Captain Jonny

I'm Jonny Smith. I'm your reporter. And this is Smith & Sniff, a podcast in which two friends talk about cars and many other things.

I had to fly with Ryanair recently. Now I'm not going to go on about it. But you know how I feel about Ryanair?

Yes. Flight was delayed. Great. I think three hours delayed in a very small Maltese airport because I went to Malta. I'll talk about that in a sec.

I'm not modern. I hadn't downloaded any films. I had one free game on my phone because I moved house recently. I don't know where any of my books are so I didn't take a book on holiday which really annoyed me.

There was one I wanted to finish. So do you know what I did?

Did you just go into a sort of zen-like state of...

I did two things. One. Walked around all three of the shops that were there and I bought two pairs of socks. One with puffer fish on, one with a box of matches on. Don't ask me why.

Second.

Who wants a pair of socks with a box of matches on it?

I don't know. It was sort of artistic and I think the company's called Happy Socks or something and they just made jolly looking socks and I thought, oh that's fun and I'm bored out of my fucking mind.

So they caught me. They hooked me right in. But then I settled back down and while the children were listening to music and stuff.

I thought to myself, just have a quick look on online at second hand things.

I bought a boat about half an hour before boarding.

Well, I thought into myself. I've been looking around quietly.

Now listen, look, guys, ladies and gents, we are not talking about a 50 foot motor launch or yacht or cabin cruiser. I must stipulate that.

Well, because Harry Metcalf was on the south coast the other week, probably about a week or so ago, trying to sell a share of his big boat.

Yes.

I didn't buy a share in Harry's garage boat. I didn't do that.

No, because when you said you bought a boat, my first thought was, oh my God, you haven't bought a chunk of Harry's boat but he was quite upfront about how much that cost and it was quite punchy.

It was out of my league, definitely. And I needed a boat for a specific purpose.

So I think what whetted my appetite, two things. One, going to Malta Island. I've seen lots of interesting boats in the last fortnight.

And as you know, I moved house recently and I have access to some water.

But by that, I mean, I don't mean like I can shower myself every morning, but I mean like I have, there's a river nearby.

And I thought, oh, I think I'm going to get something to just tickle around with.

Take the kids out and then might persuade you to come up and record a podcast while smashing our way off the banks down the river.

Getting into a massive sort of like tiller based tank slapper.

And then I went on eBay, found this lovely, sweet, sweet little, very badly painted 12 foot glass fiber dinghy with it comes with,

and I picked it up yesterday. I took it on its maiden voyage yesterday.

It comes with an electric outboard motor, heavy duty marine battery that's only about four months old.

Nice cheeky, cheeky UASA and a C-Tech charger to keep it looking after itself and an anchor and an ore and even four life jackets.

And also a trailer, which he was the guy that sold it to me was really lovely and it was definitely a bargain.

£363. And I had to go and get it and it came with a trailer.

Borrowed my brother Greg's golf because I don't have a car with a bar, which is really bloody annoying.

Must remedy that because it's so annoying when you realize you've got numerous cars with no tow bar.

And picked up this boat and the owner went, you're going to be towing it much.

And I went, no, not really. I'm probably going to tow it and then leave it in my garden and then I can kind of push it from the garden.

And he went, oh, well, that's good because the trailer's not great, really.

And it looked fine to me, but I think it's probably been parked in a salt bath for about the last decade.

I checked the tyres and the obvious things and a new light board, but I was driving it home with definitely one eye constantly on the rear view mirror.

You know, you feel like your eyes are pointing in different directions.

I got it home and he said, yeah, took it out for a cruise.

He's got to say, Rich, all over it, mate, all over it.

Fucking brilliant. Love it.

So what is the body of this boat? It's not inflatable.

No, it's a hard glass fibre and it's deep moulded with all the seats inside.

So there's probably seats for five.

It's a 12-foot craft and then you just clip the electric outboard onto the little transom with what looks like G-clamps type things.

People who are listening to this who boat regularly will know that I'm very amateur by the fact I'm not using all the right terminology, but look, I'm learning.

And the fact is yesterday I managed to launch it in the most Heath Robinson way possible.

Got it at a really acute angle on the bank where I knew it was ready to sort of go in.

But I thought if I push off behind the boat and then don't manage to jump in, I've pushed the boat into the river with no one in it.

And I had a bit of a moment of going, oh shit, that would be really bad.

That feels like an absolutely textbook way to attract the smirking mockery of boat people.

Yeah, I instead, I got it teetering with the tiniest bit of friction resistance on the bank.

And then ran all the way down the garden and jumped on the boat and sort of skidded into it to push it out.

And it sort of worked.

But yeah, I really enjoyed it.

As I was going down the river, we were discussing, should I metal flake it?

Should I put memory foam cushions in it?

At the moment it's got a decal of a, it's got, someone's put a tribal tattoo decal on the back of it of a huge raven.

That well-known aquatic bird, the raven.

I know, that's what I thought.

Okay, I know it's painted black and that's the thing, someone's goth it.

It's been painted with really cheap paint with what looks like, I don't know.

What's it been painted with?

Like, as if you'd had a haircut around all the hair, around a sponge and then just daubed it on, it looks awful.

So I've got to give it a rub down and give it a half decent paint job.

And I don't like black boats, but sinister, don't need that.

Want something, Johnny?

I don't know.

But the motor's great.

The electric motor as well in your sinister black boat with a raven on the back of it.

You could just move really slowly a dusk down the river pretending you're in the SAS.

Oh my gosh, that's what I could do, couldn't I?

Rivercraft.

Just a thought.

I think that's what we should do.

If I come up, I'm going to bring a black roll neck and a balaclava maybe?

Yes, please.

I'm going to wear everything black to look SAS.

But at the final second, I'll put a bright white captain's hat on with gold rope across.

Oh, right.

OK, I thought you were going to say bright white Jerry Seinfeld in the 90 trainers.

No, they'll be muddied instantly on the riverbed.

Instantly.

What about black?

They wear those very high lace up boots, don't they?

They're SAS people, but they're not hard.

They've got a bit of softness to them so you can creep about.

Yeah, they're like if New Balance made Doc Martin's kind of thing.

Sort of, yes.

But wear those, but then with those blue protective booties over them,

there's the ones that are like a reverse shower cap.

Oh yeah, when you've just decorated your house or something

or the tradesman's going in to check the boiler.

Yeah, those.

So yeah, I'm all over it.

I'm all over it.

That's, I mean, that's exciting.

I am disappointed that it's not the sort of inflatable sort of dingy

with a really shit one horsepower outboard on it

so that we could reenact the infamous James May Colin Goodwin

slowly sinking on the River Thames after a trip to the pub incident

that we've mentioned before on the podcast.

Well, I'm sure I can borrow.

I could start road testing low powered outboards if you wanted me to

because I've got no idea whether anybody's interested in this sort of thing

whether it's just me and something I'll do on a Sunday

but I'm definitely going to rope you into coming

and we'll do a podcast slash video cast thing.

I've had a few ideas of cup holders and adding a few optional extras

like a headlight.

I was thinking about a headlight.

Oh, but like a searchlight, like a big powerful search like again

like you're in the SAS or something.

Yeah, exactly like that.

A nice big searchlight but an LED one.

I guess in the country they'd call it a rabbiting light

but I thought we'd have one of those in case you've totally mistimed

sunset in winter.

Yes.

And then you'd be like, phone torches simply won't cut it on the river.

Have you ever been in a situation where you go,

Oh, God, it's gone really dark.

That's all right.

I've got a torch on my phone and you suddenly realize that

the torch on your phone is really good for just looking underneath a sofa

to try and see if you've dropped the remote down there or something.

Absolutely not good for completing a final stage of the Thousand Lakes rally

through the forest when your headlights have all broken

or something like that.

Phone torches have their limitations.

Hey, it doesn't throw its beam.

Does it?

It doesn't throw its beam.

No, it doesn't.

It doesn't have a throw.

Speaking of James May, I didn't tell you about this last month.

He was doing a tour to promote his explorers show and stuff.

They're doing like a live tour of theatres.

Oh.

And he came to Bath, or Bath, or Bath, depending on where you...

What does he say?

Oh, he'd say Bath.

Yeah.

Because he's originally from Bristle, mate.

I always forget that he's kind of Gloucestershire,

Avon Speck, isn't he?

Yeah.

He gives himself away when he says nearly,

because May always says nearly.

Very brizzy.

I remember when I used to watch Top Gear,

there would be... there's a few words which would give the game away.

Yes.

Which I'd go,

oh, he's slightly West Country.

Interesting.

Yeah, yeah.

No, nearly is one of them.

But so, mate, I couldn't go to this thing he was doing in Tain,

but I saw the schedule for it,

and he was playing Bath,

and he was doing Bristol two nights later.

But on the night in between,

he was performing in Cambridge.

What?

What the fuck?

Who the hell put your tour itinerary together?

It's like someone who's geographically illiterate.

But then he went close.

It was an Australian,

and genuinely this person who'd put together the tour thing

had booked all these theatres with only a very shaky idea

of where British towns and cities were relative to each other.

What, they didn't just throw him down to map

and stick it on the wall first?

Yeah, just throw darts.

Oh my gosh, Cambridge.

He had to trudge up the M4 and round London up the M11 to Cambridge

and then do the same thing back again

to go to the place he just left near his dammit.

To do a thing all about explorers.

I mean, it was sort of beautifully ironic,

but in no way deliberate.

It was genuinely because the personal organising

wasn't really that abreast of where places are.

What an absolute flute.

Now, there's a thing I want to read out

because this came through last month,

and I finally remembered to read out.

I'm not going to say any names here.

For reasons that will become clear.

This listener says,

Hi guys, my brother is a famous sportsman.

Now, he's identified the brother

and he really is a famous sportsman.

He's like, household name famous.

I won't say any more than that, but...

But does he have a 360 quid boat?

That's the question, how famous is he?

See, that's it.

He may have won many things in his sport,

but he definitely didn't win at life,

because he didn't, as far as I know,

have a 360 pound boat.

What he did have.

A hand-painted glass fibre raven.

The hand-painted raven sounds like some kind of book

you'd find on the shelf in a rented cottage.

And you sort of look at it and go,

I'll read something else.

Anyway, so this listener says,

My brother is a famous sportsman.

He once owned a Ferrari 355 Spider.

Now, this is when they were new.

This is a brand new Ferrari 355 Spider.

My brother went on holiday

and as a 21-year-old car nut driving a Mark III Escort,

I really wanted to take the Ferrari for a drive.

Oh, gosh.

As I was looking after his house while he was away,

he told me before he left that he knew me well

and had taken a note of the mileage

to prevent me having a sly drive.

But little did he know that I was an apprentice mechanic

and managed to get my hand into the back of the speedo

and disconnect it.

Oh, no.

I then went for a spirited drive.

Unfortunately, my talents ran out on a tight corner.

There were wipers and indicators going

as I frantically tried to correct the slides

that ran the car into a small grass verge

at the side of the road.

I drove slowly home

and went to the front to inspect the damage.

Nothing too bad,

just a broken number plate

and a crack to the front spoiler.

So, my deception continued.

I super-glued the spoiler back together

and made up a new plate at work the next day.

Then I reconnected the speedo

and put the Ferrari back in the garage.

It glued a new Ferrari chin spoiler back on.

I never told my brother about this

and three months later, he sold the car to Prince Nazim.

What?

Now, his brother is not in the boxing business,

so this is an incredible inter-sport car trade,

but yeah.

And to this day, my brother does not know what happened

or about my bodge.

I'm not sure if it was ever discovered.

Bloody hell, Richard.

I wish I could say who this is

because somehow it makes the story more delightful

because when you know the sports person in question,

you can sort of imagine their face

and discovering that their brother

super-glued their Ferrari bumper back together again.

Anyway, I missed the correspondence.

I'm so glad you read this out

because I would have accidentally blurted out the name.

I presume that's why you didn't trust me to do it.

I wrote back to the listener.

I went, look, can we read this out

if I promise that I don't give it to Johnny

and he accidentally ID's

because obviously the listener has the same surname

and it would be immediately identifiable.

So he said, yes, that's fine,

but it was on the basis of you not doing it.

So I don't know if anyone ever saw Prince Nazim

driving around in a Ferrari 355 Spider in the 90s.

This was, but if you did,

you should know that the front spoiler

was super-glued together by someone's brother

who'd broken it in the first place

after disconnecting the speedo.

Nazim was a bit of a car pervert, wasn't he?

I don't know if he still is,

but he had a string of stuff.

He might have even got into some trouble

for driving a little bit nautily.

I think, did he?

Did he lose his license at one point?

I think he did lose his license, yeah.

What's happened to Prince Nazim?

I don't know what's happened to Prince Nazim at all.

I mean, it's like, he's not actually a prince, is he?

I was just trying to call himself that.

No, he's not a prince.

And weirdly, would have been what?

Four weeks ago now, a month ago,

poor old Ricky Hatton passed away.

Yes, yeah, yeah.

Boxing ledge, and that hit me really hard

because I've met him and filmed with him

when I used to present on fifth gear.

I had a really fun day with him.

He was the nicest guy.

Yeah.

And I went to his boxing gym

and we drove his Only Fools and Horses trotter van there.

And I think he stalled it.

I'm going to say he stalled it over 20 times

on a 10-mile journey.

I've never been in a car that stalled so much.

And bless him, he was just chuckling about it the whole time.

It had the worst clutch.

It was like a light switch.

Worse than any race clutch.

I don't know what was going on with it.

Prince Nazim actually went to prison for days of driving.

15-month prison sentence.

And he was stripped of his MBE as a result of it.

But this story is from the Guardian here.

They put Prince Nazim stripped of MBE

after time in jail for car crash.

But they've put Prince in inverted commas,

acknowledging that in fact he just gave himself that title.

Not the most disgraced Prince, though.

The Andrew formerly known as Prince.

The Robin formerly known as Prince.

Well, there we go.

Anyway, we move very, very swiftly on.

Because it's another of those episodes

in which we both have a little wonder

through the piston heads auctions.

As regular listeners will know,

we are sponsored by the nice people at Piston Heads.

And as well as their extensive classified section,

they do online auctions with some really interesting stuff.

So we each pick a car,

and you can have your say on which of us has chosen

the best of the two cars

by going to pistonheads.com.

There's always interesting material.

Machinery. Let's use the term machinery.

Yes.

And before we started recording,

you and I somehow both alighted

on a really unusual car

that's in an auction that's live at the moment.

But we both went,

what's that all about?

Because it's one of those cars where you just go,

I hadn't really ever thought about these.

No.

It could be, actually, what if it's good?

It's a 2004 Dodge Neon SRT4.

Yeah. So if you remember the Neon,

well, this is the second generation Neon,

the one that we didn't get these as a Dodge here,

and we definitely didn't get the SRT4,

which was like the sort of performance version.

And this one's been tweaked up to almost 300 horsepower.

We were both looking at it and going,

oh, my God, why has someone imported that?

And then suddenly went,

what if it's really good and nobody knows?

But then you'd buy it and you'd spend the rest of your life

explaining it to people.

Yeah, a bit like me not having an iPhone

and explaining to everybody who seems to tut out me

for having an Android.

And I'm constantly trying to protest its innocence,

going, hey, it's good.

I've got no issue with it.

You should try it sometime.

Maybe that's what it'd be like with the SRT.

Can you actually remember what SRT stands for

without cheating and looking?

I thought it was sport racing technology, but...

Street and racing technology.

Is it street racing technology? See that?

That sounds like the kind of thing that,

certainly in this country, the advertising standards people go,

no, you can't say street racing.

Street and racing.

Oh, was it?

Yeah.

Or maybe it's...

So it should start.

Stop it.

But I have to say, though,

so when I read in the particulars,

and bearing in mind there's 259 pictures of this,

and I reckon in the last 40 minutes,

you've looked at at least 140 of those.

Very rare in the UK.

Like you said, we didn't get them.

And I saw that it said Stage 1

and I thought, what does Stage 1 really mean?

Hmm.

You know, what is it?

Air filter, new air filter.

Stainless exhaust.

But alas, not.

Stage 1 includes

vast improvements to the brakes, clutch,

shifter, suspension,

also included at over $10,000,

with further enhancements being carried out

over the intervening years.

And then I scroll down and I see that it's got

a big brake kit,

which I don't know if that's part of Stage 1.

It must be.

But you and I were like,

who's going to buy this?

But then actually you think,

this will be one of those very rare mode parts

when people will say, oh yeah,

I've got one of ten yellow manual Hemi thingies.

One of one.

Yeah, one of one.

In the UK, maybe there isn't another one of these.

I don't know.

It does say in the ad it's the only one in the UK.

Well, there we go.

Anyway, this is not one of the cars we're choosing,

but we were sort of distracted by it.

I was also distracted by another honourable mention

for this 1993 Range Rover Classic LSE,

Firestorm by LRA,

which is an incredibly modified,

long wheelbase Range Rover Classic,

modified in Australia and then brought over here.

The thing that caught my eye,

whilst also making my eyes become incredibly wide

and slightly frightened is it has a supercharged Chevrolet LS V8

and it's claimed to make 640 horsepower.

Bloody hell.

While also being quite significantly raised.

Top heavy.

Additional ground clearance.

And yes, it's got an awning and stuff

and a roof rack and things.

And so I think that's going to be exciting to drive

and I probably would never use more than quarter throttle,

perhaps, unless I was feeling quite brave.

But I mean, it's a hell of a thing.

And again, it's a bit of a funny enough

in the description it actually says.

It's based upon an LSE, isn't it, I think?

Yeah, so it's the longer one, which is just, you know, why not?

If you're going to go all out,

but in the summary it says the much used term

find another isn't applicable for this listing

because there is in fact not another to find.

This really is a one of one.

So, hang on, does that mean Siran will find another?

Before the person has even finished the sentence

of find another, he's already punched them

square in the face.

Yes.

Held up a very straight finger and gone,

there isn't.

Yeah.

And now.

I don't know if he punched them.

He might just, one finger which he presses

to their mouth in a slightly aggressive way

and just goes, no.

Oh, hushing the mouth.

Yes, he just hushes them.

Anyway, that's not what I've chosen.

So, my choice this time around is

a 2004 Mini Cooper S by HRRCC.

Now, I've been eyeing up these cars

because there's been one or two appeared

in auctions that you've covered on your channel

in real life rather than online.

And my interest was piqued by this operation.

So, HRRCC is Howard Road and Race Car Company.

I think they're a father and son operations

for us in Gala.

They are.

And they are utterly meticulous.

They do specialize in the 2001 onwards Minis.

Yes.

So, this is, I have a bit of a thing

for these first generation BMW Mini Cooper Ss.

Yeah.

Because they were the supercharged ones

and then subsequent generations went to turbos.

And these cars had a very particular personality.

They did.

And there's nothing like them.

But they are getting old now.

And every so often, you know,

because I see them around always go,

oh, yeah, I'd love to have one of those.

One day I'll have one of those.

But they're getting a bit old now.

Yeah.

I think this is about to do with you

what Supras did and Skylines did with me.

Where they were, I was saturated by them.

They were everywhere.

And I thought, I'll just come back to them soon.

Pick one up for not a lot of money.

And then I kind of fell asleep and woke up

and they were 50 grand.

Yeah.

I'm not saying those Minis are going to be 50k,

but I'm saying they're 25 years old.

And a lot of them have been used hard and enjoyed.

Exactly.

That's the thing.

And I think the quality of those early Minis

was not always the best.

They had a few problems.

And so, you know, there's a risk

that you'll get a troublesome one.

Howard rode a race car company.

Take these cars.

And they do like a 16 week renovation.

It's near as damn it a restoration.

They just sort them out.

They replace the bits that need replacing.

And they rebuild them.

They do.

They do, yes.

It's probably about as close as you're going to get

to having a new early 2000s Mini Cooper S.

And that's incredibly appealing.

And I've watched the ones that have gone before

and they haven't gone for stupid money at all

considering the amount of work that's gone into them.

They're incredibly tempting.

I think they're great value.

Great value.

Really are.

And I just think, do you remember we were,

when we went to Rensport in the U.S.

a couple of years ago,

we were talking to that chap from Porsche.

Yeah, Michael.

Michael.

Yeah.

Now, he works for Porsche.

He has access to many, many Porsches.

But he had just, at that point when we were chatting to him,

had just bought with his own money

one of these Supercharged Mini Cooper S's.

And he was raving about it,

saying there's just nothing like it.

You know, it's a car that will never be another thing like it.

That little car, that great chassis,

that Supercharged engine,

it's just all there.

There really is nothing like it.

So this...

He's driven that car all around Europe this summer.

Has he?

Yeah.

Yeah, he has, yeah.

I think as time marches on,

we say this a lot, I know, as time marches on,

that car has got more and more appealing

and more and more attractive

because it seems so small now

and yet when it came out, there was an uproar

about how big the Mini was.

It's not that Mini.

But actually, compared to now, it is Mini.

Well, that's it, yes.

And they...

I think they're sort of timeless to look at.

This one is red with a white roof.

It's a very classic spec.

And then it's got those big,

spooky wheels I always liked on the Cooper S.

Yeah.

It's fabulous.

I mean, I don't know what this will go for.

I'm going to sit on my hands until it's sold

at the auction ends on Wednesday,

if you'll listen to this when the show comes out,

ends on Wednesday the 12th.

And it's just fantastic.

We've both been hovering around these

like a wasp around a bin.

So...

No poetic.

Yeah.

Well, my choice, yours is wisely

a well-sorted early Mini Cooper off of BMW.

I've gone for an S14 Nissan 200SX,

aka Sylvia, road legal drift car,

which is thought to be...

What?

Which is thought to be...

Which is thought to be one of the team Falcon Tires

official cars,

which is that really obvious kind of turquoise

and blue, real 90s two-tone livery,

which I rather like.

I think they still race in that same livery.

So, I looked at this 1996 car.

Do you remember when the S14 200SX was born?

Do you know when it launched?

I mean, I couldn't tell you precisely,

but I sort of remember them.

Yeah, 93.

Oh, was it?

Yeah, 93.

And I wanted to find...

I couldn't remember.

I wanted to remember what the horsepower was

of the turboed ones,

because you could buy them in NA,

and then you could buy them as a turbo.

This one's obviously a turbo.

They weren't mega-powerful, were they?

I feel like 190 horsepower or something.

Oh, you're so close, Richard.

Goodness me.

Pump quiz territory, you'd be up there.

200 horses.

Was it?

Yeah, yeah.

But you see, in 93, that was a lot of power.

But if I remember correctly, and this is the thing,

like, we recently...

I don't want to go too far off-trap,

but recently when we did the Honda Prelude review

on the Great Show,

lots of people, I think,

with maybe JDM-tuned tinted glasses,

were going,

oh, my gosh, the Preludes used to be really fast

and used to be this

and used to look really macho,

and it's like they sort of didn't, really.

And I don't think, prior to the drift scene

in the UK, at least,

people didn't look at 200SXs.

Nobody yearned for them.

It's only when the drift scene came in

and we saw modified stuff in the homeland of Japan,

and then suddenly it all kicked off.

And 200 horsepower, I think it was almost a bit of a sleeper

because they're such a sensible-looking car

without any body kits on.

But this one here, well,

obviously the SR20DET motor

is now 350 horsepower, highly modified,

two-way limited slip diff,

caged on that side of things.

Doesn't say that in the particulars I added that bit.

And so, yeah, this car's street legal

with a new MOT,

with all the FIA approved safety,

and it's obviously stripped out.

So if you wanted to do big skids, you could,

but you could also drive it to work,

possibly not on a frosty morning.

And I know that these are getting so hard to find

in uncrashed, unruined condition.

Because they are so popular in competition,

they get the front and the back chopped off

with those sort of tubular chassis conversions and stuff.

And this one, although it has a body kit

and it's obviously been done for competition,

it's an incredibly rust-free condition.

And it's had five owners since April 96.

And I...

Do you know what? I've never driven...

I've never driven a standard.

I don't think I've never driven a standard 200SX S14.

No, I don't think I have either.

No, and I feel like I ought to,

because it's a bit like one of those legend cars.

But, yeah, this one, I don't know.

I don't know what this is going to sell for.

I'm going to keep my eye on it.

It's got a dyno readout with the engine rebuild,

which is not that old.

One of the funniest things, which are in the details,

lots of details,

one of the things that really made me chuckle was

the tyres are slightly worn, I think,

and might need replacing,

so you're like, no shit.

Yeah, the tyres need replacing as they're quite old.

It's like never before has a drift car

had tyres that have got a bit old

but have still got tread on, so you might want to change them.

So it's really good.

But no, no signs of any...

No evidence of corrosion or damage, which is rare.

No, it does look really, really tidy and straight,

certainly in the pictures, but...

The joy of these bad boys is driving, of course.

There's two different ways to...

Spunk money.

Crack an egg.

Skin a cat, whatever it is.

Spunk money, yeah.

So if you're interested,

the Nissan saliva drift car auction runs until Sunday.

Sunday the 16th.

The mini ends on Wednesday.

Have your say on these cars

and which of us you think has made the better choice

by going to pistonheads.com forward slash smith and sniff.

Yeah.

Since you brought this up, I wanted to mention

our prelude video that you...

that we made for the late break show,

because some...

Believe.

It went absolutely nuts in the comments.

Yeah.

There's thousands of comments, but...

a lot of people getting really raggy

for exactly what you were saying, just going to the preludes.

It should be...

I mean, there's so many people going,

it should be rear wheel drive and manual.

You're like,

since when has any prelude been rear wheel drive?

Like, I think you've completely misunderstood this car.

It's like the prelude, as we said,

you know, in our podcast about it and in the video,

it's like the prelude was always a bit easy listening.

It was easy listening.

Yeah.

You know, the VTEC-y stuff was a little bit of an outlier,

because more often than not,

I felt like preludes certainly in this country,

but I think also in the States,

where, you know, it used to do quite well.

They were autos.

They were lounge lizard cars.

And, yeah, in that context,

the new one sort of fits the mould.

But, yeah, I even...

I saw quite a well-known carb online person

saying,

ah, it should have been rear wheel drive.

And it's like, you're supposed to understand this stuff.

Like, where's Honda getting a rear wheel drive platform from

for a medium-sized coupe, for fuck's sake.

They're not going to spunk a billion dollars

to develop a rear wheel drive chassis

just for one car that's not going to celebrate anything.

You know, it's a new top hat on a Civic floor pan

just to create something a bit more stylish

for people who want to cruise around

without the need for back doors and a, you know, bigger boot.

It's...

I was like, it's sort of...

It's strange how people have really kind of

misunderstood that car,

but also how agitated they seem to be getting by.

I said, let it go.

Yeah.

I think I was thinking yesterday,

now that I'm a captain,

I really think that I...

I think that I can really see myself

gliding down to a quayside in a prelude.

Lofas, perhaps just a cheeky little bit of Christopher Cross

playing early start, you see.

It's a sort of yachty car, isn't it?

It is a bit yachty.

I haven't thought about this.

It's a bit yachty.

Yeah.

Open the boot.

You've got a couple of boys in there.

I don't mean people.

I mean safety devices.

Perhaps a little anchor, picnic basket,

few odds and...

You've been to the chandlery.

You've got a few odds and sods, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But the thing about...

To get down to the quayside,

very windy and tight,

so only a loser would drive down in a G-Wagon

or a Range Rover.

Yeah, oh, God, no, you don't.

But also, you know,

there's sort of the tasteful end of yachting.

You don't want to shout about it, do you?

But yes, that's it.

I could definitely see both shoes

and the little captain's hat

would work well in a prelude.

Just one last thing on the prelude front.

A listener called Oscar wrote,

points out there's some terrible...

I don't know, I haven't checked if these have been corrected,

because Oscar wrote in a week or so ago,

but there's some terrible typos on the Honda website

when you look up the stats for the prelude.

Really?

Yes, it claims the maximum speed is 188 miles an hour.

That's not true.

Well, maybe my old university mate

has hacked the system.

Oh!

That's what it is, isn't it?

He's been in there.

But also, it accidentally claims

that the combined mile per gallon figure is 5.2.

Again, I think that's...

There's been an error there.

That's definitely Harpal, he's been in there.

Yeah, it's just exaggerated all the numbers in the wrong...

Listen, yeah, mate of mine's been like...

He went over to Japan in a bit of business

back in the day, yeah.

Like, he could speak a bit of the local language, yeah.

He went over there, they were like,

real, like, playing it down.

Oh, this has only got, like, 220 horsepower.

Like, fuck, you fucking know it's got more than that.

It's got at least triple that.

They're being really polite, yeah,

but, like, when the hammer goes down, you know it.

You know it's there.

Because you were away in Malta.

And...

I was.

I was...

I suddenly found myself with a little bit of time.

You by boat?

While you were away.

To try and sort out the Smith & Sniff inbox,

because it's just got too many things in it,

and it was just like, oh my god, there's so many things

we haven't read out and stuff like that.

So I just...

I tried to separate out some things I wanted to mention,

but there's so many.

There's one here from a list...

I'm not gonna say their name,

but this person says,

I'm in charge of video production as they respected

New Car Buyer's Advice publication.

Oh, okay.

So he says, the most important part of my role

is to get to the location early in the star car

and spend an hour or two gathering plenty of B-roll

of the vehicle to cover all the cuts.

It's hard to do that in winter,

so my hat is doffed to that.

Yes, it's always cold and miserable, isn't it?

You're trying to get some sort of detailed shot of the badge,

and then you realize it's dirty,

because the roads are dirty.

You've got to give it a wipe with a tissue.

Anyway, this listener happened to be listening

to one of our episodes on the carplay system

in the car that they were filming.

Got all their cutaways,

used some of them in the video,

and apparently the big boss called him in

and said the video was fine, but had one amendment.

They said,

what the fuck is a silty trombone?

It sounds dirty and you need to remove it.

This was one of our episodes ages ago, wasn't it,

which we called the silty trombone.

We did.

This listener was listening to that episode.

It was on the carplay screen.

They used it as a cutaway,

and because the car had already gone back

to the manufacturer that had loaned it to them,

they couldn't reshoot it,

so they just had to blur every single interior shop

where the infotainment system was visible.

No!

Because it said silty trombone.

I'm going to have to look this up now,

but I must say thank you for that attempted Easter egg

in your video.

That's really kind of you.

Very amusing.

Again, another anonymous listener.

I won't dob them in the shit,

but it's somebody who works at a Lexus garage.

They said we don't normally get many famous faces in,

but today I walked in and saw a 2009

Lexus LS460 as a JDM model

with a private plate on it.

The surprise was it was owned by none other

than Steve Rothera, the guitarist from Marillion.

We've talked about this before, isn't it?

He's done a video in Bath.

He's active in the Lexus forums.

Is he?

Apparently, yeah.

Oh gosh, we're one step closer to Marillionitis.

I know, we did say we tried to mention Marillion too much,

but that was great, so yes, he's out there,

he still has his JDM LS.

Amazing, amazing.

Finally, a listener called Louise wrote in after

we had mentioned on an ottersot

about how to communicate with other drivers.

I think specifically we would talk about,

you know, trying to tell people your trackings out

and things like that.

Louise says, in our early 20s,

three friends and I drove from Bristol to Edinburgh

for the G8 Summit in my old 90s Toyota Corolla lift back.

Oh.

She's put an asterisk by Corolla.

The bottom says there's no such thing as a Corolla lady, sadly.

Oh.

We were going to Edinburgh to make a ring of people

around the city for make-poverty history

or something, all very worthy.

Some dill was driving too close on the M6,

so my friend took the whiteboard that we had to hand

for strategic activism purposes,

wrote, fuck off my ring,

and fuck is spelt the Mancunian way, F-W-O-K,

and placed it in the rear window.

The other driver backed off, then safely overtook

and gave us a cheery thumbs up as they went by.

Really?

Yeah.

That's just brilliant.

Yeah, so Louise says,

hopefully a whiteboard would be a solid option

for anybody with willing passengers.

That is quite a good idea, yes,

and cheaper than your dot matrix system

that you suggested, I think.

Yeah, that's great.

And on the subject of the huge amount of correspondence we get,

I think we probably are overdue a dedicated one or two episodes

to just reading out,

because frankly, it is funnier than what we concoct.

It is, yeah.

Oh, there's one more thing.

A listener now.

I'm going to mangle your surname, Ben.

Ben Wilderbauer.

I think it's a Dutch name, possibly South African,

but I don't know.

But Ben wanted to point out

that we had been lamenting the fact

that while cars are badged as V6, it's quite commonly,

there are no straight six badges

that we could use on our Eagle limo.

Well, Ben has pointed out that there is sort of such a thing

because the Mazda CX-80 has an inline six badge

on the front wings,

if it's one of the ones fitted with that engine.

Does it?

Yes.

I looked this up and sure enough,

because I've only ever seen,

I was like, you don't see CX-80s around all that often.

No.

In fact, I saw one a couple of days ago

and I was like, oh, I'm going to have a look

at the inline six badge,

which I had looked up online already.

And this one was a FEV,

so it said FEV on the front wings,

which isn't the same.

No, we can't put that on the Eagle Quest

because that would be just lies.

Yes.

And, well, unless we could think of something else

that it could stand for.

But I can't think whether it would be.

I was thinking if it was small enough letters,

I think straight six on that side of things

would look really good.

If it was in a very slick font.

Yeah.

Straight six.

No, it's a very much straight six.

But yes, so it's inline six

and it's on a sort of little lozenge thing.

Straight six.

So, yeah, Master CX-80 does indeed have

straight six written on it.

One final bit of business,

which I'm not going to say any names

because apart from anything else,

there have been loads of them,

but also I don't want to dub anyone in it.

But I mentioned in the last podcast

there's this sort of lay-by

on the A46 out of Bath Bar

just before you get to the motorway.

Always seems weirdly busy.

Lots of people have written in to say that,

yes, that's a dogging spot.

Oh, no, no, actual sex pestering.

Yeah, a few others have also said

there's a car park not far from there

that is also a very notorious dogging spot,

including one of our patrons called John.

I can say his first name at least

because he was an innocent bystander

in this apparently infamous other dogging spot

near the M4.

It's called Tog Hill.

John says, I had an introduction

to what happens at Tog Hill

10 years ago on a dark, wet November evening.

At the time I was working near Bristol

but driving home to Oxfordshire each night.

The house moved to the area was imminent.

One night, in heading up the A420,

my phone rings.

I can't answer it,

but I spot a handily placed car park

and swing into a space.

The call is the estate agent,

so I start ringing him back

and flick the interior light on

to grab a pen and pad from my bag on the back seat.

The call connects and the agent greets me.

As I turn back to find a man

at my driver's window peering in

one hand on his crotch,

my immediate reaction is to shout,

fuck right off at the top of my voice

with an accompanying V-sign.

But the agent is still on the line

and heard this.

I don't have to explain that it wasn't aimed at him.

I've never stopped there since.

So there you go.

Actual dogging going on.

Accidental dogging has got to be

the source of some new correspondence, I feel.

Well, yes, because there's a mate of ours

that used to drive his grandad's

old Mark III escort

in the 90s,

and it wasn't in the best of health

and it used to cut out randomly

whilst driving along.

Oh, no.

And he lived at this point

sort of in northeast London,

like up near Epping Forest,

and there was a bit of road

that skirted the forest with a car park

that was an notorious dogging spot.

Oh, no.

And this mate of ours was driving along this road

at night when he could sense the escort

starting to splutter and cut out

and he coasted into this car park

to get off the quite busy road

and then he's trying to get it back to life,

but of course every time he turns it,

the headlights are sort of dimming

and then lighting up again.

Oh shit, no, don't.

So it looks like he's flashing his lights

to attract attention and he saw people

coming out of the trees.

Just like a fucking zombie movie,

but with sex people.

And he finally just caught

and apparently he just absolutely dropped the clutch

with her 4,000 reps on it

and sped round in a circle

to get back out of this car park again.

Like sex moths to a flame.

Exactly.

Goodness gracious.

Well, I think I've got an anecdote.

With a due sense of trepidation,

if you have anecdotes about

accidentally being mistaken for a dog

because of a car thing.

Hello, I'm Smith and Sniff.

Is the address...

Didn't you do one though?

Were you on a shoot for Max Power?

Yeah, I did a dogging

investigative journalism piece.

Oh, that's like you were deliberately trying to go?

I was trying to infiltrate.

Yeah, I've explained it on a previous

either video or podcast many moons ago.

And then I went a second time

after that piece got published

with my mates who were a part of

the other publishing mags

like Car Magazine.

We went in a Car Magazine long-term

once actually, yeah.

And...

Yeah, and it scared the living

daylights out of us.

Just people coming out of trees

and hedges. It was really cool.

I think it's the...

This stuff's supposed to be erotic,

but I think it's the absolute opposite for me.

It's more sinister and terrifying.

So...

That's why I'm not into dogging, I would say.

No, it's...

It never seems appealing,

particularly as in John's story

on a wet November night.

No, yeah, just cold.

Hot countries can get away with

dogging more, I'm going to say.

Yes.

I just feel like

the UK, and I don't know,

Germany in winter isn't going to cut it.

Germany.

That's just my...

I mean, yeah.

There's also a part of me that thinks that

that dogging is a very British thing

somehow.

It's not sexy, Rich. I think that's the problem.

Exactly, that's the thing, but I feel like...

Yeah.

There's something very sort of limp

white bread sandwiches and flash

tepid tea about it.

It's sort of pulsibly British.

It's a...

It's too big

of a mental leap for me

to figure out where the

eroticism lies, but I suppose that's it.

You either get it or you don't.

It's like many

niche pursuits.

Morris dancing, we were talking about that.

Well, that's scary as hell.

Fact. Yeah.

Morris dogging, though, combining

two quite frightening things.

Oh, cracking the swords together.

To get at him.

No. No.

Ha ha.

OK, well...

I realised that

I've got lots of things to talk about,

Maltese car culture, but that'll have to wait.

Oh, yeah.

So, I was just going to end

with saying

there was a sporting activity

that I paid for in Malta

at the resort we were at

and it's money I'm never going to see

back.

And I was actually

really cross about it,

which is not ideal when you're on holiday.

I'm going to put it

out there. Paddle.

OK. Ah.

Yes. It's like the...

I don't know, the

love child of squash and tennis.

But it's more annoying than

squash and it's worse than tennis.

I like tennis. It's one of the only

games that I play.

And I paid

36 euros

for an hours worth of

distinctly average sporting activity.

Yeah, exactly.

I felt like my pants, trousers,

shoes and socks had all been thrown

in the ocean and I'd been left

in a very public place.

That's a lot, surely. I mean...

Yeah. I thought so too.

But my kids really wanted to try Paddle.

We really want to try it.

It's supposed to be great.

And I was like, well,

you do both enjoy tennis and

where some say squash a bit

here and there. So I thought, OK.

I've never played Paddle. It's that one

with the little plastic bats.

It's a glass fibre bat.

It's a glass fibre bat and you use

a tennis ball and it's

much like

squash. You know, you have a wall

that you hit things against.

This is like a smaller tennis court

and behind each player on the baseline

is a glass, big piece of glass,

which you can whack it against,

let it bounce

and then return it back.

Ah, right. So it is.

It is a halfway house between tennis and squash.

But I just don't think it's

better than either of them.

No. It feels like

low-cardio squash then.

Yeah, that's what my daughter said.

She said, it's tennis for lazy people.

And I said, oh, yeah, it is.

And she's really good at tennis.

So she was just like, this is rubbish.

I'm not playing this again. Tennis rules.

And I was a bit like, yeah.

Yeah. But it seems to have become

really big. I was at a local

municipal sports facility here

the other day with my daughter

and one of the other parents said, oh, they're building

some paddle courts over there.

Because they have tennis courts and they have, you know,

football and rugby pitches and a running track

and stuff like that. But yeah, apparently they're going to build

paddle courts. It's like, God,

paddles really caught on.

But maybe it's because, is it more,

if you're not very good at sports,

like me,

is it a sport for not sporty people?

Potentially. I mean, look,

I'm willing to put this out to the jury.

But the problem is,

is if you are used to playing tennis

or squash,

you have to reprogram your brain

and I find that really hard.

So I was just treating it like tennis

and then realizing that I was not

letting it bounce and hit the wall behind me

because I forgot that the wall existed.

I actually ran into the wall

twice. So I ran at quite

high velocity into a huge piece of

glass and bearing in mind I paid

36 euros for this, it made me

fucking furious.

And one time I'm going to,

there was no one around. It was quite

a discreet tennis court

sort of behind the hotel

resort and there was no one around. So I

took my top off because it was really hot.

So imagine, imagine

a 46 year old

sweaty topless guy that really hasn't got

the body to carry it off running into

plate glass with a small

glass fiber bat that looks like a banjo.

Okay?

Because I used to play badminton a little bit.

Oh yeah.

And I remember, but I took my dad

in his youth was a tennis player, like

not professionally, he just liked playing tennis

and I once persuaded him

he was going to play badminton with me and he just couldn't

get it because he kept waiting for the bounce.

That's exactly what I do. So

I do like badminton and I respect it,

but the problem is I constantly

wait for the bounce and therefore I'm shit.

So

I'm just going to have to stick to tennis.

I've just got to, there's no other way.

Yeah, that's okay. I don't think then knocking down

the tennis courts to put in the

glass for you to run into.

If you had those shirts on you were very sweaty

did you then leave a big mark on the glass

like when a bird flies into a window?

Yes. Yes, it is.

I did. I did honestly.

I left a terrible mark. I'm really glad I took

my watch off because I probably would have

clacked my watch really hard.

And it's funny you should say that

because the day I moved into my new house

here

I accidentally

we were unloading a van

at night and I stood on what I now

know as a dead pigeon on the drive

and I was like, that wasn't there

like an hour ago

and it turns out the next morning

I woke up in my new bedroom

and all very excited. I'm in my new house

finally, looked out of the windows

which had been cleaned

to see a really

odd smeary mark and a

beak mark

and I saw exactly what had happened

the pigeon had flown at full velocity

into my bedroom window and then dropped dead.

Oh. Yes, it's still there.

I haven't cleaned it off yet. So I've got

the sort of outline of a dead pigeon

on my window.

A bit worried that this entire episode has been quite

unsavory between the definition and the

dogging and everything. Yeah, but anyway

I've got loads of interesting

Maltese car culture to talk about

next week.

For this one we should probably just

bring this into land. Before we go

three things to share with

you. The first is that Johnny's Incation

is a weird project to make the former

lead singer Marillion read out the ratio of a

circle circumference to its diameter

to multiple decimal places

under the working title Fish Pie.

Thank you

to listener Tim Schroll for the inspiration

for that one. Just when we thought

we were finally over

these stupid fish things, people

started sending in suggestions to keep it going.

Oh gosh.

If that's not to your taste, there is of course

the Lake Break show where you can see

us two

testing the Yohanda Prelude.

There's

what else?

Well there's a

lovely car cave

based not far from you

Bristolian way

of a really interesting guy

who

used to import Brazilian and Mexican

Volkswagen Vans and Beatles

and his garage

his private garage is just very

very interesting and this is one of those examples of where

I think

it's not

just about the cars that are in it, it's about

delving into the brain of the person

who owns them and why and there's some

really lovely stories so

that's on there.

There's an auction preview

which will have been for

the NEC Classic Car Show

so have a watch

of the auctions. What people tend to do

is they tend to go on the Lake Break shows

TikTok I believe and then find out

what the cars sold

for, it's like a game of you going

oh I really enjoyed seeing that

Fiat Uno Turbo, I would have paid

12 grand for it, oh no I've just discovered

it's 32 grand these days, that's not

fair. So you can do that

if you want. I'm going to the Classic Car Show

which will have happened by the time this

podcast goes out but we were recording it before

so I'm really looking forward to that, I can have a lovely

wander around, haven't been for a few years.

The second thing

I wanted to tell you is that

I have a new book out, it's called Petrol Head

it's a compilation of some of my Evo columns

from the last 20 odd years

a couple of features in there as well

you'll know that if you heard

the last Otisot but I'm going to say it

again and I'm going to keep saying it until

everybody's bought a copy so sorry

about that. So there. No we're allowed

it's our podcast, we're allowed to promote stuff.

And also because

weirdly every time I do mention it

I do notice that some people go and buy it

so relentlessly mentioning things

does seem to work. I know it's annoying

but it does sell books.

The final thing I wanted to tell you is that

the Spanish national anthem is one of only

four in the world that doesn't have any words.

Really? Instrumental?

Yeah, Spain, Bosnia and Herzegovina,

San Marino and Kosovo are the only anthems

that don't have words but the Spanish anthems

did have words, they were

binned off after Franco was

deposed and

they held a competition to come up with some new ones

but never got around to using them

so it's an instrumental.

Never got around to using them?

Yeah, I don't know

I don't know, I don't think they could agree

what the new word should be because obviously it's quite a big deal

isn't it, your national anthem

and so they just go and screw it

it's an instrumental. I'm just trying to think about

now

were the instrumental songs that

could accurately reflect

a country or evoke

a most year? Well I think it's

Crockett's Theme is an obvious one isn't it?

Crockett's Theme is a stone cold

that would be amazing. Oh gosh

Well, thank you for listening

Goodbye

Bye guys

We are

Captain Jonny

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