The DJ and the lion

This episode is sponsored by Duramat Interlocking Floor Tiles.

I'm Jonny Smith, I'm your reporter, and this is Smith & Sniff, a podcast in which two

friends talk about cars and many other things.

It's time for some WWWs. I've seen a few this last few days as the sun has disappeared

a little bit. Some people would call them gilets, but alas, I'm reluctant to call

them gilets. I much prefer to call them winter wealth waistcoats, the WWWs. We've had this

conversation before on previous casts. I'm a huge fan of the body warmer rich, but I'm

not a fan of the gilet and there is a difference and I will fight that till I die.

No one ever said, hey, look at Marty McFly in his cool 80s gilet, it's not that's a body

warmer. Exactly. I always have to use the Marty analogy. It's so true. So that's a body

warmer and I own at least two. I don't own any gilets. I got given one once on a launch

and I gave it away to somebody. Did you? I did. A launch for what? A launch gilet. I'm

glad I gave that away as well. When I did the Millet Miglia, I got given a commemorative

WWW. Of course. It has a map of the actual race on the back of it, I think. Oh no. With

some intricate quilting. Yes. No. No. That's immediately that's a crime. I'm ringing the

police. I can't be doing with that. But also at the Millet Miglia for heaven's sake, giving

out a gilet, surely every other person they attempted to give it to, they'd go, no, I've

already got one. In fact, I have 17 gilets. Well, maybe I sleep in a gilet because I'm

minted. Is it part of the safety protocol? You have to double gilet it. Yes. Just five

proof gilet. Ah, my arms. But my torso is safe. We did. We did some high altitude work

on the Millet Miglia. Maybe when you start climbing, you're advised by the officials

to double gilet. So the wealth gilet, in terms of car makers that would give you one on one

of their events, I would say Land Rover, obviously. Land Rover, most certainly. Jeep possibly,

but that really is probably closer to a body warmer. I was going to say, I think Jeep people

would probably go for the body warmer. And that means I'm more of a Jeep guy, which I'm

actually okay with, I think. I think I'm all right with that. Unless you give me what was

that dog's mess Jeep that we often laugh about. Is it the Compass? It just looked like it was

very bloated body over small wheels. Yes. As also, do you remember the commander, which

was, I think, more of a discovery rival because I think it had seven seats and was famously

absolute dog plot. To the extent, Sergio Marchione, he just said, famously, he said the actual quote,

perhaps translated from Italian, I don't know, was this vehicle is unfit for human consumption.

And it was deleted quite soon after. Just amazing, right? Yeah. So I'd say also,

perhaps a Bentley Gile, that would be a feasible thing. Yeah, that could be. I could see that with

the diamond stitch, but the diamond stitch would be better than all the other diamond

stitch Gile's available. Oh, it'd be lovely, wouldn't it? And I think there'd be,

you could have, could they incorporate those chrome organ stop, pull out vent controls from

the dashboard of Bentley's in some way. Oh, in the buttons, the poppers. On the buttons. The

buttons. Yeah, but it might look like you just got, you know, the very wreck nipples or something

if it was on the on the breast pockets. But yes, it's worth experimenting with if the Bentley

clothing department is listening. Also, though, I sort of wonder if, I mean, it feels a bit,

you know, like a newcomer trying too hard, but I could I could picture Lexus Gile. Oh my gosh,

it would be so very well made. It would be so thin, but utterly wind resistant. You'd think

you'd put this on thinking this is going to be useless. What's this for? And it would end up

being your go to piece of clothing. You've never worn anything like it. I could see it. To this day,

you still don't know what material they've used. It's it's a it's a it's 6,000 pounds a square

metre of this fabric. I have never. Well, not since I was a kid, I have never owned a body warmer or

a Gile. Because I slightly struggled to see the point. Yes, I, I know what you mean. And I,

I can relate. So I wore my body warmer, a war one, a cheeky one day before yesterday, first one,

first one of the season. And it's really when I present on camera, I realise that sometimes

when you're trying to mix up an outfit or you drive, I quite like driving bare armed in a car,

but you need a bit of warmth in the torso. I know this sounds wanky. I'm aware of this

sounding really wanky, but it works. T-shirt, good body warmer over the top and obviously trousers

and not crocs. And it's it's a really nice driving ratio of clothing. Yeah. On the bottom. That's

I you're right, because I don't like driving in winter in a heavy coat because it restricts your

arm movement. Yeah. And we used to get bollocked on the television for wearing those sorts of

coats like my big rab coat that is quite rustly because it's polyester. Yeah. And so your arms

were soaring on the steering wheel and it's chafing on your arm per area and the microphone

hates it. So I realised that wearing a body warmer, I could do winter filming, getting in and out of

cars, but it not be annoying on the audio. So there is slight method to the madness here. I was,

yeah, I get that. And I suppose a lot of your body heat is within your torso,

because that's where all the, you know, mechanical parts are, if you like. But it's

the main ancillaries. The main ancillaries. Yeah. But the thing is that I just feel,

why would you not want your arms to be warm? And also if it rains, you're just going to have wet

arms. Yeah, that's exactly what you're going to have. Yeah. But I suppose that the Gile is mostly

there for warmth and not not waterproofness. I yeah, it's do you know, it doesn't feel quite

so bad when you've got a hat on as well. So hat on, body warmer on, t-shirt, or even thermal

t-shirt on underneath. I've done that as well. Honestly, it doesn't look right to the outside

world, but it feels right. So I'm, I'm going to go with it. But to your original point,

we are definitely now in Gile season. We, I mean, look, guys, just got back from

the Goodwood revival, or the Goodwood urinal, as my brother calls it. And the, with, with, with,

with, with Endearment, I should add. And I saw, I mean, the weather was quite challenging.

But I did see an abundance of winter wealth waistcoats there. Yes. Because imagine there was

fancy dress, but also that you can dress for fancy dress. But if the weather just suddenly

turns really evil, you might not have all the right winter slash rain resistant clothing from

the 1960s or 50s. Yes. So you tend to just go, what else have we got in the house? Couldn't take that.

Yes. And did they have a North Face technical jacket in the 60s? No. Oh, fuck it. I'm putting

on anyway. No, can you imagine? Because everyone smoked in the 60s. And I put on this technical

jacket and it would shrink around me and I'd have severe burns.

And it just wouldn't work, would it? No, that's not, that's not going to work at all.

So how was the revival for you? I, the Goodwood urinal was exceptional. The weather was no doubt

challenging. It was quite stormy and angry and got to be honest, I got off on the wrong foot by

missing the campsite curfew by 20 minutes in my borrowed Volkswagen Grand California. I didn't know

the campsite had a curfew. What time is the curfew? 10pm. No moving vehicle in or out.

Zero moving vehicles. And full stop. End of. End of. End of. As, I don't know, slightly angry

women on chat shows often say. Yes. End of. Simples. Simples. Yeah, exactly.

No moving vehicles after 10pm love. Simples. So this meant what?

This meant that, so just to rewind slightly. First revival I've ever taken my children to.

Wanted to do the full weekend for the full experience. Kindly got borrowed a Volkswagen

California because of VW's 75th anniversary of the Transporter. So I was taking part in the

parade driving all 30 horsepower and reduction boxes of a very early type two. But so and it was

my daughter's 16th birthday at Goodwood on the Saturday. So I got down as soon as they finished

school on Friday, I just threw them into the car in the prepacked van and stormed down to

Goodwood, which is flipping miles away. Not not knowing that there was a campsite, bloody curfew.

I had a bit of a sense of humour failure after a very long journey and obviously a lot of stress

of packing up a van and having a teenage daughter. She's 16. She's 16 rich in one year. She's going

to be driving for goodness sake. Oh gosh. Terrifying. So it's a big deal first, her birthday. So she

got quite upset. Anyway, we had to just drive into the corner by the entrance and pitch up

next to a generator and all the security lights and just get the duvets out and just go to sleep

and pretend that everything's all right. And then pitch up early the next morning where we got stuck.

So her birthday morning, she got woken up when the back doors of the van got opened by a lovely

but random four by four response rescue guy from Sussex who came to my rescue in a Mitsubishi Shogun

short wheel base. Was it 2.8 turbo intercooler? Little two door thing. And he was looking for

the towing eye because we couldn't find where the towing eye was and that's what we opened the

back door and she was still asleep. So I'd driven with the kids still in bed across the campsite

as soon as the clock struck seven basically in my pants and then got stuck because the mud was

biblical and it's front wheel drive. So I got as far as we could but then ran out of momentum,

then had to be tugged into place and then we set up and everything was fine. But yeah, so it was

good. I let the tyres down after that and I did get out the car park on the Sunday under my own

steam going absolutely flat out with eight psi on the front tyres of a very large camper

and it worked. So I was very pleased with myself, Huffler. But yeah, lots of things happened at the

revival. Highlights, first things first. I think and I'm going to apologise to him if it was him,

I think I was stood right next to Dave Richards for about half an hour and the original lionhead

lionheaded motorsport guy. Yeah, motorsports leading lion. And I would have really loved to

have chatted to him because I've never had a conversation with the OG lionhead. But he was

wearing some retrospective sunglasses that completely masked his face. I couldn't quite tell

if it was him and I stared at him a few times even though he was right next to me. And he wasn't

even chatting to many people. I was with my kids watching the racing and he was watching the racing

and I feel like it was him and I'm annoyed with myself. I should have just gone, excuse me,

are you Dave Richards? And he would have gone, yes. And I could have gone, hey,

I went on the Land's End trial and you were in that Mayor Manx buggy and it was good fun, wasn't

it? But you had some chatting topics. Yeah, I did. I know, but I just I kind of got like famous

person stage fright. So I didn't. He's got some slightly camtail hair as well, hasn't he? That

would be another giveaway. Yeah, well, it's quite yachty because it goes. Yeah, it's definitely

yachty. It goes back all the way back from the front. It's slicked back, but then it has like to

say the sort of the wealth cam tail going on. Just a little, yeah, a little foot, just for the aero

really. It was flick up. But imagine how many Gillets Dave Richards owns. Oh, all of anything

affiliated with any sponsor. Yeah. Oh gosh, there's so many motorsport events, complimentary Gillet.

Yeah. Gosh, yeah, I hadn't thought of that. There's quite a Gillet collection there.

Yeah, definitely. So the original motorsport lionhead I was within two feet of for ages,

and I didn't say anything. I feel awful. So if somebody knows Dave Richards, can you just say,

look, I think it was you, Dave, you were in these seriously big Carrera sunglasses. And I just couldn't

tell if it was you, but I would have loved to have had a chat. So sorry. Also, there was a VE day

celebration on track on one of the mornings at good, but you know, they do like a start line

celebration before the racing, or a parade. So one of the times was the track parade with the

VW vans. There was like 150 of them. And I went out in the six volt 30 volt. What did that sound

like? That much puttering in one place. Oh, so much, so much putt putting so much putting.

And it reminded me that the reduction gearbox crash first and second 30 horsepower VW bus is

quite a quite a challenge to get some something out of. And shifting third to fourth when it's

not ready is just I've never experienced bogging like it. I technically forgot about the boggery

of it all. It was so boggy. I was going to say, but it's first, I always imagine that first is

quite short in case there's lots of people or things on board. Yeah, first is almost too short.

Rev it out. But realize you're doing three miles an hour as it approaches the red line. Yeah,

I was going around the track at 23 miles an hour in third. And I thought I'll snick fourth and I

snuck fourth and it just bogged to the point where I thought it was going to stall. So I had to go

back into third. And I was having to double D all these as well, because it's got not has it got

proper synchro on it. Oh, yeah. No, it doesn't know. So double D and had the kids with me. And

this is their first lap of Goodwood, which they've obviously seen cars going round flat out with

I am seesawing away at this huge steering wheel, because of course, the steering box on a type

two is vague AF. And this was an early barn door van. So pre 1955, the first generation.

Okay, so it's like driving around in a small prison because it was the delivery van and not

the not the micro bus. There's no windows. Just couldn't see anything. So what your kids are in

the back of this they're they're on the shuttering stalling tomb, we're on the bench seat. There's

three abreast on the bench. I had to keep like I had to keep pushing Western's legs out of the way.

So I could try and grab the right gear with this like almighty four foot wand.

If anyone's ever shifted gears in a VW type two, because the linkage and the gearbox at the back

of course, where the engine is, which was the joy of the packaging of it, it just means that the

linkage from where your hand is shifting the lever to the end to the gearbox is

so far away. It feels like it's connected by I don't know six flamingos legs cable tied together.

It's just awful. So were there like celebrities like racing drivers in this multi bus run around

the track? Didn't see any celebrities in the multi bus procession. But so I saw Jensen Button

actually pacing around on the phone. Oh, yeah, before talking to his trouser people. Well,

have you heard the news? No, he's selling jackets now. What? Yes. Not but jackets or

Gilles. Oh gosh, I haven't Jensen Gilles would be an amazing one. I'm sure it's a Jensen Button

jacket. Oh, my God. And I'm gonna have to look this up. Well, I'm looking at your company,

isn't there? I never remember their name. And I also feel like we sort of inadvertently give them

so much publicity without saying that. Let's let's strange. That's it. Yes. Let's let's strange.

All right, let's strange. Yeah. But no, the the Gilles button is a heat. I've got distracted

now. Look at this. The reason I was wondering is I thought if they'd put some racing drivers

into VW buses, yeah, there may have been shenanigans, you know, if Plato was back there

and Karun and whoever else Matt Neil or something that they'd still start like trying to jockey for

position. Oh, they'd be chasing 17 miles an hour. Yeah, there might be a bit of rubbing.

There would. They're absolutely would. Well, I mean, a few you see a few type twos in the paddock

like his support like period spec support vehicles. There's a few there was one on the Porsche classic

stand which I did have a peruse around and they had a split bus that had a Porsche part service,

which I think they used to genuinely use in period to deliver parts. Because last time I checked

Porsche don't make a van, which is almost a shame, isn't it? Have you ever seen that mock up a few

years ago, only sort of like three or four years ago, they released pictures of a load of styling

exercises they've done in the last sort of 10 years, I suppose, including really sweet little

sub box to Roadster and all sorts of things and some great stuff, but including a van. I think

they don't know why they've done it just for fun, but they'd also painted us up like those

Porsche race support VW buses from the 50s and 60s red. Yes, right. Red with red sport

right down side. Exactly. They've done it like that. I'll stick a picture of this one on the

Patreon, but it looks mega, absolutely mega. I mean, obviously it's like so far off brand

for Porsche as they stand really to do that. It does, but everyone's on this quest for luxury and

the amount of money people spend on T6 vans and Mercedes V-classes, V-toes, it does make you

wonder whether they've got their eye on that and they've gone, well, with that and people buying

ultra Porsche pickup trucks, someone would buy it, wouldn't they? If Porsche did a van that was just

so good. It's the difference between someone would buy it and would enough people buy it to

justify. You'd have to sort of pair it with some VW group bits, wouldn't you? Just a, yeah, but

yeah. You could cut your race car to the track with it and put the awning out. Oh, wouldn't that be

cool? But if you look at the experience of Mercedes, they put their toe into the pickup

truck water, didn't they, with the X-Class and it tanked and they deleted it really quickly.

Yeah, is it because they did a shit job though, Rich?

It's just not. I think because when it comes to functional things, an awful lot of the market

for functional vehicles like pickups and vans, it's just all about the bottom line. You don't

spend more than you need to because it's going through your bosnus. Yeah, yeah. I'm looking

at Jensen's jackets. I'm just looking at Jensen's jacket here. Look, the bomber jacket. Yeah.

There's a bomber jacket and there's a 360, quite a look. It's a 360 jacket as opposed to what?

Like a 180 jacket where it's got no back. I don't know. Jensen's backless jacket. I'd love that.

Is that like a, what's that? Is it like a backless dress on the red carpet that a lady might wear?

Yeah, yeah. But I don't know anyone who wants a backless jacket versus the room if you

I quite like the look of these trousers. I like the look of the hydro wool bomber jacket because

Jensen's quoted saying a super slick piece. I love how this feels. Especially when you put it on

and the discreet waterproof protection. That's discreet waterproof protection as if it would

look incredibly rude to have a visibly waterproof jacket. I like that. I kind of like that. It's

a very, it's a very dad's slightly, slightly Alan Partridge quote, isn't it? I like that.

It's discreetly waterproof, Lynn. So curfews at the Good Buddy Rhino, Grand California,

getting stuck and they're not getting stuck. Maybe it was Dave Richards, maybe it wasn't.

The racing was, as usual, incredible, but the change of weather made it even more dicey.

Oh, yes. There was some terrific downpours and gusts of wind. So some really good driving. But

probably my two highlights. One was at the start of before one of the races, there was a VE day

celebration like a street party reenactment, as if it would have been 1945. And it was lovely

to watch on the track. And all these people obviously dressed up in the regalia with bunting

and tea and biscuits on tables. Right. But there was a chap playing the saxophone as part in the

band who were part of this celebration. And genuinely, when I was watching it on the big TV,

I thought it was a fat Gordon Murray. Oh my God. He looked from a certain angle. It was like,

that's, that's Gordon Murray. I didn't know he could play the saxophone. And then he turned a

bit and was like, oh, no, it's a guy that's a bit tubbier than Gordon Murray, but could be Gordon

Murray, I think, from certain angles and definitely playing the saxophone. So for a second, I thought

Gordon Murray was just going to casually tell me that, oh, yeah, by the way, I kind of play the

saxophone as well. And I'm, I've been asked to play it in jazz bands several times, because I would

I would love it if Gordon Murray played the saxophone just kind of a, okay, you could see it.

I mean, I can picture it. I didn't see this that you saw, but I can totally picture it.

Can you imagine if we found out that Gordon Murray did the saxophone work in Baker Street?

Everyone spreads around that urban myth that it was Bob Holness, but really,

can you imagine if it was Gordon? And you'd go, I can see that if I closed my eyes,

you'd have braces on and really billowing trousers and it would be, would really work for me.

He'd be, he'd be tilting it to the sky, wouldn't he? Oh, God, yeah, absolutely. He'd have a sort of

velocity stack end on end piece that no one's ever seen before that he made himself.

I just, it would, with Gordon Murray though, is the saxophone light enough for him?

I keep forgetting. I'm thinking the flute.

The flute is lighter than the saxophone and easier to package within the interior of a car.

The flute is, obviously you play it side-suddle, which I think is, it's quite difficult to look

cool doing. Are they not flutes you can play, um, longitudinally rather than the transverse

flute of James Last? Of course, it's trans, it's transverse versus longitudinal fluted.

Which is good packaging. Yes. If you were, you know, in a tight space. Yeah,

you were fluting in a pub-backed room. Exactly, you don't want to poke someone in the eye

at the next table. No. But with the transverse flute maybe you don't have to, although you could

then just like, you know, accidentally jab the drummer in the ear or so. It depends on where

you're sitting. Imagine if you were in one of the left or right hand seats of a T-50

and there was some serious track work going on, but you wanted to play well because the driver

had asked you to serenade them. Yes. To complement the NAV12 of course. Yeah, yeah.

But you couldn't, you'd have to go transverse flute in that instance because you smashed the

screen out if you weren't careful. Exactly. But if you think about it, the T-50 and the F1,

they have that sort of the lower section of the window is the bit that drops.

Oh, the window within the window. I think for just sliding a flute out. Yeah.

It's a fluty glory hole. That's why it's got the central driving position because then

your onboard flutist can always be, it doesn't matter about left and right hand drive.

You can always pop a flutist in the correct side for whichever way round they play the flute.

I assume mostly it's always done the same way because otherwise you'd have to re-engine,

I don't know. That's global flute compatibility, that is.

It's exactly your flute compliance in all markets.

It's so stupid. It's so stupid. Maybe you see Gordon Murray, sometimes you film with him,

if you see him again, just find out which instrument he prefers.

I'll ask you about his flute compliance and whether he just happens to be good at the saxophone

and he hasn't told anybody. Does Gordon Murray not play guitar?

I'm thinking about Damon Hill in the 90s because he used to go on stage and guitar, didn't he?

Yeah. Was it when he was with Eddie Jordan mucking around with Eddie Jordan? I think he used to

do stuff on stage in a band. Holy shit. I just found a photograph of George Harrison

out of the Beatles with Gordon Murray. Now we know their mates. In fact, I think the story is that

when the F1 project was looking a bit touch and go because of leading to raise the funds,

I think the story is that George Harrison agreed to sort of put up the money for the car he would

eventually receive if that would get the project across the line to continue developing it.

Oh, well. George Harrison is pretty pivotal in the F1 story.

There's this photo of Gordon Murray playing a very small, what are those very sort of

pointy guitars that seem to be popular in the 70s? What, a Gibson flying V?

It's not a flying V. It's more sort of like a four-pointed star shape,

but it's very small. It looks like a child's version of it. It's red.

Well, again, I'll put this picture on the Patreon, but Gordon Murray is playing that.

It's like, is that Gordon Murray? Well, I guess so.

That's just one of the Chuckles Brothers.

Is it? That's that you're being mustache racist there. You think all men with mustaches. This

is from George Harrison's official Facebook page, and it just says happy birthday, Gordon Murray.

Right. Oh, this is from five years ago.

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Um, so that was highlight number one, the Gord Murray, not Gord Murray saxophonist.

Highlight two of the Goodwood revival for me was I got to meet, I'm going to use the word legendary

because I think it's it's valid here, legendary DJ Carl Cox.

Did you?

Yeah, he invited me over to see his, the unveiling of his RestoMod 9-11 and we had the greatest chat

about the car, but also just about other cars and him. He is the chattiest, nicest guy.

What a delight it was to meet him.

So went over to the the Wren's Spout stand, which is like a UK Porsche RestoMod company

who built this car for Carl. They pulled, they took the cloths off it and it was white, like

toothpaste, fresh, white pearl and silver two tone, which doesn't sound like it would work,

but I think it really does and serious power, 450 horsepower, 4.1 naturally aspirated air called

six, no traction control or any of those guardian angels and semi-active dampers,

loads and loads as you'd expect of detail. It's a real raw driver's car, but with beautiful stitching

and nice seats and things and had these door mats, mats pockets in the doors that were more

like satchels, which I really liked. They looked like they could be record bags. I quite like them.

Oh, okay. Yeah, nice. It was really beautiful. Is this built around a more modern 9-11 than it

appears or is this a legit? This was a legit G body 89. Oh, right. And still looks like an 89 car.

Yes. Yes, it does. Yeah. And so it's got a wider body and it's got some extra inlets and

louvers and guilds here and there, as you'd expect on a RestoMod, but so I started to talk to Carl

after having a look at the car and I mean, Carl's got, you probably know this, we've talked about

him before. He's got a lot of cars and bikes. He says he's got we saw his lovely 80s Alpina

3 Series at Goodwood Festival Speed, didn't we? Yeah, that was that was delight. That car was

incredible. So he's got amazing car tastes that we know. And he's ridden motorbikes for a long

time. He supports a couple of TT riders on the Isle of Man and he also runs, now he told me,

is three drag cars. Yeah, he drives a pro modified drag car. So he's quite serious

about this stuff. He's not hanging around. He's in his 60s now, isn't he? He is. I looked him up

afterwards because he doesn't look like he's in his 60s. He's one of these guys that seemingly

hasn't aged for the last 20 years. No, he's 62. He just sort of looks the way that you always

imagine he looked in the, you know, in the kind of 90s heyday of superstar DJs. Yeah. And if you're

listening to this, you're not sure who Carl Cox is. Look him up. I mean, he is one of the founding

fathers of house music hardcore, from the really illegal days of rave. And he's seemingly ridden

the wave and stayed at the forefront of it right up to the, the I bethe glitz. Yeah, which not many

of them have done. I've heard before though, that he's a really nice, decent guy. And I think

perhaps that's part of the secret of success is that he's not a knob. I hope so, Rich, because

form is temporary classes permanent and all that. Yeah, I he seemed so enthusiastic. But

the last thing this is why I brought it up. Besides the 911, the Rensport 911, which was

delightful. The last thing I'd expect Carl Cox to say to me was, I used to have an Austin Maxi.

He used to have a Maxi, which he drove to do wedding discos. That was one of the first things

he did his foot in the door. Very roomy. He said he said he said it was so roomy. He said I could

fit loads of records in it. He said it was five speed, quite comfortable. He said I bought it

for like 60 quid. He was really pissed off because somebody either smashed the windscreen, or it got

it got cracked on the way between gigs. And he said it was old fashioned glass where all just

shatters. Yeah, it doesn't just hairline crack and stay where it is. And he said the cost of a

windscreen was more than the car was worth at the time. So he said he said I ended up scrapping it

and just getting another cheap car. I said that's what you did. So yeah, Carl Cox, I mean, I just

looked at him and couldn't stop laughing. I was like, I can't imagine Carl Cox tooling around in

an Austin Maxi. But sure enough, he did. And he had loads of other really great stories about

cars and his life as a DJ going from vinyl to digital. He's got his own vinyl library at home.

He said he's got over 150,000 pieces of vinyl, which I think is a lot.

Yeah. That's a library. Was he familiar with the late break show and your work?

Yeah, he was. And I it freaked me out completely because when when I went over to say hi,

just before this unveil, he was like, Johnny, it's really good to me. I followed you since the

fifth gear days. And he regaled like several different things he'd watched me do on TV and

I was like, I just I kind of had to stop him. I said, Carl, listen, you're Carl Cox, you're a

busy, important man. What are you doing watching my crap? And I was a bit weirded out by it. But

he was really cool. He was nice. I think he was nice. It's probably an age thing for us. If you

grew up in a certain era, when DJ suddenly became big stars, like he was up there with the biggest.

He was absolutely. I would regard him as a proper famous person. I said, well, look, Carl, I wish

I'd brought them now. But instead of I've still got some cassettes from Fantasia 91 and 92. And

he went, oh, yeah. He said, Carl, you said, well, probably most of those would have been bootleg

back then. But he said we made quite a lot of money during the bootleg thing when you used to

take samples from other other records and stuff and but just sell sell your set before getting

clearance for anything. Yeah, those were the good old days. But yeah, he had some awesome stories.

And he's promised he's pinky promised to let me come and film a look around at least one of his

garages. And I was going to have a sit down chat with him. Yeah, yeah, because I see you do lots.

He's got lots to share. Lots to share. Yeah, sounds like what a real dude. I was just I was

really, really, I mean, it was a great weekend in general, but getting to meet Carl, the Carl

Cox and him being even better than you could imagine and having so much more time than I would

have expected, he was, yeah, he was a proper proper proper gentleman. So thank you to, well,

thank you to Rensport for inviting me over and thank you to Carl for giving me lots of your time.

And SSG, let's just say massive 100 point SSG. Yeah, sweet, sweet DJ. Good to hear.

Yeah, yeah, I think so. Do you know what I heard? As I was driving back from revival,

very long journey, obviously, bad weather, tired, getting the kids home and all that stuff. I

and I I instantly had a couple of ballad classics, but I had Billy Ocean get out of my dreams, get

into my car came through. Oh, yes. And I think we've we've touched on it in the past on this is

one of these podcasts. But if you say it through gritted teeth, it sounds very kidnapping. I think

if you say it through gritted teeth, though, it sounds like it's just one half of a couple who've

had a row at a drinks party. Get out of the street, get into the car. Come on. Get out. People are

looking. It's not good. Get out of my dreams. I think we've, well, we've talked about this in

real life, but the alone by heart, which is a tremendous song. We love that ridiculous. I love

it. But it's particularly if a man sang that, it doesn't and it doesn't sound good. I can also,

Billy Ocean seems to be the most smiley, happy man alive. Can't imagine him gritting his teeth and

saying that aggressively. He's one of those people who's done a when you actually sit and think about

a high number of very memorable and good songs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also, there's a car connection

because he used to work in the Ford factory in Dagenham. That's right. Before he became Ann Singer.

So yeah, he's probably quite in parallel because he was trying to get his musical career off the

ground. But I always used to sing red light smells danger. So I used to think it was is it like, you

know, the toilet door when it when it turns to engaged, there's always a red yes, a red stripe

which appeared. So I always think, oh, red light smells dangerous. Like someone's in there, absolutely

depth charting and you have to run for your lives. It says now the danger sign is on.

It won't be Billy though. Thanks for your luck. So I just imagined there's a big sign like an

Augustine Powers movie or so. This is the big side that goes danger. I don't think I've never seen

that in real life. I don't think they have sizes that just say danger, but I might be

it's a student. It's just like a student house where there's loads of stolen signs lying around.

Yes. If that's the thing, you think he'd have gone more specific with the other song though,

get out of my dreams, get into my Cortina 1.6 GL with headrests. So it makes it with headrests.

And someone's going to write in and say the GL the GLS didn't have headrests. It was never

optioned with those. Oh, I think, well, it depends which year as well, isn't it? Because

but yes, you're probably right. I'm thinking, I don't actually know when Billy Ocean worked at

Dagenham, 60s maybe, but no, 70s. He was a recording artist by the, certainly by the

mid 70s, wasn't he? And you know, after last week's shocking letter from Alan Gow from off of

yes, which I'm still getting over. Thanks, Alan. I was singing the song to myself the other day,

and I thought to myself, I'm a joker. I'm a smoker. I'm a midnight stroker. And I thought,

well, that is that the the allure of a two in the morning engine rebuild or something like that.

Right. Just can't resist going out there and machining up some parts in the shed.

Because you're in a state of insomnia. You're a midnight, you're a midnight stroker.

I could be that. Yes, just just want to slightly increase the cylinder capacity. Yeah, yeah.

But increase the cylinder capacity before morning because I have to get to work.

You're a vampire that blueprints engines. And so you have to get any, any machining work done

you'll disappear. I don't want to just make it clear. We've had quite a few messages,

I think mostly from American listeners who I think thought we don't know what

TOCA really means in that song. And what as in as in heaving on weed.

It's okay. We do know that we were just being stupid as is our own. But thank you for

for correcting us anyway, because you thought we were stupid Brits who don't know what these

things mean. Since we are sort of fringing on the back graphs and things like that.

I think we have a winner. We would sort of wrap this up, but I think we have a late entry and

possible winner in the ridiculous cars driven by students game. Oh no, really?

From a listener called Harry Bridges. He says a bit late on this, but when I was at Durham

University in the late 2010s, a mate had a purple wrapped Bentley Turbo R. What? Yeah,

see photo and Harry has attached a photo and there indeed is a purple Bentley Turbo R with

a one missing centre cap on the alloys. So it is really purple like Prince purple. Harry said

it certainly stood out in the sports centre car park among the knackered polos and cleos,

but the petrol money was eye watering for a then student when we drove up and back to St Andrews

even split amongst four of us. Oh my gosh, I bet it was horrendous. That's extraordinary. The

photo here shows it sort of parked on quite a narrow street, I guess, in Durham. So that is

nuts. They win. I think of a sillier student car than that. I hate to talk about, you know,

actual car stuff like modern modern car stuff, but we didn't. I don't think we talked about

Porsches the other week. It would have been three probably three weeks ago now. Porsche

announcing induction charging for electric cars. Yes. And the fact that I know this has been

experimented with for a long time, if you if you think about the electric toothbrush

that you might have in your bathroom. Yeah, yeah. The idea of a car just parking over a pad and thus

being able to charge wirelessly. Yeah, phones, I mean, all sorts of stuff. I sling my phone on a pad

at night now and it's great. Yeah, yeah. I'd love to be able to eat like that. So I could just

lie down on a table and then just get up full. Just absorb food. Just having eaten and drunk

all the food that I might need for the day. That'd be great. Because then surely because

people are always going, Oh, bloody hell, you know, the Apple are going to delete the charging port

on their phones like they did to the headphone socket, aren't they? Because everyone they want

people to induction charge. Are you suggesting the makers of Johnny Smith could delete your mouth?

Please. Yeah, please. It might be problematic for the rest of your podcast career work. Yeah.

Well, no, the induction charging thing is fascinating. And also, I saw the diagram they

showed. I mean, obviously, this is going to have to be wired in, isn't it? You couldn't just plug

it into a three pin because I wouldn't pull enough juice. But no, no, you'd have it wired in the way

you'd have another kind of home charger put in. And so I suppose if you have a regular house, it would

pull seven kilowatts, would it be able to do that? I didn't read the details.

People always go, Well, if your cat goes under the car between the charging pad and the car,

but it doesn't kind of work like that, does it? Well, it's they're going to be the first

car manufacturer to bring a they say an 11 kilowatt charging system with a one box base plate,

which is 11 kilowatts. It's 11. So it's a lot because back in the day, Rich, 2008 to be precise.

I went to Japan and drove the precursor to the Nissan Leaf, which I've talked about before,

which was a cube mule with all the EV gubbins in, which would have actually been better than a

leaf. But anyway, and they were then showing me some prototypes of induction charging. But what

they were trying to work out was whether they could put them all at stop lights and junctions in

Tokyo. So that so that they would they worked out that if you're waiting at the lights for two

minutes at a time, and you do don't know, let's say six sets of lights on the way to work in

urban speed areas, you could perhaps increase your charge by X percent on the way to work.

So they were never saying it was going to fast charge, but it would just be enough to

keep tickling it effortlessly. Well, yeah, because that's the thing isn't I know this from, you know,

phones and things that it is definitely not as fast sticking on a pad as it is just

shoving a wire up its hole. But it doesn't matter if you've got the time to spare overnight. And

I think I did read something in this Porsche announcement that they figured out that

a really high percentage of their electric vehicle customers just charge overnight at home. So

if you could have one of these in your garage, it's just one less thing to fath about with.

Yeah, I just look this up. Apparently, actually, these rather than just being sort of low enough

voltage that it won't fry your cat, they tend to have a sensor that shuts off if it detects

anything going between the pad and the vehicle. So that's how, yeah, you don't end up with a

baked pet. That's amazing. It's amazing, though. They're bringing it in, aren't they, in 2026

next year? You can, you'll be able to order the new KN Electric, which is coming soon. We saw it

wrapped in camouflage at a good refestal of speed in summer and it's on sale quite soon.

And yeah, you'll be able to order it with the with the onboard kit and then order the pad

to go to your garage. Speaking of this, actually, this is actually this is a reasonable segue

because I was mean to say I've driven a couple of Porsches in the last month or so and one of them

was a little bit late to the party on this, the new-ish electric McCann.

Oh, have you? I was sort of intrigued by this. I think I've seen them around now and I think it's

a very nice looking car from the front as these things go. The back bothers me. It looks like

it's got bad posture. Oh, I say this to our son because he sort of hunches over. And I always

do this thing, which I realize my parents used to say to me, stand up straight, stand up straight.

But this the back of the McCann looks like it's just sort of rolled its shoulders forwards and

it's slouching forwards. It's just it doesn't the angle is neither one thing or the other and I

don't don't know. But otherwise, it's quite nice looking thing. Iteria is pretty good in that

sort of contemporary Porsche way. It earns extra points because it's one of those cars where it's

very easy to disable the systems that just get on your nerves, like the speed bonger, which I think

it was in that car that it was it was absolutely convinced that the speed limit was 10 miles an

hour on a de-restricted road because it's seen as something that said 10. So that needs to be

turned off when it does that. And it's a one-button job on a shortcut. And then the Lane Departure

tuggy wheel thing is another just hold down a button, a hard button. You don't have to go

into any touchscreen things. So it's good in that respect. It's a decent car. It's one of those

things where it's quite interesting to drive it getting out of my Tesla Model Y and you realize

that Porsche is extremely good at tuning chassis and steering steering brake, brake feel. Yeah.

It just has a quality and a polish to it, which you suddenly realize that the

Tesla is fine, but there's a whiff of amateur hour about it. And I gather these are actually

things they fixed for the latest Model Y, which is the ride is too thumpy and the steering is too

quick for a family car. And they've changed both those things, but the Porsche is just they're

judged so much better and there's sophistication to the chassis that comes from being Porsche and

being good at this stuff for years. But there's also, I think, a big problem with that car,

which is that it is incredibly expensive. And what's the boot space like for the size of the

vehicle? It's all right. Yeah. That's what I thought you were going to say, Richard.

I mean, it's not like absolutely astonishing, but it's fine. Yeah. Why do you ask? Is that

because it's got bigger, you know, as all cars do, it's got bigger than the outgoing car.

Yeah, it's not massive. No, but it's just like it's this annoying cycle that we're in where

things are growing apart from the things you really need. And the things you really need to

grow are legroom and boot. And those things don't grow typically on most modern cars, I find.

Just have a physically bigger car. I don't know if it is much bigger than the outgoing

internal combustion mechanic. It doesn't feel like a massive car. It's a good size and it's got plenty

of space in it and space in the back. And I had to, it was my daughter's birthday and I had to give

a couple of her friends a lift to the thing we went and did for her birthday celebration.

One of these, one of her mates who's eight, as we walked up to it, she went, is this a Porsche?

But from the side as well, I was like, that's quite a good spot. We had a mate of ours who's

someone of means because they have a really big job. And they are looking at getting a new car,

a second car, for like mostly local running around and going at the station and stuff like that.

And she went, oh, that's that new small electric Porsche SUV. It was like surprisingly well

informed about it. I went, yeah, yeah, yeah. She went, how is it? I said, yeah, yeah, it's all right.

And she went, yeah, I really, really like to look at those and thinking that might be a, you know,

good option for our second car. How much is it? Now, this is the inverted commas base model I

had, the rear wheel drive one. So it's like 340 horsepower and no motor on the front or anything

like that. And that's the one you want. Basic. Well, yeah, they often are up there. The basic

price of that car before you start putting anything on it is £68,500. Right. The one I

borrowed, which are notoriously expensive, aren't they? The paint had really nice blue metallic,

really nice paint, but the paint alone is 1185 quid. And then, you know, bigger wheels,

1600 quid and fancier leather, it's about 1300, 1400 quid. And it all starts to add a panoramic

roof is almost 1300 pounds. It's got all sorts of other bits and pieces on it. So the, I mean,

some of which you don't need like the Porsche crest embossed into the front headrests,

185 pounds. I do not need that. But adaptive cruise control, I find genuinely useful.

Yes, yes. And you have to pay just over 500 quid for that. I can't believe Porsche don't give that

away. Well, I mean, I'm slightly offended by a car of that calibre. I know, because you can have

some pretty basic stuff now. So yes, that is. My Renault fives got it. Oh, gosh, yeah. Yeah,

yeah, no, I mean, that's things small, small cars have it, don't they? 25 grand. Yeah, the total

price of the car that I tested was just under £82,000. I mean, even if you go to the base of

68 in a bit, it's a lot. A serious. I just, it drives very nicely. But, and I wonder whether

this is because when you take an internal combustion engine out of the equation,

you've sort of removed one point of difference. Yeah. But I don't remember the last mechan I

drove, which is a mechan turbo, which was fabulous. It was like a big hot hatch, but that's because

that's got all manner of trickery on it. You know, the engine wasn't the particularly memorable part.

It was the whole car. I don't know what it is about this mechan electric. It's a nice car,

but is it a 68 in a bit grand, nice car when there are many other things that would do the job for

much less? And this is the thing. Yeah. What is why I always say about like, you're trying to,

it's the jack of all trains, master of none thing, which I always go go back to is like,

you want a family car, but you also want a sports car, but you want a thing, and you want a that,

and you want to that. But if you've got enough money to buy a car like that, just buy two,

just buy two cars. Well, I suppose so. I'm sorry, but I can't get my head around the fact that

people want one car that does everything because you'll just end up with a compromised Swiss Army

knife. And I can't be doing this. I just want to dig into you later. But anyway, yes, I don't know

that mechan. One thing I will say though is that it is the first time I think I've ever driven a

borrowed car and been taken aback to the point that I exclaimed on my own in the car, been taken

aback by the windscreen washer jets. What? It taken aback by the washer jets. Yeah. I went to wash

the screen and just don't know why I didn't expect this. It's got six jets and they're really sort

of quite strong as well. So you know, expecting like sort of maybe two, four, perhaps four on a

big ish car, little squirters to come out of the nodules on the bonnet. No, six mighty jets fired

towards me. And I was like, oh, like that. I just didn't expect it. It's really weird. So in terms

of washer jets, it's absolutely our podcast and that has got three. And I was impressed with that.

Has it? We need to see this. We need to have a conversation about the sub, but probably not

while we're recording. And we are running out of time. I did drive another Porsche after the

McCann, which was the new 911 GTS. I'll talk about that next week, because there's some different

things to say about that. I want to read out a very, very brief message from my brother that he

sent me on WhatsApp this morning. He says, Hey, you taxi-ranked BJ, your Tesla's sat on the floor

like a really high mileage, ruined, abused P38. Is this normal? Question mark. It's because my

Tesla's got adaptive suspension. It's one of those models. And after two days of it being

parked, I think it's two days, it assumes the position of sort of sad dog that's cowering in the

corner. And it goes all the way down. He called me a taxi-ranked BJ, by the way, because that's

something I actually saw once when I was a young man having just left home and starting my new job

in Chester. And it was a Friday night that I can't unsee these things. So I told my brother the

story and he's to this day, he thinks it's one of the funniest things he's ever heard. So he will

always refer to me as that, which is nice. Someone from another car company once told me that when

air suspension cars do that, they refer to it as a relax mode. Oh, is it relax? Yeah, the car's

assumed you're not coming back for a while. It's like a guard dog waiting for the next instruction.

Yes, like a sheep dog. Sheep dogs drop to the floor, don't they? When they're waiting,

they should be told what's to be next. Talking of which, there were sheep and sheep dogs

at the revival on the track for Jim Clark's memorial service. What? There were sheep being

herded on the start finish line with sheep dogs around Lotai and other Jim Clark cars,

like the Lotus Cortina. It was really quite moving. Oh, I'd have gone just for that. It was, it was

space. So before we go, three things to tell you. Firstly, Johnny is engaged in an interesting new

project to persuade the former lead singer of Merillion to lead ground based military actions

in a heavily armored tracked vehicle under the working title fish tank. If that's not to your

taste, then why not look at the late break show on YouTube? What's happening there?

Oh, Rich, honestly, just, it gets me every time. This weekend on the late break show,

we are, I'm doing a feature on the latest iteration of the brand new old fashioned

Toyota Land Cruiser, the one you can't get in the UK, but there is a company which brings them

into the UK and why they, I think, can tow and carry legally more than any other car in GB.

Right. So there's that. And if you don't like that, then fuck you. You could watch some,

you could watch some other things on the channel as well, like the Ford fair lane 500 bar find

factory right and drive, which went out a week or so ago and all that. You know what I mean? And

there's lots, lots more coming match around show related. Yes. We've got an excellent story

about a rancher by the way, which I'll read out next week if I remember. The second thing,

well, first of all, thank you to everyone who came last Monday to the evening with thing

at the British Motor Museum with me and Paul Cowland on stage. I had a lovely time, but

some hopefully people in the audience did too. And on that note, because I talked a lot about

Top Gear, why not go and buy my book and on that bombshell about working on Top Gear 2002 to 2015,

still available online in various places and probably in some charity shops as well.

And the third thing I want to say is that one of the founding fathers of the United States,

Benjamin Franklin was obsessed with Parmesan cheese. He enjoyed it so much he spent four years

writing to Parmesan cheese makers in Italy, trying to persuade them to share with him

their recipes so that he could have it made in the United States. He was that obsessed with it.

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, Parmesan cheese took off in the US because of Benjamin Franklin, one of the

people who founded the nation, wrote the Constitution, all that sort of stuff. And I just want to sign

off by saying to Magnus Fenningson, I think that's your correct name, who's a listener to the pod

off of Sweden, off of Scandinavia, keeps convincing me to try and buy a Kalmar Daft

Chauvin postal van, which we've talked about before. He sent me one, I'm not buying it Magnus,

but I did do some more research on it. And I've got a quote from a brochure which was

translated for the postal van and it says, the ideal car for light order work, well calculated

for the task in all respects. I've seen Magnus's emails to you and I admire his determination

to make you buy a Swedish postal van with a CVC. Not this week, Magnus, not this week. But maybe

next week, who knows, soon and then we'll be back next Monday with a regular show and here on Friday

with one of our Q&As. Until then, goodbye. Spouts.

On that side of things, you could buy our merchandise, we've mugs and hats but still no ties.

One day we will make those pies, but in the meantime guys, hey guys, like and subscribe

and maybe leave a nice review. Like and subscribe, we know you know just what to do.

Like and subscribe, we don't want to take the piss. Like and subscribe, but we were told to ask for this.

Like and subscribe,

like and subscribe.

Like and subscribe,

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The DJ and the lion

Jeep Compass

Jeep Commander

Dodge Journey

Volkswagen Bus

Mercedes-Benz Xclass

Gordon T50

Porsche 911

Nissan Leaf

Tesla Model

911 Gts

Lotus Cortina

Toyota Land

Ford Fair Lane

About this episode

Original notes