Is the 2026 F1 Championship already decided? | The Car Podcast #61

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Hello, and welcome to the car podcast with Chris Harris and his friends.

This is episode 61.

Now, a bit embarrassing, but a bit of pre-pod chat.

I said, which episode is it?

And someone said 61, and Chris Cooper said, that's eight less than 69.

And I thought that was a bit childish.

I have to say, but there we go.

We're never proud of each other.

Each to their own.

It's so pure, isn't it?

Let's move on to what we've done in cars this week.

Over to you, Chris Cooper.

Well, I'm really glad you started with me, because it's just going to get worse.

I've done some great things in cars this week, but I can't get over this dream I had.

Oh, I was in a car.

So in this dream, there I was in a right-hand drive Ford Mustang convertible.

In the passenger seat.

Within the driver's seat, the actor Brian blessed.

As in the Brian blessed and you were in it somewhere, Mr.

Harris, I don't know why you were in it.

He was quite cross with you about something.

I think he wants to prove a point about something.

So he said whatever the Brian blessed version of watch this was.

And you know, that road, it's that road.

When you're coming back from across France, the Euro tunnel.

There's that big fire duct that goes up in the air and swings around to the left.

It's very fast and quite bumpy.

Yeah.

And there's a slight bit of trepidation

because it's sort of up in the air and the barrel is quite slow.

So I'm in the passenger seat saying to Brian blessed.

Careful on here is there's some bumps with the tarmac.

Got a bit scratchy.

Just as you get into the left hander, he went, Gordon's alive, alive.

And as soon as he got into the corner, I could tell he turned too late.

And he got it sideways, but it was just the corner was going over that way.

And I thought, we're not going to make the we're not going to finish the corner.

So he made some lots of flash, Gordon type noises as we went through the barrier.

And then we had that floating sensation.

And I thought the floating sensation was going to be the end of the dream.

But it wasn't.

We landed on a waterfall that's not there at the Euro tunnel off Slip Road.

And he said, you've got to get out.

You've got to get out and paddle.

So I thought this is in my dream was perfect.

So I got out and I realized I could stand up in the water.

I grabbed hold of the front of the Ford Mustang and dragged it back onto the road

with Brian blessed, the actor still in the driving seat, not looking sheepish enough for my liking.

And I said, that point I said to him, why don't you let me drive?

And he said, no, there's something wrong with the car.

And I have to say, in all fairness to the actor, Brian blessed, as we approach that Slip Road,

I did think it felt a little bit more tally than I think your right hand drive Mustang would feel.

I've been thinking about that dream all day and I'm trying to think what it means.

I can't get out of it.

Now I've shared it with my friends, maybe I'll sleep better tonight, but that is overshadowed.

Everything I've done in cars this week.

Why was Brian blessed driving a Ford Mustang convertible that I was in?

I don't know, answers on the postcard, please.

Wicked him. He's 89 years old now, his old Brian.

With that unmistakable voice.

And of course, he did look just like this on Flash Gordon, which is quite terrifying.

He has to be.

I've forgotten the lower half of that, thankfully.

He's he's he's big.

You know, that is that's a.

I think Brian blessed.

Big English loud.

You're a passenger in something that's big and English and loud,

but also reaches into America in some strange way.

It's out of control in a way that you can just predict.

But rather than killing you, you land somewhere where you can kind of rescue yourself.

That's my part two.

I should apologize about this more than I have done clearly.

Was he wearing clothes?

He was wearing clothes.

Thankfully, good.

That's a good start.

We're moving on from this one now because we've had enough of the slightly

Freudian starts to this podcast.

Do apologize.

You do know what this podcast about, don't you, Mr.

Cooper?

I know.

I'm sorry.

I just couldn't get over it.

It was so vivid.

Manish rescue us, please.

So I've had an interesting week in cars, but it's a slightly tangential week in cars.

The the next project that I would like to do is starting to form now.

I've been spending time researching and putting together the bits and pieces

required for that.

And because film and TV is so sort of abstract and whatever, I've also found

myself trying to do something a little bit more tangible, which is to locate

this R107 of my dreams.

I have started properly Googling.

And by the way, I'm not going to do this every time I make a film or TV show.

I'm not going to buy a low low or something like that.

But you see exactly what you're going to do or you won't be welcome back on.

Come on.

That's the whole purpose of this.

Well, okay.

Look, I might find that that is exactly what I end up doing.

But right now I'd like to say that that's not an intention.

But I have to say I I really want an R107 in kind of gun metal with Ops Blood

Rookie Rebuilt it thing.

And I've started looking at them and I'm I'm trying to work out.

I'm trying to work out what what is the engine I should be going for?

No, no, no, I just can't answer it.

I can't go.

What should I 300, 350, 420 or 500?

What am I doing?

I'm going to answer my version.

So I think the pre space lift car, the early cars with more chroma prettier

and the biggest in there is a 420 or a 450, whichever the 50 or 50.

You want to you either want a 450 or the absolute wild card if you can find

one is a left hand drive facelift 300 SL with the manual gearbox and get a short

to find a driver in it and they are really fun cars, really lovely cars.

But I've only driven like a project because I it just I want one.

You don't need a project.

Don't buy one to spend loads of money on just get a decent meal.

You're fucking broken record me.

I've heard this about Lola.

Okay.

And you know that one.

Okay.

Exactly.

Yeah.

No, no, you can do it again.

Maybe this is going to be my idiosyncrasy with cars.

I'm going to find a car and then create my perfect.

Yeah, that's very lovely because I just love it.

I when I sit inside Lola, I can't tell you.

I feel like a cross between Gianni Agnelli, Luca Montesemolo and Mahatma Gandhi.

Okay.

That is what I feel like.

And I'm going to do that again.

What if you're not those three people?

Obviously.

And actually, thank you so officially.

It will give us a lot of entertainment on this podcast.

That's true.

Yeah, we did as you go from car to trimmer to bankruptcy to, you know, all the other

stuff that comes with it.

I've been I've been there managed.

Don't worry.

I've got further stories to tell on the green M5 touring, but they're not for now.

No, Clifford.

I highlight my week as I spent three hours at Morgan and I've never been to Morgan

before and I was entered.

I went with my friend Paul because we basically were trying to corral all our

mates together to go to the NEC classic car show.

And we didn't, none of them made it.

There's only me and my mate Paul.

So we thought, fuck it.

They're all miserable.

We're all going to, we're going to go anyway.

Did you invite any of us?

No.

No, I was going with my mate.

Sorry, as you were.

And I'd never been to the Gloucester services.

Oh, so we said, let's meet there.

Nice.

Which was really lovely.

Actually, Mr Dickens, Neil Dickens joined us for coffee.

He was too busy because he was selling 30 cars that day.

So it could only come for like 15 minutes.

But he was very lovely and bought us coffee.

And actually, I didn't realize there are two.

There's one on the northbound and one on the southbound.

That is generally the convention with service stations.

I know, but we didn't, we didn't know that.

So we're lucky we meeting on the northbound of the southbound.

And in fact, we managed to meet all of the same place, which was good.

And we had lovely coffee and a lovely croissant and it was all very lovely.

And all services should be like that.

And hopefully one day I will be in charge of British service stations

because I'd love that job.

And then I suggested to Paul the night before.

Why don't we go and visit Morgan?

It's one of the few things I've never done.

The lovely James from Morgan who's sort of head of PR and all things.

Loveliness looked after us.

We had a tour of the factory.

Oh my God.

I mean, it's the only, is it the only British owned car manufacturer left?

If not, it's one of very, very, very, very few.

And I'd never been and it was brilliant and to see the workmanship,

the craftsmanship, uniqueness of how they put those cars together,

the crazy way they put them together, which I still don't explain.

Oh, well, we build the chassis over here and then we build the wood over here

and we put the metal over here and then we don't put it all together there

because that would be too easy.

We put it together over there and we paint the car there and then we dismantle it

and put it all back together again just to make sure it's perfect.

And it was all bloody fantastic.

The new Super Sport, I have to say, I have no interest in bloody 992

Carrera T GTS Mark 7.2 Carrera Targa.

I'd have one of those.

I'd have a Super Sport.

It's British made, unique, in my view, very pretty.

Smaller.

Yeah, smaller.

You can do thousands of colours, thousands of colours of leather.

You can go and watch it be made.

They'll make your tea every day if you want to go every day and look at the bloody thing.

Great scones, lovely charming friendly people, just all magic.

I've got to edge everyone to go and visit Morgan.

Wait a minute.

What's waiting for us Neil?

It's seven, eight months.

Fucking fantastic.

And then we drove up the M5 a little bit and went to the NEC Classic Car Show,

which was all very good.

And I suppose you're reliving your youth there, aren't you?

Because it's sort of full of slightly brilliant, but crap cars.

And crap cars are brilliant, by the way.

I don't have anything against crap cars, but there's a lot of them there.

And they're all suddenly really expensive, which is really quite cool as well.

You'd have to win the lottery to buy a couple of the fours off the Capri owners club stand.

It's all gone a bit mad in a good way, but there's Allegro's and princesses and TR5's

and TR6's and the Manish TR7 that was in a vengeance, TR8's.

Opal Commodore owners club, every owners club in the world.

Just fantastic.

So British, so brilliant.

Two or three hours there and drove home.

So it's like a brilliant, brilliant car Friday, but I'd urge everyone.

It's only 16 quid on the website.

Go and visit Morgan.

We should do a podcast from there because it's really bloody good.

And you can have a tour.

There's locally made cakes and buns and scones and great coffee.

And actually, do you remember that we're all old?

So John Harvey Jones, the bloody book on, you know, and he was a bit, I suppose he was telling the truth

because he's one of those people that has no angles really.

He's just telling the truth from his perspective.

The company's all fucked and you should change it all and you need to get up with.

It's the only company left that he visited and normally he told them what to do and they all did it

and they all said, oh, you're so clever, Mr.

Sir John Harvey Jones, you're at ICI and you know, you're amazing.

Morgan like, piss off.

We're not doing that, mate.

We're going to keep to our waiting list and we're going to build one car at a time and forget it.

They're the only company left that he ever visited.

I mean, there aren't many companies left from 1980 that are in the same form,

but I think your point is right.

We're quite famous at the time because I'm old enough to remember.

Yes.

Getting home from school.

It's only British irony that they'd have a section in the museum dedicated to Sir John Harvey Jones in his book.

What other fact is unique to that factory?

There's one aspect of it that they were always very proud of.

It relates to the geography of the area.

Well, you know what?

I don't know the answer to that, but it's very bloody pretty.

It's like a mini hill.

It says the more than hills.

It's built on the side of a hill.

It's gravity-fed.

So all the processes were always run and one process is the other and everything's gravity-fed

and you get wheels on the stuff that takes them down to the next level.

It's so good.

It's like a mini lake district up there.

As well, I wanted to walk up the hills.

It's lovely.

It's the gateway to sort of heritature and some lovely parts.

It is lovely.

Well, that's good.

Did you notice at the NEC, were there some original Legros there at the Classic Arts?

There were lots of Legros.

I remember being excited by the Legro.

I remember that.

Sorry, I've never given one of these before, but this is a yellow card.

You started off with some sort of weird fantasy with Brian Blessed's beard

and they are talking about a Legro.

Who are you and what have you done with Chris Cooper?

I'll tell you my Legro story.

My grandfather, my Scottish grandfather, because you know, I don't sound it,

but my family's from Scotland and I was born in Edinburgh,

but my family moved down south when we were very young.

My mother's father was a minister in the Church of Scotland.

He was a Scottish vicar.

And he lived when he was in his time in the Church of Scotland home,

just off Morningside.

And he had an Austin 1100, which I thought was quite a cool car.

You couldn't fit four doors in a car that small anymore.

You couldn't.

It was a lovely little thing and it had the lights on the dashboard

for the indicator or the ore light with those beautifully chiseled,

jewel-like little lights.

They weren't just round.

They had like facets on them.

They look like the colours on the traffic light air fresheners.

Exactly.

Exactly right.

They like mini versions of those.

And they made that sort of pink, pink sound when you had the indicator on.

And he said, I've been invited to the dealership,

which was just down the end of...

He was in New Battle Terrace in Edinburgh.

And he said, just at the end of it, just past the Dominion Theatre, somewhere near there,

there was an Austin Rover dealer.

And I remember going in with my brother to look at the new Allegro.

Cheers.

It was really exciting because new cars have always been exciting.

And the Allegro was, for a while, a new car and was really exciting.

And I kind of...

It's become a...

It is a figure of the Quartet steering wheel and it wasn't very well built

and the 70s weren't...

Didn't turn out great in the end, did they, for lots of things to do with Britain?

But I still remember...

There's still a bit of me, which is when you said the NEC and Allegro,

I thought it reminded me of my grandfather and growing up in the holidays in Edinburgh.

And that little bit, that first excitement,

I think it was probably the very first time I went to a car dealer

when there was a new car there that had been launched,

that my grandfather was thinking about.

It was a very happy memory.

So next year we should all go to the NEC and have happy memories.

It's really good.

It was on an M, a 74 as a Allegro.

What was the first year?

For...

It would have been a 74M, I think, here.

Yeah, I think there's not many M's.

There's quite a lot of N's, Allegros, and P's, but not much.

But I do remember an M.

Yeah.

It would have been...

It was 74, I'm sure.

Yeah.

Are we finished?

I'm finished, thank you.

Good, good.

Full of great information this evening.

That's enough Allegro for this week.

No more of that, thank you.

I've done lots of things in cars this week,

but the biggest one was the race of remembrance for Michelin Motorsport.

Which was Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

Without a doubt, the best motorsport event of the year,

because it actually means something.

It was utterly fabulous.

So Jim Cameron and the team, thank you for inviting me along.

Didn't crash.

The weather was unlike anything I've experienced in any endurance race before,

on the second stint.

But everyone mucked in.

What do I take from it?

We're all very lucky.

I'm very grateful for those that do things so we sleep more easily at night.

We forget that too easily.

It's humbling to be around them.

If you want to learn how to behave in a 50-50 combat situation on track,

go to that race.

Because there's always a suspicion that the person you're up against is a trained killer.

So you think to yourself, I'm not going to stuff it up the inside.

I don't want to get the shit kicked out of me in the paddock afterwards.

It does make you drive a bit differently when you're around proper hard people.

You don't need to have an awful lot of power when you've got a wet track.

We all know that.

But an MX-5 on Anglesey circuit in November,

when there's plenty of precipitation, is ample for me.

Thank you to Tony and to his son, Harry,

who are some of my oldest friends that I've never raced with before,

and to do their first race together with them was something truly special.

We should all be doing it next year.

We should all be there.

It's just magnificent.

The service itself, there's a lot of people who know about this service now,

but let me just tell you that the race has been two parts.

You race from three until 10 o'clock on the Saturday,

and then the remainder of the 12 hours is on the Sunday split between the morning,

which finishes at 10.30 to allow drivers to park their cars up for everyone who's serving

or wants to wear the regimental regalia to get changed, which they do.

They stand outside regardless of the weather,

and a memorial service is delivered that reduces most people's tears,

and then you get back in your cars and carry on racing until about 3 p.m.

It's absolutely amazing.

And I'm going to be calling all of you next year.

If you don't want to race on the Saturday,

there are lots of events to come and support to take your fancy car along

and give beneficiaries a ride in your car and do a lap or two with them in the car.

You get to speak to these people to understand their stories.

They take immense strength from it,

and it's a really great thing to do because you learn a lot about yourself in the process.

So I'm going to be calling on all of you in the summer to get in your diaries,

the race of remembrance, to bring your fancy car along.

We're going to have a big old auction.

We're going to make a lot more money for them this year.

They do well, but I think between us, we can make another hundred grand easily

for an amazing charity.

So there's my vaguely sensible weekend cars.

That's the best thing I've done in cars this year.

I haven't won this with you, but it just happened to be this weekend.

So well done to all involved.

And I think I might be going back into C1.

I think we need Citroen C1s.

That's the real punchy class that is.

They've got about 70, 80 horsepower, and they really don't go very fast,

but they're plenty quick enough in November at Anglesey.

Moving on to the next point.

Here we go.

Actually, before we do, can I just say my dad had a Morris 1100.

Did he now?

Lovely.

He did.

I was picked up from Heathrow Airport when I emigrated from India

and emigrated to England on June the 4th, 1972, in a red Morris 1100.

Oh, right.

He had a red Morris 1100.

It would have been Basil 40's car, wouldn't it?

It was Basil 40's car.

You know what?

I'll send you a picture.

You're like an attempt television sitcom called, I don't know,

The Manages Arrival.

And I can see you landing like this in a really loud 707.

747.

It was a BOAC 747.

And a very sweet lady.

She saw my mum had two kids.

So when the plane was about an hour from Heathrow, she put me on her lap.

She was just lovely English.

I remember as if it was yesterday.

It was the first time I ever had corn flakes.

And it was on a BOAC 747 arriving at Heathrow in 1972.

I've had an idea for this comedy, right?

It's about a boy who flies in on a BOAC 747.

And because it's 10th television, 1972, you're allowed fake accents,

a bit of browning up as well.

So we're going to have, it's going to be called You Land.

And the person that comes to meet you can't find you.

And it's called Manish He Vanish.

And then they spend eight episodes trying to find you in the sort of,

in that sort of Heathrow area.

That's actually quite a bit.

And Manish, after your exhibition last week,

you can do all manner of rubbish fake accents.

Yeah, that was really bad.

I can do the impression now, Manish, of the person that's come to meet you

that can't find you.

And they've gone to information.

They've said, I'm looking for Manish.

I think he's vanished.

Can you say that, please?

In Indian accent.

I am looking for Manish.

I think he has vanished.

Yes, there we go.

That's the trailer.

That's the trailer done.

Right.

Moving on before we get sued.

Cars that you feel guilty about because you've never owned one.

And you really should as they're super iconic.

And you can't really be seen as a car lover without owning one of these

in your car ownership history.

I don't know where Manish begins with this one.

I'm going to give a little time to breathe because there could be a stroke coming there.

But I'm going to go first of all to Chris Cooper.

I don't think you should feel guilty just because you haven't owned a certain car.

Is that enough help Manish?

He's just knocked out his own microphone.

He's vanished.

I think it's a bit of a trope, isn't it?

If you haven't owned an Alpha, you're not really an enthusiast.

I haven't owned an Alpha.

And yes, I'm sure that would...

There are a lot of things I'd like to own that I don't have the means or the time, whatever to do.

Who said that?

Who said it?

Who famously said it?

Well, that was Clarkson, wasn't it?

And Jeremy said it, yeah.

Yeah, Clarkson and he said you can't...

And I sort of...

He's been right.

He's right.

Well, is he?

I think I'm an enthusiast and I've never owned an Alpha.

I've driven them.

Most of them are a bit shit, really.

So I kind of...

I don't like the idea that we're sort of promoting the sort of the thinking that you can't be one of us or one of the gang.

And in part, this is my contrarianist because I hate...

I grew up not being part of a gang and not being included and being seen as weird and different.

I know that hasn't changed.

You're part of our gang, you really?

Whether you like it or not?

Well, thank you.

So if I was to say there is a car that actually I would like to find the time and the space and the money to...

It's an MG Midget or a Frog-Eye?

Oh, it's a Frog-Eye.

Yeah, the Frog-Eye one.

I just...

I nearly got one a few years ago.

I nearly got one.

It was the pre-Rubber Bumper.

Quite an early MG Midget.

In fact, it might have been...

There was an Austin Healy version of the MG Midget.

It looked like an MG Midget but it was called an Austin Healy.

Not Frog-Eye.

That's true, yeah.

And it had the square...

I think it was the square or the round rear wheel arch.

I know there's a difference, isn't there?

You could debumper it.

That would look quite cool and sort of competition car.

A lot of people did that when I was a student.

Debumper their MG Midgets.

We couldn't afford K&N air filters.

So we just took the air filters off the SU carburetors

and just took the air filter out of the metal casing

and attached it with a screw nut

through the top of a marvel artificial milk.

That's all we could afford as students.

And we thought that was a poor man's K&N air filter.

But an MG Midget, and I actually just about fitted it,

you could have thought if I could have taken a bit of padding out in the seat,

I could dry it.

And I thought there's nowhere you couldn't go in that car

and people wouldn't think that's a great car.

He's a car lover.

He's a passionate.

He gets it, blah, blah, blah.

He hasn't gone to get the smartest car in the car part.

And I just think, you know, this thing that we love,

being passionate and nerdy and silly about cars,

is open to everyone.

It absolutely is.

You don't even need to own a car.

But if you were to force me to say,

I would say an MG Midget or an Austin Healy one, whatever,

that's what I'm good.

That's what I think.

Manage what you're going to go for.

As you know, I've got a bit of a penchant for a front engine V12 5-liter car.

But this is the convertible version of it.

I'm getting at one at some point.

An X-ray S V12 convertible.

I think they've worked through 89, 90, 91, that kind of time.

I really like the headlights before they became the two sort of double spots.

So these sort of hexagonal halogen lamps.

It's such a guilty pleasure.

I think the bonnet goes on so long.

I know you've talked about this quite a lot, Mr Harris,

but the bonnet goes on so long that proportions of this car are so elegant.

I would almost go as far as to say,

I think that's the most beautiful British car ever.

I would almost go that far.

I just don't know if anything's more beautiful than that.

And the presence it has.

The one I've just shown you, sort of navy blue chrome, navy blue hood.

Did we get any better than that?

There's plenty on carandclassics.co.uk.

That is the marketplace.

That is the place.

I looked at you putting yours kind of back together again.

I just thought, you know, what is better than getting something

that is an absolute design icon that, you know,

in a way it has absolutely, you know,

are they think they're 17 feet, seven inches long, something like that?

You know, in some ways it has absolutely no place in the modern universe,

but it's just so perfect.

It's a guilty Freudian dream.

That's what it is.

I'll be dreaming about it tonight.

I think, you know, and I think they do fit the bill.

You know, that's that if you haven't owned one or lived with one,

maybe your credentials are weaker than you'd like them to be.

Neil Clifford.

Well, this little subject came up the other day,

didn't it, between you and I, Chris, when we were talking about,

because when we're chatting away, our first question is,

what car are you in?

And I said Alpine 110 and you're like, fuck, I so should have one of those.

I need to just, it's embarrassing.

I haven't had one that we were then ranting about.

That was, that's the context of this conversation,

be it that I think Mr. Cooper is dead right.

It doesn't matter what car you've got,

because it's about just movement and pleasure and freedom

and that feeling of being able to go somewhere and change

and being able to talk as you drive or think as you drive.

So it doesn't, it doesn't matter what car you have.

I've obviously been working my way through a severe bout of eczema

when it comes to car itches from age sort of 17

and accelerated from sort of age 25.

So this was actually quite a difficult subject for me

because I have, you know, I've owned a few bloody cars,

but of course there are always more and there's always itches

and it cannot be dealt with by Betnovate.

I think Betnovate's been banned, isn't it?

Or Oil of Laterm or whatever, whatever cream I use for eczema.

It was Alpina.

I sort of out for you, we told you.

And I came late to Alpina and I feel an idiot always, you know,

I always was, you know, when you sort of know you should own one

but then it goes to a point where you're like, fuck, I've missed the boat

and then you become negative on it.

Well, you know, I'd much prefer Mercedes C63S,

much better, which is obviously bullshit

because BMW's pretty much always better than bloody Mercedes.

Ooh, big statements.

Big statements.

Yeah, I'm full of big statements, which obviously cannot be proved

in any way, shape or form.

But Alpina Magic, you just, it's the only car you need really.

Yeah.

But obviously we need lots and lots of different cars.

I would say Morgan.

You know, the two I could come up with was Morgan and Saab.

I've never owned a Saab.

There's probably a good reason why I've never owned,

but I've always fancied that little, you know,

let's pretend I'm a jet fighter and put the key down there.

Yeah.

And I've, you know, I'm going to be an architect.

I'm, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to wear those architect type clothes

and drive around in a, you know, live in Highgate with a Saab.

But I've never done that.

Your style, Neil, is so close to every aspect of that.

Yeah, not.

Well, no, I'm a chameleon.

I can, I can, I can dress in any way.

If you give me 10 minutes, but I'd go Morgan.

And when I was, you know, I spent about four hours on piston heads,

car and classic, classic driver, Morgan's own bloody website.

After my return from Morgan, going, oh, you know, what?

You always do.

Yeah, you always do.

You always do.

And then you see that, I don't know, royal blue speeds the thing.

That's basically a plus eight without a windscreen.

And they were 90 in the down of 60.

And could you bid the guy 50?

It's probably been there a while.

And then you start, you know, you start creating all these situations.

So Morgan.

I agree.

I've got one word, Maserati.

I've never owned a Maserati and I'm ashamed to have not owned a Maserati.

And I'm leaving it.

I'll leave that there.

I'll change it.

I apologize to Maserati for not having owned a Maserati.

I apologize to the world.

I should have owned a Maserati.

And I will in the next two years own a Maserati.

It'll probably be a deliberately shit one, but it'll be my Maserati.

Big choice.

I just, I just, there's just the coolest sounding car name ever.

They've made extraordinary cars.

And I just, you know, when someone says to you, what car,

often people say, what's your daily car?

I want to say Maserati.

Because they just, I will feel massively cool.

I don't look cool.

So we give you a phone, one car garage, 40 grand.

What Maserati are you buying?

The Grand Cabrio one, whatever that's called.

Yeah.

The Grand Cabrio, yeah.

It's called the Grand Cabrio, yeah.

It's the Grand Cabrio.

Can I get them for 25, 30 grand?

I know.

Drive it to the Mayfair.

It looks as good as all the Ferraris.

It does.

I'd buy a three double O.

A three double O.

Yeah, 300, 200.

But I drove those when they were in New York.

They were lights.

Fucking lethal they are.

I'd go for a Kareef.

Oh.

Or a Shamal.

Shamal's good.

Yeah.

Shamal, I think Shamal might be the one.

Yeah.

They're all named after the kids that used to bully me

in my house at boarding school that were Indians in Nigeria.

I'm sure there was a Shamal and a Kareef.

They used to kick the shit out of me.

If you're listening, fuck off, both of you.

Right.

And Ghibli.

You bastard.

Yeah, Ghibli.

He is a Ghibli.

They'll be in that sitcom.

Manish is in.

Yeah.

Is he the guy who made the airport?

They're still in the Hamslow area looking for Manish.

Yep.

Can I swap my NG Midget for the Maserati?

Am I allowed to do that?

Yeah, you can.

But no, it's not both.

We're allowed both.

Okay, I'll have both.

I'll have both.

Right, here we go.

This is a great thing about the podcast.

Car theft.

The stats are out.

This is really good.

The cost of the stats are out and everyone's going, well,

the top five are going to be Land Rover products.

The next five will be Land Rover products.

And there might be a smattering of BMWs in amongst the third five

that are all BMW products.

They're not.

The most stolen car in the UK is a Lexus.

And there's a couple of Lex, a couple of Lexi, as part of your say,

that are at the top of the list.

Why?

I think we all know.

We've not discussed this individually.

I'm sure we know why.

Why do you think that is, Manish?

Well, I have to research this, I'm afraid.

But can I just say, on my research list, I found a freedom of

information request posted to the Metropolitan Police saying,

tell us about car theft in London.

And you can download an Excel spreadsheet that gives you every

single car that was stolen between March 23 and March 24.

And there was 61343.

Amazing.

61343.

In London.

Every model, every single then, because it's an Excel spreadsheet,

you can click on the top and put them down by model.

You can search by model.

Is that in London or in the country?

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

34,000 in London, 61,343 in the UK.

34,000 in a year.

In London.

Half of all cars in the UK are in London.

Yeah, and it turns out, I think Dagenham and Barking get number one spot

in the whole of the UK in terms of density of cars stolen.

But you're absolutely right.

I was just shocked to see the Lexus was at the top.

And then so there's a company that makes, you know, various security

thingies.

I won't name them, but it's said about the Lexus.

The real problem with it is the bus is a little electronic name for

a way that you send information from one bit of a processor to another.

And apparently the Lexus apparently has a bus which is extremely easy

to let's just say hi, Jack, and to access.

You can literally go through apparently the headlight of a Lexus,

put in your little clever bits and pieces.

And then the Lexus is alarm system will turn off the immobilizer will turn

everything will turn off and off you go.

You can steal this baby.

So I was really, I was really, I was really shocked.

And the two positive aspects of a Lexus from a thief's point of view

are apparently the, it's got an unbelievable resale value to wherever

you take it.

And the other thing is that the catalytic converter is apparently

completely wonderful in a Lexus.

So these are the two great reasons why you steal them.

You can resell them.

You can nick the can.

So what's extraordinary about that is why didn't we know that until

why don't I mean it's quite hard for Land Rover to say it's not us.

It's Lexus people.

Apparently they spent 10 million pounds upgrading their their alarms

and also putting trackers into various Lexi.

You know, they're aware of this.

They're really aware of this.

It's the top three is bloody Lexus.

Incredible.

It's incredible.

Well, I suppose all the Russians are like, we don't want any more of those bloody

Land Rovers.

They break down.

Got any others?

That was my only conclusion because I had no idea it's got to be

reliability.

Isn't it?

You can probably drive a Lexus for nine years if it ends up in Africa and

you never need to service it.

Never going to break down.

So can you can we just confirm that?

I think we suspect that actually the people that have bought all these

Hockey Land Rovers are saying, do you know what?

They just they keep breaking.

Can you steal something?

Yes.

And so they got to mostly they're going to Africa a lot.

They're going to the Middle East.

Yeah.

That's where Lexus and Toyota as a brand is is revered because they're

so reliable.

The restart value is very high.

It makes sense.

They're easy to steal.

It makes sense.

Yeah.

I would have.

I mean, the obvious my obvious.

I haven't looked at this at all.

I just thought apart.

Why is I didn't realize Lexus was by far the most stolen brand.

I mean, the obvious answer is his market forces.

That's what that's what the people who want to buy these things.

No questions asked.

Gov.

It trickles through the supply chain and Lexi get nicked to order because

I presume.

Do we know how many of these?

It's fascinating.

Can you send us that thing you've got for that freedom?

I'll share the Excel spreadsheet.

I just couldn't believe it.

Do you have a bit of data looking into these numbers?

It's interesting to see how many sort of leave the country if they know

rather than they turn up.

I haven't been using a bank job.

People don't do bank jobs anymore.

Do they?

But I wonder what the other reason is.

Parts.

Well, parts.

But if they're going somewhere else to order, they go in a container.

It's I imagine it's quite hard to get a ranger over into a container

and then get out of the ranger over rather than end up being transported

because it's so bloody big and wide.

I knew you could push them in.

But I suspect the other problem is if they go into a container,

it wouldn't take much rocking for something a ranger over.

So I haven't checked what Lexus has been.

They might be big as well.

I just got in my head that the Lexus is slightly narrow and shorter.

And if it rocks around in the container, container, container,

and when it gets to Dubai or where it's gone and they open the container

door, they actually get an intact car rather than a ranger over.

It's got full of bloody dents.

We should be in the logistics for the nicked cars.

We could sort all these problems out.

The Lexus RX 450 is number one, 219 nicked.

Then after that, the NX 300, they all look the same.

These Lexus, you don't even know what they are.

They're all bloody the same.

The RX is the big one, by the way.

So the RX is about the size of a range of the size.

Okay.

What do I know?

One in 22.

So there's 26,000 of them and 219 have been nicked.

So if you've got one, you've got a 0.8% chance of it being nicked.

UX 250 is number three.

And then the Toyota RAV4.

I mean, basically they're going reliability now.

The old thing.

What you can take from this is where the cars are going.

They're going to markets that value Lexus and Toyota as brands.

And that's a lot of it is African countries, apparently.

And the Middle East is where they're going.

So less Russia.

And I think they want reliability.

I do love the idea.

It's like offering someone who's desperate for a drink

or a pint of beer in them going, I don't like that beer.

It makes my tummy go wrong.

The idea that you can imagine containers of nearly new discoveries

arriving and they're all going, not a chance.

Not having that mate.

They break down.

I mean, maybe to do it right to reply on radio four,

maybe Land Rover fixed their security issues.

And maybe they're harder to steal now than they used to be.

Just to be a bit balanced about it, but it probably is.

There's a load of broken down defenders and discoveries

and Range Rovers in Africa.

Can you get some more reliable cars, please?

It's probably more likely the case.

I'm sure Land Rover would be delighted to hear that.

Can you soon kneel, not all of us?

No, I was doing the positive there.

I was giving the right to reply.

I was being a bit BBC about the balance.

Nobody has to resign over that.

No need for that.

Can you please do five quick fire supercar challenge requests?

I will.

OK, here we go.

I've done my list.

I did this on my little walk today.

Here we go.

Hold on.

This is supercar or not supercar?

Ready, let's go.

That's right.

OK, starting with an easy one.

Lexus, the totally by accident, by the way.

LFA.

Supercar.

Oh, Manish said no.

It's not a supercar.

It is.

I had this debate with my boys.

Go on.

And there was a bit of debate about whether it was.

I think it's a supercar for lots of intangible mixed up reasons.

The engine, blah, blah, blah.

I think it's supercar.

Yeah, well, it's the Japanese thing, isn't it?

It takes it to the edge slightly, I think.

Because if it was a Porsche or Ferrari, 100% would be a supercar.

OK, 599 GTO.

God, that's good.

No.

That's the one.

I'm not a GTO, supercar.

Sportscar, sportscar.

Harris.

It's not a supercar.

599 GTO, a supercar.

No.

I'm getting right on the line here.

Absolutely, you've twanged the nerve there, Neil.

You found it.

You found the spot.

Yeah.

OK, carry on, carry on.

OK, the Arial Atom V8.

Not a supercar.

No, that's a silly car.

No, it's not a supercar.

It's not a supercar.

Honda NSX.

Not a supercar.

Yeah, it can't be a supercar.

It's a bit better than a 348.

The 911.

Oh, it's a lot bloody better.

I know, of course, it's a lot better.

It was even farted in by Senna.

Sportscar.

I dare you say that Senna had any kind of a mission.

Right.

Bristol Fighter.

Brisfit.

Not a supercar.

Yeah, it can't be a supercar.

Look, I think I...

It's more of a supercar than a 599 GTO.

Yeah, I find that.

I find that.

It's right on the edge.

Because it's sillier.

Sillier.

Silly doors, silly engine, silly steering wheel,

silly fucking everything.

Exactly.

Yet.

In fact, it's supercar mixed with Monty Python.

It is.

It's silly.

It's also got buttons up here that don't need to be there.

Yes.

So, and you drive it,

and it feels like someone's put the backwards on the front

and the front was on the back.

And be careful, because it might turn over.

Right, there are this week's five supercars.

They're good.

We should do this again.

Somebody else should choose them.

They were bloody good.

They were.

They were really good.

Very good.

Formula one.

By the way, just to let you know,

Manage was very, very vociferous on our group

around the Formula one.

He really was.

He was fuelled by some Sauvignon Blanc with ice cubes,

and I think he got very punchy.

So I'm going to allow him to go first now.

Go on, Manage.

You're off the lead.

Okay, so the first thing I'd like to say about Formula one

is that John Elcan has criticised his drivers.

He's done it in the press, and it's actually,

he should keep his mouth shut.

He turned up at the hypercar unveiling,

and it's like, this is what Ferrari can do

if we all hang together as a team.

He hired Lewis.

He's continued to carry on paying Charles,

who is just an absolutely AAAA plus driver.

And I think when you risk your life doing this job,

and you've done 21 races and a sack of shit,

okay, and you're risking, I mean,

every week you go out there,

they know who's good, the drivers,

they know who's not good.

And when you do that,

you're allowed to be a little bit frustrated.

And if they did, if the drivers did shut up,

do you think that would make the cars faster?

The fact is, you know, the drivers carry,

the Constructors' Championship,

as far as the audience is concerned,

is worth diddly squat.

And to Ferrari, financially,

the Constructors' Championship,

given their turnovers,

this super company is worth diddly squat.

But to the fans, it's the drivers.

It's all about the drivers.

And these drivers are losing week in, week out.

Charles and Lewis have had zero pole positions,

zero victories.

Charles' seventh season in a Ferrari

was John Elcan, who hired Lewis for 60 million a year.

You know, he hired a guy who was beaten

reasonably handily by George Russell last year.

You can say he wasn't motivated.

You can say he's got it.

You know, they, this is a big publicity stunt.

And I said it in the pre,

in the pre F1 season podcast,

it's a big gamble.

It'd be great if it works out

and it really won't if it doesn't.

The fact is, you can't tell your drivers

after 21 races that they shouldn't be talking

about how crap their seasons have been.

You can't do it.

It's not right to do it.

You know, drivers, you can't have character

and no character at the same time.

You know, I take the piss out of Nigel Wanza weekly,

but he had more character in his little finger

than 20 of the last, I don't know,

30 new drivers.

You know, he was full of character.

He took chances.

He had accidents.

And so I'm, I'm officially actually

really pissed off about that.

Reading that really pissed me off.

You're standing by some endurance carb.

No one gives a flying fuck or spends

any money on that formula, right?

You've got the premier formula in the world,

formula one.

It's what everyone watches.

It is your badge and you cannot turn around

to two of the best drivers in formula one,

one of whom's arguably one of the best drivers

of all time and say, yeah, so don't talk,

you know, you should do less talking

and more really, really, really.

We think Lewis feeling frustrated

at the end of the race and shall feeling

a bit frustrated at the end of a grueling season.

The seventh one he's driven in these red cars

should not vent a little bit in the,

and Lewis was so polite.

He was like, look, it's me, it's me, it's me.

You know, I'll get myself motivated.

I will get on there.

I mean, one, two of those people know

something about cars and motor racing.

One of them knows nothing about it.

And that's all I'm going to say about formula one.

I'm so angry to have read that.

Well, it's, start with something quite gentle

we thought with the F1 there.

So, and certainly manage who looking forward

to his invites to the factory for a free meal

at the Cavalino sometime soon.

Montane is much, much better than the Cavalino.

Number one.

Okay.

Number two, the Cavalino, the architecture

was actually all done by an Indian architect.

So there we go.

We've ended our relationship with Ferrari,

so that's good.

Let's carry on and go to Neil Clifford.

Did I watch it?

Yes, I did watch it.

And bloody brilliant Lando.

That's really good, isn't it?

He's going to win now.

Should we be?

I think, I think he's 70% in now, isn't he?

He's going to take a reversal of fortune from not.

I think Oscar bless him when we love Oscar

and manage particularly loves Oscar.

I think, I think he's...

He's got a lot of land back now.

Yeah.

I can't really remember anything else

apart from it was quite a good race, wasn't it?

Wasn't there lots of things going on?

Clearly memorable for you, Neil.

No, not really.

I watched the sprint.

I can't read it all merged into one

and then Lando won basically.

Genuinely, I can't bloody remember.

There was a crash.

There was a big crash and his wheels came off.

Sprint race.

Yes.

I watched that.

We'll move on to Chris Cooper.

John L. can't think it's interesting, isn't it?

Because...

Can we not draw a line under that one?

I'm waiting for the legal letter after that anyway.

Can I just offer a counterpoint just for a moment?

Isn't that what Ferrari bosses always do?

If Enzo was here...

John L. can is a little pygmy of a character

compared to Enzo in terms of how giving it...

Do you know who I am?

Do you know who you are?

I thought it was a little slap, really.

But what Lewis and Charles said wasn't really...

They weren't dissing the car.

So things aren't happy there.

Things aren't happy there.

I don't think inadvertently,

and perhaps counter what he wanted to achieve,

L. can's achieved quite the opposite,

which is, wow, that's not a happy ship.

It's all designed for Christian Horner.

Christian Horner's going to arrive at Ferrari.

I don't think...

Horner, well, I mean, he's done running a team.

And in fact, to some extent,

would he really want to take over from Fred?

Because the life...

It's like, you know, it's not being a Spitfire pilot.

It's far from being a Spitfire pilot.

The life expectancy of a Ferrari T-Principal is pretty limited.

And there's not much you can really do to influence it.

And he'd have to move his family. I don't know.

What I did think about...

In fact, Cameron sent me this.

I thought it was hilarious.

Because Kimmy Antoni did quite well in Brazil.

And he did quite well in Miami earlier on in the year.

The internet has decided it knows why this is the case.

I saw this.

Have you seen this?

This is about the zinc pill.

Put a little clip up of it.

That's zinc pills, isn't it? Zinc supplements.

Titanium dioxide.

I think it's titanium dioxide.

It might have been zinc or something,

because titanium dioxide is just a pigmentation, isn't it?

It's not a supplement or a performance enhancing thing.

But somebody has produced a little chart.

The red things in there

are the countries that titanium dioxide is banding

and has correlated them with his Kimmy's performance in the race.

Titanium dioxide, band, race, shit.

Basically is what this little chart says.

And titanium dioxide, not band,

Kimmy Antoni's performance, not shit.

I rest my case, says the internet.

Should we all take some of this?

Apparently it's not great.

If it was titanium dioxide, was it zinc?

I don't know what it was.

I thought that was hilarious.

I thought it's a bit of an indictment of

is that what we're having to talk about in F1 now,

because the racing still isn't great.

I know I keep banging on about Australian and Tipidine motorsport

and V8 supercars and so forth,

but it really wasn't good in Sao Paulo.

It was all right.

The long bits of it were a bit dull,

and I just...

Max was amazing.

I mean, it's hard to get past Max, isn't it?

He had a car that was undrivable.

First times in 20 years nearly that on pure performance,

the red balls didn't make Q2.

They put the old floor on the car in college.

You see where they fixed it, didn't work.

Overnight they went right back square and said,

right, okay, we'll start from the pit line,

you can change anything.

And suddenly he had a rocket ship

and he drove it like brilliant Lynn.

He just ran out of tyres at the end.

He couldn't get a Kimmy.

Otherwise he'd have had him.

If he hadn't had that puncture on his hards,

it would have probably been easy second, if not one.

I mean, to me, that was a great race.

They also did something very naughty.

They put a new engine into the car before the race.

Yeah.

Andres Stella's been...

No.

So there is a...

You can do it for reliability.

You can't do it for performance.

The point being that if you do it for reliability,

it doesn't count towards a cost cap.

If you do it purely for performance,

then it counts outside the cost cap.

So in other words,

the whole idea is that you shouldn't get

towards the end of the season and start to sort of...

Basically the racing shouldn't suffer

because you're going to put an engine in

and it will be counted towards the cost cap.

If you do it for reliability,

it won't count towards a cost cap.

So Andres has questioned this.

He sort of said,

apparently there's a real rule about this,

because otherwise you just put one in.

Well, you take a pit.

You have to start back as a grid.

But the point's also a cost point as well.

If you make a decision to do it in the pit lane,

of course, it doesn't give you a grid penalty,

but it doesn't give you a financial penalty.

And what were they referring to with this?

Because there's Preston, isn't there?

Because Lewis did it a few years ago,

and because it's an altitude,

and because of the nature of the circuit,

it gave him a profound...

It gave him a huge performance advantage.

He basically had a new engine at 6,000 feet

that made him a bullet.

I mean, he's a driver, they got it all right.

But he had a brand new bazooka in his back.

So it was a massive thing.

Like, I mean, I really wanted Max

to sort of catch right up and be in second place.

Didn't we? We wanted, you know,

it all went a bit pear-shaped at the end.

I can't remember why.

He ran out of tyres.

I thought the racing was...

What a stupid excuse.

I thought the racing was good.

They make no difference, Neil.

I had that weird situation where I just started a long journey

as the race started.

So I listened to Sky, but I had it through my...

I had the Sky commentary through my speakers

rather than Radio 5, because I dodged you...

I'd better reception that way for some reason.

I didn't have DAB in the car.

So I could have listened to Radio 5 on the Internet,

couldn't I, thinking about it?

I do like the BBC audio coverage.

All 909, medium wave.

And I...

You know, you've got a...

You've got championship hopefuls diving up the inside of each other,

clattering wheels.

I mean, there's a lot of action in there,

but I think the sprint weekends really work,

because why do you need FP7 when you could have another race?

And I just thought...

I think the sport's in rude health in terms of racing.

There was lots going on all the way down the grid.

It wasn't just...

And it wasn't just people, you know, doing a DRS overtaken T1.

There were other overtakes going on as well.

That's fair.

I thought there was a lot of different strategies.

I thought it was an engaging race.

If a race holds my attention without a moving picture,

it normally has to be quite good.

I just...

The emerging story is...

What's going on with Piastri?

You know, just...

There must be something technical about this car

that he's finding more difficult.

I don't believe that this ice-cool character

has imploded the way he has.

I just don't see it.

There's something...

Lando's either unlocked something or something.

There has to be something about the car that's not suiting him.

Or it is possible...

that your head can fry and you can start to overdrive the car.

You can start to not be delicate with it.

I get that.

I've been there.

I think...

I'm finding it thrilling.

I love the fact that you've got these two...

These two young guns going head-to-head.

And their confidence has ebbed and flowed over the year.

And you've got this lurking lunatic.

This forstappin' character.

All Max is saying is...

If either of you make a single fuck up, I'm here.

That's what he's saying.

It's not that I'm going to beat you or merit.

But if you two get it wrong in any way, shape or form,

look how fast I am.

I think that makes for great sport.

It does.

The ones that I wished...

Sorry.

The one thing I wish...

The noise is so shit of those cars.

You know that you piped fake noise into cars now?

What can we do that down the telly?

Either did in football with the COVID.

They piped fake crowd noise.

If they...

Yeah.

P10 noise is...

It would be...

I don't think they sound that bad.

I don't think they sound that bad, but there we go.

They don't sound as good as a P10 or a V12,

but they still sound pretty damn good when you hear them.

Did we think it was fair or unfair for Piastri

to get that penalty for turn one?

Fair or unfair.

I just would say unfair.

Joke.

It was a joke.

He was alongside, pretty much even,

and yeah, he has a tiny lock up,

and that just means automatically that's it.

The stewards are going to say,

no, no, no, no, no.

You were out of control.

But Kimmy and Snelly had a football feel to his right

between him and Leclerc.

He turned in really hard.

He was in a difficult situation.

He was in the middle of the sandwich,

but he turned in, he didn't give him room.

Mr. Harris?

I couldn't disagree more.

There we go.

The thing about those gaps,

we've all done it, if you've raced,

is that if you look at that and have a go,

as you send it in, you're thinking,

if I get away with this, I'm bloody lucky.

And at that point, he didn't get away with it,

and it wasn't a small enough lock up.

It wasn't just a puff of smoke.

He did not have control of the vehicle.

He couldn't alter the direction of it.

And Snelly, you're right,

he closed the door.

He'd been a bit naughty,

but ultimately, if any steward would always go,

look, you know full well,

you've been very, very pushy,

you've been very punchy,

and you didn't pull it off.

The best thing about it is,

I think we all agree

that if Oscar was given the chance

100 times to do it again,

he'd do it 100 times.

That's what we love about sport.

But sadly, you know sometimes,

if you have a cigarette,

when you're 12 years old,

round the back of the house,

you're probably going to get caught at some point.

Just take it.

Yeah, yeah.

How many, how many races left?

Three.

I'm going to be in Abu Dhabi, by the way.

I am going to be there.

We can join you.

Yes, you're going to come.

I'd love to come.

Don't give advice to anything else.

Can someone please invite Cooper to Abu Dhabi?

We've got an issue here.

Anyone, any team listening,

Chris Cooper will come out,

he'll wash dishes,

he'll do wash tires, whatever.

Anybody there?

You don't need to.

Let's have a little chat.

I think it'd be really nice

to actually be out there

with some good mates.

Yeah, I need a bit of nice sunshine.

Yeah.

We're now going to do,

where are we?

This is, what are we up to?

Okay, we're going to do this quite quickly.

Yeah, this is, we can be quick on this.

Continuation,

this is coming from the inside

of Neil Clifford's head,

which sometimes isn't the clearest thing to read,

which Manish, Andy, has struggled with this week.

So he's not all I knew this Manish.

I'll read this out and we'll see how many people like it.

Just read it out as you wrote it.

On the comments, right on the comments,

that made no sense, or that made sense.

I'm going to read exactly the words.

Continuation, hot car property,

vermilion game,

what would you choose to bring back,

to bring one back that hasn't been done already?

He's fucking so clear.

What the fuck are you talking about?

It's gibberish,

but it's obvious what you meant.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Welcome to my life.

Chris Cooper, go.

There's only one.

Yep.

1990 Aston Martin V8 Vantage.

There you go.

I asked Cameron this afternoon,

he said there's only one,

and I thought he's right, there's only one.

But there has been one.

Has there?

I might have dreamt it,

but I think I might have seen one recently,

at some sort of car event or something.

I mean, I've wondered that,

and then Brian blessed it a pair again,

and I wasn't sure.

Yeah, I'm 50-50 on that.

Yeah, but it hasn't been done, has it?

Like a singer or a...

No.

Yeah, it hasn't been done.

There's a big fetish going on.

Sorry.

I've managed your loud one.

Because I think it has to be a very famous mark,

obviously,

and I've got a modern one.

The Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio.

I think if someone wants to take that,

take that thing apart,

make it actually work,

that is a stunning car in the future.

What engine are you putting in it?

Oh, I don't know.

I don't know.

Neil Clifford.

So difficult this.

I'm sorry, we haven't had a lot of time,

because I could do a 20-minute rant.

You're welcome to.

No, well, most, if you go,

because it manages the advice,

it's got to be iconic.

Not only iconic, because...

iconic is good,

but also, we're talking about

value creation here.

The small little angle is,

you know, if they're making 50,

do I buy one,

and am I going to make some money?

Because new cars

are all a bit shit.

So the money has moved

to continuation.

Not only...

not only...

it's a bigger market now,

because

cars were cooler a little bit in the past,

therefore, people are putting

effort into that.

But also,

it's where you can

invest and make money.

Are you really going to make a load of money on F18?

Maybe.

Are you going to make a load of money on 849 Testerosa?

Probably not.

There's less money to be made

if you play the game of making money

in cars.

There's more money

if you chance it

right on continuation, in my view.

Some of them...

you know, no one's ever made a good

Ferrari continuation, have they?

Do you mean continuation or like a resto?

Rest is the same shit, isn't it?

It's the same...

It's not.

Continuation comes from the factory itself,

and has to...

Yeah, it does.

It does.

I'm more from factory on this.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm going to get straight to the point.

And it's really...

I've got two.

I can't decide.

I'm going to give you two.

Three, five, six.

Yeah.

And I know you could say,

wow, it's really the box that it isn't.

You want Porsche to do...

Sing a three, five, six,

but out in the factory.

It'd be bloody fantastic.

But then,

slightly ahead of that,

5149 Mura.

And Mura is so difficult.

You know,

that's my daughter.

I'm sorry.

I don't know how to turn my phone on.

Mura is so difficult

because all of those really,

really pretty cars,

I accept Eagle and E-Type,

and I accept maybe Singer,

but in general,

when continuations

or resto mod cars

attempt a really pretty car,

they're never as fucking good.

They're always just a little bit ugly.

Yeah.

They're always a little bit ugly.

But I think you could trust Lamborghini.

They're not going to fuck it up.

They're going to do a great Mura.

Do you reckon to that cootash they did, though?

It was bad.

It wasn't a cootash, though, was it?

No, it wasn't good.

That's why I'm nervous.

I'm nervous for them already.

But I think they've learnt their lesson.

Ghandini right in saying,

I've nothing to do with this.

He did, yes.

That's what it's helpful.

What does Lamborghini say?

We've done a great job.

Ghandini writes an open letter saying,

nothing to do with me.

Yeah, it was a bit like the Peter Stevens,

the GMA job, wasn't it?

There was whatever his bloody name is,

the F1 bloke.

Man, if you'd been a car designer,

you would have been Ghandini, wouldn't you?

That would have been you.

Listen, you're being very, very kind.

That would have been my absolute Indian dream car.

Neil Clifford, you're going Miura and 356.

I'm going Miura.

Okay, so...

Hello, Mr Harris.

I've done it.

And that is sort of a bit like Neil.

It's from the factory,

because they found a whole bunch of chassis numbers

they promised to make that they didn't make.

That's what most continuations are.

Oh, look, there was a fire in the factory.

We lost that paperwork.

We've just decided to reinvent it.

There's another 50 chassis numbers.

So, really, it's the same car.

But, you know, you want a 6.3 engine in it,

a little bit done, ride a bit better,

and steering a bit better.

But, yeah, that's what...

Yes, count me in.

I think it's an interesting one.

You want to make money,

but the company that does this has to be

in a bit of a funk, doesn't it?

It needs to be in trouble,

because it hasn't really got a clear idea of where it's going.

Yeah.

It's got to plunder.

Yeah, it's got to plunder the back catalogue.

Piss the nose.

It's going to fucking melt with you, Neil Clifford.

Turn that off.

I don't know.

I've turned my phone actually off, and it's still doing it.

Can you do more of it?

Because I want to see the smoke coming out.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

So, I've got...

But you also...

It's got to represent...

Something the company used to do

that everyone wishes it still did.

It's got to be a reminder.

And it's got to come from a group of engineers

who are troublemakers.

They're in the skunk work area of the business.

Yeah.

And the bosses want to tell them to Foxtrot Oscar,

but the bosses are going,

but there's money to be made here.

Yes.

We can't say no to it.

Right.

And that car for me...

Is...

Is a Supercharged inline-six Jaguar X300 XJR.

Yes.

It's a manual with 480 horsepower,

a locking differential.

And if you...

If they put that out there now and said they're making...

They're doing 150 of them for 220 grand,

they'd sell every single one in a day.

They would.

Because it's...

Straight-six Supercharged.

That's what he said, yeah.

It's the car we all want Jaguar to make.

All he does, yeah.

Jaguar, for me, is a very fast, dignified,

subtle, sporting saloon car.

And that's it.

You know, I was there on the Jaguar...

And there's not just the Jaguar's owner club.

There's the XJ owner's club, the E-Tybonus club,

the XJS owner's club.

There's every fucking owner's club.

There's like four of them in the NEC.

And you know, you just feel sorry for these loyalists,

these lovers of this incredible brand

that they've been...

Respect hasn't been paid to that market.

Yeah, you see, it's apparently

because there's no equity left in the brand.

So goodness knows what all those people are doing there.

And this is 17 miles from Jaguar,

where all these people are.

I know.

Anyhow.

It's not good.

Anyhow, they've got a genius in charge.

He knows more than us.

Let's move on to our two-car garage, okay?

Here we go.

I've got to turn my phone back on now,

because that's why I've got my bloody two-car garage.

I was being told, it's like I said,

your daughter is far more important than...

No, I know, that's fine.

Daughters are very important.

Right, here we go.

They are very, very important.

You have just been fired from a national...

from a national broadcaster and news outlet.

So you want to get out and about a bit,

but you're lacking funds

and worried about where the next job might come.

You've managed to scrape some meager savings together,

and you've got some nice between jobs,

between jobs to do, between road trips.

You've chosen to do the NC500, the North Coast 500,

and Tourist and Fireman at the Nürburgring.

Choose your cars however you like.

You can choose either to take one there,

and then the other to enjoy on the road toll,

or one for solely the North Coast 500,

and the other solely for the ring.

Enjoy.

You only have a budget of £10,000.

It's not a lot.

Manage, how are you doing this?

Okay, so I found a...

This is obviously not in the auction in Clare and Clatics.

This is in the classified.

But I found a 2000 Clio 172,

and she's a babe of a car.

We had a great one.

I love that car anyway.

Same year as Lola.

I would actually just buy this.

You'd probably get just over £5,000.

I can't remember what it was actually going for,

but something like that.

I'm sure it'll go 6,750.

I'm going to get those people down a teeny tiny bit.

And then my second car.

I can't believe I found this.

This just makes me totally happy.

By the way, the Clio for me would be the NC500.

And this is the baby that I would take to the ring.

It's the 1986 Ford XR2 with V5 in Martini cars.

It's the track car.

And there were 5,500 squidders for that.

How much?

They want £5,500 for that.

That is the car.

You go around the Nürburgring in that.

You wouldn't do one lap.

I'd say apparently you would.

But £5,995, I mean, it's around ten.

But me and you would do that.

I'm like, what a lap though.

And you'd look great.

Imagine being a...

I agree.

It's great.

I took the 3S to ST to the Nürburgring.

It was the pre-turbocharged one.

I had lots of fun there.

Chris Cooper, what are your two cars?

I would.

This just goes on auction, I think, at the weekend.

So day two after this goes live.

This just said buy me.

It's a triumphant test convertible.

Oh, that's good.

A six-cylinder engine.

This might, and the other one I want, might bust.

But for doing the North Coast 500, it's nice and dinky.

Getting all those little passing places on the single track road.

Nice comfortable ride.

Not too much of a low ride height.

I just think in the spring, before the midges arrive,

decent bit of weather, spend a week doing the North Coast 500.

I think that'd be lovely.

That starts on the auction at the weekend.

And then the other one for doing the Tourist Fountain.

And the most as important, the drive there and back.

Because that is quite important at the ring going there.

Because honestly, actually, Tourist Fountain these days,

the best vehicle to do it in is probably an armored car.

Because it's got quite feral, some of the Tourist Fountain.

But the next best thing to an armored car would be one of those.

A Jaguar XFR.

Under the heading of a car, I nearly bought what I wish I had.

That is very high on the list.

Yeah, agreed.

They were really, really good car.

But it was between that and an Alpina B3 and E90.

So the Alpina kind of won it.

But I look at those and I just think, God.

So that's what I would do.

And that goes on auction later this week.

So yeah, just be it on auction when we go live.

Let's shout out to Chris Cooper, who displays the level of discipline

that's missing amongst his co-hosts.

But always choosing auctions that also will be running on the Friday

when this is broadcast.

So Carl and Classy, I'd like you to know that Chris Cooper really is

your number one servant.

He is always amazing.

You got those two for 10,000 quid.

Maybe a little bit more.

There we go.

Finley, if we could just mute Manish for a second, that'd be good.

Thank you.

And we just go to Neil Clifford, please.

OK, there's a new section, not new.

A new to me section of Carl and Classy, which is called Make an Offer.

Ooh.

Now, Make an Offer, I have no idea what it is.

It's a car that didn't sell in the auction for its reserve, maybe.

I have no idea what it is.

I've just discovered it.

I've, and this is by chance, an MG midget.

And I'm going rubber bumper because I'm sort of in the world of the Avengers.

Yeah.

And it was the era of just discovering the car showroom and the brochures

and the very lovely women that were in those brochures.

So I'm going rubber bumper.

And this one, the cabin is just such a lovely place to be on a warm sunny day.

And the vendor has advised that the vehicle benefits from a replacement gearbox

after an issue that was developed with first gear on the original box.

The gearbox now works completely perfectly, but unfortunately I have no history.

Do you ever think that car deserves a brucey bonus of some sort?

Make me an offer.

So I've been in three grand.

He's in the shit.

He's taken it.

So I've got six grand left and I've got an MG midget, which actually is a bloody fantastic car.

But I need a bit of, I need one sensible car.

So I'm going a Ford.

What is that?

A Fiesta, I think.

ST.

Yeah.

I've never had this.

It's an itch.

I've never had this ST thing.

Because, you know, those, those sort of magazines, the ST is the thinking man's RS.

You know, if you want a slightly deep, you want a slightly lower key, non flashy.

I haven't just nicked it Fiesta or Mondale or whatever.

It's the ST, not the RS, isn't it?

And this, this is six grand.

So I've nicked six, two, five, oh, I've nicked the midget on three.

And I've got that and I've got 750 quid left from a tax.

Yeah.

And I've got two British cars.

And that's the, yeah, both red.

Yeah.

Great.

So I think I've chosen this car before, but I've gone back to it because I'm slightly upset.

Right.

I've, it is a Peugeot 205.

It's beige.

It's advertised as, you can see there, a 205 Turbo 16, which is not because Neil Clinton's

got one of those.

That is clearly a front engine beige 205.

When I look, when I look more closely at it, I've been to this thing so many times.

I saw these seats, which I've never seen in a 205 before.

It's a beige covered GTI style seat.

So I looked at the car closely and I realized it's something called a 205 Indiana, which

is a French special edition that I've never seen.

And it has these special wallets fitted to the door pockets.

These, which I've, again, I've never seen before.

And therefore I would have to buy this car because it's based on a 205XS, which is the

best of the 205.

So it's got the 85 horsepower twin-solex choke, twin-chose, solex carbureted engine.

And for the North Coast 500, this would be, it's tiny, it's, it's zippy, it's everything

you want.

Again, pre-midi, we're going end of April because we don't want to get bitten.

The problem is it's, it's 8,000 euros.

And because I'm, well it's eight, nine, but I've robbed it for eight.

So I'm going to drive it to the Nurburgring and I'm going to go to old, what's the chap

called?

The race rental bloke who's Dutch.

Oh, Ron Simons.

I'm going to go to Ron RSR and I'm going to hire myself something like a two-series or

something for the weekend for tourists and foreigners because I can't afford another

car.

That's a good call.

I'm going to rent a car.

I'm going to drive back in my 205.

And on the way home, I'm going to fill up with all those lovely syrups that come in

tins from the French supermarkets that I drink the whole time that are like cordials.

The, the apricot one, I love the peach one.

I always buy those and I buy lots of cheese and I buy lots of a more mustard.

And I fit all of those in the back of my 205, Indiana.

That's all.

We hired, we went to ring in the spring.

We hired one of his F87, Gem 1, 240 track car things.

The road car with the cage in it.

What a piece of kit that was.

Yeah, quick.

Brilliant job.

What was the, what was the 1.9 automatic in gold?

A gentry.

Yeah, the gentry.

There's one.

There's a low miles gentry.

They're a bit disappointing of almost with you.

Are they?

Are they all auto?

No, gentry is all auto.

Yeah.

Right.

Let's do some music guys.

Manage, enlighten us.

You normally do.

Steve Harley, cock me rebel.

Come up and see me.

Make me smile.

Guitar solo.

Good.

Love that song.

Very good.

Chris Cooper.

We're recording this on the evening of the 11th of the 11th.

Remembrance Day.

And Chris, you gave a very, very passionate and heartfelt plea for

our veterans and all that they have given and will continue to give.

So I think tonight I would choose the hymn I vowed to thee my country.

And there is a, there's a link for something on YouTube I found from the

remembrance service at the Royal Albert Hall a few years ago.

Slight catch that is introduced by Hugh Edwards.

We'll forget about that.

But I vowed to thee my country from the remembrance service in 2009 is I

think my song for today.

Extraordinary.

Neil Clifford.

He's got to pick himself up.

Nimrod.

I nearly did that.

Yeah.

Al Gaia.

Yeah.

As good.

Equally good.

I've had a weekend of that stuff.

So I've probably done it and it's meaningful but I've done it.

So I'm going to go completely the other way.

I want something that gets me in the car and gets my spirits up.

And I can't think of a, I'm still on intros.

I've got to get over intros but sort of rhythm guitar that just gets you

going and then settles into this beat.

And it's a song that I tap.

Even if I'm driving with my foot on the couch pedal, I'm tapping to this.

It's Good Morning Judge by Ten C.C.

Oh, Ten C.C. were great.

They were.

Listen to Good Morning Judge.

It's a fantastic little tune.

I don't know it.

I'm going to go and listen to it now.

Great.

It's a foot tapper.

Now.

I'm just sorry.

Loud to do something very naughty.

Just on the basis of it being Remembrance Day.

Listen to something called Cantus in Memoriam,

Benjamin, Britain.

And it's by a composer called Arvo Pett.

And you will really feel in your hearts.

You will really, really, really feel Remembrance Day with that

in a way that possibly you haven't before.

It will, it will stir you and it will break your heart.

Okay.

That's lovely.

Yeah.

Now.

So that is the end of episode 61.

I've got one thing to say.

The organization that I work for for many years is tearing itself apart this week.

Tim Davies is gone.

I don't normally comment on such things.

But I've got one thing to say and that is this.

I don't think you're a bad man, Tim Davies.

I think you're a current enthusiast.

But I hope one thing.

I hope the organization treats you better than you treated the people on Top Gear

who lost all their jobs on their work.

I really do.

That's all I have to say on the subject.

Good night from all of us.

That is Manish, Chris Coogler, Neil Clever and me, Chris Harris.

We'll be back for episode 62 next Friday.

Until I started using Acast, I recorded my ad, targeted pet owners in the area

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Now people all over the city know about my grooming services.

Me as business is looking sharp.

What's your secret for happy pets and happy clients?

A fresh cut, a friendly vibe and a well-placed podcast ad.

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