Grant Williams: Racing Jaguars is what my family does. Mk1 Jaguar Racecar BUY 1, Goodwood Revival S8E4

[00:00:00] We've said from day one we didn't want to fill up the podcast with adverts and we're not about to do that. However, podcasts do cost money to make and thanks to our friends at Viking Covers we're able to cover some of those. Their values are the same as ours, they're car enthusiasts and they've got a real quality product we think you might be interested in. If you're looking for indoor or outdoor car covers for your vehicle please go check them out at vikingcovers.co.uk Now, over to the show. Welcome to my dad's car, enjoy!

[00:00:36] Welcome to my dad's car, a podcast discussing our personal relationship with automotive nostalgia. And you know what? It doesn't even have to be about your dad's car. It can be your mum's, your grand's, your parents, guardians or even a neighbour's. If it made an impression, let's talk about it.

[00:00:58] Are we there? Can you hear us? Hello? I can hear you fine. Can you hear me? Yes. I feel like I should be wearing a hat. I've missed a boat here. I've got one to hand. Wife's usually got one knocking around. Oh, you've always got a cowboy hat on all the time. Fantastic. Well, yeah, thank you. Yeah, thank you very much for joining us, Grant. It was Dom, wasn't it? I think he put us in touch. Yeah. Yeah. And he said, oh, I know a man you should speak to, which was very kind of him. And yeah, here we are. Great.

[00:01:28] So, yeah, for the benefit of the tape, we're joined by Grant Williams. I believe you've got something to do with Mark II Jaguars and racing. But do you want to give us a little bit more of an insight before we dive right in? Right. OK. Well, basically, I've been racing Mark I's and Mark II's since I was sort of 17, 18. Youngest ever to win the Jaguar Challenge Championship in my father's Mark II at the time, which was 18, 17, 18.

[00:01:55] OK. And then went on to Revival. And then, you know, I suppose Revival was the one that was the one race started me on my past, my career racing Classic Stuncars. Yeah. Revival and Goodwood. That was the main thing. But basically, me racing Jaguars at Revival is my main thing. Yeah. Fantastic. And have you got a day job or are you racing as sort of as a job? I have got a day job. I've got a small little garage in South Wales. Barely pays the bills. It's a tiny little petrol station.

[00:02:25] And just we do servicing, tires, you know, clutches, that kind of thing. But literally, it just barely, barely pays. And at the moment, it sort of turned into working on my own racing car garage. Like, I mean, so the Rams are full of my racing cars. And all I'm doing is working on cars, on customers' cars, like on the floor outside because they're just full of my race cars. Like, so. And we've just been very fortunate to get back one of my father's second ever race cars, which is a very, very special car. So, yeah. Fantastic. I'm sure we'll hear a bit more about him. Is your father still around or?

[00:02:54] Oh, yeah. Dad's still around. Yeah. Yeah, he's 78 now. He's still involved. He comes in and shouts at me now and again when I've done it wrong or I should be doing it this way and stuff like that. But he's still about, he's slowed down a lot over a few years now. But yeah, he'll still come to the garage. He'll come and chat to me. I see him every day, basically. Yeah, yeah. Fantastic. Fantastic. So, yeah. What's your earliest car memory, Grant? Oh, God. I would say, I would say one of my father's was racing at Mallory Park, actually. Okay.

[00:03:23] Yeah, if you know Mallory, there's like a little pond in the middle of Mallory. So, I remember as a little kid, dad sort of raced. And I remember playing my sort of Hot Wheels at the time, Max Bach. And I kept throwing them into the pond. My father screamed at me because he basically said, they're not coming back. You know, I'm not going to get them. But yeah, I think that's the only thing I remember my father's race cars. Like, it would have been at the time, one of his red Mark 1s. Okay, super. What sort of era are we talking about? Oh, God. This is going back. This would be 79, something like that. 79, 80.

[00:03:53] Wonderful. And was that a family trip away? Were you traveling with, I guess, your mom or your brothers or sisters or something? Mom, dad, my brother, younger brother. But my father's raced all his life. This is my grandfather's brother. My whole family is racing drivers. Okay. My uncles, it is literally a racing family. And, you know, I was dragged every race circuit around the country. And then we emigrated to Canada. So, I was dragged around Canada, you know, racing all around Canada with the lightweight.

[00:04:19] And John, they're amazing memories. You know, those memories I got are just fantastic. You know, I used to go with my father. You know, when he was racing back in the 90s, I would sort of go with dad in the Mark 2. He'd pull the backseat of the race car and then I'd be sleeping in the paddock on the backseat on the floor, you know, in the day. And then I'd go watch and watch my father race. And I used to stand in the grandstands. He'd be so proud to see my father. He was a winner. He was always a friend. So proud to see my dad going past. That's my dad. That's my dad.

[00:04:47] Like Silverstone, Donington. Yeah. So, yeah, they're great, great memories. Fantastic. So, say a weekend away at a racetrack, was there a tow truck or whatever, which you'd all sort of jump in and the jags on the trailer? In the early days, dad used to tow with an old V8 Range Rover, two-door red one. I remember that very well. Trailer was made themselves. And then towards the 90s, we sort of used to go racing with an old Escort 1.6 diesel ex-post office Mark 3 van.

[00:05:12] Okay. So, dad would tow the racing car behind the van on an A-frame, bolted the front chassis, dragging the front wheels wherever they went. You know, up the hills, it was 30 miles an hour if we were lucky, like I mean. So, and then towards later on, I was like 16, we used to get so stressed out trying to go to somebody's circuit up the hills. Something was that slow. He would chuck me in the car and he'd say about the window, fire it up. And I'd fire the racing car up there and chuck it into fourth gear. And then we'd do 110 miles up the hill. Like a 16 years old, like I mean.

[00:05:41] So, yeah, that was kind of cool back in those days. Like, I mean, and I would just go to sleep in the car, tuck down behind the seat because it steered itself. So, yeah. How did your dad get into motorsport, Grant? Through my grandfather. Granddad started racing in the early 50s, Mark 1s. He was racing with his friends. Okay. Granddad just turned up at a race circuit, right? There'd be three of them racing, okay? And they'd only have one race license. So, they'd sign on with this one race license with one car.

[00:06:09] So, every time the next race would come in on X practice, they would drum brakes at times. They used to keep buckets of water to throw onto the wheels to cool the brakes off because they'd overheat. Ready for the next guy to go out in the car on the same race license. And that's how he got it done. My father's just following his footsteps. Nice. What was the association with Jaguar? Was one of them working for Jaguar or...? No, no. Granddad just loved Mark 1s and Mark 2s. And then we got to be known as the Jag Garage in Risca. A small village in South Wales.

[00:06:38] And every day, all the race cars, we'd pull out of the garage. Because there was a four-court petrol station. We'd park the cars on the front of the four-court. So, we'd be four race cars. I mean, my fathers, both my uncles and my granddad's race cars would be parked at the front. And they were all red. Risca red, we should call it. And then granddad went and bought by one off the factory when he'd seen it for sale in the Autosport magazine. And then he bought it because he'd beat him a few times in the Touring Car Championship. Because he had disc brakes. Okay. And he wanted the car with disc brakes. That was that cutting edge. Right. So, yeah.

[00:07:08] And it was up for sale for £1,650 in 1962, which is a lot of money back then. Yeah, yeah. Wow. And a house in South Wales was £200. He could have bought a street for the car. That's marvellous, isn't it? Yeah, really good. So, yeah. I guess holidays were probably to race circuits. You weren't going sort of down to the West Country or sort of to France or anything. It was like, okay, we're doing a holiday, but Dad's going racing. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was. That was, I said, our whole life is just racing.

[00:07:36] I mean, all the way through my career racing. That's what we do. We just focus on that. My whole life is all about going motor racing, building the cars, and everything else in between is just a distraction. You have kids of your own, Grant. Will the legacy continue? Yeah, yeah. I've got a 16-year-old boy now, son. I've got a 17-year-old daughter. My daughter said she wanted to do it, but it's now boys and stuff like that. But my son is really keen to go racing. He really wants to do it. And we're not from a rich family. We live from week to week.

[00:08:07] Yeah. And I didn't get any racing until literally Dad said, do you want to go racing? And I was 17 at the time. Went, shot her off to Silverstone, got my race license. Patrick Watts actually done my arts test, my racing license. Oh, cool. So that was really cool. And the exact words were, look, son, I'll put you in the car. If you're quick, we'll fund a bit of racing for a couple of years. I'll sort of pay it. Because back then, a race was £150. I got three races for £150. And he said, but if you're good, we'll keep doing it. And the exact words, if you're crap or rubbish, then we're done.

[00:08:37] Because I'm not paying for you to make the numbers up, by good means. And I think my first race, I was on pole. I finished third overall. And they were 45 car grids. Wow. It's in the blood. It's in the blood. And literally on the next race, I won the championship the first year. I won every race afterwards. What was on the grid, Grant? Was it an all-jag race or all sorts? All-jags. Okay. Mark 1s, Mark 2s. It would be S-types. Yeah. Mark 9s, Mark 7s. These were all veteran races, mate. This grid was full. It was a Bridgestone Challenge. The Jaguar Challenge was a massive championship of the day.

[00:09:06] Even Blue Peter, they got one of their presenters to race one of their, you know, got a car and they raced and that raced. One of their races, it was kind of cool. Against my father. And those cars, I guess, at the time, they were out of production at very least. Were they considered classic or were they sort of a cheap, I don't want to use the word bang, and that's very sort of offensive, but were they sort of just as if someone went out today and bought a Mondeo to kind of get the race? No, they, yeah, they were classics. They were classic cars. Okay. Yeah, they were classic cars. Parts were more available back in the 80s, 90s, 2000s. They were more available then.

[00:09:37] Yeah. But it was cheap racing. You could buy a Mark 2, Jaguar, you know, for like 500 quid. Cost you £1,000. Time to get a roll cage and bits and pieces. And you're on the track with like two and a half pounds, I mean, so. Yeah. And they were, you know, 3.8, so they were good power, 200 upgrade cars. So, yeah, I mean, most of them came with limited slim diffs. So it was cheap racing. London getaway drivers, car of choice, wasn't it, in the 60s and 70s? Oh, yeah. 100%. Gangster's cars. Gangster's cars, yeah. And Dad's got so many memories of him racing through the streets of Risko with straight racing pipes and stuff like that on.

[00:10:07] And they were just getaway cars. Like, I mean, everywhere we drove, he was under my neck, flat down. Flat down everywhere. Was there any sort of testing on the roads around South Wales? Oh, God. Of course. Unofficially, obviously. Unofficially, unofficially. Like, we still do it now. You know, when I pull the car to the shed or if I'm working on the car, you know, Tess is quickly jumping the car, down the bypass, 140 mile an hour. Kilometres an hour, officer, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Kilometres, definitely. And then put it back in. Yeah, it's all good. Brakes are working fine. Ready to go, like.

[00:10:36] I mean, so that's the test, like. Because we couldn't afford to go spend a test session or, you know, it's just too much money for what we do. And I'm one of these things that don't need to take life out of the car, take life out of the engine or the brakes. I think the only word I know in Welsh is arath. Sadly, I don't speak Welsh. Which is written on all the roads. I believe it means slow. Yes, it's 20 mile an hour. The limit's a killer for us. So, travelling around, any memories of music in the Range Rover?

[00:11:33] Or, um. Motel, Motel. You mentioned Canada again. Did he take his race cars out there or he got something else while he was out there and came back for Jags? No, he took, he basically took the lightweight. So, he emigrated to Canada. I think I was about six at the time. So, my guy was about six. And we emigrated to Canada. Burlington, Ontario, Toronto. And he set a garage up, only working on British Lane and Cars. Anything British he could work on. And he was quite busy. Done really, really well. So, he started that off.

[00:12:02] And we, the lightweight was a special, it was a Mark II Jaguar. That's, he totally cut all the wings and everything off it. All fiberglass, wide arches. Moved the engine back a foot and a half in the engine bay. It had a 4.2 straight six. It only weighed 900 kilos. It had 19 J rear wide slicks off an old F1. Wow. And they were like 16 J front ones. So, this had loads and loads of mechanical grip. It was a, it was a monster.

[00:12:30] And again, he used to keep it on the freeway because there's a freeway in front of the garage. And he parked the Jag on a mound on top of the freeway with a big sign on the top saying, you know, working on British Lane and Cars. And it was a good advertising point because the freeway would get so much attention. And the off-ramp was just by there. And he was very, very busy. Yeah. Were there many British cars in Canada at the time, Grant? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. MG, Jags, E-Types, XJs, Leyland stuff. Like, I mean, so yeah, he was, he was always constantly working on, on, on the brand.

[00:13:01] He'd done really, really well out of that, actually. It was the only reason we was coming back was because my granddad was getting on and he wanted my father to run the business. Yeah, yeah. And that's the only reason we sort of came back from Canada because we, we made a life out there. It was out there eight, nine years. Came back from sort of my early teens. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I get fond memories. Boiling off summers, freezing cold winters. You know, he'd walk out one door in the morning and he would have seven, eight feet of snow. You couldn't see the street. You'd have to climb up the bedroom window, dig yourself out of the street then. I mean, so. Wow. Yeah.

[00:13:30] And I was going to ask whether it was your grandfather who started the business and I guess that's the business you now run, is it? No, no. So my uncle still run the business. Okay. Yeah. So Granddad's, and it was literally, it was two petrol pumps on a piece of ground right next to the main road in Riska. And that's what it was, in a little shed. It started from two little petrol pumps they put in and a shed and it grew from there. And then Granddad was always a crazy fat little driver as well. Like I mean, so, and that's when he started doing the racing side of it. And then it just, the garage got bigger and bigger and bigger.

[00:13:59] And then we got to know the factory really, really well. We started, because we've known as the Jaguar, we started maintaining people's customers, these types. It was X-ray day, but everything, anything Jaguar we started maintaining. And then we got to know, we got the lofty to the factory. I didn't, but dad did with my grandfather. And he'd buy spare parts and stuff out of the factory. It was kind of cool. Well, dad tell the stories about where every, because the wages were a bit lower back in those days.

[00:14:24] You know, when Granddad would turn up at the factory, he would turn up an old, an old nightly Land Rover with a trailer. And he would drive in and then all the factories would come out the back out of the, especially the company's apartment. They'd come out, we got, Tony, we got heads, wings, lights, seats. And it was cash, cash, cash, cash. Granddad was paying for it. And, you know, basically it was their way of pocket money or making their wages up. Like, I mean, I lost, he knew it went on. He did know it went on. I mean, so he didn't, he just turned a blind eye to it. Because basically it was a case of, you know, he can't stop it.

[00:14:54] So let it carry on. And he got, he got this. Granddad would tell me, he'd go, oh, I was just going to cost me this week. He'd turn up here because he basically, he'd basically steal the parts. Like, I mean, and then he'd give it to my granddad. Like, I mean, and he went out the door, but it was totally fine. It was just one of those things. That's what happened in those days, like back in the early sixties. So, yeah, it was, it was a real, I always say I was born in the wrong era, especially the way I drive the cars and the way I race and what I am. I mean, yeah. So I think it's a very romantic time. I love being around that back in those days. Yeah, definitely. The good old days. Yeah.

[00:15:24] Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Do you remember kind of neighbors with vehicles, perhaps non-Jaguar sort of around where you grew up? Um, no, it was always Jaguars. It's just, that's all we ever knew. Like, I mean, it was just literally Jaguars that I saw because I was in the garage all the time. I mean, but it said, and everything I knew back in those days, if I was in Canada, it was either British Lane of vehicles or British vehicles. That's all we, I'd ever seen really, you know, down in an old Dodge van. That was the only thing I really knew was, I remember the Dodge van. That was kind of cool.

[00:15:53] But that I remember, you know, quite well. We'd go camping off in this old Dodge van. Like, I mean, that was great. Like, but yeah, that's what I really knew about neighbors' cars. There's always Jags. You remember where your father used to source the Jags? Um, a lot of the time it was just through friends. Most of the time it was people that would own the car and they'd had enough at the time and they would gift, a lot of the cars got gifted to us. Like, because they just. Really? Yeah. Because, you know, they, they were under being rust buckets eventually.

[00:16:21] I mean, so they were just like, okay, it's coming to the end of life. Your family's looked after for years or wherever. You can have the car. Just through people to be new, like basically. Yeah. I remember hearing from my brother a story about a Jag disappearing. And, uh. Yeah. They always disappear and then reappear somewhere down the road. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So, yeah. You mentioned the Range Rover. You mentioned obviously the Escort van as well. Was there a family car? Maybe. Did your mother drive or. Yeah. Mum drive. Mum used to have a green Morris Marina estate. Oh, lovely.

[00:16:51] Yeah. So that was, that was mum's car. It was Morris Marina estate. And then Dan, we had a Datsun Sunny estate. Big old thing. 2.8. Okay. Because I always remember the back quarter window would come down with a key and you'd go open the back window. It was a massive seven seater. I always remember that. I think 2.8 petrol. Um. That was a bit of a cool car. Silver. Uh. But the vans were, you know, that was our main. We always bought. We, for some reason, we always bought these post office vans because they were cheap. Yeah.

[00:17:18] And my first car was that 1.6 S-bub diesel van. With XR3i wheels, then RS turbo wheels, uh, XR3i front seats, front splitter, skirts. Um. That was a cool, you know, I loved that van. I was forever welding the chassis up. I would drive it so hard. I would literally split the chassis on it. In the end, I was welding bars. I needed the strength and the chassis. I'd race it everywhere. You know, we were on the, we were just flat up. In the 90s, you were racing around with kids with RS turbos.

[00:17:45] And I was in this 56 brake horse diesel van beating an RS turbo in an XR3i because I could out drive them, I mean, so yeah. I'm guessing, um, your father probably taught you to, to drive at a young age. What age were you when you could, you sort of knew what to do? Um, so I've always had motocross. So I've always grown up with, you know, CR80s, ATBs because of Canada and stuff like that. So we always had motorbikes. So I learned the early days and a ride and control bikes and stuff like that.

[00:18:11] And then when we moved back from Canada, we had a house in Risker next to the pedal station, right next to the pedal station, uh, with a bit of land in the back. My auntie bought this bit of land. So I just learned to drive around the back because it was a bit of land. I could just, you know, I had an old Nissan patrol. I started driving that around the back, I mean, and then I sort of drive the cars. It was, it wasn't, it was only like an acre and a half is all it was, like an acre, two acres maybe. So I would just drive around there. So that's where I learned to drive on this bit of ground at the back. What sort of age would that be?

[00:18:40] I guess sort of mid-teens? Yeah, yeah. I was 12, 13, something like that. And that was kind of cool. So I just learned the gear shift, clutch control and stuff like that. And then, yeah, just like I said, we just passed my test. I took three attempts to pass my test. Three attempts. And the only reason I passed my test is because the first guy who failed me was my test instructor on the third time. And he remembered me and I failed on the questions every time. My driving was perfect. I mean, he goes, right, okay. And he was asking the questions and I was getting wrong.

[00:19:09] He was sort of going like not into the right accent. And that's the only reason I passed is because he remembered that I failed on the first two. So, yeah, so that was kind of cool. I mean, my driving was perfect every time. So, yeah. That's the bit that matters. Yeah. Definitely the bit that matters, yes. Better to have it that way around than the other. The other way around, yeah. Oh, he was great at the questions. He just can't do braking and steering. Couple of crashes, yeah. No, no, no. Yeah, obviously, he's Jaguar.

[00:19:36] I was going to ask kind of, is there a vehicle from sort of your childhood that you sort of pine after? But it sounds like those vehicles have stayed in the family as well. Yeah. The one that I missed the most was the lightweight. So Dan sold the lightweight late 90s. In Canada? No, he sold it when we came back. He sold it to, so when we came back, we were back a few years. He was racing his saloon car, then his Mark II saloon car. And he didn't do anything with the lightweight. He was sat just kicking around, carrying dust. We took him to the odd show note again. It was a big show in our place called Chiriga Park Show. And we take it down there.

[00:20:06] And he was just sort of in the shed. And then my uncle, he's like an uncle, Andrew Wilson, Dennis Powers Motors. He bought it with my father for £1,000. No engine, just a Roland shell. So then he had two racing V12 Jaguar powerboat engines get into it. Wow. So he grafted a V12 into the shed. Blimey. Put it all in. But then he never finished it. He just got bored of it. Then he was building an RS500 at the time. So then he sold it, £1,500. Just got rid of it. Okay. That's one of those cars I always miss and pined over.

[00:20:36] Because the pictures are on the internet of the car. Because it was painted red, white and blue. British Leyland colours. You sent me a couple of pictures of it, I think. Yeah. It's a fire-breathing monster of a thing. It looks like a Hot Wheels toy. It's a really, really special car. So yeah, that's one of the real ones I really miss the most. Because I got a lot of memories with that car and dad. And yeah, we managed to find it back. I managed to get it back a couple of weeks ago. So yeah. Is there anything your father potentially wanted, but never quite managed to get his hands on?

[00:21:06] On the car? Yeah. Sort of car-wise. Is there any sort of vehicle that you can think of that he would have really liked to have ticked off? No, he's never been really... He just... Dad's very humble. Dad's one of those people that... You know, he would spend his last penny on me and my racer. I mean, he was never... He lives very throughly. He doesn't spend a lot of money at all. He is, you know... He is my hero, I mean. But yeah, he never spent a lot of money on stuff like that. He was just one of those people that was... He was quite happy driving on in a marina or...

[00:21:35] Well, his car today is an old Citroen C5. I mean, it's battered to hell. I mean, he don't care. And if he drives in, he might be. Because I guarantee he'll end back with a bumper scratch, a wheel scratch or something like that. And he literally goes, I don't want to give a shit. So I was like, okay. I'm like, Dad, I just had him done. And he just doesn't care. He just doesn't care. So he lives a very through-go-life life. I mean, yeah. Is he done with racing and things? No. No, he's not. He doesn't come very often with my races, no.

[00:22:04] But if I'm doing a three-day event, you'll try and come up on the last day and watch and support me. Yeah, yeah. He's involved in the back. He comes to the garage and talks to me and all chat about stuff. Like, for most of the race stuff, I do myself. Most of the development, I do myself now. But, you know, Dad was cutting edge. Back in the day, there's nothing he can't tell you about a race car, but a Mark II or Mark I jack. He just knows all the tricks of the trade. And I've inherited those tricks off in that. And I think that's why one of the reasons I'm so quick in the cars is, I suppose when you build a car, you understand how the car works,

[00:22:34] how it creaks and groans, and how everything feels under you. And I think I've got that mechanical sympathy to know when to push and not to push. And Dad's taught me that, how the mechanics of the car works. And if you understand that, I think it enhances your racing skills. I wonder, I just think, when you mentioned motocross, obviously there's a lot of kind of throttle control in that, whether that comes from, so obviously being able to sort of power out of a corner on a motocross bike. Yeah. And then sort of, that's akin to coming out of a corner in a car, isn't it? Yes.

[00:23:04] Definitely. Definitely. I think a lot of my, because I'm always sideways everywhere, it's controlled. I could, you know, because I could feel the bike sliding and you, and you are, you are at city angles when you're on an enduro bike. And I think that contributed to how I used to drive back in the 90s. That's what started it all off. Basically, because I was riding bikes for so long, I just could feel how the mechanics of the vehicle work and leave my hands on, my feet are under my ass. I mean, so, you know, I do a lot of extreme enduro now. I'm 50 years old and I'm still, you know, I would, you know, 78 year olds and 20 year old kids like,

[00:23:34] I mean, and it's kind of funny because they see this old guy tic-tac in a rock face or a river bed or, you know, up the side of a mountain, like it's like, you've got to move four feet one way, pivot to the bike the other way. And, you know, I get to the top. I've done it before. They have. They get there and they're hanging. They're, you know, they're sweating. They're dying when they get to the top. I pull my helmet off. I look at Santa Claus and I pull my helmet off. Like, this is 50 year old man. And they're like, how old are you? I said, 50 years. How old are you? I'm 21. I said, and they can't believe it. So, yeah,

[00:24:04] that's how I keep fit for doing my long endurance racing. Okay. That's the, yeah, the thing to do. Was your father or your grandfather a smoker? Oh, yeah. Grandfather, heavy smoker and my father, heavy smoker. And I've hated it. I've hated it. My mother's a heavy smoker because I remember my mother used to send me over to the garage to get her cigarettes and I would literally pick the packet and I'd carry the packet like this holding my fingers like this because I couldn't stand the smell of even the plastic wrapping. I just hated it.

[00:24:33] And I'd given my mother and I'd grown up so my brother's a smoker as well. But, yeah, never just, I don't know why, I just couldn't stand it. I can relate to that, Grant, because my parents were heavy smokers and I think you either go that way, don't you? You detest it or you probably take it up yourself. Yeah, I tried it once. I think I coughed the guts out of myself and I was like, that's not for me. That's not. And do you know what? I remember doing it. It was in a storm drain in Canada in front of the house because there was big massive storm drains. We'd all hide, the boys, the kids,

[00:25:03] we'd all hang around there and one of the kids nicked some fags off his father or something. I think they were Marlboros at the time. I used to try it and he smoked it and he tried it and I just said, no, no chance, no thank you. Dad, I never liked it. You probably made a good choice there. Yeah, yeah. I remember my dad telling me the story how he started. He was at a fair when he was 12 or 13 and he won a single cigarette in one of these games that was there and that was it. What, as a child? Yeah, that was the end of it. That was the end of it, yeah. Yeah, because back in the early days

[00:25:34] smoking was just a normal practice and that was just, yeah. I remember when they, Was it age restricted? Not really back then. I don't think it was, no. I don't think it could have been. No, no. I mean, if they were given, I'm surprised, you know, fares even now but back then were probably not regulated particularly well. I remember when they banned the smoking in the clubs back home because they used to hate going out and coming back and our clothes would stink and a cigarette. Yeah. And I remember that, you know, oh my God, my clothes are like, they don't smell. Yeah. That was a real cool thing

[00:26:03] to have back in the 90s, I mean, 2000s. Definitely. Definitely. And different worlds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to think what else we need to ask you. You see, obviously you do a lot at Goodwood. Yeah. Have you got any goals kind of still to achieve with either the Jags or at Goodwood perhaps? Yeah. So we bought this, we've got the Lightway back in the family now. So that's back and we're doing a build. So we're going to rebuild the car, the two-year project, that's my new passion at the moment. So it's going to have a V12 back in it again. Okay.

[00:26:33] But it's a 7.4 liter Robbier race engine. Wow. 750 brake horse. Whoa. So I'm keeping the car, repeating the car in its original colors, keeping it exactly the same as it was back when Dad was racing it. Yeah. With the Leyland stickers at the whole lot. But underneath, I want to go as new as I possibly can. I want to go eight-speed sequential gearbox, you know, all independent rear, all independent front, modern brakes, you know, fully adjustable bump and rebound, front and rear shock absorbers. I want to try and get down about 800 kilos.

[00:27:01] Still run the same size wheels and tires. Yeah. This thing, I want to be a fire-breathing monster. You know what I mean? It's going to sound like an F1 car. So I've already got the exhaust system. We've worked out what it's going to sound like. You've seen the TWR XGS that they've relaunched, the new one? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what this will sound like that because that's the same sort of engine but I always got more power. So that's my new sort of goal and focus. I want to race it in Modsports, Thunder Saloons. I was going to say, will anyone take you? Yeah, I hope so. We'll have to make the car

[00:27:31] obviously noise compliant but most times we'll try and do it with noise-free races and stuff like that. But, you know, it'll be a demo car, festival speed car because it's such an iconic and it's a one-of-one. And when I launched it, put it on Facebook, you know, I found the car and Instagram and a response I've had, it was like unbelievable. People like, you know, I've got a few friends like Tom Lenthal. He's a YouTuber. He races Jags and I put a post on the Thursday night. Friday morning, he said, you know, Grant, you've got a unicorn here.

[00:28:01] That's the one that's going to put you on the map of building cars because it looks so unique. It appeals to the kids as well as it appeals to the older generation. So I'm learning. I'm doing a full YouTube documentary build on it from start to finish. Oh, wow. Yeah, so buying the car, going to see the car, how I found the car. It's only been back in the family like three or four weeks and I've already been like filming stuff and trying to find people to help me edit and put it on and do it all the kind of stuff is what I've been trying to focus on. But that car's going to be a massive passion project for me to do.

[00:28:31] Will you be able to do all the mechanics, Grant, in-house? Most of it, yeah. Most of it is... So my uncle, Andrew Wilson, he's helped me get the car back. So I'm going to build it in his place because he always regrets it going out of the family as well. So me and Andrew are going to build it together at his place in Dennis Powers, Andrew Wilson Motors. He's already ordered a jig, a flat plate table jig so the car can go on that and it's like laser line so it'll be laser on it so we can put the shell on there and then laser point where we want to put

[00:29:00] the suspension component points and stuff like that and then we'll make it all from scratch. We're going to weld all the brackets, the tubular framing. We'll do most of ourselves. Engine will be done by Rob Bia. Probably the driveline will be done by Billy Bellinger, driveline engineering, good friend of mine. Help does all my racing men gearboxes now. Him and his father, like a little father-in-law team, like gurus, they just know their parts. But most of it we'll do ourselves. Most of it we'll try and do ourselves again. Great. Sounds good. I guess for your father's bit of an emotional return to that car as well. Yeah.

[00:29:30] Yeah, it was. It was. For me, it was. Dad's a bit like, oh, you pay too much for it. He's a bit, you know, we sold him. How much did you pay? 500 pounds? Yeah, yeah. We paid too much for the car. We sold him for nothing, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, he says it in his way. I know he's glad to have the car back. I mean, in his own way, I know he is, really is. But I got really emotional picking the car. I mean, because, you know, I've been trying to find this car for me, it's 30 years because it just disappeared off the face of the earth. I mean, I keep putting posts out there. So, you know, please, if anybody, they're pitching with a guy,

[00:30:00] if anybody sees it, or know about it, or thereabouts, please get in contact. Yeah. And it was only by chance because it basically disappeared. It was sat in a warehouse just doing nothing. And it was only by chance a friend of mine, he was looking at an E-type for customer for sale. And he's seen the front wing and the background in the corner, like sticking around behind a shed, like, you know, behind a tarpaulin and he's seen the colors of the wing. So he knew what the car was. And we sort of messaged them and they'd, yeah, we still got the car. We got the car, yeah. And we kind of looked at it and they wanted too much money for it. So I went and looked at it. I was quite upset because it really hit me

[00:30:29] because I really thought I was going to try and get it. I was trying to raise the money, trying to find a way of getting the money to get the car on. The goal was just too high. So I walked away at the time and said, look, that's too much. It wasn't meant to be. And then probably eight, nine months later, he sells it to one of those mechanics who was going to build it. And then I bumped into him four weeks ago, the last race meeting at Silverstone. He was a young kid. I chatted to him. I said, oh, you got my father's car? And he said, yeah, yeah, I've got it. And he accumulated some parts and some bits with the car. And I said, are you interested in selling it?

[00:30:59] And he said, yeah, I actually am. I want to buy a house so I could do with the department. I was like, so I was a bit like, oh my God, okay. We can be able to do a deal a year. And I wanted, it was in Dover, it was. It's a long old drive for me to go. And I didn't want to turn up, I wanted to go up there with a trailer because I was coming home with this car. This is like, you know, if he's buying a house, he wants money. At some way, I'm going to either steal it off him, okay, but I'm going to try and come home with this car. So I said, so I take the trailer. No, I can't take the trailer because if I turn up the trailer and look too keen

[00:31:29] and then you got to try and play this like game. Yeah. So I said, oh, balls. I'll just drove up there with my son. And I really got emotional, really emotional. And then we've done the deal. All I kept thinking, oh my God. Because it was a 12-minute mile round trip over two days. He's like, go back there and forth. So I was there at nine o'clock in the morning and the next morning, so I was afraid he was going to change his mind. Even though he got paid, I was afraid he was going to back out of it. Because I could see the value in this car and the history that could, and the build, I could envision what this could do

[00:31:58] for me and the family and the racing from us, like I mean. So I knew potentially what it could do, like I mean. So I was so passionate about getting the car back. And again, I was in tears. Literally in tears, you know, because it was one of those, and I get a bit emotional thinking about it now because it's just, yeah, because it's one of those cars that just, we wish he'd never sold. Like I mean, yeah, like you said, you've seen pictures of the car. It just looks. It's wild. It is wild. Yeah, wild. Yeah, it is. I know Hot Wheels will do it. Scale Electric will do it. I know it'll be in every magazine.

[00:32:27] Jaguar Lab it on display in the factory, in JLR, in Coventry. It'll just be everywhere. It'll be everywhere. I can imagine you didn't get much sleep, on that evening in between picking up and... No, I didn't. Because I was panicking. I was literally panicking that he's going to change his mind. You mean, because even though he got paid, he was done. The receipt was wrist-wrote on a piece of paper that I had written in the car because I didn't think anything like that. So he just wrote something out quickly, signed it. But I just thought, oh, he's going to send the money back. He's going to say, no, I don't want to do it. And in fairness, he did say, look,

[00:32:57] I'm not going to do it justice. He was going to try and run it with bits and pieces and stuff like that. And it wasn't... Don't worry about it. I haven't really got the money to build it now, but I'll find the money to build it because it's got to happen. And I'm so passionate about it. And the plan is to spend three days down at Andrew's building it, two days in my garage. He's in about 30 minutes. He's in Cardiff. I'm up in the Ballyx a bit. And sort of go down there to Wednesday, Thursday, Friday to try and run my garage in between. I suppose a project of this nature being so sort of, well, something that people want to watch, well,

[00:33:27] it could and should open doors in terms of collaborating with potential suppliers and whoever. Suppliers. Hopefully the YouTube shop will start funding it and stuff like that. And I'm very passionate. I'm good at talking to people. You know, whenever I go to Google Revival, I'm one of the only drivers who spend... I'll spend all day, every day at the car because people just want to come and thank me most of the time. Just say thank you for all the years of entertainment you've given me. And I'm always thanking them because without them, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing. And I'm sort of a crowd favorite.

[00:33:56] The underdog because we do it on a shoestring, on the thread of a shoestring. And you know what, right? I'm very lucky. I'm so privileged to do what I do, but I've worked hard to do it. And, you know, I've podiumed at Revival almost every single Revival I've entered. Literally, in 17, 18 Revivals, I've podiumed 16 times. Wow. So I've gone on that from, you know, 9th and 10th in the griddle, back of the griddle, and I've won it six times outright. From a logistical point of view, and you don't have to answer this, and yeah, it might be something

[00:34:25] we kind of agree not to put out. Is the Revival a guest list only? Do you have to pay to be there? Do you get paid to be there? It is. It's invite only. Invite only. You either got to have a car with history or prominence. You know, the first race my car ever did in 1959 is at Revival as a factory-run car. Okay. So then the bike one was a factory-run car. He ran out Goodwood and then John Coombs under the Coombs name and Salvadori was the driver. And then Grandad bought it in 62 off the factory.

[00:34:56] So then, Dad done the first ever Revival in 1998. Nice. Loved it. He said, do you want to come do it, son? Because he'd never hear about it. He just had the invite to the first one because the car had problems with it and then. And he got to third and he finished fourth overall. And I remember telling me, and he said, do you want to go do it? And I was like, nah, Dad. I was young. I just won the championship. You know, I was out partying with my mates and all that. I wasn't that bothered. And then he rings me up from a pay phone like, son, this is like nothing we've ever done before. Like, I mean, this thing's massive, this event. They're giving us free racing

[00:35:26] fuel, for God's sake. And he said, look, if you do it, you'll walk it. You'll, you'll, you'll. So then I'd done the 99 race. But yeah, I get there because I put bums on seats. Yeah. Because I'm a crowd favorite. I'm always driving the car sideways. Yeah. And I'm so passionate about it. Like, I mean, but it's, I have race against open checkbook racing. That's a problem. Now these, these events, you know, I'm up against multi-millionaires. I see Jenson Button's just bought an E-Type, isn't he? Specifically to win the TT, for example. Yeah. And they, they will throw,

[00:35:56] you know, two, three hundred grand. Like in my race this year, the two Jags I was up against, again, it used to be up against owner drivers. So the celebrity race was on Saturday and then the owner drivers was on Sunday. And even though I'm, my name is just as big there as the celebrities are, I still can't get into the Saturday race because I'm the owner driver. Even though I'm the owner, dad's the owner, I'm the driver. Yeah. But my race is now turned into, you know, I got a ex-Lemore winning, you know, Chris Ward, you know, won every BRDC member

[00:36:26] driving one Mark 1. And then I got a young touring car driver in the other Mark 1 in my race. Like I mean, and so it's turned out to be like my race is against professional racing drivers. I mean, I'm still a technical club and race, even though I am a professional because I've been racing so long. But, you know, I am so fast in the wet. You know, I started ninth in the grid. They had started P1 and P3. So it was a rolling start. And I remember I was behind a mother Mark 1 and he was a former E driver.

[00:36:56] Okay. Good driver. But it was a rolling start. I was ninth back on the grid and we came around. I remember coming around the chicane and he wasn't keeping up with the pack. So as I came to the chicane, all the front runners were already gone. The first seven, eight car. I'd gone over the line already. I'm just going to the chicane. I'm thinking, come on. I couldn't even, I had such a great run out of the chicane. I couldn't even, I had a lift and coast over the line because I couldn't pass until I got over the line. And then I remember going, right, okay, get your head down. I was five seconds a lap faster than anybody on the track. Wow. A lap.

[00:37:27] But then at that point, third, fourth lap, they'd sort of realized the conditions. But I'd worked the conditions out as soon as I got in the car. I knew what the grip was. So then I sort of got neutralized then. But if I had just started on the front row, I had a better quality. I had a problem. It was overheating and problem with the car. If I started on the front row, second or third, I'd have gone. I'd have left them. Yeah, yeah. I would have pulled up probably 20, 30 second gap and they wouldn't have caught me. No. So I would have gone off the distance and I would have won the race. That's right. But, you know, I still finished third overall from where I came.

[00:37:57] It was ninth, which was great. It was sort of my first time back for revival, which was amazing. Like I mean, so I know those meetings that really, and if you look at my Instagram, I did a sort of a reel of the whole weekend and the music. I visualized myself in on that one. So before I even got there, I would say, I'm getting on this, I'm going to get on this podium. I'm going to get on this podium. So I visualized the whole thing. That whole weekend, I visualized the music, just everything about it and the emotions and, you know, we've done it a few times.

[00:38:26] I've been doing revival for quite a while. You've done a couple, haven't you, John? Yeah. And yeah, it's certainly a favorite with us, just the whole atmosphere and it's amazing. Yeah, it's brilliant. It really is. It is. It's a massive, massive part of my life. Fantastic. Well, yeah, thank you very much for joining us. It's been a real pleasure to hear the stories. You obviously hear a bit of the family history and the fact that you've got the car back again is just, yeah, it's wonderful. Yeah. So yeah, really appreciate you giving us some time. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me on.

[00:38:55] I love it. If I could spread the name and spread the family, yeah, it's fantastic. Thank you. Thanks, Grant. Yeah, very kind of you. Yeah, thank you very much, Grant. Thank you very much. Thank you. We'll leave you to your weekend and... Yeah, I'm off to the Classroom Sport Car Awards now, literally, I'm going to try to London now. Fantastic. Well, yeah, go well. Thank you. Cheers, Grant. Bye. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Cheerio. Bye-bye. Bye. What a nice guy. Cool stories. Yeah, really good. Yeah, that'd be one to watch the rebuild, certainly. Yeah, definitely. I sent you the link, didn't I? Which, yeah,

[00:39:26] it reminds me a bit of the Ford Transit supervan. Right. You know, like the whole thing that it's just... Yeah, I see what you're saying. It's got that sort of silhouette of something that you're very familiar with but underneath is like just a complete monster. Yeah. Yeah, I suppose really when you look at it, I mean, the grill and the lights are the giveaway, aren't they? Yeah. And you're hearing that story, certainly keen to see it, how it develops really. Absolutely, yeah. For anyone kind of listening, Grant Williams Racing is the account to follow on Instagram. Yeah,

[00:39:55] sounds fantastic. He's going to document that for YouTube as well. Yeah. Yeah, what looks like, I guess it's Morse on steroids, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that's really good and yeah, just some lovely tales. That was one of those interviews we didn't really have to try. It just flowed, didn't it? And then when you kind of, just when one story came to an end, you kind of then ended up in a Range Rover three door or whatever it might be. It was kind of... You can imagine, Grant said, didn't he, that he sort of stands by

[00:40:25] the car at the revival and just chats to everyone. You can imagine that that would be very easy for him just to talk all day about racing and the legacy of his family and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, really good. Yeah, I guess it means a lot to him, doesn't it? Like, he was getting emotional obviously talking about getting that car back. But it's, yeah, it's in him. He's kind of been brought up around it. Obviously, yeah, he's sort of taught himself to drive. Yeah. His kind of dad gave him the opportunity to kind of have a go in the family car and, yeah, it turns out

[00:40:54] he's pretty good at it. Yeah. Yeah. One of the positives of social media that one, isn't it? That you can seemingly locate things that you might think have gone. Yeah. I think also you can locate people like the fact that, yeah, we ended up speaking to Grant because of a friend of mine, Dom, who kind of said, oh, you should speak to this person. But yeah, it sort of connects everyone together, doesn't it? Quite easily. And if you find someone who you don't know, but obviously, if we're talking about a subject which is very much kind of poignant to them in this case,

[00:41:24] obviously, yeah, their dad's car, then, yeah, certainly you can be having kind of a chat with someone you've never met before and very quickly kind of get on and sort of understand each other because of it. So, yeah, big thanks to Grant for coming on. Really enjoyed that. Really good. So, yeah, thank you very much, John. Thank you. And yeah, we'll wrap it up and roll the credits. Thank you for listening to My Dance Cart. I hope you enjoyed the show. Please support us.

[00:41:55] Buy us a coffee and subscribe and tell all your friends.