New Jag driven, Ineos, Retromobile

Hello, and welcome to the AutoCard podcast. My week in cars with prior here. Cropley there.

Morning, Stephen. Morning mate, how are you? Very well. Thank you. This podcast is brought to you,

listener in association, as always, with our sponsor, Anderson. Anderson EV.

Makers of design-led home EV chargers. Based in Bedfordshire.

Based in Bedfordshire, British designed, engineered, and built, but designed so nicely,

that if you say, I don't know what colour I should get, they'll send you a colour chart.

Yeah, it's good, isn't it? It's good. It is good. It is good. We took them away,

didn't we, the other week. I left mine around the house and the steering committee decided that

one of the colours should be the colour for our garden shed. Oh, really? Oh, there you go.

Perfect. Which is, must make it a worthy colour. If you visit Anderson-EV.com or give

them a call, they have a full concierge service that will look after you all the way through.

Stephen, have you, forgive me for asking, have you contacted them about your tariff yet?

I have not. I've got to do this. This was a, perhaps I ought to install it as next year's

year's resolution. It is now into February. But I am throwing money away and I need to do

something about it and they're the people that tell me. They are, yeah. They will sort you out.

If you contact them, they have a service that will look after you all the way through.

Anderson-EV.com. You can contact us, AutoCart, at Haymarket.com, send us a letter. And this

week's podcast, Stephen, are going to be talking about, quite a lot of things, actually, from

Ineos to Jaguar to Ferrari and all kinds of things besides. But first of all, Tom in Somerset,

not that one that we know, has written to us to say, hearing you talk about Mazdas in the last

podcast, which we did because we were saying that Mazda are not going to sell some range-extended

EVs here, didn't we? I think. Tom says, and regularly hearing you and other motoring journalists

talk about new cars and some of the features they come with had me wondering, would I actually

want to upgrade our car? We drive a 2019 Mazda 6 Estate, says Tom. We're a family of three that

includes a two-year-old and all the accumulated stuff that follows a two-year-old around, like a

pram, travel, cot, high chair, etc. And so on. And the Mazda fulfills its family wagon role perfectly.

It is spacious, comfortable, fun to drive. And in the near three years and 30,000 miles we've owned,

it has been perfectly reliable. Nothing has broken. And it's never failed to start or let us down,

other than when I left the ignition on once, which isn't the car's fault.

Its most irritating characteristic is dropping the side windows, and that doesn't clear the glass

when wet. That it's most irritating characteristic is dropping the side windows,

doesn't clear the glass when it's wet, says a lot. Now, I quite like to do that. And then

what I find, Tom, if you rest your elbow and as you lift the window back up, that can squeegee

the glass clean. But I realize that may not work for the passenger side.

It's lovely to not have to think about it because it just works, says Tom. It seems to be a high

point of car tech for me. And as all the features we need, carplay, a fantastic head-up display,

great stereo, heated seats, steering wheel, radar crews, the list goes on. It's also a very old

school in some ways. It's a two-liter naturally aspirated petrol estate car with a manual box,

a bit of a dinosaur in a time of tiny engines with eight-speed autos.

And more ADAS than you can shake a stick at. But the more I listen to you two and others talk

about new cars, the more I realize I don't want them. I don't want to bong if I speed the speed

limit or look at the center screen. I don't want haptic buttons. And I despise the idea of having

to turn off various bits every time I switch the car on. The Mazda and its two-liter timing chain,

not wet-belt engine, has none of those features and even nudges 50 miles to the gallon on a long

run. Would a big new car with a small turbo motor actually better that in real use? You might

disagree, but it feels to me like new cars are becoming too complicated for their own good,

whether that be forced through legislation or the endless ratcheting up of technology

wars between manufacturers. Look at the state of some new interiors compared to those, say,

from 10 years ago. I know which I'd rather own. Would you buy a new car, Steve?

I would. But the thing that I think I should add is that that sounds like a good car, 50 miles per

gallon, two-liter manual gearbox. Yeah, it does. Mazda's great for durability, aren't they? I think

I would. NVM is nice slick Mazda gear change too. But I would buy a new car because I wouldn't want

to deny myself the progress. You and I, we're so well placed to see the way things progress.

Tires progress, brakes progress, instrumentation progresses. I do think we're going through a

bit of a funny period at the moment where manufacturers have been confronted with all

this stuff that they have to include in cars at the front end, all the ADAS things.

But I think they'll get a grip on that. It makes me think about how we used to

work bank machines, for instance, to get Dosh out of the wall. They used to be complicated

now they're not. And I would trust the motor industry, I suppose, a year or two downstream to

refine this so that you don't have to mention that. Yes, GSR2 is the latest general safety

regulation too. These are the regulations that were introduced last couple of years, weren't

they? Basically, will affect all new cars sold across Europe, says Thatchum Research,

which mandates active safety features such as intelligent speed assist, which doesn't work,

leg keep assist, which doesn't work. And you have to turn them off. They have to default to one

every time you turn on the car. So you have to go through this process of turning them off.

Which gets on my go. It gets on my go, one on the other, but it annoys me.

It's particularly rubbish, isn't it, in the pothole era, because you've got this thing making

you go straight down the road. And if you try and deviate around the sort of council canyon,

it tries to steer you into it. Yeah. And that's when it's not picking up

marks on the road and thinking they're lane markings when they're not also.

Stuff's not good. What did let's move the subject slightly? What did Ineos's CEO Lin called us

say about it? Well, she impressed me. I've not met her. You have several times, I think.

Yeah, she's right. I think she's really... Did I read an interview? Yeah, which we did a podcast.

And I went down to the factory when they were opening up a new biomass plant or something like

an interviewer at that point and recorded a pod at that point.

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I was just reading, but random,

bobbed up on my phone a press kit or a summary of the 2026 Ineos Grenadier,

in which she talked about its various improvements. But she just made this wonderful,

I think, off-the-cuff comment, which she said,

that it includes a faster way to turn off the annoying ADAS alerts we're forced to fit.

And that, to me, in an official document, just talking normally, like you and I would talk,

was deeply refreshing. It wasn't somebody being all pious about it. She knows it's a pain in the

backside and said so. And I thought, this is a woman I'm sure I would like if I met her.

And one of these days, I will. And I hope I'm right.

I think you will. Yeah, I think you would, yes.

Did you say you were talking about how she got the job and the job kind of fell out of the sky?

Yeah, because I think she was an Ineos in their HQ in London, and she got a tap on the shoulder

from Sir Jim Rackley of saying, good news. We're launching this kind of company,

and good news. I would like you to be the CEO of it, which I think came as a bit of a surprise.

No, I think she's great. I like the car as well. I think Richard Lane has just driven the 26 model

year. Won our deputy road test editor, but I've spent a bit of time in it as well. And it is

improved in some useful ways. I mean, it's still fundamentally the same thing, but the steering

which a lot of people didn't get on with first time around

has been improved. It's been tightened up because it's a recirculating ball, not

rack and pinion, because it's got a live front axle. And if you have rack and pinion steering,

that can lead to kickback in an off-roader because there's quite a lot of axle articulation.

Is that right? I don't quite know. I don't quite know how the mechanisms

work. But anyway, a recirculating ball works much more.

I've heard them argue for it before. In fact, recirculating ball is

innately less sensitive, isn't it? Yeah, you don't get so much self-centering for one.

And I don't know if you can make it electrically assisted in the same way that you can a modern

rack. So there's various different things. That means that you can't do lane keep assist in the

conventional way that they do with modern cars on electrically assisted with electrically assisted

racks where they just the electric motor inputs the steering correction for you.

You can't do that with this steering system. So what they've done because they've got to fit

lane keep assist is if you start drifting towards the edge of the lane or as you drift

over the white line of the lane, it will break the opposite rear wheel to drag the car back onto

this the correct line. And it works very effectively, I thought. But also they've

made improvements to the steering on the latest model. There's quite a lot of it felt like there's

a bit of slack around straight ahead, you know, when you if you ever go bowling with a small person

and they put up those little barriers inside of the lane so that the ball doesn't get lost

in the gutter and then a child will roll a ball down and a ball will make its bounce between the

two. But holding the steering on a on a ground of deer feels a bit like that, that you're just

guiding you're guiding it from one bit to the other. They've tightened that up. Those actually

literally tightened up the gearing so that there's less slack in it. And it's also a bit faster.

It still doesn't self center as much as a modern as a

rack and pinion rack. It doesn't spoil the car for you. No, I like it. No, I like it. I find it funny

enough. It's, you know, so suggestible that that something, you know, a piece of realism from

the boss like this just makes me think better of the car. I know, yeah, but I think no, I'm with

you. I'm with you. I you should you should spend some time in it. I really fancy it. I kind of,

yeah, a bit of a nice to do even a little bit off roading. Yeah, they're good at that. They're

good at that because you can lock depending on which variant you get, you get, you can lock

all three differentials. Yeah. They're not the lightest car in the world, but beyond that,

they're really capable off road. I like to look at that one with the with the sort of van body,

you know, four doors, but the, but the no windows behind the doors. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I think they're the cheap ones, too. Yes. I drove a portal axled one late last year,

and I think that's in the mag now this week, which is so there's a company called Le Tech,

which is a German company. They do that Mercedes G class four by four squared,

whatever they called it. And they do a portal axle version of the grenadier as well. So it's

lifted by, I want to say like 200, I want to say 200 mil, maybe it's 150, but it's a lot taller.

And because the gearing is so portal axle listener, if you don't know, is unimogs have

had them since day one. They are a gear set in the wheel hub that allows you to raise the body

and the axle of the car to give you more ground clearance. Sounds expensive.

Yeah. Yeah. That's quite expensive, including the car. They're about 160 grand,

but there are people for whom only that will do. So the German fire service have got a few of them

because they, they, when they're running through woodland and scrubland, they need the extra

ground clearance when you need it. You need it. You need it. But the thing about it is that the

gearing is the same as the standard car. And so the speeds are the same. So all the wheel speed

sensors are the same, which means that all of the stability and traction control and everything else

is exactly the same as needs no recalibration. They don't have to re homologate anything. It just

works as it should. And I tried one in a quarry flooded pretty badly flooded and it was going

places that a normal car would not go. And that's the difference, isn't it? How much more capable

is it? I don't know. Is it 20% 30%? I don't know. But if I couldn't go over it before

and I can go over it now, it's 100% more useful. Yeah. And it's a lifesaver, I guess.

Yeah. In certain circumstances. Yeah. And there is. And I think

Ineos are finding that and they're not selling billions of grenadiers, but there are some people

for whom only it will do. Yeah. You hear, you don't hear any bad stuff, do you? You know,

there's no complaining about the car. No, I think people who have them, because I ran one for a

few months and I did a bit of looking into, you know, owner's forums and things like that.

And they all say, they all go, I love the car. There are some issues around how many dealers

there are, where you get it looked after. You know, I think in America, they're expanding the network,

but America is a pretty big place. And if you live a long way from you can't, you could live a

long way from a dealer. But people really like the car. I really like the car. Yeah. Well, you

would, given the rather wonderful 250 miles, 250,000 miles. 243,000 outside in the Defender.

Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking, I might treat it to, when it gets to 250, which is maybe a year away,

I might treat it to a rag top that I've been thinking about for some time. Yes. I spoke to

some JLR people the other day, you know, there's people who run their events and stuff. A lot of

them are Land Rover enthusiasts. So I was chatting to them about who makes the best soft top to fit

and how hard is it to do? And somebody said they've had one on for eight years and it's showing no

signs of wear car key colored rather than black, because apparently the black ones, they dye them

twice or something. And the khaki ones are cool. And they're quite hard wearing and

the idea of khaki sounds right. Sounds right for a great car. Your color, which is sort of

charcoal. Yeah, it's a grayish metallic gray. Same color as the Tomb Raider film. Okay. Apparently,

I think that's when they started that's when they started using that color. I think it was

introduced for that film. It's a modern color, isn't it? I mean, every time I also makes a,

you know, given that it's it's seen life, your car, it still looks remarkably neat and tight.

Yeah. And it doesn't show up the dirt that color. Who was it? Lord Strathcaron, who the motoring writer

and president, probably the guild of motoring writers for a time. He always had silver cars,

because he always said they didn't show and they didn't show the dirt. Yeah. Yeah. And that car does

not, I mean, it never gets cleaned, as I think we've discussed on this pod before. It never gets

cleaned. Never to be forgotten that bloke. I mean, I think he departed a good few years ago, but

he's still around in a way. I always remember him. He married a few different times,

a few times, but I remember being introduced to a lady called Eve, who was called my main wife.

She is a lovely person, really. He was a card that guy. He was a character. Yes, there is the

I don't know. Should we tell the story? I might I might that he was being because he was a pilot,

wasn't he at some point? Yeah. And I believe, and yes, and somebody was showing him some factory in

or near Dresden or something and said, Have you ever been here before? He says, only once. I didn't

stay off words to that effect. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I remember being at Thruxton with him,

sitting in the in the stands watching a motor race, just I don't know why, but we were both there.

And he was telling us his story about how he he had a six cylinder pre-war 30s alpha car worth

millions now. That was his smoker to go around to get to, you know, to his squadron or whatever.

Yeah. And one day the weather the winter was so horrible that he swapped it with another bloke

for a Morissette with wind up windows because he was so desperate to have wind up windows.

The Morissette's probably worth two and a half grand now. Yeah. Wow, crikey.

Have you ever sold anything that's worth loads of money now? I'm just trying to think. No, not

really. I mean, for I bought a Ferrari for I thought I was being stolen. I was I was being

having my trousers removed. I paid 12 and a half and it you would now pay 100 plus, I think for

was a fiberglass body, Ferrari 308 GTB. But I did sell a border for 12 and a half sold for 22 and

a half. And I thought I was doing okay. Yeah. But it went up some more there. I think they're

lovely. They look good. But I did subsequently borrow it years later. And honestly, I went to

probably bored you with this story already. I had a Ford Fiesta SI,

one liter three cylinder, nice little manual gearbox went to this bloke's house and to have a

go in my former car probably 10 years after and drove away knowing that the Fiesta had

nicer gear change, better brakes just as much poke and a nicer driving position. And probably

and because 308s at the time were rather terrible inside, it even had a nicer interior. So

there's your progress, you know, we were talking about a little while ago. Yeah, there is that.

I drove a group something rally car. I don't want to say it was a group B because I'm not

wasn't an official factory entry, but they kind of did support it. That's it. And I had a go in that.

Is it a 308 GTB? Just a group B. I'm not sure whether it was. I didn't know whether it was

a group B, but it was brilliant. Group four. That's it. Right. And I had to go in one of those.

Mate, it was it was good. Fantastic. Yeah, just genuinely. But I like cars that have got a cage

in them and they stiffen the shell up and it felt, you know, it felt like an incredible integrity.

And, you know, the road, the ride was, you know, this was okay for the time, but it wasn't.

It was from the era when Ferrari used to think of a number when it when they were, you know,

writing about power outputs, they didn't, you know, it wasn't as prescribed as it was. And when

I think it was claimed to have 250 or 248 horsepower and then mysteriously,

the law chain, the din rules came in in Germany and suddenly it was came back the next time with

215. Oh, interesting. Interesting. As it was group B. Tell the lie. I drove that in group B.

This is April 2020. I drove it a long, a long way before that.

Uh, officially never Ferrari project. Italian race team, uh,

Michelotto built a dozen to group four regulations in the seventies. And then when group B arrived,

the rules that spawned Astratos would also suit the contemporary agenda in Ferrari two. So they

built four 308s to compete in the European and Italian rally championships, one of them winning

the Italian rally championship in 1982. And there's now an engineering company owner,

race car prep and Ferrari specialist called Tony Walswick, who also had the only right hand drive

group B 308 GTB in existence. So yeah, it's a three, a three liter V8. The heads made by his

own engineering company with a top end designed to be as close as possible to a cause with DFV.

Wow. Rep to seven and a half made 450 horsepower. Oh, sounds good. With a dog leg five speed box.

Yeah. And 970 kilos. Uh, I don't know that. Yes, this was way 970.

Yeah. Well,

Oh, you can see that. Oh, and carbon. Yeah, carbon composite body panels, which Ferrari

material Ferrari sort of later used for the F40.

Oh, interesting. That was when I don't know when I drove that, but it was great.

It was great. That was 2016. I drove it at the

Chumlee castle. Oh, yes. Yeah, because it was at the pageant of power or whatever they call it.

Yeah. Yeah. fondly remembered that thing. Yeah, the yes, it was going to they sort of dubbed it

the good word of the north, didn't they? But it's sort of in Cheshire. It was only about an hour

outside Birmingham, really. That's it. So north, middle and south north lovely countryside. Yeah.

But I think it, I guess it didn't wash its face. No. And I think

these some of those other car fest events gave it a hard time in terms of spectator numbers and

things. Yeah. Yeah, it was good fun. And actually the course, did you drive around the circuit?

Yeah. They had that. I thought it was arguably a because it went in a loop.

There were cars running all the time. It didn't have to run in batches.

And then run them back down the hill. You could just keep stuff running all day long.

I'm trying to remember what I drove around there. It was some mad car, some really daft machine.

Really? Yeah. I drove an Atom. No, no, no. In fact, I think Atom aerial did go there because I

drove I drove on a weekend there, I think. Yeah, because we do you remember we you and I camped

there didn't we? Yeah. And the the aerial blokes were there and they brought the table from the

works. Do you remember the table? The much celebrated table which they reckon makes camping.

Yes, you do need a table. You have got it. You have got to have a table when you camp, I think.

I think. Yeah, that must have been the year when you were in the Atom and I was in something else.

I can't remember what. It was something like a some with a Rover V8 in her, I've forgotten.

Really? It's a mad car, yeah. Like a special kind of thing. Yeah, word free. Yeah, some.

It's gone out of my head. Well, it would have been 12 years ago, I reckon. Yeah, you see.

Or 11. Can't expect the memory to function at a distance like that. Can you? Did I have this

conversation last week with you that I was with an engineer the other day and I saw a picture.

Maybe I've talked about this last week. Somebody showed me a picture of a motorway

from the early 90s, I think. And I could go through and go, I know what all those cars are.

Yeah. And I'm not sure I would repeat that fact quite so well today.

No, it's a worry, isn't it? But I was looking through going and I got a note from him.

Hello, Graham. I got a note from him with this photo. I said like two thirds there, but I said,

is that a Carlton GSI 3000 on the way? And I would know that car even though that was 30 years ago.

Yeah. And I wouldn't. But I think you can argue that that's the fault of the car

stylists, designers, because there are plenty of cars today that you would be able to do.

I mean, this JQ, the Chinese EV, sticks out a mile, doesn't it? You can just spot it.

Yeah, it does. Yeah, true. Yeah, true. The people who make cars that you can't see

are missing a trick. Yeah. But also, there are many more cars, aren't there?

Oh, they do. Yeah. If you open up, I don't know.

They're all the same size and height. The Mercedes-Benz website, and you go,

I'm thinking about an SUV or a 4x4. They go, well, okay, we make 16 of those.

Yeah. Whereas, it's only five, 30 years ago that have made half a dozen models.

So I think that doesn't... Also, I think the punter doesn't help you because

everything's a non-color, you know, a sort of gray or...

Very good point. Yeah. Whereas you might have spotted a Ford blue or something.

Yeah. But they're now just all gray, like my own Land Rover.

This, you know, unfortunately. Oh, but that's a distinguished color.

I think it suits the car. It does suit the car. And I did think when we bought it,

I was like, maybe it would be nice to get it wrapped in some kind of...

I like that kind. I'm not a big green car fan as a rule, but I do like...

It's got a name, isn't it? What's that kind of... Is it Keswick Green or something like?

Oh, yeah, it's... One of the lighter greens that I quite liked.

Or the lighter... Some of the blues. I usually get blue cars if I have a choice about it.

I do. But I've come to rather like that gray.

But the thing about Landy in any case is it doesn't depend on the color to be identified,

does it? It's just a beautiful shape. It always will be. Whatever happens.

Yeah. And it's also... Have you seen the spare wheel cover

on it with the classic Land Rover motif logo on the back?

Oh, I did see it. Which, yeah, Matt Saunders, our rotor senator,

gave me that for a birthday I had last year. It belonged to his old man who was involved in

Land Rover. Man's a hero.

He is, yeah. And it looks great. I really like that.

I've spent a couple of days last week sitting next to Stormy.

Everybody knows our paths don't always cross in this racket too much.

And there were two deeply enjoyable days just because he's got this kind of

quick sense of humor, hasn't he? He doesn't say much, but when he says it's your amuse.

Yes. I love it.

Tell me about, mate, Retromobile. I've never been and you have.

For... Well, I haven't been.

Oh, would you not?

No, first time. I went over there to meet the boss of Alpine who was

up talking about the new A110, the electric one, which comes out next year.

Interesting.

And the main thrust was to gather a story. There's a four-page story in the

issue that we, I think in a week's time, not the issue that...

Not out now.

No, but I think it will be the 11th of February.

Yeah, yeah.

But interesting guy, but Retromobile is the Parisian classic car show.

But full of joy, honestly.

You know how if you get used to the pace and content and so on of

British classic car shows, and they're great, but there's a limit to the number of times you

want to see a Dolomites print or an MGB.

I'm not there with MGBs yet, I've got to say.

No, no, no. I'm not knocking the MG out.

No, I know.

I never will knock the MG out.

Actually, I...

But I know what you mean. You could...

There are... You may have... I can see you can go somewhere and think,

I have seen these cars before.

Yes.

But you start off by walking up this long walkway, and the first thing you come to

is a very large enclosure with a load of cars all for sale at under 30,000 euros,

so what, 25K or something.

And most of them have got a bloke sitting beside them in a deck chair or a folding

aluminium, whatnot, hoping to do... to take your money.

And as well as a lot of familiar cars, you know, German stuff like that.

There are loads of French cars that you haven't seen for a long time.

I saw two Renault Fuego's, no matter how excellent they are.

Yeah, my uncle had, because he worked for a Renault dealer, had some Renault Fuego's.

I remember going on family holidays and spending time in a Fuego.

Yeah, Fuego turbo, what a car.

Oh, really, yeah.

Wheel fight to beat the band.

Oh, because they were front drive, weren't they?

Yeah, it was a sort of Montego turbo levels of lane changing.

But anyway, the beautiful car.

But I saw a Renault 12 estate, never to be seen.

I saw a Renault 14, which is the, which is the sort of banana shaped,

the one with the banana shaped sills.

It looked a bit like a estate.

Sorry, I'm reminding myself what a 12 estate looks like.

I can't, I couldn't tell you the last time I saw one.

No, it was a very long time ago.

I saw a Fuego 203, one of which I had in Sydney until some bloke rear-ended it while I was

in the street, parked in the street, you know, perfectly inoffensively parked outside my flat

in Moscow. Oh, you weren't in it.

I was standing in the shower and there was this massive report, you know, felt like the

damn flat had fallen out.

And I looked out the window and somebody had put the back axle of my

my Fuego 203 in the rear seat.

Oh, they were made, they were made in Australia, too.

There were big deal in round Australia trials.

There was these for the through the fifties, maybe into the sixties.

There were these handsome car, aren't they?

Yeah, it's a lovely car.

I've never seen one.

Beautiful steering.

The engine was the same was related to the engine, smaller capacity, but it went on

into the 403, 404, and even a 504, I think.

Sorry, this is all getting a bit obscure, but it was a really nice,

hemi-headed four-cylinder engine, but lovely.

It was a really good car.

I remember taking, you know, various modern road test cars home and finding that

my Fuego 203 had better steering, even though it was 20 years older.

Yeah, a marked resemblance, it says, to the Chevrolet Fleetline Fastback.

But it does have that kind of, there is a sort of Americana kind of look to it, isn't

there? It's a really handsome car.

I didn't, I had no idea.

I think it may have been a bit more common in Australia than here, to know.

Yeah, well it says 685,000 made, assembled in France and Australia.

So maybe they, maybe you did to get them, yeah, maybe they were more kicking around.

Australian production.

Yeah, there was all kinds of weird stuff went on there.

I think the Renault from memory, the Renault 12 was made by Peugeot.

Right.

And the Renault 16, I think, was made by Peugeot.

Very strange.

There were all kinds of cooperative deals.

Oh, really.

Renault 16 being a European car of the year at the moment.

Yeah, that's a car of the year.

It's not a European car of the year.

Car of the year, is what it's called.

That was one of the first really heavy cars, you know, underpowered, but awfully rigid in the body.

You know, you could drop it off a building.

No trouble.

The 14, yeah, there is a certain potatoishness to the 14, isn't there?

The 14 was the one I remember for its historic levels of body roll.

And it just, you know, you could use up the entire suspension travel of the outside rear wheel,

the outside front and rear wheels, just in body roll.

Just in body roll.

And you sat in the car and you, as you were cornering, you seem to be a foot closer to the road,

looking outwards than you normally were.

Well, because it's halfway through this podcast, mate, and it's time for our commercial break,

first of all, let's thank our sponsors, Anderson, makers of top quality design led home EV charges.

You can go to Anderson-EV.com and their one stock Concio service will do everything,

including they'll probably send one of their own.

They have their own installers, don't they?

They do.

They tend to, sometimes you'll, you'll be sent to a local electrician or whatever.

No, Anderson will look after you the whole way through.

Somebody will turn up in a Volkswagen ID buzz and install for you.

But it will continue the commercial break to say that the Auto Car Archive is 131 years old,

later this year.

And if you go in and search Renault 14, the third result on it is the 1980,

week ending, 16th of February, 1980, the auto test of the Renault 14 TS,

a bigger engine addition to the 14 range, a high level of equipment,

which includes electrically operated front windows, central door locking system.

Suspension has been upgraded, Stephen, with the addition of a rear anti-roll bar and a front

anti-roll bar.

But am I right in saying that the...

I'm going to show you the picture.

There is still epic proportions of body lean, I would say.

It does look like two wheels are coming off the ground on the inside of it.

There's this V plate 14.

But, but the, I must say the, the, the benefit was really excellent, soft, supple.

Can imagine.

Yeah.

Well, let's say the, in spite of the application of anti-roll bar at the rear,

says the picture caption, the one, the 14 TS still demonstrates something of the traditional

Renault roll.

Now, let's have a quick look at what it says.

Performance, economy, noise, road behavior, exceptional ride.

One of the big selling points and the 14 offers a big car feel in a small car body.

All independent suspension by McPherson struts at the front and transverse torsion bars with

the trailing arm set up at the rear.

A thicker anti-roll bar has been fitted at the front and the famous Renault roll has been

further alleviated.

Not that much by the adoption of a rear anti-roll bar.

An additional purpose is to counter the inevitable understeer of a typical front drive layout,

even if Renault has cleverly.

Funny enough, actually, back then, manufacturers were referred to as a plural rather than the

singular as we know it now.

Yeah.

Renault have cleverly kept the front heaviness down, whereas these days we would refer to a

company as company singular rather than people plural.

Yeah.

The thing I failed to do at Retromobile was to buy any models.

I normally, I had it firmly in mind to buy either a Renault 14 or a Renault 4CV, a 750.

Oh, cool.

Which is one of which I also had when I lived in out of the way in South Australia.

Welcome to part two of the podcast, listen.

By the way, did you?

Yeah, it was a funny little car.

But the thing I liked about that was that many years ago, I interviewed Ferry Porsche,

not Ferdy Ferry, the bloke who was responsible for the very first Porsche 911.

Right.

And he explained to me that he had had, his first car was a Renault 4CV.

No way.

So there you are.

There is some, because I wrote a piece on the Porsche 356,

there is some thought that the original Ferry Porsche, who's spent a bit of time

in a French prison after the war, was asked to look over the 4CV.

All right.

Is that certain then?

Yes.

I get a bit, because there's quite a lot.

Ferdinand Ferry Ferdy, I think.

Yes.

So it would have been Ferdinand.

Yes, it would have been Ferdinand.

Yes.

And Ferry was in the Austrian countryside developing the 356 at the time,

where his old man was still at the time in Choky.

But I think some of the French manufacturers get a little defensive about it going now.

Actually, the 4CV was our work.

But yes, it is believed he was asked to look over it,

because he was the engineer behind the Volkswagen Beetle.

Isn't it interesting how all of those cars, they decided for a period that

hanging the engine outside the back of the car,

in order to make the cabin big, was the way to go.

Go to Beetle, Renault 8, Renault 750, all those Renaults.

Yeah.

And the Renault kept hold of it until, well, quite a long time.

Yeah.

Well, yeah.

What was the last one?

Renault 10, I think.

Okay.

And Skoda kept with it for a long time.

That's it.

The Airstel, yep.

And then, of course, the Yanks did the Corvair with the huge,

you know, flat six hanging out the back, as Richard Bremner can attest.

Does he still have that car?

I think he has it.

Yeah, and he's very proud of it, I think.

This 14 seems to have the spare wheel on top of the engine,

which presumably does not help loads with body lean and understeer.

No, no, I guess not.

But there were few of them did that, didn't there?

I think the Renault 6, the thing that was a kind of improved or glorified or

gentrified Renault 4, I think that also had the spare wheel in the bonnet.

The absence of a spare.

I wonder if anybody cares about all this nonsense.

I suppose we'll find out.

Thanks for joining us, listener, for general nonsense.

I think the absence of a spare wheel in modern cars is a fact that is coming

back to haunt us as our roads become, honestly, crapper and crapper,

and more dangerous and more dangerous.

The road near here the other day, which you got a puncture on the Mini a couple of years ago,

I saw a Land Rover Discovery with a puncture on that road the other day.

It's got potholes the size of my garden pond.

As somebody on a radio phone in would say, it's an absolute disgrace,

but it genuinely is.

Well, how is it possible to get to this stage?

It's unbearable.

Have you talked about this earlier in this pod already, driving around?

Yeah, I drive around potholes quite a lot.

And then, you know, as you say, the steering pulls you.

Yeah, so the steering assist is like, no, you've got to stay online.

Yeah, thanks.

I'll end up in a flipping trench.

Anyway, but it does.

This is not the year of a low ultra low profile tires.

It is not.

No, and that is that is a thing, isn't it?

They have become much more popular.

That's why I quite like having the taller sidewalls on it.

Well, the Land Rover, but also the taller sidewalls on the Audi that I swapped.

Yes.

For about a year ago.

Of course you did, yeah.

Yeah, that was a much better idea.

And the Raptor does a pretty good job too.

Oh, but it does, mate.

But it's great for that.

Because the sidewalls are...

The faster you go, the better it gets.

And those, let's say, on the K02s, is it?

The B of Goodrich K02s.

The Land Rover is on slightly sinister,

sounding general grabbers.

Yes, I was admiring them on the way.

Oh, I've got some new ones, mate.

Yeah, I've got some new rears.

Yeah, they said the other day, do you want,

when I had to get them, went to get them fitted and they went,

do you want them with the white painting on the outside or on the inside?

I thought, I'll take it on the out, might not.

Take it on the outside, because that's cool.

Oh, they're very elegant.

They look great.

AutoCart at hangmarket.com, you can write to us.

Richard Porter of Smith & Sniff and Top Gear and Books.

Many books.

Yeah.

Has written to us because I was talking to him the other day about the new Jaguar.

Actually, I was talking to him the other day because I listened to their podcast

and I emailed him about dogging,

which is not something we cover on this podcast very much.

So I thought that.

So I thought my tale of my dogging adjacent story was better for their pod than this one.

Anyway, anyway, we got into a chat about Jaguars.

I drove the new electric one the other day.

You spent some time in it as well.

You saw Richard there, didn't you?

I did, yeah.

Anyway, he writes to say, I was prompted to write by hearing one of your listeners

suggesting J-Type for the name of the next Jaguar

and noting that JLR trademarked this name in 2018.

At the time, it might have seemed like they were just mopping up names

in case they wanted to use them in future.

And a quick look at the UK trademarks database shows that in the same year,

they also bagged several other things for automotive use, including C-Pace and Liquid.

Jaguar Liquid sounds like something to make a zookeeper

wish they put plastic bags over their shoes.

And it's never been used, nor indeed has C-Pace.

But around this time, Jag's designers came up with a proposal

for a low-slung four-door EV, and their suggested name for it was J-Type.

Sadly, management weren't sold, and it never came to anything.

But on the plus side, it means the name is still looking for a home,

perhaps on another low-slung electric Jaguar of the future.

Yeah, well, it's believable, isn't it?

Yeah.

As we were saying, the Rodin Glover, the MD of Jaguar did say that

use of this word type was a strong clue to how they would name the car.

He also said that we would find out a fair bit about the naming

when we were talking late last year, and he said early next year,

we will tell you what we're going to call it.

Oh, interesting.

There must be something afoot.

I think they've got, inevitably, they've got the information sort of staged

until we see the car at the end of the year.

And maybe the name is going to be going to pop out soon, I hope so.

Have you seen it for real?

I have.

I've only seen pictures of it.

It's a most imposing looking car, really.

There are some reminiscent, some...

Some...

Are we allowed to say this without breaking in, shattering the embargo?

I suppose so.

It looks, oh, anybody who's seen the concept will know where it's going.

It's sort of on the way to a, do you remember the Lagonda, the low-low...

The Aston Martin Lagonda version thing.

If you imagine that car.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it's got those planes and that angled rear that the Lagonda's got a bit more of a boot.

But it is that kind of simple chisel shape.

Nice, really good.

Oh, I tell you what, I was driving up the A316 towards the office

Sunday morning and I saw, you know, that big JLR dealership on the left-hand side.

Yeah, that's full of Landrovers on the first floor or whatever, the second floor, whatever.

They had a Jaguar up there.

Wow.

XJS.

Gosh.

Yeah, I thought it was an interesting choice.

Yeah, though, the XJS is having a renaissance, isn't it?

You know, we used to think it was ugly now, everybody tells us it's beautiful.

Yeah, and I mean, it sort of is.

Yeah, it kind of is, isn't it?

But I wonder if there's hints of...

So I've got a story in the mag this week because I went to Sweden and I drove the prototype on ice

on a frozen lake.

Of course you did, yeah.

And I always thought frozen lake, I don't know why I thought this,

frozen lakes would just be flat ice, right, just flat.

But because they go out grading it with these big grading machines and they sweep the snow off

and they scrape the surface a bit.

Actually, two things about that.

So they're quite long machines with quite a long wheelbase and I think they sort of

they sort of bounce a bit on their springs back and forth and as they tip back and forth,

so they actually make a gentle undulating surface to drive on.

So actually it's a bit sort of washboardy to drive on.

So I got a bit more of a vibe of the ride than I expected to.

The other thing is, so these, I can't say the name of it because I did ask the

woman at Passport Control how I would say Argeplog and she'd never heard of it.

But it's up in the north of Sweden, 60 kilometers from the Arctic Circle

and all the manufacturers go and test there.

Jaguar's got a million square meters of frozen lake that it's got a place on land

and then when the when the lakes freeze, it effectively leases its part of lake as well.

On the other side of the lake, towards the other shore, Mercedes-AMG have their bit of the lake

and I went there and I said, how do you divvy up who gets what?

He said, well, we lease this section of it and somebody goes out when it freezes and they

fence it off.

There are businesses there, aren't there, in effect, sort of like a

in a non-arctic situation, an earth-moving company that will prepare you a track.

Yeah, and so JLR have three handling tracks and they're all the same and that they can

use one while another one is graded by the by the surfacing thing.

But because these machines go out and they clear the snow and they compact

the stuff on the ground into the ice, where the tracks are, the ice thickens to twice the

thickness of the rest of it.

So actually, as it starts to thaw in March and April, the last bits to thaw out are the tracks.

So you effectively get this sort of floating handling circuit in the middle of the lake

and I just thought, I mean, what a risk assessment that would take, but what a day out that would be.

You want to be nice and accurate with your steering, wouldn't you?

Wouldn't you just?

Yeah, wouldn't you just?

But anyway, the story's in the mag this week and I thought it felt a lot like a Jaguar.

That's good, isn't it?

You know, in the way it steers and because it's a it's a heavy car, but the central gravity is

really low, so it doesn't have active anti-roll bars and even a sort of half a G rather than a G

of lateral grip or whatever it would hold, you know, you do get a bit of body movement and then

we're like, yeah, that's part of the part of the character.

Yeah, they want it to breathe.

The steering is not overlight.

It's sort of, you know, middling right, you know, want a bit of effort to, you know, but I think

when we first saw that Type 00 concept, there was a bit of a feeling that

they didn't care about what had come before, but actually speaking to some of the engineers,

they're like, yeah, that was a bit upsetting for us because actually one of the first things we did,

we got all of the cars out of the Jaguar Heritage Collection and a load of, you know,

from, we sourced a load and we spent days driving them all, looking at them all, sitting them all

and deciding what we wanted a new Jaguar to be like based on the character of Jaguars previously.

Yeah, I remember being the first time we ever learned that the new Jag was going to have a

long bonnet. I remember being reassured by that because the I-Pace, excellent car, but no bonnet

because it's electric and you don't strictly have to have a long bonnet, but it just

great in every way, but not aesthetically perfect.

Yeah, because as Ian Callum would say, why would you bother having a long bonnet,

a designer of the Jaguar I-Pace? In fact, you know, if you're having an EV, why bother,

you don't have to have a long bonnet, so why would you?

To move it all forward.

Yeah, but you sit a long way back in the, it felt to me in terms of it's,

it's difficult because you're sitting in it with four coats on and it's, or the interior

was still bagged up and disguised, but it's quite a snug, cosy interior, isn't it?

Yeah.

It sort of gave me a bit of a vibe of the old Aston Martin Rapide,

which is not necessarily a bad thing.

No, no, no. I've got fond memories of XJSs just because

I remember the bonnet. I like the long view of the bonnet.

Yeah.

It's good.

Another, so another one of the engineers said, you know, that car, that, and I don't know if

this is normal. Car designers, let me know if this is typical.

When they, I know car manufacturers do produce a lot of designs and present them to the board

and go, right, which of these? They made 17 full-size scale models of cars before selecting

and chose the Type 00 from it.

Yeah. You'd think that it'd get confusing, wouldn't you? You'd be...

That's a lot, isn't it?

Yeah. I could imagine choosing between four or five, but...

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe like, you know, half a dozen distinct themes, but 17.

But then the...

I wonder how different some of them were, though. Maybe they're all, I think.

Yeah. Well, yeah, I suppose so. Everybody, I guess it was a moment when the most outlandish

were, you know, could be tried. God could be assessed anyway.

But often, it always amazes me that designers can see the root from a fairly radical

two-dimensional pen sketch to a car, and yet they can.

Yeah.

Just different.

Yeah. So I think, well, I think about the sounds of it, we'll find the name-ish, soon-ish.

Well, yeah, that seemed to be the talk.

Yeah. And we should see the car, I think, late summer and it goes on sale.

Early next year.

Yeah.

My understanding is it'll start to arrive on people's driveways.

I see.

Sort of springtime.

Very exciting, innit?

Yeah. I just want to go in one.

Yeah. I still drive around the potholes.

Yeah. 23-inch wheels.

Yeah.

You can get 20... So you can get 21s as a no-cost option in some markets, which do with crappy roads.

Right.

And I didn't make the... Well, in the copy, I obviously made the obvious joke that, you know,

ours was some of them.

But I think for places that don't have lots of finished roads, you can get 21s.

But as one of their engineers said to me, look, we want it to ride the best when it looks the best.

So that's how it has been.

It won't be a superior dynamic machine on smaller wheels.

I would definitely trust them to make it ride well and keep it quiet on big wheels.

There seems to be a...

That's just a capability in the JLR realm, isn't it?

Yeah.

They can make big wheeled cars go, you know, lovely rolling comfort and all that.

Yeah.

It's good.

Shall we talk Andy Willman's book?

He's the executive producer of Top Gear on the Grand Tour.

Yeah, first top gear and then the Grand Tour.

Yeah. And you've been listening to his... He's got a book out.

Yeah. It's called Mr. Willman's Motoring Adventure.

Excellent.

And it's absolutely excellent.

You can buy a hard copy, but I was listening in the car.

Which is a pretty good way to do it because he narrated himself.

Oh, does he? Oh, good.

So if you know him, you can hear...

And you know him a bit, do you?

Yeah, yeah. There's quite a lot of bad language in it, which is...

So you've got to be aware of who's listening.

But great book, really good book.

It becomes clear that everything was propelled by the relationship between Willman and Clarkson,

really. They were mates in school. Clarkson actually got expelled, I believe.

But anyway, they just had all the ideas together.

And the... Of course, they eventually built bigger and bigger teams

and people with greater and greater skills.

And eventually, I think a Grand Tour crew at times was 50 people.

But imagine shifting them around the world.

Imagine being sort of stoned by a load of Argentinians as well,

when you're traveling in five or six four by fours and trying to get to the airport.

He tells loads of good stories, not the stuff off the screen,

but some background, like who were the really nice guests.

Tom Cruise, he...

Interesting. Yeah, okay.

Who he lifts out as being a wonderful bloke and can drive too.

Yeah, I've heard that.

In fact, Jonathan Palmer says that, doesn't he?

Apparently, Tom Cruise...

That's right. Didn't he do one of the days?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Turned up with his mates and they all did really well.

But also BBC politics, stuff like being hauled over the coals by the people upstairs,

for various crimes and misdemeanours.

But they had pretty good negotiating power because this program was drawing audiences

of six million people. The Watch It's Face figure was half that.

The BBC said, if you can do it, deliver three, you're in, you're fine.

Eventually, he exceeded six.

And then there's the story of the Grand Tour.

He doesn't do well much on the business of clarky, dotting some bloke and bringing

Top Gear to an end.

But he does talk about how they all got together and why the three of them stayed together.

And he also is very...

There's a very sort of moving really bit about doing the last programme,

the very last programme of 20 years of all this sort of stuff.

Because you're not quite aware of it, but Clarkson and Willman were together doing

TV even before Top Gear.

Oh, of course, like the Motorworld or stuff like that.

And it's a thoroughly good book and you get, I enjoyed the bad language

and held my attention for all the way.

It was one of those ones where I was sorry that it ended.

I thought you remember on one of these pods you said,

I think you might have put it in a column too, that

the world needs this kind of motoring programme.

It needs things done at this level of expertise with people of this sort of personal magnitude.

Yeah, yeah, I think so.

And I think you can't imagine TV without cooking programmes, right?

There's bound to be a cooking programme and there's bound to be a property programme.

Because these things are such important parts of our daily lives that it's unthinkable

that it would be television without it.

And yet the cars, I think people spend probably on average,

almost as long driving as they do cooking, don't they?

The average grown-up probably does, if you worked it out.

In my case, more.

Yeah, and so it's mad that there is not a mainstream.

I mean, I'm probably doing a disservice to people who are making

very good TV with cars, but there is not a bake-off equivalent.

But they were really front and centre.

And they were absolutely front and centre of that.

The thing is, as Willman explains, their audience grew because there were people

who didn't give monkeys about cars, but just enjoyed what they were up to.

Three middle-aged men falling over, is that a good description?

Well, he was always, he makes lots of references to being nine-year-old humour.

But I think the cleverness of it is perfectly obvious.

It's a great read.

I enjoyed it and I mean, he doesn't need it to be successful,

but I hope it's successful because it's a nice piece of work.

Yeah, we should talk to him.

Yes, yeah.

Get him in if he was willing.

Will if he's got the time.

It'd be interesting to talk to him about that.

I understand they're cooking up.

Amazon are trying to find three people to go on with the Grand Tour.

Oh, really?

I think it's been revealed.

But who the hell, how do you do that?

Well, I mean, Top Gear is at its, how do you,

it's the, who wants to be the next Sir Alex Ferguson at United?

It's that kind of thing, isn't it?

It is that.

It's that sort of, how do you do that?

How do you, yeah.

Well, I, in a way, I, you know, I don't wish them failure,

but I, I just don't want it to be as successful.

I think they were magic.

Yeah, yeah.

And, and, you know, Clarkson, my idea of a genius

to be able to write like that as well.

Yeah.

And, and honestly, very good road tester.

Yeah.

Really good reviewer of cars.

Yeah.

And that is, I think, I don't know, some of people,

I think sometimes underrate that actually what a really good road

tester he is, you know, a really good assessor of cars, I think.

Oh no, it's hard.

And there he is farming away as well.

Yeah.

Running pubs, opening breweries.

Yeah.

Remarkable bloke.

Yeah.

He, he is a remarkable bloke.

Much lower rent quality videos available over on the AutoCart YouTube channel.

It's Jaguar X, no, X, I was going to call it XJ.

Feels, feels like the new XJ.

It's the Type 00, but I've just called it Type 00 for now,

because I don't know what else to call it.

No, I think you're right to do that.

But I think the, the quality is not talking about the presenter quality, Matthew.

It's, it's, it's just, it's just production value.

But if you want to know what we think of the new Jaguar, there it is.

Did you have a crew of 50 people?

No.

No, no, I remember, we used to shoot a Long Cross test track,

which we haven't done for a very long time because it's now pretty much used for films.

Yeah.

But yes, later in our use of that, that started to become slightly problematic

as we would be doing drift shots through the snake.

And somebody would come out from call the midwife and go, excuse me,

are you going to be doing that for much longer?

Only, only we've got, you know, a few, a few bits we'd like to film in here.

And we can hit in the background, which is not really what we have in mind.

But yes, and there's going to be a Ferrari 849 Testarossa video up later this week.

And then, I don't know how much I can say this,

going to be an interior video of a new high-profile electric car coming in next week.

Gosh, we can talk about that next week.

We can talk about that next week.

Yeah, I think, I don't know how much I'm supposed to say about that yet,

because I've not been privy to the arrangement, the agreements that we've entered into.

You've just seen the car.

I haven't seen the car either.

We've got a colleague going off to see something secret.

And I don't know how much we're allowed to talk about it until we're allowed to talk about it.

So anyway, that will be coming soon as well.

What else is going on?

There is your stories coming up next week, the Alpine thing.

Yeah, that'll be interesting.

There's lots of talk about the electric Alpine A110.

The A110 is going to be the sort of staple car forever, like the 911 is to Porsche.

In fact, this Philippe Creef, the bloke that Cree F, I think it's correct when I say it,

he's the boss CEO.

And he would like to visualize a day when people who are buying an Alpine and a Porsche

are stuck between the two of them.

Interesting, really interesting.

That's a big ask, but this latest A110, all team, which is a pretty good car.

That's all the money, isn't it?

Yeah, it's up in the hundreds, isn't it?

Is it?

It's a lot.

But still, a good car.

It's a good car, but it looks a lot more online than 35.

Really interesting that they think they could always...

And I'm really pleased that they go, yeah, we'll always have a 110.

That's cool.

That's great.

Yeah, no, it is good.

It seems to me that, well, put it this way, I'm an owner.

I like the backstory of Alpine, the bloke that started building specials after the war

and made him so good that he did well at Le Mans and all that and built his own bodies.

I like the continuation.

I think it's okay.

They're still in the Dieppe factory.

This red LA, the boss that started it all is greatly celebrated by the new owners.

Formula One, they could do with a bit slightly better performance, but maybe they'll do it.

Anyway, sorry, mate.

I've wanged on for absolutely too long and we should bring this in.

So thanks to our sponsor, Anderson, Anderson-EV.com.

Contact them and they'll send you a color swatch.

You can check which color and finish would best suit your domestic arrangements.

So cool that.

I really, it's such a nice idea.

That is such a good idea.

Also, it did work for me.

We chose a color forum and charge it to go on a 100 and whatever it is,

what's 1860, whatever it is, 180-year-old barn.

Looks good.

Steve and I will be back this time next week with some more chat.

I don't think we're away between doing that, but there's loads to catch up on.

Even if I don't write another column, I've still got a column to talk to you about,

which I haven't yet.

Yeah, well, I want to hear about Ferrari.

You want to talk about Ferrari.

So loads of that to come.

Those stories are on the AutoCar website or in the magazine in the meantime.

And yeah, thanks, mate.

I'll see you next week.

Yeah.

New Jag driven, Ineos, Retromobile

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