C.R.E.A.M. Ft Jonny Smith - Max Power Memories, Fifth Gear Stories and AC Hate
C.R.E.A.M. (The TDC Podcast)
C.R.E.A.M. Ft Jonny Smith - Max Power Memories, Fifth Gear Stories and AC Hate
C.R.E.A.M. (The TDC Podcast) · May 26, 2026
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Car
Dodge Charger
A Dodge Charger is a well-known American car model. People often associate it with powerful engines and a sporty look.
Car
Nissan Cedric
A Nissan Cedric is a Japanese car model. The hosts are talking about the name “Cedric” and confirming that’s what their car is called.
Car
Dodge Avenger
They mention an “Avenger Touring,” which sounds like a specific version or build meant for touring-car style use. The exact make/model isn’t clear from this snippet.
Car
Jag XFR
The Jaguar XFR is a Jaguar performance car. In this part of the episode, they’re talking about it because it had no keys, so they had to get help to fix the situation.
Car
911 GT3 RS
The Porsche 911 GT3 RS is a very serious, track-oriented 911. In this segment it’s just the example of a high-end car in their workshop that’s currently waiting on parts and repairs.
Concept
project cars
A “project car” is a car someone is working on over time—fixing it up or upgrading it. In this story, the host is saying that making content around that kind of car can sometimes help you get parts for less.
Term
YouTube thumbnail influencer face
They’re talking about the exaggerated facial expression people use in video thumbnails to get your attention. The point is that magazines used a similar trick years ago, just in print instead of on YouTube.
Car
Volkswagen Beetle
The Volkswagen Beetle is a famous Volkswagen model with a long history. Here, the host is describing an early press car they got to drive for a magazine—an early version of the Beetle that was about to be launched.
Place
Wolfsburg
Wolfsburg is a city in Germany that’s strongly connected to Volkswagen. The host went there as part of a magazine trip and visited a museum connected to the brand.
Place
Auto Stat
The host is talking about a museum they visited in Wolfsburg. It had lots of historic Volkswagen cars, and they even had a creepy moment sitting in a famous car display.
Car
Lamborghini Gallardo
The Lamborghini Gallardo is a high-performance supercar made by Lamborghini. It’s known for being very fast and for having a strong V10 engine. The podcast mentions it because it was commonly used as a car people were given to drive for press or events.
Car
Ford Granada
The Ford Granada is a mid-size car model from Ford’s past. People sometimes customized older Granadas, including lowering them for a “low rider” look. The episode mentions it because it’s part of a personal story about that kind of modification.
Term
Geneva Motor Show
The Geneva Motor Show is a big car exhibition in Switzerland. Car companies use it to show off new cars and new tech, and journalists go there to report on what’s coming.
Term
rolling camera and mics
In TV production, “rolling camera” means the camera is on and recording. “Mics” are the microphones used to capture what people say while filming.
Car
Volkswagen Golf Gti
This is a Volkswagen Golf GTI, specifically the Mark V generation. It’s a small, practical hatchback that’s tuned to drive more like a sporty car than a normal Golf. The host is saying it was a big deal when it came out and still feels special to them.
Car
Honda S600 Coupe
The Honda S600 Coupe is an old Honda sports car from the 1960s. It’s remembered for being fun and revvy for its size, and the host is linking it to Honda’s later “VTEC” performance reputation.
Term
VTech
“VTech” is the host’s way of talking about Honda’s VTEC system. It helps the engine breathe better by changing how the valves work, depending on how you’re driving.
Car
Fiat 126
The Fiat 126 is a tiny Italian car that’s known for being simple and easy to live with. The host is saying he bought one without seeing it first, and it turned out to be in great shape.
Car
Tesla My Model
Term
street legal
“Street legal” means the car can be driven on normal public roads. It has to meet the rules for things like lights and safety equipment, not just be a track-only build.
Car
Tesla Model S
The Tesla Model S is an electric car, meaning it runs on batteries instead of gasoline. It’s a large, high-end sedan that became one of Tesla’s best-known early models. The episode mentions it to show when the car came out compared to other events.
Term
Formula E
Formula E is a racing series where the cars are fully electric. The speaker is basically saying his EV build happened before electric racing became a big, organized thing.
Term
dual motor
A dual-motor EV uses two electric motors (typically one per axle) instead of a single motor. That usually improves acceleration and traction because the car can split torque more effectively between the front and rear wheels.
Car
Chevrolet Camaro
They’re talking about a prototype electric version of the Chevrolet Camaro. The key detail is that it wasn’t really meant to be a normal street car.
Term
drag strip
A drag strip is a track designed for straight-line acceleration races. It’s where you test how fast a car can launch and accelerate over a set distance.
Term
aerodynamically stable
Aerodynamic stability means the car stays steady and predictable as it goes very fast. The idea is that the shape and airflow management help prevent the car from getting twitchy at speed.
Term
over-engineered
“Over-engineered” means the designer put in more work and extra safety margin than usual. In this case, it’s about making the car more stable at high speed.
Car
Seagulls
In the part you quoted, “seagull” sounds like it’s describing birds at the beach. It doesn’t clearly point to a specific car model. So it may be just background for the story, not a car being discussed.
Car
Ford Cougar
The Ford Cougar is a Ford car model name. It’s usually remembered as a sporty-looking car from earlier years. The episode brings it up because it’s part of a specific story the speaker is telling.
Car
W124
“W124” is a Mercedes-Benz E-Class generation name used by enthusiasts. It’s known for being tough, and here they’re talking about one they used on vegetable oil and later a wagon/estate version.
Term
vegetable oil
They’re talking about using plant-based oil instead of regular diesel fuel. That can work in some diesel setups, but it usually needs extra prep so the engine doesn’t get clogged.
Term
Chip Fat
“Chip fat” is used cooking oil—like the oil left over from frying chips. Here, they’re saying they used that oil as the fuel for their car.
Term
jump
Here, “jump” means the car is driven so it goes airborne and then lands. That kind of stunt can stress the suspension and other parts a lot, and it can cause leaks or damage that normal driving wouldn’t.
Car
Aztek Pontiac Aztec
The Pontiac Aztek is a crossover-type car with a very unusual look. The episode mentions it because the speaker owned one and made changes to it. That means it’s being discussed as a personal project car.
Term
automatic fluid
Automatic fluid is the fluid an automatic gearbox uses to shift gears smoothly. If it’s leaking after a stunt, it can mean something got damaged and the car may start shifting badly or stop working.
Term
brake hose
A brake hose is a tube that carries brake fluid to the brakes. If it gets damaged and leaks, the brakes can fail because there’s not enough fluid pressure.
Term
dual circuit
Most cars have brakes split into two separate hydraulic systems. If one side gets damaged, the other side can still work so you’re not left with no brakes.
Term
single circuit
Some cars use just one brake fluid system. If a hose bursts, the brake fluid can leak out and the brakes can stop working much more completely.
Term
brake pads
Brake pads are the parts that squeeze against the brake discs to make the car slow down. Buying them from a scrap yard can be a bad idea because you don’t really know how worn they are.
Term
wheel bearings
Wheel bearings are small parts that help your wheel spin freely. If they wear out, they can start making a loud humming sound, like the host is describing.
Term
red light
A red light means cars should stop. The speaker is saying the other driver ran the red light and hit them.
Term
seat belt clearly didn't retract properly
Seat belts are designed to pull back and stay snug. In this crash, the speaker felt like the belt didn’t rewind properly after the impact, which can happen when the car is hit suddenly.
Term
on the limiter
It means the engine was revving so high that the car’s computer stopped it from going any faster. The engine is basically being held at its maximum RPM.
Term
exhaust hangers
Exhaust hangers are the parts that hold the exhaust system up under the car. If they burn through, the exhaust can get loose and overheat, sometimes causing smoke or even flames.
Car
Ford Cortina
A Ford Cortina is a classic Ford from the UK. Here it’s being described as a “sleeper,” meaning it looks plain but can be surprisingly quick or aggressive underneath.
Term
Cosworth YB
Cosworth YB is a specific kind of turbo engine (an engine code) that Ford used in some performance cars. People talk about it because it can make a lot of power for its size when tuned.
Term
400 horsepower
Horsepower is a way to measure how strong the engine is. Here they’re saying that around 400 horsepower was a big deal at the time for that engine.
Concept
witness protection
Witness protection is a safety program where someone’s identity is hidden so they can’t be found. In this story, they had to disguise the person to safely feature the car in a magazine.
Brand
Max Power
Max Power is a car magazine. The host is explaining that it was very popular, which is why the story about disguising the person mattered for getting the car featured.
Car
Chevrolet Nova
The Chevrolet Nova is a car model made by Chevrolet. It was popular in the past and many owners modified them for a custom look. The episode mentions Novas in connection with flashy aftermarket styling.
Car
Civic Type R
The Civic Type R is Honda’s high-performance version of the Civic hatchback. It’s a fast, sporty car that helped change the scene because you could buy something quick without needing as many extreme modifications.
Term
front splitter
A front splitter is a piece added under the front bumper. It helps the car “push down” a bit at the front by shaping airflow, which can make it feel more planted when driving hard.
Car
Saxo VTR
The Citroën Saxo VTR is a small sporty hatchback. In this story, it’s a lower-spec version compared to the VTS, but it was heavily modified with a full body kit, a new exhaust, and a loud paint job—very typical of that early “Max Power” scene.
Term
full kit
A “full kit” means the car got multiple body parts, like bumpers and side pieces, not just one small change. It’s usually done to make the whole car look more aggressive and matched.
Term
ice blue
“Ice blue” is just the color they repainted the car. In that kind of modified scene, the paint job is part of how the car looks and stands out.
Car
Nissan 350Z
The Nissan 350Z is a sports car that’s popular with car fans. It’s rear-wheel drive and was seen as a big upgrade from cheaper cars.
Car
Lotus Exige
The Lotus Exige is a small, lightweight sports car made by Lotus. People like it because it feels very sporty and driver-focused.
Car
Opel Astra
The Opel Astra is a compact car. The Astra VXR is a sportier version of it. The episode mentions it because someone ended up with one through financing rather than just picking it outright.
Car
Vauxhall Astra VXR
The Astra VXR is a sporty version of the Vauxhall Astra. It’s meant to be faster and more fun than the regular model.
Term
finance
“Finance” here means paying for the car over time instead of all at once. It’s how he could upgrade to better cars sooner.
Car
Citroën Saxo
The Citroën Saxo is a small, inexpensive hatchback. It’s the kind of car people start with before upgrading to something more exciting.
Term
rectangular exhaust
An exhaust is the part that lets gases out of the car. A rectangular exhaust means the tip is shaped like a box, and here it’s being mentioned because it looked really bold and noticeable.
Term
TVR green
“TVR green” is a famous green paint color people associate with TVR cars. The speaker is using it like a color comparison to help you picture how the car looked.
Concept
fiddle with cars
Here, “fiddle with cars” means getting your hands dirty—working on the car yourself or making changes. The host is contrasting that with just buying stuff and doing only surface-level stuff.
Concept
detail it
“Detail it” means cleaning and improving how the car looks, like washing, polishing, and cleaning the inside. The speaker is saying that’s easier than doing real work on the car.
Term
engine swaps
An engine swap means replacing the car’s original engine with a different one. People do it to change how the car drives or to build something more powerful, but it can be a bigger job than it sounds.
Term
differential
The differential is part of the drivetrain that helps the wheels turn at different speeds, like when you’re going around a corner. It affects how well the car can put power down without slipping.
Term
coil pack
A coil pack is part of the ignition system. It makes the electrical spark that lights the fuel in the engine’s cylinders.
Car
Pagani Zonda
Term
gear stick snapped in half
They’re saying the gear lever literally broke. Because of that, they had to tape it and shift in a different, awkward way just to keep the car drivable.
Term
gaffer taped
Gaffer tape is the strong tape people use on sets and in racing. They used it as a quick fix to hold the broken gear lever together.
Term
short shifter
A short shifter is a modification that makes the gear lever move less to change gears. They’re saying the car didn’t even have that upgrade, but the broken lever still made shifting feel weird and limited.
Term
press cars
Press cars are vehicles provided to journalists and media outlets before or around a model’s launch so they can write reviews and create early coverage. The host is referencing early press-car examples and launch materials to explain how perceptions of a car can evolve over time.
Topic
opinions shift from launch-era reviews to later auction/nostalgia
They’re talking about how people’s opinions about cars can change a lot over time. Old magazines might have hated a car, but years later people may see it differently—especially when it comes up for auction.
Car
Ferrari 550
This is a Ferrari from the 1990s that’s famous for having a big V12 engine. The discussion here is about how its styling opinion has changed over time.
Car
Porsche 911
The Porsche 911 is one of the most famous sports cars ever made. In this clip it’s just being used as a comparison against the Ferrari 550.
Car
BMW 550S
The BMW 5 Series is a mid-size BMW sedan meant for comfortable daily driving. The “550” refers to a higher-performance version. The episode is talking about how people’s opinions about those cars can change.
Term
Audi RS's
Audi’s “RS” cars are the high-performance versions of Audi models. They’re usually more powerful and more aggressive-looking than the regular versions.
Term
electric stuff
They’re talking about electric cars—vehicles that run on electricity from a battery. The point is that the speaker doesn’t like how things have shifted toward that.
Term
discontinued
“Discontinued” here means the carmaker stops making certain replacement parts. When that happens, parts become harder to find and often cost more, which makes older cars less attractive to buy.
Term
devalues
“Devalues” means the car becomes worth less money when you go to sell it. The host is saying that if parts get harder to find or repairs get expensive, buyers pay less.
Car
RS6
The Audi RS6 is a very fast, high-end Audi model. The host is talking about the V10 version and saying that when parts become hard to get, it gets expensive to maintain, which hurts resale value.
Term
V10
A V10 is an engine with 10 cylinders arranged in two banks. The host is using it to describe the specific RS6 they have, and the idea is that expensive, specialized maintenance can hurt ownership and resale.
Term
injectors
Injectors are parts that deliver fuel into the engine. If they fail, fixing them can be costly—so the host is using injector prices to explain why an older performance car can become financially painful to maintain.
Term
arch liner
An arch liner is a plastic or trim piece inside the wheel area. The host is saying that after parts stop being made, you’re left hunting for whatever leftover stock exists—even for smaller pieces like this.
Part
four arms
“Four arms” sounds like the suspension arms that help hold the wheels in place and control how the car rides. The host is noting the cost of replacing them, which adds to why older cars can become expensive to keep.
Term
dampers
Dampers are the shock absorbers in a car’s suspension. They help stop the car from bouncing after you hit a bump, so the tires keep better contact with the road.
Car
Audi Quattro
The Audi Quattro is a performance car known for using all-wheel drive. The UR Quattro is an early, important version of that model. The episode mentions it because some original parts are difficult to find now.
Term
Tuv
In Germany, TÜV is the group that checks whether a car is safe and legal to drive. If you modify a car, you often need approval/inspection first, otherwise it can be considered illegal.
Term
MOTs
An MOT is the UK inspection your car has to pass to be allowed on the road. It checks safety and emissions, and the rules can affect whether modifications are allowed.
Term
vin plate
A VIN plate is the official ID tag for a car—the VIN is like its unique fingerprint. Changing or stamping it is tightly controlled because it can be used to misrepresent a vehicle’s identity.
Term
logbook
A logbook is the official paperwork for a vehicle that lists its registered details. If you change something like the color, you may need to update the paperwork so it matches the car.
Term
left hand drive
Left-hand drive means the steering wheel is on the left side of the car. That’s normal in the UK, and it can feel different if you’re used to right-hand-drive cars.
Car
Mercedes-Benz C63
The Mercedes-Benz C63 is the sporty, high-performance version of the C-Class. It’s the kind of car that can accelerate very quickly, which is why it stands out when it blasts past.
Term
blacked out tail lights
“Blacked out tail lights” means the rear lights are made darker than stock, usually for a custom look. It can change how noticeable they are when you’re braking or driving at night.
Car
BMW M140I
The BMW 1 Series is a smaller BMW designed for everyday driving. The M140i is a higher-performance version of that model line. The episode mentions it because someone bought one for a surprisingly low amount.
Term
air conditioning
Air conditioning in a car is what cools the cabin and helps keep the windows from fogging up. It’s basically the system that makes the inside of the car feel comfortable.
Term
AC
AC is the car’s air-conditioning. It doesn’t just make the cabin colder—it also removes some moisture from the air, which helps stop the windows from fogging.
Term
steaming up
“Steaming up” means the windows fog over. That happens when the air inside is humid and the glass is cooler, and AC helps dry the air so the fog goes away.
Term
radar cruise control
Radar cruise control is cruise control that can “see” the car in front of you. It can automatically slow down if you get too close, and then speed up again when the road clears.
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People would steal cars and turn up in stolen cars, burnouts until there were no tires, and
then the police would come and then we'd get the blame.
And sometimes people would take their clothes off.
He moons the camera.
And then spreads his...
Hello, and welcome back to the Cream Podcast, not numbered because this one is with special
guest, Jonny Smith of the Late Break Show, of Smith and Sniff, of Fifth Gear, and off
that lay-by you see on the motorway sometimes on certain nights.
Hello, Jonny Smith.
How are you?
Hey, I'm good.
Thanks for inviting me along.
We've been after you for a while.
We've been liaising.
Pursuing.
Pursuing.
You've been effing patient.
Yeah.
Well, we're here now.
So thanks.
And we're here at Ignition Cars and Coffee.
Yeah.
This is a very cool place.
And you've got some of your cars for the audio listeners.
What have we got behind us?
You're actually leaning on the Dodge, the charger, and then we've got the Tokyo Taxi
Cedric Nissan, then we've got my Avenger Touring, Finnish Touring Car.
Yeah.
Over there.
Did you know that was called a Cedric?
Were you aware of that?
I didn't know that was called a Cedric.
That's a funny name.
Did you think that?
I thought it was another Alex Kirsten special.
No, no, no.
This is Steven, that one's Cedric.
No, I don't name my cars.
That's good news.
The car's name is the car.
You're allowed to carry on on the podcast now.
We've gone through the vetting process.
So for those that may not know, how would you describe yourself at a dinner party?
Perhaps.
Well, not yourself.
Your career.
Bit of a twat.
How would I describe myself?
So, I guess traditionally a motoring journalist.
So I started off as a print media writer, you know, content creator, but on print and
then migrated into television 20 years ago.
And then, but sorted by accident, then started doing YouTube.
But that was because YouTube took off in a much bigger way.
And as YouTube became a massive business rather than a hobby, I sort of saw the opportunity
and thought, I've done a good thing until the TV, I'll go into that.
So now I'm, I don't like to call myself a YouTuber.
A YouTuber.
Content creator.
Influencer.
Yeah.
I mean, maybe a bit of all of those things, but hopefully not too annoying.
I don't know.
You can be the judge of that.
You're one of like a very few people on earth that has done the whole pipeline.
You've done motoring journalist into television and then into online social media.
Yeah.
What do you think?
What's next?
Are we all going to end up on TikTok doing life?
Like, what's doing dances and yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I am on TikTok in so much as I pay someone to put our material on TikTok.
I'll be honest with you.
I don't fully understand some social media platforms.
I don't know whether it's an age thing or whether it's just a mental bandwidth.
It's like, I haven't got the mental capacity to bring in another platform.
Because you know what it's like.
This is quite a treadmill this life.
Big time.
Yeah.
It's not verbal.
It's fast and it's relentless.
So what's next?
It's a really good question.
Shit.
I mean, the podcast is now a business and it wasn't before.
So the Smith and Sniff podcast started off as just a silly video hobby and then went
into a podcast during COVID, which is what, seven years, six years ago.
And then it's back in as a video podcast because you have to record podcasts now because that's
the way the world is.
I'd like to do some more video, like road trippy things with Richard.
We've talked about it.
We just need things like money and time.
I've been searching all over.
I reckon, I think Engol, all of us are going to end up used car salesman.
Yeah.
So that's what we're going to do.
Selling our own cars.
List of 40, 50 cars.
I think social media is just going to end.
We're going to go, right, I've got a fiesta.
Car thieves.
Car salesman.
Our car thieves.
Cream would do well as car thieves.
Thieves.
I think we'd be quite obvious because they go, right, who's Nick to Carlton?
It's going to be them, isn't it?
Yeah.
I once interviewed a load of car thieves in a young offenders' institute for Max Power.
Yeah.
It was quite scary because there was also the, what was it, Eddie Jordan's boy racers?
Do you remember that?
Yes.
And there was a load of car thieves in there and I was, the amount of ingenuity, the old
tennis ball trick they were doing, all sorts of stuff.
I was like, this is crazy.
I also want to help people get a hold of car thieves.
Mark McCann did it recently.
He was like, I found a car thief.
I'm like, where do you go to find a car thief?
Just a...
There's no website or forum, surely.
There's no Facebook group.
Don't you have one on a Friday night?
Facebook group where you answer a load of questions and it's just that, are you a car
thief?
Have you done time?
Are you the police?
There was always going to be thieves who are thick and thieves who are sly and canny and
want to stay below the radar.
It's like drug dealers that choose to drive a Eurus, for example.
But really the ultimate drug dealer car would be, I don't know.
I think I'll go with the Nissan Duke with some dents on it here because they're everywhere.
Yeah.
Fully insured.
Fully insured.
Correctly MOT.
Yes.
A couple of advisories on there, not to...
You know, no red flags.
You look at it and you go, alright.
Yeah.
That was just a normal car.
I always think all the car thieves are now just locksmiths.
They have to be.
That's the best way to develop those skills into a legal trade.
It's the trust me, I'm going to go...
I'm going to be legal soon.
I'll just be a locksmith.
People now pay me to break into their car.
Our Jag XFR that we had had no keys and Dips wasn't available to come. So we rung up another guy.
You rung up another guy and we said, we have this car. Could you fix it? He's like, yeah,
not problem. He said, we're a YouTuber and we're filming it. And you went, oh, no, I can't do that.
Yeah, people know me. I've done some time. I don't want to be on camera.
We're like, people know me. I've done some time.
Okay. All right. Also, I trust him more. If you tell me that, I've done time for the
you're going to sort this. I'm a little bit worried though. Yeah, you know,
he now knows the shape of my keys, where my house is, where things are. I fixed it.
Bad news. Carscom. I've looked at your house.
He's been honest about the dishonesty. Yeah, exactly. Which makes you a trust of all.
Which is more trustworthy. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, damn.
What have I got? Let me get the list out. By the way, if you hear any background sort of
stuff, there is a car on my shoulder, a 911 GT3 RS. It's not mine, sadly,
that's being repaired at the moment. This is a working garage.
It was supposed to have gone on Thursday, but some wrong parts arrived. We know the
way it goes. And then when they did, they didn't quite fit. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So it's still here. What we can't hear is Ben Rogers.
Yes, Ben Rogers is away in Barbados, of course.
He's on his 15th holiday of the week.
Absolute swine. He hates guests.
He hears anything outside the unit. He goes, my foot feel paid for.
Did you mention it was me? And then he went, yeah, I think I'm in Barbados.
He booked it after hearing it was you. I spent some money.
What is a very round? This is almost like a job interview question.
But what was your very first day in automotive journalism actually like?
Okay. So my first day experiencing what journalism was going to be like was actually
work experience. So I didn't have a job. I was 16. I was at college and I got a placement for a week
at a magazine called Vauxworld, which is air called Classic Vauxfagens, Custom Vauxfagens.
And that was like my thing. That was all I cared about at the time.
And I got to spend a week in Croydon, which was nice.
No one's ever said that before.
Well, I grew up in a rural community and Croydon was quite an eye opener.
But I remember being in an office and being given a task, you know, to phone an owner,
to book a shoot, to write about a car and delve into a bit of history.
And the whole process of it, I was just telling someone this week just gone of like how exciting
that was. It was so exciting. I looked across the office and bear in mind this was,
what was this 1995? Magazines were really, really powerful. The internet wasn't a thing.
It's hard to imagine that now. But you know, mags were had huge budgets. They were powerful.
They were they sold well. And they were influential. They were the influencers.
So I remember that being really good. That was the light bulb moment where I went,
that is that is what I want to do for a living. I don't know if I can do it for my whole career.
Who knows? But that's what I want to do right now. And I went back and finished my A-levels and
then went off to university and ended up getting a job less than a year into my degree. So I actually
never finished my degree. It was shit anyway. But if you go into university, stick at it and do well.
But I didn't. And I got my foot in the door as a journalist. So that was really special. And then
my first day on a job was really quite daunting because obviously new jobs are quite daunting,
right? But I felt like what was good about it is they really, they really encourage you to be
creative and to you're constantly thinking about how you can put a spin on something,
shed a different light on something. Maybe and I thought quickly, I realized quite quickly,
it's like if I come up with a shit-hot idea to, I don't know, drive a long way over there and meet
a person, they'll just go, yeah, we'll sign that off. So I started to go, okay, wow. So maybe we go
and meet an owner with a really cool car that I've never driven and we drive that and then we do this
and then we do that. And then project cars, you realize that you could legitimately talk about
a project and maybe get some parts cheaper. Ooh, okay. So it's like-
It's literally YouTube, basically. It is what happens on YouTube now, but on paper basically.
You know, you see the YouTube thumbnail influencer face like, oh my gosh, I just chapped my pants.
So we were doing all that in magazine opening spreads because you had to have like a bang, wow,
big title, shocked face or car doing something crazy, a little bit of photoshop. And I realize now
it's the same, but it's just 20, 25 years later in a different medium and a much faster medium as
well. What was your first press car or like first car that you drove that wasn't your own that was for
an article or something? It would have been a new, because it was at the Volkswagen mag. So
although we were a classic mag, the new Beetle had launched or was about to launch and we got a very
early left undrived one. When I say new, that new Beetle is what, 1990? Yeah, it was it.
Sick green, jazz blue or was it yellow? I think it was yellow. Yeah. Yeah, it was Wasps follow you
yellow. And I remember driving that to, did we drive into Wolfsburg? I think we drove it to
Wolfsburg and went to the museum, the Auto Stat. And I remember because that I sat in Hitler's car
as well, which I don't think was part of the Got My Hook for the episode. We got a lock-in in this
museum. I remember that and there was the Millionth Beetle and various other Volkswagen's that were
quite historic and Hitler's sort of parade car, this convertible military thing was there. And I
did just go and sit in the back of it. And I wish I hadn't because it felt creepy. Yeah, that would
feel a bit creepy. Yeah, I sort of regret that, but I did it. I always love reading some of the,
I'm buying a lot of old magazines at the moment just because it's cool to read back because some
of them I remember, but some of them are even older than the magazines I would have had as a kid,
but just reading the stuff that they were doing then, it's like, it's they're just YouTube videos,
they would get a press car, they would get a Gallardo or a 550 and go,
well, you're going to drive to Italy, aren't we? And it almost felt like you didn't need to drive
to Italy, but you wanted to drive to Italy. But that's what made the story. But I almost
endued that time of journalism. But then at the same time, there it's the,
was it the Auto Car one on the focus, on the Mark-Gordon Focus, where they did
95 laps of the M25 in a day or something. Why did you do that? Why did you go, right,
this is what we're going to do this week. You had the option to do anything with that. You
could have just gone, right, we'll go up Evo Triangle and we'll get some photos. I'm going to
stick myself in this car for 24 hours and drive the M25. Why not? I think the thing I miss about
it was the fact that you had more time to do a shoot and write a feature and piece it all together.
Because life is so fast now, you simply wouldn't get the chance to do it. They said,
do 95 laps of the M25. What about nine? And can you write it by tomorrow morning? And it's like,
no, not really. We'll still be filming it, not filming at Photograph.
Plus, I guess the other nice thing is that you could actually,
you could experience the thing and then you just need to collect your thoughts afterwards.
Yes.
So you have a photographer with you, but you don't have, right, roll the camera and make sure you
get this take. We messed it up, right, do it again. You don't actually, this sounds,
I don't want it to sound ungrateful. We have the best job in the world. But a lot of times,
the experience is overshadowed by filming the experience. So you go, you look back at it
afterwards and you're like, oh, that was quite fun. But in the moment, you're like,
right, get that shot, Ben, have you got that? You're all good? Okay.
And you look at that, see if the red light is still flashing. And you're going,
is your audio cut out? Because if his is a cut out, shit.
Yeah.
It is true. There's an underlying stress, but that's because ultimately it is a job.
Of course.
Yeah.
And you are balancing the, it's a passion and it's fun. But it is a job. And sometimes you can get
that a bit wrong by maybe forgetting that you're doing a job and not getting all the things you
needed to or taking it too seriously. Yeah.
But as long as you come away from that, I mean, I sort of forget. I've got to that age,
I think, which is a bit sad, where I've sort of forgotten all the things I've done
until someone prompts me and then I go, oh yeah, I have driven one of them.
And I did go then, I did meet that person. Shit, yeah.
But you've got it on the locker though. So I mean,
I've got it somewhere.
You just need someone to prompt you and poke you and say,
You look like a sleeper agent.
Yeah, it is.
1999 Monza and you go, Lamborghini, I was there with them doing this.
Yeah, of course I've driven one of those.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, I have.
Yeah, yeah.
My next question was, how did you go from writing about cars to someone then putting you in front
of the camera?
So I was really good friends with a journalist called Tom Ford who works on Top Gear and he
worked on Car Magazine at the time. I got a job on car and we bonded because I parked in his car
parking space and I had a low rider for Granada at the time, as you would.
Great sentence again.
Yes. And he came storming into the office and went, who owns a jade green for Granada that's
on the deck. And I went, oh, hi, it's me. And it was like my first day or think.
And he went, that's brilliant. Anyway, you've parked it the wrong place. You need to move it.
And we got, we became really good friends. He got a job on Fifth Gear TV.
Now fast forward, I don't know, maybe two years or something.
I met his producer at the Geneva Motor Show and we were just having a chat because I was there
reporting for print media. And then they went, oh, they're looking for another presenter and
he'd like to have a chat with you at the office someday. I was like, yeah, okay.
And then I ended up being invited for lunch. I've said this story a few times, but my invited
for lunch was a turned up at North Wands Studios or the car park. And he said, I'll come out and
meet you. And he came out and met me with the rolling camera and mics. And I was like, oh, right.
Yeah, fast. And he went, right. So we're rolling. Tell me about the car that you've turned up in
for 10 minutes. Go. And that was my audition for TV. I didn't really know it, but that was what it
was. What car was it? Luckily, it was a car I actually knew something about. It was the then
just launched Mark five golf GTI, which is still a really special car to me because it was a massive
deal at a time. Yeah. And it was a genuinely good car. And so I always see it got Mark five GTI,
which is probably thought of as a classic car now. And I go, I remember that. Yeah. Remember
being already poignant. It was a white one with tartan with the Ninja Death Star allies as I
called them. And it was great. And luckily, I knew what to say. If I didn't know what to say,
I don't think I would have got a job on the TV. Yeah, like you didn't get given a
high and bike that day before and you're like, Oh, just something I didn't know or care about.
Yeah. And yeah, it's just a car, mate. I don't know.
They'd have got this guy's bit 12. Don't think I'm do you? Which did you prefer?
Did you prefer going from writing to the video staff? Or is it all kind of,
does it all have its benefits, you know, sort of each one? It does all have its benefits.
I felt a bit fraudulent for a while because I got so busy with TV and I tried to still write as a
freelancer, doing columns or doing the odd bit just to keep my hand in, because I thought if I
stopped doing that, then I'm not being true to my original training and my original roots.
And then a couple of friends in the industry who'd again, you know, they'd sort of meandered
and they went, No, just go with it. Like the world changes. You know, if you're a pig farmer and
then you realize, no one wants pigs anymore and you're better off storing 9-11s, just store 9-11s.
Yeah. There's nothing wrong with that. So I then went, Okay, yeah. So I'd stop writing pretty much
and just went headlong into TV and doing presenting. And now the same, I sort of went headlong into
YouTube. And because it's so all consuming, I thought, if I'm going to do it, I've got to
just do it like full gas. And that was it. I did quit. I kind of said thanks, but no thanks to the
TV and went, I can't, I know I can't do these two things together. So I'm going to risk it and
just go for it. And that there are not many people who go from doing sort of written journalism
into TV and then onto YouTube and but do it quite successfully. You do see it with some sort of
celebrities or people from TV where they almost get told they need to be on YouTube and they go on
and it never quite feels natural. Whereas with you, it does feel quite natural. You'll probably have
some people that might watch your channel and go, and if they found out that you were a journalist
before, that would be news to them. If you know what I mean, they would go, they would see you
on YouTube first and then find out about the back story. So I think that's quite impressive.
I had somebody who watched my stuff on YouTube for a long time before going,
that's that guy that used to be on TV, but now he just looks much older. I'm like, the hell.
Thanks. Yeah, of course I'm older. Yes. That's what time does.
That's what time does. But yeah, I guess that's the thing, because it's a global platform and it's
always on and people, different demographics of people. And that's, I'm really interested in that.
You have like, I've got children and my daughter's going to be driving this year.
Just terrifying. The stuff they think is old, old cars, classic cars,
interesting cars is probably different to me. And I get to meet people who watch or listen to the
podcast or whatever they might do and they have a totally different perspective. They're a totally
different demographic, different age group. And I find that all really interesting. And of course,
you're always trying to stay current. Not because you're like, hey, look at me. I don't like crave
attention, but because it's a business, it's my business. Yeah, you have to. I have to come up
with things that people might be interested in. Is it adapt or die? Yeah. Is the classic adage?
Makes sense. Same on YouTube. Yeah. If you're pulling up like 2016 YouTube car spotter in
2026, stop and go out for your top turn lists. Yeah. Yeah. Ranking lists. I'd love to do a list.
Speaking of lists, you have had over 120 cars, you say? Yeah, it's probably about 160 now.
What's the one that got away? What that I owned, but I had to sell. Yeah. Yeah.
There's been a few. I think one that I regret selling the most is probably one I couldn't
physically fit in it. So that took the shine off the ownership a little bit, which is the Honda
S600 Coupe, which is mega, like the godfather of the VTech. But I had a Pulski Fiat 126,
which I sort of bought on a whim as a bit of a laugh. But I bought it unseen and it was
absolutely immaculate. Like it was so good and I paid not a lot for it. And it was like, whoa,
all I've got to do is clean it and drive it. It's miraculous. And I got told to sell it at
a few years later. And I regret it because I don't think I'll ever find a better one.
Yeah. And although they cost a bit of shit, they're enjoyably shit. So, yeah, I really
missed that car. There's been a, yeah, there have been a few others where I've had to sell in order
to trade up. To get the next one. They've always been trading up. And that's why I owned so many
cars when I was in my 20s mostly. I'd be buying a car probably every two weeks, two to four weeks.
And flip it, you'd say flipping now, I probably would. But this is the early days, like the Gold
Rush era of eBay. Yeah. 2000 and look at that at exclamation mark. Yeah. Asterisk, look at this
Asterisk. I mean, I used to buy stuff out of the print paper, you know, like the Admart and the
Adtrades and all those things, the yellow papers. And then I would go and buy it, take digital pictures
of it, take forever to upload the digital pictures, write a really good description using my best
journalist mind so that nobody had any other questions. But they would have questions.
Of course. They would have questions like does it have tires? Is this a car? Yeah, honestly,
just like real, absolute pricks. And then I would double my money. So I would always be like,
right, 100% profit, profit. That was always my model. And I did that on the
side because didn't earn that much money from journalism. So it was, but it also allowed me
to own stuff that I could just take off a list and go, yeah, yeah, Alpha or Mayo, Alpha,
so yeah, I've owned one of them. Yeah, I only owned it for four weeks, but I've owned it.
You've got the ownership out of it. Yeah. And I miss doing that. I've got too many
responsibilities now and too many outgoing, so I don't do it so much. And then my follow up to
that question was what car do you wish you still had for YouTube reasons? Like what would have
been a great content car from one of those 120? Oh, shit. It's probably the EV that I built into
the world's quickest street legal electric car, which I got that record 10 years ago.
And I think I probably was a bit early. I remember watching that. Yeah. This was a car,
yeah, it would have been an early days car throw and seeing it and there wasn't that much coverage
on the car. No, I know. Yeah. It's criminal really. It took me a long time to build that and it was
a lot of trouble and strife. And so I bought that car in 2012, took three years to get it on the road
and finished and powered up and a lot of our like shed R&D. And then, yeah, just decided to try and
get a record with it and really enjoyed the process of it. And I missed that car, but I had to sell it
to recoup the costs of racing it. Really? Yeah, because I'd run out of money. And Elon Musk
wasn't going to give me any money. Elon Musk didn't even have the Model S out
when I first started that. Yes, it predates the Model S. It predates Formula E, any kind of proper,
proper electric racing that anybody knows about. So they owe you royalties at this point?
Yeah, they do actually. Well, Musk didn't beat my record for at least five years.
Really? What did it take until the later Model S, the dual motor Model S?
Yeah. And I think in between that, either four door GM, I think GM built a Hot Camaro EV,
which was like just a prototype PR stunt. And that beat me. But I found out that was running on
slick. So it was like, that's not a street car then. But it is in Vegas. But hey, not over here.
And I always said it has to be street legal. Yeah. Because if it's street legal, it's more
ballsy and there's more parameters. Yeah, it's not a unlimited budget.
Yeah, you can't just wind it all up and just go, yeah, whatever. So this thing had to be a street car.
And I missed that car because it was unhinged. It shouldn't have worked and it did.
And it was mega fast. That's also, I guess, kind of a perfect essence of you is...
It shouldn't have worked. Well, no, willing to do EV stuff,
where everyone else will shy away from it. Because that's one of your mottos, right? You
say you're a bridge between a charger and an EV. But in some old tat that no one really knows
what they are anymore. And yet there is doing silly times down a drag strip.
Well, I guess that was the... Yeah, the idea was if I'm going to drag race an EV and ruffle some
feathers, what car am I going to use? And I thought, I don't want to use a car that had a piston
engine. I'll find a car that was an EV that nobody remembers or cares about. And then try...
And anchor the whole thing on this underdog, this weird little ugly duckling underdog,
which was what it was. But then I delved into the history and became a bit obsessed with it.
And then when I found out that it had a really strong link, engineering link, to thrust to
the fastest car in the world, I was like, this has got to happen. And I contacted the guy who,
the engineer that worked on both projects. And he was like, oh, yeah, this is a great idea.
He said, you'll find that it's really aerodynamically stable at probably the speed you're going to go
at because I over-engineered it. And I went, okay, well, we'll see about that.
Also, why? He's for like 40 years. I know.
He was probably sitting there going, nobody knows about that. And then he rung up one day and he
went, perfect. Great.
Honestly, he was a lovely guy. Bless him. He's no longer with us. But he wrote a book and I
bought a copy of him. And he wrote the really nice letter inside it when I started racing it.
And yeah, so I'd like... One day, if I could, I might buy it back.
That would be cool.
And like revamp it.
Get some plaid motors in it.
And go silly.
Yeah. But of course, the boundaries have been pushed even further.
So 10 years on, I'm going to have to go seriously quick.
It's just going to need to be an exoskeleton of cage around it to keep yourself safe.
Yeah. Because my car was medium safe, not extra safe.
Medium rare safe.
If I was really small, it's like the packaging of a tall person in that car was difficult.
If I'd been five feet tall, it would have been better.
But that's not the way it goes.
Quick surgery beforehand, but then you're all good.
Yeah. And my R&D consisted of sometimes bits that did actually fall off it.
And we were like, right, so that fell off at 100.
So over 100, we're going to have to make sure that that doesn't fall off again.
Because I lost a window and it went into a fun fair.
Luckily, it was an election window.
But nevertheless, it did frisbee off and it went into a fun fair.
And we had to find the guy in the fun fair who found it.
How many times did you go into a fun fair?
Go, one of you's has got my car window.
Yeah. It's plastic.
Can I have it back?
Yeah, that's the one.
Yeah. The one that has impaled this child.
That's not my window.
It's not mine.
How did the relationship with Rich Porter and the podcast come about?
So me and Rich Porter, which your viewers, listeners might know,
Rich obviously been on Top Gear for years.
And I met him at a Geneva Motor Show press evening,
like when we all the journalists would gather in together the night before the big press day.
The piss-up.
Yeah. There was a lot of drinking.
And that was it. We actually met at a bar.
And I think we were talking about people soiling themselves.
We're doing something really stupid.
One thing led to another and we started to email here and there or text one another here and there.
And we always said, he was wedded to Top Gear and I was wedded to Fifth Gear.
So it was like, we'd love to work on something at some point, but it won't be formal.
Yeah.
It'll be informal.
But I think our personalities did mesh.
We had a lot of connections.
And it took a long time, like four years to even do anything.
And then we just decided to do a prototype dick about on video,
which was actually at Pebble Beach, which I think was 2009,
which sadly all the footage got lost.
That's how useless we are.
We lost probably the most crucial piece of footage, which was us in a golf cart,
going around a Pebble Beach golf course and getting it stuck on the sand on the beach.
And then we had to get like adults to help us dig it out.
And I was going to do it all and set it all to the theme tune of the Thomas Crown Affair,
where Steve McQueen is going across the beach with the beach buggy and all the seagulls going
everywhere. But alas, it didn't happen.
And then we decided to do a video of us together, which was just us sitting in a car,
driving around like a kind of carpool, I guess.
Or I said, my best hopes always were if you've seen the trip with Steve Cougar and Rob Briden,
it's like a rubbish, more car-centric version of that.
That was always my hope.
But then COVID came along and we decided to go straight to audio only,
through necessity. And it became vastly more successful.
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With the right at the beginning, was that before COVID or during COVID,
when you did the driving around London looking at cars?
Because that was on video.
That was on video.
Because that I remember vividly, I was like, this is great.
This is essentially a, I think what a lot of people listening or watching are like,
this is what I do with my mates.
Yes.
It's that feeling of familiarity of,
yeah, this is just watching two mates stick about driving around.
Yeah, we sort of did, we did a few of them and then we did one better shot version.
And we did that to try and get a sponsor so that we could, because it lost us money.
We paid for it out of our own separate earnings from our main jobs.
And then it took us about a year and a half to go, this is costing us money every month.
Why are we actually doing it?
We didn't know why we were doing it.
We were doing it because we just enjoyed it.
Yeah.
And then gradually it went, it went like, okay, people start to actually pay for it now.
And we have Patreon advertising.
We actually started a business.
It took a long time.
Yeah.
So years.
But I think that's always, that's the, you find that with YouTube a lot is nine times out of 10.
The things that start out, people just wanting to do it,
tend to pick up better than the people go, this is a business, let's start a business podcast.
Or, you know, there's too much pressure behind it.
Whereas when it's just digging about,
and then you go, oh, there's actually some of you idiots are listening to this.
Perfect.
And people quite like that as well, because they look at it and go, well,
they're not being forced to do this.
It's not a job for them.
I'm just getting this because that's what they'd be doing anyway.
The podcast for us was always just a bit of a release.
Because it was, it was not taking, we never did anything serious.
As you know, a lot of car podcasts are quite serious.
You know, they talk about the latest news and, you know, analyzing the review of a new car or
whatever.
And we were like, nah, we can talk about.
We talk about buying trousers from service stations and stuff.
And so we just went off on this weird tangent, never expecting it to be successful at all.
And I think in the darkest moments of all of what's happened over the last 56 years,
I found it to be like a really nice hour of mental cleanse of life.
Well, I can't go to the pub because of the constraints of coronavirus.
So let's just, I'll just talk to Rich.
And I was drinking probably most of the time while we were recording.
I think people thought I was at home constantly drinking.
And I'm not like, I didn't have a problem every day.
This was just my hour off.
I'm just, I'm going to have some wine.
I'm going to talk to Richard.
That's that.
Yeah.
Going back to the, the fifth gear thing, obviously, like growing up, it was,
you had fifth gear on top gear and there was,
they always felt like there was some kind of like rivalry.
It was top gear was always like the more like broad appeal my mom would watch it,
you know, that kind of thing.
But fifth gear, if you went to cars, that was kind of the thing you watched.
Behind the scenes, was there ever any kind of rivalry of some sort?
No.
They, when Jeremy mentioned about the, was it the, the call wall got burnt down?
The studio, yeah.
And he casually said, oh, well, we know who it is.
It's fifth gear.
Obviously that was just a little quip.
And the number of people that thought it had really happened.
We got hate mail.
We got people saying, you're just jealous of that success.
But of course the industry's not that big.
So a lot of the camera operators and sound operators and researchers worked on both teams.
We had camera men who filmed for top gear one day and then two days later,
they were filming with us.
Yeah.
So the, you know, the game was, it looked like a huge industry, but it wasn't.
And, and, you know, Tiff and Vicky had worked extensively with Jeremy,
so their friends.
And so no, there wasn't.
I mean, I've still never met Jeremy.
Really?
I've never met Clarkson.
It's weird.
I mean, like my podcast partner, like wrote everything that came out of his mouth for 25 years.
I'm still not met the guy.
It's ludicrous.
We've been in the same room and stuff.
And I'm sure he doesn't give a flying shit about me,
but it'd be nice to meet him because he changed our game as we know.
Yeah.
And he was one of the few people I was allowed to stay up late and watch when I was a child,
watching old top gear, like nineties top gear with Tiff.
And that was the weird thing for me about when I started working on fifth gear was I
was working with Tiff Nadell.
Yeah.
Like as a job.
And I never thought that would happen.
And he's such a nice guy.
They're all good.
Is that one of the first times you felt a bit, not necessarily star struck,
but was that one of the first kind of big stars that you kind of worked with?
Him and Vicky, because it's like, they know what they're doing.
Yeah.
And like, you know, when you get a slight imposter syndrome, you're like,
I don't quite know what I'm doing.
I've got a bit of an idea, but shit.
I don't really know what I'm doing.
I felt that.
And I knew I couldn't drive anywhere near as well as them.
Exactly.
You can't.
It's like, when you got Plato, you got Vicky, you got Vicky.
You see, if they're all like proper Helms people, I can't do that.
I didn't cart when I was a kid or anything like that.
So.
We actually found a, we've been setting it a few times.
It's an old fifth gear.
I think it is Tiff Nadell, isn't it?
It's yeah.
Yeah.
It's Tiff.
It's the, trying to get in a spree to hit 200 miles an hour.
Oh, wow.
And it turns out that that was done at our unit.
Yeah.
So our unit, it looks very old and a bit, you know, sort of, you know,
worse for wear back then.
It looks like an older question unit, but it cuts to a shot where this spree comes in
and there's TVRs everywhere.
And it's our unit.
Well, it's actually just next door, but it's the same set of units.
That's brilliant.
Because I think the, this, is it fifth gear classic or something?
I can't remember.
They've just started like posting sections of fifth gear on YouTube.
Oh, wow.
And then all the comments are like, hang on.
That's not the TDC unit.
Yeah.
It's that's brilliant.
It's very old.
The, there was one of my vivid memory was the W124 that you tried to kill,
the unsinkable or the one that you sunk.
Oh, yes.
You then bought that afterwards, right?
Or that was your car.
Wasn't there something to do with that, that becoming yours?
I had a W124, the one that I ran on vegetable oil on Chip Fat.
Yeah.
And that was a saloon, a red saloon.
And then we bought a 124 estate.
Yeah.
Which a monster truck went over.
A pretty sure thing.
I really was angry about that shoot because I had a 123 at the time or a 124.
My brother had a 124, I had a 123.
We had numerous ones.
And I was like, that's too good.
Yeah.
That's too good to do that.
But of course, TV being TV, like, well, we just need to get it done.
It's fine.
We only paid a couple hundred quid.
Yeah.
And you're like, yeah, but I'll buy that off you.
And so, but I did buy the 124, which was the very first thing I did on fifth gear.
Really?
Driving that car, showing people that you could run it on Chip Fat.
Yeah.
And that was 20 years ago.
That was 2006.
Wow.
Which is terrifying to think that I did that 20 years ago.
But do you ever watch them back or do you ever see them come up and you sit and watch them and go,
oh, that's actually really cool.
I have this moment of my life captured.
Because I think about that a lot for this.
Yeah.
You know, in 20, 30 years, to be able to look back and go, that's when we did that.
That's really cool.
I have that footage.
I think, yes, I am.
If I get the chance to see fifth gear stuff, yeah.
I think because it's quite a long time ago now, I don't like watching my own YouTube stuff.
It's still too new.
Yeah.
And I never listen to my podcast back.
I genuinely can't remember what I talk about.
It's like sleep talking.
And then someone going, do you remember that time you were talking about the thing?
And I'm like, not really.
When was that?
And I, it's terrible, really.
But so Richard often listens to them back because he does some admin and cuts out any
horrible things, which is, there's not a lot.
Most of it stays in.
But, but I never hear it.
I never listen to it.
So, but I think, yeah, I'm proud of it.
I'm proud of the stuff I did on the TV.
I was lucky.
I was fortunate to get that job and I was fortunate to keep it for more than six months.
You know, I genuinely thought I've got a shot at this.
If I get two or three or four or five episodes on the telly, that's great.
A lot of people might not get that chance.
And then it went on.
It went on and on and on.
And I got 18 series.
I did 18 series, which again is a lot of series.
Yes.
I actually genuinely can't remember all the things I did.
I cannot remember them all.
There was some bad ones.
There were some good ones.
Well, I was going to, that was going to be part of the next question is what,
whether it is for TV or beforehand on the magazine or even on YouTube,
what's the most ridiculous thing you've done in the name of content?
Other than maybe the jump.
Yeah.
The Duke of Essex jump, which gets talked about probably the bonnet up there for a
Cavalier, the Goldie looking chain, Cavalier.
I did some stuff.
Did some stuff in America with BBC America, with Tom Ford.
We did a series called Mud, Sweat and Gears.
And again, I've never watched any of that stuff back.
And we did, I had a Pontiac Aztec, which we modified and I did quite,
we did a quite big jump in that and it still ran.
Don't know how it ran after that big jump.
It definitely was gradually losing automatic fluid.
So we did various things like that.
And there were a few moments on fifth gear where we were like,
this is quite, this could be a bit dangerous.
Should we have done this?
And how many people are there telling you not to do it or what the sort of limitations there?
Because with YouTube, although there is, you know,
there is a general consensus for things you can or can't do.
But there's no one usually above you saying, no, you can't do that.
Because you're not pitching an idea to someone and then saying,
I'm going to jump a car off of a block of flats.
If we want to do that tomorrow, we probably could.
It won't be a great idea.
But Ben is our, Ben is the only person.
We're the bar of our vacuum chamber.
Will goes, we should do this.
I go, yeah, and then we should do this.
And we'll go, yeah, we should, and then goes, whoa, okay, you're going to die.
You won't be alive at the end of this.
Yeah. I mean, that is the thing.
That's the great thing in a way about YouTube.
You too can have an idea and 10 minutes later, you can stream it to the world if you wanted.
But then, yeah, there were a few layers like insurance.
Most of it was insurance.
And actually after Richard Hammond nearly died in the vampire drag car,
the game changed very quickly.
So even for you as well, it changed your guys side as well?
Yeah, we were pulled into a meeting.
It was like the industry changed overnight.
Wow.
Probably because of insurance and liability and all that kind of thing.
So, yeah, we had to, even if we were buying a car to intentionally crash,
with nobody in it.
So when we used to do the crash tests on fifth year,
Yeah, the focus one is the focus.
The focus.
Yeah.
Right. So that, that focus, we knew no one was going to be in it and was going to get absolutely
launched into a wall, but we had to prove for insurance purposes, we were buying it with an MOT.
So it was a road legal car.
Right.
So this is just ludicrous.
So we went and bought a really ropey focus.
It had an MOT.
It also had like junky needles in it.
Really?
Yeah. It was probably ropey that car.
I didn't want to get in that car.
I did drive it very short distance like to the bit where you prep a car to die.
But yeah. So you had, there were more protocols than ever after that.
And I still can't believe that Hammond survived that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And made a pretty full recovery as far as I know, gradual.
But yeah.
And then did another crashy thing.
Yeah.
He's done a few crashes.
Is that a few crashes after that?
Just everyone, look at everyone doing other TV shows going,
Oh, God.
God, we're not going to do anything.
No.
Just trundling down a runway at 20 miles an hour.
It'll feel like a, like Carreocchi where it turns out they're not driving.
It's all, it's on one of those rigs.
CGI.
Like all of you just on the rigs driving around.
I see. I like all the, when I was in magazines and things,
and I always liked the dangerous stuff.
I don't take un-less ridiculous risks, but I do like taking risks in cars and stuff.
That's where, that's where the content is.
Yeah.
Because otherwise people can do it themselves, if that makes sense.
If there's someone else who's willing to do it.
It's the reason I always think Jackass did so well.
Yeah.
Because no one else was willing to go and do that.
So it's interesting to watch.
Yeah.
Completely.
There's been a Jackass at the time.
Yeah.
What was the other one?
Was it Welsh?
Yeah.
Dirt of Sanchez.
Yeah.
That was like the British version.
It was more extreme in many ways.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Semi, semi-related, what is the worst bot you've done to a car?
Oh, God.
Or best depends how you read that, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, I've driven that with no brakes.
Okay.
I wouldn't say that was a bodge.
It was a, you're late to a shoot.
I was late to a fifth gear shoot and I had full brake failure in that.
Driving to Bruntingthorpe, Proving Ground.
And I had to abort the mission and go straight into a field.
Because there was a corner which I knew I couldn't get around.
And luckily the gate was open.
It was just been cut.
It was like a cornfield.
So I just went straight into it, like some sort of shit, jigs of hazard.
And went around in a big circle to scrub all the speed off.
And then came to a halt and was like, right, that is not cool.
What's gone wrong here?
I lifted up the bonnet and was looking around and I chafed through a brake hose.
And it's not dual circuit.
Oh, wow.
Single circuit.
Everything went.
So it just bled out.
So I drove the rest of the way on the handbrake.
But the handbrake is one of those ones you press on and pull off.
Oh, yeah.
It's an absolute horror.
I mean, so I just, it was really awful.
The whole thing was awful.
I got there just white as you see, a little bit late.
Directors like, come on, we're late.
We're like, I nearly died.
Handbrake didn't you?
Yes.
It was, it was, it was really horrible.
Yeah.
Well, Johnny again.
Yeah.
Jumps.
Falls out.
So that was bad.
Repair wise.
Are there any, any notable ones on repairs?
Trying to think of some repair.
I've done some terrible ones when I didn't have any money.
Yeah, that's, yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I remember my brothers bought things like brake pads out of scrap yards.
Rather than new brake pads.
Not, not a great idea.
I have driven on some quite questionable bearing.
Wheel bearings that were very vocal.
Yeah.
Extremely vocal.
I'm doing that right now.
My 159 is, oh, it's humming.
Is it?
Yeah.
And I just, I just crank the music up and hope that the wheel doesn't just lock solid and come off.
And watch your wheel come past you.
Hello, mate.
I think the, that car, the Goldie looking chain, Chavalier,
I had to drive it into London to, to promote the single they were releasing,
Your Mother's Got a Penis.
And not often you get to say that.
Yeah.
And as part of the promo, we were moving from one location to another.
There were lots of people dressed up in sort of Burberry gear.
And I had the, I had the manager in the passenger seat of the Cavalier.
And we, someone ran a, ran a red light and drove straight into the back of us at quite
fast speed.
It was a van driver who was looking the wrong way.
I hit my head on the steering wheel.
I remember that so my belt clearly didn't retract properly.
I just remember going, and then going, God, that happened so fast.
And then I looked around and he done the same thing on the dash.
And then we were like, are you all right?
Yeah, I'm all right.
And then I got out of the car to just work out what had happened.
But we'd been hit.
We'd gone into the car in front.
And the car in front had stopped to let an old lady across the road and had just missed
the old lady because it had been smacked.
Anyway, the back of this Cavalier was, it was not horizontal.
It was now vertical.
So it still looked like a Cavalier, but it had like a tail like a scorpion.
And I, and I was like, oh, I can't be bothered to get it recovered back from London.
This is me just being an idiot.
So I just sort of started the car and went, still starts.
Still kind of has lights, there's some lights.
They just higher up at the minute.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I dropped the manager back off at the record label and I drove it back to Peterborough
with the back of the car like that.
And it had been properly smashed.
So that wasn't a great thing to do.
In a, in a normal Cavalier.
Okay, fine.
But in a car that is quite literally tartan, everyone's already looking at the car.
And they're like, why is it also being in a crash?
Yes.
And a real crash, not just a little one.
It was, I've got a photo somewhere of it.
It was a proper crash.
That car refused to die, but we had to kill it for legal reasons afterwards.
But I remember we started up with the foot on the throttle,
fully down to try and do an engine blow video.
Yeah.
This is in the very early days where you post onto a forum because there wasn't,
there wasn't smart phones and social media and it wouldn't blow up.
It sat on the limiter for I think 10 minutes, which is a long time.
It's a long time.
It's cold.
Oil temp just like, yeah, no, I'm laughing now.
And then the smoke coming out from under the car, we're like, it's going to catch fire.
And what it was, is it had burned all of its exhaust hangers.
They were all on fire.
But the engine was fine.
It was just going, I'll take it.
Keep punching me.
I'll take it.
It was so, so impressive.
10 minutes of it doing that, it's horrible.
Yeah.
What is the, what's the most bizarre owner story that hasn't made it to camera?
Or you had to, or you deliberately kept away from camera.
San Diego, California.
Enjoy responsibly.
There was a guy on witness protection once and who contacted me.
This was in magazine days who wanted his car featured, but didn't, but couldn't be featured.
And he didn't tell me why I was being a bit cagey.
And it was an older guy, like a sensible guy.
And he had a, I don't know if I should say what car it was,
but it was quite distinctive car as well, which is just, it was a real sleeper.
It was a Ford Cortina, a state that had like a primer front wing.
And it had an aerial that had been shaped into a cock and balls.
Okay.
Like a, like a co-hanger aerial.
Yeah.
And it was running really high power, Cosworth YB.
It was like 400 horsepower, which at the time was enormous for that engine.
And, but he was on witness protection.
It turns out.
So we were like, well, how are we going to do this?
Because you're the owner and you want to drive it.
So we came up with a treatment that we would put him into prosthetics
and pretend to be someone that he wasn't as part of a feature.
So yeah, that's what we did.
But that did make it out in that.
So that is out there in a magazine somewhere.
That is out there.
A man in prosthetics.
Yeah.
It was on witness protection.
But it was on witness protection.
It's just still to this day.
It's like, so why would you even risk contacting me to have a car featured
on what was at the time?
And this is the thing.
If you don't know about Max Power, it was the biggest selling car magazine in Europe.
It outsold every other car magazine by quite a large margin.
Now, do you think that's because of the content or the content that was in there?
Well, it did get a bit skin flicky.
Because I growing up, I was born in 97.
And my brother was born in 88.
So my brother had lots of Max Powers.
And so I used to steal his Max Power growing up.
And I was like, what's this?
This is incredible.
You weren't looking at Nova's.
I was on the back three pages with neon kits.
I was usually looking at the event recaps, which tends to have the best photos in there.
They were something.
I mean, I'm not proud of some of those.
It was a different time.
But I remember the you would go to a cruise night, which was organised by forums, or we'd just
put it in the mag.
You know, we print a date and saying, we're going to be in Liverpool on that night.
Come if you want.
And it was it was absolute feral carnage.
Some of them were just so feral.
Some of them were so bad or good, depending on what that roads got closed.
People would steal cars and turn up and stolen cars.
And you always knew those because they were being doughnutted.
And, you know, they were burnouts until there were no tyres.
And it was carnage.
And then the police would come and then we'd get the blame.
But there's like, we don't know who they are.
And sometimes people would take their clothes off.
That used to happen as well.
So it was thinking back.
It was just madness.
It needs a book.
It deserves a book.
It's just so crack as some of that.
But I came on onto Max Power probably towards the end of the madness.
I didn't invent that madness.
There was some much more talented journalists who came up with this idea of Max Power.
We've got the DVD.
Well, sorry, we haven't got the DVD anymore.
We do.
We've got some copies of that.
The DVD that came with our FTO that we bought that was very Max Power.
Yeah.
And yeah, I mean, there's a lot of cars in there.
Yes.
There's a lot of other stuff in there.
Yeah.
And there's a lot of naked men.
You know, there's a lot of naked men.
Now, there's a real incredible scene in there that we're watching it through.
And it's something I never expected to see is a man who also you decided to put this in the DVD.
This made the final cut.
Yes.
He moons the camera.
And then spreads his cheeks while I'm in the camera.
Like I've just been looking at a wide-body Saxo.
I'm now looking into a man's Amos.
Why?
Why is this?
Directly through him.
But then...
Dude, the moon is gone, hasn't it?
The mainstream moon isn't really...
A rarely seen emote.
Sell them.
Sell them seen moon.
And there were always two versions of them.
And we're going off track a little.
There was always the just pull the trousers down.
Yeah.
Show the slots.
And then there was the full...
That's what he went for.
This one was.
And he had no top on either.
So it was...
He's gone into the full.
He didn't need to do that to make it extreme.
But...
Looking like an old dude in a changing room.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which is really rough.
I always wonder where those people are now.
And they're just in a perfectly well-to-do job.
Yeah.
And no one knows about this.
No.
In the back of their mind, they're like,
That's on a DVD somewhere.
Yeah.
And thousands of people have now seen this.
And we gave away 400 of them to people.
That was an interesting DVD, to say the least.
The rave era, as was.
So what?
Like 89 to 98, probably.
Golden era.
It...
Max Power almost lifted some of that madness from the rave era
and mashed it with cars.
And because...
I think the success of it was, is because
no one communicated on their phones.
And there wasn't Instagram.
And there were early forums, but they were mostly magazines.
People just got together to chat and showcase their cars.
Because I haven't seen your car,
because you've been working on it for the last four months.
So I come to the show to see your cars.
And you do the same to me.
Or I'd sold you a pair of Kenwood 6x9s,
and you need to pick them up.
Or whatever it might be.
So I just think it was this huge storm of that.
And also the car was your first independence, of course,
when you're young.
Yeah.
It's your own personal space.
It meshes with that rave culture,
because that's how you get to the race.
That's how you get to the race.
Is everyone puzzling and over, and goes on the way there?
Exactly.
So it was very vibrant and exciting.
And some of it was wrong, and some of it was right.
And I was just a mere observer.
Because that's why I also think, and it's sad to say,
well, I don't think it's impossible for it to come back.
But when everyone says, let's bring it back,
it won't ever be, it can't be what it was before.
Because there's too much now of
we walk around shows all the time.
We go, I've seen that car.
I follow that guy.
I've seen that build.
Whereas when I was 17, and I turn up to the local McDonald's car park,
and I've been working on my Mark IV Golf,
I had no idea who else would be there.
And some guy would turn up also on Porsche wheels.
I go, how do you do it?
I did it by using these adapters,
and you actually find something out.
That kind of innocence has been robbed a little bit by media.
People have, I think, a bit more risk averse.
Because there were people that would spend
15 grand on a 1,000-quid car.
And it's mad.
But it was a really interesting expression.
There was a lot of, it was peacocking, really.
But peacocking has just changed, hasn't it?
And we noticed this shift,
and it's what ultimately killed the Max Power era,
is probably abundantly available finance.
That's, yeah, I was going to say.
So you could go out and buy a Civic Type R,
because the Civic Type R was like a really big shift moment.
The EP3, is it the EP3?
Yeah.
Isn't it?
When that car came out, it was like, oh my gosh, it's already mad.
And yes, you can buy some slightly lighter wheels for it,
or a slightly different front splitter.
But it's out the box pretty crazy.
I never knew it at the time, but my dad's best mate,
his son, was an RC champion.
He was good at racing remote-controlled cars.
And when I was three or four, he had a Saxo VTR.
So it's a base engine, so not a VTS, but with a, it was featured,
it was a Max Power feature car.
It was repainted ice blue, full kit, exhaust, like 15 inch, 10, 50.
It was one of the ones that had the whole bumper was the exhaust.
Yes, yes.
And it was two of those.
And I remember being like, that's amazing.
And he had built this whole car, apart from scratch.
And then I think six months later, I went over,
and he had just a brand new 350Z,
orange for one of the first ones of the country.
And then an Exige, and then an Astra VXR.
But it was because of that, it was finance.
He had found out that he could get rid of the Saxo
and finance his way into a way better car.
And then he just kept trading up through those cars without ever modifying them.
But I don't really remember those other cars,
but I do vividly remember walking around the Saxo age four,
going, whatever this is, I'm, this is it.
This is me now.
I'm going for this.
I feel a bit sad that we kind of missed out on the,
I read about it growing up from like age eight or something,
all the way up into my teens.
I was reading the magazines and going, this is what I want to do.
But then by the time I could actually drive and do it,
it wasn't really as much of a thing anymore.
But you're just reading about puntoes and Saxo's and normal stuff,
that there used to be a car in my local area.
I wish it's probably dead.
But most of them are probably dead.
But it might not be.
It might be in someone's garage somewhere sitting,
because that used to call it the bogey car, because it was green.
Me and my friend used to chase it around everywhere.
We would see it and it was, was a Saxo.
And it had huge rectangular exhaust,
like a perfect rectangle twins that took up
the entire width of the car.
And I was like, that is amazing.
And it was basically like your grid, like TVR green,
imagine a blue but green.
But just the most amazing thing.
I was like, that's, I want to be that.
When I grow up, but then it sort of started to fizzle out.
It's interesting, isn't it?
I think, but what you're doing on your, your, your brand, your YouTube,
and some of the other creators of like encouraging people to
actually fiddle with cars.
Yeah.
And not just buy stuff and detail it and go to Turkey and get new teeth.
You know, because that's all too easy.
Yeah.
Exactly.
I, I, I really admire YouTubers like you guys because I,
because I worry that that is all just going to dissolve and disappear.
And that everyone's just going to be like,
those people you see at the side of the road when a, when a tire goes flat,
they're just staring at it like it's space science.
And I worry.
So I love the encouragement of hands-on stuff and long may it continue.
And it makes, it means that people will go back in time and look at older cars and not be afraid
and go, yeah, I actually, I fancy a car from the 80s.
I've got no idea what I'm dealing with, but how hard can it be?
Yeah.
And I'm just being more appreciative of that stuff.
Yeah.
It's always worrying.
Well, I always think about people who are young now or people are coming into learning to drive.
It's like, how many of them are going to get into that?
I mean, it's, yeah, it is a little bit scary, but it's, yeah,
more people need to take a bit of it, not necessarily a risk,
but just learn how to do that stuff.
Yeah.
And you might enjoy that car way more because you know, you've done,
it doesn't mean doing engine swaps necessarily.
I think that's where people get worried about it.
They go, well, I could never do that because I'm going to have to take my engine out.
I'm going to have to replace, you know, my differential, but it's not necessarily that.
Just understanding your car a little bit more might make you appreciate it.
You know, just that tiny bit extra.
Completely, or even if it's just so you don't get ripped off.
Yeah.
When you put your car in to have some stuff done,
you've got a bit of knowledge as to what is going on.
And I mean, I can't do engine swaps.
I got brought up on old shitters so I could do basics.
And I enjoy doing a lot of stuff on cars, but I know I don't do engine swaps.
And I save up and pay people to do that stuff who are much better at it than me.
But there's so many people out there who've tried stuff.
We are lucky now that we have, back then with sort of Max Power and Fast Car and that kind of thing,
they were figuring it out.
Oh, yeah, there were people who had knowledge, but finding those people was much harder.
Now you can just go on YouTube and someone's going,
oh, yeah, I found you can replace this coil pack with this coil pack.
And this one costs this much or these wheels fit here.
Whereas then it would have been, which is why it was so impressive.
But yeah, I miss magazine era.
Also just seeing something in print is something physical makes the biggest difference.
Like I would, it's nice to hear this.
It's, I think about it a lot when like we do YouTube stuff and on our views that we get is
incredible compared to most things.
But if someone, if my mom or someone saw like a friend in the news, in the local news,
they go, they were on the news.
They were on the news.
But on YouTube, you've got half a meal.
It doesn't matter.
Whereas it's the same thing.
We're on YouTube.
But I'm like, yeah, let's do a view.
If there was a photo of my car in a magazine, we, we have got an upcoming thing where we're
touring some car collections.
And there was a guy who owns Diablo SV and his is the express car.
So he's got stacks of magazines.
He's like, no, he keeps opening.
He's like, no, this, that's my car.
It's just it's sideways on a track.
That's amazing.
You have a physical thing in the world that is your car.
That's cool.
Like no matter who you are, if you had a photo of your car in a magazine, that's cool.
It always felt very special when you had, when a magazine came back from the printers
and it was like fresh, it was almost still warm, like a loaf of bread out of the oven.
And you'd all huddle around and go, oh, and you'd hopefully not find any terrible mistakes.
And you'd go through it and go, yeah, yeah.
And then you knew in about three days it would go out to the world.
And it always felt very special.
What, what was the worst mistake you found?
I went, this was quite early on in my career.
The designer had left some big gaps for captions for,
for a show.
It was like a car show.
And so there's loads of car show photos and there's like a gap to write a nice caption.
And she had just put down all of the lyrics for sitting on the dock of the bay.
And I had proofread it quickly and I hadn't clocked that to all of that.
I thought someone else had written them and gone, oh, they've already been written.
Okay.
But it was just the lyrics of an, oh, was it Benny?
It was a very old song, see on the dock of the bay.
And it made no sense.
All the magazine went, what?
In Max Power, I'd really go, all right, I'm going to say it again.
Going for that.
This is Otis Redding there on the,
Otis Redding.
I felt so bad.
It was like, I've completely screwed that up.
Completely screwed that up.
It must be quite nerve-wracking because it is, it's words and print.
There's, I know with YouTube videos, you can't do that much to edit afterwards,
but you can change titles and do things and whatever else.
I guess the benefit you kind of have with magazines is you don't have a load of comments below it.
So you've messed that up.
You've messed it up.
Can't believe you've messed it up.
You got that wrong.
Get physical letters though.
That's almost, that might be worse.
Which is equal because it makes sense.
A YouTube video has a comment below it, whereas a physical media has letter.
We get lots of letters from prison.
From Max Power did, not, not car or one of the other mags I worked on,
but Max Power had loads of prison letters.
Mostly going, yeah, we bought the issue with Lucy on the cover.
Oh, right.
Can you get back on?
Yeah, she's lovely.
Well, lovely lady.
Can you give me her address please?
It was always relating to girls and a bit of the cars.
And I think that was my, that became my problem with that mag is it went too girl heavy.
Yeah.
I know it came off the back of the lads era of mags, FHM, nuts,
loads, all that stuff.
And it was a moment in time.
But I think it got, the powers that be on Max Power got too fixated with the sort of girliness of it.
And I was like, look, if you want that kind of stuff, if you, if you want porn,
just people will just go and get porn.
Yeah.
Let's not dilute the car stuff too much because you're wasting pages that could good car stuff.
And people didn't believe me.
They were just like, oh, yeah, of course.
Yeah, it's funny.
No, it's like, no, really, like people are buying a car mag.
Let's not forget that.
But yeah, sadly.
We've always thought about potentially doing it, not necessarily a magazine.
What are you going to say next?
Okay.
We've always thought about doing it.
We thought about pulling the chips.
And breaking apart.
Something that would go right on the top shelf.
But doing some kind of cream print.
Yeah.
To look like an annual or a sort of quarterly thing.
Because just, yeah, none of you might even buy it.
We have no idea.
We just want to have something in print that we can go.
This is like a vanity project.
That is the, it would have really cool.
Nice little subsection.
Ben's best holiday locations as tested.
Oh, completely.
Yeah.
Little postcards.
Yeah.
Ben's in the back on the back pages.
It's just got a phone number you can call.
And then Ben talks 30 to you.
Oh my gosh.
Those phone calls.
Some suggestive photos of Ben.
We all need to get some of it.
I remember finding those pages as a kid and being like,
do people call these?
Yeah.
Can you call these?
Those guys made a mint.
Yeah.
They were some of the, they paid some of the most money to advertise in Max Powell.
Okay.
Who someone, someone was telling us that it might have been with the Diablo.
You know, that was someone that some, one of these cars was originally bought by a,
someone who ran one of those companies.
Yeah.
I think it was.
It was like a five on two TR or is a Diablo and it was someone who was running one of those
companies and just had money for days.
Yeah.
It was like just a grotty phone call mogul or whatever you would call it.
That's what they, that's what they call.
That's what they call.
That's what they call.
See.
LinkedIn.
It is something like that.
That will be on their LinkedIn.
Yeah.
It was a different, completely different world.
Now you, you mentioned a potential in the Merci Lago story.
Oh yeah.
Because obviously, so I don't want to age you too much, but you would have been professionally
working when that car was launched.
That was clean.
That was cleanly done.
That was quite good.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
I appreciate that.
Um, yeah.
So I remember being on car magazine when we did performance car of the year, which was the big shoot
with all the heavy hitters of the year from hot hatch all the way up to super car.
And the year, I can't remember the year exactly, but I remember we had a Merci Lago
and the guy who was like, the guy that gave me the job actually on that magazine,
he turned up at the shoot and rendezvoused with the whoever brought the then really new Pagani Sonda.
There was a Bentley Arnaj tea.
There was a VX, might have been a VX 220.
Okay.
So it was probably like 2002 or three.
Yeah. It's really early 2000s.
But the thing I remember vividly, I walked over to Mark who was in the Merci Lago,
door went up and he went, have a look at this.
And I went, what?
And he went, yeah.
So the gear stick snapped in half while I was driving up here.
And I went, what?
And he went, yep, I've taped it together.
We gaffer taped the, the stalk.
So and we all had to drive it shifting really low near the base.
So then it didn't got a short shifter.
Bear in mind, this was brand new.
It was absolutely brand new car.
I don't think he drove it too aggressively in order to snap the gear, but it snapped.
It just snapped.
Do you remember what color it was?
Yeah. So I was going to ask.
Because I know there's a few early press cars on, I think it was purple.
I think it was.
So it was Y1.
Y1 was the one that was on the original, on the, on the reboot of Top Gear,
they did the Merci Lago racing the Zonda.
So probably even the same.
And the number plate was Y1.
Because there was a few different press cars, but I've been doing lots of,
I've bought all the magazines that have all the original Merci Lago launch stuff.
And it's a seriously cool looking car.
Yeah. But it's quite funny to, to read them now.
It's the same with, with the Gallardo as well, where the way people talk about them now,
it's completely different then.
It was getting a lot of, and that's a lot of cars.
If you read back some of these old magazines, the stuff that people go, that car's perfect.
And you read a magazine and it goes, that was shit.
Or they say, this doesn't look very good.
This is boring.
It's body of ruin.
This is bland.
And now that, that sentiment has changed almost entirely.
And no one remembers.
And it's the same with the, the Gallardo that's coming up for auction.
I think it'd be done by now.
We talked about it last week where they've used those of Clarkson comments where he's like,
this is the greatest.
This is better than any Ferrari or 911.
In the world.
But then if you watch the Top Gear review, he just slates it for 20 minutes, basically.
So it's just over time how much?
550 when it came out.
They, every single review I've seen of the 550.
It's not a very good looking car.
Whereas now people look at 550s and go, that was potentially some of the best Ferrari styling.
Because it was restrained.
Yeah.
Compared to the Tester Ross and everything we've gone before.
It was this weird, boldest looking, you know, strange shape.
Yeah.
Now, I think back to some of the cars that I drove new.
And now look at them compared to what we're being offered right now.
And I do think, wow, that little did I know it that that was probably the golden era of that stuff.
Look at things like Audi RS's especially.
Yeah.
Aesthetically.
This all gone so steroid now.
I was going to ask you.
It's way too vapy for me.
Because obviously, it's way too vapy.
Obviously you're quite into electric stuff.
Whereas we're guilty of sort of hating on that.
So I always wonder if there's, there is, you know, we see electric and then the design is obviously,
it's all ruined at that stage.
You go, well, obviously it's ugly.
It's electric when realistically it doesn't actually look that bad.
But are there any modern cars that or modern car designs that interest you now?
Yeah, there are a lot of modern cars that interest me, but it's getting harder.
You know, I stopped reviewing as many new cars as possible because I realized there's a lot of
stuff which is just not, not that interesting.
Yeah.
And also I thought to myself, well, hang on a minute, you know, I've got my,
traditionally my hobby was always old cars and my job was newer stuff.
And then there would be a meeting point in the middle.
And that was pretty much how the late break show channel was born.
I thought, I'll push all this together.
But yeah, new cars, there's, there is some good stuff, but it's, it's hard.
It's hard to find what I think to be genuinely good or interesting cars.
And some of them, I say this to people who just say no to electric full stop.
I say, well, there's good electric cars and there's not very good ones.
But we're also in an era where there's a lot of shit piston cars.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
They're not, they're being made to fit into it, to, to meet a certain parameter,
which is unrealistic.
Or the longevity of them is questionable or the build qualities.
Or for me, whether it's middle-aged man syndrome, it's the whole like big car with
shit interior cabin packaging.
That's tiny.
Got a massive car with a tiny boot and the back, you know, the back passenger space is
worse than, I don't know, a Corsa from 1995.
That's not progress.
Yeah.
Absolutely not progress.
And it happens a lot.
It's mostly the Beetleback SUVs I've got.
Yes.
I have rage, instant rage for those.
So you can see what you want about EVs and some of them are those Beetleback pieces of
shit.
But it doesn't matter what about the propulsion, it's about the packaging of the car.
Yeah.
And I think a lot of people get too caught up in, it's this or that.
Yes.
You've got to pick a side.
Oh, it's so tribal.
So it's, there are, you can understand that if you are, if you live in a city or you don't
do many journeys.
Yeah.
And an electric car does make some sense to a lot of people where a petrol car doesn't,
but it's, it's hard to also like I said, it is, it's tribal.
People go, no, it's very tribal.
I am petrol car through and through and I am probably mostly in that camp because the
cars that make me feel something are the ones that make a noise.
Yeah.
But there's 90% of petrol and diesel cars are fairly boring.
Yeah.
Of the modern stuff anyway.
So, especially commuter slash sensible family stuff.
And then on the flip side, there are like when the Renault five came out objectively,
that's a cool looking car.
Yeah.
If you're into cars, that's a cool car.
It is a cool car.
But yet there will still, there are still people and even when we looked at it and we
were not married to the idea of liking or disliking EVs.
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You're like, this is a cool looking thing.
And there are still people like, no, no, not cool.
If they brought out a one liter, three pot, they go, yeah, cool.
I like that now.
Yeah.
But it's the same looking thing.
You can still appreciate the design of the thing.
We said it as well with the Grande Panda.
Yeah.
It's a cool looking thing.
It is a great car.
Like, cool.
Fine.
It just doesn't have an engine.
You can still like, you don't have to go hate it.
No, no, no, I know it's got a lecturer.
I hate it.
What do you say?
Well, I have people who say you can't be a proper car enthusiast because you drive
an electric car.
And I go, well, I drive an electric car.
The money that that car saves me, I spend more on that.
Yeah.
And I spend more on that.
And I buy that over there.
So that is my yin and yang right there.
Would I drive that every day?
No, I siding well wouldn't.
I probably have brake failure at some point.
But also the love would probably...
Yeah, weighing a little bit.
It would.
I'd be like, I don't want to do another journey in that now.
A lot of people don't understand that.
No.
It's keeping Carl's special on a weekend, on the right day for the right thing.
Yeah.
Completely.
When you drive it every day, you start to go, realize all of its flaws
start to become a problem.
Yes.
Whereas the flaws when you just go out on a Saturday morning,
it doesn't matter because it's got a massive VA or it's sound.
It sounds incredible, but I still think...
Do women like wearing stiletto heels every day of the week?
No.
Yeah.
I mean, they might not at all and that's fine.
But those shoes are designed for a certain...
Yeah.
Feel good facts on a certain night or whatever it is.
That's the same as this stuff.
That's the way I see it.
In 2026 anyway.
Well, I've spent about the stilettos.
How do they make you feel?
The C5s are still really cheap as well.
They're really cheap.
I looked at them sale and again,
this is probably the worst of the worst, but they're like sub 10 grand.
I saw one for like seven.
Yeah.
And I think it's because they are just still a bit catastrophically expensive to run.
And the parts are gone.
There are no parts.
Audio dreadful for the sort of heritage stuff basically.
Well, I was speaking to R.E. performance about this, Ricky.
Maybe we should put this to a wide audience.
You guys got a big audience.
Porsche know their audience.
You can buy all classic Porsche parts.
BMW same.
Loads.
Mercedes have always made everything for every Mercedes.
What is Audi doing?
Yeah.
It's 10 years, Ricky said.
The moment the car, the last model, the last one off the line, has reached 10 years old,
every part gets discontinued.
And then you're just down to what is left in the stores.
It completely devalues the used car, especially a car like that.
The RS6 we've got, the V10 one.
Yeah.
They will keep tanking in value because no one will ever want to maintain it.
When you have to spend 3,500, 3,200 pounds, whatever it is on injectors,
no one's going to want to stomach that on a 10 grand car.
So that it will end up becoming a 5 grand car and a 3 grand car.
We got until it is, you know, the arch liner.
The arch liner we got was the last in the world in stock.
The four arms that we bought, those were a thousand pounds for four tiny little arms
that hold the top cross member in.
Like those are just wear and tear items.
Yeah. And they've gone.
A grand.
Dampers. We asked about dampers.
Dampers gone.
We can get you a front right.
Yeah.
They said there's front left.
You've got to make it a little toga or something.
Last one in the country, the light, they said there's one left in the world if you need that.
Just crazy.
They actually suggest to go and look on eBay.
Yeah. She told me, she was like, I asked about the light.
She said, you can have a look.
They're usually some like people in Lithuania that have one or two for sale.
Go have a look there.
You might find one.
But listen, Audi, if you want to propagate this amazing heritage that you've got,
you need to make some of that.
And also, PS, I know that profits on modern cars is hard these days.
So start making profits on old bits for people like us.
Because like, I know the original Audi, you know, the UR Quattro,
some of the bits on that are unobtainable.
And it's a real shame because they're good cars.
It makes sense because a lot of, again, we talked about the electric car versus petrol car thing,
or sort of newer cars, but it makes sense to keep an older car running for a lot of people.
Anyway, maybe not on our 6C6 doesn't make a huge amount of sense.
But if someone wanted to keep that car on the road rather than going by a new one,
or a two-year-old one, there has to be some money in selling them some parts that isn't ridiculous.
Completely.
Well, and that is the greenest thing, isn't it?
I mean, that's, I grew up in a family where my mum and dad bought a brand new car in 1976.
And we got rid of it 1999 or millennium.
Well, I was driving by that one.
I was an adult by that point.
I came home from hospital in it as a newly born baby and I learned to drive in it.
Oh, that's cool.
And then my dad was like, oh, I might trade this one in now.
I wish he hadn't because it's gone now.
It's been scrapped to me and my brother like, damn, that's why I bought that.
It's like a tribute to the car that, you know, I grew up around.
But the right to repair, the whole right to repair movement is something which not just cars,
is it? It's everything.
All the appliances in our house.
I think it's such a serious subject that has to be pushed and pushed and pushed.
And I think it's a bigger thing in the UK than most people think.
I think some people might look at the UK and go, no one really likes cars.
But I think if you look at how many people are driving interesting cars,
and then just fixing them, modifying them, you go abroad, you don't see anything like that.
I say it's my dad that every single time that we go over to Holland is you look around and no one
has anything cool. And it's not even...
Don't they?
No.
I thought it's such a shame.
But it's not even like that they're all just driving new cars.
It's that there's older stuff, but there's just no one doing anything to the older stuff.
Because there are too many restrictions.
Same in Germany.
You have the Tuv restrictions that stop you from doing anything.
We have our MOTs and we complain about them, but we have such lax laws.
You can do all sorts.
We're not America. We're not Florida.
You can't stamp a vin plate on a microwave and drive it down the road like you can there.
But you can do all sorts.
Like you can engines swap a car, tell the government they go,
yeah, yeah, it's fine.
Do you want to change the color on the logbook?
Fine.
Yeah.
You try and do that in certain European countries.
You go to prison.
Yeah.
You're doing that.
Yes, mental.
It's true.
But if you just drive around, even go France, Germany, there are...
You every now and then you might find a little Clio that's got a couple of mods on it.
But five minutes of driving on UK roads, you see all sorts of stuff.
I drove... I was next to a 64 in Parlor on the way today.
Just driving down the road.
Left hand drive, obviously.
But on Dutch plates, well, although that is on Dutch plates,
but driving on the road, it was a four door.
Yeah.
Just driving down the road.
Well, I've got one of them.
Yeah.
And then there was a C63 came past it, incredible speeds past me.
But you see all sorts in the UK.
Go and try that in other countries.
You will find quite quickly, we have it quite good.
There is a solid car culture, I think.
And again, some of it is blacked out tail lights,
but it is still doing something.
But you might not have that in other countries.
And obviously, we're very lucky that we can get used cars.
We get messages all the time or comments where we'll say,
we've bought an M140i for £9,000.
And everyone says, what the hell?
That's a £30,000 car or whatever in my country.
So I think we're quite fortunate in that way.
Well, that's why I always say to people, it's like,
well, that's the trade-off.
We have pretty weird weather.
But the upside is one of the upsides is for you.
One of them is we have an enormous amount of car people.
Lots of cottage industries, plenty of secondhand cars,
lots of freedoms.
Lots of engineering to make you new stuff.
Lots of lots of key say.
Yeah, like you say, like some of the silliest...
I mean, I dread having an unfinished project like the ones I've got,
which are heavily modified cars.
And then suddenly you find out that you can't drive it on the road.
Yeah.
People are like, right, so I've just spent 12 years building a thing I can't drive.
Yeah, what's the point of this?
Jeez, okay.
Now, Will, you might not know this, but what's your opinion on air conditioning?
In cars?
I knew this would come out.
I enjoy it.
Yeah.
Would you like to ask Johnny what he thinks?
Oh, you're not a fan of an AC.
You don't need it.
You don't need it.
You don't need it at any...
I've had...
I've got no idea if any of the air conditioning in any of my cars works.
In fact, if it has it, when I've bought it, I'm fucked up.
Oh, you want it out?
Yeah, you want it gone.
It's just a power robbing, thiefy bastard.
It is a bit unsupported.
But on some...
And it's untidy in the engine bay.
Always the ugliest juice.
And it makes a horrible noise.
It's always American, Zoya, the AC runs ice cold.
Blows cold.
Get it out.
Kick it in the bin.
I'm less...
Windows.
For the...
Yeah, there is...
Sunroof.
But there is...
I don't have a sunroof, unfortunately.
But when I found out the Alpha had a nice AC, I thought I actually quite...
It's lovely on a nice hot day, which is like 13 degrees in the air.
But...
It's a UK thing, by the way.
Those of you who live in Arizona, please don't write to us.
I know it's hot over there.
For me, it's more the steaming up.
It helps with that.
It's less of a cold...
It's less of a cold...
You know, getting cold air in.
Because yeah, you do have...
And a breeze is sometimes a bit nicer for us.
But it's more...
I've been in cars or owned cars that don't...
I have AC that doesn't function.
And you don't necessarily want the window up.
And it just helps keep everything nice.
Now, I never knew that was a thing.
You're the first person that I've ever seen do that.
And it makes sense.
Because it dries everything out, doesn't it?
Otherwise, you've just got moisture everywhere.
Just gives me a headache.
Like it's...
That's why I hate aeroplanes.
Oh, yeah, no, I actually find that.
Well, on all flights, you just...
That's why I don't drink on aeroplanes.
Because I feel hungover without drinking in alcohol.
Such a square.
Being drunk or...
No, just like...
You see?
Like refrigerant.
I think it's quite nice.
Do you like refrigerant?
Completely odd story.
But when I worked at M&S, I used to do a lot of stuff in the freezer.
To just get given a jacket.
And I was like, this is amazing in here.
You love it.
It just smells clean.
Do you naturally run hot?
Because my nephew runs extremely hot.
He's T-shirt in like, you know, like seven degrees.
And he's fine.
So he can't live without the con.
Me, it's a con.
It's con air.
Every time I see that film, con air, I just think of air con.
It's a con.
Yeah, I guess in the UK, you probably don't.
Also, no one uses it.
No.
That might be the thing that bothers me the most about it.
My girlfriend is terrible for it.
I tell her, like, a window starts steaming up
and she's opening windows and doing that.
I'm like, you have air con.
Just set that to a temperature.
The car is clever enough to go.
I'll deal with this.
I'll do this.
I will deal with this.
I'll deal with the windows.
I'll deal with all that.
You just pick a temperature and you do the driving.
But there's so many people have the AC and they don't.
But they don't know that they'll, they'll, they want the car that has
eight zone climate control.
But I'll never use it.
It's just off.
Why have you picked that?
You might as well just put a larder or something.
But you don't use the cruise control.
And you had radar cruise control.
I've started to use cruise control.
My problem with cruise control is you have to slow down for someone doing something all the time.
It's a lot of adaptive like senses.
Yeah, adaptive.
It can be great.
The early adaptive was scary.
You're barreling up behind someone.
I'm sorry.
Am I not?
Yes.
I remember being in a Jag that had it.
It was one of the very first cars, I think Jag and Land Rover.
And yeah, I was in this Jag.
And one minute I was going up behind a car and I,
I thought just going to punt it out the way.
So I definitely went in and intervened.
And then a second time it did an emergency stop about a quarter of a mile away from a car that pulled it in front of me.
And then it caused nearly another huge accident.
It was like, I can't live like this.
It's too stressful.
I'll deal with it.
It's far too stressful.
The first time I experienced a proper adaptive cruise control, I was quite lucky.
Back at Carthru, we used to sometimes get invited to do some of the sort of press car shoots.
It was mainly for the website.
And we did social media.
But sometimes an extra pair of hands or whatever was needed.
And luckily I was older than Edwin.
So often I would get asked.
So, and they did, it did a shoot with, it was Bentley Continental, the Honda NSX and the McLaren GT.
Yeah.
It was, that was what it was called at the time.
McLaren wouldn't let me drive that for some reason.
They said I was too young.
But the Bentley they did.
And the Bentley I got to drive all the way back from, I think it was Lincoln,
back down to sort of London roughly.
And it had adaptive cruise and it had a Meshard C and it had the most amazing sound system.
And I was like, this is the way.
Is it the name audio?
Yeah, it was.
Is it name audio?
I couldn't, I was like, I haven't, I got to the end of the journey.
I was like, I haven't done anything.
I didn't do any of that.
I sort of, I might have break to a junction once.
It's essentially being on an airplane.
You're just looking out the window going, that's nice.
That's pretty much the feet up on the dash.
I'm in the back.
Yeah.
On the flip side to that, when we would sometimes be driving me and Tiff together,
or in separate cars on walkie-talkies, he would always go, right,
let's do the, let's do the break challenge.
And I go, oh gosh, because he was very competitive still is.
It would be drive as far as you can without touching the brakes at all.
Okay.
And then he would introduce the other one.
If it was a manual car, can't use the clutch.
So no clutch and no brake use for, for, for we're talking lots of miles.
Yeah.
It's very hard and it's quite punishing on the car.
Yeah.
But that would be Tiff's favorite.
Right.
No brakes.
And like I've been in the car with him when he's not to use brakes and driven fast.
It's a true measure of a good driver.
Yeah.
Because I trust him.
He's an exceptional driver, but you are properly stamping on the foot well going,
oh God, no.
Yeah, yeah, please.
And pulling in front of people on roundabouts because he's like, can't stop.
Can't stop.
Won't stop.
And just, they'll have to stop.
Yes.
I might have told it on the podcast before, but when I was learning to drive,
when I came back to the UK, I'd already been driving in South Africa a bit,
but I was actually, I had my ale plates and my dad would drive to school to pick me up
and then I would drive back with him in, you know, next to me.
Yeah.
But my dad being my dad, my dad was not concerned about teaching me at all.
He would play a game where who could get the most MPG,
he would try and get the most MPG on the way there and I would try on the way back.
And it was fine at the beginning.
It was just, you know, high gears, but it escalated to the point where as a learner driver,
I was switching the car off down hills and then bump-starting it to get it going again,
just flying through roundabouts to try and conserve speed and keep momentum.
And when it came time to do my test, I got one lesson and the instructor said,
it's all good, but you kind of seem like you don't want to stop anywhere.
You just keep kind of going, you just keep rolling through things.
And I was like, yeah, MPG, man. I'm trying to keep the MPG up.
Just ruined my driving with a game.
Why are you tailgating that lorry?
Wow, MPG is just something we don't know, doesn't it?
That's three MPG free.
You're right there.
I've been teaching over the last couple of years, my kids to drive in a field,
not far from here. I got them a Civic, would it be EP3 shape?
Is that EP2 or EP2?
Whatever it is, 1.43 door.
It's a cool car. It's just way too good to be a field car.
But it's weird teaching people to drive and they question things that you've never questioned
and you've gone, yeah, we do do it like that. Why do we do it like that?
I don't know.
It's like when someone new starts at work and they ask you to give them a tour.
This is how we do it. Don't do that. You're not supposed to do that, but we do this.
So just don't do that.
Do as I say, not as I do.
Yeah, as I do.
And I said to them, I said, look, when you do your driving lessons,
they might teach you differently because I learned to drive a long time ago.
So there's different rules.
But they used to say, come all the way up to the junction, dip the clutch,
and then go from third to first or whatever it is.
But now as I drive, I slow down and go through the gears.
They're like, yeah.
But what about if you teach us the wrong way?
And I went, well, we don't know yet.
Not 17 yet.
So let's cross that bridge.
Yeah, exactly.
So I teach them both methods.
Let's just do it like this.
They're coming into their first driving lesson.
Just heeling towing it down.
Yeah, I know. It's just like, it's been really good fun.
I'm now confident enough. I get out the car and I'm like a ringleader in the middle of the field.
I'll go,
It's like a matador.
Yeah. And I'll put a cone out and go,
They're doing stunt moves instead.
We don't need to do handbrake turns in the test.
I did teach them a handbrake.
I did.
Only because my son was like, because he's watching films and stuff.
How do you make it do that?
I'm like, well, it's a front wheel drive.
So you can't drift as such, but here's what you can do.
And then so I'd be on the wand while he's...
And I'm so, imagine it's an icy day.
It's an icy day and the car does this.
What are you going to do?
And I do it like a little, like a...
Be basically a deviant driving instructor.
Yeah.
It's just ripping handbrake.
Yeah. Try and go, it might happen on this lap.
It might not.
Yeah.
Who knows?
We'll have to work it out.
Don't look at my hands.
Yeah.
They're looking at a parallel part going,
I could handbrake it.
I could handbrake it in.
It's a...
Yeah. My dad showed me this one guy, Russ Swift.
So I'm just going to do that straight into the corner.
There's a ramp. I can get it on two wheels and I should just handbrake it in afterwards.
Love all that.
If you had to rebrand yourself as one of those Instagram car influencers,
what would your handle be?
How would you dress?
And what would your USB be?
This is good.
Because we've been taking the piss out of the Instagram influencer recently.
Because it's funny, because there's always some incredibly named,
but quite good metaphor for why this car's important.
Yes.
Why the completely random car's important.
And usually there's some sort of charity shop get up.
Yeah, there is.
Yeah, some of them do a very good job of it.
So good question.
I wasn't expecting you to ask me something like that.
So I would...
It's filled up normally a bit sort of 70s or 80s car journalists,
but with a bit of sort of pizzazz thrown in there.
At the weekend I said to my girlfriend,
I said, because she asked if I was going to grow a mustache this year.
I said, well, technically I've got one.
I just need to sort of like debadge it around.
And then...
So I've got...
I promised I'm going to do that.
I said, but if I look like a CD serial killer,
you are still going to associate with me aren't you?
She is, she's promises.
So I said, I'm going to dress like Pedro Pascal from the Pablo Escobar things.
Okay, freely.
Yeah.
So I'm going to go sort of like chunky belt buckle.
Yeah, nice.
I've got a fair amount of shirts that already exist similar,
but I'm going to try if I can rock it with conviction.
So it doesn't look like I'm fancy dressing.
Like this is how I dress for the next six months.
This is me.
This is me.
If I was driving that, it would look great.
Oh, yeah, then yeah.
Because everyone would go, oh, I get that.
But if I'm driving, I don't know, Tesla.
Yeah, then it's...
Yeah, that's quite interesting.
Is that his car?
You look like a prospect, a land prospector that's come from a different timeline.
That's right.
And I could maybe have a cigarette behind my ear, but I don't smoke.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's for someone else.
That's right.
For you.
This is for you.
We're just about to do a deal.
I thought I'd bring you a cigarette.
It's a herbal one as well.
That's right.
It doesn't hurt you.
It's all good.
Cars with Johnny is a...
That'd be like a go-to.
When someone makes an Instagram thing, and they're like,
well, my name is Steven, and I'm going to talk about cars.
It's cars with Steven.
Or Steven drives cars.
Steven drives cars.
Yeah, Steven drives cars.
Steven on cars.
I was on in cars.
In my head, I had it on and in.
Almost American spec that was going to be like Johnny rides rides or something.
Yeah.
Or just Johnny rides, but I think that's a bit motorbike.
Yeah, go, go, Johnny.
Be good.
Brackets.
Brackets be good.
Brackets be good.
I like that.
I actually quite like that.
Be safe.
That would be good.
No, actually be good.
And then what would your USP be?
Because they always start.
There's always some form of they either walk into shop,
stage left, or they'll pop up out of nowhere.
Yeah.
There's always something.
Is there anything that you've ever...
Have you ever wanted to try something?
I tell you what I would do, because me and Rich on Smith and Stiff always joke
about this privately, is the interview that Nicholas Cage
did on Terry Wogan's TV show in about 1990.
He was so off his face on marching powder, clearly.
He came in and he did a really high kick to camera
and then did a forward roll with a leather jacket.
Oh, shit.
He was wild.
That's cool.
You need to watch that clip just to get an idea.
And I thought, I will do that at the start of every piece to camera.
That's how I like that.
And he comes in, he goes, whoo!
And then there's a proper forward roll.
One of those ones where you crunch it back a bit,
you've got to carry it off.
Does the high kick in jeans and then just goes for it.
And it just introduces the press card.
This is the high on die at Oz.
That on some random Kensington High Street.
Yes.
Just round.
That's cool.
I like that.
I would like to do a backflip, but I've never done one.
And I feel like I might end up in a wheelchair.
So I don't want to do it.
Would be, again, quite funny.
That at the beginning shot, you completely botching it
and then just cutting in a wheelchair doing the rest of the review.
That's to be fair.
I mean, that's the kind of thing people try now to not the wheelchair thing,
but the just I'll do a flip to start it.
I'm going to do the Nicholas Cage high kick and forward roll.
Okay. Nice. Good.
So go Johnny, be good.
Instagram, brackets be good.
You will see this content coming soon.
That's good.
I like that.
Feel like I should do it now.
Yeah.
I think you may have to.
Random one.
What niche corner of car culture do you think is secretly thriving
that everyone else is ignoring?
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That is what niche of...
That's really good.
That's really good.
I think I haven't paid much attention to it recently,
but there was a load of really interesting repurposing of people.
When I used to work on fully charged YouTube channel with Robert Llewellyn,
I found this movement of people that were buying really executive cars that were too expensive to
tax and like a seven series BMW.
It was a bit tired and nobody could be bothered to keep it going.
And they were converting them to EV but using scavenged bits.
So they would use like a Lexus hybrid gearbox and the battery pack out of this.
And they were doing all in a shed with lots of monitoring devices.
And it was really nerdy.
I got quite into us thinking, well, and then the guy would at the end be like,
yeah, this owes me 600 pounds.
The whole thing and he like 600 pounds.
Is that it?
And it's going to be a seven series that looks all right,
running on some like borrowed nicked batteries and hybrid system.
So that was really cool.
I mean, yeah, I mean tri-tri-trialing.
It's a motorsport.
So it's not...
We've said we...
Because I at Cartherell found the Land's End trial and said,
we should really do this and we never ended up doing it.
And then your series came out and I watched it and I was like,
this is mental that people are doing this.
Oh, it's amazing.
It feels like when people talk about random like hillbilly motorsports in America,
where it's like, you've never heard of this.
They do mud wrestling with tar hose.
It's like that.
But in England, where it's just a load of people turn up with cars and they get them up a muddy hill
and then they carry on and they do the next one and the next one.
Honestly, it's one of the, I think, one of the most enjoyable things I've done with a car.
And it's still to this day the oldest and cheapest motorsport.
So it's like, I mean, hill climb is probably about the same age.
So you can genuinely do it with no money.
And there are people that enter cars that do well for like 300 quid.
And they don't kill them afterwards.
They'll reuse them and go, you're right, we're going to refine this next time.
We'll put a better sump guard on it or we'll lighten it or whatever.
And there are people doing it who are old, really old and they're hardcore.
They're doing it in a car with no roof in January.
Yeah.
It's pissing, freezing.
And they're mat reading and they've got a big smile on their face.
They're drinking 17 litres of hot tea an hour and they are, they are enduring it.
And I, the one I did that lands on 100th anniversary one,
I saw Dave Richards from Pro Drive in a buggy, a beach buggy, VW beach buggy,
with no heating, no roof, no nothing, big smile on his face.
And I actually met him last week because I'd never met him before and said,
you were in that buggy at the Land's End trial.
He must have been freezing.
I was freezing.
But he said, I had the time of my life.
And I'm like, but you've done world rallying stuff.
And he went, yeah, but grassroots, really approachable, interesting, car-based sport
is where it's at.
And I'm like, yeah, it is, isn't it?
And I think we've got so carried away with glitzy stuff.
Yeah.
When you strip it all back, it's like, it's like,
when someone has a moped in a field and you might have ridden a fire blade and I might have a
Lamborghini, but you still go, oh, I love a car.
Because you know, it's going to be fun.
Yeah.
And it's stupid really, but I think we can get so carried away with stuff being
hardcore and expensive and fast or whatever.
But yeah, the tri-trialing is awesome.
I'd love to try it again.
If you ever try it again, or you ever do try it.
We should try it again.
Yeah.
You should do it.
Yeah.
You should do it.
Shall we?
Perhaps a Smith and Sniff versus TDC trial.
A trial off.
Oh, Richard would hate it.
Yeah, no.
Richard would hate it.
I don't know if it'll come with you.
Yeah.
He'd be like, why are we doing this?
Why can't we just drive on a road?
Now, your last episode, we have to say, has one of our funniest out of context of your,
it's in the finale.
Oh, gosh.
We laugh about it quite often.
It's from a lot.
Well, it's whenever it came out.
You know what?
I'm going to have to play it.
Will's laughing.
I've only just remembered it.
It's from the podcast.
Max, it's from the trial.
It's if you can't see the visuals.
Yes, I'm playing it.
It's an audio based thing.
And it is actually harrowing.
I don't know what it is.
Okay.
This is going to take me a moment to find it in the video, but I do know.
I'm glad it makes you laugh.
Well, you watch it.
You'll probably find this funny.
And then we heard it and it's like,
how has no one made this into some form of meme or viral thing?
It's hilarious.
It sounds horrendous.
We'll let you draw your own conclusions about what you are talking about in the video.
But it's very good.
I'm laughing and I've got no idea.
Right.
Got a terrible memory for stuff I say.
So, you know, on the other hand, I, for some reason,
remember every piece of media I've ever watched.
Do you?
But you're young.
You also, I've spent the better part of now 15 years on YouTube.
Like day one, YouTube came out.
I was on there watching car crash complications from Russia.
How were you?
Yeah. Yeah. Like I've, I used to watch, there was a website.
You remember it as well called Rectexotics.
Oh, yes. I remember that.
It was before YouTube.
Yeah.
That had, in the early days, it was just photos and then they got videos.
Embedded videos.
Embedded videos in there.
And then there was also before that, there was a site called stupidvideos.com.
Oh, gosh.
Which was before YouTube and it was just people uploading fails and super stuff like that.
And so the moment YouTube came about, I was like,
this thing's just got car videos on it.
I'm watching Christy get uploading videos of their exhausts, you know, all sorts of that.
Will and I have what, I reckon we've watched like of what's come up,
of what's come out that's viral or like, you know, known about on cars.
I'd say between us, we've probably watched 80 to 90% of it.
Oh, sure.
Throughout the years.
I've got, I found my old account recently and I went back through,
I had a playlist that's just called car sounds.
I would have made it when I was 10 or something.
But I watched it back. I was like, this is great.
This is, they're just like eight second clips.
That's so cool.
Of just cars and noises.
Have you found it?
I found it.
Are we ready?
I don't know.
Right?
I don't know.
I have the rim.
Oh my word.
Absolutely mullered.
This rim, there's a really harsh bit.
You can see, I mean, look how hard it squashed it.
Look how full of shit.
It squashed it to nothing.
So you are quite innocently talking about a car, right?
Yes.
But I happened to be watching the episode in the unit and played it out loud.
Ben Will and I went, hold on.
What's he talking about there?
He's destroyed the rim.
Was that on the Land's Entrance?
That was on the Land's Entrance.
Yeah, that was the first thing.
It was just going, oh, it's absolutely full of shit.
It's destroyed the rim.
Look how soft it is.
I was so annoyed with myself.
Because that was like 30 seconds into the first bit, right?
It really was.
It was like first stage, go, 54321 smash.
And the wheel went from being that big to about that big.
It looked like it had just gone in the microwave,
like a crisp package, it's been shriveled.
I was like, how did I destroy it that badly?
And a few of the marshals were like, well, you did hit it quite hard.
I was like, but you have to because you need to carry the momentum.
And there's nowhere around it.
So what else was I supposed to do?
They were like, don't know.
Just don't do it.
Well, yeah.
Just don't break it.
I don't know.
I'm glad we managed to get that out because that's something we laugh about.
Smulled the rim.
Yeah, that's something we laugh about quite often.
I heard it in the...
Edwin was watching it and I heard it.
I was like, hang out a sec.
What are you watching there?
It could be the Max Power, didn't it?
You guys would love the trialing.
Do we?
I think we'll have to put it on the books.
We used to...
Back at the channel I used to work for, Overdrive,
we used to do like grass roots, motorsport videos
because they would do quite well.
We started out with lawn mower racing, which is a...
I never want to do it again.
No.
Because it is physically the worst thing I've ever done.
Like it's unbelievably taxing.
It's a go-kart, but you're...
You're the suspension.
Higher than you should be.
So all of the sort of...
It's like a motorbike with four wheels.
So you have to use body weight to get around it.
It makes zero sense, but it is amazing.
And we did grass karting and a couple of other things.
But that's another thing I think people don't know about,
like, realize about the UK.
Even people in the UK is that motorsport is massive.
Huge from a...
People just rallying around a field in go-karts to...
Banger racing, hill climb stuff is massive in the UK.
Banger racing is so high-end now.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
It's so stupid.
I'd love to do that.
I'm a Aiden that works with us.
He's UK champ or regional champ, or he's like well-known in it.
And I said to him, like,
so you just buy a car from the scrappy and go race it.
And he was like, I know, there's qualifying.
There's...
People are doing engineering to try and get an edge over other people.
It's crazy.
It's unbelievable engineering.
Yeah.
Unbelievable money.
I inquired about doing it.
There's a place, an arena in Bournemouth.
I'm not sure if it's still there.
I'm paying for sure.
Match-ums.
Is it match-ums?
Angmoring school.
Odd name.
But I called the guy who was running it.
And it was...
It's always difficult to explain,
because a lot of those people have been doing it for a very long time.
So when you mention YouTube, they're like, what do you want?
Like, what is that?
What do you want this?
But they were quite open to us doing it.
We're not paying you any money.
We're not asking for any money.
We said, we just want to enter.
How do we do it?
And I thought it'd be the same.
We're just going to get a course of B or a course C from the scrapyard.
I'll put a helmet on and we'll just go racing.
And then I know there's this to do with the cage
and what sort of cage you need and all that kind of stuff.
So...
And then, but that same place also did car jumping.
Not really a motorsport, but something I just am desperate to try.
Maybe not as much.
Little bit younger, I was more willing to do it.
Now I was like, do I want to break my neck doing that?
But they do have like hands devices and stuff,
but it is exactly what it says on the tin.
They have to drive around like half the oval.
And they go in the infield.
And then they go on the infield and they have to clear X amount of cars.
And there are some of them that just clear the whole thing.
One of the best clips I've seen, I want to say it was an IS-200
that had obviously been jumped prior.
But he went around, he jumped it, he cleared all the cars, destroyed the car
and then he just went back round again and just did it again.
Oh my gosh.
They're so adrenaline up.
People just find the strangest thing.
They go, I'll race that, I'll jump that, I'll do something.
Is that a field?
It could look like a track.
Steve, should we go jump something in a field?
And then someone went, I'll do that with you.
Yeah.
Can I come with you and do that?
Competitively.
Yeah.
I bet I can do it better than you.
That's what I love about YouTube is that you see all of those
in the old days, at least, all those really, really hashed up old home videos.
And they were all things that I grew up doing,
but we didn't have video recordings and stuff.
And we didn't have camcorder spare.
And so it really reminds me of, you know, building stupid jumps for your mountain bike.
Yeah.
We all chipped in in the summer holiday once because we were all bored
and we all had, I don't know, maybe eight pounds each.
And we bought a Honda step through from a neighbour,
which we called the Bangla Deshmobile,
because we stripped everything off it to make it go as fast as possible.
And it just looked like a weird skeleton.
Yeah.
With nothing.
And then we tied a pair of shoes to the back of it for fun.
That thing would just go flat out all summer holiday.
All we did is just stole fuel from our own parents' sheds for lawnmowers.
And it was like one of the most fun summers.
Yeah.
And occasionally we had a campfire and occasionally drank cider,
but it was mostly about the moped.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think it's more younger people.
It would be good if they would get into that stuff,
because a lot of people think it needs to be go karting,
which is very expensive, but there's other types of motor sport
and things you can try out, or motor bikes if you really have to.
My kids really wanted to go go karting, and I knew I couldn't afford it.
Not to compete.
And so I just picked up my Gumtree app and went,
well, what cars are out there for right now for 300 quid or less?
And I bought that Civic, which was 70,000 miles,
turns out full service history, and it was 310 pounds.
And it still had, like, I don't know,
three months, four months, MOT or something.
And I went and picked it up and shored it and then brought it back.
And I said, that is about three karting sessions.
Yeah.
You guys can have it, all right?
And it's so good, you can have it.
We can drive on the road if you want.
Yeah.
Not with me at the wheel, not them.
And they were like, what?
And I said, yeah, it's cheaper than going karting.
It's a car.
It's a full car.
And you could have it as your...
I think my son might have it as his first car,
because we might build a EP3 Type R replica.
Nice.
Do you know when people used to do that?
Yeah.
I might have to tap you guys up, actually, for that.
Oh, yeah, there's...
Now, what color is it?
Hot clothes.
Is it a cool...
Silver.
Oh, it's silver.
Because sometimes they have like the pink or the green,
the champagne-y colors.
Having that as a Type R replica would look quite cool.
Oh, an OAP type.
Yeah, that's what I mean.
I still see it a lot in the...
I'm still in all the Clio Mark II forums from having like 182s and stuff.
And there's still a lot of 17, 18-year-olds who go in there.
And sometimes they get a bit of stick, but they're young
and they've got a car that looks exactly like a 182 or a 172.
They're like, has anyone got a bumper?
Has anyone got this?
Because they want...
That's what I wanted to do when I was younger, but you get put off it.
Because you think everyone's going to think I'm a bit stupid.
But the reality is, you're not going to be able to afford a 182.
Yeah, probably, yeah, to insure it.
So what's wrong with doing it?
And also, I said to my kids, it's like, if you buy a car really cheap
and you learn how to put bits on it and take them off
and buy them secondhand and stuff like that,
that's the way you should do it.
And I think no car people should dissuade that.
Yeah, you can come to a cars and copy of it.
And there'll be people with Ferrari's and Exotica and stuff.
But never like, don't smirk it.
No, yeah.
Also, especially when...
Don't put them off.
Especially when there is a story to go along with it.
Like, let's say he was to have that as his first car.
He does a Type R kit a little bit down the line.
He decides now I want to type R engine.
Now I turn it into a track car.
Now that car's got story.
Even if it is the shitiest car...
It is a Type R, but it's not a Type R.
But if you're at that cars and coffee, and it might be the ratiest car there,
but you can go, yeah, I've had this since my first car.
Then other car people will go, oh, yeah, that's cool now that you've got that.
We always say that you have to...
Not necessarily that they are mistakes, but they might...
They'll feel like mistakes later on down the line.
You go, I needed to do that to know...
To get to the cars I'm buying now.
And I go, that was silly.
I'd probably never do it again.
But it taught me something about taking a bumper off or taking an engine out
or doing an interior change or something like that.
And you can always...
So whenever people say to us, should I do this to my car?
And they're young, I wouldn't do it to a car now.
They should do it.
If you want to do it, if you want to put Lexus lights on the back of your car,
you want to tint your windows, you want to put a subwoofer in the boot,
you should absolutely do it.
There is no real reason to do it.
It's worse in every way.
But you need to do that now while you're young.
We probably won't like it.
No, if you ask us what we think, we'll tell you it's shit.
If you did it yourself, that's the important part.
That's the bit that you were supposed to do.
You wanted to do it.
Completely.
And it's a rite of passage.
Yeah, absolutely.
Messing stuff off on cars is...
You want a bad boy bonnet your polo, which is what my mates did,
in your mate's dad's garage with some very basic woodworking tools,
not metalworking tools.
Yes, you can do it.
You can actually do that.
I think the worst thing is when people financially buy off more than they can chew.
So they start their car journey completely skinned,
and they have to work two or three jobs just to keep the finances up on a car.
And it's like, you didn't need to buy.
You didn't need to buy 15 grand car.
Because also, the only people you're trying to impress are the people that aren't going to be
impressed by you anyway.
Whereas your mates will be impressed by your Corsa B.
If you go and stick some eBay 6x lines in it that cost you 15 quid, they'll go,
that sounds sick.
Completely.
Whereas if you go and finance a new car, they're going to go, hey, I'm a cool...
You also don't appreciate the good stuff when you do get to it.
Yeah.
My dad always used to say to do jobs and stuff is you need to do the shit jobs to appreciate
the good ones.
And it's the same with cars.
You don't start off with something, even it's not necessarily a rusty piece of shit,
but it's at least a very slow hatchback, something that has no real redeeming features,
other than the fact that it's your freedom.
But then you go, well, now I can upgrade something else and upgrade something else.
And I can look back at that and go, well, that's how far I've come.
So that's what a lot of people don't understand.
I've never had a really glamorous car.
I've still got waiting to get there.
I've never had a super car, never had a modern sports car.
Is there one on the list?
I mean, that's the most...
Yeah, I would say because that is a, for a lot of people, is a poster car.
I look at that with jealous eyes whenever I see that shape of charge.
That's my dream car.
That's why I bought it.
Same as you with the Lambo and you with the TV iron stuff.
It was always a one day I hope to get.
That was what that was.
Has there ever been anything like super expensive or sports car or super car that you would still
like to own?
Yeah, there's a few and I do.
I do have moments and especially when I'm watching other YouTubers channels who probably like younger
cars than me.
And I think to myself, yeah, I would love an E39M5.
I'd really, really like one.
I've nearly gone there, nearly not.
There's a couple of...
I've never owned a 911 of any sort.
And my only portion I've ever owned is the Boxster, which was ex-car throttle.
And I love that damn car.
So yeah, I would love to do that.
And a super car is a difficult one.
Would I ever own a super car?
I don't know.
It's not for everyone.
I'm lucky I've driven lots of them.
Bizarrely, I've borrowed lots of them.
I always think that with journalists is you tend to find that not many of them go out and buy one
because you don't need to.
No.
You get all of the use that you'd want to get out of a super car without having to
deal with any of the ownership issues.
It's so true, yeah.
So you go, I'll go and buy something old or like you've got...
Well, like going and buying 182s and that sort of stuff as a pallet cleanser.
It is a pallet cleanser.
Because otherwise you go from driving a Valkyrie and then you go and get in your
glado and go, oh, this isn't very good.
It would take that shine off.
There's a bit of that, which is...
I mean, that's...
I always like getting in that because that's an absolute pallet cleanser.
Yeah, nothing else is like that.
It will not stop.
It doesn't turn very well.
And it's very physical and old.
So I do like that.
But I tell you, yeah, there was one that just popped into my head a second ago,
a car that I would rather like.
A super car.
What was it?
I've never owned an Alpha.
I would love a hot old Alpha.
But I worry that it would be a...
Like a GTV6 or like a junior old?
I would like a Montreal.
Oh.
But I would like a modified Montreal because I know standard.
They are so funny.
I actually have a context that my dad is an Alpha man.
And he has had...
He does have a Montreal at the moment.
He's had multiple.
And I've driven it thinking old school V8 manual.
This is going to be amazing.
Yeah.
It drives a lot like a Triumph Stag.
Right.
And that's not a compliment.
No.
So it's just a more handsome Stag.
Yeah.
But there is a company called OK Tech.
You should have a look at them.
They do like a 11,000 RPM ITB because they are...
They have a very weird injection system in the engine.
But they've done like an 11,000 RPM Montreal that sits and looks and is fantastic in every single way.
So I've petitioned my dad many times for the Montreal to become my inheritance.
Everything else can go.
But I'd like to Montreal because that to build one of those would be very cool.
So I think that I didn't know about that car with Montreal at all until I saw that.
Until I saw a dad's one.
I saw it.
I thought it's it's Mura but sort of, you know, but somewhat attainable.
It's I thought it just looked incredible.
If you looked at the car and someone said that's just sold for $1.5 million,
you pretty good.
Fair enough.
That looks like it would be.
But yeah, do you know why it's called the Montreal?
Oh, I don't because it had no name when it was revealed at the Montreal Car Show.
That is so Italian.
And we've not got the name yet.
There was no name for it.
And so people started calling it the Montreal Alpha as in the one that was at the Montreal
show and Alpha went sounds good.
Yeah, we'll just call it that could have been much worse.
The Alpha Birmingham.
Yeah.
The Docklands.
That would knock them down as well.
But I thought that was really just a little.
I tell you, a car would probably borrow a shed load of money for.
I'd like a rough Porsche of some sort.
Have you ever driven one?
No, I haven't.
That's that's that's a bucket list car to drive.
Yeah.
For me.
Yeah.
It's just cool.
Having met Mr. Ruff or Roof Ruff.
Such an interesting guy, sweet, sweet guy.
And I just think it's one of those things where it's so niche.
And it's it is a proper, if you know, you know, and significantly expensive, obviously.
I would.
Yeah, I would very much like one of the older ones, like Yellowbird or one of their new kind
of reincarnations.
I would try.
I try either.
Because obviously Yellowbird is hardly any about full stop.
I would do a probably I've seen some of their 997s.
I thought they looked pretty cool.
Because those are it's quite funny the 9FF style.
So because obviously they always did make a lot of power, but then it got to like 997
generation.
They just went mental.
And it's just 800 horsepower now.
And you just go, what?
Why is that?
Yeah.
We talked about in the, if you know, you know cars, someone asked a forum question to us.
And for us might actually be the that's got to be because it is still a Porsche.
So it kind of stands out.
Yeah.
But no one would know if they saw a Yellowbird or something like that.
If you see that badge, then you're like, oh, it's just another level, isn't it?
It's like that's worth double what you thought it was worth.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And they still they still make cars.
Yeah.
They make like the almost rest no mods type.
Yeah.
They now do the carbon.
Did the Yellowbird again on the CTR?
They now do like a modern CTR kind of reimagination type thing.
Yeah.
Also, no, in fact, the Yellowbird, there's only one Yellowbird.
The rest of them are just CTRs.
Are they?
Yellowbird is the only one that has the scoop in the side of it.
Did it do a ring lamp?
Was that one of the things it did?
Has a nearshroom.
Yeah.
Again, also early YouTube, that was like beginning of internet video that being on the internet.
I watched that and going, what's this place?
Is this the place on Gran Turismo that I keep driving around and crashing into people?
That's where I know of Ruff Ruff from is from Gran Turismo.
I looked at it and I was like, that's it looks like a Porsche, but it's not.
Yeah.
It is.
So yeah.
Flip side of the same question.
Is there a car that the internet loves that you just don't get the joke on?
Oh yeah, there's loads.
There's loads.
I mean, you've got a lot of modern BMWs and a lot of new hot Audi's that I just can't be
bothered to review because although a lot of the BMWs drive really well, I just think they're so
disgusting.
They're so disgusting to look at and the people that buy them and say, yeah, you get used to it.
It's like, no, you've convinced yourself because you sold the last version before you drove it
and lived with it and you're probably regretting it, but you can't admit it to anybody.
The older one might be 8% worse dynamically, but it's better in every way and it's half the money.
That's where your money should go.
So I think people are always asking me about Peek car and I'm sure they asked you,
when was Peek car? Because we're in this weird world now where there's a lot of just average
meh about and cars have got really expensive.
And so I'm always trying to think of when was Peek car? Was I reviewing new cars when
Peek car was Peek car? I think I was actually by accident.
But yeah, so there's a lot of those things and
fast forwards.
I can't find it quite hard to gel with a lot of those fast forwards.
Modern or old?
Well, what's your definition of old? I mean, I drove the Mark 1 Focus RS when it was launched
and I was like, that's terrible.
Really?
Really.
It's so much worse than the ST.
Was it the ST?
The 170.
The 170.
The 170.
It's so much worse because the 170 didn't just grab and snatch you and punch you and kick you around.
It's like, this is undriveable and it's got the most chubby interior I've ever seen.
Yeah, it's clear.
I'm sitting inside a horrible track suit and I'm paying more.
I remember the starter button just looked like
someone had just got it from a drill, industrial drill.
They're the one who has emergency quick.
Terry's arms being like sawn off, quick, press the button.
And I was like, this is horrible.
And yet now it's the highly revered and I love the Mark 1 Focus, but I thought the RS was the worst of it.
Really? The interior, I can understand 100% because it is awful.
It's a sick joke.
I'm going to get trolled for this because fast forward people are...
Oh, they're a militant.
Wow.
It is a cult.
Militant. I think there's a lot and it is not necessarily just fast forwards, but
a lot of other old cars is that when you drive them now, it's not actually as good as it is.
It's like people who drive like an E30 M3 and go,
I was expecting it to drive like a DTM car, but it's actually a relatively softish kind of road car.
I think that's what I would love a Mark 1 RS.
I love mostly the way they look, if I'm honest, compared to an ST170.
They're a lot less steroid-y than the way they were.
They're just chunked up.
Yeah, exactly. It's fair to look at Cosworth.
Even compared to the Mark 2, it's relatively normal looking, but it's just got...
That's almost, if you know, it's like slightly wider arches.
You know, it kind of looks like a normal focus, but I wonder if it would be a bit disappointing.
I think there's actually the next question.
I think it's the nostalgia of without us having driven it, but just seeing it in magazines and
in games and things, it's built up in our heads to the point where it doesn't really matter how
it drives.
Completely.
It's just like that.
Like the Tuscan, honestly, the Tuscan could have driven like a bag of nails,
and I was expecting it to when we drove the one before.
The reason I went out and bought one is because I was so surprised about how good it actually was.
But I was expecting to drive it, hate it and go, I still love it.
It's just a cool thing from my childhood, but it just also happened to be very good.
That's like that.
I bought it because it looks the way it looks, and it was in all the films that we all know.
So I thought, well, it's probably going to be a bit awful.
And then you drove it.
And okay, part of the brakes bit, brakes are terrible, but to drive it's actually good.
And it does actually go around corners because it's not as heavy as it looks.
So I was like, oh, I think I might live with this for a bit longer.
And now it's like, I'm never selling that car.
Never.
Because I love it.
Doge charger being handed down to the kids?
100%.
Why's it got my brakes?
Family heirloom.
Oh, dad, no.
The brakes thing is quite bad.
Quite bad.
So what part of car nostalgia do you think is over romanticized then?
What do you think people say that they're like, oh, it'd be great if we went back and had that.
But in actual fact, it was shit back then.
What part of car nostalgia is actually worse than people think?
Got some damn good questions.
Naughty swine.
And try to remember.
Because I keep seeing it's with all of the reimagined cars that you see it where
at the start it was, Singer 9-11 was a modern feeling car, but with retro looks.
And now it seems to start regressing into the point where it's like,
we've just remade an old car.
It has wind up windows.
It has, you know, no AC.
It has everything's basic again.
That wasn't the point of what you was trying to capture before.
It was supposed to be all the best bits of a new car with the looks of an old one.
But now it's weird.
It seems to be going back.
Unless you go to like those MST things, which are supposed to be just a remake of an old car.
And I'm Mark II escort again.
But yeah, I think there's this weird thing where there's a lot of...
I don't understand why Porsche haven't started only the reproduction of the body shells.
Because I feel sorry for the 964.
Because I think it's going to be the rarest standard 9-11.
And I would love a base model, a guy I know has a no options Carrera 296.
And that's one of my dream cars probably.
But that's the funny thing is that like a no options car is now even more sought after.
Completely.
Because everyone's like, oh, there are none of those left.
I'll buy that and I'll stick that in the shed.
When I review cars and have done for years, I would often...
Because you'd often get a press car with all of the options on it.
And I would part of the review process will be, well, this is particularly got
equipped with this system and that costs this much.
I personally don't think it's worth it or that one's really good.
That's neat.
I think you should have that.
The number of times I'd say to people don't hardly spec anything.
Because if you get Carrera away, you'll easily get fleece for another eight grand or whatever it is.
And eight grand back then would buy you another car.
Yeah.
Now that would be the price of a new whatever it was little dacia.
So I'd be like, just go, go careful.
But people now it's like people that order 9-11s, they just go turbo S.
Yeah, everything.
And I go, that's the most boring 9-11 I've driven.
It's so fast, but so sanitized.
I'm not interested.
Maybe you, I don't know if you drove it, but it was, I remember Matt Robinson,
when we worked at Cartharole telling us about it, that Porsche with the 9,
it was the 991 or 992 had on their press fleet a completely base model.
Yes.
I think it was red.
Yes, I drove that car.
Yeah.
That just being, that that's a funny thing.
That now becomes a thing for manufacturers to go,
he's a completely base model one.
And everyone went, oh, that's cool.
Bloody lovely.
It drives really well.
You don't need anything else.
I think that's probably the most overrated thing of people thinking you need to highly
option a car and also the whole color thing.
Like the color thing is,
color thing just wrecks my head.
The number of people that buy a really boring colored car and it just looks Soviet.
It just looks like we're in a repressed society.
There was a, where are we?
Doesn't it?
You like, we call cars in flat gray.
Flat gray.
And we live in the UK where the sky is flat gray
for 60%.
Like it's paying that money.
Yeah.
To over the, the, the cryo GT.
This is a cryo GT we're talking about.
We saw it at DK engineering and I saw it.
I was like, that looks like every other cryo GT I've seen.
It was like some one of one color.
It was just silver.
Yeah.
It was the same silver.
But I'm like, almost just to not have the silver that everyone else has got.
Someone paid some ridiculous, some of money to have.
No, but my silver's different.
I'm like, it's got the scales of salmon in it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
But you don't know until you park next to all the other.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you have to tell people as well.
It's good.
No, but this is, it is rare.
It's a special gray.
Yeah.
I think I always think colors are,
colors are correct when you look at it and you go,
Oh, not that you have to go up and, you know,
microscopic, you go, oh, maybe that's a little bit of a different shade.
That's kind of a nice.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Especially in the UK, I agree.
We might, if you watch, go watch an old series.
I love watching 90s, 2000s TV shows.
The amount of color on the road.
So much cars.
And then it was, it's kind of like right around financial crash.
Everyone just went, I'm going gray.
Gray, silver, black.
Yeah.
That's it.
But colorful cars like the new Renault, the Renault 5 that we were talking about earlier,
like they all look good with color.
When you order a black one, I've seen, there's a black one around here.
Just looks dull.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And he as well.
Loses all of its individual design features.
And you're like, I think if you've got, if you've got the balls to just go,
I like bright yellow cars and I'm going to order that in bright yellow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just do it.
And then, I don't know, in eight years time, these boys will buy it.
Yeah.
It'll be the one of 50 ever made.
And I'll be like, yeah, yeah, that one.
Buy that one in poo brown or buy that one in that.
I think people should do it.
People are too worried about getting rid of it.
Yeah.
But before they even bought it, they're like, well,
it's going to be difficult to get rid of.
Right.
Yeah.
Why are you buying it then?
You need to pick by the one you want.
Don't buy a car for the next generation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Buy it because you like it for this and this and this.
Yeah.
I won't give the Nissan Duke credit for much,
but I will give it credit.
But you see a good amount in quite bright cut.
Like there's just bright yellow ones around.
There's a lot of yellow.
Like it got launched in that color.
I'm sure it did.
But enough people went, I'm blind enough already to be buying this car.
I might as well choose a mental color.
I'm seeing some more.
I think it front seemed to be doing it quite well at the moment.
Not that I'm that keen on many new cars, but I keep seeing Peugeot.
And why do you pick that color?
The emerald green, black and blue, purple or like the green.
I'm like, okay, it's not black.
It's not gray.
We're not silver.
It's just this is an actual color, I'm saying.
It almost looks like someone's gone out and painted it off the market,
but it is a shade.
T-girls back in the form of Peugeot.
We're having a good time with green right now.
And I've always liked green cars.
When a lot of people didn't like them, I was always like, no, no, I like green.
Love green.
Light and dark.
Now you're seeing those that BMW M green and just like the alpha,
this hot alpha green.
The Giulia.
I don't know the names of any of the greens.
That's a great green.
And that green, that Ferrari there is a great green.
But yeah, I really want people to be more colorful.
It's become an in thing, the whole green ever tan thing.
It is.
Which is, it's annoying.
I feel like that person who says, I knew the band before they were good.
Yeah, I was a fan before.
It was me.
Yeah, that's what I feel like with the M3.
I feel like I'm with that with green cars.
Yeah, because the M3 I spent a decade looking for and nobody optioned them in
Oxford green because it was a rare color.
Well, because it was an old man color.
So nobody picked it.
And then they went through this lull where they're the cheapest and now everyone's like,
there's anybody knowing Oxford green car, I'll pay over for it.
I'll look by it.
But now it's annoying because now it's now the car's rare and everyone wants it.
It feels wrong to be using it.
So I'm like, go find, go after yellow or something now.
Old money green.
It's an issue.
Yeah, old money green.
It is old money green.
Now I love it.
And if I ever do buy a brand new car, I will go, yeah, I'm going to have it in like a really
silly color.
We looked at the, in our RS6, one of the previous owners bought a booklet, like an original like
Audi one that's got all the options in it.
And ours is Masano red.
So it's not that common to be in a sort of bright color.
Most of them are black.
You might get a blue one, but a lot of them are whites and silvers and whatever else.
And we looked through and we saw the exclusive options.
So I've never seen some of these colors.
I'm assuming it was probably expensive, but we're talking about a
100,000 pound plus car at the time.
And no one was picking some of the most like people are picking really interesting
car and interior options as well.
They've all got black leather and they were some really cool.
I'm so bored of leather.
So bored of leather.
Yeah.
I do know what I was bored 10 years ago of leather reviewing cars going, great.
I like that there's not special anymore.
I like leather, but there are, because I'm a big eight series nerd.
You thought you won eight series.
You could get cloth seats in the eight series and they had some of them had patterns.
From what I can find, there are less than 10 UK optioned cars with cloth.
The rest of our eight or 9,000, everyone chose leather.
Yeah.
But I get it because it was not seen as expensive then.
But you're buying a 90 grand car.
Yeah.
You've made the statement.
Yeah.
Now get the comfy, the really comfy seats.
Well, again, you're worrying what other people think.
Should not worry about what other people think.
And they worried about when I come to sell it,
not always going to want the car with gray leather, with cloth seats or something.
All the people that option cars with boring colors,
they change their car every 12 minutes anyway.
So just keep your car for longer.
Say, right, whatever you choose, you're keeping this for 12 years.
Yeah.
Right?
You're going to keep that damn car for 12 years.
So you better enjoy it.
Yeah.
I think that I always think about this.
The biggest issue with people speccing new cars is that all of us who are interested in the cars
will never have the money to go and buy the new car.
So we're never the ones speccing them.
No.
It's always the boring people with a load more money goes,
just get me a gray one.
Yeah.
I'll keep it free and then we'll move on to the next one.
I know that we get the trickle down to where we go,
God damn it, I want the green or the yellow one.
Where is one?
We've said a few times about having some form of service.
Like people would have a, like celebrities might have a shopper or something.
Who's your styles for them?
Is that you can stand outside the dealership and say, look, what car do you want?
Yeah.
We'll put it together for you.
They don't, in there, they're just trying to sell you whatever it is.
They just want your money.
We're going to make this one right for you.
Probably no one will pay because I've just signed up with green cars and yellow cars.
Going back to that thing you were saying where things that people thought were cool
and maybe they're not now, I had a real beef with vinyl wrapping when I first came out.
And not because of the technology of it, it's technology of it's great.
And the PPF thing, which is now self healing and all that.
Very interesting.
But it was the lack of commitment.
It was the, I'm going to buy a silver Ferrari.
Yeah.
And then I'm going to vinyl wrap it in Cadbury's purple.
It's like, no.
Fucking commit.
Do you want that car in purple?
Order it in purple.
Be that guy.
Just do it, man.
Just do it for goodness sake.
Don't put stickers on it.
Just people will go, oh, wow, I like your wrap.
Go, no, no, that was, I ordered that.
Like everyone at Ferrari thought I was a nut job.
Because I know it's better nowadays, but you can tell when it's wrapped.
Like when behind the camera, there is a green, I think it's called Verde Pino.
Can't remember.
Yeah.
On this Ferrari, is it 308?
It's 308.
Yes.
And you can tell that that's paint.
There's depth from that distance.
But then when you see a wrapped car, you can just tell.
I know there's newer stuff that's much better.
There's newer stuff that's better and people say you can polish it,
but I still paint will always have that quality that no one else.
It's your now sofa with the clear plastic silhouette.
It's like, you're never going to fully appreciate the sofa.
Yeah.
Because you now won't take the plastic off of you.
Like, oh, come on.
It's all crinkly.
You can always see where it's, and people are always going to look and go,
is that a wrap?
And you have to tell them, yeah, it's a wrap.
But I just don't.
And also the amount of times we've seen cars that have been wrapped,
and then they take the wrap off and the paint is demolished underneath.
Is it?
Because they've left it on for too long.
Oh, it's sort of heat.
Yeah.
And it takes lacquer off.
We, and then at that point, you need to paint the car.
Yeah.
We have purchased.
We won't show it on the camera, but that's what you can see through there.
Have you?
One of those for seven and a half grand.
Oh, you don't.
Not because.
Hot one like that.
Not a spicy one.
But because he wrapped it back, tried to take it off.
And every bit of cake came off with it.
So he spent, the guy spent nearly 20 grand on the car, another five wrapping it,
and we got it for seven because of that.
Because the car needs a full repaint.
Oh, my word.
So you will find out about that in the coming months,
but that is an interesting car.
I've decided to go the opposite in a forthcoming episode on my Boxster.
I've decided to, we're going to paint this car.
Nice.
We're going to paint it.
I like it.
We're going to paint it.
And when I say paint it, I mean, not in a spray booth,
but in a rattle cat.
At Art Car.
We're going to Art Car.
Oh, cool.
We're going to go full Art Car and full commitment, no pissing around.
I like that.
Are they?
It might be appalling.
It might be appalling.
It's, we're going to.
But it's art.
We're going to need some question.
Exactly.
You have to do say it's art.
And do it with conviction.
Yeah.
I'll be dressed as Pablo Escobar at the time.
So that's fine.
If you cry, you kick into the camera.
Yeah.
You can critique paint on a car.
You can't critique art on a car.
No.
Because then you're a Philistine.
Yes.
You know, it's an easy out.
It's amazing.
Look at it.
It's so good.
I hadn't thought of it like that.
Right.
We're quite, we're quite aware of how long this podcast got on.
So we'll do one more, which I thought you might have a quite funny answer for.
There are some old trim levels that seem to be making a comeback.
Which trim level would you like to see returned?
Just the name of it or just the trim.
So you could have a voxel mocha.
Yes.
Whatever.
Because I won.
I know what my answer is.
Land Rover on the classics used to do turbo D.
I want turbo D to come back.
Turbo D.
Turbo D exists.
It's a bad MC.
Very bad.
I think Vauxhall's do turbo Ds.
But I want to see it on a range.
I want to see it on a range.
I want to see a brand new 150 grand full fat autobiography that just says turbo D on the back of it.
On the diesel one.
Vauxhall brought back GSI recently, but not in the best way.
No.
Vauxhall are quite good because they brought back turbo.
They did.
They just did turbo batch.
And everything says turbo.
Really?
Because everything mostly is turbo.
And is that...
I can't remember if it's Vauxhall that do the different colors have different meanings.
It was on the insignia.
It was like black meant it was 150.
Red turbo meant it was 190.
Like they were different means.
That's cool.
That feels 80s.
Yeah, that does.
That feels really 80s.
GXL type stuff.
My mate's mum used to have catalyst written down the side of the door on her Volvo.
And at the time nobody knew what is this thing.
Like an OPF.
Also a Nitties dream at this point.
Just seeing catalytic converter written down the side of the car going.
Oh cool.
Jack and I can get the sore out.
Yeah.
I'll be under there in a moment.
Same with a Lambda as well.
Lambda signed.
Yeah, just Lambda.
Yeah.
Didn't know what that was.
Badge is on I guess...
No, electric cars kind of do it when they say how many motors they've got.
But no one's going...
I'm going to put it up the door.
Yeah.
Or it's going to have a...
It's always the Japanese who would do the full essay at the lower door of MR2s,
which would just be double overhead camshaft.
It would never just be DOHC.
Double overhead camshaft, two litre, four cylinder, turbocharged, intercooled.
You're like, oh my gosh, I've been on the motorway looking at this guy's car for 30 seconds and weaving around.
It's just a full essay.
I like Ford's gear.
I like Ford's gear.
I was like, okay.
Titanium.
Great one.
I missed gear.
Titanium was okay.
But I feel like...
And then they did Vignale.
Vignale.
Vignale, yeah.
Which nobody cared about at that point.
Posh one.
Posh one.
I'd love a gear.
Gear, because you'd see like when we went to the Heritage Collection,
they had a Mark III, Mark IV, Mark V fiesta that had gear on it.
So, but it had leather to be fair.
But it was a fiesta that would normally be super basic, but it was a gear.
Yeah, gear fiesta.
Or it had alloys, it had body colour bumpers, it had leather.
I was like, that sunroof.
So, this is like quite a light gear.
Yeah.
I liked gear a lot.
The MR2, Jake's MR2, it was an SW20, but it was an import.
It had written on the back of it, and I can't remember it for life for me.
Men in dandism, living so wild and free, which is a factory.
It's on the little rear window that you look through.
Someone will know in the comments.
Men in dandism.
Yeah.
And what's that?
There was an awesome...
How many words?
Is that one word?
It was all...
It was like...
Is that men in dandism?
Men in dandism.
And it was a...
Sort of a Jalopnik article.
I remember looking up and there was an old Jalopnik article with people being like,
what the hell does this mean?
No.
And no one knew.
No one could find out what it meant.
It was just one of those like, on the beat you have midship amusement.
That's right.
Written on the side of it.
Yes.
It's just one of those Japanese things where they went,
I like, just write something in English.
People will love this stuff.
They eat it up.
Just stage three, mate.
Fully forged in internals.
Yeah.
It's almost...
And that.
Just write and that.
Yeah.
And the best thing.
And that.
It's the automotive equivalent.
Details in photos.
The shopping list on modified cars of the Apexe,
HKS, all that sort of stuff.
Just from the factory going.
Engine, tires.
Yeah.
Drive charge.
Steering wheel.
Steering wheel.
Yeah.
Cruise control.
Brake pads.
Hopefully.
Yes.
Maybe.
Optional extra.
I think that is a great pace to wrap it up,
because we have been talking for two hours now.
I think it could go on for much, much longer.
No, that's our fault.
I'm so sorry.
We could probably go for many, many more hours.
We will probably see Johnny back on the TDC podcast,
on the Cream podcast, very soon.
I'd love to come back.
Because there's more...
You'll have to.
There's more to talk about.
There's more shit to chat.
But as always, to steal the outro of Smith & Stiff,
you have things on, which is Late Break Show.
We have things on.
Yes.
Late Break Show, Smith & Stiff podcast.
Yes.
And on Late Break Show, you will find the Barn Find series,
finding cars, looking around collections,
what sort of stuff.
Carnations.
Anything else to plug?
Anything else to plug?
Oh my gosh, you've put me on the spot.
I don't know.
No, yes.
Go back and watch Fifth Gear.
Yeah, you can go back and watch.
Johnny will get royalties, maybe.
Probably not.
I don't know.
The year I started, they stopped royalties.
It's a little bit gutted about that.
I missed that gravy train.
But hey, you know, kind of.
Don't go back and watch Fifth Gear.
Johnny gets nothing from you.
So go pirate it.
Yeah, watch the Late Break Show.
We'd love you to watch that and listen to our silly podcast.
Awesome.
Thank you very much for listening.
We'll see you back on Thursday,
because this is a special transmission on Tuesday.
Goodbye now.
See you.
Maybe Ben's here.
He might be in public or something.
Probably not.
Bye, Ben.
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Best time slathering on Al-Oshun.
You're welcome.
Columbia.
Engineered for whatever.
An idiot.
About this episode
At Ignition Cars and Coffee, Jonny Smith joins the hosts for a wide-ranging chat that swings from Max Power memories and Fifth Gear stories to modern car culture. They compare old-school magazine influence with today’s YouTube speed, swap stunt and mishap anecdotes (from brake failures to crash tests), and get into EV record builds and adaptive cruise drama. The conversation also turns practical and opinionated—DIY learning, parts availability, and even why they argue about air conditioning.
400 horsepower
800 horsepower
adaptive
aerodynamically stable
air conditioning (AC)
arch liner
Audi RS's
automatic fluid
base model
blacked out tail lights
Alfa Romeo Giulia
Alfa Romeo GTV6
Alfa Romeo Montreal
AMC Matador
Audi Quattro
Audi RS 6
Bentley Continental
BMW 1 Series
BMW 3 Series
BMW 5 Series
BMW 7 Series
BMW M3
BMW M Coupe (E36)
Byd Seagull
Chevrolet Camaro
Chevrolet Nova
Dodge Avenger
Dodge Charger
Ferrari 308 GTS
Ferrari 550 Barchetta Pininfarina
Fiat 126
Ford Cortina
Ford Cougar
Ford Focus
Ford Granada
Honda Civic
Honda NSX
Honda S600
Jaguar XFR
Lamborghini Gallardo
Lancia Lambda
Lotus Exige
McLaren GT
Mercedes-Benz C 63 T-Modell (S204)
Mercedes-Benz E-Class
Nissan 350Z
Nissan Cedric
Opel Astra
Pagani Zonda
Pontiac Aztek
Porsche 911
Porsche Boxster
Porsche Carrera GT
Renault 5
Renault Clio
Tesla Model S
Tesla Model Y
Toyota MR2
Toyota Supra
Triumph Stag
TVR Tuscan
Vauxhall Astra
Volkswagen Beetle
Volkswagen Golf
Original notes
Check out @smithandsniff and @TheLateBrakeShow
🍦 Follow C.R.E.A.M. socials!https://www.instagram.com/carsruleeverything/Edwin: https://www.instagram.com/edwin.klinkenberg/Will: https://www.instagram.com/willchandlr/ 📬 Enquiries: [email protected]
C.R.E.A.M. (The TDC Podcast)
Cars Rule Ltd
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