What happened to the Q-car? #302

Welcome back to the intercooler podcast, everybody, the podcast

powered by car finance specialist JBR Capital. This is

episode 302. Q cars, Andrew. Q cars. I'm sure we've done Q

cars before we must have done over the years. But I want to

revisit Q cars, because I want to discuss the changing face of

the Q car. Yeah, if indeed, they remain, it's not a phrase

you hear that much. I mean, when I was, well, starting out in

this business, it was, it was a term that was used in every

day. Yeah, certainly if you're working on car magazines, we

are always talking about Q cars. You just don't really hear it

anymore. No, there might be people listening to this who are

going, what are they talking about? What on earth are they

talking about? Yeah. So I do want to talk about the the

current state of the Q car, the future of the Q car, perhaps,

but we should also look back, shouldn't we? Oh, God, that's

all I was planning on doing. I hoped you would. I hoped you

would take care of that part of it. So what is a Q car? Yeah,

in America, they're called sleeper cars. Yeah. They are

cars, they're sort of butter wouldn't melt cars, aren't

they? Nice way of putting it. Yeah. They are cars which have

quite prosaic, unassuming appearances, but actually go

like hell. Yeah, we like Q cars. Well, okay, to explain why

think about the opposite, the reverse. Yeah, it would just be

terrible, wouldn't it? A very, very dramatic, exciting looking

car with one of what letter the alphabet they'd get. Okay, so

here's a question. Yeah, why are they called Q cars? Well, I know

the answer. Oh, do you? I do. What's that? Why? The answer, it

gets dates back to the First World War. Okay. When there were

things called Q ships. Yeah. Now, I still don't know where the

Q came from. Ah, I know that. Do you know that? Yeah. Okay.

Well, let me okay. I'll tell you what the ships were and you

tell me what the Q was. Okay. So the ships, they were heavily

armed. Nate Royal ships of the Royal Navy that have been

disguised to look like completely innocent merchant

ships, which is exactly what we're talking about. We're talking

about, you know, wolves and sheeps clothing, aren't we? We're

talking about cars, or vessels in their case, that look one way

and turn out to be completely the other. I'm absolutely

fascinated. Was it was it a sort of a Navy classification? Or

does it stand for something, the Q? No, it comes from

Queenstown in Ireland, in Cork Harbor, where the first of

these Q ships, these decoy armed mercantile steamers were

built during the First World War, Queenstown. There you go.

Q. Yeah. Who knew? So yeah, you clearly. So yeah, the Q

cars are very, very powerful cars that look unassuming. And the

appeal of that is just obvious, isn't it? It's, it's, it's

really fun to be driving around in something that is not

turning a single head. But you know, that if you extend your

right ankle, you could smoke just about anything on the road.

Okay, so I think, and I'm sad about this. And maybe we'll go

into greater detail later on during the course of the

podcast. But I think that the Q car is anathema to the

prevailing attitudes of today. And I think that's why people

don't talk about them anymore. These days. Oh, you think people

actually don't want that? You think I think in these days, in

these Instagram days, where everybody is presenting their

best life. I think the car has become your own personal shop

window. And you want your car to reflect what you would like to

project is the best of you. And you don't want something which

looks like it spends its life driving up and down the M one

at 60 miles an hour with, you know, chap, selling, I don't

know, handbags, door to door or whatever. You want a car which

you feel doesn't necessarily affect who you are, but who you

would like other people to think that you are. I think that's

the vibe that goes on these days. So I think people would

rather have the opposite of a Q car than a Q car because

terrible. What is the point of having a car which is subtle and

discreet and tasteful? And also it goes like how when people

don't realize it, nobody knows. So it's image we are we live in

an image driven society, obsessed society. And so people

actually want to project a certain have you have you on

your list? Have you got a list of modern Q cars? Q cars from the

present day? I mean, there are well, I can think of one pretty

good example. Okay. Well, should we should we come to that

later? Or do you want to do that now?

Well, I either was thinking of the Golf R. Yeah, okay. Which is

still fairly discreet. But it's yeah, fine. I mean, great. It is

I would still call that a Q car because you look at it and you

could easily mistake it for a GTI. It's not too overt. And I

think that's one of the things I like most about them. But I

don't think there are many not in the way that you look back and

they were all over the place.

Well, let's look back. Okay, we are going to look forward a bit

later on. But I think we should look back and remind ourselves of

some of the great Q cars from history.

Yeah. Well, I mean, so when did it start? I shouldn't be asking

questions to which I don't know the answer. But I think it's a

sort of late 50s. The car that springs to my mind most

obviously is the mark two Jaguar.

I thought you'd say that.

This was a car that was available with most of them were

sold were sold with 2.4 liter engines. This if anybody's

trying to remember what a mark two Jaguar is what inspector

Morse used to drive. Yeah. So there was a 2.4 his had a 3.4.

But you could also get it with a 3.8 liter engine that and those

things for the 1950s, they flew. It doesn't sound fast now

because they do not 16 about eight and a half seconds and

about 125 all out. But back then when yeah, you know, your

average runabout would be topping out at sort of 7075. If you

were lucky, they were rocket ships. And yet it was almost

impossible to tell a 3.8 from a 2.4. The other thing was that

those engines even then were very susceptible to being

modified. They're all sorts of things to make them hot to make

them hotter still. My father had one actually which he had he'd

warmed up a little bit. And I used to roll around in the back of

it as a kid. And it was a properly quick car. But it just

looked like, you know, something your your bank manager

might drive. Yeah. Yeah. So potentially the original Q car.

Potentially. Yeah. I mean, if anybody has any better ideas of

what the original Q car is, just let us know. Find a way and

let us know. Yeah. Yeah. What was the the golden age of the Q

car?

Well, I think it was probably the 1990s. Okay. Oh, a bit later.

Yeah, okay.

Probably. So that may just be because that's when I, you know,

with my first full decade in this business, and maybe I was

just more tuned into them. Then but yeah, if I think of the

cars that I, there's so many aren't there. But you know,

let's just take an E 34 m five BMW m five. You and I have both

driven one recently. That's such a discreet car. It's so

understated. I love that about that car. And people always talk

about the Lotus Colton as being a Q car. I don't think it is.

I don't think it is either. I think it's too obviously a high

performance car to look at with a wing on the back and the

wheel arch extension and those massive well back then massive

17 inch allies. I just don't think that it is. But was there

a Carlton, a GSI or something? Okay, so they're what okay, so

there was absolutely there was the 24 valve Carlton. Yeah,

three leads 24 valve engine, which was a very, very good car

indeed. In fact, I did a twin test between that Carlton and a

E 34 535 I I've got a funny feeling the Vauxhall won it.

Wow. Great looking car, spacious, great value for money.

Fantastic twin cam straight six 24 valve engine, 200 and

something horsepower. But you struggle to find one today. But

yeah, but now that actually was, I would say a greater candidate

for being called a Q car than the cut than the Lotus Colton.

Absolutely. The Lotus Colton didn't look it. No. So yes.

But but to me, I guess the sort of that era of car the other to

me may be my favorite Q car because it was so incredibly

subtle comes from exactly the same category at exactly the

same from exactly the same period of time, which was the 500

E W124.

The Porsche Porsche.

This was a car which sort of commuted across Stuttgart

because hang on. So Mercedes sort of provided a body white to

Porsche, who then turned it into a car, then went back to

Mercedes for being finished off and then got sort of distributed

so it used to sort of commute across town. But this car, yes,

it was a W124 with a five liter VA engine. And if you look at

them now, they have right, they have very slightly flared

arches. Yeah, there's a stance to them, isn't there? There's a

bit exactly the stance is exactly the right right word. They

have a sort of a look about them. But you have to look very

closely. And I think you have to know what you're looking for.

That's right. You know, the normal man or woman in the

street wouldn't look twice. No, just a sort of relatively

staid looking saloon car. Yes. Yeah, they were held back

certainly in the UK. I think generally speaking, by two

issues, once UK specific, which are the they were only built

with left hand drive, I don't think with that VA engine, they

could make a right hand drive one, or certainly the engineering

and tooling costs of doing so would have been prohibitive. But

also they were automatic only, which doesn't really matter so

much when you got a five liter VA doing the talking. But I think

one of those with the manual gearbox would have been would

have been even better. So 320 odd horsepower? Yeah, 350 pound

foot of torque. Yeah, I mean, quick car, not, yeah, quick car,

not massively Oh, my goodness, fast. No, but just a lovely I

mean, just a fabulous way to knock about. I mean, we've

often talked about how wonderful the W124 is in general. But a

W124 that really gets up and goes. And I love the idea of

that. Cool, cool car. Yeah. Yeah. I can see you've got a whole

list of them there. Let's keep going. Okay, so I'm going to

stay in the in the 1990s. Yeah. There's another car that I am

slightly in two minds about. Because on the one hand, it is a

Volvo estate car. And any Volvo estate that goes is I guess by

definition, a, a Q car. I'm talking about the 850 t five r

and the 850 r and then what it became it became the v 70 r

didn't it? Yeah.

But actually, I don't know you look at them, they have those

incredibly low profile tires and they had wings on the back of

them. Yeah. And so I some of them were yellow, weren't they

that we had a we had a long term or an auto car, we had that

sort of rather pale sample yellow, which I wasn't a huge fan

of. But you'd never mistake that for for a normal setup and

beg for the estate car. I don't think so. And then they obviously

went touring car racing with them as well. Yeah, which was

which was something else.

Were they five cylinder those cars? Yeah. And actually, you

when one drives by or you sit behind one, that's as much a

giveaway as the, you know, the wheels or the paint job or

whatever, just this throbbing.

Yeah, that I said, another thing about Q cars, which I think

is another reason which disqualifies these cars, I

might be about to get myself into trouble amongst the v 70 r

loving community. I think a Q car has to be good to drive.

Blimey. Yeah, I don't think being fast is enough. Okay, it

should handle as well.

Yeah, it should be a nice thing to be in. And the thing is,

certainly, certainly the t five r, the a 50 t five r, which is

the one that I was sort of most familiar with the ride on that

car was so abysmal. I actually didn't want to be in it. Okay.

So I think that almost does and you know, they were quick, but

they weren't that quick. And they were still front wheel drive

and yeah. So so they kind of, they kind of looked at it, looked

the part a bit. I think it is quite cool. The idea of a Volvo

estate car that really flies is an inherently cool idea. But I

don't think that Q cars.

Okay, I think that's fair enough. Yeah. And also with all that

racing history. I think the sort of illusion the secret has been

blown, hasn't it?

Oh, certainly now. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah.

So I guess, what is the ultimate? In my head, there is one

car that in terms of looking one way and being another is the Q

car of all Q cars, which is the Mark two Volkswagen Golf

limited.

You love this car.

I love this car. But tell you what I love about this car is they

didn't not only did they not try to make it look more sexy than

the car was based upon, they actively went to reasonable

measures to make it look less sexy. Yeah, the car was based

because there was another fast golf from broadly the same

era the rally. Yeah, with you know, a box arches. Absolutely.

They're much more extravagant looking. But even compared to

a bog stand and mark to golf GTI. So this was the car that so

they had the golf GTI, which had by that stage a 16 valve cylinder

head. And they had the golf G 60, which had an eight valve

engine, but with a supercharger attached to it. And the golf

limited was simply in term mechanical terms was the best

of both worlds. So it had the 16 valve head and the supercharger.

And back in whenever it was 1989, I guess 1990. This car made

215 horsepower, which was an enormous sum. I mean, it's

nothing today is it? But back then it was an enormous 37 years

ago amount of power for a hatchback to be produced. Yeah,

massive. But it had four wheel drive. Yeah. And what I loved

about it was it had the front grille of a golf L. So it had

the two headlight front grill. Yeah, it had the five door

shell. Yeah, it had basically everything you could put on the

car to make it look as dowdy as humanly possible. They did it.

The only way you could tell it, or the only thing that was in

any way slightly unusual about it was you know, golf GTIs have

that red line around the radiator grill, the limits was

blue. Yeah, that's it. I think they only made about 70 of them

71 71. Yeah, it's fair to say it wasn't a great seller. It's

such a shame, isn't it? Because what a concept. Cool. So cool.

That's so much power for a little hatchback back then back then.

It was it was unprecedented. You can just imagine them roasting

everything 9 11s off the line. Also in on a tricky road. Yeah,

where you need a bit of traction and some compact

dimensions. You know, we often talk about the quickest car in

the real in the real world point to point on a on a back road

that I backed myself in one of those over almost anything else

out there. What a cool car. Yeah. And you know, and I drove one

back in the day because one came in for testing. And we took it

up to the test track and it was fantastic. Great car. It's so

easy when discussing cue cars to default to sort of executive

saloons, isn't it with a bit of power, a bit of go? Yeah, but

not all of them are. And that is probably the best example.

I think I think that's probably right. But you but you are

right that most of them were cars like the Lancia 832. Yeah,

Thema, Thema, what do you say? Don't know. Okay.

Another massively understated car. A car fitted with also

had 215 horsepower. Did it? Yeah. From a V8, though, from a

three liter V8, not a supercharged, two liter, four

cylinder engine. So this was the famously this was the Lancia

with the Ferrari engine. So the 832 Stavrate cylinders and 32

valves. It had the three liter engine that have been in the

Mondial and in the 308 fuel injected 215 horsepower, not a

huge amount of power for a Ferrari, but in the front

wheel drive Lancia, possibly a touch too much. And what Ferrari

did with that engine, or what Lancia asked them to do, because

it fitted the saloon car character car so much better

was to essentially change the bottom end of the engine, give

it a different crankshaft, a crossplane, rather than a

flatplane crankshaft, which meant it sounded like a

traditional American V8, not a Ferrari or a McLaren V8, which

sounds almost like sort of two four cylinder engines together.

And I think I think it's a lovely idea. I only drove one. And

the thing I couldn't cope with was they'd had to put so much

stodge in the steering to damp out all the torque steer that

it actually a normal theme, a team of turbo whatever was

actually a better handling car. It was a more engaging car to

drive because it didn't have that amount of power to transmit.

And it was a very compromised car, great looking car, amazing

leathery interior. It was a real sort of premium executive car.

Rowan Atkinson had one. And I know that he absolutely loved it,

but it's yeah, I mean, the idea of a Ferrari engine in your

Lancia is kind of cool. But the reality was was quite so great.

Here's my heuristic for finding a great Q car. You look at the

BMW five series lineup. Yeah, you look at the M5 at the top.

And you look down one. The five series that sits beneath the

M5, probably a great Q car.

And it works definitely works to the three series. Yeah, M340i.

Yeah. Yeah.

Much, much, much more sedate mundane even looking cars. The M

cars, certainly in more recent years, they, they look very

potent, don't they?

They do. You know,

very pumped up aggressive. Yeah, they are. But the ones below.

If you know what you're looking at, sure. But to a lot of

people, it's just a three series or it's just a five series.

Do Alpina's count of Q cars?

I was wondering that yesterday. I think they probably do maybe

not with the, you know, sometimes they have those pinstripe

graphics. That's the giveaway.

You don't have to have those.

You don't have to have those. So I think they do in the right

color. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess to me, a Q car is a car

that possesses more performance than anything else in the range,

despite looking like it has less. And I think those that we've

mentioned so far have been cars which have absolutely been the

top of the range cars in terms of performance and have just

happened. But it's an interesting, I've not really

sort of thought about Q cars like that. But as I think of it, I

think you may have a point.

There's someone in my extended family recently bought a

previous shape BMW M550i. So that's a, I remember driving one

when they were new.

Yeah, that's a Q car.

Loved it.

That's a Q car.

So it's 500 horsepower, 4.4 liter twin turbo V8 four wheel

drive, but super comfy. They look pretty discreet. I mean,

they've got big wheels and you can see the huge brakes behind

them. But that is a discreet looking car. And I'm very, very

jealous of him, actually, because I would love to smoke

around to one of those and they've got stacks of performance.

Actually, most of the time, it is a better car than an M5.

But that's so often the case, isn't it?

You know, an M340i, most of the time is a better car than an M3.

Really is.

Yeah, it really is.

Have you got any other Q cars you want to remind us of?

How many, how many do you want?

A few more.

Okay. V10 Audi S6.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, the Lamborghini engine.

The Lamborghini engine in an Audi. We've had a Ferrari engine

and a Lancia, this is a Lamborghini engine in an Audi.

Did you drive one?

No.

Quite good.

Not exceptional.

Yeah.

But, you know, quite good in the same way that's probably less

exciting than an E60 M5, but, you know, which obviously also had

a 5-litre V10 in it, but that was a complete nutter of a 5-litre V10.

This was a slightly more subdued one.

But I just like the idea of a sedate looking Audi estate with a

5-litre Lamborghini V10 engine.

That's great, yeah.

While we're on the subject of Volkswagen Group product,

Passat W8.

I was hoping you were going to say that.

Yeah.

How fast were they though?

Do you remember driving?

Quick. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

4-litre W8, 276 horsepower, I think.

Yeah, good enough.

20, whatever it was, 25 years ago.

Yeah, a rapid car.

Didn't sell many.

No.

I mean, this was in the sort of PIEC era where, basically,

he was trying everything, and they were doing fatens and that sort

of thing, desperately trying to drag the whole Volkswagen brand.

Yeah.

Upmarket.

And it didn't work, because actually the W8, it wasn't a

particularly charismatic engine.

It didn't sound like a V8.

It sounded, you know, it sounded like a W8, and it was quite an

anonymous engine.

I heard somewhere that it was, and I think there's probably a grain

of truth in this, but I suspect it's an incredibly simplistic

way of looking at it.

But that W8 was essentially a naturally aspirated half-avail-on

engine.

I've heard this.

I'd like to know.

If they had a single rigid in common, I would frankly be a maybe

the plug for the sample or something, but even so, it is absolutely

the only W8 that there has ever been.

Yeah.

I also think that the same company at the same time was producing

the only V5 that there's ever been.

They did some funny things back in the day, didn't they?

They did, the V5 Borum and Golf.

Okay, do you remember the Jaguar XF SV8?

Okay, so this was, you're going to think I'm describing an XJR, an

XFR, because it's got a 5-litre V8.

It might have been a 4.2 at that stage.

But before they did the XFR, they did this thing called the SV8.

But it just looked like a normal XF.

Great idea.

Supercharged V8.

Yeah.

So stacks of power.

Stacks of power.

Cool.

Yeah.

And again, another really good, it's like the, well, I call the X308.

So the pre-aluminium XJV8, one of which I ran towards the end of my

Taiwan motorsport right at the end of the 90s.

So this is an XJ8 from the late 1990s, a 5-litre, what was it, a 4.2?

Supercharged, 4.2, supercharged, 400 horsepower.

That was a fantastic car.

I drove that thing everywhere.

I went all over Europe in that thing.

I did tens of thousands of miles in it.

And I loved it.

And it just looked like, it just looked like an XJ6.

Yeah.

Oh, did it?

Yeah.

Even it was an R, but it, well, it wasn't.

It was just called, I don't think it was an R, was it?

I remember.

Was it just an XJ8?

I can't remember.

It is the 400 horsepower thing.

And it was such a great Jaguar because it got that, the thing about a

Jaguar is you've got to get the right handling balance, right?

Yeah, of course.

And this is what I'm so interested to find out about the new Jaguar EV when I

finally get to drive it.

Um, it's got to absolutely handle as well as it drives and drivers, sorry, as well

as it rides and rides as well as it handles.

It's got to be equally capable at both.

And it was, it was, I mean, I went roaming around disused European racetracks in it.

I used to go to places like the Banking at Monza.

I went to Zannevort before they rebuilt.

I went everywhere to rule on that.

So, and I used to go and hurl this thing around these tracks.

I can remember driving it around spa in the snow.

Oh, cool.

Um, and it was never less than excellent.

Wow.

Love that car.

Um, do you want to do me, do you want me to talk to me about B6 Audi RS4s, the

first V8 RS4?

Yeah.

I mean, they have those pumped arches, don't they?

Yeah.

So if you know, you know.

Yeah.

Um, but otherwise they are not that extravagant cars.

To look at.

No.

And how good was that V8?

Yeah.

Well, it went in the R8, didn't it?

And it was the centerpiece of that car.

Yeah, it was, it was, I thought it was a really pretty terrific thing.

Um, okay.

I want to talk about the changing face of the cue cards.

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Um, Andrew, the changing face of the cue card, right?

I want to propose something to you.

I think the cue car, the definitive modern cue car nowadays is an EV.

I, I, I, I maintain an entirely open mind.

Sell it to me.

Okay.

So the powerful EV family car, I've just said farewell to one.

Um, Audi A6, Avant e-tron, Quattro, 420 odd horsepower, a bit more in launch control

mode, which I never did.

Uh, I ran that car for four or five months.

Um, really, really brisk, properly brisk off the line, certainly.

Uh, there's something clever about that car.

It always seemed to know exactly how much torque each motor could meet her out without

losing any, um, any drive in wheel spin.

It just put it down.

And so you would be off the line so smartly.

Um, and it meant that, you know, in the sort of hustle and bustle of busy

traffic on those crosstown freeways, you were just, you would just smoke everything

and get into the gap that you were aiming for because of the way that electric

motors deliver their talk.

So A, they give, they give all their talk immediately.

That's just a fundamental characteristic of electric motors.

But B, there's something about the quiet and the smoothness that just means that

you are more prepared to use full throttle more of the time.

Right.

I just imagine, uh, say an RS6, a big, powerful petrol V8 car to get full

performance out of that thing, you're redlining it through first and through

second and through third.

Um, that's quite a commotion, isn't it?

Yeah, it's, it's big drama.

And you don't always want that when you've got lots of other cars,

lots of other traffic around you.

Um, you don't want to cause a scene.

And so in something like the A6 e-tron, you can use all the power,

all the talk and no one really knows.

So interesting.

You say that, um, and I'll get back to my thoughts on that in just a second,

but where you're absolutely right.

I notice it particularly with Tesla, particularly with Tesla Model S's.

Don't know why.

But what happens is you'll be driving along and you'll come up

cross one on a sort of country road somewhere, um, and you'll see you in the

mirror and because you've appeared that by definition means that you have

been up until that moment, traveling faster than them.

And then what they do is you get to a straight and then they're just off.

They just disappear and you see that acceleration.

You see it go from here to over there in the blink of an eye.

And so you've not got no chance of getting past and they're doing that

because frankly, that's all they can do.

Yeah, that's it.

That's because there's a corner involved.

I mean, forget it.

Um, unless I've seen that quite a few times where drivers of very powerful

EVs demonstrate and exploit that particular advantage that their car

confers upon them, almost as if it were saying, look, this car can be fun to

drive, this car can be and I'm not convinced that just being able to

accelerate really fast on a straight line is a fun or be all the qualification

you need to call yourself a cue card.

Okay.

Um, there's two things then I want to respond on two fronts.

The A six has made way for a different car.

Uh, another Audi, another Audi estate, an S five, which is a petrol V six

turbocharged petrol V six four wheel drive DCT transmission, 362 BHP.

Um, and I noticed as I walked into the studio today that you've turned up in

essentially exactly the same car, different color interior, different

color interior, but the same exterior color.

And I thought, is that my car?

Has someone somehow brought this along with me?

I came in, uh, an Alpine today.

Um, but I, this is my new long-term at the S five.

I'm, I've had it for a few weeks now.

I've got it until the summer.

It's not yet run in.

Um, I've done five or 600 miles and waiting until a thousand miles comes,

come and go before I really unleash it.

Um, but I've thoroughly enjoyed it so far and it's quite a subtle looking

thing with plenty of power.

So I think that's a Q car.

Oh, okay.

So we're off the UV thing now.

I'm going to come back to the UV thing.

But yeah, um, okay.

So mine is running because it's just a normal press car and it's only with me

for a week.

Yeah.

Um, and so because I come into the studio really quite early in the morning,

um, I have been able to put it through its paces.

Yes.

It's pretty good.

Yeah.

It's not lightning fast, but it's rapid.

Yeah.

And it deploys.

Yeah.

And that's so often the way, um, you know, a car that is fast on paper, if you've

got a, you know, change down and then your traction limited and you're the revs

have got to be high and then the moment's gone, isn't it?

And then the moment's gone.

Yeah.

Whereas with that, I mean, it's not quite EV immediate, but the gearbox is really

good.

Yeah.

There's very little lag because the engine's not boosting.

I said, oh, a three liter engine putting out 360 horsepower, which is, you know,

frankly, these days, nothing for one of those.

Yeah.

Um, and it's a very, this will sound damning with faint praise.

I don't mean it that way.

It's a very effective way of getting from point to point, but it's actually more

than that.

And, you know, we've not always been able to say this about fast Audi's in the

past.

It's actually a pleasant and engaging car to drive quickly.

I'd stop short of calling it fun.

Okay.

It's not a car I'd set an alarm for just to go for a drive in now, but it's honestly,

if you've got six months in that, it's never going to be a chore.

You'll always be pleased to see it.

It'll fit any circumstances you find yourself in.

Um, I think it is a bit of a cue car.

Yeah.

Um, I think if it had 450 horsepower on whatever it's called 360, then it would

be even more of a cue car.

Um, but no doubt a stage one chip could do that.

Exactly.

I'll go and talk to our friend in Litchfield.

He'll sort it out.

So it's certainly well on the way to cue cariness.

And as, you know, as we discussed earlier in this podcast, that actually

makes it something of a rarity.

It does.

Um, so I haven't had it long.

I've got it for much longer.

Um, I'm going to enjoy living with it.

I'm sure, as you say, it's a very broadly defined car.

Um, it's also comfortable.

It's got the space I need mostly.

Um, and so I will report back as I find, as I learn more about the car, but I'm,

I'm really, really pleased to have it around for a while.

So the other point that I wanted to make about EV cue cars, the BMW I five M

50 that you ran, yeah, cue car.

Definitely.

Cause that thing was rapid.

It was, I mean, it was at times it was like alarmingly fast.

Um, that was a really good car.

It was so good.

And one of the best riding modern cars actually.

Yeah.

So that's, um, BMW really going to town on that car.

No, I think absolutely because it's not in your family.

In fact, I replaced it with a five 30 E a plug-in hybrid with a two liter engine.

Actually, it's a really good call for a cue car.

Okay.

To me, that's more of a cue car than your, than your, what are you calling these

days, the S five, um, because it really did look very little different, but it went

like hell, but also it was good to drive.

Yeah.

Um, and it just works in all, in all areas of endeavor.

Um, yeah, really quick, really nice, really comfortable, decent car.

Yeah.

So that is absolutely an example of, and actually, actually if you take, take cars

like that, I mean, far more so to me than Teslas and the like, that to me is

absolutely the future of, if there is a few cars to have a future, it lies with

cars like that.

But you, um, by the sounds of it, you don't think the cue car thing has much of

a future because it's not what people want.

It's not what people want.

I think, I think people want, uh, I think, I think they want to show their

personalities through their cars.

Or as I said earlier, the personalities, they would like other people to think

that they have, um, and just anecdotally, it's just not a term you hear these days.

No.

Um, and I think that's a shame, but I think it's also an inevitable, maybe it'll

come back, um, maybe there will be a time when people actually attach some value to

being quite discreet in the way that, I mean, to me, actually, I think there's

really good argument in these days where, you know, people tend to get envious

and jealous and, you know, and react badly to cars that look overt and

overtly fast and excessive and ostentatious.

A cue car just bypasses the best of both worlds.

I think it is.

Um, you know, you get to drive hopefully a really fast, really engaging car and

you upset no one in the process.

Yeah.

Love it.

You don't have people trying to race you on the road.

You don't have the light-fingered community coming around at night trying to

pinch it off you.

No, I don't suppose anybody's tried to nick a W8 Passat because it's a W8 Passat

and they really, um, they really want that engine.

They're not, apart from the W8 badge on the back, they really wouldn't, or I

have thought of one more old cue car.

Go on then.

It's actually one of my favorites because it's, it's just like the last car

of the world you'd expect to have a massive V8 in it, Rover 75.

Yeah, I did think you were going to say Rover 75 at some point.

A Rover 75 Estate V8.

Yeah.

Now people will remember that MG, it got MG'd and it was the ZTT V8 Estate.

But you could get the same engine in a Rover, which didn't have any of the go

faster bits on it and it still had the sort of, you know, the sort of wooden

leather interior and it really did look like something you'd expect a bloke wearing

a hat to drive on his way to the golf club.

But it had this engine out of a Mustang in it.

Yeah, not mega power.

Was it 260 horsepower?

Yeah, but enough to be getting on with.

And more than enough to be getting on with, you know, mega torque, rear wheel drive.

Yeah.

I mean, sideways as you like.

I'm sure.

I think to me, a cue card, it's got to sort of generate that inner smile.

Yeah, you've got to think of and thus think, yeah.

There's a sense of fun, isn't there?

Yeah, that's a bit of me.

Yeah, yeah, a sense of fun about it and definitely a Rover 75 V8 takes that box.

It's so self-aware, it's so knowing, because nobody else will get it and I just love that about it.

So to wrap up this episode, I'm going to, I have one, one, actually, it's a demand of you.

You go on.

You have to name the greatest cue card ever.

And it can only be one.

Are you telling me that there is one?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you have to decide.

Well, my heart says golf limited, but there were only 71 of them.

Yeah, I think I think that's kind of a bit out.

There's a bit of me which thinks it's the Rover 75 because I think that's the funniest

cue card ever, but ultimately, it wasn't that great a car.

I had a lot of problems.

I think in terms of all the cars that we've discussed, the one that resonates most with me,

I mean, it should be the E34 M5, a six-speed 3.8, E34 M5, I think is one of the finest cars

that there's ever been.

But the very fact it's called an M5 just takes a slight edge off it.

For me, it's the 500e.

Oh, great.

Great answer.

It's the 500e because it is so elegant.

It is so discreet and demure and such a lovely thing to be in and to drive.

And I think that V8, because it's so torquey and it sounds so lovely, I think it also

suits being in that car so well.

I love those very gently flared arches.

There's nothing about that car I don't like.

But also the story of it, the fact that it was Porsche, I don't know if they built it or they

developed it.

Yeah, they did, but yes, absolutely.

Yeah.

It's a great tale behind it.

There's a great tale behind it.

So that is my ultimate Q-car, an automatic left-hand drive car, which didn't

sell very well.

Bragging.

Welcome to the intercooler podcast.

All right, well, let's wrap that one up there.

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What happened to the Q-car? #302

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