Andrew:
Okay, very, very well.
John Cadogan:
Now is the image quality okay for you? Would you like me to be closer, wider?
Andrew:
Actually, yeah, you look very good, very good. I'm not talking about you, I'm just talking about the lighting.
John Cadogan:
No, I figured that. No, self-evident truth, mate.
Andrew:
Good, we're off to a good start.
John Cadogan:
That's it.
Andrew:
All right, now you look fantastic. I'm recording it on a separate device. It goes online somewhere, gets recorded onto the cloud. And after we finished, I press stop, download all of the files and then compile and edit.
John Cadogan:
Happy
Andrew:
Hopefully
John Cadogan:
Dives!
Andrew:
it's working. Yesterday I tested it and it did, so hey.
John Cadogan:
Well, if it's not, I'm happy to just go again because I understand how absolutely easily these things can just fall over at any
Andrew:
Yeah,
John Cadogan:
time, you
Andrew:
yeah,
John Cadogan:
know?
Andrew:
yeah. I was doing a live on Sunday and it fell over and I, it's like, you know, I've just come back from Kennedy space center and they've got all those, you know, a billion consoles and a hundred thousand lights. And I thought, yeah, it's not unlike that trying to get a live YouTube broadcast to go smoothly.
John Cadogan:
Yeah,
Andrew:
So you, you understand.
John Cadogan:
it's just like riding a bike, only the bike's on fire and you're on fire.
Andrew:
All right. Welcome everybody to the next journey podcast. My, I was going to say good friend, but the fact is that we are friends, but we've never actually met. We've come, we've chatted and emailed and stuff for several years, but we've never actually met. This is actually the closest we've come to actually meeting.
John Cadogan:
This
Andrew:
John
John Cadogan:
is
Andrew:
Cadogan.
John Cadogan:
our first voice on voice contact, I think.
Andrew:
It is. Actually, yes, I think everything else has been emails.
John Cadogan:
Yeah, we've had these sort of fractured conversations, if you like, by YouTube video and response and things of that nature, and
Andrew:
Yes.
John Cadogan:
we've talked in the comments feed, but we've never actually chatted like this. So it is a great honour, I'd suggest, to be invited onto one of the early episodes of this program by none other than His Excellency, the Governor-General of Dingo Piss Creek.
Andrew:
I
John Cadogan:
And
Andrew:
don't know.
John Cadogan:
I just hope that the Automotive Antichrist can do... you'll find fledgling program justice.
Andrew:
Well, thank you for that accolade. I do repeat it actually. I said, apparently I'm the Governor General of Dingo Piss Creek. I
John Cadogan:
It's
Andrew:
know.
John Cadogan:
a great honor. I just wouldn't get a big head about it.
Andrew:
No, absolutely. Absolutely right. I've invited you actually because I think you and I share something and that is that we both really have, and I think in your words as well as a few others, highly tuned bullshitter meters.
John Cadogan:
Absolutely.
Andrew:
especially when it comes to the motoring press.
John Cadogan:
Well, the motoring press is a really interesting phenomenon. And it's interesting to me because I've been part of it. And then I kind of divorced myself from that, which was like Dresden on the 15th of February 1945, you know, and then when you look at it from without having been inside, it's a really interesting microcosm of sycophants and yes, man. There are good intentions bilaterally from car makers and from the motoring press, but to my estimation, the system itself is broken and it leads to bad outcomes for the consumer at the end of the journalistic product, whether it's a video or a story or a podcast or whatever, because journalists tend to self-censor any criticism because they want to be invited back and they... don't really want to be on the receiving end of a whole bunch of commercial opprobrium from a car maker. And it's a very difficult balancing act. And I think the easiest party to throw under the bus here is the consumer who has tuned into the review or whatever else to try and get some sort of read on whether he should spend 50 to $100,000 on a particular new vehicle, which I think is a great shame.
Andrew:
Right. Okay. Well, that's all we're going to talk about today. I'm going to ask you the ultimate question at the end of this. We're going to come to some kind of conclusion. And that is, I'm just going to go to our sponsors very quickly. But that is, how on earth do you find a review on the car that you can actually trust? So that's what we're going to get to in a minute. I'd like to say thank you to our sponsor for this show. Egon. Egon.com.au. If you are building an overlander, an overlanding caravan, trailer four by four, you're going to want to build an electrical installation. If you intend to do it yourself, then well, that's a challenge in front of you. If you want to make that challenge a lot simpler, you use the Egon DC hub. No heat shrink, no crimps. No small fuse holders, no large fuse holders, no bus bar. It's all replaced with one unit, one unit where you connect everything and connect everything with a capital E. All your charges, all your batteries, all your accessories. And it will save you not just money, but a lot of time and heartache. That's Egon.com.au. Right, John, that's out of the way. The reason why I watch your show is because you're always digging deeper than your average motoring journalist. You recently did a feature on NCAP, NCAP safety ratings. While at the end of it, you didn't say, and you didn't really point fingers because, well, you didn't point fingers saying they are dishonest, but at the same time, you leaned back and said, I don't understand it. That car is actually weak in many safety features. And yet it's got the five star that all of the manufacturers are looking for. Tell
John Cadogan:
Yeah,
Andrew:
me more about that.
John Cadogan:
okay. So here's the problem with the five star safety rating. I appreciate that vehicle safety is a very complex issue and it involves a great deal of applied physics and a lot of people are not geared up for that because of their education. They didn't go and submit themselves to an engineering degree, which I can tell you firsthand is a great way to bleed from the ears for six years at university just doing endless mathematics and physics. they do have something of an uphill battle to fight because we're taking this extremely complex technical subject and trying to make it digestible. But the core message of the five-star safety rating is that those vehicles offer best practice, excellent, whatever you want to call it, levels of protection for you and your family if you are involved in a crash. And when you drill down into it and you look at the technical report with six of the most recent nine five-star, well most recent ratings, there were eight five-star ratings and one four-star rating which were awarded in the last nine, six
Andrew:
Six
John Cadogan:
of
Andrew:
of
John Cadogan:
those
Andrew:
those
John Cadogan:
eight
Andrew:
eight
John Cadogan:
cars
Andrew:
cars
John Cadogan:
that
Andrew:
that
John Cadogan:
got
Andrew:
got
John Cadogan:
five
Andrew:
five
John Cadogan:
stars
Andrew:
stars
John Cadogan:
had
Andrew:
had
John Cadogan:
marginal
Andrew:
marginal
John Cadogan:
or
Andrew:
or
John Cadogan:
weak
Andrew:
weak
John Cadogan:
survivability
Andrew:
survivability
John Cadogan:
protection
Andrew:
protection
John Cadogan:
out.
Andrew:
outcomes.
John Cadogan:
comes when
Andrew:
When
John Cadogan:
you look
Andrew:
you look
John Cadogan:
at the
Andrew:
at
John Cadogan:
technical
Andrew:
the technical
John Cadogan:
report.
Andrew:
report,
John Cadogan:
One of
Andrew:
one
John Cadogan:
them
Andrew:
of them
John Cadogan:
was
Andrew:
was
John Cadogan:
a Mercedes
Andrew:
a Mercedes
John Cadogan:
Benz.
Andrew:
Benz.
John Cadogan:
It
Andrew:
It
John Cadogan:
offers
Andrew:
offered
John Cadogan:
weak
Andrew:
weak
John Cadogan:
protection
Andrew:
protection
John Cadogan:
to the
Andrew:
to the
John Cadogan:
thorax
Andrew:
thorax
John Cadogan:
in the
Andrew:
in
John Cadogan:
oblique
Andrew:
the oblique
John Cadogan:
pole
Andrew:
hole
John Cadogan:
test,
Andrew:
test,
John Cadogan:
which
Andrew:
which
John Cadogan:
is
Andrew:
is
John Cadogan:
where they
Andrew:
where they...
John Cadogan:
slide the car at 45 degrees into an immovable post. And a weak protection outcome means, you know, that's bad for the dummy, but hey, it's even worse for you if you find yourself in that horrible predicament where you've lost control of the car and the next thing coming up is like a hundred year old gum tree. So. I just find it amazing that the rhetoric says excellent levels of protection, whereas the reality says, oh, but weak in this respect. So I'm not critical of them for dishonesty. I don't think they're trying to be dishonest. I just think the system needs a major tweak, which might involve a wrecking ball and a lot of rebuilding. And there are taxpayer funds on the line here. So to me, this is also an important issue. You know, like... we're paying for this system, whether we like it or not, and we deserve the best return on investment we can get. And if they're gonna be in the business of rating different vehicles in the context of their safety, then their system needs to be rated as well by external influences such as me, the automotive antichrist, and I'm sure they don't enjoy being rated in this way, but I think there's a powerful public interest. for that because,
Andrew:
because
John Cadogan:
you know, if I wanted to spend $100,000 on a new Mercedes-Benz GLC, and I see that five-star rating, I infer that means weapons-grade protection for me and my family, when, in fact, in some crashes,
Andrew:
if
John Cadogan:
it
Andrew:
I wanted
John Cadogan:
absolutely
Andrew:
to spend $100,000
John Cadogan:
doesn't.
Andrew:
on human safety, I see that five star rating. I infer that means weapons right, protection, command. On that we would have to buy weapons. It doesn't. I saw that and I was quite surprised because you associate car manufacturer brands with safety. Wismitty, Seedy's, Ben's is one of them. That's a big... tall, that's the GL, I think it was the GL that suffered those quite poor, was that correct? That's the large SUV.
John Cadogan:
It's a GLC, but yeah, it's a car that costs $100,000 and it wears the three pronged badge up the front. So
Andrew:
Yeah.
John Cadogan:
there's an association that goes with that. And the reality of its performance in a crash is quite different in that oblique pole test.
Andrew:
All right. So you're basically, you're not on a... Are you on a mission to... What is your mission, John?
John Cadogan:
Well, my mission isn't to make friends because I think making friends is kind of overrated. I'm sort of with Winston Churchill on that. See, I had a look around at what motoring journalists do and what they do is they try and fit in because it's nice to swan around in the new cars and it's nice to go on the international launches. Like in a sense, being a motoring journalist is the perfect job if you hate your life because you can spend half of it in Europe and you don't pay for the... for the travel and it's all five-star, right? It's business class and five-star resorts. And the only problem is you've got to hang out with car company people and other motor and journalists as opposed to if you like your life, you'd probably want to do that with your family. So I'm not that motivated to be liked. I don't care if people dislike me either. The enemy in the media game as I see it is indifference in any case. So what I want to do is I want to have people react to the stories I do, but I also have to have integrity with that because it's easy to make people react with bullshit. That happens all the time. Just watch politics in the United States or Australia, right? That's emblematic and endemic. So I want the facts to inform my stories. And in a sense, I'm kind of waging war on bullshit.
Andrew:
Waging War on Bullshit, that's a great name for your channel, actually should be in a bracket, Waging War on Motoring Bullshit.
John Cadogan:
It's probably a violation of YouTube's whatever, using the word bullshit in the name of the channel. It's okay to
Andrew:
Yes.
John Cadogan:
use it when you're actually just chatting after the first seven seconds.
Andrew:
Share with me one of your most memorable events because you are a traditional motoring journalist. I used to do a lot of those to go to a soiree set up by the manufacturers to show their vehicles off in the best possible light. Wine and dine. The journalists schmooze them. There's no end to the schmoozing. so that you come up with a nice review on a car which sometimes is really very, very ordinary. Share some stories about some of your motoring events that you have attended.
John Cadogan:
I went to Florence once with Mercedes-Benz to drive the 500SL. That was pretty memorable because, you know, who doesn't like a good trip to Florence and a nice drive around Tuscany in a
Andrew:
in
John Cadogan:
500SL
Andrew:
a 500 SL
John Cadogan:
Mercedes-Benz.
Andrew:
Mercedes Benz
John Cadogan:
And we
Andrew:
and
John Cadogan:
went
Andrew:
we went
John Cadogan:
to the
Andrew:
to the
John Cadogan:
opera
Andrew:
opera
John Cadogan:
that
Andrew:
that
John Cadogan:
evening.
Andrew:
evening.
John Cadogan:
And, you know, you can get completely blasƩ about this sort of stuff. I've been to Sweden to interview a whole bunch of safety experts with Volvo a few years ago. The never-ending parade of different places you can go as a motoring journalist is brain bending, I think. If you're a brickies labourer and you hear about the way it is for motoring journalists, like A-grade motoring journalists or A-list motoring journalists, then
Andrew:
then
John Cadogan:
it doesn't
Andrew:
it doesn't
John Cadogan:
seem
Andrew:
seem
John Cadogan:
like
Andrew:
like
John Cadogan:
work,
Andrew:
work,
John Cadogan:
I'm
Andrew:
I'm
John Cadogan:
sure,
Andrew:
sure.
John Cadogan:
but
Andrew:
But
John Cadogan:
there
Andrew:
there
John Cadogan:
is
Andrew:
was
John Cadogan:
a quid
Andrew:
a quid
John Cadogan:
pro
Andrew:
pro
John Cadogan:
quo.
Andrew:
quo
John Cadogan:
that
Andrew:
that
John Cadogan:
goes
Andrew:
goes
John Cadogan:
with
Andrew:
with
John Cadogan:
this
Andrew:
this
John Cadogan:
stuff.
Andrew:
stuff,
John Cadogan:
And the
Andrew:
and the
John Cadogan:
expectation
Andrew:
expectation
John Cadogan:
is that
Andrew:
is
John Cadogan:
you'll
Andrew:
that you'll
John Cadogan:
write
Andrew:
write
John Cadogan:
nice
Andrew:
nice
John Cadogan:
things.
Andrew:
things.
John Cadogan:
So
Andrew:
So
John Cadogan:
there's
Andrew:
there's
John Cadogan:
kind
Andrew:
kind
John Cadogan:
of two
Andrew:
of two
John Cadogan:
things
Andrew:
things
John Cadogan:
that
Andrew:
that
John Cadogan:
go
Andrew:
go
John Cadogan:
with
Andrew:
with
John Cadogan:
that. Like,
Andrew:
it. Like,
John Cadogan:
well,
Andrew:
well,
John Cadogan:
superficially,
Andrew:
officially,
John Cadogan:
the car
Andrew:
the car
John Cadogan:
company
Andrew:
company
John Cadogan:
wants
Andrew:
has
John Cadogan:
to pretend
Andrew:
to pretend
John Cadogan:
that it's
Andrew:
it's
John Cadogan:
your
Andrew:
your
John Cadogan:
friend.
Andrew:
friend.
John Cadogan:
And
Andrew:
And
John Cadogan:
I don't
Andrew:
I
John Cadogan:
think
Andrew:
don't think
John Cadogan:
a car
Andrew:
in car
John Cadogan:
company
Andrew:
companies
John Cadogan:
is the kind
Andrew:
the car
John Cadogan:
of thing
Andrew:
company
John Cadogan:
you can
Andrew:
can
John Cadogan:
be a
Andrew:
be
John Cadogan:
friend
Andrew:
a friend.
John Cadogan:
with, any more than you could be a friend of the earth, because what are you gonna do? Invite a car maker over for a few beers and a barbecue on a Saturday afternoon, or invite the earth over? You can't do that. So there
Andrew:
There
John Cadogan:
is
Andrew:
is
John Cadogan:
this...
Andrew:
this
John Cadogan:
sort
Andrew:
sort
John Cadogan:
of faux
Andrew:
of faux
John Cadogan:
friendship
Andrew:
friendship
John Cadogan:
on
Andrew:
on
John Cadogan:
offer.
Andrew:
offer.
John Cadogan:
And if you
Andrew:
You
John Cadogan:
play
Andrew:
play
John Cadogan:
the game,
Andrew:
the game,
John Cadogan:
that's
Andrew:
that's
John Cadogan:
all
Andrew:
what
John Cadogan:
you ever
Andrew:
it is.
John Cadogan:
see, right? However,
Andrew:
However,
John Cadogan:
if
Andrew:
if
John Cadogan:
you
Andrew:
you
John Cadogan:
make
Andrew:
make
John Cadogan:
the mistake
Andrew:
the mistake
John Cadogan:
of telling
Andrew:
of telling
John Cadogan:
a few
Andrew:
a few
John Cadogan:
harsh
Andrew:
harsh
John Cadogan:
truths
Andrew:
truths...
John Cadogan:
about car-maker conduct or the deficiencies in a particular product and they don't like it, then the other side of the equation kind of is played. And that is, we can't invite you on these gigs anymore. If you keep doing this kind of thing, you won't be driving our cars anymore. And I guess if that doesn't shut you up, then they can have a proper tantrum and threaten to pull their ads, which if you're a journal and let's face it, motoring journalists on staff don't make very much money. So if you're one of those and you're using your salary to pay your mortgage or your rent and feed your family, then when a car company has a proper tantrum and threatens to pull its ad from the publisher. that has direct financial ramifications to you because the commercial director of your publishing operation will kind of have a meeting with the boss and say, we've got to get this clown in line. Otherwise he's
Andrew:
He's
John Cadogan:
got to
Andrew:
got
John Cadogan:
go
Andrew:
to go
John Cadogan:
because
Andrew:
because
John Cadogan:
he's
Andrew:
he's
John Cadogan:
going to
Andrew:
going
John Cadogan:
cost
Andrew:
to cost
John Cadogan:
us
Andrew:
us
John Cadogan:
in the
Andrew:
a
John Cadogan:
case
Andrew:
case
John Cadogan:
of
Andrew:
of
John Cadogan:
a major
Andrew:
a major
John Cadogan:
carmaker,
Andrew:
car murder.
John Cadogan:
it could
Andrew:
It could
John Cadogan:
be millions.
Andrew:
be millions.
John Cadogan:
So
Andrew:
So
John Cadogan:
you've
Andrew:
you've
John Cadogan:
got
Andrew:
got
John Cadogan:
to
Andrew:
to
John Cadogan:
see
Andrew:
see
John Cadogan:
these
Andrew:
these
John Cadogan:
big
Andrew:
big
John Cadogan:
gigs
Andrew:
gigs
John Cadogan:
and these
Andrew:
and these
John Cadogan:
desirable
Andrew:
desirable
John Cadogan:
gigs
Andrew:
gigs
John Cadogan:
through
Andrew:
through
John Cadogan:
the
Andrew:
the
John Cadogan:
prism
Andrew:
prism
John Cadogan:
of
Andrew:
of
John Cadogan:
what's
Andrew:
the Oscar-winning
John Cadogan:
really going
Andrew:
Darwin
John Cadogan:
on
Andrew:
Army.
John Cadogan:
here. And it's
Andrew:
And it's
John Cadogan:
really
Andrew:
really
John Cadogan:
all
Andrew:
all
John Cadogan:
about
Andrew:
about, if you
John Cadogan:
love
Andrew:
love
John Cadogan:
us.
Andrew:
us,
John Cadogan:
And if
Andrew:
and
John Cadogan:
you
Andrew:
if you
John Cadogan:
don't,
Andrew:
don't, you're
John Cadogan:
here's
Andrew:
just
John Cadogan:
your
Andrew:
going
John Cadogan:
infringement
Andrew:
to be stuck in
John Cadogan:
notice.
Andrew:
this. Right. So when people are reading a review on a car, they actually need to have that in the back of their minds. Do you think? I'm trying to get to the
John Cadogan:
Yeah,
Andrew:
bottom of how
John Cadogan:
I
Andrew:
to...
John Cadogan:
think they need to have it in the front of their minds because here's the acid test, right? If you really just want to cut through to whether or not a review is biased or unduly positive, because the really insidious mechanism here is a journalist will sit there and he's writing a story and he knows what the car's like, but sometimes he gets to the point where he says, oh, I've got to have a bit of a shot at this because... It doesn't have this feature and all the others do, or because it really didn't impress me with the dynamics or, you know, it's got some objective deficiency compared with its line ball competitors. If that journalist sits there and goes, what's the carmaker really going to think about this? Then that's a huge problem because he's censoring his content to keep the carmaker happy. So my strong advice to you, if you're watching a video review of a car or you're reading some. review on one of the major websites is that if there's insufficient criticism of the product, then that's kind of a problem because all products have deficiencies objectively, and they need to be pointed out if the review is going to be fair and balanced. And in this respect, the criticisms validate the praise. So there's going to be praise as well, like, oh, it's really good at this handles great. It's so comfortable. I love the refreshing look of the interior, blah, blah. You know, just a
Andrew:
I'm
John Cadogan:
vomit stream of
Andrew:
not sure if that was
John Cadogan:
praise
Andrew:
that.
John Cadogan:
and compliments, right? If there's not the kind of val- kind of balancing criticism, then the whole thing just reads and sounds a little bit bent over and your radar should go beep like that. Because if you're not getting told the full story, you probably shouldn't base your expensive decision about what to buy next on an incomplete set of facts.
Andrew:
Right. But also there's another way of looking at that. I recently am building this Land Cruiser in South Africa, and there's a company, a small company, that makes very, very nice rear bar wheel carriers. Best I've seen anywhere. Very, very good. Used them before. Last time I said all the good stuff because it's a really good product, and that's why I've asked for it again. But they had a reverse light on the back of it. And I said it was not even as bright as a glow worm. in a jar because it was pointless. I mean, but here's the thing. The viewers heard all my positive stuff and didn't really hang on the negative stuff because it wasn't actually that consequential. I mean, it's just a reverse light and they didn't think it through very well, but the rest of it was still fantastic. But the, but the client on the new build, he said to me, yeah, would you, do you want one for your new vehicle? I said, yeah, definitely. Uh, he said, but you can't say anything negative. And I said, Deal's off, mate. Sorry, deal's off. Deal is off. Okay, I'll go and get something else. Honestly, if you I'll buy it for you, I'll buy it from you at full retail price. Because I don't want to be accused of Oh, you pandered. But at the same time, I said to him, mate, it was the reverse light. I understand that you've actually changed it anyway. So what you're doing is by asking me not to say anything bad. You're devaluing the entire review.
John Cadogan:
This is exactly true because whatever criticism you level at a product, no matter how minor, because you love the rear wheel carrier, but the reverse light sucked a bit, then that tells the viewer of your review that you're not bent over because that small little nugget of criticism validates the praise. And what I'd expect from somebody like you with vast experience touring in remote places is you would pre-select quality products off the bat. So you wouldn't go and have some piece of shit installed on your vehicle because then it would drive you nuts. And the implementation and the execution of the modifications that you've done to achieve your objective, which would be make it better and more suitable for that kind of touring, you'd be shooting yourself in the foot off the bat. So your products would be preselected by virtue of your expert
Andrew:
Hmm.
John Cadogan:
experience at doing exactly this kind of thing. And therefore they wouldn't warrant too much criticism because one would hope that you'd learned how to select the best products to do that kind of stuff in your capacity as the governor general.
Andrew:
Yes, that is the principle for now for somebody actually reading that review and listening to that view. If you're seeing, if you're hearing nothing negative, then the alarm bells should ring. Okay, fair enough. In your experience where you've done reviews, what have the reactions been to the good versus bad stuff that you've presented about a product or a car or whatever?
John Cadogan:
I see a pretty worrying trend in when
Andrew:
When
John Cadogan:
you
Andrew:
you
John Cadogan:
say
Andrew:
say
John Cadogan:
reaction,
Andrew:
reaction,
John Cadogan:
do you mean audience
Andrew:
do you mean audience
John Cadogan:
reactions
Andrew:
reaction
John Cadogan:
or
Andrew:
or corporate
John Cadogan:
corporate
Andrew:
reaction?
John Cadogan:
reactions?
Andrew:
Both.
John Cadogan:
Okay, so the most worrying trend with audiences, I think is tribalism because there's, for example, with electric cars, which is a really passionate topic in society, a motoring society at the moment, the whole electrification thing in a subsection of people has become almost like a religion, i.e. their believers, and they take it very personally if you criticise what they believe in. So I think that kind of tribalism is really worrying because it tends to push the facts under the table. Like if you say, I said recently that there's no recycling mandate for lithium ion batteries, and that's going to be a big problem into the future. like an Erin Brockovich kind of problem, because you don't want lithium hexafluorophosphate getting into the groundwater. That's generally regarded as bad. So in the absence of a mandate, we need there to be a strong commercial case. Otherwise, the free market will not recycle the batteries. So if you point this out, the tribal group in the audience will view that... as an attack on their religion. Whereas
Andrew:
Whereas
John Cadogan:
I would
Andrew:
I would
John Cadogan:
have thought
Andrew:
have thought
John Cadogan:
if you'd
Andrew:
if you
John Cadogan:
bought
Andrew:
brought
John Cadogan:
an
Andrew:
an
John Cadogan:
EV
Andrew:
animal in
John Cadogan:
for
Andrew:
for
John Cadogan:
all the
Andrew:
all the
John Cadogan:
right
Andrew:
right
John Cadogan:
reasons,
Andrew:
reasons
John Cadogan:
for example,
Andrew:
for example,
John Cadogan:
then
Andrew:
then
John Cadogan:
you'd
Andrew:
you'd
John Cadogan:
be
Andrew:
be
John Cadogan:
concerned
Andrew:
concerned
John Cadogan:
about
Andrew:
about
John Cadogan:
the
Andrew:
the
John Cadogan:
environmental
Andrew:
environmental
John Cadogan:
impact
Andrew:
impact
John Cadogan:
of
Andrew:
of
John Cadogan:
that
Andrew:
that
John Cadogan:
at the
Andrew:
at the
John Cadogan:
end
Andrew:
end
John Cadogan:
of its
Andrew:
of its
John Cadogan:
life.
Andrew:
life.
John Cadogan:
And
Andrew:
And you'd
John Cadogan:
you'd be
Andrew:
be
John Cadogan:
possibly
Andrew:
possibly
John Cadogan:
wanting
Andrew:
wanting
John Cadogan:
to
Andrew:
to
John Cadogan:
sprint
Andrew:
sprint
John Cadogan:
to the
Andrew:
in
John Cadogan:
front
Andrew:
front
John Cadogan:
of the
Andrew:
of
John Cadogan:
queue
Andrew:
a queue
John Cadogan:
and
Andrew:
and
John Cadogan:
advocate
Andrew:
advocate
John Cadogan:
strenuously
Andrew:
strenuous
John Cadogan:
for a recycling
Andrew:
recycling
John Cadogan:
mandate
Andrew:
man-made
John Cadogan:
because
Andrew:
because you
John Cadogan:
you bought
Andrew:
bought
John Cadogan:
that
Andrew:
that
John Cadogan:
car
Andrew:
car
John Cadogan:
for
Andrew:
for
John Cadogan:
environmental
Andrew:
environmental
John Cadogan:
reasons
Andrew:
reasons
John Cadogan:
and you
Andrew:
and
John Cadogan:
really
Andrew:
you really
John Cadogan:
care
Andrew:
care
John Cadogan:
about
Andrew:
about
John Cadogan:
what
Andrew:
what
John Cadogan:
happens
Andrew:
happens.
John Cadogan:
to it. So
Andrew:
So,
John Cadogan:
environment,
Andrew:
environment,
John Cadogan:
this...
Andrew:
this,
John Cadogan:
environmentalism
Andrew:
environmentalism
John Cadogan:
is just
Andrew:
is just
John Cadogan:
one
Andrew:
one
John Cadogan:
aspect
Andrew:
aspect
John Cadogan:
of
Andrew:
that
John Cadogan:
it, but you
Andrew:
you
John Cadogan:
get
Andrew:
get to
John Cadogan:
tribalism
Andrew:
try.
John Cadogan:
in kind of all camps. And this has the capacity to fracture the epistemology of reality and just weaponize people's confirmation biases. And it kind of means the facts don't matter anymore. So that's the biggest worry I've had there. And the interesting thing about car company reactions in particular is that I used to get a lot of reaction from car makers when I worked on Wheels magazine, for example, I had a woman who used to ring me up all the time from Holden. And it was her job to point out every deficiency, seemingly, that was ever in any story I did relating to a Holden. And so much so
Andrew:
So
John Cadogan:
that when
Andrew:
much
John Cadogan:
her
Andrew:
so, when
John Cadogan:
number
Andrew:
her number
John Cadogan:
flashed
Andrew:
crashed
John Cadogan:
up
Andrew:
up
John Cadogan:
on my
Andrew:
on my
John Cadogan:
phone,
Andrew:
phone,
John Cadogan:
I'd
Andrew:
I'd
John Cadogan:
just
Andrew:
just
John Cadogan:
say,
Andrew:
say,
John Cadogan:
hello,
Andrew:
hello,
John Cadogan:
person
Andrew:
it wasn't
John Cadogan:
from
Andrew:
an
John Cadogan:
Holden,
Andrew:
alarm,
John Cadogan:
what
Andrew:
when
John Cadogan:
have
Andrew:
have
John Cadogan:
I got
Andrew:
I got
John Cadogan:
wrong
Andrew:
one
John Cadogan:
this
Andrew:
this
John Cadogan:
month?
Andrew:
morning?
John Cadogan:
Kind of thing. And now that I've divorced myself from this roundabout, that doesn't happen anymore. You know, I don't get very much communication from car companies that A, calls me a bastard, or B, says, hey, dude, you got that wrong. You know, so deafening silence is the way the car makers sort of treat people like me. They don't want to engage because presumably they don't want to open the floodgates of hell. But, and it's also a bit compounded in Australia because a carmaker, like a large corporation with more than 10 employees, can't sue for defamation under Australian law. So you can
Andrew:
Hmm.
John Cadogan:
kind of say what you want about corporations as long as you don't make it about the people within them, you're on reasonably safe ground from a defamation lawsuit point of view. So I think the PR people in car companies are much more interested in developing a sinister little clutch of sycophants that they can lead around on a chain and take from event to event so that when
Andrew:
so that
John Cadogan:
the PR
Andrew:
when the PR
John Cadogan:
person's
Andrew:
person's
John Cadogan:
performance
Andrew:
performance
John Cadogan:
is assessed,
Andrew:
is assessed
John Cadogan:
higher
Andrew:
higher
John Cadogan:
up by
Andrew:
than
John Cadogan:
the CEO
Andrew:
the CEO
John Cadogan:
or something,
Andrew:
or someone
John Cadogan:
or the marketing
Andrew:
else, they
John Cadogan:
director, they can say,
Andrew:
can say,
John Cadogan:
well,
Andrew:
well,
John Cadogan:
look
Andrew:
look
John Cadogan:
what
Andrew:
what
John Cadogan:
I've
Andrew:
I've
John Cadogan:
achieved.
Andrew:
achieved
John Cadogan:
Here
Andrew:
here
John Cadogan:
is this
Andrew:
is this
John Cadogan:
litany
Andrew:
litmus,
John Cadogan:
of just
Andrew:
just
John Cadogan:
fantastic,
Andrew:
fantastic,
John Cadogan:
clean
Andrew:
clean
John Cadogan:
praise
Andrew:
phrase
John Cadogan:
that everyone just delivers.
Andrew:
that
John Cadogan:
like clockwork because
Andrew:
everyone
John Cadogan:
they're our friends
Andrew:
believes.
John Cadogan:
in the media.
Andrew:
Yeah. I... was going to ask you that question, but you kind of answered it for me. When I did those a couple of pieces on the record of Toyota, and as you know, I'm a big fan of the Toyota 70 series and everything, and I admit it, okay, I am probably biased towards that vehicle because I use them and I like them, etc, etc. But the Toyota Corporation, I couldn't care less. And when those warranty claims came up, which honestly, frankly, the first one with the wheel, the brakes was just absurd. I know for a fact that people right high up in Toyota saw it. And the dealer principal from the dealer that I often go there and film, and they don't pay me or anything to do it. I just do it because they're nice people. And he will kind of look at me and say, this week, yeah, we saw it. And I got a phone call from head office. And I said, so are you going to do anything about it? He kind of said, well, maybe. And of course, he had to hedge his bets. Of course he did. But nothing, absolutely nothing. And the recent one was you've got you've got corrosion on your aluminium cased gearbox housing, which actually was Australian red dirt. There's a lot of it in this country. And they weren't going to warrant it. And then they suddenly called me and said, no, we will. But did they call me to say, it's fine, Andrew, you don't have to pay the the fee, the $180 fee for our inspection, because we will take it down as a warranty claim. Did they do it because, oh, crikey, it's bloody Andrew White. Shit, we'd better do something now. Or did they do it and say, no, that's actually not reasonable. I suspect it was the former.
John Cadogan:
Yeah, I suspect it was the former two. In fact, I'd put the house on it. Like they would want to hose you down so that you didn't, you know, just keep vomiting on about it, but I watched that report of yours with some interest. And it was just laughable that by corrosion, they meant red dirt stained on You hadn't even done too many water crossings. It's not like you'd been this far up the A-pillars in water, right? I saw the crossing you did on the Canning Stock Route. It was like an inch and a half of water if you were lucky, and your
Andrew:
we could walk. I mean, I know.
John Cadogan:
grandmother in a Zimmer frame could have overtaken you on the crossing had she had big enough, low pressure
Andrew:
Yes. The
John Cadogan:
on the tires.
Andrew:
interesting
John Cadogan:
The
Andrew:
thing is that the
John Cadogan:
interesting thing about car makers that I get is occasionally like... I actually am on reasonably good terms with a bunch of technical people at various car makers who talk to me off the record from time to time. And they'll even say to me things like this. They'll go, oh, mate, we love your stuff as long as it's not about us, you
Andrew:
Hehehehe
John Cadogan:
know, kind of thing. Because they kind of love it when you give it to brand C over here. They don't like copying it themselves. And I get that they don't like it. Because... If you are, for example, a product manager for Land Cruiser 300 in Australia, and I don't have any contact with Toyota, they hate me. The, uh, but if you are that guy, you basically sell your soul to Toyota and you work really hard and you've got the most hateful balancing act of all time because you're at war with the factory and you're at war with the marketing manager in Australia because they want this. but the commercial guys don't want to pay for all of that. And the factory is hardlining you about how much all of that's going to cost. So you're fighting this battle on multiple fronts and it's completely consuming. And many of the perceived deficiencies of products that the likes of you or I might drive are down to the compromises that are made in this process, right? So... If you are that product manager, you've slogged your guts out to make that vehicle the best vehicle that it can be in the circumstances with all those extant constraints around it. Having its deficiencies pointed out is a bit... It guts you. If you cared about your job, it could not gut you. But it doesn't mean that the criticisms are not valid. It doesn't mean that the criticisms are not... appropriate to tell somebody who might have a hundred thousand dollars to drop on a new Land Cruiser or something. They need
Andrew:
I need
John Cadogan:
to
Andrew:
to
John Cadogan:
know
Andrew:
know
John Cadogan:
what
Andrew:
what
John Cadogan:
the deficiencies
Andrew:
efficiencies
John Cadogan:
are.
Andrew:
are.
John Cadogan:
And
Andrew:
And
John Cadogan:
if you're
Andrew:
if you're
John Cadogan:
sitting
Andrew:
sitting
John Cadogan:
there going,
Andrew:
there
John Cadogan:
I
Andrew:
going,
John Cadogan:
need to
Andrew:
well,
John Cadogan:
be everyone's
Andrew:
I mean, it's
John Cadogan:
friend,
Andrew:
a fact, then.
John Cadogan:
then frankly, you're just in the wrong job, dude.
Andrew:
Yeah, she come and do what we do.
John Cadogan:
Yeah, totally.
Andrew:
Yeah.
John Cadogan:
I think there's a lack of appreciation in the public and with journalists about just how hard it is to make a car right and how many of the impediments to making a car better just come down to its money and the factory. We're not all good friends inside car makers. The product guys hate the factory guys and the factory guys hate the product guys and the marketing guys hate the product guys. It's a cesspool of hatred and miraculously enough, some decent cars fall out from time to time.
Andrew:
Yeah, interesting. So I'm listening to your words about personal attacks, you know, you'll present an argument. And I'll listen to it. And I'll think, yeah, that's, that's worth thinking about, and necessarily agree with him. But it's, but it's worth thinking about because now but now you've mentioned, you know, Nissan or Subaru, or I'm a Nissan Subaru baby, I'll suddenly find a personal attack. Oh, John is this. Instead of attacking the argument, they'll attack the person presenting the argument and it drives me up the wall. If you've got something valuable to say about what I'm presenting, go for it. I'm all ears. I will genuinely listen and think. Sometimes it'll be rubbish. Now that at times it'll be... That's an interesting take. Not if you're going to call me... A name. This must have happened to you.
John Cadogan:
hundred times a day, Andrew. I mean, look at
Andrew:
Okay, share some of the goodies.
John Cadogan:
the comments feed is, uh, I really feel for, for younger creators on YouTube. I really do because I've got extremely thick skin. Like I fundamentally don't care what somebody says. Somebody I don't know, like blue man, two, two. Do we really care what he says? If it's a personal attack, like not really. And the bigger problem is that there's a lack of critical thought. Right? Because if I present an argument to you and it's got a hole in it, then rather than call me a bastard for, you know, highlighting some perceived deficiency in the Subaru that you love, and it's the 25th Subaru that you've owned and it's the best damn car ever, you know, kind of thing. And therefore I'm a bastard for alleging that it's not. Why not just concentrate on the facts? Right? And this
Andrew:
This
John Cadogan:
is
Andrew:
is
John Cadogan:
a
Andrew:
a
John Cadogan:
real
Andrew:
real
John Cadogan:
problem
Andrew:
problem
John Cadogan:
in
Andrew:
for
John Cadogan:
society
Andrew:
society at the moment.
John Cadogan:
at the
Andrew:
Because
John Cadogan:
moment,
Andrew:
we don't
John Cadogan:
because
Andrew:
know.
John Cadogan:
we don't, we're kind of avoiding critical thought and fact-based arguments. And people feel as if they're entitled to their opinion. And I don't think anybody, me, you, anyone who listens to or watches this podcast is entitled to an opinion for which they can't argue. And by that, I mean, if you can't dredge up facts that absolutely stand up to independent scrutiny to prosecute your point of view, then you're just making shit up. And it can be compelling to you, but you shouldn't inflict it on the rest of the world unless surely, unless you've got some facts to back it up. It's like there's a ship in the Netherlands at the moment with six or eight cargo decks burned out, and there are 500 at the time said this fire is so severe and so hard to fight because of the presence of these EVs. And I get, for example, that you can be really pro-EV, but just saying I'm a bastard for pointing stuff out, that's not an argument to do we need better safety standards for the deployment of electric vehicles in conventional row-row shipping or in underground car parks in Perth or Sydney or Melbourne or Brisbane.
Andrew:
Hmm. Can you think of any real juicy ones worth repeating with the people who had a go at you where it's just nonsensical but very funny?
John Cadogan:
Actually, I do episode after episode of reacting to the most nutty comments, but I just can't bring them to mind off the bat.
Andrew:
Do you reply? Do you answer, reply, or do you leave it alone?
John Cadogan:
I know I do. I do YouTube episodes of reaction to these, um,
Andrew:
Oh, that's true.
John Cadogan:
to these nut bag comments.
Andrew:
That
John Cadogan:
And
Andrew:
is true.
John Cadogan:
the funniest thing about them is occasionally I get accused of making them up and they're all authentic. Like some of them, I couldn't make up. I don't have what it takes to make that, to
Andrew:
Mm.
John Cadogan:
make this nutty stuff up. It's just, it's brilliant. It's a, it's a kind of confluence of Dunning Kruger syndrome. And lack of technical education and functional illiteracy, but sometimes it's like when you get, you know, a million chimpanzees in a room, each with a laptop, occasionally one of them is going to belt out the New Testament. You know what I mean? And that's kind of,
Andrew:
Do you
John Cadogan:
that's
Andrew:
get,
John Cadogan:
kind of where I'm coming from with
Andrew:
are
John Cadogan:
the comments.
Andrew:
you tempted to insult back by just simply telling them where to put the apostrophe?
John Cadogan:
Often,
Andrew:
Just,
John Cadogan:
often, but where would you stop?
Andrew:
yeah.
John Cadogan:
If you open that door, you just turn into a, like a, a black hole of responding to Redman 357. Like if, if you rang me up or if you did an episode that said, I spoke about something in relation to driving off road or towing, and I got this wrong, then I'd listen to that because A, you're not some anonymous tool. And I know that you've got runs on the board. And if I made a mistake, I'd want to know about that and correct it. But the comments feed is a cesspit from time to time. And I don't think the comments feed is necessarily representative of the audience broadly either,
Andrew:
Hmm.
John Cadogan:
because you get a lot of comments that say, I can't believe some of these people in the comments feed.
Andrew:
You're right, right. So I want to bring up a subject that you and I, altercation is the wrong word because it was very well meant. Everything was very well meant. And I presented a proposal and you said, Andrew, sorry, mate, bullshit. And the proposal was, if you remember rightly, was our air intercooler scoops. the wrong way round. And I proposed the idea. I didn't say it were they were the wrong way around. I proposed the idea that are they the one way round because at the moment, if you take a bonnet scoop, for example, and most of them are under bonnet or over bonnet scoops that the air goes high pressure area in front of the vehicle air goes through the engine. Now through the scoop and through the intercooler. and the air is then let's to do what it there's no there's no ducting or anything. After side lee side of the intercooler. And I suggested that if you actually turned the scoop, bonnet scoop, specifically bonnet scoop around, then the air is going to come through. And actually behind the bonnet scoop, there's going to be a little low pressure area, which is actually going to suck air. So you're going to have a high pressure area. So you're going to get a faster flow of air through the intercooler, because obviously faster, the more air you can pass through the intercooler, the more efficient it's going to be to transfer the heat, logically. And I came up with this, well, it wasn't my idea, it was actually a guy, X-Rally, he used to build rally cars, and he has a very, very potent Toba diesel Hilux. And he has the scoop the other way around. And he's been playing with this, and he says, with the scoop the other way around. And I proposed that question and you had a good go at me. And I still wanna talk about it because you said, yes, but it's high pressure area. And do you remember that?
John Cadogan:
I do. I remember that. The principle of airflow through the cabin is based on a well of high pressure that exists in the region where the bonnet intersects with the windscreen because obviously the air has to run into the windscreen and divert. So that's a relatively high pressure area there. And even though there's no, you just said there was no ducting on the lee side, there's a thing called CFD. that they use in R&D in carmakers, it's called computational flow dynamics. So what they do is it's a little bit like finite element analysis. They model individual particles of air on the way through various flow channels. And they just figure out how airflow works. But I'd suggest that the two problems with your hypothesis are that to get air, you're essentially the rear facing scoop into an exhaust. Am I inferring that correctly?
Andrew:
Yes, basically the air would not go into the scoop and through the scoop into the intercooler and then dispersed over the engine. It would actually come through the front radiator grill of the car and upwards through the intercooler radiator and out through the scoop.
John Cadogan:
Yeah, okay. So there's a couple of problems with that. And the first problem is you'd have to fight the high pressure area between the bonnet and the windscreen. So that's kind of.
Andrew:
You mentioned that, but it's still a lower pressure area than the front grill of the car.
John Cadogan:
Okay, sure. It's a relatively high pressure area. It's
Andrew:
Yeah,
John Cadogan:
higher
Andrew:
okay.
John Cadogan:
than one atmosphere because otherwise air wouldn't flow through the cabin when you turn the HVAC on. But the other slight problem with this is that the air that you've got coming through the intercooler would already be preheated by virtue of traveling through the air conditioning condenser and the radiator and whatever else. presumably it'll also come past the exhaust headers and the hot engine block of the car. And there's a thing called Newton's law of cooling, which says that the effectiveness of a cooling system or the effectiveness of heat transfer is predicated on the temperature differential between two different regions. So if you've got, essentially, if you've got hotter air, it doesn't do as good a job on the intercooler, cooling the air down on the way through. And I guess there might be some... I guess there might be some particular cases where a rear-facing scoop is going to work better. There's an empirical dimension to that, but
Andrew:
You mentioned
John Cadogan:
there
Andrew:
the...
John Cadogan:
would be a reason why most scoops face forward.
Andrew:
You didn't mention that you're absolutely correct. If I think about it, you because I was listening to your argument, I was saying, Oh, but it's all relative, you need a high pressure is high pressure, it might be a high pressure area, but it's still lower than therefore it will flow. But the heat thing is a is an issue because you've got the radiator heat, the air conditioner, condenser, and then you've got the
John Cadogan:
is
Andrew:
engine
John Cadogan:
always
Andrew:
block
John Cadogan:
benefit.
Andrew:
itself. So that area is going to be warmer, which is going to be less effective, obviously. Okay, well, I agree with you that but what was great about that, and this is why I'm pointing it out is that we had a we had an argument. And we were talking about technical stuff, you have far more engineering background than I have. I don't have an engineering background. I think I'm quite intelligent with it comes to that. But there's so much about engineering that I don't understand, I have to assume certain things. So well, well done. It was a good discussion. I presented an idea and you machine gun be down, but you did it in the right way. You said, ah, but have you thought of this and this and this? And you start talking about technical things where I can turn, I can, I can lean back and say, yeah, not a great idea. Worth talking about around the campfire.
John Cadogan:
Yeah,
Andrew:
But
John Cadogan:
absolutely. And the whole thing about respectful disagreement, like I'm all for disagreeing with people, right? But there are ways to disagree with someone. And the worst way of all time is to just, you know, out of the blocks, you don't just call someone a cock because you disagree with them. You know what I mean?
Andrew:
Thank
John Cadogan:
Like, that's
Andrew:
you.
John Cadogan:
a fail. You've got to just, you've got to say, no, hang on a minute, the way I see it, it's blah. It's kind of like the conversation I just had with you then rehashing the whole... which way should the scoop face deal? Because what I admired about your piece that you originally did on that was that you went through that in quite a common sense way and you made, you said, well, here are the goalposts as I see it and if that is the case, then the scoop should face the other way. And I thought, well, that would mean that. whole bunch of people and a whole bunch of other car companies have just flat out got this wrong. And
Andrew:
Yeah.
John Cadogan:
there's probably a reason why the scoop does face that way.
Andrew:
Hmm.
John Cadogan:
And let's just look at what those facts might be about that. But you didn't just dream it up. You had a logical thought process that led to this speculation about why the scoop should probably, or should it face backwards. I think you posed it more like a question of memory service. The reality is, no, I really don't think it should.
Andrew:
to it
John Cadogan:
And
Andrew:
and maybe
John Cadogan:
there'd be
Andrew:
into
John Cadogan:
a few
Andrew:
a few
John Cadogan:
detailed
Andrew:
detailed
John Cadogan:
problems
Andrew:
problems
John Cadogan:
with
Andrew:
with
John Cadogan:
it
Andrew:
it
John Cadogan:
as well,
Andrew:
as well,
John Cadogan:
such
Andrew:
such
John Cadogan:
as
Andrew:
as
John Cadogan:
if you
Andrew:
if
John Cadogan:
ever
Andrew:
you ever
John Cadogan:
had
Andrew:
had
John Cadogan:
any
Andrew:
any
John Cadogan:
oily
Andrew:
oily
John Cadogan:
sort
Andrew:
sort
John Cadogan:
of
Andrew:
of
John Cadogan:
misting
Andrew:
misting
John Cadogan:
that
Andrew:
that
John Cadogan:
went
Andrew:
went
John Cadogan:
on
Andrew:
on
John Cadogan:
inside
Andrew:
inside
John Cadogan:
the
Andrew:
the
John Cadogan:
engine
Andrew:
engine
John Cadogan:
bay,
Andrew:
bay
John Cadogan:
it would
Andrew:
that
John Cadogan:
continuously
Andrew:
continues
John Cadogan:
spray
Andrew:
to spray
John Cadogan:
all
Andrew:
all
John Cadogan:
over
Andrew:
over
John Cadogan:
the
Andrew:
the
John Cadogan:
windshield,
Andrew:
windshield.
John Cadogan:
which would get old every time it rained, for example. But I don't see that
Andrew:
That's,
John Cadogan:
as
Andrew:
that's.
John Cadogan:
a reason. Like in the olden days around a campfire, we'd all have a three-foot razor blade on our hip. That's a real breeding ground for the development of diplomacy. You've got to be polite and diplomatic and talk about the facts rather than make it personal. Because the second you start making it personal,
Andrew:
was
John Cadogan:
people's hands go down here, onto the sword, and you know, an otherwise pleasant night around the campfire goes a bit kill bill, doesn't it?
Andrew:
a big man with a sword, you know, another one's person falling down the catwalk, I guess, but you wouldn't feel it, would you? Yeah. I was once chatting to somebody about you, and they said, yeah, mate, yeah, but he drives a Mitsubishi. And that was his sum total of the argument.
John Cadogan:
Hang on, one of the dudes that you drove down the Canning stock route did
Andrew:
I
John Cadogan:
it in the Trident, didn't he?
Andrew:
know. And I actually, that's one of the reasons why I actually said the best thing to do the Canning Stock route is a badly maintained 2013 Triton, because that's what he did it in. And he had a few minor issues which he sorted. And
John Cadogan:
Well, here's the thing about the Triton, right? Am I in love with it? No. Why did I buy it instead of a Hilux Rogue or one of those? Well, there's a small matter of $15,000 difference at the time in the price. And what do I actually use it for? Well, I moved stuff from this fat cave to my other fat cave and it's kind of okay at that. Is it the best ute in Australia? No,
Andrew:
No, but
John Cadogan:
not even close,
Andrew:
yeah,
John Cadogan:
right?
Andrew:
yeah.
John Cadogan:
But it does the job for me. And I'm not, here's the other thing about being a motoring journalist for 30 years, right? This, this thing about being in love with the car you own, like, I don't get it. But if somebody said to me tomorrow, would you like to come out to a racetrack and drive a 911 GT2 Porsche? I'd go, no, I'm a bit busy tomorrow. I'm just
Andrew:
Oh?
John Cadogan:
not in love with that stuff anymore. I mean, uh, the... The first time I drove a Ferrari, right? I was so looking forward to it. And it turned into an emblematic case of sex with a supermodel syndrome. This was a 550 Maranello. And I picked it up and I'm like, yes, this is the first Ferrari, yes. And I got in it and like, I don't know, 15 minutes later I'm going, I really thought it'd be better.
Andrew:
Really?
John Cadogan:
You know? It's like this whole tribalism
Andrew:
I don't know if you're
John Cadogan:
thing
Andrew:
going
John Cadogan:
about
Andrew:
to
John Cadogan:
brands
Andrew:
be able
John Cadogan:
of
Andrew:
to
John Cadogan:
cars
Andrew:
hear me.
John Cadogan:
and the
Andrew:
I'm
John Cadogan:
Hilux
Andrew:
sorry.
John Cadogan:
Brigade and the Ranger Brigade and the Land Cruiser Brigade Dude, they're just cars
Andrew:
But they're not just cars. My argument is that they become something else. We've got three cars. We've got the Range Rover, which is for the Canning stock route. I don't have an emotional attachment to it. My first Range Rover that I bought when I was 20, I would have died for it. I would have gone to war for it.
John Cadogan:
Yeah, yeah.
Andrew:
It was so, you know, maybe we just get older and smarter. But I don't think there's anything wrong with this, this Africa. I don't know if you've been watching the series, the Africa build. We, we bought this half a million kilometer land cruiser that had never had any love. Nobody loved that car, but they'd looked after it, but they hadn't loved it. So it was in quite reasonable shape, mechanically body shape, not great. Nobody'd loved that car. Did a bit of work, took it down. all the way down to Cape Town, had a good time with it rattling. We called it that it had been used as a probably some kind of ambulance of some kind, I'm not sure it had eight seats bolted in the back, but they had been moved several times when I took all the seats out. There were 107 holes that had been drilled in the floor pan. So I then gave it a name and I called it Colin.
John Cadogan:
Perfect.
Andrew:
So, so,
John Cadogan:
Perfect, yeah.
Andrew:
but after that happened, after I don't give names to my cars anymore, I used to, but I don't anymore. And suddenly I started really liking this car. Not loving, I'm not going to go to war for it, but I started liking it because it had started, it had a personality over
John Cadogan:
Yeah.
Andrew:
only two weeks. It started having a personality and that's the difference.
John Cadogan:
of, look, I understand that. Absolutely. If you turn, if you turn a car into a thing that, that becomes more than just transportation, then I get that it's part of your identity in some sense. There would be a lot of people who watch your channel who are just as enthusiastic as you, albeit in a recreational sense, to do the kind of off-road adventuring that you do. And for them, their vehicle, which they probably slave over, fixing it up when they break something, when they're out last weekend and getting it ready for breaking something next weekend kind of thing, or just enjoying the weekend away and the preparations that go with that, that's more than just transportation, right? That's part of your life. And I get that cars like that are more than just transportation, but the point I'm making about my Triton is, it's just transportation. You know, it's a good value ute, but am I going to be devastated if some alien in geosynchronous orbit teleports it away for investigation, for a bit of probing and I never get it back then? No, I'll just make an insurance claim and probably just go again with some similar but different vehicle. You know, it's just
Andrew:
It's
John Cadogan:
a car.
Andrew:
because it's not part of your family. So once it's, it's an appliance and yeah,
John Cadogan:
Oh yeah, if the aliens took the dog, I'd be devastated.
Andrew:
absolutely. Yeah,
John Cadogan:
It'd be war of the worlds,
Andrew:
absolutely.
John Cadogan:
right?
Andrew:
Yeah. That's the difference when a car becomes part of the family. And if I think about my early Range Rover, I saw I kept it for almost nine years. And eventually when I let it go, it was literally go, you're free kind of thing. I am tired of lying underneath you and you are dropping shit in my eyes. Weekend after weekend just to keep you running. I've finally had enough. So that was me saying to my children, I did not say this to my children, you're out of here. I did not have to say that to my children, but it felt that way until the day it was now, it might've been part of the family, it was part of my life. It was a reason I do what I do. It was difficult seeing the guy drive it away, but after he drove it away, we went and had coffee.
John Cadogan:
Yeah.
Andrew:
End of story, you know. even though it had meant so much to me. So this Lafrica troop carrier, I'm really looking forward to seeing it next April. We're going to go up to Zambia with it, but yeah, I'm not going to fall in love with Colin. And I don't even, my current troop carrier, which is a star of the show, it's a fantastic vehicle. I just announced that I'm probably going to swap for the new 2.8 and take the risk with the new land cruiser.
John Cadogan:
You're gonna go with the automatic.
Andrew:
I am, I'm going with the automatic, mainly because of the automatic. So it's a bit of a risk. It's a risk I'm willing to take. Do you know the numbers on that video? We're ridiculous.
John Cadogan:
Yeah, sure. Because that it's one of those, it's one of those vehicles where its existence is so deeply entrenched in that niche of people who give a crap about that car. That's
Andrew:
Yeah.
John Cadogan:
yeah, it's, I can imagine that the retention would have been really high as well on that video, but I've got this hypothesis about you. It's just based on something I've inferred from watching you talk about in particular, your Trupe. And I think you're less in love with the true pig and more in love with the process of building it.
Andrew:
That's actually true.
John Cadogan:
Yeah,
Andrew:
I think
John Cadogan:
because
Andrew:
I actually even said that.
John Cadogan:
You have, have you?
Andrew:
Yeah. One of the videos I actually said, I'd love that process. And I know what a trooper is, and I know how to build the back end of it, and there are not gonna be too many surprises. And yes, I'll tweak it and make it a little bit better, but who cares really? Well, actually, the viewers care on how I tweak it. I just love the process, but you're absolutely right. There's no emotional connection with a vehicle. I've just come back from a solo trip and a couple of times, and this is what I say, a four wheel drive overlanders. You've built a great vehicle if you set up your camp, you walk away, if it's to look at the ocean or take a pee, doesn't matter. You look it back, you look back at your rig, your tent and whatever, chairs, and you go, shit, man, that's good. Just then you've built a good overlander, then you've succeeded because you'll never built the perfect one.
John Cadogan:
Well,
Andrew:
But
John Cadogan:
see,
Andrew:
if...
John Cadogan:
I think there's a lot of things in life where the process is here and the outcome is here and they're divorced from each other, or at least they're just separate. Okay, they're related to each other because you can't have the outcome without the process and there's no reason to go through the process without the outcome. It's a little bit like working out. Okay, like exercise, people go, I don't like exercise. I can't join the club, dude. Like exercise is something you tolerate or you endure to get an outcome, which is presumably, not dying 10 years earlier or something. And I don't see that it's possible to like the process because it's designed to be hateful. If it's not hateful, it's not exercise, right? And it's not gonna do. for you what you want it to do. It's a thing you've got to endure. And I think for some people, the building of a vehicle to go overlanding is a process that they endure and they enjoy the outcome, which would be the vehicle to do that stuff with their life. Whereas I just got the sense from you, I didn't see the episode where you pointed this out, but I got the sense from you that that's inverted with you where I'm sure you love the outcome, which is the overlanding. But I think I know a real enthusiasm in you for the process of building it because you've obviously you've done it so many times. You'd, you'd be the world's biggest masochist. So you're really into that stuff.
Andrew:
Yeah, it's actually both. It's actually very much both. And the interesting thing is that my build videos attract a lot more viewers than my expedition videos. And but I live the expedition. That's what I live for. So my end thing I build and love the build and it's good for business, etc. Okay, and then but I always have in the back of my mind as I'm building it, where am I going? What am I going to do is it's going to work for me when I'm out there in the bush. That's the ultimate goal for me.
John Cadogan:
Well, that whole lifestyle thing is really interesting to me because I've done a lot. I know I have shots of it all the time and I've made up this whole fake narrative about Dingo Piss Creek and the beard strokers around the campfire and towing their three and a half ton vans and just gumming
Andrew:
Yeah.
John Cadogan:
up the highways sort of thing. But I've done a lot of off-road adventuring. I've been on the Canning Stock Route and driven to Cape York. done the gibber of a road a million times and been to some out there places with the likes of Les Hiddens, the Bush Tucker man setting things up. And it really is interesting to me that for many people, the acquisition of the vehicle is really just a starting point, you know what I mean? And then there is so much on offer in the aftermarket domain, like where does it end? I'm sure if you dumped a hundred grand on a land cruise, you could dump another hundred on aftermarket this and that, no problem.
Andrew:
easily.
John Cadogan:
And making the right set of choices is, to me at least, it's extremely complex because when you buy a vehicle, you're just buying the clean skin vehicle, then that vehicle's basically gone through a whole R&D process where many of the fault modes have been identified and sidelined. Whereas, The minute you start modifying it and you add these components from this dude over here, and then you add these components from this dude over there, then what you're essentially doing is building a really advanced kind of prototype and introducing fault modes potentially that you don't know about. And then you're gonna give it a shakedown run somewhere like, I don't know, well 33, which would be an interesting place to discover that you've made a catastrophically poor. decision or set of decisions about which components to fit here and there. Like maybe you've decided to tow a trailer and well, 33 is where reality bites and you discover that that's a bad idea sort of thing. And that's, uh, that's part of, I guess, where I see the value of your build videos, because with the wealth of experience you've got doing that, hopefully you can head off a whole bunch of. well-intentioned but cockamamie decisions that some whore bastard might make on the road to building his own thing to do a similar trip. And if he makes the right set of decisions, it's a comparatively enjoyable and not all that angst
Andrew:
actually
John Cadogan:
ridden, horrible
Andrew:
a horrible
John Cadogan:
sort of disaster
Andrew:
disaster
John Cadogan:
management
Andrew:
management
John Cadogan:
thing
Andrew:
thing
John Cadogan:
at the
Andrew:
at the
John Cadogan:
end.
Andrew:
end.
John Cadogan:
Whereas, you know, if you make the wrong decision, you're just setting yourself up for an expensive fall, aren't you?
Andrew:
Well, that's actually exactly why we've set up the Overland Workshop. The Overland Workshop talks about all of these things, building, operating, four wheel drives, the whole thing, everything. I think there are nine courses currently on that. And that was the idea is because a lot of people don't, you know, they'll go on a trip once a year. they'll do a two week or three week trip, and then they might do a couple of weekends out. And that's their overlanding life, but they love overlanding. So what do they do about overlanding during the rest of the year when they're working hard? They spend their money on some kit and they add it to their rig and they're overlanding. Because then they're inviting the mates around and say, look what I've just added to my rig. They're busy doing the thing that they actually love doing. So they manage to stretch overlanding through the entire year. by building bit by bit by bit by bit. And then the culmination is a trip. And you know what the first thing they do on the trip is? They sit around the campfire and they discuss what they're gonna put on next. And that's the discussion around the campfire.
John Cadogan:
Okay. So he's at the risk of flipping this whole podcast on you and asking you a bunch of questions, which
Andrew:
Yeah,
John Cadogan:
is probably,
Andrew:
you're interviewing
John Cadogan:
yeah,
Andrew:
me now.
John Cadogan:
it's probably a
Andrew:
It's
John Cadogan:
violation
Andrew:
okay, I don't mind.
John Cadogan:
of the terms and conditions that we signed up to originally. But I've got this hypothesis about your average overlanding dude, right? And this process of accessorizing the vehicle, okay. And I get exactly what you just said. And there's the likes of ARB and TJM and everyone else can absorb. whatever budget you've got and come back when you've got some more money to spend with this kind of thing. But you've got a person who's got whatever amount of off-roading experience. And they buy a vehicle, like they buy a, I don't know, a Hilux Rogue or something. And they think at the outset about what am I going to do to it? Whereas I suspect that many of those people, the weakest link when it comes to off-roading. is actually them. It's their ability at driving in all terrain sort of conditions. Because I've driven a ton of standard vehicles in ridiculously challenging places and they kind of go okay. But
Andrew:
Yes.
John Cadogan:
you have to treat yourself, I think, as one of the components on the vehicle.
Andrew:
Excuse me.
John Cadogan:
And you
Andrew:
Sorry.
John Cadogan:
can tweak your own sort of performance. and get a lot more out of the vehicle. And I actually think one of the most cost-effective tweaks you can do for overlanding is just training yourself to be a better off-road driver.
Andrew:
Yeah, but you can't show that off. You see, I watch these off-road shows and they want to, some of them are not one of those guys that, you know, whoop with rock music. No, all
John Cadogan:
Yeah.
Andrew:
right. The slower, if you can do it, and I love doing that actually with people around and I'll see a couple of cars going up like flat out of hell now thinking to myself, you know, I could probably do that at a quarter of the speed. I actually don't even want to hear the engine. I might make a cock up and look stupid, but if I can get over that obstacle with making no wheel spin, I'll make them all look like Charlie's. It works 50% of the time. That's a kick, actually. Making no noise at all. Absolutely nothing. Just drive up, drive through the obstacle.
John Cadogan:
You probably got a different playlist on at the time too. A little bit less ACDC and a little bit more like just, yeah.
Andrew:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, over landing and forward driving has become the love of my life and I do it all the time and obviously make shows about it, but I don't get tired of it. I don't get tired of it. I just did a... a trip now, a solo trip. And every now and again, I need this isolation fix where I can actually just free my brain up with, you know, I do not and I will not buy a Starlink. It'll ruin everything.
John Cadogan:
Yeah.
Andrew:
What is the point?
John Cadogan:
But you're talking about an isolation fix and it being relaxing in that too. I think what most people don't realize about what you do is that you're actually wearing quite a few hats when you do that. And it's quite difficult to drive in challenging conditions and talk and make sure that you didn't botch the focus and the white balance and that the lighting's okay and the This stuff is another layer of complexity just on top of driving. And I think that's quite underrated by the people who watch your stuff, because I do that kind of thing all the time too. And it's just very difficult and easy to get wrong. Like how many shots do you end up binning because you got some technical... glitch and they're unsalvageable or how many takes do you have to go at a particular thing that you need to nail? Like, I don't know about you, but I throw a fair few ones and zeros in the bin before I pump a video out.
Andrew:
And I'm, I've been stuff because the audio doesn't work. That's
John Cadogan:
Oh
Andrew:
90%
John Cadogan:
yeah.
Andrew:
of the time if there's a, if there's a problem, it's going to be the audio. Okay.
John Cadogan:
Yeah.
Andrew:
And then occasionally, there's because I don't have a film crew. I have nobody monitoring the audio and also nobody. I rely on auto focus systems which are marvelous. Until the one until
John Cadogan:
Oh, totally.
Andrew:
the one time you
John Cadogan:
You
Andrew:
don't
John Cadogan:
use
Andrew:
do
John Cadogan:
Sony
Andrew:
a take
John Cadogan:
magic.
Andrew:
two and it there's no audio. So and you haven't done a take two. So you have to in the edit suite come up with a plan but But I understand where you're coming from.
John Cadogan:
Yeah, I'm a little like you with the autofocus though. Autofocus in modern cameras, particularly Sony cameras, like I'm using a Sony camera for this, like,
Andrew:
Me too.
John Cadogan:
you know?
Andrew:
Me
John Cadogan:
And
Andrew:
too. Me too. There
John Cadogan:
I would
Andrew:
you go.
John Cadogan:
never, giving the audience motion sickness now, nerding out about autofocus, but.
Andrew:
it
John Cadogan:
I would never have trusted autofocus. Like five years ago, you've got to be kidding. And now just, yeah, autofocus should be right, you know?
Andrew:
No, no. You make a mark in the sand, focus, make a mark in the sand and don't walk, don't walk beyond the sand. Now walk around, look at the camera and it's, it's amazing. Absolutely
John Cadogan:
suddenly.
Andrew:
astonishing. So, um, in terms of presenting, I rarely write a script. I'll just, um, and sometimes I'll say, Oh, that sounds interesting. And then I'll record it. And then the edit bench, I'll think, now that was boring. And that'll been. But in the recent one, the solo trip basically was an invitation to, and it's going out next, starts next week. It was a, it was basically an invitation to the audiences, come with me, sit in the car with me and sit around the campfire. There's nobody else around. I've got nobody else to talk to. So I'll talk shit to you. And that's the whole thing. And amazingly, I think people are going to love it. And it's just me talking crap.
John Cadogan:
That'll be the right flavour of crap though. I mean, it's got to be Turd of Great Dane. You know, just want some mongrel version,
Andrew:
Well,
John Cadogan:
right?
Andrew:
I talk about the cameras and I talk about what it's like traveling alone. And then after a day or two or three of remote travel, I suffer from what I call benign insanity. I start being extremely silly and I've actually got some clips of some of the old stuff that I've done. So when I crossed the Kalahari, I went mad. One day I went completely bonkers and of course I would roll camera and it, and I looked like a complete imbecile, but it's quite funny. Even if I look back at now and I can say, I know what was happening to my brain. so lonely, so long, love being on my own, don't make no mistake, but then I start being silly and I just let the camera roll and I think people, most people will think it's humorous and those people that don't, well they'll go and watch something else.
John Cadogan:
We don't have to please everyone, but the interesting thing about being isolated for some period of time is that it's very rare for anybody in our society to experience that. And when you are in the company of other people, there's tremendous pressure to conform and behave in particular ways. And I guess you're just experiencing that, the liberation of being able to be, you know, briefly functionally insane without the... earning the opprobrium of those around you or being sectioned briefly and subject to a psychological evaluation.
Andrew:
But the great part about solo travel is also that you actually have nobody to look after you. You're not responsible to anybody else but you. So you look after yourself. I go into a really remote place. So I know if something goes pear shaped, I could be in trouble. So don't let it go pear shaped. Just, you know, and so that thought process also is process is also, for example, don't leave the car doors open. And I remember the first time I did a really challenging off-road solo trip was in the Kalahari and I left all the car doors open because it was a habit of mine. It was not a good habit, but it was a habit. And then a lion appeared. So I'm now climbing in the car and I've got my tongue in my throat and I'm breathing heavily. The first thing I did as he roared, he was really close. And when I say really close, like the other side of the table, close and I just leaned over. It was pitch black and I leaned over and I just turned the camera on. The first thing I did is I just rolled camera and it was point, it was lying on the seat of the car, but
John Cadogan:
I'm
Andrew:
it
John Cadogan:
gonna
Andrew:
was
John Cadogan:
go
Andrew:
recording
John Cadogan:
to bed.
Andrew:
sound. I then got in the car, pointed the camera at myself and thought all the doors are open. All of them back side, all of them, they're all open. So now in Australia, I go into a remote trip. I'm constantly closing those damn doors because I keep leaving them open. But what happens, I'm on my own and a big brown, long thin brown thing decides to get some warmth inside the car. I'm I've got a problem. So don't let it happen. So that's also a nice thing you have to do when you're on your own, you have nobody else to worry about except yourself. But because you're on your own, you really have to look after yourself. I kind of like the buzz, to be honest.
John Cadogan:
Yeah, see, I see that. I see the opposite of that in society all the time. Like a lot of people live their lives, they got jobs and recreational pursuits where there are no potential consequences. And if something goes wrong, they can always look for somebody else to blame kind of thing, you know, and the real, the process of being accountable is missing. in a lot of people, you know, like they always want to look for some other thing to blame. Car crashes are a classic case of this. They'll say, the brakes just locked up or the car went out of control. Cars just don't go out of
Andrew:
No,
John Cadogan:
control, right?
Andrew:
you...
John Cadogan:
They just, they kind of don't. And
Andrew:
You lost control.
John Cadogan:
yeah, and being accountable, being responsible for the consequences of your actions and stopping bad shit from happening to you is a real life skill that I think more people should learn If you're in here and you're welding, it's a really nice idea if you don't blow yourself up or burn the joint to the ground. And you're not going to have anyone to blame except yourself if that happens. And if you're standing in front of a lathe and whatever you put in the chuck manages to jump out of the chuck and head for your snout, that's a bad outcome as well. Right? And therefore, the principle countermeasure for all of this stuff is... just make sure that doesn't happen. You know, and that's kind of exactly what you're talking about with the remote travel. Like you can't look for a scapegoat if something goes wrong, you're in it. You'll have to deal with it. And the best countermeasure is just organizing so that doesn't happen. You know,
Andrew:
Yeah,
John Cadogan:
I'm completely
Andrew:
yeah,
John Cadogan:
with you on that.
Andrew:
yeah. It's actually, it's actually really, yeah, as I said, I get a bit of a buzz from it. And I was actually sitting, I'd made a little fire, I cooked something, I was leaning back in my chair, I'm looking at, I hadn't seen anybody for three days. And I looked up and I saw this very, very clear satellite, very bright, and that's the space station. It's distinctly brighter than most satellites. And I thought to myself, you know, the camera wasn't rolling. But I thought the closest human beings to me right now, those guys up there, guys and girls up in that space station are closer to me than anybody else. Because they're what, 125 something miles above the surface of the earth, approximately the
John Cadogan:
Yeah,
Andrew:
space
John Cadogan:
I think
Andrew:
station.
John Cadogan:
it's about 200 Ks, something
Andrew:
It's about
John Cadogan:
like
Andrew:
200
John Cadogan:
that.
Andrew:
Ks.
John Cadogan:
Yeah.
Andrew:
So the town that I had left was 400 kilometers behind me. And the closest town was about 350 ahead of me, but it wasn't really a town, it was just an intersection. So I figured they might be shit, bugger me, that's amazing. They're not gonna be able to help me if shit goes down right now. I do carry, and I never used to, a personal locator beacon, and I also have a sat phone. The main reason for the sat phone is just to phone, go in and say, I'm good, I'm all right. That's the main reason for it. And of course, in an emergency, I could use it. My first crossing of the Kalahari, I decided I actually want, and this is where the lion came. You know that expression, blood runs cold? That's where it came from. Whoever came up with that expression had been in my situation because the blood just literally just drained. I mean, when I say literally, it's what it felt like. There was no more blood in my brain. It was just this shiver of You know, anyway, I had no personal locator beacon and no sat phone. And the reason for it was this, I wanted to, because after the line had left, I was sitting there going, that was when the fear came afterwards.
John Cadogan:
Yeah, in a stressful situation, you don't really have time for
Andrew:
to get...
John Cadogan:
fear. Generally
Andrew:
No.
John Cadogan:
you just, there's
Andrew:
You act.
John Cadogan:
a, there's a thing in neurology called an amygdala hijack, your amygdala is like your fight or flight response thing in your brain. There are two of them. They're about as big as a Walnut. And they basically they take your, when you have an amygdala hijack, things like fear, just not possible. know, your IQ just falls off a cliff and your body gets flooded with cortisol and more adrenaline and your fine motor control goes and your peripheral circulation shuts down. And it's just generally a fairly crap feeling that you have in the moment. But it's a big chunk of evolutionary program because all of our ancestors, well, a great many of our ancestors were better at dealing with things like, you know, oh yeah, that's a lion in the back of the vehicle again kind of thing. And they had exactly that kind of reaction and they got to pass on their genes to the next generation in the way that people with inferior reactions didn't. And we're very insulated from that kind of reaction in our modern sort of safe society. And
Andrew:
Yeah.
John Cadogan:
people don't often experience that kind of thing. I guess you
Andrew:
Yeah.
John Cadogan:
do if you get mugged or something of that, or you get injured, you know, you get hit by a car or something. But generally, that kind of thing doesn't happen to people. And I think that's why so-called adrenaline junkies jump out of planes and go rock climbing and things of that nature.
Andrew:
Yeah, they need that fix. And I just wanted to find out what it would be like to be isolated, but not just isolated, utterly isolated, no way of contacting anybody in any way, period. And I
John Cadogan:
See
Andrew:
wanted
John Cadogan:
you.
Andrew:
to feel like what that was, what that felt like. And it was quite strange because I could not shake the feeling that I was being watched. No matter where I was, uh, stop the side, nice place to camp, nice tree. I can hang a shower up from the tree and I look around. constantly looking around to see, you know, and I remember once walking onto a salt flat, I was completely on my own and I walked about a mile onto this massive, you can't actually see the horizon, it's that big and I walked and walked and I kept stopping and turning around. What the fuck is going on? And I would walk a bit more, what was happening was the rust, because there was no wind, the rustling of my shirt. was deafening because there was no other sound. So I could hear my shirt and I could hear my footsteps like five frames later or five frames. It
John Cadogan:
Yeah.
Andrew:
was out of sync. And I kept on thinking. Eventually, I thought, this is my kind of this is my adrenaline sport. And eventually, I actually turned back to the car because, oh, I've got my fix. I'm going back to the car, you know, and I did the same thing with my daughter. Many years later, we went for a long, long walk onto a salt flat and we were together and we went out at night. And I did not turn a light on the campfire and we walked out at night and I said, right, Kate, which way are we going back? And she suddenly looked. Tell me which way we're going to go. We're going to walk whichever way you say that's how we're going to get back. And she said. I have absolutely no idea. None. I said, OK, well, did you notice anything when we left? So I pointed out I actually pointed it out to you. It was a Southern Cross. I pointed it out to you before we left, but I didn't mention why I was pointing it out to you. So where is it? There it is there. I said, so which way are we going to walk? We're going to walk that way. I said, OK, so there's a long shoreline. We are parked there. Where do we want to? We want to. arrive back at our tent. How do we make sure we arrive back in the tent? She says, I have no idea. I said, the way to get back to the tent is to get it wrong. What are you talking about? I said, okay, there's a coastline and there we are. If we think it's in that direction, let's walk in that direction, knowing that by the time we arrive at the shore, our camp will be on our left. We walk to the shore, turn left and we will find our camp.
John Cadogan:
Yeah, that's a classic navigational strategy.
Andrew:
She just
John Cadogan:
It's called aiming
Andrew:
loved
John Cadogan:
off.
Andrew:
it. She loved that. It's so simple.
John Cadogan:
Yeah, aiming off is a really good way to do it. It's a lot of helicopter pilots do that too. They'd because you're always sort of estimating the wind direction and figuring out about what adjustment you've got to make to your course so that the
Andrew:
Thanks for watching!
John Cadogan:
wind carries or you drift with the wind and then you kind of aim in a particular way. And if you overcorrect for it, then you know that your objective is going to be downwind. It's exactly the same
Andrew:
Yeah,
John Cadogan:
thing that
Andrew:
yeah,
John Cadogan:
you just describe. It's
Andrew:
yeah.
John Cadogan:
like I know. many of your viewers probably regard you as the greatest off-road adventurer ever, but I've actually had the privilege of interviewing, and by that I mean having a very brief conversation once, with the greatest off-road adventurer of all time. And he only drove 17 kilometres, right? And he was faced with a similar navigational strategy or navigational challenge. not dissimilar to the one confronting your daughter that night. And do you want to hazard a guess about who he was?
Andrew:
Tom Shepard.
John Cadogan:
David Scott. Ringing any bells?
Andrew:
No,
John Cadogan:
Okay, David's
Andrew:
no, I
John Cadogan:
got
Andrew:
know
John Cadogan:
this.
Andrew:
Chris Scott. I know Chris Scott's very well known overlander.
John Cadogan:
Yeah, well, David Scott was the mission commander of Apollo 15. He was the first man to drive the lunar rover on the moon.
Andrew:
It's cheating, you're right, it is. Yes.
John Cadogan:
Yeah, greatest off-road adventurer of
Andrew:
Yeah.
John Cadogan:
all time.
Andrew:
I only did
John Cadogan:
Like,
Andrew:
11 miles here, okay. Yeah.
John Cadogan:
it doesn't matter how many Kalahari's you cross, does it? Right? So, and it doesn't matter how many hundred, how many thousand K's you drive along the Canning Stock Road. You can't top that.
Andrew:
But he did have a cell phone.
John Cadogan:
Well, he did quite an advanced one. The thing is they went over the horizon in the lunar rover, and
Andrew:
Oh, what?
John Cadogan:
so they couldn't see the landing module, right? And the moon doesn't have a magnetic field.
Andrew:
I was going
John Cadogan:
So
Andrew:
to
John Cadogan:
I
Andrew:
say,
John Cadogan:
said
Andrew:
a gun
John Cadogan:
to
Andrew:
press ain't going to work. Yeah,
John Cadogan:
him,
Andrew:
carry
John Cadogan:
that's
Andrew:
on.
John Cadogan:
exactly right. I said to him, how did you find the landing module? Because you're on the clock, you've only got a fixed amount of air. blah, blah. And he said, well, we followed our tracks. We sure have.
Andrew:
Yeah, that's the first thing I was thinking, what else would you do but follow your tracks?
John Cadogan:
Yeah. The other thing he did, which would probably interest you from a driving point of view, was that they'd practiced driving that thing extensively on Earth. And then when they pulled it out of the landing module and drove it around for the first time, his mission was a geology mission. And so they were collecting all these samples. So they pull up on this plane that's on like a 15 degree slope and he applies the handbrake and... put them in park kind of thing. And it's like a scree type slope. They get
Andrew:
Mm.
John Cadogan:
out and they do their fossicking and they look around like this, which is quite the challenge in a spacesuit. And the lunar rover is starting to slide down the 15 degree slope because it's like on ball bearings and we're at 0.2 G. And I said,
Andrew:
And yeah, I don't know, he weighs a couple of kilos. Yeah,
John Cadogan:
yeah,
Andrew:
yeah.
John Cadogan:
I said, dude, what did you do? And he said, well, I learned how hard it was to sprint in a spacesuit.
Andrew:
Thank you.
John Cadogan:
And then the bastard, right? This is the classic setup, the setup to end all setups. He said to me, would you like to have a drive of the Lunar Rover? And I went, of course, dude. And I'm seeing the business class flight to the Kennedy
Andrew:
I'm saying that
John Cadogan:
Space
Andrew:
business class...
John Cadogan:
Center, right? And someone meeting me and saying, well, this is the only remaining Lunar, and you drive it like this. And I go, yeah, of course, dude, of course. And he goes, no worries, just get yourself there. We left the key under the seat.
Andrew:
And you guys, no worries, just get yourself a lift. Good one. Very, very good one. Yeah, yeah. Good. I actually did a show about in the US and I said the Americans. have not have left the world behind when it comes to aviation and all the great thing Americans do and everything, but not in overlanding, except of course, cuts to Lunar Rover. If you talk about this guy, the ultimate off-road machine. Yeah.
John Cadogan:
It's amazing, an amazing vehicle in so many ways too. And anyway, he was just an amazing guy and he's kind of the poster boy for what you were just saying about being accountable for this and that, because you don't get much more isolated than being on the moon, I think it's fair to say. And also if something goes wrong, you've got to deal with it. And the way they were just accountable, I said to him, well, what happened? You know? If you were like 17 Ks or nine Ks away from the Rover or something, nine Ks away from the landing module
Andrew:
Hmm.
John Cadogan:
and the Rover crapped out, what were you going to do? And he said, no, we're probably going to die. And I go like this and he goes, well, we just accepted these risks all the time in Apollo. And, um, as, as the various risks went, you know, we had life support in our suits and the lunar Rover had life support. And if we ran out of that, we'd, uh, die of suffocation, but it's probably not a bad way to go in the circumstances with all things considered. And I went, okay, well, that's a pretty matter of fact, but all of those guys were fighter pilots and they were test pilots and they diced with death for decades before they got into spacecraft. So
Andrew:
Yeah.
John Cadogan:
just amazing when you consider the outlook of somebody like that in comparison to the people in our society who don't take any risks and therefore I think you know don't realise too many rewards either. Like a lot can happen to you in the middle of the Kalahari I'm sure or in the middle of the Canning stock group but if you manage those risks well you come back and you've had a real adventure and you've got something you can be well pleased with I'd suggest.
Andrew:
Yeah, again, part of Oland workshop was, we talk about risk and mitigating the risk. And in fact, you know, a lot of people will say what you do is very risky. So no, it's not actually that risky because mainly because I understand the risks. Soon as you understand the risks, you're going to obviously do something about them. And therefore the risks, they're not eliminated, but they're reduced in their severity to the point where chances of anything like that happening are actually very low. But if you go and without that information, yeah, sure, it's risky. But for me, it's not risky.
John Cadogan:
Well, I don't think we appreciate what risk is. Like here's something really risky you can do, right? Just cross the road like that. If you cross the road like that, then
Andrew:
Yeah.
John Cadogan:
that's really risky. And the reason you're not scared shitless by it is because you do it every day, you know? Or just standing on the side of the road with cars hurtling past you at 70 k's an hour. If you got a real adventurer like Magellan or someone of that nature and you reanimated him and you put him next to a major highway with cars rocketing past it. 70 kilometres an hour, he'd probably have a different view on that than the people who, from the modern world, are just completely blasƩ about it and do it every day.
Andrew:
It's been a great chat, John. Thank you very much for your time. Those of you who don't know John Cadogan from AutoExpert.com.au. How do you say it? com.au. He says it faster than anybody can say.com.au in the world.
John Cadogan:
AutoExpert.com.au like that. Yeah. Well, it's,
Andrew:
Something like that, yes.
John Cadogan:
um, look, thank you for inviting me onto the podcast, Andrew. And if we haven't cured everybody's insomnia, I'd be happy to come back and be your first return guest down the track once you've exhausted the hordes of people who are doubtless queuing up to be part of the show.
Andrew:
Hundreds can't, they're beating down the door. So what we should do though, I'd like, the podcast is anecdotal. It's, I don't want to use it as an education platform. I want to use it as an entertainment platform. Because stories, great stories. I've just interviewed somebody who's the first man alive to row a boat from mainland Australia to mainland Africa. First guy, unsupported. Just interviewed him last week. And that's going to be number one on the podcast. And what a story. It's... Brilliant. And so I'm looking for story and I'm sure you've got, you know, so your, your motor and journalist career, um, and I'm, I'm going to finish with a quick story. And if you come up with something that you remember, please, we don't have a time limit here. I went to a launch of the land Rover discovery three, with all of the very, very clever traction control systems. That was such a big improvement on the discovery too. that now the traction control was actually working quite well. And I had panned and was blacklisted from Land Rover to drive the... to do anything. And I got hold of... So this actually was, beg your pardon, this was the launch of the Discovery 2, the first one with traction control, which didn't work terribly well. So traction controls on the three and four were brilliant. On the two were kind of test beds and they didn't really work terribly well. And the one had none. So this was the launch of the two. And they had built a track, perfect, perfect wheel articulation. So the vehicle looked impressive so that the Discovery 2 with its traction control could drive through it with the occasional bit of wheel spin, occasional bit of wheel spin, but it would get through. At the end of it. lots of press people around. I went to the guy who was running it and I said, his name was Tim. And I said, Tim, would you mind if I, I need to get a full picture of how good this is system is? Because it's very impressive. It's very impressive. I can see it's very impressive. I want to drive that car over the same track. And I pointed to a Discovery One, no traction control.
John Cadogan:
Thanks for watching!
Andrew:
And he said, Andrew, yeah, look, mate, yes, but please wait until we're all having drinks. You and I are going to have it together. And I drove the Discovery One with far less well spent than the Discovery Two. And just by using some skill sets that I had, that's all I was doing. So they had set it up. So it was so impressive that they actually bought that same Discovery One out during the presentation and purposely completely cocked up the driving. So the setting was with a one front and one back wheel spinning. And the Discovery 2 just bumped over it. It would be great and all the journalists would be like, oh, wonderful. And so I went and said, well, just take your foot off at that moment, instead of putting your foot on and just turn down very slightly and watch what happens.
John Cadogan:
Yeah, but see in that situation, you are the traction control, right? And the thing that I observe about all of these electronic systems is that they're reactive, okay, which means that traction control can only intervene when wheel slip occurs, when it's even incipient, okay, it doesn't have to be like wheel spin for 10 seconds and then it intervenes, but there has to be an incipient wheel slip. activation before the traction control can detect it and intervene. Otherwise, there's no basis for intervening.
Andrew:
Yes.
John Cadogan:
Whereas if you're a half decent driver, and so many of these electronic systems are like that, right? So if you're a driver, you can just look down there. You can look 50 feet down the road or 10 feet down the road in low range second or something. And you can say, oh, I'm going to need to intervene like this. And you can intervene back here. Whereas An electronic system is unaware of what you've seen and it's going to take, you know, several seconds to get to where the problem is and then the problem has to manifest itself and then the system has to intervene and there's a feedback mechanism that takes place then. But you know, if this is why the best system is probably the best driver with the best vehicle as opposed to, you know, having The way the car industry rolls is that they just assume that the driver's got borderline, no training, and they design the systems around that. Whereas I think the best systems have the best operators and
Andrew:
But
John Cadogan:
the best technology.
Andrew:
I think traction controls are designed for those people that have absolutely no skill. Because when
John Cadogan:
Not
Andrew:
I sat
John Cadogan:
totally.
Andrew:
in the traction control vehicle and did the old thing, OK, I know that wheel is going to slip now because it's coming right off the ground, it's going to lose traction. What do I do? I use the accelerator off a little bit until the wheel comes down firmly on the ground and then I apply a little bit of juice to make use of that traction. And the traction control said, zzzzzz and stopped. The car
John Cadogan:
Well,
Andrew:
stopped dead.
John Cadogan:
it's...
Andrew:
It
John Cadogan:
Dude,
Andrew:
was
John Cadogan:
it's
Andrew:
the
John Cadogan:
like...
Andrew:
worst thing you could possibly do. The only thing you can do is kind of put your foot down
John Cadogan:
Yeah.
Andrew:
and wait for the wheels to. But in those early systems, that's what it was. It made such a hole in the ground spinning like crazy until the traction control started transferring power and actually breaking that wheel. Later on, the later Land Rover. LR4 that I took on the I took on a very challenging trip in Lesotho to prove that this new system was very good and it is very good. We had low profile tires I'd pumped them up really hard to protect the tires because I was worried that they were gonna get split from the rocks and things like this and I remember close to the end it was a horrible bank. I had to steer this way against the bank and it was it was you know and this and I thought okay now and a nice surge of power. Now. And what did the car do? Went, nnn,
John Cadogan:
Great, brilliant ham-fisted driving, Andrew. Yeah.
Andrew:
nnn And I saw a video the other day of LR4 again over very, very twisted ground, lifting the ground, and somebody commented, how do you do that without traction control? Answer. It's a skill set you need to learn or use traction control. And don't really bother too much about the skill sets because some of the, so many of the traction controls are so good that you'll be
John Cadogan:
Yes.
Andrew:
fine. You know.
John Cadogan:
Yeah, I still think there's a case for absolutely both. Like you should be the best driver you can be. And if you're in the best car that you can be in, then it's like Gestalt theory, the two of those things is greater than the sum of their halves kind of thing, because you can see more than it can see and it can probably intervene in some situations better than you. Like the classic... Example of that is the electronic stability program, where if you're driving along and you have one tire rapidly deflate and the car starts to yaw around like this, stability control can do one thing that you can't do, which is it can break individual wheels and keep the car straight. So it's also probably a really good idea if you know to counter steer in that situation, you know? And...
Andrew:
Do both, use the electronics to help you out. You do the counter steering and not too much of it and you probably will get out
John Cadogan:
Yeah,
Andrew:
scot-free.
John Cadogan:
yeah, the key thing there, if you're listening to this podcast and you want an actionable thing you can do in any driving situation where something critical happens, there's a thing called target fixation, where if a kid steps out in front of the car, don't look at the kid. If a kangaroo hops out in the middle of the road and all of a sudden there's insufficient road in which to stop, do not look at the problem. Like look over here at the solution. do not fixate on the target because if you look at the kid or the kangaroo, you'll hit it. Whereas if you look at a solution like playing contact sport, if you're playing football, look for the gap rather than the big heavy front run forward who's coming
Andrew:
Thanks
John Cadogan:
in
Andrew:
for
John Cadogan:
to
Andrew:
watching!
John Cadogan:
nail you, look for a gap. And it's much more likely that you will emerge unscathed in all of these situations. So
Andrew:
Hmm.
John Cadogan:
yeah, avoid the target fixation thing and it'll probably, well, you'll stack the deck in your favor, look at it that way.
Andrew:
Great John, this has been brilliant. Thank you
John Cadogan:
Nice
Andrew:
very,
John Cadogan:
to
Andrew:
very
John Cadogan:
talk
Andrew:
much.
John Cadogan:
to you, Andrew.
Andrew:
It's been fantastic. And yes, as a repeat guest, you can bank on that. Email me with some ideas.
John Cadogan:
Will do mate.
Andrew:
Yeah, email me with some ideas. I got a lot of ideas right now. So the more the merrier. So that's fantastic. You live in, this is dangerous. If I get this wrong now, it could be machine gun. You live in Victoria, don't you?
John Cadogan:
If by Victoria you mean Sydney, then yes.
Andrew:
I get this too confused. You see machine gun. That's what it is.
John Cadogan:
Well,
Andrew:
Yeah,
John Cadogan:
I
Andrew:
so you
John Cadogan:
mean,
Andrew:
live you live you live quite close to Sydney It's that
John Cadogan:
from where you're sitting, like Victoria, New South Wales, it's a technical difference at best, isn't it?
Andrew:
Hmm. Yeah, except for about beer. We should talk about beer. I picked up a Victoria bitter in one of my shows, the vitriol and hatred unbelievable. And it was a Victoria bitter, which is, don't shoot me, not a terrible beer. I don't particularly like it, but I don't hate it either. We should talk about beer. A
John Cadogan:
All
Andrew:
straight.
John Cadogan:
right, I'll make sure I start doing research this evening and I'll devote myself to that cause until next we speak.
Andrew:
Okay, John. All right. It's been brilliant. Thanks.
John Cadogan:
Nice
Andrew:
Thanks,
John Cadogan:
to talk
Andrew:
mate.
John Cadogan:
to you. See you.
Andrew:
All right. I'm going to just turn off the recording and before you go, I just want to double check.
