Max Newman: Dad chasing a Porsche at Isle of Man TT, Ginetta, Sylva Leader, Austin 7, Audi S2, Golf GTI, Citroen Dyane S4E7

[00:00:00] Welcome to my Dads Car, enjoy!

[00:00:40] Hi Max, how are you doing? Yeah I saw that picture of you as a school child. I don't know if that's real or not. Oh good, this meat. That's not a school child. No, that's me at work! Haha! Well then you've got a very young face. Oh thanks.

[00:00:54] So have that one back there, eh? That's the real one. I'm Max, meet Jon. Hey Jon. Hello Max. How are you? Yeah, pretty good. Good stuff. Pretty good. I've heard your dolls it tells on the podcast. Oh sorry to hear that.

[00:01:06] So good. Yeah, would you open to it? Are you ready to go? Yeah absolutely. Cool. So for the benefit of the tape, I met Max through Porsche's.

[00:01:16] I don't know whether I'd met you before you got involved with nine works or not, but you're a co-host on nine works ready with Lee Sibley who we've had on us against. Yeah and I think I bet you first a good would, but I might be wrong.

[00:01:29] And you've run around taking pictures and generally having a good time. Yeah, I think it was before I was on nine works I think it was. I think it was. I think we were at Instagram pals.

[00:01:41] Oh yeah, possibly good on Instagram. Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think so. I mean I might have been on because I did road to red line as a guest. Yep. So we were moving in the same circles.

[00:01:53] Either we were slid into his deos, did you end it? Another one. One of those. Some of the things I said. Some of them. I think Max was probably feeding my side shot dictionary over lockdown. I imagine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was quite active in there.

[00:02:08] One of the many. Yeah, that was that's it. Yeah, here we are on my dad's car podcast. Welcome you along and what's your earliest comment?

[00:02:16] I think my earliest car memory. I have really vague recollections of the car that we owned as a family when I was born which was a Citron Bayan.

[00:02:26] Oh, nice. But they're really, really vague. I think probably my proper earliest car memories of the car that replaced that which was a golf L. So my folks sold the Citron Diane and bought a brand new golf L. AT and 85V was the registration.

[00:02:44] Oh, Mark one. Yeah, Mark one is white, five door steel wheels. And that was our, that was our family car. And I remember driving around in the back of that. I'm getting stopped for speeding.

[00:02:57] My mum was driving me around the Durham road in Gateshead and she got pulled over by a police, motorcycleist. Okay. It was probably a 30. It's not like she was tearing along but it's probably a 30 and she was going to fast.

[00:03:09] So I've got vague recollections of getting pulled over and the copper coming up to the window eyes in the back. My sister always sat near side. I was set off side. So I was saw him approach.

[00:03:20] Then the other thing I remember about that car is being being on the booster cushion in the back. So I could just see over the just see over the window and we'd be driving around. You know, this is before school for me, before school age.

[00:03:33] I know as you remember wondering what everyone else was doing because I obviously wasn't at school yet. Yeah. And I thought, he's looking at everyone else in their cars and wonder what they were doing. Where they were going, what they were up to in their lives.

[00:03:46] There's that sort of curiosity. First time I could see over the window and imagine I'll go off. So there, yeah, there, my probably my earliest family car memories is particularly that goal, if I would say.

[00:03:57] I often wanted to be fair. You're driving, especially if you've got the day off work and you're driving so we're like, well, what are all these people doing? Why aren't they at work?

[00:04:04] Yeah. Probably all thinking exactly the same thing. They've got the day off. What are all these idiots doing on the road? Yeah. If I do that thing where say you do a regular journey, say you were going somewhere at 5pm and you'll see the same person.

[00:04:16] Then one day maybe you're going high-m earlier and you still see that same person. That was it to myself or hang on a minute. How come you finished early as well over you? What's going on?

[00:04:25] Yeah. I thought that just in the day drive went up to, um, I went up to North Norfolk for the day to see my dad. So that's like, you know, three hours each way and I was going up.

[00:04:36] I went up and came back slightly different ways and I ended up following the same rampar when it's a little Toyota Yaris or something like that. Well, I go on the way up. I followed him for such a long time before I was able to overtake him.

[00:04:50] It was imprinted in my mind, you know, at half a.t. in the morning and then at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, I was driving back from North Norfolk a different way.

[00:04:57] I ended up behind him again. Can you believe it? It's not going to be some sort of Truman show going on there, isn't it? I think so. Yeah. Yeah. I think so that right out of extras, that just you can the same people.

[00:05:08] Exactly. Exactly. So getting lazy. Yeah. So it's funny. That isn't it. I, um, in fact, I did, um, one of the car accidents that I had once which I talked about with Andy when he was doing his, um, head over wheels with me the other day.

[00:05:21] My dad's got this theory. I had this theory which wasn't his idea. I don't think about the, the block theory of traffic movements. So traffic moves in blocks.

[00:05:29] Okay. So you know, if you're on your regular commute some days it's really busy and other days, you know, it feels like you get a clear run.

[00:05:36] And that might be caused by the same person every day to drive very slowly and cause the big, you know, keep behind them. And sometimes you get ahead of them and sometimes you get behind them. And I realized once when I was back from university living at home.

[00:05:49] And I was commuting sort of about half an hour, 14 minutes over to high-welcome. And I realized, um, because this theory was in my mind because my dad had been espairing it that there was a lady in a red voxel cavalier who was causing this big blockage.

[00:06:01] And sometimes I'd be ahead of it and sometimes I'd be behind it. And one day I saw her. I was close enough to her but behind it to see that it was her.

[00:06:09] And I started, I got to get past, I got to get past. I had my Soroco 1.6 GT and I managed to get past her. And then I was really pressing on because I thought, no, I'm past, I need to make the most of this.

[00:06:20] And some of Paul D'A front of me and I smashed into them. Oh, my God. So she then came past me again and I started the road with my smashed up car. So I got down here. Sort of something there. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[00:06:34] Exactly. I imagine she was delighted. She was interesting theory though, isn't it? The blocker. At the moment we were in the middle of Easter holidays. So the rides are a dream in the morning.

[00:06:44] I still felt to see the correlation between the traffic being that bad when school is on compared to now. I just can't get my head around it. That being the main reason. May must be, I mean, London. So maybe buses are a huge factor in there.

[00:06:58] I think it's a bus thing. Yeah. Because there are buses that only run at school times out there. There are there are there are normal buses but there were also coaches. Yeah.

[00:07:08] And then stopping at the side of the road and picking up kids and I reckon that's a contributory factor, as well as the SUVs that everyone claims about. Yeah. There's a hell of a lot of buses. Variety. In fact, this is quite an interesting observation.

[00:07:23] There's a new bus called the Super Loop Bus. It goes from Bromley North to Abbey Wood. I think it's basically a way of fearing people to cross rail. Okay. And it only stops like a handful of times rather than stopping at every single stop.

[00:07:36] But every time I see it, I keep thinking that's Snoke and Loopy, Super Loop. So now my eldest now knows the chorus to Snoke and Loopy. How's it? That is a cultural reference for the people of a certain age. Yeah. Wonderful. What came after the golf?

[00:07:54] Max, do you know? That golf was superseded by the first really cool car that we had, which was our C-Redge Mark II Golf GTI. Five door. That was gray with the piece lock wheels, the Perelie wheels. Yeah. So that was C-340, C-Y-O. So that was probably like 1986 maybe.

[00:08:17] But what would that maybe 1987? I think, C-Redge. Yeah. So yeah. My dad bought that brand new from, got it from Scots of Sloan Square. Okay. We were living just outside Colchester at the time and he was working in London.

[00:08:31] So that's where he managed to get the best deal. I think it was eight and a half grand. Eight valve five door. Three big bumper of course. No Perel steering. So we had that as our family car and that seemed pretty cool. I have to say.

[00:08:44] Was there a bit of a loyalty to F-D-W they're next after the first? Maybe that's what it was. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that was that was what it was. Dad did always say that not long after he got the first golf,

[00:08:54] the L that he was really tempted to swap it in for a Lanzia Delta. So quite a similar shape actually. Yeah. That's his pre HF Tour, a little on Instagram, of course.

[00:09:04] I thought they were really cool but he did it and that was probably a good idea from a financial Yeah. Our reliability point of view. Yeah. But yeah, maybe it was a good experience with that first golf that switched him onto the.

[00:09:17] I do remember there was a passing thought back getting a MG-MI Strow Turbo. Okay. So I think that was probably a bullet Dodge as well. So we had this not too golf G-Chair which is fantastic.

[00:09:30] And we smoked the pattern that as our family car for quite a long time actually. Were you a one car family? Or did you mum have a run around as well? I think we were a one car in terms of usable cars.

[00:09:43] I think we were a one car family. There was a TR2 restoration project that was in the garage. Oh, that got, you know, taken off a low loader put into the garage and then they've actually got put back on a low loader and taken away again. Okay.

[00:09:57] That was all it ever did. So there was that. And then in Norfolk where my dad now lived somewhere, my granddad lived. There were three Austin 7s. They were in an apple loft. So they were my dad's cars as well. But they never moved either.

[00:10:11] So yeah, I think for a while, I think until I'm not actually then when a second car came in we bought a 6 and 2 CV. Well, okay. So maybe they were hiking back to those 6 and a day and days. Yeah.

[00:10:26] And they're there but I like blue 6 and 2 CV which was a D-redge. If I remember correctly. Nice. So we had the Golf GTI and this blue 6 and 2 CV. So are 2 CV this week fun enough? Yeah, you don't often see them these days.

[00:10:41] In that two tone black and sort of burgundy. And they're the Charleston edition. That's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're cool. Those ones. Very nice. Yeah. Was there an ownership of those cars?

[00:10:55] Was the Golf GTI your dad and the 2 CV your mom's or did they mix it up today? I'm not sure. I forget. I forget the golf was certainly the predominant family car. And maybe it was. I can't remember what dad would have been needing to.

[00:11:10] Maybe that was when we moved from New Coachester to just outside a Hillsbury. Yeah, because then my dad wasn't because when we lived in Coachester was walking to the railway station and get the train into Liverpool Street in London thing. Yeah, yeah.

[00:11:23] Mom was teaching so that worked for. But when we moved to Buckinghamshire, they then both needed to drive. Mom needed to drive to school to teach and dad needed to drive to his office. So that's probably what brought up the need for the second car. Yeah.

[00:11:37] But then the company that we're talking for was privatized. And then that being owned by British Aerospace. So that brought in company cars. So we had this sort of rotating constant run of those. A row of 800 series. Yeah. Do you remember those? Yeah.

[00:11:54] So they would come and go, you know, the big sort of, I was going to say fast back. That's probably bit too common about three big old hatchback thing. Yeah. And there was a saloon one as well. We had loads and loads of those.

[00:12:05] They came and went fairly often. And eventually he ordered or had the opportunity maybe to get something a bit cooler. And we had a rover 220 GTI. Okay, which seemed quite cool. Um, I think maybe the certainly the two severe gone by then.

[00:12:19] I think the golf must have gone by then as well. So yeah, so we got this this two which is which is a three door. So not not the coupé, not like the Tomcat coupé. Yeah. It was just a hatchback.

[00:12:30] Um, so I was squeezing into the back of that. And it had body color wheels, which my dad was quite pleased about because that was a, that was a rare option. He'd selected it in this sort of petrally blue color. Um, and it had petrally blue colored wheels.

[00:12:43] And tiny little silver lip. Yeah. So we had that. And around that time as well, he bought a, he bought an already built Kitka. Okay. Off a guy just the other side of Ailesbury. And R.A. F. engineer. He built a silver leader Kitka. Oh yeah. Yeah.

[00:13:01] Sort of catering type thing. Yeah. Maybe not a pretty as a catering. And this guy built it with a BMW 2002 engine in it. Okay. Well, so we bought that. We actually bought it from a place I was trying to remember the name of it.

[00:13:16] It was a garage in London that had sort of interesting cars in it, not plastics but hot rods and stuff like that. Yeah. I can't remember the name of it. Something like Andy's garage or something. Yeah. You know, a bit like Duke of London is now. Yeah.

[00:13:33] You know, old industrial unit, you know, interesting colours. I mean, actually went there to look at a Ford pop. I think my dad fancy that, you know, a Rover V8 engine Ford pop pot rod. Yeah.

[00:13:44] So we went to this place to have a look at a Ford pop and it was full of that kind of thing, you know, like Model T hot rods, probably some, you know, slammed stuff and things on Wolf Race, lock my eggs and that kind of things.

[00:13:54] But there was this silver leader in there and ended up buying that. It's quite interesting sort of prospect by using Kitka. It's not used Kitka isn't it. But the fact that previous sign was always booted by someone in the raft that helps, doesn't he? You think. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:10] That pedigree there. He built it very carefully but I think perhaps inevitably might say it's hard to accuse it being unreliable given that it's a Kitka and not, you know, not a BMW, but it definitely needed somebody with a, you know, someone of the Andy Brooks kind

[00:14:25] of self-spannering style. Yeah. And my dad wasn't really that. He was an engineer by education but not particularly handy with the spanners, which is maybe why I'm not either. And that did cause some grief when it was working. It was good fun.

[00:14:39] But it often took a while to get it started each time. So he liked the idea of a toy then obviously he had the TR2, which was just sort of a a Gary-Gornman. Yeah. Did you play in that as a kid?

[00:14:49] Was that sort of something to get in and sort of make car noises and move the wheel around? Yeah. Yeah. I've laughed at, battle my grander shot, my grander was a shopkeeper in fake and I'm in North Norfolk. Okay.

[00:15:00] And that's sort of in there as a yard behind the shop and then an apple loft and some other bits. So in this apple loft there were these three Austin sevens.

[00:15:07] One of which my dad had had when he was a kid and he used to drive up and down the driveway. And his house, he turned it into a hot rod, he thought, I guess that's where the hot rod thing comes from. Yeah.

[00:15:17] The other was a very original 1924 Chummy, which was the one we'd like with the one I heard on there. Yeah. And then the third one was actually really cool. It was a Brooklyn special. Okay.

[00:15:28] I called Mrs. Jojo, which in Austin seven, Vince sports car club circle is quite a famous car built by the photographer Luis Clementaski and it had raised up Brook Clims. Oh well. And it had been bodied eventually to sort of look like a pre-war Mercedes-Gorn pre-car. Yeah.

[00:15:44] Obviously not as elegant as that but that was the idea. So it was a single seat, a Monoposto supercharged 750CC thing quite a famous car. Nice. Always imagined that at some point I'd be maybe not racing at Silverstone in it, but at least at Prescott Hill Climber something.

[00:15:59] Yeah. But it never came to be and that like a lot of things went in the divorce settlement or to generate the funds for the divorce settlement. And it was bought by a family who are very active in the Vigil Sportscar club.

[00:16:11] And they restored it and re-bodied it into a previous iteration. And now they do race at Prescott Hill Climber. You know how your granddad came about then? Like was he racing or was he... No, no. I don't really think of my granddad as a car guy.

[00:16:25] I think he was a car guy. I think that's why my dad was a car guy but he didn't have interest in cars. He had a voxel shivette. I remember a white one. That's the last car that he had. Prior to that he had a Mark III Cortina.

[00:16:40] And what would probably now be a very cool PTS green. Yeah, yeah. On a port. But in the 1970s was just a Ford green. Unwanted he green. Green metallic. Yeah. And then he had this voxel shivette which actually became my sister's first car. Actually.

[00:16:58] But yeah so he never had interest in cars and I don't remember ever going to car things with my granddad. But I think the first car thing that I went to with my dad was a trip to Snetterton when we were at.

[00:17:10] You know we'd spend half of some holidays in North or Granddad's. Yeah, yeah. And my dad and I went off to Snetterton once. I think I was quite. I won't go as far as to say it was studious but I do recall coming back from those some holidays.

[00:17:23] Going back to school. All I wanted to do was talk about my trip to Snetterton and cars. And I think that was the beginning of the end of my academic career. So I think prior to that I was reasonably studious. Post that it was just all about cars.

[00:17:36] There we go. Do you recall any music from kind of journeys and all sort of holidays or whatever you took in the cars? Yeah, yeah. One quite clear memory actually. Again was during the summer holidays when we were in law firm. My mum was quite into music.

[00:17:51] She was probably the big musical influence in our family. Also then my dad and on the day we were part of our three week of the six weeks of holiday in North

[00:18:00] Focke in the Golf GTI and it was the day that Michael Jackson bad came out that album. Okay. The summer of 1987 so on the day that it got released.

[00:18:12] My mum and my sister and I went for faking them to Norwich back forty five minutes in the Golf went to Andy's records in Norwich bought it on cassette and then played it on the way back. Nice. So that's a very clear musical car memory in that GTI.

[00:18:30] And others actually which for some reason are quite clear there's another two other albums which were car cassette albums. One was Phil Collins, no jacket required. Yeah. The classic and then also less annoying but equally cool. Phil it Bailey Chinese wall. Okay.

[00:18:46] So Phil it Bailey if you don't know him he was a full set of an earthen and fire. Okay. And famously did the easy lover. Mm. Did you act with with Phil Collins? Yeah. About that time.

[00:18:56] But easy lover is actually a track on Phil it Bailey Chinese wall. Not on a Phil Collins album. Oh I didn't know that. So Phil it Bailey Chinese wall has got brown cover. Yes, it's a classic if you're into that kind of thing.

[00:19:06] I still listen to it now. I've got to have a look for that one. Yeah, great little tip. So but on cassette I just need a cassette player. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah.

[00:19:19] Is it just you and you, so I just can say is it just you and your sister then about. So if you go on to long journeys in the back that's sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. My sister 18 months older. So yeah.

[00:19:30] So we never really need anything bigger than a Golf GTI. I don't know what other who are I do remember quite clearly once they were the golf. Which is unusual perhaps a broken down for some reason it wasn't working. And we needed to go.

[00:19:43] It's when we lived in culture and we were going to a Norfolk. So not as far as it is from here but still a journey. And my sister had been on a school trip to the song. You know, so quite an intense school trip.

[00:19:54] And we were picking her up off the coach and going straight to Norfolk. And we turned up in the T.C.V. Because the golf for whatever reason wasn't working. And she was, I mean she was quite highly strong anyway. Some might say she still is.

[00:20:08] She was, she just lost her mind over it. She couldn't believe that she was going to have to go. I've been coming back from Belgium, France, Belgium on a coach. And there was only getting a T.C.V to go all the way to Norfolk.

[00:20:20] She was a perfect set with rage. Just keeping the theme going aren't here with a French picker. Exactly. Yeah. Especially with your mother, who has a stripy jumper that's a bit scary. Yeah. And we were going across the fields. So yeah. So that's that.

[00:20:38] That sticks in my mind. There is all round. Exactly. Exactly. Fantastic. Am I right in thinking you ended up doing some of the Montreps and stuff with your dad? Did he get you into that? I went to Lamont in 1987 with my dad. Well, they didn't drive over.

[00:20:53] That was a page and more trip. Okay. Coach trip or something? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we got the coach and coachester into Liverpool Street. I think that way. And team could be Kings Cross. And then went to wherever the coach was. Maybe a Victoria perhaps. Yeah.

[00:21:10] Got on a coach that took us to Lamont. And I was out taking. That's a bit of a trick. I think it took a while. I think we stopped in Ruan, I think. On the way there on the way back. We had to sleep on the coach.

[00:21:24] We didn't have a tent or any other accommodation. I think it was a budget trip, should we say. Yeah. And we didn't manage to stay up all night because I was 11. I suppose I couldn't quite party all night at then. No.

[00:21:36] So we did end up sleeping on the coach. But it was a great year to go of course. Because Derek Bell won again. You know, in Porsche 962, Rothmans. And that became then quite a big thing for me. You know, in my life and my interesting cars.

[00:21:51] You know, it was one of the things that cemented our an interested Porsche for me. So yeah, yeah, that was just the once. And I've never been back because things were ridiculous. Okay. But yeah, great trip. It'd be hard to top that one, I wouldn't know.

[00:22:05] I think you're probably worth it. Yeah, I think you're probably worth it. Yeah. It like a me, your heroes thing. You got that kind of benchmark of experience. Yeah. Yeah. And I was already into taking photographs and things.

[00:22:17] I had my little, you know, just a little compact 35 mil thing. But it was the days of the old pits. So we didn't have special tickets or anything, but we were able to be on top of the sort of pick garages. You could get up there. Okay.

[00:22:30] You know, maybe there was additional ticket, but it was available to anyone. And I managed to take a little picture, which I've got somewhere. You know, it's one of those things that you tried to keep safe. So invariably you lose it.

[00:22:41] And then find it again and then lose it again. The bottom of a drawer. Exactly. Exactly. You know, instead of just being in the packet with all the others. But it's a picture I took looking down from the pits.

[00:22:51] And it was a Porsche driver change and Derek Bell, obviously with his very distinctive flash arm. It is leaning into the into the cockpit of the 17 carry. The getting him are getting out. And I just snapped that. Oh cool. Nice.

[00:23:05] And that's a picture that I still, on the occasions when I know where it is. I do cherish. And actually not so long ago, I did find the program. So I've got the program with our ticket staple to it.

[00:23:15] So I've got some nice things, some nice memories from that trip. It's definitely a seminal moment in my car, a enthusiast career. Is that something you've added down before? Got an over there for the mug? No. No.

[00:23:29] I'm not sure what it was that particularly on his, I suppose the Austin 7s give away. I mean he's a general car guy. But he was a member of the vintage sports car club. Okay. So I became a member of the vintage sports car club. Right.

[00:23:42] You know, into old cars. So that, you know, perhaps the Lamol history, you know, with the Bentley's and everything that, you know, maybe that was a thing for him. I'm not sure what the catalyst was.

[00:23:54] Maybe it's something you want to do with me that he hadn't done previously, perhaps. I'm not sure. I should ask him. I will ask him. Yeah. I should have done it. I should have done it. Why? Why we did it then?

[00:24:06] Why we, why he hadn't done it before? And why we then didn't do it again, perhaps. Did you do F1 or anything like that? Yeah, we did. We did when we moved from Essex to Buckinghamshire where my mum lived up until just a couple of months ago

[00:24:18] when she went she died sadly. We were only sort of half an hour from Silverstone. Okay. So we moved there in 889. And there was one time, so we ended up becoming members of the Silverstone racing club or something. Had a, you know, a crappy little club house.

[00:24:32] And we used to go. It was what we did as a family. Yeah. You know, we'd go to Silverstone. It didn't matter what the race meeting was.

[00:24:39] We would go, you know, there's a thing called eight clubs, which is like the 750 motor club, but eight small regional car clubs who club together to do a race meeting. Everything from that to Formula One and everything in between, you know, trucks when truck racing was a thing.

[00:24:55] Yeah. There wasn't a lot of motor bike racing at Silverstone at that time. So it was all four wheels or six wheels if trucks have six wheels and I'm not sure. But yeah, we'd go to all sorts. So we went to the Formula One in 89.

[00:25:07] I remember which was a really wet race. I think Mansel podium, I think, in, in a Williams that had a judge, normally aspirated VA in it. Okay. So I think not a competitive year. But we also went to 91. Maybe I'm getting that wrong. Maybe it was 91 that happened.

[00:25:22] But we went 89 and 91 definitely to the Formula One. Oh, but we also went to, um, world endurance when that came. Oh. I mean, went actually in 89. I remember we went to the world endurance.

[00:25:32] That was in Colombia as a brand touch, which was a, you know, real high points of group Cs. That was another group C moment for me. I found some pictures actually just the other day from that.

[00:25:41] But still, if it's 10 minutes, half an hour away, you know, you just go, we just went to everything. I used to go to brands a lot with my dad, because he lived in Kent and talking to us all started in 89.

[00:25:51] I had a T-shirt which was from the F1 Silverstone 89. Which said the race was on 89. It was like fluorescent obviously of the time. Yeah, but I've lost a got it in 91 because it was in a bargain bin light. You know, they keep all the left overtations. Yeah.

[00:26:08] And they'll sell them out for a 10 or whatever a five hour. So I'd always have like these always kind of hammer me down. Type T-shirts from events and yeah, I had one from Silverstone 89. Job walks off till it fell apart pretty much. Yeah.

[00:26:20] I imagine somewhere it's probably in a box. I loved it so much. I probably didn't throw away. Yeah. But I'm yet to find it. My sister, as for my sister, put them to house on Monday I think it was.

[00:26:34] And she found this sort of, what she was holding the suit carrier, like a suit carrier thing. Okay. So some of this is yours. Do you want it? And she opened it up and there was my last school blazer. One you're wearing for work. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:26:50] My cup jumper thing and the scarf blotting. And three t-shirts. And the t-shirts were from the thrust S.S.C era. Okay. When Andy Green and Richard Noble and Ron Ares were, in fact, they set the landscape record. Didn't they with the SSC? It's the next.

[00:27:10] It's the more recent one that they haven't managed to get off the ground as it were. And I think I joined the, I think you could join like a supporters club. Maybe get a tiny little sticker on thrust S.S.C with your name on it.

[00:27:22] But I've got these three t-shirts from the period that they were doing that. And they're all signed and dated by Andy Green, Richard Noble and Ron Ares. Oh well, nice. Pretty cool. So I mean, they were white at one time. Now there's sort of yellowed.

[00:27:34] And my sister said to me, join her keep these. And I think, well, you kind of got too early. I've got this far with them. Exactly. Exactly. I remember being at school when that was going off the thrust thing.

[00:27:44] And my friend claimed his dad a design a part on thrust, which we never really knew if it was true or not, but obviously we used to say us nonsense. You talking rubbish. Well, you know, the carpholder. Yeah, yeah. Someone had to us, though, so maybe he did.

[00:28:02] Hold your coffee at 600 miles an hour. You're proof. If anyone's dad was going to do it, it would be that dad to be fair. But yeah, I'm not so sure. The jury's still out on that one. Yeah, that was a pretty cool thing that first yesterday.

[00:28:16] And we were doing our two big tiny little sort of jet plane canopy in the middle and those two messes. Massive engines. Yeah, it was a pretty rad black wasn't it? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, a pretty rad look, rad looking thing. Are we still doing stuff like that?

[00:28:29] Or is that still going on land speed? Well, was it bloodhound the next one? Bloodhound, that's right. Yeah, I think that was the same team originally, but that's stalled and got restarted. I think just recently us are sort of thing maybe on the intercooler website

[00:28:43] and some other things that they're trying to get that going again, I think. But I don't know if Andy Green in for us SSC is still holds the landscape record and I'm not sure. But yeah, it's cool to see those t-shirts.

[00:28:56] I need to tuck my way somewhere now for another 20 years. Yeah. It was a big thing wasn't I guess pre-intinent. The Guinness Book of Records was kind of a real thing. Yeah, just flick through that.

[00:29:05] And I guess that was kind of it wasn't it you wanted to be on record breakers. Yeah. Or you wanted to be in the newspaper. Yeah, maybe anyone can have a go anything and people are more interested in dancing and kitchen and tick sort. Yeah.

[00:29:18] Then the millions of pounds it must take to take your car a million miles an hour wherever it is. Yeah. If you can jump over 50 bean cans on your skateboard, that's just as good these days and that in six teams. 46 is my record. Hey, there's still time done.

[00:29:35] It's still time. Yeah. I only had 46 there at the time. So any interesting journeys, Matt. Obviously he mentioned going to Rice Circuit and stuff. But did you go holidaying at all? No. Any breakdowns perhaps? Nothing. Carabans? Any carabans? No. There was no carabanding. There was no carabanding.

[00:29:56] And the family holidays were pretty, you know, it was literally Norfolk. That's as far as we ever went in the car. Probably the most interesting trip that I did with my dad was when the silver leader went, that did get sold.

[00:30:09] I can't remember how or why or to who. But the thing that came after that, you know, in terms of that interesting car, sort of things was actually pretty cool. When we lived in Essex, we went to Whitton to visit the

[00:30:21] Genetta factory when a genetic was owned by the family who started it and they had their factory in Whitton. But it went through another iteration and we went up to Martin Fath was the managing director. And they launched this really beautiful car called the G33, which was a

[00:30:38] development of the Genetta G27, which was a kick car. And the G33 was a really elegant car, almost a sort of jaguar detail-esque. I thought, well, though it had pop-up headlamps and that wasn't a kick car. That was a series production car. And it was in AutoCart.

[00:30:55] It was tested by AutoCart. And my dad had a real hand-kring for it. And he agreed to buy it. So we bought that car. So we went up to the factory, which was in Scarborough, I think. Okay. So it's so we went up and he bought this G33.

[00:31:11] So that was a really and half-lead to Rover VA engine. You know, low volume production British bought car. It was just a number one car that AutoCart drove. Got one? So he bought that. We took that home. And that was a really cool car. You drive it home.

[00:31:26] Yeah, he drove it home. I was teens at this point. Yeah. But then in 1993, because I'm really into motorbike racing, much more still than I am actually into modern car racing. Okay. So interested in that tour, really. But motorbike racing I love.

[00:31:43] And in 1993, we took the Janetta to the Arlemand for the TT races. Amazing. So he and I went up for a sort of long weekend. He knew someone, maybe someone that he'd worked with or something. She was a lawyer.

[00:31:57] And she ended up settling on the Arlemand with her family. So that was probably the catalyst for making it because that made it quite easy. So we did this road trip. Got the ferry across from just near Liverpool.

[00:32:08] I think they went to the port and we spent the probably as I say a long weekend on the island man. And I think probably still one of my fondest memories now is when we needed to get round to the spot that we were going to spectate.

[00:32:20] And the road was closed. So they were spectators everywhere. And we were in the Janetta and we were bombing along. I think that was that he really enjoyed that. You know, on a closed road nothing else on the road. Spectators, on the Arlemand.

[00:32:34] I think he really, I think he still looks back on that now as a trip that he really enjoyed in that car. And I think it was on Mad Sunday but he's either the Mad Sunday fresh. But in the mountain course, Ramsey to pregnant bar was closed.

[00:32:50] Was one way not closed. Yeah. We were coming out of the Gooseneck and we got overtaken by. Well, it was a 911 cab back then. But in that generation it was 964. Yeah. So 964 was the current 911 and it was maybe Cobalt Blue. It was a cab.

[00:33:09] It was a monk's registered car. And it was fun of people. It was four up. People squeezed in the back and they over took us. They were going really quickly. New weather were going. And chased after them.

[00:33:19] So we chased them across the mountain which was good because then you were going. So we could just follow them. And that was quite fast drive. And that was great fun. Awesome. That was good fun. I think if I asked him, he'd probably still look back on that.

[00:33:30] There was a there's probably a high point of his motoring career. And the thing. There were some. There was a bit of an overheating problem with it. But whilst we were waiting for the ferry, there was some more you know,

[00:33:44] Engineering focused on more practical engineers more practical in him who helped him. Source that problem and fix it. So that went away. And the thing got all the way to the old man and back, you know, reliably. Wow. Fantastic.

[00:33:58] I was going to say at the beginning when he said he was going to purchase that. I thought it was not sound quite risky venture. But yeah. Fair play. The journey they were about. Yeah. It did okay actually. It did okay.

[00:34:09] And he did is one, you know, everyone thinks or would like to be a racing driver. But if we need to cause you think, oh, you know, and this is pre-track days. So he did do his art license. Okay. Got his racing license.

[00:34:20] And he entered the generator in, in a venture sports car club event called the Pomeroy Trophy. Okay. It's that silverstone and it's two of tests that were created to find what the best touring car is in the 1920s.

[00:34:33] So it's a slightly, you know, it's a typically British quirky. Yeah. If then where you can enter anything that's, I think, two liters or over. It has to have a roof. And it has to be able to carry the regulation Pomeroy suit case.

[00:34:47] So he, he did sort of drag race and a, and a slalom and then a 40 minute ice-be trial. Basically a hat around the track. And he did that. And the way my mum record it was that he was terrified. Basically so that was his one and only experience.

[00:35:02] So really, um, not racing exactly because it wasn't a race but it sort of was. Okay. It's the clock. Yeah. And that was all he ever. That was enough, apparently. Am I right in thinking you got into Porsche's afterwards?

[00:35:14] Well, he was not sure where his Porsche thing came from. So when mum got busted by the rosers in golf, that was on the Durham road in Gateshead. So we were living in the north east in Gateshead. And in the road that we live.

[00:35:27] So this is, um, we must have moved there in maybe 1980. Lift there maybe 80 to 85. Okay. But we moved to S6. Another people that lived in the streets. We lived at number five in this coldest act. At number one on the left hand side.

[00:35:41] And we were called George Smith. He was a proper Jordy entrepreneur. And he had a role of voice. Nice. He had a motor bike, which I think maybe just planted that seed that became an interesting motorbike

[00:35:55] ready single-ater on for me because he used to take that, a garage and start them up and just ride them up and down the road. Yeah. And they met a lot of noise, you know, so that was all pretty cool.

[00:36:04] But he also had, um, he had a 930 turbo, Martini. Um, which could. And I need to explore this with poor press lends. Could be the car that poor press lends no owns. Because that was a new castle or, Delivered car.

[00:36:18] So that is a thing that I would see certainly part of poor seed for me and would have interested my dad without a doubt. And then he'd the next door to their more two doors up. There was a bookie called Jeff.

[00:36:30] And he had a black free two carera. And that was always parking his driver. So every time I put down the road, I'd see that. And that I think along with the condor man, Black 911's really planted the seed of being interested in black porches for me.

[00:36:46] And again, would have done my dad as well. How important that was for him or not, I'm not sure. But he would have encouraged my interest in Porsche for sure without a doubt. And he eventually bought a 944. Yeah. So yeah, he was a transaxel guy, and he. Fantastic.

[00:37:03] It's nice. What have your own? Yeah. I trying to that was black. It was like a, like a, why red or something like that? Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. Only one then. So maybe two and a half liters would that have been? Yeah.

[00:37:17] And he had that for a while. I think at one point he did try to sell it to me. But 1800 quid. I think at which time I thought that he probably ought to be giving it to me. So it's something that didn't seem quite right.

[00:37:30] So anyway, so I didn't take that on from him. So that must have got sold. And then eventually he did buy a left hand drive three to Carrera, which became the first car, the first Porsche that I drove. And also the first Porsche that I don't say crashed.

[00:37:44] Orative crash. Oh, no. But only a sort of crash. It was just a spin. It was a crash without an impact. She was there. No, not too bad. Another blocker was it. Well, no, that one. So that was at Silverstone actually.

[00:37:57] So that was one of our regular trips to Silverstone. That was actually when they started doing a little club motorbike race meeting, a late season, sort of October time, one of the last things that they did. So we used to go to that because I was into bikes.

[00:38:10] And on the infield from Cops Corner, you know, is as far as is the end of one of the old runways. So big, I'm not sure what the surface is like now. But it used to be just that patchy concrete sort of thing, you know, big, big space.

[00:38:23] And he said, what didn't you have to go? So this is, I was less than 17 because I never driving license. He said, why don't you drive the car? Have a go in the car? You know, that sort of club meeting itself.

[00:38:32] So there's not a lot of people around. So we drove it out of the paddock and I was just driving it up and down behind on the inside of Cops. On this wet, it was wet of course because October.

[00:38:43] And it's just driving it just sort of just driving it around in circles basically. Are going up and down and round. And because it was wet and it was concrete, I started to slide it a little bit. So this is any like second gear, not very fast.

[00:38:55] But you know, driving it up the runway, going round, skidding it round, not drifting it. Skidding it round and then going back down again. And that was really good. I was really enjoying that, really getting into it, feeling quite confident.

[00:39:06] And then I lifted off at the wrong time and basically the thing just snapped back on me. And I tried to catch it and I was completely out of control. You know, grabbing a real one way and then the other.

[00:39:18] And we were sliding towards a sort of prefab toilet block. And I thought, oh my god, we're going to wipe out this bloody toilet block in Dad's car.

[00:39:26] So I just stamped on the break and stamped on the clutch and we just skidded to a halt without hitting this toilet block. Was you down in the car already? Just for a minute. He was on the car with me. He thought it was hilarious.

[00:39:38] Probably because my face was probably action at this point. I think. And then yes, so that was my first, or driving experience. My first spin almost crash. And I think I got out by the, I thought I said right, let's go back. That's enough for me today.

[00:39:56] Isn't it good for you, Max, that was pre video cameras. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, imagine. Well, dearly me. So yeah, sometimes forget, you know, I think that hanging out with Leonardo. I think this is my first air-called experience on my first.

[00:40:13] So I actually forget sometimes that Dad had that car. Yeah, yeah. And that I did actually drive it. It was a nine one five box. It had a really weird interior. It was, I think it was a German import left and drive white.

[00:40:27] It had white-centred folks but they were turbo. We also, they were sort of wide in which look really cool. Yeah. And the interior was a weird sort of two tone. It was black and peppermint leather. Oh, I can't remember exactly how the pattern was, but it was weird.

[00:40:45] It was factory better strange off that time, I suppose. Isn't it off that time yet? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why would be vice sort of? Yeah, yes, so. And before Tony set up right tune, he worked at business called G Force,

[00:41:01] OK, which was in Al's Bray, which is very close to where we lived. So those, do you remember the blue coral sponsored Porsche racing cars? That sort of, there was a guy called John Grizzly and he owned a business in Al's Bray called Dage.

[00:41:15] There was some sort of electronic business, I'm not sure what it is. But then separately, just ran the corner on Ravens Lane. He had this Porsche because he's a Porsche guy. And he set up this Porsche specialist called G Force.

[00:41:27] So they were local, you know, nine, I think Max to page. I've got a 993 GT2 race car in Blue Coral that was John's car. And Tony worked there. And he took the car there and had the gearbox rebuilt.

[00:41:39] And they also set it up properly, because despite the fact that I managed to spin it, it had been set up to under the steer basically. So they set it up properly, put it a bit more on it's nose, re-bought the gearbox, Tony re-bought the gearbox.

[00:41:51] And after that, my dad said it, well, I'm not sure I ever drove it from then on, but he said it was a really nice car after that. In fact, that would have been a Porsche influence as well, because John Grizzly always had an 11 turbo.

[00:42:05] And I'm not sure what the letters and numbers would actually have been, but the number plate looked like turbo. I suppose it would be a T-U-R-A-T-S, that's suppose it could have been or something. There was some kind of turbo number, so it was always red.

[00:42:20] So you'd see him periodically smoking around in this 9-11 with a turbo and number plate. And I think that was quite influential in my own sort of Porsche buying journey, because it made me think I want to drive a Porsche 911 every day.

[00:42:34] Yeah. He seems to be using that as his car, and that's really cool, and that's what I want to do. I want to have a Porsche and I want to be able to use it every day, because that would be brilliant.

[00:42:45] And there was the black condor man thing in the book, he'd down the road, Jeff the Bucky. So I think that's where I decided that I wanted to have a black Porsche, and I wanted to be able to use it.

[00:42:55] I wanted to have it as my daily, which is what I did eventually. Yeah, yeah. Fantastic. Anything else we need to ask you, Max? Any stories or itching to tell us? I did have a thought. What was I going to mention?

[00:43:10] So after my folks got divorced and everything got sold, basically the genetter, all the Austin 7s. I think maybe kept an eye on 11 for a while, and maybe that got sold as well as quite a divorce.

[00:43:22] He then moved back to Norfolk and went through a series of cars that he didn't look after very well. And there's one particular car that I look back on now, and my brother-in-law does as well as why didn't we save that?

[00:43:35] Why didn't we take it from him because we knew he was going to ruin it? And I think it's something that you'd like as well Andy, maybe as well, John, but definitely you and he, dad bought an Audi S2 event. Oh wow, okay.

[00:43:46] So the car that became the RS2, it was green, so very, very trendy now, and he bought that, and eventually he lost the keys, which is not unusual for my dad. He didn't even have a mobile phone.

[00:43:59] But he lost the keys, and it's always more expensive than you think it ought to be, isn't it to get a new keys cut for a car? Yeah. So he kept saying to my stepmother, I know I'll find them in a final and final.

[00:44:10] And like two years later, he found them in the car, I'd rotted outside his house. And he sold it for 10 quid or something to some, black down the road. Luxemes. I looked that year, and I think the person put it back on the road fairly easily,

[00:44:22] and if it went back, I just think back now, I'd quite like, well, not just a green one, but an Audi S2 event. Yeah, yeah. What era is that? Is that mid 90s? So that is... It early, yeah. Yeah, three, maybe.

[00:44:35] Yeah, I can see the colour, I'm pretty sure I'm ahead. It's like the 80s, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, yeah. So before the A4, nice things. Five cylinder turbo. Yeah, like Porsche cut mirrors, and yeah. That's how everything was in it. Yeah, really, really cool car.

[00:44:51] I don't really regret anything, but I do think back, and for maybe if I'd been a bit more a bit more, you know, forward thinking now, I could have taken that. You know, instead of observing it from a distance, yeah.

[00:45:05] I probably should have been a bit more proactive and taken that off him, but, you know, there we go. Such a life. That's a sad story to end with, isn't it? Yeah, sorry about that. Well, makes it out. We'll put it in the middle of the episode.

[00:45:19] Yeah, yeah. Can shop it up in the edit? Yeah, absolutely. Well, yeah, thank you very much for joining us, Max. I think it's fun. Some nice stories. Enjoy those. Yeah, it's a pleasure. It's been great fun. It's been great fun. Thanks, Max.

[00:45:32] And I've really enjoyed listening to other people's, you know, after we started talking about it, Andy, I thought I'm going to, I'm going to listen to, yesterday I was listening to Lewis from Tacona. Yeah, yeah. I really enjoyed that one. That was a cracker as well.

[00:45:44] So it's, yeah, it's great fun. Keep it up. It's, it's a great listen. And thank you for having me on. Nice to meet you, Max. Yeah, good to meet you, John. Really good to meet you. Yeah, thank you very much, Max. See you soon. See you soon. Cheers.

[00:45:57] Oh, lovely. That was good enough. Yeah, really good. He's got a very good voice for podcasts. Indeed. Very listenable. Smooth talking. Lee and Andy from 9works, one of them up and called in Caramax, because he's got kind of a, just a little bit of voice for the ladies.

[00:46:12] I'll see you at one stage. You could be sort of like a, I don't know, like a snooaker or a gold commentator. I will give them some text or something and he can read it off. Yeah, nothing kind of up, but you're fast, just very, yeah,

[00:46:27] Yeah, he's in the rough. No, it was good fun. Yeah, I really enjoyed that. So yes, so nice stories. And all of man was interested actually. My, I remember from my, yeah, my grandparents house. So my grandma grandpa, my dad's parents.

[00:46:46] They had sort of some, I remember a man memorabilia up from the TT. And I think my grandma was kind of as a young, a man. But my dad never went and it was something when we found out he was it actually.

[00:46:58] I kind of spoke to him about them whether or not we could get him kind of over there on a bit of a sort of a little bit. Yeah, and yeah, it turned out, yeah, he's kind of illness sort of took over a bit too quickly really.

[00:47:10] At some point, it'd be nice to kind of do that trip. Yeah, definitely one for you to sicker. Yeah, remember brother would kind of into bike racing and we kind of watch it anyway. But yeah, there's a little sort of tip or whatever for him. Mm, definitely.

[00:47:23] Yeah, yeah, one day I get dreadful sea sickness. I do. I'm sort of dreading the trip. But is that the only means of other than telecopter or something? You can fly commercial flight, I think. Right.

[00:47:38] And it's a little bit limited to getting around while you must be out of horror car or suppose. How long is it on the boat? About five hours on the Irish sea. It's not that long. Is it really? I think so. Good gracious.

[00:47:50] It's a horrible piece of waterbowler counts, but. Yeah. One day, yeah, one day I'll go to. You might be one of those ones that eventually get you sea legs on the. Maybe test the water and do the either white trip a few times.

[00:48:07] Yeah, I've been yeah, I've been on boats before, but yeah, did the other white last summer and it was kind of mil upon flat and I was fine. Mm. But yeah, we went on a cruise for our honeymoon and first morning I was being sick.

[00:48:18] It was like, what two weeks are this? I'm going to be telling me this. Yeah. Yeah. So I do kind of try and avoid boats. Okay. I apologize to to Max. Yeah, talking about sea sickness with the other. Yes.

[00:48:31] And yes, some good cars obviously sit and die on to see the couple of golfs. Yeah, horses and some horses in there. I've got to turn those down. And a bit of kick car action. Some kick car action. Yeah. That's quite nice.

[00:48:46] Mother getting pulled by the they'll build. Yeah, speeding offence. Some good albums. Yeah, a tip off wasn't there and no jacket required. We've sort of see the because set of choice for Ben. Yeah. I'm having around France although that was full metal jacket was. It was a good.

[00:49:03] Yeah. I remember what he said the other album was. Oh, it was so badly wasn't it? Oh, bad. My contract. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not her to the other album. But not her to the other album. Yeah. Good. I think you were watching. All right.

[00:49:24] No worries. For the British. Thank you for listening to my doubts card. I actually enjoyed the show. Please support us. Pause a cup of and subscribe. And tell all your friends.