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
Warlock – Signs of Satan (intro)
J’s exploration of the neolithic sites of southern England, by Gixxer
Warlock – Signs of Satan (break)
German power metal, Warlock, Doro Pesch, Scanner, Running Wild
Warlock – Hateful Guy (intro)
The Chronicles of Halvar and Clarence, another shameless plug for M and J’s Dungeons and Dragons novel
Warlock – Hateful Guy (break)
Musings on Rhetoric
Scorpions – Don’t Stop At The Top (intro)
Musings on Remote Conferences
Just Go Drive and Jeremy Clarkson rip offs
Clarkson/Wilman, Summers/Gammie, Beavis/Butthead
M is uncomfortable with Clarkson or 44teeth as ugly Brits abroad
44teeth’s Baron von Grumble and Mental Health
The Right Turn On Red Is Threatened
Warlock – Burning the Witches (intro)
RIP Cale Yarborough
1979 Daytona 500
J’s discourse on Hooters (with hindsight it seems Hardees was the sponsor – whoops;-)
JHS Racing, friends of 44teeth and Gixxer builder extrordinaire
Over wheelieing the press Gixxer thou
Monster Magnet – Dig That Hole (x2)
The Bitcoin Spot ETF Is Approved
M’s BMW M2 is a Lemon
Chops Garage, Car UK and the sub $5k used car market
The Revival of the 1000HP Sunbeam – please donate
Goodwood to Celebrate Can-Am in 2024
Scanner – Retaliation Positive
The lawless grey area of the electric mountain (motor)bike
Scanner – Grapes of Fear (break)
Helmet laws
Quartic steering wheels, Mr Silly and the Nonsense Cup
M does not like the Volvo EX30, nor SUVs in general
M does not think supercar performance is applicable for most EV buyers
Tesla Beta Testing on the Public Highway
J’s tribute to the Jaguar Mk2: a properly fast car for 30 years
Scanner – Grapes of Fear (outro)
J and scratch built slot cars
Scanner – Killing Fields (outro)
Transcript
[00:00:00] John Summers is the motoring historian. He was a company car thrashing, technology sales rep that turned into a fairly inept sports bike rider. Hailing from California, he collects cars and bikes built with plenty of cheap and fast, and not much reliable. On his show, he gets together with various co hosts to talk about new and old cars, driving, motorbikes, motor racing and motoring travel.
Good day. Good morning. Good afternoon. It’s John Summers, the motoring historian with his worthwhile school friend. Mark Gami. How you doing, Mark? Pretty good, dude. How are you? Alright, alright. You know, just breaking [00:01:00] down that third wall in the way that we normally like to do. You and I have just spent two hours trying to line this up, because we’ve got a new puppy, and I’m a kind of shit puppy dad.
We haven’t, in the sense that you and I don’t have one. You have one, in the royal we. Yeah, yeah. We, as in my family. Yeah, the royal we would be applicable because the dog is a corgi, isn’t it? Which is As an englishman living in california is faintly fucking ridiculous But you know i’m a ridiculous kind of of person and in fact In fact, right that has turned out to be the perfect segue for the way that I was going to start our our call today um, and it was with this that uh, My wife tells a story about how I was costing her money Before we even met.
Do you know this story? I may have heard it, I can’t recall the off cut. You may, well, you will remember my side of it, you won’t remember her side of it. [00:02:00] So you remember that we were both offered a job in California with this student travel company in the summer of, I think, 2004, 2005, one of those two, anyway.
Well, there was a training course. That began, uh, at the beginning of, of July, and they said to me, if you work really hard on your visa stuff and go really fast, you might be able to get, you know, the paperwork in on time. And I was like, yeah, thinking, really want to spend a month where I know I’ve got a job and I’m going to be earning again.
Really want to spend a month in my flat in Ealing using my jigsaw to go and explore Neolithic sites. Of southern England, right? Because you could so what I would uh, so what I wanted to do was what I did [00:03:00] was was uh, I I slow pedaled the paperwork and uh, every morning or every other morning really probably wasn’t every morning, but a lot of the time I got up and I would look on, you know, you know, as you look on the map, you see the brown sites, whichever Neolithic site wasn’t there.
I just look for a nearby town and then I’d get up and be out of London. And, um, I, and, uh, you know, at the Neolithic site as the dog walkers were there, and then I’d have like a, uh, a lardy cholesterol breakfast, um, a transport cafe or something, and then roll back up to town. Well, the story is, is this, that I’m rolling back up to town one day.
I’m in the right hand lane of the M4, that sort of, you know, Newbury, Swindon kind of way, right? You’re neck of the woods now. I’m in the right hand lane rolling along about 90. And guy comes up on my left hand side on a jigsaw fan and stopped for a minute and then took off [00:04:00] and I did that and it was the first time I’d ever done that where you meet somebody on the road and you just take off after them and, and, and ride with and, and I remember two things about that ride.
The first one was the, there was a BMW 740 in the right hand lane and it was there for ages and ages and ages and wouldn’t move aside. And when it eventually moved aside, he pulled up alongside. And then kicked the door and put a dent in the door in the rear, in the rear door where the freeway where the motorway goes, where the M4 goes under the M25, you know, often on, if you drive in West into London, you know, often on that piece of road where you’re, you’re on the M4, but the M25 traffic’s got off, but the M25 traffic hasn’t You’re.
Yeah, go on. There’s that little section under the 150 mile an hour on my [00:05:00] 600 and he was leaving me for dead, right? I was like, I’m going to drop off him when we come to the North Circular because I was living in Ealing at the time, but he came off at the North Circular as well. And we got through Chiswick and at the first set of traffic lights, like as we were, you know, on the way around the North Circular, I can’t remember, I don’t know exactly which, you know, we weren’t yet at Ealing, but we were, we were, we were on the way there.
I rolled up alongside him at the light. And he put up the visor, and his eyes were ice blue, and he was our age now, like 50 plus. And he said, I just picked it up at the dealership, fucking awesome. Visor down, the lights changed, and he had it away. And That was the whole end of the end of the experience.
And, and I’m, oh man, it’s just the reason why Suzuki GSXRs are different, right? I’m [00:06:00] going to get my food.
So, you know, why was that costing Dana money?
Oh, bollocks. Yeah. As usual, the story is totally disjointed and unfinished, isn’t it? Why was that costing Dana money? Um, this is gold. The reason it was costing her money was when they said, You got a rush to get on the July training course. She did. She got a dad to like pay for an extra, get paid for the rent and moved out here early.
So the plane flight was expensive, but she also paid for a [00:07:00] month’s rent or a dad paid for a month’s rent in the apartment, which they then, which when she arrived, they were then like, Oh, we’re delaying the training course. And the reason that they delayed the training course was me, because I had not been asked to get my visa in on time.
Yeah, I can believe that. That has the air of authenticity to it. It’s God’s honest truth. Oh yeah, yeah, I wasn’t doubting you. I mean, there’s no question about it.[00:08:00]
You’re aware that nowadays, um, our episodes are broken up by music. Well, once there just used to be a choppy edit. Now we have like, so the episode that last went episode 14 that we did with, with gripe and the vans, um, that one, um, I did all with slow. You remember this time I thought I would do all German power metal.
I’ve even planned out what I’m going to do. So we’ve got warlock mostly this episode, then with, with just a little bit of a scorpions deep cut and a little bit of scanner to, uh, to, to finish up. But just on the theme of the German, of the German power metal, what are your thoughts on German power metal?
It’s running wild German power metal. I’m pretty sure it is. Yeah, it [00:09:00] is, but they’re getting their own episode. I’m a bit offended that you haven’t included any running wild. They’re getting their own episode. Oh, they deserve their own episode. Yeah. Yeah. No, I can do it. I mean, dude, like Hypertrace is a cracking album.
Um, no, I wore a lot burning the witches, et cetera. I got a lot of time for, um, one of the best bands for a long time. for me at least decent heavy metal band with a female vocalist. Not that I had any particular prejudice against female vocalists, but she did a really good job. I can’t remember what the chick’s name was.
Um, Doro Pesh. There you go. But yeah, I quite agree. Lita for no good in comparison. I mean, there are some decent ones now. Um, but Doro truly, uh, truly rocked and, and the samples that we’ve played here. Um, perfectly illustrate the way that our vocals are like, uh, like Tom Araya’s, it’s like a third lead guitar.
Yeah. She had proper range. Didn’t she? Um, yeah, yeah. But, but the, the, [00:10:00] but whoever wrote the guitar riffs, my pretty sick. Pretty sick. Um, no, I’ve got a lot of time for the Germans. Um, well, I also find it quite amusing about the Germans and it’s not, none of their fault is that quite often the lyrics that are presumably written in German.
Oh, well, maybe written in English, but their English is certainly a bit better than my German. Um, end up sounding just a little bit the wrong side of the cakey cheesy. Um, whereas if they’d perhaps been written by a native speaker, they would still sound You know, heavy metal, but perhaps not quite as like, you know, um, Well, some of the stuff off Running Wild’s albums when they’re talking about pirates and stuff.
Just a little bit too heavy. It has the feeling of fantasy literature written by a 12 year old, doesn’t it?
Yeah, there’s a, there’s a, a warlock track, hateful guy, which I always think is, uh, um, has, has that kind of, [00:11:00] it has, it has the feeling of a non mother tongue speaker about it, but, but I feel like, I think they wrote the songs in English and I think that the, you know, it was the way that band. So many heavy metal bands talk about the heavy metal as if it’s like an independent entity that has a life force of its own, like a sort of country that we’re, uh, we’re we, you know, that we’re, uh, citizens of if, if, if you like, um, cakey lyrics.
Yeah. And the fact that if it’s not mother tongue, um. It has, uh, look, I, I feel like a lot of these heavy metal bands, they, they wanted to write something similar to what Dio was writing, but it ends up coming across as, you know, 12 year old fantasy literature. Yeah, which is a good way for us to plug our book again, isn’t it?
The Chronicles of Halvar and Clarence by J. D. Gammy. Yeah. My word, get it on Amazon and [00:12:00] buy it straight away, if you have not already. And write us a review, even if it’s crap. Even if you hated us, write a review.
Mark on the subject of even if you hated us, write a review. Um, at the end of last year, I did that international motor racing research center conference. I, I always do that. Um, they streamed it. Um, for the first time, well not actually for the first time, for the second time, but, but we won’t get, let’s not get into the details of, uh, of that exactly, it, it was, you had a chance to, to participate in it [00:13:00] remotely, uh, what were your thoughts?
Um, to be honest, I listened to about 10 I haven’t gone back to it. I’ve saved the link, um, and I think I’ve, the um, My feedback was therefore rather, um, cursory, and more to do with, it felt a bit like, my, yeah, a bit harsh, but I felt you probably needed to be a bit more you reading it, rather than sounding like you were reading it, if you know what I mean.
Um, yeah. Yeah, yeah, the tech sales guy in in you and in Dana rebels against the presentation style. The reality is in those kind of events, if you’re going to deliver all the information, you’ve only got 2000 words, right? So you need so the best way I’ve tried doing presentations, right? The kind of slideshow power pointy kind of thing that we would.
That you’re taught to do as a like a, or at least I was taught to do as a tech sales guy 20 years ago. The challenge [00:14:00] with, with that as a communication method is that you, um, is that you don’t use the 2000 words as well as you could have done. I don’t know, I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t have read it out.
I’m suggesting you should have performed reading it out.
Well, I should have, I should have read as if I was on stage delivering a Shakespearean play. Not quite that cakey, but just a little bit more. A little bit more like this happened to be two thousands of words that you just thought of and you really believed in it, if you know what I mean. rather than 2000s words which you still, you, you carefully crafted and really believed in and now we’re reading out.
There’s just a little bit, about a little bit. Yeah. You needed a bit more. The way that, the way that historians deliver material is exactly that dry way. [00:15:00] You can’t deny the fact that rhetoric’s a skill. You can’t deny the fact that. Um, an improved method of communication, in this case improved rhetoric, would have made my presentation style more effective, uh, than, than it was.
It was minor, minor criticism. I’m not like No, no, I appreciate that because, and it actually ties up with exactly why I’ve been doing this pod rather than writing for the last year or 18 months. Because, because the pod is, is all about this business of, of being able to Communicate in the vernacular.[00:16:00]
Um, sorry, we touched on. I’m just like looking at my stupid agenda there and something that we touched on before was was the fact that you could, um, access the conference remotely. And I guess I wanted to make a wider point about. conferences, academic conferences, and about how the whole character of them is undergoing a transformation.
This is actually directly related to that rhetoric style is, is the pre pandemic. If you wanted to go to the IMR, if you wanted to understand what was being talked about at the IMRRC, the only way to do it was to get on a plane and go. Right. The same way was for any, you know, the same true of any conference, right?
Once [00:17:00] we got, once, you know, the conference is streamed and once you can present it remotely, suddenly at that point, right, the physical conference sort of declines in importance, doesn’t it? Because the virtual conference, it becomes this thing where once upon a time, there was a barrier to you participating at the IMRRC, because even if they accepted your paper, you weren’t going to drop 3, 000 on a trip there.
Um, I mean, some people did, but you most, most, but whereas now anybody, any student, most historians are poor, but it gives, it gives much more of a, of a reach. So I think that’s, I think that’s incredible and awesome, but you say, but the conference, it’s all about the in person and the [00:18:00] networking. Yes, it is.
So what an event like the IMRRC can be is both of those things. This year, because of family stuff, I couldn’t go in person. Fine. I can’t go in person. I still am participating and involved in the community by giving a paper, which, uh, not the same as going. Right, would still be worthwhile getting on the plane to go to make mingle with the people to meet the new people to be able to, um, have in depth conversations with people over dinner and over lunch.
That’s what you what you miss out on by, uh. You know, by, by not going, I just want to underscore how what’s really happened with this virtual thing, and we’re just at the beginning of the revolution, is that there is a place for the physical and the virtual, and the future is going to have both, and the exchange of information at these conferences is going to be [00:19:00] so much better, because the dude that can’t move from his basement, he can still do a presentation!
And those of us that want to put on the sharp suit and have got the money to fly, we, we can do it and we can mingle and, you know, we’ll see you at Pebble in a few weeks time kind of thing. Right. There’s room for everybody. Yeah. Agreed. And I absolutely applaud that. I mean, I think the challenge is always that.
It doesn’t always work that way, in the sense that, um, you know, if you’re battling against, um, the tides of, well, post pandemic people not answering their telephone, kids not answering their telephone, only if you, why don’t you ask, why didn’t you text me if you wanted to speak to me, but I rang you, well, no one calls people anymore, that sort of thing, and also the fact that I went to a couple of conferences online during the pandemic, um, IT related obviously, um, where they had breakout [00:20:00] rooms and like you had virtual stands and you could, people could come and see you.
I mean, flat out, nobody did. Nobody did absolutely not at all. People went to the sessions they wanted to go to and then didn’t turn up or participate in any way in a shape other than that, because, because the booth always was dropping traffic, you always did. Yeah. That’s why you put it between the snacks and the auditorium.
Yeah. Whereas now they’re at home in the moment, what they had to do is over. They’re like, fuck that off, school run, TV, jerk off. Yeah, yeah. It’s something else. Exactly. Go and have a shit, whatever you need to do. You know, you go and prioritize something else. Yeah, you’re not walking by vendor stands anymore.
And everyone loses because the vendors lose because they don’t get to speak to those people in that passing traffic. And although they wouldn’t like to admit it, they lose as well because what they also don’t get then is a smattering, in a Conan, I use that word deliberately, a smattering of You know, other [00:21:00] languages, you know, a smattering of all of just I was catching.
I was passing. I chatted to this geezer and he taught me about this. You know, this to this remote backup. I spoke to this other chap. He talked to me about the fact that there were other plugins for my contact center that I can use for X, Y and Z. Didn’t even know that shit existed. You don’t pick that up because you don’t have to pass by the boots.
You don’t have to. Oh, yeah, I do want one of those squidgy throwaway toys. They’re giving away. So I’ll give the guy five minutes. Well, damn, that was really interesting. I’ve got my I. T. director to meet him next week. That doesn’t happen. So the people who sponsor the, uh, the conferences lose, the vendors lose, and the attendees lose because a lot of that organic stuff’s gone.
So, um, I completely agree with you. I like the fact that it is a broader church because it can include more stuff. And because it’s enthusiast space, one would hope, therefore, it has less of those mitigations. But just as a sort of, from the other side of the fence, looking at it from a sort of pure business interaction pace.
Um, place. It can be the net. The end product can be diluted. [00:22:00] Yeah, which can be a bit of a shame. So it’s it’s I still think you haven’t got choice. You’ve got to include it But it’s it’s finding a good way for those people to interact properly Which is difficult with a remote audience Yeah I’m just brooding on the lessons that can be learned by contrasting a small unprofessional enthusiast event with your kind of professional corporate, you know, at the London Olympia kind of, kind of event.
Because I read the other day that the, um, Jeep Chrysler Ram are not doing any more motor shows. Now that’s a You know, that is also because they’re hurting for money at the moment, right? But also of all the, you know, it, it just, what that speaks to is that this is just [00:23:00] not an environment and auto show is just not an environment either to brand build or to sell cars anymore.
It’s weird, isn’t it? Because like I was listening to a 40 14th episode a while back where they were doing their men read PDFs of all the stuff that was at Eicma. And they used to go to Eichmann and they don’t bother to go anymore because, and I mean, I wouldn’t want to paraphrase and I wouldn’t want to put words in their mouth, but I think that my takeaway from what their explanation was, was that essentially, because every bugger and his wife has got a YouTube channel where they are registered to go and stand in front of the bikes with a, with a, you know, with a camera or webcam on a stick or whatever, and then do their own piece.
It’s very difficult to get it. Even in the sort of this quote unquote downtime or when it’s not being officially launched to get time in front of and to produce any content that’s meaningfully different, different from thousands of bloggers out there who are producing their own stuff. So they were like, we might as well do [00:24:00] the bring you what we can do for with better pictures talking over the top of it.
And yeah, no, you don’t. That was exactly what we did. With Just Go Drive. Yeah. That was the idea with the just go Drive reviews. But why would we shoot? Why would we spend ages shooting our own shitty footage when there’s B roll? Turns out every fucking halfway on YouTube wants the shaky cam B roll. I could have been jm.
Yeah, you could have been JM if you just done it sooner. I couldn’t have been a ripoff of Jeremy Clarkson. I’m me. I don’t wanna be a ripoff of Jeremy Clarkson. How come YouTube is full of people who just ripped off Jeremy Clarkson? Yeah, I mean it’s you know, maybe why i’m so cynical about clarkson. I thought of this just recently I was talking with somebody about clarkson just recently.
It’s because beavis and butthead Wilman and Clarkson, Gammy and Summers, right? Wilman and Clarkson went to Repton together and liked cars. They were mates who went to [00:25:00] school together, who liked cars, who later in life washed up at the BBC together, and were like, oh. And imagine if we had some budget, if we, in our, in our thirties, if you and me had had some budget and had had the, you know, Repton connections rather than the Devonport High School for Boys connections, you know, we could have done that kind of, we could have created that kind of content.
And I’m not saying, oh, I could have been Joe McClartin. I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying that on the contrary, I’m ready for a new kind of automotive journalist. I don’t want. Somebody who’s a rip off of Clarkson. What are these guys in America doing trying to rip off Top Gear and Clarkson? Like, just I do, I completely agree.
And I mean, like, I love the guys from 404 Teeth. And I love them because they’re authentically who they are. However, a lot of the stuff they do on BBB is a little bit too like [00:26:00] lagas louts and stuff for me. I mean, and I understand that sells and it’s hugely popular. And I think it’s a genius move of them to then put an unedited, like X rated cut out at loads of cinemas up and down the UK, rent those cinemas out for a night and go straight to the audience like that.
That’s a very clever plan. And it’s certainly proved hugely successful for them last time, but it does get a little bit. Close to a lot of the reasons why I thought, for good God, like, this is on the BBC, this is fucking embarrassing, the, the sort of casual, now they don’t do really the casual xenophobia in the same way as, that, that, um, Clarkson would do.
Yeah, because it’s 2023, not 2003. Correct, um, but nonetheless, it is a little bit, sort of, trending in, sort of, that way, and I find those a little bit hard to watch. I think the, the interesting stuff, where they’re talking about bikes and their genuine enthusiasm for bikes is hugely put to the pleasure, which is most of their stuff.
I know what I was going to say, Baron Von Grumble, the early [00:27:00] stuff that he, um, Chris, can’t remember his second name, did right where he was riding up to London and that stuff, right? If you, I don’t want to, you know, I’ve, I know what happened in his personal life. Right? Um, when I first watched those Baron von Grumble stuff, I loved it, right, because it was like the monologue in my own head, right?
And the key one, and the one with the most views, is the one where as he’s coming up onto the M4, he’s on his Gixxer, he’s been weaving out in and out of traffic, it’s rain, you’re stressed, somebody’s just tried to knock him off in a Mercedes sedan, and as he’s merging, there’s a bloke riding with one of those shirts that says, instead of police, it looks like it says police, but it says polite.
And he has this rampage, like, just, just ram at the polite, right, at the just. Now, [00:28:00] in that moment, right, then it’s comedy genius and you’re rolling around laughing, right? Then you realize what’s happened to him with his personal life and his mental health and all of that. And then watching it back, you’re like, wow, this is documentary of a mental breakdown.
This right turn on red in California, they’re talking about banning it. Look, I always thought that one, that the, um, the right turn on red was the one thing we could pretty much import from America, when we left turn on red over here, but like, you know. I have said to Americans for decades now, there are, America has only made two contributions to civilization, really.
The small and the right turn on red and now we’re going to throw the baby out with the bath water and we’re going to why so that people can carry on looking at their phones and step into the road and it not be their responsibility. That’s really [00:29:00] what it is. That’s really at the root of this, right?
What we’re saying we’re shifting the responsibility for the safety of pedestrians from pedestrians to car users. Now I’m fine as a car user to be responsible for not running over the pedestrian, but I can’t be responsible if that pedestrian is looking at their phone and stepping into the road. And what you’re realistically asking people to do is in a four way, what’s already a four way intersection, you’re now making it Not just four way you’re making it eight way because I need to look not just for the cars But I also need to look for people walking and even for cyclists as well You’re making the job very very hard for the motorist and yet the motorist is the one with this dangerous piece of equipment There should be some responsibility On the pedestrian.
I know not for all pedestrians I get that there’s children and old people and so on, I get that, but at some point the pedestrian [00:30:00] has to take responsibility for not stepping out in front of the car. Am I a half wit? Cale Yarborough’s
gone. Yeah, I did have a quick, a quick scan about the gentleman, yeah? Um. I have a couple of stories, uh, about him, um, I, I, uh, you know, I do feel like, I guess the headline for me is, is [00:31:00] the, you know, I know in the modern era, there’s been Jimmy Johnson and all of that, but, but, um, for it, I think for the classical period, there is King Richard Petty, there’s David Pearson.
There’s Bobby Allison and there’s Cale Yarborough, you know, and you can throw Dale into that mix as well, can’t you, but he, to me, he comes from, I guess he comes from an era that I remember rather than the era before that, but I feel from those formative years of NASCAR, there was, you know, Richard, King Richard.
Pearson, Kale and Bobby. Um, and now only Bobby and King Richard are left. And that’s, uh, like, that’s a thing. Um, so that was my first thought on it. Um, my second thought is that, that of course, the truly immortal moment for, for Kale Yarborough will be that, um, [00:32:00] You know, 1976 or 1979, Daytona 500, the one that they televised, have you seen the end of that race?
Do you know what I’m talking about? Oh, marvelous. Well, it was the Daytona, it was the Daytona 500 and there was, it was the first time it was going to be televised. And across the Northeast, there was terrible weather and everybody had nothing to do but be inside watching TV. So the viewing figures were massive.
The race was an okay race, but then right towards the end Do you know, have you heard of Bobby’s brother, Donnie? Donnie Allison? Donnie had a less successful career, but was generally considered more wild. So Bobby and Cale are like on the home stretch, right? On the backstretch, like half a lap to go. And on that [00:33:00] backstretch, it’s worth watching.
They just Go at each other like it was the Dukes of Hazzard. They are just, and, and, you know, but at NASCAR speeds, right? It’s, and it ends in the infield and then Bobby stops and then there’s a fight. And really, the whole, it’s, it was everything that NASCAR could have ever wanted and dreamed, and it made NASCAR, um, it launched, that was the moment that launched NASCAR, that, that’s the pivotal moment when NASCAR stopped being a southern regional sport and started being the Behemoth that it grew into in the, in the 20th century, really a key thing.
And I guess, um, something that I think about because there’s always with the cars, it’s not just the racing. Um, it’s not just the racing. It’s how the [00:34:00] story gets told. That’s the, that’s the important thing. And, uh, and I guess, uh, yeah, so, uh, so kale, uh, uh, a part of that, um, the other story that, that I think of, and it made me laugh recently when I was, uh, Carting with my son, um, was, uh, Judia Johnson, who hired Cale because he thought Cale was the same kind of driver as he was, who was just a guy who, you know, held the pedal to the metal, basically.
You know, there was not too much, you know, there was no, like, you know, holding back, he was a charger, a go, you know, and, and, uh, and, and, uh, The, uh, don’t know where I read this. Um, so I would struggle to find a source, but it’s, you know, the car is in the pits and Junior leans over the car to offer Cale advice and the advice is go to the front.
And when I got in the go kart the other [00:35:00] day, I like, you know, Ollie is, is, uh, Ollie was like in the sort of pit lane bit with me, and as I like got in and put my helmet on, he patted me on the head and went, go to the front, and then got, and then got behind the pit wall. It’s editor John, and of course, typically, I, uh, fail to mention the most important things about, my three things I remembered about Gale.
I forgot to mention the most important things. I think the most important thing has to be the three back to back championships, which in modern motorsport, just I think because of the way the engineering is, it’s not unusual for a driver or a team and driver to be dominant for a long period. But in the 70s, there was no branch of motorsport where anybody was, was dominant for an extended period.
So Kale’s three championships back to back. They really warrant further study and [00:36:00] really within those three championships back to back, you have the greatness of Cale Yarborough and I’ve never really looked closely at that and it really, it probably warrants it, to be honest. The other, of course, great memory of Cale Yarborough, which I forgot to make any reference to, was the tangle with Sam McQuagg.
Which, if you’ve not seen, I’m not going to spoil it. I’ll just leave you with, you know, with an encouragement to find the link in the description of the pod here. Um, the line I always liked was when Cale was interviewed after the incident. He said, I felt like an astronaut when I looked down and I saw grass, I knew I wasn’t in the racetrack anymore.
Really an awesome thing. So kale, right? The, uh, the retirement story. [00:37:00] I like this as well. He’s got four daughters. I probably told you this before, but the benefit of the podcast, um, he’s, he’s own one day, his daughters are just sitting around and he says, why aren’t you, why aren’t you riding those bikes or something like that?
And they’re like, Oh, the bikes are broken. And he’s like, well, why don’t you come and tell me that the bikes were broken out of fixed them. And they’re like, well, cause you’re never here. And that was the moment where he was like, huh, I’m going to retire. I’m going to be here. We should think is, is, I mean, it’s that NASA, it’s that story, which is so good.
The, you just want it to be true, even if it isn’t. And again, I don’t remember. where I heard or read that story. I may have even heard it from, um, there’s a, there’s a video on YouTube. I’ll put a link for it where it’s like a NASCAR reunion. It was filmed in 1998 and it’s really funny. And it’s when the legends have retired, but they’re still compus mentis [00:38:00] and, you know, they get on each other.
Um, you know, they talk about cheating. Um, it’s, it’s, I did watch a bit of that with Dale Earnhardt podcast. Oh, the Dale, the Dale Jr. podcast is different and Dale Jr. has done a thing about cheating. And this is, this, the Dale Jr. thing’s contemporary. This is from 20 years ago. So this has got, you know, this has got Cuckoo Marlin still being alive.
This has got Dick Brooks in it still being alive, you know, so it, it, it’s, uh, uh, you know, and it’s got Daryl Waltrip before the TV career. You know, very unfiltered, uh, like 40 14th version of Darryl Wal, which is, uh, which is uh, which is kind of cool. It’s not ex uh, it just, uh, yeah. Um, so the broken bicycle in the retirement.
Um, and, and my final kale story is the winning of the 19. So after this, he only does big events, right? But he, he’s ready to do the Daytona 500. ’cause obviously it’s a big [00:39:00] payday here in Pearson would would do it, right? The practice week, the car. He qualifies well. Poll. I think if the, if I had bins, the car, the car toileted totally, right?
They don’t have a car. The team do not have a car for the race. They’re casting around the sponsor is Hooters. Maybe a local Hooters restaurant might have a demonstration car. They do. They drive two hours to Tennessee or wherever, pick up the car. Toe it back and turn the car that was sitting outside of Hooters restaurant into the race car Which Cale then goes out and wins with.
Hooters being the restaurant where the chicks all wear tight tops. I know it for that very reason. No, I went to one with Mark Newton once very odd experience. Very. Oh, but [00:40:00] um, Because you know, everybody knows you’re like there for the tits The food is like mcdonald’s food for much higher prices. So that’s really that was a very odd experience.
Although everyone knows you’re there for the tits, you’ve got to like act like you’re not there for the tits. It’s very difficult when the food shit. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. If the food was good or if it was a pub, you could exist in a happy realm, but you weren’t just here for the tits. You were here for the beer.
Yeah, you can have what they call in physics a superposition, where you’re in, like, in quantum mechanics, where you’re in two states at once, yeah, so it’s not right, the question is understandable to ask in what orbit is the electron, but it is a silly question in a sense, because it’s in both orbits, it’s just they’re a different percentage of the time, when you actually stop and look.
So it’s like, how often are you perving? How often are you nomming your burger? Hopefully not nomming, hopefully not nomming [00:41:00] your taco. Exactly, exactly, nomming your taco. That is my quantum mechanics theory of hooters. Um, the um, well, also, what was the, what was the story you were telling? Oh yeah that reminds me of the story that they tell on, which if you haven’t watched the episode is one of the best 40 14th episodes for me.
I like the one where they are in James’s garage and he’s just chatting to James talking about the world, life, the universe and everything and it’s about a 25 30 minute episode and he talks about how he fucked his leg up and had the accident and I won’t tell the story because he should tell the story and he does it much better than I ever could and it’s a genuinely compelling piece.
James being the Bristolian mechanic that they predict the worst for us. The Bristolian guy who owns, yeah, who owns, um, uh, JLS Racing. Or like, well, he’s co owns, but he’s the main guy at JLS Racing in Bristol, yeah. Um, but the other one that they tell is where it’s Uh, Fagan and, um, the other northern guy that does bike, the elderly chap who [00:42:00] does, um, what’s his name?
He’ll come back to me. Um, who does, like, some of their foreign trips on dirt bikes and stuff. Tell me afterwards and I can dub it in. Cool. I’ll leave a space here. No, I’ve been doing that. I’ve been, like, interrupting myself whenever I’ve been factually incorrect. I’ve just interrupted myself and been like, you can do better than that.
I think it’s Mossie. Yeah. But, uh, he, um, they’re telling their stories about their best, their worst crashes and injuries that they’ve had. And Marcy tells a story about when they had, I think it was a Gixxer Thau, or one of the like, the big superbike launches back in the day. Uh, and they’d had it for a while and they’d done this stuff and basically they needed to, they, they were doing wheelie shots and they were like, they checked down the street and anyway, long story short, he fucked up and made a mistake and over wheelied it and basically dropped it on himself.
So, like, over wheelied, but like the photographer got and he said, if you’ve ever seen a shot of a jigsaw towel, like, with the rear number plate rubbing the floor, like, and an overdone [00:43:00] wheelie. That’s me because the photographer got the shot. Um, but then like the bike fell on him and obviously like cartwheeled down the street, smashed bits.
So outta him. And like they’ve only got, there’s only one of them, so they’ve got the bike, the UK press bike, and it’s now not fit for purpose , um, at least cosmetically. Um, so, uh, he ring, but they, they, he and the, the guy that they were out on the shoot with went to the pub. To debrief what the fuck are we going to do kind of conversation, um, and then one the genius idea to call the head of, I think it was the Crescent Suzuki or someone in like that.
So it was one of the motorsport teams that were running the bikes and he said, like, I’ve had this and he went, Oh, come on down. You can nick any bits you want. I got four of them in the, in the, in the garage. Oh, like you got boy, do I owe you some beers and uh, it gets fixed, but the whole episode is like a [00:44:00] 30 or 40 minute episode where they’re talking about the different injuries are worst injury I had was when I fucked my knee up at Donington.
You know, the time that’s there, um, the Thruxton, it was whenever you hear Fagan talk about racing at Thruxton, he always talks about how like the track’s super abrasive. It’s like you crash. It’s like being on sandpaper straight through your letters. And, like, that’s where he left, like, a bit of his kneecap, somewhere, on what, uh, church.
It’s, it’s out there somewhere, if you can, if you can find it. Um, it’s that, that sort of injury. Um, but the, the stories are really well told, and really compelling by two guys just chatting to each other. And Mossy’s story about bidding the, the superbike. And the over wheelie, um, had the same sort of like, you know, he said, you almost wouldn’t believe it, but there is that shot of me overwheeling it.
He said, that’s about half a second before it lands on me.[00:45:00]
Oh, it has been approved by the way. The spot ETF. ETH’s over 2, 500 now.
It’s that Monster Magnets song, isn’t it? I wanna get paid for being right. Look,
we are so smart. So how come we ain’t rich? You know, so we need to get fucking money now.
By the way, back onto Cars very briefly. So I will say this for the [00:46:00] pod. I’m gonna, I’ll give you an update now on the BMW. More things have gone wrong with it. Um, I’ve had enough of it. Oh, I knew it was going. I listened back to episode 14 and I could, I could tell. I’ve got to get rid of it. And like, you know, it’s, it’s too many things now.
The latest one is, it went in for a service because it needed a service. But it went in for the MOT first and it got the wash wipe motor had died. Uh, and the, the warranty that they sold me. At the dealership which Which also overlapped with the bmw warranty one, which is a bit sus It seems to me because when I called up bmw and said I need to renew your warranty They went.
Oh, you can’t because the other one’s running. I suddenly thought i’ll put on the phone I went. Oh, okay. That’s nice of them to tell that be honest And then i thought hold on a second Well, in which case the dealer sold me concurrent warranties from the start So someone’s fucked up here But the latest issue is none of those the latest issue is someone has taken the cover off the amplifier for some reason um, and then glued it back, so In the rain recently, [00:47:00] water has got into the amplifier and wrecked it, so I wouldn’t have known that except for the fact that I was driving along one day and about 120 decibels worth of scream started coming from the speakers for about 20 seconds and then it would stop for about 20 seconds and then just carry on and there’s nothing you can do about it.
If you turn, stop the car off and turn it off and on, sometimes if you got out of the car that would stop, you know, so I got them to investigate that on the service. And they called up the d they called it the warranty and said, this is like 1500 quid, it’s screwed. And they went, ah, we don’t cover stereo equipment, so that’s not covered.
Um, so now I’m in a position where, and there’s a lit, you know, there’s so many other things. I mean, I’ve been making a list of all the things I’m gonna write to BMW about, ’cause I’m gonna write to them, I’m gonna put it back in their court and hopefully BMW being the standup company, they. They will say, look, we done you wrong.
You’ve been screwed over by this dealer. We’ll put this right. And I hope they do. And if they do, I will say on this podcast, what a standup, lovely job they did and what great people are. And everyone can get stitched up. These things happen. It’s bad [00:48:00] luck, but it’s about, I mean, I’m making a list. And so far the list is that of different things that have gone wrong.
The warranty, the reversing beep, the amp screaming, the wheels repainting, the air con, the cigarette light not functioning in the front, my vibrating brakes, the maps that I paid for won’t download into the car, the wash wipe pump has failed, failing the MOT, pushing it off the road for six months, and the stop start is disabled and can’t be turned back on, whether or not I want to, but will turn itself back on, randomly, and scare the shit out of you, here and there, and just stop start in the middle of town and you’re thinking, has the car just died?
And then when you put your foot back on, you take your foot off the clutch, you’ll put your foot back on the clutch kind of thing, it will then start back up again. But you can’t turn it off or on. How many miles is it wearing? 47? 42? I think it’s a 20 27? 17? It’s not old! Did you ever have it before like use it for track work?
I don’t know. Do they bang erase it? I mean, I just don’t know what the heck. I [00:49:00] lost. So I mean, look, you know, I, I don’t think this is a representative, you know, it says I go on to the BW page today to find the warrant, the, the, uh, the email to complain to. And I thought this is good. And then I thought, I’ll say, I better like make sure I’ve not forgotten stuff.
And all the way through the afternoon again. Oh yeah. Mustn’t forget that. Oh yeah. There was that as well. I mean, I can’t, I try and be a decent bloke. I can’t sell this car on in this state. I’m going to have to get this stuff fixed one way or the other because it’s not right. You know, I can’t just be that asshole.
Well, I’ll just be honest with, with a dealer because one way or the other, but I can’t take a bath on this. But I bought this used approved from BMW and I bought the warranty that they told me to. And it’s been on the other reason it’s been off the road. And I ran out of BMW warranties cause my wife got cancer and I couldn’t get this stuff fixed because I needed to be out and about and I didn’t have time to have the car away.
I couldn’t be away. And have the car away at the dealer because I had no one to drop me down and pick it up. And the dealer, the nearest dealer in Hungerford don’t give you loan cars. So you have to go over there and either get a train back and then a cab from, or walk four, five miles back from the station to here, which I have done on one [00:50:00] occasion.
Or so, you know what I mean? It was just an absolute nightmare. You know, with Angie, with the hip operations and the cancer and all, I just didn’t have to, I just have to run the, the, uh, the ever reliable. Fiesta, and thank the heavens for Ford, loving the blue oval as ever, and think, I can’t believe this Stuttgart shit.
Like, what is going on? Um, Munich, sorry. Um, so yeah, I’m sure they’ll put it right, and I’m going to write to them and put it right, and I will update on what they have to say. Um, but, uh, it’s got to go, because You know, it’s like, I can’t have that sort of thing. Like, my niece is, is, is, is a tremulous lass.
She’s been in the car. It’s screaming, like, no, like, the car’s got a monster in it. You know, it’s like, I can’t. And I was driving home when I had, I literally had to stop several times to get out and just let my ears stop ringing. And when I drove it over there the other day to get the service done, I put, I put earplugs in.
The sort of, the sort of, like, waxy ones that you can shove right into your ears to really block. And it was still agony to drive it over there. Um, so I, I, it’s, I don’t [00:51:00] trust it anymore. So hopefully they’ll put it right, but, and then, you know, I may buy another BMW, but at the moment, my, my, my thinking around what I will likely buy is from Toyota, which is not something I would have thought of that way when I said, and he’s a Yaris, which is very much not the Yaris my mom’s just bought.
Um, but I like the idea of a Yaris GR with the track pack. Yeah. Those things are beasts. So yeah, I’m going to trial it. But yeah, anyway, so we’ll see. Cause I mean, look, if BMW come back and sort me out and do right by me, I will not do the rest of the content else. I would wait and see what happens with BMW, but otherwise I would go into a Toyota dealership and just trade it because the reality is, right?
I watch these, you know, that Chop’s Garage guy or I watch this guy, um, Car UK, this bloke Lee up in Crewe. Um, you know, they have a business where they buy cars cheap, [00:52:00] figure out what they need, do that work. And sell the car and they sell the car for market value. So you might buy a Nissan Qashqai for 700 pounds at the auction, but you might have to put 1300 pounds into it doing work that you or I would consider unnecessary, respraying a bumper, you know, fitting, refitting, you know, doing the rust around the, no, because the person who’s buying a sub 5, 000 car in North Devon.
where chops does it that person it’s a new car no true yeah it’s back on they need it to look nice it’s their only car they need it they need it to look nice they need to have a new car and so there’s and and the point about so you would say well these guys are just i used to feel like Dealers just tart the car up, but what Lee and and chops James do is [00:53:00] not that at all.
Yeah, they do the aesthetic stuff because that’s what customers need, but they’ll also do you know They’ll also rust proof the shit out of it to quote Lee, you know Because what you want is the customer to leave And tell his friends. Yeah. You run a business in the town. You want them to come back. Yeah.
Verbal, verbal recommendations. That’s, that is, that is, they are king. And, and, and that’s, and, and so the other thing is, is consumer law in, in Britain is very different from here. Here, they can sell you a vehicle as is. You know, which means that, you know, when you drive off the lot, if the engine falls out at the end of the block, it’s on you.
Whereas in Brinton, you have six months like consumer protection. You, you, you know, in the first 30 days, you can return the car. No questions asked to a dealer. You know, if you, so the, the [00:54:00] level of, of consumer, so what that means is if you, so for guys like, you know, what Lee and James both do is sub five grand.
Um, economy cars, right? And the reason that they won’t touch stuff like BMWs or Jaguars is that they have no, I, that thing could lunch an expensive component at any time. Right. And they just can’t be on the hook for that because it would just suck all the margin out of that car because. By the time you’ve put 13 grand into that, you’ve put, you know, you bought, you paid 700 for the cash car.
You put 1, 300 in bodywork, servicing, you know, you maybe put brakes on it. You probably put tires on it because, you know, it has some mismatched, terrible ones on it. You just, you just made it not just look like a decent car, actually be a decent car. Right. At that point, it’s going out the door for two and a half grand or something like that, which feels like a ripoff.
You only paid [00:55:00] 700 for it. And that’s what you and I are thinking, Jesus, you know, what’s he really done to it? I could have changed the oil and changed the spark plugs myself, but, and you know, and I didn’t need the body work, but the point is the customer, their customers demand the complete package. You know, you or I could go to one of the auctions they go to and pay 700 and roll the dice.
I’d be ready to do that if I was not, you know, when I came to England, I wasn’t buying a car that I needed to like just work, ski and work, ski and work, ski and not break down. Yeah. Um, yeah. Anyway, so, um, But dude, like, so we’ll, we’ll see. I mean, it’s, I mean, I forgot you were talking about the Southwest, but yeah, there’s definitely a market down there for that.
Absolutely. That’s a reasonable amount of money to invest in a car. And if you’re getting a car that only costs 10 start with, it’s not that old a car. You know, it’s um, so you want it to be decent, theoretically, um, a sub five crown could be quite a reasonably newish car, you know, not depending on the price of the car.
So, yeah, absolutely. And, and, and what you’re, you know, what people look for, isn’t it? They just want something that can [00:56:00] run them around a little bit. Yeah, but they want to impress the neighbors with their nice shiny wheels. Yeah, exactly. Which is why, you know, the attitude that, that you and I take where, you know, I just am astonished that the Lee particularly, it’s just been an eyeopener for me, how just the more body works stuff, the more work you have to put into it, the more it hurts the car.
So, you know, years ago when I. Crack when that Volvo did a timing chain, nobody wanted it because nobody wanted to do an engine swap on it because the bodywork was not good. I was like, what do you mean the body? What’s the bodywork got to do with it? Like, either you’re going to do the engine or you’re not like, why is the bodywork got anything to do with it?
Well, the body was got everything to do with it because the bodywork is where the value of the car lies for most people. Most of the time. Yeah, no, we’re going to be on to that E55, right? Because that is the classic example of something that can be driven. You know, I put 1500 miles [00:57:00] on it through pebble time.
It wore those miles brilliantly. But like it just needs so much money spending on it. Cosmetically, like off the top of my head, tires, which obviously it needs all four, they’re bloody expensive. Rust around the sunroof, big hole, many cracks in windshield. Um, I mean, just that right is probably more than a thousand dollars, right?
Definitely more than a thousand dollars there. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, enough of this depressing stuff about German cars. Yes, that don’t work. No. Henry Seagrave. Sir. Henry Seagrave. The first man to do 200 miles an hour. The first vehicle to do 200 miles an hour. The Irving Napier Sunbeam, also known as the thousand horsepower Sunbeam.
Um, the National Motor Museum are doing this big thing at the moment to make it run again. The last time it ran, it has two 22 [00:58:00] and a half liter V12 Sunbeam aero engines. The last time it ran, they only got one working. It like potted around Brooklyn’s or Silverstone or something. Bit lame o. Plan to do.
plan to raise a bit more money, plan to bring it out to Daytona and run it on the beach at Daytona with both engines. Cool. Yes. I approve. Awesome. Yeah, I totally agree with that. Speaking of which, that is pretty cool. They’re fundraising. Oh, are they? I’m going to mute you there. And they’re fundraising at the moment.
And I’m going to add the link. Go to the National Motor Museum website. Contribute. Be involved. Um, super. I am super enthusiastic. Um. Definitely. Um, I was only looking for, like, the, uh, the, uh, the members meeting this year at Goodwood is celebrating Can Am. Wow. [00:59:00] I’m quite looking forward to that. Wow. Um, yeah.
Yeah. Um All Chevy big blocks, right? So it’s, it’s a bit like formula one in the period where there’s one motor and then you sort of build round that one motor and it’s who can build the best mousetrap and, and the McLarens really were it until the Porsche 917. You understand them, the mutant Porsche 917 that was first the 917 10, then the 917 30, 917 30 is the.
1300 horsepower, lap Talladega at 244 mile an hour, ended the Can Am series jobby. It’s like Porsche, Porsche doesn’t, didn’t just build tanks in the second world war. They demolished a whole motor racing series. Um, yeah, the, the interesting Can Am for me, well, no, the interesting Can Am generally is, is just that mixed field, right?
Cause it [01:00:00] was shadow It was McLaren, it was Shadow, um, it was Surtees, it was Stewart, it was, you know, really, uh, uh, a cool, um, period of, of motorsport. Um, I’m just going to go and check on the hound. Hang on a sec. Yeah, cool. I’ll check on the missus. She’s gone to bed.[01:01:00]
Electric news. Um, I’m kind of obsessed by electric bikes. We’ve sort of touched on this before. I’m obsessed by the crossover between a mountain bike. A street bike, a motorcycle, a moped, uh, I feel like a scooter. All of the definitions of being blurred. We talked about that Honda motor Campo thing before, but that’s sort of not what I’m talking about here.
And I’m not talking about these sort of scooters, these like, um, like, like a. When I say, I’m not talking about, there’s a difference between scooters, which are great for like mobility, like sub 15 miles an hour, like between the tube and your office kind of thing, the underground and your office, the Metro in [01:02:00] your office, or, you know, if you live in a apartment building, and you’re just going to go down to the ground floor and just Pop out to a restaurant and grab some food and come back again.
You know, the scooter is the perfect solution for that on the sidewalk, off the sidewalk, that kind of thing. Um, but right there is what I want to talk about is this legal gray area. Right. And, and I want to say that there’s kind of two, there’s, and I feel like the machines are, you know, the reality is if you buy a decent mountain bike at the moment, a decent electric mountain bike, that is more capable than a dirt bike.
And can be ridden like a dirt bike and I had this thought and then I was at the school pick up. I was at the school drop off and I’m at the line sitting there in the Mustang looking down the hill watching the traffic come up the hill and the traffic stopped and then splitting lanes coming to the front lane is a guy on an electric mountain bike.
He’s wearing a dirt bike helmet and dirt bike armor and he’s sitting at the [01:03:00] lights. He split lanes and away from the lights, he picks up the front wheel and whips up past me. He’s not upsetting anybody. It took place absolutely silently. And I’m like, Oh yeah. Now we were walking the other day out. Um, my wife and I, and, uh, there’s some dude like on an electric mountain bike, who’s like riding.
He’s not, um, pedaling at all. He’s just riding around at motorcycle speeds, but on and off the sidewalk and, you know, on the, on, you know, around the park and, and, you know, uh, This without any kind of armor or head protection whatsoever. So I feel like the technology is very, very exciting. It’s very, very wild west and we are entering a new.
era of head trauma and [01:04:00] rundown pedestrians, the like of which we’ve not seen since, you know, the boom in motorcycles in the 19, you know, in the, in the early teens and then in the 20s, and then in the post war period, you know, I, I feel it’s because, because these things. are motorcycles. They perform like motorcycles and they need to be ridden like motorcycles.
Yet they look like bikes and can be bought like bikes and psychologically people think of them as pedal bikes and they are a different class of vehicle.
Electric scooters are particularly, you know, incite vitriol and anger in a way that, um, [01:05:00] other modes of transport don’t. The thing with the scooters was the scooters were so badly introduced was that the scooters never should have been allowed to just litter the streets in the way that they were. That was, was outrageous.
And, and in cities where much of the population is, is hurting for income to see these hundreds of dollars worth of scooters scattered on the streets. And for it to be, like, just VC money that was pissed up the wall, that was offensive. Like, that was offensive to me. I don’t know if they, if other people thought maybe that was a very, sort of, valley kind of perspective.
But it seemed to me it illustrated the grotesque Silicon Valley waste, that they were ready to, like, have these scooters and just watch them be destroyed on the streets, on the off chance that there might be some kind of a different, Urban mobility model here that [01:06:00] was bird went bust. They were valued at two and a half billion 18 months ago or something ridiculous, the scooter people.
Um, they, they were the ones that I was, uh, I was reveled that I was where they pulled out of this market. Um, yeah, it’s a shame. Communal scooters, communal mopeds, brilliant idea, but nobody can seem to get the business model, right. Or at least they haven’t yet.
No. Um, No, it’s, and it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting because that is huge change with age and stuff as well. So that, you know, the younger folks seem to be happier with it. So therefore, you know, um, I mean, I’ve no problem. I like the idea of like electric scooters zipping around to do stuff and does sort of, you know, take volume off the road.
It takes weight off the road. It takes energy out of the cycle because it takes less energy to move you from one place to another. It’s more convenient. Um, so I’m going to see lots of [01:07:00] upsides to it, but you’re absolutely right. Most people treat scoot. There’ll be plenty of people, uh, who get back on a scooter.
Who’s electric scooter. Who’s last scooter was the little two wheel push along variety. They rode along the pavement when they were like seven and sort of have been them head that they’re a sort of more convenient version of the same thing, and those people will still be thinking that in a and E. Um, yeah, I, Ollie, Ollie and I followed a guy.
On a scooter who was on the sidewalk and off the sidewalk and he jumped off the sidewalk like without looking at no, like, you know, the motorcycle test in England, the lifesaver, no lifesaver. He just like jumped off. And, and, what, this is, it’s on me that he doesn’t throw himself under the wheels of my Mustang, like, what, what’s going on?
He obviously had no helmet or anything. It’s really, uh Well, exactly, you know, yeah, uh, yeah. I mean, there are some people who complain or don’t ride. pushbikes with a [01:08:00] lid. And I mean, I sort of understand, I have a sort of inherent sympathy with being allowed to do what you want in most circumstances, but you are a dickhead if you don’t think you’re going to hurt yourself more badly if you fall off without a lid.
Yeah. I mean, it’s a big deal in the States, isn’t it? That some States are non helmet laws and others are a helmet law, helmet States. And, and, um, you know, my position has shifted on it in that I do think it’s personal choice. Um, but I’d be very angry with Ollie if he ever rode without one. Yeah, I’m alright with him riding up and down the street on his pedal bike without a helmet.
Not really, but I’m not going to be like, Ollie, put your helmet on. You know, I’m like If I, if I get out and I get down the hill, if I, if I get out and I start riding my pedal bike and I realize the wind’s in my hair and I’ve forgotten my helmet, which I sometimes do still, um, I’m not going to turn around and go back and get it.
But having said that, I can’t remember the last time I rode [01:09:00] any kind of bike without a helmet. And once you’ve fallen off a motorbike, you realize how much it hurts and how much there’s not much give in the time. And how much it just spoils all the fucking fun. If you can, like, fall off and not be hurt, that’s not, like, sissy, that’s, you can get on and carry on with the game.
Yeah, exactly, like, yeah, let’s not fucking spoil the game, and also spoil the game for the other road users, like, you know, you might be comfortable riding your Harley like an asshole with no helmet on, um, with your denim jacket protection, like, but when you hit the front of my F 150, you’re dead, and now I’ve got to live with that, whereas if you’d had a lid on and a back protector, you might have been alright.
Yeah, that’s how I felt about this numpty high schooler jumping off the kerb in front of me in the Mustang. Yeah, so I don’t want to have to live with your death because you’re a dickhead. Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, it’s [01:10:00] still up on the roads is the answer, isn’t it? Um, yeah, it is. Did you watch the, about this, uh, Johnny Smith, just talking about the, you know, late break show talking about this Volvo EX 30 electric car.
Um, yeah, I can’t remember. It was a while back. What was, um, He was like, it’s a mile. He was like, it’s a, he feels it’s a milestone car. He feels that in terms of size, shape, and price, it’s a milestone car. I couldn’t get past the first five minutes of the video because I’m just like, it’s just boring. I’m not knocking the Volvo.
It might be a great, I, I, I just, I didn’t see anything in the, I guess what really put me off was it has a quartic wheel, which is, I know like Allegro, right? I just like, just. The steering wheel needs to spin in your hands. It’s like fundamental. I did what I’m looking at it now. I did watch some of it. I think I remember the Mr.
Men [01:11:00] in Mr. Do you remember the Mr. Men in, in, in, uh, uh, there’s one where it’s nonsense land and it’s the nonsense cup and, and, uh, And the character, I can’t remember Mr what his name is, but he’s desperately trying to think of something to win the competition. And he thinks back to other competitions. And one of the other competitions was a car that had square wheels.
That was one of the other winners of the most ridiculous thing of the year, like the ridiculous cup, right? It’s really, and you’re going to tell me the steering wheel is going to be square. So did you have an opinion about the
I found the whole thing somewhat dull. I find his reporting style slightly too dry for me. It’s a little bit like not engaging. It’s like he’s like reading out someone’s else opinions on occasion. Um, but. I mean, look, it didn’t excite me. I don’t like it. Well, I think there is other opinions that he’s [01:12:00] made notes on.
I think that’s his way of doing. Well, fair enough. I mean, I like, you know, fair play to him. But like, you know, it’s it’s I don’t find them the most engaging videos from that particular from the late break show. Um, and I didn’t find it’s one of those ones where generally speaking, electric cars need to offer for me something special.
To differentiate to see why I would want it because that’s what I want from all cars. Um, and that doesn’t offer anything. That is like a vanilla piece of bland sponge cake and they’re trying to be that and they’re trying to be efficient and slightly edgy with the design. The design doesn’t particularly excite me.
Um, and it from the side on, it’s slab white, might as well be a kitchen appliance, you know, um, Yeah, but all of these modern SUVs are like that, aren’t they? Yeah, I know, but that’s why I don’t want an SUV. You know, why do I want more car than I need? I feel bad, part of the reason I buy small cars is because like, I’m, even though I’m buying a performance version of them, I admit, it’s because at least I’m moving less metal around the place.
So, you know, the idea of some of the electric cars where they’re trying to be [01:13:00] small and super light and use that power to wait to give you an exciting drive. Okay, cool. I can see that. Um, if it’s going to be a big chunky car, where’s my 700 mile range? Cause you’ve got tons of batteries that hasn’t got that.
So it’s, where’s my special thing? And I’m looking for something to deliver me a bit of additional value out of it. And it isn’t that when I episode one, and also what the shit, I don’t need that sort of ugly piece of crap family car to do five seconds to 60. What is the point in that? I don’t understand why all these people want thousands of horsepower and they want that.
Big ugly sedan to do naught to 60 in like three seconds. What is the point in that? You’re putting ridiculous performance supercar performance into the hands of people who have no idea how to use it And will kill themselves off the line. That’s why there’s so many accidents in that way because you know, these people have Dragstrip performance and the fastest thing they’ve ever owned before is like, you know, have you not have you not found that the traffic like Grand Prix against the Tesla Rati is they zip away from you [01:14:00] being like, I’ll beat you in your Mustang whilst you’re like, grinding up through the gears, right?
And then they’re like, run out of steam at a speed which You know, I find there’s a certain speed in California that I am ready to go far beyond that most people are like, Oh, whoops, that’s too fast for me. Well, I mean, I can understand both sides of that argument. And I would say, you know, it’s gixxers, right?
Gixxers just spoil you. Motorbikes spoil you for any of that sort of stuff. I mean, like, there’s a time and place for all of that. And my point is, is, is that, you know, the traffic light Grand Prix, when you can pull away at what was hitherto 100, 000 pound car to get you into that class. For most people, it’s a cheap thrill.
Yeah, it’s like, oh, have you seen my 06? Great. But like, are you actually, have you done anything else in another performance car? Because now you’re approaching that next bend [01:15:00] that you usually tour around at, at enthusiast speeds. And if you aren’t an enthusiast and used to placing your car properly, that Tesla is not going to save you.
Yeah, no, no. And, and you’re also crashing something that’s very heavy, aren’t you? So yeah, yeah, I, I, I’d actually not thought about this angle before of putting performance into, um, people who, into the hands of people. I like the idea of it. I like the idea of emancipating that and why not have like that sort of like, top Trump figure for your, for your sedan.
Cool. You know, they’re already talking about, I saw an article the other day about how they’re thinking about that tarmac might not be the future and they might need to go back to concrete roads because the electric vehicles will be too heavy and therefore in the hotter summers, they’ll just sink into the tarmac.
And therefore, we need to go back to having expansion joint concrete because it can actually take the weight better and therefore that we might have to, you know, when the roads are replaced, go back to a harder road material because, you know, which is I think [01:16:00] less grippy as well. Um, so you might have to go back to that because the vehicles are just so heavy with the battery packs in them.
Um, now, look, maybe the battery technology gets ahead, you know, processing certainly has kept ahead in those sort of Moore’s law kind of way. So. It hasn’t been there yet, but I’m hopeful. Um, yeah, let’s see. So on the subject of heavy electric cars that kind of do do it or not, maybe not your 700 mile range, but the 500 mile range.
Uh, Lucid, um, I drove one, well, it even inspired me to start doing this. That must have been a year, 18 months ago, maybe even longer than that now. But the, uh, the point is that I’m making that they are short of money. At the moment they are arguably
Well, I think what they stand or fall on now is whether they were backed by saudi money And it’s really it’s whether you want to they want to carry on putting their hands in their pockets or not to [01:17:00] continue You know, um them developing that the product I, the product I experienced really did feel like a next generation Mercedes S Class.
Whether what’s being put in the hands of consumers was the same as the particular model that I drove because it seems to me that they do different editions and it seems to me that these electric makers even better than the legacy makers are really good at like de contenting. Like you. The Breeze New Tesla is a nice place to be.
The Basie ones, they’re like a McDonald’s. But yet, the overall look is the same. And, you know, to a casual observer, there’s not that much, there’s not that much difference. It’s, it’s difficult, isn’t it? Because like, you know, a really nice S Class place to be, cool. But how many Mercedes S Classes are they selling?
And is the S Class on its own? Making money, or is it being supported by the E and the C and the M’s and all the [01:18:00] AMG, you know, how much is it? I, I would be surprised if the S didn’t make money. You know what I mean though? But like they, the others haven’t. Part of the reason, part of the reason why you buy a Mercedes S class is because it’s a Mercedes S class and you’re getting the s because of all the other people who’ve got the A and the AEs and the Cs and the, you know, and the A.
But not even that. Wherever you go in the world, the three pointed star has a unique Yeah, there, there’s just no, there’s, it has badge swag, doesn’t it? It has badge swag, but more than that, the Mercedes S Class is like the place to be chauffeured, isn’t it? It’s the car of diplomats and kings and presidents, you know, it has that kind of, yeah, yeah, for sure.
So I, however great I felt the Lucid product was, yeah, it just shows how hard it is to find traction. Maybe, you know, maybe we should be crediting, um, the Muskinator for actually being able to. You know, create a commercially [01:19:00] successful product. I mean, for sure. I think he definitely does deserve like some, some credit for that.
Um, where I can’t verbally give him that credit without offering on the other hand, the fact that he’s, you know, product developing on the road with people’s lives as crash test dummies. Um, and I feel that’s a bit well of an asshole move.
I’d agree. So, yeah. Um, but yeah, you know, yin yang, um, uh, pivoting, um, a couple of thoughts I’ve had recently, just, you know, just apropos, uh, nothing just, uh, in the weeks, uh, since we last spoke. Um, the Jaguar Mark two, the the Jaguar Mark one, the Jaguar sedan, the, the everybody knows, um, came with a three [01:20:00] point where 2.
4 liter straight six, 3. 4 liter straight six, 3. 8 liter straight six. Right? So the same block as the Lamar winners, um, but with, you know, different carburation and heads and impression and, uh, and, and all of that. Um, you In its sort of peak form, so in like the, the, the 3.8, you know, manual transmission form, properly tuned.
That was like a 220 horse car. Obviously that would endow it with, even with, you know, the four speed overdrive transmission at the time. That would still, that would. Endow it with what? A hundred twenty, a hundred twenty five mile an hour top speed. Now I need you to compare that with anything else that you could get [01:21:00] in Britain at that time.
Other fast cars at the time, they could breed three liter, 130 horse.
Like anything like an alpha sud or a golf GTI. These guys, this is like a hundred and change. If you’re lucky, a lot of them are sub escort Mexico’s like 90 horsepower or something. How often did you see a Capri three liter when we were young? Never. No, I’m not saying there were a lot of Mark two Jags around when, when we were young, but they were still enough that you could have picked them up cheap.
Banger, that rusty banger. If it was a manual transmission 3. 8 car, or some people preferred the 3. 4’s because apparently they revved higher, that was still a meaningfully fast car. Way faster. Then anything else. And I think I almost, I like want to pay tribute to the Jaguar mark two as being just that much of a [01:22:00] BMW M five.
Like not just a little bit of a E39 M five, like a total E39 M five, like way faster than anything else. Nothing came close. You know, 10 years later, it was still slaughtering everything else. The Capri, the Capri two way only had 160 horse, alpha GTV, 170. Sierra Cosworth less probably two, two Oh three, wasn’t it?
Two Oh five with the, with the, uh, you know, I mean, I’m just saying that you mock to Jack. Bloody fast car. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.[01:23:00]
I’ve been collecting scratch built slot cars. So, as you know, my son has Scalextric. Obviously, you have the CR Cosworths, and the Capris, and the Camaros, and the Mustangs, and the Formula One, all of that. It’s the Group C cars. That’s what we’ve been doing recently. But, um, and I think I’ve talked on the pod before about the difference between the motor that sits in line in the chassis.
And I has a drive shaft to the rear axle or the ones where the motor sits right on the rear [01:24:00] axle and the pinion drives a gear, which is right by one of the rear wheels. If that makes sense, there’s those ones where, so you think of it, the difference is the axle with all the weights at the back, so it compromises the handling, but the direct drive, there’s less of a power loss.
Um, so, you know, it, it, it, it’s, uh, um, the, the preferred position for racing is the, is surprisingly a compromise between the two, an angle, and they literally call them angle winders. And then you have to have a, have like a special back axle that has a pinion gear that, that, that has a gear that’s cut in a certain way.
Um, it, well, so are these. Scratch built models like these are home built. This is where somebody’s like, got a motor, soldered together some wire, um, you know, and then put the leads on and, and, uh, you know, and it’s created the thing absolutely from, from nothing. Um, and then you [01:25:00] can do Lexan bodies and you can buy stickers to do the, the proper, the proper livery.
Um. I’ve really enjoyed this sort of new element of the hobby. It’s almost irrelevant that most of them don’t work. Some of them do work, but most of them don’t work. And, and frustratingly, one of the ones I bought, the motor doesn’t seem to work, but the chassis of the car is the housing of the motor. If that makes sense.
The motor is not separate. The rotor was mounted in that there was one casting, which is mostly the body of the chassis of the car, but at the back has a shape which allows you to hold the motor and a pair of magnets to create the most. It’s really a fascinating design that, of course, I can’t hope to fix marvelous.
Hi, Mark. I [01:26:00] appreciate your time. Goomy. All right. We’ll take it easy, buddy. You too. Ciao. Ciao. This episode has been brought to you by Grand Touring[01:27:00]
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