The Ultimate Road Trip Podcast

This week on the podcast I’m joined by the Chief Executive Officer of W Series, Catherine Bond Muir. We met at last year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed where one of her Tatuus-Alfa Romeo F3 cars was just about to be driven up the famous Goodwood hill in front of thousands of spectators. Before we talked about her Ultimate Road Trip, Catherine told me why she started the W Series championship and how encouraged she’s been in making so much progress in a traditionally male dominated sport, in such a short period of time.

On this week’s episode I’m very lucky to be joined by one of the UK’s most popular entrepreneurs, Theo Paphitis. He’s best known for the BBC show ”Dragon’s Den” and his incredibly popular ”Small Business Sunday” weekly competition on Twitter, but I’ve known about his love of cars for many years, so thought he’d be the perfect guest for the podcast. But before going through his Ultimate Road Trip, we talked about the business of shopkeeping and how the industry has been affected by the pandemic.

It‘s a very special episode of the podcast this week as I‘m joined by three-time Formula One World Champion Sir Jackie Stewart. It was a privilege to chat with him about his early years shooting and then racing, the people he‘s met from many and varied walks of life, to setting up the pioneering charity Race Against Dementia. His love of Scotland has never diminished and as you‘ll hear, it plays an important part in his Ultimate Road Trip.

Chrysalis Music Group co-founder Chris Wright joins me for this episode of the podcast. He helped to launch the careers of Jethro Tull, Procol Harum, Blondie and Ultravox and built up a media empire expanding into Radio and TV. He's owned QPR and Wasps (winning the Heineken European Cup twice) and runs a successful horseracing stud with a number of Group 1 winners. He's also travelled the world both for business and pleasure, so in terms of the destination and tune for the Ultimate Road Trip, there's lots to choose from. But the car? Well, he's come a long way from his first set of wheels.

Film and TV producer Tarquin Gotch joins me for this week's episode of the podcast. He started his career in music publishing and A+R, but moved into music supervising and then producing on many of John Hughes' films through the 80's and 90's including Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Home Alone. He's also managed musicians, actors and writers including Rowan Atkinson, Dick Clement & Ian La Frenais and Brian Johnson, and was in the middle of producing the latest series of "A Life on the Road" when the pandemic hit and shooting was stopped. I caught up with him a few weeks ago to talk about his career and go through his "URT" - the choice of car and tune in particular brought back some memories...

This week's guest fronts the world's biggest rock band - AC/DC's lead singer Brian Johnson is also an authority on cars, and it's a real privilege that he joins me on the Ultimate Road Trip podcast. Along with the usual 5 URT questions, we talked about his general love of cars and motor racing and how all things automotive have played an important part in his life. There are the TV shows which he's presented over the years, covering both music and cars, and then of course we talked AC/DC, and how the band approached the release of their 17th studio album 'Power Up', despite the pandemic. Thanks again for listening, please share/follow or subscribe! The five elements that make up the Ultimate Road Trip... 1. What's the car - make, model, colour 2. Why that car 3. Destination......anywhere 4. Passenger 5. Seminal soundtrack

Last year, the motor racing world paid tribute to the great Sir Stirling Moss, who died in April at the age of 90. It was a huge privilege for me to interview him on a number of occasions, from Brooklands to Goodwood, and the last time I briefly spoke to him was at the Festival of Speed. He was there to drive his ex-Mille Miglia Mercedes 300 SLR and I thought I'd ask what he'd take on his Ultimate Road Trip...he was in absolutely no doubt about his choice of car or passenger, as you'll hear in this special episode of the podcast.

This week I'm joined by one of the UK's most popular chefs, James Martin. When he's not running restaurants or fronting some of the highest rated food shows on TV, he'll be collecting, racing or just tinkering with cars. When we met at Goodwood Speedweek, he was keen to talk about how the hospitality industry was dealing with lockdown, as well as the fabulous classic he'd pick for the URT.