Paul Lucas - Kit Cars With Paul: My Dad's MGB V8, Triumph Stag, Mk2 Jag, E-Type, V12 XJS, XJ6 and watching the MPGs S8E8

He was obsessed with rattles in cars, and so he bundled me in the boot and went driving round these country roads. God knows what conversations went on there between him and my mum about that. And he always had two jags at only one time. He would have these cars that had massive engines, you know, four litres, and they were like ridiculous. But he was absolutely obsessed with miles per gallon.

Welcome to my dad's car. Enjoy.

Hi. How are you doing? Father. Yeah, good thanks. That's things. Yeah, well, not too bad. Yeah. Potting on. You? Not bad. Yeah, not bad. Wonderful news. How are we doing, Paul? Hiya.

Yeah, hello. Am I in the right place?

Yeah, I think so.

Excellent, excellent. Nice to meet you, Andy.

Yeah, indeed. Hiya, Paul. How are you doing?

Hello, John. I'm good, thanks, mate. Good stuff. Well, thank you for the invite.

Yeah, not a problem at all. Yeah, thank you for saying yes. And uh yeah, hopefully we'll have a nice chat.

Yeah.

Um, for the benefit of the take, we're joined by Paul Lucas, who um I stumbled across on Instagram uh messing around with Porsches. And if I've got this right, you turn Porsche boxes into RS replicas. Is that right, Paul?

Yeah, that's uh that's what I've been doing in in the last few years. So they're basically kick cars. But uh my first ever one was a Ferrari, but since then I've done five, so the last four have been Porsches, yeah.

Fantastic. And is this a hobby or just a day job?

Or no, no, it's very much a hobby. Uh my day job, I work in finance, I'm a portfolio manager, but um I've always been very into cars and DIY from very early age, and um yeah, I just like building things, so I stumbled across the sort of kit car industry probably nearly 15 years ago, and uh it's sort of just gone from there. So ever since then I've always had one on the go, and I actually use them as daily drivers. Okay, so yeah, that's the good thing about it. Although my wife is clamping down, I'm currently finishing off uh another one, and she says I should probably find another hobby. She's probably the only wife in the world that wants me to take up golf, you know, wants her husband to take up golf. So there you go.

I thought you were gonna say you should probably find another wife at one stage.

No, no, it was our wedding anniversary yesterday, so no, definitely not. No, bless us. She's put up with 21 years of me being married to her and yeah, 15 years of car building, but it is hard work, and I am getting older now, and I do find things like the knees and the back are not quite what they used to be.

So is it all at home, Paul, or your car stuff?

Yeah, so when I started with the Ferrari, which was probably about 2013, I didn't have the space at home.

Yeah.

So I built it with my dad. Okay. So, you know, this is the connection here. Um, because he had a single garage and sort of a car port, so we had sort of space to do stuff.

Yeah.

So I sort of built it to a stage when it was ready for painting, and then what I did is I sent it away to be painted, and then while it was away, I extended my single garage that's attached to my house so it would fit it in there when it came back painted, and I could sort of finish it off. So I sort of mostly built it around his and then finished off at mine. But since then, I have built my own man cave in the back of my garden, uh, like a massive wooden sort of we call it the lodge. Um, so it's like uh eight metres by four metres wooden structure, and uh all the Porsches I've built in there at home because Dad he moved from that house not long after the Ferrari was finished, and now he's no longer with us, so yeah. But it's nicer to do it at home because you know you just just keep popping out there and doing a little bit and uh not coming back in for ages. You know what it's like with men in sheds.

So yeah, go out for a screwdriver, come back now later.

Yeah, oh yeah, definitely. At least, at least, yeah. But it but no, it works well. It's uh uh my wife very rarely goes in here. She's uh she's very much allowed to come in, but I don't think she wants to. But there you go. That's what it is.

Fantastic. And where can people find you, Paul, if they want to follow your journey?

So basically, yeah, I'm on Instagram, which is where you found me. It's just called Kit CarsPool79. I'm also on YouTube, which is called the same thing, Kit Cars with Paul79. Um I do probably a video once a month. Um, but again, as you probably know, it's quite hard work um making videos, and I don't actually have anyone to help me, so I would do more, but you know, I've actually got build the cars and I've actually got a do-my-day job, so I don't get much chance to do it. But yeah, that's where I am. And I also have a website that has um a few photos of my cars, and um, I actually have done an ebook, which is basically all the information you sort of need to know and what I've learned about building these Porsche replicas. Uh, and that's just uh Kitcarsball79.com. Okay, great, fantastic.

Cool. Um, yeah, we'll we'll jump into it. What's your earliest car memory?

Well, um, I think my probably earliest car memories with dad, and he had an MGB GT, and there's a photo knocking about when I was very young. I was probably about three or four, and there's a photo of me in front of it. So that's probably the first car I I remember. My dad was very much a Jag man. Um he had a variety of Jaguars over the years, starting with the Mark II, you know, the Inspector Morse ones, yeah, yeah. Those and them he's had E-types, often the XJ6s. Yeah at the time, you know, the one I say I remember the most was well, the first one was this MGB that he put a V8 in it or something like that. Okay. I don't think he did it. I don't I don't know much about the MGs.

Um they did do a V8 version, did they? Like out the factory, yeah. So it's possible it was factory, but yeah, I imagine people did swap them too.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, I just remember the noise of it and the smell of the leather seats. But probably the other car that I remember the most was the Triumph Stag that he had. Okay. I remember going to pick that up with him, or it was probably about six or seven, and that car created a lot of holiday memories because basically he was a member of the Triumph Stag Club, the owner's club.

Yeah.

And they would often do a holiday to France, and it was probably about ten families would go down in convoy to the south of France, you know, Saint-Tropez, just stay on a campsite, you know. And that was our holidays actually for most of my childhood.

Nice.

But I think as with me and my sister, we got bigger. We stopped going in the Triumph stag, and we went in one of his Jags at the time because he just couldn't fit everything in. But yeah, we met a few families from those holidays over the years, which is you know, some of those early memories I remember. So yeah.

Must have been pretty cool, a convoy of stags. It was. And potentially some breakdowns along the way.

Oh, yeah, plenty of breakdowns. He was also a member of the Jag Drivers Club as well, and they would often do these car rallies in Europe. I remember specifically all four of us, so mum, dad, and my sister and me going to Switzerland and Germany, like the Black Forest, and uh just driving, staying in a different hotel every night. It was it was quite quite an exciting time. I mean, all I cared about every time we got to the hotel though was did it have a swimming pool? Because I was probably only about eight or nine. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I didn't really think much at the time about all of this, I just thought it was pretty normal. But yeah, you know, I I look back now and I think, oh yeah, I do quite fancy doing stuff like that with my wife. I don't think my girls would, I mean, my girls are almost growing up now anyway. But yeah.

What was your dad's line of work, Paul?

So he was an optician. All right. Okay. So he was an optician, he had his own business. You know, this is in the days before you could get your glasses made in an hour at Vision Express. So, you know, he did all right for himself. He spent a lot of money on cars and uh some of those jags he then had modified further. I mean, probably the biggest mod he did was um he had an XJS Cabriet, right? They then stopped making that, and you could either get a hardtop XJS or a convertible one. But he liked his cabriolet one, you know, the one with like a T-bar in, you know, and a solid roof over your head. Well anyway, and I think they only made them in 3.6s, but he wanted a four-litre one, so he bought a newer version XJS that was a hardtop and had it converted by some guy in Kent.

Um not Paul Bannham, was it?

Yeah, it was Bannham, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So uh I don't know if he's still about it.

Putting into that, my father was a uh coach trimmer and did work with Paul Bannham. Paul Bannham did a um an XJS kit which was facelift xjs before they brought in the XK8, was it? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the replacement. Yeah.

Had like coarser headlights, I think Mondeo rears, and dad did like the interior and the hood and stuff for it. So yeah, I went to Paul Bannham's workshop. Oh, right. Well, I've been there as well. So nice. Um, yeah, sorry, I jumped in. So yeah, he put a four-litre and did his yeah, target or whatever.

No, no, so he bought the hard top. Yeah. So he had a four-litre to start with and then just made it a cabri. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, God knows what conversations went on between him and my mum about that. Um, for him to get a sign off, but he probably didn't care. But anyway, yeah, I just remember it was it was away for a bit and then suddenly it came back.

Oh, okay.

I mean, probably the prettiest car he ever had though was an e-type. Um, it was a hard top e-type, navy blue. I just remember those chrome spoke wheels and him cleaning them forever because it was it was a lot of spokes. And I remember someone ran into the back of it outside my school when he was picking me up, um, and he was in quite a bad mood for a while. Um he got it fixed, but yeah, I mean, I just wish uh I wish he'd kept on to that car to be fair, because I think they're worth quite a lot of money now.

Were his cars old at the time, or were they classic at the time, or uh were they kind of of of the period, like the Mark II Jag, for example, or the Stags, were they kind of of the period, or was he particularly choosing an older car because he liked the style or the kind of the charm of it?

No, I mean it's a good question. No, it was never he never bought brand new. I mean, yeah, so he had XK8s, he had an XKR in later life. They were probably maybe every time he bought a car, they were probably maybe eight years old.

Yeah.

So they weren't they weren't current, current.

Do you remember where he would get the cars from, Paul? And obviously, well, clearly he didn't really stray from British made vehicles either, by the sounds of it.

No, I mean, mum had bless her, she always wanted a Mercedes Sport, you know, the quite sort of one of the original ones, quite a very long flat bonnet and a flat boot. Yeah. She never got that. I don't know why. Right. But she was knocking about in a BMW E30325i convertible with a lovely body kit on it. So I really wanted that car. Yeah, yeah. But uh that went. Um, I don't know. I I think probably bought a few from Jaguar dealers, but again, they were never brand new. But a lot of them were just secondhand off other people, like private sales.

If we go back to the MG then, what colour was that?

It was like a silver colour, and well, it wasn't a conversion, it was like a uh a hatchback one.

Yeah, yeah.

Like with a rubber spoiler on the back and uh and big sort of rubber-looking bumpers. Yeah, um, I'll send you the photo if I can find it. Yeah, yeah, cool. But yeah, that was that was I do I do remember something now? What he would make me do. Basically, he was obsessed with rattles in cars, okay, and there was probably quite a few in his. And I'm obsessed with like rattles, I'm sure we all are, it's annoying. But I remember, and I think it was in the MG, he had this rattle that he couldn't pinpoint, so he bundled me in the booth and went driving around these country roads, and I had to I had to listen in all these corners of the car to try and sort of pinpoint where this noise was coming from. Uh yeah, I don't think I particularly enjoyed that to be fair, but you know, it was a means to an end, I suppose. But yeah.

You can't be in two places at once, can you? You can't drive the car and find the screen.

No, no, no, yeah, I know. I'm I I haven't made my daughters do that in the past, but yeah, um, hey-ho.

It's the same with water leaks, isn't it? Someone's got to be outside with a hose and someone's got to be inside getting wet. Yeah, yeah. Um, so yeah, let's go back to the like the stag, for example, going down into Europe.

Going down to France, yeah.

Did you have music playing? And if so, kind of what was on the stereo?

So it was obviously all dad's choosing, you know. We had no say in what whatsoever. Um, not like my kids had.

Yeah.

He was like Phil Collins, um, soft sort of rock staff direits. But he loved music, you know, when he died, um, and I had to clear his house out, the number of CDs he had, oh my word. But he would he would just make compilations of CDs. So, like, you know, he would have every Chris Rear album, you know, every Rod Stewart album, and he would make CDs up of his favourite songs from each album, yeah, you know, and just burn them onto a disc. Well, no, it was probably tapes in those days. Yeah, so yeah, that sort of music, that sort of stuff. Three with Mac, you know, all of that, all the stuff that you know I like, my wife likes, um, because we were probably subjected to it a lot. Yeah, yeah. Because you know, my wife, even though I met her at school, and this was after the days of the stag holidays in France, they did a similar thing. They would drive down to France, not with a club or anything, but yeah, they would go camping as well. So it was obviously at the time quite a popular way to go on holidays, so we all have similar tastes. But what I remember is he would make compilation tapes up of various different artists all in one tape. Yeah, and I think when you're a kid, because your mind is such a sponge at that point, you would have a song finish playing and a next one would start. And I can still subconsciously sort. I can't give you an example of a specific song, but I can still subconsciously think, all right, yeah, that song's gonna come on next. Yeah, you know, because I listened to it so much from dad's tape.

Yeah, definitely relate to that one.

Yeah, absolutely. So the stag, for example, was that his daily driver, or was that alongside, say, the Jag or something as a regular car?

No, he um, because he drove to work, he probably had a 20-mile round trip every day to work. No, he would probably use the jags more. I mean, I remember mum taking me to school in the stag. Okay, they did sort of chop and change and and alternate it. I mean, he had about four cars at once. And he always had two jags at any one time, and then I think towards the end of us having the stag, it just sat in the garage a bit more. I think it became a bit troublesome, and that's when mum had the BMW. But um for him and the Jags were the main cars he used.

Yeah, yeah. And so your mum would use his car, she didn't have her own sort of runaround or whatever.

Well, I don't really know what the agreement they had, but I don't remember really her ever driving a Jag. Yeah, I think it was either the stag. I mean the MG I think you could clasp was probably hers, the smaller ones. Um the MG, the Stag, the BM. Uh we had a Mini for some reason for a bit, which was a bit ridiculous because Dad was a very big guy. I remember him sitting in that and he just literally filled it. But I remember mum using the mini quite a lot.

Have you got any um any idea how your dad got into carsport? He's clearly a car person, the sort of catalogue of vehicles that you reeled off.

Um, I don't know really, because it my dad had a very interesting life. So my dad was Lithuanian, right?

Okay.

And he was born in 1942, and at that point you had the Soviet Union, you know, the USSR, and he and his family, a bit like what happened in Ukraine a few years ago, was driven out by the Russians.

Oh right.

And he remembers him and his sister going across Europe in a wooden caravan, you know, like Tommy Shelby, and eventually ending up in the UK somehow. Um, he settled down in Cornwall with his mum and dad and his sister. He ended up going to university. Well, he went to a number of schools. They sent him off to Italy, I think, because I think his mum and dad wanted him to be a priest for some reason. They sent him off to some school in Italy when he was probably about 14, but he'd come back. Eventually ended up at University in Manchester, where he studied optics, and that's why he started supporting Man United, which is a team that I support now, so that was that connection there. And in terms of cars, I really don't know. I just think when he got his job as a an optician and he started getting a bit of money in his pocket, fancy the Jag. I just remember looking at some photos of him with his Mark II Jag or whatever it was, um, looking very young, you know. Yeah, I just think that's what got him into it. And um the funny thing was about it, I mean, throughout his whole life, right, he would have these cars that had massive engines, you know, four litres, and they were like ridiculous. But he was absolutely obsessed with Miles for Gallon.

Okay.

Not that he's not like he couldn't afford it, but it I don't know, he just didn't like wasting the money on the petrol. I remember coming back from one trip because he was very into table tennis as well. When I played table tennis, I played for Essex, and we would go all over the country playing when I was a kid. I remember him coming back and I was like, Oh, can we just get home, Dad? And he was poodling along at my 55 on a motorway, and I was like, Why are you going so slow? And he's going, Oh, for this trip, if I keep it at this speed, I'll be able to get 25 miles to the gallon for the whole trip. And he just wanted to do that. That's a bit strange, but anyway, so we were home later than uh we should have been. But there you go. What colour was his Mark II, Jack? Oh, I think it was a white one he had. Okay. I think he had more than one. I think it was a white one, maybe a red one, or navy blue. But yeah, no, these are very, very early men. I was probably, I'm sure I was around at the time, but I would have been a baby.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you remember kids at school with interesting cars or either being um kind of aware that your dad had cars that were perhaps a little bit more special than others?

No, not really. I don't seem to recall people talking much about that. I mean, I remember there was another kid at school who's actually the guy who paints all my cars now. His dad had a gold Rolls-Royce.

Amazing. Wow.

Yeah, and he was in my class, David. I'll give him a shout out. His company's called Craft Work Vehicle Refinishing. And he's currently painting one of my cars. But yeah, his dad is Italian. His dad had this old Gold Rolls-Royce, and yeah, he was sort of quite famous in the school. His dad had this Rolls-Royce, and he actually owns it now, Dave. Oh wow. And he's just re-published it. I'm actually going to see it tomorrow, literally.

Oh, nice.

Because it's at his uh workshop. But no, not me. No one really uh remembered me for that, really. So no, just didn't talk about it.

Hard to grow up against a roller, really, isn't it, in that era?

It is really, especially the old one.

Yeah.

But it's great to see that that car that I remember when I was eight is still around and you know, still going. Absolutely. Yeah, so there you go.

Fantastic. What about um neighbours? Anything kind of interesting down the road that your neighbours were driving? Either kind of really good or really rubbish.

You kind of no, not really. I think it was dad who was the one who had the nice cars. Um, I remember our next door neighbours, an old couple, they were just obsessed with French cars, so they always had friends. So the old lady drove a citron two TV, okay, which was nicknamed Upside Down Pram. And the the husband uh the husband uh had a citron BX. Do you remember them? The suspension that went up and down.

So uh do you like a BX? Get that in there.

Yeah. Where I grew up, the family home, either side of us was very old couples. There was a guy in a sort of road opposite us. He wasn't particularly nice. He would um tell me and my friends off for cycling down his sort of road because he said it was private property. He used to knock about on an MX5, which you know, a little red one, and uh he would drive around in it with his blonde hair flapping in the wind. A bit of a person that is not very nice. I can't swear, obviously, but um yeah, didn't like him. Um so I remember that car. But apart from that, no, nothing I can really remember.

So you're clearly now sort of involved with Porsches, Paul. Yeah. What what took you down that route, do you think? What sparked it, so to speak?

Well, I've always I've always liked Porsches of. Well, you know, when I was like twenty one and you know, going into the city for an answer, I was like, I really want to Porsche one day.

Yeah.

When I was seventeen, my first car was a VW polo, and I was a bit of a boy racer. It was only a one litre, so it didn't go very fast, but I souped it up, you know. Uh I remember painting the bumpers with red, using a spray can from Alford's, you know, it was terrible finish, but I liked it. Put a big exhaust on it and all of that. So I was a bit of a boy racer between the ages of 17 and sort of 21. And then when I first sort of started work and I had a bit of money in my pocket. I really forgot about cars. You know, I just suddenly thought, you know what? I want to do something else. I'm just not interested anymore, and I I could afford a nice-ish car from the off that was a bit sporty. And I mean, I know I'm sort of going off on the bandwagon here a bit, but um Porsches, I mean, yeah, I've always liked them, but the reason why I got into building them is the company, one of the guys so my first kit car was this Ferrari.

What was that, MR2 based or something?

Yeah, MR2 based, Mark III. So it was the conversable one. Um the guys that run that company who made those body kits, one of them was mad on Porsches, and now the company doesn't exist and they parted separate ways. He then started making this body kit for a box stuff, and the rest is history. And I've done, yeah, three or four of his kits on the Porsches. Um, why have I done so many? Well, I mean, I'm sort of missing out big chunks here of sort of the the story, but with the Ferrari, it wasn't a very practical car. Um, it was an MR2, you know, nice enough car, a bit of a go-kar, and I didn't drive it that much really. I couldn't really leave it in the um car park at work and stuff like that. It wasn't that secure if you ask me.

No.

And then when my friend, the guy that owns the company, started doing the Porsche kits, um, you know, it's a much better car to be built on. Yeah. It's a Porsche and it stays a Porsche. It's not like you've got a Toyota and it's now meant to be a Ferrari. Yeah. It was just a much better base car, and the beauty was I could build these things and sort of satisfy my craving for making things and also then use it every day because they were hardtops and probably not as extravagant looking as a a red Ferrari is, you know, sitting in a car park. So I sort of felt safer leaving it and driving it everywhere, and it was just more practical anyway. So yeah, just kept doing them. But um at the moment, yeah, I quite like the border brand.

So you mentioned earlier about building the first one at your dad's place. Was your dad hands-on? Was he kind of handy with the tools as well?

Uh by that point, he's probably about 65. Yeah, he was, but he didn't like the idea of a grari. I mean, he he'd always wanted to do a kit car himself, but you know, when it was in his mind that there wasn't really anything about, um, he was happy to help. I mean, it wouldn't be a car he would want to build.

No.

But when um he would do a few things for me, like because the car's at my dad's now, I can't work on it every day. So what I would do is I'll go over Thursday evenings after work and all day on one weekend day, so either Saturday or Sunday. And I'm quite anal about planning things and quite organised, but I would sort of think, right, okay, this weekend I want to do this bit. So I would say to him, Could you cut out the holes for the rear lights on the fiberglass bumper or something like that during the week? And he would do that, yeah. Yeah. But unfortunately, he had a bit of an accident quite near the start of the Ferrari build and like broke his ankle and couldn't really do anything. So he would have he would have been more useful with two legs. Would have been useful with two legs and noses, I'm afraid. Um, but it's not like I didn't want him to help. He perhaps wasn't as careful with things and didn't fully understand how to do things. So I was I'd rather sort of do it myself, you know. And then I can sort of say I built it. But the best thing about it all is I I could build it around there with him, and it's more just having someone to bounce ideas off or when something's not going right, you know, talk about it and come up with suggestions. It really it really helps if you get a bit stuck on something. So so that was that was his main contribution to all of the cars, really.

Did he get involved with or did he kind of get round to seeing the Porsches as well? I'm not sure how long ago you lost your father.

So, like when I finished the Ferrari, I didn't really do anything for a good few years. Yeah, he would come round and see the progress on the Porsches. He'd come round to my house and he was still around to see the white one that I've still got completed. Again, not his cup of tea, too low for him, too noisy for him, not comfortable enough. But yeah, I mean uh I think he was secretly proud of me. Yeah. He was a funny man, my dad. He was very shy and wouldn't show many emotions. So I would hear from other people what he said about me in terms of he thought I'd done a pretty good job on certain things. So that was good enough for me.

Yeah, that's nice, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah. He would never say it to be face, but you know, it's just embarrassed. But yeah, hey ho.

Of the cars you grew up with, you kind of alluded to a little bit earlier. Is there anything you'd want to go back to and say, Yeah, I guess money no object, would you want to put one of those on your driveway?

I mean, I've always I always liked that BMW E30, but I always wanted uh an E30 M3. Yeah. I actually did own the XJS for a bit. I bought that off him. Okay, the one that uh had the cabriolet work done by Banham.

Yeah.

Um I actually own that, and in fact, my wife drove that a few times. Yeah, I don't know what the reason was that I ended up having it. It was probably because I think dad had sort of decided you know what happens is you have a car, you think it's your bride and joy, yeah, and then something else comes along, and you suddenly that seed is planted and you wanted something else. So I think what he wanted, he quite fancied the XKs, but I don't think I don't think it was a problem that he couldn't sell it. I don't think he wanted to quite let it go so soon, so I had it instead. So it was still in the family. But yeah, my word, that bonnet was so long on that XJS. So yeah, so I have had the Jag experience, so to speak. Yeah. But yeah, so no, not really. I mean, obviously the E-TAF's a very pretty car. I mean, I'm 46 now, so I've got a few years before retirement. But if I do build another car, even though my wife says no, um we won't tell them. Um I don't know, I just want to try and build something that we can both enjoy.

Yeah.

To be fair, she doesn't mind the Porsches. She doesn't mind the Porsches. But I'd quite like to, you know, maybe go for a weekend away using one of those cars, and then again the luggage space isn't great, so it's I don't know. I really don't know. I've sort of lost my trail of thought now here.

And I guess the other question, what would them being, although they are Porsches with it being sort of a homage, if you like. Yeah. If you found a holder with 200 grand, would you buy a real one?

I don't know. What a real GT3RS.

Yeah.

I don't know, really. Probably not, to be fair, because for me it's like I've sort of already got it, and I'm not really one of these people that is into track days and you know, racing cars. I've only really recently got into Formula One because my youngest daughter really liked it. And his is actually quite interesting and tactical. I never realised how tactical Formula One is with the old tyres, and obviously I watched the film with Brad here and it and that. But um, no, I don't know because it's not like I would have this car that's got all this power and motorsport pedigree, but never use it. What's the point? Yeah, you know, so no, probably not. Fair enough.

Keep the money.

I'll keep the money, spend it on university fees because they ain't cheap.

Yeah. So, yeah, alongside this, I run a Porsche club in my spare time, and I know a few guys who've got cars like that, the RSs, yeah, and they're a whole lot of money, and they come out ten times a year or something, it's like that's a huge amount of money not to be used.

Well, yeah, I mean, if you've got that much money, it yeah. I was gonna say, could I afford a real one anyway? No, probably not. Well, I'd have to live in it, but I just don't, I just so I just don't see because I've managed to make something myself and I've got everything about it, i.e. the looks and all that. I suppose I'm a bit of a poser, really. I've got everything apart from the amazing performance. Well, unless I'm gonna use that performance on the track, which I'm not, I'm only going to work in it and I go to BQ in it and the rubbish dump, uh, which I have done. But I don't see the point really. I've sort of got what I wanted out of it, so to speak. Yeah. And also made it myself. So so yeah. Yeah, fair enough. We'll keep the money. We'll keep the money, and my wife will spend it. She'll find something to spend it on.

Another bathroom. Give the wife the holder and just take the cash out of it.

Found a holder with 10 grand. Didn't have it.

There you go.

Well, um, yeah, thank you very much for chatting with us, Paul. It's been yeah, nice to hear the story. And your dad seems like a really interesting chap.

Yeah, yeah, he was. I really miss him. I mean, you always have regrets, didn't spend enough because him and my mum split up when I was 21. So we didn't have that grandparents thing with my girls growing up, and he very much took a step back. So, yeah, you know, you always have regrets. We should spend more time with him, especially on the cars. But hey hey, what can you do? God bless you.

Yeah, John and I are in a similar boat, and we've kind of found although we're not kind of talking about them all the time, just yeah, kind of having a conversation where they're involved, but it's not just about the fact that you've lost them. It's quite nice. It's not sort of a sad conversation, it's sort of a celebratory conversation. Yeah, yeah. And um, yeah, kind of being grateful for what they gave you and sort of what they got you into. So yeah, it is a tricky one. It does get slightly easier as obviously as the time goes by, but um Yeah, yeah. All right, cool. Thank you very much, Paul.

All right, well, nice to intermediate boys.

You too, Paul. All the best. Cheer out, bye bye.

See you later. Bye.

Cool. There we go. There was a lot of cards in there, wasn't there? Yeah, a lot of British cars in there.

Yeah, a lot of gas guzzling cars as well.

Yeah, that was quite funny, wasn't it? The fact that yeah, he had like the big engines but was pinnicety about MPG.

Yeah. You sort of think if he was ever introduced to like a diesel engine, like how broken away you'd pay back 60 MPG.

If you think back though to um I guess our childhood, diesels were kind of frowned upon, weren't they? Really? Yeah.

It was only, I guess, early 90s with the Peugeot, for example, and that clip turned around recently of um you know of two we're experiencing quite severe flooding in or very tight items in the UK at the moment. And it's a clip of a 405. Oh, going for a flooded road, it's often got a stalker on it. But still, it's it's one of those data engines that you just mentioned that's sort of indestructible, but we will will go on forever as long as you sort of give it a service whatsoever.

Yeah. Yeah, it seemed kind of yeah, about that sort of time, wasn't it? Early nineties when they started hitting the road a lot in the UK. Taxi driver special, rep cars. Yeah. And then I guess yeah, later on, yeah, Volkswagen, Audi, etc. To the point where everyone was being persuaded to buy diesel.

And then they said don't buy diesels, yeah.

Yeah. But yeah, up until that point it was it was petrol, wasn't it?

Yeah. Well, it was a rarity, wasn't it? To go diesel over petrol, that's for sure.

Yeah, yeah. Um yeah, interesting conversation. Nice to hear um reference to Paul Bannham, who was, you know, he did kick cards, did a lot of Jaguar XJS stuff, and yeah, like I mentioned, Dad did some work with him. Um he also did stuff based on metros as well. He did like a metro conversion that looked like an Audi TT and various other things. It was I think he was based in Rochester, I want to say, but I went there a few times.

That's not a million miles from Branchy, wasn't it? Posterly was.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's not it's not a million miles from there. So um that's a little BX reference in there as well.

Uh indeed, yeah. We'll um superimpose our penny job here and all the rest of that fireworks to celebrate the BX. But yeah, if you're interested in kick cards and Porsches, etc., he's got some interesting stuff on his um Instagram and YouTube. Basically rebodying a box. I think they take all the panels off and then put on the hard top Porsche panels and uh I think uh makes it sound very simple, doesn't it? But um yeah, yeah, they look pretty convincing to be fair.

Yeah. Yeah. Quite a nice solution, isn't it, if you haven't got the 200k lying around.

Yeah, I think they start selling for 40, 50k, I think. Yeah. So um yeah, a little bit uh closer to people's uh budgets, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, enjoyed that one. Nice to have it on and uh good to catch up. Thank you very much, John. Thank you. Cool. We'll uh wrap it up. Roll the credits.

Thank you for listening five out of heart. I hope you enjoyed this show. And how are your friends?