Why 911s Are Driven By Pricks + Imposter Syndrome in Car Journalism | Therapy w/ Imthishan & Naveed
Brown Car Guy
Why 911s Are Driven By Pricks + Imposter Syndrome in Car Journalism | Therapy w/ Imthishan & Naveed
Brown Car Guy · Sep 20, 2025
Annotations will appear as you listen
0:00
70:16
Car
Porsche 911
Car
Mclaren 720S
Car
Toyota Supra
Car
Ford Ranger
Car
F-150 Raptor
Car
Honda Prelude
Car
Ford Mustang
Car
Nissan R34
Car
Nissan Gtrs
Car
BMW M5
Car
Honda Crv
Car
Toyota Corolla
Car
Delorean DMC-12
LIVE
But why is it that all the enthusiasts or car journalists are drawn to the 911, do you think?
Go on Shazard, I feel this is all you.
No, he asked you, he asked you, you have to tackle this.
You're asking the wrong one, because I don't like 911s, I think they're cars driven by pricks.
I don't like the people who, I don't like anything about them, but the 911 was never on my bedroom wall, I don't like it.
I'm not particularly obsessed with Porsche, the way that many journalists are.
I tell you, I was into Ferraris, I was into Magnum PI, TV cars, and the Porsche 911 was never a TV car
for a lot of people. I like cars like Transams, because of Night Rider.
All that stuff was cool, because the people driving them were cool.
They were something, a skinny brown kid, could never be, David Hasselhoff,
could never be their kind of person.
But 911 was driven by pricks, still is to a large extent.
Okay, everybody, we're just waiting for our third guest, hopefully he'll be joining us anytime soon.
But here we are for another brown car guy therapy session.
I hope you are joining us today, and we've already got Naveed of Naveed for Speed joining me.
And Naveed, why don't you take a few minutes to introduce yourself,
tell everybody who you are and what you do.
Yeah, of course. I mean, first things first, thank you for having me on this podcast.
I need a therapy session. I think we're all renowned then.
Yeah, it's a good time. So I'm Naveed. I am a
motoring journalist, car reviewer, influencer, whatever you want to call it,
a bit of everything. My background, I studied engineering at university, and now I review
cars, I review products that are relating to cars, I create videos for YouTube,
and I also write for a website called Auto Evolution. So my life just revolves around cars
and everything to do with cars. So how did you get into this? How did you
end up doing what you're doing? Which is your full-time job, right?
Yes, yeah, pretty much. Full-time job and then some. As you know in this industry,
especially with content creation, it never stops. Yeah, this is my life, basically. But yeah,
I was studying engineering at university, and then COVID hit, and I started having
lockdowns in 2020. And it sort of allowed me to think about which direction I want to take
my career. Do I want to follow my interests and stuff like this? So I started to get in touch
with people in the industry. I started to create some content, and it just sort of grew from there.
And it's now photography, videography, writing, few different forms of media,
and it's just grown to where it is today. Where I am fortunate to drive some really
nice cars and also drive some cars that I think a lot of my viewers would be interested in.
And yeah, just have a good time whilst I do it.
And you know, what got you into cars in the first place? It's an interesting question.
People ask me this a lot, and I find it quite weird because, you know, with a lot of people
when you say, what got you into cars? And they say, well, you know, my dad was into cars,
or my uncle was into cars, or we used to go see the races, or whatever. And I'm like,
there's nobody in my entire spectrum of familial and friendship circle that was ever
into cars in any sense whatsoever. And so where it came from, I absolutely have no idea.
But as far back as I can remember, you know, being a kid at primary school,
during the playground breaks, everybody would be kicking around a football,
and I'd have my nose pressed up against the fence looking at the cars on the road outside.
So like as far back as I can remember, I was always obsessed with them. Where it came from,
I don't know. How about you? You know, interestingly enough, I can relate to you in some regards,
because with anybody that I know growing up, we weren't into cars. There was no interesting cars.
I was one of the children who was kicking around a football in primary school, for example.
So I was into sports. I was never into cars. And actually, my interest started when
my brother, my brother's older than me by five years, and he used to watch Top Gear.
And every week, I used to say, oh, you put that show on again. And then a few times,
I'd sit and I'd actually watch it, and I started to get more and more interested in it.
And that's where I think my interest with cars grew. And then of course,
I also come from, I live in Bradford, a city that has car culture in its heart,
for better or for worse. But there's a huge interest in cars here. And that sort of spurred my
interest as well. And it sort of made me want to pursue this career, basically.
Tell me about the Bradford car culture. You know, Bradford, I have a couple of friends in
Bradford. And I was speaking to one of them recently. And he says, Shazad, why haven't
you come to Bradford yet? You know, you've got to come to Bradestown. And funny,
I've been like several places, but I've never actually been to Bradford. But even he was like,
there's a car culture here, you need to come and check it out. Oh, you know what? You are going
to love it. There's a car culture. And there's a food culture here. If you want food, this is,
this is the place to come. Because the, you know, that's how we entertain in Bradford. You
come over and we say, let's let's go out to eat, for example. But yeah, there's a huge
car culture here. And a very interesting story. I was, this was last year, I had a
catrum on Lawton. And I was, I just gone to film it. And I was driving back home and I was
driving through Bradford city center. And of course it's a catrum. It's going to get
attention. It's going to get looks and people are gonna, you know, thumbs up and they're going
to appreciate it. And I found myself driving through city center. And right at that moment,
a LaFerrari went past me. And I thought, okay, you know, he's still, he's still the spot like
there, you know, but that's what you can find in Bradford. You can find, you know,
super cars here. You can find classic cars here. You can find all sorts of cars here.
There's something for everybody if you know where to look.
Yeah, a LaFerrari driving around Bradford. There's not something you'd expect really,
is it? Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, I mean, I've been to, I've been to many car shows
and I've seen some incredible cars. But then you see some, some really nice cars here on the streets.
And I imagine it's somewhat like London, right? I mean, it's got, you've got so many people
living there with so many different backgrounds and cultures and, and it all mixes together.
And then you've got a big car scene there as well, right?
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. But the thing is like, I mean, I don't, you don't really would
see a LaFerrari. I mean, you might, if you like hanging around, you know, with all of the
car chasers, the Carparazzi who hang out in Kensington and Knightsbridge. And that's sort of
the places where you might see those sort of cars. But invariably, those are cars that have
been shipped over by, you know, Middle East tourists, you know, so it's that sort of market.
But then yeah, but certainly there's, surprisingly, I'm seeing more and more classic cars
in the London area. And part of me likes to believe that maybe that's got something to
do with the emissions regulations, because if your car is older than 40 years, you don't have
to worry about you less and what have you. But I'm definitely seeing more, you know, even
like ordinary stuff like, you know, minis and Morris minors and Beatles and stuff like that.
Well, I was going to mention about the you less because you did a lot of reporting on
you less and when it sort of when it was all kicking off. So you this, this is where I
sort of I want to lead on to journalism as a whole, because I kind of alluded to myself
being a motoring journalist, but I wouldn't explicitly say I review cars. But that sort
of investigative journalist that reporting on what's going on. That's what I saw from yourself.
And it leads me on to that whole imposter syndrome because, you know, you come into this industry
and you sometimes you feel like, well, should I be here? What has got me here? Why am I here?
There are people here that are so, so much more qualified than me or so much more experienced
than me. And they're doing what I would think of as as the real work. And it's all that thought for
a second. Hold that thought for a second. Whilst I welcome Mr. Lake, Mr. Lake Latif. Lake Latif,
as we say in our culture, you've been much where have you been? I was having a meeting
with a man about coffee. How are you gentlemen by coffee? I could do with some of that.
So Imtishan, just before we introduce you to the audience, just introduce you to each other. So
Imtishan meet Naveed, Naveed meet Imtishan. Naveed is an up and coming promising young car reviewer
here in the UK. He has his own channel Naveed for Speed and he also freelances. And Grizzly Old
Imtishan is my partner in crime from Dubai. We worked on the Middle East edition of Car
Magazine. We co-founded Merting Middle East and I escaped and he got left behind. Does that
sum you up Imtishan? Pretty much, pretty much. How's it going buddy? Not bad, not bad. Another
interesting day in paradise as I like to say. And the heart of car culture in the Middle
East literally integrated. Yeah, yeah. So just just very briefly just tell everybody if there's
anything I missed out who you are in case anybody doesn't know you by now. I don't
know. Xcar Middle East like you did quite a bit in the tech space before this. I was an IT journalist
for a very long time which is why I'm not doing that ever again. And now I am essentially I would
say consultant slash business journalist. I write for Arabian girls business insight
about the business of automotive these days and not so much the reviewing. So
I considered motoring Middle East for a short while after you left but I saw the space
changing, transforming and I decided to transform myself into something else entirely.
And here we are pretty much up to speed. Yeah, so you know what? It was just before you joined
we were just having a very interesting conversation and actually what you've said there segues into
it quite nicely because let me just preface that by just responding to Naveed in a sense
because he was talking about the fact that when I was in 2023 I was covering
the ULAS situation, the ULAS expansion and I did it from a journalistic point of view.
Now both myself and Imtoshan we are essentially trained journalists. So even before although I
started my career as Saudi Arabia's first motoring journalist but I did spend a five,
six year segment working at a local newspaper here in the UK when I came back the first time
in the 90s and which I covered everything from local politics to events to marches to
every kind of stuff. So and that gave me a very important and I feel a valuable grounding
in what journalism was, what actual journalism was and what the whole process of producing
content and it was a newspaper so publishing content you know everything from pictures,
texts, interviews and at that time it was all on the phone and everything like that
to getting copied down, to getting copy laid out, to getting copy to the printer
all of that sort of stuff you know and so Naveed was talking, Naveed was touching a little bit about
on the sense of imposter syndrome. So I'd invite Naveed to carry on a little bit,
tell us a little bit more about how, what he meant by that and how he feels about it.
Yeah of course I mean I was trying to get into the industry, I was trying to
create contacts, I was trying to network and create whatever content I could
and then you have these seasoned journalists who are there reviewing cars with
you know professional photographers and they are publishing in you know some of the best magazines
and this kind of reminds me of when I first met you Shazard. Do you remember when I first met you?
Remind me I have a terrible memory as if you remember because it was just it was just
impassing but we were at a McLaren event. All right oh yes okay yeah this was a
Millbrook was it? Up Millbrook yes yeah we were driving the 720S and the McLaren GT
and I remember I just got out of the 720S and you were about to get into one of the cars and
me being you know just a content creator I was literally just starting out at the time I was
making videos on my phone, I was making a video in front of the McLaren 720S and I remember
you were you were about to come come by and I sort of I stopped and you very kindly were telling me
you know no carry on you know do what you need to do first and I thought to myself well maybe my
stuff isn't as important you know you know these are important journalists who are wanting to
do work but he still gave me the time so I find that sort of that kindness that sense of community
throughout the whole of the automotive industry and I'm sure it's the same in the Middle East and
what you guys experienced and what you guys did as well. No it was it was
First of all it's a pleasure to meet you Naveed I think it's really hard to explain what it was
like because I was like you I think I was also somebody who thought I had to train as a journalist
first and foremost I had to get in there and had to learn the tricks of the day which I did
I learned the basics and I think that's what made the difference compared to today's people
that I have a sense of ethics and quality and understanding of what's important but a lot of
people these days don't have that but I digress I think when I wanted to break into cars that's
always why I did this I was very clear that I only wanted to write about cars and I'll tell
you something it's really difficult to do that every door shuts in your face I think
that's part of the way with getting anything you like but I didn't realize how long it would take
I was there five years and at the end of five years I thought this is just not happening
and if not for Shazad I wouldn't have done this I wouldn't have embarked on this journey
because so much of it was people saying no no and there's not like a path of okay after this
you do this and we'll give you a shot no it's just like no try somebody else try somebody
else well I tried everybody so who was I left to try with and I want to be a journalist I think
now the barrier to entry is pick up your camera and go out there the problem what's lacking from
the space is nobody tells you that you need to have a voice you need to have an idea in
your head you need to have the things that why somebody would listen to you in the first place
I had that already to go so by the time I came up to meet Shazad if you remember our
first meeting I had it all planned out I had everything and that's why I was able to I think
hopefully succeed in that meeting and convince him but not to make it too controversial right off the
back but I think if somebody else had been in that interview they wouldn't have said yes because
the barrier for entry for brown people is invisible and so much higher than anybody else
you can't just be Chris Harris you know who somebody succeeds on not being brown despite
being that's what he is you've got to be somebody who is the Einstein the Idris Elba the Tom Cruise
of automotive journalism you've just got to be the best you've got to be so far above the Barack
Obama of automotive journalism so yeah that was my story I think it takes a while to get in and
I think what I learned from that experience is it's really important to give people the time
of day when you meet them a lot of people who I think who read me and watch my videos and our
videos was inspired and I always have the time for that person you know I don't know what they're
going to do I don't know who I don't want anything from them but I think it's really important to
inspire people because if you don't I would never want to be in the opposite side of that position
putting somebody down like me who's just starting out I'd never want to say like don't do this
even though I would say now don't do this because it's not a great career path but if it's your
passion you don't have a choice honestly before we came online there was something the read was saying
which I thought was was very I think relevant to the conversation that we're having and he was
talking about he went to a press event recently and he was seeing a lot of new faces and you
talked about the barrier to entry into this game and like like to say him to Sean it's like we
always felt that we needed to be journalists first you know to be able to understand the art of
because I always call it the art of communication for me it's all about communication if you can't
communicate you know what you're experiencing or what you're learning or what you're finding out
to an audience then what the hell are you doing you know then you're just in it for a laugh
you know then you're just in it for yourself and then that's not what it's about so for us
we always felt that well you come at it from a journalistic point of view but I think that
what's happened now is that that transition that's happened recently with them for want of a better
way of saying it and the influencer set I think it's turned more into a look I'm here and I'm doing
this rather than trying to bring you some pertinent insight and information and whether that's to the
detriment or to the benefit of the industry as a whole I'm not quite sure I do and I have
said this before I do believe that the car industry itself prefers it that way because they
believe they can control the messaging that way and and in that sense personally I feel that
that means the audience is losing out because it's losing out on the journalistic
a credibility gravitas insight but the responsibility to do due diligence and to
actually do the work in order to get it out to people and I think that's what we're kind of losing
yeah I mean I I agree I do think that it's it's a lot easier to you know the body of entry
is a lot a lot easier but you know I I'm not gonna I'm not here to to talk negative about
anybody because I come from that I started off as an influencer and I would I would probably
still say I am an influencer it's just that I do you know writing and I do you know a lot of
other stuff on the side of that but at heart I'm still an influencer and if it wasn't for
this you know this industry the way that is now I probably wouldn't be doing what I'm doing
so I fully understand where people are coming from but I then I also need to look at you're
talking about due diligence that's I think one of the most important things and it was
I think it's Steve Cropley once said that you need to you need to put your audience first you
are a conduit for your audience so whatever you are doing you need to serve the audience not
the you know the the car brand or whatever you are reviewing so I think that's what we need to
to look at first and foremost and I think this also brings us nicely onto that book that you have
right behind you yeah how to be an automotive content creator yeah that's a that's a summation
of 35 years of doing what I'm doing and also the transition that we've seen and the thing that
you just said about the street Steve Cropley quote about you know understanding where your
audience is and Imtoshan I'll let you I'll start this off and then I'll let you continue it but
once we left car Middle East magazine print we decided to do me and Imtoshan we decided to do
something because we knew he had an audience the reason we decided to do something was not
because necessarily we wanted to do it was because we had an audience that literally
demanded us to do it but then we sat down and we thought well where is this audience
is this audience because already the market in the Middle East is kind of 10 15 years younger than
here they were already transitioning to a digital space and so we decided to go web we decided to
go internet and and and I think Imtoshan you'll agree I think that we were constantly moving
our media output to where we believe the audience was yeah which is a bit of a problem in some
ways I'm gonna break with tradition and I say I think there is a little bit of an ego
attached to it still because we kind of felt like we had something to say and we wanted our
faces to be the ones saying it let's be honest before somebody else said it now it's really
possible because the speed of content creation the speed of opinion generation
whether some of it is AI powered or just so many brains in the same space
is that you can't be first there's no way there's too many people producing too much
content so it's all about differentiation now it's not about actually the message for example
say Audi doing a new interior right just as an example for their cars nowadays used to be okay we
gotta be the first people to say that's the first one in maybe the Middle East first ones in the
UK or whatever now it's like well Audi's put a new interior but I hate it watch me for 10 reasons
why I hate it or this Audi is never it's all about again feeding the algorithm as opposed
to actually saying what you really feel and saying what you really feel is hard because you need time
to think about what you feel I just want to go back to the earlier point a little bit I'm not
sure where I'm going to go with this but I think it is important to have people coming up there
needs to be a belt can wear a belt of people coming into the space any space whether you
work at McDonald's you work in selling Nike shoes or you are a car writer but the problem is I think
the industry became incredibly insular I think it became very gatekeeping if that's a word I think
it became about keeping people out and protecting what was and used to be an incredibly lush job
where not much was asked of you but you got unbelievable benefits not financial benefits
but benefits in terms of lifestyle as that ebbed away people worked harder to keep the
influences out so I can see why there's a lot of resentments towards influences some of it wrong
but at the same time the journalists as a larger group were not changing the world but
there was a smaller group like the world who were actually producing really incredible
memorable stuff but I think Shazad and me both know that the vast majority of people in the
space didn't need to read a book about how to be automotive journalist they just did it because
you know it was fancy cars nice hotels great benefits and for a very small group of people
you were the kings the vast majority of them were not changing the world and nothing they did
really remember sorry to sound tough but it is what it is I think I came in there with that
sense that I didn't want to upset that apple cart I came in there the sense that I purely
just wanted people like me to be heard because that was what was not heard and again Shazad
took me in and gave me that shot but I just don't think there was that kind of people listening
to us the kind of cars that we talked about I know what it's like on your side of the fence
and I mean but I just don't think people were hearing us well before you respond to read
I think one thing that's very important is and something I do talk about in the book
is the fact that what digital enabled so when I started out in the old days back in 1989
pre war in Saudi Arabia you know you want you knew I knew what I wanted to do I wanted to write
I loved writing actually that was my first love was writing I wanted to write I loved writing
and I love cars and I thought I want to combine these two and I want to be a motoring journalist
and I did it in a space where there was no motoring journalism but the fact was that at
that point in time you were not able to reach an audience in any way whatsoever unless you were
published in a newspaper or a magazine or something like that that was the only way you were ever
going to reach an audience there was no other way you would it would be able to reach it
okay you could go like the small press route you know you could do stuff like that
but that's a very tiny segmented market now the difference between that time and now
is that anybody with one of these can reach an audience and that audience could be your friends
or your family or it could be millions you just don't know it depends on your content and depends
partly on luck as well but anybody can do that and that's both a good thing and a bad thing
it's good thing because like I said it's the democratization of media and it means that
everybody then has a voice and everybody can talk about you know what they think and believe
and get that point of view across but it's a bad thing because then you get a lot of you know
you get a lot of rubbish with the good stuff and that's the trouble and then you then you have to
then it becomes down to a discerning audience to try and sort between the good stuff and the bad
stuff and I think that ultimately quality will still shine through so hard work dedication
an effort that you put into your content I think that will still always shine through
and get audiences but sometimes I do feel a bit despondent that I'm a bit wrong on that so
I don't know I mean it's up to you guys to correct me but I you know because I'm
as important as I've always been about trying to get the right content to the right people
you know in the right way but sometimes I see people like you say going oh 10 things I like about
this or five things I hate about this or look at me guys I'm here or I'm about to throw this car
off a cliff look at this and I'm going oh really is that is that what it takes now you know and
if that's what it takes I'm like well I'm done you know I mean it's like it's that sort of
thing but but I'd like to hear what the younger panelist believes on this right I do think like
you say yes it is a good thing and it is a bad thing it's it's good because it means that we get
the the the the sort of competitiveness that the quality is higher overall you know in order
to set yourself apart you need to produce quality content not quick content you know people are
going to wait for your content necessarily if it's if it's better it's it's not good because it means
that there's so much content out there that some of it like you say is rubbish when I when I was at
university they told us that you know people used to come to the library they used to try and
look for a book if they couldn't find that book they would have to get that book ordered in
and there was it was difficult to find information now since everything's gone more digital and
the internet is you know everywhere there's too much information so the issue you have is having to
sift through all that information to find what's relevant and what's important for you and I think
that's the same thing here in terms of the content and then you talk about you know this whole
oh yeah 10 things that that like about a car or you know what people are going to do you know
how we search things has changed as well and how we find things has changed as well
and with all the noise you have to try and you know put your content first that's why you get stuff
like that and I think it's important that we continue to have good quality content that is
you know found and accessible and and easy to easy to read easy to follow this sort of content
I've been I've been told that you know I should I should try this you know trendy content
you know jump on the screens and and oh there's a new sound to use this in your content and and
stuff like this it's gonna it's gonna mean that your content is gonna go vital yes content with
that sound or content following that trend does go vital but for every one or two videos that you
see following that trend there's a thousand videos that have failed right and then it's
all about your brand you know you talk about an audience I look at it from from you know
more digital perspective it's the brand that you create you know as soon as the call started you
said Naveed for speed that's how I'm recognized and it's the brand that I created but the brand
that I created isn't a brand that follows trends it's a brand that tries to report on what I feel
when I'm driving a car or what is important to the audience and and and how the audience
views your content has changed as well because like we were talking before the call it's more
about what spec can I get this card in and what features can I get in there which you can just
find on a spec sheet or on the manufacturer's website but they would just like that in a different
form of media through a video and that's that's totally okay that's how people understand and
take their media how they absorb their media but it just means that you know there is a risk that
the quality of content can go down in general so you just have to try and compete to to find
your way to the top. Imtoshan in this era of chat GTP and Google AI when you know like you said
like Naveed says the people are looking for spec I mean nowadays you do that Google search it won't
even take you to a website or anymore anymore it'll just give you the spec that you want
I mean our brands and our people conveying this information even relevant and important
anymore I don't think opinions are relevant anymore what's important are what the AI considers a fact
people are looking for facts to support it your opinions are coming from your podcasts
from stuff like this I used to say articles but I'm not sure where our opinions have been
generated your your cable TV news and so on but you're not looking for if you're researching
for a car is the new mg5 good no you just go tell me about the mg5 what does it have does it have x
feature b feature y feature etc and so on but you're not actually asking is it good or bad
because I think when you put it up in the person the shoes of the person looking to buy that car
you just want to know if the car has the stuff you want and if it was at a price you can afford
because you already decided you know and I think that's quite dangerous because that means you walk
into the showroom with your mind made up and I can't tell you how many times I've walked into
a showroom and the sales person successfully convinced me not to buy it not through any
good efforts of their own I have a good example of the Supra from I think last year
when I was all set to buy a Supra and the person on the counter basically asked me if I was
buying it for my son which is great which is great because I'm not married I do not have a son
and if I was buying a Supra for my son that blighter would have to work bloody hard to earn a 200,000
Supra for his 20 plus birthday whatever because clearly I look like I'm in my 60s but that's
an example of that sort of thing doesn't happen if you go in with your mind made up because
if you go with your mind made up you're okay I'm gonna buy the car this kind of incident
and that's nothing should put you off it should because if they treat you like that at the point
of sale what they go treat you like at the point of after sales you need to have warranty
and it's not like the UK when we have multiple places to go if you don't like that deal
and Dubai it's just one person to go to so it's very important to get that interaction
right I think Shahzad we did some work on this year and we found that it's
pretty bad yeah really bad at this they're bad here as well to be honest I've heard
some horror stories I'm sure you have in the read in Bradford I'm sure it's a smaller market
there although you said there's a big car culture in in Bradford yeah I mean it's it's it's not a
small city but it's not a large city either you get you know all sorts of car brands here you've
got main dealers here you've got you know there's loads of cars I mean talking about
these new Chinese cars yeah we've got we've got all sorts of those cars you know I've seen
even today as I as I went out and I saw a few jacos on the road
BYDs everywhere you know we're seeing these brands here so it's it's uh you know we are we do have
that culture of yes we liked in the sporty cars the enthusiast cars and stuff like this
but also it's a large enough market that even even the most obscure brands are trickling down
for here let's uh let's jump into the Chinese question actually and I know that Imtichan has
been studying the market as well in the Middle East which has changed dramatically since I was
there last to what six six and a half years ago the the influx of the Chinese brands
are and I've and I've done some content on this myself our legacy manufacturers basically screwed
what do you guys think David you go first this is a very interesting question because
it kind of uh I mean this is before my time but from what I've read and what I've hear
it kind of reflects the the sort of time when Japanese cars started coming into the UK and
you know they they're still here we still have them you know at times they've been struggling
but we still do have them so maybe is it something that we have to accept that we are just going
to live with it but it also sort of reminds me of something which I experienced which was
I remember reviewing some cars which people would would look at and say oh that's that's ugly car I
don't like that that's you know who would buy that car and then I saw people driving them on the road
and I and I thought well you see the interesting thing is is the the market I feel like is dictated
amongst other things by price if you offer the right product with the right features for
the right price people will buy it they don't care about legacy they don't care about heritage they
care about what they get for the money and these Chinese brands which are more refined than they were
now they are coming over and they are offering you know the same thing that you know a European
brand would offer for you know 10 15 000 pounds more and it does kind of feel like right now
financially for the people who are out in the market it's a no-brainer yeah then if you look at
you know warranties and aftersales and you know dealer network and and support like that
where that will be in the next few years I'm not sure but at the current rate they're growing
yeah and they're done in a very short time as well I mean Imtoshan will remember because we
used to cover we used to do a lot of work at the Dubai motor shows and I don't you remember
Imtoshan one time they had the Chinese brought a limousine they brought a limousine to one of these
events and we both look we opened the door and we thought this is a piece of shit this is junk
you know and and that was incredible it was a stretch limo with a two liter engine and a manual
gearbox that's what you want in a limousine is a clunky manual jerking the champagne as you
try to go across through the the suburb it was awful but the thing is to see from how quickly
they've gone from that to cars now which are you know exemplary honestly like you can't really
fault them honestly when you get in them you drive there you go well I can't really find anything
wrong with this thing you know I don't necessarily fall in love with it but I can't find anything
wrong with it you know but the rate of progression has been extraordinary hasn't it and also in
Dubai I think it's extraordinary last time I was there the number of Chinese brands I saw
there was extraordinary it's the rate of duplication that's the thing I completely
agree with everything you were saying Navid I think the people are getting cars they can afford
with the features they want thing is though we have shifted from a conversation about brands
and quality and style to some extent to a completely conversation about features and
I don't shop for phones I just buy the same phone over and over again because an iPhone
and it works I mean that digital ecosystem but I definitely don't think about features
because when my phone wears I'll just get another one I stick to the same brand I like simple
I come from a culture of non-waste and I come from a culture of you can afford to buy a good
thing once or a cheap thing many many times which do you choose so for example when I was in
I lived in the States for a couple of years and got very cold and I wish I had bought a jacket
in America because my parents insisted on buying me a cheap jacket in Karama for those of you
live in Dubai and it was a it was a fake Tommy Hilfiger jacket and that bloody jacket had to
keep me alive through two winters and I walked into the coldest Montana in winter in I think 40
years it was minus 50 it was so bad I couldn't actually like I didn't need a fridge I could just
leave my mountain view on the windows to stay ice cold and the room didn't have a heater
and because I'm not used to asking for anything I'm like oh I guess we just survive in the
frozen waste but I had this jacket and it was really tough to survive that way and if I'd just
gone to a shop any shop and spent $300 on a car heart jacket designed for that condition wasn't
sexy wasn't stylish but I would have been perfectly fine I would also looked more American than
anything humanly possible that's what I mean about these car Chinese cars it's all about
duplication and getting to the point where it looks good feels good doesn't break down on
the drive but you bought a car on intangibles and that's where the motoring press could really
sell you on the intangibles and I hate to use the word educate but I think it is a little bit
of education because I come from a Japanese car world right that's where I started off with
and it wasn't like really start pushing into car middle east that I understand
why European car brands have that following as he knows I really dislike Porsches
and now I kind of like them annoyingly because I can see why they are there's a particular yellow
911 that I know of that you will not let anybody else drive honestly you once you got hold of that
thing that's it you were totally in love with that car I think to be honest with you it won't let
anybody else drive itself yeah to be fair I had to go in it and I was like now that you drive it
you know that car is very much like yeah it's it chooses the owner much like Christine right
did something very strange to Shazad did something very very quick explain what happened to you
well it was literally and you know was it a jekyll and hide moment there was literally a
jekyll and hide moment so I got into that car and I turned into a monster I was like breaking
speed limits flashing people on the road I don't flash I don't flash people on the road I was
flashing people out of the way it was it was a demonic car you shouting at the gearbox
I was shouting I was every time I changed gear I was cursing and I don't even curse I was cursing
and blinding and shouting but anyway but these are the cars that turn us on and get as excited you
know and this is the thing now one thing one thing that I will say because you're talking about
duplication and one thing that took me by surprise I was at a BYD conference and maybe
you were there as well Narita I can't remember but they were talking about what they're doing
and they're investing and all the rest of it you know and they talked about the fact that
they employed 100,000 people and you thought okay maybe that's a factory maybe that's a plant
maybe that's whatever no they employed 100,000 people just in the R&D so that was 100,000 people
just employed to think of ideas to innovate to refine to improve that's 100,000 and when you
think of it and I looked at that said well let me see what Volkswagen does or let me see
what the other companies do and the figures were around 20,000 25,000 and you go when
you're talking about that sort of level of numbers you're like yeah they're all screwed
because the amount of innovation technology and the vast leaps I just saw somewhere this is
non-automotive related but I just saw somewhere on my feed somebody in China has come up with a
material that can survive 1200 degree centigrade you know it's it's a material it's just
an ordinary material and you just go wow the level of innovation and also they're not
they don't have any hang-ups so they don't have any like oh you can't do it and they're
like no no let's just do it this way or let's just do it that way so they're pushing ahead in
ways that I don't think the legacy car manufacturers are even able to comprehend never mind execute
I'm just going to throw this across but before I do that I've got a question here from Hooked
and he's asking about what's the best equipment that you use for filming I'll give you my
opinion and then I think maybe David can answer this as well before we get into the R&D bit
I use I'm predominantly using the camera I'm using at the moment now which is a DJI
pocket 3 I think these are brilliant I think anything by DJI right now is great I've I also
use GoPro's for my car reviews but I'm actually quite fed up with the GoPro's and if I have budget
I would actually move across to the DJI action and what's the equipment that you use
it's similar for me it's the DJI action I've got DJI action 4 at the moment and I've got
a DJI pocket 2 but I don't use that as much again budget dictates that I don't move over
to a DJI pocket 3 at the moment because it does it does cost a fair bit more but it's a pretty
impressive thing and then occasionally I've got a DJI drone so I'm from me predominantly is DJI
I use the action camera on a handle as well because it's got stabilization and then I can
also use it for the car reviews yeah perfect perfect so BYD 100,000 people in R&D I mean
do you think that the other companies have got a chance when the Chinese are pushing
that much just into research development and technology and innovation I think the the Chinese
companies they also listen to their customers as well and they're able to turn things around a lot
quicker the first BYD cars that came to the UK had build your dreams written on the back
customers express that we we think that's a bit cheesy and then the subsequent cars after
that didn't have build your dreams written on the back and if you if you compare that to
some of the European brands where you know they put in certain powertrains in the car and the
customers are saying we don't want that or they're designing their cars in a particular way and the
customers are just not buying them they need to look at what that audience is after and I think
the the Chinese do that really well Imtoshan do you think the manufacturers are stuck between a
rock and a hard place because on the one hand I mean manufacturers have always intuitively
known what their customers want but right now they've also got to abide by what the government
wants what legislators want what authorities want what emissions regulations want what crash
regulations want so they're kind of stuck aren't they they can't they don't have a lot of room for
maneuver so the duplication that I was talking about goes both ways so now traditional car
companies are having to kind of copy the Chinese speed of development and that comes with its
own problems because the expectation you have is very different for a traditional manufacture
versus a Chinese manufacturer and I don't really understand this I mean I'm mystified
that people give a lot of rope to Chinese car companies because they're like oh but they're new
I'm like but these are not like you know Johnny Sam and Mama Seung in their house you know sitting
and going okay we'll just make a phone or we'll just make a startup car these are rich bloody
companies from China right these are not beginners they are industrial companies they're
huge companies you need to treat them in the same level of sort of discerning that you
would do for anybody else I'll give an example Ford makes a product that you have in the UK
called the Ranger Raptor okay the Ranger Raptor is a great midsize pickup it did really well in Dubai
as well I think we have a slightly more powerful version than the one you get because I think you
have us detuned or diesel I'm not sure we got the diesel you get the petrol yeah yeah we get
the petrol it's a really good car a lot of people start buying it because it was at a price of
that off-road car could be used like the really expensive Raptors are really expensive now they're
like four or five hundred thousand theorems Ranger is still around 260 to 7 which is expensive
but for somebody coming or upgrading from say an FGA crew they could easily get into a Ranger
Raptor what's the problem you said oh sorry the problem is there's somebody at the door
that's all I take and wait the reality is that when you do that by that car
well they developed that car during covid and Ford has a very very good development cycle
development engineers in the Middle East a lot of things to make those products really good
but they're having problems because they develop them quickly because they're trying to match
that Chinese to the development so the old range Raptors that came out in 2010 well we've lost him
to Sean for a moment there maybe maybe it's just the person at the door he's pulled the plug oh no
he's back he's back he's back he's still there just go and find out who's at the door so just
to clarify for people that might be watching and wondering 200,000 theorems is about 40,000
pounds so when he was talking about the Ranger upper what did he say 500,000 so we're talking
about you know 80, 90,000 pounds for a Ranger which a proper Ranger full-on full-fat Ranger
and that is a problem but other than that yeah so that's that's the sort of price level we're talking
about Ranger Raptors yeah that was somebody from Amazon you see what digital world intrudes on us
basically this car which was tested in the Middle East Middle East validated for heat all the
stuff that they tested worked really well like the car does not overheat and it doesn't have problems
with sand and it works on the terrain the suspension is good for our region it's really incredible
product I have nothing bad to say about the way it drives there is one wee problem though actually
two wee problems as you are Scotsman number one the way people drive in the desert is very
different from how they drive in Australia or the UK or even the US if a Dune is like this
most people drive on the side of the Dune you know and then they slide down or they go up
and they go down people in the Middle East tend to drive on the Dune itself on the ridge of the Dune
crushing the Dune and that wouldn't be a problem but the fuel tank is made of plastic
and what happens is the fuel tank bends inside so they are replacing fuel tanks on Ranger
Raptors because they have like okay they kind of have to because you kind of a big triangle
shaped fuel tank so they should just easy fix just put a skid plate but they didn't do that
problem number two slightly more problematic people in the desert out here drive these cars
real hard and they smash into the Dune and go up right smash into the Dune because you
got to get the speed to climb these big dunes and the car has the power it's no problem
you can even increase the height a little bit there are also little tweaks you can do which
people are doing because they didn't reckon with how aggressively people drive in the desert
out here um the front differential is mounted to the frame the mounts that hold it to the frame are
breaking and cracking and the problem is the only way to fix that honestly it's not the diff itself
it's the frame is to replace the entire frame the entire chassis of the Raptor has to be replaced
they done about 12 or 15 of them in the region and it won't stop until they roll out the
updated version so that's tough that a car that was developed hastily quickly we won't find those
problems you need to give it time to also there's a lot of arrogance that okay we've basically come
from the us we've come from australia thailand we know how our conditions are we don't know what you
do so cars going to be fine right cars well as shaza that we know the middle east has a way of
challenging those perceptions and basically those cars are all breaking
you know yeah cars are not being driven that way so automatically people are giving them benefit
to the dog but if you drove a chinese car to the same level you know the same problems yeah yeah
but the chinese are doing i mean what did i see somewhere online that the chinese were
replicating the desert in laboratory conditions to try and simulate the scenarios but the
reality is until this nonsense back in the day yeah but we're making the desert in japan
no but you can't but the reality is until you're on the ground you don't know so going back going
back into my ancient history i remember so if some of you remember the rover esti one the rover
3500 the v8s you know beautiful looking cars fantastic looking cars awesome cars of that of
that day i was in so the arabia when the so the dealer decided to bring those cars in
to the so the market the cars were beautiful they look great people love them because they
got v8 engines 35 3.5 liter cars they look smooth they look sleek they look futuristic within a week
they were being found abandoned by the side of the road because the good old british electronics
in those cars had never been tested they had never actually tested that in the conditions
of the middle east and that was a problem it's like until you do that you're going to get it
wrong and over and over again some manufacturers that learn have learned from the fact that
you've got to test the car in this actual environment i remember when the honda prelude
the first four wheel stair the mechanical four wheel stair was coming to the so the market
and i know lots of young so these were so super excited because everybody loves gimmicks you
know they were super excited about this thing first batch arrived sold out straight away
and then the then the then the sales bombed and i was sitting with the honda guy a few
months after that and i said what what happened that car was beautiful why isn't it selling
and he said well because they all took the car they all bought the cars first thing they went
down to the corniche and they raced them and they raced against the mustangs which are fox body
mustangs at the time and i think the nissan laurels and those cars thrashed the prelude
they absolutely thrashed it and i said i didn't think the prelude was that slow he said no
it's not slow but the engine management system hadn't been calibrated for our fuel
so basically yeah so basically the engine wasn't producing the power it should have been
producing so it's simple things like that which so often manufacturers get wrong even at this stage
even as recent as and i'm to shine will remember that when lotas started officially coming back
into ua e and they had to start replacing panels on the alice for example the panels on the
windows had to be turned into carbon because the plastic was warping in the heat because
because that's the difference between you know what actually happens there and what happens in
norwich you know what the fix for this is right the fix for this is you don't
do that extreme sort of behavior you know i mean that's fit and finished but you just don't
sell cars in the middle east and that's a simple solution and the uk is coming hotter though
you'll have those problems the uk is getting hotter things that will find your 50s ye old
mg midget or whatever will suffer in your increasingly hot country what are you gonna do
yeah yeah and of course in bradford we probably have you probably have the curry test there so
how do how do cars cope with and this is the other thing it's like there's cultural requirements
right there's got to be somewhere to put the tissue box you know etc etc so so what are the
sort of unique so if you were to design a car for bradford the beat what would be the sort
of key criteria you'd be looking at i mean i don't i don't actually think there's anything
specific that you would need extra for bradford i mean clearly we have a lot of we have a variety
of cars here that are suited for here um yeah i don't think there's maybe the weather right now
looking out of the window and it is really heavy rain i don't know if that's the case where you
are should i probably definitely not what where you are into shun um you you're probably enjoying
the evening sun at the moment but for for here it's it's it's you know to say it's grim up north
it's it's miserable it's always rainy you know so you need to account for that i recently put a rain
repellent on my car on the windscreen um it does an amazing job in the rain uh so yeah maybe
maybe it's just the weather to be honest tell me this uh no tell me this a bit you were you
you told me earlier you were driving a k-term around in bradford what's the reaction you
got to that because k-trum you know there's nowhere for the family there's nowhere for the
cash and carry i mean what kind of a stupid dumb car is this you know you can only put two people
in it it doesn't do anything yeah i mean i had a k-trum last year and i had one this year as well
this the the one that i had last year was in this kind of weather it was it was miserable it was
raining um it was it was totally fine it was quite fun the one that i had this year was
during the heat wave and oh it was so hot every time i'd get into the car and i'd be stepping
out of it i'd be sweating um but but once you're out on the road it was incredible the reaction is
amazing uh you know people are coming past horning tomzo you know really excited and
it's the younger audience as well it's the children that are excited by little boys little
girls are excited by the car as well and it just captures people imagination um and i think uh
that's what we we need to see more of in in in sort of every day so cars are suitable for every day i
suppose so so that's the collection you don't mind can i jump in and ask me to go on read what's
the most memorable car you've driven oh most memorable car i've driven um hope you enjoyed
this video make sure to hit like share and subscribe if you're not already doing so
and support independent automotive journalism channels like mine you can do that at patreon.com
ko-fi.com or taking out a subscription right here on youtube or you know what better still
you can go and buy my books i've got three books out now they're all on amazon they're all available
to buy our more details on this are in the description but buying any of these books
will certainly help thanks so much for watching i have driven i mean of course we
drove mclarenz didn't with me in shazad i've driven caperums um but the cars that i enjoy the most
uh nissan gtrs uh and the one the one that i that really stuck with me is the r34 skyline gtr
which actually i have a little um have a little model of fast and furious style i don't know that's
that's the most memorable car and the reason why is because when the r35 came out it was it
was considerably heavier than a lot of other cars of its time and if you go one step back to the r34
cars of that era they were they were light they were nimble they there was so much visibility
they're not they they felt honest because they're not hiding behind just slap a load of power in
the car and and you know you can make do their cars are getting even heavier now if you
talk about you know performance cars like the bmw m5 cars back then felt honest and
if i could choose any car to own it would be that but the problem is the prices have gone
considerably higher we'll only go further up what's the most memorable chinese car you've driven
the most memorable chinese car oh that's an interesting question um to be honest i'm not i've
not i've not driven a lot of uh a lot of the older chinese cars it's more the newest stuff it's
the it's the electric cars and um the most memorable one actually i don't know if it's shazad
you might have driven it it's the skywell b e 11 have you driven that oh it was that was like a
fucking machine but go you let go on it was an interesting car that because uh it just felt
like the refinement wasn't there just didn't feel finished i think i think the the the the
importainment system was a bit of a prototype at the moment as well but it just every regardless of
the weather conditions every time you put your foot on the accelerator and you you turn slightly
you can spin your wheels the wheels on command it just it was it was really unnerving at times um
so yeah for the opposite reason that's probably the most memorable car i've driven that's kind of
my point right you you talked briefly about a gtr and you immediately launched into a sort of
immediate deep fact about it and then i'd want to own it and with the chinese car you
went immediately hey it was flawed and that was the most memorable thing about it so what i'm
putting to the panel as a question is why do we feel compelled as experts influencers journalists
whatever you want to call yourself why do we feel compelled to carry the water of the chinese car
industry why do we can feel compelled to say oh you know okay i wouldn't buy this car for myself
but you my mate my uncle my auntie my friend stranger in the road a test course whatever
why do i feel compelled to say but you should buy a chinese car because it's all right for you
why are we not buying the same thing because we don't obviously we don't necessarily agree
there isn't the car that we've individually encountered that we would buy yet why do we do
that well look yeah well it's very simple we three are enthusiasts and there's a difference
so when you look at the general you look at 90 percent of car buyers today they don't really
care about the history the heritage how it drives what color it is they just like will it get me to
work can i put my stuff in it can i can i sync my phone up to it okay it's good to go that's it that's
all they really care about so the for the vast majority of people when as a consumer journalist
when you look at that scenario and you look at individual people you go okay what's your
requirements okay well this car is fine for you and they go yeah and actually five months later
the lecture that that was okay that would that car is working out perfectly but when you're talking
to an enthusiast you know what i mean yeah but when you're talking to an enthusiast well this is it
so so so a 10-year-old shazad today maybe in a school in bradford you know would have gone crazy
seeing the veed for speed going past in this little catering or in the nissan skyline was from
fast and furious and gone oh one day i'm gonna have one of those and you've set up an enthusiast
for life but when when when the veed for speed went went down the road and to build your dreams
dolphin surf he thought you know and and that was it there was no inspiration there you know
so and i think that's what that's what we're losing and the question actually then boils down to that
ratio of the consumer versus the enthusiast which we are is that actually going to swing more
towards the consumer because we're going to be ending up with less and less enthusiasts what he
thinks because i disagree with you shazad in the rare case i don't think there is that hard
line between consumer who buys white goods again from mr sam and mrs song i think there are people
and then enthusiasts who only drive 911s who only drive gtrs i think everybody is an enthusiast
i think everybody is passionate about something maybe they're not passionate about cars but
they're not exposed to it because we are censoring our real opinions about these cars so
most of these chinese cars to me are like they're all right they're fine should you buy
but no not really you buy any land like a discovery or a defender or even like a discovery sport
even a basic land road we still have a sense of the brand you have a sense of something with
a bit more class i have friends who bought pretty boring teotas and i really don't like teotas
as a brand but after a couple of years they come to me and like god i wish i could buy a Porsche
or a Mustang and i'm like but you're a sensible person why do you want a Porsche or a
Mustang it's like no but i just want one i just i can't explain i'm like yeah that's good it's passion
so when you drove around navid in your catering you guys exactly like shazad said you have no
many no idea how many people on two levels that you get number one is look he's a nutter driving
your catering around bradford and any stray bicycle could end his life at any given moment
because he just pot topples over and number two it's a brown fella in a catering and i'm
like that is important to see that like okay that visibility i'd maintain is very important
but what do you think i think going back to your point about you know the chinese brands i think
ultimately it goes back to what we've spoken to spoken about before which is we have to serve the
audience right and especially with this new digital landscape especially with you know social
media influencing the way that media is conveyed if you do not serve the audience then you will
get dropped you will get ignored you will maybe as you know if you have an opposing opinion then
then people might just watch anywhere or might you know consume your media but generally you
need to cater to the media and i found recently um there was a chinese a new chinese car and
a content creator was at an event editing a video for it because they wanted to get it out as
soon as possible and it wasn't because the car was good i mean i i didn't even drive the car i
don't even know if the car was good or not it was because they wanted to be the first out there and
they thought that the audience will think what's this new car i want to go see it i want to you
know and that would get them the views and the clicks and stuff like this so i think ultimately
it's it's catering to the audience and if the cars are priced correctly and the audience is
interested then of course that's what they are going to search for and that's what they're
that's what they're looking for and as journalists we've got to we've got to somewhat you know cater to
that it's the front of CRV launch that we used to avoid going to in the old days and it was a
dull car i've got a CRV i think my dad's got one still it's a great car but you know what
that car shows up remember that car the dark the burgundy CRV that we shot so many videos
out of still kicking it's odd it's 12 years old nothing wrong with it nothing wrong with it
don't forget i we had a family CRV in Dubai for uh pretty much the whole time we were there so
you know those were those were solid dependable reliable cars which you know had a kind of
personality of their own and i think this is the thing anything with a internal combustion
engine at some point seems to develop some sort of a personality you know and and and i take
your point about the fact that you know there is interest in exciting cars i don't know if
the whether that's an enthusiast level or whether that's at a fomo level you know fear of missing
out it's like oh i want to have i want to have a sports car or i want to have one of those why
don't i get one of those but i think that where where that lives and where that exists
is a good thing but i do fear that that connection that we have that the three of us clearly
have when you talk about you know there is not there is no more car that you can be connected
with than you can with a catering it's literally you know the only this side of riding a bicycle
or by riding a motorbike that's that's the only thing that you can experience that on
but i do fear that as we're moving towards an era where even the manual gearbox is disappearing
we're going to lose lose more of that emotional connection with these things
and uh and that puts me in mind of worrying about the future generation of enthusiasts
we need more in the beat for speeds driving catering around school car parks
yeah i i i hope i hope that i might inspire somebody that are there are people who see my
work and they they are interested people slightly younger than me from bradford or maybe not even
from bradford and they are genuinely interested in how they can pursue this kind of stuff so
i i feel like that's i mean it gives me a sense of pride and i hope it's the same with you guys
i did have one question actually um for emtishan and it and it was in relating to the 9-11 because
i you know it's a bit of a trope that you become a journalist you buy yourself something like a
masda mx5 and eventually you get to a point where there's there's some sort of 9-11 in the garage
and i i i appreciate the 9-11 and i can see myself one day hopefully being at a point where
that is the case but why why is it that those enthusiasts or car journalists are drawn to the
9-11 do you think go on shaza i feel this is all you but i asked you he asked you you have to tackle
this because i don't like 9-11s i think their cars driven by pricks i don't like the people who
i don't like anything about them i don't i i couldn't look my father had an original
19 my car passion comes from my dad who's not really passionate about cars anymore but he's
passionate about fixing old cars and he had a old beetle in the 19 1960s people original right hand
drive german beetle in srilanka which we had it was a terrible car it was always broken it was
like rusty the engine was changed but it was a beautiful thing test smell that you would never
forget and that's what made me the person i am today was that car because we were driving
sunnies and corollas to get to it but the 9-11 was never on my bedroom wall i don't like it
i'm not particularly obsessed with Porsche the way that many journalists are so i couldn't tell you
as an automotive journalist in Dubai because i didn't grow up with it on my bedroom wall a lot of
people did i tell you i was into ferrari's i was into magnum pi tv cars and the Porsche 9-11
was never a tv car for a lot of people i like cars like transams because of nightrider all that
stuff was cool because the people driving them were cool they were something a skinny brown kid
could never be you know david hasseloff could never be you know they're kind of kind of person
but 9-11 was driven by pricks still is to a large extent all of the stuff that a 9-11 denotes
as a brand as a car is exactly what turns me off about the high brow end of car journalism
everybody who drives one assumes they're an amazing driver they assume that they're a
historian of the brand they're a freaking caretaker of the brand so when they meet you
they've got to assault you with their 9-11 information i mean i got 964 i got 964 but
those 993 people we don't like them and you're just like i don't care your car looks cool
me yeah yeah yeah but it would be cooler if i had a gt3 i mean i didn't ask you so they're
just really annoying tiresome people and everything about their brand puts me off
but it's exactly what draws journalists to them because there is a lot of journalists who want to be
superior for better of a lack like a word they look down on chinese cars just like the way i do
and all of them basically want to be the people who gatekeep and say oh but mate you haven't lived
till you've driven a 9-11 and annoyingly now i kind of agree with them haven't driven some 9-11
i kind of get it but shaza to answer your point i think put button this discussion on that
come on 9-11 you weren't there but there are two years previously we had that 9-11 which i love
and we had a jaggy type it was very very temperamental it was foiling its foiling its plug it was a
jag it wasn't leaking but it was having other problems it cooked its alternator or a dynamo sorry
by day three scott scott was driving it you remember our friend scott from motor trend
and i drove both those cars back to back in the night because i had to fuel them up like
we were and i could kept thinking those are the two best cars in the world with due respect to
your GTR my friend which is an amazing car but to drive that 9-11 in the dark it was amazing
but the jag which was slower didn't have a roof it was wasn't as comfortable and it was in
every way better the british jaggy type and if you ask me why i'll tell you because
you didn't care about the world when you drove that car you had you just felt good
the car made you feel good in a way that when you went through every roundabout you're like
i feel like every playboy i feel amazing and if nobody's in the car next to me it's okay
the thing about and i think that that is the most important thing isn't it is how the cars
make you feel ultimately we have we have absolutely and totally well run over the clock
so there was another question that came in but i'll have to we'll have to pick that up another
time because it was some hooked was asking what you think of running classic cars but that's a
that's going to get into a deeper conversation well but uh you know what go on then because
you because you i know because i you know i've had a b30 i know that you you had a delorean
so um yeah what do you think about running classic cars in in 30 seconds or less in 30
seconds or less um bring deep pockets basically add 50 percent of your budget of buying the car
to actually running the car and that's regardless of what i had a low mileage example i had a
6 000 mileage lower and still cost me quite a bit i had a very old Toyota it cost me
seven times the price of the car to run it so classic cars are not cheap things
but you must do it if you're passionate about it like that Porsche or you always dreamed about it
your life is not complete unless you do it and no car will suffice
the beef personally i i don't really i've never owned classic cars would you consider one
but yes of course yeah like like i mentioned they feel honest they feel more pure they
feel more true but i think uh from my um from what i feel it would have to be the maintenance
the car care i do a lot of product testing and i can see i i i've incorporated a lot of those into
my own car which is not that old but into a classic car definitely more important
so i'm going to bring this to a wrap now before we do just to take this full circle
because we came into this conversation talking to Naveed about imposter syndrome and you know
and i think that that's one thing that you Naveed in particular should put very far from
your mind because i'll never get past it i will get past it you will you will you will you will get
past it don't worry you know it might take a few years but you will get past it but the reality
is that we need more people not less people like yourself coming through talking about cars
firing up the enthusiasm creating the inspiration creating the content that gets people excited
about cars this is important it's more important than it's ever been and we need to see more
diversity of this content as well so thank you so much Naveed for taking the time to join us
today it's been absolutely fantastic to to speak to you and the imposter channel buddy as usual always
a laugh always a pleasure thanks nice to meet you thank you very much guys nice to meet you too
intercham so shout out time guys thank you so much hey if you enjoy my content why not get
involved buy me a coffee you can do that either of these links or if you're watching on youtube
buy me a thanks or take out a membership it all helps it really does
About this episode
A lively discussion unfolds around the Porsche 911, exploring its polarizing reputation among enthusiasts and journalists. Shazad expresses disdain for the 911, associating it with elitism, while Naveed shares his journey into automotive journalism. The conversation also touches on imposter syndrome, the evolving landscape of car journalism, and the impact of Chinese car brands on the market. With insights into personal experiences and the importance of passion in car culture, this episode delves into what drives automotive enthusiasts today.
Original notes
“Imposter Syndrome in Car Journalism + Why 911s Are Driven by Pricks!”
Yes, we went there. From battling self-doubt in the industry to a savage takedown of Porsche 911 culture, this BrownCarGuy Therapy Session pulls no punches.
But that’s just the start…
In this episode I’m joined by:
👉 Naveed Hussain aka @Naveed4Speed – UK car reviewer & AutoEvolution contributor.
👉 Imthishan Giado – Dubai-based automotive business journalist, ex-CAR Middle East deputy editor, and my co-founder at Motoring Middle East.
We dive into the most controversial, hilarious and revealing conversations you’ll hear about car culture right now:
⚡ Imposter Syndrome in Car Journalism – why young creators feel they don’t belong, and whether “real” journalists vs influencers even matters anymore.
⚡ 911s are for Pricks? – Imthishan drops the most brutal take on Porsche 911 ownership you’ve ever heard (and why he might reluctantly agree they’re brilliant).
⚡ Gatekeeping & Diversity – “the barrier of entry for brown people is invisible and so much higher… you’ve got to be the Barack Obama of automotive journalism.”
⚡ Bradford Car Culture – Caterhams, LaFerraris on the high street, and why Bradford’s car + food scene might surprise you.
⚡ Chinese Cars Take Over – BYD has 100,000 people in R&D compared to VW’s 20k. Are legacy manufacturers totally screwed?
⚡ Enthusiasts vs Consumers – are petrolheads becoming an endangered species in the algorithm era?
⚡ AI & Algorithms – why opinions may no longer matter if Google and ChatGPT just spit out the specs.
⚡ Ford’s Fast-Tracked Ranger Raptor Disaster – how rushing development to keep up with the Chinese exposed huge flaws in the Middle East.
⚡ Classic Cars vs New Cars – the truth about running costs, honesty in old school engineering, and whether passion is worth the pain.
This isn’t just car talk — it’s a raw, funny, and brutally honest session on the future of cars, culture, and journalism itself.
💬 Comment below: Are car guys finished? Do 911 owners deserve the “prick” label, or is it still the greatest sports car ever?
👉 Smash that Like 👍, hit Subscribe 🔔, and share this podcast with your petrolhead mates.
#BrownCarGuy #BCGTherapy #ImposterSyndrome #CarJournalism #Porsche911 #CarCulture #Petrolheads #ChineseCars #BYD #LegacyCarmakers #BradfordCars #DubaiCars #FordRangerRaptor #CarPodcast #CarInfluencers
Brown Car Guy
Brown Car Guy
0:00
70:16