The Tesla Model Y is an electric SUV made by Tesla. It’s meant for regular driving, but it uses electricity instead of gasoline. People talk about it a lot because it’s one of Tesla’s most popular models.
The Tesla Model 3 is an electric car made by Tesla. Instead of using gasoline, it runs on a battery. It’s a popular model, so it often shows up in conversations about electric cars.
The Aston Martin DB11 is a luxury sports car made by Aston Martin. It’s meant for comfortable driving over longer distances. The podcast mentions it because someone in the conversation has one in their family.
The Aston Martin Vantage is a sportier Aston Martin than the DB11. It tends to get more attention, and in this story the host thinks it’s because it’s louder and more noticeable.
The Volkswagen XL1 is a very fuel-efficient hybrid car. It’s also known for its weird-looking doors that open upward, which is part of why people find it memorable.
An Audi RS4 is a sporty, higher-performance Audi A4. It’s the kind of car people buy when they want something that drives nicely every day but still feels quick and fun.
The Ferrari F40 is a famous old-school supercar from Ferrari that people consider a classic. It’s known for being fast in a very dramatic, hardcore way—and it’s extremely expensive today.
The Lamborghini Aventador is a very expensive, high-power supercar. A “roadster” version is basically the open-top (convertible) version, so it usually costs more and feels more special to drive.
Term
finance yourself up to your eyeballs
That phrase means borrowing as much money as you can to buy the car, so your payments are really stretched. It’s basically saying “go all-in with financing,” not a car feature.
They’re talking about how watching Top Gear as a kid made certain supercars feel like dreams. It shows how TV can make a car become a lifelong obsession.
The Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren is a very special Mercedes supercar made with help from McLaren. It’s the kind of car that got a lot of attention because it looked wild and was extremely fast for its time.
The Bugatti Veyron is one of the most famous hypercars ever made. People talked about it because it was unbelievably powerful—around 1,000 horsepower—and it felt like a once-in-a-generation machine.
Injectors are parts that deliver fuel into the engine. If they’re not working right, the engine can run poorly, so replacing the injectors is a real repair.
“Tune a car” means adjusting the engine’s control settings (like fuel delivery and ignition timing) to improve how it drives and how much power it makes. On modern cars, this is usually done with ECU calibration changes based on dyno or road data.
The Porsche Carrera GT is a very rare, very fast supercar made by Porsche. It’s the kind of car people talk about because it’s special and hard to find. In the episode, it’s mentioned alongside other older Porsche models.
The Porsche 911 is a famous sports car model made by Porsche. It has been around for many decades, and there are different versions depending on the year. In the episode, it’s mentioned as part of a discussion about older Porsche models.
The heater matrix is the part that warms the air for the cabin using hot coolant from the engine. If it leaks, coolant can end up in the floor area under your feet.
The footwell is the floor space where your feet go. If coolant is pooling there, it usually means something in the car’s heating/cooling system is leaking.
The Opel Astra is a regular, everyday compact car. The podcast mentions it as a recognizable name, not as a detailed performance topic. It’s the kind of car many people would know by sight or name.
A Jaguar XF is a luxury car (a sedan) from Jaguar. Here, the host says they bought one as a daily driver and want to restore it because it had problems when they got it.
“Fully restore it” means fixing the car properly, not just patching it. In this case, the host implies both the looks and the mechanical problems will be addressed.
A full-engine rebuild means the engine is taken apart and repaired with new or reconditioned parts. It’s usually done when the engine has serious problems, but it can make the car run properly again.
The Porsche 993 is a specific generation of the 911. It’s special because it’s the last air-cooled 911, so many enthusiasts see it as a classic “dream” version of the car.
The Lotus Carlton is a very rare, special performance car based on the Carlton. Because it’s so hard to find, people treat it like something you can’t easily get—so buying one usually means you need to be extra careful about its condition.
“High mileage” just means the car has been driven a lot. More miles usually means more wear, and it can also mean more problems might be waiting to show up.
The BMW M3 is a faster, performance-focused version of the BMW 3 Series. It’s made for people who want stronger acceleration and a more sporty driving feel. The episode mentions a full restoration, meaning the car is being rebuilt carefully from the ground up.
This is a BMW 330i, and “Techno Violet” is the name of a particular paint color. They’re saying that after a huge number of miles, it’s extremely unlikely you can still find the original, matching car/chassis in that exact condition.
Bathroom sealant is the stuff you’d use around a bath or sink. If it’s been used inside a car, it’s a red flag that the car was patched up with the wrong materials instead of being properly repaired.
Tiger Seal is a strong glue/sealant product. If it’s been used in a car along with other patch materials, it can mean the car was “fixed” in a DIY way instead of being properly repaired.
Fiberglass is a repair material made from glass fibers and resin. In cars, it can be used for real repairs, but if it’s part of a messy mix of sealants and patches, it often means the damage was covered up instead of fixed correctly.
“Bodged it up” means someone did a sloppy, not-very-professional fix. The concern is that the car might look patched, but the real problem wasn’t properly repaired.
The BMW 5 Series is a mid-size luxury sedan made by BMW. In the episode, it’s mentioned because someone is talking about the sound of the exhaust on a car. That usually means they’re comparing how it drives or sounds.
“Internal drums” refers to drum-brake hardware integrated inside the rear brake assembly. This is often used so the handbrake can still work even when the main service brakes are disc brakes.
Brake calipers are the parts that squeeze the brake pads against the disc to slow the car down. Rebuilding them usually means replacing worn seals and parts so they work evenly again.
Coilovers are suspension parts that combine the spring and shock in one unit. They can often be adjusted to change how the car sits and how it handles.
Turbos are turbochargers that help the engine make more power by forcing extra air in. If they’re “knackered,” they may need rebuilding so the car can reliably make the target power.
Horsepower is a way to describe how much power the engine can produce. Higher horsepower usually means stronger acceleration and more top-end potential (within limits).
A top speed run is when you try to see how fast the car can go at its maximum. It’s not just about having power—things like gearing and cooling matter too.
“Diff” is the part that controls how the two driven wheels spin relative to each other. If it’s “aggressive,” it can make the car slide more easily when you apply power.
The Mercedes SL is a Mercedes model line that’s built for comfortable long-distance driving, usually with a sporty vibe. Here, they’re talking about working on one and upgrading it as part of a V8-focused project.
A V8 is an engine with eight cylinders arranged in a V shape. It’s often used in cars that want strong, smooth power for everyday driving and highway cruising.
A Honda Jazz is a small, practical car that’s meant to be easy to live with. The “1.5” usually means it has a 1.5-liter engine, which is typically chosen for everyday driving and good efficiency.
Car
2009 Mercedes-Benz C320CDI W204
This is a 2009 Mercedes-Benz C-Class, and the “W204” tells you which generation it is. “CDI” indicates it’s a diesel model, which was common for buyers looking for strong everyday torque and efficiency.
“Car vertical” is a website/service that checks a car’s history using records tied to that vehicle. It can show things like reported damage so you know what you’re buying.
A “damage report” is basically a record of any reported crashes or damage for that car. It may come from insurance paperwork, and sometimes it’s not detailed enough to tell you exactly how bad it was.
The Dodge Charger is a famous American car model, often associated with powerful engines and performance. Here, the news is that it’s starting to be delivered to Europe for the first time.
The Dodge Challenger is a muscle car made by Dodge. It’s usually a two-door car with a focus on strong performance. In the episode, it’s brought up because it looks similar to another Dodge model, but the number of doors is different.
An electric hybrid uses both a gas engine and an electric motor. The electric part can help the car launch harder and can recharge a bit when you slow down.
Term
0-60 in 3.3 seconds
“0-60” measures how fast a car goes from standing still to 60 mph. “3.3 seconds” means it’s extremely quick off the line.
The Nürburgring is a very famous race/test track in Germany. If a prototype is being tested there, it usually means the engineers are pushing it hard to see how it behaves.
A plug-in hybrid is a car that uses both gas and electricity, and you can charge it by plugging it in. When it has enough charge, it can drive on electricity for a while.
BMW’s M Performance division sits between BMW’s regular models and the full M cars. It typically focuses on higher-performance tuning and more aggressive styling, but with a broader, more “usable” lineup than the hardcore M models.
The BMW M Coupe (E36) is a small, sporty BMW made by BMW’s performance division. It’s a rare two-door car, and the episode mentions it because it was an early standalone M model. People talk about it because it’s special and not very common.
A “4.4 V8” means the engine is a V8 with 4.4 liters of total size. Bigger V8 engines generally have more potential to make power, and here it’s combined with electricity.
The Aston Martin Lagonda is a very unusual Aston Martin model with a bold, angular look. The hosts are talking about how big it is and whether it’s a four-door car.
A “wedge” is a style where the car’s shape looks like a wedge—wider at the back and pointed or narrower at the front. It’s meant to look sporty and aerodynamic.
The Aston Martin DB5 is an older, famous luxury sports car made by Aston Martin. People talk about it because it’s a classic design and a major part of the brand’s history. In the episode, it’s used to highlight how Aston Martin models evolved over time.
The “Foxbody Mustang” is a nickname for a specific generation of the Ford Mustang (late 1970s through early 1990s). People talk about it as a big visual change from the earlier 1960s Mustangs.
The Eletre is an electric SUV made by Lotus. It’s a car that runs on electricity and is built for everyday driving with an SUV body. The podcast mentions it because the speaker has strong feelings about it.
An electric SUV is a bigger family-style car that runs on electricity. The host’s point is that some of them look roomy, but the inside space can still be disappointing.
A “sloped back” means the roof and rear end taper downward like a sporty coupe. That shape can make the cabin feel smaller, especially for taller passengers in the back.
The Lotus Esprit is a well-known Lotus sports car. The hosts are saying Lotus is bringing it back with new tech like hybrid power and all-wheel drive, which would be very different from the older versions.
All-wheel drive means the car can send power to more than just one set of wheels. That usually helps it grip the road better, especially when accelerating or on slippery surfaces.
Concept
concept inches
They’re basically saying we’ve only seen a design idea so far, not the real finished car. What you see in a concept can look different once the production version is built.
The Lotus Cortina is an older car that Lotus built using the Ford Cortina as a starting point. It matters because it was made to be much more track-capable than a normal Cortina.
The Lamborghini Urus is a Lamborghini SUV. It’s a big, fast, luxury vehicle that many people see as Lamborghini doing something different from its usual sports cars.
The Aston Martin DB9 is a stylish Aston Martin coupe meant for comfortable long-distance driving. The host is saying it can be surprisingly affordable compared to what it looks like.
Term
flappy paddly
“Flappy paddly” is just a nickname for paddle shifters. They’re the little buttons/levers behind the steering wheel that let you change gears without moving a gear stick.
A “manual” means you change gears yourself using a clutch and a gear stick. They’re saying you can get the car this way, but it’s usually more expensive than the paddle-shift version.
A “V12” is an engine with 12 cylinders arranged in a V shape. It’s a big, powerful engine layout often found in expensive performance/luxury cars, and they’re saying you can still find these for relatively low money now.
The Aston Martin Rapid is a luxury Aston Martin with four doors. The host is saying it’s basically related to the DB9, just made longer and more practical for everyday use.
The Saab 9-5 is a mid-size car made by Saab. It’s meant to be a normal everyday executive-style sedan. The episode mentions it because someone is talking about what it’s like to drive one.
The Saab 9-3 is a compact car made by Saab. It’s meant to be a normal everyday car, but with a unique look and feel. The podcast mentions one because someone owns a black example.
The Maserati Quattroporte is a fancy, performance-focused Maserati sedan. They’re debating whether it still signals “wealth,” or whether people think it’s too common/cheap now.
The Aston Martin Rapide is a luxury Aston Martin with four doors. They’re comparing its price to other ultra-luxury cars to make the point that you can sometimes buy the look for less than you’d expect.
The Rolls-Royce Phantom is one of the most luxurious cars you can buy. They’re saying they saw one for around £25,000, but it had a serious engine problem (a head gasket), which is why the price can drop.
The head gasket is a critical seal inside the engine. If it’s bad, the engine can overheat or mix fluids, and repairs can be expensive—so it matters a lot for used-car pricing.
This is a specific generation of the Range Rover SUV (the L405). People associate it with luxury, so it can look expensive even when you find one for less money.
The Triumph Spitfire is a classic British open-top sports car. Here, the host is saying that if a car like this looks really good—especially with nice paint—people who aren’t car experts may think it must be worth a lot of money.
LIVE
a fun run with dogs and costumes.
What a chance.
And costumes.
Yeah, there was costumes.
They were all dressed up.
With the dogs and costumes.
My mini at the moment is broken.
I was annoyed by that,
and then I came in and punched myself in the face.
Oh, insert clip.
So yeah, I've copied Rory,
because he's very trendy.
And Rory copied me,
because I'm the trendsetter.
No, I copied the seat that Max had
and brought out.
No.
Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Auto Alex podcast,
home of automotive financial mistakes,
our life in cars,
and your questions answered today.
Rory.
Yes.
Taylor.
Hi.
And I will fill your eye and your ear holes
with what we've been up to.
We'll discuss your car dilemmas.
And I want to continue on the theme of the Ferrari Lucy.
Do you remember the Ferrari Lucy?
They're lucky.
Yep.
And open up a discussion about what cars
are an affront to the brand.
And then I also want to talk about looking rich on a budget.
Okay.
Because I found last night,
actually on the toilet this morning,
Aston Martin DB9 under 10 grand.
Like, when did that happen?
But is that an Aston Martin DB9
that needs 20 grand spending on it?
Oh yeah, but you'd still look great on the drive.
Yeah.
Yeah, you would.
Anyway, before we get into all of that,
Taylor, what do we do?
We say hello to everybody who has written in
for us to say hello to them.
At the email address, which is?
Podcast.autoaluxcars.com.
Fantastic.
And a massive hello to Ben Welter driving a Kenworth tanker.
Sounds big.
Sounds fun.
Harry Sugden, who's looking forward to buying his dad's
reliant scimitar, George Scott.
Great Scott.
On his way back from Duxford Imperial War Museum
in a 2021 Tesla Model 3 performance.
We won't hold it against you that you drive a Tesla.
A meal in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Richard Tinkler in Rome with his wife, his wife,
Andrew and I are listening to the podcast
while preparing his cars for his upcoming wedding.
Congratulations.
We've got Phil listening on a long drive
and his diesel, Alpha Julia, currently scoffing some food
at the glorious tea-based services.
Oh, I like tea-based services.
We like tea-based services, don't we?
They've got a nice farm shop in there.
The farm shop in tea-based, Fanta.
It's got to be the best one in the UK, doesn't it?
It is quite expensive, though.
Yeah, I bet it's worth it.
It's glorious.
But I went in there, remember we were in there,
not that obviously we weren't prepared,
but it was Valentine's Day before,
literally the day before we got back from our Scotland trip.
Don't admit that.
Okay.
And we bought all our stuff in tea-based services.
Yeah.
I bet it was nice.
I bought literally just some flowers, a little teddy bear,
and I think it was some chocolates or something.
88 pounds.
Really? Yeah.
Good quality gear, Rory.
And do you know what?
You can't put a price on Valentine's Day.
You can, is it? Yeah.
You can't put a price on love.
But I didn't even know the price.
I just sort of picked it all up
because I didn't think it would be that much.
I got to the counter and then when she read it out,
I felt like, do I look like an idiot
if I just take some stuff away and go,
I'm sorry, actually, no, I don't want that anymore.
She's not worth it, that's what you're thinking.
Yeah, it wasn't that.
We've also got Adam from Canada
driving home in his RTR Mustang.
Do you know what RTR stands for?
Road track race.
Ready to race.
Ready to rock.
Ready to rock.
You ready to rock.
Oh my God, that's so American.
And Rory's Mum Jackie.
All right, Mum.
Is she?
Yeah, she's doing all right.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Did she still listen to the podcast?
She must be so bored by now.
Yeah, I think she's bored of the Rory's Mum Jackie.
Oh, really? Okay.
I really like Rory's Mum Jackie.
I bumped into her into the ladies' toilets
and it shed first.
What are you doing in the ladies' toilets?
The men's toilets have run out of water to wash my hands.
And I went into the ladies' covered in soap.
I was like, sorry, ladies.
I need to wash my hands.
I need to wash my hands.
And then Rory's Mum Jackie comes out and,
oh, hello.
I said hello, Rory.
You have a bit of a chin wag?
Yeah.
And then some more ladies came along
and they were like,
why are you in the women's toilet?
Oh, although we're talking, weren't they?
Yeah, and I was like, look, it's not what it looks.
Yeah, Rory's Mum Jackie.
And Taylor coming out of a toilet cubicle.
You didn't.
I did, yeah.
Yeah, all wet.
Because I'd wash my hands.
Right.
Can we move it on?
We're going to move it on very, very swiftly.
Okay.
Rory, how do you feel about that?
It's better than Tom Lenthe or something, isn't it?
Right.
Anyway, what have we been up to?
Rory, what have you been up to?
What have I been up to?
Oh, I went on my Switzerland road trip.
Oh, yeah.
Sorry, is this holiday number 45
45
Five for all of us.
So we're halfway through the year
and you're already on holiday number four.
Look, man, I've got to get them in before the baby comes.
So no more holidays this year.
No, actually, no.
But you are going to be taking paternity,
which is a holiday.
Why are you looking at me like that?
Say that again.
Say, look into the camera down the lens
and say paternity is a holiday.
Paternity is a holiday.
Paternity is a holiday.
Hell, hell, hell on earth.
No, paternity is lovely.
It's lovely.
That's when you realise that you have no freedom
and that your life will never be the same again
and that you will age so much more quickly.
I can tell.
Have you noticed the grey hairs on the side of my head
are starting to really pop in now?
I don't know, they're going so far back.
It's hard to see.
Yeah, the tide's gone out, right?
It's not the grey hairs, it's the wrinkles.
Oh, the wrinkles.
I've stopped caring about the wrinkles now.
I'm like, you know what, it doesn't matter.
And the haggard sort of just general look.
Yeah, that's why I'm going to the gym a lot
just to try and like make people look at my sexy body
and not my haggard face.
The haggard.
The haggard myself with muscles.
Yeah, no more holidays.
No more holidays, but I went to Switzerland.
You did.
That was an amazing road trip.
I realised we should have done what I did in Switzerland
when we went to Switzerland.
So we need to take your dad on our road trips.
Is that what you're saying?
Yeah, or just Brother Tom.
Oh, Brother Tom.
Brother Tom, I organised it all.
He organised your family holiday.
Yeah, he does that for all our family holidays.
Does he really?
Tom loves an organisation.
Oh, you do like Brother Tom.
You set him any...
So Tom, by the way, he comes on a lot of our road trips now.
He is a cameraman, but he's sort of just fallen
into the role of organising.
Mother hen.
Yeah, like when in Morocco, he was always just like,
we'll go over here, we'll take this boat,
we'll get that boat over here, then...
Yeah, he's like the opposite of me.
Yeah, he's the opposite of both of you.
Don't bring me into this.
You two are both unorganised.
You can speak for yourself as well.
Sorry, you never organise anything.
Say that with a straight face, man.
Oh, you can't say that.
What?
Your face!
Well, that's it.
I'm going to unorganise this,
and you guys can do the podcast for yourself, then.
He's organised the podcast.
I have organised the podcast.
That's why we're in a rush.
Anyway, shut up.
We're not in a rush.
Bloody hell, it's so late.
Right, Ariad, what's the next subject?
That was a holiday, was it nice?
It was great, yeah.
We took my Vantage, which was the first time.
I don't think it was fully done when I took it to the...
No, it didn't have the wheels on it.
Didn't have the wheels, yeah.
I realised it is loud, still.
Really loud.
It's really loud.
Good.
We went through a lot more tunnels
than we even went through on our last trip, so it was...
Even I got to the point at the end of it
where I was just going through a tunnel going, no.
Really?
No, not going to rev.
Not going to do it.
Was it when the blood started pouring from your ear?
No, it was when everyone else around me started going,
oh, no.
But my dad took his DB11.
Yeah.
And it's funny.
Everyone was driving past, I don't know why,
but the DB11 didn't really get a reaction from any people.
You see quite a few of those.
I know.
I don't know whether it's just because it's modern.
Yeah.
But the Vantage, I was getting loads of people.
I guess because it's loud as well.
But loads of people were reacting to it.
It was great.
I think as well is because your particular Vantage
looks really nice, especially if you've done all the bits to it.
Like, I looked at that car at Shedfest when it sat there
and it was looking really smart.
And I was like, you know what?
I would actually own that car.
I'd actually like to buy that.
Really?
Yeah, it's really nice.
So you still don't...
I still don't get it.
You know, it's a good looking car.
Is it something that I lost after?
Yeah, but it's not really you, is it?
No.
It's not German.
I couldn't imagine you driving that.
Well, that thing in front of me isn't German
and I really love that.
We're going to get onto that in a little bit.
It's green and it's a saloon.
Rusty.
It's very rusty.
Speaking of green, I bought another green car.
Oh, yeah.
We did that last night, actually.
We did, yeah.
We went to Uxbridge.
We met Jeff.
I like Jeff.
Yeah.
And Jeff.
Jeff's a nice bloke.
Sold us his 56-mini.
Plan is because mine's so broken
and I've just completely given up on it.
Yeah.
We're going to take all the bits off my one.
Yeah.
And then we're putting it on another one.
But luckily this time, I've listened to the comments.
I've listened to the people who said,
well, don't put another N14 in it.
Get an N18.
Yeah.
But I did look into that to swap an N18
into an N14 chassis.
Is a faff.
Ish.
Also, it's cursed.
But even if you could, you can't.
The car's cursed.
So, yeah, we've now got an N18 mini.
So it's got the much more reliable engine in
and then put all the bits on
and then we might have to do something with the old car.
Yes.
Mr. Hughes.
If anyone knows Mr. Hughes.
Yeah, Mr. Hughes.
Actually, message on Instagram yesterday.
Did you?
And I said, could we do something with one of your
tanks or something fun?
And he was like, yeah, absolutely.
I was like, oh, cool.
Can I have your number?
He just ghosted me.
Oh, yeah.
All right.
And now another break in the podcast
to give a shout out to Shopify,
the sponsor of this episode.
And as we know, Shopify is the commerce platform
behind millions of businesses worldwide
from massive brands like Jim Shark and Mattel
to smaller brands like us just starting out
Chris, we've been using Shopify for quite a few years now.
We're not really that much of a small brand anymore,
are we?
Because we've got this Shopify plaque.
I know.
I'm chasing the 100,000.
That's a 10,000.
I'm after that 100,000 now.
Yeah.
So tell me about Shopify.
When you started using it to start the shops
and we have many shops,
how was it to use there's lots of like design platforms
that you can use?
The way you start really is you pick one of the templates.
And there's some which are really simple
and easy to get going.
So you can get going like an hour.
And there are others which give you a lot more freedom.
So we use those now.
Because obviously I do lots of different things.
Yeah, you're an expert now.
But if you want to get going,
you can just pick a template,
the one which looks right for you.
Like there's a template for bags,
stores which do bags or dog beds.
And yeah, you can just get going.
What's the kind of stuff that you've been using
Shopify for most recently?
So when someone visits your store,
what you want is their ability to get
what they want quickly.
So you don't want them clicking loads and loads.
So I've actually found that Shopify have an AI tool
that pretends to be a customer.
Yeah, like a mystery shopper.
Kind of, yeah.
It tells you where the friction points are
on your website,
as in places where they're clicking
where they shouldn't have to.
And then it helped me to change
the auto-alex bit of the website.
And Chris, what happens if you get stuck
if you've got any problems
and you can't figure it out yourself?
Where do you go?
Well, imagine this.
I'm in my bed on my phone editing Shopify
because you can do that.
I'm stuck.
Just get onto their 24-7 support.
A world-winning 24-7 support.
Then they've never got stuck.
They've always fixed something.
Even when it's really complicated coding stuff,
they know what to do.
Fantastic.
So with all that said, Chris,
Shopify is something that you would 100% recommend?
Absolutely.
On Shopify, everything's in one place.
So you can get into the analytics
as in who's buying what that week,
where they've clicked from.
It's really easy to understand.
It's not complicated.
It's all just there.
And it means that you can understand
your audience as well to optimize it for them.
Exactly.
So start your business today
with the industry's best business partner, Shopify.
And you can sign up for a £1 per month trial period
at Shopify.co.uk forward slash auto-alex.
That is Shopify.co.uk forward slash auto-alex.
On with the podcast.
Where else have you been up to?
Uh, why else should we do it?
I can't remember the last time we recorded this.
About two weeks ago, weren't it?
Bailey was in the unit.
He was, yeah.
I took Bailey for a walk over the fields, yeah.
Did you?
Yeah, I took him around the back.
Have you got no work to do?
No, it was in a gap yesterday or the day before
whenever it was.
Was it yesterday when you were having a massive strop?
No, I had a bad day yesterday.
I did have a bad day yesterday.
But yeah, he was like, he really wanted to go out.
I was like, come on, Bailey.
And he led me round to where the paddock is.
He knows where it is.
Yeah, he knows where it is.
And I was like, oh, okay.
So I opened the gate, and then he ran in.
And I opened the next gate, and then he ran in the field.
And he did the zoomies for all the long run.
Oh, really?
Oh, nice.
And then he saw a horse.
And he was like, and I was like, oh, no.
Uh-oh, what have I done?
Oh, no.
I was like, Bailey, come here.
And he did come back to me fair.
That's good.
He's a good dog.
He is.
Apart from, I actually saw Rory unintentionally join a fun run club.
Oh, really?
So we went to Tom Lenthal's.
And it was in the evening, like seven o'clock.
And Tom is in an industrial state.
In an A industrial state, isn't it?
He's in an industrial state.
Is he what?
I'm sorry.
I didn't quite catch that, Rory.
Where is he?
He's Tom's place.
Tom works away.
He's in a business park.
And basically, usually he's dead.
So I let Bailey off.
He wasn't on the lead.
And he was just sort of running around Tom's car park.
He was sniffing.
And then of all things to happen at that time,
a fun run with dogs and costumes.
What a chance.
And costumes.
Yeah, there was costume.
There were all the dogs in costumes.
Were there dogs dressed as humans and the humans dressed as dogs?
No, there was three people in a caterpillar costume.
Really?
Nothing together, yeah.
And then Bailey sort of stood there for a second,
realized what was happening before I did.
And then he started running because Bailey is a puppy.
Yeah.
And he's good for a puppy.
But when he sees other dogs.
How old is Bailey?
He's just turned one.
OK.
How long are you going to keep calling him a puppy?
They're a puppy till they're two.
Are they?
Yeah.
It's not like humans.
No, but he's still a puppy.
But anyway, he then sort of ran with the run club.
Fantastic.
He got very confused.
He thought, am I meant to be running with them?
And I stood there next to Tom and Tom was just laughing.
And then we're already started running after him
and then joined the run club.
It was so funny.
That is the one thing is his weakness is other dogs.
Yeah.
He just wants to play with other dogs so bad.
And I don't know.
I don't know how to stop that.
Maisie used to be like that.
Is that something that goes away?
Yeah.
Because it literally he got to the point where he got close to the gate
where he was already running at this point.
And I was there going, Bailey, Bailey.
And then you saw there was a moment where he sort of stopped
and went, should I listen?
And then he is.
No, then run.
But yeah, I started running.
And then some nice guy eventually grabbed him
and then stopped him from carrying on after all the other dogs as well.
Otherwise, I could have been going on quite a long run.
Well, you didn't come back for it.
Well, we were like, well, that's it.
He's joined the run club.
At least he's getting his steps in.
Fantastic.
It was very funny.
It was sad.
I missed that.
Yeah, that was good.
And the the Range Rover is at Tom's.
The Range Rover that has just been fixed.
It's just had a new engine in it.
It what?
No, no, it's just that.
It's just the Range Rover episode that just came out.
Tom wanted to see what it looked like.
It's not.
It's broken.
It's got a budgie in the glove box.
I'm hoping there might just be some bolts loose.
So this is the car that you intend to take your daughter home from hospital.
I brought this back and Ellie sat in it because she hasn't had it for a while and is her car.
And it's the car that she she I don't know.
Like, you know, when you have that vision of how that hospital's going to come back with a baby
that in her vision, it's in that car.
OK.
And she sat in it and she cried.
And then I was going, you know, I'll test drive it for a week.
Are you sure before you continue?
Are you sure?
Sure.
She didn't get in it and then cried because she was like,
I really wish you bought me a proper nice car.
Oh, there's bloody Range Rover again.
No.
Are you sure?
Yes.
I really want an L405.
No, I'm sure.
I'm sure.
But yeah.
So she she sat in it.
She was like, oh, and anyway, I test drove it for a week.
And then towards the latter part of the week of commuting to work,
which is that was going to be a thousand miles of test drive.
It started making this fluttering noise when I would hard accelerate.
How does it go?
And it was like, like, like, it started.
Oh, hello.
Hello, hello.
No, it goes.
And then and then I did it a bit more to try and make the sound happen again.
And it just slowly got worse and worse.
Yeah.
The point where it was just happening under any acceleration.
And then it sounded like a budgie in the glove box.
OK, OK.
And then we've worked out that it's gone exhaust leak somewhere.
Oh, near the turbo.
Near the turbo.
And to access the turbos, you have to hit the engine.
Tom's going to see if he might be able to get some,
one of his technicians might be able to get their hand up in there in time.
But it looks like the bolts just weren't,
we're hoping that maybe the bolts aren't done entirely.
OK, OK, OK.
So someone missed it, missed a torque setting or two.
Yeah, I'm hoping.
Yeah, I'm hoping.
It's easily done.
It is what it is.
Yeah.
Also, it goes to show if you want it done properly, Rory.
Get me to do it.
Get Taylor to do it.
Thank you.
Yeah, I'll take it.
Tom Lenton limited.
I wouldn't want to do it.
He's also far too expensive.
Far too expensive.
What do you mean?
What do you mean?
So Range Rover's going to get fixed, hopefully.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I made a deal with Tom because Tom's an idiot and he likes a bet.
Yeah.
So I'm setting up Tom's website and I just said,
oh, Tom, if you fix my car, I'll do your website.
And how long does that take you to do the website?
The website, it will be a bit of time, like maybe a day a day.
It won't be a day.
It will be a day.
Question.
Yeah.
Are you getting AI to do Tom's website?
No, no, no.
It doesn't do a good job still.
Oh, OK.
Well, it can do some, but I don't know.
It still doesn't do what you need it to do.
Oh, OK.
But yeah, so either way, you're having Tom over.
Say it.
You can admit it.
I think on this, this time, I think I've done well out of Tom.
Yeah, I like it when we win against Tom.
You are so horrible.
Anyway, that's what I've been up to.
All right, Taylor, what about you?
What have I been up to?
I, what have I been up to?
I've been working on my RS4.
Oh, yeah.
I fitted my carbon intake from Teguah.
So that sounds really good now.
Yeah, we love those.
It has still got a few little issues
that I've been working through that I've been
trying to diagnose and fix, one of which I have diagnosed
and I've ordered the bits for, which is a cruise control.
Oh, really?
So it was the clutch switch.
Oh, OK.
It was actually broken and it was all jiggly.
So I've ordered one of those.
I went to the Duke of London the other day at the weekend.
Oh, yeah.
So they had a classics and cake meat in Selfridges.
OK, nice.
And what a collection of cars.
Oh, really?
I walked in and I parked the RS4.
Shout out to Luke, who works there, by the way,
who invited me and gave me a ticket.
Really nice bloke.
I parked in Selfridges car park,
which can I say, when there's not a Duke of London
meat going on, it's £10 an hour to park.
Wow.
This is why London's a shit.
£10 an hour to park.
London's stupid.
That's a wage.
Do you live in Middle Earth, Rory?
It doesn't matter.
Look, I, oh, sorry.
And you two are so happy with London that you just,
you love it.
You love everything about it.
I'd rather live where I live.
No, I don't know.
I just hate people.
But you don't get a phone signal where you live.
I have 5G.
No, I have 5G.
I can't say.
And it's so cold.
I, I, you don't get takeaways.
He has to kill his own food.
No, you don't.
You kill your own food.
I get Uber Eats to my house.
Yes, I do.
From London.
No.
But anyway, I went in, parked the RS4, next to a Volkswagen XL1.
Do you know what that is?
Oh, yeah.
Really cool.
The most fuel efficient vehicle.
Yeah, with the doors that go up and it's all funny.
That was really cool.
Went in, I went upstairs and I was greeted with a Ferrari F40.
Really?
About 22 and a bit million quids worth of car,
realistically now.
That's cool.
And then behind that was my dream car.
My dream unattainable car, unrealistic.
It's that actual car.
I've actually seen it before.
So Duke of London now own it.
But I saw a picture of it before and I, that.
But the Allegro's outside.
I know the Allegro is outside.
This is unattainable.
Okay.
All right.
It's a silver blue Lamborghini Aventador roadster with silver wheels.
Okay.
And it looks marvelous.
How much is one of those worth?
That car is actually up for sale at the moment.
And it's a disgusting amount of money,
but I actually think it's quite reasonable.
175 grand.
Oh, okay.
It's not as bad as I thought.
I think at the moment Aventadors are a really good purchase.
I think the only way they will go is up.
You could do a William Chandler and finance yourself up to your eyeballs.
So funny enough, I posted that car on my story,
like during car blah blah blah.
And Luke, who works for Duke of London,
messaged me and said,
I could put you in touch with my finance guy.
Oh my God.
Do it.
Do it.
Can you imagine him rocking up to the unit in an Aventador?
Yes, I can.
Yes, I can.
But that, just like, because I've been thinking about this recently,
a few people have said to me like,
Who's jumper is this that I'm wearing?
Oh, that's mine.
What?
Oh, that's from my hay fever.
Sorry.
I've just, I'm just wearing a pink shed fest hoodie.
Yeah, yeah.
And I've just pulled out some snot rags from the-
Oh, can I have that actually?
Yeah.
Thank you.
That's from where I had my hay fever last week.
No, it's all right.
It's dried out now.
Oh my God, there's more.
Yeah, that's why they're crispy.
Oh, sorry, everyone.
But anyway, people have been asking recently,
like, what is your dream attainable, unattainable car?
Yeah.
And like-
I don't think they are.
What?
I think most people are going,
how many dream cars do you guys have?
I know, yeah.
Well, we sort of, I don't think we realize what our dream cars are
until we like proper think about it
and look and like see them out and about.
So, was this car your dream car
before you actually saw it at Selfridges?
Yeah, because I, as I say, I saw it before.
Because I've never heard you mention you ever to go on.
No, no, no.
Taylor, your dream cars change every five seconds.
That's not true.
But they do.
The TVC boys asked me a month ago, whenever it was,
what is your dream unattainable car?
And I answered with an event still.
I think that's the difference.
I like Will, to be fair to him.
He has always dreamed, dreamt of that.
That mercy he's been on his list.
There's pictures of him in one when he was a child.
For me, I've only really had one dream car
and it was the Vantage.
All my other ones, I love them,
but they're not the one that I didn't think I would be able to get.
I'm talking about dream unattainable car now.
When I was a kid, when I was watching Top Gear
and I was at school and I was younger,
the two for me that really, really done it
were the Mercedes SLR McLaren.
Well, remember when that car came out
and it was on Top Gear, I was blown away by that.
And then Jeremy drove it to Norway, I think it was,
to Oslo and race the guys on a boat.
The second one was the Veyron.
The Veyron for me, watching all the videos on that,
the unveil and everything behind it,
the 1,000 horsepower and everyone saying
it will never be replicated and blah, blah, blah.
That was cool.
They're super cool.
I love Bugatti Veyrons.
Speaking of Veyrons, I've watched two car YouTube videos
in this week, yeah, this week.
And I've cried at two car YouTube videos.
You've cried?
Yeah.
We'll get in the mercy.
That made you cry.
Have you watched the video?
No.
Watched the video.
It made you cry.
Honestly, it actually made me like...
He has a heart.
Who are you?
He's quite an emotional person.
I do not remember when he cried on our Christmas trip.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But the, yeah, the...
What's wrong, Laurie?
Why are you looking at your watch?
Okay, thank God.
I'm waiting for some injectors for my E46,
which we're hopefully going to arrive today.
And I just thought it said packaged, refunded,
but no, it says delivered.
Bloody hell.
Oh my God.
Sorry.
I told you these tissues make a juice.
Yeah, okay.
But yeah, honestly, watch the first part of that video
where we'll acquire that car.
Okay.
I think that was Joe that edited that,
or it might be Ben, I don't know.
But whoever it was, fair play.
It's such an emotional edit the way that they put it together,
the way that they've built,
they've got old footage of Will looking at mercies
and comments from when Will commented on it.
So well done.
That is proper car passion stuff.
That is ultimate...
Because obviously that car is a stupid amount of money,
but I think with the amount of passion that Will has for it,
it's okay.
Yeah.
It's great.
And the other one is Mark McCann getting his baguette working
for the first time.
Oh, really?
That's really emotional, yeah.
You could tell there's a moment where Mark's trying not to cry.
He's on the phone to Jane, and on FaceTime,
and you could see the phone shaking,
and he's trying not to cry,
and then I think Jane cries a little bit.
And then, oh my God, it was really cool, yeah.
I found that toast.
Do you know what this also goes to show?
What?
Is that you two don't have kids,
because you've got too much time?
No, there are some, like Mark's stuff recently with the baguette.
It's been great.
I think he probably lent towards that bit
where he probably bit off a bit too much,
and then I think he realized that.
But the way that the whole community has come together,
it's amazing.
And it just shows, like, we do that as well.
Like, we, you know, go and meet Tom Lempf on Tom Barclay,
and we do all of the stuff we do.
For me, it's that when you build a car,
it's that circle of people that you meet along the way.
I love that.
Everyone chipping away to help out.
Like, we can do stuff now,
like this car here that we're looking at now.
I think even just with the stuff that's wrong with it,
at the moment, I think two years ago, we would have probably gone...
It's too much.
It's too much.
It's too much.
But now we've got to the point where we've built such a good team around us.
We've got such a good group of people that it's nothing too big that much.
We're literally only a phone call away from a fix.
Yeah, and I love that.
And it also allows us to keep cool cars like that on the road.
And like tomorrow, we're going up north to see our friend James,
who's going to put your E46 on the dyno.
And I know we're going to have a laugh,
because we're going to go out for a bit of lunch.
And brownies.
And a cup of tea and some brownies.
Oh, he's got the brownies.
He's got some brownies.
Oh, shit.
And I love that.
We go in there to tune a car, but it's about the people,
and we'll have a laugh, and we'll have some brownies.
It's about the brownies.
It's about the brownies.
These aren't any...
They've not got marijuana.
They've not got drugs in there.
They're not wacky-backy ones.
But he just makes the best chocolate.
They're like cookie brownies.
I dread to think the amount of sugar and everything about it.
Oh, it's bad.
Oh, my God, they're so good.
They are good.
I can't remember what I'm saying now.
Selfridges.
Selfridges.
Oh, yes, I did that.
Very, very cool.
The event still was there.
I was just drooling over it for ages.
It's just such a cool car.
Really, really cool.
And it looks great in that colour.
I had a little picture for the people
that were watching it with their eyeballs.
Yeah.
We put that on the screen.
That's nice.
There was also Carrera GT.
There was some 964s and 930s.
Was there a 959?
There wasn't a 959, no.
But there was a lot of cool cars there.
I'd say the only thing it was missing was a Veyron, really.
Really, yeah.
It was just, yeah.
It was really, really cool.
Well, that's because they're all in pieces
in Mark and Matt Armstrong's garage.
Yeah, that's true, yeah.
And then, yeah, went from there.
And I'd never actually been in Selfridges ever.
So after that meet, we went for a little walk
around Selfridges.
It was really cool.
Is it very expensive?
It's...
I can't think of I've ever been to Selfridges.
They sell expensive stuff in there,
but I don't think it's expensive
because it's in Selfridges.
It's just like proper nicely branded,
you've got like a Louis Vuitton and all that malarkey
and all that gear.
And it's not knock-off because I checked.
It's not like when you go abroad.
Yeah, it's not like when you go abroad
and it's all knock-off.
It's all there.
Like, it's all legit.
But yeah, it's not like his North Face bags
that he got in the market in Vietnam.
No, no, they're knock-off.
They're not waterproof either, as I found out.
Credit to them.
They've liked it.
I would say that they were marginally waterproof, too.
They're water-resistant, not proof.
The conditions that we went through,
like to say that your clothes were mostly dry.
No, they weren't.
Even my passport got wet.
It wasn't very good at all.
I had to dry my passport.
Top's passport was also completely safe.
They're not advertised as being waterproof bags.
They were resistant.
So is your passport as wrinkly as you now?
No, I don't think that's possible.
Oh, okay.
Let's go say it's accurate.
Yeah, thank you.
Any more jibes?
How's your mini?
Yeah.
So Taylor had a bad day yesterday.
Oh, it was.
I had a bad day.
And I will say that that was brought on by...
Potentially by my mini.
I did arrive with the UMP slightly, and then I got the ball.
Because you were late.
Well, look.
Right.
Here we go.
Here we go.
So my mini at the moment is broken.
It's the heater matrix is leaking into the footwell,
and I've...
It's at home at the moment,
and I've been trying to fix it over the last few evenings or whatever.
Easy job.
I've got the heater matrix in,
but I can't connect the bloody pipes.
And it's been a right faff,
and I've been laying on the floor trying to do it.
And the footwell is just swimming in coolant.
It's so bad.
And my elbows were in it, and I...
Ah.
Anyway, I've still not done it.
I'm actually just going to trade it here.
I'm going to take the interior out and try and dry it.
Yeah, I'm going to try and dry it.
And then I've ordered a genuine heater matrix,
because I think the one I ordered is just not quite right.
So that annoyed me a bit.
That wasn't the main reason that I was annoyed,
but that annoyed me a bit.
The main reason that I was annoyed is because I hate my commute.
It just gives me the ump, quite frankly,
and some days it's worse than others.
Do you know, Taylor always bangs on about his computer,
and I always go, I can't be that bad.
I went to drive to pick up this mini,
and we went to Uxbridge.
Yeah.
And Taylor always says about these,
like the people just drivers going that way,
to the doors of London are just bad.
Yeah.
They're terrible.
I was watching there was this BMW 180 series, whatever,
and a Vauxhall Strat.
Oh, what?
It wasn't an Astra, because the A fell off.
Oh, Vauxhall Strat, yeah, okay.
And they were just like weaving in and out,
like 30 driving.
And then everyone was just driving like dicks,
and just no one lets you in anywhere.
And like everyone is as close as they can be,
because they don't want to let anyone in.
I can't get over how my commute going left,
or whatever, west on the M4, compared to going east on the M4.
It literally at Reading, it just seems to change.
Like everyone drives like an absolute dick.
That's me every day as well.
Like I can't get over it.
And the day before, I got stuck for an hour on a roundabout,
trying to join the M25, and I'm just bored of it.
It's the M25 that is a bottleneck.
And it just really grinds on me sometimes.
Sometimes I'm all right with it.
I'll just deal it.
I'll float in and out, whatever I'm used to.
So the question is, what are you going to do about it, Taylor?
Well, I'm looking to move.
I've been looking at gas.
Okay, I've been looking for a while though.
Yeah, you need to just get on with it.
Well, I found one I liked yesterday, but it's miles away.
But yeah, I want the right gas.
I don't just want to move into anything.
It's got to be right.
Okay.
So yeah, I was annoyed by that,
and then I came in and punched myself in the face.
Oh, insert clip.
No, don't insert clip.
Insert clip for people watching with your eye holes.
Oh, it's so good.
I was right next to you.
Oh, did you just punch yourself in the face?
I hate this car.
And I did throw a tantrum,
and I did throw my tools on the floor, and then I did leave.
You did, yeah.
That really pissed me off.
Yeah.
And I just had a bad day.
Yeah.
I had the ump.
You did, and you turned up to work late.
Yeah, because I got stuck.
So basically, outside the unit, the road's being resurfaced,
and we all arrived at the same time.
So me, Rory and Joshi, and the workman said,
Oh no, no, you can't be on this road.
Well, you can't go on this road.
We're resurfacing.
It was like...
Which by the way, they don't know.
Absolutely.
Oh, it's shit.
I'm going to say, I don't care.
Terrible job.
Brilliant.
Okay.
Rory's very passionate about the road.
Yeah.
So they said, we couldn't be on this road.
Give us half an hour.
So we went to the pub, we had a coffee, and then we came back,
and they were like, no, you can't be here.
I was like, yes, we have to be here.
Otherwise, we can't go to work.
And then basically, he let us through.
There's stones everywhere.
They're flicking up, blah, blah, blah.
And then there's a steam roller, or whatever you call them,
you know, the rolling machine, out right outside our unit.
And we had to get him to move.
You can tell he's old.
He calls it a steam roller.
All right.
It's a diesel roller.
Anyway, he moved, he moved.
We got in, and then we're like, where's Taylor?
And Taylor, where were you?
So I got let in by the first man through the road,
started driving on all the shingle.
And then I got to the, a bit down there,
and then there was another man,
and he was like this in the middle of the road.
And I was like, I just...
What's this?
It was just like, you can't stop.
You can't go any further.
I was like, I just need to get that driveway over there.
And I could see the driveway.
He was like, no, no, you can't.
There's machines over there.
And I could see the machine was on the corner,
doing the corner.
It was like, I don't even know why you're here.
Why are you here?
And I was like, because I work there,
and the man let me in because I need to get to that driveway.
And the machine hadn't quite done the driveway yet.
It was about to come around the corner.
And I said, could you just hold him there
so I could drive in there?
And he went, no, I don't know why you're here.
I was like, I need to get in there.
Bloody hell.
And as I said that,
the machine came around the corner
and put fresh tarmac right outside the driveway.
Fresh tarmac.
It's not tarmac.
No, they did tarmac.
They put tarmac down, right?
Why don't they leave it at that?
So they put the tarmac down
and I saw the tarmac go down
because I had to sit there and wait.
So nice, fresh, black tarmac.
And then another lorry came around
and covered it in shingle.
What is, I cannot get over how crap this road is.
Really crap.
Why did they put shingle on top?
So they put the shingle on top
and then it went backwards and forwards a few times
and I had to sit there and watch it.
And then it went over it again
and then it came and then a steam roller came around.
Oh, a steam roller.
Yeah, and then flattened it all down
and then this other vehicle came along
that had like four wheels on it
all in the middle and whatever.
And then that ran over it a few times.
And then a couple of transits went up and down
and I thought, brilliant, it's dry
because the transits are on it.
And I said, can I go?
And it, no.
And I thought, I'm just going to leave my car
in the middle of the road in a minute
and I'm going to walk.
And I didn't because I was in the RS4
and I didn't want them to damage it.
Whereas if I was in my new daily,
which I will get onto in a minute,
I would have left it there.
But I didn't.
What new daily?
Do you know about this?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's nice.
It's nice.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
So anyway, that's where it's just annoying.
But I get it.
I get that they had to lay the road.
That's fine.
They had, well, they didn't even have to
because the road went that bad.
It wasn't bad.
But it was the fact that they hadn't done that bit.
And I could have driven,
but he was just being an arse.
Yeah.
But what, so basically the state
that they've left the road in is a rally circuit.
It might as well be a gravel rally track at the moment.
Yeah, it's very slippery.
And apparently, Taylor's telling me
that this is how we lay roads in the UK now,
where we just leave it like that.
Yeah.
And then they let all the cars run it into the road.
Yeah.
And then some of the rain washes it away.
It literally looks like our driveway.
Yeah.
It's shit.
Oh, this is, okay.
There's something very interesting going on here.
Buffoon has entered the unit.
We've had an old fat man.
Hello.
Walking to our unit.
And when we say old, we mean ancient.
All right, Tom.
Tom is looks like he's regretted every single decision he's made.
Come here, Tom.
What's going on?
What's going on?
That's led into this...
I just want to cry.
What's going on?
What are you doing here, Tom?
Do you want to have a little seat?
It's Tom Lenthal, everyone.
What's going on?
I'm fixing.
No, no, I'm not fixing.
I'm taking a mini apart.
I'm taking Rory's mini apart.
Why are you doing that, Tom?
Because I'm stupid.
So Tom is...
Tom lost another bet.
Tom Lenthal limited isn't doing so well.
So he's looking for part-time work.
So he's on minimum wage.
We're paying him £6 an hour.
Is that all?
Minimum wage is more than that, you buffoon.
So you're not used to...
You don't even know how much you're paying people, do you?
No.
Rory, how much are you paying?
There we go.
He doesn't know.
He doesn't know.
So you're here with Michael Ferney.
I am here with Mike,
and we're having a look at Rory's engine
to try and work out what's going wrong with it.
And you did a video on that.
And I'm now full of regret.
Why?
What are you stuck with, Tom?
I'm not stuck.
I just...
It's not the taking apart of the engine
or any of that stuff.
It's the finding of the tools and the...
They're welcome to my world.
It's...
Yeah.
Anyway, so I'm getting there.
And I just want a microfiber cloth
so I can wipe my hands properly.
Oh, there's one just there, Tom, on that table.
Yeah, I know.
I nearly knit the ones over there.
Or there's one holding that sill up there.
Yeah, there's ones over there
protecting some wheel centres by the look of it.
Oh, yeah, not those ones.
So I thought I'd probably best not take that one.
Do you want me to just...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There we go, there's a microfiber.
Right, Tom, haven't you got work to do?
Yeah, I'm going to...
Yeah, f*** off, you're busy.
Is it a part, Tom?
That's what he says to us all the time.
Yeah?
All right.
Bye, Tom.
Oh, bloody, I'm nearly the elephant's back as well.
Sorry, I just had to blow my nose.
Have fun, Tom.
Bye, Tom.
Bye, Tom.
If you've got a Jaguar Land Rover product,
bring it to Tom so he can feed his kids again.
Anyway, back to the rally circuit.
So, yeah, they've done a shit job.
But yeah, so they just...
Yeah, that's how they...
I'm surprised you've never seen this before.
But why do they put little stones on top?
What's the...
Because it sticks to the tarmac.
But tarmac's sticky.
No idea.
Okay.
It's just...
It's shit.
It's so slippery.
We went out for lunch in the Allegro yesterday
and I spun it.
I will spun.
It's got 39 and walls power.
They redo the road...
You did pull the handbrake.
I did do a handbrake turn.
And I did churn a little bit of it up
because I wanted it to leave a mark.
So that every time I drive down Accida,
I did that in an Allegro.
Yeah.
But they redo the roads by me and they don't do...
Like, they...
Yes, but that's because your roads are made out of mud.
No.
And you have horses.
I'm sorry.
The roads by me are far better than the roads by me.
That's because no one uses them.
Because no one lives in Middle Earth.
You have the M25.
That is probably one of the worst roads in the UK.
No, we love the M25, don't we?
It's fantastic, yeah.
You drive on the M25 and you think you've got to blow out
every four milliseconds.
That's only the concrete sections.
I was reading a documentary about that the other day, actually.
And there's a reason for that.
It's because it's shit.
It's because they cheaped out.
Yeah, there you go.
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
Anyway, we've got a new road.
It's closer you get to London, the shitter it gets.
So anyway, that annoyed me.
I had a bad day.
Punched myself in the face.
Oh, my God.
Hold on, hold on, wait, wait, wait, wait.
No, no, no, no.
Whoa.
No, no.
Bugger off.
Anyway, that was that.
I've got a new daily.
I've got a Jaguar XF.
How did you get that?
I bought it off Rory's Chrome at Tom.
Because it failed its MOT on a few bits.
So I'm going to fully restore it.
And I've been driving it about and it's got air-conditioned seats.
And it does.
You'll be happy 50 miles to the gala.
I like the sound of that.
Yeah.
So yeah, I've been flocking about that,
but the body works a bit shit, so I don't mind hitting it.
So yeah, Tom, admittedly the car was broken when he,
like, not broken, but the exterior was terrible when he got it.
And it needed a full-engine rebuild.
And then Tom may have had some more incidents,
because he lives in the centre of Birmingham.
So he brushed a Royal Mail van.
He did brush a Royal Mail van.
Really?
And the car now just looks like...
It looks sore.
It looks like it's been in a bumper car sort of thing.
But the interior is lovely.
Which is perfect for me, because I can hit bins and have air-cond.
Yeah.
And churn up roads.
And churn up the road, yeah.
So I've got that as a daily now, which I'm quite happy with.
Yeah.
Because it does 50 miles to the gala and the air-cond works.
Fantastic.
And it's got...
But is it Bowers and Wilkins or Meridian?
No one's got Bowers and Wilkins.
Yeah, it's got good stereo, which is very important to me.
Cruise control, stereo and air-cond.
Only things I need in life.
Chameleon tent.
That's what you need.
I don't want chameleon tent.
Okay, fair play.
What else have I been up to?
Anything?
We need to try and sort this.
Oh, okay.
Oh, okay.
This seems serious.
I've asked you a few times now, and nothing's been done about it.
Okay, okay.
We need to speak to the winner of the Allegro,
because I don't want to let it go.
Well, we've tried to reach out to him, and I don't think we've heard anything.
Really?
Yes.
Well, I want to buy it.
Okay, it's five grand.
For sure.
I just want to buy it.
I had a chat with that car yesterday.
Yeah.
And he said, he looked at me in the eye, and he said,
I want you to be my owner.
No, no, he said, please stop handbrake turning me.
No, he said, I like that.
Because it's funny.
Okay, right, yeah.
I just like that car.
All right.
And I want to take it out in the summer to classic car shows.
I want to take it to the Festival of the Year.
Oh, I could take it to the Ex Duke of London Selfridges.
Oh, they wouldn't let you in.
Yeah, would you?
Okay.
And I just, I want to enjoy it throughout the summer.
That for me is an attainable dream car.
Is it really?
I love it.
And do you know what?
It's not bad for 10 grand.
It's great.
I love it.
Okay, perfect.
Fantastic.
All right, well, I'll try and get you an answer on that.
Yes, please, because I would like to purchase that vehicle.
All right, any more?
Other than I've just been preparing my six series,
because I've decided I'm going to take that to the Nurburgring.
Fantastic.
So we're going to the Nurburgring, and I'm going to take my six series,
because I'm going to enjoy that.
You're going to drive it on the ring.
I might do a lap in it.
Oh, okay.
We'll see.
All right, nice.
See how brave I'm feeling.
Other than that, now.
As for me, we've been working on a vehicle that I bought recently.
A big car.
Yes.
And this is an actual dream car.
I know we say it a lot, but this is a car that I never thought I'd be able to get into.
Ken, never heard you mention anything about it until about three months ago.
Oh, yeah, I know.
But it's just a legendary car that I never thought I'd be able to own.
All right, for now, no dream car uses.
It's just a legendary car that you like.
It's not a dream, because, as I said...
I've dreamt about owning one.
I think you've only...
I have, yeah.
For a long time?
Long time.
Bullshit.
As long as you've been a knickers.
I think the only car that, realistically, you've actually dreamed of having was a 993.
Maybe.
But I really love this.
I don't even...
It's a dream car.
It's not a dream car.
It's not a dream car.
Rory, shut up.
So, yes, as you may have seen on Instagram, I bought myself a Lotus Carlton.
Literal unobtainium.
The reason why this is...
Obtainium, yes, that works, is because it's mega mega high mileage.
And it's a bit rusty.
And there's loads of issues with it that we didn't know.
What?
We discussed the other day.
You've got three halo cars, I would say.
Which is your BMW, Barney.
Yeah.
You've got your 993.
Yeah.
And you've now got the Lotus Carlton.
What about Phil?
And Phil.
But these are like legend.
Three legend cars, like, yeah.
All right.
Yeah.
All of them.
Cleo Williams.
That's a legend.
Yeah, that is.
Yeah, I'll give you that.
All right, but these three, all of them...
Have over 200,000 miles.
That is true.
That is true.
Yeah.
These are cars that most...
I think the reason why these three are probably a bit more...
Most of them are low mileage because most people collect them and store them away.
Yeah.
Whereas these three, you've managed to find the only ones that are like...
They have been used and abused.
Yes.
So Barney My M3, which is a nut and bolt restoration, and it didn't exist.
No.
Tourings don't exist.
226,000 miles.
But even to find the original chassis of a 330i Techno Violet.
Yeah, with that mileage doesn't exist.
Yeah, that would have been garaged by someone.
That should have probably been garaged by someone.
Yeah, 993 is on 206 and the Carlton is on 202, 203 now.
Yeah.
So yeah, it's incredible.
We've had it on the ramp a lot.
And it's been a lot worse than we thought it was when we looked at it.
Yes.
Because when we looked at it, I looked underneath it and I said that is absolutely mint.
It's lovely.
And since getting it back, we have found nothing but horrors.
And you would have seen that in Thursday's episode.
So there is a lot of work to do.
The brakes need doing, the suspension needs doing, the seal is completely rotten.
We found bathroom sealant in it.
We found tiger seal, fiberglass.
It's someone who's unfortunately at some point in this car's life completely bodged it up,
which is a real, real shame.
But we're going to fix it.
Indeed.
I paid and it's an obscene amount.
Most amount I've ever spent on a car, 45,000 pounds on it.
Realistically, had it been an 80 to 100,000 mile vehicle,
it's worth 70 to 80,000 pounds all day long.
So I got it for nearly half what it's worth really,
or what it would be worth with low mileage.
But the engine itself is great.
Engine itself's good, but we have disassembled it.
We've taken the turbos off of it.
Yep.
And we are going to take some more bits off of it and send it all off and rebuild it.
Indeed.
I was just thinking, when you take the calipers away from this,
this needs to go somewhere else, actually, while we're waiting for all the other stuff.
Where?
I think you need to send this to Rich.
Oh, for an exhaust.
But like a 540i level exhaust, where he, you know, like it's perfection, where there's like...
Your 540 exhaust is very nice.
It is, though.
Very, very nice.
But it won't have brakes.
So I don't really trust it being wheeled around with no brakes.
Or you send it off to the ice blasters.
No, we need to get the rust on first.
Oh, OK.
And then ice blasters.
It needs an exhaust.
On this car, if we leave the rear discs on it, you will still have a handbrake.
OK.
That works.
Because I believe it's got internal drums.
Yeah.
OK.
I think in the...
Because what?
We've got probably two months, because everything has to be custom made for this car.
So AP racing are going to make me some discs.
Yep.
They don't exist.
Custom made, yeah.
Custom made floating discs.
They're actually using drawings from what they had back in the day,
when they originally designed the braking system for this car.
And they're going to put them...
They're going to make them.
Yep.
They're going to make from those drawings back in the 90s.
It's incredible.
Yeah, it's amazing.
I'm so excited.
And they're also...
These are factory AP racing brakes on this car.
They're going to take all of the calipers and fully rebuild them,
with new aluminium pistons and seals and everything.
And then there's another...
What's the coilover company called?
The leader, LEDA.
Who are going to custom make a...
This, to us, this is our Bugatti Veyron.
This is our car where people are trying to band together to get it back to good form.
Literally, every corner you turn, you need a specialist.
Yeah, yeah.
Everything that needs to be done, like the turbos, for example,
one of them is a little bit knackered.
They're going to turbo techniques.
They're going to be rebuilt.
They're going to be bigger.
And they're going to be able to produce between 450 to 500 horsepower.
Yeah.
So we are gunning for a kind of maybe a top speed run.
Try and get it in excess of its 177 mile an hour top speed.
So that's very exciting.
With the caravan on the back.
With the caravan, of course, yeah, we need to get it so far.
But yeah, it'll be an ongoing project.
I'm super, super excited.
And hopefully you guys really enjoyed the first episode that came out.
The second episode, you get to see a dyno run on this.
So we get to find out how much power it makes.
Spoiler alert, it's not a lot.
So there are some issues.
And then we have a proper dig behind the sill and it is very bad news.
It's not good.
No, but again, it is fixable and we will fix it.
Yes.
And I do love it and I cannot wait to bring it to shows.
Food and fuel, hopefully be ready for that.
So I'll be doing lots of burnouts because the diff on this is always aggressive.
How do you know that?
Oh, on the way back from the dyno, back from Sorry Rolling Road.
Was this on the gravel track?
No, it wasn't.
It was just actually on a road.
I was with JMR, kind of cameraman, do of all things.
Going round and round about, not even thinking about driving aggressively or anything,
driving normally between one second to the next, I was fully sideways.
And I was like, what the hell is going on here?
So yeah, that completely caught me off guard.
And then driving up hills as well, I was like, okay, let's just see what it does.
And it's spooling its tires, rear tires, admittedly they're quite old in second gear.
That is brilliant.
I like that.
That is down on power big time.
So with an extra 100, 150 horsepower, it's going to be a handful.
And I cannot wait for that.
Other things that I've been up to, got crashed into?
No.
No, yes.
No.
Yes, yes, yes.
You pit manoeuvred a lady in a Honda Jazz.
Right, apparently I pit manoeuvred an old lady in a Honda Jazz.
You have been crashing a lot in your old age.
He just can't see.
He can't see.
He's supposed to have glasses.
We know that, but he doesn't wear them.
That's only for like short, short days.
Was this one of those things where you could see her about to crash into you?
Like, I'm going to have to teach her a lesson.
No, it was, he saw it.
He's like, no, I'm in a rush.
I came off the, I think a 404 onto a roundabout and I did the journey yesterday.
On the ground, you can actually clearly see there's like an arrow to point right,
arrow to point straight forwards.
She was going over the roundabout.
I was taking a right.
I was indicating right.
And she was going quite slowly as I was turning right.
All of a sudden she completely just veered into my lane as if she changed her mind and
wanted to go right and then just crashed into the front of my car.
And we stopped pulled over and I asked if she was all right.
I said, do you admit responsibility?
And she said, yes, absolutely.
And she said that a car in front of her slowed down or something.
It confused her, blah, blah, blah.
I didn't quite see what she meant.
And yeah, we exchanged details.
I gave her a hug and then that was it.
So, car's going to have to get sorted.
Going to have to get paint and a bit of body work as well.
It's one of those things like you can see it happening, but you have no time to react.
I got on the horn, but by the time I actually got my hand on the horn, it was done.
Did you not put your foot on the brake?
No, no, I accelerate into it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I veered straight into her.
So yeah, that happened.
Carbon intake on the RS4, as you will have seen on Instagram as well.
I bloody love those things.
They're really good.
Working on the Mercedes SL, and we've got our V8 series ongoing.
Mustang, eight series SL, and we had it in the unit this week.
And my God, does that car look fantastic now?
Yeah, but I hated that.
I know.
That was crap.
Why is that?
Because that car attacked me.
Yeah, didn't mean to punch yourself in the face.
Insert glove.
So yeah, we had a little poodle up and down the unit road here,
and it handles really nicely and it feels great.
And just the way it sits now is beautiful.
Yeah.
The interior is shit.
Like those seats need to go.
I need to get some decent seats in there.
But I can't wait for our road trip, which will be happening soon.
We're still waiting to get the eight series back from paint.
Which is being done, actually.
Yeah, as soon as that's with us, then we will continue that series as well,
which is exciting.
I must say, your SL looks amazing.
Doesn't it just?
It looks really, really cool.
Yeah, especially with the 16-inch wheels now.
So I'm absolutely over the moon.
And then, apart from that, Barney interior as well is being redone.
So I have a little, what do you call this?
A swatch?
A sample.
Sample.
So cinnamon leather with purple stitching.
That's what I'm going for.
Cinnamon.
That's nice.
Yeah, it's because Rory's gone for cinnamon in here.
Oh, he's even copied my seats as well.
I have copied your seats.
You took inspiration from my car.
I would actually refer to you as a trendsetter.
Thank you.
You're very trendy.
That's funny, because I was the first one with cinnamon.
First one?
What in the world?
Did you invent cinnamon?
Do you know, actually, what we need to do,
because I'm interested to see,
because your cinnamon is very different to that cinnamon.
Mine's a bit brighter than that.
But it's still cinnamon.
I want to see what that looks like on your seat,
because I think it's going to be vastly different.
Yeah, I think so.
So yeah, I've copied Rory, because he's very trendy.
And Rory copied me, because I'm the trendsetter.
No, I don't think so.
I copied the seat that Max had when he brought out.
No.
Yeah, Max Hawks Automotive.
He's doing it all great.
Amazing.
Really good, yeah.
And Taylor even managed to stitch a penis into some of it.
I did, yeah.
I knitted a phallus.
You did?
Yeah.
Okay.
Anyway, shall we move on with the rest of the podcast?
Yes, let's now move on.
At least, I think it might have been the longest,
what have we been up to, section?
53 minutes.
Bloody hell.
Let's move on now to the sponsor of this podcast episode,
of course, Carvertical.
Sorry, Carvertical?
The Carvertical.
Carvertical is the sponsor of this episode.
And we've had an email at...
podcast.autoletscars.com.
From a man called Tim.
All right, Tim.
All right, Tim.
And, yeah, as ever, if you've got any Carvertical stories,
then you can email us.
And I will read out those stories.
And this one from Tim says,
Hi, Alex, Taylor and Rory.
I've been an avid viewer of the channel and listener
of the podcast for many years now,
and I've been meaning to write in.
I recently sold my daily driver a 2016 Honda Jazz 1.5.
Because you bit me over there.
Yeah, yeah.
Maybe you wanted to crash into me as well.
As it was a bit bland and I wanted something a bit more special,
a 2009 Mercedes-Benz C320CDI W204 popped up for sale at a local dealership
here in South Africa for a very reasonable price.
Lots of South Africans, isn't it?
Yeah, lots.
Yeah.
Seeing as I've always had a soft spot for Merckx,
I decided to go have a look at it.
I was initially very skeptical of the car,
as it seemed a little too good to be true.
No visible accident damage, full service history
with a reputable Mercedes specialist
and a very neat and clean car overall.
After test driving it twice,
I decided to run a car vehicle check
just to be sure that I wasn't buying a lemon.
And to my delight, the report came back completely clean.
No theft, mileage or accident discrepancies detected.
Bury glad to have a tool like car vehicle at the ready
for vehicles that you aren't 100% certain about.
Needless to say, I'm over the moon with the Mercedes.
Keep up the good work.
Looking forward to seeing some more adventures from you
and the team very soon.
Cheers, Tim.
So that goes to show car vertical won't only give you
like doom and gloom.
Like Tim, if you find a car and you think it's a bit too good
to be true, you do a car vertical, maybe sometimes
it is too good to be true.
Well, no, it's not too good to be true.
It's actually what you want it to be.
Does that make sense?
It's like above and beyond your expectations.
You've got car vertical there backing up your theory.
So that's really, really good.
And if you want to do a car vertical check on any vehicle
that you either own or want to buy, then use my code
alexcast for 20% off your next car vertical report.
Car vertical doesn't only work in the UK, Taylor.
No, it works in you.
Why'd you always ask me?
Because I test you every week just to make sure
that you're listening.
In most of Europe, Australia, America and England.
And England, the United Kingdom, all of it.
All of it, all of it.
England, Wales, Scotland, the lot.
So as I say every single week, we do not leave the unit
without running car vertical reports
because we don't want to arrive at a car and be disappointed.
Or in the case of Tim, actually be elated
because the car that he really wants is actually in good condition.
It's funny because we went to go and buy that mini last night
with Rory and we did a car vertical on it.
And before doing the car vertical, I went,
that's been painted that and we did it.
And it came up with a damage report.
It's not categorised.
It was actually an insurance assessment.
Jeff as well, the owner actually was like,
after the car vertical report on it.
And he pulled up his car vertical report on it.
And yeah, you can see there was just a damage assessment.
So yeah, I just had a minor bump where they've just obviously.
Okay.
So again, use the code AlexCast for 20% off.
And if you front load and buy lots of car vertical reports
right now, you'll get up to 50% off right now.
Let us move on to the news.
What's been going on Rory in the world of cars?
So we've got two bits of news I've got.
Yeah.
I've got the Dodge Charger is being made,
well not made, but delivered to Europe for the first time.
I like the Charger right now.
Does it look like the Dodge Charger that we know and like?
Or does it look shit?
It looks.
Does it have a V8?
Is it electric and an SUV?
So originally they were electric, but now they have made,
because they realised that no one was buying them because
trying to sell an American car, that American muscle car to the American audience,
and it not be a V8 or an internal combustion won't really work that well.
No.
So yeah, it's, I'll show you take, wait, I'm just loading a picture of it.
It just looks like a charger.
It looks like a just more mod.
I still think I prefer the old charger.
Looks like a challenger because the Charger was a four door.
The last one.
So they've removed the, yeah, so I think they're all now called chargers.
They've removed the challenger.
And they're now just either two door or four door.
Because people can't spell challenger.
Maybe.
But you remember the challenger was the two door coupe.
That's the one you had in America.
Yes.
When you drove it.
Yes.
Correct.
And then the Charger, it eventually became a four door saloon, a sedan.
But now it looks like they've gone to a two door again.
Nice.
Okay.
Good looking car.
It looks like, oh, what, what?
Prices.
Do we know anything about it?
What is it?
It's power plant.
So, here we go.
So obviously they do an electric version.
Yeah.
Oh, God.
Yeah.
The entry level petrol one is a three liter six cylinder.
Okay.
V6, yeah.
With 420 horsepower.
What?
Yeah.
Probably supercharged or something.
That's really good.
Or turbocharged.
Above that is the three liter twin turbo.
Oh, right.
With 550 horsepower.
Bloody hell.
And then, no.
What?
No.
What?
No.
Go on.
They're doing like a electric hybrid sort of thing.
Yeah.
And that comes with 670 horsepower, 0-60 in 3.3 seconds.
Bloody hell.
I do quite like the sound of that.
But they will not have a V8 in it.
No V8.
Now, is it rear wheel drive or is it four wheel drive?
I think it depends on what model you get.
I think it will be four wheel drive on some of them.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
That's interesting.
Rory's learning as I'm reading.
I'm learning as I'm reading.
You've not done your research, have you?
You're asking me too many questions that I didn't really think so.
You should know about it because you're in charge of the news this week.
This was the piece of news I picked.
I read the headline.
I was like, that's cool.
Standard Rory in it.
And then the other piece of news is Audi have released their,
I'm going to say it, not very Audi named car.
Okay.
And it's called the Audi Nivolari.
So this car is based off a Lamborghini platform.
That looks like the thing that Will Smith drove.
Literally, I was about to say that.
It looks like something from iRobot.
Yes.
Do you mean the Audi R8?
Which that was the Audi R8 concept from back in the day.
They called it something else, didn't they?
Yeah, I can't remember.
But it looks more like the Audi R8 concept.
So is that actually a car?
Can you buy that?
So it is a car because,
oh wait, they were testing it on the Nurburgring.
Oh, yeah.
So that'll be all hybrid and stuff, won't it?
It's not electric, is it?
It is a hybrid.
Yeah, no, it's not electric.
It is a hybrid.
I'm guessing it's probably going to be based off the same
as like a Lamborghini Rivolto.
Okay.
Because they don't care.
They're obviously just sort of sharing platforms with each other.
I'm going to, I'm going to guess that's what it would be.
Do we know engines?
No, maybe.
I don't know.
I haven't read that far down.
I'll be honest.
You need the AI summary, don't you?
It's just not, see what I've said about organising.
He doesn't organise.
See, look, he had one thing.
It's a 1000 horsepower hybrid supercar.
Okay.
I can't see anything saying that it's, oh wait.
Oh, no, it's a V8 engine.
Okay.
The V8 will be responsible for 788 of that horsepower.
Oh, they must have used the V8s from our RS1s.
I was going to say it's probably actually the V8
from the latest RS6.
The engine is actually just borrowed from the Lamborghini.
Probably will be the same that's in the room.
But yeah, that means it goes up to 10,000 RPM.
Oh.
Wow.
Yeah.
That's a lot.
Yeah.
Oh, 10,000 RPM.
That's quite exciting.
It's going to have an exciting price tag, no doubt.
Any more news?
No, that's about it, really.
Okay.
Fantastic.
So you remember last time that we spoke about the Ferrari Lucy?
Yes.
The Lucky.
Yeah, Lucky.
You and I were not convinced.
No.
We were like, doesn't make any sense.
You loved it.
You actually loved it.
I don't love it.
You're a brand ambassador.
You want one.
You said you were going to sell everything to get one.
Yeah, I?
Yeah.
Oh, I must have smoked some brownies on that day.
No, you hit yourself in the face.
No, that's tomorrow.
Yeah.
Yeah, I did.
In such a good way.
So basically, the Ferrari Lucy for me is like an affront to Ferrari.
The Lucky.
It goes against everything that I believe that Ferrari is.
And then it got me thinking, what other manufacturers
have released vehicles that are an affront to the brand?
Yeah.
Like that don't make sense.
That just, why would you do that?
It's so stupid and it makes me angry.
One such car is a car whenever I see it.
I just, I just get really riled up.
Do you?
Yeah, it's from BMW.
Yeah.
And it is called the BMW XM.
They are.
Do you know what I'm talking about?
The XM.
Was this the big, enormous, that ugly, ungainly?
Was that the one that clocks and tried to take off road?
I don't know.
That was an X6.
We're talking about the newer one.
Oh, okay.
I can, do you want me to Google a picture?
Let me get you a picture of the BMW XM.
It is horrendous.
It is just, if you ever see it on the road.
They do look really different.
Look at the size of it.
Oh, it's massive isn't it?
If you look at that, what, I mean, it doesn't scream or say BMW to me.
It says some Chinese startup, electric SUV, something like that.
No, shut up.
No, you don't.
It is hideous.
It is so large.
Shut up.
Are you taking a piss?
I would have that.
Are you joking?
He is taking a piss.
So it is a 2.7 tonne luxury plug-in hybrid SUV built from the ground up by BMW's famous,
fabled M Performance division.
Okay.
Legendary.
We love M Performance.
So the same people that made that car made the 46M3.
Okay.
It is only the second standalone model ever made by BMW M following the legendary M1 supercar
from 1978.
So they did that one and then they did this one.
It's like, what are you guys smoking?
Are you also smoking James's brownies?
Because something must have been going wrong in there.
The range-topping XM has got a 4.4 V8 and electric motor with 738 horsepower.
Because that's needed.
Exactly.
Evo magazine, the headline says it's the most powerful BMW on sale and also the worst.
That is the headline for their review.
It is ugly.
It is shit.
It annoys me every time I see it.
All right.
In front of you is a BMW XM.
Yeah.
You have to drive home in one of these cars.
The BMW XM or...
Figaro.
The Ferrari Lackey.
I'd go in the XM.
I would walk.
No, no.
You have to pick one.
No, I would walk.
I'd take the Ferrari.
I feel like the XM will be one of those cars where it's obviously it's not doing what it should do.
It's not.
Well, sales are terrible.
No one's buying myself.
It's not an M car, blah, blah, blah, whatever.
But I have a feeling it's one of those cars you see and it's probably quite nice just to
actually drive it.
No, because the interior is really cramped as well apparently.
Is it?
Yeah.
But it's massive.
I know.
It's shit.
It's really shit.
It is really shit.
Yeah.
So any other cars that you guys can think of that are an affront to the brand and you guys at home,
you can email us at podcast.autoiletscars.com.
And let us know and then we can continue the discussion.
Rory, go on.
Mine is an Aston Martin Lagonda.
No, stunning car.
Best thing they ever made.
You're trying to piss me off with the XM.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I see, see the Lagonda.
That's the one with the flat nose.
The wedge, the wedge car.
Is that four door?
It was large, wasn't it?
It was large, very large and long.
I don't think it was four door.
I don't think they're too horrendous.
It's very 80s.
Oh no, it was four door.
Yeah, it was four door, yeah.
Look at that.
Yeah, that is hideous.
That's a stunning bit of design there.
So you don't like that.
You think that's an affront to the brand?
How can you go from designing DB5s, DB6s, all that stuff, these beautiful cars to that?
Because in the 80s everything became really boxy and square.
I'm sorry, no one would have looked at that.
Even in the 80s, you can't look at that and go, that's a nice bit of car that.
Well, it came out in the same sort of generation as the eight series,
which was sort of wedge shape on a pop-up headlight.
The eight series looks far better than that.
I'll give you that, it does, yes.
But it's, yeah.
It doesn't fit the brand.
It knows.
A, it's a four door, which realistically, the only reason why these brands asked in,
all these other ones did four doors, a bit of money.
Yeah.
They just want, they were thinking, oh, we can maybe sell more of these.
So I don't think A, this was obviously just a, I would try and get a bit of money.
But it's just...
It looks like a parts car, doesn't it?
Yeah.
What can we rush out?
It's horrible.
If you didn't, like, if you took the Aston Martin badge off that and told me what brand
made that car, would you be able to say that that was an Aston Martin?
Same with the XM.
Same with the XM, yeah.
You wouldn't be able to say it.
And I think that's probably what you're getting at.
If you took the badge off, would you be able to say it's that car?
Yeah, because it has no lineage.
I can one up that.
Go on.
With the same brand.
Which brand?
Well, Aston Martin.
Yeah.
No, this doesn't count.
Are you going to say sticker?
No, they did this for the emissions.
Emissions, yeah.
That doesn't count.
Why doesn't it count?
It kind of does count.
Okay.
They kind of count.
Okay, so you're just saying.
They were forced to do that, though.
The Lagonda, they chose.
I don't think they were forced to do it.
No, they were...
Because like Ferrari didn't do it at the time.
Yeah, because that's because they...
Lamborghini didn't do it at the time.
Aston were trying not to get fined.
Oh, okay.
I'll have a couple of others.
Oh, go on.
Go on.
The Foxbody Mustang.
How did they go from the beautiful 60s Mustang,
like your one, to then like the Mac one and all that,
which is quite butch, a bit different to the Foxbody?
It is a ugly car.
How did that happen?
And then, what annoys me even more, the Mac E.
Oh, yeah, the Mustang Mac E, yeah.
Mustang is probably actually one of those brands
that has had the biggest sort of nose dive, I would say.
But now we're talking about the lineage of the Mustang name.
But the Mustang Mac E actually makes sense.
You look at it and it's like...
But it's not a Mustang.
Yeah, it doesn't matter.
Yeah, okay.
It's just a name that we're annoyed at.
But the car itself is selling well.
But again, you take the badge off it.
Yeah.
Is it a Mustang?
No.
No, is it a Ford?
Yes.
But it's not a Mustang.
I was saying an affront to the brand,
not an affront to the name that's being used.
I think the Mustang is the brand though.
Like, it's just a subdivision of it.
I think the one that annoys me the most
that really boils my blood is the Lotus Electra.
What's that?
Which is a Lotus.
Which is an SUV.
Oh.
Which is terrible.
I think that's done terrible for sale.
I do actually see a few of them out on the road.
It's this.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
That's a Lotus, yeah.
And I sort of get what they're trying to do.
They're trying to boost revenue by selling a car.
What they think is going to sell well and make money.
But just build a quarter-loon or something,
just on an estate car.
Why is everyone now going for electric SUVs
that have got loads of power
that aren't actually that practical
because they're quite small inside?
Because that's got a really sloped back on it.
So it's not going to be practical.
No.
I just don't get it.
Like, Lotus, that's not Lotus at all.
No.
And you know, Lotus have realized that
with another bit of car news that actually came out.
Lotus is coming back with another car.
Which I'm quite surprised about
because I thought Lotus was...
I thought they got no money.
Yeah, yeah.
But they're bringing out a Lotus Esprit again.
Oh, okay.
With a new all-wheel drive, 1,000 horsepower hybrid.
Is it?
Is it a hybrid?
Is it an SUV?
They've only released concept inches.
Yeah, but...
What the hell is that?
That's a conservatory.
And I'll put that.
Look at the rear of it, though.
Okay, that looks fine.
That's a nice rear.
Yeah, nice bottom.
Yeah, okay.
The front is still too concept-y.
Yeah.
We don't know what that's actually going to look like.
But...
But...
See that?
They're still trying.
Yeah, I get it.
But like the Electra, or whatever you call it,
is literally a rebranded Chinese SUV.
It's not even made by Lotus, I don't believe.
I think it's made in China.
So I don't really...
I don't...
Just don't put a lot...
I just...
I don't get it.
No.
Like, why has it got a Lotus badge on it?
Okay.
Lotus, for me, shouts motorsport pedigree
and lightweight and handling and...
And rust.
And a bit of rust.
And lacquered turbos and bad brakes.
Like performance, not an electric SUV.
Yeah.
I just don't...
But you know, that is quite funny though.
At the time, would you have said,
this didn't fit the Lotus brand?
Well, this is kind of a front to it as well.
Yeah.
No, I disagree.
That was GM forcing their hand.
Yeah, yeah.
I disagree because we had the Lotus Cortina before that.
Oh, that's true.
So they already did like that.
And this was never sold as a Lotus.
It was always sold in, like, specific boxes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
There was another one I was going to say as well.
Okay.
I've forgotten.
Well, while you think of that, everyone at home listening,
doing what you're doing,
write in and let us know what cars you think are an affront to the brand.
And we will continue the discussion next time.
But what I will say is there are other vehicles
that I think are an affront to brands,
which did actually sell well.
Yeah.
Like, for example, the Lamborghini Urus.
Porsche Cayenne.
The Porsche Cayenne.
When the Porsche Cayenne came out,
everyone said it was really ugly.
Why have Porsche made an SUV, blah, blah, blah.
In fairness, they are fairly ugly.
They're not the best looking SUV ever, but they are really good.
I think they're not like the X5 as well.
The X5.
Yeah, like all of that stuff.
And as I say, the Urus, I personally, I hate the Urus.
I think it's crap.
But loads of them are sold.
Yeah.
I do see them about.
I do.
All right, let's now move the podcast on to looking rich on a budget.
And the reason I want to talk about this is because I was looking on,
I think it was kind of classic, Aston Martin DB9.
So you can get for under 10 grand.
I've been saying we should get one of these.
What?
Where does this come from?
I remember a year ago, I said, let's get this one.
That was like 11 grand.
And you at the time were like,
Well, I'm not saying we're going to get one.
I just want to open up a discussion.
I do.
I do like a DB9.
Hmm.
I just don't.
A DB9 is great.
I'm a bit put off by the gearbox,
because there are a lot of some of that flappy paddly.
I think you could, could you get them in a manual?
You can get them in a manual, but they are quite expensive.
But the fact is you can get it for under 10 grand now.
I'm like, what?
On the V12s as well.
Yeah.
Where did you find it?
I think it was like on car and classic or something.
Was it?
Yeah.
Was it cat cars?
Do you know what else?
No, I don't know.
Oh, no, I think it might be in cat in or something.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
It doesn't matter.
Do you know what else I found?
Well, I looked at and I sent it to you guys.
Aston Martin Rapid.
I looked at that and I'm like,
do you know what?
That could be a nice, nice family vehicle.
That is just a DB9, but stretched out.
Is it?
Yeah.
The same, same sort of architecture.
I think they're great.
A long DB9 is cool.
This is weird though, because this is my, this is,
these are my cars.
Why are you encroaching on my-
I'm in your domain now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm all up in your grill.
And you're liking, you're,
you're driving around in a Range Rover L322.
I am, yes, yes.
You're now talking about buying an Aston Martin.
What, what is this?
What's happened to me?
What have you done?
I know.
I'm getting too old.
Yeah.
Yeah, this is weird.
Yeah.
What other cars can you get then that make you look rich on a budget?
What am I saying?
I've got it.
Yeah, go on.
Saab.
Saab?
Any Saab.
What do you mean?
Any Saab.
You look like a, you look like a dentist.
Any Saab.
A Saab.
Look, a Saab 900 does not make you look rich.
Look, if you drive a Saab, you could either be-
A Saab 95 does not make you look rich.
You could either be a CEO, or you could either just be like a normal-
I've got one for you.
You can't, you can't characterise a Saab owner.
I've got one for you.
A Saab 93 is today in black, because Jack Joy owns one.
Every time he rolls up, do you think, God, you look rich?
He could be.
Yeah, anyone could be driving a Negro, but do you look at the Saab owner?
That's the whole point.
A Saab owner has no classification of what they are.
No.
I completely disagree.
You can either get Jack Joy driving one, or you could get some really high-end businessmen.
Voxel engine Saab.
It shits.
It doesn't matter.
It matters.
It doesn't matter.
Rory, it matters.
No, you can't, you can't.
Take it seriously.
What car can you buy that makes you look rich?
Look, you watch, people will understand what I'm saying.
No, don't get it.
Maserati Quattroporti, that's another one?
No.
No, I disagree with that.
Everyone knows that Maserati Quattroporti's are cheap now.
I don't think-
Yeah, but to me, every man, you don't.
I would say my XJ.
I would agree.
Yeah, I'll give you that.
I would agree.
I don't think me, people realise how cheap those are.
How much can you get an XJ for?
On like dealer platforms, buying them, £4,000.
Really?
For a three-litre diesel.
For a three-litre diesel.
I was going to show you, but it doesn't load.
But on Facebook Marketplace a few days ago, I actually showed it to you and you went how much?
That's way too expensive.
And then showed me an Aston Martin Rapide for £5,000 more.
It was a Rolls-Royce Phantom.
Didn't it have-
I need to head gasket, but a bit of case here and it'll go again.
It was £25,000, man.
Yeah, and the Aston Martin was £30,000.
Yeah, but that's fast and like zero.
And a Phantom isn't.
A Rolls-Royce Phantom.
Yeah, but we've just done Bentley.
We've just done Bentley.
Yeah, but for £25,000, that for me.
Do you know what else?
There's two other cars, I think, Scream Money.
Yeah, go on.
L405.
They're sub-10K now.
Yeah.
And I think they look nice.
Range Rover L405.
You get an L405, you think, oh, this is a bit nice.
Yeah.
Like Touch Green Climate Control.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
And E60M5.
Sub-10 grand.
And it's not the car that makes you look rich.
Sub-10 grand, E60M5.
Yeah, you can get one.
It's not, yeah, but it's not the car.
Taylor, no, no, no, no.
Taylor, there is no one in this world who looks at an E60M5 and thinks there is.
They have money.
Yes, there is.
Do you know why?
Go on.
Because people look at the E60M5 and they go,
still moving?
They must be minted.
No, no, no.
You know what I will say?
Pretty much any 60s classic car, 60s, 70s classic car,
I think if you took the average person.
What about a triumph?
I think me and my Spitfire, I think if you took the average,
and I mean the average non-car enthusiast person.
Which is what we're talking about.
I would say that they think that that car is a lot of money.
To be fair to him, we went to Sainsbury's in the Allegro yesterday,
and we were getting a lot of looks.
We were getting a lot of looks.
There was a lot of people there that were like,
they've got done.
Yeah, that's funny.
If you can get a classic car with a nice paint job,
I think a lot of people will think that that car is worth a lot of money.
I agree with that.
That's because you spent more on the paint than the car's worth.
But I think I would love to, we should probably do this at some point,
and pull like it.
Like the Spitfire, a few of these random cars,
and pull them in the car park at Sainsbury's,
and get people to value how much they can.
Should we have a car meet at Sainsbury's?
That could be a good V2 video, actually.
Yeah, okay.
And maybe we'll bring the Allegro, and I think you'll be surprised.
Yeah.
Because people, I reckon they look at that as a 20 grand car all day long.
I think you're talking out your arse.
No.
Yes, you are.
We all know it's the best car in the multiverse.
Just accept it.
Anyway, and with that, we're now going to call it there.
Let us know in the email, which is?
Podcast at autoxcars.com.
Which cars would you pick to look rich on a budget,
and we will potentially continue the conversation?
But we've got lots of work to do.
Rory, what have we got coming up?
Coming up, we've had a lot of hit and miss, and stuff.
Annoyingly, we've been trying to be really consistent,
but so we've got, we're doing another two VA episodes.
Then we're potentially either going to start Porsches,
or Lotus Carlton.
Yes.
Unsure yet.
Yes.
And we've got lots of good stuff coming.
Go on.
On Sunday.
Yeah.
What is it?
Sunday.
I can't think any.
Oh, the podcast has come out on Sunday.
You're winding me up.
Fantastic.
No, what's going on?
I can't possibly think of anything.
On Sunday, I'm going to be a year older.
Are you?
Yeah.
So you're 40?
No.
Oh, how old are you going to be?
32.
Really?
Are you sure you're not going to be 40?
I could be 40.
I don't know.
I've forgotten.
Because we're all at the same age.
Getting old.
People always say I look far younger than you.
Taylor has got more gray hair than both of us combined.
He does, yeah.
I have, actually.
And it's because of you two.
Right.
Anyway, and with that, thank you very much for watching and listening
to The All Childics podcast.
Whatever you do, do it to the best of your ability.
We will see you next time.
Have a great weekend, remainder of the weekend.
We'll see you soon.
Bye-bye.
you
About this episode
The AutoAlex Podcast kicks off with dog-and-costume fun-run banter, then dives into “Ferrari Lucy” brand-identity debate and the question of “looking rich on a budget.” The hosts compare Aston Martins by attention-getting loudness, talk about a cursed Lotus Carlton purchase, and share project-car realities like Mini engine swaps, heater-matrix coolant leaks, and E46 injector waits. Later, they pivot to used-car due diligence (CarVertical), plus a mix of roadwork chaos, dyno surprises, and dream-car talk.