Building Gordon Murray's Car, Restomod Builds and First Cars - C.R.E.A.M. #56 Ft @retropowercars

0:00 Introduction and Welcome

So your first car, you engine swapped?

Yes.

So that's a good indication of things to come in.

I just want to turn up to a light,

someone go, "Oh boy, stop the old doing the Bentley."

And then just...

We just thought some man named Gordon Murray

was going to say that he knows he was going

to be here.

We're here.

What would you like from this car?

I don't want to survive it.

Cool.

That's not fair.

It

certainly won't be slow.

Hello, and welcome back to the 50s 6th Cars

Rule Everything Around Me podcast with

William, to my right, myself Edwin,

and then Nat and Callum from Retro Power Cars.

Actually, if you're a viewer,

you can see that we're not in our workshop.

They have very kindly lent us their podcast

set at the den because we've been having a

tour of Retro Power today and we've been nerding out.

Oh, yeah, it's been great.

But we kind of came to you guys with the

intent and purpose of having you on the

podcast because we thought you guys would be

very interesting guests.

For those of you that don't know if you're

listening, you've never heard of Retro Power

before, I'm going to say something that maybe

you'll take offense to, I don't know.

But the way I've always described it is that

you are singer-resto mods for any car on

earth that you want.

Is that fair to say or is that a dirty word?

No, I'll take that.

I've said that to a lot of people in the

past, but then a lot of people have said to

me, you're kind of doing yourself a

disservice, but they're using them as the benchmark.

But I think they're absolutely amazing.

very massively, but it's a pretty good benchmark.

To me, it's not bad.

Yeah, it's the singer-ard, the most

accessible thing that everyone knows when you

say the one-resto mods,

you associate it with that.

But the cars that you guys

build are absolutely next level.

And we've both been huge

fans.

I will get into it a little bit later in the

podcast,

but I even tried to apply for a job.

Well, I used to watch

your website every day for jobs to leave car

throw, not a

joke.

Into any of that, though, we always ask the

question, whether cars rule or ruin

everything around us this week.

Will, as a flater for the guest,

do you want to start?

I was going to go with the rule because

there's no major reason, but I am actually

going to say ruin.

The CL500 that I just recently bought has

been going great.

I'm like 15, 1600 miles deep in that car.

All wonderful.

But I'm still driving in silence.

I have the amplifier has failed.

I sent it off to get fixed.

The people that fixed them said,

"Yeah, no, that's knackered.

We can't fix that."

So I looked for another amplifier and then

900 pounds for a used one.

And I could fit that.

And that could be knackered.

And I'd be in the same spot.

There's not really a proper solution yet.

So I'm talking to a few people about dealing with that.

So I'm searching for breaking cars.

It's a very small ruin.

But yeah, the silence, it does become

definitely after a while.

I've done many hours of silence.

I was about to say, you did a two hour

journey up here today, right?

Yes.

On phone music?

No, this was silence.

And the odd ways.

That was it.

So just silence.

And either that, we're about you this week.

Definitely, there's a bit

3:09 Rule or Ruin: Edwin's Daily EV Car Troubles

of ruin going on us.

A little bit of ruin again.

There's two fold ruin.

One is, we've got an L3, me and my wife have

an L3, 22 rained ruin.

So that's always ruined.

That's an ongoing, like, flat line of ruin.

But then also, just at the point,

I thought, fabrication's nearly done on my autogast car.

Yeah, they changed the rules.

I've got to change the load of the tube frame now.

So, yeah.

That's like, classically, what's killed lots

of homologation cars in the past,

right?

It's building a car going, we're ready.

Oh, dear.

We've got to change that.

We have to change all of it.

So a little bit of ruin and then come on.

It's a roller coaster.

And I think, well, this is basically the

whole point of this ups and down with car thing.

But we get it literally on a daily basis.

There's highs and lows.

I think at the minute, the ones that are

clearing my mind are yesterday was a massive

high because an engine that we've been

involved with developing was on the dyno for

the first time yesterday.

And we were all slightly clenched that it

might not go to panic with a broom.

At the first time, it's not at all.

That is a completely scratch design block,

everything.

The whole lot is for one off design.

And it went so far flawlessly and made an

immense amount of power.

So that was a massive high.

I'm going to go with the negative this week

being my daily car.

And shame is going to be poured upon me here.

I do drive an EV as my daily car.

I have a VW ID7.

And for whatever reasons, since I got my new

car, that's it.

I just, that's it.

Since I got a new phone like a couple of

weeks ago, my Apple car, my Google

car, whatever it is, Android Auto,

that's it.

It's just flatly refusing to do what I want

it to do.

Oh, you're with Will.

It's just like noise.

No, your voice control, perfect.

You press the thing, it says it makes a

noise, you ask for what you want.

It works.

Since we got my new phone, constant

irritation with it.

Half the time, press the button and then it

bongs again immediately

afterwards, resets as if you've not said anything.

No, this

is not what you expected me to talk about.

No, this is not

what you expected me to talk about.

No, this is not what I

expected me to talk about.

It's not working optimally.

Turn it off and back on again.

Yeah, that's fine.

Or possibly just set fire to the movie.

For me, it's a rule because we have just

started our next

series, which is, you'll see in the coming

weeks, but it is Will and I buying back our

first cars, not exact first cars

unfortunately, they're both scrapped.

So we went out and bought identical versions

of, we'll actually get on to your guys' first

cars soon, but Will, what was yours?

1.25 fiesta style, 1.6.

A recent back position.

We bought it in the week.

Oh, god.

It was, it also was a great bike experience

because it, you went in with an offer.

Do you want to explain the offer?

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know.

I think things like the CL500 and Glada

skewed my view of the

6:18 First Cars and Offer Negotiations

value of parts on things.

So it's fiesta.

It's been a long time since I've had a fiesta.

It was up for £39,000.

It was a little bit rough.

When it looked at it, it was,

it was rough.

And the guy came out.

I mean, it wasn't.

the best sales experience, I'll be honest.

And the guy came out, gave me the key and walked off.

He went so there, so I'm like,

"Please take it away."

And then he, but then his part of the message

was it needs a start to merge or something.

And then just walks off and I was like,

"What do you, what do you mean?"

But then we started it.

Fine.

Yeah.

Drove around this little car park,

fine, turned it off, turned it off,

turned it off, turned it off,

turned it off, turned it on.

I was like, okay, start to motor is start to motoring.

So I don't know what's going on here.

But I have an MOT that was up in like six or

seven days or something.

So we offered nine hundred quid.

Yeah.

And, but said, like, we don't,

you don't need to deal with those things.

We'll deal with them.

And then I thought, well, actually,

I don't want to deal with those things.

I just want to modify it as my first car.

Yeah.

So I offered them 12 hundred pounds.

But I don't know whether 300 extra pounds

came from, but the starter motor and an MOT.

But nonetheless, yes to Mark six.

Yes to Mark six.

No, I've got only car, I've listened to music

in the last month.

And then I've got a Mark Paul Golf 1.6 16 valve.

So you know that bad boy's going on Porsche wheels.

You know, he's got Cayenne brakes coming.

I'm going stance boy like I was when I was 17.

But more than that, it's a rule,

but also a rule.

We have to add a little aside for an apology.

Thrax did and it's very nice to us.

You've heard us go there multiple times,

but we, for the end of the video,

it's quite funny.

We went on a track day.

We got black flags.

Well, I've got black flags and kicked off the track.

Sorry, Thrax.

It wasn't for noise either.

It wasn't for noise.

It was because we were being pracked.

Because we kind of, look, when you're 17,

you act.

like a prick in a car.

And something about being back in your first

car, we were being pricked again.

So it wasn't anything too bad.

They just said you're getting a bit hot under the collar.

Fortunately, we were in very slow cars,

which was part of the issue,

actually.

And overtaking is when 70 horsepower is

trying to overtake 100 horsepower,

it doesn't happen at pace.

No, no.

It's a drawn out.

If by the time you're overtaking,

the next quarter's coming up and you have to

concede the space again, the next lap or not.

Yeah.

So that's what they thought.

So yeah, we said, we were very sorry,

but it was quite fun.

And luckily there was no one else on track.

Yeah.

It was like we'd rented the place.

It was also mainly because I was going to be

my other little part of ruin because I went

in at 8 a.m.

to pick the car up.

We both turned up to go to Throxdon.

Ready, Ben was there for nine,

ready to be there at the track,

930 a.m.

And I noticed a pile of coolant underneath

the Volkswagen Golf, because it has Volkswagen patch.

That's the reason why.

And it needed a radio.

It's trying to become air cool.

So I'm pretty sure my ID7 could even manage

to have a coolant under it.

So I had to do a radiator at 8 in the

morning, run to your car parts,

get a radiator to get the fact that the

Markville Golf requires the entire front end

to be taken off to do a radiator,

which is fun.

Did it, stressed and made it in the end.

So it's a rule for that reason.

It's just like being back with a first car though,

again.

To be honest, that is the experience.

I don't need to get somewhere and it's in bits.

Somehow I have less experience

9:25 Retro Power Cars Introduction

than when I was 17.

I don't know.

But yes, so that's all Rules and Ruin for the week.

Please stick yours in the comments.

As always, this is a quick shout out to

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I've actually been using it loads recently.

Yep, and that's the same for me.

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So we switch over to the US on NordVPN and it

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So your passion is not only modifying cars,

restoring them to use the very 20/20,

it's probably 2016 word of restomod.

Where did that start with?

What were your first cars?

What was your start in the business?

Well, that's much older than me.

Start with us, start with the business.

I mean, the start with us was sort of,

to be honest, it's not really cars.

It's more just anything mechanical with

anything with engines for me.

I'm kind of engineering background,

anything with an engine, anything with

wheels, I've always just messed about with it really.

And I grew up around farms, not on a farm,

but might as well have been,

messed about with tractors and trailers and

stuff since I was sort of seven or eight or something.

And that sort of thing, just growing up in

that environment meant I'd always messed

around with things.

And we drove cars around to fit my parents

had a bit of a small holding in the middle of nowhere.

And we drove cars around the field,

that their little field at the back and that

sort of thing and sort of, you know,

all that sort of stuff.

Sickle single digit age or just getting in double digits?

Probably just into double digits,

I think by that point.

Yeah, that sort of thing.

And I'm working at the farm.

I kind of, I remember one of my early

motoring experiences.

I'd have been early teens, I think,

Peugeot 504 pick up round a stubble field,

so I'd like that sort of thing.

So yeah, that sort of growing up,

that sort of experience probably had a few influences.

First car?

First car.

I like to say second car more,

'cause it's more interesting.

The first car was a VW Polo,

which I own for a very, very,

it was a saloon, a classic saloon.

Right.

Yeah.

It probably would be really cool there.

It could really cool now, if I hadn't totaled

it within a couple of months of having it.

So that, I was, yeah, I was 18 and I ended up

ending up ending on fire.

That's the best way for any first car to end.

And then I bought an Apple Manta,

because I decided that I only did a proper

car that drove the correct wheels and,

I got a Manta and had that for a while,

actually, and that was good fun.

And then my first modified car was,

which would have been, you know,

'96, got a newer Manta, an exclusive,

so it was an 88.

So it was eight years old and already needed

welding everywhere, which is just crazy.

And then I put a 16 valve on throttle bodies in that.

So was the basis, were you a voxel man?

Were you a voxel man?

Opal, kind of.

Yeah.

Just, it kind of graduated to that,

'cause I like Mantis.

Okay.

And so between us, we've had many opal.

I was thinking, I don't know how many,

but lots.

Well, I was gonna say, I mean,

Mantis are like the basis of retro power,

where you guys kind of began.

Yeah.

Was yours also a manta at the beginning?

No, my first car was a Sierra,

which sounds like...

It seems an odd first car choice,

but yeah, that is odd.

Impressed the young ladies with a massive family salute.

So fighting within the family,

Ford versus Voxel/Oto, that's...

Yeah, yeah.

I remember what it was though.

Yeah, we were driving side, yeah,

Sierra, it was a 1990, I think,

'92 or '93 Sierra.

Sierra as zero, when they were doing...

The Mondeo was due only day soon,

and so they were arting up the crap old sea,

base model sea areas with fancy names and

spoilers, even though it had a 1600 pinto in

it, which is like the worst engine you could

possibly have.

Well, there were maybe a 1300 pinto,

like in the early ones.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But yeah, I had that, and then we put a...

Well, I bought a two liter pinto off.

Was it?

Filling mixed squares.

Filling mixed squares.

Filling mixed squares.

Got any competition equipment,

that was it.

And then as he was putting it in the boot,

I lifted the cam cover off, which was loose.

And it was like, "Oh, oh no,

that one's had like different cam "putting it and stuff."

And I was like, "No, two like now."

(laughs) It was on double battery.

Yeah, we had like a Weber 38 D gas car,

but that's really a good prey on it.

So your first car, you engine swapped?

Yes.

So okay, so that's a good indication of

things to come in.

(laughs) 'Cause that is, so in your own

words, how would you, in a sentence or two,

describe retro power without my shoddy

magazine title, you know, tagline?

There's two ways to describe it.

There's the down to earth way that I see

retro power, which is a load of guys messing

around with cars in a shed, which is

ultimately what it is.

And we've always been keen not to put an

overly corporate polished facade on things,

'cause there are so many companies out there

that do that, but there's no substance behind it.

And we wanna be the other way around,

like have the substance, perhaps not polished

corporate facade.

If I was being all marketing minded,

I would say we basically build bespoke cars

for people where off the peg is not good

enough, and those clients come from all

around the world.

Yeah.

I mean, just from some of the stuff we've

seen today, not only 'cause I've followed you

guys for a long time, but even I wasn't

aware, and I'm sure you weren't aware,

some of the lengths that you go to from

literally building entire bodies from the

ground up and entire engine blocks from the

ground up, as opposed to even buying

something and then fashioning it how you want

it to, you're bypassing that and creating it

from scratch, is that fair to say?

Yeah, and it's this eternal striving to

exactly match the car to what that

client wants, from the way it feels,

the way it feels, the

performance, the way it looks,

every detail of it.

And when you get to a certain point,

you're just like, well, actually,

I know exactly what this guy wants,

and none of the things I can buy off the

shelf are gonna do that.

We'll always look at it and go,

that was a compromise because we couldn't--

Yeah.

And we're very grateful that we've got to

this point where these people are coming to

us with the budgets and the trust to say,

just build it the best you can build it,

which is amazing.

It's a position we never envisage from the start.

There was never a plan to be where we are now

from the start.

At the start, we were just like,

we like messing around with cars,

should we rent a shed and mess around with

cars in a shed?

And this should be the figure and we couldn't

build enough.

We couldn't do enough, so we started getting

other people to help us and taking on more

people, and then we wanted to build more.

So we were surrounded ourselves with a team

of people who were like us, basically,

just love messing around with cars.

That's it.

And for those that don't know of you or don't

know of a car that you've built,

what is a halo car that

16:43 Gordon Murray's Escort Project

you would explain to someone as this is a

retro power car?

There's a few.

I mean, I think every time we achieve what we

see as the halo car, then it resets the benchmark.

So then the next thing was driving after the

next halo car.

The one that I think a lot of people discover

after we built and that a lot of the guys,

probably myself and that included would

consider to be the sort of pivotal moment

from the reference point.

The reference point, the pivotal moment in

retro power's history was when Gordon Murray

approached us.

So Gordon Murray, for those who don't know,

was the chief designer at McLaren.

For the F1 team, he went on to design or be

heavily involved with the design of the McLaren F1.

And now, of course, as his own company,

Gordon Murray, Murray design and Gordon

Murray automotive and these amazing supercars

like the T50.

So he approached us to build what was

essentially going to be a regular use car for

him, a regular loose road car,

which was he wanted to go to work and back in

it, which was a modified Martin Escort.

And that's also where we kind of properly

went on to YouTube because we always wanted

to do some kind of visual show that showed

the detail involved with building a car

rather than just glossing over the details.

And we thought that it's Gordon Murray.

It's a Martin Escort.

The audience for that combination is going to

be enormous.

We don't do this on YouTube.

We're never going to do it.

So if we backpedal slightly on that,

when you were saying about wanting to show

the detail, that's on a background of up

until that point, much less so recently,

but up until that point, we had quite a lot

of approaches from TV production companies

saying, "Oh, we want to do a series.

And can we, and approaching it as basically

about doing re-hashes of wheelies?"

really dealers, almost continuously.

And we basically said, "We don't want to be

involved with any of those things because

they just don't show the real world."

And then that got really as thinking,

"Well, actually, we want to do our own YouTube channel.

Then we can just show how it really is."

And that gave us the opportunity to do that car.

And then we pushed things really hard doing that car.

There was another background too,

which was that we tried to have a financial

discussion with Gordon on that car,

and he wouldn't entertain a discussion.

He just refused to discuss money.

He said, "You must have an idea of really

what you want to spend on the car."

And he just said, "No, doesn't matter.

Just want it right."

I mean, that's ideal.

I mean, that's great.

It is.

But it's actually quite difficult.

Because then there's never an excuse of,

"Well, we only had the budget to do this."

Yeah.

So where do you look at it?

It's the plantation, yeah.

So how well do we do a live axle?

Well, it seems a bit silly to put leaf

springs and a live axle on a car that's where

there's no budgetary constraints.

So what were we actually trying to do with the car?

What's actually for?

And then we're doing a wiring loom,

but we're not going to put an old fuse box

bought from the motor factors in it,

are we?

I was going to say, the man who famously,

his biggest gripe on potentially one of the

most perfect cars on Earth is that there was

a bracket mounted to a bracket.

He's not going to overlook anything.

So he's not going to go, "That'll be fine."

Yeah.

At the same time, really easy,

really nice guy to work with,

really straightforward to work with,

absolutely brilliant customer.

You couldn't get a better person to work

with, because he knew the background of what

you were doing.

It was easy to explain.

Same things to him, because obviously he

understood most of it anyway,

and he would understand the reasoning for

things immediately as well.

So it was, but equally, you would never do

not attempt to pull the wool over that man's

eyes on anything.

Fortunately, we're very transparent with everything.

So that would mean goodness me,

that wouldn't work well.

It's amazing that he came to you because of

this downstairs, but that you didn't have to pursue him.

There'll be a lot of companies that will want

to go out and get those clients by saying,

"Look at what we do, look at what we do."

was it an email or something that came through?

Just a phone call from somebody who worked

for him and they had prank called.

We just thought some man named Gordon Murray

was going to be here.

He looks a lot like Gordon Murray.

That was

definitely a pivotal moment.

As I explained when

we were chatting earlier, there was an upward

curve already there in terms of the level of

ambition of the project.

So as more people call kind of entrusted us

with more ambitious projects.

But then that curve suddenly had a kink in

it, which zoomed it up very steeply.

Cool thing with that is he actually,

because he does use it as a regularly used

car, because we registered that as a new car.

We can do the MOT check on it each year and

you can see the Marty's going on.

So that was as in like the 2019 registered that car.

Although it's had a historic plate but then

put on it, but it's actually a 2019.

So do you have to then jump through all of

the legal type of fruit.

It's not even though we had to IVA and put it

through the type of fruit.

So is that what is that registered as?

A retro power twin cam.

Oh, that's cool.

That's really cool.

Manufacturers retro power and the models twin cam.

And do you know how many miles he's got on

it by now?

I don't know now, but I know it's a

reasonable,

it's a good few thousand.

So he is using it.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That I think is that's something that I.

We fairly

regularly get get photos and emails from

people that have

seen it.

is it's a blessing and a curse at the same

time is that the people that start doing them

are the people most passionate about the car.

They're the person willing to put the time

and all the money into getting it built

because they love the car and they want it to work.

But then it becomes a little bit trendy.

And then you see the singers where they are,

they're bought and then they immediately go

up sale or they immediately go into a garage.

That wasn't the whole point.

The point was to perfect the car.

And that's the benefit of doing one off.

Exactly.

What we do is that you're only building one

and that person has got to be passionate

about it because they're never going sell it.

Yeah.

Is there car?

Yeah.

So I've got I've got some questions we've got.

What is the either either view the favorite

car each of you have built so far at Retro Pal?

Not first.

It's a tricky one now because it's a bit of a.

I still do really like the blue Alfa that we built.

It's not the most perfected,

the most refined car we've ever built,

but I do love the combination of the

sledgehammer and

23:00 Favorite Retro Power Cars

under the bonnet, but the beautiful,

the pretty body.

Yeah.

It's the pretty body with a massive stick

that it hits you with.

Yeah.

And that's that's that.

Probably the most me sort of car that we've

that we've built.

I think over the one my favorite would

probably be Gordon's Escort just for the

whole experience of doing.

Yeah.

But I but I kind of my my favorite as in the

one that wins my heart the most I think is

still the alpha probably.

Yeah.

So for those of you that don't know back in

we think it was 2016.

Yeah, I think so.

I was working at Car Throttle will we were

working together and I had been following

some years a company called Retro Power and I

begged and pleaded our manager Jake to please

organize a filming day where we could come

down and film anything.

I didn't care what we were doing.

I just wanted to come and have a look and we

ended up filming the blue Retro Power Alpha

Junior, which is also one of my favorite cars on earth.

It has the Millington Diamond Engineer,

which is a 2.7.

Yeah.

making nearly 300 horsepower.

Just silly amount of power, but then the

interior with the, you using propositions at

that time, right?

The Recaro, yes.

Just have a look online.

We'll put some photos on the overlay right

now, but it is beautiful.

And the reason that we came back here as

well, because I knew you guys,

and then Callum, what's yours?

It's really difficult because it's a bit like

asking the question of what is your favorite

car all stopped to anyone.

They kind of, car has a job it has to do.

And we're designing the car to fulfill that

specific role.

So having an overall favorite is quite hard

because it depends on what I'm doing with it.

So like that gray Jage XJ coupe,

we built, it looks stunning.

It's amazing to cruise in.

If I was going to use any of the cars we've

built as a daily drive, I think that would

probably be the one.

But then the Land Cruiser that we've built,

which you've probably seen, it does.

It's just, I love it because I love the

simplicity of it.

It's not like, it doesn't shout modified car

at all in any way whatsoever.

Yeah, almost every part of it is bespoke and machined.

And you know, it's the detail on it,

I love.

But then like driving the Escorts that we've

built, Murray's probably even more project

one, which we finished more recently because

it had a BD in it.

And I always felt the Duratec was just that

they, there was like 10% missing on the

Duratec I felt in terms of the noise and the

aggression from it.

But it was an amazing car to drive.

I felt project one was a little bit more

aggressive and a little bit just satisfied

that for a country lane thrash,

when you want to just hammer it down some

country lanes, incredibly so stable because

it was independent as well.

So yeah, it really, unlike the Allegro,

which I've not driven yet, I'm imagining how

the driving experience is going to

be because I'm expecting it'll be like a DC

two type R.

So

I think that is the most well rounded,

complete package.

I'd say this because it's not like any of the

cars we're building are incomplete,

but I just feel on that one.

It's such a usable car.

It's still got the split folding rear seats.

It's got a usable boot.

It's like 200 horsepower, but it's going to

feel like a Honda to drive with the same

level of sort of refinement,

NBA.

It's going to be light.

It sort of ticks almost everybody.

If you were trying to pick your favorite car,

if you could only have one car forever,

it would have to sort of do all of those

things reasonably well.

And I think that's probably the car we've

built that is going to do everything pretty darned well.

So for those of you that don't know,

that is an Austin Allegro, which if you're

not from the UK, is a bit of a joke car.

It's kind of seen as a, I don't even know

what the right word is, but they're the butt

of the joke.

It's synonymous with the worst of the British

motor industry.

Exactly.

And yet you've turned it into one of the

coolest looking, but also a functionally very

well-driving car that's basically grafted

with a type heart, which is ridiculous.

I'm proud, probably, again, let's get it

driving, but I think, yeah, as an overall

thing, I'm probably the most proud of that as

an all-round product of anything we've done.

It's the closest we've come to an

off-the-pegg

OEM car in terms of fit and finish.

And in general, it's obviously helped

drastically by using a lot of Honda.

And all of the bits, all of the slightly

subtle of, we think this should work.

We've done a few checks, everything stacks

up, but you never quite know till you come to do it.

But all of the things stacked up perfectly

and really well, and everything fell into

place as we'd hoped it would.

And it was one of those ones where the boxes

all just ticked nicely as we built it and

everything just worked right.

Yeah.

So the idea with that was that you'd take the

worst possible car and make it into the best

possible car.

Do you get that often with client,

with like customers or is it often?

So I was gonna ask if there is a general

client that's like the normally this type of car.

In the cars we've seen, they're so varied.

Yeah, they're hugely wide ranging.

And that's one of the things I most enjoy.

Now my role has transitioned away from being,

obviously, we used to be hands on,

it was just not an idea to start with.

So literally we did all the work.

Now I do almost none of the work.

But the thing I enjoy most now is probably

the meeting such a broad spectrum of people

and having so much involvement with them and

seeing how these totally different visions of

what a car should be come out of different people.

And that's amazing.

So there isn't any one type.

Yes, the Allegro was somebody thinking,

wouldn't it?

I suppose if we backtrack a little bit,

a lot of our clients have got a fair amount of money.

It's better to say, when you get to that

position where you can basically buy any car,

what car do you buy that then feels special?

Because,

28:55 Client Preferences and Unique Car Projects

yeah, okay, GC3RS is pretty handy if you want

to go on a track day.

I'll take you very comfortably somewhere.

But if you pull up outside the casino in

Monaco in any supercar or any luxury car,

it doesn't really raise any eyebrows.

There's already one there.

If you pull up outside the Monaco casino in a

wide-bodied Austin Allegro, that is a lot

more of a talking point.

And also people can't form an opinion of you

because there's no benchmark.

People drive something like a Ferrari,

and yeah, it's an awesome car,

but a lot of people will think you're a bit

of a ballad.

They just form that assumption.

In most cases unfairly, but you turn up in

Austin Allegro and people don't know what

opinion you're from.

There is no preconceived opinion for that car.

So they're just like, that's awesome,

or I don't know what that is,

but there's never negative because there's no

benchmark for that being a negative thing.

Will, what's your favorite that you saw today?

It's difficult.

It really is.

I don't know if we can talk about the Saab.

With the Audi underpin that,

that was really cool.

What I really like is when you're seeing

those cars that you've put another car

underneath, basically.

So it looks like an old car,

but underneath it's all functioning like that.

That was pretty cool.

We'll put the renders over here because the

renders of that car.

I remember when I first saw it,

when you first released those renders,

I was like, nah, there's no way that car looks obscene.

If it's even 20% of what it looked like on

the render, that is going to be a absolutely mental car.

What was going on next?

Super customer as well.

I mean, obviously, pretty much all our

customers are super customers,

but he's very interactive.

We have a lot of tour and fro with the owner

of that car.

He's a great customer to work with.

He's a really nice chap.

Have you ever had to say no to someone?

Not necessarily on taste, but you can't do this.

All the time.

Not from a this isn't possible point.

As far as I'm concerned, basically,

anything is possible.

But we have had to say no all the time.

There's different categories of no.

So there's no two inquiries.

Like somebody approaching us and saying,

"Can you build this?"

And I was going, "No, not because we can't,

just because I don't agree with the idea of it."

That's a very important thing when we're

taking on new projects.

It's a really long-term relationship.

There's a lot of money involved.

There's potentially a lot of stress involved.

So it's got to be somebody that we align

with, we get on with, we share the vision for

the end product.

That's like number one rule really,

that we've got to understand the end vision.

But then there's also the nose during the

process in terms of, usually in terms of design choices.

And yeah, there will be occasions where

people will say, "I think we should do this."

And I will have to say no, because from my

design perspective, if you, or any of the

team, it could be an engineering thing,

it could be George or Luke doing a cosmetic design thing.

If we think that choice, won't produce,

it doesn't, isn't in keeping with the overall

ethos of what we're trying to achieve.

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely say no.

It won't be, I believe it's not doing that,

but it would be, maybe you, maybe you should

think about doing it like this.

Maybe you should think about doing it like

this, maybe you should think about the right way.

Yeah, it's doing it in the right way,

because that's, that's part of what we would do.

It's a bit like hiring an architect to design a house.

You know, there will be points that architect

will go, you don't want to do it like that.

I can see how you want to live in that house.

That isn't going to work.

And in the same way, we're looking at how

somebody wants to use a car.

And if they've already told us that,

and they say, I want to do this,

and we're like, that isn't going to give you

the car you want.

Your name is not, not that the work could be

any poorer, but if you start putting out some

really bad looking stuff, in terms of like

aesthetic people go, I mean,

it's time they keep, time's back into going

right back to when we're talking about first

cars this bit quite nicely.

And the thing you learn when you first start

messing about with cars at sort of,

you know, 18, 19, 20, whatever,

modifying cars is the bit you don't know at

that age, or I'm certainly speaking from my

experience, is what you actually want to do with it.

You just go, I want to put this engine in it,

I want to put these bits on where you don't

really think, why do I want to do that?

What am I going to do with it?

You just go, I want to do this.

And what I learned a long time ago was I kept

thinking, well, if I want to do this,

I want to make it faster, I want to do this.

Actually, what I really want to,

what do I want it for?

What do I want it for?

And that's the key to all of these projects

is asking the customer, what do you want to

do with it?

What's it for?

Why do you want to do this?

And then that gives you, the reasoning to

work your way through the project and work at

how to do it.

If you don't have that clear picture at the

beginning, then that's definitely a no.

Yeah.

Because there's no point building the car if

you're not sure what you want,

because you won't end up with what you want.

No.

Do you, do you ever struggle not building the

car you want to build?

Because of that from for me,

I would, if it was me, I'd be like,

no, no, no, you want the comps.

You want the compbators.

You don't want those wheels.

Can you come make it pink?

Can I go?

It's better in green.

It must just be the way my brain works,

I suppose, is I'm

always thinking about what it was to customer

originally

said they wanted, and kind of putting myself

in those shoes.

And therefore, I kind of am making my

choices, but not for

the car I would be specifically on their behind.

Yeah, yeah,

exactly.

If I wanted the car that that customer's

asked for, what would I do?

But then that is doing what the customer wants.

So no, not really.

And in the odd time, there is a car that

would literally be like a dream car of mine,

and they do crop up.

So the BMW E9

we're building at the minute,

the customer pretty much said

to me, you like BMW E9's, don't you?

Because we did an

episode, I think, where we talked about that.

And he said,

well, I quite like him as well.

Do you want to build one?

And we were like, yeah, okay.

And he was like, okay, source one.

And then he was like, well, how would you

build it if it was yours?

And we were like, well, S54 engine,

speed manual, you know, kind of listed off

the basics and was like, build it like that,

then.

Which is amazing.

Yeah.

Would you prefer to do it where you provide

the car rather than, there must be some

difficult conversation sometimes where

someone says, here's my old car.

You make it better and you go,

your old car is a colander now because it's

full of holes.

We used to the fact that whoever sources it,

they're all scrapped just to help with anyway.

We're pretty used to the fact they're all pretty cool.

The rollercoaster starts pretty early on with

the blast in the blast room.

You get it blast in, you go,

yeah, it's full of holes.

But they all are.

And I remember one of the, there's a classic

moment, one of the escorts that we built,

one of the pair of modern escorts that we built.

We sourced a pair of cars for those.

And I remember one of them came in.

And I remember a few of our teams sort of

looking at it.

So it's perfect.

This car needs to be rude to cut it up.

I think the word unicorn was used.

Oh, we can't be cutting this up.

And then you blast it and you go,

yeah, there might be small holes,

but basically it needs every panel.

Yeah, where's it?

This unicorn car needs every panel.

I put it in the booth.

Where's it gone?

It's in the booth.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And he didn't look that bad from a slight

distance, but as soon as you get close up,

it's just like any other car.

It's still full of holes and all needs replacing.

And they're all, they're all much of a muchness,

really.

They can get pretty bad before they're

notably worse than any other one.

You've had one or two odd ones where they

were really good, but they're definitely the

exception to the rules.

Couple of my goals at VW.

goals, actually, that came have come through

the ranks over

the years, have been built.

Not marked for.

So

I'd start.

How many cars can I choose?

That's completely up to you.

But one car, that you'd like to see.

Easy, what easy one for me.

So I'll start because that's an easy one for me.

Range Rover Classic.

Mine is the Range Rover Classic I'm building,

but done on a proper budget,

not my budget.

And that's the one that's getting an LS.

It's got the LS in it, yeah.

And then what, sorry, this is really geeky,

but I just want to know for me,

what gearbox are you using?

On that, it's a six L-A-U-T.

OK, so staying GM on that.

OK, cool.

So Range Rover Classic, and then for you come?

Even with that amount of time to

37:25 Dream Restomod Projects

think about it.

I still don't know.

It changes, like, every day.

car, electric car.

It's an ID7.

Definitely not.

Absolutely not.

That's an easy one.

It's an ID7 with a working car.

I would actually be perfect.

Will?

What would you have?

Because your mid 2000s is your area.

But you like Mark 1, Mark 2,

Escort is more of a rally look with a proper

high revving ITB engine of some sort.

Yeah, you just sideways it.

I always forget the name of the driver.

I think it's Simon something else.

Just the video of a guy absolutely haring

around a rally stage.

And he doesn't really have any sponsors on it.

So it looks like a road car.

It looks like a bloke just turned up to a rally stage.

He just started throwing him out.

Unfortunately, I'm thinking is he's dead.

Yes, yes.

Simon McKinley.

Yes, that's

the one.

It's unbelievable.

So once a month I watched him go.

I'd be able to drive it quite like that.

No, I'd be in the headlight.

In your head, you're doing that.

You're just going around around about the A4A4.

I won a 90s continental.

I'm not a Bentley man, but the 90s

confidently are the T and all of those ones.

But I want it with a Hellcat.

I want it with a Hellcat motor.

Connected to just a ZF8.

Nothing that special with line lock.

And I want it to look mostly standard.

They had the Mullen the Widebody just with

fill out arches.

And I've always had a render that I made when

I was 17 of a that car.

But with the, you know, they asked in V600

wheels, the Fudge, but those filled out the arches.

We had a customer come over in one of them.

That is basically a

standard interior.

Just looking all like normal leather and

wood.

I don't want absolutely melt the rear tire.

I just

want to turn up to a light.

And then just I can see the appeal of that.

That's more along the lines of the sort of

thing I'd probably go for.

I'm more inclined in the direction of

something that'd be comfortable to cruise around.

And because it goes back to again,

what would I use it for?

But the Mark II Escort, I love driving Mark

II Escorts, but I don't think I'd use it that much.

Maybe on the odd sunny summer's day when I

want to get the back end out and crash into a

ditch like I did with my E30.

Then yes, but for normal use,

I mean, there's probably one that's been on

my mind a lot, I'm really hoping somebody

commissions with us.

This is often what like, the cars I want

myself are the ones I hope somebody comes

along to commission.

Rover SD-1.

Oh, yes.

I'd love to do an SD-1 and maybe with a

Hellcat in it or an LT-4

or some sort of supercharged Mod V8.

Like fairly standard looking,

maybe even with the old like sort of mesh

wheels I had on all the twin planning ones.

I retake on the interior, but looking almost

how it was, but the material quality as well.

just like spot on, yeah.

Or maybe we've just had somebody inquiring

and I think probably likely to book in with

us a Mercedes 500 SEC widebody project with

an AMGC 63, basically full resto mod based on

one of them.

I think that

would be really hard.

That's very cool.

It's a V8 in twin turbo gen,

right?

It's a V8.

It's one of the really latest frees,

but he's then gone in and through just doing

stuff from his own factory, built in a new

Apple CarPlay, he's used S1 Espree recovered seat.

It's almost a resto mod.

But we nearly booked one.

We actually did some concept renderings for

an Espree a while ago because a customer was

approaching us about it.

Unfortunately, it never went ahead.

really liked those.

I like the late ones.

The rounded Peter Stevens is it?

Especially like is it the 350 Sport that's

got the yellow with the green writing on the side?

I absolutely love those.

So, you know, God, Murray first,

maybe you get a CVK about saying,

I want my, I want my Spreedum again.

That would be cool.

Did you have a multiple golf cup holder?

Yeah, it had an arts bin everywhere.

Ben, you'll know this.

What's the, you know, that center air vent?

Gamera, or it had some coning-seg,

like, usually air vents from a--

He's gonna have a few bits lying around.

Yeah, exactly.

Which is funny to think like that part is

probably worth five grand less priced.

He's like, ah, chuck it in the Espremaker.

Can you tell us?

Sorry about Redux.

Can you talk about that?

We can, yeah.

We probably wouldn't be able to go into massive detail.

But yes, it is public knowledge.

So, yes, there is a man who came up with the

concept of doing a Resto Mod E30 M3 and built

one that we were involved with

at all.

And having handed that one over,

I believe the

client that kind of was for said,

have you met us talking

about Nat and I retro power.

So he approached us because

the first one had been kind of done by

approaching a

variety of different subcontractors.

So he wanted to try and do it as a one-stop thing.

But approached us and we basically went kind

of back to the drawing board with it and

worked with him to develop his vision for it,

which was basically an all-carbon-bodied,

reshaped M3 where everything is elevated to

the highest

level.

But it's subtle.

So like all the interior, all of

the fascia panels that would be plastic and

the controls that would be plastic are all

machined from the billet.

There's an entirely new engine been developed

for it, a 2.7-litre, naturally aspirated,

kind of total re-imagination of the S4,

14 engine that used to be in it.

And yeah, it's been a project that's been

amazing to be involved with.

And I think I can't speculate too much about

the exact cars we're building at the minute,

but I would say watch this space over the

next couple of years because there's some

extremely spectacular E30M3 is going to be doing around.

Just from the ones that we looked at,

obviously we can't talk about them,

but they are absolutely mental.

I want to shout about the one that you're

probably thinking about.

But when it's out there, yeah,

I mean, it's hypercar

detail.

It's unobtainium spec.

It's genuinely very, very

cool.

Cool.

But it looks like an M3.

That's really cool.

I

said when you said that it was,

you know, it's still flying

on the radar, my uncle or someone would go,

oh, that's an E30M3.

And then they'd carry on walking.

You'd have zero, you know, zero idea that

there was anything even slightly more special

about it than a standard one.

That to me is one of the coolest things about

a Resto mod.

Doesn't need to have 17 wings and be,

you know, with liveries and all that sort of stuff.

Going back, this is a two prong going back,

but going back to what you were talking about

about the Allegro earlier outside the Casino

and nobody would, you wouldn't get any

negative reaction to it because nobody really knows.

The same with something like those M3s is,

you know, you don't really know.

It could be somebody insanely wealthy or not

insanely wealthy.

Nobody knows.

It looks like an M3.

Yes, obviously it's not a cheap,

cheap car, but it's a fairly anonymous car in

a world of supercars.

It looks fairly anonymous.

And that also ties in with when we're talking

about what would you build.

The Range Rover Classic, and we've had this

conversation a few times.

I think they're one of the few

vehicles that in standard form,

you can park, you don't know.

Somebody driving one of those could be living

in a tent with no money whatsoever,

slightly less so now, but go back a few

years, you know, they were cheap.

Oh, yeah.

And yet you could park one outside a very,

very posh hotel.

Yeah.

And you wouldn't, you would not be able to

make any judgment about the owner of a Range

Rover Classic.

You cannot tell.

They're totally anonymous in that respect.

And yet look really cool.

They're classless.

Yeah.

The one way that you can tell which one is

which is that the poor one will have a one

life livid sticker on it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the funny thing is, on the way to this

very building from your other building,

a bob-tailed Orange Range Rover Classic came

around the roundabout puffing black suit out

one life livid.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the front letters rearranged to hang over.

Yeah.

I'm spotting a car around here.

One that left me like gobsmacked not long ago.

It was in the Morrison's car part,

which is literally out the back of here.

And there was a Monte Verdi Safari,

is it?

Oh, wow.

The thing that looks kind of like a Range Rover.

Yeah.

How is that one of those just randomly parked

in Morrison's car?

Johnny Smith is currently hunting down this

Morrison's car.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He won't like it unless it's absolutely knackers.

Yeah, exactly.

It's not got any rust holes.

Yeah.

Sorry, Johnny.

We'll see you on the podcast soon.

What else have we got?

Let me pull up my next question.

It's a story of the Monte Verdi one,

isn't it?

And they developed the Ford or Range Rover.

And yet they never got to reap the rewards of it.

Is there a sort of a regular road car that

you see every day that you look at and go?

Because it's not the sort of car that a

client's going to come to you and go,

I've got one of these.

But you look at it and go, I'm like,

because I remember my dad always asked this question.

And he said that RCZ Peugeot is ripe for it.

Because it looks like it looks good.

Yeah.

But everything underneath is just crap.

Like it's got a diesel engine and it's front wheel drive.

But if that was mid engine and rear wheel

drive or four wheel drive, you'd have like a

little French sports car or supercar.

Regular car you look at.

There are.

Yeah.

The Volvo V9 is it.

I think that's a really nice looking car.

We talk about it most weeks.

Really love them.

I genuinely didn't know that either.

I think they're ridiculously nice design.

Weirdly, and this is totally...

As a BMW fan, I want to like most modern BMWs.

But I don't.

I hate most of them with a passion.

But the new M2 I actually think is a really nice design.

I'm generally approaching these from a

cosmetic point of view because I haven't

driven most of them.

Yeah, they're definitely two.

I mean, everybody will say this,

but I wouldn't mind a G.I.

Yaris.

What else do I see that kind of catches my eye?

Sometimes it's like

ridiculous mundane stuff though.

I can't even think what, but you just think,

"Oh, that's unusual."

That could do nicely with a wide body.

Yeah.

And then do you look at those...

It's something like...

Something like the Yaris or the M2,

do you look at that and go, "We do a good job on that."

Something that no one else is doing now.

Is it too modern?

I'll tell you what we said recently.

I was just trying to think there's not much

that I see, but I'll tell you what we've said

recently that would be the interesting one

would be to do the IC conversion of the Renault 5.

Yes, yes.

Engine convert a Renault 5 EV.

Well, that might break the internet if you did.

But what engine?

I reckon maybe the Mégane R26.

Yeah.

Possibly.

So we will got one from Renault,

because we want to test it.

And even

48:57 Electric Vehicle Conversions and Future Projects

as an EV, it was quite fun, but we pop the engine.

They're engine mounts.

Yeah.

They're engine mounts mounting to the,

I think they knew what they were doing.

I think that someone's going to rip this out

and put an engine.

Yeah.

It just looks like an engine bay for an engine.

Yeah.

It looks like you take all that stuff out.

I'm sure the floor is probably the,

with all the batteries are, it might be the hardest bit.

I would love to do that.

We can definitely solve that.

The LP inversion with like this,

just got those extra little like intake bits

in front of the rear wheel, which looks so good.

Have you ever had that electric car?

I mean, or something, or something.

There's a project.

We've had a few passing in Quarry.

I mean, despite driving an EV as my daily,

I don't necessarily agree with that

essentially there has to be,

it has to be matched to the use as with all the projects.

And most of the projects we're building are

fun cars, not the persons everyday car.

And this is where, for me, the EV is a person

perfect car for me to just get 10 miles to

home and back each day, because,

you know, I can press a button in the house

and warm it up and de-ice it and then get

into it warm.

And it costs me absolutely nothing to do on it.

It's a company car.

So the company car tax thing,

there's basically no company car tax or it's

a small amount now.

So it makes a huge amount of sense.

But I never get into that car or any of the

EVs I've owned and think, like,

oh yeah, I'm going to take the long way home

for a fun drive.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, even in that Honda legend that you

know, I own since you, you met me last time.

So nine years still even in that I would

occasionally go, you know what?

I'm just going to go like 20 miles out of my

way on the way.

So I'm enjoying driving me fun car.

And so yeah, we've never really done one

because there's never been somebody

approaches with an idea that I thought was

sensible for an EV conversion,

except one, which frustratingly we never did.

But we were approached by somebody to do a

Citroen SM EV conversion.

And I thought that was the perfect car for it

because the whole ethos of the original was

to remove you from the driving experience.

You were supposed to just waft along.

It had this crazy power steering system that

had zero caster.

So it didn't, like, it didn't self-center,

didn't it?

You have to steer back to center,

steer back to center.

Yeah.

And it sort of, to me, that was so designed

to just waft around effortlessly.

It kind of made sense.

So I think if the right car came along,

you would, yeah, we would do it.

Yeah.

It's just nobody has ever come to us other

than that one, which didn't go ahead for other reasons.

Nobody's ever come to us with an idea that I

thought made sense.

I had somebody say, let me talk about minis,

for instance.

And it's like, why?

Yes, I get a small car to get around London

with an electric engine in it.

But putting a map, the lower,

you get like 300 horsepower off this little motor.

It's like, why?

Why do you want to put 300 horsepower through the front?

I've driven a 250 horsepower red top power.

Horrible.

It was terrible.

It was absolutely vicious.

It's like talk, literally, you have to be in

the middle of the road because it could go

two meters that way or two meters that way

every time you press the throttle.

Yeah, there's so much.

This is one of the, I'm going to try not to rant now.

But it's one of my pet hates is this sort of

EV classic conversion thing where everybody

says, "Oh yes, but it's really fast."

Yes, it will be.

And it'll be really fast.

And for a week, it's with best things in

sliced bread and then it'll be bored and then

it'll be crap.

Yeah.

And that's exactly what will happen.

I guarantee that's, I imagine there'll be

maybe some people listening to this who have done this.

And probably in that situation,

reluctantly admitting that actually,

now they've experienced it going really fast

in a straight line, it's actually a bit crap.

It does the same thing every single time over and over.

It never changes what it does.

No, there's no heart.

There's not the soul.

There's not the changing noises from the engine.

There's not all the things that smells and whatever.

There's not all the little things that make

it worth having.

The things that make it fun,

it goes really fast.

And you say, "Oh yeah, I dusted a Porsche off

the line in many of the other day."

And it's great.

That's great.

And yeah, now it's done what it can do.

Yeah.

You've touched on it there briefly with

electric car conversions in resto mods.

But what's your biggest gripe with the wider

resto mods world?

The thing that my biggest

53:12 Gripe with Resto Mods World

gripe at the minute is just that it's become

such a thing.

And like it felt, I distinctly remember the

first time I heard that phrase when we were

basically just mucking around building modified cars.

That's all it was.

It was just modified classics and you restore

a car and sort of want to make it better.

So you use more modern stuff in it.

It seemed like a logical thing.

And then it gained this title.

And now there are so many people.

And I think largely thinking,

Oh, there's loads of money in this one.

There isn't really the big number of price tags.

Doesn't mean that those companies are making

loads of profit because there's a ton of work

that goes into those cars.

And now it's become this thing like,

what's the next thing we can resto mod and

then market it as a thing?

And it's almost becoming irritating to me

because I feel it feels like we're now

enveloped in with all of these other people

who are doing resto mods.

who are sticking eBay halo lights on a defender.

That is, I was going to say,

that's my gripe, is the halo.

I have rested a mod of the car.

What have you done?

I've put eBay lights on it that have a zen on

bulb in the middle.

That's it.

That's all it means now.

I distinctly remember the conversation.

I can't remember exactly when,

but it was before we set up retro power and

we set up in 2009.

And I remember having the conversation with

my parents at their house.

And I remember saying to them,

before we even considered doing this as a

business, I remember saying something along

the lines of, there's got to be a market for

people that want classic cars that work.

And that sums it up for me.

Yes, I know there's a lot of more detail to

it than that, but that's where it all starts.

You want the classic car because of how it looks,

really.

You want to have how it looks and maybe a bit

of how it makes you feel.

Beyond that, you just want the bloody thing to work.

And that's that.

There's an awful lot of flannel and

flouriness put around that, little core idea

of the thing.

It makes sense now why you're putting an LS

and a Range Rover classic.

Yes.

Yes.

You want the flipping thing to work.

That's what always surprises me with some of

the, I think it's more the bigger ones you hear about.

Like the Diablo one we saw out in Monterey.

I was like, I would, again, I haven't got the

money to buy it.

So I'm probably in the wrong here.

Someone has said, I want that.

And that's why it's been being made.

But it's not looking like a proper Diablo.

I would want a Diablo that looks like a

Diablo from era.

But it starts on the bottom.

I can listen to my music and things work.

You've hit the nail on the head with that as

well because Diablo and Countach,

both massively flawed cars, like immensely flawed cars.

And yeah, that's the only reason to own one

is because they're so flawed.

And if you get rid of the floors,

they're not that car anymore.

The only reason to own one of them is really

because they're a flawed car.

You know, they're driving positions appalling.

You actually get your feet on the pedals.

But that's kind of what makes them the car

they are and almost kind of why they got

elevated to the station they're in.

Because they were such excess.

If you kind of, it would be lovely to do,

it would be interesting to make some changes

to something and try to improve some of those things.

Talking us out of an entire business.

But I think there's certain examples where

they're

56:25 Improving Classic Cars

only unique because of the excess that went in.

If you take some of that excess away,

I don't, I think a lot of cars,

they were just improvements you could make

and they weren't improved.

But with something like that,

unless you, unless I doubt in this resto mod,

they've completely removed the underpinnings

and made it so it actually drives properly.

It's relatively standard.

And at that point, you've still got all the floors.

But you've messed around with it.

It's not really, it's not.

And it looks, it doesn't look modern,

but it still looks like a Diablo shape.

But they've changed so much of it.

Yeah, it's not identifiable as a Diablo from

that era anyway.

And that, that was what ruined that one for me.

Yeah.

I think there was the one with the 550,

the other 575 for all that was similar.

But also, but the Diablo one,

there's a video of them driving a car,

might be top gear.

I think we've talked about it before.

The, they drive an original,

I think it was a VT Diablo, and then they

drive the resto mod.

And he, he mats it in the, in the proper

Diablo and the carbs are right there and they

make the, like almost in the clarinet one.

Yeah.

And it does the same thing of a new one.

It doesn't make any noise.

I assume they've gotten rid of the car.

carbs, or they've done, you know,

even ITBs, but the sounds gone.

Your whole mission to, to, to rest up on the

car is to bring out the qualities that are

there that are good, but get rid of the

things that are annoying.

And you, you've made it a modern car with the Diablo.

It seems a bit of an odd one because it looks

so far removed from it.

It, that makes sense if you're aiming for it

to be a completely new car, but it still

retains enough of the original.

It has the downsides of the original.

So it seems like it has the downsides of the original.

And, no, oops, actually.

That's kind of better explaining what I was

trying to get.

But yeah, there you go.

I mean, this, this links quite nicely into a

car that's caused a lot of controversy

recently that I'm a massive fan of,

which is that Ringbrothers Aston DBS,

which everybody is, well, a lot of people

have slated it because it doesn't look like

an Aston DBS.

But if you take that out of the equation and

just go, just treat it as a car,

it's absolutely stunning.

Like, the level of DBS detail,

the level of execution on it,

I've not driven it, of course,

but I can see how the other paintings have been done.

I imagine it drives pretty damn well,

especially compared to an original DBS.

And for me, the design of it is awesome if

you take out of the equation that it's

supposed to look like a DBS.

Yeah, my only question mark with that one

would be throwing the catch back amongst the

pigeons, though, is what's it for?

Driving, cruising in America.

I mean, what more could you want?

We supercharged Coyote in it.

I thought this quite often that all three of

us, Will and I drove, was it this year?

Yeah, it was this year.

A C6 Corvette, a procharged C6 Corvette that

had the seven liter LS7 in it.

And I loved it.

It was brutal.

It had zero use on the UK roads.

Absolutely no point.

But Ben is obsessed with C6,

ZL6's.

So am I, I'd love to own one.

But they have no use here.

You can't use the seven liter on the road.

So too fast, go ahead.

Especially procharged.

But take it to America, it will love it.

Just doing pulls on the highway all day.

That cars have different uses in different

places that they go.

So I can imagine that the Aston that you're

building will probably drive and be

completely different from mail.

Yeah, totally different.

But both their owners will probably be just

as happy for what they're doing with them.

Yeah, I think that's the nail on the head.

And this is that we've gone round and round

with our one discussions about the engine

initially with the customer and ourselves

trying to work out what to do with it.

And we've ended it with a Chevy LT1 in it,

which a lot of people view as a bit of a cop

out, because it's only an Inversed Karma's

450 horsepower.

But the remit was never to make a brutally fast car.

It's going to be cruising around the UK,

Europe.

A lot of the roads aren't going to be like

massive straight American style freeways.

And we wanted to keep the wheels quite small on it.

So we couldn't put massive brakes out.

I say quite small, 17 inch, but we couldn't

put ridiculously big brakes that would cope

with like a two ton car with 600 horsepower.

So actually, when you kind of take all of

these different factors into account,

often the sort of path is just laid out in

front of you.

And that's the obvious choices.

It's a light, reliable, well proven engine

that you can get with a factory map that

makes the power that he wanted.

It doesn't create like clickbait YouTube headlines.

But that's not what we're doing.

We're building cars to suit a specific job.

And in this instance, that was the perfect

engine for it.

But I would say for the Ringbrothers one,

I would imagine that person is going to be

cruising some highways on supercar tours with

a load of mates and having a swipe.

It's ridiculously powerful.

I can't lose a thousand horsepower then in that car.

And also because of the way it looks,

you can't have the car looking like that.

And it's not to have a shit ton of power.

I was going to look exactly like an Aston Martin DVS.

So 450 horsepower is faster than they ever

were originally.

Maybe their goal was to put it in a hedge.

(laughing) What would you like from this car?

I don't want to survive it.

Cool.

That's my power.

It certainly won't be slow.

No.

Will you got any other questions?

If not, I think we're...

I think we're pretty happy there.

If you leave us any longer, we will get into

deep car murder.

And I know you guys listening can only

tolerate so much.

But thank you guys both for not only

welcoming us here, but letting us do the

podcast here on your set.

It's been very, very good.

We will definitely be back for more just to poke around.

We'll say it's under the guys.

of doing a podcast.

But thank you very much for listening to this

episode of Cars Rule Everything Around Me.

We will

be back next week, as always.

Remember, cash, get the money,

dollar, dollar.

Dollar bills, you know?

There it is.

Yeah, that's the one.

Goodbye.