The Alpine A110 is a small, fun sports car known for feeling nimble and quick through corners. Here, they’re talking about whether Alpine can offer a gas (petrol) version again instead of only an electric one.
ICE means the normal kind of car engine that burns fuel (like petrol). An “ICE equivalent” is basically the gas version of a car that’s being designed around electric first.
A platform is the car’s main “build” that many versions can share. They’re saying their EV platform could also be adapted to support a gas engine version, not just electric.
A powertrain is what actually makes the car move—like the engine or electric motors and the stuff that connects them to the wheels. They’re saying their platform can handle more than one kind of setup.
The Fiat 500e is a small electric car based on the Fiat 500. It’s made for easy city driving. People talk about it because fitting an electric system into a tiny car can be challenging.
The Toyota GR Yaris is a performance version of the Yaris made by Toyota’s GR team. Here, they’re using its cost to show how expensive it is to build and why certain engine choices aren’t always practical.
ICE means an engine that runs on burning fuel (like gasoline or diesel). They’re talking about making an electric version first, and then possibly making a traditional fuel version later if the EV doesn’t sell.
The Alpine A290 is a smaller car from Alpine. It’s meant to be more widely sold than the brand’s rare sports cars. People talk about it because it’s described as Alpine’s biggest-selling model, even if it still isn’t a huge seller.
The Porsche Taycan is Porsche’s electric performance car. They bring it up as an example of a pricier electric option, to argue that there may not be a big market for smaller electric sports cars.
The Tesla Cybertruck is an electric pickup with a very unusual, futuristic look. They mention it to say that some people in the US will buy EVs, but they’re not sure an electric sports car would be as appealing.
An EV sports car is a fast, sporty car that’s powered by electricity. They’re saying that convincing buyers to choose this kind of electric performance car can be difficult.
“Emissions” are the pollution gases cars put into the air. The hosts are saying rules can push car companies to sell electric cars so the overall pollution goes down.
The Toyota GR GT is a special Toyota made so it can be used in racing categories. It’s designed to follow the rules that require a certain number of road cars. That’s why it’s often talked about as a “racing” version of a Toyota.
A “homologation special” is a car made so it can race under a specific rulebook. Racing series often require manufacturers to build a version that matches what’s allowed on track.
GT3 is a popular racing class where cars are race-prepped versions of real models. When they say it’s “basically a GT3 car,” they mean it’s built to match that racing formula.
A monocoque is like the car’s body acting as the main structure. If it’s all aluminium, it can be lighter and stiffer than heavier steel structures, which helps the car feel more precise.
A space frame is a rigid skeleton made from many connected members. It’s common in race cars because it can be built strong and light, helping the suspension stay aligned under hard driving.
The Lexus LFA is a famous high-end supercar that used very advanced materials and construction. They mention it as the previous example of this kind of aluminium space-frame thinking.
This is a V8 engine that’s 4.0 liters and uses two turbochargers. “Hot V” means the turbo hardware sits in the V-shaped space of the engine, which can help the engine respond faster when you press the gas.
The front axle is the structural line where the front wheels are mounted and loads are transmitted. Mentioning how far the engine sits relative to the front axle is a way to describe the car’s weight distribution and layout, which strongly affects handling.
“Front mid” means the engine sits nearer the center of the car than in a normal front-engine car. That shifts weight for better balance, which is why it can feel more agile on track.
A “front mid-engine” car has the engine near the middle of the car, but still toward the front. Putting the engine closer to the center can help the car feel more balanced in corners.
Aerodynamics is how air flows around the car’s body, affecting drag and downforce. In race and high-performance road cars, designers shape bodywork to manage cooling airflow and stability at speed.
GT3 racing is a GT (grand touring) class where cars are built to standardized rules for customer teams. A key rule discussed here is that a GT3 car must be a racing version derived from a production car, not an original race-only design.
In this context, “production car” means a street-legal model sold to customers. GT3 rules tie the race car’s design to that production base so the racing car is recognizable and derived from something that exists commercially.
This means the car is being shown with a race-style look meant for people who buy it to compete. It’s like a “racing livery” theme, but not necessarily a full, track-only sticker kit everywhere.
In automotive context, “carbon” usually means carbon-fiber components or trim used to reduce weight and add stiffness. Here, the hosts say only a few areas are covered in carbon, which affects how “race-like” the livery presentation looks.
The V8 Vantage is an Aston Martin sports car that uses a V8 engine. The hosts mention it alongside other expensive performance cars to explain who the new Toyota GR GT is aiming to compete with.
The AMG GT is a Mercedes performance car with a strong V8 and sporty handling. The hosts mention it because it’s one of the cars they’re using as a reference point for where the new Toyota GR GT will sit.
The Porsche 911 GT3 is a special 911 made for track driving, not just cruising. Here, the hosts mention it because they’re comparing what the new Toyota GR GT might cost versus other serious track cars.
A Porsche Carrera is the more everyday 911 version, not the most extreme track model. They bring it up to show how expensive even the “base” 911 has gotten compared with a GT3.
Term
firmness of the suspension
This is how stiff the car feels over bumps and during cornering. Adjusting it changes whether the ride feels more comfortable or more controlled and sporty.
Active ride means the suspension can actively adjust itself using electronics. Here, the speaker says the car doesn’t use that kind of system, so it feels more straightforward and natural.
A neutral platform means the car is set up to feel balanced and predictable. The goal is that it doesn’t surprise you with sudden, confusing behavior when you’re driving fast.
Person
Accio Morizo Toyota
This person is presented as a top-level driver who helps shape how the car drives. The point is that the car is tuned to be fun and controllable for the driver, not just fast on paper.
Mid-engine cars put the engine closer to the middle of the car. That changes how the car rotates in a turn, and the speaker says it can feel a bit like a pendulum if you lose traction.
The Ferrari Roma is a Ferrari grand tourer that’s often described as more approachable than many other Ferraris. Here it’s mentioned as an example of a car that’s friendly to drive even with a mid-engine layout.
The “pendulum effect” is when a car starts to swing around in a turn in a way that feels hard to stop. The speaker says mid-engine cars can do this more noticeably if you get them fully sideways.
Front engine rear wheel drive means the engine is up front and the rear wheels do the driving. The speaker says this layout is usually easier to control, especially if you make a mistake on the road.
Place
Malcolm Corner
Malcolm Corner is a specific turn on the track. The host is saying it’s a famous tricky spot where lots of drivers end up going off the road.
The Porsche 911 GT3 RS is a very serious, track-bred version of the 911. Here it’s mentioned because it uses “active aero,” meaning parts of the car’s aerodynamics can adjust to help grip.
Active aero means the car’s wings/spoilers can adjust. That helps the car generate more grip when you need it, while trying not to add too much drag when you don’t.
“Hyper limited” is an enthusiast way of describing an extremely small production quantity, usually far below typical limited editions. It implies scarcity and often drives collector value, but it can also mean fewer cars are available to the public.
“Euro 7” is a set of European emissions regulations that tighten limits on pollutants from new vehicles. If an engine must be “Euro 7 compliant,” it typically requires emissions-control hardware and calibration changes, which can affect whether and how many cars a manufacturer can build.
The AMG GT is a Mercedes sports car made by AMG for performance. It uses a strong V8 engine and is designed to feel sporty to drive. People bring it up because it’s meant to be a distinct kind of AMG car.
EVs are cars that run on electricity from a battery. The big track question is whether they can keep going for lots of laps without running out of energy or overheating.
BYD is a major Chinese company that makes electric cars and batteries. The hosts are saying their battery know-how helps make EV track use more realistic.
Denza is BYD’s brand for more premium, performance-oriented cars. The hosts mention it because it has a supercar and they’re impressed by what it can do.
Car
Denza Edge
The Denza Edge is a supercar from Denza, and the hosts are impressed by how powerful it is. It’s brought up as proof that modern electric cars can be seriously fast.
Horsepower is a number that describes how strong a car’s power output is. For electric cars, it’s still used as a simple way to compare how fast they might feel.
Coil springs are the metal springs in the suspension. They help the car stay stable over bumps, and on a track-focused car they’re usually set up to feel more immediate and less “floaty.”
“Air sprung” means the suspension uses air pressure instead of metal coil springs. It can make the ride feel smoother, but it may also feel a bit less sharp when you drive aggressively.
Charging is how you refill an EV’s battery. The big issue is that how fast and how expensive it is to charge can change a lot depending on where you are.
A flash charger is a charger meant to add energy very quickly. In this context, it’s being described as far faster than the usual fast chargers you see in public.
Here, “supercharger” doesn’t mean a gas-car turbo part—it means a very fast EV charging station. The host is saying most people think of roughly 350–400 kW as “superfast.”
The grid is the power network that delivers electricity around an area. The concern is that extremely fast chargers might pull so much power that the local electrical system can’t handle it without upgrades.
You can’t really “turbocharge” electricity the way you turbocharge an engine. Charging is basically just sending electrical energy into the car’s battery so it can use that energy later.
It’s basically a big power bank installed at a site. It stores energy ahead of time, and when you plug in your car, it quickly supplies the power your car needs.
High voltage charging means EV charging systems that use elevated electrical voltage levels to deliver large amounts of power safely and efficiently. Because it involves significant electrical and safety requirements, it often triggers more permitting and site constraints than lower-power setups.
Planning permission is the official approval you need before building certain things. In the UK, it can slow down installing EV charging because the authorities want to check safety and impact.
Thermal management is how the car keeps its battery and electronics from getting too hot (or too cold). If charging causes bad temperatures, it can shorten battery life.
Term
runaway effect of damage
A runaway damage effect means one issue makes things worse fast, like a chain reaction. In EVs, it’s the kind of scenario engineers try hard to prevent with cooling and safety systems.
Kilowatts are a measure of power. For EV charging, more kilowatts usually means the car can take in energy faster (assuming the battery and charger can handle it).
The Volkswagen e-Golf is an electric Golf. The speaker mentions it because they thought the car charging nearby was electric, but it was actually just a regular (non-electric) Golf.
A straight-six is an engine with six cylinders in a single row. People like it because it tends to run smoothly and sounds great.
Term
high-voltage stuff
They’re talking about the big electrical power used for EV charging. It’s not like plugging into a normal wall outlet—charging gear uses much higher voltage, so it can be harder to install at remote tracks.
A “rapid charge EV” is an EV that can charge fast. It’s about how much power (measured in kilowatts) the car can take when you plug it into a fast charger.
A V10 is an engine with 10 cylinders arranged in a V shape. It’s known for sounding great and revving high, which is why it shows up in racing and special performance cars.
The Porsche Carrera GT is a very rare, high-performance Porsche. It’s built to deliver supercar-level speed and driving feel. People mention it because only a small number were made.
Car
McLaren MP48
The McLaren MP48 is a very unusual, development-focused racing car from the early ’90s. In this story, it’s tied to testing a Lamborghini V12—basically proving out an engine idea before committing to a final project.
A V12 is an engine with 12 cylinders in a V shape. It’s a classic “big performance” engine layout, and here it’s the engine McLaren was experimenting with in a prototype.
Ion Senna is a Brazilian race driver. The host says he drove the all-white Lamborghini V12 test car, which is part of why this prototype story is so interesting to enthusiasts.
The Peugeot iOn is a small electric car. It’s designed mainly for city driving. The podcast mentions it because it was used as a development car during testing.
Car
MP48B
MP48B is a McLaren test car—basically a development prototype they’re using to explore performance. The name is McLaren’s internal code for that specific test version.
“Production spec” means the car is built to the final, real-world configuration—not just a prototype. It’s the version that would be made as an actual car, not a one-time test piece.
The McLaren F1 is one of McLaren’s most iconic supercars. The hosts bring it up to say the new/retro road car they’re talking about isn’t the F1—it’s a different McLaren road-car story.
An “American V8” means a V8 engine—eight cylinders in a V shape—typically associated with big, powerful engines. The host is saying it would likely be a large, noisy engine.
The Ford Fiesta is a small car meant for everyday driving. It’s also offered in sportier versions, depending on the trim. In the podcast, they’re talking about wanting a more extreme “RS” style Fiesta.
The Renault Sport Spider is a sporty, open-top Renault concept-style car. It’s meant to look and feel like a performance-focused roadster. The podcast mentions it because it’s connected to design ideas inspired by older Renault Sport models.
The McLaren 720S is a high-performance supercar. It’s designed to be fast and agile, not just powerful. People mention it because it helped introduce a newer generation of McLaren sports cars.
Term
limited to production-wise
This means the car is only being built in a set, limited number. That’s part of why it can be so expensive.
“Tub” means the main body structure of the car—the part that the rest of the car is built onto. If it’s the same tub, the new car shares a lot of the underlying structure.
Intensa Emozione is a name used for a special version of a Ferrari. It usually refers to a particular theme for how the car looks and feels inside and out. The podcast is talking about the name and how it fits with other Ferrari naming.
The Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR is a very rare Mercedes supercar connected to racing. It’s built to be extremely fast and performance-focused. People mention it because it’s part of a special set of CLK race-related cars.
The Nissan GT-R is a fast sports car made by Nissan. It’s designed to be powerful and capable, not just for straight-line speed. People mention it because it’s known for strong performance in many driving situations.
A V8 is an engine with eight cylinders. It’s known for a big, distinctive sound and strong acceleration, especially in performance and race cars.
LIVE
Welcome back to the Gassing Station, the podcast that jumps into the Piston Head forums,
like Sam Sheehan and I have jumped into the Bentley stand, the sauna that is, yes, so this is,
we're in a podcast recording studio that Bentley has very kindly put on for various content creators
here at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, but it is so unbelievably hot that this little room has
kind of become a sauna, right? Greenhouse slash sauna and if you can't see below we are currently
shoeless and obviously in our shorts and there is a crackling coals out over here. I'll pour,
I'll just keep pouring water on them. It's an extremely bad day to wear a manchini,
but it's, I thought it's a good, it's a good chance to actually go and look at the cars on the ground
and then talk about them straight away because I often usually forget these things and forget to
note them down. You may also notice some noises of cars driving by. We have this incredible view
out onto the, it's not the start finish line obviously, is it? Because it's a hill climb.
We're opposite the Formula One paddock at the moment. Yeah, Goodwood House just over there,
or over there? Where is it? Over there, somewhere. Yeah, it's just behind you. Oh yeah, there it is.
There's a lot of people and a huge amount of red faces. So obviously we know that this is a podcast,
so if something interesting goes by, we shall tell you what it is, mostly because anything that
goes by is going to catch our eye and go, oh, but we've spent, this is the first day where most of
the big cars are revealed and we've spent most of the day walking around and looking at car launches.
Yes. So Sam Sheehan, what have you bought to the Gassing Station podcast live this time?
So much stuff. In fact, there's some really exciting stuff going on from some traditional
brands and then some new brands. But Alpine, a brand we know very well. Yes, we do. Yes.
Some exciting stuff going on. Got some experience with that. I noticed that. Obviously the A110
is in petrol form, at least bowing out, to be replaced by an electric car. And the last time I
spoke about A110 on this pod, I think I was talking about how extremely electric cars expected to be,
4A take GTB, randomly as the benchmark, partly because the CEO of Alpine has Ferrari history.
It's surprising that they've gone for 4A take GTB though, because that's a 10-year-old car now.
I think it's probably reflective of that. They don't want to go for the latest ones because
the latest ones are just so fast. But anyway, it's super car pace. And obviously that has left a lot
of people, myself included, I think feeling a little bit like it's a shame that there's no petrol
alternative because Alpine A110 petrol cars are so very good. Well, I have some unconfirmed good news
on that subject. Okay. Basically, we've had another one. I had an interview with
Philippe Krief, the CEO and friend of the pod, great guy, passionate. He effectively said that
from October, which is when they're finishing the electric car development, they will immediately
start thinking about the potential for an ICE equivalent or a petrol-powered car,
which they would squeeze into this APP platform, which is the platform they're using for their
EV. However, the platform has always been capable of, from the ground up, of taking
different powertrains. So it wouldn't be as shoe-horned in as, say, for example, the 500E that
they suddenly squeeze into. Oh, God, we've got to do this otherwise. So it wouldn't be a bad
job, effectively, that he's pretty confident that they could have a pretty awesome car. And
they will know probably before the end of Q4 26, I guess that's sort of early 2027,
whether they're going to go forward with it. And then within two years, they could then have a
petrol car back on sale. That does mean, unfortunately, there'll be a two-year period,
just over that, where there isn't a petrol A110. They probably need that in order to justify
selling electric cars before they then go, oh, look, now there's a petrol one. What's really
interesting is that it's when they announced that they were doing an electric A110, there was
obviously a bit of uproar about it. People were upset for very obvious reasons. I had spoken to
Kreef shortly after that announcement. I think it was around Le Mans time. And he was like,
we would really want to do it. It's just in France, which is a major market for the A110.
They were like, it's pretty much impossible to do. To do a combustion engine car in France
is not impossible. We were talking about the GR Yaris OGA edition in the last podcast. That was
astonishingly expensive in the UK at 60 grand. In France, with their tax, which I believe they call
the Mellus, which is just that. Mellus sounds like it's malicious. I believe it's north of 100,000
pounds. I think it's around 120, 140,000 pounds for a GR Yaris. So it puts it into perspective of
why they've not been able to do a combustion engine for it. Well, the interesting thing is,
this is already out in the public, because you know, they're looking at re-entering the US.
I can see two police officers down there, and they are not even remotely bothered. So I think
that's probably, if you heard banging, and we're not in America, and we're not in America. True.
So I think, yes, usual gas station timing. We timed it just in time for the fireworks to go
off. Excellent. And they're daytime fireworks, so we can't even see them. We can hear them.
Just a lot of smoke. Yeah, brilliant. There we go. So could you see an A110 working there?
I don't think they're expecting massive volumes. I mean, when I said, I actually did say to Philippa,
like, could you accept that being an EV, before you do the ICE potential version, sales will
probably even, even given that the A110 doesn't sell in massive numbers as is, I mean, the A290
for Alpine is by far the biggest car sales, the biggest driver of sales for them. I was like,
can you, or will you accept that it's likely the A110 electric will just sell in fewer numbers?
Because that segment of performance electric cars is tiny. I mean, if you think about
the alternatives, you've got more expensive cars like Taycans and stuff like that, might not be
massively more expensive, but a little bit more. And then not really much else, have you, in terms of
small sports cars that are electric? So there's obviously not that much demand, or at least no
evidence of massive demand there. And he was like, yeah, we wouldn't expect to sell in massive
amounts. So I don't know how they'd make it work. Obviously, in the US, it would be probably no
electric A110. I don't think there would be any appetite. I'd be like, what the hell is that?
No interest. They buy EVs, but they're like cyber trucks.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it's just the EV sports car I still think is a bit of a hard sell.
And so this A110 EV will be a proper like, how are you going to do? Is it going to work? But I
think the reason they're doing the petrol version, if it's like, well, just in case it doesn't, they
have to build X amount of EV sports cars anyway for emissions. Exactly. Yeah. Well, I have something
on electric charging and longevity of batteries, but I'll share that a little bit because you've
got some interesting news as well. Yes, I do. Yeah. I think this got me extremely excited.
So, and I'm a little bit conscious that we talked about, I've even mentioned it in this podcast,
we talked about, oh, there's an O37 going on. Oh, yeah. that's a Kimura, I think.
Yeah, it's a modern one. Oh, that's very nice. Four exhausts as well. So
on the last podcast, we were talking about the OGA. And I'm really sorry, we're going to talk about
more Toyota stuff because I've just been to see the GR GT. Oh, yeah. You know, the new
homologation special that's not a homologation special car. That was running up and down.
It was, yes, absolutely. So, which is what I was just looking at before we came over to do this.
My goodness. So, when you look at it in pictures, I thought it was quite an awkward looking thing.
So, Super Long Bonnet, it's a, as the name suggests, GT built very much in a mold to go racing.
It's basically a GT3 car that they've built. And it looks great as a GT3 car. It looks
on the same front end, just the wing. So, we get into Toyotas where they do their press fleet.
Walk in, completely empty garage, and it's just that, the GR GT part there, completely white
space. And it looked unbelievable. The presence it has, it looks so much better in person than it
does in pictures. And we've been saying that a lot recently. Same with Luce, same with the
Testerosa that came out last year. It's a fantastic looking thing. Is it massive? Is it the opposite
of a 5N, where in pictures it looks, 5N looks small, but it's massive? Is this looks massive?
I thought probably about the same proportionally. If anything, it looks maybe a little dinkier
than I was expecting. Yeah. But the bonnet is very clearly super stretched out. Yeah. So,
it was good to see it in person, but we were really there to have a chat with some of the
engineers. They'd flown over from Japan to be here at Goodwood to go and see the cars go up
the hill. Kazuki Nakajima was also present. Wow, that's fun. It is amazing how he is,
first of all, unbelievably nice guy. Super nice guy, super humble, being told super powerful in
Toyota as well. But he is treated like he is the king. He is the absolute king because he's won three
Le Mans 24 hours with Toyota. And I believe he was also the first to win a Le Mans 24 hour
Toyota as well. He was in the 2016 car when it broke down. Oh, man, yeah. And then I think he was
in the 28 when they won it in 2018. I think he won it with Fernando Valonso. Yeah. So, he can do no
wrong at Toyota. And so, when he talks, there's a round of applause after pretty much every word.
And he's a very, very lovely guy. So, we were talking to the, talking about,
you know, what's gone into making this car. What I found really interesting,
I had the project leader there and I said, oh, it's a racing car that's been, you know, how have you
engineered a racing car for the road? And they go, no, you must get this right.
It's not a racing car that has then been engineered for road use. They were built
simultaneously. And I was like, okay, that's fine. Okay. So, they were built simultaneously.
But then you look at the design of the car and you go, hmm, okay. So, underneath it's
Toyota's first all aluminium monocoque. Yeah. Never done that before. So,
we've got this aluminium monocoque, but it's also a space frame chassis. So, the front and rear
is space frame. So, they bolt on to this sort of tub. Absolutely. Yes, aluminium space frame
chassis. Something that they've never done before. They didn't have the capabilities of doing it.
So, they had to hire in, because no one knew how to do it. The last time they did an aluminium
space frame, space frame chassis was the Lexus LFA, which was over 15 years ago. Yeah. And so,
you look at it, I was looking at it and I was like, I have not seen many production cars that
look like that under the skin. AMG GT and the V8 Vantage have a space frame chassis, both which
make fantastic GT3 cars. But most GT3 cars you see, they actually chop the front and rear
subframes off and put space frames on afterwards. So, it's very clear that this chassis has been
built for GT3 racing. Yeah. The engine as well is good for packaging. It's, they're like, yes,
there's some emissions benefits as well of having a four litre hot V twin turbo V8. Yeah.
But it's so far back from the front axle and right up against the bulkhead. Just like front mid.
It's very much a front mid-engine car that you go, okay, right. And then the design came after
the cooling and aerodynamic needs. So, they were like, they got all the cooling sorted,
they got the aerodynamics sorted and they went, right, designers, make something that joins all
of this up. Wow. So, it does, from some angles, look a bit, I think it looks a bit awkward. I
still think it looks very good, but it's one of those things where it's so clear that the design
was a bit of an afterthought. Yeah. Just put it on there, cover it all up. It's almost a bit like
the Valkyrie in the sense that the Valkyrie is a chassis with a bit of body work stretched over
it. Super thin body work draped over and tucked away and yeah. And this is nowhere near as elegant
as that, obviously, but it's the same kind of philosophy if it's just like bang, put it on top,
that's it. Yeah. And then I realised that with GT3 racing, you're not allowed to make a GT3 car
first and a production car second. A GT3 car must be a racing version of a production car.
So, when they talk about it being simultaneous, I've just got a hunch that that means we've,
you know, we've, the racing car came first, the road car came second, but it's all the better
for it. Yeah. I mean, it went by earlier when we were setting up in here, I saw a pair of them
coming back in that direction, they've done their run, the race car that is and the, I guess,
was it the race car, it's a concept that's, that's looking like the race car, because it'll stick
it up. It looked awesome. It's a good point you say that. So, the road car, the GRGT and the
GRGT3 race car, I believe to the Finnish article now, there's still a few little like things here
and there they need to tweak, but it's mostly software and maybe a bit of engineering stuff,
but the designs are all sorted. And I did notice yesterday, so they showed the GRGT3,
God, it's really hard to get those two together, show the GRGT3 racing car
towards the end of last year, and it did have a slightly different rear end design to the GRGT3
that I saw yesterday and the one that went up the hill earlier on, which is much more like the
production car now. So, I think it's the, the Finnish article, that sticker job,
the guys at Toyota were saying that they had no idea that they had done that. So, literally,
it's a big stick at the car. Yeah, it arrived and they were like, what the hell is this?
Come up with this new paint job. And the idea is, so it's basically, they've put some red graphics
on it, just the full extent of it, but because it's aimed mostly at customer racing, they wanted
to show what it could look like if a customer racing paint job was put on it, although it's,
they've only covered a few little areas of carbon and not put any stickers on it other than that.
So, it looks cool. It does look cool. What's the road car price going to be? Do we know?
No idea, yeah. Did they sort of hint, have you managed to get like, it's obviously into six
figures, isn't it? It's going to be six figures, yeah. So, thank you for bringing that up as I
would have forgot. So, it's a, it's going to be six figures. There's no, almost certainly going
to be six figures, because there's, they will not give any hints away, but for benchmarking,
they said, it's going to, you know, they benchmark the AMG GT, V8 Vantage, 911.
Hot V's, those cars. GT3, absolutely. And pretty much, they were like, we've benchmarked
everything, but those were the three that they mentioned. Yeah. And so it's like, okay. So,
I think that's the crowd that they're going up. So, 911 GT3. Yes. So, yeah, that, because the
new Porsche pricing, have you seen it, by the way, 110,000 pounds starting for a Carrera.
Are you kidding? So, and I get, I guess with that, you get like, steering wheel and engine,
you know, fabulous car, almost all the car you never need, but come on, it's a basic Carrera.
So, a GT3 now is closer to 200 than 100 by quite some margin. So, I don't know that,
that suggests, I don't even know what the AMG GT is going for now, but that suggests you're
probably with the Toyota 150 plus. I know the Aston's about 240, I think. So, it's going to be
much more expensive. Yeah. Maybe it's my, my brain has just accepted inflation, but when someone
says a GT3 is about 200 grand, I'm like, is there a car that you would want more? No. 200 grand
than a GT3? That's the really annoying thing. We're going to risk getting accused of being
Porsche'd in heads. So, but that doesn't leave me nicely onto, you know, looking at the car,
they've, it's got, you know, you can adjust the, the firmness of the suspension through
three different driving modes, but otherwise it's a passive setup. There's no active ride.
It's super simple. And it's the same with the aerodynamics. There's no fancy bodywork
aero going on. It is just as it is. One of the reasons is because they wanted it to be
a neutral platform. So, the idea is that if you're, when you're driving it at speed,
you're not going to have any sensations of the car doing things that you're not aware of.
Yeah. Because remember, it's being developed by master driver Accio Morizo Toyota.
Yeah. Yeah. And that's his, and you know, it's, when you, when you hear him kind of talking about
like, I'm a master driver and he's the one that makes the final decisions, you think, that's a bit
strange, but he is championing proper driver's cars. And it's all about, it's not about going
quickly. It's about making a car that's brilliant to drive. Yeah. And it sounds like I'm, I'm drinking
from the GR Kool-Aid, but it's, it's just ticking, ticking all the right boxes. And in front,
mid-engined cars lend to that. They can be quite a friendly balance because you've got,
you know, because the Ferrari Roma or something like that, you know, really easy approachable
cars. Because a mid-engined car, you know, you still get that slight pendulum effect sometimes
if you get fully sideways or something. But in front mid car, it's quite friendly. Yeah. You know,
you, you, it's, it's typically there the nicest, I'd say, to drive in terms of being friendly and
easy as far as if you get it wrong goes. Absolutely. And I think that sideways in a
road before and went, God, thank God, I had the front mid-engine balance there because otherwise
I'd have been off the mountain. I've, I've, I've been sideways in an early advantage and I've gone,
thank God I have. But that's the reason why they went for front end, front engine rear wheel drive,
is they said it's much more approachable for, again, it being developed at the same time as the,
oh, Guntherworks, was it? Yeah, that was Guntherworks. Guntherworks. And the grey one here as well,
because I saw a grey one earlier, that was orange. Getting distracted like a dog. Yeah. This is,
so where we are, this is the first time I've seen them put a temporary chicane in. Me too.
Yeah. Because it's just before, I think it's Malcolm Corner. That's the one everyone goes off on.
Where everyone goes off. And so I think for these road cars, they've put in a little chicane,
so nobody has a whoopsy. Yeah. But it is kicking up dust every time they come up. And so I'm like,
oh, is someone going to have a shunt? Yeah. So yeah, so they're talking about how it's,
you know, developed at the same time as the racing car, but it's the whole setup has been
to make it more accessible for, for gentlemen drivers. So, so I asked him about this, you know,
why they went for a much more neutral platform. And he said, so he told me, gave me that answer,
but he also said, but you know, this is just the launch car. He's like, look at the 911 GT3 RS.
That has active aero. Whereas the standard GT3 doesn't. And I was like, oh, so you're going
to make more of them. And they were like, yeah, we're thinking about future variants. And so I
was like, okay, I thought this was a limited, this shows how ignorant I was. I thought it was a limited
edition car. I thought it was a, we're going to make it in small numbers and they're like,
we want to make as many as we can, to build as many as we can, sell as many as they want to,
because obviously a lot of the, you know, like when they did the Lexus, they have all these
things exist and then go away. Like there's no successor to LFA, so not direct successor.
Well, yeah, we'll talk about that in a bit. Yeah. So yes, this is, but hopefully this will stick
around. This is not the direct successor of the LFA. It's not a hyper limited multi,
oh well, the LFA was 350 grand, but that was back in 2008, 2009, which was just
astronomically expected for a Lexus. I mean, they're a million pound car now.
So it's not going to be like that that we're aware of. I think how many we get will depend on
whether the engine becomes Euro seven compliant. They were like, I don't know about that yet.
You're not really fully sure of it, but here's hoping. Here's hoping they make them because I
think it's, it's genuinely adds to, it feels like it's something different to the AMG GTs,
the V8 Vantageers, the Romers and the sort. And it does just come across as a proper racing car
for the road to the point of where you look in the cockpit and you're like, it's not actually that
impressive. You know, it's a, it feels like a step above a Toyota, but probably like a Lexus
interior with some Alcantara stuck on it. Yeah. With a few bits of red here and there,
all the money's in the car itself, all the money's in the car, which is what they did with
GI Aris and it paid it. I was about to say you see them everywhere. People love them.
Absolutely. So no idea how much it's going to cost, but the fact that they want to build loads of
them suggests it's probably not going to be, it will potentially undercut the AMG GT. I don't know.
Yeah. So that's exciting. I mean, it is extremely exciting. From a brand we really like, not just
because you've had a nice time with them today, but also because they are doing really great things
at the moment. To be fair, to be fair, before people start thinking that I'm on the Toyota payroll,
I have not seen them today. They shuttled me in, but it's because we've been out looking at cars
around the Goodwood site. So you've been having a nose. Yes. And you've picked up some stuff about,
you love battery stuff, but this one, I was like, do you have to bring that to the business podcast,
but you're like, I really have to talk about this. It's interesting. So go on. Well, it's interesting.
The floor is all yours. The floor is all mine. It's interesting because if you doubt that EVs
can be used as track cars, and to be fair, even I do secretly, I'm like, would I want to go in an EV
to do a track date? Oh, 100%. Yeah. Probably not. Even a 5N, which is a really fun car. I'm like,
it's not as good. It's not going to get me around as many times as the Type Zero.
That was the Type Zero, or 01 as they call it. 01 I thought that was camouflaged up,
but it looked quite good, but it looked massive. Yeah, it is. That was an absolute,
it was like a canal boat driving by. It was. It looked a bit quicker than a canal boat.
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. But yeah, the batteries in that funny enough would benefit from this,
and that is BYD, you know, that company that's completely just exploded into our lives. Yeah,
Build Your Dreams. Thankfully, that doesn't appear on the back of the cars anymore.
They have a performance arm called Denza, and I have actually been driving the Denza's
Edge, which is their super car. It's got 1600 horsepower. I saw it walking in.
Bonkers thing. I mean, look, again, I wouldn't have one. I'd prefer a 911 GT3.
Thank you very much for the reasons, but I have to admit, it's quite a good car. It drives quite
nicely. The track oriented version, which still road legal, uses coil springs,
so it feels more natural. The normal ones are air sprung, and so they feel a little bit floaty.
But the key point I want to make, and I think the thing that's way more interesting
from a piston-less point of view is, oh my God, it's the Gunpurpo that you just drove.
Yeah, exactly. Hello, old mate. Oh, God, that sounded good, didn't it?
Yeah. Oh, it's just proper. Total opposite to what I'm talking about.
We're talking about battery talking. It's a Gunpurpo that goes by, and it's like,
that's amazing. There was an EV batch that went past earlier, and it was like,
about five run-o-fives. It didn't even clock it.
Anyway, that Gunpurpo was brilliant. I'd take that over any of these cars. However,
the thing that's important is, the biggest issue, what's aside from range,
which is obviously an issue for people, and fair enough, the other big issue is charging,
and especially in the UK charging. If you go to France, you come across rapid chargers quite
quickly. The UK, they exist, but they're either accept, like, eye-wateringly expensive on public
charging, or you have to use slow chargers to get a better value charge. But BYD,
Denza, same company, have developed a 1,500 kilowatt flash charger, and supercharger refers
to obviously what we would consider on a 350, 400 kilowatts, pretty much as quick as it gets
these days in the UK. This is 1,500 kilowatts, and I went over to them at a quick chat.
That's ridiculous.
Do you know how they do it? The key point, it doesn't need any kind of upgrade to the grid,
because that's the first thing that people rightfully say. They go,
hang on, it's all well and good having a charger that does this amazing stuff,
but as soon as you've got 5,000 across a country or whatever, that's just going to kill the grid.
Fair point. Can you guess what they do to run off of standard power? Can you even imagine,
I was going to say, to be fair, I'm not an electrical engineer, so I'm pretty rubbish at this.
I was like, do you have this kind of thing that like it turns a motor and then it multiplies?
Is there like a turbocharger of electricity? They're like, no, that's ridiculous. They were like,
no, what we actually have is we just have a giant battery, and what they do is they store
a ton of energy in the battery way more than they'd need to charge a few cars, and then you
rock up in your car, plug it in, and that battery just flashes energy into your car,
and then one by one. And theoretically, you could empty that battery and then you couldn't
flash charge again, but they were like, the batteries will always be way bigger than the
demand that that area will receive. Right, okay. And these can be either for an entire service
station, you know, you could have a whole fleet of these chargers like Tesla do, but obviously with
battery, or it could be like much smaller ones. Handle that, your local convenience store,
they were talking about in your petrol, they were like, this is how we get electric charges
into petrol stations. It's we supply the battery. That sounds like a recipe for disaster. It does
sound like a recipe for disaster. But it's a quicker way of doing it than what the current
state is, which is where they have to get planning permission, and there's a whole world of hell
in the UK in particular. Plan permission is the big issue we have in the UK as far as getting
high voltage charging installed, because there's loads of safety concerns. I was going to say,
that's probably the sort of thing that does need, you know, it's not about Susan building a conservatory,
it's more about not getting electrified. Exactly, yeah. But this kind of cuts through that,
because they don't have to build anything that's high voltage, so they don't actually say there
are far fewer hoops than to jump through. Does it not like, I don't know anything about batteries
really, so this is potentially a really ignorant question, but does it not like knack of the battery?
That's an idea of where you charge it up. Good question. The question is like, it would destroy
it. That is another thing I asked them. It's all to do with thermal management, so I didn't know
this either. One of the reasons your phone dies quite quickly and then quite rapidly towards the
end of its life, it all just falls off a cliff because of the thermal management and they're
sort of a runaway effect of damage. Someone's probably going to go, he's not going to quite
right, but in effect, that's what happens. But the thermal management is so good on
their cars, they claim, look, I've not driven a car in these circumstances, so I don't know,
but they claim, so you can take it with a pinch sort if we want for now, that their thermal
management is so effective that at minus 30 degrees Celsius or plus 50 degrees Celsius,
they still get like 95% efficiency. And the same technology, because the batteries that
they store the energy in for the charging is exactly the same as car battery. They're car
battery tech. So it's the same with the cooling. So the batteries, which they have here a temporary
setup, it's out in the baking heat of today, it's well over 30 degrees. It is. I think it's
probably probably above the 70, 80 inside this. Oh my God. Yeah, I know. But apparently it's,
those batteries are all cold and everything. So that's what they're claiming. Look, we're going
to see what it's like when this, because it's only end of next year. So end of 2027, there will
be 300 charges in the UK. Now, none of the cars that they sell will be capable of getting the
1500 kilowatts yet. I think the quickest they reckon they'll have by that point is, you know,
more like 400 or something, but still pretty quick, future-proofing their cars. And in China,
they will have cars capable of over a thousand kilowatts. That would be, that is very interesting.
Mercedes is doing stuff as well, by the way, in this area, but it's different. They're not,
they don't have batteries. If I could have that at home, because one of the things that put me
off buying an electric car, as my daily driver, not as my fun car, as a daily driver, is that
there's some absolute so-and-so. He keeps parking in front of the charging, like little,
you know, you get the little stump that's on the road. Yeah, you can use that to charge.
They're not exclusive EVs. Yeah. Oh, it's somebody who parks next to it in a golf,
and I was like, oh, maybe it's an e-golf. No, it's just a regular golf, cheeky. Yeah.
And so I'm like, well, better get a straight six then. But yeah, so that would make a lot of
sense if you could literally just jump start the car and just want to go. And because they're
offering to sell this, you know, to, for example, if Bedford Auto Show Drone, or if Brandt Hatch,
we're like, we want one of those, and we don't want to have to dig up our grid. And obviously,
a lot of racetracks are out in the sticks, or at least not close to a town. So getting high-voltage
stuff wired in is a challenge for them. But if they can just have a battery effectively installed
there, then that just gets rid of all that problem. So if you do do attract a new 5N,
and later on, you and they make a car that's capable of accepting such kilowatts, then maybe
there is a bit of a market for a rapid charge EV. That said, I'd still take a GT through RS, but,
you know, give us options. I was going to say, actually, because I didn't bring up the LFA
earlier. I kind of teased that there was about the big LFA. The reason I forgot about it is because
it is electric. And so it went up the hill earlier, and it's a beautiful thing, but it is electric,
but it doesn't have a screaming V10. Absolutely not, no. So moving on, for what does have a screaming
engine, I've been having a look around the racing car paddock next to us. There it is. So when I
came in earlier, silk cut jagged in sight. Oh my, so I wanted to talk about some of the cars here,
because I think what I love about coming here is seeing stuff that you will not see
anywhere else in the world. And I mean that from a proper geeky perspective. So a few years ago,
I came here, and it was the first time I'd seen the Porsche LMP 2000. So it was the car that was
going to race at Le Mans with the V10 that they then scrapped, and they did the RA instead, and
it then went into the Carrera GT. So that's a really rare thing. What I saw today here though,
has blown my mind, because in 1992 or three, I can't remember, it was the McLaren MP48.
They were, so it must have been 1993, they were testing a Lamborghini V12.
Oh, I did know that, yes. So this is a thing of legend. It was an all-white
development car driven by Ion Senna, screaming Lamborghini, and it was apparently incredible.
So they never put it in the car, they instead went with Peugeot engines, I can't remember
exactly why. But that test car, I don't think it's ever been seen out in public since that test,
but it's here today. So if you walk down there, you'll walk past it. Is it running?
It's, I don't know. I was kind of hoping that the Formula 1 cars would go up while we were talking,
and I could look out for it and see. I've not seen it running yet, but they did have it opened up,
the engine is in there, they looked like they were working on it, so I think it might be,
well if it is, it will be. So that must have been out McLaren the whole time.
Well that's, McLaren has got a super secret storage facility that's not a MTC,
that's got all of their old Formula 1 bits in it. So there's lots of cars that you'll know of,
that won't be in their kind of, what are they called it, the Boulevard when you go in.
I was early on the day by the way. Oh were you? Yeah, for 788HS, which has been revealed today,
on the day of recording. Oh, absolutely. By the time this goes out, we'll be fairly old news.
Because there is some other McLaren news as well, actually on that note. So MP48B, I think,
is this test car. Incredible thing, I really hope we get to see it later.
But what they've also done is they've built the first, I believe it's the first production spec.
What's it called? It's the MGT? So you know the McLaren? Yeah, do you know about this? No.
Okay, so if you go to, so Bruce McLaren, in the really early days, built a prototype,
the Can-Am road car. So they built a Can-Am road car and it was a prototype and I think it was,
I saw it last year in the Le Mans Museum, really cool looking thing. But what they've managed to do
is recover the original moulds of the production car and they have recreated a production spec.
Yeah. McLaren, I can't even put it, I think it is M1 GT or M1 M10 or something like that GT.
It's basically the Can-Am car, but it's a road car. And so yes, it's not the McLaren F1 that was
the first McLaren road car, it's this. What engine is that? It would be a big old American V8.
A small black nine-linear. It's a small black. Yeah, the small, it doesn't make any sense.
But it'll be a big old noisy thing. The prototype was orange, kind of a ready orange.
This one is white. It's quite a brutal looking thing. But there are some kind of subtle design
differences. So the prototype had kind of quite big tall lights. This one has got far smaller,
kind of slender ones. But I'm like, this is such a, more of this, please, manufacturer is.
Where it's like, we were going to build this, we never got round to it, so here it is.
Ford, can you do that with the Fiesta RS, please? Oh, yeah. That would be great.
Yeah. Or just pay me to do it and I'll do that for you and then keep it afterwards.
Do you know what? I went all you, actually, when I was interviewing the Renault guys,
which I did after our people. I showed a picture of my Clio 182 and I was like,
can you do a homage, like an homage to the Mark II RS, please? I know Renault Sport's gone,
but please. And the design boss, Vice President, was like, he was like, yeah, you know, I'd love
to, but no. Oh, okay. So, well, secondly, can you give me some Alpine bits to work on my,
on my little Clio and see if that does anything. Yeah, I quite like that. Yeah,
Yeah. I mean, the McLaren stuff is quite exciting and it goes down really well. I mean,
I was reading the comments in the forum about the 7888S and jet, I mean, I haven't read them,
so by the time you're listening or watching this, many more will have been added to the story.
Oh yeah. At the point of it going live a few minutes after, generally quite positive reactions
car, which is nice to hear because it was, it's a half a million quid car. Yeah,
based on obviously a super series, oh, sorry, sports series platform where the 720S was the
first car to come out and I got, what was that like, 200 grand? So you're talking more than double
the price 100% of what that's based on. Do you know what it's limited to production-wise? Yeah, 100
per, 100 per coupe, 100 per spider. So you're paying for exclusivity, but it's still the same
tub, fundamentally the same engine, albeit with about, I don't know, 30 horsepower more. So it's,
I'm going to sound like such a, such a nitpicky, so and so, but I thought it would have been less
than that. I thought a fewer, sorry, I thought they would have built fewer cars because 100 is a
fair amount, 100 is exclusive. This, this is the thing, you know, if it's half a million,
you kind of expect them to do maybe 20, like an Apollo IE, Emotion Intender, Intender Emotion,
which is what you've also seen. Yeah. Well, I, having, you know, met the guys there and
done that drive a couple of months back, they were here and I spoke to the CEO, Nico, and
his brother, his brother, I call it, this is so embarrassing, right? I said it was his brother,
it's not his brother. Someone told me they were brothers and then I put in the story,
they're brothers, not brothers. Oh, they're just really close. Someone told me, I don't even know
who it was, they were like, oh yeah, they're brothers. I was like, cool, put that in the story.
Fact check guys, always fact check things. I didn't do that that day on that one specific thing.
Strange though, if someone says, oh yes, they're brothers, so I made a joke earlier.
Do I need to confirm that you're actually brothers? Chaps, could you give me a DNA test please?
Yeah. Well, so I made a joke earlier, like, oh, you're both the brothers are here and he was like,
we're not brothers. I was like, no, no, it was, I was like, oh God, no, I just, like, I've not.
Yeah. Anyway, the key point I wanted to make is that they only build 10 cars for their run of
the latest gen stuff. So they're IE, I'm going to call it IE, IE, IE, yeah. Yeah, that's it.
10 and 10. They've done 10 for the normal, then 10 for the Evo. I said, look, you know,
there's clearly demand for these multimillion euro hypercar things. And you don't have to
worry about regulations in the same way as other brands. Do you think you could make a high volume
car? Would it be worth it? Because in my head, I'm like, that's just money, roll it. Like,
I just have euro symbols flying through my eyes. And they were surprisingly like, yeah,
thinking about it, could do lower price, higher volume cars. Oh my God. Wow. So they might, I
think we're still talking like 60 cars, 50 cars, but something along the lines of Pagani's or maybe
even Koenigsegg kind of exclusivity. So not as exclusive as they currently are, which is ultra,
ultra rare. They haven't sold a car to a UK buyer yet. Interestingly. Interesting. That's quite
disappointing. I assume a gun put will sell it here from one of the one cars. That's definitely
a Formula One car. We'll find out in a minute if the Lamborghini McLaren V12 is going up the hill.
I've got everything crossed. That's sad. It's an old Formula One car. Well, the McLaren. No,
sorry, this is what we can hear. That sounded very V10-y. I can see them in the background
leaving. Yeah, this is definitely going to be historic. This is the Formula One run. So we might
get drowned out, but it's going to be worth it. I think everyone's going to, all the listening
experience will increase. Oh my God, we're putting in our, this is kind of our pitch for being the
commentators of next year's Goodwood. I don't think we've got it. No, I think they're pretty happy
with their current. Well, you've got a good commentator voice. I don't. Do you have a good commentator?
I say, people are pointing out that I say I'm quite a lot, but it's... That's part of the character I
say I'm as well. Precisely. You know, if I'm commentating on Formula One and going, I think that's
there. But anyway, so walking around, other things that have caught my eye, you've got some of the
old Red Bull Formula One cars here. They've got the white and red liveryed one that won the Japanese
Grand Prix last year. An incredible livery. That was a modern F1 car. That was definitely an F1 car.
Yeah, because that might be going up the hill. They've got various of the camouflage liveries
up there too. Loads of the old V10 Ferrari. The Ferrari F1 cars that come here are the absolute
best of the best. They always bring top tier stuff. They held me up, by the way. There was a Ferrari
lorry doing a U-turn and I was trying to get to my thing yesterday and I was like, it's bloody
Formula One team. I can't believe it. Yeah, doing a U-turn, trying to turn around on a narrow stretch
of road. So they held me up yesterday. So thanks, Ferrari. I can't believe that.
One thing that also did catch my eye. CLK LM. Oh, I had a model of one of those.
Did you? Ah, jealous. CLK LM here. So that was the car between the V12 CLK GTR
and the flying CLK CLR. Yes, Mark Bloody Weber. Yeah, that's Mark Bloody Weber.
And, and Older. It was a Scottish driver who flipped it. Oh, my niche. No, not my niche.
So that was in an Audi. It feels so bad now. It's because it's a million degrees and our
brains have stopped working that we can't think about it. Who was there? I can't believe that was.
Ah, God, people are going to be listening to this. It's not Jackie's duet. It was way
after that. Not David Coulthard. I was going to say, Adam, who's on the camera, can you look
it up? But we're using your camera to film. So someone will tell us in the next one. So that
was here. Sounds absolutely fantastic going up the hill. Oh, one of the rest, though? No. No.
Way, way, way before him. The one that did excite me, though, is they've got the M3 GTR with the V8
going up the hill, the P60 V14. The noise is just incredible. That's the kind of what for
our generation is the most wanted GTR. Sounds absolutely astonishing. So it's just,
you know, we're quite fortunate where we get to do this every year. And I am surprised of how
there is new stuff pretty much every time we come here. And it's not just the new products
that have come out. It's even new race cars. If anything, yeah, if anything is getting a little,
because there's a point where we're like, everything's hybrid, everything's electric,
but it's kind of gone back a bit. And like, you're actually, there's a lot of like new V12
special edition things coming out. And you're like, oh, GT, V8, series production, you know,
V8. The only thing that I am noticing is that the big stands, you know, this is a lovely
stand that Benny has, but it's not as big as BYDs. My God, those new Chinese brands have got the
big stands. They've also got, yes, their marketing budget is ridiculous because I've not noticed it
here just yet because I've not really left this area. But last year, all of the, you know, there's
always a swarm of like vehicles that are constantly driving around, dropping people off, picking them
up, all of them jacos. They're all jacos. Every brand is good wood, but they're jacos. All brand
that. So, you know, to be fair, that that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to create
that presence. And boy, they're certainly presence they have. It's, it's, it's hard to miss them.
They also have presence 1233 Oh, that's fantastic. Right. Yeah. And then a bloody
gun put Apollo. That is, I don't think I've seen a gun put Apollo in person. Oh, that's so cool.
And it was brilliant. Do you know what though, the interior of that car, I can't remember
mentioning on the pod, it's, it's very race car. So you get in it and you don't go like, wow,
you're just like, oh, I'm in a tin can. Yeah. I'm in a tin can with a, like a racing steering
wheel that you fit to your hot hatch, like track car. Like, you know, it's just a, it's just a car,
but it's got that amazing Audi engine turbocharged. I was going to say, speaking of cars that I,
I or we have never seen before, there is my personal favorite part of good wood is the
Cartier lawn. Oh, yes. So there is a, because there's always a theme. You come here with a
checkbook and you go, well, that's what I thought we would do because obviously this is a bit more
of an off the cuff pH pod. So I thought, why not do a buying challenge in the more affordable area
that is the Cartier lawn. So I had a look around there earlier, you ran through it. So I had to
show you all the pictures of the cars that I had seen. Yes. To get your opinion. I'd sweat in my
eyes. You had a lot of sweat. I couldn't see. So the kind of the general, the, there were kind of
three themes. One was Lamborghini Mura. I believe it's 70 years of the Lamborghini Mura. Yes.
It was almost 70 years since the Italian job. I've actually just been corrected on that. It's
60 years of the Lamborghini Mura because the mirror came out in 66, right? Adam behind the camera.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You could say that. It's fine. And the Italian job was 1969. Yeah. Yeah. What a
special year 69 was. Oh yeah. And a funny year was one. It was a mirror at the start, wasn't it?
It would have been a new-ish car back then, which is why they were able to just bin them off, right?
Yeah. Yeah. It was a, was it Matt Monroe? I think it was. Yeah. Crash in the tunnel. Yeah. Apparently
they, because they did crash one, didn't they? But they didn't have an engine. I think that's right.
Oh, that's fine. Yeah. Oh, it's just a chassis. Just a chassis. Yeah, totally fine. So they've got
70 years of the mirror. So there are mirrors everywhere. Yeah. They're celebrating Koenigsegg
and they've got the very first ever prototype Koenigsegg. And my goodness, it's an awkward thing.
I was about to say it looked a bit like when you kind of, when you're at, you know,
university design project and they're like, right, let's make, you can see that they made it on a,
I mean, the materials back then wouldn't have been, they wouldn't have been able to just
3D print their headlight lenses and stuff. It's fascinating from the perspective of, it's like,
you know, it's now a household supercar name. And that was the Genesis point. And, you know,
Christopher Koenigsegg is now an absolute mastermind of hypercars. Yeah. I've got a real soft spot
for Koenigsegg. I think they're really, really cool. And so you see that and then next to it,
they had the CCR, which is one of the earlier production cars. And it's like, how the hell
did they go from this to that? You know, it's such a step. And they really are beautiful.
They also had a mixture of homologation special group B cars, which I got extremely excited
about. So let's say you had an unlimited budget, which we've had, we've recently done with Gerardo,
but you weren't a part of, so you can be part of this one. You've got an unlimited budget.
You've come into, the old Duke here has gone, I've had enough of running the Goodwood Festival of
Speed. I'm going to pass the keys down to you, Sam Sheehan. What a day. What I know. And it's
just like, and we've, we've done all right with the food and beverages
here. So you've got a little bit of cash to play with. Yeah. What are you going to be buying from
the Cartier? Oh, wow. I have to get out of the mirrors or something. There's six of them, by the
way. And I would have to choose my color because the orange one, there's a blue
black one, there are more. It's stunning. I think they're beautiful. I've heard they're not amazing
to drive. Apparently they, they're not as good as some people's. It's, I don't know, I've never given
one. I can't think of many people that have gone, oh, this sixties supercar or sports car is an
absolute dream to drive. True, true. Aside from people that refuse to drive anything after the
1960s. Yeah. But at the time they were really groundbreaking if you think about, you know,
the way they looked and everything. It was such a modern design. I can imagine even now you look
at it and you're like, it still has so much presence. I'm going to get myself a mirror.
I'll probably take the orange one. That's a gorgeous orange. Have you, have you seen the black
and gold one though? I did. Yes. I saw it before. I think that is, I don't know what it's, it's one
of the most evil cars I've ever seen because it's such a beautiful silhouette. It's the black with
the gold kind of skirts and the gold wheels is just one of the most beautiful things I've ever
seen. So you're going Mura. Mura, but there was a 959 there I saw as well. There was a 959.
And as a Porsche owner now, you know, very broken and rattly one, but technically I have to admit
I think they, everything Porsche to me I'm now looking at going, yeah, and the 959 was such a
groundbreaking car, wasn't it? That picture of Walter Royal getting it a bit. As a BMW owner,
does that mean that I'm linked to the BMW M1? Yes, I suppose you would have to be, even though that
M1, actually I would love to pin from you. I'd make you all my bid. I need to, this is terrible
journalism, but people are quite used to that from me now, is that I forgot to look, because they've
got the little plaques of what the car is and kind of its story. This one was in dark blue, the M1.
I don't think they've made many in dark blue and I believe Ron Dennis's, he had one because it was
for sale on pH and I wrote the story about it a few years ago. His was dark blue, so I'm wondering
if it could be a Ron Dennis car. An ex Ron Dennis car. So the ProCar series, by the way, if you
not watched the YouTube videos of the ProCar series, one of the, the on-boards, but the cameras
then must have been as big as this bloody table. I don't weigh them down. But then you think of
like the film Grand Prix. Yeah, exactly. 60s cars. A crane on the front of a car. But the on-boards,
if you haven't, if you're in, if you're not driving your car right now, you're listening to
a high volume, you've got a second screen, you know, go on YouTube, type in BMW M1 ProCar
on-boards. One of the great sounds ever. That sound. Wow. It is such an incredible sound.
Good selections. I would go for, I nearly fell over, actually, with one of the cars that was
there. I couldn't believe it and I almost weeped with excitement. It was a Lancia O37 Stradale.
Yes. Absolutely immaculate condition. And it was one of those ones where it's been one of my
dream cars since I was a kid. I'm 33 now. And I saw it. And my first thinking was,
how has it taken 33 years for me to see this car? You know, I've gone through a, what could,
if I'm lucky, a third of my life and only just seen an O37 Stradale. And I could not be like,
there's probably four more here, you know, that's the thing. Yeah. Oh, the car park's full of them.
I've never seen a train before. There's five here. You're like, Jesus. But it's, you know,
it's such a, for me, it's the rally version of an F40. Yeah. It's such a cool little thing.
I absolutely adore them. Yeah. That is the car I would take away. But the other ones that kept
that caught my eye were, again, the CCR. Yeah. I think is a really cool. It was kind of that nice.
It was just when Koenigsegg was getting really polished as a supercar manufacturer,
but it was before they went supercarbon, super flashy. Yeah. And you can see that on the,
I mean, it was before they could really do the complicated exterior design stuff,
but it was just, it's such a clean, smooth design, isn't it? It's just, oh, yeah.
It's designed to cut through the air rather than to throw air all over the place and do this,
that and the other, like modern cars do. Yeah. Absolutely. It looks really
different. Such an incredible looking shape. And then it would be the Black Mura. The Black
Shantan to the 288 GTO. Oh, yeah. I absolutely love that. I also saw a blue RS 200. I saw that.
It's basically the, yeah, that looked stunning. I've not seen one in that color. Do you know what's
amazing is how that is a Group B legend and they didn't win a thing. I know, but it's obviously
got, it's got, you know, the sad stories attached to that car. It does have sad stories attached to
it and the spectators being, it got that era of racing. But it arrived the year that Group B was,
yeah, it was killed basically. So it was like, it never really stood a chance, but it's,
it's just fascinating that that car resonates with so many people. Yeah, it does. And you look at it
and you go, that's amazing. And it was never much. Yeah. But on that note, that ends a very hot
and all over the place episode of the Gassy Station podcast. Thank you ever so much for
listening. If you like what you listen to, please give us a five star review, maybe say some nice
words as well. It just means that we know we're on to the right thing and that going out of our way
to film in this absolute sweat box was worth it. If you've not made it to Goodwood, I hope this
wasn't rubbing it in your face and maybe gave you a taste of what to expect. But the best thing you
can do is come and visit us at Piston Head's annual service. Tickets are selling out really
very fast. So go and get them as quickly as you can. It'll be on the 8th of August at Bista Motion,
but it's our biggest event of the year. We've got a live stage. I've got some incredible guests
lined up, including Johnny Herbert, who I met at the British Grand Prix. So nice, isn't he?
Such an incredible guy. I cannot wait. I spent half an hour chatting with him. Yeah. And I was
like, I don't know how we're going to be able to stick within our time slot. Yeah. He was talking
about actually not going to save it for annual service. You've got to come to annual service
if you want to listen to that. We've also got Bicky Bit Butler Henderson coming along too,
Ben Fowler from Road to Success. Really, really good lineup.
Yes. And you're going to be there too as well. I'll be there. Yeah. Yeah. I'll be on the stage.
Hopefully it'll be five or six degrees cooler than this. Thank you very much. That'll be nice.
About to say. Otherwise I'm going to have to wear my fan on my head. I thought this is going to be
just a load of random nattering throughout the whole day. But on that note, see you next Tuesday.
About this episode
Goodwood’s heat sets the scene as the hosts bounce between Toyota’s new GR GT—“basically a GT3 car that they've built”—and Alpine’s A110 shifting from petrol to an electric replacement. They dig into Alpine’s roadmap for a possible ICE return, then debate whether an EV A110 could work in the US. The conversation widens to track tech, charging infrastructure, and why the event’s lineup feels like it’s “shifting back” toward big-displacement noise, with standout cars like the M3 GTR and P60 V14.
Fresh from Goodwood Festival of Speed, we round up the biggest stories from one of the most important events on the automotive calendar.
From the future of the Alpine A110 and the exciting new Toyota GR GT, to ultra-fast EV charging, a forgotten McLaren F1 test car powered by a Lamborghini V12, the new McLaren 788 HS and our dream picks from the Cartier lawn, we unpack everything we discovered at this year's Festival of Speed.
🏎️ Sell your car on PistonHeads auctions: https://www.pistonheads.com/sell/auctions
🎟️ Get your Annual Service 2026 tickets: https://www.pistonheads.com/events/annual-service
