Who was the best leader in Formula One’s history? | The Car Podcast #52

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Love y'all.

Now I don't want to be judged, but I do believe there was another group of people

that started doing something about a year ago around the same time we did.

I wonder if both parties were judged what the public would consider to be the

better job of the two.

I'm backing me and my pals.

I think we've done a great job.

An absolutely great job.

And Manish, by the way, if you're buying a flat, have a look at the stamp duty please.

So let's move on to this week.

This week we are discussing to start with the really cheery subject of what would your

death row drive be.

We could rephrase that.

I mean, it could be last tank of fuel, couldn't it?

But ultimately it's written down here as death row drives the last day in a car,

what and where.

So I'm going to go straight off to Chris Cooper, please.

Can I start by reading something out?

Because this kind of helped me think about this question and answer it.

This was taken from an article in The Times on Monday.

What would you do if a doctor said you only have two to four years to live?

So Chris Hoy, our chum, Olympian champion cyclist and racing driver says

it's the simple things in life that matter now.

When confronted with your own mortality, he said you think big bucket list items.

I'd really love to drive at Le Mans again or compete in the Bathurst 1000 in Australia.

I'd love to do that.

The truth is, I get just as much pleasure from a track day at Silverstone

or mountain biking in Wales with a few beers afterwards.

That doesn't mean I don't have goals or ambitions.

I've just recognized that the things that make me happy are often right in front of me.

Things that make me happy are often right in front of me.

And that's kind of the answer to the question.

Because I think we should take that attitude in these troubled and uncertain times

and to every day of our lives.

And the car is literally the vehicle, the metaphor, the release, the opportunity

for all of us to do that.

So whether it's a death row drive or the last gallon of petrol,

it kind of doesn't matter.

It's kind of every day.

And I was really moved by that.

And we all read it this week.

And I was thinking about this question.

I thought, where do I start with it?

And I did arm and arm about whether saying it because I thought, well,

Chris has said that in public and he's a lovely chap.

He's our mate.

And I thought, this is going to be out on Friday, 5th of September.

On Sunday, the 7th of September is his tour de four.

His amazing charity bike ride.

We'll put the link up on Friday when this goes up on YouTube.

Please, he's supporting five cancer charities.

Please, all of us, everybody listening, watching,

please do all you can to support that.

He's made an extraordinary effort.

So in kind of in the spirit of what he said,

the things that make me happy are often right in front of me.

It sort of almost doesn't matter what it is.

But there are two things that immediately spring to mind for me.

I grew up a little bit in Scotland, and I still feel Scottish.

And my earliest memories are of tiny little roads in the

northwest of Scotland and the north of Scotland up past

Oberyn and other pool and a little place called Scurry,

which is a distinct memory of my childhood of where

in those days, you could go and see Golden Eagles flying.

The famous Scottish Golden Eagles.

A lot of that road now is the North Coast 500,

which has been an extraordinary explosion of interest

and passion and love for the car

and the Scottish road and getting there.

So I think one of the things that I should do sooner or later,

because I know what makes both Lynn and I happy,

is just to meander down the North Coast 500.

I've done bits of it.

I've never done all of it.

I need to do that before it's too late.

That's a really good question.

Lynn would like to do it in her TR6.

We might have to tow it there,

because I'm not sure I could do the whole 600 miles to the starting point.

But I think it would be a great size car to do,

because there's an awful lot of single track rows with passing places.

The sound is great.

Before Lynn and I were together,

we actually did a road trip in it when we were flatmates.

And I was really keen on her,

but she didn't have any interest in me.

So that TR6, I've mentioned it before,

she's had it longer than I've been around.

You should ship it up there and do it in that.

I think you should do it.

We should do that.

The other, and it's a bit of a cliche,

I mean, the boys and I did it last year,

but I'd love to do it again,

is the boys and I, and actually all of us,

is a drive to Germany,

which is just a great road trip,

because every part of it is interesting

and different and getting close to the journey.

And whether you drive around the Nürburgring on it,

one of those down in Langeveld,

destination Nürburgring track days,

which are wonderful.

Or just enjoy the roads,

stake on a stone, the beautiful countryside.

It's all about enjoying the things in front of you.

So, bless you, Chris, for actually giving us,

giving me the inspiration for actually

how to answer this question.

Here, here.

Yeah, I read that as well.

Difficult one to read, if I'm honest with you.

And as ever, he's on point with his answers.

Neil Clifford.

Well, oh, I've got two.

One's a real one I could do,

and I just need to get my shit together

and go and do it.

And one is a bit more dreamy

that I probably won't ever do,

but I'd really fucking like to do it.

The normal one,

it's not, I've chosen a trip deliberately

that I haven't done before,

but in a car that, you know, I do adore.

If it is a genuine last tank of petrol,

which sounds a little bit less bleak

than the death row thing,

it would be a nine, six, four RS.

It is the car for me, really.

And I haven't done whales very much.

And Chris, obviously, Chris with a H,

would obviously say,

how dare you say such a thing?

And I'm a quarter Welsh, actually,

from Splott,

which I think is now called Splow,

because it's been sort of...

That's not getting better.

...encarned it.

I've got fam, I've got fam,

well, they're all dead now, I think,

but I did have family there.

I used to go there in the 70s,

and, you know, in a tiny little bedroom,

and a brick would be brought up to warm up the bed.

And yeah, no, in real life.

And, you know, you'd wake up at three in the morning

with the coal train going around

the sort of the back of your bedroom.

But nevertheless, I've got good memories of whales,

but I haven't really done the road,

so I've got a little map in front of me.

I'm going, I'm driving from here on my nine, six, four RS,

but I'm cutting off at Swindon.

I'm going to go and say hi to Matthew Beard,

and then I'm sort of Sirencester, Stroud,

cut across sort of Gloucester, Y Valley.

I've never really done that bit.

Then I'm going straight across into the Brackens.

I had an auntie in Merthyrtid,

but actually had a beard.

So maybe, maybe, maybe go and see her

in some sort of cemetery.

Down Pontipri, then sort of cut across,

end up right at the other end.

I don't really pass the, is it the mumbles?

Yeah, the first ones.

Yeah, I haven't really been out there.

My uncle Alan had a caravan where that big airport is,

you know, where the BA planes sort of used to go and get served.

That's Cardiff, yeah.

Because everyone got paid off, didn't they,

from the coal mines that bought a caravan

and a gold bracelet, basically, in about 1977.

And then, then I would head up,

and I haven't done that whole west coast of Wales,

and I'd end up, and I've never been there.

I really want to go there.

It's Port Marion.

Oh, it is.

Yeah, it's fantastic.

Yeah, and I've never fucking been there.

How embarrassing.

So I'm gonna, the real one is Wales.

That's my long story.

My short story is the dream thing, which,

you know, I sort of want to do it,

but sort of don't want to do it,

is a D-type Jaguar, Mealy-Millier.

Oh.

That's, I almost would rather just sit in the passenger seat

and be sort of janks, as opposed to do it myself.

But I don't know whether I'd want to be

in the passenger seat of a D-type Jaguar.

But nevertheless, I'd, you know,

I've got that scratch of the Mealy-Millier,

which frankly, I should sort of pull my finger out

and go and do that.

It's four days, not three now,

so maybe I could possibly do it

and not get too sort of knackered.

But maybe it's easier to do the Wales thing.

Those are the issues.

If I can sort of have two death row drives,

then that would be it.

Organisable.

And the other thing is that Port Marion,

I think you can still drive on the beach.

I think there's a bit where you could,

I don't know whether they stopped it or not

through bad behaviour,

but you could take your car on the beach

and skid about.

It's brilliant.

It's a really cool thing.

Face the big balloon.

Yeah.

I don't, I don't, it's embarrassing.

I've never, I've never been up there at all.

I'm going up, I'm going up a week on Friday.

Maybe you should come.

I know it's good, I'm going up the Goodwood weekend.

So, um, Manish, what about you?

You guys, do you hear, um,

Mr Cooper's little prisoner reference there,

the big balloon?

Yeah, yeah.

Not another, I'm a free man.

Yeah.

In, in 2000, a really good friend of mine got married.

He lives in New York.

And, um, he had bought a new,

I think it was a CL 500.

This isn't the car I'd do this in,

but he liked, he likes his cars.

He's not, not bonkers about cars.

He likes his cars.

He's a man of some substance,

so he can buy the odd good car.

But he did a drive that's supposed

to be quite sort of legendary.

And I remember he took some photographs

and this is a sort of pre iPhone.

So proper photos, photos on film.

And I'd never seen anything quite so stunning,

but he did that, that thing,

Route 97, the hawks nest.

He did it and he did it in the autumn.

And he did it a CL 500.

And that's, it's along the Delaware River,

upstate New York, basically.

And I, I'm going to challenge you to find

more beautiful photographs

of any road in the world.

If you just, just Google it.

I mean, you know, I've got some photos

that he took on a journey.

But if you look at it and in the autumn,

you know, it's that classic upstate New York,

classic America in the autumn.

It's just extraordinary.

They've just got reds and yellows

and ochres and crimsons that we,

you know, we just cannot imagine.

But this road is a proper, I mean,

imagine Herman Tilke designed a circuit.

Imagine the exact opposite.

That is what this road is.

It's just, it's fast.

I think America is a good suggestion,

Manish, really.

He said it was just the best drive of his life.

His father had a couple.

His father, in fact, used to own two Gullwing 300 SLs.

You know, he came from that kind

of very extraordinary family.

And I'll tell you the car that I'd like to do it in.

I've, you know, one of the absolute,

absolute pleasures of doing this podcast

are the people that you meet.

Because they feel they know you on the base of the podcast.

I think they probably do after three years.

But I've got to know Jonathan Connolly quite well.

And he has the car that I've now got the worst crush on

in the world.

I've talked about it a couple of times.

The Ferrari 308 GT4, the Sasha Distell 4-seater.

So he has a silver one with navy blue interior.

That actually, Rookie's dead.

I just think you want to do a road like that

in a mid-engined Ferrari.

And not a big one.

So, you know, maybe a Dino, something like that.

It just does not need to be overpowered.

It needs to be a manual.

And you need to just enjoy.

Man, would you do it with a French crooner along for the ride

or with other members of society?

Well, I mean, I would love to do this with Sasha Distell

because remember, he had that fantastic line.

He said, it's all right as he went to kiss this woman.

She's my wife.

I've just loved that line.

So French crooner.

But the nice thing about that car

is you could put a couple of bags on the back,

take a really, really lovely road trip.

I mean, what a last drive.

Awesome.

I don't know where to begin with this.

I suppose what I can do is I can show solidarity

with what Chris Cooper said when he read Sir Chris Hoy's article

that I do believe it's what's staring you in the face.

It's probably, it's not the hyperbolic crazy drive

that involves amazing machinery and remarkable circumstances.

It might be something to remind you

where you came from and what you really love about driving.

And I'm very lucky to have tested lots of that.

I mean, I could have said that I'd like to drive a Renault 4

in the foothills of the Himalayas, but I've done it.

And I can tell you it, for the most part, scared the shit out of me

because you realise that you want functioning brakes.

And when you've got old Renault brakes, it scares you.

So lots of the sort of crazy things I did on Top Gear.

I was quite scared, if I'm honest with you.

I didn't, you know, there are moments of it

where I've got photographs and I go,

did I really do that?

That's a kilometre down there, off the edge.

But most of the time, it scared me.

Also, I've been very lucky.

Again, I sound arrogant, but Neil, I've done the millimilia.

I did it in a C-type and I sat next to

one of the best drivers I've ever witnessed driving,

Al Buncombe, at the peak of his powers

and it scared the shit out of me.

Not that I didn't trust him,

but it was so potent and powerful experience.

And I'm going to admit I'm a junkie,

but I was exhausted by the adrenaline.

It was too much.

So that's too much for me.

So in reality, it's probably something ordinary.

I'd like to recreate silly things that I've done in cars.

And I remember being with my kids in my 2CV racing.

Andrew Franklin in his 2CV, up a hill,

somewhere near Usk, in our 2CVs.

And we were down to first gear.

We can't have been doing more than 12, 14 miles an hour.

My kids were screaming to get ahead of Andrew.

And he was very, very determined not to be beaten.

And I suppose in those five minutes,

I've probably had as much fun as I've ever had in a car.

Sounds a bit cliche, but it really was the case.

I look back to some of the silly things I did,

filming cars that were ordinary, cheap cars.

I remember being with Colin Goodwin,

Steve Sutcliffe in a fourth focus,

1.6 down in South France.

I don't have ever laughed more.

I can't say what we did, but it was wonderful.

So maybe it's about the people,

but I will slightly confuse people or contradict myself.

I've never driven across America.

I've never done it.

I've been, I've driven to all parts of America,

what it feels like,

but I've never done that sort of west to coast,

west to east or east to west.

No, I haven't.

I think that is the most romantic drive for me.

It's the one, I love,

I love the idea of approaching LA as the sun comes up

with, and having chosen my music for that moment.

And maybe doing it with my friend,

JF Musial, who I always said I'd do it with,

who I think has had quite an impact on my life.

I don't know, there's,

maybe I wouldn't want to do it on my own,

because there's so many people I'd want to be with.

All of you would be in that list,

but I wouldn't want to choose one.

And the only other way I could do it

would be in a 70-70-seater bus.

Maybe that would be fun,

to do it with all your mates

that you'd want to be together in a bus,

playing tunes and singing.

I don't know.

I'm a bit more morose.

I think I'd have to be on my own.

Yeah, maybe it is a solitary thing.

I don't know.

Again, it could change every day.

There's so many cars that I love.

I haven't fixated on one.

I just think changes by the hour.

At the moment, I'm slightly obsessed

with AMG Mercedes,

but I'll wake up tomorrow morning

with a different affliction, I'm sure.

I quite like the bus idea,

but I wouldn't need a 70-seater bus

for all my mates.

We're not getting the violin out for you yet, Cooper.

You're more popular than you are.

That's what you could do.

What they used to do, you know,

the old stage of journeys where,

you know, you'd have a horse waiting for you.

Yeah.

It'd be pretty amazing to do that

with half a dozen cars, wouldn't it?

Well, do you know what, Manish?

People, I know, very wealthy people

that do just that.

They have their people wait for them

at certain points on the journey

and they swap out of the 280,

get into the F50.

I mean, yeah, that would be good.

I was thinking of a more modest way of doing it,

but that would work.

Yeah, that would work.

Okay, pick an undervalued car.

Shit.

This is Neil, isn't it?

No, Neil didn't choose this,

and he's obviously not chosen it,

so I'm going to go to him last

so he can do some research.

Manish proposed this.

So, I think you did, didn't you?

I did it from Neil's agenda.

It's on the list.

Neil, by the way, is a busy boy.

He's had a busy couple of days.

We're putting him under the car here.

So, I think he will.

I'll go to Chris Cooper first.

I'll go to Manish afterwards.

Chris, pick an undervalued car.

I think there are loads.

Yeah.

Even now, I think there are loads.

So, I had a little bit of a noodle a few minutes ago,

and I wonder whether we also meant not just

they're cheaper than you think they should be

or could be.

Not so appreciated.

Exactly, exactly what that is precisely.

Are they underappreciated?

So, I kind of had...

There's kind of...

I've got both of those criteria in my mind.

The last or the F12 BMW 6-series, we'll put a picture up.

You know, it's that sort of rather American-looking thing.

Yeah.

That one.

Yeah, great car.

I think that is underappreciated and sort of undervalued.

I found Finney and I found one a minute ago.

2018, 20,000 miles, 640, lovely thing.

20-odd grand?

I mean, that's a lot of car for the money.

Yeah.

This is a bit...

I just wonder whether the P38 Range Rover

will eventually have its day.

Because compared to 322s,

you can believe the 100 and something grand that

somebody think they got an auction for one recently.

P38s.

It was the Queens.

It was the Queens, yeah.

She might have once rude in the back of it.

Did you say P38, just to be clear?

I think I did.

You've had your meds today, have you?

I did.

The question was, are they undervalued and underappreciated?

They are definitely underappreciated.

I don't know.

In 10 years' time, let's play this back.

For those of us who are still alive.

There's one other one.

I had loads in there.

I mean, I'm bound to say,

the Panamera wagon that I've got, nobody wants.

I couldn't sell it if I wanted to.

I don't want to sell it.

I think...

And they're not making it anymore because they really were.

Nobody wanted them.

They were underappreciated.

But anything with that big V8 diesel in it, the Porsche Bentley V8 diesel.

So a Bentayga V8 diesel, nobody really wants.

It's a diesel Bentayga.

It's a diesel Bentley, for God's sake.

That is a mega, mega piece of kit.

So I think I could go on and wait.

I'll stop.

I think there were loads.

And it's a massive treasure trove of excitement, opportunity, value.

Yeah.

I agree.

I totally agree.

Manage, thoughts?

I think there are only two, actually.

Oh.

No, I'm joking.

I think there are two that come to mind.

I've mentioned one of these before in a different context,

but I think the Porsche 944, especially the Turbo,

I have a feeling that I just think at the time that car was amazing.

There are a few about now.

I would imagine if you found one of those that have been reasonably well looked after

or found someone who could fix one, that is a mega car.

It was a mega car at the time.

I think the aesthetics have kind of come back as well.

There's something about them.

They're a lot smaller in real life as well when you see them.

So they're just beautifully scaled cars.

And they were the, I know, they were never quite the poor man's 928,

but I just always viewed that as a kind of entry-level super car.

And it really was an entry-level super car.

And it didn't break down.

So loads and loads in California in the mid to late 80s.

But the most under-appreciated, undervalued car

is actually the Ferrari 456 M.

That is the P.

It's so beautiful.

One day, one day, people will realise what that car really is.

It's got to be an automatic.

Well, exactly.

I'll just let you know now that if you listen to the podcast,

you'll now, you might understand what we just deleted before this.

Neil Clifford, you've had a few minutes to think about it.

Sometimes you come up with better answers

when you've only had one minute to think about it.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. I mean, we're all, we're all, we could have a list of 10 each here.

And I suppose it's our silly obsession with cars in general,

that we could name so many that we think are both undervalued financially,

or maybe underloved and they should be loved more.

I'm doing the money thing.

I'm doing the, for 20 grand, today on Car and Classic,

you can go and buy a collector's grade 19,000 miles from new full service history

Lotus Elise S1.

I honestly think for, and it actually, I'm 24 grand, actually,

but for 24 grand, you would not have more fun in driving a car than one of them.

It's absolutely magical little thing.

And, you know, you can go and buy some shit new car for 40 grand.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

That's going to, you know, I had a high car last week.

Honestly, there must be some sort of underground strategy

of just killing the whole automotive fucking industry.

They're really, honestly, it's, it's shocking how annoying new cars are.

Beeping, you know, beeps used to be about, oh, you've got a problem.

You know, you've got an oil leak or you've got low oil pressure or you've got like a,

the thing constantly fucking makes noises and different noises.

So you don't know, is that the speed one or is it the lane one?

And it's a high car, you know, you don't know where the manual is.

You can't turn off as a Volkswagen.

Very good car in many respects, a Volkswagen bus for nine, nine people on holiday.

But honestly, there must be some sort of underground mission

just to bring down the whole of this bloody industry.

Because there's no way you'd go and write a check for 40, 50 grand

for one of those new bloody things in my view.

You go and buy this and then get yourself a three, two, two Range Rover for 10 grand as well.

And you know, you'll be good before they break, serve some every year.

And so, yeah, S1 at least 20 grand cool.

By the way, my friend Graham is selling one of those special edition dark blue ones.

They only made 70, obviously a very dark blue car.

It's original message me on Instagram or message our account.

If you want to, you're interested in buying that car

because it's flipping beautiful.

And he gives it well, I know, I'm a bit of a contradictory really

because I should own one and I did own one.

And I don't know why I can't even why I sold it.

I probably will buy it back.

But the for me is a bit of a sort of useless driver.

Doesn't really go like to go very fast.

I like to feel like I'm going fast, but I'm going slow.

I'm sort of the opposite of and that car does that.

Yeah.

Did you know that in, I mean, it's really funny what you're thinking about the alarms

when they analyzed some of the combat sorties in Vietnam in phantom jets,

they realized that they were augmenting this plane with more and more instruments

and capabilities that they were adding an alarm to each one.

And eventually the pilot and the flight officers would just be overloaded with alarms

to the point where they couldn't recognize what the alarm was that was going off,

why it was going off and what they were meant to do.

And it was actually really interfering with their combat sorties.

And you know, you're just saying somebody out to kill the car industry,

what they had to do, the US Navy, because they were Navy phantoms at the time,

is actually to strip all of these systems back and almost go back to basics

and say, okay, an alarm will go off if a wing is about to fall off.

Otherwise, really, we don't need to trouble the pilot.

I mean, Manish, you're right, the irony is these things are obviously

designed by some clever person for safety on a spreadsheet.

It's alarming these noises and actually is distracting for when you're actually trying

to drive decently. So it's a real bloody cock up the whole thing.

Can you imagine the kind of the brilliant mess of a haptic display,

trying to find your way through a menu while 20 alarms are going off?

Yeah, I think we weren't allowed to see the cockpit of the F-35 when we filmed it,

but I'm led to believe that, you know, someday it won't wake up.

You can imagine that ultimately it's a bit like that.

That yes, Prime Minister's sketch when he says, so on balance, we'd like the

Russian to invade on the weekday because of the weekends we're not, you know,

no one's really doing anything.

So is that, I think part of, I mean, we talked about this before,

and I think we should continue talking about it because at some point somebody

might listen. There is, we have over-indexed societally

in the West on thinking that somebody's always got to be responsible

if something bad happens. Yeah.

And that is unrealistic and naive. Sometimes bad things will happen.

Absolutely.

Because bad things have happened, not because somebody can be blamed or is to blame for it.

And the second part of that or the corollary of that is this ridiculous obsession

with eliminating risk. Life is full of risk and uncertainty.

And this nanny knows best philosophy and approach of all of these

bings and bongs and alarms because you might be doing something wrong.

Ironically, probably increases the chances of bad things happening because

the responsibility, the ownership responsibility ironically diminishes

the more you think somebody else is watching something for you.

It's road to madness.

How we got there from what's the best value car on sale, I don't know,

but that's what I love about this podcast, we meander through life and time.

Here we go, I've written some down here.

So I always think undervalued and underappreciated has to be relative to something.

And the principle ways that you judge it are, what did it cost you?

What do we think we knew about how much it cost to make the car?

I.e. it always feels better if you know the car costs so much for the car maker to make

that you're getting value from the start because they took, you know,

like a Veyron cost 10 million quid each to make.

But if you could buy it for one and a half, your quids in straight away, aren't you?

It's all about man-mass in many ways.

Is there another car that shares something mechanically with that

that means that only the connoisseur know that you're getting nine tenths of the really expensive one

but you've got, you know, I love all that stuff.

That's the way people like us approach this subject.

I always think the R129SL500 with the correct V8, with the multi-valve V8 is a great example

because how it, it's so perverse that the more expensive to develop

two-door beautiful convertible of a 500e is worth about one-fifth the price.

Just as fast, it's a bit more wobbly, but basically it's got that amazing engine.

It doesn't weigh in an awful lot more and the roof goes down.

I mean, it's amazing really.

So you look at the price of those things, they don't really go up that much.

I totally agree with Chris Cooper.

My friend Tony Isles, who's a listener of this, let me use his Cayenne V8 diesel over the summer.

Honestly, with the 18-way electric adjustable seats in the air suspension,

that might, I spoke to someone at Porsche last week who's quite high up

and he admitted that might be one of the best cars they've ever made,

including all the 911s.

So that's amazing.

R33 GTRs, I've been looking at these.

Why is an R34 worth 300 grand and these are worth 80?

I might not know the way they look, and ultimately they're all a handful to drive.

M6 Gran Coupe of the same model that Chris Cooper is.

I see those four door, those four-door M6 Gran Coupe.

25 grand.

What a car.

AMG C63507s, there's a few of them I've been looking recently.

That's got the engine from the Black Series.

It hasn't got the wide bodywork in the fancy dampers,

but basically you get a Black Series motor in a stealthy looking coupe.

Take the badges off it and you're doing 180 miles an hour at 9mpg with a big bin on your face.

But there's one that's staring us all in the face.

The one's the most undervalued car for me by miles at the moment is the Ferrari 296 GTB.

They are just, they cannot sell them.

There's cars that were 300 grand that are worth 140, 150 grand in the trade.

I mean, it is, okay, it's ridiculous to say it, so people can afford them.

But it's one of not the best or most complete sports car I've ever driven.

They're worth half what they were in you two and a half years ago.

Do you know that works out as just six-stamp duties evaded?

Literally.

Also, I want to be clear here, Manish is a very, very staunch Guardian reader.

It even is having a pop.

Right.

Yeah, I think 296.

Just look at them.

I mean, it's for all a car.

Yeah, they're quite wide, but they are amazing.

What has happened to Ford and what do we want them to do?

It's interesting this because I'm not sure it's in quite such the pickle that the question

might suggest, but there we go.

Let's put this to Manish first.

Oh my days.

So, another lovely thing about this pod is it is an opportunity for me to feel guilt-free

and read about a subject that I know very little about.

In any ways, you are Melvin Braggs in our time, which sadly is just ended,

but within our podcast, aren't you?

You're going to be Melvin from now on.

The greatest.

That Desert Island discs, that's it.

You could send me anywhere.

If I had a lifetime supply of those, I'd be just that happy.

Right, so, Lori.

Who is he?

No, so I'm right on the off button.

In the year 1643, Harold, I mean, God, the food gives a fuck.

Oh, I love everyone who's represented here.

Manish, do you have the floor?

I love that too.

It's funny.

The answer may well be in your question.

So I had no idea that Ford in America are unfortunately the recall kings of the United States.

So I was looking at some quite scary, quite scary number.

It's the number one recall manufacturer in the United States 2025.

So far, there have been 105 recalls with 7 million vehicles recalled.

Making up 39% of all recalls.

The next highest is 9%.

So it's probably not the...

Now, when they go into them, a lot of them are tiny things,

little software fixes, a light that doesn't work properly.

You just get a free software download.

But the flip side to this is that Ford have sold 190,206 vehicles

in the United States in August up 4% for the year and year on year.

And 6.6% over the year.

So I think you're probably right.

I don't know.

Our government underwrote a £1 billion loan to Ford here in the UK for R&D,

all to be spent in Essex, their R&D Centre.

They employ 5,500 people there, which is kind of incredible.

So I don't do what Mr Cooper does for a living.

But I guess Ford are going through the same growing pains

that all mass manufacturers are going through.

They used to build X.

They were very successful at building X,

whether X was an F-150 or a probe or a focus.

And now they're having to think about the brave new EV world

that we are about to enter.

And there are growing pains in this.

And the growing pains are very technical growing pains.

Now, I think your mate, Jim Farley, has said their real problem is quality, quality control.

But they're putting their backs into trying to sort this out.

Another article that I read said it's very difficult to judge

in a short period of time whether quality control improves.

Because by definition, you need a year or so.

You need to see how the recalls are going.

So I guess my very scattered answer is it looks like

they're trying to adapt to this great new 21st century.

They are having some problems doing it.

Who isn't?

They may be pushing perhaps harder than other people

because of the sheer number of recalls.

Low of these recalls are very minor.

But people have quite a lot of faith in them.

And certainly our government does by giving underwriting

a billion quid loan.

There is the answer.

So they're doing it.

They're doing it.

They've identified the problem and they're trying to fix it.

Neil Clifford, do you like a bit of Ford?

Yeah, I do.

I do.

I love, love, the love, the logo.

I think it's one of the best.

One of the best car badges.

I love the blue.

I love the font.

I love the fact that it hasn't really changed.

I love that it's fundamentally still a family business.

Just about.

I love its connotations of blue collar aspiration.

You know, it's a car for the people, isn't it?

I like the fact that it's not overt and flashy.

I know we all have a lot of memories of Ford,

or I certainly do anyway, of the 70s and the 80s.

Even my father had a company car, Mark III Cortina,

two-door, 1.6L.

Oh, cool.

Two-door, no, four-door.

They did it.

There was a couple of two-doors.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, they did that 1600 GT, Mark III,

which was a beautiful looking thing with the extra dials.

Yeah.

There was a 2000 GT actually, two-door, with the extra dials.

And it was like a Coke bottle.

It was a beautiful looking car that Mark III coupé, wasn't it?

I have a big emotional connection to it positively.

We all sort of ran away from it as quickly as we could a bit,

couldn't we?

If we had, that's a bit of a problem the brand has got,

is you have this history of it,

and then you sort of, as soon as I can afford a BMW,

you fuck off, don't you?

And maybe that's a bit of the past.

I think, what is it?

It's the number five brand in the UK

behind Volkswagen, BMW, Audi, and Kia.

Yeah.

Sales in the UK down quite a bit, I think 20%,

but I think everyone's got that.

So I have a massive love of the brand.

You know, when I look, it's maybe being over critical,

the cars are a bit generic.

They all look the same.

They're just bigger versions and smaller versions

of the same bloody car.

I don't know whether it is a Puma or a,

I mean, that Capri thing, that could go fine.

It didn't harm Mercedes and BMW in the 80s.

No, it didn't, it didn't, it didn't.

But when I look at Puma,

which I think is the number one set or focus,

what are the number with Puma?

The Puma is the number one car in the UK.

I got that right on a BBC game show

that's going to be pulled out of this.

You can't criticise that in any way.

It's the best selling bloody thing.

But when I, if I see a Puma or a Focus,

they're maybe rightly, you know,

they've got that slightly Aston Martin knock-off grill

that I was always a bit across with Ford,

that they did that.

You know, maybe it worked for them.

The Mondeo.

It's a, well, even now, it's a bit cheeky.

Yes, the Fiesta was pretty cheeky as well.

It's a bit cheeky, but maybe it was bloody successful.

What I'd love them to do,

I'd love them to do a couple of things.

I wish they had a bit more design confidence

and balls to do what Renault were doing.

And I know it's a bit dangerous, that sort of retro thing,

but I think it would be great

if there was a bit more emotion and creativity to their design.

And maybe that's risky.

Maybe this sort of soap bar of soap,

all the cars look the same thing.

They're just a bit bigger and a bit smaller.

Maybe they're actually bloody works

because it's got a sort of knock-off Aston Martin grill

and it's a relatively handsomer thing.

I'd also love them to bring the bloody Bronco.

That Bronco, you know, I spent a lot of time in America,

is fantastic and Farley is putting so much effort into that.

I think why they're doing better in the US and the United Kingdom

because obviously they're very good at trucks

and versions of trucks.

And the truck is the car really in the US anyway.

And whether it be F-150, F-250, all the big cars.

I've seen a lot of Rangers and Ranger Raptors over here now though.

I think they seem to have got that market pretty much sewn up.

Yeah, they have.

But the Broncos should be Ford's Defender in the UK.

It's cooler as well and they've got a soft top

and they've got a wide one and they've got, you know,

and now Farley's doing some amazing limited edition Broncos.

Cabralais and, you know, they've got the retro icon thing coming back.

We haven't got any of that.

We've got all these bloody cars on the UK website

that frankly they're all a little bit boring.

I wish they just were a bit more exciting.

And that comes from someone that has a real emotional connection to the brand.

Frankly, I thought it was British for about 30 years.

It sort of was, yeah.

Can I interject with something that I screenshoted a message

that someone sent us, a listener sent us,

because I thought it would be a good pod question.

But we're sort of there now.

It's Chris, Chris Can21.

Forgive me if I'm straying out of my lane here,

but I'd love to hear you four's thoughts,

memories and stories about Ford.

This is the bit that's critical.

A strange brand that has the amazing accolade

of being both very American and very British

in its feel and personality,

probably the most impactful manufacturer ever.

And I think that's the thing that comes from this,

is that we, how can two completely different countries

from across the massive body of water

fill their own in the brand?

But you, I honestly thought,

I had no idea it was American.

It was about 16.

No, I didn't.

No idea.

I think it's, I mean, they've been making cars in the UK

since just after World War One.

I mean, a long, long time ago.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And it was only a relative recently.

They stopped making anything with four-wheelzons,

make engines.

But the last factory that made vehicles

was the transit factory, was that?

Down in Samton.

Yeah.

Daglin went before Samton, I think.

Right, yeah.

I was trying to think of an analogy,

and that your, our correspondence observation

about US and UK is a really good one.

I was trying to think of an analogy

that sums up what's happened to Ford.

Ford used to be the Woolworth as the car market.

It was in everybody's life.

For every man, yeah.

It was for everybody,

not just for, you know, certain sections

of society economically.

It was kind of for everyone.

And we felt, I certainly felt when I was growing up,

every high street I went to had a Woolworth in it.

And we thought it was British.

We didn't know it was an American origin.

Didn't, didn't figure at all.

I think it was an American origin, wasn't it?

Some real creative going on.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Does anyone like to hazard a guess

as to what the Ford,

this is a bit UK-centric,

apologies for those in the former colonies.

What was Ford's market share in the UK in 1987?

25%.

40%.

21%.

29%.

Wow.

And it was basically,

Peter, 1980, 30%,

and all the way through to the late,

around about 1990, 25, 20, 27%.

In 23, it was down to 7.6%.

What happened?

I mean, it's a bit like the Woolworth analogy,

it sort of works really.

A couple of things happened.

First, sort of everybody tried eating their lunch.

And my memories of growing up,

and my father had Ford's as company cars.

When you go to the motor show,

it wasn't those days,

and you get that beautiful big brochure,

and you look at the back and you said,

yeah, was it Warley, Eagle House,

Warley Way, or Warley House, Eagle Way,

whatever it was.

You think that somewhere in Essex,

and it's clearly, that's the centre of everything,

and the factories there, and you call,

what would be amazing to go there

and see all those big ideas being made?

And you'd get the brochure,

and it would have,

because for a long time, the Fiesta wasn't there,

it was just a Mark II escort.

I can, first of all, I remember there was a Mark II escort.

And then Mark III, Mark IV Cortina,

Mark V Cortina.

The Sierra was so exciting,

and Granada did have a vinyl roof.

All those kind of exciting,

it was kind of every one part of our life.

Do you remember the expensive brochure,

and all the extras,

and all the prices of every single extra?

It was just nerds' paradise.

They were Bauhaus designed.

They were so good.

And some of them had,

there was, the Motor Show one,

occasionally had the Australian Fords

you could buy in the UK.

I suspect through some dealer somewhere in London.

But you think, well,

they're somehow slightly strange and slightly alien.

I'm going to stick to what I know best,

and what the family knows best,

and what our friends had.

It was part of everybody's life.

I think people started eating its lunch.

There weren't an entry level Mercedes or BMW.

It was an old one.

And then the German manufacturer said,

hang on, we can make a lot more money

if we sell a million cars a year

rather than 100,000 cars a year.

And suddenly, and then finance,

we talked about that.

The availability and social acceptance of finance.

And we changed.

I mean, Neil, you put your finger on it, sort of.

I can't, I'm trying to think when it was

that you thought, we stop thinking,

I'm proud to have a new Ford.

1990.

You think it was as recent as that?

Time for guru.

Well, you know, I was dreaming of an XR3

in about 87.

And then suddenly the three-series BMW came along,

and it just, you just, you didn't dream of an XR3 anymore.

Okay, 1600i.

There was a few of those limited edition things, you know.

But really, you went to BMW, didn't you?

What year did the Ford Scorpio come out?

Can you remember that?

Scorpio was the 90s.

Yeah, because for me, the Scorpio versus the Granada,

there it is.

The Granada, I could see a company director in a Granada.

I could see that as an absolutely top end

company.

Scorpio, I couldn't see it.

Do you remember in 1991, I checked this this evening,

because I kind of had a 92 in my head,

there was that Ford TV advert

where the soundtrack was that Brian May Queen sounding like track.

Everything we do is driven by you.

Yes, yes.

We'll put a link on the thing.

Does it would be a YouTube thing of its own?

We'll put a link on.

I don't want to call it the transit and everything.

The transit, it had that, actually in reality,

really shit, Mark V Escort RS 2000.

Yeah.

It looked good.

It had the wider headlights, thinner, wider headlights.

Those sort of flat faced five spoke alloy wheels.

It's a good wheel on the back.

And they had the Sierra Cosworth, the Sapphire,

the Ford, the booted version, the rally car and the Q8

branded sponsorship, withing everywhere,

transits, an Escort Cabrio,

which was an utter shit box of a car, let's be honest.

But we all wanted one.

I wanted one badly.

And that song, I would play it.

I got the tape, like a single track tape

to pay in my actually Toyota company car,

because I love that song.

And we felt, God, those Fords, they really are.

They're still, they're still us, they're still part of us.

But the next thing you have with your tape player,

do you have a copy of British Airways's

Fly the Flag from 1987 as well?

I couldn't get that as out of stock.

Let me, I make a couple of observations there.

First of all, I once had a very early column

I wrote for AutoCar Magazine rejected on the grounds

that I suggested coming from Bristol,

but the phrase, everything we do is driven by you,

might have a very scatological reference.

Because where I came from, you know, if you did mess,

the verb to do suggested that you just drop your guts.

Don't spoil it.

So I thought to myself, this was just Ford's management

laughing at the fact that the escort mile five

was a piece of shit and you had to buy it.

I think, I think you're absolutely right,

but the history of brand within the automotive industry,

I think will view Ford has been quite unlucky.

So Ford was a brand that was rejected,

because ultimately it was no longer aspirational.

When a load of Germans came along and made

the new aspirational marketplace,

but what's happened subsequently is that brand doesn't seem

to matter as much anymore.

And Ford has already suffered.

So the idea that the Hyundai and Kia can emerge,

these are cars that were laughed at 15 years ago,

but now they're emerging as with more market share

and no one really cares.

People, I've said this so many times,

people that I always thought were very brand sensitive

and complete snobs to use a better, no better word

would only want them to say these will now happily drive

a Kia or a Hyundai.

I never thought I'd see the day,

but actually they still wouldn't buy a Ford.

And I just think it's, I think it's unfair.

I really do.

It is unfair.

That's right.

Yeah.

And I think it's a great brand.

And I, maybe there'll be a sort of blue color in Asons.

I doubt it.

We've gone on too long with this segment,

but the only observation I'll make is that

I think Ford has maintained it's cool far more

in America than it has in Europe.

That's fine.

It still has F-150, Mustang, Bronco.

It's managed to maintain its coolness

and its sort of core much more.

And I spoke to Jim Farley, I've only met him once in my life,

but he's a really convincing and I do believe powerful

and he's someone who really cares about his brand

as an individual.

But when I asked him about Europe,

he just went, our hands are tied really.

You know, we've not much we can do beyond what we're doing.

And hearing him, and I won't mention someone else,

very senior in the organization talk about having to

basically press the kill button on the fiesta,

both of them I thought were going to cry.

They really welled up that I think rightly so.

They viewed the fiesta as our Mustang.

It was the fiesta embodied everything

that we loved about Ford in Europe.

And the idea of having to kill that,

not because you want to or because you know

your customers don't want it,

but because some people who are politicians

say you have to, which is ridiculous, isn't it really?

They didn't want to kill it.

People were still buying it in their droves.

It was the best hatchback for about 10 years.

You have to say we're not making this anymore

because we're told we shouldn't.

Yeah.

Madness.

It goes back to the pinging fucking longing.

So let's move on.

Otherwise, where are we?

Here we go.

The next point is where are we?

I've lost where I am now, Neil Clifford.

I'm blaming you completely.

Best leadership in cars, motorsport.

Oh, best leadership in cars or motorsport.

One of my children is trying to phone me.

They probably want money.

So, wait there.

I'm in the middle of a podcast.

I'll call you back.

Love you lots.

So I'm going to call you now because I'd like money.

Yeah.

Best leadership in motorsport or well.

I mean, this is tough.

I'm going to go Neil Clifford, but I mean, this is tough.

I'm going to be very, very cheesy here.

I know the answer to this before he says it.

Because someone's made a movie.

And I don't really know the current leadership,

but I should do really.

You know, I'm trying to read Car Magazine

and try and keep up on the industry and all of that.

But no one really jumped out at me, really.

So I'm just going to say, I totally fucking love

Luca da Montezellamo.

Quite right.

And you know, there is a movie coming out

and it's almost sold out in the every man's cinema.

I was apart from...

Barry St. Edmunds.

Please, if you live in Barry St. Edmunds,

buy some tickets for Manish

because he's looking every day.

There's only one bloke going to see the movie

in Barry St. Edmunds

and they're not going to sell enough pick and mix.

And it will be a red on the spreadsheet

of a loss-making engine.

What, yeah, I'm fascinated by this.

Barry St. Edmunds is clearly averse to this particular product.

We're going to find out why.

We're going to conduct some very, very intensive research,

find out what's going on.

Then we're going to send you all lots of flowers

and popcorn to try and incentivise viewing this film.

But yeah, I can't disagree that it's really all about Luca.

But I'm going to pass over to Chris Cooper.

I mean, that's a really good example.

It is a good example.

And we, you know, the film and everything

and, you know, it's really, really hard to walk past that.

What is good leadership?

What does it look like?

I spent a lot of my professional life

sort of thinking about that

and different management leadership.

And the best explanation,

what the nicest...

I'm not sure it's necessarily completely accurate.

It's a bit twee.

Leadership is about vision, strategy,

and where you want to get to.

Management is about execution.

Now, there are lots of aspects of management

which are about advice aversa.

Steady she goes in normal every day.

You can get away with not being a great leader.

Execution is clearly quite important.

So I was trying to think of an example,

another example where it was obvious

something was missing

from the simple performance of the organization.

And it was interesting.

It has been interesting

and it's still interesting to watch somebody deal with that

and the words they use and what they say

and the effect that they're having.

And that's James Vowles at Williams Formula One.

He's lovely.

I think we should get him on here.

He definitely should.

He's got a lovely guy.

And he talks about,

and he's clearly, he's a very clever engineer.

He could get really, really bogged down

and working in the business,

not on the business, as that cliched phrase always goes.

Because he probably could do every job in the business

because he's very, very clever.

He's done most of them.

But what I've been most impressed by

is he sort of stays above that to say,

actually, what kind of place are we trying to be?

What do we believe in?

How important and what do we feel passionately about winning?

How are we going to win?

And everything he says and does

is about setting that principle,

those values, that culture.

You can't, I'll stuff up a minute about this boring stuff,

but you can't change culture.

You can change the things which affect culture.

Most culture change programs fail

because they try and change the things that you observe.

You can't do that.

You have to change the things which affect it.

And 95% of it comes from what leaders say and do and behave,

particularly how they behave when no one's watching.

It's the biggest test.

And I think James, my sense is,

and that's why I'd like to get him on here, let's do that.

So I'd like to get his view about,

you know, we all love Williams.

It's, I grew up with a Nigel Mansel,

Alan Jones, 1979, 1980, world champion, Frank and Patrick,

and then Nigel, you know, my absolute all-time hero.

And then it just got worse and worse and worse,

and he's come along.

And that's what I think Alicia looks like and how he's done it.

So I think after Luca,

which is just an extraordinary example,

unique in that environment,

I think James Vals is pretty good.

This is, what's your favourite, Man Crush?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm not even sure I'm going to hand this over to Manish, but I will.

I really thought Neil was going to say Toto.

I really did.

I thought I might smile.

I thought, oh, Man Crush, you know,

I think you've both made amazing points,

but on the basis of those points,

I'd actually put Jonathan Wheatley in my absolute composition.

I think there is one exceptional manager in Formula One,

it's Jonathan Wheatley.

And I think, you know, we should definitely get

everybody on this podcast,

but Jonathan started sweeping floors at D.K. Engineering.

He was a mechanic at Benetton, I think till 2006.

He goes to Red Bull, it's a transformational period of time.

He leaves Red Bull for various reasons.

He's arrived at Saaba.

Saaba was not the finest team.

They've got a very interesting strategy.

They're going to become Audi next year.

They're going to have their own engine next year.

He has moved to Zug, which is quite a big move for a Brit.

And just weak in, weak out.

I think to transform a team or to engineer

in a tiny transformational team in the middle of a season

is very, very difficult.

And to do it when you know it's all changed next year,

so no one really cares, is even more difficult.

And I, I, I, he is just an exceptional human being.

He also managed to win a world championship

by, in my humble estimation,

bullshitting live on TV to 80,

whilst 80 million people are watching him.

He actually single-handedly won a world championship.

Don't think he bullshitted.

I just think he lobbied.

I think he played the game.

Okay, he played the game?

It was, but just really, I mean,

how many people can say that they won a world championship

over effectively a telephone call?

He's got great hair as well.

Dad, he's just, he's got good hair.

John really is the business.

He's, he's, he's, he's properly impressive as Jonathan.

He knows we love him.

I'm trying to recreate an,

I'm trying to recreate a cover of Autocart and Motor Magazine

with him from 1988.

I'll leave that with you.

We, but we've exchanged notes and we're going to try and do it.

So, Jonathan, that's our appreciation to you

and your achievements this year.

Frankly, amazing.

It's not very often that you can absolutely pinpoint

the arrival of one individual as being the difference

between the beginning and the end of the season.

It's quite rare that you get that in any sport.

I sort of echo all of these really.

I suppose I like being,

I like being seduced and transfixed by people.

That's why I love Luca.

Because I don't really understand management.

I can't, I'm not organized and my brain can't work like that.

So I don't really admire people that are,

that make businesses great.

Because I don't really understand how they're doing it.

And I judge it on two things.

I judge it on the product because I'm a product reviewer.

So I will always respect the fact that if there's a generation

of cars that are brilliant,

the person that's running the company has,

they might just be a delegator.

But by being that delegator,

they've allowed skillful and talented people to do their jobs.

So they deserve as much credit as anyone else.

So I judge it on the product,

but I also judge it on the way their staff

and their employees and their colleagues respond to them.

And that's why Luca is very powerful.

Because I never saw anything like it.

Because it was like, it was, it was like the life of Brian.

It was, he was nuts at times.

So, but I've seen a few other times as well.

I'll tell you, seeing Chris Bangle surrounded

by people from BMW at the end was very interesting.

You know, a divisive figure who, who by, you know,

by the end people, he was, he was mesoniac.

He really was.

He was amazing to the whole of shit.

So Bangle was one.

Eddie Jordan at times had the ability to be

incredibly powerful and human around the people

that worked for him.

The number of people that when Eddie passed away,

who'd worked for him, who just said, great man.

And they all had a story about some kindness

that he'd shown to them.

I don't know whether that's leadership or not,

or that's just him being a good human being.

I think there's several, I mean,

Bernie has to be up there, you know,

because I always remember Martin Brundle

when he would sort of in the middle of his career,

sometimes would be accused of being

a bit sycophantic on grid walks when he bumped into him.

But there was this sense.

And I remember Martin would say it several times,

whatever happens, you'll look after us.

There's this sense that Bernie was this big mitt,

this catching me and then whatever went on in the paddock,

whatever madness was going on,

they had this one point of reference

that could solve any problem.

I think that's what we want to,

all of us who are parents

want to be that figure to our children.

I think that's a very, very good point.

So I think that maybe that's great leadership.

But I go back to this idea of the way people respond.

I love seeing, it's all too common to see people

that whinge about their boss.

And when the moment they're out there,

we're on that wanker.

I suspect that people that work for Neil Clifford

think he's bloody brilliant.

And I don't see it that often in the current industry.

I've spent many years watching CEOs and chairmen walk out

and everyone goes, I thank God he's gone.

And it's rare that you don't see it.

And I think, yeah, I've mentioned the ones that matter.

And I also, I'm again, intoxicated by those mercurial ones

that you know are flawed,

but just through sheer skill or force of personality,

I'm talking about the Rons and the Frank Williams.

And you clearly, no one would ever allow them

to run any business that wasn't their own.

But look what they achieved and look,

look at the impact they had.

Remarkable people.

Yes, would you put Zach in that box?

I mean, if you look at the transmission.

Definitely.

We should actually feel ashamed

we've not mentioned that.

Look what he did.

Yes.

And also a few of us have done it.

I've sat one-on-one in a motorhome with Zach.

Powerful, very powerful man who listened.

At some point you think, hold on a minute,

I've said too much here.

And I, incredibly, you know,

when you're in the presence of someone

who's so much brighter than you think,

oh God, here we go.

He's thinking seven steps ahead of me.

So he's in that category as well.

There's loads of them.

Maybe we should celebrate the fact

that car industry over time has had so many of these.

But I used to read all those stories written

by my favorite journalist about Jack Nasser

and the stories about him and what he achieved.

Amazing people with vision.

Incredible individuals we've had in our industry really.

Colin Chapman.

Were they leaders or were they just lunatics?

I don't know.

No, I was going to say just about Zach.

And it's true also of Luca.

They will both totally admit to having a mentor,

someone that they really learned from.

With Luca, obviously it was Enzo Ferrari.

But with Zach, it's John Hogan.

I mean, the love he had for John

and the understanding that he had for brands, branding,

really running an organization.

I mean, you've never heard anyone

kind of more loyal and passionate

about a kind of ex-boss

than Zach about John Hogan

or Luca about Enzo Ferrari.

Yeah.

Or really telling things.

He gives Zach the road car bloody business.

So that's gone to Abu Dhabi now.

So we've got, I'd like to go to our two car garage now

unless anyone really wants to discuss

the ways of the weekend.

I think we, do you want to move on from that?

Can I just say one thing about F1?

Yeah.

There was a story today.

Stefano Domenicali who runs Formula One

for Liberty Media

has made a statement to say

they've been looking at numbers

and data and audience and stuff

to say that we believe that the races

are a little bit too long for young people.

That may have been misreported.

Basically, his statement is to say,

I think we should look at having

more sprint race weekends

rather than just three days of practice

and blah, blah, blah,

three practice sessions and two days, blah, blah, blah.

This has kicked up a bit of a stink,

it seems to me,

having looked at it a little bit this afternoon.

I actually don't think it's a bad idea.

I think the sprint race weekends

are genuinely more interesting.

Something happens every day.

Isn't it because it's just fucking boring anyway though?

That's the problem.

If it could ever take in the race,

you might want to watch the old race, won't you?

That's the problem.

Cameron said, I said this a while ago

when he said it to somebody

sort of quite senior in Formula One.

Said Formula One would be really exciting

if it was exciting.

So I kind of get where

you could just fix the problem,

like make the cars more interesting.

For one, if the only option is

what we've got or more sprint weekends,

frankly, I'd have more sprint weekends.

That's true.

I'll go check one thing in here.

I mean, somebody I spoke to 10 years ago

and he was part of a consortium

that was considering buying the whole of Formula One.

This is sort of just at the end.

Not quite the end.

Five years before the end of the Bernie era

and they looked at the valuation,

they looked at where it could go.

One of the things,

because they're also very interested in football,

that they proposed was basically

taking races and splitting them into two

and effectively having a first half

and a second half.

Because what that would do is it just,

first of all, it's brilliant

because the Americans always worked out

that you'd get lots of advertising

into that middle 15 minutes.

So that's great.

That's a nice, easy way of filling it full of ads.

But there was a sense

that there would be genuine interest

in just resetting.

So that's what you were doing.

Now, they were considering things like

should we, for the second half,

reverse the grid?

Should we, for the second half,

just keep it in the same order it was,

almost like a 15-minute safety car.

So you carry on doing that.

And so I think this idea

that races are too long,

too long especially for kids to watch,

whether people need a reset,

whether it's to go and make a cup of coffee

or do whatever.

It's been around for a while.

And I think with Liberty,

I think they're a bit more open

to stuff like this

than perhaps the last management.

But who knows?

I think you can maybe entertain both formats.

We use cricket as an example.

Now, I know that the long-form game

that I love is under pressure,

but actually we keep having series

that remind us that it's probably going nowhere.

But it doesn't mean you can't have both existing.

So I agree.

I also think that maybe the sprint race,

if you keep a Grand Prix as what it is,

which is actually it's an endurance race,

the Grand Prix.

It's not a sprint race.

If you keep it as an endurance race,

could you be more circus-like

with what you consider

you're offering for younger people?

I mean, I personally would have no issue

with there being a 10-lap race.

And at some point during it,

someone presses a massive red button,

let the sprinklers go on,

and everyone has to deal with what's going on.

You know, I can imagine,

I wouldn't have a problem with that.

I really wouldn't.

I just think if you're going to be extreme,

be really extreme.

Just the idea of putting your same show on,

but in a format that's a bit shorter

and people obviously don't give a shit about

because it doesn't really matter

in the context of the whole weekend.

It's probably not enough.

Be sillier.

Yeah, I agree with that.

But at the same time,

keep a five-day test match in there

for the connoisseur,

because the people that come up through the ranks

need to graduate to something,

you know, that does happen in sport.

I mean, they do have to go to the root of the issue,

don't they,

that there needs to be more exciting

in the bloody race.

It's like saying,

we're going to make the goals bigger in football.

The moment it rains,

and the track's not flooded,

it's amazing.

So you've got the answer.

The moment it rains,

and the track's not flooded,

it's amazing.

Yeah.

There's got to be some rocking.

We should be in charge.

Again.

Yeah, I know.

So we're going to move to two car garages now,

which is,

I like this.

This is from Manish.

You are remaking the professionals.

I mean, who would,

I won't,

one of the great TV series.

You have to be of an age.

Yes.

But with the little time twist,

your series will be set

just at the turn of the century in 2000.

The original Bode and Doyle,

drove a Capri 3 Eater S

and an Escort RS 2000 respectively.

What will your millennial professionals drive?

Brackets.

You're creating a pilot,

and so budget is a factor.

You have £50,000 to spend.

I'm going first.

Right.

2000 is about only one type of car.

Okay.

And Bode,

or my modern day Bode,

turns up wearing a rally art jacket

and Doyle turns up wearing a pro drive jacket.

Of course.

I've been on to Carnal Classic,

who sponsored this segment

of our wonderful podcast.

And you need to go on the website.

There's so much good tackle out there at the moment.

So I found on Carnal Classic these two.

All right.

So I've got,

my pro drive is covered by this.

And in Pretzer STI,

they're not auctions, I'm afraid.

And in Pretzer STI,

look at that, 20 grand's worth.

And then the rally art jacket,

it has to be an Evo 6,

not a 5 for me,

because by 2006,

the 7 had come out,

but it's still all about the 6.

Yeah, it's all about the 6.

So it's, and there can be,

and all that happens is that,

whilst they're sometimes distracted

by solving crimes

and dealing with the underworld,

most of the time they're arguing about

whether the Subaru understeers too much

and whether the steering is too sharp

and fast in the Evo.

That's really the main,

the crux of the entire conceit of this series

is about,

does the Subaru understeer

and is the front end of the Subaru,

or the Mitsubishi a bit too sharp?

Who would drive who again?

Who would drive which?

Bodie has rally arts,

Doyle has pro drive.

100% agree.

Okay.

Which car of those, Chris?

Because I've owned both of those

and I absolutely hated the Mitsubishi.

Oh, the Mitsubishi one.

It felt like,

it was, I was just driving on ice.

It's a bit like the Nissan GT-R.

Basically, I couldn't figure it out at all

that your bollocks, whatever it was,

the Subaru,

I've got a Subaru, I love it.

It's always going wrong.

I don't give a shit.

I'll tell you what,

we'll do a film where I get a healthy Evo 6

and I'll, without patronising you,

I'll show you how you get round that.

Yes, I'd love that.

And you release the good stuff from them

because they're amazing.

Because they actually move around a bit on the road,

but they move around in your head.

Yeah, it was.

I feel like it's quite dangerous to me.

Yeah, it feels like it's edgy

because it's fast.

It was an Evo 7 we had, the new Niferous Requis.

Yeah, they dulled it down a bit by then.

The 6 is a bit sillier and I just adore those.

7 is a mega.

Oh, I mean, that package back then.

Right, so I'm going to go to Chris Cushman

out, two-car goat.

Well, I had it all worked out

and I've bloody deleted the email

I sent to myself with on it.

In the auctions on car and classic,

I actually, I think for 50 grand there are three cars

because you need three cars for the professionals.

So there was a Bentley Brooklands

for the boss with that beautiful car phone.

Yeah, yeah.

Professionals is just one of our part of our happy childhood.

Parts of our childhood might not have been happy,

but Sunday night, school night,

professionals are on.

That little logo that came up,

the Mark I Avengers production

and that sort of the lion shape

with the union flag drape round.

Yeah.

How good did that feel?

Can I ask one thing?

Yeah.

The reference to something we talked about earlier,

what also did the professionals represent

is a time when Ford was cool.

It was cool.

Yeah, it was cool.

It was an odd Dolomite Sprint interloper.

Yes.

But yellow.

I also had a TR7.

One of them had a TR7 for a bit as well.

It was Capri three-litre rest for a Bodie.

Yes.

And an RS 2000 with a tennis racket headrest.

Two of them.

Good oil.

Yeah.

So two big Ford really.

Yeah, so 2000, I reckon.

I found a beautiful VR6 Corrado

just about to go on auction.

70,000 miles.

That just looked fantastic.

Bentley Brooklands,

the sort of the silver spirit shape

based Bentley Brooklands.

And I, so I reckon Doyle would have the Corrado.

Yeah.

And Bodie would have a DB7 Vantage.

Which has so many choices

for a 2000s professional remake

in the auctions this week.

It's brilliant.

Loving it.

Neil, what are you going to go for?

Look, I think, very good suggestions.

Somehow you've missed the obvious.

It's got to be British.

Yeah, I know.

It's got to be British.

It's, you know, it's like, it's the Royal Family.

It's bloody roast dinners.

I mean, it's fucking, it's got to,

and if you can't be Ford,

because now we've just suddenly

shockingly discovered that Ford is a British,

it's got to be Jaguar.

Fucking Jaguar.

Yes, loads of good Jags.

Go on, which one?

If Jaguar aren't going to be clever enough

to do the new Bond car

in their marketing strategy,

they're going to do the professionals.

And you go to, you go to Jaguar and say,

can we have a look through all your,

you know, your love,

and of course I've looked at car and classics,

let's be honest.

But you can go to that,

the bit behind the Land Rover Jaguar,

where they bought those 700 cars off a dentist.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

In Monmouthshire?

Yes.

And I've had a good nose around there a few times.

He was a fucking dentist.

He had 300 Jaguars.

They're all professionals.

Fucking unbelievable.

And what were they playing at?

But you know what?

It's really cool when you go back there,

because there's all sorts of total weird shit

that now they're probably going to have to sell

because they've got no money.

Anyway, so I can't remember which one's Bloody Bodie

and which one's Dore.

I like the one with the curly hair,

the shorter one.

Which one's he?

Boy, that was dope.

Yeah, I liked him.

He was a bit of a man crush.

They were our stuskin hutch.

Of course they were.

They were really weird.

So he's going to have an XJS.

So we're going to go a bit vintage,

Navy Blue XJS V12, you know.

And this is an auction.

I've been very well behaved.

Auction, that's going to go for like,

they're always 25 grand,

but really they're worth 18.

And then you're going to,

what other ones are going to do?

And then I was obviously,

even Tom from Car and Classic said,

are you living all your dreams through Jaguar?

I've got to watch out for him this week.

And I said, surely it's your number one brand

on Car and Classics.

And he said, no, it's actually number three,

a number four.

I can't remember what he said.

I think BMW, Porsche and Mercedes is bigger.

Jaguar is number four on Car and Classics.

We would love you to supply some statistics to us, Tom,

so we can share them with our listeners.

It's Jaguar GT3.

Yeah, exactly.

I'm going, I always go XKR.

They just nipped in on 1999.

Yes.

The XKR.

I don't know what make and offer is.

This is sort of, it didn't sell in an auction.

Is it one of those jobs?

But anyway, the matching navy blue, 1999.

Fucking fantastic.

Six grand.

So it's got to be British

and it's got to be a bit blue collar,

which is really what Jaguar is.

It's the underdog, isn't it?

I feel a bit guilty now that I went,

but it also has a bit of its time and by 2000.

It was, you're choosing the right cars of the era

because 2000 was about Japanese, wasn't it?

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah.

That's what we're all reading about.

That's what we're excited about.

You know, it's that moment where Japanese took over

like they did with the motorbikes 20 years before.

Yeah.

It was really good moment.

Yeah.

Manage.

I split the difference because I always thought that

Bodie's Coupri, for me, was sort of Formula One

and Doyle was rallying.

In his escort.

That was kind of my mental division

between the two of them.

And so I thought,

Bodie was just always super smooth.

That was the thing about him.

He was super smooth.

He was XSAS, wasn't he?

Whereas Doyle was a policeman.

He was a cop of Merzyside.

I'm sorry?

He was a policeman from Merzyside.

That was the backstory of the game.

I just remember him being just very cuddly

and very thoughtful.

Whereas Bodie would just like fighting.

He would just love fighting.

So I think, I gave Bodie an XKR convertible.

Oh, good man.

I thought that was just great.

It's also a five-speed manual.

It took me a while to find.

What?

Yeah.

I found a manual.

A five-speed right-hand drive manual.

You should have been encouraged.

You should have never made one.

So I don't know who did it.

It says five-speed right-hand drive,

1998, and it's on current classics.

It's a manual.

And yes, it says manual.

And it's black and white.

I'm going to look it up now.

I'm going to get some photos of that.

Okay.

Well, I will forward you the link.

And it's got 26,000 miles on it.

God knows what it will go for.

But I think, you know.

And weird.

It's a manual.

I'll go for more than that.

Okay.

Well, and here's my other one.

I did go for the...

What did you go for?

I went for the EVO 7.

I did.

I just thought I could see the modern Doyle.

Shucking this thing about.

So you've got the rally boy.

You've got the Formula One boy.

One of them is very, very smooth and a bit SAS.

And the other one's a little bit warmer, cuddlier,

and can be chucked around better.

Yeah.

That's definitely more...

Really vexed.

Look at that.

Now, I've just found a photograph of my old G-Wagon

towing my fake M5 E34 touring.

And it's in a field in Cornwall.

I don't know why it's on my phone.

There must be a day we collected it.

Don't they look good, though, Z34 Touring?

Yeah.

It is.

I think it was a clean G-Wagon with clear glass.

Did it have double sunroof?

No, it didn't.

That wasn't...

No, it didn't.

No, I've managed...

Do you know what?

I think you're right.

If it's got a stick that moves across a gate,

then they're lying, because they never made them.

So I think we've covered those.

I'm now going to look at some music.

Yeah.

And I'd like to go first to Neil Clifford,

because I'm now going to agonise for days over this,

because he's been preparing for this podcast.

At least 30 seconds ago.

I'm sound like Manish now.

I had a couple of days in Ibiza last week,

and I went to see the Chemical Brothers,

and they didn't play my favourite song,

because they were sort of DJ,

and they weren't really doing their own music,

so it was a little bit not as good

as I thought it was going to be.

Anyway, the album Surrender, Out of Control,

which is a guy from New Order,

he's got a lovely voice.

And not Bellegas on the album as well,

but I've chosen the New Order one,

because I think it's actually a little bit better.

Yeah.

Let's go for Chris Cooper.

Just to find you my music,

I just wanted a number of people have sort of mentioned this

on some of the comments on Instagram and YouTube.

A couple of weeks ago,

I mentioned the fantastic day we had at Riat,

and the Polish F-16 pilot,

who was just amazing and exciting,

and extraordinary.

And many of you have seen him.

He very, very sadly died in an accident,

a training accident for another air show.

He's all over social media, very, very sad.

So in the language and the vernacular of people in the world,

we wish him blue skies.

I'm very, very sorry that he slab had passed away,

and I wanted to say that we had,

we all had seen that.

People have said,

have you seen it, blah, blah, we have,

and thank you everybody for writing in,

but it was very, very sad to see that

in such sort of, you know,

such a shocking thing.

Rest in peace.

I spent about two and a half thousand miles

at the wheel of a car in the last 10 days.

So I've listened to a lot of music,

which has been brilliant really.

And just following my nose or allowing Spotify to take,

if I choose this song,

what are the next 10 songs is going to give me?

And I got a real wormhole going for Gerand Gerand.

And I'd forgotten,

because it was one of the later albums,

it was the Gerand Gerand or the wedding album, 93.

Come Undone by Gerand Gerand.

Come Undone, what a song.

Stunning.

Nice, great song.

Manage.

You know the one and Ivan Novello award

from that album for...

Ordinary World.

Yeah.

Ordinary Day.

Yeah, Ordinary Day, exactly.

Yeah, that's the one everyone knows,

and that's what I've forgotten about.

Come Undone, that's a beautiful song.

Actually, I have been delving into Japan.

I've been going back into Japan.

It's a bit of Japan.

It's come a long way from Japan.

It has a little bit.

Maybe it's still good.

So I've gone back to very, very, very early Japan,

their first album, Adolescent Sex.

And there's a great song you have to listen to in a car,

and it's called Transmission, No Pun.

It's such a great song.

And listen to that when you drive.

He's cool.

I had to drive something from the 1980s during the week,

and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

But I had my thingy in,

so I could put my Bluetooth into the fag lighter,

and it could transmit to the radio.

My children hate them

because they think they sound so shit,

but I don't care.

It allows me to use my title account in old cars.

And I wanted to sort of feel jibbied up,

and like I was back in the 80s.

And I tell you what, it's cheesy,

but the point of sisters, I'm so excited,

is one of the great pop songs.

And you'll be jigging about in that old Rikaro seat,

like I was.

Yes.

So get it on tomorrow morning to brighten up your weekend.

So on that note...

Could I just quickly tell the listeners

that we found the current draw on Lola?

And I can't just leave this.

I'll leave this.

Emergency light.

So get this.

I left her with AJ at All Rocks.

He knows a very good spot.

And they were looking.

They found it.

They said there was definitely a draw on the live circuit.

The live circuit's got various bits and pieces

that stay on like the immobilizer

when you turn the ignition off.

But they really couldn't find it.

They couldn't find it.

It was a 0.2 amp draw, the final draw.

And he said,

I've got a mate who has a thermal camera.

And we're going to turn everything off on the car.

No.

Leave her in the middle of the workshop overnight.

We're going to come in first thing

with a thermal camera.

I'm going to point this thermal camera at the car.

And he sent me a picture that looks like a...

Literally, it just looks like an earthquake

seen from a satellite.

I mean, there was a hot spot that you cannot imagine.

And you know what it was?

There is a light in the vanity mirror on the passenger slide.

And it's a tiny, tiny bulb.

And apparently the switch to turn it off

when you turn the ignition off had failed.

So this tiny bulb was staying on all the time.

And you don't even notice it when you flip up the visor.

And so what had happened was,

I think the last owner may have known this.

And they dealt with this really complicated problem

not by replacing the switch, but by removing the bulb.

Now, when they completely refurbished Lola,

somebody noticed that the bulb was missing.

So they put this bulb back in.

And she's had a 0.2 amp draw ever since she drove out of that place.

And what's absolutely hilarious about this

is that because she's always been on a trickle charger,

except the two nights at Niels, we didn't spot this.

But I mean, bless them.

So they said, look, we can completely take the upholstery

apart on the visor.

Or we could just suggest, unless you've got some very vain

and needs to do some kind of makeup in the middle of the night,

just leave the bulb out.

So we just left the bulb out.

But she's working.

She's going to be at Hampton Court this weekend.

For anybody who wants to go and have a look.

On that note, if you or any of you

have any other passenger sun visor related stories,

do you want to share with us that are as likely

to keep us riveted?

Then please send them in.

Love it.

So glad that you found it.

Also, thermal camera.

I want to play one of that.

That'd be good.

I was going to say, did you get to the bottom

of why he really had a thermal camera?

Or is that for our after dark version?

But I will share that image.

I will share that image.

That's good.

So on behalf of Milo...

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Who was the best leader in Formula One’s history? | The Car Podcast #52

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