Ian Cook - Pop Bang Colour: Metro, Meastro, Vauxhall Chevette, Car Designer Uncle worked for Rover, Scalextric for Xmas S7 E2

Welcome to MyDad's car.

Welcome to My Daphne Club. I've got discussing multiple relationships in automatically. And you know what? It doesn't even have to be a public daddy club. It can be your mum, your grand, your pet, your model, or even a neighbour. If it made an impression, let's talk about it. Can you hear me? I can hear you, yeah. How are you doing, Ian? Alright?

How are you?

Yes, we're good, thank you.

Good day to you both. Nice to meet you, Ian. I'm John. How you doing, right? How's it going? Yeah, good, thanks. Not too bad.

Super duper. So, yeah, for the benefit of the tape, we're joined by Ian Cook, who's probably best known as Pot Bang Colour. Um, and you're an artist and you draw pictures with little cars. It's probably a quick way to sum it up without doing it any discredit. Yeah, I mean that's that's that's kind of my most simple way.

A one-sentence way of describing it, yeah. Or just like I've paid with cars, I've done that with real cars, and I've done that predominantly with radio control cars.

Yeah, yeah.

And then when I'm not doing that, I do continuous car drawing. So I I draw in my little Chevy Spark and I go around the country in that and draw other people's cars in the back of my car. Um people continue to be kind of a maze stroke puzzle that I drive it there. It's not trailered, it it is driven. Yeah, and yes, it's kind of event season, really. So back out again this weekend, and in between that, at the moment, we're pulling a house apart and trying to find a kitchen. Oh yeah, I've seen on Instagram, yeah. Doing adulting stuff, you know, trying to be an adult is uh yeah, that's why I paint with cars because it's more fun, you know. Real world stuff scares me too much.

So yeah, I was racking my brains earlier trying to think I've been to a fair amount of car shows. It was the first time I saw you. Were you doing any of the shows kind of back in the Max Power era? Uh would I have seen you at one of those type of things?

It might have been Top Gear Live potentially. Yeah, when I did an event in London, that was like very early days. Okay. So it was like 2009, maybe eight, nine.

Okay. Yeah, if not, maybe I saw you at dunno at Goodwood event or something like that. I don't think we've ever spoken, but yeah, I've just kind of known that of what you're doing, you kind of walk past and you're always busy doing stuff covered in paint, yeah, and um having a whale of a time bowl accounts and producing some pretty cool stuff.

Yeah, and I'm very fortunate, and you know, obviously hard work and determination and all that as well. But I've been very fortunate to be able to create uh a number of events, you know, some of really cool events over the years. Yeah, yeah. And that's what I enjoy. I enjoy you know, going to events and creating and being part of people's experiences uh uh these days, and uh and people go you know come back from it going, oh I've just seen a guy on his knees covered in paint and uh I think he was painted with a car, I think. So yeah, no, that's what I I do I do really enjoy the performance element of is is key to the business. Yeah. I mean obviously I have a studio which I'm here at the moment, yeah, without working, but I'm not very good at being a caged animal in the studio. I'm not very good at uh kind of being here and and not out. I mean, I might I much prefer being out and about, uh, but I also realise I've got I've got to get work done. So sometimes I've got to be like, right, Ian, get on with it. Get the work done. My wife will be like, What have we got done today? You know, have we got anything done? Not being distracted by anything. Uh, because I'm very good at getting distracted by anything as well.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, fair enough. So, yeah, we'll we'll jump in. What's your earliest car memory?

Well, earliest car memory. Um, my parents will always say that they remember me being the back of the car, and I was able to name the cars from the rear light clusters on a motorway on the way home. Yeah, and they were just like, How do you even know that in? I'm like, I just do like visually, I'm really good at cars, you know, which helps my job, obviously. Mechanically, I'm terrible. Like, I I wouldn't know how to fit, you know, that's why I have mechanic friends, and I'm not I'm not building my Chevette. But you know, I have people who do that. Yeah, it's a bit like finding a kitchen fitter electrician. Like, I can't do that, but I'll find somebody who can.

Yeah, yeah.

So uh I've always been into it. Like cars has always been my passion. I wasn't into football or rugby. Yeah, being from Birmingham, you know, growing up, either you're a villa fan or a blues fan. I was like, no, thanks. Like I just I just yeah, or it's like West Brahm or Walsall or or whatever. I was like, nah, nah, no, and I I just wasn't into football. Fair enough. So being massively into F1, yeah, growing up, you know, with V10, V12 era, and then also Super Tourers and watching uh you know Monteos and Volvos and that era of touring car, yeah. You know, I remember getting to Donington Park and our window falling out of my mum's car. So I remember going to watch touring car, and my mum had to stay in the car because the window had just gone into the car. We'll come to that later then. But also, I grew up with my uncle being a designer at what was then Rover. Oh wow. So when I was a kid, like my uncle was a bit of a hero. My my granddad was my hero, uh, but my uncle worked for JLR. Yeah, or Rover Group. Um, so we all grew up with various rover group cars.

Okay.

So we definitely had two maestros. We had a blue one and a bronze one. Nice. We had metros, one of which was definitely stolen from my my uh had parents eating with my mum. We came back out to the car park and the car was gone. Wow. I remember the caretaker going, Did you definitely drive your car here? My mum was like, Yes, my car was here. And that was found burnt out in a park a couple of miles down the road. Okay. She was really upset. I remember being really upset because all her school stuff was in the back, all her stuff that she had for teaching was in the back of the car. Oh no. Yeah, so Metro story, not so great. No. But yeah, no, it was definitely growing up with that kind of automotive link of my uncle, who was a car designer. I remember him hit him having a rover uh either 675, might be in early 75 or 600, and it he had designed the wheels that it was on. Okay. And I just thought that was like the coolest thing ever. Like he'd drawn them and then it became the wheels on his car. And I wanted to be a car designer when I was a kid, and that's what I wanted to do. And I did a week's work experience with my uncle, which was at Rover back then. And after that week, I was like, mmm, maybe car design isn't my thing. But it was it was a cool experience, and I saw so I I went around the test track, or what is now JLR test track. I went that around that in a rover BRM, so that's with the orange grill.

Yeah, yeah.

Flying around that in a BRM, and my uncle pulled up and he was like, Oh, here's the new mini, like before it was even come out. He was like, Wow, this is a new mini, yeah, with the big clock in the middle of it. And I was like, Oh my god, I was like, Oh, this is amazing. And I saw loads of stuff that week, which I couldn't talk about because I was under NDA. So when you were at school, you had to write a diary about your work experience, and um, I couldn't really write much, which is great because I hate writing. So he was like, I did this, but I can't talk about it. But yeah, no, it's cool. So yeah, so cars have always been part of my kind of growing up. You know, I had Birago and I had scalectrics. I remember having a scale electric set in my in my bedroom as a kid set up, and I had it like with all the fastest lap times, and I'd literally write down the lap times and have a little you know of the fastest laps, and then I'd change the cars accordingly on the shelf of how fast they'd gone. You know, and it would be like, How fast can I? Yeah, and I had SCX and Ninko, these all these other brands of a slot car that I had as well. Well, my uncle who owned the Chevette originally, he always used to buy me a scale electric car or a slot car for Christmas. So there's a place called Bob's Models in Shirley in Solley Hall. It's not there now, but it was like that was my Christmas treat: was going to Bob's Models and picking the scale electric car that I wanted that year. Even though I knew what I was getting, my uncle would then wrap it up and then deliver it on Christmas, all wrapped up, even though I knew I'd chosen it, I know what it was, but it was still really special to open up this kind of this new scale electric car.

I actually found all my old scale electric cars recently in a major shed demolition job. Oh really? Yeah, yeah. I should have taken some photos really, but have you rescued them? I've put them in the loft, yeah. No, some decent ones there. I had like um the Audi Quattro Rally, yeah, yeah. BMW M1, Capri. Nice, some minis that looked like they'd been hit with tins of paint.

Humbral accident.

Yeah, that's what it was, I think. Matt finish or something like that.

Yeah, so let's take you back to car spotting in the back of your parents' cars. So, what were they driving? What's the first car you remember your folks having?

Um Metro. Yeah, it was a Metro. Okay. Because my my uncle, because he's quite high up at Rover, so he was able to have like I mean, this is probably why Rover made no money and went under, because they gave them all away. All the employees generally had like an obscene amount of cars in their scheme. I think my uncle could have seven. Really?

Wow.

Yeah, yeah. My uncle had one, his wife had one, my mum had one, my dad had one, my granddad had one, Gran had one. That's insane. It was and they were they were all on the scheme of being part of Rover Group. So definitely the Metro when we we were much younger. What colour was that?

It was a red one. Nice.

My uncle had the MG Turbo, he had the turbo. Oh, lovely. Yeah, he was high up at Rover. So he always had there's a picture of my parents, Uncle Paul, Uncle Jan, and my grand and grand at Clee Hill at my granddaugh's house, and all the metros all lined up. Whether that was all broken down, I don't know. But yeah, they were definitely all lined up together. Were you an only child or did you have siblings? Oh, I've got a brother, we've got an older brother as well. So you were four up in a metro, that was the Well, I think that's why we got the Maestro, and we had a blue maestro, and then we had a bronze maestro as well. Saloon or estate? Maestros were hatches, weren't they? Montego was the estate and saloon. Right, of course. Yeah, yeah. A hatch, yeah, it was a hatch. Yeah, the boxy kind of ugly. I don't know, ugly. Is it ugly is it pretty now? It's weird, isn't it? That cars of that era, you kind of look at them and go, hmm, actually, look all right. Not so bad. Well, not so bad now. No, you don't see them very often. Yeah, I saw a rover 200 yesterday, and I was like, Oh, you don't see those very often. Looks alright. Probably your uncle's. Yeah, yeah, probably, yeah. Probably still got mouse with our seven cars lying around today. Um, yes, we had Maestro Metro Maestro. Um, we had Rover 200, which my dad still like he still really liked that car. He still talks about how like, oh the Rover 200 was a good one that was. I was like, was it? Was it really? So yeah, we had a green one of them with 200, but it was a two-door. I remember like the back, like pull the seats forward to get in the back. Yeah, and then when the when the rovers came in, when it was bought a Ford, we then went into Ford so my mum had like oh we had a KA. We had a KA, we had a very we had a KA for a bit as well. That was my mum's car. Then she went on to Fiesta's after that, and uh, then my dad always had the slightly older car. Uh and then when I learned to drive, my granddad thought it was a great idea to get a Volvo 440, which was 300 quid from somewhere.

All right.

My grandad's car choices were pretty bad. He was trying to really help, but generally his car choices were not the best. So we got this 300 pound Volvo from somewhere in Shropshire, and that's what I learned to drive in. Okay. One thing I remember is yeah, because I learned to drive quite late, I didn't learn to drive until I was 25. Okay. So I had a micro scooter, so I just got to work on a scooter, so I didn't really think as much as I was obsessed with cars and I loved cars and whatever, I didn't feel the need to actually learn to drive. So um after university, I did like because at uni, I did there was no car parking space, couldn't afford it. I had a little micro scooter that I bobbed around on. Um hence why I've got really massive calf muscles, because my calf muscles are just like because I was always on the scooter everywhere.

Aside from your uncle, was anyone else kind of into cars as such in your family, or were they just literally it was just an A to B vehicle for your parents or for your grandparents?

Yeah, no, there certainly wasn't an influence around me particularly that looked like you know, my parents, my mum's not really into it, my dad's not into it. It was more like my uncle and the car design, and yeah, and I think my parents lived in Solihall or do or do live in Solihall, and obviously at home and Land Rover. So, yeah, it's always been I think being in the Midlands, yeah. We know what was then Longbridge and and Solihull Factory, and you know, it's around you as a thing. You know, your friends' dad might work at the rover, you know, what they what they used to call at the rover, yeah. You used to work at the rover or whatever. So I just liked it. I just I just really enjoyed the passion for it, and you know, like I said, with the skeletrics and the collected Brago and and whatever. Yeah. I I think if you're into it, you're into it. There's no rhyme or reason, but if you if you're really into these things with wheels, and I am, and that's my my passion for it. Yeah. And I think what what I really like about it now is it just brings people together from different you can go to a supercar thing, you can go to a classic car thing, and it's all these different communities of people that kind of are drawn together with a passion for something that's so you may not be able to describe if you if I I don't know if if somebody said to me about oh I'm really into football, I was like, I I don't know why you would be. At the same time, like having more recently in later life, as they say, getting into running, like I get it, like I get the passion for that, and it does the same thing about bringing people together, and you don't necessarily have to be really fast or good at it, but if you enjoy it as a group of people, actually it's that you can have different levels of it, but also you could just enjoy it as an activity, you know. For me, now is I'm part of a of something that I feel is like an extended family almost.

So yeah, yeah. As um as a kid, were you kind of aware of any sort of social status or whatever from vehicles? Did you have any consideration of whether or not the cars you were travelling in were good or not good, or whether kind of friends at schools had aspirational vehicles that you kind of thought, I wish we had one of those ones rather than one of these?

I wouldn't I don't I wouldn't say like I don't know. We certainly didn't grow up you know wealthy or or like in a state where we were like oh, we were around Range Rovers or whatever. I think I learned a lot more about it when I was going through university, and like because I wrote my dissertation on Land Rovers and how they feature in films, and part of that was the stature of the different types of vehicle as well. So you had like Defender, Range Rover, whatever, and uh the kind of characters they were portraying. So I learned a lot about that in in that kind of when I was doing my dissertation because I had to one, I watched a lot of films to see how that worked, and also it was really interesting that you know Defender was seen as like you know, you're exploring and you're gonna go and save save something, or uh you know, it's in the countryside or whatever. Um, Discovery was much more like kind of middle class family, generally out in America, because they're promoting it as a vehicle that that could be sold in America because Defender couldn't. Um, and then Range Rover was always like bad guy, or like, yeah, and you know, look at that in the kind of the Bond series as well. So I never really thought about like the cars that we were in, were like they were they were just more like workhorses, like it was just if mum and dad could afford the next. Yeah, I remember the one wise show was nicer than the other. The blue one was a bog or standard one, and the uh the bronze one was slightly better spec. Yeah, but it wasn't like really nice, it was just a bit nicer. I think it had a colour-coordinated grille on the front. There was something a bit different about the bronze one, uh a sparkly paint. Yeah, yeah. We lived at Solid Hall, but we actually bordered more Birmingham. We weren't in like the posh bit, you know? Yeah, and it and we had to work for everything. Like maybe I have that work ethic now is that we had to work for it. Like it wasn't gonna be on your plate, or I couldn't just go right. Yeah, as soon as I could work at a job, I went and worked and worked at Argos and yeah, got a uh you know, a Saturday job so that I could afford to buy things. But yeah, I I don't really remember that kind of like status symbol growing up as such, but I think it's because we didn't live in a particularly well-off area. Yeah. My mum and dad both went out to work, and yeah, when when they wanted a holiday, we were shipped over to our grandparents, you know, over in Ludlow, and that was my granddad and Uncle Fully's my granddad's brother who owned the Chevette. Okay. So, yeah, so when we weren't at home as such, you know, we were we were over at grandparents, and I think we yeah, my granddad also was a very much a worker, like he worked in a hardware store, but he was also really popular in the community, really, really community-led person. But I say, but as I say, he had generally quite a terrible choice of cars. One of the latter ones he had was a Swift, yeah, he had the Suzuki Swift kind of hatchbacky version. That was one of the ones he had towards the end.

Have you got any memorable journeys, Ian? I know you mentioned going away to your grandparents' holidays, but any other sort of trips that you would take maybe annually other school round, that sort of thing.

Uh yeah, I do remember the metros being taken down to France. Oh, right. So we went down to Dadoing. Oh, Christ with my grand and granddad, me and mum, you know, me and my brother couldn't be kept in the same car. Yeah, we were bad. Like, we were bad with each other. I I mean I it's still bad now, like thinking about it. Like, we'd wind each other up quite quickly. In back if we sat in my car, we'd wind each other up. Like, I knew how to trigger my brother really, really quickly. Um, and for some reason, you know, but remember the old lap belts, yeah, they were like just across your waist, they weren't like the the full safety ones now. It's really bad. I remember for some reason I thought it was really good to flick that lap belt at my brother and hit him in the lip. The buckle instant, like it exploded, lip just exploded. And I was it's terri- I know, I feel terrible without that doing it now. But for some reason, I I was like, oh but yeah, so we couldn't we couldn't be in the same car together, so we had to be separated. Uh so my brother was in with my grandparents, and I was it with mum and dad, and we were going down to the doing, and all of a sudden my um gran jumped out of the car in front because she was convinced that we were going the wrong way, and um yeah, so she got out and she was like, Richard, we're we're going the wrong way. Look, I'm looking at the because this is maps, this wasn't sat nav, this was old school kind of maps, and um it turns out Gran was following the river, not the not the road. We were like, Oh man, we were like, get Sylvia, Sylvia, get back in the car, like just get on with it. So I remember I remember that trip as well because um my granddad caught the shingles as well.

Oh nice.

So like we got down there, and then it was like, yeah, it was like chicken pox for adults is bad in a and an older person. Uh and he caught the shingles. I just remember this this whole journey down to the drawing was just littered with like things that went wrong. I remember we had a massive storm out there as well. We're getting down to this beautiful part of France, and it was just a horrendous storm. Uh, we we popped to to Mont Saint-Michel, which is like St. Michael's male, but the French version, and my brother was wearing a rucksack and he managed to like swing round and cleared the shelf of all the souvenirs that were there, and they all shattered instantly. And his French you know shop assistant was quickly kind of scooping them all up into a bag and then making my parents pay for it, like they shattered, like all these souvenirs that were broken into many, many pieces.

Sounds like a Mr. Bean sort of film, this does, isn't it?

Oh, it was honestly, it was definitely a memorable journey. I think it was like one of the one times that we went abroad. Sounds like it would put you off.

Yeah.

Well, I think everything else from there on was like Isle of Wight, uh, you know, Isle of Wight, uh, Lake District, uh Peak District. Yeah. We did we didn't really go away on like any kind of abroady holidays after after that. Yeah, France was probably as as exotic as it got. Yeah. And then yeah, it was uh the Isle of Whites a lot when we were we were kids. Uh mainly because my mum really, really likes um boat journeys. So I think the boat journey was like the exciting thing. And it wasn't too far, like it wasn't it wasn't a really a broad holiday, but it was nice because it was a boat journey included. Yeah, yeah. So I I remember that that must have been the maestro as well. Nice. I remember we had a not not a tent trailer, but we we used to tow uh you know a little um a little trailer on the back, I think in a blowout at least once. And then also keys being shut in cars when it was on still and and stuff like that. Yeah, standard, standard kind of like where's where's the keys? Oh, in the initial where's the car? It's locked. Oh, there we are. Um but my dad worked for Bernardo's when he was younger, so he knew how to break into cars quite well. Um that he'd been taught by uh some of the kids that he was uh he was looking after. So uh we were able to get back because back in those days you could kind of put a bit of a bit of thing down the window and tweak it up. Co-hanger, yeah. Yeah, that kind of thing. Apparently, packaging tape is the thing to have. But obviously, yeah, don't do that, kids. It's not a good thing. Uh don't break the law.

Would they listen to the radio or have cassettes or anything, or was it a case of just playing ISPY and chatting?

The one the one real music thing I remember a bit later on, it was like, yeah, I didn't I didn't drive until uh after uni. But uh I remember my granddad taking me down to my university interviews, but he'd always have like classic FM on, and it was constantly classic. But I was like, you know, I was kind of a you know young, you know, an older teen. I was like, oh come on, I want to listen to music, and I want to listen like Radio One and some like proper music on it. And so I switched it to like Radio One at that time or whatever, and then I think Limp Biscuit was like blaring out, like you're rocking your set like Russian, yeah. It was like really quite yeah, obviously, some bleeps were in there and whatever. And I just remember my granddaugh just being like, No, that's it. Yeah, you had your chance, you switched it over, and it's back to classic MM. Yeah, yeah, you're right. Okay, I let yeah, no loud music. But yeah, no, I yeah, it was fun, yeah. It was kind of nice to have these holidays of that era of like, yeah, it was exciting to go. The lake district, but we because my mum she also really likes to go to the same places. So if it's the place she likes, she'd be like, We'll go back there again. So I remember we definitely went back to the same campsite because she liked it, and we knew that the food was there, but I was also a really fussy eater, so like I didn't eat a lot of stuff, like you know, baked potato was my stat, like that was my safe food. Like, if the if the pub had that, then we'd eat there, and it annoyed my brother immensely. Like him being so annoyed that so many times that we went to different pubs and he couldn't have what was on the menu because because Ian wouldn't eat it. It's probably probably why he didn't like movie. Probably doesn't like me very much. Yeah, he was probably going back to those years of um not being able to have all the nice food in various pubs.

So how did the touring cars thing come about? So you mentioned you went to Dorrington, the window fell down. Was your brother interested in cars as well? Was it kind of a family trip that you all went?

Or no, so me and my brother are very much the opposite. I liked anything that he didn't.

Oh right.

Like I say, we we couldn't even be in the same car. Sometimes we were that bad, we just had to be separated. You know, he likes history and that kind of thing, yeah, and cars was like the opposite of it. So, yeah, and and my dad quite liked it that we had these two different interests that he could he could be into history and Romans and and whatever, and I could be into motorsport and cars. And from yeah, Birmingham where we lived, I think Donington was probably the most accessible track. Uh what I do remember from that day as well, as well as the window falling out, I decided that I'd try motorbiking for the first time, having never shown any interest in two wheels at all. Oh, okay. I thought, oh, I'm gonna jump on a motorbike. And they had this like it. I imagine health and safety has killed it now, but it was this ride-on motorbike that had like you know, like the inflatable barriers that were that are around. Yeah, I went on similar as a kid. Yeah, so I kind of jumped on this motorbike having no, I guess the person would have been like, oh, you know how this works, it'd be like, Yes, yes, I know how this works, it's fine. Um so I I jumped on it and I just went full full pelt, like, yes, go. Yeah, yeah, you can imagine, yeah. Straight into the barrier. Uh and then also the bike then landed on my leg and then taking a load of skin off my leg. Oh, of course. Yeah, yeah, it was a really kind of grazy, painful, kind of like you don't want to get any grit in that um out of Dusty Donnington. Um, and then I guess my dad then taking back to my mum who was sat in the car because it didn't have the window in it, yeah, going, uh, yeah, Ian's hurt himself. Yeah, this is this is a great day. We haven't got a window in the car, and Ian's now got a big graze on his leg. Sounds like a job for Savlon, that oh yeah, yeah, that's definitely one of those. Slap that on. Yeah. But no, I yeah, I think it was just because our era was like, you know, on Grand Stand and BBC Ones, it was motorsport that was when you know when when F1 was on and you know it'd be F1 and touring car, and I just wanted to go and watch um likes of Tarquini and Wilkenhawk and yeah, those proper even Mansell dipped his toe in, didn't he, at one point, mid-nighties?

Tiff Nadell.

Yeah, yeah, Mansell was done. I don't I don't know whether it was that a bit later, I think 90s I want to say 96, 97, I think.

I don't remember it being that when he had that big offer uh Donny. Um I don't yeah, I don't know whether it was that particular race, but I do remember it did rain because we had the passenger windows. I think we had to get it fixed when we got home. It'd gone definitely into the door.

Fancy keeping it as like a jukes of hazard style uh entry point.

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, Mum wasn't very impressed because he couldn't go anywhere for the day. I imagine my brother was quite bored because he wasn't really into cars, so I imagine he was kind of dragged there and and he was like Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he reads a lot of books though. I imagine he just read a book and just wasn't really bothered about anything else.

It's probably the sort of event nowadays if you went there'd be quite a lot of stuff to do, wouldn't there? Even if you weren't into motorsport. Like, yeah. If you go to any event, there's just loads of stuff. Whereas back in the day, I suppose it would have just been food stalls, maybe, and watch the action.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, a lot more events now are just you know, it's entertainment as soon as there's not racing on track, you know, whether it's an air show or stunt bikes and all that. Yeah, there's always something else that's going on.

Yeah, it's true.

Or you can go and watch an artist paint or draw, you know. I mean, that's that's always an option. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you can always go, you know, buy some merch from him. He's a nice guy, yeah. Yeah, you definitely need to buy some merch.

So I remember those motorbikes. We used to go see my dad, and we'd go to like this big boot fair, and yeah, there'd be like the big sort of inflatable bouncy castle type thing, like circuit, if you like, figure of eight or whatever it was. And they'd put you on 40cc little motorbike with like an open face helmet, and off you'd go. And like you say, you'd you go straight in the barrier, you'd fall over, probably, you'd either burn your leg on the exhaust or the chain would get you. Yeah, and I've seen a few pictures of it, and you kind of think, what were they doing? Putting five-year-olds on motorbikes who had never before in shorts and t-shirt.

It was a different time. Bring it back, bring it back. Yeah, you can have that. It's how it's how we all learnt. Yeah, we learned by going, Yeah, we don't do that again. That that was a bad idea.

Yeah. You mentioned the Chevette that you're working on, and that used to belong to your uncle. What's the what's the story there?

Yeah, uh, story is uh that was a financial error for me. Going, yes, I need to keep that because it's a memory, and uh I need that car in my life still, and it shouldn't be scrapped. And uh yeah, my uncle you know warned me from the beginning. He was like, I don't want this to financially be a burden on you. And I was like, No, no, no, no, it's fine. No, I I'm gonna take this car and I'm gonna fix it. He said confidently in 2012. And now what is it? Oh god, it's 2025 and it's still not working. Is this the uncle who were Rover and Ford? No, this is what this is my dad's brother. Oh, okay, okay. This is Uncle Phil who a bit like me and my brother, like we never knew why they didn't particularly see eye to eye, but they'd also spend time to get every Christmas. Uncle Phil would arrive at my grandad's house in that Chevette, and with my Christmas presents that I'd already chosen, obviously, in the boot of it. So for me, that car is like such a sentimental thing that I remember arriving on my granddad's driveway at like whatever time at night because he eventually arrived because he didn't have a satin alley, he was using the old road maps, and you know, if he'd got into a diversion, he didn't know where he was going. Followed the river, yeah, exactly. That river again, yeah. So, yeah, so that car basically it got too much for him to keep going. Like the garage that were maintaining it were like it's really rusty. We've tried to repair it as much as we can, but actually now it's too far gone, we can't keep on trying to fix it. So he bought a Corster and the car was garaged to a point, and then he had some local youths knew about the car and they wanted to take it banger racing, and I was like, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Because I said to Walker Phil, like, if you'll ever get rid of it, I want first dibs. Yeah, yeah. So he was like, Right, well, you've got to come and get it out of the garage and make it your responsibility. So got it out of the garage. I got the V5, it went into storage in various places. It was always like, ah, what do I do with this car that doesn't work because it had a fuel leak, so we couldn't use it and it wasn't roadworthy. And then eventually, after storing it in various places and then it being stored in my flat garage, we pulled it out in 2019 to start the restoration of it. Cool. I mean, you don't see many two-door chevettes from 1978 on the road, and there's good reasons for that because they're all rusty and they're a financial error to ever try and make good a hatch or a coat. It's a two-door um two-door saloon. Yeah, yeah, lift back, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean you see a lot of hatches because a lot of them are rallied, a lot of them race. Yeah, at the same time, because you know, Ford Mark Ones and stuff are now crazy money, just to get hold of it, a shell or a half decent one, actually you could get into a Chevette for not a huge amount of money, and certainly you don't have to spend as much money I've spent on mine. But the thing is we had to take it back to a shell and we had to rebuild it because it was rotten. Yeah, we had to do that. If if if we wanted to rebuild the car, you know, the aim is always rebuild it once properly, so that's what I've been doing.

Yeah, yeah.

And as and when I can, I pour money into the pit and I get more of the shove it done, but it's still a shove it because that doesn't start, uh, it's still very much a really expensive paperweight. But at the same time, it's a journey. So, yeah, I I've learned this but from recently buying a 1930s house, it's the same problem.

At least you can live in the house. Well, I suppose you could live in the Chevette, couldn't you?

Yeah, I don't think my wife would like that. Well then she has locked me out of the house twice and I have slept in the Spark twice. I don't recommend that. The Spark is not a good place to sleep in overnight. She says it was by accident that she couldn't hear me, but I still the first time I can forgive her, the second time, yeah. I think she she meant that one. Yeah, but uh yeah, we're getting it. Like I think at the same time, it's a shell rebuild. We've rebuilt it because a lot of the bodywork needs to be redone. Um the colour of it isn't the same. Yeah, it was coming Starfire, which is metallic brown, but it's now gone to a Saab 9.3 colour, okay. Uh which isn't a deeper colour. Uh it's got a Mazda MX5 1.6 engine, so we bought a Mazda for £400. Uh, I sold it without the engine and gearbox for £1200, which is the best. That is the best car buying thing I've ever done.

Good news.

But these things just take time. Like some people's restorations they can fully do it for a year or three years and it gets done quickly, whereas this is it's a little bit bitty, and when companies come in and support it or supply bits or whatever, we can do the next bit. Yeah, yeah. When it's not that way, it goes back to my garage like a little naughty school child, and I point at it and go, You're not coming out until we can have a chat again. I mean, hopefully, once the house has settled down and whatever, and if I have a good season of sales and whatnot, then uh the Chevette will make a reappearance.

We had a chap on, didn't we? I can't I've his name escapes me. The guy who restored his parents' wedding car, an MG MG Magnate, wasn't it?

Tom.

Might be. Yes, McCloy. Is that his surname? Possibly, yeah. But hey, yeah, similar sort of story. Like, this car was sat in his parents' garage. He lost his dad and his mum had it in there for years and years and years, and he decided he was going to restore it, and yeah, it was good as kind of bankrupting, pretty much. He shouldn't have paid the amount of money he paid on fixing it. But we've said with a number of people, like, if you have the opportunity to get the car, get the car because you'll never get it again. Yeah, and if it means something to you, you'll keep it forever.

Yeah, I mean that the thing is, if it was any other Chevette that I just found somewhere, it wouldn't have the same history. Like the whole thing for me is that it was the car that I got my Christmas presents out of. So it's gonna be sitting that I will enjoy and we'll go from there. Yeah, that's why I've started a new Instagram for it so that I could share some of the history of it, some of the background and some of the you know the build because some people don't know it's a shell rebuild, you know, on its side, blasted back and whatever. Yeah, people haven't seen that, so I thought even if it's not being done, I can show some of the history of how far we've gone with it so far. That's part of the story, really. Fantastic.

Well, yeah, thank you very much for joining us in. It's been good fun, some great tales. Um, before we um bid you farewell, where can people find you? Where's the best thing to uh look you up?

Well, most most weekends I'm somewhere at a motoring event in equally uh a very small Chevrolet Spark that I've had from new from Chevrolet UK, and I will be in there uh painting and drawing and creating people's people's vehicles. Uh it's pop band colour on all of the socials. I dabble with TikTok, but it's you know, I'm 42 years old. I I don't dancing in your kitchen.

You haven't got a kitchen.

If it means I can afford a kitchen. Yeah, that's who too on. I'll I'll I'll absolutely do that dancing if it means I can get a kitchen done. So I might do that later. Um, because uh bits of painted wood are really expensive, they're more expensive than a car. Indeed, yeah.

This is very true. Well, um, yeah, thank you very much for joining us. Been good fun, and um yeah, hopefully we'll bump into you at some point over the summer and uh yeah, come and say hello. Absolutely. I will I'll be out and about.

Thanks.

Nice to meet you. Cheers, guys. See you later. Cheers, mate. Bye-bye. Cool. There we go. That was high tempo, wasn't it? There was a lot of stuff in there.

Was high tempo, yeah. That should be a good good edit.

I think there's going to be very little edited. I think it's just gonna be a case of just wind him up, watch him go. Yeah, you're not wrong. Uh yeah, I did feel almost rude at points where you kind of just have to interrupt him because you need to sort of just put him back on the path. But equally, kind of yeah, what he's saying is interesting and yeah, it's kind of got purpose. I suppose that's the uh the art of interviewing or not the art or whatever that we're we're sort of learning as we go. But um, yeah, it was good.

Yeah, some good tales, some amusing navigational tales featuring his grandparents.

Yeah, and yeah, driving a metro to France, even kind of northern France, it's just that's uh a log old trek.

Yeah, the whole I mean it just the mind boggles, doesn't it, really, when you look back at going abroad pre-mobile phones, yeah, um, in a metro. It's just yeah, hats off. There should be sort of uh retrospective awards, I think, for the parents that took those things on that did that, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

In 1986, you took your family to the south of France using only a lot tattoos there.

Yeah, we'd like to reward you with some tiger points or whatever they were called to essays.

Yeah. Six pack of Kiora or something like that.

A 20 B and H.

Yeah.

So, yeah, some interesting tales. Obviously, some rover-based antics, yeah, the the Chevette with his uncle and the fact that he's kind of rescuing that, and yeah, like we touched on. We've had a few people who have kind of either wish they've done that or have sort of picked up that mantle and oh, it's definitely a burden, isn't it? That kind of that connection to those vehicles. Yeah. You've obviously got to see it through and all the time continue with your life, pay for your house, look after your kids.

Yeah. You do wonder if it would just be easier if well, if you've got a partner if they just dealt with it for you and just got rid without you knowing, and then it's just done, isn't it? It's yeah, the financial strain. I mean, obviously it is worth it once you've done it all and it's you've got the finished article, isn't it? But yeah, it's the slogging away and yeah, it's not like uh, oh yeah, here's my dad's watch.

Look after that. And you just pop that in the cupboard, yeah. Actually, you've got to rent a garage for however long to keep that car in.

Yeah, it's not like you need to rent a wrist, is it, for the watch or something.

It's just yeah, it's uh it's a commitment. But yeah, hats off to him if he's gonna get it done eventually, then yeah. One, it saves it, and two, obviously, for prosperity and sort of memories and nostalgia and everything. Yeah, it's it's only gonna mean something to him and kind of a very few amount of people, but yeah, that's the story.

Maybe some further light shed as well on why Rover went under giving their employees seven cars to uh divvy out.

Yeah, if you think back to kind of the days that we were selling wiper blades, like they were pretty tight on giving 15% to kind of anyone by yourself. So rover dishing out metros left, right, and centre for for whatever the price was, then uh astonishing. No wonder there was so many of them on the road. No one paid the full price.

Yeah, couldn't get rid of them.

Yeah, um, yeah, windows stuck down on on Maestros. I drove back from the east into London with uh the window stuck down on the Bora.

Did you? Years ago. Yeah. It's always been a fear of mine that has that happening.

It didn't rain, but it was it was blowy as hell. Like, yeah, we'd been up to see Connie's dad, went to drive off, popped the window down, Connie, the old wave out of the window, and it never went up again.

Never came back, yeah.

So yeah, an evening drive home at 70, 80 miles an hour on the M25 with a window to stick down.

Yeah, touch wood, that's never happened to me, but uh yeah, it's something that's always sort of worried me that if it does happen, what yeah, what'd you do? Obviously, it's door card off time, is it, and all that sort of stuff.

Yeah, that was a horrible thing. But um, yeah, yeah. So thank you very much to Ian from Pop Bang Colour. If you're after sort of artwork, then yeah, go and look him up at a show, look him up on the internet, buy something cool for your wool. Absolutely. If that's not a slogan, then you should have it.

Cool. Okay, Loki. All right, Andy. Cheers, mate. Wrap it up, roll the credits.

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