Heel-and-toe is a way of downshifting smoothly while braking. You use your footwork to blip the gas at the same time as the brake so the car doesn’t jerk. It’s a common technique in performance driving.
Concept
Leafy, Leafy London
They’re joking about the neighborhood being nice and green. It’s basically a way to say “a leafy part of London.”
Concept
four by four slippers
They’re joking that the outdoor slippers are like a “4x4” vehicle—something built to handle tougher, dirtier conditions. It’s not really about cars; it’s just a comparison.
Concept
off-road (in slippers)
They’re using “off-road” as a joke for walking outside on rough ground. Real off-road driving is about dealing with dirt, rocks, and traction changes.
The “pedal box” is just the pedal area of the car. If it’s laid out well, it’s easier to control the gas and brake (and clutch) with your feet without awkward movements.
“Goodwood MM” appears to refer to an event at Goodwood, discussed here as “the 83rd MM.” The hosts are debating what “MM” stands for, but the key point is that they’re talking about a specific Goodwood gathering.
Concept
2000 mile race
They’re joking about what “2000” might mean—like a long-distance race. It’s basically the idea of an endurance event where the goal is covering a huge distance.
A gas-turbine car is a car that uses a turbine engine (like a jet) instead of the usual engine. It’s not common, so it’s mentioned as an example of something you wouldn’t normally expect to race.
A top fuel dragster is a race car built for drag racing—basically racing in a straight line as fast as possible. It’s not designed to handle turns like a normal sports car. So the joke is that it wouldn’t be great at “corners.”
They mention “Lord March” as a person who isn’t around and isn’t comfortable with what’s happening. It sounds like he’s connected to the event or location they’re talking about, not something related to car mechanics.
A towing eye is the part of the car you use to hook up a tow rope or tow bar. It’s usually hidden behind a small cover on the bumper, and you screw the hook into the car so it can be pulled safely.
JDM means “Japanese cars for the Japanese market,” and it also refers to the whole enthusiast scene around those cars. The speaker is saying that, back then, JDM fans would add themed little decorations to the tow-hook area.
Term
Tokyo underground loop
The “Tokyo underground loop” is described as a small themed charm/accessory that enthusiasts would hang from the towing eye. It’s not a standard factory component; it’s an aftermarket/enthusiast fashion item tied to a specific era of JDM styling.
Rev matching is when you “blip” the gas during a downshift so the engine speed lines up with the lower gear. It makes the shift smoother and less likely to jerk the car.
A flywheel helps keep engine speed steady. If the engine doesn’t have much “smoothing,” the RPM changes faster when you blip the throttle, so it’s harder to get the timing right.
These are small add-on pieces near the pedals that give you more room for your foot. They can make heel-and-toe easier when the pedals are too far apart.
They’re considering thicker boots to make heel-and-toe easier. But the concern is that bulky or grippy soles can make it harder to control the throttle precisely.
The Honda Del Sol is a small Honda from the 1990s that you can drive with the roof off. It’s basically a coupe that turns into an open-top car for warm weather.
A trim level is basically the “version” of the car—like what features it includes. Two cars with the same model name can feel different depending on the trim.
VTEC is Honda’s technology that helps the engine breathe better. It usually makes the car feel more lively when you rev it, while still being reasonable for normal driving.
The Honda Del Sol is a Honda from the late ’90s that’s built around a removable roof. It’s basically a coupe when the roof is up, and it’s meant to feel like a convertible when you open it.
This is a trunk lid that opens and closes with a motor. In some versions of the Del Sol, the trunk lid works together with the roof so the roof can fold away properly.
A targa roof is a roof design that lets you remove part of the roof for open-air driving. It’s not a full convertible—usually the car still has some roof structure left behind.
“Time-warp condition” means the car seems frozen in time—like it still looks almost new. It usually implies it’s not been beat up and not heavily modified.
Topic
Unpimp My Ride
This is a James May TV idea about taking a heavily modified car and dialing it back toward something more original. They mention it here to contrast modified cars with cars that are kept stock.
They’re describing someone who takes cars that have been changed and puts them back to how they were from the factory. That can make the car feel more “authentic” and easier to own long-term.
The Peugeot 405 is another Peugeot sedan from the same era as the 406. The speaker seems unsure whether the super touring car was a 406 or a 405, but both are period-correct platforms that could be adapted for touring-car racing.
“Super touring” is a type of race where regular-looking cars are modified to compete. The goal is to keep the cars similar to what you’d see on the road, but make them fast and controllable on a racetrack.
The Vauxhall Vectra is a Vauxhall sedan. In this event, a race-prepped Vectra was used for fast touring-car laps, and well-known drivers like Jason Plato and Rob Huff were behind the wheel.
Fueling is how the engine decides how much gas to inject. If it’s not right, the car can feel wrong when you accelerate, even if it seems fine at idle.
A rolling road is a test setup where the car drives on rollers while mechanics watch what the engine is doing. It helps them catch problems like rough running or incorrect fueling that might not show up during normal driving.
They tested it in fourth gear, which changes how hard the engine is working. That helps them find problems that only show up under a certain kind of load.
The “Derrick Bell Cup” is the name of a race they’re talking about from the event. They’re also debating what the brochure got wrong about it and what cars were supposed to race.
Formula 3 is a stepping-stone racing series for drivers. The cars are race-only open-wheel machines designed to compete closely so teams and drivers can develop skills.
“One litre” means the cars’ engines were limited to roughly 1.0 liter of displacement. That rule affects how much power the engine can make and how the car is set up.
“March Fords” means a race car made by March that used a Ford engine. In older racing, the car maker and the engine maker were sometimes different companies.
Term
back axle
An axle is the part that helps the car send power to the wheels. If you hear a noise from the “back axle,” it usually means something in the rear drivetrain area might be wearing out or not lubricated.
Term
bell cups
“Bell cups” sounds like a made-up or misheard name for a part in the rear drivetrain. The joke is that it’s the thing causing the grinding noise, and that you’d normally keep it properly lubricated and secured so it doesn’t fail.
Thread-locker (like Loctite) is a sticky chemical you put on bolt threads so the bolt doesn’t loosen over time. It helps prevent rattles and failures caused by vibration.
“Greased” means adding lubricant so parts slide smoothly instead of grinding. If you don’t lubricate things, they can wear out faster and start making noises.
The Ford Scorpio is a real Ford car that was sold in Europe. In this episode, they’re talking about a die-cast model of it, which is a small collectible toy version.
They’re comparing the footwork to line dancing—lots of coordinated, timed steps. The point is that heel-and-toe isn’t random; it’s a controlled routine you have to do consistently.
They mention the Acura NSX as a possible car for their idea. The NSX is a well-known sports car, and the joke is that everyone would be practicing the same kind of tricky footwork in similar cars.
The footwell is the space under the steering wheel where your feet go to press the gas, brake, and clutch. It’s also a common place to film from because it lines up with the pedals.
Term
Winkle picker
A “winkle picker” is a shoe with a very pointy, long toe. They’re talking about it like a required shoe style so everyone’s footwear looks the same.
Term
Cubans
“Cubans” is a boot/shoe style with a distinctive heel. They’re talking about how the pants should fit over those boots for the right look and coverage.
Race suits aren’t just for style—they’re meant to protect drivers in crashes. The way the suit fits around the ankles and boots helps keep the driver covered and safer.
Kevlar is a tough protective material used to help prevent injuries. They’re describing a protective vest worn under regular clothing so the torso is shielded during bull riding.
They’re talking about wearing protective gear underneath normal-looking clothes. The outside can look traditional or stylish, but the inner layer is what’s meant to protect you.
They’re saying the car has been under construction for 27 years. That usually means it’s a very personal project, not something you finish quickly. When it’s finally done, it’s worth paying attention to how well it was finished and whether everything was tested.
The Jaguar E-Type is a famous old sports car from Jaguar. It’s known for looking really cool and being quick for its era. The speaker is basically saying they saw a whole bunch of them at a race event.
They’re talking about the distinctive noise an F1 car makes. In that time period, the cars used V8 engines, and the sound is part of what makes them feel fast even when you’re just watching.
A Volvo 240 Turbo is a Volvo 240 that uses a turbocharger to make more power. In racing, it’s usually set up to run reliably for long sessions, not just to be fast for one lap.
Touring car racing uses cars that are based on normal road models. Teams modify them for racing, but the goal is still to keep them practical and reliable enough to last.
A “doughnut” is when the car spins around in a circle, usually leaving tire smoke behind. It’s a dramatic way to show you can control the car while the tires slide. The hosts are using it to describe the kind of drifting people do in that scene.
An “E30” is a specific older BMW 3 Series model generation. People like them for drifting because they’re fun to drive and there are lots of parts and upgrades available. The episode is saying South Africa has a drifting scene that commonly uses these cars.
Here, “spinning” means making the car slide and rotate on purpose. It can create lots of smoke because the tires and clutch get overheated from the hard driving. The hosts are describing what James May did while filming.
“Tyre smoke” typically comes from tires overheating due to sustained sliding or burnout-style driving. “Clutch smoke” suggests the clutch is slipping under high load—common when launching or trying to maintain wheelspin without fully engaging the drivetrain. The hosts use this to describe the aftermath of James May’s spinning session.
Concept
burnout masters
“Burnout masters” is about doing dramatic tire-spinning burnouts for show and competition. It’s usually lower-speed and more about the smoke and control than about sliding through corners like in drifting.
Pro drifting is a racing style where the driver steers so the car slides sideways through turns. It’s judged and organized, not just random street driving.
People are building bicycles that can “drift,” meaning they slide sideways instead of just rolling straight. It’s basically the same fun idea as car drifting, but it’s harder because bikes are lighter and have less control.
A “BMW doughnut” is a slang reference to the classic doughnut maneuver—spinning the car in a circle with the rear tires—often associated with BMWs in pop culture. The key idea is controlled tire slip to generate smoke and speed while maintaining steering control.
They’re saying BMW South Africa made a limited edition 330i to honor the “gushishi” name. It’s interesting because it shows the stunt culture influenced an official BMW release.
Concept
ever-addictive classifiers
“Classifiers” here sounds like an online listing/search platform (or category pages) that can be habit-forming for car shoppers. The idea is that browsing listings for “just a little while” can turn into spending hours and eventually buying something.
Concept
spending half a day looking at them
They’re pointing out that if you keep browsing car listings for too long, you can end up making a purchase on impulse. It’s better to slow down and do real checks before buying.
Steam cars run on steam made from heated water. Before you can drive, you usually have to wait for the system to warm up and build pressure. That’s why the starting process is a big part of the experience.
The “start-up procedure” is the set of steps you have to do before the car is ready to drive. With steam cars, you can’t just turn a key and go—you have to get the steam system ready first. That’s why it can feel special and interesting.
A “body swap” means taking the outside body from one car and putting it onto another car underneath. People do it for looks or fitment, but it usually costs more than you expect because it takes custom work to make everything line up and work safely.
Wheelbase is the distance between the front and rear axles. It strongly affects ride comfort, interior space, stability, and how a car behaves in turns. When doing a body swap or custom build, matching or intentionally changing wheelbase is a major engineering decision.
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I'm Jonny Smith.
I'm Richard Porter.
And this is Smith & Sniff, a podcast in which two friends talk about cars and many other things.
Hello.
Hello again, welcome.
Before we go any further, because otherwise I'll forget,
I just wanted to do a quick bit of live show news.
As people probably know, because we've mentioned it before,
we're in Belfast on the 15th of May, looking forward to that.
As mentioned before, they keep sending me spreadsheets that I can't understand.
I think there are tickets available.
I don't know if there are.
I don't know.
It looks like they're going up.
So either people are demanding refunds before the show, or I'm reading the wrong column.
But as far as I can interpret, it's sort of like three quarters, four fifths sold,
but I just can't quite work out why the number of empty seats goes up.
Unless they've found some seats, I don't know.
Anyway, 15th of May at the Mac in Belfast, we're really looking forward to that.
Her Belfast is a great city, never been looking forward to it,
hoping to sneak in the trip to the Titanic Museum while we're there.
But our next live show after Belfast is in fact live shows.
Because in June, we're coming back to the London Concourse,
and we are doing two shows on consecutive nights.
So we are doing Tuesday, the 9th of June, and Wednesday, the 10th of June.
And a ticket for our show also gets you an afternoon at the London Concourse,
which is well worth it.
Sweet, sweet show in the middle of the city of London.
The city.
The city.
The cricket pitch at the Honourable Artillery Company is a fantastic venue.
And in the main building, there's a hall, and that's where we do our show.
Those London shows, we've done the last three years, and they're always great fun.
Really nice venue, really fun show.
It's quite refreshing.
It's different.
It feels like a kind of extremely well-heeled fate
with some of the most exquisite examples of rare marks.
But also, well, the kind of surroundings you'd least expect
for a show comprising that sort of thing.
It's really good.
Yeah, love it.
I'm so pleased we're going back there,
because I just wanted an excuse to go to the London Concourse,
and now we get to hang out there for a couple of days.
And then we do a little bit of chat.
So yeah, if you buy tickets, which they're being sold this year,
our tickets through the London Concourse website.
So go there, and there's a specific Smith & Sniff ticket option,
or go to smithandsniff.com.
And on our live show page, there is a link to tickets as well.
Hope to see you there on the 9th or the 10th.
Just pick one, not both.
That would be repetitive.
We wouldn't enjoy that.
But yeah, hopefully we'll see you on the 9th or the 10th of June
at the London Concourse in Leafy, Leafy London.
Leafy, Leafy London, isn't it?
Look, I want to talk about outdoor slippers.
I don't know if I've touched on this in previous casts.
My dad's got outdoor off-road slippers,
which are the previous generation of slipper.
You know, like people keep a car for a long time,
and then they give it to either their children or grandchildren,
or they turn it into the dog car I've seen with some families.
So they're like, oh, it's the car I put the dogs in, and that's that.
There are certain things that get effectively demoted in life.
I bet a lot of us have got decorating trousers,
and they're an ordinary pair of jeans or tracky bottoms or something
that were once perfectly acceptable to wear all the time in public,
unless you're, I don't know, going to get a knighthood or something.
And then they've got a hole in them or something like that,
and they become the decorating trousers,
or the general sort of like maybe fixing car trousers,
because you don't mind getting paint or oil or crap on them generally.
Oh, I've got some early 2000s boyband jeans, as you well know,
which now have some holes in them, and also paint.
What's amazing about those is that it looks like the paint was there
when you bought them, because it was that sort of era when,
you know, if you were a member of five, the band,
you might have painted trousers as a sort of look.
It was strategically placed paint splatters,
but this was all innocently done.
But yeah, I wore those when I was unfortunately quite drunk
at the Bristol live show, which Chris Harris was locked out of,
and which was quite, still to this day makes me feel a little sad,
and I'm so glad that he took it so well,
given how much prep he'd done and still couldn't get in.
We will at some point find another live show at which we will try to get Chris Harris along
and not lock him out of the entire venue by accident,
leaving him in the rain on a dark street.
Anyway, so sorry, just to recap, your dad has some demoted slippers that are,
so he changes from his house slippers into his garden slippers,
which are his ex house slippers.
That's exactly what I'm talking about.
So they all move further down the line when he buys a new model of slipper.
So the outdoor slippers effectively become four by four slippers,
and the reason why I found out about this is because when I went to stay with them,
I forgot some slippers, and I went to borrow.
I said, oh, can I borrow those ones?
Are they yours?
And he went, oh, no, they're my outdoor slippers.
Your mum won't let me wear those indoors.
For context, where do they live by the back door?
By the back door on the mat.
And they're for compost duties, bin duties, hanging, washing up work,
which would involve going across the lawn or possibly on the stepping stones.
And I wonder, he can't be the only one.
There's got to be people out there that have off-road slippers.
So these are outdoor slippers.
Is this not just textbook dadding though?
Because I'm pretty sure my dad used to do the same.
He had some outdoor slippers.
So my dad, a slipper enthusiast that he was,
but he used to get through slippers at quite a rate because I don't know,
they had a very sort of prominent big toe or something,
but they'd always pop a hole through the front where the big toe was,
or it would start to go, you'd see them going.
I think mine are going now.
I've got a pair on that I've stolen from a hotel.
Yeah, they are starting to go.
But I've had these for about eight months,
and they're the sort of thing that I think the hotel resort only expects you to wear
for one or two nights down to the sauna or whatever.
Over those, yeah, yeah.
So these have been good.
And I actually did go off-road in these because what I do is I sometimes,
I'm a bit naughty and if it's dry, I'll just go outside with the slippers on,
but make sure I really wipe them down on the mat before coming back in.
That's the way I roll, Richard.
Just saying.
This is a fair slipper protocol.
You're listening to Britain's number one car podcast.
Talk about slippers.
I don't like those ones you get given in sort of posh hotels with a spa,
because they're these ones white and they're sort of,
they're just basically a flip-flop, aren't they?
They're white and the sole is extremely thin,
so you can feel every piece of gravel outside.
I've got pea gravel and you can feel all of it.
Yeah, but also you've got really big feet.
I mean, I've got fairly big feet and they're always too short for me.
And that's one of the reasons I don't like them.
I don't like those slippers.
I don't like wearing a robe in an environment where other people aren't,
which you always have to do in those hotels.
They go, I just pop down there and use the sauna and you're like,
but I've got to walk through reception.
There are people wearing business suits that don't like it.
And then there's, if you're wearing normal clothes
and you're just going to the restaurant or something,
there's always like a couple of wet idiots in robes who've just come out of the pool.
I just, I can't, it's all mismatched.
They need to do more compartmentalization of their facilities
and it just, it always just doesn't sit right for me.
In fact, I've been in the bar of a fancy hotel
wearing normal clothes and just having a quiet drink early evening.
And the people at the next table were wearing robes and had wet hair
and it was really off-putting somehow.
If you cross your legs incorrectly, I'm going to see your genitals
and I'm just trying to enjoy a cocktail here.
I don't want that.
Yeah, I think the exposing the junk is a danger, which I definitely fear.
But I hope that one day you and I could maybe go to a hotel bar.
You could have a nice long negroni with a robe on and some free slippers.
But I don't want a robe on.
I want to get dressed and have a negroni.
Yeah.
This is my point.
That's fair.
Or bring the negroni to the pool and I'll have it there.
That's fine.
Okay, great idea.
Yeah.
Good.
The footwear thing.
I'm sure there's listeners who have off-road and in-house slippers, different genres.
It's like the crossover of the slipper world.
You know, originally you had the saloon and the hatch and the four by four
and now you've got these in-betweeny sectors.
I bet like the, I've seen a fur lined croc.
What?
But I thought the whole point of a croc is that they had air allowing to pass through them.
Yeah.
Because they were like a flip-flop that wasn't between your big toe.
Look, I don't know.
Does the fur lining then poke out through the holes in the top of the croc?
A little bit.
I mean, look, crocs are a mess.
Okay.
Yes, there's no need for crocs.
So, talking of going on to other footwear, I was really enjoying the other day healing
and towing in my Beetle.
It's just got the perfect pedal box for it.
It's really lovely.
I don't know whether it's a combination of my feet and the pedal box,
but you know, some cars, it just feels right, doesn't it?
Like a jumper.
We said, you've got working at home jumpers.
We've discussed that before.
So, it's akin to that.
I was really enjoying the healing and towing, but I realised also it's because I was wearing
quite thin shoes and because I've got big feet, if you wear thin shoes, it really helps
driving, especially a man well via vehicle.
So, I was doing a bit of healing and towing.
And then when I was the other weekend, I went to the Goodwood MM.
That's right.
It's the 83rd MM.
Yes.
Meeting of the members could also mean mixed meze.
I don't know, but I'm pretty sure it's members meeting.
I think if you stopped people in the street and said, what does MM stand for?
Mixed meze, would that be, it feels like a pointless answer that.
What would you say MM is?
I would not to sound like a, like a spod, but MM for me, if it wasn't members meeting,
would be Roman numerals for 2000.
I know that is, that's quite.
Oh, so hang on.
The Goodwood 2000 sounds like an amazing household tool that was launched in the 80s.
What if it was, the Goodwood 2000 was like a kind of zany, all bets are off, 2000 mile
race and you can race anything.
Gas turbine car have at it, my friend.
Top fuel dragster, good luck with the corners.
Just whatever you want, but 2000 miles is the aim.
Then they do it when Lord March is out of town, because he's not quite comfortable with this.
So he just turns his back, goes to Antigua or something.
And he's out.
He's out of there.
He's enjoying a free rope and footwear in a resort down the road.
I, I feel like he might just bring his own because he's got very specific requirements
for his rope.
He hasn't tailor made so, and monogrammed obviously with the Goodwood.
Monogrammed, would he go for the golden rope on the edges?
I think he would.
Yes.
I've never had a dressing gown or a bathroom with the, with the rope edging.
Kind of like the rope.
It's like, you know, when you hold back curtains with those tire backs, which have huge elaborate
knots on.
Yes.
I used to be fascinated with them as a kid, though you reminded me of the things that
you put on the side of boats so they don't crash into the key side aggressively.
Yes.
Yeah.
Me too.
That's exactly what they're like.
They're a sort of, yes, like stately home version of that.
I once tied one to the towing eye of one of my cars for fun.
There's no reason.
I don't, I just found it and it looked interesting.
So I just hung it from the back end.
I saw a car the other day where, yeah, obviously modern cars, the towing eye,
it tends to be you pop off a little cover on the bumper and then get the metal towing eye
itself out of the boot, screw it in to the cross member behind the bumper.
And I saw a car the other day, I think it was a quite scuffed Mazda three, so Mazda two.
Yeah.
And the towing eye had been left in, but it got one of those removed before flight tags
hanging from it.
So it was obviously a deliberate, you know, look, is that a thing now?
Have I not noticed this before?
Is it actually a people doing this?
Because I could see they might.
There has been a bit of it.
You sometimes get like little cosplay type creatures or toy story characters hanging off.
Okay.
You know, to heart back to the original toy story thing.
So I've seen a few of those, but also there was a fad 15, 15 years ago, 10 years ago,
where if you had a JDM car, you'd have to have a little Tokyo underground loop
hanging off the towing eye.
That was a thing, big thing.
I don't know where you buy them.
So I was going to buy one, but I just sort of gave up after about 12 seconds of Googling.
Is this something I should be doing on my beat?
Yeah, it would look neat on the beat actually.
Would look really neat.
Speaking of the beat and speaking of heel and towing,
this is the irony is that I really struggle to heal and toe in the beat.
The gap between the brake and the throttle is too big, which is really a tiny car.
And it's also a car that could really use some heel and towing.
But even if you manage it, it gains and drops revs so quickly.
It's really hard to rev match in it because it's just like, you know,
no flywheel effects to speak of.
It's a bad car for heel and towing.
I just don't have the skills to crack it.
It's an ongoing project to do it, but it's not helped by the layout.
The layout is bad.
You could get some pedal foot plate extensions.
Yes, a little one of those little fins on the side would help.
Yeah, you could experiment without that being neat.
It's better that than trying to give myself a bit of extra foot width
by driving in walking boots or something which I've considered,
but probably bad in other ways because the footwell isn't really,
ironically, isn't that big.
Anyway, rigor boots.
Rigor boots.
Yes, I feel like we mentioned rigor boots in an abnormal amount.
But anyway, let's move away from shoes because this podcast is sponsored by our friends
at Car and Classic.
Every week, one of us picks a car from Car and Classic that in a theoretical world,
we are gifting to the other person.
Based on the theme, we've both done our American cars theme,
so we move on to a new one.
It's my turn.
And I thought, since the sun's coming out a little bit at the moment,
the theme should be summer fun.
Summer fun.
Summer fun.
And so, Johnny, I'm sending you this now.
I have picked you this.
I know you like a Honda, and I think I needed something for this theme
with the roof that came off.
Now, there were some other things there that I thought you'd like.
There was a Cabrio Beetle.
There was a Merck SL and R107.
But no, I have picked for you a 1994 Honda Civic CRX Del Sol.
Oh, the Del Sol.
The Derrick Sol.
It's only got 39,000 miles on it from New.
1994 Honda Civic CRX ESI Del Sol.
I was hoping it'd be LSI because then you can sing that song by the Shaman,
where I always thought they were just talking about a trim level of a Civic.
I was going to mix it up with LSE, the London School of Economics,
but I don't think the Shaman ever sang about that.
They were so dainty that that era of Civic, weren't they?
Well, so it's got a 1.6 VTEC engine, five-speed manual box.
Now, we both know Hondas.
I can feel that gear change, and it feels lovely.
They do such good gear changes in Hondas of that era.
Yeah, that will also be a fast car because it will not weigh very much,
because it's not a big car at all.
And flipping love the color, paradise blue-green pearl.
Yeah, it's good, isn't it?
It's quite shell-suity.
It is. Well, it's very 90s, yeah, because it's 90s.
So it's that sort of, yeah, greeny...
Aquamarine.
...shade, is it? Aquamarine, yes.
Aquamarine.
It's an oceanic color.
Oceanic, yeah.
Speaking of 90s...
Yeah, I was going to say, good track.
I reckon that would be really nice to drive that car.
It will be sweet.
It will genuinely be a sweet, sweet car.
And when the sun's out, pop the roof panel in the boot,
and you've got the wind in your hair.
So the Del Sol is the hardtop...
That's right, it's the latest CRX.
That's right.
Now, I don't think, sadly, that this one has the powered boot lid.
You know, these cars, you could get it where the boot lid powered up
until the deck was the height of the roof,
and then the roof panel would motor into the boot lid,
and the boot lid would go back down to normal.
Incredible piece of engineering.
This car doesn't have it, but that's okay.
Okay.
It just has a Targa roof.
And, you know, I think the Targa roof is an underrated thing, so...
That's really weird.
So weird.
I've just seen that it's for sale in Western Supermarine Somerset,
and I remember featuring a guy with a heavily modified CRX Del Sol
when I was on Rev's magazine,
and going to Western Supermarine to shoot it.
And that's probably the last time I really thought about a Del Sol.
That's so strange.
It can't be this one,
because this one is totally stock and time-warp condition.
James May's been at it with his never-made TV former Unpimp My Ride,
which he always wanted to do,
where he takes modified cars and ruthlessly returns them to standard.
And this, he's done a great job,
because it's even got its original Honda stereo in it.
Yeah.
But, um...
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's...
That is a little...
Like, that could be a little gem.
It's just sweet.
Gosh, that is very, very nice, isn't it?
In a parallel world, I've bought that for you.
Oh, I actually fancy it now,
because the sun is out today,
despite the fact that I have a blackout blind next to me.
The sun is really out today,
and I could do with just giving that a bit of a whipping on the way to work.
It's a usable modern classic, and...
I'd be listening to Insanity by Oceanic.
Yes!
Said it now.
Oh, what a song!
Isn't it a song?
Yeah.
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Subject to change.
So, funny you should mention Karin Classic,
because I actually saw Tom, the boss man from Karin Classic,
at the Goodwood MM, the members meeting.
Because he had his damn super touring,
Peugeot 406, or Peugeot 405.
406, I think it was.
Oh, really?
As part of the unbelievable,
it was the highlight for me of the event,
the super touring shootout and exhibition kind of a hot lap thing.
It was so good, and you forget how bloody quick
the super touring cars were.
You had the five-cylinder Volvo 850,
the car that got the stall, the fastest lap shootout,
was Jason Plato's Vectra, Vauxhall Vectra.
Oh, okay.
Which was so fast, and it was Rob Huff driving it.
And so, I was on all of the best corners
when they were running those cars,
because it was just so exciting for me.
I'm sure it's exciting for you.
So, yeah, I loved seeing those.
Well, I was going to say it would have been exciting for me
if I'd been there, but I wasn't.
I had such FOMO that weekend.
I had FOMO because you were at the members meeting.
I had another mate was at the Pride of Longbridge thing in Birmingham,
which I was hoping to be at with my Metro Turbo.
And this was always the sort of
notional goal for getting that car completed.
And I had a chat with the guys at the Den the week before,
and it's so close, but they're not happy with the way it's fueling.
They've had it on the rolling roads,
and it's just not quite fueling right when you get it up.
A few revs on it, particularly in fourth.
And so, they won't, you know, they're just,
they're so detail-orientated and they're so keen to make it as good.
So, they basically, basically Nick was like,
I don't want to give you that, which is fair enough.
I appreciate it, because his view is,
we don't want you to drive away with a big smile on your face
and then call us an hour later and go,
yeah, it's broken down.
So, they are making sure it's absolutely spot-on.
So, I accepted that.
I wasn't going to go to Pride of Longbridge.
I had sort of forgotten to put it in my diary,
and I couldn't really go anyway.
But I'd also forgotten.
It was members meeting, and I was just...
Well, the members meeting was exceptional.
I, there was...
Don't tell me this!
I've got, I can, you can hear that.
That's the weight of the brochure.
And, honestly, Richard,
there was some absolutely spectacular racing,
and there was the Derrick Bell Cup.
That's right.
There was, there was a race called the Derrick Bell Cup.
No, it can't have been just called that.
Well, yeah, they've got it wrong.
It's a typo, because it just says Derrick Bell Cup.
No, it's...
Where's the five-time Le Mans win a bit?
I don't understand.
Quite.
It says a 20-minute race for one litre Formula 3 cars
of a type that raced between 64 and 1970.
There was a whole load of things, you know,
March Fords, Chevron Fords, Brabham Fords, Lotus Fords,
Yeah, I was thinking about Derrick Bell the other day,
and this never occurred to me before,
but I suddenly wondered if anyone calls him Dell.
Dell Bell.
Dell Bell, because he doesn't, he doesn't seem like a Dell.
I'm going to add him to our list of people
whose names can never be abbreviated
along with Dave Attenborough and Steve Fry.
It's, he's just not a Dell, is he?
But Dell Bell is quite an interesting prospect.
Dell Bell, yeah, and I don't like the idea of a race
being called the Derrick Bell Cup,
because Bell and Cup together sounds like a sort of
throwaway insult, you bell cup.
You bell cup.
Just something not right about it, which is...
Or it just sounds like a part for something
that you were previously unaware of,
and you're going, so why is that grinding noise
coming from the back axle?
Well, your bell cups has gone.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, right.
You need to lock tight your bell cups otherwise.
Yeah, always just keep them greased,
and then you'll have this problem.
Yeah, they're not opposite thread.
You thought they were, but they're not.
I've never met Dell Bell.
I'd really like to meet Dell Bell.
I've stood very close to him several times,
which sounds creepy, but it's not.
He's supposed to be a dude.
He looks a little bit like...
Yeah, he's supposed to...
No, he's...
I have, it's like second hand evidence that he's a dude.
Okay.
My brother's met him.
Has he?
Said he was a dude.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah, when my brother worked at Bentley,
they did an ice racing or ice speed record
with Yuha Kankinen, I think.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The Kank...
Derek Bell just turned up,
because he's mates with Yuha Kankinen,
to turn up to give him some, you know,
support and see what was going on.
Some lager.
And the two of them, when Kankinen wasn't in the car
and they were doing work on it or whatever,
the two of them would just be standing there chatting,
I think, smoking thin cigars.
Okay.
And they were dudes, both of them.
Total dudes was the feedback from my brother.
This was years ago, but there's no evidence
that suggests that Derek Bell's dude levels
have reduced at any point.
No.
Because he's still Derek Bell.
Five-time Le Mans winner, Derek Bell.
Five-time Le Mans winning, Derek Bell.
So I was talking about healing and towing,
and I was at the members meeting.
I bumped into a friend of the podcast,
Alistair Somerville, who has...
The one that anonymously at first sent me
that lovely Ford Scorpio die-cast model
with a fake letter from Jackie Stewart.
Yes.
And he is one of Britain's preeminent Jackie Stewart impersonators.
He is.
Not to look at.
He's one of the smartest dress men I know.
He's a very smart dress man.
Yeah.
We started to talk about Cuban heels
because I know a guy that can drive in a spirited manner
in a Cuban, which I said it's got to be a skill in itself, really,
to get across that pedal box with such a strange-shaped shoe
that probably isn't going to help.
It's going to be a hindrance.
And Alistair just came out with it.
He went, well, it should be a discipline.
It should be a race discipline.
It should be Cuban heel and toeing, race series.
And I want to see this, the Cuban heel and toe series.
Can you imagine how furious the footwork would be?
It'd be fantastic.
Basically, line dancing whilst driving and trying not to crash.
Did we talk about this before that there should be like a loafer cup
at the members meeting, just in honour of Etton Center?
In fact, maybe it's all NSXs.
OK.
But everybody's wearing those very soft loafers.
Yeah.
As popularized by that video of Etton Center.
A sort of Italian yacht-wealth shoe.
Oh, yes.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yes.
That's the thing.
It's optimized to walk on decking.
Not the kinds you get from being cute, the yacht stuff.
So, but the Cuban heel and toe trophy.
Cuban heel and toe trophy.
And I like this, yes.
You know, when you have POV driving cameras and they have all the sponsors
on the dashboard strategically placed so that you can always hunk back.
I think all the sponsorship and everything should be in the foot well
because there's more of an emphasis on the cameras on the pedal box.
Yes.
So, you really are watching those dancing feet.
Michael Flatley would be all over this shit, I'm telling you.
Well, that was my next question.
Who's doing this?
Is it existing drivers?
Are we getting, you know, people like a formatory car guys and, you know,
whoever else wants to?
Yeah, we're getting, I think we launch it.
We launch it properly with pros and ex-pros, but the footwear, yeah,
that they can pick their own footwear, but there's obviously a mandatory length.
So, even if you've got size five feet, the Winkle picker is more elongated
in order to make it uniform.
There might be some Aladdin spec shoes going on here.
And you're allowed to choose ornaments, rhinestones, embroidery work, that kind of thing.
If that's what you, that's your groove, you can do that.
Is it requirement that your racing overalls have to be sort of style to match?
You have to have massive boot cuts to go over the Winkle pickers, over the Cubans.
So, I think we're going to bring back the kind of, yeah, the slightly flared race suit.
Is it? Or because they tend to be, they're cuff ankle, aren't they?
Basically, race suits for safety reasons.
That's right. They are cuff ankle, yeah.
Is, in fact, the suit not going inside the boot for that slightly odd look.
That's a bit line-dancy. It's like lady line dancer look.
Yeah, I don't like that look, because I want the race trouser to be over the top of the Cubans.
Essentially, all of the drivers, because I'm seeing
exclusively light colored suits, really. So, all the drivers are going to look like
evil conneval slash fat Elvis.
Have you ever watched pro rodeo bull riding? We talked about it many, many moons ago,
but pro, I went through a phase of watching pro bull riding and the competitors have
like these, I guess like a Kevlar waistcoat with a traditional waistcoat over the top
to stop their torsos being trampled by a bull and then thus killing them.
So, they put their waistcoat over the top of the safety armor, has got all the sponsors
embroidered on the front and back. So, it kind of looks like a biker waistcoat in a way.
Who's sponsoring a pro rodeo rider? Like what?
Oh, loads. Tall companies, cigarettes, probably some booze.
Guns, yeah. Skull bandits, are they still a thing? I don't know.
Who's bandits? What?
Skull, not the lager. Skull bandits, like tobacco pouches that you put up in your
cheeks, like the nicotine hamster. They were briefly sold here. I mean,
those sort of things have sort of come back, but in the 80s, I'm sure I remember skull bandits
being a thing, and I'm sure they're American. They did come back when they phased out the,
when the smoking band came in pubs and things, because they're quite Scandinavian,
but you are right, you look like a nicotine hamster. So, such a good description of it.
Are they popular in Scandinavia because it's too cold to go outside and have a cigarette,
so you just pop a little pillow of tobacco into your face?
It is like a sort of ravioli that you can get off your face on, isn't it?
Yeah.
Because if I had a couple and I get a big surge of nicotine, having not had nicotine in
ever, I'd be just hip-hopping all over the place with my Cubans on.
Something to consider for one of our live shows, perhaps?
Yeah, I think so.
A live science experiment in which Johnny, who has only ever had nicotine when he smoked a cigar
with dirt Benedict out of the 18, is exposed to a high quantity of nicotine
from a tiny little tea bag that he's going to put into his cheek.
Yeah. Problem is, are we talking absolute gibberish?
Well, I say that.
We're on this podcast, so that is what I'm thinking.
It's like my ongoing dilemma where the last few live shows I feel have gone quite well,
but they're also the last few live shows where I've had a quantity of wine on stage,
and now it's a bit like, if I stop having wine on stage, will we have a disastrous show?
No, you'll be fine.
You'll be fine.
Was that Snooker player, Bill Werbenick, who could only play when he'd had like 90
pints of beer?
Yeah, we talked about him, and it makes me feel ill thinking about the quantity of booze.
We looked this up, didn't we, and it was a ridiculous amount of booze that he was drinking,
but then he was told that he was going to die if he didn't stop drinking.
He found he couldn't play Snooker without the booze, so he's in a sort of
catch-22 situation that I don't want to get like that, but that's...
No, no, no, so there was also, in your absence at the members' meeting,
someone else was there to heavily drink and embarrass themselves.
I don't know who they were, but I saw what happened, and it was fantastic.
Is this people who may remember the podcast we recorded in a hotel room with friend of the
quite a lot of whine, which by path to that particular state was started at the afternoon
of the members' meeting.
Beautiful sunny afternoon, been around, looking at cars, having a great time.
It was just always... I was like, real moment as in, I got back to this hospitality thing that we
were allowed access to, and the sun was streaming in through the windows.
There's people coming around, and I sat down, and I just sat down, just to take the weight off,
and there was a chap sitting nearby who, someone just, one of the staff just brought him a glass
of white wine and just put it down, and the light shone through it perfectly, and I just thought,
that looks amazing.
That looks like an advert for wine, and I like wine.
So I asked if I could have a glass of wine, and they brought me one, and then they brought me
another one, and then another one, I think, and then I realized that I was quite heavily sunburned,
because I'm having too much of a nice time out in the sunshine without putting any sun cream on.
And so, I sat there being ruddy-faced and a bit drunk, and happy as Larry.
You were very, you had a big, big smile on your face, I have to say, it was a huge smile.
I had a lovely day, and this was just a lovely ending to that day, although then obviously
the evening wore on, and things unraveled, but yeah, it was great.
So was there somebody else ruddy-faced and insensible in the house?
There was someone else who took your place, they were,
okay, good, I'm glad.
They watched, from what we could gather, they watched a grand total of no racing at the event.
They sat the whole time in the outdoor seating area of the aerodrome.
They were drinking white wine by the bottle, but the thing that really amused me is I nicknamed
him the flightless pilot, because he had a huge Biggles flight jacket on, and he definitely
wasn't going anywhere near an aeroplane, or possibly never had.
And this flightless pilot was getting absolutely banjaxed with a friend of his,
and muttering, and he had dark glasses on, and he went to get up to go to the toilet,
and just walked, walked diagonally through a load of those outdoor chairs,
and just knocked them over like skittles.
He went down like, you know, like a game of 10-bin bowling with outdoor chairs,
and then he stumbled towards the toilet.
I don't know what went on in the toilet, but the manageress of the
this, the hospitality area, we were guests of LP, thank you LP, and it was a lovely event,
and this guy came out afterwards looking quite sheepish, and the manageress said, excuse me,
have you just been sick in there?
Oh no!
And he went, no?
She went, oh, because someone said that it sounded like someone was being quite violently ill in
there, and he went, no, no, that wasn't me, no.
And he just, he shuffled off back outside to his nurse's wine.
The furry colour of your flying jacket has got quite a lot of socket.
I know, I do know the thing is, is the whole time, because there's light aircrafts tethered
up outside, the whole time I was thinking to myself, if he gets up after another bottle of
wine, and then crawls across the lovely green grass towards a helicopter, or a plane, I am
running for my life, I am running for my life.
Actually, Banjax, this guy was, yeah.
Yeah, I know.
Good, I'm glad that somebody was taking care of the, so there wasn't an unnecessary
buildup of white wine in the Goodwood area.
No, no, no, it was being taken care of, yeah, and the other person that I bumped into,
oh, I didn't talk to a flightless pilot.
A guy came over and chatted and said, oh, I really enjoy watching you and Richard doing the Goodwood
Festival of Speed videos on YouTube.
He said, I especially loved the Steele Luxe, where you did the Fasselweger chats and walk
around.
I said, oh, I'm glad you enjoyed that.
He said, well, the thing is, one of those Fasselweger's is mine.
Oh.
And I said, oh, I said, yeah, Johnny, it was the one that you really fixated on, the black,
I think it was HK500, the, from the mid-60s.
And I said, oh, I said, that car is to die for.
I absolutely loved that car.
I said to him, what does it drive like?
He said, I don't know, because I still haven't finished it.
I've been building it for 27 years.
Of course.
I was hoping to have it finished for that Goodwood, but we ended up just pushing it in there.
And so he's hoping to have it finished this summer, like in the next month or so.
After 27 years, he said he bought it before his children were like secondary school.
And he said, all my children are now in their 30s and living in different corners of the world.
And he said, I still haven't driven or anyone else has been in my Fasselweger.
So I'm really hoping that it's going to be impressive.
And he said, if you'd like to, you can come and have a go in it when it's done.
And I would love to, because as you know, we talked about it.
Fasselweger's, I think, are one of the coolest cars out there and not really talked about.
So I'm excited about that.
Could I come too?
You can.
Can you bring a basket of wine with you?
And what I'll do is I will drive you around the countryside,
and we will wax lyrical about the Fasselweger.
And I did actually, I was going to say to him, I said, look, if you want,
I'll do your swapsi with the Dodge.
You can drive the Dodge for a few hours and we'll drive the Fasselweger
and just enjoy being a distinguished gentleman from the sixties.
And yeah, so that happened.
Johnny, can I ask you some questions about home energy?
But while inserting the word plinth into everything I say for no reason whatsoever.
Of course.
Great. So I think we all know home energy prices are all over the shop at the moment.
Plinth.
But is there anything someone can do about that?
You're right.
And that's why this might be a good time to look into solar and battery storage for your home.
And that's where heatable comes in.
Ah, yes, heatable.
How would someone find out more about what heatable do?
Do they have to ring up and plinth get some solar power sales pitch or something?
Ah, no.
You just go to the heatable website and use their online tool to get a quote for solar
with no awkward phone calls or sales pitches.
None of this plinth comes for free, though, does it?
No, but heatable can make it more doable with 0% finance options.
And it's not only solar because they also sell EV chargers, boilers, heat pumps and air conditioners.
Whatever you need to upgrade your home, they've probably got it.
What about a plinth?
What about a what?
Follow the link in the description to find out more about heatable
and use code SSG300 for £300 off solar or SSG150 for £150 off aircon, battery and boiler products.
There was a race of exclusively E-types, but I hadn't clocked that this was the case.
So as I was walking down the paddock, there was a paddock which just had E-types as far as
the eye could see. And I just walked down there and just for some reason,
to my girlfriend, just did the Quentin Wilson as if I was presenting.
I did the walk and the gesture and I went E-type Jaguar, E-type Jaguar,
beautiful red E-type Jaguar, and E-type Jaguar Roadster example, beautiful, beautiful motorcar
E-type Jaguar. And there were 23 of them.
Oh.
And I didn't get bored saying it, I said it for the whole life.
And there was only one that was very different and one of them was like a low drag,
which is the last one I came to, low drag E-type Jaguar.
It's like a car version of that bit from the Borat outtakes
where he goes around to supermarket.
What is this? This is cheese.
What is this? This is also cheese.
What is this? This is cheese. And so it goes on, but with E-types.
But DJ Khaled does that in real life.
He probably does. No, well, he knows what she is.
Was there a reason for there being so many E-types?
I don't remember there being any type of E-race when I went.
Or is there? I wasn't paying attention because of wine.
Let me get this right. Here we go.
As our inaugural Prothero Cup race celebrates the 65th anniversary of the Jaguar E-type,
we explore the career of famed E-type exponent Dick Prothero
and meet his most famous car.
And that car, I think it's cut eight number plate,
which we've talked about before. It's quite a famous E-type.
Is owned by, I think, and it was definitely driven by
everyone's friend, Jensen Button.
And Jensen Button also drove his 2009 F1 championship winning
Braun GP car. I saw this.
Which was, I think, people who know more about F1 than I do were so excited.
It was mostly from the sound because he was going.
He was going, Richard. He wasn't hanging around.
And it was a sight to behold.
I tell you, it was a sight to behold, although
flightless pilot will never know what it was like because he wasn't really there.
He didn't even hear it.
He might as well have been in a bed-sit in Watford.
He didn't even get to hear that sweet V8 sound echoing across the circuit
because he was plugging the plinth of a lavatory at that time.
He was absolutely, he was bump-starting the bowl, I think he was.
Oh, yeah.
Despicable.
Sorry, just checking.
Are you looking for somebody called Ralph?
Because I did hear you shouting that name from inside the loo before.
Okay, well, that's just another thing I'm glad I didn't get to see at the memos meeting because
it sounds great.
Yeah, it was a really good, there was some quality racing to be had, I have to say.
And I always forget that Goodwood now has these houses
and you win points for your houses.
Oh, yes.
Whenever they mention the names of the houses, I don't quite catch them.
So I can't really remember what any of them are called.
And then I feel, you know, you're like, oh, I can't really...
That's a good point.
What are they called?
Well, I was going to ask you, can you...
I don't know, you're right now, now you mention it.
It's like...
Can you name a house?
My asthma...
Who?
Lytotes.
Who?
I don't, I'm just making up things.
Did you say...
I obviously don't know.
Matotes.
Did you just say Matotes?
Mixomatosis.
That's a good name for a racing house.
I should...
Goodwood...
Hang on, I'm going to look this up.
Goodwood members meeting houses.
A house competition.
Here we go.
Blah, blah, blah, things, stuff.
Yes, the houses are...
Obini.
Is that how you pronounce it?
The Duke of Richmond is...
The Duke of Richmond is Duke of Obini in France.
Oh.
Is he?
Oh, I see.
OK, the title descends from Louis du Carrouel,
young French aristocrat who became the mistress of Charles II
and the mother of the first Duke of Richmond.
Obini is represented by...
God, this is like the hard-to-pronounce house
because it's represented by Andy Priar,
the legendary touring car driver,
but also a man with a lot of vowels and Xs going on.
The other house is Darnley.
The house captain is Tom Christensen, King of Le Mans.
For sure, yeah, yeah.
He was on it this weekend.
Not on it like Biggles Flight Jacket Guide,
but on it as in on the track doing very well.
Yes, yeah.
Well, that's it.
So, Matthew is one house, house captain is Gordon Shedden.
And finally, Tor Bolton, house captain,
friend O The Show and regular listener, Dario Frankitti.
And this house name also derives
from Baron Matthew and Tor Bolton, a Scottish title.
I was going to say, if they didn't give Dario a Scottish title,
that'd be a bit rum, but yeah.
He is the house captain of Tor Bolton.
Yeah, bumped into him and his bro, Marino.
And we were...
Well, he remembers all the house names
because those boys are the captains, but I didn't.
I mentioned, I think, Methadone and Ketamin
and realized quickly that those were not the names of the houses
at all in any shape or form.
So, yeah, I just kind of shriveled away,
but I enjoyed, I very much enjoyed the racing
and fantasized about being a talented racing driver.
for real progress.
Whether it's your first time in therapy or your 50th,
Grow makes it easier to find a therapist who fits you,
not the other way around.
You can search by what matters, like insurance,
specialty, identity or availability,
and get started in as little as two days.
And if something comes up,
you can cancel up to 24 hours in advance at no cost.
Grow helps you find therapy on your time.
Whatever challenges you're facing,
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Was Tiff there? Do you see Tiff?
I didn't see Tiff.
I saw Monkey Harris who was in an alpha...
Oh, yeah.
He was in an alpha suit, right?
It was a suit.
Yeah, with a sponsor by a spaghetti company.
Napalina, I think it is.
Okay.
It was in the really nice livery.
Yeah, it's cool.
Good.
And Dario was supposed to be or was in
the Volvo Turbobrick, the Volvo 240 Turbo.
Touring car, yeah, but it was having problems
and it didn't run on Sunday and didn't...
Right.
It didn't really make much of an outing,
which was sad for him and for everybody else.
But yeah, lots of other cool things.
Got to see Alex Brundle, obviously son of Superleggera,
Neck Chain, Martin driving the E21 BMW,
you want to say it's a 320?
It might be a 323.
Touring culture was very, very cool.
Enjoyed that one a lot, a lot, mate.
Talking of BMWs, you know, in South Africa,
there's a big doughnut kind of drifting scene,
mostly using E30 BMWs, which goes back.
Chas and chas and chas.
Yeah.
Which I think has a name.
I did write it down.
It's called spinning, isn't it?
Is it?
Yes, it is called spinning.
Yeah.
We sent James May to do it when we filmed the Grand Tour
in South Africa.
Studio tent there.
And we sent James off to do it in the afternoon.
And then we were all propping up the hotel bar in the evening
when he came back from his evening of spinning.
And he absolutely reeked of tyre and clutch smoke.
Oh, gosh, I bet he had fragments all over him.
Yeah, it was actually quite unpleasant to stand near him
because he stank so heavily of it,
and no one else in the bar did.
But yeah, he had an amusing time, I think.
Did he have, like, Maxis?
He had freckles of Maxis and Continental all over him.
Yeah, no, all of his clothes were sort of doubled in weight
because of all of the bits of tyre.
Stuck in them like a London to Brighton person in the rain.
And the tweed takes on water.
But yeah, spinning's a real...
I don't know if it's still a real thing there, is it?
But it definitely was a thing,
certainly when we were there like 10 years ago.
It's become more official.
So, like, less done on the streets illegally
and more done in arenas.
And it does differ from...
It's more like the burnout masters in Australia
than pro-drifting.
Oh.
Because it's closer proximity, lower speed,
but just as manic.
But the reason why I say this
is because they're doing it now with bicycles,
which you might have seen.
People, mostly kids, are building drift bicycles in Africa.
And they're covering the back tyres in plastic bottles,
like uncut open plastic bottles.
And they're extending the frames
and making these mad-looking long wheelbase bikes
and then leaning right over the bars.
And it is so much fun.
My Instagram's just suddenly served me up, blimmin' hours of it.
I think it's called, either it's called bike spinning
or it's called gushishi, G-U-S-H-E-S-H-E,
which is basically the bicycle version of the BMW doughnut
and burning out stuff, but it's very tough.
G-U-S-H-E-S-H-E.
G-U-S-H-E-S-H-E, yeah, gushishi.
Oh, wait. Hang on.
But this says the gushishi is the nickname
for the BMW E-3325Is produced in South Africa
in the late 80s and early 90s.
Oh, that's the name of that car, which is synonymous with it.
Yeah. Oh.
It is used for spinning.
Oh, wow. Look, even a few years ago,
BMW South Africa did a limited edition 330Is
just for South Africa to pay tribute to the legendary gushishi.
I saw this.
Did not know this.
I don't. There weren't many made.
It'd be like 200 or something.
230, yeah.
Right, right.
Those BMs built down in South Africa,
I think they might have been.
They certainly, because they didn't have a 333 at some point as well.
I was about to say, because I loved the badge,
it almost looked made up.
They had a BMW 333i, which just sounds amazing.
Half the beast.
Yes. A demi-beast.
I don't know whether there's any 333s on the car in classic.
Of course, besides the options,
you've got the ever-addictive classifiers,
which one must not go and look at.
Well, one must exercise caution
when spending half a day looking at them,
or one may end up buying something.
Lord knows we've all been tempted on a daily basis.
But anyway, look, we should wrap this up.
I know.
But before we do, I just want to say thank you to everybody
who sent us nice messages or left nice comments
about our switch to video.
If you do want to watch as we are now a video podcast as well,
you don't have to though.
We are still audio, of course, as well.
The videos can be found on YouTube.
If you're going there, do leave us a comment.
Also like and subscribe.
We might have a song about that in a minute.
But anyway, also, I did want to say thank you as well
to Mark, our videographer, who is the one who set up this whole thing
and made it look the way it does,
which I think is really nice.
And we'd have never managed that on our own
with where it just wouldn't have matched up at all.
Absolutely not.
So thank you, Mark, for your sterling work,
getting our asses in gear.
Before we go, I've got three things I'd like to share with you.
I said a while ago I was going to stop doing these stupid endings
as we switched to video.
This seems like a good...
Well, right, I just ran out of them,
but I thought a slight change in format
or the additional format seems like a good time to wrap it up.
But one last time, Johnny has got a rather strange project on the go,
which he's going to write a farewell book
about the former lead singer of Merillion
in league with the ghost of Douglas Adams
under the working title So Long and Thanks for All the Fish.
If that's not to your taste,
then there is, of course, the late break show.
What's going on with that?
I enjoyed your play-toe film, by the way.
That was very good.
Thank you.
It's shown behind the scenes of his new race team,
which did very well on his first outing, didn't it?
It's like...
Did you see first outing poll?
One of the cars got poll.
It was amazing.
Yeah, and then got a podium,
which he's what he wanted, isn't it?
So, yeah, not quite a win, but got a third.
And fourth, I think, so it's been very good.
Yeah, he phoned me to thank me, actually.
He video call phoned me,
but I won't tell you what he was doing.
But in the videos which have just gone out
off of the late break show,
there's a really good car cave collection
of a bloke who lives near Leeds,
who has the widest car taste.
He has, at one end, like a Stanley steamer car.
He has two steam cars,
which are both fully functional,
and he took me out for a ride in one of them.
Right.
And showed me the start-up procedure,
which I think is cool,
and I'm not even Francis Bourgeois.
And then you've got Fisca Carmas.
Oh.
You've got mad pre-war cars,
really, really good pre-war race and road cars.
You've got 90s bent Leeds.
You've got all sorts of stuff.
Bubble cars, his car taste is quite out there.
I was really taken aback.
So you've got that.
And then a couple of days prior to that,
if you haven't seen it,
there's an update on my Matra Rancho Super Imprets body swap,
which was born out of us talking about F-ing wheelbases,
which is now starting to cost me a pretty penny,
because I wanted to put this idea into practice.
Oh.
And I must also mention,
and I'm going to hold it up and rustle it.
Remember the Enya calendar I talked about?
Yes.
Well, I found out who sent us this Enya calendar.
Yes.
And it was sent to us,
because he actually wrote to us saying,
look, guys, listen,
it's a chap called Art McCarrick,
and he's looking forward to attending the Belfast Otlot,
and he might bring us a second calendar,
if Richard wants one, for curiosity purposes.
So I want to say a massive thank you to you, Art.
I'm going to hang up my Enya calendar in front of me
as I podcast,
and I can look at pictures of single-seater race cars
within his name on.
So thank you very much for that on that side of things.
Second thing I want to say to you
is that I have various books out.
The most recent one is called Petrolhead.
It's a collection of columns from Evo
that I've written over the, God, 20-odd years
that I've been writing for them.
It's available from Amazon as an e-book or a paperback,
or you can get it from a Smith & Sniff merch shop
as a paperback,
and you can also buy various other items of merchandise,
including hoodies, T-shirts, mugs, stickers.
Dicals.
All that stuff is.
Dicals.
Dicals.
So go to smithandsniff.com.
It's also where you'll find the live show page,
where you can get tickets to our show in Belfast
on the 15th of May,
or our new upcoming live shows
on the 9th and 10th of June
at the London Concourse links there.
And the third thing I was going to share with you
is, you know, in the Jigs of Hazard,
the police officer was called Roscoe P. Coltrane.
Yes, which I never fully understood as a child.
It all sounded like four different names or...
Yes, could you divide that up?
Show me where it was.
It was Ros and then Coe.
No, I think it's not.
It's Roscoe.
Roscoe is one name.
But then, do you know what the P stood for?
No.
Purvis.
I only found this out in the day.
I was like, oh, OK.
I wouldn't have...
I mean, I don't know what I thought it was.
I mean, I assumed it wasn't like Phil, but...
Roscoe Purvis Coltrane.
Bloody hell.
Purvy Coltrane.
I thought it was Ros Coe Peaceltrain.
When I was a kid, and I was like...
Peaceltrain.
It all sounds... Peaceltrain.
Yeah, like...
Peaceltrain.
Or Pickle Train.
Like a train of pickles.
I don't...
Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Peaceltrain.
It's a boy.
We shall call him Ros Coe.
Ros Coe, like County Armour or County Down.
Oh, I see your company.
Like Ros Coe Peaceltrain.
The Ros Company Peaceltrain.
Yes.
Well, it's no more absurd than Roscoe Peaceltrain.
Really, I don't think.
Do you think it's more or less absurd now that, you know,
it's Purvis is behind the P?
Purvis is not a great...
It's not a great name.
It's not, is it?
It's not.
It's not even...
I mean, no.
No.
All right, well, on that moment of learning,
let's call time on this.
But we're back on Friday with Otterside answering your questions.
Normal show on Monday.
Until then, goodbye.
Bye.
Yes, Comersk.
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Will you two please spit it out already?
Um...
This Friday, be the first to experience it only in theaters.
In light of the recent scandal, I'm here to restore your credibility.
Oh, because we're a team now?
That's a nice story.
The Devil Wears Prada 2,
ready PG-13, may be inappropriate for children under 13 in theaters Friday.
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About this episode
The Smith & Sniff crew kicks off with live-show updates (Belfast May 15, then two nights in London June 9–10) and a lot of banter. The main car talk detours into “outdoor slippers,” hotel-spa footwear gripes, and the joys and frustrations of heel-and-toe—especially in a Beetle versus a Beat. Goodwood Members’ Meeting stories follow, including touring-car highlights, E-type overload, and a hilarious “flightless pilot” wine-fueled incident. They also reveal a Car and Classic pick: a stock 1994 Honda CRX Del Sol. The episode ends with more weird projects, merch/book plugs, and a “cuban heel and toe” race-discipline idea.
Jonny has an idea for a new race series. Also in this episode, news of London live shows, outdoor slippers, wet idiots in hotels, heel and toeing, the Goodwood Members’ Meeting, pro rodeo sponsors, Skol Bandits, a boozy Biggles, big lines of E-Types, South African spinning, and a summer fun car from Car & Classic.
