Max | SD1s, E Types & Growing Up on the Forecourt with The Tyre Kickers (Part 1)

The Old Car Lady is joined by Max, co-host of The Tyre Kickers, for the first of two conversations built around a shared childhood. Both grew up as car dealers’ kids: SD1s borrowed off the forecourt for family holidays, E types coming through by the hundred, and dads who were never really off duty. This is Part 1.

They cover the golden era of the trade: part exchanges valued at nine years old, the Sunday phone rota, the mortgage run to Glasgow and back, and every trick that kept a 70s and 80s forecourt moving. Max brought photographs, pinned on Sam’s Instagram and Facebook.

Featured Stories

Two Dealers’ Kids on the Same Forecourt: Max’s dad spent 25 years at an Austin main dealer before going it alone from home, supplying smaller dealers trade to trade with cars that had to move fast before the book knocked money off them. Sam’s world was the same. A conversation that starts with instant recognition and never runs dry.

Valuing Part Exchanges at Nine Years Old: Max would be sent round the back of the porter cabin to crawl over the stock while his dad smoked and chatted. No book, just brochure knowledge, rust points and instinct. He’d come back with a number and his dad would say 500 quid. It was 500 quid.

SD1s, E Types and Rubber Bumper MGBs: SD1s borrowed off the lot with 50 miles, returned two weeks later with 2,500 and sand in the boot. His dad had hundreds of E types coming through at the time. They were cheap. Nobody knew then.

The Sunday Phone Rota: Friday adverts, one home phone number and a family rota to cover the weekend in their best telephone voice. Teenagers blocking the line. Customers trying to get through. Considerable Sunday tension.

The Mortgage Run to Glasgow: One week the mortgage was due on Friday and the money wasn’t there. Max’s dad drove to Glasgow with a car, did a deal and came back. His mum went south to Frank Dale, did another deal there. They got back to the house just in time to go to the bank the next morning.

What You’ll Learn

Why trade to trade was a cleaner business than dealing with the public. How a nine-year-old learned to value a car by spec and rust points alone. What the glasses guide was for and how dealers played it against each other. Why an SD1 with 50 miles was the perfect family holiday car. Why there were always queues for SD1s in the 70s even when people said British cars weren’t selling. And what the Zabar sticker, the National Trust sticker and the Right Reverend log book entry all had in common.

A Nod To

The Tyre Kickers podcast with Max and Matt, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all platforms. 55,000 downloads, Independent Podcast Awards finalist. Find them at @thetyrekickersuk. Part 2 next week.

Vintage and Classic Car Competitions: use code SAM15 for 15% off. 

Dodo Juice: use code SAM10 for 10% off.

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This has been a Worth A Listen Production.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Hi, I'm Sam, the old car lady, and a very warm welcome to the Wheels and Deals podcast. Today I sat down with Max from the Tire Kickers Podcast, and we talked for so long that we split it into two parts with absolutely no apology because every single minute of this is worth listening to. Part one today is all about growing up. Now, Max and I are both car dealers' kids, we've got a load in common, and we had a brilliant reminiscent, a right laugh about what that meant. Bookets and sponges at the ready, the four courts, the caravans on pictures, and that Sunday phone rotor when our dad had a chant in the papers. Max also very kindly bought some fantastic photographs with him, and you can see all of those over on my Instagram and Facebook pages. Just look for at the old car lady, and I'll pin them so they're easy to find. So please do stay to the end today because we have discount codes for Dodo Juice Car Care products and the chance to win a fantastic classic car with classic and vintage car competitions at a discounted price. So, right, let's get into it. This is an epic story, and I think you're going to love it. I thought it'd be really interesting to get together because podcasting aside, we've got one thing in common. We are both car dealers' kids.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Yes, absolutely. I'm very proud. There's my dad there, uh sadly no longer with us, but uh that was when he was supplying West Mercia Police with all their police cars. So he looks like he's in the Sweeney because it's a 1970s.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

But no, he was very proud. He I think he supplied all of their cars in Worcestershire. So he did sell a lot of police cars. So what in what era? He joined uh a company called H. A. Saunders, which was an Austin dealer, in the late 1950s, straight out of school, so when he was 16, and stayed there till the late 80s, then he set up on his own. Well the mid eighties, then he set up on his own. So he was a car dealer all his life. So did he get a petrol he set up on his own from home, was he? He set up on his own from home. We had a big drive. And I realise now why we had a big drive, because there was always eight to ten cars on it. A massive drive. That's not just a big drive. He was always paranoid that the council would come and charge him business rates. So he tried to hide them behind a tree. Not big enough, sadly. But so he supplied other dealers with cars. So you know dealers had patches, which were bits of wasteland with porter cabins, and they lined their cars up at a zigzag, slapped some bunting on them, and then that was a car being responsible.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Well, a lot of people in the seventies and eighties, and my brother in the nineties, would uh squat. You found a piece of land that looked suitable.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

And you would just set up your pitch.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Pitch up. That's where the term comes from picked up.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Instantly you're a car dealer, wouldn't you? There was no barriers to entry there. It was just arrive, have a car, have some bunting and go. So on But it was I I mean, I think uh we've talked about this before. It was just such a great childhood because you just had an array of cars. Every night he'd bring home a different car for me to look at.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

This is the thing that people don't understand. We would have my dad had one car that was he kept for himself in all the time I knew him, and that was h for high days and holidays. But he would come home in a different car every night. And my mum's cars would be on a they would always they were always for sale, even the cars my mum's were my mum was running. So we were always on this kind of revolving door of what we had, and and we can I can't I can remember the cars my mum had, but there were plenty of them. And I going to school in a different car every morning, and uh if dad was taking us to school, it would be are we wedging ourselves in a two-seater, or if we got back seats, and you just you literally never knew My mum had a BM 2002 for a while where we had to yeah, but we walked up every morning with a carrier bag to sit on, even if it hadn't been raining, the seats were always wet. So we've got these you must have had that way.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Damn car smell.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Damp cars, damp car smell. But yeah, it's in what we've considered to be a normal childhood, and now look back and realise it. So it very much wasn't like that.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

You're very lucky. Because I remember at school, people's dads used to change their company cars every three years. And I remember another lad called Owen was so into his cars, but he had to wait a year and a half before he knew what his dad was going to get. So he was colouring into his exercise book about a a a Vauxhall Belmont, because that's how exciting it got for him, you know, the Astra with a boot. And that was his peak car.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

It was very spec level sensitive as well, wasn't it? You know, I mean you're we we had this conversation last week about the 70s and how spec level did define your social standing to a certain extent, you know.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Yeah, the shame of having a fiesta with a central console or without a central console. Or even worse, if a car didn't have a rev counter, that was poverty spec. No rev counter and you just didn't exist, did you? Do you remember that? It was so special.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

It was the demotion that, you know, if you didn't hit your numbers, you'd you'd be you'd be out of the GLX, you'd be back in an L. That was a threat. Wind up windows. Oh, the shame. You just wouldn't wind your windows.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

Your wife would never forgive you. No, exactly. What would the neighbours say? But it because it I remember all that company car thing, because dad's company cars were were always marinas, which was a badge of shame in our house, exactly. But then he'd come, he'd just borrow stuff off the forecall. So we always went on holiday and rover SD1s. Oh nice. We had a fleet of SD1s coming. And and there was always a cue for SD1s. People always think the car industry in the 70s, particularly British cars, weren't selling. But they were, you know, there were there were cues for credit 10s around the corner. So we always had SD1s. We had lots of Series 3E types.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

And he had a new mum had a new MGB every year, because that was in the late well, in mid-70s to late 70s. Um you couldn't shift them for love and money. So particularly the rubber bumpers. So we had lots of rubber bumper MGBs.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Well, we think that um the reason why MGB values are so low for what they are, I think they're an incredibly affordable car, is just because there are so many of them. Yeah, exactly. You can practically practically spec them. Yeah. If you want to go onto any of the well-known classic car auction or or classified sites. And I think that's why that they it's kept the values so affordable because there is just so many of them.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

A lot of choice.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Because they produce so many of them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Same with e-types at the moment, because they restore so many e-types. I mean, he uh Dad had just hundreds of e-types coming through all the time. And there was just they were just churning them out and they were cheap at the time. And that's why kind of they're getting cheaper now, isn't it? Because you do have a you've got a lot of choice in your e-type.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

They built a lot. A lot survived, a lot that didn't survive particularly well have been restored because the values were so high. They were a they were a financially you know an economically sustainable restoration. One of the few cars that were for a while. I just think shadows as well, you can spec them.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Because they made them in such huge numbers. Yeah. They're so readily available now. It it really controls the value, I think. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

I mean it's that's interesting because we never had, I can't remember any Rolls-Royces coming through. I've got a pretty good memory for all the stock. I've got some pictures of various cars. I can't remember Rolls-Royce's. I do remember people driving Rolls-Royce's in the 70s. Yeah. Because when you made it and you wanted to annoy your neighbours, he bought a silver shadow. Yeah. And then drove around in a puff of cigar smoke. I'm sorry. I don't remember us having any Rolls-Royces. There was a then uh a friend of Down's who had a silver cloud, and I went in the back of that and just got obsessed by it. But I think that was a only Rolls-Royce experience. Ours were a bit more humble. You know, we had a lot of British Leyland come through.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

See, I know, I know from listening to your podcast that you you've been teetering on the edge of a shadow for a while, haven't you?

SPEAKER_00 6:58

You are. I'm singing on the teeth of the shit. I just hit one small push and you'll be in one. It wouldn't take much, it's just there's a lot of bad silver shadows around. That's the problem. And I've seen all of them, I think, now.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Every single one.

SPEAKER_02 7:09

There's a lot of them.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

There's a lot of awful shadows. Yes. And there's a lot of very nice shadows, and there's even more in between ones which are perfectly usable. Yeah. They're practical, use an improvement. I wouldn't be frightened of them because anything that needs doing can be done. You know, those engines are fabulous to work on, parts are readily available. I think look out for the suspension at the back, make sure it's sitting right at the back. The brakes, if it hasn't been used, will always need a service and it runs on two different systems. But nothing that can't be done.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

So so your dad worked for a main dealer.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Main dealer. I think he was main dealer for 25 years. Then he left the main dealer in the 80s. Because remember, there was that kind of Thatcher boom after the Falklands, and up until say 1990, the the economy was on fire.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

So he left and basically bought part exchanges from garages in a sort of 30, 40 mile radius, and then he'd supply other smaller dealers on patches with cars. Because you know, these cars were like hot potatoes, they were constantly going down in value. You know, you've got a glasses guide there, the book, the book was always knock knocking money off them. So he had to move them really quickly. Yeah. So he would supply dealers and just keep a constant turnover of cars around them. Okay. And then in the summers, on s school summer holidays, I'd go with him in a little matching flat cap and go round.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Did you have a picture of that, don't you? No, I don't.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Oh no. I've got a couple of pictures. But I've I'd go round with him in matching clothes and doing all the valuing because I always talk about his period as well. Did you have the box?

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Did you have the box? I didn't need it. Oh.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Because he just he basically went to the porter cabin, they lit up cigarettes, they chatted about all the other car dealers, and they all slagged each other off. And then he said, Oh, go and have a look round the back, Max. And then he'd chat to the bloke and then send me off round to have a look at the part exchanges of the day. So I'd crawl all over them. And this is when I was kind of nine, ten, eleven, then come back and go, I like the cortina, that's quite nice. And he'd say, All right, I'll have a look. So he'd take it round the block, then he'd go in and offer somebody. And he'd say, Max, what's it worth?

SPEAKER_02 9:03

I was 500 quid.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

And so it's at 500 quid. And then he'd just basically, the bloke could either take it or not, and then he'd go home in the cortina.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

So obviously mini me valuing the cars for him. Yeah. How were you valuing them? Were you going through Glossy Sky to magazines or a weird instinct?

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Just I don't know where it came from, just a weird instinct to value second-handers. The cortinas, yeah. I don't know, you know, marinas and stuff. Because I I'd be so obsessed with spec, having read all the brochures as a kid, I'd kind of know if that was an HLS, you can actually had another 50 quid on it or something. So I'd be obsessed by spec and I'd just crawl around them and have a good look at them. Because you knew the rust points on these cars. You know, cars of the 70s, they're always rusting, but you could see where typically they went.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

I think they weren't made of the best steel, were they?

SPEAKER_00 9:45

No. But if they had a Zybart sticker, you thought, oh, that's okay then, isn't it? That's an extra 50 quid. My Porsche's not a Zybart stickers.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Zybart stickers. And then later on, Antiques Road show stickers for that window, because who's going to abuse a car that goes to the Antique Road show?

SPEAKER_00 9:56

National Trust stickers, they were always good.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

National Trust stickers. There was also the if you applied for a new logbook, you always did it in the name of the right Reverend Okay, yeah. Like Percy Bishop or something like that, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:07

For some reason, lady owners are always like highly prized.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

The right Reverend like Hillary Johnson or something like that. And then if it was a Jagmark II, it was always Mr. O'Cray. Daphne or Green.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

I mean you could go okay. Cock a history up dead easily. Oh, those car histories and and and also um the clocking, wasn't it? I mean, I don't remember any cars being clocked in front of my eyes, but there seems to be a hell of a lot of low mileage stuff around.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

I think we've passed the statute of limitations now. Exactly. Okay, it's not easy.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

I never saw him with a drill, let's just say that. But lots of the cars that were doing the circuit, because these cars would come through his hands two or three times, and they would be suspiciously lower mileage but worse condition.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

I think the chances are that the dealer you'd have bought them off had done it, and the dealer he sold them to would then do it again. I don't think your dad would have probably needed to have got involved in that. If you're doing trade-to-trade, there's no advantage in doing that.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

I don't think.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

So they all knew. It's like it's even now, you know, every E-type has always done 70,000 miles, whether it's a Series 1, 2, or 3. They've always done about 70. And also the Merck SLs, when I was looking into those, nobody's ever crossed 100,000 miles in a Merck SL, which is incredible because they go so well. Well, they just lose value. You know, the value graph drops off after 100,000 miles.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

And it's funny because I'm not frightened of a leggy R107 at all. What I am frightened of is one that's low mileage that hasn't been used for a long time. So I think because you you've driven yours up, haven't you? Yes, I have, yeah. From 220 miles. From the potwolves. Pot swatches. Potholes. Because the potholes. And so yours will be running really well because you use it regularly and you use it for long journal journeys as well, which helps. Whereas I what mileage has yours done? 99?

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Yeah, exactly.

unknown 11:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

It was 89, now it's 82. I've just used it in reverse a lot.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Yeah, and I d I we all we all get very obsessed with low mileage because that's where the value lies in terms of buying and selling them. But for cars, if I'm buying something for me to run, I love reasonably leggy, but with loads of service history that's been in recent use. Yeah, absolutely. That's ready to go.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

I I remember that from um Jaguar XJ's in the 70s, the Series 2s. A leggy XJ ran so much better than a low mileage one. Yeah. Because for a while we had we had quite a few XJ6s and XJ twelves. And Dad had a silver XJ12 and used it to do weddings in. Right. Uh, apart from the time that on a Saturday it just emptied all its brake fluid all over the drive. So we had to go and cart the bride around in a BMW 323i. Oh. And her face was a picture. She was not happy. So we stopped doing weddings after that because I used to clean the cars of confetti afterwards.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

I just I I couldn't I wouldn't want the pressure of cocking somebody's big day up by, like you say. It was a lot of pressure, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

And I don't think it was a particularly happy time. I remember at least two weddings he had to turn around and take the bride home because she didn't want to get married. And then also then he's in the middle of this kind of family scrub. Just pretending to pretending to Some fight at the wedding.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Leave it, Derek, it's not worth it. So I think it should have been me, and that's it's all right.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

I think he was glad to get out of weddings. I think he saw an opportunity, but he was glad to get out of it. But he did he was always looking for a deal. And this is why I was saying, you know, we were talking uh a couple of weeks ago about car dealers. He was never off duty. He was there was never a time he wasn't selling a car. So he came to my sports days, which wasn't to watch me play sport because I was rubbish. To sell cars. But to sell cars, to meet all the other dads and chat and smoke and sell them a car. He'd come around the pool at holidays, he'd be selling cars. He played cricket, he was a very good cricketer. You know, he'd he'd bowl somebody out and then on the way out, sell them a car. So he was never off duty, but was such a natural salesman that people didn't realise they were being sold a car. They just thought they were making a friend. I think that's the same. And then suddenly there was a car and money uh a keys and money transaction. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

There's also the fine art of somebody asking you to look out for a car and you're managing by the end of the conversation to convince them that isn't a car they want at all. They want something completely different that you just happen to have.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Exactly. Wasn't that isn't that interesting? Because people would come to him and say, I really want a Citroen DS. I love a Citroen DS, I want everything Citroen D S I know about, I I just want to buy a Citroen D S. And they'd walk away with a full cortina that was sitting in the corner. And they didn't even know they'd been sold a car. They just realized, what a great idea's a rubbish. Why don't you have a cortina?

SPEAKER_01 14:07

They'd have got home and sat down and thought, what's just happened? Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

But they'd be happy because you know he was a dealer for a long time, so his reputation was everything. So he didn't sell rubbish cars because he was selling them to people on our street. He sold them to my all my mates' dads, sold them to his cricket team. Everybody bought a car off him, so they had to be pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

I think you take reassurance from that though. If you're buying somebody off another dad at school, he's not selling you something that's got problems or that he knows has got problems, because he's got to see you again. You know, so it does it is reassuring.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

I remember because when I started working, my first boss walked up the drive and I could see him from my house thinking, what is my boss doing here? What on earth is he here for? Is he gonna sack me? And then dad came out and he'd sold him a Gulf GTI. He'd only met him once for five minutes. And he'd sold him this lovely Mark I Gulf GTI. So he was always on, and he was a very good car dealer, because he never really seemed to sell anything, he just became people's friends.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

There's a fine art to that.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

You're very good, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

There is a fine art to that. I can I can remember, I'm very similar to you, I can remember as a kid that we would be, I think my mum mentioned it in her in the Dealer's Wives podcast, where we'd be driving along somewhere in the States in a hire car, and my dad has sort of s slammed the anchors on because he just spotted something for sale in a pit, in a showroom, in a forecourt, and we would come home with like two containers worth full of cars from the States from our two-week family holiday. We don't really quite know how it happened, but but it but it was. I think and I think I the reason I get this is because I I I I am the same now and you are too, but when your job's your hobby and your hobby's your job. Yeah. But it's your life. You don't go on holiday to get away from your job. Exactly, yeah. Your job's always there because you love it and you enjoy it. And if if you were if you were on holiday somewhere and you just happen to see if a sale sign is something that was crazy rare. You've got to have it. You've got to go in and have it.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

How am I gonna get that home?

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Exactly. So all of a sudden, before you know it, you're googling import duties from wherever it is that you you are and and and sending a good email to your shipping agent to ask them if they can do it. But I I can remember that as well. And I can you remember the I don't know whether you would have had we always had adverts in papers and magazines and Sunday Times and that sort of thing. We just had a chant in, he used to call it a chant, couldn't leave the house. We had to leave the house on a rotor. And this is even well into the 80s, and then probably early 90s early 90s for sure, where we left, we had to we had a rotor on a Sunday. It'd be like, I'm going out, it's like, well, you can't because I am. You've got mamba phone. Okay, to answer the phone. To mamba phones.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

In a proper telephone voice, I hope.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Hello, and well, with the end of the with the end of your number. Yes. Not not your not your area code.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Hello to double nine one.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Have four five two nine seven. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

It's like that would mean anything. I remember my mum going over and picking up the phone because you're right, because we uh dad used to advertise on the Morgan Gazette and the Worcester Evening News. I think the Worcester Evening News was daily, but the Morgan Gazette was on Friday, it's big market. Morgan Gazette and Ledbury Reporter, and that advert advert went in on Friday. So Friday nights were were in, uh, my mum manning the phone and then passing over to him as though there was a team of people.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

I've got to speak through two accounts. I can remember doing things like um like when you were when you when you were a teenager and there was no such thing as mobile phones, was it? So if your friends wanted to speak to you, or you've met a boy or a girl and they were phoning you and it was all sort of quiet, your brother was upstairs trying to listen and all that kind of thing. And then I can remember my dad coming and saying, get off the phone. Exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Off the phone. Well, particularly if you dialed out, because that was expensive.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

It was more than blocking the line in case someone was trying to phone in. That was the problem. That was the problem in our house. It was always a big big no-no.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

I think for a while we had two phone lines. So there was a special kind of like car hotline, and then there was the non-phone.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

We'd always have the pitch or later on the showroom. So the adverts would always have two numbers in. Okay. The pitch or the showroom and then the home number. And I'm I'm pretty sure the Sunday Times ads always would just have the home number. Right. Because Dad kind of he did a lot of dealing from home as well. So the adverts for the good stuff were always from from the house. So you we'd have the adverts in the paper for like red line autos, but then he would always have adverts where it it was him, and that was our home address. Okay. And our home phone number, because this kind of stuff was kept in the garage at home. So this was this kind of more the well it was classic and was it thoroughbred and classic, classic and thoroughbred uh TNCC, Thoroughbred and Classic Cars.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Yeah, sorry. Is he using any car dealer stuff on it?

SPEAKER_01 18:16

No.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

My car for the last seven years. There we are.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

I no, it actually was, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Was it really, or was it like for five minutes?

SPEAKER_01 18:22

My personal car.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

That's selling my own car or my wife's car. I mean, I don't know how many cars were sold as my wife's car, but probably about thirty a year. She only drove one car, it's only the MGB.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

I've got loads of all that's like this, they're fascinating. And it's it's things like, you know, you'll get at the bottom where it's you own a chauffeur-driven, there we are. Well, of course it was. Is it a silver door or a silver wraith, probably? Silver Wraith. Silver Wraith. And then you'd get at the bottom, like the clearance stuff. So this would be stuff at some pitch. But that's the bit where you'd get like DB4s for 2995. Because nobody wanted to do that.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

DB4 manual, 3750.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Oh, there you go, there you go.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

I wish we were around them. We could have made an absolute.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

If only we knew. I can very much remember that. I can remember even things like, can you give me a lift to a friend's, or can you pick me up from school, or can you do something like that? And it was always like, no, I've got a punter coming, I'm waiting for a phone call, I've got an advert. And it always took priority. And do you know what? We never resented it. It was never a problem because it was just part of us. It was we knew no different.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

I uh you know our house was permanently open to customers seven days a week, 24 hours a day. So customers would pop in at the most awkward times, you know, nine o'clock at night, knock on the door. Uh eventually they put a door round the side of the house as a kind of like customer entrance. Because he'd sit in his office, then people would turn up. You could hear the cigarettes lighting up, and it's like, Mo, make me a cup of tea. The call would go out, and and Mum would faithfully come along with cups of tea for the customers, and then you'd just sit there and chat, and then they'd leave with a car. The one half of the house was just full of smoke and customers, and the other half of the house was us trying to watch Coronation Street.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Did you ever have it where though they'd be like they'd be like sibling rowls or the dog would be chewing something, or the door and then and then the the doorbeller go the customer and it was all like, oh hi! Hello.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

We'd be presented to the customers as the kind of idea of the kind of perfect family. So it's safe to buy a car from this man. Because look at his family.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Hello, can I make you a cup of tea or coffee? And then say, Don't buy that shit. I valued all these.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

Valued by a nine-year-old.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Yeah, but I think that um this leads me kind of nicely onto normally the part first part of the podcast with anyone for me is did you find the cars or did the cars find you? How did you get into them? What brought you to them? But I think when you're a car dealer's kid, it kind of goes without saying that it's just it's always been there.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Oh god, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

And I can remember when I lost my dad, I had to make a decision whether I traded on without him or shut the doors.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

And I couldn't bear the thought of not having a garage full of cars. Yeah. I think that really the thought of just kind of not even so much shutting the doors on the business, but just not having cars around me was awful. It was it was almost like I I felt it was breathed enough as it is, but the thought of can I mean could you could you start?

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Yeah. Well I didn't I I never I never wanted to be a car salesman because one, I was rubbish at it. And two, I just fell in love with cars. So I'd be rubbish because I'd just buy cars that I loved them. In fact, he had he for a while I don't know why. There were lots of commercials around, you know, Sherpa's marina vans. Yeah. And there was a Bedford.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Because it was good for business. It was good for business.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

There was no VAT or something on them. But it was a vatican. But I remember when I was five, there was a Bedford Comavan that was in stock for ages. It had grown mould around its wheels. That's how long it was around for. And I loved it. And he sold it. And I came home from school and it wasn't there, and I just burst into tears. I was insolable for about six months because I loved this Comavan stuff.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

I've had I've had one that that rolls Cloud 3 Continental Drophead, Chinese eye, only car my dad ever had everything. He ran Camargues, but they were always for sale. But that was the one that and we used to go away on holiday in it every summer, drive to the south of France, Sunday lunches, and that was the one where I loved that. And we we sold it because we emigrated, and we did take four or five cars with us, but not that one. Okay. So we made the decision to to sell the cars we took with us were going. Be for sale, so we took a couple of 428s. I think we took that Wraith, we took a dawn, but basically because they were so massive, the big old rollers, we could fill we didn't have to get a container for our clothes and furniture, we could just put them in the cars and put the can roll the cars on. But um, I can remember when we emigrated, I I said goodbye to my friends, like nanas and granddads, cheerfully waved them all off. Okay. When that car drove up the path, I absolutely broke my heart and didn't speak to her because I didn't understand why we were taking some cars. Okay, but not but we couldn't take that one.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Yeah. You do have a real emotional connection with these cars. And I just uh that my childhood was just every night, fresh car coming in, absolutely loving it, crawling all over it, learning the spec. Then when it went dark, I had to come inside. Then I'd read the brochure about it and learn the spec on that.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Do you not find that? You can get in a car and you you'll be hit by a smell.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Or or a dashboard or something, and it puts a lump in your throat. It's that kind of it's not just nostalgia, it's emotional.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Or the s the noise of a starter on a on an A-series mini engine.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

As soon as that goes, it takes me straight back.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Or the smell of unburnt fuel in a car.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Just the starter motor without the engine starting.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

You can that kind of light noise sends me straight back. But all of that stuff, I mean it was it was such a good childhood. I've got some pictures here in the various cars. As soon as I learned to drive. What was your first car? It was a VW Beetle. Okay. Um because b Beatles are really cheap then. I've got a picture of it here actually. I bought it and then had it restored. So that's the pre. A 1303 with the elephant feet lights. And then that was the post. Wow. So burnt orange. But I mean that was the car I kind of owned. I well put these on the screen and I had so many cars that came down. I was so lucky.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Nice BM in the background as well.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

Yeah, 323I. It's nice.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

And a minute.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

You see, there there's a bit of grass there, but that was permanently covered in cars. And these are bushes that were hiding. Series 2 XJ6? Was that your dad's when you were? When I was 18? Was that 18? 18. Loved that. XJS 3.6, not the manual, but the auto. Had that when I was 19. Oh, I went to university in that actually. You didn't. Yeah. That's unbelievable. I must have come across as a right idiot turning up at university in an XJS. Uh Porsche 944. That's a 1986 944.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Is that a mobile phone you've got in 1994?

unknown 24:15

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Got the car phone connected somehow. What's this, a seven T 78? That's a 924.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

So did you do well with the girls at uni?

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Uh no.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

So the Porsche and the Jack didn't give you a hand.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Nine the 924, I got nicked in that for speeding on the M5. And I had three other mates in it, two crammed in the back. And they'd been drinking all day and just stank of booze. So the car. And when I was pulled over in a two-door Range Rover, that stupidly I hadn't spotted, because my two massive mates had blocked out my rearview mirror. Lights flashing. Pull down the window. I said, No, I haven't, but they have. And they're all taken. So yeah, I got nicked with that. MG, lots of MGs. Always B's. No, look at this. Sprite. Oh, I love a Sprite. Another Sprite. I love midges. This is Dad when he had a kind of like a Sprite demonstrator just when they got married. Oh look at this. I also had some rubbish. Ford Zodiac.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Yeah, I mean my mates all went camping in. You can keep that, I'm afraid. That one's the the MGs, I would have all of them, but The XJS is a good one. Camping in the actual Zodiac. Did you need the tent or did you just all sleep in the car? So big.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

What else was I doing?

SPEAKER_01 25:27

That's quite a I like that. Is that your moody arty photo with the lights on?

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Some fog. No fog lights in those. And then this is one of the SD1s we went on holiday in. I think this is somewhere in France. We used to drive to Spain in one of the SD1s that came off the forecourt. So it came off the forecourt with like 50 miles and went back on the forecourt two weeks later with two and a half thousand miles and some sand in the book. But I loved SD1. I I think they're a fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Huge fan of them. Did you go to the SD1 stand at the NEC show?

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Yes, I did.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

A few weeks ago. Yeah. Absolutely fabulous cars. So we'll caveat that with when they're it's like little girl in the book, but when they're good they're really good, and when they're bad they're rotten.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

You know, you don't want you don't want a bad SD1, do you?

SPEAKER_00 26:06

Right, because he was a very quick driver. And because he got away with b because he supplied the police with cars, I don't remember him ever being nicked. But he was super quick driving. I do remember a moment in a SD1 with 3,500 S. Yes. Coming over the Brava Hill. It was in three figures, and there was a car parked on the road in front of us, another car coming. And this is pre-ABS, and he was doing his cadence braking. Yeah. Which meant pumping the the brakes as hard as possible. Yeah. While at the same time holding me, because I didn't have a seatbelt. Yeah. But we yeah, we avoided the crash, luckily. But yeah, he was a quick driver. He he used to like the E9 BMW three litre CSI and CSL coupe base. And he overtook somebody on a road there so quickly that they followed him home, wanting to beat him up, I'm guessing. But then when he got out of the car, they just reversed off and sorry.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Is that like the Monday equivalent of the keyboard warrior?

SPEAKER_00 26:54

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

Yeah, it's all angry, but when face with you. Nothing to do.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

He's a bit glad. And when he got out of the car, obviously with a with a fag, and they just like backed off. That's me in my first car, which is the uh Oh look at the number place. Yeah, no, I did the main thing. Anything out from waking to going to sleep, I just thought cars, cars.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

So what did you study at uni?

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Politics.

unknown 27:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

I was expecting mechanical engineering then. No, no, while thinking about cars because it's it's just for a while I kind of tried to stop thinking about it, thinking this is no use, this is not going to get me a career. Frog eye sprite outside their bungalow when they first got married. Two minis in the frog eye sprites. And the mini clubman van that he you he had no interest in expensive cars. It was only about the the margins in it. Yeah. So as kids, we there was a mini van.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

Is that the Bedford behind it as well?

SPEAKER_00 27:46

No, I don't know whose that was. And there was just a bit of carpet in the back, and that's how we carted the kids around, which is just through them in the back of the van and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

You just rolled around in the back, didn't you?

SPEAKER_00 27:55

Doesn't seem normal to be honest. Seats were Seats for Warses.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

There were no seats, it's just you just sit on the floor.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

And then that's the that's the Jon Flynn New newscards with the number we used to have to recite when customers rang out.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

And a matching keyring. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

No expense spent on those key rings. Is that pleather? No.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Plether. A plastic leather plastic you can find. Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

But there wasn't really much marketing apart from those adverts in the newspaper, it was just word of mouth and just supplying these other dealers and just going around.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

I know that car dealers have a dodgy reputation back from those days, and it's all the Arthur Daily and the Delboy thing, but the reality is, if you were a super shady dealer, you couldn't exist. It's just your own business. You just couldn't because you didn't exist. The thing is as well, you had a pitch or you sold from your house, so people knew where to find you. And those were the days where, you know, we didn't have safe spaces and trigger warnings. If you had a problem with someone, you'd go and fill them in. So you didn't want to be the bloke on the forecourt with a line of angry customers because you'd have them over. And I think that this reputation of the dodgy dealer.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

No, you wouldn't have stayed in business because there were plenty of people who started up in business and were there for six months or a year, but then they were soon gone. And they did the moonlight flit. The moonlight. Moonlight flit. Done a flit. We still say that. That we've done a flit. And or it's just that we legged it. Yeah. Because there were too many customers knocking at his door saying this car is rubbish. That's why he saved the good cars for his friends. Yeah. And then the slightly less good cars were given around the trade to other people.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

So he was like only BCA.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

Yeah, exactly. Just all about moving stuff. And if it didn't sell at one patch in a month, he'd move it on to another patch, move it on to another, and finally it would sell. Every seat has a bum in the city.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

My dad's just say that, there's a bum for every seat. And I've got I've got his old stock box here as well. And the he brings a lot of stocking from there was like a big the main Mercedes dealership in Manchester was like Portman's. And the main supplier of a lot of American stuff at the time in the 80s and 90s was Baron Millett. And oh I know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

I remember their adverts.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

A lot of the stuff. Well, he knew Lawrence Millet was a friend of my dad's anyway. So my dad, you can see him buying stuff in from the main dealer, so that will have been the taking the part exchange in. He'd either go and have a coffee and wander around the back, or they'd phone and say, just taking the part X in that's for you, Ian.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

And he would buy off main dealers with the part X's to put through the showroom. And there's quite a few. There's a friend of my dad's called Lee Farrell who just did trade to trade for a long time. And you're dealing with pretty sensible people at both ends of the deal. I think that's that's the thing. And there's no expectations and there's no comeback.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

And you've got to protect your reputation. But and that comes back to what we said.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

Because one of in in the smoke-filled porter cabin, what they'd be doing is slagging off the other dealers they didn't like until they walked in and oh my mate, how are you lovely to me just talking about you? What a great deal. What a great car I had a few last month. But it was the customers, because he's sold to fewer and fewer customers because most of the customers were quite weird, uh the individual customers, and they always wanted something for nothing. And there was an inverse relationship is the less they paid for a car, the more they expensive.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

The more they wanted.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

So I remember him selling a Viva to somebody, and then two years later, I think he sold it for 200 quid. It's a green two-door viva, Vauxhall Viva. And they came back three years later, having done 25,000 miles, saying there's a bit of a noise in the gearbox, I want it replaced. And at that point, it's like, no, mate, sorry, you you haven't quite worked out what 200 quid meant. You know, you buy it and that's it. It's gone.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

Sold a scene. Yeah. So where do you stand? I'm just gonna resurrect a question from last week's podcast here. I am completely confused by the fact that the classic cars have the same consumer laws against them as a TV from Curries, for example. So they are ring fenced for tax and MOT, as we know, so they're already recognised as being a different entity in terms of maintenance, how people use them, when people use them, and expectations for condition and that sort of thing. Yet they're not ring-fenced separately for consumer law. So I I think the olden days where you could agree a solder scene deal and you both agree, not stitching people up. I'm not talking about. That's the whole point. Yeah, and lots of people come to buy a car from me that that know them better mechanically than I do. Yeah. Especially, you know, the customers for the American stuff, they tend to be enthusiasts that have had them before and have had them for a long time and know a lot about them. Now, and if I say to them, well, this is the retail price, or you can drive it away today, I'll give you a 10% discount off that price. And anything that happens, you sort out yourself. And if that blokes a qualified mechanic or he's knows them inside out, or he's very good at spotting and correcting any mistakes, and accepts that during the next six months there is going to be wear and tear, preventative maintenance as a minimum. Most people that buy would love the opportunity to say, Well, I'll tell you what, let me 10% off and I'll take it as it is. And I don't expect anything. And I think that on classic cars we should be able to ring fence. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

I want to be able to walk into a deal and saying, I am a grown-up, you know, I don't need babing about these things. I can look around a car and see if it's all right. And if it's possibility. Yeah, I think so. Because it's interesting, dad's business, because he was running on his wits, and I really I really appreciated it as I got older about how we'd have to get up in the morning and make money at the end of the day. There's no salary, there's no wages. You know, you had to live off your wits. And as I got older, I realised actually that was quite a hard existence because he had kids to bring up. Mum worked as well, and actually mum's business, it was never mentioned, but mum's business did better than dad's. Oh shh. But obviously that would never intrude on reality. Don't mention the woman being the primary breadwinner. Because he never I never saw him do any housework. I never s did you see your dad Hoover?

SPEAKER_01 33:20

Do you know what? I'm gonna be honest with you, I did, because in the after my mum and dad got divorced, they ended up actually ended up living in separate countries and me and my brother were Yeah, bad divorce then. Yeah. That was a big one. So there was a time where it was me and my dad and my brother. So we did all kind of have to slightly muck in a little bit because there was no wife in the house at the time.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

But this was a very demarcated existence, you know. Mum would go to work and then come home and cook the tea. And then on one night of the week on Sunday nights, Dad would cook us chips because that was his one kind of Sunday Sunday roast.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

So that was the Sunday roast. No, not even just just chips, literally just chips.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

Because he'd been working from Monday to Saturday and he'd play cricket on Sunday. Sunday night he'd cook chips. He'd use every implement in the kitchen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

It would have taken longer to clear up his mess than to make a chip.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

Then Mum would come down and clear up. And then also we'd have to be so incredibly grateful that Dad had cooked us chips because he'd I'm doing some parenting, I've cooked some chips.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Most most excellent parenting.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

His job was to smoke and sell cars, and that was it. There was no kind of messing around with with parenting. But I'm not it's that's not a criticism because we had such a fantastic childhood. But it was a very 70s childhood. You know, it was smokes and blokes on that side of the house and wife and gets on that side.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Mum my mum very much looked after the house. She also very much cleaned a lot of cars, dealt with a lot of punters, you know, she was very much part of the family business. I think that my dad I've got really happy memories because I used to go to the pitch with my dad on a Saturday. So my brother would stay at home baking with my mum, bigoted, and I used to go to the pitch with my dad. So I've got really happy memories of freezing coal, bucket and sponge. We started off with caravans. We had like a small caravan and then we had a big static caravan and then we had a big brick-built office. So yeah, we moved we were moving up. And I, you know, I can I I got paid in like sweet Sherbet Pips. Who remembers Sherbet Pipps? I mean, 10p of Sherbet Pitts in the 70s is quite easy.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

I actually got I did 20p an hour for a car, and I could clean I could clean a car, tea cut it and polish it and clean the inside in five hours, so I made a quid on it.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

I remember the excitement of being promoted to taking the tea cut off, not just putting it on. Oh wow. Because we used to we'd like do a car together. Yeah. Pretty sure looking back I was doing fuck or but messing with the cloth. But he made me think I was putting the tea cut on. No, I got to all the time. But I can remember soft cloths. When I got to the age where I was actually tea cutting them. And then all of a sudden it felt like really hard work.

SPEAKER_00 35:32

Tea cutting is hard work. And I tried to do it on a couple of cars.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

And that's before we had the old you didn't plug your hand. You didn't plug your off cloth in, did you?

SPEAKER_00 35:40

Well I used to tea cut an entire car, and I remember um Volkswagen reds would always go very off colour. And they could really be brought back. So you could buy them cheap and sell them for a good price. And BL whites, always old English white, would come back really nicely after a good teacup.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

Yeah, you put a post on about your silver. The smell of that. I've read the post and I could smell brasso. Absolutely. You open the turn and that's toxic, it's probably taken two years off our life. Yeah, it's like that was the magic marker of my generation. We we didn't sniff glue, we sniffed brasso. The smell of teacup. I love the smell of teacup. But I I can remember as well he'd have different uh like brazing pastes, which for anyone that doesn't know, like cutting compound essentially. That was heavy duty stuff. That was heavy duty stuff, yeah. So we'd have different brazing pastes that'll polish out. Do you remember that? That'll polish up, that'll polish up.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

Polish the money in, isn't it? That's a Mike Brewer phrase as well. But that was a common trade for, oh yeah, polish the money into that.

SPEAKER_01 36:33

But you know, this I hey, listen to a lot to a certain extent, that's how I make my money. I bring cars in and I improve them. Yeah. Whether that's bringing the paint back. And there's, you know, there's incredible, a really good paint correction clean. Can can you can make it look like a car's been painted. And I'm not doing anything that anybody else couldn't do. It's just that I I recognise it can be done and I put the work in. I think it goes back to Shane's plug for earlier episodes of my podcast here on on my mum's, but she did tell a story about there was one one week where the mortgage was due on a Friday and they didn't have it.

SPEAKER_02 37:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

So my dad drove up to Glasgow with a car, do a deal, pick one up, bring it back. He sent my mum down with me and my brother in the car to Frank Dales, who's Jim Crickmay was a great friend of the family, to do a deal down there with Jim, well, it would have been Jim or Ivor. So she came back with another car and some cash, and they got back to the house just in time for going to the bank the following day to pay the cash in. Okay. To pay the mortgage. It was tight. It really was tight. I mean, yeah, and and you know, we lived in the most amazing house and we had all these cars and and an incredible childhood. But we weren't always cash rich. And you were, like you say, the thing is you might have your mortgage money sat there, but then you're offered a car that's got a load of profit in.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

So the mortgage money goes on that, and then you've got to I don't know whether there's an excitement and an adrenaline to living that way. I don't think everybody could, but it's not for everybody, isn't it? I think for the people that could, they couldn't have done a nine to five, happily. No.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

I mean, both my mum and my dad were self-employed, and that was a it was a culture and it's a lifestyle. And I think they understood each other because they were both self-employed. Because if one had had a salaried job, you wouldn't probably understand the hand to mouth. Because it was, you know, one week you'd looked to what furniture you could buy to keep warm, and the next week you'd have sold two or three cars and you'd be loaded with cash. Yeah. So it was it was kind of feast or famine. And that was what was interesting, is that I appreciate that now because he had to, you know, they had to find them all goods, they had to find the school fees and stuff. So they did have to turn that money out. And that's what living on your wits was. You woke up on Monday morning, thinking, right, I've got to make 500 quid today off this.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

And it could be could be feast and famine. Yeah. We were on holiday last week, we both worked for ourselves, and we are the phones are ringing, you've got to pick it up. And the kids are like, Oh mum, done on the phone again. It's like, well, sorry kids, but that's why you're in Spain.

SPEAKER_00 38:41

Well it's it's funny because we used to make a joke about dad being tight. His dad, who was a farmer, was just unbelievably tight. Classic, you know, held his trousers up with string. But dad would never put in more than a pound's worth of petrol into a car, which is probably about a gallon. And also he had a technique which was called freewheeling, which he was famous for. That as soon as he came to a hill, he'd turn the engine off to save fuel. And so he could get uh from the we lived near the Morgan Hills, so he could get from where he used to work at the top of the Morgan Hills home without turning the engine on, that was four miles. If if the lights were with him. If the lights were against him, he'd pop the clutch in, put it into gear, start it, let the clutch out for a bit, get a bit of momentum. Start it. Turn it off. Yeah. And then if it was at night, he'd just use the battery for the lights. Uh and then the battery would be flat by the time he coasted in, and there was a slight incline. So in the morning he put it in reverse, let go of the handbrake, bump started, and it would start again. But he was so tight. But I realise that now because the margins were tight. You know, you didn't want to waste two quid on fuel what you could waste.

SPEAKER_01 39:38

The only problem I have with that, and I know the old dealers did it all the time, bringing on fumes, is sucking all the shit up through the carbs from an empty tank. Do you remember siphoning petrol out because something had something had come in on parts exchange with a full tank of fuel?

SPEAKER_00 39:55

No, because he'd just use it. He'd use it until it was empty and then he'd sell it.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

See, Dad had a pitch, and I put a picture up where he could have like 40 cars on the pitch at one time.

SPEAKER_00 40:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 40:03

So he would come home in a different car every night, but there were still a lot of other cars there. So if something came in with a full tank of fuel, if it's pipe hours.

SPEAKER_00 40:12

If it was MOT'd, taxed and had fuel in it, it was bonanza, and then that would be his car. Because he had no pride about what kind of car he drove. He was not bothered about them. He that would be his car for as long as the fuel or the MOT or the tax ran out, whichever ran out first, that would be gone.

SPEAKER_01 40:25

But lots of us still do that. And now I had like a car show last year to go to, it's like what you're taking, it's like that whatever's nearest the door and's got fuel in it.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 40:33

You know, whatever's not three cars deep.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

Well, I do that with hire cars now. I take it from the airport and I work out how long, how many miles I can do before the gauge moves off F. And then I know if it does 30 miles of that reserve when it's full, I can fill up 30 miles out from the airport and then coast back as as economically as possible with the car still full of the case. Your dad would be really proud. Yeah, well, he wouldn't have got a high car. See, we kind of gave the colour.

SPEAKER_01 41:00

Fastest car in the world is a renter. Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 41:03

And and that's why we used to drive on holiday everywhere and not fly, because he could get free cars and it wouldn't matter about the mileage. So he'd give it those SD1s off the lot and take them. We went went on holiday with four SD1s, I think, in different colours for four consecutive years. Uh a Rover P6 and Princesses. Princesses were a bit of a demotion in my eyes.

SPEAKER_01 41:24

I've got a bit of a soft spot for a princess. You have too. I know.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

It's got to be the HLS though.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

I had uh I had an ambassador about three years ago. I was I fell in love with it. Really? An ugly front though, isn't it? It's the isn't it the front from the Issa? It's so ugly, it's gorgeous. Uh listen, I have a real thing about I look for all the Marmite cars. I love a Camargue, I love a Lagonda, I like an Ambassador, I like a TL7, all the cars. I like TL7. I know, I like high-bodies stuff.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

I remember being in the dealership on Saturday, so when I used to go in with them playing with the TR7 lights.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

Yeah. Well, just turning them on, they did that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

It never quite worked properly, didn't it?

SPEAKER_01 41:58

Winking, not thinking. So BL wasn't a thing in my house when I was young at all. Oh no, we're a BL fan. Yet now I have a real suspot for them. So I it is literally just because I like them personal taste, not because of the nostalgia thing, but you kind of grew up with that BL thing, didn't you?

SPEAKER_00 42:12

I mean, I loved them. I mean Triumph Dolomite Sprints.

SPEAKER_01 42:15

Fabulous.

SPEAKER_00 42:16

What a great car. I don't know why Escort Mark II RS2000s are worth so much more than a a dolly sprint.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

No, but if somebody said to me on a Sunday afternoon, right, you can go out, you can either take a uh a a brand new BMW or you can take a dolly sprint. I go not the afternoon in the sprint all day long.

SPEAKER_00 42:32

I borrowed a um I think it was a mimosa yellow dolly sprint for a week and I cooked the brakes on it because it was such a nice handling car. You could bowl them into a corner, back off a bit, get the tail out, dab a bit, floor it, and it would just handle beautifully. But I remember coming back with a brakes smoking and and he came out of his office and the brakes were smoking more than he was. There was more smoke coming from the brake. So he What have you done with that? And then go back inside. And say, I don't know, it's just got a bit hot. But the smell of hot brakes on a dolly sprint is something that takes me right back.

SPEAKER_01 43:01

Especially when you peed on it to cool them down. That's everyone used to do, didn't they? Did you never have to do that?

SPEAKER_00 43:06

I did take cars back which have been damaged.

SPEAKER_01 43:08

I just for the record, I've never done that either, obviously. But that was a thing. It was a thing.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

I took back an Audi 80 sport with a uh I'd curb the wheel so badly at speed that he just came out and went why'd you do that? And rolled his eyes and went back in. But it was just there was such a huge conveyor belt of cars. Um there was always eight or nine in the drive. That as soon as I got my driving licence, I was on his trader policy because I'd be driving him around. Yeah. I could just borrow any of them. So I had a Audi Quattro Coupe for a while, I used that. Mark II Golf GTI, I took my mates on holiday to that to Scotland. Citroen B X nineteen GTI. Oh wow. Um that I got nicked by the Irish police for speeding with that.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

I had a red BX GTI, um, and it ended up being the one that was in Tot Gare.

SPEAKER_00 43:50

And I think Chris Harris bought it. They used a corner really flat because of the suspension. They were fancy cars, though.

SPEAKER_01 43:55

I really enjoy driving them. Yeah, I do. I think they handle really, really well. They I think they're a really They're quite a responsive you don't exp you expect it to be wafty and floaty, like a Xantia or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 44:06

And lots of lots of golf GTIs are golfs. Right, being on the door handlers on those, because they used to handle amazing things.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

I think that's why I never got into like the the the Fords or the XR3Is and stuff like that, because I was always in our kind of group, you were either Ford or VW, and I was always a golf girl. So they were never on my radar because golfs were my car of choice. Or maybe you know I find a friend had come through as I had 205 GTIs, which I thought were superb and still do, but the golf sub GTIs was a very good thing.

SPEAKER_00 44:34

You really did feel the quality of a golf behind it.

SPEAKER_01 44:36

You just it was something and I I even down to daft things like I love the advertising of the day. Do you remember the Paula Hamilton? I do, yeah. Where she's like, you can have your diamonds and you can have your fur coat and you cover us, but I'm having the golf, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:48

And the advert where the driver had to whirl his wife's uh earrings because they were screaking.

SPEAKER_01 44:52

I always think that they then uh still are to a certain extent. They're completely classless. You don't know whether it's a multimillionaire or even though I think right. The YTS kid driving.

SPEAKER_00 45:02

I'm not a fan of the Mark VIII GTIs because they've got too much assistance, but the Mark VII Golf GTIs uh are cracking cars. Mark seven GTIs and Golf Rs, I think, are great sort of cars.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

R32 and R's, I like. After that, they kind of lost me because it the gearbox you you couldn't tell it what gear to go in. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 45:19

And also the d all the Mark VIII's wobble if you go over a white line, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 45:22

Oh uh wait, do you know what? We had a higher car and that it fought you when you tried to change lanes. It's it's so annoying. Yeah. And dangerous because I became more distracted with the car fighting me than the overtaking manoeuvre I was trying to do. And that is where we leave part one for today with Max from the Tire Kickers podcast. From Rover SD1s on the family drive to jaggy types on the forecourt, all the way through to university. What a story. Now, part two is coming next week, and trust me, it is well worth the wait. We get into the cars Max loves now, the quick fire round, and we have a very quick look at my dad's original stock book from the 80s. You're not going to believe some of the prizes he bought and sold for and some of the deals he managed to get over the line. For the chance to win a superb classic car, please head over to Classic and Vintage Car Competitions and use discount code SAM15 for a 15% discount across all the competitions. If you follow me on social media, you might have seen me this week minting my Porsche 928 with Dodo Juice products, which I swear by. And they've very kindly given us a 10% off discount code with SAM10. So don't forget, you can see all of Max's photos over on Facebook and Instagram at the old car lady, and I've pinned them to the top. You can hear more from Max on the Tie Kickers podcast, which I highly recommend. And you can get involved in our Facebook private group by joining the Old Car Lady classic car community. So until next time, happy motoring.