Transcript

Steve Pizzati · Rusty's Garage

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A listener production.
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I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust and this is Rusty's Garage.
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One of the great things about motoring and motorsport is not just the cars, but the characters around them.
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Steve Bazzardi started out as a propeller head working on the data side of racing.
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He was then selected out of 4,000 people to be one of the hosts of Top Gear Australia.
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Now he works with various brands, namely Audi, on drive experience programs.
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You know Steve's a car lover when you hear his first car was a P-Green Mark II Ford Cortina, but it had faux GT stripes.
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I thought I'd had one of the rare GTs.
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The guy sold it as a GT, had GT stripes for goodness sake.
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And then when I sort of looked into it a little more deeply, and you sort of looked at the VIN numbers and all that sort of stuff,
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It's not a GT, it's just a garden variety car.
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I was so disappointed.
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I kept the GT stripes, so I didn't strip them off.
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So, yeah, it's sort of a...
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I think it's a rite of passage.
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I think for a lot of people, and I kind of feel this way as well, your first car can't be younger or newer than you.
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It has to be older than you.
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So when you turn 18, I think it needs to be older than 18 years old.
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So that was certainly the case for me, a 1971 car.
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Yeah, quite an old car.
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What did you do to it?
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Where did it end up?
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How long did you hold on to it for?
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I wish I still had it like most people, you know.
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No, of course I modified it, you know what I mean?
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It was the first thing I did was, okay, it's got a 1600 full-cylinder engine.
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What can I do to it?
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So, you know, extractors, carburetter, exhaust pipes.
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So all it did in the end was use more fuel but not actually go any faster.
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So that's...
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You learn very quickly that standard cars have their advantages.
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They do very well.
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The engineers back at wherever, Ford, Holden, what have you, they're clever blokes, funnily enough.
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That's why they're automotive engineers.
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And you with a car, you said, or a set of extractors or a laptop these days, if you want to retune it, aren't necessarily, and more likely aren't going to do better than they have.
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So I learned that lesson very quickly.
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Was the family a Ford family or was why the passion for the Cortina or was it simply that that's all you could afford at the time?
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Yeah, exactly.
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I really wanted an RS2000 and in the day they were about five grand and I only had about two grand to spend and so I couldn't afford.
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That was way out of my price league.
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So, no, interestingly, I come from a Holden family.
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Everyone's ever had, has only ever had Holdens.
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I think of myself as a Holden man, yet I've only owned, I've owned three Fords and never a Holden.
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Wow.
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So I'm sort of this oddity here, which I'm sure I've just annoyed.
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Well, both sides of the fence now.
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The Ford fans are going, you're a Holden family.
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You come from a Holden family.
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And all the Holden fans are going, you've had three Fords.
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So what are you?
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So, yeah, I sort of equate myself as a Holden man.
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But, yeah, I've owned Fords.
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Weird.
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My earliest recollections of you were, I guess, in the late 90s, maybe early 2000s, and as I say, you were crunching away on some numbers on a computer and things like that.
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At what point did you realise growing up that, because we're lucky to do something we're passionate about, to convert or to blend occupation and passion is not something that everyone gets to do?
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What was the tipping point for you and how did you get into it?
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I just couldn't see myself.
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I was doing engineering and science and all sorts of stuff at uni, and I just couldn't see myself sitting behind a laptop for the rest of my life, just sort of banging away.
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I loved it.
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I loved the design element.
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I loved the lateral thinking that engineering sort of requires.
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But I'm also, as pilots put it, a stick and rudder man.
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And so I just wanted to do it and feel it and just...
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get there and I didn't know how to do it but in the end I just took that plunge and sort of went okay let's just so I bought a cart and ended up buying a a an rx3 race car and started down that path and I thought the only way to actually stay in the sport I didn't have much money was to also do the engineering side of things so um I you know I was pretty good with uh sort of analysis and data stuff and I met some um well funnily enough to get my cams license in Victoria I went to Jim
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Cameron McConville.
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Wow.
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We know both well.
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We both know really well.
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And so he was basically the same age as me.
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And I just love the idea of this young gun.
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He was the original young gun back in those days, 91, 92, and won the Formula Ford Championship.
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And he was a real mentor to me even though we were the same age.
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I thought, how do I catch up to this guy?
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I've just got to stick around the industry and learn as much as I can.
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So I ended up doing data analysis for him and engineering for him.
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And that sort of helped me with my own sort of learning and race driving.
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And so the two sort of went hand in hand.
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Exactly, hand in hand.
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And that's where it started.
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Did those skills that you learnt and, you know, a lot of crafting back then too because you're trying to find your way.
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But does that stuff still serve you well today?
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No.
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Massively so.
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So a lot of the stuff we do these days, I've got up to 20 race drivers that work for me as instructors on these manufacturer drive programs, as you say, Audi being sort of the top of those.
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But a lot of the stuff that you need to do is, I mean, cars are changing so quickly.
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There's been more technological changes in the last five years with cars than the preceding 50 years.
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So you as a driving instructor aren't just doing driver training, you're also having to help people decipher all this new stuff that's coming out.
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So the engineering side of things, that sort of scientific brain, is really helpful to sort of decipher that and then distill it in a way that average people can understand.
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So it actually has served me quite well in the end.
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Not that it wasn't by design, it wasn't that clever back in the day, but it's helped me now, definitely.
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We'll talk more about the drive experience stuff soon.
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Let's come back to, my ears pricked up when you said Mazda RX3.
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So a little bit of history on that car.
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A rotary, quite different to the Cortina.
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What were the learnings in all of that?
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And tell us more about the car.
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Well, the car was the Tasmanian state champion.
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So an improved production car, it was called in the day, Group 3A.
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I'd seen it in auto action, you know, and then it had won the championship, and then in the back of it had the classifieds, and it was for sale.
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I thought, this is the fastest car in, well, in Tassie.
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But nonetheless, I thought this is a, and I love the Mazda, you know, I love the idea of a rotary engine, vastly different to a normal, obviously, reciprocating piston engine.
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So I love that sort of idea.
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It's a really fast car, really cool car, and something completely different.
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So in the end, I ended up travelling over to Tassie.
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I didn't have a car or a trailer.
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I went over there on the Spirit, met the guy.
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We went around basketball.
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He showed me that, you know, he just...
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I chucked me in, barely with a helmet on, in my shorts.
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We did two laps.
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The car seems pretty good.
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It's damn fast and noisy.
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I drove.
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He put trade plates on it because his uncle was a car dealer.
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And I actually physically drove it onto the spirit of Tasmania with, you know, belching out all this sort of smoke.
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You know that, Matt, Matt.
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Map, map noise, eh, mate?
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So I was the most unpopular guy on the boat.
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Drove it off the boat in Melbourne and then basically ducked up the road because it didn't have legal plates.
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I had to return those trade plates.
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On a quiet Sunday morning from Station Pier to my mum's house in Fitzroy in Carlton on the road with all the spares inside and all that sort of stuff.
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So the thing promptly...
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you know sort of blew a gearbox and all that sort of stuff so what i learned very quickly is that generally speaking those front running cars are driven pretty hard to be front driving front running cars you know the race drivers that at the front tend to sort of you need to sort of push those cars pretty hard uh and so if you're going to buy a race car buy something that's been looked after by someone that's very passionate very meticulous but it's at the back of the grid because it hasn't been flogged
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You invariably need deep pockets for that stuff too.
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How hard was all that period?
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I was, yeah, exactly.
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All my money, living at home, all my money went into the race car.
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And so you learn very quickly that if you can do it yourself, you save a lot of money.
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I try to do as much as I could.
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But, yeah, just the maintenance of it all.
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I mean, that was just ties, you know, two grand for a set, which is nothing now.
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But, I mean, back then that was a lot of money to shell that out, basically every race meet and all that sort of stuff.
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So that's where the driver training came in.
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I thought, hang on, how...
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How do I keep learning, make some money, but stay in the sport and meet the best people?
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And that's where I thought, OK, maybe I'll start teaching stuff, very basic stuff.
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And that sort of went again.
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So the engineering side of things, me driving, then the driver training all complemented each other because you were just, the more you can stay in, the more you can, and I'm sure you know this better than most, the more you can, the more contacts you make in an industry or in our case, a sport,
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doors open.
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It's just as simple as that.
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You meet people, doors open, and that's how it started from back then.
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I want to say, if the numbers are correct, have you been doing driver training in various capacities for 20 years now?
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How long has it been?
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1996.
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Yeah, started in 1996.
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What's that?
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Almost 22 years.
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Yeah, exactly.
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So...
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It's something, I mean, you mentioned this before, and you're certainly in this category, and I am too.
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We're very fortunate that our passion is our job and that you'd never tell your boss this, but you'd probably do it for nothing.
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And unfortunately, you've got to pay bills and mortgages or whatever, but that's not the reason we get out of bed.
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And certainly not in my case.
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Some of my mates from uni now are project managers doing engineering stuff all over the world, earning five, ten times what I'm earning, yet they look at me and go, I wish I had your job, Steve.
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Yeah.
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You know, it's quite interesting.
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So it goes to show that money is in everything.
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So both of us do what we love.
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Nice that we get paid to do that, but it's not the root cause of why we do it.
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I think it's because we just love it and people notice that passion and then give you a job doing it, luckily for us.
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How much has that changed Steve Pizzati because was the young guy living at home with the Mazda RX3 who is now very good either on camera or in the sort of situations like we are here.
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We're at Sydney Motorsport Park today.
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You're doing the Audi driving experience.
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You've got to address customers of varying levels that are very important to the business.
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But it strikes me that you're the same guy off camera that I'm talking to now.
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Yeah, I mean, I'm not a very good actor.
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And so, yeah, it's just me.
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And whether people like it or not, it served me well just to be me and let my passion and interest come through and sort of try to impart my experience, my knowledge.
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And so if you can do it in a way that's a bit humorous and a bit interesting and a bit left to feel, then all the better for me.
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And, hey, I'm still here.
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You know, people, manufacturers still employ me, so I must be doing something right.
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It wasn't by design.
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Where I am now was I did not plan to be here.
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And I think a lot of people feel that in their own industries, that they've ended up in a position they never thought they would be in from the start, yet it's sort of evolved naturally in its own way and you end up in sometimes these really cool positions like we have.
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Top Gear, legendary show globally, and obviously there have been breakout versions of it in certain markets, America and Australia and so on.
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So as I said at the top, 4,000 people wanted to be a part of that.
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What was that process like?
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And was it on a whim that you decided, oh, I'll have a crack at this?
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Like, what made you put your hand up?
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It's an interesting one.
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I was a massive fan of the show and still am.
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And everyone said, oh, Steve, they've got...
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They're going to do an Australian version.
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You should go.
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You'd be great at it.
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I've got... No way.
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They're not going to do it.
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It's going to be rigged.
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I'm telling you now.
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They're trying to whip up some interest.
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You know, you can be a top gear host, but they've already chosen the three.
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This is just a scam.
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Like, seriously, it's just a publicity stunt.
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No, no, do it, do it, do it.
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And in the end, I had so many people going, what you do on our drive days would be...
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basically what happens on top gear tell funny stories about the cars and the driving that you do so i put a little video together knowing or expecting that i would that's it that'd be the end of it well two weeks later i get a phone call oh steve would you like to come in for an interview okay sure so i go into the interview and and and and you know i thought i'd completely ruined it that's the end of that i won't hear about it again two weeks later steve would like to have a second interview
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Hang on a minute, this is getting a bit serious, but again, don't get your hopes up.
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It's rigged, Steve.
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Remember, it's rigged.
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Thought I'd completely ruin that.
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That was on camera.
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I'd never done any camera work before.
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And then I said, Oh, we'd love you to come to a weekend camp with the Dirty Dozen, as they call them, the 12 finalists from across the country.
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And I went on this camp, and it was really weird because there's all these amazing, funny people on this.
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Did you know other people that were apart?
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Yeah, there was a couple of motoring journalists that I'd known, that I'd met through my driver training.
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But again, everyone else was just... And I thought everyone was way funnier, way more interesting, far more talented.
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And one of the things we had to do, for example, was do some go-kart racing.
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And they put a mic on all 12 of us, and we had to sort of commentate what was happening.
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As it turned out, I won the go-kart race.
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But I sort of expected there weren't too many guys with racing experience.
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But anyway, the short version was that, yeah, I got a phone call about two or three weeks later saying, I'd like to offer you a job on Top Gear.
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And I just, I still honestly can't believe that they actually picked me in the end.
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It sounds silly, but sincerely, I just want, no way would they pick someone like me.
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And they did.
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describe the video, because that's their first impressions of you, and what did your storyboard in your head?
13:34
Was it sort of you and some crook Corolla and a walk around, or what were you doing?
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Well, I mean, I thought, okay, the show's based on, I mean, a lot of it's Clarkson being bombastic, being sort of passionate about something that he loves or hates, typically hates, yeah?
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So I thought, at the time, I wasn't an...
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I'm not a massive SUV fan, and I thought, especially those big performance ones, it's kind of incongruous that you've got this thing with a big V8.
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So I thought...
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I'm going to prove to you how much I hate these and why these are useless.
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I'm going to race a high-performance SUV in something I've never used before, and that's a unicycle.
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So I was on Chapel Street, and a friend of mine dressed up as the Stig, and that was just this crook white uniform thing.
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So he was crawling along Chapel Street at 5km an hour, and here's me on a unicycle that I'd sincerely never ridden before, and I'd take two pedals and I'd fall on my face.
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And two pedals and fall on my face.
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And I kept sort of doing some silly things, and I kind of beat it for the first, I don't know, 30 or 40 metres.
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So see, there you go.
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No point having an SUV.
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I, who have never ridden a unicycle, can beat one.
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These are rubbish.
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And that was it.
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That was the video.
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I mean, it didn't go for very long.
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I knew you'd had to be punchy, but that was the idea behind it.
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Be a bit, I wouldn't say controversial, but again, let your passion show and let the chips fall as they may.
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So you get the gig, which is phenomenal.
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What was the objective?
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I mean, did the producers in England have a bit of influence?
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Was it...
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I mean, they try and not be formulaic.
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They're always trying to push the boundaries and things like that.
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But was there a level of influence from them or was it, no, this has got to be an Australian style thing?
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Yeah, and that was one of the things that sort of caught us out.
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And I think most people would agree.
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I mean, one of the things we wanted to do from the get-go, I mean, we knew we'd be compared.
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And I remember saying in the interviews, I've met Andy Willman, the sort of the godfather of the show, Clarkson's best mate.
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And I said, he goes, what would you change?
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I said, all of it.
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He goes, really?
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Why?
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I said, well, it's three blokes, a Stig and a Test Track.
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Everyone knows that's Top Gear, so we don't need to hammer it.
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I'd change the theme music, I'd change the set, I'd change all of it so people immediately understand that it's our own version of it.
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He sort of took that on board and, yeah, I can see what you're saying.
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But in the end, BBC Worldwide, sort of the commercial arm of the BBC, said, no, it's a format show like The X Factor or MasterChef.
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We own that.
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We own that, you've got to stick to that and that sort of thing.
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So no, there wasn't any pressure.
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No one said you have to be clerks on Hammond or May, but we were so constrained by so many of the other sort of hard points of the show that the minute you turned it on, you heard that music, Jessica, that theme that everyone knows, instantly people go, I know what to expect.
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And the minute you heard us talking in an Aussie accent, oh, this isn't what I'm expecting.
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So you're already on the back foot and that's a bad place and you know what it's like with an audience.
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You don't want them on the back foot having to go from back to ground level zero.
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You want them above that so you can take them further.
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So to be in a negative space from the get-go has made things very, very difficult.
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And we learnt along the way.
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Like those first episodes of Top Gear in the UK, they're quite clunky, aren't they?
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And we had to learn as we did it.
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We didn't know how it would go.
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So yeah, they were clunky.
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Some of them were pretty awful.
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Yeah.
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But as we found our style and our sort of tempo, if you like, that did start to steer in our own direction.
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But for some people, that was too late.
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You know, you tried to copy them, even though we weren't trying to do that.
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And so we were written off.
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So that was kind of a difficult thing to recover from.
16:51
you got to do some great things along the way, be it domestically here.
16:55
I mean, do you sit in on meetings and sort of come up with harebrained ideas about what you'd like to destroy, what you'd like to do?
17:02
I mean, what is that process like?
17:04
That was definitely one of the...
17:05
I mean, we used to have those brainstorming meetings and sessions, what have you, and we would literally go, OK, what...
17:12
just forget budget for a moment.
17:13
What would you like to do?
17:14
And some of the stuff we cooked up was nuts.
17:16
And some of that ended up on screen.
17:17
Like I remember Warren Brown, the cartoonist from the Daily Telly, going, I think we should go and see for Shark Adita Car.
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And you go, well, heck, I said, well, you're doing that.
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I'm not testing that bloody thing out.
17:31
So we ended up turning a mini moak into a shark cage and all this sort of stuff.
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And he went diving and great white sharks were banging into his moak.
17:38
So we did have some opportunity to do that sort of stuff.
17:45
It was great, but in the end, there were certain constraints that you couldn't do, obviously, budget being number one, but also some things just don't sound good in your head.
17:55
And I'm sure a lot of people go, oh, this would make a great Top Gear story.
17:57
But when you go, okay, now I need to translate it into a seven-minute story that we can film and sort of get across to the audience, it doesn't necessarily work out that way.
18:08
highlight car or yarn that you did in that period just tell us about that easiest one that's easy um one of the things most people probably saw the ashes special uh you know where we got to go against the english crew um and one of the things that we did in preparation for that um was to go to the isle of man where they run the tt race that famous motorbike race and
18:28
And we wanted to run over the mountain section, the really hardcore bit, yeah?
18:32
And so there was an act of parliament to shut that road down.
18:35
So it's only ever happened for the TT and good old little Aussie Top Gear Australia.
18:40
So they shut the road down, and I was in a radical SR3 race car, and it was raining and foggy and misty and all this sort of stuff, and I thought...
18:48
How have I ended up here?
18:49
I'm on the Isle of Man TT Road in a race car, empty, no one around.
18:54
And we were doing this filming and it sort of got me really annoyed because we were just doing these 50k an hour passes.
18:58
And I said, you know what, stuff this.
19:00
Clicked back a couple of gears and said, I'm out of here.
19:02
I was like, I'm never going to get a chance to do this ever again.
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I don't care if the producer cracks it, I'm going to go.
19:07
So I got to drive for about 15 minutes without the producer, without cameraman.
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And you know how rare that is.
19:12
Rusty.
19:14
And honestly, it sounds silly, but I thought if I go over a cliff and die in a fiery wreck, I'd be happy with that.
19:21
It doesn't get any better.
19:23
This will never happen.
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So that's it.
19:25
Driving that radical SR3 over the Isle of Man TT road through the fog.
19:29
I've never beaten that ever since.
19:30
For people that don't know, just a bit of background on the Radical.
19:33
I mean, it's a lightweight, open-top, sort of Le Mans-looking car, isn't it?
19:39
And power to weight, it's quite impressive.
19:41
Oh, absolutely.
19:41
It's like, as you say, a Le Mans prototype car.
19:45
Incredibly light.
19:46
It's faster than any road car out there.
19:48
You think of the fastest Ferraris and all that sort of stuff.
19:51
This is faster because it's basically a race car with indicators and headlights.
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You know what I mean?
19:56
So this was not a comfortable car, but I didn't care.
19:57
I was strapped in.
19:59
I couldn't see in front of myself.
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Rain was hitting my head and I couldn't see a thing, but I didn't care.
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I thought, that's it.
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This is how I go.
20:05
And I'm happy with that.
20:08
This is Greg Rust and you're listening to Rusty's Garage.
20:11
More with Steve Pizzardi in just a few moments.
20:15
In this series, I speak to some of the most passionate automotive designers, collectors, riders and drivers I know, like Jeremy Burgess, an unsung hero of motorcycle racing, a racer turned chief mechanic with more than a dozen world championship wins to his name.
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This was a great period of growth for bike racing, wasn't it?
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It was.
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The Japanese, through their four-stroke technology in Formula One, they knew what was available.
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It was only at a test before the last race of the season in 2002 that we got fly-by-wire throttle with traction control, and Valentino came in and said, don't tell anybody about this, it's almost cheating.
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Listen to the full episode with Jeremy Burgess here on Rusty's Garage.
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Souped up.
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Making modifications to your car's engine and body panels with the objective of increasing its performance.
21:24
This usually means spending more money on your car than the car is originally worth.
21:29
proper legends and you know have been around for so long doing what they love what are Clarkson Hammond and May like to work with and what are they like off camera I've met them briefly once but what you've spent a lot more time with yeah I got to do all the Top Gear live shows and all that stuff with them so I got to know them and I you know we still keep in touch um
21:49
They're basically, as you see them on the screen, like most of us are, but what you're getting is a clipped version of them, in other words.
21:55
So Clarkson, for example, is warmer than he comes across on the tally.
21:59
And they're all sort of got that, but they don't show that.
22:02
It's far more interesting when he's just being angry, bombastic over the top.
22:05
So if he's warm, they go, hang on, I don't like a fluffy Clarkson, whatever.
22:10
They're basically as you see them, but funnily enough, they're not caricatures of themselves.
22:14
They are normal people that have got emotions like anybody else.
22:17
But they're fantastic guys, absolutely.
22:19
That show is brilliant because those three are brilliant in every way.
22:24
You can sense it from a television point of view, from the creative side, from the humor side, from the...
22:29
knowledge of cars don't don't make no mistake they are encyclopedic those guys uh Clarkson in particular uh can tell you amazing info so like you know other commentators in the world they're not just talking heads necessarily they've got deep passion and deep knowledge for what they do and it comes across on screen
22:48
What is in Steve Pizzardi's garage these days?
22:51
You're married now.
22:52
Is there a project car?
22:54
What's in the garage?
22:55
Yeah, I've got, yeah, I own a few cars.
22:57
An old Ute.
22:58
My daily driver is an Audi, of course.
23:00
So I'm lucky to have an Audi RS6, which I think is the Swiss Army knife of cars.
23:06
If you want to go on a racetrack, this thing's got 605 horsepower.
23:08
So if I want to go on a racetrack, I can do it.
23:10
If I want to go to Bunnings to pick up some junk, I can do that as well.
23:14
But I've got a project I do have.
23:16
I'm lucky enough to have come across and purchased an Alpine Renault, an A110.
23:21
It's a project car.
23:23
It's still in fiberglass, but it's an original A110.
23:27
So, yeah, that's going to be my project for the next, I don't know, 700 years at this rate.
23:32
But, yeah, I love tinkering, and that's something that I just can't wait to sort of work on and continue to get to the level where it's just going to be a really, really cool project.
23:43
project car.
23:43
And at the end of the day, that was the first World Rally Championship winning car.
23:47
1972, first World Rally Championship was won by an Alpine Renault A110.
23:52
Where did you track it down?
23:53
What state is it in and how far has the restoration process come?
23:58
It's not in good shape.
23:58
So it's a fiberglass body on the chassis.
24:03
It looks pretty rough.
24:04
The fiberglass work needs a fair bit.
24:06
I can't do that.
24:07
I'm not good at that stuff, and I don't like fiberglass anyway.
24:09
The mechanicals I'm doing, so that's okay.
24:12
So we're probably 35%, so let's call it a third of the way through the project.
24:18
So yeah, it's still got the hardest bits to go.
24:19
Once it's painted, then I can start getting the mechanicals all into it and getting all the nice bits, the interior and all the cool-looking trim and all that stuff on there.
24:28
But at the moment, it's the bodywork that's sort of the sticking point.
24:31
It needs a fair bit of attention.
24:33
And this is something that will live purely in the garage for you to admire or will there be some form of active use of this?
24:40
It will be actively used, but I promised myself and my better half that I wouldn't compete in tarmac rallies.
24:47
So seeing the great Peter Brock go over 10 years ago now, I think that really hit it home.
24:54
They are quite dangerous events, and I know what I'm like.
24:57
I don't want to stop people doing them, but I know what I'm like.
25:00
I'll go, no, take it easy.
25:01
You know, we're doing Targa.
25:02
This is fast.
25:03
You know, there's trees.
25:04
And then I'll get to the end of the day and I'll be position 21.
25:06
I go, no, stuff this.
25:07
I've got to get on with it.
25:08
And I don't trust myself to not be able to hold back enough to do that.
25:12
So, no, I'll do some touring stuff and I'll do some small competition stuff, but it's not going to be a race car by any stretch.
25:19
Why?
25:19
that car and how hard has it been to track down bits and pieces for us?
25:24
There would have been some late night internet shopping trying to find stuff overseas.
25:28
Yeah, exactly right.
25:29
And that's part of it is fussing over something.
25:31
And I think most people get that, you know what I mean?
25:33
So having a project, I mean, you may be one of those people that has to buy just a car, drive it and be done with it.
25:39
Some of us like to tinker, do the project, research, really delve into the history of it.
25:44
It's the first world rally car to win a championship.
25:48
It's really cool.
25:48
It's like a French 911 because it's got the engine in the back.
25:51
So it's just the kookiest thing.
25:53
There's less than 15.
25:54
We're not sure.
25:55
We think that's between 12 and 15 in Australia.
25:57
That's it.
25:58
So I just like the idea of something left in field that was also a project.
26:02
So you put those two together and something I can sort of fuss over and there it is.
26:05
Alpine 8110.
26:07
So Life These Days is very busy for you, coordinating, running, driving experience programs for various manufacturers.
26:17
How many days per year?
26:19
What manufacturers?
26:20
And I mean, it's a massive undertaking, mate.
26:23
Yeah, so at the moment, we mainly focus on the Volkswagen grip.
26:26
So Volkswagen and Audi, those two brands would take up 80% of my time.
26:31
Everything else is sort of other side project stuff, just sort of other bits and pieces.
26:34
So a bit of public speaking stuff and a bit of consulting work for people.
26:40
But yeah, in terms of days away, it's...
26:43
Actual work days, it's about 150, but that's just event days.
26:47
Then there's the prep behind it also.
26:48
It's a full-time job.
26:49
It's fundamentally, like anyone else, it would be over 200 days if you include all the prep and the travel and all the behind-the-scenes stuff.
26:56
Invariably, you've got to absolutely be across what the manufacturer is doing, what's in the pipeline, understanding the key aspects of the car, because you've got to explain.
27:05
That's quite a big job, mate, isn't it?
27:06
Absolutely.
27:07
And what their future direction is.
27:09
For example, everyone's going down the hybrid path and how are they doing it, why they think their technology is different or better than anyone else's.
27:15
And again, you've got to sort of understand.
27:17
And then I'm like an architect, you know, in many ways.
27:20
An architect, you go, they're good at designing houses and building them, but you're the one that can tell them what...
27:25
you know, what you need and how you live.
27:27
Well, I'm the architect.
27:28
I know how to design drive programs.
27:30
And the manufacturers, Audi and Volkswagen, are like homeowners or people that want to buy a home.
27:35
They go, Steve, I want to show this off.
27:37
I want to do something with these people in that environment to do that.
27:40
And so I've got to cook up the event.
27:43
And I love that part of it.
27:44
That creative element is a big part of the buzz of this job for me.
27:49
The experiential part is very important to the manufacturer, isn't it?
27:52
To give the potential customer, to give the existing customer a want to be pumped about the machine to stay on board, isn't it?
27:59
Absolutely, yeah.
28:00
And it's like TV or radio, you know, in the old days you sat on the couch, they sort of showed you stuff, you watched it.
28:06
The same with cars.
28:07
You went to the show and bought the car, end of story.
28:09
Now it's far more immersive.
28:10
Once you buy a car, you want to buy into the brand, you want to
28:13
you know, be taken on events, experiences, try different things, become part of a club in many ways, you know what I mean?
28:19
And so that's a big part of, so what we do is on the up, driving events especially with car manufacturers.
28:27
So yeah, that's a big part of it is hosting customers, looking after them, getting to know what they want, how they use their cars, the problems that they have, and then trying to cook up something that gives...
28:37
leaves them pumped you know that's what we love the single best thing I tell my instructors this every day the single best thing about our job is the fact that every single day we are meeting people that are really happy to be there in not many work environments do you go to your job every single day and everyone's pumped to be there but we do we get 24, 35, 40 people per day they're just they're jumping out of their skin to be with you and that rubs off on you and it's a great way to pass your days
29:06
but they've got varying levels of driving ability too.
29:09
So you must get quite good at body language or understanding if someone's nervous or if they're too overconfident and how to deal with those kind of situations.
29:16
Yeah, absolutely.
29:17
And we talk about body language.
29:19
It's funny you say that.
29:21
I can pick what kind of driver you are by the way you walk up to me, believe it or not, to about a 70% accuracy.
29:26
The way you get in the car, I'm at about 80%.
29:29
The way you put your seatbelt on, I'm at about 90% accuracy.
29:32
And then by the time you've gone around the first corner, I've got you to about 99%.
29:36
I can categorise what kind of driver you are.
29:38
It's not because we're special and we've got ESP and we can...
29:42
It's just you do something long enough, over and over again, you start to see patterns in people.
29:46
So the person that put the seatbelt on and they were a bit jittery and did that is going to be that kind of driver or walked to you or looked at you or whatever this particular way ends up always being that kind of driver.
29:57
So you can work it out very, very quickly.
29:59
So, yeah, you get very good at reading people, which is, again, a big part of the job.
30:03
I heard you do a briefing for some of the customers that are here today before, and you raised what I think is a really good point.
30:09
I go mad when bureaucrats and government gurus say that quality driver training empowers someone to the point where they have this almost invincibility thing kick in.
30:24
I don't subscribe to that, mate.
30:25
It is helpful in so many situations, and it frustrates me that it's not adopted more.
30:30
Yeah, exactly.
30:31
I mean, every government department of Australia doesn't want to do skills-based driver training because they think if we teach you how to control a skid or how to do an emergency stop from 110km an hour, you're going to go out there and want to do it.
30:44
You go, it is utterly ludicrous.
30:46
The way we're taught is, don't worry about the skid, you'll work it out when you get there.
30:51
You go, what, in the middle of an accident?
30:52
They go, yeah.
30:53
That's insane.
30:55
You know what I mean?
30:55
The fact that everybody does their driver's licence test, the top speed for most drivers around the country is 60km an hour.
31:01
Yet the minute you get your licence, you can do nearly double that.
31:03
You can do 110, let alone at night, let alone in the rain, let alone in a Mark II Cortina with cross-blight tyres like a first car.
31:10
So you know what I mean?
31:11
Just that you don't need to be a road safety expert.
31:13
That simple set of circumstances is crazy.
31:16
So I think there is a place for attitude based training, which is what everyone focuses on, but also some skills.
31:22
You've got to give people the opportunity to feel stuff for the first time in a safe environment before they go out and having to deal with it in live traffic where their life depends on it.
31:33
you and I love cars or bikes or whatever it might be, the pleasure that comes from driving.
31:39
What's the future look like in your eyes?
31:41
What, you know, everyone's talking about driverless cars and, you know, just getting picked up and going to work.
31:45
I mean, they...
31:48
It may be a reality, but I still hope we get to experience it.
31:51
Yeah, and it's funny.
31:52
This is obviously the big topic is autonomous and all that sort of stuff.
31:58
It's actually, I can't wait for it.
31:59
Really?
32:00
Yeah, absolutely.
32:00
And everyone goes, hang on, what sort of, no, no, hear me out here.
32:04
At the end of the day, when you think about it, we love driving or riding bikes or whatever, yeah?
32:09
But we hate commuting.
32:12
So what autonomous is going to do for us is actually decouple the rubbish bit from the good bit.
32:18
In other words, when you're just going to and from work, down whatever street, in bumper-to-bumper traffic, the car can do it for you.
32:25
You don't have to worry about it.
32:26
You're going to be relaxed.
32:26
You're going to be fine.
32:27
But the minute you go, oh, now I'm going to go for a cut through the hills.
32:30
I'm at Sydney Motorsport Park or whatever.
32:32
Yeah.
32:33
press the button you take over the two are not mutually exclusive it's actually going to be a boon for us uh car lovers and if anything what's going to happen the people that love they go i don't need a car that's interesting i just want to go from a to b you know you know those people usually drive camry's by the way don't they gold ones in the right lane at 95 champagne metallic racing beige rusty that's what i call it bloody get out of that right like anyway sorry sorry we're getting distracted um
32:59
Those people, they can have their electric box.
33:02
They don't need...
33:03
They're not car people.
33:04
Great.
33:05
I, you, and most people that are listening to this will be car people.
33:09
And so you go, you know what, that's fine.
33:11
That'll allow those that are creative, those that are custom, those people that are passionate about cars, to make them even more, to sort of, to cater for the enthusiast.
33:21
It happened with watches.
33:23
quartz watches came out in the 70s, yeah?
33:25
Everyone's got, we don't need mechanical watches anymore because these are way more accurate and they're cheaper and all that sort of stuff.
33:29
You go, great.
33:30
So those people that don't care about a watch, buy a cheap quartz watch, accurate, or use your phone.
33:35
But those of us that love the fact that a guy in Switzerland spent a month not seeing his kids to make me a watch, you love the fact that it's been fussed over and it's an enthusiast making something for another enthusiast.
33:49
And that's what's going to happen with cars.
33:50
Most things are going to be electric boxes that,
33:52
A to B, you're going to get in it done, but us car lovers are going to get these enthusiasts making these really specialised things, knowing that you don't need to drive it every day because you've got your electric box, so they're going to make something for us passionate people, and I can't wait.
34:06
I sincerely can't wait for autonomous cars.
34:09
Final question for you.
34:10
This job and Top Gear and things like that has taken you all around the world.
34:14
You can tell people can hear from your personality.
34:18
You're not a shy guy.
34:19
Far from it.
34:20
Has there been a moment where you've been almost lost for words at a place you've always wanted to go to?
34:26
Maybe it's a motor racing meeting or perhaps a driver or someone that you've met and you've almost bowed, you know?
34:33
Yeah, there's not many people in that regard that I've met, but definitely, I mean, the only time I think I've ever really been speechless was when they offered me the Top Gear job.
34:42
Like, I even had the producer going, hello, you're there, hello, hello, you know, on the phone.
34:47
Yeah, yeah, I'm here, mate.
34:48
I'm just, I can't believe you've offered me this job.
34:50
So that's, in terms of that classic take your breath away, that was it.
34:53
But that moment that I mentioned on the Isle of Man, like, that was...
34:58
Ayrton Senna spoke about going around Monaco and when he did that lap, that pole lap, and he said he could almost see himself from above.
35:05
And people thought, oh, he's lost the plot.
35:07
He's been on the gunja, you know what I mean?
35:09
But I didn't see myself from above.
35:12
But I got to that point where I was just so content, so in the moment of what I was doing, that nothing else mattered.
35:18
And as I said, if I was to die going around the corner because I couldn't see and that was the end of me, I would have gone, great.
35:24
what a better way to go.
35:25
So those moments are very few and far between.
35:27
When you have them, they're pretty powerful moments.
35:29
It's been fantastic to talk to you.
35:31
Good luck with the Resto Project.
35:33
And I'll make sure, because we're here at Sydney Motorsport Park, when I jump in one of the fleet of Audis that are here today, I'll put that seatbelt on confidently.
35:40
Yeah, please, don't jiggle, because you'll be one of those.
35:43
And you didn't turn up with the red racing shoes either, so I know you're a good driver.
35:47
On the next episode of Rusty's Garage, I talk with a man who is the true essence of being a car guy as well as being a racing legend.
35:56
It's Bathurst winner and Supercars champion Garth Tander.
35:59
At the time, it was quicker than a V8 supercar.
36:02
So from the exit of turn two to the hump at the exit of the cutting, it was a second and a half of that fastened in a supercar in just that phase of the track because it had so much torque, mate.
36:11
It would pull trees out of the ground if it had that much torque.
36:14
But it was not that fast coming down Conrad.
36:16
It would only do 255, 260, and most of the time we were half throttle saving fuel because seven-litre engine, mate, they drink fuel like it's going out of fashion.
36:23
So most of the time we're driving the car to fuel economy numbers.
36:30
Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
36:34
Series producer and editor is Alex Mitchell.
36:38
Audio production by Darcy Thompson.
36:47
Listener.