The Gaylord Gladiator

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Hi, guys. Welcome to another Smith and Sniff.

Coming to you live from a hotel room.

Coming out your ears in a small B&B.

We've just got up here this evening

and since we're in the same room, we thought we'd record.

But before so, we've just opened a bottle of Malbec.

Just a cheeky little one just on the side.

So that's all lovely.

Yeah.

We've been singing just before we turned the microphone on

for some reason.

I don't know why maybe it was the Malbec started singing.

No, I hadn't even opened it at that point.

It's the theme tune to the Flintstones.

The Flintstones, yeah.

Which I haven't watched for ages.

I think I've got it lodged in my head because

a couple of weekends ago, I watched that documentary

that's on one of the streaming platforms about John Candy.

Oh, you saw that?

I haven't seen it yet.

It's worth watching though.

I think it's a little bit fluffy.

Is it?

I think there was a darker edge to John Candy

that they didn't fully explore.

I think he was probably, he seems like a very nice guy.

Everyone spoke very highly of him.

But he had a lot, they allude to the fact

that he had a difficult childhood

because his dad died very young and stuff like that.

But they don't probably go into it as much

in favor of just having another very famous person going,

oh, he was great.

I realized also, and it's taken me all these years

to fathom it out, the fact that he's basically

called John confectionary.

Yeah.

If he was a fat British guy, he'd be called John Sweets.

I don't know why.

Yes, he would.

I never occurred to him.

No, it wasn't because of Italy.

He's pointed it out.

It's growing up sweet.

It would be, wouldn't it?

Because in the UK, we don't say candy.

Yeah, he would.

Yeah.

John Sweets.

Oh, look, there's that fat guy called John Sweets.

Anyway, he seems, he did seem like a very lovely guy.

And there are some bits in that.

I'm probably doing a disservice.

So I watched the whole thing and I enjoyed it.

And it does reference, and they show period interviews

where he just gets asked about his weight all the time.

And apparently, he was quite conscious of it.

And he didn't like that he just always got cast

as the fat, jolly guy.

So it's worth watching, but what it did do,

my wife was away for the night.

And so I watched that.

And then in the absence of anyone to go,

yeah, should we watch another, like, slow horses or something?

Because you know, when you're partners away,

you can't keep watching the things you're in the middle of.

So you're a bit like, what do you want to watch?

So I watched planes, trains and automobiles.

Oh, I was about to say.

Because why not?

One of my favorite movies, I haven't seen it for a while.

And of course, there's that scene on The Greyhound Coach

where they're all singing and then Steve Martin tries to be

a little, a little too sort of high brow.

Three coins in a fountain each one,

bringing nobody's carling on.

And John Candy saves the moment

by singing the Flintstones theme tune.

There's a fantastic bit where they just cut wide

to the exterior of the coach driving into the city.

And you just hear him go, Wilma!

And that, I think, has lodged the Flintstones theme

in my head for a bit.

I do like the Flintstones, but you started singing a 60s person.

I don't know why.

60s.

It's the 60s.

We're going to have a lovely, very gay time.

It meant something different in those days, you see.

My clothes highly flammable.

I am thick smoking in my bedside room.

So, one of the things on my way here,

I just, like I hadn't really left the city where I live,

went for the third time this week.

You forgot your trousers.

Yeah.

And your pants.

Oh, and my pants.

You were shirt gucking all the way through town.

And, unfortunately, I was in one of those

Fair Mahogany jolly beach casts

so everybody could see what was going on.

There's no hiding place in those.

And, of course, the wicker seats are a bloody nightmare.

You were mini-moking.

No, so I feel like I'm now being haunted

because I've seen it three times in a week.

Those old Renault vans from the 60s,

because they call it the Renault Emilio Estevez or something.

It's Estafet, isn't it?

Is it Estafet?

Oh, yes.

Is that right?

Yeah, I think it is.

S-T-E-F-E-T-T-T.

Yes.

Something like that.

Yes.

There's one of those.

Does it sell coffee and croissants?

No, that's a thing.

It doesn't look like it does.

It doesn't seem like it's been converted

for fashionable foodstuffs.

It's just...

I mean, it's obviously...

It's not...

I don't think it's like a plumber or someone

just using it as their trade van.

But...

Is it Eulez compliant?

Well, this is the thing.

Maybe it is.

It's over 40.

Yeah, maybe so.

And if it's petrol,

mmm.

Whereas, you know, my Defender Day.

So maybe some...

Maybe a local tradesperson

who does, like, 10 miles a day...

Oh, yeah.

...has gone...

I had a 2019 transit and it was killing me.

Yeah, nine quid a day to use

going to the centre of the city, so...

I just bought a clattery old French...

Just bought, yeah.

...commercial vehicle.

This Renault Glory Restafant.

It's got a hateful gearbox.

Absolutely.

It's a three-speed manual.

But for some reason,

the lever comes out of the ceiling

and the pattern is indecipherable.

But it is...

It is clean air zone compliant.

And people like it because it's retro and cute.

Yeah.

I think.

They're sweet-looking things.

Yeah, they are.

They're a good-looking van.

But I saw it today.

I got to do a big roundabout

on the outskirts of town

and it came zooming around the roundabout

in an exuberant way.

And I was like, well, that's a nice thing to see.

But also, what the hell?

This thing's following me around.

I think one of the...

I've got to look up the which model of van it is,

but our friend at Boxed Drinks,

who does all the show coffee vans and things,

I think he's got one.

He's got a very nice, sweet of vehicles.

Is it like...

Is the estvez to the H-fan

sort of like the Renault 4 to the 2CV,

as in more people are jazzed these days in the UK

for Citroën versions?

Yeah.

But there's something a little bit left-field

and thoughtful about that.

He's got that, which is a Peugeot,

which looks like a Dodge Comma.

Yes, it does.

But I can't remember what it's called.

Is that his actual van?

That's his actual van.

It's brilliant.

For the tape, this van is painted up in

the old Peugeot Sport colours from the 80s.

It's yellow, like a Pari Dakar 405.

It's just great.

With the livery.

That's nice.

Oh, it's a J9, a Peugeot J9.

Yeah, sweet, sweet guys.

Boxed drinks.

Wait, do they sell the drinks?

Or do they just convert the vans for other people?

No, they sell the drinks.

You've had many flat whites from them at events

like the Festival Off of the Unexceptional.

Oh, those guys.

Yeah.

Oh, sweet, sweet guys.

Yeah, so they've got a Japanese cart thing.

They've got a Defender, they've got the J9.

They got loads.

And they're often at the best by sexual scruples.

Yes, they are.

No, I've seen them all over the place.

And they are based in basically a Nottingham, are they not?

They might be basically a Nottingham.

I think they are basically a Nottingham.

So they are a Nottingham.

You're absolutely right.

Because I remember having a chat with the guy

at Festival of the Unexceptional, the main guy.

I can't remember his name.

Sweet, sweet guy.

Yeah, not sweet, sweet coffee.

I just have it as it is.

No, I don't go sweet.

My brother does, though.

What, sugaring coffee?

My brother won't do coffee without sugar,

but he calls me a pussy for not eating meat.

Okay, yeah.

I mean, what sort of an old-fashioned alpha idiot is that?

Well, yeah.

Stroker.

He doesn't listen to this, so I can call him an absolute sugar.

As a thing, did we talk about this?

I was going to force your brother to listen to this

by reading out his mobile number on the show,

but one number a week.

So this week, we start with zero.

Is that like those Mayor Lord

of Shelby Mustangs where you get a screw or a bolt a week?

Yeah, you know, so I saw three things

that I shouted at my phone to make a note of

on the way out of Bath Bath today,

because for some reason, I guess some kind of traffic snafu,

my navigation said, don't go north to the motorway

out of the city the normal way.

Go the back route down through the edge of Bristol.

And did you believe it?

I actually did, because I was running late.

And you know that thing where you go, oh, piss off.

I know the way out of here.

I suddenly thought, no, that's a folly, isn't it?

It's telling me to do this for a reason,

because it seems more convoluted,

but there's something going on.

So I was just about to, at this junction,

where one way is the normal way and one way is the other way,

I was a bit like, no, I'm going to go.

I'm going to go the way it says.

And this then caused me on the scuttling secret,

well, it's not secret, but the south way out of the city

to see the Renault FF FF Tez again.

Emilio Estevez.

But I also, on this road that I drive down quite big,

so some friends of ours lived there,

suddenly, and I've not seen this there before,

there was an Allegro Vandem Place.

Oh, hello.

With the grill missing, it was a bit algal.

And one of the front tire that was facing the road was flat,

so it looked like it had been there for ages.

And I was a bit like, it hasn't been there for ages,

because I've been down here in the last two weeks.

Has it been joy ridden?

Well, that's what I couldn't figure out,

because you're quite close to Bristol.

Yes, it's a good point.

I was so, because I was running late,

I was like, again, a split second thing,

I was like, should I just stop and take a picture

and go and have a look at it?

But I was like, no, I don't need to do that.

It doesn't look like it's going anywhere.

Get on with it.

But it is only a few doors down from some friends of ours,

and I almost wanted to.

So again, I've had me driving, I'd have messaged our friends,

and I'd gone, there's a car down, there's a thing,

it's an Allegro, don't worry about it,

but that old car with a punctured wheel,

it's just down from your house.

How long has that been there, and why?

Well, after this podcast, you'd send them a text message

and see what the lie of the land is.

I'm fascinated.

I'm going to have to go, when I go home tomorrow,

I'm going to have to go that way back into town

to go pass and see if it's still there.

I haven't seen a, I mean, I know I own an Allegro.

I haven't seen my own Allegro for a while,

but I haven't seen, I haven't seen an Allegro for ages.

No, I, oh, probably,

preferably an exceptional, there was one,

not too there, maybe?

Yeah, I think there was one, there was a Series 3.

Yes, oh, there was one, yes, definitely, okay.

I've got a pair of Series 3 light clusters

that I don't want anymore, actually,

so if anybody is listening to this and wants them,

and also, I've got a couple of other surplus Allegro bits.

Your own Allegro is not a Series 3,

so why do you have a Series 3 light cluster?

Um, great question.

It's because of our friends'

Retro Power who are building those carbon amazing

chassis swapped Integra ones,

they let me have first pickings of all the bits

they didn't need, because they'd either remanufactured them,

3D printed them, blah, blah, blah.

And I took a handful of interesting dash pieces,

and they also, within this box of bits,

had a Series 3 pair of light clusters,

and I don't need them, so.

Okay, for my money, the Series 3 light clusters are less attractive.

Oh, yeah, the Series 3 is less attractive.

They were trying, weren't they?

It was the end of the line.

But they were just like,

oh, God, how do we modernize this very 70s car for the 80s?

Too little, too little, too little.

Yeah, well, you know there was going to be a Series 4 in Allegro,

which was a real sticking cluster with like two-tone paint and stuff,

and then they just went,

Should we just kill it?

The zip stick on a pig now, guys.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let's not bother.

So the, just to wrap this very convoluted, not very interesting tale.

Driving out to Ternodic some way.

The third thing that I was sort of,

if I'd had more time, I would have stopped for,

is just a few minutes later on the sort of main,

one of the main roads out of the south side of Bath.

It goes into the countryside, basically, and there's a...

Leafy, leafy.

Oh, I bet it is.

And autumnal.

There's a farm shop.

Lovely.

People who know the area probably know where I'm mean.

Affluent farm shop.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Actually, I can't, I mean, I meant to tell you about this.

Artisanal loaves.

There's so many artisanal things.

But just on the lane by the farm shop,

and I only noticed this the last time I went there,

because I went there in my Defender,

and I was sitting a bit higher up, I could see over a wall.

I know.

There's this sort of yard, like a farm yard, really,

but it's not attached to the farm shop,

where there is clearly someone who is an old mini enthusiast,

and they've got some old minis tucked under.

One of those open-sided sort of, you know,

covery, that you'd put agricultural equipment in originally.

Yeah.

But it's all overgrown,

and it looked like there was a very late rover mini in there,

but sort of overgrown.

So I was like, well, obviously, the underside of that is now muesli.

The top side still look quite...

And again, because it's a narrow lane,

there are people coming both ways,

so I couldn't stop and take a picture.

Yeah.

But I actually went back and looked on Google Street View,

and you could see through the open gateway on Street View

that some of the minis were there,

but it looked to me when I went past,

like there might have been more put in there.

So, hoarder.

Hoarder, but I was being like,

maybe I should tell Johnny he can do a barn find.

Just pull out a load of Alpen,

but with a mini-shaped box on top.

I would do that.

But anyway, just near the farm,

the agreeable farm shop.

Yeah.

And the mini hoarder on the main road.

Yeah.

In the gateway to a field.

Yeah.

There'd been some fly tipping.

Oh, gosh, this is the worst.

I know.

Well, I thought of you,

and I thought you'd be so angry.

You'd be so angry that the red mist might descend,

and you wouldn't notice that the largest item

that had seemingly been fly tipped was a Volvo 850.

What?

With a smashed windscreen.

Just pushed in there.

Well, yeah.

No front number plates.

It looked like maybe the light.

I mean, it was sort of slightly behind me,

so I was sort of double taking them.

Probably still start.

Oh, God, it's still start.

Yeah.

Just the new screen,

and that'd be good to go.

That's what, that's the thing.

And it was like, what's happened there?

Is that someone's thrown that away,

but how did they get that there?

Or was it nicked?

But that's...

It could have been nicked,

but in the 90s.

Oh, it's been nicked from Bristol,

because it's a new car then.

That's it.

That's what it is, isn't it?

It's ram raided a co-op.

Yeah.

They've taken loads of bells, whiskey,

and cash from the cash machine,

and they're made off in some old...

Some grandpa's 850.

It was...

So, three things, absolutely.

Two, I know.

It was sort of quite a nice,

light blue colour as well.

I just double taken them.

Oh, shit!

There's a nice old Volvo there.

Again, I might have to go back that way,

so I can have a look, because it feels like

there was a lot of crap in bin bags as well.

But it's one of those things where either

they'll be cleared away immediately,

or it'll stay there for weeks.

Yeah.

I was listening to the Cream podcast,

our friends, from Top Ted's Centre.

I.

Are you going to go on that at some point?

Yeah, I am, yeah.

I'm just...

I'm being disorganised, surprise, surprise.

But I am.

I was speaking to the chaps only day before yesterday.

So, I think it'll be mid-November.

November, just...

Yeah, it's good fun.

Busy, busy guys.

Cameraman slash sound recordist, Ben lives my neck of the woods.

Oh, does it?

And I heard him on their podcast talking about,

and I was going to mention it on our podcast,

and I went, oh, it looks like I'm copying now.

For weeks on the A46 into Bath,

but just as you come off the M4,

there's this big lay-by.

Right.

On the, like, northbound side, particularly,

there's a big lay-by, and there's some kind of depot there,

but then there's always loads of cars parked,

and I don't know if this is like some fishing spot,

or if it's just dogging.

I don't know.

There'll be a guy living there.

Is it like an ex-mobile library with a wood burner?

No, do you know, weirdly, that's not.

It's because I always think that.

It looks like a good spot.

Well, if you like a lot of traffic and being near the M4.

There's probably better spots, actually, now I think about it.

There's just always lots of cars parked there.

I can't quite figure it out.

But there was an Audi Q3.

Yeah, that's a good one.

I think, yeah.

I don't know.

I think it had been an accident.

Good.

And then it was slowly being picked of all its parts.

Oh, right.

So suddenly it had no wheels,

and then it just looked like the Christmas turkey,

just being slowly, slowly picked of all the bits,

and your mum's decided to keep it

and make some soup from the bones.

But for a while, it's just in the fridge,

and it's like, and then people keep going,

there's a bit more meat on that, I'll just pick it off.

This Audi, I can't remember what.

The last time I saw it, I think the front lights had gone,

the wheels had gone.

I think some of the windows had been smashed.

It was just, but it was bizarre how long it stayed there,

because I, if it's your car and you're in a bit of a smash

and it couldn't drive and you left it.

And then it got, they set honey traps, don't they, for?

How do they?

I've watched a documentary before,

where they set honey traps in different countries

of cars that have broken down in a lay-by.

And they rig it with cameras in the surrounding bushes

to see how many people pull over,

and either try and nick bits off it,

or try and load it onto a trailer.

Yeah, it's quite fun.

But when we wanted to do that on Top Gear,

a long time ago, and the lawyers just went,

this is a really dangerous area, because it's entrapment.

Honey trapping, yeah?

If you then show people,

it would particularly identify the people,

which I think is what we wanted to do.

That was probably the sticking point.

We wanted to go,

We wanted to actually say this guy tried to-

Look at this thieving prick,

and go, no, you've trapped them into this.

And we were a bit like,

didn't ask them to take the alloys off this.

Do you know what I would do?

I would, I'd have probably three different

bands of Morris men hiding in the bushes.

So, when someone pulls in in the middle of the night,

and they go, I'm going to have the alloys off that,

or it's a defender,

I'm going to take the doors and the tailgate off it.

Approximately 60 Morris men jump out of the bushes

with loads of bells,

and there's a couple of bricks on accordions.

And just surround them.

Do like a, yeah, do like a,

you know like when a shoal of fish,

they do that whirly-wurly thing,

and they go around and around and around,

you can't work out how to get out.

The guy gets trapped in a wall of Morris men.

We did target them.

On top of that, one of my proudest moments of my career

up to that point was that we did a thing called

the yellow box bears,

which was, we just hung around in central London with

hidden-ish cameras.

And when somebody went into the yellow box

and the lights changed.

Did you do this?

Yeah, we sent out these people in bear costumes,

yellow box bears with signs going,

I can't really say things like, you know,

it wasn't yellow box bell, but it was like,

but the bit that I was very proud of

was that we'd hired a team of American football cheerleaders

who came out with the bears and did a whole routine

in the middle of the junction on the road around the car.

Same technique, surround the car, overwhelm the driver.

But I wrote some chants,

you know, because American football cheerleaders

do all that sort of,

and I wrote a lot of chants.

What do we want?

Yellow boxing, when do we want it now?

Yeah, sort of that stuff.

The bit that made me very proud was that

my colleague and our friend, Roli,

went to see the cheerleaders and their, you know,

sort of musical director or whatever and go,

look, we've written some chants.

If you're okay to learn these and the person responsible

for sort of leading the musical elements of it,

went, oh, who wrote these?

They're very good.

And I was so proud that I've managed to get there

because there's a certain sort of meter

and a kind of rhythm that you have to have with them.

And yeah, they won the approval of the cheerleading people.

But yeah, it was brilliant.

This was in the really early days when we were just like,

we could do any old shit.

Yeah, I don't remember that.

But we did, we went and it was probably on YouTube,

I don't know, but yeah, it's just humiliate people

who've gone into a yellow box when they shouldn't have done.

But it was called the yellow box bears

because there was some shit.

But God, it's so it's a similar idea.

I actually like the Morris men though.

I think we should do because I'm scared of Morris men.

You know this.

Well, I was going to say, I don't know specifically,

but no, but in the night as well, nocturnal Morris men

in the night, try and avoid the Morris's.

But they were straw boaters, but with sort of ribbons on them.

Yeah, there's a lot of ribbons.

Law ribbons on the, I think the elbows or on the wrists.

But then do they have the sticks with the bells on

but also have ribbons on?

Yeah, and they have pretend swords as well.

Oh, they've got the sticks with bells on

and faux swords as well.

What?

I don't really trust Morris men.

And higher ranking one would be what?

Van den Plummen or there'd be a ranking,

there'd be a bad marketing system.

Well, Austin men.

It was the entry level one.

Well, I saw on the par, weren't they?

But I don't know.

Do you get to come like the grand itale of or?

Singerman.

Yeah.

Singerman as well.

Singerman.

The, I can't remember the last time I saw Morris dancing,

but they have bells on their feet.

Yeah.

Yes, they do have bells.

Isn't it?

Bellsy.

Very Bellsy.

Bellsy, very ribony.

Yeah, it's too much for me.

It is over well.

I live in fear.

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Good of it.

I really enjoy the British village fate as was.

And I don't mind a May Day parade.

Yes.

But Maurice Mann.

Good May Day parade.

It's fantastic.

Yeah.

My brother and I were talking the other day.

Me and Greg, he was helping me move some absolute

hoarded toaster on one garage to another.

And we were talking about how much fun our primary school

years were.

And he said, do you remember the Maypole dancing?

I mean, yeah, it was mandatory at my primary school.

What?

Should he Maypole dancing?

That's got to be a West country thing.

It was a pre-internet West country thing.

There was none of that in Cheshire.

Let me tell you.

Definitely not.

It was mandatory.

And it sounds like Cheshire might be the kind of place

that would happen, but no.

Yeah, it was mandatory.

And there was lots of fun stuff that went on.

And then, of course, because he's Greg,

he went straight on to going, hey,

do you remember the older lady who's son

ran the local garage?

She was called Mrs. Cross.

And I went, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do you remember the yellow Toyota high ace that she had?

Oh.

Like Minibus.

Yeah, yeah.

With the column shift manual.

And I went, oh, yeah, yeah.

I do remember the high ace.

We never rode in it because we didn't need to.

But we remember it pulling up outside the school.

And Greg, as a however old he was, he went,

yeah, column manual.

Interesting.

Three speed.

I don't know what it would have been.

Might have been.

Because it would have been mid-80s, so I'm going to say.

I was reading your last story for the intercooler

about your love of American cars.

Yeah.

Did you reference in that a car that

had a two-speed transmission?

Yeah, the Pontiac Parisian in mind.

That had a two-speed.

Yeah, the power glide is a two-speed gearbox.

It's one of the strongest gearboxes ever made.

Well, of course, it's strong.

He's only got two bits in it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's not so low-fast, but.

You can run 2,000 horsepower through those with mods.

But you think about that.

In normal, in your Parisian.

Yeah, it will change it about 30.

That's what I'm wondering.

So it sort of goes, oh.

It really, yeah.

It's like the beginning of Nelly the Elephant.

Yes.

They're all the blocks.

Or when you're waiting for the key change,

you're living on a prayer.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so it's got a key change gearbox.

It's a nice, the power glide.

I mean, American and Canadian listeners

will know the power glide well because it was fitted

and shed loads of cars.

But the glide relied on the torque of the engine, I guess.

So it never felt too, I don't think it felt too sluggish.

It was dead smooth.

Well, I bet it was.

Untroubled by gear changes.

It glided.

It's only like two a journey.

Yeah, it was really good.

Once up, one down.

But I'm sure it shifted at about 30.

If you really had to, wouldn't it?

If you really clogged it.

Because how long was top slash two?

I don't know.

I mean, I...

How do you reason to be long?

Because you'd get it.

Well, what year?

Hang on, what year was that as well?

66, that car.

When did the...

The car, big final drive.

When did everywhere in the US go to 55?

Shit.

Because maybe, did you think it was in tune with that?

Well, they just went, well, we can get away with two gears.

Because no one's going faster than 55,

unless they want a ticket.

So you could make second gear.

I miss that car so much.

Really?

Yeah, I miss that car so much.

It was ropey, but it was fantastic.

It still exists in various...

In a state of disrepair, really.

But I miss it so much.

Yeah, it was just awesome.

How did we get here?

I don't know.

You know what I was going to talk to you about?

I was going to talk to you about gay lords and playboys.

Okay.

Because I wrote down ages ago that there was a car company called Gaylord.

Yes.

That they only made one car off, the Gladiator.

The Gaylord Gladiator.

Okay.

And then there was a car called the Playboy.

A manufacturer called Playboy.

I don't know what the model was called

or whether it was just called the Playboy.

Playboy Penetrator.

It could have been.

And I thought, imagine the top trumps.

Gaylord versus Playboy.

It's just fantastic.

Because the Gaylord Gladiator was a big car.

American car?

It was American.

And it was big.

Gaylord is a name or was a name in the US

because that's part of the parents, isn't it?

That his name is Gaylord.

That's right.

Still his character.

Yeah, Gaylord was a name.

And the Gaylord car company was set up by...

I'm just going to quickly look it up.

The people...

I know it was made by the German manufacturers of the Zeppelin.

Really?

Yeah.

It has a very odd conception and...

Does that mean it has like a something ridiculous

like a seven litre straight eight or something?

I don't know about that.

But it was a very, very strange looking car.

And a high luxury.

Yeah, the two brothers were Jim and Ed Gaylord

whose father had amassed great wealth

as the inventor of the bobby pin or the haggle.

What?

This is made.

No, it's not made up.

It's not made up.

Honestly, really interesting backstory.

On the one hand you go, well, each bobby pin would be like a few cents.

Yeah, but they made millions.

But there's a shit ton of bobby pins.

There was a factory churning them out day and night.

Who's that chap on YouTube, British guy,

whose dad invented the ratchet strap or something?

Oh, I don't know.

Did he?

Yeah.

What's he called like Captain Ratchet strap?

This is Bob Ratchet.

And you sort of initially go, all right.

Yeah, but I mean, come on.

Yes, you've got the ratchet strap,

but that's not a high value item.

You go, well, actually, there's a lot of ratchet straps.

That's the thing.

It's not high value.

But it's like, yeah, it's like the paperclip,

like the cable tie or the zip tie.

But there's the Gaylord brothers, right?

So their dad made loads of money from inventing the hair grip.

Hair.

Hair grip.

And they were car enthusiasts.

They were proper pair of car enthusiasts.

What was the story, roughly?

I think this is in the 50s.

Okay.

And Jim and Ed bought things like Stutz, Doos and Burgs,

De La Hayes, the really outlandish American cars.

And they've decided in their wisdom in the mid 50s, right,

let's build a two seater roadster type car

with all the money we've got.

Let's do it right.

And they did.

It had an electric hardtop, I think.

What?

It had a Cadillac engine.

Oh.

Yeah.

And they...

Standard of the world.

It had a huge pair of headlights.

Absolutely enormous headlights.

Huge pair of headlights.

Like, like, like, like stadium.

You know, like search lights, you know,

they'd be 20th century Fox search lights at the beginning.

Yeah.

But was that for a pragmatic reason that car headlights

at the time were a bit shit?

And they just went,

we'll make the best headlights by putting bigger ones on.

It wasn't a good-looking car.

We'll put pictures up for...

But you just Google it.

But it was an awkward car.

It kind of...

Oh!

It's a very odd-looking thing.

You've shown me this before, I think.

Well, we'll put some pictures up, but yeah.

I mean, it's big and it's got fins,

but the fins don't quite work.

It's not work.

Yes, it looks like a sort of mutated Daimler Dart or something.

It does.

And the Daimler Dart's not a good-looking car, no.

It's not a good-looking car, no.

No, there's been numerous times when I've been offered cheap Daimler Darts.

I just don't want one in my life.

Have you ever driven a Daimler Dart?

No.

I bet it drives brilliantly.

I don't know, but I...

Yes, I have.

I love the engine.

Two and a half V8s.

Yeah, the little Hemi, the little micro Hemi.

But I'd rather have it in the...

Is it the SP250?

Yeah.

Mark II Jag Daimler version.

I'd just rather have that.

So...

So Gaylord's?

Gaylord's.

Yeah, yeah.

They had...

Yeah, the result of the huge headlights and the weird grille,

it did look like an owl.

A little bit.

It did look like an owl.

Yeah.

Because of that weird sort of cutaway...

Cutaway front...

Front arches.

Exposed front...

Yeah.

It was unveiled at the 1955 Paris Motor Show, Paris Salon.

Oh, Oolala.

Yeah.

Price tag of $10,000,

which was quickly revised to $17,500,

when it became clear how much it was going to cost to build.

In the 50s?

Yeah.

Enormously expensive.

But that's because that's the...

We were joking about this the other day, weren't we,

about how like our sort of mythical 60s man,

whoever he is, was the kind of person who'd go,

and I bought my first house,

just five bedroom placed by the Heath in Hampstead,

and it cost me 995 pounds.

And he's like, that's because that's sort of...

What happened?

Boomers or pre...

Even pre-boomers, this is relative to income.

Houses were much cheaper.

And so 10 grand for a very odd-looking car.

Yeah.

That's a lot of money.

And do you know, it was called a Gaylord Gladiator.

There's a thing...

I'm not on the internet at the moment,

because I haven't got on the Wi-Fi,

but there is...

You can go to the Bank of England inflation calculator

and find out...

So it was $10,000, right?

But I don't want to exchange rate with you.

It went up to $17.5,000,

and the Gaylord Brothers said that they would have...

They needed to sell 25 of them a year,

in order to break even, but...

But it's interesting they revealed it

at a European car show, I guess.

They had a real thing for European style,

and I think they were trying to make it look European style,

but fundamentally American.

Yeah, it had all sorts of stuff.

Electric brake servo for all drum brake system.

Yeah, just really, really...

But anyway, it ended up being built by the German coachbuilders,

the Zeppelin group,

the thing they called FIF.

So yeah, and the problem with those is they...

They didn't know how to build cars.

Surprise, surprise.

So it didn't...

I won't go into all the details,

but it kind of didn't go smoothly.

Yeah.

And they were a long way from America,

and comms weren't great, and blah, blah, blah.

You're giving it fabric bodywork again,

and also it seems to be full of nitrogen,

and that's no good.

Hydrogen, sorry, not hydrogen.

But in 2017, the Zeppelin group,

because it's still going the Zeppelin group,

was contacted by an elderly car collector in Arizona

who had bought supposedly the sole surviving Gaylord Gladiator.

Oh.

From the widow of Jim Gaylord.

Oh, it was my kind of warranty claim or something.

Well, he sold the car to the Zeppelin Museum,

and it's on display in Germany.

So I'd really like to go and see it.

I think, I mean, if I was in the area...

Yeah.

I'd definitely pop by.

My favorite move from the Zeppelin group

is not when they made cars,

but when in the 70s they became a rock group,

I thought that was...

Oh, I see.

That was probably...

They made more of a success of that.

Yeah.

LED Zeppelin, as a vote of more...

Halogen Zeppelin.

Halogen Zeppelin, metal halide Zeppelin, sodium Zeppelin.

They were all shit.

Yeah, but LED Zeppelin, very...

Fluorescent tube Zeppelin, just left you very cold and bleak.

Yeah, it was bleak.

It's an early 80s, halogen tube...

Just not so good.

I presume that when you were at school,

the classrooms had all those strip lights in them.

Oh, they had loads of them.

But do you know those little starter things

that screw into the...

Well, they don't.

They just slot into the side and twist, don't they?

Yeah.

They are starters, aren't they?

They're just the thing...

Yeah, they're little starter units, yeah.

Because we just take them out.

Why?

Because then the lights wouldn't...

You need to switch the lights off,

and then when the teacher came in,

it was very dark in here,

I'd try and put in half the lights wouldn't go on.

We're just being pricks.

And what do you do with the starter units?

Well, sometimes we'd just throw them around.

Yeah.

I used to have loads of them at home.

You've ticked it.

Well, I have a feeling when we cleared out my dad's house,

and I had to clear out, you know,

my childhood bedroom, essentially.

They were still in there.

They were still some in a drawer.

And I remember thinking,

you absolute twat.

Such a sort of stupid crime.

And you've just reminded me,

I forgot last podcast to give a big shout out to my grandma,

who's just turned 100.

Oh, yeah.

She's just got a letter from King Charles.

But the reason why that's peaked my interest

is because when I went home a couple of weeks ago

to see my mar and pa,

and spend a bit of time at home for a long weekend,

my mum opened a cupboard and went,

look, do you want this stuff?

And it was all of my GCSE and A level art projects.

And a shirt.

You know, when you get your mates to sign and scroll

all over your shirt on the last day of school,

my parents had the one from primary,

my last day of primary.

And I had all the little scrolls from my mates,

the girls, everything.

I don't know what to do with it.

So I know it's one of those things where you can't throw it away.

No.

But what do you do with it?

But the art project, I'll put a picture on our Instagram,

because one of my art pieces was the interior cabin

of some Ford gear.

And when you lift up the, it was all watercolour.

But I, but I, I know, it was absolutely exquisite.

That's brilliant.

The sign of a complete penis.

But I went with you well.

But it had lift up, lift up sun visors.

And under the sun visors, it had my name,

my form number and whatever examination number.

Oh, nice touch.

Yeah. I thought so too.

I was quite impressed.

And the glove box folded down and there was another thing inside.

Just about as fast as the glove box open.

That's brilliant.

Yeah. And then you, there was a vista out through the windscreen

of like a sunset in a cityscape.

Oh, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll show you.

But I want to see this.

Again, I look at it and I go, what am I going to do with that now?

I spent forever met painting that.

You've got to keep that.

I know.

Just put it in the Johnny Smith Museum.

Hey, we were going to, has it happened yet?

I can't remember.

Harry Metcalf selling some of his cars, isn't it?

And I've seen it advertised as the Harry Metcalf collection.

Yeah.

And I, I did suggest to you when you were having to move all of that tat

from your garage into your new garage,

that you should just auction it off as the Johnny Smith collection.

I should auction the Johnny Smith.

But you have to pose because Harry's posed for a,

you know, a very tasteful picture.

Yeah.

With some of the cars he's selling off on, you know,

a sort of Cotswold farm yard.

But you should do the same thing, but just, you know, sitting in a lay.

It's why it's fly tipping.

Well, it sort of looks like fly tipping, but you're still there.

So it's not, but it's just, it's loads of cardboard boxes.

Some of them are slightly collapsed or split.

Oh, I have got some collapsed cards.

And there's bits falling out.

But that's the thing, the bits are all going for auction in the Johnny Smith collection.

I love that.

I do.

No, actual cars, but bits of cars.

I mean, you could Johnny Cash.

It's the Johnny Smith Automabilia Collection, which sounds even more love that word.

Yes.

Automabilia.

Yeah.

Lot 403.

An unspecified rubber weather strip.

Possibly for an Austin Allegro.

Not sure.

We just don't know.

Just simply don't know.

Value estimated £8,000.

I know.

Johnny, I know.

I know.

I was just looking at the Playboy car.

I'm really fascinated by the Playboy car.

I'm more fascinated by the Playboy car than I am the Gaylord.

No affiliation with the Playboy magazine?

Or was there?

Well, well, okay.

So based in Buffalo, New York, made between 46 and 1949.

Okay.

Very short.

Yeah.

Left car company.

Post-war.

It was.

It was post-World War II.

Optimism.

Yes.

Demand for new automobiles.

It was a small car as well.

A former Packard dealer and a former Pontiac engineer

and a talented garage mechanic founded the Playboy Motor Corp

with the intention of creating a small second car priced at less than $1,000 for around town errands.

The Playboy car was designed with the intention of being

the second car, and it featured America's first retractable hardtop convertible, apparently.

Okay.

The company, reportedly, only made 97 cars before closing up shop.

None were ever originally offered for sale to the public.

These were classed as prototypes.

What?

The cars were-

Hang on.

This sounds like a tax dodge.

That does sound like a tax dodge, doesn't it?

There are a couple that still exist now,

because I went through a phase of thinking,

could I buy one?

Are they really expensive, or are they rare, but nobody cares?

I don't know.

What engine, sorry?

I'm just looking.

Is it one of those ones where they just used a static generator engine or a helicopter

engine or something really wacky like that?

Because that's what the Tucker had a helicopter engine.

I was going to say, they tried to sell the car to Tucker.

And then in early 1950, after failed negotiations with industrialist Henry J. Kaiser

to buy out the company, and after a second stock offering that didn't work out either,

the assets of the company were auctioned, and most of them were bought by a Chinese businessman

who produced one larger prototype by a Chinese-

One larger prototype of the Playboy in 1951.

Selling your assets to China in the 50s?

Yeah.

That's quite a ball to play.

Isn't it?

There are currently only 51 Playboy cars known to still exist in the world.

Of those, 15 are known to be in roadworthy condition,

and fewer than five are known to have the optional windshield mounted spotlights.

What?

Well, unlike little searchlights, you know, like a rancho or at the top.

Kind of like a similar rancho.

Like an American police car.

Do you know what that looks like, though?

That looks like a Volvo.

It looks like an old PV.

An old PV.

Yeah, it's definitely not a big lavish American car.

Again, we'll sort of put some photos of this somewhere,

because it's a bit annoying when people talk about things they're looking at.

That's interesting.

I had no idea.

Well, that's why I wanted to talk about Gay Lords and Playboys.

Because it's legit.

It's a legit car.

A friend of mine used to have a car called a Gaylord.

It was a fascinating beast of a machine.

There was also a Gaylord's curry house in Manchester.

Maybe still is, I don't know, but...

Can you imagine going in a Gaylord to fetch a Gaylord curry?

Have a curry from the Gaylord, yeah.

That'd be amazing, wouldn't it?

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I just looked at my phone because I was like,

I'm sure some other things I want to talk to you.

I opened it up, the little notes that I have in here

for Smith and sniffchats.

And the first thing that's still there

is never ending disco two.

We still haven't cracked that one.

So I just delete it.

Never ending disco two.

I don't know what that means.

No, I don't either.

So outside the Airbnb that we're in.

No, it's just a B&B.

Oh, it's just there's no air.

There's no air.

Air, B&B.

It's very clean and tidy.

I have to say.

Would you like any more wine, by the way?

No, I'm all right, actually.

Thanks.

I pulled up.

I'm in the Eagle Quest and as you will know listeners,

it's a limousine, which means it's longer than most cars.

And I thought the car park for this B&B was like a pub car park

where you go down the side of the pub

and then it opens out into a big turning circle.

Well, it's deceptive.

Not the case.

After 10 minutes of quite flabbergasted, sweaty, stressy,

and also the power steering belt was definitely making some chirpy noise.

Oh, no.

Going from lock to lock to lock to lock to lock.

It's probably boiling the fluid.

I was like, I can't get this car out.

I very nearly reversed it into a wall, very, very close.

Couldn't believe it by a whisker.

I missed that one.

My flabber was guested when I pulled into this very narrow entrance thing

into what you hope is going to be an expansive car parking is in fact not.

To see the quest there.

It's parked right outside my door.

Like if I open the door tomorrow morning,

I will almost walk straight into the car.

I'll take a picture because it might look majestic in the morning sun.

It might do, but I have a lingering concern about getting it out again.

Yeah, and it's going to be on cold idle.

Isn't it?

Yeah, it is.

Yes, isn't it?

Yes, it will.

But it'll be daytime, right?

And the exhaust is some a bit fruity.

Actually, that's a really good point.

So it's not there is no way that there's going to be an inconspicuous series of mood.

In fact, it's going to be a sort of concerto of it's so far to our noises.

Farty, a bit of pass.

Oh, chirpy, chirping.

Pass chirp.

Farty.

Honestly, it's so guffy, the exhaust.

It needs to just get in the sea.

It's so ruined.

Is it the beer can that's given away?

Oh, I mean, I've just done two more hours at 70 miles an hour on the motor.

So it's just blowing out of its every orifice.

But when you got underneath it, the MOT,

the beer can was holding fast.

It was the rest of it.

It was blowing around the beer can.

So I put another bandage kit on it and the MOT guy, Nick, he did chuckle.

And he went, how many repair kits do you think this exhaust has had?

And I went, four.

Maybe your mistake was not just putting on another beer can and a shit ton of mastic or something.

Well, I think what we need to do, I think we need to book it.

Well, listen, I think we need to book it in and have a new exhaust made.

Did you think should we push the boat out?

What, titanium or Krapavitch?

Oh, that's a good idea.

Yes.

It's got to have a spout as I don't want it really loud though and boo me.

Well, you could have one of those switchable ones with the Bluetooth controller.

Couldn't you?

That would be nice to have a switchable.

Switchable, yeah.

No, because when you're doing track work,

you want it to let it rubbery unless it's a noise restricted track.

And then you can put it in quiet.

Now, because we're going to be doing overwinter live events, aka hotlots on that live of things,

the Eagles got to be on the button and it's got to be discreet and refined in that way that it is.

Well, it's the sole discretion.

So I don't want it to have a really guffy kind of flaccid exhaust.

It's just so...

Well, I don't know.

It's like an old barrister sitting in a gentleman's club.

There's something quite flaccid and relaxed about that car anyway, isn't it?

It's so nice on the motorway.

It really is.

It's just when you're manoeuvring it in next to tight buildings,

you realise how farty the exhaust has become.

But I think with a new Zorst on it, maybe, you know, some track work focus threads.

We were thinking deep.

Some Toyos, get some a bit grippy.

We've got...

So before we have a reasonable amount of Australian and New Zealand listeners,

which is always fascinating for me.

But of course, over there, those cars had V8s.

Yes.

And I do keep looking at it going, oh, maybe one day we'll gift it.

But the six runs so nice.

All right, yeah, be careful what you wish for,

because let's be honest, the straight six is a lovely thing.

It is.

It's a sweet, sweet engine.

I've only owned one straight six in my life.

How many have I owned?

I don't know.

I feel like that's not right.

Jag, two Jag 4 litres.

Yeah.

Oh, hang on.

No, no, I've just won.

I had that Jeep Cherokee.

That's it.

I forgot you had a Jeep Cherokee, the XJ.

Yeah, yeah.

Did you enjoy that?

Yeah, I did, actually.

I did really like it.

I mean, it was a bit shit, but I enjoyed it.

Yeah.

It's the same.

No, it's a likable car.

They've all gone now in the UK.

Well, there's a really tidy one.

That's what I looked at anyway.

There's a really tidy one for sale,

but they won a 25 grand for it.

It's a bit like, calm down.

No, get out.

Yes, it's nice.

It's not that nice.

It's no.

You've gone hard early.

It's no Gaylord Gladiator, is it?

Exactly.

You know what I mean?

But now I can't think of any other straight sixes.

And I think that, I mean, V8s are lovely,

and I've owned a few V8s.

I've had American straight sixes, what?

Oh, right.

My first Chevy in parlor was a straight six.

I had that Chevy Caprice classic wagon.

They're the one that I backed into my neighbor's house by accident.

Hang on, but it wasn't that you mentioned this recently.

Is that that was a straight six?

A straight six.

It was, it was a V8 car.

I think someone bought it to nick the engine out of it,

put the straight six in it, and then punted it on.

Then Muggins here bought it cheap on eBay,

and then realized that the wiring had been done by someone

that had their eyes closed,

who might have done 18 shots of tequila,

and then got, yeah, put that back on eBay,

and I bought it, cos cheap.

Yeah, I've owned, I've only been, never had a BMW six.

And I'd like a BMW six.

Straight six.

No, have I?

I've got to change this,

cos embarrassingly, I've just never owned,

I've owned one BMW for two days,

and that's it, never owned another BMW.

I've come very close, and it's,

it's, it feel like it's an itch I must scratch at some point.

I've never owned a BMW.

Haven't you?

And yeah, I like BMWs, like in general.

I like a lot of them, but they've made some really nice cars.

E34 touring, I'm really fancy.

E39 touring, very much.

Well, an E39 M5,

I've got the hots for one of those big time at the moment.

Yes, they're lovely aren't they?

Yeah.

But, sweet, sweet, handsome.

I have a pervading theory about a BMW,

that they are troublesome cars in old age.

M cars.

All of them.

Oh really?

Anything from the...

Sixties?

No, well I think 1670 is probably different.

I think I mentioned before, I very, very, very nearly bought a 2002,

and then the last minute I saw one broken down on a wet night on the M1,

and went, oh God, that could have been me.

Because I needed it to be in my daily,

I couldn't afford to have another car.

Yeah.

You should have just done it,

you should have pulled the trigger on that bastard.

I should have pulled the trigger,

and yeah, I was being urged to,

I was working with Quentin Wilson at the time.

Virtually cars, and he urged me to,

and I think he went, I'll keep my ears to the ground,

and I was a bit like, yeah, great,

and then when something went out,

fuck what am I doing?

I got commuting this bastard thing.

Hey, I saw it as a part of me,

he goes, oh, well I should have done it.

I mean, it's fine, you only need to think in retrospect.

You go, wait a minute, I was 25.

Yeah.

And I had relatively so few responsibilities.

Well, at 24 I was commuting in a 1977 old Cutlass.

There you go, so you lived the dream.

Yeah, which was a very small V8,

so it had all the sound and none of the go.

And yeah, and then before that,

I did daily driving that Mark I Granada

for three years without, with on-street parking.

It's probably a sign of how strange we are.

I was not certain how strange I am,

that some people, they get into middle age

and they look back at their 20s

and they regret that they didn't,

you know, travel more or sleep around more,

so I just regret that I didn't own

some more idiotically impractical car.

That couldn't afford.

I saw a sign in it, it was an air B&B, not a B&B,

that I was staying at air B&B the other day up in Sheffield

and it said, I think it said something like,

live your life like today is your last.

So frantically ring all your relatives and friends

and ex-girlfriends and stuff and just, you know,

try and get your affairs in order and just...

Well, that's what I thought.

Because part of it you're gonna have to go,

shit, well, have I got a pension?

I need to, but what do I do?

Oh, my kids, I've got to make sure my kids don't.

You're so, that's exactly what I wrote down.

I was like, shit, have I got a will?

Yeah.

If I haven't, I need to do one of those test go ones.

We're gonna just go and see a solicitor and that's all.

That's gonna take an hour or so, isn't it?

Jesus Christ.

And they're expecting you to,

to like tear all your clothes off

and run into the sea and smile and...

But you're just going, well, actually...

But also there's a degree of it.

They live every day like it's your last.

What, sort of, on a ventilator?

I don't know what you're doing.

What, doing the crossword on your own, in a chair, in a...

Or on an airplane that you don't realise is about to become

stricken and crash into the Pacific Ocean or something?

What a stupid thing to say.

It was a really, I just stared at it for ages

while I was brushing my teeth going, what?

Live every day like it's your second to last.

Yes, yes.

Maybe.

But then I thought to myself, it was, if you knew,

it was like a Groundhog Day.

If you knew you were gonna die tomorrow for sure.

But he knows that he's not gonna die.

Oh, because he keeps coming back.

He starts just dropping the toaster in the bath

because he's like, I'm gonna die tomorrow.

Which is why it could afford to take risks.

That's why never, see that,

I guess we're getting never close to Christmas.

I won't mention that, but Groundhog Day is one of those films

I have to watch during the festive period, so I love it.

Really?

I love it.

You think of that as a sort of festive film?

Yeah, I love it.

Is it because it's snowy?

Yeah, it's snowy and there's a bit of, I don't know,

festive romance about it.

And he has a bit of a...

So, you know, Fargo is snowy and...

Yeah, Fargo is snowy.

But it's not a Christmas film.

No, it's not a Christmas film.

Die Hard is not snowy, but many consider it to be a Christmas film.

I like Die Hard.

Because it takes that place around Christmas.

And Die Hard's a Christmas film to me.

And also, one and two.

You can transpose it a little bit,

because in fact, talking as we were earlier

about planes, trains and automobiles,

that's a Thanksgiving film,

but because we don't have Thanksgiving,

you can make that a Christmas film here.

I quite like if there was a version with too many apostrophes in it.

Planes isn't trains.

Automobiles is out of often.

Yes, you will be made trains is.

Planes is planes is I'm not being funny right,

but like automobiles is.

Yeah, do you understand what I'm saying?

Yes, I understand what you're saying,

because all you say is planes trains.

You've said something incredibly straightforward.

Yes.

Yeah, very, very straight.

While I was driving up in the Eagle,

with the aftermarket radio on.

Oh, is that working now?

Yeah.

Yeah, it's good.

Well, the bloody hell just went past.

It sounded like a totally empty cattle trailer.

With lots of nuts and bolts loose.

That's what it was.

I think it was.

It was sort of heavy, but rattly cattle.

Yeah, there's quite a few of Smith and Smith

listening people who understand music or our musicians.

Yes.

And this is one for you.

I was listening to Sounds of the Sixties on the way up actually.

And because I do, it's only an hour a week.

I quite enjoy it.

And I've realized there's quite a lot of 60s music

where the bass guitarist, as I think playing with a plectrum.

Oh, it's very, very picked.

Yes.

Would that be with a plectrum, you think?

Unless you've got sharp nails like a pimp.

I don't know.

But I noticed it.

And then a song came on that doesn't involve

sharply picked bass, but The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.

Oh my God.

And I thought to myself, you know the song.

Everybody knows the song.

Fire.

Calling yourself The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.

Well.

It's quite quite a statement there.

Is it?

Was there a video to that song?

Or have I imagined this in some way that like he had big hair

and it was sort of on fire?

He had a helmet or a hat.

Oh, was that on fire?

He might have been on fire.

Yeah.

I just have this image.

I've said it before on a previous podcast, I'm sure.

My dad went to see him live.

What?

He came to his, I think he came to his university.

And they and he and set his hat on fire part of the act.

But then people had to run on stage with fire extinguishers

because he got a bit out of hand.

Bear in mind, everyone inside that building

would have been smoking as well.

Yeah.

Well, also when was that sort of 68 bit of polyester going on?

Oh, loads.

A lot of polyester going on because there's so much cheesecloth.

Yeah.

But also I remind my dad of the fact that he watched

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown,

which is a one hit wonder as far as I'm concerned.

But turned down the opportunity to go and watch Jimi Hendrix

and the Jimi Hendrix experience because he was a bit tired.

And his mate was like, no, I think these guys are quite big.

He's like, oh, well, I think I'll turn in early tonight

for the lecture tomorrow.

Seriously.

Have we mentioned this?

We just talked about in real life that I could,

the same like similar, I could have gone and seen Oasis

when they were very new.

Yeah.

And just in the very small venue in the Student Union.

And my housemate was going and he went,

there's still tickets for that.

You know that?

And we'd seen them.

I was at Shaker Maker was out,

I think before Super Sonic, I can't remember now,

but we'd seen them on the chart show on a Saturday morning.

And he'd gone, you know that?

Showing promise.

Yeah.

He'd gone, you know, the band Oasis we watched on the telly

the other day and they'd been mentioning the enemy quite a bit.

They're playing, they're playing the union next week.

Do you want to go?

And I was like,

yeah, they're all right.

No, I'm good.

I won't.

And he went and saw them.

They apparently were fantastic because they absolutely

kicked the ass out of place.

And yeah, because my housemate came home and told me,

well, it was an amazing gig.

Absolutely brilliant.

And yeah, and he's so cocky.

That front would be so good.

Yeah.

And he stood up and he went, there's our new single.

So go on fucking buying it.

And then he played Super Sonic.

Yeah.

And I was like, oh, I could have been there.

And lots of coats being worn indoors.

Well, I don't think everybody had sort of cottoned onto the vibe.

At that point.

The Manchester look.

Yeah.

See, it was confusing to me because yes,

there was that Manchester look, but at the same time,

there's that I still subscribed more to that sort of converse

northern mentality.

If you don't go out with a coat because you just,

that's faff.

You've got to find something to put it.

You just style it out.

I can't bear that.

In the cold.

Can't bear it.

The idea of it just annoys me.

You've got to take a coat.

I went to Paris in the autumn with my girlfriend at the time

when I was in my early 20s, mid 20s.

Around the time I wasn't buying a BMW 2002.

But you know, I went to Paris.

So we went to Paris and we, I can't,

I was an investor or something.

So, oh, actually, no, I know it was because my girlfriend,

she was 25th birthday or something.

We could have bought her an MOT failure BMW.

I know.

What an idiot.

Yeah, you old romantic.

So we booked in sort of quite a nice restaurant.

It was autumnal Paris and everybody is wearing exquisite overcoats.

Yeah.

The walls come out at that point.

It was cold enough.

Yeah.

And I love a good coat.

I just manked it.

What, you had like a lacoste shirt?

No, I didn't have a coat.

Well, I did have a coat, but I was too casual.

I can't wear this coat to the restaurant.

It's too casual.

It's a smart restaurant.

So I just wore nothing.

I just wore a shirt.

Smart shirt.

Yeah.

And my girlfriend did have quite a nice coat.

And we arrived.

Oh, hello.

We have a table, a table, a table.

I might have been some shit French going on.

And then whoever, the major deal sort of, whoever welcomed us went and

may I take your coats and my girlfriend hunted over.

And you took your shirt off and just gave it to me.

Well, I swear, I don't have a coat.

And the withering Parisian look that was

lasered at me was incredible.

For people who are listening at home,

Johnny's drinking a bottle of water.

Sorry, I'm trying to quietly drink a plastic bottle.

Quietly?

It's just not working.

I'm just suckling on it like a pig.

So we're talking anyway about how my wife,

because she's American.

Well, I think it's because she's American,

doesn't know how to whisper.

She doesn't speak loudly,

but she doesn't know how to whisper.

I don't know.

In fact, we have a lot of listeners in America.

I will ask you just not allowed.

I just don't think it's necessary

because everything in America is a bit louder.

But yeah, she just, you know,

she'll wake up in the middle of the night

and needs like one of the kids is awake

and she'll talk to them full volume.

And you're like,

you're going to wake up the other child

and the neighbors if you keep doing this.

But just lack of lack of whispering,

not not in the lexicon for some reason, whispering, whispering.

I like whispering.

It's like talking in black and white, isn't it?

Yeah.

But it's quite useful sometimes.

Yeah.

I whisper to my cat.

I don't know why I do it.

I whisper to the dog sometimes

because I'll give her a big scruffle on her head,

but then I'll bend right down and go,

hello, hello, hello.

Yeah, I do that.

You're a prick.

Yeah, I do that as well.

I love trash talking to the dog.

Yeah, I do.

I know she can't understand.

I do it while I'm grooming his face.

And I've been caught doing it by my wife

and she'll go, don't be mean to the dog.

And I'm like, she doesn't understand.

No, I'm saying.

As long as the intonation's good.

Yeah, exactly.

It's the right, it's the intonation.

But I'll just go, yeah, you're a prick.

Absolutely.

I call my cat a prick as well.

Animals are pricks.

They think we're pricks.

I mean, of course they do.

Of course.

Absolutely, cats.

Cats have a terrible disdain for human beings.

Yeah, my cat, she's good.

She's all right.

She understands the rules.

But because I've just moved house,

and I obviously, I'm pretty sure

I trod her shit into my box the other day,

which is just so...

Have you sorted this out?

No.

Oh, no.

No, I haven't, no.

I've sorted the shoe out.

I had a message from a friend

when I told them that I was having a stressful day

and I just trod and cack into my boxster.

And they went, oh, did you burn your shoes?

Like, seriously?

They went, oh, because once I trod dogs around the house,

and the first thing I did was burn my shoes.

And I went, did you actually burn your shoes?

I went, yeah, I did.

So I just burned them.

You just cleaned them.

I know, that's what I said.

If you've got, like, a messy kitchen,

you don't burn the kitchen down.

There's far too extreme.

Oh, no, I've just got a little spot of coffee on this t-shirt.

Had a burn it.

Just incinerate the lot.

No, that's...

Yeah.

You're going to wash the car?

No, I'm just going to burn it.

Yeah.

He's got some burpee on it, so I'm going to burn it.

Oh, did you see that?

We got tagged in on Instagram

to that Dodge Caravan for sale in the UK.

No.

Oh, God.

We're stacking them up, though, aren't we?

Because a couple of weeks ago,

you casually mentioned that we've been offered an Alpha 159.

Yeah, like a really...

Any news on the Bramflakes?

Another one that...

No.

Okay, I'm just checking.

Probably for the best.

I'm trying to be good.

Well, I'm trying to be good as well.

But some...

Trying to be really good.

What, a Dodge Caravan?

Dodge Caravan, late 80s,

so it's a really boxy, basic thing.

Yeah, so I'm familiar.

But someone has...

It says I'm a student

and I've spent in excess of £13,000 restoring it,

but I've come to the end of the road with it

and I need to get something more practical.

And I'm like, why have you...

What do you mean, more practical?

But why have you spent £13,000 on a Dodge Caravan?

That's nuts.

It's a really bad-looking car.

Yes.

I was going to say,

you know, we were talking earlier on about,

before we started recording,

about when I vaguely floated to my wife about

me or us buying a Crown Vic.

Yeah, it was a fine idea.

And she's just like,

why would I want a crappy old taxi or police car?

No.

Because she's from the US.

They're not interesting.

They're just functional shitters.

Yeah.

Where is she obviously lying?

I could not begin to describe her disgusted face

if I turned up at home in an old Dodge Caravan

because that's just a shitty sock on my car.

It is dirt.

It is dirty.

Yeah.

I mean, I say she can't whisper,

but she could definitely shout at me if I did that.

Yeah.

Look, I've got it.

And she'd be like,

I mean, it'd be like the equivalent of,

if we lived in the US and I suddenly just turned up,

or she turned up one day.

Oh, it is good.

I was about to say a Montego estate,

but I'd be delighted by that.

So no, something else.

It's just something like a Ford Escort,

a Mark IV Escort estate.

Yes.

Just go, no.

But in quite bad condition.

Yeah, it would have been immaculate.

I'd be like, I'd never wanted to see one of those again.

Why have you done this?

Yeah.

It's just a shit car.

Yeah.

That they used to be everywhere.

Yeah.

In my home nation, not in yours.

Although I do miss when I started zooming in

on the photos of it,

going, I don't want to buy this.

But it's interesting because I miss,

I do miss the MPV.

Did it have,

does it have like wood applique on the sides?

It didn't, but it had really velvety buttoned seats.

Okay.

And it's like I want, is it three, six?

Is it eight seats?

There might be eight seats.

It's got a lot of seats.

Three, three, two.

Yeah.

Classic formation.

Who are you?

You're like a football manager for MPV.

Did it have, or does it have, what engines in that?

Two and a half, four cylinder or something that makes 84 horsepower.

I think it might be the Weezy V6.

Oh really?

Oh okay.

So it makes 91 horsepower then.

And does seven miles of the American gallon.

But probably.

Yeah.

Because.

Quite, it's quite.

Three speed auto maybe.

Yeah, it will be.

Oh God.

Almost certainly.

Awful.

Extremely.

No, there's no need for that.

No, it's not.

I mean, I like a lot of shit cars.

You know that.

But it's not for me.

It's not for me.

That's a hard pass for me.

You know, I do like all manner of old shape.

That's just not in.

No.

Oh, going back to the extremely holy exhaust on the Eagle Quest.

As I was driving, I was thinking to myself,

I wonder how many holes it's actually got in it.

Would it have more holes than your fingers could cover over?

So is it is it like turning itself into a sort of clarinet or an oboe

where you've got to put your fingers over the holes or to change the notes?

I was about to say a flute, but they have valves.

Don't they say?

No.

Flute valve.

Maybe you just think so repairing the exhaust have valves fitted.

Oh, a multi shooter valve.

A fluty exhaust.

Can you imagine if you had all the different octave options?

I got tailgated by some guys in a transit connect and it was very aggressive.

But I thought I was going to do some some hand signals.

But in the end, I just I just gave them a little two of the.

Oh, did you?

Yeah, the go straight inside happened.

They didn't give a shit.

Unfortunately, I was trying to make a statement, but.

Well, when you've got a fluty exhaust, I'll think twice.

We should stop this because we've been going off for ages.

But some before we go.

Oh, three things to share with you.

The first one is I can't think of any more fish related notes.

Well, I'm not really on the surprise.

Because I haven't prepared it.

So I don't know.

Write to us and suggest some other shite that we should do to end the show.

Hello at smithasniff.com.

Second thing to mention is that we have a live show coming up.

And it is at the Great Northern Classics in Derby on the 19th of November.

Wednesday, the 19th of November.

We've been mentioning this on social media.

But you can go to our website to follow the page for live shows.

And the link is there to buy tickets.

Also, I've still got a book out.

It's called Petrolhead's Completion on my Evo.

Come speak to me about it from Amazon or from our merchants.

I shop, which is also on smithasniff.com.

And the third thing I was going to say is that I have a tiger was written for Rocky

because Queen wouldn't let them use another one by the dust.

Oh, didn't know that.

I didn't know that until this morning.

And I read it somewhere and I haven't had a chance to check if it's true.

But I forgot.

I just remembered it.

I love the Eye of the Tiger by Survivor apart from the drumming.

It's really bad.

Is it bad?

It's like the morning of them recording it.

The actual drummer, I don't know, fell down a staircase and had to go to hospital.

So another person stepped in.

I'm going to put it on when we finish this.

It's really, the fillings are really lame.

Okay.

In my head.

Do you think it's a real drummer?

Is it a drum machine?

No, it's real drumming because it's out of time a bit.

Or if it sounds in my head out of time.

But I'm just being picky.

Yeah.

Go and make your own enduring hit about tigers.

Yeah.

I what about the different tigers?

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

You've got the headlight of an Avenger Tiger.

Yeah.

Do you know that's still a dream car?

It remains a dream car.

Way better.

You can make your version about a Scotsman who correctly identifies whether an Avenger

is that particular limited edition or not.

We're eye it's a tiger.

Yes.

It's a tiger.

Eye it's a tiger.

Right.

Well, that's quite enough of that.

You pollute.

Such a freak.

We will be back again.

Usual times and places with more of this nonsense.

But for now, thank you for listening.

Goodbye.

Bye guys.

Just with thanks my boy.

We know you know just what to do.

Hi, this is Joe from Vanta.

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and earning customer trust has never mattered more.

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