Jonny Smith 'That time we did a Somerset Ferris Bueller's day off'

The ‘Car Pervert’ Jonny Smith joins Andy & Max to recall his First, Best, Worst and Next cars including the tail of the borrowed 1989 911 Targa that reenacted the 80’s teen film along with numerous interesting and funny stories from his long career in automotive journalism.

Jonny has his own YouTube channel ‘The Late Brake Show’ and the Podcast that he cohosts with Richard Porter ‘Smith and Sniff’.

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‘9WERKS Radio’ @9werks.radio is your dedicated Porsche and car podcast, taking you closer than ever to the world’s finest sports cars and the culture and history behind them.

The show is brought to you by 9werks.co.uk, the innovative online platform for Porsche enthusiasts. Hosted by Porsche Journalist Lee Sibley @9werks_lee, 911 owner and engineer Andy Brookes @993andy and obsessive Porsche enthusiast & magazine junkie Max Newman @maxripcor, with special input from friends and experts around the industry, including you, our valued listeners.

If you enjoy the podcast and would like to support us by joining the 9WERKS Driven Not Hidden Collective you can do so by hitting the link below, your support would be greatly appreciated.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 4:15 Jonny's Boxster
• 19:25 First, Worst & Best Car
• 33:30 Ferris Bueller's day off!
• 45:52 Next Car
• 56:50 Strange Honda's
• 1:03:20 Matra Rancho
• 1:11:15 Sell all your cars have be normal?
• 1:19:05 From TV to YouTube
• 1:30:06 Favourite and most successful videos?
• 1:40:50 MaxPower
• 1:45:35 Favourite Jason Plato story
• 1:51:10 Tiff Needell
• 1:53:56 VBH
• 2:06:43 Outro, Collective update

Transcript

SPEAKER_05: 0:02

This is Nineworks Radio, brought to you by the Nineworks Marketplace and powered by the Driven Not Hidden Collective. Mr. Max Newman. Hello. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. How are you? Yeah, good. Really good. Just the two of us. I finished, well, I helped Mr. Sibley move house on Monday. So he is settled, but, well, not quite settled. He's got lots to do in his new place, so he's not with us today. Yeah, unpacking boxes, painting walls, setting up Wi-Fi. Oh, just the thought of it. Oh, blimey. Sounds like you're going to be back round there. I'm not going anywhere near it. We did a lot of humping yesterday, a lot of box humping. Yes. Yeah, a lot of moving. So yeah, it was all good. It was all good. Lovely to have the great weather, of course, to move in. I've moved before in the wet weather and it's not been great. So to have great weather was fantastic. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you don't ever... Yeah, doing that on a crappy day, do you? Definitely not. Definitely not. But that's okay, you know, we can cope, the two of us today, because we've got an amazing guest. Haven't we just? So, you know, we've got plenty to talk about. He's took some tracking down to nail him to the mast, as it were. Has he ever? Has he ever? Yeah. Mr. Popular, as he is. Busy man. Indeed. Worth the wait, though, I would say. I think he will do. Shall we tell the listeners who it is? yeah yeah yeah you'd be pleased to hear ladies and gentlemen that our guest this week on 9x radio is the one and only mr johnny smith of i was going to say what fame so many fames most recently smith and sniff on the podcast and the late break show on youtube but historically fifth gear yeah um and uh Press, Car Magazine, Max Power Magazine. I think that's probably his most famous tenure, isn't it? Max Power. But I think he did other things like, was it Vintage Volkswagen Magazine? I think it was the first one that he wrote for. Yeah. Also wrote for Car Magazine. Yeah. What else? Numerous, I believe. Yeah. Yeah. All sorts of stuff. And yeah, of course, you know, Fifth Gear, you know, serious network television stuff, proper, proper stuff. And on that for a long, long time as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Long time. Long time. I think it could be sort of 15 odd years, maybe more. I'm sure we'll find out when we speak to him. Yeah, yeah. So quite, quite exciting. Proper, you know, Interestingly, because I suppose some of the stuff on his own channel, Late Break Show, are his own cars. Yes. And because he's been on the telly, he's one of those people where folk might think, actually, I know this guy. You know, I know all about him already. Yeah. So, you know, let's see what sort of conversation we can have with him and get to know him and see what we learn. Absolutely. Before we do that, let's give a mention to our sponsors, Heritage Car Parts. If you go onto their website, fill your basket with all your goodies. Then you need to actually log in. Once you're logged in or registered, you can put in a discount code, which is 9works10. That will give you up to 10% off your basket before you check out. On loads of Porsche parts and also topically because it was World Land Rover Day this week. Also a load of Land Rover bits. Yeah, I think it was World Land Rover Day yesterday. I don't think it was today, I think it was yesterday. Certainly this week. So, yeah, crack on. And of course, VW parts as well. Oh, and VW parts as well. Again, very pertinent. I think we'll probably be to our conversation with Johnny. I think it will, but I bet he's shopped in heritage car parts before. I bet. I bet. Excellent. So, shall we talk to Johnny and find out what VWs and Porsches he's had over the years? Yeah, let's get him on. Well, Johnny Smith, welcome to Nineworks Radio.

SPEAKER_04: 4:20

Pleasure to be had, or with you, however you say it, I guess. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_05: 4:27

It's great to see you. We've been thinking about this and talking about this on and off, I think, ever since you and Richard crashed my photo at Rensport Reunion. I was crouching on the ground trying to get some kind of great shot, and suddenly you two hoved into view. Looking like a couple of English lumberjacks. And I was like, Richard, you're crashing my shot. And here we are. That's nearly two years ago, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04: 4:54

Yeah. Is that really nearly two years ago? Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 4:57

How

SPEAKER_04: 4:57

crazy is that? Wow. Yeah. That was such a good, fun event. It was, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_05: 5:02

It was fantastic, wasn't

SPEAKER_04: 5:03

it? Yeah. Yeah, that felt special. Well, sorry for ruining your video or photo shot. Hey,

SPEAKER_05: 5:10

don't worry. Don't worry. It started a conversation that's led to this.

SPEAKER_04: 5:13

Well, quite. And I need to apologise to you for being actually so shit at taking so long.

SPEAKER_05: 5:22

Don't you worry. We have plenty of patience here. Yeah. It's not easy, these things organising. I was pleased when... relieved. Not sure what the word is. When I was watching your new content with Dario the other day, and you were talking about how long it's taken you to get that going. I've been chatting to Dario on and off for donkeys too. And you know, everyone's busy and it's hard to get these things sorted, isn't

SPEAKER_04: 5:47

it? It is. And, um, some stuff, there's other stuff that other cars have been trying to feature or people have wanted to talk to. And you sometimes have to put the iron in the fire and leave it for a few years and just be patient. And, uh, That's just the way it is. But today it's funny that we're doing this today because I've actually been, I've been under a Porsche all day, like all day. I've still got, I've still got some oil on my, it's a bit of oil on me, scrape there a little bit. Yeah. It's been, it's been quite, it's been quite therapeutic. It's been enjoyable.

SPEAKER_05: 6:20

What Porsche was that? Was it yours? Yours? The

SPEAKER_04: 6:23

Boxster? Yeah. Yeah. The Dirt Boxster, the bargain Boxster. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 6:27

Ah, how's that going?

SPEAKER_04: 6:28

Yeah. It's going really well. Thanks. It's, It's really got under my skin. Literally. Well, it has. But I mean, I bought it obviously at a very low price and a price where you could afford to lose if it all went completely Pete Tong. And it's done far from that. It's been really enjoyable to the point where I'm like, I'm never getting rid of this car, am I? I don't think I am. I can't because what would I get that would do it for me on this level for this money? And it's just great. And I've turned into one of those people who won't stop talking about how good boxers are. I'm one of them. I am one of them.

SPEAKER_05: 7:13

We get a bit boring. You're in good company at Nineworks. We've got

SPEAKER_04: 7:15

a lot of that. Yeah, I mean, I worry that I'm boring myself at times. I'm waxing lyrical so much. Oh, yeah, you've got to get a 986 or a 987. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you've totally got to get one

SPEAKER_05: 7:28

of those. But it turned out pretty good, though, didn't it, in the early content? Yeah. you did on it it was it was like you know there was some trepidation i think for you and for everyone watching yeah like is this going to be an absolute howler yeah

SPEAKER_04: 7:40

and it's and it's all right it's way better than it should have been actually in in many ways bodily it's frustratingly better than i expected it to be as i did want a bit of a ghetto boxer which was always the ongoing joke i'd love a ghetto boxer but it's it's actually good it's really good and Yeah, it is too good for that. And as a result, I've enjoyed spending money on it because sometimes when cars are better than you expected, you've got them at a good enough price. I always think when you start to invest in them, they give you more back and you go, well, this is just a joy. I'm enjoying the process. So what the hell? Because basically today we've put on suspension that's cost more than the car.

UNKNOWN: 8:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 8:24

So any normal person would go, well, that's idiotic what you're doing. But you go, yeah, but once I've fitted it, that suspension's good for another 100,000 miles or whatever it might be. So you go, actually, you know, I might not be doing all those 100,000 miles. Who knows?

SPEAKER_05: 8:41

We should hook you up with one of our collective members, Sakib. He's on a similar journey to you. He's trying to turn one of the cheapest 986 Boxers into the country, into the most expensive 986 Boxer in the country. That's his project. He's doing really well. Is he? He's doing really well. If he was making YouTube videos of it, people would be like, Sakib, this is genius. How are you managing to spend so much money on this car? It's brilliant. He's really doing well. And it's a 2.7 as well. It's not an S, you know, but he just loves it so much. Like you, he's totally into it and he just can't stop playing. Can't stop throwing money at it and parts and just to make it wonderful.

SPEAKER_04: 9:23

I quite enjoy working on them. Again, it's one of those things where when you have an exotic car, I'm going to call it an exotic because it's a Porsche, right? But people are scared because they might go, there's YouTubers now who obviously play with things like... 30-year-old Ferraris and 25-year-old Fries. And on the face of it, you think, what are you doing? You're an amateur mechanic and you're touching prestige, exotic cars. It can't go well. But I think the era of the car, like the Boxster 986, it's actually quite a methodically put together, fairly uncomplicated car. And because there's so many out there, certainly in the UK, and you can buy either secondhand parts or There's really good quality repro parts and they're classed as a classic. Actually, you can genuinely run one on a shoestring if you wanted with good knowledge, you know, good research and friendship groups. Oh,

SPEAKER_03: 10:23

yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 10:24

Safe spaces. Safe spaces. So, yeah. And I won't just talk about my bargain box because that would be boring, but I'm fortunate enough to drive a lot of expensive new cars, right?

SPEAKER_05: 10:38

And

SPEAKER_04: 10:39

a lot of Porsches over the years. And that thing out there that cost me two grand still feels good. It still impresses me and it still brings a big grin. And that's not easy to do when sometimes you can drive a car that's half a million quid or a million quid. And to get back into it, it's a really interesting reference, I think, because you go, wow. this is still pretty good. And I could go out, if I didn't have that one, I could say to people, in fact, somebody texts me today that goes to the same gym as me. They said, oh, I've got six grand to spend and I really want a convertible. What do I do? And I just went, hello. It's default. Yeah. I went like, well, what are you going to find that's better? I just don't know if there is a better car for the money. I

SPEAKER_05: 11:28

quite agree. It's great. It just sort of illustrates the fundamental difference brilliance of what Porsche made there, isn't it? You know, that even a two grand one has the ability to impress.

SPEAKER_04: 11:38

Yeah, it's exactly that. And weirdly, sometimes we're all kind of dialed into thinking that dealer parts, you know, original dealer parts are definitely the most expensive parts. But weirdly, sometimes when you just... you just get a price for a certain thing, like a footrest. So my plastic footrest is snapped off. Someone's either over-tightened it or stepped on it really hard. So I was like, well, I'll write down the part number and I'll see how much it is. Well, the cheapest place I could find it was Porsche.

SPEAKER_05: 12:12

Yeah, absolutely. Always have to check. There are some stuff that there's no way they're the cheapest, but other times, yeah. In fact, I'd say probably... 50, 60% of the time, you will find that going to a Porsche dealer is actually cheaper than all of the other internet providers and buying stuff secondhand off of eBay.

SPEAKER_04: 12:33

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So always try it. I swear that maybe Porsche themselves just roll the dice and go, should we price this one ludicrously? Or should we just like, Just give them a real loss leader just to get them in, like a drug dealer giving you a free

SPEAKER_02: 12:46

hit. They know you'll come back.

SPEAKER_04: 12:48

It does feel like that sometimes. You go, well, hang on a minute. That bolt was 80 quid, but yet I've just bought like a whole crankcase for, you know, 12 quid. I don't understand. Where's this going?

SPEAKER_05: 13:00

Yeah. Yeah. You can never tell. They do feel like a... relatively simple car as well, don't they? My Boxster is a 981 generation S, manual, lovely. And I was 991 before that and 997 prior to that. And this feels like a more simple... straightforward car to run and to look after. I mean, I don't do much twirling of spanners, as Andy knows. Well, no twirling of spanners, in fact. You might twirl them. Do you actually? Yeah, I might twirl them, then I drop them, and I just leave them. But yeah, I've had it for two years now, and there's a simplicity to it that I'm really quite enjoying.

SPEAKER_04: 13:44

Yeah, I agree. And I think that's maybe why... I think the future of, let's call them like reward cars, weekend cars, that kind of thing, a car that you probably don't use every day is like restomod type stuff, which is based upon usually older cars. And obviously the king of the restomods is a Porsche really, and probably always will be. But it's because of that feeling of connection and, Cars now, like new cars, are all so complicated. They're a supercomputer and an engine and sometimes a high voltage, all married together in the most complicated box. And whilst they're extremely capable and impressive, they don't often get under your skin, I find. Very few of them... stick to you and make you think oh do you know what this is this is doing things for me and and so we've got so caught up in like sheer firepower and stats and cars are so damn fast now but speed is not said this the other day to somebody and i thought do i sound like just an old bastard i don't know but like there's speed and then there's sensation of speed and there's and there's and there's driving fast and going around corners and stuff fast and then there's actual fulfillment. And that, and it's not, it's not the same because Audi proved that several decades ago, you can have an extremely grippy, fast car that leaves you completely numb and you don't give a shit.

SPEAKER_03: 15:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 15:26

You could be doing 160 miles an hour everywhere. And as long as your tires are still gripping, it's not that much fun. You're just going to either die, kill someone or fall off the road and, or lose your license. So that's when, for me, the more I, of these sorts of really ludicrously powerful cars I drive, the more I'm going back and going, I want a narrower, lighter car with narrower tyres, with less power because it doesn't need more power because it's lighter and narrower, that moves around a bit, that communicates a bit, and probably is cheaper to run ultimately because, I don't know, because I'm not in a position to spend half a million pounds on a car anyway, so... I wonder whether or not that's where we're going. I really do. I

SPEAKER_05: 16:13

totally, totally agree with that. Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 16:16

You know, and that's why I keep wondering in my head, is Porsche going to remanufacture the G-Body imminently like that? Because why wouldn't you?

SPEAKER_05: 16:32

Wouldn't that be special?

SPEAKER_04: 16:33

You can buy a brand new MG body. You can buy a brand new Ford Mustang body under license. You can buy a brand new Mini body under license. Why the hell is Porsche not going, right, we're going to remake the G body. You can either backdate it. You can leave it as a 964, whatever the hell you want to do. But we will sell you a shell. Here's the shell. Off you go. Do what you want with it. And all these cottage industries that thrive on resto mods and stuff can lap it up. It's an official product. And people like you and I, who might not be able to afford a turnkey resto mod, but we could buy a shell and start the journey and do it over five years or whatever. You heard it here first.

SPEAKER_05: 17:18

I reckon Johnny Smith knows something, don't you, Max? I reckon he's in the know.

SPEAKER_04: 17:24

I bloody love it. I think it would be great. And also it means that the 964 in totally standard form wouldn't, become the automotive pangolin which i think it's going to become

SPEAKER_03: 17:35

yeah

SPEAKER_04: 17:35

yeah um we'll see yeah we'll see

SPEAKER_05: 17:39

um yeah and you are right about that because i sometimes i i have anxiety about the 964 thing you do didn't you and i know that i shouldn't and it's not my place to and there's no value in me feeling like that but um every time i see a 964 still on flag mirrors and d90 wheels i feel immense joy and then i start to worry that someone's going to restomod it and i start to panic and i think if i had lots of money i'd be which is just as bad as restomodding i'd be buying them all and just to try and protect them and i'd be i don't be able to drive them all because i'd have too many but i'd feel like i was doing something good but actually it be good it'd be just as bad as as whatever

SPEAKER_04: 18:18

maybe that's maybe maybe we should set up a collective business which is called pangolin and you do it in the same font as the porsche font on the lower doors and things yeah but it says pangolin and that's the only custom touch to that car everything else it's just as it's just as 964 as was but it says pangolin on it because it People who know will go, do you know what? That is a totally unmodified 964. It's had nothing done. It's just been serviced and renovated and kept on the road. And that's it. You know, that is it. And then we're like the opposite to the Outlaws. And don't get me wrong. I love Outlaw projects. I think they're really interesting. And I love the restaurant mod thing. That Theon design car that I drove last year, what a stunning piece of work that car is. But at the same time, maybe the Pangolin crew. It could be a rising vigilante force where we're like, no, you leave that car alone. You leave that poor 964 alone.

SPEAKER_05: 19:19

Yeah, that's a thing. That's going to be a thing. I like it. I'm in. Count me in. Absolutely. Now, we normally start our podcast with guests with a few questions. I thought we should still do that and see how the Boxster fits into that. We've got our first, worst, best and next car. Yeah. So I think we'll start with you first. I know what that is, I'm pretty sure, because it's the same car that I started with, which was a... I'll let you say what your first car is. Was. Or

SPEAKER_04: 19:53

still have it. It is. It is. Yeah. Beetle. 1967 Beetle 1500. In fact, it's outside in the carport. And I ran it on a shoestring, bought it at 16, and just have... For some reason, never could get rid of it or wanted to and made quite a few sacrifices not to. And it's tatty. And it has the same smell as it always has. It has all the stickers I put on it in 1997 and 96. And I should restore it at some point. But mechanically, it's really good. And I got it back on the road in 2020 with my brother. We set aside a working week because my brother kept going, stop being a tart. and waiting to restore it. He said, just get it on the road. It's MOT exempt, you fool. Just get it on the road. We did. And actually he was so right because I've done more miles in it since 2020 than I probably have in the previous 25 years or whatever. And it feels like it's driving better than it ever has. So I've even, I rewarded it. I rewarded it this Christmas just gone by buying a set of real Porsche wheels for it, which I, wanted to back in the 90s, but I couldn't afford them. I've bought some 914, what are they called? Marley gas burner wheels.

SPEAKER_05: 21:20

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_04: 21:21

Yeah, nice. I need to get those really nicely restored and I'm going to reward it with those. So that's this summer. It'll be ready for summer with them on, I think.

SPEAKER_05: 21:33

fantastic i'm very jealous that you've still got that mine mine um i started taking mine apart to do the restoration back in 1986 and didn't didn't get it done and sold it off in the end so it was a shame i didn't keep it so i'm very jealous of you keeping your your first car that's some some achievement i i so yours andy was yours a 67 50 mine was 67 1200 1200. So was that disc braked or was that just the 1500? The 1500 has disc brakes on the front, isn't it? Where the 1200 was still five stud with the disc, with the drum brakes. Yeah. It was your six volt. It was still six volt. Yeah. It was the last

SPEAKER_04: 22:13

six volts. Yeah, it was, it was 67. It's just, you know, I don't know what the equivalent to see is the 67 beetle, the equivalent to like the 1973 67. 9-11? The

SPEAKER_05: 22:25

72, I'd say. 72.

SPEAKER_04: 22:28

So the

SPEAKER_05: 22:29

one that's got the oil clapper, as they call it. Oh, yes. Yes. The additional

SPEAKER_04: 22:34

oil. Yeah, yeah, good point. So that's the one, isn't it? I love the 72 for the fact that everyone fills its oil up with petrol. I just... I just think there was one that went up for auction a few months back and I was doing an auction preview and it was in the room and I was looking at it going, God, I'd love one of those. I don't know why. I mean, it's just, it's silly, but it's that one year only thing of it going, well, try this. Oh no, it didn't work. Let's not do that again. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 23:01

Okay. There is another car that's similar to that. I think it could be a 68 or 69, which one of our collective has got one of them. Toby Dyer's got one. And apparently there's so many bits on it that are totally different to other years. The 72 is probably just that oil clapper thing that's special to it, but there's that 68 or 69. So it really sort of marries up with that Beetle, because that's so many one-year-only bits on that 67 Beetle, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04: 23:31

There's loads. And I think at the time, weirdly, I was just trying to buy a pre-68 Beetle of any type that my budget would cover. How much

SPEAKER_05: 23:43

did you pay for yours?

SPEAKER_04: 23:44

I paid£900 for it. It was up for sale for£1,400. Yeah. It's bizarre that you've brought this up because I was actually speaking to, whilst working on this Boxster today, talking to James at TH Racing, because I said, I nearly sold the Beetle to buy a Porsche in the 90s. And this was when you could buy a 912 in full working order that was a little tatty, but not totally shit, for three and a half grand. And you could buy a mint one. These are all Californian imports. And you could buy a mint one, and I mean really mint, for like seven. Seven and a half. And I said to my dad... Could we go to London on the bus? I'm going to drive a 912, test drive a 912 at Tower Bridge Porsche. They've got one in there that's four and a half and it's green and it looks good. And we did. The guy let me test drive it and I was 18. Wow. Yeah, I was 18. And I very, very nearly put my Beetle up for sale because at the time my Beetle was worth about the same amount, if not a bit more, bizarrely.

SPEAKER_03: 24:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_04: 24:53

And my dad talked me out of it. And, and I know why. And cause he was like, you won't be able to afford the parts.

SPEAKER_03: 24:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 25:00

You'll be able to buy the car and then you won't be able to run it. And it was like,

SPEAKER_03: 25:03

yeah,

SPEAKER_04: 25:04

but I've never owned, I've never owned a nine 11 or a nine 12 to this

SPEAKER_05: 25:09

day.

SPEAKER_04: 25:11

Has it always been, has it always been a

SPEAKER_05: 25:13

wish do you think? Or maybe we'll come onto that later. Yeah. Let's come onto that later. Um, so we've done the first, um, Great car. Worst. What has been your worst car? That I've owned or driven? Yes, that you've

SPEAKER_04: 25:30

owned. Gosh.

SPEAKER_05: 25:30

Of the 130-odd or whatever.

SPEAKER_04: 25:33

Yeah. A lot of cars. Yeah, it has been probably 140-something now. Jesus, mate. Worst car I've ever owned. There's been some fairly crap ones. Yeah. Do you know, I actually can't remember them. I need to write them down. I've written, I wrote them down up to about 120 and then lost the database sheet or whatever it was. I can't find it. I don't know where it is. There was an Astra Mark II Merit, which I owned and I bought it. I know this. I bought it simply because my Granada low rider that I drove every day like a fool. broke down and needed quite a lot of work doing on it, on the suspension. And I needed a stop gap car to get to work for about six weeks. So I bought an Astra Mark II with a very short MOT. I think it had about 15 days MOT off a nightclub bouncer for£120. And it was, don't get me wrong, I quite like Mark II Astras because my friends had GTEs growing up and I do have a soft spot for those. But

SPEAKER_05: 26:41

yeah,

SPEAKER_04: 26:42

When it had a slipping clutch, so you couldn't really use more than about a third of the throttle, you had to drive it so damn carefully because it would just spin up and you wouldn't go anywhere and it would just smell like mackerel because the clutch was just slipping. This is horrible. And the sunroof had been silicon shut and it had these really horrible stains all across the upholstery from, I guess, water coming in on it. So it's a bit of a sad, horrible car, really.

SPEAKER_05: 27:08

Did it have power steering?

SPEAKER_04: 27:10

Oh, did it? Hell no.

SPEAKER_05: 27:11

No, I remember my mum having a Mark II Astra. It was a diesel one, if I remember rightly. And the steering was so bloody heavy. You actually built muscles from driving it for the years, I think. Yeah. Yeah. I

SPEAKER_04: 27:25

mean, my

SPEAKER_05: 27:27

first car or the first car that was bought for me to use, you know, as a 17 year old, I was convinced that as a family, we were going to get a Beetle. Because everyone was into Beatles in our family, even my mum, my dad and my sister. We went to Bug Jam and Beatle Bash and BW Spring Nationals and everything. And I was really excited. And then my dad turned up from work one day with a Mark II Astro. And I was mortified. absolutely mortified i felt like he'd really let me down yeah like he'd stitched me up like he was playing some kind of cruel prank on me i was so i was really quite upset and then i wrote it off i think we had it for yeah i wrote it off four weeks after i passed my test i think it was for the best you know did

SPEAKER_04: 28:11

you have a big

SPEAKER_05: 28:12

looking back on it yeah well yeah yeah Yeah, sort of, yeah. It doesn't look like he wants to recall that memory. Yeah. It was a moment.

SPEAKER_04: 28:22

It was a moment. Listen, the insurance company aren't listening. Well, they might be actually. I just don't

SPEAKER_05: 28:26

know. No, yeah. I think, if I'm wondering, this sounds like such a stupid thing to say, I was on a different bit of road than what I thought I was.

SPEAKER_04: 28:34

Okay. That's one of the best racist excuses I've ever heard. I think, I thought this was a hard left, but... Turns out it was a big right instead.

SPEAKER_05: 28:47

Yeah. So that's, that's basically how it went down, Johnny. So it was really the road that was wrong. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 28:53

Um,

SPEAKER_05: 28:53

yeah. So, but anyway, Mark to Astros. Yeah. Yeah. Not my favorite either. Johnny,

SPEAKER_04: 28:58

I'm with you. I think we're with you. Yeah. It's GTE or nothing, right? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. One of my, one of my oldest friends who I still, I mean, still in touch with, we've known one another since we were two, his mom and dad had a, GTE convertible when they were new. When they were new. It was white as well. It was so 80s. It was white.

SPEAKER_05: 29:21

Checkered interior, do you reckon?

SPEAKER_04: 29:23

I think it did with the Recaros and the Roll Hoop. And I remember we went to the cinema for his birthday to watch Ghostbusters 2. And it was the most exciting thing because I was sat behind his dad driving and I watched the digital rev counter. I was like, this is a frigging spaceship.

SPEAKER_05: 29:41

Isn't it amazing how different the shittest Astras can be to the best Astra?

SPEAKER_04: 29:47

Yeah. I know. I know.

SPEAKER_05: 29:50

They've got the spectrum covered.

SPEAKER_04: 29:53

I love

SPEAKER_05: 29:54

that. Yeah. And also, isn't it interesting how we now hate a digital dash? We're like, God damn you, Porsche, and your digital dash. But on that market to Astra GTE,

SPEAKER_04: 30:04

it was mega. It was. It was. It was great. It was great. So, yeah, I guess that's probably the worst car I've owned. I'll think, you know, tonight I'll think of other crap. Of course. Yeah. That's a long list. So next

SPEAKER_05: 30:18

is best. Best car ever that you've owned.

SPEAKER_04: 30:22

Best car ever I've owned.

SPEAKER_05: 30:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 30:26

Well, well now. They're all, there are ones that are best for different things, aren't they, like best Overall enjoyment, best for looks, best for feel. So I think probably I'd be a big fat liar if I didn't say my Dodge Charger. Because it's, I mean, I've obviously had it a lot longer than the Boxster. And I bought that car in 2008. So I guess I've had it quite a long time now. Wow, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I put it on the road in 09. And everyone said it will drive terribly. I'd owned a few American cars prior to that. I was always into classic American stuff. And they lied. It's a manual, and it's a big block, and it's got non-servo drums and no power steering. And it's a physical car. But A, to me, it's the best. one of the best looking cars of all time from so many angles. There's a lot of really beautiful shapes on that car. It's got muscle, it's got sinewy. Oh, it's just great. And it's a real physical experience to drive, but actually it does go around corners because it doesn't weigh as much as it looks and there's no luxury in it at all. The gear shift is really good. Everyone said it was terrible. It's not terrible. Brakes are terrible, sure enough. And the steering is terrible below about 20 miles an hour. But above that, everything feels so great. The steering wheel's about, I don't know, three feet in depth. And you're just sawing away at it. But I think because of, again, driving lots of new cars for a living, I love having reference points from yesteryear. And getting in that car, to me, feels like sort of cosplay for one of them. So you just feel like I'm just going to disappear back to 1968. I'm not having a radio in it that works. I'm not going to answer my phone. I'm just going to drive and enjoy the sheer analog communication with a machine on a road that I like. And I'd be lying if loads of people listening, I'm sure, will know this. Of course, you love it when people admire your car and you see people go, oh, they do that meerkat thing of going, wow, look at that, or they try and get their phone out. And you go, that's cool. I've worked hard to get this car. It's great if someone else wants to enjoy it as well.

SPEAKER_05: 33:01

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04: 33:02

It's good to spread the

SPEAKER_05: 33:03

love.

SPEAKER_04: 33:04

Yeah, I think so. And I think so because I remember as a kid being really taken aback by certain cars. And if the owner, if it was a show or it was parked, and if the owner said, oh, do you want to sit in it? Or do you want to have a look at the engine bay or something? Those memories can absolutely stay with you forever. And in fact, they might be some of the reasons why we're sat here today, because you just became mildly obsessed.

SPEAKER_05: 33:32

Yes, of course. And I love that. We all have.

SPEAKER_04: 33:34

Yes, massively addictive. And I remember going in early... early memories of going in Porsches. My friend who I just talked about, whose parents had the Astra GT in the eighties. Well, in the nineties, they had a, they had a 911. They, they had a couple of cars and then they got this 911. It was a white Targa. What year was it? 89. It was an 89 Targa.

SPEAKER_03: 34:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 34:04

Which would have been a G body. Yeah. 3.2. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, And I remember we actually stole that car. I can say it now because it's been many years. They went on holiday. I've said this story before somewhere. So we did a proper, we did a Somerset Ferris Bueller's day off, but with a Porsche, not a Ferrari. And his parents went on holiday. We were 16. Did we even have a license? No, we didn't. We were 16. We were 16. I'm not proud of this, so if you're a child listening to this, this is a really awful idea. And we were sat in his kitchen, and he had the nicest house out of all of us. And it was a red-hot day, like it had been today. And we all sat around, and we went, Luke, how long are your parents on holiday for? And he went, oh, about the next sort of week. Okay. Did they take the Porsche? And he went, no. And we all look around like this, and there's a key hook in the kitchen, a rack of keys. And I saw the crest of the Porsche badge glinting, and we all just went, no, the Porsche. So we all ran around into the garage and opened it up and had that face. We went, oh, my gosh, your folks have left the Porsche. We've got to start it. And he went, no, no, we're not doing that. And then he paused and he went, ah, yeah, let's have a go. We, we, we let him, he got in it. He goes, no one else is driving this apart from me. We went, okay, fair, fair. We, he struck it up and we all just stood there going, oh my gosh, this is amazing. And, uh, we took it out.

SPEAKER_03: 35:47

We took it out.

SPEAKER_04: 35:48

We took it out for about a 10 mile drive and we went, we did. We were idiots. Who drove? My, my, my, my friend Luke did. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 35:57

Yeah. Oh,

SPEAKER_04: 35:58

really? He

SPEAKER_05: 35:59

wasn't very good at driving. He's definitely a 16-year-old trying

SPEAKER_04: 36:03

to drive. We were driving around back lanes with blind corners in second gear, maybe third. And we went to call on another friend of ours, because of course this is pre-mobile phones, to call on him, like Ferris Bueller, to prove that we were out in the Porsche to him. And he wasn't in that day for 10 minutes. And it was the 10 minutes that we called over. And get this, to this day, he's pissed off about it. To this day, he said, do you know where I was? He said, my mum and dad said, come out with us because we want to go out and we need to buy some stamps. And he went. He agreed to go out with his parents, bless him, because they needed to buy some stamps in a Peugeot 405. We came round illegally driving a blimmin' Porsche Targa. That's maybe for the best that he

SPEAKER_05: 36:52

wasn't there, because that would mean his parents were there as well, and they might not have enjoyed

SPEAKER_04: 36:56

that. I think he would have opened the curtains and gone, hang on a minute, they don't have a driving licence, and that's a white Porsche. What the hell's going on? Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 37:03

Yeah, you're right. What an experience as a 16-year-old. That could have gone wrong, couldn't it? But that's cool. That is. That's cool. And he got away with it, got it back safely. Yeah, he drove it safely, actually. He drove

SPEAKER_04: 37:11

it pretty well. Axel

SPEAKER_05: 37:13

Stans put it in reverse?

SPEAKER_04: 37:15

Well... We did measure where it was in the garage and we put twigs down on exactly where the tyres were to put it away. And we never said anything to his parents for years and years and years. And like 15 years later, Luke was drunk at his work's due. Him and his parents run a business together. And he admitted to his folks. He said, you know, when he went on holiday that year and his dad went, I know what you did. I know you took the Porsche. Yeah. And we're like, what? But he just went, ah, he said, I knew you'd done something with it, but I looked around it. There was no scratch. There was no damage. I was like, meh. His dad was very laid back. And so we were like, wow. And to this day, none of us, yeah, none of us have owned a Porsche apart from me and the Boxster, I don't think. And I don't know where that car is now. Do you know what? I'll find out the registration. Yeah. I wonder if anybody who listens to this knows where that car is now, because it was lovely. It was mint. There's a chance. It'd be nice to drive it one day with a driving licence rather than not with a driving licence. Yeah. Love that story. Maybe you could add it to the fleet, Johnny.

SPEAKER_05: 38:29

You could

SPEAKER_04: 38:31

buy it. That'd be special. That'd be cool, wouldn't it? One day. A 911 is a car that constantly eludes me. I get close and then... I get close and, uh, I used to live in London and work in London for car magazine in about 2000 and 2001, maybe a millennium 2000. Yeah. And a guy that I knew from another, from the publishing world, he had a beautiful 1967 nine 11 to two liter car. It was black. It was absolutely stunning. And he said to me one day, he said, I'm in, my girlfriend, we're going to buy a flat. He said, I'm going to sell the Porsche. He said, I know you've always really admired it. So I'll give you first refusal. I'm like, right, great. He said, I want 12 for it. I can't go below 12. And I went, and at the time I was earning, I know I was earning 18 grand a year. I was like, I could probably try and get a loan or something. And I just couldn't. And I went, I'm so sorry. I'd love to. I just can't. And I, that really hurt me because I always think back to that car, how, how nice it was. And then now, because I'm, you know, cause I've been in the game a little while, there are cars that are classed as sort of modern classics now, like Porsches. And I go, I drove that when it was launched. Yeah. And it was really good. And there are some that you do, you drive them in period and you go one day, I'm going to find one of them and, I'm going to get one. And the 997 GT3 is one of them. That's for me. Cause I, I, that was the first GT car I ever drove new in, in period. And it had a very profound effect on me. I remember one night I'd just become a dad. My daughter was a baby and I couldn't, she couldn't get to sleep. And when she finally got to sleep, it was like midnight or something. And I just was wired. And I, made my excuses to my ex-wife, and I went, I'm just going to go out, just clear my head for a drive, because I had a GT3 997. It was a white one on the drive. Yeah, and I just disappeared in it. And I drove that car for about 120 miles that night. I drove it for hours. Hours. And it was wonderful. And it never, having driven faster, better cars since, I still go, ooh.

SPEAKER_05: 40:58

Max has got a real love, haven't you? Still my favourite 911, John. I mean, I'm a 997 guy. And so my first Porsche was a 997 Gen 1 Carrera Coupe, Bassart Black, manual, lovely. Did a gazillion miles in it over 10 years that I owned it. And when I bought it, which was in 2012, I was 36 years old. I thought this is going to be, this is my first 911 and it's going to be a gateway to a 997 GT3. That's my plan. You know, I'll have this for a while. I'll keep working. I'll keep doing well. And that'll be a sensible move. And then, you know, the market went silly and the prices went up and, and it sort of went away from me. And I started to think latterly, maybe it's not the 911 for me anymore. You know, maybe there'll be other things that would fit better into my life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 41:45

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 41:46

You know, the kind of thing. And then a friend of ours from the collective Geordie Benn, who's been on a car buying spree, he bought one from RPM Technic, which is close to me. I live in Buckinghamshire, so it's close to me. And I picked him up from the station and we went to get it and he came back to my house and he said, right, you're going to have to drive this car. I said, why? And I was all quite nervous about it and a bit shy and coy. And he said, no, I've put you on the insurance. So it needs petrol. So we need to go to get some petrol. We're going out for dinner later. You can drive me to dinner in it. So over that he afternoon and evening I drove it I think crucially on familiar roads like my roads going to my petrol station and my curry house and in the end I actually

SPEAKER_03: 42:30

felt like it was my car you're a successful local businessman aren't you owning the fuel station and owning

SPEAKER_05: 42:37

the

SPEAKER_03: 42:37

curry house oh

SPEAKER_05: 42:37

wow and I was holding on to the keys they were in my pocket and because it was black the same as mine was I sort of thought it was mine and I really got into it I'm totally totally enchanted and bewitched now. And now all I want again is a, is a 0.1. I don't want a 0.2 997 GT3. I'm completely obsessed with

SPEAKER_04: 42:59

it. Amen to that. I would say. Yeah. Yeah. Incredible. It's, it's, it's just a great car. It's just a great car that does a lot of things really well. But again, like the performance of it on paper compared to a base model Carrera 2 now is nothing on paper. But that's not what it's about. It's about how does it feel through your spine and your bum cheeks, really.

SPEAKER_05: 43:28

It's all about the feel,

SPEAKER_04: 43:29

isn't it? It's so much about the feel. There's so much about it. I really, I do wonder whether or not we should just be putting cars on space savers, you know, like 135s or whatever, 145s. So maybe Michelin could do a Cup 2 or something in a 135, 145 section. That's effectively

SPEAKER_05: 43:52

what the Toyota did, isn't it, with the GT86? Is it GT86? Oh, yeah, that's on the Prius tyres, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04: 44:01

Yeah, yeah. I do wonder. I do wonder if it'd be great. The other weird thing is, is coming home tonight, I saw a GT3, be a 992, I pulled over at the side of the road in the opposite direction on the A1 to where I was going. By what looked like, I am sure it was a police defender, Land Rover defender, flashing all the flashing lights. And I thought, well, A, how the hell did the defender catch the 911? This is assuming the 911 was going some. And B, I didn't know the police had... defenders they're doing all right that's an expensive car expensive car now it's definitely not a working class car like it used to be yeah so uh but yeah and and of course the gt cars now are massive yeah huge and the my son who's going to be 14 this year is really into um He's got, when he was younger, he wasn't so into cars. I mock him now and say, look, I've brought home this car when it was new and this and this. I've got photos of you sitting in this. And he's like, really? Have you? I went, yeah. And he didn't give a toss. And now suddenly you're like, oh, daddy, when you bring home a GT3 RS, I'm like, well, I will do at some point. Oh, come on, come on. I've done it loads

SPEAKER_03: 45:23

before.

SPEAKER_04: 45:24

Yeah. I said, I've had all the other ones at some point and you didn't even care. So, but he's, he's, he loves the, the wings and the, you know, I'm more of a touring guy and he's more of a, but it's that, I think it's, yeah, he likes the vents and the wings and I like the, the subtlety, I think.

SPEAKER_05: 45:44

Yeah. So, um, we've done best car. Somehow we've got onto Porsches again from, from Dodge Chargers. Um, what's the next car? What have you got lined up? What's, what's, what's on the wish list?

SPEAKER_04: 45:58

The wish list is a, is a, is a turbulent car. terrible temptress yeah um that does change so in the last four weeks yeah it's gone something like this citroen sm at least twice at least twice it's almost a fever dream

SPEAKER_05: 46:19

i see uh jethro was out driving his dad's one at the weekend

SPEAKER_04: 46:24

looks amazing isn't he So cool. What a cool car. It's an incredibly cool car. I think it's probably a volatile relationship car, but I feel like maybe it's my midlife crisis. Maybe I should do it. I don't know.

SPEAKER_05: 46:38

It's the challenge you need to accept, Johnny. I mean, it's right up your street, isn't it, Johnny? I mean, all the things that could happen in a Citroen SM, that would be just, that's got you written on it. Content, content, content.

SPEAKER_04: 46:51

Yeah, a serious road trip in what is widely regarded as the most temperamental car of all time probably so I'd love one so I've done that I've done Hillman Avenger numerous times Tiger because it's a car on my list having grown up around Avengers the Tiger's the one to have and then completely like a cliche Motoring Journalist 911 so 993 C2 or If I could find a 997 C2 with absolutely no options, I mean no options, for some reason I would really dig that. I'm a bit weird when it comes to stuff like that.

SPEAKER_05: 47:41

Hasn't Williams Crawford got a zero option one? No, that's actually a few bits. It's got a few bits on it. It's actually quite nicely. So it looks like a nice car. I'll send it to you. It's quite cool. It is quite cool. But yeah, that's got some nice options on it, actually. I know what you're saying with the zero option. I've always liked a pretty base spec Carrera. There's something about it, isn't there?

SPEAKER_04: 48:10

Do you know what it is? It's like a really good quality vanilla ice cream. Most people go, oh, vanilla ice cream. Like, that's the obvious choice. Everyone just goes for vanilla. But it's like, yeah, but there's vanilla, and then there's vanilla. And a really good vanilla, like a really good Sunday roast, or if it's done right, just go with it. It's great.

SPEAKER_05: 48:30

Yeah, you don't need the cordon bleu.

SPEAKER_04: 48:31

No, and I do worry that a lot of people now, because they spec cars up, they tick a lot of boxes, and they buy cars for the next owner almost. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, what are you doing? Straight in for the hard stuff. You're absolutely right. Yeah, you know, it is though, isn't it? I mean, I don't do drugs, but I'm just using that as a sort of, you know.

SPEAKER_05: 49:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you're absolutely right. I've joked on here before, except I'm not joking, of course, that there are people who, I believe there are people who don't know that there's any 911 other than a GT3 or a Turbo S. They don't even know what a Carrera is. A Carrera? What are you talking about? I don't even know what that is.

SPEAKER_04: 49:32

And they're missing out. They're missing out. Do you know, you guys will know Porsches better than me, but do you know if you can, can you still delete option certain things? Yeah. Can you? How simple could you make an entry-level 911 now? I don't even know. Because it's so luxurious inside.

SPEAKER_05: 49:55

Didn't Richie, Andy, didn't– I mean, you might have driven it. Richie had that red 992, first-gen 992. Yeah, that was my basic. That had, I think, only like 180 quid's worth of options on it.

UNKNOWN: 50:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 50:08

And one of those was a changing the badge on the back to that little nine 11 badge. And I can't remember what the other thing was. The other thing was something really innocuous as well. And other than that, there was nothing. And that was on the, that was on the fleet. That was a press fleet car. So there are, there are, you know, there are, but who people buying those probably not very many, probably not very many, which is a shame.

SPEAKER_04: 50:31

It is a shame. It's the same way that colors like now we, we look, I think, and it's a, it's, quite a Porsche thing, but you look out for interestingly coloured secondhand ones and go, oh, wow, someone really went to town on this one. And we applaud it. But yet, when you buy a car new, a lot of people, they're quite conservative and they go, oh, why did you buy that in silver? You could have bought that in yellow or, you know, a chartreuse green or my favourite green, probably, Porsche green.

SPEAKER_03: 51:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 51:02

Maybe an Irish green. I mean, Porsche, I love green cars. I was having this conversation on my podcast the other week about, I don't particularly like red cars. Whatever. I'd be the last person to buy a red Ferrari. Green. So many good greens out there. Do you know, there

SPEAKER_05: 51:23

was always that thing, wasn't there? When I was a kid that it was the, you wouldn't, People wouldn't buy green cars because they were... It was unlucky, wasn't it? I believe it was unlucky, and I don't know the reason. You don't know the reason for it. No, I don't. I heard somebody talking about that the other day, and I was like, yeah, I do remember that. It was a huge thing. It was. Green cars didn't happen back then.

SPEAKER_04: 51:50

Well, it's weird, though, isn't it? Nobody calls it British unlucky racing green. Green, yeah. I

SPEAKER_05: 51:56

don't

SPEAKER_04: 51:56

think

SPEAKER_05: 51:56

we need to look into this.

SPEAKER_04: 51:58

My parents bought a green car brand new and that's what I'd learnt to drive in and that's what I remember. And I think maybe that's why I like green cars because I remember this forest green metallic car all the time. I'm just into it. And also it's the kind of nature. Isn't it? Flourishing nature. So if you bin it into a hedge, you can cover it up and no one will

SPEAKER_05: 52:19

see. God, I wish I could have done that.

SPEAKER_04: 52:20

What

SPEAKER_05: 52:21

colour was that?

SPEAKER_03: 52:22

It

SPEAKER_05: 52:23

was white. It was white.

SPEAKER_03: 52:25

I knew it could be white.

SPEAKER_05: 52:29

Here's a question for you, John. I've got a question for you. So you've got a bit of money in your... in your back burner. It's burning a hole in your pocket. And you're presented at the same price with a really, really nice 993 Carrera 2 manual coupe. Nice thing. And a 997.1 GT3. They're the same money. So they're like 80 grand or something. A couple of nice cars. Which one do you buy?

SPEAKER_04: 52:52

Oh, bums. You're a bad man. Could I... So could the 997... Could the GT3 be the comfort pack and I could put a back seat in it, back in it?

SPEAKER_05: 53:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. Tony is stroking his face in a rather strange way

SPEAKER_04: 53:17

as you listen to this. This is a conundrum, a conundrum. I'd probably go 997 GT3. However, however, however, I think the 993 is probably a prettier car.

SPEAKER_03: 53:33

I

SPEAKER_04: 53:34

think the 997 GT3 is probably a more fun car for me. And also, the 997 GT3 is a more modern car. So compared to the cars I've got that I own, I own a lot of 60s, 70s, 80s cars. To have a 997, it's a noughties car. And I think there is a bit of nostalgia in me who goes, I remember driving that when it was new and it had a real wow sound. Yeah, I love that

SPEAKER_05: 54:04

story of you going off at the middle of the night. That's just amazing. I

SPEAKER_04: 54:08

mean, dude, I can say this now because I'm divorced, but there was another 9-11. It was a Targa. It was a 997 Targa when they brought back the Targa after a little sabbatical. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I had one of those and me and my then wife had a massive row and I can't remember what it was about. It would have been about being tired parents. At the time she, we had a row and I stormed out the house and all I took, I didn't take a wallet. I remember I just took the key to the nine 11 and I went for a long drive just to cool off and just think about the world. And it was great. I enjoyed it. Then I came back and I'd been locked out and I tried to phone, I tried to phone and she turned her phone off and it was like, you ain't coming back tonight. I had all I had was a, was a nine 11, a press car. with a full tank of fuel and the clothes that I was in. And I went for a long drive, got the cabin nice and hot. And then I went down a back lane, reclined the seat and tried to go to

SPEAKER_05: 55:07

sleep. Was it a cold night? How long did

SPEAKER_04: 55:10

it take? It was one of those ones where about three or four in the morning when the temperature properly dips, you're like, this is not comfortable. I don't enjoy this. I don't want to do this. But I did want to sleep on my own drive in the car because that would look extra sad. So I was just down a country lane, looking a bit weird in a brand new Porsche at the time. And I just thought to myself, what am I doing? But I remember that. I took my daughter out for several drives in that when she was very young into a little Recaro kiddie seat, and she was in the back of the Targa. So the glass house goes all the way back, doesn't it? And she loved it. She remembers it to this day. And I've got a thing for Targas, I have to say. For a long time, they were a bit dismissed.

SPEAKER_05: 55:57

Yes, yeah. Didn't Richard have a Targa for a long time?

SPEAKER_04: 56:02

No, he had a...

SPEAKER_05: 56:03

Oh no, it was Coupe,

SPEAKER_04: 56:04

wasn't it? Yeah, he had an S. He had a Basalt Black 997. Yeah,

SPEAKER_05: 56:12

second gen 997, I think, wasn't

SPEAKER_04: 56:13

it? Yes, and he very much loved it and used it a lot. But yeah, we both like Targas. I've got a thing for a Targa. In fact, that 997, yeah, when it first came out, I thought, wow, they've done such a good job on that. And they've kept it up, I think. They've done really good Targas since. So I'm down for a Targa.

SPEAKER_05: 56:34

Yeah, I'm down for a Targa. I quite fancy a 997 Targa,

SPEAKER_04: 56:38

actually. We're just these idiots that just buy cars in our head. We're just fantasy buying, aren't we, all the time?

SPEAKER_05: 56:43

Yeah, that's my life. Welcome to my

SPEAKER_04: 56:46

world. There's so many cars.

SPEAKER_05: 56:49

Speaking of which... Speaking of which, I've got a question about a car for you, which I know you know all about. Okay. And I'm thinking about it in the context of 2025. Is it a good car to own and to use? Right. The original Honda Insight.

SPEAKER_04: 57:02

Oh, hell yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 57:04

God, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 57:04

Hell yeah. Okay, so...

SPEAKER_05: 57:06

They're

SPEAKER_04: 57:06

cool. The thing about the Honda Insight is obviously the looks are divisive because it's quite an unusual looking alien. I love them. Yeah, I do. But even if you don't like that... but you appreciate engineering. As a piece of engineering, it's an absolute tour de force. And it's so satisfying to drive in that way that we've talked about, in that it's a hybrid, so it's not, and it's a tiny engine. It's got no torque. It's not fast, but you can carry loads of momentum with it. It'll corner really well. The steering's just a delight. The driving position and the comfort, I mean, I've cane miles on mine. And because it's all aluminium and it's handmade, it feels like it's not going to go anywhere soon. And I've, yeah, like I said, I've owned it twice. It's done, it had its, I took it back to Honda to have its service two weeks ago. It's done 335,000 miles. Bloody hell. And it's still hot to trot. It's amazing, isn't it? Every car fanatic should drive one before they do it. It's one of those cars you should just try

SPEAKER_05: 58:16

it

SPEAKER_04: 58:17

to understand what it's about.

SPEAKER_05: 58:18

I've driven a couple. I've test-driven them a couple of times and been so close to buying but just didn't do it. I seem to have lots of parallels with your driving career and your car ownership career, but there's one thing that you always seem to have done, which is buy the bloody things, and I've just test-driven them. but yeah I was yeah that insight I loved that thing it's just I don't know it's just something different as well isn't it I think we've both got the love for something weird

SPEAKER_04: 58:50

they're also incredibly good value for money still

SPEAKER_05: 58:53

are they still

SPEAKER_04: 58:53

you know they're still really good value for money like you can buy an immaculate one for like seven or you can buy really yeah yeah or you can buy a leggy one for three

SPEAKER_03: 59:04

you

SPEAKER_04: 59:05

know and and there's again, there's a really strong like, um, owners forum and there's loads of hacks you can do to them now. Like I put suspension on mine, which I filmed it for a video and I haven't put it out yet, but I put adjustable coil overs on the back and, um, there's a few different mods you can do, which really improve them.

SPEAKER_05: 59:29

Yeah. Uh, I might have to scratch that itch still.

SPEAKER_04: 59:31

It's still doing, mine's still doing 78 to the gallon, like regularly.

SPEAKER_05: 59:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 59:36

This was the world's first mass-produced, definitely, 100-mile-per-gallon car. Yeah. And it was the world's first hybrid that was sold globally. So the Prius beat it by about nine months, but that was Japanese domestic market only, that Gen 1. Also, the Gen 1 Prius looks shit.

SPEAKER_05: 1:00:00

Yes,

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:00

absolutely. And it's just never going to be cool, in my eyes, whereas the Honda drives really well. Like it has the steering of a Lotus. It feels like a sort of eco Lotus. It's great.

SPEAKER_05: 1:00:10

Honda's are cool, aren't they? Honda's, Honda are such great engineers, aren't they? Such a great engineering business. I think

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:15

they're brilliant.

SPEAKER_05: 1:00:16

I've inadvertently

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:17

owned a lot of Hondas of late and it's not because of, they haven't, I haven't sought them. They've sought me. That's my excuse anyway.

SPEAKER_05: 1:00:25

Did you have a Mark I Civic?

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:28

I've never had a Mark I Civic. I've tried to buy one. I've had, I've got, I bought a Civic for my kids to learn to drive in, which is the EP2 shape or whatever they call it. The one with the gear stick coming out of the dashboard. And I've got an Element. Yeah, they're cool. If they brought the Element back, please bring the Element back. It would just be amazing. I've owned an S600 Coupe 1965. Honda's first sports car. Honda's first proper car. And that thing was, again, as a piece of engineering, oh, my word. I mean, that thing would rev to 11. Some of the guys in the club said it revved to 12. Jeez. That was a 600cc, four-cylinder, four-carb, needle roller-bearing crank car that would do 100 miles an hour in 1964. Wow. When we were buying MG midgets, you decide which one you'd rather have.

SPEAKER_05: 1:01:34

Yeah. It's another world, isn't it? That's so trick.

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:37

That's a trick. Honestly, that car was unbelievable. The back suspension alone was as complicated as a Swiss watch. I mean, I had a meltdown trying to find parts for it and then realized I couldn't fit in it. So I had sold it.

SPEAKER_05: 1:01:50

Oh,

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:50

really? Is that why you sold it? Genuinely. To be honest with you, A combination of couldn't really fit in it, so I couldn't shut the door more than one click because my knee wouldn't go anywhere, my right knee. And COVID came along, and being self-employed and it being really tricky, it was like, you're going to have to sell some cars. And the Honda. The Honda was very collectible abroad. It sold to a collector in Singapore, I think. So, yeah, you know, you can't keep them all. No, no. We

SPEAKER_05: 1:02:23

were saying earlier that you've had 130, 140 cars. Yeah. That's some list. What have you currently got? What's left? Okay, so

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:34

I've actually been a bad man. I've quite a bad man in the last year. I've got more cars rather than less cars. I've got the Austin Allegro Type R sleeper project, which continues to be challenging. But we'll get there. I've got the Dodge Charger, the Beetle, Nissan, Cedric, Tokyo Taxi. That's cool. Love that. Yeah, I do like that. That car's so smooth. I've got the Boxster, smart Brabus Roadster.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:10

Brilliant

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:11

car. The Honda Insight, the Honda Element, the Civic. sort of children's field car um oh i've got a matra rancho which i bought on a complete whim from a field in cornwall that's one of the rarest cars cool it's one of the rarest cars in the world

SPEAKER_05: 1:03:31

yeah

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:31

yeah do you know how many are on the road one of my

SPEAKER_05: 1:03:32

favorite majorette toy cars i bet wicked yeah love them what less than 10 maybe on the road

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:40

really oh It's rarer than a Ferrari 250 GTO by a country mile. God. What sort of state's that

SPEAKER_05: 1:03:47

in? Terrible. Is it really proper

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:50

rotten? Excuse my language.

SPEAKER_05: 1:03:52

Because they were rotten when they came out of the factory, basically, weren't they? With that rattly old Tolbert engine.

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:58

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:04:00

It deserves to be

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:00

saved, though. Well, I got a real thing for them as a kid of the 80s. They looked so ahead of their time. So cool. They were so ahead of their time. So... Yeah, I had to save that.

SPEAKER_05: 1:04:14

Johnny, what engine would you put in that if you're going to rest him on it as part of your saving it? What would be the right engine in that? Can you keep a secret? Yeah, yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:24

I'm not actually doing this because I don't have the money, but if I could do this. I joked to Robert Singer once. The one and only time I've met him, we were in a bar. And after a few drinks, I said, I'm going to give you a Matarancho one and you're going to bloody Singer it. And he laughed and he went, yeah, yeah, maybe. And I went, no, seriously, you're going to sing it. And I worked out on those silly websites where you can do wheelbase calculations with other cars. It's got the exact wheelbase of a Subaru Impreza WRX.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:57

Oh,

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:59

perfect. And the Rancho was never four-wheel drive. It all looked good, didn't it? So, hello, come on. Imagine, just imagine that. Brilliant. I'm in. Yeah. I mean, like if I had a spare hundred, 200 grand in my back pocket and I thought, let's just do something dirty. Yeah. Weird. And then you can

SPEAKER_05: 1:05:18

give it to Travis to do the video.

SPEAKER_04: 1:05:20

Honestly, I really would. I really would. So yeah, I actually don't know what other, Oh, I know another car that I've forgotten about the car that I've owned for 20 years this year and still never driven it. Um, Chevrolet Impala Supersport, 1964. The low rider, which the never-ending story, as my friends call it, that I'll probably never finish. But I will finish it because I have to. Bloody cool, that is. Well, I've spent more money on that car, genuinely, than any other car I've ever owned. And the engine hasn't even run. I've never driven it. It's despicable. I'm a complete car tragic. But do you love it? Do you know what? When I see it, when I open the door of the workshop and I stand there and I look at it, I go, wow, it has a real, it is a fantastic car and I love the shape of it. The work that's been done to it has been done to a really high standard. It's just, it's one of those projects that in hindsight, I would do it in a different way. I would tackle it in a different way and I would plan it better. I'm not a planner, unfortunately, and it bites you when you don't plan. Prepare to fail or fail to prepare or whatever the saying is. It's true. But that car, yeah, it's stunning. It's stunning to look at. I'm kind of building it for my son now because I caught him watching Lowrider videos about two, three years ago on YouTube. I leant over his shoulder and went, oh, it's a 64 Impala. I've got one of those. He goes, no, you haven't. really and i and i said i said darling i i have one of those cars i've actually owned two but yeah i've got one of those that's actually a super sport i've got a super sport and he went i don't believe you prove it and i went it's that thing i said there's that car that you'd never see that the gold one and i showed him he went what and this is the thing he he wasn't really into cars for many years was that the switch yeah yeah what

SPEAKER_05: 1:07:26

did yeah what what did turn him do you think

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:29

I think it was coming to the end of primary school and then going to secondary, which is a big step, isn't it? And then hearing his friends talk about supercars, because obviously supercars is a boy dream thing. Well, I know girls too, because my daughter's probably more car-y than my son. And then suddenly, probably his mates finding out what I did for a job, seeing me occasionally pulling up in different cars not not a lot of supercars um and then his mates going oh you know i really want to own a this when i'm older i really want to win that when i'm older and uh and i think that's that's sort of spooled the turbo up and he's he's suddenly gone well hang on a minute like i've been to loads of car shows as a young kid didn't really i thought it was just normal and then he realized no no maybe not i mean he's probably been to more car shows than before he was six years old than most people before they're 16.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:29

And then I, but I think now he's finding the cars he likes. He loves, uh, nine 11 GT threes. He loves MX fives with flip up headlights. He loves, um, he really likes the Dodge by Dodge. Yeah. Um, so he's finding his, his findings you, but I didn't want to force the car thing on my children. Cause you don't want to be a dad that forces your hobby and your passion on, um, on others and then repels them really so you gotta but both my kids enjoy watching drag racing because i've taken them to santa pod to watch drag cars since they were tiny because i just find it quite fun and it's a good it's a good interesting noise and it's grassroots and yeah and i'm gonna just keep taking them to different car shows and hopefully they'll I'll pick it up. They both enjoy, well, my daughter loves driving, loves karting. And if I could afford it, I'd put her through a karting school and get her to kick some ass. But, It needs to be

SPEAKER_05: 1:09:32

done. It needs to be

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:33

done. Well, I'm, I'm too busy spending money on it. You know, really important. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:09:38

And the empire that always makes me think of the film boys in the hood. Is that the right? Am I thinking of the right? I'm pretty much in the right space. I love that movie. I know that's an open top one in boys in the hood, but all that stuff. Ah, wicked.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:52

I watched that film for the first time last month, uh, for the first time in, it's gotta be 20 years with my nephew. Who's, 18. And I said, look, you'll appreciate this. Watch it. And it's such a good film. And, and I, I watched it the year that came out and it had a very profound effect on me. And that's one of the reasons why I've got a bloody Impala and why I had a, uh, Mark one Granada on, on hydraulics that, I mean, who in their right mind would drive every day, a low rider that they don't even have. You don't even have a drive. You have on street parking in a rented house, uh, So you don't even have a garage to work on it. I mean, what a 19-year-old fool I was. I spent every single penny that I earned on cars.

SPEAKER_05: 1:10:40

Yeah. It's a crazy addiction, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:44

It really was. It's that

SPEAKER_05: 1:10:45

commitment to the cause, Johnny, that's made you the man you are today, is what

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:49

it is. I said to people, I'm like, why did you do it? Because I just didn't think there was any other thing that I should do. This is what you do. You earn money and yeah, you know, you'll go out and have a few jars now and again and you try and be successful with women. But ultimately, I'd try and buy interesting cars and go on road trips and pick up the yellow paper and go, look, there's that for 200 quid. Let's go and get it tomorrow. And that's what we did. That's basically it.

SPEAKER_05: 1:11:17

Have you ever been over the years into a position you've got yourself and you thought... God, I just need to get out of all of this and be normal. Have you ever thought that?

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:30

Yeah, I have actually. Probably setting up my own YouTube channel was a big, it was a big jump and it was, I wanted to try it. I probably didn't realise quite how intense it would be in terms of workload. And of course, compared to TV, where TV has sort of peaks and troughs of energy levels. You deliver a series of shows and then there's a lull and then you promote it and then you go again. The problem with the internet, it's just a big, big whale that just swims through the ocean and inhales whatever is in its path. And people go, yeah, that's a great video. When's your next one? That's a great video. When's your next one? And You run out of energy. And also, you sort of, like any self-employed person, I suppose, you can let it consume you. And you forget that you're actually in control of the break and the clutch here. You should be the one that says, I'm only going to work this amount of hours or put this number of videos out. And I think probably 2021, 2022, I... got to several points, almost breaking points. I was like, I don't enjoy this anymore. I think I'm going to have to just run away. And actually that's why I don't, I know it sounds awful, but I don't watch a lot of car content on YouTube because I need a break from it. And, um, Yeah. You can OD on it, can't you? You can oversaturate. Absolutely. So that's why I just go and, I go and like stroke my cat or sit in the garden and just, just chill. I do like doing, you know, I do. That's, I think that's why historically classic cars was always my hobby. Yeah. And, and modern cars was my, my work, my business. And that would be the division. I tinker with old shitters in the shed and that would be my therapy.

SPEAKER_05: 1:13:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:13:31

my downtime. And then I'd go and drive the new, whatever it was.

SPEAKER_05: 1:13:36

So would that be like the fifth gear and the fully charged era?

SPEAKER_04: 1:13:41

Yeah, it would. And, and, and, uh, and I always enjoyed that. But of course now, uh, with YouTube and the way it's gone, the, the, the, the passion and the pastime and the business have done this and it's, It's really exciting sometimes, but also it can be quite damaging. And you do run out of love for stuff and you have to just shut the garage door or you just go, I just want to go for a walk. I don't want to get in a car. I've been driving a car all week and sat on my ass. I actually just really want to walk. So I do enjoy walking. And people go, but you're a car nut. It's the same way that people go, I've seen you driving EVs. You're supposed to be a car fanatic. And I go, I am a car fanatic. It's just there's different tools for different jobs. And I think that EVs work in lots of different circumstances. They don't work for everybody. And I was the first journalist to drive the Taycan. I've just remembered that. Got the world exclusive on that bloody car. That was good fun. And so I think that you have to– I do sometimes crave a nine to five, going back to your original question. I think being a motoring journalist for magazines first and now online stuff, you don't really have a pattern of work and time. And so I do sometimes when things get really intense or you get bombarded with stuff or your personal life takes a bit of a hammering, you do go, I wish I just had a predictable work pattern. I worked for somebody and then just came home and did what some of my friends do. They meet every Tuesday and they do a thing. And they meet every Thursday and they do a thing. And I'm like, I can't tell you that. Like this Thursday, I'm driving the new Renault 4 on the launch in Portugal. I'm sorry, but I am. I don't make the rules. That's when it's being launched. I'm sorry. And it can be really frustrating. However... The trade-off is you get to do things that money can't buy and you get to drive cars that you can't afford. Some

SPEAKER_05: 1:15:51

crazy stuff,

SPEAKER_04: 1:15:52

yeah. You get to meet some really interesting people. And I think the older I get, the more I'm interested in the people behind the cars rather than the cars.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:01

Yeah, the story.

SPEAKER_04: 1:16:02

Yeah, yeah, because the cars are fine and the cars are great. But, like, you know, we could go to a– we could have a little Porsche gathering now and there'd be a line of cars, a line of GT– threes and the same of those and a line of those and they're all the same but actually it's when you get chatting to a couple of the people and they there's a there's some sort of bond and a common passion and yeah and when i do the barn finds on my on my youtube channel that's why i like the barn finds the best actually because it's not just metal it's the sentiment that just comes out and the emotion and actually with the most emotional barn find i've ever done was a lady excuse me, whose late husband had a 911 SC. Yeah. And which was handed down to him from his dad who passed away. And she had it and she'd lost him about 18 months previous. And she was just looking for someone to buy it who was right. She said, it's not about the money. I've got to make sure this car is given to the right person. If they're not the right man or woman, I'm not giving it to them.

SPEAKER_03: 1:17:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:11

And she asked all day off camera, she was saying, I really want you to buy this car, Johnny. And I'm like, look, I would love to buy this car, but I know I can't afford it. I could fleece you and tell you it's worth 12 grand when it's worth 45. But yeah, it was quite emotional because she was tearing up talking about all the happy times that she'd had in it. And that's the thing about all these cars. It's like, it's not just about the way they corner and they accelerate. It's the

SPEAKER_05: 1:17:42

memories, isn't it? It's the things that you've done in it, the things that you've achieved, things that you've done with other people. It sparks off all of those good feelings.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's why we should use them and we should share them with other people and create those memories for others. Like, you know, you drive your car down the street on a nice sunny day sunday afternoon and people go there might there might be a kid that goes wow look at

SPEAKER_05: 1:18:08

that yeah

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:09

i've never seen a car like that before or look at that color isn't it wild

SPEAKER_05: 1:18:13

yeah or the odd sick shout

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:16

always seems

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:16

to happen mate or can you do that mate yeah like that rev it yeah yeah yeah

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:20

i'll stick it on the limiter and just like spin a bearing just for you yeah I can't bear the limiter, thrashing on the limiter thing. Do you know what? I just think it's really retarded. Am I allowed to say that? It is, isn't it? Yeah, you are. Do something artistic. It's like, you know, just if you're going to do something like that, do something involving car control. Don't just sit the bastard's car on the limiter. You're basically saying you've got no mechanical sympathy at all. Yeah. At all.

SPEAKER_05: 1:18:52

Yeah. Strange,

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:53

isn't it? Strange behavior. You wouldn't kick your own dog, would you? in front of people at least, because that's just a nasty thing to do. That's what you're doing with putting your engine on the limiter for no reason. Just like,

SPEAKER_05: 1:19:03

just. Yeah. There's a question, Johnny. I've, I've actually wanted to ask you for quite a long time. Curiosity. I promise it's the only serious question I'll ask. And it's, it's about the transition when you, when you set up your YouTube channel, you know, which has been a, you know, a roaring success and all consuming one, as you say, but, you know, producing some really wonderful content. But at the time, you know, as, as an observer, as I was, and, and, and still I'm asking people, Johnny's a, Johnny's a proper motoring journalist, you know, in print and on the television, you know, YouTubers for the most part aren't. I thought, I wonder, I wonder how, I wonder what the, feelings are here, not necessarily a thought, the thought process, you know, you can see how we know what the direction was, but I wondered how you felt about it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:19:57

You know, looking at the, some of the people who were doing that at the time, not everyone, and maybe it's a different landscape now, but I just wondered how, how that, how that, how that

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:05

was. It's a good question. Cause, cause I pondered it for a long time and, um, influences or that kind of term that was given to a lot of people on social media, um, A lot of journalists were really holding those people at arm's length, actually. There was a bit of a them and us on launches of cars. I think what happened was it was a combination of things. I'd done the TV for, I'd done Fifth Gear for 19 series. A long time. How

SPEAKER_05: 1:20:39

was it that long?

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:40

Yeah, I did it in 2006. You don't

SPEAKER_05: 1:20:43

look old enough, Jonny.

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:45

well, I don't look, I'll give you a nice bottle of wine and a nice Christmas. I appreciate it. But so I think, I think, I think I don't know quite a lot of, of, of fifth gear. And the truth of the matter was the, the budgets for TV were dwindling because TV was losing out to a lot of online platforms. Yeah. Um, people were able to, create better and better content. And so the caliber of stuff on YouTube was higher and higher. And also, I used to get frustrated with certain things on TV. And don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed working on the TV. It's given me loads of great opportunities and I'm proud of a lot of it. But what it does do is it has to dumb stuff down for mainstream consumerism. So when I wanted to nerd out on detail, It wouldn't let me or they would edit it out because ultimately I was just a presenter. I was a paid head and then I couldn't control the edit. So, and I got a bit jaded really about pitching TV ideas, car ideas. TV ideas to production companies who mostly didn't understand the car world. And we're always just looking to how could we introduce famous people into this? How could we make it a bit silly? And it was like, no, you don't need to do that. So doing Fully Charged as a YouTube channel when I was working with Robert Llewellyn, I really, really enjoyed doing that. And it was refreshing. And I guess I saw the way he built that brand up. And he'd done it out of real passion and real focus and, uh, was making, uh, making car reviews and videos that were television quality. And so I was like, well, if you can make television quality and people are starting to watch YouTube as a television show. So not just 10 minutes or five minutes, full half hour episodes, like a TV show, maybe I should try it. And, and, and, and I got, it was every Christmas. I always have a, a bit of extra time off and I do a real bit of life reflection. I should probably do it more than once a year. But Christmas is when I really do it. I really wind down and go, right, new year, what do I want to do differently? What am I happy with? What am I not happy with? And all that stuff. And I think my then wife said, look, you work for other people. You get into an age where you should build something for yourself. That's what you should do. You've got a lot of contacts. Just do it. And if you're going to do it, bloody do it well. Jump in with both feet and do it with conviction and actually to her credit. I wouldn't have probably done it or I wouldn't have done it on the level that I've done it if it weren't for her saying, do it, but do it. And of course, starting a YouTube channel at the age of 40 is not what most people do. if I was still living at home with my parents and didn't have the overheads and didn't have a family or any of those worries, you kind of wing it a bit more. But I think because I worked on TV and because I was a journalist background, I thought if I'm going to do this, it's got to be proper. It's got to have a bit of credibility and I've got to really, make sure that people can go back and watch older videos and go, yeah, you know, that was a fairly solid piece of work because don't get me wrong. I've done some terrible videos. They haven't all worked, but I've, I've tried my best with the resources I've got. And, and to that end, I thought I've got to make it look like a TV show because that's where people have, a lot of people have followed me from, from TV. I film it all on my phone in a wobbly way. way it's going to look like I've had a massive fall from grace I know this sounds a bit kind of pretentious but it might look like I've had a massive fall from grace and I'm just phoning it in as it were and I can't do that I don't want to do that I want to really put my back into it so that's why I did it that way and it allowed me to nerd out and that's what YouTube allows you to do if I want to do a half hour

SPEAKER_05: 1:24:59

niche you could get in the niche

SPEAKER_04: 1:25:00

yeah Yeah, if I want to do one episode of 25 minutes all about why Porsche in 1972 put the oil filler cap on the rear quarter panel rather than in the engine bay, you could do it. And if there was a hook and there was a good interview or an archive clip that you could get your hands on and you could try and convince people that it was an interesting thing to watch, go for it. Bloody go for it. And I think that's what's really good about social media. And, uh, and of course now, you know, TikTok's trying to kill YouTube and Instagram somewhere in the middle and Facebook's having a big renaissance. And, uh, yeah, Facebook, Facebook's really big. I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm not on it as me as Johnny Smith. But my show, my channel is on it. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. But I mean, I do pay a freelance to do that because I'm terrified of Facebook in case, I don't know, an old girlfriend stalks me or something. I don't know. Or Facebook Marketplace, which is apparently an absolute goldmine for people who sell perfectly good cars but can't be bothered to take pictures of them or write descriptions and they just go, car for sale, give me 50 quid now in the next two hours, otherwise I'm... earn it. And you find out that it's an angry divorcees career. I don't know, but I can't do it. I think you're

SPEAKER_05: 1:26:27

wise to keep away from it, mate. I think you'd, you'd be filling up another, well, another unit somewhere.

SPEAKER_04: 1:26:33

Yeah, I can't do it. I can't do it. So, so yeah, so that's, and I, and I suppose, yeah, I've, I've reached, I'm really happy with the way the late break shows grown organically and, has

SPEAKER_05: 1:26:45

it grown differently to how you anticipated so did you when you first set it up did you think right I'm going to have this sort of I'm going to have a playlist for this playlist for that playlist for this I'm going to do this type of video and what's changed

SPEAKER_04: 1:26:59

it's changed a bit in that I suppose you have to be a you have to be business minded. You're always weighing up like the, I want to, I want a good variety on the show. Cause that was always the idea of the channel. I want a good variety. I want to balance, you know, I want to bring together this idea of you can appreciate electric EVs, V8s. Um, you can go into people's private garages. You can, we can do barn finds. We can, you'll see some of my own cars and my own tragic projects and things. And there's no, uh, elitism or anything like that. Yeah. Um, but, certain things always work better than others. And then when you have a successful video, you think, oh, well, it worked really well last time. So let's do another one of those. And then it doesn't do the same as what the other one did. And you're like, damn this. And I guess I try and explain it to people. I guess it's like being in a band when you write a hit song and it just flies and you go, wow, we wrote that in like 10 minutes when we were on a tea break and we had no idea it was ever going to be our biggest hit. you try and do it again. And then you try to do it again. And then you try to do it again. If we all knew how to do it, it's bloody hell. We would just keep doing it. Wouldn't we? And it's, it just doesn't, it doesn't always work that way. So, um, yeah, I'm trying to always balance like, this is my business. I've put, I have put all my eggs in the basket of, uh, a channel. Okay. I do a podcast as well, but, um, So it has to succeed as a business. I've got a family and I've got outgoings and like all this stuff. And I would like to finish my Impala and my Allegro. And I'd like to buy an i11 GT3. But at the same time, you know, like at the same time, I want it to be authentic. And I want to keep exploring the car world further because it's such a rich mine. And also I want to try, if I can, in some small way, inspire a newer generation a younger generation of car fanatics because i do worry there's going to be a huge void of people that might not want to get a driving license might not want to own a car and if they do own a car it might be just the latest most technologically late and thing are not something that just gives you a bit of a thrill so i i really like doing that that's why i embarrass my daughter sometimes by turning up on the school run and in my two cv or uh you didn't mention the two cv oh yeah the

SPEAKER_05: 1:29:37

list

SPEAKER_04: 1:29:39

yeah that's i've been driving it all week and i've bloody forgot about it that's cool i realized you've got a flat two a flat four and a flat six

SPEAKER_05: 1:29:46

brilliant

SPEAKER_04: 1:29:47

i need a flat eight now

SPEAKER_05: 1:29:48

yeah you do what's that does a tatra

SPEAKER_04: 1:29:52

have a flat eight yeah i'd love a tatra yeah they're

SPEAKER_05: 1:29:56

amazing

SPEAKER_04: 1:29:57

what a car yeah Rear engine V8 or flat eight Hemi, air cooled. What a thing. Madness, madness. What a

SPEAKER_05: 1:30:05

thing. So I've got a question on videos. Two questions, really. What's your favourite video that you've put out over the years under the guise of the Late Break show? And maybe what's been the most successful? You know, what's the most watched?

SPEAKER_04: 1:30:26

That's a really... I'm going to go on my phone rudely because I actually, I know this is bad. I sort of forget what I've done. People used to ask me this a lot with the TV. They'd go like, what's the best thing that you've filmed on fifth gear? And I go, I actually can't remember all the things I filmed. And people then regale. They go, I really enjoyed when you drove the Lotus Evora around that, around that track. And I go, I remember it. Oh, yeah. And then I'll watch it and go, yeah, yeah, I remember exactly what happened that day. Yeah, it was really good. So I'm going to sort by... You've got 25

SPEAKER_05: 1:31:05

videos with over a million views. Have

SPEAKER_04: 1:31:07

I? Is it really that many? Pretty cool, isn't it? How many? Yeah,

SPEAKER_05: 1:31:11

yeah. 25. That's a lot. Between 1 million and like 3.6 or 7 million,

SPEAKER_04: 1:31:15

something like that. So I've just... Wow, I didn't realise. I did not realise that because I don't look back that much because... simply in the world of YouTube. We don't have time.

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:31:24

Yeah. Um, yeah. So the best video, so the most viewed video I've ever done is the beast, the 27. Wow. Yeah. And the, and then also one about the, um, a futuristic, uh, scrapyard, uh, a salvage.

SPEAKER_05: 1:31:42

Yeah. Trent's. So that video just around the corner from me.

SPEAKER_04: 1:31:45

Right. So that video I did really out of curiosity because I was interested in it because I like salvage yards. Never in the world did I think that was going to be one of the most successful videos I ever put out. It's just weird, right?

SPEAKER_05: 1:32:00

Yeah, it was a great video. And I couldn't believe that Trent's, because I remember Trent's when I was, I remember going in there when I was about 17 or 18 with a friend that lived down this way. And I remember going in there and there's this grotty little, you know, terrible, Scrapyard had five cars on top of each other. You were wading around in a world. It was horrific.

SPEAKER_04: 1:32:21

With an Alsatian on a chain. Oh, it was proper

SPEAKER_05: 1:32:25

nasty. Yeah. And then to see that video 25 years ago and it's still owned by the same family and how it transformed into this. absolute modern craziness that's just around the corner from here and I didn't know it existed. It was astounding to see that video.

SPEAKER_04: 1:32:43

That's like the most advanced scrap slash salvage yard in the UK by a mile.

SPEAKER_05: 1:32:49

It's unbelievable,

SPEAKER_04: 1:32:50

yeah. Yeah, yeah. So that, yeah, I mean, the barn find Lamborghini, I don't know if I'll ever get, I'd love to find a rarer car than that or a sort of like a rarer, uh exotic vehicle

SPEAKER_03: 1:33:08

yeah

SPEAKER_04: 1:33:09

yeah yeah that that's done really well um it's weird some of my favorite videos that i've ever done um haven't done very well in views so so strange it's so strange

SPEAKER_05: 1:33:20

talk about no rhyme or reason yeah you know the beast i mean like the quirkiest strangest thing ever and all those people want to watch it the savage the honda e you know the beast and honda e

SPEAKER_03: 1:33:32

yeah

SPEAKER_05: 1:33:33

it's

SPEAKER_04: 1:33:34

it's right you're exactly right it's so weird um and yeah

SPEAKER_05: 1:33:38

actually honda e i really like the way they look reminds me of a mark one golf really little range but they're good value i'd quite like one do you think i should get one right

SPEAKER_04: 1:33:48

honda e especially over winter because winter's the time to buy an ev same as convertible you can get a honda e with like 3,000 miles, or you could last winter, I think it was, 3,000 to 5,000 miles on the clock for 10 grand, 11 grand.

SPEAKER_05: 1:34:04

Really?

SPEAKER_04: 1:34:04

Yeah. And you go, hang on, that car was 37 grand.

SPEAKER_05: 1:34:08

No way.

SPEAKER_04: 1:34:09

I'm telling you now, and I will bet my Boxster on it, that is a bona fide future classic, the Honda e-Class.

SPEAKER_05: 1:34:17

Wow,

SPEAKER_04: 1:34:17

they're so cool. And anyone who goes, oh, yeah, it's a shame it can only do 130 miles on one charge. Well, but if you've got two cars and that's your sort of commute car and you do a predictable commute, like most people do less than 20 miles a day or 30 miles a day, perfect. And it's got the nicest interior. I love the cabin of that car. Yeah, yeah. It's so nice. That's when Honda just, yeah. When Honda just goes, do you know what, we're just going to tread our own path, that's when Honda are just brilliant. But the problem is they should have backed it up with a subsequent second battery option. Like Fiat 500e, they did a city range battery and then they did a longer range battery. If Honda had done that, they would have really won it. And it's a shame they just didn't. They just didn't do it. It could be an

SPEAKER_05: 1:35:07

option for an i3 and... Instead of the i3, Max? Well, maybe instead of the i3. I've been thinking about getting an i3 for ages. Andy's got an i3 already. But every time I see a Hyundai, which isn't very often. Yeah, you don't. I get very excited.

SPEAKER_04: 1:35:21

Very excited. I've got to say, I mean, the i3 is probably the coolest BMW they've done in the last decade.

SPEAKER_05: 1:35:28

Yeah, bizarrely.

SPEAKER_04: 1:35:29

That cabin is still wild. Awesome, isn't it? Yeah, wild. Such a lovely...

SPEAKER_05: 1:35:35

I've got the brown leather with the wood, you know, proper lounge...

SPEAKER_04: 1:35:39

Proper Scandinavian sexy architect spec. That's it,

SPEAKER_05: 1:35:44

yeah. That's what I feel like every time I get in it.

SPEAKER_04: 1:35:47

It's a really cool car, that. It's a really cool car.

SPEAKER_05: 1:35:50

Really

SPEAKER_04: 1:35:50

cool. And do you know what? I was thinking about base model kind of appreciation earlier. I remember driving, I was saying to James earlier at TH Racing, I said, have you ever driven a base model Panamera, the V6 rear wheel drive manual one that they brought out? The one that about seven people in the UK bought. I said, it was great. It was really, really great. But everyone just went, no, I want the Turbo S. And that was it. And my favourite Taycan was the rear wheel drive, single motor, long range battery base model.

SPEAKER_05: 1:36:29

On the 18-inch wheels or the 90s?

UNKNOWN: 1:36:32

It looked like gas burners.

SPEAKER_05: 1:36:33

Yes, yeah,

SPEAKER_04: 1:36:34

yeah, yeah. Yes, yeah. And Porsche had one on the press office that was that spec, and I drove it to– I went on a job. I did a barn find in Cornwall, I think. I did loads of miles in it over the course of about four days. It's still my favourite Taycan. It's great. Yeah. It's great.

SPEAKER_05: 1:36:50

Another good value car on the market now. Amazing,

SPEAKER_04: 1:36:53

amazing value car and a really nice– Yeah. Really nice car. Indeed. I'm quite taken by the taken. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:37:02

I think that's another car that would blow up in my face. You know, I've got limited slots on the driveway. I can't have 130 cars. I haven't got a hundred. And, and, and, and one of them has to be for my wife. So I have to pitch ideas to her. If there's a car that I want that doesn't fit in one of my two slots. Yes. Taycan, she'd kick my ass if I bought one of those. It's just too big. She really wants an i3. Does she? I think she'd go for a Honda

SPEAKER_04: 1:37:32

e. I think so. Listen, if you want to, if I can help you find the right one, I mean, they are so, so good. And also the quality, the quality of them is exceptional. The feel of the quality inside is don't get me wrong. An i3 is a glorious, glorious car, but, um, Yeah. I mean, imagine if we, the next time we do this podcast together, Porsche do bring out a new G body shell body. By the way, I don't have any inside information on that. I, although I am really close friends with someone quite high up at Porsche in North America who I used to work with when we were young, silly man. But, um, yeah, I, I don't know why they're not doing it.

SPEAKER_05: 1:38:17

Yeah. I think it's a good call. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:38:19

Do you know a video? I've just thought of a video that I was really proud of that took loads of prep on the late break show, like way more prep than others. And nobody watched was, was I took a, you know, they do a catering with the K car Suzuki engine.

SPEAKER_05: 1:38:41

I watched that. Loved that episode, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:38:43

Where I sort of went to Port Merion and did the prisoner kind of reenactment and I got an electric moke, mini moke, which had newly launched. That took so much prep and the weather was really being a bastard to us and it was really stressful. Didn't do real well at all. Such a shame. And yet sometimes I do a throwaway video that I film on my phone real quick. I don't film myself much. I don't I do the odd vlog, mostly the garage stuff when you're working on cars. Yeah. And, uh, and they can sometimes do really, really well. Yeah. It's so, it's so odd. You just don't know. I don't know. That's why I'm always keen on, on people's feedback, like real feedback where they go. I would really enjoy seeing you. I don't know, fly to the Netherlands and buy a car for a thousand euros and drive it home immediately. Yeah. Or whatever. I like some of the feedback you get. You go, yeah, that's actually a really good idea. But you've got to be careful not to get caught up in like some YouTubers and some ones that can actually afford it, perhaps, who buy cars online. Because they know their viewers will want them. Yes. Like, and then you're, you're in this quite dangerous cycle. I think of your, it's like, you know, you're wearing clothes to impress other people rather than the clothes that you really want yourself.

SPEAKER_03: 1:40:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:40:09

And where do you, where do you draw the line? Cause I could, you know what it's like now with credit and finance. I could wake up. Yeah. I'm going to go and buy a, what? I don't know. I've gone by career GT on credit. All right. Okay. Yeah. I'll just, I get rid of all my cars. I just get a Creo GT. I'll vinyl wrap it and I'll just, I'll bounce off the limiter. You don't fit into that

SPEAKER_05: 1:40:34

camp.

SPEAKER_04: 1:40:38

You're

SPEAKER_05: 1:40:38

rebuilding an Allegro.

SPEAKER_04: 1:40:40

I know, I'm a weird bastard. That's

SPEAKER_05: 1:40:42

for your own joy, isn't

SPEAKER_04: 1:40:45

it? Yeah, I've always trodden my own path, rightly or wrongly. I've always gone, no, I'm going to do it that way. Rightly, rightly, Johnny. Well, when I worked on Max Power, um, Years ago now, I said, I'm going to build a car that people will really take notice of. And the base car cost me 150 quid. It was a Jag XJ, a four-litre Sovereign. And the guy, I got it, I bought it. It was running on five cylinders. And I drove it back from Cambridge from a guy who owned an internet cafe. That's how it dates the story. All right. Yeah, I bought it for 150 quid from a bloke that ran Cambridge's biggest internet cafe. And... not that they exist anymore. And so I got it back and they just went, that's just a pedophile's car. That was basically the comment that I had. And I went, no, no, this is going to look good. And he said, well, I did buy it from Instagram. I bought it on the dark web. Yeah. And I went to town on this project XJ and it was, it looked amazing. I think it looked amazing. It did really well. And we took it to a couple of the big events that Max Payne did and it got, it got loads of pretty good attention. And it was that whole thing of like going, well, I'm from the street machine, uh, era school where I, I really like hot rods and that sort of car, um, pro street. And, um, but I like trying to bring that into the next generation of people who will appreciate it. And that's what I tried to do. And the low rider type of thing. But yeah, there's, there's, there's so many different interesting cars, isn't there? And I do really like hearing other people's, car tastes i really like going to people's private garages when they get grant me permission to go and film with them in a for a day in in a garage that could be right next to their house or a private unit and and just hear why do you own what you own why do you buy what you buy yeah it might not be what i want to buy but that doesn't matter it's not about me it's like I love hearing it. Like people go off. You know, I remember my boss had one of these when I was an apprentice and I, that was the car that I really had to aim for. Or my, one of my parents had one of these, my uncle had one of these or whatever. There's, there's always a thousand and one reasons. And, um, it's fascinating.

SPEAKER_05: 1:43:04

It's completely fascinating. One of the, one of the things I find so interesting about those scenarios is when, when, when you're playing fantasy garage in your mind, it's invariably a blank sheet job, isn't it? You set yourself a certain criteria, you get your maths textbook out and you're in your back thinking, right. So if this was the situation, these are the cars that I'd have. And you write them down. It's blank sheet. But when in this scenario, in the real world, when you're going to someone's private collection, what I think is really interesting is the acquisition journey of the cars, you know, how they've ended up with that collection of cars. Cause they haven't, start a blank sheet and gone out and bought them all in one go and put them in the garage it's the evolution of the collection which i think is so interesting yeah dream job

SPEAKER_04: 1:43:44

it is really good yeah i do feel very fortunate because my job is um it's extremely busy and it's energy demanding but it's never ever boring never and i and i like that because i know people friends who I've grown up with who have got successful jobs that are well paid, but they're bored. They crave the weekend or they just don't do something they're passionate about. And weirdly, I always go, I would never do a job I wasn't passionate about. Why would you do that? But then I realised that maybe I'm the weird one. And most people go, no, I'm just going to do a job. It's a means to an end. I'm going to do a job that earns good enough money so I can do X and Y. And I go, well, but you spend so much of your time doing a job. Just do it. Something that you really care about.

SPEAKER_03: 1:44:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:44:36

I think I'm not that money driven. Uh, I have to make money like everybody. You have to earn a living and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_05: 1:44:45

But it's not the be all and end all. No. Remember, Johnny, you were the 19-year-old with the slam Granada. Oh, my gosh. That's a different level. You were on a different

SPEAKER_04: 1:44:53

level right from the start. I was. It was a very low level. It was extremely low, that Granada. It was extremely low. Do you know, one day there was a massive flood, massive flood, and loads of people couldn't get to work. And I realized my Granada could go as high as a Toyota Hilux on full lift. And I drove through a flood. I wish there'd been a local paper there to indicate. interview me or something. I drove through a massive flood in my low rider and got it to work. That's a practical car. yeah

SPEAKER_05: 1:45:19

practical low riders there we go that that would have emap would have published that at some point back in the day that could have been a thing

SPEAKER_03: 1:45:27

practical it's really good

SPEAKER_05: 1:45:31

yeah yeah i've got one more question we can't keep well we could keep talking all night we could all get the wine out but we probably shouldn't what is your favorite and this is a driving story not a party story what is your what is your what is your favorite Jason Plato story

SPEAKER_04: 1:45:50

bloody Plato he's an absolute as well

SPEAKER_05: 1:45:54

yeah his his idle chat was hilarious and then the idle chat with Matt and then all that I loved all of that that was just

SPEAKER_04: 1:46:03

I'm so pleased that panned out because every time we speak on the phone now, he always thanks me for doing that idle chat with Matt because it made him and Matt friends. They're actually really close friends now and they both retired from racing. So I think there's not that kind of, um, pecking anymore. There's not that face to face, um, anger, but, um, So the best Plato story, there's been loads. I mean, there was that time. I don't, I have told it. I don't know where. So Plato's obviously a very mischievous man. We were, it was a, it was a hot sunny day and we were filming fifth gear at Millbrook. We used to do a lot of filming at Millbrook. Millbrook is very strict. The proving ground is very strict rules. If you deviate from the rules, you're straight to that master. It's very zero tolerance. And Plato doesn't like, rules and i'm not a massive fan of rules so anyway to cut a long story short we we've been driving we were testing a we're doing a group test involving an aston i remember there was an aston or something that we pulled over we both needed a wee we both decided rather than walking to the toilets we would do in in plato's words not mine let's do a big boy wee and i went i Like what? And he went, what is that? Trousers and pants to the floor. And then you just, you just wait, not looking at one another. We're not that weird, but we stood next to one another looking out across what is a Vista of Millbrook whilst having a big boy wee. Okay. There were no cars visible at this time and there was nobody around. However, as we started our big boy wheeze giggling, over the crest of the Alpine circuit, I think it was, in Millbrook, was about five Aston Martins. They were having a VIP customer drive day. And they were greeted coming down this hill, hot on the brakes of these new Astons that they were hopefully going to buy. We're just two grown men having big boy wheeze. And... Well, talky talky crackled not that long after we were sent to the clerk of the course or whatever his name was at Millbrook. We were that close to getting Fifth Gear banned indefinitely from Millbrook because we'd exposed ourselves and not used the toilet facilities provided. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:48:42

Oh, my goodness. And

SPEAKER_04: 1:48:44

Plato being Plato, he was like, this is just fucking ridiculous. Silly rules. We were just having a bit of fun. There was no one around when we started, Wig. It's like, no, you're right. There was no one around when we started. So that's probably it. There's many other... Plato stories. Yeah, I think we could probably

SPEAKER_05: 1:49:02

do another episode, couldn't we? We could do a whole episode of Plato stories. I always used to really like it when you did the team test where there'd be all of you with a car and then you'd all pile in and invariably Plato would be driving and you're hanging on to the passenger thingy and it all gets a

SPEAKER_04: 1:49:22

bit intense. Because the thing is he would turn up for work on the shoot on Fifth Gear shoot days and you never knew what mood he was going to be in. And sometimes he was going to be in like a really mischievous mood. He'd have a glint in his eye and you knew you were in for trouble that day because it could be a really naughty swine. Or other days he might be in a foul mood. Or other days he might be smoking nonstop and he wouldn't put his cigarette out even to like film a take.

UNKNOWN: 1:49:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:49:56

So he'd sometimes have it behind his back. And then the director would be like, Jason, listen, your back is smoking and it's visible on camera. So you just can't do this. Like people are going to go, why is Plato's back smoking? Why is he only gesticulating with one hand? So you just go, no, no, no, it's fine. It's fine. The viewers won't know. Only go, no, Jason, they'll definitely know. We're looking through the camera. We can see it. It doesn't work. But there's all sorts of funny things. That time in the bloody... Passat. No, no, Phaeton, VW Phaeton on the bowl, the high-speed bowl at Millbrook. And this was when I had a bit of a sense of human failure. He was driving, set the cruise control at 140, 145, I think it was, and then just got out of the driver's seat and crawled into the back seat between the seats and just started giggling at me uncontrollably. And I'm like, get back in the driver's seat now. We are doing nearly 150 miles an hour.

SPEAKER_03: 1:50:47

Oh, my God. If

SPEAKER_04: 1:50:48

this thing exits stage right, we're all dead. And he just thought it was the funniest thing because he knew what he was doing. He knew the car, unless we hit a seagull or the, I don't know, we had a tire blowout. It would just hold it at the right angle. I was terrified. Absolutely terrified. I feel really, I feel extremely privileged to have worked with him and Tiff and Vicky because they're all, yeah, they were all a really accomplished presenters and drivers. And I was, I was the weakest link when it came to driving expertise. And I learned an awful lot from spending hours on deserted airfields with those three, because I'd watch them, you know, I'd watch Vicky and Tiff on old school top gear. And, and I, and I learned a lot and I, and I, and I don't drive on track very much anymore. And I do miss where you basically, you've got an hour and a half an hour to kill and you just go, I just go out in a car and just do, do a few laps and learn a few corners and go out with Tiff, who has absolutely no fear, by the way. I'm going to confirm this. Out of all the people that I've ever met in the car world and presenters and handy drivers, Tiff absolutely doesn't see danger. And

SPEAKER_05: 1:52:09

do you think that's still the same now as it was back then? He's still nothing.

SPEAKER_04: 1:52:16

Plato would always take me to one side and he'd go, don't do it. If Tiff thinks it's all right, I don't. Don't do it. And Plato would see the danger, even though Plato is a risky old school racing driver where he's prepared to take certain risks. He would see a risk and go, I'm not doing that. And Tiff would be like, ah, that's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Don't need a helmet for that. It's absolutely fine. And he would have such, he has such belief in the machine and his ability. It's really impressive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:52:47

The

SPEAKER_04: 1:52:47

number of times he's casually lost control. I mean, it's not been very often that he has, but I remember at Rockium once, we were in a Scirocco R. Yeah, we were in a Scirocco R. And we came into a corner. So on liftoff oversteer, it was well over 100. And it didn't quite do what he was expecting it to do. I think I probably did it for the third time. And he went, oh, oh, okay. I think we're going to roll this time. And it was a real, it's like a pilot coming in and going, okay, so we've lost both the engines. We almost certainly have to brace. You just don't want to hear. So I'm already like spasming on the, on the grab handle, the ocean going. We are, if he says we're going over, we are probably going over. We are now on the grass side, like at 90 miles an hour. Uh, but we didn't. And, and amazingly he caught it and it came back on off the grass and didn't, damaged the car and he just went well i wasn't expecting that and uh just go well you're driving the damn car i don't know what i was just expected to say prayers and exit the world but yeah

SPEAKER_05: 1:53:55

cracking so i've loved the um i've loved the tiff nadelle um and the and the jason plato can you do a vicky but but butler henderson impression

SPEAKER_04: 1:54:09

oh are

SPEAKER_05: 1:54:09

you any good at that

SPEAKER_04: 1:54:10

Oh, I'm not, I'm not very good at, um, see Vicky's Vicky's great because she's exactly as you, as you see on the TV. Yeah. The same kind of personality, the same voice, the same delivery, you've got the best voice, best voice, voice in the world. Um, and, and flirty, really flirty. Um, but what I remember from Vicky was when she would slide a car, her hair, I think she straightened her hair or she, I think she's just straightened her. Her hair would swing. So her head would stay the same, but the hair would sort of do this. It would go out of shot and then come back in again and then go out of shot again. So you'd know where the car was going if I was watching it on the TV and if I wasn't in the car. And I used to think it was great. And she'd always have that squeal. She'd always do that really high-pitched squeal when she was skidding a car and slithering it. She'd go... Like a naughty little kid that's, I don't know, just... Like stuck some chewing gum under the table or something. No, she was, she's, she's, she's really, I haven't seen Vicky for quite a while, actually. She's, she might still have a GT3. I don't know. She has a 997 GT3. Oh, my husband, Phil. Yeah. I should ask. I know. I was well gel. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:55:27

Yeah. God. I think my favorite bit of VBH content ever was when, as in, in Italy, I think it was four or five, eight, maybe four or five, eight, um spider launch and she's on those you know those roads that you all use when you're in italy driving ferraris and uh and she was loving it and the cars are fantastic and she said but god this car's so good i actually feel i feel quite emotional and she sort of like backed off and slowed down and just sort of went sort of po-faced and you know as if she was going to cry and then just went ah and then just like just went for it again and it's just a beautiful bit of bit of tv and it's just it's fantastic yeah uh yeah she's awesome

SPEAKER_04: 1:56:03

she is good and she's she she's properly passionate. And I, I still don't think there's enough women in the car world.

SPEAKER_05: 1:56:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:56:10

Not, not, not at the, the sort of caliber of Vicky.

SPEAKER_03: 1:56:14

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:56:15

And she, I think people forget, you know, she was doing it in the nineties when it was probably quite a difficult place to, to access, you know, it was probably quite a, um, yeah an industry which was very very still is male skewed and very hard for a woman to kind of with any credibility to get in there and show what she had and vicky was great has always been great like that i'd like to see her do more i'd like to see i can do more actually i

SPEAKER_05: 1:56:44

think get her on the channel

SPEAKER_04: 1:56:45

yeah i should get her on the show you're absolutely right i should I should, because out of the three of them that I used to work with, she's the one I see the least, even though I actually live the closest to her geographically. So, yeah, I should. In fact, I had an interesting phone call from Plato the other week. He may or may not have been drinking gin that afternoon. He's got this great idea. We need to turn up on TIFF's doorstep. and demand that we have a sleepover. Although adults don't say sleepover, do they? They don't.

SPEAKER_03: 1:57:26

It sounds

SPEAKER_04: 1:57:26

like we're all... But it's in the right spirit, isn't it? I like it. He said, we're going to turn up, we'll hold up a really nice glass of red and a curry and go, right, we're here for the night. Let us in. And I think that's a marvellous idea, so we should do that. Do you know what? Probably one of the most fun, some of the most fun times I've experienced in a Porsche have been with Plato potato.

SPEAKER_05: 1:57:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:57:51

Cause he, he, I remember he, when he first got a turbo, he's had a few nine 11 turbo. Yeah. Then he had a brand new turbo ass. It would have been a nine nine seven. He turned up in it with his number plate, his personal number plate on it. And he said, he said, I'm in a rush today. I've got, he was trying to seal a deal with a race sponsor and he was trying to get it off the ground. He was, you could tell he was quite, stressed when he, when, when, when sponsors needed to be sealed and you had to get a drive at that moment. And he had to lease. And I've got to have, I've got a hard stop at three today, guys, or four today or whatever it was. And we were at Bruntingthorpe and he finished the film. He was like constantly clock checking and right. So, right. We'll do this one more time. Now I've got to go. Yeah. Okay. All right. And he got in this, this 997 and he absolutely, launched this poor car. This car was cold. And he took off and went round, round Bruntingthorpe, like basically did a victory lap to go out. He didn't have to go all the way around, but went out and had the thing lit. And I have been in a, I think it was a 911 of some derivative, I don't remember what, when we were doing what they call, you know, tracking shots. The camera car was out on the track. We were coming in, coming in hot and then backing off. And then you do the same thing again. And then you'd have a walkie talkie on your lap from the director. I was a passenger, Plato was driver. We were in a 911 of some sort. He was coming in hot, doing some drifts past the camera whilst he had the phone on loud speaker talking to some sort of potential sponsor or something to do with touring cars whilst also eating. I think it was a pasty or a sausage roll. So we were on private property, folks, just to make that absolutely clear. We were skidding a 911 really close to a camera car with a phone on speaker talking to some important person who I didn't know who it was. I was just staying quiet whilst trying to munch on a bit of a Greg sausage roll or something like that. That's skills.

SPEAKER_05: 2:00:08

That's skills. That's a man with a lot of spare capacity for doing stuff, isn't

SPEAKER_04: 2:00:11

it? And that's the difference between people like him and Tiff and Vicky and me. they could get in a car never driven it before and put it on the limit a meter and a half away from a camera at big speeds and do it not once but five or six times and then go all right are we done there let's move on to the next take whereas you and i probably would very much struggle to do that or it would end in expensive bills and i watched them do it i remember when remember the Lamborghini would have been the, was it the Gallardo? The Aventador, when the Aventador was launched and Tiff just turned up and went, right, where, where is it? And he just went, they threw him the keys. He went, um, off we go. Where'd you want me? And he just, they went, right, we're on corner two of Rockingham. We're going to put the camera here. Tiff, I need you to be, within a metre of the camera. He went, what speed? And they went, I don't know, make it fairly rapid. He went, okay, between 140 and 150. And he just went out, never driven it, never driven an Aventador ever, and just put this thing full send, half a metre from the camera. And I watched him do it five times and just went, I am in the presence of greatness. And then we'd come straight back in and wind the window down and he'd go, Johnny, where's the Red Bull? He was just, Tiff is an animal. He's a really impressive animal that runs on Haribo, double espresso and ham, egg and chips.

SPEAKER_05: 2:01:44

How old is he

SPEAKER_04: 2:01:45

now? He is, I think he's 75. He might be 75.

SPEAKER_05: 2:01:51

Wow. Wow.

SPEAKER_04: 2:01:52

I just saw him at the Goodwood members meeting and he came over and put his arm around me and he said, what have you been saying on your podcast about my leather jacket? And I said, Oh, well, you know, he goes, whatever you're saying, it's annoying. People are coming up to me and saying it

SPEAKER_05: 2:02:11

to me. I mean, I couldn't believe what I was watching back in the day when him and Plato started doing those, those races, the jewels. I remember like one of the, it was 987 Boxster time. So it's 987 Boxster and Z4. I forget which circuit they're at. And I just couldn't believe what I was. I think eventually somebody ran out of brakes, but they didn't take each other out, of course, because they had it and they were laughing like drains, assessing the cars and basically racing them like they're touring cars. They started with those two and then they were doing it like 997 and R8. I think that was a brunting thought, that one. It's just... wild brilliant brilliant tv

SPEAKER_04: 2:02:46

it's lovely to watch because they are naturally competitive because of them being pro race drivers but there's a mutual respect as well and because the car control is so high they would really implicitly trust one another it was like watching dance partners you know professional dance partners where they would synchronize so beautifully but they would they would know what what they were going to do. And they would, if one of them had lost it a bit or gone wide, or there was a problem, the other one would know. And I used to sometimes hear it on the walkie talkies when they were in the cars. And sometimes they would come in and go, that was, that was close, but they would love that. They go, that was close. It was good. Close. I think you're right. There was some moments of those dog fights when I was like, Ooh, seriously, that was very nearly an insurance claim. It was one in the wet with an AMG, I think it was an AMG GT or SLS versus an Aston of some derivative. And they were pretty much twin drifting, tandem drifting. And it was so damn close with the wipers on full. And I don't know how they didn't crash. I don't know how neither of them crashed, but they're so, so talented behind the wheel. And I, yeah, it's a real, it was a real joy to go out and just sit in the passenger seat and watch. I used to watch the pedal box with Tiff. I used to always watch the pedal box because I'm like, well, how are you doing that? How are you even doing that? And he would do it whilst conducting a really mundane chat with me, like a real, you know, just get to work and you go, so have you had a busy week? And you had any interesting phone calls? And we'd be looking out the side window. Yeah, the thing would be slight. We'd be like doing one drift into the next. The next drift, and I'd just be going, look, let's just focus on what we're doing. And he'd be going, no, no, how's the kids? Is everything all right? I'm like, yeah, yeah, good. And I got used to it in the end because it became normal. But for a long time, it was like, wow, you have such trust in the machine and your own talent. Like I said, it's that incredible car control that we all wish we had, actually. We all wish we had it. I've seen Tiff throwing cars. Basically, if you say to Tiff, that car is a base model with an open diff. It's got no power at all. I bet there's no way you could make that drift or get it to over his G. He'd go, right, let's go. He would just try it. He would try and throw anything out, anything. Ford S-Maxes, I've seen them fully... I mean, just, you name

SPEAKER_05: 2:05:34

it. Amazing experiences. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04: 2:05:37

Fantastic. I feel very privileged because I scarily, I realized I was talking, I think to my, one of my kids and I thought, shit next year is 2026. That'll be 20 years since I started working on TV as a presenter. That's, that's terrifying. Really terrifying. I love to look at all the cars that were launched in 2006 because there'll be classics now. yeah yeah yeah yeah something to buy something to buy something to buy yes

SPEAKER_05: 2:06:06

yeah

SPEAKER_02: 2:06:06

20 years on 997GT3 there it is stop it stop it there we go 997GT3

SPEAKER_05: 2:06:15

perfect Andy perfect on that bombshell on that bombshell well

SPEAKER_04: 2:06:20

I've really enjoyed

SPEAKER_05: 2:06:20

this conversation thanks chap thank you it's been almost like a super time isn't it

SPEAKER_04: 2:06:27

it's been a lot of fun it's really good fun It's really good fun. And I know it's been a real privilege to be on. So thank you.

SPEAKER_05: 2:06:36

Yeah. Thank you for your time.

SPEAKER_04: 2:06:38

Sleep well. Yeah. And you. You

SPEAKER_05: 2:06:41

too. Cheers. Bye now. See you soon. Bye. Okay. Well, that was good, wasn't it? What a great conversation. Absolutely fantastic. It was long. It was long and into the night. Mr. Johnny Smith would not stop talking, would he? What a man. What a super fella. What a super fella. I absolutely loved that, Andy, that chat. Really, really good fun. He's, because obviously we've met him and had a good chat at Rensport reunion. And he is just the guy you see on the TV, on YouTube, isn't he? And in the podcast. Relaxed. So focused on cars. Just a good round all guy. Good all round guy. Yeah. Lovely, lovely man. Lovely, lovely man. Thank you again, Johnny, for joining us on the podcast. We really appreciate it. And we really enjoyed it. Yeah. It was absolutely worth the wait. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, you know, thinking, and I promise this isn't like fixed or anything, uh, but thinking about the marketplace gem of the week, I actually had two cars lined up. for the marketplace gem of the week. One is obviously a drop top and, and not a Boxster. I've never been like that, but Max is going to choose a Boxster. Of course he is. It wasn't, it wasn't a promise. Topical because of the sun out. Yeah. Topical because of the sun out. So it was going to be a drop top. But the other one that I had in mind was my, dream car which has come up on the marketplace but it turns out it's also johnny's dream car as well so i'm going to ditch hopefully the weather will still be nice next week and i can bring out the uh drop top that i had in mind if it hasn't sold but um uh my dream car and johnny's dream car is the uh gen 1 997 gt3 which is at harbour cars which is such a beautiful car such a beautiful i don't know if i've seen that what's the spec what's the color so nice it's gt silver Nice. Which is a lovely colour on those. It's got steel brakes, which I think is good. It's got comfort seats. Which was one of Johnny's requests. Yeah, so we can put back seats in, and that works for me as well. Also means it's more likely to, and this one does have the extended leather dash, which is really nice in a 997. It's a really, really beautiful car. Let me just check the old mileage. It must be a 6 or a 7. Oh, it's a 57 plate 2007. It's done just under 28,000 miles. So very, very little work, I think. And it is priced at a whisker under£90,000. So that is a beautiful car that I would have in a heartbeat. I'm sure someone's shouting, why don't you sell your Macan, you idiot, and buy it? That's not quite how the world works, is it? But man, I would love that car. I'd love that car. Suits you, suits you. Suits Johnny too, yeah. But maybe Johnny and I can go halves on it. Whoa, yes. That's a Thor Z plan. Z plan. There you go. I'm going to send him a message. Do it. Do it. Excellent. Shall we get a little tech tip from Mr. Wright? Mr. Chris Wright at Wright Tune? Yeah. See what he's got up his sleeve this week to keep us on the straight and narrow.

SPEAKER_01: 2:09:53

Hello, Nineworks. Now, 996 and forwards. You want to be looking at brakes. I'm talking about brakes today. The discs, for some reason, they do get quite corroded on the inner faces more so than the outside, particularly if you leave the car outside. The car, when it's on its wheels, can look not too bad. But you need to get it up or get underneath it and have a look at the inside faces and make sure there's no corrosion there, you know, impeding your brakes, so your braking efficiency. So, yeah, just have a look at that today for me, guys. Cheers.

SPEAKER_05: 2:10:26

Thank you, Mr... Mr. Right. I want to call him Mr. Tune. I think there's nothing wrong with that. Chris Tune. Thank you, man. Excellent. Last thing on the agenda, I think, then, would be a collective update. If you're up for that, Max. Okay. First one. Right. I've got a difficult name for me here. It's UD... So it's Jiptandi, Tandai, I hope one of those is right. Great to have you along, based in Oxford, referred by a member, I don't know which member, so whoever did refer for you, that's great, thank you very much, drives a 991.2 C2. Very nice, nice car that. Welcome, Udi. And if we have made a bit of a pig's ear of your surname, do send us a voice note and we can get a hold on it. But welcome aboard. Indeed. I've got a... Who's next? We've got Mentin, who is a friend with Guy. Ah. And a couple of other mutual connections in the Driven Not Hidden collective. He... I think he's on... Thank you very much. 996.2 club sport man tie RS equipped missile he calls it which he uses for track day and bad behaviour and then also races in the horse trophy and the CSCC in his Boxster 986 race car there we go I found him yes yes I recognise I recognise yeah yeah I'm following him following him Yeah, lovely, lovely cast. Based in Hertfordshire. Super, welcome aboard. Excellent to have you aboard. Yeah. Okay, Dan Brown, who is... Where are you, Dan? I don't know exactly where Dan is, actually. Yeah, somewhere in the UK. I'm thinking that he's probably... down this way somewhere because he has recently bought a car from paragon which he says is such a fab place he's now driving a 997.2 uh c4s yeah white one i found him on the ground excellent found him on the ground that's a good looking car as it would be from paragon of course yeah so i think was that that may have been the one that i drove was it I think you drove a red one, wasn't it? The C4S you drove was a red one, and I think maybe the GTS was a white one, as they often are. Yeah. But yeah, that's a good-looking car. 997 Gen 2 C4S, wide body, good-looking car. Lovely. Lovely. Welcome aboard, Dan. Good to have you on board. Excellent. Right. I think that's us done for today. I think it is. I think we need to go for a sleep. Yeah. End of a long pod, that one, but what a great pod. Really enjoyed it. Really enjoyed it. Once again, thank you to Johnny. Should we spread the love actually for Johnny? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, if there's anybody who doesn't know what he's, you can get hold of Johnny. I'm sure everyone does. It's the Late Break Show on YouTube. And Smith and Sniff on the podcasts. Check it out. Check them out. But don't listen too much because they'll get up the charts even more than they already did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not too much. They're already knocking it out of the park. They don't need any help. In fact, don't listen. Don't bother. Forget about it. 9MX Radio. Stick with it. That's the one. Stick with us. All right. Catch you next week. See you. Cheers.

SPEAKER_00: 2:14:42

Music Music Music Music

SPEAKER_03: 2:15:10

Thank you.