Where does a Sportscar end and a Supercar start? | The Car Podcast #57

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I'm here for the premiere, the Rome premiere of Luca seeing Red, and it's just Christmas in 898 of the people.

Say something.

I'm slightly nervous. You've got a message about the Everyman, can you?

Yes, okay, so there's going to be a premiere of the film at the Everyman in Bristol on November the 4th.

Come along, and if you get tickets for that, there's something seriously good in the goodie bag.

And on top of that...

Uh, that's by the way, that is Bristol Stylies.

On the red carpet, there might be like a 14-year-old Mondial with an oil leak.

The 10th and the 12th of November, the film, Luca Singer, will be shown in 15

Everymans around the country.

All Everymans.

So that will be a sort of general release for two days.

And then hopefully, there'll be more days next year when you can see it,

and there'll be a proper release when they're managed.

Exactly. That is the plan.

Thank you.

Hello, and welcome to the car podcast of Chris Harrison and his friends.

An especially happy occasion this evening.

We're full of beans and the joy of life, just existing on this amazing planet

that supports life in so many ways.

This is episode 57, which I do believe the word varieties crept in when describing it,

because we all love.

What's your favourite, lads?

Is it salad cream?

Baked beans.

Is it beans?

What, is it baked beans?

Yeah, I think it's got to be baked beans.

Really, lads?

Yeah, definitely.

Baked beans is one of the great inventions.

In fact, I'll pose the question.

Could you like someone that was openly hostile towards hindsight beans?

No.

They can't be such a person.

Yeah, yeah.

That's a dog hater, isn't it?

Let's move on to our agenda for this week.

What have we done in cars this week that doesn't involve a film premiere?

A slightly barbed jive aimed at...

Clifford, you bastard.

A team from Nilkippen, which I rather like.

So I'm going to pass this on to my learned friend, Neil Clifford.

Okay, I...

Well, we had a nice...

We had a nice...

I'll go back a week.

We had a nice dinner with a car company, didn't we?

Last Friday, that was very lovely.

We went in a car, but we were talking about cars.

That was nice.

And then there's a lovely, lovely little...

The best coffee in Buckinghamshire in Tring,

run by my lovely friend, Aaron,

who organized a car event at Halton RAF Base.

So we got access to see all the secret little helicopters and planes

just around the corner from me in...

Well, in Halton.

And they're pissed down with rain.

So thank God we're all in the hangar having his lovely coffee in croissants.

That was nice.

That was last Saturday or Sunday.

No, Sunday.

And then basically, I bloody did too much work all week.

So I did nothing in the week,

apart from drive up and down to Salvino.

And then on Sunday, it was Bista.

It was Bista scramble.

And we're all...

We were...

Most of us were there.

We'll all touch on Bista, I'm sure.

But what a brilliant event, lovely place.

What's going on there?

I just tried to drink my water and poured it all down my front.

Is that what you were doing?

Yeah, look at that.

It's one of those days.

Oh, it's weed.

And you know what?

I sent a lovely little email to my friend, Philip,

that sort of is the big, big boss there, actually.

I don't know if anyone knows that.

Yeah.

I know his boss, though.

Yeah, I met his boss.

I met his boss, but I know his boss's boss.

Yeah, but I know his boss.

I didn't we?

And I said to Philip, you know what?

Just congratulations.

No matter how much amazing metal was there,

and Chris Harris won the award of the two coolest cars

at the bloody place.

Really?

But it's all about the people.

Loads of chat.

You know it's a good car event when you take no photographs.

Yeah.

Yes.

Because you're too busy talking to lovely people.

And obviously, Robert Dent was there.

And everyone else that we love was there.

And there was supposed to be a storm.

It was the end of the world.

The BBC was telling us to nail our windows shut

because the fucking weather was so bad.

And it was a beautiful sunny Sunday morning.

So you guys will add some more salt and pepper condiments

to my Bista story.

But it's just, it's fantastic.

And there's only half an hour from my house.

It was even better, and therefore better than Goodwood.

I, yeah, I second that.

I think that before we talk about a week of cars Bista,

so I arranged to meet Max from Alphaholics

at Lee Delamere at whatever it was, 6.15.

Half an hour before that, I was still looking for the keys

to my 205XS, which I just bought.

And I couldn't find them.

Turns out I'd put them in the drawer

where I put the dog leads,

because that's what you do with your car keys,

isn't it?

You put them in with the dog leads.

I couldn't find the car.

Is there anything more stressful than having,

if you're like me and you don't really understand organization,

I actually got the car out.

It was ready to go in the morning.

I put fuel in it.

I made sure it'd start.

It was all ready to go outside where I live.

And I couldn't find the keys.

And I stood outside and I pretty much cried.

You know, I just thought, I've organized,

I've dealt with bereavements for people

that are quite close to me.

I didn't cry.

But not finding the key to a G-registered hatchback

was almost an emotional incident for me.

I was like, I can't believe this.

Anyhow, the old banana faithfully started

and I took the banana.

I met Max and we drove to Bister

with him, followed me in their amazing super,

which is just an absolute weapon.

I mean, you gas the GT3,

you look behind you in this bloody car

from the Italian job.

It's still right, but it's up your chaff.

But what I love about Bister is,

I'm not really good at car events.

Don't, you know, too many people is a bit much for me.

And I, big gatherings of anything I struggle with.

But I really like Bister.

So, Philip, if you're listening, it's great.

But I love it.

It feels good.

There's no swang.

There's no, you know what?

I just think it's great.

I think it's the best thing in the car world.

Because it's, there's a lovely sense of meritocracy.

You know, you turn up there and there's an AX GT

could be parked next to a McLaren F1

and everyone is appreciating each other's cars.

And, you know, it doesn't have any of,

it's not, it's not window dressed.

It's dressed with love and affection

for this subject that we adore.

And a sense of equality as well.

I really love it.

It's, it's, it's different league to anything else out there.

Yeah.

It almost feels totally uncurated and uncoordinated

or unbelievably carefully arranged.

So it looks uncoordinated.

It's lovely.

I think that's what it is, yeah.

It's, it's really authentic.

It's real and everyone's, you know,

and they obviously had an awful dreadful thing happen.

And you, you sense the relief and joy

about Bista Scramble was back

and everyone was just happy it was back

and everyone was just in a very good positive frame of mind

and wanted to make sure that everyone was looking out

for everyone else.

And like all great things, it keeps revealing more.

So you go around a corner and you think,

I didn't know that bit was there

and I didn't know that bit was there.

It keeps giving.

There's more and more and more

and you go to another car park.

God, I can't believe that's there.

But I think Bista is the,

though Scramble is the only event where you could imagine

that in the furthest corner of the last field of the parking

would be a 250 GTO.

Just because that was the only place

that it could park when it turned up.

Any other event would go usher it in and go,

no, no, you've got, but they'd go, no, no, no, no.

That bloke in the Diohazzo Shura GTTI turned up a 710.

He has to park there, not you.

Yeah.

I managed what you've done in cars this week?

I'm afraid I've done very little,

but on a related subject,

I got to take my lovely Audi A4 Avant to university.

I took my son to university in a car

and I've got to tell you,

I looked at the amount of stuff

that an undergraduate takes with him minus cricket bag

because a friend bought that.

You need a little mini TARDIS, don't you,

for the amount of stuff these kids have.

And I have to say, it was a very, very emotional day

as these things are.

Mr. Clifford gave me a little bit of parental

kind of guidance on this.

He said that when he did this with his daughter,

they were just in floods of tears, or Emma was at least,

and it was in floods of tears.

And then they used their find my phone

and found out that their daughter was at a water...

In the weather spoons.

Cool.

So she was absolutely fine about it.

I have to say, possibly my son was,

but I'll tell you what makes this particularly a good car story.

After the big emotional beat of goodbye,

you know, have a great time,

we'll see in a few weeks sort of thing,

I was walking in a little alleyway behind his college,

and there was a very nice man called Giles,

with his wife and his daughter.

And he just came up to me and said,

Manish, what a pleasure to meet you, and shook my hand.

And he was a fellow pod listener.

And he was an absolute car nut.

And he talked about the fact that he was there

to go and check out Boxard Brooks for his daughter,

which is a lovely girl.

And he said, do you know I love this pod?

And his wife then interjected and said,

it's his Saturday morning time.

That's what he does.

He listens to the pod alone on a Saturday morning,

and he absolutely loves it.

And he said, you guys have no idea what you're doing

for the mental health of guys like me, of men.

Men need to talk.

And I have to say, what a perfect little story

about what we've done in cars laterally,

even if it is a diesel Audi with a two-litre engine.

I could also tell Giles that I went to watch some Brooks

and look what I made of myself.

Couldn't hold down a job for more than six months,

and I've lost all my hair.

That's about it.

Right, Cooper, what are you doing in cars this week?

Well, there's been no film premiere this week,

so I've done absolutely nothing in cars this week.

I'm totally gussed.

You bastard.

What do you do when there's no film premiere?

I mean, Manish, I don't understand.

I mean, they happen every five years.

I did do some, actually.

It's been an amazing week in cars, really.

We've talked about Bista and the Scramble,

and it really, really was amazing.

And you're absolutely right.

I've got about three photographs from Bista yesterday.

Yeah, I was supposed to post up yesterday when I got back.

I saw them.

All I have is the photos people have given me in my cars.

I have no other...

Good sign.

You're right, it's very good sign.

The other sign is, when you look on social media,

you see loads of things.

You see, I didn't know that was there.

There was one of those there.

And you think, I just spent so much time talking to people,

which is very, very nice and lovely.

And we met some friends of ours who live very locally.

So we had a little chat with them,

quite a big chat with them at the start,

and then met a few other people.

And you just, it's just...

And you wander around and you sort of wander around talking,

rather than wandering around looking.

You suddenly realize, I think I've been around everything.

I must have seen everything.

You think, I've actually seen very, very scramble.

So Philip, it was and Dan.

Dan works for Philip, doesn't he?

I think that's how it works.

Yeah.

Philip's the boss.

Philip's the boss, yeah.

And yeah, Dan was the boss.

Philip's the boss.

Anyway, the other thing we did,

and Chris, you and I did this,

on Friday, up in Croft in the northeast of England,

brilliant circuit, lovely part of the world,

a really well-looked after circuit.

She's not part of the Jonathan Palmer or Silverstone spheres.

It's far, isn't it?

It's some Truxton's lot.

Yeah, I think you tell her that lot.

Yeah, it's been very well, beautifully looked after.

The friend, our friend, friend of the pod, Sir Chris Hoy,

as many of you will probably know,

this year has launched his Tour de Four charity,

which is an amazing fundraising exercise

for the five leading cancer charities in the UK,

which he started up after his diagnosis

and all of his energy being poured into that

as he thinks about sort of what next

and all things he wants to do.

And he had a track day at Croft on Friday.

Chris, you were there doing sterling surface,

driving lots of customers around at the track day

in lots of nice cars.

And the boys were there, my boys were there

driving that wonderful revolution sports car,

giving passenger laps to lots of people.

I steadfastly refused to get in a car with them.

It just looked far too fast.

And I said, I know, not because I'm sissy,

I'll just spoil it for them

because I just wanted to go slower.

And I ran an auction.

Take two.

Chris, very, very, I was hugely honoured to be asked.

He said, we're going to do a fundraising auction at lunchtime.

And during the week he said, would you mind running it?

And I said, well, of course, I'm honoured and delighted to run it,

never having run an auction before in my life.

So, but I thought, how hard can it be?

Actually, it turned out to be really easy

because there were some lovely people in the audience

who bid some amazing prices

for some wonderful auction items,

donated by some lovely firms and so forth.

You see, we'll put a link on the YouTube website

about the event.

And you can see who donated

and all the things that were going on.

You'll see on Chris's, Sir Chris's

and Lord Chris of Bristol's Instagram,

a few pictures of who were there.

But a bit like Bista, it was about happiness.

It was a shit day.

The weather was shocking.

It was the start of storm aiming.

So it sort of started wet and got worse

and really, really biblical.

But the whole day was really lovely and happy.

Chris Sir Chris looked just really chuffed

and enjoying it, enjoying driving the cars.

He's quite a good driver.

He's quite good, to say the least.

Loads of people there.

He had a great time.

Everyone had a great time.

Nobody fell out.

The car literally is a metaphor and a vehicle

for happiness and enjoyment.

And doing nothing else and enjoying each other's company

and having a bit of a laugh and talking bollocks

about all the stuff we love talking about.

It was a perfect weekend cars.

And Sir Chris, bless you.

It was a mega, you were a legend.

It was an amazing event.

We've got to do one next year.

Right, this is all far too sickly sweet

and nice at the moment.

So I'm going to bend this right out of shape.

So that Croft, the weather at Croft was absolutely shocking.

Like they red fangtick.

It was a flood on the road.

I drove five and a half hours to get there

in a turbo of 50th edition.

Nice car.

That was my main dunks from Bristol.

Got there.

And the first thing I presented with

is my old 40 to our rest and a gaggle of people going,

I bet you wish you didn't fucking sell that.

It's always a good conversation to start with.

So once I got over the years to just go and cry,

I hate to say I didn't melt because,

yeah, Old Hoy is a good boy.

And we had a very good crack with him.

I took him out in that 40 to our rest.

So Miles Newhouse, who's a legend,

who owns that 40 to our rest.

Yes, I did sell.

I just shouldn't have sold.

He spanks it himself.

He's a really good artist.

I'm 10,000 miles an hour used properly.

But he said, if you do hot laps for people

and they pay for a lap, I'll get the car sent there

and he did and he turned it himself.

Fucking legend.

So we did some laps in that.

And it felt like it almost crashed quite a lot

because the old cup twos don't move the water.

They have four mil in the tread depth.

So she was moving around a bit at times.

And then a Hoy at the end, as she's been known, Sir Hoy.

He's called Sir Hoy, by the way,

because when we did a race together at Le Mans earlier this year,

our engineer, his name escapes me.

Lovely, lovely lady.

She, she didn't know what to call him on the WhatsApp group.

So she started calling him Sir Hoy.

Can Sir Hoy please bring his overalls

to the screen to hear it.

And I, no one corrected her, bless her.

So he was just called Sir Hoy the whole weekend.

And it stuck.

It's really bad.

Genius.

And you can laugh about people being a knight of the realm

for doing amazing things

when you're a fucking motor engineer, isn't it?

But he, he was legendary and he says,

I want to lap in the car with you.

So he, he bid for his own charity

to come for a lap with me.

I think.

He did.

Genius.

And he was just crying with laughter.

So yeah, it was lots of fun.

But Porsche deserve a big part of the back.

They bought three press cars up there,

people to drive, to be driven in.

They gave us a turbo.

Me and my mate, Dunks, who's a car trading legend

from the South West came up.

And he just, it was great to see Dunks' reaction.

We drove five hours up there, six hours back,

got back about eight, nine at night,

having left at five in the morning.

And he just went road trip.

I went, what do you mean?

He goes, it was a road trip straight, isn't it?

When's the road trip bad?

He was quite right.

We're very lucky.

We do a lot more of this,

but for someone that has a normal job,

a road trip, a midweek road trip,

is spectacular fun.

You too.

So yeah, that was brilliant.

Pure luxury.

I need to just say a massive thank you

to the two individuals, businesses that supported me

or actually created the things that I showed at Bista.

So the M5 Touring, if you want to look on Instagram,

you'll see that we took that there.

It's different.

It's a green color now and it's got the interior done.

Dara has built this incredible engine.

These small businesses, like everything M3 or everything M

and GP Customs Classics,

they take big risks doing this shit.

They don't have limits resources.

Yeah, I'm not a blagger,

but they put their time into these things

and they take a punt.

I take a bit of a punt,

but they take a bigger punt, I think,

and I want to reward that bravery

with getting them business.

They're spectacular people to work with

and all I can say about the cars,

which I think looked sensational and really special,

I hope they helped pique an interest in renewal

and modifying something you've already got

and personalizing it, adding a touch.

Maybe don't buy another car.

Maybe do something special to an existing car.

I think both those cars piqued that interest.

And the other thing is really enjoy the process

that you go through and choose who you do it with.

And I'm sure we've all done this.

We've all had projects that the joy isn't just in the end product.

You get to meet a new person.

I look at Dara and Peter and think,

these are people I've far out of beer with

and people I've called friends for 20 years.

They're great. They're really, really good lads.

I just love doing both cars.

We've had, it's been so much fun.

There's painful moments, obviously,

but when you get to see, you know,

people stood by what they've created.

I didn't create these cars. I had an idea.

They're the ones that executed.

And you see the pride in what they've created.

It's like, and they're in amongst,

the M2CS is being launched next to their car.

And there's just a bloke from near Reading

who's had to deal with my mad ideas

about what an integrated cabin should look like.

And I think he's just knocked it out of the park.

It's just mega to see.

So maybe don't buy another thing just yet.

Maybe pass some love over the thing you've already got.

Here, here.

Oh, this is bloody brilliant.

It is good.

Who wrote this? Was it you, Clifford?

Yeah.

Draw the line where the supercar starts

and the sports car ends.

I mean, this is...

Right.

I'll give it to you, Neil,

because you thought it up or you expressed it that way.

Well, I think it's so hard.

It's so hard, this, isn't it?

We'll find out.

Well, the thing is it changes over time, doesn't it?

It's very, very fluid because, I don't know,

in the 80s, we would have said, okay,

let's draw it at horsepower.

Anything that's over 400 or 350 or anything that,

you know, 0-60 was always the measure, almost, of the peak.

First it was, what, six seconds?

I remember the six-second debate.

And then you remember the five-second debate,

or the Porsche Turbo 930 has broken the six-second.

And then suddenly four seconds came in, didn't it?

Where was that?

Sort of F40 maybe, 959.

And then now it's three seconds and a fucking career

of tea can do it in 3.3 or whatever.

Can't it now?

So you can't really say it's in 0-60, can you?

And then-

Well, surely the EV exploded that.

It all happened, yeah.

So the EVs exploded it.

And then there may be there's a judgment,

this is where I get a bit too nuanced,

that there's different levels of judgment,

depending on the mark.

You know, if you're Lamborghini Ferrari,

maybe Aston Martin,

maybe you've got different rules of supercar versus sports car.

But if you're Porsche, if you're a little more mass,

maybe you've got to, it's only the peak one.

It's only the top, it's only the cherry on the cake,

like the Turbo.

You can never say 992, career RS or whatever.

I don't even know what the models are of 992.

I'm still fucking bored with 992.

The, it can't be a supercar.

It's got to be the top one only.

The badge on the back is too long.

If the badge is too long, it ain't a supercar.

Porsche really lost the plot on badges.

But as Aston Martin vantage, is that a supercar?

I don't think it is, is it?

No, DB12, DB12 maybe just gets in there,

I think vanquish maybe is.

So I think, I think as I would go now,

if someone said to me, look, stop fucking waffling,

draw some rules.

I would say 600 horsepower,

if it's V12, automatically in the club of supercar.

And then in the twos, 0 to 60,

as long as it's not electric.

And then if it's a Lamborghini or Ferrari,

then you're in anyway.

There you go, there's my rules.

I know that.

Not often I disagree with you, it's not often I disagree with you,

but I think we're quite far apart.

No, I'm far apart.

That's the point of this.

This is why I think it's really interesting.

Can I tell you what my rule is?

Is there's only one?

Where you going to?

Go on.

Would you put it on a poster and stick it on the wall?

Yeah, I think I agree with you.

If you stick it on a poster on the wall, it's a supercar.

If you don't, it ain't.

Is that a purely aesthetic judgment?

Is that where you're at?

No, it's absolutely not an aesthetic judgment.

It's absolutely not.

No Lamborghinis are supercars.

Say again?

No Lamborghinis for me are a supercar now.

I wouldn't put one of those on my wall.

So this is where there is something

about how it changes through time.

So in the 70s and 80s,

in the 70s and 80s,

I mean, the difference,

the world then was a bit more black and white.

It was a bit more black and white.

And the comparison would be,

the sports car would have been watching Return of the Saint

with Ian Elgarvey on a Sunday night.

Jaguar XJS.

It was, you know, it was accessible.

We could sort of see it and understand it.

Spire Love Me, James Bond, Barbara Bach,

Esprit as a fucking submarine, totally inaccessible.

It's the difference between what we could see

was accessible and not.

It was, is it black and white?

Is it gray?

Or is it just technicolor?

So now there aren't posters either.

There's the stuff that's on Instagram

and all these people,

some of them are Bista or wherever they are

taking photographs of cars.

So the modern equivalent of there's a poster,

you've cut out of a magazine or went to Athena

or wherever it is stuck on the wall.

The modern equivalent is who do you take,

who takes photographs of stuff

and puts someone on Instagram?

So I don't think an Aston Martin,

I'm not sure any of, you know,

is a Valkyrie supercar, absolutely.

Is a V8 Vantage a supercar?

Absolutely not.

Because, you know, you wouldn't put a poster of it

on your wall.

I think at one level.

Valkyrie's a supercar though.

There's another level.

There's a hypercar supercar, true.

I think hypercars are a properly shit term.

Right, let's move on, Manage.

My understanding is the first supercar

was a Lamborghini Mura.

That was the first time.

300 SL.

So I think that the Mura was the first time

that somebody coined that term.

Now 300 SL, there are probably other cars that do that.

And it's, you know, as Neil says,

it's quite fluid this because you can have

your kind of platonic ideal 1967 supercar.

But what is it about that?

385 horsepower is not particularly remarkable.

5.7 seconds to 0 to 60 is not particularly remarkable.

But oddly, I think Mr. Cooper kind of has it.

Because it's not just a poster,

but it's sort of almost like a,

it's almost like hologram poster.

When you look at that poster,

you're not just looking at the image.

You've got some internal fuzzy,

wuzzy feeling about what that car also is.

You know, and that really informs the poster.

And I mean, I wrote down a few thoughts

which were in any objective term,

something like an F12 probably is a supercar.

But is it a supercar if you line it next to,

you put it next to a LaFerrari?

In any objective sense, it's funny this hypercar thing.

I don't know, I just view it as a bit of a,

it's a bit of a marketing hype.

I think there are sports cars and supercars.

I think hypercar thing I just put out,

but if we've been talking about the Testerosa,

the new Testerosa, is that a supercar?

Possibly in any objective term,

when you stick it next to an F80,

which one is the supercar?

And I don't think it seems really weird.

So I read a very, very dial article by a Ferrari dealer.

He said, basically all Ferraris are supercars,

but the photo he had above it was a profile of a Portofino.

And I thought that is not a supercar.

That's not even a Ferrari, let alone a supercar.

But it, but he's-

Oh, yoy, yoy, yoy, yoy,

which is an inclusive podcast,

because of what you have there.

I don't dislike them as much as you do perhaps,

but I'm just saying it's a really, really funny thing.

So somebody objectively in the 60s comes up with the term

supercar to describe a very pretty car

with fantastic performance.

And then everything kind of molds itself.

I mean, Aote, Kuntas today is still a supercar.

That's not down to its performance.

It's not down to its weight.

Certainly not down to its build quality.

So I think there are these little things in history

that were defined as supercars,

which may not have the performance

to go up against the bog standard Ferrari today,

but they're still supercars.

And that's, I think, your poster test.

But I think absolutely beyond that poster test though,

there probably is some weirdly fluid performance metric.

So what a supercar is today.

You divide it or whatever.

I think Manish is right.

We've got troubles here because

Blythe has now gone to his top Trumps archive.

Supercar.

You can't see this.

So you're listening to this.

He's now holding up top Trumps that say supercars

on the front.

Top Trump is one of the worst places

to nominate what a supercar is.

Because they don't waste,

because someone like Volkswagen would pay

to have the Golf BB or something in there.

They pay like, you go, what the fuck's a BB Golf?

And it has like 210 horsepower.

So first things first,

no Porsche 911 is a supercar.

Take it.

No turbo, no GT-TRS.

It's a sports car.

It just isn't.

It's a sports car.

I agree with Mr. Cooper that the Athena

Exarmable feeds how I feel about this.

So the supercar exists as a statement in time.

So Manish is right.

The performance metric only matters at time.

The supercars are measured really on impact,

visual impact,

impact are sort of visceral impacts

when you get to see one as a child.

Superb.

Superb now is that you know,

the reason why Miura or Kuntas or Diablo is supercars,

you might not ever be lucky enough to see one

in the flesh in the UK.

Exactly.

I thought you did see one, the impact.

You knew, you only knew when you'd seen a supercar

when you saw one,

because it made you feel something different as a kid.

You went, oh my God, you could see a 911,

here a 911, you could see a special car,

a fancy saloon car with a six cylinder engine.

But if you saw a Miura in 1972 out in a bow in Buckinghamshire,

you would go, what was that?

It's a spaceship.

So I think impact is a word that really matters

with supercar.

It impacts you in a way that you can't quite describe,

even if you don't like cars.

I do believe a 911 isn't a supercar.

I don't like the term hypercar.

I think I was one of the first people to use it.

I can't claim it.

I definitely was, I remember writing and thinking,

that's clever.

But I just think if you've got to find new denominations,

you've sort of undone what was there before,

but not in a helpful way.

Yeah, you just sort of,

you know, you're just making up new terms, aren't you?

But isn't it a car that's been,

it's a new genre of car, isn't it?

Over 1000 horsepower.

What's a hypercar doing that a supercar isn't doing?

Over 1000 horsepower.

But it's still, when we talk about,

let's forget the sort of-

I'm being a bit binary.

You are, but let's forget the empirical side.

You know, not talk about numbers.

What's it doing?

We can bring it back to impact,

how it makes you feel, what it looks like,

how different it is to a normal mode of transportation,

really about how different it is.

Hypercar doesn't move the game on.

It's just the same fucking thing with a different term for me.

So I just, I think supercar,

the poster test is really good.

It's really good.

But then I had a poster of a 928.

And that's not a supercar, is it?

So-

It is a really interesting debate, this, isn't it?

Because you could, it's a bit like,

this is slightly a male sort of perspective on a sort of,

the modern world of data and massive amounts of information

and analytics would say that

a pretty face actually has some common characteristics

which to do with the ratios of distances between eyebrows,

cheekbones, nose, proportions, blah, blah, blah.

And that data would tell you

that there is a common reaction or a consistent

or weighted reaction to what the data says.

Or you could say, I just like a look of it.

It makes me feel better.

And I think the, you could look at it both ways

and you could reverse engineer the answer to say,

oh, that's because the characteristics of the thing

you like on the poster are blah, blah, blah.

But-

Can I add one thing to that?

Can I add one thing?

Because you made a good point and I deliberately interrupt.

I think it's easier for a vehicle that's less super

to be classified as a supercar if it's Italian.

Yep.

I just think, I think we afford,

I just think a Maserati, a shit Maserati

can be knocking on door being a supercar

if it's specification on paper was no different

to an ordinary German car.

And that's why I use the analogy earlier on about,

is it like watching Ian Elgarve in Return of the Saint?

Or is it like going to the cinema?

Which when we were younger was quite a big deal.

To watch-

Okay, let me give you five cars

and you could all tell me whether they're supercars or not.

This is a good game.

You make your stage.

Yeah, go on.

Okay, here we go.

Lamborghini Gallardo.

Sports car.

Gallardo.

You know the fucking car.

Play the bloody game.

Sports car.

No, sports car.

I think it's a really good one, that.

I have one.

It's a sports car.

Because there was one that sat above it in the range

that was a supercar.

Okay.

Toyota 2000 GT.

Sports car.

Yeah, it is a sports car, but I see we're going with it.

Yeah, it's smart.

Aston Martin V8 X-PAC.

Super GT.

No, fucking no.

You can't say that.

That is a brute in a suit,

which we're going to come to in a minute.

Fuck, that's the next thing on the agenda.

Right, okay.

Ferrari 458.

Sports car.

It's not a super car.

Sports car.

Okay.

The series production Ferrari.

Isn't a super car.

Alton's produced.

Not even an F12.

I think it's a sports car.

So difficult.

It's a super GT.

No, there's no such thing.

Lamborghini.

Lamborghini Espada.

Sports car.

Fucking cool.

Yeah.

Can a sports car, can a super car have four seats?

Yes.

Oh, God.

I think it can because this is where

how does it make me feel?

And do I want the poster on my wall?

I was trying to say just being about to be in existence

for the last seven years that they've never made.

That thing.

That's a super car, isn't it?

Yeah, I don't even know.

I get them all confused.

Those slightly Swedish ugly looking things.

That, you know, no one ever knows.

You can't even spell it.

What, they're all those cars.

Fucking dyslexic.

You got no chance.

Zingra, like a burger from KFC.

Most of those fucking things.

But I would say,

see, I would say the original 930 Turbo,

1977, that to me was a super car.

It was on the poster.

It won the 0-60 in that car, the car thing.

It's the shape of a 930.

Shape is almost more important than before.

No, I think...

I'll tell you what.

It is a shape.

You can't say an apple's an orange because it's fucking round.

No, but if it was lower, if it was slower,

but it looked like a fucking dart,

and it was about one foot high, it would be a super car.

If it was Italian, it's just not fair on the 911.

The 911 is too German.

Yeah, no, I think...

I'm actually with Neil on this one

because in 1977, when you were watching Return of the Saint,

and you could only dream about being let to go to cinema

when you grow up, when you saw the 930,

either the 3.0 or the 3.3 in a poster,

it was completely unattainable, inaccessible.

You never saw one.

You believe they might exist,

but in magazines, you only saw it with German number plates on it.

You didn't know anybody who was able to talk about it.

It made you think that is...

It's only got one door mirror to make it faster.

OK, I'll give you one more.

Alfa Romeo Montreal.

Oh, that's a GT car.

Yeah, that's none of the above.

Not enough power.

I saw it as a super car at the time.

Interesting.

This is a great game.

Yeah, we'll come back to this one.

We should definitely come back to it.

We'll definitely come back to this one.

This is not over yet.

This is not over.

We'll never be over.

I think it's a great game.

Chris, sorry, you said that you had a friend

who had the ultimate definition.

What was that you made?

Who, me?

Yes, you said that you had a friend.

No, it was really important.

Actually, it was the 9-11 ones.

Yeah.

He answered a different question,

but I quite like it when people do that.

He answered it.

It's Alex West, who's a good buddy of mine.

He's got some mega cars, and he went like Chris,

did lots of racing with him.

He's a good driver.

And I said he's Swedish and can be brilliantly clinical,

like they all can, from those countries.

And I just said, well, on the agenda later on,

is when does a sports car stop when a super car begin?

He went, I don't know, he goes, but I'll tell you this,

no 9-11's ever been a super car.

And I thought he's nailed it there.

Yeah, it's quite good.

I do believe that.

It reminds you that it's not just about spec speed.

It's about the presentation of the vehicle.

What does it say?

The 9-11 has always wanted to remind you

that underneath it's a practical car,

that regardless of how much power you put in it,

there's space.

I mean, maybe what we want to search

when we define the super car is that

it's a deliberately awkward device.

It needs to carry with it compromises and awkwardness.

They're self-conscious cars, super cars as well.

9-11 isn't self-conscious.

9-11 gets on with the fucking job.

A super car shouldn't get on with the job.

It should piss you off.

It should be a bit noisy.

It's got idiosyncrasies, awkwardness.

Whereas I think the 9-11 doesn't have any of that.

The 9-11 is just a device.

Yeah, it does.

I think we would welcome people's opinions in the comments.

I think we'll get that anyway.

On the definition of a super car.

We've just done an hour on it ourselves.

We need up to 1,000 comments, please.

Yeah, we need to break that one.

I'm going to skip one of these

because we're going to run out of fucking space here.

Can we do, is driving slowly joyful next week?

It'll still be joyful next week.

Yeah.

Okay, we'll be joyful next week.

But we've just given that one away.

Tune in next week for, is driving slowly joyful?

With Neil Clifford on his finger.

So, let's go for the Formula One.

Put your hands up.

This is a visual one.

If you watch the Formula One race

or listen to it on the radio.

Everyone did.

Wow, that's unusual for all of us to do.

I'm going to go straight to Manish on this.

I'm going to say that Zach Brown got paid 37 million pounds.

He's clever.

He's very clever.

37 million times more clever than many people.

Isn't that just an extraordinary, this brilliant?

Listen, I agree.

I mean, that company was nowhere 10 years ago.

There was so much trouble.

Even in COVID, there was so much trouble.

And they're double world champions.

The last time McLaren won back-to-back championships

was when the greatest driver who's ever breathed air.

I was giving you that little window and you took it.

You just boiled him a half folly there

and he's just, I think you went a bit early there,

Cope, you might make a little bit.

Ever searched slightly?

I think you went early, yeah.

1990, 1991, Senna, Senna.

So that's a great, I mean, I'd say this was probably, for me,

the most boring race of the year.

The thing about Singapore is it always styled itself

as kind of the monocoque of the East.

And the problem is with these massive cars,

if they don't overtake kind of immediately,

are you the first corner,

you really don't get too much track action.

It's just, it was such a dull race.

Tire offsets this, that and the other.

I mean, probably the most exciting bit was

Lando caroming off the back of Max into his teammate,

side swiping his teammate.

And then Oscar kind of going,

well, that was against the fire rules.

Chris Harris, are you yawning?

It really wasn't the most exciting race.

But what I would say is, I mean, I'm just,

I'm really thrilled McLaren have done it again.

And as Andrea pointed out, with six races to go,

they've done a kind of Michael Schumacher in 2002.

They've won it, or Nigel Mansel in 1992.

They've won it so early that, I mean,

I suppose I could put a question to my learned colleagues.

Now, with six races to go,

should they just forget the Pire rules?

Is it time just to dump those and let them just go for it?

Because that might have been decided

between the drivers already, but that's not what the problem is.

You say that, did you feel a little bit of invective

from Oscar then, just sort of going,

okay, I've played the team game,

he's side swiping me, I'm coming back.

I'll answer that without interrupting you.

I think Pire rules have served its purpose.

I think the brilliance of Zach is,

he never defined Pire rules for fair play

between his drivers.

He got it so he could secure the Manufacturers' Championship,

which is a load of money for the team.

And now he knows that one of his drivers

is going to the World Championship in front,

it doesn't matter to him which one wins them.

And so I think he's been incredibly clever.

Pire rules protected the team,

but didn't protect the drivers.

But if I was one of their drivers,

I'd be feeling a bit duped,

because surely the realization is it wasn't for them,

it was for the team.

And now they're gonna dust it out.

And I'll add the other thing,

if you've got a drying circuit,

a thousand horsepower, it slicks and it's nighttime.

And the worst thing that goes wrong

is that Lando has a little snap of oversteer,

pops into the back of someone

and then touches the car to his right.

I don't understand how there were so few accidents with these,

they're super human.

That was a nothing incident.

And that can happen the other way around,

any number of times.

It was just, if you didn't go for that gap,

everyone would have gone, you absolute shandy,

you shouldn't be in the car.

So he was down to be dead or down to be didn't,

wasn't he really?

So I'll pass it on to Chris Cooper.

What did you think?

So I, we said this earlier on the year,

the papaya rules, I never liked the idea of it

because I generally don't like,

because so much of my life is spent in corporate world,

where you try and dress up simple things

with fancy language.

And you think, actually, you're gonna miss the point.

And I said way back, go live in the season.

We won't know whether they're working

until he gets the business end of the season.

They haven't been tested yet.

You know, they're both winning races, blah, blah, blah.

They're being nice to each other.

Yeah, but it didn't mean anything

back in the spring and early summer.

Now it means something.

And suddenly Oscar doesn't like it.

Rightly or wrongly, he doesn't like it.

He felt he'd been wronged on balance by,

well, hang on, I'll just give you back a place

after a pit stop mistake, which was racing.

And now, I think you're right, Chris,

I think it was a nothing event.

But the whole shebang of this stuff

has raised expectations to say,

oh, hang on a minute, mummy and daddy,

I've had a little herty as well.

Can I have my bobo made better as well, please?

And that's where Oscar was on the Sunday.

What's a bobo?

A bobo.

Is that not an international lexicon

of little herty on your little finger winger?

Who's that bobo?

We now know we'll win it.

I'm here to help a little bobo, a little herty, anyway.

So I think they're reaping what they've sown on that one.

The other thing is, and Toto,

I'm with Toto on his reaction to that.

Toto's the point of my second observation.

For fuck's sake, Toto,

when George does a really good job,

like nailing it in qualifying,

for fuck's sake, try and look happy for him.

I mean-

That's all gone wrong, hasn't it?

There's not a lot of love there at the moment.

I mean, a number of things George said.

He said, it's been a really strange weekend

and it'd be easy to read too much into what he says,

but I suspect when I talk to people

who know about these things,

they do say it's just about,

they're nearly there on an agreement,

it's how many sponsored days and blah, blah, blah.

But who knows, I'm not involved in it.

The big thing must be, Toto,

are you gonna give him a two-year plus deal

or are you gonna give him a one-year deal

because you wanna see what the car's like next year

and you wanna leave the door open to getting max in 27?

And George is sitting there saying,

how much do I need to do?

I thought George was brilliant this weekend,

after stuffing it in the practice day on the Friday

to then nail qualifying the way that you did.

I'm with you, Chris.

There's on a nighttime track,

bit wet, particularly first of the race.

I mean, there were a couple of yellow flags,

but no safety cars, no virtual safety cars,

no real, they're all bloody good, aren't they?

I was gonna play, I haven't got time to do it now.

There's a bit I found, actually,

Karun Chanda could put it on his Instagram.

There's a little clip without any bleeps on it.

Of Fernando and his engineer after the race.

And you think it's just a loop repeated of Lando,

but it's not, I cannot fucking believe it.

I cannot fucking believe it.

I cannot fucking believe it,

that Lewis had been allowed to ride over the kerbs

and no brakes, blah, blah, blah.

Apart from reminding us that

Lewis doesn't get Christmas cards from Fernando.

It did, I thought Fernando did a great job.

He drove really, really well.

And the, if Luca was here,

he would say about Fernando,

he drives with passion and determination.

And I love that.

Chris, Chris, I see you now.

Who's the one on the driver, apart from Lewis,

who would absolutely attempt to finish a race

with no brakes and no wheels?

Fernando Alonso.

Chris, the quote is really, really genius.

For me, you cannot drive the car when it's unsafe.

Sometimes they try to disqualify me with no mirror.

And now you have no brakes and everything is fine.

I doubt it.

It was hilarious.

You go and find it on Instagram, it's really funny.

No Clifford, what did you make of it?

Did you stay awake?

I did.

I mean, Manish is right.

It is a bit bloody boring, isn't it?

I was really chuffed.

It was just great to see another car manufacturer

winning a race.

I don't know why all of us, including me a little bit,

and we debate it almost as a family,

why there's not as much love for George

as there should be really.

It's a funny one, isn't it?

Because he's a little bit icy.

He's not so easy to love, even though you want to love him.

Because he's a British Formula One racing driver

that's winning races.

But I thought it was quite cool for Mercedes to win.

Max can still win, can't he?

That's the, you know, I think it would be really great.

Because I saw today that it's the only the second time

that someone, a brand, has won the Manufacturer's Championship

with six races to go.

It's only happened once before.

So it's a pretty amazing feat by McLaren,

and we should all be super chuffed for that.

And being a sort of vanglophone, I want Lando to win now.

I think it'd be great if they just went for it

and fought like hell and sort of sent a prost,

crashes and dramas.

That'd be really good.

But I'm chuffed for George.

And there was also, did you see that thing?

Was it Lawrence and Toto talking about,

they overheard them having a meeting about Christian going?

I didn't see that.

Yeah, there was a thing about should,

well, it was a bit useless now, I can't remember.

People remind me.

But there was a whole...

I saw the sky shot of them, they're in a hud all together.

Yeah, they were discussing the appointment of Christian

to one of the...

And it wasn't a sort of...

Because Haas hasn't happened, has it?

That was all bullshit.

It didn't really take place.

But it was, yeah, I'm sure he's going to pop up.

And hopefully he does pop up somewhere brilliant,

because we miss him and he's talented

and he adds a lot of value to Drive by Swive.

I think there's something brewing in the plot of this F1 season

that might come good for us viewers

and it might be unkind to the Team Papaya.

Max has just got...

He's got the look of a man that knows

that these two youngins in their orange cars

could take each other out at any time now.

The happiest man after Singapore,

even though Max didn't win the race,

and I know he's frustrated

because I think his car wasn't working,

he must be thinking, right.

The gloves appear to be coming off.

Both of them, when it came to a 50-50 ball,

for the whole of this season have behaved impeccably.

And actually they avoided any real conflict.

But Singapore slightly changed that.

I don't think it should have done, actually.

I think Oscar's the more deserving of the two drivers

to win the championship.

Judged by who makes the fewest mistakes,

Oscar has put together a much more impressive season

than Lando, I think.

Even though I'm British and I want Lando to win.

But judged as a journalist,

the Australian is more deserving of this title

than Lando, I think.

But I think there's just something brewing here

where you've got the body

that people still think is the body in his red ball.

And I think Max now, the Max of a few years ago,

would have just gone toe-to-toe

and had a fist fight with anyone,

regardless of who they were.

But now I can just see him just stirring the pot.

There's gonna be stuff that's gonna happen in qualifying.

He's got to get Lando back

for that perceived sliding qualifying.

But if he, all it takes is one weekend

where those two orange cars get it wrong

or something goes wrong

and they take each other out

and Max scores and Max wins points.

The championship will look very different then.

So I just think there could be something brewing here.

I would say just one thing about Red Bull.

There are a lot of reports that part of the performance

is the new floor.

That's fine, the car's working.

But there were some really well-corroborated reports

that part of Red Bull's latest ascendancy

is a real change to how they operate on a weekend.

They're not hitting the brakes.

They're really evolving.

They're getting the setup close to right

and they've evolved their system such that they just fine tune.

So Max is basically orchestrating the car

that he wants for the race.

And I think that does make it a weapon.

And to flip it around,

on the basis that you and Mr. Cooper

are the racing drivers out of the four of us

and you both agree that Lando's little excursion

was actually a nothing thing.

I think Oscar will conclude that as well.

I think when he sees the replays,

he'll realize Lando went in a bit tight,

slightly bounced off Max and hit him.

I don't think he's going to be quite so furious.

And I think he's a very cool, very smart customer.

And he just tried it off.

I think he just tried it off.

His head exploded for half that race.

He got it back.

He's engineered a great job bringing it back,

but he's still on the radio.

I agree.

I think he, the whole papyrus rule thing

and the contortions over the pit stop thing in Monza,

reasonably I think made Oscar and probably Mark,

his boss who's got form and experience

of how these things can unfold.

Thinking, well, Mummy and Daddy will make it better.

And I almost think that that sort of childlike reaction

but is ironically going to play into what Chris has just said,

which is Max, who's in there just thinks,

hey, I'm just going to feed this and see what happens.

And then the little kiddiewinks in the orange cars

are going to...

And then suddenly Max just...

Not to extend this too much,

but Lando is driving like someone with nothing to lose.

Oscar is the one who's having to sit and play.

As Chris said, actually a couple of weeks ago,

a couple of games here,

he knows he's got Lando covered off or he thinks he has

and he knows that Max is a threat.

So he's actually competing against two people.

Whereas I think Lando is competing against no one

and I think Max is also competing against them.

Absolutely himself.

Yeah, so I mean, I think that's the point.

I think that that's the weight of Oscar.

And I think he's a phenomenon.

I don't think he's the same phenomenon as Max.

I think Max, as you guys use the word perfectly,

he's an alien.

But I think, you know, Oscar is this third season

in Formula One, he's been leading the championship

for pretty much three quarters of the season so far.

He feels he's been a little bit shackled.

You may be right.

I think he's far too cool to go around smacking anyone off.

I think he's just worked out how the rules work.

I think that's the angst that you heard.

I think that was the kind of, wait, hold on.

What's the calculation?

I'm making this calculation at 200 miles an hour

and 60 degree heat.

I think he's made his calculation.

I thought he was absolutely awesome in the pen

because he understood, it doesn't matter what bile

I feel welling up inside me,

my team are double world champions.

That's what I'm going to say.

And you could see it.

You could see it.

For a young man, for a young man in control.

He's always with his brain.

I love it.

Max was never like that.

We've seen Max all the way through his season.

He's always been feisty, combative.

That's why in a way we kind of like him.

Oscar's got this calculator brain

and this complete ability to control himself.

It's just impressive.

It's utterly impressive.

I'm going to leave the Formula One chat with one thought.

For me, the best thing I saw,

actually I listened to it on the, I listened to Sky,

but through my car radio was Lance Stroll.

Absolutely, you heard it.

It was brilliant.

His engineer came on and said,

car in front of you is on 40 lap old hearts.

And he went, well, I feel like I'm 100 lap old mediums.

And it was just lovely.

It just added a note of levity.

And it's very easy just to write

these particular drivers off as being.

Oh, brilliant.

But it was a really good piece of humour.

Back down the radio, racing car humour

from the cockpit side is quite difficult to generate

when you're dealing with a thousand horsepower.

So Lance, one of the best comebacks I've heard

in a long time, congratulations.

Very, very good.

Right, this is a good one.

We like this.

But this might be my favourite subject

because brute in a suit, name one.

There's one particular part of this group

that will struggle to name one.

So I'm going to go to him first.

Mr. Cooper, you're allowed to name one.

Don't name three and then go, this is my one.

Okay?

It's an Aston Martin V8 Vantage X-Pack

as Neil has already said.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Why is it?

Why is it the brute in the suit to go for another one?

I mean, isn't it obvious in some explanatory?

It's sort of the, it's Sylvester Stallone in the 1990s.

He's wearing a suit,

but we still know it's Sylvester Stallone.

And I think there's something about that sort of,

he's only just in it.

That's a special suit that he's wearing

because it wouldn't fit an ordinary person.

But it's still just about stays on the right line

of decorum, presentableness,

and not causing too much alarm or fuss

in certain establishments,

where something rather coarser

or rather more flamboyant or, you know, individual

might have caused a fence to other members in the group.

And I think the reason I raised it last week

as a point of discussion was,

I think we've in danger of losing the meaning

and the true depth and why it's really interesting

because analogously, the suit now

that Brutes are in automatically, to my mind.

There are no socks anymore, socks have gone.

The trousers are too short.

They are squeezed around these distended sort

of lower leg muscles.

The buttocks are far too visible

in the seat of the pants of the trousers of the suit.

This is everything that Clifford hates.

You're old bastards, you're old bastards.

And I just think he's,

I worry about his ability to describe buttocks.

Yeah, who mine?

I'm glad I can't describe.

He also did this.

I'm glad I can't do.

I think you know what I'm saying.

So I think the answer is, every time you see,

there was a Simon Kiston, I think he still got that 6.3.

He has, yeah.

Yeah, and there's a video he did a long time ago now

where he's filling, I think he's filling it

with petrol, some petrol station, some in Switzerland.

He makes some analogy about Oliver Reed.

And somewhere in that video, he coins the phrase,

it's a brute in a suit.

And I think, yes.

That's with the open exhaust pipes through the tunnels.

Yeah, yeah, that sort of fancy sort of Italian

loose sort of test drive he's got.

It was just perfect for the part of that film

and that car, the juxtaposition of the English,

British English brute in the suit.

And this sort of, hey, you know, I kind of,

I can kind of just about be bothered

but I think this is exciting.

So I think, do we still think brute in a suit

still exist today?

We do, we do.

And I asked you a simple question just to say name one

and you've managed to do it in 11 and a half minutes.

So I congratulate you again

for your powers of brevity, Mr. Cooper.

Let's go to Neil Clifford.

That's to be British.

Okay.

I think it does.

I agree.

Well, I think the suit, maybe because we're all British

but for me, it's all about Savile Row and understated

but you know, with a big bloody engine

and a big muscular thing as Mr. Cooper described,

I'm going Bentley but I'm not going the Bentley

that you would expect me to be going.

I'm going 15995 on car and classic.

Because I don't, you know,

I think you can get into brute in a suit

cheaper than you think.

Bentley Turbo R, 1990, early car with the nicer wheels

and the lovely steering wheel.

It looks like a normal Bentley four-door saloon

in a slightly E500 Mercedes way

but they whacked a turbocharger the size of, you know,

a Boeing 747 on this thing and it's got 400 horsepower

and it goes like a Nimrod submarine

but actually, you know, on the face of it,

you look a bit boring, you look a bit stage,

you look a bit sort of old fashioned

but actually you're not, you're a fucking brute in a suit.

And your lovely friend, talking about the E500,

your lovely friend, one of your lovely friends,

Charles, brought his E500 to scramble yesterday.

Lovely color.

It's stunning to spec that car.

And half leather, cloth, you know, super suit.

It's the spec you would design

if the configurator still existed for an E500.

Exactly that, that's why I parked next to him.

I thought that was just close to a 500E.

Could that be a brute in a suit?

Could it be a brute in a suit?

Yeah, I think for me,

that's generally my favourite one.

Yeah, except it's German, almost.

Well, it can't.

Is it really exclusive to the UK?

Suit, nations that wear suits.

Maybe if there are French fruit in a suit.

Well, I think it is Oliver Reed as James Bond.

He'd have to be six inches taller.

Basically, that is a brute in the suit.

And I think it's a Conti GT W12.

That is what I think it is.

I think it's just, it's an extraordinary engine

and an extraordinary car.

But at the same time, the car's kind of so civilized.

You look through the windows,

it's nothing that gives it away until it goes,

and it's gone.

W12, Conti GT.

I mean, the brute in a suit of things is,

is it a lovely way of describing Q?

Are we talking notions of Q?

Or is it actually?

What is that?

Or is it actually to, I think, I view it something,

it's slightly different.

Q is deliberately misrepresenting

your performance potential.

You know, Q is about hiding.

The brute in a suit carries with it notions

of deportment, of tailoring, of proportion.

So you're not necessarily trying to hide

your performance potential.

You're just trying to present it

in a very dignified way.

Civilized.

I think, yeah.

So I just want the weather.

If that's the case, I don't agree

that it's exclusively British.

I think the majority of those cars are British

because the brands that we have,

Aston Martin, Bentley in particular,

seem to embrace it more.

But I like, I do like some of the German interpretations

of this.

I think W124 500E, pre-facelift,

because of course it was E500 after the facelift,

but pre-facelift, that is a brute in a suit for me.

It's an amazing car.

And maybe the way that I define it,

it's a vehicle that could match a 911 in the 80s,

but was practical and had that sort of tailoring to it.

I think the first generation Audi S8

is a brute in a suit.

Because I think that was a car that could do 160 miles

an hour, but look beautiful.

I think a 750i BMW E32, short wheelbase,

wide kidneys is a brute in a suit.

How many are you doing?

I see it's more than one.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm just, I'm literally gonna do exactly

what I asked you not to do.

I'm gonna go for.

Keep going, it's good.

Yeah, we're doing it.

We like it.

You put me in a corner where it has to be British,

and I'm thinking of my feet, it's not.

I know, I know, I know.

It's not, it's not.

No, it's not really.

It's a Conti T.

Is there a French brute in a suit?

No way.

There couldn't be a French brute in a suit.

But there is.

I said, CX Turbo.

Yeah.

Vassel Vega.

Oh yeah?

Yeah.

Yeah, okay.

I would say.

The brute in the suit.

What I can see with the French brute in a suit

is Macron being battered by his wife

through the door of that presidential aeroplane.

For a while, that's killed the idea

of a French brute in a suit.

I think the Vassel Vega is otherwise perfect.

Okay, right, so.

Brute in a suit.

We've got two car garages now.

Man, I, should I give you the chance to talk about this?

I didn't, did I?

Yeah.

Yeah, you did.

Okay, good.

I must have told you twice.

No, no, I apologize.

Right, two car garages.

You're at that age.

Fine, yeah.

We're hitting 0 to 60 in four seconds

and having cars that corner on rails

is no longer the main priority in life.

Instead, you want two civilized cars

with right quality that caresses your spine

rather than rattling it.

One car will be kept in London.

You'd be happy to be ensconced in it,

whether it's 20 or stuck in traffic.

The other is for driving to your home in the lakes.

Budget is 40,000 pounds.

I just want to just remind people

or share with people Neil Clifford's reaction

to this one, which was,

oh no, it's another boring fucker

getting old two car garage.

We don't need any more old farts here.

So, Finley is going to set them.

We don't need any more two old farts.

Finley is setting these.

Right, Neil, you can get one for the boring fucker one.

I've gone now.

Okay, I'm just actually doing it, hold on.

The, oh fuck, well,

we'll have to bid him down a lot on that one.

The, sometimes you like,

I love the idea of synchronicity.

I love a two car garage from one mark.

It's the sort of slightly ADHD in me.

You know, it would be helpful with the dealership,

with the servicing.

You'd be friends with the parts guy.

You know, you wouldn't have to,

you know, once you've been persuaded them,

oh, would you mind coming up and pick,

I'm at work, would you pick it up for me for the service?

You've got one person to charm to help you.

So I'm going one mark only.

And I'm choosing two cars that actually, both of them,

I've got itches like bad teenage eczema

that I really, I really want both of these cars.

Or in fact, it's not really teenagers early.

My eczema was bad early.

Yeah, you're gonna need a lot of ointment for that.

Yeah, oil of you latem in my bath.

So I'm going BMW, obviously,

because they have just a lovely ride.

And a lot of this story was about comfort.

So you bollocks to Audi, forget it.

Not one Audi is ever comfortable.

And also Mercedes as well, they're a bit shit.

So I'm going BMW and I'm going both hybrid.

I'm going I8 because I really want an I8.

And I thought that would be lovely driving up to the lakes

because it's an I8, a super car.

There's a question.

It's more of a super car than a 911.

Yeah, I think it is because it's got the well factor.

It's got the doors, it's got the space age.

It looks like a fucking X, what are those Star Wars planes?

X-Fighter.

Yeah, X-Fighter, so I'm going for one of those.

And there's one available on car and classic

for 34,000 pounds.

So you bid him down for 30 because there's about 100 for sale.

But then I'm going, I've got five grand left.

I'm going for an I3.

Mega.

I really want one of those.

I missed that moment and I regret missing that moment.

I don't have the little, the one with the little engine

and the front, yeah, you'd never run out of petrol.

I know our mayor doesn't like those ones anymore or whatever,

but you don't want to run out of electricity, do you?

So you'd have that, you choose wisely,

you'd have that sort of blue with that brown leather

and that lovely bleached wood.

And I kind of thought the one with the carplay,

but there's probably a bloke in Harrow

that will put carplay in it for 300 quid.

So I've got 40 grand and I've got synchronicity

on the driveway, which I think is nice.

I feel good at the summer, that is.

Manage.

I'm a little bit in love with your Daimler

and I have found, I've found a 2001 four-litre V8,

X306, 308, sorry for sale.

That's going to be on the market in seven days.

And I think that is a V8 piece of joy, I really do.

And I can see me bombing up and down the motorway

in that, in utter comfort, what do you think?

But wonderful car.

Beautiful.

Wonderful car.

I really, I'm so in love with your Daimler.

I just think it's just, it's a perfect car.

It's available.

For London, I thought this was just great, actually.

It's a little bit off-piste, but 2005 Maserati Spyder,

4,200.

Fantastic value car, Manage.

I completely, I think you probably got that far,

I don't know, 12, 15,000 pounds, easy peasy.

But can you imagine, you're just doing 20 miles an hour

in your Canby Corso with the hood down, you don't care.

You're stuck in a traffic jam, you don't care.

That car, that's lucky, yeah.

I think that, that's my, that's my garage.

That's my garage.

I think you've done well there.

Thank you.

Chris Cooper.

I think I've lost this, to be honest.

I think this is not my finest, but I think there were two,

I really like the idea of one of those,

you know, a suffix A Range Rover.

This one goes on auction about a week after this starts.

It's had all the major work done on it, 63,000 miles.

It's in Bristol, so Chris, you can look at it for me.

I think that would be quite cool for just a car in town

that would just run over anything nasty and bumpy.

I think that'd be right.

And for summer up in the Lake District, I think,

and this is, I did, actually this is quite good.

I do really like this one.

And this goes, it starts sort of at the weekend

that this goes, this goes out.

Classical, just by the way, people get on there.

Oh.

It's a Primrose Yellow Lotus Elan S4.

I did see that, to the name of the car.

Not Twin Cam, a beautiful S4.

Really, really simple thing.

I think that would be absolutely lovely

for the Lake District.

That's what I'd do.

It's still a Twin Cam.

Yeah, but not the sort of the silly, you know,

sort of the, sorry, not the sprint, sorry,

not the sprint.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's still fast as hell, those things, cross-country.

Yeah, they're lovely.

I mean, they are just lovely gearbox.

I've read the description here,

and I think I've interpreted this better than you lot.

So, one of these cars to be kept in London,

the other one is to drive up to the Lake District.

Now, who agrees that if you're lucky enough

to own a few cars, if you apportion those cars,

a roll, the distance car, the city car,

the car to have when you're on them on,

the car to have when you're depressed,

you've always got the wrong car.

You've always got the wrong one at your disposal.

When you're at the traffic lights,

and you've got the irritating twerk next to you,

you're in your bloody Defender

when you want to be in the 911 Turbo.

You've always got the wrong blade

of the Swiss Army knife out.

You want to have the other one.

It's bloody annoying.

So, my solution here is I'm going to do two,

I'm buying two cars and do the same thing.

So I've always got,

so I'm always going to do something

that's suitable for the purpose.

Because I know if I keep my sports car in the lakes,

I'm going to want to drive it down in town,

and I'm going to, I actually want to use

the long distance car to do the long trip.

You're in the wrong machine, always.

There's truth in that, yeah.

Oh, I'm going for a comfort, first of all.

I'm having two saloon cars,

because ultimately saloon cars are the best cars.

528i, done what?

60,000.

It's not all too fantastic.

Peak car, doesn't get any better.

It's a very original car that,

it's a slightly sad description,

really, it's deceased estate,

but it's an amazing car, 528i,

and it looks very original, and it's been loved.

The second car,

Bakehouse.

That's the same thing.

We bought that for 10 grand, by the way,

it was advertised for 12.

The second car does the same thing,

but I love these Giulia Quadrifoglios.

I think they are some of the most desirable,

nearly new cars on sale.

It's a four door Ferrari,

you get that for 30 grand.

£30,000 for a Giulia Quadrifoglio.

So you've got two saloon cars,

one's a bit faster than the other,

but whichever one ends up in the lakes,

you're going to have a great drive,

whichever one ends up in town,

you're going to be happy.

You're not going to be in the wrong machine.

You'll always be in the right machine.

That alpha,

that alpha,

that's 30 grand for a supercar, that is.

They are, that is more of a supercar than I thought it would be.

Is it not?

It's got four seats.

I've just bought a four door supercar.

What have you bought?

You have a Phantom.

Wrappy.

Yes, yes, of course.

The Rapide.

Is a Rapide a supercar?

It's more of a supercar than a 911.

It's just a shit car.

It's a shit car.

It's more of a supercar than a 911, isn't it?

I think if you're V12,

you're straight in the supercar club.

So, we're going to move on to...

Yeah, we're doing good, we're doing good.

Now,

Peter from GP,

who I've spoken about earlier,

who did the most incredible job trimming the intergrali.

We put together a sort of an homage

to an Instagram video that really inspired us a while ago.

We saw an Alpine head unit with an equalizer,

and it was playing this song, it was on Instagram.

And I just forwarded him saying,

we need this in this car, we need this.

You've got to have flashing LEDs,

and you've got to have a 7-6-1-8 R Alpine,

3-3-4-5 or 3-3-4-7 amp.

And it was Snaps the Power.

This guy puts the...

He pushes the cassette in,

and it starts playing Snaps the Power.

It might be the most 80s dance track of all,

isn't it? It's an incredible...

And it's potentially...

And we know that Cowbell has been used successfully,

but it's one of my favorite Cowbells of all time.

It's absolutely intoxicating tune.

So, Snaps the Power and Big Props to my main men,

Peter and Dara,

for those two stunning cars at Bista this week.

Neil.

Automatic for the People REM was released

1992, October the 5th,

and I played it on my way to the Scramble,

and I've probably recommended this song before,

because I love this album.

Night Swimming.

Cool.

Nice song. Great shit.

Managed.

Japan.

Gentleman Take Polaroids, that album,

played it forwards, back, was left and right.

And then when I...

I can't remember when it came out,

but basically some time afterwards,

there was a track that they recorded for the album

that they didn't put on the album,

because they didn't think it fitted the album,

but it's a beautiful track,

and it's called Some Kind of Fool,

and it's just wonderful.

David Sylvia in Japan, Some Kind of Fool.

Chris Cooper.

Driving up to Newcastle last Wednesday,

evening, in my week-in cars,

feeling really crap from that lurgy,

I ended up, by chance,

listening to Get the Message by Electronic,

and that kept me going.

Good song.

That was the collab between the Pet Shop Boys and New Order.

Yeah, the guy from the Wars.

He's got a great voice.

Yeah. He's got a great order, great voice, yeah.

OK, people, thank you very much for bearing with us there,

an impassioned set of opinions.

Please answer the comments now,

and tell us what you think is a super car or not.

I don't do this very often, but I'm going to promote this one.

I'm going to take a selfie of us doing this.

There we go.

Next week is episode 58.

I hope you come and join us.

So, from Chris Cooper, from Neil Clifford, from Management.

Chris, apparently, of myself,

have a lovely rest of your Friday.

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Where does a Sportscar end and a Supercar start? | The Car Podcast #57

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