Car
Nissan Leaf
Car
Renault Espace
Car
Opel Tigra
Car
MG3
Car
Saab 95
Car
Nissan 200Sx
Car
Audi Quattro
Car
Chevrolet Camaro
Car
Ford Fusion
Car
Skoda Yeti
Car
Smart Roadster
LIVE
A.I. had the time of my life, A.I. never failed this way before.
From building timelines to assigning the right people and even spotting risks across dozens of projects,
Monday Sidekick knows your business, thinks ahead, and takes action.
One click on the star and consider it done.
And I owe it all to you.
Try Monday Sidekick. A.I. you'll love to use.
On Monday.com
It's 2026 and if you're still paying rent without Bilt, it's time for a change.
Bilt is a loyalty program for renters that rewards you for your biggest monthly expense, rent.
I don't like paying rent and I bet you don't either, but Bilt makes it feel a little better.
Bilt is the loyalty program for renters that rewards you monthly with points and exclusive benefits in your neighborhood.
Let me explain. With Bilt, every rent payment earns you points that can be used towards flights, hotels,
lift rides, Amazon.com purchases, and so much more.
And here's something I'm really excited about.
Starting in February, Bilt members can earn points on mortgage payments for the first time.
Soon you'll be able to get rewarded wherever you live and unlock exclusive benefits
with more than 45,000 restaurants, fitness studios, pharmacies, and other neighborhood partners.
Personally, I'd use my Bilt points for travel.
Turning rent into flight feels like a win.
It's simple.
Paying rent is better with Bilt, and soon owning a home will be better with Bilt too.
Earn rewards and get something back wherever you live.
Join the loyalty program for renters at joinbilt.com.acast.
That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T.com.acast.
Make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you.
I'm Richard Porter.
I'm Johnny Smith.
And this is On the Other Side of Things, the Smith & Sniff spinoff in which we answer your questions.
Here we go again with some questions from listeners.
Can I start with this one from a listener called Paul.
Do it.
Who says, Hello, you pair of meaty sleeves.
I'm a proud generation one Nissan Leaf owner.
The car is approaching 100,000 miles and still going strong.
Or I was driving around in it recently.
I was in a good mood.
I'd engaged in some retail therapy, buying a new camera or something.
And coming towards me with another Leaf.
A 2016 Sonic Blue.
It was even an ascenter.
That's the trim level, isn't it?
Identical to my car.
Filled with the joys of life, I gave the driver a cheery wave.
Slowed down and lowered my driver's window.
The other driver stopped alongside with a slightly quizzical look on her face.
Can I congratulate you on your choice of car and colour, I said.
She sort of mumbled agreement and still confused.
She drove off.
It was then something became clear.
I was in my wife's MG and not in my Leaf.
Oh no, really?
Oh, that's sad, wasn't it?
I did not see that coming.
It really amused me.
Yeah, it's robbed of a certain context that makes it all quite...
Oh no!
It starts to seem weird.
That's so bad.
It's so creepy.
That's like a curb your enthusiasm kind of move, isn't it?
Yes, yes.
Paul's question is, what conversation have you had or action have you done
that has confused other road users the most?
Oh gosh, there's been loads.
I remember one where the tyre...
There was a back tyre which I think must have been almost flat.
This was on the motorway and it was smoking.
The tyre was starting to smoke.
It was obviously getting very hot from being, I don't know, 4 psi or whatever it was.
And the person driving was just rigid.
One of those people that probably fears the whole concept of driving anyway.
I was looking dead ahead and I went up beside them once or twice
and did a sort of point down.
Like, there's not a lot you can do when you're gesticulating, is there?
There's not a great deal you can do.
But I pointed down at the wheel, as if to say.
And they accelerated and didn't really make eye contact with me.
And it started to get worse and worse.
And I thought this tyre was going to go boom.
And then this car's going to be like one of those cannons
that they put under cars in films
where they do the big corkscrew roll, like the A-team.
Or fast off of Furious.
And so I just panicked and I sped up
and I went over to them again and went,
no, no, it's like your tyre, your tyre's going to burst.
And they just shook their head at me.
Oh no, whatever you're trying to sell me, I'm not interested.
And they just kept driving.
So I backed right off because I was convinced
just all hell was going to break loose.
I just, I don't know whatever became of them.
Genuinely don't know what became of them.
I do it quite often with people
who it's mostly in the winter months
who have an entirely steamed up car
who have not worked out how heating ventilation works in a car
and they don't want to put their windows down.
They just sit in what looks like
one of those Victorian hot rooms
where you put exotic plants.
And it just annoys me.
I'm like, you can't see properly
and there's going to be mouldy spores
that are going to be going into your lungs.
Yeah, I know.
Funny enough though, I thought about this the other day.
It's not related to Paul's message
but I remember when the first generation LEAF was quite new
I think pretty early on it developed this
slightly sort of cult following.
You know, because it was such a novelty at that point
to have any sort of EV really.
And they, so early owners of them
you didn't buy one of those by accident.
You were sort of all in on it.
And a friend of mine who's also a car journal
went to a Nissan LEAF enthusiast's meet-up.
Oh gosh.
And he said one of the most striking things
was he was talking to this guy who said
oh I never use the air conditioning
because it damages your range.
You know, I just keep the blower off all together.
And if the cars steaming up, you know,
I've just got these cloths here to wipe the windows away
and he's got this massive collection of damp cloths in the car
but he's just like
well those are generating more condensation surely.
So you're in this infinite loop of moisture
that's never going to go into your head.
So just run the blower a little bit
or not the air conditioning, I get that.
But you can't all open the windows.
Don't use damp cloths.
That's just, I mean, it's making me itch
just thinking about that.
Just a selection of damp, slimy cloths in the car.
Just awful.
It really stuck with me that.
And because there's a cloth in my Honda
and I suddenly thought, oh no,
I don't want to get into a damp cloth situation
like the Nissan Leaf and this club.
Similar to Paul, I suppose,
well not similar,
because we've talked about this before.
Old Defender owners tend to give each other a little,
often quite minimalist wave.
But since getting my Defender back in the last few months
I've been driving it quite a bit.
So I've got back into the habit of waving
and I have a couple of times accidentally
given someone in another Defender a wave
when I've not been in my Defender.
Oh no.
That's a bit knobby.
You're in the wrong character.
You're in a different character and you didn't know it.
Yes, exactly.
The one that sort of haunts me a little bit
and probably fits Paul's question
about confusing another road user is
I was coming up a very narrow street
near where I used to live in London.
In my Rover 75, actually, it was that long ago
and this guy in an espace,
remember this was in a Mark IV espace
was coming the other way
and instead of pulling in to a T-junction
that was up ahead,
he kept coming down this
there was only room for one car to go through
because a parked car is on either side.
He kept coming
and I was like, if I have to reverse,
I'm going to have to reverse like a quarter of a mile
to the next gap,
whereas you could have just gone into that thing.
So the road wasn't so narrow
that we couldn't do a proper squeezy-squeezy.
It was really, it was horribly tight
and as we got alongside,
I put my window down and he put his window down.
I went, why didn't you just wait back there
and he got really balshy really quickly
and went, why didn't you wait?
And I was like, because you were nearer to somewhere
where you could pull in.
No, I wasn't. I was already on my way.
You came towards me and I was like, that's impossible.
I'm from further back.
And it all got a bit
and he just went, you should have fucking waited.
And I went, shit off.
And he went, what?
I suddenly realized that shit off wasn't strong enough.
No, it's partridge.
It's very partridge.
It's partridge.
And the worst thing was, I was in my Rover 75.
We'd just come back from, it was a Sunday.
We'd come back from a friend's child's christening.
I was in the car with the person
who had until very recently been my girlfriend
but we had then split up.
So the atmosphere in the car was not great anyway.
Oh no.
And so after this guy went, what?
Me saying shit off in a slightly pathetic way.
We both moved forward so our windows were at parallel
and I was able to then carry on the road.
And she just went, shit off.
What was that?
I was like, I don't know.
I was already wound up as well.
I was like, don't say anything.
She's like, but shit off.
Shit off.
That's just rubbish.
And I was like, yeah.
It's not cool.
Guys, I can still see this guy's face.
He was an older guy with grey hair
and his face where he just went, what?
That's it.
Shit off.
I was like, I sort of, you know,
thrown a little bit of damp tissue at him
and he'd gone, is that all you've got?
Is that all you've got?
Yeah.
Terrible. Terrible.
Haunts me.
And this would have been 20 plus years ago
and it still haunts me.
Okay.
Anyway.
Well, I've got a letter from Simon Sterly.
Morning.
Oh, it might not be morning.
Morning.
You couple of well-practiced Spower Sir Men.
A cautionary tale for listeners.
I think I've developed a form of Tourette's syndrome
after listening far too long to this bloody podcast,
starting with Folds and Trains.
It's...
And more recently, spanning an extended lexicon.
My daughter now joins in by yelling,
Miata at any FX5 we pass.
I blame the US TV shows for that.
And we both yell,
Wanker at any shiny Chelsea tractor.
Oh, God.
Wow.
Yeah, that's strong.
More recently, though, we developed a game
where you spot any vehicle that's basically a golf underneath.
Golf, T-Rock, Beetle, A3, Q3, Ibiza, etc.
There are loads.
Yeah.
And you have to be the first to point it out
and declare golf in the flattest monotone voice possible.
I personally try for a Nigel Mansel-style voice.
Golf.
Golf.
So my question is, do you guys have any phrases
similar that you can't help yourself saying out loud
whilst driving?
I feel like you've got a few, Rich.
PS, whilst choosing her first car,
my daughter came across a forgotten classic,
the Vauxhall Tigra Twin Top.
And I found a spares or a pair one for 350 sheets
in a lovely metallic blue,
which only needed a new front wing,
50 quid off eBay, right colour even,
and it's back on the road.
Potential festival of the unexceptional transport
for next year.
Well.
Yeah.
Gosh, bargain for a Tigra.
This is good.
I'm trying to think.
I've probably done loads of this sort of thing
in the past.
My brother's the ultimate for this kind of thing.
He's got nicknames for all sorts of cars, isn't he?
I know he has.
That's the problem.
He has.
Yeah, he does.
He says mouth-breather a lot to people who,
you know when you flash someone
to pull out of a junction before you go in,
because it's just a bit easier.
If you flash once and you sort of count to two
and they haven't reacted,
my brother would just go,
mouth-breather, like that.
Because it is a bit, and it is annoying.
It's really annoying.
I get that.
You're giving them that opportunity,
but then there's that really awkward pause.
I do sometimes say foglight fucker under my voice.
If somebody's driving around with fog lights
on when it's not foggy whatsoever,
there was someone actually yesterday
bearing in mind it was a really sunny hot day yesterday,
and they came in hot and cut me up,
and they had rear fogs on,
and I'm thinking they must have just got in the car
and just battered the switch and not noticed.
Or just like poured at the dashboard
a bit until everything came on.
Yeah.
I'm good.
I'm off.
Yeah, that's reorienting as well.
I don't know why this came to mind,
but when the, do you remember when the MG3,
the original MG3 went on sale,
all the adverts seemed to major just around the word fun.
Yes, I do remember this.
Yeah.
And for some reason,
I borrowed an MG3 to review,
and all the time I was driving it,
I couldn't stop going fun.
Yes.
Fun.
Yes.
Just to myself.
It carried.
I couldn't stop it.
And every time I saw an MG3, I go fun.
And then for some reason in my head,
I don't know why I'm not sure how this happened.
I think it might have been something to do with it.
I feel like MG put out something
that had a typo in it.
Right.
And so I started putting a typo into fun in my head.
What?
So that it was a spell FNU.
And so then whenever I saw an MG3, I'd go FNU.
I knew you would come up with the best answer for this question.
And to this day, when I see an original MG3,
which thankfully is not that often,
I can't help but go FNU in my head
and sometimes out loud.
I think if I ever see,
if I ever see or I'm driving
a classic convertible car,
the sort of thing that's quite tally-ho and slow,
or I see somebody the other way in a kind of Morgan-ish,
pre-war-ish car, I always just go,
I know. I know.
I know.
I know.
I know.
With like a big four smile on your face,
like almost like a puppet.
I know.
I feel like a kind of posh old money marionette.
I know.
I know.
And I turned.
I turned to whoever's in the passenger seat
with, I turned my whole body and not my neck.
So, you know, like a puppet would.
I know.
Yes.
Yeah.
So, it's just, it's,
I've done it to my kids now for all of the years
that they've been alive and they're completely over it.
They're just like, not funny.
Don't do it.
Not funny stop.
So, there we go, Simon.
That's that.
Yeah, I hope that's some answer there to that.
Yeah, we're both quite strange.
Reggie, I just sold my car online.
Let's go, Grandpa.
Wait, you did?
Yep, on Carvana.
Just put in the license plate, answered a few questions,
got an offer in minutes.
Easier than setting up that new digital picture frame.
You don't say.
Yeah, they're even picking it up tomorrow.
Talk about fast.
Wow.
Way to go.
So, about that picture frame.
Ah, forget about it.
Until Carvana makes one, I'm not interested.
Car selling made easy on Carvana.
Pick up these man-fly.
It's 2026 and if you're still paying rent without Bilt,
it's time for a change.
Bilt is a loyalty program for renters
that rewards you for your biggest monthly expense, rent.
I don't like paying rent and I bet you don't either,
but Bilt makes it feel a little better.
Bilt is the loyalty program for renters
that rewards you monthly with points
and exclusive benefits in your neighborhood.
Let me explain.
With Bilt, every rent payment earns you points
that can be used towards flights, hotels,
lift rides, Amazon.com purchases, and so much more.
And here's something I'm really excited about.
Starting in February, Bilt members can earn points
on mortgage payments for the first time.
Soon, you'll be able to get rewarded wherever you live
and unlock exclusive benefits
with more than 45,000 restaurants, fitness studios,
pharmacies, and other neighborhood partners.
Personally, I'd use my Bilt points for travel.
Turning rent into flights feels like a win.
It's simple.
Paying rent is better with Bilt,
and soon owning a home will be better with Bilt, too.
Earn rewards and get something back wherever you live.
Join the loyalty program for renters
at joinbilt.com.acast.
That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T.com.acast.
Make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you.
I've got a question here from a listener called James
who says,
I've been pondering something lately.
I'm convinced that certain albums
simply sound best in certain cars.
Yeah.
Almost as though the record sleeve ought to come
with serving suggestions like a wine pairing.
Completely.
For example, Paul Weller's Stanley Road
is surely best served in a Rover 827 Coupe
in nightfire red with cream leather and red paper.
That's so specific.
That's so specific.
And in my own experience,
Money for Nothing by Diastrates has never sounded finer
than when played through the stereo
of my much-missed Saab 95 Aero.
Oh.
And Jilted Generation was perfect back in 2005
in my Nissan 200SX S13.
Gosh.
Fleetwood Max Rumors, that's clearly a Mercedes R107 SL
with the roof down.
Yeah.
The driver marinating in an otherwise quantity
of aftershave.
Yeah.
Portis Head surely belongs in a Renault Avanti
rather than that frankly dreadful Nissan Primera.
The song will forever be tainted by the baffling adverse
in which Portis Head's Dumb was paired with Dolphins
and that dog shit car.
Steady on, James.
Nothing wrong with the Primera.
The dog shit car.
I also don't remember that ad.
No.
I was just trying to think of it myself.
Dolphins.
I loved that.
Oh, was it?
I loved that first album by Portis.
James says the Triumph Stag has to be steely dan.
Just imagine singing along to Pegg while keeping one eye
on the ever-increasing temperature gauge
as you sit in traffic.
Do you chaps have any other classic album car pairings
that spring to mind?
We used to play this game a lot.
We did amongst ourselves.
Yeah, you and I used to do it a lot.
Pre-dates the podcast by years, doesn't it,
where we'd message one another and go,
here's the setting.
What's the song?
Or here's the car.
This is what the weather's doing.
What am I listening to?
We did.
We used to do it.
In fact, I might have written a few down over the years,
but there's definitely...
See, I would have gone with the Stag.
I would have gone with
Come Up and See Me, Make Me Smile
off of Coagley Rebel.
Oh.
What a great song.
That's a great song.
And I would have had a little cheeky little medallion
and a completely yellow gold watch.
Yes.
On the door, just resting on the door.
I'm in the Stag.
I'm listening to Coagley Rebel.
Perfect.
It is, isn't it?
Because Coagley Rebel,
it's a very British song, I think.
Obviously because Steve Harley and Coagley Rebel are British,
but what I mean is it's kind of...
It's jolly 70s, upbeat 70s.
Well, it's a very angry song.
That's the thing.
The music's quite jolly,
but it's a very angry song.
He's very bitter in the song.
It's about his former bandmates, I think.
I didn't know that.
Only Metal Water Boar is about money.
It's a great track.
Probably my favourite song in the whole world.
Is it really?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, great.
Come up and sleeve me, Make Me Smile.
Come up and sleeve me.
It's also, if you are a pedant about this,
the song is perversely called Make Me Smile.
Brackets come up and see me,
which is a bit unwieldy,
but it's been covered by various people,
including Eurasia, weirdly.
It's not a brilliant cover.
Gerand Geran, also not a brilliant cover.
Just throw these bands under a bus, why don't you?
Well, no, because they've got their bands.
I love Eurasia, I love Gerand Geran.
He's nothing against either of those bands,
but they just didn't do, I think, an amazing job.
You've just got me thinking now,
just talking about Gerand Geran.
You know Skin Trade by Gerand Geran?
Yes.
To me, Skin Trade would be
extra GTE, Mark II, convertible.
But you'd be, I'd be a woman driving it.
I'd just feel like it would be better
if I was a woman in that situation.
I don't know why, I haven't got any reasons, really.
I know what you mean.
And it would be loud, I'd be playing it loud
and unashamedly, because it's a big song that.
It's got some quite echoey drums in it from memory.
It's all big, isn't it?
It's very big.
It's production.
Also, I was going to say,
Susie Quattro covered Make Me Smile.
That's not a good version at all.
Did she destroy it?
Again, nothing against Susie Quattro, but just no.
But the wedding present, for people who know them,
their cover of Make Me Smile is frigging fantastic.
And I urge you to go and listen to it.
Apparently, it was Steve Harley's favourite version of that song.
Oh!
So it's got the actual endorsement of Steve Harley himself.
But no, I love that, because the stag, very British car,
for a very British song.
And because the song is superficially jolly,
but actually sort of a bit angry and bitter underneath.
Perfect for stag ownership, where you want to enjoy it,
but it's overheated again or something.
It makes you sad.
It's brilliant.
I remember a slight name drop,
Jack Osbourne, Aussie's son.
I remember going out for the night with him once in LA,
and I've said this before, probably,
he picked me up from my hotel in his Camaro RS.
I think it was a 1968 beautiful car.
And we were going through town,
a typical hot summer night in LA, windows right down.
And we weren't actually listening to any music.
We were just talking.
But I've replayed that moment in my head
for quite a long time afterwards.
And I think it was definitely Bob Seger
and the Silver Bullet Band Hollywood Nights,
because we were...
Yeah.
I know it's cliche.
And it is cliche, but who cares?
I'm a foreigner.
And at that moment in America,
going down those streets in that car with Jack,
it just felt so right.
It was great.
Do you know a song that I don't know why,
but to this day, whenever I hear it,
and it's a great song,
and I absolutely love it as a song,
but it is Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac.
Yeah.
But it reminds me,
not of an R107SL, as James suggested,
but it always makes me think of a sales rep
in the 80s or 90s in a cavalier,
like a two-litre GLS cavalier.
Yeah.
And he's absolutely drumming the steering wheel,
because it's got quite...
It's got heavy, heavy toms in it, hasn't it?
Heavy toms, hasn't it?
Yeah.
It's like as a mate of ours once...
When I...
This song was on in the car,
we were in the car together,
and he just went,
big mick on the skins there.
Sorry.
Yes.
Yes, I suppose he is.
Yeah.
Go Your Own Way,
but very specifically,
sort of slightly aggressively swerving through a contra-flow,
because they're so excited by the music.
I don't know why I think that.
Well, I think we mean...
This is one of those things
that we could turn into a flipping episode in itself, really.
But if anyone's got any other suggestions
and why they think it's important,
let us know.
Yeah.
Cars, car and music matches.
I've got a...
Alistair May has written to us to say,
listen, you couple of SSGs,
interesting quandary I need advice on.
I've got three cars
in which I could start a project on.
I've got an 80s Range Rover,
which needs all of the welding.
I love that.
It's just all of the welding.
All of it.
In brackets, least viable.
I've got a Beetle
that's been sat for 20 plus years
and I'm unsure of how sound it is,
or when it last ran
before going into the back of a lorry body.
That sounds like somebody squirreled away a problem.
Yes.
And the third on this list,
and most likely to get done,
a Merck 198 that's been sat in the garage since 2014,
it didn't run when it was stood up.
And to be honest, the engine was not strong
and had issues anyway.
This is such a sad negative email.
The plan was to get a 2.3 compressor,
either an early SLK or CLK
and replace the asthmatic 2.0 liter.
But not being too mechanically minded.
I've got no idea where to start,
exclamation mark,
CMTMB, Alistair.
Alistair, if you're not very mechanically minded
and you've got three sounds like
pretty broken cars,
I don't want to be a downer on you.
And your surnames may.
I don't know whether you're related to James,
because you know he's obviously quite handy
and likes to take his time over this stuff.
I'm going to say
this.
One of the first cars I ever photographed
when I was trying to get my foot in the door
from magazine was actually a guy
that had put a Beetle body
on a Range Rover chassis.
What's your...
And it was really good.
It was a V8 Range Rover
with the yellow Beetle on the top.
And it was actually lots of fun.
But I think in this instance,
Merck 190, 100%.
I know you said you want to put a 2.3 in it
and I don't know the relationship
with those engines because I just
off the top of my head can't think.
But if you just want to get a car back on the road,
why don't you just go again
with another Merck-related engine?
You could put a 6 in it.
And recommission the rest of it,
assuming the car's not rotten.
Because that would have gone up in value
since you put it away in 2014.
And they're a really good car.
And we've said in a podcast before,
for a whole swathe of younger people,
the Merck 190 is like a really aspirational car
even with a weedy engine.
So I'd probably go with that.
And the Beetle,
unless it's sentimental,
if it's post-1970,
I probably wouldn't bother.
I know that sounds brutal,
you'll spend a lot of money
writing the wrongs and it will be worth three grand.
Which is a shame.
It is a real shame.
So unless it's sentimental,
I'd probably leave that one.
And I don't know about all the welding,
it scares the shit out of me.
Saying an 80s Range Rover
sees all underlined all the welding.
Yeah, I...
The Range Rover is probably best as
parts for someone else.
Would you say?
Yeah, you're right about the 190 as well.
I don't know.
Is Alistair being modest
when he says he's not mechanically minded?
I don't know.
Quite honestly,
these all sound like projects
for someone highly competent
with a lot of spare time.
Yeah, exactly.
You're either cash rich in time poor
or time rich in cash poor, typically.
And so you've just got to make that decision, really.
I think you've got to decide also
how ruined these cars are.
I mean, if the Beetle and the Range Rover are ruined,
then sometimes it's better to just
find a better donor, a better car
and use these as donors.
That's what I would say.
Yeah, also,
it sounds like all of these cars
have been sat for quite a long time.
So the truth is, Alistair,
you're not going to miss them if they're gone.
I would just get rid,
get something that you can actually use and enjoy.
Don't get bogged down.
Honestly, if you enjoy working on cars,
that's one thing,
but it sounds like maybe you don't, I don't know.
It's quite sensible here on.
It is, but you can get bogged down
and then the love can disappear
and you've got to decide why you're doing it.
I enjoy the process of a lot of them
and some of them you just have to make a decision.
Sentiment's the real key here.
If the thing is sentimental,
then you spend as much money and time on it
as you want because it's that car
that represents that thing.
And that's why I'd happily,
I would happily roost a tail,
30 grand on my beetle.
I don't give a shit because it's...
Would you?
Yeah, well, next year I will have had it 30 years,
which makes me sound elderly,
but I don't...
Well, another truth.
Yes, anyway.
I know.
Well, I don't know.
Like you said, don't want to be a downer,
but it really does sound like perhaps
the answer to which project to start is none
in this case.
But there may be money locked up in those cars
which you can liberate to go and buy something else.
Exactly.
Sell one, rescue two,
or sell two, rescue one.
There's lots of other options.
But yeah, be realistic, please.
Yes, realistic.
That's what we're looking for, realism.
Just one more very quick question from a listener
called George who says,
Hello, you floundering fleshy flutes.
Recently in Glasgow, where I live,
my commute has been interrupted by the filming
of the new Spider-Man film.
Glasgow is acting as a double for New York City.
Is it?
While hundreds of people...
Yeah, I've seen this mentioned elsewhere online,
but George says,
while hundreds of people gather to get photos
of the swinging bastards,
I've taken great joy in seeing US spec cars
in the UK with full New York plates.
This is included NYPD Dodge Chargers,
Ford Fusions and US spec Chrysler,
which has made my commute more interesting.
Often, when I see a non-UK plate car,
I rub a neck to get where it's come from.
My question is, where is the place you've been?
You're still laughing about Spider-Man being described
as a swinging bastard, aren't you?
That's just way funnier than the question.
You're swinging bastard.
George says, my question is, where's the place you've been?
I'll do that again.
George says, my question is, where have you been,
where you've seen the most unlikely registration plate?
Bonus points for unlikely car.
Oh!
An example of this is a social media personality
who, while car spotting in New Jersey,
spotted a Skoda Yeti on UK plates.
I'm still fascinated as to why and how it was there.
That is weird, isn't it?
That is really weird.
Yeah, this does remind me of something that I saw once.
In fact, speaking as we were of being in Los Angeles,
it was when I was in Los Angeles,
or certainly Southern California,
on the freeway,
and I saw a car on British plates,
but the rear British number plates
had then had a US license plate
screwed over the top of it,
which I've seen people do before
and like old Minis and things in the US.
But what made this particularly weird,
and this was probably about 15 years ago or more,
was that the car was a right-hand drive Smart Roadster.
Oh, was it? That's interesting.
I just cannot figure out how that was possible
because it wouldn't have fitted within the 25-year rule
in which you're allowed to import cars
that were never actually sold in the US.
The Smart Roadster wasn't sold in the US.
So what was it doing there?
But also it clearly had been registered in some way or other
because it had got an American plate
over the rear British plates.
So I've had, since my Smart Roadster episodes
on the Late Break Show,
I've had a few Americans and Canadians saying,
I would love one of these.
I just can't wait for them to be over the age threshold
or viable.
Yeah, that's a great one.
Goodness, what is the story with that?
Lemonade.
Yeah, isn't it?
Yeah.
I'm trying to think of...
I always think that seeing really large,
exotic things in countries
like small, thrifty cars is odd.
I've seen a Bentley Turbo R
in quite a rural
and probably quite poverty-stricken part of Romania,
which this was ages ago.
This was like 18, 20 years ago
and I thought it looked really strange
and also inappropriate.
And this is when you saw in Romania
still a lot of horses and carts.
And I don't know whether you see many horses and carts
in Romania right now.
I haven't been to Romania for a few years now,
but that was always the odd thing.
But...
Yeah.
Oh, there we go.
All right, well, a brief but hopefully informative answer.
We will do this all again next Friday,
normal show on Monday.
If you have a question for us,
hello at smithandsniff.com.
Put Otisot at the start of your subject line
if it's a question, helps us to find them
because we're disorganised.
We'll answer more questions next Friday.
Until then, goodbye.
Bye, guys.
On the other side of things
On the other side of things
On the other side of things
ACAS powers the world's best podcast.
Here's a show that we recommend.
Hey, it's Raj.
And Noah.
And we're back with a new season of Am I Doing It Wrong,
the show that explores all two human anxieties
we have about trying to get our lives right.
Because we're still doing a lot of stuff wrong.
But who isn't?
That's why each week we're talking about the topics
that we could all use a little helping hand with,
whether it's making new friends as an adult,
managing our emotions, or even dreaming.
We'll be talking to experts in their fields
who are definitely doing things right.
So the rest of us can be a bit wiser
and a lot better equipped to handle whatever life throws at us.
Subscribe now and listen to new episodes of Am I Doing It Wrong,
dropping every Thursday starting January 1st,
wherever you get your podcasts.
And for the first time ever,
we're going to have full video episodes on YouTube.
Because as long as there are things to get wrong,
we're going to be right here to help you do them better.
Love y'all.
Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast,
everywhere, acast.com.
About this episode
Richard Porter and Johnny Smith dive into listener questions, sharing humorous and relatable car-related anecdotes. They discuss everything from mistaken car identities to the quirks of driving in unusual vehicles. A standout moment includes a listener's embarrassing encounter while waving at a fellow Nissan Leaf driver from the wrong car. The duo also explores the idea of music pairing with specific cars, prompting nostalgic reflections on their own experiences. The episode is filled with laughter and camaraderie, making it a delightful listen for anyone who enjoys automotive stories.
Original notes
In their Friday Q&A spin-off, Jonny and Richard answer questions about confusing other road users, phrases you can’t help saying while driving, albums that suit certain cars, a car project dilemma, and unexpected number plates in unusual places.
For early, ad-free episodes and extra content go to patreon.com/smithandsniff
To buy merch and tickets to live podcast recordings go to smithandsniff.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Smith and Sniff
Jonny Smith and Richard Porter
0:00
31:48