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
Cricket and the Englishman
Poker
A Porsche Digression –
The rise of the 993 4S
J’s 964 experiences
J’s 968 CS test drive
In praise of the Cayenne GTS’ interior
Porsche choose their customers like Ferrari. Anecdotally.
The appeal of a base model Boxster
J rebels against car models always bloating
’15 and ’16 Fiesta ST running reports
A revolution in car cleaning products, by YouTube
’17 BMW M2 running report – A/C and brake juddering, and a not great dealer
J’s app for surfing beater cars in Europe – AutoScout24
Renault Clio 182
Peugeot 205 GTi
Sierra Cosworth (Sapphire)
Citroen Saxo VTS
2002 Mercedes E55 AMG running report @ 158k, “cut roof off”, a broken hood ornament but mechanically sound; central locking pump and battery change
Battery strategy when letting cars sit
Vain – Whisper
Plans to Pick up the Free Motorcycle
Western road trip – Coloma, where they found gold in California
X-15 Major Michael Adams Memorial
Seligman AZ: the real Radiator Springs from the Cars movie
Death Valley at 124 degrees with no A/C
Thanks to United Rentals, and their Ford F250
J retells the story of the discovery of gold in California
Highway 395
Route 66 – all kinds of awesome, Seligman to Victorville especially
Gentrification and Shelby – an LA story (as seen in Ford vs Ferrari)
Newton’s bad behaviour on a Honda XR650 Supermotard
Paradise Cove reprised
PCH and memories of the CBR
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.
Uh, good day, good morning, good afternoon. I, I don’t need to inflect my voice now because I’ve got the jingle, haven’t I? Although Mark and I haven’t heard it, so we have to role play that there was a jingle, even though Mark doesn’t know what the jingle is. See, this recording thing is never It’s never natural, even when you try and, uh, when you try and make it that way.
Um, how are you doing, Mark? I’m all right, thank you, mate. I’m all right. England are 286 [00:01:00] for four, which is looking decent in the last ashes test. So, you know, they just need to carry on, not lose many more wickets. Well, thank you for the, uh, for the cricket update. I’ve got to say that I was never much of a cricket fan.
I was more of a city in the stat. Can I just hang up now? Call yourself an Englishman? F k’s sake. Unbelievable. It’s funny that so, um, that evil in war, the loved one, the satire on Englishmen living on the West coast, it actually begins with, well, he’s all set up around snobbery around the cricket club and being president of the cricket club, be in the, uh, Most important thing.
Um, I, I worked at four companies in the valley over the years, one way or another, um, four different institutions. Each of them engineering was Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi kind of dominated. Um, in each case, there was a [00:02:00] cricket team. And there’s a really strong culture of cricket around Silicon Valley, not carried on by, by Englishman, although a lot of Englishman, of course, of course, play, they were always quite disappointed that I was, uh, uh, not a player.
I’m not a player of anything though. Am I? I was in Vegas and we, and I managed to lose 8 when I only thought I was gambling a dollar. Like literally, it’s all credit cards. Now, have you been to Vegas and looked at the fruit? Not for a while. No. Um, last gambling I did was the, uh, the MGM, but that was just a house tournament of poker where you bought in for like, I think it was like 95 or something.
And there was like 30 or 40 people in, it was like three or four tables. And you just played till like, I think they paid out the top two. But anyway, it was like, it was worth having, like, the first was like 1500 bucks, second was like 900 dollars, something like that. I came third, which was not, so no pay.
[00:03:00] Um, but it was quite fun. And when you do poker like that, you can’t see the other player’s faces, so you’re judging them based purely upon the way that they’re playing. Oh no, no, no, this was, this was live. This was actually at tables when I was in Vegas, so you can see them. You can see all the other players at the table.
So, but now on poker games online, generally speaking, you can’t know. Um, but, uh, yeah, um, similar in terms of betting strategies and stuff. But, um, it is a bit different. I wouldn’t profess to be particularly good at either. Jamie’s better than me. Yes. What, why do you think that is? Um, I think he plays, he certainly plays more.
Um, but I mean, yeah, it’s hit and miss. Um, so, you know, he, he’s, he’s, he’s decent at it. I think he’s also, uh, probably a bit more ruthless. As well, I suspect. Um, but, um, yeah, um, it’s good. I mean, I enjoy it. It’s good fun, but I haven’t played much for a while. I’ve got, I, I [00:04:00] opened my PokerStars account the other day and noticed that there was like 350 in there.
I was like, shit, I didn’t even remember. I last I remember having was like a hundred dollars in there, so I must have won some before I then stopped playing. So,
um, it’s kind of a tawdry world though, isn’t it? I remember one of the last deals I did in London before leaving for. Before I left London, one of the opportunities I was quite sad to walk away from as a tech salesperson was, uh, can’t remember if it was bet fair or if it was a, a, a, but one of the really big, um, things that went on to be a really big gambling place, I met them in a pub in Leicester square with a guy that I’ve kind of on and off stayed in touch with, like somebody who I was friends with, like he was there.
Tech guy if you like and I was the the sales [00:05:00] guy and you know, I remember about it and we will eventually get to cars. There’s a Carrera 4S up against the curb like a 993 Carrera 4S up against the curb and I remember looking at it and thinking it was kind of appealing despite the fact that I was never much about the four wheel drive and I thought of that car just yesterday.
When, uh, you know, my son and I were flipping through, um, the latest Gooding when I was, it was not the latest Gooding, it was Gooding from Amelia Island, which is always super Porsche heavy and a lot of like, you know, a 935 and a 934 and an Irock Porsche, you know, they had, they had like nice cars, but they also had, um, uh, I would say three, I mean, I didn’t stop and count, but it felt like three or four.
993 4S’s and I’m like, [00:06:00] again, I’m, I’m just doubtful of the four wheel drive. The four wheel drive doesn’t feel that pure to me. No, I was, I suppose that they were more popular because they still have the sort of the pendulum handling a bit and therefore the four wheel drive was more like, it was, uh, more like keep you on the road.
Oh yeah, I guess I’d not thought of it from that point of view. Is that why they’re loved then? Are they considered super drivable? I don’t know, but like they did have the reputation, or at least in the generation before that, and maybe the one before that, of being a bit sort of, you know, lift off oversteer, see you through the hedge, you know, Porsche corner at the Nurburgring, all of the, uh, all of the, um, all of the cars, the, like the, the sixties cars and the seventies cars.
And I would say the [00:07:00] 80s ones really certainly the like up to was it 88 that they changed the that they went on to the 964 I mean even I know I I drove um I drove I’ve driven two 964s but my memory of um a white one that I drove on the just on carriageway outside outside ready um was was that the pedals four hinged like a Volkswagen Beetle.
And and I remember being really put off by by that. That that was yeah. I don’t know why that put me off so much but it made it I guess it made the car feel very old fashioned. Yeah. Although they’ve mainly gone that way now, haven’t they? Yeah. I don’t know. It it was something to do with. I remember something to do with the it was the way that my heel was on the floor and I had to like maybe I don’t know lift my heel up or something like that.
Anyway, I, uh, [00:08:00] I was like not, um. I was I was put off classic 911s by the pedals. Looking back, this was a 964 that was white, a Targa that was white. So, you know, it wasn’t exactly Porsche’s finest moment, which is probably, I don’t remember being put off by the color. It was the pedal that put me off. You know, I drove another one, another 964 that was a guard’s red one.
that belonged to, do you remember I worked for that dreadful recruitment company? Uh, there was, uh, the, the main, the big bosses like lieutenant was this guy, Charles Liddy, Charles, if you’re listening, uh, you, you, I never understood how you put up with Gary’s abuse, but I see from LinkedIn, you’re doing different things now.
So good, good, good on you. He had one, he had a, and he let me drive it. I remember him being nervous about me going too fast. It was a piece of road that I’ve driven motorcycles along. So, you know, [00:09:00] And and it was, you know, you know, the other Porsche I test drove. Do you remember this? I was this because good because Amelia Island, they had one of these as well.
It was just like the one I drove when they were new or it wasn’t when they were new. The 968 CS. Remember I test drove one of those. I don’t. I remember the cars. Um, I’ll tell you what you will remember. I was more interested in that than the, um, than the 911s of the period, frankly. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Well, this took to it this story.
Do you remember when we lived in Aldermaston? Do you remember near our house, like on the way to my office on the back lanes way, there was that long straight bit of road? Like, but it was crowned, it was a B rail, it was crowned, it was narrow, and it had a bad surface, didn’t it? Not like a terrible surface, but it had a surface which meant that more than, more than 70 miles an [00:10:00] hour was fine, but approaching 100 was not.
That 968, I drove it along there, and it was It was absolutely fine. I, I was really impressed with it along that piece of road. That’s what I, uh, what I remember about that car. But you know what made me think of that car was how despite that being awesome, everything else about Porsches at that time was a bit underwhelming.
The interior wasn’t that wow. You know, it didn’t have, um, it certainly didn’t have what a Jaguar’s interior had.
No. Interiors are weird, aren’t they? Because I mean, I’m never that bothered if they, I’d rather they, you know, um, like when I dropped the, uh, that, uh, uh, McGann off, the guy said, no, it’s nicer inside than I thought it would be. And it isn’t bad inside, but it’s nothing in comparison to a comparable, [00:11:00] uh, even BMW, let alone a Porsche of the, of the same, you know, 2015 or whatever.
But I mean, I didn’t give a shit. I mean, you’re spending a whole load of money and they spent all the money on the suspension and the other stuff and then putting a proper chassis in it. So, you know, you can’t complain, but. Yeah, people these days are quite quite finicky about that Um, I mean, I have a friend with a Cayenne GTS, a brand new Cayenne GTS.
It is lovely inside. I really feel like Porsche have raised their game around, uh, around interiors. Um, so they’re about, you know, it always makes it the heaviest part though, is sort of the problem. Well, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. They, they, they really are. Um, I mean, all, all new cars are, but if you think of it right, Porsche, most of the vehicles they make now, four doors, [00:12:00] like that’s quite hard to get your head around really, isn’t it?
It’s quite, if you think of it, it’s quite successful image building that they’ve done to give us the impression that they’re still really a, a sports car maker. And of course they are because the pure products are that, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Although you could argue these days there are collectors car maker on the basis that if you haven’t been on the list and bought at least three 911s or other sports products before they won’t put they won’t sell you a GT3.
They won’t sell you any of these other special edition. So they’re as bad as Ferrari now in terms of, you know, good luck. If you want to get a new car from them, you’d be buying a bog stand 911 or something like that. Yeah, fine. But if you want one of the special editions, you need, you need to have bought other cars.
Um, and they won’t sell anyone. So I spoke to someone over, wrote about it at Goodwood and was lamenting the fact that they, that his mate wanted to buy a GT three. And was that was told, I’m sorry sir, kind of thing. I, I [00:13:00] mean, my jaw is, is on the floor. You mean that when the crypto hits the moon? I’m not just going to be able to click order on that.
I suspect not. With gold wheels that my son has specked up. I suspect not. Um, and if you have to buy one second hand and, and, and extra money. He’s chosen contrasting leather stitch steering wheel and embossed Porsche logo replaced with my grinning face. Drawn on the, on the, that’s not gonna. That’s not, I fear, fear not.
I mean, I may have proven wrong, but, um, yeah, I’ve had a couple of anecdotal stories suggesting that approaching the dealership and saying like, so can I get a 911 GT3 then resulted in a, you know, the amused chuckle and what other Porsches have you owned, uh, kind of conversation. So, [00:14:00] um, I know that, you know, stuff like the sort of Porsches that I’ve been excited about, like the Cayman GT4 and things like that, when it came out, that was a sort of way in this, forget about it.
Um, and there was one selling on some German version of eBay within three months for twice the sticker price that it sold for. I think it sold for 140 and one went on sort of a German car auction site for 300 plus euros, but Um, so, uh, those relatives of ours in, in, in Florida, one of the, one of the uncles as a brother, who’s been in this world of, of investible modern portion.
Um,
I mean, again, right. I was looking at Amelia Island with, with Ollie and, and it’s a market I don’t understand. I mean, as simple as there were two nine thirties. So these are like late seventies. 911 Turbo [00:15:00] call them that in 930s that way. I guess they’ve been designated. No, I don’t know. I mean, I never called them that in period car magazines.
Never called them that in period. Either way, the first generation, the first car with a whale tail and the turbo, the, the real like put you in the hedge specials, right? Those, those cars, um, two of them. One was like, I don’t know, 200 to 300 and the other one was like 600 to 900. And I’m like, what, what? Has the other one been owned by the Aga Khan?
Has it only done 1700 miles from you? Like, did, did Ferdinand Porsche like conceive his last child in it? I mean, I don’t know if Ferdinand Porsche has a child, but you know, but you know, like what, what makes that car worth so much more? And you know, with the thing with Porsche guys is, is going to be, uh, uh, super, I, yeah, I don’t know.
I, I’m, I don’t [00:16:00] care to know what the minutiae is. I, I just would want a 930 that I could drive and if it got a stone chip not be too broken up. Yeah, I think yeah, I mean increasingly I’m looking at Porsche and thinking I’m not sure I want a 911. I quite like the idea of a Cayman, a Cayman or um, a Boxster, just a Boxster S with a stick and that would be fine.
I’m not even a Boxster S necessarily, um, but I like a little sort of chuckable hatchback, a little chuckable sort of, um, Ragtop. Good fun. Mid engine. The whole like bigger and fatter all the time that pervades the whole car market. I understand why they do it. You know, you’ve got a bit bigger and fatter.
Your kids have got a bit bigger. So, you know, this year’s Accord needs to fit. Last year, like, you know, the customers from three years ago, I, [00:17:00] I get that. So I get why the Accord needs to be the size of what used to be the legend kind of thing I, and the Civic is now the size of the Accord. I get, I get why that has to happen, but at the same time, there’s still, uh.
Um, well, I guess what I’m saying is that I’m more interested in the small, in the smaller models as they come along, you know, I’m more interested in the cat than I am in the Fiesta. I’m more interested in the Boxster than that. I mean, I always, I always say that I always feel like I, if Now, now I realize I probably can’t do this, but if I were ever to suddenly come into a lot of money, I would call the Porsche dealer and have a GT3, but I would also have a totally stripper white, like Boxster, whatever the basey stick shift, like as simple as you could, as you could have it as simple and light as you could, as you could have it.
Um, only because I [00:18:00] know that there’s a difference between what you think you’re going to like. And what the journalists say is, you know, what Chris Harris wax is lyrical about the difference between that and what actually fits your life. And I have a feeling that a little boxster might fit your life really, really well, you know, and I might feel about it like I do about the Fiesta, you know, that it’s like a marvelous car, but It’s like, just, you know, it’s also too compromised, you know, so that would be so small, wouldn’t it, like, you know, and, uh, uncomfortable and stick shift.
Yeah, but you live in the wrong country for the Fiesta. The Fiesta’s a European car. It is, yeah. The ST, that’s where it shines best, because the roads aren’t as big, the parking, car parking isn’t as big, it feels nippy and excellent. You know, the fact that you [00:19:00] need to stir it up a bit to get it going is not a problem.
Um, yeah, um, I actually don’t find, I mean, I, I, uh, I did a road trip out to, um, Copperopolis to sort out the registration, so I found I can do that remotely now, so I don’t need to go out there. I did the run out there, and, you know what, more car. I don’t really need more card than than it’s fast. I mean, if you if you stir it up, it’s really fast because it’s just the chassis is so awesome.
Any turn that you encounter there is just an absolute, an absolute pleasure. Um, I’m going to jump around on my agenda. Actually, we’ve stumbled into my agenda there. One of my agenda items was a. Uh to talk a little bit about you have a fiesta st. I have a fiesta st um I [00:20:00] mean in terms of a sort of running report almost to talk about how you’ve been getting on with it.
I, I mean, I’ve not done, it’s not like I’ve done anything to mine in 70, 000 miles apart from knock a wing mirror off and break some other bits of body kit, which is annoying. But you know, I guess I’m not planning to sell the car. So it’s fine. Um, so now as at the front, it’s about to get replacement front tires and I was going to do all four.
Because, like, I’ve never rotated them, so the rear ones are okay, in the sense that the economical thing to do would be just do one axle. But, no, I just want the purity of the handling, I’m gonna do all four. Um, and I’m probably gonna do, I don’t know, I might look around, I might do, I do tyre rack for tyres.
So I might look and see if they can like what they recommend or I might just I mean I would get good shit for it. Anyway pilots all five or something like that. So, um, I mean only you will but yeah I think it’s a Pilot Sport Fives or something along those lines. [00:21:00] I think you know. How many masts has yours done now?
Has anything gone wrong? 48 I think. Um, it’s, it had a clutch master cylinder. Um, I think that’s about it. Um, I f off actually this week. Cause some prick outside BNQ had spilled a load of paint on the floor. And we parked up and went for a Costa coffee and didn’t notice. And we drove away and didn’t notice.
And evidently must have driven through it. It was like. It was a bit of a grim day and someone had obviously dropped some paint coming out of the store and just left it all over the floor and it spattered up the bottom of the, um, of the, uh, sills on the front and back, sort of like white paint splashes, which is very irritating.
So, um, I’m going to see whether it comes off, but I suspect it won’t. In which case, we might have to get an insurance claim to get the thing resprayed, which is extremely irritating. Yeah, I would, would look at, look at this. There’s been a revolution in cleaning products, right? There’s like a [00:22:00] million, I dare say, Chinese chemists working to incrementally make better.
like cleaning products. I, I, I follow all these YouTubers, right? And they are, the YouTubers are all sponsored by cleaning products, right? And, and the reality is, I think there’s a bit of an arms race going on. The bottom line is you would be surprised what, what you can do. I would urge you to stay away from the repo.
Oh, I don’t want to have to do it. If I don’t have to, we have a geezer that comes and does the cars. I do the cars generally, but like once in a while, when they’re really shitty or like they. You’re going to get them validated inside and out. They could really do with it. We get Steve to come around and he does it.
Um, and he does, he does a really good job. Nice guy. Um, but I might get him to, I might clean him and then get him to come around and have a look at it and give me his opinion. Because if there’s some sort of a jungle juice I can use to get rid of it. Because I mean it’s paint that’s gone on over the top of whatever lacquer on top of the paint that was originally done.
So there’s the layers of stuff. So hopefully we can get rid of that [00:23:00] shit without fucking helping. There’s like household paint for your body. Garage door sitting on top of lacquer and all of that. There’s no, it’s not been primed. It’s not been so, so it is with the right treatment. You would think it. Yeah, that’s what I’m hoping.
So, so yeah, I would, I would urge that before, uh, before the repay. Um, but other than that, no, it’s fine. Um, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a fiesta that has been injected with sort of steroids and stuff. So, yeah. Stuff will go in it, I expect, but at the moment it’s You know, it’s what, eight years old, with 48, 000 miles on it, and it’s fine.
It feels, feels legit, everything, I like it, still, um. How are values in Britain? Because here Um, pretty solid at the moment, it seems. Yeah. I haven’t lost anything on the BMW in a year, it would appear. Um, I had a glance and basically [00:24:00] the same car for the same, with like 4, 000 and a 4, 500 or whatever I put it on it in the last year.
It’s still the same value I bought it for. Um, yeah. So let’s put, let’s pivot onto that then. Let’s talk about the BMW as well. M two what year? 17? Uh, was it 16? No, 16. Um, yeah, I mean, I, I, it’s interesting ’cause I’ve been, I’ve, I’m having the wheels resprayed because like I scuffed them when and with an, she been in France, um, helping her get too close to the, uh, the triage booth.
And because there’s this issue with the bro, basically it’s annoying me at the moment. I might end up selling it just ’cause there’s too many fucking things wrong with it. Uh, and BMW didn’t do me any favors when they sold it to me. So I’m gonna take it to a different dealership to get them to review the stuff that I want fixed with it.
I can’t drive it because, uh, the wash wipe pump’s broken. Um, the aircon’s rubbish. And I think they knew that. They overfilled it with aircon. So it was like, sort of, mist coming out of the vents when I bought it. So I was suspicious, and within two weeks it had stopped [00:25:00] working properly. Um, there’s a juddering through the brakes, which explains why they put the new pads and discs on when they sold it to me as the last thing they did before they gave me the car, like two days before.
Oh, yo, we put pads and discs around. I thought, blip, save me three, three and a half grand or whatever it is. But like, why? Well, they said, oh, it’ll judder for a while. Don’t worry about it. It’ll go away. They’re sports brakes. It’s never gone away. Um, So, and I’m part of the reason I’m getting the wheels resprayed is if I have to sell it, I want them in pristine condition.
And also, I don’t want them pointing at too little, a few little scuffs done at two miles an hour, uh, payage, and going, Oh, that’s why your brakes are juddering, because you, you know, knackered the fucking wheels. Which is utter bullshit. Um So, yeah, so it’s going in. I’ve got, like, service and extended warranty and, like, manual, all this stuff on it, so We’ll see if they put it right properly.
If they don’t put it right properly, I’m just gonna sell it and get rid of it. Um, I like it, but I can’t enjoy it properly, because the brake juddering is too if Because every time [00:26:00] you come on the brakes at speed, like, there’s a juddering through the brakes, and that just doesn’t inspire any confidence.
So although I like the car to drive How fast does it have? Forty something? Forty four? Yeah. Um It shouldn’t like I like the car, but unless they fix the stuff with it, I think you’ve been abused. There’s, there’s like 40, 000 miles of abuse, you know, well, it shouldn’t be. It’s been used approved, but, um, yeah, I mean, everything they did, the dealership did on the cheap, you know, and it’s like just disappointing.
Um, and. They said, oh, we’re gonna get the wheels fixed ’cause there’s chips on it and so therefore we need to get that fixed. You know? Do you want ’em, resprayed? I’ve told this story on this podcast before they, um, resprayed them the gold. I asked ’em to, but they just sprayed it straight over black. So it came back a sort of weird bronze color, which is not what I wanted and not what they offered to pay me for.
You wanna name and shame the dealer? ’cause we’ve got like a Cooper’s WI think, or whatever it is, the one up in Colchester, [00:27:00] um, or wherever. I’ll have to look it up actually. I can’t remember in Colchester. Yeah. But um. Yeah, yeah, essentially, I’ll check and make sure that’s correct because I don’t want to shit talk anybody that wasn’t.
But, um, yeah, um, it just overall disappointing experience. I like the car, um, but you can’t, don’t feel you can drive it properly and drive it hard. So, um, I don’t like the amount of tech on it, to be honest. Um, So it sounds like there’s not that much tech on it, but I still find it annoying. So are you talking, so are you now thinking what your next thing will maybe be an older car with less tech, but a low mileage?
I would have, I would undo it and swap back to the Renault, um, at the moment. Um, looking down the line at potentially living in France. One of the things that I was looking at idly the other weekend surfing for is Can you pick up old Clio 182s and stuff like that at reasonable numbers? Autoscout.
Autoscout. That was the app. [00:28:00] Well, the short answer is yeah, you can. There’s stuff around. And part of the value of living in France would be that we’d have more space. So I can put a garage up or put a, you know, one of those outdoor cupboard pieces up if there isn’t one, one of those wooden ones. Um, so and have like covered shelter for half a dozen cars and stuff.
Well, I mean, the first thing I’ll do is have some French stuff. Um, you know, Renault principally. Um, but, um, yeah, pick up a couple of hot hatches. I’m into that, right? Because everyone goes on about Citroen and the quirky design and all of that. And, and yeah, Peugeot have this great Grand Prix heritage, you know, with the.
With that car from 1912 was it that has like the 16 valves and the smaller engine capacity is arguably one of the most revolutionary Formula one cars of all time. I mean I get that about about Peugeot, but I I’m all about Renault from the makers, I’m [00:29:00] all about Renault sort of Period period they I feel like I never 205 GTI and stuff, but they’ve left the stable There’s too many of those that they were they’re too old now.
So You ain’t gonna get one for a modest price. Um, but I mean, also the whole point of the 205 GTO is a bit like, it’s a bit like muscle cars. They were great performing, but they were affordable whereas now they’re not affordable. They’re like, so for example, I was thinking the other day, you’re like, how cool it would be.
I was looking at Sierra Cosworth and thinking how cool it would be if I was in a financial position to the next time I come to Europe, instead of having to put up with some bloody rental car, being able to just buy a Sierra Cosworth. And I’m like, no, it’s a collector car. You couldn’t leave it anywhere.
It’d be stolen. Like it would, right? They, because the kind of people who are into the, you know, Oh yeah, dude. I mean like it’s 60 to 80 K for one of those things now anyway. So I [00:30:00] mean it, there are a lot of money. Um, and I mean, I would have other kinds of Saxo VTS. I would have one of those again, if you can find one, I doubt you’d be able to find one, but the Citroen stuff, I’d be more interested in having one of those, that massive ugly as execu barge thing they produced recently.
I’d be interested in that because, you know, it’s, I can’t even remember what it’s called. Their, their version of the 7 series, Citroen did a massive one, but of course it’s Citroen, so it’d be comfy as hell because of the, the suspension, so it could be, yeah, I follow. There’s a YouTuber called Up and Down with weird name, but he’s basically a TVR mechanic on the South Coast.
And he has a rather dour, self deprecating manner, but he clearly knows his stuff because he does, he does TBRs, but he also does Citroens, and he has one of these C6s, and I think it is an awesome, actually I’m not into French cars, into Citroens particularly, but it’s an awesome piece, I’m into [00:31:00] Renault, I prefer, your dad had that Renault Fuego GTX?
In the 80s, those wheels that were the parallel slash design genius. Yeah, that was a cool car actually. And to, and to, to wit, right the way through to your, to your Megane, rather like Ford, they always got the styling language, but I always felt the design had more flair than Ford. I always feel Renault had a bit more flair than Ford.
Yeah, um, I mean, look again, you know, with with the art with the RS products, you know where they’ve spent the money. Um, It’s not on the interior, particularly. It’s not unpleasant, and there was a few toys on there. I had a little screen reversing camera and stuff, so it’s pretty well spec’d out for a hot hatch, but, um, The interior isn’t a patch on, like, the, uh, comparable Golf and things like that, so, but, you know, I’m not so fussed.
But yeah, that C6 [00:32:00] thing, um, loads of toys, Citroen Uber’s cool suspension, and, you know, I wouldn’t give a shit about it. So, um, you could probably pick one. I expect, I mean, I’m guessing, but I expect the depreciation on massive French luxury cars is pretty terminal. Yeah, so you could, again, um, probably pick up a pretty, uh, pretty decent bargain on them, I would suspect.
Well, the prices are ticking up now. I think you used to be able to get them really cheap, but And the other thing with, I think, with cars like that is, is the time to buy them isn’t when they’re working, when somebody else has ironed out all their faults, because at that point, the poor blighter is into the thing, months of blood, sweat and tears and, you know, thousands of dollars in mechanic bills, right?
So that’s not the time to buy the car. The time to buy the car is when it’s broken. But then you’re in for the blood, sweat, and tears, right now, and that [00:33:00] segues me onto the little bit onto the next, uh, onto, I was going to talk about the old E55 is now out of storage and, and, uh, I did buy. non running for a low price and did spend more money to get running and now it works, but my word So that was you remember I had it got out at it a week before I met you in Los Angeles with and we drove all around and at that time did it feel tired to you?
It did it feel kind of all right, just I mean it felt like it done a lot of miles But it didn’t feel particularly dog eared Yeah, not so much now. I guess the environment here, right by the beach, is kind of savage with the salt atmosphere. So, it now looks like it’s lived in Northern England. It’s all like, it’s got rust on every panel.
It’s got, along by the [00:34:00] sunroof, it’s got like a hole, like you can get your hand in. Um, well, I mean, wouldn’t it be worth getting all that shit repaired fairly quickly on the basis that I was at and we were looking at the roof, these, the Hughes, the mechanic guy, and I was like, how would you fix that? And he went, huh, cut roof off and then motions, a slashing motion at the top of the C pillar.
And I was like, really? And he went, only way.
I mean. My dad was like, you know, you could duct tape and you could put a spoiler and all of that and I’m like, and you’re from the 1950s dad, much as I, much as I love you, I, I couldn’t do that. Um, So, I had thought, well, maybe I flip it, you know, maybe I let somebody else, because mechanically it’s [00:35:00] super strong.
I’ve done, and I should say, it is now approaching 158, 000 miles. So, I’ve done 30, 000 miles in it, right? It’s not like I’ve, so this is why it looks the way it’s street parked and I used it. Not exclusively, but, you know, it, uh, and, and, It drives brilliantly. It drives, well I say that actually, like at the moment I think it might need a wheelbarrow.
And this, this is the problem with it. So it’s been in storage, I would say six months, something like that, it’s sat. It fired up and it ran fine and you know, apart from this kind of grumbly wheel bearing, which you can’t work out if it’s a grumbly wheel bearing or if it needs tires at the front, he says it needs tires at the front because it’s like cut the tires.
Why does it do that? Well, they all do that. So really, I’m sure it didn’t do that from the factory. So, but you know, fundamentally he goes down the road really wetland and the motor is strong as the, [00:36:00] yeah. As the day is long, I, I, I still, I’m still astonished by the giddy up. It’s like 120 miles an hour. It’s like a sports bike.
to it to 120 and just, you just get there without, you know, you just right flex your right foot and you just, it’s awesome. Awesome experience. Um, yeah, bodily now in a, in a bad way. I, the seats split. So I put tape on now that tape splitting the, um, Olly swang on the hood ornament and it broke and now it has a hole.
Um, Fire guys, um, broke the center cap when they were fitting the, I don’t know how you do that, but it’s missing a center cap. Um, I quite like it, right? It looks, but it now is looking really, uh, [00:37:00] uh, long in the teeth. I mean, it’s, it’s, I suspect if you put money into it, I guess, um, you would get More out, if you know what I mean.
That’s, that’s where I’m going. It needs a massive spend again. Mm-Hmm. It needs the kind of spend I spent on it when it was, was, um, to, uh, deal with. So I, and I don’t know what to do because mechanically it’s, it’s sound. So this is what I was gonna say. This is what in fact prompted the running report as I got it back.
It’s working fine, but I’ve still spent of the last week, two and a half days on it. This is why I get nothing done on other things, right, because it needed nothing. It’s worked fine. Oh, but I had to change the central locking because you can’t leave it anyway if it doesn’t lock, right? So, and I guess it has this pneumatic pump that operates the central lock in, but also things like the headrests that recline and the trunk [00:38:00] release.
So far, so good, right? That’s right. When the pump fails, you can’t open the trunk. Yeah, I know you should be able to put the key in and turn it, right? But trust me, that is not, that was not. Um, so, so I replaced the pump one day, right? Then I go to move it yesterday morning. Uh huh. Uh huh. And I’ve been thinking, you know, that battery, it’s done all the time that I’ve had it, and it is not like the best quality.
Battery in the first place, you know, well, sure enough, so then I’m like wrestling around trying to find a jumper and, and like, just, I wanted to do my day, not immediately after firefight, getting a new battery, guess how much a new battery costs for a 2002 Mercedes Benz E55 [00:39:00] AMG? Oh, probably north of a hundred bucks.
Three hundred, you know. I mean, I could have, I could have gone for like one that was like, you know, 50 less, but that one had less cranking amps. And you know, I just, this was not, I didn’t buy the most expensive one. You know, I, I bought a little widget actually the other day on Amazon. You plug onto the positive terminal that you can just unscrew and it disconnects the internal connections.
So it’s disconnected the circuit on the battery. So, in order you don’t even need to take the thing off, you can just unscrew the thing when you go to leave the car in storage again, I’m going to put it on the Z. Good idea. I mean, you have to, whatever works for you. I don’t have a problem with taking the batteries off, with taking the battery terminals.
Hubnut leaves the battery terminals loose. So you can just remove it easily and then wonders why he won’t damp start. So, you know, each to their own, right? I love with hub nut. You’re like, dude, you collect different [00:40:00] stuff from me. You have really odd methods, but you know, whatever works, works for you, you know, whatever works for you.
My fear with those switches is they just introduce a level of.
It’s mechanical. It’s basically it’s sort of it’s because it basically changes when you unscrew it. It sort of physically disconnects two pieces of metal inside as that’s why I quite liked it on the basis that it is basically unscrew it so I can and because I don’t have to faff around taking it off or taking a screwdriver or something like that with me.
If I’m leaving it in a particular area where for, you know, anti theft becomes much simpler to implement as well, so. Yeah, I’m just going to eat this bar. I’m just going to edit out the scrumpling because I can just mute myself. I’m such a master at the editing suite now. Um, having a low blood sugar moment here.[00:41:00]
321, rocking along at over five and over.
So to make a like Pivot to actually talk about why I made an effort to, uh, be like, do this call right now. So we can separately talk about this Route 66 road trip, because I have other stuff going on. I’m gonna be picking up a free motorcycle. Did you know about this? I thought you’d bought another one.
Um, or is this one that you’ve been since the the zoomer was the last one I bought. I think. Oh, okay. [00:42:00] Somebody offered me a Honda shadow. Oh, okay. So I thought it was the shadow. Okay. So you didn’t buy that. That was just gift. Yeah. I have to go and get it though. And it’s in grass Valley, which is miles away.
And I of course don’t have a pickup truck or indeed any vehicle with a tow hitch to do it. So I rented a truck. Does it not run? Sorry. Does it run? I mean, they say it does, but it’s sat for a bit. It’s like some dude who’s traveling, and it was his bike and he stored the bike with a mate and now he’s staying away, so he’s just getting rid of all of his stuff.
Apparently it ran, but like, you know, so I don’t know whether or not it’ll go. I’m assuming that it will, but I, um No, I can see why you want to pick it up on the truck. Well, here’s the thing, right? But [00:43:00] how am I, I originally, I was going to have Jason go with me. But I can’t arrange a time when Jason, Jason can’t do a weekday.
And it costs more to rent the truck over a long weekend. I can’t rent it just for a day at the weekend. Maybe I could do with a different vendor now that I didn’t know about before. But you know, a different, um, anyway. Anyway, um, and I should say we’re endorsing services, United Rentals, who did me the, the, the, the, who are doing me the pickup truck, they’ve been really great to, uh, to, to, to work with.
Um, um,
yeah, I rented a trailer as well with a ramp on it, so I don’t need to push it up into the back, because I think I’m going to be on my own, or at least with Ollie. So if it runs, I’ll just flat foot, I’ll just, you know, I’ll just clutch it up into the trailer, and if it doesn’t, I’ll push it. And, uh, the trailer’s got like [00:44:00] a big flat ramp on it, and is, you know, designed and insured for motorcycles, and I’ve towed with them before, you know, so, I don’t know, I’m a bit scared of the fact that it’s a cruiser, so it’s like bigger and heavier than anything that I’m used to, but, you know.
That’s the adventure. So that’s, uh, that’s upcoming. So I wanted to, uh, no doubt there’ll be a post adventure, uh, report on, on that, but I wanted to separate that from this road trip that I did last week with Ollie, which was The first proper road trip that he’s done. And you know, vice grip garage, Derek, you know, wet the way that he will like get a pickup truck and drive it home.
And often his son Bentley will go along. Ollie was like, I want to, I want to do that. You know, I want to do so. So Derek and Ben, they had done this like. Route 66 road trip. [00:45:00] Well, I drove across the country. I drove some of Route 66. I realized that in California, particularly, there’s a lot of really rich Route 66 history.
You can drive on the real, you know, it’s, it’s like a Roman road in Europe kind of experience that you can drive on the actual tarmac that the, you know, that was the original mother road kind of thing. Um, you know, you, you could do all of that. So I wanted to do it. Um, and Ollie was keen to, so I thought, you know, I’ll do a road trip, which, which ties together a couple of other things.
The other thing I wanted to, to, to do was, uh, the place where they found gold in California is a town called Coloma, not far from Sacramento. And when I was telling Ollie about it and saying I was going to go there, he was like, Oh, James Marshall, you know, in a, in the tail of a sawmill. [00:46:00] And And I’m like, what?
And he knew far more about it than I did because of course he’d studied it at school and had been, uh, had been paying attention. So I was like, well, I can’t go on my own if my little sage can’t come along, come along with me. So Coloma’s one thing. And the other thing that we did was, you know, that rocket plane, the X 15.
That we’ve talked about before, and viewers, if you don’t know about listeners, viewers, whatever. Um, the, this X15 plane is like part firework. Part airplane, part science experiment, right? Basically, it was, there were two kinds of flights, either how fast you could go or how high you could go. And it was all experimenting with space travel.
And, uh, I guess once it went wrong and the plane fell into the desert, into the Mojave Desert, and there’s a memorial site there. So we went there to see what we could find and, uh, I mean, [00:47:00] forgive me, I’ve, I’ve told you this before, but literally we stayed in some town, um, Ridgecrest. And then this site is like 55 miles on one road, 17 miles on another road.
And then it’s like an unpaved road that I would say is probably two or three miles long. Maybe not. I don’t know. I mean, people, viewers, listeners, whatever, pedants can check and see how factually incorrect I am. But when you’ve driven miles and not seen any cars for ages, and then the GPS is like, it’s over there.
In the scenery up that dirt road. That is a pretty intimidating kind of a thing. So, uh, um, was pleased. Um, well, I’ll talk about the truck in in a minute. But yeah, it was that was so it was Coloma. It was this X15 memorial and it was, um, [00:48:00] then go to this place Seligman, Arizona, which is, Radiator Springs from the Cars movie.
That was the movie that the, that was the town, the, the, the movie company more than any other used for, for inspiration for this notion of old America and new America and the old America being bypassed by the building of a new superhighway. Which, you know, at the time was a physical thing, but of course now if we think of it in terms of information superhighways and the way that the tech savvy of, of, of left much of, of rural America and indeed rural.
You know, the developed world generally is, you know, urban, developed world, leave us left behind, you know, there’s deep metaphors, but anyway, so we, and, and Ollie enjoyed the Carl’s movie, so we, we, we, we did, [00:49:00] uh, Springs Place. What we also did, unexpectedly, was spend two days in Vegas, and that was because, I mean, I, instead of, when I realized that our route was going to be, like, across the Mojave Desert in July.
I was like, hmm, maybe my Mustang with its dodgy air conditioning, which like your BMW, it either, what, what, what happens is if people recharge it, often the recharge has a leak sealer in it. Because in theory you shouldn’t need to recharge it. There must be a leak in the system for you to need to recharge it.
So the recharge, but the recharge stuff with the goop in it, that blocks up the machine. So then people’s, like the Ford guy that I go to, he doesn’t want to fix it. Because then all the goop’s going to go into his machine and he’s going to have to clean up, uh, clean up his machine. [00:50:00] So there must be a better way of fixing air conditioning, but either way, that’s the situation with the air conditioning on, on the Mustang.
So I was like, I don’t really want to take that car. Well, it was lucky that I didn’t because this dirt road to this major Michael Adams thing, there’s no way. V8 Mustang could have made it down there if I just tried, I don’t think I’d have wanted to try and if I’d have tried we’d have got stuck and that would not have been an option because it’s fine rolling along at 55 miles an hour with the windows down when it’s 120 degrees, which it was, but it is not fine when you stop like when and and literally it’s like I’m stopping.
I’m I’m not stopping. We’re, we’re, we’re pulled over at the side of the road and I’m booking a hotel for the night and first there’s sweat dripping off my nose onto the phone and then the phone is overheating and needing to be put in the [00:51:00] cooler in order to work again for us to be able to put some accommodation for the night before we can get back to our semi air conditioned rolling at 55 miles an hour.
So, yeah. So, uh, the truck was from United Rentals. They were a pleasure to deal with, but they don’t really do trucks. Um, they mostly just do tools, and I guess I got an awesome rate. I got an awesome rate on a two wheel drive, non crew cab, like day cab truck, and they didn’t have that. They had, they gave me a four wheel drive crew cab.
At 250 like an F 250. It was, it was like, I knew it was, um, it had 40, 000 miles, but the air con was done. But of course in San Francisco, I didn’t notice that. I only noticed that when we were, you know, on the way out to Coloma and it was getting warm on the. First day [00:52:00] and I was like, Oh, you know, the air conditioning, which it seemed to not that powerful in San Francisco, but you know, there now it was clear.
It was just moving out around and there was no air conditioning at all. Yeah. So that’s it. So we did the major Michael Adams thing. And then it was like, I, I, and then I was like, well, we can’t come this close to death valley and not visit. You know, I don’t need to stop. I, there’s not much to see, is there?
I mean, I know if you’re, if you’re like into geology and all of that, you can stop, but I wasn’t going to try and, you know. To be honest, I drove a different road in, I didn’t do 190 all the way in, I drove a different road in, and the strata in the rocks was more impressive on the way up the hill into Death Valley than it was actually inside Death Valley, I know I’ve, in the past I’ve been to Bad Water and [00:53:00] it seemed like, I didn’t do that this time, because it was, it was, at one point the, the temperature gauge on the truck said 124, 124, 124, 124, 124, 124.
So, uh, the boy was a trooper to be able to put up with it basically and not just lose the plot all together because it’s there is a measurable difference between 100 and 110 and 110 and 120 and I’d never experienced that before that and that was, um, a, you can see why those, I think it was the sort of thing about Death Valley tourist information people.
That even the wardens and stuff there, when it gets above 40, they go out in pairs, just to be safe. So that if one of you guys gets heatstroke or has a bit of a wibble, then, you know, there’s someone else there to get your ass back. So, you can see why. It’s, it’s, yeah. Yeah. When we were there, a [00:54:00] couple of hikers were, you know, didn’t make it.
You know, I didn’t know at the time, but afterwards I’ve read that, um, You know, and it’s the classic thing where they’d gone down into the canyon. And it had been hotter down there, and then it was hard work climbing back up out of the canyon. It, like, and I don’t know if one of them had fallen, because they weren’t discovered together, so I don’t know.
One of them had, like, slipped and fallen, or one of them had, couldn’t make, couldn’t move further, and the other one had, but either way, really bad news. Yeah, that shit’s, uh, that’s rough. Yeah, no, the guides all told you about that when you did the, uh If you do the Grand Canyon trails and the helicopter in and out and stuff, they always say to you, like, you know, walking down is easy, you know, allow sort of three or four times the amount of time it took you to go down and plan for, you know, remember you’re climbing a mountain on the way out, essentially.
Um, so Coloma, where they discovered gold was [00:55:00] really quite cool. There’s like a replica mill by the river, so you can like see what it was like. And then the place where the mill, because the mill’s all made of wood, so of course it’s gone. Um, but then the place where it was discovered in the river is is marked.
So I guess. What was, what was happening was this guy James Marshall was building the mill and the mill was by the edge of the water because the saw was going to be driven by a wheel. Um, well, and so what he would do was every night he would, um, basically have the water run over and use that to like move the soil that he needed to move to make the mill.
So he would go down in the morning and look at what the water had done basically to help him do his work. So he was down there looking at the spillway, like at the end of the, [00:56:00] at the end of, you know, where the river’s gone through. It’s operated the water mill, the spillway at the end of that, that was where he saw the gulp.
Um, he saw like a nugget apparently. Um, and then when he looked, there was, you know, when they looked, there was more. Um. So, yeah, so the gold rush is born right there. So that was pretty cool. Um, we drove from there. Do you know, I’m not sure if you’ve ever driven it in your visits to California, um, Highway 395, which is the road that runs up the back of the Sierra Nevadas.
It’s in California, but it runs up the back of the Sierra Nevadas. It’s a really picturesque road. If you’ve not driven it, it is one to, to really, uh, drive. We, we, so from Coloma, we crossed over the Sierra Nevadas and then drove all the way down 395, which I’ve, which I’ve wanted to do for years and years and years.
And then, uh, you know, that night we were in Ridgecrest, [00:57:00] then we did the Major Michael Adams, then we crossed Death Valley the next day, and then we just holed up in Vegas for a couple of days. Um, you know, recovering from the fact I haven’t driven all of it, bits of it. Yeah, it’s worth, uh, it’s, it’s worth, um, it’s worth doing all of it.
Um, the route 66 thing as well, that was really an awesome thing. Um, I had driven it as far as like Bakersfield and then had come north to San Francisco when I was driving across the country. Um, it is, uh, across in, in, the further west you go, the more sections of the road are complete. And from Seligman, there’s holes around Seligman, around this town Amboy, there’s whole sections of the road, which are [00:58:00] absolutely complete.
As you get towards, we spent the night in Barstow, but between, you know, basically between Um, Seligman and Victorville, and Victorville’s where it becomes like L. A. Sprawl. Basically, a lot of that you can drive the actual original road, and it’s not like jamming through town centers. It’s really like, there was one section, there was one mountain pass that we did, where it was like switchbacks with 15 mile an hour.
turns and you’re reminded that that I mean this that section must have been bypassed in the 1940s or something because you know it’s like switchback road because remember Route 66 is designated Route 66 the Lincoln Highway or whatever it was called it was called Route 66 in 1926 [00:59:00] but the road continually evolved so Route 66 is a contiguous route was already gone by the 1960s.
So when you, so if you think about, you know, um, you know, our parents generation going west to California, the American version of our parents generation going west to California, they weren’t driving on this winding road across the, that was, that was what, you know, um, was happening in the 1920s. You know, that was, was not, uh, um.
But it was surprising that, you know, at one point I was, I would pull over the side of the road to take a leak and then sort ourselves out a little bit. And, uh, I said to Ollie, we could roll in the middle of the road, couldn’t we? Cause there was no cars coming. And the next minute he was in the middle of the road rolling backwards and forwards being like, I rolled on route 66.
So, uh, yeah, we, um, we lived the dream. So [01:00:00] to, uh, so to speak. Um, we also, uh, went to L. A. So we ended by, you know, going into to L. A. And I did think, what can I, you know, what can I do with him, which is, uh, which is in, in keeping. And, you know, we went to the, the end of Route 66 in L. A. Is right in Santa Monica.
I guess there’s 2 endings. Once ended in, in, uh, like on 7th Street in downtown L. A. Well, I don’t know if you know what downtown L. A. Is like now, but, Uh, the last time I was there, which it’ll be it was 10 years ago, it was unpleasant. So Ollie and I bypassed that and went to the end of Route 66 from the 30s, which is Santa Monica, which is Olympic and Lincoln, the intersection of Olympic and Lincoln, which is right where if you come off at the right intersection on the freeway, which we did more by chance than by skill more just because that was the way that I used to drive when I [01:01:00] used to.
Go into Santa Monica with, uh, with Mark all those years ago, um, we would, you know, it was that intersection. So, um, so that was quite cool. Um, so, you know, you maybe know this. You maybe don’t. Carol Shelby’s original factory was in Santa Monica. It’s called Santa Monica. Now it’s called Marina Del Rey. They moved the border between what’s Marina Del Rey and what’s Santa Monica.
But, um, he, so the very first factory. Carter Street that was gone and replaced by like modern high rise flats when I visited, like, I don’t know, um, like early 2000s, right? When I was, uh, uh, um, around the corner, 1042 Prince’s Street. You know that clip of film where Shelby’s stood with the cobra and he’s like, my name’s Kara Shelby and [01:02:00] performance is my business.
And behind him there’s a brick building with these high narrow windows. That building is 1042 Princess Street. And years ago, you might remember I, you could actually get in the back of it and I’ve got photos of my Mustang parked up at the same spot as the, as the, as the Cobra. And that was probably, that was probably 10 years ago now.
Um, you might remember I went back to get some photos one time and they put a gate in. And it was a children’s talent agency, and I was there with that brown van, the, the molester van, and you know, that whole, so that was really a weird thing with me, like, taking pictures and like, why are you taking pictures?
And, you know, so this strange LA story of. The home found founding of Cobra now, you know, the home of the Cobra now being this weird. Well, now the business is in different use. They’ve modified the entrance to the building, so it has a roll up door. The gate’s still there. So, you know, [01:03:00] it’s changed. So Ollie and I went there and I got a phone, got more photos.
They’ve, they’re basically turning the whole area from light industrial into like, it’s gentrifying into townhomes. And all of the like And the townhomes, you can only access it one way, there’s all these cul de sacs to make sure that the streets are quiet. So it’s really annoying because the GPS wasn’t caught up and you’re in LA traffic in this giant bloody pickup truck which doesn’t fit anywhere.
Um, it was, so that was, was, uh, a bit of excitement. So I did the only natural thing. And what I planned to do, which was run out to the ocean, run out to Malibu along PCH. Now, do you know that turning you may do at the bottom of, I think it’s Lincoln, where you turn left to go down onto PCH and Santa Monica.
And it’s like a left, right, on ramp, old piece of, of [01:04:00] concrete. I wanted to take Ollie there because, uh, I was there once with Mark. I was on one of Uh, on one of his bikes, like an RGB 250 before it overheated, only rode it once, overheated it, two stroke, didn’t get it then, wished, wished I’d understood it better now, didn’t understand what it was there, it was just slow and noisy and smelly and hard to ride to me then, which, uh, you know, now I’d spend it again.
Now, I’d sell a kidney to have one but you know, I didn’t know then. Mark’s on the super motard away from the light. He’s up on one wheel and then did the full S down onto the beach on the rear wheel and I’ve got an image in my mind of him on the rear wheel with the beach, the Baywatch beach with the towers, you know, that you remember from Baywatch as a teenager and uh, so it’s one of my great um, LA uh, images.
Um, So I wanted Ollie to, uh, to, to see that spot. So we did. We drove around [01:05:00] to Paradise Cove and, uh, I, forgive me, I, I mentioned this to you before, uh, the service was and the food was too. And I still love the place because it’s so cool sitting on the beach with the toes in, in your, in the sand and they do a good margarita and, you know, I’m not that picky about the food really.
And you can walk on the beach afterwards and that’s what Ollie That’s what Ollie and I did, strolled along the beach afterwards and then, uh, went back into Malibu. Went in a supermarket and bought some ice cream and sat in the car park of the Of the ralphs in malibu eating ice cream generally feeling the cat that got the cream, you know Yeah, um, uh, I am glad to hear it Um, you know what I want to do now and this is following the agenda I just want to pay tribute to one of the other guys that i’m a [01:06:00] pebble with and this is for anybody who’s seen that movie Ford versus Ferrari in Ford versus Ferrari.
The early scene takes place at 1052 Princeton. Right, the scene where, but, but then there is another, then subsequent scenes take place at the factory out at the airport. The testing takes place out at the factory, out at the airport. The reason for that move was Ford’s deal with Shelby to turn the Mustang, the securities car, which Shelby quote, turn the Mustang Into the GT 350 and make sure, make it taken seriously in, in motorsport.
The guy shall be hired a guy. To complete that move and build the production line for the Shelby GT 350. His name is Bruce Juna. He’s 94 years [01:07:00] old and I do pebble beach with him each year. Um, super spry, super with it. He’s written a book. I’ll put a link in for it. It’s like self published. It’s, you know, that’s his only, you know, literally he was hired to do the move and that was it, you know, and he worked, but, but there are, um, there were, this is.
You know, in, in, uh, in years to come, this kind of direct link with these, um, mythical, legendary, historical figures within motorsport, this, this will seem that the more awesome, especially when normal cars aren’t gas powered, you know, we’re very quickly getting to a stage where normal cars aren’t gas powered.
So the whole. Cobra story and motorsport and it cause it ties to the X15 because it’s this period where you just went out and drove, you went out and flew and you saw what happened. And yes, there were some casualties, but you know, [01:08:00] that’s the price of, of progress. And we’re not as a society, we’re not in that place anymore.
Are we, I’m not sure whether that’s right or wrong. Um, Bruce Junior. Um, I was going to say the other thing that really Brought back some memories for me, um, being around Paradise Cove, being up and down, uh, PCH was, um, back when Mark lived in Topanga Canyon with the dude that was the star of the Sex and the City movie.
Um, at that time, my Honda CBR track bike. lived in that house and Topanga Canyon as well, and Mark and I would get out and ride quite a lot in the canyon roads around LA. And it was surprising to me that as I was coming along PCH both to Paradise Cove and coming back again, what I was thinking [01:09:00] of was the CBR.
I had not realized that that’s probably the most I rode that bike was down in LA and around there. And, uh, yeah, and, and how I might not have done a million miles on that bike. I’ve probably only done like three or 4, 000 miles on it, but it’s that it’s, it’s the quality of the miles, not the amount of the miles.
I suppose that I was, uh, was, was thinking about. Yeah, definitely. That’s a mantra you should apply to motorbikes, definitely. So on Mark’s profundity, it’s, uh, as the two Ronnies used to say, it’s goodbye from me, and it’s goodbye from him. Because this is future John, editor John, interrupting. Um, we talked for so long when I recorded this last one, like, even with all the edit bits I’m going to trim out, two and a half hours, that I thought I’d make this into two episodes.
So. This is only part one and I guess part two or episode 12 is going to be the, the, the next thing that I edit that was recorded at the [01:10:00] same time, but through the magic of the editing process is not going to be like that.
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