Don't Leave Home Without...

On this edition of the Car-Chum podcast:  (CLIP) I had a CLS for a bit with a with a hard drive in it, and I did use it once I uploaded an entire course of Michelle Thomas, how to speak French. I think I did sell the car with Michelle Thomas, still trying to teach the occupants how to speak French. It was a German car. 

(CLIP) The other one's the the, the hand brake not kind of not pushing in the button button.  On the end of it or wanna make sure it's on. What do you mean? 

(CLIP) It was the most sensitive thing in the world. Somebody could like blink in the car next to you. And it would skip the Discman was, was a lovely idea that never really worked. They marketed it for running and you'd have to do yeah, kind of moon, moon, walk running to, to avoid it.  (SFX) Skipping. 

Hello and welcome back to Car-Chum. Now have you ever left home and got halfway down the road before realizing that you forgot the, if, so you'll be familiar with the essence of this week's Car-Chum podcast, all the things that you shouldn't leave home without, and maybe a few you should as well. Good start.

Good. Positive start. Well done. Excellent. What are we? What are we doing?  oh, yes, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't leave home without it, Mike. Okay. I tell you . Yes. Okay, great. And that ends the podcast for it. So yes, that's today's topic. Have you put any thought into it or are you just like me? No, no, no. I have actually and come up with some, well, I, while I, while I was doing it, I considered them reasonable when they come outta my mouth, I may change my mind.

Well, so, so don't leave home without it. Evidently if you are my neighbors, it's being a small yappy dog that barks at everything or. Slamming the car door, as hard as you can.  some people do do that. Don't they, they absolutely care run up at shutting the door as hard as possible. Why is that? They always say that they, they do say that people who aren't particularly car orientated, always slam car doors too hard, but it's.

It's it's tr I mean, we've all done it, you get into someone's car and particularly sort of certain classic cars. Yeah. And the door was lighter than you expect.  and it bang. I did it to someone the other day. I can't remember who, who it was now, but it was a really nice old car. And I, I thought, oh, this is gonna need a, you know, little bit more pressure than you'd expect in perhaps a rolls Royce and just.

Bang. And he kind of looked to me. I, well, sorry. The other one's the the, the hand break that irritates me slightly is the ratchet, you know, not, not pushing in the button. Oh, that gets me. There's a button on the end of it. Oh, wanna make sure it's on. What do you mean? ? Yeah. You, you, you see it in films and television, don't you there?

So I'll pull up somewhere, Rob. No. Oh, I mean, it's okay. On a fly off hand break. Okay. On one of those where you don't, where you, you have to pull up the ratchet mechanism in old sports cars, and they're forever. The amount of times I've driven an old British sports car, and you pull up somewhere at a light and put a hand break on.

Not really realize it's a fly off hand break and it just drops straight off again. . Oh, no, the hand break's not working. I think you should explain what a fly off is. Just very busy. It's got nothing to do with the podcast today. No, hasn't is it well, a normal hand break. You, you push in the button, pull up the hand break, let go of the button on the end.

And the hand break stays on with a, with a fly off one. You basically, I think sort. Well, I've always found you holding the button and it's basically sort of on or off, isn't it. And you hold the button, you pull it right up and then you let go of the button. And the hand break, probably two times out of three actually stays on  depending on how well it's been adjusted.

But I think it's, it's a sort of on or off hand break. Isn't it. There's not degrees of, of ratchet. Like you have with a, a normal hand break where you can go click, click, click, click, click, click. And it's sort of on a little bit, or it's on a lot. Mm-hmm . I've certainly discovered over the years, most of the cars I've owned.

Don't have a perfect hand break. There's a really steep hill near where live with traffic lights at the bottom. And the amount of times that you've kind of crawled down to the traffic lights, they've been red. You put a hand break on, on the cast moving well they do test. Should it test it on the mot.

Yeah, well, yeah, I know. Well, supposedly friend of mine, years ago to mark for Cort and it passed the OT and just as he was pulling it off the ramp, the, the hand brake cable snapped and the OT guy said, well, sort of filled out the form now. You're okay. But, you know, get it fixed. Well did yes. I mean, it is, it is a snapshot test.

It is, it is what is there at that moment. So in theory, one, one second later, it's a, it's an irrelevance anyway, look talking of, I relevances something we do so well. Yeah. Don't, don't leave home without it. Yes. You, you mentioned dog a dog. Yeah. Don't live home without a dog. Well, I kind of did once actually, and I want this absolutely totally clear.

Right from the get go mm-hmm  I am a pet lover, a dog lover, and my dog is very well cared for. Okay. Let's Jo, this, this was an, yeah. This say that I met your dog, but this was an accident, just a genuine bit of absent mindedness. So I went. This was a time. I think I mentioned it before I had a 65 Mustang.

Yes. Which sounds slightly better than it was, cuz it wasn't exactly great. It was a, a work in progress where the progress never happened. Okay. But so it was just work. But no, I, I, I did like it. I just didn't have the, the funds to to finish the job off properly anyway. At the same time I had a Mercedes w 2 0 2 C class.

They were the ones that replaced the one 90. Remember one 90, the first small Mercedes. Yeah. Which was, you know, one of the one of the best built cars. In fact, in fact, there's some great pictures of a one 90, well, truly used on the the cartoon social pages at the moment. Okay. It's multicolored.

And I mean, this thing has lent the hardest life. My capture just simply says condition of it. Used  cause it is, well, it truly used anyway, the I had the C glass afterwards and that one rusted mine didn't but that, that, that model did, this was a really nice one. Anyway, it was saloon car, obviously.

And the dog used to travel in the footwear. Oh yeah. Of this car lapping up the water. No. But discovered that she actually liked the boot saloon car boot  and right. Well, I discovered it actually with a SARB 9,000 saloon which had a ski flap and I had to put her in the boot for some reason.

And so I lifted the boot. She jumped in voluntarily and straight through the ski flap. She didn't come all the way through just, just. Huh, have a little look. And then back in the, never saw her again for the whole journey. Anyway, got the C class. Oh, there's no ski FLA. She's not gonna like it. Anyway. Opened the boot jumped in.

Loved it. Absolutely just loved. I think it's cuz a little cave. Yeah. You know, it was kind of dark and, and relatively quiet anyway. Popped her in the boot. Wasn't a long journey. Never, never, never put her in there for a long time. No more than seven, eight hours.  no she could hold her breath.  No, no, cuz they're ventilated cuz the, the, the vents are at the back.

She loved exhaust fumes. She thrived on her. No, we've. Anyway, got to the, got to the destination to pick up the the Mustang got out fast about, got the Mustang ready, you know, started up, drove off, off, off, off where we went. But it was more of a off, I went not off. We went ah, off, we went and I didn't get very far.

I mean, you know, I could, I could build the story up to be something it's not, but I got a little weight and I looked down into the foot. Thought that's empty the dog, I've got the dog.

not beloved dog. So I spun this Mustang around a, to back to back. And you know, that joke, that old joke about. See, see which one prefers you when, when you locking, when you in the boot, your wife and the dog in the boot. Yeah. And see which, see which one's happier when you open the boot. Yeah. See which test of love to see you.

Yeah. I can't back. I ran to this sea club PLI. It opened the boot. I'm so sorry. Still just remains laying down the tail. Just. Hi. Yeah.   oh, the, so yeah, don't, don't leave home without the dog. Oh God, dear. I felt, I felt awful. I really did  but you couldn't care less. I, this, this is kind of a horrible story, but I'm gonna tell it anyway.

And you, you feel the need to cut it out if you like, but some, some friends of mine who. They had a Volvo three 40, they had loads of cars. He, the husband hated this Volvo, but his wife liked it. Oh, you know, they're, they're a sensible car. They're a safe car. And he did admit, you know, it's, it's indestructible.

I think I mentioned sort of many, many months ago that he was using it to try and pull out a tree stump in the house. When I went round once hoping against hope that something would go wrong in his car and it didn't, it was just absolutely indestructible. But anyway, they, they had two kids. It's about two, three in the afternoon.

She's at home. She realizes that the cats died. And they love cats. You know, they, they had cats all their lives and the cat had just got old and it had died. It had, it died in the driveway and she said, oh, the kids are gonna be home in 10 minutes. What am I gonna do with the cat? Haven't got time to bury it.

I'm gonna have to break it to the kids. I don't want them to walk up the driveway. The first thing they see is they're beloved pet. So she thought put it in the, put it in the boot, the vulva. It's the only thing I can do. There's nowhere in the house. I can. So you put it pops it in the boot of this three 40, not realizing her husband had put the car up for sale.

so . Couple of hours later, husband comes home from work. She hasn't had time to, to see him or anything. And a guy turned up to Bo to look at the, the vulva and the husband went, oh, you know, I just want to sort of pop in today. He says, there's, there's the keys. It was on the driveway. It was blocked in, nothing was gonna go wrong.

He wasn't gonna drive off with the car cuz there were other kids, other cows behind it. So, you know, have a look around it. I'll meet your cup of. And he said, they just looked out the window and we could see was this guy sort of walking around, looking, kicking the tires, opening the boot, staring in the boot, slamming the boot, putting the keys down and walking away quite rapidly.

Think he are they doing  they seemed normal.

But no, so sort of, as I say, they love cat's horrible story. So yeah, don't, don't leave home without a pet locked in a boot. Oh yeah. One, one bit of very good advice. If you if you are traveling to a car show, I mean, in this case, THEC at Birmingham and you get up at six in the morning, you drive all the way up to Birmingham and you go to the classic car show at Birmingham and you walk around for several hours and then join a long, long cue to buy a sandwich and then realize you didn't bring your wallet with you.

No,  that's that's quite a good one. And then the only you get to the front. Yes. Oh, got to the front, ordered the food. And then. Oh, I have no money on me at all. So at this point, very, very hungry. Everyone offered to buy me a beer. Nobody offered to buy me food desperately hoping I didn't run out of petrol on the way.

Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I often wonder there was a story years and years ago in one of the magazine, it was auto car or the motor or one of these proper magazines they had, I think it was a Lincoln continental. They, they were British journalists. They had this thing on test in Europe somewhere, and it ran out of fuel and they had no money at all.

And they managed to convince some garage guy in Italy. That's simply because they were journalists back when journalists had a good reputation that if he gave them the, a full tank of fuel, they would pay him at some point in the future when they got back to the office. And it was the fact that they were driving a Lincoln continental, he accepted the fact that they must be, they must be outright sta gentleman.

Yeah. Try that. I've never had, I've never gone to a petrol station and, and realized I have no money with me, but I, I wonder what they do with you. It says, yeah, it says, no, I haven't. It says on the yes, I have. It says on the pumps, doesn't it, it's an offense to fill up without the means to pay. But I mean, obviously you, I have to prove intent on that.

They'd have to be  the Lord. Yeah, no, I did. Oh, well it was years ago. Did we do? I think I phoned my wife or got, you know, got them to phone my wife or something. Someone's wife. Yeah. Some  someone to call someone's wife. And I think they were able somehow to take it over the phone, but they need to be, you know, credit card number and stuff, but they need to be set up for that.

I don't think that's a, you know, that. Default position. There's there's a thing. And there's, there's been complaints about it where I live on like the local Facebook group, cuz apparently one of the local supermarket garages. When you put in your card initially before you even pump any petrol, it checks how much there is in your account and it won't take more than that value.

So if you've got 40 pounds in your bank account, right, it will let you pump 40 pounds worth of fuel. But no. And they're saying that's a, you know, this is the stop you going overdrawn. It's clearly not. It's, it's clearly to stop some sort of theft or whatever, you know, but I, I don't really like the sound of that there's cause there's never more than 40 pounds in your account.

Is there ? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I'm more, my, my cars need more than that to get off the four court tell you I never, I never used to leave home without mm-hmm  a cup holder. Now this, this is before I promise you, this is before cup holders became, you know, the thing you absolutely had to have cup holders in, in every single nook and cranny of the car.

And so my prize possession, this was back in triumph mite days. Mm-hmm  ah was ANSO. Branded as in the petrol station as opposed to, yeah, I was gonna say rather than any other, so that you might come across in everyday life. Yeah. And it was a thing that went over the, the door edge, please say gear lever, steering wheel.

Yeah. Yeah. It bats it on the top of the steering wheel. Great. For rallies. No, whenever the, the, the, the door frame, which on a mite was you know, wood capping. So it was perfect, but I mean, oh, okay. Came over that in a sort of reverse U drop down, and then you could sort of flip out the, the circular bit to pop your can.

And it was, you know, three 30 mil can sized. So I never left home without that. And it fitted perfectly and held the can. Absolutely spot on. What wasn't quite so good was cuz you know, I was a teenager at this point, the the back of the behind the, the passenger seat was full of crushed cans, cuz I could never be bothered to throw  throw them away.

I mean, what a mess I would never, you know, the thing is I remember someone saying to me, you wouldn't sit in your living. Like that, would you? Yeah. So why, why  and then they, then, then they went round your house and realized it was the tip of the iceberg.  the tip of the, I iceberg of madness, the the, the that they were mainly Rio.

Do you remember the drink Rio? I do in cans. Yeah. I, I, I drank a lot of real horrible, horrible stuff. Very sticky and sweet. Yeah. Yeah. But so yeah, cup holders even apparently came about. Because of the drive through and drive in culture in America. That's, that's, that's, that's where the, you know, cup, cup holder historians reckon that reckon that it came from, and it wasn't just cup holders.

At that point, it was actual sort of hold trays and things. So you could, you know, over the steering wheel and over the dash and over the, the side window frames of one. So you could actually sit and dine. Well, of course there was an era of cars that when you put down the glove box lid, mm-hmm  that had two kind of.

Circular indent where that was? Presumably. Yeah. Yeah. Where, where you were supposed to put your, your mug of tea or wherever it was, you were leaving the house within, in the morning. And of course he did nothing. If you put it, if you tried to drive with the cup there, it just, it just fell off. All it did basically was hold.

The liquid that had spilled for a while. And then when you forgot about it and closed the glove box, it then covered everything in the glove box in coffee or whatever you had. This is cultural though, isn't it? As well as design led, because actually back then, we were talking about. Stationary eating.

Yes. So drive-ins drive through it's paper and pens and things. Yeah.  Don't confuse my point while I'm making one paper clips.  The that you think rolls Royce, et cetera, picnic. Cadillac, glassware, et cetera. It wasn't designed for, for, for that cut glass to be used whilst driving. It was designed for the destination, you know, the yes, delic lake view, et cetera, to, to sit and to sit and have your your picnic.

Now of course it's, it's it's to harness and. Single use plastic yes. To  to create as much as that, but people didn't drink the volume of water, et cetera that they do now. Certainly not coffee and all that sort of, oh, I can't start by, can't start my day without a coffee. You know, et cetera, you know, and, and I needed in some kind of.

Single use plastic bucket. Yes.  Every day the, the first cup holders that, that were kind of built in to hold that, that sort of nonsense was the first people carrier that we mentioned, or one of the first not, no, not the fear. B the fear multiple. No, no Chrysler the Chrysler Cara. Yeah. Do no Dodge VO, man Voyager Chrysler Voyager, Plymouth, Voyager.

Yeah, that was the first one. I think, I think that had a, a proper built in cup holder where you could actually put, you know, a large vessel. Oh, okay. Prettiest ones I reckon, or most intricate ones, the SARB ones. Have you ever seen them? The SARB nine three and nine five. Are we, are we genuinely discussing which fire as the most attractive cup holder is this how low we've sunk?

I go into this. We we've, we've gone. We've gone through the bottom of the barrel. Now we're scraping the floor. Go on then what's the world's most attractive cup holder in a car.  I think it is. And it was quite durable as well, nine threes and nine fives. So the later ones had these, these ones, which.

Just, this is very difficult to describe a slim, fill it of something that you, you pressed out. It came from the dashboard vertically, and once it finished its vertical movement, it then in, in a sort of well-oiled DED manner, folded out horizontal piece, which was the cup holder element. So yeah, I Google it.

But they were, they, they, they were very nice. I won't. Okay.  if you don't, if you don't mind, I've got, I've got nothing I must get on with today. I know one of the more modern Mercedes that the friend had one and it had cup holders that sort of appeared out of the, each end of the dashboard and quite a complicated little thing.

It slid out and then a little trade dropped down. That's flat that amazing. Yeah. And you put the cup in it. And then if you had. Air conditioning or any kind of air on it, just cold made it freezing cold. Yes. So you had a cup of coffee that went from warm to utterly frozen in, in the space of about 30 seconds of them.

I suppose that was the purpose was to keep drinks, chill, but they didn't seem, seem to occur to them that you might want a warm drink. Actually BMW five series E 39 was, was the worst. Cuz the cup holders were down the bottom in front of that. They obscured the climate controls. If you put a cup there, it also got in the way of the gear stick if it was manual.

But if you got over both of those problems you discovered pretty quickly that you know, the little inlet for the climate control sensor. So it can sense the temperature of the cabin's got a tiny, tiny little fan in it. That was right. That was right behind the cup holder. So of course, if you put a cup of hot water there of, or coffee or whatever, it, it instantly thought that the car was roasting hot  so it was impossible to make the car warm enough to living.

Let me finish on cup holders. Please. Please let me finish. No, no, let me stop you. I'm sure there's more. There's a, the American car. The American model of a Subaru holds the title of hold. Having the most car holders in a car. Guess how as a standard fit, guess how many. Hundred and 39. No, it is in fact 19, is there ever 19, 19 only got like eight in the boot or something.

So there we go. Don't leave home without your cup holder, end up with a, a mess that would've been perfect for you with all your cans of Rio. Wouldn't have. Yeah. . Don't leave home without it. I've never owned a car. That's got cup holder. I've never owned a car. That's had a CD player. This is largely because I buy very cheap cars and old cars.

But I imagine most of your cars have had CD players. But what I did have was, do you remember the adapters that you, you had, they had a cassette player mm-hmm  and you put this kind of cassette sized adapter into the cassette player, and then you, it gave you a line out and then you could plug in like a CD Walkman or something  yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which is what I did on the Volvo two 40. No way of mounting it. I literally had, I think they did it in Wayne's world at one point didn't they? But the the pacer that they had, it was, they had a CD player up in the, in the headlining somewhere, but I basically blew ack this Walkman Disman thing onto the top of the dashboard and plugged it in.

And it actually worked really, really well. Certainly up. Pulled away in the car anyway,  it was it was impossible to use cuz you, you had to, you know, the, the very essence of a Disman is being able to look down on it and push the buttons. And of course this was up on the dashboard, which is virtually eye level mm-hmm  It was the most sensitive thing in the world.

Yeah. Somebody could like blink in the car next to you and it would skip . Yeah, no, the di the Disman was, was, was, was a lovely idea that never really worked. You, you know, for they, they marketed it Sony for, for, for running. And you'd have to do kind of moon walk running to, to avoid it. Skipping. You couldn't swallow without the thing going?

No, no, no, no, no. But you know, for a while I did at least have a CD player. I had hire car once it was a virtually brand new hire car and whichever agency had lent it to us, the Fords for a while, and possibly still, still do. You could put in a CD and it would record. The information of the CD onto the cars side drive.

Yes. And I presume higher cars. You, you know, they, they have some sort of lockout thing, but this thing had a load of loads of songs on it. So obviously the person who don't hired the car before me had downloaded their entire CD collection onto it. Don't they don't, they don't have CD players at all. Now, Mike, actually, they don't do they?

No, no, no, we we've gotta. I had one, I had a, a, a what was it, a CLS Mercedes CLS for a bit with a with a hard drive in it? I think that's probably, I'm trying to think if that's the only car, cuz it was just a little window of time where that was a really sort of high techy, clever thing to do where you had the CD player, as you say, you just burnt it, ripped it onto the, the, the, and I did use.

Once I upload uploaded a an entire course of Michelle Thomas, how to speak French on onto. Okay. And I think I did sell the car with Michelle Thomas, still trying to teach the occupants how to speak French. He never taught me.

It was a German car. It was, it was anti the thing  well, as, as you say, yeah, we sort of went from a spirit of cassette player, prominent in the dashboard. I mean, my BMW, I got 87 BMW. That's got still with cassettes, the, the cassette player, which worked for about four days once I bought the car and then stopped.

Right. But it's still. Adapters underneath. So you push the button and an empty tray Springs out where you can keep the cassette. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not the box. Just the cassette cassette. Yeah. Yeah. And a number of times I will, you know, I'll change gear or I'll reach for something in the Ash tray and boom.

And the, these spring loaded cassette trays pop out. They do it by themselves every so often as well, which is always slightly strange, but. Yeah, you got through this period of cassettes and then there were CD players. Mm. And then they started to hide the CD player. So you would get in a car of certain era, late nineties, early two thousands.

And they had a CD player, but you couldn't find it. And they'd have a, a six or a 10 CD changer in the boot somewhere. Again, hidden away in the boot. So if you borrowed a car for several weeks and you think, well, I know there's a CD player in her somewhere , but I can't find out where I put the CD and then you'd realize it was in the boot and you'd have to start taking the boot apart.

You'd find the Jack and the spare wheel and the quite often the washer bottle for the rear wash wipe and. Yeah, it, it might take months to find out where they'd hidden the CD player in the back. It's not, it's not a phase of, of ice in car or entertainment that I that I, that I, I cherish or miss actually no cassette cassettes were, were, were honest and fine.

And now streaming is, is, is, is, is fine as well. One of the things I miss actually is walking down the street and seeing. About 80 meters of cassette tape in the gutter.  do you remember that for years? You say? Yeah. Yeah. That was very, very eighties, early nineties thing. Would was, was sort of walking along and there's a bit of shattered plastic and obviously the cassette had, had got stuck or, or broken and somebody had just hu it out the window at speed.

I mean, yeah. Drive bunny grease, mega mix. And there'd be like just a trail of cassette tape up the, up the road. I wonder what happened to all us. They're probably still down in a sewer as. Talking of ING cars when the when, when, when the D VLA in the UK, the official registration body for vehicles impounds cars, it gets all manner of stuff yeah.

To auction off, which has been left in cars, not just cassettes, et cetera. I did the list actually. Quite as extraordinary that they published, as I thought it might be, but did it include dogs?   A toilet seat. Okay. They're more sort of obscure than, than outrageously odd, but BVIs and Butthead trading cards.

Cool. Yeah. I love those. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you should have, should have put a bid in the auction. It might have, might have been my car for all over . My favorite though, actually just simply because of the description of it, a quantity of brackets are disclosed a quantity of men's torso, mannequins.

Not five of them, not two of them, but a quantity of, I suppose, if they're disembodied, you, you don't know, you know, there's all, there's various bits. We all, we've got six hands and nine feet and two heads. And.  That's strange. There's normally on those lists, there's always something like a crutch and a pair of false teeth.

Isn't there, there's always something that you know, a Peter Houston off signed play. There's always something really, really random that, you know, a, a golden globe award  sort of thing that you think you wouldn't, you wouldn't forget that. A lawn mower. Oh yeah. Certainly another thing never to leave the house with, if, if you are driving locking will not adapter.

Oh, I, I can, yeah. Yeah. I can certainly say, and it is a good friend of mine will, will recognize this story is if you if you borrow a car from SAA and then you drive off to the deepest, darkest corn wall to do a photo shoot. And then just as it's starting to pour down rained about seven in the evening, you realize you've got a punctu.

I can certainly advise that taking off the wheel nuts, putting on the space saver tire, putting the wheel nuts on and then driving off and leaving the wheel. Nu adapter in the hedgerow at the side of the road. Apparently any car company really don't like that. When you present yourself at a garage the next morning to say, can you change my wheel?

And they say, have you got your locking? Cap mate. And you go, oh, I think it's in a hedge corn more. Yeah. Well, they're difficult things to get off. I mean, you know, they have to be manually removed don't they, if you, unless, unless there's a sort of skeleton key is do the manufacturers have a skeleton key, do you think.

I imagine if you went to a dealership, they would be able to get it off. No problem. I remember the, the site of my dad's neighbor years ago, he had a mano, he, he drove a, he was actually like a mini cab driver at the time and he, he bought this car without the locking wheel. And he was the sort of chap who wouldn't admit defeat.

He had about nine hours of hacking away at this alloy wheel. Yeah. To get the wheel off in the end. He literal. Took, you know, cut through, took the tire off the rim and then cut through it with an angle grinder. What through the wheel? This wheel  yeah. Packed track through the wheel and I won't be defeated.

Yeah. If he wouldn't about 17 pieces of SLI, as you could hear him. Swearing and then hammering and then swearing, and then gradual of the tools got bigger and bigger and bigger. I think you started off with a sore and a hack sore, and it just got, went out and bought an angle grinder  and just hacked this wheel into pieces to get it off.

Cuz it had this one locking wheel. Not I've got been a sympathy though. I can't think of a specific example. Me too, but, but yeah, I mean, you know, I have, you know, when you've been working on an element of the car. Hmm, I I, for hours and I'm using the term working on, you know, kind of, it, it becomes, it become, it starts as a sort of surgical procedure, doesn't it?

Yeah. And it ends up, you think, oh, listen, I I'll be gentle here. I'm really gonna need this wheel. It ends up as something entirely different to that. But yeah, I, I have, I have broken things, you know, on purpose to get them off, knowing that I didn't really actually need to break it. All I needed was special till number, you know, w four, nine  8, 8, 2, 6 slash nine.

But you know, to punish the thing, you have to punish it. Yeah. Yeah, no, you, you, sometimes you just have to tell them who his. Inanimate object, but there is a and this is finally from me. A sorry. It means to sound so happy though.  yes. There, there is another use for, for the in inanimate object the car.

That I've never done, but I have read about before using it as a cooking device.  It's called manifold something. What do you call it, man? Manifold manifold cooking. I suppose because know what you mean? That is the hottest element. So in this case, don't leave home without your, your key ingredients.

One of the things that cuz whilst researching this, the not just the DLA, but garages of course find manner of unusual things in cars. And this, this garage owner in Boulder, in Colorado found a a whole selection of tin fo. Now one might think that may well be paraphernalia for illicit purposes, but no, in this case, the the foil smelled rather good.

And it turned out that the the guy  guy that brought this car in had had been using kind our four. So not only did his car breakdown, but at the same time, I suppose his oven  oven broke down. So it was fairly important that he got it sorted? No. So they started to write, it was a Daon.

They started to write a, a cookbook which I've looked up, but I can't find it. But I, I, I, I, I like the name of one of the recipes, Denver to Colorado Springs, bris. Nice. So it's measured. Well, that sounds good in distance. This is essentially you, you, you get a piece of meat or a piece of fish or something, and then you you wrap it in, in Tim for having seasoned it, and then you put it on the exhaust manifold of your car.

You do a long drive and the heat from the exhaust supposedly cooks. The effectively an entire meal. If you've got space under the under the bonnet for the car, and I've seen this done a number of times in television, on, on programs every so often a, a TV show will seize on this idea. Like it's something new, never tried it.

I, I can't help thinking. Knowing my, like the tin four would burst into flames and the, you know, you, the whole engine would end up covered in cheese and an CHS and things, and you never looked smell. Never. Yeah. You, I was gonna say you would never, ever cure that smell. Would you?  it would be. Impossible. So I've got a few recipes here from from the manifold destiny cookbook, which I believe is

That is a good name. It is the picture on the front's very good. Actually. They've got the bought open and they're wearing a chef's hat and it's a sort of 1950s stylized picture and they're busy cooking on this engine. So how about this? They call it cruise control, pork tender. I'm gonna give you some ingredients.

You take the pork pork Tenderloin and you butterfly it bit of dejo masters. You what? You butterfly? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Cut it in half. So like a chicken breast. If you butterfly it. The, the say cut it in half, then don't be so no, no, no, but complicated thickness wise. Not, not, not kind of. So it thins it down.

It cooks quicker, which is perfect for, for this. No, I can understand that. It's just, I know the, the, the, the listener at home and good Lord, we should do everything to keep him or her listening.  let's sort of use cooking terms. Like they're gonna know what you are talking. Keep 'em on side. Remember it's not just for us this show.

Okay. It's it's for the people out there. Some white wine nice half. Hang on. White wine. Yeah. Where it's gonna go everywhere. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're gonna take that. And the, and the red onion and some Rosemary, you're gonna stick that all in a blender and make a pace.

okay. You're gonna take that pace. You're gonna rub it over the butterfly pork Tenderloin. Then you, then the key thing here, of course, always in car cooking, wrap it thoroughly in foil.  You don't basically, you don't want stuff leaking out, but you also don't want stuff leaking in either. Yeah. Very good point.

Yeah. You don't want oil in it and you don't want it to fall inly into the fan belt or the fan, or indeed the Carret. So your game here, Mike is how long and bear mind. This is in miles. We don't, we don't measure car cooking in, in, in time in temperature, no normal, no temperature or time though. This is my, how long for the the cruise control pork Tenderloin.

Do you think. Ooh, I dunno. What, what well pick, pick a car. So I've got some idea, cuz I mean, if it's like an air called Volkswagen, it'd probably be longer than it would on a, on a he Coron air it. Well we, we, we just, we're just on a standard 45 minutes, but then we don't do it in minutes. It's gotta be mileage.

Yeah. Yeah.

62.7 miles. No, they recommend for a pork. No, really? No, no. That would be, that would, that would be very rare. And your pork is, is, is not so good. Rare two. I've heard that rumor 200, 250 miles, they reckon. What? Yeah. So, which is probably like, you know, two hours drive if you are in Arizona, but 250 miles in the UK.

Yeah. Where I live. Is gonna take you past at least a hundred restaurants. Yeah, it is it yeah. Yeah. And then after you've, after you've eaten it, you're looking for a hundred public toilets. Aren't you?   If you're inevitably. Yes. If you're in a Russia, Mike, and you've only got those 55 miles, the the, the book recommends eggs on cheese pie cooked, it cooked in old bean can.

Not foil this time.  so this, this very much sounds like the answer to the question. How did you lose your fingerprint?  well, I reached under the bond. It picked out a red hot tin can, and my, my hand stuck to it. So where do you, you eggs, eggs on, on what eggs on bean pie, eggs on cheese pie. So if you gotta buy a cheese pie as well.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You basically coat the coat. The can with, with bread crumbs dump in some. Protein of some sort prefer, preferably that's either cooked or half cooked an egg and a load of cheese. Once the cheese is melted, you're probably good that the egg is, has, has set. And I mean, I don't think you can ask for, can, can I have the white cooked nicely, but the yolk still lay

Yeah. How would you like your egg? Oh, I dunno, medium rare.  I can I, can I just advise that you don't follow our advice on, in anything we ever say, but particularly in this case, don't, don't try this out. Huh? That's not my advice. Follow it from the book. No, that's the point. Yeah. You say that, but, but then we're in court, aren't we again?

Oh, well, if, if you try this and it, and it doesn't kill you yeah, let us know how that works out. I, I, I, I, I challenge Tony this, this time next, next episode, but try one of these and see what happens. And if, if, if I end up doing the show on my own, so , if they say, yeah, if there's only one. We visit you in intensive care then you know, but yeah, if you do, could you, could, could you BR could you bring me an egg on cheese pie?

With a runny yolk as ever. Thanks for listening. And I look forward to welcoming you back to Car-Chum again, shortly, feel free because that's exactly what it is free to join. Car-Chum on the social pages of Facebook, INTA, and Twitter, just search car. And if you like those short intros and clips that I produce every now and then you can find them all on car's - saves you listening to the whole episode, I guess. 

Until next time. PIP, PIP.