Cropley on TV, written-off Multipla, the 100mpg Audi A2

Mijo, me asustaste. ¿Qué se te quedó?

Nada, abuelita. Ya volví con las compras.

¿Cómo conseguiste todo tan rápido?

Fácil. Fui a Fred Meyer. Tiene nuestros productos de siempre y a muy buen precio.

Incluso el queso cotija.

¿Sí?

Y la harina masa.

Yes.

Clavos, tomatillos verdes, plátanos maduros.

Check, check y check.

En Fred Meyer consigues tus productos de calidad para las recetas familiares de estas fiestas a precios bajos en cada pasillo.

Fred Meyer, fresco para todos.

Quizá te guste la cocina. Quizá no.

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Hola, bienvenido a la podcast Autocad.

Mi cariño de cariño con Priya.

Steven Cropley, Monic Steve.

Buenas noches, ¿cómo estás?

Muy bien, amigo, muy bien.

Porque tengo que decir al escuchador que este podcast se ha traído a ellos en asociación con Anderson EV, como siempre.

¿Qué buen mensaje?

Sí, conocido para crear cariños de E.V. que mezclan tecnología inteligente con una hermosa craftsmanship británica.

Ellos son de Bedfordshire, diseñado y creado.

Sí.

Sleak diseño, cables hímenes, materiales premios.

Estos cargos parecen estar en tu casa y performan mejor.

Sí, tengo uno y es bien.

¿Tienes uno?

Sí.

Los precios son de 695 lb o 1130 lb, totalmente instalados.

Porque Anderson utiliza su equipo de instalación nacional.

El proceso es limpio y totalmente atractivo.

Así que contacten ellos y su servicio concierto.

Su servicio concierto dedicado.

Hacemos el resto.

Sleak, también puedes escribirte a autocarathaymarket.com

como Richard Walsh, de Waterford en Irland, ha hecho.

Steve, no estoy seguro de que veas esto.

Él dice, mientras escuchar a usted hablar de la pasada triste de Quentin Wilson y de cómo tuvo su primer rol de TV,

he sido reclamado de Steve's own foray into television

con un show driving passions.

Oh, my word.

En el medio de 1990.

He had very fond memories of watching the show while visiting my grandmother on a Sunday afternoon

as a 12-year-old it ignited a lifelong passion for all things car related.

Depending on your view of copyright infringement,

you may be pleased to know that the episodes are available on a popular video streaming website.

After watching them, I would like to recommend your listeners do the same

as they're informative and entertaining just as much now as they were then.

They are, of course, the added bonuses of serving as a time capsule

and a welcome tonic to the Crash Bang Wallop videos

often put out on the subject these days autocart aside, obviously.

Steve, could you share any anecdotes of how it came about?

Yeah, it was a discovery thing and we...

I can't really remember where the idea came from.

The editor of the time, Michael Harvey, was well in...

was the leader of it, I think.

And he had some TV connections.

And we...

I mean, we did believe in the medium, still do.

And so we just... it was experimental.

I think we made 13 episodes.

Oh, really?

And I can remember all kinds of bizarre things like...

I can remember testing a Saab 900 convertible

and talking about chassis rigidity.

And I remember holding this shoebox with the lid on it and a lid off it.

And you know, trying to show how you could twist it with the lid off

and it became rigid with the lid on.

And that sort of nonsense.

We enjoyed doing it, but we were...

I'll tell you what we discovered and that is...

this is something you know that some people are good at it

and some people aren't.

And it's not that easy to predict who's going to be good at it.

And I was never any use.

But John Evans, who worked for us at the time,

and Michael Harvey and a few others turned out to be really good.

Oh, really?

And they just sort of popped out of it.

I'm not sure if...

I don't think Quentin was on it.

I can't remember.

He was probably further...

Moved on to something else by then.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, he would have been on top gear, wouldn't he, in the 90s?

Yeah, too good for us.

But it was fun, but very, very amateurish.

If you want to see people stumble and generally cock it up,

that's a place to go.

Was there any training before you did it?

No, no, no.

We just...

Well, our training was watching Top Gear on Sunday night.

Yeah.

And, you know, never mind.

We did our best.

Well, I'll look it up.

Oh, it's not...

I mean, it's mostly reviews, is it?

Yeah, it's just stuff that came up.

It was...

Matters of the moment, really.

Just...

We mixed in with stuff that we felt like rattling on about.

I think the content was probably half okay,

but the...

I don't think the...

Very nice of our correspondent to say we were okay, but...

Yes, very kind of you, Richard, to say that.

But he's...

I think...

This is probably, possibly, memories of a 12-year-old rove

and somebody who is used to good television.

Yeah.

Was it a big production?

Crew?

No.

I mean...

Was it bigger than we have today?

I mean, today, we tend to have a videographer with us

who does sound and vision and that.

I think we might have had separate sound and vision.

Okay.

But the thing...

It wasn't scripted or anything like that.

We just stood up and did something.

Yeah.

It was quite...

I prefer that anyway, really.

I can't do the other thing.

How was it getting to people in the first instance?

Was it on...

Did you get like a CD on the cover or something like that?

Because it would have been pre...

Oh, so it was only on Discovery.

It was on the Discovery Channel.

But it was an auto car production.

Yeah, Discovery Auto Car, I think we've forgotten now.

But...

So if you just read the mag, you didn't have access to it.

Well, it was flagged in the mag.

And we tried to make as much noise about it as possible.

And at the time, the shiny ones, the guys upstairs,

thought that being on TV was terribly important.

Yeah.

But what they were going without is the...

It takes quite a lot of skill and effort to be good on TV.

It's quite a lot of time, isn't it, to do that stuff?

Because doing a stills photo shoot, as we know,

is much quicker than doing a video shoot.

Yeah.

But you know particularly because...

But auto car, across the...

Modern Media Landscape,

then as it remains now.

You can find us on all the social channels.

You can find us on YouTube.

You have found this podcast.

We'd love it if you would find a way to review.

And if you don't subscribe to this podcast, that'd be great.

If you share it among your friends or colleagues,

that would be great as well.

Would be.

Yeah.

Because we sometimes have special guests on over Christmas

and other times.

And those podcasts get a boost.

And I look at the stats and the analysis.

Because I have to do a monthly report for the shiny bums upstairs.

Yeah.

And when we get a little boost, when we have a guest on,

the numbers get a rise and then those people stay.

They stick around.

So the more people, as some manufacturers who talk about

getting bums on seats to sell cars,

we just need to get people to know about it.

So, Rita, if you wouldn't mind telling your friends,

we'd be very grateful.

We would.

It is the 3rd of December as this podcast goes out,

which means the 1st of the AutoCar Christmas Double Issues

is on sale now.

Wacker.

And there's quite a lot.

So this is...

Bit of work, huh?

Yeah.

Well, yeah.

Steve and I are going to talk about that

and more besides in the next,

I don't know, half an hour or thereabouts.

But there's also, logistically,

there are a few things to tell you.

Listen, there is a Double Issue,

the Christmas Double Issue.

The 1st of 2 is on sale now.

That is on sale until the 17th of December.

So if you want to read the Christmas Roadtest,

if you want to see Steve's column,

My Motoring Year,

and if you want to get the Christmas Quiz, I think,

and also there are other Christmas related features,

that is in this Double Issue.

There is another Christmas Double Issue,

which is on sale from the 17th

until December the 31st.

So there are two Christmas Double Issues.

So if you want to sit down

and have a good read of some Christmas stuff,

don't forget to buy this one

as well as the other one

because there's stuff you will miss otherwise.

There's quite a lot of feature content.

So our aim is to,

because we figure that people have time to read,

we, I think we treble the feature content.

There's loads in there, yeah.

But if you wait until December the 20th

to pick up your Christmas Double Issue,

you won't find the Christmas Roadtest.

And don't miss it.

Because it's the world's most powerful tractor.

Yeah, driven by Matt Pryor.

Driven by me.

In a very, very large field in Lincolnshire.

And are very grateful to the good people of John Deere

for supplying some time with it.

It is a very, very large piece of kit.

I can't believe the pictures.

It is eight meters long, three meters wide,

35 tons unladen.

How far off the floor, how easy?

When you're sitting in it.

Oh, you feel pretty tall.

It's sitting like a second floor or something.

Yeah, it's just under,

I want to say it's just under four meters tall,

I think in total.

But I think she's slightly strange.

It's ever so slightly shorter

than the next model down in the John Deere range.

It's ever so slightly lower.

And it's got four tracks rather than wheels.

And it articulates in the middle.

But because it articulates in the middle,

even if, even though it's their longest tractor,

the turning circle is not bad.

The turning radius taken from the back wheels,

from the back wheel centerline

is about six and a half meters.

Wow, which is pretty good.

So you literally steer this thing by twisting the body?

Yeah.

There's a hinge in the body.

So there's an 18 liter straight six twin turbocharged diesel engine

in the front and then a 22 speed transmission

that that is connected to.

Is it automatic?

It is.

Wow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There are three pedals,

but you don't need most of them most of the time.

And then it steers,

but I steer by wire effectively

and you turn the wheel

and you sit on the front bit

and then on the back bit

is all the sort of hydraulic pumps

and power takeoffs and stuff like that.

And it hinges in the middle.

So you're on the front half.

Hinges around behind you.

And it is built for 913 horsepower.

It is built for pulling very large implements

through very hard ground.

Yeah, boy.

The thinking being,

although it's 930,000 pounds,

the more ground you can cover

at more speed in one go,

the more efficient farming is.

And sometimes you only get a short amount of time

to do the work.

Farmers only get a short amount of time

to do the work that they need to.

So the more ground you can cover,

the more likely you are to be profitable.

These things tend to be operated by contractors too, don't they?

So they'll work on one somebody's property today

and somebody else's property tomorrow, I suppose.

Yeah, because of the size of it,

it's not a big market in the UK

because it's big for us.

But they do think they'll sell a couple

in very, very large farms.

I was just doing my sort of schoolboy long division

and came up with the fact

that one cylinder is three litres.

Yeah.

Isn't that amazing?

It is, it is.

And I said, I mean,

presumably they're all bought on finance.

He said, well, actually sometimes you'd be surprised

because of the way money comes in and out of farms.

Sometimes a lot of it can arrive at once.

He says, actually, so not necessarily

as much of it is financed as you might think, you know.

They will make big capital expenditure

just after a load of cash arrives

because that's just the way farming is.

You know, sometimes months go by

when no money comes in

and then a lot of will come in at once.

Yeah, it's not just about green shoots farming, is it?

No, the cool thing.

Yeah. Really cool thing.

Is it noisy?

No, it's not that bad

and a straight six is very smooth.

So actually you're aware

there's a lot going on

but as you sit up in the cab

this is in the, I think the signature edition.

So they have trim levels.

Yeah.

So there's a base one

and then there's the signature edition.

It's got Android Auto and CarPlay.

It's got heated cooldown massage seats,

leather seat, driver's seat

and full air conditioning and everything else

because somebody might spend

16 hours in one go in this

on a long summer's day, you know.

So it's...

High fire and all that?

Yeah, good sound system

and it's also ever so slightly

the cabin is ever so lightly pressurized

to prevent dust getting in

in the same way as a warship is, you know,

when you open the doors,

slightly higher pressure inside than outside

so that dust doesn't come in.

So it's a really clever piece of care.

Sounds like you had a good time to me.

I had a very good time

but I'm very grateful

for the good people at John Deere UK.

No, I want to read a book.

I have a bread part of the story

but I want to see the full spread.

It is out now in the shops.

Brilliant.

So you can find it there.

Also, listener, you can subscribe to Autocast.

We have started talking about stories, haven't we?

We have.

This is also a bit of a plug.

If you go to themagazineshop.com

You can subscribe to the magazine

and it's still in time

I think now if you want to buy that as a present

for somebody will send you a card

you can give the gift card

and then the magazine starts arriving.

I've been, it's funny, you know,

I subscribe to the odd thing and

I, you know, bike magazines, motorcycle magazines

and I look forward to the arrival of my Christmas present

because the magazine keeps coming.

Yeah, same.

It is a genuine 24 carat good thing to give people.

Yeah, yeah, my brother subscribes me to a bike magazine

and I'm very happy.

Yeah, I like it very much.

Yes.

So your column is a bit different to usual

because instead of your motoring week

it is your motoring year.

We'll cover some of that now.

We'll cover some of it in the weeks to come

because there is a My Week in Cars podcast

every Wednesday

all the way through Christmas and the new year.

Good stuff.

On the 24th of December

we will have our sort of Christmas special guest

which is who, Steve?

Mr. Pat Simmons,

I guess he, I think they call him a technical consultant

at Cadillac F1, the new Cadillac F1 team

that's going to be on the grid from the first race of 2026

but his big claim to fame is that he's masterminded

nine world championships for the likes of Fernando Alonso

and Michael Schumacher in the past

and he was also for seven years

the Formula One management technical guru

or one of them along with Ross Braun

designing the formula that starts in 26

whether change to the power units,

change to the aero,

change to the chassis dimensions, all kinds of things

and in that pod he talks a lot

about not just his background

but the future

and also his own interest in road cars and so on

it's actually, I'm afraid it goes on a bit

but I just, I haven't got the will to cut anything

because he was so interesting

I found it really interesting

so I hope people will stick with it.

If you have a little time over Christmas

listen to that and take it in chunks.

We think that the pod once finished

because Steve and I will chat a bit too

so we think it'll be just over two hours in total

but if you take it a bit at a time

when you're walking the dog

or driving to see some friends in the kitchen

have a listen.

Yeah, that's it.

Play it to the dog.

Let's talk a bit about your motoring year so far then

and we'll cover more in the coming weeks as well.

Yeah, sure.

You went to see the Escargo Flombe earlier this year.

Yeah.

Remind me the story.

I've always loved 2CVs.

I bought my third one in 1985 of B Plate 1.

It was new.

They were about to run out.

It was a special.

And with a couple of other idiots

I got this plan to fit it with a turbocharger

and we duly did that after help from turbo techniques

in a blow called Richard Wilshire and various other people.

And it was quite successful after a bit of development

in that it would, it was fast.

I mean it would do, we timed it at Millbrook

at 89 miles an hour true

and 89 miles an hour as you know on the M4

if you are prepared to do it.

Is probably 95 on the speedo of the bloke

in the Volvo estate ahead of you in the fast lane.

And it used to just make people very angry.

So it was a bit of fun.

It was terrible in many ways

because 2CVs got very, very wide spaced ratios

and the engine was peaky

because we didn't have the right turbo really

for a 602 cc engine.

So it would.

Because one doesn't exist.

Well it does now actually.

I think you know just about.

Yeah, okay.

But now not then.

But it, so it would start accelerating

in a very humble way

and then it would suddenly explode in first

and the same happened in second.

But when you change say from second to third

you would have to go through a period

where there was no boost

and suddenly it would go wha!

You know.

So it was, it was ridiculous but fun

and we took it to the test track

and on the way back from test track

it caught fire on the M1

and burned, basically burned to the ground.

There are these photographs of it in

Immortal pictures on the,

on the approach road to what was then

Scratchwood surfaces, London city services.

London.

With a big sign in the background

saying reduce speed now

and these six foot flames

coming out of the engine bay.

Oh gosh.

Lucky you had a photography with you

because I mean at the time there wasn't a...

Yeah there were real proper pictures.

You wouldn't have had a camera with you normally, would you?

No, no no there were...

No, not a phone camera.

Yeah.

It was, it was ridiculous,

the whole damn project was ridiculous

but we had a lot of fun with it

except that I forgot to tell the insurance company

that we'd modified it

so it wasn't possible to make an insurance claim.

Oh no.

Blah blah blah.

Anyway, we rebuilt it,

Richard Wilshire rebuilt it

and it was,

with stuff like water injection

which started to heal

over the big power train problem though.

Right.

Power delivery problem.

As probably everybody would know

a body shell,

once it's been severely damaged in a fire

doesn't have the integrity that it once had

and the 2CV hasn't got much integrity anyway

so it dissolved

and got passed through a number of hands

and I found it a couple of times actually

but last year I found it

and I went to see it with a view to

after 40 years or whatever it was

of rebuilding it

and it was so far gone that I didn't

so there are some sad photographs of it

with the roof caved in

and looking pretty terrible

but it was fun while it lasted

and as a,

we wrote this story

which was called Escago Flombe

about the catching fire

Richard Bremner was heavily involved

because he was at the wheel

when it caught fire

and it was just an adventure.

I do like things like that

and in my dreams I would have rebuilt it

but it wasn't.

Not feasible.

Where is it?

How much can you tell me about where it is?

It's in Worcestershire.

Right.

In a blokes garden.

Okay.

And has he got any

hopes to do anything with it?

Well there's a bit of a dreamer I fear

there's a bit of, there are a few

dreams of rebuilding

which are unlikely to be fulfilled

there's really nothing there

there's just a lot of wreckage

you would have to

find the

you know the VIN number

and start with another shell I think

and another engine and another suspension and

build a new car.

It's a goner but

it was a lot of fun and it was

as I say it used to amuse people

Should we talk about

a car that does have a future?

Your new 205

Oh yeah I'm really pleased with that

it

I had probably aware

but we

at AutoCar we had a Peugeot 309

a few years ago

again quite a lot probably 20

started off as

being bought on eBay

for 250 quid by Colin Goodwin

and we were going to do this thing up

and

we had a look underneath it and found that

a lot of the under bits had been attacked

by some idiot with an angle grinder

and the body was in quite

poor shape

so the idea founded

but I got hold of this car

and repaired it at some cost

and also with the help of Peugeot's

apprentices

we turned this into a reasonable hill climb

car and so on and ran it

campaigned it for a while

of all the cars I've ever run like that

it was the best fun

in the spirit of that I thought

this year

before I'm dead I'm going to have another one

and

started looking around with a friend Neil Yates

who runs a business called Rally Prep in Cornwall

he's an expert

in building rally cars

among other people he's built

a BMW

3 series rally car for

Chris Harris

anyway

he started looking around

and I started looking around

we found this car in Oswestry

it's a quite a well prepared

205 GTI

1.9

rebuilt for the mull rally

in the middle

2015

the mull rally was cancelled that year

so it only ever did 40 or 50 stage miles

it's been standing around

more or less ever since been driven to the pub

but never done any competitive mileage

so rebuilt

team welded

cage in it

correct seats

pretty healthy engine

so I bought this car

and with the help of Neil

we're doing it up as a

track day

hill climber sprint car

nothing ambitious

I am actually pretty rubbish as a driver

but I like it, I enjoy it

and my boys will enjoy it

so that's where we are

at custody it's quite healthy now

and it's in the process of being re-commissioned

so it is at

Neil's place down there

we've used a pick in the mag

just to show what it will be like

when we de-decolate

and go for the white wheels that I like a lot

and

but it'll just be around and about

next year

Ben our picture editor is also a car designer

hasn't he so he's got some serious

skills

digital

tweakery, two pictures and things as well

so he does all of our renderings

and he's effectively modelled the 205

to look as you want it

indeed, the thing is

he's used to being messed around by people like me

all I did was to take a couple of

happy snaps off the phone and said

look mate

could you possibly get rid of the decals

change the wheels to white

and show us what it would be like

with the original black wheel archers

he's done that

and the car looks fantastic

the thing we have to decide is whether or not

to use this light pod

it's got these four massive lights

which make it look

cool in the extreme

but they aren't very relevant to autosolos

so we'll say

I'll be interested to see what Neil thinks

they are cool aren't they

they do look good

quite weighty I guess

I think they will be heavy

we've already driven it

about 100 miles

very healthy

but it really needs

lots of engine hoses

and seals

the tyres

whatever it is

14 years old

so it needs

recommissioning and it's getting that right now

so in time for

Neil's got his eye

on a particular event in Cornwall

I think it's called

a field sprint

basically it's

everybody bolts around a stubble field

sideways

you spend the whole day sideways

so I'm looking for

we'll have it ready for that

and that's spring, summer

early, February, March

oh crikey, oh so soon

it's warm in Cornwall

there is that

I no longer have a hose pipe

as of yesterday

how has that affected your life

presumably it means your chickens

can live a better life does it

I don't know whether

cleaning

agricultural

I don't know if you're allowed to

I don't know whether that was exempt

I don't know what you were allowed to use a hose pipe

for or not

but I did take a car over to have

an airbag recall done yesterday

and they gave it a little clean off

while I was there which is very good of them

but it did occur to me well I can't do this at home

so yeah you might as well clean it

but yes and then the email arrived

and wouldn't you know

wouldn't you know it's now fine again

good, oh god knows

we haven't had some rain, floods everywhere

but I don't know if I could have

because the chicken wise

they just

you can do is just hosing out

their stuff and hosing off their water supply

and stuff like that and again just to clean it properly

because it does get a bit grubby

so you can you know having a jet wash

to use that is helpful

a power wash

they seem quite cheery though don't they

they don't seem to be in a bad mood over

oh no they're very happy mate, very happy

very very very happy the modern game

as they are called they are

have you seen them, have you seen them

the little ones, the new ones

no I haven't seen the little ones

so they are quite sweet

but they look a bit weird

those little velociraptors

sorry mate I have seen these

some new ones have arrived

and they are very sweet

and they make great noise when you go and feed them

they make a really cute noise

and they don't take up much room either

but I am a bit worried

how small they are

when it comes to potential predators

because they don't

I mean any chickens at risk of a fox

but you just think crikey

a rabbit could take these down

well I am looking forward to my next trip to your

next time you come over

next time you come over have a look

and

ah

I am going to try and get some work done on some cars over Christmas

very good

a bit chilly for the fingers

I know mate I know

I mean when else are you going to do it

do you know what I mean

I don't know what the anyway

what we need to do is move

one of your motors to a

sort of an airport lounge

where you can you know when you are passing through

as I pass through

you can just wheel the spanners for 20 minutes

if it could be in the south lounge at terminal 5

that's it

yeah that would do

should we talk about

Flavio Breatory

yeah well

he's in your column so go on

what's the

well the thing is there was a

there were some optimists

he thought that when Flav

and

the Renault F1 team

sorry Alpine F1 team showed up for

the British Grand Prix

because he's an advisor or some

yeah he's

he's a

he's not allowed to be the team principal

because he got banned a few years ago

was part of that overturned or something

because he didn't get like a lifetime ban

some people involved

were even compensated

oh right

but anyway

Flav

there's two problems with Flav

he hates journalists

because it was stuff that's been written

about him over the years I think

and also he

he can be a bit hard

to understand

because he speaks at 90 miles an hour

and so on

with a slightly impenetrable accent

without being rude to him

anyway

the optimist at Renault UK

thought we will organize

an interview with Flav

and I went along to the practice

to the qualifying day

and he

basically there's a picture of his back

in my column because that's as close as I got to him

so I've

the bit that I've written just says

Flav's back

but I gather he's doing okay

I mean Alpine isn't doing okay

but the

the story is that he's

sorted them out and it's a lot more

business like and generally

better organized than it used to be

and he has got some

well he was around for Alonso's

Formula

World Championships for a start

so

he's got to be useful

yeah

do you watch F1

I watch the

I'm too tight to buy a sky sub

I just never in when it happens

anyway so I tend to watch

the sort of summary programs on channel 4

which

which are pretty much the whole race anyway

but I enjoy it

and I read about it after

and well before and after

quite like the

you know

I remember Andrew Benson used to work with us

years ago he's the BBC F1

correspondent and he was always

wise then

worked for autosport when we owned it

and

he went off to much ground

of things BBC F1 and all that

and he's you know he's on the box

and on the radio and in the

so he's in all media

but he's just got this

very measured

approach to things so he'll be the

bloke that tells you the truth

and I like that

it gets him into strife sometimes

the difficulty

you say what you think and you say the truth

then somebody won't talk to you for the next 6 months

actually it's interesting I was talking

in this Pat Simmons interview

we referred to

I talked to him about

the way F1

deals with the audience

and he agreed with me

there's a part where he just says

I never forget that

I'm here because of the people watching

but he's exceptional

and the great thing is that

going forward Pat and his team

will be people

you can talk to I bet

there's a team principal called Graham Loudon

who was involved with Marusia

much more successful

in the lower formulae

single seat formulae

but really nice approachable

straight forward bloke

so I think

GM's going to be

Cadillac's going to be an interesting

team

they're building this

this huge extravaganza

sort of marinello type

base in bigger

probably than in Indianapolis

and they're going to invite people in

so it'll be a sort of

it'll be a place where

you can just go and see stuff

and watch cars being tested

and see cars being built

so initially

there's a base at Silverstone

so it's at Silverstone now

I mean they've got two buildings there

so they're quite big

the chassis are being made there

the cars that we see race next year

we made in Silverstone but ultimately

I think 2070 said

there's a really big

stuff he'd been driving

Cadillac road cars

it's quite interesting on that too

when he gets going

I went to a NASCAR team

HQ in

America once

and it was vast

and they've just got bits

out the back where they do pit stop practices

all day long

and they build cars

of different lengths for different

circuits

because some of the ovals are longer than others

and then some street courses

so they build some cars that are straight

and some cars that have off set

wheel bases to suit the ovals

and then

we might have three cars on the road at any one time

because they're all driven on the back of trucks

so we might have cars going off to this

Indianapolis

or whatever but then we've got another

oval race in two weeks time

1500 miles away

so we've got another couple of trucks going out there

and I think

I can't remember whose team it was

it was a Ford's team and they were looking after

I don't know

12 or 13 different cars

with different drivers effectively

so they've just got this vast setup

with maybe 50 or 60 cars

and build at any one time

so the driver wouldn't necessarily know

what car he was going to get into

I mean it would be a different car

each race would turn up

and it would be a different car each time

gosh so the setting up must have been

yeah and then also

because the cars have to

I think they have to have a steel body shell

and they have to be basically hand beaten

but they are finished

there is a certain amount of tolerance that you can build them

within

so they've got this

large cage effectively

which is all sort of laser pointed at the car

and it determines

because a little bit there

but it's all happening inside

the factory

so that

they might think a little bit of extra

width at the bottom of the body

might be useful on this track but not that track

so you set it up inside

and then beat the body until it falls

within the tolerances of the regulations

and then it gets painted

and off it goes to the circuit

but just so much

so much stuff

happening all the time

are they still

you know

being a snob

you think of

NASCAR as being a bit crude

push rod vh and all that

I mean the cars are

but finished to a

very high degree of skill

and craftsmanship I suppose

they've got this gizmo on the roof

now haven't they to stop them taking off

and they say spin

that's what the airbrake comes back

spoiler, amazing

I'd like to go to a NASCAR race, never done

no I would, no I would never have

went to an indie race, that was pretty urgent

but people who stand right down

by the fence when these things go by

at 230

they see videos of them and their hair being blown off

they just blow on them

no last time I was in the States

I just caught the very end

of a practice session on a dirt oval

that would be good

just turned up at a B&B and I could hear in the background

oh yeah I looked this up before where I came

but it started

but it just made it in for the last 20 minutes

so they had some of those short sprint cars

with the massive spoilers on the roof

and stuff like that but that was pretty cool

I must do that again

must do more that

maybe next year

I don't know about you

I don't really do New Year's resolutions per se

but it does seem a festive thing

to talk about so maybe in a couple of weeks

we'll

maybe in a couple of pods time we'll talk about that

because we don't have columns to get us all

all the way through the festive period do we

no no no

it is an interesting time isn't it

because you do

you do get

you find yourself thinking differently over these next few weeks

and then it does

there is a bit of a review situation

so I do tend to

I'll never make resolutions because

you always break them but you can have objectives

I think

let's take a very short commercial break

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there's loads of different stuff because

they have tie-ins

with smart tariff providers

and there are offers where you can get

so many thousand free miles

to sign up to the right tariff

they will help you do all of that

I like that idea of somebody helping you

understand the tariff situation

because we still haven't tackled that

at home, we're living last year

and I get the feeling

we're chucking our handfuls of money

by not doing it, I should ring them up

and ask them the question

I remember when we got the latest

fiber optic

broadband at home

it was one of these sort of rural schemes

where if enough people in an area

commit to getting it

then you've got a certain amount of money

from the government

to get fiber optic broadband

taken to your village, effectively

so we had to commit and go

we'll do it, we'll sign up

I know nothing about that stuff

I know some people really care

but it's not my area of interest

it works really well in your place

well it does, yeah

but one of the

the local bot who was doing it

said here is a list of

potential suppliers you can use

and here is a little

summary of what they all do, so it was like

ok here's the big multinationals

here's what they do, and there was one on the list

it said there are people

who will actually pick up the phone and talk to you

and can talk you through the thing

I thought that's the one for me

so I phoned them up and said

explain this whole thing to me what happens

and they explained it and it was very clear

and that is the kind of

level of service I like, if you call Addison

that's the kind of person you deal with

somebody you will just

if you don't know

they will talk you through the whole thing

they will take care of it

there you go, one new year resolution

I'm going to ring him up and ask

you have an Addison charger anyway

yeah, I'm sure they'd help me

welcome to part 2, listener

you can write to us autocartataymarket.com

as

Mike Kenney has done

this is interesting

my 25 year old Fiat Multibla

failed its MOT and had to be scrapped

because Fiat no longer makes the under seat

sensor that sets off the airbag

what a shame

what a real shame

I replaced it with a 2008 Honda FRV

and was surprised to find

my insurance had increased from 600 pounds

to 2600 pounds

more than I paid for the car

I shopped around and found cover for 1800 pounds

but that still tripled the Fiat premium

the explanation was

this model of Honda is more expensive to repair

your how to buy a used car feature

has a lot of useful info about what to pay

but makes no mention of insurance

is this something we could consider

or is insurance too much for a bag of worms

kind of regards Mike Kenney

that's going to go in the mag that letter Mike

and I think yes that is something we should

we should attack

some groups

but beyond that I don't know how much intel

we'll get but that's certainly something we will do

the thing you can't help thinking

but also crikey

an FRV to be that much more than a

Multibla

you can't help thinking that maybe

we car buyers attacked

the issue

wrongly in that

what we should

do is think

I think I'm going to buy a Honda

the insurers first

I mean

having had some

problems with

insurers

in recent past because I got too old

for the computer

I have now landed

on a very helpful broker

who

I would trust

to ring up and say look

I've had a Fiat

I don't know what

is this a sensible idea

I do think

what Mike is doing

is making the point

that we need to consider the insurance

earlier in the purchase decision

yeah

because

I mean that's a kick in the teeth

for anybody to have to go from

what was it 600 to 2 grand

600 to 1800 now so it's three times the price

I mean that's a lot isn't it

it's hard to

you know given the

it's

it's just

it's hard to justify I think

by the insurers

I wonder if there wouldn't be any

well too late now

but looking for another multiplos

one of these that always

lends itself done it

but what a shame

for something so simple as

a sensor under a seat

and effectively

write a car off I mean that's really

what a shame

I'ma say I didn't think about insurance at all

when I bought that A2 until after I bought it

well until after I committed

what was your experience

oh fine it's fine

but I did we have a colleague who we know

who was thinking about buying an A2

for his daughter to learn to drive

he said the insurance was twice as much as it is

on a polo because

polos are quite fixable

to repair

I mean I think if anybody drives

if anybody drives into that A2

in a car park accident

they'll write it off the insurance will write the car off

because it's worth

well I don't know

you can buy them for a thousand quid

and you could easily do a thousand quids

worth the damage to one I'm sure

they'll just go ah it's not worth it

scary isn't it

yeah touch a bit

well I mean it's what it is

drive on drive on 161

thousand miles

I need to

have I told the

have I told the story

of the mpg yet or not

I actually said what it does

what it did no I don't think we've had the bottom line

the bottom line

is from my house near Bista

to Leon the Solent

seafront which is

pretty much a hundred miles door to door

effectively from the

filling station that I set off from

actually I did have to do a small tour of Leon Solent

to get the trip computer over the hundred mile mark

on

as I parked up the car and turned it off

the computer inside the car said

100.9 miles to the gallon

which having calibrated the trip

computer and the odometer against

kilometer markers

on the motorway a few

a couple of times to make sure that it is telling the truth

and it is and then having calibrated over

2300 miles of driving a brim

fill on the same fuel pump

the actual mpg of that

I mean it does

vary a bit depending on temperature because fuel gets

more or less dense and blah blah blah

but effectively it's about 102 to 103 miles

to the gallon

fantastic how good is that

22 year old hatchback

that cost 500 quilos

and mot failure I hope this message reaches

the people who created that car

in Audi all those years ago

it gives them a nice warm feeling

they did launch that

the 3 litre car didn't they

the 1.2 litre

mine is not one of those

it's just a regular humdrum

everyday a2

I didn't check the steering alignment

I just pumped up the tyres and took the back seats out

isn't it

isn't it fantastic when a car

becomes greater than some of its parts

like that

because I will bet you they wouldn't have made anything

like under a mile per gallon claims out of it

no I think the extra urban

as it was at the time was about 85

and

from memory the auto car road test

said good things about the economy

I think maybe we averaged

65 something like

I can't quite remember

that was in I don't know if you would have gone

there was a

Britain's best drivers car we do

actually that was out recently

listener that was out

if you go to themagazineshop.com

you can find it in a recent mag

there was one that was done

in 2000

I think it was done like

Mereval in somebody's test track

good year or Michelin or somebody's test track

and the a2 went

there were loads of cars in it that year

like 15 16 cars or something

and the a2 was very well liked

no I didn't do that one

I remember them doing it

it was an unusual

choice of track

and I think I was

buried in the boughs of buying cars at that stage

but yeah

brilliant

what should we talk next

shall I talk the archive

have you been in this week

I'm not sure I've been in the archive

but I wasn't looking very far back

I was looking at

fairly recent things that I think

we've done earlier this year

I had a bit of a foray

but just to look at news stories

I was trying to look up

there's a story

an issue coming up

where we tried to propose

a car that would save Hethel

if Hethel was going to die

we reckon that maybe another model would help

and we tried to specify the model

and I was looking up the

details of the model

that it

would replace as it were

when is that story in the back

in the second double issue

let's talk about that

next time

hang on a minute

let's talk about that on the 17 de diciembre

it was an interesting exercise

I mean

it'll be intriguing to see what

the people who really have to build

cars and make money out of them

think of the idea

broadly speaking

the idea is just to justify

Hethel, find a car that will sell in Europe

in sufficient numbers

to justify

that plant keeping going

there may be more

news lotus related to come

I think

as well soon

there are some rumblings

I don't know what they are

but I hope they're positive

I'm sick of

things being under threat

I make the other day

I read

Polestar has shut its UK engineering

base

what a shame

I did a tour of that place

it was sort of chock a block

with people that I had met before

who were

really good, clever

self motivated

engineers

but it just seems that the

Polestar range is now

built

and

it's a kind of replacement territory

from now on and in any case

half of the platforms are under

geelys and zikas

and stuff

link and co come

so

yeah, bad business

do you want to talk the budget at all

well yeah

sort of

I can't fathom the politics

I don't care in a way

well I mean I do care

I don't you mean

the two things that

I thought were interesting

was the fact that

they were not put this way

but the news

was that

road pricing is coming

there's going to be this

initially a cost

of three people a mile

put on EVs from

27 or 8 I can't remember

already I've forgotten but it was a couple of years hence

but that is

road pricing by the

that's a sort of thin end of the wedge

and it'll apply to us all soon

I calculate

not that

I'm not sure that's a terrible thing

because

the money raised by

fuel

duties has to be replaced I guess

but I

the thing that I took objection to

the way I read it is that your

MOT bloke

decides how many miles you did in a year

and he will report that

to the authorities now

I don't know whether

my local garage man wants to be a policeman

and

I also don't know whether

every MOT man is going to be

or person is going to be

entirely

unscrupulous you know

what's to stop him saying

well it reads that you've done

15,000 miles but let's say

well I mean eventually you'd have to sell it

and it'll

say otherwise

it is

yes it is interesting

and of course

cars do not need looking after in their first

couple of years

so you have to take it somewhere

for them to then declare what the mileage is

I haven't thought of that

and also the only thing about it

is it makes

at the moment

fair or fair as you may think fuel duty

is and there's a lot of tax on fuel

there's no question about that

the more energy you use

the more you pay

so if you have a thirsty car

you pay more than somebody who drives very economically

this does away with that

which I don't think is

ideal

but I don't see what else you do

at least it means that there's no

justifying

and charging people more

depending on what roads they're on

or what time they're on them

yeah

and the weight thing too isn't there

I mean my Alpine weighs a bit over a thousand

there are plenty cars that weigh

two and a half times as much

they take much more out of the road surface

probably deposit lots

and many more

tire and brake particulates and all that

you drive one of the new electric G-classes

and you pay exactly the same rate

yeah

Alpine

yeah

about 600

well yes

that would be

well that will cost me approximately naught

pence per year in fuel duty

or anything else at the moment

I think the 40 year historic car

road tax exemption still exists

it does

yeah I was just trying to do a countdown

this Peugeot 205 I just bought

is a 91 model so

that has got

half a dozen years before

it sneaks into the 40 years

yeah

we may catch up with this in a few weeks

in another couple of weeks time actually possibly

but the other thing is that the

officer budget responsibility has predicted

I think that between now and 2031

the new

regulations could

reduce the number of EVs that people buy

by 400,000

which would be offset by the electric car grant

which they think will increase

sales by 130,000

but they're still thinking that between

over the next 5, 6 years

maybe 300,000 fewer EVs will be sold

wow

but then the percentage of EVs that manufacturers have to

sell doesn't change

so

as far as I can see

there are people who

would just prefer fewer cars to be bought

by the public and fewer

miles to be driven by the public

and I don't think that that attitude

so I think they will think that the regulations

are working exactly as they want

but that is not what the public

would quite like I don't think

and it's one of these where I'm not sure

these people have quite

the same

feelings in mind as the people who

elected them and I

have a bit of a

well I live in Oxfordshire mate so as you can imagine

I'm not sure that it's always the case

where people necessarily think that the elected

officials are serving them as they thought

they were elected to do

I'm not sure

I remember Richard Perry Jones saying years ago

that the road system

was the one thing

the one part of

commerce if you like

that actively ignored

what the customers want

which of us is working for who

because I think we want something

that we are not getting

in general and I know I say that as a car enthusiast

but I think a lot of people

talk to your neighbours

if you increase the population

by 20% over 20 years but you don't

increase the road capacity by 20%

over the same period something is

not working as it should and it is

crap roads and congestion

as a result of that

we have been

failed by a system that has not provided

the infrastructure to cope with

well it's not just roads

transport, health, education

and all these people standing up

saying that they are working for our benefit

are not

it doesn't seem

I don't want to

anyway sorry mate

it's not a party political

I just think in general

I think you could

it's as when people say

what's the phrase

the end shitification

it seems to be

a disease that infects all legislators

regardless of party

absolutely

which party ever stood up and said

where for the motorist

we understand your enthusiasm for cars

we'd like to support that

the best way for you to get to football training

and then go to the shops and then go to visit gran

and to do all of those things

and then come home with the children

and a dozen bags

the best way for you to do that

is to get in your car and do it

and that's what you want

actually it's a brilliant new idea

catch on

sometimes people say why don't you go into politics

well because actually

if I was a benign dictator when I was 10

then I could have made

decisions that actually would be fine now

but actually if you go into politics now

me deciding whether

Doris from number 42

could have an extension on her house

in the parish council

I'm not sure that's going to make a huge difference

no I don't see you doing it Matt

stick to the Ferrari road test

listener you will find Steve and I

back here at the same time next week

there is also

on this channel

associate editor James Atwood has just

talked to the

boss of Alpine UK

Nicola

sorry Nicola

sorry mate

I wrote it down yesterday

boss of Alpine UK has been talking to James

about Alpine in the UK

but also

really interesting woman

racing MTV

so they talk about that as well

that's elsewhere on this channel

I think coming up in a couple of weeks

that's one of our bonus auto car meets podcast

I think coming up in a couple of weeks times

where Felix Page was up at

Peugeot yesterday

and so he has talked

to somebody up there

Alan Favé

he's the boss

of Peugeot isn't he

am I right

yes I think so

Felix came back last night

I just happened to see something he wrote

and he said it was a really good interview

Alan Favé is interesting

because he

for a number of reasons but one is that he

he ran Citroën in this country a few years ago

so he knows the UK really

Nicola Burnside

very good

Hi Nicola

yes so that will be coming up

we run those occasionally on Saturdays

when we have somebody interesting to talk to

so that will be

Alpine one is out now

the Peugeot one will be out either this weekend

or next weekend

Steve and I will return

next Wednesday with

no column to talk about

Find something else to chat

part of your motoring year column

there's always a lot

honestly my column because I haven't talked about it at all

the one that we've just published

we haven't mentioned so that's fine

oh I can talk about the BMW ix3

yeah and there's things more on the

on the

you know the

oh I can talk about a Ford Mustang GTD

as well because I'll have just come back from driving it

Cropley on TV, written-off Multipla, the 100mpg Audi A2

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