Our dream daily drivers, Britain's pothole problem & a new British sports car | Episode 41
The evo podcast
Our dream daily drivers, Britain's pothole problem & a new British sports car | Episode 41
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Term
turbo
A turbo is like a fan that pushes more air into a car's engine so it can make more power and go faster.
Term
DRS
DRS is a special flap on a race car's back wing that opens to make the car go faster in a straight line, helping drivers pass each other.
Term
energy recuperation
Energy recuperation means the car saves energy when slowing down or going downhill, so it can use that energy later to go faster or longer.
Term
boost button
A boost button is something drivers press to make their car go faster for a short time.
Concept
Formula One
Formula One is a type of car racing with very fast and special cars that race on tracks all over the world. It's the top level of racing and very popular.
Term
quali
Quali means qualifying, which is a time trial to decide where each driver starts the race.
Car
Maserati MC Xtrema
The Maserati MC Xtrema is a special car made only for racing on tracks. It's very fast and built to be light and strong so it can go around corners quickly.
Car
Maserati Mc
The Maserati MC12 is a very fast and rare car made by Maserati. It was built to be used in races and is special because not many were made.
Term
GT2
GT2 is a type of car race where special cars called GT2 cars compete. These cars are built to be fast and strong for racing.
Car
Maserati MC 20 GT2
The Maserati MC 20 GT2 is a racing car made for a special kind of car race called GT2. It's very powerful and built to go fast on race tracks.
Car
MC20
The MC20 is a fast sports car made by McLaren. It has a strong engine and is built with light materials to go very fast.
Term
de-restricted
De-restricted means the car has had limits taken off so it can go faster or be more powerful than usual.
Term
downforce
Downforce is like a push that keeps the car stuck to the road so it doesn't slide when going fast.
Term
bespoke bodywork
Bespoke bodywork means the outside parts of the car are specially made just for that car to help it look good and go faster.
Term
slick tires
Slick tires are special smooth tires used in racing that help the car stick to the road better when it's dry.
Term
triple apex
A triple apex is a tricky turn on a race track where the driver has to carefully steer through three key points to go fast.
Car
Porsche 911 GT3 RS
The Porsche 911 GT3 RS is a special version of the Porsche 911 made for fast driving on race tracks. It has big wings and special parts that help it stick to the road better.
Term
SLICs
SLICs are special tires that stick to the road better than normal tires, helping cars go faster around corners. They can still be used on regular roads but work best on race tracks.
Term
ABS
ABS stops your wheels from freezing when you brake hard, so you can still steer the car safely.
Term
pothole
A pothole is a hole in the road that can be bad for your car if you drive over it too fast.
Term
A roads
A roads are important roads in the UK that connect different places but are not highways. They can sometimes have bumps or potholes.
Term
motorways
Motorways are big roads in the UK where cars can drive fast over long distances. They usually have several lanes and fewer stops.
Concept
transport network maintenance
Transport network maintenance means taking care of roads and other ways we travel so they stay safe and work well. If they are not looked after, they can get broken and dangerous.
Term
corporate liability
Corporate liability means a company has to take responsibility if something goes wrong because they didn't keep things safe, like roads or vehicles.
Car
Aston Martin Valhalla
The Aston Martin Valhalla is a very fast car made by Aston Martin. It uses both a gas engine and electric power to drive quickly.
Term
carbon tub
A carbon tub is the main body part of a car made from very strong and light materials called carbon fiber. This helps the car be safe and fast.
Term
V8
A V8 engine has eight cylinders shaped like a V. This type of engine makes a car powerful and sounds very cool.
Concept
retro styling
Retro styling means the car looks like older cars from the past, but it still has new parts and technology.
Term
unsprung mass
Unsprung mass means the parts of a car like the wheels and brakes that aren't held up by the car's suspension. Usually, having heavy parts here makes the car handle worse, but in-wheel motors can actually help.
Term
battery technology
Battery technology means how the batteries in electric cars are made and how well they work, like how far they can take you before needing a charge.
Term
curb weight
Curb weight is how much a car weighs when it’s ready to drive but doesn’t have people or stuff inside.
Term
wheel size
Wheel size is how big the round metal parts your tires sit on are. Bigger wheels can look nicer but might make the ride bumpier.
LIVE
Say what what is the speed limit in Texas?
I don't know.
But you did break it.
I think we may have breached it once.
Hello everyone.
Welcome to Evo podcast episode 41.
I'm reliably informed.
So if it's wrong, you can blame Mastern who sat behind the camera.
This episode joined by Yusuf, Dickie and John.
Hello. Hello.
Some are looking a bit worse for work.
We were recording this after the first Grand Prix.
So some got up and watched it.
Some watched the highlights, which was John and I, the old ones.
What did we make?
Some people are calling Super Mario Kart.
Oh, yeah.
There were some bits.
You look at the results and there's some bits, I think,
being overshadowed by what happened,
because Max qualified 20th and just did a max thing for 6th.
He just quietly gets on with it, doesn't he?
He relentlessly moves up the order through all the chaos.
I don't know what to make of it, to be honest.
I think it's, I mean, the start was fascinating with the Ferrari's.
Yeah, yeah.
Disappeared off because they can wind up their turbo.
I think they have a smaller turbo,
so they're not so affected by the lack of an MGUK or H off the line.
So they get instant boost in there.
They rock it away from the line.
So I think Charles was fourth and he got to first by turn one.
Yeah.
And Lewis nearly follows him, but got boxed in.
Yeah, yeah.
It's interesting because I think one part of me,
like the purest side of me thinks it's a bit artificial
in how people are just running out of battery
and then that's how you do the overtake
and then it just swaps around.
But at the same time, a DRS train is no fun to watch either.
And that's what we had for a lot of previous regulations.
So I think they'll just analyse the shit out of it, won't they?
Like they always do.
So it'll be chaos for the first few races
and then they'll work out some sort of balance before.
I mean, I guess they'll learn every race, won't they?
But because they simulate everything before they get there,
I think it'll be more, at least seem more prescriptive,
but then the drivers have much more room for improvisation,
don't they, and they can have a bit more autonomy.
I think it was just like relearning how to watch.
Or the one where you got used to the cadence of an old gen race
and where they were quick and where they'd be.
And this was just totally bewildering.
But I think it must be, I was thinking as a driver,
it must be so much more intense because it's not just building up
for that one DRS zone where they kind of string a lap together
to get as close as they can.
They can knit past, but then they have to defend
and try and hold the other one up when they can do it.
It's interesting.
Yeah, as you say, it's got rid of that.
The rest of the lap is kind of just energy recuperation
and tactics, because you know I've got one straight to get them.
Oh, it didn't happen.
You either get the DRS train or it's just a bit of,
I'll follow them for three laps, boost my battery.
But then there's this thing that's triggered, isn't there?
Yeah, we get a bit of extra boost.
Yeah, which is delay.
They can't show it on the graphic of who was overtaking with boost
and who wasn't using boost.
Yeah, yes.
But as you say, they will.
The weirdest thing in Melbourne was the run down the straight
and then you just hear the, it just,
but they're like in the middle of an overtaking.
Yeah, and the boat's slowing down.
That'll be like overtaking a lorry in third
and then short shift to six.
And then it just looks so hard to judge
how to, because you've got nothing left, absolutely flat out,
but you're going slower.
It's such a bizarre.
It did remind me of the arcade games when they first,
it's like Daytona came out.
If you spun, you'd catch up again without doing anything different.
You suddenly found, oh, I'm really good at this.
The rest would slow down.
The rest would slow down so that you catch up.
And this seems a little bit the same, isn't it?
No one can really get ahead.
Yeah.
But then I think when the order is kind of set
and there are gaps between the cars,
it's more conventional because there's one kind of optimal way
to deploy the energy over the lap.
And they're all doing that when they're away from other cars.
But I think as soon as they start to approach each other,
that's when it all goes out the window
and they're hitting the boost button.
Yeah, with a double DRS on the front,
which still takes a while to get used to seeing the front wing move.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's going to be fascinating.
Felford, Oscar.
They just seem to do random things, don't they?
The cars every now and again.
Yeah, because he said it was just an extra 100 kilowatts
of energy, which is quite a lot.
You could see it off the curb as well.
It was just like a perfect combination of things.
Did they get to the bottom of the Stappen's practice shunt?
Because that just like pulled the handbrake on.
Oh, the rear locking.
Yeah, yeah.
But I think they've set the regen so strong
that when you back off, it'll.
It's the equivalent of the brakes.
So when I think when Piastri was sideways,
he would have come off the power and that made it worse.
So they must be really hard things to drive,
which is great, isn't it?
Because it just shakes everything up.
There's interest in Lando saying
we've gone from the best cars to the worst cars,
but his experience is still quite short in Formula One,
whereas there's probably a lot of drivers, Fernando and Lewis,
and Max, who've driven other cars.
Actually, the ground effect cars weren't great.
I suppose if you won a World Championship in one,
it's the best thing ever.
Excuse your.
I think it was just, weirdly, I've been driving around
in a fairly regular hybrid, like a Coupre or something.
I don't know.
Formant or Tormentor.
But one with only three wheels.
It struck me today that it gives you
quite a lot of electric boost early on,
so it feels like quite a fast car, and then that runs out,
and then it's like, eh, it makes a load of noise,
but it's not actually going any faster.
And for the F1 drivers now,
it must be like going from a 296 or something,
which gives you that boost,
but then you've got a proper engine that's making you
go faster and faster to a regular hybrid.
Like a Peugeot 5 or 8.
What's this all about?
It feels quite a quick out of the corner,
and then there's nothing to back it up.
It's not, it feels like Formula One
tying itself in a knot to be relevant
for all the manufacturers that are in,
because all the manufacturers bring all the money,
but it's sort of forgotten that it needs to be understandable.
And a racing car should be at the peak speed,
at the point you hit the brake,
should not be fading away.
Yeah, like someone on the fairground round
just wired an electric go-kart,
and they've wound you back from driving off.
I'm sure it'll get, you know,
the rule changes always feel like a backward step,
and then they get back to where they were
as the nature of it, isn't it?
But yeah, some will protest,
someone doing something,
the Mercedes engine or something.
Impression, yeah.
And they'll all just,
everyone will get excited,
because the Flare races will all be a bit disruptive.
I think Monaco might be interesting, though,
mightn't it, if they can deploy boost
in all kinds of absolute chaos, I would imagine.
Boots in a tunnel.
Wow, yeah.
And the start,
you use quite a short circuit,
so are they going to run out of energy in batteries, though?
It's quite a lot of braking, though, isn't it?
But I guess it's not braking from really high speed
for a long period,
it's more just a quick stop and then in.
But then Monza's going to be odd,
because it's absolutely flat-stick,
with a couple of masses of braking there.
It's the same with Spa, isn't it?
I don't know.
Could be the first one,
where they need the safety car to slow down.
Exactly, yeah.
But some of the responsibilities
fallen now on the engineers,
who must be doing simulations
to work out what the best strategy for the lap is,
whether you're behind somebody,
or whether you're in.
But that's, presumably, that now changes,
because you can deploy anything at any time,
rather than three defined zones.
So all the drivers,
it's a completely variable kind of model now, I guess.
And they have slightly different cars, don't they?
Because it hasn't come out in the wash yet, has it?
Who's got the advantage, Aero wise,
who's got the engine?
I think the cars look better, don't they?
I know they're only 20 centimetres shorter.
And to drive, they are moving around more.
Like you see Lewis laying black lines
in the rays out of the last corner of every lap,
and you think you couldn't really do that last season,
I don't think, without cooking the tyres.
I think with the amount of torque,
that's now going through them, isn't it?
There's, you've got to drive the cars,
and the drivers got more options
than ways of driving the car and using the power, haven't they?
So that's going to be fascinating.
I see how that pans out,
or whether it just settles into,
there's one way to drive these cars.
And then you go back to whatever the equipment of a DRS train
will be of just a boost train, basically.
George is going to be unbearable this way.
Did you see in the, in the cool down room,
when he was like, to Charlotte Clough,
he's like, oh, you guys are quite quick as well.
And Charlotte's like, you were eight tenths quicker than us
in quality, and he's like, no, it's like,
I don't think you optimised.
Yeah, something that's meant to bring the cars
closest together, the Mercedes,
but they didn't know, but they didn't know
if they were as quick as they are.
Yeah. But yeah, he's going to be.
We should support a Brit.
Yeah. And he was great at five.
But they did point out that they're not the only one
with the same engine.
I think the trick is in...
But they developed it first,
and then they gave the customer engines out.
Yeah, I think the trick is in figuring out
the deployment strategy throughout the lap.
I think Merck have got that nailed,
and even the customer teams are way back
on the powertrain performance overall,
because they haven't figured out how to use it
in the best way with the software.
So I think that's where they're lagging behind,
but they'll probably equalise over the season
as they learn more and more.
What I'm looking forward to is when they go to the...
Well, they might not actually go to them at the moment,
but they're really dull, mid-nice tracks,
whether they can actually make those exciting races now.
Yeah.
Because they're the tracks that just...
It seems like there's overtaking opportunities everywhere.
If someone's messed up with how they've used their energy,
or they haven't used enough regen or whatever,
it's just totally random.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it should end those Sunday afternoon
or evening snooze fest once the first lap's done.
Yeah, every race becomes a wet race.
Well, what happens in the wet with all that torque they've might have got?
Yeah, yeah.
My only slight concern is that I think the first 10 laps
were really interesting,
because you could see the drivers experimenting,
where to overtake, to not get done on the next corner kind of thing,
and where to use the boost.
But later on, I think they figured out
that there's a big penalty for using it,
and they were a lot more careful with when they do it.
So like the stack one, I think, caught Norris on much fresher tyres,
and he couldn't get past him for a good number of laps,
and then finished behind him.
So I think they were getting more savvy as to where to use the boost around.
And where to position yourself.
Yeah, exactly.
If someone can't...
If you can just block them momentarily,
then they're done in that moment, aren't they?
Yeah, yeah.
So they'll hang on until the next...
You kill all the momentum, yeah.
I think it's a shame they don't feel like they're absolutely flat out.
Well, they are, but it's just...
They're limited, aren't they?
Well, it doesn't help, because everything on social
was just showing it reaches peak speed,
then it just tails off.
Yeah.
And as you said, you should be absolute peak speed when you hit the brakes.
It's odd to watch, and it must be really weird,
like the feeling of...
Because you're not even out braking, are you?
Getting slower and downshifting without braking into those corners,
and you're sort of racing someone with really no control over going any quicker,
that sort of thing.
I think the rule changes are always interesting, aren't they?
But at the moment, it does feel quite contrived,
because there's so many different opportunities
to influence the pace of your car with the overtake button
and boost deployment and wings, and I don't know.
I think quali is the most painful for me,
because that is when the cars should be absolutely on it flat out,
but they're lifting and coasting on a full-on quali lap,
and it just doesn't seem right.
I think in the race, I can kind of accept it a bit more.
It's more tactical.
Yeah, and there's always been lift and coast and tyre saving, fuel saving,
but quali lap should be a quali lap, I think.
Yeah, that's what I need to address.
Although it will be, because that also means there's a chance
of quali being mixed up, because if you can get that
bit of strategy right in quali, or you sacrifice a bit in quali
to get further up the grid, you might do that.
It's how quickly the teams adapt to it, and it becomes the norm.
It was better than I thought it was, and it's quite fun to learn a new,
like, to interpret a race in a different way,
like what you're watching and how it all pans out.
I think it was quite obvious that the Mercs were going to be
ultimately end up at the top, but it was fun to see the Ferraris catch them,
and both Ferraris catching each other, and there's lots of different races
all the way down the grid, unless you're an Anastomarty.
What is going on there?
It's a disaster, isn't it, at the moment?
I'd love to know how good that car is.
I know they're all built around their own individual powertrains,
but if you could simulate it with a Mercedes engine, how effective the car would be?
New said that the car itself is probably fifth best,
but with a lot of potential to develop, then the powertrain isn't lasting.
And they're not pushing the car, so they can't develop the car?
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I'm just going to lose this on it.
Lose seems a lot happier, more comfortable with the car, and really quick.
Yeah, although they still managed to have a Ferrari strategy.
Yeah, they did, yeah.
Two VSCs, and they just ignored them both.
I lost 20 seconds of race time, but yeah.
I don't think they ever start with a plan A.
No, they don't know.
They must start with like P or something like that.
It's more like a plan A.
Never, never.
Right, well, let's move on.
It's China, I think, this weekend, isn't it?
By the time this goes out, fascinating what happens there.
We're going to stick with the track, because Yusuf, you've been on track.
Back to Navarra, where Carvia was in 2024.
But it's something very different this time.
Yeah, so it was the Maserati MC Xtrema.
So it's like a limited-run, track-only, hypercar thing.
1.3 million, they're only making 62, I believe, they're all sold.
It's hard to relate to these kinds of cars, I think.
It's more of a, you go in and you just want to kind of get the experience out of it
and see what you can offer customers.
But we also had an MC 20 GT2 race car there as well,
which is effectively what the Xtrema is based on.
So it's a de-restricted GT2, 730 horsepower, bespoke bodywork, a ton of downforce.
First time I've driven on slick, so it's quite interesting to turn one.
Like you arrive at 160 miles an hour in there, six gear.
Yeah, it's one of those awkward kind of...
Yeah, it's like triple apex, yeah, yeah.
And it was an onus car, so obviously didn't go 10 tenths with it.
But just to get a feel for the cars, it was really, really cool thing.
What was the, how big a difference was it between a race car and the Xtrema?
So this was slightly awkward because I drove the Xtrema first in the morning,
and then I got into the MC 20, and it's got, I think, 100 horsepower less.
But same tires, and I actually preferred the way that the MC 20 drove,
even though it's, I think, half a million euros, so like a fraction of the cost.
And you can actually race it and enter it into the GT2 series.
It just felt lighter and a bit more racy in its setup, I think.
And obviously lots of these things can change in terms of how you set the cars up.
There's like a limitless permutations of suspension, aero settings and things.
But yeah, the GT2 was the sweeter car, and I didn't really miss not having extra power.
Because I think part of the joy of driving on a track isn't shooting your way down the straight,
just kind of committing into the corners and feeling the car loading up and things.
So yeah, they're both mega.
So is there just more feel in the race car than the Xtrema?
Or was it just the way it sort of talked back to you and sort of moved around?
So the Xtrema was quite physical, so it's still 1300 kilos.
It's a lot of power, and it's got power steering and everything.
So the controls aren't that heavy, but the way the car moves around and extracts grip
is quite physical, like it's jumping around over curbs and things.
So what weight is the GT2 then?
The GT2 I think is a little bit lighter, because it hasn't got a passenger seat and a few other bits.
So it hasn't got like a fully trimmed interior either.
So yeah, you definitely feel the weight difference in the GT2 car.
And it's just more nimble, more positive, and it wasn't as upset by bumps and things.
So I was just more comfortable to attack in that one.
But I had had like half a day in the other car.
It might have been because he spent more time in the...
Yeah, yeah.
I need to go back in the car.
He started it sometimes, don't you?
Yeah, because I think I did the same lap time in both cars, but then the car stayed overnight
and did another day, and they found three seconds with setup, apparently, on the Xtrema.
So that probably would end up playing though.
But no, both really cool things.
I think the closest thing I'd driven to either of those was probably the RS Mantai, the GT3 RS.
And that's actually similar downforce to both of them, which is mad for a road car.
And yeah, it wasn't kind of the giant leap that I expected from something like a Mantai.
I think I went in thinking SLICs would just be a total new world.
But both of them like to move around.
You could drive them on the throttle, laying black lines and things.
I think high performance road straight track day tires have come up so much more, yeah, than...
And I remember the first time I drove on SLICs a long, long time ago, but actually,
if you're used to just working up to the...
It's never like a night and day thing.
So once you get used to it, you just somehow kind of get ahead of it.
Quite quickly, and then you're feeling for the same things.
You just happen to be going a bit faster, particularly in something with wings anyway.
If you went from something on street tires and no wings to SLICs and wings,
I think you'd notice a big difference.
But both really, really fun to drive.
It felt like they were more about the driving experience rather than the outright lap time.
They weren't super nervous and edgy and set up in that way,
both really quite friendly variable traction control and ABS as well.
What does the owner, does the owner do have his own...
I think he's privately used the circuit just for himself.
He hired the track and he had a few mates with him.
So there's like an old Cobra race car.
There was an old, I think it was a Mark Horse or something.
And it was weird being in one of these and just they were taking a Cobra like 160 miles now.
But yeah, so he's a bit of a collector and he's bought the Xtreme.
He's done quite a bit in it.
I think it's done 2000 kilometers or something and it's track only.
So that's all on track marks.
And he was kind of considering getting a GT2 because you can obviously race that car.
Nice.
Yeah, that was a lot of fun.
Nice way to spend a Monday, I think it was wasn't it?
Monday or Tuesday?
Yeah, yeah, it was.
And it was last minute.
I found out on the Sunday that I was doing it and I'm like, no worries.
Sounds good.
Yeah, that's fun.
Plicky, apart from finding the world's biggest pothole.
Yeah, Chris and Dastin's new long-term test car in a local pothole.
So it's just a disaster, isn't it now.
I can't drive anywhere without...
I drove the car out to France for a shot of video with the Benoit de Rapage guy.
Lovely roads in France, all very smooth and silky and then get home and it's just like the
wheels are square.
Well, they literally are square now.
But all the time you get home.
Yeah, we end up driving around the potholes, don't we?
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
It's like, I kind of get used to them on little country roads and B roads,
but they're on A roads and motorways as well.
You shouldn't have to be...
This is the worst I've ever seen UK roads.
I've never seen them as bad as this.
Well, when they start, as you say, appearing on big trunk roads, A roads and motorways.
Some people will drive around them, which then causes others to go, why are you swerving?
Because if I hit that, it's an accident and others are oblivious hitting it and then you'll
see a mile down the road on the hard shoulder.
I don't understand how you can...
It's all part of a transport network, isn't it?
But you wouldn't get on a plane that was as poorly maintained as the road.
So you wouldn't get on a boat or you...
You've not been to Senegal yet.
But if you did, then whoever was providing that service would be liable, wouldn't it?
There'd be some sort of corporate liability.
Yeah, you wouldn't get on a train where it was, I'm sorry, we have to crawl at five miles an hour
because the track's got a deep, deep, deep head, doesn't it?
They're unbelievably bad now.
I think we've had such a wet winter, it just seems to...
It goes back, doesn't it?
Because it's not just, oh, we've had a wet winter and it's caused it.
This is 20, 30 years of no investment and everything's just been patched.
So you have more...
A pothole appears next to the last one.
We'll have to get Tim on to talk about Pothole.
Yeah, yeah.
We see the way the German has patched their roads.
It's like one piece of cloth, isn't it?
They make it fit just perfectly.
There's no noise change, it's just visually it's changed, but the surface is perfect.
It's like a reverse pothole, isn't it?
You now have a bump rather than a dip when they fill.
Well, that's so we then flatten it all in and it, yeah, it's rubbish.
Yeah, so apart from that.
Apart from that, what else have we been doing?
I drove the Valhalla, but we can't talk about that.
No, at the end of the month, you could talk about the Valhalla.
Another month, I've been riding, amazingly.
Oh, yes, you filed some copy 15 months after driving the car.
It wasn't 15 months, it's almost a year.
Almost a year.
15 months.
That is pretty much the definition of almost a year is 15 months.
Yeah, so that was a Hennessy from a trip we did back in March last year.
So, yeah, we did the runway stuff with the car they're hoping to break 300 miles an hour in.
And then later in that trip, we took another F5.
So a revolution, which is the high downforce kit.
Car, we took that on a road trip to Texas Hill Country, which I've never been to.
You kind of imagine Texas has just been a ranch land and oil rigs.
And then you get this quite, as the name suggests, quite hilly, craggy, big area of the country
with lots of canyons and really cool place to drive the car, but bloody hell.
It's like driving a, what was it, 1800 horsepower car on the road is just like entering another dimension.
It's crazy, absolutely crazy.
Does it work on the road then?
Yeah, I mean, it's very easy to drive because it's got so much torque and the way the engine works.
It's not just like all or nothing.
It's got lots everywhere and then loads beyond a certain RPM.
And you've got different performance modes as well.
But yeah, it rides pretty well.
It's quite noisy because it's carbon tub and quite lightweight.
So you get all the kind of stones clattering around.
But fundamentally, it steers really nicely and breaks really nicely, rides well and goes like absolutely clackless.
But you'd just have to recolibrate your head because the, you look at the speedo and it's in MPH,
but it feels like it's kilometers and hours.
It's so easy.
It's, yeah, it's just that.
So what is the speed limit in Texas?
I don't know.
But you did break it.
I think we may have breached it once.
Only once.
In the morning and then back through the limit.
Back in the driveway.
Some of the roads, it's like the space that you have to drive.
And there's some really nice twisty sections.
And then we came over a crest and the road just dropped down and then just carried on going for miles and miles and miles.
And you're like, 10 days?
What do I do here?
But you could be literally doing 250 miles an hour in a matter of seconds.
So you just, what's the, at which point you're not going to go that far.
So is there much point in doing 200 or 150?
And what you don't comprehend about a car at that level is how fast it will get to a really big speed.
And then you come back down again.
I think to anyone that's not experienced that level of performance, it is just at will.
You could be doing crazy speeds, but without feeling like you're not doing anything untoward.
So yeah, that was, that was a nice thing to kind of relive and look back through the photos and Aston's picks.
How far has it moved on from the old Exige-based?
Well, I love that. I really love that car.
It's one of, if I had a sort of massive lottery win, I love one of the original Venom GTs because that was such an unlikely thing.
But all the touch points in the car are at a full GT gearbox, which is a really nice gearbox, amazing engine, great chassis.
It's gone power steering, but still it, so it feels like a big Lotus.
It's got a lovely manual box and that had, what was that, 1200 and I think it was 1244 horsepower, 1244 kilos.
I think that car, that's a very analog car.
The F5 is much more, much more contemporary with them, with a single clutch paddle shift gearbox and a carbon tub.
And it, yeah, it's fundamentally, it's quite different, but the way it makes you feel is very similar.
They're just the engine is unbelievable. Everyone needs to experience that sort of performance.
Do you actually enjoy having that much power on the road though?
Or is it just so far of reaching terms of what you can use that it feels a bit frustrating?
I think we're all adults.
And I think if you have to pick your, pick your moment that it's not like you're tickling along at 85.
Yeah, I think you just, you have to be very, very responsible with a car like that.
It's a bit like, I know lots of people don't understand gun culture in America, but Aston and I went to a gun range.
And the analogy is quite appropriate actually because you have to respect the thing that you're using in a gun range.
And the car is the same. You don't mess about with it.
But if you use it responsibly, I think you can explore a certain degree of the performance.
But it's so fast to have a car that will do 300 miles an hour.
200 miles an hour is like doing, wow, like doing 80 miles an hour in a GT3 RS or something, isn't it?
It's like, well, it's not loping along.
You're in Germany on the Autobahn and you're going as quickly as you want to go or as the car will go
and then you hit a speed limit and you come back down to 80 miles an hour and it feels like you're walking.
It does feel like you can get out and sort of walk.
I think the, what I love about all those cars is that, yeah, they're completely pointless in one sense.
But A, there's people out there doing them and B, like you couldn't drive a more different car
from a F5 Hennessy to a Chiron Super Sport or something.
They both aim for the same headline figure, but the manner in which they do it is totally different.
But yeah, I love them. I'm a bit of a Hennessy fanboy because I've been lucky enough to drive some of the big cars.
But they're something else in the engine.
It's just, when they start it up and it's just this big pulsing V8,
but then you get a little whistly sort of turbo noise just constantly in the background
and the throttle response and yeah, it's mega, mega.
John, you haven't had big V-Turbo-Tars V8s for 12 hours first?
No, not for a little while now.
We've been up to, you've been busy, I know that.
Yeah, I went to see the guys at the Wells Motor Company, which is,
turns out I must have gone past it quite a few times because it's very close to Gaiden
where I worked for a few years and I'd never noticed this little company off to
one side in one of the villages.
So I went to have a chat with the founder and owner of the company, Robin Wells,
who has had this idea for a few years that he's been working on.
Pretty much under the radar, but to build a British-built mid-engined sports car.
I suppose it's most like an A110, but he's been determined to do it the right way.
So it's not going to be one of the flash in the pan.
He's been working on it for at least seven or eight years.
Started off with the drawings and then got the right people involved in terms of engineering.
He's pretty much self-funded. I think he's spent a few mil already, but he's described it as he's
just died into this idea and he's just coming up there, just going to take care and...
It's quite a pretty thing, isn't it?
It's a sort of retro-ish, but...
Yeah, it's small and it's going to be lightweight as well.
There's a lot of good ideas in it, and if you look at it, there are certain aspects of
something. You can stand there and you can say, well, that looks a bit like a D-type at the front
there and the rear lights, they're a little bit strategist and then Robin will stand as a nod.
These are all influences.
On his mood board.
But it's also homogenous. It's its own thing as well.
So yeah, it's got a... I think it's two and a half litre for Duratec engine.
It's only, I think it's about 800 odd kilos and he's been working away at it.
He's got a few employees. I think there's about nine of them working at this little workshop.
And it's very impressive. You look at the detailing of it and the ideas behind it.
It's a proper thing. So it's been slowly cooked to the point where it's come into fruition now.
So when will we get to drivers?
I think it's going to be... There are a few out there already, early adopters, first generation.
There's one that was in the workshop, which has just come back from Switzerland, I think.
So there are cars out there doing miles, but he's been very
cautious about putting the car out there. He wants it to be finished and to be a complete
thing before anybody has a really serious look at it, which is, you know, it's going to be a
couple of months off now, I think. So very impressive. Yeah.
It's expensive.
It's not massive.
It's been half billied.
No, it's not. I don't think it's expensive for the car that you're buying.
For the bespoke, it's a glass fibre body, but it's a sort of folded
steel and other sub-centre section with steel box section for the suspension and
engine mounts and things. And it's 85,000 base, and there are certain options for...
So it's loads of money.
Money. Yeah. Yeah.
Which is fibre glass body with, okay, it's aluminium.
Yeah.
But similar concept.
He's had good people involved.
He won't be making fortune at that, really.
He's not going to get rich selling cars at that amount of money because he's put so much into
them, I would imagine.
He has. He has.
But it is going to be...
Sorry, are we talking about Wales or Lotus?
Wales.
It's going to be a self-sustaining business, but it's been a passion.
So it's with most of these things.
That's exciting.
It is.
And you know, hats off, you know, because too many people have to put the cars out there early
to get interest, to get people to put deposits, none of that with this car.
No, and that always...
Unfortunately, the cars are never ready, and people just focus on the bits that aren't ready.
Ignore the bigger concept, and then they don't get any traction or move on, do they?
Yeah.
I mean, it's a painful process.
I can't remember how many.
I think you said they're on their third person who makes the bodies, you know, the fourth chassis
manufacturer.
And these are the things that you never even consider when you stop.
You just think, I'm going to make a car.
When you're really small, you have no leverage over suppliers.
So the big global conglomerate, they have the same...
Making cars is hard.
It is.
And they have the same supply issues.
And, you know, we saw it with JLR, didn't it, when the knock-on effect in the supply chain,
there'd be someone else's supplier as well for something else.
And if you're using specialist as well, you only need one of them to
lose another client that means they go under, or the owner decides to retire and sell up,
or all that talent and skills, you've got to maintain as well as trying to develop a car.
So you can be happy on your path and know where you're going with it, but you can be,
you know, the rug we pulled very quickly.
So, yeah, all credit term, look forward to driving the car.
Yeah, looking forward to it.
Certain people who've been involved it in the game in the area.
All right.
It's a retired person and somebody we know from A110.
So, yeah, it all looks very promising.
And it's quite a tantalising prospect.
Sounds good.
And the other thing you've been up to sounds quite tantalising,
but the other end of the spectrum that perhaps people won't expect us to be so interested in,
but you've come back quite enthusiastic and horrid up by it.
Yeah, I've seen the future.
Well, the future of electrification.
Yeah, it's called in-wheel motors, and it sounds unfeasible,
but it's a motor that fits in to a regular wheel with a hub and brake disc and caliper.
It will slot in.
This is the, the concept is that it slots in to that space.
So the motor is really slim around the outside.
Has to be a 30-inch rim, but part of that.
Well, they're starting.
The company's called LF, which is ELA-PHE, which I thought was LFA,
because that's LFA, you know, it sounds weird, doesn't it?
But it's a Slovenian company, and they were, they got a big chunk of funding,
and they could see the benefits of in-wheel motors.
So they spent their money proving that this thing was durable.
So there's things they've been through with this.
They soak a hot motor into freezing cold water, just proof of the concept,
and just shown that it is a durable thing.
But where they are now, they don't want to be a mass manufacturer of these things.
They want to supply the knowledge of how to use them to their best effect.
And the effects are quite surprising, because everybody thinks, well, unsprung mass.
It's the enemy of dynamics.
No, exactly what this does is it improves dynamics of cars.
So they had a couple of demonstrators there.
One was the IONIQ 5 planter, which we know quite well.
So they had the standard car and then the car with their in-wheel motors.
So both four-wheel drive.
And we went out to Sweden, which is a venture in itself, on an ice lake.
And the in-wheel motor car was so much better controlled, because the motors are controlled
at 20 hertz, so milliseconds to adjust what the wheels are doing.
So there's no latency from that?
No, no wind-up of drive shafts or things like that.
So they're claiming things like 10% better braking distances,
just because they are minutely controlling what the grip's doing.
15% better acceleration.
You know, these are all big figures, but they can also do other things with it.
They can make them make noises.
They can deliver.
They can literally...
That's the next thing for Formula One, is it?
Yeah.
There's often with electric motors, you get a bit of wind, which can be quite annoying.
So they looked into it and then they worked out that they could play music through the wheels.
So we're standing on an ice lake and it's playing the theme from Night Ride.
Wow, that's really cool.
It will do tank turns as well, which is just stupid.
But they can also deliver haptic feedback,
tactility to say you're running at a grip.
They can also create engine noises.
But the upshot is there are so many manufacturers interested in this technology now.
It is going to take over from where we are at the moment with one electric motor,
delivering drive to axles.
That is going to go...
It's going to take a little while because to make the most of the benefits,
very much like with the original EVs,
to make the most of the benefits, you have to design the car around it.
But you can lose things like traction control, ABS, the birthday control,
because it's all done through the one computer, which is controlling the wheels.
How much dubbings is still in the car?
Is it just batteries and control units and things?
It's much less.
If you lift up the bonnet of the two IONIQ 5s,
in the original car, there's a little frunk,
which you could probably get a few t-shirts and folded t-shirts.
That's a massive gap now where you could have proper frunk.
So yeah, losing various systems.
So cars could get smaller again, not that they ever will.
They could get smaller.
They could get smaller because the way the battery technology is going as well,
and the way that this thing is controlled.
You save systems, you save less curb weight, need less battery,
smaller battery, less weight again.
There's a packaging if it's all in board?
Yeah, smaller wheels eventually.
We can have smaller wheels because car designers will never allow it.
Keep throwing away the template for anything less than 20 inches now.
Yeah, and the moment they're working on 20 to 23, which seems huge,
but that's where they came from.
Some of their original partners helping to prove the technology.
People making cars were into off-roaders and things like that.
But the technology is proven, and we won't see it in a proper in-wheel motor,
fully designed car, probably until the early 30s, they reckon.
But before that, they had another car there,
which is the, if you said, right, you want to drive around a massively quick eye circuit,
what's the last car you picked?
It's probably a big, I can't say the name of the car,
because they were involved as a partner, but now they're not.
But a V8 engine, rear drive, American Coupe.
Okay, I can probably guess what that is.
I think you probably all can.
And they've put two in-wheel motors on the front axle of them,
and it is transformed.
It is, you can...
But you're still keeping them?
Yeah, I still got the ICE engine.
There's a battery in the back, because obviously the motors need to be powered somehow.
But it's integrated to the point where it's a little bit like
our favorite supercar, the Revuelto, in that they're two separate systems,
but they produce a dynamic effect.
So would that make hybridizing stuff simpler than...
Yeah, because you don't need to lose that space between the wheels.
Yeah, for the motors.
So if you're a manufacturer currently going, we need some hybrid cars,
because I was buying our electric cars, or the market, as she did.
But we can't afford to develop a new platform just for hybrid.
You can integrate this system, you lose some boost space by the sounds of it,
or some interior space.
Not much, only for the battery.
So if you could work out a good place for the battery, then you'd be quits in.
But the car is transformed, and they can give you all the modes.
You can have the same as in the Ioniq 5, they give you a drift mode,
right back to quite a safe mode.
But just the level of control between the two Ioniq 5s,
with the standard car with its nipping the brakes to give you that dynamic shift.
It feels really crude, and occasionally it doesn't quite catch it,
so you're doing that.
Whereas in the other car, you know what you're getting, it's consistent.
Even with the changing surface, you know, with bits of ice and stuff.
And the **** is like there was a massive...
The car you couldn't mention, man.
Yeah, sorry.
Did I say that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, did I say Camara?
American car.
The American car.
It's like it has...
Don't tell me they bike.
Well, there's going to be pictures of it.
We just can't say that it's a project that's with that company.
But it's like there's a dumbbell at the front of the car,
a mass that's drawing the car forward with the wheel motor, pulling the car.
So the drifts don't get fully out in shape.
So you've still got all the character, but with more capability.
So it could have a really good racing application as well, then, couldn't it?
Well, yeah.
Yeah, that's one of the things you think about.
How does it get on with, can you imagine, carbon brakes glowing red into the braking zone?
They're going to invite us to a high-mew test next.
But yeah, these things, they're not protected from ingress of water or dust.
They just keep going.
This is the thing they've proven.
Amazing.
And they are the company that's going to help you develop the software
to control them, to get the best out of them.
That's their expertise.
So they're not going to sell the hardware to manufacturers?
They might do bespoke runs smaller volumes,
but they want the manufacturers to do that bit.
So the manufacturer can then still design it to fit within it,
wheel designs, and all this own.
Or they license the rights to that technology, though,
and then they provide the software, like the calibration support.
There are a couple of companies interested.
The thing is, it does.
There are so many benefits to it.
It will be the future for EVs.
They will be 15 years down there.
All be using it.
The Chinese aren't even ahead on this game at the moment.
So this is proper, you know, European-based technology.
And on another environmental side of it,
it then also reduces or eliminates what they're now looking at
in terms of brake dust particulates and stuff.
Of course, it's another.
And the other thing, that's a good point,
but the other thing is that they can now design a tyre for this as well.
Because they can get more out of the tyre.
They can have a more durable tyre.
That provides just the same performance with less particulate.
Because the braking performance will be done through the motor
rather than the tyre having to have.
The tyre still has to do.
It still has to grip the surface.
But it can be a different sort of make-up of tyre
that doesn't shed as much.
So yeah.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
So that's five, 10 years away, early 30s, you said?
Well, the first cars will be hybrids,
which is probably in our sector.
Yeah.
And there will be some hybrids,
probably in four or five years time, they reckon.
And then after that, we'll get full EVs in wheel motors,
which will move the game on.
Fascinating.
That was good.
That was very good.
So that was a good time to have a break.
Join us for part two,
where these three need to decide on two five-star cars that they want to drive.
So we'll come back to that.
And so we'll see you after the break once John has bought the car.
Orange, Kit Kats.
Do we agree with those?
No.
No, I don't.
I don't like that.
That's one bother in trying to get rid of them.
So yeah, if you want some orange Kit Kats,
write into the user address.
Pebble Mill.
Yeah, we'll see you after the break.
Go and have a Kit Kats that isn't orange.
Yeah, you're right.
He's having one of his moments.
All right, you and Dad, take your tablets.
Apologise for that.
We gave him a chocolate orange Kit Kats,
which weren't as good as the fake Jeremy Dodgers
that we brought along as well.
No, no.
No, for debate.
I don't really know.
Not really, no.
I like either.
So part two, those of you familiar with EVO,
we have a data section in,
yeah, there is a spreadsheet,
by the way, this is going to get really interesting.
We have a data section called The Knowledge
where we list all our favourite cars that we've driven
over the last 28 years.
Yeah, 28 years.
Wow.
So for this set, part two,
these three have been asked to pick a used car
and a modern car that has been on sale for at least five years,
and will be on sale within the last five years.
Yeah, yeah.
From each, from one, from a section.
So they can pick any section.
The sections are hot hatches, saloons, estates, SUVs,
roasters, convertibles, Coupe, GT, supercars and hypercars.
So they need to pick a used car from there and a modern car.
One of these cars, they can only drive one more time
and then that's it.
And then the other time,
they've got to drive until the end of time.
I've tried to explain the rules to them as clearly
and explained why their choice isn't eligible.
Explained how many years, five years is to Dickey.
It seems to be stuck.
He was a decade behind everyone else.
But we'll start with Yusuf because I can trust him not to cheat.
So what are you going to go with first?
Okay, I'll go with my sensible drive until you die car, which is...
I don't want to say it had to be sensible.
I know, but it is sensible and also a bit of a hooligan at the same time.
But these, can I just point out these also have to be five-star cars?
They also have to be five-star cars of which they have 255 to choose from.
Which is hardly enough to get on, is it?
How many cars are in the listings?
I doubt a lot.
More than 255.
At least 300.
Yeah, with sticklers with a five-star rating.
Come on then, Yusuf.
So it's an M3 CS Touring is my new car.
Very new car.
Yeah, yeah.
Which happens to be the car you're driving around in.
Yeah, I've just driven to the office in it.
But you also did the launch in it, didn't you?
I did the launch of it at Thruxton, I think it was last year.
Yeah, it would have been, yeah.
Last year, yeah.
So for me, that car is like the ultimate daily driver, the ultimate fast state.
Because it's got like six or seven characters in one.
You can have it as like a really nice relaxing cruiser.
Or it's not super relaxing, but as relaxing as you get.
It's better than it's, because I've done a couple of thousand miles in it.
It's better than I thought it was going to be.
I thought it was going to be a bone shake.
It's not super hardcore and like rattly, but it's got a bit of a raw edge to it.
But then you press a few buttons in the infotainment,
it becomes a rear wheel drive hooligan or a really capable track car
that you could probably keep up with the 911 on.
So yeah, I just love driving it.
I think it's called that it's an estate for one.
But also it's got that bit of rawness in it that I don't think many faster states have.
Like we're used to RS6 as being really capable of four wheel driving and everything,
but this has got that kind of sports car quality to it.
I think it's better than the, it seems a bigger step up and more CS-like than the M3 Saloon and
the M4 CS. Which when we had one car of the year were good, but they didn't sort of
travel the, I think one was 6th and one was 7th.
But I think the touring seems to have more of a CS edge to it.
Not as close to the M5 CS and the original M2 CS, but certainly when I got in it and drove it,
this feels special. And it's not for the sake of it.
It actually feels like it's, whether they've learned from Saloon and Coop,
or they've gone down a different path, or having that M3 touring chassis,
which has got the M4 cab rear bracing, hasn't it?
So whether it's just, it's a better car to start with or to build on.
But yeah, I think it's a really special car.
It feels more bespoke than you'd expect it to be over an M3 touring.
I think a lot of people say, oh, it's a lot of money just getting an M3 touring,
but it feels a different car.
Yeah. Well, I don't know of any estate car that you could use on track and use day to day,
and then also want to drive it on your favorite bits of road.
Like those three bases, it covers really well, and it's not,
it doesn't feel compromised in any way to kind of reach all those criteria.
It's just really good at all of them.
It's like a very full SpyDograph.
Yeah, exactly. It's all maxed out.
Yeah. Yeah.
How are you going to cope with those seats for the rest of your life?
When you get to John and my age and Dickies with dodgy backs and...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I've yet to find a way of getting out of it without falling out of it.
Maybe in a few decades, it might be a struggle,
but right now, I'm like totally fine.
When I catch up to you guys.
Hi, mate.
Did you mention his performance for years coming up?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just making navels.
That's not signed off.
Yeah.
I quite like the seats.
I think they need like...
What, more bolster, more things to make it harder to get in it?
Less padding.
Getting in is the dangerous bit, isn't it, if you forget?
Yeah.
My dad got in and he was like,
why doesn't it have a motorized bolster that kind of detaches and flattens off?
So that when you slide in, it's fine, and then it motors back up again.
Well...
I think that's a good shot.
It would be an innovation.
Yeah, yeah.
Save's taken the hacksaw to the side.
Yeah, and to be fair to you guys,
my 18-year-old cousin got really bad backache in it the other day.
So it's not an age thing.
I think it's just a body shape.
I'm like, cut, wait.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Reaching it.
So you say we're old and we have weird body shapes.
Potentially.
Or what, one of the two.
Keep sticking that hole.
So that's your...
That's my new job.
That's your car tool.
The end of time.
The end of time.
Or it could be Thursday with your end of year review challenges.
Insult whichever coming in first.
Enjoy it while you ask.
Oh, I wouldn't mind really.
That's juicy.
First dance.
Take the keys.
All right then, Dickie.
Let's go with your car to drive to the end of time.
My forever car.
Your forever car.
My forever...
Well, you inconveniently pointed out that I couldn't have a 991.2 GT3 touring.
No, because that's two hours.
Outside of the criteria.
So obviously I just said, well, I'll have a 992.1 GT3 touring.
So I just, if that was the only, if that's the car I had to drive forever.
And it'd be a manual as well, obviously.
I can't think of a better car, really.
That does everything.
Obviously it doesn't do estate car things.
Yep.
You can get stuff in it.
It's quite discreet because it doesn't have a wing.
If it's not in a silly color, it's even more discreet.
They're comfortable.
They're refined.
But they do everything that I want.
Great steering, great gearbox.
Why don't one instead of a .2?
I just wanted to annoy Stu with the time.
I mean, any of that period of car.
I mean, you could say 911 R if we didn't have the constraints of the years.
But yeah, I just consistently throughout my sort of working life,
911s have always been the thing that they just do so much of what you need a car to do,
assuming you don't need a four-seater or five-seat car.
So you are aware you'd actually have to drive this?
This one?
Well, yeah, then I could have my other one,
but just I don't have to drive at all.
Then it'd be a perfect two-car garrel.
I just, yeah, I think they're absolutely...
Was there anything else on the consideration?
Not really.
No, not really.
Not really.
Well, no, actually, the original M2 CS, so whatever that is.
What gen is that?
I don't know.
F87 or G?
G, G, 80, something.
Oh, hang on, I might have it down here.
If I only had a handy list that I could refer to.
That's great.
And that just gets in because they went off sale in 2021.
F87.
F87, lovely.
Yeah, that's a cracking little car.
So it's very similar in so much as it's a brilliant driver's car.
With a lovely manual gearbox and an impressive engine,
German build quality.
But it doesn't draw too much attention.
Like I could say Ferrari or something,
but I think Oralamborghini or...
But I think you want those in small doses,
or smaller doses than this.
I just think a 911 would be the one for me.
Either one.
JV?
Predictable, though, that may be.
Originally, I was in the saloon territory,
and I was going to pick an M5 CS as my daily.
And...
This is podcast brought to you by BMW, M-Card.
And Lotus Carton as my sort of have a go, walk away thing.
But in the end, I couldn't resist there
because I'm not just about to get married.
I don't need all that space.
And you're young, agile.
You can...
Yeah, live.
So I would have gone the GT3 route,
but I would like an earlier GT3.
So my car would be the Huracan rear wheel drive
that we had, the Evo.
Which I did a lot of miles in.
A lot of miles.
I think I did the first drive,
and it was the same car each time as the green one.
So that only, like the M2, that just sneaks in.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, you have to go back as far as you can, don't you?
No lane keeper system, that.
Yeah.
How are you going to get in and out of that?
Well, I think it'd be worth the pain.
I just think that car is, although it's an auto,
so much character and so much width of pace.
You can enjoy it, the engine.
I don't know how they make it more characterful
than anything that Audi produce with the same basic motor,
but they do.
And it's...
Different firing order, I think.
Oh, my God.
Well, I should check them out.
So yeah, there's a richness to it.
The whole experience is fantastic.
I don't think I'd get bored of it.
What do we think of each other's choices then?
So M3 CS Touring,
do you see yourself driving that to the end of time?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's a...
Cracking car, isn't it?
I agree as well.
I think we're very lucky, aren't we,
that we get to drive all sorts of cars.
So, you know, the cars that you'd love to have access to,
but you wouldn't want to be in all the time.
And on the rare occasion, we'd get something like the M3,
or maybe even like the Octa or something.
Do you know what I mean?
It's just so...
I could actually quite happily have an Octa until the day I died,
because I just get a kick out of being in it.
I love the whole thing about the car.
It's not just a particular mood on a particular day,
on a particular road, and they're epic.
They just give you something...
They give you something all the time,
and they're not a mode car, are they?
You can just get in it and still get stuff from it.
You don't just...
I think the Octa, that has to be an Octa mode for me.
But that's just one button, isn't it?
And the M3's got loads of modes,
but fundamentally it feels special when you don't play with them.
And you don't play with them pre-tensionally.
Yeah, the M1, the M2.
Hurricane's interesting,
because there's obviously lots of wedgie supercars.
Would we do to go with the same...
It's hard to resist that car, isn't it?
Yeah.
I think they always look sensational, don't they?
I don't...
I don't know.
Could I live with a Lamborghini?
Probably.
I don't know either, but we would get it.
You want to give it a go?
The sacrifices you'll make.
Yeah, I think it wouldn't be green or orange or...
You'd go more subtle, more classy.
Yeah, I think the first...
Well, is that the first one we had?
That silver one there?
That one there.
That's an Evo.
Yeah, that's the Evo, isn't it?
Yeah, you can get them in non-crypto colours.
Downplay the colour.
Downplay the colour.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What about you, Stu?
Yeah, well, if you come on, you can't just...
Just because you haven't done your homework.
I have done mine, haven't I?
Is this going to sound like a BMW?
I was torn between being...
Because I'm an old fart with a dog and a family and...
What's that for?
And bad back and haven't just spent a year in an RS6.
I was tempted to go down the RS6 Avant GT ring.
Oh, right, cool.
In the Walter Roll track suit.
That was the problem.
I mean, there's certain things I can carry off in the Essex,
but I don't know what that means.
As you went down similar to John,
I actually would have gone for an M5 CS until the end.
I think that just...
Like the CS touring, it just feels special from walking up to it.
And then when you're in it, it could only be an M5 CS.
Even if it feels a big step up just when you're in it from a normal M5.
So I think that, and of course, it's got yellow headlights.
So yeah, it's easy.
It gets extra points.
But yeah, that was just sensational from...
Because that was sort of a weird lockdown car.
I had to go and pick it up from Farnborough for BMW GB.
And it's one of those cars you got in it.
And as you were driving out of the Multistory car park,
you just knew it was special.
But then also, no one else is...
I mean, it was socially distanced and all that stuff.
So you're in that world of, is it as good as I think it is?
Because I can't pass it on to someone else to see what they were doing.
Jethro got in it.
Some people might remember he's going to have to work for a small thing.
And in fact, he was like, this is amazing.
And then we had on Car of the Year.
There was a few dissenting voices on Car of the Year.
And we've sacked them now.
Yeah, got rid of them.
But yeah, why is there a five series sedan car?
M5 had been good that generation, but not...
Not so great, was it?
It was a bit of a ho-hum.
Yeah, it was a bit like a nice thing to have access to,
but it wasn't like E34s and E39s and things like that.
But the CS, just everyone who drove it was sort of...
This is special.
And it is, isn't it?
It's a really, really cool thing.
So yeah, I would have that as my...
Well, that's quite a nice bunch of cars there.
Yeah, quite a good thing.
So then now you're on to your old cars
that you can only drive one more time and that's it.
Well, you've got to park it.
So go and then use it.
I assume this is going to be your S1 release, isn't it?
No, actually, I've gone newer than that.
So I've gone for another Huracan, actually, the STO.
So a bit more hardcore than the We Would Drive Evo.
But yeah, that was the first...
I think it was the first Lamborghini I drove in 2021.
And I was up in the Scottish Highlands.
And I'd just got out of an event at all SVJ.
And I was like, oh, do you know what?
This is everything I want a Lamborghini to be.
It had all the drama.
It fell wild to be in and it was so quick and everything.
But it's much more exploitable, isn't it?
Yeah, and then you get in the STO and you think actually...
Oh, sorry.
Yeah, yeah.
It's got all the drama.
I think it sounds even better from the inside, that V10.
But it's so exploitable and so sharp and always with you.
And you can drive it however you want.
You can kind of enjoy the engine and just flow along or really attack a road in it.
And it comes alive.
But I did it as my kind of one drive and done car
because I don't really want to be seen in an STO with the yellow stickers and all that.
So I think, yeah, just one drive in that.
Get out of my system and call it a day.
I would love to.
Yeah, cool.
Cool car.
Another car of a year, a car that...
Yeah.
Sort of.
Well, the STO was the same year as M5 CS, wasn't it?
Yeah, yeah, it was.
No, no, no, no.
So, no, that was technical.
That was technical.
I think it was STO.
I was at STO.
I think you'll find.
It came second to the M5.
Oh, yes, no.
There you go.
GZ3 plus third.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mega thing.
Yeah.
Dicky.
Me.
Go on.
Well, which 911 if you think?
Yeah.
I don't know.
I don't see a 997.7.
I thought in an effort to keep things real, I'd pick a Pagani.
I don't know whether it's Zonda S or Zonda F.
I think possibly Zonda S, actually.
Yeah, rather than the Zonda F.
But I mean, we've talked about Pagani's a lot seven weeks.
But yeah, I think it's very early days of EVO.
Really super special car.
And I've driven them again since.
And you kind of think, well, they're quite old.
You know, getting on a bit now.
Is it still going to feel as special given the context
of all those sorts of cars has changed completely?
And if it almost feels even better actually now?
Because the things it was great at, then there were other cars
that offered a similar feel.
And now everything's so much sharper and more immediate
and more aggressive and more complex.
And going back to John's point about one-mode car,
it's you that brings the change of tempo and the flow.
And it's such an exquisite thing.
Sounds amazing.
Looks amazing.
It's like everything you'd want your Lamborghini
poster car to be when you're a kid.
But it drives much better than they ever did.
So it's not a folly.
You could drive a F40 or something,
which if we were allowed an older car,
then you'd say sort of a pre-Evo car,
then it would probably be an F40 or an F50 or something.
But yeah, within the sort of lifetime of Evo,
I think it's still the most would be in my top three most special cars.
I think they kind of created that hypercar sector
without really telling anyone about it.
And at the time it was just a supercar,
but that's sort of because of the benchmark.
Well, it didn't go to extremes, did it?
And I think that's the thing.
It just did everything really well
and it moved the game on
and huge confidence in the construction of it.
It wasn't even overpriced.
Was it back then?
No, it was getting.
It was really on the 300 grand.
I think it's like 300 and a bit
when the equivalent Lambo was 250 or 200 and a bit or something.
So it wasn't considering it was a carbon tub
where none of them had carbon tubs and...
But not just a carbon tub.
It was like a tailored suit.
Yeah, it's just beautiful.
Beautiful car.
Do you think the Zonda...
I mean, it got more extreme, more aggressive, more powerful.
Do you think it kind of lost its USP in a way
by going that extreme?
A little bit, I think.
And I think they've got their mojo back with the Utopia.
I think that's much closer to where the Zonda sat
because it's an extraordinary car,
but it doesn't profess to be a track car
or to do anything too radical.
But what it does do is gives you that...
It's a proper exotic supercar.
And I think supercar, as a name,
is probably...
Is currently dropped a little bit, hasn't it?
Because everyone's obsessed with hypercars.
But I think they're still...
I would still say Utopia is a supercar, not a hypercar.
Because it has that, it sounds wrong to say modesty,
when you're talking about a Pagani,
but they're not headbangers at all.
So you can just do big distances and drive them easily.
But when you really want to drive them quickly,
they work really well.
So yeah, I think that would be a lovely thing to...
Because every time I drive a Pagani,
I sort of think, well, maybe I might not ever
get the chance to drive this again.
Because they're such special things.
So it's just like a one last go, I think,
of something like that, definitely.
JV?
Yeah, I had the Zandra S on my list as well.
It was just such a tactile car.
And Loris did the set-up.
And then Loris Garci did the set-up.
And the damping is lovely.
And the way the car behaves really approachable for a supercar.
And then all my other cars are also fantastic.
They have fantastic ride quality.
There's something, obviously, that clicks with me about that.
So I could have had Speziale 458, Speziale 4GT.
Great drives in all of these cars.
Or GT3 997.
I can't be the last time.
So I'm going to go back to the Audi R8 4.2 manual.
Oh, cool.
Which every time I drive it, it's just magic.
So would you want that to only drive it one more time, though?
Yeah, because I think the Huracan is just more of an experience.
Everything the Audi does is so sweet and so perfected.
It's almost too good.
You want something with a little bit of raw edge to it.
There's a little bit of the NSX about it, wasn't there?
In that, yeah, I think you kind of expect there to be some sort of quirk
or they can't possibly have got it this right.
Yeah, this polished first time.
And arguably, they never did it quite as well as that.
Yeah.
Again, did they realise it tweaks around with it?
Yeah, they always felt like they had to change stuff and update stuff.
Well, you could combine the two and have an R8 V10.
Yeah.
The thing is that's never hit the spot for me.
That's the weird thing.
I got locked down again.
I got stuck with an R8 V10 manual.
But you did.
And it was not a manual.
It was a rear-wheel drive, wasn't it?
It was a rear-wheel drive.
That's what I meant to say.
Yeah.
And ended up not really enjoying it.
Interesting.
For a whole year.
So I've sort of been there, so yeah.
But the Huracan somehow is just a different experience.
Compared with the R8 V10.
But yeah.
So we had to go on the Aira's test, that lovely, lovely car that we had done that.
And that again is just, wow, it's just nailed this.
Absolutely nailed it in all departments.
They're so undervalued as well in his days on the market.
Less than 40 grand.
Yeah.
Well, it's just, that's where it suffers from its badge, isn't it?
Yeah, that's right.
Someone else has gained because they get a bargain supercar essentially.
Yeah, yeah.
It's always suffered from that in the R8.
And even the later V10s and stuff, they're still.
Yeah.
When you think of, this is the same company that will build you a seven seat SUV has built one of those.
It's huge.
They've left quite a gap, I think, haven't they?
In that they were a mid-engine supercar you could aspire to own because they weren't.
They weren't anywhere near Ferrari money, were they?
They were more like Porsche money.
Yeah, they're an island turbo money, weren't they?
Yeah, something a bit different now.
I'm sure they'll come back as a rebadged Ferrari or something.
Which John will love.
Is there a comment?
What do we think of their choices, each other's choices?
Has anyone select anyone picked a car?
You think, oh, actually I'd rather swap my car for their car?
Nope.
Yeah, STO is the one for me.
No, I'm happy.
It's funny that we've all, I mean, I love hot hatches.
So I did kind of think maybe for the car you're going to spend all your time in,
I could quite happily be in some sort of Renault Sport product tour.
But I think you end up getting drawn into the slightly more.
Particularly for the last drive, because I was sort of toying with, well,
I was drawn to the supercar stuff in it.
Well, Crera GT, because it was just, well, we don't know what you've picked yet.
Well, come on.
But I was drawn to.
All look over there.
First of all, it's sort of just an instant, well, Crera GT,
and we're on the same launch all those years ago.
And it's just that car that you've got a memory for that you want to,
you'd have one last recall of it.
And then the first McLaren ever drove with a 675LT, which was just mind blown.
But I think that was because it was also the first time I drove in the McLaren,
but it was such a beautiful car, that car.
I thought that P1, actually.
Yeah, I just think, and so I was going down that supercar route,
and then you saw things about other McLarens, and then if it's going down
high, like Crera GT, should be more ambitious and want to drive T50 or something like that.
But then I thought, no, some of the best drives I've had have been in
some of the hot hatches or green V and monogation cars.
And it's just behind Dickey's head, so I keep looking at it.
Be a 22B.
Oh, wow.
Because when we had it with the LFA and theismo GTR,
some of those drives over the moors in Richard, who's the only who lent us his car,
were just mind blowing in that.
That would be a drive, and that's still a drive that I remember sort of every
bit of the North York moors.
I drove it onto that chute and film.
I can remember every detail of it and what that car did.
I just think they're just mega those cars.
It's quite easy to be blinded by all the supercars.
That's one last drive.
You've got to have a big engine that makes blows of noise and stuff.
But I think particularly during sort of Evo's time, we went through that period with those
homologation cars and Evo's and Impressors.
And then we've got today with GI Yaris and stuff.
But yeah, 22B, just that, because I didn't drive it when it was in the first issue.
So it waited 20 odd years to drive a 22B and it just didn't disappoint.
And just have one more go in that would just be if you could take your brain out and
just a mega place to road.
Yeah, so that would be me, would be a 22B, because it's got elements of what you like.
Just rides, those road cars.
Yeah, it does work brilliantly on those roads.
They work brilliantly on the roads we have in the UK.
Well, maybe not the ones that we've got, right.
They'd want a Safari rally spec.
Yeah, so that would be my M50S in the last final drive of the 22B.
Nice.
I'm still I'm surprised at the
mid-enginedness of our...
Yeah, but mid-engine cars should deliver in theory, shouldn't they?
They don't always do it, do they?
But when they get it right, they're quite hard to beat.
Has any overall experience of being in them as well and cover the looks of them?
We moved from all other cars on them, I think.
Yeah, you can't have an everyday mid-engine sports car, can you?
Yeah, there isn't an LX spec.
I reckon.
Yeah, they're all top end, aren't they?
Yeah, it is a broad spectrum of stuff, isn't it?
But then, how many of these?
None of these are M5CS.
Which Sonda one car?
Did Sonda win car for you?
Or was it Waira?
Was Waira, wasn't it?
No, it was Sonda.
Sonda 101.
Yeah, that was an S.
It was an S.
It was an S, I think.
It wasn't an EF, was it?
Was that the one in Umbrell?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so there's a couple of cars of the year winners there, aren't there?
And then very high finishes in the ones.
Well, we don't know about them.
But not three, BMW.
Well, I prefer it to the M2 we had on last year's car of the year.
Yeah, the odd, certainly.
What's the M2?
What tires is it on?
It's on four races.
It's on four races, isn't it?
Which this time is probably a good thing.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that's about being an interesting car.
Whether sort of in the next seven, eight months,
we decide whether it's still car of the year worthy or not.
Yeah, get in a group test or something.
Yeah, it could potentially be.
But yeah, it's an interesting blend mix, isn't it?
Over 255 cars.
Because there's so many, because when you look at the M5,
maybe I won't have the saloon.
I'll have the saloon car for a final drive,
even though that seems a bit of a waste, really,
despite how good an Alfa GT-A is.
The criteria is good, though, isn't it?
I think, yeah, like it focuses you on different things.
Because the same year, you could have a swap,
I'd swap an M5 out for a project date,
that GT-AM Alfa will be driving a lot.
And things like the 22B, you could switch out
for any of the mad Mitsubishi's or GT-R or something.
Or GT-Rs.
Yeah, I mean, think of the cars that have been left on the table.
It's quite a mix, isn't it?
Yeah, just having a look through here,
what else is a Firestar car?
Quite a few.
Well, 253 of them are GT-3s.
Probably.
Well, here we go, here's some really interesting.
12 of them are Renault Sport models.
Wow.
Yeah.
I can't need 12 Renault Sport models off the top of my head.
Well, there's eight different McCanns, four different Clios.
Yeah, exactly.
Many were talking about remembering drives.
So R26R, I can still remember that.
Yeah.
Every mile.
And on the Fistoneo Road.
Yeah.
Yeah, you just have a bit of kit.
Have cars.
So there's eight BMWs.
Only eight BMWs.
In the saloon section.
Oh, in the saloon section.
There's more.
I said that so under Hot Hatch is the most popular Renault model
under saloons, estates and SUVs.
It's eight BMWs.
Roses and convertibles, 12 lotuses.
Coupes and GTs.
Why did I not add that one up?
Or is it all printed out?
That's not printed out.
Anyway, there is a disturbing amount of Porsches under supercars.
I think in total.
So Porsche is seeing Coupes, GTs and supercars and rotors and convertibles and there's 45.
Yeah, I was going to say, it's got 20% of the list of Porsches probably.
The work from our sponsors.
Lamborghinis, really popular in the Clarens.
As you'd expect, pretty much all of them are five stars.
Ferrari's huge number spread across.
Four masters, all in X5.
Yeah, it's then where every Civic Type R has been pretty much.
And that was a tricky one to leave.
What do you think?
Oh, car for the, when you mentioned a Hot Hatch for the rest of your life.
If actually an FL5, yeah, that's a great car.
I couldn't live with a suspension, I don't think.
As you get older.
Too stiff, but yeah, no, great thing.
Great thing.
Or we should do it with a more defined category, shouldn't we?
We can, yeah, we can.
Free choice.
Have another think.
Yes, so we'll revisit this concept.
Maybe favourite variant of Lotus Lease S1.
In green.
In green, let's have a lot of money spent on it.
Lotus Racing Green.
So, yeah, we'll draw this one to a close.
Thank you very much for joining us.
John, thank you.
You too.
Thanks for your attention.
We will see you next time.
About this episode
A lively discussion covers the new Formula 1 regulations and race dynamics, including energy deployment and driver strategies. Yusuf shares his experience driving the Maserati MC Xtrema and MC 20 GT2 on track, highlighting their distinct characteristics. The hosts lament Britain's worsening pothole problem and explore the challenges of maintaining roads. John visits Wells Motor Company to learn about a new British mid-engined sports car project. The episode also delves into innovative in-wheel motor technology promising improved EV dynamics. Finally, the team debates their dream daily drivers and one-time special cars from a curated list of five-star vehicles.
Original notes
In episode 41 of the evo podcast, we decide on the ultimate daily drivers, discuss the state of Britain's roads, the controversial start to the Formula 1 season, a new British sports car and a whole lot more. This week Stuart Gallagher is joined by John Barker, Richard Meaden and Yousuf Ashraf.
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