Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Blue Thunder & Black Widows: Freightliner's Avant-Garde Journey with a Runaway Cavalier

Transcript

Blue Thunder & Black Widows: Freightliner's Avant-Garde Journey with a Runaway Cavalier · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

• 0:00
  John Summers is the motoring historian.
• 0:02
  He was a company car thrashing, technology sales rep that turned into
• 0:06
  a fairly inept sports bike rider.
• 0:08
  Hailing from California, he collects cars and bikes built with plenty of
• 0:12
  cheap and fast, and not much reliable.
• 0:15
  On his show, he gets together with various co hosts to talk about new
• 0:18
  and old cars, driving, motorbikes, motor racing, and motoring travel.
• 0:32
  Good day, good morning, good afternoon, wherever you may be.
• 0:36
  It's Jon Summers, the motoring historian, with his old
• 0:40
  friend from school, Mark Gami.
• 0:43
  How are you doing, Mark?
• 0:45
  I'm doing well, thank you, sir.
• 0:49
  Um, well, I did feel, you know, I should try and make the start
• 0:53
  of these things more dynamic.
• 0:58
  I don't know.
• 0:58
  We should like hit with a punchline, you know, we should do like, you
• 1:02
  know, instead of doing something sexy.
• 1:04
  That's what they do in the movies.
• 1:05
  I say what they could do something sexy like they do in the movies,
• 1:08
  you know, have like a And later, you know, Ursula Andress type.
• 1:12
  No, well, yeah, that, or like, or like James Bond, where
• 1:16
  there's always like violence.
• 1:17
  It's either sex or violence right at the start to like, really, uh,
• 1:21
  really get, get your attention.
• 1:22
  But that's just not my style, is it?
• 1:24
  I'm more Tristram Shandy where most people never get.
• 1:28
  Never really understand the point of what Lawrence Stern was trying
• 1:31
  to say because he wrapped it up in such a difficult to unravel kind of,
• 1:36
  of a package, but you know, maybe that's the message that you need to
• 1:40
  work hard at reading Tristram Shandy in order to get something out of it.
• 1:45
  Maybe that's the message with, with me as, as well, that, you know.
• 1:49
  you tuned in to learn about the lucid and there's half an hour of drivel before
• 1:52
  I even mention it and then what I say is really not actually that useful to
• 1:57
  to helping you it's just entertainment I don't really know who it's been done
• 2:00
  before man but greater minds James Hutton father of geology Bill Bryson
• 2:05
  wrote in his short history in nearly everything that the guy was uh visionary,
• 2:10
  but, uh, that even people who applauded him said his books were terrible.
• 2:15
  They were really hard to read.
• 2:16
  He took four volumes to take something he could have said way
• 2:18
  quicker in as arcane a language as possible and almost as unreadable.
• 2:23
  Um, but, uh, you know, he was the father of geology.
• 2:25
  So if you wanted to get the tips on like, you know, early, uh, views on, uh, the
• 2:30
  world, then, uh, you need to plug through.
• 2:32
  That is, that is the interesting thing, right, that the, you tend to feel, people
• 2:37
  who aren't involved in studying history tend to feel history is history and like
• 2:42
  the facts are the facts, but they're not.
• 2:45
  The facts of the Roman Empire are what Tacitus and Livy wrote down and
• 2:50
  what the archaeological record has, uh, you know, has, has supported.
• 2:54
  So I'm not saying these things didn't happen and it's all like
• 2:57
  some big conspiracy theory.
• 2:59
  But, but what I am saying is that, you know, history is, uh, um, blurred and
• 3:05
  nuanced and, and not, you know, and not accurate, and I was going to say
• 3:10
  something else and I can't remember.
• 3:11
  Well, a historian's got to make a living too, man.
• 3:13
  If it was settled, there'd be nothing to do with it.
• 3:16
  Well, they do say that about historians, don't they?
• 3:18
  That it's the only profession where everyone disagrees.
• 3:22
  If you had a panel of four historians, they would all disagree and they'd
• 3:25
  all have like a valid argument and they'd all be friends about it.
• 3:28
  Can you imagine if that was the case in physics?
• 3:30
  Can you imagine if that was the case amongst law professors?
• 3:34
  Mind you, if that was the case amongst law professors, you'd have the
• 3:37
  government that we have in the United States at the moment, wouldn't you?
• 3:39
  But that is, is, uh, is, is a digression.
• 3:44
  Um, yeah, so in the news, so in my like, you know, being more structured and, and
• 3:53
  so on, we always talk about the 44 teeth.
• 3:57
  Um, I've actually not watched any of their stuff to the Nurburgring
• 4:00
  recently on, on like 90 sports bikes.
• 4:03
  It's a bit too, it's them riding my bike, the kind of bikes I have
• 4:07
  the way that they should be ridden.
• 4:09
  I think that's why it's, uh, it's almost like watching another man take
• 4:12
  your wife out for a meal kind of thing.
• 4:15
  Um, uh, but I have followed, um, you and I have both been fiddling
• 4:21
  around on Twitter somewhat for, uh, for, for different projects.
• 4:25
  I have followed, Um, I encountered old Alice the Fagin, one of the 44 teethers.
• 4:32
  Um, uh, apparently he was at Bristol Airport picking up Boothy.
• 4:37
  Boothy's crossing the road on his crutches with his one leg.
• 4:41
  Fagin stops to pick him up and gets fined.
• 4:47
  240 quid at the airport.
• 4:49
  Fined for like, you know.
• 4:54
  Is that because you've got paid to pick people up at the
• 4:56
  airport now and he didn't?
• 4:58
  No, no, what needed to happen was he needed to go to the car park and Hopalong
• 5:02
  needed to crutch it all the way up there.
• 5:04
  And that was what Fagin was pissed off about.
• 5:06
  He was like, you know, it's one thing to be like, you know what,
• 5:09
  you can't all be pulling over and picking up at the side of the road.
• 5:12
  I understand that.
• 5:13
  But if, what are we coming to when we're fining people who, uh, uh, you
• 5:18
  know, The bureaucracy does not care.
• 5:22
  The bureaucracy does not care, does it?
• 5:24
  So, uh, but, but the fact that the guy's getting around a little
• 5:28
  bit is, is, is good, you know?
• 5:30
  And, and we should say, we ought to talk about Boothy because we sponsored him.
• 5:35
  Um, the last TT that he went to.
• 5:37
  So, uh, you know, we, we, uh, we're somewhat invested in him in where once
• 5:43
  there were two legs, now there's only one.
• 5:45
  Um, yeah.
• 5:47
  Um, he's going to go racing again.
• 5:49
  Isn't he?
• 5:49
  Awesome.
• 5:51
  Well, they always do, don't they?
• 5:53
  They always do, because otherwise, otherwise you just
• 5:56
  look like you were scared off.
• 5:58
  Um, whether you, you, it's like, it's like McGuinness, right?
• 6:02
  Is McGuinness the same rider now as he was before that fall in the Northwest TT?
• 6:07
  I don't think so.
• 6:09
  Oh, he's quit now, isn't he?
• 6:10
  Or has he quit, has he just quit Petiti?
• 6:12
  Well, I, I don't, I, I mean, I, I, I really hope he does, cause, cause I
• 6:17
  don't think you can do it at heart.
• 6:18
  Yeah, they said on the last one, that was his last one last year.
• 6:21
  Um, and bad play to him.
• 6:22
  I mean, the guy's the legend.
• 6:24
  I watched Rutter lead off.
• 6:25
  The last TTS and I watched him be passed by the younger guys.
• 6:29
  And when I was talking with, um, the guys that I was watching with, they
• 6:33
  were, uh, you know, our age, like forties, fifties, and they would say,
• 6:36
  and we agreed that the discipline for Rata to ride in the way that he did.
• 6:42
  Well, obviously completely within himself in comparison to the way that,
• 6:46
  you know, somebody like Dean Jones, is it the guy that with the pale blue,
• 6:50
  the, the, the Yorkshire guy, um, could be speed on all the chaps generally,
• 6:57
  but no, the point is he, he rides within himself and, and that's a bloke
• 7:02
  who's, who's riding to get home rather than, uh, than, than riding to win.
• 7:07
  And I'm not, not, not.
• 7:09
  Uh, certainly not knocking him for, uh, for, for that.
• 7:12
  So, yeah, um, yeah.
• 7:13
  So good luck to him if he comes back and rides again and I'll
• 7:15
  definitely sponsor him again.
• 7:17
  And, and, you know, um, yeah, God's speed, um, Matt Booth.
• 7:23
  Um, so I've got two new vehicles in the last month.
• 7:29
  Very reserved.
• 7:31
  Have we talked about them before?
• 7:33
  I can't remember.
• 7:34
  Um, I think you mentioned that you've got something.
• 7:36
  Is that, that, that, that thing that had broken down?
• 7:39
  One doesn't work and I bought the other one because it works and
• 7:44
  it broke down on the test ride.
• 7:47
  Yeah.
• 7:50
  I know it was when I, uh, so I've, I've had that Derby.
• 7:56
  Mopeds, 50 CC moped forever.
• 7:58
  So just to, just to rewind somewhat electric mopeds are coming out there.
• 8:03
  We were talking about electric bikes the other day.
• 8:05
  There's these revel electric scooters in San Francisco.
• 8:08
  So I was like, you know, I tried one of the revel scooters.
• 8:11
  It's governed to 30 miles an hour.
• 8:13
  You know, if you lean over the handlebars, it won't go any
• 8:16
  faster than 30 miles an hour.
• 8:18
  I mean, what kind of, what kind of perversion.
• 8:21
  Of the two wheel concept is this a machine that can't be persuaded
• 8:26
  to exceed its natural top speed.
• 8:29
  Um, so with that thought, I was like, I've got to get a two stroke moped.
• 8:33
  Like this is, this is going to be my response to these electric mopeds.
• 8:37
  So I, I did the only natural thing.
• 8:39
  And I bought from my friend, John Garcia, I bought his Derby GP150.
• 8:49
  Which, when, which was the fastest moped you could buy when you could
• 8:56
  last buy two stroke mopeds in America.
• 9:00
  So it has like a Piaggio motor in it, um, and it was owned by this
• 9:07
  Irish road race guy and he put the exhaust on it and the whole thing.
• 9:11
  Which was all fine and dandy and it was really fast, but then John Pressure
• 9:15
  washed it and it's never worked since.
• 9:18
  And it's, it's over in the corner of my garage now with an auxiliary
• 9:23
  fuel line hooked up to it.
• 9:24
  And it did actually run properly a little bit, but you know, I'd reached a
• 9:28
  point where I was like, after all this time, I just want a moped that works.
• 9:33
  And Ollie and I were over at John's place the other day and, uh, he had this.
• 9:37
  Yamaha Zuma, like a 04 Yamaha Zuma.
• 9:41
  And it's got these two headlight, you know, I'm a sucker for anything
• 9:44
  that's got like two headlights.
• 9:45
  I love the gypsies with two headlights.
• 9:47
  I love the stack headlight sixties Pontiacs.
• 9:50
  You know, I love the, the, the, the pair of headlights.
• 9:54
  Um.
• 9:56
  Capris, Capri Mark 3s, Love, Love Capri Mark 1s, the 3 with the quad headlamps.
• 10:02
  Anyway, so I bought this like, so John was like, do you want to ride it?
• 10:06
  I was like, yeah.
• 10:07
  And I was, I was half, I was, I was on the block.
• 10:11
  I was halfway around the block with my, with the throttle on the stop,
• 10:16
  not without a helmet on in this jacket before I realised what I was doing.
• 10:22
  So I was like, you know, well settle down, but like the moped's cool.
• 10:26
  Um, so I bought it.
• 10:27
  Um, and, and John rode it over later on and was like, you know, you just have
• 10:33
  to, when it gets warm, the, I think the pilot's jet blocked, what I should
• 10:37
  do is take the carb off and clean.
• 10:39
  And I was like, well, I mean, I just didn't want to like dismantle
• 10:43
  yet another vehicle that's having carbon fuel feed kind of.
• 10:47
  Problems.
• 10:48
  I was like, ah.
• 10:49
  So I was like, what?
• 10:51
  What?
• 10:52
  So I was like, do you reckon I can ride it?
• 10:54
  And he went, well, I can ride it.
• 10:55
  So I went, well, all right then.
• 10:56
  So the following day, so he wrote it over and the following
• 10:58
  day, it was a nice sunny day.
• 11:00
  So I went out and I thrashed it up and down the streets here.
• 11:03
  It's really good fun.
• 11:05
  Like well of a time.
• 11:06
  Must have ridden it for about 20 minutes.
• 11:08
  I'm feeling great about the fact that now it's got some of the new
• 11:11
  fuel and the fuel cleaner through it.
• 11:14
  It's running really well.
• 11:15
  And then I'm like, I'm gonna run up to the Legion of Honor.
• 11:18
  Which is this, uh, art gallery, um, that overlooks the Pacific Ocean.
• 11:23
  You know, views of the Golden Gate Bridge.
• 11:25
  So it's shit tons of tourists up there.
• 11:27
  So I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 11:29
  Up the golf course, right?
• 11:31
  Over the handlebars.
• 11:32
  Well, as I approach the zebra crossing in front of the Legion,
• 11:37
  It's like Marin mum, blonde, right?
• 11:40
  attractive.
• 11:41
  So because she's attractive, I'm looking, she makes eye contact with me and I now
• 11:45
  have to stop at the crosswalk, right?
• 11:47
  So I stop, and it won't fucking go again.
• 11:57
  Yeah, geng, geng, geng, geng, geng, geng.
• 11:59
  But it's not going anywhere.
• 12:00
  So she's now crossing, is looking at me, like she's rejoined her family.
• 12:04
  They're looking at me, I'm now, geng, geng, ging, ging, geng, ging.
• 12:12
  Geng, geng, ging, ging, ging, ging.
• 12:15
  Hahahaha!
• 12:15
  Aww, man.
• 12:16
  My, my, machine really loves to fuck you when it's the worst moment, doesn't it?
• 12:21
  So I, so I'm like, so I was just like, so I took my helmet off and I sat down
• 12:25
  by the fountain and I, I, I like took a picture of it, posted it on Instagram and
• 12:31
  was like, Oh bollocks, I just told Dana that I just bought another motorcycle
• 12:36
  and worse, told her that it broke down.
• 12:40
  It's like, bro.
• 12:41
  So I called John and he was like, Oh, I'm like, And then it'd be like,
• 12:46
  I'm going out, which means like I'm going somewhere in the hopes of
• 12:50
  meeting some dog walking chick who he's working hard with at the moment.
• 12:54
  But I only realized that when he turned up and he looked really good
• 12:57
  and Remus had obviously been bathed and looked really good, right?
• 13:01
  So he's like, so he's like all business.
• 13:03
  He's like, I think I can ride it back to the house.
• 13:08
  Well, it's all downhill.
• 13:09
  I think I can probably ride it back to the house.
• 13:11
  He went, no, you just need to like rev it more and you need to kick it.
• 13:14
  If you kick it, it like gets going more.
• 13:16
  So he kicks it and it is immediately revving up better.
• 13:20
  And then he's like, but here's the thing, right?
• 13:22
  It's not one wheel off the ground, right?
• 13:24
  He's got the wheel on the ground, even when it's on the kickstand.
• 13:28
  Cause he's got these like chunky tires.
• 13:30
  So if you rev the shit out of it too much, when it's still.
• 13:35
  It tries to go off on its own up the street, right?
• 13:38
  So you need to be holding the brake.
• 13:41
  So basically it's like the technique for doing a burnout, right?
• 13:44
  You stand on the brake and then you come in the gas and rev it to
• 13:47
  keep the, the, the, the motor up.
• 13:49
  So, you know, I, I'd love to tell you that I thought it was, well,
• 13:53
  I'd love to tell you, but you know.
• 13:55
  By rights, I tell you, it was an annoying waste of money and I've been conned.
• 13:59
  I bought a moped that would work and once again, I've got another machine that's
• 14:02
  kind of cool, but doesn't work properly.
• 14:05
  But, you know, at the same time, right, John wrote it back to the house.
• 14:08
  It works okay.
• 14:09
  I now have seen that if you kick it, it runs better.
• 14:12
  Um, so I might go out and ride again and hope I can blow the dirt out
• 14:18
  of the Pilot jet rather than uh, what you know, here's the thing.
• 14:22
  I mean, I know what you mean, but like, you know It's a moped.
• 14:24
  Yeah, it's a yamaha.
• 14:25
  It'll be Pretty easy to get the carb off and clean it.
• 14:31
  Just do that.
• 14:32
  Cause like, it's annoying as fuck to be broken down.
• 14:35
  And just to, like, give you a pay your moped story back with a moped story.
• 14:40
  Um, similar embarrassment levels.
• 14:42
  Um, I was on the forecourt once.
• 14:45
  In that, with that red Honda Cub 90 that I had.
• 14:48
  And, uh, went back to start it, like, you know, put the thing in, wearing, like, a
• 14:52
  hat, that first helmet, I think the black one I had, with the, with the wax jacket
• 14:56
  and jeans, you know, I mean, I'm just like riding a moped, um, and I put the
• 15:00
  key in, started, like, pressed it, started it, gave it a little bit of revs, because
• 15:03
  it liked a little bit of revs, and it decided to go, no, I want to be in first.
• 15:07
  So it then just trundled forward on its own off the center stand, off
• 15:10
  the sidestand, and then crashed into the bit where they keep the coal
• 15:14
  and the logs outside the cabbage.
• 15:17
  Oh, it like made it all the way across.
• 15:19
  Well, it's not quite, it sort of like went and wobbled along.
• 15:22
  Whilst I stood there thinking about fucking them.
• 15:24
  And then went boing onto its side and slid into them.
• 15:27
  I was like, oh nice.
• 15:29
  And then you're looking around and everyone's like looking at you.
• 15:31
  You're like, um.
• 15:33
  So that, that house we lived in in, you reminded me of The Rolling Away.
• 15:37
  Uh, that house we lived in, in, um, in early in Reading.
• 15:42
  Um, you remember because of the Capri and the Alpha, um, being one
• 15:46
  on the drive, the other on the lawn.
• 15:48
  Because the landlord inconsiderately used the garage, didn't he?
• 15:51
  So we, we, so I, I, so we would park, remember, on the grass, on the little
• 15:57
  grassy patch outside of the house.
• 15:59
  Well, remember how my dad's like 90 Cavalier CD, there's the champagne
• 16:04
  colored one that was like the old man special that had been owned from
• 16:07
  new by the old bloke across the road.
• 16:09
  Um.
• 16:10
  I, uh, got back from somewhere parked up, went in the house, like, took a
• 16:15
  piss, like I had a drink, and I stood in the living room looking out the
• 16:18
  window, and I was like, car's gone.
• 16:21
  Where's the fucking car?
• 16:23
  Where's the fucking car?
• 16:24
  So I like, woo hoo.
• 16:25
  I run out, I'm, and I look, looked left, and it's not, and I looked down and it
• 16:30
  had rolled, I'd forgotten to put the hand brake on, and it had rolled down the hill
• 16:35
  off the curb, across the mouth of a T junction, and then had run along the curb.
• 16:44
  Across the T junction, the road had curved and it had stopped before
• 16:47
  it got to the main road where there were cars parked and other houses.
• 16:50
  I can't believe you're telling me about that, that evening now.
• 16:52
  I'd forgotten about that.
• 16:53
  Yeah.
• 16:55
  I mean, that was, I was like, you know, that was One of those days,
• 17:00
  you know, Providence is backing you.
• 17:03
  Well, as David Hobbs said, you know, it's better to be lucky than good.
• 17:09
  Well, that happened to Gaines, didn't it?
• 17:10
  And like, the car was a write off.
• 17:14
  Did he?
• 17:15
  Not that car, obviously, or that, but I'm sure, yeah, he told me that he's, um,
• 17:18
  in one of the cars he had in Plymouth.
• 17:20
  He didn't put the handbrake on, like, hard enough, and it rolled back down
• 17:23
  the hill and smashed into another car.
• 17:27
  Yeah, man, it happens.
• 17:28
  Especially if the handbrake, like, is on, and not quite, I mean, in that BMW,
• 17:33
  like, I had the handbrake on, but not quite on enough, because when the, when
• 17:36
  the, uh, I was on the channel, it slid backwards when there was a sort of jolt.
• 17:40
  And I thought, did that slide backwards?
• 17:41
  And you're never quite sure when you're sitting in the thing.
• 17:43
  Is it just be looking out the window at the time?
• 17:45
  And that starts moving.
• 17:46
  So I was like, fine.
• 17:47
  And then I thought as they started to go to be, I thought I was just on the case.
• 17:51
  I was like, hold on a second.
• 17:52
  I'm not, I feel wrong about this.
• 17:53
  I should maybe try and pull forward.
• 17:54
  And the guy, the ticket guy came by and went, move, move.
• 17:57
  They're going to hit your door.
• 17:58
  So I pulled it forward and was just in time.
• 18:00
  He went by lottery ticket today, man.
• 18:02
  So you've got to be careful with that sort of thing.
• 18:04
  I mean, what was going to hit your door?
• 18:07
  What was going to hit your door?
• 18:08
  It would hit the back of the car.
• 18:09
  Because when you're in the channel, you've got the barriers
• 18:11
  that come down in between.
• 18:13
  Oh, so when the barrier came down, I wasn't under it, but they open up.
• 18:17
  They open up like that.
• 18:18
  So they don't go up into the ceiling, they open up to the side.
• 18:22
  And because it comes forward, if you moved at all, it's going
• 18:26
  to hit the back of your car.
• 18:28
  Or the front, for that matter.
• 18:29
  I think only the back, because of the way they open up.
• 18:32
  Yeah, I don't know.
• 18:33
  It's, um, Lucky Escapes.
• 18:35
  So, yeah, it's easy done.
• 18:37
  Yeah, yeah.
• 18:40
  Yeah, so the moped, um, and the other's not really so much of a new car as A,
• 18:46
  uh, part, that's how I've positioned it up to Dana, simply a part, because as
• 18:53
  you know, Mark, Mark called me and was like, Oh, I'm moving cars from my, like
• 18:58
  all my spots in Southern California.
• 19:01
  And he's talking to me about all these cars, which I didn't even realize
• 19:04
  he'd got, I hadn't realized he'd got three or four different storage spots.
• 19:08
  So anyway, he's like, Oh, I'm looking to like move stuff off.
• 19:13
  So I don't know if he was hinting, but I was like, you know, if you
• 19:16
  want to put that Thunderbird up at my place up north, you can.
• 19:23
  So he was like, yeah, I'll call you.
• 19:25
  Which usually means you're never going to hear him from me about this topic
• 19:29
  ever again for the rest of your days.
• 19:33
  In fact, he called me and then very helpfully said, I'm
• 19:36
  going to be there tomorrow.
• 19:39
  So I'm like, like now I have to like drop everything I'm doing.
• 19:45
  Here's the thing, right?
• 19:45
  So what I should say is, is the car.
• 19:48
  So do you remember years ago, I told you that when he was doing his quote,
• 19:53
  gate building, close quotes, business, Up in Mendocino where in return for some
• 20:00
  of the gates, one of the places that he was working at, there was stuff like
• 20:05
  that at the time when he was looking at it was not interesting, like square
• 20:09
  body Chevy pickup trucks, which just seems to become super collectible.
• 20:13
  But when I remember when you told me about them, I was like, whatever
• 20:15
  that was, was not something it was, but there were two cars that
• 20:19
  were there that were of interest.
• 20:21
  One was a bandit era 78.
• 20:24
  Firebird Trans Am, but it was all blue, blue exterior, metallic blue exterior,
• 20:31
  blue interior, silver fire chicken.
• 20:35
  Um, and that was the car that he was really most interested
• 20:40
  in, but that required some money and he wanted to take that.
• 20:44
  But in the end, he took what was the guy's Grandad's car that was this navy blue.
• 20:53
  They obviously liked blue cars in that family, didn't they?
• 20:55
  Looking back navy blue over navy blue Thunderbird 66 Thunderbird.
• 21:02
  So, um, Thelma and Louisie kind of era, a cleaned up version of the Thelma and
• 21:09
  Louise, but with a hard top and most of those Thunderbirds at a three 90
• 21:14
  big block three 90, which is what like.
• 21:18
  Five, nine, something like that, but some of them, the option, the big block
• 21:24
  option was, uh, you know, the hypo option was the police interceptor 428.
• 21:30
  Well, this is a 428 car, which is why Mark wanted it.
• 21:34
  It's low mileage.
• 21:35
  I looked on eBay, you know, the engine, just the engine on its own.
• 21:40
  I mean, there's one on eBay at the moment for nine grand
• 21:43
  and there's one built for 12.
• 21:45
  That's all.
• 21:46
  There's nothing.
• 21:46
  There's no other police interceptor 428.
• 21:50
  So I don't know if you go on like that Hokie Yass message board, like
• 21:54
  H A M B, which seems to be the best outlet for hot rod stuff, you know,
• 21:58
  if you went to the right swap meets.
• 22:00
  I mean, I'm not a hot rod guy, so I'm not really, but it seemed to me that
• 22:05
  the, so the next thing I did was I went on Hemmings and I was like, um,
• 22:10
  Because I was feeling like if, if there's no, if, if the 428s are super
• 22:14
  rare, it's a bit out of order to take the engine out of it, which is kind of
• 22:18
  what I want, which is what my plan is.
• 22:21
  But there's half a dozen of them for sale on Hemmings at the moment.
• 22:25
  Um, yeah, it's a good color combo.
• 22:29
  The car's a car's a total basket case, right?
• 22:32
  So the, so the plan is that the engine comes out of it and that it.
• 22:37
  Go into the mercury to be the gasser so I have the back axle from the 70 Bronco.
• 22:44
  I have this 66 428 motor.
• 22:48
  Um, you can buy top loaders that for speed transmission, 2.
• 22:53
  5 grand, something like that.
• 22:54
  So then I've got the bits to build the gasser dragster.
• 22:58
  So, so, uh, so that was why.
• 23:00
  So when Mark was like, I want like, can you help me out?
• 23:03
  I was like, yeah, yeah.
• 23:04
  Deliver the Thunderbird.
• 23:05
  So I was over there with him too.
• 23:07
  And he arrives in this light E three 50 silver, E three 50, three
• 23:11
  50 VAT towing this Thunderbird on an open trailer, right?
• 23:16
  And the Thunderbirds not quite straight on the trailer.
• 23:18
  And I realized it's because the trailer is like fundamentally bent.
• 23:23
  Right.
• 23:23
  And twisted.
• 23:24
  I should say in the van with Mark, uh, I would say a dozen dogs.
• 23:29
  Okay, because he has this like homeless, like this homeless dog
• 23:34
  rescue business that he does.
• 23:37
  Right.
• 23:37
  So, so we and the long and short is coming over the grapevine out of LA,
• 23:45
  the trailer decided to try and well, the Thunderbird decided first that it
• 23:50
  would want it wanted to be in the van.
• 23:53
  And then if it wasn't allowed to be in the van, it wanted to be off the
• 23:57
  trailer and at the side of the road.
• 23:59
  And then if it couldn't be off the trailer at the side of the road,
• 24:02
  it wanted to be in the central reservation ahead of the E350.
• 24:09
  So that had been a fairly sphincter clenching descent.
• 24:15
  Um.
• 24:17
  It, it, it, the, it bucked around on the trailer and then it displaced the
• 24:22
  trailer and Mark being Mark had carried on and then it had blown a tire on the
• 24:26
  trailer because the one of the truck, one of the axles was, was, uh, was crapping.
• 24:32
  I mean, he'd, he'd, uh, yeah, so classic, classic Mark.
• 24:35
  So the van's silver, right?
• 24:37
  But one of the rear doors is a door from a Rotorooter van and I'm like.
• 24:46
  And he's like, yeah, when I was changing the tire, I tried
• 24:50
  to throw it up onto the roof.
• 24:52
  This is all taking place at four o'clock in the morning at the side of the road.
• 24:56
  Right.
• 24:56
  When I was trying to change the tire after the tire burst, I tried to
• 25:00
  throw up on the roof, but I missed and I broke the glass while it
• 25:05
  was raining and cold and the dogs.
• 25:07
  Couldn't take it.
• 25:09
  So yesterday morning I stopped at a wrecking yard like in Merced or
• 25:14
  Modesto or one of those towns up 99th.
• 25:18
  But I guess they bond the glass in, they glue the glass into the door.
• 25:24
  So mark being mark was like well, I just buy the whole door off you to the to
• 25:28
  the scrap man And just took the door off took the door off the van and so that's
• 25:33
  why it's got the roto router door So whilst I was there like at my place He's
• 25:38
  like taking the door card off and the trim piece with the number plate At the
• 25:42
  van on and building it onto the door as we're uh, as we're uh, yeah, so music and
• 25:51
  i'm doing musical cars because the race cars with So I've got the Thunderbird
• 25:55
  in, the race car's at Jason's, but I'd already used the race car spot to allow
• 26:01
  John to store four Honda CB motorcycles.
• 26:06
  So yesterday we went over there to get the Mercedes out of the public storage
• 26:12
  where it had gone, so I didn't have to pay another month on the public storage.
• 26:16
  So as, when, when we were driving over there, I said to John, I'm
• 26:20
  surprised you didn't bring the van.
• 26:22
  Because we've got to move four bikes and he went, I thought
• 26:24
  we were only moving two.
• 26:25
  That's why I bought the truck.
• 26:27
  And I'm like, well, I think we might need to move four.
• 26:31
  Um, and he's like, oh, I'm sure we'll, I'm sure we'll make them fit.
• 26:39
  And we get over there.
• 26:40
  Right.
• 26:41
  And, and it's, and, and it's clear, right.
• 26:42
  That the first thing we're going to have to do is take the bikes
• 26:44
  out so that we can, you know, like, you know, begin to do anything.
• 26:50
  Right.
• 26:51
  But it's.
• 26:52
  Piassing with rain now.
• 26:54
  There's like standing water.
• 26:56
  It's the same weather as when they delivered my Kawasaki ZX10.
• 27:00
  They unloaded it from the truck, and I'd not got on well with the truck driver.
• 27:05
  He was basically like, fuck you, and drove off.
• 27:08
  And, uh, left the bike, right?
• 27:11
  It was on a kickstand, but by the time I came to move it, it had
• 27:14
  sunk into the mud so much, that it was standing up on its own.
• 27:18
  Like, I kicked the kickstand up, and it was still like, uh, uh, uh.
• 27:23
  So it was like that.
• 27:24
  So I was like, so how are we going to like the, I said to John when we were
• 27:29
  driving back and everything had gone smoothly, I was like, I was worried.
• 27:32
  It was like the beginning of like, uh, a sort of, you know, horror movie
• 27:36
  when you were like, now it's slippery.
• 27:39
  So you push from the shock.
• 27:40
  And I'm gonna, cause you know, we had to like the ramp down.
• 27:43
  So we had to like push it up into the back of the truck, right?
• 27:45
  The ground's all soft.
• 27:46
  So we've got it like backed into the, somewhere on the concrete
• 27:49
  floor of the, the anyway.
• 27:51
  Anyway, so, uh, so what we ended up doing was getting the 77 Lincoln.
• 27:59
  town car, like the one that we traveled in, in, in the States, a
• 28:03
  77 Lincoln town car into neutral.
• 28:06
  And then we just drove his Toyota truck in, pushed the, the, the Lincoln back.
• 28:13
  So it's right touching the Camaro and then got, um, and then the, the, then
• 28:19
  John was able to get the CB 900 crushed right up against the front of the Lincoln.
• 28:26
  And then I was able to get the Mercedes in and there was a whole inch.
• 28:30
  to spare.
• 28:31
  I mean, there's a whole inch to spare and, and now, and now there's the only
• 28:37
  way to get from one end of the storage space to the other is by walking on cars.
• 28:43
  There's no walkways in between you are walking on cars.
• 28:48
  So go me with uh with with uh with filling up the space with the non functional
• 28:56
  stuff that that's not really what I should have What I should be doing.
• 29:01
  I'm also on the subject of of of my collection.
• 29:04
  I'm also um very much feeling um Uh, the, I got, I started doing the sports
• 29:12
  bikes because I was interested in this idea of, of, you remember the
• 29:17
  sports bikes I was inspired, it was like, it was, I was in Miami and I was
• 29:21
  in that Windward art district there.
• 29:25
  And there was, I was in this Chufti art gallery and the artist.
• 29:29
  Who had like this terracotta kind of colors and things going on.
• 29:33
  He painted a Kawasaki ZZR600.
• 29:37
  And all these art types were going, Hmm, very interesting.
• 29:42
  Looking at this two grand, not that interesting sports bike,
• 29:46
  sports tourer up on a plinth.
• 29:48
  And I was thinking, That was the first time I'd seen motorcycles truly as
• 29:53
  are and realized that other people could see motorcycles as are as well.
• 29:57
  So then began to think, well, if I'm, uh, you know, if I'm really,
• 30:02
  I'm really into these things, I feel really passionately about them.
• 30:05
  If anybody can do what you've heard of avant garde fashion, right?
• 30:12
  Where it's like thought leadership, it's ideas that kind of seem like bullshit.
• 30:18
  But, and they seem crazy and they're out there a little bit, but sometimes
• 30:22
  years go by and they're seen to be quite prescient and these things come from
• 30:27
  the gut when John Garcia started buying cars, um, Suzuki GSXRs, it wasn't because
• 30:33
  he was like, Oh, these oil cooled ones.
• 30:36
  Are going to escalate in value because these wasn't anything like that at all.
• 30:39
  He just liked them and he had the money and he didn't want to save
• 30:42
  in the bank or do the stock market.
• 30:44
  And he enjoyed surfing Suzuki GSXRs and you know, he bought
• 30:48
  lots of Suzuki GSXRs and rode them and became a connoisseur of them.
• 30:52
  And you know, and then I was ahead of the market and now they're worth
• 30:56
  much more than, than I paid for them.
• 30:58
  You know, it's so seeing that right.
• 31:01
  And failing to buy a Suzuki Hayabusa.
• 31:05
  For 99, one owner, 20, 000 mile, you know, the bike having let that go.
• 31:13
  I, uh, I decided, so, so that was what led me to do the bike collecting.
• 31:19
  I'm now feeling another stage of this avant garde.
• 31:23
  Collecting and we've touched on this somewhat before.
• 31:26
  I want an 18 wheeler.
• 31:28
  I want a big truck.
• 31:30
  I want a big diesel truck with, you know, I want a proper highway haul
• 31:37
  and not a Peterbilt or gussied up.
• 31:40
  Not one of these ones that does that tows stuff to Walgreens or Safeway locally.
• 31:45
  I want one of the ones that are out on the highway that are going to be
• 31:49
  autonomous and electrified first.
• 31:52
  I want one of the ones that toes between the distribution centers.
• 31:55
  And I, I, uh, I'd like a freight liner and, and I want it at it.
• 32:00
  And if it's truly to be my avant garde collecting, even if I had
• 32:05
  the funds to get a decent one, I should get a clapped out one, right.
• 32:09
  At the end of his life, because that is my earth.
• 32:15
  I mean, where are you going to keep it?
• 32:18
  Is the obvious question.
• 32:20
  Okay, well that I gave considerable thought to as, as well, because
• 32:24
  this is the reality, right?
• 32:25
  That storage, to enjoy the car hobby is to have storage problems, right?
• 32:30
  And we were just talking about the storage problems earlier.
• 32:33
  We even, the whole reason why that Cavalier rolled down the hill was
• 32:36
  because the Capri and the Alpha.
• 32:39
  Uh, well, we're sat there on, on, on the drive there, weren't they?
• 32:42
  Um, so I think it's a scale thing, right?
• 32:48
  I think that, that you begin with finding somewhere where you can rent.
• 32:55
  Land cheaply and put a shipping crate on there and I think you do a series of
• 33:01
  40 foot shipping crates because each 40 foot shipping crate is two cars, right?
• 33:06
  Or, you know, however many bikes you can shake a sticker, right?
• 33:09
  So, so you and I think the step from there is buying land and I
• 33:16
  think the step from there is putting up like a building on that land.
• 33:21
  That becomes the space.
• 33:24
  The challenge for me is that I, I don't like leaving, you
• 33:27
  know, I leave my toy box away.
• 33:29
  I like to be close to the toy box.
• 33:31
  And the only way you can afford land and the toy box is outside of
• 33:35
  the city, which is exactly where my wife doesn't want to live.
• 33:39
  So that's, this is why I did the bikes really, because I can get lots of them in
• 33:45
  my garage here in, in, in the city without needing to, to, you know, to, to, okay.
• 33:51
  Where's the truck going?
• 33:54
  Oh, later on.
• 33:55
  So, so, so it's, it's going, um, Uh, wherever the shipping crates are,
• 34:04
  it's part of the whole shipping crate.
• 34:06
  It's part.
• 34:07
  No, no, it won't.
• 34:08
  It'll sit alongside the shipping crate.
• 34:10
  It will also of course facilitate the movement of the shipping crates.
• 34:16
  It being an 18 wheeler and all.
• 34:18
  Are you going to have the shipping crates on trailers?
• 34:21
  I could do, couldn't I?
• 34:24
  Was that or you have a crane?
• 34:25
  You know, I was looking at a moment ago before you called, I was on,
• 34:29
  before we did this call, I was on commercial vehicle trailer and I
• 34:32
  was looking at a new car, like a, a trailer that can haul eight cars.
• 34:39
  And I was thinking, oh, you don't even need storage.
• 34:41
  You just put the cars on there.
• 34:43
  The only issue with that though, is that you are essentially saying, here
• 34:48
  are all my toys ready to be robbed.
• 34:51
  Because they're all ready on the inside.
• 34:53
  It would need to, you need to put the whole thing inside.
• 34:57
  Yeah.
• 34:58
  Um, yeah, I mean, look, yeah, it would also be a total asshole because
• 35:02
  if you needed to get off one of the cars at the front and you know, one
• 35:06
  of the ones in between didn't start or couldn't be moved for some reason,
• 35:12
  which never happened with any of the cars that I was likely to interact with.
• 35:17
  Yes, but, but the, the, the, the other, the other wrinkle with it is that
• 35:21
  California has this rule that you can't operate any commercial vehicles with
• 35:25
  diesel engines that are older than 2010.
• 35:28
  Hard and fast rule, none at all.
• 35:31
  But I was beagling and shneagling around, and I realized that there is an
• 35:35
  exemption for vehicles that are driven less than a thousand miles a year.
• 35:40
  So I can drive any polluting old piece of shit.
• 35:44
  Even in California, as long as I think you mean you can drive any old classic.
• 35:51
  That's got to be a classics policy, hasn't it?
• 35:53
  Less than a thousand miles a year.
• 35:54
  Well, except it doesn't specify age.
• 35:57
  That's what I was looking at this morning.
• 35:58
  Because I remember the exemption was there, but I was reading this
• 36:01
  morning, it doesn't specify age.
• 36:03
  See, there's another angle here that John's trying to work, which
• 36:06
  is the Irish moving guys have a truck and he's wondering if he
• 36:10
  can use that truck for storage.
• 36:12
  But the, uh, you know, the, uh, Well, candidly, the legality of the
• 36:19
  truck is considerably in question.
• 36:21
  There was some tomfoolery where the finance company that owned it went bust.
• 36:26
  So they still own it, but they don't have, they never took possession of it.
• 36:32
  And until they take possession of it, you, you can't, there's like, it's, it's like
• 36:37
  in title limbo, it doesn't have a legal.
• 36:41
  How, how we talk for half an hour and I'm only on the second, how I talk for
• 36:45
  half an hour, I'm only on the second, uh, item on my, uh, on my agenda.
• 36:50
  Um, so I, I, I've, you know, so my, so my vision is, is working
• 36:56
  towards this truck at the moment.
• 36:57
  And I will do a CDL like a commercial driver's license.
• 37:00
  I have the skills to, to, to operate it properly.
• 37:03
  And I am conscious of the fact that if you're driving some
• 37:05
  old piece of shit, that's, you know, weighing 44 tons, that's.
• 37:09
  You know, a serious safety thing.
• 37:11
  So it's a bit like, you know, flying cool old planes.
• 37:14
  They're like cool, but they're dangerous.
• 37:16
  Um, I'm not sure, you know, so I might, you know, but I want to, as
• 37:20
  I say, it's this, it's this concept.
• 37:21
  And this is what I kind of wanted to touch on with you is this
• 37:24
  concept of avant garde collecting the concept of getting something
• 37:29
  just because you think it's cool.
• 37:31
  For no reason other than you think it's cool and you're feeling it.
• 37:34
  And even if other people aren't feeling it, it's your poem and it's your thing.
• 37:38
  And in time, the general perception will, will catch up because they
• 37:43
  will write diesel trucks in the year 2040 diesel trucks are going
• 37:47
  to have completely disappeared.
• 37:49
  Like a diesel truck that you can drive and has like 18 wheels
• 37:52
  and a Detroit two stroke diesel.
• 37:56
  Those things are going to disappear completely.
• 37:58
  They're all going to be these electric things that are
• 38:00
  controlled remotely, aren't they?
• 38:02
  So they're going to be like steam engines at that point.
• 38:04
  Well, then they're going to be interesting.
• 38:07
  I'm not saying they're going to be worth anything, but I'm
• 38:09
  also saying nobody preserves.
• 38:11
  People are going to preserve the Peterbilt's.
• 38:13
  Nobody's going to preserve the Freightliner in white that was
• 38:19
  owned by Ryder, has now done 3 million miles, and he's over.
• 38:24
  It's ready to be broken up.
• 38:25
  No, someone's is going to step in and save it.
• 38:30
  A sleeper.
• 38:31
  It's got to be a sleeper.
• 38:33
  Mostly, mostly for the aesthetics, but also for the practicality of it.
• 38:39
  You too can wank where some trucker has wanked before.
• 38:42
  Absolutely.
• 38:46
  Absolutely.
• 38:46
  Absolutely.
• 38:50
  So remember when we were living together, um, maybe 20 years ago, we were
• 38:56
  watching, we watched Miami Vice again.
• 39:01
  And.
• 39:02
  We were disappointed in it because we remembered it as teenagers and it seemed
• 39:10
  so ineffably cool when we were teenagers.
• 39:14
  And then when we watched it again, um, like in the early 2000s,
• 39:19
  it just seemed naff, basically.
• 39:23
  And, and then it's sort of now it's made its way into the realms of coolness.
• 39:32
  Again, I, I, and, and I'm, I'm struck by, you might remember a couple of years ago.
• 39:38
  I'd, um, Obviously through cars, I just rubbed up against in YouTube, um,
• 39:44
  new retro wave music because so much new retro wave music has Lamborghini
• 39:49
  Countach and Ferrari Testarossas, um, you know, pictured in it.
• 39:54
  So, so I'd encountered new retro wave music and, and through new retro wave
• 39:59
  music, I realized that there was this whole sort of 80s, like retro kind of,
• 40:06
  of, of thing going on that had taken.
• 40:09
  You know, Miami vice to be, you know, the center of this like arc,
• 40:16
  you know, archetypal coolness.
• 40:18
  Right.
• 40:20
  And, you know, my wife has relatives that live in, in Florida.
• 40:24
  So, you know, the first time I went to Miami, yeah, I went to the police
• 40:28
  station, the Miami vice police station.
• 40:30
  Yeah.
• 40:30
  I went to the Harbor where Crockett's boat was, and that was disappointing, right?
• 40:35
  Because there's a fucking great bridge with cars or driving over it.
• 40:39
  Right by the harbor, but the camera angle was always shot
• 40:44
  away from the bridge, right?
• 40:46
  It was like, it was like the camera angle and that every angle at Crockett's Harbor
• 40:52
  was shot like in a baseball diamond that cut out the industrial bit of the harbor
• 40:58
  and the big ships and cut out the fact that you were overlooked and By the car,
• 41:03
  it was just, it made you realize just how a completely bogus environment the
• 41:09
  world of, of, of Miami Vice was right.
• 41:12
  It was a completely, it was as fake as that Ferrari Daytona
• 41:17
  was the old man Ferrari.
• 41:20
  Apparently the whole deal with the white car, there was the
• 41:22
  black one and then the white one.
• 41:24
  The whole deal with the black one was Ferrari loved the
• 41:27
  show, hated the replica car.
• 41:31
  So the understanding was that the white car would be given to them, given to
• 41:37
  them, on the understanding the black one was trashed on the screen, blew up
• 41:45
  on the screen, was over on the screen, and there is an episode where the black
• 41:49
  car disappears and the white one is, is introduced and all that was apparently
• 41:54
  scripted by old man Ferrari, believe that if, uh, if, if you want, um, I So
• 42:04
  the reason that I had this as a theme was that this is a piece of motoring
• 42:11
  history that I'm really interested in because there is a point where motorsport
• 42:20
  and Miami Vice completely intersects.
• 42:23
  Now there were Miami Vice Grand Prix.
• 42:27
  And these Miami Grand Prix, and these weren't Formula One Grand Prix.
• 42:32
  These were for what you would understand to be Group C cars, like 80s Le Mans cars.
• 42:40
  So these big aero wings, ground effects wings with like V6 and four cylinder
• 42:47
  motors with great big turbos on them and tons of turbo lag and, you know.
• 42:53
  Probably Duke and, you know, plenty 200 miles an hour all day long, but
• 42:59
  yeah, Porsche, Porsche 956s, right?
• 43:02
  Well, I'm maybe, well, I'll tell you how long ago it was.
• 43:06
  It was 2018 because I looked up the description.
• 43:10
  In 2018, Gooding asked me to write about a March 83 G, and the car was
• 43:20
  in this blue thunder racing livery.
• 43:25
  And I thought, blue thunder?
• 43:27
  What association do you have with blue thunder?
• 43:35
  Me?
• 43:35
  Yeah.
• 43:36
  When you say blue A helicopter gunship.
• 43:39
  Yeah, a helicopter gunship, a TV show that was a helicopter gunship.
• 43:44
  Yeah.
• 43:44
  Well, in the 80s, right?
• 43:49
  IMSA, which was Le Mans racing, there was a joke that it stood for the International
• 43:55
  Marijuana Smuggling Association, right?
• 44:00
  And, and the, the reality is that there were a number of teams that basically
• 44:09
  smuggled drugs and spent the money racing.
• 44:13
  And yeah, I watched some VIN wiki thing about somebody or
• 44:16
  was it one that you sent me?
• 44:17
  I can't remember.
• 44:18
  Oh, well, I've been digging around like there's, there's a couple of areas of
• 44:23
  history that I've been digging around.
• 44:25
  I've bought the books.
• 44:26
  I've, I've not really got into it and, and, and read it properly, but it
• 44:30
  started for me with this March 83 G.
• 44:33
  The car's an awesome car, right?
• 44:35
  There are only three ever made.
• 44:37
  One's in this blue thunder livery, another's in this red lobster livery,
• 44:41
  you know that restaurant Red Lobster?
• 44:44
  But if you imagine a Porsche 956 that doesn't have lights.
• 44:48
  It's all white.
• 44:49
  It doesn't have lights.
• 44:50
  And where the lights are, it's as if you've laid a lobster over the top of it.
• 44:55
  So it has these claws coming down like the side of the cabin.
• 44:59
  One of the coolest liveries, this side of like the hippie 9 1 7.
• 45:05
  If you don't know what I mean by the hippie 9 1 7, have a look at that card.
• 45:11
  But yeah, so, so I was, so, so the 83 G, right, is the designed by Adrian
• 45:18
  Newey, the March 83 G designed by Adrian Newey before he's in Formula One,
• 45:25
  the car evolves into the Porsche 956, it's a winner with a bunch with two or
• 45:31
  three different engines in it, which if you just stop and think about that.
• 45:35
  Think about how hard it is to design a racing car around one engine, let
• 45:39
  alone a car that was good with one engine and then could win with others.
• 45:45
  Um, well, Blue Thunder Racing is one of these pot sponsored teams.
• 45:52
  I think, from my research, there's a good chance that the chassis that I wrote about
• 45:58
  itself was actually used to smuggle pot.
• 46:02
  I think it's to stick it in the chassis, yeah?
• 46:05
  Yeah.
• 46:05
  Yeah.
• 46:06
  Yeah.
• 46:07
  But, but it, it would.
• 46:09
  You know, the, the, um, so the, the blue thunder guy was this guy, Randy
• 46:15
  Lanier, really nice guy, um, served a lot of time and he's out of jail now.
• 46:21
  Um, but the, the Miami vice tie is that that is that the, it was
• 46:28
  all mixed up with flying as well.
• 46:31
  Right.
• 46:31
  That the cars and the flying was all sort of tied, tied together.
• 46:38
  Um, and the, you know, and it's, it's, I tell you what it is, right?
• 46:43
  We've all seen Top Gun Maverick, right?
• 46:46
  And there's Maverick living in the warehouse with the hot rod plane
• 46:51
  and the bikes and the, and it's the epitome of cool, the coolest
• 46:55
  people in the Miami Vice world.
• 46:58
  Were the people that flew the planes that that and and the fact that you
• 47:02
  could, you know, you, you could, you, you could have, uh, you, you could be, you,
• 47:07
  you could be Top Gun Maverick, right?
• 47:09
  And, and not have to take the army shell.
• 47:12
  You could do, you could have done it flying.
• 47:16
  Drugs easily if you were ethically, um, if you're ethically, uh, compromised
• 47:23
  in, in, in that kind of way.
• 47:25
  Yeah.
• 47:25
  Um, so old, uh, so, so Lanier and the blue, so blue thunder, right?
• 47:30
  I reckon they were sitting around smoking a joint one day.
• 47:32
  The show comes on and they're like, that's fucking cool.
• 47:35
  What are we going to call the team?
• 47:36
  I mean, one of them, um, the other guys, the Whittington brothers,
• 47:41
  they did a sponsorship deal where, uh, it was like for, for a perfume.
• 47:45
  And they bought somebody else's perfume, relabeled it, hired all
• 47:49
  these models to walk around the pits spraying people with the perfume.
• 47:53
  And it was like whoever's perfume on the side of the car,
• 47:55
  all funded by drug smuggling.
• 48:00
  I'd get rid of the smell of the puff, wouldn't it?
• 48:02
  So the car, there was a car on the lawn at Pebble Beach last year.
• 48:07
  And it was one of my favorite stories about this, that the
• 48:11
  Porsche did the 935, right?
• 48:13
  And it was the rules at Le Mans where it had to be like a silhouette shape.
• 48:18
  But they could do the flat nose and the wide wing on it and the big tail on it.
• 48:23
  And, and there's socking great turbo on it.
• 48:25
  So it's like a normal Porsche, normal Porsche flat six, but with a giant
• 48:29
  mode, obviously strengthened, right.
• 48:31
  But with a giant turbo on it, well, apparently it, well, I mean,
• 48:35
  I'm no expert, but according to the Porsche people that I, you
• 48:40
  know, did my pebble docent stuff with, um, Kramer, the privateer.
• 48:46
  Developed a version of the turbo in a different aero package that so their
• 48:51
  car was better than anybody else's.
• 48:54
  It became known as the K3, the 935 K3, but he's fundamentally
• 49:00
  different car from the 935.
• 49:02
  Well, Kramer, um, so knowing this, right.
• 49:06
  The Whittington brothers agree with the, with Kramer that they're
• 49:11
  gonna be able to drive at Lamar.
• 49:13
  So they turn up at Lamar and before the race, Kramer's there with like Klaus
• 49:19
  Ludvig and the other German drivers.
• 49:22
  And he is like, you know, right.
• 49:24
  You know, Ludwig will start, bill Wittington will be next.
• 49:27
  You know, other Wittington will be, and the, and the Wittingtons are
• 49:31
  like, no, no, you don't understand.
• 49:33
  Like, we wanna start the race.
• 49:35
  If the car breaks.
• 49:36
  We are not gonna race.
• 49:38
  We're not coming all the way from America to not get a race.
• 49:40
  And they're like, no, no, you don't understand IMZT manager.
• 49:43
  I say, what happened?
• 49:45
  Well, what would it take for us to run the tee?
• 49:48
  Well, you'd need to own the car, Joe.
• 49:51
  Well, how much would that be?
• 49:52
  Throw the number.
• 49:55
  Were throws out an random number.
• 49:57
  The car at most was worth a hundred grand.
• 50:00
  He says 250 Grand Kramer says.
• 50:04
  So Dick and Bill look at each other and one says to the other, go back to
• 50:07
  the trailer and get the duffel bag.
• 50:11
  And they buy the car on the spot and win the race and win the race in the rain.
• 50:20
  In the,
• 50:24
  that's been some good puff.
• 50:26
  Must have been some good puff, right?
• 50:28
  Um, they own road Atlanta and the thought was that what they used to do
• 50:33
  was they would fly two identical planes.
• 50:38
  Two planes would take off from like one from a race location, say, and another
• 50:43
  one from some spot in South America, say.
• 50:46
  And then as they approached U.
• 50:48
  S.
• 50:48
  radar, one would.
• 50:50
  Go under the other and they would fly like this, the road Atlanta and road
• 50:55
  Atlanta has a long straight on it.
• 50:58
  So road Atlanta, super long backstretch the two planes.
• 51:03
  would, would come along and one plane still underneath the other one
• 51:08
  and, you know, the one with all the dukes in would land on the runway and
• 51:11
  the other one would carry on to its like legitimate, uh, uh, location.
• 51:16
  Now the way that story cropped up was that people driving on the track
• 51:21
  would notice these weird skid marks.
• 51:26
  Because it'd be like, if you think, think about what a runway looks like
• 51:29
  versus what, you know, this year and a half way down that, you know, like
• 51:33
  the part of the track where it's like wide open throttle and there's like
• 51:35
  skid marks there, you know what I mean?
• 51:38
  That's not, uh, so yeah.
• 51:40
  So, um, uh,
• 51:46
  the other thing, and we maybe even talked about this, but before I've
• 51:50
  talked about it a lot, cause it really, um, got my attention was, um,
• 51:55
  that podcast I listened to the sneak.
• 51:58
  That was about that NASCAR mechanic, Mario Rossi, who disappeared.
• 52:04
  He was in the engine builder and he disappeared.
• 52:07
  And without wanting to give away what happens in the sneak podcast, cause
• 52:14
  it's an amazing story, brilliantly told without wanting to, to, to give away.
• 52:21
  You know, what I want to do is plot spoiler.
• 52:24
  Um, it's exactly, it's where NASCAR meets Miami vice and the intersection point was
• 52:35
  Mark, the last time I saw him is like, you know, there's a boat near my storage unit.
• 52:39
  He's looking at the boat.
• 52:41
  I'm like, why are you doing?
• 52:42
  He's like best source of date.
• 52:44
  Correct.
• 52:45
  Big block motors, his boats.
• 52:48
  In the seventies, people were going to junk yards, taking motors out of Cadillacs
• 52:53
  and so on, taking big block motors out of cars and pushing them in boats.
• 52:58
  And now it's a great way to, to, to, to, to find them again, right?
• 53:03
  So that intersection between cars and boats, think about
• 53:07
  Miami Vice, think about Crockett.
• 53:09
  Yeah, he has the Ferrari.
• 53:11
  He also has a cigarette boat.
• 53:12
  Why do you have the cigarette boat?
• 53:15
  Because you might just.
• 53:18
  Land the float plane out to sea and you go out in the boat and you pick it up and
• 53:24
  you come back and you need the boat to be as fast as fuck because the customs
• 53:30
  guys are going to try and intercept you.
• 53:32
  You need to be out there.
• 53:34
  Grab the stash and back again as fast as possible.
• 53:39
  You would clearly need to be some mean pilot to land in the open ocean.
• 53:42
  Maybe you don't land in the open ocean.
• 53:44
  Maybe they just circle and chuck the stuff out.
• 53:46
  But the point is that that was the point of those cigarette boats.
• 53:50
  I think that was how Mario Rossi got wrapped up in that hole.
• 53:57
  I think he didn't just build engines for race cars.
• 54:00
  I think the race car engines went in some hot rod boats as well.
• 54:04
  And I think that meant that he got mixed up with some, uh, some people who it
• 54:09
  might have been better that he didn't get.
• 54:11
  Mixed up with I think they had that nine five three five at Goodwood
• 54:18
  first of a speed last year.
• 54:19
  Yeah, it's it's white Well, I mean, I was sorry and whether or not it was that one.
• 54:26
  They had a 935 I think it was this orange one to be honest.
• 54:31
  They're awesome.
• 54:32
  Awesome cars.
• 54:33
  Oh, yeah They were originally designed with the wide body
• 54:37
  all the way up the door.
• 54:39
  Regulators were like upset about it and that's why they had to take the doors off.
• 54:44
  So if you, because if you look at a 935 at the side, it looks like a 911 class
• 54:49
  house and everything is completely 911.
• 54:52
  One of the things very noticeable is that it almost seems, it's almost
• 54:55
  like one of those hot rod Volkswagen Beetles when you sit, when I was looking
• 55:00
  at it on the lawn of Pebble because the windshield's so, uh, so upright.
• 55:05
  Yeah.
• 55:06
  Um,
• 55:11
  so, uh, here's a topic, Hagerty, the classic car insurance company,
• 55:20
  are buying all the car shows.
• 55:26
  So, for example, they bought the Amelia Island Concours, partly, I think, because
• 55:30
  Bill Warner wanted to retire, and it was like his thing, and you might think to
• 55:35
  yourself, well, can you buy a Concours?
• 55:36
  Well, I guess you can, because Hagerty have been, because
• 55:39
  it's been an ongoing concern.
• 55:42
  So if you, in the UK, um, HubNut does that event, the Festival of
• 55:47
  the Unexceptional, where, you know, if you've an Austin Maestro, you
• 55:51
  can take it along kind of thing.
• 55:52
  Um, well, I know, right?
• 55:54
  It's not your bag, but these, these, these things are hugely Uh, these
• 56:01
  things are hugely popular, you know, each to each their own, right?
• 56:04
  There's a place for everyone.
• 56:08
  Yeah, definitely.
• 56:08
  So now Hagerty are buying all these classic car shows.
• 56:13
  What is that?
• 56:13
  Is that a good thing?
• 56:14
  Is that a bad thing?
• 56:15
  I guess I had considered it was a safe pair of hands, you know, and
• 56:21
  it's nice that they're investing in the future of, of the hobby.
• 56:25
  You know, if I want cars to carry on being driven and used and Hagerty's business is.
• 56:32
  Driving and using cars.
• 56:34
  I've met McKeel Haggerty on a number of occasions.
• 56:39
  I've seen him speak in person on a number of, I've sat around boardroom
• 56:43
  tables with him and heard him contribute.
• 56:46
  The bloke gets cars.
• 56:48
  The bloke loves cars.
• 56:50
  Um, Of all the people to be buying up everything, you know, more power to him.
• 56:57
  I'm just a bit worried that he's going to be by 2040.
• 57:02
  He's going to be the emperor of classic cars or from capitalism.
• 57:09
  It happens in every industry.
• 57:12
  I'm not talking about the business side of it.
• 57:14
  I'm talking about what does that do to the classic car movement?
• 57:17
  What was once something that was independent has now become.
• 57:24
  Not just a corporate entity, but one particular corporate entity
• 57:29
  and a particular corporate entity that has a particular agenda.
• 57:34
  And I, I want to know whether or not I'm paranoid, you know, I, I spoke
• 57:37
  to, uh, an old friend, um, you know, somebody who's been really influential
• 57:42
  to me, um, over, uh, you know, at Pebble Beach last year and his.
• 57:50
  He was the person who, when I was like, you know, hanging here buying everything,
• 57:53
  he went, yeah, how do you feel about that?
• 57:56
  And I said, you know, I never really thought about it before.
• 57:59
  And he went, yeah, I'm not sure how I feel about it either.
• 58:02
  And that was what set me thinking, what implications does this have
• 58:08
  for, you know, is it a good thing for English heritage to own all the,
• 58:15
  uh, you know, castles and earthworks of a certain kind in, in Britain?
• 58:20
  Yes, I, I believe.
• 58:23
  But they don't make enough money, like, so, they need protected.
• 58:28
  Car shows?
• 58:29
  I mean, it's They're owning sh they're owning shows, and, and so, so instead
• 58:34
  of just saying, you know, there's the old car space, and I'm gonna
• 58:38
  insure it, they're saying there's the old car space, I'm gonna insure it,
• 58:43
  I'm gonna protect my own business.
• 58:47
  By making sure people are still driving on the road and the way that
• 58:52
  I'm going to ensure that they do that is by making sure there's a really
• 58:56
  vibrant community of shows and, and events, because if there's no shows
• 59:03
  to go to, you know, nobody's gonna, if there's, if there's no event to go to.
• 59:10
  It's nice to show off.
• 59:11
  Yeah, isn't it?
• 59:11
  I mean, let's be honest.
• 59:13
  It's, it's nice to go and play with your toys.
• 59:15
  People don't do it enough.
• 59:17
  So, you know, I think that should be encouraged.
• 59:19
  Yeah.
• 59:21
  But all of it being these shows that used to be independently owned and
• 59:28
  now all, you know, the whole there's a sense of you know, when the music
• 59:35
  label owns the band's music you know, there's something weird about that to me.
• 59:43
  As I say, until I had the conversation with Mark Gessler, I hadn't had
• 59:48
  any thought about it at all.
• 59:51
  And then after that conversation, I was like, you know, I like McKeel Haggerty.
• 59:57
  I just.
• 59:58
  Don't like power concentrated in one in 1, 8, 2.
• 1:00:02
  Yeah.
• 1:00:02
  Yeah.
• 1:00:02
  I mean there's, yeah, and there are plenty of parallels as how as to
• 1:00:05
  how it can go both ways, can't you?
• 1:00:06
  Isn't it, doesn't it?
• 1:00:07
  Uh, and often, you know, it doesn't, you know, the, uh, the regency doesn't
• 1:00:11
  survive down the generations, if you like, in terms of, uh, if you've got
• 1:00:15
  a really talented general, doesn't mean the son of the job, the son
• 1:00:18
  of the king is gonna be any good.
• 1:00:20
  Um, so yeah.
• 1:00:22
  And Haage are a publicly traded company.
• 1:00:24
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:24
  So, you know, they're gonna be driven by.
• 1:00:28
  Yeah.
• 1:00:29
  Yeah.
• 1:00:29
  And, and, you know, there's a sound business case, right?
• 1:00:32
  That, that, you know, if you're insuring cars, you need to, you know, if you
• 1:00:37
  can create a theater for people to use the cars and then protect that, you
• 1:00:42
  know, it's a bit like Drive the values.
• 1:00:43
  That's what you can do.
• 1:00:44
  You can drive enthusiasm and drive the values.
• 1:00:46
  So the more they do from that point of view, it's going
• 1:00:48
  to be a good thing, I guess.
• 1:00:50
  Um, it does, it's difficult for it not to, you know, drive some level of
• 1:00:55
  homogeneity because it's the same company with the same people with the same heads.
• 1:00:59
  So therefore they can only have so many ideas.
• 1:01:02
  Um, but you know.
• 1:01:04
  I actually had lunch with with the guy that's that's lunch dinner.
• 1:01:09
  I should say with because Wayne it's it's I say this is it's not really me.
• 1:01:13
  It was Wayne knew the guy.
• 1:01:16
  So I tagged along and we we had we had dinner in a in a restaurant at Pebble.
• 1:01:22
  Um, a couple of years ago, um, he is, um, you know, well, I, I like the people
• 1:01:31
  that I meet at Hackety, you know, of all the companies to be doing it, you know,
• 1:01:35
  I feel, I, you know, I almost feel, I feel better about that than I felt about
• 1:01:39
  Mercedes buying everything at Brooklyn's, you know, even though that was.
• 1:01:44
  If it hadn't been Mercedes, if it hadn't been a German company, it maybe wouldn't
• 1:01:48
  have stuck in my craw in quite the same way, but at the same time, I recognize
• 1:01:53
  that Mercedes are an excellent caretaker.
• 1:01:55
  Um, Hagerty are that caretaker.
• 1:01:58
  Um, there is, and maybe, you know, maybe a small Concorde.
• 1:02:04
  You know, maybe the festival, the unexceptional and other British Concord
• 1:02:08
  and Concord in Germany and France and so on, maybe they can benefit from, you
• 1:02:13
  know, techniques that are used in, in other, you know, Concord around the world.
• 1:02:20
  You know, I don't, I, there is, it's, uh, yeah, it's just weird that an
• 1:02:27
  amateur thing's becoming corporatized.
• 1:02:29
  I think that's my basic contention.
• 1:02:32
  Yeah.
• 1:02:35
  Um.
• 1:02:36
  All right, we've talked for ages.
• 1:02:39
  Let's do the quickfire.
• 1:02:40
  We'll probably talk for another half an hour in the quickfire.
• 1:02:42
  Um, what is your favorite car movie?
• 1:02:48
  Or what's, what do you think the best car movie is?
• 1:02:50
  Or, or both?
• 1:02:51
  Well, I can't profess to have watched all the car movies.
• 1:02:54
  So, you know, any, take it everything, caveat it.
• 1:02:57
  But, I saw this on the list, um, about an hour ago.
• 1:03:03
  So, um, I reckon I difficult to, I, I haven't decided yet to
• 1:03:08
  narrow it down to, uh, an actual winner, but for different things.
• 1:03:12
  And we can include the next item on the list, which is Best Car Chase
• 1:03:15
  in the same conversation, I think.
• 1:03:17
  'cause they are in inextricably linked.
• 1:03:19
  Um, I like taxi, the original one in French where he's driving.
• 1:03:25
  Is it that Citron or is it a, was it a, or was it a Pergio?
• 1:03:28
  The one that comes up on like jacks and lowers itself down and stuff.
• 1:03:31
  And it's basically a romance whole thing.
• 1:03:33
  Yeah.
• 1:03:33
  Is it white?
• 1:03:34
  White?
• 1:03:34
  Yeah.
• 1:03:35
  It's a photo 4 0 5.
• 1:03:36
  4 0 6, isn't it?
• 1:03:38
  Yeah, six.
• 1:03:38
  But like, it's like, you know, it's essentially a soppy romance movie,
• 1:03:43
  um, broadly as I recollect it through the f of a, a wild Zane living room.
• 1:03:50
  Um, yeah, that was pretty special.
• 1:03:53
  But the, the, because the opening scene, the guy gets in and goes,
• 1:03:56
  get me to the airport, like, you've gotta get me to the airport.
• 1:03:58
  And he's like, well, how long have you got?
• 1:04:00
  And he sets the time on his watch and gets there, like, quicker.
• 1:04:03
  But the guy throws up when he gets out of the back of the thing because
• 1:04:06
  it's been so violently driven, like a touring car through the streets.
• 1:04:10
  So that's pretty good.
• 1:04:11
  I enjoyed that.
• 1:04:11
  I've only seen that once.
• 1:04:12
  It was a long time ago, but I remember thinking it was pretty cool.
• 1:04:15
  I like the one in France, obviously, with, um, uh, the assassins bit going on.
• 1:04:21
  I can't remember.
• 1:04:22
  Ronin.
• 1:04:22
  Ronin, yeah, that's pretty good.
• 1:04:24
  Um, I like that essay quite a lot.
• 1:04:26
  Um, Not just the S8, there is the scene with, um, there's three of those,
• 1:04:35
  there's this scene everyone remembers at the end with the M5 and the Peugeot
• 1:04:41
  406, where Robert De Niro sitting alongside, they got a left hand drive car.
• 1:04:47
  And so, and then rigged it up and, but his reactions are real, right?
• 1:04:51
  So the car's being driven and he sat on the other side.
• 1:04:54
  Do you see what I mean?
• 1:04:55
  They use a British registered right hand drive car.
• 1:04:58
  So the front drive, he does it like he's bricking it at points.
• 1:05:01
  And when he is, is that like, cause he's next to a stunt driver who's doing it.
• 1:05:05
  He's giving it a 10 out of 10.
• 1:05:07
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:05:08
  Yeah.
• 1:05:08
  There's a scene.
• 1:05:09
  I remember a scene with a Brown Mercedes, like first generation Mercedes S class.
• 1:05:15
  And I remember enjoying that scene very much and, and, uh, yeah, yeah,
• 1:05:20
  that is a good movie for, for, yeah, it's got some quality bits.
• 1:05:23
  So when he does that lovely four wheel drift in the S8 round the
• 1:05:26
  corner on cobbles at the top of the hill to go back down the next
• 1:05:29
  street, that's just chef's kiss.
• 1:05:32
  Really nice.
• 1:05:33
  Um, but, uh, yeah, so I like that.
• 1:05:35
  And then I know it's cake.
• 1:05:36
  Yeah, I know it's cake, but like.
• 1:05:39
  The Bad Boys 2, 550 scene, where he's sliding it around and
• 1:05:43
  firing an Uzi out of the window.
• 1:05:45
  I mean, like, come on.
• 1:05:46
  It's, it's just lovely.
• 1:05:48
  That whole scene where they're, like, dropping shit off the back of, or is that
• 1:05:52
  in Bad Boys 1, where they're dropping stuff off the back of, uh, car trailers?
• 1:05:56
  And bouncing them on the road.
• 1:05:58
  No, that is bad boy 2, and he's driving the 550 in between it.
• 1:06:01
  And, you know, it's early CGI, so some of the bits you're like,
• 1:06:05
  Alright, it's a like, it's a little bit like, that's computer enhanced.
• 1:06:09
  I mean, it's still pretty cool.
• 1:06:11
  People are getting hit in the face with like, flying cars.
• 1:06:14
  Um, and massive 550 V12 wailing through the whole thing.
• 1:06:19
  So, uh, it's pretty cool.
• 1:06:22
  I quite enjoyed that.
• 1:06:24
  I think, uh, for me, um, I always would say that, uh, I thought Le Mans
• 1:06:28
  was, uh, was my favorite car movie.
• 1:06:30
  I'm not sure if it is now.
• 1:06:32
  I've, I've watched it so many times with Ollie, I'm not sure if I'm a bit over it.
• 1:06:36
  Um, I do think Le Mans is probably the best movie that
• 1:06:39
  I've watched about motor racing.
• 1:06:41
  The Santa movies.
• 1:06:42
  The center documentary is really, really good, um, as, as well.
• 1:06:46
  But, um, I don't know what, and I don't know what I'd say
• 1:06:50
  my, my favorite car movie is.
• 1:06:52
  I mean, two lane blacktop deserves a mention, but what I would say for car
• 1:06:57
  chases, I encountered this on YouTube.
• 1:07:01
  Um, in the wake of Dirty Harry, there were like a bunch of Italian movies made that
• 1:07:07
  were like Italian versions of Dirty Harry.
• 1:07:11
  And there's one movie called Roma Violenta, which you don't need to speak
• 1:07:16
  much Italian to, to understand it.
• 1:07:19
  And the clip that I remember is, is, uh, there's a armed robbery.
• 1:07:26
  And the bad guys make off in one of those BMW sedans, early 70s sedans that are like
• 1:07:33
  the 1600 or 2002s, but were a bit bigger and they had the, the square lights.
• 1:07:39
  So there was, was it Neue Klasse?
• 1:07:41
  Is that what they called it?
• 1:07:42
  It was like the Neue Klasse design, but the bigger, anyway, one of those.
• 1:07:47
  So the bad guys are making off in, in there and the good guy, he's
• 1:07:51
  following in a burgundy alpha sedan.
• 1:07:54
  And, uh, Um It's through Rome.
• 1:07:59
  It's really pacey.
• 1:08:01
  It's really gritty.
• 1:08:03
  Uh, there's one scene where, um, the bad guys like cut across a park and, uh,
• 1:08:10
  uh, there's another, and, and there's some people waiting at a bus stop and
• 1:08:15
  they machine gun the people at the bus stop in the hope of holding up the,
• 1:08:20
  the, and a lot of the clips on YouTube, that bit's edited out because it's so.
• 1:08:23
  Fucking gratuity.
• 1:08:25
  . So absolutely gratuitous.
• 1:08:28
  But, but they, uh, and then like they, they hold some people up
• 1:08:31
  and they machine gun him again.
• 1:08:33
  And there's, there's another scene that I remember.
• 1:08:35
  I used it in one of my classes one time or one of my students, um, said about that
• 1:08:40
  his favorite scene was that the heroes, like this blonde guy with, with like a
• 1:08:44
  big mustache, which the, the Italians call I Ibai Conquistador, which is brilliant.
• 1:08:51
  This is Clay.
• 1:08:52
  Uh, uh.
• 1:08:53
  Clay Regazzoni, one of Ferrari's engineers, one of Ferrari's, like,
• 1:08:56
  employees, described Regazzoni as having a baffy conquistador y, and I always
• 1:09:02
  remember that, because that's the, that's the kind of mustache the hero has, right?
• 1:09:05
  And, and so, you know, the windshield has been riddled, this
• 1:09:08
  alpha's been riddled with bullets, so you see him, like, lean back.
• 1:09:12
  And he puts his feet up and he kicks the windshield out.
• 1:09:15
  And you can see like the wooden dash and one of those shifters that
• 1:09:19
  comes out of the kind of out of the floor, but more out of the dashboard.
• 1:09:23
  So the knobs really close to, to, to the, uh, to, to the steering wheel.
• 1:09:28
  Um, what my student pointed out was it's that moment where the chase,
• 1:09:32
  where there's been the chase, then there's been the out of order.
• 1:09:35
  incident at the bus stop.
• 1:09:38
  Now, with the kicking out of the windshield, that there comes some like 70s
• 1:09:44
  widdly woo music and the chase speeds up.
• 1:09:47
  They're like outside a town, like the chase has a has a rhythm to it.
• 1:09:51
  I can't believe I've waxed so lyrical about Roma Violenta.
• 1:09:55
  It's like an eight minute car chase and there is a bit of under cranking,
• 1:09:58
  you know, it's sped up in places, but it really, uh, Really enjoyable.
• 1:10:03
  Okay, you have a two car garage in Monaco.
• 1:10:09
  What's in it?
• 1:10:10
  Money, no object.
• 1:10:15
  Money, no object, but you and your wife, this is, these are the
• 1:10:18
  two cars for you and your family.
• 1:10:21
  Yeah, so I won't be anything stupid.
• 1:10:23
  I don't know.
• 1:10:24
  Let me have a think about that one.
• 1:10:25
  I mean, my instant thought is to have something like city useful.
• 1:10:30
  Well, I'll go first whilst you're thinking.
• 1:10:32
  Um, my first one was exactly what you thought after I have
• 1:10:35
  something practical, right?
• 1:10:37
  My wife needs to drive something.
• 1:10:39
  Um, a Turbo S Cabrio.
• 1:10:41
  A late model Turbo S colour.
• 1:10:43
  I was thinking actually more city practical than that.
• 1:10:47
  I was thinking like a Yaris GR.
• 1:10:50
  Nah.
• 1:10:50
  Well, you can have your Yaris GR.
• 1:10:52
  On the other side of my garage, and I'll say it now before I
• 1:10:56
  think more and change my mind.
• 1:10:57
  A Bentley.
• 1:10:59
  Period.
• 1:11:00
  Proper Bentley.
• 1:11:03
  I was thinking about those 599s you could get with a manual.
• 1:11:07
  Ooh!
• 1:11:07
  640 horsepower, V12, front engine, rear wheel drive with a stick.
• 1:11:13
  I mean, it cost me a lot of money because I think they made four of them.
• 1:11:16
  It doesn't cost you any money.
• 1:11:18
  It's this magic garage.
• 1:11:20
  Oh, well, I mean, in which case I definitely have one of those.
• 1:11:22
  What colour?
• 1:11:24
  Black with the pentagram alloys.
• 1:11:26
  Like, if I'm going to cheese dick it, then fucking suck on it.
• 1:11:29
  With red interior or, or, or cream interior?
• 1:11:33
  I don't know.
• 1:11:34
  I might go for a sort of a nice, I don't know.
• 1:11:39
  Nah, probably like a, yeah, sort of a charcoal leather
• 1:11:44
  interior or something like that.
• 1:11:45
  Or maybe no, no sort of like graphite y sort of leather interior, I think.
• 1:11:49
  The black exterior, greyish interior.
• 1:11:51
  Yeah, but I think maybe that sort of grey Alcantara suede.
• 1:11:55
  I quite like that.
• 1:11:57
  Um, most impressive rental car?
• 1:12:05
  Um, well, as you know, I've done about 25, 000 miles around America's west coast
• 1:12:11
  natural national parks over multiple years, costing me far too much money on
• 1:12:15
  holidays, um, in a selection of Mustangs.
• 1:12:19
  Uh, starting with the, the V, the, uh, the small one, um, and then working up
• 1:12:25
  to a series of V8s over multiple years.
• 1:12:28
  I have had amazing times in those cars, given where we were and, you know, runs
• 1:12:34
  up, you know, extinct volcanoes and back down and stuff to get back down
• 1:12:38
  before they stop serving gluten free pasta because my wife's having a sugar
• 1:12:41
  moment and stuff in this beautiful sunset, thrashing a V8 along like
• 1:12:46
  empty roads because everyone left the National Park ages ago, we passed them
• 1:12:50
  leaving when we were on our way up, but it's a lovely time to visit National
• 1:12:53
  Parks because you're driving up empty, beautiful roads in the sunset, right?
• 1:12:57
  yeah, And then, you have your moment up there, wearing this hard hitting one hair,
• 1:13:01
  and then you drive back down and race to get back to the restaurant in time.
• 1:13:03
  But you arrive at like, ten to nine, and then have a three course meal.
• 1:13:07
  And they're really nice about it, just tip generously, you know?
• 1:13:09
  But, uh, um, yeah, so those things have got to get mentioned.
• 1:13:14
  But, yeah, I mean, at the other end of the scale, we had that, um, No, actually, no.
• 1:13:18
  Okay, yeah.
• 1:13:19
  I was going to say that 406 we took down from Paris, well, just after they
• 1:13:22
  came out, down to the Côte d'Azur.
• 1:13:25
  And then we got moved on by the police at five in the morning from
• 1:13:30
  the services we were sleeping at and they banged on the window and went
• 1:13:34
  and barked at me and you and I looked sleepy and I went, uh, d'accord?
• 1:13:39
  And they just cursed us out and drove away.
• 1:13:42
  We got off, we got off the Eurostar, went to the rental car place.
• 1:13:48
  They gave us the rental car and it was brand new.
• 1:13:51
  It had like three kilometers on it.
• 1:13:55
  And, and then I had to get it out of the parking station, which was
• 1:13:58
  tighter than an ant's nether regions.
• 1:14:02
  And then I had to get it out of Paris.
• 1:14:06
  And I remember being so, I remember getting it out of Gardunor and thinking
• 1:14:11
  what an asshole that station was and being nervous about the streets.
• 1:14:15
  The next thing I remember was the juror and um, It's from rain on
• 1:14:23
  the screen and the wipers working.
• 1:14:25
  And it was the first time I'd ever experienced wipers.
• 1:14:28
  You know what it was?
• 1:14:29
  It was a, it was an early pre, it was an early second generation one that had like
• 1:14:34
  the clear lens headlights and the grill.
• 1:14:37
  was like more of a mouth than a grill.
• 1:14:40
  It was a really good looking car, not for nothing.
• 1:14:43
  Peugeots now, I think, are really good looking cars.
• 1:14:46
  I think Peugeot are really nailed styling.
• 1:14:50
  Um, they often do better in the face than they do in the sort of nether regions.
• 1:14:54
  It's a bit like a dog that's got a giant head and a really small ass.
• 1:14:58
  I think sometimes we're with Peugeot's, uh, styling, but I love that, that
• 1:15:02
  407, I do remember being woken up.
• 1:15:04
  We also woke up, we also, they woke us up and we went into the services
• 1:15:10
  and had steak free for breakfast.
• 1:15:12
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:13
  That was nice.
• 1:15:15
  Yeah.
• 1:15:16
  I wonder why, I wonder why I've got high cholesterol.
• 1:15:21
  And it bears saying that those service, the services food on Europe is better.
• 1:15:24
  It's not great, but it's better than you get.
• 1:15:26
  It just is.
• 1:15:28
  Except for those independent ones that are run by farms and they
• 1:15:30
  usually got some cool stuff there.
• 1:15:32
  Anyway, we very much digress.
• 1:15:34
  Um, but yeah, um, reality is I wouldn't get away with a Yaris GR
• 1:15:39
  on the other side when the missus could have like a dream Ferrari.
• 1:15:42
  So that would be in the other side of the garage.
• 1:15:45
  Um, my, uh, my most impressive rental car was, uh, when Mark Newton and I went
• 1:15:54
  to the 2006 NASCAR race at Fontana in LA and he rented an infinity G35 sedan.
• 1:16:03
  So you're Nissan, um, but with like a four door sedan body and it had this, at the
• 1:16:09
  time, Infiniti had this really exciting, like, catamaran styling going on.
• 1:16:14
  It had these oblong headlights that were a bit like, you know, early
• 1:16:18
  seventies Mercedes with those oblong headlights, but they were leaned back.
• 1:16:21
  It was a bit visually challenging at the time.
• 1:16:23
  I remember pointing them out to you and, and Dents.
• 1:16:27
  Um, and both of you being a bit like, uh, this is when I was getting married, like
• 1:16:32
  2006, something like something like that.
• 1:16:34
  But, um, at the time we, we had one, um, so after Fontana, when we
• 1:16:40
  were driving home, we came off one freeway and north of LA somewhere.
• 1:16:44
  And it was a sweeping.
• 1:16:46
  Right hander.
• 1:16:47
  And I don't know why Mark was going as fast as he was, but we were in
• 1:16:50
  this like right hander about like 120 miles an hour or something like that.
• 1:16:55
  And, and there was a suburban on the hard shoulder and it
• 1:16:58
  pulled off the hard shoulder.
• 1:17:00
  So in the turn, uh, well north of a hundred miles now, Mark had to use
• 1:17:07
  some break and the thing was fine.
• 1:17:10
  The thing was just composed.
• 1:17:13
  Yeah.
• 1:17:14
  Mark didn't panic and didn't hit the brakes too hard and you know,
• 1:17:18
  the, the, the, you know, we shingled on there was plenty of room and
• 1:17:22
  there was no reason to panic.
• 1:17:23
  I was at that moment, that car impressed the, the, the, the Jesus out of me.
• 1:17:29
  I, I'd never encountered like a middleweight sedan that
• 1:17:32
  could do 140 miles an hour.
• 1:17:35
  Like that easily before.
• 1:17:37
  I mean, my Laguna could do 140 miles an hour, but it was like, you know,
• 1:17:41
  that was like, you know, that was the big motor in the plane wrapper.
• 1:17:44
  And it was as rare as Ben's teeth, right?
• 1:17:46
  That, that, and because that Infinity was rear wheel drive as well.
• 1:17:50
  I just thought those were epic.
• 1:17:53
  Epic cars.
• 1:17:54
  Um, the other one that ought to get an honorable mention very briefly
• 1:17:56
  is the white Nissan Micra that I rented on, uh, when we went to
• 1:18:02
  that Greek, um, what's his name?
• 1:18:03
  That Greek Island, which all the pretty pictures they
• 1:18:06
  have of the beautiful Louisa.
• 1:18:07
  I can't remember it come back to me.
• 1:18:10
  Uh, but we went there and, uh, we, for the last day we had to check
• 1:18:15
  out and our flight wasn't till like.
• 1:18:16
  9 o'clock or something like that in the evening.
• 1:18:18
  9.
• 1:18:19
  30, I think it was.
• 1:18:20
  So we had all day.
• 1:18:21
  So I said, well, let's like rent a car and just drive around.
• 1:18:25
  So we went and looked at the, uh, the sort of old, the old ruins
• 1:18:27
  and stuff and where they are.
• 1:18:28
  They found some stuff from, that they dug out from volcanic
• 1:18:31
  action and things like that.
• 1:18:32
  So there's all sorts of cool like archaeology and stuff to go and watch.
• 1:18:35
  Um, so I had to go and look at that.
• 1:18:37
  But this thing had no, it was on steelies, black, lost all the wheel caps.
• 1:18:42
  absolutely baggy as you like, terrible car in virtually every way.
• 1:18:47
  Uh, and, uh, but it didn't need any fuel.
• 1:18:50
  It, when we got in it, it had the fuel light on and, uh, Angie said,
• 1:18:54
  are you going to put some fuel in it?
• 1:18:55
  I said, nah, it'd be all right.
• 1:18:57
  We're going to drive around the island for a bit and then drop it off at the airport.
• 1:19:01
  And, you know, I don't really want to like waste time.
• 1:19:04
  So we didn't, and it beeped at me all the way around.
• 1:19:06
  And, uh, Yeah, got all the way there, and then the handoff procedure was, I
• 1:19:11
  mean, it wasn't Avis, can I say, it was a mate of the guy who owned the place
• 1:19:15
  that we were renting, sorted it out, and he did make me sign something, but
• 1:19:19
  I can't even remember if I got a copy of it, so, you know, yeah, what we did was
• 1:19:25
  parked it in the long stay car parking outside the airport, uh, leave the car
• 1:19:31
  unlocked, and throw the keys under the passenger mat, and walk away, which is my
• 1:19:36
  favorite checkout procedure of any rental.
• 1:19:38
  So, Much better than standing in the queue.
• 1:19:40
  I think they should implement that and stuff.
• 1:19:43
  The Swiss need some of that.
• 1:19:44
  Oh, don't they ever?
• 1:19:46
  Yeah.
• 1:19:47
  The Swiss needs some of that.
• 1:19:50
  Plenty of that.
• 1:19:51
  I bet everybody did it with, did it work?
• 1:19:53
  Yeah.
• 1:19:53
  I left the car and we went into the airport.
• 1:19:58
  Um, I'd never actually answered the quick fire question last
• 1:20:04
  week of what was the worst car.
• 1:20:07
  That I ever owned.
• 1:20:08
  Oh.
• 1:20:09
  And I did sit and think about it and, you know, it is a race to the
• 1:20:13
  bottom with the stuff that I've owned.
• 1:20:16
  You know, I'm, we're, we're coming, we're ending where we came in, aren't we?
• 1:20:20
  With my, uh, your shitty cars?
• 1:20:22
  Yeah.
• 1:20:22
  Yeah.
• 1:20:22
  With my terrible cars.
• 1:20:24
  And so I was gonna put it to you.
• 1:20:26
  Worst car I ever owned.
• 1:20:28
  The blue Corina that I sold to Gypsies.
• 1:20:32
  Well, my dad sold to Gypsies for 30 pounds.
• 1:20:35
  That blue Cortina that I had, that was pretty bad, wasn't it?
• 1:20:40
  Um.
• 1:20:40
  It broke down a lot.
• 1:20:42
  It did.
• 1:20:43
  Oh yes, it was unreliable too, wasn't it?
• 1:20:45
  Because the orange one, it was very rusty, that orange one.
• 1:20:48
  You remember you opened the door one time.
• 1:20:50
  And it always, it did work.
• 1:20:52
  It was a bad damp starter.
• 1:20:54
  Yeah, so we were almost late for those A levels when I parked it
• 1:20:57
  too far down the driveway and I couldn't push it up the driveway.
• 1:20:59
  That's right.
• 1:20:59
  And we had push out the driveway and then jump in and it would roll down the street
• 1:21:04
  and I could jumpstart it easily enough.
• 1:21:06
  'cause I knew it wanted to, uh, I knew it wanted to start.
• 1:21:09
  Yeah.
• 1:21:10
  Um, yeah.
• 1:21:12
  So maybe the Blue Cortina crusader, maybe that.
• 1:21:16
  Econoline van that I had here, that E 150 van that I bought from Stanford
• 1:21:23
  and then put like 20, 000 miles on and Mark had in LA for a bit and.
• 1:21:28
  The one where the brake pedal went to the floor and the, you know, the
• 1:21:31
  other story I remember about that van.
• 1:21:33
  Um, do you remember, um, one time when you visited and we were driving on
• 1:21:38
  California street in San Francisco and I know it was California street because.
• 1:21:43
  It's the one with the cable cars, and you know what?
• 1:21:45
  You know what I'm gonna say?
• 1:21:47
  I got it stuck on that white line, didn't I?
• 1:21:50
  It was like wheelspin, wheelspin, wheelspin.
• 1:21:51
  Yeah, that was smoke.
• 1:21:53
  Slide sideways down the hill, smoke, smoke, sideways down the
• 1:21:57
  hill, sideways down the hill.
• 1:22:01
  Ah, yeah.
• 1:22:02
  That was fucking quality, yeah.
• 1:22:04
  Now that was a bad car.
• 1:22:05
  Um, but like, dude, I mean, I've got a video.
• 1:22:08
  My Capri was a terrible car, though.
• 1:22:10
  Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 1:22:11
  It was pretty bad.
• 1:22:11
  I mean, of those three, the van worked the most.
• 1:22:16
  Yeah, I mean, I like the eight directional seat control the van had.
• 1:22:20
  So, on the passenger side, you could just move it around with one finger.
• 1:22:23
  But that was a modification I made.
• 1:22:26
  That was a modification I made.
• 1:22:28
  It had those brown, it had the brown plastic seat first, but then
• 1:22:33
  Mark's dog Oh I see, is that why it was only screwed in with one screw?
• 1:22:36
  Mark's dogs chewed that seat up.
• 1:22:38
  So I was like, fuck this chewed up doggy seat, this is You felt like,
• 1:22:43
  it felt like you were sitting in the loo when you were driving it after
• 1:22:45
  the dogs had chewed the seat up.
• 1:22:47
  So I was like, you know, and you know where that is now, it's in Ollie's shop
• 1:22:51
  now, that seat, that's all that's left.
• 1:22:53
  Of that van, because the van's gone, everything else of that van went to
• 1:22:57
  the great scrap man in the sky in like, 2016 or 17, something like that.
• 1:23:06
  It's been gone, uh, uh, uh, a while.
• 1:23:09
  Um, yeah, it was, it was, well, it was Moss and oh, man, do you remember at
• 1:23:19
  the end, it got all black widowed up because I put it in storage in a field
• 1:23:24
  and I, I came back up pretty much.
• 1:23:27
  They recognize the cool.
• 1:23:29
  They want to be associated.
• 1:23:30
  Paid up, like, the, the meth y dude that was, like, in the field.
• 1:23:34
  And, uh, you know, I just got in it and started it.
• 1:23:37
  I so wanted to know if it was actually going to start, or if I was going
• 1:23:40
  to have to, like, hang out with the meth y dude and try and jump it,
• 1:23:43
  or some craziness like, like that.
• 1:23:45
  But it fired up straight away, and I just drove it straight
• 1:23:47
  to the nearest gas station.
• 1:23:49
  Um, and I had to get, uh, straight to the nearest gas station.
• 1:23:52
  As I was putting air in it, there was black widows crawling
• 1:23:55
  out from behind the gas station.
• 1:23:57
  But from the hunt behind the wheel caps, like absolutely like I say plural
• 1:24:03
  because it did one wheel and I was like, well, maybe I just won't do that.
• 1:24:05
  We went to the next one.
• 1:24:07
  There were two on that one.
• 1:24:08
  And I was like, I'm just like, ah, I just, uh, yeah.
• 1:24:11
  So then you're driving and it was full of stuff.
• 1:24:14
  And every time, every like little itch or every drop of sweat, you
• 1:24:17
  were like worried that it was a black widow down the back of your neck.
• 1:24:20
  Yeah.
• 1:24:21
  Yeah.
• 1:24:22
  Yeah, and then I put it in my storage unit, drove away, and it was only a week
• 1:24:26
  later that I was like, shit, I just put a Black Widow infested vehicle in my
• 1:24:30
  storage place with all my other vehicles.
• 1:24:33
  Like, wow, like, yeah.
• 1:24:35
  I'd probably just snuff it.
• 1:24:37
  Yeah, well, they did, but it took a couple of years to be honest.
• 1:24:39
  I was seeing them for a couple of years because Danny used to be terrified whether
• 1:24:43
  I, if I went over there with Ollie, because, uh, the, the, the, the bike
• 1:24:47
  can't be enough to, uh, to, to, to kill.
• 1:24:51
  Well, I don't want to have an, don't want to, don't want to snuggle.
• 1:24:55
  Yeah.
• 1:24:56
  Um,
• 1:25:01
  I feel like we've come to a natural conclusion there.
• 1:25:04
  Cool.
• 1:25:05
  All right, buddy.
• 1:25:06
  Appreciate your time, Mark.
• 1:25:07
  Um.
• 1:25:09
  I'll see you next time.
• 1:25:10
  Yeah, take it easy, man.
• 1:25:21
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