A tow bar is a metal piece that connects a vehicle to a trailer, allowing you to pull it behind your car. It's important for moving things like boats or campers.
The rear view mirror is the mirror inside your car that helps you see what's behind you. It's important for checking if it's safe to change lanes or back up.
The Ford Explorer is a large family-friendly vehicle that can carry many passengers and their stuff. It's known for being comfortable and good for road trips, which is why people often talk about it.
The BMW M4 is a fancy sports car that goes really fast and handles well on the road. It's talked about a lot because it's powerful and looks great, appealing to car lovers.
The Ferrari 355 Spider is a sports car made by Ferrari that has a roof that can be opened. It was popular in the late 1990s and is known for being fast and stylish.
The Dodge Neon SRT4 is a sporty version of a small car called the Dodge Neon, made in 2004. It has a turbo engine, which makes it faster and more exciting to drive.
Stage 1 is a way to upgrade a car's performance with some modifications. It usually means adding parts that help the engine run better and make the car faster without major changes.
A big brake kit is a set of upgraded brakes that are larger than the standard ones. They help the car stop faster and perform better, especially during racing or spirited driving.
The Range Rover Classic LSE is an older luxury SUV from Land Rover. It was known for its comfortable ride and off-road capabilities, making it popular among those who wanted both style and performance.
The supercharged Chevrolet LS V8 is a powerful engine that has a device called a supercharger, which helps it produce more power. It's often used in modified cars for better performance.
The Mini Cooper S is a fun and sporty version of the Mini Cooper car. The 2004 model has a powerful engine that makes it faster and more exciting to drive than the regular Mini Cooper.
HRRCC is a company that deals with cars, especially ones that are modified for better performance. They might sell or fix up cars to make them faster or more exciting to drive.
Car
BMW Mini Cooper S
The BMW Mini Cooper S is a sporty version of the Mini Cooper that has a supercharged engine, making it faster and more fun to drive. It was made from 2001 to 2006.
The Nissan Skyline is another famous sports car, especially the GT-R version, which is known for being very fast and popular in racing. It's a favorite among car fans.
The Mini is a small, famous car that many people love. Older models, especially from the 1990s, can have problems because they have been driven a lot and may not be in the best condition.
A supercharged engine is one that has a device that pushes more air into the engine, which helps it produce more power. This makes the car faster and more responsive.
The Nissan 200 SX is a small sports car that's great for drifting, which is a type of driving where you slide the car around corners. It's popular among car enthusiasts because it's fun to modify and drive.
Term
S14
S14 is a name for a specific version of a Nissan sports car called the Silvia. It's popular among fans for its style and how it drives.
The Honda Civic is a small car that many people like because it's reliable and gets good gas mileage. It's often talked about because it's a great option for everyday driving and is fun to drive.
JDM means cars that are made for Japan and not for other countries. They can have special features that you won't find in the same model sold elsewhere.
The Lexus LS 460 is a big, fancy car that's very comfortable and has lots of high-tech features. It's often talked about because it's a top choice for people who want a luxurious driving experience.
The Lexus LS is a large, luxury car that is very comfortable and packed with features. It's one of the most important models from Lexus, known for being high-quality and reliable.
The BMW M6 is a luxury sports car that's really fast and stylish. People talk about it because it combines comfort with high performance, making it exciting to drive.
An inline six is a kind of engine that has six cylinders lined up in a row. This setup helps the engine run smoothly and is often used in cars that need good performance.
The Mazda CX-80 is a type of SUV made by Mazda. It's designed to be roomy and comfortable, making it a good choice for families or anyone who needs extra space.
A straight six is another name for an inline six engine, which has six cylinders in a straight line. It's known for being smooth and powerful, making it a favorite in some sports cars and luxury vehicles.
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?
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.
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
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About this episode
Jonny shares his recent adventure of buying a 12-foot dinghy while stuck at a Maltese airport, leading to humorous tales of his maiden voyage and plans for modifications. The conversation meanders through discussions about notable personalities like James May and Prince Nazim, and includes listener anecdotes about car culture and unexpected encounters. The hosts also explore unique auction finds, including a Dodge Neon SRT4 and a Mini Cooper S, while reflecting on the quirks of paddle sports and the oddities of British dogging culture.
Guess who’s bought a boat off eBay. Also in this episode, James May’s geographically illiterate tour, crashing your famous brother’s Ferrari, getting the Prelude wrong, a podcast title embarrassment, a suggestion for communicating with other motorists, unwelcome info about local hotspots, some thoughts on the popular game of padel, and another look at a couple of PistonHeads auction cars.