Q&A 117 - Best Bond car

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1:00I'm Richard Porter. I'm Johnny Smith. And this is on the other side of things that Smith and Sniff spin off in which we answer your questions. Welcome to Artisot. Welcome to Artisot. Indeed. Well, here we are answering questions. Er, just going to dive straight in with you. Oh, are you, Carl? I've never beaten you. I've never beaten you on the D diving. I don't want to, you know, hold it. You can start if you like. No, you're in now. OK. This is from a listener who signs off as Joe P. He says, good afternoon, you pair of near-side lower ball joints. While on a slip road coming off the M4 recently, I very narrowly avoided crashing my van into the car in front. I was rubber-necking a seemingly immaculate late 70s lemon yellow Lotus Eclat going past. Oh. Well, talking animatively at my wife about the bus. At my wife about the possibility of it having the gearbox out

2:02of an Austin Maxi and marbling at how not rotten it was. Not only did she not care, but she seemed weirdly more concerned about being in a traffic accident than looking at a Lotus. Strange. Any stories from you sleeves of the consequences of anal levels of car perversion and nerdery, rear-enchant, shunts, or otherwise? Ah. It's going to be Joe P. So OK. Yeah, there's been many. I've just trying to think of the intricate details of them. I realized there is something that I almost had a rear-enchant rear-enchant at the other day, because of this, which is, I don't like people fiddling around with the heater or ventilation in the car. Yeah. If they don't know what they're doing. How do you have to say what they're doing?

3:04Well, I'll put context right. So obviously in the work that we do, you sometimes get to borrow cars. And they are therefore unfamiliar at first to you and to the people in your life. Yes. When we're in an unfamiliar car, we'll be driving along. And I will see my wife's hand creeping towards the ventilation controls. And I know what's going on. And I'll go, what do you want? And she'll go, inevitably the answer is, it's too blowy. And I'll go, OK, just because if I don't intervene, and I know this is a bit sort of mansplainy, but if I don't intervene, what she will tend to do in an unfamiliar car is just start randomly jabbing at buttons and twisting things and doing all sorts. And just with basically she'll just use a sort of blunt instrument approach. If I just keep fiddling with this, eventually what I want will happen. And if I'm more familiar with the car, I'll just go, look, why don't you just turn the fan down by doing this?

4:04Or if you turn the temperature up a little, stop trying to chill you so much on your side. But the other day, I almost rear-ended somebody because I was in the car with my boy, and he was sitting in the front. And as it turns out, he was cold. But rather than go, Dad, can you make it warmer? He decided just to do it himself. And I've never seen him use the heater controls in a car before. He usually asks. And he just... I just, true, I don't know. I don't know if my kids have. He just started fiddling. And I looked down and went, well, what are you doing? And he went, I'll just, I'm cold. I want to make it warmer. Well, no, because what you've done is like, he was just like started tapping, and it's not that true, where the two rows of buttons, one does the heating and stuff. One of the other on the above is the car controls. And he was starting to like tap a stuff that does other things. And so I looked down and I went, no, no, no, no. Do you want to do it? And as I went to do what he did to do, I looked down and then realized the car in front had stopped abruptly and we almost had to do it. That's it, in swear. So, I mean, that is my car, an urgery and my pedantry and my inability

5:05to let other people do the things they want to do because I don't think they're going to do it properly, which is all on me. I understand it's my failing. It probably drives my wife bananas, but... No touch in the H-Fuck. Yeah, so that. It's probably, I find it's worryingly commonplace that I'll get distracted by another car and realize that something I should be looking forward is not serious. Oh, completely. Yeah, that happens to me a lot. It's usually I'm looking down driveways. Yes, yes. As I drive, so I'm doing the whole, oh, oh. I did it, in fact, I did it 24 hours ago, coming back from Manchester, the scenic route, you know, across Peniston, that place, which is being done all the top gear and... Yes, the law... Is that class as the panines, or is it class as the peaks? I guess it's... Oh, that's a good question. Yeah. No panes for the representor, so it'd be panine, I think. Yeah, so you go out, you know, out to Manchester East and into all the, you know, those reservoirs,

6:08I know we're going off track a little bit. Those amazing reservoirs, which you drive and look down on with all the scenery and flowing roads. Those, one of the reservoirs was almost completely dry. I've never seen... I've never, ever, ever seen that in my life. And, well, we know that it rains a lot around there, so... Not one of the ones that was a flooded valley that's got a spooky village in it so that you can see when the water gets low. That hasn't got a spooky village in it, but... Okay. Yeah, I've seen one of those in Germany before. They freaked me out a little bit. They are a bit dark. What's the one? There is one, isn't there? I think it's in Yorkshire where they flooded it. There was a village there. I think they demolished a lot of the village, but not all of it, and they didn't demolish the church because I guess, you know, fearful of anger and God or something. Yes. So when the water gets low, the church spires. Spires come out. Yeah. That's quite... I don't know. You wouldn't swim up to it, would you? No, God no. No. I don't know why. I don't know what would happen, but it's always just feeling

7:08that your leg would get stuck on it in some weird way. No, there's a fear of, because my son has it, of swimming up to things that are large in the water, even if they're not dangerous. Absolutely would not be... Want to be in the water very close to a super tank or even if it was stopped. It's sub-mechanocophobia. Oh, okay. It's a fear of submerged man-made objects, either partially or entirely underwater. They could be... Statuse. Yeah. But they're not necessarily dangerous. They just exist. They're just there. I just... They're just there. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I don't have a better answer than you, because there's so many instances. I... Yeah. So I thought I... It's just a constant, isn't it? Yeah.

8:41Ah. I thought I'd go on to a letter that we got in December 2024 from Steve Speedman. Okay. Steve, I don't think we've read yours out before. We're quite prompt on this, as you know. But I don't think we've read yours out, so hi, Jens. Listen to your podcast this morning. Heard you talk about James Bond films. My late mother was a huge 007 fan, having watched all the early ones in the cinema off of the 60s. It was a different time. Right here. So I was watching them from an early age as well. I was born the year the spy who loved me came out and saw my first Roger Moore SSB, sweet, sweet Bond, in 1983 with Octopus 8.6. Watching him slide that stolen slash borrowed AlphaGTV 6 whilst being chased by a gaggle of green and white BMW police cars was brilliant. It was brilliant. Hmm. And as I pointed out, that railway line is about half a mile away from my house.

9:41What's your best Bond film and what's your best Bond car? And he's put from Russia with love is my favourite and I really want a living daylight's Aston V8 with the optional skis and rocket booster. Thanks for keeping us entertained. Have a great Christmas. Thanks. Let me think. Actually, Christmas 2024, I think I did have a great Christmas. Thanks. Yeah, I'm sure. It's three times. Yeah, well. So there you go. Your favourite Bond film and your favourite Bond car and that can be in a B-side Bond film car, as you know, like a background car almost or an incidental. Oh, well, yeah. Because there was in... What's that one that's not very good? A Timothy Dalton one that's not living daylight's. License to kill. License to kill. Yes. License to kill. Scotland's favourite Bond film. Is it? I need to listen back to that song, because I don't think she says license to kill. I think there's something else in the track as a bikeer.

10:43She says kill and the backing singers go, ah! Right after she says it. So it's a license to kill. Ah! And you know I'm coming straight for your heart. But so it's quite linear, so it sounds like Kilt. It does. Yeah, I was wondering if it was there. Like a, you know, a little like closed high hat or something. It just made it sound like she said Kilt, which would be stupid. I bet the Fanketi brothers is their favourite Bond film, even. Yes. Why do you regard that? That's maybe quite a rubbish one. But in that film, the man with the very pockmarked face, who isn't baddy, he has like a Maserati 425, doesn't he? The four door by turbo. I think you are right. I do remember a bad 80s Maserati. Yeah. I mean, there's sort of quite good looking cars in their own way. Yeah. But very obscure. Yeah. And I like that in that otherwise pretty ropey film.

11:45I don't know. I mean, Bond film, I always just like, I could go back to his spy who loved me. Or live and let die. Both I think just Roger Moore at the height of his powers. Yeah. Live and let dies got loads of really great 70s land yachts in it in the US, doesn't it? Yes, it does. That's one of the things that I liked about those. Because I think it is Live and let die, which is my favourite Bond film. So that's my favourite Bond film. But Bond has a rental car when he goes with his wife, who's not really his wife, is she onto the island? Because they're honeymooning. Pretend honeymooning something. Yes. Can infiltrate the strange voodoo behaviour. Yeah. What does he have? He has a rental 1963 Impala convertible. What? I'm pretty sure it is. What? I'm sure it is. They're renting out like a 10 year old car.

12:46Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it is. Hey, well, this feels like a logical moment to promote the Bond car's book by our friend Jason Barlow. Yeah. And because one of the brilliant things about that book is that Jason doesn't just talk about the sort of hero cars everyone would expect. He has a chapter about each film, acknowledges other interesting cars that feature in the movie, even if they're only sort of background or minor roles. That's right. So it'll be in there. I don't have the book to hand, but I'm sure that that Impala will be ref, isn't there? It is an amazing book and Jason's a Fabriter too. So the detail will be there. So it's not like us where we're just fumbling around for trying to get facts. I've just looked at it up. I've actually found a collectible die cast model of the 63 in parlour convertible with Roger Moore in the driver's seat with his wife in the passenger seat with a plan with Kenanga's plantation in the background. Wow. The niche things that you can buy.

13:48I can say the specificity of things is quite marvelous. Yeah. Bond was a, he was a, he was a gangster with this 63 in parlour way before IZCube and don't dry an easy. Yeah. I think so. Roger Moore walked so they could run or ran so they could ride. There's something. Well, he did because I think we've mentioned this in the podcast before that it's a battery of record that Roger Moore famously couldn't run on camera. Not a very good runner. No. Brilliant in other ways, but not a good runner. I watched Oceans 11 with my son last night because he's never seen it before and I haven't seen it for years and my take home from it was apart from fact I still like the music score, which is probably actually better than the film. Is the fact that Julia Roberts, the hero lady and it, the leading lady, she's not very good at walking. Oh. You need to watch it again. It's the most awkward on-screen walking, especially for a glamour, glamorous lady who is

14:51like a love interest. Right. It's quite clunky and mechanical and I would, if I was the director, I'd say you need to try that again. Have they made her wear ridiculous heels or something? I think they've made her wear killer heels, but in a lot of the shots you can't see a feet, so it just looks like she's finding walking hard. Oh, no. Anyway, it's going to say Julia Roberts. She's so versatile, surely. Walking is just, you know, one of her skills. That's where you'll never notice. No, well, see, check other films for her. She sort of makes a hash of walking in like, Baron Brockovich or something and then we'll know that actually Julia Roberts is the Roger Moore of Walking. Oh, yeah. So I don't, yeah, Bond cars. It's a tough one, isn't it? I mean, if you want to be really nerdy and go, I like this car because of the fact that it was modified in the, to be filmed with. I really enjoyed the one of the latter films with old Dan Craig in it.

15:53Danny Craig. Danny Craig. Danny C. Yeah, Danny Craig, because we know that the DB5 he drove was actually an E46, M3 real. Oh, yes. And it. And I actually would rather own that version of a DB5 than a DB5. And so, Aston, you guys, one day, can you just make me one of those? And I'll sign a disclaimer that I'll never sell it or anything. And I just want a DB5 bodied E46, M3, please. I'd, the two, the two of E from Fiora's only only because it's a stunt car and I've actually driven it before and I've said this before on the podcast, it was special. And you've driven the stunt car. I've driven the original flat four car from Citroen's conservatoire. Yeah, yeah. Marty Howard, because they had the GS engines, right? That's much more powerful. Yeah, that's right. And it had a little cage in it and they pulled it out of their conservatoire and let me drive it around a track for, it was on fifth gear.

16:55Did let me drive it around their private track and it was mega. It was really talking. Yeah, imagine. Well, yeah, because how much power? There's a lot more than a 2CV is used to. So I think it had more than double the power and it had a fully armoured undercarriage. So it could pretty much, you could just smash it down onto anything and it would just take it and it would give a long. So it was really cool. It was really cool. Good movie car. Yeah, great movie car. This thing is for game shows, not your business. Workday is the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance and IT, with AI grounded in your context to get work done and done right. It's a new work day. Who says Halloween only lasts one day? With Wayfair, one night of Halloween becomes a whole season at home. From larger than life yard decor and moody lighting to festive accents for every room in the house. Wayfair has what you need to make Halloween feel like magic all in one place.

17:59Because the best Halloween memories aren't made in just one night. They're made all season long. Shop Halloween decor now at Wayfair.com. Wayfair every style, every home. That's fantastic. Good song too. I feel right, don't I? Should we do a little car? We haven't done a sort of car buying dilemma for a while. I'll do this one from a listener called Jeremy who signs off by saying that he's in Richmond brackets the real one in North Yorkshire. Not the cheap sausages. Yes. When they cigarette as well, Richmond's. Yeah, if you could get a retirees. Jeremy says dear Rick and Morty, Johnny, my wife is really cross with you. Once more on a recent pod you launched into a tirade about the Mercedes-GLC coupe which is her daily driver. We're on our third and is a perfect load-lugger for dogs, grandchildren, tip runs, combining

19:00a high-quality interior with German reliability comfort tech and in our view looks. The current one is the AMG43 version, so it's a bit spicy if I fancy some hooliganery. My question is Mr. Smarty Pants, what should we go for next? I really dislike all those androgynous Euro-Sino-Coreo Electro boxes which are in my view much uglier than are and he's put in inverted commas Beetle-backed piece of shit. Quoting. Forget BMW's latest offerings which are really hideous and I will never buy an Audi after being made to feel like shit on the shoe of a salesperson when I was potentially looking at RS4 20 years ago. I've heard this a lot about Audi dealerships from a lot of people in recent years. They walk in the dealership and they're ignored. It's a bit of a bad load. Jeremy goes on to say we've talked about Range Rover's but I'm put off by the constant underlying feedback about reliability. Is that really a thing or are they improving? I'm running out of options, must do all of the above with style and pizzazz.

20:04This is on a postcard please, perhaps with some flowers from my wife by way of a peace offering. I love the shows apart from the anti-GLC propaganda keep it at the end of the NTNB. Jeremy, okay. That's interesting. Oh, so good. Well, when we start with this because I'm going to, I'm sorry I've offended your wife and that you clearly love that car because she's had three of them. I'm glad it's you rather than me. But I think they're awful and you use the word perfect. Don't keep digging. But you use the word perfect and they've listed going to the tip and dogs and people and it is not perfect. I could name four cars better than it for those jobs straight away. I don't think. Quick. They name them. Well, go into a Mercedes dealership and pick one of the cars that doesn't have the back end of a GLC like a C-class estate, like an E-class estate, like so many other cars.

21:07There are so many other cars that are better than that. The GLC's crap and I actually one over took me being aggressively driven on the way to Manchester two days ago and I just looked at it and went, it's just one of the worst looking modern cars. It just looks like a crap computer mouse. If you were to park that next to it, this particular one was an AMG. If you were to park it next to an AMG C-class or E-class, it just looks so much worse in it almost every way and it will probably drive worse in almost every way. marginally. So have I done a good job of that? No. No, no, I'm going to say no. OK. What? Look, if you're going to get, if you have to get an SUV, there's only one good looking SUV in my opinion. OK. I'm pretty much sure there's one good looking SUV. It was the...

22:07Well, this one's not. I don't class the Land Cruiser as an SUV, the one that is more utilitarian looking. I classed that as a 4x4. I would say the Alpha Stelvio is the only good looking SUV in my opinion. That's because I don't think pretty much any of them look very good. I'm just not my thing. Or the Kia EV9. That's just pretty good looking. Yeah, I don't think that Jeremy's sort of again that kind of electric car. I don't know. I mean, I feel like this is going to be a hard one to resolve. I was just looking at the E-class estate because they did do that all terrain one. They did. They did it very rarely. Which I wondered would be a good compromise, but they obviously don't do it anymore. No. If you're looking for a new car, that's not going to... I think they're in shock. I don't know.

23:07For about a year. I think that's actually going to be a bit of a collectible thing. Yeah, very obscure because obviously the Audi all roads, you see those around. They seem to have had their time and they're quite popular, but the Mercedes version didn't really seem to catch. Certainly not here. Yeah, so that's not... I don't know. You can get one now as far as I'm aware. I don't know. They're still making it, but not... I don't see it on the Mercedes UK website. I don't know if it's something you can only get in other countries now, but if you still want something that's a little bit jacked up, but then with the sort of... It's still not as tall as an SUV and it's a bit different and it's quite attractive, I think. Well, why do you want an SUV that's shaped like a coupé? That's the first thing I would think when I get to Got Out of Bed in the morning. My alarm would go off. I'd get out of bed and I'd go, why do I want a coupé shape that's really high in the air that won't behave like a coupé that isn't as good as a square-backed booted car?

24:12Why? There's just why. I'm just... I'm sorry. I'm locked into this. I can't unlock the disdain. I just can't. No, I think that's quite clear. My other suggestion might just be... I don't know some kind of scoder. They're all quite nice. Yeah, that's true. That's true. They do SUVs that do estate. They're all... They do. Superb estate. They're quite big. I don't know. It's too big for your needs and it's a little bit of a little bit of a seat for the AMG. They are... Yeah, they're big-ish, aren't they? They're quite bold. They're quite bold-ish. They're going to use the word bold-ish here. Yeah, and then finally, I mean, again, it sounds like the Jeremy doesn't particularly want electric. I don't know. He doesn't say specifically that, but I'd love to be able to recommend the Polestar 3 because I think it's a really nice-looking car, but I found it a deeply frustrating car

25:13to live with for a week and I don't know that would get any better over time. I think the electronic aspects of it and the interface is flawed. I know a car that's cool as, but I'm worried that they might have now discontinued it. The Volkswagen Artyon shooting brake. Oh, yes. I mean, that car is awesome. They are. A bit like the Mug. A bit like the Mug. A bit like the CLS shooting brakes. Well, I would have... Yeah, if Jeremy and his wife are Mercedes fans anyway, the CLS shooting brake is if you were looking for something that's nice looking, but not on the CV. Lovely. I know because I had one, but long gone, sadly, I think the Artyon has now been deleted certainly from the UK, but... Yeah, that's a shame. That's a massive shame. Having a little school. I think ultimately, without wanting to sound like, you know, a horrible man, I think it's not about me. It's about you. If you like that car... What's... If you like that car and it works for you in your lifestyles, then go for it. Well, I would say, if you were to buy an MPV that was a similar size to a GLC, you'd

26:18suddenly realise it's almost universally better at everything. And... But my final thought having just been on the Volkswagen website, there is no Artyon shooting brake anymore, but... Yeah. One of the most satisfyingly boring cars I drove last year, I think, was the Passat, which now only comes as an estate in this country. And it was just a sort of satisfying functional practical car. I don't think that's what you're after. If you've got a GLC 43, you probably want a bit more possessed than that, but if you just want a really sort of... I reviewed it for the paper and said it's the ultimate norm-core car. It's just so sort of... Norm-core sensible. But in a really... I genuinely liked it because of how, like, it wasn't trying to be something it wasn't. I think it's just a very sort of VW-ish VW in the old school way. Anyway, if you've got a question for us, or you just like Johnny to abuse your choice of car a bit more, then... Hello, that's msniff.com. ...is the key in our address.

27:20We endeavor to get to your messages within two or three Christmases, but we can't guarantee it, unfortunately. Yeah, we'll do this again next Friday, but there'll be a normal show on Monday, so we'll see you then. Bye. Yeah, sorry. Thank you. Bye. Who says Halloween only lasts one day? With Wayfair, one night of Halloween becomes a whole season at home. From larger than life yard decor and moody lighting to festive accents for every room in the house, Wayfair has what you need to make Halloween feel like magic all in one place. Because the best Halloween memories aren't made in just one night, they're made all season long. Shop Halloween decor now at Wayfair.com.

28:25Guessing is for game shows, not your business. Workday is the Enterprise AI platform for HR, Finance, and IT. And AI grounded in your context to get work done and done right. It's a new work day. Come on and get happy with happyGLP.com. At just $99 a month, happyGLP gives you one set price every month. No tears, no tricks. Getting started with happyGLP is fast, convenient, and happens virtually with a licensed provider. Check it out for yourself at happyGLP.com. That's happyGLP.com. A happy price for a happier you. Designed and medications are not FDA-approved, eligibility required, and determined by a licensed provider individual results may vary. See website for details.