Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / From Porsche Intern to Podcast Host: Dan Pilling’s Journey Through Motorsports and Tech

Transcript

From Porsche Intern to Podcast Host: Dan Pilling’s Journey Through Motorsports and Tech · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

• 0:00
  BreakFix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from
• 0:04
  all over the autosphere, from wrench turners and racers to artists, authors,
• 0:09
  designers, and everything in between.
• 0:11
  Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrolheads that wonder.
• 0:16
  How did they get that job or become that person?
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  The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.
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  Tonight's guest has created a podcast focused on the people he considers
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  to be part of the same tribe.
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  The tribe of car lovers.
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  His love of cars started at an early age, but was really
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  cemented during an internship for Porsche Cars of Great Britain.
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  He worked in the PR department, helping to launch the 993 Twin Turbo, as well
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  as organizing a film shoot for Top Gear.
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  Dan Pilling went on to a career in technology where he had the opportunity
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  to mix his passion with a part of his day job working on the technical partnership
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  between Microsoft and the Lotus F1 team, now known as Alpine, along with working
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  for teams like Williams and Mercedes F1.
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  When he moved to the U.
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  S., he worked with Hendrix Motorsport, NASCAR, Honda and
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  IndyCar, and MotoAmerica Superbikes.
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  Dan is here to tell us all about his journey in the world of motorsports
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  and how and why he started his new podcast, Danny P on cars.
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  That's right, Brad.
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  And with that, let's welcome Dan Pilling to BreakFix.
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  Welcome.
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  Gentlemen, thank you ever so much for having me.
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  Like all good BreakFix stories, there's always a superhero origin.
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  So, Dan, let's talk about the who, what, and how.
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  Where and when of you, how did you get into cars and what type of vehicles
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  got your attention as a lad in the UK?
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  My love of cars has started from a young age.
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  I don't remember exactly when, but ever since I can remember, I've loved cars.
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  Part of my school projects, I would write to car companies and
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  see if I could go and visit them.
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  And it was mainly around the technology they were using as they were developing
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  out these new cars, et cetera.
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  So it was always this really great passion for cars.
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  Early trips included going to people like Land Rover and went
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  to see how they were building the, what was the newest Land Rover.
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  I actually went and saw the Jaguar XJ220 being made.
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  So I'm a kid of the nineties, you know, that was fun, but it wasn't
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  really on the technology side because they were just assembling a car.
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  I was really lucky due to chance that I got to do an internship at Porsche
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  Cars Great Britain, and that really just cemented it for me, you know,
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  spending time there was just like, wow.
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  One of the most notable supercars of all times, especially in the 90s,
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  the XJ220, but was that up on your wall or was there something else?
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  So I had a Ferrari Testarossa on my wall.
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  You're a petrol head of a certain age.
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  Yeah, there we go.
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  I guess it was either the Countach or the Testarossa, and I had the Testarossa.
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  You're in a very small club there because most people runs
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  headfirst into the Coontosh camp.
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  What about you gentlemen?
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  Don't really think I had any car posters on my wall.
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  I had three Hot Wheels.
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  One was a red Ferrari Testarossa.
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  One was a white Lamborghini Coontosh.
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  And then the other was a red Porsche 911 or 959 or whatever it was.
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  And I used to race them around.
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  I always thought the Lamborghini was the fastest followed by the
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  Ferrari and then the Porsche.
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  That's just the way the world was.
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  And you know, that's the shocking part about that because everybody thinks
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  the Lamborghini can do like a thousand miles an hour and it's actually slower
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  than the other cars you mentioned.
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  Sort of out of looks, isn't it?
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  It looks fast.
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  Exactly.
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  But you know, I hung up my Kuntosh roller skates pretty quickly, especially
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  in 1987 when the F40 came out.
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  One poster on my wall.
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  It's always going to be an F40.
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  That's for sure.
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  The F50 is better.
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  Don't even get me started.
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  Glad F40 though.
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  I've been lucky enough to spend some time with some.
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  I've not driven one.
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  But they're just an unbelievable car.
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  It's just like a go kart.
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  They look good sitting on a yacht in the middle of Monaco.
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  Did you see that?
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  That was pretty interesting.
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  The update to that though, that car actually leaked oil onto the teak deck.
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  Oh no.
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  Rich people problems beyond first world problems.
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  Yeah.
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  I would just be happy with that car.
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  Forget the yacht, just the car.
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  But imagine what it's going to cost him now to replace the deck.
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  Well, we're going to get a little bit deeper into your maybe more
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  technical side of your automotive history and get more into your
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  educational and professional background.
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  So when you were in school, what did you study?
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  You started working for Microsoft.
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  Tell us a little more about what you were doing there, your
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  experience and the relationship with that in the car community.
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  When I was 17, I got this internship at Porsche cars, great Britain.
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  And I would say that that was a defining point in my career for me.
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  I kind of had to make a decision.
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  Did I go down the route of going into the automotive industry, learning
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  my craft and doing that, or did I go down to the route of computers and
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  IT and all that sort of good stuff?
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  And I naturally gravitated to the computers and IT cause I was
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  pretty good at it and I enjoyed it.
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  I didn't really know what I wanted to do before I went to college.
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  So I was a very last minute call up to go to college and I took on this course.
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  There was a combination of business and computing.
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  One week we'd be doing programming.
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  The next week we would be doing more on sort of business type topics.
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  And that was a university down on the South coast called Bournemouth university.
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  And off the back of that, I graduated, took on a couple of jobs and then
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  managed to land this role at Microsoft initially in sales, but then quite
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  quickly moving into marketing.
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  And one of the roles that I did early on was technical marketing.
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  So I owned the technical audiences for Microsoft in the UK.
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  And really one of the big things there was how do you communicate how
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  other companies are using Microsoft technologies to get benefit in order to
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  help those companies adopt the technology.
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  And it was funny because Microsoft had just signed an agreement
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  with the Lotus Formula 1 team.
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  And it was a sponsorship agreement around a relatively new product that
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  Microsoft had brought out called Dynamics.
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  The objective there was twofold.
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  One was to use that team as a platform for testing technology and using latest
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  technology, but also getting the brand out there that this Dynamics product that
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  Microsoft had developed was available and was a competitor to other things.
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  So the partnership was.
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  Both brand and technical.
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  And it was really funny.
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  Actually, I got introduced to the team via a tweet.
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  I was tweeting about the partnership.
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  I was tweeting about other things.
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  So the deputy CIO or IT director at the time reached out to me and said,
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  Hey, do you want to come and visit?
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  So you don't turn down an invite to go and get a tour of a formula one team.
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  It was about the time that Kimi Raikkonen was racing with them and Roman Grosjean
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  and those sorts of names that have, you know, Romans obviously now doing a lot
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  of us racing, but I get to go along to go and get a tour of the factory and.
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  And I just developed the relationship since that, I would
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  go and meet with the IT team.
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  They would have a connection with Microsoft in the UK versus
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  worldwide, because obviously it's a large corporate based company
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  in, uh, in Redmond, Washington.
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  And over time I would work with them and help them utilize or help them understand
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  what the technology could do for them.
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  And I would use them as a reference case when I was doing events.
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  We would hold events there.
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  We would do these large scale events and have them come and
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  keynote and that sort of thing.
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  It wasn't like a formal relationship where I was the technical partner
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  manager for Lotus F1 team, but it was one where I would go and help them and
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  everyone would see benefit from it.
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  Over time got to develop relationships, meet lots of great people.
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  And those folks then moved on to other teams.
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  It's a very small community, the Formula One community.
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  So generally people tend to move within the business.
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  They don't tend to go out to other industries like banking or
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  finance and that sort of stuff.
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  So develop relationships eventually with people like Williams and Mercedes.
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  So, uh, one tweet started it all.
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  The relationship with Mercedes and Williams, was it the same kind of thing?
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  Were you also from the Microsoft side introducing and helping them
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  with dynamics and stuff like that?
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  Or what other things were you working on with Mercedes and Williams?
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  Yeah, the technology had moved on by then.
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  So we didn't have any formal partnerships with them, but because the folks that
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  had moved to those teams had a background in Microsoft, they tended to go down the
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  Microsoft route versus other competitors in terms of the technology they were
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  adopting, you know, Williams specifically.
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  And actually I had the former CI of Williams on my podcast,
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  a guy called Graham Hackland.
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  Part of the CIO's role is to introduce new technology to the team, but do it
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  with a business case, talk about the benefits they would enable as a result.
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  And cloud computing was a really big thing during that time.
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  So one of the things I would do is I would help Graham with things like the business
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  case for adopting cloud technology.
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  So I remember one specific example where.
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  They were really worried about security.
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  So if you can imagine that you can see where all your information is
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  held, because it's in a server room in a building versus out in the cloud,
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  where you've got no visibility of where that could be enabling them
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  with things like bringing our chief security officer to talk to Graham
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  and help him build his business case for adopting that technology.
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  So it was less around getting them to do things like keynote and present and share
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  their technical stories and more around helping them be a channel into Microsoft,
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  which is a very complex organization as they went to adopt new technologies.
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  I talked about this on another podcast that I was on, Text Transforms
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  with Carolyn Ford, and we talked about the intersection, which is
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  large between the racing community and the technology community.
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  It's more than just decals and things as part of the livery of the cars.
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  When you see Amazon and CrowdStrike, they're part of that team, especially
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  Amazon, one of the largest cloud providers in the world, probably
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  usurped Microsoft in this particular instance that we're talking here.
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  But.
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  They're not just names on the side of those vehicles.
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  They are part of the team and an integral part of that team.
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  Yeah, specifically F1, but any motorsport environment is a great place to be
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  able to test technology because you're going to see results really quickly.
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  You can see a direct line between that technology adoption and the impact
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  it's having with other organizations.
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  It may take time to see those benefits or those challenges.
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  So it's a great environment to go.
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  And test things, any technology company will always look at motorsport as a
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  way to be able to accelerate their knowledge, their learning, their adoption.
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  It's just a great partnership thing.
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  Talking about all this technology that you've helped get into formula one.
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  What are some of the advances in technology you've seen over time in
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  formula one with your time being there?
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  We're talking about a sort of 12 year period.
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  You know, I think the first one data and the being able to
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  make decisions and use data for technical and strategic advantage.
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  I remember us releasing a product, I think it was around 2010, where
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  this database solution had a level of intelligence where previously.
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  Data would come off the car and be beamed back to the paddock.
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  But when you would get street races like Monaco, there was no guarantee that that
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  data would come off the car and hit the paddock in the order that it came off
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  the car, it might bounce off a wall and then come to the paddock, et cetera.
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  Right.
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  I remember us introducing a set of features in this
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  database technology where.
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  It would automatically re sequence.
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  So it became an advantage, whichever teams adopted that database technology.
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  If they were using Microsoft technologies, they would see benefit.
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  I think on the collaboration side of things, I talked a little bit about
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  cloud, but being able to recreate the engineer's environment back in the
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  factory, that's now been enabled a lot more in terms of just the way things
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  like communication, I was talking to one of the teams the other day, and they're
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  using the Starlink solution from Elon, but they're using the maritime version.
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  Which was interesting to me because, you know, in theory, when they get
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  to the track, they get given a pipe from the organizers, but they're
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  actually using Starlink as well, but I can't say which team that is.
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  And then the other thing for me was if COVID had happened, I don't know, five
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  years ago, the teams would not have been anywhere near as productive as they
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  were when it happened three years ago.
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  Cars were designed remotely, which would have never happened five years ago.
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  If you think about the amount of compute power needed to use CAD diagrams, et
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  cetera, to develop these cars, you would have to be somewhere on premises being
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  able to do that, these really super clever people, whereas because of the
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  advances in technology, they were able to collaborate and design these cars.
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  I mean, there's so much more, we could do like five podcast episodes on this.
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  Of the technology you've seen evolve in Formula 1, has any of it made
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  it to your passenger vehicles?
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  Yeah, but I don't think it's specific to like the technology I worked in.
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  So, you know, you talk about things like hybrid engines, is it
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  Mercedes are going to release a car that's got a Formula 1 engine?
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  You talk about things like DRS and even brake technology, carbon fiber
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  brakes, they were utilized early on.
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  There are a lot of technology, especially on the safety side, but
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  I don't think it's as much on the sort of IT technical side of things.
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  Wouldn't DRS be great to get around traffic?
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  Yeah.
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  You know what I use?
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  I use that skinny pedal underneath my right foot to get around traffic.
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  Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
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  One of Eric's gripes about Formula One, as well as he puts it, that he
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  says is basically spec racing and the technology's all the same with
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  the limitations on the advancement in technology that the teams can do.
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  I mean, back in the Wild West days when teams could bring out whatever
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  they wanted and it was run what you brung, it's very far removed from
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  that now with all the regulations.
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  What is interesting is a couple of years ago, they obviously brought the
• 12:36
  cost cap in, which said that every team must adhere to this set of regulations.
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  But the challenge is all the teams weren't starting from zero.
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  They were starting from benefits of previous years, et cetera, and knowledge,
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  the technology piece, there's going to be a few more seasons before you start
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  to see the effect of the cost cap.
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  So right now you're still seeing benefits from teams that have
• 12:56
  had more cash than other teams.
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  So they've been able to adopt technology further.
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  The cars are designed.
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  Either one or two years in advance, depending on how
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  much money you've got, etc.
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  So it's still a case of innovation is coming through and whoever's
• 13:10
  got the smartest designer and that's definitely an advantage.
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  You look at Adrian Newey versus some of the other designers and definitely his
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  impact, but not just him, the team around him are having an impact on the cars.
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  In one of my podcasts with Graham, he talked about some of the
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  innovations maybe 10 years ago.
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  One example was the Benetton team, they observed buildings that had to survive
• 13:30
  earthquakes, have these springs to absorb.
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  So when you've got these earthquakes happening, they're
• 13:35
  absorbing all the energy.
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  The F1 team saw that and put it in the nose cone.
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  And it wasn't till halfway through the season, the other teams
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  found out and tried to copy it.
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  And generally in Formula One, they'll do two things.
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  You'll try and bend the rules as much as you can without getting in trouble.
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  And it's not getting caught.
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  It's getting in trouble because you submit that to the regulators and say,
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  this is what we're thinking of doing.
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  Does it meet the rules?
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  And they'll come back and say, we think it complies or we think it doesn't comply.
• 14:01
  Right.
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  That innovation still happens and the teams are either trying copy it,
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  which I guess is what we're seeing with the Mercedes team now on the
• 14:08
  side pods, because they haven't been able to go their own way.
• 14:11
  So they decided to reset and copy or try and get it banned.
• 14:15
  I really enjoyed the episode you did with Graham.
• 14:17
  I think that was like episode four or five or so in the catalog.
• 14:20
  And he touched on something which you alluded to, which was.
• 14:23
  Making changes until somebody either banned or approved
• 14:27
  the change that you made.
• 14:27
  Now, if you go a little bit further back in the history of F1, Colin Chapman
• 14:31
  was notorious for breaking the rules.
• 14:33
  And then a rule would be written because Lotus did something
• 14:36
  completely off out of spec.
• 14:38
  So formula one's always been about that.
• 14:40
  Push the envelope, find something new.
• 14:42
  Does it stick or does it not?
• 14:43
  There was a period there where.
• 14:45
  Formula one got a little bit silly with, well, we needed to be more competitive.
• 14:48
  So we're going to make everybody drive on groove tires during a dry race.
• 14:52
  I go back to it's what you imprint on, which is the time period in which F1,
• 14:58
  you still had crazy things like six wheel TRLs and you had flat 12 Ferraris
• 15:03
  and four cylinder turbos and Porsches with their six cylinder, and they were
• 15:06
  all running together and everybody was trying to build a better mousetrap.
• 15:10
  I look at F1 cars today.
• 15:12
  They're huge.
• 15:13
  The wheelbase is equivalent to a Ford F 150.
• 15:16
  I mean, Senna's MP4 is like a go kart compared to Lewis
• 15:19
  Hamilton's McLaren right now.
• 15:21
  They're night and day different.
• 15:22
  You look at them and I can't tell them apart.
• 15:24
  To me, it's literally like looking at a spec Miata race.
• 15:27
  What I feel like is Formula One is losing its technological edge because
• 15:32
  somebody else is dictating what the technology is, everybody's building
• 15:35
  to that, and what do you end up with?
• 15:37
  No offense, you end up with IndyCar.
• 15:39
  It's an interesting dynamic, isn't it?
• 15:41
  Teams try different things, but they learn quite quickly if those things work or not.
• 15:45
  You know, back to Mercedes, clearly their approach didn't work in
• 15:48
  the same way that the other teams like Aston and Red Bull have.
• 15:51
  There's always still some innovation that they're always looking for that
• 15:54
  extra 10th, whether it's the way that they're presenting the impact
• 15:58
  of the wind after it's hit the car.
• 16:01
  So what impact does it have on the car behind, for example?
• 16:03
  So, you know, they're thinking about different things, but it's just, the rules
• 16:07
  are becoming so much tighter that you don't have the ability to create a car
• 16:10
  that has a fan on the back, for example.
• 16:12
  You're sort of stuck with whatever you designed as well.
• 16:15
  I mean, there's only so much wiggle room now that if you made a bad choice,
• 16:18
  like you were saying, Mercedes is sort of going back to the drawing board.
• 16:21
  Utilizing somebody else's design because that design is approved.
• 16:25
  Now for them to come up with something completely unique, they
• 16:28
  got to go through all these boards and change approval process and all
• 16:31
  this bureaucracy to get it done.
• 16:33
  And in the old days, you listened to the episode with Mario about how
• 16:36
  they developed the ground effects.
• 16:38
  And how simple it was.
• 16:40
  And they just kept trying and trying until they found something that worked.
• 16:43
  And nobody said, no, it's like, yeah, go have at it.
• 16:45
  If you can figure out how ground effects work by all means.
• 16:48
  It's just got that competitive.
• 16:50
  It's just a different world.
• 16:51
  Exactly.
• 16:51
  It's a space race and it's still the most advanced form of motorsport in the world.
• 16:55
  I don't know.
• 16:56
  There's an argument to be made about.
• 16:59
  Sports car and endurance racing because the GTP cars, they're very
• 17:03
  technologically advanced as well.
• 17:04
  If you look at the Toyota hybrids, the new Porsche nine, six, three, the Ferrari
• 17:08
  four nine, nine X the Peugeot nine X eight, any of those prototypes, I mean,
• 17:12
  there are engineering marvels and I'd say there's almost more technology given.
• 17:17
  The space parameters that they have, then there is on board an F1 car.
• 17:21
  Because the thing with F1 is the testing and the simulation is so regulated, right?
• 17:25
  It is, but the car only has to run for 90 minutes.
• 17:28
  Yeah.
• 17:29
  So I guess the point I was making is do these teams doing the endurance
• 17:32
  racing, do they have unlimited wind tunnel time, for example?
• 17:35
  Because if they do, then they have the option to be more technically advanced.
• 17:39
  That I'd have to look into specifically what the regulations are around that.
• 17:42
  But what I know is that when Porsche comes to the table with their design,
• 17:46
  granted they're using a Dallara.
• 17:47
  Chassis.
• 17:48
  So is I think Cadillac or whoever Ferraris got their own, there's certain
• 17:52
  underpinnings to the vehicles, but what they do with the body design, what they do
• 17:56
  with the cockpit layout, with the gearing, with the engines, they're all different.
• 18:00
  They're not required to run a hybrid if they don't want to.
• 18:03
  So there's a lot more freedom in that.
• 18:05
  But the Testament at the end is after 24 hours, who's still standing.
• 18:10
  Mercedes results over the last two years have not been what they had expected.
• 18:15
  And I'm curious.
• 18:16
  So what the effect of Nicky Lauda's death, could that be attributed
• 18:21
  to with their lack of success over the last couple of years?
• 18:24
  I mean, I could be wrong, but I thought he was very involved in the technical
• 18:29
  advancement aspect of the Mercedes car.
• 18:31
  I do know that they've got James Allison there and the team around
• 18:35
  James, he was at Enstone, he was at Ferrari, super smart guy.
• 18:39
  I can't imagine Nicky had a lot of involvement on the technology side.
• 18:42
  I think he was more of motivational and supporting the
• 18:45
  drivers and that sort of stuff.
• 18:46
  I don't know enough.
• 18:47
  I'm sorry.
• 18:48
  We're going to pause here.
• 18:49
  You know, we've been deep in technical thought.
• 18:51
  I want to ask one of our newest and probably most favorite pit stop
• 18:54
  questions, especially for a fan of Formula One and somebody like yourself
• 18:58
  who's worked in Formula One, the GOAT.
• 19:00
  Or Goat Teefy, who is the best driver of all time, in your opinion, Formula 1?
• 19:06
  That is such a great question, and it's one that could be debated
• 19:09
  again on numerous vodcasts.
• 19:11
  I remember watching Senna on TV, just remembering, you know, how
• 19:15
  much of a complete driver he was.
• 19:17
  I have a favorite driver, which is slightly different to GOAT, but his
• 19:20
  stats rank up, which is Lewis Hamilton.
• 19:22
  You know, someone who's won the championship seven times,
• 19:25
  he's got to be pretty good.
• 19:26
  I know there's arguments to say that his car was better than everyone else's, but
• 19:29
  you've still got to bring that car home.
• 19:31
  You've got to avoid all the other cars on the track, etc.
• 19:33
  So I think Senna was the greatest, completest driver, but my favorite
• 19:37
  GOAT would be Lewis Hamilton.
• 19:39
  There's definitely a difference between the greatest driver and the most dominant.
• 19:43
  Driver.
• 19:43
  Yeah.
• 19:44
  They're mutually exclusive.
• 19:45
  You know, there's another debate that we should maybe have a whole nother
• 19:48
  show about, which is are the current formula one drivers as talented as some
• 19:53
  of the ones of years past that would move between disciplines and they could
• 19:57
  go to NASCAR or Indy car rally, and they could jump back into formula one car and
• 20:02
  they would win everywhere they would go.
• 20:04
  Or are they just.
• 20:04
  Yeah.
• 20:05
  Good in their discipline.
• 20:06
  A lot of people argue that rally drivers are the most talented based on what
• 20:10
  they have to do in the environment they have to work in, but you know,
• 20:12
  how would a rally driver do in a formula one car, but there's also been
• 20:16
  various drivers in history that have done it on two wheels and four wheels.
• 20:20
  So does that make them more of a goat?
• 20:21
  We'll put a pin in that.
• 20:22
  Maybe we'll revisit it on a future episode.
• 20:26
  Since you've experienced NASCAR and IndyCar and Moto America Superbikes,
• 20:30
  what about the business side of racing?
• 20:32
  Is it same same but different?
• 20:34
  Are they drastically different?
• 20:36
  Did you draw any commonalities between those cultures?
• 20:39
  So on the business side, and I'll probably caveat this with the work I did
• 20:43
  in NASCAR was probably about five or six years ago, so things could have changed.
• 20:47
  From my experience, the world of NASCAR and the world of IMSA are
• 20:50
  looking towards Formula One to try and replicate some of the business things.
• 20:55
  Some great sponsorships out there, but I'm sure you talk to any of the
• 20:58
  teams in those race disciplines.
• 20:59
  They would love the number of sponsors and the amount the sponsors are
• 21:02
  paying in Formula One on their cars.
• 21:05
  So I think they look for practices, big things like sustainability, for example,
• 21:09
  is now a big thing that has obviously been in Formula One for a few years.
• 21:12
  And it's now, you know, even more prevalent in IMSA, for example, I think
• 21:16
  my experience is, is that they all been looking towards Formula One as the glowing
• 21:19
  light, but the work that I was doing on IndyCar was, I don't know if it's the
• 21:23
  case now, it's again, a few years ago, but there were only two manufacturers
• 21:26
  providing engines for IndyCar.
• 21:28
  And I was working with one of the manufacturers and they were thinking about
• 21:31
  the engine they provide as a service to the teams and how do they improve the
• 21:36
  durability and how do they give more indication of if an engine may fail.
• 21:40
  So we were doing some work around machine learning.
• 21:42
  They run these engines on these dynos outside of the car and
• 21:45
  how do they look for early signs of engine failure, et cetera.
• 21:48
  But Formula 1 have been doing that for many years as well.
• 21:50
  So I think it's a similar thinking and similar level of discipline.
• 21:53
  Is there a hidden IT joke in there?
• 21:55
  Is this E A S S, engine as a service.
• 21:58
  Is that what you guys are providing?
• 22:01
  Oh, your engine's blown up.
• 22:02
  It's now in the cloud.
• 22:05
  Just download a new engine.
• 22:06
  Yeah.
• 22:06
  Just make sure it doesn't need a reboot halfway around.
• 22:09
  Did you try plugging it in and unplugging it?
• 22:11
  I didn't go for blue screen of death jokes.
• 22:14
  He did work at Microsoft.
• 22:16
  Heard them all before.
• 22:18
  All right, Danny P, the real reason we're all here is because we're podcasters.
• 22:22
  So why don't you tell us a little bit about your podcast, Danny P on cars.
• 22:26
  For me, which I'm guessing is similar to you guys, this was a passion project.
• 22:29
  I've been lucky enough to meet some really great car people in all sorts
• 22:33
  of disciplines, in all sorts of tribes.
• 22:34
  And one of the things that happened to me at the beginning of the year
• 22:37
  is I got laid off from Microsoft.
• 22:39
  That was part of these big.
• 22:40
  10, 000 tech layoff and decided that I wanted to do something
• 22:42
  as a bit of a passion project.
• 22:44
  So I set up a podcast.
• 22:45
  It was always going to be something that gives the opportunity in a vehicle
• 22:48
  for people to tell their car stories.
• 22:50
  So whilst the theme is cars, the people is the real thing
• 22:53
  that we've kind of connect on.
• 22:54
  It's in its first season.
• 22:56
  I'm trying to get a different mix of guests.
• 22:58
  So every episode may be slightly different.
• 23:00
  I was really lucky to meet two gentlemen who started their own
• 23:04
  podcast called the steering committee.
• 23:05
  So Ryan and Doug reached out to me on LinkedIn and then Instagram because of
• 23:10
  the relationship I have with the Peterson Automotive Museum, but I got friendly
• 23:14
  with them and they actually gave me a lot of coaching on how to do my podcast.
• 23:17
  And they were my first guests.
• 23:19
  So I got the steering committee on to kick things off.
• 23:21
  But I'm now almost to 10 episodes.
• 23:23
  I'll probably be 10 episodes by the time this comes out.
• 23:25
  I've had motorsport folks, an IndyCar driver, a gentleman called Dominic Dobson.
• 23:30
  Dominic, he raced Indy seven times.
• 23:32
  He also won his class for Pike's Peak.
• 23:34
  So the hill climb race in Colorado.
• 23:36
  So he was an early guest.
• 23:38
  I've had quirky guests, a college friend of mine who I'd 20 years.
• 23:42
  I had no idea what they'd been up to, but they kind of stepped up at the
• 23:45
  last minute when I had a guest pull out and Simon Hall, he was influenced
• 23:49
  at an early age by Americana.
• 23:51
  And he loved smoking the bandit and his dream was to own a firebird So he actually
• 23:55
  imported a firebird from the us to the uk.
• 23:58
  We talked about graham a bit So graham good friend formula one guy.
• 24:01
  I've just done a two part episode Another brit in seattle is a guy
• 24:05
  called peter gleason and peter is a good friend He is a passionate bmw and
• 24:10
  bmw motorsport fan in that episode.
• 24:13
  We do a bit of a history lesson We talk about the 70s and what was going
• 24:16
  on When two brits get together over a cup of tea we tend to talk for quite a
• 24:19
  while And it just so happens that the very first winning BMW M car, which
• 24:24
  was a Batmobile, it won in Sebring.
• 24:26
  He managed to buy that car a year and a half ago.
• 24:29
  So we talk about the journey to buy that car.
• 24:31
  We talk about some of the other cars in his collection.
• 24:33
  He's owned cars from famous racing drivers like Johnny Giacotto, but
• 24:37
  really the podcast is all about cars.
• 24:39
  It's all about culture.
• 24:40
  I talk about it being a tribe because it doesn't matter what car you own.
• 24:43
  As long as you love cars, there's a commonality there.
• 24:45
  And it's just great to be able to share some of the stories.
• 24:48
  Was that similar for you guys?
• 24:49
  We were in the height of COVID and we were a car club that used to get
• 24:54
  together 10 or more times a year at the racetrack or various car related events.
• 25:00
  All of a sudden we weren't getting together anymore.
• 25:02
  And we tried doing a couple of virtual happy hours.
• 25:05
  And there's so many people sitting around telling stories of the good
• 25:09
  old days, and we thought, well, we should really try and get some of those
• 25:12
  stories out there of other people.
• 25:14
  Listen to all these great stories.
• 25:15
  They can't just die in our small group.
• 25:18
  And I guess I've always been talking about, we should start a podcast.
• 25:21
  But Eric likes to say, the next words out of my mouth are,
• 25:24
  who cares what we have to say?
• 25:25
  And apparently there are a decent number of people that care what we have to say.
• 25:28
  All two of them are loyal listeners.
• 25:30
  Arbitron rated.
• 25:32
  Yes.
• 25:32
  It's my wife and his wife.
• 25:33
  There's the two loyal listeners.
• 25:35
  No, mine doesn't listen.
• 25:36
  So yeah.
• 25:37
  Lost half your audience.
• 25:39
  It started out as more just something for the club.
• 25:41
  We had some couple fun, kind of quirky, silly episodes.
• 25:45
  We apologize for our first season, like every podcast group does.
• 25:49
  But then we lost someone important to the club, but it's someone
• 25:52
  very, very important to Eric.
• 25:53
  And he was one of those guys that also had all these stories and...
• 25:57
  Eric, you know what I'm trying to say.
• 25:59
  You tell it better.
• 26:00
  The whole mantra of everyone has a story is something that
• 26:03
  Matthew used to say all the time.
• 26:05
  And he was a big proponent and us finally getting off the blocks and
• 26:09
  saying you need to do this because he kept saying that motorsport is a
• 26:13
  sport of convenience, not of loyalty.
• 26:15
  And that sentiment wasn't lost on me.
• 26:17
  And I saw people transition in and out over the last 13 plus years that
• 26:22
  I've been doing this as a coach, not only considering that I've been in the
• 26:25
  motorsport world since I was a kid.
• 26:26
  And yeah, I look back and I go, whatever happened to Bob and where did Tom go?
• 26:30
  And suddenly they were here and then they're not.
• 26:32
  And those stories, you heard them a hundred times in the paddock.
• 26:35
  And then there's suddenly now whispers on the wind.
• 26:37
  And so we wanted to capture that.
• 26:39
  And then it just sort of evolved into.
• 26:41
  You know, there's a lot of race car drivers that are getting older,
• 26:44
  that are, they're retired and their stories aren't being shared.
• 26:47
  And you tell people you don't know about the story behind the apple nine
• 26:50
  35 and they're like apple nine 30.
• 26:52
  What are you talking?
• 26:52
  Apple had a Porsche.
• 26:53
  Yeah.
• 26:54
  And there's a gentleman behind that and there's a story behind that
• 26:57
  and how Steve Jobs and Wozniak were involved in all these kinds of things.
• 27:00
  And so you unravel that and it just becomes this, how did we get here?
• 27:03
  Moment.
• 27:04
  In our first season, we had to transition our audience from the
• 27:07
  written word, because we were already doing journalism, to the spoken word.
• 27:10
  It just became these interesting stories, these motivational stories, To your point,
• 27:16
  you came from the UK, you got a job at Microsoft, and next thing you know, you
• 27:19
  find yourself in Formula One, whether you realize it or not, you inspire other
• 27:22
  people to go, well, if Dan can do it, maybe I should look into this, maybe
• 27:26
  there's a path for me here, that's what we want to remind people of is that the
• 27:29
  motorsport and the vehicle enthusiasts.
• 27:32
  Community is much larger than people realize there are so many moving parts.
• 27:36
  It drives so many different industries, so many different jobs.
• 27:40
  You don't have to be into cars to enjoy them.
• 27:43
  Let's say on a smaller level, maybe you're marketing, maybe you're art,
• 27:46
  maybe you're engineering, maybe you're this, maybe you're that.
• 27:47
  And so it all comes together in this really beautiful symphony, but it's
• 27:51
  getting to these people's stories, blossoming the flower and seeing
• 27:55
  what's inside to go, well, that's.
• 27:56
  How they became who they are.
• 27:58
  And that's, what's important.
• 27:59
  Not after the fact that someone's eulogy and people are trying
• 28:02
  to put the pieces together.
• 28:03
  There is no better truth than living history.
• 28:07
  That's super cool.
• 28:08
  And I need to go back and listen to more of your episodes.
• 28:10
  You only got 200 and some to catch up on.
• 28:12
  It's all good.
• 28:14
  But that being said, let's talk a little bit more about car culture.
• 28:17
  Your show, Danny P on Cars, is all about car culture, the journey you've made.
• 28:21
  You've been here in the States now about a decade or so.
• 28:24
  You've worked in all sorts of different industries.
• 28:26
  Tell us about the culture shock coming from the UK, which per capita, the
• 28:31
  UK has more tracks and car meets and autocrosses and you name it than
• 28:35
  probably anywhere on the planet.
• 28:37
  It's a very heavy car culture there.
• 28:38
  You come to the United States and you move all the way to the Pacific Northwest.
• 28:42
  How do you compare and contrast European car culture versus the U S yeah, I think
• 28:47
  the first thing I would say is that growing up in the UK and car culture in
• 28:50
  the UK, you're very much in a bubble.
• 28:52
  You don't necessarily get exposed to the great car culture that's in the
• 28:56
  U S from a motorsport perspective, we have formula one, which obviously
• 29:00
  is now becoming much bigger on the worldwide scale and specifically
• 29:03
  in the U S but you generally had.
• 29:05
  Formula One, touring cars, and some rallying.
• 29:08
  And we didn't get exposed to IndyCar.
• 29:10
  We didn't get exposed to NASCAR.
• 29:12
  At least for me, there was no real knowledge of all this great
• 29:15
  history and great car culture.
• 29:17
  I mean, we would see films like, um, American Graffiti.
• 29:20
  You would hear about some of these racing legends who are American like
• 29:23
  Andretti, which I know you folks had him on your podcasts the other week.
• 29:26
  There was definitely this bubble.
• 29:27
  So when I moved to the U.
• 29:29
  S., it just became a real learning opportunity for me
• 29:31
  to learn about car culture.
• 29:33
  Really early on, I sat at a dinner and the son of Dan Gurney was sat
• 29:37
  next to me and I'm embarrassed to say I didn't know who Dan Gurney was.
• 29:41
  So really, this has been a big opportunity for me to just learn a lot more about U.
• 29:44
  S.
• 29:44
  car culture.
• 29:45
  You know, learn everything from hot rodding all the way through to drag.
• 29:48
  I went to my first drag race about a month ago in Pomona in California.
• 29:52
  And again, I was just blown away a completely different set of car culture.
• 29:56
  So, you know, as you kindly alluded to, that was one of the reasons
• 29:59
  with the podcast was to try and investigate more of this and share
• 30:02
  more of this on a wider scale.
• 30:04
  So I think that's the first difference, you know, just
• 30:06
  very much you're in a bubble.
• 30:07
  I guess you're on an Island, but you're very close to Europe.
• 30:10
  I think we got a lot of different cars, you know, so some cars didn't make it
• 30:14
  to the U S and some cars didn't make it to Europe from the U S you talk about
• 30:18
  wagons, wagons are a big thing in the UK.
• 30:20
  If a manufacturer is making a hot version of a car, take the M three,
• 30:24
  for example, and you M three M four, they'll do a wagon version, whereas
• 30:27
  wagons don't tend to sell well in the U S so you get the SUV version instead.
• 30:32
  I think I'm right in saying that in the U S BMW, you didn't necessarily get the
• 30:36
  hottest versions of the BMW cars, or if you did, they weren't necessarily
• 30:40
  as tuned as highly as the European.
• 30:41
  So it's just a big learning opportunity for me.
• 30:44
  And that's systemic in the German manufacturers.
• 30:46
  Cause Volkswagen does the same thing.
• 30:48
  And obviously the Italians are just making a resurgence now, but
• 30:51
  you see it across the board where we will never get the Scirocco.
• 30:54
  It doesn't matter how many times I beat on Volkswagen of America's door.
• 30:58
  It's not going to happen, right?
• 30:59
  The new golf are three 33.
• 31:01
  We're not going to see that.
• 31:02
  So they got the fun stuff over there, but I'm also envious of
• 31:05
  what you guys have in the UK.
• 31:07
  And some of the best tracks are within a couple hours distance.
• 31:12
  I get it.
• 31:12
  Everybody in mainland Europe complains.
• 31:14
  If they got to go from France to Germany, it feels like they're going.
• 31:17
  So far away, but the United States, you can fit Europe in it.
• 31:20
  Like six, seven times.
• 31:21
  I don't know.
• 31:22
  Everything here is so spread out.
• 31:24
  I'd love to go from spa to Lamont to Hockenheim to the ring in a day here.
• 31:30
  That's not possible, right?
• 31:32
  Not really anyway.
• 31:33
  No, it's very true.
• 31:34
  But also I think you folks do things bigger.
• 31:36
  So I went to Daytona earlier in the year for the first time.
• 31:40
  I went for a bike race actually, the Daytona 200.
• 31:43
  And wow, what a facility that is.
• 31:45
  I don't know how many hundred thousand people can fit in that,
• 31:47
  but there's nothing like that in the UK or even in mainland Europe.
• 31:51
  Everything's a smaller scale.
• 31:52
  The tracks might be similar size in terms of mileage, but you just don't
• 31:55
  have those kind of almost coliseum esque.
• 31:58
  And it's funny that you lump what we consider motorsports
• 32:01
  disciplines Into car cultures.
• 32:03
  So for us, drag racing is a discipline of motorsport.
• 32:06
  It's part of the, let's say the racing community or the racing culture versus
• 32:10
  the car collector culture, where then you have the concourse folks, you get
• 32:14
  the pebble beach crowd and Amelia Island and touring and what we call road rally
• 32:18
  here, and then the people that do all the car care stuff and collectors in general.
• 32:23
  You're very progressive in the thought that it's all just one community
• 32:26
  where we tend to split things into, are you a racer or a collector?
• 32:30
  Ultimately, there are car people.
• 32:32
  And then off of that, there are tribes, but those tribes intersect.
• 32:35
  One week we'll go to do the NHRA and watch the drag racing.
• 32:39
  The next week, they'll be showing a car at Pebble Beach.
• 32:41
  For me, it's very much, you're not one or the other, you can be many.
• 32:45
  No, that's absolutely the best way to look at it.
• 32:47
  We try to extol the idea that Car culture in general is inclusive.
• 32:52
  And then people have put up these facades and these boundaries
• 32:55
  to say, well, I'm a hot rodder.
• 32:56
  I don't want to deal with the import guys.
• 32:59
  And it's like this tug of war that doesn't need to exist.
• 33:01
  It's why can't the Nissan guy and the Ferrari guy and the Corvette guy.
• 33:05
  Collaborate together in a room and just talk about cars and enjoy it.
• 33:09
  And that's what our shows bring to the table, right?
• 33:11
  Is this intersection of these different communities to say, this
• 33:14
  is what it's really all about.
• 33:16
  Moving to the Pacific Northwest specifically is a little
• 33:19
  different than California and even California car culture.
• 33:23
  It's this.
• 33:23
  War between the North and the South, San Francisco and Sacramento, putting
• 33:27
  out all the new carb rules, trying to stifle the car creators and the builders
• 33:32
  and all that, and everybody in Southern California is like, send it, man,
• 33:35
  we're going to build the coolest new hot rod and Siamese two cars together.
• 33:38
  But when you go North past Oregon and you hit the Puget sound out your way, you get
• 33:42
  a lot of rain and I wonder what the car culture is like compared to California.
• 33:47
  Yeah.
• 33:48
  And I've been lucky to spend time in both car cultures.
• 33:51
  And the thing with Seattle is.
• 33:53
  Obviously, we have bad weather for a good six months of the year.
• 33:56
  But I would say that we make up for it for the other six months of the year.
• 33:59
  On my latest podcast, I was talking to a friend of mine who's a BMW
• 34:02
  collector, and he talked about the Space Needle being a magnet for great cars.
• 34:06
  It's not a needle to show world trades, actually a magnet for great cars.
• 34:10
  So from a car collections perspective, I think we're very lucky.
• 34:13
  We have probably three or four of the finest car collections
• 34:16
  in North America up here.
• 34:18
  They're in private hands, so it's not always easy to go see them.
• 34:20
  At one point in time, we had four...
• 34:23
  250 Ferrari GTOs in the Pacific Northwest.
• 34:25
  So for a place that rains a lot, to have those cars was pretty significant.
• 34:30
  You know, as soon as you get to the summer here, or at least signs
• 34:33
  of the summer, things open up.
• 34:35
  So every Saturday we have various cars and coffees and an event called
• 34:39
  Exotics, which is, they have a list of which cars are allowed to exhibit and
• 34:42
  which cars aren't, it's that exclusive.
• 34:45
  Which some people like, and some people don't like, I just appreciate the fact you
• 34:48
  can turn up and see some really rare cars.
• 34:50
  We have regular different cars and coffees events on Sundays.
• 34:54
  We have car shows.
• 34:55
  We've got three or four racetracks within stones throwing distance.
• 34:59
  So I think the car community is pretty good and it's very vibrant.
• 35:03
  Lots of good clubs.
• 35:03
  I'm a member of the Porsche Owners Club, and you know, every night
• 35:07
  there's practically something on you can do, whether that's going for a
• 35:10
  drive and pizza or going to one of the tracks for an autocross day.
• 35:14
  I think it's pretty good, but you have to appreciate that come October,
• 35:17
  you're probably not going to see those friends in car context for
• 35:20
  three, four, five, maybe six months.
• 35:22
  Oh, the times I spent in the Seattle and Oregon area, I noticed
• 35:26
  there was a very large Air cooled Volkswagen and Porsche community.
• 35:30
  Is that still true now?
• 35:32
  It's been a while since I've been out there.
• 35:33
  Yeah, there is a, a lot of those folks.
• 35:36
  There is a chapter of what's known as the R group, which is the
• 35:40
  outlaws and hot rodders of Porsche.
• 35:41
  So after California, which is where it was founded, the next chapter was
• 35:44
  up here in the Pacific Northwest.
• 35:46
  So we get lots of classic Porsches and some Beatles and that sort of stuff.
• 35:50
  But we also have some really amazing like Japanese cars, for example, I
• 35:54
  live out in a place called Alki, which is a little beach area of Seattle.
• 35:57
  And it's a regular route for all the car community to drive through.
• 36:01
  So every night you'll see a different set of cars driving through and you
• 36:04
  see these JDM cars that have been modified or you see low riders.
• 36:08
  So yeah, I think that's a really good mix.
• 36:10
  So looking back to the UK, is there anything you miss?
• 36:13
  Well, I miss a good curry and fish and chips, but that's not really car related.
• 36:17
  So I miss being able to drive to racetracks for things like touring cars.
• 36:22
  You know, we have a couple of really good racetracks that have competitive
• 36:25
  events on, but we don't really have anything like going two hours down the
• 36:28
  road and going to see the touring cars and then maybe the next weekend going
• 36:32
  two hours in a different direction and seeing the next race in that series.
• 36:35
  So I kind of missed that.
• 36:36
  I miss being able to go see my friends in the Formula One teams.
• 36:39
  Super lucky to work with three of the teams.
• 36:41
  Whenever I'm back in the UK, what I would generally do would go for a coffee at one
• 36:45
  team, go for lunch at another, and then go for a cup of tea at the third team.
• 36:49
  So I missed that as well.
• 36:50
  But yeah, more on the motor racing side of things, I think.
• 36:53
  On your show, you also talk about the collector car world a little bit.
• 36:56
  I wanted to touch on your thoughts on the rise in collector cars and prices and
• 37:01
  how things have gotten out of control.
• 37:03
  Yeah, I mean, again, that could be a whole series on a podcast.
• 37:07
  I think the things for me is it's very much a generational thing
• 37:11
  in terms of which cars tend to get the premium collections.
• 37:15
  Depending on what you grew up and what you had on your wall, then that might
• 37:18
  be the car that you kind of want.
• 37:20
  You know, a lot of my podcast guests, they get onto that ladder of car collection
• 37:26
  because of what they loved as a kid.
• 37:28
  They realize that at times it's very difficult if they miss the ladder.
• 37:32
  Peter Gleeson talked to me about his love of BMW and...
• 37:35
  If you talk to a lot of people, the ultimate BMW is the 507 and he
• 37:39
  never got on the ladder for the 507.
• 37:41
  Every time he saw them and wanted one, they were too expensive, or
• 37:45
  he thought they were too expensive.
• 37:47
  And then before he knew it, they doubled or trebled in price.
• 37:50
  The thing is, if you love a car and you want to collect a certain car, then
• 37:54
  get in as soon as you can, because the chances are that if you love it, other
• 37:57
  people will love it and go up in value.
• 37:59
  There is always a link between motorsport and car collection in
• 38:03
  terms of collecting classic cars.
• 38:05
  You look at the impact that some of these motorsport cars
• 38:08
  have on used car prices, right?
• 38:10
  So the most expensive car sold at auction was a Mercedes.
• 38:13
  That was a historical motorsport car.
• 38:16
  You look at the 250 GTOs, which previously had been the most expensive cars sold
• 38:20
  at auction, and then motorsport cars.
• 38:22
  They might be road cars as well, but I guess the point I'm trying to land
• 38:25
  is that motorsport has a massive influence on All up car community
• 38:29
  collecting, not just motorsport.
• 38:31
  And one of the things about your show is you have this bit called,
• 38:35
  what's your criminal record car?
• 38:37
  I won't say that my jaw didn't hit the floor when I heard your
• 38:40
  answer, because it's very rare that this car comes up in conversation.
• 38:43
  So would you care to enlighten our listeners?
• 38:46
  Yeah.
• 38:47
  So part of my podcast, I do a, uh, a bit of background on the guests.
• 38:51
  And one of the questions I ask is have they ever owned a criminal record car?
• 38:55
  So what is a criminal record car?
• 38:56
  Well essentially it's a car that you're kind of embarrassed that you once owned.
• 39:00
  Now I want to be really clear on this podcast, for the record, that
• 39:03
  I never owned this car but I was so close to buying this car that it could
• 39:07
  have been my criminal record car.
• 39:09
  So you've got a picture of the scene, I'm 16 in the UK, the driving age
• 39:12
  is 17, so I'm very close to 17.
• 39:14
  I'm looking for my first car, that summer I'd worked all summer on a building site
• 39:18
  to pay for my first car, and I guess like a lot of impatient 17, 16 year olds, you
• 39:23
  kind of go for the first thing you see.
• 39:25
  Anyway, at this car dealership, there was a Yugo.
• 39:28
  Now it wasn't just a regular Yugo, this was a Yugo with a body kit.
• 39:31
  So close to buying this car and I guess it's probably the only
• 39:34
  time I can be really thankful that my parents stopped me.
• 39:37
  So I didn't get it, didn't own a criminal record car, but it was super close.
• 39:40
  But some of the other examples on my podcast, people have bought cars and it
• 39:43
  turned out to be two cars welded together.
• 39:46
  I also want to be clear that you can't have a criminal
• 39:49
  record car if it was inherited.
• 39:51
  So if you got your grandfather's car and it was still an embarrassing
• 39:54
  car, that's not a criminal record car because that's got sentimental
• 39:57
  value and, you know, lots more.
• 39:59
  So criminal record cars are ones that you've actually bought.
• 40:02
  Do you guys either?
• 40:03
  Have you have a criminal record car?
• 40:04
  I know Brad's got one.
• 40:05
  Come on, Brad.
• 40:07
  I'm not embarrassed.
• 40:09
  I'm embarrassed in the condition that it was in.
• 40:11
  But I'm not actually embarrassed because had it been a running driving
• 40:15
  car, it would have been pretty cool.
• 40:16
  It was a, uh, 924 turbo.
• 40:18
  Nice.
• 40:19
  So that's definitely not a criminal record car.
• 40:21
  Given your definition of a criminal record car, I can't think of any car
• 40:24
  that I've owned that I'm embarrassed by.
• 40:27
  And I have an interesting caveat to this, which is I never technically
• 40:31
  owned my criminal record vehicle and now that it's gone I can openly
• 40:36
  admit that I fostered for a year a bright yellow 2003 Pontiac Aztec GT.
• 40:43
  Wow.
• 40:44
  You would do hard time or hard porridge as we would say in the UK.
• 40:48
  If you're up against the judge on that one.
• 40:50
  I will say that I haven't owned it, but I do have a deposit
• 40:54
  in on a criminal record car.
• 40:55
  Oh, yes you do.
• 40:57
  Anybody listening knows that I've got a deposit in on a Tesla cyber
• 41:01
  truck that I'm trying to get rid of.
• 41:04
  Yeah, I've seen one in real life.
• 41:06
  Have you?
• 41:07
  There's one in the Peterson right now in L.
• 41:08
  A., the Peterson Automotive Museum.
• 41:10
  Interesting, I wasn't there when I was there the last
• 41:12
  time, so that's pretty cool.
• 41:13
  Did it have working laser windshield wipers?
• 41:15
  No, no, I didn't see any dents on the door or the window, so I don't think it
• 41:18
  was the one that was there at the launch.
• 41:20
  And behind it was the Tesla quad bike, which also looks really cool.
• 41:24
  Yeah.
• 41:24
  But I think that is a criminal record car, so um, yeah, there's a
• 41:27
  sentence to be had there, I think.
• 41:29
  Ha, From your perspective, growing up in the UK, what would
• 41:33
  you define as a beautiful car?
• 41:35
  I think for me, any car where you look at it more than once and you
• 41:39
  discover new angles, or you discover things that you weren't thinking
• 41:43
  about the first time you looked at it.
• 41:44
  So you've obviously got an appreciation for it the first time, but then
• 41:47
  you look again and you think.
• 41:48
  How much thought has gone into this car?
• 41:50
  For me, the most beautiful car in the world is the Mercedes Gullwing.
• 41:54
  I love the lines on that car.
• 41:55
  And every time I look at that car, I see another level of
• 41:57
  detail I haven't thought about.
• 41:59
  So the opposite of that question, Brad, would you consider it a terribly ugly
• 42:02
  car other than a Yugo or an Aztec?
• 42:04
  Yeah, those are off the list.
• 42:05
  They're disqualified.
• 42:07
  I think again, it's the thought.
• 42:08
  If I look at something and it's just angles, I don't feel like they've
• 42:11
  put a lot of thought into it and maybe it's function over design.
• 42:14
  Maybe it's a utility versus a soulful car.
• 42:17
  I think, you know, things like.
• 42:18
  The Aztec, but also things like the Fiat Multipla, but I also think that
• 42:22
  some cars at the time are ugly, but over time, you might appreciate them more
• 42:27
  or things have changed and you might actually turn and go, well, I thought
• 42:30
  that was ugly when it came out, but actually now I'd really like to drive,
• 42:34
  you know, being from the UK, I thought you were going to say the Reliant Robin.
• 42:37
  Oh, you see, that's got a lot of character because it was
• 42:39
  associated with TV and film.
• 42:41
  So in the UK, we had this BBC series called Only Fools and Horses.
• 42:45
  The main character used to drive one, but it was a van.
• 42:48
  So it was a Reliant Robin van in bright yellow.
• 42:51
  You can do a search on the web for it.
• 42:52
  But, uh, so that kind of transcends it because it's got
• 42:55
  this character from a TV series.
• 42:57
  I wonder how fast Reliant Robin van would be around Nürburgring
• 43:00
  instead of the transit.
• 43:01
  Oh, wasn't there an episode on Top Gear where they put one
• 43:03
  on a rocket and sent it up?
• 43:05
  That was one of the best episodes ever.
• 43:07
  That was the fastest Reliant Robin ever.
• 43:09
  Yeah.
• 43:09
  So let's take your criminal record and spin it a little bit.
• 43:12
  What about a guilty pleasure car?
• 43:14
  Something you'd like to drive, something you'd like to test, or even maybe
• 43:18
  own, but are embarrassed to admit it?
• 43:20
  I quite often search the internet for used cars, and I get to alternation a lot.
• 43:24
  And at the moment, the cheapest used convertible on
• 43:28
  alternation is about 6, 000.
• 43:30
  And it's a Chrysler ET convertible, but it looks like a pram.
• 43:36
  And I just wonder what would that like be like to do on a road trip?
• 43:39
  There's many cars that fall into that category.
• 43:41
  One of Brad's favorite, the Nissan Murano cross cabriolet comes to mind.
• 43:46
  No, no, that is not a guilty pleasure car.
• 43:49
  That is just a travesty to the automotive community.
• 43:53
  It's like two big fingers up.
• 43:54
  Isn't it?
• 43:55
  They ultimately basically, yeah.
• 43:56
  Nissan said the CEO's daughter wanted to own a convertible Murano.
• 44:00
  So they made one.
• 44:01
  So Brad, what is your guilty pleasure card?
• 44:03
  Do you have one?
• 44:03
  I feel that I would look extremely silly driving around in a Volkswagen Cabrio.
• 44:10
  But I would love to have one.
• 44:12
  I say the same thing about one of your most hated cars, which is the Fiero.
• 44:16
  I think it would be fun to borrow and drive around and then just give it back.
• 44:21
  Just to say that I did.
• 44:22
  We need to convince our resident wheeler dealer to buy one so we can drive it.
• 44:26
  That's right.
• 44:27
  And prove that you don't fit in it either.
• 44:28
  Right.
• 44:29
  That's true.
• 44:29
  That being said.
• 44:30
  It really leads me into another question, which is something I've
• 44:33
  experienced more than once, and I've taken ownership and have test driven and
• 44:37
  written about what we call hero cars.
• 44:40
  So have you ever had that never drive your heroes experience, Dan?
• 44:44
  I don't think I've driven a car that's disappointed me.
• 44:47
  I think every hero car I've driven has been fantastic.
• 44:50
  So things like, you know, when I was growing up, I managed to do this
• 44:53
  work experience, as you talked about.
• 44:55
  An internship, as you may call it at Porsche cars, great Britain.
• 44:58
  And that set me on this track for life of what is that dream
• 45:01
  car you want to go and own?
• 45:02
  And the nine 11 was it?
• 45:03
  And about four years ago, I was able to buy a nine 11 and that
• 45:07
  was my hero car for many years.
• 45:08
  I was working hard and it didn't disappoint.
• 45:11
  I think from that perspective, the hero car met and exceeded expectations, but I
• 45:15
  don't think there's been anything where it's not got to a point where I was like,
• 45:18
  you know, that car really is overrated.
• 45:20
  For me, it's been all the movie star cars.
• 45:22
  They tend to break the illusion that you had about what a Ferrari 308 should
• 45:27
  drive like, or a Smoky and the Bandit Trans Am, even a DeLorean DMC 12 for that
• 45:31
  matter, or any number of cars that are on that list from, let's say, the 80s.
• 45:36
  Maybe they're because they're cars of a certain era, you know, late seventies,
• 45:39
  early eighties, that kind of thing.
• 45:41
  They all are plagued with issues and problems and their own
• 45:44
  quirks, but that's also what makes them charming to the collector.
• 45:47
  There's very few cars I've walked away from that I've seen on TV or in a
• 45:51
  movie or that I considered hero cars.
• 45:54
  And I went.
• 45:54
  Yeah, that was an awesome ride.
• 45:56
  That was an amazing car, even a Renault turbo too, which is super quirky.
• 46:01
  And it was a lot of fun to drive.
• 46:02
  There were a lot of things in the negative column that left me going, I
• 46:05
  would never want to own one of these.
• 46:07
  I gladly drive it all day long, but it takes an extra special, something to
• 46:11
  cross that bridge when you're collecting cars to say, yeah, I got to have that.
• 46:15
  Now I'll launch a Delta Integrale.
• 46:17
  That's.
• 46:18
  They'd be a different story.
• 46:19
  I haven't driven one yet.
• 46:20
  I could be disappointed.
• 46:21
  So I still hold that one in pretty high regard.
• 46:23
  I don't think this is a hero car, but it definitely disappointed me driving it.
• 46:28
  And that would be basically any Corvette I've driven after watching
• 46:33
  the top gear reviews of them and any review actually by anybody European.
• 46:38
  They always seem to rag on it and say, it's not as good as the nine 11.
• 46:41
  And, you know, after driving a couple of many different
• 46:43
  generations, I totally get it.
• 46:45
  They're totally right.
• 46:45
  It's just not having actually driven a nine 11 now is no, they're not anywhere
• 46:50
  near, and then another car that is a hero car, but I wouldn't say it disappointed
• 46:54
  me, but it is definitely not for me is a Dodge Viper after driving one.
• 46:59
  That's where I draw the line.
• 47:00
  It's just too much car for me, especially it being somebody
• 47:04
  else's car that I ended up driving.
• 47:06
  I was way too uncomfortable driving it.
• 47:09
  And I don't, I don't mean like my fit.
• 47:10
  Yes, I was uncomfortable sitting in it, but just like driving it, I was
• 47:13
  uncomfortable and on edge the whole time.
• 47:15
  When I lived in the UK, I would come to the U S for vacation and about three or
• 47:18
  four times I would rent Corvettes from Hertz and I would have the opposite.
• 47:23
  And I don't know whether it's just the moment, right?
• 47:25
  You're there in the moment.
• 47:26
  You're on vacation, you've come from the UK, you're in Southern
• 47:28
  California and the sun is shining and you're driving a convertible
• 47:31
  and it's a convertible Corvette.
• 47:33
  But I always really enjoyed them, but I kind of took them for what they were.
• 47:36
  I wasn't expecting, you know, the most sophisticated driving machine.
• 47:40
  I was expecting, um, I guess a muscle car.
• 47:42
  That might be part of our problem is that because we always approach
• 47:46
  things with a motor sports filter on.
• 47:48
  And because we coach and we're in so many cars, weekend after weekend,
• 47:52
  after weekend, we get to see all the bad sides of a vehicle, whether
• 47:56
  they're stock or modified or otherwise.
• 47:59
  And there are cars that you get extremely excited about coaching and
• 48:02
  then they tend to disappoint you.
• 48:04
  And you're like, really?
• 48:05
  You know, the driver is sometimes like, Oh, would you like to drive it?
• 48:07
  And you're like, well, okay, sure.
• 48:09
  And it still doesn't change the perspective.
• 48:11
  It is different from the left seat, but it is what it is.
• 48:14
  I agree with Brad.
• 48:14
  There's only been a couple of cars that have transcended.
• 48:17
  One of them for me was the Skyline R32.
• 48:20
  That car I walked away from completely satisfied.
• 48:23
  This is everything I expected it to be.
• 48:25
  And 10 more things on that list.
• 48:27
  That was an incredible car.
• 48:28
  To this day, I think it's still an incredible car.
• 48:31
  What else what's next?
• 48:32
  What other projects are you working?
• 48:34
  I can't be just focused on the podcast.
• 48:36
  Yeah, I've got some fun racing coming up.
• 48:38
  I'm going to be going to a few races for the super bikes.
• 48:40
  The thing I will say about bike racing is four years ago, before I went to a race,
• 48:46
  I would have been the first to dismiss that sport as in that's just not for me.
• 48:50
  I love formula one.
• 48:51
  I love rally cars.
• 48:52
  I love touring cars.
• 48:53
  I don't really have a space in my heart for motorbikes.
• 48:56
  I was lucky enough to be invited to go to a local race in this super
• 49:00
  bike series, the Moto America, and I just saw a different world of racing.
• 49:04
  I saw riders who are so in tuned with these bikes.
• 49:07
  There's so much involvement, so much balance.
• 49:10
  It's so much more physical than driving a car, with no disrespect
• 49:14
  to any race driver in the world.
• 49:15
  And I've been hooked.
• 49:16
  For the last four years I've been watching either on TV or going to
• 49:20
  the races because obviously they're not two hours drive away always.
• 49:23
  But I've been hooked.
• 49:23
  There's different classes but each class has its own interest.
• 49:27
  You know there's these early stage career classes where there's a girl
• 49:30
  called Kyla Yakov and she's kicking the butt of all these young boys.
• 49:34
  It's so great to watch.
• 49:36
  And then at some races like Laguna, they'll have baggers racing, you
• 49:39
  know, Harley Davidson type bikes, and they're going around the track
• 49:43
  how they can break, how they can take those corners, how they can go down.
• 49:47
  The corkscrew is just unbelievable.
• 49:48
  And then you've got the big boys doing the super bikes.
• 49:50
  You, that's what I've got coming up.
• 49:52
  I'm gonna be going to two, uh, races in the season of that.
• 49:55
  And as I say before, before four years ago, I would've told you if
• 49:58
  you'd have said to me, Hey, Dan, go and watch some super bikes.
• 50:00
  I'd be like, you'll be mad if I'll enjoy that.
• 50:02
  But I love it.
• 50:03
  On your first episode, you were talking about the bucket list guests or the
• 50:07
  interview or the goal for your show.
• 50:08
  So where do you envision yourself next season?
• 50:12
  You know, who is on your list of people that you really want to interview
• 50:15
  and get behind the microphone?
• 50:17
  You obviously think about that when you conceive a podcast, right?
• 50:20
  You don't just conceive a podcast because you want to talk about cars.
• 50:23
  You think about it because you know that there are cool people who you
• 50:25
  would love to have on your show.
• 50:27
  For me, I think the first thing I would love is someone that I don't expect, but
• 50:31
  someone of notoriety reaching out to me to say, Hey, I'd love to go on your podcast.
• 50:35
  I don't know who that is, but I know when that email comes in,
• 50:38
  I'll be like calling them within 30 seconds of the email coming in.
• 50:42
  So that's kind of the first thing I think if I look at.
• 50:44
  My bucket list, or at least my mental bucket list, it's people that I find
• 50:48
  interesting that I enjoy their content.
• 50:50
  So one example, I've talked about this on my podcast a bit, is
• 50:53
  there's a lady called Sarah Entuned.
• 50:56
  She has a YouTube channel.
• 50:58
  I think she'd be super interesting to have.
• 51:00
  Because she kind of has her own quirks.
• 51:02
  I think she has an element of Britishness about her, even though she's American.
• 51:05
  If you watch her YouTube channel, she evaluates each car and she has categories.
• 51:09
  And I kind of feel like some of that may be influenced by British TV, like
• 51:13
  maybe Top Gear or something like that.
• 51:15
  So she would be one guest.
• 51:16
  I would love to have someone like Doug DeMuro, you know, someone who is
• 51:20
  your guy next door, but has managed to make a very successful career out
• 51:23
  of YouTube and now car auction sites, and I would love to get, although
• 51:27
  they say never meet your heroes.
• 51:29
  Imagine if I could get someone like Lewis Hamilton.
• 51:30
  I mean, I think we're probably talking episode or at least season six by
• 51:34
  then, but, uh, that's the dream maybe.
• 51:36
  So maybe Lewis Hamilton would be the ultimate, but I wondered, like, if
• 51:39
  you were to recommend three episodes, which episodes would you recommend?
• 51:42
  Would you like celebrities or regular people?
• 51:44
  Would you want something completely off the cuff?
• 51:46
  Our show is a little non sequitur, so it all depends.
• 51:48
  I'm thinking like, if I've never heard your podcast before, which
• 51:51
  three episodes best represent it?
• 51:53
  If you're a motorsports fan, I'll give you the top five.
• 51:56
  Lynn St.
• 51:57
  James.
• 51:57
  Andy Pilgrim, Randy Lanier, Mario Andretti.
• 52:02
  And if I throw in a collector car one in there, Dennis Gage.
• 52:05
  I'm surprised you didn't go with Joey Jordan.
• 52:07
  Joey's is a Top Gear special.
• 52:09
  That's the bonus episode you listen to because it is so
• 52:12
  different than everything else.
• 52:14
  That is a coming of age story.
• 52:16
  That is a man struggling with his own demons.
• 52:19
  It's an amazing adventure that he went on basically by himself
• 52:23
  from LA all the way to Patagonia.
• 52:26
  I don't want to spoil it.
• 52:27
  Yeah.
• 52:27
  Listen to Joey Jordan's great South American adventure.
• 52:30
  It's called.
• 52:30
  Well, I know what I'm doing for the next few evenings.
• 52:33
  And there's always episodes that will surprise you.
• 52:35
  And I don't want to offend any of our guests because they've all been amazing.
• 52:39
  If you're looking for those.
• 52:40
  Oh my God moments.
• 52:42
  Some of those that I mentioned are just wow.
• 52:45
  Like I didn't really know that person.
• 52:47
  Even Dennis Gage, you know him from afar, 30 years on the air of my classic car.
• 52:52
  But do you really know him?
• 52:53
  And he talks about his humble beginnings on a farm in Indiana
• 52:56
  and where it led from there, and he's just like, wow, what a story.
• 52:59
  We shouldn't be targeting celebrities, although there are
• 53:02
  a lot of fun to talk to, right?
• 53:03
  It's sometimes it's the thing that gets you to the next thing.
• 53:06
  And sometimes that guest will bring you to a place you never expected
• 53:10
  and introduce you to people that were behind the scenes that may be more
• 53:13
  interesting than that person that's at the top of your bucket list.
• 53:16
  So you never know.
• 53:16
  And that's part of the adventure of podcasting, right?
• 53:19
  Aside from all the technical stuff that happens behind the scenes.
• 53:22
  Well, Dan, we have reached that part of the episode where I get to ask you our
• 53:26
  final question, which is any shout outs, promotions, or anything else you'd like
• 53:29
  to share that we haven't covered thus far.
• 53:31
  I'm an ambassador for the Peterson Automotive Museum in LA.
• 53:34
  Generally what that means is it's kind of not really official, but I help
• 53:38
  them secure car collections up here.
• 53:40
  So we introduce them, I create networks.
• 53:41
  We videoed Peter's collection of BMWs on an iPhone and it's had 77, 000 views.
• 53:46
  So if you do a search for Peterson Automotive Museum.
• 53:49
  BMW car heaven, you'll see his collection.
• 53:51
  And we also filmed a rally car collection.
• 53:53
  So you talked about group B, we filmed dirt fishes, a rally school up here
• 53:56
  and the owner has a car collection.
• 53:58
  So we got to film that car collection as well.
• 54:00
  Some of the group B cars that he's got.
• 54:02
  If people are after an extra podcast, after listening to yours, then
• 54:05
  I'd ask them to check mine out.
• 54:07
  And I would just put a quick nod to my mentors, Ryan and Doug
• 54:11
  from the steering committee.
• 54:12
  If you want a third podcast, check those out.
• 54:14
  Eight years ago, Dan Pilling moved over to the U.
• 54:17
  S.
• 54:17
  and has been learning all about our car culture ever since.
• 54:20
  This includes road trips, car events, as well as becoming an ambassador for the
• 54:24
  Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.
• 54:27
  Dan launched his own podcast earlier this year, Danny P.
• 54:30
  on Cars, capturing the stories of people he's met along the way.
• 54:33
  If you want to learn more about Dan, follow him on socials at D nine N
• 54:38
  N Y P on Instagram at Dan Pilling on LinkedIn and Dan Pi on Twitter.
• 54:44
  Be sure to catch his show, Danny p on cars everywhere you stream or listen to
• 54:47
  podcasts along with his YouTube channel.
• 54:50
  Thanks, Brad.
• 54:50
  And thank you, Dan, for coming on break fix and sharing your story with
• 54:56
  us and joining the mosaic of other stories that are in the catalog.
• 55:00
  And we hope to do some future crossovers with you.
• 55:02
  Maybe have you back.
• 55:03
  Maybe we'll be on your show, but you're here in lockstep with a lot
• 55:07
  of us in this community, trying to get these stories out to people
• 55:11
  that have never heard them before.
• 55:12
  It is an epic task.
• 55:14
  And I thank you for being part of this, for helping get this.
• 55:18
  information out there to people and more importantly, keeping the vehicle and
• 55:22
  motorsport enthusiast community vibrant.
• 55:24
  Because if we don't share these stories, then it all just starts to fade to gray.
• 55:28
  So thank you for what you're doing.
• 55:30
  Yeah.
• 55:30
  Thank you for, um, the opportunity, you know, very honored to be on your podcast.
• 55:34
  And as I know, as I'm bringing my guests on, it's not an easy thing to run a
• 55:38
  podcast and you've always got this kind of fear that is your guest going to be okay.
• 55:42
  You know, are they going to do okay.
• 55:43
  And.
• 55:44
  No, thank you for guiding me through the podcast.
• 55:46
  And it's been great fun.
• 55:47
  Thank you for sharing.
• 55:48
  Yeah, no worries.
• 55:49
  Thanks gentlemen.
• 55:54
  If you like what you've heard and want to learn more about GTM,
• 55:57
  be sure to check us out on www.
• 56:01
  gtmotorsports.
• 56:01
  org.
• 56:01
  You can also find us on Instagram at grandtorymotorsports.
• 56:05
  Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can
• 56:09
  call or text us at 202 630 1770 or send us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports.
• 56:17
  org.
• 56:17
  We'd love to hear from you.
• 56:19
  Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here.
• 56:21
  We really hope you enjoyed this episode of BreakFix, and we wanted
• 56:25
  to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization, and our goal
• 56:30
  is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge.
• 56:35
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