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Hello. Welcome to My Week in Cars, the AutoCop podcast with Pry here.

Stephen Crockley next to me.

Steve, what are you doing right now?

Well, I'm in the process of putting a route in my telephones,

which will get us back from Dovenby Hall, which is the HQ of M Sport in Cumbria.

Back to your gaff where I should be dropping you off so you can get a bit of shut-eye, mate.

Yeah, there's a slightly unusual pod this week in that Steve and I have been up

talking to Malcolm Wilson, who runs this M Sport operation, this enormous M Sport operation.

This place is for 130 acres, he says.

Yeah, it's got a test track.

They build race and rally cars and develop race and rally cars here.

It's a phenomenal piece of British motorsport business.

Yeah, and they've done everything, haven't they?

I mean, Malcolm grew up in rallies himself, was a British champion,

fantastic test driver, but he got into the business of running rally teams

and building cars and he says he tells us on the interview that we'll broadcast soon.

He enjoyed that more than anything he ever achieved behind the wheel,

which is an intriguing thing to say.

Yeah, so how long is it going to be?

How long is it going to take us to get there, Steve?

Five hours, four hours?

Yeah, I think, let me, he's about to tell us.

Well, it would if we had any reception.

I think it's about five hours.

It's about five hours, but we're in our LP in A290, so we need to charge up a bit.

Yeah, so anyway, we thought, because we're together for a time that we'd record this

week's My Week in Cars while we're doing it.

What a laugh, yeah.

And it's brought to you in association, as I put by, with Anderson EV,

makers of top quality home chargers.

I don't have the script in front of me this week, I'm afraid, Steve,

but they make top quality home chargers and I think what we can both agree is that

what the happy EV owner needs is a top quality home charger.

Yes, and I am that man.

I have one which is two years old, which means there's five years left on the warranty.

It's a extremely good looking gadget that sits on a 150 year old barn,

but it would be just as happy on a new building because of the wide range of textures and so on,

colors. It is made by nice people in Bedfordshire and every home should have one.

They should, they should.

Oh, isn't there a 50 quid deal?

There is, mate.

Yeah, there is.

If you order before the end of October, an Anderson EV charger, and Anderson-ev.com,

you can see them all.

They will give you £50 off if you talk to a member of the sales team and mention this podcast.

You don't have to have listened to it.

You don't have to have done anything other than mention it.

They could be £50 off.

But the beauty of it, from our point of view, is that if there are lots of requests for 50 quids off,

that'll mean that their sponsorship of our podcast has been affected.

Well, that would be the ideal thing.

Yeah, that would be the ideal thing.

There is also the multiple award winners, basically, the electric vehicle.

Innovation energy awards.

They have won lots of things, including charge point manufacturer of the year.

More than months, I think.

Is it not going to tell us?

Should we just set off and see if it's...

Yeah, let's just go for cock-a-mouse.

There must be some reception somewhere.

They will get some reception somewhere.

Yeah, we'll get reception as we go.

Shall I read a letter?

Yeah, go on.

Yeah, give it a go.

We may have to, we may have to pour.

I don't know if security want to talk to us on the way out, do they?

Or whether we just go and hope for the best.

Well, let's find out.

Let the clutch in, as they say.

Yeah, just...

There isn't one.

Drop the clutch and away we go.

And, yeah.

And as we pull out, there's...

I think that's Malcolm's Range Rover, would be my guess.

Yeah, didn't he say he'd had 28 or something?

Yes, we love that.

Yeah, that podcast is going to be one of our Auto Car Meets podcasts,

run in a few Saturdays time.

We're really... I really enjoyed that.

That was great chat.

Really good.

He's so interesting, isn't he?

He's a kind of really shy, retiring sort of bloke,

sort of addicted to not boasting about his achievements,

but when he gets going,

he just tells you all these stories that are sort of charming, I think.

Yeah.

So there's a big showroom here that's got four GTs in it, of course.

And some Escorts and his old rally cars.

Yeah, there's all kinds of goodies, isn't there?

Paul, and then some Bentley GT3 rally cars.

I think it's, in effect, it's his museum,

isn't it?

Yeah, it looks that way.

There must be, what, 15 cars in there?

Yeah, I reckon.

Oh, that's good.

Oh, that does look good.

I'm trying to go in some of them.

No, quite.

And we're coming back in a few weeks' time, aren't we,

for the Britain's best drivers' car.

Yeah.

Do I mention that already in this pod or not?

It doesn't matter.

The problem with this is that my short-term memory is

trying to keep up with a look where I'm going

and present a podcast at the same time.

This is the sort of multitasking I am not equipped to do.

Joe Stonham writes to us to say,

Matt and Steve, for the last few years,

our family of four has relied on two cars,

a diesel Skoda Superb for motorway cruising

and our Audi A2 1.4 petrol for all the local city stuff.

The A2 has been the perfect nimble economical runabout

for nursery drops and tight supermarket car parks,

a TARDIS inside very much just enough

and often a conversation starter.

However, we have two imminent arrivals.

My wife is expecting twins.

Oh, that works, Joe.

We'll be a family of six,

including a three-year-old and a five-year-old,

and the two new ones as well, I guess.

We're updating the Skoda Superb

to handle a full six-seater load

using a great UK invention called the Multimac.

I think that's the thing you put across the back seats.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It brings you extra chairs.

But we need to replace the A2.

We need its replacement to be nimble, economical,

and a great local car,

but it now needs to be able to accommodate four children

and their car seats in the back.

Oh, boy.

I don't know why that is,

but what would be the ideal nimble all-round car

to succeed the A2?

Josh.

I don't know.

I don't either.

I was thinking sort of multi-seat burlingo kind of car,

but the thought of getting rid of the A2,

knowing what we now know about it,

because of your experience.

I think what he needs is the third car and a chauffeur,

you know, bring the other kids along and take two cars.

Yeah, that's it.

What about, and these are not easy to find, Joe,

I don't think, but they are probably worth it,

what about a fifth multiplier?

Yeah, boy.

And then you could have to have,

you would have to have a jump seat of some kind in the front,

wouldn't you, for the perhaps the eldest, a booster,

a suitable booster for the eldest in the front.

I think, well, I think Joe,

has shown that he's already a, you know,

a man who's prepared to think widely by taking on the A2.

So I think a multiplier would be a good idea.

Yeah.

But they're hard to find, aren't they?

Yeah, I think they probably are.

Where do you reckon we came from?

We wanted A66, didn't we?

So I wonder if we came left here.

Left.

Well, as in we want to go right now.

Right now, yeah, okay.

I think.

I saw A66 in practice.

Yeah, yeah.

I like the A66.

We've done a couple of features on the A66.

Of course.

Because it does run coast to coast.

Yeah, I didn't know that.

We were talking about that earlier.

Like Route 66.

Well, so where does it come out on the other side?

I think it goes basically Middlesbrough to Whitehaven.

Oh, okay.

As far as I can tell.

But you can do it in a day, which is quite.

Yeah.

Which is quite good.

Listen, I hope there's not too much road noise.

A bit of a ride, I think.

Yeah, it is a little bit.

Maybe we need to talk more.

Mind you, the mics are reasonably close to the.

I think we'll be okay.

North and south as it were.

Yeah, I think we'll be.

Hopefully we'll be all right.

So in the next, I don't know, 50 minutes or so,

Steve and I are going to be talking our respective

AutoCar columns and much more besides.

So last time I did the A66.

What were you in?

I was in that, I don't know how many made,

you know Lamborghini didn't event a door special,

limited run special.

They called the Coontash.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

And I did it in one of those.

That was a big deal.

Yeah, it was cool.

But I think, yeah, and I think we did it because the

cannonball run, they used a Lamborghini Coontash in that,

in the film.

Yeah.

And so I thought, well, Route 66, A66,

let's go coast to coast in a Lamborghini Coontani.

That's right.

I remember you doing this.

It's quite good fun doing that for you.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm right again.

It's quite exciting.

We're on the right, I think we're on the right road.

It said M6, doesn't it?

It did say M6,

but I'm just wondering if it's going the wrong way.

Shall I?

Might just be worth it.

Stick it in the nav.

Quick, Captain Cook.

Listen, this is going to be the most spectacular

piece of radio you've ever heard.

Man inputs, satellite navigation.

Go on, here we go.

So this is carplay at its worst.

I keep pressing for my home postcode,

and it keeps searching and then just going back to the screen.

Going back, yeah.

Oh, that's really annoying.

There's going to be a death.

That's really, really annoying.

Let's put in the second one, which is London,

which is a similar direction.

Oh, there we go.

I think we're OK.

I think we're heading south.

Yeah, I think we're heading the right direction.

Surely good.

Steve, your column this week.

Yeah, I sort of banged.

What are we going to start with?

Well, it's full of me banging the drum, isn't it?

I've probably bored people to death with this,

with my obsession with hill climbs and sprints.

I just think it's such a lovely form of motorsport

for people who aren't very good drivers

and don't want to spend their arm and a leg on the car.

Yeah.

And I did courtesy of Renault.

I did a sprint the other day in Cornwall in the Renault 5,

the electric Renault 5, which was good.

We did well.

But it juiced me up for the car I used to have,

which was a 309 GTI that Colin Goodwin initially bought

off eBay for 250 quid.

And we found that somebody had attacked the undersides

with an angle grinder and needed all kinds of repairs and stuff.

But it eventually turned into a good little competition car.

Didn't Pajot help?

They helped.

They helped with some of their apprentices.

Yeah, their apprentices cut the roof out.

It's sort of deeply rubbish to 309 GTI to have a sunroof

because it weighs a ton and it's noisy.

The thing to do is to whip the roof panel out

and put in a nice ordinary tin one.

And the apprentices did that very thing.

And they painted the car in a magnificent shade

of sort of loud green color.

Quite the color, I think.

And I just found myself wishing I could have a car like that.

I've tried to buy the car back from the bloke I sold it to,

who has very politely said, forget it, twice.

Hello, Tom.

So I went looking for 309s the other night

and I found that anything with a GTI,

anything in reasonable order is 10 grand.

You can buy 205s that are projects

that people have lost interest in and things like that for a few quid.

See, that surprised me a bit because you mentioned 205s last week

and I thought, well, because they've got that reputation

of being such a, you know, the king of all the hot hatches.

Yeah.

I thought they were all going to be a million quid.

Well, the best ones are 20.

Oh, are they?

But you can buy a bag of nails.

And what I would do is get a man I know to sort it out.

But anyway, I got all excited about the idea and I still am, really.

But here we are in this Alpine A290,

which is a hotter version of the car I did the Cornwall Sprint in.

And I'm thinking, gosh, I wouldn't want none of these for a Sprint either.

Well, you'd become a serial Alpine owner if that was the case, wouldn't it?

Yeah, I'm not sure whether steering committed beyond that

because she still likes the Mini Cooper S.

Oh, interesting.

Well, whether we would make the change,

whether one would be allowed to make change

is would be a matter of serious discussion.

Could you get an older new Mini to do this as a Sprint car project?

I think you could.

I think you really could.

There are some.

There must be old race cars, mustn't there?

Yep.

And old challenge cars.

I mean, even a standard car with a Cooper S from the olden days,

they were fast, supercharged and turbocharged versions.

Yeah.

So yeah, decent tires and brakes.

It must have lots of rounds.

I think there really are, yeah.

I think I understand you've still got to be careful.

If you buy it early, you've still got to be careful

because you can have gearbox issues and so on.

But over it.

But not a lot of money.

I was talking to our Bremner the other night,

and in fact, the night before last,

and we were talking about that very thing.

He is, of course, the expert.

In, yes, doesn't he?

Almost everything.

One of the Y registration.

Yeah, he's got a very early one, hasn't he?

Which is the, weren't they basically the press demos

before production start?

They're the only Minis that are on a Y registration plate.

Is that right?

Yeah, something like that.

There was certainly.

Because all the customer ones got a 51, whatever they were.

Do you remember Bremner,

like the thrillers Bremner telling us that

he went to nine launches for the Mini before he ever drove one?

Really?

Because they had previews and, you know,

motor show unveilings and, you know,

took people over to Germany to walk around it once

and go back and all that kind of time.

Might not have been nine,

but it was certainly six plus.

That is, have you ever worked out the number of days

you spend doing stuff a year?

Because nine events to not drive a car is quite,

I think I worked out, right,

if I allowed half a day to write my columns,

which would be ideal, but it's probably not that much.

Well, I happen to know that having witnessed it,

you've just written one in the car

although the latest prior column listener

has been infected on his lap in the Alpine A290

between, well, Oxfordshire and Bambrian,

yeah, between Bambrian Birmingham maybe.

I think I finished it on the M6 toll.

I thought you did it with confidence.

Well, you haven't read it, mate.

I did the legwork yesterday,

but we might come on to that later.

Oh, I've lost my thread completely.

Oh, well, yeah.

So if I allowed like 25 days a year to write a column

and then 25 days a year to record this podcast,

because it takes us maybe half a day a week,

but then listening to it maybe takes a bit more.

If I work out, I don't know, a video,

shooting a video might take a day a week,

and then doing all the edits and stuff.

And if I suddenly work out how many free days

I've got to actually go and drive cars,

I think nine, seeing a mini nine times before driving it,

I might, I don't know, I might struggle.

I think I might shoot as well.

Yeah, struggle is having the time for that.

But I suppose that, you know, they were responding

to the fact that we were also gagging to see this guy talk about it.

And I think what happened is that they'd show a car

and then produce another engineer a little bit further up a pole

or the bloke that had done the dashboard rather than the brakes

or something like that.

And we, and we always, but Richard, being Richard,

you know, was particularly interested.

Oh, yeah.

Is it widely known?

Is it, and is it true?

You know, the exhaust pipe on the original new mini?

Yeah.

Has that look of the bottom of a tin can?

Yeah.

Because that's basically what, what it was,

is that they'd finished the model and somebody gone,

well, there's no exhaust on it.

And somebody said, well, we've got in the,

in the, they have the bottom of a Coca-Cola can or whatever.

So they, is that, is that true?

Is that known or is that?

Oh, it's not a thing.

But the early, if the early Mini Cooper's,

and I think that's, that's the story I was told.

But how great is it or not?

I don't know.

Well, it's a, it's a good one.

I mean, someone.

That's a great story.

It's got that shape.

Well, they're sort of.

I can't describe it to you.

Convex bottom, do you mean?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, well, we might see one on the way back.

We've got 260 miles to, to observe passing minis or minis we pass.

Are we, so do you think we'll need to charge once?

Oh, I reckon.

Yeah, we've got 125 miles on the clock.

Yeah.

And that seems to be about accurate.

It's showing 62%.

I reckon if we get to T-bay, which is about 50 miles from,

maybe 80 miles from here.

Oh, that'll be perfect.

Fill her up and then we'll, we'll be all right.

Yeah, that'll be nice.

And if I have to give it a tickle, that chair will value,

which is down the road from your place.

Oh, I suppose you could do.

Yeah.

So what's next on the planet?

If you, so you're revved up about maybe a 205 or something else?

Or do you want to tell me anymore?

Or.

Well, I, I, I don't really know anymore.

I, I, I just been talking to, there's an excellent bloke called Neil Yates,

who runs a business called Rally Prep.

Dacing Cornwall, shared right beside the runway at New Key Airport.

Or Cornwall Airport, whatever they call it.

And can he do some testing on that?

Can he run up now?

He would be a man that could build you one.

Okay.

And if we found a, you know, an old project in a shed

and we're, we're paid to chuck a bit of money at it,

we could have a good car.

Yeah.

And I like the, I've always liked the idea of building my own car.

You know, I've done it once or twice.

I did it with a 309, I suppose.

And it's just a, I just love projects.

I'm no use for the Spanners, but I like watching other people.

Yeah, yeah.

Well.

And I don't, you know, I think, well, as we've always said,

people like us, you're better off to bang the typewriter

and make a few quid and then deploy that money

by paying somebody who knows what they're doing.

Yeah, that is a lesson I should have learned.

No, you're actually handy.

Well, no, I'm not enough really.

That's the problem.

And I just get, I just get annoyed with things.

You've been in a couple of black cabs this morning.

Oh God, I just got into a pivot.

I had to go from where I roost in London up the,

to the, into the city and back a couple of miles each way.

And in one of them, I got into one of them and it was a lovely

L.E.V.C. range extender, one year old, quiet, smooth, roomy,

bloke, interesting guy to talk to who told me that he thought

the idea of an electric cab at first was a terrible idea.

And he's completely come round to it, including putting,

you know, photovoltaic cells on the roof of his house to,

to generate his own power so that when he leaves home in the morning,

the cab is charged by the, by the atmosphere.

He's become a real zealot.

Yeah.

And I thought he was, he was very convincing and it was a nice ride.

And then on the way back, I got into an old FX4, I guess it was, or FX something.

And it just had everything.

I remember suspension rattles from every corner.

You know, the doors never fit in.

Remember they just, anyway, it was horrible.

I remember the sort of clack of the doors, but I don't,

it's been a long time since I was, since I was in one, I think.

And I was a little bit surprised that it was still on the road, this thing,

because there, as I understand it, the London carriage office,

who I think are still in charge of all that, they don't allow cars

to get into too bad a state, but whatever happened, whatever,

this car was, was right on the lower limit, shall we say.

Yeah.

And I would have, you know, I found myself thinking,

I'll give this bloke an extra 25 quid to drive it to the scrapper.

Anyway, it was, but London cabs,

I suppose the bottom line is London cabs have improved so much

that when we get in a bad one, it's a surprise.

Yeah.

Tell you what, I tried the other day for the first time in London,

it's a line bike.

Oh, how was that?

That was unbelievably good.

It was, yeah, it was, they were, I wasn't, it wasn't my,

it wasn't me doing the app or the painting.

So somebody else did all the, all the paperwork and the hard work.

Yeah.

But yeah, I just rode from,

where did I ride from?

I rode to Victoria from APUB and it was, but it just took the,

This is the thing with electric assistance, right?

Yeah.

So you start pedaling and it adds electrical assistance.

All the time you're pedaling, they can add electrical assistance

and I think they're capped at 15 miles an hour or something like that.

That's perfect.

You just go, yeah, it's such a low effort way of doing it.

Because I'm, I quite often use the Boris bikes

where you do all the pedaling yourself.

Yeah.

But to, to get the electrical assistance from it as well,

because it was so easy.

It was a real, it's a, I don't know how much,

I wonder about this, how much traffic they reduce.

Because would these people have been in a car

or would they have actually been on the tube anyway?

So is it, is it reducing,

is it reducing traffic levels or is it just reducing TFL's tube income?

Yeah.

I'm not quite sure, but it was, it was tremendous.

Well, they certainly are there in big numbers now

and in the dense parts of London, aren't they?

Yeah.

In fact, it's becomes a bit, it's kind of difficult.

Well, you've got to be well advised if you drive a car

through the middle of London nowadays, because there'll be a bike.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Going to the campus, there'll be a bike.

Yeah.

And I've found that drivers in London are much more courteous

and concerned around bicycles than in the suburbs.

And that was your experience on the lone bike.

Yeah, well, yeah, my line bike was very good,

but I also then rode out of, the next morning,

I rode out of London and, well, home.

And my experience in London was much better than out in the sticks.

If you like, you know, you get, you get allowed a lot more room.

And I wonder how many people are just terrified

they're going to end up on some YouTube channel, you know,

or whatever.

Jeremy Vrines.

Snap on something.

Crucified by Jeremy Vrines, yeah.

Yeah, I do slightly, I do.

But, you know, people were, I said,

it was a pleasure to cycle around London, I must say.

Oh.

I've got to say.

So you'll do it again?

Yeah, I think so.

And I quite often, as I said,

quite often jump on one rather than a tube anyway.

But now I know the lime thing is so low effort.

Because that's the thing, especially in summer,

you can think, oh, I could cycle to, I don't know,

if we have our awards or something like that.

But then I'm getting off a bicycle in a suit,

going to an awards, and that's not really the, you know,

that's not really the sort of sweaty mess you want to arrive in.

But on a lime, where it's so little effort,

actually quite a pleasant experience.

That's very interesting.

Quite what it says in your column this week.

Oh, you've been speaking to Peter Grimsdale, haven't you?

Yes, I've probably drawn on a bit too much

about Peter Grimsdale.

He's the guy that's written this latest book about the,

it's called Super Veloce.

Oh, yes.

Well done for remembering that, mate,

because we don't have our notes.

Well, I've got some notes in front of me, but not everything.

It's so, for you to remember that while...

Well, there was a...

While approaching around about, it's very good, isn't it?

Yeah, yes.

It was, I was supposed to chair a little gathering

for the launch of the book and, you know,

various of Peter's mates came along and parted with 35 quid

and got him to sign it and all that.

So it was...

But it was a chance to hear him speak.

And he was brilliant.

He just is a brilliant bloke.

And the bit I like best was he was describing why he got interested

in this supremacy of the Italian...

of Italian cars, particularly through the,

you know, 50s, 60s, etc., 70s even.

And it was because he came across an account of the 19...

The first Formula One race, the 1950 Silverstone Grand Prix.

And I think I can't remember the precise details,

but there's something like four Alfa Romeo's on the front row.

The fastest British car was an ERA that was about seventh on the grid

and I think there was something else as well.

And basically the British cars went off or exploded

and the Italians won this at a counter.

And the point was that Italy was supposed to have

just a few years earlier lost the war.

And, you know, there were all these jokes about Italian tank drivers having

four reverses and one forward gear and so on.

And yet along they came with, you know, in a foreign country

with their own nationals driving the cars and pulverized everyone else.

And that is where Peter got his idea from.

And it's because he's such a fantastic storyteller, the book is a joy.

It's a big, you know, lots of words and pages.

But the thing about him is that he's got a long history

of making television documentaries, which require you to do detailed research

and distill stuff into the essentials.

But as a hobby, he also writes thrillers.

He's written a couple of thrillers and, you know, novels.

And so he combines the ability to tell a story with this eye for detail

and, you know, an ability to get to the point.

And when you put that together in a non-fiction book,

you finish up with a great book.

And that's what this is.

Yeah, I've really enjoyed his hype performance, which was sort of about the British car industry

at similar, well, sort of 50s and 60s, time I guess.

Yeah, he gets up to...

His grace really goes...

I think this is where I read it first, that in 1946, a group of club racers

went to go and race around the Silverstone perimeter roads.

Yeah.

And then a bloke from the air ministry turned up.

They have permission from the farmer.

And the bloke from the air ministry turned up and said,

well, we still manage this place, so you've got a slingy hook.

And so they went away to Toaster, I think,

and went around the airfield or the race course there instead.

But then they came back to Silverstone the next year.

But if they hadn't gone back to Silverstone,

and they'd have picked, because they'd have just gone,

well, that was a disaster, let's not go back there.

And they'd have gone somewhere else instead.

And it's not like they're short of choice, even in that area.

They could have gone to Bister or Finmere or any other number of places.

Then Silverstone might never have been what it is,

which would have been just that chance.

It's just that chance that somebody said,

no, let's go back to Silverstone and do it next year.

It's just those.

Don't you love the way things hang on a thread like that?

Yeah.

I think, though, it's the sort of joy of history books that.

Half an hour into this pot, I think it's about time we took a commercial break,

because I need to tell you that Anderson is a top quality manufacturer of

home EV chargers, very high quality home EV chargers.

They look after you very well.

They have great designs.

They are award winners, and they'll give you 50 pounds off an order.

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tell everybody, tell the internet, tell forums,

tell everybody that before the end of October,

if you order an Anderson charger and mention this podcast,

you get 50 pounds off.

Yeah, and we will get a pat on the back.

We'll get a very large pat on the back.

I also want to thank a couple of readers who have written in to say,

thanks to this podcast, I've re-subscribed to the magazine.

And in fact, the digital archive, which you can find at themagazineshop.com.

Oh, that's a good point.

I hesitate to mention this, mate,

but I've got an email from Darren at the office,

and it is about, I'm just going to find it.

Sorry, I've got to scroll for a moment where I find it.

It mentions Christmas.

I know.

Do you want me to sing a song?

No, no, no, it's fine, but I'm going to,

it's just that I hesitate to mention it,

because I get, do I get annoyed?

I sometimes used to despair, but I'm kind of over it.

When you see mince pies in the shops in September,

I just think, just burn it all.

I can't, I can't, I can't bear it.

But we do have to start thinking about,

oh no, I've lost connection.

I've got it.

Anyway, there are Christmas offers on our subscriptions,

and there's an early bird offer.

If you go to themagazineshop.com,

I can't tell you what those offers are,

because I've just lost internet connection,

but there are offers.

They make a fantastic Christmas present

for you or somebody else.

So go to themagazineshop.com,

and you can find the access to the current magazine,

plus also the digital archive,

because we've been published weekly since 1895.

Amazing.

There's a letter.

Nigel Pennington writes,

Dear Steve,

in your article this week,

you quote Motorsport Vision,

and then refer to it as MSV,

since when has two words become three?

You may have heard the,

you may have heard of the expression,

I hate TLA's, three letter acronyms.

I think I've uttered those words.

Me too.

Well, the motor industry is full of them,

quoted Libery,

which to the casual reader,

me can be confusing.

Can we have some simple,

easy to understand reporting?

Yours, tongue-in-cheek, Nigel Pennington.

P.S.

What does P.S. mean, Nigel?

Does it do that?

Then you might find they are Motorsport Vision,

which is just about acceptable.

Yeah, they are, they do,

Motorsport Vision put the capital S in, don't we?

That's it.

And I imagine our style guy takes it out.

Yep.

It is also MS, MSV, yes.

Yeah.

Isn't that, it's ours, no?

The current street does have too many acronyms,

doesn't it?

That is fair.

It sure is, yep.

We've got a bit of a pickle at the moment

about ADAS,

because if you say ADAS system,

oh, the answer is positive.

The S is for system,

but sometimes you kind of need to,

I still think you need to,

I still think ADAS is unfamiliar enough

that you kind of have to say

what it is.

And you may qualify it with,

maybe not system, but with something.

Yeah.

And...

No, I think you're the one that's right.

And I don't know what that is,

because I'm pretty sure I've written ADAS system,

and our sub-editors get annoyed

when people do that quite rightly.

But then, you know,

who goes searching around the car looking for an ADAS?

Yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly, yeah.

And that is, listener,

that is advanced driver assistance system.

Is that what they call them?

Yeah, something like that.

Something like that.

Automated?

Automatic?

Oh, no.

I don't know.

But anyway, it's unwanted interference often.

Unwanted interference systems is,

as they should be called.

In fact, in this Alpine that's bearing us

rapidly towards our homes,

we have turned it off, haven't we?

There's an excellent little button,

which is an aerial view of a car

surrounded by a little circle.

A little force field.

If you press it twice,

all the nonsense goes away.

No bombs,

nobody trying to steer you down the road

where you don't want to.

And the car, as a result, is nice.

What do you think of this car?

You went to the launch.

I went to the launch,

and there was some track time.

It was on a continental European set of roads,

but I don't think they were great surfaces.

But they left-handed, I suppose they were.

Yeah, they were left-handed.

And I really enjoyed it.

I thought it felt like a return of the hot hatch.

Do you know what I mean?

Because I sort of feel that we've...

I don't know.

I mean, I know there are still

fast, smallish cars and stuff like that,

but it kind of felt to me

like the first proper hot hatch EV.

Yeah, full of the size, isn't it?

Yeah.

The size is sort of about right, that's a thing.

Yeah, because what, are they 3.8 metres long?

Sort of like that?

No, I think it's most of four,

but just about the same length as a Clio, isn't it?

Okay.

It's under four, though, isn't it?

I think...

Yes, and Clio's a little bit more than four, that's right.

Okay.

Yeah, so it feels to me like...

So it's quite a fat-bodied little car,

but it's nevertheless...

You can...

You feel small.

I've really enjoyed it.

And the thing is, we've done already...

We've done, what, 270 miles in a thing.

Oh, at least, yeah.

We're about to do another 230 or so, back 40.

And it's been blameless, hasn't it?

Really good.

Yeah.

And I've got a mate of mine that's just bought a Renault 5.

So what, the absence of a cup holder in the 290?

It's madness.

It's bonkers.

Is that because they want the gear selector

on the center console to make it feel like the A110 and sport?

Yeah, because the A110 also lacks a cup holder,

or anything else for that matter.

It doesn't have a glove box.

And, yeah, they seem to...

They seem to revel in this business.

I mean, there's so much to love about the car,

but the lack of some sort of cup holder is madness.

So what I drove the other day, mate,

is a Tesla Model Y Performance.

Quick?

Yeah, really quick.

Yeah, 460 horsepower, but it feels more like 800.

The amount of storage space in any Tesla is off the scale good.

It's got massive pockets in the center console.

It's got two charging pads.

Beautiful.

It's got two cup holders.

It's got door pockets.

And then it's got a decent boot at the back

and a decent boot at the front.

The packaging of those, I know it's a big car,

but the packaging of them is really impressive, I think.

They do, they get a lot of space into those things.

Oh, amazing.

But no, I like the 290, mate.

So you've spent time in a 290 and the Renault 5 of the two.

Which do you prefer?

Oh, it's a tough one.

I think the Renault 5, which is 150 horsepower

against this higher-powered 290s, 220,

you would think there was a big difference in the performance.

But the truth is, you don't really use maximum poke

in any car these days, do you?

And the Renault 150-horse Renault 5 is really quite quick

off the mark and just as smooth and quiet,

or smoother and quieter perhaps,

because it's not quite so much tire noise.

It's very similar steering, I'd say.

A little, the right rates are a little firmer in the 290,

but it's still fairly quiet over bumps and things, isn't it?

Yeah.

So, but I think I would possibly go for the Renault 5

for the looks and for the slightly better range,

because the 290 concedes about 30 miles in range, I think.

Oh, does it?

Well, it'd be 20, 20 or 30.

Yeah.

And of course, there's a price difference.

And people love both of them, though, don't they?

I mean, as we've been together today,

we've been in the company of several people who've just said,

is that the new Renault?

Yeah, we were flashed to a halt in a car park

by a bloke in a Volkswagen ID3 who wanted to know about it.

Yeah.

It didn't seem to mind that he was holding up other cars around.

That was on the back of my mind as I was seeing all these cars around him.

And I know we were...

Telling to him.

Well, I try, mate, but I know, I'm aware that people in the North

have a reputation for being much friendlier than people in the South.

Yeah.

But I think if we'd been stationary in a car park

in or around London for that amount of time,

where other drivers could see two people just chatting between cars,

holding them up, they would have leant on their horns

a lot earlier than these people.

There would have been some shouting.

Yeah, because I was thinking, I'm aware,

we're just in people's way here.

Yeah.

But nobody seemed to mind.

That is a very good point, yeah.

Nobody seemed to mind too much.

Should we talk my column a bit?

Yeah, let's go.

So I wrote this this morning grumply.

Have you had, has it been passed by the scrutinyers yet?

Well, I got an email from Chris back saying,

thanks, mate, that's cheered me up no end.

Oh, fine.

No, he was being sarcastic.

That hasn't cheered him up.

So basically, the short of it is, mate,

that the average car in the UK is now older than it has ever been.

Than it's ever been.

So so thinks the RAC Foundation.

Wow.

Yeah.

The headline is that the average car in the UK at the end of last year

was nine years and 10 months old.

And if it's a petrol or diesel, obviously it's older than that

because the average age of plug-a-ball cars is much,

is obviously much younger.

And the RAC Foundation's director, Steve Gooding, says,

the days of cars rusting away before your eyes

are well and truly behind us.

Even a 20-year-old car with a full service history

can be a good bet for somebody seeking a bargain buy

that still looks up to date.

Yeah.

Now, I know that's true, because you've done it.

Well, we've got.

Or your family.

Well, my fact, between the four of us in the family,

the average age of those cars is 20 years old, pretty much.

The Audi's older than that.

So the Audi, there's a Golf and there's a Mazda, isn't it?

There's a Mazda 2.

Yeah, 2008 Mazda 2, 2006 Golf, 2003 Audi A2, and a 2005 Defender.

And I expect none of them has had any structural welding work at all.

But I stick them in for an MOT, or their respective owners

stick them in for an MOT.

And apart from the Defender, which sometimes needs work,

because it's a Land Rover Defender, and they do,

I just expect them all to pass.

Or just they'll be over, maybe you've got an exhaust bracket,

or a leak, or this spring needs a bit of work,

or this dampers leaking.

But I never expect anything structurally on those cars

to go wrong, and it doesn't.

Isn't that brilliant?

It really is.

And the Mazda's U-Less compliant, I think it's the only one that is.

But it's the only one that doesn't, you know,

not that it goes into London anyway, but.

They're really special, aren't they, Mazda?

Yeah.

I must say, I often think when you hear about cars with that,

you know, that have just been blameless and, you know,

gone on and on like that.

It's, I reckon it's to do with regular use, you know,

everything stays lubricated.

There's a breeze under the car, which, you know,

blows any rubbish out of the sills.

Yeah, that's great.

Yeah.

You know, for all that they pick up water in, you know,

rainy weather and so on, I think they, somehow they,

usage is best, isn't it?

Yeah, I think so.

And I think these cars, the Defender's a bit different,

but the Mazda Audi and the Golf, they're probably

a thousand quid each.

Yeah, you know.

And they just, they get used daily and they just,

they just work, I mean, they just work.

But anyway, I started looking into why it might be

that cars are getting older.

And the short of it is there's more people driving more cars

and they, we are not selling enough new ones to

make enough numbers for them to go around in short.

You know, it's like houses or GP appointments,

you know, there aren't enough of them to go around.

So we're keeping using the existing ones for longer.

So in 2000, there were 58.9 million people in the country

driving 28.6 million vehicles, which is one vehicle for,

no, 0.48 vehicles per person.

So half a,

just under half a car per person.

In 20, by the end of 2024, there were 69.2 million of us driving

40.1 million vehicles, which is almost 0.6 of vehicle per person.

Especially the populations increased about 17.5%.

And the number of vehicles is increased by 40.2%.

That's amazing.

Which is amazing.

So if you think to yourself,

has the quality of us all rail services improved by 17.5% since 2000?

Probably not.

Doesn't feel like it to me.

Has the capacity on the road increased by 40%?

No way.

Six delays.

Oh no, it's okay.

It's going north.

That's okay.

Has the capacity of the road increased 40% to account for the increase in vehicles?

No, absolutely no question.

Which is why I suspect they put in smart motorways,

traffic lights on roundabouts,

mobile traffic officers to try and keep the roads running.

But if you think to yourself,

I'm sure it's taken me longer to get places.

I'm sure the roads are busier than they used to be.

They are.

There's no question.

They just start.

There are more of us trying to get to the same places.

And we are stymied by a massive lack of investment in public infrastructure

to let us get places.

And then that harms UK productivity.

So there isn't the tax revenue to invest in public infrastructure.

So you just end up in this cycle where you just sit in traffic going,

sure it never used to be like this.

Yeah, well it didn't.

And it didn't.

And it just didn't.

Anyway, so I have a bit of a,

I know you're a very optimistic man, Steven.

Well, I have a bit of a,

I come away from it in a bit of a downer.

Because multiple governments in 2020,

the government slogan was build, build, build.

This year, the government slogan is build, baby, build.

And they want to build loads of stuff.

But so rarely does it seem that that's a bunch of roads

to make it easier to go from place to place.

Yeah.

And that just, I don't know.

I am.

Yeah, it does seem to be, the only way through it,

well my way through it, is to try and pick the times when

the road network isn't being used much.

I mean, coming to your place this morning, early, was a joy.

Because I was doing it before the business traffic.

And it just reminds you of the way roads should be, in a way.

Yeah, if I'm coming to the office on a Monday morning,

I want to have left the house by about 5.30, if I can.

Because then I'm in the office by 7.

And that's all right.

Yeah.

But I just, it makes a long way, doesn't it?

But the good news is, the cars are up to the job.

We're keeping them longer, we're running them longer,

because we have to.

And they can do it.

They can do it.

They are a success story in all of that.

You know, the idea that you could buy a 20-year-old car

for under a thousand pounds and just expect it to be fine

for a number of years, is remarkable, I think.

Look at the A2.

And the thing is, there's no, why, you can't even see a limit

on the A2, can you?

You know, you can't say, well, it'll last me another couple of years.

I mean, it might last you another 15.

It might do.

Yeah, it might do.

There was, oh yeah, we must get in touch with Ian,

the fellow I'm just about to tell you about.

He's got this Lotus Elise Series 1, which our friend Simon Scott Russell

has just serviced.

And it's got 299,000 miles on it.

I hope he gets the camera out.

He's just extraordinary, isn't it, I think?

I think that's just so cool.

It's his daily driver.

Oh, God.

It says so much about the car, but also about the bloke.

Yeah.

Because, you know, an Elise S1 for a daily driver is that,

that is a form of commitment to me.

Yeah, I think so.

Because having to, well, for having to leave yourself in and out for a start every time.

It keeps you lithe, maybe.

It keeps you lithe.

Because getting in and out of them, I remember AutoCars first reviews of them,

because I had to look in the AutoCars archive,

probably when I was writing about them a bit last year.

Yeah.

And I think the sort of first road test was saying, you know,

Lotus has achieved this extraordinary car,

but they have made it even more difficult to get in and out of than a catering.

And I think that's probably true, isn't it?

All the strength is in the seals, isn't it?

Yeah.

So you've got those wide seals with tiny door openings to get over.

That's it, yeah.

Yeah, and there's a sort of funny trajectory for your legs to go down, but yeah, under the wheel.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I owned two S1s and didn't stop me doing it, but it was always a better moment

when I'd finally got myself into the deck, I think.

Yeah.

Good cars, though.

I drove a, you know, that Zenos we spoke about the other week.

Yeah, I drove it again on Monday, because they said,

do you want to come and drive it on circuit to update the...

Was it the same car?

The same car, yeah.

And they've still done nothing to the suspension since,

basically since those cars were last on sale.

I think they made about 150 from 2050.

But they were pretty optimal then, weren't they?

Yeah, and they haven't done anything to the suspension,

but they put 380 horsepower rather than 200.

But it was still great.

I drove it around Donnington for a couple of stints, and it was fantastic.

What provides the 380?

So it's now got, they went to, they did what K-Trim did,

and they found up horse and said, what have you got?

And horse went, well, you can have a look, because horse is a

joint venture between Geely and Renault, which of course gives them access to,

and the horse exists, basically, to sell powertrains to third-party.

Yeah.

So they've gone for a Volvo 2.0L, which they've fitted a bigger turbo to.

So it now makes 380.

It's a 2.0L Volvo turbo, that makes 380 right.

Gosh.

But there's, within the Geely brand and Renault brand portfolio,

there's loads of cars, because it even includes...

Well, K-Trim have fitted that 1.3 sort of Nissan edge,

but it's in a Nissan, it's in a Renault, and it's in a Mercedes,

and it's in other stuff, besides, I think.

So yeah, so from a lot of manufacturers wondering,

like niche manufacturers wondering where they're going to get their engines from,

when Ford stops making the EcoBoost or whatever, there's actually a big choice.

Yeah, I had a word to the MD, CEO, whatever, of horse in the Munich show,

and there's a most extraordinary set of stats that are attached to horse.

I mean, they've got something like, I think it's some teens, 17 plants

and six R&D centers around the world, because horse has inherited all of the

efforts of Geely at Renault and put them together to build these plants.

And the other thing that seemed amazing to me, they launched it at Geneva, was this

powertrain, which was an engine complete with cooling and ignition and exhaust and all of it,

which could be mounted in the nose of an EV to turn it into a range extender.

So it didn't, it had a generator attached as well.

Right.

So you didn't, you weren't doing anything to the powertrain to, you know, the engine never drove

the, never drove the wheels.

The wheels.

Yeah.

But what it did was to generate power for the battery, which meant that if you needed to drive

the car to Scotland, you could.

That's really, that's really something.

And you could do this, and the horse's mission was to provide these,

well, they kept on using the word solutions, solutions for, that would allow an EV, a car

that engineered to be an EV, to be something else without having to be taken of pieces and

that's really redesigned.

That's really something.

It was.

And so, such a modern solution.

Yeah.

Oh, that's very cool.

That brings us pretty much to the end of this week's podcast, unless there's any other business.

No, I don't think so.

What a loud section of road this is, isn't it?

That's a bit of, it's not quite as loud as the concrete section on the M25, but I am slightly.

So, listen, thank you for bearing with us through what is.

Yeah, it'll be amazing if this works.

It will be amazing if this works.

I'm interested in the feedback.

So, check it in a minute and listen, if you're listening to it, we have deemed that it works

well enough.

If you disagree, you can write to us autocaratheymarket.com for all of your podcast or magazine correspondence.

If you mark your emails podcast, then we're more likely to see them.

We try to read everything, but some do slip through.

So, apologies if you don't have a reply to an email.

But I mean, great to have the comment.

We love the comment, don't we?

We do.

Yeah, we really do.

You can also find Steve's email address and mine at the end of our columns in the magazine.

Um, this podcast is brought to you in association with Anderson EV, makers of top quality home

charges, seven year warranty, well rated on trust pilot.

Yep.

Uh, award winners at the EV awards.

Talk to your phone, talk to your AM Wi-Fi, great stuff.

Made by nice people in Bedfordshire.

Made by really nice people.

And if you tell them about this pod, there could be 50 pounds off until the end of October.

You can find Christmas offers, early bird Christmas offers, sorry to mention the word.

Yeah, I could have had to get mince pie.

Could you?

Yeah.

I could have a mince pie.

Are you not a mince pie fan?

No, I think, yeah, yeah.

Oh, vigilance alert.

Have a break.

There you go, see, there we go.

Have a break.

It is time for us to have a break.

Steve and I will be back this time next week.

There are some auto car meets podcasts out every Saturday.

We've got a big series of them at the moment.

We've happened to speak to a lot of top industry people and our various staffers have done that.

Steve and I have just been speaking to Malcolm Wilson from M-Sport,

so we'll bring you that in a week or two.

Meet time.

Thanks, mate.

Cheerio, sport.

See you next week.

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