Andrew Robinson: My Dad never sold his cars, he just let them rot on the drive. Rolls Royce, BMW 6 series, Alfa Romeo, My Brothers Beach Buggy S7E6

Welcome to my Doc Scar.

Welcome to My DataCard. Podcast discussion of personality automatically. And you know what? It doesn't even have to be about your data card. It could be your mom, your grand, your dad. Or even if it made an impression, let's talk about it.

Afternoon. Okay. What's for lunch? Um, it's more of a snaff at this stage. Yeah, I've literally just come in the door, so fair enough.

Now guys. Do I need makeup? Oh, is it actually going to be video as well? Is this just purely for you?

No, this is purely for just so we can see each other. I've kept all of these videos purely for um nostalgia purposes. So personal use. If it it could become like the Lost Beatles tapes or something in 50 years' time. But cool. Um cool. Okay. So for the benefit of the tape, we're joined by Andrew Robinson, who um I think you've been listening for quite a while, haven't you? And you got in touch with us.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Right from the very start. Okay, cool. Yeah, you got in touch with us, and then we met you at Goodwood, I think.

Yeah.

We did sort of a quick record with you for literally for five minutes, didn't we? At the end of one of our live episodes at the NEC.

That's right, yeah.

And for probably a year we've been saying let's sit down and have a proper chat.

Yeah, sure.

And today is the day. Excellent. So um before we jump into this, I guess anything you do some stuff with sporting bears, don't you? Do you want to give some people a shout out? Tell people where they can find you.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So yeah, Sporting Bears Motor Club. So um it's a members' club uh where we basically try to raise money for children's charities. So we're not charity ourselves, but we'll go to various events and with the members' cars, whether it be classic cars or sports cars or whatever, take opportunities out for rides in them for a small donation to the children's charities. We always work with local children's charities where we can. Obviously, NEC, we do quite a few different charities there. And things like Carfest as well. Yeah, yeah. And hopefully towards the end of the year, it should be getting close to around about four million pounds raised that way. Wow. But we also do other events as well. So, for instance, in the summer, we'd have an event where we have ten of the members go down to Goodwood, they borrow ten brand new Rolls Royces from Rolls Royce themselves, bring them back to London, stay at one of the uh hotel in London, we'll invite um ten families from different churches around the country that we support. Uh, we'll be joined by the special escort group. So these are the police motorbike outriders, and basically we'll usually have around about six to eight of them motorbikes. We will then take the ten families in the ten cars, road drive across London.

Oh wow.

Obviously, with that escort means they're going through red light, wrong side of the road, a full state visit all around London, west end of London, everywhere. So it will try stops, passenger stops, just purely for this. We'll then land and we'll go to a certain place. So, for instance, the last few years it's the Tower of London. So the Tower of London has been closed, and we will then have a special tour around the Tower of London from the families um for that day, and then obviously then drive them back to the hotel and they stay overnight at the hotel.

Brilliant.

It's fantastic. My little part in that is I just do some videoing for them. Okay. But yeah, it is a wonderful trip and what have you.

So fantastic. It's the only way to get around London.

Exactly, yeah.

An escort.

Yeah, yeah, no, without doubt. So and it's uh the thing about it is it's actually some really good friends raised for it. So you've got friends for life from doing it. You know, we we'll see each other in different ways and what have you. You know, and and whatever car they drive is irrelevant. It makes no difference whether you know we've got people with beganis or Ferrari and is it's irrelevant. They're all all good friends together regardless.

Yeah. We've just um I've just finished an edit actually for chap called Gary Hander, who I think's doing some stuff with sporting bears at the moment. Yes, exactly. So he's a few episodes ahead of you, but um Yeah Yeah, similar sort of thing, but yeah, very worthy cause. So um yeah.

Yeah, no, Gary's a great guy. I've again I've known him for for must be ten years now with through the sporting bears. So he's a fantastic chap, yeah.

Okay, well, um yeah, without further ado then, um, what's your earliest car memory?

Well, I've got a few. I'm not I'm I'm actually tempted to do this one. Crash in my own car? Now, let me explain this one. Pedal car. When I was a kid, when I was young, I very good. I had a I'm gonna say, is it a J the other cars you see at Goodwood? The pedal cars. Are they J40s? J40s, that's it. So I had one of those. By the way, how they managed to race those at Goodwood, I have no idea. They are bevy cars. Okay. But yes, I managed to crash that into a lamppost and smashed all the headlights in that off it, in my view. So it got repaired, but it was never the same again, I've got to say. So that's that's one of my first earlier memories.

Nice.

Um, one thing I'm gonna add is that my dad did quite well as a dentist. Okay, so these are gonna be quite some nice cars you're gonna mention. Doesn't necessarily mean they were actually in really good condition or they were really worth an awful lot of money. But again, one of my earliest menumers is is going down with my brother, uh, my late brother, and he took me down to the garage, and in there there was a Mercedes 300 SEL. Obviously, I sort of found out. Cool. So it's a bit like obviously, you know, the the grocer. So it was the the early 70s, obviously not a grocer. It was a long wheelbase, but it was nowhere near that size, one of those things. But all the windows and things like that were all hydraulics.

Oh wow.

And I remember him waking up like early in the morning with Timmy Tanker and showing me all these windows going up and down and what have you. But because it was like a gobs match, so just like wow, it's this it's like magic how this works. Yeah, I vague, I vaguely remember you know things like that. But yeah, there's a there's a few sort of memories at that sort of point that I you know I go back to.

But was your dad firmly into vehicles based on that sort of choice?

Yes, you know what? He was, he wasn't a strong petrol head, but he you know he did have some nice cars in the 60s and what have you, he's very much a Mercedes before there were a few Mercedes dealerships, you know, in the country. So um, you know, he had a few Mercedes and then about 71 or 72, he moved over to BMWs.

Oh right.

And this is great because I've actually got all a lot of handwritten notes from him of what cars, how much he paid for them, how much he sold them for.

Okay, yeah, yeah.

But yeah, so uh he he he actually had that's one of my dream cars, he had a BMW three-litre CSI, not CSL. Okay. So this was like the coupe version of an E9? Yeah, yeah. He had that briefly, but then he then sold that and got a well, he went to the saloons, which is what we're called an E3. So this was like the equivalent to a seven series before there were seven series.

Yeah, yeah.

And so he had those for a number of years, really.

What was his um what do you think his criteria was when choosing those cars? Was he looking for prestige or was he looking for a vehicle of a certain size, or did it need to carry, I guess, you and your brother, or and perhaps your mum as well, or are you going away in it? What was his thoughts, do you think?

It was the Yorkshireman. He wanted value. He didn't mind how much the car cost as long as he thought he was getting a bargain. Okay. I mean, prime example of this one. This is quite an interesting one. So the the BMWs he starts off with the CSI, which is a coupe version of the saloon. If you again imagine six series versus seven series sort of scenario. And I've got in all this paperwork, that CSI, look at the coupe, he basically sold that for um effectively five thousand pounds. But he traded it in for another saloon with a you know similar engine and what have you, and then got two and a half thousand pounds back from it as well. So even then, the coupes were worth more double than the saloon version was. And I think you just saw, well, hang a minute, no matter about the kids and what have you, I've not really running a car that's worth that much money. I'd rather sell it and get some money back from it.

Yeah, it makes sense.

Another bargain. Around about the same time, he bought Rolls Royce. Now, don't get too excited, but this was a 1937 uh limousine. Okay. And he paid just 590 pounds for it. So we'd go out in family rides and what have you, but we were a bit like uh Mar and Par uh Larkin, really, in it. It was it was very much like that. So yeah, it did have some nice cars. He had a uh an Alpha Mayo Julia Sprint. Yeah, he lived in Spain for a while, so they basically it's the car they bought while they were living in Spain before I was born. And this was originally from the States, I think. It did ultimately bring it back over to the UK when we kind of moved back over. Um, but that was a nice car.

Yeah.

Again, unfortunately, quite typical for him. It was just left, it rotted, it must have disintegrated many, many years ago. So uh it's a shame. But no, no, no sort of set criteria. He just liked different cars that were unusual and what have you. Fortunately, he had a few garages, so pensive storage at home, basically. So cars would just go into the garage and he'd just use whichever car it was on the day really.

So the Rolls Royce, for example, that that was specifically bought, I'm presuming, as a toy rather than a Yeah, so yeah. Yeah, I guess uh alongside the BMW or whatever is his sensible. Yeah. And or was he driving to work or was he catching the train or no, no, no.

So he's up in near Doncaster, uh, so he's a dentist. So yeah, he was driving most days to work. Fortunately, he was able to manage it so that he actually got a lot of dentists who worked for him. Okay. So he would occasionally go into work if he felt like it, but uh didn't necessarily need to basically. Nice. But yeah, typically he would drive the E3 BMW to work. That said, my mum was actually running the businesses more than he was, really, at the time. So she'd be doing a lot of the trips, uh, going from the different dental practices and what have you, making sure that yeah, everything's collected and people were working correctly. And she had a 2002 BMW. Yeah. So again, this would be about 72, 73, yeah. Bright orange, I think they call it Inca Orange or something, I think it is. Okay. But yeah, bright orange. So she had that for a number of years, and that was great. We were in that more often because it was my mum's car, really, so it was a family car and what have you. But my dad, um, I think I mentioned this when we were at the NEC, my dad decided a few years later to actually change, well, he didn't actually change it, he kept it, but instead of her having the 2002 to get her a different car, and he actually got a Datson 240Z. Okay. Now, controversially, we as kids hated that car. It was horrible. I do appreciate them now, don't get me wrong. But we'd gone from the nice 2002 with Stereon, this big sunroof, things like that, to a very dark black, plastic y inside car and what it was cramped in the back and what have you. So as kids, we weren't impressed with it at all.

Was this another choice based on value, Andrew? I assume.

Well, I think I think it was. Uh unfortunately, I I've not got much record of it, so I don't know what his logic was for it, but I think maybe he he saw it and thought I sort of after car, but again, for whatever reason it wasn't really a value at that point. I don't know. Um again, he didn't have it for very long. He he sold it after a couple of years really. So again, maybe it was a little bit of a toy for a while. I don't know.

Do you recall where he was getting them from? I'm guessing he like obviously if he was after value, he wasn't buying these cars new, they were secondhand.

Mostly, yeah, or or nearly new. Okay. Basically, like they used like you know, like a year old things like that. No, did he buy one Merck in the early sixties? It actually went over two, Germany's had to pick it up then. But no, generally there were um used at dealerships. So obviously like BMW dealerships and things like that, he would get them from. But yeah, no, no, uh generally not not new. They were sort of a year older thereabouts.

Did he have any sort of mechanical know-how? Was it sort of thing he'd buy something which was maybe a little bit beaten up or leggy and then he'd do the work or none whatsoever.

He couldn't even wire a plug.

Okay.

So no, not at all. Not at all. Now, interesting, my brother, he was very mechanically minded, and he's probably been more of an influence on cars than my dad was, really. Okay. Because my brother's first car was a beach buggy.

So your brother was older than you, I'm presuming.

Yes, yeah, five years older than me. Okay. I say sadly he no longer with us, he was he was killed in an accident. But his first car and his only car was a beach buggy, and therefore that's where my love of beach buggies has now come from, basically.

Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, he um he was quite lucky because sort of in his early 20s, he actually moved back to my dad's parents' divorce. We were living at my mum's, etc. So, yes, his car was a beach buggy, but he actually also had access to my dad's cars there as well. Oh, for running around, yeah, yeah. Exactly. So um there were times when he'd be running around in a Mercedes SL, 350 SL, which was a 107. Okay. Bobby Ewing car.

Okay.

Yeah, we're young, well, in the early 20s, driving around in the Murp occasionally, but then the Asphell only car was a beat up beach buggy, which I would work with him, because obviously it was always breaking down, changing engines, things like that. Because I think we know how reliable air-cooled beetle engines can be at times. So, yeah, no, he did a lot of work on that, so and he he loved it. That really was very much his toy.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's how I've grown to love the beach buggies as well, really.

If we go back to your dad in the car or your mum in the car, did they have music on at all?

Yeah, absolutely. We we we did have uh, of course, in those days it was the eight-track players.

Yeah.

So early 70s, so we had a Sergeant Pepper's album. Okay. Obviously, standard stuff also for for the early 70s carpenters. Um, he likes a bit of Tony Bennett as well, while everyone who's in the car. But also, I remember getting uh Queen Night of the Opera when that first came out, and that was on eight-track as well. Okay, but yeah, we we did have some sort of good music with it, certainly.

Weird to think that when you're listening to Sergeant Pepper, it's only sort of ten years old or something like that, isn't it?

Yeah, exactly. Well, probably even five years old at that time because it would have been 67 or something. But yeah, exactly. Relatively new music.

Nuts, yeah.

Um, was he a smoking enthusiast, your father? No, my mum was. Okay. Especially you know in the car and what yeah, exactly. Uh but my dad would never we never saw smoke. We know he did smoke, but it was very secretive. But no, in the cars, he didn't at all. But my mum was quite a heavy smoker now. But again, it was the norm. You didn't notice it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now anybody did it. Horrible.

Yeah. What sort of journeys were you doing now? Are you doing sort of trips away on holiday or school runs, that sort of thing?

Uh obviously, school runs definitely a few trips we'd go to um visit uh Scarborough and places like that. And in fact, I I might be able to share with you guys, I've got some um Cine film of me running around on the beach when my dad's parked the car on the beach at Scarborough and we're running around as as kids and what have you.

So nice.

So when we went, Andy, Scarborough, bangers and cash.

I think it was, wasn't it? It began with this, didn't it? North Yorkshire. Yeah, it's got a good front for um photographs of cars up there. Really good.

Massive hotel, wasn't it? In which case that's Scarborough. That is Scarborough, because that's the Grand Hotel. Which again, back then was the Grand Hotel.

Really nice, actually. I like it seemed like a very nice, nice little beach.

Yeah, it was a big massive bridge, wasn't there, which kind of went across Yeah, that sounds like that sounds like Scarborough.

Yeah.

Do you remember um vehicles belonging to kind of friends at school and stuff like that, or maybe neighbours having kind of things of of interest, or just really boring. But what would now be exciting?

Yeah, exactly, exactly. No, I mean at sch at school, again, because I was at perhaps also number one had, you know, Jags and what was which obviously were very nice cars back then, don't get me wrong, but then it kind of sat up. Yeah, I know what you mean. My school, there was a head of a civil engineering company. I remember he had three cars, each with a number place, AFB1, AFB two, AFB three. Oh wow. And they were rolls and bentlers and what have you. But one thing I do remember is my sister going to my sister's sports day or speech day, and one of her friends had, and I I still do remember seeing this, and we said it was gold or bronze, I think it was gold, DB6 Vellante.

Okay.

Obviously, again, at the time you didn't appreciate what it was, but obviously I was thinking, oh wow. Don't get me wrong, it would have been worth quite a bit of money, but obviously nowhere near the relative value it has now. Yeah, yeah. But that was that was a gorgeous looking car.

It's funny, isn't it? You kind of think back through those sort of times and you start sort of trying to make this story up in your head, which is like, okay, what's the circumstance that these people are driving this vehicle?

Yeah.

What did dad do? What did mum do? Like what was the situation that they would drive?

Yeah.

Do you think there was a perception of maybe further wealth within your family because of the vehicles your dad showed? Do you think maybe friends looked upon that and went, Oh, they're doing very well, and actually kind of wasn't as maybe as good as it was?

Um, yeah, and I don't know. The funny thing is because I say my dad was obviously well, he was still very much a working class guy. Okay. I know this sounds a bit of a contradiction, but he was brought up in Doncaster, you know, very much a pit village, mining village and what have you. Even before he died, he was still going to the workingmen's clubs and things like that. Obviously, he'd done well and and the you know was full of cars and what have you, and you know, he he was always well well known around town, so to speak, because again, golf and and bits and pieces, but obviously being a dentist. So yeah, he was generally, you know, well liked, well, as liked as much as a dentist can be, of course. But he um yeah, he has the nice cars, but I don't think people really associated him with a huge amount of wealth, really. He wasn't flash, correct. Yes, exactly that, exactly.

Yeah, that's fair enough. Yeah. Were there any cars that you would love to have that your parents owned?

Yeah.

Any in particular?

Well, again, I definitely have got my eye on getting the Mercedes SL or a Mercedes SL, as in the the 107. Um that one he had then was it was a dark blue metallic with a beige interior, and it did look gorgeous. And I I I would love to have one of those again.

Is that a hard top or a soft top?

Well, it's both basically. It had a removable hard top.

Oh, I know the one, yeah.

Yeah. You could take that off, you'd have that for winter, take that off, and then you'd have uh a soft top on it. Yeah. In fact, the funny story, he he was driving through uh South France, so he had that in I want to say the early 80s, sort of 82, 83. And he was on a tour with a with a with a friend um flowing around South France and weren't hugging with it. And that's about the roof, they're only in the soft top, but the soft top broke. So they were actually driving around when it was raining with a roof down, but couldn't put it back up again. Um so there's something they're either holding an umbrella, which is obviously not really going to work very well in a car. Fortunately, the rain would flow over it. But he did tell me afterwards, um, at one point when it was this day, it was beautiful weather, driving around the south of France, and his friend turns around and says, I know what it feels like to be royalty, but with everybody staring at us. My dad calmly turned around and said, They're not staring at us, they're staring at the car.

Yeah.

So, yeah, no, and that's the I'd love to have the BMW Um three CSI or the coupe village. I'd love to have one of those. CSL would be lovely, lovely, but I'd be very happy with CSI. That again is one of my all-time favourite cars, really.

So nice. You alluded to your dad not selling these vehicles. So, how long did they stick around for? And like, is that something you ended up having to clear up kind of after he popped off?

Or well, the estate had to deal with some of them, so obviously they had to clear out the the Rolls Royce because he actually also collected a couple of other ones as well. So, yeah, they were cleared up, but a lot of them were actually have been left on the drive rotting away so much that they were just that basically. Oh really? I know the alpha went that way. Yeah, the alpha went that that BMW, the the um S Cyber Saloon version, E3, that went that way. So um they didn't they didn't last well, really, basically.

Do you think in your in your father's mind were they cars he thought, oh, I might go back to that one day? Or it was just a case of he didn't have the kind of almost the capacity to go, I'm gonna do something with it. He had the space, he was spoiled, right?

Yeah, exactly that, exactly that. And I think you're right, he he'll come back to it, he'll get it fixed and we'll again, because in his mind, they were still fine. They weren't, they were they were rotten away. But in his mind, they were still fine. Great car, that great car. Yeah. Yeah, we'll we'll get we'll get that sorted out, we'll we'll go for a ride in that one. No, we weren't. I mean I say ironically, the um the old rolls of 37 rolls. Uh just before he died, I moved back into the house as well. And then my car had had broken down. So for a week, I was driving that 37 rolls as my daily driver. Oh wow. So I really was looking like uh my parking then. Uh and I did I actually did a couple of weddings with it as well. In fact, one wedding, uh, by then my brother was killed, so I actually inherited his beach buggy. So I was driving his beach buggy then as well. And I did a wedding. So if you imagine the village where we were in was like a long street, basically, where the house is at one end, the church and the pub is in the middle, and then the bride lives at the other end. Groom was obviously outside the pub having a few drinks beforehand. So I said I'd collect the groom. So I did that in the beach buggy. So I went roaring down the street, practically a handbrake turn, big wheels and white, making lots of noise, while they're all stood outside the pub, picked him up to take him up to the uh church. So I dropped him off. Obviously, by then the rest of the guests are walking up from the pub to the church. I've then swapped cars over, I'm now in the 37 rolls, driving down the village to go and pick up the bride to take her to the wedding. So meanwhile, all these guests are walking up thinking, didn't he just drive down with a beach buggy? And I'm now going back in the rolls, might be a so yeah, so years later I've I've ended up driving it as well. But yeah, they've they've all long since now been sold off as part of the estate and gone wherever, basically.

It's funny, isn't it? You walk past kind of houses or you drive past houses and there'll be a row of cars on the drive. So you've seen quite a few, haven't you, John? And you think, what is that sort of that mentality, the thinking behind that? And yeah, as you say, kind of in their eyes, it's just a case of, yeah, I will get to that, I will finish it.

Yeah, yeah.

And it just never happens.

Yeah, no, exactly, exactly. And then everyone else kind of walks past and goes, just sell me the car, sell me the car, sell me the And and that's the thing, I suppose, you know, again, I've been saying we're younger, we don't really appreciate what those cars were or at all. And it's obviously in later years thinking uh again, I said about the Alpha Julia, you know, that was a gorgeous little car, it was great fun and what have you. But of course, it had no value then anyway.

No.

But you're now thinking, God, if you saw one of those now, you know, where restoration now is worth restoration on it because it's a relatively sought-after car now.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, and and and there there's a lot like that that just become worthless. I know my my brother had um he he used to basically do aerial photography before there was the internet, before there was digital cameras, so before Google is, he'd go around, fly a plane, take photographs of people's homes in the countryside and what have you, get the film developed, and then basically knock on the door to say, look, I've got this beautiful picture of a house, aerial photo and what have you. Yeah. Do you want to buy it? And he did quite well out of it. He um, although he had his beach buggy, again, that sat around for many years doing nothing. So he managed to um get himself a BMW um it was an E32, but it was the V12 basically. It was a 750 IL.

Oh, interesting.

Um so yeah, he did really well, but yeah, the beach buggy was kind of you know, sitting around doing nothing for many, many years. But yeah, so he he liked his cars, and I suppose he was quite an influence on me, because I say the beach buggy, but he um he did. Tell me a story once where he had this BMW, which again was quite a rare car at the time. But the wheels that came with it were really NAF wheels. So he wants to put some Alpina wheels on it.

Nice.

Well, they had to bend the you know, the the wheel arch. Yeah. The wheel arches weren't big enough for it, so they had to make it um flare it out, yeah. Exactly. But of course, being an IL, it's a very unique wheel arch. He said the guys in the in the dealership who watched him said they were sweating so much because obviously the slightest thing and they screwed that wing up.

Especially with the owner watching. Exactly.

No pressure, no pressure at all. It would be absolutely fine.

No, I was gonna say, um, I was in a customer's house recently and they've they had one of those aerial photos of their home. You used to see it quite a lot, didn't you? It was probably taken in the eighties or something.

Yeah, yeah.

I guess, well, I mean, it's the sort of thing now you could do easily with a drone, couldn't you? But I don't know, people don't tend to go for it anymore, do they?

I was gonna say, because obviously the expense that he had by flying assessment to get it processed for you again, because it's all film as well, of course. So well, firstly now, Google has kind of does it. It's not quite the same, but Google us does it for you anyway. But yeah, you're quite right, you just go and do it with a drone if you wanted to.

Yeah, yeah.

So uh I've no idea what business he would have gone into, yeah, obviously, because that line of work for him would have long since gone.

But yeah, yeah. How did um how did your mum feel about the choices of vehicles your dad made? Uh and then what did she move on to kind of, I guess, yeah, post-divorce?

Yeah, so well, obviously she had little choice in the matter anyway, because he basically controlled everything. So he was very much like that.

Okay.

Um, towards the end, although she still had the big W, but it wasn't what he used, but it moved more to a Mark One Passat. So this would have been a 1976, 77 Passat estate. Oh, cool. Uh it was quite handy for moving things around and what have you. So yeah, she had that. And then later years, the first things, uh Sitland GS. Didn't like that very much. Um sorry. And then um had a couple of uh Ford Fiestas, Mark two Ford Fiestas, actually. Okay. In fact, that was a car that I learned to drive in and gave me my freedom to start with, which was which was good. Nice.

Yeah, fair enough. Um, do you recall any breakdowns? Obviously, if he was choosing vehicles which maybe weren't as uh good as perhaps some of the others on the road, any memorable hard-shoulder moments?

Oh yeah, well certainly uh without rolls, because uh as you can imagine, that wasn't gonna be the most reliable car in the world. I mean, rollers should be, but not when it's um Was it a hand crank? Well, no, in that yes, it had it, but fortunately it also had electric starter as well. Didn't need it, yeah. In fact, you didn't even need any keys with it. Seriously, the last few years I had it, I didn't have a keys, I couldn't find the keys anywhere for it. So literally you just there's a switch on the um on the ignition part of it, basically, you just move it over, do that, do a bit of priming on it, switch the fuel pumps on, press start. Job done. That's it. But yeah, no, that there was a few midnight um breakdowns in that. Yeah. Waiting for somebody to uh to come recover. Fortunately, he did have a like a local mechanic that would do the jobs and keep the cars running, basically. So yeah, he came out and recovered us one night in that. Yeah. So we had a few, and many breakdowns with my brother in the beach buggy, certainly. But again, that that was the fun of it.

Was there any sort of potential of you keeping the beach buggy when you inherited it?

Well, obviously he's one of my big regrets, I've got to say. So I did have his beach buggy, it was a uh red and white one, uh uh Mark 1 GP. And I I did a lot of work to get it kind of rebuilt because it was in a very sorry state when he had it. And then years later I decided, right, I wanted something a bit more street, a bit more blingy and what have you. And I knew that he had spoken about selling that buggy to get something different. So at the time, and it's obviously a bit of regret, but basically I think, right, you know what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna sell that buggy, and I bought another one kind of ready done. Obviously, in hindsight, you don't buy buggies ready done, you end up rebuilding them again anyway. So I must admit sadly I don't have his beach buggy anymore, but I have another one which is having a bit of uh tidy up at the moment, with a little bit of help from a certain uh air call parts supplied. I won't name them. So I'm getting that sided up now. So I I kind of obviously I regret losing that one or selling that one, but on the other hand, you know what? It's actually the spirit of driving them, and that makes no difference what the vehicle is, because it's the spirit of him with it, basically. So yeah.

Is his one still around?

Is it it must be? It's not been MOT for donkeys, years or tax, so it's it's been sawn since about 2015, I think.

Oh well. It's in a garage somewhere, probably.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So yeah. We've got quite a good community with the buggies. So we do we know about a lot of the buggies that are out there because we have big meets with them and what have you. And obviously we had this great time at Budwood Revival last year. Oh, that's true, yeah, yeah. We do the uh the great uh around the track and what I mean. That was an absolutely fantastic time, even if it did rain most of the time there.

But yeah, I've got that to look forward to this year with the splits.

Yes.

I've got the truck from work going, so I'll take it out on the Friday.

Yeah, no, it is fantastic. I I must admit I've got a few friends who have got splits and what have you, and I said look when the news came out they're doing it and said, guys, you need to do this because the opportunity we had with the beach buggies was amazing. Because I've done revival you know a few times before.

Yeah.

But with a package you get by doing the parade and what have you, you have to do it. It's fantastic.

Yeah, looking forward to it.

Definitely.

Um, yeah, anything else we need to ask you, Andrew. Um I think we've gone through the usual, haven't we?

Yeah. Any memorable smells from the cabins of these cars?

Well, with a beach bow, you definitely get the smell of petrol coming from it, that's for sure. Um no, no, I can I can I'm again old cars, I've always got that that kind of old wood, old leather sort of smell about the way votes and what have you. But yeah, uh I'm I'm still very much a classic car guy than a modern sports car guy. I love I do prefer the classics far more than that. So whether that's because of a childhood thing or not, I don't know.

Yeah, I guess so. I guess if you're brought up in sort of older cars anyway, but yeah. Yeah, I'm the same newer stuff doesn't really interest me, doesn't really get me going.

No, exactly, exactly. And also because I do try to think a little bit on the cars myself. So again, previous cars that I've had, if I've decided I'm gonna keep that car forever and not bother about selling it so it's gonna run into the ground, I'll do the servicing myself on it. Yeah, yeah. And obviously the buggy is kind of compulsory. Yeah, no, I I I like to kind of tinker and and and get involved where I can with it. And and again, modern cars, you just don't have the opportunity, really. It's that's why I prefer the older to you know, you know what things are basically with it.

Yeah, you know where you're at. Well, thank you very much. No, thank you. Yeah, it's been good fun filling in the blanks and telling us the rest of the story.

Thanks, Andrew. Yeah, no, it's been good fun. It's been nice to obviously I've been listening to you guys all this time on the podcast. A number of my friends have been on uh already. Yeah, yeah. So it was good to catch up with you guys, certainly.

Wonderful. Excellent, thanks. Yeah, thank you very much. Cheers, see you later. Bye bye. Cool, there we go.

There we go, yeah. There's some uh nice cars there in in the history.

Indeed, yeah. Uh uh real mixed bag. I was ex I don't know whether I had I think I had an expectation that there would be more detail on it. Yeah, obviously they've all left their impression there, haven't they, with him? And it's it's tricky, isn't it? You kind of especially when you sort of hear of cars just being laid to rot on the driveway. And that's yeah, yeah, that's just crazy. Yeah, I walk past those sort of houses and you think, How's this happened? How's this happened? Yeah, but yeah, that's just kind of what people do, don't they? They run out of money or run out of time and becomes a bit of a hoarder. And then actually they get to 80 or whatever, and they don't need the 300 pounds or whatever they're gonna get for that car. May as well just sit there.

Yeah, and then it ends up getting scrapped and then it becomes somebody else's problem, yeah.

Yeah, just gets turned into tin cans and yeah, but yeah, enjoyable. Nice to yeah, nice to finally sit down with Andrew and do kind of a proper run-through of the cars. I guess Rolls-Royce is a sort of an iconic car, isn't it? You've got to be whether you've got to be eccentric or really want one, or maybe yeah, it's just the value thing or the fan of the bargain that makes you go and buy a 30s Rolls-Royce.

It's funny though, isn't it, how back in the day the roller was the sort of pinnacle of you know, prestige motoring. And then most of those cars now are just absolutely worthless, aren't they? Like, you know, if you if you get like an old BMW or Mercedes that's a bit rotten, it still commands can command quite good money, can't it? But if you look at the sort of 70s, 80s rollers, they're just they're nothing, are they? Is it just because they're absolute money pits and British?

I think so. I think like it's a it's a weird one. You've got obviously the really old stuff. I think if it's particularly special, then it's worth something.

Yeah.

But then you've got sort of regular ones, which you could potentially buy for sort of 10, 20 grand, because it's just a regular Rolls-Royce. I think it depends on like what bodies on it. And then when you get up to sort of the yeah, the 60s, 70s, 80s, like the big square. You're talking like five grand, aren't you? Yeah, the bricks, yeah, they come up on Facebook, don't they? Yeah. And they're like, just need it gone, two and a half grand. I guess that's because, yeah, maybe a service is five grand or whatever.

Yeah, true.

And it doesn't make financial sense to do, especially if you've got it sat around and you don't actually want it, you may as well just pass it on and which is a shame because that I suppose that does mean that in what, ten years' time or whatever, when those cars then come into sort of fashion, which they probably will do, then there won't be as many around. Yeah. Like if if people go, yeah, especially when they go tax exempt or whatever, I could be wafting around the city in an 80s corniche or whatever it might be.

Yeah.

But a lot of them probably are already, aren't they? But yeah, you've got to have the money to run it.

Yeah.

It's all well and good buying it for fiesta money, isn't it?

But big drinkers, aren't they?

Yeah, yeah. Big drinkers, and yeah, to fix it, old electric scalore.

They must have been shocking straight out of the box, though, back when they were new. Or they must have just sort of degraded really fast. I think they were, I think they were just thirsty from the start.

Like, I think if you could afford a roller like we've said before, like in the 70s and the 80s, you were a bit of a someone, weren't you? Like you they'd just stumbled into that. You bought that, you probably bought it cash, yeah, because they didn't do finance or it was through your business or whatever, so you were successful.

Yeah.

Did it matter that it did 20 miles to gallon? I suppose actually at that point, 70s, 80s, your family cars, like if you were getting 30 miles to gallon out of your escort, yeah, that was probably considered good. So it wasn't too shy off the mark if you'd got 12 miles to gallon around the town.

Yeah. I suppose a lot of those as well back in the day would have been like a one or two year waiting list as well, I guess, for certain models and yeah, maybe.

I don't know whether they were built to order or whether you could have just walked on I think I think they were. Yeah. Pretty sure they were. Yeah. Um yeah. The mentality behind kind of the I guess the Rolls-Royce owner. The the the BMW, obviously, the the six series, those six series coupes are just cool as hell, aren't they? They're so so cool.

Yeah. Yeah, nice cars.

I think of kind of almost of all the BMWs, and I'm not the hugest BMW fan. I think this like the Shark Knose six series, yeah, is probably the one that you go. I I I quite like the charm of the 2002, like E30 M3 kind of looks pretty smart. Yeah. Is it a E34 M5? Yeah. Or maybe the earlier, they do a 29 like the first M5s. But yeah, that sort of era sort of switch off after that. But yeah, yeah, they just they must have been something to have. You have one of those back in the day.

Well, th those six series, 15, 20 years ago, they were down to like 1500 quid. Yeah. You know, it would have been a runner, but it wouldn't have been a mint. But been ropey, yeah. But still, you could have 1500 pounds. It's yeah, it's mad, isn't it? Indeed. Crystal ball. Yep.

Yes. Yeah, we say that about a lot of things, can't you? But yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, very good to get Andrew on. Uh yeah, if you're listening to this and you're thinking I've got a bit of a story to tell us, then uh yeah, get in touch. Drop us uh a message on Instagram or Facebook or slide in. Slide in, yeah, drop us an email and um yeah, we'll see if we can be uh chatting to you as well. Lovely. All right, mate. Okay, mate, look after yourself. You two, take care. Yeah, I'll see you soon. Cheers. We'll uh wrap it up, roll the credits.

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