Mike Fernie: Top Gear Was Fined £35,000 for This! | EP51

It's a rumour, but I've heard from a few people the same rumour, so I'm like, I think it's correct.

Volkswagen ended up with £35,000 of speeding fines after that trip.

Wow.

Because Ben was caught doing, like, north of 200 numerous times.

Wow.

And the accumulative fines that ended up, and Volkswagen just, you know, shoved them on it.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Talking Shot.

Today we are joined by Mike Fernie.

Hello.

So please make sure to like, comment, subscribe, and let us know who you are until next time.

A little bit of a warm-up question for you.

What does success mean to you?

Oh, I have a slightly lame answer to that, which is kind of the reason I got into doing car stuff.

I was studying to be an engineer before, and basically I just sat down one day and was like,

right, what will I wake up in the morning and just be happy to do?

Like, Elon was not seeing like a job.

I will just be more than happy to open my laptop and just crack on till midnight.

Yeah.

So I think that is what I would deem as success.

The fact that I can, you know, work at home now, open my laptop and just write a script all day,

do loads of research, and I'm just having the time of my life.

It's stuff I would do for free.

It's stuff I did do for free right at the start.

I think that is my sort of key to happiness.

That was a really modest way of saying that you have a master's in engineering as well, by the way.

I was studying to be an engineer.

Well, no, I'm a failed engineer.

I've got a bit paper.

I've gone on a shelf somewhere.

You've got to say that just in case anybody else.

And I've got lots of friends who were on my course who have gone on to be like some of the stuff,

you know, it's that serious that they can't really talk to me about it.

Yeah, some of the guys like chemical weapons and it's just absolutely mental.

Is that maybe then the angle of where you're going now?

Is that engineering side of things then?

Yeah, it's kind of always been, I started off my sort of little break in car journalism

was with Carthrottle, who Alex Gerstin, all to Alex.

I basically stood out versus all the other interns that were applying

because I had that engineering background.

So immediately that just gives you that half step above other people applying

that you've got that education specifically in something that can be applied to cars.

So from the start, I was writing articles about how stuff on cars worked,

simplistic stuff like literally internal combustion, diesel versus petrol,

that sort of thing, and it's just kind of gone from there.

So I was a writer, I was a journalist, and then the demand for video

as I was going into journalism just went like that.

So immediately you had to be on screen, you had to be a face, and that's kind of where I ended up.

We'll cover some of the content because one of the videos I want to ask you about as well,

because I won't go there yet, just yet.

I don't know why, I thought it was super interesting, but I saw it, I was like, oh, that's amazing.

But briefly bring us up to speed for those who maybe haven't caught with Mike Ferney's content

over the last few months, briefly brings up speed with leaving DriveTribe.

Yeah, so I was head of video at DriveTribe.

Well, I was at DriveTribe for about eight and a half years,

head of video for the vast majority of that,

and that basically meant that I was coming up with a majority of the ideas,

planning the videos, scripting them, and in a lot of cases filming them as well.

But DriveTribe itself was owned by Clarkson Hammond in May.

It was their kind of social media platform,

probably had Amazon as their sort of television side of things.

So they were essentially the bosses.

At some point during DriveTribe, Richard Hammond bought the other two out,

so he became like the sole boss,

and I'd say that was the real sort of glory day of the DriveTribe YouTube channel

when we had that like singular boss,

and it was me, my colleague Lucy and Dave,

a very small team with Richard blasting out videos.

And then, yeah, last year I decided that it was time to kind of make a move,

do my own thing, and start my own channel.

And yeah, so that started in November.

November the 4th was when the first video went out.

And yeah, it's going very well.

I'm very happy with the decision.

It was scary as hell, considering like almost a decade spent at DriveTribe

and kind of moving out from under Richard.

It was quite a scary thing to do,

but yeah, I'm now very glad that I've done it.

And yeah, I'm very happy with how the new channel's performing.

Yeah, nice, well done and congratulations.

Thank you, absolutely, yeah, that's it.

Smashing it straight away, straight off the block.

Yeah, I had lots of debates before I resigned at DriveTribe.

I had lots of chats with my other YouTuber pals about how this could go,

and lots of people had very different answers.

I would say Tavaarish was up the top end where he was like,

you're going to absolutely annihilate it.

You're going to be making this ridiculous amount in your first year.

You should have done it yesterday, like what are you doing, quit now.

And then I've had others that were a bit more measured.

They're like, okay, well, it could be the move.

There could be this, there could be that, but be a wee bit careful.

And then plenty between those as well.

So I had lots of different sort of research chats with them

about what sponsorships would look like, what ad revenue would look like.

And having ran the DriveTribe channel,

I kind of had a gauge of how many views equals how many pounds,

what sponsorships looks like for a channel of that size,

and then shrinking that down to what I thought I would achieve.

But yeah, my aim was by January 1st, I'd have 100,000 subscribers.

And I think it took like three videos and like four weeks,

three, four weeks to hit that.

Which is the case, everyone that leaves a big channel,

I feel like they always underestimate how it's going to do.

I know Alex, especially he was happy with like 10,000 subs or something

after a few months and he'd hit 300K in like 10 days or something.

It was just ridiculous.

And he talks about how overwhelming that was

to the point where I can't do this anymore.

What was your reaction of the sort of the quick success really?

Was it a similar thing or?

Well, not to be arrogant, but I kind of, I'd listened to your podcast

and listened to all the other podcasts where Alex is sat in

and said all those things.

So I had that in my mind being like,

okay, everyone underestimates it.

So don't be that guy, think a bit punchier.

But to have hit it in like two and a half, three weeks,

still kind of blew my mind because, you know,

you come from that three million subscribers at Drive Tribe,

you're constantly asking how,

what percentage of that is going to come over

and no one could really answer it.

But now we know, so there you go.

You have Richard's sort of support in doing what you did.

Was he quite happy with you making the move?

Yeah, I think it was a surprise

and he was initially like quite sad that it was happening,

but I would say very quickly he turned

and it was super positive from then on.

He made, I think he had some inkling

that some channel split ups had gone very badly elsewhere

and therefore he wanted this one to be done properly.

So straight away he was like,

right, let's get a leaving video sorted.

Let's make it something cool.

We'll chat it fully through to the audience.

So hopefully, if other people are going to make that move,

we're kind of like a sort of example

or template of how to do it professionally and properly.

Yeah, it can be done.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, the other ones that you look at Donut, Alex,

I mean, they're not particularly nasty,

but like you can tell it wasn't done,

the company side of things, they didn't do it great.

They still had a lot of pity and awkwardness.

Yeah, and it just means the audience

is going to be very one-sided.

Well, now it's not like my audience are pating on Drive Tribe.

They're almost certainly still watching

all the Izzy and Richard content going on there.

So it's kind of paid dividends the way we did it.

Yeah, and it's open now to collaboration as well.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

You know, to do that video and yeah,

we very much spoke about cameos, road trips,

anything that comes up that makes sense to have me along

in some old British Rover.

Yeah, I'll be there.

Which is actually quite conscious of,

you are a fan of old Rovers and whatever.

Yes, lovely little triumph.

Well, yeah.

So that is mine and Ben's dad.

Okay, cool.

It's company overspill storage,

you know, just storage for the company.

But yeah, he likes anything old British Leyland.

There's a Rover sign on the wall as well.

The first thing I saw when I came in.

Yeah, X Rover,

many, many, many years ago from school,

Rover Mechanic from school,

and then sort of done what he's done in business to where it is now.

But yeah, anything like that,

Triumpha Clones, SD1s,

old Cavaliers,

anything like that, that's him.

I can sort of relate on the sort of,

the classic car sort of knowledge there really.

But yeah, they're just are,

just honest and easy to work on and, you know,

yeah, character that I think has been lost over the years.

Yeah, I feel like I'm very much the sort of MG Rover champion

on the internet.

Which is, it was actually quite cool.

MG asked me to do a little sort of

online commercial thing for them recently

because they've essentially Googled

which YouTubers do MG stuff.

Yeah, exactly.

I dragged Ben Collins along to it as well.

But no, that was actually a pretty surreal moment

to be sitting filming for MG.

That's very cool.

Yeah, I'll say it's a brand that's just come back out of.

Yeah, they're doing very well.

Yeah, yeah, sure.

So on the video that I was going to be,

it's the cat side video.

Everyone's going to think,

especially you guys are sure.

What?

But there is actually like, it's really cool.

You say that.

Yeah.

The amount of people I've come up to be,

and I don't know whether to take this badly or not,

they come up to me and say,

do you know what?

I actually watched that one.

Yeah.

And I'm like, right, okay.

So he don't clearly watch anything else.

I relate it to it straight away when you release to it.

And I don't know why.

I just remember being in the car as a kid.

I was in my dad's big car fan as well.

And he was obviously telling me,

they're sort of like,

how ingenious cat size are really considering

and the guy who invented them or whatever.

And they are, they're really cool.

Do you know what?

I'm annoyed.

I've got up too early this morning,

so I forgot to bloody do it,

but I was going to bring the cat size

and like hand it right.

It's in the back of my other car.

Yeah.

That's been weirdly by number one video.

You know, I'm thinking engineering car engines,

even my I've left drive tribe,

like YouTube drama video.

Like this cat size is just punted way above it.

It's basically the reflector has done really well.

Yeah.

But I think that's, it's a, it's a cool thing,

but it's also quite scary because how do I,

I, that's a video that could have done 20,000 views,

but it's now done, you know, five 50 or whatever it is.

So it's one of those where it's like, you're right.

It's a knife edge, whether that's too niche and too boring.

Cause as you say, just a cat size.

But if you get the framing right title and thumbnail,

it can go nuts because I feel like for, for my side of things,

the best YouTube videos, they're, they're niche,

but they're also mainstream.

So it's a something, a bit of engineering that everyone knows about

and everyone sees every single day,

but no one's bothered to go that nerd day and do a bit of content about it.

I feel like that's the sweet spot.

Yeah.

But then, you know, people say, oh, we'll do a follow up about traffic lights.

And it's like, no, they're not interested.

Yeah.

But I've started thinking about potentially like different road barriers.

Like there's some that can take like a 200 mile an hour hit from an HGV

and others that are literally designed to give way.

So like the, and how do you design something that could take that big a hit

or then something that she deliberately collapse.

So to me, this may be something there,

but trying to follow up cat's eye is going to be difficult.

Yeah.

Well, that was going to be one of the questions was,

is there another engineering marvel that you like as an engineer?

It doesn't even have to be something that you want to make content on.

It could be one that actually you think this would bomb.

Is there another one that you sleep on?

I've, so I do a bit of YouTube consultancy for other channels.

And one of them is a World War Two channel.

And that has got me going down so many fricking rabbit holes

of different engineering that happened during the war

because war is the best thing to accelerate engineering.

So I would love to get stuck into especially some of the German stuff

because they were just nuts.

But I, I don't know how that would go down.

It might completely bomb.

Moving away from cars and doing, for example,

a plane say like an ME 262 like first jet fighter.

Would that just absolutely 10 of 10 on the YouTube charges?

Or would it do really well?

I don't know.

The only thing with that plane is, I don't know why,

but there's like viral memes of like the Americans described.

That was at Mesha Smith.

That's right.

Have you seen that video?

What the hell was that?

I don't know if that's the, I don't know.

I'm not sure.

But I would, yes, the Airbus made their own.

They've made like a brand new ME 262 came over to the UK a couple of years ago.

And we were actually going to, this is actually a weird one.

We were going to film that.

DriveTripe had a non-car channel called What Next?

It used to be called Food Tripe.

And that's where James May would make his sandwiches and these horrific

wartime meals that he would love making.

That then transitioned into What Next with that premise being,

well, what the hell next is going to come on the channel.

It could be basically anything we're into, we'll go and do it.

My biggest video on that was about a nuclear bunker up in Scotland.

And we put that out just as Oppenheimer, the movie came out.

And that went and did like a million views.

Talk about how this nuclear bunker works and how atom bombs and hydrogen bombs work.

So that was a lovely, almost like pressure release from car stuff,

just doing something else.

And for it to perform that well, it was like, okay, we get this right.

Kind of like Cat's Eye.

You just stumble upon a way to thumbnail and title that concept.

People will watch it.

So yes, my follow-up to that was going to be an ME262 because we were going to go to the air show that

this new Airbus version was coming over, but it landed.

So it's at this air base that's shared by the British Army and the US Army.

And this ME262 lands and it's supposed to turn left and go into the British hangar

so that all the British media can come and film it.

But this pilot just, you know, either doesn't get directed or just thinks,

oh, no one's telling me which one to go in.

He takes a right and goes into the US hangar.

And once it's in there, I mean, it's in there and this is a proper area.

So we're talking B2s, F this, F that, fighter jets in there.

These things are like fully, because of the finish on a, I need to get my, yes, an F35.

The finish on an F35 jet, it's like a special matte finish that has to be temperature controlled.

So these hangars are like fully hermetically sealed for these jets to sit there.

So once this 262 was in there, that was it.

Like no one, no one could, you know, we had full camera crew there, whole news crews and everything.

You know, it was a proper, everyone was waiting for this plane to come in.

The first time anyone had seen one and it buggers off into their own body.

I would love to know what the pilot's reaction was.

Well, he probably did give a shit. He went and had his lunch.

But the thing is that plane exists.

So I feel like I've got, I've got a revenge to, to partake on that, on that plane.

So I'd quite liked it.

It's in Germany somewhere. I'd like to go and do that.

But who knows how that would perform.

If it would perform great, I'd love it.

And I would then branch out and be a bit more, I don't know if you followed or followed.

He's kind of stopped doing YouTube, the Tom Scott stuff he used to do.

He would literally just, if something he found interesting, he would just go and do it.

So frickin, there was, there was one device.

It's, there's actually one of the smallest cog.

He would do a video about, it's almost like a compressed air gun that French farmers,

this is super random, French farmers would fire compressed air at hail clouds

so that it didn't ruin the crops.

There's one of them outside Richard's workshop for whatever reason.

So, you know, he would just do a video about that.

Because again, like no one knows anything about that.

But everyone knows, like a hail cloud, everyone understands that.

So if you can get, like, if you can get a good amount of views,

if you can, if a video can do very well of you just reacting to loads of rants,

you're winning really, aren't you?

Because then you literally get to do whatever you want.

Yeah, it would literally be like, okay, what are we filming this week?

It's like, okay, well, I'm just going to go on Google Maps

and just have a look for about an hour or so.

And just if I come across something I find cool, we'll just go to it and film it.

Freaking, I don't know, I like a stone circle, I like a Neolithic tomb, all that stuff.

I'd absolutely love to, but the chances of it actually performing are crazy.

I think on that engineering angle though, I think you've got the potential for that actually to do very well as well.

Because I think that's the content that people actually want to see.

They want to see something a bit different than, you know, the people who love car content, but, you know, stuff like that.

Well, yeah, like, I don't know, like, I know where the, you know, the Grand Tour, the French special, the Trebuchet car.

Like, I know where that Trebuchet is because I know who made it.

So like, although it would actually have a slight car connection because in the title I could put Grand Tour, you know,

would a video on a Trebuchet, how a Trebuchet works?

I don't know, is that 8,000 views or is that 800,000 views?

Well, if I'm going to find out.

Well, I don't know.

I guess now by myself I can take those risks, but also it's all on me if it goes wrong.

I would almost love to know sometimes, and you might have a bit more insight into it,

what the French car manufacturers, particularly Peugeot, actually think to those three,

because obviously, well, they didn't have lots of nice things to say about them.

But then again, don't they say, you know, all publicity is good, but there's nothing as bad publicity.

So people still bought them.

Yes.

People were still buying them.

Well, there's a story behind the Peugeot situation where they kind of made their own bed

because they wanted a specific Peugeot for one of the shows.

And Peugeot said no, because I think they knew they'd pan it.

And of course, to someone like Clarkson, that's red rag to a pool.

So they then just, you know, filmed that entire fucking episode on how bad the Peugeot was.

So I think, you know, they could have been smarter with their PR in that aspect.

But no, I think in terms of PR, I think if you're on Top Gear, I think it's overall a good thing.

I don't think there was too many people.

Apart from Elon Musk, he kicked off about the Tesla Roadster thing.

But, you know, Kearnig's egg, I would say the best thing that happened to them was Ben putting it in the tyre wall.

Same with Remak on the Grand Tour.

I think that in terms of PR thing, it didn't get much better frankly than Richard got off the side of that cliff.

Absolutely.

So it's, yeah, I'd say overall, in some extreme circumstances, I think overall there's no such thing as bad publicity on Top Gear anyway.

No, no, no.

It was comedy.

It was like TV, you know, gold as well, wasn't it?

That episode, it was just hilarious.

Oh, so funny.

I like what they did in later days with the specials.

They liked the French one that you mentioned there because, you know, it just, I don't know, different angle perspective of, you know, French cars or just, I just liked that later age as well.

Yeah.

And I don't know which way they're going to go now.

I don't know if they're going to go, I think we'd know if they were going audience based again.

I think we would know that people had gone to a tent because I think they've almost finished filming at all.

Not sure.

But just the amount of time that's elapsed, I feel like they've, they must have cracked on most of it.

And I think we'd know if there was audiences involved by now.

Yeah.

So I think it is going to be specials from there on in, which I think is the call.

Yeah.

Quite looking forward to see that angle.

So am I.

Because I thought I'd watch their own channel, but then adding the three of them together, let's see on that because that could be quite, you know, quite different.

It's interesting that Francis is, he's doing like other TV stuff, like he's got a couple of Channel 4 shows.

So he's already, it's not like it's suddenly going to be Francis in his first television show and it's the Grand Tour.

He's actually had like a few warm-ups.

He's doing stuff with Chris Harris.

He's doing like a train show on Channel 4 with Chris.

So it'd be interesting to see how that comes out and how that, how him and Chris compares to him in the throttle house voice.

Although still, I mean, Amazon, unless I've missed anything, Amazon has still not officially said that those three are the Grand Tour hosts.

Everyone knows that it's a fact.

Every tabloid's covered it, but I still don't think Amazon have said, here's your next three Grand Tour presenter.

Interesting.

Which again, is that clever marketing again?

You know, are they cleverly doing that by putting information out there?

Relique it.

See everybody's reaction and then come out with three completely different ones.

This was all rubbish.

Do you know what, they've got the money that they could make the entire series and then be like, do you know what?

Don't fancy this.

And then that's that.

Maybe that's why they haven't announced it.

I hope not.

I'd really like to see it.

Is the Francis Bourgeois, is that, is it a character?

It's got to be.

I've never met him, but I've been told that, yes, there's videos of him on the internet like five or six years ago, pre-train, you know, cranking out.

He's much less animators.

It's very funny.

And it's actually quite funny just to see somebody's passion for something.

If it is indeed an actual true passion, which I imagine it is because that's a whole lot of effort to go through all of that.

Yes.

Just to develop a character.

But he seems to have got Chris Harrison to trains too, which feels a dangerous combination.

Chris, he goes, he gets pretty damn nerd as well.

So to apply his car nerd stuff directly to trains, it's a whole new door over there.

Oh yeah.

I don't know if it was from the show, but I did see a clip of them in the convertible.

I don't know what it was.

Ah.

Chasing a train.

Alongside it.

Absolutely.

That was a nice car.

DTM.

One of the special edition ones.

Yeah, it was.

Yeah, you're right.

You're right.

Yeah, that's some video, isn't it?

Yeah.

All yet to be revealed.

Is there anything you would do, you've had like a month now and what are we on now?

You've not even really had a month of making content, I suppose.

Have you really?

Or like since you've released it or just over?

I've got my ten-up plugs now.

So I've got my sort of YouTube.

Yeah.

If people know YouTube, there's, within studio, you have a ranking at ten.

I've now officially got that.

So it's quite nice to sort of compare against.

So is there anything you would say to yourself?

Is there any bit of advice that you would have given yourself now knowing what you know

to day one, just left drive, tribe?

I've had a bit of feedback saying you're doing too many engines.

Can we see some cars?

But my content thus far has been very engine focused, apart from the cats.

I've not done too much.

I've done a wee bit on my ZR pot hatch, but I've not done a hell of a lot on just like

car reviewing or kind of my main thing was kind of top gear nostalgia cars.

So like a drive tribe, we did stuff with Veyrons and Ferraris and yeah,

all those sort of iconic top gear your cars.

So I would like to tap more into that, but I think when you're an individual,

it's suddenly much harder because people are, you know,

when someone asks about insurance and when someone asks about liability,

you've not got that bedding that a company has.

You've got that kind of backing behind you.

So it's stuff that I will definitely figure out, but right now,

you know, finding an engine on a river bank and dragging out with a tractor.

That's no worries.

It's getting decent views.

People say too much engine stuff and I'm like, well, people are watching it.

So like I understand it has been very enginey and I am looking to kind of move it.

But at the same time, the formula thus far has to mean good.

Like if you were to say to me on first like November 4th channel goes live,

you would say to me that every single upload will get a six figure and you count.

I would have absolutely grabbed your hand.

So I remember Chang with the auto Alex guys and like they were right in the middle.

They were saying they reckon my channel would be somewhere between 70 and 120,000 views.

And then we sort of worked out the commercials off the back of that.

And that's where the predictions came from.

But I've kind of absolutely obliterated that.

I think my worst performing videos like 102 up all the way up to Katzai at like five.

I think it's 560 now.

So yeah, like I'm absolutely buzzing with that.

So in terms of like, would I go back and give me some advice?

I don't think so.

I think I've I'm quite happy with like the template of it thus far.

I do want to be a bit more adventurous and I want to be seen to be doing stuff like

like that engine video of saying the factory that's building to go into EVs.

That was in Spain.

So I'd like showing the audience that I'm willing to go to Spain and go to Germany.

And I've got a video coming out of the world in Amsterdam.

Like those are videos where in the corporate fold and accountants looking at oh wait,

you've got flights here, you've got accommodation, you've got fuel,

you've got luggage costs, all this and that shoot can very quickly get shut down.

Well now I can be like, no, no, I'm more than happy to invest that money.

And just to be seen to be, no, not just standing in my usual scrapyard at Swallows doing videos.

Also like going out there rolling the dice and seeing what's happening.

So I'd like to get up to Scotland actually and do some stuff in the islands

because not enough people film up there.

Wales is too easy to get to.

Get up to Scotland and film up there.

But again, the investment has to go into that.

It's pretty punchy, especially when you're on your own.

But for me, it's just, it's the kind of the vibe I want to give off.

Yeah.

I think that come across well when you took the Subaru from DriveTribe up to the Isle of Arran as well.

Oh my God.

That's my favourite.

That's it.

I mean, I think that the whole picture come together, the car, the roads, the atmosphere.

Yeah.

That's what people want to see.

Yeah.

I think the Isle of Arran is Scotland's Isle of Man because it's got that,

it's got an entire ring road right around it.

So you can do a lap.

I do have a time.

I'm not going to say what my time is because then you can quickly work out.

I did it in a Civic Type R and it was absolutely mega.

But yeah, it's a beautiful island and it's a bit further to go than Isle of Man.

But I feel like that should be a bit more of a sort of petrolhead pilgrimage that place.

They've just redone the roads, all the potholes are gone.

And yeah, I'm heading back there in August.

I'm just having a holiday.

I might do some filming.

Yeah.

Just making a night like this.

Do you know what?

I've been to Scotland, I was lucky enough a couple of years ago to work a lot up there.

And I remember every time coming back thinking, I don't want to go home.

It just feels quite literally a different country.

There's parts of it that are full on Forza Horizon.

You won't believe it.

I know what you mean.

You can go to different depths of the UK, but it's almost like you cross a line and go,

this is completely different.

Absolutely.

And what you say, I mean, there literally is a Highland Fault and what's really cool

about Arran is that Fault, it comes diagonally through Scotland and it goes through the Isle

of Arran.

So the south of the island is quite lowland, farmland, drystone walls, very Forza Horizon.

And then you drive 10 minutes up to the top of the island and it's massive mountains,

golden eagles, deer.

It's an amazing place.

They call it Scotland Adminature.

It's just kind of got everything in one.

It's beautiful.

And incredible roads as well.

And no potholes.

I'm going.

Yeah.

Get yourself a Subaru Impressa.

Just go.

You will be Colin McRae for the day.

That's it.

Well, for about five minutes until I've been it.

Funnily enough, we did have, obviously, Ben Collins on.

And yeah, it's not one of my highlights being called a shit driver by the stick.

He is.

Yeah.

I'm quite proudly with Ben.

And yeah, he's very upfront.

If he thinks that he will say it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

He's funny.

I love filming with him because we have a great chat between the two of us, but also,

he's super easy to weird out.

He's like, I, in two seconds, I can get him sort of squirming and not really doing what

to say.

And I absolutely love putting him in that position.

So yeah, I do know what, get me and Ben on a sofa together.

And you'll see constantly just make him not know what to do or say.

Can you say that?

So let's put it in the diary.

100%.

We'll talk about his XJ220 as well.

We were just talking about that.

That's beautiful, isn't it?

I can't believe, I actually thought they were going to be way more than what they, what

I got out to like have a look at it.

We were literally, we were on the way back from, we did a shoot for a drive drive that

was visiting as many top gear locations as we could in one day.

It's like a top gear road trip.

We were on the way back from that and we just got chatting and he was saying how much he

liked the Bugatti E-B110.

I'm like, God, I don't know.

It's really heavy and they're like two, three million quid now.

The real loophole in 90s supercars.

I don't like that he calls it a hypercar.

It's a supercar.

90 supercars is the XJ220 and he's like, what do you mean?

That's an absolute bag of bolts.

It's a jag.

It'll break down.

I'm like, no, no.

McLaren F1, 20 million quid, F40, 2 million, E-B110, 2, 3, XJ220, 300 grand at that point.

They've gone a bit up since then.

You could actually get one, a higher mileage one for like 280 grand, which I know is a

lot of money, but relative, as I say, to those other, that family of 90 supercars,

it's almost a joke.

It's almost laughable.

Do you think that could be then the next Carrera GT, the F1?

Do you think in time that could?

I think Ben's bought a million quid car.

And I know he's paid a lot less than that for it.

It definitely has gone up since we chatted, which kind of immediately shows that it's

on the way.

But yeah, I think that's easily a million quid car in five, 10 years time.

And they're still out there.

There's still loads of dealerships that can't get rid of them.

So it's a funny anomaly, the 220.

I feel like the world's woken up to them, but then you still see them sitting around

in random dealerships that, you know, there's an Aston Martin dealership in Norfolk here.

I just all has Aston Martins and it's got the Silver X2 220 sitting there that hasn't

sold for like years.

And they're not asking a lot for it really.

What colours has Ben got?

What colour is it?

It's like a sort of charcoal grey, like a dark silver.

And it looks lovely compared to that sort of press car light silver.

It's really dark.

It's like, I love it.

I think he's done really well with it.

You could get a factory green one that for me would.

You can.

There was one, there was actually one at JLR that day was up the back of the, up the back

of the warehouse.

But actually I would say Ben's actually looked a bit better than the green one.

But yes, actually to me, this is general.

There's such great shape that virtually any colour I think looks, they look phenomenal.

Yeah.

It's so important.

Those engines are a transit.

They did.

Wow.

It's kind of the transit was the mule for the 220.

So it's not like they have for a joke.

They threw in it.

Actually, it was like secret testing for the 220.

Six senators.

Yeah.

V6 turbo.

If it had a V12, do you think it would be the two million, three million pound car?

Do you think that's why people have?

Well, the Jaguar XJR 15 kind of is that.

Yeah.

TWR made that thing.

But I can, I was going to say, I can tell you, not driven either car, but I've read

plenty of articles and the V12 manual XJR 15 is a significantly worse car.

Right.

Than the 220.

Okay.

That's actually the right choice.

Although everyone kicked off at the time.

I think the 220 is a much better car for the engine.

It's a much lighter, much more drivable.

And the naturally aspirated V12 will just have its limit.

Well, a turbo.

I mean, these people have eight, 900 horsepower through a 220.

Yeah.

Crazy.

Those engines are built.

So yeah.

I sort of argue against everyone that's like, oh, it's not the car.

It should have been.

Yes.

It's actually a better car than they initially set out to me.

That's it.

So good advice for everybody going by yourself on XJ22.

Well, I was just saying, maybe we should pull on.

Pull on money guys.

Come on.

Yeah.

If you've got the Dosh, it is a great buy.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's it.

It can't surely, it can't get any worse.

It's only going to appreciate.

Yes.

Surely.

The budget version of that, which I'm literally on my way up.

I was on the phone buying said car is the XJS.

The XJS.

I think it's about to do this.

Okay.

They have been 1500 quid hedge find cars for God knows how long, but the world is waking

up to them.

Now that TWR have done like their rest of mod one and people are just enjoying that

retro vibe.

Yeah.

The XJS.

Because it's just the shape of it.

It's so retro.

I think it's about to go nuts.

Not like Porsche 930 or anything like that.

But for what it is, I think that that car is an amazing investment right now.

Yeah.

And they're still just cheap enough.

Yeah.

I know.

I know that like ultimate villain, incredibly comfortable.

They're like armchair.

They're just amazing.

Amazing.

Not that I disagree with you or agree with you on it, but just interesting.

What do you think makes the XJ220 like not a hypercar?

Why would you say it's not in that category?

Because it's quite weird.

You asked different people.

What is a hypercar?

That's it.

Answers different.

In my opinion, a hypercar didn't exist until the Veyron came along.

Yeah.

There was just different levels of supercar.

And then people are like, well, what's the first supercar?

And that's a hellish thing.

Because everyone's like, oh, it's the Mura.

And you're like, well, no, it could easily be the SL 300 Gullwing.

Or you could even further it.

It could be a Jag XJ120 because that was the kind of Veyron of its day.

It's like, where does it end?

But for me, hypercar, the definitive as Clarkson Poutier calls it a concord moment was the

Veyron coming along.

Yeah.

So to me, 217 miles an hour.

It was the fastest car in the world at the time, the 220 for like a month before the McLaren F1 came up.

For me, the closest thing to hypercar of that level was the F1.

Yeah.

Because suddenly you're doing 240.

And you're like, ah, OK.

This is a completely different level of performance to EB110 220 F.

I mean, the F40 barely broke 200 miles an hour.

It's been going to come out and say that that's not hypercar at all.

So in my opinion, it's very rooted as supercar.

And then Veyron up.

Yeah.

I remember being at primary school and we were in the queue, waiting to get into the

classroom for whatever reason, I imagine a lesson.

And I was talking about hypercars and one of my friends at the time, we had a massive

argument because he was like, there's no such thing as a hypercar.

And it must have obviously went roughly when the Bugatti Veyron came out.

And obviously I was livid.

I was like, no, no, there is.

You know, if you don't watch Top Gear, what's wrong with you, man?

There's just such a thing as a hypercar.

And he was like trying to embarrass me in front of everyone, my friends or whatever.

There's no such thing as hypercars.

So I swore at him and said, there actually is.

And just as the teachers come up behind me and I spent three days in detention for

swearing and I was devastated.

I went home, Tom and Dan, everything like, I'm in detention for being right.

And I was absolutely livid.

Defending the hypercars.

What are you talking about?

Yeah.

That is the thing that's ever changing because now a baby Ferrari, it's got a thousand horsepower

and no problem.

But then years ago, the Veyron had a thousand horsepower and that was a hypercar.

So now I think the supercar, hypercar classification is so borderline, isn't it?

I mean, is that the Yang Wang, whatever, whatever?

Is that a hypercar?

Yeah.

It has to be.

Two thousand horsepower?

Three hundred and eight miles an hour.

I'm like, it has to be.

That would be, but then, yeah, it's crazy.

Crazy world we're in.

But for me, the Veyron is still the king.

I'd have a Veyron over a Chiron over this tourbillon thing coming out.

I drove one last year with Tri-Tribe and it's just, it is, for me, the sort of god of cars.

It doesn't get any better than that.

I'm going to sound like a real weirdo here, but in terms of value for money, I know, I

know a million pounds isn't value for money, but if you compare that to a Chiron to a newer

hypercar, because actually, again, I think weirdly, a Veyron's a great buy right now.

They're 1.2 million.

Yeah, just buy it.

Mark McCann recently bought that for this tourney too.

But I was watching it thinking, go on, mate.

I think making a great decision.

Yeah, surely even if he goes to Bugatti to do the repair, surely he still quits in with

what he's bought that for.

I know they were talking like 300 grand for the gearbox, which is insane, but it's a

worst case scenario the gearbox has gone.

I'm not sure what a Minter Veyron is.

Was it 1.6 was like, because I watched all of them with intensity clearly.

The cheapest one he found was 1.65, and I think the majority of the special edition

ones were like 2 mil plus.

The cars were like 1.5, 1.6, all the way up to like 2.

Yeah, 2 didn't he?

His old one and the black one, which by the way, it's only five minutes on the road there.

Really?

Yes.

He's in Moira, just cool.

He's just here.

But that's, I mean, Carrera GTs are that now.

So that to me, that's a good debate, especially for like top year generation folk like Carrera

GT or Veyron.

Because Carrera GTs, I mean Ben says that's the best car I ever drove around the track

and so many people have that V10.

For me, it's up there with the 220.

And a manual.

Would you have a Veyron?

Because very different cars.

Very well.

Just for that wow factor.

I actually, I'm going to be super controversial here.

I look at them.

I love them obviously.

When I was a kid, it was like, whoa.

The CGT or the Veyron?

The Veyron.

And looks wise, I'm a bit like weird.

It's like a, it's like a Beatles shape.

Like I just find the shapes weird.

You just call them Veyron.

I'm sorry.

They're incredible.

Some people think it's ugly.

You're not alone.

Yeah, I don't.

Yeah, no.

And yeah, I do.

And then I just feel like for such a car that has so much class,

especially like interior,

like they were built to be 250 mile an hour,

Bentley's really weren't they?

They're huge.

That's exactly what it felt like to drive.

Yeah.

It felt like a ridiculously powerful continental GT.

Yeah.

But then they go and put Chrome.

Who's in charge of this?

Can we get my Veyron video on?

It's a drivetrape bomb,

but I'm sure they'll be fine with that.

Yeah, there you go.

It's a drivetrape dailying,

I'd daily the Veyron.

I think that's what the title is called.

It's a beautiful white car.

And I don't know,

I just feel like maybe I'm not saying they should go down

like the Ferrari extreme of,

wow, you've put Chrome on our car,

we're suing you into the ground.

But I just feel like what you can get Veyrons with Chrome,

like paint, but it's just straight.

I don't know.

So that's why I'm a bit like I would go,

but are you joking?

If there was a choice tomorrow,

I'd be like, I don't care,

whichever one you want to give me.

I'll drive pink Veyron, never mind the Chrome.

Yeah, literally, yeah.

Look at that.

So it was furlongers one,

and it's all white.

Yeah, incredible.

Now that amazing,

it's just when they put...

Yeah, get that full screen.

Oh, look at that.

EV 110 and other Veyron.

Furlonger are the boys when it comes to this now.

Mark's one's gone straight there.

Yeah, Mark,

you was talking about how,

yeah, if you take the Bugatti,

you'd be paying thousands and thousands of thousands,

but they're like, I'm going to win it.

We can do this.

There's me servicing one.

Yeah.

Maybe they allowed me to do an air filter

and a little oil change on it.

Is that the only thing that you can do

without having to take the whole car apart pretty much?

Yeah, what?

Because it's something like,

you do have to split the car in half

to get the gearbox out.

I think that's why it's...

Yeah, for clutch change and all that stuff.

I'm trying to remember the number.

I think there's 13 drain plugs

for all the oil.

What?

Ridiculous capacity of oil in it.

Yeah.

10 radiators.

It was just, it was such a cool car.

I can't believe I was like,

I was like, out in it.

The rules were,

one of the guys had to be in with me,

but to say I've driven a Bugatti Veyron,

14-year-old Mike watching that special

on the top gears, freaking out.

Can you imagine Clarkson back in the day, though,

being given the key to this Concorde, basically.

Been driving it across Europe,

racing the others.

Yeah, and then Ben Collins drives it back

for all the shots.

What a job.

I know.

Can you imagine at the time thinking,

this is unbelievable.

I've got the keys to this thing.

I can drive it thousands of miles.

Yeah.

I don't know whether he said,

but Volkswagen, it's a rumour,

but I've heard from a few people the same rumour,

so I'm like, I think it's correct.

Volkswagen ended up with 35,000 pounds

of speeding fines after that trip.

Wow.

Because Ben was caught doing,

like, north of 200 numerous times.

Wow.

And the accumulative fines that ended up,

and Volkswagen just, you know,

shoved them on.

They should have.

He was driving none of them.

The hell out of that,

because that would have been incredible.

This dig drives,

but you get worlds fastest car

home from Europe,

ends up with 30,000, like that.

I think it was 56 tickets.

Wow, incredible.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Maybe it was just like,

well, I'm not coming back in it.

You know,

people actually go on a European road trip

and then go, well,

as long as they don't bring this car back,

I should be okay.

Well, I gather the Bugatti engineers were like,

why are you not,

why are you driving it at 70?

Like, what are you doing?

Yeah.

And they're just like, oh, okay then.

Okay.

And they just, you know,

you get like some of the camera boys in

when they weren't filming

and be like, right,

230 down the Autobahn,

just for a laugh.

Absolutely.

What a moment.

Yeah.

It is exactly Concorde moment.

Speaking of the career GTs,

I didn't Mark McCann buy two,

didn't he like import two from America,

sat on them from it?

Did obviously make a lot of money,

but then I'm pretty sure like,

I swear to Mark,

he then sold them and then like,

couple of months afterwards,

they skyrocketed again

and like doubled in value.

I've got a feeling they were career GTs.

Yeah.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah.

That's what I'm saying.

I swear he'd like bought a couple of them,

probably made a couple of hundred thousand.

And then I swear like,

I want to say like he sold them

to like 600 K a pop or whatever.

And then obviously then they skyrocketed

to a million plus after we.

I'd love to know where they bottomed out.

So I feel like they went south of like 300 grand.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

I'm pretty sure knew they were like 330.

Yeah.

I'll say inflation and stuff.

Yeah.

But I'd love to know where they bottomed out.

I'd also love to know where they're on bottomed out.

They definitely went sub a mil.

They were like 800 K.

I can remember them.

A few years ago.

Seeing them like 850, 875.

I believe when the Sharon came out,

surely like maybe when the Sharon came out,

it sort of like dropped the value.

But now people are probably thinking,

actually that is a better car,

as you say, you know,

could be a better car.

So therefore,

actually the values are going back up now.

So that's the,

that is the car world, isn't it?

You know, it just takes another car to come out.

People realise actually the old one was the better one.

And here we are.

There it is inside.

Look, there you go.

Literally like you're saying,

it's like a Bentley.

Yeah.

Continental.

There's the insurance policy.

Brilliant.

Yeah.

So yeah, we took it,

we took it for a food shop to Sainsbury's.

Wow.

We took it to Halfords

for some just car bits and pieces.

And then we took it to a garden centre.

So it's that drivable then.

Like it's.

Oh God, yeah.

It's automatic.

But the paddle shifts actually quite good.

Cause it was like early dual clutch.

Okay.

The Volkswagen almost used it.

It's like a bit of a test bed for their DSG

that came afterwards.

Yeah.

So it's,

it's incredibly drivable.

There's no storage space.

So we struggled with some of our items.

Yes.

Not like that single R8,

single clutch R8 that we drove.

Same truck.

How iconic is that?

A bit of a car there.

And you know what I'm going to say,

but it just,

it hasn't aged.

No.

It doesn't look like,

it doesn't, what,

seven, eight car.

It's only screens in it.

Like that's the,

that's the thing that they try.

I want they,

didn't they try not to put screens in it.

So it didn't age

or aged better.

It's definitely not quite any.

Yeah.

Super amazing.

Amazing.

We could just sit more.

Yeah.

I also almost wouldn't dare drive it just out of pure like,

and that's what I feel like.

When you get to a value of that,

and I'm sure people have got so much money that,

you know,

a Bugatti Veyron is nothing to them.

But for me,

it's just like,

how can you drive that on UK roads without just the

complete fear of just anything happens.

I would go for it.

Yeah.

I would daily the hell out of that thing.

If I could afford to run it,

which I did a video previous to this,

which was the servicing cost video.

I would totally daily that thing.

My attainable dream cars,

I'm Mark one manual,

Audi R8,

the V8 one.

Yeah.

And when,

when I get that,

which will hopefully be in the next year or so,

I will drive that absolutely everywhere.

Good on you.

Yeah.

Before we move on from Bugatti,

although we had literally do a whole podcast on Bugatti,

what do you think to the whole Matt Armstrong thing?

This American day trader or whatever it is,

just about everything in these 20s.

Yeah.

I saw a video in pushing the Bugatti with his M3.

Yeah.

Just I'm thinking.

Yeah.

And then he throws like a,

he doesn't need like crack the windscreen on it.

Like, yeah.

And then I did,

I did them follow on Instagram.

Who is this guy?

And I'm following him.

He's like, yeah,

I've just lost $600,000 this week,

but it's okay.

I'll make it back next week.

Yeah.

Like insane.

But anyway, yeah.

Go on.

What's the,

I guess I don't further it.

It kind of goes down that line of,

like right to repair and,

but there's a,

you know,

at a certain point you're talking about a car.

If it's,

it's a Chiron he's doing.

Yeah.

I mean, that's,

that's near enough for 300 mile an hour car.

I've,

You've got to get it right.

Yeah.

Not to say that Matt wouldn't.

He's very good at what he does,

but I think there's,

there's got to be a limit to that kind of thing

where it genuinely does become dangerous.

I remember watching that video where he went to go,

was it Dubai?

He went to get a 4GT

and he was talking about this chassis that had a puncture in it.

You know,

the carbon had a big thing.

And it's just like, no, like,

you can't do that.

Walk away from that.

Yeah.

I think it's a bit of a curse

of like amping up and up and up the cars they've been doing.

I feel like it wasn't long ago,

he was doing that Merchilago,

that green Merchilago.

And then next,

next minute,

like hyper cars are the standard.

Yeah.

You've got Tavares doing his thing as well.

So,

I dunno.

I'm not going to say

they absolutely shouldn't do it.

I'm not going to also say that I think Bugatti are completely wrong

with the stands they're taking.

To me,

Bugatti should use this as a really good PR opportunity

to find a happy medium

that both the company and the YouTubers are okay with.

But at the end of the day,

do Volkswagen give a crap?

Probably not.

I mean, actually, sorry,

is Bugatti out of Volkswagen now?

It's a key track.

Does Remak,

is that also still under the van group?

I've lost track these days.

I dunno.

Anyway, the high raps,

the C-level people,

do they actually give a crap?

Probably not.

It is Remak, isn't it?

It is the C-O.

And he's very social media conscious.

And you know,

there are a couple videos that kind of

is directly pointed at this issue,

which I think is very much the way to go,

but I do wonder whether they should

just be a wee bit more helpful

for content sake,

but making sure it's safe.

What about be a great PR thing

to go out,

send one of your best engineers

to go out there

and do a little bit of video on

some pointers where it's, you know,

could be potentially dangerous,

how to make it safe, et cetera.

What's wrong with that?

Like, yeah.

But I do wonder,

I imagine Bugatti would simply

just want to charge

for whatever work they do.

So say they allow Matt to do a certain point

and then Bugatti take over

and do the stuff that needs that safety aspect.

Like, that's probably a six figure sum

of labor and parts.

We need to do it that way because...

Yeah, so is that then the stopper?

Because then the YouTubers are like,

oh, well, you know, it's not a video.

If it's, oh, we repaired our Bugatti

with half a million pounds.

Because that's what it costs.

It's a bit like,

and I'm with you on that.

I'm like 50-50 on Bugatti, right?

This could have serious consequences.

And, you know, it should be repaired

with the very most

careful and safety

attitude towards it.

But then, yeah, of course,

everybody wants to see a Bugatti Sheeran

that was smashed to pieces,

now repaired in its former glory.

Like, everyone wants to see that.

So they should try and find a happy medium.

It could upset current customers

sort of thinking,

why am I paying that amount of money?

Well, no, because aren't they that rich

in the first plate?

You have a Bugatti.

Like, come on, get a grip.

Well, I was saying that,

the amount of people that bought Veyron

straight away when they came out

as like a bit of a sort of PR move,

but then immediately had to sell them.

T-Pain was one of the most famous ones

that, I think it was a red Veyron,

and he handed it in after a year,

because he's like, I cannot afford to service this thing.

So, you know, people use it

as a bit of a sort of Instagram clout,

but quickly realize the reality.

Love a trophy sort of thing.

They can afford the million and a half quid.

Great, but the 90 grand a year,

potentially, to keep the damn thing running.

It's almost like it's a multi-millionaires car,

until it goes wrong, then it's a billionaires car.

Yeah, pretty much.

But it's astronomical, the money in them,

incredible things,

but I have said this before,

like, you get to that sort of level of car,

and I'm just like,

it doesn't feel like it should be on the road anymore.

It's just too expensive to even...

Yes, crazy. Absolutely crazy to even comprehend.

I don't know, but how much...

Imagine that came past you the other way on the dual-carriageway.

You'd absolutely freak out.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

I've never seen one of them out there.

On the way home from the shoot,

an Enzo went past us the other way,

and I was like, oh, my God,

the hypercars are back.

It's happening, though.

But you always see them in the slow lane,

doing 50 miles an hour,

and the transit's overtaken.

No one ever believes me.

I swear to God, this is true.

I was in a village nearby here,

and I saw a super sport,

the black...

No one believes me.

Photo, I didn't know any dash cam.

I was on my own.

I tried to tell the stories of people.

Surely that came out of Tom's place then.

Well, I don't know, but no.

I think that car's up in Aberdeen now.

I think it's an oil car now.

Right, yeah.

100% swear to God, I saw this car,

but no one, nobody believes me.

I believe you.

Yeah, thank you.

You are the only one, but thank you.

Now, Talking Shot wouldn't be possible

without our title sponsor, Eclipse Diagnostics.

If you work on commercial vehicles,

vessels, or machinery, you need gel test.

The UK's leading multi-brand diagnostic tool from Eclipse.

Plug it in, run a scan,

and you'll get the OEM fault code,

the components linked to the issue,

and a clear step-by-step guide to fix it.

No head scratching, just results.

And it's not limited to one or two brands.

Gel test covers all manufacturers and models.

So whatever roles, sales, or shows up at your door,

you're covered.

It also goes beyond diagnostics

with dealer level functionality,

ECU programming, calibrations,

DPF regions, and loads more.

Plus a huge library of wiring diagrams,

repair manuals, and OEM technical data.

Tightening talks, reference measurements, the lot.

So you can get the job done right first time.

With Eclipse, you're backed by world-class technical support

when you need it most.

Enquire today and quote code,

talking sharp to get a free cable saver

with your diagnostic order.

Training at your premises also included.

Thanks Eclipse, now back to the show.

I got a good question on, you know,

speaking about like the ultimate of car brands

and cars in Bugatti.

Is there a brand of car being really controversial now?

To you that is a bit more like a,

what was the word we were saying?

It's like a status symbol.

That is like just, it's completely overrated,

doesn't live up to the name.

For you personally.

I think, I don't know,

it seems hard to say Bugatti,

but I can't remember the last time I saw Bugatti

kind of do anything.

I think like, you know,

the reviews back on the day on Top Gear,

like they did like them,

but I just wonder whether actually fundamentally

they are just a complete poser's car.

And whether they actually get driven in,

if they're any good,

once you actually drive them quite hard.

Imagine they're just a bit terrifying.

The big Lamborghinis,

the smaller Lamborghinis,

I think the Gardo and Huracan were fantastic cars.

That V10 and just that bit smaller were great,

but I feel Mercilago,

Aventador saying that,

what's the latest one called?

Revolto.

That's one like cars of the year and stuff.

So like fair play.

They've done a cracking job on that.

But to me, I've got no time for the Aventador.

I think the second I see one of them,

I'm like, okay, I want to be far away from that car.

I don't want to know who's driving it.

I don't want to go for a pass and you're riding.

Nope.

It does scream.

I'm not saying that this is what the owners actually are,

but the car does scream sometimes.

I don't know how to drive and I kill someone

and look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me.

But they sound.

I am guilty of some tunnel videos of Aventador.

I think also a bit further down the tree,

I feel like Mercedes,

like Merckx are quite a status symbol car

within that kind of BMW, Audi and Mercedes.

I don't think the Merckx are that great.

They're kind of big V8 boats like the AMG ones.

I would love like a CL500,

but I think comparing that to say,

even like an Audi like S car or an RS one

and then also like the BMW M cars,

I think the Merckx are just someone

that wants to drive about in the Mercedes

rather than actively wanting one of those cars.

You're right.

Always the most expensive.

Finish last in every drag race track event.

And yeah, it's a bit like.

The air suspension goes on a lot of them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Don't get me wrong.

Like V8s do sound incredible,

but yeah, yeah, I'm with you on that.

Well, you're watching, turning it sort of down the scale there,

but you see every drag race, you know,

your A45s, your Golf Rs, that sort of thing.

It's always the last one in a drag race, isn't it?

It's always, it's always not quite.

That's how we qualify every good or bad.

That's it, drag race.

That's it.

But no, but you're right.

It is more a case of, I've got to say this.

I haven't, you know,

it sounds better than I've got an Audi.

Also, I mean, looking back at again,

sort of Veyron era,

you have to be a certain person to want an SLR

over a Carrera GT or an Enzo.

And my God, have you mucked up in terms of value?

Because there's another one, actually,

that's very close to the XGT20.

SLRs are still six-figure cars.

Look at the other two.

They've just gone nuts.

So my God, if you had the choice of those three

and you chose the Merc, you have massively messed up.

It's just because I love that button on this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's just because of that.

The doors are cool as well.

I kind of respect anybody though,

who still has that SLR nowadays

and still sticks by it.

And like, even if it's completely false,

and he closes the door, everybody's laughing,

like cries every night.

The F1 that he turned down is now a 20-year-old.

I bet there will have been someone

that will have like traded,

because it was seen initially as the successor,

because it was like the McLaren car.

Imagine you traded your F1 in for an SLR.

My God.

You'd be kicking yourself out.

I think they're...

Are they half million quid for an SLR?

It might be less.

Yeah, I don't know these days,

but yeah, yeah, we could put it,

we could certainly put it on screen now.

But I bet you it can't be any more than that.

Mercedes SLR for sale UK.

I literally thought about it.

Mercedes SLR,

I have a feeling they might be 400 grand.

In which case,

I think that's another one where it's like,

if you don't like an XU 220,

grab one of their next best thing.

Well, if you don't like an XU 220,

what's wrong with that?

So between 250 and half a million,

apparently.

Yeah, there you go.

My God.

So one was recorded recently for 277,000 pounds

for a 2005 example.

Yeah.

Oh my, we need to...

Yeah.

We need to get out there and buy SLRs.

I think so.

So today, on the way out of here,

we'll buy an XJ 220.

Yeah.

And an SLR.

Let's go shopping.

Yes.

But you could buy both of them

and you've still got at least another two cars left

before you get to a Carrera GT.

That's it.

But in many years' time,

we could buy as many of our cars as we like.

Is someone hoarding SLRs somewhere?

Someone's sneaky.

Oh, come out of the woodwork one day.

Yeah.

Wow.

Another value.

Yeah.

There you go.

So back to...

We went slightly...

Well, I was going to say off-topic,

but cars are never off-topic.

I don't know.

Is it really?

But is there anything you've learned

with the actual content?

So the success and the recipe

to automotive content nowadays.

Obviously, Jeremy, Richard, James,

they obviously are like God-tier back in the day.

We all tuned in on Sundays.

Has that mold changed now?

Obviously, there's that many content creators.

Do you find the recipe for success has changed

and do you think about that?

I think there's definitely a bit of a...

I wouldn't say this is specifically in cars.

I'd say on YouTube,

it's kind of not the most creative thing in the world,

but there is a bit of a template.

It's kind of, if I was to say it roughly,

it's kind of like a big intro bark,

as I call it, so a big opening line

that basically mirrors the title

and then a bit of voiceover

that then develops that a bit more.

Then an intro and then a re-hook

and then a chapter one.

I've got it written down on the laptop.

It's like a bit like, here's a 2025,

to be fair, it might change.

2025 YouTube video,

and then you just kind of fit

whatever your story is into that.

That for some, especially the TV types,

that is depressing

and seems really uncreative,

but in the automotive sphere,

the guy that's nailed that,

I would say it probably came from MrBeast first,

but Matt came along with his repair and car format

and you can template most of his videos

and then a lot of people, like Chris Lix,

he just had on and Jack McNeil,

and this isn't any negative towards them,

they followed that template very successfully.

So it's there for the taking,

but at the same time, there's other channels

that are more than happy to not follow that.

So I'm not sure whether, for example,

Otto Alex has a bit of a template

or I imagine they're just a bit more go with the flow.

He seems one that's like,

it's just going to happen.

That's the impression anyway,

it's like an hour long video of,

I'm going to talk to this guy,

it could be 45 minutes of my video

talking about the rear wing.

And would a YouTube advisor say

that that is good YouTube?

Maybe not, but in this world

where everyone's sitting down for their dinner

and putting on YouTube

instead of a television show nowadays,

there's no point in us all

having the same template and being the same.

For some people, it's exactly what they want,

so they'll watch Matt and Chris and Jack

one after the other and absolutely love it,

but there's also other people out there

that love a bit of Harry's garage,

who doesn't love a bit of Harry's garage.

He's the complete opposite,

but in all the best ways.

His thumbnails are just screenshots,

but you know immediately,

that's a Harry garage video.

Just an honest video.

Yeah, exactly.

His titles go off the page,

but back then it's awesome.

I absolutely love his stuff.

So I think that's almost the two ends

of car media right now,

but it's great that that's the case.

Do you have somebody that you like,

not sort of like look up to

because you've worked with such incredible

content creators, media personalities already,

but do you have somebody

that really impresses you

what they're doing at the minute?

But like by a country mile,

James Pumphrey at speed.

Yeah, like for example,

that video one right now,

this is what we would call

back at DriveTrip days,

we would have called this a

Mike's Mechanics video,

which basically me sitting

with stuff coming up on screen.

Pumphrey is the absolute God at that.

And having left doughnut,

he's not only done car stuff,

but he's done stuff about car heart

and Levi's and Nike.

He's just doing many documentaries

that you can just sit and talk about

about basically any,

he calls it like a men's magazine,

kind of taking that old school men's magazine

and putting it onto YouTube.

I think he's unbelievable.

His storytelling, his presenting,

he's not got that like YouTuber energy,

but he doesn't need to.

He's just got this demeanor

that's so listenable and watchable

that he's definitely the gold standard

from what I'm looking for.

For example, you know,

I would love to diversify

and do ME262 stuff.

And he's kind of showing that

if you do it well, you can do it.

You can take your content

to completely other strands

and people will just still watch it

because you're good at what you do.

It's very risky.

Like would I do a video about jeans

in my next upload?

Probably not.

But he gives me hope

that I can maybe do something about,

I don't know, like a steam train,

like flying Scotsman or something.

And then, you know, maybe

a German World War II plane.

And he's just, I don't know,

he came from Hollywood, I think.

He was like a proper actor

back in the day.

He tells his story among his videos

that he nearly got a massive break

on like a big American show

that just didn't quite work out.

So he's just got that fundamental,

like actor stand-up comedian energy

that I wish I had.

But yeah, he's the man.

With his overheads as well.

I mean, like minimal, minimal overheads there.

He's literally sat there with a camera on him at home.

Yeah, I imagine his edits are pretty intense.

But I think he's got like employees

rather than like day-rated videographers.

So that's fine.

I mean, in my world right now,

I've not, I'm the sole employee at my company.

So I don't have that luxury.

But that's also something that I'm stressing about.

Looking forward to is like, you know,

just starting to build up a bit of an employee base.

Because that is the way to go.

Anything that makes life easier, you know,

I suppose then your mind's on creation then

rather than having to think, right,

camera goes there.

Yeah.

And skimping on a video

because you know, if you went to this sort of level,

it's costing you another thousand pounds or something.

Yeah.

I'm a sucker for a documentary.

Same.

Structured video.

Like Mark McCann's definitely suckered me in a little bit

with some of his like storytelling

on some of his videos.

But yeah, that's my sweet spot

is some of these like documentary type informative videos.

And I think some of the best stuff right now,

which is kind of like the niche mainstream thing

I was chatting about earlier.

It's super mundane stuff,

but it's questions you've never asked before.

There's a YouTuber right now.

It's Chris someone.

He's based in London.

And he did a video the other day about

why UK supermarkets have clock towers.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Why do they do that?

Why does Tesco have a clock above it?

That's true.

He does this fight.

Here he is.

Yeah.

And he's deliberately boring.

In such a good way.

How many days has it got?

That's fantastic.

And on it, if you could just go on his channel

and look at his ideas.

I would love to sit with him in a creative meeting.

Chris Bargo.

100 and absolute legend.

3.1 million views, right?

That's amazing.

So yeah, we're going videos

and then sort by popular.

So click popular there.

Yeah.

Right.

Why do you think supermarkets have clock towers?

Wow.

Why is this symbol everywhere in the UK?

Why did UK Chris Packet swap colours?

I mean, someone would say that's an awful idea,

but it's got 1.3 million views.

That's insane.

So the video.

What does he mean?

You know, on the food packet.

Oh, yeah.

Who gives a shit about that?

But it stuffed him.

Really a million people give a shit about that.

That is amazing.

But far expands basically his subs.

So his videos are doing like 3.1 million videos

compared to subs.

Oh, yeah.

His algorithms.

Mental.

What?

That's great.

It's such boring content, but it's so good.

Yeah.

Wow.

I love that.

I know what that is.

I was thinking Ben Collins should do this one here.

You can actually make these tire marks in real life.

Yeah.

You could do that.

Yeah.

He's my new guy.

What happens if you sell multi-pack items separately?

You know?

But what?

790,000 views.

He's outperforming a lot like TDC, Automatic.

He's getting more views with a kind of fricking coat.

But we always had that kid at school.

Do not sell separately.

At school.

Yeah.

Several girls did that.

But how do you research that?

How do you start being like, right, how do I find out what happens?

I know.

Like, is that a lawyer?

Like, how do you go about that?

But this is the brilliant thing about YouTube is, what?

You talk about this winning formula and then you throw that in the mix.

Yes.

Bunkers.

But yeah, that totally, you know, any YouTube advisor, as I see.

And I'm doing a bit of that on the side.

Imagine committing to that.

I know.

Do searching for that.

I know.

Yeah.

But it's just, that is beautiful algorithm content.

So what is the reason why the clocks at the supermarket have clock towers?

Well, yeah.

I don't want to spoil it.

But he explains it incredibly well.

And you're like, oh, okay.

Yeah.

Makes sense.

Yeah.

Well, that's what you need.

You need to find like that niche in your engineers.

Well, that's my cat side.

That is your cat side.

Yeah.

That's cat side.

So it's like, what is next?

Yeah.

It's a lot more than that.

Bridges.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Broad bridges.

But we've all seen these like engineering disaster videos.

Yeah.

And that does very well on things like, you know, so there you go.

All that is is bringing that to YouTube.

We're a disaster loving species.

There aren't we sometimes.

Bad news.

You give me a bridge collapse.

All over it.

Tringling over it.

Perfect.

Let me tell you.

It was full.

Yeah.

It was so strange.

Like we are like, it's the worst thing ever, obviously.

But then, you know, it's the news are like, yeah, more of that.

More of that.

They love it.

Keep feeding them.

No good news.

Coming soon to the like for the YouTube channel.

Bridge disaster.

Yeah.

I think you found the cat side formula.

I think that's what we're going to call it now.

The cat side.

The cat side winning formula.

I've got her didn't bring it.

Yeah.

Ben and I on the sofa.

Yes.

I'll bring it.

Because again, that'll be something he'll look at.

Be like, why have you just handed me a cat side?

But actually, I'll, you know,

You have to keep it.

Keep it behind the sofa.

Yeah.

Well, actually, you know, it's a heavy.

It might be a repetitive subject or a subject.

But have we lost that the British engineering a little bit?

Have we lost that?

Because we have other people on before that would give us an

interesting insight.

Like we had a chap called Matt Fitter Matt who was like, no,

it's just that we've got these really niche specialties that

you don't necessarily see as a consumer, but in the military

or in like telecoms or whether it's space exploration or

we've got like the best technology behind those doors.

I guess that like big time mass market production, like, you

know, in the factory, like these MG Rover, all these places,

the big news items see those places shutting down.

So yes, I guess that like, I guess the kind of blue collar

side of the UK industries kind of gone now.

But yeah, if you go around Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire

around that F1 corridor of places, and it's not just F1,

as you say, it's like aerospace.

It's all these different stuff.

Yeah.

Some of the stuff going on is absolutely wild.

And, you know, I'm looking to tap into some of that,

but I'm planning a video with the new Red Bull Powertrains

building that they've built and some of the stuff going on there.

Were they Chrysler or something?

What are they now, Red Bull engines for F1?

They're making their own.

Oh, they're making their own?

Yeah.

They've decided they're going to be their own manufacturer.

Right.

But actually, you see Audi, like the Audi F1 project,

like an F1 project starting from scratch,

same with Cadillac.

Yeah.

They're at Silverstone now.

And they've actually been putting out some little

documentaries on their stuff.

Yeah.

The UK, for that niche, places like Gordon Murray Automotive,

places like that, we are, I would say,

number one in the world.

You're still in that respect.

Yeah.

But yes, in terms of like, you know,

everyone going and working on all levels in the automotive

industry, that's narrowed way down.

Yeah.

It's kind of vastly like engineering there, rather than

hands-on.

Speaking about engineering F1,

I watched this video of like the Red Bull McLaren

rivalry, but also the Peel or Red Bull put into the FIA

about the flexi wing that McLaren had.

It's incredible.

I don't know if you saw, but...

No.

So they have DRS and on the straights,

McLaren manipulated the fibres in the carbon,

that it would flex under aero subject,

a certain amount, just to have this mini DRS effect.

Wow.

But if you were to apply, test it, static.

Yeah.

And try to move it with some weight.

Just apply a load to it.

Yeah.

It wouldn't react in the same way as our ingenious.

Like, now that is like...

So it doesn't deform with a weight,

but it flaps in the wind.

Yes.

By the direction of the carbon.

Yeah.

So they couldn't sort of like do anything about it,

because technically, you know,

we're testing it static and it passes.

Passes the test.

But on the straights, they're getting DRS.

That's fantastic.

Well, they're also, they're all freaking out recently

about this compression ratio trick

that a couple of the teams seem to have nailed as well.

Yeah.

Basically, their engines will create more power

through kind of, as far as I'm aware,

I can't remember whether it's the conrods or the pistons.

They essentially flex more than they technically should.

But again, through like a static bench test,

let's have a look at your pistons

and see how much we can stretch them.

They pass, but once they're in the car,

God knows how many degrees.

Yeah.

They flex that amount,

which changes the compression ratio,

which affects the efficiency

and therefore the power the engine puts out.

Yeah.

And they're all banging the drum saying,

make this legal, make this legal quickly

before it's a runaway.

Yes.

I think it's Merck and Ferrari, I think.

Yeah, I've heard that.

I might be wrong there.

I definitely Merck.

Yes.

I know there are quite a few people

have put in their hats already

on the two teams, Merck and Ferrari.

Like quite a few people are saying they've got it right.

Paul Redbull, who obviously are under pressure,

having made their own powertrain,

I think they're the ones that are like,

wait a minute.

Yes.

What we're going to have seen is a huge failure.

You know, day one just because of this little tech thing.

Yes.

It's going to be interesting.

It's incredible.

And that's what's like drive to survive brought is F1 is like,

for everybody, that sort of thing isn't exciting.

But if you dress it up in the way of like,

drive to survive has and what goes on behind the scenes

when an innovation like that, you know,

comes clear that one of the teams has found it

across the paddock, it's super interesting.

And it's a shame that they also stopped the team talks

on the radio and you could hear them complaining to the FIA.

Super interesting.

More of that please, but anyway.

But yeah, that level of engineering is just, yeah,

it's incredible.

Don't rule out Newie.

Yeah.

This Aston could be interesting.

Oh yeah.

You can never can.

He's got a track record.

He's my dream interview.

Oh really?

Yeah.

So if there's anywhere you could take out for a meal,

it would be Adrian Newie and just chew his ear

for three hours.

Yeah.

Because he's, yeah, he is special.

Yeah.

Properly.

Yeah.

Pinnacle of engineering or aero and racing.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Anyway, yeah, follow on.

But have you got a favorite car brand then from an

engineering side of things?

Not so much just to look at, but what they're actually doing

in terms of, it's hard not to say Porsche.

That's a boring answer.

No, it's not.

And being a Jagdman, especially in the motorsport side,

they're the enemy.

So it kind of.

Yeah.

Sure.

But I know it like Jagger is definitely not your answer.

They were back in the day, but now, yeah,

even the last 20, 30 years of by no means being at the top

of the engineering tree.

But they keep like showing it every now and again,

they'll go F-type.

Oh yeah.

And everyone goes, yeah.

Like they'll just do it.

It's like, no, no, no, we're going to make everyone think

that, you know, we're awful at this.

And then every now and again,

we're going to just drop a masterpiece.

Yeah.

But that's, that's like a good solid car,

which yes, they can do.

Is there anything in the F-type that's particularly amazing

engineering?

No, not really.

The CX-75 would have been that.

Yeah.

If they'd done that.

Is that the growl?

Is that the one that just like when you start it,

like a Jaguar growl?

Is that the prototype?

The CX-75 was the.

Oh, yes.

The super car that never made it.

Yeah.

Which had a,

essentially a formula one four cylinder.

There was twin charge.

So turbocharged and supercharged.

And hybrid.

So it was a high, a 900 horsepower hybrid mid-engine

super car two years before P1,

918.

That could have been a game changer.

Oh, it's so sad.

And they're sitting in that vault that Ben and I

were in with the 220.

Yes.

They're all just sitting there.

Yeah.

With their engines.

Can you imagine?

It would have been the four.

Not the,

not the Holy Trinity would have been the four of them.

Does any game is,

it was on GTA five.

They,

they actually put that prototype.

It's like,

they put it on GTA five.

Oh, cool.

Yeah.

It was my car on GTA five.

Oh, cool.

Yeah.

So yeah,

I think to answer your question,

yeah, it's hot.

It's hard to look past Porsche.

Honda are definitely up there as well.

Like the engine technology,

the,

the revs they managed to reach from factory are pretty damn special.

But yeah,

the more and more I do my research,

I'm like,

the Volkswagen did very well to bring Porsche into the fold.

That's it.

Totally agree.

We're a big,

yeah, big Porsche fans here.

Who's is the,

there's a Boxster outside.

We've all got,

uh,

Porsches in some.

That's all we drive.

Yeah.

I've got two,

Aaron's got one and a,

a BM,

he's still on the,

on the BM train.

Aaron's got a 911.

So yeah,

we're all,

we're all Porsche fans.

We were just setting you up to say Porsche on the podcast.

It is my honest answer.

We'll,

we'll give you that 10 pound after this.

But also have a massive sweet spot for Jagme.

So yeah.

Yeah.

I think it's going to be the next car I buy.

I'd quite like a,

uh,

XJR five liter,

like the latest XJR.

Cause I think whichever way Jag goes now,

I think having that is like the final big luxury saloon Jag.

Give her five liter super-chars.

What an engine.

For doing journeys like I've done today.

Yeah.

Absolutely spot on.

Yeah.

I've seen,

sorry,

I've seen a value of F types as well recently.

Hey,

talk about value for money.

That is value for money.

Yeah.

Even a 20,

2021,

V8,

uh,

I mean,

yeah,

you're sort of circa 40 to 50 grand for one that's done some miles.

I mean,

wow.

Yeah.

I'd go a bit older.

I'd go XKR,

but again,

the value for money there is just really,

yeah.

That was my favorite car.

That,

and for some reason the DB seven as well,

back in the day,

like my two favorite cars,

but the XKR,

I remember family friend had one and I got it.

I was like,

Oh my God,

this is the most incredible thing I've ever been in.

Again,

like the whole Jaguar engineering side of things,

an F type is just a cut down XK.

Yeah.

It's like a foot taken out of the XK and bang,

you've got your F type.

Yeah.

That's true.

Yeah.

And that was the car of the day.

Again,

coming back to Top Gear,

I remember that blue,

light blue.

Was that an XKR?

It was an XKRS.

Like the light blue one.

Yes.

XKRS.

Oh,

I mean,

I remember that car was my favorite car for many,

many.

French racing blue.

Yeah.

That's it.

Yeah.

I can just picture it now.

Again,

they're super rare,

but great value as well.

People sleep on those.

Oh,

yeah.

That's another car.

In fact,

that's a third car.

Right up my list.

That's it.

Faster around the ring than a 220.

Is it?

And the 220 held the Nurburgring lap record for,

I want to say it's either 10 or 13 years.

Is that it?

No.

That's it.

Oh,

did you do that?

That's it.

Oh yeah,

you did it actually.

That's a convertible.

I thought that was just pure luck then.

Yeah.

I mean,

that's horrible,

isn't it?

Yeah.

Wow.

Yes.

That's probably Ben.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

There's the boss.

Of course it would be there.

Oh,

what a car.

What a car.

I remember watching that the Sunday night and then seeing one actually the following week

thinking,

Yeah.

That's that car.

Bring back that Jag.

Come on.

You can do it.

I think the new Jag will be good.

Yeah.

I know it's all electric and stuff,

but they've not ruled out putting an internal combustion engine in it.

Okay.

It's not that.

It's not the actual thing that they've got on display at these shows.

It's not going to be that.

I think it's probably going to be a 90% version of that.

Yeah.

I think they'll turn down some of the design.

Like the wheels are a little bit ridiculous.

If you look at some of the prototypes,

they've actually just done,

the embargo is lifted on some ice driving in it.

Right.

Some journalists have been out in like the prototype.

So that's probably the closest thing we've seen.

If you compare that to,

what's the Rolls Royce?

Spectre.

Yeah.

It's got very similar sort of set up of color.

Yeah.

It's a hell of a punch up from where Jag were.

Yeah.

But, you know, they might pull it off.

They've got people talking enough.

Well, there you go.

It's ready to, when it drops,

that will be a bit of a talking point for sure.

Yeah.

Long time coming.

It must have been,

what is it now?

Every year of talk.

Oh yeah.

And they stopped producing cars a couple of years ago.

Those factories that are literally just sitting there waiting.

Yeah.

They stopped to come in.

There's also, they've apparently now signed a deal

where some of the empty factory will be taken up by Cherry.

You are a new Chinese manufacturer.

I've heard of them.

Because Cherry makes Land Rovers in China.

So we ship the parts over and they build them.

Oh right.

Almost like a third party in China.

So it's kind of,

they're returning the favor now.

There's me thinking,

do you look similar?

Ah, there you go.

That sort of makes sense then.

Yeah, right.

I've got you.

Interesting.

Yeah.

It's the way to car review your car review experience

and videos that you've done.

Is there a car that you're just like,

doesn't matter how well it would do.

Not interested in reviewing.

Or like you just hate.

I really don't like,

I mean, this is kind of probably more retro,

but I really don't like Rover SD ones, ironically.

Apologies.

Apologies to your dad.

I really don't like,

I can't think of anything much worse

than driving a Lamborghini Countach.

They look absolutely horrendous.

Yeah, I don't get that either.

Sorry, Harry Metcalf.

Yeah.

And then they supposedly,

you know, just because Leonardo DiCaprio crashed one

or the stuntman did and then now it's art.

No, it never was.

I'm sorry.

Oh God.

We might take some abuse.

But I think so.

I can tell you some awful cars I've driven.

Yeah, go on.

What's the worst car?

The Jaguar E-Pace was probably the most terrible car

I've driven in terms of like my expectation for it.

Yeah.

Because the E-Pace.

Do you mean the 4 Puma?

Is an Evoke.

Yeah.

And the Evoke is,

when you dig underneath it,

is still a Freelander.

So you're going back to like,

you know, the brand new E-Pace.

It's like the 2016, 2017.

It's a 90s.

Yeah.

You're right.

I think that thing is absolutely terrible.

It looks like someone's got an F-Pace and gone,

just, just wait.

Well, they were designed to drive in straight lines

at 30 miles an hour and never be put under serious.

Well, I'll never drive a POP 50 again.

That was a lot of carifying.

We drove it on track and I nearly went over

various occasions.

We did a twin test.

We did a POP 50 versus a G-Wiz.

And my God, I'd take the G-Wiz every single day

of the week over that thing.

But yes, there's me going around Landau circuit.

And when you, when you,

so the engine hangs out the right hand side.

There's a little single cylinder moped engine

that hangs by your right hip.

So when you turn left

and therefore all the weights going to the right,

it is ready to go over in an instant.

Absolutely terrifying.

Oh my God.

But yeah, this is on drive tribe.

That was kind of my goal.

If I wasn't doing engineering stuff,

it'd be like, right, iconic top gear cars.

I'm not like, act as if I'm trying to do any better,

of course, than the trio,

but just get those cars back on screen.

Yeah.

So that'd definitely be something I'd like to continue more.

And as I say,

when I've sort of sorted more things out in terms of insurance,

because the first thing when you asked to use someone's car,

like, oh, cool.

What part have you got insurance wise?

And you're like, oh.

The party dude.

Yeah.

He just had me on to yours,

which is never,

then you go cock and a wheel that.

I'll tell you that feeling is not fun.

No, no, no, no, no.

I'm going to imagine.

No, it's just not doing what you sort of want it to do really.

So I'm going to understeer, oversteer.

That's, yeah, just not, that's not steer.

No, yeah, exactly.

But there was a guy,

the guy actually borrowed this car off of,

he went to land from John of Groves to land's end in that thing.

Oh my God.

Down dual carriageways.

I'd absolutely terrifying.

I don't know how he did it.

It'll do 50 though.

It will do 50.

You don't want it.

It can.

You never would.

No, no.

Oh well.

Brilliant.

Who said it would be,

wouldn't be safe to put the engine in the left side of a three wheeled car.

Yeah, you can see it.

Just do that right there on the side.

Yeah.

But give me a G,

we do a drag race in this video against a G whiz.

I absolutely smoke the peel food.

What G whiz?

What a car.

Yeah.

Let's see it.

Let's see the G whiz again.

When was the last time you saw a G whiz?

What did the TV say that?

Have you ever seen a G whiz?

Yeah.

The TV say,

that's why it was the similar sort of thing to the G whiz.

The Michael Carr thing.

Yeah.

There's the owner.

Absolute nutcase.

But also awesome, awesome dude.

It's got to be there, isn't it?

Drag race.

There we go.

Yeah.

Look at that.

Damn.

Well, there's something out of that.

Yeah.

I've never seen range go down quicker

than in a G whiz.

I knew that was coming.

Yeah.

I think you'd rock that.

Next company car.

Yeah.

I've already said about it.

Well, I won't say an okay lap time.

It did it quicker than the peel food.

You do a drag race and a proper lap.

Conventional four wheels.

If anybody wants to reinvent the Top Gear format,

there's reasonably priced,

if you could call it a car.

Has Carr a while done a G whiz?

I think so.

Nope.

No.

Funny that, I wonder why.

Look at those two things.

They're just horrible.

They're absolutely horrible.

Someone's gone,

yeah, let's make a car, but let's make it.

You know what?

You know what you were saying?

That yours to success to you is being able to do what you love.

You know, never work a day in your life.

But I think that's sort of the vibe.

Come on.

They didn't make those and say,

tell you what, lads,

making these is such a proud moment.

We've not worked a day in our lives making this.

I don't know.

I think people on their LeBan were very proud of the Peel P 50.

The G whiz, I cannot speak for them.

But I think, you know,

if you go down Peel High Street in one of them,

they're going to absolutely love it.

I love it.

Brilliant.

What have you got coming up next that you can reveal?

What's the plan next?

So there's a cool adventure I'd like to go on,

which kind of taps into a couple of things I've been mentioning.

In 1953, Lancaster Bomber got caught in some mist

and it crash landed at the top of a Scottish mountain up on Monroe.

And it was so high up.

They recovered the crew,

but it's so high up that the crash site is virtually untouched.

Oh, wow.

And Lancaster's got four 27-litre,

1,000-horsepower Merlin V-12s.

So up this mountain,

there's four 1,000-horsepower V-12 engines just sitting in the wild.

And there's someone's been up there.

Ready to be put into a...

So someone has been up there and taken a picture

and one of them has tumbled into this mountain stream.

So there's this lovely little Scottish mountain stream

and then a punking great Merlin V-12

just sitting, wopped over the side of it.

So I would love to, and I'm in the midst of planning it,

do a road trip up to the Highlands

and then with my camera guys hike up

and find these 1,000-horsepower V-12s just sitting that wild.

That's, again, in terms of,

that's just the kind of content that I want to be seen doing.

This is fun, mucking about with an engine or a little MG,

but I'd love to be kind of known for doing that kind of adventure.

What's the...

What's stopping the Scrapman?

It's just too high and too heavy.

You would just not get the kit up there.

Also, it's essentially classed as almost like a burial ground as well.

It's almost like a memorial cemetery in that respect.

So yes, I mean, it'd be a hell of a job taking that stuff out.

So it's almost preserved itself in that regard because it's so high up.

And one of them's fell into it.

Did you say it was in a river?

Yes, one of them's sitting in the stream.

Hopefully not drinking was.

No.

Highland Spring.

Highland V-12.

I'm waiting.

I mean, it's all, it'll all be feet under snow right now.

So we're just going to wait for that winter into spring transition and then get up there.

And hopefully...

I'd still love there to be some snow and maybe I have to like, you know,

get through it, see some of this stuff.

A lot of video.

Yeah, I think it could be really cool.

I've got...

I've currently got Morgan on board to kind of be the road trip car, their new Super Sport.

Because I feel like a Morgan kind of suits the whole 50s Lancaster vibe.

So I think a British racing green Morgan going up through the Highlands and then hiking up.

That'll be really cool.

Yeah.

In terms of more chill stuff, I'm doing a big turbo XJS.

Whether I mentioned XJS, I bought it on the way up here.

And I've already got the engine built.

It was an engine that I rescued out of a scrapyard that was an absolute boat anchor.

And we've gone through it.

Racing con rods, racing pistons, mucked about with the head for airflow and stuff.

And then I've recently bought a Garrett turbo that's about this size.

And what's cool about that XJS straight six engine is Jag initially developed it as a diesel.

And they got midway up.

The design goes back in the day.

You'd engineer a developing engine from the bottom up.

So from the crank and con rods, it's a diesel.

And then midway through, Jag higher up said, you know what, no, make it a petrol.

So from then on, it's petrol.

So the bottom end of this Jag engine is enormous.

It's so chunky, which is what everyone talks about with the Supra 2JZ, the Skyline RB26.

That is the kind of heft that makes that engine have huge potential.

But it was never turbocharged.

It was only ever supercharged because Jag always supercharged stuff.

And that gave it a bit of a ceiling.

So we're saying, right, scrap supercharger, this big turbo plummet in.

We're aiming for 700 plus in the back of it.

Oh, sorry.

Vehicle drive and an XJS.

I don't know what an XJS will do with that power, but we'll see.

That's it.

I mean, not a lot of, I'm not going to say it's a light car, but you know, it's an older car.

Not that heavy rear wheel drive.

It's a good formula, I think.

Yeah.

I mean, they went racing with them and they had, I mean, a lot of bracing obviously,

but they had like, I think getting on for 600 horsepower V12.

So, you know, it's not unheard of, but I think something I would like to do.

I think we've got it covered.

We're going to use the ZF eight speeds from an F type SVR.

So that'll be a 700 horsepower paddle shift XJS.

Brilliant.

So I think that that will make it a bit of a first as well.

So it should be a good project.

I'd like to see that.

Yeah.

So really exciting things coming.

Yeah.

It should be good.

Yeah.

Featuring a Jag.

I know.

What more can you ask for?

Absolutely.

What are you daily?

What do you daily at the minute?

I was dailying my Mondeo ST, which was like my original drive tribe project car,

but that's a way getting some other interesting stuff done to it.

So I'm currently dailying my MG ZS 180, which is the white.

This is my little yellow hot hatch in this video.

So it's like the white saloon level up from that car.

So 2.5 V six.

They took it touring car racing.

So it's like the sort of small saloon.

But I don't really what it's a really, it's a really rare car.

It's like that in that color, it's one of one.

So I don't really like that I'm I'm to daily it,

but I've currently not got another car.

That's why I'm looking for a five liter XJR preferably green.

If anyone out there has got one by all means DM me.

So that that becomes daily.

What a daily at that as well.

My grandparents had a he's Matt Merck.

It was always Merck bad, but he had the hatchback MG with like everything on it.

Almost brand new with every every every spec on it.

And he gave it to me before I got my first car.

I crashed it 60 miles an hour into a stationary minibush.

And I was safe as sound in that MG kept me safe.

There you go.

Solid cars.

Totally reliable.

Don't put me behind the wheel.

That's basically the moral of the story.

We're hoping at some point to do something with with Ben.

Like, I don't know just what we have a hooker we can create from that a bit of a can.

Give me a driver.

Yeah.

That's it.

Can the stick make you would ultimately a better driver.

So yeah, there's something in that.

I mean, he's like the ultimate coach, right?

Yeah.

He was literally like Tom Cruise.

So he's used to it.

I mean, he's probably not done it for a while,

but he is getting the Suzuki's back out.

You know, he's getting people blind.

I think he had Ben Fowler and Matt Armstrong get behind the wheel to do some top gear laps.

So I think this summer, I think they broke the cars, obviously.

Yeah.

So they've been getting fixed,

but I have a feeling that this summer they'll be back out.

That sounds, yeah, I might have to get in touch about that.

Yeah.

Brilliant.

Anything else?

We've covered so much.

Anything else you want to discuss?

You've got coming up.

What?

Want to get out there?

I don't think so.

I think we've pretty much made it.

Well, other stuff.

Now, I mean, there's some other videos,

but they're not that interesting.

The line cast is probably the coolest thing.

Yeah.

That's a cool video.

I'll be looking out for that one.

Yeah.

We've been through rovers.

Yeah, we have.

We've talked about that.

Love of strange cars.

To some.

You've put in brackets.

For that to say, it's surprising if you're into something,

it's surprising how many other people are also into it.

You're not alone.

No, no, no, no.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Appreciate it, mate.

Thank you very much.

No, thank you.

Thank you for having me on.

We'd just sit here and talk about cars all day long.

I think so.

Yeah.

Let's get the beer on back up.

Yeah.

Let's get one outside.

That's right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll ask for longer.

When we do the Ben one, I'll try and get a beer on there.

Yeah.

When's the next video release?

Not like it'll matter because it's going out in like two or three weeks.

I release videos 5pm on Tuesdays.

So I try to do weekly.

I did weekly up until the new year.

Took January off because in YouTube terms,

that's kind of the month to take off if you're going to do it for CPM reasons.

But now I'm back in the game.

So yeah, weekly from here on in 5pm Tuesday.

Nice.

Check it out.

Check out the cat side.

Let's get cat side.

Yeah.

Cat side to a million.

Let's go.

Road bridges next.

Let's go.

Broken ones.

Yeah.

Especially broken ones.

Yeah.

Why does the UK have small bridges?

I'm telling you.

You will see that go live on the homepage.

You're like, oh my God.

That's our video.

That's our world.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Well, thank you very much.

No, thank you.

It's been good.

Thank you.

So if you've enjoyed this episode with Mike,

please make sure to like, comment, and subscribe,

and let us know who you want on Talkishom Next.

Mike Fernie: Top Gear Was Fined £35,000 for This! | EP51

About this episode

Ferrari

Aston Martin 220

Porsche 930

Request an Explanation

Want to learn more?

Help improve this episode

More from Talkin' Shop