Joe Berry Keys the Car

And then over the radio comes someone said, you know, car off

the course, big crash, big crash.

It's that car show and today we are joined by our pal Joe

Barry, the guy behind some of the wildest, most ambitious

automotive films ever made. We're talking the Grand Tour, Top

Gear, Petrolicious, and now Cars and Bids new channel Kee. Joe

peels back the curtain on all of it from the legendary Grand

Tour opening sequence to the insane logistics behind global

shoots. And also the moments when things didn't go exactly to

plan. Yeah, including that rematch crash. We also get into

the DNA of great car content, how British sensibilities shape

the genre. What it was like working with Clarkson Hammond

in May and why authenticity still matters more than anything

else. Joe's the real deal, cool as hell, insanely talented and

full of stories you've never heard before. It's Joe Barry and

it's that car show.

Welcome back to this week's that car show. And not only is it a

all male affair, we actually have a bias this week for

Britishness. So before I introduce our guest, we'll be

talking about juguars. We will not be talking about trunks. We'll

be shortening some of the things that seem to be very popular

in America, but are way over complicated. So I'm talking about

eyeglasses, horseback riding, sidewalks, we're going glasses,

horse riding, and pavements. But welcome to this week's show, Joe

Barry.

Hello, hello. Thanks for having me, boys. Big fan. I mean that

very earnestly. So thanks for having me on.

I realized I should probably give you a bit of a formal

introduction, Joe. So let me know how this is and you can tell

me whether I need and we'll establish why that's important

based on your background in a minute. So ready. So today's

guest is someone who played a key role behind the scenes at

some of the most ambitious automotive shows ever made. Joe

Barry is a creative producer and filmmaker who worked on the

Grand Tour and was involved with producing some of the show's

car focused films spanning ideation, planning, execution,

and often across international complex shoots. He's worked

alongside Clarkson, Hammond and May, contributing to a format

that has redefined automotive storytelling at a global scale.

Beyond that, Joe's experience includes writing for Top Gear

America, producing content with Motor Trend, and giving a well

rounded perspective on the evolving automotive media

landscape. More recently, he's brought that production and

storytelling expertise into the digital marketplace space,

working with cars and bids, helping shape how enthusiast

vehicles are presented, marketed, and ultimately sold to highly

engaged audiences. Joe, how was that for an introduction?

Well, I don't know if I should be thanking you or chat,

GPT, but either way, it was absolutely wonderful, Dan.

We call that our research department.

You haven't got the big budgets that other shows have got.

So, Ryan, how does it feel to be on a British show this week?

Feels good. I like the Brits, you know, they're smarter than we

are. So, you know, we all know that.

Don't believe that.

Yeah, don't tar us all with the same brush there.

Well, yeah, thanks for having me, boys. I'm glad to have you.

Come on and bring some, yeah, bring some British backup for our

boy, Dan here. Dan and I, who have been, yeah, have become fast

friends, I think it's fair to say, over the past sort of half a

year. Yeah, I'm thrilled to be here.

What is it about the Brits and really good car content?

Is there a gene? I mean, like you guys can't blink over there

without getting a photo radar ticket, and yet you're pumping out

all this great car stuff like it's going out of style.

And I feel like you always have, even going way back, you know.

Yeah, it's an interesting one. That's a good question.

And it's something I think you could get really deep on, not deep,

but really sort of, you could really drill into very quickly

and sort of say that I think it's our sensibility when it comes

to content, when it comes to the written word and, you know,

video content and stuff, I think it comes down to the fact that,

you know, we have this slight sort of abashedness.

We have this slight sort of sense of wanting to, you know, take

the piss out of things and make things fun, where they're not fun.

And, you know, traversely, when you've got something very fun

in front of you, kind of treat it like a really boring thing.

Or, you know, there's that sort of fun into play that I think,

you know, and again, I'm already thinking of Jeremy, who, you know,

is will obviously be the subject of more than a couple of these answers,

I'm sure. But, you know, what he did so well was subvert the sort of,

you know, the space that he was born into, the space that he sort of

moved into as a young man, right, which was the really stuffy,

really boring, weekly newspapers and, you know,

and motoring papers and classifieds and such.

And he sort of took one look at that and thought, well, this is all well

and good. But, you know, as well as being a nation who has a great

engineering background and who love cars, we're also a nation who,

you know, incredible comedians and, you know, the stuff that Ian and

Andy Willman and the other guys separately at the time, Richard and James

were kind of ingesting things like The Fast Show and, you know,

Morsemer and Reeves and all those kinds of, you know, what were then

quite sort of edgy, you know, 1980s, 1990s comedians,

that all kind of, you know, got together and, you know,

in the crucible that was Jeremy's sort of torrid mind sort of created that.

Yeah, not to get into the grand tour and all that stuff too quickly.

But I think it does go to sort of, it suffices to kind of answer the question,

which is that, you know, we have cool cars and a desire to do things with them.

And I think where the American propensity might be to kind of

go on an epic road trip and, you know, go cross country or go to, you know,

go out to Death Valley because you guys have that stuff.

We kind of don't.

Like we do have a beautiful countryside and stuff, but as you've said, Ryan,

it's a pain in the arse to drive to the countryside mostly.

And you've usually picked up either a flat tire or a speeding ticket

or, you know, whatever.

You've got a dodgy tummy from something you ate on the motorway services.

So, yeah, I don't know.

We kind of have to look inwards, I guess.

And that's where our stuff gets it silly, which I have always personally.

Dan, can you second this?

Is this?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's I think you hit it right on the spot, right?

In terms of there was a melting pot of things going on in the 80s and 90s.

And, you know, escapism was either comedy or, you know, entertainment of some sort.

And, you know, when when those folks hit the screen

and we wanted something to watch on a Sunday night,

it was a great way to kind of relax after a weekend.

And, you know, before having to think about the week.

Yeah, yeah, I'll never forget watching my first episode of Top Gear.

I remember my dad saying, you got to watch this thing that's on cable or whatever.

You know, it's unlike anything you've ever seen.

And I was blown away like because I had never seen anything like that.

You know, it was so different from what we had here.

And it was a reverent and it was funny and it was original.

And it was just, you know, it was the best thing ever.

It just it was such a moment, right?

You know, that first time watching.

So. Oh, yeah. Escapism, for sure. Oh, yeah.

And as a, you know, as a young without wishing to to to offend you, Ryan,

I think I maybe got a couple of I think we've got a couple of years on me.

And so I was what you don't say.

Not that you look any the worse for it.

Top Gear was rebooted. I'm 33, by the way.

Oh, wow.

We call them city miles, Joe.

Oh boy, oh boy.

I'm kidding.

But Top Gear was rebooted, I think, in 2002.

So I was I was like an 11, 12 year old.

You know, so for me, it was your, you know, for you guys, it was escapism.

You know, a couple of years older than me.

But for me, it was, you know, it was seeing three or two

six foot plus men and one five foot six man acting like the 11 year old.

Then we'd go and see at school the next day.

And so it was just, yeah, it was magic.

And it was, yeah, it was a real moment in time.

You know, often repeated, but never really sort of

bested, I think it's fair to say.

But yeah, and that's just one small part of I think

or they are just one small part of the great relationship

between Britain and the motor car.

You know, again, without wishing to get all encyclopedia Britannica.

Sorry, Ryan, but, you know, we could go and talk about history and stuff.

But it's more, it's more, you know, the other great love was growing up

with Formula One and Formula One.

I don't think it does any more.

But truly, to me, it always felt like a British sport.

And I don't mean that in a sort of a nationalistic kind of, you know,

I don't mean to sort of do anyone out of their dues.

And of course, you know, Ferrari arguably the backbone of F1

and, you know, for the past 75 years, and they're obviously not a British team.

But I think between the, you know, that sort of crescent moon around London

of the motorsport, you know, the motorsport valley, I can see Dan nodding there,

you know, where not just F1, but, you know, pro drive and lots of rally teams.

And, you know, motorbike teams and everything, you know, they're all in

that sort of that beautiful little area there.

And, you know, all the all the shared engineering and knowledge that goes on

there has just created this amazing village industry.

And yeah, and I think that sort of that sort of really, for me,

calcified the idea that F1 was was kind of ours.

That plus the fact that we had this sort of, you know, trio of dastardly

bond villains run in the shop at the time.

And they were, you know, obviously, obviously British, you know,

God, God, the humor and all that.

So yeah, I think F1, I think Top Gear, I think, you know, all the great

magazines we've had, Evo, Auto Express, and, you know, all the people that

have fosted and come through that system, you know, I think that's why,

you know, that's why we have such a rich tapestry, let's call it,

and how am I doing?

Am I doing a good enough job to solve it when it doesn't need to be solved?

But yeah, absolutely.

So who was your, who were your F1 heroes growing up?

Do you know what?

It's this, that's a very pertinent question because for a couple of reasons.

So being British, my, my, my father's a big Jaguar guy, Jaguar, that is Ryan.

I'll hear that.

That's right.

I can't say it that way to save my life, but I'm with you.

Well, actually, funnily enough with, with, when we were doing Top Gear America,

we did an episode on saving Jaguar and Dax Shepard was the, the lead host of

that series and he for the life of him couldn't say it, but he also couldn't

say Jaguar because I don't know, some, some kind of strange Michigan twang

that he had.

So he was calling it a Jaguar, which, which is always of the, of the many

butchering of that Jaguar was amongst the worst.

But anyway, I'm, I, I digress.

My dad's a big Jaguar fan always has been, um, and you know, and, and, and

that was how he and I bonded.

Cars was our thing.

That's how we bonded, um, you know, and I was like the kid who was writing

sort of school reports on, on, you know, the, like why Jaguar changed the

Nomad Kutcher from X to XK after the war.

You know, that was a good move.

Yeah, yeah.

Like that was very genuine.

I genuinely wrote that, um, at like seven or eight years, you know, I

loved all that stuff.

So Jack, so Jag.

So obviously the Jag F1 team was, was, um, I was going to say prominent.

They were never prominent, but they were there.

And those cars looked awesome with the HSBC libraries and I think

Christian Horner was team boss back then, right?

Or he certainly came to be.

I remember didn't Jackie Stewart have an involvement?

Is that right?

I didn't know that.

I think, and then Bobby Rahall, I think was a principle for like a little while.

I think this is a long time ago, but, uh, yeah, I think, uh, but Irvine

raced for them that he, oh yeah, there was, and Mark was there as, as a rookie.

It was a really interesting, I mean, again, I, I sort of, I was just there

with, with the sort of a blind, you know, uh, abandon, you know, and that my

dad liked them, so I liked them.

But the more I've sort of, um, because, because they, you know, sadly

they went and sort of never came back.

So, so as I've sort of retroactively looked back and, and read up on the history,

um, yeah, it's been quite a nice thing.

But, but it's interesting that you ask that, Ryan, really, because I've

just finished bouncing all over the place, but I just finished Andy

Willman's book, um, Mr.

Willman's Motoring Adventure, which is about, you know, his, his life and

times with Jeremy and getting top gear started and, and then moving

on to the grand tour.

But in that book, and I literally finished it on the plane yesterday.

Uh, he was talking about when he and Jeremy, uh, got to interview Michael

Schumacher, um, for a BBC one series they did called, I think the science of

speed.

So it wasn't a top gear thing.

It was like one of these slightly sort of off brand, um, you know, I think

the BBC had Jeremy and they didn't quite know what to do with him in

between that period where there was old top gear and then they were, so they

sort of sent him out.

He did motor, he did motor worlds of Jeremy Clarkson's motoring world and

motor world at one point, which is awesome.

Um, and yeah, science of speed.

And in that day interviewed Michael Schumacher and I won't, you know, uh,

I won't just reel the book back off at you guys.

But, um, Andy basically says that, you know, uh, you know, and he's met a

person or two in his time and he says that Michael was, was the, you

know, the, the nicest, the kindest, the most, you know, giving with his time,

just the most absolute gentleman.

And it got me thinking about him because, and this is where forgive me, dad,

cause, cause, you know, hindsight is 2020 and, and, and we were all aware of

the terrible thing that happened with, with poor Michael, but, um, my dad

absolutely hated Michael Schumacher and so I absolutely hated him.

And I just, I just had this sort of, you know, again, sort of, there was

this red mist whenever anyone mentioned him because he was just going

through such a period of domination, obviously.

Well, he, you know, he obviously had his early win and then he had the

couple of fallow years with Ferrari.

But after that, that sort of early 2000s, uh, you know, uh, he was just dominating,

which is, you know, which showed obviously incredible engineering from the

team and incredible sportsmanship from him.

Well, not sportsmanship cause he could be kind of a bugger, but, but you

know what I mean?

Like incredible focus and dedication and athleticism.

But I just, as a young, impressionable kid, I hated him.

But he's obviously, you know, not, you know, uh, it was not sort of grounded

in rationale and I've absolutely, obviously kind of come to, come to, you

know, free myself of my father's like hate filled shackles in the, in the

years since, and I, I recognize that he, you know, you know, uh, Louis greatest

driver of all time.

Yes.

The numbers, the numbers suggest it.

I think he's had races that would back that claim up in a more sort of

holistic sense, but then you look at Michael and you say, well, he's got

every bit as much, you know, behind the wheel talent as, you know, the other

luminaries that you could count on one hand.

And, and I would say that's Lewis.

I would say that's max.

Another person who I don't love, but I can't help but, you know, respect.

Um, and then, you know, Michael, and, and I mean, gosh, I, I've sort of painted

myself into a corner by saying that I could count them on one hand, cause

there's definitely three or four more people, uh, a couple of them Brits that

could fill that fifth spot.

But my point being, you know, there are, there are awesome drivers and then

there are those who were just born to drive and found their way into, into the

formula, you know, one series and, um, Michael's definitely one of them.

And, and you just look at like, who was around him?

Who was he fighting?

Um, you know, the car, the, the struggles they had with the car and some

of the performances he was able to get out of that.

Like, I know Lewis is the greatest on, on, on paper, but I would still, um, you

know, possibly, uh, throw Michael's name, you know, into that ring still.

I think it's phenomenal.

So growing up in the UK, was the dream always to work in television and was

it always to be in motorsport or automotive at least?

The dream was, the dream was undefined because I just didn't really know.

I never really had a firm grasp of what I wanted to do.

Um, I can look back now and say, okay, well, I was like, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm

quite a sort of sensitive, quite anxious soul, but I was like a, but I, but

I also loved public speaking.

I was always trying to be in the school plays and always trying to sort of

like be the one who like spoke in front of the class and all that kind of stuff.

So, so, you know, um, and I, I'm, I'm, I'm dyslexic, uh, something that I, I,

something that I, I didn't know until I was in college and university.

That was when my, my tutor said, Hey, your essays are fantastic, but your,

your, um, tests are all absolutely terrible.

You know, we think we should test you for, for dyslexia.

It just turns out that whenever you put a stopwatch in my face, I just turn to

mush and think I'm writing this like beautiful prose and it's absolute garbage.

Um, so anyway, you know, uh, I was a little anxious, but I love performing.

Uh, I loved writing, but I sort of never really got any, um, encouragement to do

it because it was always kind of what I was thinking and what, what was coming

out was never quite, um, they never quite aligned.

And so I just never really had a firm grasp on what I wanted to do.

Um, and I went to culinary school very briefly because, yeah, because that was

something that was like, there was like a cause and effect between like, I can do

this and it, and it looks and tastes good and stuff.

So that was kind of for a moment, I thought about that, but, um, and again,

I've got to credit my dad who, uh, my dad left school at 14, got into the trades,

carpenter, you know, still works six days a week now.

Like it's just an absolute grinder.

Um, but he had, uh, the beautiful sort of, um, foresight to say, just before

I was about to sort of sign on to go and do proper, you know, proper culinary

school and really commit to that life.

Um, he sort of said, I think, you know, I think you're bound for sort of more

creative things.

I think you should, I think you should give that a try.

And, um, and so yeah, television kind of, uh, which it was obviously was a medium.

I was always interested in who isn't, what, what young man isn't sort of

fascinated by TV and the idea of, uh, making things and, and document, you

know, I was always, uh, you know, furtive watcher of documentaries and sort

of that late night stuff you'd find on BBC about like abstract, you know,

like Jane Goodall in the forest with the monkeys and all that kind of stuff.

Um, and that really, you know, from my dad who, who had no right to say that,

like he didn't know that I could go and do that, but he just sort of threw it

out there and it really lodged with me.

Um, and so I very quickly fixated on that.

And, uh, yeah, got myself, I was a late administer to university.

I hadn't applied to UNI's cause I was going to go do this catering thing.

And, um, and yeah, so I got into a university that I could just about

scrape into with quite mediocre grades.

Cause again, dyslexic, didn't know it yet.

And, um, and started like a TV production career with an emphasis on writing

again, cause I sort of had this feeling like, I know I have ideas.

I know I'm creative.

Like I'm not a shy retiring wallflower.

Anyone who's, uh, listened through the first 20 minutes of this podcast,

poor souls will know that I'd like to talk and I like to have ideas and I

like to bounce around and whatever.

Um, and so yeah, writing and stuff.

And, and, but then cars, cars was the obvious, you know, what do I know

more about than most people?

What can I offer more to a future employer?

Um, uh, you know, than anyone else cars.

So that was kind of where those two ideas came.

And then from that sort of, you know, um, he-man moment of the sword in the

stone, it was like, yeah, it has to be top gear.

I was like 20, you know, 20 maybe.

And I was like, I gotta work on top gear.

And it's amazing.

I mean, here in the States, we had one car show on television.

It was called, uh, motor week.

Well, yeah, I have all the respect for the, I mean, those guys, but it was

such a different, didn't quite, uh, inspire in the same way.

I think that, that top gear probably did for, for, for, for you.

But then how do you make that, that jump then to, okay, I'm actually now working there.

Yeah.

Well, so I rounded out my university degree and, um, and as is the way with the,

you know, yeah, the unique way that the, the United Kingdom, um, university, uh,

sort of, uh, you know, graduation procedure is structured.

They kind of go, okay, here you go.

And then you're like, now what, you know, there's no, there was like, no, I really

sort of, if there's, I'm, I, I'm pretty easy going.

And I sort of tend, like my wife's the kind of angry person who sort of is still

angry about something that happened to her 20 years ago.

I've sort of forgiven everything.

You know, I, what's the secret, Joe?

Cause I'm with your wife.

How do I work through this?

How do I, how do we level up?

What do I do?

I think it's just, I think it's just that ignorance is bliss, to be honest with you.

I just like to sort of, I like to just reset every night and empty my brain, empty

the recycle bin of my brain and just wake up afresh in the morning.

But, but yeah, I've forgiven, you know, everything, all of the, all of the

many injustices, but I, I will not and will never forgive for me and for the

millions of others of us that went through the, the sort of university system in

the, in the, you know, I graduated in 2012, the lack of careers advice.

They kind of just shoved you into, it was the last, mine was exactly the last

year that university fees were capped relatively low.

So I was only paying sort of 3,000 pounds per year to attend university.

And because of that, or not because of that, I'm not sure where the cause

and effects come.

I'm not really up on the economics of it, but, but what I'm trying to say was

like everyone was at university, basically, like anybody could get into

college and some good colleges, you know, and, and there was just this kind of

like, um, culture of, of cramming you into a course that, you know, the first

course you said you were interested in, you're doing that and then nothing.

And you sort of come out on the other end of it and you go, okay.

And I've got this, I didn't even get a piece of paper.

I actually never got a certificate.

Anyway, I'm just remembering that now.

But, um, yeah, you're sort of like, what do I do?

So, um, you know, it was all good self-respecting people do.

I moved back in with my parents, which lasted for two months.

Um, uh, before again, my dad, we were, we were washing his, uh, Jaguar XKR.

Um, one Sunday afternoon.

Quality vehicle.

Yeah.

Lovely car.

Um, and very affordable now.

Worryingly.

So that kind of, that's one of those cars that have that sort of scares me.

You get them on auction sites are here.

Yeah.

Well, if you know any good auction sites down, let me know.

Um, but, um, come on for that later.

Yes, we will.

But he, um, he said, look, you can say with us all you want, but like, you're

not doing anything.

So get, get down, get down to London, get down to that big London.

You know, I grew up in Shropshire, rural Shropshire.

It's sort of, um, on the Welsh, on the borders with Wales there, uh, very

rural, you know, my grandparents were all farmers like my, my, you know, um, so,

so yeah, he said, get, get down to London, get yourself a TV job.

I've put in over a hundred CVs resumes into, into every sort of, you know, TV

position I could find and nothing came of it.

Um, so I took, I did the next best thing and got a job at a bar next to a TV

production company.

My rationale being there would be producers in there, either celebrating

or drowning their sorrows.

And I would, um, you know, I would get to eventually sort of interface with these

people.

And yeah, after a couple of months, got a job with someone, uh, it was genius.

Oh, thank you.

Right.

Thank you.

Um, it was, my first TV job was on a show called Geordie Shore, which is our

version of Jersey Shore, that, um, that luminary of, of educational television.

Brian was, uh, reminiscing about, uh, that show.

Oh, I watched every single one, Joe.

No regrets, but I cannot imagine how that translated, I guess, to the UK.

I guess you tell us, but yeah, it was, it was, it was messy.

It was like, I sort of, yeah, pretty, pretty gross.

Um, it was supposed to say what I was trying to do.

You know, it wasn't, it wasn't who I was, you know, but it was a job.

It was great.

And then basically for the next sort of two-ish years, I basically, within my

little freelance bubble that was sort of growing, I just tried to, to get closer.

And I sound like a stalker or something, but I was just trying to get closer to

top gear.

I was at every move I was making was, well, obviously the first question I'd

asked myself was, does this job pay?

Do I need the money?

You know, I was living in an attic in a place down in South London.

The rent was £525 a month.

Like it was, you know, the good old days comparatively.

And, and so I'd sort of, you know, was earning, I was earning peanuts, but

spending peanuts.

And I was basically just plotting this map and trying to get to top gear, even

though I knew it would be a long shot, even though I knew that that show has

like historically low turnover, no one ever leaves, you know.

And yeah, and I was just trying to sort of get my way there.

And I, I managed to sort of have some fun along the way.

And I got to do some cool stuff at the BBC.

I did a documentary.

I spent a week with Professor Stephen Hawking.

I'm not sure.

Yeah, I'm not sure what, uh, yeah, if we're allowed to still celebrate him.

I'm not sure what's going on there, politically or I don't know what.

I probably shouldn't have brought it up.

But, but I got to spend a week with him and that was a special experience for

me as a 21 year old.

Like it was, it was, you know, you know, and that was kind of BBC science.

And I was like, oh my gosh, all right, I'm now in, I've got BBC email.

I can do this.

Um, Hey, at least you were 21 Joe.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And, uh, well, I may have been a little bit or I might have been 22 or something

by that point, but anyway, anyway, and then, um, and then Jeremy had the famous

fracker with, uh, the producer of Top Gear, they had their, um, physical

altercation and Top Gear got suspended and, and that was sort of dreams dashed

for me and, you know, probably thousands of other people.

Um, and so I sort of went back into, you know, just doing whatever I was doing.

I think I was working on a television program about tattoo removal, fascinating

subjects, uh, for another time.

And, uh, and it was my questions.

Yeah, right.

Um, and it was my birthday.

It was my 20, it was my 25th birthday actually.

So I may have skewed the numbers there.

I definitely, I mean, I worked in TV for a few years before, before the

car thing happened.

It was my 24th birthday, 24th.

And, um, I got a call from Andy Willman and it was like, hello, is Andy.

And I'd basically, I'd set my CV in just off hand when, when, you know, when,

when I saw that they'd penned the deal with Amazon, I sent in a resume and a

covering letter and I got this call from this lovely gruff voice.

And, you know, he sort of didn't give, didn't give anything away, but said,

come in for a meeting next week.

And I went in for a meeting, um, and he was late, which if anyone here knows,

Andy will know that's part of the course, but he had brought two coffees,

one black, one white.

And he said, which one do you want?

And I said, I drink black coffee.

And he said, well, you can have the one with milk in it because I drink.

It's like fine.

I'm not going to argue with you.

Um, and yeah, we had a lovely chat.

I obviously lost my head as soon as I got in there and started talking

about owning all the, you know, straight to VHS, Jeremy Clarkson videos and this

and that.

Um, and the rub of it was, you'll like this boys, he had, I mean, firstly,

he had a stack of CVs, you know, um, this high on his desk, but mine was

there and he made a point such a theatrical man of picking it up off the

pile and, um, and saying, this is your, this is your CV, right?

And it was my resume with my cover letter that I'd written at the staple

to the front and he turned it over, turned it, opened it up so I could see

the CV and the CV had a giant red cross through it.

Like a, like a comically placed, comically thick, sharp, giant red cross

through it, because my resume did not have any car stuff on it, right?

I had done, I had cleaned up the sick of some, some, you know, idiots in

the Newcastle, I had removed some tattoos, I had yet to work with, you

know, Stephen Hawking, I'd done a few other films and, and, and shows, but

like nothing, that's a hell of a CV, it was, it was eclectic, let's call it that.

And, um, and, and, and so yeah, you know, that on that, on merit of that

alone, it was a big fat no from Andy.

However, he then folded the, the cover letter back to the front and, and

that had a nice little little, and it wasn't even green, which I mean, you

know, narratively speaking, if the cross was red, the tic should have been

green for my feelings, but actually it was black, I guess, and it was a tic.

And he basically said, look, you're covering letter where I'd written

about love of cars, love of Formula One, you know, relationship with my dad

and how much that had influenced, you know, who I am, blah, blah, blah.

That was what got me the job.

And, um, yeah, it was, it was, uh, you know, that, that sort of, I suppose

is, is, is proof that you should always write a little note, I guess,

because that really did sort of make my life in a lot of ways.

You know, um, yeah.

And then we were away after that.

That was it.

Oh, what was the feeling like walking out of that meeting?

Yeah.

Unbelievably surreal, very genuine.

It's sort of, it's funny, isn't it?

How in the moment you sort of deal with it, you move through it and you go,

yeah, cool, cool, but the more I was, would look back on it, the more I think

this is, you know, how many people, and I've got, I don't want to sound like,

you know, I know I just got to work on a television show.

I know it's not, you know, solving world hunger or anything, you know,

even remotely important.

Um, but how many people get to achieve a dream?

And I was like 24 and I was, I had this chance to do this thing.

You know, it was really a golden ticket moment.

It was a, a real, um, yeah, a real wow moment quickly followed by a, oh shit

moment because it was quite the, quite the three years.

It was quite the experience.

So do you work on from episode one all the way through?

Yeah.

So I was, I was trying to work set this morning so that I could be accurate.

Um, and I, uh, I should say as well, you know, uh, I worked on, so I worked on,

I worked from 2015 when, when the boys signed, the boys signed in like August.

They hired me in September.

We shot the first films in, uh, October and November.

Um, and then we were all way to the races.

And then yeah, that was season one.

I did season one, uh, which was 15, 16 season two.

And then, uh, about half a season three.

So I did that sort of 2015 to 2018 and the sort of real run of films, uh, that made

up the 36 episodes of TV.

Um, that was my stint, but I should say, you know, like even so, even though I was

there for those like three years, I still only played a small part.

You know, you're like a junior producer and then you were a producer.

You know, you, like I have to say, there's, there was a, you know,

an incredibly talented team.

Um, you know, there was, we were small.

It was a small team.

It would be like three researchers, three junior producers, three producers,

two directors, and then, you know, Andy and, and, and the higher ups, uh,

series producer and the boys and such.

It was still only like, oh, and then like the other side of the office was,

it was all the sort of money and the logistics and stuff.

So there was still only like maybe 25 of us at full tilt, but still, you know,

it was, I, I'm a hasten to add that I was a part of a team and not some kind

of like, you know, genius, genius savant that was kind of there pulling this

things, but, uh, you know, um, the, the first episode, there was rumors when

it came out that it was spending a large amount of Amazon's budget on the

opening scene.

Well, what, what, what was the planning like and what was the actual story

behind that?

And for those that have not seen that opening scene, go on to Amazon and

watch it. It's epic.

It is a good one.

And I want to pull you up on one thing you say, Dan, which was, you said that

we were spending Amazon's money.

The funny thing about that is, and this speaks to what, you know, terrible

businessman Jeremy James, Richard and Andy are, were, are, um, once they

signed the papers and got that big chunk, but basically what the, what the

contract was, was Amazon gives the production company that the boys set

up a big chunk of money, a really big chunk of money.

And they have to deliver in, in, in, um, you know, in receiving that they

have to deliver 36 episodes of what was legally termed first class content.

That was like, that was the term that was put in the contracts.

There was no, so, so, you know, we're conventionally in TV, you will have

to, before you get in, you know, anywhere near the money, you have to

present the budget that'll be, you know, gone over with a fine tooth come.

They'll probably, the channel will probably say, right, okay, but we're

not going to give you that much for that because we don't like that idea,

blah, blah, blah.

This was done completely the opposite way.

It was like, here's, you know, many tens of, tens of, tens of, tens of

millions of dollars, pounds, um, deliver us some TV and you guys keep the leftovers.

That was what the boys got paid out of was the, was whatever was left over.

So when we then, when Jeremy then started, you know, having these massive

brainwaves about epic, you know, Mad Max style desert sequences in California.

Um, he wasn't spending Amazon's money.

Really, he was spending his own because he could have just done a very

conventional, you know, intro or, or, you know, done the same thing, but

in, in, in Ludlow, you know, and it would have cost nothing, you know,

but he decided to go big, same with the tent, you know, the tent moving

around the world for our first season.

That was like, that was like five, six million, um, pounds when it, you know,

for that first season, uh, when it could have been a TV studio that would

have cost them, you know, I don't know what, a hundred grand for the whole run.

That makes it all the much, you know, all the more cool, you know?

I mean, that's just, that's so cool.

That is so cool.

And there was so much riding on those first few seconds.

And now you knew that, right?

You know, it was gotta be all or nothing, right?

Oh yeah.

And that was his, that was his, you know, that is his, um, his genius, I

suppose, is, is knowing, um, what the moment demands, what the people want.

Um, you know, having the narrative worked out, not just the narrative of the

thing that we, that we were trying to craft, but the whole narrative, you

know, when he sort of told us, when it filtered down to us, I guess that we

were going to do this thing and, you know, you, you think about it, or if you

read it off a piece of paper, Jeremy looking for law.

And I think he's like, you know, greasy spoon cafe, isn't he?

Or something having a cup of tea, you know, looking sad.

Well, respectfully, mate, you're sad because you got fired because you punch

somebody like, like, and, and, and, you know, and he's the first to admit that.

Like he's not, you know, he was not bashful about that.

You know, um, you know, something happened and he got recommended for it.

He handed himself in at the BBC and that's, you know, um, so, you know, so

when we heard these things, they, they, they sort of, some of us in the office

were a bit like, okay, I don't know about this.

Some of this, you know, in the song, the Hot House Flowers version of, um,

Right.

I forget the name.

I can see clearly now.

Um, all these things, you know, it was like, right, okay, you know, and

obviously you're going to do it.

You're going to obviously make it happen for Jeremy, but, but some of us

didn't see the vision and I was, I was definitely one of those who was like,

this is weird.

We're a car show, can't we just do, you know, this week on the grand tour?

You know, Jeremy, trousers fall down.

James, you know, gets drunk, whatever.

But, um, but no, you know, um, and yeah.

And so we said about doing this thing, which, which was, you know, which

meant, you know, get in, I think it was like 150 cars for that, for that

open opening scene and they, you know, they trail it everyone in.

And, you know, again, sounds very easy to go and drive on a dry light bed.

And, and, you know, it really isn't, it's, you know, especially at that scale.

It's unbelievably complex and complicated.

And, um, you know, the tent, we had the, we had the tent there.

We were having a music festival, obviously with the house flowers.

And it was just, uh, you know, and, and, and we were still, bear in mind,

still filming actual episodes, like films to go and make episodes.

You know, we had such a truncated sort of planning process.

And then it was like, get to shooting, get to shooting.

Um, and, and we were still sort of catching our tails.

Meanwhile, trying to do this, you know, sort of orchestrate this world

tour with this huge epic sort of Mad Max set piece.

It really was amazing.

And I went and rewatched it.

Cause again, you get too close to these things, right?

And certainly like the way we'd work with us was like, we'd, we'd ideate in January.

So you come back from Christmas, you would spend a month in the office

throwing ideas.

So you'd like, you'd be like, I was, I was the sort of the, of the three

of the producers that I worked with.

I was like the car one.

I did the car stuff, real sort of like, you know, super car stuff.

And then my friend Tom was doing this sort of really crazy adventure stuff.

He would always do the specials and all the kind of like really scary,

like Namibia and all that kind of stuff.

And then our friend Pete did all the builds and all the kind of like slightly

techy stuff and all the engineering and whatever.

So yeah.

So we'd spend our first month of the year throwing those ideas, you know,

just getting, you know, finding new stories, finding new cars that have been

announced, whatever, finding locations, finding towns with silly names and

kind of just putting them all there in front of the boys in this big,

lovely brainstorm and kind of saying, what can we do with this?

You know, there are all these towns in Germany with very rude names.

That was like, that was the kind of what we would do all through January.

You'd sort of start planning stuff in Feb and then basically like March

through September, October, you'd be filming, you know, there are always

the boys would just be gone constantly, you know, and you'd be filming.

And then we'd do the studio in the back end of the year.

So it was like, it was just relentless.

It really was, you know.

And I think, again, thank God I was young because I had the energy and stuff to deal with it.

But when you go back and you watch that first episode, you get chills like the rest of us?

Big time.

And again, because I had sort of, thank you for bringing me back on point,

because yeah, I got too close to it and I was sort of like, by the end of my run,

I was like, oh, God, enough of this, please.

But yeah, being able to go back and re-watch it and certainly re-watch

those first few episodes where we were so heavily sort of handicapped in what we were doing.

You know, we didn't have, this is going to sound like sort of, you know,

unjust moaning, but like we didn't have things like company credit cards.

We didn't have like, we didn't have an account established yet with the company

that we would rent our Land Rover's for.

Yeah, so it was like, you were just like, just everything was, was a stress.

Like everything was unjustly stressful.

Like, you know, oh, we're going to France next week to buy three Maserati by turbos.

How am I going to pay for them?

You know, I'll, you know, the production manager put 40 grand in my personal account

to go buy these, you know, so that someone could go buy the cars.

And you're like, well, this is like, this is, this is weird.

This is not making TV.

This is like running around with, with, you know, a load of cash and yeah.

In retrospect, don't you think that was part of the recipe of the magic or for the magic?

I mean, that was, you know, that you were doing it on the fly, that you were sort of,

I don't know, kind of freestyling, I guess, for lack of a better.

I think so.

I think the boys found a bit of creativity in it as well.

I think, again, to go back to Andy Willman's book,

he sort of talks about the ebb and flow of Top Gear.

You know, there were those first couple of seasons where they were still figuring it out.

There's in two, three, four, you know, there was a change in personnel with Jason Dawes

moving out and, and, you know, James coming in and stuff like that.

And then they were just kind of still trying to do consumer stuff.

But there was obviously the Top Gear, you know, the, the sort of Tinder with Tinder was sort of lit.

Then they sort of had that epic sort of meteoric rise, you know,

that rounded them out to maybe 2012, 2013.

But then he says that like the next few years up until basically up until they got canceled,

you know, everything started to get a bit fraught.

Everything started to stagnate slightly.

They'd maybe done all the good ideas.

They were sort of starting to recycle a few bits.

I mean, they still made amazing stuff and like as a viewer,

and I'm so glad that I get to just be a viewer of all that awesome Top Gear stuff.

It's still, to me, reads as fantastic as like flawless.

But for him, and for the boys, I think there was like a slight stagnation

and a slight sort of like creative lull.

And I think they refound that with the Grand Tour, I think, you know,

between the change in employers, the change, the slight change in format,

you know, the de-restrictions.

And I think to your point, even though, you know, it's not punk

because we had millions of pounds, but like it was quite DIY.

It was quite punk.

And yeah, I think that was, I think that was really cool.

And again, they still, you know, being the pros they are,

they still sort of whittled away and refined it.

And you find by season two, I think the boys are really on full song.

All the videos, all the films are awesome.

The studios are really tight.

Like, and yeah, being able to rewatch it and go back is a real privilege,

with Elana.

You'll always have that on your shelf, right?

This amazing thing.

It's a door opener.

And I'm sort of like, I'm quite cautious.

It's funny, I say this knowing that we've been talking about it

for the last half an hour or whatever.

But like, I'm quite cautious to try not to talk about it too much

because it meant so much to me.

And because it meant so much to a, you know, pretty much everyone

I've met with, you know, recreationally or work-wise,

because we're all car people and we all love that Blum & Show.

We love those three boys.

I don't want to sound like a, you know, one track pony or whatever.

But it is the perpetual door opener.

It is the thing for me and for my career that, you know, has kept on giving.

Like, it's unbelievable.

You know, I mean, the fact that I live and work in America

is in no small part down to the fact that I worked on The Grand Toy,

you know, and the fact that I got to go and, you know, work at most trends

and sort of get this lovely sort of second life as a car journalist.

Again, something that I never thought, you know, between my background

and just between the fact that I sort of picked my career path as a TV guy.

You know, I didn't think I'd get to go and do journalism,

but, you know, through a combination of factors,

not least the fact that I'd sort of done that show,

I, you know, I got a little helping hand and got to try that out and, you know,

stretch that muscle.

So, yeah, it's, I'm so thankful and appreciative.

And I feel I haven't seen the guy.

I saw them and I saw Andy, like maybe two years ago,

we all had a big rap party when the show sort of formally ended.

I was obviously long gone and I was quite touched to get an invite,

actually, because I'd since moved away and, you know, I hadn't worked.

I finished with them in 2018 and this was 2023 or four that we had the party.

I can't remember when they finished, but I got an invite and I was,

I was thrilled to go and to see everyone.

And there was a real celebratory, you know,

sense in the air.

Everyone was just sort of happy, I think that it was over.

That's true, true.

The guys that were still working on it.

It had hard work, you know.

I mean, yeah.

Yeah, but quite a legacy that they've got.

Legacy is the word.

Yeah.

Are there any segments or episodes that you're like most proud of from that time?

Well, yeah, I would.

It's funny, it's kind of, it's probably not the ones that,

that if you looked at the list of films that we did that I did, you know,

or even, you know, more specifically the stuff that I like really because,

because, you know, it's an office where you're all sharing ideas.

You're all dipping into each other's films and helping out, you know,

even if you don't go on every film, you've definitely helped on every film.

So you feel a sense of ownership over all of it,

a sense of pride around all of it.

But there are ones that were yours, you know,

whether that's because you actually went or because you went and you had this idea

and it got used or, you know.

So, so from season one, the Grand Tour, the Grand Tour,

the one where we went to Italy and pratted around in a DB11

and we got Richard a Hellcat, Charger Hellcat, I think, was it a Charger?

And that was, that was amazing.

And I still, I mean, I don't know, I don't think Andy's gonna listen to this.

I think I came up with the name the Grand Tour,

but I never got credit for it because I came up with that film and I was like,

or I, you know, I sort of said,

hey, we should go to Italy in supercars and do this and that and look.

And there was actually this sort of like,

kind of like the Route 66 or the North Coast 500 that we have in England,

or, oh, England, no, in the United Kingdom.

Sorry to all my Scottish.

Oh, and I believe you're fine.

Oh, geez, canceled.

There's the thing in Italy called the Grand Tour.

It's this beautiful route of roads that sort of goes right up the spine of the country.

And I sort of put that under their noses.

And then like three or four weeks later,

the white smoke rose from Jeremy's office and stood on the balcony and said,

we're gonna call the show the Grand Tour.

And I was there like waiting for the,

waiting for the Marks and Spencer's gift card that never came.

But that one I love because it was,

yeah, because I just feel a particular sense of ownership.

It's not even the best film, but it was just such a good time.

It was, you know, supercars in Italy.

It felt like after the struggles of the early part of filming,

and that was when I say struggles, I mean, things like we did this like,

we did this film that everyone hates.

I didn't go on it, thank goodness.

But like, you know, when something doesn't go quite as well as it should,

it sort of permeates, right?

And it sort of like casts doubts and it, you know,

just affects the office, infects the office, I should say.

So yeah, we did this film that was like a Tom Cruise,

Live, Die, Repeat style kind of thing.

Like no one likes that film.

And you know, not that we knew it at the time, but like, you know,

we'd done that, we'd done this film in Barbados,

which I went, I went and did that where we sank a load of old cars

to make some coral reefs.

Like it didn't have any driving in it.

I don't think anyone turned a wheel for a week.

And that was like a weird one and stuff like that.

So then to go to Italy with, you know, grand tours and pratt around for a week.

That was awesome.

I've got a particular affinity for the Maserati Byterbo film

that we shot in Northern France because it's cheap cars,

because, you know, it was like, that was the first one that we did.

It was like that, you know, like, it was one of those shoots as well

where it was just like cold and miserable for the entire week.

And everything went wrong.

And they were like, at least two nights of literal zero sleep

for the mechanics and a couple of us producers,

because the cars were so bad, so bad.

They were bad new.

Like, let's just establish that.

Oh, God, I know.

Yes, Ryan, but they're so tempting.

You look at them and you're like, oh, God, I saw a Byterbo in LA recently.

And I just thought, my goodness me, I'd love to drive in there.

They've kind of come into their own, you know, it's,

yeah, I gotta give you a credit.

Just as someone who's worked in advertising and design

and branding his whole life, the Grand Tour is a truly wonderful name.

And the way that it dovetails off of top gear,

the two syllables and everything else, it, it's, it's, it's kind of,

it's kind of wonderful.

And I, so if you came up with that,

well, I just all the more credit to you because it's,

this is Ryan, firstly, thank you.

I'm going to bank it.

I'm going to put that in my pocket.

That's safe.

That's coming home with me.

But I will say two things.

Firstly, I think those things should probably be directed to some poor

Italian tourist board creative because he definitely came up with it.

I just saw it.

Sure.

What happened to put it under someone's nose at the office.

Joe, it's not the, it's not the inventors.

It's the innovators.

Well, hey, that's right.

I mean, success has many fathers, right?

But failure is an orphan.

So I think, you know, I don't want to claim, I did just claim it.

I claimed it.

And again, I feel, I feel like the statute of limitations has gone on that.

I definitely did not come up with that.

I didn't not come up with it, but I also maybe didn't come up with it.

So who knows?

Maybe I did.

You'll have to find out and you'll never find out.

Stop me from talking please before I get emails from Amazon.

I declare it so.

I love it.

No, really.

Dan, go ahead.

Sorry.

I was just going to say, so whilst there were so many highs,

there were a couple of lows during the, the seasons.

And in one in particular, when you guys were in Switzerland,

and it was almost a near death experience, and you were on that shoot.

Yeah, I was.

And that was, again, I don't know if I'm getting old or something,

but it's something I've been thinking about more.

And it, well, I guess because I was reading Andy's book

and he talks about it in there as well.

But so that was my first, that was my first shoot as like a,

as like the, like a fully fledged producer.

So like year one, we were like junior producers.

We always had someone with us who was like a hand holder who was like,

you know, this one and, and especially that section of this film.

I was like, I was like it.

And it was like very scary for that to be happening on a shoot that you're,

well, I didn't control it, you know, it still had direct, a director.

And we still had like lots of us, you know, at my level,

but like still it was like a pretty terrifying thing.

And we had lobbied.

It's not like we didn't have money, but by, as we all know,

but by season two, Jeremy and the boys and Zoe,

who ran the money side of things had worked out that by spending big,

they were spending their own money, you know,

in that sort of roundabout way they were,

they were eating into the bottom line that would eventually be a payout

that they would all split.

Right. So whilst we were still spending big on season two,

we had to justify stuff a little bit more than season one,

where the onus was like, we need a television show.

Go out and make it.

Oh, we need to helicopter everyone to this place.

Great. Do it.

Does it mean the shoot continues?

Yes. Do it.

You know, season two was like a little bit more justification.

And we were doing a hill climb in Switzerland,

Switzerland, which famously banned all forms of, you know,

legitimate motor racing for several decades after that horrific crash in Le Mans in 55.

And still to this day, I don't think really has any, any form of,

you know, circuit stuff.

There's just, there's just nothing going on there.

Hill climbs they love.

They've got lots of hills and they love rules.

Therefore, FIA sanctioned hill climbs they absolutely love.

And this was an FIA sanctioned one, the guys that we were speaking to,

the guys that I made contact with were like proper sanctioned FIA guys and whatever.

And because of that, they really made us play by the rules in a way that I found as a producer

really frustrating because I was like, what do you mean?

Like just let us, just let us come and do the thing.

And they're like, well, Jeremy hasn't got his hill climb license.

And you know, well, none of them did, you know.

And so because of that and lots of hoops to jump through,

we ended up running the boys in an exhibition class.

So they weren't actually competing with all the many actual, you know,

legit hill climbers that were there that day.

They were going up, like a bunch would go up,

like a class of cars would go up for 20, 30 minutes.

Then there'd be like a road sweeper would go up and clear the track or whatever.

And then the boys would do like these kind of parade laps.

And we were told, and they were told not to push,

like push for cameras, which is different to pushing for time, right?

And so, yeah, they were, you know, that's what they were doing.

But we had spoken with the event organizers beforehand about health and safety.

And they were like, yes, yes, there will be, you know, health and safety there.

In England, we have the St. John's ambulance.

I don't know what the American equivalent is,

but they're sort of like a volunteer ambulance service that goes for football games

and like gives you like biscuits and aspirin if you break your leg, you know.

Get the vapors, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it was like a pretty low key medical footprint,

let's say, at this place.

And we had lobbied them to have more people.

And they said, no, because, you know, why would they pay for something we wanted, whatever.

So we'd gone back and asked Andy and the guys if we could sort of put the local,

wasn't that local, but the local air ambulance on standby.

And now they weren't going to be on standby because I don't know if it was because it was

off season, like because it wasn't ski season.

So they weren't, or maybe it was like a seat, like, I don't know, just like that,

just that day, it just happened to be that day or something.

But they weren't going to be like the ambulance helicopter men weren't going to be

where the ambulance helicopter thing was.

And I want, we wanted that there.

So we paid like a lot of money to have them on standby hoping we'd never need them.

And of course, like we always, you know, get, you've always got a couple of guys,

a couple of trained firefighters, jaws of life, you know, medical apparatus,

you always have that on a big, on a big car show, you know,

and you hope you never need them.

And you never do.

And every time that you're totting up the totals of your shoots after the fact,

you go, yeah, and we spent four grand on those guys, you know,

that's money we're never getting back.

But, you know, the day you need them, thank goodness that they're there.

And in this case where we'd paid extra to have this,

this air ambulance like put on standby or whatever.

And it got Richard out.

They got Richard off the ground within about six or seven minutes,

I think they were on the ground and they got him up.

Pretty amazing.

But yeah, the crash was horrible.

I was, so they, the boys would go up one, two, three staggered,

20s, 15, 20 seconds in between them.

And what we were doing, because it was like a,

obviously it's with the, with the being a hill climb, it was a one way system,

one way hill from start to finish.

And then you'd have to like meander your way around like,

around the backside of the mountain, via like two or three little villages

to get back to the start point.

It was a bit of a faff.

And so what we'd been doing all day was the boys go up.

I was following behind them in like a pace car kind of thing.

I would, once we got up to the top, they'd be pulled over in a,

in a lay by, in a pullout there.

I would go past them and then I would, I had flashing lights

and I would like lead them back to the start line.

And it worked like perfectly five times.

The boys had done five, four or five good runs.

And, and we got them, you know, kept them away from the baying crowds

and all this kind of stuff.

Cause it was, you know, crowd control was like a big deal.

It was like, it was just so busy whenever there were people around.

And then, yeah, we decided to do one more.

And of course that was the one where, where, you know,

I'm like trundling up, probably had my arm out of the window of this thing.

You know, one more last run

and then we're all going back to the hotel kind of thing.

And then over the radio comes someone said, you know, car off the course,

big crash, big crash.

And the thing that scared me the most,

I don't know if I've ever really told anyone this, but so Jeremy was driving the Aventador.

Yeah, I think it was an SVJ was it?

I can't remember.

I think it was.

And he's a big, he's a big bloke tool.

And the, the FIA stewards had obviously mandated that everyone wears a helmet.

And so when Jeremy had put his helmet on and tried to get in the car,

this is on the morning of the, the scene, the morning of the race, mind you,

he just couldn't do it.

He was, you know, he was fully, you know, neck at 45 degrees,

which presented a big problem.

And again, and we've not really touched on this,

but just his, his problem solving and not just like evasive manoeuvres problem solving,

but his like problem solving that always seems to benefit the film,

make the film better, him into play.

And he, we had this like very, very sweet, very young driver with us from Lamborghini.

It was just there as a bit of a minder of the car.

He was, it was like a, some, he was in the Lamborghini drivers program at some,

you know, at some level.

He was obviously a damn good driver, but he was just there an all week really.

He'd been with us.

He'd just been sort of filling the car up with gas and all that kind of stuff.

And Jeremy said, I don't know what his name actually was,

but I think Jeremy gave him some like, you know, regressive Italian, you know, name.

Hey, Paolo, come over here or whatever.

And was like, you're going to drive for me, right?

You're going to drive for me.

And that's where the beat came where, where, yeah, Jeremy had like, you know,

put this little Lamborghini driver in.

Yeah.

Put it in and therefore Jeremy's lap times were great or Jeremy's hill climb times were great.

That was like the beat of the film.

But for that final run, and I don't know why, Jeremy, I think he just wanted to do it,

just wanted to drive, so he got in without a helmet.

And again, I think this final run, we were going even slower than before.

So it was really like not a big deal other than for the pencil pushes in,

you know, in the FIA or whatever.

But so Jeremy went, had gone up without a helmet.

So anyway, when this radio call comes through, car off the track,

and Jeremy was, had been the last one up, I thought it was him.

And, and, and so I'm thinking, well, not only has he gone off the track,

but he's not wearing a helmet.

And that really, I remember like, again, I've been sort of quite fortunate up until then,

I'd like not dealt with, you know, a big accident work or otherwise, you know,

not, not, not hadn't lost anyone or had any sort of, you know,

scary moments in life or whatever, really.

And all of a sudden it was like, oh, bloody hell, this is a big real moment that's about,

and I'm sort of racing up this hill, all of a sudden, you know,

my pace has changed from like ambling up, listening to like,

whatever crap Swiss radio station I was listening to, to get up this hill.

And I got up there and thank goodness, the Lamborghini was there on the hill.

It wasn't Jeremy that had crashed.

And I looked down and there's just the black, the RIMAC was like white and blue.

And I just saw the black carbon fiber undecided the RIMAC about 300 feet away and like 200 feet

down. It was like a really steep slope. It was really not, not what you want to see.

So problem one was this.

Jeremy had pulled the lamp, the, the event store over right there where he'd seen that Richard

had gone off ahead of him, right? He'd gotten out and had his mobile phone out and it started

filming. And which, which you can say, you can say that's heartless or you can say whatever you

want about that. But it's fair to say we didn't have any cameras there, like we, you know,

right beyond the, the, the finish point for some reason, that's where Richard had chosen to have

a crash where there was no cameras to cover it. We had to pay, we had to pay some Swiss dude,

like many tens of thousands of euros to, to get licenses, YouTube footage for the films.

The footage you see of the car going off the road is like some fellow with a handicap who's now

30 grand rich or whatever. So Jeremy had taken his phone out and had like started or, or

gestured towards starting filming at which point a marshal, a really stocky marshal had come over

to Jeremy quite rightly, probably, especially not being sort of aware of the situation. None

of us were aware of the situation, but you know what I mean? Aware of the interplay and who Jeremy

was to Richard or whatever. This guy had sort of started saying no, no photos, no, no, no to Jeremy

and was like in his face and was like pushing him and Jeremy was kind of like, you know,

holding him off because there was like quite a size disparity, but like, and he was, I had his

phone here and he was sort of holding him off, but I could see that that was like weirdly in my

mind. That was problem number one because, because it was 10 feet away from me rather than 300 feet

and I could quickly deal with that. So I saw weirdly and like, it wasn't, this was not my

dynamic with Jeremy, but I just, you know, panic and everything. I just got between them

and just like push this guy away and, and sort of like did the same kind as Jeremy and, and then

sort of said to the, the steward, I said, we've got to go out, the driver, we've got to go down,

obviously. And so I start like running down this hill and I do remember thinking I'm going to see

my friend's gut like it was a really, and that's like, again, like you sort of things you'll never

forget and thank God it wasn't as bad as it was nowhere near as bad as it could have been, but

I do remember thinking I'm going to see, am I going to see Richard, you know, you know, not

looking good. And, and yes, I'm running down and what's interesting is the Rimac, which was an

awesome car and I had to foster that relationship, like from finding in whatever car magazine, you

know, auto express or whatever, from finding that like there's a new car in Croatia and it

was 120 horsepower, 1200 horsepower, whatever, from that and putting it under the boys' noses

and them going, that's not real, that's never going to exist. There have been many cars that

look like that and many cars from companies, you know, of that scale, it doesn't exist and it never

will. So from that to getting in touch with wonderful Marta, if anyone knows Marta, the head

of PR at Rimac and now obviously at Bugetti, like getting in touch with her and she's like, yes, it's

real. You know, and they were trepidatious, they'd only built like seven or eight cars of that

concept one. And so they, as much as they would recognize that it was like a big deal to get the

car on the show, they didn't have any cars to give us, they had to get one of the early investors

personal car and give it to us. And that had relied on me and Richard flying to Croatia to

meet them and take a factory tour, which is when they asked for that, I was like, that's never

going to happen because he's just too busy. You know, not that he doesn't want to, but like,

where am I going to find two days to fly him in for a meeting for a car that we might not even

get? You know, anyway, I've fostered this relationship. I love this car. I love this company,

whatever. And now I'm seeing it like on its, on its roof, you know, and, and, but what's

interesting was it had little, and again, like it's only 10 years ago, but, but still, if,

you know, things have come on so far that like some of the things that were in the rim, even

just the fact that it was an electric car was pretty nuts. So back then, but like it had

buttons for door handles. And we'd been talking about them all week and about how

do we like them? Do we not like them? You know, all the crew had different opinions.

And one of our pro drivers, one of our professional drivers that would come with us on

shoots and would help us like basically once the guys had like finished the road trip, we would

sometimes do the road trip again in reverse to get, just get more shots, just get boring

shots of like the cars on a highway, you know, stuff like that. The boys aren't going to sit

and do that. So we do it for them kind of thing with these pro drivers. And one of the wonderful

pro drivers ago called Maro, Maro Callo, who has since had an amazing career as a stunt driver in

all the Mission Impossible films and a lot of fast films and Gran Turismo and F1 and stuff.

He's the madman that took an R35 Skyline and turned it into a camera car. So it's like the

world's fastest, it's like the world's fastest camera car. And therefore he's a busy boy now.

But he had, I guess, been talking with one of the RIMEC representatives and about these door

handles. And that RIMEC person had mentioned to Maro, yes, but in the event of a crash,

there is a manual release for them. It's down here by the seat. And he'd shown Maro. And Maro

had then, not for any reason other than sort of anecdotally, had then shown Richard. And then

that afternoon, Richard had to use that. And we're very thankful that he did because that car,

when I was running down to it, was on fire. Like it was, there were little smoke and a little sort

of weird green flashes of flame. And yeah, it was horrible. And Richard sort of dropped himself

down, dragged himself out, his knee was busted. The first thing he said to me was like,

well, he said two things. He said, where's my Rolex? Because his Rolex had flown off in the

crash. And then he was like, call Mindy, call Mindy, call it what? Which we did. And so he's

laying there getting some first aid, the helicopter's landing. He's on the phone, my phone's on his

chest. He's like, tell him Mindy, it's going to be okay, whatever, all this. The car's like,

noxious fumes are coming from this thing. We're only like 20, 30 feet away from us.

We're getting pretty stressed about that. And yeah, and then he gets airlifted. We go down and

collect all our crew and sort of, you know, expiltrate out. And we had a bunch of landrovers.

And yeah, we were piling all the crew into these landrovers so that we can get off the hill and

get back down to base and regroup. And no matter which way we try with these three landrovers,

and this, you know, probably like 16 of us or whatever, we just can't get everyone in. And so

I say, we could just about get 15 in, but we couldn't get 16 people in. So I said, go down,

someone come back for me. And the second that the split rear tailgate on the third of those three

landrovers shut. And I was alone, essentially, on this, on this hill. I turned around and just

burst into tears. Like it was just the emotion. It was so, it was like such a weird thing,

like such a wave of like fear. And I hadn't been scared until that point. But then I was like,

you know, very scared. And yeah, it was a real stress. But hey, it was good TV guys. And that's

really the end of the day, all that matters. Is it not? Well, the story was good TV.

Love it. Yeah. Yeah. What an amazing, you're a young guy. And the fact that you've had all these

amazing adventures is, is, you know, so many people just never, never even get a taste of that.

It's heavy, you know, it's, it's, yeah. What was the attraction moving to the US?

The US, that's a funny one. Again, I'm doing the dream thing, right? I'm working on the Grand Tour.

And it really had been, you know, was the dream top year was the dream that became top grand tour.

And that was the dream. And then we were doing it. And it was exciting. But still you find yourself

sat in a really quite crappy office at like 4pm on a Tuesday in February. And it's been raining

since October. And you're in, you're in West London. And you open up Instagram, and you see

sunsoaked, you know, scenes of 250 California's driving up and down, you know, the snake and

stuff. And it just, firstly, it appealed from a visual sense and from a change. I think I've,

I don't like to stay still for too long. So, so, you know, even as we got into that third season,

I kind of knew that I was kind of moving on at some point. And, and then it appealed, it appeared

because it looked cool. And because it was warm and all that kind of thing. But it also, you know,

that was 2018. And even by then, I think we all knew, and especially with failed,

the failed drive tribe experiment, the sort of version one of drive tribe, if anyone remembers

that, like, we all knew that the future was online. And we were online, right? We were,

we were on a big streamer. But still, you knew the future wasn't TV shows with a budget of 150

million pounds or whatever we ended up having. It wasn't that much. But you know what I mean,

like megabucks money. And so, yeah, the sort of appeal was get to America, which sounds nice.

And, and, you know, and that's where seemingly in Los Angeles at that time with Petrolicious,

with the early incantation of doughnut and rate, you know, I don't know if race service was right.

But anyway, there was like a bunch of stuff going on. Jay was already doing his stuff. Like,

there was just, it just seemed that the world was moving online, the car content space was

moving online. And I just kind of wanted to capture that. And, and so yeah, I managed to get a job

with Petrolicious, which was awesome. Again, I think like you couldn't have asked for a more

different experience to go from big budget, big car show to, you know, two kids running around

with a couple of cameras and turning out films for like a grand 1500 bucks. But when you talk to

people in our community, a lot of them Petrolicious will be one of the first things they say when

they talk about, you know, content that they love. And Petrolicious has obviously been through its own

ebb and flow and is obviously now back and doing amazing things. But there were three or four years

there where it wasn't doing anything. And people still, you know, hold it in high regard. And,

and, and so yeah, coming and doing that. And, you know, I don't want to sort of

say I was like a forecaster. I mean, it was 2018. Instagram was already, you know,

whatever, 10 years old at that point, people, it was obvious that was happening. I just

knew that there would be nothing that would be top grand tour for me, you know, in England and from

like a budgetary standpoint, not that it's all about the money, but money allows you to do things.

And F1 will be the only other thing. And with the budget caps, F1 is just like, it's, you know,

it just doesn't doesn't really allow for that kind of creativity. So yeah, it sort of became

move to America, get in with Petrolicious and then and then see what happens. And then,

and then, yeah, sort of been out there for seven, seven or eight years now. And,

and I'm very happy to say it's, you know, it is, it is what I thought it was. It, you know,

I hate to be, I do hate to be one of these sort of like LA idiots that sort of thinks the world

begins and ends and the car culture begins and ends. But my God, there's a lot of cool cars

and a lot of great car people out there. And I'm not saying that there aren't everywhere else. In

fact, you know, the new project I'm working on with cars and bids, which is a channel called

Key about car culture. We're doing a series about the car culture in basically everywhere

that's not Los Angeles, you know, we're doing, we're making a point of going to different cities,

Seattle and New York and, you know, Vancouver and places like this. And, and, and getting into

the thick of like, well, what's the car culture like there? Because we know it's there. It's just

not as shouted about, you know, for better and for worse. So yeah, LA, a lot of fun, America,

awesome cars, good TV, good crashes, bad. That's great. I don't know.

What makes great car content though, you've worked with all these platforms, but I feel

like everything you've touched has sort of turned to gold or was gold, you know, when you got there,

whatever, but they've all been these wonderful avenues. What is it that makes good car content,

whether it's a big budget or small budget? It's, gosh, it's authenticity and it's creativity, right?

It's like, and it's tough because I think we're, we've all been so sort of, I don't know,

not brainwashed, but like top, again, to come back to it, top gear, it's kind of like the, you

stuff and like, and again, like if you chart that rise, you know, when most people get into it and

where most people sort of have their main love of the show and have the most reverie about the

episodes is like in those, in that sort of second half of the BBC era where the money started getting

spent and everything started getting a bit more landish and a bit more crazy and they do those

like, well, they were great films, but like, you know, they do those, those like films where they'd

review very practical cars, but in very impractical ways where they'd like,

they'd end up like storming a beach in a Ford, Ford fiesta or whatever it was, you know, just

like, so it's really tricky because you get sort of conditioned into going, okay, to make good

content, it needs to have this like weird subversive, you know, narrative or whatever, but like, no,

like, and this is something we're finding out with this new project with Ryan and I is like,

it's just authenticity, it's just, you know, we've kind of come full circle, I feel like,

and obviously I've got a propensity to think in those kinds of top gear, grand tour

terms, but we've come full circle and kind of gone, well, it's just got to be about two mates

having fun with cars, you know, like, we are very lucky that we get to do this and we're going to

bring you along for the ride. So I think that's it. And then I think beyond that, I think it's just

creativity, but unburdened creativity, because again, I think we all get bogged down in like,

it's got to be shot on a cinema camera, we need a camera car, we need this, we need that, but no,

like, it can be shot on an iPhone and if it's good, well, Demiro being a beautiful example of that,

you know, Mr. Handicam will endure and, you know, dope stuff will be there, you know, being watched

and enjoyed years after, you know, all of the sort of like cinematic stuff has kind of fallen away,

because it will look dated and old, whereas Doug's stuff is timeless, you know, because

it's creative and it's authentic. So I think for me, that's what it is. It's such a wishy-washy

answer, because how you sell creative and authentic to a channel, it's very hard to, but I think those

are the things that shine through. You've got to sell what you can sell, but then those are the

two things you've got to get in there, you know. But that's the perfect answer, because there's

two things you can't fake. Very good point. Yeah, yeah. Believe me, I've tried.

So you've been on your travels with Key, which is a, it's the creative side of Cars and Bids,

is that how we describe it, or was the best way to... Yeah, so Cars and Bids auction channel,

auction site, obviously, for enthusiasts Cars, founded by Doug DeMuro five, six years ago,

took on some extra funding and have a great partner now with this capital fund,

and they really bolstered it, built out the business, and obviously built out the content

side too. So Doug started doing a podcast, the This Car Pod, which is awesome. It's not a patch

on this, but it's pretty good. It's excellent, yeah. Yeah, it's somewhere we're striving to get

to. It's fun, and that's important too. That's right. Yeah, again, right. But yeah, the desire

is there, or was there from Cars and Bids, from the management there, for a sister channel,

which could go a little bit deeper into car culture, and the people behind the Cars, because I

think, you know, we all love Doug, and we all love Ken and Felipe and Nick, and those guys that make

that podcast, and we all love their sort of laser focused, like, nerd telepathy about Cars, you know?

It's like insane too. And they're not just like that for the pod, they just are. It's incredible.

And it's a level of knowledge that most encyclopedias don't possess. But like,

I think the desire was there for content that, yeah, can go a little bit deeper, not into like,

you know, the different trim levels of the, you know, whatever, Chrysler, Neon, or whatever,

but can sort of like dive into culture, dive into stories and questions and conversations,

you know, we've got big plans. We've only just launched the channel, so it's like,

yeah, it's such a big build up for like one YouTube video, which is all that's on there

at the moment, but it's a good one. It is indeed. We're in a good one. Oh, thank you, thank you,

but you know, we have big plans to just offer people good, again, authentic, honest, you know,

creative car content, you know, we're doing it out of love, we don't ask anything, and no one

does you post stuff on YouTube, right? It's all free. Like, we're so lucky that we have these,

these, you know, incredible, you know, people, creatives making full time living out of giving

us free content, you know, podcasts and everything. So yeah, we're just making cool car videos, guys,

and we'd love it if you would come and watch them because that lets us keep doing it and

hopefully you guys like it. And, you know, it's the most sort of, you know, Route 1 stuff, but like,

we just want to have fun in cars and we're very lucky that we get to do it. So yeah, that's,

that's what it's about, basically. Episode one of the, or not, I shouldn't say episode one, but

the first film was, was a great documentary from my colleague Ryan Lopez on sort of the,

a plotted history of JDM in America, like Japanese cars in America from the first ever car that was

imported here, which was, which was an amazing thing to be able to get some access to through,

yeah, the sort of 50, 55 years up until now, sort of through drifting and then the role that

a lot of TV shows and Initial D and Fast and Furious and that franchise kind of played in,

in sort of taking these cars and sort of culturally appropriating them and making them,

you know, making them something that kids and young people wanted to be into. So yeah, it's a

really good film. He talks to Drifter and, you know, he's a, Ryan's a cool guy. Ryan's, Ryan knows

people that I, you know, couldn't, couldn't even hope to be in the same room as. So if you don't,

if you don't watch Key for Anything Else, watch it for Ryan's cool documentaries. They're, they're

very good. He's got another really impressive script on that one. I don't know if it was 100%

Ryan or it was a collaborative effort, but yeah, I really enjoyed the script. Well, I'll say it

again, Dan's success has many fathers. Very true. Are you going to claim the name Key? Was that your

idea? No, God, no, because I hate that name. Producer Sean Woodkill me. Key was not my first

choice name. And I may have turned the air blue with you guys when we spoke before we came on

about the name because for me, I don't know, Key, I think it might be something to do with my accent

and the fact that a lot of my family are from Liverpool, but to me, the K sound is very hard

key. Like it just doesn't roll off the tongue. It just, you know, it doesn't mean it's a bad

idea. It just means it's an idea I don't like and Key for me as a name. I didn't love it. I'm

learning to love it. Our branding is beautiful. I will say that we had a wonderful graphic designer

come in and do some work for us and Ryan really got us through there. And yeah, it looks good.

And I'm sure to everyone else and to you, beautiful Americans with your buttery smooth accents,

it sounds awesome to me. I would say hello and welcome to Key. I could just shoot that in my

mouth. I don't like it, but it's a good channel, guys. Please watch the videos. It is. What have

we got to come on that channel? I know you were seeing some friends of mine up in the Pacific

Northwest. Yes, I think that will probably be out by the time this one comes out. Yeah, so you

were a wonderful help with that. And as you always are. So yeah, we're episode one or the first

film was that lovely documentary about JDM culture. Yeah, the next thing we'll be releasing is the

first of what will be an ongoing series that we're calling arrive and drive, which is where,

as I mentioned, I go and sort of immerse myself in different areas of car culture in different

cities. So we've shot Seattle. I'm currently out here shooting an episode in Manhattan in downtown

New York. And so if anyone has any ideas, anyone has any cool little enclaves of car culture in

any of these amazing North American cities, let me know. Because yeah, we're just keen to come out

and, you know, experience some of this great country and some of these awesome cars. We're

really, really interesting, genuinely interesting documentary that Ryan has produced, where he

has met with a young lady who's an OnlyFans creator, an adult content creator who has just the most

amazing collection of cars, real honest, enthusiast cars. She and her husband wrench on them together

and they do it for the love of it. And, you know, her and Ryan have a very frank conversation about

the interplay between what she does and what she likes to do, the collecting and the cars and

how the cars can help. But she doesn't want to sort of be seen as someone who is relying on the

cars for clicks and things like that. So it's a really interesting piece, very thoughtfully and

well put together and obviously with great buy-in from our subject, a young lady called Jesse.

And yeah, I don't know, they won't all be as clever as that one. A lot of them will just be stupid

stuff like us going for road trips. But isn't that just so fun? It's fun to shoot.

Yeah, I'm genuinely excited for this content. Oh, thank you. Yeah, something new,

it's something different. And thank you. Yeah, yeah. There's an open invite from Ryan if you

want to reach out to the Denver region. I'm telling you, we've got a great car scene here.

I'm going to be in Denver next Wednesday. We're coming up to film with EarthRoma. You know,

there's guys that make this. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it EarthRoma? EarthRoma,

Dustin and yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fort Collins, I think. I think so. I think you're right. Yeah,

absolutely. Those things are fantastic. Yeah, that's very cool. I think it's a flying visit

at that time, but I would love to come out maybe in the summertime and yeah, we can spend a few

days doing some fun car stuff. You let me know. Visit for Pikes Peak. That's the win. Oh yeah.

Oh yeah, that's something I've never done. That's that's one to do, isn't it? Good thinking, Dan.

Saw that out, Dan. Can I leave that with you? Will you saw that? Yeah, I'll make it happen.

Just let me know when I can get that 40 grand check into my bag now. Thank you,

your Maserati. It'll be amazing. All right, mate. All right, come on it.

Actually, I think Dan prefers the Chevy Equinox at Pikes Peak. No, no, it's the Ford.

The Ford. Get it right, right. We went a couple of years ago and long story short, we ended up

getting on the mountain way too early and sleeping in a Ford Edge. Oh no. That's what it was.

But it was an amazing experience. It was life changing. Like I had the hold of the trunk to

myself. Yeah, it was. P-sharp edges in that Ford Edge. No bears attacked. It was amazing.

Well, let's go for a three row if we're going to all be camping in the same car.

Well, I look forward to that and I trust that you will get in touch. We've got a really

wonderful enthusiast community here. I'd love to share it. So Joe, I've got to give a shout out

to our mutual pal, Matt Hunter. Oh, yes. Matt was actually my date last night to 40th anniversary

screening of my favorite film and Dan's Stand By Me. You're kidding. No way. What a film.

It holds up so well. I think Matt's still recovering now. Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah, each,

you know, especially on the big screen, you pick up on things you wouldn't have picked up on. It

did when I was 10 and saw it in the movie theater at the last time, you know.

But Matt's the best and just how I know you. Yes, just Matt. Gosh, I think we probably all have

this. Just these wonderful friendships that are like pretty much exclusively exist within the DM

section of your Instagram. But I have such fun friendships with him and with a couple of other

guys that a couple of them have never met. Matt's a sweetheart. And again, it just speaks

to how cool our community is. Yeah, indeed. Well, you had a beer with another community

member the other week than your own. Yeah, a guy by the name of Matt Henry. And Matt traveled all

the way from Alabama to Denver just to have a couple beers with me, which isn't true. He came

here for the hardware show at the convention center. But I really do appreciate him coming up,

really nice guy. And he has a daughter who just started working at Pecla at the Porsche Experience

Center in LA. So there's that. And, you know, I really appreciated him coming up and appreciate

whenever anyone reaches out. You know, it means a lot to us. And I guess on that note,

please don't forget to follow, rate and review. I see we just got our very first one star review

on Apple podcast. Thanks, Alan. Yeah, I'm sorry, but I can always, I just love it. It's been really

good for me. So we need to get that average back up, everyone. So yeah, anyway, but so wonderful

getting to know you, Joe, and hearing your stories and everything else. I hope you'll come back.

Oh, yeah, thank you. Yeah, thanks. This is a late night in New York for Joe. He's given up his

evening to come join us this evening. So thank you. No, no, no, thank you for it. Thank you for

having me. Before we close out the show, we are super close to announce a couple of new sponsors.

But there is also availability for sponsorship. So please contact us if you're interested in

sponsoring. You know, we've obviously done a great job for various sponsors in the past.

We've seen, they've seen significant sales as a result of advertising with us. So

if that's of interest, reach out to us and we'd be more than happy to talk to you.

Indeed. Indeed. Until next week, what is that phrase that pays, Ryan? Well, we're that car show

and always be driving. Joe, thank you so much. Oh, thank you, boys. It was a pleasure. Until

next week.

Joe Berry Keys the Car

About this episode

The Grand Tour

Motor Trend

flat tire

speeding ticket

Formula One

F1

Top Gear

Jaguar

Jackie Stewart

Jaguar XKR

CVs

CV

cover letter

car show

Aston Martin DB11

Dodge Charger

FIA

on standby

air ambulance

jaws of life

staggered runs

hill climb

pace car

Rimac

authenticity and creativity

Cars and Bids

car culture

trim levels

JDM

Porsche

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