The Enfield 8000 is a small electric car from the 1970s, known for being one of the early electric vehicles. It was made for city driving and has a distinctive look.
Car
Enfield electric car
The Enfield electric car was one of the first electric cars made in the UK. It shows how electric vehicles have been around for a long time, even before they became popular today.
EVs stands for electric vehicles, which are cars that run on electricity instead of fuel like gas. They are better for the environment and can save money on fuel costs.
American V8s are engines with eight cylinders arranged in a V shape. They are known for their power and are often used in powerful cars and trucks made in the United States.
The Lexus LS is a large luxury car that is very comfortable to drive. It's known for having many high-end features and a smooth ride, making it popular among those who enjoy luxury vehicles.
The Jeep Cherokee is a type of SUV that is great for driving on rough terrain. It's spacious and can be used for both everyday driving and outdoor activities, making it a versatile vehicle.
Land Rover is a brand that makes tough vehicles, especially for driving off-road. They are known for their ability to handle rough terrains and are popular among adventure seekers.
Modifications are changes people make to their cars to make them better or look different. This can include things like adding new parts or changing the paint color.
A 'barn find' is a car that someone finds after it has been sitting unused for a long time, usually in a barn. These cars can be special because they might be rare or have interesting histories.
The Jaguar XJR is a fast and luxurious car that many people enjoy driving. It's known for being powerful and comfortable, making it a great choice for those who want a mix of speed and luxury.
The Jaguar F-Type is a stylish sports car that is fast and fun to drive. It comes in different versions, including a hardtop and a convertible, and has powerful engines that make it exciting.
Alloy wheels are lighter wheels made from a mix of metals. They look nicer than regular steel wheels and can help your car handle better and save fuel.
The Tesla Model S is a high-end electric car that can go very fast and has a lot of cool tech inside. It's one of the first electric cars that became really popular.
The Land Rover Defender is a tough SUV designed for off-road driving. It's known for being able to handle rough terrain and has a classic style that many people love.
'Rally inspired' means the design is influenced by cars used in rally racing, which are built for speed and handling on rough surfaces. These cars often look sportier and more aggressive.
Sparco is a brand that makes special equipment for racing cars, like seats and steering wheels. They are popular among racers for their quality and performance.
Car
Land Defenders
The Land Rover Defender is a tough and sturdy vehicle that can handle rough roads and off-road adventures. It's been around for a long time and is loved by people who enjoy exploring the outdoors. Many people talk about it because of its unique look and how well it performs in tough conditions.
Car design is about how a car looks and works. Designers think about everything from the shape to the colors to make sure everything fits together well.
BF Goodrich makes tires that are good for different types of driving, especially off-roading. Many people trust their tires for better grip and performance.
The Volkswagen Corrado is a small, sporty car that was made in the late '80s and early '90s. It has a unique look and is appreciated by car enthusiasts.
BBS split rim wheels are special types of wheels that look really nice and are popular among car lovers. They can be quite pricey, especially if they are in good condition.
The Toyota Celica is a small, sporty car that people enjoyed driving for many years, from the 1970s until the mid-2000s. It was known for being fun and stylish, which is why many fans still talk about it today. Some people remember it fondly because it was also used in racing.
The Jaguar I-Pace is a luxury electric SUV. It has a stylish look, a comfortable interior, and is known for its good performance and technology features.
Depreciation is how much a car loses value as it gets older. When you buy a used car, it often costs less because it has already lost some of its value compared to when it was new.
Car
Tesla
Tesla is a company that makes electric cars. They are known for their advanced technology and long-range batteries.
PIVI Pro is a modern car technology that helps you control things like navigation and music using a touchscreen. It's faster and easier to use than older systems.
Air suspension is a system in some cars that uses air instead of metal springs to support the car's weight. It can make the ride smoother and can be adjusted for different driving needs.
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I'm Richard Porter.
I'm Jonny Smith.
And this is On the Other Side of Things,
the Smith & Sniff spinoff in which we answer your questions.
Before we start with answering questions,
I just wanted to take a moment to talk about Quentin Wilson,
who I assume people will know by now,
sadly died last Saturday.
I've mentioned many times on this podcast,
I work with Quentin, my first job in TV
on The Cars of the Star and then Top Gear.
So I owe him an enormous amount for the fact
that in my first job, which was researching
on The Cars of the Star,
I pulled together all this information.
It was a show about the larder.
And then we weren't filming for a few weeks.
So the producer said,
well, why don't you try and pull some of this research
together into a script?
And I was like, well, I don't know how to do that.
And he gave me some old scripts from previous episodes.
And then just left me alone for a week more, I think,
to hash together this script as best I could,
but then I had the luxury of being able to sort of
come back to it, edit it, revise it,
try and make it as good as I could
whilst blundering about not really knowing
what I was doing.
And then Quensen came into the office
and it was the first time I'd met him.
And he was exactly like he was on the TV
except that he swore more,
which was kind of thrilling in its own right.
And he was very charming and very friendly.
And we all sat down and the producer had printed out
this script that I'd written and he gave it to Quensen.
And we sat there while Quensen read it.
He sort of looked up and straight at me and he went,
did you write this?
I said, yeah, yes, yes I did.
And he went, it's very good.
Wow.
And I can't overstate how important that was,
just that little moment in making me think,
oh God, the man off the telly just told me
that my script's good and maybe I can have a go at this
more often and it was such a priceless moment for me.
And the thing about Quensen is that he never stopped
in that level of support and encouragement.
And I would write stuff for him all the time.
And of course, you know, he would take it and adapt it
and make his own and add bits.
But when you gave him a raw script,
you know, I can sort of vividly remember another time,
just turning up on location.
And he was memorizing a sort of opening piece
to camera that I'd written.
And I was sort of standing there just kind of like,
oh, I hope it's okay.
He just looked at me and he went, you write very well.
Oh, that's good.
And it's like, this was over a year into my job there.
You know, he had no need to be that nice to me anymore.
I was on the team.
He wasn't needed, but it was really appreciated,
perhaps more than he would know.
And I think it says a lot about the man.
He was a very generous soul.
Yeah, I discovered that.
I was scared to meet him.
I'd never worked with him.
I did one weekend job with him
at the London Classic Car Show
where we did some hosting together
and some questions and answers and that kind of thing.
And he was great fun.
But before that, I met him at the Goodwood Ball.
Yeah.
I was sat on the same table as him at the ball
as a guest of Folds.
And I was nervous to meet him
because I really, really loved the stuff that he did on the TV.
And bizarrely, it's weird that you and I
are working together doing this
because the Cars The Star was one of the moments in TV
where I just couldn't stop watching them.
I used to get my dad to record them on video
and I used to watch them back.
And I absolutely poured over them.
I poured over the detail and the archive and his delivery
and all the way it was all knitted together was just lovely.
But that show, in retrospect, was so successful as a TV program
because of Quentin and because he had this incredible knowledge.
I mean, there's another thing about Quentin.
He was fabulous company, off-camera.
He was such a good company.
There have been so many messages flying around in the last few days
amongst those of us who've worked with him at various points.
I was messaging back and forth with Jeremy at the weekend
and then with James Woodruff, who was another of that intake of researchers
from Pebble Mill and various other directors and researchers and producers
and all sorts of people from different eras who work with Quentin
or cross paths with him.
The warmth in those messages and the love for the man
that perhaps we didn't fully express at the time
and we've been swapping some favourite memories.
And Woodruff sent me a clip, just a short clip of an item from Top Gear
where he bought a larder to send back to Russia in that period
when the Russians were paying good money for old larders.
They were, yeah, to repatriate.
And he does this piece to camera to explain that he's now bought this old larder
and paid all the money for it.
And it's just so elegant.
You know, Quentin did an English degree and you sort of realised that.
And I think that rightly, Clarkson gets credit as a great writer and a great presenter.
But I think that Quentin, with his own style,
could easily match strides with Jeremy in terms of that finesse with words
and then the ability to deliver them in a unique style.
And someone else I worked with pointed out that it was almost a prerequisite
of anyone who worked on Top Gear in the old days
that you had to be able to do an impression of Quentin because we all did.
Yes, I know.
I know. Well, exactly, that's where that, I know.
I know who it comes from and sweet, sweet guys is a Quentinism.
It's a Quentinism, it is, yeah, exactly.
So we have a lot to him.
But I do think it's a tribute to the man that he had such a distinctive style
and such a brilliant way with pithy one-liners.
That he seeped into all our brains,
which is the mark of a genuine standout character and someone with a unique talent.
And, yeah, we were swapping these one-liners back and forth on WhatsApp.
And there were just so many of them.
There was no situation or person or car that he couldn't sum up with a one-liner.
Either something, you know, he sort of put in a script or he just think of things.
It was just it's only thinking about you.
Oh, my God, you know, he's a lot of comedians ability just to do the zingers.
But one of my favourites was...
I wonder if this is the one I'm thinking it is.
Well, it's one that always sticks to my mind.
Just because it made me laugh, but it was also quite accurate.
There's this BBC executive who came along.
He started sort of interfering in our business
and it was vexing everybody on the team quite a lot.
And I said something about them to Quentin and his response was,
well, they're stupid and that's dangerous.
And it was perfect because they were and it was dangerous for us
because then it ended in the program getting slightly pulled off course.
But it's just that, yeah, that just that way with a pithy one-liner is an underrated skill.
And he was so good at it.
And we've been, you know, it's that awful thing where you go, God,
I wish someone was alive to be able to hear this and how much
yes, actual joy we were getting from just swapping our favourite moments with Quentin.
And also just reminiscing about times on shoots, again,
I think it was Woodruff pointed out, you and I have been on a lot of TV shoots
and they often run late and they've started early.
So everybody's tired.
Things can get pretty fractious quite easily.
Yeah, they can.
Everybody gets a bit ratty and then things aren't going exactly the way they're supposed to.
And that's just making it worse.
Yeah.
We were reminded that none of us ever saw Quentin lose his cool.
He was always incredibly gracious under pressure.
And that is not a given of anyone in TV.
Never mind on screen talent, as it's referred to.
So you sort of take it for granted at the time.
And actually it's not something you can say for granted.
His grace under pressure was impressive.
And then you'd finish shooting and you'd go for dinner somewhere or something like that
if you were on a shoot away.
And he'd just be great company around the dinner table.
Really funny, but also his knowledge and his knowledge of other stuff,
art and watches and wine and stuff was impressive as well.
He was just a genuinely interesting man.
Well, I agree.
And I just I loved having the time to chat with them about cars.
He had no ego with cars.
And I think that the only connection I had with him, apart from working in the same business,
was that he bought that Enfield 8000 electric city car that I subsequently owned.
He bought that as a booby prize, a wooden spoon
for the worst of Britain's worst driver and gave it away on TV.
I didn't know that.
Yeah. And the person kind of like charged it badly
and damaged some of the batteries and then parked it up
and then it got sold to somebody else and it got rebuilt.
But I ended up owning that car.
That car was the one that I did the world record in.
And I remember emailing Quentum when I bought it to say,
I've bought an old Enfield electric car that you used to own.
And I'm going to do this with it.
And he went, John, this was on email.
I've got the email. In fact, I could dig the email up.
Johnny, I admire your spirit.
It was something like it's an appalling car,
but I'm sure you'll do something special with it.
He didn't just go, that's a shit idea.
Go away. He was really encouraging.
He was really. And actually, when it when it did do what it did,
I emailed him and told you, so it's only taken me four years.
He's like, that's brilliant.
The final thing about Quentum, I think, is also how broad-minded
he was about cars, as in that he embraced EVs,
but he also bloody loved massive American V8s.
Yeah. And of course, you know, famously a massive fan of the Lexus LS,
the Jeep Cherokee, is it forever associated with him in my mind?
Because he had a series of them when we worked together.
So he thought he loved large engines, very relaxing cars.
Of course, he was the king of parming.
He was the palm king, wasn't he?
The parming was superb and the choice of cars.
They had a very broad pallet for cars and his knowledge.
And actually, the other thing I will stop now, but I just on on shoots,
I remember, you know, he'd be wearing a jacket and a shirt
and be well turned out to be on camera.
Yeah, old school, yeah.
But there are few occasions when I remember once we had to get the windows
out of an old beetle because it was being crushed on camera.
And he dived in there with the rest of us and was running, you know,
a knife around the gaskets to pull the rubber out to get the glass out.
And another time there's a car was running rough on on a shoot
and he was under the bonnet.
He wasn't one of those presenters.
You just stand back and let the minions sort it out.
And his car knowledge on a sort of get your hands dirty level
was extremely impressive, more so perhaps than people realise.
The thing that the thing that I like about all of this,
this, you know, the tragic loss of him is that
he's left such an amazing legacy of car TV, car material, written stuff.
The books, I had a look at them over the weekend.
I've still got his definitive guide to classic cars in huge car back.
And there was a little kind of glove box sized version.
And I've got them both because they were such a good book.
They were so well shot and annotated.
And again, I had those when I was at school or might have been late school,
college era and those are the sorts of things
that have definitely led me to wanting to do this for a living.
And I told him this at the Ford Goodwood Bash.
I might have had a skinful as well.
But I did kind of go, look, you were hugely influential on me.
The way you told people and equipped people with knowledge for buying used cars
and enjoying the thrill of the chase and appreciating historical cars
from all different eras of all sizes and walks of life.
That that really resonated with me.
And so, Quentin, I just want to say thank you for everything.
Yes, exactly.
You'll always live on with Smith and sniff because you are a sweet, sweet guy.
Genuinely a sweet, sweet guy. Full kick down.
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Shall we move on and answer a few questions?
So show.
Now, there's a chat got in touch.
Actually got in touch to remind us to please help him.
Because he messaged us back in May and we forgot to read out his his question.
This is a listener called Ross.
Only May. Come on, Ross, put yourself together.
Well, exactly.
I mean, that's the thing.
The Smith and sniff ombudsman wouldn't get involved in that.
That's practically yesterday in our terms.
Ross says, I'm into a particular mark
that may or may not utilize a green, almost circle, but not quite bad.
And may or may not been part of the fabled British Leyland.
OK. Yeah.
The green oval. Yes.
Yes, I think he's talking about cars that like to rover over the land.
Yes, I'm very much the Anorak and safe for many years to buy my own at 19.
And I still have it tucked away for 10 plus years in the workshop.
Mid modifications and rebuild as life has often got in the way.
Yeah. And there's been much piss taking from friends that it's still not done.
The love for this mark stem from my grandfather on my mum's side.
He passed me some old magazines for a family friend when I was little in the 90s.
And well, the magazines have never left me.
That was a little bit of tinder towards the bonfire of my obsession with this mark.
What really gave the fire, the get up and go of a burning Zephyra
was the vehicle that resides in my in my he's.
Oh, now this is he's put resides in my Grandi and Nana's garage.
That's I've never heard someone call their grandfather, Grandi, but that's quite good.
Grandi. He says it's an early 80s model
and since it was six months old, it's part of the family to me.
It's towed their many caravans over the years until a motorhome replaced it.
And it's been parked up since with that background.
How on earth do I go about convincing my now wife into being OK
with me purchasing it from them?
The money isn't the issue.
She's just not a car person.
To me, the car is utterly priceless.
It could be worth 50p or a million, but it's the sentimental value.
Current thoughts after chatting to various people are that a fair price is around the 20 grand mark.
So hopefully without being crass, we're not talking tiny money, but equally not colossal.
Bank of Mum and Dad are happy to finance the purchase interest three
as a house renovation is currently eating our finances.
So I've not got the worry of cash flow.
I'm conscious that time is ticking on there in their late 80s, early 90s
and maybe not quite as sound minded as they might have been.
I don't want to be too late.
It's a usable classic that will fit in our garage with parts that aren't too expensive.
It's old enough to be tax exempt and MOT exempt.
Help me, chaps. I've been putting it off for too long.
Any thoughts?
It would break my heart to see it sold out to the family.
I would blub like a baby for a long time.
I think in a situation like this, first and foremost,
he's already pointed out is that his wife might not be interested in the car,
but hopefully his wife appreciates the the connection,
the emotional family tie to the machine.
And that's that happens a lot in our game and this hobby of ours.
So, yeah, that's really important.
Out of respect for you, actually, Ross has not said what the car is
because he's offering it to you as a barn find
and say he doesn't want to sort of spoil any reveal if you were interested.
Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you later
if you haven't seen down the bottom of this message.
But so sorry to listeners for not explaining,
but it is definitely a very interesting and quite rare car.
And with that in mind, I guess in the 20 grand signifies that it's quite rare.
Yeah, I would say, I mean, I'll be honest, Ross, this is a no brainer for me.
It's like, can you afford it?
Check with a bit of help, but, you know, interest free.
Mum and dad interest free. Yeah. Great.
Do you want it? Well, check. Yes.
Is it priceless in that it's a part of your family?
And it sounds like so.
Your grandparents have only since it was six months old.
I mean, that that in itself.
So the emotional attachment, and you're saying that, you know,
your wife is not into cars, but she must understand that you are
and that this is a very important thing to you and it's it's it's a family.
It's irreplaceable. Yeah. Yeah.
But also if you need to get this over the line with her or with anyone else,
it's like it is a genuinely collectible car.
You will not lose your shirt on this. No.
So I would say go for it and just but make sure that you don't do what you
sounds like you've done with your other rover of the land
and tuck it in a garage for 10 years mid rebuild.
Just keep this one well exercised and in good nick.
And you are laughing if you ever had to sell it
because everything else is going up in flames or whatever.
But yeah, I do not see any problems here.
Warning, we are not experts at being great buying cars and not having problems.
Now, I totally agree.
I think that you should because you've already said that you'd
love like a baby if you didn't. Yeah.
So I just go with it.
But also, who knows?
I mean, your partner might never love the car, but she might grow to
love the charm of the story of the backstories and and it become
well, or it continue being like a family heirloom pet type thing.
Just do it. Just do it.
Funnily enough, I was at the classic car show at the NEC last week
and I was talking to a chap on the Jaguar owners club stand about my old XJR
and specifically that when I told my now wife that I was going to buy it,
she went, oh, that was an old man's car.
Isn't it? I really want it. I think I'm going to buy it.
Fast forward a few years to when I realized I probably should sell it
because I wasn't using it. And I said, I'm going to sell the Jag.
She went, no, not the Jag. You can't sell the Jag.
I love that car. Really?
So, you know, people can come around.
She fell for it.
Yeah. Well, because it's just such a nice car.
It's so comfortable and relaxing and quiet and all the other things.
And I think she realized that it was excellent.
It's actually quite cool.
No, I'm down with that.
I think that sounds that sounds fantastic.
Just do it for goodness' sake.
Yeah, I thought you know what you'll do if you don't, if you don't do that,
you'll do you'll end up trying to find a similar version at some point
and kind of emulating, oh, it's just like the one that my grandma and grandpa had.
But yes, I lost the chance to get that one and I've never lived it down.
And so this is the next best thing and but it all never feels the same.
Look at my beetle.
Next year, I would have had it 30 years like a complete soppy moron.
And I and I and I and I love that about it.
It's it's tatty and shonky and it's it's not a good example of the mark.
But I absolutely love it because it's that car.
It is that car.
Yeah, I've had a couple of people go,
well, why don't you just reshell it with a better one from California?
Because it's not the car, then, is it?
It's not the one that I drove and did that and did this.
And yeah, and so that's the problem.
And I'm going to enjoy the journey of its gradual
resurrection whilst using it.
And you should do that with your double R or LR.
I don't even know what it is.
I think it's an R.
Well, we'll talk about this later.
I know, I know.
Yes. OK, this is a question from Tom Perry.
Good day, chaps.
Whilst doing the typical petrol head activity of bracing for upgrades
and mods for my new car to me, Jaguar F type, what a good car.
I follow them regularly around here.
They've got such a good bum.
I got to the wheels portion of my searching and made the observation
there weren't a single aftermarket wheel that looks good on this car.
There is a staggeringly large choice of standard F type alloy wheels, it seems.
And whilst I don't like all of them, they all seem to suit the car
quite well on their own in their own way.
This got me thinking, are there other cars that, in your opinion,
simply do not suit aftermarket wheel designs or, conversely,
cars that only look good on aftermarket wheels?
Thank you for the continued polished
excrement that you produce on a weekly basis, CMTMB.
That's a really, really good question.
This is going to be one of those ones that marinades with me all week.
And I'll end up talking about it, maybe in the main podcast,
because because I'm so fussy when it comes to wheels.
Yes.
I'm going to say it's a difficult one.
So I've got this Tesla Model S outside this bargain basement one that I own.
I'm adamant that there's no wheels that it came with that I like.
And I've never seen any aftermarket wheels on it that I like.
So the only solution for me that I've come up with
is to put a total closure like turbofan type disk or aero disk.
Oh, yes.
Just to cover the whole frigging thing up,
because I think it's the only way it looks good.
So it's all those cars where the alloys irritate me.
And I don't, and this is controversial.
It's, I've said it before, the current Defender, the new one,
the only good wheels are the steels.
I can't bear any of the alloys.
Whoever designed them, just give yourself a big slap in the face.
And throw some cold water over yourself,
because none of them work with the shape of the car.
They all look like they're like late 90s just throw away designs.
And I hate it about a car that's worth so much money
and has so much presence on the road and is highly regarded.
It's like all the alloys look shit.
They're just, they're just not quite good enough somehow, are they?
They're okay, I think, but they're not amazing.
Except for, you're right, the steels are good.
And one of the wheel options on the Octa is I think quite good,
but it's, it's sort of rally inspired.
That's right, like a Sparko rally type wheel, yeah.
So in fact, in a way, because I see that people put
and have pre-Octa been putting that style of wheel on Defenders.
So they're sort of converse to Tom's thing about the F type.
The Defenders actually sometimes look better on certain kinds
of aftermarket wheel, not all of them, but some.
Actually, because I think that part of the thing with the F type,
and this is true of a lot of cars, it's a testament to the skill of car designers that
good wheels from the factory suit the car because they've been designed with care
so that they match the look of the car.
And it's probably subtle stuff, like, you know, sort of the radiuses and
thicknesses and all this stuff that just sort of somehow chimes with
the general style used on other parts of the body and the bumpers and all of that.
And that's why aftermarket wheels don't work, because they don't
follow those principles in the same way.
I get very heated and emotional and aggressive about my dislike of wheels.
And I have called people out in the past for just being wrong.
And I know that just, you know, oh, I like those wheels.
No, you're wrong.
No, you don't.
And then I realize what kind of a bastard I sound like.
I just sound like a toxic art critic.
I don't want to be like that.
But I guess I just look at something and I instantly know what I would do with it.
And I instantly know what I think would work on it.
I always have these visions when I'm coming up with a project car idea or
something like that.
And I'm always convinced that I've made the right decision,
which makes me sound like I'm a right old Sam in Cal.
But I'm not.
Well, it's also because your right answer is always TSW blades.
Always.
Doesn't matter on the car, it's always just TSW blades.
Do you know what I'd like?
Do you know what I'd like?
What?
Thinking about the defender that doesn't look good on any lawyers.
Can you imagine a large, appropriately dished set of Wolfrey slot mags
on a current black defender?
It would look...
All right, photo shop that's up.
Let's see what it looks like.
With some white letter BF Goodriches or similar.
Oh, really?
It would look shit hot.
No? Yes?
Yeah, I don't know.
The one for me.
Home County's Fall Guy.
The Fall Guy truck didn't have slot mags, did it?
No, but it had white letter ties, of course, because of the 80s.
The one for me as a car that I just never really found a set of wheels that worked for it,
factory or aftermarket.
It's the VW Carrado.
It felt like it was such a good looking car, but it never had great wheels.
They used to be one round my way that had TSW Venoms.
Oh.
And I've seen, of course, now the go-to wheel is the proper original
split rim BBS, which are quite expensive now.
Yes.
Which you can have the polished lips on,
and they do look good when they're when they're refurbished nicely.
But you are right, it's very difficult.
Oh, to be honest with you, Tom, we probably haven't answered your question,
but you've got me thinking about the fact that I love F-types,
and it can't be the facelift.
It has to be pre-facelift, and it has to be Coupe.
Yes, but I would give time to a roadster as well, because I think that
they're just, I mean, why not?
The roof goes back, what's not to like, and then you can hear the exhaust a bit more.
There's an artist formerly known as Celica Lady around this way,
and I've seen her a few times in an F-type roadster.
V6S, which is the one that I would want,
and she drives it everywhere with the roof down,
even when it's definitely not warm enough,
but she's always got a smile on her face,
she's got colour in her cheeks, and she looks aspirational.
I always think she looks aspirational.
I love that.
Well, anyway, let's move on.
I have a question here from Matt Bird.
Matt is the depositor of Piston Heads.
Oh.
And, yeah.
Oh, gee, people, in fact, who reads Piston Heads,
might be aware that Matt has recently bought a Jaguar I-Pace,
and is writing about it on the site.
But he's written to us as well,
and said we've recently purchased a Jaguar I-Pace as a family EV,
and it's absolutely brilliant.
We love it.
Part of the appeal as a used buyer was obviously the depreciation suffered,
and it definitely feels cliche alert,
like a lot of car for the money at 20 grand.
But with early ones now down to 10 grand,
and Jaguar in its current muddle,
what do you think they might end up at?
Will we see 5,000 pound I-Paces one day,
like Johnny's Tesla?
Will Jaguar still want to know about them in years to come,
as they attempt to sell 150,000 pound luxury cars?
Will Jaguar even exist?
Maybe that's one for another day,
if it hasn't been done to death already.
I suppose the general query is,
what do you see as the future for I-Paces in terms of the market,
and looking after them?
Because all being well, we'll have this one for a little while.
It's a really, really, it's a good point.
I love the I-Pace.
I think it was such a strong product,
and it was, in a way, it was over-designed.
It had such attention to detail,
and it didn't get the credit it possibly deserved.
I do think, to keep this one short,
I do think we will see them at 5.
I think if the way that the combination of public opinion
and the economy goes,
I think people will still be scared of them,
and people will go,
well, Jag doesn't quite exist anymore,
and I've heard some reports that they've caught fire,
and so therefore, I'm definitely not going to buy one.
And if you've found a one owner 90,000 mile one,
right now that's five years old,
but someone's just used it loads up and down the motorway,
I bet you, I bet you it won't be worth much,
and it's a shame.
It's a real shame because that gives off the impression
that it's a crap car,
and it's not a crap car, as Matt knows.
No, well, we had one for two years,
and it was fantastic.
It's a lovely car to drive.
We had no problems with ours.
The only thing, just before it went back,
the keyless fob, the car wasn't always recognizing it.
It would let you in, but then it wouldn't start.
It would just say, can't see the key.
And I got the spare key,
just assuming that it must be the battery,
and it got no better,
but I then, like this was the week before the car
went back to the lease company.
So I wasn't going to change the battery
because I didn't know whether the spare
had been quietly transmitting in a drawer,
and had actually got quite a flat battery as well
after two years, so I couldn't 100% say
that I wasn't a simple fix.
Otherwise though, it was absolutely fine.
I mean, the entertainment system,
the screen in the earlier ones, like ours,
was just fundamentally a bit sluggish and janky,
and sometimes it would take a while to wake up.
I noticed that Matt's car has got
the later PIVI Pro system, which is way better.
And also, his car's got air suspension,
which makes them drive beautifully.
Ours didn't have that, and still was a lovely car to drive,
but the air suspension, I think,
just adds a little bit extra.
But I think you're absolutely right.
The world has this perception of those cars,
and it's helped by bullshitting people on the internet
who don't know what they're talking about.
It just perpetuates the idea
that it's going to burst into flames,
or that, of course, it's going to go wrong
because it's a Jag.
Now, I joined the Jaguar iPace Facebook group
when I had ours, and there were a few people in there
who had got some issues.
The early ones have a thing
with the 12-volt battery goes flat.
That can really cause mayhem,
and I think it was fixed in later ones.
That's a problem with a few EVs.
Hoondykeers suffer with those quite on the quiet.
Yeah. I think some leaves suffer as well.
So, yeah, it's not unique to that.
Sleeves.
Sleeves.
It's not a sporty leaf.
It's got a sleeve.
So, yeah, but I think you're right.
I think the weight of perception,
whether it's accurate or not,
that those cars are going to be trouble
will keep crushing the prices, sadly.
But on the plus side, you might get a bargain
and a fundamentally decent car.
So, it's not all bad.
What it means is the rise of,
or I hope there will be a continual rise
of independent garages who aren't afraid
of high-voltage EVs, like Cleveland,
who I've used for the Tesla Model S,
who will give you a good diagnosis,
will not replace things that don't need replacing
and improve the reputation of a used or high-mileage EV.
And that's why I did that video and bought that damn car, really.
Right. Well, we should wrap this up.
If you've got a question for us,
hello at smithandsniff.com is the email address.
Put Ottersot in your subject line if it's a question.
Helps us find them.
Our live show in Derby next week is sold out,
but we've just released tickets for our next live show,
which is in Bristol, back to the 90s.
It's on Monday, the 15th of December.
It's at the Tobacco Factory, where we've been before.
Tickets are being sold through their website.
Go to tobaccofactorytheatres.com
and you can buy a ticket.
I hope to see you in December.
But for now, goodbye.
Bye, everybody.
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About this episode
A heartfelt tribute to the late Quentin Wilson opens the episode, as hosts Richard Porter and Jonny Smith share personal anecdotes and memories of working with him. They reflect on his charm, support, and unique talent in automotive television, highlighting his impact on their careers and the industry. The conversation transitions to listener questions, including a discussion on the emotional value of classic cars and the future of the Jaguar I-Pace in the used car market. The hosts provide insights on aftermarket wheels for various vehicles, showcasing their passion for automotive design.
Jonny and Richard pay tribute to Quentin Willson before answering questions about saving a family heirloom, cars the don’t suit aftermarket wheels and the future for the Jaguar I-Pace.
