Manthey is a Porsche-linked team that builds and prepares race-focused Porsche cars. In this discussion, it’s the company behind the “kit” that makes a 911 GT3 more track-ready.
“Track-focused” describes a setup aimed at circuit performance—typically stiffer suspension, more aggressive aero, and cooling designed for repeated hard laps. The hosts use it to contrast a standard GT3 with a more extreme Manthey-prepared package.
An oversubscription list is a waiting list where more people want a limited car than the manufacturer can supply. The hosts use it to explain why getting a current GT3 RS is difficult, making the Manthey kit a more attainable path to similar track performance.
Lap time is the measured duration for a car to complete one circuit around a track. The hosts reference lap-time results to argue that the Manthey-prepared GT3 can be nearly as quick as a GT3 RS.
The Porsche 911 GT3 is a track-oriented version of the 911. Here, the hosts are talking about what makes this GT3 different—especially the changes to its shape and aero parts that help it stick to the road at speed.
A flat six is an engine where the cylinders are laid out flat, like two rows facing each other. It’s a common Porsche layout and is known for smooth, high-revving behavior.
A front splitter is a piece that sticks out under the front of the car. Its job is to help the air flow in a way that presses the car down for better grip at speed.
Homologate means “officially approved under rules.” If the car shape changes too much, the manufacturer may have to redo safety testing to keep the approval.
Downforce split means how much “grip from the air” the front and rear of the car get. Changing it changes how the car feels when you turn and how stable it is at speed.
Pedestrian safety is about rules that try to make cars less dangerous to people if there’s an impact. The idea is to avoid sharp or aggressive shapes on the front.
Aero blades are small fin-like pieces that help guide air around the car. They’re there to reduce messy airflow and help the rear aero work more effectively.
Unsprung mass is the weight of parts like the wheels that the suspension has to manage. Lighter unsprung parts help the car stay controlled over bumps.
Spring rates are how stiff the suspension springs are. Stiffer or softer springs change how the car feels and how well it grips when you’re turning or hitting bumps.
Chicanes are twisty sections with quick, tight turns that make you slow down and work the steering. They’re a good test of how well the suspension and tires are set up.
Toe is how much the wheels point inward or outward compared to the direction the car is going. It influences how stable the car feels and how the tires wear.
Carbon-ceramic brakes are a high-performance brake type. They’re designed to keep working strongly even when you brake very hard over and over on a track.
Brake pads are the part that actually creates the stopping force when you press the brake pedal. Upgrading them can make braking stronger and more consistent, especially on a track.
The Porsche 911 is a famous sports car model from Porsche. It’s known for its classic shape and strong performance. The podcast is talking about it in the context of track-style parts and durability.
Spring rate is how stiff the suspension spring feels. Softer rear springs can help the tires stay planted and keep the car balanced when you’re accelerating hard.
Your braking point is the spot on the track where you start slowing down for a turn. A good car makes it easier to hit that spot consistently lap after lap.
ESC is the car’s electronic safety system that helps keep you from losing control. Turning ESC fully off lets the car behave more freely, which can be exciting but is less forgiving.
Term
throttle straight away
This is about how quickly you press the gas again right after a turn. They’re saying the car has strong pull when you accelerate out of corners.
“Options” are extra features you can add to a car when ordering it. They’re explaining how the final price is built from the base plus lots of add-ons.
This is a specific optional styling change for the rear lights. They’re using it to show how the car can get expensive once you start ticking lots of add-ons.
Term
warranty and servicing
This means the car’s official coverage (warranty) and the maintenance support (servicing). They’re saying the appeal is that you still get Porsche-style support.
Term
aftermarket brand
An aftermarket brand is a company that sells upgrades that aren’t made by the car maker. They’re comparing that to Porsche-dealer-installed upgrades that come with official support.
A track day driver is someone who takes their car to a race track for an event. They’re arguing that certain cars only really make sense if you’ll use them on a track, not just on normal roads.
The Toyota GR Corolla is a sporty compact “hot hatch” from Toyota’s GR performance line. The discussion is about whether/when the UK can get it, based on where it’s being built.
They mention the Toyota Yaris as the smaller option Toyota thinks fits the UK audience better. It’s part of the comparison Toyota is using to decide what to sell where.
They bring up the Toyota Corolla as the bigger option compared with the Yaris. The point is that Toyota is deciding which one makes more sense for the UK market.
They mention the Renault Megane RS as another sporty hatchback example. It’s part of the list showing the Corolla is aimed at the same type of car buyer.
They mention the Volkswagen Golf GTI as an example of the type of sporty hatchback they’re comparing the Corolla to. It helps explain the car’s “class” of competitors.
The Renault Megane E-Tech is a compact car that runs on electricity. Instead of using gasoline, it uses an electric motor and a battery. The podcast mentions it while talking about compact car categories and options.
The Volkswagen Golf R is a sporty version of the Golf that’s meant to be usable and comfortable day to day. They’re comparing it to a more hardcore hot hatch style.
Car
Volkswagen GTI
The Volkswagen GTI is a sporty version of the Golf that’s meant to be fun but still practical. They mention special GTIs as examples of what’s still available.
A hot hatch is a small hatchback that’s been tuned to be faster and more fun than a normal family car. They’re debating what kind of hot hatch should exist—traditional front-wheel-drive manuals or newer AWD ones.
Front-wheel drive means the front wheels do the work of moving the car. Manual means you shift gears yourself with a clutch and gear stick, and the speaker prefers this traditional hot-hatch setup.
Term
rally connection
A “rally connection” means the car feels like it’s inspired by rally racing. That usually shows up as better grip and suspension tuning for uneven roads.
The Renault Sport Spider is a small sports car with an open-top design. It’s meant to be light and enjoyable to drive. The podcast brings it up as a car that matches the brand’s performance image.
The Toyota GR Yaris is a small, rally-inspired hot hatch that feels very planted when you drive it hard. The host says the back seats are so tight that passengers can feel sick or uncomfortable.
Here, “handbrake” isn’t just for parking—it’s being used to help the car rotate and slide a bit at low speed. The host says it makes the car feel especially fun and controllable when you’re driving slowly.
WRC is the highest level of rally racing. The host watches onboard videos from rally drivers and uses that to describe the kind of grip and excitement they want from their own driving.
Sebastian Ogier is a famous rally driver in the WRC. The host is imagining what it would feel like to drive like him—confident, fast, and very “connected” to the road.
A “three-pot” means the engine has three cylinders. The host is saying the GR Corolla uses that kind of engine and that it changes how the car feels in terms of power versus torque.
Wheelbase is the distance between the front and rear wheels. A longer wheelbase usually helps with space inside and can change how the car feels when driving.
Term
manual six-speed
A manual six-speed is a car you shift yourself with a clutch, and it has six forward gears. The host is saying the GR Corolla offers a similar setup to the GR Yaris.
The Nürburgring is a very famous race track in Germany. “Lap records” means super-fast times around that track, used to show how quick a car really is.
Stability control is a safety computer that helps keep the car from sliding out of control. Turning it off can make the car behave more “raw” and easier to provoke into oversteer.
Oversteer is when the back of the car starts to slide/rotate more than you want. The host says it happened suddenly, but they managed to regain control.
Trail braking means you’re still braking a little while you start turning into the corner. That can help the car turn in and rotate the way the driver wants. Here, the host says it’s part of why the car feels like it wants to rotate into oversteer.
“Geo modification” means adjusting the car’s alignment settings. On a track, those settings can change how the tires grip and how the car turns. The host thinks the GR Yaris needs that kind of adjustment to feel more exciting on track.
Aftermarket springs are different suspension springs you install to change how the car rides and handles. They can make the car feel more stable and responsive, especially on a track. The host thinks the GR Yaris would benefit from them for track driving.
The outside front tire is the front tire that’s on the outside of the turn. It does a lot of work because it gets loaded the most when you corner. The host says the Corolla treats that tire better than the other car, helping it avoid overheating.
“Cook the front” means the front tires get too hot on track. When that happens, they can lose grip and wear out faster. The host says the Corolla avoided that problem, but the Toyota didn’t.
Bolstered seats have stronger side padding to keep you from sliding around in turns. That matters on track because you want your body to stay stable while you steer. The host says the newer GR Yaris seats do that better.
Ergonomics is how well the car’s layout fits the driver—seat position, controls, and overall comfort. Better ergonomics can make it easier to drive for longer and steer more precisely. The host says the GR Yaris has improved this.
Paddock Hill Bend is a well-known corner at Brands Hatch in the UK. It’s the kind of turn where the car is loaded up and you need to hold yourself steady. The host mentions it to explain how the seat affected their body position.
Paddles are the little shift buttons on the steering wheel that let you change gears without using a clutch. They liked using them because it was easier to drive quickly without having to coordinate a manual shift.
Kick down is when you press the gas pedal harder in an automatic car and it forces a downshift to give you more acceleration. They’re saying the kick-down feature acted weird in track mode, so the car kept changing gears in an annoying way.
Track mode is a driving setting that changes how the car responds—typically by altering throttle mapping, shift logic, and sometimes traction/engine management—to be more consistent during hard driving. Here, the hosts note that the kick-down behavior didn’t properly “turn off” in track mode, leading to unexpected gear changes.
Short shifting means changing gears earlier than usual instead of revving the engine higher. They were doing that to drive smoothly out of slow corners, but the car then kept dropping back down a gear.
Emissions constraints are government rules about how much pollution a car is allowed to produce. The hosts are speculating that these rules may be why Toyota can’t sell as many of certain performance models in the UK. They also link it to why some other sports cars were removed from sale.
The Toyota GR 86 is a small sports car with a simple, lightweight design. It’s made to be enjoyable to drive rather than to be a big, powerful cruiser. The podcast mentions it in the context of emissions rules affecting whether it’s kept in fleets or sold in certain markets.
“Four pot” is slang for a four-cylinder engine. The hosts are basically saying even a relatively small four-cylinder car can run into emissions problems. It’s just a quick way to describe the engine type.
Concept
imported on the business
“Imported on the business” refers to bringing vehicles into a country through a company or business entity rather than a typical retail purchase channel. The hosts use it to explain how some Toyota GR Corollas can appear in the UK despite being unavailable through normal supply. This can affect paperwork, eligibility, and how the car is sold.
Import costs are the extra money you pay to bring a car into the UK from another country. That’s why the price can jump compared with what the car costs where it’s made.
“Gen one” means the first generation of a model, typically the earliest production version. Here, the hosts say Toyota learned from the first-generation GR Yaris and applied those lessons to later development.
The Peugeot 205 GTI is an older sporty hatchback. It’s known for being fun and quick for its size. The podcast mentions it as a classic that people still talk about.
The BMW i8 is a sports car that uses both electricity and gasoline. Because it’s a plug-in hybrid, you can charge it and also drive it using its engine. The podcast is mentioning it as a special, tech-focused car.
A plug-in hybrid is a car that uses both a gas engine and an electric motor. You can charge it from a plug, but you still have to manage the battery—electric driving isn’t unlimited.
Track days are events where you drive your own car on a race track. The host is saying they don’t care about that, so they’re not shopping for a car specifically for track use.
The Jaguar F-Pace SVR is a sporty, performance-focused version of the Jaguar F-Pace SUV. It’s meant to be more fun to drive than a normal SUV, and it uses a powerful supercharged V8 engine.
The Porsche Macan is a luxury SUV that’s famous for being fun to drive. In this conversation, it’s mentioned as a benchmark for how “sporty” the Jaguar feels.
A supercharged V8 is a V8 engine that has a device that forces extra air into it. That helps the engine make more power and often makes the car feel punchy and sound great.
A mid-engine sports car has the engine closer to the middle of the car. That usually helps the car feel more balanced and easier to steer through corners.
The NC 500 is a famous driving route in Scotland. People do it as a road trip, and the host is saying the roads can be narrow and twisty, so a small agile car makes sense.
“K-Series” is the name of a specific engine family. The host is saying this engine type likes to rev (spin fast), which helps make the car feel lively and sound better.
JPS colors are a classic racing paint scheme tied to the old JPS brand. The host is saying the car looks especially good because it’s finished in that recognizable style.
The Audi S3 is a sporty version of the Audi A3. It’s built to feel quicker and more performance-oriented than a regular A3. The podcast mentions it as a choice among compact performance cars.
The Alpine A110 is a small sports car with the engine placed closer to the middle. That helps it handle sharply. The podcast is mentioning it as a well-known, respected sports car.
The Porsche Cayman GT4 is a sportier, track-oriented version of the Cayman. The host is saying it sounds and feels more “loud/boomy” on long highway drives than you might expect.
LIVE
Welcome back to The Gassing Station, the podcast that goes pouring over the Pistonheads forums
like my co-host Sam Sheehan has been pouring over the new Porsche 911 GT3. What's it called?
Manti kit?
Manti. Yeah, just Manti.
Okay. So I'm all mightily jealous of you about this because you drove it at Thruxton, right?
I did. UK's fastest track. I placed that. If you go wrong, if you make a mistake, you end up in a
verge into a tree, that kind of stuff, very fast track.
But essentially what it is, is if you have a 911 GT3 that you think this isn't track focused enough,
then Manti, which for those who don't know are Porsche, a good chunk of Manti,
Manti is the team that runs their factory, most of their factory drivers will drive Manti cars.
The Grello car, that's Porsche factory drivers. At the end 24, the GTE cars that ran at Le Mans,
they were ran by Manti. Manti runs the 911 GT3s that currently race at Le Mans. They are really
very well linked. But surely the idea, Sam, of if you want a GT3 that's more track focused,
you just get a GT3 RS. So what's the point of this?
Well, there are two challenges with that. Yes, that is definitely the correct answer.
And I think probably when the new GT3 RS comes out, I think later this year, that will still
probably be the default answer. And that will be the more extreme car. But the issue we have is,
firstly, the current gen GT3 RS isn't out. And secondly, as we'll know, well, anyone who's even
pretended or imagined that they would try and get one, it's not that easy to get one.
There's quite a long oversubscription list, I would say, for that car. So what this could be
is a way for a GT3 buyer, which is slightly easier to get your hands on, although it's still not
massively easy. It might be a way for a GT3 buyer to turn their car up a little bit. And to be fair,
on track, really be about as quick as a GT3 RS. I mean, the lap time they just posted as of a
couple of days ago at the ring, you know, this, this Manti kit on the GT3, the 992.2 is five
and a half seconds quicker around the ring than the Visak pack GT3. Yeah. Admittedly,
GT3 is a manual, but you know, there's a second orbit and it's several seconds quicker either way.
So what, what have they done? Because I'm looking at the pictures here, and it does look
quite substantially more aggressive. So design wise, it's got a fat rear wing.
The end plates are really, really big. The potentially revised diffuser,
am I right on saying that? Yeah, much bigger. Bigger diffuser. And my personal favorite
are the rear dinner plate wheels, not, not on the front. Yeah. And there's a reason for that.
Yeah. Okay, right. Well, let's go through them. So what has actually changed other than those
dinner plates? Well, I'll talk to you about those in a bit because they're quite important.
So engine and gearbox is the PDK car are identical. You could get this with the manual. It's,
it's obviously as a kit, you can add it too. But the car I drove was the PDK, still has
510 horsepower and a 9000 RPM flat six, which sounds absolutely glorious. But the key changes are
the aero and chassis tweaks. So aero starting from the front of the car, the front splitter
is 12 millimeters longer. The reason they haven't thought it looks a little different. Yeah,
the reason they haven't gone longer than that is because they'd have to re-homologate the car for
pedestrian crash tests. So this car doesn't, you know, it's categorized as far as end cap and
everything else is concerned as a GT3. If they pushed anything to the, to a greater extent,
then they would have had to re-homologate the car, which would have made it astronomically expensive.
So 12 millimeter front splitter, you'll see the front canards either side on the front bumper,
obviously they increase downforce. The downforce split on this car, believe it or not, given the
size of the wing has been pushed forwards with the changes. And part of that is thanks to the fact
that the front splitter, you'll notice at the very front for the listeners, it's almost pointed
upwards. Why is it upwards? It's, it's like an upside down plane wing, how weird? It's because
it's shoving air under the car to where there are new veins. The original GT3 veins apparently are
a handful of centimeters long. These are 1.2 meters long each. There's one on each side of
meters. Yeah, 1.2 meters. So it's like a small person laying under the car. So, and that forces
air not only directly back to the diffuser as well, but it also helps apparently to improve
downforce. I don't, it's not a, it's not ground effect, but there's some sort of
aero influence that just makes the aero changes the pressure under the car and gives the car a
bit more downforce overall. The rear diffuser of course is much bigger. It takes a lot more air
from those veins and of course it's just doing a lot more work at the back. The rear wing,
you notice the end plates have those curved bits either side. Yeah. For the listeners,
if you're thinking of an F1 cars rear wing end plates, they're kind of vertical,
although they've got that slight inward bit at the bottom now, but the top half is vertical.
This very much curves in quite quickly and that's because they've developed the wing,
not only to work on its own and add more downforce, but to also work with the gurney flap that the
GT3 gets as standard. I don't think it's only a GT3 gurney flap either. It's on other 911s.
So you've got sort of double rear winging going on here. It's funny that you mentioned
pedestrian safety though and make those any sharper and it wouldn't have passed pedestrian
safety. That's a freaking, there's a guillotine at the front. Yeah. There's a blender underneath.
Yeah. And then you've got various things to really smooth things out at the back.
If you get hit by one of these, it's basically, I don't know where they drew the line and went,
that's fine. Anything sharper or bigger. No, that's way too dangerous.
And obviously the dinner plates you mentioned at the back there, they're called aero blades,
according to Mantai. And the reason there are only dinner plates, there's only two on the car,
not on the front. I think it was the 956 group C car that used to run similar dinner plates,
which is quite a cool nod. And it had, in some images I noticed, it ran in both axles and in
some it didn't. So that's interesting. The reason it's not on the front here is quite an obvious
one. It's brake cooling. They just needed the extra space, the extra air escape air space,
whatever you call it. And also by the way, the rear blades don't just clean up what would normally
be a very turbulent area, but they also enhance the airflow in such a way that when it curves around
the back of the car, it also contributes to downforce. So while they're not a downforce producing
component themselves, they just add to the aero efficiency, which is quite cool. The front and
rear wheels, they are also a different wheel. They're not the Visec pack magnesium. These are
still like an alloy, but they save overall six kilograms off the top of my head. Yeah, six kg
overall. So they're lighter than the standard GT3 wheel, but they're not quite as light as the
magnesiums. But as we know, magnesiums are, well, I mean, I wouldn't want to put one near a curb.
And they're just a little bit tougher these wheels. So they're actually probably better for your daily
track day driver. Okay, right. And oh, the chassis as well. I was going to say, like, I mean, that's
because these are known for being really quite extreme. They are. Surely it's mostly the chassis
stuff that's the big changes, right? Yeah, well, all combined, because the downforce figure, and
this is directly related to the spring rates they chose, the downforce figure is over 500 kilograms
at 186 miles per hour. Now Porsche doesn't quote a downforce figure for the standard GT3
at that speed. It's 120 kg, I think, at 124 miles per hour, something like that.
A lot of downforce. It's still a lot of downforce, but that's at a much lower speed. Of course,
you can assume it's going to go much higher at higher speed. But the point is, is this is generating
a sound. It's nearly a catering's worth of downforce on that car. So to handle that,
front spring rates are up by 20%. But interestingly, rear spring rates are down by 7%.
And what that what that does in on a track and at Thruxton, anyone who's driven there,
you've got some chicanes with some curbs that this car would happily clip. If you see the
article I did, there is a there are a couple of images of a car on a curb and they look and it
looks as happy as it was. It glides over them like a supercup. Oh, yeah. Geo set ups actually
standard, by the way, in terms of like the toe and even the right eye is standard. But those
spring rates are changed. And the result of that is with the softer rear, the firmer front,
is at 100 and I've got my POV footage to back this up. I could watch back the footage and see
the speedo at 140 mile an hour going around the back of Thruxton circuit, which is phenomenally
scary. It is really quite really fun bum clenching. Yeah, you made it out in one piece. I made it
out in one piece because this car's brakes. I mean, the carbon ceramics, Mantae brake pads as
well, which you know, Porsche GT3 brake pads aren't exactly lacking in durability and performance,
but these are upgraded again. It's phenomenal stopping power. I mean, the stopping power,
we almost don't talk about it because it's sort of just expected in a GT product, but it's arguably
one of the best things about this car is, you know, that the way you can hammer into those
chicanes from 158 mile an hour was a peak eyesore. So it wasn't much quicker than the CS, but
you know, approaching that hard on the brakes, getting it turned in doing that lap after lap,
brakes were fine with that. But yeah, it was just, it was just such a, oh yeah, the spring and
damp brakes I wanted to talk about. It was just such a predictable car because of the tweaks. So
the standard car isn't an edgy car at all. It really does work with you, but it has its limits.
And in this, what you had was at high speed, the front was so composed that you wouldn't have,
you know, it felt like you had no body roll. There was obviously enough squidge in the suspension
that any kind of bumps or ridges the car would deal with it. But as far as your body roll
perception was concerned, it was like zero. But then under traction, you've got the engine
out in the back naturally, but then you've got this softer rear axle spring rate. And so the
traction was astounding. It was so good that the only thing I've driven since, and by the way,
this had cup to ours on, so it was very sticky tire, the Michelin. The only car I've driven
that felt comparably almost unbelievable in terms of traction was the RSR GT Lamoncar,
which was on slicks and is a sort of rear mid Lamon car.
That's such a flex that you can be like, oh, yeah, it's actually really similar to the
RSR. Yes. But only Lamon drivers have driven.
Yeah. But the commitment, yeah, well, Lamon and a few pesky journals, but it was the commitment
on braking, you build up to that, you stop looking at the speedo, you stop panicking about
the runoff and you just think, oh, here's my braking point. And the car does it every time.
So that almost was easy. Corner entry, as I said, it was so, so flat and so sort of welcoming the
car. That was kind of easy as well. You just had to make sure you didn't look at the speedo,
because then obviously you'd have to change your underpants. But it was the power out of the corners
bit that astounded me. ESC fully off foot to the foot. You know, you were exiting corners,
90% throttle straight away. Knowing Porsche, it's probably not that expensive, is it? It's
I can't see your tongue in your teeth. How am I watering are we talking here?
It's a no brainer if you are, I mean, you know, these cars are famously bought by people who
have considered some of the buyers of GT3s, you know, could afford cars three, four times the
price, but they choose them because they want a GT3. And Porsche and Manti knows that the pack is
56k before you go into any of the extras. So of course, you know, what's that in total, add it
all together. Yeah, so the price is tested for this car was 280,000 pounds, which is an lot of
money. I didn't realize that the GT3 was that expensive now. Well, that's the car as tested.
So that's the kit on it and then loads of extras. So for example, 100, hold on 158,200 as standard,
prices tested 280. So it's, this has got 100 over 120,000 some pounds worth of extras.
And about half of that is the Manti pack base. And then the rest of it's all the other stuff.
My God. Yeah. But a lot of these options aren't Manti options, if that makes sense.
Yeah, they're just Porsche options. You know, exclusive design tail lights for 462 pounds.
I say this with my tongue firmly in my cheek, you could get a POVO spec GT3 and then just tick
the Manti box. And by the way, you can order these three Porsche dealers. So it's, and it comes with
all the same warranty and servicing. This is why people, the Porsche guys think you will be,
buyers would go for this over another aftermarket brand is because this is,
like Mountune used to be with the ST stuff, you know, you get all the same warranty
and servicing, et cetera. But yeah, this has got a load of extra Porsche bits on it.
Good Lord. Well, and the annoying thing is even at 280 grand, it's still a really,
really good car. If you've got endless money and you want something, you know,
yeah, there are loads of supercars out there, but actually as a track car,
this is probably better still than most of those hypercars and supercars. And if you want to heavy
and complicated or hybridized, this is just pure. And if you wanted to use it for the road,
yeah, your name. Well, Matt, I didn't drive it on the road. Matt drove it on the road. He did
declare that it was good. I think he effectively said it wasn't worth going for this over the
normal GT3 on the road because, and I would say that makes perfect sense because the limits
were so high, I can't imagine you'd get anywhere near them on the road. So if you were a road GT3
driver, I wouldn't bother. But if you are a serious track day driver and one who doesn't
mind spending an extra 60 to 100k, it kind of is an o-brainer. Okay, you know.
For something that, so that is something that you can buy
now or in the very near future. What you bizarrely can't buy, but you've driven in the UK,
because it's made in the UK, it's the Toyota GR Corolla. Yes. Which I believe we actually
drove on Piston Heads many years ago in the US when it came out because Mike did. Yeah, Mike Duff.
So the idea was that, you know, we got the GR Yaris first in 2020. And then a few years later,
Toyota were like, well, the GR Yaris is not really, it's basically a shoe in America. It's
way too small. Let's do the same treatment to our Corolla and send it out there. So the US got
the GR Corolla. We got the GR Yaris. And that was that. Yeah. We've always wanted a GR Corolla,
though. And Toyota's never really said why we've never got it. However, we mentioned this on a
previous podcast last year, that Toyota was moving production of the GR Corolla from Japan.
Yeah, yeah, to the only site where it was making them. Yeah. To the UK, which is where the standard
Corolla is made. Amazing. Everybody thought this is where this is finally happening. We're finally
getting the GR Corolla in the UK. Nothing's been said about it for months. And then all of a sudden,
I had no idea you had done this. Yeah. You went and drove it at Brand's Hatch. I did. My local
track. Love Brands. Brands Indie as well. I'm going there on Sundays. Going to the GTs. I'd
bloody, oh yeah, I saw the posters for that. I love Brands. It's such an underrated track, I think.
No one mentions it in their top three, four. And for me, it's a roller coaster. It's like a snippet
of Cadwell or the Nurburgring. A tiny, tiny snippet. I feel brilliant. I feel so dirty saying it's a
mini Nurburgring. But it's got elements in it. I've driven both. And they definitely…
Brands on GP. Would you do Indie or GP? I did the Indie, which was perfect for that car,
just because 300 horsepower. But a Manty would need the full circuit to really feel like it's
doing anything. But yeah, even for a 300 horsepower car, the Indie works well.
So you've driven this GR Corolla. So it means they're going to be selling it here, right?
I said that. And do you know what? The factory… So I got a tour at the factory in Burniston,
Derbyshire. Really cool site. We spoke to a few of the people there. Toys were just showing us
around. Basically, the point of this event, why they invited a couple of UK journals of which we
were of a very small number of UK journals, because this was really a US event. Well, the reason
local staff are so eager to build the cars, because they really want the car as well,
because obviously they're putting it together now, and they're seeing what it's all about,
and they love it. And they're all into rallying. It's amazing the staff they've hired,
and some of the existing staff at that facility. They're really into their cars,
and especially their rallying. Toyota's execs basically have said,
we know there is a demand in the UK, but we sell both versions, as in the Yaris and the Corolla,
to both the Australian and the Japanese markets. And looking at the data for those,
we think the Yaris is better suited to the UK market, but they wouldn't go into any more details.
So my perception was, they've looked at some data from those markets and said,
the category of people that are better matched to a UK buyer tend to go for a Yaris, so we'll
offer it here. But the point I've made in my piece, and I think something that a lot of
PhDs have reflected as well, is we love the category that the Corolla slots into. Think all
the Megane RSs, think Civic Type R, think everything of that medium-sized Golf GTI,
Club Sports in addition, we love all of that stuff. And I know this is all wheel drives,
it's slightly different, but it doesn't feel overly all wheel drive on track especially.
So why the hell is Toyota not bringing us a car, especially when that category right now
is dwindling? You've got a couple of special edition GTIs that fill the box, and obviously the
Golf R. But the Golf R's slightly more rounded, it's still a great performance car, but it's
unashamedly more like daily performance car. Whereas this is proper hot hatch stuff.
That's kind of where some of the outrage has come from in your piece.
ITP here says, UK has apparently not allowed hot hatches anymore. There are none for sale
new now, since the Type R went off sale, all automatics are out for not being evolving enough.
Although my old school idea of a hot hatch is front wheel drive manual with four cylinders,
the Corolla being four wheel drive moves it to a different sort of car along with the Yaris,
being more like an intergrally evolved. That's always what I thought. Maybe it's because I
didn't experience the intergrally when it was new and it's my dream car. I just go,
oh, GI Yaris, it's like my intergrally, my generation's intergrally.
The rally connection to that definitely makes it feel that.
100%. And then you've got 86 was a good year says,
GR Corolla is the dream daily family run about, do it all. GI Yaris is too small to be feasible,
the rear seats are truly unusable for people, and it's boring at road speeds. I don't agree with
that last bit at all. What are you on about? Boring at road speed.
I'm going to do a U that you didn't prefer. No, not boring. I wouldn't say boring. I would just
say not as exciting as I'd always hoped because, but this is our different preferences because
we've spoken about this before. I like, because I'm Renault Sport till I die, RS till I die,
I like a car that's slightly edgy, a hot hatch at least that's slightly edgy,
whether it's a wheel drive or two wheel drive. And I like one that sort of feels a little bit
more like a Porsche GT product. And that's because my expectation was set by Renault Sport on all
the stuff. And I think prior to that, you know, people would have driven the old French stuff,
the Peugeot and stuff like that. So I like edgier hot hatches. And the Yaris to me,
unless you pull the handbrake, in which case it's brilliant at low speed, it is very gripped up.
And you really have to hustle it and really drive a bit like a, you know, Wasek to get it,
to do silly things at higher speed. Low speed, full handbrake.
I just watched the WRC rally it, was it Gran Canaria that they just did? I was watching
an onboard of Sebastian Ogier and Elfin Evans. And just watching them on the rally route. So
I was just going, oh my God, that's my dream. That's how I love driving. It's just that kind of,
not that I get to drive rally routes, but I did get to drive on a rally route. And it was that
feeling of like, I liked it being all gripped up because you just felt like, bam, there's an
X-corner, bam, there's an X-corner, bam, there's an X-corner. I was just imagining that I was
Seb Ogier. But, you know, agree to disagree on that one. What I will say though is 86 was a good
year, very much has a point of the GI Yaris is a fantastic car. If you're driving it, and if you're
in the immediate passenger seat, if you're in the rear, it's horrific. Because of the space?
Because it's tiny. And I've taken people in a GI Yaris before in the back, seasoned drivers,
and, you know, they just felt so car sick. And I was driving it normally. It's a very,
very tight claustrophobic space. Something like it. Yeah, exactly. We've talked about it before.
It's a perfectly optimized rally car. That's what makes the GI Corolla so good is that it's a proper
family car. So what is the, is it pretty much just, you know, it's got this three-pot from the
Yeah, more power though. A bit more power. A bit less torque, but I didn't notice it.
20 horsepower, more 300 horsepower. So here's the mark. All-wheel drive system.
Still the same all-wheel drive. Yeah, the fundamental same is the, obviously the engine is the same.
The all-wheel drive system with the kind of variable torque is the same. The manual six-speed
or the auto are the same. But 80 millimeter longer wheelbase, which I took to mean before I got in
it, I was like, you know, there were lots of Americans on the trip. And a few of them were
owners, apparently, of Corollas in the US. And I was there like, oh, you know, it's going to be,
softer. It's going to be set for the American market. It's going to be, all right, it's a
bit quicker in power, but it's going to be heavier. It's going to feel all these ways.
No, it was more lively. That's why I'm all excited about it. Because it was the RS
McGahn replacement I've been wanting. I think this is what I've been saying for a while now.
Americans have had enough of us teasing them because we've teased them about their beer.
You go over to America now and drink the beer out there. Oh my God.
It's strong. It's just pure ethanol, essentially. And it's now the same with their cars. We always
said, huh, you can't drive around corners. And they went, right, I've had enough of this.
Nurburgring lap records. Where did that come from? Yeah, now we've got properly sorted.
Yeah, little hot hatches, big hot hatches. I did a back to back with the GR Yaris and
the Corolla at Brands. I have to say, this is all on track. So I didn't drive back to back on the
road. So of course, there's some space for judgment on that. But on track, the Yaris was so quick.
I actually think it potentially was quicker around the lap just because it was so gripped up. Like
you said, I was sort of down a gear, into a corner, up the curve, on the power, full power.
No, because all will drive. There's no hesitation, full power out, slingshot off the next corner,
around you go. It is fast. It is controlled and it is stable. You get in the Corolla and on turn
one, I came out of the pits. Anyone who's driven at Paddock Hill Bend, you come out of the pits,
you're looking in your left mirror going, oh my God, is there a car coming at me at 100 mile an hour?
Then you suddenly arrive at Paddock Hill Bend. And because you've powered on to make sure you
arrive at the corner at a safe speed, you're doing 100. I turned in, having already switched
the SC off, by the way, in the pits, had a massive oversteer moment, massive. Like to the extent
where at one point I was like, do I try and power out of this or do I just accept Gaggle Shab?
Thankfully, caught it, ran onto a bit of the green exit curve and thought, wow, this is a
different car. This is a totally different car. Got the tyres up to temperature. They weren't
extreme. They were Michelin PS5, so they're not, they don't need much warming up. And I just,
the consistent feeling I had throughout the lap and throughout the day was the Corolla would,
you trail brake it in or even lift the throttle and it just oversteers a little bit into the corner,
not wildly all the time. That was an extreme moment. It rotates like an old Megane RS. The
normal ones, not the crazy trophy ones, which were actual lunatics. But then you had the traction
and the performance the same as the Yaris. And so over a lap, it was just more enjoyable. And the
key thing, if you're a track day driver and you're looking for a car, the GR Yaris is exceptional
whizzing up a mountain pass or traveling supercars on a damp day. But on a track,
I think they need a bit of geo modification and maybe some aftermarket springs to feel alive on
circuit. The Corolla looked after its outside front tyre better because you could have it
rotated into a corner and it meant the outside front wasn't, you didn't have as much steering
luck on. So I didn't cook the front on the Corolla, I did on the Toyota.
Oh, you've not driven a Gen 2 GR Yaris have you yet?
That was my first go, isn't it? That was my first go, so I had all the new,
the seat imposition is exceptional. Oh, and I'll get onto the seat in a little bit
because that's a key reason why you want the Corolla. Well, the Yaris seats now are brilliant.
You know, the early ones are a bit high. They're now really, really good. Really, really bolstered,
sitting nice and low, obviously with a new dash design, it feels all natural. They've nailed the
ergonomics. Corolla for a market, because it's also sold in Canada, but I presume the American
market in particular, the waist size, they had to consider that a bit.
I'd potentially say slightly more accessible as some people might say now.
Created an issue on track. This wouldn't be an issue on the road, but on track where you're
generating quite high loads and at brands, it's quite, there's cameras and undulations,
so you're moving around a lot. The seats are wide, I slid all over the place in them.
I was using the door as a brace through Paddock Hill Bend with my arm like that.
It meant in the manual car, and bearing in mind, this was a left hand drive car as well,
so already it's not quite the perfect muscle memory for us Braids. I was having to reach
across to the manual. The manual in those cars is fab, really good gearbox, but I was sort of
struggling with reach for both clutch pedal and gear lever. So I liked the auto more on that day
because I just held a steering wheel and was just playing with the paddles. Jesus.
I know, I was really disappointed myself. I never thought those words would come out of
Sam Sheehan's mouth. I preferred the auto on the day. It's just because I could hustle the car.
I didn't have to think about where my torso was positioned and I didn't have to change gear at
a time. I didn't want to change gear just to avoid having to do it at a point when I wasn't in the
right seating position. So it just meant I could crack on. To be fair, I've driven that, I'm assuming
it's the same box, it's in the GI Aris Auto. Yeah, exactly. It's a good box. Yeah, it is a good box.
It's just, I think I would need to drive the GR Corolla to be like, this is far too, I'm being
flung about far too much. Yeah, I agree. I'll have the auto. But I guess as well, being a bigger car,
being a more versatile car than the GI Aris, maybe that makes sense. Yeah. And also, you could
easily fix it. I mean, people modify these cars all the time. Just get some GI Aris seats and
then sell the Corolla ones online. Good point, because Toyota's got like a massive GR parts
catalogue if you really want to turn your car up. I think they'll, they do their version of a pole
positioned that you can chuck in. So that would be cool. It would be a lot of money. Yeah. There
was an issue with the, I should mention that the kick down, because I want, if there are any US,
for the two US listeners, if you could feed this back to the Toyota HQ in the US, the kick down
button was really annoying, because I was short shifting even in track mode up a gear out of the
slower corners like Druids. And if you press the kick down, it would, it didn't switch the kick
down off in track mode. So then you would short shift up and then it would just drop a gear again.
And you're like, that's annoying. But it must be bizarre though, to be driving a car in the UK
that you know, isn't going to be on, on such a British circuit. Yeah. Old school, brilliant
circuit that you know, isn't going to be sold here. And do you feel like we're missing out?
Yeah, I do. We do have GI Aris. Is it that much? Do you think the lineup would be really well
complemented with this? Or is it just, GI Aris is 90% of it? I think, well, like there was a track
day up. So that evening, Brands does its evening track days. After we finished our day, which was
just Toyota, there were people driving in to do a Brands track evening. And the number of Renault
Sport Magans, the number of older Civic Type Rs, the number of, I saw a Focus ST, the number of
track day enthusiast drivers in Britain, of which there are a large number and we should be really
proud of that. Because I think, I think we've got a great industry there that drive these famously
quite lairy, slightly loose on the rear, but just really fun hot hatches is massive. And as we said
earlier, there's a massive demand, you know, you see it in the forums for this type of car.
So the Yaris is brilliant, but it's not that and it doesn't want to be that it's always tried to be
the rally car with the rally heritage. It's not designed to be the McGowan RS rival for various
reasons, size being one of them. This is and would fill that gap, not just on a European scale, but
also in the UK, where this market is, I mean, there are people crying out for something in this
category. And it still blows my mind that Toyota is not addressing it. ITP said it, brilliant.
Just, there's nothing else like it on sale at the moment. And I think that's what kind of makes me go,
you know, we've had quite a few comments of people going, make it make sense. And you read
it and you just go, there's a gap in the market, Toyota. You're building the car here. My only
thinking is that maybe it is an emissions thing, because they could only bring so many GR Yaris's
to the UK, second gens. So it's making me think, well, maybe it's the reason that they, they can't
do it is that maybe it was just up their fleet emissions too much. And, you know, they obviously
got rid of GR 86 because of emissions. And that's just running a little four pot. And it's still
too much. So it's, um, I've got some good news though. If you really like the idea of a GR
Corolla, but you can't get one, you can buy some in the UK that have been imported on the business
classified at the time of recording, we have two. Oh my God. Yeah, exactly. Let's get cash in the
pot, guys. The great thing though, maybe I'm a little glass half full by saying it's great,
is that they're not as expensive as you might think. And I think prices have potentially
starting to become a little bit more sensible. So I'm thinking 50 K plus. Plus, you're thinking 50
K maybe, maybe 60, because you got all the import costs. Cause these, these cars, if they were sold
here would be well into the forties, you know, even, you know, if they weren't an imported car,
if, yeah. Oh, that's the thing. Cause I think the GR probably fifties, the new GR Yaris was 44.
Yeah. So this is a bit more. So this is going to be nudging 50 if it were to sell here.
I was going to say that sounds ridiculous, but then you think about the FL five civic type.
Oh, everything's that person. Yeah. Everything is. So, um, obviously there's
gold far. You know, I said that there's no real competition. There's obviously the gold far,
but, um, can't get a gold far manual anymore. Can you? No. And I love the gold far. I think
it's fantastic. And this latest one really is brilliant, but it's not trying to be a track car.
Again, it's, it's a rounded high performance road car. Yeah. And I'm not saying this is just a track
car. These are definitely used. And by the way, Mike reckons it's quite comfortable on the road.
I didn't drive on the road. Okay. Well, we've actually got, so as I said, we've got two for sale.
So we've got a 2023 car here, 9,000 miles imported from, um, Japan, OBS 36,990.
I mean, that 37 grand is a lot of money for a hatchback. It's a lot.
It's easy to forget that sometimes because we look at so many like 200 grand cars and
the classifiers, but because of having seen considerably less interesting cars and cars
that cost even less than this in the U S come to the UK and be priced way higher than that.
The jump isn't quite as much as I expected. It's, it's not a ridiculous amount. I mean,
it's cheaper than buying a brand new GR Yaris. I mean, and I think they learned a lot from
Gen one. Yeah. GR that they then applied to, because this came three years after the GR Yaris.
Yeah. So I think they, as, as you kind of said, there's, you know, I think a lot of them know
how kind of went into that to, to, to really refine it. Um, so that's 36,990. And then we've
also got a, another 2023 car, but this one's, this one's got a kind of some wing bits on it.
I don't think it was a circuit edition. So it's not, it's not a marito, which I kind of potentially
thought it was, but it's a circuit edition. So it's got, uh, it's got a bigger wing, uh, and that
one is 38,995, 8,000 miles again, imported. You know, your alternatives are civic type are FL
five, which is going to be going for a similar amount of money. And it's definitely a step up,
I think is a quicker lap time. If you're doing track days, not, you know, I think the civic is
still quicker, but the point I have with this is just, it was just fun. Yeah. That's the thing.
The civic will, do you think civic will be more engaging than this?
The civic, yeah, the civic is a high level of commitment. I mean, my, if, if you take it from
hot hatch to, you know, proper sports car, and I'm not talking about like, you know, your boggo F
type, I'm talking about like a GT four Cayman, the FL, uh, the FL five straddles between hot hatch
and Porsche GT four. It's not that serious. It's like, you know, you, you, if you were a serious
driver, you would be on the tail of a GT four around a lap in a FL five. This is not on that
level in terms of outright performance, even though it's all wheel drive, um, but it's probably
partly under the tire to be fair. It was on PS fives, which were just, just aren't as extreme,
are they? So exactly. So you could probably up the rate quite a lot with just the tire change.
It's, yeah, but you've got two to choose from there. If you really want a GR Corolla, I did see
there was a comment where someone was saying that they, it imports obviously an option,
but they're worried about parts. So if they buy one and something goes wrong, because these are
really quite specialty, getting impart, uh, getting parts imported would be a real pain.
But my thinking now is like, well, if they're building them here and you took one to Toyota,
surely, surely they would go, oh, it's fine. We'll just, the factory's just around the corner.
We're just going to pick something up. Just hang out in the local pubs in Berniston. Just,
just go, um, do you know what I do? You can get me here. You know, I need this rear end, uh,
bush for this particular part of the car. Yeah. Exactly. I'm not suggesting anyone, by the way,
Berniston would start nicking parts of the production line, but let's just say at the back
of a lorry. It crossed my mind. I saw a few badges on a shelf and I thought that would
look really good on my fridge, but I didn't get a Corolla badge. Uh, well, so there you go.
GR Corolla, we've now driven it and you still can't buy it, but we've got some imports.
Right. For cars that you can buy, we've got a buying challenge. Well, you know, use cars.
And this one comes from, I feel like this person, we've mentioned them before
because I can't mention the name, which is really annoying. Any other podcast, I could
mention this, but we are, we're a serious car brand at Piston Heads apparently. And, um, I can't,
let's just say the second word is puncture. So something puncture. Let's just call them that.
So something puncture says, I need some inspiration on getting my two car or maybe more garage right
with a budget of around 45 K. However, just to point out that the title was 40 to 50 K two car
garage. And what do we do, Sam? Oh, we always take the top. Exactly. At the moment I have a 205
GTI very rarely used. I did a full nut and bolt restoration on it and it's verging on too clean
to drive. I feel I'm only keeping it for nostalgia, although I do like modern classics. 205 GTIs are
so, they actually have a really great garage already because next up is a BMW i8. I know how
much you love those. This replaced a 996 as I wanted something faster, more modern and usable.
It's definitely that, but it's also nowhere near as fun to drive. I do really enjoy its ease of use
and the ability to whoosh about on in brackets, not free electric. And lastly, a Peugeot expert.
I don't need a van, but it's so handy for doing bike stuff, tip runs, etc. It's only worth a few
grand and I would really miss having a van. However, I drive it most and it's horrible to drive.
There are a couple of motorbikes I don't use as well that could end up in the budget to 50ish.
Okay, so they can sell some motorbikes. Get rid of them. Who needs them? I don't commute by car,
just a short drive to the station most days. Got two grown kids, but another family car,
which I've excluded. I don't do and have no interest in track days. I live in Scotland,
so lots of good Highland roads around me. I enjoy working on cars as much as driving them,
so not afraid of a bit of a project. What would you do? How would you split the budget?
All ideas and suggestions welcome. Harder than I thought this would be because there's not really
a defined criteria list. It's kind of like, I'm quite like this, quite like that, which I take
as open to inspiration. Yeah, absolutely. So there are so many ways in which we could have
attacked this. Sam, how have you gone about it with a 50k budget? I actually hadn't clocked,
which is weird because the brands involved are very obviously this, but I've gone for an all
British lineup. I'm quite proud to say. I've chosen for, because the van might go, but you might
still want something for your bikes, but also you live in the Highlands of Scotland, so you've
got beautiful roads and a bit of rain as well. So what I thought was, let's go for something that's
got some space, fold down the back seats, it kind of becomes a van, has a wheel drive and has enough
performance in both power and also handling to enjoy those roads, even if it's just a short drive
down to the station. And the car I've chosen is a 2019 Jag F-Pace SVR, and I love these.
This is a real guilty pleasure. I love them. There was, I'm going to sound like such a posh
so and so, but like my local waitrose, there's someone, whenever I go infrequently to my local
waitrose, there's someone who is often there in a yellow SVR F-Pace, and it's so cool. Yeah,
yeah, I love them. I mean, everyone's banging on and rightfully so because they're brilliant,
the Defender Octa, everyone's talking about that at the moment. So much fun in there. This is like,
you know, it came way before it and it's like a more fully road biased version of that kind of
philosophy, you know, just a lot of power, lovely ride, better than necessary handling. I mean,
you know, an F-Pace SVR really does handle like a proper, it's like the Macan drives like a sports
car. This drives like a sports car as well. They're brilliant handling cars. I've only driven a
standard F-Pace and I thought it drove brilliantly. They steer wonderfully, ergonomics are brilliant,
and it's just got that lovely, the way that they set them up, you know, it does ride high,
but it doesn't roll around and you can sort of do sports car things with it, you know, tip it in,
get it moving around, drive out. Oh, it's lovely. Obviously, it's got a five-litre supercharged V8.
That's bloody lovely. Yes. Makes a fantastic sound. Effortless as well. Gearbox is decent in
these. Spacious. This one's in white. My favorite actually is the blue color they do. I think it's
like a French racing blue. The blue is what? I'll tell you what, you'll be won over by the yellow.
I don't think I've seen one in the metal in yellow. Yeah, I know. I was really surprised
when I saw it because you've got to be, you've got to have stones of steel to go, yeah, that's,
I'm going to have a massive yellow blob, but it looks epic. If they keep that, I reckon that
will one day be worth quite a few quid. I think so. Yeah, yeah. Because it's just why I'm making my
landing more engine and color. So that actually is up for, let me remind myself, just under 32,000,
31,850. 66,000 miles. Yeah. And a nice solid 550 horsepower. Yeah. And I think, you know,
for the, it's expensive enough and it's nice enough to drive and it's going to feel exciting.
It's not going to be as boring as a van, but it's got the space for your bicycles to go in the back
or on the roof racks. I love how they said with their I8 that they really do quite enjoy the
fact that they drive on in brackets, not free electric, suggesting that. Yes, I like how the
low running costs, and you're just like five litre V8. Supercharged V8. Yeah. Well, actually,
the next car I've chosen, the other Brit in the lineup, actually will be quite good on fuel.
These are famously frugal. Because it's so bloody light. It is. I've gone for an Elise S2 JPS,
which means you've got the black on gold with a little union flag as well on the intake at the
back there. This is actually an auction car. So we don't know the exact figure it's going to go for,
but the Jaguar just under 32K. We've got 18 grand to play with. So I think this Elise, you know,
should be there around that ballpark. So this would be, I would argue, the perfect car for the
Scottish Highlands for two reasons. Obviously, our PHO with the name, we can't say it likes
their small hot hatches. This is not a hot hatch. It's a rear wheel drive mid-engine sports car,
but it might as well be the same. It was the same size as a hot hatch. It's probably lighter than
most hot hatches. And of course, it's narrow, and it rides pretty well because of that lightness.
And I've been to the Scottish Highlands a few times once in my own Clio, and I adore those roads.
But there are bits, especially in the winter, where it gets a bit bumpy. There's a lot of
winter beating going on on those road surfaces. The roads are narrow. You can't see around all
the bends sometimes. Something like this, that small agile light on its feet feels perfect for
that road. I was going to say that the one and only time I went and did some extensive driving
in Scotland was all on roads that were, it was around Inverness, and the roads were actually
surprisingly quite wide. But I have heard, especially if you do the NC 500, that there
are properly close roads. So this is a good one to go for. I think these were based around the
111S. So it's a 1.8-litre K-Series engine, which we all know is nice and revvy. Yeah, it is.
It sounds great. 60,000 miles, three previous owners, and there were fewer than 130 of these
built. So it was a proper rare little thing. Obviously, finishing the JPS colours, it looks
mega. The auction for that starts on Wednesday the 6th of May. So by the time this podcast goes
out, it will be the day before the auction goes live. So jump on it. Great, great little car.
Look how well they've aged as well. That's an O2 car. And that could be, you could have on that
number plate 75 or 26, and you wouldn't think twice of it. The only thing that's lacking
is a screen in the interior. I say lacking, I wouldn't want one, but for it to masquerade
as a modern car. An S1 and S2 at least. I'll take an S3. That's something about the S1 and
the S2. I'm just all over. So I'm sort of along a similar lines for you for my first car.
This I've tried to sneak into budget because it just felt like the really obvious choice.
But I could have quite easily used up the whole budget on this car, but I was kind of thinking,
well, they like lightweight stuff by the sounds of it. They want something that's fun to drive,
that's not massive, and potentially isn't going to cost a bomb in fuel. Something that you've
totally ignored. So I've gone for an Alpine A110. This is a legend or legend, I guess with the
fancy E at the end of legend. It's in white 18,541 miles, but I just adore the A110. I absolutely
fell in love with this when I drove it to Le Mans and back last year. It's such a versatile car.
It sounds a lot better than I was expecting because you think 1.8-litre turbo engine is going to sound
absolutely rubbish, but it's got a lot of character. It's got a nice... But the great thing about it
is, as well, I remember I had a Cayman GT4 several years ago, and it sounds great when you're
just doing a short run, but if you're doing a long motorway journey, the boom, it's really very
boomy. I mean, I would quite happily live with that. But if that isn't your sort of thing,
the A110 when you're just cruising around, it's super refined. And it rides way better than a GT4.
GT4 is very much a track car.
That is the sort of car I would love to mess around in the Scottish Highlands with. I think it's so
cool. I do love them. I think the only thing just thrown at events for my little lotus is that
auto gearbox. It's a turbocharged engine. It sounds raw, at least, but I mean,
they are bloody brilliant cars. Mine doesn't have a K-Series in it, though.
Yeah, that's true. There you go. Although, I mean, it's obviously going to cost a lot more.
So $38,995 doesn't leave me with a lot of budget left for my second car.
However, I am thrilled that I found this. And it does just scrape through in budget.
It is a 2004 Subaru Forester. Praise be. This just feels like the perfect Scotland car. The
perfect kind of do-anything, because you've got the Subaru Rally pedigree. You've got the massive
boot for doing stuff like tip runs. And I don't know if they've got dogs, but they've got bikes.
Shut the bikes in the back of it. And it's done 121,000 miles, knocking on the door of 122.
So you don't need to be super precious about it. So you can get muddy stuff in there.
And you get to look at other forest trainers at petrol stations and give them... There's a little
club, isn't there? I see them. I've seen them. Did Dan have a Forester?
I'm pretty sure Dan had a Forester at some point. He used to talk about rocking up to petrol stations
and people coming over and spending 20 minutes chatting to him. I actually think this is one
for our third topic, which we'll get to in a little bit. But I think the image of these have
changed. And I think it is very much... You see someone in a Forester and you go, you are a cool
person. So that for me ticks the van box, even though it's not a van, but it's van-like. It ticks
the practicality box. It ticks the modern classic box. And I don't know if they've got a thing for
rally cars, but I certainly do. I mean, I would be all over this. That for me is an epic two car
garage. The only thing I will throw in here, however, is when they said, oh, I've got a van,
and they've done it so cheaply that, you know, it's just a cheap little van. It was a few grand.
I was like, well, maybe we throw in something that's practical, that's a bit more substantial.
And I found a Ford F-150 SVT Lightning.
Did they call it the Lightning? Yes, they did.
I mean, that looks crazy with the black. I don't like black wheels normally, but that
kind of just works. It's 25 grand. It's a 5.4-litre V8. I think these were supercharged as well.
Yes, they're supercharged with 380 brake horsepower. And I hear these are quite lairy.
Yeah. Oh, I don't hate the interior as much as I thought, because often like cars of that era
from the US, you're like, oh, the interior is so bad. But that's actually plain enough that
they haven't messed it up. Exactly. It is a bit plastic-fantastic. It is. But it's just joy.
Is that a K&M Elphil one? K&M Elphil, mate. Yeah, exactly. That looks quite factory, to be honest.
That's 25 grand. So my thinking was you could take that and then pair it up with that
Elise. And you've got another really quite good two-car garage there. But I thought that, you
know, the practicality thing didn't seem to be super-duper high on their list. So screw that.
A110, Forester STI, that's my two-car garage, bang on 50 grand. Sam Sheehan.
Well, I mean, I'm sticking with my SPR Elise. I think that those, honestly, when I saw these
two, I was like, that would be my choice in the real world, not just on the pod.
Well, if you're listening to this on Spotify, I'm going to put up a poll of,
you can choose, basically, whose two-car garage is best. If you think that mine is obviously
the better choice, then click on that. If for some reason you think that Sam's is better,
you can click on his. If you think that we're both rubbish, then what I'll do is I'll put a
article of this on the Piston Head's homepage when it comes out. Go and click on that. You'll
have a link to the topic. Go and click on that. Get in there. Submit your own suggestions. I just
let people know how rubbish we are. If you haven't yet signed up to Piston Head's on the beach,
Sunday service 24th of May, Brighton Pier, we're taking over Brighton, not Brighton Pier, Brighton
Seafront. Brighton Pier would be really cool, but we're not quite there yet. Taking over Brighton
Seafront and on Sunday morning is going to be an epic Sunday service. We've never done anything
like this before. I can't wait. You're coming along, right? Yeah. I need to decide which car,
because my Clio is MOT now, so I think I'll bring the Clio. Sweet. I actually put the Mazda down
as the car I was going to bring, but I think I'll bring the little Renault. I'm going to be
bringing the four series Lump because the Fiesta is still broken. I'm getting it's the
four series Seen 2 on Tuesday to see what is wrong with my brakes. So that's fun.
So yeah, go to pistonheads.com. Click events and sign up there, because we'd love to see you there.
The more the merrier.
Final topic. Great cars ruined by the image of their drivers.
I feel like we've been needing to address this one for quite a while. I'm started by
super cool one. They say, hi there. As I was reading the spotted article about the one-of-one
course of VXR, I got thinking about the fact that it was and is a great steer, but how likely
remembered as a something chariot of choice. I remember fondly how well it drove around
Struxton on the VXR days. I drove it on the VXR days. I probably saw you there. And the fact that
I liked it more than the VXR8, the first VA I drove. But as the peeps of that thread rightly
said, its image is now more aligned to a certain type of buyer. What other good slash great cars
are tarred with the same brush of great cars but marred by the dip something tea of types of owners
and would never want to be associated with that type of person? They've said performance VXR
Vauxhall. So it has been followed up with a BMW 140i, Audi RS3 and Mercedes A45,
C5 Steve. I don't agree with this one. This one riled me up really. I was like, come on,
C5 Steve. E46 BMW M3. I think 10 years ago maybe. Because there was a point when they were cheap.
Yes. Maybe. I think this is true for every M3. This is one of my absolute dream cars. If I have
an E46 M3, I don't think there's much more I would want. I absolutely love these. But maybe I'm
just in denial. Maybe I would become one of those people. But I think the M3, the E46 M3 now is
solidly, it's not even a new arrival to the modern classic world. So it's totally changed in this
image. You don't see them now with ridiculous like Angel Eye aftermarket kits from Amazon.
You see them now put back to original-ish spec. PH is Rob Slom who works on the consignment team.
He's got a really very lovely E46 M3 and he's got one on PH Fleet. He is the last person that
would put Angel Eyes on his E46 M3. So hopefully the image has shifted a bit on that. We'll get
onto that in a little bit. Unreal has said Golf R every time. Again, it's cheap performance,
isn't it? Cheaps maybe the wrong word, but affordable performance with a lot of tuning
potential. Yeah. I think this is area specific, by the way, because if you're traveling, I don't
live in South wetland looking to afford to live around there. It's a beautiful part of town,
but I only go through it when I'm driving to Heathrow from where I live. And you see Golf R's,
you see some of the cars that are to be listed in the rest of this list and some of the cars that
you've already mentioned. And because they're sort of like old money people who just want an all
rounder, they're fine. But when you come back to the side of town I live on or you go through
Birmingham or other parts of the country, which are notoriously aggressive on the road,
these cars have a totally different meaning. That's area specific. That is a very, very good
point because it's a bit like a Golf GTI. You can do all sorts of stuff to Golf GTIs,
but that's what makes them kind of classless. Yeah. And I say that in a positive way of like,
yeah, you could be a upper middle class, just kind of, oh, it's the family run about and it's
just nice because it's the best Golf I could buy. And it just happens to be really blooming quick.
Or you're doing handbrake turns or whatever the equivalent is now with the electric stuff
in a McDonald's car park. The fact is you combine them for not, relatively speaking,
not a lot of money. Yeah. And you can just chuck so much power at them.
Exactly. And then inevitably when you do that, you'll put a cap on and it would just,
whatever you do, you could try and put it the right way around. It would just
fling 180 degrees so until it's backwards.
NH01, different sort of stereotype. Yeah. Honda Jazz. So I'm guessing he's referring
specifically to the engine. I was thinking more that it's the Honda Jazz is associated with people
that have maybe chosen it as the last car that they'll have. Oh, that's sad, but kind of, yeah.
I think it's appropriate. It's kind of like, oh, it's fun and it's reliable and it's not
fast enough to have out yourself. Yeah. Francis Bourgeois was, he's got the VTech.
He's crazy. He's done a lot of ridiculous things to his. Funny when you watch the videos. It's
quite hilarious seeing him redline through tunnels. I've heard that underneath it is immaculate.
Oh, I bet. Well, a lot of money has been spent on it. It's resto modded to the max,
but also still it's kind of standard on the outside, which is why it's brilliant.
I do love it. You see the videos of him driving around with it with his partner.
Yeah. They wear headcams. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like,
like you would do like a McLaren F1 GTR or like a GMAT 50. It's just like, yeah,
need that because it's so noisy. And then Cristio Nessar says G63 and Gallardo. However,
RDMCG kind of summarizes it brilliantly of there are a couple of paragraphs that don't
make a whole lot of sense, but he does end on why does anybody care? And that was kind of my,
if you're going into this thinking like, oh, why a pH judging my cars? But it's like
each to their own, you know, I mean, like we, I think that I think that the things take away
from me is let's go to the VXRs, for instance, right? Yes, at a time, you know, they people used
to buy them and they were, they were, I think it says if you go online and you try and find a
good used example, you'll really struggle because they've modified a lot and they were
driven to within an inch of their life of people genuinely having a good time. But there's a certain
image with that that people are going, I don't really like that. Whereas now I think if someone
turned up in, you know, I'm in my fast approaching mid thirties, that's sad. And people are saying,
you know, if I, if I saw someone of a similar age to me, and they turned up an immaculate
vector VXR, I would be like, that's actually quite cool. Yeah, we've talked about it on the
pop before. Yeah. Also, 30 mid thirties is young, by the way. I just want to throw that in there
before you start saying that. So 30 is the new 20 and they keep saying that, right? Yeah, I think
it's all shifted now. But anyway, and you see that in car buying, by the way, because hot hatches,
people, I see people very happily and very correctly driving hot hatches into their 60s
and 70s and having a great time doing it. And I think fair play. Well, how about saying if we
go back to something punch something puncher, they have a 205 GTI by the sounds of it, they've,
you know, they've all got they've got kids that have fully grown up and stuff. So they've probably
got to a certain point in life rules are broken where they're just enjoying their 205 and a 205
GTI would have been a proper, I can't even find a correct podcast friendly term for it. But
someone who doesn't take who is young and doesn't take much care of their cars and tends to vape.
And lights going into hedges backwards. That's absolutely. So one of the my my contributions
to this are we're talking about the Subaru Forester. That used to be one of where it's kind
of like, because they're cheap, make a great noise, practical. So I guess if you're someone who
enjoys modifying cars and got a family, a great car. But I think now, you know, we look at them
and see if you find a tidy one, you go, that's really cool. I also saw a guy, I had a Nissan
350 Z. Last week, you'll see there's a feature that goes on pH, probably by the time you've
listened to this, where we did a 350 Z versus an RX 8 versus a Honda S 2000, lucky enough to drive
all three of them. But I bought along the 350 Z. And it was that is a car that is very much the
sort of thing of where it had an image problem a while back. But it got so much attention now
because it was Nissan's own press car, six and a half thousand miles on the clock.
Insane. Yeah, I felt so bad putting so many miles on it. And it got a lot of attention.
People can't going up and being like, this is amazing. Like because it's it's a stock 350.
Yeah, yeah. So it's all drift cars now. Exactly. Yeah. But I think as well,
if you saw a really tastefully modified 350 Z, you'd go, that's pretty cool.
Yeah, make a great sound. I mean, just that with a very simple exhaust modification, but
like subtle, not too loud, you know, you've got a beautiful sounding engine. I know they weren't,
you know, people compared them to the Cayman and the Cayman was always a better handling car.
But the Cayman is worth a lot more now as a used car. So now they feel like a really sensible,
nice, and they're quite GTS, aren't they? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Oh, 100%. They're not like
the steering is heavy for the sake of being heavy, you know, but it's, yeah, big, lazy-ish
V6 GT. So, yeah, it's, I feel like the, I guess the image comes down to what you've
done to the car, because the other one I was going to add to this list, I'm a big Impressor
fan. So that kind of falls under the, the, the Forester. I think when you see an Immaculate
Impressor now, you go, oh my God, someone resisted the urge to, to meddle with it. And those limited
editions are going for crazy money. But you know, my 2005 ST Fiesta is a car that, you know,
it was only last year I bought the four series to go along with that, which feels much more,
you know, like a man of my age should be driving a more sensible car. But
it's that, that Fiesta is, you know, I've not done anything to it. It is a stock Fiesta.
And I'm kind of like, well, I just, I just enjoy it. I don't really care about the image. I don't
care if it's a, if it's kind of associated with, you know, tuners and stuff and like,
yeah, exactly. Cause it's so old, you know, it's all the people that have maxed out their cars.
They've, they've all either broken down or, you know, they're just not driving them anymore.
So you don't see many clapped out Fiestas like you used to. So when you do see one, it's kind
of like, oh, that one's still surviving and it looks half decent. So I think they just don't care.
They've changed. And also that, that category of car when it was new was cause people used to buy
cash in those days. Same with the old, when it twos and my one and people bought cash. So they
were like an aspirational hatchback, but now everyone, PCPs and finances. So actually the
people who were buying those cash are now probably in, you know, A45s and gold files now
cause they're financing and releasing them. So goes back to the earlier in the post. Yes,
exactly. So one day again, there's a 45 s, I tell you what, in 10 to 20 years time, we'll look at
those A45s and go, my God, that was incredible. All that power and you'll see a stock one and
you'll go, that's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. What's, what have you got? I'm dangerously close to your
waters on this one because, well, we've referred to it and actually the list was quite good. I
agreed with all that, you know, especially the high performance super hatches. I think that
I see them every day when I'm driving on the A13 and I'm like, oh, he's zigzagging through traffic.
And I think he's filming as he's doing it. Oh God. Yeah. I will say though, there is someone with
also a yellow A45 near where I live and it's not, it might have been chipped, but it's otherwise
it looks start and I'm like, it's kind of cool because they've taken care of it. You know,
it's not got massively curved wheels or anything. Yeah. Well, the one that, so the M3s, I always
say that, and I think the E46 has passed this now. I think every M3 goes up here, it goes through,
when we were kids. It is FAT. When we, yeah, when we were kids, E36 M3s were being razed around and
modified like crazy or I say kids as one of our teenagers. And then they have now become obviously
that you still see them being driven aggressively and stuff, but they are typically, they're a
classic now. Yeah. E46 is into that world. So the FAT is now definitely in that world. A lot of
flashy, when they touch the brake pedal, they've got the central Formula One style like that just
flickers away. The Amazon special couple near me. Yeah. They love it. And even with that,
they seem to flash even when you just touch the brake pedal really lightly, which I don't really
understand that. But I guess it's just an on off thing. There's loads of them with that. GAT
starting to enter that. It's the slightly more, the people have got a bit of cash, but definitely
still like that lifestyle, which is modifying cars with, I guess, Amazon bits or whatever.
That's starting to enter that realm. I think that's the big problem that I have with the
GAT, sorry, the FAT. And I've not seen enough tuned GATs to know, but the FAT has a really
quite awful exhaust note. It's really quite bad. And so when people put exhaust systems on them,
they tend to do like cat-backs, which just amplifies the flatulence of it. And they improved
it with the comp, but it's still not the best sound. What you're basically getting is two sets
of three pots, which is why apparently it sounds so terrible. But if you go for one that is a six
into one, sounds way better. Sounds way better. Interesting. There you go. Well, tune it. If
you want to tune your FAT, just do six into one. Yeah, because they're often found. I mean,
when I've sat outside having a pint in the spring weather we've got now, and you'll hear
someone just coming along in first gear with pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, and then all of
this stuff. And you're just there like, oh, it's so annoying because it puts everyone's
there shaking their head. No one thinks it's cool when obviously I'm there as the car guy,
like, please stop ruining it. Stop ruining it for us. Now everyone hates us. But the one cut,
the, again, very dangerous to you, dangerously close to your waters, but the F30BMW three series
in diesel in particular. I seem to see a lot of them probably mapped up, I guess, so that they're
really dusty, dusty at the back, but just being driven really, really, really, really aggressively
and really quickly, especially in town. I don't know why, but I'm just seeing a lot of them around
the moment. So I'm going to be a massive hypocrite here of where I go. I don't really care about
image. There was a part of me that was like a 335D touring. F31 would have been absolutely
ideal. A sort of, we do a lot of like little town driving, so maybe not ideal, but there's
definitely parts of me where I'm like, oh, 335D would have been quite good. But the backlash
I would have got on pH when that went up on fleet would have just been touring. Yeah,
yeah, but it's 335D, mate. 335D. I mean, it's stage two. There's nothing faster in the world
than a 335D. I think a touring, I think a touring, because everyone, because if you speak to non-car
people of which 99% of the people I know outside of work are, they don't like estates. And it's
always coupe SUVs or the coupe saloonie shapes that they love or a hot hatch. So I think the
estate actually insulates you from that. Maybe only those in the know would know, which is what
makes this whole process. I do tend to see a lot of them, though, with quite dark back ends.
Okay, you've got evidence. Yeah, I have seen some of this. It's enough to make me go like,
maybe that's one for a little bit later. Ideally, it would have been D3 touring.
Yeah. And then you don't have to worry about that kind of stuff. D3 touring, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You have to wear a suit though. But so there you go. I mean, let me know if I would have looked
like a right book, getting a 335D, or if I was just more stupid getting a four series
Grand Coupe and luxury line, which was like the polar opposite image. Yeah. The point in all this
though, is that they're all really good cars, isn't it? We're just saying that they are all great.
Ultimately, what we're saying is the whole image thing is stupid. Because those VXRs as well,
I mean, the latter ones are genuinely, your predecessor, John was like, no, no, no, they're
rubbish. Yeah, they were genuinely quite fun. No, they're great. Because that was the one I was
going to say, I still see a few of them are modified in the class fights. Because I think
people, when they bought them, they're like, I've got special edition. So they didn't modify them.
And you see them around and they look quite good. The Astra VXR was the last one was really
quite a good car. But anyway, there you have it. That is another episode of the Gassing Station,
all wrapped up. Thank you ever so much for listening. If you enjoyed what you listened to,
please give us a five star review, because it lets us know we're on the right track
and spreads the Gassing Station name out to more people. We need to bring all these car
enthusiasts together. Sam, anything you'd like to end on? Well, I said earlier, I got my Clio
MOT'd. Yes, finally. So I'm really happy about that. But I have some car buying, I might sell
the Mazda. And I've got some updates on that. But I'll hold that for another pod. Maybe that's
one. Yeah, we'll find out next time when I see you next Tuesday.
About this episode
Manthey’s 911 GT3 gets a deep dive for turning an already serious car into something even more track-biased, with huge aero gains, chassis tweaks, and a price that quickly spirals once options are added. The conversation then moves to the Toyota GR Corolla, where the hosts praise its playful track manners, question why Toyota won’t sell it in the UK, and compare it with the GR Yaris. They finish by sketching out a £50k two-car garage and debating how car image changes over time.
The latest Manthey kit for the Porsche 992.2 911 GT3 costs £56k — but brings serious aero, chassis upgrades and a six-second Nürburgring gain. Is it worth it?
We also ask why the Toyota GR Corolla still isn’t confirmed for the UK, despite now being built in Britain.
Plus: a £50k two-car garage challenge (Highlands + practical), and a debate on great cars ruined by their image — from BMW M140i to Audi RS3.
🏎️ Sell your car on PistonHeads auctions: https://www.pistonheads.com/sell/auctions
🎟️ Get your Annual Service 2026 tickets: https://www.pistonheads.com/events/annual-service
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:09 Porsche 911 GT3 Manthey review
13:22 Toyota GR Corolla UK review
33:30 £50k 2 car garage
48:10 Great cars ruined by the image of their drivers
