Smith and Sniff Jan 2, 2026

OTOSOT 83

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Car

Talbot Solara

The Talbot Solara is a car that was made in the late 1970s and 1980s. It was designed to be a practical vehicle for families and came in different styles, like a sedan or hatchback.

Car

Fiat / 2100 Familiare

The Fiat 500 is a small car made by Fiat, known for being easy to drive in cities and having a classic design.

Car

Fiat 500S

Car

Alfa Romeo Stelvio

The Alfa Romeo Stelvio is a stylish SUV that is fun to drive and looks great. It's named after a famous mountain road, and people like it because it offers a mix of luxury and sporty performance.

Concept

Stelvio Pass

Stelvio Pass is a mountain road in Italy famous for its beautiful scenery and winding turns, making it a fun place to drive.

Car

Bmw 3

The BMW 328i is a model in the 3 Series lineup, which is known for being sporty and fun to drive. The E46 is the specific version of this model that was made from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s.

Car

Dodge Neon

The Dodge Neon is a small, inexpensive car that many people used for everyday driving. It was made by the Dodge brand and was popular for being affordable.

Term

convertible

A convertible is a car that has a roof that can be taken off or folded down, so you can drive it with the top down and enjoy the sunshine.

Car

Chrysler Sebring

The Chrysler Sebring is a car that was made by Chrysler. It comes in different styles, including a convertible, which means you can take the roof off to enjoy the open air while driving.

Car

Peugeot 307 estate

The Peugeot 307 estate is a type of car that has more room in the back for carrying things. It's great for families or trips where you need extra space.

Car

Peugeot 307

The Peugeot 307 Sedan is a small car that is easy to drive and has enough room for passengers and luggage. It's a budget-friendly option for people who need a reliable vehicle for everyday use.

Part

gearbox

The gearbox is the part of the car that helps it change speeds. If it breaks, the car can have trouble moving properly.

Car

Audi A3

The Audi A3 is a small, fancy car that feels nice to drive and has a lot of cool features. It's a good choice for people who want a luxury car without going for something really big.

Car

Audi TT Roadster

The Audi TT Roadster is a small, stylish convertible car that offers a fun driving experience. It's known for looking good and being enjoyable to drive.

Car

Daihatsu Materia

The Daihatsu Materia is a small car made by the company Daihatsu. It's designed to be practical and has a boxy shape that makes it easy to use for everyday tasks.

Car

Opel Senator

The Opel Senator is a big car made by the German company Opel. It was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s for being comfortable and spacious.

Car

Land Range Rovers

The Range Rover is a fancy SUV made by Land Rover. It's known for being good at driving off-road while also being very comfortable inside.

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I'm Johnny Smith.

I'm Richard Porter.

And this is all the other side of things

in which we answer the questions from the audience who are live in Bristol.

Dear listener at home,

I cannot tell you the journey we have been on to get here.

One day, books will be written about it.

But in the meantime, let's take some questions from the audience.

I'm going to, we're in the round here in Bristol,

so I'm south-facing at the moment.

I'm making that up, but let's say it's a fact.

Anyone over here got a question for us?

Yes, a chap over here.

Now, I say with trepidation, again, for the last time,

some context.

We are on wired microphones.

Watch the wine.

Already, my wired microphone has got trapped

on some other things on the stage,

including a Talbot, Alpine and Solara, Haines manual.

I'm coming.

Oh, you, sir.

Coming to me.

Thank you.

Do either of you have a particularly good rental car story,

either an unexpected upgrade

or something that you did with a rental car that's particularly notable?

I'm thinking of a, I remember reading about

a guy who got a whole bunch of them to fly out to Bergamo,

outside Milan, and they all got fiat 500s,

and they did the Stelvio pass,

rather than bother driving through Europe.

Have you ever done anything like that?

Yes.

I'll try and rattle through.

There's three stories.

First one had an idea on, I think it was Max Power.

Let's go mental.

It's only a rental.

And I'm, I borrowed a, hired a BMW 3,

I would have been a 328 CI, E46 brand new at the time.

Yeah.

And I took it to a Drift What You Brung event.

It's really good fun.

It was a Silverstone.

Hang on.

That doesn't rhyme.

Drift What You Brung.

Drift What You, if you have arrived at the car,

What You Brung, and all that.

What You Ride did in here.

Yeah, okay.

Slid What You Rid did.

Yes.

I don't, whatever it was.

I did that and it was great fun.

Didn't crash it, but you know.

Oh.

So that's the first one.

Second one, the first Lads holiday I ever went on.

Falloracky.

I was 19, so with all the boys.

Did some terrible things, which I won't go into.

But we did hire a car.

That makes it sound like you killed a guy.

No, no, no.

No, but we, one of us rode a scooter with no clothes on

through the town.

Oh my gosh.

Wasn't me.

Although I was part of the convoy.

I can't hear.

My brother and some mates went to, I think Falloracky,

and they were dicking around on scooters.

And one of them pulled a wheelie and it,

sort of like a cattle mating.

It landed on the back of another scooter

and really busted up the back of it.

This is stuck in my head forever more.

It's one of those phrases I can't let go of.

My brain's still just regurgitated sometimes.

Like Orson Welles going, oh, the French champagne.

Is that, my brother said that when they took it back

to the rental place, that all the other scooters seemed fine.

And then he looked at the final one and this guy just went,

hmm, this scooter has suffered substantial damage.

Yeah.

So we all chipped in and hired a polo at the time.

We thought we were the boys 19.

We all insured ourselves and my friend drove it first

and went up a narrow side street and knocked every wing mirror

off a car on the left or the left or the right hand side

because he'd never driven a left hand drive before.

Then we found some waste ground.

And we just buried the guy you killed.

People of a certain demographic will remember

the end of the Dukes of Hazard,

where they're just constantly, for no apparent reason,

driving around a very dusty woodland area.

Around a big tree.

Yeah, until you can't see anything.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, that's what we did.

And then when the dust cleared,

the actual manager of the hire company was there

with his hands on his hips and went,

you, you fucker, the car.

And just got the keys and the car threw us all out and went.

And we were about eight miles from civilization.

And we had no, it was pretty mobile phones and all that jazz.

So we just had to walk home.

There is a third story I can't remember.

I don't, I mean, I, I went to the U.S. once.

I, well, I just, I, so it was the 90s, or now,

because we're in Bristol.

And it was the now, and it was the now,

but sort of the 30 years ago now.

And one of my mates rang me one day on a landline, obviously,

and he went, there are some fly drive deals from Manchester,

which is near where we lived at the time,

to Orlando for 99 quid.

And one of our school friends had gone to the U.S.

to spend the summer working in North Carolina.

And he went, here's my other mate,

went, here's the deal, if you've got 99 quid,

we're all going to go over there and surprise him.

We'll get a rental car, we'll drive up,

and we'll go and surprise him.

He will not suspect a thing.

And we were like, this is a brilliant prank for 99 quid.

It's not forgetting that you also need money to, you know,

live out there and stuff and eat food.

Small masses.

We had a lot of shite.

This was the holiday where, at one point,

sort of about 10 days in of a two-week holiday,

one of my friends just went into a supermarket,

just ran off into a supermarket when we'd stopped somewhere.

He came up with a massive bunch of bananas,

and I was like, what are you doing?

And he went, I just need to eat something organic.

Because we'd lived on burgers and tacos and all sorts of stuff,

because they were very cheap.

It was the U.S. in the 90s, food was cheap.

But when we got to Orlando Airport,

we were the last off the plane,

because we were on the cheapest tickets.

And so we were the last off the plane.

We were right in the cheapest of the cheap seats at the back.

We got to the desk.

What we were supposed to get was like a Dodge Neon or similar.

And the man at the desk went,

I'm sorry, we are out of the category of car

that you are entitled to, but have I got a deal for you?

And for something like $40,

we got upgraded to a Chrysler Sebring convertible.

Now, there were three of us, and we had suitcases.

Only two of our bags would fit in the boot of the Sebring.

The third suitcase had to go in the fourth seat in the back,

which meant you couldn't have the roof up.

So we had to drive the whole way from Orlando to North Carolina

with the roof down, like something out of planes, trains and automobiles.

You guys were Dawson's Creek before Dawson's Creek.

We got to this tiny town in North Carolina,

where a lot of rich New Yorkers go on holiday.

And our mate was working in a dairy queen for the summer,

for some random reason.

And apparently we, and we pulled into his dairy queen

and through the drive-thru and surprised him.

It's a thing, it's a shop.

And when we called out, one of his young female colleagues went,

who were those guys?

Because we were in a convertible car, we looked pretty fine.

Well, I mean, the car, no, because the car was shit,

and I'm probably say, well, we, the reason I bring this up is because

we stayed in a lot of very cheap hotels

on the way up and the way down.

Motels basically, you know, so we're talking like $20 a night

and we'd share a room with three of us.

And we checked into one, it was like $18 a night.

And then we were driving into town to get some food

and we saw another motel that said $12 a night.

And we went, oh shit, we've been ripped off.

And then we saw underneath it said rooms by the hour.

And we were like, oh, okay, no, no, we'll stick with the 18.

Because it seems like it's kind of like, that's classy.

That's like the, you know, the Hilton, what's it, other thing.

But all the way up and down, every time we stayed in these hotels,

we're going up and down the Bible belts.

We started stealing the Gideon's Bibles from hotel rooms.

And by the time we gave back that sea bring,

there were like 15 Gideon's Bibles in the boot.

And we dropped it off in the rental place

and we're getting all stuff out the car

and we just looked at all these Bibles spread out

and we just looked at each other and went, we're going to hell.

And then we ran off.

Were you using his back ballast?

It did, it did sort out the balance of the, of the bring.

When you were doing a B road work.

The end of America story.

I just remembered the other, I think I might have mentioned this

on the podcast is that years ago, I went on Evo's car of the year

in the south of France and I flew down on my own.

Everyone else has gone ahead and they said,

when you get to Nice airport, could you hire an estate car

so the photographers have got a car they can hang out

at the back of and do all those nice tracking shots.

So I just went on spec to Europe car

because nothing had been booked and went, bonjour.

Ave vu of what your estate?

And they went, yeah, no problem at all.

I paid for it on my personal credit card

and then drove to meet everyone else

and then just handed over this Peugeot 307 estate

to the photographers on the shoe.

Now photographers are not the most sympathetic,

mechanically speaking.

I spent a few days razzing around in some lovely other cars

and then went, now, guys, I need the 307 back

because I'm driving to the airport to fly home

and they went, yeah, we've broken the gearbox.

I'm sorry, you've done what?

Yeah, first, third and fifth don't work.

It's all right, second and fourth do.

First, third and fifth.

And I had to drive all the way back

from way over in Mont Ventoux down to Nice

just using some of the gears.

And it was a brand new car.

It had like sort of 12 kilometers on it

when I picked it up.

Shit.

And all the way, all I was doing was rehearsing in my head

in bad GCSE French, how I was going to explain this.

Ah, bonjour, il y a un problème avec le voiture.

La boîte du Vitesse, c'est mal.

And as it happens, I got to the desk

and I just, you forget that sometimes hard-car people

just treat cars as absolutely disposable items.

Yeah.

And particularly in France, they probably just went,

no, this car is perfect.

We will just sell it to somebody.

We will sell it to a farmer

and he will use it for the next 27 years.

Because I went to the desk and I went,

it's the French farmer become, become Dutch.

Shit.

But I went to the desk and I just went,

um, bonjour.

And I think immediately the woman clocked

that I can't speak French.

Bonjour, the gearbox is fucked.

I'm really sorry.

I don't have the means to pay for this.

My flight goes in 40 minutes.

Ciao.

Votra, pure shot.

It's a fact, mate.

Oolala.

But no, she immediately went,

yes, I went, there's a problem with the car.

And she went, oh, don't worry.

Nobody ever says that.

It came from the keys and fucked up.

Question from somebody here.

I'll see if the cable reaches.

I'm going to go for you.

Uh, I was watching an old episode of Top Gear the other day

where they made, uh, they made the, the, uh, limos.

If you had to make your own James May style front end

welded together limos, which one would you go for?

Bone, which cars would you go for?

Sorry, bonus points for the maximum amount of 90s

you can make on the interiors.

Because of where we are, obviously.

Present day Bristol.

So do we have to abide by James's rule,

which has to be a sort of platform sharing car?

Oh, not necessarily.

Okay.

All right.

So front ends limo 90s.

I feel like this would be a good opportunity then too.

I mean, you could do this with the actual platform sharing

from the 90s because you want a sort of,

let's use the mullet philosophy.

Sides for business, back for party.

But let's go front end for business.

Yeah.

Back in buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, on trusts.

So, and I'm going to, I'm going to,

I'm going to self-impose the rule here.

It's got to be platform sharing.

So I'm going to say something buzz.

Not like Audi A3.

Well, one end.

Keep it business.

Junior business.

Yes.

Hoping for a promotion business.

Working way up the ladder.

But the back end, or the other end,

TT Roadster.

Oh, hello.

Design wise, there are going to be some challenges.

But by God, I'm going to confront them.

Because it's going to look like a sort of

lunderlay kind of thing with a sudden abrupt stop on the roof.

Platform sharing.

Oh, okay.

My other thought was you could just do like a fort galaxy and say,

I'll hammer and weld it together and just go,

yeah, they're the same car, actually.

Yeah.

I don't know if you knew that, but they are.

You could have turned it into a Christmas defecating log.

As well.

So you sing to the front and then hit it with the stick.

And then it poos out gifts.

It is amazing.

So Christmassy.

Platform sharing, platform sharing.

Think, Johnny.

We don't have to, though, because apparently we're allowed to not.

I was just being a smart ass, as usual.

I know.

Johnny, I know.

I know.

I, do you know what I thought of as a limo?

Do you remember the Daihatsu Materia?

Yeah, living in a material world.

Living in a material world, exactly.

I love that car.

It was great.

I had to drive a Daihatsu Materia.

Up the A3.

Wow.

Popular trunk road through Surrey.

Well, rod me out.

That's amazing.

Up the A3.

Yeah.

That's not the end of the story.

Microphone drop, but with consent.

A very respectful, damages will be paid for.

Microphone drop.

Yes, yes, yes.

No, I had to drive a Materia up the A3 after we had filmed with it on Top Gear,

and for various reasons, slogans had been written in removable paint down the side of these cars.

I don't love you, darling, had been written up the side of the Materia.

It was a reference to the then Chancellor, Alistair Darling,

but obviously, to any casual onlooker on the A3, that context was lost.

The writing was up the side, and I said,

or the director said, can you set the Materia back on?

I went, yeah, no problem at all.

I just want that stuff on the side.

He went, no, don't wipe it off because I'm going to need to get some shots tomorrow for continuity.

You have to leave it on.

And I had to drive up the A3 and into central London in a car which had,

I don't love you, darling, written up the side.

It's amazing how many people look at you, and they're not saying,

wow, look at that spacious Japanese hatchback.

I can't compete with that story.

I just thought about what if you...

No, actually, no, that's a stupid idea.

I was trying to weld together two mid-engine cars,

but I realized where would the engine go?

Nowhere.

If you did them side by side.

Oh, yeah.

Interesting.

Looks like a sort of taskmaster bending of the rules.

I like it.

Right, should we do another question then?

Yeah.

Okay.

What about...

And I think you are in cable reach, sir.

But I may have to ask you to come closer.

Come by, Shep.

Come by.

Okay, it's Bristol.

It's the 90s.

Is it?

It is.

Means the Berlin Wall's been rebuilt.

Oh, shit, yeah.

So, Brick's mix is back.

So, Agent Smith and his driver, Major Tiff,

has 15 grand to go behind enemy lines and spy,

keeping the British end up.

Johnny, Comrade Smith, and Commissar Plato

need to defend the People's Democratic Republic...

I've got to do secret work with Plato and Tiff.

Fucking hell.

Wow, you might as well shoot me in the cranium now.

Plato chasing Johnny and Tiff round Berlin or Eastville

or Clifton, if you're feeling a bit posh.

15 grand each.

What car?

What mods?

Most 90s thing wins.

Gosh.

For context, the people know about Brick's mix,

the sort of official...

How do you describe it?

Sort of official spying mission.

So, British...

British forces mission to East Germany.

So, people who were allowed to be there

to sort of keep an eye on things.

But they were very much sort of hounded.

They were the people who had opal senators

that had been secretly converted to four-wheel drives.

They could kind of drive across a field,

have a little sneaky look at an airfield or something like that.

Oh, keep an eye on those pesky russkies.

And then they moved to G-Vargans.

Well, I think they tried Range Rovers

and they had some Range Rover problems.

So, yeah, so what you're saying is basically what Matt Green painted,

highly modified but standard-looking 90s car would you have?

Notwithstanding that Tiff and Plato are going to get

absolutely shit-faced in a bar on Vodka in East Berlin

and give away the whole mission.

I'll have to drag Plato out of some techno club

with his showroom door.

Exactly.

Well, Tiff is just propping up a bar somewhere going,

well, that's four-wheel drive.

I mean, the handling, isn't that what you've got?

Is he such a Mick Jagger all of a sudden?

Well, they're very close, aren't they?

Yeah, they are.

Well, all right, the handling.

Right, I don't...

That's a really hard question.

90s, early 90s got to be painted drab,

four-wheel drive, potentially.

Well, you've got to...

And also, I think, was the brief not keep the British end up as well

in the Roger Moore style.

So...

Yes.

I think, Montego estates...

Countrymen.

British racing green, because, actually,

that could pass as quite sort of camouflaged

in a foresty environment.

Ooh.

But what if one side was British racing green

and the other side was like sort of Coventry Gray

for urban camouflage?

Brutalist.

Because, let's be honest, you know, East Berlin and Coventry,

there's a bit of kinship there, in terms of concrete and misery.

And...

So, you have to do...

But also, that's the thing, because then Tiff slash Jason

would be really good at just yanking the handbrake,

going, oh, shit, we're in an urban environment.

Oh, no.

The stars are coming.

Turn it to gray face the other way.

Yeah.

On the bar.

I'm sorry, it's right-hand drive, isn't it?

Because we're British.

Yes.

On the wand.

And they can rotate it.

Ah!

Oh!

I've done my stuff so bad tonight.

I'm going to choose, rightly or wrongly,

Carlton GSI.

Okay.

Lower ranking than a senator, in terms of size,

but has power.

Limited slip diff.

Colway track and field remold on the rear.

For field-based grip.

But weight.

Weight.

Carlton.

Yes.

1.8D.

Batching.

Underneath.

Oh.

Lotus.

Oh, shit.

Possibly.

With the Ferguson Formula four-wheel drive system,

off those senators that really existed for Bricksmith,

you have got the ultimate, and I use this word advisedly,

weapon.

You could have emphasised the W then.

Weapon.

That sounds good.

So I'm going with that, with keeping the British end up.

Green.

Yeah.

Green as well.

Because, actually, Lotus Carlton's were already kind of dark.

They were very dark green.

They were very, very, very dark green.

They have first colour blindness,

because I always thought they were all black.

Well, they do look black in a lot of lights.

They do.

But I think you could go a little bit lighter.

You could go kind of like a mucky-nato green.

Oh, you mucky-nato.

Mucky-nato green.

So there, we've answered that question.

Tick.

I feel like we might have done that.

There's a sea of questions here.

Rich, your turn to actually cable that.

There's a big one up there.

Well, there's one over here,

which sort of feels like it might be in cable reach.

And this is what defines us these days.

Just while Rich is stretching his cable,

is there anyone that can go over here?

I was going to ask, what's the most memorable hotel experiences

whilst on shoots?

Oh, sure.

Funny enough, it's with that man over there.

With Mark.

I think I'm right.

I think I'm on the same wavelength here.

Am I the one?

We don't have any recollection of your booking.

We're really sorry.

There's one room available, but not officially.

It's got no electricity.

Yeah, that's the one.

Actually, a really funky boutique type hotel,

but they had fucking no recollection

that we'd ever booked anything.

And it was 11 at night or something when we rolled up.

And it was not funny that we didn't have any bookings

because we were tired,

and we knew we had to get up at half five

or something to get on a job.

So we had to sleep together.

But better still, we had to use...

We had to use our phone torches on one another

because it was pitch dark with no wiring.

They'd not even wired the room yet.

Go through our face.

I had enough 4G on my phone.

I watched Iron Maiden performing live,

probably in Dortmund.

And he was stood over me with his phone torch.

And I did the same for you.

Not while we were showering.

The showering did work, though, didn't it?

We showered in the dark.

We made that arrangement.

I'm just showering in the dark.

Honestly, it was bizarre.

It was quite bizarre, wasn't it?

Have I had any weird ones with you, Andy?

Not yet?

Oh, there will be.

So the one that comes second...

You met Johnny, right?

The one that comes second...

Darren knows the story of the second worst one.

I had a room where I was in a children's bunk over the master bed.

Oh!

Was that the one that was a children's bunk but it's a tank of cigarettes?

Like, someone had smoked 40 cigarettes with all the windows shut

and all there was was effectively a dog blanket to sleep under.

I slept fully clothed.

I didn't risk taking any garment off.

And I must have had three showers before I left the room,

but it's like, this is disgusting.

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Glamorous life of a YouTuber.

I think we've all stayed in, you know,

stayed in hotels as sort of people you've probably heard of.

And it's not like any sort of great anecdote.

It's just, you know, you go to the bar

and get a little bit drunk and have a chat.

And it's fun, but it's not like a great story.

And all the stories are, in fact,

when the hotel itself is just rubbish.

It either doesn't exist.

I stayed in a hotel on old, old Top Gear.

I stayed in a hotel in Gravesend in Kent

with Quentin Wilson, may he rest in peace,

and Kate Humble, bless her,

who's also great fun to hang around with in a hotel bar.

But when we checked into the hotel,

we all sort of got our keys.

It was one of those massive, sort of,

Bosnia Sea type hotels.

Bosnia Hotel.

I was walking down the corridor

and it's got that very, very patterned carpet,

but it was quite clear that something, probably blood,

had dripped its way down the corridor.

And it seemed like the blood spots

were getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

And I kept walking and I'm walking and I'm walking.

And I was like, oh my God, they're...

And then they just suddenly veered to the right

to the door of my room.

And when I opened the door of my room,

the first thing I was hit by was the smell of new carpet.

And all I could think was, what has happened in here?

And that leads to a restful night's sleep.

I'm in the murder room.

I don't know if anyone stays in hotels a lot

because it sounds like a whinge of the privilege,

but if you stay in a lot of hotels,

and everything has a key card now,

but a lot of hotels are massive,

and there's that thing, it still goes on now,

it's not as bad as it used to be,

where you walk about 27 miles to your room

and then you swipe the thing and it doesn't work.

And you have to call an Uber back to reception,

and you go, sorry, my card doesn't work,

and they do.

But I've had it where you then go back and you go,

bit, bit, bit, and it doesn't work again.

See, that's when I go, a key in a fucking hole never dies.

Never, ever dies.

What was wrong with the key in the hole?

It's unique to the hole.

That's the point of the key.

Just to defend the hotel industry,

the problem with the key in a hole is you need to the hole,

and then some fuckwit goes home to Adelaide

with that key in their bag,

and they've got to have the lock changed.

So the digital thing, I can see it,

but I think I told this story in the podcast about

when I checked into a premiere in,

and I went to the thing and I swiped it,

did it, it didn't work, went to reception, no.

Went back, they get it, it still didn't work,

went back, sorry, it still doesn't work.

But okay, that's really weird, they did it again.

Went back, they get it, so I opened the door,

and from the bathroom that's just there,

a northern man's head poked out, clearly having a poo,

and went, what are you doing?

And I looked, and his bag was there,

and his trousers were on the floor,

and it was clear that it was in fact not my room,

they'd given me the wrong number,

and I'd been back twice to tell them

to make me a key that worked on another man's room.

Sorry.

But I made it for it later, right?

So my say-out lay on when it finally gave up,

its most irritating fault was every time I'd get in the car

and start it, the boot would release,

which is particularly annoying in the winter or in the rain

when you'd sort of pile into the car, sit down,

thank yourself, you're nice and dry,

and then you'd start the car and the boot would pop open,

you'd have to get out and slam it shut.

Would it just pop or would it fully open?

It would pop, it was just the partial latch.

So you get that chink, and you know what's happened.

And then there's those sort of moments of,

oh fuck, okay.

In that spirit, what's the most irritating car fault

that you've both had?

I have had that.

I had it in, of all things, Alexis,

an oppressed car as well, so.

Don't believe you.

I know.

I actually emailed Alexis' people and went,

you won't believe this, but there's a fault with your car.

And 17 people in Japan immediately resigned.

But yeah, it's Alexis SC430, full Michael MacDonald spell.

And it had exactly the same thing.

The boot would just, you'd set off,

but it was so random, it wasn't immediately,

when he started, it was often when he was just driving along

and suddenly you'd just hear this gunk.

But the boot, you don't know, is very heavy

because it's got that folding metal roof mechanism.

And so what would happen is,

with the broken aviators,

but every time you, if you went over a speed bump,

the boot would wildly swing open,

but then you would hope that on the down stroke,

it would slam itself shut.

And you'd go, yes, I'm up on the deal.

And then you'd go, yeah, I fixed it.

Dunk.

And it would do it again.

So I feel your pain.

That is a nuisance problem because it's kind of like,

the car still drives.

I can still get to where I'm going.

If I'm in a hurry, I can do this.

But you know, the boot is open.

I traded it in.

And it did it like once every, like four in seven times.

That's such a specific fraction.

I don't claim to be able to count, okay.

But it was infrequent.

But frequent enough that if it happened,

it was pretty annoying and obvious.

And when I traded in the guy, I said,

oh, just run the car up and down the road.

And I'm thinking, oh, shit.

So he starts the car, nothing happens.

He goes, oh, yeah, car's fine, mate.

It's like, yeah, you wait.

Next time.

I love the foot.

I love it.

Johnny, any, any irritating faults that you've had?

Just trying to remember.

I mean, I've had some quite bad cars.

Just trying to remember.

I don't know if people watch the top dead center channel.

They brilliantly use the BMW warning tone to sensor swearing.

That's genius.

And it's the most brilliant thing

because anyone who's ever driven a faulty BMW knows that.

Because it's such a cheery sound,

but it's also telling you that some part of the car

has quietly shattered itself.

It's so true, isn't it?

Bling bling.

6,000 pound bill.

Everyone's dead.

Well, that's not good news.

Why did you make that cheery sound?

I've had a car that kept stalling religiously.

But I worked out, it had some sort of quirky auto choke or,

I actually can't remember what set up it,

whether it was injected or not.

But I worked out that if you start it and immediately

drove it away and then turn the key and the engine off

while you were driving at speed,

and then quickly turn the ignition back on

but not try to use the start motor,

but then bump started itself and it just healed.

So you do this every morning and it was really dicey

because you knew as soon as you turned the ignition off,

any move of the steering wheel would lock the column.

So you had to be quite military with your precision on this one.

So I only did it on a straight bit of road

because I used to live on a straight road.

So I'd come out of my house, left, go along first,

second, third, kill the engine, back on.

Bump the clutch.

Bang, all the warning lights would go out.

It never did it again that day.

I don't know why, it was just like, bang, fine.

But sometimes things like that kind of bond you to the car

because it's like, you know,

and only you know how to sort that out.

I realized I had a Jeep Cherokee, an XJ-shaped one.

Anywhere, not even four out of seven,

it was, I would say, three out of...

No, it was one in four in seven.

Was it one in four in seven?

I think it was one, so 60% of the time.

Anyway, I'm going to say like three out of 11 times

just to keep the very confusing fractions going.

When you were driving at night,

all the instrument illumination would go out.

But what I discovered the first time it happened,

I was like, oh, shit, I can still see the speed.

No, I can't, all the instruments have died as well.

And you would sort of tap the top.

This apparently was a known fault.

There's sort of the solders and everything in the circuit board behind it.

Dry, dry circuits.

Dry out, yeah.

So I just poured a load of water in there,

that sort of thing.

Absolutely, yeah.

But no, you'd just spin at this.

You tap, you tap, tap it, and you tap it,

and eventually it'd come back to life.

And it was all, but for that brief period,

we sort of, you know, like on a motorway,

and everything's great, and you're going along,

and then suddenly it's like, all the instruments dying.

You feel like you're in some stricken bomber in the war.

It's going, please, please come back to life.

I can see England, it's going to be okay.

Might have been over dramatizing a little bit.

I was just driving near Chichester, but it felt traumatic.

Did you just put your hand up?

Question for you, Johnny.

When, what was the best thing you found in a barn find?

I still have the hamlets that we found in the Bora,

when we drugged it out,

and you'll hate me because they're in the silver shadow.

Best, sorry, I'm going to just get this huge stand down.

You've gone into the audience with the mic stand,

still attached to the microphone,

and this has turned out to be impractical.

I'm going to just do this just for extra effect.

The best thing that I ever found in a barn find car,

was a pair of underwear.

Yeah, you know it, in a cortina, cliche.

Didn't find any pornography,

but did find some knickers under the passenger seat.

And I pulled them out accidentally in front of the owner of the car.

Because I didn't really know where they were.

And then I knew what they were,

and then it was all on camera because you don't fake this shit.

So therefore it was a bit awkward.

So there was that, cortina, mark one, jingle.

So they could have been underpants from the sixties.

And then I found another pair of undercrackers in another car.

I'm just trying to remember.

Oh, in a mini Cooper.

Yes.

Again, it was a different time.

Different times.

They were both ladies underwear in both instances.

Yeah.

I found quite a lot of pair of undercrackers.

So they're probably the best ones.

Have a look at what you do with them.

The owner keeps them.

The follow-up.

And can I have them?

Listen, my channel is...

No.

My channel is of utmost sanding,

and I definitely don't steal soiled underwear.

Thank you very much.

Soil?

So, yeah.

So those are probably the weirdest.

We found some pretty strange things.

Pre-bar finds I've obviously talked about

the Dale Winton fridge magnet.

We won't go into that story again, as for an old podcast.

That was probably the worst, the most sort of dark thing I found.

Thank you.

Yeah, next question, quickly.

Oh, there's one down the front here.

It's probably the last one.

We're crossing the streams.

I think I got to go over here.

I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

Richard, in the summer, you told a story

of being very self-conscious at the traffic lights

with your forehead sitting over the top of the beat,

feeling a little bit self-conscious.

I embellished that in my own brain

with you playing paging Dr. Beat quite loud over the stereo.

So I wonder if we could crowd source a mixtape

for Richard's beat for embarrassing traffic light situations,

if anyone's got any suggestions.

What, beat-related?

The stereo in the beat has a tape player,

and I threw away my little tape that goes into an aux thing,

because I'm sure I can buy one in a shop

around the corner from here, because they're still current.

That's about to say that.

But so I actually don't listen to the stereo.

Also, it's a Japanese radio,

so it can only do certain FM frequencies.

So I just leave it off,

because also I drive that car with the roof down always.

I mean, I think I've driven it with the roof up three times.

And you just listen to the wind.

Well, if I do a long journey,

like when I drove it to the Festival of the Unexceptional,

I actually just put my air pods in.

But I always think that it's that sort of like legally,

because I don't have the noise cancelling.

I still have the throughput.

It's a flat no from the driving instructor.

Even if you've got the pass through, so you can hear stuff.

Oh, no.

Oh, well, there we go.

Kind of anything on.

What?

Should we do one more?

And then that really is it.

There's two enthusiastic, three enthusiastic.

All right, go on.

No, no.

I've done the Prince in the O2 residence thing.

Okay, where are we going?

Point out the most enthusiastic,

because I have my back turned, because we're in the round.

Most enthusiastic.

That, well, I think...

This guy here.

What, a man who's having another man pointing at him?

I'll do the listening, but like in this manoeuvre.

You've gone bowie at live aid.

Me?

This is going exceptionally well.

So Smith and Sniff have just been hired by

Miami Day Police as the new narcotics officers for Miami Vice.

Do you go down for police vehicles?

Do you go down the Ferrari route, say, Testerosa Daytona?

Or do you go down Mike Lowry, Mark Spenet route of 9-11 Turbo,

circa 80s, 90s?

What do you go for and why?

Well, who's Crockett and who's Tubbs?

Let's, let's, let's see.

Because only one of them ever drove the Ferrari.

I'm pretty sure that Crockett drove the Ferrari.

Tubbs was always riding shotguns.

With an actual shotgun.

So I'm going to weird those guys out.

I'm going to go power.

I'm going to go grip.

But I'm also going to go, what was that?

Surplus Group B rally cars.

I'm thinking RS 200 because it's low slung, which is cool.

I mean, it's fugly, but it's great.

I think the Metro 6R4 is attracting too much attention.

I'll give some time to a sport Quattro.

Yeah, you should.

Maybe a Delta S4.

But as we know, they went, oh yeah, we've made 200 of them.

They actually made like seven.

So they're quite hard to get hold of.

What? So I think I'm going.

I'm either going RS 200 or maybe 205 T16.

But I'm erring RS 200.

And I'm having it re-sprayed.

Obviously they were white when they came out of the factory,

but no, we can have it.

We don't want black, do we?

Because they didn't want the testosterone black.

Because obviously it's all night shoots and it looks so.

We'll go some other nice car.

Lavender.

Because I'm going to punch hard with the car.

So it doesn't matter that it doesn't keep a low profile.

The bad guys will see that car in the neighborhood

and they'll just be like, oh no.

That weird bug-eyed rally car is quick.

I hope it's not Stig Blancrist.

Yeah.

Or I hope it is Stig Blancrist because he's not a drug cop.

No, I think about it.

So you're Crockett.

I'm Tubbs.

And I'm the one that's tooled up.

But for the sake of this, you can have a car as well,

if you want.

No, no.

We'll have a great chat as we do when we travel.

Because they're quite noisy.

Ah, shit.

I can hear it come.

Yeah.

But I've got to sort of like emotionally polish my gun

in the past to see.

It's not.

No, no.

Oh, it's not a euphemism.

Because by the way, I've had it re-trimmed in Alcantara.

So you are certainly fucking not because I'm not.

Stains are a nightmare to get out of.

I'm polishing my pump action.

And I've got some extremely pleated trousers on.

Probably sort of turquoise.

So I'm quite happy to ride shotgun as long as I'm allowed

to polish my firearms.

So that feels like a note to end on.

Everyone, thank you ever so much for coming down.

Thank you for your excellent questions.

And we'll do this all again soon.

But for now, goodbye.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you.

So I turned to Acast.

I used their smart recommendations feature

to easily find shows that talk about health and fitness.

Booking sponsorships through their platform was a breeze.

And just like that,

my app was in their ears during their morning run.

Sounds like a smart move, Russell.

How's business looking now?

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0:00

39:45

OTOSOT 83

Talbot Solara

Fiat / 2100 Familiare

Fiat 500S

Alfa Romeo Stelvio

Stelvio Pass

Bmw 3

Dodge Neon

convertible

Chrysler Sebring

Peugeot 307 estate

Peugeot 307

gearbox

Audi A3

Audi TT Roadster

Daihatsu Materia

Opel Senator

Land Range Rovers

limited-slip differential

Ferguson Formula four-wheel drive system

Lotus Carltons

Lexus SC430

bump start

Jeep Cherokee

Volkswagen Bora

Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow

Ford Cortina

Ferrari Testarossa

Porsche 911 Turbo

Ford RS200

Audi Quattro

Lancia Delta S4

Peugeot 205 T16

Alcantara

About this episode

Original notes