Concept
petrol or volt driven community
They’re talking about two kinds of car fans: people who like gas cars and people who like electric cars. “Volt” is a hint toward EVs.
Car
Honda Civic
Concept
body shop
A body shop is where cars go to get dents, scratches, and paint damage fixed. It’s the place you’d take the car after the strap damage.
Concept
duck down below the dashboard so it looks like there's no one driving
They wanted the camera to not show the driver, so it would look like the car is driving itself. But if you hide where you can’t see, it becomes really dangerous.
Concept
risk assessment
A risk assessment is a safety check where you think through what could go wrong and how to make it safer. For stunts, it’s usually required before anyone does the risky part.
Concept
concussion
A concussion is a brain injury from a hit to the head. Even if someone seems okay, doctors often check them because symptoms can show up later.
Term
seatbelt
A seatbelt helps hold you in place during a crash. Without it, you can slam into the dashboard or move forward much more easily.
Company
Duramat
Duramat makes garage floor tiles. They’re designed to be easy to install yourself and make the garage floor look nicer and feel better to work on.
Part
interlocking floor tiles
Interlocking tiles are garage floor pieces that snap or lock together. They’re usually easier to put down than a permanent coating, and you can swap out damaged sections.
Term
battery voltage
Battery voltage is basically how much electrical power your car’s battery system is producing. If it’s too low, it can be an early sign the battery or charging system isn’t working right.
Term
digital MPG readout
MPG tells you how efficiently the car uses fuel. A digital MPG readout shows that number on the screen so you can see whether you’re driving efficiently.
Concept
green light to give it a good thrashing, but not before
This is the concept of heat-management driving: using oil temperature as a cue for when it’s safe to apply higher engine load. The goal is to avoid “thrashing” a cold engine, since cold oil provides less effective lubrication and can increase wear.
Term
water temp gauge
That “water temp gauge” is basically a temperature meter for the engine’s coolant. It helps you see if the engine is running too hot or still warming up.
Concept
torque split
Torque split is how an all-wheel-drive system decides how much power goes to each axle. Some cars even show you that information on the dashboard so you can see what the system is doing.
Term
rev counter
A rev counter (tachometer) shows engine speed in RPM, helping the driver choose when to shift. Here it’s relevant because the speaker says the boost indication is integrated into the rev counter, so it affects how you monitor the car while driving.
Term
oil light
The oil light warns you about the engine’s oil pressure or oil condition. If it comes on, it usually means you should stop and check, because the engine needs oil to stay healthy.
Term
shift light
A shift light is a warning light that tells you when to shift gears. It’s used to help you hit the best engine RPM for performance.
Brand
GM
GM is the car company being talked about. They had internal guidelines about how well drivers can see traffic lights from certain positions.
Term
FCD
FCD means Fuel Consumption Display. It’s basically a screen or setting that tells you how much fuel you’re using right now.
Concept
hypermiling
Hypermiling is when you drive in a way that tries to get the most miles out of each tank of gas. It often means gentle acceleration and watching fuel-economy numbers closely.
Concept
Saab Night Mode
Saab Night Mode is a Saab feature that adjusts the instrument/infotainment lighting for nighttime driving, typically by dimming or changing display brightness and contrast. The hosts treat it as a standout example of thoughtful UI design.
Concept
Night Panel
Night Panel is a setting that makes the dashboard lights dimmer at night. It helps you see the road better without bright lights in your eyes.
Term
long press on the minus button
They’re talking about a trick: press and hold the “minus” button for the dashboard lights to turn on a night mode. If you don’t try it, you might never know the car can do it.
Term
iPod Nano dock
It’s a little mount inside the car that lets you plug in and place an iPod so you can play music through the car stereo. It’s basically an old-school way to use an iPod in the car.
Term
retrofit
A retrofit is an aftermarket or later-installed modification added to a car that wasn’t originally equipped from the factory. Here, the speaker says they had the iPod dock retrofitted, meaning it was installed after purchase.
Term
cassette tape
A cassette tape is an old-school way of playing music using a small tape cartridge. In this story, the cars were marketed with tapes in mind, but the cars themselves didn’t actually have a tape player.
Term
tape player
A tape player is the car’s stereo that can play cassette tapes. The problem described is that the special cars were being promoted with tapes, but the cars didn’t have the hardware to play them.
Brand
Sony Walkman
The Sony Walkman is a portable cassette music player that became iconic in the 1980s and 1990s. In this segment, it’s referenced as a workaround for a car that didn’t have a cassette deck—so the promo cassette could still be played.
Concept
radio cassette player
It’s a car stereo that can play radio stations and also play cassette tapes. The point is: if the car doesn’t have one, the cassette promo doesn’t really help.
LIVE
I'm Richard Porter, I'm Johnny Smith, and this is on the other side of things, the Smith and Sniff spinoff in which we answer your questions.
We know how this works. By now, you send us questions to hello at smithandsniff.com and we try and answer some of them in a timely manner.
Yeah.
Well,
asterisk timely means within two years.
Well, you know, as you said, said this, I've just dredged out
a lovely sweet email from a foreign country that was sent to us in January 2025 from Emmanuel.
Go on then.
Sweet SSGs, this is my second attempt as I erroneously sent this insanely crucial fact via the contact form on the website, which apparently wasn't the right way to do it.
Sorry if you had to receive this twice then.
As this is a matter of utmost importance for the petrol or volt driven community, I will grace it with my infinite wisdom.
This might be right up Richard's alley in the Flemish language.
Yes, the other language spoken in off of Belgium.
Ottersot actually means something.
Coincidentally, in the very relevant atmosphere, we use the word auto for car.
Phonetically, this often becomes a sound like auto.
Zot is our word for crazy or someone who is crazy about something.
Same thing applies here.
Phonetically, this is often become becoming Zot.
So put these two things together and you get auto Zot pronounced auto Zot, meaning a car
crazy person or a car or not or a car pervert if you really want from an electrician's tick to the core of the podcast.
Some things seem to come together nicely sometimes.
Thank you for the podcast.
Happy with my car name, Emmanuel, CMTMB.
Wow.
Well, it's taken us a long time to reply, Emmanuel, and I'm really sorry to you and the Flemish community.
But that's a really good fact, isn't it?
Crazy car.
Yes, exactly.
So Ottersot can in Flemish mean basically crazy car or crazy car people.
That's really useful.
Emmanuel didn't have a question that he's more he's actually providing an answer, which is which is good because it saves us the bottom.
Oh, gosh, is that is that still legal tender for Ottersot?
Would we allow that?
Not strictly, but because it was so interesting and so pertinent, I think we're going to allow it.
I think so.
And also it's it's a year and a bit late to be replaced.
Well, exactly.
A side order of guilt always makes things go down nicely, doesn't it?
I'll do an actual question then, just to bring things back on brief, which is from a listener called Stephen Hines.
He says, hello, you pair of dogs, lipsticks.
Oh, nice.
I'm a day one listener, Patreon and two time Glasgow live show attendee.
Twenty five or so years ago, when I was just a lad, the rear end of a bus swung out and destroyed every panel on the passenger side of my pride and joy.
An EK Honda Civic brackets, the one point four illusion model.
I assume it's a special edition, the illusion, not being particularly worldly wise about my options.
I took the car to the nearest garage.
The insurer recommended I had to reject the first courtesy car, a feature in Quicento, on the grounds of being an entirely unable to squeeze my six foot four inch frame into it.
Oh, I was then given a second generation Punto instead, and it had fewer than 100 miles on the clock.
Hours after leaving with the car, I discovered that the bus that had hit me and the garage doing the repairs were ultimately owned by the same group.
No.
The bus company were contesting liability.
This meant my insurance costs would balloon until it was all sorted.
For the next three weeks, while my car was being repaired, I treated this poor Punto terribly.
Just about every junction was treated like I was at Santa Pod and racing racing for v fives.
The handbrake was used frequently for reasons other than parking.
I accidentally got it on two wheels during a bout of spirited helmsmanry, which almost resulted in a tremendous shunt.
And when it eventually went back, it needed two front tyres and probably a clutch.
The insurance claim was eventually settled in my favor 11 months later, just 24 hours before we were due in court.
So I regret absolutely nothing.
My question is, have either of you been particularly vindictive to a car that wasn't yours?
Hire car, loaner, et cetera.
CMTNB Stephen.
That's really odd that he brings this story up and the car in question, the hire car, at least in question, is a Punto because I did exactly the same thing.
My Ford Granada Mark 1 low rider, which had very nice metal flake paint, broke down once for maybe the sixteenth time.
And the transport company, Transpoet company that loaded it onto the beaver tail, they connected it wrong and the strap
chafed on the front wing for about 100 miles and it chased through the metal flake paint.
And I was so beside myself because I knew that it was now an impossible to match.
But they held their hand up and they went, we'll sort it.
You take it to a body shop of your choice and we'll do it.
So I found a body shop in Cheshire, near where I lived, drove the car in the gaffer there went, well,
he said, it's going to take us a while.
And I said, OK, well, I just want it right.
And he, they gave me a Punto.
And although the repair garage was really nice, the principle of the whole thing annoyed me to the point where I drove the Punto as hard as I could.
So it was the first time I ever realized you could do 60 in second gear in a car.
I'd never done 60 in second before, but I can tell you now.
Those Punto's will do 60 in second, which I think is really impressive.
So yeah, that's all right.
Funnily enough, that's reminded me that I was a bit horrible to a fear once, which was a bravo.
The original bravo because we had been making an episode of the Cars the Star about the original Lada saloon.
Yeah.
In which a Welsh schoolteacher who owned one of the oldest ladders in Britain had, at the instruction of the director,
coasted his car down a quiet hill, country lane, to achieve this shot the director wanted, which he was going to reverse so that it looked like the car was driving itself backwards up a hill.
I can't remember why, I'm not sure he used it in the edit, very weird.
So what he did was he said to this guy, could you just don't have the engine on?
I'm not sure why.
I suppose he didn't need it because of gravity.
He said, just let the car coast down this hill.
But then can you just duck down below the dashboard so it looks like there's no one driving?
No way.
It's just the late 90s.
You'd never do that now because you'd go, oh my God, the health and safety forms, you're just not allowed to do it.
The risk assessment would go, I'm sorry, what?
Can you just duck down behind the dash whilst going down a hill with the car turned off?
Yeah, so essentially you can't see, he won't be able to see where he's going.
Also, he's not a professional racing driver, I think, he is a schoolteacher who just likes ladders.
But this happened and unfortunately the schoolteacher kept his head hidden for too long because he was trying to be helpful.
And then when he popped his head up again, the ladders was heading towards a tree, which it then hit.
No.
He banged his head on the dashboard.
So I had to take him to hospital and get him checked out because we were worried he'd got a concussion or something.
And then I took him home to his house in Cardiff and his larder was stashed by the rest of the crew at a garage near where we were filming in Gloucestershire.
And the following week, on a Friday night, my producer went, you've got to take that larder back to that Welshman because he was a bit worried that this guy was going to sue the BBC or something.
Well, not bloody strange.
So he was as nice as possible.
Was the car smashed right up, though?
No, it wasn't.
Actually, it was fine.
It wasn't a high speed impact, but it was enough that, you know, when you're not wearing a seatbelt and you're not expecting to hit a tree.
Well, you're already down in the dash already.
Yes, exactly.
You're already sort of in the footwell.
The whole thing was extremely strange.
But so my serious producer happened to live not far from where the car was stashed.
So he drove me in his Jaguar XJ6 manual, I think that he had at the time to pick up the
larder and the production office had arranged for a higher car to be delivered to the Welsh
schoolteachers' house in Cardiff so I could then get home again.
OK.
I was already quite pissed off that I was having to do this on a Friday evening at quite short notice.
And I think it was like I had plans and it was going to spoil my plans.
I was going to be late to meet people or whatever.
Yeah.
So I brought this larder back.
In fact, I was quite spiteful to two cars on that trip because the larder was absolutely horrible to drive.
It was like there was no joy in it.
It was such an awful nail of a car.
And I remember this is sort of youthful.
Now I just sort of suck it up, I think, but at times youthful idiocy that I thought,
well, I could try and make this journey a bit more enjoyable.
And I'm going to try and drift the larder on a roundabout.
What?
Thankfully, it wasn't wet.
And so it had no chance because it didn't have enough power to break free.
But I was chucking it into roundabouts in a sort of cat-candied, scandy flick sort of way.
In the hope of sending it sideways so it would make the journey more amusing and less hateful.
But that didn't happen, thank fuck.
Got back, dropped the car off, had a cup of tea out of politeness with this guy.
And sort of, you know, tried to make sure he was OK and wasn't going to sue us.
And then he went, oh yeah, they pushed some keys through the car.
There's a theatre outside that's for you.
And so I took this bravo and I was already in a bad mood.
And then this bravo had the aerial on the roof.
It was rather flaccid at its base and just kept tapping on the glass sunroof.
And it actually stopped and popped it back upright and it still just fell back down again.
And so dink, dink, dink, dink on the motorway.
So again, I was just spiteful to this fear.
Extra marks for the word flaccid.
Well, I couldn't think of how else to describe the bottom mount of a roof aerial.
But yeah, I was so again, I think it was a thing just like slamming it into third at motorway speeds.
Just out of spite, because I was so cross with the situation and the specific fear
with the dinky aerial on the on the sunroof.
Oh, I thought of another thing that I did once with it.
And I must apologize to Dacia some 15 years later.
We were filming the Sandero in Romania when Dacia were about to launch in the UK.
They hadn't launched in the UK yet.
And I have said this part of the story before.
I'm sure I was working with a director who kept making me do.
Vast amounts of repetition of everything.
Right, where it's it's getting quite weary.
You know, they'd make he'd make you do a piece of camera 15 times at least.
Even when the sound man gave us that sound man did the thumbs up.
I hit the mark if I needed to walk.
Anyway, he did the same with driving up and by.
We were driving up and by and every time he would make me go back again.
And then I don't know, a lorry came to the wind blanked us or a tractor.
And in the end, on the way back through, I was so cross, I was sort of a grip.
The steering wheel, you know, like these American films where they sort of punch the steering wheel.
I roared at the steering wheel and instead of going past him on the road,
I went off into an open, there was an open gateway into a field and I drove
as a flat out in third gear across the field in the hope that I would break the car.
I just pinned the throttle and just aimed at anything.
I was like, I'm going to break this because my rationale was if I break the car,
we can't do any more filming and I'm over this.
I've actually never never watched back that video.
I don't have any idea what that will be like, but it could be appalling.
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I don't think I've read this one out before,
but this one also is from January 2025.
Right.
Chat called Reese Jennings.
Hi, Reese.
Firstly, so sorry for reading this out so late.
You probably don't even listen to the podcast anymore
and you'd be completely within your rights to do so.
Chaps, he doesn't even insult us.
Hi, Chaps.
Thanks for all the podcasts that have kept me company
working from home over the last few years.
One thing I've pondered about with car design
is how do they design, decide what information
to display to the driver on the dashboard
and what would you display if you had the final say?
I've had a few cars over the years
which show all the normal things you'd need,
but then my last two cars have gone one step further.
My 350Z Nissan, and then he said Datsun,
making me sound like an elderly person,
370Z would usually tell me at all times
what my battery voltage was in a prime location
on the center of the dashboard.
It would also allow me to switch to a digital MPG readout
that went all the way up to a maximum of 60,
which I think a 370Z would only achieve
if it was thrown off a high bridge.
My current car, a Lexus ISF, oh, sweet, sweet car.
People though, he's probably had three other cars
since then because this is such an old letter.
My current car, a Lexus ISF, also shows the battery voltage
opposite my oil temperature, but then one ups the 370Z
by having a permanently illuminated symbol
to tell me that the passenger airbag is live.
And I should absolutely not put a child seat
in that passenger seat.
Who was in the boardrooms in Japan to say
battery voltage must be always accessible piece of information?
Did they also decide that my aircon must be on the touchscreen
but give me two twiddly knobs for my radio?
And my second question, if I may be so bold,
is what other strange information
have you seen displayed in cars you've driven?
Is it a Japanese thing, I wonder?
Hmm.
Thanks, guys.
I'm still trying to get over the FOMO I have
from not being at the Piston Heads Meet
you guys attended on Sunday.
Well, oh, that's the one, the Haynes.
We did it at Haynes.
The Haynes Motor Museum.
Jeez, feels like it was about 20 years ago,
but when did you say, was that start of 25?
That was the start of 25.
It was.
I drove my 2CV.
That was the main voyage of the 2CV.
This is a good question.
I mean, this is a great question, is it?
What would you like to have displayed?
I mean, for me, oil temp is always like,
because when you do have a car with an oil temp gauge,
you realize how much more slowly the oil warms up
compared to the water.
This is true.
So it's a really nice thing to have.
Or even some emojis.
You know those speed cameras when you go into villages
where you have a smiley green face
or an amber straight-mouthed person
or an angry red face?
Yes, yeah, yeah.
You could symbolize oil temperature in such a way
that it sort of gives you the green light
to give it a good thrashing, but not before.
Now, there have been some cars, haven't there?
The Yaris, I think, was the first car,
I remember the original Yaris,
where it didn't have a water temp gauge,
which I would rather still have,
but instead it just had a blue temperature icon
which went out when the water was up to temp.
Yes.
And I've seen other cars do it since.
But Golf, Mark IV, I think, does that?
Or certainly the Beetle of that era, the 2000s Beetle.
It just has a blue temperature icon which then goes out.
But the other question is a Japanese thing
to have strange information and what else have we seen?
I think it is.
I think it's particularly sort of quite an old-school Japanese,
like probably from the 80s or even the 70s.
I suppose it's because it sort of felt,
the more information your car is showing you,
the more it's almost like it's more high-tech
and more thought-through.
And the more power and knowledge the owner has.
You know those ones that,
and this is not exclusively in Japanese cars,
but those ones that show you the torque split
on a four-wheel drive car.
And I always go, oh, I love that.
But then you're never really looking at it
when it's as it's most interesting.
And you shouldn't be because that's probably
when you're doing some spicy cornering.
The same is true broadly of a turbo boost gauge.
It's irrelevant information.
When your turbo is boosting,
well, you'll know about it probably,
particularly in an old-school car.
My Metro Turbo, which hopefully I will be driving very,
very soon, the boost gauge is LEDs in the rev counter.
It's like you're not looking down.
I mean, you might glance at the rev counter
I'm supposed to know when to change up,
but the turbo bit is irrelevant information.
It's just basically showing you the turbo's working.
That's a good point.
And it's a bragging thing, isn't it?
Yeah. Yeah, that's a very good point, actually.
I tell you what, I feel like most manufacturers have missed.
You know, there's been a real relationship
between the modified car world and certain things,
then making them their way onto production cars,
because I guess they became iconic or cult.
Well, I remember the first time I experienced
the JDM A-pillar gauge cluster,
and I was absolutely blown away by how cool it was.
A, A-pillar, but A, like you get in the car
and none of them are in your way until you're sat in the seat,
and then they're all completely aligned
with the eye line of the driver.
So like a racing car, if you've been in a racing car
which has a shift light and an oil light,
and all the big lights which you need to keep an eye on,
they've got to be in your peripheral vision
when you're driving 10 tenths.
But the A-pillar gauge cluster,
I think why hasn't that ever made its way into mass production?
Like the current Supra or the last iteration of the Supra,
I could have imagined that with some A-pillar cluster magic.
I would have blimmin' loved that.
I wonder, is there some...
Well, there can't be a safety thing.
You're not going to twat your head on them.
Is it airbag curtainage?
Is it a visibility maybe?
That there's sort of...
Car makers have loads of internal rules about visibility and stuff, don't they?
Because apparently GM's rules...
American stop lights are often suspended above the road.
Oh, the shit.
And GM had some internal rules about visibility of stop lights
if you were first on the front of the queue.
Which meant that a lot of their cars had sort of very big windscreens.
They almost thought they had a receding roofline
and it just made them look shit.
It's a story from one of Bob Lutz's books
that they got the then new Chrysler 300.
Not the one that we got here,
but the sort of really cab forward one for the LH platform.
And they got one in the studio because they were like,
this is an amazing looking car.
It's getting loads of positive coverage
because of how radical and cool it looks.
And the GM sort of fun police went,
well, obviously we could never make that car
because look, it doesn't meet our rules
on being able to look at stop lights.
So Bob Lutz went, fuck that.
People buy cars because they look nice,
not because it's easy to see traffic lights.
And he's probably got a point.
He's got a massive point.
I wonder if a lot of people drive cars with terrible pillars and blinds.
Well, they do, don't they?
That's the thing, but it's because they look nice, you know?
And then obviously GM went the completely other way
and started making the Camaro,
which was like driving around in a post box.
But I think that maybe to the pillars gauges,
would there be some?
I think they should.
I don't really structure you that much though, do they?
No, but also, you know, the kind of,
I love the idea of, you know, those top opening dashboard glove boxes,
like vans have when you press them once and they pop up
and you press them again and they go back down.
Yes.
Imagine if you had a sneaky cluster of gauges
in what appears to be like a crab shell,
which comes out of the top of the dash.
So you could, when you knew you were going to do some track work
or some fast road work, you could let these expose themselves.
But when you were just plain sailing every day,
just keep them concealed.
Do you remember like the vents on an F-type,
the central vent on a Jag F-type rose up?
Yeah.
So it's that sort of idea, isn't it?
The rising up vents when you are doing heavy road work or track work,
it would just pop out.
Yeah.
That's a neat idea.
It is, because we've reached peak overload of acreage of screen on dash,
I feel like it's got to go back the other way.
And we've said it a little while ago of my sister-in-law's got an Audi A1
and I think that was, it might be 10 years old that car
and it's got a little pop-up screen in the middle of the dash for the next.
It's only a small thing.
It's probably about four inches square or something.
But it's discreet and I forget how classy it is
and it's like it's there if you want it to be,
but it can also disappear if you just think it's shit.
So that's fine.
And so I kind of like that.
I feel like we should go back to the interesting cubbies and gauges if you want them,
but gauges if you don't want them.
I still think the strangest button,
and again, it's got to be a Japanese thing,
is the thing on my Honda Insight,
which is the largest button on the dash, which is FCD.
And it was a button that was about the size of a 50 pence piece.
And for ages, it's like, what does FCD mean?
And it's just fuel consumption display when you press it.
But it's bigger than the hazard warning light button.
It's bigger than every other button,
but I guess because it was a hypermiling car,
they made sure it was prominent.
And you press it and it just does the combined MPG.
It just brings it up on the main part of the screen.
That's it.
There is no other function.
It doesn't do anything else.
It doesn't scroll through any other info.
It's bizarre.
Honorable mention to that switch in Subaru's that said bright on it
and just made the clock slightly brighter.
Yeah.
Because that undue prominence to a thing that's very, very minor,
which nowadays, if you really watch a clock,
bright was changing, there'd be some kind of setting in a touchscreen.
The fact they gave it a bespoke switch was a thing of wonder.
Yeah.
A bit like Saab Night Mode, which you've talked about loads before,
because Saab's Night Mode is just great.
I'll never find it now,
but I'm sure we had a message from a listener who pointed out that
Night Mode was available in, I think, the Alpha 159.
But in here we go.
I found it.
How did you find that so fast?
Well, I just searched 159 and I hoped it was it.
It's from a listener called Carl, who he signs off Carl off of Sweden.
He says, on a recent autosault,
one of my fellow listeners sorted advice on his next car,
a former Saab 95 and Audi A2 owner.
He was now considering, amongst other things, an Alpha 159.
I think you were right to direct him towards it.
And here's why.
The 159 isn't to a not insignificant degree a Saab and an Alpha.
A cocktail that would give even the Negronia
a run for its money, if you ask me.
A little known fact about the 159 is as a result of it being a Saab,
it comes equipped with a version of Night Panel,
which is activated by a long press on the minus button
for the dashboard illumination.
I love that.
A long press on the minus button.
A long press.
So you probably wouldn't know it was there unless you did it.
That was brilliant information, Carl.
He's a former Saab 95 owner, current Audi A2 owner,
and constantly dreams of a 159.
Love that.
But yeah, I guess it would be a sort of electrical architecture thing
because those cars with the GM's premium platform.
But then weirdly also, my old Vauxhall VXRA Holden Commodore
by another name had Night Panel, which you activated,
I think, by holding down the plus and minus of the instrument.
Oh, together.
A illumination thing.
And that did you Night Panel there.
And that's not Saab.
I wonder if GM just went, actually, this is quite a good idea.
Or if in fact this is an electrical module
that was shared across various platforms.
I don't know.
But yeah, it's interesting that that functionality,
the little bit of Swedish DNA found itself into the 159.
Honourable mention to the completely hidden heated steering wheel button
on many Porsches.
Oh, yes.
Because it's just so hidden that you have to be told where it is by an adult.
I guess it would be a joy if you'd bought a second hand Porsche
and discovered after like nine months of ownership
that it had a heated wheel you didn't know about.
Because if you bought the kind you probably would,
you'd have to respect it, wouldn't you?
Yeah, yeah.
But it's, yeah, it's a really, it's a really hidden button.
I feel like Reese's question should be thrown out to the audience.
Although he did end it by saying,
I'd love to have Johnny Vigilante detail my filthy ISF
with now nearly 200,000 miles that I've daily driven.
In our grotto UK winter weather.
So by now, Reese has probably done 270,000 miles.
So, what a hero.
Yeah, absolute hero.
Thank you, Reese, and sorry it's taken a little bit of time
to read out your question.
Yes, it's just a bit.
All right, well, here's one.
Good evening, you fine gentleman.
I manage a fleet of delivery vehicles
and occasionally I get asked to assist with the personal cars
of the company's owners.
The current car I am dealing with is a K12 Micra of the 08 Vintage.
It happens to be a 25th anniversary edition.
I didn't know they did that.
I think I did.
I think I did.
I think I've seen one for sale not that long ago.
I thought this would mean some exciting options.
It does not.
Unfortunately, this example has not been specced
with the nightshade purple paint.
Oh.
But does come with the only other option,
an iPod Nano dock.
Oh.
Okay.
Very period though, isn't it?
So period.
So period.
I love that.
And when did I have that smart roads to Brabus long term
because I had that retrofitted.
It was an official smart accessory with an iPod dock
which was properly attached to the sort of,
to just on the passenger side by the gear lever.
And you could choose to have it come with a smart branded iPod.
Oh, really?
Which clipped into the thing,
which I've still got in a drawer somewhere, I think.
You've still got the smart iPod?
Yeah, I think so.
Could I have it for my smart?
That's a good...
Yeah, oh shit.
Yeah, because you could, if you could find the kit.
I didn't keep the kit, obviously,
that went away with the car.
But yeah, I'll have a look and you're welcome to it.
Anyway, Stuart's question is,
what is the worst special edition option
you have seen a car come with?
Oh, there's some terrible muck around.
I've talked about black edition,
which is just, it's not an addition.
It's just, you've chosen black.
And maybe there's two pieces of plastic on the car
which have been blacked, which weren't before.
That's not, that doesn't warrant an addition.
Come on.
One of my favourites,
which I put into one of my boring car trivia books,
was the, in the late 80s,
they did a pair of special edition minis,
original minis,
called the Red Hot and the Jet Black.
I remember those well.
Yes.
Yes, yeah, they were quite,
yeah, they were quite groovy little things,
but they came with,
or rather, sorry,
Austin Rover gave away
a cassette tape of contemporary hit music
to promote these cars.
And one side was called Red Hot Hits,
and the other side was called Jet Black Hits,
or something like that.
And I can't remember.
I put the track list to go see,
because I found it.
I put it in the book and I can't find it now.
But they came up with this idea,
well, give away tapes and it'll remind people
these special editions exist,
and hopefully they'll go and buy one.
I think, yeah.
And then they realized that the spec
they'd already decided on for the Red Hot and Jet Black
didn't include a tape player.
No way.
So to avoid a embarrassing situation
where they were called out on this,
if you bought a mini Red Hot or Jet Black,
you got a free, I think branded,
Sony Walkman.
Oh my gosh.
Which was basically a quick fix.
That's so Austin Rover.
You go to the effort of coming up
with a track listing for a cassette,
and then you realize there's nowhere to play it
in the thing that you've just bought,
that you're trying to promote.
I mean, seriously.
Well, that's it.
I presume they'd already sort of licensed the music
and had the labels printed for the cassette.
So it's too late to back out of the cassette.
They had to just find a way to get around it.
Also, I don't know why they didn't just go off,
screw it, we'll just make a radio cassette player
standard in the car.
Maybe that would have cost more
than just giving away a Walkman or something.
Yeah.
But my favorite, I mean,
I don't know if this was a special edition as such,
but it's something, I've made a note of it
because I have this little folder in my phone
for things to put into another boring car
trivia book if I ever do want.
And I found this out a while ago,
and it's lived with the other synths because it's so shit.
Do you know the Mercury Marauder?
Yeah.
Sort of spicy blacked out version of the Ford Crown Vic.
Yeah, you know I want one.
Come on, we've had this conversation.
I know.
Well, I want one as well.
We did.
What Crown Vic enthusiast wouldn't.
Yeah.
But the Mercury Marauder now,
I think this was every one of them,
not just because they didn't make that many, did they?
No.
So it sort of counts as a special edition.
Yeah.
Every Mercury Marauder came with a leather jacket.
I've kept a screen grab of,
I think this is from the brochure.
It says standard on the Marauder is an item
that's essential for enthusiasts of high performance.
A black leather jacket.
I'm not joking, I swear, this is what it says.
It's full lining, features a pattern of the God's Head logo.
So I think it's the Mercury logo.
Yeah, yeah.
A classic detail that also appears on the cuff snaps and zipper pull.
Buy a Marauder, get the leather jacket.
How's that for an initiation right?
Um, Richard, can we please buy a Mercury Marauder,
but we need to find two jackets, obviously.
Ideally, I'd like yours to be much too short for you
and mine to be much too long.
So I look like a shit matrix,
and you just look like someone who's gone to a charity shop
and had no other options.
Anyway, that's quite enough of this.
If you're selling a Mercury Marauder with a leather jacket,
do get in touch hello at smithandsmith.com.
If you've just got a question,
say me, my address, but put Otto Sot to the start of the subject line
and we will answer more questions next Friday.
Normal show on Monday.
Until then, goodbye.
Cheers, mate.
Thanks, mate.
Bye.
About this episode
Auto-nerd trivia and listener Q&A collide in OTOSOT 95, starting with a Flemish language deep-dive: “ottersot” loosely becomes “auto zot,” meaning a “crazy car” person. Then it turns to petty (and hilarious) stories of being spiteful to hire cars and loaners after accidents or filming mishaps—complete with Punto abuse and a disastrous “duck behind the dash” stunt. The discussion shifts to dashboard info overload: why some cars show odd data (battery voltage, passenger airbag status) and how “night panel” dimming features (Saab/GM/Alfa 159) hide in plain sight. Finally, they debate worst special-edition options, from cassette-tape marketing blunders to Mercury Marauder leather-jacket “bundles.”
Original notes
Jonny and Richard answer listeners’ questions about being cruel to cars out of spite, strange gauges and the worst special edition options, plus a Belgian listener explains what the name of this spin-off sounds like in Flemish.
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Smith and Sniff
Jonny Smith and Richard Porter
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33:43