ALEX ROY: I've loved cars ever since I was a kid.
And I dream that someday I might even drive some of these
cars, maybe even make a car show of my own.
Today, I'm on Drive, and I feel like the
luckiest guy in the world.
And among my favorite shows happens to be another show on
Drive, Chris Harris on Cars.
So I sent him an email saying that.
I mean the guy's got an E24 M5.
And he sent me one back.
He didn't quite say, my show was his favorite.
But he did invite me to a secret location in Wales,
which is where I went to meet him in person.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ALEX ROY: Everything I know about the United Kingdom, I
learned from an amazing documentary called Braveheart.
But on the way to the hilltop Chris had given me to put into
the GPS, I entered into the most beautiful countryside,
undulating hills, Vermont with fog and sheep.
I love veal but not as much as the two cars Chris had waiting
for us to drive on the hilltop at my destination.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CHRIS HARRIS: When JF said you were going to drop by and say
hello, and I thought, they've got to come.
We've got to take them to the pub.
We've done that.
But you didn't get to see that.
And I'm going to cook them some mutton, some
good Welsh old lamb.
What I wanted to do is to present to you the cars that I
thought would be of interest to you, because you don't have
them where you live.
So I thought I'd line up a lot of couple of French hatchbacks
because that's not what you get in North America, small,
light, small amount of power, and you have to work hard to
get the performance from them.
And then Alex casually tells me that his father used to be
the importer for Citroen in the States.
And he's driven every old French car under the sun and
used to have a 305 GTI 1.6.
ALEX ROY: And an AX Diesel.
CHRIS HARRIS: Thank you for [BLEEP]
on my past.
ALEX ROY: Sorry.
CHRIS HARRIS: So what I've done is I've
brought this along.
You might have seen it in an earlier Drive video.
But I've spent a bit of time in this car.
It's a Clio 200 with a cup chassis.
On it.
And I'll coin my own phrase earlier I think if I had to
take an essence of a car with me to my grave, I'd probably
have this thing crushed up into a ball and stuffed--
ALEX ROY: Over any other car?
How come?
CHRIS HARRIS: Because I am known to love these things.
I love these things.
I could talk about them forever, so I won't.
There is a ubiquity about these cars.
They are pretty much an everyman proposition.
I know that they do cost some money.
But if you want to go and drive this car, you'll always
have a great time.
And to turn that around, I think that if you can't find
fun in this car, you're probably not a car enthusiast.
ALEX ROY: He probably thought it was really funny to bring a
GT3 3.8 and a Renault Clio Sport or S. He probably
thought I'd find the irony between the two different cars
being so different funny.
But actually I really love small
Renaults, small hot hatches.
And I used to own a Renault Clio.
And I actually wanted to drive that car more than I wanted to
drive the Porsche.
CHRIS HARRIS: Look at it.
[INAUDIBLE].
ALEX ROY: I had the benefit of having an amazing excuse for
not being that quick in the Renault.
All right, will you do me a favor, and just make sure that
you keep reminding me to stick to the left, unless I'm too
far left, in which case, I'm going to come back?
Which is that, I had to drive on the wrong side of the road,
or as he pointed out, I always drive on the wrong side, and
today I have to drive on the correct side.
CHRIS HARRIS: First of all, we need to get your driving
position sorted out.
ALEX ROY: You don't like my driving position?
CHRIS HARRIS: No, I want you to sit more upright in this
car, a little bit more upright.
Think of it as English class.
If you slouch in class, you're not going to concentrate.
ALEX ROY: Right.
CHRIS HARRIS: Now we're away.
ALEX ROY: All right.
Can I go to the left?
CHRIS HARRIS: No, go to the right, a bit up there.
Here we go.
Do you ever refer to this manual gear box as just a
stick shift?
ALEX ROY: A stick.
You know also, I should say about my seating position, and
I hate to bring this up again, I drive using the Citroen SM
seating position, which is almost prone, the steering
wheel almost horizontal.
I like this car.
You've got to keep it above 4,000 for
anything fun to happen.
CHRIS HARRIS: You do have to rev it, rev it, rev it.
ALEX ROY: But it's really fun.
And it's super twitchy, everything is super
responsive.
I don't drive a lot of small cars, but it reminds me of my
911 with half the power.
CHRIS HARRIS: [INAUDIBLE] beautiful.
There appears to be a box of bolts in the boot.
ALEX ROY: I asked them about that.
But Renault said that it came stock.
[LAUGHING]
CHRIS HARRIS: There is also a trick from my childhood in
here, which is that when you've got a hatchback, and
you can't afford [INAUDIBLE], just always have the rear
seats folded because it sounds noisier.
ALEX ROY: The car is cool.
Like you said, there is a lot of torque, bring it out.
And it's fun.
What does this car cost?
CHRIS HARRIS: This is about 15,000 or 16,000 pounds or so.
ALEX ROY: So $25,000.
It's a bargain.
CHRIS HARRIS: It's a bargain for that, but, of course, you
guys get so much more value over there.
ALEX ROY: If you could buy this.
But over there, back home, what do you buy that's even in
the universe of this?
A GTI?
CHRIS HARRIS: Is there anything that's close
to this in the US?
ALEX ROY: A GTI.
CHRIS HARRIS: That's it?
And what are they?
ALEX ROY: 25, 30.
So it's in the universe.
I mean how much is an FR-- what's it called FRS?
CHRIS HARRIS: Oh, the GT86.
[INAUDIBLE]
ALEX ROY: Yeah.
What does that car cost?
CHRIS HARRIS: I think that's a bit more, isn't it?
ALEX ROY: I don't know.
The truth is I'm not paying attention because I've owned a
Subaru WRX which costs, at the time, 25ish.
And to be honest with you, I'd rather own that than this.
And I mean we don't have to go into the reasons, but that's a
lot more value than this would be at 25.
CHRIS HARRIS: Oh, absolutely.
But there is one thing that I find interesting about this
car, if you want to take your brain out and just absolutely
grab a car by the scruff of the neck--
ALEX ROY: Can I pass?
Is that legal?
CHRIS HARRIS: Don't do it here.
Because we are going to turn around just here
and then come back.
And there is nothing better than overtaking someone and
then stopping immediately [INAUDIBLE].
ALEX ROY: None of that made a difference because I nearly
went off into the bushes and struck
several sheep many times.
Oh, my God.
CHRIS HARRIS: What do you think he's doing?
Eating a bit of his own brain?
ALEX ROY: Scouting for Bordeaux.
CHRIS HARRIS: He's not clever.
He's looking for the bright part of the gene pool.
ALEX ROY: I love veal but not when prepared by a Renault.
CHRIS HARRIS: So what do you think of the whole driving on
Welsh roads [INAUDIBLE] sheep around you?
ALEX ROY: So far this is the best drive I've
ever seen in England.
Oh, sorry.
Put this in the ditch.
CHRIS HARRIS: No, that was the right line.
ALEX ROY: OK.
You say.
Earlier in the day, he intimated that I would get to
drive the Porsche.
It did not come as a surprise after my experience driving
him in the Renault that that opportunity somehow
evaporated.
So there is no real discussion or review of this car because
you love it.
CHRIS HARRIS: Yeah, it's a bit predictable isn't it?
We should be in something else.
ALEX ROY: So I was about to warn you about traffic
on-coming, but , of course, that's the wrong lane.
CHRIS HARRIS: You're just tired aren't you?
ALEX ROY: No, just what people say about Americans driving on
the wrong side.
CHRIS HARRIS: Did you do the Gumball in Europe?
ALEX ROY: Yeah, I did drive a Bentley GT around the world
with a friend of mine that has one, a right-hand drive car.
CHRIS HARRIS: So your only experience of driving a
right-hand drive care is driving around the world?
ALEX ROY: But it was an automatic.
CHRIS HARRIS: It's like I've only read one book,
it was War and Peace.
ALEX ROY: OK.
It wasn't all the way around the world.
It was part of the way.
And also the car is a battleship.
So it's much easier.
I mean it is what it is.
CHRIS HARRIS: It's a predictable car, but it's a
really good car.
And this one is worthy of special review
because it's blue.
ALEX ROY: It sounds so good.
CHRIS HARRIS: So when they bring out different colored
ones, we'll have to review them as well.
ALEX ROY: Oh, god.
CHRIS HARRIS: But apparently next month
they've got a green one.
So I'll need that for a couple of weeks as well.
I'm going to be rigorous with this stuff, I need to know
what this blue paint is like on speed.
ALEX ROY: I cowered in mortal fear as we went up
and down that road.
CHRIS HARRIS: What other car would you want [INAUDIBLE]?
ALEX ROY: Oh, god, it sounds so-- oh, god, sheep.
CHRIS HARRIS: Yeah, there are some sheeps out tonight.
It's lambing season, so you've got a combination of stupid
old sheep and stupid young sheep.
ALEX ROY: And let's be serious.
How frequently do you review cars on this road?
CHRIS HARRIS: Quite a lot.
ALEX ROY: So even just like the last crest, I would never
do because I'm terrified of sheep.
CHRIS HARRIS: There are different hill sheep in
different areas of Wales.
Like Mountain Road, the sheep are a bit more stupid.
Around here, I think the sheep are a bit clever.
I think I'll slow down here.
ALEX ROY: Are you being snarky, or do sheep really not
go into the road here?
CHRIS HARRIS: No.
They do now and again.
But you just can't live your life like that.
ALEX ROY: Right.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I may be in the
point in my life where I really enjoy a slow
car and a soft ride.
CHRIS HARRIS: It's quite firm on this road, isn't it?
ALEX ROY: The reason I like Chris's videos is because as a
writer, he is attempting to convey in videos things that
one would only expect to learn in writing.
CHRIS HARRIS: I've always felt that the one way to perhaps
present being a car enthusiast in the moving form, in what I
call the topical era, is that just, A, not try to be them
because they are brilliant at what they do.
And I'm not just doing this because I'm terrified of them
ruining my life.
But they are brilliant at what they do.
Never try and impersonate people who are brilliant,
because you'll only look like an ass.
You really will.
And I will look like an ass if I try to impersonate them.
But there is a certain number of people that want to see
something that is a bit more defined for the car
enthusiast.
They want to see maybe a bit more expert feedback on the
latest cars.
They want to see a bit more expert driving.
And, me, I'm not saying I'm the man to do that, but maybe,
if that is where my strengths lie, you've got to do that.
I also think that rather than go out and create content, you
need to reverse the process.
You need to create yourself an interesting life with cars.
However you do it, it should be natural.
Otherwise, it will look false.
But create an interesting life with cars.
ALEX ROY: And share that.
CHRIS HARRIS: And just share that with people.
And if you do that--
all I'm doing really is I'm doing what I used to do as an
columnist in a car magazine.
ALEX ROY: I grew up reading Car and Driver, Road and
Track, all of these amazing car magazines before the
internet existed.
Today, we see these amazing car reviews, and Chris Harris
is one of the people making some of the best.
But Chris and I shared something which ran very deep.
My whole life, I wanted to be a writer, I wanted to write
about cars.
And Chris, who makes these amazing videos, said exactly
the same thing.
He wishes he could spend more time writing about cars.
And that's where he made a name for himself, writing for
Autocar and Evo.
CHRIS HARRIS: But because of JF and Josh and, the other
kind of guys-- and Neal that I work with-- you've got the
chance to share it on form.
That's all.
That's all I'm doing.
It's not rocket science.
I think there is a dozen, two dozen, three dozen, four dozen
other people that can do it just as well as I can.
I'm lucky.
I've got a really good platform, and somebody's given
me the chance to do it.
ALEX ROY: Within five minutes of meeting Chris, we're
sitting on the hoods of these cars, shooting the [BLEEP]
as if we were old friends.
You get two old friends together, and they can go on
all night about anything.
But of all the cars I've ever owned, the one that I derive
the greatest driving pleasure from, and I have taken to the
track a little bit--
but even cruising at 20 miles an hour just my life is better
for it-- is this '87 Targa.
It's got 120,000 miles, 3.2 liter G50 transmission.
And for me, it's the purest sports car I
feel I've ever owned.
But wait.
There's more.
CHRIS HARRIS: I felt like I was driving a cheap Ferrari.
That has to be the essence of an Alfa Romeo.
ALEX ROY: That's right.
CHRIS HARRIS: You have to feel that you've bought into
something Italian that's offering you something so much
more on an emotional scale that the Germans or French
can't offer you.
Let's face it, the Germans are always going to
make a better car.
ALEX ROY: Um, oh, my god.
Yeah.
I totally agree with that.
Yeah.
CHRIS HARRIS: Red [INAUDIBLE].
You don't see it?
I'm saying to Josh, look at that.
Look at that.
ALEX ROY: And I was saying to you, oh, my god.
But wait, there is more.
CHRIS HARRIS: Is it acceptable to just buy a car purely on
aesthetic grounds?
ALEX ROY: I did own an Audi TT Gen1 convertible with yellow
stitching and red leather.
But wait.
There's more.
CHRIS HARRIS: If we were to go and transport ourselves Matrix
style now to your SX, and the battery had power in
it, would it work?
ALEX ROY: Yeah.
CHRIS HARRIS: How far could you drive it before it would
need attention?
ALEX ROY: All right, let's be clear.
I drove that car from Los Angeles to Ensenada, Mexico,
when I did the Baja 1,000 last year.
The alternator belt got twisted and broke but was
replaced for the equivalent of $3 in a barn by a Mexican who
spoke no English.
So that car could still be fixed by a random on the side
of the road.
Can this?
CHRIS HARRIS: You've digressed so massively from the
question, I'll ask it again.
How far-- if we went there now--
ALEX ROY: 300 miles.
[LAUGHS]
And to be clear, my good friend, Gale, who is a
Frenchman who previously worked for VW now works for
Cadillac, designs interiors for GM, called me-- he owns
this Trend DS-- he called me a few days ago and said,
(SPEAKING IN FRENCH ACCENT) my friend, let us go make a road
trip to Death Valley to see the eclipse.
I have a new telescope.
It will be amazing.
I'm like awesome.
Let's take the SM.
He's like, are you crazy?
[LAUGHS]