The Toyota RAV4 is a compact SUV, meaning it’s a bit taller than a regular car and has more space. It can be bought with all-wheel drive, which helps when roads are slippery. The podcast mentions it because it’s a familiar family-friendly SUV.
British Leyland was a big British company that made lots of cars under different brand names. Mentioning its logo is basically a nod to classic UK car culture.
Tail lights are the lights on the back of the car. The design is often unique enough that a car enthusiast can sometimes recognize the model just by looking at them.
That’s a specific older Volvo model. “740” is the model line, and “GLE” is a nicer trim level. People sometimes recognize these cars by their distinctive lights and body details.
The Mercedes-Benz GLE is a luxury SUV, meaning it’s designed to feel comfortable and upscale. It’s bigger than a small car and is meant for families or people who want more space. The podcast brings it up as a recognizable model name.
A paint code is like a color’s ID number from the factory. It helps you figure out if the car’s paint matches what it originally came with, or if it’s been repainted.
Overspray is paint that lands on areas that weren’t meant to be painted during a repair. It’s a common telltale sign of repainting, especially around trim edges, rubbing strips, and seams.
These are the controls for adjusting side mirrors with electricity. Because the layout can change between versions, they can be a clue to which car you’re looking at.
Those are the buttons you use to control power windows. Different versions of a car can use different switch designs, so they can help identify the exact model.
This is a car wash where you do the cleaning yourself. You usually use a pressure washer and soap that you control, rather than paying for an attendant to do it.
If you use a sponge that’s already been sitting in dirty water, you can end up spreading dirt around instead of removing it. That can also make tiny scratches more likely.
The Vauxhall VXR8 is a high-performance Vauxhall with a big, powerful engine. In this story it’s just the car the speaker was driving to a photo shoot.
A long-term test is when a car is used for a long time and then checked again and again. The publication updates readers with what’s changed—like how it wears, how it drives, and whether anything goes wrong.
Alloy wheel cleaner is a spray meant to break down the grime and brake dust on your wheels. It usually still needs some scrubbing to fully clean the wheel.
Concept
friction (scrubbing) vs rinsing
Rinsing alone often isn’t enough to clean wheels. You usually need a brush or scrubbing to physically lift the dirt off.
The Ford Cougar is a Ford car name that was used for a sportier-looking model. It’s not just a basic family car—it was marketed with a more performance-style image. The podcast mentions it because of how people react to the name and what they think it means.
AutoTrader is an online marketplace where you can browse dealer listings and filter by make, model, color, and features. In the context of the episode, it’s presented as a way to buy a car with less back-and-forth.
The door card is the inside panel you see when you open the door. If water gets into that area, it can make the materials warp or get gross-smelling over time.
Sometimes when a car sits outside—especially under trees and in damp weather—green stuff like algae can grow on it. It often starts small and looks like a stain or film before it gets worse.
The Fiat Ritmo is a small hatchback made by Fiat. It’s the kind of car people remember for its design details. In the podcast, it’s mentioned because someone likes one of its door handles.
A rotary enthusiast is a fan of rotary engines. Rotary engines work differently than normal engines, so people who love them tend to really care about the driving feel and sound.
Instead of, I guess, wiping it and spraying it like you would, she trained the pressure washer
at it. And of course, that's where the door speaker is. So I don't know what happened to that car,
or it sounds system, but I'm going to say there was water in the door, and the door cards probably
went a bit crinkly after that a few days later. Yes. And also, the car was misted up for about
three months. So yeah, because you've inserted water through the speaker grill, so that's going
to just stay in there then. It would be horrible. Moisten. Horrible. And door cards are not designed
to accept moisture. So that is I was quite flabbergasted. Oh, I know what one more thing
that I saw that was quite interesting. A guy with a I'm going to say bit of a sort of new age
traveler type had a kind of like old, it wasn't an old mobile library turned into a camper van,
but it's like an old DHL delivery van or something that had a chimney and some like UPVC windows
grafted into it. Yeah, he climbed onto the roof of his van and then got his friend to pass the
lance up and the brush. And he was he was he was only there to clean the roof. He didn't want to
clean any other part of the van. He obviously just gone there for the roof. And he was just like
cleaning sludge and moss, I guess, off the roof, but like going up and down, like as if he was
curling. And he was one of those brushy people who goes in front of the curling stones. And it
really it really made me giggle because it's quite a high van. It's like about 10 feet high.
Okay, I mean, yeah, it's not moronic. It's not moronic. It's actually quite,
he's thought about this, because how else are you going to clean the roof? I think a lot of people
just wouldn't clean the roof. And then one day, they would somehow see their own van from above
and be shocked that there's actually a roof garden up there that they didn't but only made of moss.
It's true. It happens. Yeah, happens a lot with tall cars. It does. In my experience,
particularly if you park under a tree a lot, you get our algal, you get the beginnings of an algal
vehicle. Yes, exactly. So that thanks for that. Thanks for the question. Yeah, that's good. I
have a question here from someone who signs himself off Captain Benjamin Badbeard. Right.
Congratulations on your ascent up the Badbeard Navy. He says dear, and he's put square brackets
insert light insult here on Monday, the Monday, March the 30th show. Okay, sorry, Monday March 30th
struggling to read. So on our show that went out on Monday, March the 30th,
Johnny mentioned that the Fiat Ritmo has one of his favorite door handles.
Top three, in fact. Interested minds need to know what are the other handles in Johnny's
top three? And Richard, are you sad slash wise enough to rank the humble handle as well? If so,
what are yours? Many thanks and happy motoring, Captain Benjamin Badbeard. That's a really good
question. I guess it's the sort of thing that I kind of said without thinking about the others.
Well, hey, but look, I think we both in this Venn diagram of door handles in the middle.
Is it called the man tuner or something? The middle bit of a Venn diagram? Anyway,
the perineum. Yes. It's got to be the marina flap, surely we both have a lot of respect.
Oh, love it. I love it because it's just it's the it's the breadth that the door handle spans.
We've talked about it loads of times, so we don't need to delve too deep. But I still think it's
a style icon. And that's why I'm putting some inside my own house. I just think it's it's a
genuinely very good bit of design. And actually, from that era, and I know actually the BL handle
was basically cribbed off AMC in the US. But I think the proportions of the BL one, it's slightly
taller relative to its length. I think the BL one has better proportions. Likewise, you know,
Peugeot used handles like that and Fiat and yeah, it was quite a sort of popular style.
In the 70s. But I think the BL flap has the neatest design of any of them. And it's genuinely
a good bit of design. It's also sort of simple. And it's also flush. And we're chasing aerodynamic
efficiency all the time. And it was right there staring into this in the face. Yes. The fit
by Keke, by Keke, Barquetta's got to be there by Keke. Yes, although actually to use other complete
brand fiddly, for people to remember the fit by Keke, it was actually I think they were cribbed off
the old CisItalia from the 40s, I think, and then maybe even some stuff in the 50s. But you had
to push a big circular button sort of into the bodywork and that pushed out like a little leg
lever. Yeah. Yeah. And then you pulled on that to open the door. But yeah, it looked lovely.
But yeah, it was a bit of it. It was the same as some Aston Martins have similar handles. And
yes, they look wonderful. But the reality of them is that's a bit crap. Yeah.
I tell you a handle that I just always admired just for its satisfying action was the generic
Audi door handle of the 90s, I would say predominantly. Oh, legendary. Just legendary.
So like, because I always think the outer door handle on a car is like a car's handshake.
It's the first thing you'll touch in a new car like one you've never been in before.
That's so true. It sets a tone. It does. And those Audi handles just felt so sturdy and beautifully
designed and high quality just immediately went, wow, this is a well made car. Well,
can I just be so bold as to promote my YouTube channel by saying, hold that thought for this
weekend's barn fund because said said handles feature. And I pointed out how how pretty they
were because it was that era of aerodynamic obsession for Audi, wasn't it? Yes. And damn,
those cars of age. Well, so I'm just going to look this up and cheap. But it's my memory that the
the aero shape Audi 100, the C three started life with sort of more generic VW group, you know,
it's like it's like a sort of loop essentially off the car and then there's a trigger behind it.
And they're quite nice to use as well because again, they feel high quality. And during that car's
life, Audi went to the expense of altering the tooling for the door pressing, I guess,
and putting the handles I'm talking about the flush, super high quality feeling ones
onto that car. So they probably started in the 80s actually that handle. Yeah. And then it was on
everything in the 90s until again, weirdly, there was some point to which the Audi a three, the
original a three started its life with those handles. And then again, they sprung for, you know,
modified door pressing, which is a bloody expensive thing to do. Yeah. To put the the late 90s or
2000s generic Audi handle on, which was just a sort of flap. And it was kind of boring. And I
think it was really boring. Yes, both of those things. And it's like you had a quiet icon of
door handles. And you've decided to move on to something really just generic and boring. It's
there's many other like pre war door handles, which are exceptional, I won't go into all of them,
because we don't have the time. But I'll finish by saying the greatest door handle that you don't
notice because it lives in total darkness. And it's very Diddy Mazda RX seven FD. Oh, yes, it's
a really lovely it's an odd shape. It's an unusual shape, but you don't notice it because it's hidden
in the black window surround and and matte plastic stuff. It's unusually high, isn't it? But then
actually it makes sense because it's a low car. So they've thought this through if it was down on
the door skin, you know, the window line, you'd have to stoop. But because they've got it done,
I bet it's easier to use as well. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's and that car looks because I go to
Yorkshire car restorations quite a lot to keep an eye on my my Metro Rancho Subaru project. Yeah.
And one of the guys there, Steve is completely obsessed with rotary Mazdas. He's got about six
of them. So they've always got an FD RX seven either in pieces or awaiting some work. And I
always I keep looking at that car from different angles and say, I think, and this this is not
a question because nobody's asked it yet. I think it's probably one of the best ageing cars of all
time. Yes, I think we might have said this on the before. But I'll say it again, because I believe
it. But but I think I'd go further and also say it is possibly the best looking car Japan has ever
made. Gosh, wow, bold statement. Let us know I'm just I'm just mentally spooling through what could
rival it. But seriously, it is an incredibly good looking car. And you're right, it hasn't aged
because I think it has that great sort of timeless quality of good design because it's not
overdone. It's like a Shade album. You just keep coming back to it. And it's just feeding the soul.
I wonder if she's got one. Oh, my gosh, well, of course, she's a she's a rotary enthusiast.
She's a rotary enthusiast. So that's the thing. It's like the RX eight. Maybe maybe they kindred
spirits FDR X seven and Shade. There we go. We've got time for another or time for. Yeah, time for
Adam. Hello, you fine pair of jingle horses. I've got a question for you fellows. As as a kid,
I loved adverts. I loved car adverts more than anything else. Me too, Adam. My world was completely
opened up to old school 50 60 70s 80s. You get adverts from the 2004 100 greatest adverts of
all time hosted by Graham Norton. It's on YouTube if you're wanting to watch it. It's my comfort
go to when I'm feeling a bit down. I find today's car advert so boring, a whole lot of nothing,
but a light reading of the brochure and a guerrilla soundtrack to a less than interesting B roll
shots of the car. Whatever happened to creative ads like the Honda Accord Cogs, the Vauxhall Corsa
chase ad, the Mitsubishi Colt underwater advert from the early 2000s, the Honda diesel jingle,
the Citroën C4 robot dance, the VW Golf 80s adverts, the golf singing in the rain,
Peugeot 206 Bollywood Indian advert, where it gets smashed up from a Hindustan ambassador.
All of these things that take my breath away, Peugeot 405, blah, blah, Papa and Nicole Cleo.
See, he's got a point and we have touched on it in the past, but you know, I have way too many ads
that I've loved and a few predate me being 31 years old. I didn't get to see the best of the
90s, 80s, 70s, et cetera. My question to you is, what car adverts do you remember and why?
Honestly, I'd love to be introduced to some new ones. These things are my weird,
weird stress reliever. He's used weird to us. Adam, I love adverts. I used to want to work.
That was what I wanted to do for a job. That was what I always wanted to do for a living.
The first bit of Adam's question is why, why are ads not sort of like some of the ones that he
mentioned? But I think as far as we work out, almost all of those ads he's mentioned that
you've got to let them run as in they have to be enjoyed at their full 30, 45 seconds run time,
which is an art form in itself to get that much sort of stuff into one thing. But
I suspect that car companies don't want to spend money on ads that need to be allowed to play out
to really make sense because they want them to be put on your, you know, so they can drop in
at the start of a YouTube vid or Instagram or something like that. Eight seconds rather than
40. Eight seconds. And it's just like you couldn't do the Honda cog advert, wouldn't work over eight
seconds. I don't think the golf singing in a rain one, it just wouldn't do it justice in eight
seconds. What about the Skoda Fabia cake advert or the? Well, again, you'd lose the sense that they
were really making those bits of cake, wouldn't you just go, well, that's probably all CGI. I know.
Another time to see all of the baking happening, which, you know, showed you that that was a real
thing. Yeah. And so can't say really, you just got to go, bam, here's a car. And that's it. And
you end up with stuff like that. Absolutely piss awful. Ray D'Ava sport advert that's around at
the moment where there's a long version in the cinema and on telly, but there are shorter versions
that crop up with that, that bloke out of things. He always says a bit of a shit, doesn't he?
That bloke out of the things who plays a bit of a shit. I can't remember the actor's name,
but he's a very handsome lad, but he always sort of plays slightly caddish up to no good
characters, I think. Yeah. That's the thing. But he's playing a bit of a knob in this Range Rover
advert. It's a bit like, did they sign off on that going, Oh, good. He seems like a real knob.
But he clearly owns one of our cars because that's not a good message. No. So the other part of
Adam's question that I had to stick out, I mean, obviously that one that always sticks in my brain
from when I was a kid is the Peugeot 405. Yeah. Take my breath away out. Yeah, it was. That was
sort of rendered doubly exciting for me because my dad was, even as that car was announced, was
showing interest in buying one. Oh, and so, and he did, didn't he? I sort of had skin in the game.
And he did. Yeah. And also take my breath away was kind of still lingering in the memory because
it had been in Top Gun probably what the previous year that would have been. Yeah. And had been,
I think that was that song number one here. It was certainly played a lot. It wasn't a 405 in
Top Gun. No, they cut it out for some reason. Yeah. It was because it was too stunty and fast
compared to the bike and the Porsche Speedster. I've watched that 405 advert in recent times.
And it is incredibly pedestrian compared to how you remember it. I bet. It's really slow. And
there's some bits. Obviously, the car is driving down these farm tracks next to this sugar cane
fields in Australia that then all blow up and catch fire or what have you. And, but you can see
the car is really suspension struggling all over the place because it's a terrible track and they
didn't smooth it down. And, and it's not going very fast because of that. And it just, it's all
quite pedestrian. It's not as dramatic as you think. But yeah, we remember it being so, I mean,
I know the attention spans are different and the speed of editing is that's the norm is different.
They should also allow dangerous driving in adverts. I know
different countries, different countries don't allow it to be because it sounds like you're
celebrating it and encouraging it. But I think in a car advert, you should be able to explore the
limits of the vehicle as long as you say, please don't do this. Don't don't do this at home.
But I like it. They do it more in the US, don't they? Fiat's jumping over trains and things like
that. I want to see that. It's joyful. Adam, there's not many adverts right now, which people talk
about. And when years ago, I remember a good advert was talked about by the masses. And that was the
point of the advert, obviously, people like Bloody Eleve, you've seen that Audi Quattro ski jump advert
or the, you know, the Saab advert involving jet fighter planes and an aircraft carrier or whatever.
That or then Papa Nicole is the perfect one, the Renault campaign involving that story.
I suppose the thing is that we were all having much more of a shared experience because like,
you know, however many 12 million people were watching Coronation Street and they were all
seeing some of the ads in the ad break in that. And, you know, there are fewer shared
experienced TV shows now. So it's not even if you've all watched something similar on YouTube
that you've all been served the same ad. I think I'll sign off Adam, which is a great question,
by the way. And we can put it out to our listeners. I think no current adverts are memorable to me.
I might just be just might have a terrible memory. But the two fairly recent car ones,
which I like, no, I say fairly one of them is recent. One of them is relatively recent. The
other one isn't. One is the Steve McQueen Ford Puma advert, which I did. I did enjoy that
only because it uses the bullet theme tune with Lilo Schifrin, and that's cool.
And he was wearing a roll neck, obviously. All guys look good in roll necks.
And the, and the other one was, and this was Audi, I think, doing it right, the R8 V10 on the
rolling road. Do you remember that? With the back, the clamshell of the rear of the car removed.
So it's quite a naked supercar, a bit like the kind of look which a lot of YouTubers who are
buying and modifying supercars are doing. And all it was doing, that advert, was celebrating
the sound and the power of the V10 supercar that was their flagship at the time. But it's good.
Enjoyed it. All right. Well, thank you for all your questions. If you've got one for us, it's
hello at smithasniff.com. It's the email address. Put author sort of the subject line if you can.
It helps us to find the questions amongst all your emails. We'll do this all again next Friday,
normal show on Monday until then. Goodbye. Bye everyone. Love you.
Here's a show that we recommend. Hi, I'm Pace Case. And I'm Bachelor Clues. We host Game of
Roses, the world's best reality TV podcast. We're covering every show in reality TV at the highest
level possible. We analyze the Bachelor, Love is Blind, Perfect Match, Vanderpump, and anything
else you find yourself watching with wine and popcorn. We break down errors, highlight plays,
MVPs, and all the competitive elements that make reality TV a sport. And we interview superstar
players like Bachelor at Katelyn Bristow and Big Brother Champion Taylor Hale.
If you want to know so much about reality TV, you can turn any casual conversation into a
PhD level dissertation. You definitely want to check out Game of Roses.
ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. ACAST.com.
About this episode
Richard Porter and Johnny Smith field listener questions in a car-nerd, pub-carpet, and door-handle kind of free-for-all. They debate what niche skill they’d show on a You Bet-style show—settling on identifying cars by details like rear light clusters, paint/repair evidence, or even electric switchgear. They also swap car-wash horror stories, from using a sponge dipped in floor sludge to pressure-washing door cards. The discussion widens to favorite door handles (especially classic BL and 90s Audi) and memorable old-school car adverts, lamenting today’s shorter, less creative marketing.
Jonny and Richard answer listeners’ questions about what you’d do on You Bet! to show off car skills, the worst thing seen at a car wash, the best door handles, and are there any memorable car ads any more?
