I have been totally and utterly fascinated with cars for as long as I can remember. My first road test was published in a local newspaper when I was still at school and I produced a weekly classic car column when 15 years of age.
A year later, I became the youngest ever finalist in the prestigious Guild of Motoring Writer's Sir William Lyons (founder of Jaguar) Motoring Writer of the Future Competition.
At 17, I began writing for a car magazine, working alongside many top motoring journalists including James May. More recently, I became the editor of an art and lifestyle magazine.
After graduating in English Language and Literature from the University of Southampton, I opened a retail car showroom, trading from an ex-MG Rover main dealership.
My knowledge of the car industry and motor trade was acknowledged when I was shortlisted to co-present the motoring television series 'Driven' on Channel 4.
I hope that my lifelong passion for cars shines through in every video I make.
RU-vid copyright infringement unfortunately but I'm hoping to re-upload them, along with many other Top Gears and 80s/90s/early 2000s motoring shows, once I've resolved the copyright issues.
First car I had. Me and a mate paid £40 for it in 1993. In the summer of 94 we took a hacksaw to the roof and made it open topped. It was great for a few weeks until it rained.
I bet these tiny tyres are really hard to find these days. My dad once had honda kei truck with 12 inch tyres and I remember even in the 1990s they were not available anywhere
So which TV star car would be in everyone's dream garage if their lotto numbers came up? I'd go for any of Arthur's Jaguars/Daimlers from Minder, I'd be just as happy with the last H752GGL (a false Cornish plate on a 1993 K) XJ40 4.0 Sovereign as I would be with the very first SNV M reg Series 2 XJ6. It feels as though iconic cars featured more heavily on TV in the 70s, 80s and 90s - Howards Way showcased so many cars from Rollers to Renault Alpines, Lotus Eclats and the show even made the Suzuki SJ413 almost cool. Not forgetting Tom Howards's series 3 XJ6 cruising around Southampton. I wonder what happened to that one! 🤔 Before my time but Charlie Endell from Budgie had a lovely Warwick Grey series 1 XJ6 - in some ways Budgie was an early prototype of Minder - Adam Faith even appeared in Minder on the Orient Express, I'm reliably informed Dennis Waterman wasn't his biggest fan! 😂
Just caught up with the Bangers and Cash episode that featured this car and pre-auction, Derek reckoned the TV connection with this car might add £500 to it! 😂 To be fair though, I didn't expect it to make much more than a 'normal' TR7 either. Paying a fortune for TV star cars seems a fairly recent phenomena - I remember a Capri from The Professionals making £10k on eBay 15 years ago and last year 2 of their Capris made £186k! I appreciate that Capris generally have gone up in value but paying mad money for TV featured cars is a pretty recent trend.
He went bust over a decade ago, and is probably going to drive the new company over the cliff again by the end of the year, after barely a year in business. He's just shit at running a car company.
@@hughjass2745yeah your right, history is repeating itself. Can’t decide if he’s a total narcissist, a total conman or maybe a bit of both. Either way his cars are all ‘fur coat and no knickers’
Least of their worries, the replacement parts will be virtually non existent as the company's facing bankruptcy within the first year of trading. They're failing on delivering customer orders, they've shipped about a third and probably won't fulfill the rest.
Yes, the white looks great. I still think yellow is the best colour for them though (probably because my Grandma had one in yellow and I also had a scalextric one!) 😁
Funnily enough, a yellow 1275 GT came up at auction recently and it was originally supplied new by Wadham Stringer in Gover, St Austell, about a mile away from this Lidl, in 1979. I was very young then so can't remember that garage and I can't find any old photos online. I agree that yellow really suits this car. I recall one of my parents' friend's wife had a black one with gold pinstriping, a similar spec 1275 GT featured at the start of the jury service episode of Minder.
Yes that is a Coventry reg, I'm sure I've seen a few series 2 XJ6s on HDU or JDU plates in press photos of the time. It's incredible how dinky the Mini looks now, it's almost possible to park next to someone in a car park with one without getting your doors dented! I always park miles away from anyone to avoid dents.......then walk miles to return to a car parked an inch away from mine, usually an EV! 😂
Great to hear she's still going strong Adam 😊 these mid 90s Clios are a very rare sight now! It's always interesting to hear what happens to these auction cars, serving you well ish is a right result 😊 I remember buying a J reg Clio at Blackbushe about 25 years ago, I sold it to a friend who shortly wrote it off! 😂
apart from the head gasket problem, betty is been doing me strong, shes a solid car i tell you with only needing a little patch of weldin on last mot aha.
Total madness , Detectorists is a great TV program but it will be forgotten in 5 years time. The car needed restoring and was only running on two cylinders !!! More than 10 times its real value . This is the world of classic car auctions unfortunately, cars making far more than their true value, prices are being driven by programs on TV such as Bangers and Cash . The penny will drop at some point when enough buyers get their fingers burnt, until then Mathewsons and the like are laughing all the way to the bank.
That's very true, the auctioneers are the real winners of overinflated classic car prices and the extra exposure Matthewsons gets from Bangers and Cash have made their sales achieve prices that are nearer retail than trade with no comebacks. It seems a great business to be in.
Thank you Jon, I really appreciate your comment. Yes exactly, XJ40s have gone up in value a fair bit over the last 4 or 5 years. It doesn't seem that long ago you could get a half decent one for £1000 but those days are long gone. I reckon a very low mileage mint example bought at the right price could be a good investment for the future. Even by today's standards, the 4.0 version is pretty quick. I tried a 3.2 a few years back and it did seem a bit sluggish. Apparently, when the famous Jaguar road tester Norman Dewis (who sadly passed away at the age of 98 in 2019) first road tested the early 2.9 XJ40 he wrote "Do we really have to make this unsaleable version?" in his notebook as he thought it was far too slow for a Jag! 🤣
I remember that showroom from way back, they always had a lot of interesting cars for sale. My father-in-law bought his Montego Mayfair from there in the late 1980s. Wonder if anyone has any photos of the showroom?
Yes it was a very popular old-school style dealership right up until it lost the Rover franchise around '97 and started selling Protons! They only sold about 9 Protons in 6 months! I remember taking photos of my XJ40 outside the showroom but have yet to come across them!
What a stunning Ferrari 308 - Magnum is being shown on ITV4 at the moment. Much prefer the look of these to new Ferraris. I remember the Riders Jaguar showroom too, it was very difficult to access with not much customer parking but the showroom was always filled with interesting Jags that would be classics now. Wonder if anyone has any photos of the showroom?
Yes, ITV4 is one of my favourite channels - Minder, The Sweeney and The Professionals are almost on a continuous loop! They still stand up really well and apart from the brilliant acting and the scripts, the cars make it worth watching too! It's incredible how cars that were once a common sight have now all but disappeared. I haven't seen Magnum since I was a kid but I vividly remember the theme music and the Ferrari! :) You are right about the access to Riders Jaguar - the service department was a bit of a challenge to get in and out of! Reversing out onto the corner of a busy road wasn't exactly ideal, especially when Jaguars of that era were pretty big cars. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of the showroom but I'm sure I have some of their marketing material tucked away somewhere with sketches of the showroom on them.
Thanks Sian, much appreciated. Yes, metallic red is my favourite car colour. My dad's company 1988 Sierra 1.8L looked higher spec than it really was in Regency Red metallic. Apparently, another member of staff's wife asked my dad if his car was higher spec than her husband's because his 1.8L was in a basic looking white! Badge snobbery was rife back then - personally speaking, I don't think I would have lost much sleep if the company accountant had a GL rather than L but car spec rivalry can often reveal a lot about human nature! 🤣
Yes, the lack of TVRs was a shame but I'm aiming to attend the Wadebridge Classic this coming Saturday and Sunday so will look out for some TVRs there.
The American police car at the beginning is what I remember them to be like when I visited America in the 1980s. The Nash Metropolitan car I can remember when I was in my childhood back in the 1960s.
Thanks for the comment Carl 😀Yes, that type of police car was such a common site in American movies of the 1980s - it reminds me of them getting smashed up in the Police Academy films, it's great to see at least one has survived the 1980s! It was before my time, but my mother's aunt drove a then brand new turquoise / white Metropolitan and apparently it looked pretty flash back then! The one in the video is the first orange one I've ever seen! Thanks again, I'm hoping to make some more classic car show videos soon 😊
