Yeah.

And we, yeah, we were drifting in Switzerland.

Driver Phil Morrison did a good old scared in it.

And ironically, that wasn't the bit that got it banned.

It was crossing a white line, crossing a fixed standard solid white line.

And you said, so now you, you in post remove all of the white lines so they can't say anything?

Yep.

It's just a wide road.

It's just a big wide road.

Yeah, big wide closed road.

Don't worry about a sign over there.

That's not road sign.

Now the interpret speed is racing or encouraging fast driving.

So it's really, really difficult now.

Basically, it's all down to who complains about it, how much an interpretation.

The second one was a joint effort with petroleum, which I just was,

you know, kind of helping out and part of the filming crew, which was

recreating Outrun with the convertible Testerosa.

Sotheby's was the one?

Or was that different?

Yeah, RM Sotheby's, yeah.

And that got pulled because they were saying the girl doing the classic,

we know when you do a drift in Outrun, the girl waves, you know.

And that's what they didn't like.

They were like, oh, she's, uh, that's dangerous.

And we were like, but that's, it's so clearly fantasy.

Yeah.

It was so clearly in like a fantastical world of like 80s cars, you know,

shooting through, you know, traffic in a clearly organised stunt.

It's like not being able to put the trailer up for the Bourne ultimatum.

Like, like,

Someone might shoot someone.

Yeah, someone might drive them in.

And you're just like, but what is the limit?

And because that wasn't a commercially available car as well.

Yeah, it's not even,

I mean, I really didn't understand it, but yeah, it got pulled.

So that was, I can't remember what the third one was.

I'll stuff my head now.

But that's all because it's, they're all adverts.

It's commercial.

There's that line where it's, if it was, is there a line where it becomes a marketing

stunt that it's not an advert anymore?

Or is it when it's a manufacturer?

This is a really, really good question.

The, the line used to be below and above the line.

That they physically used to be the term.

It was an above line job, below line job.

And now that line has become completely blurred because of multimedia.

And essentially, I think the only way that being technical about it,

I can differentiate it is realistically captive or non-captive audience.

Are you being force fed this?

Okay, interesting.

Finding it yourself.

Because like, what would you class Jim Carna as?

Like, I think, I think, I would say that is non-captive.

Yeah.

Because you want, you're seeking it.

But at the same time, it like, it's a 10 minute monster energy commercial.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, it is.

And, and, you know, there's, we can put the same warnings on the commercials,

saying like, do not copy this, do not do this at home.

But it doesn't seem to make a slight bit of difference as to you being susceptible to this.

Yeah.

They certainly haven't banned any of the Jim Carna films.

No, exactly.

Some of those involve actual crashing into stuff.

Yeah.

You know, just like some of those.

Real life of danger.

I mean, the, if I don't know if you've seen the BJ Baldwin recoil films as well,

you know, which are wicked and he literally rams through buildings by accident.

And sometimes it's like, well, you know, I know that they fixed it.

But at the same time.

Clout on the damage.

Oh well.

It seems that YouTube stuff doesn't really get like, if you're solely YouTube, you don't,

you're not necessarily as affected by that.

But there's a much worse stuff going on on YouTube.

Yeah.

Because if you like, look at Whistlin Diesel, he's buying it like a G-Wagon.

He is testing it, driving it through a building, skinning it on a road, doing silly miles now,

and then going, so yeah, you guys, you can do this with this car.

And YouTube's like, sounds great mate.

See you next week.

Yeah, next time.

Helicopters in doors.

Is the difference private land?

Yeah.

But it's also like when we have closed roads, in which case surely the Sotheby, the RM thing

would have been fine because that was a private shot at Bentwater.

I mean, that was literally just, it was, it was madness.

But this is the thing.

Like I think the world has, you know, really gone a little bit too,

too sort of like molly coddling far too much when it comes to having a bit of fun.

You know, I know that some people really do need governing quite, quite strongly now because,

you know, there's a bit of a wild place out there at the moment.

But I think with car adverts, I don't think people are watching like,

like an MGEV advert.

And if it was doing sort of 80 in a 70, they're going like, oh, what a race car.

That's the, you know, and just, but it makes it look more exciting on film.

Otherwise you just have a photo of a car and it says car, buy it or don't, I don't know.

Four and a half meters of car.

Yeah, because on the flip side, cars are something people buy emotionally.

I mean, all of the cars in here, you didn't buy because you just went,

that looks cool.

You have some form of attachment to it.

So if you rob people of that from even a marketing standpoint, which sounds a bit,

it's a bit weird to say like, no, we want adverts, give me this capitalist agenda.

But if you're going to have them, you might as well have them be cool and be like fun.

They try and sell the whole car in an advert now.

It's like, they want it, you want to hear about the MGG and the factors,

the economic ones, like just give me something that grabs my attention and then I might,

then I might go and look into it.

It's, you know,

there have been some remarkable things that have been getting, you know,

going back to a little bit like what I said on another pod was about the,

like the disaster four or five years ago and B&W started coming out and literally just telling

everyone who loved B&W and M, they were going like, you guys idiots.

Yeah, the world's moved on now.

Yeah.

And here's our...

How's that one with Arnold Schwarzenegger?

No, I mean, Christopher Holtz was involved.

Yeah, but I mean, there was,

there was one where B&W, an old Bangal seven series gets talked to by a new seven series

in the museum.

Oh yeah.

We basically go shut up boomer.

Yeah.

And you're like, whoa, hang on a second.

Yeah, you're like, this, this car designed quite a lot of, you know,

this car is quite responsible for like B&W's like entire identity for an enormous amount of time.

That actually did quite well, you know,

just a way to alienate half of the people that like your brand, for what your brand is.

And, and, and also, you know,

let's not forget, you know, some of the bigger tragedies recently where people have just

forgotten the history of the brand, you know, that brands don't just live off a brand name.

Yeah.

You know, if you want to start a new brand, you start a new thing.

People don't forget the brand identity.

You know, you couldn't suddenly start becoming a cooking show tomorrow.

People are expecting to see something that's kind of what they know you guys for,

and that's what they love you for.

So that's, you can't, you could do an offshoot of it,

but it would need to be built somewhere around the DNA of what you are known for.

And dropping something with such heritage and such,

you know, I'm glad they've kind of like come back now because

BMW M particularly are really like pushing like the coolness again.

Yeah.

They've really come back hard and sort of showing like how cool the cars actually are

and like how, you know, how young people actually drive them, enjoy them just like

the old days.

Yeah.

They kind of, I'm so happy that they've moved back to, you know,

remembering why cars are cool and why people love, love cars.

Yeah.

Speaking of what, what is your dream commercial advert production to make?

Car brand, anything?

I mean, anything.

So for those at home that don't know, like I spend like now is probably 75% of my life in a CGI studio

shooting or making films that aren't real because modern cars are now getting so complicated

and so difficult and, you know, moving out of moving them logistically across Europe is so

expensive now and whatever.

So a lot of the big adverts that I make do not exist in real life.

So whilst I love making those for the creativity and flexibility,

I still miss hearing the sound of an engine and seeing a car move for real.

Like the, you know, the vibration and the noise and the noise is like one of the biggest things

I buy any car for.

And the, the, the, any advert where you get to really push a car properly is my ideal advert

because, you know, the, the lack of sports car, the car, the sports car market is getting quite

small and especially the ones that are true sports cars, not sort of hatchbacks dressed up

into hot hatches and stuff like that.

I know those are still cool, but they're not like purpose built.

So that's the, any advert wears a little bit of spicy driving and a bit of going fast.

That is still my favorite kind of advert.

I do not care if it's a three million pound Bugatti Tourbillon or whether it's a 30,000

pound, I think a car exists for 30,000 pounds anymore.

But you know what I mean, something, something like that.

And it doesn't matter as long as the car is emotionally exciting and engaging

and it's real life.

That's, that's what I love.

It seems to be, I think it was Lamborghini when they were announcing the Tamarario

and they said, cause obviously there was a bit of controversy because it went to a V8

and, but they released like a sound clip.

It was like, this is amazing.

It's like 10,000 RPM V8.

This is how it sounds.

Everyone just sort of went, that doesn't sound that good.

It came from a V10.

Then there was the one with the, I think it was the Tourbillon, I think,

when they just released the sound of that.

And that was a good advert because it got people talking about it, but in a good way,

not in a, hang on, you've either used the wrong sound or just.

It wasn't a down, it's not a downgrade done.

They haven't lost the turbos and lost soul.

What they've done is they've increased the craziness of the engine and it's now

bananas.

It was always bananas, but you know, they were always like talking mid range monsters.

And now they're just, now it's like a mid range to top in the screamer.

And the sound is outrageous.

I'd never heard a sound like, it's a new sound.

It's a brand new sound.

And because it's got a thousand horsepower electric assist as well, it's quite fast

and it sounds quite ridiculous.

And it's such a cool concept.

Everything is just, it's just cool.

It's also why Bugatti are so cool now.

But I think Bugatti are a little bit different to what they were when the Veyron came out.

Again, that no one knew who was behind, who was doing it.

The Veyron was just, again, like a Concorde, it was this thing that was built to do that speed.

But now you've got Matty Remak posting videos drifting in the snow.

So there is a bit more personality.

He's a car guy as well.

I mean, his car collection as well, like, you know, E30 and E39M5 and stuff, you know,

you know that someone loves cars when that's their car.

It feels like him and Christian Von Kearney say they're going to have a competition.

It's definitely become a bit of a bromance.

It's sort of because, you know, like 15 years ago, you'd never, ever, ever have seen

the two CEOs sharing cars together and talking about cars in the weekend.

I think that's so wholesome now.

And Christians, I mean, Christians cars are incredible too.

Let's not take that away from them, but they are quite different.

Yeah.

Or, you know, they make look similar purpose, but they are quite different philosophies.

Designs and uses.

And I just love to see the fact that now we've got like this kind of like,

I guess they're sort of the people our age who are just having fun.

And they know what they love.

And Matty's younger and more exciting, who's kind of very styled into the,

into the, you know, the petrol heads brain knowing what do they want to see?

What do we want to hear?

They knew they made, I'm so glad they pivoted away to make a combustion engine for the next

Bugatti and not make it for the electric.

Because that was, you know, that could have been a disaster for them.

You know, people have begun like, well, it's very fast.

But I've no interest in it.

It's, it's the, the RIMAC is, it's funny seeing as they're essentially sister brands,

if you, if you want to call them that, but no one talks about RIMACs.

They are, when you look at the figures are absolutely mental.

But the moment you see that little thing that says engine type electric, you're like,

all right, then. Okay. Yeah, fine.

I guess it's, it's not necessarily an advert, but you see a video of it and nothing

wows you. It's like the, was that the McMurtry

spearling that is unbelievably impressive.

But it's not talked about, unless it goes and does a record or that the clip where it

goes around the corner of the GT3 RS, people talk about that.

But then you're not, you don't find yourself yearning after that.

I want to drive that. I want to own it. I want to do that.

You want something that makes a noise that, you know, I always think about it with,

with that clip of it, with the GT3 RS and all I'm looking at is the GT3 RS.

I don't even like GT3 RS about you doing that much.

But I'm like, oh, they do look quite good though, this GT3 is nice.

Yeah. It is. I always, I always describe it as,

and you know, would you buy a really, would you buy a 500,000 pound digital watch?

Yeah. Very good watch, undoubtedly.

And maybe made of exotic materials, but the reality is,

if you're going to spend 500,000 pounds on a, I don't know, like a Jacob and Co, whatever they

make, whether a million quid, whether they are, you want the craftsmanship, you want the thousands

of hours of craftsmanship and that insane mechanism inside, you know, you want to see

those beautiful meshing things flicking around back and forth and that, you know, that you want,

you want to see like that tick, that talk, that noise, that everything is all, that's

what people are buying. And it's the same when you turn the engine on.

If you move a, if you move at, say, a rim act, say, for example, around a car park,

everyone's going to be, sounds, sounds like the MG.

Whereas you turn on the Chiron and you turn on anything else with an engine as well, and you're

like, that sounds ridiculous in the world. And suddenly it's got a voice and a soul.

And because I think we're so inherently switched on to noise as a species of just people,

you know, whether, whether you love the sound of loud cars or hate them,

and there are good and bad loud cars, as we know, looking at you, the pop and crack or

map, okay. A good engine set, it will evoke some emotion in almost everybody,

whether it's wanted or not.

Could be slightly angry.

Yeah, they could, they could be angry, but they will invoke an emotion note and, you know,

like speed is so accessible and easy these days, you know, like even the most basic,

you know, my wife has a Cadillac lyric, which is, and it's not a particularly fast EV,

but it's still like what the fastest car I own, yeah, like easily.

We had that Renault 5, and again, that's a base electric car, wasn't the fast one.

And it's still like eight and a bit seconds to 60, which is like, you're in 80s, 90s, even

early 2000s, hot hatch territory, but it still doesn't make you feel like those cars felt.

I think Matt Watson briefly spoke about it either on a podcast on the radio, I can't remember,

where he compared the car world currently to watches, at least,

sort of watches, probably in like maybe the 60s or 70s, where the courts watch came out and they

said, everyone's like, well, this is way better. Why wouldn't I just have that? I don't have to

charge it. I don't have to put fuel in it. I don't have to wind it up. I don't have to do any of that.

But then after a while, now there is an enthusiast segment that's massive that people want those

watches. Yeah, it dies after two days, but they want that thing that's technically very impressive.

It's they know who made it, why they made it, because they wanted to make it. So I think that's

where I hope the car world's going now, because at the moment it's hypercars. It's like you've got

Bugatti, you've got Koenigsegg, you've got Gordon Murray making that really impressive stuff. But

for everyone else, it's like, you have to buy an older car to get that level of stuff. So hopefully

your BMWs, even Renault's, any of those, they now come out and go, you know what,

we're going to make something for an enthusiast. I have a hot take on this.

Because the governments who demanded everyone switch to EV did such a poor job of making us

get the EV charging infrastructure in place and basically making it virtually impossible to own

one. If you live, if you don't live in a city or you're lucky enough to charge at work or home,

which is a lot of people, they have inadvertently created the comeback of the best

engines that we've ever seen, basically. Like there are some seriously cool cars coming out

and engines out now. And now the fact that they sort of said like, well, maybe you can just use

synthetic fuels then, because you can just put that into every petrol station that exists around

the world. And we don't have to pour any more concrete. And also there's no weird problem with

the grid anymore. Maybe that works. So they may have inadvertently, and I'm not going to give

them any credit for it, allowed us to experience the single greatest. I mean, the stuff that's

coming out of Cosworth at the moment is insane. That's what I really want from Cosworth is that

like what you say, they're focused on the hypercar things, Aston Martin comes to them,

Gordon Murray comes to them. What I want is a Ford to go, we want a four-cylinder turbo

Cosworth engine that we're going to chuck in a new Mach 4 Focus RS, for example,

and then we get that resurgence of 90s high-tech, but lower, lower cost cars that are just fun.

That would be perfect. And you can add hybrid if you need to. You need to pass whatever you need to.

As long as there's some sort of cool engine, run it. There we go.

I actually think motorsports is part of the problem, because you think of some of the best

engines they've normally come from motorsport inspired by. But you look at motorsport now,

you've got tiny engines, they're impressive and they're very fast, but tiny engines in Formula

1, everything else is not outside of in the States with NASCAR and stuff. But when you think of older

race cars, Cosworth's your group A stuff where you get the road car with basically the same engine,

so motorsport could just start doing some really cool stuff. It might start trickling its way down

to what we can get. If they took a leaf out of GT3 even at the moment, GT3 is, you know,

under full throttle. I mean, I've been watching a lot of the analysis from the 2026 F1 cars and

the fact that they're having to like lift and coast for like 30% of the lap. That's not Formula 1,

is it? It's not racing. It's not racing. The whole point of it is go as fast as you can to see if

you can beat the other person. It's not straight. Strategy should be for the person in the pits

who goes, you need to come in now, you need to do this. I want the person in the car to go,

I'm going for it. Not going, I really should conserve my battery. So I'm like, no, come on,

man. That's not racing. And I'm not convinced a single person in the world is going to be looking

at, you know, a single real petrol heads going like, oh, yeah, you know, it works. The hybrid

system really does work well in F1. Maybe that's what I want. Like, I don't think there's a single

person who goes, I wish I had an MG UK. That'd be cool. And they just want simplicity. They want

their engine to sound cool, be reliable, go fast, or if they've got like a turbo car, make silly

turbo noises. That's true because they do try and push that like Mercedes try and pushed it with

that new C63 saying, it's just like the F1 system. It's just like the F1 system, which back in the

day, if you said that, oh, yeah, just like similar to the one you'd get in an F1 car,

the E60M5, it's not actually that related to anything sort of F1 because there is a tenuous

link or Ferrari still sounds like it. If you want it, Ferrari with the 360 and 355 going,

this is an F1 gearbox and everyone overnight switching from auto to manual, making manual

a rare car. Meanwhile, now no one wants that, but they wanted it because Michael Schulmacher got

one of those. Yes, that's it. But the switching gears quite harshly now. We've got two drift

cars behind it. Well, Ish, your AE86 and also the JZX100. Drifting has been always been a big part

of your life. What is the connection to Driftworks and Phil Morrison and also about Outsiders Japan,

which I think for a lot of people listening right now, they may not even know that you are

essentially behind that film. It was now what, 13 years ago, 11, 12 years ago? God, that makes me

feel old. But over a decade ago, yes, you put together a essentially documentary vlog style,

which was not a big thing then, really, of what it's like to go out to Japan to drift. I remember

watching that age, I've been 15, 16, and thinking, that's the coolest thing in the world I want to

go. But you're obviously quite close with Driftworks and with Phil. Where's that from?

That's right. So, again, it's kind of like the early sort of stages of the career. So,

Phil was aware that the media was quite a big part of what was small. You could

propel quite small companies quite widely with good content. Before it was even really called

content. That's a word that sort of popped up. So now, and he kind of made an offer with him and

said, well, why don't you come and do a weaker month for us? Move away from London. You know,

you hate it there anyway. So just like, come up and come up and come up to Birmingham where it's

all sunny and lovely. And I was like, I've got no reason to stay in London. So I packed up,

moved to Birmingham. Yep, Birmingham is everything I expected it to be. So very quick and moral and

very quickly moved to the outskirts of Birmingham. But more importantly,

Driftworks is right in the dead centre of Birmingham, which is kind of good because it's

slightly lawless there. So, you know, that you have the Tisley short course, which is essentially

the drift track around the estate and that's still good. But that was when we sort of started

to be able to produce like vloggy content and kind of really kind of explore like early YouTube

vlog channel style things. And it was really good fun because obviously I love hanging out with

those guys. You know, we all had exactly the same taste in cars and driving and you know, we all just

loved being a bit silly and you know, bit noisy and more importantly, like going to racetracks

and skinning around and having fun. So being able to like have my commercial work and then have this

sort of kind of rogue skunkworks sort of make what I wanted to project. So one minute you'd be

editing a, you know, a Land Rover, Range Rover commercial, you're going like, oh, the leather

seats in this new Holland and Holland version is made of the finest leather. And then this side,

you just got like, can we turn the anti-lag on and try and see if we can shatter a window with it?

You know, so there was this kind of like wonderful side that we kind of had that.

And that was kind of the DriftWorks, that's the DriftWorks connection. And then

outsiders came around completely accidentally really, it was never ever meant to be a documentary.

The idea was that when they were going to go out and do like a couple of weeks or three weeks,

I think it was, we were out there to go and experience Japan. There wasn't so much of an

agenda to film something. But I said, like, what if I did come and I will pay my way by

making a DVD that we sell at the end of it? What if I come with?

So we ended up going out and I bought, you know, I bought out a jib, which was,

they seemed ridiculous at the time, but there were no drones. Obviously no one had a drone

back then and drones were like helicopters. But I wanted a way to be able to like lift

the camera up a little bit and do some like cool cinematic shots to use the word. So

all in good jest, they all helped carry this massive A-frame of weights and levers and cables

and stuff. So we had a jib that I could just put my little Canon 5D on and just shoot some

interesting angles that weren't just, you know, ground level handheld sort of shaky cam.

And then we got very lucky with, you know, some street drifting, the guys put on

some from Mind Control, put on some like crazy street drifting for us. And that was just a

really, really cool sequence. And then we shot some other bits and pieces went out to

a few other tracks and stuff. And then came back and like, right, I feel like we've actually got

quite a good potential film here. We should chuck some talking heads in sort of like glue it all

together. And that was all we did. We were like, well, let's give that a go. Let's try and glue

it all together and see what we can assemble, made the film, put it out in Blu-ray and DVD,

and we sold out. And it was crazy. I was like, oh, that's cool. We only got the number of DVDs

that we got because you got a bulk discount. And then we thought like, that's actually really,

really cool. And then like three years later, maybe, and yeah, I think once, you know,

a good amount of time had passed, we thought, well, let's put it out onto YouTube.

No one minded. No one, no one, everyone was cool with it. They were like, oh, that's cool because

the DVD people would watch it. You've got the physical copy. So we kind of figured that enough

time had passed. And yeah, and it again, that kind of really kind of popped off. And I still get

some wonderful message even today from people saying like, when are you doing the next one?

We've come so close to making the second one, but we've never had the right opportunity and

the right timing. And I'd like to do number two properly. Because I think that's the,

because technically, Mikey Carmods did, I think Turbos and Temples one came out a few years

before or would have been right around the same time, but not on YouTube. That's right.

So I'd seen that, I saw that first, and not to take anything away from those guys, but

it was a more polished, like kind of how we film a YouTube video where there was a little bit of

scripting involved, that sort of stuff. Whereas the beauty of outsiders was, this is what it's

like going to Japan and just doing it. Oh, it was the discovery. It was, it was the exploration,

the discovery and all of those things that you can't really repeat. Because if, you know,

I think they'd been before and they knew kind of like what the game was and everything. Whereas

we were just going, wow, okay, this is, this is ridiculous.

And just documenting it.

Just literally just documenting it. And we had, we had just enough contacts to help us

go to the cool places and see the cool stuff. And it wasn't particularly well documented at

the time either. So like no one had really sort of got a lot of the street drifting the way that

was the first time I'd ever seen it. I'd heard about it on forums and people talking about it.

But that was the first time I ever saw how actually just rogue is. It's just people

turning up and going mental. Like there's, there's obviously people along the course

who are watching out for things, but it's, hey, what happens, happens, run it. It's crazy.

All I'd ever seen was the sketchy VHS rips that you kind of get them from oil war,

from whatever. And then when you're actually down there and seeing it, you're like, oh,

this is way harder. They go, they, they went like really, really hard. And, you know, the,

you could, you could see that this was like something special and they're doing like

nine colors going in at once and stuff. I'm like, this is stupid. And now,

I, you know, we were very, very lucky that day. We've seen, I've seen subsequently quite a lot

of others kind of really good, you know, films come out of that. But I think we just captured

the right thing at the right time to the right audience as well, who are, you know, perhaps

less informed, like, you know, not that informed about Japan. And we were, you know, on that,

that learning road. And we can't repeat that again.

No, exactly.

You know, and now I've been there a few times with work and stuff. And I'm going there on my

honeymoon in April. And then, you know, it's going to be all lovely. And, but I'll never

experience New Japan again.

No, exactly. It was your first time. But that to me is what made it so perfect.

Because it felt like as what, watching it, it's your first time there as well.

If it was, yeah, this is this place. We always come here. This is this, this is this.

You go, all right, okay. So you're, you're a local at this point. But being new to it

makes you feel like, all right, we're doing this together. So it was really cool.

Yeah.

So yeah, if you haven't watched outsiders, search it up on YouTube. If you're any form

of interested in drifting at all, you will enjoy it. You will love it. It's still well,

well worth a watch.

Yeah. The next thing I was going to ask about is, again, this is from another podcast, I think,

from a while ago, where you mentioned you did a Bollywood

podcast with some R8. But you mentioned that you obviously filmed it. But then when they

changed it with her to CGI and a bunch of other bits, but how many times has that happened

where you filmed something and thought, that's incredible. I've got the sound, it looks perfect.

And then it gets to coming out because you're maybe not in control of the whole thing.

And they've completely changed it or not used it at all.

Yeah, quite a lot. Quite a lot. There's a lot of perfectly valid reasons for it.

And, you know, sometimes you get this absolutely banana shot, but it just doesn't fit anywhere

in the original, in the plan. So, you know, a commercial is a very short amount of time.

There are dozens upon dozens of people invested from various places in it,

lots of people giving feedback that we don't necessarily need or want.

And the project managers. Sometimes the feedback is extremely welcomed

and taken on board. And then sometimes you're just like, just stop talking.

You're just talking to talk. Shout out to all my customers.

Love you guys seriously. But more importantly, there's a lot of people involved in the process

where they have a lot of opinions that are genuinely valid. You know, they've got a very

specific place where they're trying to place and put the car in the product.

And sometimes they don't want a shot of it just doing this gigantic fifth gear skid around the

corner. Great example was, I didn't direct this film, but I was part of the camera car tracking

team where it was Jaguar Project 7. That was a four wheel drive car. And the car that we had on

the commercial was actually a rear wheel drive lookalike, just because it was a, you know,

not a real car. So it was rear wheel drive. So, but that's fine. This happens quite often,

you know, when you've got prototype, you've got the real thing. Sometimes you just don't need the,

you know, you have a mock-up engineering car, basically. So that's what we had.

And that was the skiddiest car ever built. It would just ignite the tires around every single

corner. It had a V8 though. No, it was a supercharged V8. Oh, wow, that's the best car.

We need that car. It was a proper thing. It had like most of the bits,

but it was the rear wheel. It was just, you know, a body dressed up XF RS, I guess. Yeah.

Anyway, riotous car, constantly on the lock stops. We went through like tires and tires. And then

when we sort of got back into the garage and the clients looking through all the rushes, they're

going like, this is supposed to be a chauffeur to track vehicle for low lap times. And this

isn't any use to anybody. This is not what we're trying to do with this car. Like we make the

silly rear-wheel drive car. And that's the thing. And they got quite heated with the director who

was correct in saying that this is way more exciting. But the client was like, yes, but that's

not what we're selling. So we basically had to give up like a ton of insane drift footage. And

I mean, like this was some of the best stuff I think I've ever shot. Like we were right on the

inside of this like ridiculous car, just hauling gears and round Anglesey. And that footage will

always be lost to time. You know, so many little things like that have happened, you know,

that products are good, you know, good shots have gone on the shelf because the product is not

actually what they were after. I'd love to see just one, an hour, two hour, three hour long.

It's just all the cutting room. It's all the unbelievable shots that weren't allowed to be

used. Yeah, it happens. It happens a lot. But it does happen for good reason. I know that like,

you know, find feedback from people is annoying sometimes. But actually, like there is a legitimately

good reason sometimes because, and it's just part of the job, you kind of have to accept it. And

and sometimes it's, you know, we being a very kind of petrolheady childish person, I want to see

skids. But unfortunately, just, you know, like their demographic might not know, because they

actually, you know, you can't sell like Audi RS6 off the basis of it being a skittish rear-wheel drive

car. People want shore-footed. Yeah, exactly. And so if you try and frame it like that, then you

kind of understand why they didn't want the project to take to be a drift car.

Is drifting, at least in commercials and that kind of thing, is that the best way to make something

look fast? Because I kind of realised that list. But like exciting. Yeah, because when you watch

someone drive around a track fast, unless you know, it doesn't look very fast or it's hard for

it to look fast, depending on how it's shot, obviously. But when you think of like, the top gear

latch, it was it never looked fast enough to go through the follow-through and you go, hang on.

You had it when you had a point of reference, essentially. Yeah. So that's why, and obviously

Chris Harris is very well known for just skidding cars around. And that's,

and everyone goes, he's the most amazing driver. But because of the skidding, so I always thought,

if you want to look fast or exciting, drifting is the thing to do.

Internet's very weird. So assuming that you use the internet as the benchmark or the temperature

checker for the footage. Straight up track driving, no one really kind of likes.

Put a load of camera shake on it. Everyone goes like, wow, so cool. And so they're kind of like,

you know, if it's like buzzy ADHD mega edit, people are like, wow, that's the coolest thing

I've ever seen. Because I don't think they know what they're seeing. I think they're just watching

buzzy frames and it's just impossible to work out what's going on. But ADHD TikTok,

that's kind of why everyone loves these days. And then with drifting, people don't like seeing

really drift cars or drift content. No, yeah. It's weird. They're not really,

as exciting as these are, these are only exciting when they crash into each other on video.

Drift montages. I used to, I started out with drift montages and they were big,

but I think people were very quick to like, I think I've seen this now.

Yeah, I guess it's because it's, it's, it's a thing doing the thing it's supposed to do.

Yeah. Whereas when a road car does it, you're like, I could do that with a road car.

Exactly. Do the drifting in the NSX. Everyone's goes mental on the internet for it.

And, and, you know, and that is a surprisingly good drift car, actually.

I mean, even the GT3 is a great drift car.

Well, I mean, the shot, the shots from, was it super car driver behind,

behind Phil in the Mercedes Lago? That's that. That's burned into my brain about doing a big

old skid. What was that? I'd narrowly missed, I think, meeting you and maybe Phil.

That was where we used to work. Paddle up. I think you were invited to a track day.

Yes. Right. Yeah.

I either just left or I missed it, but I was so annoyed because I saw all the footage from it.

Yeah. That was me, Phil. And then another guy in a Lotus Elite.

Oh, yeah.

It's Siege, actually. Yeah, just, just tearing our tires to pieces.

And I've got, I've got some great friends in sort of various WhatsApp groups,

which have become the new car clubs, essentially. And they keep asking me, like,

how do you do like four sets of rear tires here on a track car?

And I'm like, well, you know, there's such things as a clutch pedal and I like it a lot.

I blew some tires apart on the Nurburgring on my last track day as well.

And I came back in on the lorry and I was like, oh no, my God, are you okay? Okay. I was like,

another set of tires. Well, that, that brings us on quite nicely

to your car collection, which is immaculate really for us. I know you're saying it's very dirty,

but as in the car choices, can you run us through what the current fleet is looking like?

And perhaps also some of your wife's cars as well, because together you have a very impressive car.

Thank you. We are, yeah, so we are very much stuck in a period of time where

that sort of like mid 80s to kind of like 2000s, where in my opinion, that was kind of like that

kind of greatest period of time when cars were at their mechanical peak.

They were, they were incredibly strong. They were, they didn't, you know,

they weren't governed by computers, but they were electronic enough that they would run

pretty much constantly. So that kind of glorious period out of carbs where the injection and

everything started. So, and they sounded cool and, you know, they're just, it's a great era,

I think, for cars. So as a result, that's kind of, and my wife as well, Joanna, we share the

same love for that period, particularly Japanese and German stuff, but, you know, I'm not adverse

to anything. I don't have a single sort of car that I hate. We love everything, but we happen to

have collected what we consider just driver's cars. So, so we have the 996 GT3. On the 88s,

on the 88s. God's will. Also, that is, that was my dream car when I started driving

Nurburgring in 2004. Those were brand new. And I just, again, the sound is like a really, as I

said earlier, a really big part of why I drive cars. And the sound of that coming past you in

an MX-5 when you're going up that hill, you're trying to like muster 60 miles an hour at this thing.

And the GT3s are blazing past you. That kind of, yeah, and all this that they make, I was just,

I was in love. So I worked and that was the, that was the goal with that car. So that,

when that turned up, I was like, yeah, this is good. I've had that for 14 years now.

Wow. So I bought that when they were cheap. They're not cheap anymore. No,

nothing's cheap anymore. And then on my, behind me now, I have the A86 Corolla.

And is that what you've had the longest? No, that's the longest. That's the second longest.

So this is a 20 valve, still 1.6 4G engine running currently an IS 200 gearbox.

And that makes 200 horsepower, which is a lot for that little car.

This is probably the best sounding car, naturally aspirated four-part, I think,

on the planet. It sounds ridiculous, open throttle bodies. I've got some various clips of it and

I just, the noise on the outside is just my, to die for. I love it so much. Also another car on

another one of the Lord's wheels, the TE37.

TE37. Yeah, he's in the Chilean. That can be the prodigal son, I guess.

We've got German, Lord's German wheels.

And then here we have Honda NSX. This is an NA1. This is a, so it's a three-litre,

but this is essentially almost a full Type R, everything on it. Everything from the dash,

to the glass, to the doors, to the carpets, to the gearbox, to the underside. Everything's all

been lit, presumably, from a crash damage car. This was modified mostly before I bought it,

and I just perfected it, I think. And also, so we... I have a photo of this car.

Yeah, I do just remember that, actually. There's a photo, I think it's on my Instagram,

I'll have to find it, we'll put it on the screen, but it's at Caffeine Machine on the hill,

but there's that one bay where there's got that sort of wooden surround. I've got it there,

with the TPs in the background. And I remember taking that picture and going,

I'm the greatest photographer I've ever met. But it was more about the car and the lives and

whatever else. I remember, I've seen this car a few times.

Also, we recently drove, we were looking for an R32 and an NSX. And then the NSX that we were

potentially going to use fell through. So I rung up out and said, A, do you want to be on the podcast?

B, do you please know someone with an NSX? And thankfully, you put us in contact. So you're

also the person behind the one that you got to drive, which is very similar kind of car,

with also some Type R flavors in there. Luke, I think it was. He said he asked for the same

seats as you. He was very specific. So I want those recaro's with the small recaro logo on them.

It's all about, yeah. This is like one of those little obsessions is period correct modifications

is for me, like such an important thing. Because it's kind of, there's a bit of nostalgia to it,

but also it runs as deep as making sure that the radio is the right period.

Yeah. Things like that. You know, just trying to be like, that said, that has carplay. So I've

just thrown out. I've heard a lot of people say that, where people will ask why. And it's not

because I kind of have a little bit the same sort of thing. It's not that it's easy to just go

online and buy something that's new, but there's something fun in the chase of going, if I can

go out and I can find that set of correct OG bronze T37s, that will look like it looked in the magazine

when I was six. And that's the car that I wanted. Whereas you get the new set and you're like,

it's there. It's not exactly that. Yeah. I know that it does smack of

unoriginality, but like that is the wheel for that car. Yeah. You know, the E88 is the

wheel that you put on a 996 GT3. It is. Sorry. And you know, I think that looks amazing on the

OG T37s. This looks incredible on T37s. A lot of wheels that kind of do suit it, but I just

particularly love that. There's a reason people have like trusted them and gone with them so

long. Yeah. And again, I tried to like, I tried not to worry too much about it, but like I just

that's the car I wanted and that's the look I wanted and that's the part I wanted. So that's

why it's ended up like that. So we've got the NSX and then we have the two JZX 100s.

There's two, yeah, two JZX 100s. One of them is there. So that's a recent addition to the garage.

So originally I'd bought a one J, JZX 100 Mark II, which a lot of people

incorrectly assume as a chaser, but it's they're not chasers. They're actually called Mark IIs.

Chaser is a different body, but it's the same platform. And there was a third one as well.

Cresta, which Cresta's got those weird lights. That's what kind of like bug eye looking real

lights. Japan went through this phase of just essentially taking exactly the same car and

they're making three versions of it and selling them simultaneously in the same country and like

and dealership too. Yeah. Like, yeah, no, they're all the same. Just pick one. Pick a shape. Whatever

you prefer. Do you like long lights? Do you like short lights? Yeah. And that was essentially it.

So, yeah, so I bought this car and it had a bit of a life in Japan. I come over,

but it's manual one J cars, very basic, like intercooler, boost controller. And we did a

load of work, put like fancy diff and stuff. And that was going to be my kind of like,

don't really care too much about it, sort of just enjoy a streetie fun wobble about car.

And then that car I've just sent to Finland. I've just come back from Finland where we've

spent a week doing snow driving around and that car was sensational on the snow roads. So it's

just so perfect. You just palm it around these gigantic corners, top third and fourth gear and

just having a lovely time. So that was really, really cool. And I was going to sell that car

once I got back. And now I've driven it out there. I'm like, that's pretty good car because

that car came up for sale. And that car was, that car is a same car, same body kit, same color.

But that car has a 2JZ in it and a BNW automatic 8HP gear.

It's a ZF-8. Nice.

And it's does have a clutch pedal as well.

That's a clutch pedal.

So it's got a effectively a sim racing clutch pedal, which is quite weird, but it works.

So it means you've got like a proper hydraulic handbrake and everything.

And clutch kick it.

Yep, clutch kick it.

Now, something I've been annoyed about for a very long time,

mainly because I'm joined by one of these bastards on my left or your right watching.

Tell me, tell us a story about the Evo.

Yeah, I had a short dalliance with an Evo.

So you probably all seen the online raffle companies that exist. There seems to be about

12 million.

Yeah, we raffle some of our cars through it too.

Yeah, it's quite a good, it's quite a good little game, I think if you can get into it.

But I think a lot of people thought that's a scam.

It can't be that easy to win a car.

And then about a week before I entered, a friend of ours won a Ferrari.

And we were like, oh, is it that easy then?

And then I found out like two weeks before that, a friend of ours won a GTR.

And then two months before that, and then someone else we knew had won a Lamborghini,

they won a Huracan, and I was like, oh, it can't be that easy, can it?

You just, well, enter it and you look at it and you go look at the odds and you go,

well, that's a lot better than a lottery.

So I'll give it a try.

Entered in some, entered on three cars.

I was sat down with my fiance at the time.

And we weren't even fiance at the time, well, with my girlfriend at the time,

who is now my wife, we turn on the TV and thought, we'll just win a car before a cup of tea,

just win a few before we go and have some dinner.

And we turn it on.

It's the first time we've ever played and it was the first car they drew and they were like,

and the winner is Al clock.

For like a restored, like a completely beautiful, like still zinc plated underneath Evo 5.

And I was like, I was speechless, but I still got the video.

I was like, just three minutes just sat here and like, this cannot be real.

It was ridiculous.

And I'm just pulling the group chat with all the Driftwoods guys, like I won the Evo.

And they're like, of course you have, of course you have.

I think I've told the story before, but we'll both, we'll and our friend,

Evian during lockdown, we'd always like, we'd do stuff together, play Xbox together,

that sort of stuff.

And we'll put in a, was it, who won first? Was it Evian or you?

I won first.

We'll won first.

And I, it was just, we'll put in the chat.

No, no way.

And then everyone was like, no, no way.

And I wasn't watching the competition.

I said, what is it?

And we'll win.

I just won.

I won a mark to focus RS.

And I was like, I cannot believe because we all enter these competitions.

And then like, was it a month or two later?

There was will Evian message and said, no, you won't, no way.

And I was like, and he went, yeah, I've just won a, I've won a Rolex.

And then about two months later, Will fits in the chat, no way.

And I was like, what's going on here?

And everyone went, no, don't tell him.

And we went, yeah, Evian's just won a Rolex as well.

So everyone I know is one except for me.

I can't believe it.

So Joanna is also equally mad that she's not one as well.

And Jim, I know that doesn't make any difference at all, but I was one number away

from winning an Audi really a few months ago.

I was one number off crazy.

You know, it's so, if you're listening, it does happen.

It does happen to everyone else but me.

And you're going to win one day on something.

It's going to be something small because now this is the thing.

I'm not a superstitious person.

I don't believe in any of that sort of stuff.

But now when I look at something, I'm like, there's like a Saxo VTS.

I love a Saxo VTS.

I'll buy a ticket on that.

And then I don't because I'm like, I can't use up my luck and win that one.

I want to win.

I need to win an Evo or an M3 or something cool.

So, I mean, it's, I haven't won another car since.

It makes you feel any better.

So, you see, I wouldn't, I said this to those guys after they won.

I'd stop.

I'd be like, well, I'm never winning one again.

So, you're a wise man.

Yeah, I am not.

The problem is I ran the Evo for like eight months and I ran it over winter.

It made a great winter shitter.

And that is what was a couple of quits.

And I think it was an awesome car, but a tiny bit soulless again.

Like just again, going back to that whole like engine not being very characterful and it's

just a bit too competent.

So, that's why I sort of was like, well, someone offered me some money for it.

And I was like, yeah, yeah.

So, and then 15 pounds.

And then you did have for shorts then or not shorts then you had an AMG.

Was it GTR or was it?

I had a GTR which had replaced the Ferrari F12.

So again, very, very specifically going back to like dream cars, dream noises,

but also moments where I remember stuff.

There was, I went, I did a LaFerrari launch many, many years ago.

And there was this again, the sound that car makes is extremely specific to that engine.

And that engine is ostensibly transplanted into the F12.

And then I was like, I want an F12 now.

So, and then I bought the F12, which turned out to be horribly unreliable.

So, I had that.

But I did, I did eight and a half thousand miles on it.

And I did use it properly, but it just, it was just,

it was just like pouring, literally just pouring money away.

It was, it was, it cost a fortune, which is such a shame

because they're supposed to be quite reliable.

Otherwise I'd still have it.

But the AMG GTR that followed it, didn't put a single foot wrong at all ever.

And that was a really, really cool car.

Again, you know, same, same idea along the bonnet, you know,

GT sat at the back over the back axle.

But there was something a little bit cold about it.

It was just a little bit, again, too competent and a little bit too fast

and just a little bit too good at everything.

And it was kind of, I don't know what it is.

Like you needed something that's slightly, slightly cramped somewhere.

Something that's just a bit like keeps you on your toes.

Like that car was so fast and good.

And it just, I don't know, it just didn't make you work for anything.

Yeah.

So that was sort of the reason for sort of getting rid of that.

And I haven't really thought of it.

I can't really think of a car that I'd replace that with at the moment.

Well, this, that was going to be the next question is, what is the next car?

I genuinely, I look and look.

And until I sort of think about something for a long time, I go,

no, I'm not going to buy it because I'll have like, you know, you go for a,

because the, also I will point out, you know, when I bought the Ferrari,

there was that sort of sweet spot of PCP time when you could buy things for free.

And now, you know, the amount of money that it would cost to finance that,

if you wanted to go down that route is astronomical now.

So I kind of took advantage of the back of that cheap period of time.

Yes.

So it's almost, it was good.

And because those cars don't lose any money at all, you know,

the same value when you go in and out, you kind of get to the end of it

and you're in positive equity.

Well, I mean, that's, that's your plan on the glado, right?

That's the, that's the goal with it.

It's not an investment as such, but if you can own a car you've always wanted.

It's the wisest way without losing a shed load of money.

It's, it's much nicer.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So that, that was the deal with the Ferrari.

But the, I haven't, there's nothing else that really tickles my fancy.

And I keep looking back at F12s going like, if I've bought another one,

but is that the definition of insanity?

Yeah, I think quite literally, because, because again,

like I know two or three other people who have got them,

abused them and they have no issues with them.

And I'm like, why didn't mine break constantly?

But I mean, everything went wrong and that car, the steering wheel exploded,

the computer inside it just stopped working.

The, you know, the gearbox exploded, the blah, blah, blah, blah,

every tonne of bits, pieces like that.

And it was just, you know, I bought a high mileage ish car

with the idea that that had been used.

And so all of the, all the little bugs had been,

worked out. Yeah.

Because the worst thing you don't want to buy a car that hasn't been used,

because cars that don't get used explode constantly.

I don't think it makes a difference in that car.

So no, there is no current plan to, to do that.

In anything, you know, I'm, it would be something older again.

I've missed the boat, I think on like Diablo's and Mercilago's,

unfortunately, they've just doubled in price overnight.

Unfortunately, that is our mainly will, but mine as well,

Mercilago is the, is one of the end gold cars.

And it's just getting further and further away.

Yeah. And it wasn't that long ago that you could buy a,

like a, like an early Diablo for a hundred.

Yeah.

And now they are 200 going on for the, yeah.

It's the thing that we said with the, like with the Delta,

that I always wanted a Delta EVO too.

So a friend had some money to spend.

So imported, he paid for it, imported it to the UK.

I did up and sold it for him.

And because I just always wanted one, I knew I would buy one.

After selling it, I think we sold it at 45, that car's now 80.

If I ever get 80 together, that car will be 150.

It will just always keep moving away from you at that.

And that's the, that is the most frustrating thing in the world.

Yeah. There's no, there's no catching up with it.

I mean, I try not to think about it, but like I bought this,

this, this car has possibly close to tripled in values.

Yeah. So bought it.

This one has easily doubled, that's easily doubled.

Does it stop, does it make you drive them any different?

It does until I put a helmet on.

And then you're like, this is a race car.

Yeah. Then you're just like, oh, I'm safe. Let's go.

To be honest, no, I try not to, I tried to be,

I tried to think about a car as the value that I bought it at.

I was happy to buy it and crash it.

Is it in the air?

At the time.

And nothing's changed other than the, to you, that's the cost.

And I've no plan to get rid of these cars.

You know, they, they are everything I love about cars,

the, the, the personality, the driving.

They're, they're, they're, they're, they're so different

in their own different ways.

And they represent such a, their own unique corner of driving.

And you know, I think honestly, like, I think

something that's really missing, I think like an old classic

would be awesome. Something from a sort of like 60s, 70s.

American English?

I think given the route we're probably going,

they've looked at like two 40s and stuff.

Oh, nice. That would be very nice.

Something that we can kind of cruise around slowly.

Again, a really annoying car.

I remember looking, this would have been 2013,

right when I was starting to look for my first car.

And there was a project, two 40s.

I think it had an MOT the previous year,

but needed some stuff to get through the next one.

And it was three and a half thousand pounds.

And I could have like sold it, basically sold every,

I had saved up some money for my first car.

I could have sold like bought and sold some more wheels and stuff

to make it happen.

And my mom was like, you're not having a car from 1971 as your first car.

You will buy, which is fair.

I would have, but I would have been very cool to have a two 40s, a first car.

It won't lose any money. You'll be dead.

But, but now that cause that's a 30 40 grand project.

Yep.

And a 50 60 grand working car.

Yep.

It's just tough, rough.

It is.

I keep every day I check Mercy Lagos and I just pray,

I'm looking at an auction going one or sell for a sub hundred grand,

but they they just don't.

They just don't.

You just want that sort of strange one that no one really wants off an auction that,

you know, but everyone's so wise to it.

The real sad part is, is all the speculation over values and stuff.

Because they won't get used.

No.

And we thankfully, so when we were in Monterey last year,

we've talked about a few times, we met a guy there who bought one.

He has that in a glado.

And he was like, I bought it because of hot pursuit.

It was on the cover. It was my favorite car.

I let any, and he let us drive it.

He let us absolutely blast it around.

It was off car as well.

That's what he's made for.

I'm not putting it in a garage so it can make some money.

The value he bought that for really upset me.

Really upsetting.

Yeah, especially in dollars.

I was like, yeah, that's really annoying.

But I was out in, when I was out in Finland,

I was showing some German friends and some Austrians,

like the prices of cars in the UK.

We're very lucky.

They were brain melty over how cheap we can get stuff.

Well, we are, we're looking for our next, we buy cars together

as like a car each and we do a series on them.

We're looking at cheap Italian cars.

And we're both looking, you're looking mainly at a Quattroporte.

I'm looking at either a 3200 or a 4200 GT sub,

like five to six grand gets you a car with an MOT

that you can drive down the road.

It will break. It will blow up.

But you still got a like a road legal Maserati for five to six grand.

Name a more gangster car than a Quattroporte.

But like that car that is from Birmingham here,

that is about to fall apart, even that in Italy,

that's a 15 to 20,000 Euro car for the horrible one.

We are very lucky in some aspects though.

Joanna's Portugese and her friends back home,

you know, she shows me like the online stuff.

When she bought a reasonably cheap E46 M3 and her friends were like,

oh, did you win a lottery?

And she's like, no, they are free here.

And this is the first sort of time I'm like looking at the taxes

and it's the general value.

It's crazy.

So we do we do actually have it quite good here.

Yeah, definitely.

Hence the reason Veyrons will be.

Yeah, 30 grand coming soon.

Come and see me here first.

UK delivered Veyrons.

Exactly.

Dropping in price.

Did you have any other questions?

I don't think so.

Let me double check my list.

Let me check my list.

It might be.

Actually, that was it's a very generic question,

but you've worked with a lot of sort of big stars and big cars.

But has there ever been a pinch yourself,

like the stand out pinch yourself moment or person or car?

So obviously you've had a lot of big moments.

I tell you one that I always remember really is there's two

particularly one.

One was at the biggest surprise, which was Michelle Rodriguez in

Nevada doing 200 miles an hour and an F type on a public road,

which was a closed public road 200 miles an hour.

She was so cool and like just into cars and just a total vibe.

And she was so she was wicked to work with.

She yeah, she just was interested, helpful,

did everything really well.

A lot of the F1 drivers, you know,

like Max Verstappen is amazing actually to work with.

He doesn't suffer fools gladly, but he's a properly good guy.

But this is slightly older audience potentially now.

But the most the job that really stands out for me was working

with Sterling Moss for such a long time when he was just

before his kind of like health declined particularly.

And the legends that we got to do,

we did this documentary originally shot for Jaguar,

which ended up going on to Sky Documentaries.

And that was about how Sterling Moss and a test driver called

Norman Dewis essentially were responsible for the disc brake

that is in every single car in the world.

So for those of whom we don't know, Dunlop,

the tire company made airplane disc brakes,

which they then wanted to try and make that technology work on cars.

And they'd failed, but Norman Dewis,

who was bought over in the time, made the technology work.

And he is responsible for the disc brake that is on every single car

that you probably can touch for the rest of your lives.

And Sterling was the driver, the racing driver who won the first racing,

the first race on a car with disc brakes on a C type.

And we were telling that story, but as a result,

we just got access to some of the most extraordinary people

and like racing legends.

And we took Sterling down to Reams and just the, that was such a special,

such a special time to do those kind of like three, four months,

you know, went to his house two or three times to go and hang out with him and Susie

and just kind of like drink gin at 10 o'clock in the morning and stuff.

But and that film wasn't ever even going to go out, right?

Wasn't going to go out.

It sat on a shelf for years and years and years until Sterling died

during Easter, kind of when it was now, it was kind of like the COVID time, wasn't it?

And I just thought, we have to make this film exist,

because like I had all the footage.

So I spoke to all the relevant people, spoke to Jag and Jag were like,

yeah, go on then actually.

And I was sort of fair on them because they said, yep, go and go and make that story happen.

So they released all the footage out and we made the film and put it out on the sky

and gave it to them for free, basically, so that it could exist.

Yeah, just to eat out there, which is epic.

Yeah. And so that's that's my that will be forever my most grateful job to sort of having

spent that time with those legends and hear like the the crucible of these lunatic stories that

you've that are never ever going to be repeated.

No, yeah.

Because we live in different times now.

So that's that's the one I'm most grateful for.

Yeah, that's very cool.

It's called the races who stopped the world.

And yeah, you can see it on YouTube now actually for free as well.

There you go. That's your next project.

After you've finished listening to this, you can go ahead and listen to that.

Happy there?

I think that's all for me.

I think that is a perfect place to end this.

Thank you very much to Al Clarke for being on the cream podcast.

Also, by the way, if you're an audio listener and you've been wondering why

there's been rustling the whole time, we're on beanbags.

We are on beanbags.

That's probably why I've reclined a significant amount.

I think podcast beanbags are definitely the future.

Oh, this is yeah.

I do quite like the idea of it.

So we will see you not not in a week's time, but in a few days time

for another episode of the cream podcast back in the unit with little Benjamin.

See you then.

Cars rule everything around me.

And we should be in chairs.

C.R.E.A.M. Ft Al Clark - Filming a Bugatti With a Bugatti, Banned Adverts and Meeting Legends

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