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Hello and welcome to the AutoCop podcast. My week in cast with Pry here. Crop me there,

morning, Stephen. Morning, mates. You well?

Very well. Thank you, Stephen, because I have the announcement that this podcast is brought to

the listener in association with Anderson, the design-led homie v. challenging brand which

makes charges to compliment your home's stylish designs, premium finishes, and a choice of

configurations that let you charge in a way that suits you, whether that's a socketed charge point

or one with a cable built in for extra convenience. If you purchase an Anderson Quartz A3 or 7

kilowatt A2 charger this month, you can charge, you can claim 5,000 free miles worth of charging

if you switch to the Intelligent Octopus Go tariff. That's over 100 pounds worth of charging,

completely free with Anderson and Intelligent Octopus Go. That offer runs out on the 31st of

January at midnight. So yes, find out more, search Anderson EV and let their concierge service

handle the rest. Stephen, have you phoned them to talk about your electricity supplier?

I know I should and I haven't, but I'm going to do it before the end of the month and I'm

absolutely determined to do it. I mean, I just want the advice because I get the feeling that,

you know, I've had one of their charges for a couple of years now and I think I've chucked away

money I didn't need to. AutoCar at Haymarket.com if you would like to write to us listener,

Tom from Surrey has done so, to say just listen to the latest pod and while we should rightly

celebrate Jim Moylan's idea about the fuel flap indicator, he was the Ford engineer who decided

it would be a nice idea to put an arrow next to the fuel gauge to let drivers know which side

of the car the filling flap was on. It strikes me that this is an even more important indicator

than the fuel flap on an EV. As ever more rental company and pull car fleets and as vehicle handovers

can leave a lot to be desired, this strikes me as an even more important indicator than the fuel

flap because as you say, you're likely to be able to stretch a fuel pump to either side of the car

but less likely to be able to do so with a heavy liquid called ultra rapid charging cable.

Indeed, I've been at numerous public charge points where I've seen someone pull in, park,

get out, only to discover they need to reposition the car entirely to plug it in.

Tom, I have done this. Have you done this? I was going to say that was me.

I've done it a thousand times and it's annoying and he's right. Absolutely right.

Some sort of interior indicator of the position of the charge flap is surely an essential addition

to any EVs instrument cluster. I'm sure Jim Moylan would be suggesting it if he was alive today.

All the best, Tom. Thank you, Tom. Yes, quite right too, I think. Do you like,

where do you like electric plugs to be? I like the ones fair in the center of the grille.

Well, it depends how big the space is. I mean, in the middle, at the back.

The Lotus Evaya is the only car I know of, the two million pound hypercar,

which has it square in the back, middle of the back bumper because if you reverse into a parking

space, as anybody who has not a savage would do, it doesn't matter if the charger is offset slightly

to the left or to the right, bang right in the middle. However, that may be suboptimal from a

crash perspective because if you have a minor parking ding, similar to the front, I would guess.

Does that leave the more exposed to crash damage? I suppose it might. I just like the,

I used to enjoy Renault Zoe because of a little car and you just pointed at the

charger in question and there you were. But I definitely see it as a priority to

have some indication in the car. I think that would be helpful. And also, I think,

I know somebody who had, who works for a car company, who had a bit of an off. He was moving

his car around and while doing so on the family driveway, managed to

take with him as he pulled away a cable connected to somebody else's car. Basically drive into it

and start pulling it and start pulling it away from the other car. And of course, they attached

themselves pretty well to the charge port in the car itself. So it did some damage to

bodywork and charge cable and everything else. But to get to the, it's in the side of the body

and to get to it to fix it, I think you have to drop the battery out from underneath and I think

it was like six or seven grand to replace. Gosh. Yes. I didn't think you could do that.

Just drive away. Oh, no, he didn't drive away with it. He was driving another car,

drove it into the cable. I see. I see. So sorry. No, he didn't drive away with the cable attached.

He was driving another car, drove into somebody else's cable, pulled the cable off,

you know, drag the cable, yeah, with father-in-law, I think, or potential future father-in-law or

something like that. So it was. Yeah. But no, you can't drive a car away with them plugged in,

can you? No. Unless something's gone very wrong, presumably. But yeah, he, no, he was driving

something else. Oh, God, that is a freak accident. Yes. Yeah, suboptimal. Let's talk

our respective columns this week. This is what my week in cars does, listen, if you're new to us,

happy new year. Steve and I talk our respective auto car columns and much more besides over half an

hour or thereabouts, usually sort of 55 minutes. Mr. Heritage Scramble was last weekend. Yeah.

How was it? Mr. Heritage Scramble, yeah, I really enjoyed it. I've been looking forward to it,

you know, over the whole Christmas break as a sort of sign of normality resuming. And it was

fine, wasn't it? Lots of people, really interesting cars. I liked the TWR exhibition,

which was in the Big Hanger. Very comprehensive collection of cars from first to last, really.

I knew Tom pretty well, and Tom Wilkinshaw pretty well, and always liked him. Lots of people

had other opinions, but I always thought he was a terrific, excellent guy to interview.

And, you know, look at what he achieved. Amazing. But the car selection was terrific.

Lots of happy people. It always seems to me a bister. People are happy. Maybe it's because they choose,

well, it's quite a short event, isn't it? You show up at a civilized time, you leave with...

Yeah, but it's 9 till 2, isn't it? So it gets it done. Yeah. But somehow there's plenty of time,

really. And you meet all your mates. Every time I ran into somebody I knew, they seemed to say,

isn't this a great place to meet all your mates? It is. I parked my car and walked towards a building

to get a cup of coffee, probably 200 meters, and I stopped three times to chat to people on you.

Yeah. It's a good feeling. That's great. Yeah. I did not realize TWR did quite so much as it did.

There were cars in there. I thought I had no idea you did this. I had no idea you worked on...

Yeah. RX-7s so much as they did, and... Oh, just loads. It was a lot of cars. Yeah, the BMWs.

I don't know why I didn't know that or I'd forgotten that. Well, I think Tom... It's fast.

It took a while to attain the size that it eventually did attain, and I think some of it was

a start-up business, but the RX-7s were particularly noticeable because they were

special and also so noisy. Do you remember them? Did you ever see one race? No, I don't think I did.

So noisy. Really? Gosh. It was a real ESplitter. Yeah. Amazing car. Good fun, though. I remember that.

That RX-7 was good. Yeah. That's a nice... Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, interesting. Was it good?

Pretty good. Yeah, it was big oil consumption and pretty juicy, pretty hard on a fuel, but

went well. Yeah. At the time, something that revved smoothly to 10 grand is just

a bit of a phenomenon, really. Yeah, I driven Mazda's Heritage 1 and enjoyed that a lot. Still

revved very smoothly. Nicely looked after. Yeah. Still revved very, very smoothly and cleanly,

often thought it would be fun to own an RX-8. I think you would have to

be careful. You've got to warm them up and they've got to be lubricated properly and

you need to pick a good one in the first place and all of those caveats, but

phenomenal car for both the packaging, supposed to be as big as a BMW 3 Series once you get in there,

and particularly that powertrain. Yeah. They were, for a time, I wonder if they still are,

very good values, secondhand, weren't they? Yes. I wonder if they still are. Yeah. I mean,

you don't see many around here anymore. Do they... Do they rot? They're recovered. I don't think so.

I think it's engine gremlins at the issue, and there are people that can mend them. It's just that

even if you mend it, you're probably going to have to mend it again after another 30 or 40,000 miles.

Yeah. Maybe that's one of the things that... We might hear from... It'd be interesting to hear

from an RX-8 owner because... Yeah, it would do. And maybe it's one of those cars that

they're cheap to get into, but the reason they are cheap to get into is because the maintenance is

relatively expensive, which is fine if you fancy doing it. They seem to be about three to

10 grand. Yeah, I think the absolute best in the world is probably 10, isn't it? Yeah, it looks

that way. Why is it so many on a MX-5 instead of an RX-8? There's one... There's our... 12. It looks...

12. Well, it's only got 30,000 miles on it. Yeah. But, yeah, you can get them from

four by the looks of it. But I think it's one of those cars you just have to

give due care and attention. You can't just daily driver it like you perhaps some other kinds of

Mazda's. Yeah. Yeah. Still looking good. I had a bit of a

keenness. I was going to buy one and do some hill climbs in it, but... Oh, yeah. Because I think

they've got pretty good performance. 230 horsepower, I think. Yeah, and a light engine,

isn't it, as well? So, I remember that about them. They turned them. And I remember them

handling quite well. Yeah. It was a good gearbox. Yeah. But it didn't do it.

How's the 205? Make your hill climb, sprint, etc. purchase a 205? Well, it's good. It's bought the

car. It's in Cornwall at Rally Prep. We've now bought all of the bits that we need. So, it's going to

have... It's going to have... I mean, probably get criticized for this. It's going to have a

criticized for that? Well, I don't know. They didn't have one. But from the purists? Yeah.

But, I mean, it's not a purist car. It's been gutted and it's got a cage in it,

and it's painted green inside and out. It's not... And it's race seats and harnesses.

So, we bought... I want it to be in date so that we can... There's a... In hill climbs and

sprints and track days and things. There's a rally car class. But if you want to go in it,

everything has to be in date. So, the seats and harnesses and things are new.

The pedal box is being modified. It's got the big handbrake that locks a rear wheel.

Because the first event we're going to do is a sprint in somebody's

field, you know, in Cornwall. So, as Neil Yates says, you spend all day sideways.

Sounds great, doesn't it? Sounds terrific. So, we bought the car, bought the bits. It's being

titivated now. The aim is to make it really nice. You know, all the badge work will be

correct and the wheels will be painted. And I want it to look really nice. I want it to be a

bit special. And I think it will be. Because all the elements are there.

Weberized engine 1.9. Not too nice that you feel bad about. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

The chuck had run afield. No. But I just wanted to be... Not untidy either.

But now I'm looking forward to it. I think delivery is probably going to be something like

February. Okay. Does seats go out of date? Well, they do if you want to be in particular race class.

Yeah. Right, okay. It's annoying. But... Yeah, I'm just, yes. Because the harness is in my input

out of date. But I didn't know that the seats might go out as well.

Well, I think for this particular rally car class, because this car is capable of going in

some sort of rally, classic rally events. Okay. You know, it's a, in effect, a demo,

but you drive pretty fast. And, you know, in somebody's country or state somewhere. And,

you know, those ones were... It's a demo, but they have some quite high-toned cars there,

and I might be able to join the Fag end of that. It'd be great. I think it'd be good.

That will be excellent. And it's going to be road registered as well. So, you might bring it along

to a VISTA scramble at some point in the future. And if they think nicely of it, you'll get a

parking spot in the good car park. Oh, yeah, I'll talk to Jacko. Yeah, might never know. Might get

parked in the... I'd like to do that. Be good fun. Yeah. We've had correspondence. Last week,

we spoke about a passenger ride before, maybe, in the new Jaguar type, whatever.

Yep. And you said, you think you could tell quite a lot from the passenger seat. Who agrees with

you? Well, it was... I happen to be talking to Mike Cross. Remember him? The Jaguerness, you know,

dynamics man that really had his fingers on every single recent Jaguar, just made them drive so

well. He retired. He spends his days driving his Porsche and owning 200 horsepower solo motorcycles

these days. But he was on the point of bringing us up, the pair of us, just to say he definitely

believes that you can get an enormous amount out of passengering some good driver in an

interesting car that you might not necessarily have been in before. And he was citing the

examples of people that he drove with a lot in his job. One was Richard Perry Jones. Remember

him? The Ford Jaguar Aston dynamics expert, the bloke that bought good handling to Fords.

He was a very keen driver, in fact, sometimes over keen. I've heard that. I never drove with him,

but I did hear... Mike, who's sort of smooth and safe and fast, extremely fast, but also

amazingly sort of composed and so on. I think he had some slightly trying times with Richard. But

he said that he could sit in the passenger seat with Richard, and when they came to the end of a

driver, he would be able to tell him what Richard thought about the steering before Richard opened

his mouth, just because you can feel so much by sitting there. And the other person that he drove

with a fair bit was Jackie Stewart, another good on-road driver in his day. So to me it's proven.

I just know it's right. You can pick up a lot from concentrating on the way the car goes down

the road with a good driver. Are you chatting to Mike at some point? Oh yeah, there's a plan

for the public. Yes, we... I like Keith Jilks, the guy that runs this business called Jilks

Garage Cafe in Kinton, just off the Fosway, near Gaiden, really. His family had a Roots dealership,

which gradually ran out of puff, and they turned it into what they call a Garage Cafe, and there's

it's still the original dealership buildings, and there's all this signage around the place

of pictures of his dad or his granddad who started the business. But now you can go there for a coffee

and have, I don't know, whatever you want, fish finger sandwich. And they occasionally do talks

in the evening, and we've got one coming up. I'm going to have a chat with Mike. Mike will be the

the hero this time, and it'll be on Feb 26. Okay. And you just, I think it's, you know,

just 40 or 50 people, and they all have a fish finger sandwich, and we have a chat and probably

show a few pics of Mike in action. He talks about his life and how he came to be such a

fantastic driver and engineer, and then we all go home. One of my memories of Mike was,

he was giving me one of these passenger rides. I think, oh, maybe an XF it was at the time,

or maybe something later than that. I can't quite remember what the car was, but it was getting

towards the end of the day. I got a phone call from my babysitter at home saying, you know,

what time are you going to be back? We're in Wales, you know, out on the Elan Valley,

something like that. And I'm just, I'm trying to be discreet because, you know, I'm at work with

somebody. Yeah, I've probably sort of, you know, and she's saying, clearly to me, I've got to go

at eight or nine, and I'm looking at my watch and thinking, blimey, and that sort of thing.

And Mike just, just, just, he just upped the pace of his driving to get us back to

Welshpool, I think, wherever my car was, just elevated his pace. He's clearly just sort of

detected that I was having a slightly uncomfortable conversation with somebody who wanted to go

and just picked up the speed ever so slow. I still remained incredibly smooth and incredibly

controlled, but we just, just found ourselves going that little bit faster. And it was great.

And he says, you know, still a stickler for, you know, town speed limits and all the rest of it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We did that, did a story towards the end of his time. We did a

story about that, that route that he always used to go out, you know, to Welshpool and

environs. And there was, there was a route that eventually got called the Micros 300.

Remember that? Oh, really? It was out to the coast and back. Yeah.

Great. And he had favorite coffee shops and so on. I loved that. They were great days,

weren't they? Yeah, very good. Yeah, very good. Good cars. Yeah. Yeah, really good cars.

Could it have been a little bit cheaper to service your Datsya? Yes.

I got various communications from people playing. I can't believe you paid 450 quid to have the

front brakes and discs of a, of a front pads and discs of a Datsya Duster replaced.

After four years, that's what I paid for 30,000 miles, four years.

And I kept several people sent me adverts from eBay showing that you can buy the

bits that you need from between 70, 67 and 77 quid. I would still need them fitted because I

wouldn't trust myself to fit them. So I probably a couple of hours labor, I would think. So if you

chuck in 200 quid for that from the local garage, it's probably 270. I paid 450 at the local dealer.

But I don't regret it somehow because I spent a really pleasant morning wandering around the

used car stock, sitting in all the new cars, you know, Renault's and Datsha's, wandering over to the,

there's an industrial estate where they are in Swindon. I just wandered over to the coffee

shop, sat down there, did me emails, felt like a gent. So to hell with it, I'm going to do it again.

And they did it there and then, didn't they? They did. Yeah, the car was being serviced,

out came the bloke. I was in the sitting in their little waiting room with another bloke,

boasting about how totally reliable my Duster had been. And, and the bloke appeared and said,

I'm afraid it just failed, sir. And it was because of these rusty front discs. And they were

a right type. And he said, he brought one out and said, the next thing that will happen with

this is that the discs will laminate, the actual, you know, he was already quite lumpy in and

parts of bits of steel would start breaking out, iron would start breaking off.

But also, if they don't do it there, and then you've got to take the car away,

order the bits, wait for the bits, the bits arrive, you go back to a garage,

or you ask the local more affordable garage, who won't have the bits in. So by the time you've

taken three or four hours out of your days to do all of those things,

that's, I mean, it's not, it's not without its cost of hassle and inconvenience anyway.

That's it. It is just, frankly, it's just worth in extra 120 quid or something to me to do it.

And to do it that way. And the fact is, I enjoy it. I always enjoy taking cars to dealerships.

I don't know why, but the Raptor is coming up for a trip to the local Ford Pro dealership. I'm

going to go over there and wait as well. The Ford Pro, is that like a commercial vehicle?

Yeah, they're the people who sell pickups and management and so on.

And they're, because Ford's got a big commercial business, they're all over the place.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Biggest commercial vehicle retailer in Europe.

I once interviewed a bloke for a very long time, we had 25 plus years ago,

who, for a Ford internal magazine, and he was a commercial vehicle van dealer.

And he'd worked on cars as well. And he said, I vastly prefer selling vans to people,

because you're not dealing with people's own money. They seem to be much more, I mean,

if you're self employed, it is your own money, isn't it? But I mean,

it's a business to business transaction. And that's much nicer for him than dealing with

private customers of cars who would feel put out much more easily about stuff. He said,

it's just a very straightforward transaction. We both come to an agreement that we think,

yeah, this is where we can do, we both make money and that's fine.

And they're buying a tool, aren't they? Not a sort of an extension of their personality.

I can quite see that. Now I'm looking forward to it. I've done it once before and there's

a dealer in Gloucester that I go to. And they're nice punchy. Great big showroom, plenty of places

to sit. Interesting cars. Does it need an MOT yet that car or not? Yeah, just coming up. Just

coming up. It's about to be three years old. How many miles? 30, 31. Okay. Okay. When you had it,

it went from zero to 13, I think. And I saw I've done 17 in, I suppose it must be two and a bit

years. It doesn't seem that long, does it? No, it's, I keep saying, you rarely see other orange

ones. Yes. I'm pleased to say. Yeah. But I can't believe it's a 72 plate machine because it

times past. I've enjoyed it so much. Honestly, it's one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, that's really good news. Also, I think it's, they retain their value pretty

well. So I believe that's good news, too. Because they're not inexpensive to buy or run. No, no.

No. The insurance is a bit funny, although I cleverly disguised the insurance by

parceling it up with all our other insurance. And we now have five cars in the family. And

I just pay one premium. And so nobody knows except me exactly how much it costs.

Yeah. Oh, well, there you go. That's all right. Let's take a short commercial break, I think,

which consists of me telling you, listener, that the design led home EV charging Brown Anderson,

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mines are type, type A, I think the, the, it's slightly bigger than they are now,

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Intelligent Octopus Go, the offer is available only until midnight 31st of January. To find out

more, search Anderson EV and let their concierge service. And we are about to zip over there and

do a visit just because last time we were there six months ago, wasn't it? And it'll be interesting

to see how the place is developed because they're, anything run by David Martel tends to progress.

It does. It does, doesn't it? It's interesting to see what they've done.

Yes. He was traffic master?

Yeah, traffic master. And I'm trying to think of the one, they were charge master,

do you remember? Charge master that became BP Pulse. That's right.

That was, so the public charging, he got out of public charging and got into

private charging instead. But before that, he ran traffic master, which is the

business where you had a little gadget on the dash that would tell you,

what the traffic would plot a route for you.

It would plot a route for you. You could phone, you could push a button. We had one in a,

I think, I don't know if they were standard, but they were in Nissan Primeras from the

mid to late 90s. You pushed a button on the dashboard of a retrofit custom aftermarket thing.

And there was a little plate, presumably GPS kind of plate in the windscreen,

you push a button, somebody answered the answer at the other end and said,

where do you want to go? We had a Primera with this on. And you say, I want to go to,

well, I think I want to go to this place near whatever it might be,

Barry Steadman's or, you know, whatever. And it's, I think it's a company called X and they

would look it up and go, okay, yeah, we found that and we will plot a route for you. I had to

think that that was a thing, but it went today.

Doesn't seem to have too long time ago, does it?

It doesn't, does it?

There was one of my mates had one and he was, he was friendly with David Martel,

the principal and he used to press the button and say, I'd like to be directed to the nearest

taxidermist, please. And they could do it.

And they do it. Yeah. They'd have the yellow pages on hand and away they'd go and go.

Yeah, you could certainly do find me a dentist urgently, that sort of thing.

Wild, really. I mean, to think that you would, well, I think,

did those like directory inquiries still exist?

I've got 118 and all those things.

118. Yeah.

118.

Are they still a thing?

I suppose so. Yeah.

But I mean, it seems pretty historic, doesn't it?

It does. Because you just look it up.

Yeah. Yeah.

Now little mates from AI can help you.

Oh, don't, don't.

If you go to themagazineshop.com listener, you can have full access to the 130 plus year

Autogar archive. Published weekly since 1895. Autogar did miss a couple of weeks here and

not very many. There were some strikes and three-day weeks and stuff in the 70s weren't there.

I think that Autogar was not published, but by and large, weekly since 1892.

Yeah, went through the wars, I believe.

Yeah, yeah. And then if you'd like full access to the archive, themagazineshop.com

slash Autogar, you can buy subscriptions to the latest magazine. You can get,

I think you can get, archive access only, which is updated effectively 12 months out of date.

Yeah. Or you can have print and you can have digital, you can have print and digital.

Head over to them.

But the great thing is that, as we keep saying, but I, I don't know, the more I use it,

the more obvious it is that it is actually the truth. There are so many ways of not being

told the truth that, you know, to be able to just look something, you know,

you want the compression major ratio over 950-7 Hillman Menks, there it is.

There it is. Yeah, there absolutely is.

It's not a thing that burdens you too often, is it? Not wanting...

No, but I do go, and I know I work in the business, but I do go in the archive quite a lot

and actually not always for directly work-related purposes. I'm just in there because I want to be.

I have got the seats in my current smoker, which is a Ford Capri folded down at the moment,

because the rear seats are full of the last of the auto archive, which is bound for the British

Motor Museum today. They were missing some magazines from their actual physical collection.

Right. And I think we have got what it takes to top them up. I'm going to drop them off today.

Are you? Excellent. Which is whatever that is, last week to the...

Last week, 16th of January. So, would that bring them complete or nearly complete?

I think inevitably there's still some wrinkles, but not many.

That's cool. And best of all, they're magazines in good order.

Some, you know, lots of banned copies and some of the loose ones are very pristine.

You know. Welcome to part two of the My Week in Cars podcast.

Bill Gysin writes, Steve, we didn't talk about this on last week's pod, but my column last week,

I don't think we did anyway. I don't even know if I sent it to you. You may not have seen it.

So in my Audi A2, which I don't want to bang out, bang on about all the time, but I'm going to again,

on the... It's got a climate control system tonight. Did we talk about this?

Yeah, this was the button that was... Yeah, the button that was really worn,

because it's the turn down of the... I don't know if we did talk about it on the...

Listener, I'm sorry. Sometimes I don't know if I've...

Go for it. Go for it. This is still interesting.

In reality, or if I've talked about it only on the podcast. And I literally listened to our podcast

on Wednesday when it went live because I... Because we were somewhere else and I thought,

I'll just see how the sound quality is when it's published. And I listened to it all in a car.

And I still can't tell you whether we talked about this or not on the pod.

There's a very worn button on the HVAC, which is the down fan button, because...

Because you don't like the fan noise.

I don't like a lot of fan noise.

We did talk about it somewhere. I think it might have been privately.

It might be. Anyway, so it's... And I noticed it a bit, I think, when I was

road testing Audi's 15 years ago. But I don't know. I don't remember writing about it or

complaining about it, but I may have done. It's climate control, so you can put it on auto if

you want to. But then the fan speed can get quite noisy. And what I quite like is a low fan speed

and a hot temperature. I think we talked about it off air, because I remember saying that.

But what the Audi does, if you set it to a hot temperature and a low fan speed, at some point,

it decides, well, the interior temperature isn't 28. And at the fan speed of two, I'm not going to

get to 28. Therefore, you've demanded a much hotter temperature than you've got inside the car.

So I'm going to increase the fan speed for you. So you push the down fan speed and it

leaves itself for a couple of minutes, and then it starts picking up the fan speed again. And it's

just... If... I don't know if it can be done. I don't think it can be done easily. But if there is a

non-climate control A2 pack that just gives you temperature and fan speed, I will swap it in mine

because it just gets on my nerves all the time.

Isn't it interesting, though, that that button is so... Because obviously, the previous owner

or owners have felt the same thing. They've all felt exactly the same. And Bill Gysin writes,

autocaratheymarket.com, to say, it is a measure of how maddening early 21st century Audi HVAC

heating venting air conditioning, is that you can write a column about it and have owners up and

down the country nodding furiously as they read it. My Mark 1 Audi TT annoys me with its I Know

Better Fan Speed Antics 2, which is a shame because otherwise I love it as much as you are

enamored with the A2. All the reasons you cite for your annoyance are, of course, valid. But I

think there's an additional underlying reason which transcends the machine application of

individual functions, be they fan speed, collision avoidance, and so on. And this is the assumption

that a combination of various sensors and a bit of code can do a job better than you or I. I don't

care whether it can or not. I want to decide if I desire its assistance or not. You observe the

Audi's HVAC designer all those years ago didn't understand the end user, which is forgivable,

but today it's different. The thinking seems to be that the user will get used to whatever madness

foisted on them. It reminds me of a classic eBay used car advert, the statement that the lack of

functionality of some key element never bothered me. The implication being that if it bothers you,

then you're some sort of obsessive compulsive weirdo. Thank you, Bill. Well done, Bill. He writes to

us a bit, doesn't he? He does. I think Bill was among the, could be wrong about this,

sorry, Billy, if I am, but I think he might have been among the people who wrote to me about the

dacha duster breaks. But the thing that's good about him is that he does two things. He writes

quite short and he always expresses himself well. So, well done, Bill. You're a good letter writer.

Makes for good reading on the podcast because it's short and succinct and well at the pinion.

And funny, which is also helpful. But I think that's such an important point, that business

of people presuming the end user is in some way deficient. Yeah, and I get that a lot when you

go, oh, look, this touchscreen is difficult to use and they go, yeah, but you could talk to the car

if you don't like it. I don't want to talk to the car because then I will have to interrupt

whatever I'm listening to and I don't want to do that. And you feel like I still to this day,

perhaps at my age, but I still feel like a bit of a pill of talking to the car.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, that's not your age, mate. And that's the other thing is that I think because

a lot of us writing about it feel like we don't, Edmund King from the AA said this once about

stuff. He said, look, we feel like we don't want to be Luddites. So we try to get on board with

later technology. But actually, I know a lot, we have a lot of young staff at our company and a lot

of them have other mates and they are no more fans of some of the latest kit than we are.

No, that's very true. In fact, they sort of state it with more freedom, don't they? Because

they're not constrained by... Because they don't think somebody's going to turn around and go,

all right, you'll give over it. Yeah, that doesn't bother them because they're not going to.

Yeah. What is the quiet satisfaction of driving a vintage car well?

Well, that's not an unrelated theme, is it, in a way?

No, no, no. There's a vintage car dealer whose ads I look at a lot, a bloke called Robin Lawton.

I got to the edge of buying a two-stroke Saab one time and he had one for sale and I went

around to his place, which is in the South Downs. And it's just one of these places of,

you know, industrial unit with about two dozen cars in it, everything from 20s AC to classic car,

MGA is that kind of thing. And he occasionally writes a bit of stuff about the stock and,

you know, just about the whole hobby, because classic cars are not of the type that he deals in

who are pretty affordable and not the market isn't huge. So he writes in this relaxed way and he

wrote two things that really resonate with me. It might resonate with you too because you've

driven some vintage cars. He says, there's something reassuring about cars that don't try to do

everything for you. He says, old cars reward time, attention and understanding and tend to

find the right owners in their own way. And I just thought that, you know, this bloke's much more of

an enthusiast than a car dealer in a way. I mean, he's been in, God knows, I believe he's been in the

car selling business for 50 years. But it was just put in such a sweet way that it made me kind of

want to find something to buy. I mean, yeah, you've owned old cars, haven't you? You've owned vintage

cars because you had a model T. Well, motorcycles, I've owned pre war, good for you pre war motorcycles.

Yeah. But the only pre war car I've ever owned, or apart from, you know, ancient history and MG

special years ago, but was a model T speedster, which was 1915 or something car that that had been

trying to remember now it was it was a turned into a speedster. Anyway, one of those things,

which is a chassis, two seats and a barrel tank behind you in a box over the engine. And

it was great. It was completely unfettered by the law. At the time, the safety equipment you

needed was one rear vision mirror and a horn. And you could, you know, no mudguards. It was just,

it was just the barest machine you could imagine. And it was a joy to do that. I mean,

there was all the usual stuff, which is noisy and you got wet and sure. But it was great. It was

great. And I, I, I just, I thought he said two really prophetic, really profound things. And

one was particularly that these cars, old cars tend to find the owners that suit them. That's

interesting. Like it. Yeah. And he must have seen that because he, I think he's relatively successful.

I don't know the man, I met him, you know, we had a chat about a Saab, but

I just like the cut of the business where it is a shed full of cars he likes.

I wonder if you can tell if he can tell when somebody comes to look at a car

that yes, that is that that person's going to buy this and that's the right. You must get a

vibe. I remember speaking to a race instructor and said, I could, he said, I can tell when they do

these, you know, they sit alongside somebody and instruct them around a lap or whatever at some

race school or track days or whatever. He said, I can tell the way somebody puts on a crash helmet

and sits in the car. What my experience of them is going to be like, you know, I get a real vibe

for it as soon as they walk up to the car. Cause he's been in a car sitting in the passenger seat.

I do not envy the people who do that with so many people that he just gets in it, you know,

just immediately gets an impression of what they're going to be like from the way they,

from the way they put on the way they sit down, the way they present themselves to the steering

wheel. Yeah. And I wonder if you've sold enough cars that you just think, yeah, that's, you're

going to have this, you're going to, yeah, you will like that. This is right for you. Yeah. Yeah.

I can quite believe it. It would be interesting to ask him if I ever run across him again,

I'll ask him. I've got a pretty close mate who's a flying instructor. He taught me to fly 30 years

ago and, and he, he says he can tell very soon whether people are going to take to it. I mean,

anyone can fly. It's not, it's not mystical. If you can ride a bicycle, you can fly an airplane,

but, but some have greater aptitude than others. And he says you can tell quickly. I mean, you

and I, you know, in our racket, we can read the opening paragraph of a story and know whether

it's going to grip us or not. Yes, true. Yeah, true. Yeah. Yeah, that is true.

And it's, and it all, I don't know, it just, you're really wrong, I think.

And I, yeah, I, I don't read as many car magazines as I used to partly for that reason. I've never

quite switched off from doing it. Yeah. And I don't, hasn't spoiled my enjoyment of it, but

there's a, I don't consume them like I used to. No. But the thing is, you,

I mean, think of the wealth of your experience, mate. You know, you're,

you, you probably don't need to be told what it's like to drive a two-point-line. No, but I used

to enjoy, you know, really enjoy some people's writing. At least it's something's, it's something's

not written amazingly. It annoys me. And if it's written better than me, that's annoying as well.

So, you know, so either way, I'm not, I don't always, I don't always love it.

I like to see, I tell you what, we've got some, I'm always boasting about them, but we've got

some fantastic young staff. We have, yeah. And I enjoy reading their writing because they're on,

because they're on my side. So that's good. And they, and, and, and you see, you see this,

this progress and you see this, I mean, they get good quickly, I think, if they're, if they're

right for it. And fantastic to see them as concede, I think. It's really good.

It's actually one of the joys of AutoCars is reading the, the variety of authors. And,

you know, I often wish people could know how, you know, what an achievement it is for the,

the people that have, these young guys that have written, young people that have written, because

it's a wonderful thing to do. It is. And we do, actually, I was on the Haymarket website

yesterday because at some point we are about to, if it isn't up now, we need a new photographer,

because Max Edelston, our senior photographer, is leaving at the end of January. Do you know this?

Yeah, I only found out yesterday. I was really gutted. I've done so many joyful jobs with Max.

After seven and a half years, they all go in the end, mate. They all leave in the end. They all

leave you. But anyway, so we will need to know if they get good, good enough to get professional

on their own. I mean, it is just a, it is an AutoCars slash Haymarket media group thing. We

take on brilliant young photographers. They get very good, realize they could spread their wings

a bit and away they go. But anyway, so I was on that, excuse me, listen, I was on our careers

website yesterday. And also, so we are going to have an advert for a photographer soon. We need

somebody who can and has taken pictures of cars before. So we're looking for an experienced

semi-experienced photographer. But also on there, I noticed we have a concurrently running advert

for some people who want to come and work experience to us. We have a sort of a week at a time.

So if you are or know someone who is looking for an in, have a look at the haymarket.com.

It's a celebrated way to get into our job, isn't it? Do work experience?

Yeah. Because we, the office was much more of a five day a week

job than it is now. But we used to, we used to have a really big flow of them, didn't we? And I

can remember, you know, I used to run a file on my desktop with a list of names that people that

seemed good. I've even years ago, I can remember going to the trouble of

putting somebody that was really good in storage recommending that they work for

one of our opposition, knowing that we were trusting that they would come to us when we had

a spot. And they did. And they did. Wouldn't like to name names. But there are people who

don't mind me saying Jamie Kostoffen, who was road tester and later McLaren director of global

director of global. Yes. Anyway, he came a work experience never left. Vicky Parrot,

I think came a work experience never left. And that's just Chris Harris, Chris Harris came

a work experience. I mean, there are loads of them. Chris Harris, I'm sure I've talked about

this before, but he was the bloke that invented the, I think the most beguiling utterance ever

for a workie. He used to arrive early, yeah, stand in front of your desk and say, or stand in front

of our desks and say, anyone got a job they don't want to do. And that is, you know, somebody says

that to you at sort of 20 to nine, you think this is a kind of stick around mate. Absolutely.

And of course he did. Yeah. What else we got to talk about? Should we talk my column this week

for a bit, which is the short of it is, mate, I think that Jaguars are cooler than they've been

for ages. Now I know that I am not necessarily a cool person. Who says you're not? Well, I'm just,

you know, I'm sitting here in a hoodie that my parents bought me for Christmas. I'm a middle-aged

man with no hair. But I mean, what do I know about cool? Listen, you're the owner of a Baja VW

and a motorcycle and you do the best job in the world. Well, that doesn't make that doesn't make

one a, you know, a commentator on fashion and coolness and etc. But do Jaguars seem to you as

they do to me more desirable is the wrong word because I've always liked them anyway. But there

the standout in increasing coolness is named in your column, which is the XJS. You know,

I can remember the, well, I've told the story of many a year ago, I worked for a magazine that

did scoop shots that we shouldn't admit it, but we found our way into the into Jaguars works

dressed in overalls looking for prototypes to photograph. Hang on, what? Have you not heard

this story? No. Wondering around with a photographer. Found a shed full of prototypes,

lifted up the sheet, a sheet under which was an XJS, looked at it from the rear,

saw those strange flying buttresses and the weird piece of vinyl on the back pillow, thought

that won't be the car, put it back and walked away. How did I not know you done?

Well, it wasn't me. It was it was me. It was Mel Nichols and a photographer called

Urban Franklin. But they and they just they saw the car and didn't bother with it because it

looked so strange. And they didn't and they walked into a facility uninvited over as well.

Just one of them carrying a stepladder both dressed in in overalls. I mean, it was the it

was the olden days, mate. It was 70s or something. Yeah. But I was there at the time and I remember

and out came the car and we all thought, oh, God, they've done it.

But they look great. I think they look, I mean, I've always quite liked them. But I

well, the proportions are amazing. Yeah, you look at that big long bonnet and those,

you know, very happily got a V12 nestled under it and stuff. And I think also the thing that

happens with with these cars is that people that the car mending industry gets to know how to fix

them because early in its life, the XJS had disastrous residuals. And it because the values

fell quickly, they fell into the hands of people that didn't maintain them. And they got they

weren't very well built anyway. And they just went through a bit of a disaster phase. And then

but now there's plenty of expertise, people know how to mend a V12 Jaguar V12 and they

will maintain it and and it's got some value. It's going to go up. Yeah, good cars. I'm

I used to borrow them to go to the West country with young women and who were who were impressed

by the car. I don't think I've ever driven one. Have you not? I don't think so.

Be interesting to see what you made of it because my memory of it is a is a

it was a GT car, you know, soft riding long wheelbase thing with it. But it still looks

a bit funny because there's a big rear overhang and it's almost rear wheels in the wrong place

if we had another few inches of wheelbase, it'd look nicer. But great distance together. You

know, one of those eyes to go on about, you know, that hackneyed image about being propelled by a

piece of elastic attached to the horizon and, you know, no noise and good cars. Yeah. And I

just sort of think that early ex earlier XK8s and XKs have just come out of whatever phase they

were in and into a, okay, now we're starting to be classic car. Yeah. You know, they look right.

Yeah. I often thought, I mean, there's too many opportunities in the bloody car world,

isn't there? Sorry, excuse the Chinese. But one of those early XK8s, I could quite imagine owning

one of those and I think I would enjoy getting Jaguar classic, you know, the people in the

outskirts of Coventry. I would enjoy getting them to maintain it. It might cost a few quid,

although I believe they're no more expensive than a regular dealership.

Interesting. Lots of expertise up there, people who worked on them at the time.

I think you'd enjoy, I'd enjoy the relationship, but I am a bit warped like that.

Well, I don't know, is it because they are not making any cars at the moment? I wonder,

because I feel quite fondly about Saabs. Yeah. And because, you know, they have that little

button where it shut off all but the speedo at night and they had that little cup holder

that was a small vertical piece and you tap the top of it and it would fold down really

intricately and it was very cool. And you could lock the gear lift. Oh, do you have a little lever

in the middle of the fresh air vents that would go wherever you... Yeah, they were really sweet,

really, really good. But also, I forget, I don't forget, but you know, it's easier to forget that

actually towards the end, those cars were not actually very competitive. No.

And they weren't Saabs either, they don't forget that. No, exactly.

You've got to go back to the 99 in the early 900s or the run of 900 cent,

for them to be honest to God, Saabs. But I'm not sure I'd mind a native any more,

any more. And I think, and I don't know what it is, is it just nostalgia or is it the fact that

because you don't have to worry about the stuff, the day-to-day stuff that's going on,

and you can pick and choose whether to... That's a very important point. I think it's place in

history is confirmed. So you're not wondering if you've bought a dud. Oh yeah, that is interesting.

You know where it's at. I think that goes for the XJS. Yeah. And indeed for the,

you know, something like a really pristine Jaguar XF now. Remember,

one of my sons has got a mate with a pristine V8-powered XF that he does loads of track days

into. It cost him a bit in tires and things. But that looks like a distinguished car now.

And so I think that's what we're talking about. And also the debate about Jaguar has moved on a

bit. Anybody that wants to hold forth about Jaguar tends to do it about the modern company and

whether it should be these or not and all that. But the cars they made are confirmed in history

and they're good cars. Not the X-Type so much. But that is a Sierra anyway, won't it? Yes, yeah.

Or a Mondeo. Mondeo, yeah. When they talk about the heritage, they don't tend to wheel those out

quite so frequently. But still. There will be more on Jaguar in the coming weeks, listener,

and much more besides when Steve and I come back very soon. I should ask you this off air,

but I'm going to ask you now, will you be recording your chat with Mike?

We are too, shouldn't we? I suppose, yeah. Or either that or just invite him on the pod.

Yeah, we'll just do that. One or the other.

It might be easier to do that because I think we'll get, as I say, people chomping on fish

finger sandwiches and lots of... That is true. But I mean, anyone who wants to come along and

join us would be great. They're fun. I mean, I don't know what you're up to, mate, but you're

going to come and see Mike. I would love to come and see Mike if I'm around.

Really? Yeah, you're normally somewhere between here and America or here and Ferrari or...

Funny enough, I do have a Ferrari launch in two weeks' time.

What are you up to in the near future? Where am I going? I'm going to drive the Ferrari 849

Testerosa soon. I'm going to drive an Audi RS5, I think, later still. And there will be a little

more jaguar news at some point as well. And just uploaded a video on the Audi A2 where I tried to

get 100 miles to the gallon out of it. Are you saying... I think I've said on this.

Thumbs up. Yeah, I think we said, yeah, but anyway, if you want to see me get 100 miles

to the gallon out of it, you can do that. I think they should be proud, Audi.

Yeah, I mean, I just can't... I still can't get over it. I'm still waiting for something to go wrong.

I can imagine. I'm going to come around here one day and you'll say,

by the way, I bought another one. Well, it wouldn't be a terrible idea to have a backup

one, do you know what I mean? I mean, not that there's anything wrong with the one I've got,

but if I wanted to do any work on it, because it's such a useful car, I'd hate to have it out of

action. And I kind of want to do the bits. I kind of like to work on it myself in a way.

But also, just isn't it the case, it just makes you feel good, that car? I think that's such a big

part of it for car ownership for us. It's so small, mate, and I enjoy it so much,

because it weighs 920 kilos and does 600 miles of a tank of gas. Even my Alpine weighs 1,100.

I mean, we could take it over to see David later, if you want it. Yeah, yeah, that'd be...

Well, also coming up soon is my new long-term updates on a BMW 330ci, a 20-year-old BMW 330ci.

I've seen it parked outside here. It looks such a nice, low, live-looking car. I want to hear

about that one. It's a good thing. I'm off to... got an invitation from our best friend,

now at Renault, Mr Jim Holder, who's getting a little gang together to go to RetroMobile,

the Paris classic car show. Oh, super. Oh, fantastic. A couple of weeks or a week and a half. Oh,

the odd person to talk to, never know. Yeah, that'd be good. And I might ask you to

do a little bit of filming of some stuff for me. Well, Jack Harrison, my man, is going to be there,

so I'll get it checked a bit. Brilliant. Yeah, I'll be traveling around with him,

I'm sure. He knows a good car. Excellent. Well, all it leaves me to say, then, in that case,

is, thanks to our sponsor, Anderson, the Design Let Home EV Charging brand, which makes

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Steve, thanks very much. See you later, mate. See you next week. Have a good time for Ari. Thank you.

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Have Jaguars become cooler? Plus driving a vintage car; Bicester Scramble

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