Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Stonehenge by Mokka; Saxon & Gixxers

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Stonehenge by Mokka; Saxon & Gixxers · 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.
• 0:39
  Good day, good morning, good afternoon.
• 0:42
  It is John Summers, the motoring historian.
• 0:45
  Um, Do another one of these on my own, I guess, because, uh, I
• 0:50
  recently had a trip to England and did a lot of, of car related things.
• 0:55
  Um, so a bit to talk about there.
• 1:00
  I always feel like it's important to begin with what's, uh, with what's really
• 1:04
  important and, and I always want this to be like a document of, of my own.
• 1:10
  Um, motoring experiences and, and, uh, I guess, you know, the, the, the dog is out
• 1:17
  my feet as, as we speak, sitting on my feet and, and for the last six months, you
• 1:23
  know, when, and even recording this pod now is at the expense of going out for a
• 1:27
  walk with him and that really illustrates, uh, you know, how my life has, has been
• 1:34
  over the six or seven months that, that we as a, as a family of, of having, um,
• 1:42
  And I guess a lot of the time that I spent fiddling around with
• 1:46
  cars and bikes, I haven't spent fiddling around with cars and bikes.
• 1:49
  And, and, uh, the bikes particularly had reached a pretty powerless state.
• 1:53
  Now there's, there's, I mean, there's a lot of them.
• 1:56
  It's, it's, you know, it's, it's less than 25, but it's, it's, you
• 2:01
  know, more than 15 at the moment.
• 2:03
  And, um, and it reached a point where bloody none of them worked.
• 2:07
  I mean, how embarrassing is, uh, is that?
• 2:12
  I.
• 2:15
  Um,
• 2:17
  so I, I suppose, you know, now where I I'm feeling better about the whole
• 2:22
  thing, because there's, there's three that work now I, I was able to persuade
• 2:27
  the venerable, uh, Honda shadow that was gifted me and I went and picked
• 2:31
  up in, in gold country last year.
• 2:34
  Um, I managed to get that started.
• 2:36
  It had not wanted to start before.
• 2:37
  And I guess it's because, um, the jigsaws have a, a choke that goes
• 2:41
  down to be on and up to be off.
• 2:44
  And, and the Ducati has this weird toggling mechanism that I, I can't
• 2:50
  quite figure, but it's more of a feel than a, um, it's like clicks closed.
• 2:55
  So, you know, when it's open and fully open by the way that it feels well, and
• 3:00
  the jigsaws that are like upside down from Honda in terms of how you do the choke.
• 3:05
  So anyway, I guess I'd struggled to get the Honda started the
• 3:09
  last time anyways, that runs.
• 3:11
  Um, More importantly, John has just done the clutch in the 2001 Suzuki GSX R K1
• 3:26
  that I have, 1000 K1 that I have, that was owned by that Irish road race guy.
• 3:31
  Now, I guess the, it's a fairly well known thing on them that
• 3:36
  the clutches become herky jerky.
• 3:39
  Um, and.
• 3:43
  It's also something that you won't appreciate if you didn't ride those
• 3:46
  bikes sort of in period in the way that I did is that the fueling, the,
• 3:51
  the, the fueling is, is not good.
• 3:53
  And what we mean by that is that this is early stage fuel injection.
• 3:57
  And we mean that the bike is going to rev out to 14 grand.
• 4:02
  Now, The fueling will be good at 14, and it will be good at 10, and
• 4:06
  it will be good at 8, be good at 7, it'll be good at 5, but what you tend
• 4:11
  to find is that 3 or 4 grand range.
• 4:14
  It can be a bit hit and miss, uh, especially if the fuel's not good.
• 4:19
  And, and, uh, you know, now, uh, the way the, uh, somebody like the lab that
• 4:26
  had me had it before, before me, John or Neil, the lab before that, the Irish
• 4:34
  road race guy, he, uh, Um, you know, he just ride it very aggressively.
• 4:39
  It had no mirrors, on it because, you know, you're not looking back.
• 4:42
  You're riding it.
• 4:42
  And if you ride it like that, if you come into throttle sharply,
• 4:46
  if you go through the gears in a sharp way, it was, it was all right.
• 4:49
  Or at least it was for, um, about the, the, The first year or so the first
• 4:55
  year or so for for a period when I had it, I felt like it was all right.
• 4:59
  But but there was a moment there where um, I struggled to get the
• 5:04
  clutch to disengage and my hand was tired and I was Mentally tired and it
• 5:09
  tried to put me into the middle of an interception a busy like interception.
• 5:14
  Um, and it Absolutely scared the shit out of me.
• 5:18
  Um, and I've not ridden it for a little bit.
• 5:23
  Well, John had the clutch apart and it had all this horrible, milky, oily shit in it.
• 5:32
  Right.
• 5:33
  And, and, uh, Anyway, so it's got a new clutch.
• 5:38
  Um, it also has not just the new clutch, but it also has a modification, which
• 5:45
  is well known on the Suzuki forums.
• 5:48
  Like you, like, you know, it's, it's, is you fit a clutch ring from
• 5:54
  a later Kawasaki ZX10, so in fact, the, the CX10, the ZX10R C1 2005 bike
• 6:04
  that I have, uh, The sort of peak analog bike, 180 horse, um, no aids
• 6:12
  whatsoever, peak analog, peak power.
• 6:16
  After that analog, that, um, that bike, the, you fit a clutch ring from that bike
• 6:23
  to the 2001 Dix a Thou and you get a bike that has a much smoother clutch on it.
• 6:31
  Now, um, when the clutch first seized up, John was like, well,
• 6:35
  I was like, how do you fix it?
• 6:36
  And he went, well, you zip tie and you hold it, you leave it in for a bit and
• 6:41
  then you see what's going to happen.
• 6:42
  And he and Neil, when John was buying it off, Neil had identified that as a
• 6:47
  problem and they changed the, the oil.
• 6:49
  So this milkiness had come in, in the time that I guess, since he and Neil
• 6:55
  had done it, that's probably 10 years.
• 6:58
  Um, and, and, you know, you think about it, the bike is now 24.
• 7:03
  Years old, which is, is, is astonishing.
• 7:07
  Um, so I actually really, um,
• 7:13
  uh, so yeah, so John did the oil for me.
• 7:16
  He did this gearbox, did this clutch change on me and he fitted, did this
• 7:21
  modification where you fit a clutch ring from a ZX10R to, uh, the, and
• 7:26
  it makes the, the clutch smoother.
• 7:28
  He also did a test ride for me, um, leaving me comfortable.
• 7:34
  Uh, you know, it was going to be all right for, for me to ride it.
• 7:38
  So, so that bike, um, now is, is working again.
• 7:43
  And I've satisfied myself that, that John, um, did some work on.
• 7:47
  What I've got to say is my favorite bike, which is the 2005.
• 7:51
  GSXR 1000 that I paid like 2, 000 for in the days before the, the, the pandemic.
• 8:00
  Um, it has, um, an oil leak.
• 8:04
  Um, I think it probably always had it.
• 8:07
  Um, and for a minute thereafter, John did the work on it because
• 8:10
  the plastic was off and because it was like all down the block.
• 8:14
  Um, from, because the leak is from right in, in the middle.
• 8:18
  Um, I did a ride and I came back and there was oil all on my right hand boot.
• 8:24
  And if it's all in my boots, all on the fucking tire, isn't it?
• 8:27
  Let's make no mistake.
• 8:28
  So, so that, um, put me off that bike a little bit, but I've run it up since.
• 8:34
  And it doesn't.
• 8:35
  You know, it leaks a bit, but so does every Norton or, or, you know,
• 8:39
  BSA you've ever seen, haven't you?
• 8:41
  So I don't want to, it would be hypocritical as an Englishman to
• 8:45
  begrudge a motorcycle a little bit of, of, of an oil leak.
• 8:49
  Um, and John, For me earlier in the year had done, um, a
• 8:55
  full service on, on that bike.
• 8:58
  I'd identified the leak and tried to, to, to fix it in some ways.
• 9:01
  And we, we talked about it, um, and talked about how based upon all the
• 9:07
  debris and the fairing, probably that it was sort of leaking like
• 9:12
  that all the, uh, all the time.
• 9:15
  Um, I'm sitting here looking at it right now.
• 9:17
  Um, I went out for a ride on it.
• 9:20
  Um, so this is the, the, the, my beginning story, which I've taken the usual
• 9:27
  rambling approach up to, um, and I guess I should entitle the story, you know, I,
• 9:33
  I wrote down was, um, I, I've seen God.
• 9:38
  And he rides a GSXR because I've done three motorcycle rides after, you know,
• 9:44
  the reason I was dribbling on about the dog was the dog occupied all my
• 9:48
  time and I hadn't, I hadn't ridden.
• 9:49
  And then in the last three days, I've done three rides.
• 9:54
  The first one was on the, the K5 and I really, I never, when I
• 10:01
  go out, I never think to myself, I'm going to ride really fast.
• 10:06
  I just go out, stretch the motorcycle's legs.
• 10:11
  And in this case, well, not even stretch his legs, just, just have a ride.
• 10:15
  I don't, you know, I didn't have, I didn't even have a, have a route in
• 10:18
  mind as As I rolled down the hill away from the house, all I wanted to do was
• 10:23
  make sure there wasn't oil on my boot.
• 10:25
  And I kept on stopping at the light.
• 10:27
  I kept, I at the first sort of stop sign, I, I, I looked at my,
• 10:32
  uh, my boot there and there was no oil on it and, and rolling along.
• 10:37
  Um, the 30 mile an hour speed limit along past the ocean there, I was
• 10:42
  looking at my boot again and there didn't seem to be any oil on it.
• 10:46
  Well, a miraculous thing happened from my home, um, all the way up the hill
• 10:52
  towards the highway along past Daly City.
• 10:57
  Um, all the way along there I got a run of green lights.
• 11:02
  Absolute poetry.
• 11:05
  Absolute poetry.
• 11:06
  I, I've never had a run of green lights like, like that before.
• 11:10
  Um, I never got out of third gear.
• 11:16
  The thrust in second and third gear, if you remotely approach the top end
• 11:28
  of the power band is it, it is, I've said it before on the pod and no doubt
• 11:36
  I'll say it again, it, it is, it is a motoring experience without parallel, um,
• 11:46
  There's never a moment where you're not where the straights are just shortened,
• 11:55
  and and the turns become exercises in balancing that enormous thrust with the
• 12:04
  how low you feel comfortable with leading the motorcycle and frankly what the
• 12:10
  surface of, of, of the road looks like in, in, in this particular situation.
• 12:16
  I, I, you know, I, I, I really believe this is truly one of the
• 12:28
  seminal motoring experiences, like the, the thrust, uh, road.
• 12:34
  motor, motoring experiences, the thrust of, of a four cylinder,
• 12:39
  uh, Japanese sports bike, uh, along a, along a road like that.
• 12:44
  And I think, um, You know, does it enhance it that the bikes completely analog.
• 12:50
  Um, I don't think so really, you know, um, John always says to me, you know, I
• 12:57
  should never ride a BMW s1000rr because if I did, I would then, you know, never want
• 13:04
  to ride any of the old bikes that I've got because the s1000rr is just perfect.
• 13:10
  Um, I don't know.
• 13:12
  I've never ridden one, right?
• 13:13
  So, uh, so I don't know.
• 13:14
  It would also be a more expensive bike than anything that I've
• 13:17
  bought before, unless I was to buy a really terrible used example.
• 13:22
  So, uh, So the next day I thought having, you know, I haven't
• 13:26
  had that one awesome ride.
• 13:28
  And I had the same, a similar experience.
• 13:30
  I just, I just rode away from the house and back again, it was about,
• 13:34
  you know, 15 miles on maybe road.
• 13:37
  Um, and I stepped off feeling absolutely awesome about motorcycles.
• 13:43
  I was reminded why I've, you know, filled my garage and, and fill my, Uh,
• 13:49
  hobby time, um, with, with the things and, and why I'm doing this jigsaw farm
• 13:56
  project at the moment to, with, with, with Aaron to, to try and, you know,
• 14:01
  make, uh, to try and make them come alive while, you know, make them come alive.
• 14:07
  In, you know, to historicize them a little, right?
• 14:11
  I feel the, the, the stuff that's written a didactic history, no
• 14:17
  one's writing a, like, vernacular history of the sports bike.
• 14:21
  So perhaps that's what I'm trying to do with this jigsaw farm project photo.
• 14:27
  Dunno what it's gonna be.
• 14:29
  Comic book.
• 14:29
  Dunno what it's gonna be project with, uh, with, with Aaron here.
• 14:34
  Um.
• 14:37
  So yeah, so I, I rode the Gixxer, I rode the K5 Gixxer up the hill and
• 14:41
  down the hill again and, uh, Was just stupefied by the motoring experience.
• 14:48
  Um, uh, it, it, uh, however well a car handles, it never handles with the
• 14:58
  purity of even a not great motorcycle.
• 15:03
  And.
• 15:04
  Suzuki GSX R in any of its iterations handles pretty well and in that K5
• 15:11
  iteration really it's a very easy, comfortable, approachable motorcycle
• 15:19
  to ride and that makes the The performance feel accessible as, as well.
• 15:25
  So as I say, you know, I didn't go berserk by any means, never got out of third gear.
• 15:32
  Um, stepped off it feeling absolutely awesome and, and understood why I'd
• 15:39
  filled the garage with motorcycles.
• 15:42
  So the next day I was like, well, I'll ride again.
• 15:47
  I promised myself that I was going to do some kind of exercise on the peloton
• 15:52
  and I was like, ah, with the time and there wasn't going to be time to do both.
• 15:56
  And I thought, you know what?
• 15:58
  I will do both.
• 15:59
  Instead of doing the peloton, I'll ride my pedal bike.
• 16:06
  We live on a hill, right?
• 16:07
  So inevitably, you're going to have to like do some exercise
• 16:10
  riding back up the hill.
• 16:12
  It's pretty tough.
• 16:13
  off putting actually, because you know, as you're riding home, there's going to
• 16:16
  be this massive climb right at the end.
• 16:18
  But at a certain point, you know, you just get used to it as
• 16:21
  part of the, of the experience.
• 16:24
  And also, you know, I'm lazy and unfit, and it shouldn't be a massive climb to me.
• 16:28
  It wouldn't be if I was, uh, if I was reasonably fit.
• 16:32
  Um, anyway, but when you leave, you get to go down the hill, don't you?
• 16:38
  And it's funny how.
• 16:41
  I am the, the, on the way down the hill, I say to myself, you know, I said to my wife
• 16:48
  before I left, you know, I'm going to try and do the hill without any breaks, the
• 16:52
  hill past the cliff house just near, um, you know, try and do the hill, no breaks.
• 16:59
  It's like twisty corn,
• 17:03
  uh,
• 17:07
  a shame to say I did have a little dab on the entry.
• 17:11
  I did my, my, I was, was distracted.
• 17:14
  I was a motorcyclist and I thought he might have pulled out and I
• 17:17
  was looking for him to check.
• 17:18
  And it meant I wasn't like fully focused on the line.
• 17:22
  At least that's my excuse.
• 17:23
  But I did have a little feather of, uh, of rear brake before
• 17:28
  I, uh, tipped in properly.
• 17:30
  But, uh, but, but yeah, really enjoyed, uh, that bike ride.
• 17:37
  Of course, that kind of ride.
• 17:40
  Um.
• 17:43
  The sensation of speed is intensified by the fact that you are adrenalized,
• 17:51
  um, with a motorcycle, the, the adrenaline comes in as a, you know,
• 17:58
  sort of as a result of the speed, almost rather than, um, uh, the adrenaline.
• 18:05
  Driving the speed in the way that it does, um, on, on the pedal bike.
• 18:10
  Um, a slightly similar experiences though in the, um, I, I, uh, I actually
• 18:21
  stepped off the jigsaw feeling more satisfied than I did step off the pedal
• 18:24
  bike because I had, uh, um, I had a moment of, of, uh, where one of my
• 18:30
  legs didn't quite work properly and I had to get off the bike and, uh, push
• 18:35
  for a minute and then I was crossing myself and got back on and, uh, rode on.
• 18:40
  But, uh, yeah, um.
• 18:44
  Anyway, so the next day I got the, so day three, right?
• 18:48
  Ride number three.
• 18:49
  I had this, uh, the K1 was, was ready.
• 18:53
  It now has its ZX10 clutch modification in it.
• 18:57
  So, uh, I took it up the hill.
• 19:00
  as well in the same way like rolled out of the city.
• 19:03
  I didn't get quite the same run of, uh, of, of green lights as I did,
• 19:07
  but I got, uh, I got enough to feel confident the powerful as the K5 is,
• 19:18
  especially with this, you know, Remus can, and, and so on the, so it's
• 19:23
  freer breathing than it used to have.
• 19:25
  And it is noticeably punchier, you know, when you, when you, take a
• 19:29
  shift and come in another gear.
• 19:31
  It does feel noticeably punchier.
• 19:33
  And I remember that when I put on my, on my 600, on my K one, on my K one
• 19:38
  600, when they put a, when I put a can on that, it does really make it feel a
• 19:44
  bit punchier, especially second gear.
• 19:48
  Like when you go from first to second gear, it weights the.
• 19:51
  The bike up, uh, the bike up a little bit.
• 19:54
  Um, I've got to say though, I, I feel like picked up, perked up as the K5 is.
• 20:01
  I feel like that K1, which I think has race cams or something in it.
• 20:07
  I'm not really sure.
• 20:09
  Um, either way, Neil built it himself.
• 20:11
  So, you know, um, that bike.
• 20:15
  It has a vim and a vigour that is just my word.
• 20:22
  I think that because the tank's bigger, I think that because the riding position
• 20:29
  is a bit more uncompromised, I think that because the handling's not as
• 20:33
  good, let's call a spade a spade.
• 20:34
  You know, it's a fat tank.
• 20:37
  bike.
• 20:37
  So you get that it has, you know, on the K five, if you're paying attention,
• 20:42
  you feel like you can adjust the line in the middle of the turn in the, on the
• 20:46
  K one, there's not that same feeling.
• 20:50
  Um, so that means that if, if you, um, don't carve between the potholes, right?
• 20:57
  Yeah.
• 20:58
  Um,
• 21:01
  really, Um, the, the ride is, is perhaps illustrated by the fact that
• 21:08
  the, uh, certain point, uh, having thrilled myself, I was like, you know
• 21:13
  what, I'm going to ride the route that I rode when it scared the shit
• 21:17
  out of me and see if it's all right.
• 21:21
  And you know, it was, it really was.
• 21:24
  I, I was confident, um, riding it in those, in that situation.
• 21:31
  And the only reason I did that was because I, I was already comfortable that
• 21:36
  the clutch was, was not gonna bite me.
• 21:40
  It's, it's made the K1 as rideable as, as the K5.
• 21:44
  And you're saying, well, you mean you contradict yourself there.
• 21:47
  You didn't say that.
• 21:48
  No, what I mean is my first bike was a K1.
• 21:51
  600 and, and I find those bikes familiar and easy to use, you know,
• 21:57
  uh, um, not quite as easy to use as a GS 500, but, but I, I find
• 22:03
  them very familiar and comfortable.
• 22:05
  The K5 is more developed and is more comfortable than that.
• 22:09
  If you look at the older bikes that I have, the older GSXRs, they progressively
• 22:16
  Get more raw and harder, um, to, to use.
• 22:22
  I, I struggle with the shifts on, on, on a lot of them.
• 22:26
  I'm embarrassed to, to, to say, well, let's not dwell on that.
• 22:31
  Let's just dwell on the fact that those three rides that I had in
• 22:35
  the last couple of days were, were really, really exciting.
• 22:40
  And, and, uh, when, you know, in, in the decades to come, as, as we reflect,
• 22:47
  on, on why people ride motorcycles or road motorcycles or why people want
• 22:53
  to do seemingly dangerous things for no reason other than they're dangerous
• 22:58
  just for the, for the thrill of it.
• 23:00
  I, I can't describe the level of spiritual fulfillment I felt from having the courage
• 23:06
  to be like, I'm going to ride that K1, And then when I didn't plan to ride the
• 23:12
  road that where it had scared me, but I did, and it in exact it's, uh, and
• 23:18
  I had to sit in traffic in exactly the same spot where I tried to put me into
• 23:22
  the middle of the intersection under the wheels of, of, you know, a Honda minivan.
• 23:27
  And, uh, it was absolutely fine.
• 23:30
  And, and, and I felt, uh, comfortable with it and, uh, I'm
• 23:34
  actually keen to, to ride it again.
• 23:37
  So, uh, Yeah, so, so next let's fix the Ducati's leaking clutch.
• 23:43
  It's leaked clutch fluid all over the ground.
• 23:46
  It smells of gas.
• 23:47
  I assumed it was gas, tried to tighten up a fuel filling,
• 23:50
  stripped the head off a bolt.
• 23:53
  Go me.
• 23:55
  Go me mechanic extraordinaire.
• 23:58
  Luckily, um, it seems that I'm not a great rider, but it seems that
• 24:03
  I'm an even worse mechanic than I am a rider best, best generates
• 24:08
  some money in another way, hadn't I,
• 24:27
  I just did a pause there.
• 24:28
  So old Saxon.
• 24:31
  Can, uh, can, can endow us because if I'm going to talk about England,
• 24:35
  right, I have to talk about sax.
• 24:37
  I have to have Saxon as the, as, as the soundtrack.
• 24:41
  So let's, let's talk about what England is, right?
• 24:44
  Before I talk about England, let's talk about how England before the coming
• 24:50
  of the Romans, it was Britain, right?
• 24:54
  Then the Romans came, the Romans went again, and then from all parts of
• 24:59
  Scandinavia, the Saxon, different Saxon tribes invaded, creating the Anglo
• 25:07
  Saxons, as in this term that Americans will be familiar with, white Anglo
• 25:11
  Saxon, Protestant, yeah, because this is the, the, you know, from England,
• 25:16
  Scotland, Wales, this, this kind of.
• 25:19
  Uh, this, this kind of, of neck of the woods.
• 25:22
  Um, so what happens to the Anglo Saxon kingdoms?
• 25:26
  Well, 1066 and all that, the Normans, the French invade.
• 25:30
  And for a while, Anglo Saxon England is an occupied kingdom by the Normans
• 25:36
  who speak French and use these newfangled devices that called castles
• 25:43
  to impose authority on, on the people.
• 25:49
  On the Anglo Saxons who speak a completely different language, but then about 300
• 25:56
  years later, there's this fellow Chaucer and he writes the Canterbury Tales.
• 26:00
  And in the Canterbury Tales, he weaves together.
• 26:04
  English and French into what we, what I was taught was called middle English.
• 26:11
  Um, the language that evolves into Shakespearean English, and then in
• 26:15
  turn, you know, into the language that, that we, uh, that we're, that
• 26:19
  you're listening to me speak today.
• 26:23
  So, um, So that's what Saxon is, right?
• 26:28
  That's the nation of, so, so therefore Saxon, the band who come from Bradford
• 26:34
  near, near Yorkshire, uh, um, Bradford in Yorkshire, um, they seemed a perfect
• 26:41
  band to use for, for my, uh, Visit to England and, and for the fact that, uh, a
• 26:49
  lot of the road trip that I did was, was focused on visiting Neolithic sites of
• 26:54
  England, like Anglo Saxon, long barrows, like Wayland Smithy, for example, um,
• 27:01
  with, uh, my son who's, who's nine, just soon to be, uh, soon to be 10.
• 27:07
  Um,
• 27:09
  yeah, so, uh,
• 27:14
  I guess, uh, Let's begin, um, at the top of my agenda here.
• 27:21
  Yes, that's right.
• 27:21
  I've not even gone to the top of my agenda.
• 27:24
  That's right.
• 27:25
  Um, The rental car that I had.
• 27:29
  So I had these grand plans.
• 27:31
  I was going to do a lap of England.
• 27:33
  I was going to visit a range of Mott Bailey castles with Ollie.
• 27:36
  I was going to visit some places that I'd not seen before.
• 27:40
  I'd spoken to Chop's garage, garage, Chop's garage in North Devon there.
• 27:45
  I was going to buy his black 160, 000 mile Jaguar XFR, XF diesel.
• 27:53
  Like with 440 foot pounds of torque, I was so excited to buy that car was
• 27:59
  only bloody three and a half grand.
• 28:01
  But then I was like, I'm not going to go for that long.
• 28:04
  We had the dog.
• 28:05
  That was what really did it.
• 28:06
  We had the dog.
• 28:06
  So then I wasn't going to go for that long.
• 28:09
  And the trip just got much shorter.
• 28:11
  And I just focused on, on spending time, you know, with, with, with my parents.
• 28:15
  Cause I was just going to go with, with, with my son.
• 28:18
  So didn't need a car, wasn't going to do much driving, did have for a brief
• 28:25
  period a car to do these Neolithic sites, just me and, and, and the boy,
• 28:31
  um, at the rental place when we picked up, I said to the guy, when he said
• 28:37
  to me, you can have a Vauxhall Mokka, um, I was like, I'm not quite sure.
• 28:44
  I wasn't quite sure why, well, that was talking about, but like, it didn't
• 28:47
  sound good, did it, a car named after a coffee it's like, you know, didn't
• 28:52
  sound like, you know, the guy was like that BMW outside that just pulled up.
• 28:58
  And he says, like I said, it's badged a 320 D, but it looked kind of the business.
• 29:02
  He was like, you could have that.
• 29:04
  I was like, how much more is it?
• 29:06
  And he was about to tell me and I was like, yeah, you know what?
• 29:10
  Don't, right?
• 29:10
  I'll take the mocha.
• 29:12
  And the reason I did it is because the mocha is a stick, right?
• 29:15
  And I knew that I was going to be able to have Ollie do the shifting for me.
• 29:20
  Um, Which if you think of it, he's going to sat on the other side.
• 29:24
  So it's actually almost like, like you were driving a stick shift car
• 29:29
  in, uh, you know, in California where, you know, all cars are left
• 29:33
  hand drive, if that makes sense.
• 29:35
  So I thought, you know, that would be, uh, uh, you know, a useful,
• 29:39
  interesting experience for me because he does this, he does the shifts
• 29:42
  for me now in the, in the Fiesta.
• 29:45
  Um, when we, uh, when we go to school, he's pretty good at judging,
• 29:49
  uh, judging where we need to be.
• 29:50
  So he's got that important skill that I wanted to teach him,
• 29:53
  which is instinctively, you know, which gear to put it in.
• 29:57
  So when you learn to drive properly, you're just following the road signs and
• 30:01
  knowing what gear to put it in and dipping the clutch and bringing it up gently and
• 30:05
  finding the bike point and all that stuff.
• 30:07
  You just already, you know, you already know how
• 30:14
  Yeah.
• 30:15
  So I said no to the BMW.
• 30:17
  Um, Thereby losing an opportunity to do a follow up.
• 30:23
  I realized now I did to do a follow up on, I wrote a piece and I'll link to
• 30:29
  it about, uh, F ninety three to eight.
• 30:35
  That I had in Florida, um, for Amelia Island.
• 30:39
  I went the only time I've been to the Amelia Island Concourse.
• 30:41
  And there was a road in from the freeway to the Amelia Island Concourse.
• 30:47
  And it was very quiet when I drove along it.
• 30:49
  And I confess I did behave like a hooligan.
• 30:53
  Along that road and was stupefied by how good that BMW was.
• 30:58
  And up to then, I guess it was just so long ago.
• 31:00
  I'd not realized that I needed to get it into sport mode.
• 31:03
  And the car was just like Jekyll and Hyde.
• 31:05
  When you put it in sport mode, it was just all kinds of awesome out of it.
• 31:08
  In like eco mode.
• 31:10
  It was like some kind of Camry.
• 31:11
  It was like really not interesting to me, but I was just going to the
• 31:15
  show and it didn't bother me and I didn't want to get a speeding ticket.
• 31:17
  But then when I found the sport mode and I had this twisty
• 31:20
  road, I was like, Oh, Oh, BMW.
• 31:23
  I love you.
• 31:24
  Um, so that was the F90.
• 31:26
  Um, and I think before then, um, my wife and I did a trip to Northern
• 31:34
  Spain, uh, where we were in Barcelona and we went to Sitka's Terramar, the
• 31:40
  bowl that's out there, you know, the, the Brooklands like banked racing
• 31:45
  track that's, that's out there.
• 31:46
  And we had, uh, um, I remember about that as you, about that vacation is
• 31:53
  Europop and me setting the speedo, uh, the, whatever the kilometers
• 31:58
  equivalent of 120 miles an hour was because there was nobody on those roads.
• 32:03
  If you ever, if you ever really want to do a motion vacation and you
• 32:07
  like ham, you like cold ham and you don't mind the wines a bit rough.
• 32:11
  If you.
• 32:12
  Spend enough, the wines were all right.
• 32:14
  But you know, Spanish wines are always a bit rough, aren't they?
• 32:17
  They're always a bit like, did I just, you know, am I taking store
• 32:21
  out of my teeth kind of thing?
• 32:22
  I just, I just knocked an entire industry that I don't want to say that.
• 32:25
  But you, you French, it's Italian.
• 32:26
  What it's, um, Spanish wines always have a bit of a rough D aftertaste, don't they?
• 32:32
  Well, they don't always, I'm going to stop saying this.
• 32:34
  I can just edit out how I've abused the whole Spanish wine industry
• 32:39
  that I currently, um, but no, my point is if you like ham And
• 32:43
  salami and that kind of thing.
• 32:46
  This is a great place to travel.
• 32:47
  If you like driving fast, the highways, the toll roads, I guess nobody uses them.
• 32:52
  They, all the locals use the other roads and the toll roads.
• 32:55
  I was the only person on them and it was, it was awesome.
• 32:58
  Um, Europop.
• 33:02
  Anyway, so that was a good car as well.
• 33:03
  That, that, that, I think that was the previous generation we had.
• 33:07
  So anyway, so out of the opportunity to do like an update on, on a BMW three series
• 33:14
  Euro spec, like, you know, Basie three series, um, must spend that opportunity
• 33:21
  so while he could do the shifting, um,
• 33:25
  all right, so I'm going to make sure that dog's all right.
• 33:29
  Oh, he certainly is.
• 33:30
  He's right there behind me.
• 33:32
  I was just going to go and look for him and he's right there behind me.
• 33:35
  That's perfect.
• 33:36
  Um,
• 33:40
  Yeah, so I've got this Mokka, it was white,
• 33:46
  it had these red trim pieces on it and I mean they hurt my eyes basically.
• 33:53
  Um, it was nice inside, um, and, and my immediate impression like in the first
• 34:01
  like hour of using it was that the motor was kind of gruff, but pretty pokey.
• 34:07
  And I think, um, I mean, it did, it's a few or miser, but then everything
• 34:13
  seems like that to me in comparison to the stuff that I drive in the States.
• 34:17
  So, you know, the BMW does like 16 around town.
• 34:21
  I mean, it's, it's really, uh, uh, pretty outrageous.
• 34:25
  The stuff that we're having, the stuff that the people have in Europe.
• 34:29
  So, um.
• 34:31
  I mean, I look at the specs.
• 34:34
  I thought I kept on saying to Wally and it was one of me.
• 34:37
  This is what I mean.
• 34:37
  I thought about fuel economy because you have to fill it up
• 34:40
  right until the end of the trip.
• 34:41
  And when we did fill it up right as we're pulling into the gas station, said to
• 34:45
  him, do you think it's a gas or diesel?
• 34:48
  Because when you started it up, it was rough like a diesel.
• 34:52
  Um, But it was pokier than a diesel, but it was obviously turbocharged.
• 34:57
  You could feel it at the same kind of like come in low and deliver
• 35:01
  super linear power, the modern turbos have like my Fiesta ST has.
• 35:06
  So it's that, that, um, feel about it.
• 35:10
  Um, the way, but, but you know, no, it was gas, right?
• 35:13
  So I reckon it has to have been a triple.
• 35:16
  So what I wrote down here was gruff, but pokey.
• 35:19
  Um, The other thing I liked about it, and this is a crazy thing, and
• 35:24
  I wonder if it's a conscious thing, but you remember the Vauxhall Viva
• 35:33
  HB, the second one, the one that had like the Coke bottle
• 35:38
  waistline, um, like the Escort Mk1?
• 35:42
  Didn't that car have a like a ripple down the middle of the hood?
• 35:48
  Um.
• 35:50
  I feel like having that ripple down the middle of the hood, which the,
• 35:55
  the Mokka has, I feel like that's a sort of Voxel styling piece.
• 36:01
  And, and that I thought was, there's like a, you know, there's like a ripple.
• 36:06
  A ridge down the middle of the hood and that gave it from the
• 36:12
  seating position quite a nice view.
• 36:14
  Now, if I think of it now, I didn't spend a lot of time looking
• 36:17
  at the car because I didn't like the exterior of it particularly.
• 36:21
  But whilst I'm on the subject of the exterior of it, we stayed at a pub that
• 36:28
  overlooked the Uffington White Halls.
• 36:30
  So we're outside this pub and I noticed the second morning when we were having
• 36:35
  breakfast, I'm literally, you can see the white horse over the boy's shoulder
• 36:40
  as he's eating his like bacon and eggs.
• 36:43
  I, I, I realized as like the oven white horse is like at 12 o'clock
• 36:48
  and if I look to like three o'clock I can see a blue plaque on one
• 36:52
  of the houses across the street.
• 36:54
  Well as we were driving out of the town I had to look at who it was.
• 36:57
  John Betjeman.
• 36:59
  John Betjeman poet laureate lived there.
• 37:03
  Awesome.
• 37:03
  Obviously, Poet Laureate, appointed by the Queen, would have a house that
• 37:10
  looked out onto the Uffington White Horse across the English South Downs.
• 37:15
  And I really do love that part of England.
• 37:18
  Anyway, so, uh, the night before, I realized we were
• 37:22
  right by Benjamin's house.
• 37:23
  Um, we, uh, Fox and Hounds is the name of the pub.
• 37:26
  I can really recommend it.
• 37:28
  Um, uh, we, uh, Uh, as Ollie and I were popping out to,
• 37:37
  uh, uh, visit the white horse.
• 37:39
  Cause like, you'll get those lovely long evenings, English, summer
• 37:42
  nights, high California, it gets dark sooner and it gets cold.
• 37:46
  It doesn't happen like that in England.
• 37:48
  It retains the heat.
• 37:49
  So we like, we didn't get to the, we didn't check into like five, six
• 37:53
  o'clock, something like that, but we had a drink and then popped straight out.
• 37:56
  Well, as we were like popping out to look at the white horse and get
• 37:59
  something to read, um, This couple who I have in a beer were like, Oh,
• 38:03
  what cars that we like that car?
• 38:06
  I was like, well, it's not mine.
• 38:07
  I'll tell you that.
• 38:08
  And they were like, Oh, we like it.
• 38:09
  It's a, I was like, well, you know, it's a Vauxhall Mokka.
• 38:13
  I said to them.
• 38:13
  So, yeah.
• 38:14
  So look, I didn't like it, but other people did is, is my point.
• 38:17
  And what I did like, as I say, was how it drove.
• 38:19
  I mean, I've complained about, you know, it sounding a little
• 38:22
  bit diesely and so on, but you know, let's be honest about that.
• 38:26
  I didn't give a shit about that.
• 38:27
  Really?
• 38:28
  It, when you asked it to go, it had enough.
• 38:31
  I didn't find it lacking.
• 38:33
  I didn't find the handling irritating.
• 38:36
  I found the, the, I could place it exactly where I, I needed it to be.
• 38:42
  Now, I should say at this point, this is the second trip that I've done to England,
• 38:46
  where I've told the GPS to keep me on.
• 38:51
  Off main highways.
• 38:54
  So I've just stayed off the motorways and I've done everything on, on a roads.
• 39:00
  And what that means is you really do see England's green and pleasant land, but
• 39:04
  my word, the towns are snarled up now.
• 39:07
  So you have to be in like a mellow mood and ready to jam through the towns.
• 39:11
  And, and, you know, when you're jamming through Cotswold towns and talking about
• 39:16
  Cotswold stone, and then, you know, you're watching, we're watching a TV
• 39:21
  show about idyllic bucolic England, and it's the Cotswolds and it's, you know,
• 39:25
  exactly the town that Ollie and I were driving through, you're like, all right,
• 39:30
  you know, I do know something about how to, to provide, you know, A decent
• 39:34
  travel experience for myself and for people who were who were along for the
• 39:39
  ride, both literally and metaphorically and also right not for nothing.
• 39:44
  I don't want to stop in some motorway services and eat a Burger King when
• 39:50
  I can stop at a fish and chip shop.
• 39:53
  Or in a pub and have, yes, equally unhealthy, but far more tasty
• 39:59
  and different food and couch it all in the terms of cultural
• 40:04
  experience for, uh, for myself.
• 40:05
  Well, it is a cultural experience.
• 40:07
  I mean, all the pubs we're going into, they're older than the
• 40:10
  whole of California, aren't they?
• 40:11
  That kind of blew Ollie's mind that the pub that we went in, he said, 1845.
• 40:17
  I was like, yeah, five years before the gold rush.
• 40:19
  And he was like, Whoa, like eyes popping out of his head.
• 40:23
  Um,
• 40:27
  So, yeah, so this Mokka, we had it down these little lanes all the time, right?
• 40:32
  And, and even on these lanes, um, it was fine to be placed.
• 40:37
  You know, it was a lot better than my Mustang would, would have been, you
• 40:42
  know, because the Mustang with that live rear axle, if the surface is bad on a B
• 40:46
  road, oh, my word, it's, it's terrible.
• 40:49
  And if the road's damp.
• 40:51
  Well, this mocker was fine.
• 40:52
  Is it?
• 40:53
  Is it, was it as delightful as a Fiesta T?
• 40:56
  No.
• 40:57
  Was it a lot closer than I would've anticipated it being?
• 41:00
  Yeah.
• 41:01
  So I guess this is a roundabout way of saying that I was actually all
• 41:03
  right with the car and I think I was, although I am glossing over.
• 41:10
  A couple of really irritating things about it.
• 41:14
  And let me go there with them now.
• 41:16
  So once I was saying goodbye to my parents, um, we get in the
• 41:19
  suitcases in the car and so on.
• 41:21
  I put one suitcase in and then close the boot trunk, boot trunk, boot boot trunk.
• 41:29
  Hit the clicky button to open it.
• 41:32
  Wouldn't open, couldn't open the trunk.
• 41:36
  Pressing it, pressing it, couldn't open it.
• 41:39
  Ended up opening up the folding seats and joking with my dad about the standard 8.
• 41:47
  That we've been looking at because apparently one of the differences
• 41:50
  between the standard eight and the standard 10 wasn't just the
• 41:54
  two horsepower extra that you got.
• 41:57
  It was the on the 10.
• 42:00
  You got a proper opening boot lid on the standard eight.
• 42:06
  It had a trunk shape there, but the actual boot, the trunk
• 42:09
  part, there was no trunk lid.
• 42:11
  It didn't open.
• 42:12
  You could only access it by folding down the seats.
• 42:16
  So we had a good chuckle about that.
• 42:17
  And I got the, uh, the other seat belts in, but I should say, it just amused me
• 42:23
  that the, as I was struggling to do it and pushing the buttons and swearing at
• 42:28
  it, uh, my mother, Immediately laughed.
• 42:31
  Um, and I'm like, yeah, absolutely.
• 42:34
  That's completely the right way to react to it because it diffused my frustration.
• 42:39
  Um, with the whole situation, uh, immediately that by ineptitude with
• 42:44
  modern technology that I can make the car a lot properly now it did
• 42:49
  get into that kind of pattern before.
• 42:50
  I think what you needed to do was like do the lock and the unlock again.
• 42:55
  And then it would like, I do the trunk or something like that.
• 42:59
  The point is the.
• 43:01
  That um Very complicated, you know, all it needed was a button, you know,
• 43:12
  I really, there wasn't actually that much wrong with the, you know, the key
• 43:17
  that you put in the lock and turned and, you know, pop the trunk, um,
• 43:24
  that it utterly defeated me, whatever advantages it offers that it utterly
• 43:29
  defeated me, not once, but twice.
• 43:34
  Seems to be pretty poor design, doesn't it?
• 43:37
  I mean, I know, um, I'm inept, but I, I still, yeah, I, I'm just
• 43:44
  bemused by it as a piece of design.
• 43:47
  Now, the other thing that it did, and this was just, gobsmacking to me is, is when
• 43:55
  you went five miles an hour over the speed limit, it chimed at you like an American
• 44:02
  seatbelt chime, you know, not like a, eh, eh, eh, just like a bong, bong, bong.
• 44:11
  Like I'm there.
• 44:11
  I'm annoying.
• 44:12
  I'm like, I'm dragging at your, I'm not nipping at your ankle in a meaningful way.
• 44:17
  I'm just like dragging at you.
• 44:19
  Like I'm like a piece of, until eventually you're gonna, I mean,
• 44:26
  Now, Ollie found a way to defeat it.
• 44:29
  There was like a menu and you could defeat it whenever we got in.
• 44:32
  But whenever you turn the ignition off, when you restarted
• 44:35
  the car, it came back in again.
• 44:38
  I, I mean, I mean, I, I just, just, I just, just, I mean, it was only 20
• 44:49
  years ago when that GSXR 1000 K5 that I'm looking at came out, a bike that
• 44:59
  can do 102 miles an hour in first gear.
• 45:06
  Now I know that nobody needs a motorcycle that can do that, a road machine on
• 45:11
  the road, I know, responsible, blah.
• 45:14
  But, tell me how it can be a step forward to go from something as
• 45:19
  glorious as that, as something that made me feel as sublime as that.
• 45:28
  How can it be a step forward to go from that to bong, bong, I'm sorry
• 45:37
  Dave, I can't let you do that, I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you do that.
• 45:43
  Like, no.
• 45:45
  No, burn it down.
• 45:46
  Smash the machines.
• 45:48
  Smash the machines.
• 45:49
  I say smash this.
• 45:52
  This is Bo and Luke Duke.
• 45:53
  They fight the system.
• 45:55
  Any system.
• 45:58
  The boy wanted to go back to the National Motor Museum at Bewley.
• 46:02
  We went.
• 46:03
  Last summer, it's near where my parents live.
• 46:06
  Um,
• 46:10
  I was an intern there.
• 46:11
  That's really, I mean, I wasn't what I called it in period, but,
• 46:16
  um, you know, so I worked there, what, 30 years ago now, nearly, um.
• 46:24
  They really do a very, very good job at fulfilling the mission, which is to
• 46:30
  tell the story of motoring in Britain.
• 46:32
  So that's partly the story of the Bewley family, the Montague
• 46:37
  family, who were motoring pioneers.
• 46:40
  And, but it, but it's also to have, Examples of cars like the Hillman Imp,
• 46:46
  so we can tell the story of, you know, Linwood and, you know, industrial
• 46:51
  decline and, and, and all of that.
• 46:53
  So, um, you know, I, I, I thought that it was a significant and needed
• 47:03
  development that Ari Vatanen's.
• 47:07
  Rothman's Escort Rally Car, an iconic car for my generation and people
• 47:14
  older than me had moved amongst the rally cars deep into the collection.
• 47:20
  And in the foyer, its place was taken by a pristine Sierra Cosworth RS500.
• 47:29
  Something which has resonance for people 20 years younger than me, not just people.
• 47:36
  My age and 20 years older and I'm, I'm 50.
• 47:40
  Um, the thing that the National Motor Museum really tells a great story on
• 47:46
  is, is the land speed record cars.
• 47:48
  Um,
• 47:52
  so that's some of Malcolm Campbell's Bluebirds.
• 47:54
  It's my, you know, I would say all time favorite motor vehicle.
• 47:59
  Um, the Napier Irving.
• 48:02
  Special the golden arrow first car to 240 miles an hour.
• 48:07
  And, uh, I also love the, the, the slug, the red thousand horse
• 48:14
  per sunbeam that Seagrave took to 200 miles an hour in, in 1927.
• 48:19
  Now that car is undergoing a complete restoration and it
• 48:25
  is stripped to the bone and.
• 48:28
  I spent probably a good 45 minutes just watching the videos and looking at the
• 48:34
  progress that they've made and, and just amazed that this, you know, tack welded
• 48:41
  thing could house these two 22 and a half liter, 400 horsepower aero engines.
• 48:51
  You know, it just.
• 48:53
  boggles the mind and there's, you know, uh, what looks like a, uh,
• 48:57
  you know, uh, uh, uh, a seat from, uh, you know, uh, that you'd sit on
• 49:04
  at the beach, um, you know, with no seatbelts or anything like that in
• 49:08
  between these two giant roaring engines.
• 49:11
  Um, yeah, awesome.
• 49:12
  So, uh, so they've made good progress with that.
• 49:15
  And, and I wanted to mention the, the thousand horsepower sunbeam
• 49:19
  because, um, They're looking for, for people to, to make donations.
• 49:23
  And really, if, if you listen to this podcast and if you've ever been amused
• 49:27
  by any stories I've ever told, you know, it's don't buy my merch, such as it is.
• 49:32
  Go.
• 49:33
  He was in, not that I've even created any yet.
• 49:36
  Don't.
• 49:37
  Give money to the national motor museum so they can do this project to get not
• 49:43
  just one, but both engines rebuilt and running again, and the car back to Daytona
• 49:49
  beach for 1924, the centenary in 2027.
• 49:56
  Um, yeah, uh, they had a really great exhibit looking in detail.
• 50:03
  Um, it was to do with, it was some photographer, but it was the detail.
• 50:07
  It was, he had done detailed photography and then it was telling
• 50:10
  the story of the, of the various objects and it was, uh, objects
• 50:15
  around, um, Seagrave's Golden Arrow.
• 50:21
  Really, I spent the, um, I, I really immersed myself in that part of the museum
• 50:28
  and I realized that the museum does a very good job at delivering the kind of, of
• 50:34
  level of, you know, I'll pot around and I'll look the, that works for most people,
• 50:39
  the kind of, you know, information that is right to make my son really passionate
• 50:46
  about the cars that the he likes.
• 50:49
  Um, he dragged my mother around and, and talked endlessly at granny
• 50:53
  about cars, which must have been a little bit of deja vu for granny.
• 50:57
  I would, uh, I would have said, um, but yeah, when they went outside
• 51:03
  to do the adventure playground and the zipline, I just fell down this
• 51:06
  hole of this exhibit around golden arrow and, and, uh, people around it.
• 51:12
  I didn't know much about Captain Irvine, the guy that designed it.
• 51:16
  I knew nothing about Seagray's wife before, so there was a
• 51:18
  lot of, of color around that.
• 51:21
  And I really just wanted to say bravo to, to the team at the National
• 51:25
  Motion Museum for delivering that kind of, of, of in depth experience.
• 51:30
  If you, if you want to go deep, The depth is, is, is really, is really
• 51:35
  there as well as if you want to just, you know, pot around and be like, Ooh,
• 51:39
  I remember when the XJRs won Le Mans, uh, the silk cut Jags, I remember them.
• 51:44
  Um, you know, if that's the level you want to be at, they have that.
• 51:48
  If you're like, I remember San Ismael bro McLaren.
• 51:50
  Yeah.
• 51:50
  Right.
• 51:51
  Cool.
• 51:51
  Yeah.
• 51:52
  But also, you know, they have a Porsche 917.
• 51:57
  Was and you know, it's a German car.
• 51:59
  What's that doing in the British motor museum?
• 52:01
  Well, it was a British team, wasn't it?
• 52:02
  JW automotive with the Gulf sponsorship, British team.
• 52:06
  Um, so that's why the, uh, the cars there, they have a good
• 52:10
  story, um, on motorcycles.
• 52:13
  They have a really wonderful rudge from the thirties race bike.
• 52:18
  Um, They do a good story, you know, enough for most people of, you know,
• 52:25
  story of the British motor industry, motorcycle, you know, industry.
• 52:30
  Um,
• 52:34
  they also do a piece about motorcycling in the nineties and they have a Suzuki GSXR.
• 52:41
  And, um, I was astonished that the bike was there last time.
• 52:45
  It's of course a slabby, um, in Suzuki race colors.
• 52:50
  Um, I was astonished that the bike was there before and, and was so astonished
• 52:55
  that the GSX R was there and so amused that the plinth, uh, refers to the bike
• 53:00
  as a real hooligan machine that I, I was just completely spitting with that.
• 53:05
  I almost didn't look at the bike properly.
• 53:07
  Well, of course, since then, I've added a slabby to the, to the collection here.
• 53:13
  And, and my bike, pardon me, which was John's bike, um, was.
• 53:19
  Owned previously by a guy who raced them and this bike was his spare.
• 53:25
  So it was race prepared.
• 53:27
  It's been safety wide and all that, but it is, you know, when they
• 53:30
  talk about, oh, it's a clean bike.
• 53:32
  Um, I was thinking, well, the devil does that actually mean?
• 53:35
  Does he mean he's physically clean or not?
• 53:37
  This bike is.
• 53:38
  Absolutely a clean bike.
• 53:39
  Yes, it's physically clean, but you can just see that all the parts are original.
• 53:45
  You know, none of the screw heads have been buggered.
• 53:47
  None of the, uh, you know, it's just absolutely together as you
• 53:54
  would expect somebody who intended to race it would would make it.
• 53:58
  Now, I guess, um, Part of the fairing got scratched and it's been done completely
• 54:03
  and he had it completely redone in in blue so maybe you know maybe it was down maybe
• 54:09
  he redid the work on it i'm not really i'm not really sure but the point is that
• 54:13
  as it sits now my bike Is a nicer example of a first generation Suzuki GSX R than
• 54:23
  they have in the National Motor Museum.
• 54:25
  I'm happy to share it with them, I would say, although I don't think
• 54:28
  they'd want it because it doesn't have that iconic Suzuki race plastic on it.
• 54:33
  If it had those colors on it, it's a museum piece, but in some ways
• 54:38
  I'm glad that it doesn't because I actually want to ride it a little
• 54:41
  bit, but that was a revelation and really cool for me that, uh, you know.
• 54:48
  My bike's better than the one in the National Motor Museum.
• 55:05
  So up in the Midlands, there's that museum that they used to call Gaden.
• 55:08
  And I think now they call it the British Motor Museum, which is rather
• 55:11
  confusing, National Motor Museum and British Motor Museum, but, um, all
• 55:17
  the time it was, you know, I just thought it was Austin and Morris.
• 55:21
  I was a bit like, blah, that's going to be depressing.
• 55:23
  I don't want to look at Maestros and Montegos.
• 55:26
  Um, You know, and read again about how the Allegro's Cortex steering
• 55:31
  wheel wasn't really such a bad idea.
• 55:33
  Like, just no.
• 55:35
  Um, that's how I used to feel about that museum.
• 55:37
  But then the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust moved there.
• 55:40
  And if there's one British mark I really love, it's Jaguar.
• 55:44
  Then just recently, I mean, I've never been that hot on Triumph motorcycle.
• 55:48
  But just recently I've begun to think about triumph and, and I guess my
• 55:52
  father had a friend who had, um, triumph 2000s where he had a, a tribe 2000.
• 55:58
  Then he had a couple of, of 2.
• 55:59
  5 P I, and then he had a 2.
• 56:02
  5 S I think as, as, as well, um, I was remember the, the 2000, it was
• 56:08
  a mark one, it was white, it was rusty, it had a red leather interior.
• 56:13
  changed my mind forever about how cool a car could could be.
• 56:19
  I just absolutely loved just the whole smell and feel of that old triumph.
• 56:25
  And remembering that car as I got older, I began to feel well, I should
• 56:29
  revisit triumph as the cast because my son loves the GT six and and, uh,
• 56:36
  You know, a number of them came here and, and, you know, they're affordable,
• 56:40
  doable kind of proposition here.
• 56:42
  So I was thinking, wow, would I do a GT six?
• 56:45
  Um, you know, I definitely would love to do a, a 2000,
• 56:49
  that mechanical fuel injection.
• 56:51
  Just think that's the coolest thing.
• 56:54
  Um, I should prefer the mark ones and mark twos would love if I was like, you
• 56:58
  know, if I was Ross I'd have a Early PI, um, in my, uh, in my collection for sure.
• 57:06
  So, so it was with that in mind that I wanted to go to the, uh, to the,
• 57:10
  to the British motor museum, went around with my dad and with my son,
• 57:14
  um, really, really good experience.
• 57:17
  You know, my son's super passionate about the Jaguar Formula one cars.
• 57:22
  Um, I remember, you forget how many Riley's and Alvis's
• 57:29
  there were that had really.
• 57:31
  rakish bodies put on them.
• 57:34
  And I think that was what I, I took away.
• 57:37
  I, I did some real, I took some good photos, which of course I've
• 57:41
  not looked at preparing for this.
• 57:43
  Like, why, why would you, um, look, I've even put on the notepad here,
• 57:49
  look at my photos before talking.
• 57:51
  Imagine that,
• 58:08
  you know, I, I mentioned before how, You tend to feel it's like death by
• 58:13
  Austin and Morris and, you know, I never was an Austin and Morris guy.
• 58:17
  I was always a, uh, um, you know, outside lane, you know, hot rod Ford or, or BMW
• 58:25
  or, you know, or Jaguar, I always feel like if you cast me back to the 1970s
• 58:31
  or the 1960s, and we're like, and you know, what would I, what would I have
• 58:37
  and drive, it would be old Jaguars.
• 58:39
  Um, And probably some Fords and maybe some Alfa Romeos and maybe even some
• 58:45
  Lancias, but definitely old Jaguars.
• 58:48
  Um, And it's funny, I mentioned earlier I was going to have a look at my
• 58:52
  photos and by the miracle of modern technology, that's what I've done here.
• 58:57
  Um, and almost every photo I took at the museum, and in fact at the
• 59:01
  Leamington Spa car show that we went to was as well, um, is of a Jaguar.
• 59:08
  So, um, some of the Formula One car, some of the Formula One car's engine with
• 59:13
  Ollie admiring the welding, um, some of an XFR that was Jaguar's fastest saloon
• 59:20
  car or fastest Jaguar ever or something.
• 59:23
  I can't remember exactly how fast it went, but either way, it was a bog standard
• 59:26
  XFR mechanically that they just did.
• 59:30
  Up for, uh, you know, like blanked off the grill and lowered the suspension
• 59:35
  and all of that kind of style.
• 59:36
  Include a picture of the car looked awesome.
• 59:38
  I'll include the photo of the plinth as well.
• 59:41
  Um,
• 59:46
  you could overlook the workshops where they were doing, you know, where they
• 59:50
  had a couple of the, um, Jaguar sports cars, you know, from the group C era
• 59:57
  around that they were doing some work on.
• 59:59
  And so it was cool being able to, to overlook that.
• 1:00:03
  Um, The Leamington spark, but the Leamington spark car show
• 1:00:08
  was an altogether really cool, um, British, uh, you know, Sunday
• 1:00:17
  afternoon kind of experience.
• 1:00:20
  Um, Yeah, I went with my whole family.
• 1:00:24
  Um, there was a little museum that my mom and, and sister walked round while,
• 1:00:30
  um, Ollie and, and my dad and I potted round the field and looked at the cars.
• 1:00:36
  I would say a remarkable number of American cars nowadays.
• 1:00:40
  And of course.
• 1:00:41
  Uh, uh, British car meets in general and often not really very good examples.
• 1:00:47
  Sadly, often like not great examples that have been sort of gussied
• 1:00:50
  up at a not very tasteful way.
• 1:00:53
  Um, But maybe that's the case with most car shows and I shouldn't be a hater.
• 1:00:58
  I should be a lover and, and, you know, um, there was a really nice B
• 1:01:05
  Body Charger, um, 68, I think it was.
• 1:01:11
  Um, yeah, it was a 68, wasn't it?
• 1:01:14
  Um, air primer gray, um, that, you know, was stanced right
• 1:01:20
  and, and look, look good.
• 1:01:22
  And I guess I, I do like the fact that British people don't worry too
• 1:01:26
  much if it's like great under hood or if the paint's perfect, you know,
• 1:01:30
  you can take it to a show, um, really whatever condition the, uh, really
• 1:01:35
  whatever condition the car's in.
• 1:01:37
  Um, I photographed three cars at the an Audi and two Jaguars.
• 1:01:43
  Um, the Jaguar.
• 1:01:45
  E type because I've really kind of fallen in love with, with E types.
• 1:01:50
  Uh, uh, fresh, I, I, I feel, um, I would love to have an E type at some point.
• 1:01:55
  It would have to be a series one.
• 1:01:57
  Um, and to have to be in that, that patinated condition.
• 1:02:00
  I think if I'm going to do a British car, you need to, you know, I talked
• 1:02:04
  about liking Triumph GT6s, well I do, but you know, the E types, the, the
• 1:02:09
  sort of pinnacle of, of, uh, of that.
• 1:02:11
  So the British motor museum, looking at the Jaguars made me feel that.
• 1:02:14
  And then, um, you know, and learning the story of William
• 1:02:17
  Lyons made, made me feel that.
• 1:02:19
  And then the following day at the car show, as I say, I photographed two cars.
• 1:02:24
  Um, well, this, this Audi coupe that we'll talk about in a minute,
• 1:02:27
  but, uh, this beautiful E type.
• 1:02:30
  British Racing Green, and also a really lovely, um, XK120, um, that
• 1:02:38
  would have been my car of the show.
• 1:02:39
  It was just a lovely, original, patinated example.
• 1:02:43
  I'll include some photos.
• 1:02:45
  Um, so yeah, so, You know, in the Jaguar Daimler heritage trust, it
• 1:02:52
  talked about William Lyons, um, age 21, buying a motorcycle sidecar and then
• 1:03:00
  decided he wanted to go into partnership with a guy who'd built it for him.
• 1:03:03
  So it's the beginning of swallow sidecars, but because he was under 21, he needed
• 1:03:09
  his parents to sign for him so he could like set up and do the business and the.
• 1:03:15
  plaque in, in the Jaguar Dame Heritage Trust at the British Mining Museum.
• 1:03:20
  It has this wonderful line in it, um, about how this displayed lions early.
• 1:03:30
  This, this displayed his, the, this, this, you know, this was an early demonstration
• 1:03:36
  of the aptitude that would, which of the, uh, you know, the two skills that would
• 1:03:40
  serve him so well later in his career, his eye for style and his business acumen.
• 1:03:46
  What they wrote was much slicker than what I just said, but the point is that Jaguar
• 1:03:50
  is the eye for style and business acumen.
• 1:03:53
  That's why, that's why they survived.
• 1:03:55
  And, and also they understood that thing.
• 1:03:58
  Jaguar, um, in the classic period and William Lyons understood that thing that,
• 1:04:04
  um, Luca de Montezemolo talked about.
• 1:04:07
  And it is misogynistic.
• 1:04:08
  It's, you see a beautiful woman across the room.
• 1:04:10
  Ah, you invite her out to dinner.
• 1:04:13
  You have dinner with her.
• 1:04:15
  If she's not that If the conversation is not all that, if she is a little boring,
• 1:04:20
  if she is not intelligent, you know, suddenly she's not so attractive, is she?
• 1:04:26
  Whereas if, when you drive the car, it has this incredible performance as well.
• 1:04:30
  Oh, then at that point, Really, you know, if the car, if, if, if the
• 1:04:36
  drive impresses you as much as looking at her across the room did when you
• 1:04:42
  first saw her, you know, it has to be the duality of, of experience.
• 1:04:47
  That was the point that, that DeMonta Zemelow was, uh, was, was making.
• 1:04:51
  And, and, um, that's the point that William Lyons understood and is perfectly
• 1:04:56
  demonstrated in the E type was it looked awesome, by God, it was fast too.
• 1:05:02
  And I think, you know, my.
• 1:05:03
  Bullet Mustang is 265 horse.
• 1:05:06
  So did those early E types and, and really, you know, that's going to
• 1:05:10
  make them feel sprightly, not fast by modern standards, but, you know,
• 1:05:15
  sprightly enough for me, especially on those, uh, on those narrow tires,
• 1:05:21
  the Audi, um, early 100 coupe.
• 1:05:25
  There were actually two at the show and I don't know whenever.
• 1:05:30
  I was thinking to myself the last time these two were together
• 1:05:32
  was, you know, probably when they came off the ferry, right?
• 1:05:35
  All those years ago, 1969, 1970.
• 1:05:38
  Um, I mentioned the car cause my grandfather had one.
• 1:05:41
  And the interesting thing is, is the car I photographed is ice blue.
• 1:05:45
  And I thought that that was the color that his was my dad was like no it was
• 1:05:48
  navy blue and it's funny how over the years I'd somehow forgotten um there's a
• 1:05:53
  single photograph of I don't remember the car itself but yeah that car was a 1970s
• 1:05:58
  so you'd have had it not long before uh before I was born I may have even had Um,
• 1:06:03
  you know, crossed over it because I was born right at the end of, uh, end of 73.
• 1:06:08
  Um, so yeah, so two of these Audi 100 coupes, really quite elegant cars,
• 1:06:12
  worth googling around on a little bit if you, uh, if, if, you know, my dad told
• 1:06:17
  me that, uh, his mom never liked it.
• 1:06:19
  And that's why, um, my grandfather ultimately had, uh, gotten rid of it.
• 1:06:24
  I don't know why she didn't like it.
• 1:06:26
  I should have asked my dad, shouldn't I?
• 1:06:44
  So the other museum that we went to was the Brooklyn's museum.
• 1:06:49
  I know the museum quite well.
• 1:06:50
  I was a member of the Brooklyn Society for a decade or so before
• 1:06:56
  I, before I left England, actually for a few years afterwards.
• 1:06:58
  And then the Brooklyn Society, which is the people who tried to
• 1:07:02
  preserve the track, merged with the museum and it was acrimonious.
• 1:07:06
  And I can't remember exactly what the outcome was, but anyway, all
• 1:07:09
  of that's in the rear view now.
• 1:07:11
  They have a really great setup now.
• 1:07:13
  And, and, uh, um, You know, mostly thanks to the fact that Mercedes bought most of
• 1:07:19
  the land and and therefore what Brooklyn's is is an adjunct to a sort of Mercedes
• 1:07:25
  driving experience and a really rather a nice hotel that I'll put a link in that
• 1:07:30
  if you're flying in and out of Heathrow is super, super convenient and I urge you
• 1:07:35
  to stay out whether or not you like cars.
• 1:07:37
  It's it's nice.
• 1:07:37
  If you like cars, it's a must stay.
• 1:07:40
  My son and I didn't stay there because I booked too late
• 1:07:42
  and it was and it was busy.
• 1:07:43
  Booked up.
• 1:07:44
  So now when you go to Brooklyn's, it's always a company to the sound of an
• 1:07:47
  AMG turbo muffled V8 turbo raw, um, as you, cause when you park up the, uh,
• 1:07:55
  they're coming up and down, they're driving up and down the test track
• 1:07:58
  there, you know, all the, uh, all the people having their AMG driving days.
• 1:08:04
  So, um, for my son, the standout of, of, of Brooklyn's was that, uh,
• 1:08:11
  in the Formula One shed, they have, uh, they have a couple of McLarens.
• 1:08:18
  Um, they have one that is, uh, um, I think Lewis Hamilton's 2008 show car.
• 1:08:27
  Um, anyway, my son was too low.
• 1:08:31
  To, uh, fit in, but I asked could he, 'cause it was a
• 1:08:35
  quiet day, could he sit in?
• 1:08:37
  And the guy said, well, if he can see over the steering wheel, he can have a go.
• 1:08:41
  And he, what it is, is a simulated lap of Brooklyn's, but in Hamilton's Formula one
• 1:08:48
  car, 2008, McLaren, Mercedes, you know, 900 horsepower Formula one car, downforce.
• 1:08:54
  Right.
• 1:08:56
  And, and, but you know, he's going, I can see the guy thinking this kid's going
• 1:09:00
  to be absolutely hopeless, but Ollie listens really well and is able to get
• 1:09:04
  out of the pits, even though it's like a difficult negotiation out of the pits,
• 1:09:08
  because it's the real Brooklyn's pit.
• 1:09:10
  So you have to go left and then left up onto the, the top of, uh, you know,
• 1:09:16
  the narrow end of the, of the egg, if you think of the shape of, uh, of, of
• 1:09:21
  Brooklyn's anyway, um, After a sort of sighting lap where it wasn't clear
• 1:09:26
  to me or the guy if, if Ollie, um, could get his foot right the way down
• 1:09:31
  on the throttle or, or quite what was happening, um, a mere 138 miles an hour.
• 1:09:37
  He then got the hammer down properly and was lapping at more than 200
• 1:09:40
  miles an hour using, um, the Vickers sheds as the clipping point, you
• 1:09:46
  know, on the side of the egg that has the, the dent on it anyway.
• 1:09:50
  So he had one go, then we walked around the museum, then he.
• 1:09:53
  Begged me to have another go at another guy got the guy to explain in the line to
• 1:09:58
  him did exactly what the guy told him to do and, uh, probably set fastest lap, um,
• 1:10:04
  maybe of the day, but probably, um, you know, for however long, I think it'll be
• 1:10:09
  quite a hard lap to beat because it seemed to be completely, uh, completely online.
• 1:10:16
  So we will, uh, So yeah, so my son was very proud at setting that lap
• 1:10:22
  and it was a surreal experience for me to realize that he now knows
• 1:10:26
  Brooklyn's better than I do because he's actually driven Brooklyn's in a way
• 1:10:31
  that, uh, in a way that I, I haven't.
• 1:10:34
  Um, now my photos of Brooklyn's are all of the racing motorcycles because really,
• 1:10:38
  um, when I go there now, that's the, the, the experience that I have and I'm
• 1:10:43
  going to include a photo of one bike, which, uh, Is just what is so delicious
• 1:10:52
  about automotive history in, in, in general, that this bike, um, new was,
• 1:10:57
  was raced at the track before the war.
• 1:11:00
  And then during the war was ridden by an employee at Vickers, um, the
• 1:11:04
  aircraft factory that's at Brooklyn's because Brooklyn's is the home of.
• 1:11:08
  British aviation as well.
• 1:11:10
  So when there wasn't motor racing there, there was aviation there.
• 1:11:13
  And of course, in the war aviation meant, you know, building war planes and the
• 1:11:16
  pace of development was just incredible.
• 1:11:18
  And anyway, this guy got to, and from the, uh, got to and from his job at
• 1:11:23
  the Vickers aircraft factory on this ex Brooklyn's race bike, a Norton.
• 1:11:29
  Well, after the war, it passes to one Dennis Sergeant Jenkinson.
• 1:11:34
  That is to say the DSJ of motorsport fame.
• 1:11:39
  Um, well, I mean, for me, uh, as a teenager in, in suburban Plymouth,
• 1:11:47
  reading Dennis Jenkinson's stories about, you know, driving across, uh,
• 1:11:54
  France in his E Type, um, going from one Grand Prix to another, and, and,
• 1:12:01
  you know, that was, I was like, that is the lifestyle I want to lead.
• 1:12:07
  vividly, uh, thinking that and really fixing that, uh, in, in,
• 1:12:12
  in my mind, I've been moderately successful at that, I suppose.
• 1:12:16
  Um, but yeah, this was the, the, the, the vision to be, uh, to be Dennis Jenkinson.
• 1:12:23
  Um, so that bike, to be a Norton, a race Norton, a race Norton with Brooklyn's
• 1:12:29
  history with a contiguous history of this, you know, wartime usage and
• 1:12:35
  then DSJ just what an awesome piece.
• 1:12:38
  And that's really, you know, what they have at Brooklyn's, you know, just
• 1:12:43
  summed up really, really, really well.
• 1:12:45
  I'll include some photos of a Bentley they have.
• 1:12:48
  I happen to believe the body on this Bentley is about the most
• 1:12:51
  elegant that I've, I've seen.
• 1:12:53
  Um, Uh, the, the boy and I also did this awesome Concord experience that
• 1:12:59
  he was, was really keen for where, um, this guy told us all about Concord and
• 1:13:04
  we went round and we sat on it and did like a simulated sort of takeoff and,
• 1:13:10
  and, um, It really was a fun experience.
• 1:13:16
  I mean, you need to, you know, it's like a piece of theater.
• 1:13:19
  You need to immerse yourself in it a little bit because of course the plane
• 1:13:22
  sitting on the runway is not taking off.
• 1:13:24
  But really you're left with, with this sense, um, of, of once there was
• 1:13:31
  a sense of can do and these amazing things were achieved and, and we,
• 1:13:38
  we seem to be, you know, worried about our mental health now instead.
• 1:13:43
  And I, I don't know.
• 1:13:45
  I mean, What was very striking to, um, to me was a point that the guy made is
• 1:13:53
  that when you look at the Avro biplane, you know, the, the flew from here in
• 1:13:59
  1908 or 1911 or whatever it was right at the dawn of flight, the gap between
• 1:14:05
  that plane and Concorde is less than the gap between Concorde first flying.
• 1:14:14
  In 1969 and where we are now.
• 1:14:18
  And that really makes you think about how, um, to use the, the words
• 1:14:26
  of, of our former president Obama.
• 1:14:29
  Um, Progress is not linear.
• 1:14:33
  Um, and that really illustrates it, doesn't it?
• 1:14:36
  So it's a Concord is this odd combination of this sort of very old fashion,
• 1:14:44
  1960s, like you've seen it in a Jane in a Sean Connery, James Bond movie kind
• 1:14:50
  of technology, but all like wrapped up in this like stupefying, like, you
• 1:14:56
  know, Mac two with the hull with a.
• 1:15:00
  Fuselage of the plane being hot enough to melt an egg on and then you're in New York
• 1:15:05
  in three hours I mean, the, the lifestyle implications of it are incredible
• 1:15:13
  and, and they have a display in, in the plane itself of all the different
• 1:15:19
  airlines that expressed interest in it, and there were a dozen airlines that
• 1:15:24
  expressed an interest in, in buying them.
• 1:15:26
  Um, but I guess Boeing.
• 1:15:29
  Well, so shit scared that they were going to be eaten alive, that they
• 1:15:34
  created the environmental lobby in the U.
• 1:15:38
  S.
• 1:15:38
  who were like, blah, noise.
• 1:15:41
  Um, if you think of it really is, is Concorde, yeah, is noisy, but
• 1:15:46
  is there any noisier than A 747.
• 1:15:49
  I mean, not really, right?
• 1:15:50
  It was mostly about Boeing, um, being, uh, uh, terrified of, of the lead that
• 1:15:57
  the Europeans had developed, I think.
• 1:15:59
  So, so that was, was a narrative I'd never heard before.
• 1:16:03
  And I, it was just convincing because this cabinet was full of Every, you
• 1:16:09
  know, great airline you can think of from that period, he'd expressed an
• 1:16:13
  interest in Concord and even put down deposits and then the environmental
• 1:16:18
  lobby in the US shut them down.
• 1:16:19
  And then eventually they were only able to fly into New York and they just really
• 1:16:24
  were able to asphyxiate the whole project.
• 1:16:28
  And it's really, um, Really a tragedy.
• 1:16:31
  It's, it's really, you know, there's the British motorcycle industry.
• 1:16:34
  It's, it's British Leyland.
• 1:16:36
  It's, it's really a tragic story.
• 1:16:38
  And I guess I'd never engaged with it in, in period.
• 1:16:41
  I mean, I just wrote the Suzuki GSX, I guess, exiles and was like, I just
• 1:16:45
  didn't care about the British motorcycle industry had gone by the time that I, um,
• 1:16:50
  Was learning to ride and I've only really investigated it, you know, recently.
• 1:16:55
  And, and I should, you know, should say like share an anecdote, you know, the
• 1:16:59
  last time I went to Birmingham, I did my thing where I picked out various projects
• 1:17:03
  and I wanted to go and investigate it.
• 1:17:06
  Um, there was this wonderful motorcycle called a Montgomery.
• 1:17:10
  Um, I'll include the photo of it that they had at the national.
• 1:17:13
  motorcycle museum in Birmingham.
• 1:17:15
  I went to the place where it was built.
• 1:17:16
  It's a terraced house now.
• 1:17:18
  I'll, I'll do a street view link to it.
• 1:17:22
  Um, that, so that was, Kind of mind blowing.
• 1:17:26
  Um, there's one of those places where the neighbors are all, you know, looking out
• 1:17:30
  the window, being like, well, what fuck you doing, mister, um, at you turning
• 1:17:35
  around your, you know, rental car, which although it's a base level rental
• 1:17:39
  car is still by far the nicest car on the street kind of, uh, kind of thing.
• 1:17:43
  So that was, uh, that was that experience.
• 1:17:46
  Um, but that day I also drove to BSA's factory.
• 1:17:49
  And if you look at any of the, you know, photos of the, uh, The BSA
• 1:17:53
  factory, there's a street and the sign that says, uh, that says BSA.
• 1:17:57
  So I went there now and, and I went there, um, I don't know how many years ago,
• 1:18:02
  but anyway, when I was there, what the BSA factory or part of the BSA factory
• 1:18:06
  was being used for was by, uh, by one of these businesses that sort of, um,
• 1:18:11
  customizes AMG Mercedes, like, you know, puts the, um, you know, the, the, the,
• 1:18:19
  that extra bling that works for a certain demographic, um, but is more than the
• 1:18:26
  German designers were ever going to do.
• 1:18:28
  This is a shop that does just that.
• 1:18:31
  And I thought, wow, is that is, is what's happened to, uh, to the BSA
• 1:18:36
  factory and it, and it, and it really is.
• 1:18:38
  So, um, yeah, so I, I didn't, um, I didn't really, that was the first time I'd really
• 1:18:44
  engaged with British motorcycle history.
• 1:18:46
  Of course, um, British automotive history, I mentioned that, you know, I,
• 1:18:50
  I, I was put off the, uh, the British Motor Museum because, you know, I didn't
• 1:18:54
  want it to be, I wasn't interested in paying homage to, uh, um, you know,
• 1:18:59
  Austin and, and Austin's and Morris's.
• 1:19:02
  Um, You know, I, I, I wasn't, and it's interesting, that's what I said.
• 1:19:05
  I thought it was interesting that, that in the foyer they had a Capri
• 1:19:10
  three liter, uh, and a Granada 2.8.
• 1:19:13
  And, um, the, the, I live in America now and, and just how this is Junior
• 1:19:22
  America is very, very obvious now.
• 1:19:24
  It wasn't obvious to me in period.
• 1:19:26
  I just thought they were cool cars.
• 1:19:27
  I didn't see the whole like.
• 1:19:30
  aping Americana, um, that's so obvious.
• 1:19:33
  It's crazy that I didn't looking back.
• 1:19:36
  Um, but I didn't.
• 1:19:38
  Um, yeah, you know, what makes the Mustang great made the Capri great.
• 1:19:44
  Um, and the formula, the Ford had where you did a bit of flash and a
• 1:19:54
  lot in terms of, you know, either performance or, um, you know, Valor
• 1:20:00
  and foe and Valor and real wood trim.
• 1:20:03
  I mean, my, my Cortina Crusader had real.
• 1:20:07
  Wood trim in it and was a really comfortable car.
• 1:20:10
  I mean, that was the thing about, um, Cortinas.
• 1:20:13
  They really were comfortable places to be.
• 1:20:15
  And then the Granada with that V6 motor was, you know, with a five speed
• 1:20:19
  manual that was, was, you know, uh, uh, in period and meaningfully fast car.
• 1:20:25
  Although I should say, and I.
• 1:20:26
  Mentioned on the pod before, I feel like, you know, the Jaguar
• 1:20:29
  mark two was, was overlooked.
• 1:20:31
  I should say, yes, it was a meaningful free fast car.
• 1:20:33
  It was, uh, you know, 160 horsepower and it could do 120 miles an hour
• 1:20:39
  when most cars could struggle to a hundred miles an hour.
• 1:20:41
  So yes, it was a, a fast car Capri 2.
• 1:20:44
  8.
• 1:20:44
  Similarly, if you think of, of stuff like.
• 1:20:47
  You know, Escort XR3, XR3i, this is like as a hundred or a hundred.
• 1:20:52
  And, you know, I remember my dad's Sierra two liter I was 115 horsepower.
• 1:20:58
  So, you know, this is, is low.
• 1:21:01
  Uh, this is, you know, low horsepower in comparison to Jaguars, because
• 1:21:06
  right from the era of the Mark II.
• 1:21:09
  With the three eight, these are 200 plus horsepower cars.
• 1:21:14
  Um, 130 mile an hour cars really, uh, Jags were the fastest thing you could buy.
• 1:21:24
  If you put me back in time and we're like cheap and fast, what would you do?
• 1:21:28
  I'd be.
• 1:21:29
  In the classifieds, finding a manual transmission Jaguar.
• 1:21:33
  The cleanest, big capacity, manual transmission Jaguar
• 1:21:37
  I could, I, I could find.
• 1:21:58
  Morning, we're entering Brooklands.
• 1:22:00
  Ah, yeah.
• 1:22:02
  Got up and was persuaded by the boy to go out for breakfast rather
• 1:22:06
  than just eat straight away.
• 1:22:08
  And uh, we found a breakfast place but then it turned out it was a hotel and
• 1:22:11
  by that time it was half past 11 and I was just like, you know, I remember
• 1:22:15
  why I just fucking hated Guildford.
• 1:22:18
  I just remember why I hated Guildford.
• 1:22:21
  And we got out on the highway and I guess that piece of the M3 now is all
• 1:22:25
  like this 50 mile an hour like average speed check and I'm just like, wow.
• 1:22:32
  Wow.
• 1:22:33
  Wow.
• 1:22:34
  So there was this band, the Mack Lads, very, very offensive.
• 1:22:39
  I mean, only, you know, gangster rappers.
• 1:22:41
  Snoop Dogg came close to the level of offensiveness that the Mack Lads
• 1:22:45
  achieved, but with more poetry, Snoop Dogg than the Mack Lads were
• 1:22:49
  just really, really offensive.
• 1:22:52
  They did one song.
• 1:22:53
  The chorus of it was what the fook, fook, fook have they done to an I really feel
• 1:23:00
  like that about parts of England with these average speed limits and nowhere
• 1:23:06
  more than that top of the M3 where it joins the M25 because man, those that
• 1:23:14
  I know that piece of road really well.
• 1:23:16
  And, and, you know, I used to, I mean, I'm not going to name the speeds that I
• 1:23:21
  used to come up there in, in company stuff that I used to have that kind of time.
• 1:23:27
  And, and the, the.
• 1:23:30
  Slip roads.
• 1:23:31
  They're now single lane.
• 1:23:32
  They used to be two lane.
• 1:23:34
  And, and so you used to be able to really have a enjoyable experience.
• 1:23:39
  If you were coming off the M25 and going onto the M3, it was a
• 1:23:44
  lovely, you know, it was, it was a bit like the, the left, right.
• 1:23:48
  sharp right at the end of the long straight at the Nürburgring.
• 1:23:52
  It was like you could come off the motorway, come off the M25 and it was like
• 1:23:57
  an elbow left and then a sharper right.
• 1:24:00
  Um, and you needed to get some braking done anyway, um, in the Vectra.
• 1:24:05
  that I had at the time.
• 1:24:06
  The Vectra was like an understeery monster through, through that,
• 1:24:10
  uh, through that long sweep.
• 1:24:11
  Well, now it's all like 50 miles an hour.
• 1:24:13
  Like, I feel like what the fuck, fuck, fuck have they done to me, pup?
• 1:24:18
  I really, the hogsback, the hogsback, the piece of road that Mike Hawthorne
• 1:24:24
  raced along to his death in his Jaguar doing 130 miles an hour.
• 1:24:30
  Average speed check.
• 1:24:32
  Average speed check of 50 miles an hour.
• 1:24:35
  The problem is everyone does it, so you just, everyone's driving along
• 1:24:40
  next to each other at 50 miles an hour.
• 1:24:44
  I mean, I, I don't live there anymore.
• 1:24:49
  Um, you know, I, I can take a speeding ticket, can't I?
• 1:24:54
  So I'm not saying I necessarily speed it, but what I'm saying is if I get a speeding
• 1:24:58
  ticket, it's not the end of the world.
• 1:25:00
  So I, um, I'm above the law, um, or I can feel as if I am, um, and I
• 1:25:10
  don't feel like I'm above the law.
• 1:25:11
  I just feel like I have to be free.
• 1:25:13
  And I feel like this is so wretchedly, unfree.
• 1:25:17
  That's what I feel.
• 1:25:18
  This is so wretchedly unfree.
• 1:25:21
  There's no freedom of the open road if I'm driving along at 50 miles an hour behind
• 1:25:28
  the guy in front, average speed check.
• 1:25:31
  I mean, this is, this is the thing.
• 1:25:33
  We're going to move slowly into.
• 1:25:37
  Automation because so much driving is not going to be real driving.
• 1:25:43
  It's going to be average speed check.
• 1:25:45
  Already is average speed checking along behind the guy in front.
• 1:25:50
  These 20 mile an hour speed limits in cities like Paris or in Wales
• 1:25:58
  at the moment, I mean, there is.
• 1:26:01
  increasingly less freedom of of the open road.
• 1:26:07
  And it is, I mean, I began today with a story about with three rather poorly told
• 1:26:15
  actually stories about how much joy Riding fast on motorcycles gives me, or riding
• 1:26:22
  fast on bicycles gives me how much joy going fast, throwing caution to the, not
• 1:26:28
  throwing caution to the wind, but just having an enjoyable motoring experience.
• 1:26:34
  And this is just crushing all the joy out of motoring and therefore, for me,
• 1:26:41
  crushing a lot of the joy out of life.
• 1:26:44
  And that.
• 1:26:45
  makes me really angry and it's completely unnecessary and I know
• 1:26:50
  lots of people and I know safety blah.
• 1:26:54
  You know, it was personified for me by the experience that
• 1:26:59
  my son and I had at Stonehenge.
• 1:27:01
  Now you won't be aware and I wasn't aware at the time but some twats just stop
• 1:27:07
  oil twats through paint on the stones and I don't want to Talk about that
• 1:27:15
  necessarily at the moment, but, but what it meant was that I think the overall,
• 1:27:21
  I'm going to say it not suffocation of Stonehenge was, was even more complete.
• 1:27:28
  And, and, you know, we'd gone to Avebury before we touched the stones at Avebury,
• 1:27:34
  we walked the Avenue of the Giants.
• 1:27:36
  Um, we'd sat in the pub and had a, you know, we, we'd had
• 1:27:41
  a great, you know, proper.
• 1:27:44
  It's proper amongst the stones, kind of experience, because if
• 1:27:50
  you don't, if you're not aware, there are 000 stone circles across
• 1:27:55
  England, Scotland, across England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and Northern
• 1:28:02
  France, especially Northern France.
• 1:28:05
  So given all these stone circles, Stonehenge is merely the biggest.
• 1:28:10
  So I understand why people want to go to that one.
• 1:28:12
  It's the only one with the lintel stones as, as, as well.
• 1:28:16
  Now, when I was a boy.
• 1:28:18
  You could still walk under the stones.
• 1:28:20
  I'm not sure if I ever did, but you could.
• 1:28:23
  By the time I was a teenager, um, you, there was a road
• 1:28:29
  that ran up the side of it.
• 1:28:32
  There always was a main road that ran past it, but it was at a junction and they have
• 1:28:41
  turned that, taken that junction away and it's now grassland.
• 1:28:46
  Um,
• 1:28:51
  You used to be able to, there were a couple of roads nearby, you used to
• 1:28:55
  be able to get up that side road, and then you could turn and near where
• 1:29:00
  Woodhenge is, you could turn and look at Stonehenge without, um, you know,
• 1:29:06
  needing to be on the road and really close where it's hard to see where you
• 1:29:09
  can actually see it spot in the land because it's not on a high spot of land.
• 1:29:14
  It's, it's slightly Downhill.
• 1:29:16
  So there were two or three of those roads that I was ready to try.
• 1:29:19
  That the last time I was there, that's probably, probably got to be 10 years
• 1:29:24
  ago now, um, is the era of the black Mondeo that I had, I remember parking
• 1:29:30
  up there and actually climbing up onto the hood is terrible paint that car.
• 1:29:34
  So I just climbed up onto the hood and sat on the roof.
• 1:29:36
  And I remember, um, Looking out across Stonehenge there and realizing that
• 1:29:44
  it was the center of visualizing how looking across, you know, Salisbury
• 1:29:50
  Plain there, you could visualize how Woodhenge was there as well and really
• 1:29:54
  having a profound Stonehenge moment.
• 1:29:56
  And I wanted that for my son.
• 1:29:58
  You know, I didn't want him to be like, Oh, you know, you know,
• 1:30:02
  give me a, you know, give me a tie dye t shirt straight away.
• 1:30:07
  Jerry Garcia is my new hero kind of thing.
• 1:30:09
  I wasn't expecting that.
• 1:30:11
  I just wanted him to actually understand something because the last time.
• 1:30:16
  Um, so the time I was there in the black Mondeo, there was.
• 1:30:22
  The beginnings of like a visitor center and you couldn't, uh, there
• 1:30:26
  was a car park nearby and you couldn't actually get close to the stones.
• 1:30:30
  You had to like go to the visitor center and buy a ticket and walk
• 1:30:34
  down and walk across the road.
• 1:30:35
  And if you just drove and parked up, you could just park in a car park
• 1:30:39
  and walk and look over the fence.
• 1:30:41
  And it wasn't that good, but.
• 1:30:42
  But you couldn't get close to the stones and walk under the stones anyway.
• 1:30:45
  Well, now they've closed that road that ran up the side of it.
• 1:30:48
  They've made it impossible to park anywhere on the main road
• 1:30:51
  that runs up the other side of it.
• 1:30:52
  So now the only way to do it is to go to the car park, which is, um, up
• 1:30:58
  and, uh, which is, uh, Good, I would say two miles from the Henge itself.
• 1:31:04
  Um, you have to go there.
• 1:31:06
  And so it's like a Disney experience, isn't it?
• 1:31:08
  It's like the fucking Getty Center in L.
• 1:31:10
  A.
• 1:31:11
  You know, you go, you pay for the parking, you park the car, it's all nice and clean.
• 1:31:15
  You wait for the train, you ride the train up, you go ooh
• 1:31:17
  and ahh at the art, you know.
• 1:31:19
  It feels like Buck Rogers in the 25th century.
• 1:31:21
  Yeah, that works in L.
• 1:31:22
  A.
• 1:31:22
  Getty Center's cool.
• 1:31:23
  But, but, for Stonehenge?
• 1:31:26
  For Stonehenge, I have to fucking ride some fucking bus and pay and
• 1:31:31
  be talked out by Stonehenge for its first building in the year 3000 BC.
• 1:31:35
  No, that's not what it's about.
• 1:31:37
  That's not what it's been about for many, many years.
• 1:31:40
  It's about the mystery of it.
• 1:31:42
  It's about that we don't understand.
• 1:31:45
  It's not about in the year 1066.
• 1:31:48
  It's not about that.
• 1:31:50
  It's about sensing something that's mystical and deeper and
• 1:31:55
  older than we can possibly fathom.
• 1:31:59
  So they bollocks that up and that pissed me off.
• 1:32:01
  But you see, I made the boy walk to, um, uh, Wayland Smithy near Uffington
• 1:32:09
  Castle and I made him walk around Uffington Castle and we walked, um, we
• 1:32:14
  did Silbury Hill and we did, there's a, is it West Kennet Long Barrow?
• 1:32:18
  Um, if you've not It is West Kennet Long Barrow.
• 1:32:21
  That's near Silbury Hill, um, I, and not far from Stonehenge and Avebury, close to
• 1:32:27
  Avebury, um, that West Kennet Long Barrow.
• 1:32:29
  It's off the road.
• 1:32:30
  It's a bit of a hike, not too far.
• 1:32:32
  Um, that was really, really worthwhile.
• 1:32:35
  That's 5000 BC, which just boggles the mind.
• 1:32:40
  That place, that tomb was already 3000 years old when Avebury Henge was built.
• 1:32:47
  I mean, it just, you just, uh, yeah.
• 1:32:51
  So, uh, I enjoyed that.
• 1:32:54
  I think my son got a proper sense of, of, of that.
• 1:32:59
  Um, but the Stonehenge experience was blunted by too much modernity,
• 1:33:05
  too many people, too many rules.
• 1:33:08
  Um, and this bong bong for speeding and this, um, you know, ah, yeah.
• 1:33:16
  Like just.
• 1:33:19
  Just yeah, I'm just I'm a grumpy old man aren't I?
• 1:33:22
  Just a grumpy old man.
• 1:33:24
  Um, So we stayed at the Fox and Hounds.
• 1:33:27
  I mentioned that in, uh, in this village near, near Ruffington.
• 1:33:30
  We stayed at the Princess Royal, um, outside Farnham.
• 1:33:34
  Um, did that of course for the Mike Hawthorne stuff.
• 1:33:37
  Um, uh, he's just off the Hogsback and I couldn't recommend it.
• 1:33:42
  The reason I've mentioned it as I've stayed there a couple of
• 1:33:44
  times, I know that's a really good.
• 1:33:46
  Uh, good place to stay.
• 1:33:48
  Um, uh, so a lot of beer was consumed.
• 1:33:52
  The bacon is better in England.
• 1:33:54
  Um, Americans may disagree.
• 1:33:56
  My son, traitorously, even says he prefers the streaky bit of
• 1:33:59
  bacon to the round bit of bacon.
• 1:34:01
  But I'm telling you, the bacon is, is better in England.
• 1:34:03
  Uh, uh, I mentioned that I had a fifth peak and thrashed up the M3.
• 1:34:08
  Um, I eventually found a safe way, found the safe way right
• 1:34:12
  inside the bifleet banking.
• 1:34:16
  I'm going to go out of the car, I was around, Ollie,
• 1:34:18
  do you realize what that is?
• 1:34:19
  And he went, yeah, it's the Brooklyn's banking as much as say, like, duh, I guess
• 1:34:23
  when you've been to Daytona and you've seen Daytona, it's like kind of the same
• 1:34:27
  thing, but he was underwhelmed by that.
• 1:34:29
  But, uh, I had two Safeway, um, two Tesco cappuccinos, a bacon
• 1:34:37
  BAP, and most of Ollie's banking.
• 1:34:39
  breakfast and my own breakfast in a moment of extreme decadence
• 1:34:44
  before we went and looked around the, uh, the Brooklyn's museum.
• 1:34:49
  And so it's probably no wonder I felt a bit head spinny when it was
• 1:34:53
  27 degrees inside the, the, uh, Concord during the Concord experience.
• 1:35:19
  So we flew home to California the following day, the day after we got back,
• 1:35:26
  it was the Hillsborough Concord elegance.
• 1:35:32
  Um, and on the face of it, it's a provincial car show, um, but Hillsborough
• 1:35:38
  is the province, Hillsborough and Atherton, which, uh, uh, two of the
• 1:35:41
  nicer bits of, uh, Silicon Valley.
• 1:35:44
  So the caliber of cars that turns out, oh, my word, like
• 1:35:48
  really, really cool cars, um.
• 1:35:55
  Through a friend, I was asked to, to step in and do a couple of tours.
• 1:36:00
  Um, I did one for, for the sponsor group.
• 1:36:04
  Um, uh, I wish I could remember their name.
• 1:36:09
  I'll dub it in if I can, uh, if I can remember their name.
• 1:36:12
  Um, thanks to them for sponsoring the, uh, the show and all.
• 1:36:18
  I felt as if I did a pretty good tour for them.
• 1:36:21
  I only had three quarters of an hour, but people don't want the tour to
• 1:36:24
  be much longer than that, do they?
• 1:36:26
  Um,
• 1:36:29
  Uh,
• 1:36:32
  I guess the main news for, so what can I say about, uh, so the main, I
• 1:36:36
  mean, what should I say about the show?
• 1:36:38
  Um, Haggerty have a program of, of junior judging and I was asked to lead the
• 1:36:44
  Haggerty junior judges as well, which, uh, obviously working with children and
• 1:36:48
  animals is always a bit intimidating.
• 1:36:50
  You never know quite what you're going to get.
• 1:36:52
  But also it's extremely rewarding.
• 1:36:54
  And in this case, um, by keeping the pace up and, and having a clear
• 1:36:58
  idea about what I wanted to do.
• 1:37:00
  And, you know, applying the KISS principle of keep it simple, stupid.
• 1:37:04
  Um, we really did a good job.
• 1:37:05
  So I asked my son, which cars he thought we should include.
• 1:37:09
  And of course that yielded a couple of things that, um, some things that I would
• 1:37:13
  have expected to do, the Can Am car made out of titanium with the 900 horsepower
• 1:37:18
  Chevy big block, you know, that.
• 1:37:21
  That, you know, was, uh, but he, Ollie also suggested we look at, um,
• 1:37:26
  one of the Ferrari, um, challenge cup cars that they had a little, little
• 1:37:31
  class of, and, and I, of course, had zoned out on the modern stuff.
• 1:37:35
  And he thought that stuff was cool.
• 1:37:37
  And a lot of the kids in the group, um, they thought it was cool as well when we,
• 1:37:40
  when we went around and looked at them.
• 1:37:42
  So this is kids of all ages from like four and five up to, you
• 1:37:46
  know, 12 and that kind of age.
• 1:37:48
  So some kids that really know what they're doing, others that, that,
• 1:37:51
  that don't, um, I just told them what I really needed to look for was, you
• 1:37:55
  know, it was a concord delegates and what elegance means is, you know, is it
• 1:38:00
  elegant or what does elegant mean where really what it means is, is it cool?
• 1:38:05
  If you can find something about it that you think is cool or not cool, that's
• 1:38:11
  what we're really, you know, judging here.
• 1:38:13
  That's how you're gonna decide which one is, is, is your favorite,
• 1:38:17
  which one's the best in show.
• 1:38:19
  So we went from that to this 1929 Rolls Royce that has like a woody, shooting
• 1:38:25
  break y kind of Body and it's not a shooting break is he's got four doors.
• 1:38:29
  So it's not a shooting break.
• 1:38:30
  It's a, anyway, it's got a woody body on it.
• 1:38:32
  Lovely restoration on it.
• 1:38:33
  Well, the guide, like a restoration books, he had the whole tool roll.
• 1:38:37
  They absolutely love the theater of that.
• 1:38:39
  Cause that's what it's about, right?
• 1:38:40
  That's why kids can judge a car show perfectly legitimately,
• 1:38:44
  because it's about the theater, you know, and, and in the judging, um,
• 1:38:49
  that was, uh, that was reflected.
• 1:38:51
  The hood was open.
• 1:38:51
  We could see what was happening there.
• 1:38:53
  Um, Looked at this boss for 29 Mustang is a car that I actually saw once
• 1:38:58
  parked up in the Stanford parking lot in the Stanford mall parking lot.
• 1:39:02
  One time it's a black for 29.
• 1:39:06
  I mean, it's all you probably don't know.
• 1:39:08
  You may or may not know all of them were four speed top loader cars.
• 1:39:11
  So it's just it's a Mustang with a NASCAR motor.
• 1:39:15
  Like it's the motor that was that Ford were going to use
• 1:39:18
  to defeat the legendary Hemi.
• 1:39:21
  You know, it's, it's a.
• 1:39:23
  Hemi head Ford motor, but they weren't allowed to develop it
• 1:39:27
  because it was banned by NASCAR.
• 1:39:28
  So it only ever went into these Mustangs.
• 1:39:31
  Um, you know, I dare say they don't handle worth a damn because they've got
• 1:39:34
  this massive NASCAR motor and they needed to cut up the shock towers to make the
• 1:39:39
  motor fit and all this kind of thing.
• 1:39:41
  But I mean, this particular car is black over black.
• 1:39:45
  Um, 69.
• 1:39:47
  We just really, really looks the business.
• 1:39:50
  So talked about that car then talked about there was a row of Ferraris opposite.
• 1:39:54
  You have to walk and talk when you do a tour or you can't.
• 1:39:58
  You might want to talk about the hot rod at the other end of the field.
• 1:40:00
  But if it's at the other end of the field, it's going to take
• 1:40:03
  you five minutes to get there.
• 1:40:04
  You can't do that.
• 1:40:05
  You have to bounce around.
• 1:40:07
  You have to walk a little bit and talk a little bit and you have to judge the
• 1:40:10
  cars that you're going to talk about.
• 1:40:11
  Yep.
• 1:40:12
  Well, across the way, there was a Ferrari.
• 1:40:15
  There's a row of Ferraris.
• 1:40:16
  You can't ignore the row of Ferraris.
• 1:40:18
  Um, so I picked the best in a row of red 308s and 328s and that kind of stuff.
• 1:40:24
  There was a silver 330 GT.
• 1:40:28
  See, I think they called it there.
• 1:40:30
  Yeah.
• 1:40:30
  Coupe.
• 1:40:31
  Um, anyway, but the last of that, like two 50 area, um, car, the three 30, um,
• 1:40:38
  have a soft spot for that era of car.
• 1:40:41
  Did that job hot air ballooning in France, all those years ago, really nice hotel
• 1:40:47
  in the Loire Valley domain to Beauvoir.
• 1:40:50
  Hot air balloon client, this German guy who'd made his money
• 1:40:55
  selling stamps of all things.
• 1:40:57
  How bloody 20th century is that?
• 1:41:00
  A millionaire from selling stamps.
• 1:41:03
  Um, I don't know if he was a millionaire, but he could stay at
• 1:41:06
  Domaine de Beauvoir and he'd drive over in this red over tan Ferrari 330.
• 1:41:12
  This is before they were worth tons and tons.
• 1:41:14
  This is what, 95, 96, but it would always be covered in flies and
• 1:41:18
  have the yellow French headlights.
• 1:41:20
  It was, uh, red over tan, but the tan was, it was just patinated.
• 1:41:24
  It was stone chippy.
• 1:41:26
  It was the year that Baranis were like.
• 1:41:27
  You know, when I've said pitted, but you know, the car was, was being driven.
• 1:41:32
  Right.
• 1:41:32
  So we're just, just, just awesome.
• 1:41:34
  Right.
• 1:41:34
  So this car had that kind of, uh, this car's a silver over red leather anyway.
• 1:41:40
  So as the kids are looking at the car, boat comes up young guy must
• 1:41:44
  be, you know, half my age is like.
• 1:41:49
  Do they want to sit under the hood?
• 1:41:50
  Do they want to sit in?
• 1:41:51
  And I'm like, you, the owner.
• 1:41:52
  And he's like, Oh yes, I am.
• 1:41:54
  And I'm like, well, my dad is.
• 1:41:56
  And I'm like, all righty.
• 1:41:57
  Yes.
• 1:41:57
  Like, can we sit in?
• 1:41:59
  Um, cause I'd just been talking about the interior.
• 1:42:01
  Then we looked under the hood.
• 1:42:02
  Wow.
• 1:42:02
  They, they, the kids absolutely love that.
• 1:42:05
  Um, the guy, the guy was like, this is what I remember.
• 1:42:07
  The guy was like, these are the real judges.
• 1:42:10
  Not those old guys.
• 1:42:11
  I don't care about those old guys.
• 1:42:12
  These are the real judges.
• 1:42:14
  And he's.
• 1:42:15
  Absolutely right, because what I was talking with him about was he realizes
• 1:42:19
  that if we don't get little kids into it, if they, they're not around these
• 1:42:24
  old Ferraris, these old GSXRs, if they've never seen them or heard them
• 1:42:29
  run, they're not going to be into them.
• 1:42:31
  They're not going to give a shit.
• 1:42:32
  You care about the things that you've experienced yourself if
• 1:42:36
  you've never experienced them.
• 1:42:38
  So we are duty bound.
• 1:42:39
  So those kids sat in a Ferrari, they felt the gnarly steering wheel,
• 1:42:45
  you know, the owner's made up.
• 1:42:48
  The kids are made up.
• 1:42:49
  I, it was the moment that made my day when the guy rocked up and
• 1:42:53
  was like, do you want to sit in?
• 1:42:54
  It's just absolutely, uh, awesome, uh, car guy moment.
• 1:43:00
  Um, the 900 horsepower McLaren big block needs a rebuild every 12 hours.
• 1:43:08
  It was made completely of titanium.
• 1:43:10
  That was the particular wrinkle on this particular, I can't even
• 1:43:13
  remember what the name of this weird and wonderful Calam car was.
• 1:43:18
  Um, so those are the cars that I had them choose between every
• 1:43:20
  car got two points, two votes.
• 1:43:22
  And then, uh, um, the, uh, the Ferrari won the, the Ferrari 330 won the decider,
• 1:43:28
  which was, um, if you think about the cars I, I chose the Ferrari challenge car,
• 1:43:34
  Pre war Rolls Royce, 1929 Rolls Royce, um, the Boss Mustang, 69 Boss Mustang,
• 1:43:41
  the Ferrari 330 and the Can Am car.
• 1:43:43
  Those are the ones I chose.
• 1:43:44
  I feel like we achieved a great compromise of, of elegance and, uh, uh,
• 1:43:52
  Yeah, of elegance and performance, you know, and, uh, uh, by picking that 330.
• 1:43:57
  So, yeah, so that was a super, um, enjoyable kind of experience
• 1:44:02
  at the Hillsborough Concourse.
• 1:44:05
  So I'm going to wrap up this episode that talks about the, uh, my, my
• 1:44:10
  time in England by, by saying that that day that we went to Brooklyn's,
• 1:44:14
  um, that morning, um, my son was like, I want to have breakfast out.
• 1:44:20
  And I went, well, I know this area.
• 1:44:22
  I used to work around here years ago.
• 1:44:24
  He went, well, you must know somewhere good to eat.
• 1:44:26
  I went, yeah.
• 1:44:27
  He went, what is it?
• 1:44:29
  I went, there used to be a bacon sandwich van just down towards Godelman.
• 1:44:33
  Godelman was the town that I used to work in.
• 1:44:35
  There used to be a bacon, and my son went, no more bacon.
• 1:44:39
  I cannot do any more bacon.
• 1:46:12
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