FACTORALY - E7 CARS

Episode Date: October 12, 2023

This week's subject isn't as boring as normal - especially in Bruce's eyes. A committed petrolhead, Bruce mashes the throttle to the floor whilst Simon cruises the mean city streets. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello. Hello. It's that time of the week again, isn't it? It certainly is. It's Factorily. Hello, listeners. Hello, listeners. And hello, Bruce. And hello, Simon. Good. That's all the hellos out of the way. Oh, and we've got more than one listener now. We've got a second one. We've got two listeners. Wow.

Who's the second one? The second one is my best friend, Paddy. Oh, I thought I was your best friend. Sorry. Oh, well. Got to face the truth sometime. Paddy says he hates podcasts, but he'll listen to this one. Wow.

Well done, Paddy. Thank you. Thank you, Paddy. That is true loyalty. Nice one. I need to bring some of my friends along at some point. Now, before we begin, I would like to state that it turns out I have a cold, and my voice is a couple of semitones lower than it

usually is, which in one sense is really nice because it sounds rather suave and sexy. On the other hand, I may cough. That's all right. We can cut your coughs out whilst you're doing your Barry White impression. We got it together, didn't we? So what's today's subject? Well, today's subject, there's a slight imbalance between the two of us in our knowledge. So there are many things that Bruce and I have in common. We're both professional voiceover artists. We both love history and useless facts. We both enjoy going for a stroll around London. We're both six foot three. Yeah, you can't see this, but we both have beards and glasses. Gosh, actually, we're the same person. One thing we do not have in common is a mutual appreciation for motor vehicle stuff. So Bruce, you are something

of a petrolhead, aren't you? You might say that, yes. My knowledge and experience of of cars is that i buy them as cheap as possible i drive them until they stop working and then i sort of move on so you buy them one at a time okay well that needs discussing so let's start there how many cars do you have bruce um that that's uh i used to have more than i do now okay fine yes so the the format for today is that i'm going to pick out what i think are interesting facts about cars and bruce is going to say no no that's totally wrong this is actually the truth i have to say actually i think you'll find yes there you there you go. It's Latin. Speaking of Latin, I always like to start these things with a bit of etymology. The word car comes from the Latin carus, C-A-R-R-U-S, which means literally a wheeled vehicle.

And that brings us things like carriage and chariot. Cart. Cart, exactly. All that sort of thing. I'm yet to determine a distinct difference between car and automobile. Is that just an Americanisation? I think it is. So, yeah, so there'll sort of be a few crossovers in terms of what you actually call a car.

Do you have a particular moment in history or a particular image in your head of what is the first car? What is the first vehicle that you can rightly say that is a car as opposed to a whatever? Generally accepted is that it was the Benz. That's an album by Radiohead. So Carl Benz in 1885. There were a lot of other people before him who came up with lots of innovations and clever stuff. But he was the first person to

put it all together into a three wheel vehicle and with a internal combustion engine and call it a car in German. Right. Okay. So Benz, I recognise the name Benz. For me, it's usually preceded by the name Mercedes. Well, yes, it used to be preceded by the name Daimler or Daimler. So Gottlieb Daimler, he also invented a car together with a guy called Wilhelm Maybach. Right. And that was his first four-wheel vehicle. And that was a year after Carl Benz. So that was the first four-wheel vehicle. And that was a year after Carl Benz.

So that was 1886. And they produced Daimler Benzes in Germany. And one of the brands was Mercedes-Benz. Oh, I see. Named after the Austrian ambassador's daughter, Mercedes. Oh, really? Okay, so it wasn't Mr. Mercedes and Mr. Benz got together and made a car. No, no.

It was actually a woman who inspired the name Mercedes-Benz. Oh, really? Okay, so it wasn't Mr. Mercedes and Mr. Benz got together and made a car? No, it was actually a woman who inspired the name Mercedes-Benz. Oh, wonderful. So I always think to myself, when I hear of people being called Mercedes, I think, oh, how cheap naming yourself after a car. But you're telling me that the car was named after a woman in the first place? Definitely, yes. Fine. Okay, that's changed my worldview. Talking of women, the first car thief was a woman.

It was actually Carl Benz's wife. Okay. Who decided that she wanted to visit her mother, I think in Mannheim, and couldn't be asked to walk. So she just took the car. She just set off on the road in this strange contraption to go and visit her mum wow okay so that's the first car but that was the first german car i mean we are a british podcast so we ought to talk about the brits really go on then where did we begin well we we began um

about 10 about 10 years later there was a young-year-old plumber and gas fitter called William Bremmer. Right. Who built the first British car. Right. OK. And you won't be surprised, given his profession as a plumber and gas fitter, that it took him two years to do it and he still hadn't finished it by the time he actually took it out on the road. Did he finish it and go... did this then that's gonna leak but if you think about all the plumbing and and sort of like the wiring and all the all the bits

and pieces it makes sense kind of that a plumber and gas fitter would would be um producing the first car and the french got in on the act as well, I mean, actually slightly before we did. And the very first run on public roads was in 1895. It's a long time ago. That is a long time ago, isn't it? I sort of think of

early cars and I live in Surrey and I live quite close to Brooklyn's. The racing track turned aeroplane manufacturer turned museum. And I sort of think of that Edwardian era as sort of being the heyday of motor vehicles. I would never really have thought of going back to the Victorian era. It just seems too early for me.

Queen Victoria travelled in a car. Did she? Yes. Although it travelled in a car. Did she? Yes. Although it was a French one. Unfortunately. But the very first car was French that actually appeared on British roads. It was a Panhard Elevateur.

1895, the very first run on a public road in a car in Britain. Right. The heads that must have turned. Well... What is this strange thing? Frightening horses. Trundling down the track.

Yeah, I mean, it was one of those things that was very sexy. It would certainly turn the heads of lots of females if you were driving a car. Because that was like, oh, this is a new, exciting, dangerous young man who's got his hands on the steering wheel of a car. He must be really something. Whizzing along at probably 15 miles per

hour. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Nothing like that fast. Oh, really? In fact, the first speeding ticket was given to a guy who was doing 8 miles an hour in a 6. Great. Yeah. I knew about this one. So this is a fellow called Walter Arnold. to a guy who was doing eight miles an hour in a six. Great.

I knew about this one. So this is a fellow called Walter Arnold. In January 1896, he was driving in a place in Kent called Paddock Wood. And he was sort of chased down. I say chased down. I mean, a police officer sort of walked after him and informed him that he was breaking the speed limit. And of course, that was a steam-powered car at the time, I guess, wasn't it? Yes, for steam cars, you needed a chauffeur,

somebody who handles hot things to heat up the water in the car. Oh, is that the origin of chauffeur? Yes. Wonderful. But in those days, the the speed limit was well the speed limit was low because cars didn't really go much faster than that but also you you had um you had someone walking in front of you waving a red flag to alert oncomers that there was a vehicle yes approaching i mean, there were all sorts of things about, you know, some people saying you have to let off fireworks or flares.

I think in France you were technically supposed to let off flares to let people know that you were coming down the road in a car. And then someone invented the horn and everything became a lot easier. Cars are one of those things that just boys and engineers really love to tinker with and get better. I've had a love affair with cars since I was probably about four. So what's your earliest memory of a car? Do you have a distinct moment where you sort of, it suddenly clicked

or you got inside a particularly nice car and thought, well, no, my abiding very first memories of being in a car were being in my mum's Morris Minor. Because everybody in those days had a Morris Minor and no seatbelts. And of course, and her breaking very hard to avoid something and sticking her left hand out across my body to stop me from going straight through the windscreen. But more abiding than that was actually my dad had a precursor of the transit. He had a Ford Thames van. And that had the engine actually in the cab. So the front of the car was where your was where your

feet were basically of the van and the engine was inboard between the between the driver's seat and the passenger seat underneath the cover oh my goodness and on a cold day sitting on top of the engine cover was lovely it was really nice and warm i have memories of the family car we had a a morris traveler and it was one of those cars that had wooden framework in certain places at the back of the car. What the Americans call a woody, as heard in Beach Boys songs. Oh, that's what a woody is in Beach Boys songs? Yes.

Ah, man, the learning that goes on here. And I distinctly remember in colder times of the year, my dad saying, don't touch the mushrooms. The wet woodwork in the Morris Traveller was actually growing fungus. Wow. Probably mildly dangerous. I expect so, yeah. We obeyed him. We didn't touch it.

So we never found out. But it did have a certain aroma to it. Yeah. I can only imagine. It didn't touch it. So we never found out. But it did have a certain aroma to it. Yeah. I can only imagine. It did have those indicators. They're called trafficators. The indicators that stick out from the side of the vehicle. Oh, they stick out the side.

Yes, that's right. Yeah, yeah. Now, there are so many different elements, different developments that have come along in the motor vehicle industry it would be impossible to name them all um but i some of this some of this is so obvious but it was only a handful of years ago i realized that a windscreen is called a windscreen because it was initially put there to screen you from the wind yes because early cars didn't have a windscreen they were entirely open you were almost sort of perched on a flat platform. There was very little surrounding as we sort of picture body work.

The cockpit. The cockpit, yes, yes. And so you were totally exposed. No roof, no windscreen, no windows even. You were just sort of totally exposed to the to the elements and um and so someone came along with the idea of a windscreen do you know how a dashboard gets its name no tell me so this goes back to four cars so i'm cheating slightly but it sort of goes back to horse and carts the dashboard sort of separated you from the horse and a nickname for what comes out the back of a

horse was dash so the dashboard was the board that stopped the people in the cart getting covered in dash well here's the thing isn't that great um talking about sort of horse-drawn carriages and things driving on the left and driving on the right is quite interesting as well. And it's basically you can blame the whole lot on Napoleon. Good. Because at one time, everybody drove on the left. But in France, the aristocracy drove on the left and poor people drove on the right. I'm not sure that makes sense. Well, it doesn't.

So basically, if you saw a carriage coming behind you that was going a bit quicker than you, you would move over to let it pass you. Oh, I see. The implication being that the rich folk had the faster carriages. The rich folk are coming past you, don't get in their way. So they'll have you killed or thrown off your land or whatever. Right.

And so during the revolution, aristocrats would hide their aristocracy by riding their carriages on the poor side of the road, which is the right-hand side of the road. Oh. So the poor people and aristocrats who wanted to keep their heads rode on the right-hand side. So as Napoleon conquered throughout Europe,

the Napoleonic side of the road to drive on was adopted by all of the countries, Austria and Hungary, all those countries adopted the side of the road that Napoleon said you should ride on. And the Americans, being revolutionaries, linked very closely with Lafayette and all things French. Well, if we want to be revolutionary, never mind all this driving on the left,

we're going to drive on the right because that's the revolutionary side of the road to drive on. Oh, wow. So it was mostly the British went, no, I'm totally sorry, we're just going to stick to driving on the left. And all of our colonies will continue to drive on the left, like Australia and Hong Kong and Canada. So the whole thing is just entirely political. Yes, absolutely.

Oh, that's great. You mentioned Austria just briefly there. I went on a holiday to Austria a handful of years ago. My wife is a sound of music enthusiast, so obviously Salzburg and so on. What are her favourite things? Oh, she quite likes whiskers on kittens, that sort of thing. Snow drops on daisies. Not so keen on wild geese that fly.

But you can't have it all, can you? So we were driving around austria which is just stunning and um we were on a motorway one day and this very odd thing kept on happening every time the traffic slowed down the people in the left lane moved to the left and the people in the right lane moved to the right and I really didn't understand what was happening at first I sort of thought oh there must be some debris in the road and people are just steering to get out of the way but it happened again and again and again and I looked it up afterwards and it turns out this is actually part of their highway code that when you're in slow

moving traffic on a motorway you separate to whichever is your nearest outer edge in order to leave a path for emergency vehicles to come through should they need to do so makes complete sense doesn't it make complete sense the number of times you've seen an emergency vehicle in this country you know being totally hampered by all the cars that are in the way ultimately using yeah totally yeah i thought what a great idea that everyone just naturally knew that's what you did so what other what other firsts or what other innovations have come around well petrol i guess petrol petrol that's quite an important one yes did you know that the word petrol is actually patented? No. So it wasn't called petrol.

It was called gasoline or something before then. Oh, yes. But a company called Carlos Capel and Levasseur of Hackney Wick discovered a slight different process, and they called it petrol. And they patented the name petrol. Ah, right. OK. discovered a slight different process and they called it petrol and they they patented the name petrol ah right okay so there is a minor difference between petrol and gasoline in the way it's actually produced uh yes uh which i won't go into uh there's also the major differences between petrol and diesel the diesel story is amazing i don't know if you know the story of the guy who invented the diesel engine, Mr. Diesel. I don't. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Mr.

Diesel. Yes. It was named after a man. Yes. Okay, carry on. So he had invented this amazing engine which was much more efficient than a petrol engine and he decided he was going to take his invention to America

to expand it and to make his fortune. Right. So he took the boat to America. And somewhere between Europe and America, he fell off the boat. Fell. This is the thing, is that a lot of people don't think he fell at all. They think that he was pushed. And that that delayed the adoption of the diesel engine.

They think it was actually more for marine purposes. It was actually the people who produced marine engines, like steam and coal, who didn't want this new fangled diesel engine taking their breakfast. So they did away with him. So it took a little while longer for the diesel to actually make an appearance on roads and sea

and not in the air because it's quite heavy. So different firsts and innovations and changes in the way things were done. Do you know, Bruce, about the first number plate, the first car registration? Was it A1? No. Most people think it was A1. And in London, the first car registration number plate was A1. And because London is the centre of the universe that has been

you know adopted into into public knowledge um that was in 1904 uh on the 1st of january 1904 it became compulsory for every every car to be registered with a number plate so you could see which car was which uh but before that just two months before that november 1903 the first ever number plate was issued in hastings and the number plate was dy1 i don't know why it was dy i haven't found that out but yes then a year later in london the first london number plate was a1 and this was registered to the second Earl Russell, who owned a vehicle called a Napier. Yes.

He said with a question mark, because I've never heard of that. That's all right. You're nodding away, so that's good. Five years previously, Dutch authorities had introduced the idea of having a registration plate, but it didn't really sort of take off, and it certainly wasn't compulsory. But in 1904, it became compulsory to have them. Can you give us a rough estimate of how many vehicles you've either A, owned, or B, driven?

So over the years, I think I've owned about 37 cars and about seven motorcycles. Wow. Okay, so that's quite a few. I think I've owned six. But I've driven a lot more than that. In a previous career line, I used to be a postman before I came into the wonderful world of voiceover. And because of that, I think I've probably driven about 30 odd Royal Mail vans in my time.

So I may not have owned many, but I have driven a vast variety of vehicles within the van spectrum. Well, this is interesting because I know we said we wouldn't talk about America. However, there is one interesting thing about America and left-hand drive and right-hand drive, which is that although the Americans drive on the wrong side of the road,

the postmen have to get out of the car and deliver the post all the time. So what the American Postal Service did is they ordered all of the vans for the postal service with a steering wheel on the correct side of the car so they could pull up at the side of the vans for the postal service with the steering wheel on the correct side of the car. So they could pull up at the side of the curb. And rather than having to walk all the way around, sort of get out of the driver's side and walk all the way around, they could get out of the correct driver's side and just go step straight out onto the sidewalk. Interesting idea. idea uh so we we talked earlier on about the first ever speeding fine being for a ridiculously low speed uh the fastest speed to incur a speeding ticket at least in this country uh was uh 192 miles per hour wow on a Nottinghamshire motorway,

performed by a gentleman called Sean Davis back in 2015. Apparently, in the UK, somebody gets caught speeding every five minutes. Really? You'd think they'd learn their lesson by now, really, wouldn't you? You really would, yeah. That's going to clock up a few fines, isn't it? Well, fines is quite interesting. In Switzerland, they base your fine on your salary.

Really? It means tested? Yes. So it's a proportion of your salary. So you don't have to be going that fast to get a big fine. And the biggest speeding fine, I think, was in Switzerland. And it was about £180,000. Oh, my goodness. And he was only doing 85 in a 50. Wow. Still illegal. Still illegal.

Right, so that's the biggest ever fine. Do you know what is the largest amount of money ever paid for for a car well i say ever paid for publicly known to be paid for i don't know i don't know what shady deals this is that auction yes it could be millions and millions and millions yes it could a very modest 52 million pounds so 70 70 million dollars 52 million million. This was a 1968 Ferrari 250 GTO. Of course it was. And it was the vehicle that won the Tour de France in 1968. And it was purchased by a gentleman called David McNeill from Chicago,

who, you know, had a few million to spare and just felt like going for this car at auction. We've talked about the most expensive. We've talked about the biggest, fine, fastest. So we get into the realm of land speed records and that sort of thing. So have they broken the sound barrier? They have broken the sound barrier. So it's faster than 660.

Yeah. So in 1997, I was surprised it was this long ago actually i assumed it was much more recent but um the the current land speed record uh hasn't been broken since then so in 1997 british uh a british fellow andy green raf pilot andy green captain andy green he drove a thrust in the Black Rock Desert in America and reached 763 miles per hour. That's almost inconceivable. Isn't it? I mean, that's a plane on wheels. Yeah, well, practically, it's effectively a a jet engine yes with four four wheels and a very small cockpit it looks if you ever get a chance to look at thrust get a get a take a look at a picture of it it looks amazing it does and there is there's video of of what

andy could actually see out of the out of the windscreen which isn't a huge amount i'm just picturing the the the stars that come towards the screen as the Millennium Falcon slips into hyperdrive. It is pretty much. And I guess that's why they chose an RAF pilot to drive it, because he's used to those kind of speeds. Yeah, yeah. Probably not quite that close to the ground, but even so.

But the terrain had to be meticulously inspected, didn't it? One slightly out of place stone could throw the vehicle completely off track. So you had people going up and down the stretch of desert and sweeping it and making it as flattened and as even as possible because the smallest imperfection in the land could... And, of course, change the direction of the wind as well could just send it up into the air. So that's a jet-powered car.

The land speed record for what would sort of seem like a more traditional sort of car was set in 1964 in a vehicle called Bluebird. Ah, Donald Campbell. Very good. Which achieved a meagre 403 miles per hour, which to my mind is still staggering. It's ridiculously fast. And this took place in Lake Erie in Australia in 1964.

So you mentioned car mascots, the little hood ornaments, as the Americans would call them. I know nothing about these except sort of thinking about car manufacturer logos and names and things like that. Do you know the origin of Vauxhall? Go ahead. So in Liverpool, just on the outskirts of Liverpool, there's an old medieval hall, which was owned by a Lord Fawkes, Fawkes spelt the same way as Guy Fawkes, and that building was called Forks Hall. And the surrounding area in Liverpool became known as Vauxhall.

So there's a Vauxhall in Liverpool, as well as in London. He then moved to London and built a similar property, which gave rise to that part of London being called Vauxhall, which is where the car manufacturer set themselves up. The image, the logo on Vauxhall is a griffin, which was the coat of arms of Lord Fawkes. Ah, there you go. It's the only one I know. Well, there's also a Vauxhall in Russia.

I think it's one of the train stations on the Russian metro. Ah, interesting. And named after the same thing, which is really bizarre. Yeah. But voxels, early voxels, and I think up until very recently, they were known for having what they called nostrils. So if you looked at the bonnet of an old voxel, and even some current ones, they've tried to retain a little bit of it.

Rather than having a flat bonnet, they have little indentations either side of the middle, which can look a bit like a septum. Yeah. And that's how you could tell a voxel, apart from the griffin. Right. The nostrils on it was another way of telling the difference. And you mentioned the spirit of ecstasy? There's actually the woman who posed for it.

It was still alive until reasonably recently. Oh. They used to actually, in the very early days, the bonnet ornament had a use because it was a thermometer. So when you looked along the bonnet of the car, at the end of it, where the radiator was, there was a circular thing with a needle in it and a red zone and a green zone. And if you were overheating the needle went into the red zone and you knew that you had to pull over and that's how you could tell that you were that your engine was too hot great but there's one of the there are some very

expensive hood ornaments there's uh the the french um crystals sculptor, Lalique, and made some wonderful, beautiful hood ornaments for cars. And they're worth a lot of money if you can get an original Lalique hood ornament. I think Bentley just has a capital B on theirs, doesn't it? Yes, it's a winged B. A winged B. Yes, and wings feature quite strongly. Aston Martin is wings as well

aston martin um uh originally lionel martin uh who drove his cars at the aston hill climb so hence aston martin again not mr aston and mr martin no the original martin the original aston martins were designated lm so lm1 lm15, LM18. Okay. Lionel Martin. But Aston got bought by a guy who made farm equipment called David Brown. And so he thought there'd be Aston Martins but I want my name in there as well.

So we've got the name of the hill climb, we've got Lionel Martin's name in there. I want David Brown's name to be in Aston Martins. Hence we get the DB2, the DB3. Even though David Brown is long dead, we still call them DBs. Great. Well, there you go.

Little nuggets of information to brighten your day. So going back several conversations about the different innovations that have come along through motoring history. Obviously, we now have electric ignition. Starter motors. Starter motors. That's the word for it. Yeah. When did that come about?

Do you know? I don't know exactly, but I would imagine that it would have been about in the 20s or something like that. It would have been quite early on. It was actually 1911. Was it? Yeah. So the first electric ignition was invented in 1911, and it had a button rather than a crank handle,

which would be inserted into the front of the car. You'd turn the crank handle, and that's what started the engine. And the idea behind inventing this, other than the fact that it was just easier, was the fact that the crank handle could actually fly out of the front of the car once the engine was started. If you didn't remove it quickly enough, it could actually sort of ping off. It broke lots of thumbs. It broke shins. Because it would start to, if you were standing too close to it, it would hit your legs. Yes.

But, I mean, the biggest thing was the fact that it meant that women could drive cars much more easily because you need to be quite a burly sort of person to turn a crank handle, whereas if you're not that strong, then an electric starter motor is a very easy way to start a car. Have you ever started a car with a crank handle, Bruce? I have done it once. Have you?

Never do it again. I got very sweaty and I don't think I even actually got it started in the end. It was a cold day. Right. But you've sort of owned a few fairly vintage vehicles. Have you ever owned a vehicle with a crank handle? Yes, my current vehicle, my Elvis, has a crank handle.

I think the handle is there more for defence against people who are trying to attack you than any kind of useful car-related activity. There are still people who don't have any other choice.

There's a wonderful thing called the London to Brighton Run. I've heard of this. Which happens in November. And the cars, they're assembled in Regent Street as a kind of like a display the day before on the Saturday. Right. So then all the vehicles move from Regent Street to Regent's Park. Actually, to Hyde Park, I apologize. And they're all there.

And then they let them out onto the public road. These cars, some of which are over 130 years old. Wow. And they let them out onto the public roads to drive from London to Brighton. Gosh. And not all of them make it every year, but it is fabulous to watch.

And I recommend anybody to come and have a look at the cars. Check out what weekend it's going to be in November. And it's quite cold, obviously. So all of these people are really well wrapped up and all dressed traditionally. Cars have always been part of my life. It's lovely. And the kind of people who love cars are my tribe. Great.

Well, that is more information than I ever would have imagined myself talking about on the topic of cars. Thank you, Bruce, for sharing your vast knowledge with us. Thank you, Simon, for all the research. I appreciate it. My pleasure. And thank you to our dear listeners for listening to us. Both of them. Both of them.

Now we have doubled our numbers. Yeah, absolutely. Next week we might have a third. Who knows? So please stay tuned. Come back again next week for more of this one. What should people do? They should like. They should subscribe. They should follow. They should shout it from the rooftops. Yeah. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next time cheerio bye