Paul Harding: Choosing company cars with Dad, Trick or Treat Barn Finds, Vauxhall SRI, S4E4

[00:00:00] Welcome to My Dads Car, Enjoy!

[00:00:12] Welcome to My Dads Car, a podcast discussing our personal relationship with automotive nostalgia.

[00:00:18] And you know what? It doesn't even have to be about your Dads Car.

[00:00:21] It can be your Mums, your Grants, your Parents, Guardians or even a Neighbours.

[00:00:26] If it made an impression, let's talk about it.

[00:00:29] Hello.

[00:00:34] Hey hey.

[00:00:35] Alright.

[00:00:36] How are you?

[00:00:37] Pretty bad, you?

[00:00:38] Yeah, alright. So I was just scoffing a sandwich.

[00:00:39] Oh yeah? It is lunchtime.

[00:00:40] Yeah, a little bit of a mad dash.

[00:00:43] Oh really?

[00:00:44] Literally dusting off the recording stuff here as well.

[00:00:47] It's been a few weeks hasn't it?

[00:00:48] Yeah.

[00:00:49] Obviously it helps when I give you more than a days notice.

[00:00:53] Oh, it's absolutely fine.

[00:00:54] I usually just assume there's something going on on a Friday so it's kind of...

[00:00:58] Oh.

[00:00:59] How you doing man?

[00:01:00] Yeah not so bad, I've managed to make it work.

[00:01:02] I feel like an old man using technology but I'm there.

[00:01:05] Cool cool.

[00:01:06] Yeah welcome along.

[00:01:07] I'm Andy, obviously we've met before.

[00:01:09] This is John.

[00:01:10] Alright, how you doing Paul?

[00:01:11] Yeah not so bad, yeah not so bad.

[00:01:13] Yourself?

[00:01:14] Good stuff, yeah very well, very well thanks.

[00:01:16] What's the car of choice today Paul?

[00:01:17] That I see you're perched in.

[00:01:18] Nice bit of leather.

[00:01:19] I'm in the E39 M5.

[00:01:21] Oh.

[00:01:22] Best car ever made.

[00:01:23] Apart from this one struggling for a clutch.

[00:01:26] But I have a new clutch in the boot so that kind of counts.

[00:01:28] It's just got to fit itself.

[00:01:29] Do you know anyone with a garage?

[00:01:31] Possibly yeah.

[00:01:32] Yeah, I just need to actually some time to do it.

[00:01:34] It's probably actually going to go to one of my friends that he has the time to do

[00:01:37] it for me so.

[00:01:38] What colour is that M5 Paul?

[00:01:40] It's carbon black.

[00:01:41] Oh nice.

[00:01:42] So even though it's a common colour I quite like the colour so I hunted out a

[00:01:46] black one.

[00:01:47] I really wanted a caramel interior but as you can see I ended up with black interior

[00:01:49] because I just couldn't find a caramel one so it's a black interior car.

[00:01:52] I've hardly ruined it.

[00:01:53] I tried to keep it standard and I just couldn't help it.

[00:01:56] It's always got a suspension and exhaust, that's all they need.

[00:01:58] They don't need anything else.

[00:01:59] Just literally a set of suspension, a decent exhaust and you're away.

[00:02:02] That's it.

[00:02:03] Nice, very nice.

[00:02:05] Yeah, yeah.

[00:02:06] So before we jump in too far we do a quick bit of benefit that you're probably aware

[00:02:11] actually because I think you listened to a few of these.

[00:02:13] I listened to a lot, yeah, yeah, I like it.

[00:02:15] So yeah, we're joined by Paul Harding who is from Super Duper Garage and I first

[00:02:20] became aware of your appearance on Johnny Smith's Late Break Show in the car cave

[00:02:25] or car collection or whatever it was and you've got a barn full of rusty old

[00:02:28] cars and some less rusty and some broken and some not broken.

[00:02:31] Correct.

[00:02:32] And yeah, we ended up kind of doing an article about your VWs and Porsches

[00:02:36] for work as well so that's sort of where we've come into contact with each

[00:02:39] other and you've come to a few of the Porsche things I've done and stuff

[00:02:42] like that so yeah, that's what brings you here and do you want to tell

[00:02:46] people what you do?

[00:02:47] A quick plug?

[00:02:48] Yeah, yeah.

[00:02:49] My name is Paul.

[00:02:50] I've got a garage called Super Duper Garage.

[00:02:52] We work on normal people's cars.

[00:02:54] We do car storage.

[00:02:55] I'm kind of being pushed by friends and everything into doing some car sales

[00:03:00] at the minute.

[00:03:01] OK.

[00:03:02] So I've just tested the water with it and also I'm being shoved to do

[00:03:05] YouTube as well.

[00:03:06] So there is a YouTube Super Duper.

[00:03:08] There's not much on it, but there will be soon.

[00:03:10] Fantastic.

[00:03:11] Yeah.

[00:03:12] So yeah, with that aside, let's jump in.

[00:03:14] What's your earliest car memory?

[00:03:16] So earliest car memory is actually weirdly my first ever memory.

[00:03:21] OK.

[00:03:22] So my first ever memory is laying on my mum's lap in the back of a yellow car

[00:03:27] and I could look up and I could just see the edge of a window frame being

[00:03:30] yellow.

[00:03:31] OK.

[00:03:32] I sat with my parents trying to work out what it was.

[00:03:34] I always thought it was a Cortina but it appears it's not.

[00:03:36] It would be a yellow Chevette that my dad used to borrow from work.

[00:03:39] Wow.

[00:03:40] Yeah, so that was my first, yeah, a yellow Chevette and that's my

[00:03:43] very first memory of anything at all.

[00:03:45] Irrelevant of cars, but yeah, that's my first memory of that.

[00:03:48] What sort of age do you reckon you were?

[00:03:50] Tiny.

[00:03:51] So we, I think sort of literally sort of around the two-ish bracket.

[00:03:57] Yes.

[00:03:58] Wow.

[00:03:59] Yeah, little, little, it's literally first memory and it's weird that it

[00:04:01] happens to be a car but that's my first, it has always been my first

[00:04:04] memory and I can see the yellow right now.

[00:04:06] I can see the yellow shape everything and it turns out as a yellow Chevette.

[00:04:10] Yeah.

[00:04:11] Funny.

[00:04:12] Was it a company car for your father?

[00:04:13] Was he involved with cars at all or?

[00:04:15] So my dad's an odd one with cars.

[00:04:18] When he met my mum, he had a mini van that was modified.

[00:04:22] Okay.

[00:04:23] That he put MG Sprite bucket seats in it and he came out of work one day

[00:04:29] and found because the seats were quite desirable, someone had nicked his

[00:04:33] seats and at the same time they nicked the driver's door.

[00:04:36] So he drove it home, sat on the spare wheel, he got the spare wheel

[00:04:41] out the back, sat on the spare wheel and drove it home with no door.

[00:04:45] It sounds like something from Mr Bean, doesn't it?

[00:04:48] Yeah, yeah and it was in a green, British Rail green because he said

[00:04:52] it was an ex-British Rail thing and they literally just painted it

[00:04:54] with a brush green as British Rail did and he then found himself a

[00:04:58] yellow door because the old early, early minis, they're pinned from

[00:05:01] the outside so you can just knock the pins out and take the door

[00:05:04] off.

[00:05:05] Okay.

[00:05:06] Yeah, so there's no security to it so yeah, then he had to go

[00:05:07] and get some seats and stuff and put the car back together.

[00:05:10] But that's his only modified type car.

[00:05:13] In his work-wise, he then had a few sort of company cars or by my

[00:05:17] first memory is he had pull cars to do with where he worked.

[00:05:20] There were several of them that he could borrow.

[00:05:23] So there appeared to be this Chevette.

[00:05:25] I was also told there was a Capri and a couple of other bits

[00:05:28] and bobs that he could borrow and take home as and when he

[00:05:31] wanted or if you had meetings or whatever it be.

[00:05:34] Yeah, yeah.

[00:05:35] What did your dad do, Paul?

[00:05:36] He works in marketing.

[00:05:37] I've never really been entirely sure what he did.

[00:05:40] He's always been my dad of a work in marketing.

[00:05:44] I never know how much he ever get paid and I always got told

[00:05:48] enough, son.

[00:05:49] That was my answer.

[00:05:51] As I don't know, I've never got a clue.

[00:05:55] I lived a normal sort of middle class life as it would be,

[00:05:59] but I never knew any more than that.

[00:06:01] I knew they struggled at the beginning and he worked damn hard

[00:06:03] to get further up the food chain of where he was.

[00:06:06] But yeah, just to do with marketing, he worked for a few

[00:06:10] different companies to do with marketing.

[00:06:11] He worked for a company called Digital for years, which is

[00:06:14] like a sort of computer company.

[00:06:17] And yeah, they had company cars.

[00:06:20] Is your dad still about, Paul or has he passed away?

[00:06:22] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:06:23] No, mum and dad are still about.

[00:06:24] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:06:26] Still about to retire but yeah, still about.

[00:06:28] Yeah.

[00:06:29] So he's always enjoyed stuff like that and he always liked cars.

[00:06:32] What happened to the Mini after the thieves took the seats and

[00:06:36] the door?

[00:06:38] He was trying to work out.

[00:06:39] He had the Mini.

[00:06:40] He married my mum in the Mini because my mum's dad was annoyed

[00:06:44] that they were going to go away from the wedding in a car

[00:06:47] with a different colour door and it had a straight pipe

[00:06:49] exhaust, so it was really loud.

[00:06:51] Then he thinks he sold it.

[00:06:52] He can't remember.

[00:06:53] They had an escort van and he didn't want the escort van.

[00:06:56] The reason he borrowed a car from work is because they

[00:06:58] couldn't pick me up from hospital in a van.

[00:07:00] And I was told the reason they had the van is there was a

[00:07:03] thing called purchase tax which is now being replaced by

[00:07:05] VAT but it even applied to second hand cars.

[00:07:08] So a van was cheaper for them to own.

[00:07:11] OK.

[00:07:12] So before I was born, they had vans and then when I was

[00:07:14] born, they then had cars and then he slipped into the

[00:07:17] world of company cars.

[00:07:18] Yeah, yeah.

[00:07:19] Were you an only child or you got siblings?

[00:07:21] Yeah.

[00:07:22] OK.

[00:07:23] Yeah, yeah, sport only child, standard issue.

[00:07:24] Yeah, yeah.

[00:07:26] So yeah, only child.

[00:07:27] Sitting in an M5 and a...

[00:07:29] Yeah.

[00:07:30] Yeah.

[00:07:31] Have you got any unfinished business with minis because of

[00:07:35] that story?

[00:07:36] Have you had one?

[00:07:37] No, I've never owned a mini.

[00:07:38] My mum's owned a mini.

[00:07:39] So when I was little, my mum, I've got a picture of me

[00:07:42] stood in front in a weird fluffy coat and some red

[00:07:44] trousers in front of my mum's mini.

[00:07:47] And that got to the point it failed its MOT and got

[00:07:50] sold to a banger racer and they got banger racers.

[00:07:53] So I know that's definitely dead.

[00:07:55] But yeah, other than that, no, I've never really had

[00:07:58] you would think I would have a handquin of a mini,

[00:08:01] but I've never ever, I've only ever driven one or two.

[00:08:04] Yeah.

[00:08:05] I've never had a particular love for minis.

[00:08:06] I could appreciate them, but I don't want one.

[00:08:08] No.

[00:08:09] My appreciation for cars is later on than that.

[00:08:11] I'm sort of 80s, 90s, that sort of thing really.

[00:08:14] Yeah, fair enough.

[00:08:15] Were there any cars that your parents had Paul,

[00:08:17] which you've got fondness for?

[00:08:20] Ish.

[00:08:21] So one of my biggest car memories for me is

[00:08:24] my aunt had Novus.

[00:08:27] So my aunt used to work quite far away and she used to do

[00:08:29] a two hour commute each way every day.

[00:08:31] She used to lock up loads and loads of miles.

[00:08:33] She had a Nova swing, one point two swing in red,

[00:08:36] which when that ran up the miles,

[00:08:39] my mum brought that from her.

[00:08:41] And then that got replaced with a Nova SR.

[00:08:44] It was an F-Redge in red.

[00:08:46] It was the phase two, so not a facelift.

[00:08:49] So it had the separate grill from the bumper.

[00:08:52] It had the stripe seats, not the checkered seats.

[00:08:55] That has been my iconic car.

[00:08:58] And I remember getting the keys from her

[00:09:00] and we were at a family gathering

[00:09:02] and I just sat in it in the driveway,

[00:09:03] pushing buttons as you do as a kid.

[00:09:05] Just sitting in the driveway pretending to drive.

[00:09:07] And that stuck in my mind forever.

[00:09:09] My first car was a Nova SR and it had to have the stripe seats

[00:09:12] and I own one now as well.

[00:09:14] Nice.

[00:09:15] What were you going to school in?

[00:09:17] Or did you not go to school in a car?

[00:09:19] In a helicopter.

[00:09:20] No, all of the stuff I went to school in.

[00:09:22] So my dad went into company car world,

[00:09:24] which he was in a sweet spot of company cars.

[00:09:27] So my favorite thing about it is we used to go to

[00:09:30] London Motor Show together and we could choose his car.

[00:09:34] So he's like, right, I've got this budget.

[00:09:36] This is what I'm allowed to spend.

[00:09:38] So we would go and sit in the cars

[00:09:40] and see what we could find in this budget

[00:09:42] of things that he liked.

[00:09:44] And most of the school stuff for me would have been

[00:09:46] when I was younger, he had a Capri,

[00:09:48] he had a red Capri.

[00:09:50] Then he had a Cavalier SRI.

[00:09:53] Which then went to a Cavalier CDI.

[00:09:56] And that was always a hot debate of which one do you get

[00:09:59] because of the CDI had electric rear windows

[00:10:02] and velour seats.

[00:10:03] And electric rear windows, that was flash.

[00:10:05] My friends were well impressed that my dad

[00:10:07] had a car with electric rear windows.

[00:10:09] But the SRI had nicer wheels,

[00:10:12] slightly better bumpers, and it had like

[00:10:14] sort of the board bucket seats in it.

[00:10:16] But windy rear windows because it's lightweight.

[00:10:18] Yeah.

[00:10:19] So that was there.

[00:10:20] It's always frustrating.

[00:10:21] It's always frustrating.

[00:10:22] You couldn't even have it as an option.

[00:10:24] You couldn't have an SRI and option in

[00:10:26] the electric rear windows.

[00:10:27] It's funny, you say that.

[00:10:28] My dad used to share a school run

[00:10:29] with one of my class friends.

[00:10:31] And I remember his parents picked up

[00:10:34] I think it was a company car, a Vauxhall Cavalier,

[00:10:36] and had the very same electric rear windows.

[00:10:39] I always remember them being ultra sensitive

[00:10:41] because I remember sitting in the back once

[00:10:43] and pushing it down.

[00:10:44] And it went down.

[00:10:45] And I wanted it to stop, so I pressed it again.

[00:10:47] It went all the way up.

[00:10:48] And then it was just like up and down, up and down.

[00:10:51] Getting a bit of a sweaty panic in the back there.

[00:10:53] Yeah, I could go for that.

[00:10:55] You have to as well now you can easily tap it.

[00:10:57] But you'd have to watch it to the exact point

[00:10:59] and tap it one more time and try and stop

[00:11:01] it where you wanted it to go.

[00:11:02] Yeah, yeah.

[00:11:03] That's it.

[00:11:04] I think designed by the same people who do

[00:11:06] Teddy grabbers.

[00:11:07] No, you're not.

[00:11:08] Possibly.

[00:11:09] Yeah.

[00:11:10] But that was quite good.

[00:11:11] I always used to enjoy that.

[00:11:12] I used to go around and enjoy picking

[00:11:14] the cars in the school run.

[00:11:15] I was talking to my parents last night about it.

[00:11:18] I don't ever remember anyone having anything flash.

[00:11:20] I don't ever remember.

[00:11:21] You know, we just had a sort of normal car

[00:11:23] and everybody else had normal cars.

[00:11:25] There wasn't.

[00:11:26] I don't remember the one kid that turned up

[00:11:28] in, you know, fancy Mercedes or BMW.

[00:11:30] Everyone just had normal cars.

[00:11:32] Yeah.

[00:11:33] There was nothing odd.

[00:11:34] No one owned anything flash or anything

[00:11:36] like that at all, really.

[00:11:37] I remember getting a lift actually.

[00:11:39] If it was really rainy, there was a girl

[00:11:41] who lived up the road and her parents had

[00:11:43] big Volvo's.

[00:11:44] They had like a 700 or a 900

[00:11:46] or something like that.

[00:11:47] Yeah.

[00:11:48] And occasionally I remember getting into that

[00:11:50] and it's just like sitting into a big leather sofa.

[00:11:52] Yeah.

[00:11:53] And just really big square door pockets.

[00:11:56] I think that had electric windows in the back,

[00:11:58] but there was just a real leathery smell inside.

[00:12:01] I think they were brown leather.

[00:12:03] And yeah, it wasn't particularly flash,

[00:12:05] but it was in comparison to like the Montego

[00:12:08] or whatever we had.

[00:12:09] So yes, it's where my dad with leather

[00:12:11] always to this day hates leather seats.

[00:12:14] Always fabric, always hates them.

[00:12:16] Fair enough.

[00:12:17] I think as soon as you have a child,

[00:12:18] leather all the way.

[00:12:19] Yeah, I agree with that.

[00:12:20] After having a child, it makes life not easy,

[00:12:22] doesn't it?

[00:12:23] You can just wipe things off of it.

[00:12:24] Yeah.

[00:12:25] Yeah, exactly.

[00:12:26] Yeah.

[00:12:27] I can see his point of they are cold

[00:12:28] and then cloth is a bit more comfortable.

[00:12:30] I think the cloth in the Cavaliers,

[00:12:32] the old Cavaliers has received praise

[00:12:34] on this podcast before, hasn't it, Andy,

[00:12:35] for being quite...

[00:12:36] Yeah, hard wearing, yeah.

[00:12:37] Quite luxurious.

[00:12:38] Yeah.

[00:12:39] Oh, the CDI had the velour.

[00:12:41] That was soft.

[00:12:42] You stroke that.

[00:12:43] You could sit and stroke the seat.

[00:12:44] It was where the SLI was a little bit tougher

[00:12:45] because it was sporty,

[00:12:46] a little bit more coarse fabric.

[00:12:48] So what came after the Cavaliers?

[00:12:51] So he had a good run of company cars,

[00:12:54] being able to choose whatever you wanted.

[00:12:57] After the Cavalier, he had a Rover 800 SLI.

[00:13:00] Okay.

[00:13:01] Originally ordered in like a fern green

[00:13:04] and this is back in the day

[00:13:06] when you just had the brochures

[00:13:08] gave you a small inch square colour.

[00:13:11] That's what you chose your colour from.

[00:13:13] There was no spray outs or look at anything else.

[00:13:16] And this was when Rover 800 had just come out.

[00:13:18] So we ordered that and then he got an option

[00:13:20] to get a black one because it arrived sooner.

[00:13:22] And he went, okay, I'll get the black one.

[00:13:24] And he was really grateful

[00:13:25] because I remember sitting with him

[00:13:26] when we saw a green one and it was horrible.

[00:13:29] Oh, so glad we didn't get the green.

[00:13:31] Because when it was in a small square,

[00:13:32] it looked all right.

[00:13:33] But on a Rover then, a Rover 800,

[00:13:35] it's quite a big car.

[00:13:36] And that looked horrible.

[00:13:37] And that was all right, but he said it broke a lot.

[00:13:39] I don't remember it breaking,

[00:13:41] but he said it was a nightmare and broke a lot.

[00:13:43] Then after that, which is this sweet spot of a car,

[00:13:45] which you always liked it.

[00:13:46] An Alfa 164, two litre twin spark.

[00:13:49] Okay.

[00:13:50] Yeah, and that was his choice.

[00:13:51] I don't ever remember having any say in this car.

[00:13:54] It was one of these things that came up on the list

[00:13:56] of when you were choosing company cars,

[00:13:59] you were impressed that this was in it

[00:14:00] and you could get it.

[00:14:02] And he's like, right, I can get that on my list.

[00:14:04] I'm having one of those.

[00:14:05] So that's what he got.

[00:14:06] And I learned to drive in that.

[00:14:08] Oh, wow.

[00:14:09] Nice.

[00:14:10] He got a 200 SLI, which he hated.

[00:14:12] Okay.

[00:14:13] Said it felt cheap and plasticky

[00:14:14] and didn't like it at all.

[00:14:15] Then he had a Passat 180.

[00:14:18] Okay.

[00:14:19] Which he really liked, but that was another one

[00:14:21] because that was originally ordered as a Passat V5.

[00:14:25] And it was having problems.

[00:14:27] They had problems with the engine.

[00:14:28] It was the first time they did the V5.

[00:14:30] They had vibration issues.

[00:14:31] And we waited, and as company cars,

[00:14:33] you have to be careful to exchange them over.

[00:14:36] And they said, look, we can't get the V5,

[00:14:38] but we can do a 180.

[00:14:39] He said, right, I'll have the 180.

[00:14:41] And it was the first 180 Passat came out.

[00:14:44] I remember it being the first one.

[00:14:46] And it wasn't very old.

[00:14:47] And I sat in McDonald's car park with my friend

[00:14:49] and he was trying to keep warm.

[00:14:51] He put it in reverse, had it on full lock

[00:14:53] without realizing.

[00:14:54] I was stood outside the car

[00:14:55] and took it straight into a post.

[00:14:57] Did all the passenger door, everything.

[00:15:00] And the car was off the road for ages

[00:15:02] because it was a new Passat.

[00:15:03] Couldn't get any parts for it.

[00:15:05] I remember having various higher cars

[00:15:07] and my dad not being very happy with that.

[00:15:09] So sorry, your dad wrote it off or your friend did?

[00:15:11] No, my friend didn't write it off, just smashed it

[00:15:13] because it was so new, couldn't get the parts.

[00:15:15] He sat in it at McDonald's trying to keep warm

[00:15:17] and I was stood outside the car.

[00:15:19] And I was like, look, be careful.

[00:15:20] You can sit in it.

[00:15:21] And yeah, for whatever reason, he had it running

[00:15:23] and he put it into reverse.

[00:15:24] And it just, the car was on full lock

[00:15:26] and it just span around and smashed into a post.

[00:15:28] The post was literally by the door.

[00:15:30] It didn't go particularly fast,

[00:15:31] but it did some damage to the car.

[00:15:32] Good thing was I used to always get to drive

[00:15:34] on my dad's cars.

[00:15:35] So I was really grateful.

[00:15:36] I was quite rare.

[00:15:37] Not only did my friends got that.

[00:15:39] So I was always on the insurance

[00:15:41] of all of my dad's car when I passed my test.

[00:15:43] How was that alpha for him?

[00:15:45] Good, except for he went through a low Ford

[00:15:50] and found out the air filter was in the bottom

[00:15:54] of the front bumper and it sucked all the water up

[00:15:57] and hydro locked the engine

[00:15:58] and had to have a new engine.

[00:15:59] That's terrible.

[00:16:01] Yeah.

[00:16:02] So the alpha was a nice car.

[00:16:04] He liked the alpha.

[00:16:05] That felt something quite special.

[00:16:07] I think Jeremy Clarkson says,

[00:16:08] you're not a car guy unless you've had an alpha.

[00:16:10] And I'm always quite pleased

[00:16:11] that I learned to drive in an alpha.

[00:16:13] So it's quite a nice car to have.

[00:16:16] And then after that he went to,

[00:16:18] he had loads and loads of Vauxhuls

[00:16:19] because he got a new job.

[00:16:21] And he said the company car scheme

[00:16:22] when he spoke to the boss was

[00:16:23] you can have any car as long as it's a Vauxhall.

[00:16:25] And it ended up with then

[00:16:26] because he had an SRI Cavalier,

[00:16:28] we had a Vectra SRI.

[00:16:29] And then another one and then another one.

[00:16:31] And they went to Insignia's

[00:16:32] and we just went through the various SRI model

[00:16:35] and they diluted the SRI all the way through it.

[00:16:37] Each one was just became more of a normal car,

[00:16:40] which is a show they lost the SRI,

[00:16:42] that sportiness disappeared.

[00:16:44] Would you class your father as a car guy?

[00:16:47] No, I asked this question to him last night

[00:16:50] and I was like no one in my family.

[00:16:52] I said how have I got to where I am with the cars

[00:16:54] being a lunatic with like 30,000 people

[00:16:57] and being a lunatic with like 30, 40 cars.

[00:17:00] Where has this come from?

[00:17:02] And my mum said you were always obsessed with cars

[00:17:05] and she said you'd always sit and play with cars

[00:17:07] if you ever had an option with it.

[00:17:09] And I remember as a kid getting Max Power at school

[00:17:12] and I used to sit and read Max Power at school.

[00:17:14] Yeah.

[00:17:15] My dad, he liked cars and liked getting a new car

[00:17:20] but he was never fussed with anything fancy.

[00:17:23] So if we did the motor show,

[00:17:24] I said to him last night,

[00:17:25] we never went to look at the QN stand and the Ferrari stand

[00:17:29] or we just went to look at normal cars.

[00:17:32] But equally I was never bothered

[00:17:33] and I'm still the same now.

[00:17:34] I don't really, I'm not really bothered

[00:17:36] about the supercars and stuff.

[00:17:38] So yeah, he's never been a massive car person

[00:17:40] and neither is my mum.

[00:17:42] And so trying to get them to remember

[00:17:43] some of their cars was hard

[00:17:44] because a lot of them they were just a car really.

[00:17:47] So I'm not entirely sure how I've managed

[00:17:49] to end up where I am with cars.

[00:17:51] They both had a car reach.

[00:17:53] They both like a car, but they're not fussed by it at all.

[00:17:56] Nothing fancy flash or they just want something

[00:17:59] that's nice and reliable really.

[00:18:01] Maybe it's just a combination of all those little

[00:18:03] like going to shows and being able to help your dad

[00:18:06] choose his next company car, that sort of thing.

[00:18:09] I guess all those little things might add up

[00:18:11] and kind of make you into it more potentially.

[00:18:14] Yeah, completely agree because I said to him last night,

[00:18:17] I really enjoyed going to the motor show

[00:18:18] and I said it's one of my big memories

[00:18:20] in the relevant of cars.

[00:18:22] I really enjoyed going to the motor show

[00:18:24] and choosing the cars with him

[00:18:26] and just sitting in the normal cars.

[00:18:28] As a kid, it's quite exciting getting in different cars

[00:18:30] and being able to sit in them while they're

[00:18:32] on a rotating table somewhere or whatever it be.

[00:18:34] And even when then the company car scheme changed

[00:18:37] and you just got selected from a list,

[00:18:40] it wasn't as exciting and he always got annoyed

[00:18:42] because there weren't necessarily the cars he wanted.

[00:18:44] But it's quite interesting.

[00:18:45] You've got a list of 30 cars or something

[00:18:47] and you go right and you would decipher through

[00:18:49] and look at the options and go right, yeah, okay.

[00:18:51] Let's go for that one there.

[00:18:53] I think it was all ultimately his choice,

[00:18:55] but I felt like I was helping him choose.

[00:18:56] Is there any he missed out on?

[00:18:58] You really wished he'd gone for a particular one

[00:19:01] and he'd gone for something else?

[00:19:02] No, I don't feel like that either.

[00:19:04] I think looking back as a kid,

[00:19:07] I'm not sure how much say I had in it,

[00:19:09] but I felt like I had a say in it.

[00:19:11] Yeah, yeah.

[00:19:12] If that makes sense.

[00:19:13] So I don't really have any hankering

[00:19:17] or why couldn't you get an E30 325?

[00:19:20] I don't ever remember that because that wasn't an option.

[00:19:23] This is the options, this is what he likes.

[00:19:25] So right, you know, I remember helping pick the colors

[00:19:28] and what trim and because this is back in the day

[00:19:31] of when you could spec your car.

[00:19:34] Like the M5 I'm sat in now, whoever spec this,

[00:19:37] this is a 2000 model.

[00:19:39] So this will still be just about in the era

[00:19:41] of you can choose options.

[00:19:43] So they did the optional pop out booster seat.

[00:19:45] Whoever had this was probably doing well for themselves

[00:19:47] to get an M5.

[00:19:49] And you can see the type of person that owned each individual car

[00:19:55] by the options they chose.

[00:19:57] Because I come across that with lots of people where I like E36s,

[00:20:00] loads of people are, oh, God, so many early E36s have got like LSDs.

[00:20:04] I said, that's because they were an option.

[00:20:07] And in the company car days, we just ticked all of them.

[00:20:10] Even if he didn't know what LSD was,

[00:20:12] well, I'm having one of them.

[00:20:14] So you could get my one of my 190 Mercedes

[00:20:18] has got leather seats, armrest, air conditioning,

[00:20:22] 2.6 engine sunroof.

[00:20:24] And back in 92, you would never pick air conditioning

[00:20:28] and a sunroof because that's two expensive things.

[00:20:31] You had one or the other, never both.

[00:20:33] And for the money that car would have cost,

[00:20:36] we would have brought a Cosworth.

[00:20:37] But I'm assuming that car was probably on a company car scheme.

[00:20:40] And he just went, yeah, let's have everything.

[00:20:42] And that's what arrived.

[00:20:44] Yeah, makes sense.

[00:20:45] Yeah. And then they stopped it.

[00:20:46] And then now you don't get that at all anymore with the cars.

[00:20:49] And they could, they did well.

[00:20:50] They did well with a taxed options.

[00:20:52] So then you had by certain.

[00:20:54] My dad was just into that where you had to pick a certain model of car

[00:20:57] that had the spec you wanted because you couldn't do any options

[00:21:01] because the options are so heavily taxed.

[00:21:03] And that took the edge off it.

[00:21:05] I remember doing the El's Court Motor Show.

[00:21:08] I want to say kind of 96, maybe 95.

[00:21:12] Went up with some friends from school.

[00:21:13] That was a bit of fun.

[00:21:15] And yes, I am various things.

[00:21:17] But at that age, not I'm particularly kind of swayed by super cars these days,

[00:21:21] but we were kind of going more for a let's go and see in as many postings as we can.

[00:21:26] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:21:27] They've just unveiled the speed 12 TBR.

[00:21:30] So that was there is kind of a concept car.

[00:21:32] And yes, things along those lines were there.

[00:21:36] But and then they used to do.

[00:21:38] Yeah, they used to do like motor shows.

[00:21:40] I live in in Worthing.

[00:21:41] They used to do one kind of locally.

[00:21:43] So all the dealerships would bring stuff out to like the sort of big green in town.

[00:21:47] And then there'd be a pop up motor show, kind of less sort of sexy stuff.

[00:21:51] You might see that the GTI models.

[00:21:53] But yeah, yeah, you get the village fakes.

[00:21:55] I remember those as well.

[00:21:56] Yeah, you get dragged to a village fight.

[00:21:58] You couldn't really be bothered.

[00:21:59] And there would be some interesting things.

[00:22:00] Yeah, you could look at some of the cars and sit in them if they weren't too busy

[00:22:04] and the van would turn up and you could do the Pepsi challenge.

[00:22:07] That always sticks in my mind for some reason.

[00:22:10] Then you come in with a load of brochures for sort of mid-level models.

[00:22:14] Yeah, yeah, correct.

[00:22:16] And yeah, there's no Internet.

[00:22:18] So you sit and go through the brochures, lay them out.

[00:22:20] Look like I said, with the colors, you look at the colors, you had an inch square stick on a piece of thing.

[00:22:25] That was your color choice.

[00:22:27] You didn't have a clue of what you were getting.

[00:22:30] I think one of the big factors of getting into it when you're a kid, just going back to that is when you

[00:22:34] obviously get the little matchbox cars, don't you see you've raised size around your living room or whatever?

[00:22:39] Yeah, on and on.

[00:22:40] And then I guess it's a case of like if you could spot one of the cars that you've got out for real in the wild.

[00:22:45] And then yeah, you sort of might have dreams about getting one of those cars when you get older,

[00:22:49] that sort of thing, don't you?

[00:22:50] Yeah, completely agree.

[00:22:51] My mum said she had a tiny little E type Jaguar because she always wanted an E type Jaguar.

[00:22:56] That's as far car related I've pretty much ever seen my mum is when she was younger,

[00:23:00] she wanted an E type Jaguar with wire wheels.

[00:23:02] And someone brought her when she passed her driving test, a little model one,

[00:23:06] which then she said she gave to me when I was little.

[00:23:08] And I think I've still got it in a box in the loft somewhere, but I've wrecked it by playing with it.

[00:23:12] But with an E type Jaguar, I remember that as a kid at school, you always get the kids at school that says

[00:23:18] my dad's got this in the garage. No he hasn't. You've never got one of those.

[00:23:22] And I remember being walked around to my friend's house and opened the garage door.

[00:23:26] And sure enough, there was a purple E type Jaguar.

[00:23:29] I remember the four square exhausts.

[00:23:31] Fair play.

[00:23:32] I must have been probably about 10, something like that.

[00:23:35] I was like, oh look at that. You could just about get in it and sit in it.

[00:23:38] And yeah, that was sad. I never saw it come out of the garage.

[00:23:41] So I don't know if it worked or whatever, but it was just in the garage.

[00:23:44] But again, I don't have any handkerchiefs off an E type Jaguar either.

[00:23:47] Must have been a sweet day for that lad there, proving everyone wrong.

[00:23:51] Yeah, yeah. 100%.

[00:23:54] Or you lot probably saying Chinny Reckon and all that kind of thing.

[00:23:58] Because you just don't believe it.

[00:24:00] Again, it's the thing where there was no one, you know, fancy or rich or anything any in the school.

[00:24:05] There was no flash kid.

[00:24:07] So that, you know, the fact that he had an E type was even to this day.

[00:24:10] E type has always been held as a high standard car, hasn't it?

[00:24:12] It's always been an E type.

[00:24:14] Yeah. So even then I was like, yeah, that's impressive.

[00:24:16] And he genuinely had one in his garage.

[00:24:18] Never saw it drive him, but he did have one.

[00:24:20] That pulls an interesting choice for an E type.

[00:24:22] Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree.

[00:24:24] But I imagine that to be a rare car.

[00:24:25] I've no idea if it's a series one, series two.

[00:24:27] I just remember the four square exhausts and I remember it being purple.

[00:24:31] Purple, it feels like a 70s color, doesn't it?

[00:24:33] It does, yeah.

[00:24:34] More of a later, later one.

[00:24:36] Cadbury's bar.

[00:24:37] Yeah, yeah.

[00:24:38] It was that kind of purple too, yeah.

[00:24:40] And I think I can remember exactly where it is.

[00:24:42] I always wonder whether it's still in the carriage.

[00:24:44] Probably not.

[00:24:45] But I always wonder.

[00:24:46] Let's go and have a look.

[00:24:47] Get a little camera and have a look.

[00:24:49] I'll give Johnny Smith a foot.

[00:24:50] We can break in and pretend it's a video and see if it's inside.

[00:24:54] Just walk past and say, I just dropped something and it's just fallen into your garage.

[00:24:58] I don't suppose you'd mind just opening the garage up?

[00:25:01] Yeah, I was just trying to find it with this small camera that I've got underneath your garage door.

[00:25:06] I feel a bit bad.

[00:25:07] There's a garage down the road which sort of looks all overgrown and I've heard rumors of Mark 1 Escorts being around that area.

[00:25:13] But you kind of feel bad poking about because you think, what if I walk around to my garage

[00:25:18] and there's someone sort of trying to poke through the window or kind of open the door?

[00:25:21] You'd feel a bit off by that.

[00:25:23] So you kind of think, would I do it to someone else?

[00:25:25] Yeah, if I ever do, I always go with a car enthusiast approach.

[00:25:30] Do you want to sell that mate?

[00:25:32] Which literally, weirdly enough, I rarely do it but I did it yesterday.

[00:25:35] Oh, okay.

[00:25:36] So where I live, the road changes halfway up, the road name changes, but there's 2148, which is where I live.

[00:25:42] And are we off to get each other's post?

[00:25:44] So we end up changing each other's post.

[00:25:46] So I've known him for 12 years since I've lived here.

[00:25:49] And the other day, a really rusty 944 appeared on the driveway.

[00:25:54] I was like, ooh, and I did the usual thing that every car guy does, red checked it.

[00:25:59] Not on any register, never been listed as an MOT, nothing.

[00:26:02] And there were an older couple and I was like, has that been in the garage all the time?

[00:26:06] And I was like, I've got to ask.

[00:26:07] It got the better of me every school run going past.

[00:26:10] I was like, I've got to ask.

[00:26:11] Before someone else does.

[00:26:12] Exactly that.

[00:26:13] Exactly that, yeah.

[00:26:14] Because annoyingly, another 944, which is a 944 Turbo in black, which is opposite the house, about two doors up.

[00:26:21] I'd looked at it for a year, been at least 10 years sat in the driveway.

[00:26:24] And I thought I must knock on that door and every single Halloween, I trick or treat the house with Poppy every time just in case they answered the door.

[00:26:32] Because I'll lead you in, ooh, why have you got some sweets?

[00:26:34] What's with the 944?

[00:26:36] And it one day recently, it's only in the last few months, it disappeared.

[00:26:41] And it's appeared on one of the 944 forums that someone's bought it.

[00:26:44] So I was like, oh, gutted.

[00:26:46] But yeah, the 944 with the old couple turns out to be their grandson's car.

[00:26:50] He's just bought it and wants to restore it and didn't have any space.

[00:26:54] And they've said, look, you can use our driveway or use our double garage.

[00:26:57] So yeah, it's not for sale.

[00:26:58] He just wants to restore it.

[00:26:59] I've looked at it.

[00:27:00] He's got a long road ahead of him, as you will know with 944s, don't he?

[00:27:04] That's a world of pain, the rusty 944.

[00:27:06] Oh, it's rusty as well.

[00:27:07] It's not just a little bit.

[00:27:08] It'll be bad, bad.

[00:27:10] So I said to him, I said, look, you know, I know quite a few 944 people.

[00:27:13] If your grandson wants help, you know my house, come and knock on my door

[00:27:16] and I'll see what I can do to help you.

[00:27:18] Yeah, yeah.

[00:27:19] Far up the money printer on that one.

[00:27:21] Sounds like he's going to need it.

[00:27:22] Yeah, I agree.

[00:27:23] They're at that level now that you're probably just better off,

[00:27:25] unless it's sentimental value to just buying a better one

[00:27:28] because it could get so expensive.

[00:27:30] My friend's just done his with seals and everything and it gets expensive.

[00:27:33] There's a house around the corner from me which I often go past.

[00:27:36] It's got a very long drive up to their sort of front door.

[00:27:39] And it's one of these houses that looks like it's not lived in.

[00:27:42] I'm not entirely sure if there are people in there,

[00:27:44] but they've got really old, I think it's a seven series from the 70s.

[00:27:49] It's going to be a 725 or something like that or 730.

[00:27:52] Yeah.

[00:27:53] And I'm dying as well to go up and just have a closer look at it

[00:27:56] or knock on the door.

[00:27:58] Like I say, I don't even know if there's anyone in there.

[00:28:00] So I've read to check it before and it has been registered.

[00:28:03] Yeah.

[00:28:04] Yeah, so many around still.

[00:28:05] Yeah, there are quite a few around because also as well,

[00:28:08] just up the road from me for years with an FDR X7

[00:28:11] and that's right on my street.

[00:28:12] I've got one and it was a red one.

[00:28:14] It was really rusty and it was just literally rotting into the ground.

[00:28:18] And I had knocked on the door so many times with Poppy again,

[00:28:22] it's always good to take your child.

[00:28:23] You don't look so much of a lunatic if you go out with a child.

[00:28:27] And I never got anyone to answer the door.

[00:28:30] I thought I'm going to put a note through the door

[00:28:32] and I never got a response.

[00:28:33] I tried to go with a car enthusiast head,

[00:28:35] not do you want to sell it?

[00:28:37] And then eventually my mate that lives near them was walking his dog

[00:28:40] and I just got a panic message with it's gone.

[00:28:43] And I was like, no, what?

[00:28:44] And he just sent me a picture of like mold all around the drive

[00:28:48] with a clean square where the car had been.

[00:28:50] And yeah, I assume it got scrapped.

[00:28:53] I guess the engine probably died and it was parked up

[00:28:56] and they're so expensive to fix.

[00:28:59] Yeah.

[00:29:00] And it just got left.

[00:29:01] It had been there easily 15 years easily.

[00:29:03] Sad.

[00:29:04] Yeah.

[00:29:05] It was rusty with all the A pillars.

[00:29:07] It's gone in bad places.

[00:29:09] But as a car person, you can't let those things go.

[00:29:11] You kind of want to know, don't you?

[00:29:13] And find out or why is it there or all those sorts of things.

[00:29:16] I still find it interesting to this day.

[00:29:18] We've got a house up the road from me on a private road,

[00:29:22] which is all overgrown sort of proper reclusive type thing.

[00:29:26] The bushes and the trees on the front garden

[00:29:29] stick into the road by about five or six foot.

[00:29:31] Yeah.

[00:29:32] You could just see up the driveway

[00:29:33] and there's a Subaru up there, I think.

[00:29:35] I think there's a Citroen XM or Citroen Zantia.

[00:29:38] Yeah.

[00:29:39] But it's too far to kind of look up there

[00:29:41] to kind of work a registration out.

[00:29:43] And you'd just be walking straight into someone's garden

[00:29:46] if you went up there to look for it.

[00:29:48] Clearly they don't want people going round.

[00:29:50] No.

[00:29:51] They can hardly get to the gate.

[00:29:53] Do a spot of trick-or-treating, Andy.

[00:29:55] Just come up there.

[00:29:57] Honestly.

[00:29:58] Or send a drone up there.

[00:30:00] Trick-or-treating is the secret.

[00:30:02] Find the houses, take a child out and just trick-or-treat them.

[00:30:05] October 31st, give you free rein to walk into anybody's house.

[00:30:08] You'd probably make the regional news poll for being a pest.

[00:30:13] Yeah, literally just sit there and go,

[00:30:14] right, where are we going trick-or-treating?

[00:30:16] Well, I've seen this car parked on this drive

[00:30:18] and I've seen this one.

[00:30:19] This is where we're going.

[00:30:20] Here he comes again.

[00:30:22] Yeah.

[00:30:23] Honestly, October 31st is free rein to go where you want.

[00:30:26] It's one day of the year.

[00:30:27] Is there an outfit of choice for the car?

[00:30:29] Boiler suit, I'd imagine, Andy.

[00:30:31] Yeah.

[00:30:32] Nothing too scary though.

[00:30:34] You don't want to go all in black.

[00:30:36] To be fair on trick-or-treating,

[00:30:38] I wear whatever my little one tells me to wear.

[00:30:40] So I normally dress up as something odd.

[00:30:42] But as long as I look not too scary,

[00:30:44] most people are approaching when you do trick-or-treating.

[00:30:47] She's normally dressed as a witch or something

[00:30:50] that's not particularly scary.

[00:30:51] So yeah.

[00:30:52] I think for these people,

[00:30:54] if you just go into polite and nice and have a conversation,

[00:30:57] then a lot of people are quite happy.

[00:30:59] Because when I used to have one of the 911s

[00:31:01] sat on the drive under a cover,

[00:31:02] I would get people come up.

[00:31:03] And if you come as a car enthusiast,

[00:31:05] I'll give you the time of day.

[00:31:06] How much is that, mate?

[00:31:08] And then I'm not interested.

[00:31:10] Yeah, yeah.

[00:31:11] Because a lot of my friends have had the same of cars

[00:31:13] sat on driveways and people approach them.

[00:31:15] And it's like, well, I'm not interested.

[00:31:17] It's hard to work out if you're a car guy or not.

[00:31:19] If you tell someone you're a car guy,

[00:31:21] they instantly know what it is.

[00:31:23] Yeah.

[00:31:24] Have you bought any cars on Halloween?

[00:31:25] No.

[00:31:26] Have any of those come through?

[00:31:27] No.

[00:31:28] No, I feel like that's something I need to do.

[00:31:30] No, none of them have to be fair.

[00:31:32] Not a single one.

[00:31:33] But it's always good to be nosy.

[00:31:35] Yeah.

[00:31:36] But no, not a single one.

[00:31:37] Because the 944 Turbo never answered the door ever.

[00:31:39] Never.

[00:31:40] I trick or treated him loads.

[00:31:41] And he's never answered the door once.

[00:31:43] They probably saw me and shut the blinds.

[00:31:45] Lay on the floor, Marjorie.

[00:31:47] Don't answer the door.

[00:31:48] He's coming.

[00:31:49] Yeah.

[00:31:50] He's bought his kid this year.

[00:31:51] Yeah.

[00:31:52] Yeah.

[00:31:54] Yeah.

[00:31:55] Yeah.

[00:31:56] Give them some sweets.

[00:31:57] We've not got any sweets.

[00:31:58] Give them the car.

[00:31:59] They won't want the car.

[00:32:00] They want the car!

[00:32:01] But there's an era, isn't there, of depending when you own that car, it depends on what

[00:32:05] you think that value is and whether you've kept on top of that.

[00:32:09] Because so many cars lose zero value and then have a value.

[00:32:13] And Nova's a great example that when I wanted them as a first car, they were quite

[00:32:17] a cool little car to have.

[00:32:19] And as you passed your driving test, again, you don't really have that anymore.

[00:32:22] You kind of had a hierarchy of who passed your driving test was allowed to buy the car.

[00:32:27] So I was September, so I was one of the first.

[00:32:30] So I got a Nova SR and then my other friend got a Citroen AX GT.

[00:32:35] And then my other friend got a Nova SR, we got an earlier one with the checkered

[00:32:38] seats and the one piece bumper.

[00:32:40] And then another friend just literally walked in, Fiat Uno Turbo Mk1, blew us

[00:32:44] all out the window.

[00:32:45] That's it.

[00:32:46] First car.

[00:32:47] It was actually a second car.

[00:32:48] He had a Fiesta then, but he didn't have it very long.

[00:32:51] But he was still in the era of us having first cars.

[00:32:53] Yeah, Fiat Uno Turbo.

[00:32:54] Yeah.

[00:32:55] Impressive.

[00:32:56] These were the cars you were allowed because if someone already had one, so my friend

[00:32:59] had an AX GT, we're not allowed to get an AX GT, so I've just got one.

[00:33:03] Like wearing the same shirts on a night out, wouldn't it?

[00:33:06] Yeah, 100%.

[00:33:07] Yeah.

[00:33:08] If you both turn up in the same pink Ben Sherman, one thing is you've got to

[00:33:11] go and get changed.

[00:33:12] That's where now everybody's wearing the same Air Force ones and the same gray

[00:33:16] tracksuit trousers.

[00:33:17] True.

[00:33:18] I know I sound like an old man.

[00:33:19] I've even said this to my nephews in his 20s.

[00:33:22] I was like, when I was younger, if you and your mate turned up wearing the same

[00:33:25] clothes, there was a problem.

[00:33:26] One of you has got to get changed.

[00:33:28] There's no ifs or buts.

[00:33:30] One of you is getting changed.

[00:33:32] So yeah, the rule applied with cars for me and my mates as well.

[00:33:35] So we all had different cars.

[00:33:36] It wasn't many that had the same car.

[00:33:38] We all had something different.

[00:33:39] Makes complete sense.

[00:33:40] It might not be your first choice.

[00:33:42] Takes me back to the old parkers guides.

[00:33:44] Yes.

[00:33:45] Where you used to have to flick through those and work out what insurance

[00:33:47] group they were.

[00:33:48] And how many horsepower can you get for kind of insurable rate when you're 17, 18?

[00:33:53] 100%.

[00:33:54] The Bluebird Turbo seemed to be kind of a bit of a dark horse.

[00:33:57] Yeah, there was a few weird...

[00:33:59] There were always a few people, wouldn't there, who would work out loopholes and

[00:34:03] work out a loophole to get...

[00:34:04] How could you insure that?

[00:34:06] And they've worked a loophole.

[00:34:07] Or a Volvo Turbo as well, I think.

[00:34:09] Yeah, yeah.

[00:34:10] Kind of old man car.

[00:34:11] Yeah, I think that still goes on now because I've got a customer that just took it

[00:34:14] out literally this week because the sun's come out.

[00:34:16] He's got an MG and he's 19 and it's his first car.

[00:34:22] And he pays 600 quid to insure it.

[00:34:24] Not bad, is it?

[00:34:24] It goes, it's so much cheaper than a loophole or something else.

[00:34:27] So he goes, I drive this.

[00:34:28] I was like, cool, that makes perfect sense.

[00:34:30] I think I saw the video actually of him driving it out there.

[00:34:33] Yeah, that's it.

[00:34:34] And he goes, whee!

[00:34:35] He drives off.

[00:34:35] Yeah.

[00:34:37] Because you don't often get that.

[00:34:38] I was really pleased.

[00:34:39] I quite pleased when I see young kids that are into that kind of stuff.

[00:34:41] It always makes me smile.

[00:34:43] He was really excited to get it back out.

[00:34:45] But he knew he was clever enough to put it away with me for the winter,

[00:34:47] to not leave it out in the winter.

[00:34:48] He's not in a garage.

[00:34:49] But it's those sweet spots because I got a, what would it be?

[00:34:52] My third car, a Nobrez R, Renault 5 GT Turbo and then my Subaru.

[00:34:57] And my Renault 5 GT Turbo was my secret sweet spot at school that no one

[00:35:02] knew how I managed to do it.

[00:35:04] And that was because I got a trade policy.

[00:35:07] And this is when trade policies weren't really a thing.

[00:35:11] And I managed to get a trade insurance policy that then allowed me to drive any

[00:35:16] vehicle, which meant I could get a Renault 5 GT Turbo.

[00:35:19] Nice.

[00:35:20] Yeah.

[00:35:20] This is impressive stuff really Paul when you think because this is all done,

[00:35:23] this is before computers and the internet isn't it?

[00:35:25] It's all done over the phone I'd imagine.

[00:35:27] So yeah, credit where credit's due.

[00:35:29] Thank you.

[00:35:30] Yeah, 100%.

[00:35:32] Yeah.

[00:35:32] And then it was quite a big leap from the Renault 5 to I had a Type R Subaru

[00:35:36] 2 door when I was, what are we, around 20, something like that.

[00:35:40] But that scared me on the trade policy because they deemed it as a gray

[00:35:43] import because it was an import and the value was so low.

[00:35:47] Yeah.

[00:35:47] I was like, oh, this was like, I paid 19 grand for it.

[00:35:50] I got a big bank loan, stupid things you do when you're 20,

[00:35:53] but the car was cool.

[00:35:55] And yeah, and I did insure that properly in the end because I was

[00:35:58] like, oh, okay, if something goes horribly wrong here, I'm going to

[00:36:01] get peanuts for this.

[00:36:03] Yeah.

[00:36:03] But the Renault 5 was the sweet spot and then they changed it.

[00:36:06] Then they changed all the trade stuff and you had to prove that you had a

[00:36:08] business.

[00:36:09] Right.

[00:36:10] And I was like, oh, you've ruined it for everyone.

[00:36:12] Yeah.

[00:36:12] And so, but before you didn't have to prove it.

[00:36:14] You just had to say.

[00:36:15] That's probably your fault Paul really.

[00:36:17] Oh, 100%.

[00:36:18] Yeah.

[00:36:19] Because I can't have been the only person to work this out.

[00:36:21] Exactly.

[00:36:22] Yeah.

[00:36:23] Yeah.

[00:36:23] But you had to work for your cars then to work out how can you get

[00:36:26] something different and cool that your mates don't have?

[00:36:29] I had a few friends whose mums owned RS Turbos that they just

[00:36:32] happened to be named on.

[00:36:34] Yep.

[00:36:35] Exactly that.

[00:36:36] Because that was the other thing.

[00:36:36] Yeah. You get your parents by the car and you as a named driver,

[00:36:40] but they've shut that loophole as well after a while.

[00:36:43] Sport sports.

[00:36:43] But that was a good one.

[00:36:44] That was.

[00:36:45] Yeah.

[00:36:46] Not like anyone crashed them or anything.

[00:36:50] Yeah.

[00:36:51] So I don't know whether we've asked whether there's any vehicles

[00:36:53] from your parents past that you've kind of gone on to own or whether

[00:36:57] they're on the tick list.

[00:36:58] No, it's the only one.

[00:36:59] And I'm not a massive Capri fan, but I can appreciate them.

[00:37:03] There is a red Capri.

[00:37:05] Annoyingly, I don't have the reg with me at the moment.

[00:37:08] Yeah, I'd love to get you put the reg out and see if you know

[00:37:10] if anyone has it because I've not been able to find it.

[00:37:13] It was a red Capri that my dad had brand new as a company car.

[00:37:15] It's one of his first company cars.

[00:37:18] This is in the era again of when the company car option came to an end

[00:37:22] and you got your new company car, you were allowed to buy it.

[00:37:24] And they gave it to you such a cheap rate that you could barely say no.

[00:37:28] But this was in the era that they go, right, you can buy this for,

[00:37:31] say, 10,000 for an argument.

[00:37:32] Say, you are now people buy that and flip it for 17 the next day.

[00:37:37] But that wasn't then.

[00:37:37] So you look at it and go, well, I don't need that because I've got a new

[00:37:39] company car arriving, I won't buy it as a family members used to buy them.

[00:37:43] OK, so my granddad, so it's been my mum's dad, he bought it.

[00:37:48] He was again not a car person.

[00:37:50] He liked the mechanical objects of what it was.

[00:37:53] And he would keep it so clean.

[00:37:55] He would just proper granddad with the car.

[00:37:58] It was always clean, always service on the button and the correct mileage,

[00:38:03] MOT on the correct day, anything it needed it got.

[00:38:07] They used to take it to Ford to get service.

[00:38:08] I remember people telling me that the Ford people used to come out

[00:38:13] and look at it underneath for how clean it was.

[00:38:15] And I was gutted because he kept it for years and it got traded in for a Rover.

[00:38:20] And I was just of an age of driving where I knew what was happening with it,

[00:38:26] but I didn't know it was going.

[00:38:27] And I really wish I'd had it and be chopped in for a Rover 400 because him

[00:38:32] and my nan struggled to get in and out of it.

[00:38:34] So they've got a Rover 400 automatic, which is the car I in the end inherited.

[00:38:40] And I was always disappointed.

[00:38:41] I even went to the Rover dealership to see if they still had it when I

[00:38:44] found out he part X it to try and get my hands on it.

[00:38:47] But I couldn't. It had long gone.

[00:38:49] They used to just get the part Xs and just ship them off on a lorry.

[00:38:52] We come and pick them up the next day and take them away.

[00:38:54] And I've never seen it since the Regis never come up for check it.

[00:38:57] I've put it on a couple of Capri forums, nothing.

[00:39:00] It's an e-reg.

[00:39:01] I have to find the reg out for it.

[00:39:03] You can put it on your platform somewhere.

[00:39:04] Yeah.

[00:39:05] That's the only car.

[00:39:06] The rest of it, I'm not overly fussed with any of them.

[00:39:10] You know, I appreciate them.

[00:39:12] But the Capri because my dad had it for brand new

[00:39:14] and then my granddad had it.

[00:39:16] That's my only one.

[00:39:17] But it's got to be that Capri, I guess.

[00:39:19] Yeah, it's got to be that Capri.

[00:39:20] It's not just any red Capri.

[00:39:22] It's got to be that one.

[00:39:23] No, it's got to be that Capri.

[00:39:24] Yeah, because I'm not a Capri fan and I was like, no,

[00:39:27] it's got to be that Capri because again,

[00:39:30] I've owned a Capri, but this is back in the day

[00:39:33] of when you saw the first flake of snow,

[00:39:36] you ran to the petrol station with your mates and you got the free ads

[00:39:39] and you searched every rear wheel drive car for 50 pounds

[00:39:43] and you phoned every single rear wheel drive car for 50 pounds

[00:39:47] to see what you could buy.

[00:39:48] And one of the times we ended up with a Capri

[00:39:51] and then my mate managed to spin it around and put it into a barrier.

[00:39:54] But again, being a kid, I didn't you know, I was probably 18,

[00:39:57] something like that.

[00:39:58] I put it up for sale and my phone went because this is when people had

[00:40:02] to phone you, went absolutely ballistic for it.

[00:40:05] I thought, why the hell have people after this thing?

[00:40:07] And it turns out that it had RS4 spokes and a five speed box,

[00:40:11] which is what all the Mark 2 Escort boys wanted.

[00:40:14] Because the guy that came to buy it, I was like,

[00:40:15] I'm really sorry, it's got a bang on the back.

[00:40:17] This is what I made it.

[00:40:17] He said, I know I literally want the wheels

[00:40:18] and the gearbox out, but I don't want anything else.

[00:40:20] OK, now I understand that now.

[00:40:23] But at the time, I was like, what does he want this?

[00:40:25] So why is this so popular?

[00:40:26] It's because it had RS4 spokes and it had a five speed box.

[00:40:30] So it's really desirable.

[00:40:31] But yeah, you live and learn.

[00:40:33] But the the free ads and all that kind of stuff.

[00:40:35] I'm going back to saying things to my dad.

[00:40:37] He used to help me look for cars when I got my Nova.

[00:40:39] We would go and get early in the morning on a Thursday.

[00:40:42] I think it was it came out the auto trader

[00:40:45] and you would sit with your auto trader and circle all the cars

[00:40:49] that you could phone at eight thirty nine o'clock,

[00:40:51] depending you don't want to push your luck and phone them too early.

[00:40:54] But you needed to get in there early to get the car.

[00:40:57] Yeah. And then you go around and look at the cars.

[00:40:59] Yeah, we used to have the Friday ad,

[00:41:01] but you used to be able to get it on a Thursday night

[00:41:02] so you could go up to the chip shop or something.

[00:41:04] They'd have it on a Thursday night.

[00:41:05] Yeah. So you could kind of get in there early.

[00:41:07] Yeah, I had the odd night out with my mates

[00:41:10] and you stop at a petrol station.

[00:41:11] And again, none of my mates have been massive car guys either.

[00:41:14] And I'd be like, oh, the auto trader's out and it's three in the morning.

[00:41:18] And you can see them all bundled out at the front.

[00:41:20] And I'm like, can I have one of those?

[00:41:22] Well, we shouldn't really be selling them to you.

[00:41:23] Now, come on.

[00:41:24] And I'll get the auto trader out and I go, right.

[00:41:27] What could I get?

[00:41:28] Because it was a big deal.

[00:41:29] I remember hunting for my first car.

[00:41:31] It was such a big deal.

[00:41:32] And I found my first driving test and then my driving instructor said,

[00:41:35] well, you know how to drive.

[00:41:36] And he was great.

[00:41:37] He took me around lots of local car garages looking for Novas.

[00:41:41] So we came up with this idea, which we're going to call it part X.

[00:41:44] Which is a cross between Twitter, where you can only have so many characters

[00:41:48] and a bit like an exchange in Mark, where we want to bring back

[00:41:52] the acronyms for for sale advert.

[00:41:54] So the complete polar opposite of collecting cars, et cetera.

[00:41:57] Yeah. Where everything's like walk around videos

[00:42:00] and you could basically sniff the car through the screen.

[00:42:02] There's like 30 words and you've got a phone somewhere.

[00:42:06] There's a really rubbish picture. Yeah.

[00:42:08] And it just just brings that whole thing back.

[00:42:11] Preferably a black and white picture

[00:42:13] or a picture where you've got like your thumb over the lens or something

[00:42:16] just to sort of give it that.

[00:42:17] Yeah, because in the auto trailer, you used to have to pay

[00:42:19] more for a color picture.

[00:42:20] So most of the word black and white was quite expensive to advertise in color.

[00:42:24] Yeah. I remember that as well as the radio.

[00:42:26] We're talking black and white and color.

[00:42:27] And now I feel really old.

[00:42:28] But yeah, and like you say, that was all the abbreviations

[00:42:31] because you like you said, you only had a certain amount of words.

[00:42:33] You needed to get the FSH and all these things

[00:42:35] to tell people about Ford Service History.

[00:42:36] EGC. That's it.

[00:42:38] A EW electric windows. AC. Yeah.

[00:42:41] Yeah. Pass. Yeah.

[00:42:43] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:42:44] You couldn't use a comma because that would take up one of your characters.

[00:42:47] Yeah. 140 characters.

[00:42:49] 140 or 144 used to be.

[00:42:51] I can't remember now.

[00:42:52] Yeah, I can't. I can't remember either.

[00:42:54] I think our free ads used to be like 24 words or 30 words, I think.

[00:42:58] Yeah. And you just had like the grid in that

[00:43:00] because you used to have to write it out and then send it to them, didn't you?

[00:43:02] Yeah. Yeah. Like in the paper. Yeah.

[00:43:04] And it's got to be a landline call as well.

[00:43:07] Always. Well, it's got to be telephoned.

[00:43:09] It can't be email or text message or anything.

[00:43:12] Yeah, because it's around the beginning of mobile phones becoming commonplace.

[00:43:15] But they weren't that common.

[00:43:16] So you're still a landline.

[00:43:18] Yeah. Yeah. Up to late 90s probably, isn't it?

[00:43:20] I guess. Yeah.

[00:43:21] Whenever everyone started getting phones in their pockets.

[00:43:24] Yeah. Yeah. 100 percent. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:43:26] Yeah. So it's landline to ring up the car.

[00:43:28] And then you had to take their word for it.

[00:43:30] And then you would go and look at the car.

[00:43:31] And everyone was quite normal.

[00:43:32] You get the odd one that was lying about the condition of it.

[00:43:34] But in general, it wasn't like it was buying a car now.

[00:43:37] No.

[00:43:37] Most people are pretty straight up within reason.

[00:43:39] And you just decided if you liked it or not, most of the cars were in decent order.

[00:43:42] If they weren't, they'd probably tell you.

[00:43:44] I suppose because those ads as well were paid for ads.

[00:43:47] There's a lot of the free ads now wherever they're posted on Gumtree or

[00:43:51] current classic, there's more chance of a scam, isn't there?

[00:43:54] Yeah. They're not paying for anything in the first place.

[00:43:56] So you don't have to put the effort in. No.

[00:43:58] No, you don't at all.

[00:43:59] There's no investment in that.

[00:44:00] Is there a picture with your phone which can be kind of really rubbish?

[00:44:03] Yeah. And just, yeah.

[00:44:05] I've sold a couple of or tried to sell a couple of cars on one of the sites

[00:44:09] I just mentioned and you get a message saying, say you got the car up for three

[00:44:12] grand and say, would you take two five?

[00:44:14] And I say no.

[00:44:15] And they say, OK, I'll come tomorrow.

[00:44:17] Pay three grand.

[00:44:18] You think, well, that sounds a bit scammy.

[00:44:20] Yeah, yeah.

[00:44:21] And you couldn't do the faceless.

[00:44:23] Your car's up for three grand.

[00:44:24] I'm going to offer you eight hundred pounds because you had to go and talk

[00:44:28] to them face to face. You were in front of them having a conversation

[00:44:31] about the car that you're looking at in front of them.

[00:44:34] Do you want to buy it?

[00:44:35] Because if you want to waste people's time, then you have to go to garages.

[00:44:39] So we would then go to garages and, you know, a couple of rare treats.

[00:44:42] I remember with a friend,

[00:44:44] Dakar Yellow E36 M3,

[00:44:47] and we looked around it, you know,

[00:44:49] tire kickers after sort of in college, wasting people's time.

[00:44:53] And the guy just said, you want to go for a test drive?

[00:44:54] He just gave us the keys.

[00:44:55] And we just sat in and he goes, he's just given us the keys to the M3.

[00:44:59] He's not coming with us.

[00:45:00] I don't think he's getting in the back.

[00:45:01] So off we did.

[00:45:02] And of course, we did what any standard people do at that age.

[00:45:05] We found the junction in donuts

[00:45:09] because my friend,

[00:45:11] Darren, I we also did with the free ads,

[00:45:13] a guy with our 50 quid when this first snowflake comes down.

[00:45:16] We found an SD one rover.

[00:45:18] That was a bit of a treat.

[00:45:19] And we drove to Oxford.

[00:45:20] We got it and again, he just gave us the keys.

[00:45:22] We went to the roundabout on the bottom of his road.

[00:45:24] We drifted around the roundabout, overheated and had a gasket.

[00:45:27] When we just took it back and said, it's not really for us.

[00:45:29] Thanks very much.

[00:45:32] Yeah, but it was that really collectible car.

[00:45:36] And yeah, it was it was 50 quid, 50 quid.

[00:45:38] Yeah, yeah.

[00:45:40] Wonderful.

[00:45:41] Yeah.

[00:45:41] Standard head gasket poplars on the rover.

[00:45:44] Well, I think that's a good place to wrap it up.

[00:45:46] We've been chatting quite well.

[00:45:47] So very good.

[00:45:48] Yeah, no worries.

[00:45:49] They were you didn't get me to ask any of the music or anything.

[00:45:51] They get in my normal stuff.

[00:45:52] Oh, we got distracted.

[00:45:54] You want to keep going?

[00:45:55] No, it's only because I just was like, I wait.

[00:45:58] I listen to my listening to some of your podcasts and stuff.

[00:46:00] I wrote down some of the stuff.

[00:46:01] I was like, oh, I need to write down of friends cars and what my dad used to listen to.

[00:46:06] And Paul, just a quick fire music smells and journeys or something like that.

[00:46:10] Yeah.

[00:46:11] Yeah. What are you listening to?

[00:46:12] So my dad was always like Dire Straits, The Shadow or the radio.

[00:46:18] It's always as a radio and he always have radio five live talk sport.

[00:46:21] One of those sorts of things.

[00:46:22] Real bad. Yeah.

[00:46:23] Typical. You would say to go West by Monalba.

[00:46:25] You three.

[00:46:26] That's not too.

[00:46:28] And I don't know football.

[00:46:29] I always stick in my head of those.

[00:46:31] Oh, God, I got this.

[00:46:32] Sorry, John, you're a Gunners fan.

[00:46:33] Yeah, that's a bit harsh.

[00:46:34] That probably must be an away game.

[00:46:38] You've always got to listen to those things.

[00:46:40] They always had that was my mom was the polar opposite.

[00:46:42] So he always had the radio on.

[00:46:43] My mom would never have the radio on and so it distracted her.

[00:46:45] She liked the music, so therefore she wouldn't listen to it.

[00:46:48] I was young. I was only ever allowed to sit in the back.

[00:46:50] I never sat in the front until I think it's been like 12 or something.

[00:46:53] By law or whatever it was.

[00:46:55] Always had rear seat belts.

[00:46:56] You always do people do they smoke parents never know one, no one.

[00:47:00] I didn't know anyone that smoked at all.

[00:47:01] I think my granddad had a pipe when I was young, young, but that was it.

[00:47:04] None of my family's there's no smoking like that.

[00:47:06] And most, you know, any like you always do your holidays and those sorts of things.

[00:47:10] They would just be conducted in any car that we had to go to Devin

[00:47:13] and do your standard thing.

[00:47:14] But none of the cars particularly stick in my head.

[00:47:17] The cars that do stick in my head are just things like what friends had.

[00:47:21] And they were nothing particularly special.

[00:47:23] Well, my mom's best friend, which I'm pretty sure was a Datsun 110Y.

[00:47:28] And I remember sitting in the back of that and that's now quite a rare car.

[00:47:31] And one of my friends' mom's had a beige Skoda Rapide

[00:47:34] and he got a hard time for that.

[00:47:36] Rightly so.

[00:47:37] They came up in a recent podcast, didn't they?

[00:47:39] The Rapides. J Maxx actually.

[00:47:42] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:47:43] That's it. Yeah.

[00:47:44] Yeah. He got a hard time for that because his next door neighbor,

[00:47:47] his dad, which is will please you, had a Citroen BX.

[00:47:50] Hey, look at that.

[00:47:52] I feel like.

[00:47:55] I'm pretty sure it was a Citroen BX GT.

[00:47:58] It wasn't a GTI. OK.

[00:47:59] Because it was nice, but not amazing.

[00:48:02] It was just it was the lower spec one of it.

[00:48:04] And then that got replaced with a ZX, is it a Vulcan or Vulcom?

[00:48:08] Which which they had afterwards.

[00:48:09] Yeah. Or Volante.

[00:48:11] Yeah. It's a far shorter.

[00:48:12] What do I wrote it down? I wrote it down.

[00:48:13] Where is it? It's a small hatchback, wasn't it?

[00:48:15] The Vulcan or Vulcain, whether it was.

[00:48:17] ZX Vulcan. Yeah. In white.

[00:48:20] Yeah. That's it.

[00:48:21] BX was in white and this was in white as well.

[00:48:24] And then one of my other friends, Dad, he had a Renault 1916 valve chameleon.

[00:48:28] Lovely. Yeah. That's the car that stuck in my head because we were quite young

[00:48:32] and so out of character.

[00:48:34] He was quite high up at Woolworth.

[00:48:36] He was quite a strict boss.

[00:48:38] He had a Peckham mix. Yeah, that's it.

[00:48:39] Yeah. And the cassette tapes.

[00:48:42] And he had a very 1916 valve, which didn't really kind of suit him as such.

[00:48:48] And I remember being with my friend and I sat in the back

[00:48:50] and we were going to get some new tires.

[00:48:53] And he said, well, it seems silly to get these these tires taken off as they are

[00:48:57] and break up full burnout.

[00:48:59] Mind blowing.

[00:49:00] And it's just so out of character.

[00:49:04] He was and just just sat there at the end of the road for burnout.

[00:49:08] And then off we went down the road to the tire shop.

[00:49:11] Got some new tires.

[00:49:12] He must have had a tough day in Woolies or something that day.

[00:49:14] Yeah. Just letting off a bit.

[00:49:15] Someone stole now 32 or something.

[00:49:17] Yeah, it was it was unbelievably out of character.

[00:49:21] I can't explain how much our character it was.

[00:49:23] And that stuck in my mind because that was quite funny.

[00:49:25] And when you're a young kid, that's funny.

[00:49:26] Never saw him drive like a lunatic. Nothing.

[00:49:28] Always sensible. Just the one burnout.

[00:49:30] What color was it? Blue.

[00:49:32] Yeah. Blue. Yeah. Nice.

[00:49:34] Yeah. But then all of his other cars were just like,

[00:49:36] you know, a Honda legend and stuff.

[00:49:38] It was just that one random standout car, that one random standout burnout.

[00:49:42] There wasn't any anything else much to it.

[00:49:44] It's really, really, really, really random.

[00:49:46] Devon is such a typical holiday.

[00:49:48] I think everyone's gone to Devon. Yeah, that was it.

[00:49:52] Yeah, everyone. Yeah.

[00:49:53] Yeah. Loads. Yeah. Loads of you went to Devon.

[00:49:55] Yeah. Either there or Wales.

[00:49:56] Yeah. Lots of really Cornwall Cornwall was quite far.

[00:49:59] You always think Devon and Cornwall are the same,

[00:50:01] but Cornwall is just a good two or three hours further.

[00:50:03] It's a bit further than you think it is. Yeah.

[00:50:05] But again, none of those cars stick massively in my mind,

[00:50:08] but they would have been whatever car they had at any given time.

[00:50:11] But one of the Cavaliers stuck on mine, they had parked in the driveway

[00:50:15] and they live on a hill, they live in the same house.

[00:50:17] It was the CDI. We came up one morning and it had gone.

[00:50:20] Oh, has it gone?

[00:50:21] It snowed and it hit the ice and it slid all the way down the road

[00:50:24] and bounced off everything and not hit a single thing.

[00:50:26] Wow. And just went down to the bottom of the road,

[00:50:29] found it at the bottom of the road, got in it, started up and off he went.

[00:50:32] Nothing wrong with it.

[00:50:34] It's incredible.

[00:50:34] Yeah, because he's had a few stereos stolen as well,

[00:50:37] because of where he would take the option for the better head unit.

[00:50:41] We had quite a few head units stolen,

[00:50:42] whether it be at the train station or at the house,

[00:50:44] people would come and take the head unit out of it.

[00:50:46] It would be a dying art now, that isn't it?

[00:50:47] It is, yeah, very much so, yeah.

[00:50:49] We had a Mark 2 Astra that got stolen off our driveway,

[00:50:52] got taken about half a mile up the road,

[00:50:54] just got abandoned outside the school.

[00:50:57] Just didn't fancy it.

[00:50:58] Yeah, I like this.

[00:51:01] What have you stolen this for, David?

[00:51:02] It's got cream seats.

[00:51:03] I don't want the cream seats.

[00:51:04] And they just got out and left it.

[00:51:06] It was nothing special. It was blue.

[00:51:07] I don't know what, grey probably the interior, but maybe they wanted power steering.

[00:51:11] I seem to recall they were quite heavy, the Mark 2 Astra.

[00:51:14] It had the wrong options.

[00:51:16] Yeah, just left it.

[00:51:16] I'm always fascinated by people doing weird things like that.

[00:51:19] Could you just write me a note of why and just leave it on the dashboard?

[00:51:23] It's such a weird thing to do, isn't it?

[00:51:24] Would have preferred electric rear windows.

[00:51:27] Please let me know if you're going to invest.

[00:51:29] We'll be back. Yeah, really disappointed.

[00:51:31] Because there was a guy down the bottom of our road that had a Saab,

[00:51:34] I think it was, and because again, company car window got smashed,

[00:51:39] nicked the stereo.

[00:51:40] Then they waited for a week for it to get replaced under company car stuff.

[00:51:44] Did it again? And they came back and got it again.

[00:51:46] Yeah. And it's of an era of company car, kind of just inconvenience.

[00:51:50] It's really a phone call.

[00:51:51] The man turns up and takes it away and replaces it for you, brings it back.

[00:51:56] Again, nowadays, it's all insurance stuff.

[00:51:58] But you don't get company cars in the same way, do you? Crazy.

[00:52:02] Well, yeah, thank you very much, Paul.

[00:52:04] It's been thoroughly enjoyable.

[00:52:05] That's all right. No problem at all.

[00:52:06] And hopefully good fun for you too.

[00:52:08] Yeah, that's good. I've really wanted to do it for a while.

[00:52:10] So, yeah, I appreciate it.

[00:52:11] And yeah, I think we feel privileged for breaking you into Zoom as well.

[00:52:16] Yeah. Welcome to the world of Zoom.

[00:52:18] Yeah, it is weird. Yeah.

[00:52:20] Genuinely, this is I've had one other video call like this in lockdown,

[00:52:24] and that was with my mates.

[00:52:25] And at the time I was converting our garage

[00:52:27] and all my mates were like, what are you doing?

[00:52:30] Because all we could hear was like, really, really, really,

[00:52:32] and saw his stuff.

[00:52:32] But I'm like, I'm busy. I've got stuff to do.

[00:52:35] And they're like, God, dear, I'm just going to mute you.

[00:52:37] I can't bear it.

[00:52:39] So, yeah, and that's it.

[00:52:41] Other than that, I've had to work or do stuff.

[00:52:42] So I've never not.

[00:52:44] I don't really have a Zoom job.

[00:52:45] So I've had to do bits.

[00:52:47] I've never had to do Zoom.

[00:52:48] So when you said say to Zoom, I've got to download this

[00:52:50] and work out what to do.

[00:52:51] Got to be the first Zoom in that M5, I reckon.

[00:52:54] You got to be 100 percent.

[00:52:55] Yeah. First one I've done.

[00:52:56] That's for sure.

[00:52:57] Yeah. Cool. Excellent.

[00:52:58] Thanks, Paul. Thank you very much.

[00:53:00] No problem. Cool.

[00:53:02] There we go.

[00:53:03] That's our longest yet, I reckon.

[00:53:04] I know. Yeah. A flu bite actually.

[00:53:06] Yeah. Yeah, that was a really good one.

[00:53:07] I enjoyed it. Yeah. Some good stories.

[00:53:09] And I do feel a bit bad that we left all the questions

[00:53:12] till we got distracted somewhere along the line.

[00:53:16] I'm not sure exactly how.

[00:53:19] I think we went off on a tangent, didn't we?

[00:53:21] Of barn finds and street finds.

[00:53:24] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Halloween.

[00:53:25] That was it. Yeah.

[00:53:26] Trick or treat barn finds.

[00:53:28] Yeah. And then, yeah, we forgot to ask about

[00:53:30] cars sliding down icy hills.

[00:53:32] We forgot about the podcast, basically, didn't we?

[00:53:36] It's easily done.

[00:53:37] Yeah. Oh, well, I enjoyed it.

[00:53:39] Yeah. Good stuff.

[00:53:40] And yeah, interesting car.

[00:53:43] The motor show was good because, yeah, I remember doing a motor show.

[00:53:47] Purple E-type in a garage.

[00:53:48] My dad had an E-type as it happened.

[00:53:50] So that was cool.

[00:53:51] It's quite refreshing to hear as well.

[00:53:53] Not many of the people we ask,

[00:53:54] we usually ask something if they have any say in the cars

[00:53:57] that their parent or parents choose.

[00:54:00] Most people say no, none at all.

[00:54:01] But yeah, Paul actually did have some sort of sway on it.

[00:54:06] Some skin in the game.

[00:54:08] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:54:09] And I guess even if he didn't,

[00:54:11] quite nice that his dad sort of made him feel that he had a say in that.

[00:54:15] Hmm. Yeah. So, yeah.

[00:54:19] Ten out of ten to Paul's dad.

[00:54:21] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:54:21] Nice to have picked the alpha from the list.

[00:54:23] I've never owned an Alfa Romeo.

[00:54:25] No. And probably wouldn't just from the kind of the fear

[00:54:28] over over owning one.

[00:54:29] But yeah, I think my dad was given one

[00:54:33] when his mark went into the dealership for a service.

[00:54:35] When it was a relief car.

[00:54:36] OK, I don't think he liked it.

[00:54:38] It's probably similar sort of era, I'd imagine, to the one that Paul mentioned.

[00:54:42] But yeah, yeah.

[00:54:43] Yeah. No, I've never been close to sort of getting involved with one,

[00:54:47] I must admit.

[00:54:47] Yeah. Vauxhall's with electric windows.

[00:54:51] Love Vauxhall's. Yeah.

[00:54:52] Yeah. Dad had one Cavalier.

[00:54:54] I don't know whether he had another, but that was a GL, I think.

[00:54:57] I've been seeing a few

[00:54:59] because there are still a few Cavaliers knocking around, aren't they?

[00:55:01] I kind of think it's more desirable option

[00:55:04] compared to the Ford Sierra of the same era. Yeah.

[00:55:07] But price wise, I think they're sort of chalk and cheese, aren't they?

[00:55:09] I think the Ford, obviously, the Ford's are worth quite a lot of money now,

[00:55:12] aren't they? Whereas the older Vauxhall's, I think,

[00:55:14] are probably affordable in comparison.

[00:55:16] Yeah, I don't know what they go for, but yeah,

[00:55:18] I think they're probably far less than a they're not real world driver.

[00:55:22] That's kind of the retro attraction. True.

[00:55:24] But either young hooligans who want to go drifting.

[00:55:26] Yeah. Or kind of people who are sort of reliving their youth.

[00:55:31] Whereas, yeah, I think the Cavaliers are front wheel drive.

[00:55:34] So you've got to really want one, I suppose. True, true. Yeah.

[00:55:37] What else can we pull from there?

[00:55:40] The radio, obviously, we have radios and diastrates and shadows

[00:55:45] and the like they come up and the shadows. Yeah.

[00:55:47] Yeah. Classic dab music.

[00:55:50] Apologies about Arsenal's loss. West Brom. Yeah.

[00:55:53] Well, the Hawthorns is a tough place to go.

[00:55:55] And we've got a couple of girls. But yeah.

[00:55:58] Who do you think put those through?

[00:55:59] Lee Dixon, do you think one of them?

[00:56:02] Well, yeah, he probably would have crossed one for him.

[00:56:04] Right. I'd imagine. Yeah.

[00:56:06] So I've heard from Ian, have we? Paul Merson header.

[00:56:10] No, it wouldn't be with his head, not Merson.

[00:56:12] No, not actually.

[00:56:13] Seaman from the halfway line.

[00:56:17] That'd be quite something, wouldn't it?

[00:56:20] Good old David. Yeah.

[00:56:22] No, no, nothing from Ian, right?

[00:56:23] Yeah. Occasionally I see him pop up with little videos of him

[00:56:26] driving and singing to himself on Instagram.

[00:56:28] Yes. I saw one only this week, I think.

[00:56:32] Singing a song.

[00:56:33] And there's like a pedestrian out of his window that sees him

[00:56:36] sort of singing at the top of his voice with his window down.

[00:56:38] He just sort of looks at them and continues

[00:56:40] sort of just sing along in complete happiness.

[00:56:45] I think he's focusing on his new cooking range, actually.

[00:56:48] Oh really? That's his latest thing.

[00:56:50] Yeah, he's got some new bits out.

[00:56:52] I think it's called Uncle Ian's.

[00:56:53] Oh yeah. Anyone interested in getting that?

[00:56:55] Influenced possibly by a gentleman called Ben.

[00:56:57] Yeah. Not strange of right.

[00:57:00] No, Uncle Ian.

[00:57:01] Yeah, fantastic. OK, let's wrap it up.

[00:57:04] Thank you very much, John.

[00:57:05] All right, mate. And roll the credits.