The Man Who Owns 70 Cars, 200 Plates & Hundreds Of Properties - Nick Sahota

The Man Who Owns 70 Cars, 200 Plates & Hundreds Of Properties - Nick Sahota Road To Success with Benedict Fowler · Jun 29, 2026

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Car

Lamborghini Aventador SV

An extremely fast, loud, and aggressive version of Lamborghini's main supercar. It has a massive V12 engine and doors that open upwards, but is notoriously cramped and uncomfortable to drive for long periods.

Person

Nick Sahota

A successful British property businessman who loves cars and has built up a collection of 70 rare vehicles and hundreds of custom license plates.

Car

Master Tech

This is a large commercial van made by the French company Renault. It is primarily used by businesses to carry cargo, tools, or equipment.

Car

Aston Martin V8

This is a compact luxury sports car made by Aston Martin. It is designed to be smaller and sportier than their larger grand touring models.

Car

Ferrari Testarossa

A famous 1980s Ferrari supercar with wide rear fenders and horizontal slats on the sides. It has a powerful 12-cylinder engine and was famously featured in the TV show Miami Vice.

Car

Lamborghini Aventador

This is a very fast, low-slung supercar made by the Italian company Lamborghini. It features doors that open upwards and a very loud, powerful twelve-cylinder engine.

Car

Porsche 918 Spyder

An ultra-high-performance Porsche that uses both a powerful gas engine and electric motors to go incredibly fast. It was one of the first modern hybrid hypercars and can even drive silently on electricity alone.

Car

Porsche Boxster

This is a two-door convertible sports car made by the German company Porsche. It has its engine placed in the middle of the car behind the seats, which helps it turn corners very smoothly.

Car

BMW E34

This is a mid-sized luxury sedan made by the German company BMW. It is designed to offer more space and comfort than the smaller 3 Series while still being sporty to drive.

Car

BMW E30 M3

A classic, lightweight BMW sports car from the late 1980s that was originally built so BMW could enter racing competitions. It is highly prized by collectors for being incredibly fun and engaging to drive.

Place

Wörthersee

A beautiful lake in Austria that was famous for hosting the biggest annual car show and meetup for Volkswagen and Audi fans in the world.

Car

Opel Astra

This is a small, everyday hatchback or sedan made by the German brand Opel. It is a very common car in Europe designed for daily commuting and family use.

Car

BMW E46S

This is a popular luxury sedan made by the German company BMW. It is designed to be comfortable for daily driving while also being fun and sporty to drive.

Car

Chevrolet Impala

This is a large American car made by Chevrolet that was produced for many decades. Classic older versions from the 1960s are highly prized by collectors and car enthusiasts for their styling.

Brand

McLaren

A British car company famous for making incredibly fast supercars using technology from Formula 1 racing. While they drive beautifully, some owners complain about electronic glitches and build quality issues.

Car

Land Rover Range Rover

This is a large, high-end luxury SUV made by the British brand Land Rover. It is designed to be extremely comfortable and fancy inside while still being able to drive through tough off-road terrain.

Car

Revueltos

This is a modern, extremely fast hybrid supercar made by Lamborghini. It combines a traditional V12 engine with electric power to make it incredibly powerful.

Car

Aston Martin Cygnet

A tiny city car based on a Toyota but fitted with a fancy Aston Martin leather interior and grille. Aston Martin only made it so they could meet environmental laws and keep selling their giant gas-guzzling sports cars.

Person

Andy Bruce

A famous British car collector who owns some of the rarest and most expensive supercars in the world.

Car

Rolls-Royce Rolls Royce Corniche

This is an extremely expensive, hand-made luxury convertible car from the early 2000s. It was designed to offer the ultimate level of comfort and prestige for open-top driving.

Car

Aston Martin DB9

This is a high-end, luxury sports car made by the British company Aston Martin. It features a powerful twelve-cylinder engine and is designed for fast, comfortable long-distance trips.

Car

Renault Clio V6

This is a special, rare version of a small French hatchback where the back seats were removed to fit a large, powerful six-cylinder engine in the middle of the car. It is highly prized by collectors for its unusual design.

Car

Aston Martin DB5

This is an extremely famous, classic British sports car made in the 1960s. It is best known for being the car driven by the fictional spy James Bond in several movies.

Car

Ford Mustang

This is a famous American sports car made by Ford, known for its sporty look and powerful engine. It has appeared in many famous movies and is one of the most recognizable cars in the world.

Term

autonumerology

The fancy word for the hobby of collecting and studying rare or personalized license plates. People who do this pay huge sums of money for plates with very few letters or numbers.

Car

911 930 Turbo

This is a highly famous sports car made by Porsche, known for having its engine located in the very back of the car. It has been produced for over sixty years with a very similar, recognizable shape.

Car

Ruf BTR

A highly modified, custom-built version of the classic Porsche 911 Turbo made by a famous German tuning company called Ruf. It was one of the fastest cars in the world in the 1980s.

Car

Porsche Carrera GT

A famous, raw Porsche supercar from the mid-2000s with a loud V10 engine that sounds like an old Formula 1 race car. It is highly respected by enthusiasts because it has a manual stick shift and is very challenging to drive fast.

LIVE

She didn't like your events door SV, did she?

She hated it.

Lost five grand a month for pretty much the whole time I owned it.

Please welcome Nick Sahoda.

How much time do you spend thinking about the next bit of the business?

From the minute I wake up to the moment I go to sleep.

What excites you the most?

The deals?

Do you think that's why you've got 70 cars in 200 place?

Probably, yeah.

Am I right in saying that if you make any profit on some of the cars or so, you basically

reinvest it into the collection.

I don't really ever sell many because I don't enjoy the process of selling.

I'm going to consolidate my collection rather than having around 100 cars, maybe try and

get down to 50.

You grow up obsessed with property as well.

Back from 1948, my great-grandfather bought his first house.

You guys have got hundreds of properties.

Yeah.

Hello!

It's new office, isn't it?

What has been the biggest shock offer you've ever had?

Nick, I don't think I've ever visited such an eclectic mix of amazing machines before,

especially in the UK.

It's not just machines with you.

You seem to be into so many different things.

Number plates will get into business.

You seem to also be so fascinated and nerdy about the things that you get into.

There's so much to uncover today.

Nick, in your own words, who are you and what do you do?

My name is Nick Sahoda.

I'm a property developer, car collector, and just general enthusiast of cars, number plates,

toys.

I like these things.

We walk around your amazing garage and we're going to show overlays now, some of the amazing

cars in your collection.

If you're listening to this and audio, make sure you go back and have a look at some of

the pictures I'm going to post and the overlays on this video because you have such a variety

of colors, specs, brands, loves, bikes, plates.

What kicked that passion off and the passion for variety as well because normally people

just go down one route, but you just seem to love everything.

I'm not sure, really.

I've always had a love of cars and bikes since a child.

Nobody really knows where it comes from because the rest of my family don't have it at all.

Nobody's really interested in cars or anything like that.

For me, I've been like that since a child, a small child.

My family remember me naming cars and whatever you were when I was a kid and they're not

understanding themselves what cars were.

They really care.

It's just, I guess it just happened.

Nature, I guess.

Well, it's funny you say nature because even though, with most guests, what you can track

back and be like, where do your love of cars come from?

I've heard you talk before on podcasts and with you, I'd use the word obsession.

I'd say you get obsessed with number plays, obsessed with cars and then get obsessed into

each thing.

Does any of your family have an obsession of something else, albeit cricket or sport

or whatever?

My father's heavily obsessed with the gym and training, so he's obsessed in that way.

My grandfather probably obsessed with property and finance and world affairs, that kind of

stuff.

He really likes to know what's going on in the world, to know what he's doing in life.

I don't know.

Most of my family do.

They are all or nothing, whatever you think they do.

Nobody is a half-arser in any shape or form in any of my family, really.

Everybody's full on in everything they do.

Cars will hobby your escapism, your passion, but the family's passion, you grow up obsessed

with property as well.

That spark did catch, it did ignite with you.

What was it about what your family did and go back the story of where that started that

also caught your attention of the fact you wanted to keep that going?

I can go back in my life and then I can go back further than that.

In my life, again, our business was in our house, our offices were always in our house.

To grow in art, my family had rental properties, as well as my parents still had full-time

jobs when I was a kid, as well as doing property stuff on the side, but our offices was in

the house.

When they were at work, when they were doing other things, when we were at home, we would

answer the phones, the office phones, and what have you.

As a kid, we were always part of the business, answering the phones, dealing with tenants,

dealing with inquiries.

Most of the time, just passing on messages or whatever, but we were always involved,

never had a...

I don't remember a time when we weren't involved in the business, it's probably most family

businesses are similar, that everything in home life was business life, there was no

separation of anything.

Our home landline was the office phone, so it was always that in our house, in our home,

and then that's just kind of...

So all I've ever known is tenants and landlord business, the business of being a landlord.

It's all I've ever known, and my family weren't so much developers, they were always buy a

house, do it out, rent out the rooms, that kind of thing, that's what they always did.

Back from 1948, my great-grandfather bought his first house to live in, and then lived

in one room, rented out all the other rooms, and then he did that for years.

He had lodgers...

Him and then my granddad had lodgers in their houses, up and through into the 90s from 1948,

so it was never...

They sacrificed a lot in terms of their own living standards to be able to keep buying

another property, and then buy another property there.

By the time they stopped having lodgers, they would have had 10 plus houses, and they still

had lodgers in their own house, so they sacrificed a lot to do what they did, and they were at

full time.

So my great-granddad come to England in 1945 after the World War, he worked for British

gas his entire career, my granddad came just after that, he worked for British rail his

entire life, digging roads, my great-granddad did, and laying sleepers and railway lines

is what my granddad did for their whole careers, and off the back of that low-paid hard-work

jobs is what they did, and sacrificed everything to be able to build something for us, really,

their children and their children's children.

And then my father took that to another level, and then I've taken it to the next level again,

and hopefully that continues on with my children, that's the play.

It's funny that it's like you're saying that you've got your love for cars, and they're

not necessarily interested, you're all obsessed by different pieces and different things,

and when you look at a journey of almost a generational business, you can sometimes

see this big long curve, which is where it's starting and where it's going to, but often

there's kicks when it goes to the next thing.

What has been your kick?

What's the thing that you brought to a business that's been going for so long that kind of

kicked it in a new direction and gave it some new shape?

More development stuff, really.

So, moving on from HMOs and smaller unit developments to big, larger scale, new build,

and conversion developments, to a much larger scale, I think, and just continuing that same

mindset of, since 1948, we've never sold a single property, of continuing that same

mindset of working for the tenants, working all the time.

Our phones don't turn off.

We don't have a cut off time.

If somebody rings and there's an issue it gets dealt with, there's never a holiday

as such.

There's always work, and that mindset has always continued on, and that is what's driven

our family to where we are from nothing, so it has taken 80 years, the best part of, to

get to this point, and now we can enjoy the, reap the benefits of what our generations

before us have sacrificed and enjoy those, enjoy the fruits of the labor, as well as

still keep growing it, to still scale and still pace that we're happy with.

And pace is a really interesting word, because so many people want to get rich, or so it

be successful super quickly, super fast.

Yeah, what you spoke about, the story here starts all the way back in 1948, and comes

to now, do you think in this day and age, property can be a get rich, quick steam anymore,

or do you think that grind, having it as maybe a secondary focus if you've got another job

or a business, is the right way of going about it these days?

It's a hair and a tortoise, isn't it?

Some people jump ahead, but then the people that are slow and grinding it out always kind

of stay there, and they just keep catching back up again, when I've watched people fly

high, and then drop back down so many times, and I don't know, I feel like the slow and

steady wins the race, and that's something my grindad's always said to us, is slow and

steady does win the race, and we've never really chased those overnight successes,

because I don't think they exist really, you know, long term.

What did you first modify, a car or a house?

House, yeah.

Because you're into modifying both, because pretty much everything that you can see

in the background of the shot here is modified in some way, especially everything on the

drive as well, which is not typical of collectors.

No.

It must be said, most people are standard, standard, standard, stock, stock, stock,

I know you like to pick stock examples of vehicles.

But you love to also modify and change for the better for your taste to make it work better.

In property, are you constantly buying houses and modifying them, changing the rooms,

doing HMOs? Is it a similar mind, sir?

Really, I don't really get involved in houses and HMOs and stuff like that so much these days,

we've still got our existing portfolio of what we've always had, and we have modified a lot of

those now into flats, because what the market determines is that what's better in that area

for whatever reason it might be. Some of those HMOs still we have, but all of them we still

have, but some of them still are as HMOs. But what we more do is now is blocks of flats,

you know, all Resi developments mainly, I'd say 95% residential stock we hit,

we deal with them, we build it out. So it's less of modifying more of actually creating now.

Just is it fair to say that most Resi landlords, developers are completely sort of not in the

commercial game and most commercial not in the Resi game? And if that's true, why is that?

It tends to be mindsets and setups. So if you've got a setup that's your office, your staff,

everything you've built is geared towards commercial, your contracts are geared towards

commercial people tend to stay in that lane because it gets expensive and gets complicated.

If you're trying to do both at the same time, we have a bit of both, but mainly we're

residential is what we focus on. We mainly focus on flats. I try not to do too much houses.

I don't really buy any houses, I haven't bought any houses in years. Just mainly focus on flats

and the houses that we do have, we are slowly converting them into flats as well, just because

that is our model. So if you buy a flat, do you want to manage that entire building?

We don't buy individual leaseholds, freeholds only and we only if we have the whole thing.

Because of also that long-term mindset of if I buy the leasehold, it's going to run out during

one of our generations. You're still paying rent to somebody for the ground rent, whether you're

paying the maintenance costs, servicing costs, whatever else. We just try to avoid that because

it destroys margins for a start and you lose control. You don't have the absolute control

of the whole thing. So the business was literally part of your life going up. It wasn't like work

home, it was work home. When did you fully immerse yourself in the business and what were

your roles and what is your role now? If people had to picture what it is you do on a day to day,

what would you say to them? I think it's always been there. I don't think we've ever had a choice

or a chance to not be fully submerged in the business. It's always been there, it's always been

part of it. What's my roles and responsibilities today? Today I am managing pretty much everything

on the scale of development. So everything we're building out, I deal with

wholly all the letting management now we've outsourced to agents. We used to have it all in

house, we used to manage that ourselves. But now, but the scale of things and the decision to try to

focus on the developments to grow further, rather than just managing existing stocks, we outsourced

what was everything of the management of tenants and lettings. So we don't really have

any tenant facing part of our business anymore. We just only deal with agents and agents deal

with the tenants, especially with all this new renters right for reform and

all the new legislation that's coming in, it's easier or not so much easier say for us to

let a third party that just does that do that. And then we just focus all on development.

How much time do you spend on the business and how much time do you spend thinking about the

next bit of the business? From the minute I wake up to the moment I go to sleep all the time,

really. I can't think of time that I'm not really. What excites you the most? What are you looking

for that actually sparks the excitement to do what you do? The deals, I enjoy the deals,

when you buy something or even if you just do a deal with a subcontractor to

do your M&E or whatever it might be, just getting those deals over the line, shaking

those hands, something that you're happy with, that negotiation process, I enjoy that probably

the most and that probably gives me the biggest buzz. Do you think that's why you've got 70 cars

in 200 plates? Probably, yeah, because I enjoy that process and that's an easier way to do it

than the property stuff, I suppose. Do you think the mindset though has come down into the cars

from the property of never sell anything? Yeah, kind of, but at the same time we do so.

As people may hear some family outside, it's probably the best time to talk about the fact

that you all kind of still live on the same property but in separate areas away from each

other. Yeah. Hello, how are you? Nice to meet you. Sorry, we're doing it.

Just doing it. It's in the office, isn't it? No, just doing the podcast.

You can include that as well, yeah. So people may have just seen your grandad just come up to

the van there. You all live basically next to each other but separately, I mean your house is

the ultimate petrolhead's house, you live upstairs and all of your cars are downstairs.

What's it been like for you keeping in touch with the family? Was that ever an option not to do

that or was it always just like this is the best thing for us? Yeah, it's always been this is the

best thing for us. It's always been that, you know, work better together. My grandad's philosophy

was always you can never break a pane of glass with one thing that you need. You need all five

and a fist to do it together so you can't get things done alone. You need a team around you

that team is your family, then even better. You've obviously got, as we were saying a minute ago,

70 cars, 200 odd iron plates, love doing deals. But you mentioned that your family

aren't necessarily the same way as you for your passion for cars and number plates, etc.

What was it like when you started filling up the property with cars?

They get it but at the same time they don't get it. They get that I enjoy it so nobody really

mentions it or bothers me about it or anything, but they, you know, they just don't

have the passion in them to go and drive again them. Do they ever borrow one?

I like my dad does like cars, but not to any level of car enthusiast, you know, he just,

oh, that's a nice car, you know, like, but he wouldn't be interested in this. He likes

a new Ferrari or he'll drive the Rolls Royce or something because, you know, like,

he likes that, but he's not really into cars in the same way that you and I or

most car enthusiast obsessives would be. I think the other thing that people don't necessarily

think is when they hear a huge number like that, 70 cars, 200 number plates, is am I right in saying

that you've built that up in a very similar business model to the property portfolio,

which is if you make any profit on some of the cars or so, you basically re-invest it into the

collection, am I right in saying? Pretty much, yeah. I don't really ever sell many

because I don't enjoy the process of selling. I only enjoy the process of buying, but I do sell

some when I haven't used it in a long time or whatever. And then last year, I had a big purge,

probably for the last year, I've had a big purge of selling the lot of cars, mainly due to the fact

that I was servicing, repairing, maintaining cars that I don't use, touch, or even sit in or look

at because I haven't seen them for a few years or haven't sat in them for 10 years. And I just

sold quite a lot of cars. And then I thought, I'm going to consolidate my collection into

rather than having at the time around 100 cars, maybe try and get down to 50 and have

50 better cars, but still keep the cars that I really love, like this one. But

try to have less maintenance, less headache, and less stress over them, especially the ones I don't

use at all. Or don't get as much enjoyment out of, I forget I have them, those cars, and

put them into cars that I do really enjoy or really want.

One of the first collections I ever visited, Zach's Garage, probably one of my most favorite

collections in terms of the way the cars are presented, stored, the memorabilia is unbelievable.

First thing that I saw there was the ramps and the workshop and people working to maintain this

whole thing is it's a car collection is like a living, breathing asset, isn't it? It's constantly

moving, constantly causing problems, constantly causing enjoyment. There's so many parts to it.

You've got a logo on your T-shirt there, exotic and supercar. Didn't you set up your own garage

just to do all this stuff? Basically. Because of the scale it all became. You offer it to other

people too? Yeah. So basically, that's what happened. We set this up because using other

garages for different things and it just become irritating and the lack of control. I'm a control

freak at the same time. So to have that control in-house and to have things done to the standard

that I want them done at, it was better for me to do it ourselves. So my business partner in

the exotic and supercar is a master tech Ferrari for over 15 years. So I went with him and we just

set it up and now we just keep growing. It just keeps growing and I didn't do it as a business

as such to make loads of money. I did it because I needed somebody to look after my cars as efficiently

and correctly as I possibly could to how I want them at my standard and then to be able to pass

that on to other people or made sense and it's just gone from shrimp to shrimp. Something that I

just for me to manage my cars ended up being a full blown business. Now we've got like 10 techs

and a huge team of people. We're one of the largest independent garages in our area maintaining and

servicing Exotica and supercars that nobody else was doing around here.

A supercar purchase compared with the likes of you must have been bringing home as you said,

you grew up with BMW, BMW, BMW and I'm sure the family would have been like, what's he got now?

Okay, that's orange, that one is blue. But when you turn up in something where the doors go up

or it's been on Miami Vice, it's sort of a different feeling. The heads turn even more.

What was the first supercar that you ever added to the collection?

I don't know if it's classified as a supercar but the first car that wasn't like a, you know,

the standard BMWs or whatever you was an Aston Martin V8 Volante that would have been

2013, 14, something like that. Yeah, that was the first one. And yeah, and it wasn't an expensive

car at the time. It was about 30 grand-ish. It would probably still have about 30 grand-ish.

And that was the first non-normal car I suppose. What's the one car that you've pulled up to the

gates driven down in that has made the family that aren't interested in cars come out and go,

Mick, what the bloody hell is that? Yeah, that was probably the first one that did that and then

I bought that to Sturros. So probably a couple of years after that, that was about 2015, I think,

I bought that. And then it went Aventador, SV, and by then everyone was kind of used to it

already by then. So yeah, then most recently bought that 9118 and I remember telling my

grandad that, you know, whatever the value of the car was at the time and he just couldn't

leave it. He's gobsmacked. In a good way, Bob. Do they understand the importance of that?

I was a little bit scared to tell him to be fair because he doesn't really understand cars like

that and he doesn't understand the values in the market. And for him, where he worked as a

British rail earning, you know, pittance for so long, his value of money is much different to

ours in the modern day because he still thinks of, you know, his mortgage being £4 a month,

you know, that's how his mindset is still at that. So anything larger purchases, he doesn't

understand. So telling him that I was a little bit like, you know, what's he gonna say? And to

be fair, he was like super proud and super happy about it. So yeah, it was quite a nice moment,

it was quite a big moment. Yeah. What about plates? What's a particular plate that you've

managed to get your hands on that really means a great deal to you? What's one like the BMW?

You say you won't sell? Yeah. Inflates? Probably Sahota S411OTA. The closest spelling of Sahota

you can have is my surname. And my dad tried to buy it in 2003 when it went through auction

and couldn't afford to buy it at the time. And then we managed to buy it. What was that 15 years

later? So as much as you say your passion for cars doesn't really come for anywhere, your dad was

into number plates that not so much into number plates. He wanted to buy that number plate

because it was his name, but he did he had he had a plate when I was growing up and he had

and it was just his initials are GS and he had GS and then the rest of it was X2T. So

meant nothing but just had GS on the beginning part of his number plate. So he kind of was into

having a having an A plate but not really did put as much emphasis into it as as much as I do I

suppose. So who were you growing up? Would you be able to convince your dad your granddad etc to

take you to car shows to be exposed to all this stuff? Like I'm trying to understand like how it

wore on so heavily. You now go on road trips with all your friends. I think that's more because I

wasn't exposed to it growing up. So the only exposure I had really was TV, magazines, that kind

of stuff and the internet growing up. There wasn't much I never really went to car shows and stuff

till I was older. I never really saw nice cars from where we were never really had cars around the

area or whatever. I don't remember I remember seeing like a Porsche Boxster when I was like 12

years old and thinking wow that's a special car because there wasn't really cars around my dad

used to have a BMW when I was growing up but it was at the time it was just a 520 BMW you know and

e34 520 BMW and for me that at that time was like that's the most amazing car but

looking back it wasn't that special but to me it was special and I wasn't really exposed to

anything else other than that other than TV and whatever you and then growing up and having access

to be able to go to car shows and doing these things. Probably I was at uni before I started

going to car shows. Did going on a first big road trip also ignite even more folks? I know you love

your road trips. I remember going on some crazy adventures when I was kind of 18, 19, 20 and you

just think oh my god the roads the world our roads are so bad here. You get exposed to like a whole

different life really. I know you love your road trips was that the same for you? Yeah the first

road trip I went on was when finished building this that would have been 2013 and we drove this

etham 3 to Austria to Wärdersee. There used to be a big Volkswagen modified Volkswagen show in

Wärdersee in Austria. So we drove down there and we did that for like three years in a row and

like a few friends, few cars and always enjoyed that. That was good. When did you start modifying

cars then? Would it have been like back on these vehicles? From the first car really like I had an

Astra and back then like I should did some grills and bits and bobs you put some different lights on

it and stuff we're talking like 2008 so you know tastes for different men you know on a 2000 year

a Vauxhall Astra you know and just bits and bobs tint the windows you know that kind of thing

was the first modified bits that started doing from the first car onwards and it just kind of got

I always used to I was always obsessed with BMWs I think because my dad's 520 always was obsessed

with BMWs and I used to as a kid like school age kid buy performance BMW magazine and

all the way and I've still got my whole collection of performance BMW magazines from

like 2003 or something onwards and I was always obsessed with E30M3s and E46M3s because they

were like E46s were new at the time and I was obsessed with like what people used to do in

that magazine you know put different wheels on them change the engines that kind of stuff and

that was kind of what inspired like that car really and and from then onwards it's kind of

just kept carried on evolving but I think now I probably modified ours less than I did when I

was younger just because I know that the headaches it involves many of you might not know this but

away from the recordings that I do in my van studios I've actually got a digital marketing

agency now we specialize in a lot of automotive clients but we cover everything really our team

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project and you'd love to speak to us just tap the link below and let's hop on a call well we

sit here today and bbs wheels and all kinds of different things like that are definitely a big

part of your culture I went to the GRH show once in Belgium and got exposed to that kind of car

culture scene and I think it's things like that that ignited different passions for different

cars is there anything in your collection you wouldn't have necessarily liked back in the

days of looking at that magazine but you completely turned your head and like are obsessive over I

mean you got two hummers over there yeah like hummers and things like the hummers and the

impalas and the stuff that I like because I watched them growing up I never had never saw

a hummer in real life until I owned one you know I bought a car from I bought what the first time

I bought a boy from Japan and an auction completely blind um because I'd always seen them in films

and I'd never seen one in real life and I was like I really want one you know study tiny inside

there are small little seats yeah and tiny little spaces because the engine and everything's all in

between why am I a build guy like you picturing like Mr Incredible like I sat there inside the

seat because it's a massive car but I've been inside one it's like the center console is bigger

than the area that you sit yeah because the center console is where the engine sits because it sits

right up inside the car so like the whole body is just radiators and then inside the car is where

the engine and gearbox sit in between the seats so that's why there's there's like four foot in

between the passenger and the driver's seat you see with car collections what most people do is

everything's like a weekend toy or the only is only the kind of thing that you could drive on a

weekend and enjoy because it doesn't necessarily serve a massive purpose yeah right the Ferrari

right there but you in your collection I'd say also have as many dailyable vehicles as you do

kind of super cars and show cars and all the rest of it yet you don't drive them daily do you is

there a reason for that um I do like I try to use them as much as possible I want cars that I can

use as much as possible um I try to enjoy them as much as possible and when I'm when I see a car

that I think oh that's that's that's great and I'd use it for this you know I think in my head

that car I would use for this occasion you know or you know taking the kids out or whatever it might be

I'd use that car for this occasion and this type of year or whatever and that's how I kind of

rationalize the purchase in my head first well you can't figure out a way to do it somehow yeah

and then and then what actually happens is day to day I don't use any of these cars I use a diesel

gulf every day um because I'm on building sites most of the time um I don't like to

everyone to know what I'm doing all the time everyone to know what site I'm on what what

properties I'm looking at purchasing and things like that so if I'm doing that in a big loud car

I don't know I'm going to see it it's do you have any problems with that with the builders

etc making comments making stupid things yeah you'll always get comments but kind of uh I'm not

fussed for comments I don't care for that just more um you'll always get comments I do try to

not rub it in people's faces that's you know especially if you're working for me or you're

working on one of my sites for whatever reason you're a you know subbie or whatever it's not

who taught you that humility your dad your granddad um I suppose so yeah because they're

they're still the same now you know they they don't really have anything flashy or nice or

anything they're not interested in that sort of stuff they just you know uh my granddad especially

just see him now he's uh he's off to work you know he's 86 years old he doesn't need to go to work

he just wants to go and pot around and go check on some buildings and and he'll come back like

just now he was just telling me that don't don't forget to deal with this you know because in his

in his head he's like I need to tell Nick this I need to get this done I need to make sure that's

done and he's he's great eyes and ears on the ground all the time because he'll go out for four

hours a day um and just pot around the buildings and just to have a look check check on menial tasks

you know that no the rest of us don't really have the time to do because we're focused on what we're

doing and um and it keeps him sharp but it keeps us on our toes and it's it's good die of a CEO

one of the uk's biggest podcast one of the world's biggest podcasts and focuses a lot on different

topical matters and various ways of making money improving your health sometimes have people of

conflicting interests coming on and talking but I love it I love the podcast but there's definitely

around property on it a real narrative of don't buy a house you're wasting your money invest in

the stock market instead rent rather than buy like going against the traditional sort of culture

and what we kind of know really often on there do you think that's because they

realize that the kind of market of people watching the podcast are willing to get rich

slowly and do you think that's the biggest factor there um it's not exciting is it property

and you know it to do it like we've done it is not glamorous at all you know it's they they're

promoting something glamorous and something exciting that people attract to um whereas

what we do isn't glamorous at all it's it's slow steady it's kind of boring yes I know that there's

a bit of shiny things now but that's 78 years later it's not it's not instant it's not is that why

you got it started building a car collection and buying and selling number plates and buying and

selling things to kind of get that spark out of a form of work and making money uh not so much I

I I love the cars and I love the number plates I it is my passion is what I do I don't do it for

any other reason other than that it brings me some sort of buzz but you love the property even though

you say it's not glamorous and not yeah well yeah really love it yeah I really enjoy it and if you

just took the fact that it was really successful the money away from it why would you really still

love it creating something you're you're building something out of nothing you're

you're making yeah you're taking something that isn't anything and you're and you're building

building homes for people um it's very satisfying especially in completion during the process it's

not so satisfying sometimes it's very frustrating in times um going through it at the moment you

know with a with a development and it's just every day more frustrations headaches but

when it comes to the end of it and you remember back on all the frustrations all the stress and

all the sleepless nights that you've had over it and then you've got this finished article it's

it's a great tremendous buzz it's unbelievable what is your BMW m3 of property buildings what is

the one that you've put in the most time love and energy into and kind of visualize what that looks

like for us um so my current office building um is where my office is um it's a residential

building above it and around it um that's probably that it's named after my grandfather

it's not now but it was at the time the largest property that built new build um it was you know

it's a landmark building in the area i grew up in um and my office is based there as well

it's just yeah it was probably that is that building but then and then i look back at

and when you say is it the building that i'd never sell they're all buildings i'd never sell

but they're probably the one that is the most sentimental meaning to me is the is that house

that my great-grandfather bought in 1948 um we still own that house um still love that house um

my great-grandfather lived in that house until i was like 12 years old so i've got a lot of memories

there uh and that's probably the the most sentimental building to me you must have some

tenants that have been in them for a really really really long time as well yeah yeah recently a

tenant left that um i've known since i was a child like and was in that property from before i was

born and they recently just left to go into a care home because they weren't able to look

after themselves anymore but that tenant was in that rub to my whole life can

you ever be friends with a tenant uh yeah i've been friends with tenants yeah definitely and what's

the most problematic tenants you look out for is there anyone that you've got to be really careful

of is the stuff that raises your eyebrows if i was renting out uh a portfolio that i've built

say 23 houses etc from the mill my tenants left i had to find new ones is there anything

that you kind of look for um we have a criteria you know they have to you know pass certain checks

and you know mainly referencing from previous landlords and things like that is the the red

flags that we kind of look out for the most um there's no kind of think if there's any

thing that i'd avoid on a general basis um you just got to take a stab and try and get rid

if you can do your best yeah just rent everything really good at the scale we're working we're trying

to just get people through the door and get and get rented out and that's it we're in the south

of ingham right now it's beautiful gorgeous day absolutely stunning and that's what people picture

in the south that's probably one of the reasons that you haven't strayed too far away with the

properties that you purchased but when i spoke to rob more before other people that are in property

that have come on the podcast they tend to find that people that build portfolios really focus on

dominating their area their postcode etc what's kind of the methodology reason behind that why

haven't you gone and bought lots of properties in maybe other regions that are a little bit far

away from home if it was a good deal it was always my granddad's um philosophy i suppose was to stay

as close as possible to have all the properties within 10 minutes from driving away from from

your office you know and officers home so always have the properties within 10 minutes from home

because if for whatever reason probably on a smaller scale it mattered more um than now because

now we have big maintenance team and why have you asked but tenants get locked out in the middle

of the night you're only 10 minutes away if there's an issue at one of the properties you're only 10

minutes away whatever the everything is only 10 minutes away you can resource your resources are

stronger closer the closer you are if you try and spread yourself too thinly across the country i know

people that you know buy buy a place one house in Liverpool and then buy a house in Newcastle and

whatever else because it's cheaper for whatever reason but that um the element of price it is lost

when you've got a resource that all over the country you know whereas if you can manage

maintain and everything closely it makes a lot more sense and that's what my grandad always

pushed for us to stay closer but i you know i've raged out a little bit now you know cover

Southampton and Portsmouth so it's past the the 10 minute barrier of my grandad's thing but you know

we're still fairly local you talk about your grandad growing up on the railways and having

a fairly normal job and yet now we sit here today you guys have got hundreds of properties

amazing property that we're at today you've put a lot of your wealth into your car collection

growing that etc have you done it all without borrowing a lot of you have to borrow money and

no no we've borrowed all the way through borrowed all day through still have significant borrowings

yeah and what's been the best and worst year for that um the worst years were probably before my

time the late 80s early 90s um the those are the horror stories that my my grandad talks about of

being you know a few months away from losing everything um and those are the lessons that

they've drummed into us um my grandad's kind of drummed into us is that you know you don't take

the significant borrowing to that level because of this is what could happen and he talks about

17-18 interest rates and um Jesus Christ and and that the fear of that so that was probably the

worst time for it as a family um the worst times that i remember were you know the the housing

crisis in 2008-7-8 but fortunately we're in we're just at that time just finished the development

kind of it it hit us luckily at a right time if it was in the middle of the development

it would have been more painful but our property was just completed uh you know it was um a good

time for us and then what ended up happened didn't end up being a good buying time for us

because prices decided fall and everything and it ended up actually being good for us because we're

we're in the right time in our cycle when it happened so our cycles match with the the economic

cycles at that time but i knew a lot of people that it didn't say there are people out there

listening right now that may inherit their pay pet but may inherit their parents house

grandparents house anyone's house and there it could be at any age during that process when

that happens 18 all the way through to 60 people inherit stuff um i've been lucky enough i have to

sell a family business i put some of that money into buying i've got myself a flat and i've got

myself another house i've got a couple of properties i've got three inside a property company limited

company i own all of them outright there's no borrowing and get some monthly rent that comes

in tots up in the account and i'm trying to figure out what the flipping egg to do with it but my

passions being in podcasting and my day-to-day work and that's where my head kind of is and

everything else i do don't think about it too much is there a certain percentage that if i wanted

to scale those houses i wanted to scale that portfolio you mentioned earlier you've got

significant borrowings is there a certain level not to go over like is there a magic percentage um

i think it's probably around the 50 mark you know uh when you've got a sizable portfolio

when you when you're still starting out you've got to take the risk and you've got to go you

know the 70s 80s but you've got to kind of try to bring that down when you get to a certain level of

comfort i suppose because there's high risk in that in that element but you need the high

risk to be able to grow in the first place so we comfortably sit under 50 but

if you're starting out you have to take the risk otherwise how else are you going to grow

yeah because if i was to take a living you know from that business there'd be nothing left in it

to be able to grow to be able to do anything you're managing to do that with borrowing

on some of the properties you're having to pay about the month please and take a living at the

properties and then take enough out of them to reinvest in new properties and new businesses

because how would you do that even at scale like what how many houses do you need to be able to do

that um yeah you need a fair amount i think to to be able to take a living grow and take a decent

living there's a matching number for that i don't know if there's a match magic number i think you

know some people have some people do it well at 10 you know um but we've always because we develop

the capital gains on a development kind of give us that buffer every time we finish development

whereas on a just a normal purchase and rent out portfolio you know just a buy to let portfolio

it's a lot harder because you're not you're not having any capital breath so you always buy

refurbish refinance or buy land build out build out and then refinance yeah well buy land in the

UK at the minute you must have had some planning struggles loads yeah is that your biggest base

is that the hardest part at the moment i don't know if you know much about the the new regulations

after grenfell but um the new building safety act and the new build the safety regulator has become

very painful for building over over a certain height and that's what we do do so you know over

over seven story buildings and stuff it's become extremely painful extremely

frustrating it's a process of competent people being regulated by incompetent people

and it's super painful super super frustrating what is the biggest risk that poses your business

interest rates so how often are you looking at that monitor in that and is there anything to

do all they start rising is there anything that you will start to do like almost like an emergency

escape plan um

set on cash no we

in recent years we look to fix our rates those are rates that when we see the signs of

of rates because we are unbearable rates most of the time but when the longer you can lock it in

the better long you lock it in the better so you say you take significant borrowing on the properties

does your mindset work the same with cars especially investment vehicles um not so much no

because cars are high risk right properties or as they're all high the assets there they're really

haven't fall off like cars do cars can't appreciate um do have some borrowing in cars but in in terms

of loan to value it's negligible do you think you'll yet to make your biggest increase in a car

because you did sell a 458 speciale from what I know and very well on it got in at the right

time got out at the right time yeah but do you still think that you've got a car right now

setting the collection that's going to outperform that um percentage terms dare percentage terms

definitely because I've got cars that I paid £2,000 for that were £30,000 because I bought them

15 euro or 10 years ago when they weren't worth a lot but now they're worth a hell of a lot you

know so percentage terms on low value cars is much easier done but on in terms of value

amount that didn't I did on that speciale I don't have anything else that could I don't think that

will that will beat that for not the 918 it's possible it is possible I suppose um yeah it is

definitely possible so are you got a Lambo Ferrari Porsche and McLaren or is McLaren a brand you've

stayed away from I've McLaren a little bit yeah are you not as risk taker as me

then are you but mine did shit itself once yeah um having yeah exactly super garage um

is open eyes to how bad some of them are yeah um yeah it's just there's not much in the middle

with McLaren I find I had 1570 but that quite literally shit itself yeah 27 faults in 48 hours

got rid of the car horror story it's the exact thing you hear about yeah and I've got 600 LT

I've done 10,000 miles in and the service is overdue and it's still absolutely fine yeah so

like it depends which one I think when McLaren's but you're yet to take the the plunge and get into

up yeah they don't they don't excite me that much either um like obviously p1 f1 yeah they're

exciting the rest of them they kind of all say me and I don't really they don't give me that buzz

and you know like when if I'm spending that sort of money I have a I don't know I expect a value

for money right um when you I don't know you spend have much 100,000 pounds on on a Rolls Royce

and you see the details and you see the craftsmanship and you see how the quality is and then when you

look at a McLaren in the same way and like the rubbers don't fit properly and like you know

nothing is I was sat in a p1 the other day and like all the carbon weave doesn't even match you

know like and it's p1's at the moment 1.8 million pound car and the carbon weave doesn't match and

you know like and you think well I've got 918 which is the equivalent car and that car is perfect

in every way and then the fit and finish on the McLaren isn't quite there and if you're spending

that sort of money or you're spending even 100 grand on a car you want that bit of fit and finish I

like the detail why are you so obsessed by the perfection side of it where does that

where does that come from is that just the same thing with the properties all come from the

generations you granted just wanting something to work and be perfect because yeah I'm a bit weird

I like imperfection but it does kind of crack me up when stuff ain't right and I know that

that's probably making you itch but that genuinely is the case yeah no it's not perfection so much

I just I just feel like I wouldn't care if it was three grand car or I wouldn't care if it was a

15 grand car but on a 150 grand car you've got to have that level of detail for the money

how I see it Harry's garage was to the review of the new Tomario yeah which nobody wants

and it literally the stitching was a joke on the mats like it didn't line up he's like this car

is 400 grand you've probably wrote to be fair if I had a couple of stitches out of place in here

I'd think to myself wow that's not too bad it's all right yeah but when you are spending that

kind of money I can see why that would irritate you a lot does that mean that you're now one of

these people that is more interested in stuff before 2015 does any new car kind of get your motor

running at all um I can't think of many of the new ones it's scary because you're the man that

would be buying them yeah because you're building a car collection you love your vehicles you're a

man of many different brands BMW Ferrari Lamborghini Rolls Royce Range Rover everything you know yeah

I don't see any new ones sat anywhere no not too fast for new stuff to be fair there's probably a

few new cars that I think yeah that's that's special but everything else not too fast for

do you think they'll survive a lot of the car companies that you love not sure not sure it's

um too much regulation on things that people don't really want because you had a speciale

Aperta which would have been a 2016 2017 car people go say that the 296 the 296

gts and all the rest of it are amazing cars but are we just too far gone the second it all goes

to v6 hybrids in Ferraris I'm not so fast I'm not I'm not I don't care really of it being a v6 I

don't really care this hybrid but what I do care about is that on a 296 every single one that I've

known has got a Christmas tree on the dashboard and for whatever reason it won't start the other

day or you know like that that kind of stuff whereas the 48 always works I don't

know whereas those 296 is the SF9 is the stuff they're amazing cars SF9 is one of the best

driving cars in my opinion um you know for for that price point but they've all got issues yeah

they've all got issues like no not one of them works properly even like prosangue you know like

revueltos everything that's kind of in the last five years there's loads of issues

there's because they've just crammed all this tech into them but not really got any

and I feel like they've forced crammed and they've been forced to cram all this tech into all they

think they've been forced to cram it all in but possibly they feel the pressure to cram it all

in but some people just seem to hang on like yeah what I love about Aston Martin I was at

Mark McCann's place the other day and he's got a signal yeah I'm surprised you don't have one of

those I just leave with you we're collecting a lot of different machines and cars I've triggered

something now he's gonna go buy a signal but he had a signal at the back of his collection

and I think I love that because I understand what they did they made loads of these little things

yeah I think the majority have a maybe a female market in mind yeah or the mother was a ponder

around the town but it enabled Aston Martin to still put v12s in different machines because

I'm amazed more people don't do that but I don't think the regulation allows that anymore

that was 10 15 years ago to sign that I think the regulation really tightened down on them but

I think I don't know well they were scared that it was going to so they started acting towards it but

I don't know um yeah I don't I love you know modern the some modern varieties and stuff but

I can't I couldn't deal with the unreliability of them I just speaking of unreliability obviously

because you've got exotic and supercar you get a deepened perspective on what goes wrong and

different brands and what comes through the door you get to see to see stuff with its trousers

down basically all the time and I kind of can relate to that because I've been as well as my

passion for cars I fish him in my whole life loved car fishing I saw your gardener over there

straight away he's a carp angler too we couldn't get away from each other for five minutes but since

I've owned my own lakes and operated my own fisheries my knowledge for carp for fishing for

what they do and how they be a is 10 times ahead yeah when I did it before for a car enthusiast

I've got a lot of collectors that listen to this podcast as well Andy Bruce so many people that

listen did it completely change your experience having a car collection when you actually ended up

with your own garage as well to start fixing stuff um yes I think so um

is it's changed the way I buy cars definitely um definitely changed the way I buy cars because I

feel like I have a an inside knowledge a bit more now which I've kind of always had a little bit

but now I feel like more inner circle in that I understand understand more about how the deals

are done and who's buying who's selling what's going on a little bit more but

would I would I like different cars now because of it probably not no I just I like what I like

and I buy what I like even if even if that's not what the market says even if that's not what

the consensus is I kind of just do what I like and it's not really ever done me no wrong so

I keep doing that that BMW there as well as that Ferrari has potentially two of the coolest

number plates I've ever seen on vehicles yeah beauty purest yeah you can tell what it says

immediately yeah you can read it immediately it's the spacing legal no okay because when we turned

up I did hear Oliver manages your collection you went have you paid that number bait to get

yeah it's oh yeah I gotta do that today how many of those do you get regularly and is that like

almost like a admin fee of owning nice plates yeah kind of it's a that was for a no front plate on a

Ferrari and uh I don't know it's it's it's part and parcel now I run no front

plates on my cars because they just can't seem to stop falling bloody off yeah and I once had an

officer when I had a private plate on one of them say that I would have that taken off of me

if he stops it again you with all your plates nor your vehicles have you ever actually had a plate

taken off from I have it no because when I guess that oh when I get when I guess ticket I change

plate I put a plate on it um generally and I'll just put that one in the shelf for a few years

it's just because I felt bothered a bit but um because once it's kind of highlighted that

plates from that system for getting to see if something I just swap it to something else

and just carry on um I'll put you know nothing I'm in place to just keep

keep doing that but um I do know a friend of mine has had a plate taken off of him

for miss spacing do you think if I bought right now a quarter of a million pound property

who's in quarter of a million pound car or quarter million pound plate now I said right

Nick pick one of those to give me the best percentage return over the next 10 years which one

you choose in it depends on the individual plate property or car doesn't it it you couldn't do a

blanket but you could choose which one of those individual things for that budget you could pick

the property to play all the car for that budget which one do you think you'd end up choosing

depends on what's out there at that time generally ease property but

when I look at property I don't look at property to just buy and sit on it like I would with a car

or a number plate I look at that as what can I do to it to

get capital growth you know a gain in value what can what's a value add that I can do to

that property you can't value add to a car really or a number plate unless you

put it in front of the right no yes if it's if it's off the market price then you can value add

but if a property if all of them are at market value for that condition of car property you

can restore a car and value add I do get that but generally in property you can value add

for a quick gain in capital more than you can with a car another plate unless you're buying

well under value if you're enjoying this episode please can you consider

subscribing to road to success podcast what has been the biggest shock offer you've ever had without

disclosing the figure but a number that's come in for something that you've owned car or number

plate wise a major god Jesus they really want that was that on a car or a plate um car because

there was a car there's more of a specific one even if it's limited edition there could be one of

151 of 70 with a plate there is only one that reads beauty in that way yeah you could argue

so I'm surprised it's the car really yeah yeah but um people have offered me big numbers for

number plates but number plates that I won't sell so well I would sell but not big enough number

you know and see you're a tough man do you think you're probably one of the toughest man as I

reckon to ever do a deal with on a car or number plate you don't really need to sell any of them

do you yeah it's kind of that but at the same time but I do want to sell cars at the moment so

but not not like these cars but you know the cars that I don't use so much these cars are used you

know the cars I don't I want to tell them because of space headache maintenance and stuff that I

don't use let's just so give me some keepers in your kitchen other than your BMW what's your kind

of five other keeper cars that you'd love to keep with five that you're not too sure of that haven't

quite lived up to the expectations they were all lived up to expectations I wouldn't say that any

of them haven't lived up to expectations just that I don't have so things change right um when I bought

a lot of these cars I was single with no children and now I've got three children you know like

life changes and what you do in life changes every day you know you're not hanging around with your

friends going for drives or wherever in the new forest or wherever on a Tuesday afternoon anymore

like would have been 10 years ago so like your use of cars do change so they've always had their

reason for keeping them but then now probably not so much but the like so five keepers um

etham3 e46 m3 um Rolls Royce Corniche um

to others um Rolls Royce Corniche what is it around Rolls Royce Corniche because I just don't

get it I'm sorry I just don't maybe I'm completely uneducated most people don't

put most of our generation don't get it can you make me get it without me getting in it um I don't

know it's just it's just what made you buy that car before driving it I just see it's so special

it's so special like it it's so pretty it's it's big it's comfortable it's four seater it's just

it is besides the beams of you yeah but it's like the it doesn't look the same you know there's

nothing else on the road that looks like it when you see it you know I'm willing to bet one of the

rooms up there is a cinema room and I'm willing to bet you're quite into your films I love I love

yeah well I knew this because I'm getting somewhere now do you like our purchases

something based off the films and things that you've seen the men yeah because it sparks nostalgia

generally and like I I love a bit nostalgia who doesn't you put in a private reg on a vehicle

before modifying it or would you that's like the Ferrari would you rather could you would you be

able to run that car without a private plate and enjoy it and know that you've collected plates for

so long I yeah everything has to have a plate on it in my mind the only thing that doesn't have a

plate on it is my diesel golf yeah everything else has a plate on it and I hate like I hate looking

at all that plate on them do you know what it's it's actually surprising to me that the most valuable

shortest digit plate that you own isn't on that digital car that's the thing that I'd imagine

you putting it on so I used to drive a P38 Range Rover every day so like an old Range Rover not

worth a lot but a few grand or whatever I used to drive that every day and that always used to have

the like my most valuable plate on it or whatever I used to have like nine R on it and and people

was always confused why is a you know I'm a quarter million pound of late on a 200 to two

grand car you know like it didn't make no sense to anybody but it's just see if those two grand cars

that end up sparking the car collections I think because I talk about this all the time with friends

with them Alex Kirsten auto Alex yeah and we kind of laugh me and those lads because we're so similar

in the kind of banter we have and the way that we interact but we are so different with the cars

that we buy but I almost think with me there's an internal fear of like I think I've got up to

five or six cars before you know in the past then I've sold some to release some money to do for

my business projects etc bought some I recently bought an Aston Martin Vantage which was a random

purchase and I swapped a GT3 for an event or Roadster recently which was pretty much a straight

swap but I got this Vantage and Alex you had to get a new one didn't you he's like you couldn't

have just got an old one and enjoyed it then you couldn't use the rest of the budget the rest of

the 80 grand for something else but I've almost got this fear and I wonder if this is what happened

as soon as I start buying cars for 10-15 grand that I like like maybe an old DB9 or

Clio V6 interests me or an L32 to your end of it I've got a fear my driveway will start to get

very full because I just don't think I've ever stopped myself is that what happened with this car

infection for you kind of happens I suppose but like I still do it I still like I still buy an

L32 to I still buy oh some Vauxhall Cavaliers you know like I still like that stuff and that's

the stuff that really I I really do enjoy having you know and it's less stressful than having some

of the fancy big stuff I think describes we all have seen the posts on Instagram of like you know

when they're architects basic draw into the house and it's like room garage yeah and it's

put like that did you design and build your home which is upstairs and garage downstairs from scratch

with that mindset um kind of yeah I built it 10 12 years ago so when I was single with no kids

and stuff so it was kind of it made more sense then than it does now because you have a part

with a house like that that you can walk down and breathe and be part of your cars um this is so

unique yeah it is unique and I enjoy it and the kids love it as well so like my sons and my two

year old especially all the time when he wants to come downstairs and play in the cars and he'll

just in and out of every car he wants to pay with the keys all the time he wants to sit on the bikes

he's got little toy cars as one there you know like he just wants to always be so he's got the

passion he's got he's got the exact same part as me the older ones less so but he still loves it down

here as well does that excite you a lot for like the future when you see yeah there's so much stuff

at the minute you know the the the infamous trio aren't on a screen as much as they were yeah you

know spreading that love into kids and that that that embryo that spark for cars anymore

would you be worried that your youngsters wouldn't be interested in cars it's more so now because

so much more accessible because you used to have to wait once a week to watch a show about cars

and it was more of an entertainment show based roughly around cars whereas now if you want to

if you want to turn on youtube you can see so much about cars and and stuff um and like

24-7 as much as you want you is more than you can consume whereas for us when there was you know

the the trio on tv was once a week for an hour it's it's it's i think it's more so now that they

can access you know people like matt armstrong and you know the these guys are yanny or whatever the

are huge on social media mark mccann and stuff i watch with that stuff and my kids have been

watching it too you've obviously appeared on quite a lot of videos in the last year

it's like getting your face out there even more and is that something

that you'd like to pursue starting to do content around i did it probably about seven years ago

78 years ago i did some on youtube but it's it's time consuming and um my time is better

spent doing what i actually do so you don't think it enhanced your experience holding the cars and

all the rest no i did it out of one thing to do it and then i realized that you know it's not really

what i want to do you've been on many i'd rather do it like this you know be on

on on somebody else's okay you've been on many very cool road trips yeah there'll be so many

people that probably maybe you've gone to the nirburgring come back done all those kind of things

when you've done some of the trips that you've done what what is your ultimate trip and you know

you can pick a destination go to it or maybe a couple of different trips where's your sort of

what's all the ingredients like what you've done to m3 that make a trip for you when you have i don't

think it's so much a destination it's more of the the people you're with um the roads that you're

driving that matters a lot i love european roads i love the mountain roads for europe you know we'd

be driving from the swiss alps to the pyrenees or the eastern alps for austria or wherever you are

even just like some italian roads just you know just nice smooth roads the road we we did a couple

weeks ago from um just north of marbella from right is it ronda from ronda down to marbella

those roads they're unbelievable roads you know just i i just enjoy those roads enjoy the company

that you live and you know the destination matters less so than the than the people you're with and

the roads you're driving the car you're driving i think and you could be driving anything and if

you're with your mates and you're with the right people and you're driving on fun roads even don't

even need to be fun roads it could you be boring by the way but if you're with all your mates it's

the experience of it is there any particular car because you just got an ellen and not that long

the ellen and mustang is there any particular movie car like a db5 or something like that you'd

love to join the collection you haven't managed to find the right one yeah um ellen always always

up there for me it was always up there for me um my father knows db5 and i don't fit in it so uh that

doesn't interest me so much because i can't even fit my understanding it's unusable yeah um it's

cool car beautiful car stunning but you know it doesn't interest me so much i'm just trying to

think if there's anything that ellen or is always been that car for me and uh i've always looked at

him and never managed to pull the trigger until recently so yeah i'm quite happy that and what

makes that car so special the film the film i like i must have been 10 years old when i first

watched that film and i've probably watched it 150 times since then you know it's brilliant i don't

so even when you've grown up with a path to maybe pave success it's like you've got this

embryo of a business but you can put your own stamp on it push it in your own direction and

keep that going without the rails falling off the sides of it learn the humility from the people

around you and keep grinding on with the with the cars is there still been cars and you're

building this collection that you never expected to be able to get into oh yeah 100 most them most

them i never growing up as a kid and not having any exposure to any nice cars really i never thought

that you know i thought bmw m3 was the the the car and yeah you know like growing up and the

people that was around i remember bmw m3's and like sl max being like the the best cars i don't

i never remember seeing a ferrari as a kid i don't i can't think of a time that i saw a ferrari until

i was you know way older yeah um so yeah all of those stuff was all of all of that sort of stuff

was way out of reach i never thought that any of it would be possible um and then and then yeah

somehow you just keep working and it gets it gets more and more accessible i suppose but 200

number plays is what i would refer to as an obsession yeah how has that gone over the years

and is there anyone that sometimes comes in like you i would say oh no you're buying another number

play again like i've been obsessed with number plates probably as long as i've been obsessed with

cars um as a kid you know reading number plates and just trying to make words out of stuff and

i've just all i bought my first number plate at 15 years old and yeah and i just it's just been

constant thing that i'm it's just like a super geek for him i don't know i'd i they call they call

it autonumerology i think and um which is a weird question that has never been said on road to success

before autonumerology yeah entirely i think there's a book called that um by likes you know

i fellow number plate geeks that's what they call it um yeah i remember super car nigel said the other

day pyrotechnics for fireworks yeah and i was like that was a fairly new word to me but yeah

autonumerologists that is it's a rex yeah yeah it could be used in that term i suppose this

isn't made up word i suppose isn't it but it's just what are your super car friends as into

plates as yo have you ever met anybody as into plates as yo oh yeah i know i know a lot of kits

up there yeah i know quite a few plate geeks that are up there they're up there yeah there's quite

a few kid will be happy to know that he is up there because until i met you i've never really

met anybody on par with the same level of passion as knowledge as plates as i have kit but yeah i

think you're really up there for you is there a plate that you still haven't been able to get

your hands on yet that kind of completes the collection and why n5 probably it's my initials

on a single single yeah that's probably do you know when that play is yeah i know it is

i've spoken to the job a few times you don't want to sell it but and i was more fussed about

getting it before i had ns1 and now i've got ns1 i'm like i'm am i that fussed for it would you

sell the 918 to have that plate probably not no because i'm still a man of value i don't

pay over the odds for anything um ever if it if it's not worth it i won't do it

and i just he determines that value the market myself i don't know i just yeah if it if it's not

worth what i'm paying for i'm not paying it so is your least favorite car one that sits in the

driver's using money uh yes and i don't i don't believe i have any at the moment well obviously

the daily drivers you didn't like your event store sv did you i hated it yeah really that car yeah

because i i owned it in a time when they were losing a load of money um i owned it from 2018 to

21 so for that three years it was probably the worst i've done them um because they were

strong in 18 and they were very weak in 21 i saw it's andy bruce in the end um

it and he did well on it so sometimes maybe good sometimes maybe and if i kept that car

now it'd be worth more than double the more i sold it for so it it annoys me even more now um and i

i couldn't fit in it too well so i didn't drive it that often because it's if it was a road store

i probably still wearing it now because it was a coop i didn't really fit in it too well i couldn't

couldn't see out the windscreen too well because like the windscreen is like lower than my

line was so it's so south to drive it you have to drive it like that you know and it wasn't

comfortable um and it lost i don't know five grand a month for pretty much the whole time i owned it

so as someone that's got had and got multiple ferraris multiple lamborghini's you know ferrari

or lambo ferrari see i'm also surprised obviously that famous question comes ferrari or lambo matt

what's an answer's Porsche for you are you that interested you that bothered by Porsche like i

had a red 930 turbo i put it on bbs wheels lowered everybody listens to this podcast that doesn't

know that at the minute it's going to be like what then no way but that was a car i actually

loved in the end and never necessarily expects to but i don't see that kind of love for Porsche

with your collection there's a few porches like we we can actually go back to that question you

asked about i love movie cars that i that i don't that i want and one of them is a

964 turbo 3.6 from bad boys the bad boys run in black that that is one i'd have so i i i just

recently sold my roof btr which is a 930 turbo based tuned up car um that was amazing car and

that car for 78 years fantastic i love that car so it's going to be the right Porsche

because there is a am i am i fast for gd 3s of modern times no i couldn't care less about them

do i i've got a 918 obviously i love bush um 918 special car creo gt very special car um

you know they're obviously multi-million pound cars but i got nine i got 996 that was one of my

early cars that i you know an early nice cars that i bought um

96 fours i love 99 threes i love i like the older stuff generally where they come

as to Porsche um try to think of any modern course that i i would like to have i'd have

like a turbo s is like a daily driver or something if i needed a daily driver but i just don't my

daily driver's a gulf and i'm happy with that you know if i if i did a different job or i

did something different um as a daily driver i'd probably have a turbo s or something like that

as a as an everyday car but for me it would be a wasted car nick i think people when they see the

cars often always dream about having those exact things that exact collection and i think it's

been so nice to sit with someone so open honest and has shared their story their journey and what's

brought all these amazing machines together and what a collection you built what a man you are

nick zoda thank you for coming on road to success thank you very much for having me

About this episode

Property developer and obsessive car collector Nick Sahota joins Benedict Fowler to discuss his incredible collection of 70 cars, 200 number plates, and hundreds of properties. Sahota shares how his family's multi-generational property business, dating back to 1948, fueled his relentless work ethic and unique approach to collecting. Unlike traditional collectors, Sahota loves modifying his vehicles and views his collection as a long-term passion rather than a quick flip. He also reveals his plans to consolidate his garage and explains the business mindset behind his success.

Andy Bruce autonumerology McLaren Nick Sahota Wörthersee

Original notes

Check out Tweak: https://www.tweakuk.com/

In this episode of Road To Success, we sit down with Nick Sahota — property developer, car collector and one of the UK’s most obsessive private number plate collectors.

Nick opens up about how his family’s property journey started back in 1948, growing from one house into hundreds of properties, and how that same mindset of buying, building and never standing still has shaped his incredible car collection.

From owning over 70 cars and 200 private plates, to building a property empire, collecting rare BMWs, Ferraris, Porsches and more, Nick explains the obsession behind the deals, the risks of borrowing, the cars he regrets, and why he still only buys what he truly loves.

This is a conversation about property, cars, number plates, family, legacy and the mindset it takes to build something that lasts.

Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel for more exciting content about your favourite shows and celebrities. Hit the bell icon to stay updated on all our latest episodes

👍 Like, Comment, and Share this episode. Join our discussion in the comments section

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