RELOAD PODCAST Feb 17, 2026

Reload EP151 - Elliott Roberts of Performance VW Magazine

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118:00

Car

Volkswagen R32

The Volkswagen R32 is a sportier version of the Golf car, designed for better performance and handling. It's well-liked by car fans for its speed and all-wheel drive system.

Car

The Nissan Skyline is a sporty car that became really popular in the 1990s because it's fast and has cool features. The R32 model is especially famous among car fans for its performance and racing history. It's often mentioned because of its impact on car culture and video games.

Car

Volkswagen Jetta

The Volkswagen Jetta is a small car that is easy to drive and has a lot of space inside. It's a good option for people who want a reliable and practical vehicle.

Part

roof skin

The roof skin is the outer part of a car's roof. If it's in good shape, it can be used to replace a damaged roof on another car.

Term

floor panels

Floor panels are the flat parts that make up the floor inside a car. If they get damaged, they can be replaced with new ones.

Part

anti-roll bar

An anti-roll bar helps keep your car steady when you turn. It connects the wheels on each side and stops the car from leaning too much, making it safer and more comfortable to drive.

Part

wheel bolt

A wheel bolt is what holds the wheel onto the car. If it breaks, the wheel can come loose, which is dangerous.

Term

prop shaft

The prop shaft is a long metal tube that helps send power from the engine to the wheels so the car can drive. Without it, the car wouldn't be able to move.

Term

brake lines

Brake lines are like hoses that carry the fluid needed to make the brakes work. If they break, the brakes won't work, which is very dangerous.

Term

track rod ends

Track rod ends are parts that connect the steering to the wheels, helping the car turn. If they wear out, it can make steering difficult or unsafe.

Term

rebushing

Rebushing means changing out old rubber parts that help the car's suspension work smoothly. New bushings can make the ride feel better and help with steering.

Term

Haldex

Haldex is a system that helps cars send power to all four wheels, which can improve grip and control, especially in slippery conditions. It's often used in some Volkswagen and Audi vehicles.

Car

Volkswagen Gti

The Volkswagen Golf GTI (Mark I) is a small car that is known for being sporty and fun to drive. It's the first version of the GTI, which stands for Grand Touring Injection, and was popular for its speed and handling.

Part

cracked head

A cracked head is a serious issue in a car's engine that can cause it to overheat or not run properly. It usually means the engine needs major repairs.

Part

torque wrench

A torque wrench is a tool that helps you tighten bolts to the right tightness, which is important for safety and performance.

Part

caliper rebuild kit

A caliper rebuild kit is a set of parts used to fix a brake caliper, which helps your car stop. It usually has seals and other pieces that can wear out and need replacing.

Car

Volkswagen R32

The Audi R32 is a sporty version of the Audi Golf that has a powerful engine and can handle well in different driving conditions. It's popular among car fans for its performance.

Car

Audi TT

The Audi TT is a small sports car that was first introduced in 1998. The Mk1 refers to the first version of this car, which was made until 2006.

Car

Volkswagen Golf R32

The Volkswagen Golf R32 is a sporty version of the Golf hatchback, made from 2005 to 2006. It has a strong engine and all-wheel drive, which makes it fun to drive.

Term

brakes

Brakes are what help a car slow down or stop when you press the pedal. They work by creating friction against the wheels to slow them down.

Term

tires

Tires are the round rubber parts that go around the wheels of a car. They help the car grip the road and are important for safety and performance.

Term

alignment

Alignment is about making sure the wheels of a car are straight and working together properly. If they're not aligned, it can cause uneven tire wear and make the car harder to drive straight.

Part

forge diverter valve

A diverter valve is a part in turbocharged cars that helps manage the air pressure. It releases extra pressure when you let off the gas, which helps the engine run better.

Term

VCDS

VCDS is a tool used to check and diagnose problems in Volkswagen and Audi cars. It helps you see how well the car is performing and find any issues.

Term

boost

Boost is the extra air pressure that turbochargers add to an engine. It helps the engine produce more power by allowing it to burn more fuel and air.

Car

Porsche 911

The Porsche 911 is a famous sports car that has been around for a long time, known for being fast and stylish. People love it because it combines great performance with a unique look. It's often talked about because it's a symbol of luxury and driving fun.

Car

Acura CL

The Acura CL is a stylish two-door car that was made to be both comfortable and fun to drive. It was produced in the late 90s and early 2000s and is known for being a good value if you're looking for a used luxury car. People mention it because it offers a nice mix of luxury and performance.

Car

Volkswagen Bus

The Volkswagen Bus is a classic van that people loved in the 60s and 70s, often used for family trips or as a camper. It has a very unique shape and is considered a symbol of freedom and adventure. People talk about it because it brings back memories and has a cool, retro style.

Car

Rolls-Royce Ghost

The Rolls-Royce Ghost is a super fancy car that is all about luxury and comfort. It has a powerful engine and a really beautiful interior, making it one of the most expensive cars you can buy. People talk about it because it's a symbol of wealth and high status.

Car

Audi Quattro

The Audi Sport Quattro is a fast car made by Audi, famous for its ability to grip the road well and go really quickly. It was built for racing and is a favorite among car enthusiasts.

Car

Porsche 928

The Porsche 928 is a sports car that was made by Porsche. It has a front engine and is known for being both fast and comfortable to drive.

Car

Ford Orion

The Ford Orion is a small car that was made in the late 80s and early 90s, mainly for people in Europe. It's known for being affordable and practical, making it a good choice for everyday driving. People talk about it because it reminds them of simpler times in car history.

LIVE

Hi, folks. Welcome back to another episode of Reload Podcast. My name is Connor McCann

and joining me as always are Lee Maxwell and Nigel Lamont.

So it's episode 151. It's our first interview of 2026. We have Elliot Roberts of Performance

Volkswagen Magazine. So I think whether you're into Volkswagen's or not, you'll enjoy an

interview. It's a deep dive into automotive culture and how the magazine has actually

survived throughout the death of print media, which is very interesting. But before we get to that,

guys, what's new to you? I actually have some stuff this time. Excellent. Let it upon us.

I've started working on the R32. Yeah, boy. So we talked last time, obviously, Connor was doing

bits on the TT and he was on the ramp, so I couldn't get the R in. And then we needed to clear a bit

more space around the garage. So remember the donor Jetta that I bought like a couple of years ago

to get panels and just as spares for my Jetta? Honestly, the best money I've ever spent, it has

been worth its way in gold that week or but it was finally time for it to get out of the garage

so that we could have a bit more space for working on the Mark II and the R32.

So last weekend, we got the saws all on the nine inch grinder and chopped it up.

Indeed. Yep. So the shell was pretty much picked bare. It just needed chopped up. So

pulled the four doors off. I had a lot of joy doing something like that.

You know what? It was great. It was good. I'm very good at taking things apart. Yeah.

And breaking stuff. So it'll be right up my street. Well, the way we took this apart,

you wouldn't have put them back together again. It's like now, well, we took the roof off in

one piece and I think somebody's going to take the roof skin because it has a sunroof and the

roof is there's not rotten or anything like it's a good roof skin. It's just no good to me because

mine's a non sunroof and I don't want a sunroof and obviously kept the four doors, the windscreen,

the rear screen was already out. We took the windscreen out and then we basically ran the saw

just behind the A pillars across the floor. So I'm keeping the whole front

because the inner arches, the front panel, the bonnet, the dash, all that stuff could come in

handy and is in good condition. But everything else basically back from that. You can buy floor

panels anyway. We've already used some of the rear panels. So pretty much everything else is now

a big metal jig. So lying outside. The back axle as well. Kept the back axle. It has a built-in

anti-roll bar. So it's like a factory upgrade for, I assume, GTI mark ones have the same.

But the the jet is definitely not a built-in. Actually, it looks more like an aftermarket

bolt-on type one, but it is factory. What year is it? Well, mine's 83. I don't know what the donor

one was. So, ah, money well spent. It has been great to have it. Even just forgetting the pattern

of a part or, you know, I know. Because if you buy aftermarket and the molds aren't

great of the press and isn't quite what it should be, at least with that, you have the actual factory

lines and so that was good. So that was done. And then we'd cleared up, swept up, tidied up,

got everything outside, whatever. And we says, right, let's make a start on the R32. But we were

like tired and we'd been working all day chopping shit up and whatever. So we got the R on the

take the wheels off at least and start spraying some penetrating oil in around some of the

suspension bits and stuff that we're going to be taking off to give it half a chance.

And on the front, driver's side wheel, snapped one of the wheel bolts.

Snapped it? Snapped the head? Taking it off? Taking it off?

Yep. The head and about, I don't know, a centimeter of the thread just snapped.

You love that sort of thing, haven't it? Really put a smile on your face?

Yeah. Every other bolt bang on and that one was strange.

So the front wheels, I'd never had the front wheels off. I had the rears off, obviously,

because I've had the spacers, but I'd never had the fronts off. So they were, they were all tight.

Somebody had been dug a dug in them. That's what we were writing.

Aye. Some tire man just wanged it in with the air gun.

Six dug a dug a seven dug a dug us.

So that was fun. So that was a good night. And that's quite enough of that for this weekend.

So that's going to change easily in the house.

Yep. Yes.

Pretty much.

So I guess we'll do a bit more tomorrow, but at least progress has been made. It's on the ramp,

the wheels are off sort of and work. What's the work you're planned?

Well, it changes every time I look at it, because I think we'll,

while I'm there, if I'm going to do this, then I might as well do this and

have a mark two sitting in there as the gut.

Well, your bare minimum needs a deaf seal in the back.

Yes. Prop shaft burn. Yep.

Break lines.

Break lines. Track rod ends on the front.

You have your exhaust to go on.

New exhaust to go on. New old exhaust.

Rebushing while you're up there.

And yes, because why not?

That's the thing.

And just a kind of.

You have the press now, don't you?

Yes.

Yeah.

General refresh and tidy and under seal and

all that good stuff because I don't want to have to do it again.

Well, if you're going to drop the tank out,

you may as well do everything else that's in there anyway.

The Haldex or to take the prop shaft and that out.

All that stuff has to come out anyway.

So while it's out, like, I don't want to be sitting this time next year going,

oh, I need to take all that out again because I need a brake line or.

The working fault, pulling that stuff apart.

Just do it once.

Yeah, you could add another two weeks on to the process of doing what you're doing.

And save yourself time and money in the long run.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So that's the plan still.

What about you, Nigel?

A few bits and bobs.

I took the head starters this week and put my gloves board up for sale.

You did indeed.

Vaguely on my Instagram story.

I've got a few inquiries about it, but I'm sort of what's the deck heads term?

Testing the water.

You're wasting people's time because you might not be wasting people's time.

If the right offer comes in, very rare car.

Still not sure if I want to sell it.

I have other things in my mind.

And took the head starters this week.

And yeah.

Selling sausage syndrome kicking in.

And we're actually discussing it for about 10 minutes before we start recording here.

Well, it's like Lee said.

What ifs and whats, you know.

It's a well specced club sport.

You've got wind backs in it.

It's a very rare specced car.

Yeah.

If you want, if you sell it to buy something else,

you're probably not going to get that car back.

So it's.

Yeah, and that'll be one of them cars you're selling 10 years down Lego.

What was I thinking?

Yeah.

But at the same time.

I wouldn't compare them to Mark II G60 Limited.

It's because there was a hundred of them made.

But there's a thousand other non-S's.

There's 400 of the S's.

I looked up on how many left of the non-S's and there's 600.

And then you go down to Nitty Paddocky.

A lot of them are five doors.

A lot of them don't have wing backs.

I would say that car's probably six or 70 maybe of them.

That's back.

One of a handful anyway.

What I like to see at the moment is actually there's a lot of guys

who are talking about this.

I think a few episodes, the job imports.

There's a lot of club sport being imported.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Five-door ESGs.

That'd be a cracking daily driver.

Every Sunday.

You need to get them well understeer coming into this country.

Yeah.

Mark I's crying in the corner.

I did do a bit of gypsy trading with Lee.

So that's right.

We did a little swappy swap.

So the Mark I head still off it.

Blah, blah, blah.

Nigel's life's a mess.

But it's hard to do things when it's been raining for 700 days.

Honestly.

It's just the process.

So horrible.

But no, I swapped.

Lee had Mark I GTI breaks off her gel.

Yes.

And she needs a bit lid and I have a bit lid off Mark IV.

Yes.

So Dale was done.

I still have to get that off Lee.

Sorry, apologies.

It's OK.

I won't need it for a little while.

Oh, that's OK.

Yeah, the G60 edition one.

It's 16 years and counting now.

Is that what it is?

I'm 46.

It's nearly 47 because I bought it.

For your 30th.

From the 30th.

I'm going to turn.

Hold on.

It's going to be 18 years and two weeks time.

It's your birthday soon.

Yeah.

And what are you going to be?

I bought it on my 30th.

Oh, God.

I'm going to be 48.

Yeah.

And have you never driven it?

Never.

Have you never driven that car?

I sat on it and made brum brum noises.

On the way.

So was it not running when you bought it?

No, the head was.

Right.

It was cracking the head, was it?

Piston was gone, cylinder three and there's a crack in the head.

That's a disgrace.

It explains why you have an absolute immaculate interior and that thing.

Oh, it's immaculate.

Because no one sat on it fucking.

Well, that's all anybody's done is sitting.

Yeah.

So nothing done there.

Anyway, by the by, to sort of help myself in this shitty weather and being useless at

doing it than in my car collection.

I bought myself new tools.

I was getting, I was, I was able to get in cars this week.

Sorry.

You were, yeah.

You're flat out.

So on Monday, no, on Tuesday, I had to take my daughters.

She's a VW up for MLT, give it a quick check over all's good.

Changed the oil in two and passed no problem.

The very next day, I took the R to MLT and passed it to nice.

So all my way out of the MLT with the R.

I was, I was doing breaks in that actually.

And my rebound to break caliper rewind tool is basically missing bits and broken

all the rest of it over the years.

Over the north down factors, which is basically a hundred meters down.

They had a break caliper rewind tool for 20 quid.

And I also, after procrastination for six months, my torque ground was broken.

And the price one in there is a bit pricey.

So then I don't know what every good local supporter done went on Amazon.

But I did buy the caliper rebuild kit.

That's good.

No, it's always nice to get new tools.

Yeah.

So it's always nice for you, Buzz.

Yeah.

My head's in the world, man.

But Dub's head's coming.

So good.

Don't talk.

It's coming down fast.

Like a great train.

Fucking very fast.

The TT for me then is never going ever ongoing battle with that car.

The last time I was talking about to put the bushes in the back,

we'd made the break lines.

I was struggling to bleed it.

Stefan come around the pressure bleeder.

We did bleed it then.

That was another absolute nightmare.

Just before going any further,

wedged on my head because I'm old and my head's a sieve.

Is it true the tax ban in April is going to 700 a year?

Nope.

It is on certain year.

It is on mine.

On year.

So I suddenly came on TikTok,

I'm an auto page fan,

and they're basically going,

they're getting out of the car,

they're going for the juggler now.

So Lee's or R32's already in the 700 pound bracket.

The TT.

But it only went last year because,

but I am, or I taxed it the month before the new tax came in.

So I got a year at the 400 pound rate.

But the thing Nigel's talking about is the big tax jump

that they're really hammering this year is from 06 onwards.

So they did build Mark 1 TT's in 06.

So it's the Mark 5 or R32 thing?

They're going to decrease in values on the stock.

Pre 07, pre 06 ones, because they're lower tax.

Now, if anybody wanted rid of their Mark 5 or R32 for cheap,

because of that reason,

I know a man who might buy one doesn't tend to tax things.

So it doesn't really cost.

There you go.

It doesn't affect him.

Works out in the end, doesn't it?

So yeah, I got the brakes played eventually,

put two tires on the back, got the alignment done,

and she ever drive a car and you're like,

because I don't drive that car very much with working from home,

it always feels a bit different when I get into it.

And I get into it the other day to go to the shop,

I was posting stuff off and I was down to the shop and went,

this thing feels a bit sluggish.

It just didn't feel right.

Went to the shop, come back in,

and the car was fine.

And then I was like, right, so start to wonder,

and there's a, well, what says on it,

forge diverter valve.

And I don't believe it is.

I think it's a frog with an E, diverter valve.

And I've never liked it, but it always has been fine.

So I've just been like, right, leave it alone.

And then I was like, right, fuck this scan that

I was giving a fault with the diverter valve.

And I was like, right, in order to genuine one,

so it arrived yesterday.

But I wanted to log with VCDS, what the boost.

So you can log specify boosts from the ECU

and then actual boosts from the map sensor.

So I took it out yesterday.

And of course the thing was going like a falter cat.

Like it was going better than ever.

And I, so I was like, that's always a bad saying in the urgent.

I was logging this thing.

And I was like, why is this fine?

This is right, whatever.

And I went to change the diverter valve.

And Lee was like, no, keep logging it

until you get the fault and see what's happening.

So on the way here, Lee hit the laptop with her.

And I was doing danger to manifold, you know, all sorts.

So I was doing wide open throttle.

Tissue engineer.

Third gear pulls.

And it was down.

It was down about, what did you reckon it was?

About 150 millibar.

So I think that was a couple of PSI.

So it was like a lot, but probably you'd probably feel that.

So I'm going to stick an N75 valve into two.

That's a 225.

It is I.

And then once I get that sorted, I'm going to get over

to stick a big stinky remap on it.

I was just going to say, that was a making of the 225 engine.

It's waking them up so much.

I'm at the point where I'm either going to crush the thing

or I'm going to spend money on it.

And knowing the amount of cars you have up the back of your yard,

it'll never be crushed on or so who you can.

Well, when I say crush it, go buy something else.

My problem is I don't have time to work on it.

Like if I buy something that needs a bit of work,

like that Mark 6GTI that come up recently,

would have been perfect for me.

That was tempting, wasn't it?

Oh, beyond tempting.

And my problem is I don't have the time to do the work to it.

So I need to just and I don't do enough miles now

to justify spending big money on something.

But if I know their projects, I just fucking chop the TT into bits,

probably alongside your Jetta.

And I'm bought that Mark 6GTI.

I'm at this weird point where I don't know if I hate the TT or love the TT.

I love the looks of it.

I love the driving position of it.

I want to love the car.

I'm not sure if it's the 20 Volvo or not,

that it's not yelling with, there's something about that car.

As I have already said, it's not a VR.

Therefore, that's why you don't like it.

And I am a VR guy.

You won't be happy until it's a VR.

Well, that's what I'm thinking.

I'm going to put a map on it and see and then come summertime.

I'm just going to probably drive my Mark 2 for all I drive anyway.

So I've a Mark 2 VR that will probably become my daily.

Summer daily.

That's where I'm at.

It's a good place to be at.

You were talking about something off-air there that

picked my interest.

Where it comes back to what we're talking about a couple of weeks ago.

Ultimate stance.

Yes, I don't think we're going to do any news,

but it's just a bit of sort of news that's sort of important

in sort of the car culture scene.

And that is basically ultimate stance.

And I just think we talked about it a few weeks ago.

Basically, ultimate stance he was folding in on the rest of it.

The latest news is that it's making a comeback via GR8 magazine.

And that's Dutch, isn't it?

Dutch or Belgian, I'm not sure.

So it's going to be called the great ultimate stance.

And it's going to be at the Telford Center.

It's going to be the 24th and 25th of October.

So it's going to be a two-day event.

I think the ultimate stance team are still behind it.

It's just it's backed by a great magazine.

Yeah, that's good.

And that's probably what that show needed.

It's a bit of investment or a new blood in to try and do

something different.

What's a little bit interesting to see show season closer.

It is bells in there.

Just check.

But that'll hopefully bring the good old days of like when the bells

when Dutch came over and brought your cars over here, guys.

Here's how you actually do it.

Those guys are insane.

Yeah.

And then in the total opposite end of things from a season closer,

we have the season opener.

Yeah.

11th, 12th, April.

Dog show is coming.

The first two waves of indoor entries have been accepted.

And it is looking absolutely fantastic.

Really good quality and number of entries from all around the island.

And great to see a load of entries from England, Scotland though.

Either the entry levels or I must be able to do ultimate dubs.

Not being the season opener for those guys now,

but the entries from Scotland, England have ramped up something

shopping this year.

It's great to see.

Yeah.

See what's happening in the rest of the UK.

So you have basically, well, by the time this goes out,

you'll have a week and a half to get your entries in for indoor spots.

It closes on Friday, the 27th.

I was checking.

We're nearly broke our record for entries and we still have two weeks to go.

Just every so often there's indoor selection or there's a media post

and jumps up on our 40 or whatever.

It's very, very interesting to see.

Really looking forward to it.

After the indoor entries closes, there'll be emails sent out about

what way it works out for you.

And then we'll open up outdoor because outdoor is selection now.

So there'll be, you can apply for outdoor spots.

There'll be a couple of waves of that, I imagine.

Yep.

In the big day, a length and 12th.

Fun times.

Tech talk.

Look, do you know what?

It's even worse this year.

We have a week extra because it's the week later than it normally is.

It's normally the first weekend, April.

And everybody's still panicking.

So you're always going to panic.

It doesn't matter what.

On a quick separate note,

we had a cars and coffee at Blackline.

We were raised, I think it was 1350.

1350, I think it was.

We're going to have another cars and coffee at Storm Performance in Malusk on the 7th of March.

Charity to be decided because we haven't thought about it yet,

but I don't know what way we're going to work it.

But great to get everybody together and raise a bit of money for charity.

Excellent.

Is that us then?

That is us.

Excellent.

Right.

So we would get into our interview with Elliot then.

I really enjoyed doing this interview.

It was good talking about like a strange start into the industry,

chasing feature cars back in the day,

and just how the magazine has survived for so long.

So that's pretty cool.

If you want to catch Elliot online,

you can find him at pvwmi on Instagram or ElliotJuteRoberts.

We are at Reload Podcast.

I am at Connor McCann.

At Maxwell House 46.

I'm at VDLboy.

There we go, folks.

Right.

Bye.

Elliot Roberts, welcome to Reload Podcast.

For those who may not know you,

or even to give you an introduction to our podcast,

is we're predominantly Volkswagen based,

hence why you're here.

The three of us have been in the Volkswagen scene for years now,

like a lifetime,

but a lot of our listeners,

we've kind of expanded into like the usual people

who enjoy japping forward and everything else,

have kind of joined in with us.

So the Volkswagen guys will probably know you

or know of your work where the others may not.

So can you give us a rundown of who you are,

your background with pvw, that kind of thing?

Yeah, and it's funny you should say about that

because I think that's one thing that I've always,

I don't know, I think it's always helped keep the mag sort of fresh.

As much as I'm a die-hard BW guy,

I still love all sort of mates and marks of car and whatnot.

So yeah, anyway, my name's Elliot Roberts

and I've worked on Perform CW now for probably over 20 years.

I became editor in 2004.

And obviously over 20 years working in print media,

I've seen a lot of changes over the years

and it's incredible if the mag's still around today, to be honest.

And it's more to do with the people,

the loyal followers that have followed the mag,

like yourself that have been reading it for probably 20 years.

And I think it's just that loyal following

that sort of kept the dream alive.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, I think it's difficult with the internet and forums

and blogs and whatnot.

And then obviously we've got YouTube and stuff now.

And just to keep the mag sort of fresh is difficult,

but I think we've always just tried to keep exclusive content.

And I think that's the way, unfortunately,

a lot of magazines went by the wayside

was they didn't offer anything different to the internet,

what you could find online.

Do you know what I mean?

So if you wanted a new standard car review,

that was already online anyway.

So that's a very good way of putting that actually, yeah.

Yeah, print magazine sort of doing that.

It was, yeah, it's hard to compete

when the contents are online and it's free.

So yeah, we've always always tried to keep exclusive content.

But it's weird.

Back in the day, there were quite a lot of rival magazines and stuff.

And now you just, you don't have that as much.

So it's always important to have that rivalry.

We will always have it.

We're always competing against blogs and YouTube

and all sorts of stuff.

But yeah, I think that direct rivalry,

I think it's kind of important to have that.

And you spend so many years,

we used to just chase cars back in the day

trying to get exclusive coverage on the cars.

And you don't have to do that as much now.

And when you've done it for so long,

it's sort of hard to think,

we haven't got a race or chase to get this car.

And we used to, if we've got an exclusive on a car,

we wouldn't talk about it.

We'd keep it quiet and then reveal.

And now it's like, no, actually,

we can tell people what's coming in the magazine.

It's actually a positive to sort of draw people in

to tell them what's coming,

rather than sort of keep it a secret until the last minute

in case somebody else stole your thunder.

So it's changed a lot over the years.

Yeah.

So like back in the day, obviously,

you had like Max Power Magazine revs fast car.

And probably more into like your line of the competitor

would have been Golf Plus back in the day as well.

I assume that's who your kind of rivalry was.

Yeah, it's got all the extreme there for a little while as well.

But yeah, I think the Golf Plus, yeah,

it was probably the main rival.

But we always got on well with the guys that worked on there.

And it was, yeah, it was a competitive rivalry really.

It was always a good crack, fighting to win cars over,

fighting to get advertisers on board.

It's all good really.

But I think it was just, I think what drew me,

and I mean, I love back in the day,

I read revs and Performance VW.

I just love those magazines because you sort of got to know

a bit more behind the scenes, you know,

and about the people behind them, behind the magazine stuff.

And I think that's what always appealed

about those two titles especially.

Funny you say that.

I read revs as well.

I read all the magazines,

but out of them all revs I found was the most relatable

because it was like not lower class builds,

but it was more relatable builds.

Somebody didn't throw 20 grand at an over.

Someone had built it themselves,

and I found that side of it was so much more relatable.

And obviously, if you were the same,

it's probably what you were bringing to PVW.

Yeah, very much so.

And I mean, people always,

one of the questions I'll probably get asked most is about

how do people get their cars featured in the magazine?

You know, what criteria does it take?

And I think people expect you to pull out a list

and roll out what you need exactly to get your car.

You know, what do I get to put my car on coverage?

It's really, it's impossible to put it into a list.

Do you know what I mean?

I think it's just about looking for innovation

and creativity.

And sometimes it's a feeling.

Yeah, definitely, definitely.

And I mean, obviously having money to build a car,

it helps to have that money,

but the old saying money doesn't buy taste is totally true.

In some cars over the years,

and you know, definitely not to my taste,

but obviously everyone has their own taste.

But it's for me, it's always the cars built on a budget

that stand out for a reason,

that kind of appeal more personally to me.

Do you know what I mean?

But it's been difficult over the years

because I got into the VWC.

I mean, I started out in the sort of the old school Ford scene.

I had a couple of Mark II Escorts

and used to go through all the Ford shadows

and read the Ford mags.

And yeah, mate, a friend got a Mark I GTi.

Remember when we went up to test drive it,

and it was just a game changer,

because it was just so quick.

And you know, as time went on,

it was just no matter what you did,

it wouldn't blow up in, you know,

indestructible, bulletproof.

At least things, you know,

the residual value was still there.

They ticked all the boxes,

but I liked the fact that they didn't look too much.

You know, they were sort of really understated cool.

So, but you know, I'm terrible at keeping my cars clean.

You know, so I feel, I often feel like a hypocrite,

when we feature these lovely shiny, perfect cars,

and if you saw my car outside now,

you'd feel like, oh my God, you know, it's so,

so, you know, but I think that's the thing about the BW scene.

And I think even when people have got, you know,

I think sometimes like with the manufacturers,

sort of how they frown upon

sort of the modifying side of things and stuff.

And, you know, they look at our magazine

and they think, oh, a lot of the guys,

they just drive old Volkswagen's,

you know, crappy old Volkswagen.

And then, and they don't realize that those people actually

have a brand new Volkswagen and their wife

has a brand new Volkswagen or an Audi.

And, you know, since they've been into Volkswagen's,

they've now got all their family try Volkswagen's

because they tell them they're bulletproof

and they're whatever.

And it's, you know, I think Volkswagen's lost their way

a little bit.

You're just the ones that I'm with.

Yeah. You know, over, over recent times.

And I think it's just that, you know,

them forgetting these key cars.

I see not even the cars, it's the people that bought the cars.

And, you know, the passion surrounding these cars

that have, you know, made the brand what it is.

Yeah. That's gone by the wayside a little bit.

And I think Volkswagen have almost just

forgotten the sort of the heritage

and the whole nostalgia side of things.

And they, yeah, they see the people with the older cars

and they don't realize that they still,

they also have new cars and, yeah,

so their families and stuff.

So, yeah.

But I think, well, I'd like to think they're,

they realize now and they're,

I think they seem to be changing their ways a little bit,

which is, yeah, they need to do something.

I think they're backtracking heavily at the minute.

So the magazine itself then 30 years running this year,

which is again, very impressive for print media

and such a niche title.

You've been editor for 22 of those years.

Were you young as an editor?

Was that considered?

What would you have been maybe late 20s at that point?

Yeah. I think I was about 22 when I started on the magazine.

And I think that, I think that it was good and bad.

I always look at it like good and bad.

I think the biggest mistake for me at school

was I just didn't know what I wanted to do.

So I, yeah, when I start secondary school,

I remember when I failed my GCSEs,

my geography teacher taking me aside and said,

I'm just so disappointed in you, Elliot,

because, you know, when you started at school, we did tests,

you were sort of in the top, the top 10 in the air.

And, you know, your GCSE results,

I was in like the bottom 10, you know what I mean?

And I think I just, I never had like something to aim for,

or, you know, and I, you know, I've got a son of 14 now,

and I'm just always saying to him,

try and think of what you want to do,

because it's everyone, everyone's different

and everyone works differently.

But for me, certainly, I think about to know what I wanted to do.

It sort of would have, it would have helped.

It would have helped a little bit more.

So I left school and went to work for my dad

for about four years as a traditional sign writer.

But, you know, I enjoyed it, but it wasn't involving cars.

And, you know, I was just obsessed with cars.

And it was just, I think there's a girlfriend at the time

just said to me, why don't you write

after a few of these magazines that you read,

you know, religiously read and keep and store and reread and stuff.

Why don't you, you know, write to a few of those

and see if there's any jobs going, you know?

So I did, literally did that with Revs and Performance VW.

I just wrote a load of ideas for features.

I wrote a test feature on a friend's car

and just sent it off and, yeah, sent it off to both magazines.

And I ended up getting an interview with Jim Blackstock at Revs

and they were based over in Petersburg.

And like, yeah, I mean, I absolutely loved the magazine

and I couldn't believe it when I got the interview.

But I literally, I was shitting it so much, you know,

because I kind of idolized the guys behind the magazine.

Yeah. I mean, the interview just went terribly.

He wanted me to do a test feature there.

And then I did, at that time,

I didn't know one end of the keyboard to the other,

do you know what I mean?

So it just really didn't go, it didn't go too well.

So I just remember being absolutely gutted after the interview

and it was, you know, only a week or so later.

I got a call from Greg Emerson, the sort of the original editor of BVW,

saying, you know, seeing my staff and like, you know,

like my style, you know, and to come down and do a bit of work experience.

And that was, yeah, the rest of the history, really.

So it's, but yeah, what I was talking about earlier was like,

I then landed by Dream Job at like 22 and it was amazing.

But also, you know, I'm still here like 25 years on,

you know, doing the same things.

And you see friends around you sort of earning a fortune

and, you know, succeeding in so many different areas and like,

yeah, I'm still, still just that hair doing the same thing.

It sounds like a vocation.

You know, people go to like nursing and they think like,

oh, you know, it doesn't pay well, but you want to do it.

Like that's that kind of job.

Oh, it's, yeah, it's totally like that.

And you know, you take stuff abroad at some times

and then you sort of have to pinch yourself.

And yeah, like I said, you previously even about, you know,

doing podcasts and I know you asked me a while ago and I'm so,

you know, so flat you want me on, you know, to come on to the interview.

But I just often shy away from stuff like that

because I have that whole sort of imposter syndrome

where you just think, Christ, someone's going to find me out soon.

And yeah, it still feels like that a little bit now.

And you know, when you talk about sort of deadlines,

you know, you think after all those years,

you're used to deadlines, but, you know, you always,

and so, so when the, you know, the monthly cycle starts again

and you run it down to the wire previously,

and then you're like, right, this first week,

I'm going to be really productive and get really on board with it

and get on top of stuff.

And like human nature is just you, you don't do that.

You, I won't say you have a week off.

You have a week off catching up with emails

and correspondent, everything else.

And the stop did you didn't get there on deadline week?

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

But it's, yeah, it's so weird to look back, you know,

on how things have changed.

And when I first started, it was Greg, the editor,

and then we had, you know, we had a team,

an editorial team, we had a full-time sub-editor,

we had full-time designers, you know, full-time advertising stuff.

And over the years, you know, stuff moved from sort of 35

millimeter to digital.

And we had, you know, full repro department.

And yeah, I think even, even prior to like COVID and everything,

I think we'd, budgets had obviously been reduced over the years

for various reasons.

And so, yeah, everything gets streamlined.

So I think, you know, when COVID came along,

we were almost, you know, almost prepared for it,

working from home, using Dropbox for your server.

And yeah, sort of such, you know, a small, you know, small staff.

I think when, when Kelsey Media bought the magazine,

they bought the magazine in 2017.

They'd always wanted to want to drone the magazine.

I mean, they had a lot of motoring titles.

And I know the chairman had always wanted to own the magazine.

And yeah, they'd, they'd, they'd take it over.

But their, their business model was sort of different to,

to unities.

And it was, the magazine, they wanted the magazine

because it was successful, but I don't think they knew

why it was successful or what made it, what made it successful,

you know, it's very strange.

It sounds kind of like, you know, the takeovers

with like Hoonigan and Do Not and things like that,

where they look at it and go, that's successful, we want that.

And then they get it and destroy it.

You know, they don't know what to do with it.

Yeah, I'm not a businessman, hence still doing the same job.

But, you know, I'm not loading money, but whatever.

But you, I always thought, you know, they bought the magazine.

Why didn't they take me, ultimately, they bought me and Sarah,

our old ad girl, Sarah.

And I don't know why they didn't take us aside.

Yeah, I'll ask you, why is the magazine successful

and can we adapt that business model to our other titles

that maybe aren't as successful, but that's a good point.

They decided to, but yeah, but instead they decided to put

PBW on the same sort of business model, budget,

whatever else as their other titles.

And it just, there was, you know, there were a lot of

filmmakers in the magazine and they just totally didn't appreciate

how massive our audience was in America.

So quite quickly, you couldn't buy the magazine

on the shelves in America.

Subscriptions, I think people lost confidence

in the subscription side of things and they, you know,

they just lost the whole, didn't totally lose,

but they did lose a lot of a large audience in America

sort of overnight.

And that was a, that was a shame.

You know, I would say to them that people in America,

they'll drive, they'll drive an hour or two

to find a newsstand where they sell the magazine,

they'll buy five, six, seven copies, however many copies

are on the shelf, but then they'll take them home

and then they'll sell them to the mates,

probably at the premium or something.

You know, they'll sell them to the mates.

You know, they're so keen on the magazine, but yeah,

just Kelsey didn't, they didn't understand it.

Yeah, that was one of the sort, I won't say the downfalls,

but it certainly didn't, it didn't help really.

So yeah, it got to the stage where I was, you know,

I was getting frustrated with the magazine because you,

you know, there was a time where we,

I won't say we had an open-ended budget,

but we, the budget was pretty healthy

and we could travel around the world and go to various shows

and shoot exclusives on various cars.

The budget's never, never been massive,

but you, you know, like yourself helping us out

with features here and there and stuff.

The magazine wouldn't be what it is or where it is

if it wasn't for the amazing contributors we've got.

I mean, in full-time editorial staff, it's literally just me,

but it's the freelancers that really sort of help and,

you know, write features for not a lot of money,

just for the love really, you know.

And no matter how hot, how bad the budget ever been,

I don't really like people doing anything for nothing,

but you know, it certainly would be nice.

And hopefully the way things are going

will be in a position to pay people more than we do,

but it's, yeah, I think it's the people,

the people that contribute,

that sort of have definitely helped keep the mag alive.

And, you know, Jamie came coming along when he did, really.

It got to the stage with Kelsey, really,

where I was really struggling to produce a magazine

that I was 100% happy with, you know,

or really wanted to put my name next to, you know,

and the budgets kept getting cut.

I think near the end I had it,

the budget was cut by 25%.

And, you know, it's not about money and salary,

but you know, I looked back at what I was earning in like 2007,

and it was considerably more than I was earning in 2018

or 2019, you know, like, I'm not saying

I can't afford to put food on the table,

but it's not good.

You know, it's not, you're looking to get another job

to keep things afloat, and it's like, no, this isn't good.

And then they were talking about, you know,

making the magazine by monthly,

which, you know, we have talked about that over the years,

or quarterly, and a coffee table-style mag,

and that could work with Performance 3W,

but I don't think it would have worked

along Kelsey's way of doing things, if you know what I mean.

I don't think it would have worked.

And so, yeah, I sort of said to the old publisher at the time,

you know, if that's your plan,

then I think, unfortunately,

I'm going to have to look at moving elsewhere sort of thing.

And, you know, yeah, at that time, he sort of said,

you know, would you know anyone who'd be interested

in buying the magazine, or would I like to buy it?

And I mean, I didn't have the money to buy it.

So, yeah, I asked a few, asked around a few people,

and, yeah, Jamie sort of was like, well, how much they want,

and what are the, you know, what's involved, what's included,

and, yeah, sort of long story short, they worked out a deal,

which was like, well, a life-saver, really, you know, I think.

Yeah, it certainly sounds like the way it was going.

Either you weren't going to be around with the magazine

for much longer, or the magazine itself

wasn't going to be around much longer, either.

Yeah, I think you're right.

And I think one of the keys to the Mag6s, obviously,

the contributors are vital.

You know, Greg Emerson having the vision

to create the Mag in the first place was excellent,

and it was such a great concert in the first place.

We haven't deviated from it too much, do you know what I mean?

I think going forward, we've got some exciting plans

to sort of keep tagging stuff on the side,

but ultimately the principle of the magazine

will stay very much the same.

Do you find you have more creative freedom

being independent than under the likes of Kelsey or Unity?

Probably one of the things that hasn't changed too much,

really, but not, yeah.

And that's what I've always liked about working for Unity

and even Kelsey, really.

They would leave you to get on with it.

Like, my original publisher, Colin, he would,

he, again, the magazine was pretty successful,

and he didn't know why it was successful.

He didn't know why it was more successful

than a lot of the other titles.

But he would, and he would just leave you to get on with it,

which was great, you know.

So we would joke, you know, I joke,

I could put a chicken on the cover of the magazine,

and I don't know if it even got flagged up all the way through,

and we had a cover.

I remember, yeah.

I know what you're going to say, because I'm...

Chris Peacock.

Yep, Mark Five.

Why not?

Five, you know.

There was a lot of people, a lot of people hating on Chris.

The cars.

Yeah, and again, and throwing quite a lot of money at builds

and stuff like that.

People don't like that.

So, and yeah, so people were saying,

ah, you know, the car was made with chicken wire.

So when we did the shoot, we went to a local fancy dress shop,

all got chicken suits and put them on,

and Jamie Lippmann, who shot the car,

we jacked the car up, spun the back wheels,

and then he photoshopped it,

so it looked like it was doing a rear-wheel drive burnout,

and it was just just to really piss people off

and see how far we could, you know, go to upset the haters,

shall we say.

Yeah, I like that.

It wasn't a bit of a lot.

Yeah, so I think I've always liked having,

just having freedom really, to do what you like,

and not just my ideas, you know,

someone said, shall we do this?

And I'm like, yeah, let's do that.

That's actually something I was wondering about,

is like, Chris Peacock's car,

obviously then he had the Stormtrooper Soraku,

the white one.

That's right.

Jay Lurman's Mark III Jetta from way back

in the States with the pent-up girls,

and then even recently, Tom Sawyer's green polo

with a Grinch costume on the cover.

How does that come about?

That one was Tom.

That was his idea.

That's true.

His idea, and it's like,

I was like, that's a great idea.

Again, in the past, we've never done many themed,

certainly themed Christmas covers,

because obviously it can age the magazine,

or date the magazine,

but I think we're fortunate that we've got,

I think we've got the most open-minded readership,

do you know what I mean?

People are guys, and generally,

water-cooled Volkswagen guys,

it doesn't matter where you go in the world.

If people drive a modified water-cooled Volkswagen,

you're going to have a lot of stuff in common,

whether it's music, fashion,

and they just, yeah, they just,

they see the funny side of things,

they don't take themselves too seriously.

I mean, I just, I love it through the scene

where, you know, a lot of guys,

probably 10, maybe 15 years ago,

where they'd done a lot of stuff with Volkswagens,

and they were there at the right time

to get on a 964 Porsche sort of wagon,

you know, and they were buying 964,

like 12 grand, and flipping them,

and modifying and flipping them,

and whatever else, and,

yeah, I won't mention names,

but there's a few guys out there now,

you know, they've done really well for themselves,

just on 964 and 911, really.

But I like how these guys,

then often, and I feel bad saying,

progress to Porsches,

because it doesn't naturally happen,

and, you know, you see guys with Lambo's,

and R8s, and whatever,

but I love it when they then eventually like,

like, I'm still hankering for a Mark II Golf

or a shitty Jetta, or something like that,

you know, and no matter what they have,

the thing is, nice as supercars,

they're actually,

I'd probably rather have a more understated Jetta

on some super rear wheels,

that just, you know, those that get it,

get it, but probably 90% of people

won't have a clue what it is, and,

I had a really shitty rabbit tail Mark I.

I had it, so my first project car

for the magazine was Buzz Box,

which was a, I just loved touring cars,

throttle bodies, and, you know, race spec,

little, yeah, motor sport themed cars,

so I felt like I'm really a 16 valve in it,

on throttle bodies, with a fuel cell in the boot,

and a welding cage, and it was awesome,

I crashed it, and I always crashed Mark I,

so as much as I love Mark I,

I'm just not allowed Mark I anymore,

but I managed to take all the engine out of the Buzz Box

and put it in a rat Mark I,

and it was just a 76 wall tail,

and it was, yeah, it was quite solid,

but it was just a little bit,

it looked a bit ratty,

I just had it lowered on some G60 seals

for a while, and I was driving around in that,

and a family friend saw me driving

through a local town, and said to a friend of a friend,

oh, has any of it fallen on hard times?

I saw him driving this, it didn't get,

they didn't get why it would get you old golf,

and they thought that it's fallen on hard times,

and I've always gone on hard times,

so nothing changes there,

but yeah, they just didn't understand

why I was driving such a shitty looking old car,

but that's what I like.

And I think we're all kind of like that,

I exclusively deal with shop boxes,

I don't do a whole lot of miles,

especially now that I work from home,

but like the most modern car I own is a 2001 TT,

I will daily my mark two,

you know, take it to work back and forth,

or whatever I need to do,

and it's sitting in a car park full of aerospace engineers

who are driving like the latest golfs,

and fast BMWs and stuff,

and I'm just like, and then you pull in,

suddenly everyone's asking you about it.

It's always strange how people are into

their certain brands, you know,

like I was into my forwards,

I went to the big shows like the RS,

Owners Club National Day at Donetsown,

and I love the cars and stuff,

but yeah, I just didn't have as much in common

with the people that owned them,

do you know what I mean?

And you should think, well, it's about the cars,

it's not as much about the people,

but actually it really is.

Yeah, it's the people.

Yeah, yeah, so then just getting into the,

initially being drawn to the cars,

but then realizing,

go to a few walk-all shows,

it's like, ah, right, this is right for me,

and I just, I think when I first got into it

in sort of the mid to late 90s,

it was, it was so cool,

because you had your max powers and fast cars

and red line and whatnot,

and a lot of the guys owning other marked cars,

they were throwing as much shit as the cars,

at the cars as they could,

you know what, big spoiler, bigger wheels,

clip pain, chrome everything,

and you know, meanwhile,

over on the Volkswagen scene,

we're just taking everything off,

you know, smoothing stuff, CL spec,

maybe a rear set of wheels,

and that was it,

might do a new conversion or something,

but yeah, I was like, this is cool,

because it's under-saged,

and you know, the rear occasions

where I have either owned a sort of a flashy car

or you borrow a flashy car,

and that's something that,

you know, you're pulling into petrol stations,

and so that's always a sort of thing for me,

you know, oh God, I just,

you know, you don't want people to see you,

because I just think,

oh, people think you're showing off,

you know, I hate that.

That's why you just know,

Volkswagen's a shitty old,

multiple Volkswagen's are your thing,

you know, it's, yeah.

It's the first thing I do at a show,

if I park the car,

I give it a quick wipe down,

and I can't wait to get away from it,

because I can't wait to be that guy,

or I do want to be that guy standing out of his car.

Oh, I know, and I mean,

and everyone's different, and it's-

Oh yeah, they're very different.

And that's sticking with the mag is,

I always used to be difficult when you're at show,

and like I was saying earlier,

like some people build a car,

it's not necessarily to your taste,

or you don't feel it'll be to the majority of your reader's taste,

but it feels brutal, you know,

turning people down,

and I always try not to do that.

There's always some way we can give people

some coverage somewhere, do you know what I mean?

And whether it's readers ride in the mag,

or you know, now we've got the social channels,

we can share on Instagram and stuff like that,

but it's always fascinated me how,

I don't know, we get people at a show,

and they'd come over and say,

oh, read the magazine from issue one,

and I absolutely love it,

and I love the car review feature,

I've been building my car for 10 years,

and you know, you're like, oh, cool,

you know, let's go and have a look at it,

and you go over and have a look at it,

and you see the car, and you're just like,

yeah, you know, they've put lots of time and effort into it,

and it is their pride and joy,

but it doesn't look like any car we've ever featured,

you know what I mean?

But how can you dress that person,

or you know, yeah, it's very, very difficult,

because that's that person's pride and joy,

but the longer you then have a chat with the person,

you walk around the car and stuff,

it's each of their own, isn't it?

Do you know what I mean?

That's it, and it is personal, theist.

Yeah, exactly, and who says that you or I

know what's right or wrong,

there is no right or wrong, is there?

There are no rules.

I guess in some respects, we just know our readership now,

and it's been nice recently,

especially having Jamie on board, you know?

I think when Jamie first came on board,

as much as he loved the Mag and he'd read it for years,

he was very much, he didn't want to get too involved

in basically mucking things up

or changing the format too much.

I think we both knew that they'd been caught a lot

of filler pages with the old publisher,

and so we needed to get rid of all the filler pages,

we needed to add some more feature cars,

more content, we started getting more people doing

interviews in the Magalene,

and added some new regular features and stuff,

brought some old regulars back,

but yeah, Jamie didn't want to sort of interfere too,

might I suppose, with the production side of things,

but I think working for Kelsey quite a long while,

the one thing Kelsey would stipulate

or the old publisher,

he wanted to see every cover before it went to print,

and he had to approve other,

and so eventually you'd realise the way he liked being doing,

so you'd have to sort of show him that cover,

and then you'd maybe put a couple of tweaks in it

before it went to print anyway.

I think we're going on a class,

they sent us on a course in London once

about magazine production and design,

and what sells, and what jumps off to a new stand,

and the old publisher was obsessed with yellow,

you've got to put yellow on the cover,

you've got yellow pops off the shelf,

it jumps off the shelf,

and in my mind I'm thinking,

okay, that might work for certain car scenes,

but the VW bus like stuff is slightly more subtle,

or I mean the latest covers we're doing now

have been doing some really minimal covers,

and a lot of that with Jamie's idea,

and I was like, because I said to him,

I'd always love to do a minimal cover,

but we just, you know, it won't sell,

or you know, so you get almost,

get programmed into thinking like a publisher,

and Tim's like, let's try it,

and we, I think we did,

I think we only did the humble mechanics,

mark seven and a half, the yellow car.

Yes.

Sort of white body, five cylinder,

I know Ethan at 8380 had done a,

sort of a really cool render of that car,

and one of our teams calls,

I said to, I think I said to Jamie or the guys on there,

I was like, you know,

can you imagine just running a render artist impression

of the car that we are going to feature inside the magazine,

and Jamie's like, why don't we do it?

And I'm like, oh my God, and you know,

for so many years I've been said,

told you can't do this, you can't push Brown,

he's like, oh yeah, we're going to get,

we're going to get a well actually, you know,

and so yeah, we just, we went with it.

It almost feels like you're coming out

like an abusive relationship,

when you're suddenly you're afraid to tip to

around the new person kind of thing,

so that's pretty cool.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, Jamie sort of, for the most part,

he leads it alone really, which is good,

obviously he's a great,

it's just great to have on board,

you know, promoting the mag,

and yeah, flying the flag really,

and it's, I think, yeah, definitely one of the biggest,

one of the first things that sort of

struck us when we took over was just

how the American readership caught on board

straight away as well,

because new Jamie and I were behind the magazine,

and hopefully for some reason they thought,

if we said we'd do something, we would do something,

but you know, generally we do try to,

and so yeah, the subscription base,

and probably especially in America,

for we up 70%, I think in the couple of years,

year and a half would have been,

in charge, so that's been really good.

Yeah, because we have a lot of friends in America,

we do a couple of shows over there,

we do all kind of, at least two big shows

on the East Coast every year,

and chatting to the guys,

they're always talking about the magazine,

and I think it's roughly about 20%

of our listeners are actually American as well,

but it's great to hear there's that massive jump

into a market that Kelsey basically lost to you guys.

Yeah, and I think Kelsey just didn't realise,

and again, we had very few chats,

it didn't feel like they were interested

in getting much feedback from me,

and yeah, it was difficult for a while there,

but yeah, so it's been really good,

but I will say, I used to work with Kelsey,

they had hundreds of people working for them,

saying that hundreds of departments,

and at the time you'd often think,

Christ, what do all these people do?

Because it feels like I'm doing quite a lot

single-handedly on the editorial side,

answering emails and doing our social channels,

and writing the features, and commissioning the features,

and whatever else you think,

what do all these other people do?

But having taken over the magazine is like,

okay, yeah, there is quite a lot that goes on

behind the scenes that you,

even I never really knew too much about,

so it's still been quite a sharp learning curve,

and I feel like we're definitely heading

in the right direction,

but obviously you always wanted these things

to happen really quickly,

and you never have quite as great ideas,

you probably like,

but yeah, it's definitely heading in the right direction.

You can see the difference in the magazine right away.

I remember it was late, what, 2024,

when you guys took over,

and the last few years of it,

you'd noticed there was less features,

it got a little bit thinner,

there was more adverts in it,

and even adverts that weren't overly relevant,

said to Volkswagen's,

and then the issue that you guys took over

independently and launched,

it was a totally different magazine.

I think looking back, it probably was.

I mean, people have been saying that,

and you think, oh, people are just being nice,

you know what I mean?

But I think Jamie and I were both fully aware

that the mag wasn't as good as it could have been

for various reasons and budgets and whatever else,

and yeah, so it got to the stage.

I've still always been sort of,

I won't say proud of everything that you produce,

but it still was okay,

but it just wasn't quite where it should have been, really.

Or what it was.

Yeah, yeah, that's it.

Yeah, so I think it was to the stage,

you know, that day at Kelsey,

where I sort of hide myself away,

and I wouldn't like going to shows,

because you just think, oh, God,

people probably could have pulled the magazine to bits,

you know, or dressed it down or stuff,

but I think, you know, it's,

and the amount of times over the years,

people, you know, taught you like you own the magazine,

you know, and for so long, it's like,

well, no, I actually, I probably should have owned it,

but I don't own it,

I'm just muggins who sits here,

you know, not getting paid a fat lot,

but, you know, yeah, that's it.

But, you know, I say that,

and I feel terrible,

because I think people at home will probably like,

ungrateful bastard at that.

And I'm slightly not, I still,

oh, it's this, you know,

Monday morning, it's that whole thing,

Monday morning, thumb round,

it is never like, I've got to get to work,

and you do think, Christ,

how would I even get on doing a proper normal job,

you know, and all my mates take the piss at me,

because they don't actually think I,

they don't think I, they don't class my job

as a real job.

No, it's like, no, you don't,

you don't, you don't, you don't work,

and I, I think I'm, I've never been,

I've never been very good at delegating,

you know, and I, sometimes you think,

I'm, I'm sort of just trading water here,

but I'm not actually getting anywhere.

And I think a little while ago, I just,

I kind of, I wrote a list of just what I do in a month,

just to try and see what I, you know,

what you actually do,

put it down in black and white,

it's like, oh, actually, there's quite,

it's quite a lot, there's quite a lot of shit there

that you do.

Yeah, I think people for so many years,

people have, you know, they always,

they see performance CW, you know,

that's glossy and expensive and nice and stuff.

And I think they think there's a huge team behind it.

When Kelsey took over, Dave Kennedy,

you worked on the MAG for us, you know,

if we almost, I want to say nearly 20 years,

I don't think it was quite that long,

but it was, it was a long while and Dave was great,

but Kelsey got rid of Dave and it,

so it was just me doing editorial and kind,

I don't say doing everything,

because that sounded really big headed,

but kind of planning, but yeah,

yeah, a lot of, a lot of it, you know,

I mean, like I say, I think it's having that,

having my contributors, you know,

that a lot of them have been loyal

and been with us for years,

if it hadn't been for those guys,

then yeah, the MAG just wouldn't have existed,

you know what I mean?

I think having any title,

if they have the same editor on board for a long period,

it's probably a good thing,

because advertisers have confidence,

if they're producing a good product,

you know, the advertisers believe in that person,

and so do the people who are building the cars

and spending a lot of money and time

on the maple leaf,

you're going to deliver a good feature,

good coverage, good story, whatever else,

and yeah, so I think sometimes that,

you know, some magazines, I've got by the way,

so I, when you know, you had an editor,

it's been there for a long period,

and then they go and suddenly,

it just, everything changes, you know,

and it's, yeah, that, well, again,

we've seen that happen with a few of the larger sort of

YouTube channels and stuff of recent years, haven't we?

You know, and you move certain key people out of the way,

and if it called for a company to think,

well, that's going to survive,

we've got the audience there,

and it doesn't always, yeah.

There's probably, like,

the Volkswagen community is quite tight,

and it always has been, like, thinking back,

there's, like, guys I used to see in the magazine

that were maybe slightly older than me,

and, like, contributors and did different things,

and, like, the F6 guys and stuff,

and then they kind of, like, move up,

start their own business,

and then suddenly you see them advertising in the magazine,

and I always wonder, is that, like, you know,

is that a throwback to, like, well,

you helped us out in the beginning,

so, no, we repair that kind of thing?

Very much so, very much so.

I think, and especially with, even, like,

you look at Rotiform, which now is Wheel Pros,

and obviously there's been a lot of changes there recently,

but we helped those guys out, you know,

way back in the early days,

helped sort of Brian and Jason get the product

in front of people in Europe, really, you know,

and as much as those guys have now, you know,

left the company and moved on,

I think even the guys at Rotiform appreciate

what the magazine did back in the day,

and so they're loyal and they still support us to this day.

But then, at the same time, I think there is that thing.

We might have a smaller audience than a lot of the,

you know, the larger YouTube channels now,

and some of the influencers, don't get me wrong,

who are really, really great and produce some great content,

but I think we just have such a, yeah,

such a solid audience, you know,

so generally if people see a product

or a brand in the magazine, you know,

these guys are building badass cars

and they're influential in themselves, you know what I mean?

So the cars we feature are very influential.

There might be only six or seven a month or something,

but I think it still carries,

it still carries a lot of weight for these brands

to be seen in the magazine,

but like you and I spoke, I think it was earlier today

when we chatted and we said that a lot of these companies,

I think since Chang and I took over,

have sort of jumped on board.

We've got like 10 performers, partners now who have been brilliant.

They've just signed, you know,

I think they've all signed up and out for our second year

and they've been there to support us

because they realize if we don't all keep supporting the magazine,

it might go, you know what I mean?

And I think it's the whole thing,

you'd miss us when we've gone

and it's like, I would miss the magazine if it went.

You know, it's been there so long for so many of us

and it's great to see these bigger brands supporting us.

And we, I think when we took over,

I'd realized for a long, long while.

So we lost Sarah sadly in buying the magazine

because she worked for a larger company.

And yeah, we just, we couldn't come up with terms

that we all sort of agreed on really.

So it was unfortunate because Sarah was brilliant.

But I'd realized for a long, long while

that a lot of these companies,

they didn't just want an advert in the magazine,

a print advert on a print page that they wanted that,

but we could offer them so much more in terms of, you know,

we've got quite a big social following and stuff

so we could do more with them on social media.

And so we just put up a big,

we put a big package together and sort of threw it

around these guys and just, you know, people,

it turned out it was just what these companies were wanting.

They were happy to pay more for what we were offering.

And it just, yeah, it worked really well.

So having those guys on board for the first year

and now into the second year is brilliant.

But we're also in the process of working on a sort of a package

for the smaller grassroots companies as well.

Because they're, you know, they're just as important,

sometimes more important in their own way.

And we didn't want those guys, I think,

we'd forgotten them, do you know what I mean?

Especially the big, that's great for us.

And they do produce amazing products.

I think it's so important to remember the smaller guys,

you know what I mean?

So that's something we're working on at the moment.

It's interesting as well to hear then that while social media

was probably the death nail for a lot of magazines,

you guys are adapting to that.

And it's probably to do with having a small team

that you can adapt easily to it.

You're saying like you're taking social media

and you can put your advertising on that as well,

as opposed to sitting with like a big grumpy face complaining

about what social media is doing, do you?

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, I feel, I feel in so many ways that we,

the magazine as a whole over the years

has missed so many tricks in terms of we were the first

in so many areas that having a website

with a really good classified site on it

for sort of other people were doing it, you know?

And we used to do our groups

and actually the Brunting Fork before Carwell were doing it.

And, you know, what Carwell do is badass.

And we were kind of doing that, you know, 20 years before,

but we never sort of quite nipped it in the bud

or sort of, yeah, I just think we missed a trick really.

You know, it all came down to budgets really

and publishers not appreciating value of these things.

And we could have put a bit of money

into the video side of things and been ahead of the game.

And I think, you know, that's happened in so many areas.

It's just, I think if we had the resources

or the budget we had back in the day,

it might be different now.

But again, things are looking up.

So we've got a lot of plans for the future.

But, you know, we want to bring the podcast back.

And it's like everything.

Now, you know, I'm so, I won't say my perfection is,

but I like stuff done right.

So I'd sort of, I take so long

parking around making sure stuff's perfect.

Do you know what I mean?

Sometimes you can miss the gap really.

Building cards is the same.

It's that thing of like, you know,

doing like perfection stand in the way

of actually finishing something.

I know.

Or maybe starting something.

It's very true.

And I think, I mean, I've, you know,

I've been in the scene for about 30 years,

30 years now.

And it's only sort of recently,

my son was diagnosed with ADHD.

And like I said to you,

I think everyone's got a little bit of ADHD these days.

Oh, a hundred percent.

And when we've got, you know, we've got,

I've got daughter Amelie as well,

who's she's got additional needs, bless her.

And so we, a lot of our friend bases around kids

with special needs as well.

So we, you know, a lot,

and you end up going to so many appointments

and seeing so many doctors.

And, you know, you know, you have so much knowledge.

You inevitably just take so much knowledge on board.

You find yourself like, you know,

assessing people when you see them.

And just like some of the, some of the cars,

some of the bills we do, you see them.

And you're like, yeah, it's only recently I've thought,

yeah, you've got to be on the spectrum

to produce something so absolutely perfect

and amazing and that takes so long.

You know, it's, and it's, it's weird

that that's only really sunken with me recently.

It's incredible, absolutely incredible.

It is, it's funny because like, and Volkswagen guys,

I think this is kind of bled into the other side

of the different car scenes as well.

But like predominantly Volkswagen's were ultra clean,

shaved beys, you know, stuff that no one cared about.

But it is, it's like that, it's that special type of person

that texts to be able to want to do that.

We all know it is, we're all a bit a little bit obsessed

and it's probably not normal behavior.

But at the same time, I still think that whole,

and it frustrates me how, you know,

my son is inevitably kind of really into cars

and he comes home from school and he's like, oh,

you know, all my mates say I'm weird

because I'm into cars and not into football.

You know, I don't mind watching good football match,

but I don't understand why more people aren't into cars

because it's kind of, it's so, you know,

you watch a football match and then it's over

and that's the result and then you're on to the next one.

But I think building cars is just so creative

and so individual, do you know what I mean?

It's your own passion.

And I think one of Vicky's friends,

she works in the fashion industry and she's like,

oh, I just don't get it.

Why would people want to do that to the cars?

And I'm like the same reason why they want to,

a one-off handbag or Oakature sort of clothing,

you know, to have something unique or totally tailored,

a tailored suit tailored to you.

You know, it's no different to making your car different

to everyone else that you see driving down the street,

you know, and why you want to make your house look

unusual or unique.

It's because, you know, so you stand out,

it's weird when people don't get stuck.

Yeah, and as you said, I think at the start of this,

either you get it or you don't,

you're not going to convince anyone.

Yeah, that's it.

I think, I always think, you know,

you could be doing a lot worse things in your garage,

clean and round.

Yeah, you know, at least you had the half nose where you are,

you know, you're not down the pub just, you know,

drinking the money up the wall and whatever else.

You're just in the garage, playing around with your car.

Yeah, they know where to find you.

I can absolutely, so, you know, what else are you going to do?

But it's funny you said that about like your son there,

he likes cars and, you know, the other kids

are making fun of him for that.

And there seems to be like,

I don't know if you've noticed this obviously,

but like Ultimate Dubs has gone away,

Ultimate Stance has gone away, Fitted has gone,

clean and fest up in Scotland.

Like a lot of the big shows are dropping off,

but from what I can see for us with Dub Shed,

like Dub Shed's continually growing and growing,

even though it's the biggest show in Ireland,

it's still constantly growing.

It's a strange way.

Maybe England, Scotland and Wales

is seeing a different side of it than what we are here.

What do you think about it?

It's funny, well, I was having this discussion recently

when we were talking about the demise of Ultimate Dubs

and whatnot, and how do you guys at Dub Shed,

how strict are you guys now, obviously,

with Dub in the title?

How strict are you about Vag Only,

or have you relaxed that a little bit more?

It's relaxed now and it had to,

because we're such a small island, obviously.

There's only, well, I don't even know

what the total population of Ireland is,

but it's probably less than London is on its own.

Yeah, and then the reason I say that

is because we were thinking about

how we had Edition 38 back in the day,

and they were so strict about Volkswagen only.

I remember one of our guys who helped us

with the project car, Jess, from Carrera Body Shop.

He had a really nice series to our turp.

Hopefully, we told him to bring it along

and put it on our standard Edition 38.

I was very lucky.

And the guys were like,

they went absolutely berserk.

But actually, as time has gone by,

things have changed.

I think what I'm trying to say is,

back in the day, obviously,

a lot of the minimal, less is more

Euro-styling on the Volkswagen's

watercolour scene comes from hot rods.

I don't want to say we've created it,

but I think during the 90,

the watercolour VW scene definitely influenced a lot.

A lot of the guys who worked on Max Barron

and Farthacore are still friends with today.

They ended up like Ben Shander built

his brown Saxo on smits and load it,

and painted the brown, tan interior,

and a lot of those guys were loving

the cars we were featured.

And it influenced them,

which then in turn influenced their readers.

And as time has gone by now,

it's not just Volkswagen's that are less is more.

That kind of Euro look minimal

has spread across all models and makes.

So I think show organisers have had to

change their way.

So Edition 38 is now, I think,

it went to Edition Reloaded and now it's,

I think it's now Edition Show and Shine.

And even when players started,

you know, initially the first year or two

was players VW.

And then obviously the guys quickly dropped the VW

because like, well, why put it down to,

you know, why limit, I'll repeat it all,

when a lot of these cars are called, you know what I mean?

They might be inspired by the Volkswagen's,

but so I think that I think the whole modified car scene

has certainly changed, you know?

And I think, yeah, we didn't create the look,

but I think the VW Volkswagen scene

has certainly influenced the way

a lot of people modify their cars nowadays.

I was going through magazines.

How do you feel about that?

Yeah, no, I don't go quiet, Connor.

Tell me you agree.

I totally agree.

I actually, you'll not believe this,

I was clearing out magazines and things.

And I have every PBW right back to 2005,

I think it is when I started reading it.

And you say all the right things.

Oh yeah, I have to keep you sweet.

But I kept like select car magazines,

like fast cars and MaxPars,

that kind of stood out to me

that I wanted to keep for certain features.

And in between it was the fast car issue

with Ben's Brown Saxo in the front of it.

And I was reading it through it and I was like,

I still love this car.

Like, that's maybe...

It feels like we staged it.

We did not stage this bit, did we?

You didn't know what I was going to say

about Ben's Brown Saxo, did you?

Not in the slightest.

And honestly, like...

That's a car to me that 15,

was it 10 or 15 years ago that was built?

And if you produced it today,

it would still stand out and it's timeless.

We, for a short period,

we produced a French tune

and made a cool performance GTI.

And one of the guys that worked on that

Dan was really into his Volkswagen.

But he was the editor, I think, of the magazine.

And he had a Vennify turbo at the time.

He ended up painting it in Nimbus Gray

and doing a tantrum on it.

And just, you know, you drop a euro,

look, this Vennify turbo.

And it was just...

Yeah, it went...

I think it had, like, one or two...

One or two turbos on it and stuff.

And it just looked proper euro.

And it was like, yeah, I think it was these...

These few cars that really stood out

and opened people's minds, I suppose,

to what you could do.

But then you get to a whole stage now

where you see these cars, Vennify turbos,

and, you know, Mark 1 GTI's standard cars

going for such silly money,

or not silly money,

but more money than they have done

for a long, long while.

And you get to a stage where you think,

I'll be wrong for modifying them.

You know, I've got my rally set in the garage now,

and I...

It's just got a G60 in it,

and it's lowered on KWs.

It was just slightly bigger wheels,

but it's just, you know, it's near standard.

And when I was building that car,

I, you know, took the G60 out.

I was going to put an R32 turbo in it,

big power, and, yeah, go to town on it.

And it was only that it was at the body shop

for far too long that I started...

You know, there start to be less and less

standard rallies around.

And I guess I'm getting older,

and you're thinking,

am I wrong to be butchering this car?

And I just, you know, ended up putting a G60 back in it,

and setting the R32.

And, yes, I don't know if some of that

comes with, like, age.

You get more mature, or, you know,

or we see these cars that were worth,

like, three grand now being worth 30 grand,

and it changes your thinking.

That's what I was going to ask.

If that car was still worth five grand today,

would you put an R32 in it?

Or would it change your mind a bit

how you feel about it?

Oh, that definitely worked.

Yeah, I thought that.

I still think...

I still keep seeing videos of R32 turbo rallies,

and, yeah, just thinking,

shit, I could have had that.

And my son keeps saying,

dad, you were going to do that.

And I still got the turbo.

And he said, we've got to put that turbo on something.

And I'm like, oh, I don't know.

You do get old and sensible.

And I think, I think sort of changing things

on a tangent a little bit,

but going off on a tangent is,

just the whole driving style these days,

certainly here in the UK,

you just can't drive like you used to could drive.

Yeah, there's so many traffic calming measures.

And it is dangerous.

I guess it is dangerous, isn't it?

So I think the old you do get slightly more sensible and...

Risk adverse.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's right.

So my parents live up in Kanglenshire.

And I go back up there,

and there's now some in the fender,

and there's some really flat, straight roads,

and then little straights and corners

and deep drains and stuff.

And I look at these stretches of the roads

where I would overtake on back in the day

in a shitty car that I drive,

or a slower car than I drive nowadays.

And I used to overtake them all the time.

And I now look at them like, not a chance.

You know, not a chance what I could do down there.

So yeah, you do get a bit more sensible.

I think generally, and I think

when you're first starting out with modifying cars,

I certainly didn't have the ability

to know when to stop, you know, or mean.

And I think over time, you just get that ability to think,

yeah, I think I'm done with that now.

That looks pretty good.

If I go any further, I'm going to ruin it.

So I think that just comes with experience, I suppose, isn't it?

Oh, definitely, yeah.

And I think a lot of it's feeling like

you don't have to prove yourself anymore.

You don't have to go that bit further.

You know, you're happy with what it is, and that's it.

I think with the 30th anniversary coming up and stuff,

we've been looking back,

and I've been contacting some of the guys whose cars

were featured in like the first and second issues.

And, you know, I think there's a couple of the guys whose

current cars are going to be featured in our 30th anniversary issue.

And they're still 30 years on.

They're still mucking about as Volkswagen.

That's brilliant.

But you look back through the magazine,

and a lot of the cars, you can still bring them out today,

and they'd look fine.

You know, they would fit in.

You know, this is the odd one where you think,

well, that might update it a little bit.

But generally, sort of, yeah, I think the stuff has aged pretty well.

That's good.

Over that 30-year period that you've been in the car scene,

is there like a time that you look back and like romanticize about?

Like, for me, it's like 2009 to maybe 12, 13.

To me, that was always like a peak Volkswagen area for me.

And I don't know if that was because I was just into the scene

maybe three or four years and starting to do a little bit more.

But to me, I always look back at that and think that was like peak for me.

Yeah, I probably agree.

I mean, I think the mid to late 2000s, you know,

we were traveling a lot.

We were going to a lot of shows in America.

And it was just, it was a buzz.

It was a bit, I think it was more of a buzz back then.

Certainly in America, I think in the UK,

people were taking things quite seriously by that stage.

But in America, it was still more about having fun with your cars

and your friends and your make shows.

And I think things certainly in the UK did get a little bit,

it was a little bit of competitive rivalry there and stuff.

You know, people, they went to shows

and they were into winning trophies and they wanted recognition

and they wanted, they would only,

you could only eat to their car if they had cover and stuff like that.

And where I think America, that's, I think that's what

appeal trust about America.

And I think it might be the same with you guys,

but I think it was just, it was more, a little bit more fun over there.

But I, yeah, I think that's,

I think that's probably changed a little bit in the UK now.

I think a lot of people of the older generation have matured a bit more now.

So they just have, they have more fun.

But again, a lot of the guys that spoke,

spoke to a guy who's read the magazine for years

and we're just about to feature his car.

I spoke to him earlier and he used to say,

we're going to show in Holland this year and then another one in Belgium.

And they just, they said, there's more, it's more fun out there.

And they also said it's a lot cheaper to go to car shows out there.

You know, they pay a tenner and you get into the car,

into the show with, you know, the car and the occupants where

he said it's a lot more, a lot more money in the UK, you know.

And, but no, I mean, I think for me, it was like the,

it was the early days working on the magazine,

probably like 2000, you know, 99, 2000.

Because the internet was only really a, you know,

it wasn't a massive thing back then, you know, when we, when I started,

we editorial staff, I think it was like five or six of us,

we all sat in one room and it looks like an old converted Victorian building.

And yeah, there was Greg, the editor,

and he was the only one who had internet access and emails.

So if it's got an email, it would go to Greg,

and then he would read it out in front of everyone in the office, you know.

I don't know, there was a buzz back then.

And I think, I think it was the internet when it just first started and stuff.

Everything was seemed new, you know.

I remember we got an email tip off about,

I don't know, you're probably too young to remember,

but the, um, the Doleback Racing.

Oh yeah, the one for the black one.

The black one from back in the day.

We had an email in like, I think it's early 2000 or late 99,

about this car, you know, just from a reader.

And we hadn't heard of Doleback Racing or anything.

And I think we fired off an email to the guys,

said can we come and shoot your car?

They said yes.

I mean, a photographer jumped on the plane of Fluttersweet,

and I didn't really know where we were going,

who we were going to see,

whether the car was finished already or whatever.

And it was just, yeah, it was so, it was so exciting, you know.

And, um, I think, I think we're all a little bit spoiled now, aren't we?

I think we've just got so much, it's amazing.

It's too easy.

But we, yes, we're just everything.

You can see and find every, if it exists, you can find it.

If it doesn't, you can create it in AI.

It's almost lost that sort of,

and I think that's about,

there's some people building cars now,

they're putting less on social media or less,

you know, less out in the sort of,

that I think they're keeping the cars close to the chest,

to the chest.

And then when they can either reveal it at shows or in the magazine,

people still are like, oh, wow.

You know, um, I don't know, it's difficult because we, you know,

we, we all love forums and blogs and build fridge and stuff.

You know, that was it.

BW Vortex was amazing, wasn't it?

And in addition to 38, you know, following people's build threads,

it was amazing.

But then the finished car, you'd almost seen it all, I suppose.

It was a bit of sweet sort of.

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Now back to the interview.

I love a build thread.

I love keeping my own build threads.

I love reading other people's build threads,

but I do understand because I like the documentation process,

but there's something about walking up to a car to show

and never having seen it before and going,

fucking hell, what is that, or who owns this,

or just exploring around it for maybe 20 minutes,

taking everything in.

Yeah, I think with the magazine,

we were worried for a while that the younger generation,

you think, oh, I still love a magazine.

If you've got time, you'll have to sit and pick up

and read a magazine, but you suddenly think we're old

and we're dinosaurs, and are the younger generation

going to do that?

But we've never done many surveys,

but we did one quite a while ago about whether you would want

to have your car featured in the magazine,

or see it online on a decent, really good blog,

or whatever else.

And I think 90% of the people that took part,

even the younger guys, that far prefer to see it in the magazine.

And I don't know why.

I think it was of the whole time and effort and money

that's been invested in that article,

and that magazine can be picked up on new step-hands

all over the place.

I don't quite know what it was,

but it was just reassuring that people still store

the value in it, or the, yeah.

Yeah, and it's still such an accolade.

Like here, guys are talking about PVW,

if they get a feature, or even when I started contributing to it,

like a lot of people were messaging and saying,

oh, that's fantastic.

It's such a big part of the Volkswagen community,

and it has shaped it in many ways as well,

because people want to try and get into the magazine,

or they're seeing the latest trends in the magazine.

But it's such an accolade, and it's still cool

that we still have that.

Because you look at any of the Volkswagen or the Japsing,

was it like Banzai and stuff back in the day?

Fast forward, those don't exist now.

And if you want your car featured,

you don't have anywhere for it.

Banzai was such a great magazine.

The scene was on fire.

I never understood why that magazine was pulled, really.

Like I say, I'm not a businessman,

and it's the same with Fast Car,

when Kelsey pulled Fast Car, and just invested everything,

when saw their website and their YouTube channel.

And it's like, but you're predominantly a publisher,

and they're publishing print magazines.

At least keep that magazine quarterly

as a coffee table mag or something.

But I don't know.

Again, the big publishing houses and corporate companies,

they have different ways to look at things.

And yeah, I think some of the bigger publishers

back in the day, because Public Plug on the magazine,

they're just looking down at what it's cost to produce,

what profit it's making.

Oh, it's making a profit, but not enough.

And that's it.

That's enough to public plug on them.

And unfortunately, that's the way it goes sometimes.

But I think it's nice to hear people still enjoy sitting down

and reading the magazine on the toilet,

or wherever they read it.

I think they do still value a decent story.

Like I say, I think we're all busy in this day and age,

and we all get a little bit corrupted by just doom scrolling.

We all do it, but you never really

get any decent substance, or you don't a lot of the time.

You get snippets of stuff, but you don't even

get to know exactly what the wheel fitments are,

and the offsets are, or anything like that.

So I think people like, yeah, they still

like to read a good story.

And I think that's why we're, in a way,

we have so many different writers,

because different writers are better at writing

different cars, whether they're power cars,

or motor sport cars, or whatever else.

And I think so many magazines back in the day

would have a small staff, and they would try and write

everything.

And I think people like a varied story and variation

of writers and stuff as well.

I think that's still important.

Does a good story help with a feature?

You're like a good story behind the car?

Yeah, you need that story, really.

I think it's vital sometimes.

You get people that'll buy a car that's been modified

and been done, and they buy it, and they want to own it,

and take it to the shows and whatever else.

And I totally get that, because at the time,

the stress involved in building a car,

and the money involved, you're probably the smart man

that just goes and buys it already done.

But if they don't know what's gone into the build,

then it's often you end up having to speak to the person

who did build the car in the first place,

because the new owners obviously don't know everything

that's involved.

But that's made me think of something,

because with the 30th anniversary coming up this bit,

there's a few cars out there.

I'm not actually going to mention what cars they are,

but I've got this thing over the years.

There's not many cars that have slipped through the net

where I wanted to feature them, but not been able to pin them down.

But there's a couple of cars out there now,

like really high-profile cars built back in the day,

with more than one engine.

But there's a couple out there that have been bought,

and just put in garages,

and the owners don't really want them seeing,

or any recognition, or any kind of promotion around the cars.

And it's like, oh my God, I've never featured that car before.

I want to feature it, and in trying to win people over,

it's really frustrating at times.

But again, I love the fact that these people buy these cars

because they love them so much, and it meant so much to them.

But I've always found it weird when people just put them in the garage,

and they just go and sit in them, and it's just purely for them.

It's like, well, that's just selfish.

Let's show it to the world.

Yeah, I think that's what old habits for me,

at the end of that addiction to like, you've got to,

basically, you've got to document everything.

If it's been in the magazine there,

and it will always be there in years to come, for generations to come,

but if you don't feature your car,

then people might never know it existed.

So yeah, that is always a funny one when people buy the car

because they love what's been created, but they just lock it away.

It sounds like you still enjoyed the chase though.

Oh, very much so.

Yeah, very much so.

Often that happens with a lot of cars.

People do build them to be featured, and once that's done,

most of the time, they either sell them or put them in the garage.

They're too nice to use, and that's where they'll stay.

I sort of got into Volkswagen because they were bulletproof,

and you could just drive them really hard and have some fun in them.

But yeah, again, everyone's different, aren't they?

I always like it when you get a car that people would look at and think,

well, he doesn't drive that, but the people that actually do drive them,

you know, and drive them hard.

A lot of the West Side guys have always had badass, amazing cars,

and yet they drive them everywhere really hard.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of that,

and that's something I'm aiming for with my own Mark III,

is I want it to look like it's unusable,

but it could actually can do road trips and go to England and go to shows and do things.

I think it's cool. They're built to be driven, aren't they, Volkswagen?

Yes.

I always say, you know, they're not like a classic Ferrari or something like that.

They are the people's car and it's built to be driven.

But again, you know, if you've got so much, like the cover of the current issue,

the Unix performance or the Unix built Mark I with the Shrik V6 turbo and it and stuff,

I mean, it just shows you that people build in cars that are absolutely next level,

absolutely next level.

Is there a particular favorite car you've ever featured, like over the years,

or anything that really stood out to you that you would want to own in particular?

Yeah, I mean, I get asked that quite a lot, and it's impossible to answer,

like even choosing like car of the year from last year, it's almost impossible to answer.

We featured a car. I always loved the JD engine, JD engineering cars from Holland.

They were just, yeah, there was something special about those cars and just the fine

attention to detail that went into them and the finish of the engines and stuff.

And he built a car for one of his good customers, good friends.

I think it's called Ron Cohen, I think.

Yeah, Ron had a really nice Mark I, 16 valve G60, but then he built a mark for,

I can't remember, I think it was just front wheel drive and it was,

I want to say it was a 20 valve, but it was, it was twin charge.

So I think it was a 20 valve, but it was twin charge, so it was turbo charge and it had a G60

on it and it was just, it had all of the JD engineering traits to it and just the millimeter

perfect static ride height and just the, yeah, it was just, it was just stunning and it was

twin charge, you know what I mean? And it was just badass. So that's, that's a car that just

ticked a lot of boxes. It looked really good, but you know, it would drive really well as well.

It's funny the way it's impossible. Certain builders have like a different,

like everyone has their own kind of style and you see like repeat builders and they do have,

like as you say, JD build like proper, nice, like beautifully subtle cars, but also like

performance cars at the same time, they sit in both camps. Yeah, definitely. And it's funny how

you see like your room when he started out back in the day, you know, he's, he's, he's marked one

in his Corrado and stuff that kind of, he now, you know, JD engineering is his, is his business

and he just, you know, he makes money all day long, just put rolling, rolling cars, mapping them,

doing his software and just that is his business and those, those two cars kind of set him up

for life really. It's great to see these people still around now that, you know, doing the BW

thing, making, making a hobby, a job and yes, but it's the same way. It's always funny when you

see people come along that are into the scene. I come into the scene and I can't, I can't ever

imagine me not being to the scene, but sometimes you see these people come along and, and, and

they're so into the, so into the scene and so into everything and every show and building

crazy cars and whatever else. And then, then all of a sudden it just, it just stops overnight.

And, you know, I've always found that, I've always found that strange, but I guess we know

when you have a family and other commitments that, that changes things and I'm probably fortunate

that Harry is into cars because as much as people say, well, that's a, that would be a

given because you're in the car, but it doesn't, you know, it doesn't always happen that way. So,

yeah, the moment he's only 14, so it's quite amusing, but I think in a couple of years'

time, it's going to get very serious and very expensive very quickly.

That's good because that's the future.

Well, and the other day he made me, he made me laugh because he knows all the super cars and

everything these days, but he, he does love BW and Audi and he, you know, the other day he

was telling me, I want to get a B3 percent wagon and I'm like, he's 14. I was like, that's such an

obscure car to get, but it's such a cool, obscure car as well, you know what I mean? And they're

still quite cheap as well, so don't, don't tell anyone because I'll be looking for one soon.

That's the thing. Those were parts cars for years. They were a very specific person like those

cars, but that was it. They weren't like the mainstream, like a golf, say?

I was never a massive fan and now I absolutely love them. And you don't have to do much to them.

Oh, they're just so cool. Yeah, just load on wheels, you know, job done. Certainly for a

first car, it'd be quite cool, but we'll see. I'm sure, I'm sure it will change.

If he's anything like myself, it'll change next week.

Yeah, that's it. That's it.

You were talking then about feature cars. Have you ever like featured something

said on like a feature and the owner didn't like it, like ever come back at you about it,

or has that ever happened?

No, no. I'm surprised.

I'm just trying to think that I think there was one, there was one. I was heartbroken. I can't

remember the car. But yeah, there was one and it wasn't, it wasn't too long ago when I can't

remember it. I think, and I think it was a story and I think I wrote it as well. So it was, you

know, I couldn't blame anyone else but myself, to be honest. I can't remember. I remember there

was one we wrote years ago. Tony Segu, Tony Segu, one of our American contributors who no

longer with us, but he was a legend and he wrote a feature on a certain person's car. I won't say

who, but he sometimes, you know, you'll seem the, seem the feature around the title and the

stand first. And he, so he did it like an old English yield on English sort of William Shakespeare

style title, stand first, first couple of paragraphs, but then he carried it on all

but the whole feature was written like it was written in Shakespeare and it was probably

like that's amazing. I think everyone found it amazing, probably except for the owner of the car

who just didn't have the sense of humor to fully get it. I think it's time to buy, I think he gets

it now, but at the time it's like, right. I think he felt like the joke was on him and it certainly

wasn't. I just think Tony got a bit carried away and I found it funny. So we went with it and again

that's coming down to us just thinking well we're so lucky to have quite open minded readers and

you know, I often say to my mates, you know, sometimes these days you only hear from people

when they're money, but generally people don't, we don't hear negative stuff from people. And I think

even back in the day, I think back in the day with the old editor, Greg, was amazing. I was

still in touch with Greg and he still writes occasional feature for us now, which he does in

California and it's got a proper job, but I just love the fact he'll still dip in and dip out of

the mag. Greg and a sub-editor Charlotte Blight from back in the day, Greg would write some

amazing captions, like even before I worked on the magazine, the captions were just on them up

for their own, they were just poetry. And Charlotte, she was quite, she was a sort of car girl, but

she'd get a bit bored sometimes when she was in sub-editing. So she'd just got some of the

captions for the so while, but we got a couple of people, luckily we didn't get two, but I think

there was one caption in Performance Ford magazine, we ended up, I think we ended up having to

source the guy who was in the in the photo with the caption, I think we had to get him an RS500

front pompo for his cosy because he was going to sue us. Jesus Christ. And there was another lady

with it, it was quite a derogatory caption and yeah, we luckily got away with it, but yeah,

eventually we're like, well, we can't, we can't do that anymore. So yeah. But I mean, I would like

to bring that back, but it's just, you know, it's a fine line, you know, and you don't want to be,

you know, you don't want to be getting sued. It would be, it would be a horrible, horrible way

after 30 years, the magnetite, because we've got, we've got us, I'll ask the sued for just a slightly

derogatory caption. A silly comment. Yeah, basically. But yeah, I did like that. Maybe,

maybe we'll try and bring it back, but I didn't see. So you were talking then as well about,

like, back in the day, you had bigger budgets, and you could kind of move around a bit and

go to America, see different shows in different countries. Is there any like funny

trips that you had or anything that happened you can actually talk about? Because one standard

for me, because I know we post it every year. I know what you're going to say. Tony Grimmel.

Tony setting fire to your head. That looks like I'm absolutely party animal. It's just,

no, it was, it was a bit of a one off, really. But we, Tony and his mates were, they were producing

quite, again, they, they sort of, they were there before everyone was doing YouTube stuff.

Their talk video magazine stuff was amazing. And they're just doing crazy stuff at car shows

and having a laugh. And, you know, we, we, we would always watch the videos in the office.

I think it was even before YouTube, you know, and we were watching, we'd watch the videos in

the office and yeah, the guys were great. So I think when we were at HCO, we knew Tony was in

this guy, so that a bunch of us headed over to their motel. And yeah, we've been drinking and

yeah, Tony set my hair on fire. But that's, I didn't have much hair before he set it on fire.

So it didn't help. No, the writing was on the wall there. But yeah, it could, I mean,

I think they had a taser. They were going to take the one of our photographer. I said,

don't know, don't take, don't take them. I think we were flying out the next day. I was like,

don't want to end up in A&E. So I think, no, so I took one for the team with them set fire to

my hair. No, there's, oh my God, there's so many, so many horrendous stories of shows

in Europe and stuff like that. But I just still think going back to the, the Dollback Racing

story, when we, yeah, I must have been like probably 22 or something, somewhere around

about that. And we, yeah, we flew out to Sweden and we, when we went, when we got to Dollback

Racing, we, we wouldn't, there was nobody out there at the union. It was like 10 in the morning.

There was nobody there. And yeah, we ended up, we were knocking on the door and then in the house

next door, Hans Dollback stuck his head out the window and, and just said, oh wait, I'll be down.

And he came down and he, and I think he said, and he said, oh, you can't shoot the car today.

We'll shoot the car tomorrow. Tonight we're going to town and I want to show you around and then

we're going to go to a restaurant. We're going to have some drinks. And I basically, I think

he thought, because we come from England, we were big drinkers. And so we kind of had to earn

the rights to shoot the car. We had to prove that we could drink before we could shoot the car. And

I, I've never been a very good drinker. I mean, I give it a go, but I'm not, I'm not a massive

drinker. I can't drink loads, but we, yeah. So me and I think it's max area, the photographer, we,

yeah, we ended up going through a load of bars and then we ended up in a Chinese restaurant. And they,

yeah, they have this like, so we were drinking wine and shots and we have this like snuff

tobacco, chewing tobacco type stuff that you put up in the corner of your mouth. And I mean, it was

just, I was eating so much food and it was just everything was bad. And I, I was in this restaurant.

I was like, oh my God, I don't know how I held it in. I didn't cry over the table. I managed to get

the toilet, cubicle, pebble dust the wall and yeah, sort myself out, got back to the table,

looked white as anything, but we ended up paying the bill and going. And I don't think hands or

anyone knew that I'd thrown up. So he thought I was pretty bad at us. We got to shoot the car

next day. But I mean, I, it was horrendous. It was absolutely, it was the, yeah, it was the most

drunk I've ever been. And yeah, it was, it could have, it could have ended very badly if I hadn't

made it to the toilet. So, but yeah, there's, there's, there's quite a few more stories, but I,

by the way, probably can't save them my memoirs or something like that.

But even the logistics of that trip, if you think, what was that like late 90s, early 2000s,

you have no Google maps, you've no smartphones, there's no Instagram or Facebook to contact

anyone through. You got an email about this car, you get a phone number and you have to

fly to another country and meet some guy blind, basically.

You know, speak Swedish, hands, English wasn't particularly good. So yeah, it was just the

drinking skills, won him over, you know, won him over there and then, but I mean, he was,

he was a fascinating guy. I think he'd worked for Audi Motorsport back in the day. And I remember

like, as much as the Mark IV was amazing, it wasn't fully set up. But you had a, he had a sport

Quattro, like road car, which was tuned. And that's still probably one of the fastest cars

I've ever been in. It was, it was just staggeringly quick. So much traction, so much power. And he

was just a maniac. He had us, I think the morning of his shoot, he had us sweeping quite a large

area outside his workshop. And he had us all, like me, the photographer and loads of guys,

we were sweeping the, this concrete surface that was had all like stock stones and rocks over

and stuff. We were sweeping it for hours so that then later in the day, you could take me out in

the sport Quattro, hoon up and down the road and then pull into the yard and just do massive victory

WRC style fucking donuts. And it was just the maddest. You know, I think he popped the tire

off the rim in the end. It was just, he was a lunatic. And I think like on the Mark IV,

he said it had like an, he claimed it had an Audi R8R Le Mans turbocharger on it. And I mean,

he took me out the back of his workshop and had all these shipping containers and they were all

just full of S1 Quattros and sport Quattros and just stuff. So, you know, you, you sometimes,

you meet people and you sometimes think, yeah, yeah, whatever. But it's like, because he had so

much shit to back it up. It's like, I didn't doubt that that Mark IV had a R8R Le Mans turbocharger

on it because it was probably a good chance. I think he had, I think he had some really good

contacts at Audi Motorsport from back in the day. But yeah, he was, he was, he was a, you know,

was a legend, absolutely legend. And yeah, it's always cool when you meet people that are, you

know, they're not just into Volkswagen's, they're into Volkswagen's. But then you, I always hate

that fact that you feel like a nerd. I always tell people, I'm not, I'm not sort of, I'm not a geek.

I'm not, I'm not a parts number geek, you know, or a paint shade, you know, person. I don't know

paint codes. I don't know paint codes and stuff like that. But then when you actually check yourself

and work up the stuff, you do know it's, oh my God, I am an actual anorak. You're just not as

bad as the others. I don't know. You just, you sometimes think if I'd have learned that much

about important stuff at school or whatever and got a good job, I'd be probably retired by now.

Oh, I think about too. I know shit information that only means something to probably five people,

but you know, as long as, as long as I can sort of impress them, that's all that matters.

I could tell you wheel specs from a build thread on the Descent 30 yet from 2009,

but I can't tell you what I did and worked last week. I know this is, this is very scary,

isn't it? Very, very scary. I'm getting old and still feeling about 22. Oh yeah.

Yeah. And I'm, yeah, I'm, I'm, I mean, I'm 50 in a couple of months, which is just, you know,

can you still be editing a modified car magazine when you're 15? Apparently you can.

Probably. Let's, let's see. We'll give it, we'll give it a good go. But yeah, you sometimes think

I'm old enough to know better. And when people asked, you know, parents from, from the friend,

like Harry Spencer's school, the, you know, parents and normal people ask what you do for a

living. And when, you know, I generally just try and say, I'm a, I'm a motor journalist. I don't

say I work on a modified car. When you say that, people just think, you know, max power and yeah,

half is Ramrecht. And it's, it's hard sometimes to explain why we do, you know, what, why we do,

what we do. Yeah. Yeah. No, I fully get that putting you on the spot then, like you guys

always ask this when you're interviewing guys in magazines. So I'm going to put it to you.

What country is doing the best? The Americans have come on so far. The Americans are,

yeah, the Americans are easily on par with the UK now and seeing this unique car from,

from Canada as well. You know, that is, it's well-classed. It's always hard to say it's the

best mark one we've ever featured because I think that, you know, it's, there's been a few to that

level when that just comes down to personal taste, but it's, it's up there with the best of them,

so I still think what the Dutch guys do, for some reason, it's just, for me, I think it's just that

it is the head of anyone really. It just, I don't know. And it's, again, it's hard to pinpoint

what it, what it is. But I mean, obviously, Jamie's out in South Africa at the moment for

Campfest and that's that scene on there over, you know, people, some people say, why, why is it,

why is Jamie in South Africa? It's like, because the scene, you know, seeing them fire out, out,

out there at the moment, and it has been for probably five or 10 years. And it's, you know,

it's like it was over here 20 years ago and America 10 years ago or whatever. It's just

one stuff new. It's more exciting, isn't it? I suppose. And we inevitably become a bit,

we've become a bit complacent, but I mean, it's still amazing to me, though, that people do stuff

to Volkswagen's, old Volkswagen's that still hasn't been done before. You know, it's just like we,

I think we featured like a, a Mark II Golf a few years back with it, you know, somebody put

Tesla engine in it and it's like, and it probably, and a company had done it for the customer. So

it probably cost 20 or 30 grand, you know, but they did a Mark II standard looking Mark II GTI

with a Tesla, no Tesla engine in it. And yeah, people just continue to push, you know, push

boundaries with the builds. And I think it's, yeah, as long as people keep doing that, and

it will, it will all be good, I suppose. It's, um, yeah, obviously the electric car thing is a,

is a whole sort of different conversation for, for another day really, isn't it?

Oh yeah, that is.

Yeah. Yeah. But I think, you know, so with stuff like that, you've only got to go to, you know,

the Festival of Speed and I think we went there a few years ago, we'd go most years, but we were

there when BW were there with the IDR and, you know, that car was insane up the hill, but it goes

past you and you just don't get that same shiver down your spine that you do with a naturally

aspirated V8 or something like that. I agree. Or even a big VR6 or something, you know, it's just,

it's not the same. You don't really, or you didn't realise until it became a thing how,

how big a part the actual sound plays in appeal.

Being a VR6 guy, I'm clearly not in it for horsepower. And it is like, to me, it's the sound.

You know, unless you strap a turbo to one of those things, they're not doing very much,

but I love the sound of them. And like an NA, an NA VR, buying an off a rev limiter as you can

up through the gears just does something for me. And I don't care how fast another car is, that's

my go-to. And I know exactly what you mean. Because for so long, I didn't, I've never really had a

VR6 and that would feature so many Mark II VR6s especially. And it's like, God, no,

it's a little hype. Is it, are they really that good? And I, I ended up, I had a, I had a bit of

bit of a moment, a bit of a warp on the land that buying a, buying a Porsche 928, which we don't,

don't really talk about, but it didn't go particularly well. And it, you know, the engine,

I think the engine seized after about 48 hours. And I ended up trading this Porsche 928 was someone

with a, for a Mark II VR6. And yeah, this Mark II VR6, I think it had like a manifold,

exhaust manifold, and it'd been, it'd been rebuilt and reworked. And yeah, it had a few

tricky parts on it. And it was just amazing. You know, like you, like you say, not silly

rapid, but out on the motorway in fifth gear, you know, it would hold its own against the most

modern stuff or surprise a few people. But it's just fun. It was, yeah, that whole, yeah, the sound,

the smell, all of that, you know, it's, um, yeah. Was that a Tronella Red, big bumper car?

That's the one. Yeah. Well, that went to Ireland, didn't it? It did indeed. I come over here. Yeah,

I know the guy who took it off you, Neil. Yeah. And then we looked at it as well. Another friend

of ours was going to buy it after he had it for a while. And it kind of passed around a little

bit. And then I kind of lost track of it. I don't know where it ever went after that.

I don't know. I think it was, I think it was a pretty good, pretty good car. And yeah, I think

Neil, like Neil did what Neil does and, you know, cleaned it up and made it really nice.

But yeah, that was, that was a really, a really cool car. But yeah, it's, um, I think over years

as well, you, I got to stage where at one stage they had quite a lot of cars and that in itself

is just, and unless you're absolutely minted, you've got, it's a name, right? You've got a

find somewhere to keep them, you know, keep them on the road. If they're not on,

if they're not on the road and moving, then they become a problem in themselves. And I think

as time goes by, you're like, yeah, less, less is more, you know, have a nice,

have something in the garage, if you can, have something nice in the garage and something

to drive. And for me, two cars, two more, two cars. And then we've got just a family car. And

that's, that's, that's enough really, I think. Yeah. I honestly, I really wish I had two cars.

Like you just get to the point where you're not able to do everything or anything. And it's like

paralysis. You're like, where'd I start? It gets you down, doesn't it? It does get you down.

I mean, it's a perfect world of problems, but it is what it is.

But I'm a bit of a hoarder with a lot of stuff, you know, my wife, that's me. And

VHS videos and, you know, pets and shit like that. And she just doesn't get it. And it's like,

you know, it's nostalgia. And it's, you know, I've carried it for years. But it's the same.

She used to take this out of all my wheels, you know, I'd usually have a lot of wheels around me.

And she didn't get that either until we needed to do a kitchen or do something around the house.

And then I'd just sell a set of wheels. And it's better than money in the bank,

because generally they're often got nothing in price. It's the same with cars. And if you buy

cars, you know, wisely, often they'll go up. I think it's been quite, and I don't think you've

noticed this recently, but I think it's been quite interesting to finally see the old Mark 1s, Mark

2s, Kratos, you know, the old early Waterville stuff finally going up in price quite considerably.

Because I think, you know, the Ford scene, French scene, Jap scene, you know, all these older cars that

I think that I think they, I think Volkswagen have been the last to really get up in price

because they were built so well, they lasted so long, they were more around. And I think

it's only now that they are becoming rarer that they're sort of, they finally start to go up in

in price. Yeah, no, I do agree. I actually hate the fact that they're going up in price because

it's been so long, it's been so long, we've been able to, you can buy this, you can buy that,

now it's like, oh, you can buy nothing now. But at the same time, yeah, I understand where you're

coming from, because we're actually very lucky if you were in the Ford scene, if you wanted like

the equivalent of a Mark 2 GTI, say like a, what, XR3i or RS Turbo, you know, you couldn't,

pretty much your average person isn't going to buy one the last 10 years.

No, and if you were on the M25, not that you'd be on the M25, but if I'm on the M25 and you see

someone in the Ford Orion, it's like, fucking hell, it's a fucking Ford Orion. And yet up until

a few years ago, probably even now, you might see a Mark 2 Golf or a Mark 2 Jetta and the guy that's

driving it isn't a young lad being called, it's the guys probably still have that from

new and it's just been garaged and it's still going, you know, and that's the difference,

I think. I just think they were, that generation or that period, they were just, they were over

engineered really, I think manufacturers were still building cars to see who could build the best one

that lasted the longest. And I think Volkswagen probably won that back in the day.

Oh, 100%. I don't know about now from the Mark 3, maybe onwards, maybe not, but

Mark 2 certainly lasted a lot longer.

Don't get me talking about modern Volkswagen's and modern Volkswagen dealerships and just general.

Well, I could write a book about it.

You probably shouldn't, you maybe could sue it again.

No, no, we wouldn't ever, let me just clarify, we wouldn't ever sue.

I'm going to tell everyone you were sued, don't worry.

I was doing so well and then I went on Connors podcast and got back into it by Volkswagen.

So just before we finish this off, just a little bit backed up with the Mac again,

you guys are pushing subscriptions heavily. Why is that important? What's the difference there

between that and buying it in the shop? Obviously, it's for the end user, it's cheaper

than subscribed, it's more reliable. They don't even have to leave the house to try and find a

news agent that stocks it. But for us, predominantly, it's not us being greedy,

but ultimately, if a big news agent chain sells the magazine, they probably take 80%

of the profits. If they sell the magazine and if they don't sell the magazine,

it's not sale or return, the magazines just get destroyed. So it's just,

for us, it's still important to have the magazine on the newsstands and for people to see the

magazine there if they haven't seen it before or didn't know it existed. But generally, for us,

it's just so much better for us in terms of keeping the Mac going and probably being able to pay

ourselves at the end of the month. No, it's not that, things aren't that tight. But yeah,

it's just definitely more financially. So more of the money goes directly to the magazine as

opposed to whoever's selling it then? Yeah, that's it. Jamie's dad has been brilliant,

I must give Bruce a quick shout out because he's been brilliant. He's been helping us

set up a new subscriber platform. I mean, up until now, he's been doing everything manually,

but working on this platform. So, and we're very close, well, we're sort of soft launching it at

the moment, but basically, people will be able to log in to their account and update their address

or see how many issues they've got left or renew and just, so it would be a lot less work for us

and just more reassurance for the subscriber that their magazine hasn't run out, which is a little

bit late. It's probably on its way, but it's just, you know, it's just running a bit late and stuff.

Yeah, that's been really good. We're also, so we've recently taken on, so Bruce,

Jamie's dad has been helping us. We've recently taken on Zach Robert. He's based over in America.

He's one of our photographers, but he's also great with digital stuff as well. So he's been helping

with some of the digital content on the website, which we want to try and ramp up a little bit

more as well. He's also been working on our new online shop, which is hopefully going live very

soon. So we've got, yeah, stuff people have been asking for like binders and air fresheners and clothing

and Gary's banners and stuff like that. That's all very close to going live. So he's been helping

with that. We're also about to announce a new person we've taken on to help us out with advertising

and invoicing and stuff because Jamie's been trying to do some of that, which is quite hard when you're

traveling all over the place and whatever else. So I think we've, you know, both Jamie and I have

a bit of realized, you know, from the magazine to move forward, we need to delegate a little bit

more. And yeah, it's not even us being tight arsed. It's just, I don't know, over the year,

you just, for me, it's just easier to do it yourself because you've got a particular way

you like to do things done and stuff like that. And letting it go a little bit is, it can really

hinder the progress of a lot of things. So yeah, that's, that it's been good to get a few more

people on board. And it's like, oh, wow, this is, you know, we've got obviously the contributors

are great. And also, I mean, I think probably six months or so ago, we said, we, you know,

if anyone wants to help with the magazine, let us know. We had so many people email in and we've

got, I think some, I'm hoping Zach's going to help us and go through some of the emails just

to have a look at what people, what they want to help out with because, you know, even like the

build threads, you know, we could bring the build threads back on our website quite easily.

Because I think people do still miss them. And as much as you've got YouTube and, you know,

what Matt Armstrong is doing is amazing and stuff like that. But not everyone's got the ability to

document their whole build thread and stuff like that. But if they can take an old photo

and whatever else and put a few words together then. So I think we want to try and bring some

build threads back on the website and some of the, some of our advertisers builds as well.

And also just give people a little taster of what, what they've missed in the magazine as

well. Because it's easy to think, well, everyone knows about performance CW and everyone's read

it. But, you know, there's a lot of people out there that haven't. So I think kind of dangling

the carrot and putting a bit free top, free content on there for people to see. Well,

hopefully, you know, sell them on what they've been missing or, you know, and sort of move them

towards subscribing and stuff as well. So yeah, so there's, there's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot,

a lot coming up. And like I say, yeah, you always think I want it all and I want it all now,

you know, but you just, you can't, you can't rush all these things. It's, it's definitely all

heading in the right direction. But I think, I think Jamie and I just got to get a little bit

and letting a few people, a few more people get involved and help us out. It's going to kick,

you're going to, yeah, it's going to be the key to getting a few, a few more things done

slightly quicker. So, you know, the same with the podcast and like Vicki said,

my wife said the other day, she said, she said, you guys, you're on TikTok, can't you? I'm like,

no, I stopped, but you need to be on TikTok. You know, and I'm Jamie's, Jamie's got TikTok.

It is personal one. And that's quite, I think he's, he's got quite a lot of followers on there.

So I think that's something we need to, again, we need to do with the magazine. And we,

often we're doing a lot of cool stuff, but because you do it all the time, you don't really think

people are interested in it. And I think it goes back to what I was saying earlier. I,

I love the Rebs magazine and stuff back in the day, because you've got the

snippet of behind the scenes and stuff like that. And, you know, we go on photo shoots and

you do it. So you've done it so many times, it doesn't mean much to people who don't know,

want to know, do you know what I mean? So I think, yeah, there's a lot of cool behind the scene

stuff we can put onto YouTube and TikTok and whatnot. So yeah, there's, there's a lot we can

do, but I think, I think there was a lot wrong with the magazine that we needed to address

initially. That was it. That was the key. And I think we're, we're getting there. We've got there.

And yeah, it's going to, the mag's going to be 30. I can't believe it. So subscribe now.

Subscribe today, guys, pbwmag.com. Subscribe. Keep the dream alive. Subscribe now. And you'll,

you'll be in time for getting the 30th issue, which will probably be a bumper issue with a

bifold cover. And I've got some re, I've got two really cool cars lined up for it,

being built by two really legendary builders. One, one cars in Germany, one's in the UK.

Give us, give us one in America. No, I can't, I can't spoil it way. No, no, no, I can't,

I can't do that. I'm like, no, I can't.

Oh no, it sounds, I want to say it sounds like it's a good future for the magazine then.

I haven't got the permission from the owners. You know what I mean? So no, it's silly, but

you have, you have to think about silly stuff, not silly things, stuff like that. You know what

I mean? And that is, I think you spend so many years building up car builders trust and stuff,

you know, and you realize, you know, people will tell you a secret and expect you to look

to anyone who's like, I bet you're better, I bet you're not as much of a bike too. But yeah,

it's going to be a great issue. Like I say, we've got a couple of people that their cars

were in the first or second issue that are still into the scene and there's got really cool cars,

still got cool cars that they're going to be in the magazine. Well, loads of nostalgia and

that's going to be, that's going to be cool. So yeah, there's a lot, a lot to look forward to.

We're just grateful for the support of all the readers over the years. It still, it still blows

our minds that people, you know, still hold the magazine such high regard. You know what I mean?

It's, it's, it's crazy to think, you know, with so many sadly magazines falling by the wayside over

the years, it's amazing to think we're still around. So we're still extremely grateful. We still

do pinch ourselves every day despite the fact that sound a bit ungrateful sometimes.

But yeah, it's still amazing to do your dream job. And I, I think the one, the one thing you're

working on the magazine that I missed is that I missed that surprise of getting the fresh

magazine and having no idea what's in it. And I'll never, I don't know, I could get it back.

I got fired. I got fired. And the magazine kept going. That might be the only way I could find

out. I could get that surprise back. You know what I mean? But it is a strange feeling. I have

always wondered that now because we're involved with so many shows over here with Dub shed,

Euro Treven and Titanic dubs. And while yes, those are the big shows, you don't get the buzz

of walking into a big show now because you're sort of behind the scenes and you know what happens.

Yeah, you do, you do get a little bit spoiled. I think it's realising the happiness it brings

people. It sounds like corny doesn't it? No, you're right. I just think it's, it's amazing. It's,

it's, it's, we're just so fortunate to be able to be in a position to be able to do what we do,

enjoy what we do. And for that to bring more group of people, happiness is like that's what,

it doesn't really get much better than that, does it really? So yeah, we're very fortunate,

but we will say yeah, we're just very grateful to be part of an awesome community. It is, again,

it sounds like another cliche, but it's the people, isn't it? You know, it's the people that build the

cars that work for these companies. You go on a night's out with, you go to addition 38 and you

get drunk on a field with them. You know, people you would never meet, all of them through these

cars. Exactly. And like I said, you know, because you're into the cars, if a good chance, you've

got, you know, you've got the same interest in fashion and music and just, just the same,

generally the same morals and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, it's hot, it's heartwarming in this day and age.

Yeah, it's definitely is. Yeah. Well, the shit that's gone on in the world.

I know, but it's been really, yeah, it's been great to talk to Connor. So yeah, I'm so grateful

for the, for the invite really, but you make me sound okay. Okay. You said you, you do edit these,

don't you? I'll do my best. Yes. And honestly here, thank you so much for your time. Like I've

really enjoyed doing this and it's a great insight to the magazine and behind the scenes, because

you read this for so long and you always wonder like, what's actually behind it? So it's cool

to give a voice to it and thank you. Yeah, no, definitely. Thanks so much. And yeah,

everyone at home, please subscribe. Or if you don't already, please subscribe, you know,

keep the dream alive. And yeah, look out for that 30th anniversary issue a little bit later in the

year. It's going to be a banger. Awesome. Thanks for your time, man. I'll speak to you soon. See you.

About this episode

Elliott Roberts from Performance Volkswagen Magazine joins the crew for a fascinating discussion about the magazine's resilience in the face of declining print media. The hosts share updates on their personal projects, including a deep dive into restoring an R32 and the challenges of working on classic VWs. They also touch on the implications of new tax regulations for older cars, the importance of using original parts for restorations, and the ongoing battle with car maintenance. The episode is packed with practical advice and insights into the VW community.

alignment anti-roll bar boost brake lines brakes caliper rebuild kit cracked head floor panels forge diverter valve Haldex

Acura CL Audi Quattro Audi TT Ford Orion Nissan Skyline Porsche 911 Porsche 928 Rolls-Royce Ghost Volkswagen Bus Volkswagen Golf Volkswagen Jetta Volkswagen R32

Original notes

On EP151 Elliott Roberts from Performance VW Magazine joins us to share his journey into automotive journalism and the story behind the UK's most iconic VW publication. We talk VW culture, chasing feature cars and how the magazine has survived the decline of print media. Enjoy!

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