How the new Grand Tour presenters were chosen

I'm Jonny Smith. I'm a reporter. And this is Smith & Sniff, a podcast on which two friends talk about cars and many other things.

I've got to talk Magic Trees again. Sorry to draw your point. Because you forgot to finish that story last week.

Well, I realised that I'd approached the subject of Magic Trees to segue into the reason why I was talking about Magic Trees and in a true Smith & Sniff idiotic way and never got to the point before we finished our hours cast.

So I'm so sorry guys. Look, so here's the reason I mentioned Magic Trees is because I don't want to get rid of my Christmas tree because I think it's magic and I've stripped it bare so it's just a tree.

So it's not Christmasy anymore. So it's okay if you're superstitious. It's fine. But I only got it out my lounge last week. It hasn't dropped. It's a real tree. Just so you know. It hasn't dropped any needles.

It still looks as green as the day it was growing in a field. And I don't understand it. I think it might have avoided death. I don't know.

So do you know what I've done? I've put it in my garden shed with all my gardening tools and other garden paraphernalia. In the stand, I've just put it in the shed and thought if it still looks green and nice in two months time, it'll be good for next Christmas. It's magic.

Now, look, I'm not Monty Don, but I am pretty certain that one of the things that trees need is light.

Yeah.

Are you not denying it light?

It'll be restricted on light. Yeah. Photo synthesis, you say.

How are you watering it?

I haven't watered it since for at least two weeks, if not three weeks.

Are you absolutely certain that it's not a fake tree that you were sold by an unscrupulous real tree salesman?

Do you know I checked it because I was that confused. It looked so healthy and fresh. I thought maybe this is accidentally a plastic one that's been stacked up with all the real ones.

So I'm going to keep it and I'm sure loads of people are keen to know whether or not it stays looking fresh.

But I'm hoping that I might be able to use it next Christmas because it's the kids favorite tree they've ever seen with our house.

So I feel like it's got some magic about it.

Must also point out to listeners, if I sound slightly different, I'm in a hotel room because I'm fundamentally trapped on an island.

I should have left the Isle of Man this morning, but there's Galeforce Winds, which have been an absolute bastard to try and film around and rain.

And it means the ferry can't arrive and take us.

And they're saying that the ferry tonight might also be cancelled.

Now, if that's the case, I might be here for some time, run out of clothes.

We don't have a live show in a few days, so I hope you can get back for that.

Well, me too. I've got other engagements, which I must attend to.

But I have, via phone and modern technology, I have got our Saab MOTD.

So now that has a ticket.

Great.

Yeah, she's ready. She's ready for voyages.

How frustrating that you have a usable Saab at home and there you are stuck away from home.

That's torture.

Yeah, I know. It's not the sort of thing I would talk about on Instagram, like people who go,

oh, I've just celebrated my birthday and I've bought myself a Ferrari Stradale

and had it delivered in an enclosed transporter to the house.

No, I've just got a Saab that needs cleaning outside.

And I definitely need to put fuel in it because the fuel light came on a long time ago

and I've been, I was in a rush, so I didn't put any fuel in it.

So that's that.

You can treat it like your Christmas tree and just see how long it can go without fixing it.

Oh, it could be a magic Saab.

Magic Saab.

It could be a magic Saab.

I forgot to say last week, speaking of things that slipped our minds,

I never told the story of the mouse transport situation that I found myself in.

Oh, yeah. You were a mouse Uber.

Well, yes, Uber was the sort of the gist of it, but it started because, you know,

we've got that big cupboard in our kitchen where we keep all the food that's not fridge stuff.

And there's a drawer which sort of has treats and things in it.

My wife opened it up.

There was a fresh sleeve of penguins in there and it had been chewed through the outer wrapper

and one of the inner wrappers and a penguin had had the corner taken off it by something that was not a human.

Because at first she went, oh, God, look at this penguin.

My first instinct was that our daughter had just gone feral because she bloody loves a penguin biscuit

and chewed through the wrapper.

But no, it was clearly an animal, a rodent of some sort.

Bottom of the cupboard, there's just like boxes of things.

And we looked behind those and there was obviously mouse poo.

Nice.

I don't like the idea of killing animals particularly.

So I was like, I'm not going to just get one of those traps because this feels like something I would tell a therapist,

but I still remember as a child, we had mice in our garage at home and my dad said,

I'm going to put a trap down.

And I said, dad, is it going to kill the mouse?

And he went, mouse will be fine.

And then we went to the garage to check the trap and there it was an old school like Tom and Jerry cartoon trap,

you know, the real trad ones with the horrible swing.

You know, with the swing.

There was poor old mousy deed in the trap and it was quite traumatic for me.

And I still remember it.

I was probably like five at the time.

So I thought, I'm not going to do that to my kids.

I will get some of those humane traps.

So I bought two of those.

I put one in the drawer of treats, even though we couldn't really figure out how the mice were getting up there.

We took all the treats out, put this, slid this trap in there and then put one on the floor.

Came down the next morning, two for two.

There's a mouse in each trap.

Oh, brilliant little fellas.

Of course, the kids are like, wow, look at these poor little guys.

But they're in there and they're just like, you know, they're big eyes and they're very sweet.

And I think my daughter was about one sentence away from going, can we keep them?

Because they were very sweet.

Even my wife went, oh, they're so cute.

I was like, yes, but they are also vermin who've been eating our stuff.

So what we need to do now is go and release them, but not just kind of in our garden.

They'll find their way back, right?

This is how I think mice work.

But you could have just taken a one minute walk down the road.

I thought so.

My wife was like, no, you have to go further away.

And I was like, what?

Yeah, so she was talking to one of her colleagues who is a natural historianist.

And he went, oh, yes, I had mice in my house, caught them in a humane trap.

I drove them a couple of miles away.

And so she was going, you've got to drive them a couple of miles.

A couple of miles away.

If you scale this up a couple of miles to a mouse, it's like 400 miles for us.

It's like, if I drove you 400 miles away, I'm just going to drop you in Aberdeen.

I wouldn't expect you to turn up on the doorstep going, cool, that was a walk.

It's too far.

She went, you just know you've got, they're clever and they home.

They'll know where the source of food.

So I was like, fine, I will put the mice in the car.

And I will drive them to a park that is more than a mile away.

Richard.

So we got the kids out of the house to school.

And then I was like, right, I need to do these mice.

Because I feel bad that they're, I don't know how long they've been in this trap,

but they're just there with their big eyes looking all a bit frightened.

So I was like, I wanted to go and release them into the wild.

And I'm now saying this and thinking someone's going to write in and go,

you know, if you release mice from your house into the wild,

they immediately get eaten by badgers.

But I was hoping that mice are resourceful and they can just make a new home somewhere.

So the car that was at the bottom of the drive was my Defender.

Yeah.

Regular listeners will know we have a couple of electric cars and we have my Defender.

Those are the cars that are at home at the moment, right?

So I thought it'd be good to take the mice in an electric car, smooth, quiet, not too traumatic.

But I couldn't be bothered to do the shuffling American car valet running up and down the street thing to move cars around.

So just took them in the Defender.

But of course, it's a rattly diesel bastard.

And I didn't want mouse plops falling out of the traps onto the light colored seats of my car.

So I put the two humane traps in the passenger footwell.

It's got rubber mats, so that's fine.

But then start the Defender and bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum.

Bloody clattery thing that it is.

And of course, you know, going over like every part of the speed bump, the Defender has quite a sort of chunky ride.

So I felt bad, but it was the only way to get these mice to the prescribed at least a mile preferably two from our house.

And then I pulled into this little car park, this park, and there's loads of other people there all walking their dogs.

And I pull up, jump out, no dog, open the passenger door.

I just magically produced two clear plastic boxes with mice in them.

People must have been going, what the fuck is he doing?

And I put them down on the ground.

I checked there were no dogs or anything around to immediately come over and see the mice, slid the little things up.

One of them went like an absolute bastard, just flew out into the undergrowth and off he went.

I was like, fly my beauty, fly.

The other one wouldn't leave the bloody trap.

I had to sort of shake him out in the end and then he just sort of scuttled away and then he sat there.

He just looked at me.

If you're listening, the two mice that tried to eat our penguin biscuits, I'm sorry about your journey to the local park, but I hope it wasn't too traumatic.

First of all, I thought you were going to accuse me of eating the penguins because you know, in the past, I've been bad and torn through some sleeves of penguins.

But second, I can't believe you were even thinking about the choice of car in order to escort your victims away.

It's very, very considerate of you, Rich.

Well, because you know what it's like, animals, they don't like being in cages or boxes, do they?

No.

It causes them stress.

And I was like, I don't want to stress them anymore.

I'm sure there's a lot of people listening.

I think people who live on farms and things going, why don't you just shoot them or drown them?

Why are you being such a softie?

I think I'd make a reasonable Buddhist.

I'm with you on that one.

I don't like to kill any animals, but I'm just amazed that you just let them go several miles away and you were worried about the defender being inadequate.

But also, whenever I've tried to nurse a bird back to health when it's flown into a window or my cat's caught or something, sometimes they just die because they have a heart attack because of the stress of it all.

They have extremely high idle small birds.

They do, don't they?

And if anyone has ever had a throttle jam open on a car, it's very, very stressful because the engine's racing and there's not a lot you can do about it.

And I've had it in the last 24 hours.

It's very stressful.

What?

Have you?

Yes, I have.

Yes.

Ooh.

It's also deafening.

Was this, are you allowed to say what car it was?

No.

Okay.

And I also forgot to say last week when I was talking about Merlin Purple Audis, I was going to mention that if you swap those words around, Purple Merlin, it sounds like one of those strange cockney London insults that someone might throw at you.

Do you not think?

Which order are you putting the words in?

Purple Merlin.

Not Merlin Purple.

Oh, Purple Merlin.

You, Purple Merlin.

Who do you think I am?

I'm not having none of it.

Because I always feel like Merlin Purple is a kind of local man from whom you might be able to buy honey for weed.

For both, maybe.

Or weed infused honey.

I don't know.

Merlin Purple is that guy who I encountered several years ago and I mentioned on the podcast who was cleaning his car with the back of his shorts missing.

Cleaning it with a wet broom.

I feel that one of the things about Merlin Purple is that one day you're staggered to discover that's his real name.

You always assumed it was a nickname or something like that and you happen to, for some reason, you happen to see his driving license because he can drive because he's got one of those army surplus Landrovers, I think.

Oh, yeah, he has, hasn't he?

One of those forward control things.

Is it 101?

Oh, maybe one of those.

Yeah, yeah, definitely something like that.

He's always skinned so he can't understand why.

It's because the Landrover costs about £800 a week to run on fuel for fuel and ancillaries.

But yeah, it turns out that Merlin Purple is his birth name.

But then you also notice that his middle name is Stephen.

You know, that's, wow, that's quite conventional in this context.

So, Merlin Stephen Purple.

Yes, Merlin Stephen Purple.

Where were we?

I don't know.

Most transport, yeah.

Yeah, I like that.

I don't know if any other listeners have ever transported animals, but in a very considerate

way like you have.

I like that.

Or if anyone out there is called Merlin Purple, I suppose.

That's always interesting.

But I actually met a guy on The Island Man two days ago called John Dog.

I bet he's mates with Merlin Purple.

I can imagine those two really enjoying the crack in a pub.

How is a dog like DOG or DOG?

Really?

Yeah, John Dog.

Seriously?

Yeah, I got introduced to him and then as we sort of said goodbye, he gave me a Manx triple

leg logo that he'd hand made out of copper wire.

And he said, yeah, he said you have to hang it in a certain way so that the knee is never

on the ground because, and he came closer to me with slightly wild eyes and he said,

do you know why?

He said, because us Manx folk don't kneel for fucking anybody.

And I thought that was good.

So that's John Dog.

And I accidentally called him John The Dog and then quickly got picked up in the fact

that he's not John The Dog, he's John Dog.

No, because the dog is a surname spelled like that.

He's escaped from the Peppa Pig universe.

Because it's always baffled me about the Peppa Pig world.

And I think other animal based cartoons that the animals species are their surnames.

Yeah.

But how does that work?

So every pig in Peppa Pig world is called pig.

Trubbish, isn't it?

But then does that mean they're all related, in which case they're wildly in bread, which

would explain why they've got two eyes on one side of their faces and stuff.

It just doesn't make any sense to me unless it's sort of like that Icelandic surname system

where your surname is derived differently from the way that we would do it in this country,

for example.

You got me thinking, I'm thinking Merlin Purple is possibly a no-name false suspension mountain

bike guy.

I was thinking there is a definite whiff of unconventional home.

Yeah.

Whether it be canal boats.

Treehouse.

Static caravan in field with no other caravans nearby.

Treehouse, yes, is a good one.

It's a treehouse because he's probably, he's a bit of a tree surgeon.

So he gets free wood because he heats his life with a wood burner.

And he decided to have no fixed abode.

But because the treehouse, the house doesn't sit on the ground.

It's exempt from normal rules of life.

Yes.

So it just sways around up in the air.

And down the chain to the tree at the bottom is his bicycle.

Of course.

Which happens to have no name, quite a lot of surface rust and sort of what would have been

some suspension travel, but isn't a great deal.

He's that guy.

And you know what?

He's got a brother called Alfard.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, Alfard Romeo.

His brother's really well read.

Well, good.

Anyway, this is important stuff.

I'm still enjoying the fact that you called someone John the dog by mistake.

I felt bad because he was a very, very nice guy.

The other thing is only last night I was in a manx restaurant having dinner with some

guys and went into the, let's not always talk about toilets on this podcast.

But I have to point out there was a clear perspex plaque on the back of the toilet cubicle

door, which had nothing short of an essay written on it.

Can I just quickly read it out to you?

Because it just had really got me going.

Oh, well, can we just establish it was a clear door?

No.

So it was a normal cubicle door and it had a thick, clear plastic plaque nailed to the

door with words printed on it.

I get it.

A lot of words.

So in big letters it says, I took a photo of this so I can prove it on our social media.

Important notice, these toilets have been installed with the latest sensor technology from America,

which can detect objects in bold passing through the U-bend.

These sensors can detect the following, paper in brackets, newspaper, towels, baby wipes,

wet wipes, plastic and rubber, cotton balls and cotton buds, cloth, nappies, sanitary bags

and towels, glass and much more.

When the sensor detects an item, a buzzer will alert the management to immediately respond

to a potential problem.

If you ignore this warning, you'll be charged a minimum of £100 plus VAT to remove the

objects.

All of the above and more will block capital letters in bold, will block the drains.

Now in red underlined, do not put any of these items down this toilet.

Please use the bins provided, please leave the toilet how you wish to find it.

Oh and for your safety and security, time CCV cameras monitor and record all public areas.

Toilets are checked on a regular basis but if anything is missing like soap or toilet paper etc.

The toilet is not clean or working, please inform a member of staff.

Thanks for your cooperation, that's very wordy sign.

Is this, this was in a pub or a restaurant?

This was in more, I would say it's a restaurant.

Wow.

And it was good food by the way, just pointing out it was good food.

But just so many details, I just, it makes me wonder whether someone has visited their

restaurant and taken, I don't know, instead of taking a box of things to a charity shop,

they've taken them into the gents' toilet with them and just tried to slide.

Don't need that stamp on the toilet.

I'm just kidding.

What on earth has happened to make this sign?

I just don't believe that this is a commonplace problem, otherwise all restaurants and pubs

would have similar signs and generally they don't.

They might have one that says, you know just casually sort of says please don't put, you

know often like sanitary items down the loo.

Hmm, yeah.

Because of old school septic tanks and things in rural places.

And then there were those incredible law of diminishing returns notices in the loo's

of virgin trains that were accompanied by the same message, like read out on a speaker

while you're in the loo.

I don't remember those.

Yeah, and it's like because they tried to gag it up but the trouble is every time you

went to the loo on a virgin train and if you used them a lot that was going to happen,

you were having the same joke in inverted commas told to you over and over and it just

became quite tiresome and you just wished they just played it straight because it sort

of said, please do not flush the following items down the toilets.

Sanitary towels.

Shoes.

Telephones.

Coats.

Yeah, well that's it.

There we go.

Kettle.

Erlen wanted Christmas jumper.

Your ex's car keys.

A Valentine's car.

It just went on and on.

It was a bit like if you'd come up with a thousand variations of this then it might have

been okay because it was the same one over and over you just like yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thanks.

I understand on a train and on a plane the loo's work differently and you do want to avoid

people putting big objects down there but what's like what is wrong with the restaurant

plumbing?

I don't know.

They have to be so sort of aggressively and they've had this made presumably this sign

so they've spent some money having it professionally printed onto a purse bag that's clean, cleanable,

workable.

Unless it's an Isle of Man thing and there is water pressure problem on there.

I just don't think so.

I think they've just had an appalling experience where someone's flushed.

I don't know.

Three pairs of motorcycle gloves down there and a boot.

Oh, it's the Isle of Man, yeah.

Yeah.

Or a leather jacket.

I just don't know.

I just don't know what's happened.

Or in the restaurant they accidentally at the napkin or a hot towel or something and

then coughed it up down the loo and that caused chaos which has to be addressed.

Yeah, please don't put beach towels down our toilet because it cannot cope with that kind

of stress.

Guys, please, who's taking anything but themselves into the lavatories of a restaurant?

She's going, are you taking your bag to the loo, Dave?

Yes, I've just got a load of cotton wool.

I need to get rid of.

I don't know how to explain that but maybe someone can.

If you're Manx and you go, yes, this is a common problem we all have to live with because

of a reason that I haven't thought of yet.

Should we talk about pressing newses?

I'll give you a choice of two things if you like.

Go on then.

Should we talk about the death of the Lexus LC or should we talk about the Grand Tour?

What would you like to talk about, Rich?

Well, the Grand Tour is obviously in the news because they announced last Thursday who the new

presenting lineup will be when the show is rebooted.

And this is a bit odd, I think, in that those very people were sort of leaked a few months ago.

And so I think for a lot of folks this news was already out there.

I was only saying to her mate last week.

I said they haven't revealed the new presenting lineup for the Grand Tour.

He went, yeah, they have.

I said, but they haven't.

I know they haven't because I know that it's coming next week.

And he went, but I know who it is.

And I've seen the thing.

I said, no, that was a leak.

And he was like, oh, was it?

Didn't realize.

Thoughts it was official.

So it sort of, I suppose, sucked some of the wind out of the sails.

But now it has been made official by Amazon.

They've put out an actual press release.

And for people who haven't noticed, it is Thomas and James from Throttle House out of YouTube.

And Francis Bourgeois, most known for his train videos on social media.

I have to declare a little bit of skin in the game here because when Amazon decided

they were going to bring the Grand Tour back, I was involved.

And from quite early on, I kept banging the drum for the Throttle House boys.

Because everyone kept going, oh, what the Grand Tour presenters have to have is chemistry.

They have to have chemistry.

And I was like, well, go and watch Throttle House because James and Thomas have brilliant chemistry.

They're very funny.

Their carnology is superb.

And they make great videos.

And they're already doing well.

Well, that's the only thing, isn't it?

They're already doing well.

Would they even consider doing a show like this?

But thankfully, the answer is yes.

They're good.

That stuff's fantastic.

That stuff is so good.

They're a huge fan.

It's been a bit of a shame that for reasons that are now obvious in the last year,

they haven't been putting as much stuff on their YouTube channel because they've been busy with Grand Tour business.

But it was delightful to me when through a very long screen testing process,

they were consistently giving what we were looking for.

And so it was pretty clear that they were our guys.

It was finding someone else to plug in with that existing friendship that would work on screen.

And I think it was actually Thomas and James that originally said,

what about Francis Bourgeois?

Because they'd seen him do that video with Chris Harris where they chase a train in a merc.

In a black series.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was a bit, I don't see this at all.

I don't get it.

Francis came in for a meeting and within three or four minutes,

I was staggered by his car knowledge.

And you know me, I'm quite a snob about these things because I'm a crashing nerd.

His knowledge is quite incredible.

His great uncle was Alex Moulton, the car suspension guru slash bicycle person.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Francis himself is an engineer by training, so he understands things.

And when he was telling us when he first came in about this model railway that runs around his sitting room,

I said, is it on the floor or is it up high?

And he went, oh, no, I use the table that my television sits on as the datum point.

And it's like datum point.

He even talks like an engineer.

He's got that sort of precise brain.

And then as soon as Thomas and James met him for the first time,

there was just like this little bromance broke out.

It was quite sweet to see.

So at this point, having spent pretty much a year trying to get the presenting lineup sorted.

It's been a long conception, hasn't it?

Really has.

A longer than I think anyone expected,

but it also probably indicates how much Amazon wanted it to be right.

They were prepared to let that happen rather than rush it.

But once the presenters were found and we'd worked up tons of ideas for editorial

and the great thing about the new presenters is they are all very editorially savvy.

And they all have a really good sense of who they are and what they can do on camera,

which I think is really important.

You know, they have all been effectively learning how to do it over many years on their own channels.

Yeah.

They're not standing in front of a camera for the first time.

They have practiced and practiced and, you know, been making great outputs.

Well, I think Francis has trained stuff is really great and obviously throttle house brilliant.

But once we'd sort of found them, I had been living in hotels and in mate's spare rooms for half the week.

And I'd been doing that for a year because the office is in London and I was a bit bored of that.

And quite honestly, I was neglecting other things that I'm supposed to be doing, including this podcast.

You can't neglect that, Richard.

And I've worked on the Grand Tour on top gift like I did like 22 years.

So it's a bit like just give her a rest now, need to move on.

So with that all sorted out at the beginning of last year, I said, look, you know, I've got too much else going on.

And I feel like I can't commit to this the way that I should.

So I'm just going to step back.

I've seen the little bits of the show.

I think they are really good together.

And I hope they are allowed to do their thing without too much producing

because I do think they are smart enough and talented enough to be able to bring something new to the show

without totally throwing away what makes the show appealing.

So I have seen bits and pieces.

I haven't seen a whole thing.

I'm looking forward to what they've come up with.

But I know there's going to be natural resistance and skepticism to anyone trying to step into the shoes of Jeremy, Richard and James.

But I do think those three have got as greater chance as anyone of making the show their own

and making it something people still want to watch.

So I hope it works out for them.

I think from what you've told me, I mean, I've not met all of them.

But I think the probability of success is high.

I think if you look beyond the fact that no, they're not the other three guys,

but if they're bringing their own credentials to the table,

Francis is a really, really nerdy, you know, unashamedly nerdy character who knows his stuff.

He's got his jazz type.

And the Throttle House guys put out fantastic YouTube content.

So I would like to wish them all the very best.

They deserve it.

And it's nice, I think all I would say is it's nice that they haven't chosen somebody who's just famous

and maybe likes driving cars.

That's always the thing that sends a shiver down my spine.

Yes.

There's a whole story to be told about the process of which we arrived here,

which I'm sort of conscious.

I think I signed an NDA, but I don't think I'm betraying any comfort is to say that certain people

are towards a famous face because superficially it makes the show easier to market.

Yeah.

If you can put up a bloody great poster with Tom Cruise on it,

well, people are going to go, shit, it's Tom Cruise doing the Grand Tour.

I'll watch that.

There are lots of reasons why it then actually isn't a good idea.

Not least, megastars don't often have a lot of free time.

No.

The Grand Tour, globetrotting show this is, is a big commitment.

And I'm just plucking Tom Cruise out the, I mean, obviously that's ridiculous.

No, they never even ask him because he is a proper movie megastar.

But someone off that caliber, big recognizable face, splashed them on a billboard.

You can see the appeal from the marketing department's point of view,

but it's one of those ones where then you work through the other elements of the show that are required,

not least knowledge as well, incredible knowledge because I think doing any car program,

whether it's the Grand Tour, Top Gear, whatever, where it's sort of slanted towards entertainment,

but it's like being a jazz musician.

You know, you sort of have to know all the notes to know which notes to leave out.

Exactly.

It's all part of that skill, but you have to have that full knowledge to then make these decisions.

I think presenters of car shows should have excellent car knowledge,

but also an awareness and an ability to filter out the dull bits so that you keep it entertaining.

I haven't got that memo.

Bloody hell.

You know what I mean?

Jeremy Richardson, James, they know cars.

They genuinely know cars and it's in their blood and they can't help themselves.

Their nerdiness will sort of flare up, but they're also smart enough

and they are such TV beasts, particularly in their later days,

that they just know how to sort the wheat from the chaff.

And I think that sensibility is within Thomas, James and Francis.

So I'm quite confident about that, but yeah, the temptation to go for a really big star

just for the marketing push was definitely a part of the process

and I think the right decision was made there, but not without some debate.

There's many other avenues that could have been pursued

because I think some people I've seen online sort of going,

they're just trying to replicate it because it's three blokes again.

It wasn't a given that it was going to be three blokes.

You auditioned a lot of women too, didn't you?

Yes.

There are a lot of women making really good car content out there.

I won't say names because it's not fair,

but there's some people I think could do some amazing things

and it was definitely considered in some form or other.

Good.

Because there's also, there's all sorts of reasons why you keep coming back

to three people as a dynamic.

It just works.

Is it the tripod method of cameras don't stay up with two legs?

Monopod needs you to hold it.

And two, the same thing too, just be pointless.

And four, while you go, hang on, you don't need that, you could get away with three.

There's something about the three, particularly in the way that the show

tends to work when it does those, we've each bought a car kind of challenges.

Yeah.

Because you often get two against one.

One person's made a bad choice or one person is having trouble

with what they've chosen at any given point.

The other two are then laughing at them.

You just get that sort of, it's a good kind of rotating dynamic.

And then suddenly one of the others is down and the other two are like,

you've messed up here and it just somehow works.

And if you start getting more than three, it all gets a bit busy on screen.

And if you just have two, it could work with two, it could work with four,

but it's just somehow three seems to work with that format.

But again, I'm not betraying any confidences when I say that it wasn't as simple as just going,

well, it's got to be three.

It was all open for debate.

So do you think that we should have another person on this podcast?

Should we have Merlin Purple on?

I think if we can get Merlin, then I would welcome his perspective on such things

as bring your own beer.

Or a 60s person, a genuine one.

Not a fictitious one.

They are out there.

60s person.

Anyway, well, that's enough of that.

I know people have all got very strong opinions,

but I would hope that the show is good enough to win people around

if they have a sort of natural skepticism,

which I get because it is a reboot of a long running thing.

We've seen some attempts to reboot Top Gear in the past.

They had quite a rocky ride at times.

I do believe that Jeremy Rich and James don't completely own talking about cars

and doing big road trips in cars and things like that.

I totally agree.

And I hope it all goes really, really well for the guys.

And I hope that they don't end up getting shot down by too much of the internet shouting

because that is quite hard to deal with sometimes.

Yeah, it is.

And I think also that Thomas, James and Francis all are online people,

as in that's their world.

That's where they've established themselves.

So it would be harder for them perhaps to tune it out

than it would be for somebody who still has an old Nokia

and calls it the Googles when they search for something.

With a crazy frog ringtone.

I actually heard one.

Yeah.

Yesterday.

Did you?

Honestly, I thought it was like...

I thought it was 2003 all over again.

It was amazing.

Flashbacks.

When you go on the Lexus website in the UK, it says,

Lexuses discontinued the LC in the UK.

However, for more information on LC used car stock,

please contact your nearest centre or search here online.

Because when you buy an approved pre-owned Lexus LC,

you have the reassurance of knowing that all LC used vehicles

have been through meticulous checks and come with a Lexus warranty.

And to find out a second hand LC on sale near you,

click the search because the LC 500 is a sports coupe

available with a self-charging hybrid or the 5-litre V8 petrol engine.

And it majors on style and technology with no compromise

to the quality of the interior cabin.

The end.

I thought they discontinued it ages ago,

but maybe just because no one was buying them.

I don't think it was that long ago.

But then that's the issue, isn't it?

I really like that car.

Yeah.

I think it looks terrific.

It does.

It does look terrific.

It's actually quite nice to drive as well.

I just looked at the cheapest LC I can find for sale at the moment.

It's the hybrid one.

I think I'd hold out for the 5-litre V8.

But if you want a hybrid one, just under 40 grand is where they're at.

That feels like it'd be a car for life if you wanted to be.

It definitely could be a car for life.

I told you about four weeks ago, I passed one on the motorway

and the guy sitting behind the wheel had the most satisfied grin on his face.

He wasn't looking to see who was looking at him.

He was just in a place of bliss.

Lexus Bliss.

It really was.

But that's, yeah, BLE, Big Lexus Energy.

Just going completely.

This is satisfying.

BLE.

Yeah.

All of these interior trim parts fit so well.

Yeah.

No rattles for me.

No.

I'm going to run my fingers over.

All of these textiles and plastic.

Oh man.

There's a green one here.

There's a green 5-litre with a tan interior.

Piss off.

Really?

Car people.

Why the car people?

I include myself in this.

Car people always get a real sort of lust over greed over tan.

And I don't know why.

I think it's just because it works nicely.

But there's a green over tan.

Well, it's become fashionable again, but I'm going to just say I was always in.

When everyone else was going on about black alcantara and red exterior,

I was like, no, get lost.

It's always green and tan for me.

G and T, Richard.

G and T.

Yes.

G and T.

G gets to be early and you're G and T.

Well, this is almost four years old, this one.

20,000 miles.

So it's got a low mileage.

It's the 5-litre, but it's 78 grand.

Bloody hell.

They don't absolutely shed value like you might think.

No.

I was hoping it'd be 7,800 pounds, but it's not.

Well, exactly.

It's sort of imagined.

I mean, Jesus Christ, there's a...

The most expensive on this to hear at the moment is a Cabrio.

Again, it's the 5-litre and it is apparently the ultimate addition.

One of only four in the UK.

It's a 2024 car.

My gosh, these cars are instant.

These could be instant classics.

Well, this Cabrio Ultimate Edition is 118,000 pounds.

Screw me.

That's what it's advertised for.

I mean, I don't know if anyone's going to pay that because it's a lot, isn't it?

It's like I'd like these cars, but I...

You're in some choppy waters there for what else you could have for 118 grand.

I don't know.

But at 40 grand or, I mean, the cheapest V8 I can see here is 47.

Can I just mention there's a letter from a person that isn't going to have their name read out

because I'm organised, okay?

Okay, yes.

But they say if my name comes up on this podcast, it could be catastrophic for my career.

Okay, so he's just put,

Hello, you pair of wanker flutes.

I worked for a large Nissan main dealer back in the youth on the launch of the Nissan Leaf.

I put myself forward to be the EV specialist in house

because back then only one person was allowed to sell electric cars.

It was shitting hard work.

Full stop.

I sold one in the first year to an elderly couple who repeatedly would run low on charge and ring me for support.

I would promptly log on to Zatmap and direct them to the nearest charger,

which was usually about 10 minutes further away than their range would allow them to travel.

My EV specialism allowed me to get very well acquainted with the Nissan Leaf,

which I still think was a great car and quickly found out in brackets.

I was about 19 or 20 at the time that if you turn the traction control off,

reversed and then slammed it into D, you could burn out like a motherfucker.

On a late summer's evening, I was tasked with moving the leaf to its new home at the back of the showroom.

The showroom was pretty much empty.

And for some ungodly reason, I decided to show off to the receptionist and do this stunt inside the building.

I filled the entire showroom with tire smoke and I burnt all the floor decals that had recently been laid

to promote the leaf from memory, it said, two pence per mile in large letters,

managing to open the side doors quickly enough not to set off the fire alarm system.

I left tire marks across the pale tiled floor and I shat my pants as soon as the event had concluded.

I managed to kick the rubber off the floor with my worn salesman spec F&F black shoes

and I left promptly afterwards, positioning the leaf to its new resting place and then I went home.

Somehow I managed to get away with it, with only the sales director noticing about four weeks later

with me hearing him from a distance show.

What the fuck happened to these vitals on the floor?

They were a fucking grand to have these done.

So, yeah, he's put, there we go.

Cheers mate, thanks mate, on the other side of the showroom things.

Yours Anonymous.

Indoor burnouts.

Indoor burnouts, they're the worst idea.

They are the worst idea.

I know that motorcycles have, I might have been involved in a motorcycle Indoor Burnout once

in the Max Power Office and a two stroke.

Can I just say that I like the smell of two stroke, but when it lingers in a building for upwards of two weeks afterwards,

it gets a bit tedious.

It's a bit accurate after two weeks.

It was not the greatest idea.

Really not a good idea.

Wow, yes.

That's, yeah.

Okay, well that's fantastic.

I was going to tell you about an absolute sleeve that I saw the other week.

Oh, which, you know, there are some sort of basic rules in petrol stations.

So it's just, it's kind of assumed and everybody plays along with, for starters, you turn your car off.

Yes.

And you don't use your phone.

No.

Well, let me tell you about the man, in fact, and he did the third one.

It was almost like he'd gone, right, today's challenge.

How many petrol station rules can I break?

So a lot of petrol stations, particularly ones with quite cramped four courts, they have an in and out, don't they?

Because it just stops everything getting jammed up.

Yeah.

This was a very pokey four court.

And so it had an in and out.

I'd driven in through the in bit and pulled up to put some diesel in my defender.

He was not on the mouse release mission.

This was I was up in, I don't know where it was, like Wiltshire somewhere, I think, or Gloucestershire, maybe.

And suddenly this man in a Seat Leon, like the old shape.

Yeah.

They're quite famous.

Zooming into the petrol station, they were the only, we were the only people there.

So it was quiet, but he came in through the out, as Prince said, and zoomed up to the pump, sort of diagonally opposite.

So on the other side of the island, a one pump down, screeched to a halt.

He jumps out and I couldn't notice he was still on a video call to somebody, which immediately I was like, were you driving on a video call?

Because that's the mark of an absolute trumpet for a start.

He was loudly chatting.

In fact, he was doing that thing where he repeatedly explained what he was doing to the person.

He's just filling it up with fuel.

I'm just putting some petrol in the car.

Yeah, just stay on, stay on.

I'm just putting some petrol in the car.

Oh my gosh.

The stereo in his car was still blasting out.

He must have put about four quids worth of fuel in it.

Because then he legged it into the shop, still on his video call, leaving the driver's door of the car wide open, which was why the music was so loud.

So he didn't even turn his music down while he was on a video call?

No.

No, again.

I mean, just the sleeve notes are piling up here and then we suddenly thought, how is the stereo still playing?

He'd left the engine running and then he came charging out of the shop, still going, no, I'm just getting back in the car.

I'm just getting back in the car and jumped in the car and sped off out of the in-bit.

The guy's an absolute wand of plenty.

This is like a bell-end masterclass.

Yeah.

I was genuinely open-mouthed.

So it was one of those three-door lay-ons as well that were sort of slightly rare, but not interesting particularly.

Yes.

In a sort of turquoise-y colour.

And somehow it fitted because this guy was clearly a twat and there's something a little bit twatty about those cars.

But I have not seen some basic rule-breaking on that scale.

Because it's kind of like, I know that they've tested this something, the theoretical risk of phones causing some incident in a petrol station.

It's very small.

It's obviously there, but it's not particularly troublesome.

Yeah.

It's not really harming anybody.

No, I think it's just more about being a bit of a dick.

I think it's more about losing concentration whilst pouring gallons of inflammable fluid all around the place.

I think that's what it's more about.

Casual knobheadery involving cars is just something that I don't know why it slightly sets my teeth on edge.

No, I know what you mean.

I actually brimmed because I came out, I've come over to the land of the Manxcat in my Honda Insight.

I've had so many people like marvelling at it.

Like I've come over in some jets in the spaceship.

And I figured to myself, I bet the fuel over here is significantly more expensive than on mainland UK.

Not the case.

I think it's a bit cheaper over here at the moment.

Don't know why.

Is that tax thing maybe?

It could be.

Because there's their own Manx spec petrol companies that I've noticed.

Oh really?

They've all got logos.

Yeah, they've all got similar logos with three legs and stuff.

How many?

I've noticed two already, which I thought was quite a lot.

That's quite a lot.

Yeah.

How many people live on the Isle of Man?

That's a really good question.

Seven?

No, it's like 80,000 or something, I think.

Is it?

Yeah, it's more than you realise.

There's a lot of places starting with the word bala, a lot.

But not clava.

Bala?

Yeah, bala.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, apparently about 84,000.

Okay.

There's a lot of Viking stuff kicking about.

It's great.

It's fascinating.

Yeah, yeah.

Very, very friendly.

Yeah.

But yeah, so I brimmed the Honda and I also noticed that I think every pump of every fuel

station I've noticed with my Hawkeyes has super unledded.

And I don't know whether that's because of the biker thing.

Yeah, well, and just, it's a general kind of, it's kind of quite a, you know, internal

combustion enthusiast island, isn't it?

It is, very much so.

There's a lot of people here who have got interesting vehicles.

And also, I'm on the quest, I know we're nearly winding down this podcast, but I'm still

hot on the quest of an old car flame that I set upon some, I think it's 15 years ago

that I first saw it.

And you know what I'm going to say, don't you?

I do.

The Dakar Yellow 520i E34 BMW that the ladies had from New.

I've spread the word while I've been here and somebody's found it.

So I think I might actually do a cold call door knock this afternoon, if I can.

Holy shit.

Or if I'm here for the next two weeks, I've got two weeks to just keep talking to that

person and wearing them down.

Yes.

Well, I'll take John the Dog and Merlin Purple with you as backup and you can win them over.

Well, look, you should wrap this up, not least because you need to go and start the process

of wearing down Dakar Yellow BMW.

Well, I'm going to make my own chinker-built vessel, I've decided, and just try and get

across myself.

It's very smooth, the North Sea, isn't it?

No issues there.

No.

The Irish Sea rather.

No.

No, it's just fine at the moment.

All right.

Well, before we go, I have three things I'd like to share with you.

The first is that Johnny is engaged in a rather strange project to record the former lead

singer of Merillion reading out 1970s Smutty Erotica under the working title Fish Sauce.

If that's not to your taste, then there is, of course, the late break show, lots of things

on there.

Not yet a video of Johnny buying a bright yellow BMW, but hopefully in future there

will be.

The video that will have just dropped, as they say, if you're listening to this on Monday,

is a barn find in a genuine barn in Devon, a really fun one.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

It features Harry Metcalf, but he isn't the barn find.

What?

Yeah.

Harry, I got Harry on video call because he was quite excited about his car.

And yes, this is a Lotus Lan S4 Sprint, and it's thought to be, it could be, the last

one ever made.

So, yeah, I didn't know this at the time, but when I started to speak to Harry Metcalf

and we video called him, and it's in the video, he asked me for the vin and all those geeky

things.

And he said, bloody hell, that, I think you might have found the last one.

So I was quite excited about that.

But aside from that, really good chat, and you may or may not hear the twin cam.

Who knows?

Cliff Hanger.

OK, second thing I wanted to share with you is that I have various books out.

It's been a few weeks since I've mentioned it, so I'm going to bring it up again.

Petrolhead compilation of my Evo columns is available as an e-book or a paperback from

Amazon, or you can get it from our merch shop, smithandsniff.com, where you can also buy

t-shirts, mugs, stickers, our new long sleeve track work t-shirt, which is really nice.

Very good quality.

You're a long sleeve.

I know.

And the third thing I was going to tell you is that, do you know how much the human body

is worth?

What?

The value of the human body in parts, if you like.

Oh, if you're parting it out, as they say in America, or breaking the bits.

If you're parting it out.

Gosh, how much is it worth, 20 grand?

In theory, it's worth $150,000.

Wow.

OK.

But now, well, this is a slight cheat in that it's breaking down the elements from

which it's made, and then assuming that these are top quality, pure elements, and you could

sell them at market rate, but yes, in theory, the raw materials that make up the human body

could be worth up to $150,000.

In truth, of course, that's not actually accurate.

It's a bit more complicated than that.

But we are, you know, in theory, made of quite valuable stuff.

Wow.

I mean, it's a bit awful to think about it in that way, but at the same time, I'm an

organ donor.

I signed up years ago.

Years and years ago.

Yeah.

Yeah, I've got no problem with people taking that.

Did you take the one for eyes, though?

I take the one for you can have whatever you want.

If it keeps another car on the road, you can have whatever you want.

You can have the headlights, you can have the tailpipe.

What do you want?

I think people always scream, which me included, about the eyes, and it's always like, what?

Because you're going to go to some afterlife and go, oh, damn it.

I can't see anything.

I'm not sure it works like that because, let's be honest, if they've taken your heart

or your kidneys, you're not going to be getting very far either.

But somehow the eyes.

I don't want to really be cremated or buried or anything.

But I did see on Instagram that there's people who are taking the ashes of, I guess, a burnt

loved one with permission and they are turning it into a piece of pottery that they sink into

the ocean to create an artificial reef and thus it genuinely starts new life, a new ecosystem

as a reef.

And that's what I've decided with my fish fanaticism.

That's what I'm going to do.

I've just asked my loved ones to load me into a defender, drive me to some local parkland

and to drop me in a cardboard box.

Yeah, or transparent perspex tube.

Either is good.

All right, well, on that slightly odd note, it's time to wrap things up.

We will see some of you on Wednesday at our Glasgow show.

Looking forward to that.

The rest of you will be back on Friday with an Otisot and Normal show on Monday.

Until then, goodbye.

Thanks, everybody.

Let's roll me into a canal.

How the new Grand Tour presenters were chosen

About this episode

MOT

Saab

Ferrari 360 Challenge Stradale

fuel light

Defender

electric cars

diesel

throttle jam

Land Rover 101 Forward Control

suspension

Lexus LC

Lexus LC 500

self-charging hybrid

5-litre V8 petrol engine

Cabrio Ultimate Edition

instant classic

Nissan Leaf

EV specialist

Zatmap

Dodge Charger

range

traction control

burnout

Seat Leon

Honda Insight

BMW 520i E34

BMW 520I

barn find

Lotus Esprit S4 Sprint

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