Unoffensive - 26 August 2025
Annotations will appear as you listen
0:00
39:12
Car
Kia EV3
Car
Hyundai Kona
Car
Dodge Avenger
Car
Opel Astra
Car
ID. Id2
Car
Volkswagen Id3
Car
Volkswagen Id4
Car
Ford Taurus
Car
Lamborghini Mura
LIVE
Welcome to the Motoring Podcast, your weekly discussion of motoring news.
This is Episode 646 on Tuesday, the 26th of August, 2025.
Hello, I'm Alan.
Hello, I'm Andrew.
And this week, you'll learn how scaffolding manufacturers are rejoicing.
In new car news, you'll hear how one company is bringing all the cars.
And in points of interest, you get to see how wielding crayons is more fun with friends.
And we go straight into new news.
And this is the news that the DVLA, the vehicle wing of the UK government, appears to have
listened to feedback from the classic car-owning world.
And they have cut, what it claims is cut red tape.
And it has actually.
They have, yes.
And restoration of cars.
Essentially it means that you no longer will get shoveled into probably having to have a
cu-plate if you do significant structural modifications.
You do need to still notify the DVLA?
Yeah.
And that notification may still result in you having to go have a single vehicle approval,
quick test, and to have things properly officially checked out, which is as it is at the moment.
But the knock-on effect, I'm sorry if I'm about to steal your line, the knock-on effect
is right at the minute.
If you do certain things, then you end up on a cu-plate.
Cu-plate is a number plate that begins with a queue, which is undesirable thing
to have.
It's really meant for some special types of vehicles, highly modified vehicles, home
built vehicles.
And having a cu-plate on a car, one, it looks weird because you're also then not allowed to
put private plates on cu-plates and stuff.
And then it also hurts your resale value and it's a sort of bit of a red flag to people
that stuff has been heavily modified.
Whereas if stuff has been declared properly, you've gone to the DVLA in this new system,
it's all been updated correctly and you shouldn't end up with a cu-plate.
You should be able to retain your original and proper chassis number from the manufacturer.
And that's the big change and I'm stealing your story.
But especially with more electrification of classics and these kind of things, that's
become a challenge because sometimes that requires tweaks to the suspension.
It may require new mounting on the, you know, maybe a new mounting to the chassis
rails or to parts of the monocoque and for engine transmission and batteries and stuff.
And that previously has been a potential problem for the cars and ended up with things having
a cu-plate where really the tweaks to the chassis are very, very minimal and have been
done correctly and all of these kind of things.
It's trying to lessen that.
Now things will still need tested if they need tested and it will need to be updated
on the V5.
I mean, this is good news for not just classic owners but also some other newer modified car
owners.
Yep.
And this system has gone live today as of the point of recording.
Cool.
If you want a bit more detail and things and what the Federation of British Historic
Vehicle Clubs who suggested that there were additional safety checks needed, I can't
really argue against, especially if the vehicle is over 40 years old and therefore doesn't
necessarily need an MOT.
That is a...
I find that challenging.
I think it should.
If you've made these changes, maybe you should go back to have an MOT again at least one
or two to just make sure things are fixed in place and continuing to be fixed in place.
That worries me slightly.
But if you want to click through that, there's a story from Haggerty which has links
and a bit more of a summary.
Well, do you want to take us to Somerset then?
Yeah.
It's quite pleasant down there, I suppose.
Well, the manufacturer of exoskeletal vehicles, the Atom, obviously, has...
It's going to build a new factory in Somerset or they're attempting to build a new factory
in Somerset in order to expand what they're doing.
Well, the plan for the factory is to help double production capacity and to have a
factory as showroom, a bit of a museum and some servicing operations all together.
I think Morgan-style, I guess.
They have been negotiating to buy a site after five years of negotiation and it should open
within the next three years at the cost of a few million, according to Simon Saunders,
the boss of Arial.
He's added that build costs have risen rapidly since the idea of a new factory has first
floated so the company may need to seek outside funding.
But thus far, Arial has come across as being a viable and sustainable business.
They haven't gone and expanded like mad or overcommitted themselves to stuff, a little
bit like Caterham really.
Hopefully, this investment in a new factory will pay off as well.
Yep.
Good luck to them.
I really hope that's a success because I really like the idea of Arial.
Totally.
Right.
I'm going to move us on to shock news of the government this time via HMRC listening
once again.
This is such a strange place to be in.
We're with half an year, I suppose.
Yes.
They're acknowledging that there are challenges, shall we say.
This is to do with company drivers and rates for mileage.
If you remember, a few months ago, probably a quarter ago, we discussed how HMRC was not
acknowledging the fact that there is a difference between home charging and public
charging and had one flat rate for anyone who was running an EV on the mileage,
the pence per mile they could claim back.
Now they have changed that.
And a very low rate, by the way, 8 pence per mile.
If you were not home charging, you really got stung and you were lucky if you were
home charging because I think all the rates were below what even the bestest low tariff
could manage to charge a vehicle at home.
Yes.
Unless you'd forked out and you'd done it so you had battery storage and all sorts
of stuff for you were able on the days when you were able to get essentially free
charging from companies like Octopus and things.
Yes.
The new rate from the 1st of September will be 8 pence per mile for journeys where
they charged at home or 12 pence per mile if they use the public networks.
Question here, and we discussed this before the show.
How are they going to be able to tell what charging allowed what mileage?
Well, it's fine because salesmen and customer engagement representatives or whatever they're
called this week, engagement managers are always known for their honesty in anything to do with
expenses and tax.
What they've used to base this off is the Office for National Statistics energy prices
for home is 27 pence per kilowatt hour and the ZAPMAP price index for public charges
of up to 50 kilowatt or less at 51 pence per kilowatt hour.
Don't use an ultra rapid.
Crikey.
Yes.
These are very much aimed at getting people to charge from home and if necessary charge
from something up to 50 and then above that is just like, well, you shouldn't be doing
that, should you?
Which is...
I don't know.
It does seem unfair.
There's a really good article from AutoCar that's written by Alex Grant that goes
into explaining how, depending on your model, you could get stung even more due to efficiencies,
etc.
Do check that out.
The link in the show notes as ever.
Remember that electric vehicles these days, it's not just about range, it's about efficiency
as well.
Yes.
Starting to really come through closer to the mainstream in that particular opinion.
It's not just about the size of your fuel tank, it's how well you use that fuel.
Yes.
It's as true for EVs as it is for internal combustion engine cars.
What about EVs though, still?
Because they are where the news lies these days.
The UK government has extended its plug-in van and truck grant until 2027.
Yay, these grants discount the price of a new commercial EV by up to £25,000 and would
you to end in April.
The government has promised more money from its, oh no, it hasn't.
This comes out of the £650 million that also funds the electric car grant.
Which is also being used to expand the infrastructure.
The charging net infrastructure.
Yeah, that £650 million that was announced as for the electric car grant is not.
It's going a number of different ways now.
Terry can get to the £25,000, by the way, it's £2,500 for small vans, £5,000 for
large vans, £16,000 for small trucks and £25,000 for large trucks as an up to.
Those are the maximums.
The government said that new grant levels will be published soon and they're expected to rise
in a bid to get more EVs on British roads.
The wording is at least 2027, so it might well go on after that.
I guess it depends.
I don't know what it depends on, who can tell?
Well, if van uptake is anything like it has been, then they're going to need to extend
it.
They're going to be plenty.
Yeah.
It's so poor, the electric van uptake, because for the vast majority of companies who would
use a new van, they do not fit the needs.
I was somewhere recently, I was in the Lanarkshire recently, I tried to work out where it'd be.
I was in the Lanarkshire recently, an awful lot of Maxis pickups.
I hadn't seen any and then all of a sudden I saw like three in a day.
It was like, what?
It seemed quite unusual.
Anyway, I'm going to stick with batteries and I'm going to talk about, there was a
study out recently and it made, well, people interpreted the study's results.
To suggest that you could hone your EV and that was actually fine for the battery.
And what has happened is that a company that maintains and repairs and works on
batteries has come out and said, no, that's not actually what it said.
And there's this article from car scoops and points off car scoops because
they said boffins in the subtitle.
Oh, no, I missed that.
Yes.
Points down there.
Chris Chilton, whack yourself around the head with a stick, please.
Don't ever do that again.
What was that?
The editor?
Chris Chilton, whack your editor or whoever wrote that round the head with a
stick, please.
Because the rest of the article is great.
Yeah, it goes into explain about what the study actually talked about and
they pull in other studies that have been done because we do know that
batteries are lasting longer than people initially thought they would.
That's good.
There's a great bit about practical advice for owners in here and there's
one bit in this that I find very interesting.
I still can't wrap my head around it and I know all the reasons.
But they say, unless you need to, don't fast charge.
Charge only up to 80% and don't leave the car standing for long periods
when it's full.
Now, the one thing in all that that I cannot wrap my head around, we've
got a product that we are telling people, do not fill up.
Yes.
And I'm still not able to get my head around being so long with petrol and
diesel.
I cannot get my head around.
You want me to pay how much it doesn't do as much miles as my other
thing could do.
And now you're telling me I can't actually fill it up.
No, I think that depends a lot from manufacturer to manufacturer because
some manufacturers put in a battery of X amount and declare that the
battery size actually is X amount minus a percentage.
They've already put in that buffer zone.
Whereas there are other manufacturers, one of which we might talk
about soon, who says we put in a battery of X amount and that's
the size of the battery and it will let you go to almost X amount,
X amount minus a smidge.
Or it's a much bigger battery and they've told you it's X amount.
But I also know that that last 20% takes so much longer to charge up as
well.
I do understand that, but it's just the concept, the high level.
No, I get it.
Concept just feels odd.
It does feel odd, but it's like not filling up the spout on your petrol
tank or your diesel tank on your car.
It's like not filling it to always, it's just like saying, look, only
fill it until the first click.
That's really the sort of...
It's close in analogy you can get.
Yeah, it's as close as an analogy is it's filled to the first click.
Don't stand on your click, click, click, click.
Don't be Alan filling up a GRMN.
Where the tank is so small that you sort of, you get, oh, brimmed it.
Okay.
It's right to the top.
That sort of auto car mileage test way.
Always trying to use roughly the same pump, but petrol stitch.
It's basically saying don't do that because that last liter takes
like three or four minutes.
Oh, click, right.
There we go.
That's it.
It's off.
It's it's fully enough.
The other thing about this study and do read the car scoops article
is that it is all academic anyway.
Frankly, I mean, to quote, I think it's the last paragraph here, spoiler alert.
But if that all sounds like too much work or just played boring, all is not
lost in a recent German study of VW ID three lost only eight miles
or 13 kilometers of range after four years and 107,000 miles or 102,000
kilometers, despite almost always being charged to full and often
being parked up fully charged.
You know, yeah, don't sweat it really.
It's a lot of nerdery going on here.
The real world impact of which is very, very small.
Yeah, I think the ever increasing number of secondhand dealers
that are using battery certificate, battery health certificates
is a great thing and will help alleviate this worry.
Last story before guilt man, though, and it is it's about Tesla.
There we go.
Yeah, for the SEO results for this.
There was a you probably followed.
I think we talked about it.
There was a class action lawsuit brought about in California
about whether or not Tesla vehicles were actually able.
Not that they could or they couldn't, but whether they would ever actually
and could ever actually be able to function as full self driving
in the way that was being repeatedly promised by Tesla.
Tesla had tried not to have to face the class action lawsuit.
And that, of course, brought a series of court appearances
a couple of weeks ago with some experts on both sides of the fence,
which was covered very well at the time,
particularly on life, tweeted on life shared on social media.
The ruling at the end of that has now just come back.
The US district judge, Rita Lynn, and I'm quoting from Reuters here,
said the common question of whether Tesla lacked sensors
to achieve high level autonomy, plus its inability to demonstrate
a long distance autonomous drive with any of its vehicles,
justified group lawsuits by two sets of drivers
who bought his full self driving technology package
to cut long story short, they are basically going to have to face
this class action lawsuit.
Now, be aware here, the lawsuit is about whether or not
the vehicles could, given the sensors and computing power
and style fitted, ever actually achieve it rather than whether
they do full self drive or not.
Yeah. OK.
Basically, have you sold us a Swiss and sold us something
which could never do what you've been promising?
Yes. You know, over the last eight years,
this is going to be bloody and it's going to be interesting.
Yeah. A lot of stuff has focused around the way that Tesla market
themselves, i.e. they don't, they just have their website
because Tesla fought back on this, saying that they feel it was
unreasonable to assume all class members.
I'm quoting from the Reuters article that's linked in the show notes.
Unreasonable to assume all class members saw the challenge
statements and there was no common proof the statements were material.
They're trying to say, oh, you didn't go on our website and see that
we said that, so it can't be true.
And you go, but yours was that was the only place that had this
information and others reported that that was the place that had this
information. And it changed and evolved all the time.
And there was a whole other thing about different wording.
And it was all very, very weird.
I don't know if it's worth giving you more work and suggesting
link back to Ed Niedermeyer's set of links to the four days of that initial hearing.
They'll be in the show notes if I can easily find it, everybody.
Yes. If you can't, you'll have cut this bit.
Well, kicking and screaming, we have finished the first part.
Sorry, it's a bit short this week, everybody.
But it's the end of summer, the bank holiday weekend.
News will be a bit thin on the ground and everybody's
waiting for the Munich Motor Show in a few weeks.
Yes. Oh, yes.
So the Germans will be quite quiet, apart from, of course,
the article we've got about the Germans in a couple of minutes.
But in the meantime, it's guilt minute, a quick break in the show
where we ask for a tad of fan support to keep the lights on the hosting running.
If you feel the motion podcast worth a small consideration,
everyone can become a patron.
Different levels of patron include different levels of commitment from
us to you, including being able to watch the show recorded live.
Now, we also have a small range of merch in our spring store
from stickers to monks and t-shirts.
If you don't have any spare cash, we do completely understand.
You can help us by following for free from a podcast player
to receive every show as they're released.
And by liking and reading the show, whatever way your podcast supplier lets you.
If you've done all that, so we do.
So thank you very much.
And the last thing you can do is to recommend us to your friends or colleagues.
Thank you, everyone that does.
Much appreciated. Yes.
I'm going to take us into new, new car news.
And I'm going to start with the BYD Atto 2.
This is a compact crossover, electric, obviously.
And AutoCara suggesting that it is going after the Volvo EX30.
However, I feel it's probably going also after the Kia EV3,
which is a little bit pricier than this.
This is about the same size as Jeep Avenger, Hyundai Kona, electric.
So that's the sort of size we're talking about.
It's a CSUV, really.
Yes, that's right.
Smaller CSUV.
Yeah, it's going to have their famous rotatable touchscreen, yippee-doo.
You do quickly stop being fascinated by that, by the way.
I think it's like using an iPad.
You decide if you prefer a portrait or you prefer it landscape.
Yeah, and then you just leave it.
You'd never touch the button again.
But it does have a button for it.
Yes, it does.
It does.
And there is going to be vehicle to load capabilities
so it can power external devices.
And it's going to get a heat pump as well,
which is becoming increasingly the norm, thankfully.
It's going to have a 51.1 kilowatt-hour battery pack
that will give a range of 214 miles.
That's on the entry level.
And if you go up the specs,
you get a 64.8 kilowatt-hour battery pack,
which gives 261 miles range.
And that will get you to 0-62 in 7.9 seconds.
Top speed is limited to 99 miles an hour,
but why you need more than that?
No idea.
That one really does.
I don't understand this desire for there to be a higher top speed.
I think this fits into the really quite sensible.
I mean, 8 seconds, 0-62 translates to rapid enough as far as I'm concerned.
And 99 miles an hour, how often do you ever need to go over 99 miles an hour?
You've started, you'll be killing your range.
99 is, it's 70 plus a little bit,
if you need to overtake if something happens,
plus a fair chunk of extra as far as I'm concerned.
It's fairly decently sized as well
because it's got enough seating for five,
so that's probably four and a half people,
as well as a 400-liter boot.
That's pretty reasonable.
It's an car.
Yeah, it seems to be slotting perfectly into that,
though requirements for that sector.
It's not ugly.
It's not particularly distinctive at the same time.
It's a reasonable size.
By the standards of today,
it's a reasonable price for a new car of that size.
It's an car.
I expect it will be really quite popular and successful.
Yep, it's going to do.
Well, do you want to move on to a car
that we question whether it will be popular and successful at all?
Yeah, it costs not a lot more.
At £36,995, the Citroen No 4, number 4, I imagine.
DS.
The DS, oh no, it's not even a Citroen.
You see this, and herein lies the problem.
I have just fallen straight into the problem here
and I didn't do it on purpose.
So a new DS No 4 EV will arrive in the UK in October,
priced from £36,995.
Why it exists, we just don't know.
No.
I like the idea of DS.
Yes, absolutely.
And many of us do.
We just don't actually know when or why we would ever buy a DS,
because the staff tends to be a bit flawed,
despite looking nice.
And it tends to be a little bit more expensive
than the equivalent Peugeot or Citroen,
which is basically the same thing,
which looks nice as well, but in a different way.
But that's the same drivetrain, same floor plan,
the same everything like that.
We really don't get it, I think, is where I'm going with it.
They've put a posh frock on it, haven't they?
And I'd like the design, by the way.
Yes, but who for?
I'm being dismissive.
I like the design, however.
I don't have a problem with the posh frock on the existing car,
by the way.
That's not...
I drive a Lexus, mate,
which shares all the same sheet metal with a Land Cruiser.
I am not in a position to be fussy about that at all.
I just don't understand who's going to buy this.
Anyway, £36,995, you get the base level plus trim,
which isn't really that base level at all.
You get your own climate, adaptive cruise,
and a new 10.25 inch digital instrument cluster.
There's a plus trim, plus plus,
which adds you a heat pump and keyless entry,
and is £39,160.
At top of the range is the Itwal,
which gets you an Alcantara dashboard
and a 360-degree cameras for £41,860.
All of those, you will be unsurprised to learn
if you listened to us last week, come with the same powertrain.
That is a 58.3 kilowatt-hour total battery for 278 miles of range,
which is chunks.
Single-electric motor that sends 210 horsepower and 253 pound-foot of torque
to the front wheel.
Funnily enough, the lowest trim there comes in just under £37,000.
Mm-hmm.
But on top of that, you said 268 or whatever the range, 278 range.
Yeah, the EV3 is well over 300 for the same price.
Yeah, by the way, you can still get this with a mild hybrid petrol,
146 horsepower petrol, or a 222 horsepower plug-in hybrid.
Plug-in hybrid gives you 50 miles of electric only range,
30% more on the one it replaces.
They are much cheaper, by the way, than the electrics.
Yes, they are.
The DS's best-selling model in the UK was the 4, which was launched in 2021.
But that's just 2,300 sales.
Registrations.
Yes, true.
Now it's my fault.
They really ask, again, like we said, we like the idea,
we just don't know who this is meant to be for.
I don't think it's really meant to be for the UK market.
Yes, I'm still a little surprised to sell it here,
but I'm kind of surprised to sell it at most places.
But then we're quite surprised at the number of Stellantis brands there are anyway.
Yeah, I mean, the thing is, it's not like it's one of the tiny luxury ones,
which you can see sell very well in Italy and in French cities and all of these kind of things.
It sort of sits in the middle.
It's a wee bit suburban, but not quite.
It's like Astra size, isn't it?
Yeah, I'm just...
Hey, you'll never guess what, mate.
Same floor plan.
I'm not going to say it is an Astra, but it's an Astra.
Give or take.
Somebody collared me in the comments of YouTube recently and made some comment about Stellantis.
Oh, you mean the hybrid everything?
It's just all the same.
I'm paraphrasing quite badly there.
And I just thought I'm not going to comment on that.
Okay, I'm going to move us on though.
And we're going to go to Germany.
And what feels like Groundhog Day, honestly?
Because Volkswagen are once again announcing they're bringing out a load of cars.
Feels like they do this every six to nine months.
Certainly here in the UK, they've been repeating this kind of stuff to remind
everyone and keep it in our minds at press events.
Yeah, and that's fair enough.
But from head office to keep doing this big grand...
And you go, it's still the ID2 that we haven't seen, although we will see in a couple of weeks
because that's going to be revealed at Munich.
So there's the ID1, the ID2, the ID2X.
They're going to be apparently the EV successors to the up the polo and the to cross.
There's the Golf EV, which is key to the brand really.
And then they once again talk about how, well, we shouldn't throw away our legacy model names.
Basically, stuff's not going to be weird if it's electric.
Yes.
That is the ultimate underlying line that I've understood every time I've heard
Volkswagen talk about this is we tried to make our electric stuff a bit weird.
It hasn't really worked.
So what we're going to do is we're going to make sure our electric stuff is unweird.
Yeah.
Yeah, we're now at mass adoption.
We're not at the...
Let's make it look like a spaceship.
A couple of minutes ago, we talked about the BYD ATO2.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It looks like a small SUV.
Utterly unaffensive.
Utterly.
Totally unaffensive, which is traditionally Volkswagen's place in the marketplace,
really.
Yeah.
Utterly unaffensive, trusted brand.
Yeah, they're going to be updating the ID3 again.
My word, that's going to have a second zimmer frame now.
And the ID4, which is the...
It does get better each time.
Thankfully, yes.
Well, it would be a real worry if it didn't.
It wasn't awful.
It just wasn't good enough.
It wasn't good.
But the spec for the ID1 sounds impressive because they want this to compete against
the spring and leap motor.
Yeah.
And they're talking about how that's going to have 94 brake horsepower electric motor,
a top speed of 81 miles an hour.
Go back to our previous conversation about top speeds and at least a range of 155 miles
with a 38 kilowatt hour lithium ion phosphate battery.
ID2 will be shown in production spec at the Munich show.
Okay.
Before going on sale early next year, ID1 will be a concepty thing and the ID2X
will be a concepty thing.
But it's going to be a concepty thing, you know, in terms of...
It might not have wing mirrors and door handles, I think, and the wheels will be smaller.
I think it's going to be that level of goodness.
It's a concept.
It's definitely not the real car.
I'm winking madly here.
The real car without door handles and wing mirrors.
Yeah.
As we like to say on the show, let's wait and see.
All we could do.
But while we wait and see, it's time for points of interest.
And this week's, I was going to say first point of interest.
This week's lunchtime read, which is always the first point of interest,
you might have noticed, is an article on Haggerty by a friend of the show,
Mateo Licata, and it's titled The Myth of the Lone Genius Car Designer.
Now, I have trouble here because my traditional,
let's make fun of the car designer's voice is also the same as my,
let's not make fun of Mateo Licata, but that voice.
So I have to be very careful as we go through here.
But it's talking about how whilst a designer is often credited with something or with a
vehicle that really there is a massive team beside and around that designer,
making things actually happen.
Yeah.
Which is very true.
I mean, my background is when I had a proper job, I was probably designed,
and we used to do exactly the same thing there.
So whilst I'm quite happily sit there and go up, you see those,
those talk, paper towel dispensers and soap dispensers,
knowing that those three or four of us have the,
came up with the original sketches for that.
And even then it was three or four of us.
Then I know that there are an awful lot of people in,
in Sweden and Germany who then made it actually finally production ready.
And then fully injection moldable and did all the details of that kind of stuff.
Whilst we had wielded our crayons and certainly the first few levels of technical stuff.
And for letting the plastics specialists at it.
Same kind of thing.
Yep.
Fascinating article.
Always good to have a Mateo's articles on the show.
Okay.
I'm going to take us onto the list of the week.
And we are thanking AutoCar for another slideshow.
And this is highlights of the Deutsches Museum.
This is Germany's greatest question mark.
The Munich Museum honors some of the best cars from Germany and beyond.
There are 41 slides in your packs, ladies and gentlemen.
And Alan, you get to select first.
I haven't been through them all yet.
Hang on.
Give me a minute.
Well, waffle.
Yes, I'm trying to waffle and fill in time here.
One of the moments where audio isn't the greatest medium.
No, no, exactly.
Let's have, I'm trying to make sure I choose a German one to be perfectly honest.
And it's kind of, there's so many good cars here,
not all of them are specifically German that it is, that it is tricky to choose one.
I'm going to choose the Goliath pioneer from 1931.
It's a Slide 16 in your handout.
Okay.
And it's a three-wheeled car based on a wooden chassis.
Yeah, 198cc engine.
It's exempt from road tax.
It could be operated without a driver's license that they made about 4,000.
Now, Goliath went on and did loads of other stuff.
So if you follow another favorite of ours, the weird car of the day.
Yes.
Then actually today's, or yesterday's weird car of the day was Goliath's attempt
not much later to build a sports car.
The difference between the two is quite marked.
This is a good opportunity to not just pimp this list by auto car,
but also weird car of the day by Michael Panofsky.
I'll put a link in the show notes.
I'm giving you extra work.
Do you have a particular choice here?
I have picked.
You need to move to Slide 36 though.
Okay.
And it is the uni car from 1981.
And this was all about the Automotive Research Institute in Stuttgart, Germany,
and they built four prototypes.
I'm quoting from the auto car blurb underneath.
Four prototypes to explore what cars would look like in the not too distant future.
The guidelines that they were working to,
thanks to Germany's Ministry of Research,
was it needed to return a good fuel economy
and could protect occupants in a high speed collision.
It's dissimilar because it goes 36 and Slide 37 is also a uni car,
so you get two angles of it in this.
It's not...
I mean, are they Passat back lights?
I think they are.
Are they Passat back lights or are they Portion 924 back lights?
I'll have to take my 924.
I think it's too early for the type of Passat you're talking about,
but I can see why you asked to say that.
I think you can see queues that have been carried on in all this.
It's interesting because it's an estate shape as well.
Looking at it, it is not an irrelevant car.
No. You would think it's come from Citroen though.
You would. It's a little bit...
It's a little bit Roboculp and a little bit Ford Taurus, the original one.
But yeah, you can see lots of influence in lots of cars.
I can see some open Vauxhall Vectra, for example, in the way that the wing mirrors are fared in.
I think this might be a sort of unheralded car that's more influential than we necessarily think
or people are necessarily aware of.
Oh, and it's got double wipers on the rear window.
Double wipers on the rear window, yes.
I was going to say that.
And also wipers on the front side windows.
Although I don't know necessarily why you need wipers on the front side windows,
unless you're Drifty.
But there we go.
Some Japanese cars did have a similar era.
So Phil Huff.
That's a good, cool choice.
Good list, that one.
There's lots to select there.
So do have a click through and send some love auto cars away.
Yes, that leaves us with this week.
And finally, this comes from it comes from the Autopia.
And it's written by Jason Tautinski because a couple of weeks ago,
there was obviously it was Monterey Car Week.
And as part of that, there was there was an auction of significant vehicles.
And one of the significant vehicles was a Volkswagen Beetle limousine.
And you might think, yeah, we've seen that before.
Oscar the Grouch had one.
Prom Nights.
Prom Nights.
These kind of, yeah, yeah.
But no, this is a 1969 Volkswagen Beetle limousine,
which was commissioned by the West Coast of the U.S., a Porsche Volkswagen distributor,
a chapter of John von Neumann.
He gave a company in Culver City in California, $34,499.95 plus a stock in 1969
Volkswagen Beetle and said, make me a limousine, because he needed a limo that
showed off what he imported and could be used as an advertising thing.
Just to put that in context, at the time, when he gave him $35,000, Lamborghini Mura
would have set you back $20,000.
This was not a cheap thing.
And as a result, the job that was done is fantastic.
It was so good that Volkswagen of America themselves used it in an advert
to advertise the $35,000 Volkswagen.
It's beautifully done.
If you read the article by Jason and you look at the pictures,
this is not some cobbled together in a backstreet garage thing.
It sits straight as an arrow.
It's had all sorts of little tweaky things done to it.
When it doesn't, in some ways it remains very beautiful.
There is no air conditioning.
Not even in the back.
Criking.
That would be fun in California.
Yeah, hence the opening windows.
But you can see it's been done very much in a traditional style with cloth
and wool in the back and leather or vinyl or whatever up front.
But it is very cool.
Have a look through this because this is proper stuff.
Yeah.
And somebody, by the way, bought it at auction and paid.
By the way, if it was to be done today, it would cost $308,000 new.
And the biddy went up to $300,000 for this.
Because it is not just very well done, but it is also quite a significant car
and quite a distinctive car.
That's astonishing residuals for anyone out there who looks after them.
8,000 lost over.
Since 1968, so it's had almost 50 years here.
Over 50 years.
Yeah.
It's really cool.
50-55, something like that.
I've tried not to do mental arithmetic on camera.
Works better that way.
So yeah, really cool story.
There.
Yep.
That pretty much rounds it up for this week.
Parish notes.
I will be at Rostovol next Saturday.
If you see me, do come and say hello.
I have one request though.
Please tell me who you are.
And when he says that, you mean to your social media.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's kind of weird being recognized at these things.
And it's lovely.
And people can't say hi, but then someone else comes along and goes,
who is that?
You know, I have no idea.
I will try to be wearing a Motrin podcast hoodie or a t-shirt
and looking generally like myself.
And I'll have the Lexus there as well.
Mm-hmm.
You'll do have fun.
It's going to be so nice to see people in real life and hang out and stuff.
I'm really looking forward to it.
I think there's still tickets available.
If you go to the British Motor Museum website, no.
No, okay.
They sold out a few weeks ago.
Damn.
That's it for that, which means that all that's left to say is to not forget
that between now and next week, you can give us any feedback
and share your thoughts on the show at motrinpodcast.com on Blue Sky.
At Motrin Podcast on Instagram and Facebook and on the contact page
of www.motrinpodcast.com, the hub of all our activities.
Please remember you can support us financially via Patreon
and please leave a review and rating on Apple Podcasts,
YouTube or however your podcast app lets you do such a thing.
Andrew, what's the best way to get in touch with you?
The best way to get in touch with me is if you search
for crack windscreen on Blue Sky or failing that if you prefer
LinkedIn, I am there under my name.
And Alan, if people would like to get in touch with you
maybe about Rustival, what's the best way for them to do that?
The best way to get in touch with me is obviously to use Blue Sky
where I'm at ADP Bradley, that's B-I-E-D-L-E-Y dot B-Sky dot social.
We'll be back very soon.
Until then, I've been Alan Bradley.
I've been Andrew Clues.
And safe motoring.
About this episode
Exciting updates in the automotive world include the DVLA's new regulations easing the restoration process for classic cars, eliminating the dreaded cu-plate for minor modifications. Arial Motor Company plans to build a new factory in Somerset to boost production of their exoskeletal vehicles. The UK government has also revised EV mileage reimbursement rates, and the plug-in van and truck grant has been extended until 2027. The episode wraps up with discussions on the BYD Atto 2 and Citroen's new DS No 4 EV, alongside a fascinating look at a unique 1969 Volkswagen Beetle limousine auctioned for $300,000.
Original notes
GOVERNMENT CUTS RESTORATION RED TAPE
Following a long campaign from the Historic and Classic Vehicles Alliance and other similar associations, the Government has simplified the red tape around modifying and restoring vehicles. Notifications can be sent to DVLA for ‘significant structural modifications’ and the vehicle can retain the original license plate number and Vehicle Identification Number (VIN). This is a big step forward. Click this Hagerty article link here to find out more.
ARIEL DOUBLING PRODUCTION CAPACITY WITH NEW FACTORYAriel, the Somerset based specialist performance vehicle manufacturer, have agreed a deal to buy more land that will allow them to double their production capability. If you want to read more, click this Autocar article link here.
HMRC RAISES EV MILEAGE CLAIM RATEAfter lots of complaints were raised over the last announcement of the rate business mileage for electric cars could be claimed back at, HMRC has revised them. Now there are two tiers, home charging and public charging. However, the rates still aren’t great and frankly totally inadequate if you charge via the public network. To find out more, click this Autocar article link here.
PLUG-IN VAN AND LORRY GRANT EXTENDEDThe UK Government has extended the plug-in grant for van and lorries, until “at least 2027”. However, the money is coming out of the £650 million we were told was for the Electric Car Grant (ECG), which turns out to also be improving the charging infrastructure across the country. Click this Autocar article link here, to read more.
DO NOT HOON YOUR EV FOR MORE BATTERY LIFEA recent study has been misreported, according to Aviloo, battery experts. Many read the results to mean one must be very heavy with the right foot to extend the battery lift of one’s EV. That is not the case. You can find out more by clicking this Carscoops article link here.
TESLA DOES HAVE TO FACE CLASS-ACTION OVER SELF-DRIVING CLAIMSA recent hearing, in front of a judge, between those trying to pursue Tesla in a class-action over mis-selling their self-driving system that has yet to make it to market even though they have taken money from people for it, has resulted in permission being granted to pursue the company. If you want to read more, click this Reuters article link here.
To read Ed Niedermeyer’s coverage of the hearing, click this link to his Bluesky post.
If you like what we do, on this show, and think it is worth a £1.00, please consider supporting us via Patreon. Here is the link to that CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT THE PODCAST NEW NEW CAR NEWS - BYD Atto 2BYD has revealed details of their Atto 2, a C segment electric SUV. Priced aggressively, at £30,850, it will
Motoring Podcast - News Show
Motoring Podcast
0:00
39:12