Andy from My Dad’s Car, E-Types, 944s and the Car Stories That Made Us

The Old Car Lady is joined by Andy from My Dad’s Car, the podcast that asks a very simple question with a very big answer: what car started it all?

They talk dads, workshops, car magazines, childhood passenger-seat memories, lockdown podcasting, Porsche side profiles, Halfords friendships, and why the car bug is so often passed down through people rather than horsepower figures. Andy shares the story of his dad’s trim shop, the cars that came and went, and the primrose yellow E-Type that still sits in the memory, even if not in the garage.

Featured Stories

The Podcast That Started In Lockdown: Andy explains how My Dad’s Car grew out of lockdown, Clubhouse, Instagram Lives, working from home, and the loss of his dad. What began as an idea became a place for people to talk about the parents, memories and cars that shaped them.

The Trim Shop Childhood: Andy’s dad was a car trimmer, with a flat above the shop and a workshop full of interesting cars. Visits often meant one question: “What cars have you got in?” Sometimes there was even a quick trip round the block.

The Primrose Yellow E-Type: One of the big memories is a 1967 Series 1½ Jaguar E-Type roadster, taken in as payment, restored, and later sold before classic prices went wild. A proper childhood hero car, even if owning one now is another matter entirely.

The Cars People Go Back For: Sam and Andy talk about the emotional pull of the cars we grew up with. The Beetles, Escorts, Sunbeams, Sierras, Minis, Golfs and family cars that were ordinary once, but become precious because of who was driving them.

The Last Of The Analogue Cars: MX-5s, MR2s, early Golfs, Polos, Saxos, Civics and Boxsters all get a mention as Sam and Andy wonder whether the 1990s and early 2000s cars could become the next big classic scene.

EVs, Range Anxiety And The Future Of Car Love: From Teslas on the school run to smart motorways, scrappage schemes and driver aids, the conversation turns to what today’s children will remember. Will they fall for a neighbour’s EV, or will classic car meets, social media and real driving experiences keep the old-car bug alive?

A Nod To

My Dad’s Car podcast

Andy and John, who have now recorded more than 100 episodes about the cars, parents and stories that got people into motoring.

Toyota MR2 raffle at Raffall: two free entries with code MR2POD. 51,000 miles, 11-month MOT. Proceeds to Dogs Trust.

https://raffall.com/bring_your_trailer_classics

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This has been a Worth A Listen Production.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Hi, I'm Samuel Car Lady. Welcome to the Wheels and Deals Podcast. In this episode, I'm joined by Andy from My Dad's Car, the podcast that explores where our love of cars really begins. So we talk about our dads, our childhood memories, and the cars that have stayed with us and why things as simple as family runabouts or magazines or a neighbour's car can spark a lifelong obsession. So it was brilliant to sit down with Andy and talk about the cars, the people, and the memories that have just got under our skin. So let's crack on. Hi, Andy from My Dad's Car Podcast. You are responsible for starting me off on this whole podcast thing because you very kindly invited me to come on your show a little while ago and I thoroughly enjoyed it and it really got me into podcasts. So you are to blame for that. So you're the co-podcaster of My Dad's Car Podcast. And you explore what got people into cars, don't you? And we can almost all blame our dads. So I think that's obviously very aptly named. How did it all start?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Yeah, it's all convoluted, really, it all joins together. The podcast thing started during lockdown, during COVID. I was working at home, so I work in marketing, but for a car parts, classic car parts company, we do VW Porsche Land Rover Parts. And yeah, obviously no one could work in the office, so we were all working at home while I was out on exercising and things like that, and while I was doing stuff in the office at home, I had stuff on in the background. I basically looked out the window one day and I was like, something's going to come out of this that no one even knows exists yet. But I want to work out what that is and do it. So I just almost went searching for it. And I was listening to a lot of businessy type podcasts, things about making money, and yeah, just went round a trail, really. And then there was an app called Clubhouse. I don't know if you ever came across that, which I looked earlier and it c it's still going. But it was a social media that was being championed by a lot of podcasters, and the idea was you could go on, but it was all audio. People would create a clubhouse or a room, and you'd go on there and you could talk to all these other people in real time, and there would be people on there who would just be another person, then you'd get people who you'd actually had heard of, and they might be. There was a guy from Hoonigan on there at one point who was king, and yeah, various other people, kind of business owners and things. So I got into that, and then also during lockdown, I was doing Instagram live videos with kind of other people within our industry for work. So I started doing that interviewing thing as well. Those things all came together. Add into this, I lost my dad, I think nine years ago, who was a car guy, and I'm sure we'll touch on that a bit. Also, I was coming up 40 in 2023, and a friend of mine, and also a customer at work, had recently passed away. He was a car guy, had loads of cool cars, left behind a son. And I was like, somewhere along the line, this son will want to talk about his dad, I expect. In the same way I want to, and the same way others want to. I was like, okay, maybe I create something which is a platform for people to champion their parents in a way. So, yeah, all those sort of things came together.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

How did you partner up? How did you end up with a co-presenter?

SPEAKER_00 3:15

John and I used to work at Howford's back in the early noughties. Yeah, we got on really well there, had a similar sense of humour. I knew John had lost his dad 20 years ago, something like that. So we'd maintained contact, but hadn't met each other until we'd set the podcast up for about 10 years. I'd said, basically, I'm looking to do this. Is something you're interested in doing? And he was like, Yeah, I'm up for that. So we did an episode with a good friend of mine, actually, probably my best mate, I'd known for years, and we just had to practice it, we had to try it to see what would happen. We did that, and then we did a couple of others, and I just obviously recording it and doing the conversation's one thing, and then you've got to work out how you edit it and how you then turn it into a podcast, and it was like, okay, yeah, we're off.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

Did you enjoy it right from the start? Did you find it stressful getting it off the ground, or did you just love it from day one?

SPEAKER_00 4:10

The hardest bit about it is the editing, and I'm really picky. So go back more years, early noughties, me and some friends started a modified car clubs back in the Max Power era, and I was on a radio station talking about it, and they asked me what my first car was, and I said it was a Vauxhall polo rather than a Volkswagen polo. So basically I fluff I fluffed my words. All my friends had that response, and it haunted me for ages, so I'm really picky about the edit and make sure it might be back to haunting you now you've admitted it again, to be honest as well. But basically, make sure that I can kind of do everything I can to get people's stories as straight as they should be and kind of get rid of mumbles and people tripping over words and stuff. So yeah, I can do a 40-minute episode or something. I might spend eight hours editing it.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

I don't think people realise how much work goes on in the background for podcasts. I think they think we just record this, press send, and upload it to Spotify and Apple Podcasts and everything. Other platforms are available, but there's considerably more work goes into producing a podcast and recording it, I think.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Yeah. And yeah, I spent It was one of those things that I also did it for something to do. I hate just doing nothing. And during lockdown I built an Instagram page, which I ended up selling actually. And then Selling? Selling, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

Instagram pages.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

I don't know how official you can, but I did.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

Okay. How many followers did you have? Asking for a brand.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Fift 15,000.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

So I built a page which was basically it was called Stuttgart Side Shots. And it was basically the same photo over and over again. It had to be a dead-on side profile of a Porsche. And I was posting during lockdown, I was doing nine posts a day. That was my I want to say my snake that sounds terrible, but people were playing Candy Crush and all the rest on their phones. I was sat there in the chair, basically building this Instagram page, built that up, and a guy he started Soly Hole Sideshots, which was for Land Rovers, and we got talking and he was like, if you ever want to move it on, let me know. Cool. We shook hands and I didn't get rich out of it, but I did alright. The dream was sell it to Porsche.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

So your podcast has grown and grown and grown, and you've had some pretty big hitters on it guests. You've had Johnny Carpert, Johnny Smith, Mike Brewer, uh, Mike Fernie, Charlotte Bowden, the journalists. So you've had some really interesting guests, but what I love is that you mix the sort of the well-known and the ordinary people. And stories are extraordinarily similar, regardless of whether they are massive, big sort of TV, YouTube, internet motoring stars, or just someone that lives down the road. We've all pretty much got the same story to tell, haven't we? And it's how we got into cars. And I know the interesting thing as well, I know it's called my dad's car, but it's more about which car hooked you, wasn't it? Was it your neighbours? Was it your nanas? Was it was it your dads? Was it your teachers? Anything like that. And you know, most of us have got our dads to blame. Haven't you got VW magazine to blame? Performance VW? Isn't that wasn't that your gateway drug? I think you called it on a recent post.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

I've I there's loads of things to blame. So my dad is probably to blame. So he was a car trimmer. I grew up not living with him, but I'd see him every few weeks. And every time I went up there, it would basically be straight in in the door. He had a shop, he had a flat above it, and a workshop kind of up the side and at the back, straight in the workshop. What cars have you got in? Can we go out on it? All of those sort of things. From a very young age, that was it. From a Volkswagen point of view, yeah, Performance Volkswagen magazine. And Volksworld as well. I used to go to the shops age 10, 12, something like that with my mum. She'd go do the shop. I'd stand and read all the magazines, come home with a car magazine. Everyone else is buying a beano. I'm reading car mechanics, car and car conversions. I had that for years.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

I just dung on brochures because I'm partial to a car brochure.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

I've got a few kicking around.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

Did you collect them as a kid or was it mostly magazines from the news agent?

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Yeah, most mostly magazines. And it was only when I moved that I had to get rid of quite a lot of them, but kept some. There's some have just got the sentiment. Maybe it's a friend's car that's in it. That car resonated with you. I've written I've written some articles for Mags, so I've tried to keep those. But yeah, I just like that. There's something really special as a from an owner's point of view, and I've never had it really, having your car featured in a magazine. It's that recognition.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

More so than just, yeah, put a picture on their Instagram.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Yeah, it's personal. There's a connection.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

When your dad had a car in the trim shop and you'd say, Can we go out in it? Did he ever take you out in customers' cars?

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Yeah. So did he really? Yeah, so it would be generally he'd be under the the sort of guise of we need to turn this one around, or we've got it. Basically, his workshop was it was narrow to start with, so you could get three, four cars nose to tail, and it went out into a Y shape. So it might be under that guise, but there would be some moving around involved. We didn't do it all the time, but if there was something kind of half interesting, there'd be a there might be something and also we might get there and the seats would be out of it, which obviously be That would make sense. You're not doing much in that, but yeah, then other stuff we'd whiz round the block. And the other thing he did, he had a friend called Phil who was English, but he lived over in the US and used to import cars and bikes back to the UK. And Dad used to store them at his place. Basically, in return for storing stuff, he'd pay him with a car or a motorbike, and we'd also take those things to car shows. So we had like TR3 for a summer, we had an Alpha Spider, we had a Gatson Fairlady. Dad had an E-type off him as payment once, so he ended up restoring that.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

So yeah, these interesting and these different cars would turn up, and yeah, we'd go down and we did Bewley with him once, and we'd go to local kit car shows and classic shows and stuff. And yeah, with Dad and I'd have a day out and we'd just put a for sale sign in it, and yeah, I think if he sold the car, he'd got a drink out of it, or he'd be given a try of Bonneville as payment or something. Basket case be a-then days, it happens.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

So if you had to pick one that you that resonated the most with you that really hooked you, is there one that stands out for you?

SPEAKER_00 10:23

I guess the car that was I so Chuff Dad had was an E-type. He had a series one and a half 67 Primrose Yellow Roadster. He bought or he didn't buy that, he got given it by Phil, basically, and it was like a Flintstone. 4.2, yeah. It was a Flintstone car, basically, when he got it, it was a payment. Three of them came over, two of them got sold, he got given one, and yeah, he had that restored. Sadly, he lost out on the way the classic cars went, and he basically sold it for what he could have sold it for when he first got it as a wreck. But yeah, that's a cool car to say he had an E-type.

SPEAKER_02 10:57

Yeah. Has it left you with a hand creep for an E-type, or is it just a happy memory?

SPEAKER_00 11:01

I would love one, but they're beyond my reach, and I've not got space for one. So that's that's the thing. The other thing Dad did, he built his own car, he built a kit car, he built something called a Beauford, which is like a big wedding car, sort of 1930s-ish running boards, massive bonnets, got a six-cylinder dancing engine in, which it went to his kind of best friend. But John and I have this discussion of kind of, yeah, should you keep that car? His dad had a merc that they sold after his dad passed away. And that's I don't know how long it is, but it's huge. It's like I'm glad in many ways I haven't got it because if you had it, you couldn't sell it. It's then that's it.

SPEAKER_02 11:40

It can become an albatross because you don't you might it costs you to keep it, but you don't use it, so it's sort of it does become a little bit of a millstone. So, how many episodes have you got?

SPEAKER_00 11:50

You've got quite a back catalogue to go at on the We are we're over we're on about 103, 104, I think, at the moment.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

Okay. I can't possibly ask you who your favourite guest was, can I? But of all your guests that you've had on, who's maybe taken you by surprise, or or have there been any kind of shocks for you, or uh have they all been pretty much what you're expecting?

SPEAKER_00 12:10

No, we've had some really interesting stuff. We had one guy, a guy called Gary Hander. As a kid, he used to take his mum's Mercedes for a drive. But he wouldn't just take it for a drive, he'd dress up as if he was an old older person. So he'd wear a shirt and a tie and a flat hat and then take his mum's car for a drive.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

Well, in the in between is going field license.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Yeah, I guess so. And so that was pretty cool. We had a lady called Sarah, her dad was effectively Q, he worked for kind of Secret Service, in some sense, making kind of special stuff for at Scotland Yard, and that was pretty interesting, really. But yeah, it doesn't really matter whether you're born with a silver spoon or you've come from a councillor state or whatever. These all these little stories. We've had several cars that have been stolen and involved in bank robberies.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

We've had have any of them surprised you with the car that started it? Have you had any laugh field ones that took you by surprise?

SPEAKER_00 13:11

I'm trying to think. I'm trying to think. We've done they blend into loads. Yeah, yours yours were great, to be honest. Obviously, yours we've recorded yours.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

You have to say that though, because I'm sat here, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 13:23

We recorded yours pretty early on, and there was some there were some cool cars in there, wasn't there? Like the Rolls-Royce that went through the garage into the Mercedes Goldwing.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

No, it just messed. No, it went into the garage door and the Merk Goldwing was on the other side.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

We were playing bingo for kind of iconic cars mentioned in an episode. Like Yeah. That was and we have Rod Stewart in there as well.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

Oh Stewart's Mura.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

He yeah, he was he wasn't in the car. It wasn't his fault. Yeah, loads and loads of good ones.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

And because I know Johnny Smith, for example, he still owns his first car. He still owns the Beetle. Yeah. That was his first car. So you must come across some incredible stories about people who had this bug for such a long time, this car thing that, like you say, most of our dads have given us. I I just I wonder how many people end up with that not that exact car. They grew up with the Beetle was the first car, like you say, they still got the exact same, just another Beetle. Your dad with the E-type. I wonder how many people actually went on to to buy another one of those cars because of the memories they had when their dad was young. And did it disappoint when you got your hands back on it as a grown-up?

SPEAKER_00 14:30

We do get that where people it's gone for so and I think that's the same with a lot of stuff, probably with regards to music, especially you listen to stuff reminiscing of what you listen to with your parents. So yeah, if people do go back to that, yeah, there is a little bit where there's don't meet your heroes to a certain extent.

SPEAKER_02 14:48

Yeah, I listen, I think having wonderful memories of being driven around in a car can be very different to actually driving a thing 30, 40 years later. And I have a horrible feeling that some people's dreams are destroyed when they go and buy an e-type or an old Lambo or a Rolls or even something like Mini Metro that they have really fond memories of and they've always wanted, and then they get in one and it's not quite because they won't have driven it, will they, as a kid? Experience of owning one doesn't always stack up to the desire for one.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

We did one with a guy called Aid Brannon, who's a photographer.

SPEAKER_02 15:20

Yeah, no, he's done a photo shoot with me on the 968 I had a few years ago.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

And he's got a I think it's a Sunbeam Horizon, he's got a Mark III escort in yellow, and oh, he's got a Sierra Sapphire. I think it's a Cosworth actually, Sapphire Cosworth, but his dad had a sapphire as well. So he's got all these different cars that his parents owned, like almost kind of to the registration. They're not, but and those are kind of I guess very regular car. Cosworth may be exceptional, but the Sunbeam or the whatever it would have been Tool, but and the Escort Mark III, very sort of running the mill, but he's searched them out because they meant that much to him at that time.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

I think it's very difficult to explain to people who aren't into cars the way we are that there is a sentimental attachment to them. There is that kind of they do get you. And I think either you understand that or you don't. And I don't think that it's something that I think I can say, I think the car buggy is something either you that you either got or you haven't. And I I love the premise of your podcast about where that comes from. And it is almost always, like you say, a particular car that was there when you were young, that's sort of all your through your formative years, that has shaped your car hobby.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Yeah. For some people that comes really young, three, four, and then other people that's well into their teens. And it's only when they see something in the street that, like, actually, all of a sudden, all of a sudden, I want to get into that.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

I just wanted to interrupt Handy for a moment and say thanks so much to everyone that bought a raffle ticket for Stellar's Rover.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

It's been delivered this week to a delighted new owner that has won it for 50p. And now you can buy raffle tickets to win a Toyota MR2 Roadster. There's two free tickets for listeners at checkout with the code MR2POD. That's MR2 Pod. The car's only done 51,000 miles, it's got 11 months MOT. I've done about 300 miles in it, and proceeds from every ticket will go to the Dogs Trust. So it's a fabulous cause as well as a fabulous prize. Now, back to Andy's interview. I when we spoke about it on your show, it's really difficult for me because I don't have a car. I just and I only realise as a grown-up how much I took it for granted. They were just always there.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

Yeah, it wasn't a particular car, it was just cars. They were just part of the family and they're always there. But you've got a 944 now, haven't you? Yeah. And was there a significant portion of your childhood that we can blame, or is that just something that you've developed on your own?

SPEAKER_00 17:47

No, that's too it's two-pronged. So I used to walk there was a couple where I lived. So the house that backed onto ours, they had a gold one, 944. So I'd walk past that on my way to school every day. The going the other way, there was uh 968, a mint. It's not a club sport, I don't think. They still got it a mint 968, like peppermint colour. So the Transaxal Porsche was always the in the one that interests me of Porsche. We started doing Porsche parts at Heritage in 2018, so I bought one at the same time, coincided. I go out and go to events and things, I wanted to turn up in the right car. Poster cars, I guess, on the wall, F40, Lamborghini Kuntash, probably, were the things which were turning my head. But minis, beetles, then into golfs, it just was anything really.

SPEAKER_02 18:37

We had car posters on our bedroom wall. What about now? What about the kids today? I can't see anybody growing up with a lifelong love and hankering for next door neighbours cry us. Or Polestar or something.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

You joke, the kid next door really likes Teslas. Every time a Tesla goes past, he goes wild for a Tesla.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

Oh then maybe I'm wrong.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

And then other children actually on the score, because I've got two daughters. They'd spot new minis. That's their thing to look out for.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

But have you broken the news to them yet that they are BMWs?

SPEAKER_00 19:09

But yeah, I've not done that actually, to be fair. But I don't think BMW would mean a lot to them. We're generally VAG in the household. So Audi, Volkswagen, and obviously Porsche.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

Okay. So do you think the cars that are on the road now, and I guess the poster cars now are the cars on social media that they watch and see and develop a lifelong love for? What cars are they going to be? Do you think like we were, it was always the exotic stuff that was on your bedroom while I had a Jagex G220, a contact and a Diablo. What's it going to be now? Is it still going to be like the 9-11, the GT3s, and the new the Ferrari and stuff like that? Or do you think that the ordinary stuff is going to be because I know quite a few people that end up treating themselves to uh Manta GTE, mint lovely Manta GTE to drive and do the shows in high days and holidays. When they were kids, that was the one they wanted. The fast-forward scene, you know, that's all that's all come from pretty ordinary cars in terms of cars that are on the road, not the exotic stuff. What do you think's on the road now that you see daily on the school run that might end up being cars that people into car people?

SPEAKER_00 20:13

That's yeah, such a good question. I'd I don't know. I think obviously the sporty stuff always seems to stick around, doesn't it? As if you go back in time, something I'm familiar with, like golf GTIs, for example, the lesser models get scrapped off and everyone wants a GTI. I guess the sporty stuff tends to stay. But then, yeah, obviously those sort of things are becoming either more extreme, so you've now got 400 horsepower hot hatches, or yeah, you can't actually use those vehicles anyway.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

You know, I'm a big fan of a really raw analogue driving experience. I don't want to get in the modern golf R because it it tells me I'm in the wrong gear and it changes it for me. That's not my idea of a driving experience. And I wonder whether the kids that are passing their tests now or in the next sort of 10 or 15 years or so will ever enjoy driving quite the way. You had to master a car when we were kids, didn't you? You had to battle with it and it'd fight back. You see all the videos on Instagram of them sort of kicking it out on the roundabout or drifting down the bypass. You see them make a mistake and you can actually see the car correcting their mistake. Now, when we were young, that will put you in the hedge. Yeah. So I just wonder whether that kind of that did you do handbrake tone practicing in Big Car Park? Yeah, did you the last generation that did that kind of max powered it a little bit, maybe?

SPEAKER_00 21:32

We went to an airfield locally actually. They used to run like a Sunday market there, and we set up some cones and used to drive each other's cars around, and we got told in uncertain terms of when we came back that someone would kill us. The guy may as well have had a shotgun, he was very scary, and we didn't go back.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

But now there's very little to master in terms of modern cars because they override you and they get you out of a lot of trouble. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure with the sort of ridiculous brake horsepower, they get you into a lot of trouble as well. But from my perspective, Looking back to things like 205 GTIs, Golf GTIs, Red 05s with those ridiculous, you never knew quite when the turbo was going to kick in. Do you think the skill of it's also the skill of defensive driving are you A, you didn't want to crush your car because it because you loved your car, B, it'd really fucking hurt if you did. And C, the car would do absolutely nothing to help you out or get you out of trouble if you put it in a wet bend wrong. Or you you understood, or you oversteed, or you breathed at the wrong moment. The joy sometimes, I think, of getting a car to behave itself while you're driving it and mastering it is part of the adrenaline and part of the challenge. And I don't know whether modern cars will give the kids the same sort of raw analogue driving experience.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

I think what we've kind of got to also realise though, on the flip side, is that especially the guys who are passing their tests now, they've grown up being able to do all of the driving simulator type things. Like I was, I don't know, what, 10, 12 or whatever when Grand Turismo came out. But especially like the last five years, you could build a sim rig at home and drive anything around any circuit.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

Andy, I was on the Tori tennis when I was a kid. So I'm younger, I had to actually drive to drive.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Oh yeah, exactly. It wasn't until like I went go-karting as a I guess early teen, or you drive your sit on your dad's lap and drive around a field that that's when you started doing that. So a lot of these guys are now, if they're doing that and racing simulators and stuff, potentially they are then going, I don't want a new up or whatever it might be. I'm gonna do and especially around here, there's a lot of kind of teens, early 20s driving MX5s, early BMs, like that sort of drift culture's quite big.

SPEAKER_02 23:37

Yeah, it's his here as well, and that that kind of leads me, neatly too, is that kind of the last of the analogue drivers' cars going to have a renaissance because for the kids that do want to change a gear themselves and manage a car and master a car, are they going to want uh an MX5 and MR2, earlier golfs, earlier polos, that sort of thing? Saxos, they're a lot of fun, Honda Civics. There's lots of cars that I consider to be maybe, and it's probably the 90s and early 2000s, the cut off to my mark. Well, is this our next classic car scene? Because the kids don't have access to cars that are as much fun to drive as uh as the analogue cars.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

The other thing which is and amusingly is a lot of those cars are actually cheap to insure. People who are 18 are buying Porsche boxsters for three, four grand, because statistically the insurance no one has an accident, 18 in a Porsche boxer, because no one's driving one. The premiums will probably go up, but actually, they can insure one of those for the same price they can a one litre polo if they can afford to get into it or and or run it.

SPEAKER_02 24:41

But and but then we end up in we we end up in the grey area of cars that aren't maintained properly. Because they can't afford the two grand service, can they? If that's what your next big service ends.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Yeah. It's very true.

SPEAKER_02 24:52

But I think it's a really interesting question that so we know largely to listen to your podcast, the kind of cars that got people your age and my age into them. I think it's really it's a really interesting question in terms of what the kids in 10 or 20 years will be hankering after when they hit 40 with a bit disposable and coming like some garage space, what they're gonna want to fill that gap with. And I don't think it's a Tesla.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Oh no, it won't be. I think the sad thing will be is what will we be allowed to have it as well. So there'll be a yeah, will they have taxed those vehicles off the road or because I think there will be a we saw it with the scrappage scheme, didn't we? Obviously, there's a reduction in those kind of nineties classics. Well, can you believe it?

SPEAKER_02 25:33

Here we go again with a scrappage scheme.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Oh really?

SPEAKER_02 25:36

They brought it back? Up to five grand to chop your car in for an EV.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 25:41

Have we learnt nothing?

SPEAKER_00 25:43

And the fact is, if everyone in this country had an EV, we wouldn't be able to charge it anyway. The national grid would collapse.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

Most people that that got them struggle now. That we don't have the infrastructure for them. And I know I've mentioned it to you before. I've used one that we've we've got a sparrow on the path. It's it was tax effective to buy one, but neither of us actually really drive it, or neither of us really drive it. It's a spare car. My husband drives a Range Rover, so you always need a spare car. I did take it out and it's I had to go 50 miles and the range was 80. It's like, oh brilliant, I'd be fine. And I ended up coming back with my big coat on in silence because every time I turned something on, the range just dropped off a cliff. I think the range anxiety was absolutely real. And I come from the days where you walk down the hard shoulder for the other phone box to make the embarrassing call about can you come out with a jerry camp please? Or even worse, walk down the slip lane to get to the garage yourself. I'm not new to running out of juice. But the problem with these is you can't push them out the way. You can't you they've got no lights on once they die, and the smart motorway thing scares the shit out of me anyway. What happens if your electric car stops on a smart motorway?

SPEAKER_00 26:44

Yeah, it's lethal, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 26:46

It's horrible, it's terrifying. It's frightening enough in any car on a smart motorway, I think. But but yeah, I just I think it's really interesting about whether or not the cars now that we see on the road as being sort of modern classics are gonna have a real renaissance in 10 or 20 years because they're gonna be the last of the cars where you can tune them round, go lane bashing on a Sunday afternoon, spanner them yourself. We don't want people spannering electric cars, do we? Let's face it. We don't want anyone feckling themselves at home with those.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Yeah, the as the world kind of evolves and people are further removed from things. People do want experiences, they want to go back to Cove Music, they want to go to the theatre, they want to see people in person, they want to drive something that makes them feel like they're driving. So, yeah, the question obviously being whether or not someone wants to do that every day, but I am seeing a lot of people through work, younger people, especially girls as well, actually, in Land Rovers, yeah, Beatles, and just wanting to get out and about in the countryside, escape.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

Drive a car like that at 50, 60 miles an hour, feel like your hair's on fire and not lose your licence. I also think as well, we've got a real culture at the moment of leasing cars and almost like disposable cars. And I'm not sure whether the pride of ownership that there was with your first car or your second car or your third car when I was young, but was your pride and joy. And like I said, you probably drove a bit more defensively because you really didn't want to wrap it around a tree for love for various reasons. But I yeah, I'm not convinced that people go into cars these days with the same sort of buying mentality of I might have it for five or ten years, do I enjoy driving it? Because they all drive the same. When I think it costs of running because if you're plugging it in, you're not putting fuel in it. I know there's a cost to charging it, but it's knowing how much you're paying per gallon, is it the thing, or how much you're getting per gallon. So I don't know. I think it's I think it's really interesting listening to your podcast because it's almost like it makes me smile enormously listening to people's trips down memory lane to what brought them into the car world. So it raises the question of what about the next lot? What about the next generation? What's inspiring them now or what's really getting them there that they're gonna grow up hankering after and working hard to end up with one in the garage.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

I think there'll always be an interest for people in the past, and as long as there's people like myself and like you, etc., who are doing that in a public space, then yeah, in the same way people go to a steam railway, no one's gonna own one of those, like a steam train, but people get excited by that, and people will still want to go to a village fate with classic cars and things, and then potentially aspire to own something that's got some personality.

SPEAKER_02 29:14

I hope so. I think that I see a really strong scene with classic car meets, and I'm hoping that will be one of the things that brings people into it, not what your next door neighbour drives, like it perhaps used to be, but more you end up getting it through a friend of a friend, or just because you see a load of cars at your local pub and it camps. And I think that we need to have a look as an industry about insurance for under 25s for younger drivers as well, because it's not always easy to access classic car insurance when you're young. But I think that maybe the whole kind of classic car ownership culture will probably be a driver as opposed to what someone in your family or what someone in your immediate environment drives. Or I hope so anyway.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Yeah, I think that the community is just as good as the ownership.

SPEAKER_02 29:58

And that's where social media that's where social media help helps. I think a lot of people may stumble into it because they watch cool videos and they want to get involved and they want to do it. And and a lot of people are getting into it specifically to develop and cultivate a social media channel. I can honestly say hand on heart that when I was young, there was nowhere near the amount of 18-year-old girls in mini skirts driving Series 1 Landies as there are now. So I can only assume that we have the social media channels to thank for that. But whatever, if it keeps people interested in Series One Landies, and it certainly seems to be doing that, great, it's good for us, it's good for the industry, it keeps it buoyant and it keeps new people coming through. If young lads are gonna start going to car meets because they think she's gonna be there.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:41

Doing a job, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 30:43

Yeah, very true.

SPEAKER_02 30:44

And I think that in the day as AI becomes more prominent in everyday life, I think that that kind of very raw grassroots industry-like classic cars is gonna be a lot easier to navigate because it's not really something you can easily do with AI, is it?

SPEAKER_00 30:59

No, you don't get any of that attachment from it. And yeah, you can play a computer game all you like, but it's not the smell, it's not the feel, it's not the heart in your mouth.

SPEAKER_02 31:08

When you go yeah, go around the corner, oh, it's gonna this is gonna hurt. You see the head screen, or all of a sudden you're looking at the car that was behind you a minute ago. I talk about it like it like it's something thrilling that you should all be doing. Yeah, nobody wants to do that ever. But the reality was that we we drove cars that did that to us. And we drove them in a way that we did it to ourselves, probably.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

At some point, though, in the same way that when you learn to walk, you fall over, the sooner you do that in the safer the place, the better the driver you are. You then know what your limits are.

SPEAKER_02 31:38

Yeah, and I was alluding to this before that you drove within the parameters of your ability. Whereas now I think the car takes that away to a certain extent. Like I say, if you under steer or oversteer, the car will correct you. If it thinks you're in the wrong gear, it will correct you. If it thinks you should have braked and you didn't, it'll do it for you. I think that whilst the some of those dragging skills will disappear, I think a lot of um a lot of back to front cars will and cars sticking out of hedges. You just don't see cars in ditches anymore, do you? The way you used to. Good thing, obviously.

SPEAKER_01 32:09

It's been wonderful to chat to you, Andy. Can't thank you enough for coming on and I look forward to uh to speaking to you again soon.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

Not a problem at all, Sam. Yeah, good luck with it all.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

Yeah, thank you very much. And you see you soon. Bye-bye. See you later. Bye-bye. Huge thanks to Andy for joining me and sharing the story behind My Dad's Car podcast.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

It was a lovely reminder that cars are rarely just cars to so many of us. Their memories, their people, their places, their weekends, even things like the magazines and the garages and our neighbours' cars from when we were kids are moments that we carry with us.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

And maybe even in a world of EVs and leases and driver's aids, the next generation will still find their own car stories to tell. I really hope you enjoyed this week's episode. If you did, please do give me a like. If you've got time, leave me a review and please subscribe so you'll get automatic downloads every week.

SPEAKER_02 32:55

If you know anybody else who likes a bit of classic car nostalgia, please share it with them too. Until next week, happy motoring.