EP23: Cretanous Cars Sent from God

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.

• • Monster Magnet – Cyclone 
  • Stuck in sand; J saves the day with plenty of right foot
  • Monster Magnet – Dig That Hole
  • A digression on Monster Magnet
  • Monster Magnet – Negasonic Teenage Warhead
  • J’s digression on Corgis
  • J’s Lidar podcast and David Beckham’s boot
  • J’s Nvidia Gixxer
  • M reviews Cretan geography and culture
  • M’s Toyota Aygo rental
  • Lee Car UK’s Citroen C1 / Toyota Aygo/ Peugeot 107 buyers guide
  • M’s Guide To Driving on Crete
  • Cretan driving etiquette 
  • Monster Magnet – Space Lord
  • J’s digression on his uh creative process
  • Summers & Son Used Car Trading Infomercial
  • J justifies the rambling style of the pod, Motor Sports As A Mediated Experience
  • Monster Magnet – Wall of Fire
  • M’s Drink Driving advice for Crete
  • M on Cretan Goats
  • M on Cretan Japanese Pick ups
  • The House of Three Fiestas
  • Monster Magnet – Gods and Punks
  • M compares roads to San Remo Rally stages; nonetheless recommends driving in Crete
  • M recommends against budget car rental agencies in Crete
  • M’s Santorini rental drop off story
  • Monster Magnet – Dinosaur Vacuum 

[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 day. Good morning. Good afternoon. It is John Summers, the motoring historian. Um, with his high school friend, Mark Gami. How the devil are you, Mark? I am very well, sir. Very well, sir. Why have we got echo now all of a sudden? Because it’s sod’s law and we can’t make the technology work. Now the question is, maybe if I put some earphones on that might deal with it.

[00:01:00] Is it bad for you? It doesn’t seem that bad for me. It seems to only be apparent when, if I laugh or something, make a noise when you’re talking. It seems to be that’s the most notable. Well, there’s a little bit of like loopback, but given you can edit it afterwards, and just delete my track whilst you’re talking, then I guess it’s, it’s fixable.

So the other day, I got home from the school run. It was a Monday or a Friday when Dane was working from home. It was a Monday. Dane was working from home. So when I get home, I walk in the kitchen and I say to her, What do you see? She goes, Rick’s jeans. No, no. It wasn’t that you don’t need to join in in this story.

I’ve been preparing, telling this story for ages. I’ll say you don’t need to join in. And I say to her, what do you see? She says, Rick. I say, no, no, that’s not what you see. Give me more. What do you see? She goes, a motorhead shirt. I go, [00:02:00] no, no, wrong again. You are perceiving an angel sent from God, did you not?

An angel sent from God. Sent from God. See, school runs along the beach there and the old sand, it blows up and the old roads close there at the weekend. So Monday morning, when it first opens, if there’s blown sand, People get stuck. So as we approach the piece of the offending piece of road, um, Ollie and I on, uh, on Monday morning, I bought the old, uh, a one bullet Mustang there.

Um, as we approach a piece of road, it was, I noted that the sand was, you know, of a level where if people didn’t apply the throttle properly. That was going to be a problem and indeed people were stuck already two cars ahead of me was stuck and and so rather [00:03:00] than so dropping back leaving my car On on the pavement.

I just put the hazards on and stopped but the the person not right in there’s maybe there’s 50 feet then there’s a car then there’s uh, the the little chevy spark that is is stuck there and I know maybe it’s a function of having had the coffee in the morning or something like that. I don’t know. I don’t know quite what it was, but I, I’ve seen people get stuck before.

We were going to be trapped and Ollie was going to be late for school. So I, uh, leapt out of the Mustang, total like red mist, right? No way I’m going to be stuck here. Right. Total red mist. I leap out of the Mustang. I say to Ollie, don’t let anybody move the car. I leap out, leave the motor running, leap out.

I’d go to the bloke in the coma behind me and say to him, I am going to get these cars moved. Just wait here a moment. Hold my beer. Because I didn’t want him thinking what the hell is this guy [00:04:00] doing like at the same time and trying to drive around because it was clear that Tacoma was could just drive over the top of anything, right?

It was, it was definitely not gonna gonna get stuck. And I knew I could see with some speed, the Mustang was going to be able to get through no problem. But but these people were well and truly stuck now. So I sprint up the side, sprint up, I get up the side of this Chevy Spark. And as I get there, And I’m like, I open the door, I bang on the window, I open the door, I’m like, this car, I’m moving this car, old woman, and she’s upset, she’s in tears, right?

She’s got like a carload of people, like the backseat’s like full of these boys who looked like not quite right, you know, as my mother would say, one eye in the pot and the tother up the chimney. So she was obviously taking them somewhere and she was like, oh, I’m stuck and I can’t do it, and you’re an angel from God.

And I’m like, yeah, I’m definitely going to get this car moved lady. So she was like, Oh, help me. So I’m like [00:05:00] helping her around the back of the car. She’s like leaning on me on the side as we go around. Right. I could see Ollie sitting in the Mustang with his jaw. I, I get her into the passenger seat. She has to lean on me to get in.

Cause she’s got the stick and so on. And she’s telling me all the time. I’m like an angel from God. I’m thinking. I’m fucking not. I’m just in a rage and there’s no way you are not. So I’m in this, so I leap into the spot. She’s got the handbrake on, no wonder it can’t go. She’s got the handbrake, so I get the handbrake off.

And I’m just like, 300 yards later, I’m at the side of the road. She’s the, the, the, the guys in the back are like looking at me as like seeing their eyes in the rear view mirror. I, I felt like I was an angel sent from God and I realized that in that moment to extract her from that situation and allow her to just carry on with her day, I really was, I was the [00:06:00] very best person to, but I’d love to tell you it came from, you know, the kindness.

Of my heart or you know compassion or something like that, but it wasn’t it was sheer rage That I wasn’t going to be I was buggered if I was going to be stuck. So yeah, ollie did get and uh perhaps the most amusing thing was uh, somebody in uh, All wheel drive volvo had tried to drive around behind the tacoma, dude but had taken it off where the sand wasn’t that deep and to where the sand was very deep.

So when I returned from my school run, I observed him stuck in his Volvo when the rest of the traffic was cleared. So they were slightly, you know, calming. Well, I’m lucky you shouldn’t have bought a Volvo. So yes, so, um, Mark, I put it to [00:07:00] you, not a scruffy man in a motorhead shirt, an angel sent from God.

Now, what music should we have in this episode? Um, I don’t know. Um, I was very much enjoying Monster Magnet while on my holiday. I ended up like running through the old Negasonic Teenage Warhead album and thoroughly enjoying that. Dopes to infinity, wasn’t it? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. If you are new to Monster Magnet, it is a crossover from that early super stonery dinosaur vacuum early era into the sort of later [00:08:00] commercial power trip onward era, wasn’t it?

It was, uh, I think it’s their best album to be honest. Negasonic. Yeah. The, um, Dopes to Infinity. Dopes to Infinity. If I look at it in terms of comparison, like the amount of ones on YouTube music, I’ve starred as five. There’s like enough of them on that one to be justifying the band alone if you like.

Yeah, I tend to pick up on individual tracks that they do now. I think Dig That Hole is a great track. I think Cyclone is a great track. That track you forwarded me, um, probably years ago. Vampire Motorcycle. The Duke was the one that you forwarded to me. But no, I don’t know Vampire Motorcycle. I got a vampire’s motorcycle.

Yeah, that was definitely worth a visit. It’s like the best, again, there’s not that many tracks. I think the last couple of albums, I’ve listened through and there’s been like one or two tracks where you’re like okay, this was like worth the price of admission. I’m happy I came. But I’m probably not [00:09:00] going to listen to the rest of the album again.

But yeah, I mean, that, that, the Duke one, the, the, the, you should watch the, if you haven’t watched the video for it on YouTube, it’s really interesting. It’s a weird sort of guy has affair with chick at the area 51 kind of testing facility with it. And like, then there’s like, An evil zombie, like, nuclear devil bitch.

I was gonna say, because I started watching it, and then Dana was like, This is not appropriate for Oli. That was exactly, uh, that was exactly what it was. I mean, yeah, that is fair comment. It’s funny you mention Monster Magnet, because I was actually thinking we did need to do a Monster Magnet. Um, episode at some point, listening back to the company cars episode, one of those days in the company cars episode that was all running wild.

So yeah, maybe, uh, maybe this one should be the monster magnet one. Bloody dog, like he’s quiet most of the time. And then you [00:10:00] also can’t edit that out, right? No, you’re going to have to shut him up. I mean, you know, right before we did this call, I went out and did like an extra walk with him to be sure that he would be quiet.

Have you got a bonus that you can give him? Not like that. Let me go and deal with him. Hang on a second. Dude, dude, dude. See,

he’s quiet now. I didn’t, Catch him. He’s under the Mustang or something, right? This is, this is the, the, the very striking thing for me about dog ownership is, uh, they fully understand what you [00:11:00] mean. It’s whether or not they actually do it. That’s the fully. And this is why you do hope that going the extra mile for them, as I’ve really tried to do with him, pays its dividends.

Maybe it does. I mean, I can, I can pretty much walk with him off leash now. But of course what that means is when you try and put him back on again, he acts the goat and won’t go back on the lead. Um, he also, when he’s on the lead, he also acts the goat and pulls all around all the time. And you’re just like, you little asshole.

Like some woman said to me the other day, is that your dog? Because I was like walking up the hill with him and he was dragging behind and acting like I, you know, and there’s me looking scruffy, right, in, in that, that day of Venom shirt, um, dragging the dog, which is some ridiculous fucking designer dog.

That, you know, is like super cute. Cause I think a lot of corgis get really short shrift because he acts like a real dog. He can hang out with Remus, the pit [00:12:00] bull. No problem at all. You can run on the beach with him, do all of that. But people don’t do that with them. They feed them ice cream. Like I was watching some woman do in Palo Alto the other day to some corgi.

I was down there. In fact, I’m going to do a separate video, um, uh, a separate recording about this. And I’m going to trailer that up cause I’m so fucking commercial. I’ll be asking people to buy. I’ll be asking for people to visit my eBay store summers and sun used car trading in order to buy some used cars next.

If I know, but I was down in Palo Alto last night to look at, to listen to, um, A guy from Valeo talk about or value or whatever the French engineering group is bottom line. Um, developments in lead our technology. Um, what is the TLDR that you’d be interested in? Um, that Well, the raw data point that I think is [00:13:00] fascinating is that in 2017, their Gen 1 system, um, scanned 44, 000 data points a second.

And the one that they’re just about to launch does 2. 6 million. And what that nets out to is ones like a really shitty dot matrix printer that’s out of ink. And the other one is kind of shitty like 480p res. I mean, in other words, one’s a real picture, the other’s fucking not. Now, my question is, though, just because we can make sense of it, does that help the car make sense of it?

And then I began to think even more deeply about it. And I realized that Rather like these hydrogen trucks that I went and looked at. Everyone’s like, ooh, what about the trucks? Ooh, what about the hydrogen station where they can get? That’s not what it’s about. With those vehicles, it’s about how you get the hydrogen cleanly to the [00:14:00] station to be, to be pumped, right?

With the, Lidar stuff, it’s not what’s perceived, it’s how that is interpreted by the brain. Well, that’s NVIDIA, which is why NVIDIA’s share price has gone on the tear that it’s gone on. That is not their component at all. I put it to you, what I saw last night was the new design for David Beckham’s boot, not for is not why his leg is so great or not what makes him special in the brain to be able to put his foot in just the right place on the ball to make it curve in the way that it did.

The boot is important. The boot hits the ball. I agree the design of the boot and and that, but it’s just the fucking boot, right? It’s just the boot Beckham’s brains. The important thing that’s in video. Um, I’ve cashed out by the way. I bought the last jigsaw. I bought the 93 [00:15:00] water cooled one with, uh, with that money.

So I’m out ski of, uh, of Nvidia now. So, uh, um, look, right. We’ve done our usual. Are we 20 minutes in? I can’t even see a timer, but we usually talk for 10 or 15 minutes, 20 minutes or so before we get to what we actually arrived at. You have this holiday to some Grecian island. You sent me an agenda. It’s pretty sweet.

I’ve not looked at it because I really wanted to sort of be surprised by how you wanted to structure, uh, your experiences. The fact that you said, you know, be worth doing a pod about this, that alone, that was, that was my first question. Why, why do you think it was worth doing a pod? What was so interesting?

Did I say that? I can’t remember how we arrived at it, but either way, I mean, Yeah, I mean, it’s I mean, I’ve been to Greece twice and I’ve never been to mainland Greece. So both times it’s been, uh, [00:16:00] an island. Um, first time a Santorini and that was really nice. And we did an Airbnb at the sort of higher top left, um, bit.

where all the people, you know, it’s this sort of the classic sort of, you know, white houses or blue houses or whatever and sunset and sea and kind of thing. It’s gorgeous, but it’s really hectic because it’s like you’re cheek by jowl with all these other mofos and it’s a bowl so you can see all these other people.

People even bus in to the top to like do the view and fly their drones out and below you the catamarans come every sunset. Every evening and park down there for the people who’ve done the sort of the sunset Catherine Moran tour around there and things So it’s cool. And there was some ancient history.

I like to do a bit of ancient history Well, it turns out we didn’t end up doing that in the end this time round But only because we sort of wanted to enjoy the little place that we’d rented. So we did an Airbnb again on Crete Crete’s the largest of the Grecian Greek islands, you know, it’s got like three mountain ranges on it give you an idea.

So it’s like 100 and something miles across. Um, and it’s, it’s, it’s gorgeous. [00:17:00] Um, and we did the West Coast. Um, there’s two airports, Heraklion on the East, sort of 10 o’clock. If it was, it’s just like sort of a rough oblong, if you like, sort of long side horizontally, if you like. So we Heraklion’s at the top, right?

Sort of one o’clock ish. Um, and Hania, I thought it was Chania in my ignorance, but the, uh, nicely spoken British Airways airline pilot, uh, kindly informed me that it was Hania, and she ought to know, given she flies there pretty regularly, so Hania it is, and, you know, it’s gorgeous, it’s got a little, um, uh, And like Narnia.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and it’s, it’s, it’s really pretty. I mean, it’s Greek islands tend to be, um, and it was, you know, we just rented an MBB on the coast, um, about an hour or so anti clockwise around the island. So we got to the little Svinari, little fishing village. [00:18:00] And, you know, for like a hundred, And I think it was a hundred quid a night, something like that.

You, or we rented, it gets more expensive in the summer, but that’s why we did it when we did it sort of beginning of spring, you know, mid spring there, so it’s already mid twenties on a nice clear day. Little bit of wind, which is a little bit annoying, but it’s going to add a pool and a beautiful view of the beach and stuff.

And, and, um, yeah, I mean, I would recommend Greece as a holiday location. I’m speaking to my old sales director like, uh, in a couple of next week to have a chat to him about it. Cause he’s did Italy last year. I need to get a download on it. from him, but um, he wants to do Greece and sort of the full tour in his, in his um, sort of semi retirement.

And it’s worth it. I mean, if you look up Balos Lagoon is the full on Instagrammable as fuck. Beautiful, like, trapped blue ocean, sort of pale blue seas, like white sand and stuff. As we were walking there, and it’s about a sort of 25 minute walk from the car park, it’s about half an hour walk from the car park down there, down a six mile [00:19:00] dusty.

Like trail, um, seven kilometers, seven kilometers. And it’s all bumpy as hell. Um, when you get there, there’s a couple of viewing spots where you can see it in advance. And, uh, we, uh, we were sitting there taking it in for about 30 seconds before some chick came and sat in a short mini skirt on the wall and had a chap Instagrammable pictures for, uh, as a influencer ness, uh, asserted itself on, on the, on the situation.

So. It’s that kind of place. But so there’s some gorgeous places around there. Um, but we were, I just wanted to get away from it all a bit and Angie sort of after the stuff she’s gone through needed a sort of a week away in the sunshine and you’re sort of off season. So, I mean, that’s the little fishing village has a small shop where sort of old.

We sort of christened her Nonna Greco. Um, sort of, uh, old deer that runs the place. Sells most of the stuff you can have without sort of much of a fridge. Yeah, a little freezer, a little fridge. You can buy wine and [00:20:00] pasta and chocolate and stuff like that. But the old timers of the fishing village hang around outside and sort of play backgammon and stuff like that.

And it’s all You know, window boxes and trellis vines and, you know, nice flowers and it’s a really nice, the pace of life there is, is, um, Denzel’d like it. I mean, it’s that sort of laid back, chilled out, not too bothered about much. And interestingly, when I sort of, when I looked up driving there, I just ran, the BA offered me to rent me a car, a Citroen C1 or similar.

Uh, and I, I was kind of hoping for a Citroen C1 to be honest. I’ve never driven a little, the really titchy Citroen products. So I was quite keen to try that out. Well, I got YouTubers love them. Car UK guy who’s like a, uh, sub five grand car dealer from, uh, from actually from crew. That’s probably why I was thinking of, uh, of crew.

Um, he. It there. [00:21:00] He did a buyer’s guide on him just recently. He, he, he swears by them. And one thing that’s interesting is that guy chops that I followed down in South Devon or North Devon. He will buy them, but he doesn’t love them in, in the same way. And that’s, I think that’s a matter of regional taste being different.

I’ve got to say by watching these channels, these little European cars, which I’d sort of tuned out of completely and didn’t know one from another. Uh, Um, by watching these channels, I’ve sort of tuned back in on them again. I would be interested in one. Um, I obviously like a basey one with the, you know, littlest spec with the biggest motor is what I’d be be looking for like the Do they do like a little GT like hot roddy one?

I’m gonna I need to look into it I I haven’t specced it up and obviously I didn’t expect that’s what I’d get, you know I you know, I was expecting the steel wheels with the wheel caps kind of thing Um Yeah, that’s what you want as a rental car in that kind of place. Oh, dude, for sure. And look, I mean, we got, what we [00:22:00] got was a Toyota as we christened it Barely.

Uh, so we took the Barely out. It’s the, it’s the Igo. And it did go, but. Oh yeah. Not a lot. Um, and it was, it was the base spec model and it had air con and was titchy and damage on every panel. So as per usual, when you arrive, do take a photograph of all the panels and stuff. And as it was, I had no issue from the, I didn’t think the guys who rented it to me from budget, we’re going to give me any shit and they didn’t, and the guy in the rental place went, look, just make sure you take any pictures of any damage.

And it wasn’t much, it was like a little scrape here, a little scuff there. Little scuff on the corner of the bumper. Therefore, it fitted in. You know, you wanted a titchy car. The roads were pretty titchy, especially up in the mountains. Um, and I mean, it’s like mountains, like big hills. They’re not mountains really, but like, it was pretty, it was a sort of, um, you know, proper laced tarmac across the side of the hills following the contours.

So what you’re saying is that [00:23:00] the Fiesta, our Fiesta, would be just about the best car you could possibly have. Yeah, and to be honest, you wouldn’t, you’d probably not get out a third. Yeah, I mean, you wouldn’t. Yeah, you might even have more fun in something with less tyre. Yeah, uh, so I mean, I think I’ve got a little video of Angie Tukwasha from the passenger seat, just to show her mum how much it’s like beautiful sea, mountain, beautiful sea, mountain, goats!

You know, get out, watch out for the fucking goats. Um, and, but interesting, as I say, when I looked on the driving guide, I looked it up at sort of things to know about driving in Crete. I mean, classically, after I’d got there and we’d driven to the, to the place, obviously. Uh, that’s the way around. You do these things, isn’t it?

Oh, right, yeah. Research after the ride. Read the guidebook on the plane. Yeah. Yeah, that’s absolutely. Um, so, uh, and it said, well, it said is the first question on the, on the guide page was, is driving re [00:24:00] difficult? And it said, yes, driving re is hard. Well, I’m here to tell you it isn’t. That’s un an unfair judgment in the sense that Angie didn’t really want to drive while we’re over there.

And I’ve driven tens of thousands of miles on umpteen continents in umpteen cars. So it’s not necessarily a reflection of every person’s experience, the, the main. The main things to know are the dual carriageway, it’s not a huge amount of it, um, but from the bit I did from Harnia around West, I think there is a reasonable amount between Harnia and Heraklion, um, because they’re the two major cities on the island, so the road bit in, that’s where the biggest roads are.

Um, there’s this weird thing though, where people will be, it’s a two lane road. One bit of it’s clearly hard shoulder, and a lot of the people will be driving across the white line on the inside of the road. So it’s right, you’re right, driving on the right, not on the left. Um, so, but then, you’ll be, you’ll be fully, not just a bit over the white line, like, you know, the [00:25:00] car is middled over the white line on the hard shoulder piece.

Which I was confused by. They do that in Italy as well, don’t they? Or in the on occasion. I’ve not really, I haven’t driven in it Italy for a while, so, well actually that’s not true. I driven on the lakes a few years ago. Yeah, well I’m not, I’m not driven there for a while, but, but when I, when I think of that, that kind of, it’s often like farmer bloke who’s got on in Italy.

I feel like he’s like on at one exit, he’s gonna get off at the next and he only wants to do like 40 miles an hour on the freeway kind of thing. On the order stratas. So he just stays there so that when there’s folk in, you know, you know, wanting to come by a hundred miles an hour, they’re not blowing your door handles off ’cause they’re a couple of feet away.

That’s what and that seems to be the, the deal on it. I did as, as I say, modicum of research after the after arrival at the, uh, the little place indicated that yeah, people tended to be a bit assertive. I wanna overtake here. And the best way to get out to do that was, you know, they sort of expected you if they were [00:26:00] up your ass.

to get out of the way a bit and get over the shoulder a bit so they could overtake more easily. Now, even in the Igo, uh, even in the Barely, I didn’t find any reason, need to do that. And I mean, it was hardly a ball of fire, as you might imagine. Um, was Baggy it had done about 60,000 kilometers, I guess, given that was the speed reading on the, on the, on the dash, on the odo.

So, yeah. Um, and it, it sort of felt, lived in it. It was happy to go into gears, just not particularly quickly. Thanks very much. It didn’t really like finding reverse, but as long as after you knew the knack, you could get it in there pretty regularly without it complaining too much. Um, but yeah, sort of cars.

Well, I’m, I’m struck by is, is the, you know, most California car, if it’s only done 80 or 90, if it’s done 80 miles, that car is probably halfway through its life, maybe less, um, maybe in less, if it’s Toyota [00:27:00] or a Honda. Um, Or a pickup truck. Yeah, these, these C1’s or Igo’s or whatever, because they are made in the same factory.

Um, they’re clapped out, aren’t they, by 100, 000 miles. This is what, um, this is what? Well, it’s the life of a rental car as well, isn’t it, to be fair? Um, I mean, we drove it down the road to Balos Beach car park. As I say, that’s seven or seven K’s of Pretty bad, dirty, sort of stone road with big bits of gravel on it.

And I drove pretty slowly. I was overtaken a couple of times. Uh, cause, you know, I, I have mechanical sympathy and therefore I can’t, sort of, even in a car I don’t give a shit about, I can’t really bear to do anything to willfully hurt it, cause, you know, it’s, it’s having the good grace to try and drive, to drive me around the island in good faith, I don’t think I should, like, piss in it’s chest.

Well, apart from anything, you just don’t want it to [00:28:00] break at the side of the road. No, no, exactly, I feel like I owe it, you know, in the terms of it’s, uh, contract to drive me around.

Over the years, I’ve spent a long time beating myself up over the creative process. In other words, I used to beat myself up over the fact that Gooding used to pay me to write about car descriptions and they’d write to me on the Monday and say, can you do this Porsche 356? And I would say, yes. They would write to me on the Tuesday and say, can you do this Lamborghini 400 GT?

And I would say, yes. And then I would realize that I had this other piece that I had committed to somebody else that I was going to write. So come the Wednesday, I [00:29:00] would have started three pieces and finished none. And then I’d be like, Oh, it’s fucking Thursday morning and I’ve not done anything like, ah, like, ah, right.

And then by Thursday lunchtime, after that panic and all of that, by Thursday lunchtime, I’d have got all three pieces to a stage where they were 90 percent finished and then everything would be done and really to a good standard by the end of Friday. You know, I would, but all, but instead of it being like a nice spread through the week, it was like, it was like this veering.

On the loo with nothing better to do, surf on over to Summers and Son used car trading, only on eBay. Movie cars are available for under three dollars, postage and packing not included. Captain America, PJ Masks, Catboy, Speed Racer. Various characters from the [00:30:00] Pixar universe represented. Most viewed models this week include the silver Chevy S10 mini truck.

It’s not a great model in truth but for two bucks it captures the stance of the original pretty well we feel. And Raider Command, a rather odd, damaged, incomplete 1970s Matchbox Super King with faintly inappropriate colonial overtones if we’re being completely honest. Finally, relive the horror of suburban England in the 1980s and 90s with our beige corgi Renault 11 GTL.

It has opening doors. Opening bonnet, opening [00:31:00] boot, folding parcel shelf, folding seats. Oh sir, I can see you in it. Only available at Summers and Son used car trading on eBay. Thank you. Drive thru.

This is part of what I’m trying. I’ve realized this is part of what I’m trying to do with this. I didn’t know it when I started out, but this is what I tried to try to do with this motoring historian pod is a lot of the academic stuff I’ve been done recently has been about the idea that there’s the racing driver and the racing car and the races in, and we’ve talked a lot about those three things.

We’ve not talked at all about the guy standing at the side of the track, taking the pictures or writing the story. And those two things, they are absolutely critical. That was what motorsport was at the beginning. The newspaper organized the cars, these newfangled devices to drive [00:32:00] from Paris to Bordeaux.

That was the beginning of, of motorsport right there. Always a mediated experience, always, always. Think about your own understanding of motorsport. It came through cool pictures of cars sliding, didn’t it? Or it came through watching races on TV, you know, maybe at a friend’s house or something like that.

It was always a mediated experience. Mediated experience led you to seek out the authentic. You know, motorsport experience, whether going to see it live or driving or the way that you, but all of it, motorsport is always a, uh, a mediated experience. Well, that’s why when creating this pod, it’s relevant for us to be talking about the mediated experience.

That’s why to not break down the third wall, you know, the Real Housewives third wall that we talked about in an early episode, to not break that down is completely inauthentic. But, [00:33:00] when you break it down, you risk turning what you have, not into Tristram Shandy, into just absolute bollocks.

The other things in terms of advice for people who would drive there, Uh, key ones, drink driving is 450 mils of beer. So not even a pint and you’re over the limit. So, you know, be aware, Mr. Bear, you know, that’s the deal. Um, and if you really, you can’t drink at all, they’re sort of harder core on it. So it’s less than one pint and you’re already over the limit.

Yeah. If you, but in, but in other words, if you have a pint with a meal, you’d probably be all right, but I mean, and you’re on holiday, so [00:34:00] that’s the reality. That’s probably what you’re going to do. But, you know, at the end of the day, a lot of the beers that they sell, if you buy a bottled beer, it’ll be a slightly smaller than a pint bottled beer anyway, so you’re probably fine with one.

But yeah, I didn’t see any police. I mean, we weren’t really in the hot spots, but I saw one police car, I think, in town, and there was one speed camera on the dual carriageway that Google Maps had clearly marked and warned us about in advance. So the, the, the other thing I would suggest to get it up if you wanted to be good, but it’s not so not really in the karma of the place.

You know, I clipped along and about 10 or 15 K’s over whatever the local limit was. And I was about, you know, I was, I did my usual keep up with the ambient flow of what the locals are doing. And that was about what they were doing. And that was fine. Um, so you didn’t stand out. It’s rude to do anything else other than keep up with the ambient flow, because you don’t want to be the slow person.

You don’t want to be slow poke getting in everybody’s way. But nor is it [00:35:00] polite to be the pushy asshole in somebody else’s country. No, exactly. I mean, if you’re in for, you know, driving to work of a morning and late and how rassy, then, you know, everyone’s done it, but it’s not optimal even then, because it doesn’t, it doesn’t exactly enhance your calm, John Spartan.

Um, but, um, but no, the only, the only other thing I’ve never been like that. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never been like that. The only other thing I would say is there’s an awful lot of warning signs in the mountains. Uh, the triangular sort of warning signs with the thing in the middle and there’s nothing in the middle.

Now when you get right up on them, there is something in the middle. It’s always wiggly road. Always. It’s just that the sun beats down on them so hard every year that they’ve all faded. So it looks like they’re warning you of nothing. But just assume if you see a white triangular sign it’s wiggly roads and you won’t go far wrong.

And you know, again, it’s reminding me of the Corsican rally stages you see from helicopters here and there when you’re winding around in the mountains. Because it soft verges most of the time to a [00:36:00] bit of gravel and then maybe several hundred foot of, you could call the insurance agent on the way down, you know?

So, pushing it after dark is not a good idea. Pushing it at any time is not really a good idea, and pushing it after dark, definitely not. Especially on, did I mention the goats? Who take a kind of proprietorial view of the road a lot of the time, and they’re not really interested in getting their ass, their fucking dirty asses out of the way for you.

Oh, and there’s a picture in the guidebook of goats standing or sleeping on cars that have been parked. So they say they don’t, and certainly when we went to Balos and came back to the car park, a goat had chosen our car to shade from the sun next to, and we seemed very disgruntled that Angie wanted to get back into the passenger side and really was rather truculent about moving.

It wasn’t keen at all, but yeah. The other thing to note, uh, other things of note I would point out, uh, big on Japanese pickups, like huge on Japanese pickups, like probably 25 percent of the cars I saw were Japanese Toyota’s. [00:37:00] 80 percent Toyotas, the rest were like Nissans and Mazdas. I saw the old Mazda truck as well.

Um, they like, like regular cabs or like extended cabs? Regular cabs and probably between 10 and 25 years old. What was the best car you saw on the island?

Um, I honestly can’t remember. Um, I quite liked some of the pickups. There was a nice Mazda pickup I saw in green that I quite liked the look of. Um, but in terms of actual cars around the place, in terms of, I suppose if you mean in terms of top trumps, what was the most expensive car I saw? I can’t even remember.

Probably some crappy Mercedes. What, what, well, like S class or like C class? Um, I think I saw one of [00:38:00] those weird little boxy ones. Are they the M classes?

Yeah. Or an A class. Well, whatever. Little Mercedes. Alright. Um, what was the worst car you saw?

Well, there were quite a lot of things at the side of the road that you were like, is that a wreck? Or is that ever going to move again? No. Um. And again, most of them were pickups, and I quite liked most of them. And I, you know, I can, perhaps, after, what, 35 years of knowing you, I’m pretty sure you would have liked all of them as well.

All four cylinders, or six cylinders too? Again, from my little knowledge, I suspect they were all fours. Um, What would you have said the most John Summers car was? Well, as I say, when I was sitting outside where the old timers have their, their beers or [00:39:00] their, like, espressos and backgammon, at one point, parked outside, there were six cars and they were all Toyota Hiluxes.

All of them. I mean, whether they were Hiluxes, they were all, like, small pickups. They looked like Hiluxes to me. Um, and, uh, That, that was pretty cool. You know, there was, there was at least three or four that you and I would have been, Oh, I like that one. I quite like that one. There was, there was a, ah, actually there was, um, there was.

On the walk between there and the place, there were three Fiestas next to each other, outside this little farm establishment, all with like, stuff grown over them and stuff, all clearly bought identical model Fiestas, different colours, slightly in states of disrepair. But I assume someone had had one, quite liked it, and then thought, well I’ve got space, I’ll buy another couple, so I can keep that one going with parts from these ones, and then had not got round to it.

And now I had three knackered, rusting Fiestas down the [00:40:00] front. But yeah, I mean, here and there, there were some nice cars. I mean, I’m a man after my own heart for sure. Yeah, I’ll do it. Absolutely. You’d have loved it. And he had a really quite nice little sort of spot. Um, and again, it’s the classic sort of continental style.

You know, if you give them a promontory, they’re going to build a nice little house on it with an overlook and probably put an infinity pool in there. And, you know, and make sure that, you know, every, that, that wall that looks out to sea is all windows in every room of the house. So you can, you know, wherever you are.

You can have a nice view of the sea whilst you’re making your breakfast, whilst you’re eating your lunch, whilst you’re sitting watching TV, you can see out there, and then if you leave the curtains open in your bedroom, you could still be looking out to sea. So, um, Yeah, they, they, yeah, it’s like you’re like, it’s, it’s, you’re actually as you’re living as part of the, of the ocean.

Yeah. I think that’s, I think that’s always a nice attention to detail, isn’t it? So I think, you know, it’s, I didn’t come away with it really lusting after anything, but there was a, you know, a plethora every time you drove around to another village, you know, I caught that pick up. [00:41:00] It was almost about the pickups to me.

I, after I started spotting them, it’s like black crows, you’re cutting out a fucking everywhere. There’s all these pickups every time you drive. And, Another corner. It’s another goddamn two or three pickups. Oh, this one’s a master. Oh, this one’s a, oh, no, there’s another Nissan one. Like mainly Hiluxes.

Bought a few odds and sods from there. And that was really nice. Cause it did feel like you were in a little private rally special stage at like 35 miles an hour to just carve the lines and go slow and enjoy yourself. Yeah, at 35 miles on your one four five section tire. Yeah, but I mean, Gorgeous, sort of doesn’t cut it.

It’s absolutely beautiful. And yeah, again here and there just dodge the goats[00:42:00]

So no, I don’t thoroughly make a minute, but I I wouldn’t you know Anyone who might be put off by their sort of worried about the roads Don’t be worried about the roads. Don’t be worried about the driving. It’s absolutely fine. Um, I wouldn’t recommend those of a nervous disposition drive during the day, um, just for the sort of, especially in the mountains, because it is titchy ass little narrow roads where here and there it will just randomly narrow to sort of one car each way with past stopping places for a bit and then undo that.

Um, and the goats as they wander around, don’t give a shit. So if you are nervous disposition and used to perhaps American roads and big cars and big lanes, it ain’t like that. If you’re used to driving like hell for leather around scottish sea roads, then it’s not a problem. Most people aren’t. And again, your stick shift on the other side of the road, on the other side of the road, on the other side of the car.

So again, [00:43:00] are you comfortable with that? Um, Are you on the right? It’s, um, it’s like same side of the road as England. You’re driving on the same side of the road as England. No, no. Same side of the road as the US. So other side of the road for me, other side, same side of the road for you. But again, I didn’t specify stick shift.

I got stick shift when I bought the smallest, got the smallest car. Yeah. So. Yeah. If you’re not comfortable with that, you might need to check before you, uh, you, you know, in terms of what car you rent. Yeah. Yeah. Cause it’s not like Heathrow in terms of being able to get an automatic easily. Is it? Again, there were quite a lot of cars that are available.

Um, but there was a re and a loads of like, you know, um, Olympus local rental companies and things like that that I’d never heard of and looked if you’d have rented from them thinking, go, I’m getting a good deal. Yeah. You probably were getting a good deal, but they didn’t look the highest quality establishments when you drove past the sort of [00:44:00] the outer lots.

Once you, Avis and Budget and all that sort of stuff were all right by the airport, the other ones further along the track got increasingly sort of overrun and disheveled as you got further radial distance from the tarmac. Um, so I, I would probably stick with the major, um, uh, major, uh, providers there, I think, just for a little bit.

Well, you just, you don’t know what, how the, the cars are potentially bodged really badly, aren’t they? So, uh. I mean, look, that said, I rented, um, I think, I don’t know if I’ve said it on the podcast before, but I rented a Nissan Micra. with steel wheels and all missing wheel caps in white, um, in Santorini and drove that around.

And I mean, that was the most casual drop off of any car I’ve ever had. The landlord arranged it with a mate. I said, I’d quite like to rent a car. And he went, don’t you worry. When do you want to rent the car? I said, like, right, it’s Saturday morning, just for the day, because we, you know, we have to check [00:45:00] out at 10, and our flight leaves at 9.

30. He was like, no problem, my friend will meet you in the car park, just up at the top, like, at 10 o’clock on Saturday morning. Okay. So we drove up, he went, make sure you’re in cash, yeah? Yeah, I bet. I fucking bet in cash. So, no problem. So we turn up with a fistful of euros. And, uh, he meets us in the car park, this knackered little, like, steely wheel, um, uh, Nissan.

The Nige, as Angie christened it. Um, and yeah, we got, we did the paperwork. I couldn’t read any of it. Obviously, it’s in Greek. Um, signed away my life, potentially, just paid him the thing. And I said to him, so am I meeting you at the airport? You’re well, I’m going to be there at about, you know, seven, 30, you know, I mean, he went, no, I will not be there.

I was like, okay, what do you want me to do with the car? He said, what you do is you go to the, the, the, the short stay car park. You were not the bit where you go into the barrier. I went, okay. You know, the bit before he was very clear about Westpark. They’re fine. He said, you park it there. I said, yeah, and you’ll meet me there.

No. [00:46:00] Well, you’re going to send a mate to meet me there. No, no one will be there to meet you. He said, what you do is you get out of the car, you leave it unlocked, and you put it underneath the passenger’s floor mat, the keys, and you walk away. Ha ha ha, yeah. Now, I’ll tell you, I’ve rented a lot of cars on a lot of continents, as I say, and Avis are not like that.

They, they are not like that. They want a proper check in, they want to check you, they want to check out. This geezer didn’t give a monkeys. So it was very nice to just pull up in the car park, get your bags out, lob the keys in, wave goodbye to the knives, and just stroll into the airport. That was about as casual as it gets.

And again, didn’t get any comeback from it, he had no problem. It’s not like, it’s not like that in Switzerland. In Switzerland, they are inspecting everything with a, it’s like Sherlock Holmes with a microscope. There is a small scrape on the inside of the door handle where, where your ring finger grazed.[00:47:00]

Yeah, that sounds very, very Swiss. Um. They were all right in Paris. The last time I, I did it, I had a car in Paris and, uh, You know, I, I mean, I didn’t do any damage to it. So, uh, you know, I leaned on it a bit and it was a bit dirty and it got a few extra miles on it, but it didn’t have, it wasn’t wearing lots of damage.

Can you believe that dog silent all the time you’re talking and then barking again when I’m talking? I hear you. I mean, he’s probably sitting there thinking, Well, that bastard’s yapping all the time. Why can’t I? Well, he’s right, isn’t he?

Well, my hapless listener, it’s, uh, Editor John coming [00:48:00] to, uh, wrap up the, the show. Um, I guess, skillfully, I, uh, I forgot to ask Mark to wrap up the show and we blethered on about stuff in our personal lives, uh, um, so yeah, so as they used to say at the end of, uh, of the two Rollies, it’s goodbye from me and it’s goodbye from him.

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