James Blaze: My Dad had 2CVs, Skodas and then collected Porsches. 924, 968, Carrera GT. S8E3

How are you doing, James?

Hello, I listen.

Yeah, we're good, thank you. Hello. How you doing?

Very well. Good for Friday.

Can't complain.

So yeah, for the benefit of the tape, we're joined by James Blaze, who um I stumbled across what's now your car collection, I guess, what was your late father's car collection on um Johnny Smith's car cave episode on the late break show. Um we've had Johnny Smith on as a guest. We've had another previous car cave guest, um Paul Harding. Paul Harding. Um he's come on the podcast as well. So yeah, great to have you along today. Welcome along. Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Oh yeah, yeah, thank you very much. I I reached out to Johnny, I watched the episode. I've got a 944 myself. So um obviously, yeah, it sort of resonated. I reached out to him and said, I think it might be something James might be interested in. He said, Yeah, absolutely. I'll pop him a message and we swap numbers and we've had a quick natter. So yeah, here we are. Um I suppose, yeah, we'll jump into it. What's your earliest car memory, James?

Yeah, probably I've had a I've had a bit of time time to think about this. And uh I think for me, when we were growing up, we had two CVs and Diane sit on two CVs at back.

Okay.

And uh could fondly remember as a child finishing Sunday school in the summer, and my dad, you know, we all pile into the two TV with the roll top roof and driving down to the local country park and uh picnicking out of the back of the two C V. And I'm pretty sure it had the removable seats as well.

I was gonna ask if you could take the seats out.

You could take the seats out, and uh mum and dad would use phones as picnic chairs and uh but yeah, I just always remember this fond memory of the two TV and the roll top and its kind of agricultural build and quality. And it was unusual to have a two TV. I don't think I can't really remember any any school friends or anybody else really ever having one. So it was uh yeah, I've got fond fond memories of that car and and those summers.

So what colour was it?

We had several. Um the one I'm thinking of is yellow. I actually have a photo of me and my sister uh in my office here uh of us uh standing on the back seat with uh hands out of the roll top roof. Nice. So yeah, it's fond memory for me. Um that particular one was yellow, but we did have a dolly, uh so the white and red ones, and I think it was a blue one at one stage, but the most prominent amount out of all of them was uh we had a 0007 one.

Okay.

I can't remember all of the history, but at some point there was a Diane, I think, in a 0007 film, and they had seven of the cars that they stick it up that had 007 along the side. And I think it might have been an advertising thing. And we have one of those cars.

Wow.

Uh one of those original film cars. And um, unfortunately, it was left in a garage on a nice part of an estate in uh in the town that I grew up in. And I think what happened, it was the garage next door. Some kids decided to knock the wall down and then set fire to to it, and then eventually it came across into the garage that dad was renting at the time, and uh yeah, so that was the end of that uh particular car. I have a photo of it somewhere, but uh goodbye, Mr.

Bond.

Yeah, exactly. Pretty much, yeah.

That's a shame though, isn't it? I've never heard of that um edition before. It'd be good to see a photo of or just another one, just for reference. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll try and pick it out and I'll share it to you guys.

Yeah, sounds good.

What was the what do you think the inspiration was behind the two TV? Was and was that your father making those choices, or did your mother drive?

Or uh she did drive. Um mum had a mini. Um so she drove around in a mini for a number of years. And then um I think we had at some point we ended up with a a Morris miner estate, and that I think was the first car my dad actually owned himself, like uh, you know, rather than my mum had the mini, and they'd lived in South Africa for a few years. But uh when they came to the UK when they moved back, yeah, he had a Morris miner van. And I think he probably just it was a bit rubbish, it was probably very cheap, and uh it took more maintenance than actual driving. And uh yeah, I think he just quite liked the idea of a two C V that he could maintain himself, and it was you know cheap and cheerful motoring, but having something it's quite cutesy as well with the roll top reef. My mum loved it, and uh I think my sister, even now, would love to have one as like a second car, yeah. But the values of those now are just crazy. I mean, dad was buying them for like £50, £100 type thing, and uh yeah, nowadays they're quite valuable and and and so beer as well, they're quite uh sought after them and cute.

So am I right in thinking you've got a brother as well? Yeah, so we're all three of you, or is there quite an age difference, or all three of you in the back of a TCV?

Yeah, we were at one point, yes. Um, but yeah, my brother is four and a half years younger than me, and my sister's two years my elder. Um so those early car memories it are really is between me and my sister, uh, because we were really close in age, and yeah, when my brother came along, you know, we had already that by that point moved into a second home, and um that's when dad started buying, I think he bought a Citroen BX. Fantastic. Yeah, that in the you know, it's obviously a family car. There's a funny story about that as well. We uh bought this car, bought it, I think, from a garage, and was driving it two days later to come pick us up from school and the engine seized. And for some reason the garage wouldn't give him a warranty, or I can't remember the story, but I then remember uh taking the engine out and rebuilding it in our shed. And uh, you know, just was livid about the fact that he'd bought this car and uh immediately the engine seized.

Yeah.

But then, you know, that goes on to that whole maintenance thing, he would never really take a car to a garage to service himself, he'd always do it himself and it's kind of ingrained in us. And I think my wife would say, I have a unusual relationship with cars and maintaining cars because uh she drives the an LD T T, but now ownership it's never been to a garage, I just do it myself. And um, I think dad's certainly set the precedent of that of rebuilding uh citron engines in in our garden shed uh when I was a kid.

Wow, cool. Yeah. So was your father in all the time in the automotive industry, or likewise, is that something that you've done or no, no, neither.

Uh he um he trained as a mechanical engineer. Okay. So if you ever asked him what he did, he would always say he was an engineer. Uh in his later life, he ran his own business and um, yeah, he you know did reasonably well out of his business, but if anybody asked him, he was always a mechanical engineer. So he had this motto, what man has made man can mend, and he really lived his life by that. Sometimes it was out of necessity whereby we would fix stuff because it was cheaper for him to do it himself than it was to take into a garage or whatnot. So we often had not very great cars growing up just because they've been bought cheap. Dad would buy MOT failures so that it was cheaper, knowing that he could do the work, get it through an MOT, and use a car for a year, and it's kind of ingrained in us that that whole we'll just fix it ourselves.

Great motto. I think I have to start saying that to my wife just to annoy her. I won't be able to fix it, but I can say it.

Yeah, it was he was always very mechanically minded, and it was clear that there was, you know, him being an engineer was a huge part of who he was. I mean, in his house, um, the room opposite the kitchen, which most people would use as a snug, is a workshop with a lathe and a milling machine. So, you know, that's perhaps perhaps single life he'd uh he'd have never got away with that with my mother, but um, you know, he just lived and breathed it.

So your mother, I guess I don't know the story, but she sort of put up with the fact that he he would buy a bargain and and fix it. She wasn't kind of like, No, we want a proper car.

Yeah, I think it's a lot of that areas uh out of necessity. I think you know, do it on the cheap always, and um, you know, maybe sometimes try and make a bit of money. I remember when I think the first proper big estate car we ever bought was a Peugeot 505 estate, the huge long one. Yeah, yeah. And it was a seven seater. And dad bought it cheap off this guy because the rule for wearing a seatbelt came in, and this guy said it's not safe for my kids, I can't get it through an MOT anymore, so you know I'm gonna have to sell it. So dad bought it cheap, went down to the local scrapyard, stripped out seat belts and you know, fitted them into this car.

Nice.

And I remember we had my cousins who were two eld elder cousins from South Africa, they came to visit us for a summer, and we toured Europe, toured France in this Peugeot 505 with seven seats, and of course, because it bought it cheap and it had all the seatbelts in it at the end of the summer. When you came to sell it, you could make a bit of money on it because all of a sudden it was safe and it had seat belts, etc.

Yeah, yeah.

Little things like that. And it's like you'd look at an opportunity and be like, Oh, I can make some of this.

Absolutely. Excellent. So the driving across Europe, for example, in that would you have the radio on? Would you have music playing and then the thing kind of rings a bell?

Yeah. Yeah, so you know, I grew up in a Christian household, and um I always remember CDs and tapes of like Christopher Berg.

Okay.

And um my dad was a Pink Floyd fan as well, so there was always a lot of Pink Floyd, you know, dark side to the moon. The CD is probably once in in his CD collection. So yeah, there's always a lot of that. But uh my dad, when he was younger, was a bit of a rocker. So yeah, Pink Floyd. Sazaphras, I assume to remember, Super Tramp. Yeah, a lot of those would be in our memory, but I specifically remember in in those early trips like Christopher, and I couldn't remember some of the others, but particularly those albums like uh Pink Floyd.

Lady and Red Christopher, is that is that right?

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, yeah, that's that. Fantastic, fantastic. Um, the video you filmed with Johnny, your father kind of got into SODA's. Yeah. So it seems like he's sort of favoured an underdog.

Yeah, all always.

He's gone to TV and uh yeah.

Yeah, it was really funny the the first Skoda uh came along. So that was uh the one in the video, the one that the modified one in the trials was his first one that he bought. Yeah, and he liked the fact that it was known as being a bit of a skip, you know. The joke, uh Skoda with a sunroof is just a glorified skip. Yeah, and so he quite liked that, but actually they're really simple, uh, very easy to maintain, and they had this rally pedigree. And he wanted to do the MCC trialing, that's why he bought it. Yeah, so very quickly it was modified with the ray suspension, started fettling some of the uh tuning. So it started out with a nationally exhaust system, and then later down the line there was uh weather carburetors and you know some real tuning. But I in the in the years where there was the foot and mouth disease, uh I can't would have been 2007-ish, somewhere around there. Um, in those MTC trialing, every time you did one of the climbs, they would wash the underside of the cars. So the original car, or the original shell just you know got pretty badly rotten from that year, and he ended up reshelling, reshelling it at some point.

Okay.

And part of doing that, he took a reasonably good shell and sort of strengthened it in places which um he knew it was weak. Um, and I guess that's part of by that point he'd been trialling for about six or seven years. So the rear end particularly is uh is modified to allow it to put the power down. And the engine now is it's spent through various different variants, but it's about 130 horsepower. I would be surprised if the car weighed more than 600 kilos, so it's really quick off the mark. And in the trialling for the MCC, he always did pretty well. I mean, I've got I've got stacks of medals uh of like class awards and um you know, gold awards, silver award from when he was doing the trialling. And unfortunately, I never got to do a trial with him. It just never landed where the dates where I was able to to join him and do navigating. But it was the end of a trial last weekend up in um up in Derbyshire, and uh one of my dad's friends who did trialing had messaged me saying, you know, would you like to navigate for me? And um my dad had navigated for him at some point last year, so it was nice to to get the experience of it and to have the memories. Knowing dad had been sat in the same seat and thinking about him a lot over the over the day. But um yeah, one thing it has done is fizzed me up, you know, get his car sorted, only to replace the tires and stuff, but um yeah, get it prepped and do a couple of the events next year.

So do you know how your dad got involved in the trialling? Was it something that he was hankering after for a long time?

Or yeah, so he um he was down in the Land's End at some point. Uh there happened to be an event on, and he was watching it thinking, oh, this it would have been 1998, somewhere around there, maybe 97. He was with my sister. And uh yeah, but down on the south coast, the Land's End trial was on, he's watching all these cars here. Everybody's having fun. You know, there's not a single person here that's not enjoying themselves, even when it goes wrong, and people are pushing you up the hill. It everyone looked like it was uh enjoyable. So then he started looking around. And for a little while there was talk of beetle beetles are really competitive in the class four on the MCC, but he was pretty set on a scoda on the fact that he could buy one really, really cheap. His one, I think now to correct what I thought about with Johnny, it was 40 pounds at the back of um a local Vauxhall dealership. Wow. And he said he'd seen this car the day before and it said 200 pounds on it, passed it in the morning, it was £100. He said, That's peculiar. That's uh half the price. Maybe it's maybe it's worth a look. Halfway through the day, he had to nip out to go to the post office and cycling his bike past, and then it's £50. So he went in and dad said, What's going on with this then? It was £200, now it's £100, now it's £50. And the guy said, Uh the scrap gun comes at two. So if you want it, then oh what? He placed £40 down and yeah, he uh he took it away.

But some sort of variable rate car dealer that's going to f fluctuate.

They're not like that nowadays, are they? I mean, uh even even a chance of finding a trade in under £500 nowadays is uh it's rare, but you know, those different different times, I guess.

Yeah. Well you couldn't even fill a car now. Well, half a tank might be 40 quid if you're lucky, mightn't it? But yeah, exactly. I I suppose it's all relative, but yeah, yeah.

So did he use the Skoda as kind of a daily driver as well? Or was that just just the sort of the weekend toy?

Yeah, one of his big things was he wanted to know that it worked and it was reliable. So he used it to make sure that it was good. I mean, he it it was the second car for him in many ways, but because it is modified, he quite enjoyed driving it through the town. He lived in Melton Mowbray at the time. And uh, you know, you see the boy racer at the lights with uh with his citron saxo, you know, laughing at the fact that there's some cruddy old scoda next to him, get a shock of the lights. Um, he really enjoyed that by the fact that, you know, let's face it, as cool as they are now, back in the late 90s, early 2000s, they didn't have a great reputation. They were always a bit of a joke. And the funniest one out of all the stories, because he would buy the scoders around uh just to get parts that Estells, particularly, is there was one advertising the paper. I think it was a hundred pound or fifty pound advertising the paper. So I'll go and get that. And he said it was a runner, terms uh and the guy said, Yeah, uh, they wouldn't let me put it in the paper for free. So uh I had to put a price on it, but you can just take it away. Um he said he drove it home, it didn't have brakes, so he had to drive home on the handbrake and using the gears to shift brake, yeah. But yeah, you know, that as an absolute classic out of my dad's uh car storage, particularly with the scoders.

The funny thing is he'd have probably paid £50 for it.

Yeah, I mean, to him, you know, it might be the doors were worth £50 to him or or whatever it might be. I think uh in the early days he went through sumps quite a lot until he he actually manufactured well I say manufactured, he he welded up his own three mil steel sump that is now on the on the trials car. So instead of running a sump guard where rocks could get caught underneath and bash the existing sump, he just made his own one and so welded it up and never had an issue with something since. But uh yeah.

Wow. Is there anything that he couldn't lend his hand to Jones in the in the workshop?

Doesn't sound like and I touched on some of the videos with Johnny around um at some point in his later life, he was doing a lot of stuff with steam railways, so he would travel the world to go and have a look at you know, travel steam railways, but mainly just to photograph them. And he uh he got uh in with a company who chartered steam locos primarily for photographers. So they'd run it as a special and that sell tickets so people could ride on it. But for the group, it was more around you know, to photograph uh steam engines in these really peculiar environments. So he used we went out to Sri Lanka a few times, and the loco that they had there had some engineering problems. It w it wasn't firing correctly. So my dad flew out, took some measurements, you know, like diagnosed what it was, and it was determined it was the piston rings and the Faustem seals. And uh so flew out just to measure, flew back, couldn't trust that somebody in in Sri Lanka was gonna do the work that he wanted in the quality that it needed to be, so machined them on his ways at home, and then didn't trust the shipping, so I flew out with them to uh fit them. He was out there for I think three weeks where they stripped all the pistons down and refit them. So um he did make one extra, so I have to anybody else, it's just a random metal, steel, or iron rig, but I know there are 16 others that are in a a steam loco in Sri Lanka, and um now that engine's still running really well. I think for him it was more there's so few now, and it probably would have got scrapped had he not given it the new lease of life that he gave it by getting it on the road. So to answer your question, no, there's not a lot that he couldn't do. And that's just one example, you know. He um he would do home plumbing and home electrics, and when it came into cars, there was nothing really that he uh he wouldn't take on. I remember my first, like my second car had an issue with the gearbox, and instead of just going to the scrap, you know, like scrapping the car, buying something else, it was nope, let's strip it apart, work out what's wrong, buy the parts, rebuild the gearbox. So I did that at 19, and it's uh definitely ingrained into me of like, well, yeah, you have these problems, but as a way of solving them without it costing, I don't know, I don't know what a spare gearbox would have cost, probably 500 pounds. It probably would have had the same problem. So um yeah.

Brilliant. Yeah, what a clever chap. To have yeah, I've I'm fairly hands-on, but just yeah, to have the confidence and the machinery and everything to just back yourself up where you could just take anything apart. If anything goes wrong, you're just gonna make a new one.

Yeah, totally. I think pre-Youtube era as well. Yeah, you know, just be from knowledge and I guess books, that sort of thing, and previous experience. But yeah, phenomenal really, isn't it?

Yeah, he was a really clever chap. You know, nowadays, you know, I maintain our car collection and uh have been doing for a couple of years, but there's nothing really that worries me on that that's too over the top to to take on. Okay. At the moment, I've got uh one of the 968s on the ramp. There's a gearbox issue with it. So just dropping the gearbox out to have a look at opinion bearing in that. So, you know, most circumstances with 968 owners would probably take it to a specialist and use the pound sign to fix the problem. Whereas uh I was brought up a different way to think about it. Well, give it a go. And if I get to a point where I can't do it, I don't need to ask my dad's to make nowadays, I'm gonna have to ask a specialist. But I've got a reasonable idea of that I could get it sorted. So as much as sometimes I leave the workshop and I think uh, well, I've been under a car for six hours, and um was that the best use of my Saturday? Not sure. Or would have rather go driving.

So you yeah, obviously, you mentioned the 968 there. For those people who have seen the video of Johnny, your father got into Porsches, which I get I guess a little bit of a jump, although some of them would be rear-engined. But um, how did that happen? And I suppose what were your thoughts on him having skoders? Were you of an age where you kind of thought this is a bit embarrassing?

Or yeah. Yeah, yeah, totally. But yeah, I I have a video, uh uh sorry, an audio recording of my dad, uh yeah, just me and my dad and my brother chatting about cars. Um, in that, I think Dad was talking about uh early days of the Skoda, where he's we're driving through town and it's him and I, and I'm in the passenger seat, and he said he's gets this set of traffic lights, and all of a sudden I was like disappeared into the footwell. He's like, What are you doing, James? And uh I was like, Yeah, I know those people. So there was there was definitely an element of that with the scoda early on. But to touch on the Porsche element, at some point, um yeah, my I think my dad quite quite liked the 924s. Um, so he had a a golf GTI that he was committed to work in, and we had that bigger state car that Peugeot. And uh so it'd be good, you know, for my mum to have a car to to do the school runs, etc. So uh yeah, he bought a 924.

Oh, very nice.

And um it was a base model, it was it was a great car, it was pretty rotten underneath. I think we only had it for one year because it wouldn't have got through the next MOT.

Yeah.

But it sort of planted the seed. He quite liked driving it. It's you know, even the basic ones are they're really nice to drive. So 50 50 wave distribution, you can have fun on a back road without really going too quickly. And then at some point it was like, oh, a 924 turbo would be good, you know, a bit more power that's just which is with the Problem with the base 924. So yeah, he bought a 924 turbo that had a blown turbo. It was on eBay. It was cheap. So he bought this car. Well, my brother convinced him to dock a bit on it. And then he ended up buying this car. And he fixed the turbo to it. And I think we were using it for one spring. We'd gone out to Wales, we were, you know, having a nice driver in enjoying it. And uh I think third gear blew on the gearbox. So it was like the first proper trip in it. And he was like, Well, okay, typical of something else to fix now. So yeah, got that up and running again. And it was around for a few years. And then I think, you know, the problem with the 194s, uh, they are pretty basic and they're quite old as well. Even by that point, you know, they were talking early 2000s, and the car in question was a 1979. So it was getting on a bit and um you know didn't have a lot of the modern things you'd like, like power steering, for instance. Yeah. So started looking at 944s, but at one point my dad was driving on the 924 and he saw it coming in the other direction a uh a car that was slightly the same silhouette, the same sort of shape, but it had uh stickers down the side of it. So he was explaining to my brother who'd seen this car, you know, he's like, What's what is that? And uh my brother said, Oh, that's that's where you're going. You'll have one of those one day. And it was a 968. So he kind of stopped looking at 944s and sort of started looking at 968s and ended up um buying an eBay listed 968 Sport.

Okay.

That was a really lovely car. That it was uh I think it was under a hundred thousand miles when he bought it. He bought it in 2005 or 2006, and um yeah, it arrived at home. Um, he hadn't told me anything about buying it. He arrived at home and I was like, wow, Lena, this is a real lovely bit of kit. Yeah. So Justin is really gonna love this car. Justin's my brother. He said, Yeah, we should uh we should do something like to showcase, you know, show it off or go to Wales or something. My my brother was living in Colchester, and uh it was around that time the Top Gear they'd done the the transit challenge around the Nurburgh ring. And uh said, Oh, we could go to the Nurburgh ring. Anyway, this is I was in the pub on a Friday night, but no, it was a Thursday night. I was working in in the pub on the Friday. Anyway, so Friday night I'm behind the bar and dad comes in, he said, Right, we're uh we're gonna leave at two. Leave for what? And he's like, Yeah, we're we're going to the Nurburgh ring. Okay, so he didn't tell my brother, he just said, uh look, I'm picking you up, we're gonna do a day of photography, bring some ID. So Justin's like, Oh, he didn't have a driver license at that point. He said, Oh, um, I can bring my student ID or my passport. Yeah, yeah, bring your passport. Anyway, so uh I finished work, go to bed, get up at two o'clock, we set off. We drove from his house to Colchester, uh to the Nureburg Ring and back again. Wow. The plan was to do it in 24 hours. Uh we didn't quite make it, it was something wrong with the ferry, but um yeah, yeah, it was 27 hours, so a day of driving for my father, and uh yeah, we had some fun around the Nurburgh ring. I can't remember if we did four or eight laps, but it he'd only owned it for about two weeks at this point. It was just that idea of being able to own these cars but use them and use them in a way that was was quite fun. And one thing I remember the jump from the 924 to the 968 was considerable.

Okay.

Not only that it was 15 years of extra development, but the the engine and the way those cars drive with the sport is a lovely bit of kit. They're just fantastic. And they are lesser known, you know, you don't see many around. Um, you know, although funny enough, I went to uh we have a local car meet uh towards a condition cars and coffee, and uh the last time I turned up there was a guy who'd just bought one. Oh wow. And that that's really the only one, the only other one that's to go to a proper Porsche, who's the only one I've really seen on the road. So it was nice to have a chat with him.

Who got the short straw and sat in the back? I don't think I'd want to do a day in the back of a transactional portion.

Yeah, me and my brothers who shared the uh the back seat. Um they're quite compact in the back.

So you sit across. Across, yeah. Your legs in the in the other side.

God legs in the footwell behind the driver, and then um, yeah, sat in the yeah, so not the most comfortable, but you know, amazing bit of kit. I mean, those those 968s have really never ever let us down. We then went on to buy other 968s and we we ended up, I think, at 1.07 in the collection. It is. And none of them have really needed anything major. Probably the biggest one is this one that needs opinion bearing in the gearbox, but apart from that, everything has just been belts, water pumps, and regular oil services and you know the usual sort of things like suspension as they as they wear out. You know, those cars are getting off the 33 years old now.

So has the original 968 has that now gone?

Yeah, so off the back of the video I did with Johnny, um, a guy contacted me. He never owed a Porsche, uh, never even heard of a 968, but he loved the story and loved um just you know, I I don't think realistically he could have stretched into a pristinely immaculate 968 sport. And you know, that car had a lot of paint spade and etc. And uh so he came to have a look at it and knew he was sort of buying a project from a car that had been off the road, I think, probably maybe 12 years at this point. Um yeah, he's absolutely loving it. And uh, you know, I recommissioned it to get it back on the road. Uh and you know, I had we had a donor car, uh a car that had been in an accident, but I don't think it took anything off it apart from a wing because it was better painted red than the one that was on the other car. So yeah, it's water pumps, belts, and uh and all the fluid changes, and you know, went to an MOT and it's uh happy as a lyric. So yeah.

Nice, fantastic.

Yeah, he's he's really enjoying it, and I'm glad it's gone to an owner who's uh new to the Porsche world and and is yeah, just loving it.

So Johnny didn't ask for a three percent uh referral.

No, he didn't, um gladly, but uh unfortunately my dad you know passed away at the end of last year and uh I just was a bit overwhelmed with you know, been sort of managing the collection for a while and he just didn't want to see stuff go down the driveway uh and never see it again. So it kind of waited for him to pass to to sort of start moving stuff on. But you know, it's a lot of work to maintain a car collection, I think, in total with 24 cars. So, you know, it's it's blindled down a lot now. There was a lot of scrap, but there were several SCODAS that were just realistic just scrap. But um it's nice that they're being loved and enjoyed now because the reality is um you know my brother lives overseas, and for me, owning one nine six eight club sport would be a dream to me. So the fact I've got four in a garage doesn't really make sense. I'd much rather them be loved and enjoyed than them just be potentially you know future investments. You know, I'm sort of sitting in the collection now as we've got it, but um yeah, for me, uh you know, I can't I can't keep them all. Well, dad had a an an amazing garage, and um, yeah, I just I just don't have that capability to store them all in the future.

So is there anything that he didn't get his hands on that you think was was kind of like maybe a dream car or in that bracket?

Yeah, I mean his real dream, if he could have ever afforded it, would have been a Jagger at XJT20.

Oh really?

And um it was just one of the things he just he just loved the shape of that car. And I think when the when the banks crashed in 2008, he said one came up for sale for 85 grand. Wow, which in today's money, I mean, anything under a hundred at that point would have been an absolute mega bargain. But he'd just bought a couple of nine six eights and he'd just bought a 911 as well. I mean, there was just no practical way for him to have purchased that, but that would have been the only opportunity to have got into that car.

Yeah.

But, you know, when we talk about poster cars, he always loved the 924 and particularly the Carrera GT. So when we bought our 924 Carrera GT, that was a very special moment, particularly for him, because when I was growing up as a child, you know, under the age of 10, we didn't have a lot of money. Um, you know, he was successful in his business and uh he made money later in life, which was great because it gave him the freedom to buy the cars that he always pined for, but also buy the property that he ended up living in to the end of his life and being that as a workshopper. Also for him, he was a big traveller, so he uh travelled the world to photograph steam engines, but also at least twice a year would take cars out to Europe. And he used to do an event called the Tour de Coles. It's a week-long event where you get um an itinerary, it's almost like a road rally, an itinerary has coals, you've got to go reach the top of all these coals. And um, I think the rule was it had to be in an open top car, you know, and that was it. As long as it was open top, it was fine. So we had a 968 Cabriolet that we used a lot, but then also the Allard, um, we've got an Allard J2 N type, and uh that's probably not the most comfortable car to drive across Europe, but he took, you know, we took it down to the Pyrenees and in Spain, and so he he definitely used them as much as possible, but also just loved Europe, loved the Pyrenees and the Alps, so we stick out a lot and you know we talked about trips like doing the Nerbo Grin. The fondest memories of trips in 968 for me was always always around his birthday, him and I, or me, him, and my brother, would go out to the Alps, uh go up to Switzerland in a 968 of some sort, and uh we called it pass spashing. So it'd go and just drive as many roads as we as we could up all these incredible mountain passes. Um so they're probably my fondest memories of 968 adventures with with dad for sure.

Excellent, fantastic. Do you think maybe a silly question, given the opportunity, would you buy an XJ220 as a kind of as a homage to what what your dad was after?

Yeah, I'm never in it, I'm never gonna be in a position to bone on uh these these values, but I think if there was a blank check oil and came my way, I think I probably would have to buy one for his sake. But um, I think if it was me, I'd be in an F40, personally.

Yeah, fair.

Um, but he would never have had a Ferrari. Um, so I don't think it would have been uh the sort of thing, but he loved the Jag. I mean they're a beautiful car. My brother is uh you know, he was always into them as well. Touch on this with Johnny, but uh yeah, we're looking at buying a 94 crore GT. He really, really wanted a GTS, a 94 crore GTS, but there can't be many of those about. There's I think I think there's 20. Yeah. Um so there's not very many.

Not even a blank check would get one of those.

No, well, I mean, they do hold I mean they've really gone up substantially in value. And I meant there was one he was looking at in 2005, and it would have been around the same time that he was looking at um 968, but he was not long into the business by that point, so really committing those that kind of funds to buying a GTS, just knowing it was so special and that was so limited. But uh, you know, the 94 Core GT, it's it's it's an amazing car. I had it out, uh, took it for a driver on his birthday. Um, you know, I had this vision in my head, I'm gonna drive country roads through Rutland's park up in a cafe somewhere and have a coffee and a cake and stare out at it. But uh I got as far as three miles because one of the brakes was binding.

I know.

It wasn't a pleasant drive, and then the engine stopped about 150 metres back from the workshop. So not the idealistic uh drive for my dad's birthday that I'd wanted, but uh you know, it's back over there now, so I've got it all sorted. But you have to use cars, that's what I've realized. And yeah, I have a collection of keys at home, and I always just seem to pick up the red 968 club sport keys all the time. It's the car that I've done the most mileage in this year, aside from my daily driver. Yeah, and uh I think because of that, there's other cars that are getting neglected, and um, I don't really want that. I'd want you know, cars are meant to be used and loved and enjoyed. Um I used the 928 a little bit this year.

Okay, nice.

That thing is a really, it's really fun car. It's so un underrated in comparison to a 911.

Yeah, yeah.

My dad always used to say that with a 928 was the first car that Porsche properly developed, it was what they decided the market should be. Because prior to that, you know, your eras of 911, essentially the same thing. The 924 should have been a Volkswagen. So the 928 was the first that they developed in the house and uh and unfortunately got crippled by the oil crisis uh with that big V8.

Um car of the year in 78 or something like that, wasn't it?

Yeah, yeah. And I think the early ones weren't uh weren't that great, but the GT is an incredible car. Just a lot more power than the the 968s, and on the open road, it's super comfortable. And you could tell that they were just a completely different development era. And uh you look at the way that 993 sort of led on from sort of the late 928, there's a lot that sort of translates, you know, a lot of the switching all looks the same and stuff like that. So it's it's uh it's interesting how they win. But it's a shame the 928 in that kind of form doesn't exist in Porsche's lineup now. I guess the Panamera came along, but they were always a four-door and not like a two-door transaxle coupe. Yeah, that's kind of missing from their lineup. I mean, I know Aston Martin did them pretty well now with the DB9s and vantages and stuff, and they're they're also great cars, but kind of feels like there's a gap in uh Porsche's lineup that needs to be filled for modern errors anyway.

Yeah, if you're listening, Porsche's space. Well, um, yeah, thank you very much for coming on and having a chat about your dad's cars.

Yeah, no problem. Yeah, thanks for having me.

It's been nice. I think we could probably talk for hours and hours. I expect there's uh there's yeah, similar to my situation, really. Yeah, lots of car stories. And the more you unwrap it, the more they come out, and you're like, oh but there was this one time that this one's really good, and it's yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And uh, you know, like I uh I'm very lucky. My father was a huge part of my life, and uh he was very influential on not only my car choices, but you know, like how I want to live my life, and uh yeah, it was definitely an inspiration, whether that be with cars or cycling or just general travelling. Yeah, he's uh he certainly left his impression on me, but also has uh yeah, really left a hole. It's really been hard to it's been a it's been a tough year to sort of um deal with the with his loss. But to have his car collection and um you know the the things that we enjoyed so much has been has been wonderful. And yeah, I could talk for hours and hours about different stories and trips and stuff that we went on, but uh you know that's not gonna stop me.

No, no, no. Have you got children, James?

No, no. No, no kids, my wife and I have decided not to have kids, but we uh you know we love to travel. Yeah, yeah. We we spent a number of years over in New Zealand in the past decade, and that was that was that was really fun. But uh yeah, we we decided to move back purely to support my dad while he was uh terminally ill. And um, yeah, I'm so so grateful we did because it was very easy to have swung the other way, uh particularly when we lived a few hundred metres from the beach, and you know, it's it's been yeah, more short to say.

It's it's tough. John and I are both kind of in similar sort of situations, although kind of at opposite ends of the spectrum. My yeah, my dad was terminally ill. John, on the other hand, he went on holiday and yeah, his father kind of popped off while he was away, which That's good of him.

Um yeah, yeah, I mean, my my lot is nearly 20 years now, isn't it, Andy? Or what are you more like 10 on or something like that? Eight years, I think, yeah, something like that, yeah. Yeah, I mean, still very early days for you, James. But yeah, like you say, you've got lots of well, incredible memories, to be honest. Um and yeah, all those cars that that live on and can be enjoyed is is a massive bonus, isn't it?

Yeah, totally. And I think if anything, like the 968 sport that went a couple of weeks ago, it's given you know somebody else, uh handing handing the keys over, someone who I know is gonna love it. Like my dad loved it when he first got it. And if if that's his legacy to be able to get somebody else into cars and join them, then I think that's that's a nice thing for him to have done.

Yeah, yeah.

It's great that that um that that's that's a new story.

Yeah, that's chapter one, isn't it? Of someone else's story, and that is kind of yeah, someone else's friends and family or whatever, and potentially, yeah, 20, 30 years' time, they could then have conversations like we're having today, which is oh yeah, because of this car that I bought from this chapter I saw on this video, yeah, we go and do this trip every year and yeah, all of a sudden.

That's the beauty of old cars, isn't it? Really? And well, I mean, old things that can be recycled, but old stuff should be recycled, shouldn't it? And enjoyed again and again.

Yeah, it's not an environmental thing per se, because ultimately you're buying a three-litre portrait. But um, there's life in so much stuff, still stuff is it's scrapped or written off, and I just I don't really understand this kind of throwaway leasing lifestyle. You know, you see so many new cars on people's driveways. Reality is they don't own them. No, and certainly from from my dad's perspective, own everything. Don't don't lease it or rent it if you can. And we've always been in a fortunate position where we've owned cars, we haven't had to lease or finance, etc.

Yeah.

I think a lot of people are disconnected with vehicles nowadays because of that culture. Well, you've got to have a car that's two or three years old on the driveway. Keeping up with the Jonas's type thing, always have a new car. But people fear cars so much that they'll sell a car after three years because, well, it's gonna go wrong. So why not? But the oldest car in our culture was from 1954. And I wouldn't even think about it if I decided to go out for a drive in it tomorrow, turn the key, make sure the tires are pumped up, and I'll go and use it for a drive. So I think people are very disconnected with reliability of cars. And uh yeah, they always take a bit of maintenance, but it's part of the enjoyment.

Yeah.

Otherwise, you know, why am I driving a 33-year-old 968 when I could be driving a three-year-old 911, at least up to my angles? Doesn't make sense to me. No.

I guess somewhere, and I don't know where it was, maybe it was in the late 80s, early 90s, or something like that, we were kind of sold that new cars were better, weren't we? They and probably through that time, all the um the refinements were coming in, weren't they? Like power steering was far, far more common, electric windows was far, far more common, yeah, air conditioning was becoming sort of more of a thing, especially in the more luxury cars of that time. So people were getting used to that, weren't they? And then the jump between the sort of the 80s car and the car from the early noughties is fairly big with those refinements, depending what you want the car for. If you want a kind of an engaging drive, you want the the 80s car every day. Then if you want to get to work and not be freezing cold and not have ice on the inside of your windscreen, then the car from the post-millennium is the one.

But yeah, I I I agree with that. But I think we're in an era of the iPhone. You know, you buy a new iPhone every year because it was better. And in many ways, I think people did that with cars because you're buying new features and stuff that your car maybe of found, whether it was electric windows or power steering or anything like you just touched on there. But nowadays, there's no point in buying the new iPhone because it's basically the same as it was since the iPhone 12. So they're all just so small incremental updates. And I've think that's that way about new cars now. They don't they can't offer me anything more than if I went and bought a early 2000s BMW 5 series. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, as it happens, my iPhone, my contract was up earlier in the year, and I was like, no, I'm just gonna keep it, and it's now £16 a month, not £50. I don't need seven cameras.

Yeah, yeah, totally agree.

I think there's definitely a touched upon people fear stuff going wrong, but I think there is a an aspect of things probably are more likely to go wrong now with some of the more high-tech vehicles. And then you have to go to a garage. I mean, yeah, some of the newer stuff you probably could open the bonnet, but then whether you can actually do anything under there or not is a is another question. So yeah, I mean it uh it it just drives that throwaway nature, doesn't it? I suppose.

Yeah, I feel I feel like it's been manufactured almost.

Yeah.

But you make it so complicated that people fear it. Whereas if we go back to the basics, it's still just put fuel and air in, mix it together and light it, and you get you know, propulsion at the end of it. So it's a dark art to most, but actually I think with the way that knowledge is now, particularly around YouTube or even just online content, there's no reason to fear it, particularly anything pre-2015, you know, there's there's no reason to fear it. Anything from there starts to get a bit more too modern, too reliant on being able to plug an autal into it and understand what the next code is on the dashboard.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Well, yeah, it won't keep me any longer, but thank you very much for yeah taking a bit of time to have a chat with us. And very nice to meet you. And yeah, hopefully we'll bump into each other at some point and uh we could talk about transactional portions. Yeah, for hours and hours and a half if you both make it uh as well. That's great. Okay. Thank you very much, James. Yeah, appreciate you coming on. Thanks, James.

Yeah, thanks guys. Let's have a chat and um yeah, hopefully it's got some content for you.

Um yeah, it would be great. Absolutely.

It'd be great. Cool. All right, see you fine.

Fantastic. There was a lot going on there, isn't there?

Yeah, really good. Yeah.

What a cool dad. He sounds like a cool dad.

Nothing is impossible, sort of dad, isn't it? Really? Literally anything could be tackled.

Yeah. Um yeah, I love the fact that there's kind of there's people out there. And look, even still to this day with him, really, that it's just like, I've got a problem with third gear, I've just got to take the gearbox out, I'll do that. Yeah, I think yeah, I'd just I'd have stopped at that point. If maybe yeah, I'd investigated some rattles or done a few bits, but I probably wouldn't be taking the gearbox out for a quick peep, but see what it could be.

Yeah, I guess that really shows incredible intelligence, doesn't it, to have to do that. And if you're not even that's not even your day job, it's uh I know you're an engineer and you've learned this stuff on other things, but uh to just uh take something for what it is and think, oh, I can script that and do that, and yeah, and I put it on the recording pre YouTube, you know. All you've really got is books and uh I don't know, maybe picking the brains of the odd friend here. In there if you've got if you've got someone up your sleeve, but yeah, exactly. Incredible.

It's yeah, it is nuts and bolts, so it but it is one thing to take it apart, it's another thing to work out what it is and then actually put it back together again, yeah, and then trust it enough to drive it to Europe or something. So yeah, yeah, hats off to him.

Yeah, that was a great story, isn't it? Getting a nice vehicle like that and then just saying, let's go, let's go to Germany and yeah, and use it. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, very cool. Kind of the the opposite, I suppose, to a lot of people that get a nice vehicle, you know, tucking it away and never really using it. Yeah, you know, they they used it, everyone could see it, and yeah.

I think yeah, from my own point of view, like I get enjoyment out of sharing my car with other people. So it sounds like yeah, his father was probably yeah, of a similar ilk that essentially, yeah, these things are far more fun if if you do share them, yeah, and uh yeah, experience them with other with other people. Yeah. It's quite funny, isn't it? Like obviously, very humble beginnings, kind of the two CV at a point when yeah, two CVs were 50 quid, and yeah, never really kind of pushed by the sounds of things for having the latest and greatest, but did some hard work, kind of put the hours in and uh came good in the end.

Yeah, I suppose as well, when like you say, went for unfashionable vehicles, but in the long run, those vehicles are now they are fashionable, aren't they? And they're good cars.

Oh, yeah, all th all three of those, like the Skoders, the two C Vs and the Porsches, though probably when he was getting into the Porsches, like they weren't kind of the pick of the bunch by any means. That was a bit of a sort of a forgotten Porsche, really.

Yeah. Um by all accounts the XJ 220 was a bit of a pig, wasn't it? I think it had incredible turbolag, didn't it?

Yeah, quite possibly. I was looking and I'm over over my shoulder somewhere. I think in that box I've got there, I've got a modern one.

Right, yeah. Yeah, I think I have one as well, actually. There we go. That's a biggie. Wow. What's that? It is not 118, is it? It looks bigger. It's a maisto, I think I remember, but yeah, yeah, nice.

I remember getting this, I think it was like in a Tesco's at Christmas, one yeah.

Huge thing. Oh, you've got the uh engine thing up as well.

Yeah, engine lid opens. Yeah, doors, bonnet, and all the rest. Yeah, lovely model.

Yeah. Yeah, I read that that's probably one of my earliest car memories when I think about it. Like when that was coming along because it was so far in front of what was the previous fight? Was it the F40 or the Porsche? They were they were sort of neck and neck, weren't they? Ish.

There was a few others. It was a race for 200 miles an hour, wasn't it?

Yeah, and then that sort of smashed it, didn't it? 220 well, 220, obviously. Yeah. Um and then the McLaren came and did 242 or something like that, didn't it? I can't remember what McLaren did.

Yeah, there was the I think the Diablo or something like that hit 200.

Yeah.

And I'm not sure whether the F-40 did. I'll have this one as well. Which is called the Ferrari poster book, which kind of following on from the other week where I never stick stickers anywhere. I never stuck the posters anywhere either. So they're all still in there.

Yeah. That's probably a very early motoring memory for me, is that jag coming along? I remember people talking about it as well. I remember my dad sort of saying, Oh, this is and seeing it on original top gear. I think there was a clip of it, it was probably Clarkson Row testing it or someone. But I remember him flooring it and obviously the delay. And then I think the the stereo pops out of the um because it's got such a pindase.

Yeah, I guess at that time that was still when yeah, when we still had in the car industry, didn't we? So actually, yeah, we were taking it to the Italian yeah.

Um I think bits of that though, a lot a lot of it were quite fordy, weren't they? From memory. I think there were a lot of sort of cheapy parts.

Oh, quite possibly. I know Jag Ford's and Aston, they sort of crossed over, didn't they? Yeah. Bought an Aston that had Mondeo door handles or like that's it, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that'll do. Yeah, or a wiper switch or something. Yeah. But um, yeah, really nice to chat to him. Some sort of some cool stuff in there. Nice for him also, having recently lost his father, sort of to be able to chat about him in a positive, not sort of a doom and gloom kind of way, but actually.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, a sort of a light conversation, as light as it can be. I think sometimes when you've got that many memories and or you've still got all the physical stuff that the in the cars, it kind of makes it a bit easier, maybe talking about it. I think that I don't know why, but it just sort of in a way, I mean he's we held it together well, didn't he? Yeah, considering it is a recent loss.

Yeah, okay. Let's um yeah, we'll call it a day. And uh hopefully you've enjoyed that one. Thank you to James. Yeah, thank you to Johnny Smith for putting us in touch.

Yeah, we'll send you some referral money, Johnny.

If you're not listening to the episode with Johnny Smith, it's very good. So um, yeah, please go and have a look at that. And also check out Paul Harding as well, and another previous guest of Johnny Smith. So yeah, thank you very much, John. Thank you. Um, yeah, we'll wrap it up. Uh roll the credits.

Thank you for listening to my love cart. I hope you enjoyed the show. Please support us. Basic coffee and subscribe and tell all your friends.