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Now look, we don't normally do car news on this podcast.

Not really.

Or we do, but we do it like six weeks after it's happened because we're very useless and forgetful.

And we'll put a spin on it that no one really asked for.

We talked about cars quite a lot last week and we had quite a few people go,

no, that's fine. We enjoyed that, which I didn't expect because usually we get

told off for talking about cars. But let's just shuffle over to the motor industry news desk because

it's steaming.

And we need to talk about Jerry McGovern. Hair.

Hair. Because let's be honest, everybody else is. So why not? But I also think that

there's been a great deal of chatter that's sort of incorrect or lacks any sense of knowledge

about how the car industry works. Yes.

As you probably know, the news broke last Tuesday that Jerry McGovern was leaving Jaguar Land Rover.

The implication was, in fact, he had left extremely abruptly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And there was lots of hyperbole in the coverage about he was marched from the building.

Yes.

And all of this. Now, this was all a leak. There was nothing official.

For me, this was a very strange day because it was last Tuesday.

It was the day of Quentin Wilson's funeral. And I was just getting ready to leave to head to that

when someone I know who's very well connected in the car industry said,

McGovern's going from JLR. And that was all the message really said. So I thought, oh, right,

retirement because the fact is that Jerry McGovern turned 70 a couple of months ago.

Wow.

So he is well past retirement age.

I didn't know he was that old.

And I'd always assumed he's just hanging on in there till the new Jaguars are launched

or at least the first one is the first production car.

And then he can go, yeah, there you go. No need to thank me. I'm off.

And that will be his, his sort of swan song. So it's, I thought, well, maybe they've gone

hang on. No, you can't keep working past 70. You know, there's all sorts of policies in

place and la la la. So I'm afraid you're going to have to just hang up your hat.

And then I went to Quentin's funeral. Now, I should have guessed something was a foot because

there was a very senior JLR comms person there that we know. And he left extremely quickly

as soon as the service was over. And it was probably because there was trouble at mill.

His phone was, was melting. Yeah.

Because I had my phone off for a large chunk of the day. And it was only when I got back

to the car after the wake that I took it off aeroplane mode. And it, it, it went absolutely

bonkers with WhatsApps and emails and all sorts of stuff. And I was like,

and it became clear that the story that had leaked was my governs been booted.

That's right. And then like you say, it sounded like he'd been kind of forcibly

ejected from the business and the building. And I don't know if that's the case.

I have a theory about this. Now, the thing is, I think it's quite interesting how interested

people are in this whole situation. That's partly I think because he's been there for 21 years.

And that is a long time to be the boss of design anywhere.

And let's give him credit where it's due. He has overseen, I think, a range of very good

looking and very successful cars in the main. And he's masterminded things like

successive generations of Range Rover, two of them haven't been that many generations of Range Rover.

The scope to royally screw up the Range Rover, I think is much greater than people think.

It's one of those cars like the Porsche 911, like the VW Golf where it is sort of the

nucleus of the company in many ways. And you have to gently evolve it whilst not

letting it stagnate. That is a tough thing to pull off. It's a sacred item, isn't it?

Yes. And of course, people have opinions about it as well. If you get even one little detail

wrong in some way. And I know that there was a lot of flak for those panels on the doors of the

last shape one. But otherwise, I think generally people get...

I don't know what you're talking about.

That is a handsome car. It's also weathered really nicely, I think. And the new one, I think,

is a very good looking car with some lovely sort of subtle details that evolve it and make

it look modern. You know, depending on how you spec it, it can look actually,

you know, quite discreet and tasteful. And you could see the king getting out of one.

Or it can look like it's been ordered by Kim Cardasian or someone. And that's part of the skill

of the designers and the colour and trim people and stuff, is they've done a really good job,

I think. Yeah. So, you know, that fair enough,

Jeremy McGovern has overseen... There's been a lot of coverage as well. This always

slightly bugs me, but I understand why that people always attribute

entire car designs to whoever's in charge of design at a car company.

Yes, yes. Like it's one person with a clipboard.

Exactly. Yeah, he's got one sheet of A4 and he's going,

oh, go do a bloody Range Rover again. But design directors don't design cars.

They sit in meetings, is the truth of it. They are there, though, to be the taste makers.

They set the tone. They approve the concepts that will be evolved into production cars.

So they are the ultimate gatekeeper, but they're not sitting there sketching or rendering

or doing the clay modelling or anything like that.

They're huge teams that do the actual hard work, but they are the ones like Roman emperors who go,

yes, no, no, kill him. And that's how it works. But then the car comes out and all the hundreds

of people who've worked on it and the maybe one person, maybe a team who came up with the language

for that model, they get shuffled away behind the door and to a greater or lesser degree,

the design director gets to go, here's my new car. And that's just the way it works.

But I think, you know, it's worth saying that they're a conductor of the orchestra.

That's it. And the conductor has to know what everybody is doing

and where they should be and where they shouldn't be. Yes.

Because ultimately that that little stick carries pretty much all the clout on the night off of

the proms and all that. So how many, by the way, how many last nights are there of the

proms? I get very confused with that. I know it's a slightly different issue, but it seems to be

every night is the last night. It's true, isn't it? Yes. What about the first night of the proms?

First night of the proms where it's not full of people wearing Union Jack hats,

because I find them annoying. Anyway, yeah. So I think that's one reason why people

have an opinion about Jerry McGovern is because he's been there a long time.

He's overseen a lot of very familiar cars. And so people sort of have an opinion.

But I think also people have an opinion about Jerry McGovern, because he is quite a divisive

character. Very much so, yeah. People are fascinated by the man himself. Yeah.

And I would say that Jerry McGovern's relationship with the media has always been

tense, perhaps would be the word. I think what I think he lives behind a facade. I think he's

quite a shy person, believe it or not. And he has his guard up. So you never really see his

true personality on the outside compared to other designers and people in high up positions within

the industry who come across quite warm and approachable. Jerry's not. Yeah. Jerry's never

been approachable. But whether that's intentional, I don't know. He didn't come from a privileged

background. And I think that slightly informs his attitude, which is that

he is a little bit on the back foot because he thinks that maybe people don't think he

deserves to be there, despite a vast body of work that says, no, you're up to it, mate. You

can do this. Yeah. So I think that slightly informs his attitude to the media because

he doesn't enjoy their criticisms of his work or of him personally. Nobody likes

being criticised. But on the other hand, you have to say, look, you're the design director of a

very well known firm. Unfortunately, this is part of the role is sucking it up. But instead,

it led to this rather prickly relationship with the media. There was a preview of the

current Range Rover in the Gayden studio complex. And we all sat there on some chairs arranged

in the viewing room. And McGovern stood up and did a little speech. Henry Catchpole

was in the front row. Now, we know Henry, very affable man. But he's at work, he's listening

to what's being said because he's got to take a note of it for a story, presumably.

McGovern started speaking and he stopped. He looked at Henry and he went, cheer up,

you're at the reveal of a new Range Rover. Yeah. The rest was like, whoa, easy.

I was at that. I think I was in the front row at that event.

You were. Yeah, I remember you were there. Yeah. And yeah, he took a pot shot at me as well.

Did he? He did. Yeah. And I was extremely close because I have nothing to lose of just calling

him out on all the things that I think he should be doing. The converse of it is that kind of

outspoken style sometimes gave gold. And actually, I was thinking about this weirdly,

given that the news of his departure broke on the day of Quentin's funeral.

The first time I met Jerry McGovern was with Quentin. And we were filming at the Los Angeles

Motor Show in, I think this was the year 2000. We were having a break outside and Jerry just

wandered past because at that point he was at Lincoln, so he was based in the US.

And he knew Quentin and he seemed to like Quentin as well. So they sort of acknowledged

each other. And then Jerry came over and he sat down with us. And I'd never met him

before. I was a little bit starstruck because it's like, I've seen him in magazines. He's the bloke

who designed the MGF and the first Freelander. The Freelander, yeah. I found one on someone's

front garden the other day with the extra, you know, that body kit with Alan Key. Oh, yes.

Bolts and ribs on the Freelander. I don't know what, I'm sure it's got a name. But there

was one on someone's front garden with that full kit on it. Did it have those three

spoke wheels on it? It did. It looks so 90s. I actually liked it. It was a proper

Radwood contender in the making. Oh my gosh, yeah. Yeah. That must be that body kit. It's

got to be super rare, but yeah. Anyway, no, so yeah, that's the first time I ever encountered

Jerry McGovern and he sat down with Quentin and I was just there listening in and he was

sort of disarmingly blunt and honest and was telling us how much profit per car Lincoln

made on the navigator, which was outrageous because it's basically a truck with leather

and stuff. Yeah. At that point, you know, he seemed candid and quite serious, but then the

next time that I met him was when the evoke was announced and EVO for some reason asked me to go

to this, or you know, all white infinity studios just off the M40 where there'd be a car

and a one on one with Jerry to talk about the design. And when I walked into the studio,

you know, he came out and shook hands and I said, okay, so should we just have a little

wander around the car and you can, you can sort of talk to me about the design and he just grabbed

two chairs and plonked them on the edge of the white studio bit and just went, here's what's

going to happen. We're going to sit here and we're going to have a conversation. And I was a bit

like, okay, we're right. And it was just, there was a very sort of like a police,

80s police detective doing interrogation. That's what it sounded like. Yeah. Cove,

copper telling you can have a chat. And if you didn't, you might accidentally fall down

some stairs. There was a sort of slightly aggressive tone to it. So we sat down, we're

having a chat. Another thing is, you know, he's an interesting guy to chat to because he's talking

about car design, which I think all of us who love cars, but aren't designers are fascinated by

the mechanics of it and the processes and the tricks of the trade. But then there was this

young junior PR, who's the only other person in the studio. And her phone went and she went

right to the back of the room to take the call. But they're very echoey spaces,

those. And even if it was a big room, you could still hear her voice. And this clearly

displeased Jerry. And when she came off the call, he called her over and he went,

is that how you conduct yourself when the design director speaking? And she's obviously like,

you can see us sort of paralyzed in fear. And then he just went on and on her. This is

very disrespectful what you've just done all this stuff. And I was like, I'm not enjoying

this. And he kind of shot me a look like, yeah, look at my power. I didn't enjoy it at all. I thought

it was it was unnecessary. Yeah, that's that's the kind of character he was. He didn't he just

didn't muck around. He was extremely direct. And he needed people to be aware of his status

as the top dog. Yeah, exactly of the power. And it's funny how since this news broke,

and it has gone very wide spread, there's been an awful lot of photos of bad hair circulating.

But and we are partly responsible for that. But there's a lot of a direct association with this

divisive new Jag concept. Yes. The electric big slab slabby velvet kind of finished Jag,

which has really divided people and a lot of people who hate that car or hate the way that

the brand did its massive relaunch. I think their point in the finger at Jerry may be going

right, he did this and there's been an almost backlash. And so that's why he's had to go.

We're pretty sure that's not the case, right? It's not. It's I've heard some people who

should know better peddling that line. And I find it deeply disappointing and frustrating

because it betrays an absolute lack of knowledge about how the car industry works.

And about lead times and all sorts of stuff. Absolute bollocks. It is no secret that

Jerry McGovern wielded an awful lot of power within Jaguar Land Rover and you know,

sat at board level, but he was not the only person there. There is a board and there is the company

Tata that owns them. I'm sure that with his force of personality and his passion for design,

he heavily pushed for Jaguar to go in that direction. But he did not just unilaterally

force it through without teams of very senior people having to approve it. So the idea

that those same teams suddenly went, oh, we've had we've had second thoughts, actually.

No, Jerry, you can't do that. In fact, you're going to have to go because you've really annoyed

us now with that. It's absolute nonsense. It's like just that's not how these things work.

And certainly not in those circumstances because the company is well aware, surely,

of how divisive that Jaguar concept has been. And of course, the associated marketing push.

The last thing you want as a company, and for that project as a whole, is any suggestion that

you've lost confidence in it and booted out the man who led the charge on the design. So

you absolutely wouldn't do that. And if you did do that, and if say it's like, oh, Jerry,

I'm afraid you 70 you really have got to retire. You go full PR management on this.

You put out the statements that say we are so grateful for all he's done for this company

for the last 21 years. There's a quote from him going, I'm so proud of what I've achieved.

The usual stuff, it's textbook. Yeah, we're recording now on Friday morning, news broke on

Tuesday. So far, there's been no official statement. We are still talking about something

that is to all intents and purposes, a leak. We don't know. He could be sitting in the

studio at the moment looking at a clay model going, no, I'm not sure about that.

This is all really conjecture. But I think we probably know enough people

who know enough people that it seems like it is absolutely rooted in truth.

We do. But the two things that have been going around are, oh, yeah, they had enough of them

because of the Jag. So they've booted him out. Absolute bollocks. I guarantee that's not the

case. Yeah. The other thing from a lot of people in the industry who are aware of Jerry's

quite brutal bedside manner, we're like, Oh, he's overstepped the mark.

You know, his outspokenness, his, his directness with colleagues has finally been pushed too far.

There were some pretty punchy rumors flying around on WhatsApps, which aren't repeatable.

But I'm, I think that's what it is. Do you?

I do. I have a different theory because Jag Landrover got a new CEO last month.

Yeah. It's a chap called PB Balaji, who is or was the chief financial officer for Tata Motors.

It seems like quite an interesting guy because he has a degree in mechanical engineering. So he's

not actually an accountant through and through. That's great. He feels like he's somebody who,

you know, has an understanding of other aspects of the industry. He's worked for Tata since

2017, but almost as soon as he joined, he was also appointed as a non-executive director on

the board of Jaguar Landrover. So he's not come to the company cold. He has some knowledge and

experience of it. Yeah, he knows the score. There are two things here that to me are sort of smoking

guns. One is he's been around JLR for a while. So he's presumably been around Jerry McGovern for

a while. Yeah. For the real smoking gun about this is that the news of McGovern's departure

was broken by AutoCar India. So it's somebody who has connections there.

It wasn't leaked to a Euro outlet first. Euro outlet. Yeah. Different pins on the plugs.

So my theory for what it's worth is that I think this new guy has come in and he's seen

the culture in action in JLR. It's not to his taste. And now that he's CEO, he can do something

about it. Yeah. So what happened next? You know, if you're that guy and you've gone, no, this is,

I don't like the fact that the design director or creative director, whatever McGovern was called,

has a lot of power. Well, things are going to change. Again, it's absolute conjecture,

but my assumption is this new CEO has gone from now on, things are going to be different.

You don't get to call all the shots. And McGovern has gone. Yeah, I do, mate,

because I've been here longer than you. I design Range Rovers, mate. Where would you be without

the Range Rover, eh? Nowhere. And you can imagine that maybe he said,

I don't think that's the case. And this could lead to some beautifully designed fireworks.

I can see, I feel like it might have been a face-off scene akin to something from dodgeball.

Let's hope it was on the roof of the R&D centre in Gaten. Yeah, like in Heat. I think, yes, I think

McGovern was a bit like Ben Stiller's character. I've just totally forgotten the name of,

who does sort of like points at people and does the sort of the neck, the slitting of

the neck thing. And like wearing, wearing mad clothes and like standing on his own desk

and pointing at people. I mean, I, look, I, we can't go into all the details.

You have a hunch. Well, the truth is we don't know all the details. I have to say,

this is all conjecture. We don't know. But my, my feeling is there's been a standoff because

PB Bellagy has decided that things have to change. He wants to assert his authority

as the new CEO. It's nothing to do with Jack Bellagy was on the board. He's seen all of this,

you know, I mean, even as a non-exec director, he can put his hand up. He's obviously

directly plugged into the mothership at Tata. If he thinks things are going in totally the

wrong direction, he can flag it there. It's not that. I think it's just he wants to run

the company now that he's got the controls in a different way. And he doesn't want

there to be somebody else who exerts a great deal of authority and power.

So there's been a standoff. It's all gone a little bit explosive. But again, back to the

smoking gun. It's not outside the bounds of possibility that it's all got a bit succession

here and Bellagy has gone, right, McGovern, you're out. And before Jerry McGovern can do

anything, he's leaked it to his contacts at Auto Car India to make sure the story is Jerry

McGovern has just been sacked. Yeah, there was definitely words about firing and things.

I mean, what I do hope, like I say, he's been a very, very successful designer in the same

way that you can have very talented musicians who write or perform incredible songs,

but they might not be very nice people. I feel like the working environment in the design

team might be a little bit lighter now. Yes. But I'm keen to see what comes next with regards

to design and whether because Jerry's had, he has had his kind of his gauntlet, gauntleted hand,

velvet gauntlet, obviously, on the shoulders of every designer. And it'd be interesting.

We know that some other designers have left because of the atmosphere there.

Yeah, I'd be really interested to see how.

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On the one hand you go, yes, absolutely it may. It's a nice little sort of clear the air,

create a different working environment, a different culture. Converse to that is,

I do believe sometimes that the most successful companies and organizations,

they need to be a kind of dictatorship. Now, it should be a benign dictatorship,

and no one should get shot for dissent. But what about if you accidentally fell out of a window?

It does happen a lot, doesn't it? Particularly in Russia, I think they need to look at their

standards for windows. Their window logs are terrible, and there's probably not enough banisters

on flights of marble stairs. I don't know. But I do worry that they still need somebody

with a sort of clear vision of what they want to achieve and the force of personality to get it

through. Because the worst thing you can have is sort of wishy-washy committee thinking.

I think we've seen it from Jaguar Land Rover in the past. I think when Ford owned them,

there was a lot of interference from the US, from what I gather. I'm sure it will all

come out. But I think it's amazing how much attention this has got. And I think it says

a lot about Jerry McGovern, both good and bad. The good is that he is clearly a very,

very talented design director and has a great eye for things, and by and large has

overseen some really, really good-looking cars and some very successful cars.

Highly successful.

But there's also this bit where I feel like when the news came out, the one thing I

wasn't detecting in any sort of WhatsApp or email chat or anything like that was

a great deal of sympathy. But it will be interesting to know. So yeah, I just suspect

that this new CEO is a pretty tough cookie and he's decided it's time for a change.

And this has led to fireworks. But who knows? I mean, all that stuff about being marched from

the building, it's like, all right, calm down. I think it's pretty standard when someone

really, really senior leaves a business. They go straight away. Jerry McGovern must know

the product plan for like the next decade and beyond. It's like he knows everything.

So you don't just go, stick around, mate. I mean, if you want to just fill a bag with

Post-it notes and Byros and, oh yeah, that whole product briefing on the next generation

Range Rover targets and competitors, that'd be great. You do that, my friend.

You always get asked to leave, don't you? It's just a bit of march from the building.

Sometimes if you're lucky, you've still got a 24 hour door pass and nobody's thought to cancel

like, yeah, I'm just putting that out there. Is that what happened to you? Maybe. I can't quite

remember. It wasn't the same for me, but I was working at a place that went bust and one of

the directors went, well, anyway, this is probably it, Richard. But if that brand new

laptop fell into your bag, I certainly wouldn't notice that. And that was how I went freelance

with a brand new laptop. Did you really? Which was very useful because I had no money,

but I did have an almost new laptop. So yeah, but I could you imagine if you'd been there 21 years

and had this incredible roster of work behind you. And then they just went, I'm afraid you've

got to go, all right, let yourself out. You want a bit of theater. You want to be escorted

from the building. You're hoping that all people are turning to luck as you walk by

like something out of a movie. Well, I feel you probably had a dodgeball exit across the courtyard.

But I think I want to finish this by saying the two things I hope come out of this

and neither of them are personal with Jerry, actually. It's more about the brands that I hope

the two things that come out of this are, I hope that Jag rises successfully back into

the limelight because I miss it as we've talked about before. And I think it's a shame that it kind

of got put on ice. And the second thing that I hope is that Land Rover specifically not Range Rover

has more of a entry level that is not quite as obsessed with luxury. Because I know McGovern

luxury was almost at the top of his focus group. And so it's one of those things which I feel like

Land Rover and Range Rover have got too close. And I wish that they were a bit further apart again.

And those are the two things that I hope come out of it. And maybe at some point I'd like to

see Jerry McGovern naked litter picking on the M4. Why would you want that?

I don't know, because if he's done naughty things, he should be punished for it.

That's all I'm going to say. I apologize for being a little bit

serious for the first half of this, but it just felt like we should address it.

Just to change the subject, please do. I saw on Instagram that Bentley have been doing some

I think they've been doing some shoots, some sort of promo launchy related things

in the Arctic Circle this week. And what I love about it is the fact that while they were up there,

they saw the Northern Lights. And a friend of ours, who's a photographer who was doing some stuff

for Bentley, took some great photos of the Northern Lights. And I've been to the Arctic

Circle and never saw the Northern Lights. And it made me think that

did the Northern Lights have beef with the Southern Lights? Do they just

constantly go, you know, they're just mocking them for like, I don't know, being a bit soft

and maybe having unnecessary layers of fluffy cloud around them to keep them warm and

things were different in our day. And it's so expensive. Southern Lights are way too expensive.

Northern Lights are just cheap, honest. You just generally good value.

I'm going to ask a very thick question now. Is there such a thing as the Southern Lights?

I don't think so. But I don't know.

I've never heard of it, but I might not pay attention.

But why would the Northern Lights be, I'm going to type it in.

Why would the Northern Lights exist if the Southern Lights? Oh, and they are!

Yeah, the Aurora Aurelius, the Southern Lights do exist. It's the natural light display

in the Southern Hemisphere, similar to the Northern Lights, but visible in locations like

New Zealand, Southern Australia, Tasmania, and Southern South America.

I thought you were going to say Southern Lights similar to the Northern Lights,

but soft and shite. Oh, wait, this is from the man.

So the thing about the Northern Lights is really grinding its teeth and getting cross

about the fact that you can't just order a normal coffee.

And a cup of tea is us five quid when you're out in a cafe.

It's just a bag in hot water.

You've just reminded me because my brother years ago worked for Bentley,

and they worked for an agency that worked with Bentley.

And he did a thing up in the Arctic Circle, I think, or somewhere up

cold north, setting a speed record on ice with Yuhar Kankinen.

Oh, well.

Which was amazing. But during that, he got to meet

five-time Le Mans winner Derek Bell.

Did he? Derek Bell just came along because he's mates with Yuhar Kankinen.

So one day they were up there for a few days.

One day, suddenly there's Derek Bell.

Really? That's so cool. I've been in a Bentley with Yuhar Kankinen, actually.

Have you?

Not in the... Yeah, but it was in Goodwood doing the hill at the time, the new Conti GT Speed.

And I was in a passenger seat doing journalists stuff, and I was desperately trying to

strike up a rapport with him, and it wasn't successful.

It was quite obvious that I was maybe the 30th person who'd been the car with him that weekend,

and he really didn't want to chat much. I think he just wanted to get the run done

and get out of the car and have a nice euro coffee.

But I... Yeah, it was a shame because I think I might have snuck into the conversation

how excited I was when I used to watch him in Lancia deltas when I was a kid.

And he just kind of... He just looked over at me and nodded and looked back at the road again,

and that was it. And I was like, okay, didn't get much out of him.

I thought he was going to wax lyrical, but no, he didn't.

I was a bit like, he's still cool, though.

And I've heard he's got some really nice cars in his personal collection,

and I would kill to do a UR Cancun and Car Cave on the name break show.

Oh! Or an idle chat with The Cank as nobody calls him.

We may have alighted on why you didn't strike up a rapport with him.

I didn't call him.

He'd go, all right, Cankie, how's it going, mate?

You all right?

Oh, hey, Cankie.

Hey, look, it's OK, sour!

I didn't call him Cankie. Or Cankie, OK?

You're Cankie bastard. Who do you think you are?

Look, before we go any further, we have to do a very important message,

which I swore I would do, and usually we absolutely screw this up,

but I'm not going to screw it up.

And we had an email from a listener called Alan who said,

I'm after some help from the wonderful car community,

and I can't think of a better way of reaching out than through you pair of flutes.

Oh, Alan.

My close friend Daryl is currently having a tough time battling cancer,

and his wife thinks it would be a distraction if we could arrange for him

to be taken for a spin in a Fiat X19, which was his first car.

If you could reach out to your brethren of SSGs to see if an owner

would be willing to help, it would be greatly appreciated.

Daryl lives in Canockwood near Litchfield in Staffordshire, as do I.

We'd be happy to pay someone's costs in cash, Smith, Sniff, Merch,

Pies, or their favourite tipple. Thanks in advance, Al.

So, yes, shout out.

Oh, Alan, that's really lovely.

Fiat X19 owners, and I appreciate it.

It's not a good time of year for an empty Fiat.

I was about to.

Must your wife.

I was about to.

Do you know?

But.

Spoiler alert, you know that is seen from the end of that

lovely heartfelt Christmas cartoon, The Snowman.

Yes.

When in the morning the kid opens the curtains.

So he's got a piece of melted.

It's just a hat and scarf on the ground.

Wait, that's just a target top and a steering wheel on the ground

where your X19 used to be.

And a bit of vinyl.

We're not doing a good job here of selling this.

No.

Look, X19 owners, you know what your cars are like,

but look, it's not always damp.

And this could be an incredibly kind and generous thing

to do if you are anywhere near Staffordshire

or you're willing to travel in return for pies or merchandise.

That would be fantastic.

It's a lovely, lovely thing, Alan.

And it helps someone out while they're going through a tough time.

So if you can help, drop us a line hello at smithandsniff.com

and we will pass your messages on to Al.

Yeah.

And if we can help in any way, we will try.

But yeah, that's great.

And I hope we do find Darrell a Fiat X19.

To this day, I remember seeing an X19 for the first time

as a very small kid.

And I thought it was the most spaceshipy car.

It had crazy design alloys.

It had that huge cooling deck, the mid-engine cooling deck,

the cladding.

It had lots of plastic on it

when plastic cladding was fashionable and new from memory.

And I, Blimey, loved it.

I've still never driven one, ever.

No, me neither.

And I'd love to.

I hope they're not disappointing.

But I've heard they're quite good.

Yeah, I have as well.

Also, if you want a real treat,

look up an early X19 because they are one of those cars.

And this quite often happens to Italian cars.

They are so delicate and pretty in their original form.

And then over time, more plastic and stuff got added to them.

And actually the engine cover,

because the original engine cover wasn't as raised and prominent

as it became because the engine got bigger.

But an early X19, they are so good-looking.

It's like Di Tommaso Pantera or Kuntas Syndrome,

where you accept the way that you remember them from the 80s.

But actually, if you look at an original,

they are much, much better-looking,

much simpler and more beautiful.

So I've been watching Stranger Things

and enjoying the appearances of that kidnap van

in it that isn't a kidnap van.

You know, the kind of van that they use

to track the underground,

not the underground, the upside-down creatures with,

which has got like angel hair,

headlining and shag-pile carpet

and bad murals and stuff.

I've been enjoying that.

And I've been enjoying the fact

that there's still a Ford Pinto in it.

Winona Ryder is still driving a Ford Pinto,

which it's exactly that green,

which was the one that I was offered

when I was working out in the States a decade or more ago,

and I'm still pissed off that I didn't buy it for $1,000.

I just don't understand why I didn't buy it.

It's very un-Johnny Smith to just go,

yeah, no, I think I've got enough on at the moment.

I won't buy that.

Yeah, that doesn't sound like you at all.

I'm still really annoyed with myself

for not pulling the trigger on that one, Richard.

I think I've said before,

we stopped watching Stranger Things

during or just after the first series

because my wife found it too unsettling.

This is the last series now that it's...

This is the very last series.

So, yeah, I mean, I've seen a couple of episodes.

I haven't binge-watched it

because I don't do binge-watching.

But it's great.

I mean, you'd like it just from a synthesizer fanatic perspective.

Well, that's the thing.

Just that alone, the synthwave is good.

Hey, it's sort of tangentially talking about synths.

I was driving through downtown Bath Bath two weeks ago,

and a Ferrari Portofino went past in the other lane.

Now, you don't see Portofinos around very much.

Do you? They're just sort of not a thing.

But there's a Portofino.

And then I noticed the number plate and the number plate.

And I can't figure out how this had been achieved

because it wasn't strictly accurate,

but it sort of attempted to say hooky.

And then I remembered that this was a Saturday,

the night before,

who was playing live in Bath with his band,

but Peter Hook, formerly out of New Order.

New Order? Good to see me.

Yeah. Well, you're a massive fan of this gig.

I know. I've always thought I'd quite like to see

because Peter Hook plays New Order albums in full

in the first half of these gigs that he does with his band, The Light.

And then he'll do a sort of mixture of various New Order

and Joy Division songs in the second half.

And I mean, quite honestly,

I'd quite like if he did a few songs by Monaco,

one of his solo efforts that I think were underrated.

But so I couldn't go to that gig the previous night,

but I'd seen it was on.

And I was a bit like, that's got to be.

So I was able to surge forward in traffic

and pull alongside.

And sure enough, it was hooky out of New Order.

Brackets retired in a Ferrari Portofino.

And I found that quite interesting because

I know for and fact that for many years,

Peter Hook was a large Audi loyalist.

He had A8s, I believe, for years.

And I think he actually before that had an Audi V8.

Did he?

It was a friend of mine's dad worked for a big

VW Audi dealership in the Northwest.

And I think he'd said they'd had him in.

They'd had him in with possibly his V8

needing new tyres.

And it was quite a young car.

And it's because he was doing loads of miles up and down

the motorway from Manchester down to just around here, actually.

Because they were recording the Republic album

in real world studios, Peter Gabriel's place,

which is just outside Bath.

So doing a lot of high speed motorway work.

High speed motorway work,

but in a heavy four-wheel drive car.

It's quite punishing on the tyres.

Now, this was the Audi that just simply was called the V8,

wasn't it, for listeners that might not remember?

Dry run for the A8.

And it was a 100 or 200 that was slightly pumped up

and had a V8 engine in it.

And by all accounts, it wasn't brilliant.

But I quite like them.

I've always quite liked them.

I think it was the first Audi that had the framed grille.

Not the big, goatee-beared one,

but when they first went to the rectangular,

yeah, the landscape aspect grille,

that was, I think that's where that started from memory.

Or maybe it was on the S2.

Anyway, it's weird that you should be saying that

because I've started to have,

after our conversation the other week about Audi all roads,

I've started to have a thing about early Aero Audi's

all over again.

Oh.

I just, I'm craving that really simple

but aerodynamically efficient, understated

shape.

I love the coupes of those.

I love the 200s.

Oh, I do.

There's so many models.

Platanos maduros.

Check, check, and check.

And Fred Meyer consigue sus productos de calidad

para las recetas familiares de estas fiestas

a precios bajos en cada pasillo.

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Big fan.

You know, one of those conditions like,

I don't know, chlamydia or something

that sort of can lie dormant.

Yes.

In a person's body and then flares up again.

Yes.

I feel like I have that.

But with first generation TTs.

Oh, completely.

And they are, there's such good value.

They're them and the Boxster.

You know, this similar kind of ilk of car.

They're both good looking and they're both fun and well built.

No, I love the first gen TTs.

But I think that amongst people like us,

I think they're getting this growing respect.

Yeah, they used to get a bit sort of told that they didn't get the respect

because they weren't, it wasn't a driver's car like a Boxster.

No, but it also had a hell of an engine.

Of course, that 1.8T, the Tri-grade, it's a hell of an engine.

It's a lusty engine, isn't it?

Oh, it's great.

I mean, I, of course, wrote off the first generation TT.

And so maybe it's unfinished business for me.

I need to get one and drive one and prove it.

I can do that without crashing it.

Because I'm not a 23-year-old knobhead anymore.

But it's funny you should say that.

It's the same as my Dodge Viper thing.

I've never driven one since having the incident.

And I feel like it's an episode I ought to make for content.

Me kind of revisiting my fears.

I'd like to see that.

Yeah, I was talking to Chris Harris about it earlier in the year.

He thought it was a great idea.

And yeah, so we should do that really.

So I actually forgot to say, Stranger Things is featuring a lot of Humvees.

And this last series is based in 1987.

I think the first series was based in 82.

And as I was watching it, I started to look at all these Humvees,

thinking, hang on a minute, was the Humvee out in 87?

I don't think it was.

And then I started smashing through Google as you do.

And but I was wrong.

1985, it's first saw military service, I believe.

So I was put back in my box.

I know that the sort of the projects or the military commission

that led to the Humvee dated back to the 70s.

Because it's part of the long-winded way that Lamborghini LM002 story

is sort of touches on that.

Because that grew out of a pitch to the US military

for what then eventually led to the Humvee.

So it definitely is.

But all those military procurement projects, they go on forever, don't they?

You go to like the museum and there's a thing about the history of the Eurofighter.

And you found out that the first prototype was built in 1969 or something.

You're like, God, I thought they only came out like a couple of years ago.

They've got to be proved, haven't they?

Like Paul Hollywood's dough.

Yes, I think maybe because I think if you said to me

was the Humvee around in 1987, I'd have been skeptical.

Because I feel like for us in this country, certainly,

we knew nothing of the Humvee until suddenly the Gulf War in 1991, was that?

Suddenly they were on the news and you're a bit like, what that?

And then of course, suddenly they're in every single Arnold Schwarzenegger movie,

even if it's set in the Renaissance.

You've reminded me of the fact that I think, I might have to do a top five one day.

I think the Lamborghini 002 is ergonomically the worst thing I've ever got in

and moved around the car park.

In fact, I got out of it and I was so relieved that I didn't have to go out and drive it on the road.

It's like that thing is so shit.

I don't want to even be in it again.

It was terrible.

It was so terrible.

It was offensive.

I was actually offended by it.

How could you put something together with everything in the wrong place?

And it just looks horrible.

There's no room.

There's no, nobody's thought this through.

It's just appalling.

What an absolute mess of a car.

I've got no interest in them.

I'm really sorry.

Wrong engine, wrong car, wrong look, wrong ergonomics.

Just all wrong.

Get in the bin.

Stupid, just stupid.

Yeah, says the man who's got a run show.

Well, sort of, yeah.

I don't know why this has suddenly come to mind again,

but I've meant to mention this to the other day.

I saw pulling out of a lay-by a bread van polo from the 80s.

Lovely.

Yes, because you don't see them around anymore.

And they were once a sort of mainstay of small cars in this country.

And as I went past it,

I could see the guy who was craning his head looking backwards

to see when it was safe to pull out of this lay-by.

And it was a very young man.

You know, I would say someone in the early-mid-20s maybe.

Yeah, that's when I owned mine.

Was it?

But then it was still a sort of contemporary-ish car.

Yeah, I had four of them.

You had four of them?

Yeah, I had...

I didn't realise you'd had that many.

Yeah, I had one bread van, two coupes, and one badge as a derby.

Oh, yeah.

The derby one, incidentally, was the one that I told you I bought.

I bought it from a car boot sale in Bristol.

It had a week's MOT and I was at a car boot sale

buying the usual things like, I don't know, candles and toilet roll

and broken pictures and pornography.

And there was a guy...

An electric typewriter.

You don't need seven pounds.

Yes.

And the guy was actually, they were just clearing away.

And the guy who had this polo derby,

and he went, there was a sign in the window.

And I went, I was the car for sale.

He went, yeah, I just thought I'd try and sell it at the same time.

He said, it's got a really short ticket on it,

but it runs and drives.

Obviously it got me here this morning

as an intermittent misfire, I think.

And I was like, well, what do you want for it?

He goes, I don't want to take it home.

He said, I'll just scrap it at the end of the week

if I don't get any takers.

And I was like, well, I don't have much,

because of course you've carried cash

around a car boot sale then.

I said, I don't have a great deal of cash.

He said, well, you know, what you got...

Honestly, we two'd and frode for a minute

and he was, he had a smile on his face.

I knew he just didn't want the car anymore.

I said, I've got 15 quid in my pocket.

And he went, get on then,

drop me back at the railway station.

He can have it.

And I drove it back from the car boot sale.

I bought it for 15 quid and it wasn't crap.

It wasn't crap.

In the late 90s, someone, I know,

was offered a proper bread van one for 50 quid.

Brilliant.

And I think they went, actually,

do you know what?

I don't even know the car.

That's fine.

And I think it just got scrapped.

And I was like, even at the time,

I was like, why is it 50 quid?

Because I just, I don't know why.

I think it's because one of my mates had,

well, it was his mum's car.

But when we were like 17, 18,

he always used to rock round in this bread van polo,

which he was able to make go much faster than seemed possible,

given they were famously not very powerful cars

and had terrible brakes.

But maybe that was part of the secret.

The brakes was, yeah.

We've talked about this before.

We're particularly in relation to Festive

of the Unexceptional house.

It's sort of a generation now that are treating cars

from the 80s and 90s as absolute bona fide classics.

And they find them very cool.

But what was interesting to me about the polo was

that, that is, I didn't clock the reg,

but it's near as damn it a 40 year old car.

They are, yeah.

They are.

Which let me to think, like,

if this was 1995 when we were, you know, young-ish,

I was 20 in 1995.

If I had a 40 year old car in 1995,

that would have been a car from 1955.

And I just can't imagine that.

It's very interesting you brought this up because

I've been having these moments of like,

yeah, I bought my Beetle in 96 when it was,

what was it, 30?

It was 30 years old.

It was a 66 Beetle.

And the generation of retro cars around that era

felt like there was huge voids in between 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s.

And then what was new at the time, let's say 90s then.

And now, yeah, 40 years, mid 80s, 30 years, mid 90s, 20 years, early 2000s.

And you just go, none of those, none of those are elderly in so much as they'll all do motorway

speeds.

They've all got functioning heating and like headlights that you can see out with and

a radio and just things that you'd expect.

Whereas if I got a 21 year old into a basic car from the 60s now,

it would, you'd have to do a full tutorial on how to start and stop it really.

You would, wouldn't you?

Whereas a car from the 80s, pretty much, I mean, it might have a choke, it might not.

But apart from that, it'll be similar.

Yes.

An instrumentation will be similar.

Dashboards didn't change a great deal.

Yeah. So I think we had a quantum leap between there and actually those cars that we just talked

about, that mid 80s, mid 90s to, let's say 2005, 2006, just to make it neat.

Those are the cars that are growing in value the quickest right now, aren't they?

And in my head, I want to try and remind people that actually the absolute bargains at the

moment are cars of the 50s, a bit of 60s, and even 40s and pre-war.

And there's some absolute gems out there and they're not selling for much money

because there's a total lack of awareness about them.

But it doesn't mean they're crap.

Yeah. We'll talk about this another time.

I wanted to mention briefly that slate pickup truck, which was announced a while ago,

but I've seen that they've been showing it to some people, I think a later prototype or

something, but one of the things people really seem really jazzed about is the fact that it has

wind up windows. And I've been like, I don't, I mean, yes, I get it, less to go wrong,

but electric windows are very rarely a failure point in a car that's under 15 years old.

Oh, it's like, oh no, under 15.

It's the same time it's got a TFT instrument pack.

You know, it's got like a full, it's got a screen for an instrument pack.

It's like, if you're embracing simplicity, it feels like the wind up windows are a

bit token on that. I don't know. Maybe that's just me.

I'd rather have needles, dash needles. So if one of the pieces of instrument goes wrong,

the others are okay. Much rather, much rather.

This feels, it does this like sort of some kind of philosophical magazine column.

What is simplicity in cars? But we should bring this towards the dock so it can be tied up safely.

Shall we?

Or dragged up the land so that Johnny can attempt to launch it again.

In a really, really, really sketchy way.

All right. Well, before we go, three things to tell you, the first one is that Johnny's

engaged in a very odd project to tour the cliffs of Eastern England and Scotland,

setting up a medieval humiliation device and then locking the former city lead singer of

Merillion into it while overlooking the water under the working title North Sea Fish Stocks.

If that's not to your taste, then there's always the late break show.

Lots of excellent videos on there.

You fool!

I said a stop on it.

What's happened on late break?

We've got this, the latest video will be an update on my Matra Rancho WRX

body swap project. So there's a roundup, as they would say, on that.

And yeah, I'm just putting together all the other videos that will go out over the Christmas

period so that I can have a bit of time off but without showing any sign of

cutting corners with video quality. So yeah, that's what's happening on that front, Richard.

Smashing. All right. Second thing I wanted to say is a variety of promotional messages.

First of all, if you're listening to this the day it comes out, the 8th of December,

one week today on the 15th of December, we are doing a live show in Bristol.

Bristol. And last I looked, there are still some tickets available. It's in the Tobacco Factory

Theatre where we were last time we were in Bristol. It's an excellent venue.

It is a really good venue, yeah.

It'll be our last show of the year. Might be a bit Christmassy.

There is also a Panto in the same theatre and they've told us that

we have to work around some bits of their set. So that could be interesting but we're going to

give it a go. Let's make it Christmassy everybody.

And so yeah, let's make it Christmassy but so that'll be nice. So 15th of December in Bristol,

go to SmithandSniff.com and follow the link to the live show page to get tickets.

Hopefully there's still some available by the time you get there.

And we'll have lots of merch there to sell if you can't be bothered to mail order such

things. You just want to physically go and touch a hat before buying it.

And I hope we'll have some of my books after they sold out quickly at Derby but actually

this used to be some kind of weird log jam with getting some more in so that might be

a lovely disaster for me. But why not just go on to Amazon and order my new book Petrolhead

Collection of My Evo Columns which is available to buy as an e-book or a paperback

or ask someone to get it for you for Christmas.

And the third thing I was going to tell you is that, you know the song My Way,

very famous song of course, Frank Sinatra and all that. My Way could have been written by David

Bowie. Could have. Could have. This is a bit, it's a weird one this but basically

My Way is based on a French song called Combe d'Abitude and a song publishing company

commissioned David Bowie then a young up-and-coming singer-songwriter to write some English words

for Combe d'Abitude. And so he did and submitted them and the publisher went,

no I don't like these. They then got Paul Anker to have a go and he came up with My Way

and gave it to Frank Sinatra and it became that song that's always played at People's

Funerals and Bowie, the brilliant thing is that Bowie was a bit pissed off about this and so he

decided to write a parody of My Way after it came out and his parody of My Way is

what we now know as Life on Mars. Oh really? And it's so, you saw us as if you can hear it

in a way. Obviously it kind of evolved into something different and brilliant in its own

right. Very different. Yeah. But yeah, the roots of Life on Mars are that Bowie was pissed off that

his attempts to adapt a French song wasn't accepted, were rejected and then My Way became

a huge hit. Well, wow. Well, can I add a fourth thing very briefly? If you're at a loose end

go on the internet. I found it. I was served it on Instagram and look up a chat called Typhoon

Tommy Nuttall who is a freestyle jet skiing man who is well over 60 years old. It's pretty weird

but I guarantee it will make you giggle. Never seen a man on a jet ski doing things like

handstands, headstands and kind of sitting on the handlebars and like trying to spray people

passing boats with his white spray. Okay, sounds good. All right, well anyway, that's all fabulous.

Thank you for listening. We're back on Friday with an Otter Sot and then a new episode on

Monday and hopefully see a few of you next Monday in Bristol. Until then, come to Bristol. Goodbye.

Cheers mate, guys. Bye then, guys. See you in Bristol, guys.

Goodbye, our merchandise. We've mugs and hats, but still no ties.

One day we will make those pies, but in the meantime, guys, hey guys, like and subscribe

and maybe leave a nice review. Like and subscribe. We know you know just what to do.

Like and subscribe. We don't want to take the piss. Like and subscribe.

But we were told to ask for this. Like and subscribe.

Like and subscribe.

It's a god of a small affair. I did it my way, etc.

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Hair today, gone tomorrow

About this episode

Land Rover Range Rover

Volkswagen Golf

Porsche 911

Land Rover Freelander

MGF

Radwood

Lincoln Navigator

BMW M4

Bentley

Le Mans

Bentley Continental GT Speed

Lancia Delta

Fiat X19

De Tomaso Pantera

Ford Pinto

Ferrari Portofino

Audi A8

Audi V8

VW Audi

tyres

V8 engine

Audi All Roads

Chrysler 200S

Audi TT

Porsche Boxster

1.8T

Dodge Viper

Humvee

Lamborghini Lm002

Lamborghini 002

Volkswagen Polo

Volkswagen Derby

GMC Typhoon

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