Jon Summers is the Motoring Historian. He was a company car thrashing technology sales rep that turned into a fairly inept sports bike rider. On his show he gets together with various co-hosts to talk about new and old cars, driving, motorbikes, motor racing, motoring travel.
Notes
How Goes the EV Revolution?
Kids dirt bikes
Citroen’s Ami and Oli: lightweight with a sensible price
The Chinese Skyline
Paying a Premium For a Lower Range
Land racing in the Mojave Desert
The Land racing potential of J’s ‘95 Mustang GTS
Tesla Model X Long Range, Design inspiration from Duster’s Video Gaming Arcade, in Plymouth during the nineties; the games of Dusters
Porsche Cayenne GTS
J’s recent work on the Silver Arrows: Better Research Needed.
Manfred von Brauchitsch, Rudolf Caracciola, Hermann Lang and Hans Stuck
The image that started it all for J
Quick fire
Most regret parting with ? E773NKV / ‘78 Capri 3.0 S
Worst car you ever owned ?
Most Loyal Dog ? R392CNE, R733OMO
Best Road – Europe (SS25 / D1006)
Best Track – Britain (Donington, Oulton, Thruxton)
$100k, what do you buy?
Reading ? The Chronicles of Halvar and Clarence
Transcript
[00:00:00] John Summers is the motoring historian. He was a company car thrashing, technology sales rep that turned into a fairly inept sports bike rider. Hailing from California, he collects cars and bikes built with plenty of cheap and fast, and not much reliable. On his show, he gets together with various co hosts to talk about new and old cars, driving, motorbikes, motor racing, and motoring travel.
Good morning, good day, good afternoon, wherever, uh, whatever time or wherever you may be. It is John Summers, the motoring historian, with his school friend Mark Gammey for another hour or hour and a half or however long we feel to talk a load of bollocks about cars, kind of about cars. Um, how are you, Mark?
I’m all right, thank you, sir. Yourself? Yeah, you know, I, I’m [00:01:00] doing, uh, I’m doing pretty good. We’ve had a, we’ve had some stormy weather here in, in, uh, San Francisco. And, uh, the weather has got out nice again. And now, you know, there’s a whole two weeks that went by where the road was wet and I didn’t want to ride motorcycles.
So I would look at the weather forecast and then be like, and it’s only, as I say this to you now, I think that’s so bloody California to be like, Oh, I just wait for a sunny day to ride. Because in England, I just used to get out and ride anyway. But I guess it’s a combination of my old age and, uh, and an increased sense of, uh, security and responsibility and, uh, and all of that jazz.
I mean, I, I, I, I’m a fair weather rider. I am a portly old git now and uh, I’m, I’m waiting for the blue skies myself, so. Although I am gonna get a dirt bike at some point soon and then uh, I will ride that whenever, so. Yeah. On green lanes, not on the road, so yeah. Yeah, I’m still trying to persuade Dana [00:02:00] to uh, acquiesce to uh, to Ollie.
Um, we were, uh, he was doing his goalkeeping practice, um, in Sutro Park the other day, and some five year old came by on an electric bike, um, an electric dirt bike. Right. And I just want to, I want to highlight, right, that I think at the moment, both legally and culturally, there is. Uh, gap at the moment around electric bikes, right?
So in other words, if I buy Ollie, one of these 400, two stroke Chinese, but 50 CC bikes that you see on Amazon for three or 400, right? If I buy him one of those, I’d have to go and pick it up in Nevada. Cause they’re not allowed in California, but let’s say I like shipped it to a PO box in Nevada or something, and then went and picked it up and he could have it here.
If I had that, if he had that running around in Sutro Heights, right? Somebody had called the police on him in no time at all, right? [00:03:00] On me. Whereas this lad on the electric bike, because it’s quiet, because he doesn’t have clouds of blue smoke, he’s just a little kid riding around on the electric bike. So Ollie was like, well, can I get an electric bike then?
So I was like looking at prices and sizes and so on, because he’s a bit, he’s a bit bigger now. And I came to the conclusion that no, basically, because if he, if I put him on an electric bike, that bike would be like the size of a KLX 110 or something like that. Now, like the electric bike would be, and that would be too big, right?
That would be, you know, the old woman walking her little yappy dogs. Instead of being like, Oh, cute. You know, the lads riding over the berms, it would be, you’re going to run me and my dogs over and, you know, given how Ollie is on a pedal bike, I [00:04:00] know how he’d be on a powered bike, so, you know. He has this skid every time, right?
When he comes to stop, he always steers a bit and then gets the brake on. So it does like a bit of speedway. He’s gonna fall off, right? But I told him that a month ago and he’s just been doing bigger and bigger and bigger skids and not falling off. So, you know, what, what does dad know? Um, Well, those 44 teeth boys, um, Al did his review, didn’t he, of the, um, was it a KTM 50cc or something like that versus the equivalent electric dirt bike?
And his lad was basically pro electric? Yeah. Yeah, well, I, I mean, I was thinking, uh, I’ve been driving the Mercedes, there’s that old E55 I, uh, I have. And, and, uh It’s so smooth and the power is so instantaneous and it has [00:05:00] this sort of, I mean, it’s why they, why, you know, uh, Jason’s son called it the flying couch.
I mean, it has that feel right. All those characteristics are the characteristics of electric cars. It’s like when Cadillac said they were going all electric and they were one of the first makers to do it, instead of being like, oh, what a disaster, I was like, well, those are the virtues of Cadillac anyway, you know, the smoothness and, you know, and I’m put in mind of, you know, before the war.
The Packards and the dos and Bergs and the Cadillacs of that era. The idea was that you couldn’t hear it running. It was silent running. So the reason that you did 12 cylinders wasn’t ’cause it made more power ’cause you could rev higher. It was because it delivered better torque and it was smoother and it was quieter.
And the notion was that you could rest a quarter. On the engine block, you know, and the quarter wouldn’t fall over. The thing was, the thing was so [00:06:00] smooth. I feel like we moved away from that true luxury, that notion of, of true luxury. Um, yeah, I mean, I don’t know. It’s, um, the whole, I mean, electric is coming is, is, is the future or whether, I mean, and it looks like it’s unlikely to segway sideways into hydrogen anytime soon, even though that might be a.
Better, the specific impulse looks to, uh, uh, output or whatever it is, looks a bit too weak, but again, I mean, I listened to, um, a radio show today on the BBC talking on Radio 4, um, uh, sliced bread, I think, as in, like, is it the best thing since, and they ask, sort of, answer readers questions, and I mean, you know, even if you charge up your electric car at home and your previous car was, you know, beyond economical repair, so there isn’t the argument about whether or not you could, you needed to buy one, but, Um, you’re still looking at between 50 and 80, 000 miles.
If you’re in, if you only charge up at home before you save the money, the differential in cost between an electric [00:07:00] car, electric Astra and the equivalent, you know, small diesel, um, which is a lot. Uh, and if you’re not in that position to actually need to swap out now, there’s no argument to do it. And the other net net is that.
If you look around, you know, ignoring all of the economics, and of course, you know, now with the petrol prices gone through the roof, you can be paying 70p a, a, a, a kilowatt unit or whatever it is now, um, at service stations and so forth, and there was four hour queues for the Tesla chargers at Christmas time at the service stations on the way down, on the way, when people were heading home, um, This, the infrastructure is woefully lacking behind the governmental ambition, sadly.
So, you know, it’s, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I would, uh, I would completely, um, I would completely agree with you there that the, that the infrastructure is not there. Um, I’d also put to you, um, and stop me if you. [00:08:00] I think you’ve heard this one before, but I wasn’t pretty that I feel like the people who buy electric cars are the people who are least able to cope with motoring challenges, which the motoring challenges, which are constituent of the electric car experience.
So, in other words, you need to plan where you’re going to stop. You can’t just drive and get there and gas up whenever you know that we’ve we’ve rolled back the the convenience and I was thinking about this with with my mum that that when we were at school together my mum didn’t drive and and given that she has done since and gets on well and loves modern modern cars my parents have a Volkswagen Tiguan still like a 2016 she loves that she loves the sitting up high she loves the smoothness of the diesel she loves the fact that it’s an automatic transmission but it’s not slow, um, You know, all of all of that stuff, right?
That all happened. She didn’t like the light. She didn’t like the choke. The choke terrified her, you know, between the [00:09:00] choke and the clutch, you took those two things away. It made my mom mobile. It made my parents able to live out in the countryside. So, you know, I feel like electrification has sort of rolled us, rolled motoring back to the way that all that, is it?
I mean, at least at the moment. In a sense that if you live outside of town and you do long journeys semi regularly, it’s not for you. Yeah, it’s definitely not for you. A commute, short run, regularity. And, and that’s why, you know, we’ve, we’ve run our agenda of, of cars to, to talk about. But that’s what I think’s most interesting about a car that’s not on our agenda to talk about.
The Citroën Ami. Because that Ami It’s like, I know it’s like, uh, made out of the same material as a port a potty is made out of. Oh, the Ollie? No, the Ami. The Ami is the little one. [00:10:00] The Ollie is the one on our list that we can talk about in a minute. I don’t think I’ve even seen the Ami. Oh, well, let’s, let’s talk about the Ollie.
And whilst we’re talking about the Ollie, you look at the Ami. I, so we, we, our little agenda was about electric cars today anyway, and we’re jumping around on the agenda. But you know, that’s you and me. Um, I have seen that one. Yeah. Sorry. It’s quite good. So I think both of them, uh, fucking awesome design. I get what, you know, Lucid and Rivian are trying to do.
I I’m just a bit like, you know, that feels a bit like, you know, I’m excited for the next model T. It’s the next Model T that really excites me, and it excites me in the way that when I used to sell tech products, I was interested in what the next generation tech could, could do. And I hated Tesla, partly [00:11:00] because I just didn’t know what to make of them.
I just didn’t know how to interpret them when they first came along, because it seemed to, it was fast, but without the fun, without the viscerality. It was. You know, they had looked at what Porsche did and just did jelly mold size and you were like, well, that’s because Porsche are all about the 911. They have this like, halo model.
What’s your halo model other than your founder’s god damn giant ego? You know, like, I, I just, Yeah, you’re waiting for the skyline. Do you know what I mean? You’re waiting for the Japanese to go, this is, this is how we do it. And then you go, well, shit, that’s effective. I like that. That’s amazing. That’s your own.
You know, you’re not trying to be Ferrari. Yeah. Yeah, I like this being the ultimate expression of the Japanese. It’s not copying anymore. They’re doing something terrific. All of them. It’s just amazing all on its own. Yeah, no, absolutely. I like, I mean, I suppose it shouldn’t have been a surprise [00:12:00] that it came from Citroen.
Um, but yeah, I watched a review of that. I mean, it’s a show car. It’s a sort of level laboratory thing, but I mean, It’s genuinely impressive. Loads of quality, the cool and, uh, different thinking for the only, I haven’t watched the Ami stuff, but I, they had a couple on the picture and the philosophy is the same instead of, do you know how heavy the Rivian is?
It’s like 7, 900 pounds, right? It’s like I said to Ollie, like that’s three Mustangs, three of our Mustangs. He went three. I went three. Imagine how that would feel plowing into you, uh, a hundred miles an hour, like that was the main standout thing for that Ollie. It’s like what? 2, 200 pounds. It’s like a thousand kilograms.
Windscreen and the doors and all of that, all of that’s fucking clever. But the main event about that Ollie is that it’s about lightness. Well, I know they reckon cause they can put a smaller, was it a 70 kilowatt hour battery or something in there? [00:13:00] So therefore they can make the thing for 20 grand.
That’s like actually the price of gold rather than that plus 15 grand more. I mean, yeah, now, now I’m excited about electric car, right? Tesla. Now we’re really, and you said it came from Citroen. I looked at it being like, I’m feeling the Citroen two CV here. The AMI was launched right alongside, um, when Paris introduced their new like 19 mile an hour speed limit.
Right. It’s 30 kilometers or something. And I’m like, and I’m like, wow, Citroen have grasped the reality of urban transportation in the future with that doesn’t do any more than 69. That’s it. Well, he’s even slower than that. Yeah. And what they’ve done is they’ve, they’ve done one vehicle for people who live right in the city and they’ve done another vehicle or for people [00:14:00] who, you know, might want to go out of town at the weekend.
You know, and you know, but, but this is the, the, this is what I’ve, I, I, I believe, I don’t know France and French people very well, but in California, you know, I mean, our friends that we spent Christmas that we spent New Year’s with, uh, we’re going to talk about their couple of new cars, Tesla model X and, and Cayenne GTS later in the, in, in the sort of little presentation, they now like little thing today, but you know, yeah.
They would never drive, even though the cars, they would never consider driving between LA and San Francisco, you would fly. So in other words, any journey that’s longer than a couple of hundred miles. Most people don’t want to do it in the pandemic. My wife moved to a stage where she doesn’t want to be in the car for longer than about an hour.
She’s fine driving around town, but she doesn’t know when she gets out on the [00:15:00] freeway, she doesn’t know what to do. Now me, I’m like waiting for that moment where you can just. Sit there and, you know, survey the world. Like, I feel like that’s like the big, I love nothing more than that moment. When, when you go in somewhere and the car’s packed and all the bullshit’s done, and you’re just like out on the highway, that moment where you move into the left hand lane and switch the cruise on that.
That’s a pinnacle moment. That’s a like picking up the front wheel moment right there. Let’s see what like, you know, planet rocks got or a bit of smooth country. If I’m feeling like us vibes today, then, you know, let’s see what’s going on. Yeah, that’s not what That’s not what most people do, to be fair. And that’s not what these electric cars are designed for.
That’s not what they’re, they’re designed for. No, no. And I mean, look, you know, maybe this, what’s that, that new Mercedes long tail thing that’s like going for a thousand kilometres of range on a single battery charge or something? I mean, it’s ugly, but like, whatever. I mean, you [00:16:00] know, it’s, it’s, again, it’s a, it’s a technology showcase thing.
Um, but yeah, I mean, I don’t think, I mean, it’s coming. Um, but yeah, that’s the top thing on our list card on our list to talk about that funky cat aura, which at that time I’d not seen the Ollie, so I didn’t know what the Europeans were doing. I’d only seen Mercedes kind of doing that EQS blobby affair, that cat aura.
You can go by that right now. It’s 25 grand in England, something like that. You can’t get it here. Um, I, I am struck by it because I feel like electrification is going to be the niche that the Chinese need to build. A market in Europe and later dominate I feel like I don’t think they’ve delivered their skyline I don’t know what their cars are, you know apart from copies at the moment.
They definitely haven’t delivered the skyline [00:17:00] The cat aura is like a step on the road And the cat aura sits really nicely against the ollie because the ollie is all this exciting design That’s at an affordable price point whereas the cat aura He’s a similar price point, right? I, you know, that, that, that concept car is not, you know, they, I, I see those as similarly priced kind of, kind of the, well, the cat or is something you can buy right now.
I, um, I have to say, I didn’t, I thought it was a bit dull. I mean, the guy seemed quite excited about it in the video in terms of its styling. But, you know, trying to look like, you know, sort of take Porsche styling cues on that sort of little car. Always feels like you’re sort of fronting and maxing a bit.
I mean, like really, I mean, just for our, uh, for our listeners or one of them, me whilst I’m editing it. Um, it just for our listeners, Johnny Smith, late break show. And, and he’s my electric electric car guru. You know, and he, I realized he verbalized what I’d been [00:18:00] thinking, which is the, this antagonism between electrification and gas power is dumb.
It’s just dumb. There’s room for everything, right? So he’s like electric car guy. He’s testing a VW buzz at the moment, but he has a 68 charger, which in England. You know, probably wouldn’t be my choice, but like, you know, power to it. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Um, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s coming. I think it’s got a use case.
I mean, it really has. I mean, it doesn’t fit my use case, but I’m in a minority. I’m not the motoring public at large. So, um, yeah, I mean, and, you know, if I lived in town, you, you don’t want to be starting up a, you know, straight six every time with a noisy exhaust every time you leave the house. I mean, it’s a bit silly, isn’t it?
So, you know, it’s. Um, but I don’t, so, you know, man, you know, most of the times we take the Fiesta, we’re pottering around anyway, so. Yeah, yeah. [00:19:00] Um, so I’m just looking at our agenda here. Um, so the whilst we’re on the theme of these electrics, another unusual thing I would go so far as to say, bloody stupid thing is the fact that you pay a premium, like between the Hyundai Ionic five and the Kia EV six or the EV six.
And the EV six gt. That’s the two EV six EV six GT and Mustang Mace and MHE gt. The GT models deliver more performance for a higher price, right? So far, so normal, but they deliver less range. Yeah. But people always wanted to measure, didn’t they? I mean, it’s like, you know, they want to go out and sit at the lights and show off to them, how fast you could, you could, you could use when, when, you know, when you Dick measured your Cortina two liter gear against.[00:20:00]
Your colleagues 1. 6 L. There was like, you know, a tangible velour sunroof and 95 miles an hour instead of 90 difference, right? There was a tangible difference. I, I, I don’t believe the difference in performance of electric vehicles is remotely tangible. I don’t believe you can use it. I can’t use all my Fiesta ST on the road.
No, you can’t use the M2. I mean, it’s, but it’s about, but you can get away with the traffic light Grand Prix a bit better, I guess, given it’s quiet.
But I don’t want, I’m, I’m a performance vehicle enthusiast and I don’t want the, the, the GT variety of it because I don’t want to be worried. I’m more worried about range than I am about half a second. Off my naught to 60 time. Yeah agreed. Um, yeah very much. [00:21:00] So, um, why would you do the gt model? It’s total dick measuring.
Yeah, well utter utter dick measuring and it was stupid with gas powered cars But you know, we love them and we’re small boys, but now they’re electric. It’s it’s like it seems like It’s like a throwback to But that was one of Tesla’s main selling points, wasn’t it? You know, that it’s faster. That, you know, you could have electric, but it’s quick, and it looked like a boring, blobby sedan, but it was faster than, like, a Ferrari.
That was one of their, their, um, their things. I mean Yeah. Yeah, maybe they success. You see, I just feel this is a different technology, right? And I used to feel that I just wasn’t enthusiastic about it. But then I think maybe it was because Johnny Smith did a video on that cat aura months and months ago, you know, like maybe more than a year ago.
And that was the beginning of me thinking, you [00:22:00] know what, there’s something, there’s like the stirrings of something interesting happening here. And that’s Citroën Olli, and there’s other vehicles like that that we could talk about, but that’s Citroën Olli. The AMI is what they’ve always done really well.
It’s like, you know, it’s like a port, it looks like a disabled port a potty on wheels. That’s, that’s what AMIs. The, the AMI. Does. But the Ollie, the Ollie is, is like, wow, we can actually do good design ’cause BMW, the, these electric BMWs, I mean they’re god damn ugly and they’re just big fat bastards that you just with a bunch of performance that you don’t need and aren’t gonna use.
It just feels a bit bloody pretentious to me, but, well, Dick Mey, and I’m not a dick Mey kind of guy. No. If they don’t make ’em like. Then the range is a problem. Um, you know, we’re planning another couple of holidays this year. Angie’s still waiting for her operation. Therefore, it’s probably going to be in the car.
Therefore, I’m probably going to be doing. [00:23:00] You know, 500 plus miles a day for at least a few days and I’m not stopping three times for a couple of hours at the service station like the irony, the irony of these vehicles with range with range similar to one of my sports bikes. I need to be gassing up as much as that.
And it’s called the GT. I mean, the whole notion of the GT is what Harry, Harry Garage’s guy does is you have your yacht down in Antibes, you get in the car in the morning in your farm in England, you drive down there, you don’t stop, you gas up. That’s all. Yeah, it’s, uh, hey, so why don’t we move on to the Ferrari Purasang.
Now you put this on my little agenda. I don’t even know how to spell it. You had some. It’s a piece about its suspension or steering. I, I would just preface my remarks by saying, yeah, all right. Ferrari SUV, Vaffanculo, but I also [00:24:00] feel, um, you need to see these things in the flesh really to get a real proper sense of it.
Um, you also need to experience it in the, the butt somewhat. And I know from driving that, um. 07 or whatever it was, Durango, that I had that had the Hemi. I mean it looked ugly. It was terrible. And when you sat in it, the interior and everything was, was terrible. And it was all absolutely horrendous. Other than that moment where you came in the throttle and the VA pulled it along and, and that elevated the whole experience.
The whole thing was, it wasn’t, it wasn’t like it was the VA. It was just that moment where you tipped into the gas, that it elevated it far beyond any other SUV. Of, you know, comparable, um, SUV, um, So the purest thing [00:25:00] like I get powerful SUVs is what I’m saying, but you know, you can pay me to have a Cullinan or a Bentayga.
I mean, I don’t want one. This is a bit clear. Um, but what I was most interested in, I watched a couple of videos on it. Just, uh, Harry did one. I think I watched another or part of another one. The most interesting thing I thought on there was, I mean, apart from the fact they’re big nowadays, some of these cars, I think it’s got 24 inch rims on the back and 23 on the front.
That’s a big ass wheel. Um, give an older DRE was singing about 20 inch rims. Um, um, not that long ago and they were big ass wheels. And now, yeah, yeah, he was also singing about his 98 Oldsmobile, which then was there with a 500 beta. And now is a full on collector car. Yeah, find one if you can. Um, yeah, I mean, the most interesting thing about it, I think is, um, apart from the fact that obviously, you know, It’s an option, but I thought the suspension was really interesting that they’ve [00:26:00] got.
There’s no anti roll bars. Um, so the way they manage, um, compression and so forth and, you know, uh, suspension travel is they’ve got something, some clever sort of little motor with the, um, the, um, The smarts on it, on the stanchion of the suspension. So you can use that on each corner to independently stiffen up and change the ride height on all four corners.
So if it drives over a pothole, it can lower the wheel into the pothole. And then as it comes back up, it checks the road surface like 30 times a second or something. So it can then bring it back up again. So that it minimizes the amount it actually went in. So when you’re in, you’re hard cornering as well.
It can stiffen up the outside and soften up the inside. So you can corner flat. It could, could lean it in. But apparently they tried that. It felt, I feel like it’s, it’s the 1990s. And you’re Murray Walker explaining Nigel Mansell’s new Formula One car to me. It’s pretty sick for something on an SUV. I mean, you know, it’s, although [00:27:00] that’s, you know, that’s, uh, that word is not acceptable.
It’s not an SUV. I don’t know what Ferrari called it. I can’t remember, but that’s what it is. Well, BMW, BMW don’t build SUVs. They build SAVs, which are sports activity vehicles. I’ll have, you know, it’s not, uh, fair enough. Yeah, it’s, you know, I, as I say, it doesn’t fill me particularly with last I don’t want one, I don’t think it looks too bad, but, um, yeah, it’s just interesting to see them sort of loading in.
Um, doing, doing a Ferrari and doing it their own way. Um, and there’s an electric motor on the front and so forth. So it can do four wheel drive, but you still get a nose lift as an option if you want to lift the front end up. So it doesn’t do that for you. It’s all about performance and enhancing the driving experience rather than practicality.
Um, yeah. And, and, you know, um, you know, I, I, uh, I, I, I’ve got [00:28:00] to believe it will leave you flabbergasted to, to drive. Because. One, one thing with this. sort of latest generation of, of like hypercar of, you know, ultra powerful tall vehicles is all of everything’s a superlative, right? It has 700 horsepower, but the brakes are like the size of a 12 inch pizza and the tires are like, so, so it’s, it has the braking performance and the rubber on the road.
equivalent to like three or four Sierra Cosworths. Oh yeah, I think they’d be gobsmacking, let’s not mess about. Um, but yeah, I mean, I can’t say I want one. I don’t really want anything in the Ferrari range much at the moment. I’d have a 296, don’t get me wrong, but um, that’s about it. I’m not really bothered about much else.
Ollie and I went in Ferrari of Fort Lauderdale [00:29:00] while we were in Florida. Um, and, uh, I just let him wander. Right. And, and we. And I found myself and I, I let him wander, um, you know, and, and, you know, was made sure that the people in the place knew that I was with him and I, I, I wasn’t going to totally let him run wild, you know, he, I wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t like wild child in, but bottom line is we end up stood next to, um, uh, five, 12, like BB black one.
And I’m like, you know. The modern stuff. I’m sure. I don’t know. It’s all about the scenario in which you could enjoy it. And with these things, you know, if you drive them, you, you do love them, but I just don’t feel the same lust for the modern stuff as I do for the older stuff. I feel a level of, I’d sell a kidney for the older stuff that, that, um, I don’t [00:30:00] with the newest stuff.
Um, uh, you also put on the agenda here, this TTS racing supercharged Hayabusa. Well, I mean, this, this TTS supercharged rocket, what, what this is, there’s something like hot rod company that do a boost. It’s TTS, TTS, um, in the UK, they basically, um, do modification packages for these bikes. Um, and you know, they’re fully specced and tweaked and, you know, um, yeah, I mean, and I put the figures on there just because it’s sort of ridiculous to.
almost to think about the numbers, you know, if I, if you came out with it on a top trump card 10 years ago, you’d be like, yeah, yeah, chin on that. That’s, they’re not real. Um, but yeah, I mean a nine second quarter mile, 220 miles an hour for the supercharged booster. Um, and the, the rocket supercharged rocket is, I mean, 270 foot pounds of torque.
I mean, are you kidding me? [00:31:00] Um, You know where you remember years ago, Newton and I went out to, uh, the Mojave desert without CBR 600. I’ve got to do land raising stuff and continually failed tech inspection, basically, um. Just nothing like prior planning to avoid piss poor performance. Let me tell you, um, uh, Whilst we were out there one time, we got talking to a couple who were, well, they ran a pair of boosters, one supercharged, one turbocharged, both of them had gone more than 200 miles an hour and their background was, um, her background was master mechanic, engine builder.
in the aeronautics. He built the bodies for tomahawk missiles. They’re handcrafted. That’s what he, there’s like a bunch of craftsmen around, like who fucking knew? Well, these bikes were so perfect. [00:32:00] Well, obviously we looked at the bikes, gushed over the bikes, learned the people’s stories. Um, the bottom line is that the bike needs to make.
The bike needs to be supercharged or turbocharged to do more than 200 miles an hour. You’d think out of a can the Booster could nearly do 200 miles an hour and you know those early ones could do like 193 whatever you whatever you believe. The bottom line is you now at Bonneville at least where the air is thinner.
And where you have the traction problems, you need, or, or, well, Mojave, you don’t have the, the, you know, the, the same, um, thin atmosphere issues, but you still have, you, you know, you need a shit ton more than 250 horse. I think if you add 370, I think it could probably do 250. Not that I’m like an expert who knows?
I mean, did you? Because I mean, it, it’s, it’s an odd thing. I mean, because you can do the, the other way that a Mil Millard video that I sent out of the, uh, the, he [00:33:00] custom made a viper eight liter V 10 motorbike, um, , I mean that thing’s due 200 miles an hour. Um, and he, he, he, the, the onboard video he showed of it was like a gentle quarter throttle run, and.
Still knocks over 200 miles an hour. So, but I mean it’s, it’s an amazing engineering project, the guy’s a genius, but uh, it’s an impractical bike. I mean, clearly, it’s just way too big and long, the engine is a stress member even, and it’s still massive. Um, but it’s cool. Um, but yeah, I mean, I don’t know.
Sorry. No, no, no, I was just gonna say, the top speed runs, sort of, I didn’t see much point in them. Um, and then You know, spending a day at Speed Week, um, a few years ago on holiday. I mean, it was cool. It was great fun. So, if I live near there, I would find a reason to have some sort of project to go and do high speed runs.
No question. I was really into it years ago. And You know, I did a [00:34:00] bit of stuff out there on bikes, but, and I’ve thought since I would go back with, with cars. So I have that, you know, five liter Mustang, and I often knock around the notion that if you just call that Ford racing, bought a crate, 500 horse, Windsor, I could pay Campbell Ford.
The two grand, which is the factory rate to do a motor swap and that caged. Uh, SN car, 95 Mustang GTS. It probably do, I reckon 200 miles an hour, but if you think of it, right, the Ferrari GT, uh, Ferrari, um, Daytona could do 174 with 350 horse, right? The M5, the E39 M5 can do 186, the restricted. With its 400 horse.
[00:35:00] With the 500 horse that an E60 M5 has de restricted, that can do, could do 206. My E 55, which is 3 59 horse, it’s a oh two, the last of the like W2 10 blobby eye ones, um, that could do 175 de restrictive, which would be bloody terrifying prospect. Lemme tell you. ’cause I know how bloody terrifying that is.
Anywhere north of uh, yeah. Um, uh, my point being. If you buy a motor with 500 horse, the car, unless it’s an aerodynamic brick is going to be sniffing around 190 or 200 miles an hour. It’s just a case of, of, of raw physics where it so happens that SN body style, what was that? It was the jelly meat, but it was the jelly bean era.
It was Ford took a Fox Mustang [00:36:00] and thought, how can we make this aerodynamic? And that was the SN 95 car. So I feel like, you know, you might say, well, he 60s much more air dynamics, sophisticated than a shitty old Mustang. And I might agree with you, but you know, we will, uh, we wait and see if you take it up properly and all of that, you know, so I’ve thought about that, but I’ve also thought.
It blows a tire and it’s over, right? Uh, no, it’s, is it, is it that worth pursuing? No, I agree with you. Um, the idea of spinning out and rolling it doesn’t appeal much. No. Well, you know, you, and let’s, let’s be real. Uh, you know, you’re the one checking the tire pressures. You’re the one that missed the fact that you ran over a nail or something, which just made a little cut in the tire.
But, uh, 195 miles an hour, that little cut [00:37:00] was a big tear. And, you know, you’re eating hospital food despite the roll cage in it. You know, I just, I’m too old. Upside down accidents is the bottom line. So we did our new year in, in Santa Barbara with, uh, with this. Family that we’ve got to know quite well. I mean, I guess, you know, Dana’s known the girls and she was, I say girl, I mean, you know, since they were at college in, uh, in Paris together years ago.
Um, anyway, bottom line, this is not some bloody soap opera about their family. Um, this is about the cars that they have. Um, so. She had a Tesla Model X, right? And remember I told you the door fell on her head. And, um, the shoddy build quality. He is not a car guy. And he commented to me on the shoddy build quality.
He’s [00:38:00] not a car guy, but he is a Porsche guy. So the comparison, I think, was quite noticeable and jarring for him. Um, and after the door fell on her head, I mean, you’re like, anyway, so, uh, um, So I was quite surprised that she had another one. It looked at the Audi e tron. Nah, needs three rows. No three row BMW.
It’s not coming anytime soon. So, you know, the leaf was up. So she had another one. Right now again, right. You can do the Played or the range. She was like, I bet you’d have had the played. I was like, actually, no. ’cause of my, we just talked about this with the EV six and EV six GT and Mackey and, you know, we, we, we, I was like, no.
You know, I, I, uh, I wouldn’t actually, I, uh, I’m, I’m, I like, uh, a, so this one’s [00:39:00] gray. And the interior is noticeably nicer. I’m not somebody who really compares this stuff, but the interior on these new ones is, is, is noticeably better. Um, but it has one of these like, you know, space invader. Um, you know, Top Gun, Maverick, um, steering wheels, right?
Where it’s not a complete wheel. It’s, it’s, it’s not just squared off at the bottom. It, it, yeah, it’s only like it’s between a nine o’clock and 11 o’clock on one side. And, and, you know, three o’clock and one o’clock on, on, on the other side. Um, so she was complaining about that. And, and we, we went out for a little, well, I mean, we were just hanging out.
So when, when the time that we were there, when we were going out, I happened to be sat next to her in the passenger seat one time when, when we were driving and in normal operation, it’s not a thing, right? But when we were going up some winding [00:40:00] driveway, she’d been complaining about it, but actually watching her use it.
It was not like a steering wheel, but it was arguably better because you could just put your hand underneath it and push it. The whole thing was like a large PlayStation console, like, controller, rather than, uh, yeah. So, um, I first saw that on an arcade game. About 25, 30 years ago. Yeah. You, you, and you and the design genius fucking Tesla was the industries dusters arcade in Plymouth as well.
Yeah. I was, I was thinking about dusters arcade in Plymouth just the other day. Why was I thinking about it? Oh, I know why I was thinking about it. Do you remember that game? That was, uh, it was like on you were on a road and you had some kind of hot rod muscle car and it was it was so it’s like similar layout to outrun [00:41:00] but it was like in a kind of science fiction neon light space and the car was clearly a muscle car and and I remember.
I remember I was, and I was looking at a new Retrowave video that reminded me of that computer game. And that computer game reminded me of, of, uh, of being in Dusters with, with you and Dan, which was really seedy looking back. Dusters in Plymouth, by the way, for, for listeners, which has long since disappeared.
Sadly gone. Yeah. Sadly gone. The other one that you boys used to play was the fighting game. where they were like the two of you and it was like a platformer but it was from a like three quarter elevated perspective. Golden Axe. No no it wasn’t like barbarian fighting it was like you would it was like a two player you were like two brothers.
Yeah you could play Golden Axe multiple player as well um. But yeah, yeah, you might have been Knox. That was the ones where the intro was you slid in and then all jumped, [00:42:00] did a massive skid, I think in a 911 rag top turbo, and then you jumped out of it. And then landed with your two SMGs, or MAC teens, or whatever you were running.
And, uh, then had to beat up, like, junkies that would throw, like, diseased needles at you and stuff. Quality game! You can tell they were diseased because they were, like, bright green. Yeah, yeah, obviously. Obviously, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so, uh, the other thing that, yeah, that he’s, he’s got a new Cayenne GTS and it’s in there.
Um, I, it’s not, it’s, I want to say pewter, but I’m not sure if it is pewter. It’s in this, you know, dove gray, the, the, the, like the, the non, the, where it’s, I, what am I looking for? Like earth tones, if I’m not showing a bit of interior design [00:43:00] pretension there, it’s, it’s a, either way, it’s an amazing color, right?
It is. And, and the thing is, is. You know, I said to him, you know, at first, Ollie and I were disappointed. You got rid of the Panamera, but you know, now we’re not because it sounds better than the Panamera. And, uh, you know, for most of the people, most of the time in California, he’s right when he says, you know, I’ve got to carry on because it’s higher, it’s like higher up, it’s easy to get the kids in and out.
My first thought was, well, you’ve got one bloody SUV. Why’d you need another one? But the point is that people know what’s right for their lifestyle and having spent that time with them, I can see why, uh, he was like, all he was like, can you put it in sport plus? So he did, right? But you’re like sat behind other traffic.
So it’s kind of, and I’m in all this, like falling into potholes. I mean, this like savage throttle response and snatching of gears driving down the high [00:44:00] street. And I’m like, no, no, this is for the, like, this is for the motorway on ramp. You know, this is the, the, yeah, I spent most of my time in the M2 in comfort because, uh, unless you actually want to drive, it’s just, yeah, I’m civilized.
The next item on my little agenda is, you know, I brand this as motoring historian, right? But we, I never actually, as I said, I, I feel like there’s a kind of bait and switch going on. You were expecting, you know, the history of, you know, the Triple E Grand Prix. And instead, you know, you get in, uh, us. Boling on about new cast.
Well, firstly, you know, unlucky and secondly, you must like it if you listen for, for this long. But, but what I was gonna say was I was gonna actually talk about the fact that I have done a little bit of history recently. Mm-Hmm. . And I’ve not spoken to you, mark, about this. So your reaction is genuine andfor.
There we go. Breaking down that third wall. [00:45:00] Um, again, so I wrote a piece about. The silver arrows, the German racing cars from before the second world war auto union, kind of like modern Audi and Mercedes Benz. And, you know, really, I think the basis of modern formula one in the, you know, it’s like, uh, uh.
Pinnacle technical competition as a, um, national competition. You know, your trial is the traveling circus to me. That was the beginning of, of the traveling circus. Now I, after I wrote the paper, the person that reviewed it said they thought that it was, that was maybe present in the 1920s and I’m now going to have to go away and do another load of, of research to see if I think that I just was wrong.
Or, or if I’m going to try and defend my, uh, defend my position. Um, and I guess that’s the bottom line with this work was that I, I did a lot of reading, but the [00:46:00] reading that I did was mostly in the 1990s. And I missed this one crucial book that was published in 2008, which is basically everything that I’d written about, but of course done much better.
Not least because the bloke that wrote it is German, so can read all the German language. books and the bloke reviewing my essay was like, yeah, you know, but you know, you basically say most of the sources are in German. I can’t read German. And also, um, the sources that you have used, you’ve gone on to say, well, they’re biographies that were in after the war.
When the drivers and the team manager and so on, they’re all trying to distance themselves from everything that was Germany in the 1930s. So, you know, I, so I had been, I had basically said that I felt that they’d done the different drivers that I, I looked at, I looked at for, um, [00:47:00] I basically said that I thought they’d done quite a good job of being apolitical.
And the reviewer has said, you know, on the contrary, you have a look at this other book written by this German bloke who dug deeper into the past and found, you know, the bloke that said he’d never worn a Nazi uniform. There’s a ton of pictures of him doing it. The, when Ross and I was killed. His, you know, he was, he, he was like David Beckham in terms of being outside of motorsport.
He was an icon in the popular imagination because, you know, he wasn’t married to Pospice. He was married to a woman aviatrix, you know, one of these like acrobatic distance flyers. Ellie Beinhorn was anyway, whatever. The, the, the point is that she’s almost more interesting than, than him if you, uh, uh, re read about them.
The relationship’s really interesting. Anyway, um, [00:48:00] uh, where was I going? I was going somewhere. Are you talking about the source material and the chap having done deeper research, um, and, uh, some of the stuff that they purported not being quite, uh, on the level? Oh, the bottom line was I just not read the right book.
I, like, and the book was published in a period where I thought I’d read just about everything there was to read. So I got egg on my face, somewhat, I, I do feel that and, and I’m, I’ve moved from the, the stage of being, um, miffed that I’d done that, not miffed at the messenger, at the message or the messenger, miffed at the fact that I’d done that, to feeling, well, all right, I need to go away and do a lot of work to kind of restructure what, what I’m doing.
And I should say, you know, what I’ve tried to say is, is in an era. Of, um, government where government is putting pressure on people to do things that, [00:49:00] uh, not ethical or not moral. How do people respond and how do people who are in positions of, of. Uh, not leadership, but positions of kind of responsibility.
How do they, uh, how do they respond to that? So I talked about, um, Von Brauchitsch, the Mercedes driver, Caracciola, the other Mercedes driver, and I misspelled his name throughout. fucking embarrassing. Um, but you know, it’s my poor attention to detail, right? I didn’t grammarly my own piece, you know, like, you know, yeah, she’d think you’d think I didn’t have any experience editing other people’s work.
Um, Herman Lang. And, um, uh, Hans Stuck and I guess von Brauchitsch, um, defected to East Germany after the war, and it’s all a bit of a sad story, the, the Belgrade Grand Prix of 1939, [00:50:00] right? Four days after the war started, four days after the invasion of Poland, the morning that Neville Chamberlain declared war,
Lange came down to breakfast, Neubauer, the team manager’s like, where’s Brauchitsch? He’s like, oh, I don’t know. Brauchitsch gets in the car, drives to the airport. Von Brauchitsch, um, Neubauer gets in the car, drives to the airport. Von Brauchitsch is on the plane. The plane’s about to take off. He pulls him off the plane and says, you’ve got a race.
Only subsequently, this is what he says in his biography, right? So who knows whether or not he’s true. He says, only subsequently did I realize that the plane was going to Switzerland. So this son of the Prussian military family is, you know, fleeing to, so, so you’ve got So I got to think, so clearly, right, this was not somebody who drank the Nazi Kool Aid, right?
Despite [00:51:00] the fact that he’s like a Nazi poster child, despite the fact that he’s appeared in a movie, um, in a movie with like a Hollywood actress about a racing driver, and you know, he’s, he’s a movie star. So that was, he was the one guy, and I’ve assigned picture of him, right? So I feel like, which I bought 20 years ago.
Um, 25 years ago now, so I, you know, he’s always been the, the, the figure for me, that, that fit, that photograph that got me involved with the Silver Arrows in the first place of the 1937 British Grand Prix. There’s a photograph at Donington of, of the car wheeling. Up the hill like it’s on. It’s doing a wheel stand is two wheels off the ground.
That photograph is of Von Brauchitsch. And that’s the picture that I would say didn’t just get me into the Silver Hours, got me into Formula One, got me into motoring history. It all stems from that one picture. So hence my interest in Von Brauchitsch. Um, [00:52:00] uh, Caracciola, uh, bought a villa in Switzerland before the war and was always like up at the villa and up at the villa and just stayed up at the villa.
That’s what he did basically. And I, my thought about that is that, you know, he was the most successful driver of the era. And you can say, well, he was not as fast as Ross Meyer and Lang was better by, by the end. And I think those things are absolutely true. I feel like anybody who can. Come out of the whole debacle of the war and you know, the whole like thing as slickly as Karachi Ola did.
I’m reminded of of the circuit that his villa in Lugano is closest to his band and the feature at band was cobbles. And it was like fast and sweeping. If you look at a track map, a lot of the corners are kind of Thruxton, churchy, [00:53:00] but over cobbles and it would rain a lot. So you can imagine, imagine what that was like.
So, so anybody who can slide and 500, 600 horsepower Mercedes Benz Grand Prix car 150 miles an hour, which is what it took to set a decent lap time. Then, you know, this was driftastic and, and, you know. Yeah, so, um, and as I said, Lang, Lang’s working class, Lang’s a motor, uh, motorcycle racer, has a good career, has brothers who have killed motorcycle racing, who still has a good career, but then when the Weimar Republic collapses, loses any chance of being a racing driver and has to like, try and make ends meet and survive any way he can, ends up working for Daimler Benz, ends up being on the Mercedes team, actually being, um, I can’t remember who’s chief mechanic, but he was chief mechanic, and then in his biography he describes [00:54:00] this train ride.
Back from Monza after they’d done some testing up back to Stuttgart and sharing the carriage with him was this other mechanic Zimmer, who he’d raced with years ago and the designer, car designer and, uh, the race. And until that conversation where Zimmer and Lang had been bantering about some oil that Zimmer had borrowed for a race that they’d done like a decade before.
He’ll, he’ll climb like a motorcycle. He’ll climb Zimmer was basically Lang one, everything, right? There was this period where Lang and that’s what Zimmer alluded to the designer, whose name escapes me, heard that was, and from then on one in campaign to let Lang drive the car. But the whole social class thing meant that Lang wasn’t really allowed and, and, and eventually got there.
But the first time he ever drove a Grand Prix [00:55:00] car was. The 646 horse Mercedes W 125. Like that was the, that was like his introduction. There was no like Formula Ford or anything like that. There was no warmup. There was like straight out there and the circuit. If you Google up a map of the Melhalla Triple E Grand Prix circuit, if I tell you it was faster than Spa, faster than Monza, the average speed, and it’s all like these crazy sweeping turns through like, you know, between palm trees and, and so on, you know, cause it’s like the North African coast.
It was, it was when, uh, it was when, you know, Mussolini had his like ambitions, his colonial ambitions and, and the. Tripoli Grand Prix was like a showpiece. It was like a resort. It looked like, it looks like, you know, Cuba used to in the 1950s. That’s how it, uh, that, that, that’s how it, uh, how it looked. He won first time out, like [00:56:00] unbelievable, like unbelievable.
Um, so Lang and, and then And Stuck’s the really interesting one because he, he was His wife had a Jewish grandfather, so although officially she wasn’t Jewish the brown shirts had all these like spit on stuck kind of campaigns going on, right? Well, you know what Stuck did, right? This is just like eye popping, right?
He wrote to Himmler and said, can you stop this? So Himmler organized for it to be stopped.
Okay, go to the head of the problem, I suppose. Right, he went to Hitler and said, uh, I really want to do the land speed record. You know, the Brits held the land speed records. I’m mates with Malcolm Campbell. Like, damn it, I want to do the land speed record. And [00:57:00] Hitler went, great, go and do it. Go and do it. I give this project my blessings.
So they designed the car, this Mercedes T80, that was the, if you Google that up, it looks like it’s a bloody spaceship you’ve never seen. The Allies, when they found it, didn’t know what it was. They thought it was like a Nazi super weapon. They had no idea what it was. It was, it was Stuck’s land speed record car.
Um, and the, the, when it seemed, when Stuck heard rumours that he was not going to be the driver, That the, that, you know, the people around Hitler wanted to put somebody who was, you know, like Lange, a working class hero, not, you know, foppish. You know, traveling aristocrat with a Jewish wife who was a tennis pro, by the way, they were totally Gatsby, racing driver and tennis pro.
Um, you know, so there’s a whole like social class thing going on there as well, which we, which we [00:58:00] see reflected in the modern era somewhat as, as, as well. Um, uh, where was I going with Stuck and, uh, um. When he heard that they were going to put someone else in the car. Oh, yeah, yeah. He went to the Berlin Motor Show because he heard Hitler was going to be there and walked up to him and said, Um, who, who’s going to be driving the land speed record car?
And Hitler went loudly so the whole entourage could hear, Stuck will be driving the land speed record car. In other words, he knew. That Stuck’s request to see him had been denied by people in the office and so on. So when Stuck walked right up to him, eyeballed him, he said loudly. So all the brown shirts around him who were, you know, cat.
So I just thought that was interesting because it shows how, you know, it’s the, the politics laid bare. But it also shows how Stuck wasn’t really that interested in the whole like. You know, it didn’t matter what Hitler said. About, you know, hating on the [00:59:00] Jews. That didn’t matter at all. It was only for me to be able to do my motor racing.
Don’t you understand? And similarly Karachiola with being like, well, this is clearly a load of bollocks and this bloke’s a wanker. He delivered him a Mercedes in 1926 and Hitler gabbed on a lot and, you know. And, you know, and was unimpressed. Well, at least that’s what Karachi says in his biography post war pre war.
He says something slightly different, but you know, post war the, but you know, he was up in Switzerland, right? He wasn’t exactly trying to be like, hang on a minute, this, I can’t be involved in this. I just want to, they were just about wanting to go motor racing, but the final, what I want to end with. And it’s just.
Uh, uh, uh, uh, just so telling of the time. Hitler says, go and see the head of the air force and ask him for an engine. So Stuck goes to see this guy, Ernst Udet, [01:00:00] who was a World War I fighter ace and says, can I have one of the most fuck off engines you’ve got to build this lad speed record car to go faster than Campbell and Seagrave and these bloody Englishmen?
And Udet says, come and see me in two weeks, right? So when Stuck sees him in two weeks time, he has not one, two of these giant jet engines. So Stuck goes back to Hitler and says, can I do a boat as well? I want to do a boat as well. And I’m just like, you know, that was the spirit, which, you know, is. Just, um, it’s Gatsby, right?
It’s not the, it’s so to be like, to, so to, and, and, you know, with our eyes, we look back and we say, well, should you, you know, should you really have been, you know. So keen to do the land speed record that you were happy to drive a car with a swastika on it, even [01:01:00] though you absolutely knew how evil the policies were and how they affected people.
You know, the Gestapo raided your hotel room, one Monaco Grand Prix weekend, you know, like you knew what it was. So there’s. A lot of nuance there and I was a butt munch to not properly review all the literature and miss this key book, which is German journalist had written about this very topic. So I don’t know, I might read his book and be like, actually, I don’t have anything valid to say, but I usually have a lot to say, don’t I?
I just, So, uh, I see the timers as run on as it usually does, Mark. Um, I have a few quick fires here for us to, uh, to wrap up with. Um, what’s the car you most regret parting with? The E773 NKV. Vulture Man, the Ford [01:02:00] Sierra, uh, in grey or whatever the, uh, whatever version of grey was with, uh, uh, the first guy. I loved it.
I mean, the fact that it ended up all moldy and we had to get rid of it. I mean, we did have to get rid of it, but if I could have a car back lurking on the drive, that would be the one. Yeah. Grey Sierra two litre base, wasn’t it? It was rare in that it was a base. It never had any wheel caps all the time that you had it.
Yeah. Yeah, I, uh, a worthy, uh, a worthy choice. Um, I test drove when I was a student, a blue Ford Capri three liter s. Um, it was lovely. It had that tartan interior, but blue, um, it was a tea plater. Um, when I got back to the house and tell the bloke I’d call him in the morning, he called me a
for [01:03:00] being a sh for being a time waster. Oh dear. Um, and I really wish, um, cause I was, I really was in a place where, you know, he was probably right that I probably wouldn’t have bought the car, but I still felt, you know, at the time I, I, and I looking back now, I wish I had gone with a hundred bucks in my pocket cause I’d have given him the money and then found a way to make the rest, um, whole, but you know, but I don’t know what I would have done with it and I would have had to keep it outside and I couldn’t have insured it and yeah.
I would have liked that Renault five turbo, the baggy one that Angie’s house may had, um, Yeah. Was it reliable? No. Did it, did it look just right? Yeah. Yeah. And I wondered, but yeah, I [01:04:00] didn’t have a 15 year old. Both taste lived in that same grey as, as your Sierra was. Um, alright, worst car you ever owned? I thought about that.
Um, I don’t think I’ve owned a shit car. The worst car I’ve ever actually had for any period of time, um, was when I swapped, um, the Cupra R I had, that Seat Leon Cupra R from my mates driving down at Le Mans, and had his dog eared GTI in that awful era where Volkswagen were like doing the red, I think it was even before they were doing the red letters on the GTI that had actual different.
Horsepower level, and it was just some baggy shit, 130 horsepower piece of crap, uh, and it was awful. Um, that was horrendous. Like a Golf Mk4 or something. Yeah, it was, it was like, ugly, and slow, and knackered, um, and I hated it. No wonder he needed the Cupra to go to Le Mans. [01:05:00] Well, I mean, it was about five times the car in every way.
It was just so much better looking, better performance, just better. Uh, most loyal dog. I’ve never owned a dog. No, no actual dog like car. Um, I feel like that ought to be, uh, oh, what can I remember the reg of this one? Was it R323CNE? That, um, Red Laguna Company car I had. That was a beater of an old dog and I kind of loved it.
It was shit delivered. In a sort of enthusiastic French way that made it good. You know, I, I liked it when dirty and handbrake turned regularly, um, across the dirt drive to where I was living on that farm while with you for some period of time, um, yeah, I have fond memories of that car, even though it wasn’t a good car, if you know what I mean.
Yeah. Yeah. The pool car. Um, [01:06:00] I would pick, uh, um, that black Mondeo ST 24 that, that we use. Yeah. Yeah. That I use for, um, well, you did 6, 000 miles in that car between us. Didn’t we over two or three different, different summers before it succumbed to the, uh, to the great scrap man in the sky, but yeah, really sad to, to see that cargo, um, Really wish I could have found a way to keep it.
Um, that Yamaha motor, what a, what a gem. I mean, that was a, that was a fast car, uh, utterly clapped out. I mean, we, we, I paid, I mean, we went together to look at it, didn’t we? I, what did I pay? 350 quid for it, 320 quid, something like that. I did not pay, uh, uh, a lot of money for it. Um, what’s the best road that you’ve driven in Europe?
We talked about America a couple of, or maybe last time best road. [01:07:00] That’s difficult. I mean, there’s some excellent roads around the Nürburgring. Um, that are better than the Nürburgring in lots of ways. Um, you could say spa in that technically it used to be roads, but like, and that’s cheating because there’s a track, but it is amazing.
Um, I don’t know. There are some great roads in the, in the Alps. Um, I, the, the road, if you don’t take the marble tunnel and you go up over the top. Um, instead, um, from wherever, I’m just trying to remember where we were, but, um, doesn’t really help people to find it on the map, unfortunately. If I can think of it, I’ll put a link in it.
But, um, I had a wonderful period where I was driving that McGann RS, um, and about eight bikes of various naked and sports bike types came past. And, um, the sort of the gods were with me for a bit in terms of traffic flow. And I was able to sort of clip along behind them at about 95 to a ton 10 for about half an hour on sort of wonderful long sweeping [01:08:00] roads, like on the plane in between the sort of the mountain top bits, just stunning.
So, and some of the roads up out of Italy around Lake Como, Lake Como is just too nudgery, but there’s some nice roads around there. I haven’t got a top road to be honest, I need to work on it. Como is where Caracciola lived, that, that area. Oh, it’s Gordon. Yeah, Lugano. Um, I, uh, so my picks, the Alps as well, um, I, I drove from Turin to Chambury to retrace Giuseppe Farina, first Formula One world champion, to retrace his last drive.
So he was invited to participate in, um, John Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix. And that morning he hopped in his Lotus Cortina in Turin and drove up over the Alps. Um, on his way to, uh, to, to Rams as, uh, as I understand that you say it and, uh, and the French Grand Prix. [01:09:00] And, uh, uh, when they found the car, it was wrapped around a lamppost and the speedo was pegged at 170 kilometers an hour, which if I, to, um, to understand it, that’s about 115 miles an hour, which is about Lotus Cortina’s maximum.
So I think he hit ice. I think. And, and Fangio famously said about it, you know, he would, whenever Farina crashed, he would always think the Virgin was going to look after him and Fangio’s point was, you know, I guess the Virgin stopped looking after him. When I drove the road, the Virgin had not stopped.
Looking after him. He, he was doing what he loved. The car was in a full blooded four wheel drift with a throttle wide open, 150 miles an hour. And at 60, he hit the lamppost and died. The Virgin was with him to the very end. So the road, I think is. If you’ve, I mean, it, it is [01:10:00] the, I bought an Atlas of Italy, a road atlas of Italy in the fifties, and looked at the main road and the road that I drove, um, I think it was SS 20 or something like that.
But it does, you know, I, I, uh, should have planned this better, shouldn’t I? But no, I followed a camper van up the hill. In this little A3 diesel rental car that I had, poor thing. And, uh, the first climb, I was like, I’m not going to pass. But then the second switchback, it was a really long straight. And I thought I’ll pass.
And when I passed the camper van, uh, there was like nothing, there was no other traffic on that road. And I went up the switchbacks all the way up the hill, getting faster and faster and faster and feeding like it was a computer game. And then over the top of the hill. Coming out of Italy and into France, the road surface improved.
And it was like a computer game with these sweeping downhills where you could, could look, I mean, I was doing racing lines, even though there was just sheer drop off, I wasn’t like leaning on the car that hard, but [01:11:00] I, it was because you could see right though the way down, like that kind of Stelvio class, but more open, less switchbacky and, and more, and, and, and more open.
And, um. Yeah, so the Alps, uh, uh, are, I mean, don’t get me wrong, I did some lovely driving in the Pyrenees last summer, there’s some stunning roads down there as well. A lot of the little, little ones are just too small, you know, they’re beautiful views, pretty, but you can’t really enjoy driving them because, you know, single lane with passing places with no runoff and, you know, it’s, yeah.
Um, what’s the best track in Britain? Um, poor, I can only say the ones I’ve driven on, which is only a few, um. I’ve done Thruxton, I’ve done Brands Hatch Indy, um, I think, I mean the one I like the most that I’ve driven was Darlington. Um, there is a cheat here, isn’t there, is the TT course, really. But if you [01:12:00] discount the TT course, I had Thruxton.
I was between Thruxton and Alton. I think Alton’s good. I’ve never done track day at Alton, so I don’t really know, but I, but Thruxton is, is Thruxton’s quality, yeah. Um, you’ve got a hundred thousand dollars. What do you buy? A
hundred grand. What do I buy? Uh, well, I’m one thing or am I buying a small garage full of, uh, Your choice. Oh, and in which case I buy probably a, a nice tidy 997 GTS. Sorry. 997 Carrera S with the right kit on it, with the right alloys on it. I buy. Uh, a dirt bike, I probably buy, I might even buy one of those BMW M1000Rs.
Because I quite like the idea of that ridiculous 200 and something horsepower in a naked. Because, uh, Increasingly, sports bikes make less, because they’re even more ridiculous to ride than, [01:13:00] um, supercars in the sense that you can get there even faster than the supercar to the, not just the license losing, but to the, uh oh, the accident is muerto sort of time, um, even more scarily fast.
Um, but yeah, and, and then, I don’t know, I kind of like the idea of having one of those, if I can get a dog eared 760 IL, or M60 or something, M6 or something like that. So I can have a nice four door car as well. But, uh, with ridiculous power. And then I’ll keep the other 15 grand to put fuel in it for about three weeks.
Ah, ah man. Um, I would do, and I did, this is like an off the cuff, I’ve not thought too deeply about this. I would do, uh, I really want a dually ram. I’ve not like got out of the way of, of, uh, I know exactly the year and the spec that I want. It’s taken me a long time [01:14:00] to get, but I really would love a two wheel drive.
Extended cab 2016 17 dually ramp. Um, I would also do, and not least because I feel like I missed the boat on this. I would love a really nice original daily drivable. Well, not daily drivable, but like usable, like the cars that I drive every day are muscle car. Um, I would do a Firebird, but it’s too much like the Camaro.
I would really love a Boss Mustang, like a 6970 Boss 302 Mustang with a 4 speed, of course. Um, I feel, uh, there’s a timelessness about them. I feel something of a Mustang fraud. Having only had, you know, later era ones that are like a reflection and a reference to, to, to the earlier ones. So I would [01:15:00] like, uh, I’d like to do something like, uh, I’d like to do something like that.
Um, you know what I was going to say? Um, we talked about the scariest moment you’ve ever had in a car and I was going to do a little reprise of, of, of that. I can’t remember what I said when, when we talked about it before, but I, I actually think that, oh, when I pranged. that white Sierra that we both owned.
Um, you know, I, I also had a pretty terrifying moment in the era of the Econoline Club Wagon Van 1992, twin toe brown, Stanford excess property auction, 720. Um, do you remember? Well, you maybe don’t because you maybe didn’t know Jason at that time, but our buddy, uh, Jason has, uh, um, used to, I lived with for a while, used to have Volvo 240 station wagons because you could pick them up cheap and you could fit a bike in the back of them.
And Jason was all about the [01:16:00] bike racing. So that was, you know, that was the criteria. So when I first moved to California, I helped him with the running costs of the, the 240 that he had at the time. And the brakes died to grind. And he said to me, don’t worry about it. The brakes can grind forever and it’s fine.
Like I’ve had two other Volvo’s and the brakes can grind forever and it’s fine. And the brakes ground forever and it was fine. And eventually we did. So I was like, the brakes can grind forever, right? That was my thought with the van. Well, I’m telling you they can’t because the, the, the pedal went to the fucking floor when I was trying to get slow from like 80 to like, you know, 60 to merge with traffic to an extent that I abandoned any attempt to merge and continued on because I was, it literally, the pedal just went straight to the floor and I pumped and nothing happened, you know, the pedal.
Was was, it was. So that was, uh, a pretty, um, hin de clenching, uh, [01:17:00] moment. Yeah. That would puck a one up, wouldn’t it? Yeah. . Um, uh, what are you reading at the moment? Um, we’re plug the book. You are not reading anything because we, yeah. I’ve just been spending all my time writing and editing and writing and Chronicles of Alvar and Clarence.
Go to Amazon and buy it now. Mm-Hmm. Uh, I am reading a biography of David Pearson called 21 Forever. And motor racing biographies are often lightweight, and I think this qualifies as the most lightweight motor racing biography I think I’ve ever read, and I think the real tragedy is this is apparently the only one, this is, there are no other, uh, you know, maybe he was a simple As he, as he comes across, I don’t mean simple as in dumb, maybe he was as, you know, as much like a character in a country music song as he, as he seems to be, I, I, uh, yeah, I don’t know, it’s, it’s, [01:18:00] uh, I crave more depth, you know, there’s more depth with Junior Johnson, there’s more depth with Richard Petty, the, the, it’s, I’m struggling to find it with this, uh, uh, this, uh, David Pearson biography, um, um, um, All right, um really appreciate your time again mark.
We’ve just ticked all good man. Um, have uh, Have a good one and i’ll speak to you next time
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