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Smith and Sniff
Smith and Sniff

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Show notes 126

Hello again, dear friends. What do we have for you this time? Well, on the tissue-thin excuse that Jonny and Richard mentioned David Bowie in relation to laptops we lead with this brilliant image from 1975 of him in his maximum ‘original Macbook Air’ era, driving a Merc S-Class in Los Angeles. Then we have the Pagani Utopia looking like a model, the Utopia dashboard and that of the Ford Crown Vic, an official VW publicity pic depicting Jonny’s life with the Caddy California, Richard watching a Honda V6 being loaded into a Kia Sorento by a man who likes Japan, the Volkswagen T-Cross in case you can’t remember it, and Bernard Sumner (then known as Bernard Dickin) hard at work at Cosgrove Hall animation studios.

Miriam Margolyes’s autobiography (as recommended by Jonny) - https://amzn.to/3SbNM5I

Utopia Avenue (as not recommended by Richard) - https://amzn.to/3BKUdHP

The Fiat Uno song - https://youtu.be/nknKhu-aAII

Jamie and the Magic Torch - https://youtu.be/5ntylpZWn_M

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Comments

It’s hard to imagine that a human being designed the Crown Vic interior. And I presume it was a committee of human beings. How is that possible?! How irritating were the discussions?! What tools were used to create the design? It must have simply been inserting Shapes in an Excel workbook.

Jason K

Thanks Jay!! I've just snorted coffee out of my nose watching that :)

Nigel Hancock

Saw this a few days ago. Laughed a lot.

Martin Laver

That Pagani is a soft edge away from a Mitsuoko Orochi…

Martin Laver

Jonny and Richard’s Rover V6 in the boot of a Kia reminded me of my similar story… A long way back, when I was about 18, I thought it a good idea to pull the engine out of a severely unwell Porsche 924 whilst it laid on the top of a stack of cars in a south-east scrapyard. It was early February, getting dark, and bloody snowing. I clambered up the precarious pile, and with nowhere near enough tools, got to work. After finally cutting the down pipe with a blunt hacksaw blade I eventually wrestled it free, sliding it down the windscreen of the rather low spec MK3 Cavalier beneath, across the bonnet, snapping chunks off the greying plastic bumper, before it’s long drop to the oily mud beneath. After a further struggle I got it to the carpark and onto the engine crane I’d wedged in the boot of my Volvo 440. Right at the point of entry my rather poor attempt at a knot slipped, the underwhelming 4-pot punched a hole in the grey bristled boot board and the engine crane jib twatted the rear window of the slightly dismal hatchback with the most awful crack. Unbelievably it didn’t break the glass, but snapped the gas strut instead. I should have bought a lottery ticket that day, but I was likely too cold, wet, and covered in shite to want to stop on the way home. I was not so lucky with the roll cage tube bender I transported in the boot of my dad’s 850 T-5, that tried to exit through the n/s rear side window after some over exuberant roundabout fuckwittery. He wasn’t best pleased…..

Gregg May

Not related to the show, but to Jonny's feelings towards DJ Khaled. https://youtu.be/P-eCPd_kDYs

Jay Russell

I wish I’d recorded in a car too. Would have been our best-sounding show ever. Richard

Smith and Sniff

Yes! I knew it was something to do with the clock face. Richard

Smith and Sniff

Bowie confirmed that the song was inspired by a coke-crazed incident in Berlin in the fifties Merc he had when he lived there. Richard

Smith and Sniff

Yes I remember Jamie and the Magic Torch. Let's be honest you could have. used an episode as an anti drugs message. A magical. Helter-skelter along with a sarcastic English Sheep. Dog with a Yorkshire. . accent. But classic 70's. cartoon

Paul Smith

Unfortunately not, just the release to move the seat back and forth

John Gallop

I think those pictures are high resolution computer renditions. Don’t look real to me. And what are those knobs in the middle of the front of the seat squab? Some kind of personal massage device?

Chris Rayner

Always crashing in the same car by Bowie was a Merc. I wouldn't be surprised if it was that car in the picture.

John P

Also the Synthwave ending was amazing

John Gallop

My problem with the Utopia is exactly that, the name, Zonda and Huayra had an air of mystique and flare about it mainly because they were slightly nonsensical but had some heritage like being after a wind in Argentina or something. Utopia is a word we all know and what it means and is quite annoying to say being four syllables unlike the others being two and as Jonny eluded, utopia is frankly bloody pretentious. It also generally looks unfinished with those awkward lense covers on the lights and rather drab shapes on the otherwise beautifully finished and detailed interior and exterior It also does nothing for innovation and is just ultimately a poser toy for Californian tech billionaires and YouTubers, not bitter just saying

John Gallop

Utopia was an awful nightclub near Reading in the 90s. That's the only thing I can think of when the name Utopia is given to something. Disco Pagani

Thomas Cowley

Piss Panorama in a Porsche Panamera?

Chris Rayner

The way to solve badgers is to separate a pack of sausages, freeze them, then hammer them into an enemy’s lawn.

Chris Taylor

That dash is uncanny!

Chris Taylor

...as if by magic, the shopkeeper apeared!

Phill Chapman

Seeing that photo of Richard loading the engine reminded me of when I sold some steel beams that had been wrongly fabricated for our house extension. Sold them on ebay for £50. Bloke came down from Newcastle to Cheshire in his Mondeo estate. He seemed quite grumpy and in a hurry, I held the far end of th beam as he loaded them in and proceeded to heave the beam out of my hands and into the estate only for the beam to then go right in between the front seats and through the windscreen.... I recall him being furious at that point. With fuel from Newcastle and the replacement cost of the windscreen I am sure he could have had them fabricated locally cheaper...

AL Dickens

Yes... I refer to my wife as Mr Ben on account of her frequent job changes

Daniel Wilkinson

I don't know why I wanted to clear this up, but, Big Trak was turned by minutes, in 5 minute increments, left 15 would spin it left by 90 degrees, 30 minutes would be a 180 degree spin, etc.

Dibz

Every week I see a new VW I'd never heard of. T-Cross. T-Roc. Atlas. I'm pretty sure I saw a T-Roc cabrio

Ben Oliver

Pretty clear based on this episode that you both need to record from inside individual Caddy California’s. Jonny’s audio was 👌

Paul Brown

Jamie and the Magic Torch was by far my favourite show as a little lad! no one I know and I mean NO ONE knows this show! when you mentioned it I nearly fell off my bike! Do either of you or anyone else remember Mr. Ben?

Michael k-b

The conversation about bike racers and blue eyes, had to go look at Mick Doohan.. Yup blue eyes. He was always given stick about not celebrating when he won. After he retired he let on that back when he was racing dirt bikes in Aus as a kid, someone beat him and carried on like a pork chop on the podium and that gave him motivation to beat him, so he decided at that point he wouldn't jump up and down like a loon if he won. Still think Ago and himare equal top GOATs. He in the 2-stroke era used to use the clutch and the rear brake as a means to soften the power on the bike as the 2-strokes were high siding beasts. After he had his big accident were Dr. Costa pretty much saved him from having his leg lopped off, he had to have his bike modified because he couldn't use his foot to use the rear brake, so it was controlled by his thumb. He kept winning and the other riders thought it was because of his thumb brake he had an advantage so they had it fitted.. and Doohan kept beating them... Cheers for the pod and next week I'll try to not write a novel when I should be writing an essay...

Stephen Voss

This part on traffic modelling is also comedy classic, and reality https://youtu.be/pCzCJzwrB_c

Robin Capper

Utopia is a brilliant Aussie satirical series about a Govt Infrastructure Dept trying, and failing, to get anything built! My fave scene is when they decided needed 'to be on social' and it ended up with a boardroom full of people trying to compose a tweet. Mr Pagani's waffle had that feel!

Robin Capper

Utopia is definitely the name of the run-out special Nissan Figaro that came loaded with all the kit. Probably.

Rup (FastAsFunk)

"Dickin hard" Speaks for itself, really

Geoff Evans

I once got lost in a borrowed NA Miata in the canyons near Hiroshima. I was using my phone for navigation and it burned through the battery - obviously no chargers in an early 90s car. Did eventually find my way back after several hours, but not easy with minimal Japanese. In the major cities, of course, you just need to look around and invariably there's an Australian. All the talk of Bowie thinness made me imagine a meeting between him and Gordon Murray. "Mr. Bowie! What a delight! I am such a very big fan." "How kind. It's so nice to hear that people enjoy my music." "Oh dearie me no, not the music" *exit without explanation*

Brendan McAleer

The utopia is a product of near zero interest rates. Its a beautiful creation but we wont see the likes of ot for a while. Anyone lucky enough to own fancy metal - enjoy it. I am grateful to have a V8 daily driver and a couple of air cooled porsches in the shed but really not sure how long we can enjoy the hobby.

Sergey Baskakov

Another fab episode. Absolutely loved the re-worked ital -disco theme !

AL Dickens

There are 3 clips of the Telford KIA trip on The Sniff Petrol channel. Here's one called Tiff's lawnmower https://youtu.be/DVLrKJvU2Ss

Robin Johnsen

"Piss Perimeter" makes me concerned Jonny's Piss Vistas constitute a vast one-man geo-engineering campaign decimating badger populations.

Radon Racing

Many years ago having bought my wife a mk1 Audi TT she arrived home with kids but without the TT, I’ve marooned it on an angry badger she says (we live in the middle of nowhere) can you go and get it cause it was quite frightening - and by god it was and very pissed off - the car wasn’t grounded as such just slightly stuck, having reversed off it, said badger slunk off giving me a look of utter disdain - I waited some time before driving back home, it had put some deep scratches in the front bumper lower bit via claws!

Robert Clay-parker

That looks like Donald Fagen of Steely Dan in the drivers seat of the Mercedes

Steve Morton


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