What's going on with the petrol car ban? #293

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Welcome back to the Intercooler podcast, everybody the podcast powered by car finance specialist JBR capital this episode 293 with me down process and Andrew Frankel.

This is going to be a busy show, Andrew. There's an awful lot that we want to discuss. I thought we're all supposed to be sort of winding down for Christmas, but there's so much going on.

There's a lot in the news at the moment, but before we get stuck into that stuff, because Christmas is just around the corner, let me remind you all that a gift subscription to the intercooler is the perfect gift this Christmas for the car lover in your life.

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So news then. There's been a hell of a lot going on. Can we start with the the 2030 petrol and diesel ban?

Because that's been chopping back and forth all over the place a lot over the last week or so.

So as we know in the UK currently the plan is for new petrol and diesel cars to be banned from 2030 and then hybrids will follow in 2035.

Yes.

I understand that there will be exemptions for very, very low volume manufacturers.

Yeah, we said this before on the podcast, haven't we? Manufacturers like, you know, like my Clarem and so on and so forth.

And cater them, certainly.

And all those sort of low volume British sports car manufacturers primarily will be exempt from that.

But.

But so now at last week we learned that the EU which has a similar ban for 2035 is looking at pushing that back to 2040.

Yeah.

But then there was news even after that that actually maybe the ban is going to be scrapped or it was going to be adjusted so that emissions from new cars had to come down by 90% rather than 100% which it currently says.

So I mean it's clear as mud at the moment isn't it really?

But that mean that is that is in itself really the biggest problem.

Yeah.

Talk to anybody in the industry and what they will say to you is look we can cope with almost anything.

Apart from uncertainty.

Yeah.

As long as we can plan, tell us where we're going to be not next year or the year after because that's no use to us because the cars are going to produce next year and the year after are already.

You know they're not only do they know what they're going to be they're signed off.

You know they're going through homologation they're getting you know they're going through damper iterations they're sorting out the door seals.

Yeah.

The cars are done.

They want to know where they're going to be in 10 years and they want you know big blocks like the EU say right.

This is what thing life is going to be like in 2040 or 2034 and we guarantee there will be no changes to it.

Because how else do you plan?

Well this is it right imagine you're the CEO or you're just involved at board level of a huge European car manufacturer and you need to allocate billions right now to see you through the next 10, 15 years.

How on earth are you going to allocate that money effectively?

And also you know we see manufacturers getting themselves into terrible trouble.

I mean we are in what a couple of weeks we're going to do a podcast about Ford.

Yeah the future for the pastor Ford and the president of Ford.

And you know that is a manufacturer which you know got rid of their base their big best sellers you know the focus and the fiesta because they went all in on EV.

It hasn't turned out very well.

But when they made those plans the world was a very different place to the one that they find themselves in now.

And you know and not only are these bands being pushed back you've also got you know things like the government introducing road pricing for EVs.

You've got congestion charge pricing coming in for EVs.

You know there are there are so many headwinds for these things and so many things which are you know entirely additional to the custom of proving turning out to be rather apathetic towards EVs.

Which means that if they'd known what things were going to be like they'd never have taken the decisions that they did.

Yeah.

And some of that is just poor judgment some of it is bad luck but a lot of it are legislators just moving the goalpost all the bloody time.

Yeah I saw in the news yesterday the Tories were saying they would scrap the ban altogether if they won the next election.

But that's not due until 2029.

And so the car manufacturers can't sit around going well maybe the Tories will win and they'll scrap it and we can continue building petrol and diesel cars.

They're going to have to commit long before and also they can't manufacture.

You know the UK is I mean it's a significant market but you can't make a strategy unless your catering based on demand in fact probably not even your catering.

So yeah it's it's just really really difficult.

And you know and the problem just talking about the UK for a moment with this particular government that we have.

Which I am sure would dearly love to go back on what it has already committed to which as you said it's 2030 ban on petrol and diesel sales on 2025 for hybrids which I think we actually think means plug in hybrids.

So yeah so hybrids with significant EV only range is that for them that's going to be another humiliating climb down on the back of so many humiliating kind of climb down as I can barely count them.

And are they really going to expose themselves to the loss of you know another chunk of what little political capital they've got less left? I don't know.

Well Ben Oliver wrote a story for us last week when these rumors began circulating and he pointed out that goodness we're getting to the weeds now but the risk around Europe is that right wing governments latch onto this as an avenue to securing more votes.

Of course.

And it might what happened and therefore centre and left wing government need to be really wary of that.

And well they will be they will be wary of that.

And so I'm aware that there will be people listening to this who don't think that you know the sort of right wing governments are talking about are a bad idea.

We're not a political podcast we're not here to make political judgments about things but if the establishment want to remain as such you're absolutely right.

They've got to listen to what people are saying to them. I mean for myself and this is not I'm not making a political point at all.

I think 2040 is about right.

Yeah.

Because we've seen haven't we are in recent years particularly at the small end of the market.

And also if you listen to our podcast next week when we're going to be talking about all the interesting new cars coming in 2026.

There does seem to be a lot of momentum now arriving behind really pretty interesting EVs.

And the years of just dross seem to be well there's nothing not behind us yet.

But we've seen the manufacturers have started to realise that they've actually they can't just produce rubbish because people won't buy them.

So I think that there is going to be an era of interesting EVs.

EVs that actually work we are seeing for instance range being transformed by the latest technologies you need the new Mercedes CLA will do about 450 miles.

I think BMW are saying for the new three series it might be 500 miles a which days that's a completely different proposition to anything that we've seen before.

And I think the age of the EV is coming and I think people will think that it should have arrived by now and probably should have done but maybe that was naive.

But to me 2040 sounds about right.

So I would support that.

I wouldn't support getting rid of it all together if that's what the Tories are saying.

And I certainly wouldn't support banning petrol and diesel cars in 2030 and hybrids in 2035 because we're just not ready.

In 15 years from now sounds about bang on.

Well that's right we'll be another generation deep at least another generation deep in terms of technology and infrastructure and customer readiness.

Why not you know I think people I think the vast majority of people buying new cars should be buying just EVs after the 2040.

And there should be exemptions there should always be exemptions because there will always be people who want a naturally aspirated engine they'll be a very small number of them.

But the point is that the volumes of those cars will be so small that they'll have an almost negligible effect but it will allow the British sports car industry to survive in a way that it might not.

I mean we'll see we'll see how long both for instance does with its EV sports cars very interesting to see.

But if it turns out that people just despite all you know objective logic and everything I just want to be able to have a stick in their hand and I'm actually aspirated engine underneath their right foot.

Then you know there should be exemptions that allow them to do it and petrol should still be made available because there will be you know cars that are much much older.

And you know so they should see us out and yeah just a bit of common sense of pragmatism and above all certainty.

Yeah that's what that's what the industry needs isn't it.

So the EU should now say right so we've decided this and this ain't changing.

Yeah that's it yeah like it'll lump it.

And then the British government should fall in line with that.

I agree I totally agree.

That's that then. Can we talk about Jeremy government?

No we can't. We absolutely can't talk about Jeremy government.

So I went to and I can't talk about it yet because the embargo hasn't lifted.

But I went to JLR to have sort of longer look at the new Jaguar.

That's really what I can say about it on this podcast.

We'll say a bit more next week.

But literally the first thing they said.

So if we walked in the door was you can ask us anything and anything you like as long as the term the words Jerry McGovern isn't in the question.

Okay.

So so so Jerry McGovern who was sorry I don't know I shouldn't laugh I shouldn't laugh but it the way that this has sort of played out in the media is not entirely unamusing.

So the story of break it came out of Autocard India didn't it?

Yeah.

And obviously.

Good reason. Well by the way.

Oh for good reason yeah because JLR is owned by Tata and Autocard India are very connected to the very highest offices of Tata in India.

And the story was that Jerry McGovern had been.

Jerry McGovern is their chief creative officer.

Yeah.

The man who is credited with developing you know particularly the such the successful Land Rover design language.

That has done the company so much good over the years that I mean other JLR designers are available and were available at the time.

So it certainly you know how much of it was Jerry McGovern's work and how much of it was the work of others is something which will be debated at nausea until the end of time.

But anyway he was certainly the head of the design department their chief creative officer.

And for a long time and for a very long time.

And he was according to the the Autocard story which was then picked up by absolutely everybody and not denied by anybody.

Yeah was literally escorted from the building for reasons unknown reason and you talk I mean you know I have friends as do you in that organization.

And if you talk to them about it as I have they just go we don't know we've not been told anything.

Wow wow.

And certainly yeah that there are a small number of them who I don't think would just be bullshitting me about that.

I think they genuinely don't know so we don't know what's happened.

I am very confident it's got nothing to do with the perceived or the reception that the Jaguar video got all the reception to the type 00 concept car.

Because you know that would have happened a long time ago and he certainly wouldn't have been marched out the building.

You know there would have been some official press release decided to leave the company to pursue interest elsewhere in the industry.

He has done some stuff with northern motorcycles that's on the record and we know about that.

I don't know where the JLR took umbridge at that.

But again it's a very very public way of being certainly your most well known employee.

Yeah.

So something's going on.

Oh this is it so we know there's a new CEO there.

Yeah.

And it took Jaguar Land Rover JLR more than a week to say anything.

Yes.

Despite all the stories which they did nothing to deny.

And I mean JLR's so new newsworthy at the moment because of the rebrands and perhaps because of the concept car the Jaguar that anything happens at JLR and the newspapers pick up on it.

And so this is being reported far and wide that the government had been marched out of the building.

Yeah.

And even so it took a long time for an officials and it was just before the weekend wasn't it.

JLR released a statement saying no we haven't.

It's untrue that JLR has been dismissed from the company.

Something like that.

Yeah.

I thought they were very carefully chosen words.

Okay so what do we read from this?

No one is saying that he's still there.

Yep.

No one is saying that he left of his own volition.

Yep.

So he has gone.

And what do I read into this?

It's got legal hasn't it?

It sounds like it.

It absolutely has got.

The lawyers have got involved.

The lawyers have got involved and some agreed form of words has been released.

We will not be commenting further on this matter.

Yep.

So I imagine it's got very legal and very sticky.

And time alone will tell where this goes.

But in the meantime they are without a.

Do you know the other company which has a chief creative officer?

I don't know.

Yeah.

I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing.

He became because he was credited with those designs and the success that came with those designs.

Yeah.

He became massively influential within Jailer.

Beyond just powerful.

Beyond just designing cars.

Oh completely.

Chief creative officer.

So people would say wouldn't they that the Jaguar rebrand probably came under his remit?

Yeah.

Whether or not I'm not saying he decided everything.

It's quite the fact that he was the person who said that Jaguar had no equity.

Yeah.

You know I don't think the Jerry McGovern is a lifelong fan of Jaguar at all.

I mean he is I think it's fair to say he'd within the company and externally.

The reputation he has he's a controversial character.

Yeah.

Not universally loved.

But if you look at some of the comments are many of the comments that results on social media.

As a result of his departure from the company for reasons unknown.

A lot of people are saying you know what's gone on now Jailer they must be mad.

You know getting rid of this person who has done all these amazing things for this company over time.

That is certainly the perception of Jerry McGovern's contribution to Jailer over the I suppose the last couple of decades.

Yeah.

I think time alone will tell just how big a hole that leaves in Jailer's creative resources.

You know is he one of those people that you know who should simply cannot be filled or actually is there a huge wealth of people.

Yeah.

Of great talent just waiting for their talents to be showcased and maybe this is the great opportunity for them.

I very much hope it's the latter.

I do as well.

I do too.

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There was one other news thing that I wanted to briefly discuss.

And it's going to be very brief because we know next to nothing about it.

Anthony Hamilton, Lewis's father, has announced something.

Some social media accounts have popped up.

There is a website, a very, very simple website at the moment.

Something called Hybrid V10.

And this is the only bit of text that's on the website at the moment.

And it's in the name, real talent, real skill, real sound.

Announcing in 2026.

Hybrid V10, a new motorsport platform created for fans and the next generation by Anthony Hamilton,

developed to celebrate the unmistakable sound of V10 single-sita racing.

Wow.

And there are...

Okay, I've been out the country for the last two minutes.

I've missed this.

And there are several other trademarks that have been registered as well,

including Hybrid Grand Prix, Hybrid World Motorsport Festival,

a whole stack of others.

So, do you think this is a new single-seat series with Hybrid V10 engines?

That's the conclusion you have to reach, given the information that we have right now.

Well, if you get...

I wonder why, if he's straight there, whoever, are going down that road.

They've decided to say, if they're going down the sort of the traditional blue,

why they're going hybrid as well.

Yeah, I wonder that.

It might be that they do want manufacturer support.

And manufacturers will only get involved if there is something for them to...

Maybe it makes a marketing noise about relating to road cars.

Do you think having that hybrid on it would preclude also the inclusion of an H-packing gearbox?

Ooh.

That's what I want.

Almost as much as I want the V10s back, I want an H-packing gearbox.

But there are no drivers who know how to do that.

I know precisely.

If you make my point very well.

Get a whole new generation of...

Oh, yeah, but young guns.

You think how complicated Formula One cars are these days.

They pick up that in a heartbeat.

Yeah, well, you're probably right.

Yeah.

Yeah, a few test sessions and they'll be on top of it, wouldn't they?

Yeah.

It would be great.

I mean, I think it's gutsy.

I think it's really great.

And it depends who's Egypt comes under because if this isn't an FIA approved series,

they will not be fans.

No.

And what circuit is going to, for instance, allow it to be rented and its facilities use and everything else,

if they fear choosing off the FIA as a result?

But there are plenty of others, aren't there?

Well, there are.

But if it's really fast, I mean, hybrid V10 single-seated doesn't sound slow to me.

No.

So these would need to be circuits where all the certain level, other certain grade,

they'd probably need to be WEC level circuits, wouldn't it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, most of which...

We've only got one, I guess.

RFA circuits.

Yeah.

We've only got Silverstone, I guess, that qualifies.

I don't know where the Donington does.

Not sure.

Or Brands' Grand Prix.

I don't know.

But, I mean, I'm sure they have thought about all about this.

And we may be barking up completely wrong tree anyway.

But it does sound very interesting.

It does.

I mean, it sounds like an upstart rival to Formula One, doesn't it?

Yeah, and who knows?

Maybe that's completely wrong.

Maybe it's something else entirely.

But that's what you have to read into it.

Well, we'll see, won't we?

Do you remember Grand Prix Masters?

Yeah.

I didn't last very long to it.

No.

I've come from the home race that they had, but it was a single...

It was a single digit number, wasn't it?

And it was for the XF1 guys.

Yeah.

It's got people like M.O. and Nigel and Alex Caffey and people like that.

But this clearly isn't that, is it?

Do we think it's a sort of like an F2 rival?

A feeder series?

It sounds more to me like an alternative to F1.

You know, like Anthony Hamilton wants it to be seen as a competitor, a direct competitor.

I think it...

But it...

I understand why because Formula One has become obsessed with technology and with...

This sort of road relevance so that they can keep the manufacturers on side.

Yeah.

Despite the fact that nobody who actually enjoy...

I don't know, anybody...

Do you know anybody outside of a car manufacturer who wants to keep the current power

transfer when the new power trains are coming where 50% of the power development is...

No, they don't want it.

They don't want it.

Electrically?

Of course they don't.

Nobody wants it, but...

They want V10s with H-packing gearboxes.

Well, maybe not the H-packing gearboxes, but...

Yeah.

I mean, maybe...

Okay, how about this one?

Absolutely wild and very idle speculation.

What he's trying to do is produce a category of car that could be absorbed into Formula One

as a second category.

It's a second class like us on LMDH to the Formula One's LMH.

Right.

Okay, so we still have Formula One, but with a two good sounding cars.

Two good sounding cars, which are then bought into...

I mean, I have said this.

I've said this on this podcast in the past that what Formula One should do is for manufacturers

who really want dull sounding electrically generated hybrids, V, then do that, but then have another category.

So that all those brilliant motorsport companies we can't get anywhere near Formula One at the moment

can buy an off-the-shelf V10, but we're not with H-packing gearbox, but V10.

And then they just get bopped into a level playing field.

Well, that's right.

And if you're a has or a Williams or someone, it doesn't have to be for new teams,

but if you're not a manufacturer, it could be.

And then you can have 30 cars on the grid.

Well, yeah.

But even if you are the likes of a has, you might not be winning, but you'll be a fan favourite

because the cars sound great.

And there's so much precedent for this happening before,

back in the era of, what do they call it?

I can't know, the Jim Clark trophy.

Yeah.

And with that, when they had the naturally aspirated the turbo cars running together back in the 60s.

And Jonathan Palmer win that.

Jonathan Palmer did win it indeed.

You know, back in the 60s, you had often had Formula One grown praise,

which had Formula 2 cars running in Formula 2 cars,

at places like the Nürburgring, didn't really.

Well, I think it was, didn't Jackie Yitz come forth overall on a Formula 2 car at the rent?

Did he?

In about 1968, because it was, I may be wrong, but it's something like that.

You know, anything which gets the noises back, fills the grids up.

I do sort of doubt it because, you know, we know that Formula One is really only interested in the money.

Yeah.

And small British motorsport teams, buying off the shelf V10 engines is not where the money is.

No, no.

The money is getting big manufacturers to get involved.

But I suppose the fundamental point here is, it is their space for a top level single-seater championship

that puts the interests of the fans first.

I think the theory, absolutely, but the reality, where are these cars going to run?

No.

Maybe it is an FIA approved series, at which stage it's very easy,

but I can't see why the FIA would approve it.

And if it's not, I think it's really difficult.

But wouldn't it be great, you know, if, for instance, this returned, you know, really serious single-seater racing to Africa.

And they run at Kalami.

Oh, great.

Wouldn't that be fantastic?

Great.

Yeah.

Well, we'll have to wait and see.

And then I know in the UK, we arguably only have Silverstone,

but there are plenty of circuits that have dropped off the F1 calendar throughout Europe and other parts of the world.

You know, even places like Spa, that's in sort of perennial danger of dropping off the calendar for some reason.

Absolutely.

Very interesting.

Well, we, Anthony Hamilton, we look forward to hearing more.

Now, this is the one of the last podcasts that we're going to do this year.

And I think we've actually only got one more going out this year because we're taking a Christmas break.

Yes, there will be no podcast on the 29th of December.

In which we apologize, but it will be far too full of turkey and red wine and goodness knows what to be sat in a basement studio and Bristol recording podcasts.

Indeed.

So we'll be back again on January the...

The 5th.

Yeah.

So we've got another one going out this year.

Yeah, next Monday.

Exactly.

But that's right, we'll be back on the 5th.

And so just to wrap up this episode, I thought it might be interesting to look at some of the highlights from the intercooler this year.

Yeah.

Some of the cars we've driven, some of the stories we've put together.

And just before we get into that, that reminds you all that we have a new product from us.

Another new product, my god, where did we find the time?

The intercooler daily podcast.

So this is a new podcast for all those of you who really enjoy podcasts and you just want more stuff to listen to.

If this show, this weekly show isn't enough.

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Get ready.

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You get this show, this weekly Monday podcast, completely ad free.

You get asked the intercooler, which goes out on a Thursday.

That's the podcast where we answer your questions.

So as a subscriber, you get to listen to that and ask questions.

And then throughout the rest of the week, you'll get to listen to our audio articles.

So the audio versions of the articles that we publish on our multi-award winning magazine.

Yeah.

So it's a really, really nice package of stuff, we think.

It's something like two and a half hours of audio a week.

That's a lot, isn't it?

Right. So if you've got a commute or you...

That's decent.

What you're walking the dog or whatever.

It's a lot of stuff to listen to.

It costs only £6.99 a month.

If you just head to the intercooler podcast on Apple podcast or on Spotify,

you'll find everything you need right there.

And it's really, really simple to do.

So the intercooler daily podcast, if you just want more audio from us,

that's the way to do it.

If you're someone who's thought about subscribing to the main intercooler site,

but you've actually thought there's an awful lot of stuff, which I'd love to read,

but I just don't have the time.

Listen to it.

You'll get it all.

Everything that we publish on the website, we also voice.

And you can have all of those stories.

As Dan says, plus the intercooler, you can get to ask us questions.

And if you've not listened to us, the intercooler,

we absolutely love doing it.

Largely because all of you will not do the work for us, which is great.

But the questions are so interesting and sometimes so intricate and evolving.

It's very rarely, you know, should I buy an audio or a BMW?

No, it's not.

It's really, really good stuff.

And we've done 30 something episodes and it's steaming along and it's been a real success.

So maybe you'd like to have a good listen to that.

Yeah.

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So like I said, I wanted to just have a look at some of the highlights for TI this year.

One of the things that we, apart from introducing audio articles early in the year,

we've also brought in a few new writers, brilliant writers like Taty Reed,

Richard Porter joined at the start of the year.

Ben Collins made his debut.

We've also introduced a chap called Jez Medinger, who is not a well-known name in the car journalism world.

The goodness may he should be.

He should be.

He will.

He's a fantastic writer.

And he's got an interesting background as well.

So he's written some cracking stories for us.

I thought actually we should look through.

Well, he's a bona fide film director.

He is.

Yeah, he is.

And he wants tried to do a sub-ten lap of the nerve agreeing in his delorean.

Yeah, and he's written a brilliant story about that.

So you could tell he's a proper person.

Yeah, he is.

He's great.

So do you want to hear our most read articles from the year?

I genuinely don't know.

Oh, God, I hope I've got at least one of them.

Nope.

Then you've got a couple.

Oh, blind.

There's a big surprise there actually.

Okay.

No, you've got a few.

I don't have any.

I've just realised that.

Oh, dear.

That's because I do the videos.

That's because you do the videos.

That's why.

Yes.

And I'm a great face of porn characters.

In at number 10.

We really are doing the top 10.

Yeah.

Okay.

In at number 10.

Geek out.

Code names.

That's Richard.

So Richard Porter's column is called Geek out.

Yes.

And it does what it says on the ten, doesn't it?

He just goes full nerd on a topic.

Yeah.

And people love it.

And so our tenth most read article this year is a Geek out column about car code names.

Number nine.

Okay.

Well, we're doing this.

If you're sitting there listening to the old gosh, I really quite like read that.

Or quite like to hear that.

Yeah, you can.

Because it's all there.

It's all right.

All you need to do is subscribe.

Yeah.

Either an audio or any subscription for the TI Daily podcast.

Or you can subscribe to the main channel.

And everything we're talking about is there sitting there waiting for you?

It is.

Number nine.

Sweet spot.

Where you compared the latest Carrera GTS, the hybrid one to the 997 GTS.

Often said to be the sweet spot.

Yeah.

Number eight.

Steve Suckliff's overrated article on the Mazda MX-5.

Oh.

Blimey.

That's controversial.

He's not scared.

Yeah.

He didn't overrated a little McLaren F1 once, didn't he?

That's there to see as well.

It is.

We don't necessarily agree, by the way.

Of course we don't.

But that's the point.

We're never going to tell our writers what to write or pin use to have.

Yeah.

In at number seven is another Suckliff one.

An hour cars piece on his Mark 7 VW Golf R.

Which is interesting.

I think that shows that people really enjoy hour cars' stories.

And there's something about the Mark 7 Golf R that people are fascinated by.

Yeah.

It's interesting.

Great car.

In at number six.

This is an old one that's still getting a lot of traffic.

The Lord and Ferrari fraud.

Do you remember that one?

Brocket.

Yeah.

Brocket.

Brockets and then you've been in the headlines again recently for even less.

Salubris reasons.

Maybe that's why that article keeps getting picked.

Maybe.

Yeah.

In at number five, when Man Maths goes bad, this is a jazz meddlinger story.

His account of buying a cheap 911 and everything that goes wrong with it.

And apparently cheap 911 until it took me something else indeed.

Yeah.

In at number four, geek out again.

There are no boring cars.

That was Richard Porter's first column for us early in the year.

Where he just argues that, you know, you pick any car and he reckons he can find something interesting about it.

Yeah.

And I believe that he can.

In at number three.

First among equals.

That was Porsche 911 GT3 RS4 liter versus 911 R versus 911 ST.

Wow.

That was a story, wasn't it?

Great story.

We were the first to do it.

Yeah.

I think the thing is, I've done it since.

No.

The three greatest water cooled 911s on the road together for the first time.

Yeah.

And.

Well, I mean, I wrote it.

You did the video.

And I certainly wouldn't have expected the car, which I named the winner to done so before.

Before we did it.

That makes any kind of sense at all.

It was, I mean, it's one of those things.

Because often we go and do these tests.

And for I say, most of the time, we go and do these tests.

And we have a pretty good inkling before we do.

Even though we shouldn't.

We should be entirely objective and come to these things completely open-minded.

But you can't really get driven all these cars before.

Yeah.

I came to this.

I really didn't know which one of the three I would think was the Goatiest of Goatty Water cooled 911s.

Until we got them together and we drove them all back to back on the same piece of road.

And then yet to me, it became reasonably clear.

Yeah.

Yeah. We're not going to give it away here, obviously.

That's not price of thought.

Number two, you'd be surprised at this.

Yeah.

Audi RS3 Sportback versus VW Golf R.

What?

Yeah.

Really?

Well, it's another Golf R.

Yeah.

And B, we only published it a few weeks ago.

And it's already done enough traffic to get to the number two position.

Yeah.

Some stories just get picked up.

And then just fly.

They go viral.

They do.

But you do see there's something about the Golf R, and it's sort of equivalent cars from other manufacturers that just get loads of traction.

Yeah.

Sorry.

I'm not intended there.

But they, you could have gone away with that.

I could.

But people are fascinated by them.

And actually, you know, they do certainly the Golf R. It does sell in big numbers.

I also think it is for most people.

If most people sort of think of, well, what is the car that I would have that I would choose to have?

If I knew the car that just does everything.

Yeah.

Everything.

It's a Golf R, isn't it?

It is.

Yeah, it is.

That's fair enough.

So number one, you can't even begin to guess.

You'll never guess this.

Then you ought to tell me.

Taty reads first ever story for us.

Isn't that amazing?

Yeah.

The most red story published by the Intercooler this year was Taty Reed introducing her Land Rover 90 Blutet.

Blutet.

With a charming story.

Yeah.

In its flow.

She's.

This was after she'd come in here and been on the podcast.

Yeah.

I mean, Taty, I'm sure everybody knows you Taty is.

But if you don't, she has a very significant social media presence.

She's just one of these genuinely real enthusiasts who loves old Land Rover and goes off and does silly things in them.

Yeah.

And she is absolutely great.

And she's, you know, she is young and very enthusiastic and absolutely unafraid to get her hands dirty and to sort of wade into engine oils and get underneath cars and sort them out and go off into the.

For yonder and yeah, that's great.

Well, I'd never have guessed.

No, but I'm very proud of that.

Yeah.

Do you know what?

Someone commented a little while ago.

I think it's actually on the story written by Joanna Fadalgo, another one of our writers.

And she was writing about her growing collection of little matchbox cars.

And some of you very small cars.

We meet literally matchbox cars.

Yeah.

And she, and she was just explaining why it meant so much to her.

And someone commented it's such a breath of fresh air to read a piece in an automotive magazine.

And it not feel alpha and red blooded.

It's soft and gentle.

Yeah.

You know, and I don't know if that describes us necessarily.

But it's great that there's space for for that sort of thing on T.I.

Could do soft and gentle.

So a few more minutes, then, just to wrap up.

These are all the cars that we've rated 9 out of 10 this year.

All the new cars.

Okay.

There are no tens.

No.

Another year passes the no tens.

Yeah.

So that Alpine A110 remains the only 10 out of 10 car.

Yeah.

Land Rover Defender Octa.

Defo.

9 out of 10.

Yeah.

911 GT3.

9 out of 10.

911 Carrera T.

Yeah.

9 out of 10.

9 and a bit out of 10.

Yeah.

Ferrari Dodici Cylindre Spider.

I mean, I haven't actually haven't driven that car.

I don't think you have.

I've driven the Dodici Cylindre, which I hear.

It's appreciating a bit.

And maybe it's not gone down a huge bundle with the punters.

I thought it was brilliant.

I thought it was such a cleverly conceived car.

Because it's not trying to do more, more, more.

It's much more of a traditional GT.

And I really loved it.

I thought it was a fantastically well-judged piece of work.

So I hope it's doing okay.

911 Carrera GTST Hybrid.

Goodness me.

There are awful lot of 911s in here.

New Astamart and Vanquish.

Yeah.

Boram Motorworks.

Alan Mann's 68 edition.

You won't necessarily know what that is.

I'm not very, I've not driven it.

I have brilliant car.

Ferrari F80.

Ben Collins.

Drive that car for us.

Yes.

M3CS Touring.

Fantastic car.

Ferrari 296 Speciali.

And Pusher.

911 Turbo S.

Then U992.2.

A few 911s in there.

Is there a 911 which hasn't got 9 out of 10?

Should we move on?

Yes.

Quickly.

The lowest rated cars?

Go on.

Only three.

Six was the lowest rating this year.

Okay.

I know what one of them is because I wrote it.

In your screen.

Yeah.

Cortamaster.

Okay.

Then I've written more than one of them.

Many John Cooper works electric.

That was me.

Was it you?

Yeah.

Okay.

You did the next one.

Puma.

Yeah.

Electric Puma.

Yeah.

Jenny.

Parable thing.

Parable.

Isn't that the best selling car I'm British at the moment?

Bet you the electric one isn't.

Okay.

The Puma.

Yeah.

Okay.

If you're telling me the electric.

If you tell.

Some of my favorite comparison tests from this year.

Yeah.

That's the Martin vanquish shootout so old versus new.

Yeah.

That was good fun wasn't it?

That was really good.

So I only have one favorite comparison test.

Okay.

We'll come to that.

The light fantastic.

That was the McLaren LT group test.

Which I forget.

But that was this year.

That was earlier this year.

Was it?

Yeah.

So what else did we have in there?

It was all the LTs.

All the LTs.

So we have the 600, the 675 and the 765.

Yeah.

Of course.

Prancing horse meets raging bull.

Lamborghini Mura versus Ferrari Daytona.

Oh, isn't that great?

Fantastic.

First one equals.

We've mentioned this GT3 RS4 liter 911 R 911 ST.

Eagle e-types.

It was the one.

It was one of the.

But it was also.

Even we had two million pound Eagle e-types.

Which were astonishingly wonderful brilliant gorgeous cars.

But also we had a closed road.

We had one.

We had the best road in South Wales to ourselves for the day.

So we were very, very lucky.

We turned up and they closed it.

But we got permission to use it.

And the weather held as well.

I remember driving towards that shoot and it was chucking it down.

Can we have the bridge?

Oh, you got a message from the photographer, didn't you?

Yes.

And can I turn around?

Which would have been a problem for us?

Yes.

And I thought it was going to be a total washout.

But when we got there, it was gray and gloomy.

But as I got out of my car,

it just started to brighten up a little bit.

And it just kept brightening up.

And it became a really lovely autumnal day.

Go and look at the tech out of free trial.

Just to go and look at the photography from that day.

Yeah.

It was, I think it's possibly the best looking shoot we've done.

It's certainly.

Oh, I think so, yeah.

I like to remember you getting out of one of the e-types

and saying to me,

we're not going to drive a better car this year.

Or a more enjoyable car.

And I would absolutely support that.

Well, it's been a year, isn't it?

It really has been quite a year.

We're going to have to try and find a way to top it.

We're going to top it.

Do it all year again next year, aren't we?

Bill, two is all over us.

No, no, don't.

Okay, well, listen, let's wrap that one up there.

I'm going to remind you all that you can get a gift subscription

to the intercooler for the car lover in your life this Christmas.

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You do.

You've worked hard this year.

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Tell your partner, tell your brother or your sister,

or your type you would really like.

Yeah.

The secret to a good relationship, particularly when it comes to presents,

is to find out what your other half wants and then get it for them.

That's right.

Yeah.

That's it.

Don't go off-paste.

Yeah.

And if you're the one who wants it, tell your other half what you want

and then get them to get it for you.

Indeed.

Yeah.

In this case, a subscription to the intercooler.

There'll be a link in the description beneath this podcast.

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Yes, indeed.

So, well, listen, thanks all for doing that.

And yeah, in return, we'll be back with another podcast,

the last of the year.

Next week.

See you then.

What's going on with the petrol car ban? #293

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