transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:09] Hello, and welcome to The Car Podcast with Chris Harris and his friends. I've got a bit of smoke and dust on my screen there. That's always irritating. Yes, it's episode number 84, which is getting closer to the big three figures, isn't it? If you're a batsman, we're nearly in the nervous 90s. So we're still playing freely, and our stroke play is still good. We might seize up a bit when we get close to the big three figures. This week, first things first, things we've done in cars this week, any interesting news. There was a forward slash in there as well. So I think three of us went to the Google members meeting, Manish didn't, so Manish can go first and justify why he wasn't there with his teammates.

Speaker 2:
[00:57] I'm sorry, it's my son's last weekend before he goes up to university, so we spend a bit of sun time together. Unfortunately, he's not into cars, no matter what I seem to do. He just does not get into cars. But I will be taking him up to university in a big green Bentayga on Tuesday tomorrow. So maybe that will change everything. Maybe that will change everything. Put simply, last week, the four of us were invited to Jaguar. And in fact, Mr Cooper and I went up to Jaguar Heritage first.

Speaker 3:
[01:34] Jaguar Classic.

Speaker 2:
[01:36] Sorry, Jaguar Classic. I could, thank you. We were guests of Dominic Elms and the crew. And I could talk for an hour. I could actually talk for an hour just about Jaguar Classic and I'm not going to. But we got to choose our cars for our Jaguar event. And I have to say, I don't melt very often, but I melted about every 30 seconds there. Eventually, they pulled out a Jaguar XJ12 from the mid 80s, a Targa V12, which had the original brick phone in it. And I pretended to trade a few gold futures. I felt like I was in an 80s coffee advert or an 80s advert with Rosalind Landau that wasn't a Renault 25 ad. This car. Yeah. Sorry. Yes. I was I was melting. I was melting in this car. It was it was so perfect when I turned her over. Five point three V12 engine just getting like this. Is there an engine somewhere in this vast shed? I also spotted the front half of the Widnail and I Jaguar that they used for the musical. It was just unbelievable. Where there's missing spotlight for that. It's like it's like going into a toy shop with all these Jaguars all facing you all a foot apart and they've got a machine. They've got the best machine I've ever seen in my life. Imagine a low loading forklift truck that goes up to a car from the front and these two bars come out like this. Then they open like that behind the front wheels and they roll. Then your car just rolls up on to the front of this low loader and they just reverse it. They can position it any way they want. It was such an epiphany. I decided that the car that nukes the concept of an R107 is a Series 1E type Jaguar. Exactly those colors, deep metallic, gray with oxblood leather. They had one for just £230,000 in the showroom. I just couldn't stop salivating. I've never, never, never felt like this in any kind of dealership, whatever, whatever. There was so much beauty. Then we went on to the big Jaguar place, which had a track called Gaiden and I did something I've never done in my life. I drove five different cars in two hours on an actual track. Five. They were all Jaguars.

Speaker 3:
[04:16] Has that, Manish, has that actually doubled your lifetime total of cars driven?

Speaker 2:
[04:22] Almost, yes. Almost. No, if I hadn't sold Mitsubishis easily.

Speaker 3:
[04:26] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[04:26] Yes. Yes. No, I have to say five different cars and I got to drive the Type, Convertible, with a 3.6 straight six, and I had that really tricky third to second. That was crazy. Sorry, 3.8. Then we got to drive the XJ6 V12, which was pretty goddamn unbelievable. Then we got to drive Steed's XJC12. Oh my God. I was doing 110 miles an hour down the back straight and I was just chatting like this, just chatting. This car was so mild-mannered. Then we went on the pothole road. You couldn't feel any potholes in this car. It was actually Alibaba's carpet with a vinyl roof. It was unbelievable. And then we got to drive the new one, and I'm not saying anything about it, other than, oh, mighty word. We got it unveiled, the whole thing, and I drove five cars, got to see the new Jag, got to drive the new Jag, and I got to spend time with some proper, proper engineers. And I have to say, the passion, every single engineer who took us out in each of those cars, races, or is building a car in a garage, or is bought a home because it's got a garage, or two garages, the car passion, the desire. All else is, I think Jaguar is in great hands, because if these are the people who build and design the new car, it's just in their blood. And none of them, by the way, who've been there for six minutes or six months. These are Jaguarati, whatever that word would be. These people bleed Jaguar. And it was just, it was literally one of the best days of my life. And their lunch with their cauliflower and batter with the chili sauce.

Speaker 3:
[06:23] Good. I didn't try that. Was it tasty?

Speaker 2:
[06:26] It was searing. It was searing. I got an extra five kilometers an hour down the back straight from that bit of cauliflower.

Speaker 1:
[06:36] Yes. So that tells you what we did this week, some of us together, well, all of us together on Thursday. It was fascinating. And I second all of it, really. There's something intoxicating about being invited to the inner sanctum of a car company. It feels like a privilege. And you can see, I hope my learning colleagues have seen the Jedi and mind tricks these car companies can play on you, because normally, and I say this without my cynical hat on, in this instance, it's a very serious moment for Jaguar. It really is make or break. When it's when it's really serious, they invite you to drive the car in the car company, because once you go through those barriers, you go, oh, feel a bit special here. This is quite nice. And sure enough, you tend to get more positive reviews because that's what happens. And I think it's a trick they all should be allowed to play. You go and drive a terrible Ferrari, but spend the day in the factory at Fiorano at Maranello, and then drive the Fiorano test track. You'll probably give it a slightly kinder review. But no, it was fascinating. I second everything Manish said. Chris Cooper, thoughts?

Speaker 3:
[07:43] It was an extraordinary day, wasn't it, last Thursday? It was sort of Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, your 21st birthday, day before your wedding, all of those things wrapped into one. Because people know this, and we all know this, you get that nervous excitement beforehand. So you get up two hours early. And I'd agreed to meet Manish at the train station near here, Hamel Hamster. So we agreed what train is going to get. I said, you tell me what train you're going to get. Because I'm nervous excited. When you're on the train, text me to make sure you're on the train. I thought I'll, Manish obviously expected me to be there about time. Being me, I was there 45 minutes early. Because you just are.

Speaker 2:
[08:29] But I was there half an hour early.

Speaker 3:
[08:31] You texted me say early. You think you all got on the train. So I said, don't worry, I'm already here. Because early is on time. So we had a lovely little drive up the M1 and the M45.

Speaker 2:
[08:42] In the Bentayga.

Speaker 3:
[08:43] In the Bentayga. And then we had a lovely drive across country to Gaiden. Jaguar Classic was extraordinary. I do want to second what Manish you've said to Dolman, to Paul Reigns and the whole crew there. They are being unbelievably excited and supportive about our great British Jaguar Day. And they're going to bring a whole host of really, really extraordinary cars. I think the whole set of the hero cars we're going to have together. They haven't ever been seen together in the same place at the same time. It's really, and there's some privately owned cars, which some extraordinary people are going to bring along as well, which is just, I mean, unbelievably exciting. Cameron and Finlay and I were at a members meeting all weekend, and loads of people came up and said, look, I could bring this. I know somebody's got this car and this one everyone thought has gone away. Could we bring that? It's just amazing. So looking around the collection at Jaguar Classic, it's like looking out for your outfit before your prom night or your 21st birthday. Think, oh, I don't know which to choose. They're wonderful. And with the Illinois Jag I had no idea to expect it there. This is going to go out on Friday. There's two very, very fun special cars that they've allowed us to borrow for the Bicester Scramble to arrive in. So if you get the Bicester Scramble on the Sunday after this, you're in for hopefully a little bit of a fun treat. So yeah, so the whole Jaguar Classic thing, I'll leave Chris talk a bit more about driving the new Jaguar because it was a very, very special thing. The other thing I wanted to say was the members meeting. I spent the whole weekend there with Finn and Cam and one of their friends. The weather was blue-skied and it was lovely. Slight problem with the phone signal, which probably...

Speaker 1:
[10:41] They just switched the mast off or what? Because normally with so many people in one place, it's a problem.

Speaker 3:
[10:46] I think what happened is, I suspect there was slightly more people in there this year, but mind you, the revival is a bigger event, which I tend not to go to. I suspect it was because of this new app with the ticketing. And that sort of sucked more juice out of the thing. So you couldn't lose contact with the people you were with, because you'd have to then rely on Brownie in motion to reconnect with them in the rest of the day. But it was fantastic. All the racing was just brilliant. The thing I want to say about it, though, was it's just such a lovely event. And lots of people came up. I saw Neil, you had it, and Chris would have been, I know was swamped by people saying lovely things about Chris anyway and what he's doing and what he has done. But even my little humble contribution to this, there were young people, dads, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, came up very spoilt weekend and said, look, how much they enjoy what we do, which is, I have to say, really, really humbling. So it was lovely. It was brilliant. The cars are great. The racing was great. It was, we've had an extraordinary, there will never be another week slash month slash weekend like this.

Speaker 1:
[12:09] Very good week. Neil Clifford.

Speaker 4:
[12:12] I bought a Porsche KN, 97,000 miles. What's gonna go wrong there? Nothing. I haven't seen it. They've told me that everything works. Do you think that's true?

Speaker 1:
[12:26] To be clear, because you are very good like this. Neil, when he buys a car, he's very clever. He makes sure that somewhere written down, there is a clause that means that if it doesn't meet with his expectations, it's going back. And on this one, I know he's used the phrase, every button has to work.

Speaker 4:
[12:43] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[12:43] Now I think that's a fecking tall order for a 20-year-old Porsche. Because you can find, by the letter of the law, you could find any little button that doesn't quite work and it's going back, isn't it?

Speaker 4:
[12:54] Yeah. Well, you know, because I'm very trusting and I can't be asked to go to Manchester, and I know the lovely man that's selling it, all I ask is, does everything work? Every single button does what it should. Is that correct? Please could you reply to my email and confirm that? And once I've got that, I feel covered. Now clearly, I'm not covered at all.

Speaker 1:
[13:24] There's no buttons inside the internal combustion engine, exactly.

Speaker 4:
[13:27] No. And I've looked at the service history and it's olive green metallic. That's the key. It might not even have an engine, but it's olive green metallic. So that's actually clearly not the most exciting thing. But being I've got an E in my English O level, you guys will be able to articulate a lot of the things we did, maybe slightly better than me. I'd like to touch on Goodwood just very, very briefly, because I took my three brothers. I've got three brothers and they're all older than me. I was, as I've said before, I'm sure, I was the last attempt at girl. And bless my mom and dad, they're not around now. And I don't see them enough because you're a bit rubbish and you think you're too busy and it's all a bit shit, isn't it? But anyway, I got them all together, they're all in Portsmouth, they all live in Portsmouth. Goodwood is a place that we grew up with. You know, we were there when it was overgrown, you could just drive in and drive your Mark 1 Escort round in 1983 before the Duke sorted it out and made it what it is, you know, world-class. So to take them there for the first time, brilliant. You know, we were very well looked after and it's, you know, as Chris said, it's Christmas Day. Actually, I got a message from Tom from Car and Classics at 5.15 on Saturday morning, just saying, it's Christmas Day. And obviously, he's, you know, he's braver than me, he was racing or pretending to race. I think he was in a demonstration, wasn't he, in a touring car. So he was looking very dapper and I'm very jealous of men walking around in racing suits.

Speaker 3:
[15:14] He did look good in his racing suit, didn't he?

Speaker 4:
[15:16] Yeah, he's a good looker, he's our Tom and looking very sophisticated and with a hint of sort of Steve McQueen in there, isn't it? I wouldn't go that far. A bit of Ken Miles vibe, you know.

Speaker 3:
[15:30] That's good, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[15:32] So he was looking brilliant and I gave him a hug and I was very excited. I don't do jealousy, but I don't want to go around the tracks. I don't like it. I think the racing, if you could just wear a racing suit and not go around the track, maybe I'll do that next time. But yeah, so good with Magical. If you don't do revival, Mr. Cooper, you're wrong about that. You need to do that because it's...

Speaker 3:
[15:56] I'm sure you're right. I'm sure you're right.

Speaker 4:
[15:59] And so that was great. Jaguar is amazing. You guys will talk about it. You know, I always felt there was one, I had one big job left in me, you know, after the handbag and shoe thing. But after being at Jaguar for the day, I'm like, fuck that. That's too difficult. That car automotive, clearly, I haven't made people have got the wrong email address. I haven't had any offers yet. But, you know, you and it was an amazing privilege. And, you know, we all thank Mr. Harris for opening this door for us, really getting exposed to the inner sanctum, as you say, of a car company, because it's a it's a huge intellectual challenge being successful in that world. I mean, any company is, I suppose, but this is harder. You know, you've got the winds against you from every direction at the moment, haven't you? Europe, Trump, you know, tons of stuff. But it was it was such a pleasure and lovely people. And it's all about the people, people in the cars. And we had a wonderful day and the cauliflower was great. But for me, it was about my three brothers at Goodwood walking about. So that's it.

Speaker 2:
[17:20] All three brothers, tiny medical factoid. I think this is pretty true. If you have two children that are the same sex, Neil, the chances of the third one being the same sex are five and six. And I don't know what the chances are of the fourth one being the same sex, but I presume they're even higher.

Speaker 4:
[17:42] Right.

Speaker 2:
[17:43] Statistically, if you have two that are the same sex, basically the third one, there's five and six chance of being the same sex. It's got to do with the chemistry of the mummy and the daddy there.

Speaker 4:
[17:54] Yeah, it sounds like it was like 19 out of 20 that I was going to be a boy. Yeah, I don't think they knew that in 1967.

Speaker 2:
[18:02] No, I think you're right.

Speaker 1:
[18:04] So I think it gets a really good busy week for me. So I started off by going up to meet the Car and Classic team at their away day in a hotel that couldn't have been more inconvenient for me, which is brilliant. And there's a part of the you. We've all got our bogey part of the UK, haven't we? Where we live. If someone says, go there, your brain goes, it's not possible. You can't get there. And for me, it's that bit around the other side of the north of the M25 Essex way. If you live in the southwest, it's quicker for me to get to New York than it is to get there. I just thought to myself, oh, god, it's up there. Anyhow, I got in the car, set off in the continental tea and set off early. And actually quite a surprisingly pleasant journey. But it always takes forever to get from somewhere near the M11. I think in my head, I just shut down. We've all got, we'll do that. What's your bogey part of the UK that is a good one? I met the car classic sales team, but a bunch of super passionate, knowledgeable people and I'm really excited about working with them this year. So it was really great to meet them. They has a fantastic bunch of cars. There was a gentleman there who works in the sales team who has a white, automatic 3.6 liter XJS. What more do you need to know? What more do you need to know? And then that evening I had dinner with some car e friends that included a couple of franquitties, a Tuttle and a Cadore. So there was that was really, really good fun. And as of it came some very good t-shirt quotations. Yeah, Phillips, Phillips was the best. He was describing an accident he had at Le Mans once in a Porsche and he said he was trying to describe the different stages of the shunt when he realized he was in trouble. If you're in a Porsche 96, you're not that protected. He goes, he then said, I quote, And then the steering wheel stopped working. I thought it was very good. Fast forward to Thursday, which was our visit to Jaguar. Now, this has been done by several journalists already. I think 30 or 40 people have been through. And we were rightly and comfortably at the back of that list because they got everyone through earlier in the year. It was a dynamic exercise to drive the new electric Jaguar and also the opportunity to drive some classic cars to provide context and support some of the materials Jaguar is now presenting, hopefully. And we think Justify will be celebrating its heritage. There was nothing exceptional about the way they laid it out. If you've done these things before, it made a lot of sense. Rodan Glover was there, who is the boss, and it was a real privilege to have the boss there. So we thank him for his time. Absolutely. Jaguar, several employees presented the vision of the car to us and why they ended up where they have, which again made sense. And I think we all really enjoyed listening to what each member of their team had to say. We then saw the car. We can't say anything about it at all, other than the fact that we've seen the car and it's a car. That's all we can say. There's a piece of paper that says, all you can say is, it's a car. Dynamically, it's interesting that all three of my learning colleagues have shied away from saying anything. But that's partly, I think, because they want to let me have the chance to say it first, but also I think because it's easier to say something once someone else has said something because then you can chime in and ask and go, yeah, I thought that as well. I think this is the culmination of a lot of work, a lot of expertise and quite a bit of freedom. This is a dynamic surprise, this car. It's at the very top end of anything I've driven before in terms of the way that it rides and handles. I don't think there's any surprise that a vehicle that's got a thousand horsepower or whatever it's got is very fast despite the fact that it weighs as much as a celestial orb. It's very, very fast, but the ride and handling, especially the ride, is extraordinary and I think is suffused with a jaguarness that left me very, very comfortable with where they've headed with the dynamics of the car. I still fear for the marketplace that they're entering. If I'm honest with you, sorry, it's entering, singular car company. It's early, it's 6 a.m. at the moment. I don't think, Jaguar, however hard you work, you can't improve the marketplace into which you're going, can you? Neil will know that completely. You have the best idea ever. And unless there's a receptive marketplace, I think there is. I think sadly this is an international car. I mean, it's not going to be sold in droves in the UK, which is a shame. That will sell some, I'm sure. But it just, the UK is not the place to sell this car right now. But it's, it is very, it is a Jaguar. And I think we can credit them with that. I was, let's say, confused a little bit by some of the messaging around Jaguar's version of how successful its initial launch into this territory was. Because we know that the pink car and the accompanying assets with it, I think, just bemused a lot of people. But actually, when I thought about that, it wasn't the fact that Jaguar launched an aggressive, ridiculous looking pink car, which by the way, I think looks really cool. It was Jaguar's follow up messages that I found, and I think all of us found difficult, when effectively it distanced itself from a community of people that really love its cars. And I think, let's just say they might have a bit of work to do on that front still. But the rest of it, I really, really, I enjoyed. I thought the car was a dynamic surprise, and maybe that's the thing that is interesting. Jaguar always presented us with dynamic surprises. Throughout history, there's been styling surprises, but I can't talk about the styling, sorry, design. But the dynamics have always been a surprise. You know, the 1961 flat floor E-type we all drove must have felt like a spaceship to people in 1961. This car is a similar leap in some areas. It's really, really impressive. So well done to the team, as Manish said, bunch of very, very clever, passionate people. And to say that we've driven a Jaguar around Jaguar, a Jaguar E-type, sorry, around Jaguar's test track is so special. I mean, good God are we lucky. So the rest of you now chime in with your thoughts on the dynamics and see what you think. I'll single out two things before I do that. I don't know how you make a car of that weight with electric steering, steer that well. Steering was exceptional. And I was just, when I accelerated, the prow rose. That doesn't happen in modern cars. Normally, you accelerate, cars stay flat, but it just did a little rise. And I thought that reminds me of being in an XJ12, which is great. Right, the rest of you chime in with your dynamics.

Speaker 3:
[25:24] I thought the moment you, I mean, it was an extraordinary day, really, because Chris, you've done this before. And I think, but for the three of us, we're probably the only three people who don't fit into Jaguar employees or journalists. So for the three of us to be there.

Speaker 4:
[25:38] We were virgins.

Speaker 3:
[25:40] We were, we were something. That's certainly for, for sure. The point you, the discussion that you alluded to that we had with Gordon and some of the engineers and colleagues there and Ken, who's the head of the global PR and comms. We had a very grown up conversation about the brand and how they'd come from where they were to where they want to be. And I think we're all on the same page to say you had to do something. You couldn't keep on going on being a slightly loss making manufacturer of small SUVs. And I was, we're all, all four of us are involved in making the Great British Jaguar Day a success with our friends at Car and Classic and Bicester Motion. But sort of my little gang and I are probably pretty heavily involved in it. One of the things that we thought about quite carefully was how to describe the day. And we quite, I think we all agree with this, that the Great British Jaguar Day is not about nostalgia. It's not just about nostalgia. It's about the past, present and future of Jaguar. And that's what got their interest. That's why they invited us because they could see that we give a shit. And this comes from a place of passion. So the conversation we had about the brand and was working on the details. But one way or another, the conversation we had there, Chris, that I think you led in an extraordinarily thoughtful and interesting way with Jaguar about who they are, where they're coming from, why they made certain choices. We're going to find some way of replicating that on stage at the Great British Jaguar Day. It's going to be really, really worth listening to. The car was, as soon as you got into it, it's an engineering prototype. I've never driven an engineering prototype with all the big red buttons and somebody in the back acting as minder.

Speaker 4:
[27:28] You were very excited.

Speaker 3:
[27:30] I was more excited. I mean, it was, it's 21st, Boxing Day, Christmas Day, your wedding day.

Speaker 4:
[27:37] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[27:37] The whole shebang, as soon as you get in, press the throttle and turn the wheel to move out of their little sort of styling design garden. You think, wow, this is quite grown up thing. And as Chris says, to go on to the gesture, I think I did 167 miles an hour on the outward straight. It's got a beautifully linear feel. Quite often electric cars, this sort of... This thing just felt like it was... And you described it beautifully, Chris. When you give it the beans, give it the berries, as Nigel would say, and you just feel it sort of squat a bit and the prowl comes up in a very unevy like way. I really liked it. I really liked it. It was... We'll see the thing for real. We've seen it, un-camouflaged. It'll be revealed later this year. But to drive it, the car that we drove, they've driven to the Nürburgring and back. They took it on Eurotunnel. They did all the things that we would do with it. I was really pleasant. It's very, very... I had a little text exchange with Matt Becker who reached out to me. He was going to come to the Great British Angra Day. The great Matt Becker said, What do you think? What do you think? He said, the ride, the steering. Wow.

Speaker 1:
[29:01] Anything more from Maloney? Did two other colleagues want to talk about the dynamics?

Speaker 4:
[29:05] I didn't really want to drive it really because I didn't... I wasn't sure I'd be able to tell the difference. I'm still not. You know what? Yeah, it's really comfy, smooth, lovely, fast, powerful. The steering, you guys, well, you know, it's just a cool thing.

Speaker 1:
[29:27] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[29:28] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[29:28] Manish?

Speaker 2:
[29:31] It's a tiny thing. I thought the seating position was exceptional. We talk about that. You felt that you were in the car, in the car or on the car, which for an electric car is not necessarily that straightforward. The second thing is the four-wheel steer for me was really subtle. So you know, you pointed out, I think it's 2.7 tons. So this is, you know, a big car, it's a heavy car. But I'm not a racing driver. I didn't get it to 160. I got it just less than 120, which is quick enough for me on that main straight. But just turning it in, when I, my confidence obviously improved lap after lap. I did three on the main circuit, third time round. I did really enjoy accelerating, really did enjoy braking a few times. Then I took it on to that bumpy circuit. And, you know, as I've said before, it just felt so assured. If you compared it to the XJ12C, they'd really, you know, Jaguars are meant to be able to do all kinds of stuff. And I think the biggest compliment I could pay this car is it is a Jaguar. There is just no doubt about it. It's a Jaguar.

Speaker 1:
[30:46] I think the chassis, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[30:48] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[30:49] With the power. The one thing we have to acknowledge is that a company like Jaguar with its luxury offering has been seeking a kind of automotive silence for, you know, the end of a century, hasn't it? It's been looking for the silent engine. The XJS V12 was supposed to be a silent engine. Well, they brought the powertrain they want because it makes no noise. So it sort of makes sense for a big Jag to be electric. I'll just quickly talk about my Goodwood, which was, I don't have a lot of luck at Goodwood. I look over the years. I once nearly won the big race and since then it's been a few issues. So the lovely Peter invited me to drive his Alfa Sud and tested the car just a couple of laps. And it was quite clear we weren't going to be near the front. But what a fun little car to drive. I had no knowledge of the Alfa Sud. So it's opened the door of appreciation for me. I love coming to stuff late in life and think, I thought, why have I never driven an Alfa Sud? So now I'm reading the back issues of Car Magazine about the Alfa Sud. It was quite clearly the doyen of its era. It won all its group tests. It was just the car. It was the 205 GTI of its era, wasn't it really? Just won everything. It was the driver's car. Then it was obviously made out of a special metal that the Italians found that could rust faster than any other substance.

Speaker 4:
[32:07] I had one of those.

Speaker 1:
[32:09] By the time I got to it, even in the mid-80s, they were all gone. This is an original racing car from a well-known family that used to race, Alfa Romeo. It didn't go to plan, let's just say. The poor thing struggled a bit in qualifying. I was a bit down in power and we thought we found an issue with carburettor. Then I was driving it on the warm up lap to the start of the race. I could feel a bit more inertia in the engine and it just wasn't pulling as well. Then it conked out as I rounded the very final chicane to go on to the grid. She didn't make the race and it was quite a large crowd. I was pushed off and no doubt the man on the tonneau was going, that's the idiot that used to work for Top Gear were pushing him off. It was like a metaphor for my career really. It was an interesting weekend and I say to Peter, thank you very much. He had a lot of attention from the scrutineers, but I think was really difficult for him to deal with. It was challenging to live vicariously and watch someone do their first motor race. He bought the car in really good faith in January with a view to doing some racing. All he had was grief really. He just got, this is wrong, that's wrong, this is wrong, that's wrong. It's a really tough thing buying a car and going racing and trying to do it yourself and trying to navigate all the policing and everything else. No one really helps you. And at times, I think he was poorly treated, if I'm honest with you. And I want to give him a big hug. But you know, we got through it. And I think he'll live on and fight another day. But to him and his family, who were really, really kind to me, they saw the tougher side of going racing for the first time with the car you've bought. And I think he showed great determination and patience throughout the weekend. So lots of love to all of them. And I hope you come back stronger. This next one, I'm going to read out, and I read it the wrong way last night when I was having my Horlicks and going to bed. And I laughed out loud because I had a certain image, but you can clarify it. Why do birds only shit on cars? Now, if you say that with your best Terry McCann from Minder voice on, it doesn't, let's just say the avian side of it is removed from the statement.

Speaker 2:
[34:30] Amber, what was her name? Amber Heard.

Speaker 1:
[34:38] Amber Heard. Right, so let's go to Neil first on this. This is so freakishly on message for me. I don't know where to begin. Off you go.

Speaker 4:
[34:49] Well, I was, we were searching for an extra little addition to the agenda. And I wanted something to be a little bit funny and a little bit quick and something that's been on my mind for many years. You can't see bird shit anywhere apart from on cars. And I was thinking, is it because it's disguised and camouflaged if it isn't on a car or more? Curious for me, do birds not like cars? And therefore there is some sort of little different world over here where birds have a shitting on cars championship. They're plotting. Where they win prizes and yeah, but maybe there's a bird shit world championship on who can shit on the best car. Because we've all experienced it many, many times. You get your car cleaned. You're very lucky to know a man that comes around to your house. And if you're lazy like me or frankly, more importantly, useless like me on cleaning cars, they end up worse than when I started if I did it. And then, oh, look, it's wonderful. And he's polished the paint and he's so chuff with it. Then there must be this whole another world where birds are like, there he is. He's just cleaned his car. He spent 50 quid, 30 quid, 70 quid cleaning it. Let's absolutely bomb it like Dresden. You know what I mean? The whole fucking thing. And you end up within a day of three or four massive bird shits on the car. And I was just curious about that. Is it something that only happens to me or is this something that is a reality? Plus, and I think there is, I can't remember the name of it, the lovely company that does all the polishes and the foam and the cloths and the one that's got the little royal, it's got the king-use kit.

Speaker 3:
[36:47] Simonize or not Simonize.

Speaker 4:
[36:49] I can't remember the name. Yes. They do these lovely little baby wipes, frankly, that are designed just to get bird shit off your car. Because there's a challenge, isn't there? But when it dries, what do you do? And I've been known to use my finger because you're then paranoid, aren't you? Because if you haven't got that, you know, whatever that thing is, and I was sort of into that and then I've not been into it. Covering your car in that plastic, whatever that's called. To protect the paint.

Speaker 1:
[37:26] PPF.

Speaker 4:
[37:26] Which I think is frankly a bit of a con now I think about it, because it's much more expensive than actually repainting your car five times. But I've had a little moment of PPF. If your car isn't PPFed and you've missed the bird shit and it's dried, that's a very anxious feeling that that bird, that deposit is burning through your paint. And you've got to get it off as soon as possible. So I think there's a whole discussion, maybe we'll do a special podcast about bird shit, that it's a challenge from the beginning to an end.

Speaker 1:
[38:03] I can't believe I'm having a philosophical chat about bird shit going on cars at 6.44am, but there we go. Neil has expressed himself. I've just done a bit of Googling. So it seems there's some common sense answers to this. I know my other two learned friends will probably go into, I won't go into them now, but there are some answers, there are some answers. Let's go to Manish first.

Speaker 2:
[38:28] Well, bird poo, guano, is acidic, it's uric acid, and that isn't good for paint. That's absolutely true. It's just not good for paint. Acid doesn't like paint and paint doesn't like acid. I think there's a subgroup of birds which only crap on convertibles, just to make that sort of canvas hood.

Speaker 4:
[38:49] On the roof, it's tricky.

Speaker 2:
[38:51] They miss the bonnet, they miss the pavement around it, they only go to the canvas hood, and they do that on purpose. The other thing I've noticed about bird shit on cars is you don't need a tree, you don't need to park under a tree, they'll just find you, they will literally find you. They use satellite tracking from the Chinese to literally spot your car. I hate it. It smears if you try to get it off very, very early on. If you try to get it off once it's dried, it leaves that really annoying jigsaw shaped blob that needs a complete clean and re-polish. My only other thought about this is when I was nine, I went on the Isle of Wight ferry with my mother and sister and I got shat on by a seagull.

Speaker 1:
[39:40] Soon after they found you, after they lost you, when you came off the plane, you'd not vanished.

Speaker 2:
[39:46] I'd not vanished on the Isle of Wight ferry. And it was really, I remember this, I had a stick of rock in my hand and I just heard a blap. On my left shoulder, it was truly disgusting, right into my sweater. It really ruined the Isle of Wight for me.

Speaker 1:
[40:06] It's supposed to be good luck, isn't it? It's supposed to be good luck.

Speaker 2:
[40:10] My parents divorced I think minutes later, I'm not quite sure that it worked out like that, but you know.

Speaker 1:
[40:18] Chris Cooper, I mean, obviously knowing with your level of OCD, what it's like when a car gets dirty, I can only imagine what happens when a bird poos on your car.

Speaker 3:
[40:26] When I read this question, I was reminded, this wasn't my joke, it was Jimmy Carr's joke. When he was asked a question in one of his, you see it on social media, Jimmy, what would you do if a bird shat on your car? He said, well, she wouldn't get a second date. Talking about the Isle of Wight Ferry, in COVID, so people, friends of ours down in Cornwall, they noticed a phenomenon which was that because there was nobody around, you couldn't go outside, you could only go out for an hour day to exercise, there were no tourists, no passers-by. The seagulls disappeared because there was no scavenging opportunities. They mostly came inland. So apart from this rather eerie sense of almost pre or post-apocalyptic sense of, not just because it was COVID, but this sort of eerie silence caused generally for at least for a while when unshatter upon, at least by seagulls. And now obviously in lots of seaside places around the UK, I'm sure it's similar in other seagully and seaside places in other parts of the world where people listen to this podcast. Snatching ice creams and blah, blah, blah. So yeah, seagulls do it. Yesterday, when we got back in the car at Goodwood in the end of the afternoon, apart from how much dust collects on your car, if you park in the Goodwood car park, a couple of brave souls had noticed you parked their lovely cars, convertibles with the roof open thinking, that's going to be a cleaning job when you come back, because it's that very, very fine dust. Anyway, got back in the car, we're in the sausage. There was a big dollop right on the bonnet.

Speaker 4:
[42:19] There you go.

Speaker 3:
[42:21] When we came in, we were slightly early, we were on Saturday, but we were slightly early.

Speaker 1:
[42:25] Avian or human?

Speaker 3:
[42:28] I'd like to think if it was a human, then I think a swift appointment with their physician would have been in order to explain the whole content of the deposit. But when we got into the car park yesterday, we got a really great spot just near the exit. So we thought, okay, whatever time we go, we'll get straight out rather than the hour queue of getting out of the field.

Speaker 1:
[42:51] Was that you lot waving at me frantically when I left?

Speaker 3:
[42:54] Yesterday.

Speaker 1:
[42:55] On Saturday?

Speaker 3:
[42:56] No, this was on Sunday.

Speaker 1:
[42:58] Someone in a sausage was waving at me.

Speaker 3:
[43:01] No, we wouldn't have waved at you. Well, we might have gestured at you. So I think this bird thought, hey, he thinks he's had a lucky parking experience. Ha ha.

Speaker 4:
[43:13] Yes, exactly.

Speaker 3:
[43:15] So yeah, I think there is a deep state conspiracy, avian conspiracy of pooing. Yes.

Speaker 4:
[43:28] I think it's a bit George Orwell. I mean, we would love some solutions and some help in the comments about how to deal with-

Speaker 3:
[43:36] I mean, don't park under a tree. I mean, he should never, because we're all OCD.

Speaker 4:
[43:41] Sometimes you have no choice than to park under a tree, but you know.

Speaker 1:
[43:44] It also reminds us why universal research needs to be targeted in areas of real life, because if someone spent three years, some really clever students spent three years working out why cars poo, why birds poo on cars and where you should park, and gave and issued some guidance after that. But I think we'd all pay for that research, wouldn't we?

Speaker 4:
[44:00] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[44:01] So first of all, I think where I live, there are two trees around here. Wherever you park underneath them. I've been parking around here for 30-odd years. I know one tree, if you park underneath it here, you'll need a respray. There's a particular berry, there's a berry that tree produces. When the birds eat that and they poo on your car, it's so acidic, if you leave it there for a couple of days, it's going through the lacquer, it takes the lacquer off the paint. I had a Renault press car once, that needed re-spraying on the roof, because it was so yellow and the lacquer came off the roof. That bird's gizzards must have just been in a terrible state. So the tree thing is obvious. However, last week, another thing I did last week was, and I can't fit it all in, I had a good car week last week, was that Dara, the brilliant Dara, finally finished the V10 S85 M5 engine, right? And we took it to a rolling road, which will be in a film, I'm not going to give it away, but let's just say it did some really quiet, impressive numbers. And I came back and he polished it all up. And I remember, and we have, anyone that lives in a town has this jeopardy. You can either be convenient and take the space under the tree, or you create inconvenience for yourself when you drive further away from where you live to find the space that isn't under the tree. B. IE you consciously choose to save the paintwork of your car. You then park, and as you park, you look up and think, there is nowhere where a bird could be resting anywhere near here. And an hour later, you come out and a bird is shat all over your car. And it's not shat over the car next to it. So you do think there's a bird up there that's a massive Clarkson fan that doesn't like me or something. I don't know. And but I think there's another side to this. I think the car was clean, really clean. And we know that, you know, the old thing your grandma would tell you, well, Magpies like shiny things. They do. Cars, there's no doubt, and I bet you this can be proven, that very, very clean cars have a reflective quality to them that definitely attracts birds. There's no doubt. I don't have the science, but I think if your car is really clean, you're in trouble.

Speaker 2:
[46:16] I thought they take CDs and things when you put them in the garden, you know?

Speaker 1:
[46:20] Yeah. I think it was like, they do get, you know, when you wake up in the morning as a kid, you know, in the old days when you didn't have computers and stuff to do, your mate would come around to your house, and if you had a bit of a garden, within minutes, you would go, let's lob stones at that tree. That's what birds do. They meet up in the morning and they go, I bet you can't shit on that. They'll be under 50 feet up and they're doing 80 miles an hour. What a skill to be able to go, I'm going to, that's Harris's E61 M5 there. I'm going to splatter that because I know I had a really good mackerel dinner last night, and it's going to call mayhem. I don't like him anyway. His podcast is crap, and I'm going to make sure I do it all over his car.

Speaker 4:
[47:01] Definitely.

Speaker 1:
[47:03] Of course, it's happening. Of course, it's happening. I just, I don't believe it's not. Sometimes, sometimes you're convinced it's so targeted, like you've just cleaned your car. You've not had a bird pill in your car for weeks. When you come back, why would there be, unless there are humans running around throwing bags of bird pill at your car. The only thing I would say is, the only other thing I would say is, when you're removing seagull poo is a skill, and it's, there's more grit in there than you realize. You cannot just wipe it off. If you wipe it off, you might as well take a Brillo pad to your paperwork.

Speaker 4:
[47:37] You go in with your finger, then you instantly regret it.

Speaker 3:
[47:40] You said that, why would you remotely put your, why would you digitize the goo?

Speaker 4:
[47:46] Because I panic, I panic.

Speaker 3:
[47:48] God, that's...

Speaker 2:
[47:49] When there is a box of gloves for Christmas, Neil.

Speaker 1:
[47:54] I don't care about the aesthetics of cars really, but around here, I've got such, I had so much fear from the roof of that car being, needed to be resprayed, that a couple of years ago, I used, when the really bad ones had gone onto the bonnet or something, and I'd been away and it cooked in the summer, I'd go out with pads, wads, a very damp kitchen tissue, and leave them on there for a few hours just to try and lift them off and soak it. Otherwise, if you do anything with it, it's terrible.

Speaker 4:
[48:24] No, you've got to take it back to its liquid form.

Speaker 1:
[48:27] Yeah. So the internet tells me this. When humans have to poop, we can hold it in because we have control over our anus. In contrast, birds have what's called a cloaca, or as they say in Wales, a clack valve. It's rather common in the animal kingdom and ends up serving as an anus, urethra, and sometimes even a sex organ. In the end, they can't keep it closed. They're just like us, they eat and digest, but unlike us, they have no control. If it makes you feel better, they may well be trying to get away from your car, tragically defecating by accident onto it at the same time.

Speaker 3:
[49:10] They're literally shit scared.

Speaker 1:
[49:12] Yeah, that's it. They are literally shit scared.

Speaker 4:
[49:14] They're basically a fucking Lancaster. It's a bouncing bomb, isn't it? That is what they're doing.

Speaker 3:
[49:24] Are they the Barnes Wallace of the avian world?

Speaker 2:
[49:28] Boom, boom, boom.

Speaker 1:
[49:30] But you're quite right. When you look around at the ground, you're like, well, there's nothing else here. There's no Lancaster shit.

Speaker 3:
[49:40] Apart from Neil, have you ever had somebody, a bird, somebody, if you have had somebody's shit on your head? Maybe that's the story you want to hear another time.

Speaker 4:
[49:51] No, I haven't. No, I haven't.

Speaker 1:
[49:52] I have. I'll tell you my bird pulling on me story. This is really good. I went to bath. I bought a Phantom many years ago, and I drove it to bath with a friend. And I drove into bath, and I parked it in the center, and I got out of the car, and this was 2017, so I was a bit recognizable, you know, top gear, what have you. And as I got out and walked down the road, a bird shit on my head in such quantity that it covered my entire head and face.

Speaker 4:
[50:34] They were waiting for you. They seemed to be following you. The birds were following you from Bristol along the M4.

Speaker 1:
[50:42] It's impossible that that was an accident. And it was so much of it. I did not have about me anything that could remove that volume. So I had to walk into a shop covered in poo and go to the back to a sink and use bog roll to get it off me. It was incredible, absolutely incredible. And I looked up, I mean, it must, the bird should have been the size of a donkey to produce that much effluent. It's a remarkable thing that we see in our lives.

Speaker 4:
[51:12] Birds joining up as a, what do they call a group of airplanes? It's a squadron.

Speaker 3:
[51:21] Well, it's a flock, it's an aerodynamic effect, isn't it? Geese and other migratory birds adopt that sort of, you know, chevron echelon sort of, you know, V shaped bombing.

Speaker 1:
[51:38] We're an hour into this and we've covered two topics. So we're going to have to cut one of these out.

Speaker 3:
[51:43] I think the book ended this week's podcast, haven't we?

Speaker 1:
[51:48] I'm actually going to get rid of the next one, lads, because I want to do head up displays, which I think is very interesting. So can we discuss head up displays? Yes or no? Cooper, you can go first on this one.

Speaker 3:
[51:58] It's always been no for me. I don't like the distraction. It just feels, I've always thought it's a bit like when variable ratio steering was introduced to help people drive, which always felt like if you didn't have that, well, I didn't know how much to turn the steering wheel, so I decided to crash instead. I mean, if you can't drive, don't drive. And to me, a head up display always felt a bit like that. You know, the whole world for a century probably, roughly, maybe a bit less, had survived with, there's a speedometer, there's a tachometer rev counter to you kids out there, and oil and water and temperature fuel gauges. Why do I need to pretend I'm a fighter pilot? I'm thinking like, which button on the steering wheel releases the missile, or missile, as they would say, in the Alica Cestascia? But, but, that, the Bentiyaga, that we're borrowing the Bentayga, Speed, which is a special name for it, which is an absolute weapon. So Manish and I have to say, wouldn't know, that box of popcorn has been licked to within an inch of its life.

Speaker 1:
[53:28] It's got plenty more mileage left in it, I can assure you, mate. Don't you worry about that.

Speaker 3:
[53:32] So Manish and I spent the whole day driving the car together. There was a point in the day when Manish realized I wasn't letting him drive. But the Bent Hager, at large because I haven't had the time, just too busy, to find the button or the subroutine which turns the head-up display off. It's got to help you. I've quite liked it in an odd way. In the daytime when it's sunny, if you're wearing sunglasses, polarized, you can't see it, which actually I quite like. But when you have the sat-nav on, the Bentley sat-nav on, I haven't tried it with CarPlay, it will come up on the screen in the gun sight, the direction. I don't think I've completely changed my... The sausage has a head-up display, which I don't use. I mean, when I first picked it up in that very excited Christmas Eve, Christmas morning feeling when you pick up a new car, probably the last new car I picked up, and I drove away from Porsche Swindon, and the head-up display was on. I had to reverse it back and said, I'm not taking it. I'm rejecting it. It's got a head-up... I didn't quite say that. I sort of, maybe, is it getting older? I don't think it's getting older. But I did think actually there's a place for it. So I'm kind of a bit more open-minded about it. But don't think you're a fighter pilot.

Speaker 1:
[55:08] Yeah. I think that's fair enough. Manish, where do you stand on head-up displays? This is really, isn't it? This is nuanced for you.

Speaker 2:
[55:15] Well, not that nuanced. So yeah, the first thing to add is that, yeah, a day spent with Mr. Cooper in a car begins with, by the way, you're not driving this because I'm a bit of a funny messenger. Okay, literally began with that. Can I say that? Yeah, exactly. So we drove from Himmel Hempstead to Jaguar Classic, then we drove to Gaydon, then we drove all the way back to Himmel Hempstead and I was a happy passenger. And then basically, Chris gave me a 30 second press that button when you do this, that one, that one, that one, bye. I've never driven anything this big in my life. I think 20 minutes of supervised driving might have been helpful, but it's fine. And then I drove off and I have to say, it's the first time I've ever driven in a car with a head up display. And at the beginning, I found it a tiny bit distracting because it was quite bright. But it was, I mean, I assume these things are calibrated by the ambient light level, and we had very low sun because it was towards the end of the day. But I tell you, I thought it was absolutely certainly just knowing how fast you're going because the little digital speedometer is very, very useful. First of all, this car is a weapon, 630 horsepower. So this is 200 horsepower more than Lola. So this is a fast car. And I noticed on the M1 when I just touched the throttle to go from lane one to two, or two to three, you would go from 70 to high 80s, with barely a touch. Allegedly. Yeah. And I found the head-up display very, very useful. This is the kind of thing that stops you getting a ticket. But it was most useful when you get into central London, because you're not constantly flicking, especially in a car as deceptively quick as this, you're not flicking from the road to your speedometer every two seconds. And taking your eye off the road, I was able to just look at the road and travel at a perfect 18, 19 miles an hour all the way through, right up until a junction at Highgate when a bloke pulled up and said, do you know how fucking big your car is? Just literally said, fuck off, like that and drove off. Which I thought was a very naively actually, but criminal types. What can you say?

Speaker 1:
[57:43] I think, where do I stand on these things? I've got to make an admission here. I'm too short. They don't really work for me. I've got two BMWs outside here, both of them have head up displays and I can't see either of them. They don't offer. No, because I sit so low in the car. I tend to have the top of the instrument minnicle about where my forehead is. I have sun visor down, so I have quite a narrow aperture that I look out of. I sit so low in the car, I'm so small, I can't see them and they don't. So they're pretty useless. The few times I've had to test them, I've put the seat up higher so I can use them. I'm like Chris, they don't really work for me because they'd only work if I could keep them as a constant reminder of what I'm doing and I didn't have to constantly look at them. But I've never found one that actually sits in my line of sight. So the speedometer or whatever the information is always there with me, I always have to constantly look at it. And the moment you have to look at it, you might as well just look at the clock. It's sort of where I'm at with them. I think they are just... I mean, if you could have a big flashing... I mean, there's a couple that quite... The BMWs, where they... If you have the speed limit and you're above the speed limit in a 20 zone and it starts flashing, that can be really useful.

Speaker 4:
[59:01] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[59:02] But otherwise, no, I think that, in fact, if we were to pose the question, what are the most overrated options on a car, that would be high on my list, I think. What do you think, Neil Clifford?

Speaker 4:
[59:14] We're putting it on the list immediately. I was thinking about this about last week because I drove a car with it. And I thought, oh, I remember that. It's all a bit sort of 2009, isn't it? A head-up display or whenever they came out. We're all very excited.

Speaker 3:
[59:30] I was going to ask that question. What was the first car that a head-up display appeared on?

Speaker 4:
[59:35] I don't know. We'll find out.

Speaker 2:
[59:36] What's going to be MW?

Speaker 3:
[59:38] I think it was an E60. That's what I saw. It was an E65 series.

Speaker 1:
[59:43] I think an American car had it 10 years earlier.

Speaker 3:
[59:45] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[59:45] Really?

Speaker 3:
[59:46] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[59:49] We'll see that in the comments. People will answer and we'll be wrong and they'll be right. I remember getting a car, I don't know, until 11, 2012 with it. Because I like everything on. If I've bought it, if it's an option, I'll try and find a way to use it because it's just the more lights and bells and dashboard shit going on, the better for me. I remember crawling over the top of the dash to look, how does this thing work? I'm trying to look inside and you look inside, and you do think you're like an F-22 pilot with this thing. Very exciting. Then you look down and it's like a fucking candle. It's so shit when you look inside. It's like an Atari handheld Game Boy thing from the 70s, you know, Defender that you bought from Argus with your mum for Christmas. It's actually quite disappointing technology.

Speaker 1:
[60:49] Can I ask you, Neil, are we complicated about this car? Because I've got a version of that head of display in the car I've got. You've got quite a bit of a fight about describing this car. Is it coming home to stay or is it not coming home to stay?

Speaker 4:
[61:00] Well, I'm, no, the car, that is coming home to stay.

Speaker 1:
[61:04] Is it? Okay. Well, I'm being a bit cryptic. Can we talk about what the car is or no?

Speaker 4:
[61:09] Well, it's got an M, but a different number for yours. But the, no, I'm talking about the Project 8.

Speaker 1:
[61:15] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[61:15] There's the Project 8 and they are a bit disappointing. I mean, frankly, in my new role as chief executive of a car company, particularly designed and targeted at short people, now I've got my first brilliant idea. I'm going to get rid of the dashboard completely to attract all of the Chris Harris' of the world. And I'm going to, my head up display is actually going to be everything on the windscreen. So you don't need two sets of information. Everything is going to be, and then you've got a bigger windscreen, a better visibility. I'm actually going to get rid of the dashboard.

Speaker 1:
[61:54] Interesting. So you're looking at the front crash beam. That'd be nice.

Speaker 4:
[61:57] Yeah. So my automotive consultancy company, where we solve difficult problems for all car companies, that's the first one we're going to do. It is a bit disappointing, but I always leave it on because it's just exciting, isn't it, that it's there.

Speaker 3:
[62:12] Can I ask you a question? Because you've said something quite interesting about what you want it all on. If you get into a car and you discover that the massaging seats are on, I can't stand that. It's so distracting.

Speaker 1:
[62:27] Turn it off. The cornering seats on my M5 are good because they tried so hard with that. But there's a delay. So you get into the corner and suddenly they decided to wake up. You're half way into the corner, suddenly you get shoved to one side because they're quite powerful. Right, I've tried to tell you about these head up displays three times, but people keep stepping on my toes. Shut up for a minute, all of you. Jesus. Right, here we go. The first production car to feature a head up display was the 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme.

Speaker 4:
[62:58] Wow, yes.

Speaker 1:
[63:00] The system was introduced for the 1988 Cutlass Supreme and later in 1989 on the Pontiac Grand Prix. Nissan was a close follower introducing a head up display on the 1988 Nissan Silvia S13 in Japan. So BMW were 18 years behind.

Speaker 3:
[63:18] That Oldsmobile, was it 1988? That would have been top gunned, did that?

Speaker 1:
[63:25] Of course it would have been.

Speaker 3:
[63:26] 85, 86. Everyone wanted to be Tom Cruise.

Speaker 2:
[63:29] 86.

Speaker 1:
[63:31] Right, we're going to move on to... What time is it now? 10 past. We're going to go straight to our two car garage. So, it's a Jaguar 2 car garage today, as you can imagine, after the week we've had. It's been a very, very groundery week. You've spent your whole career at Jaguar, starting in the finance department, working your way through the business, and now you're a very senior manager, with a very clear understanding of the Jaguar DNA. You've been intimately involved in the creation of the new strategy and vision for Jaguar. You're touching 60, and you decided to treat yourself, part of your work for the last few years. What was that?

Speaker 4:
[64:12] Sorry, that was me at my wife's.

Speaker 1:
[64:15] It's ensuring that the new car has all the best bits of what makes a brilliant Jaguar. So you're cashing in one of your Isis, and as well as doing the long awaited extension on the house and a long holiday in California for car week, you've got 100k to buy what you see as the two best Jaguar cars that anyone could tell they were a Jaguar, even if they were blindfolded. The only criteria is one must be a convertible, the other has to have room to take the grandchildren out for a Sunday lunch. So that is, and Neil Clifford definitely didn't write that. He says he did, but there's no way, no, no way he wrote that. So let's, Neil can go first then actually, given that he's been honest about it.

Speaker 4:
[64:52] Look, it, okay, I'm gonna, unfortunately, your three car garages are all gonna be disappointing. So I'm gonna take all of the thunder and all of the excitement because my logic is magnificent on it.

Speaker 3:
[65:05] Come on then.

Speaker 4:
[65:07] You need two engines. You sat there with your notebook and your pen on a Sunday. You've watched Antiques Roadshow and you're gonna be like, right, what is my strategy here? I've got whatever underground. I need the straight six engine. I need that engine and I need the V12. So for Jaguar, I'm starting with engines. But then you've also written on your notepad, grace, space, pace. So you need the Jaguar DNA on that bit. And I'm not going E-type A because not enough money, deliberately not enough money really Manish to do the obvious, too obvious in my view, even though the E-type is magnificent, a bit obvious. So I'm going, I'm going XK120 and I've found a lovely one because these things, you know, unfortunately for these sellers of these cars, the people that want them are slowly dying. So they are going down at about five grand a month. Five years ago, 10 years ago, a magnificent one was 120 grand, 130 grand, 140 grand.

Speaker 1:
[66:19] I'm going to make my choices now very quickly, just so I can.

Speaker 4:
[66:25] So I'm going, because actually the beginning really for me of Jaguar, or actually just Jaguar is XK120. It was, it was, you know, 10 years, whatever, before e-type, magnificent bloody thing.

Speaker 3:
[66:39] 13 years before e-type.

Speaker 4:
[66:40] It created the C-type, it created the D-type, it really was the sperm that created the DNA of Jaguar. And you've got to go spats, let's just be clear. You have to go spats. So there's 75 grand you can get these cars for now. And there's only, there's only about three buyers for these cars that are left, are living. So you can go and offer them 65 grand for that. So that's wonderful. And then of course you've got to, you've got to go V12. I've always had, you can argue that series two and three are prettier, but for me, a boy of the 70s, walking to school and seeing one of these things, seeing that V12 badge, the X, the series one XJ in white, in white, look at that. It's 12 grand. Of course, you're going to have to spend 12 grand on it to actually get it home, probably, because it will overheat and it will be a disaster and the electrics are shit. But you know what? It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. V12, automatic, join the AA, get the top level of AA. There's probably a secret platinum level of AA.

Speaker 3:
[67:51] I think there is where the chief executive of the AA, Yakov Poundler, Yeah, you can watch that.

Speaker 1:
[67:59] Can we not have our great British regular day sponsored by the AA? It seems like a very good idea.

Speaker 3:
[68:04] Well, let me, that is a conversation which I have started, but now we're starting it in the public domain, Yakov, I apologize for my colleagues.

Speaker 4:
[68:13] Well, he needs to cough up. He needs to say that.

Speaker 1:
[68:17] On the very least, we need 10 AA vans on hand for the inevitable of the day, don't we?

Speaker 4:
[68:22] Well, it would be very busy from an income perspective. It would be a very successful day for him, I'm sure.

Speaker 3:
[68:28] I know that the president of the AA, Edmund King, who is just a wonderful British motoring ambassador and stalwart and voice, Edmund, if you're listening to this, and he lives not far from here, let's have a cup of tea.

Speaker 4:
[68:43] Yes. So XK120, XJ Series 1, V12, unbeatable.

Speaker 1:
[68:49] Is that a V12, that white car?

Speaker 4:
[68:51] Yep.

Speaker 1:
[68:54] Yeah, that's pretty good. Let's go to Manish.

Speaker 2:
[68:58] Well, for me, the key and operative word here was grandchildren. I'm assuming they're small. Just a little story that you guys know. When I was eight, I went to the Old Court, no, nine. I went to the Old Court Motor Fair, turned out to be the very last one. I saw the very first Jaguar XJS. It was red and I remember it was £9,217. I saw the stickers. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever got close to. You couldn't get close to the Lamborghini's, but you could go right up to the Jaguars, touch it, put your head inside. I was just genuinely gobsmacked by this car. You just think about the iterations of Jaguar that had been. You can go down the saloon route, so the XJs, but you had the E-types, the C-types, the XK120. This was obviously the two door iteration on the Jaguar branch. I thought they... It just looked Italian and exotic. It just didn't look like a Jaguar. It was so exotic. I rather fell in love with them. So my convertible, I found it was rather expensive. It's got very few miles on it, 1990 XJS blue automatic. I think it's in Belgium and it's 70,000 euros because it's done 9,000 kilometers. It's a mint car. It has no back seats at all. This is your convertible and wire wheels, the whole thing and the other key details. I really like the front headlights to be that hexagonal headlight rather than the double spots. I think the hexagonal headlights look better. My second car is a 1987 XJS hardtop, but it does have back seats in the back, just big enough for a brace of grandchildren.

Speaker 4:
[70:53] You're buying two XJSs.

Speaker 2:
[70:55] Exactly. I'm going for the double S1 convertible. I like that.

Speaker 4:
[71:00] Double denim.

Speaker 2:
[71:02] Both V12s, one right-hand drive, one left-hand drive, wire wheels. I would just get out of bed in the morning and just look at them from the front as I press my electric garage door. That is what I would do.

Speaker 4:
[71:15] I love this car.

Speaker 1:
[71:16] Two XGSs. I love the confidence. Chris Cooper.

Speaker 3:
[71:20] So Neil is often wrong, but on this one, he's dead right. It would have been XK120 with spats. There's a lovely little bit of video coming out shortly of those fantastic cars that I got to drive at Bicester Motion the other week. Pendyne Motors are very, very kindly provided their own car. It's a 120 with lots of very, very lovely, quite subtle upgrades. Synchromesh gearbox, limited slip diff, 300 Jaguars under the bonnet. It's the most fun. It just reminds you why you love driving and what a Jaguar should be. So that's going to be one of the cars at the Great British Jaguar Day. But I found on Car and Classic in the classifieds, a beautiful gray over red restored XK120 non-wire wheels with spats, which I thought was absolutely stunning. But the other one, I have to say, even I've impressed myself with this one. It is, and actually, I think it's sort of a bit like what Mr. Harris has got. It is an XJR Super V8 long wheelbase.

Speaker 4:
[72:39] That was good.

Speaker 3:
[72:40] Thank you. It was just, and when Manish and I were at Classic, Jaguar Classic, at Riton on Thursday, we happened to see her late majesty's day.

Speaker 2:
[72:54] I was hoping someone would bring this up.

Speaker 3:
[72:57] Her late majesty's majesty's Daimler Super V8 long wheelbase, which is her personal car. There's a picture on the little stand of it of her Madge driving the Daimler Super V8, literally just peering over the steering wheel.

Speaker 1:
[73:12] Which model was it, a 350 or a 300?

Speaker 3:
[73:14] A 350.

Speaker 1:
[73:15] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[73:17] And the best bit is the arm rest in the middle.

Speaker 1:
[73:23] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[73:23] Guess what?

Speaker 1:
[73:24] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[73:25] Space in the handbag. So we're going to have that car, the majesty's personal car. She drove that. Eat your heart out, Bentley.

Speaker 4:
[73:36] Oh, nice.

Speaker 3:
[73:37] So that's what I would do.

Speaker 1:
[73:39] This is proving to be annoying because it doesn't often happen this way, but I've chosen exactly the same XK120 as Neil chose from the same dealer. It's because I like them in dark colors with spats and it's an OTS, an open 2-seater, which I think is the best looking of them. I have gone for an X350 because I don't think it quite passes the, you could recognize it was a Jaguar criteria just by having a blindfold. I think it probably does, it misses the mark a bit there. But that increasingly, I think it's a really handsome car, the 350, particularly the XJR, better looking now than it was when it was new to me.

Speaker 4:
[74:20] Yes, yes.

Speaker 1:
[74:21] If you were going to do a retro, resto mod XJR, it would look like that. It's really clever. And of course they're all aluminum. They cost a shit ton to make. It's a very, very stiff, lightweight, you know, rust resilient shell. So if you buy the one I've got, the 300 series, there's a bit of rot. But these cars don't rot. They'll be around for a long, long time. It's quite un-jaguar-like. So yeah, I've chosen two cars that the other buggers have chosen already, which is quite unlike me. That was my 350, actually. It was an auction that's coming on Car and Classic in...

Speaker 4:
[74:57] Oh, yeah, I saw that.

Speaker 3:
[74:58] Yeah, it's really good.

Speaker 1:
[74:59] That was tomorrow's, an XJR in a dark blue. It's a really nice car. Everyone have a look at that. I want to do one more shout out to Car and Classic because normally you should judge an organization by its leader and Tom, who is Mr. Car and Classic, it's his business, he arrived at Goodwood. Well, no, he arrived at the Car and Classic sales gathering on Tuesday, having towed his Peugeot 405 Super Touring, which he pretty much repaired by hand from where he lives in the middle of Italy in a hundred thousand mile rain drover on an open trailer. He towed it all the way from Italy, do the Super Touring demonstration at Goodwood on Saturday, whereupon a belt came off the oil pump and I think he just hung around and stood there in his very nasty ovals, but judge a man by his actions, that's a real enthusiast. Anyone that tows a car from Italy when they could probably stick it in a transporter or something, is our kind of idiot. So well done, Tom.

Speaker 3:
[75:57] Yeah, he was also on the Saturday evening, he was under the car himself, trying to fix that pulley. He was well done, Tom.

Speaker 4:
[76:10] He was looking head up display, I think.

Speaker 3:
[76:12] You think it was, he'd lost it, he dropped it.

Speaker 1:
[76:15] Manish, give us a piece of music. Manish, give us a piece of music.

Speaker 2:
[76:20] Oh, the first film I ever directed in 2017, it was called Heroes. And we tried to buy this piece of music. It was just too expensive. But I thought about it when we were at Jaguar. It's called, tutto e bellissimo, everything is wonderful. And it's by a guy called Alberto Giroli. And you will love it. It is the breath of Jaguar for me.

Speaker 1:
[76:46] Very, very good. Neil Clifford.

Speaker 4:
[76:49] The only album to put on when you're picking up your brothers from Portsmouth at 7 a.m. to drive to Goodwood. And I got this muse love of this band from my brothers is The Who. And of course, if you are called Trevor Graham, Roger and Neil, you are going to like The Who because their names are so 70s. There's no other band. And Who's Next, best album. I'm not going to go for the obvious ones. Behind Blue Eyes, I've probably said it before. Great. And we just we sang along. It was just a special, special moment.

Speaker 1:
[77:23] Wonderful. Like it. And what car were you in?

Speaker 4:
[77:27] It may well have been a Rolls Royce Phantom.

Speaker 3:
[77:31] Had to be.

Speaker 4:
[77:32] You bastard.

Speaker 1:
[77:34] Fucking brilliant. I love it. Right. Off you go. Chris Cooper.

Speaker 3:
[77:38] I might have picked this before, but the day we had at Jaguar on Thursday, my little trip down to Sussex on Friday evening, afternoon even with my boys and their chum, Luke. Blue Skies, good company. Amazing cars. Got to be ELO, Mr. Blue Sky. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[78:01] Okay. I drove. This is interesting actually for me. My normal music streaming service stopped working on me on Tuesday morning, I think because one of my wonderful offspring had decided they wanted an eighth device for it to be on. I was first on the list, so I got hoofed off. Did you get that as well? You phone all of them and go, who fucking got me thrown off the streaming service?

Speaker 4:
[78:25] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[78:26] I did the rounds, no one put their hands up. I think my oldest said, I think that might have been me. I was left with what I had on my phone. I had some old albums that are on Apple iTunes that I owned or something. You're frantically trying to find stuff that you can listen to or an old audio book. I know that Manish is a massive Duran Duran fan. I like Duran Duran. I think they might be the best pop group from that era. They're fabulous. But if you listen to the intro to Rio, it's incredibly ambitious because it makes... It's one of those bits of music that makes no sense, then suddenly makes sense. So go and listen to the first 30 seconds of Rio, it might be genius, actually.

Speaker 2:
[79:09] It's produced, I think, by Colin Thurston. What they have is reverse synthesizers, making that very weird clanging noise. And then suddenly John Taylor with the bass guitar, woooo, ba-doom, boom, boom, boodoo-doo. Such a brilliant beginning. Really clever.

Speaker 1:
[79:24] So yeah, I thought... Darren, Darren, Rio.

Speaker 2:
[79:27] Genius.

Speaker 1:
[79:27] I want to... I also want to circle one thing. I posted a film of the 911SC on my channel. We had some good early access to that and I really enjoyed the project. The car, you know, I'm being sincere. I had no idea it would drive that well. How you can take the roof off a steel-shelled car and make it handle like that, I do not know. Their genius is over there. At the end of the film, there's a tracking shot and someone's following the car and it's a fairly aggressive slide at Vysakh, which sort of gets gathered up a few inches before you hit something. And the question is, what car is getting that shot if you're doing that in a GT3, or sorry, in an SC in front of you? The answer is this. It was a PDK 992 normal GT3 in a special order color yellow, and it's been driven by Mr. Andreas Projninger. I needed the boss to be chasing me so he could keep up. So there you go. That's the answer to that. And I'll post it on Instagram as well. I think that's all business covered. Have I missed anything out here? No, I think we're all right. Oh, yeah. Oh, one other thing. This is really bad. Instagram had a glitch on Saturday night. I got back and I thought I want to post a picture of the little alpha because it had a bad day and I'd had a really good time chatting to Tiff because Tiff is in the other alpha and he's my hero. He's part of the reason why I do this. Yeah, well, I want to be Tiff. I'm not as good as Tiff. I got better suntan than him. And I thought I'd post a photo of me and Tiff and it went black and white on my Instagram and everyone thought I was posting a photo because Tiff had passed away. But my old mucker Paddy McGuinness yesterday was all over his media going, if I post a photo, it goes black and white. And it did. I don't know why. I think it was a glitch for a few hours where Instagram took away the color on the photograph. So I apologize to everyone that is scared. Tiff is in ruder health than you could imagine. So he'll take you on to anything. But I do apologize if I scared you. On that note, I'd like to say a hearty goodbye from all of us. From Neil Clifford, Manish Pandey, Chris Cooper. You'll hear from us next week.