This is a named bundle of features BMW offers. In the story, the dealer doubted the car really had that bundle because some expected features weren’t present.
A head-up display (HUD) projects key driving information—like speed or navigation—onto the windshield so you can read it without looking down at the instrument cluster. In this story, the dealer used the presence/absence of the HUD to judge whether a specific BMW option pack was actually installed.
This means the car was made during a time when computer chips were hard to get. Because of that, some cars ended up missing certain features or had different equipment than expected.
The Chevrolet Impala is a large sedan made by Chevrolet that has been around for many years. In the podcast, it’s mentioned as a long-term project the host has been working on. That usually means it’s a car someone is restoring, fixing, or customizing over time.
The Citroën 2CV is a small classic car made in France. It’s known for being simple and for coping well with bumpy roads. The podcast mentions selling one the host owns, which suggests it’s a special or customized version.
A Smart Roadster is a tiny two-seat car made by Smart. It’s the kind of car people notice because it looks unusual and drives differently than a normal car.
Service history is the paper trail (or digital record) of what maintenance and repairs the car has had. It helps you understand how the car was looked after.
S2 Smart sounds like a specialist garage that works on Smart cars. The host is saying they’ll do some extra work before the car is picked up.
Term
fastback hardtop
A fastback hardtop is a car shape where the roof flows smoothly into the back, and it’s a solid roof. The host is saying the yellow one they saw had that kind of look.
The Fiat Grande Panda is a small city car. They’re using it as inspiration for the look of their wheel covers and how the wheel nuts are visually covered.
Bead blasting is like using tiny glass beads to “sandblast” a surface without damaging the shape. People use it to clean and prep parts so they look better and take paint or coatings more evenly.
The rear cross member is a metal support bar under the back of the car that helps hold things together. If it’s getting scabby-looking, it can be rust starting or the protective coating wearing off.
Anti-corrosion precautions are steps taken to stop rust before it starts. Usually that means adding protective products to the underside and other spots where water and salt can collect.
“Short geared” means the transmission is set up to make the engine spin faster. It can feel quicker to drive, but it may not be as relaxed at higher speeds.
The Mercedes-Benz S-Class is a very high-end luxury car, usually a large sedan built for comfort. People talk about it because it’s designed to feel smooth and quiet, with lots of features. In the podcast, they’re questioning whether a specific car is actually an S-Class.
The Land Rover Defender is a tough, old-school off-road SUV. It can handle highway driving, but it tends to be noisy compared with more modern, comfort-focused cars.
The Volkswagen Beetle is a retro-looking VW that was sold again in modern times. The 2016 model is part of that later Beetle run, and the hosts are basically saying it was super common, then became less common and less “special” to enthusiasts.
Term
RSI
“RSI” is a name/badge for a specific version of the Beetle. The hosts are debating whether the car they saw was really that exact version. With rare cars, the exact badge can mean the difference between a common car and a special one.
DK Engineering is mentioned as the seller of the Beetle RSI ad. In enthusiast circles, specialist dealers like this often handle rare, high-end, or limited-run cars where provenance and correct documentation matter. The hosts frame DK Engineering as a company that typically deals in very high-end stuff.
Right-hand drive means the steering wheel is on the right side of the car. The hosts are guessing that the “only 250 made” number might be for right-hand-drive versions. That matters because different countries use different driving sides.
A “homologation” car is basically a special road car made so it can qualify for a racing class. The hosts are wondering if the Beetle RSI was made for that reason. That would explain why it could be so rare.
The Volkswagen Lupo is a small car designed mainly for city driving. The podcast specifically brings up the Lupo GTI, which is a sportier version of the same basic model. People talk about it because it’s compact but still has a more performance-focused setup.
The Suzuki Carry is a small work van. They’re talking about a specific kind they saw in the UK—about a 1.3-liter engine with 16 valves—and how the front styling changed between versions.
“16 valve” means the engine has 16 valve openings that control airflow. It’s a way of describing the engine’s design, and it can affect how smoothly and how strongly it runs.
A “vestigial bonnet” is basically a hood shape that’s kept for looks, not because it’s a big, functional hood. They’re using it to tell which version of the Suzuki Carry they mean.
Car
Bedford Rascal
The Bedford Rascal was a British work van. The hosts are using it to illustrate how vans often get used hard and then get scrapped when they’re too expensive to fix.
An “organ donor” car is basically a car that gets broken for parts to help other cars. It’s a way to salvage useful components when the original car isn’t worth fixing.
Cloudy headlights are when the headlight cover gets hazy or yellow over time. It can make the lights dimmer, and it’s a common aging problem on older cars.
The Toyota Prius is a hybrid car that’s known for being efficient and practical. Here, they’re saying Priuses get used a lot (like taxi work), and if something costly breaks in the hybrid system, they may get scrapped instead of repaired.
A hybrid system is the parts that let the car use both gas and electricity. If something in that system breaks and it’s costly to fix, owners may decide to get rid of the car instead.
A seagull is a type of bird, not a car. In the podcast, it’s used like an example to explain a surprising situation. The point is about how shocking it would be if something common suddenly disappeared.
LIVE
I'm Richard Porter. I'm Johnny Smith. And this is on the other side of things, the Smith and Sniff spin-off in which we answer your questions.
Oi, oi. Yes, here we are, answering questions on a Friday in a spin-off show. Absolutely
I'm going to kick off with a question from Alyssa Nicole Vicky, who's in Cheedle Hume, which is near where I grew up.
As indeed she points out. Her message says, hello, you pair of folded head gaskets. I know. That's a back-ref as well. Excellent.
Very good.
I just remembered the folded head gasket that Alyssa wrote to us about the other week. I just suddenly popped into my head the other day and I started laughing to myself at the thought of someone very carefully folding a head gasket.
But it's like blissfully unaware that they're immediately ruining it and making it useless.
Yeah, no, it's true. I feel sorry for both sides in that story, really.
So Vicky says, hello, you pair of folded head gaskets. I no longer drink alcohol and don't really miss it, though I do miss the fun of a good drinking game.
Ah, OK.
One of the favourites I used to play with my husband specifically involved watching motorsport. Every time you heard a presenter, driver, team owner, etc. say, for sure, you had to yell, for sure, and down your drink.
That's brilliant.
Yes, it could get quite messy.
Why didn't we think of this shit? That's a great one.
Yeah, but also a way to get absolutely battered, surely, because it for sure comes up a lot.
Oh, any foreign driver in World Rally or Formula's, yeah, there's going to be lots of for-sures.
It's a sort of agreement term, isn't it?
Yeah.
It's like going, yeah.
Yes, that's right.
But why not say yes? Is it because in some languages that would just sound sort of too curt or it doesn't...
Yeah.
I just don't know where for sure comes from, but it is endemic and it's not like it's sort of specific to people who natively speak German or French or Swedish or whatever.
It's like it sort of English as a second language tick, almost.
Because we never say for sure in the UK.
I don't think that people, natural English speakers would say for sure.
No.
You don't hear Americans say it, you don't hear Australians say it or Kiwis or anything like that, or British people.
I love the differences of language, because Americans obviously say sure, as in, and my son, Wesson, does it.
Like I'll say, Wesson, you just help me lift some more stuff out of the boot of the car and he'll just go, sure.
Yeah.
I never think to do that and I wish I did, because I quite like it.
So maybe I will start saying sure more.
I think I do it a little bit because of being married to an American and my kids do it because of having an American mum, but also just watching American TV, I think, and YouTube and stuff.
Yeah.
At American mum.
Sure.
Sure.
Is there any nuance of American English that I still can't get my head around is when typically you're in a restaurant and you say thank you to the person serving you and they reply with sure.
Oh, really?
Is that that's a thing?
Yeah.
Because it's quite often you'll go, oh, thank you.
And I'll go, you're welcome.
And that's almost like a tick amongst, I think, Americans.
Yes, that's right.
Sometimes I'll go, sure.
And in that context, it sounds like they're going, of course.
So you say, thank you.
Of course.
And it sounds dismissive.
It does just meant that way.
Like I knew you were okay with that.
Yes.
Of course you're thanking me.
I'm bringing you food and drinks.
Anyway, we've got to, I've got to ask a question.
Sorry, we've really drifted off early doors.
Goodness me.
Come on.
Sorry.
Vicky continues saying, my question for you is a two-parter.
Firstly, do you have a favorite drinking game?
And secondly, what car-related drinking game would you invent?
Cheers mate.
Thanks mate.
Bye.
Vicky from Sheetle Hume.
Brackets not far from where Richard grew up.
This is true.
I don't like drinking games because I fear, unfortunately, I always think of the repercussions.
I'm one of those boring people who thinks this is great now, but tomorrow at 10 a.m.
I'm going to be, be respraying my garden fence with Vom.
So I don't want to do this.
So I can't think, I actually can't think of a better automotive drinking game than there
for sure game, which I now want to play.
And I'm not even a drinking gamer, like I just said.
So the, I don't, it's not automotive, but the song Time Clock of the Heart by Cult Culture
Club.
Yes.
Off of Boy George.
Every time he says time, if you took a sip of some sort of very potent, like I don't know,
not absinthe, but something quite high up like, what's the aniseed-y stuff?
Sambuca.
Yeah.
If you did a sip of Sambuca, not a full shot each time, because you would have something
like 60 shots for the song, but every time he says time.
He says it a lot.
So yes, that's dangerous.
But it's also, it's the frequency.
You'll, you'd be knocking back a drink very quickly, but he ends up saying, I think he
says it so much that he ends up saying Tam instead of Time, which is short for a woman
called Tamara.
Yes.
So I think I maybe have heard that song too much and over-analyzed it, and now I'm over-sharing
it.
But so for sure it's brilliant.
For sure it's very good.
I think there's probably certain car YouTubers that have kind of things they say a lot that
you could play drinking games with.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't want to cruel and single people out, but they're definitely, I think sometimes
that people have these sort of tics or things they say a lot and you could probably pick
your own favorite and do that.
I, as a favorite drinking game, I don't know, I'm too old for drinking games.
Are you?
There was one that we used to play, which was, I think it was called Shit Head.
Right.
It probably has lots of different names.
That's my favorite card game.
It's the only card game I know the rules to.
Hang on.
Maybe it's not a Shit Head.
The game I'm thinking of, one person was the, what do you call it, then control the game,
if you like, and they would write a word on a piece of paper, roll it up and tuck it behind
their ear.
Yes.
And it would be, for example, a euphemism for testicles.
So they would write nuts on a piece of paper and push it around and then you'd go, say,
three times around, so three times around the table, euphemisms for testicles and everybody
has to say one in turn and go round three times.
And if anyone says nuts, they are the one who has to down the shot in the middle of
the table.
Right.
So you're trying to sort of creatively think of obscure euphemisms so that you don't be
the one who drinks it.
It doesn't have to be that.
It could be, I don't know, states of the United States or something a little more grown up
and you've got, I don't know, California tucked behind your ear but tends to often veer towards
the smuttier end of things or it did when we played it.
You could play the game of reading out classified ads and with frequent terms that just get
a bit boring like all the toys.
I can't bear it when people put that in adverts for cars because inevitably the car hasn't
got all the options, therefore it hasn't got all the toys but you're not going to get
into some sort of argument with a person who you probably aren't even going to buy their
car.
It says, are all the toys and you go, well, so that particular car had self-dipping headlights
as an option but not many of them did, has yours got self-dipping headlights?
No.
Right, so it doesn't have all the toys then.
So therefore you're a fucking liar.
There's an interesting one as well which I hadn't really appreciated.
I remember this was a thing at the time but during the chip shortage the manufacturers
were having to sort of tweak the spec of their cars.
Oh yes, COVID specs.
Yeah, end up going, sorry, the SE doesn't have memory seats anymore.
Yes.
But it's still the same price.
Also in some cases they'd go, right, you've ordered this car but unfortunately we won't
be able to install the auto-dipping rear view mirror so we'll give you 400 quid off or whatever.
But a friend of mine was trying to sell his car recently and there was a real tangle about
what spec it was as in, it was BMW so it was supposed to have, you know, they do sort of
packs and I can't believe they call that got idiotic names but it was like, he was saying
to a dealer that was looking to buy it, yeah, he's got the like driver intelligence pack
and the dealer was going, hmm, but I don't think it has because it hasn't got the head-up
display or something and it turned out this was probably a chip shortage car and so the
specs had all gone a bit wonky.
Wonky specs.
And so all the toys was not a, was not necessarily all toys.
I don't, I'm trying to think if any car sales sites do a sort of just random, they probably
should do is just go, I don't care, just show me a car, any car because then you could play
it as a drinking game because you go and find another, our favorite would be in there and
of course my favorite's not bothered about glaring faults with the car.
First to see will buy.
Well first to see will buy is a great one as we've said, it's sort of passive aggressive
as well, yeah, I like that, I like to find another of course, find another is you have
to do a double shot, there's a find shot and then there's another and then a double you
have to just funnel them both in.
But you can on some sales sites set keywords.
So I suppose you could take it in turns to set a keyword, not tell the others what it
is and then it needs some work but there's something in this so.
I think let's end this by saying the question is not aimed at a drinker, an alcohol drinker.
Do it with water, it's a really good, cheap, working class detox game.
So if you can get through two liters of water in 10 minutes, obviously have access to toilets.
Do it with something you just wouldn't want to drink a lot of that's non-alcoholic like
bovril or something because there'd come a point where having to do another shot of
bovril would be a punishment and therefore fitting.
What about espresso?
Oh God.
Oh yeah, bastard, can you imagine doing like eight espressos?
It's incredibly jittery by the end.
Oh yeah.
And then you probably be like, come on, let's keep playing, let's keep playing.
Oh okay, well anyway, I hope we've answered that question a little bit, Vicky.
If you're so inclined, feel free to develop the Karad game as a non-drinker, you can just
license it to people who are still boozing.
Got a letter from a chap called James Armstrong who kindly wrote in in January.
Hello, you lovely pair of lovely, lovely Saabs.
As we enter the new year, yes, could you both give us a run through of the vehicles you
currently own and what projects you're currently working on?
I'm also interested to know what cars are the priority for this year, also if anything
is being sold and if there are any plans to buy anything new, will it be the Year of
the Allegro, for example?
Keep up the great work on the podcast, it's a pleasure to listen to every week, CM, TMB,
James.
James, thank you for writing in and your patience.
So although we are in the first quarter now, very much at the end of the first quarter.
Are we not in the second quarter?
Oh, sorry, yeah, we've finished the first quarter.
Yeah, you can tell I'm into financial chat.
Q2.
Q2, we're in Q2.
Quick rundown, so it is the Year of the Allegro.
My New Year's resolution was finish the things that you started a long time ago.
So I'm actually simultaneously working on three, finishing three of my major projects
at the moment, the biggest ones.
It's quite an undertaking.
The Allegro has restarted, didn't do anything last year.
The Chevrolet Impala, my longest running project, is in full swing to be completed this year.
Yeah, big news drumroll.
And the Maturancho is staying, well, it's progressing at a rate of not.
In fact, I just came off a call with Yorkshire Car Restorations and they said that it could
be in paint in as little as eight weeks.
Oh, hell.
So we are rocking.
We're on full kickdown with those three bad boys.
So that's that.
And I'm selling, it might have sold, but I don't think it has.
My Paternated 2CV, I've decided to sell that.
And the Beatles got some new wheels, which I've just had refurbished and they're going
on in about three days time.
And I'm going to polish that turd ready for summer.
That's about it from me.
I think.
What about you, Rich?
No, hey, question.
Question here from the back.
What's going on with your Smart Roadster?
Oh, hello.
So I'm actually having a little bit more work done on it.
The person who owned it before me, who couldn't be named, she actually has found, she thought
it had all been thrown away.
She's found the original service history and she's going to send it to me.
So she's the first owner, the one that did all the miles in that car.
And I am going to, the guys at S2 Smart are doing a few more bits of work on it and then
I'm going to get my dad to come and collect it.
I say get him to.
I'm going to let my dad drive it this summer and have it.
And if he gels with it, I'm going to give it to him.
I saw one the other day and I suddenly, you know, I thought it was nice to see one out
and about and I said, hang on a minute, Johnny owns one of those.
Where's that gone?
Good.
I'm glad it's still around.
It is still around.
I actually got overtaken by a yellow one on the motorway and it looked really cool because
it was a fastback hardtop like mine, you know, hatchback thing.
And they look so stocky.
They look so stocky.
They do look stocky, don't they?
For a little car, they are very stocky.
They've got a lot of road presence.
An awful road presence for what is an actual micro car.
For what it's worth, nothing much very interesting here.
Still have a 24 Tesla, which will come to the end of its lease at the end of this year.
So actively mulling what to replace it with.
Thatcher Spring is lovely, boingy, stupid, tinny little runabout.
That's great.
Really love that car.
I don't know.
I just it has a certain sort of cheery character to it.
And I don't know if I mentioned this, I took the wheel trims off because I hate them.
And I've just been running around on bare steelies, but they are a bit bare.
So on the cusp of a development there, somebody is 3D printing some centre caps for me.
Copcar, copcar, nipple, nipple caps.
They are going to be in the end.
We took inspiration from the new Grande Panda, which if you have the steelies on those,
they have this sort of cross thing that covers the wheel nuts.
And that is the style that we decide to go with.
So this is someone we know, Tim Oldland.
Oh, yeah.
So those excellent EV chargers that look like alloy wheels.
Yeah, they're brilliant.
Tim is a bit of a whiz with 3D printing.
So but he's not just kind of going, I'll just print it and it'll look all right.
He's he's tested this because he's got a mate with a spring.
So he's gone over and put these caps, his prototypes on his mate's spring
and to make sure they stay put.
And he is now confident he's got a design that stays put.
So he is on the verge of printing some for me and sending them over.
And then he'll be open for selling it to other people who want them for their springs.
So that's cool.
Well, I'll keep you posted on that.
So that's nice just to tidy up the spring, which is still terrific.
And what else have I got?
Oh, yeah.
So the beat the beats out and about past the summer tea and is is here for summer.
And the Metro is I'm going to be picking up very, very soon.
It's all up together now.
And the guys at the den are happy that it is fueling correctly,
which was the last little snack they had to sort out.
So that's all good.
They said to me, do you want our guy to detail it before you pick it up?
Or do you want to leave it kind of looking a little bit, you know,
sort of like it was found in a garage, which is a bit of a dilemma.
Because obviously the backstory to that car is interesting.
And refs back to your vid on the late breaks and everything.
But in the end, this hasn't happened yet.
But in the end, I was like, no, do you know what, clean it up?
Because it's a little gem and everything about it now has been made so nice under the bonnet.
Because, you know, up at the den, they love to kind of get bits and bead blast them
and all sorts just to make them look nice and shiny and things.
So they've done a load of that.
And the wheels they had refurb, which look amazing now.
So it seemed churlish not to have the body kind of given a little scrub up.
No, that's it.
Metro soon, Defender, I need to have a little bit of a cosmetic freshen up.
I think it's just a bit scruffy in places now.
You want to keep on top of it, don't you?
Summers the time to do it.
Yeah, that bloody rear cross member is getting really sort of scabby looking.
So, yeah, I get that sorted out at some point.
I'm going to do that.
I'm going to do the same with the Dodge.
How are you?
Yeah, yeah, I'm going to do a few little bits on the Dodge underneath.
It's not rust, but more anti-corrosion precautions.
But also things like the driver's window doesn't wind down anymore.
And it's actually a bit annoying when you've got a pellet scoop, it just looks a bit gash.
So, it's good to get things sorted out, isn't it?
It's easy to put them off, but I'm going to try and do that.
And then there might be something else coming along.
News on that imminently.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, and we're having some work done on the Eagle Quest.
I'm actually driving it down to have its cosmetic refresh done this week.
I'm driving that.
It's going to be done by a chap that runs a little body shop who also has an Eagle Quest,
which I mentioned in a previous podcast.
So, I can't wait to do that.
So that'll be then summer body ready.
On that note as well, I need to come over to your office at some point
and get the Smith & Sniff Saab that we haven't really talked about
since we were very generously given it by a listener.
Because apart from anything else, I realized that I've amassed quite a collection
of cars that aren't brilliant for long distances.
My wife takes the Tesla to work quite a lot.
She could take the Dacia.
She'd go, I'll be doing that, but she just tends to take the Tesla.
And so, yeah, the Dacia's not got massive range.
It's fine. It's a city car.
It's great of what it does around here.
But then, you know, the beat.
I have done long distances in the beat and it is weirdly good at it.
But at the same time, you know, that car's best with the roof down.
It is short geared.
It is revvy.
Yes.
It's not exactly an S-Class.
No.
The Metro, well, you know, I don't want to use that in the summer.
And it's got a four speed box on it because they all did.
So again, it's not a motorway car as such.
No, that's...
The Defender can do motorways.
It's just that, again, it's quite loud.
It's an old Land Rover.
I just feel like I've got all these cars in here.
If you go, oh, I need to drive to Aberdeen.
You'll be a bit like, well, none of these is relaxing.
I'm not taking the blame for any of these car choices listeners.
No.
Just so we know this is it's all on Richard.
Self inflicted, but I just keep buying cars that are sort of have
a very particular set of skills, and it's not long distance striding.
So I feel like the Saab actually would be quite an addition to the arsenal at my end.
I'll keep it down here.
Yeah.
And it might be quite handy until I finally pull the trigger on a Toyota Century one day.
Well, or a Rover 75 Hertz, obviously.
Yeah, we'll talk about that later.
We should do another question.
We won't not answer many questions.
No, we've done a really crap job of answering questions.
Sorry.
I've got one.
If you want, are you going to do one?
Yeah, it was his one from an Australian listener called Brian.
He says, good day, you pair of kangaroo testicles made into crappy tourist money pouches
that are never touched again.
Very specific, but also very Australian.
So that's great.
Testicle money pouches, OK.
Brian says, in the great Southern land, I assume he means Australia,
the 2016 Volkswagen Beetle was a hit and was everywhere.
Come 10 years down the track and they are now more rare than Miggaloo.
I don't know what that means.
Are there any cars you can recall that seem to be everywhere and then suddenly disappeared
and it's now notable when you see one?
Because the Beetle wasn't just 2016, was it?
They kind of know from the late 90s.
But I think he's absolutely right.
New Beetles.
New Beetles are not cherished.
I've noticed that, like even good condition ones,
you can still pick them up for a song.
So they don't have a cult following from what I can tell,
unless it's the RSI version.
Yes.
We saw one, didn't we?
I think we saw one recently.
Best to scramble the other weekend.
Yes.
Well, I couldn't work out if it was a bona fide RSI or not.
And there was a guy sitting in.
I should have just asked him.
But funny enough, I don't know if it's still up there.
But the other week, a listener sent us an ad for a Beetle RSI,
which is being sold or was being sold by DK Engineering,
who usually do very high-end stuff.
But apparently, according to this ad,
there were only 250 of them made.
I wonder if that must be 250 right-hand drive, surely.
I don't know.
I mean, because it was probably a loss making car,
because it was so bizarre.
It was a homologation thing, wasn't it?
Well, I don't know.
It's one of those classics of VW just spending all the money
on a really niche car, sort of in that era, that Piac era,
when they just sat a WA or the Lupo GTI
and the amount of engineering that went into that.
And you just went steady on, but also fair play.
So I don't know about the Beetle RSI.
There can't have been only 250 in total.
So cars that were...
So that Beetle that he's talking about
is the one where they made the Beetle a little bit more butch.
They lowered the roof line and made it a little bit more chiseled.
Yes.
So which a lot of people liked,
but it was getting towards the end of the Beetle's life really,
I think it was...
Yes, they made a new one, but I think they hadn't...
They didn't launch it hard, I don't think.
Cars that were everywhere and now they're nowhere...
Well, I would like to throw into the mix a van,
which obviously the rate of attrition of a van is higher
because they get more heavily abused.
When was the last time that you saw a really nice tidy Suzuki carry?
Oh, yes.
And I love the carry.
It was a 16 valve 1.3 from memory,
or at least the ones in the UK were.
I love those carries.
They were so cool.
I always wanted to own one and I never have.
So that's not interesting.
Are you talking about the later one that had a sort of vestigial bonnet on it
rather than the flat front?
Yes, slightly boleted.
Obviously, the earlier ones had the Bedford Rascal sister.
Yes, the flat front.
They were everywhere, weren't they?
Yeah, I mean, a Bedford Rascal is an even better example.
Bedford Rascals are albeit extinct, really.
But you're right, it's because vans aren't cared for,
they're just working vehicles and then they come to a point
where they're not economical to fix
and they just get thrown away.
There's no love for them.
They've just got a job to do and when they can't do that job,
it's like a sort of working dog.
They get down.
It's sad.
I think this is going to happen a lot with very early SUVs and people carriers
because they get used so hard and they get cherished so little.
And then they're beyond economical repair
and they're probably worth more as parts.
And that's exactly what they become.
They become organ donors.
So when was the last time you saw an immaculate first generation KN
without cloudy headlights or anything?
Oh, yeah. Well, that's it, isn't it?
It's also, I think, and whether people care about this or not,
I think the attrition rate is really going to come for the Toyota Prius because
they are so heavily used as mini cabs, almost exclusively, it seems.
And even privately owned ones that were just someone's private car,
once they go out for sale and they still fetch good money if they've got life left in them.
Those cars can do hundreds of thousands of miles, seemingly, and still work.
Yeah, a lot of work.
They become working cars and then once even the mini cab,
if something breaks on the hybrid system, which does actually seem quite unusual
because of the Toyota's, but once something breaks, it's too expensive to fix,
they will just get thrown away. There is no love for them.
No.
And also, they'll be so knackered at that point anyway, and the interiors will be so tired.
They're an amazing car.
The attrition rate on those will be just...
I've got more and more time and respect for those as cars have grown more unnecessarily large
and not really any more refined.
I've got time for a Prius, I have to say.
There's the guy, I follow on Instagram, who converted one to Chevy LS rear-wheel drive.
As an absolute sleeper.
And then a friend of his did the same, must have copied his notes.
And they cruise around and do naughty things with smoke and smoke and smoke.
And I've messaged him and gone, I want to buy this car.
At some point, I would love that.
I think it would be fantastic.
Well, because actually, the shape is very aero.
And also, I think that they're quite light because a lot of the...
To compensate for the fact they had batteries and extra motor and stuff like that,
they made the shell quite light, I think.
So interesting.
As a piece of engineering, as they come, I think they're incredible.
The fact that they can do 300,000 miles in the hands of mini cabbers,
where they're just running constantly and being treated with no love and still come back for more.
It's a phenomenal piece of engineering.
No matter what you think of the car itself,
just as an object, as an exercise in making something complicated, reliable and easy to use,
there's just mind-blowingly good.
Yeah.
Making it reliable and totally idiot-proof is very, very difficult.
But I think we'll just...
That's the thing, we won't realize that we're taking for granted.
It'd be like finding out that seagulls have suddenly gone extinct.
And you go, oh no, how did that happen?
You go, well, because nobody gave a shit about them.
And then they died out.
Don't tell that we...
I don't mind a gull.
I've told you, I like a cold-start seagull.
They're brilliant.
You know that?
Well.
It's not like a stationary engine.
I don't think there's any danger of gulls going out of circulation,
because as long as people are dropping chips, then gulls are thriving, aren't they?
But anyway.
Sorry, we haven't really answered many questions this week,
because we were wittering.
But if you have...
I think this is our worst, is this our least useful one?
It's our least focused one, I think, possibly ever.
Anyway, we'll try and do better next week.
But if you do have a question for us, it's hello at smithandsniff.com.
Is the email address...
If you'd like to ask us a question in person,
come to our live show in Belfast, which is tonight.
If you're listening to this show, it comes out the 15th of May.
Or come see us in London on the 9th or 10th of June.
And we always take questions from the audience.
So you could ask us something that you wouldn't dare write down.
And the London Concourse, it's a great day out anyway, isn't it?
I mean, we're probably the worst part of that day, frankly.
Yeah, well, that's it.
But you could just go, well, you know, that was a bit rubbish,
but the rest of it was great once you've been to our show.
But if you've got a burning question,
you can look us in the eye and ask it or just email us.
Either way, we will do this again next Friday,
normal show on Monday.
Until then, goodbye.
Yes, Kim Ashk.
Okay, let's go.
About this episode
The hosts kick off with motorsport and language banter, then pivot into real-world car ownership: chip-shortage-era spec changes, dealer surprises, and how “all the toys” marketing can miss the mark. Listener questions lead into restoration and ongoing projects, from paint timelines to corrosion prevention and wheel tweaks using 3D-printed parts. The discussion broadens to long-distance suitability, rare trims like the Beetle RSI, and why some vehicles end up as parts cars—plus a Prius LS-swap sleeper story.
In this week’s second show, Jonny and Richard answer listeners’ questions about car-related drinking games, the state of their current cars, and models that were everywhere and then disappeared,
