Chris Harris
Appearances
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
So to make sure that when they did a fuel check at the end of the race, to make sure they were abiding by the rules, he would be furiously pumping a hand pump underneath the seat to inflate a bladder in the fuel tank to cut off a load of the volume. Ah. And he told this story about it. I don't think I'm misquoting it. He said, well, that's why I was knackered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It wasn't because it was a V12, because on the warm-down lap, I knew I had to pump this thing, like, 40 times to fill up the ladder. Wow. And there's amazing stories of just ingenious cheats. I mean, there's so many of them. I mean, Formula 1 is about... Not getting caught. That's really what it's about. What's the line between interpreting rules and not getting caught? And I love all of that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I have a few times said to people I know in those sports, can I write that book? Will you tell me? They went, no, I won't tell you any of the stories. I'll tell them to you now as a friend. But if they're ever published, I'm a dead man. Right. Because of all the money involved. But the ingenious cheating. I mean, in 1995...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Toyota was excluded from the World Rally Championship because it just had a brilliantly simple piece of cheating. All the cars, the World Rally cars, were turbocharged. And you have what's called a restrictor, an intake restrictor. So you actually make sure that you can't take more than a certain amount of air into the turbocharger, which should limit the power and make it a level playing field.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But they created this brilliantly simple bypass valve that meant that when the car was running, the air would just go round. And the intake restrictor was completely redundant. What they didn't realize was that the World Rally Championship had a couple of situations where the cars run side by side. It'd be a drag race. And so the Toyota just fucked off into the distance.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And everyone went, well, they're cheating, aren't they? And then they found it. But this was perpetrated by Toyota, by a car company. And I suppose those things I find fascinating.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Dirty. They just knew that sometimes when they got in a car, someone did that with a lever.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It's incredible. They put on one of the best races of the season here, isn't it?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
They do have some shorter ovals, but yeah, Formula One is more complex.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I think it's this gray area of interpreting a rule book that's complicated, but also try not to get caught. And some of the, just the way that they've, through the years, and it creates subterfuge. It creates games. Another great story, we covered this on Top Gear, was one of the great interpreters of the rule book was Colin Chapman, who was the man that founded Lotus.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And he had found a way in something called the Lotus, I think it was 77. It was a car that Andretti won the championship in. They created something called ground effect. So it's now a common thing, but he worked out that if you sealed the sides of a car on the road, you could effectively accelerate air underneath the car and create a low pressure area, which basically sucked the car to the ground.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
So you were generating downforce, not through wings, but through accelerating air under the car. By the way, any engineers listening to this, I'm not an engineer, but I have a basic understanding of it, having driven these things. But if my terminology is wrong, I apologize. But effectively, you're generating downforce in a way that you can't see it on the vehicle. It's not got wings.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And what they would do is they'd lower these. There was a sort of a handle. They'd lower these skirts when they went out onto the track. So when the car went out on track and in the paddock, it looked like a normal car. But they were going so much faster than everyone else, he needed to find a way of diverting the attention to the other teams.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
So what he would do was, at the end of a test session, quite often, he'd have a guy scuttle from the back of the garage with something underneath a piece of, like, cotton or something, or a blanket, and run over towards a service truck. And everyone would see him do it. So all the teams were like, they've got a trick differential, they've got something special. But it wasn't. It was a kettle.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Because that was the car they made because you weren't allowed the real 94 RS, were you? They did a special one. Yes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It was a kettle this guy was running around with underneath the towel, just so everyone thought it was a component. It was a total diversion. And I met the guy that used to just run around with this. He had a, it was like a teapotty kettle thing. He was just told, at the end of the session, put that under there and run away with it. So everyone thinks it's like a differential or something.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I think that's where I love motorsport. Because it brings out these bizarre competitive human behaviors.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But they are completely different vehicles. Yes, they may have the same tires. Right. But these are a bunch of people, 400 people in different parts of the world are told, this is the rule book. Away you go. And they are within a tenth of each other on a track.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It's amazing. Amazing. It is amazing. Yeah. But they're all at it. See, there's always some conspiracy at the moment. Red Bull. Apparently, everyone thought they had some special brake system that they've now had to get rid of because the FIA was aware of it. Now, Red Bull's complaining that McLaren and Mercedes have got flexible front wings.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It is the politics of the playground being played out with billions of dollars on a racetrack. And that's why I'm totally addicted to it at the moment.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I think direct crossover, there's some, but not as much as you'd hope. But it's undeniable that the brains that are involved in that sport, when they go over to the road car side, carry with them a curiosity and a skill set that's been so enhanced by what they learned on the racetrack that we all benefit. I believe that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I think if you look for direct crossovers in all of these places, you come away disappointed. But if you tell me that the person that has run Max Verstappen's car for the last three years... If he went to be involved in the next Tesla Model 3, he's going to have a profound effect on it. He's going to know shit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
He's going to have a way of looking at that project that's going to make it profoundly better. I believe that. I once wrote a story for some in-house magazine, I think for BAR Racing, when they had a race team about the crossover between aeronautical engineering and Formula 1. That's profound. That really is. The way a Formula One car sucks itself to the track is an upside-down plane.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But there were further things as well. The carbon ceramic brake disc was developed for what? Concorde. Really? They couldn't stop Concorde. It was going through brakes, obviously. And someone went, well, why don't we use different material for the rotor? And that's where the carbon ceramic brake came from. Oh. So there's this huge crossover in metallurgy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And actually, to broaden that, what's the greatest legacy of your, frankly, amazing, mind-boggling work? National Space Programme. It's what we learned about materials, isn't it? NASA served to teach us all about materials. We are benefiting now. There's something about the Raptor you'll go home in.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
That wouldn't be there if NASA hadn't needed to have some weird material with a property that hadn't been required before. I really believe that. That's the incredible corollary of projects that are ambitious projects on that scale.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Aren't they? I'm just fascinated by them. We did a film with the F-35s. I raced an F-35 in a McLaren Speedtail, and the level of classification around the vehicle was so difficult because I didn't realize that we don't, as a British government, we don't own those planes. We lease them from you. We're not allowed to own them. Really? Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
So the IP stays with you guys, and what we do with them is kind of up to you. But we weren't allowed any cockpit shots at all. We weren't allowed to sit inside it. Wow. I just got a description from the pilot of what the aircraft could do.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Do they? Yeah. That F-35 was one of the coolest man-made objects I've ever seen. They're incredible. We had to go up there to... So actually, it was a bit like that bungee jump thing. This was so serious that we had to be rigorous. For example, in the theater of war, I'm not sure you can decide whether the ground is full of chips of stones or not, but they have a decontaminated area.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
The runway, you're not allowed to go in there and drop litter because it could get sucked up when it's doing that hovering thing. So you go in there, you're decontaminated. And we spent several days working out how to run this drag race. It started out with a genuine drag race between me in a McLaren and this F35. And they had their data on how it accelerated.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Has it got a roof or not? Yeah, it's got a roof. I mean, so where do we stand on the resto mod scene? Do we think it's gone too far or do we believe it's the way forward?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And we had McLaren there with their data. And they worked out that the car would get off the line much quicker than the plane would overtake at a certain point. But I was told very clearly... that I couldn't get in the wash of the aircraft as it took off because it would just flip the car backwards. And we had to sort of choreograph that bit, not fake it, but choreograph it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
So anyhow, first run we did, I was told that I'd be absolutely safe. I'd be so far ahead of the plane. that the plane would then be in the air by the time it went over me, and we'd be away. Anyhow, first run we do, I'm like this in this McLaren. It's fucking fast. And it accelerates, and I look left, and I hear a noise, and there's a plane coming past me on the ground.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I thought, I'm in trouble here. And the front wheels of the car came off the ground. Whoa! At about 137 miles an hour. It didn't do that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
As any racing driver would tell you, and I'm a pretty poor racing driver, you know when the front wheels aren't on the ground. What do you do? Well, you just shit yourself. And you're so invested in it, you're like, well, if it's going over, if it's going over, this is the greatest piece of television ever, and I hope it doesn't. And the thing went. It just went next to me. And again...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
This is why I want to be someone that expresses joy. What a thing to have done. And when an F-35 comes past you and it's just got off the ground.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
No, that's kilometers. It comes past me like that. Bang. And I just thought, as it did it, the front wheels just went. And I thought, wow, I'm in trouble here. Wow. But the power and the sound. You know, you talk about the internal combustion engine, why these electric things make no sound. We are amateurs compared to what they get to play with.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I don't think that thing can go very far. But, you know, all this vectoring, the way it can just decide to be hanging like a helicopter. Yeah, incredible. It's remarkable. But they don't share the IP at all. You're not allowed to. We were not allowed to see inside it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Maybe that's the TV show. I just think there's a whole, is it boys toys? There's got to be a more sophisticated thing. There's a whole load of stuff that's got moving parts.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I always thought I'd be quite good, because people of our height should be quite good at it. But I felt it. I got put up in one of those extra 300s, the stunt planes. It's a prop thing, but they're the ones that they use in the Red Bull Air Races. And once he got to sort of six, seven Gs, I started to see...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I did a ridiculous film looking back with a guy called Andy Green. Do you know who Andy Green is? No. Fastest man on earth. He's the one that still holds the world's land speed record. So he drove Thrust SSC. He was the first man to go supersonic in a car. And they had this thing called Bloodhound. and this is the last thing I'll bore you with on this podcast.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
four sixty and it's you know two thousand pounds i've also got to raise my hand here and say that i work for singer so i've got to be very i love those too well i actually have a little contract with them so i've got i've actually professionally got to say i ignore that vehicle but But actually, I love the restomod thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
So they had this thing called Bloodhound, which was supposed to go 1,000 miles an hour, and they were going to drive it on some salt flats or something that dried out in South Africa, I think. Anyhow, it was supposed to be funded by industry. They lost a lot of sponsors, and they decided to try and publicly fund it, and they couldn't. And Andy, during that phase, said...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I've got an extra 300 he's an ex-pilot fighter pilot because they're the only people that can drive these things racing drivers are useless because the decision making is so quick and profound they identified early on they need pilots not racing drivers he said I've got an extra 300 and this car has got various stages of propulsion you start off with a jet then it goes to a rocket and he goes
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It's madness. He goes, I've got an extra 300 and I've developed a way of doing aerobatic moves that will demonstrate the change in g-force during the run. So he's put... Bore yourself with it. He's put... There's a film. If you type in my name... Look at that fucking thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Type in my name and his name and there's a film on YouTube of him taking me up in this stunt plane to put me through the g's that he'll have in the part... Honestly, by the end of it,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
He had oversteer at over 600 miles an hour. Look at it. That was in the U.S. Wow. But the way he put me through the G-forces, I would have been a terrible fighter pilot. I kept getting graying out. I was pumping and everything.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
So when I do some YouTube videos with cars, can I come and drag you into a car? Yes, let's do it. I'm in. Let's go. I've loved talking to you. Thank you very much.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I think we might be at peak restomod because there's so much of it going on. But it segues into a point I wanted to make about the way we're traveling. One of the ways I find to appease myself, if I do wake up some days and think I'm a pretty wasteful individual or whatever it is, even I have moments where I think, Just have a look at yourself in the mirror. Just buy a used car.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Then you're not having another one built. There are so many great old cars out there. I just go out and buy something that's 10 years old. Go and look at a 10-year-old AMG. What a machine. And that's a vehicle that's already been built. Its wastefulness has already been absorbed into this weird world we live in. Go and buy it. It's there for you. With its 500 horsepower, it's ready to go.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
The greenest thing you can do is to go and buy an old Ferrari. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
You'll do no miles in it because you'll never use it because it might work now and again. It's the greenest thing you can do in your life is buy a used Ferrari or a Lamborghini. Right. It's the best thing. But no one seems to express it this way. And the other way is to resto mod. It's to, you know, buy something and make it...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Make the car that you wish new car makers built now, but they can't because they've all been drawn into this need to spend billions on these electric SUVs. There's the other thing that's ironic. They're all SUVs. So you're telling me we've got to have these efficient new EVs, but you're going to make them three tonnes... Shouldn't they be that big?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I saw that. I saw that on Instagram, too. It just goes straight through it. Right through. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Twice the weight. I do think that people love cars. Just look to old stuff. There's so much of it out there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I just bought the V10. So you had the E60 V10 M5 over here. Crazy machine. Yes. We had the Touring in the UK. They built a Touring, which is a state car. Sorry, a station wagon. And I've got one of those that I bought earlier in the year. And I'm just... Do you know what? I paid £27,000 for it. I probably spent more than that on it already, just making it right. But actually, the journey of...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
of just reconditioning and renewing something like that to use for the next five years, I find more interesting than most new performance cars now. Is that a sad statement or not?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
You remind me so much of one of my favorite colleagues, Mr. LeBlanc, because Matt is a much bigger car guy than anyone realizes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
He's a wonderful man, and he's a brilliant car guy. He would agree with you. He's like that. He can never quite leave something alone.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And with motorcycles as well. Motorcycles, he... I had a bizarre... Working with him was wonderful, by the way. I loved him to bits. I'd like to make another TV show with him. I got... One of these gangs that steals motorcycles in the UK got me. So I was doing a voiceover in the centre of London. I've probably told... I might have written this story. I don't know if I've told it or not.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I had a new Ducati I'd bought. I like bikes. I'm not very good on them. But I like bikes. And I was trying to get better. And Matt's a very good rider. And I had this Ducati Panigale... with all the... It's the kind of shit you buy when you've just got a TV job, you know, and you think you're the dog's bollocks. Looking back, it's fucking embarrassing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
So I've parked it up in Soho, right in the centre of London, where the voiceover studio was. And I was a bit early, so I was milling about, wearing my leathers still, and I saw this bike moving past me, and I thought, that's a nice bike. Oh, shit, that's my bike. And I saw these guys, all in black, with stuff... sort of tinted visors, black everything.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
What they do is they basically angle grind off the steering lock, the male part that goes into the headstock. They angle grind that off, break the steering, and then they have a moped behind or something quite powerful with a leg out and another guy and push your bike away in neutral. And they get it around the corner into a van and away it goes. And they did it right in front of me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And so I walked up and I was like, this is my bike. I'm small, not a very big guy. I don't present any kind of a threat. And there was three of them. And I challenged them and I said, this is not on. And I started swearing and one of them had a hammer, claw hammer. And we had a tussle and the bike fell over. And as the bike fell over, I'm like, well, that's wrecked that then, hasn't it?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Because I could just see the fairing squashed. And then the guy tried to hit me with the hammer. And I was like, I remember screaming. You're trying to steal my bike and now you're trying to hit me with the hammer. And then they left. And I was really shocked. I'd never had anything like that happen to me. So I picked the bike up and I walked it down to the voiceover studio.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I rolled it up and I walked in and Matt was there. It's a long story. And I said, well, he went, how are you? I said, well, someone's just tried to steal my bike and they tried to hit me with a hammer. And he came outside and he looked at the bike. He's got the most lovely deadpan voice. And he goes... You want to get those Ducati performance levers. Those are too long.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Because he's like you. He's obviously tough. He's a big boy. And he's like, he's fine. But those levers are too long. They don't suit that bike. Those levers are too long. Yeah, the mod thing is really important to me. I love it. I cannot leave stuff alone.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And if they make another one, it'll have to be a hybrid. It'll have to be.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I've driven that. The new one? Yeah. I'm not sure whether I can say I've driven it or not. Say it. I think I signed a piece of paper saying I'd get sued for €60,000 if I said anything. There's a point in this process where you have to acknowledge that the main criticism of hybridity in cars is mass, is weight. Right. So everyone says it's too heavy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But for me, mass is just a number unless you can feel it. It's really important. You can't just criticize something because it's heavy. You can't. Because actually, it might affect the way the car drives. But you have to drive it to tell that first. That's where I have a job. And I won't talk about the M5 because I think I might get sued.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But I can tell you now, the BMW M2 is a small performance car that came out, 1,750 kilograms.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Well, the new one came out, and it was 300 kilograms heavier than the last one. And the whole internet had a massive collective baby and went, oh, it's fucking ruined. I ran one for six months. It was better than the last M2. Of course it was.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yes, because someone German with a massive forehead and a white coat made it that way. Because these are really clever people. And actually, mass only matters if you can feel it. So if you drive a car and you can feel it's too heavy, fine, I'm with you. And that's the clearest to what I think about the new M5. Judge it. Get in it and judge it before you actually, or drive it before you judge it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It's a 700 and something horsepower sedan with a BMW badge. Look, 727. When is that coming out? The launch is at the end of this year. It is. It's a beast.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Was it not? It was the one after the V10. Oh, that would be the F10. Yeah. The F10M. Yeah. I'm a real nerd.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And actually, an M car... And your E46 is the definition of this. An M car should be a car that the non-car nerd can't spot it from the normal one. But the car nerd can spot it just for the camber, a little bit of ride height, a little bit of shoulder. You can see an M car. You and I can see an M car from a mile.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Do you know what? I know who owns it. Yeah? It appears in the UK now and again, and I see it. It was a cool thing. But I had to realize early on that I couldn't afford to keep all these things. But that thing was a masterpiece. It was lovely. But look where... That was done by Tuttle, right? And look where they are now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
They've just come back from Pebble Beach with this GT1 amazing-looking thing, which you might have seen. You Google GT1 Tuttle.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
That's so nuts. Yeah. Yeah, it's a lovely thing that he developed with a friend of ours called Philip Kodori, who obviously runs the Quail. And it's a very good name, isn't it? It's a 911K developed by a guy called Kodori, K for Kodori, and it revs to 11,000 RPM, 911K. It's my favorite car name ever. I've driven it. There's a video online of that in this gold thing. How is it?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
You need to sit down after driving it because it's just so... Visceral. It's one of the few cars that you're aware of just how fast that crank is spinning. And you have to keep it revving. And it just keeps going. And your eye says, it's gone to eight. You've got to stop now. I'm going to have bits of metal coming out the side of the engine. But it never does. Wow. And it's so light.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah, you'd love that. That's really, that's very basic. intravenous performance that is. How light did you get your green card down to? Is that it? No, that's what they've just done. So Tuttle did the GT1. He's just launched that at Pebble Beach. Wow. Look at that. That looks, I hate the wheels. But God, it looks amazing. But again, I've got to be careful. I work for Singer. I love Singer.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I love Singer too. Singer amazing, but that's my friend Richard's just done that. Can you get me a picture of a Singer? Why are the wheels so gross? Those are gross. Because they're supposed to look like 80s wheels from Le Mans.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah, I think you might be right. I'm 100% right. Those wheels are disgusting. The 911K is an amazing thing. And maybe if I was Porsche or another car maker, I'd be starting to cry foul. Because what's happened is the Restomod thing is actually a movement that reminds car makers that they're not being given or being offered a fair crack at the whip now. Because you can come along.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
You and I could establish the Monkey and Joe car company tomorrow. Right. And we could find a car. We could say, right, we're going to make an E46 M3. We're going to buy 100 good E46 M3s. And we're going to turn them into the Joe and Monkey M3. And we're going to sell them for $300,000. They're going to have a nice new interior.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
They're not going to stray too far from the original philosophy of the car. Everyone's going to love them. And we wouldn't have to meet any kind of crash legislation. Smog would be, according to the vehicle age. In Europe, there's even less to do. It comes under very low volume approval. You don't have to do anything. We don't have to meet any emissions regs, really, in Europe.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
You can do what you want. But if you're called BMW, you cannot make that car.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It's a really gray area, but I think it's unfair on the car companies in many ways because they can't go out and do that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
They could, but they'd have to establish a new co-owner.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I think they potentially could. But they'd be terrified, I suspect, of the...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
They've got this rear steer on them, which definitely helps, but they'll still rotate.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
You add that to an old design. It's less prominent now because tire technology has moved on so much. The first time I got to drive a lot of these things, I didn't quite understand the Widowmaker design.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
They had these new tires. Tires are everything. I'll tell you a Top Gear story. It's fairly interesting. My colleague who, called Paddy McGinnis, who's one of the co-hosts, whose claim to fame for me in America is, He had to be subtitled in America for Top Gear because his accent is so broad from the north of England, he had subtitles.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah, no, it's worse than that. Anyhow, he crashed a Lamborghini when we were filming, and it was all over the press in the UK. It helped it was red, like proper dog knob red Lamborghini goes off the road. Anyhow, at the end of it all, the car's on a low loader, and I look at the tires. They're 20 years old.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah. It had been borrowed for the job. You know, old tire technology matched with age as well. It's terrible.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
So before you press record... I have. I'll go most places. And I'm here because I want to tell people the truth about the last eight... I've had a pretty shit two years. Because Top Gear ended in a way that most Americans won't know. But my colleague nearly died in a crash. And then they left us in limbo a bit. I've never told anyone anything about it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
So Paddy gets eviscerated in the press because he can't drive and everything else. I could have been in that car. I'd have crashed it. I can drive a bit. Anyone. You cannot. If you get in these old cars with old tires on them, they have nothing. Absolutely nothing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I'd say Michelin, at its best, some of it's like witchcraft. If you get in a new Porsche GT3 RS now, the tire they've developed for that probably has four compounds across it. You know, so the high wear stuff where it needs the grip. They're so clever. They really are. The performance they add to the vehicle, no one knows.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It's a really, really interesting point. They must have done. For me, it comes under the same heading as someone must have made a light bulb that you never need to replace. But why would they make it?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
There's this tire that looks like a sort of spring. You know that Adidas shoe that has the sort of lattice? Yes, yeah. It looks a bit like that. Yeah, I have seen those. But I suppose you're still dealing with, at that point, it's a sprung mass, which would interfere with suspension. I don't have an answer for you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
There were some shots of one recently. I have to assume there's only two reasons you wouldn't make it. One, it doesn't work. Two, it gets in the way of your ability to make money. Right. Normally the latter.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah, tires are a... The more you get into cars, tires are a fascinating subject. That's a good opener when you meet some of the opposite sex. But it has never worked for me. But actually, they are, because they're the only contact you have with the ground. So it stands to reason they're the most important part of the performance package.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
F1 commentators, and I'm actually slightly less so in the US, but in Formula 1, the commentators spend most of the time talking about tyres, because it's the main factor. But they're not sexy. Tyres are not sexy by definition. So, you know, car makers will tell you, we've got a new damper system that's got eight settings and we've got this and this and this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
They can't tell you that they've spent five years developing a tyre that's revolutionary. Nobody cares because it just looks like a tyre. Yeah, it just looks terrible. What are you showing me? And when they come to replace that tyre, they'll just give me the cheap one. I don't want to spend that money on that one.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah, that's interesting. So I've never really spoken about it because I keep my mouth shut. I like to remain dignified. It's been quite a journey. It's come to an end now. I really feel it's a full stop. The show has been put on hold in the UK indefinitely is the terminology from the BBC. That means it's an end. But strangely, it exists in other formats around the world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
There's been an American one. There's one in Finland. There's one in Australia. There's one in France. So the license and the brand exists elsewhere, but not at its home in the UK. And it came to an end for me one day in December 2022 in a way that I'd like to say I hadn't expected, but I had. And I think that's the bit that I've found very difficult to deal with over the last couple of years.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Largely because my friend and colleague who was nearly killed in the accident called Andrew Flintoff, who was a presenter on the show... Again, no Americans will know who he is, but he's a massive sports hero in the UK. He plays that weird game called cricket. He was like our best cricket player.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Fundamentally, I'm quite happy-go-lucky person. I'm very privileged with the life I've had. And I love the fact that I earn a living doing what I love. You must have the same thing. To wake up, what a joy. I don't push a desk. I get to wreck other people's tires. And also, my subject is one that is surrounded by joy. No one wants to hear.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
The last person you want to hear from is the miserable car road tester. He can fuck off.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
You know? And I don't want to be that guy. I hate those guys. Yeah, but actually, I'll be lying if I said I feel good today. I've had a good few months. But the last 18 months have been bad because I just didn't know what to do. Because I'd like to sit here and say I never saw it coming, but I did. So what happened? The accident that my friend Andrew had, known as Fred,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I won't go into too much because it's sort of out there what happened. He rolled a Morgan three-wheeler. He wasn't wearing a crash helmet. And if you do that, even at 25, 30 miles an hour, the injuries that used to stay in are profound. I was there on the day. I was the only presenter with Fred that day. I wasn't actually right by him, but I was close by.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I remember the radio message that I heard. I always used to have a radio in my little room at the test track where I was sitting inside so I could hear what was going on. And I heard someone say, there's been a real accident here. The car's upside down. So I ran to the window, looked out, and he wasn't moving, so I thought he was dead. I assumed he was. Then he moved.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I can tell you now that he... Unless he's a physical specimen, Fred. He's a big guy. Six foot five, six foot six. Strong. And if he wasn't so strong, he wouldn't have survived. He's a great advert for physical strength and conditioning. Because if he hadn't been that strong, he'd have just snapped his neck. He'd be dead. So I couldn't believe he survived.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And that moment of realization that he'd survived has kind of defined my thoughts on the subject since. Because I believe that anything after that is a bit of a bonus. He should be dead, really. And the fact that he survived it is remarkable, and it's given him and his family a chance to move on under very difficult circumstances.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah, no, we can. I just want to give you a quick foretaste of it. I'm here to say some things that people won't have heard before, and they'll make them gasp a bit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
So that day was very difficult, made even more difficult by the fact that the build-up to that particular shoot... I knew that we were, at the last minute, I knew we were using a Morgan three-wheeler. It's a very, it's a difficult car. You know, it's by, it just, the name tells you it's physics is complicated. It doesn't mean it's inherently dangerous. You just drive it according to what it is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
You have to be aware of its limitations. And I think that really was difficult. And you need experience. There were two people that had driven a Malkin three-wheeler before, present that day, me and someone else, a pro driver. And we were sitting inside at that time. No one had asked us anything about the car. They'd just gone on and shot it without us.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I think if I'm looking in the mirror, I find it very difficult even now that Andrew, who I loved a bit, a lovely man, he was a pro cricket player. He wasn't an automotive guy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
uh and he but he was a real enthusiast he was great much like you he loved cars and he he would always come up to me before a shoot and say tell me how it is you know i've got all the advice give me the last bit of advice and what i should do what i should expect and that was the first because of the call times that day that was the first time we'd never had the chance to talk about
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
how he might approach a difficult vehicle. And that was the one day that it went wrong. I find that very difficult to live with. And I feel partly responsible because I didn't get the chance to talk to him. But my situation is nothing compared to his. Anyhow, the bit that I find really difficult is that In the aftermath of that accident, the show was put on hold.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Andrew had to recover from, frankly, awful injuries and has done so, but profound injuries. We all kept quiet. We said nothing. And I said nothing because I wanted to look after him. It wasn't my story, was it? I was caught up in the collateral damage. I lost my job immediately because they cancelled the show when my contract was up. So suddenly I haven't got a job.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But again, you look in the mirror and think I'm alive. I've got three beautiful children. I'm not in Fred's position. Andrew and Fred are the same person. Sorry, that's his nickname. And I just sort of got my head down. But I had seen this coming. There was a big inquiry, a lot of soul searching. The BBC's good at that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But what was never spoken about was that three months before the accident, I'd gone to the BBC and said, unless you change something, someone's going to die on this show. So I went to them. I went to the BBC and I told them of my concerns from what I'd seen. As the most experienced driver on the show by a mile, I said, if we carry on, at the very least, we're going to have a serious injury.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I'm going to go into it all. Okay. But it might be what seems quite revelatory to me. Anyway, good to see you since we're rolling. Cheers, sir. Ten years.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah. There was a bit of an arms race. between us and maybe the other big car show the Grand Tour at the time to go ever more stupid and we did some we did do some big stunts and a lot of the time and the Grand Tour is the original cast of Top Gear Jeremy Coffs and Richard May in their Amazon show which sadly they've just ended great show um And also, I'm not of the health and safety world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I'm not risk averse. I love a bit of risk. And I also absolutely believe that if you enter into a show like Top Gear, you know what you're taking on. I believe that there is no such thing as great risk-free television like that. I just turn up and I assess what I see and I do what I'm comfortable with. And I want to make great television. That's it. And if sometimes it got a bit sketchy, so be it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And do you know what? I don't ever listen to what I say or watch what I record. I don't watch my own shows. Good for you. You probably don't either, do you? I don't. No. It's good for the soul. Once it's done, it's buried. Exactly. But I think I came to see you... about a month before I received a phone call saying, do you want to do this television show called Top Gear?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
We've all done that. That's the way the world lives. And I think what happened with Top Gear was... I saw repeatedly too many times my two co-hosts who didn't have the experience I had in cars. This is the critical thing. I'm qualified to make those decisions because I've done it a long time. They weren't. One of them is an active comedian. The other guy is a pro cricket player.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Brilliant entertainers. They were great hosts. But their roles were to make people laugh. And my role was to tell people what cars were like. And all too often, in the last year, I saw situations where... It got too dangerous. And it culminated actually in us being in Thailand. Myself and Paddy were in Thailand.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And we did a go-kart race down a hill in just compacted mud on wooden go-karts with no engines. And I just looked at them and I said, this is just this. So it's not a question of whether we get injured. It's how injured we get. So just have an ambulance at the bottom because something's going to go wrong. Sure enough, I broke something in my hand, broke a finger or what have you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I just thought, which sounds ridiculous from your background, because you're all super tough guys, but it hurt.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And also, it was a shit piece of television. So I always said, I don't mind breaking my hand if we get a BAFTA for it or an award. But this was just the shit skit. And I ended up damaged. And it went on too much. So anyhow, I went to the BBC and I said, I want to have a meeting with the head of health and safety because this is not good.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And what's really killed me is that no one's ever really acknowledged the fact that I called it beforehand. And it's very difficult to live with that initially for me when I knew I thought I'd done the right thing. I'm not very good at that. I normally just go with the flow. But I saw this coming. I thought I did the right thing. I went to the BBC.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I found out really that no one had taken me very seriously. I did a bit of digging afterwards. The conversation I had with those people was sort of acknowledged. Then they tried to sort of shut me down a bit. And then they didn't look after me at all. They just sort of left me to rot. And I, even now, I'm totally perplexed by the whole thing. To actually say to an organization,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
This is going to go wrong. And then be there the day that it goes wrong is a position I never expected to be in and I never want to be in again. It's strange and pretty heartbreaking in many ways. I love that show.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
They just sort of left me to sweat, really. I just sat where I live and drank whiskey. I didn't have much contact with them at all. Everything went quiet. They had two inquiries into the accident commissioned, neither of which I had access to. I pushed very hard to have access to the second one and saw some of it. And I had this, this is one of the most bizarre interactions I've had.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I sat down with someone from the BBC who was going to talk me through bits of the second inquiry into the accident. And I'd already been told that I no longer had a job. So I'd been told that Top Gear was done. And at the beginning of it, he said to me, I won't name him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
He said, I want to thank you so much for taking part in this because it's really going to help us as an organization going forwards. I said, well, it doesn't really help me. I've lost my job. And I'm always reminded of that old adage from a very brilliant BBC comedy show, which was never commission an inquiry that you don't know the outcome of in the first place.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
So the whole thing, the whole situation was ridiculous. And I've never told anyone that. And I want to tell people that I did. Because a bit of me thought, as the experienced driver, do members of the public think that I didn't do enough to protect Andrew? And Paddy as well. They both experienced other incidents on that show that I think were unacceptable.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I think it was then. And I think at that point, I'd been fielding a lot of questions about, well, why would you follow Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear? And I'd gone, no one would do that. They'd be an idiot to do that. And then I looked at the sort of monthly payments I needed to live my life. And I got offered a bit of not much money, but some money. I thought, I'll give it a go.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And that's coming as someone who loves a bit of risk. If you and I went outside now and there were two quad bikes, I'd happily roll it for a laugh with you. I'm that guy. And even me as that guy thought it had gone too far, which I think is important to say.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yes, they don't have the experience of what it's like to actually be in control of that vehicle or what is possible.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And then you want to be a crowd pleaser. You want to be the guy that can do it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Oh, yeah. My experience of that now is that if you establish really big stunts that have big vision and are ambitious, they tend to come with them a level of rigor that means they are executed well. The difficult area is the kind of just being at a test track with a smaller crew and someone says, give that a go. That's when it goes wrong. Because no one's really thought about it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
They're saying, well, we've done the risk assessment, but just give that a go while you're here. I think that goes wrong. And also, my experience, and this is where everyone that's shot with me will be reminded of this now and again. Close of play. End of the day. That's when it goes wrong. If you're at a test track, the light's coming down. There's 10 minutes to go.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And the director says, just do that. I go, no. Because everyone's tired. Someone's going to have ignored the lockdown on the circuit. There'll be someone coming driving the other way with the coffee cups over their heads. Or it's the end of the day. If it's 6 o'clock, 5.30, I'm gone. I'm not because I'm workshopped. I'll stay around and pick stuff up. But the end of the day when you start rushing,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But most importantly, I thought the 17-year-old me if he saw me say no to this job would punch me in the face. Right. Because it's my dream job. Right. And I know that Top Gear is a weird thing in the US because I think many US people are aware of it, that it exists, but they've never really seen it because it never was put on a big network here.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I think there was an element of that day at Dunsfold, that was a shoot that was rushed for me. I know that that was a, we need to use this day shoot. That's another one that's another red flag for me. We've got a day at a track, we need to fill it. Well, you've reverse engineered that. Your priorities are already to fill something up.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I look back, some of the stuff that we did on Top Gear, I look back, that was dangerous. Visually dangerous and definitely was in practical terms. I'm very proud of it because we executed it well. Like Andrew, Fred Vintoff went off a dam in a metro and did a car bungee. It was an extraordinary piece of footage. You can see it. It was just an amazing film. But it was rigorous.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It was done properly. There was an amazing stunt crew that did it. I mean, I couldn't have done it. It was brave and it was a really memorable piece of television. That.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
What a legend. And he's got me in his ear. He sat like that for 45 minutes. Look how far down that thing goes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I think I'm very proud of what the team did there. And Andrew was magnificent. Dude, fuck that. Can you imagine? Fuck that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah, and he's got that chirpy little shit in his ear as well. And there's other stuff that we did that I can't understand what we were doing. So we also did, and you won't find this, I think they've removed it from YouTube, but there's a... Oh, my God.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Oh, God. But that, you know, when I said to you earlier, a bit of me regrets doing it. I look at that and I think, what a thing to have been part of. It's ridiculous.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I'm proud of that stuff. One thing we did do, which, again, on reflection, was just madness. There are these guys that go to motorcycle meets and shows in the UK that have these titanium skid plates on their boots. And they hold on to the back of the bike. You might have seen them. And they go really fast. And the sparks go out the back. And... We decided we'd be good if we did this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
So each of us had a vehicle we were using or you were the person that was pushing that vehicle. You're an advocate for that car in the film. And I think I had the new Land Rover Defender. You've seen those. I had a short wheelbase Defender. And I had to hang off the back of it wearing these. We had to wear these shoes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
The big problem with some of these ones is that Andrew was so brave, he would go first and set such a high benchmark, you'd have to go, shit, I need to really go here. So he went out and did like, I thought he'd do 40 miles an hour. I think he did 75 miles an hour, hanging on the back, wearing these titanium shoes. Anyhow, Paddy gets in and tries to go really fast and he falls off.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And he's okay, but someone goes, Paddy's over. I look left, the ambulance driver was having a cigarette. at our end of the runway, and he was two miles down there. And that was one of those moments where I thought, this has got a bit loose. If you're going to do these things, that guy should have been running parallel. And I didn't like that. Two minutes of two miles, it's a long time. I know.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Although the end of that was quite, I can give you some levity there. I did my run. I didn't get quite as close as, I think I did nearly 80 miles an hour or something. And I fell off at the end and it hurt a bit. And I got in the back of the crew car, which I think was another Land Rover. And I was sitting there thinking, this smells terrible. Have I done something wrong here?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
A really acrid smell. Not from the colon, but definitely I thought this is not a good smell. Like a chemical smell? Yeah. And then I was told to get out. What happened was the shoes were red hot. And I'd got in the car and they just melted straight through the carpet. And it was just smoldering on fire. I look like a shit Marvel superhero.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah. I mean, whether my era of Top Gear will be considered great, I don't know. I had lots of fun making it. But following in Jeremy's footsteps was, on reflection, a decision I made the wrong call. I shouldn't have done it. Really? Yeah. I had a great time. But you try following him in the UK.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah, I think I'm very happy and proud to have done Top Gear. But I'm so sad at the way it ended. That's the ultimate. No one had control of that that day. That's what the insurance industry calls an act of God, whether you believe in him or not. But what happened afterwards was really sad because I've arrived here. You've got your crew. You've got your people. They were my people.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And from that day, I've never really spoken to them. The producers, everyone else, no one really. It just went like that. Bang. Done. And that was very hard. Because I just couldn't believe it had happened. They're just gone. And you spend five, six years of your life more in daily contact with people and it just stops.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I've got an idea. I'll pitch it to you afterwards. But you're quite right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
There is. And actually, this is the country for it. Maybe in Europe it's less. But I know that when we did geeky car stuff that was very, you know, for you and I, the numbers did that. And the moment you did something hyperbolic and ridiculous, the numbers did that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And that's where I started out, and I suspect I'll return there. You know, I've got plans to relaunch the YouTube channel in the next month or two, and there's content coming. And I'm... YouTube's a very different place to when I left it. It's pretty surprising. There's so much motoring content out there. It's almost saturated.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah. And the algorithm, the idea of being at the behest of an algorithm. It's terrifying. If you've just received, you know, check from a network for six years of your life, suddenly going, oh, I'll go in with the algorithm. That's quite scary.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
That actually, ironically, is the only example of a brand new resto mod, isn't it, really?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah. I didn't realize how deep rooted it was. I still get hate mail now. I still get hate mail now. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I think you're right. It does belong on YouTube. I mean, Linear Tele. I joined a TV show when... Linear television still survived. Well, you know, I understand destination television. Sure. It's gone now. It's gone. The world's changed completely. Top Gear still has a place in it. You know, many of my previous colleagues make a lot of online content for Top Gear. They do a great job.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
There's some really good films. But there's something quite romantic for me about the sit down, squidge onto the sofa as a family and watch 8 o'clock Sunday night. It was a quasi-religious experience, really.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I know. It's strange, isn't it? Because it's logical that they wouldn't because no one has any patience because of the immediacy of these things. Yes. But there's equally something quite lovely about what we used to do. Right. I can't really reconcile it. I totally acknowledge the excitement of the new, but I'm slightly wistful for the past. Is that fair enough?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah. And I think we made some good films. And I love what I did. But even if we made a good film, it was always shit because it wasn't Jeremy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
The podcast as a concept is amazing as well. I've got to be a bit cheesy. I have got a podcast. When is this going to go out? Is this going out a day after we record this? Yeah, pretty soon. Well, the day after that, my new podcast launches. I didn't realize that. What's it called? It's a really, really interesting name. Chris Harris on cars.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Chris Harris and friends car podcast is what it's called. Because I just thought, well, he's perfect. Heinz tomato ketchup. Yeah. So that and that really is a nerd product. So one of the things I did as by way of therapy was I did a car podcast in the immediate aftermath of this accident because I realized I wanted to have contact with this world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I think that the moment your life gets difficult, you regress to what is your comfort food. My comfort food is cars.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And the thing you pointed out there, this idea of having to alter things or add sort of ancillary comedy to them to make them appeal to the masses.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
is what I found very difficult on Top Gear. Because I came there, I arrived as the rigorous car tester. You put me with some comedians, put me with whoever, I don't need to do that. They'll do the heavy lifting, they'll make people laugh. But if you want to know whether the new M2 is any good or not, please give it to me and I'll tell you. And the M2 is a good example.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
When the first M2 came out, I was giving it to review for Top Gear. And I just said, well, I'd like to just do a review of the car. We've got a test track, I'll slide it around and tell you what it's like. Then move on, someone else can make them laugh. But that wasn't enough.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
They had a section of this where I was given this sort of piece of testing equipment called the Pantometer 3000 or something just made up. I had to put on these underpants. which we're going to tell people.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I've just seen what you've arrived in as well. And I thoroughly approve of your taste in motor vehicles. Am I allowed to say what it is or not?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
whether my sphincter was moving faster in this vehicle. I don't know what it was, but I look back and I should have just said, fuck off. I don't do that. It's just an embarrassing moment in my life. But that was exactly, they felt the need to augment the test. with something stupid to draw in the casual viewer.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And that's where YouTube is brilliant, because YouTube doesn't feel the need to do that. It can just cater for us nerds. Whatever you're into, YouTube can deliver it without someone from a network messing with it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I'll tell you a good story about that. About, I don't know, eight years ago or so, I was at the Geneva Motor Show, the biggest car event in my world. And this Chinese guy comes up to me and he's like really, really grateful. He's like, I'm so glad to meet you. I want to say thank you. I went, why do I say thank you? He said, because you've made such a difference to my life.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I'm like, I'm not the second coming. I don't know what I've done to you. He goes, because, you know, I host all of your videos on a channel in China and they've made me loads of money. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. So I did a bit of research. He has. He's made lots. He just ripped them all off YouTube and hosted them. Wow. There's no regulation.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But he thought he had no... It wasn't like he had no shame. He couldn't even see what he'd done wrong. Right, right, right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Creating content in the last 10 years has become a really fascinating situation because I'm sure you felt the same when you started out. If you produce something, you own it by definition. It doesn't matter whether you're within a network or have you. The international property in your head is that's mine.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I think I'm often asked, if you lived in America, what car would you drive? And it would always be a Raptor. It comes under the heading of always drink the local beer. When you go to a city, don't order a Heineken or a Bud. Drink the local beer. And the F-150 Raptor is your local beer.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And content producers over the last five years have had to accept the fact that that is no longer the proposition. People can do what they want. You can't hunt them down. And it's shameless. And I still occasionally get engaged. I don't look at the Instagram message thing very often, but sometimes I'll just see someone saying, I'm just going to post this. Do you mind?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And sometimes I'll go, well, yes, I do. I went out there at three in the morning. Right. I nearly crashed that car. I paid for those rear tires. Right. Why should you get the chance to monetize that for your channel?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
In their professional world. Could you imagine if one of them was an accountant and I walked in and said.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
right I've got my books I can't add up I'm really disnumeric and I'm an idiot just do those for free will you because just do them yeah well no he'll say I want some money for that no no no I just just do them just and also shut the fuck up and do them how does that no other world works like that
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But the Chinese example was the best for me, though. I love that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
They don't think there's anything wrong with that at all. I mean, you have to take the Chinese car industry seriously now. But 15 years ago, there used to be a sort of underground recess at the Detroit Motor Show where the Chinese car companies would be. And it was a sort of – it was a grim catacomb of –
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
of imitation so you'd go underneath and there'd be like their version of a BMW X5 which was literally like someone had gone with a BMW X5 to draw one and done their own version of it they would just shamelessly copy stuff because there was no there were no IP laws over there culturally they didn't acknowledge imitation you just do what you want I reacted terribly at the time.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I sort of understand now that if you don't get that from the age of one, you can't learn it afterwards. Right. But they were shameless. And I can remember being, again, at the Geneva Motor Show. You'd go to the, particularly the Japanese cars, and you'd want to sit in the back of a new one. You couldn't because there'd be Chinese engineers from car companies measuring them there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It'd be like 20 minutes. They'd have these laser rules out just getting all the measurements of the interiors and of the engines and stuff. You go, can I look at that? No, they'd be there for 20 minutes shamelessly just copying, scanning the car in broad daylight. It's amazing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
They are – they've definitely had an advantage over Europe. I can't say for America because you have Tesla, which is the only other – global leader in that area, but the European car industry has been caught napping. And it's a bit of a worry for someone like me that I'm very fond of a lot of the European brands, but they're struggling. They're struggling to respond to this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
There are boats full of very impressive, very good value electric cars that have landed in Europe in the last six months.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Someone paid £120,000 for that three years ago. Crazy. And still really good. It is. It's a very – again – for particular people. Maybe the point I didn't make earlier, I had to excuse myself a bit, Jetlag, for my confused thoughts sometimes, is that the electric car has one unspoken fact about it. It's for rich people. That's what I find quite difficult.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
There's a meritocracy about the motor car that I find appealing, is that you can have a Bugatti Veyron or Chiron, or you could be some guy that lives in India that's got a little thing that costs 100 quid or $100. you're ultimately getting the same thing. You have the freedom to travel, to choose where you're going. And I think, like you, I don't want to be told what to do.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I think it's really important that that vehicle can take you where you want to go. But the electric vehicle is for rich people, isn't it? You think about it. You show me the electric vehicle for normal people.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah. It's a very flawed concept at the moment. But as you say, the performance of them can be. Your plaid is a great example.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
So they tune them, do they? Yes. Because it needs to be faster, doesn't it, Jim?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I think the main thing it needs is some sort of jet washable, pressure washable floor, because I think passengers will eventually shit kidneys out of it. They're so fast.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
He's fascinating. I know he's been on your show. I don't know what to make of him. I just love the fact that he's... He's the ultimate disruptor. Yes. He's come along. He's seen an industry. He's gone, that's ready for a shakeup. And he's had a go. With multiple industries. Yeah. That's what's crazy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But the one that's pertinent to me, the two questions I'm asked most are, what do you think of the electric car revolution? and its effect on the environment. But also, what do you think about Mr. Musk? I almost don't really have an opinion on him. I just let him do what he does. What I do know is I'm always fascinated what he's going to do next. And that's all you need to know.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And the stuff that he's produced... Ten years ago, there were not many Teslas on the road in the UK. Now they're everywhere. I don't know any other vertical that's witnessed penetration like that. If I walk into a white goods store, I'm not seeing fridges made by companies I hadn't even heard of ten years ago.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But the second most expensive thing you'll ever buy as a civilian, and he's managed to have that level of penetration, that will go down in the history books.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Do you do Twitter? Whatever it's called now. Yeah. I left it because I got so much abuse initially when I did Top Gear. That's when I got, you know. You can't read comments. No, you can't. But then you'd get drawn into conversations. Oh, shit. And actually leaving it was the best thing I ever did at that time. And I haven't gone back. Because I didn't really need it to promote anything.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
you won't be able to post or comment without your identity being revealed.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
When you're in a dark place, as I was 18 months ago, you can feel that very pertinently. There was a lot of very unkind things said about Andrew's accident and Top Gear afterwards. And I thought to myself, all those anonymous keyboard warriors, fuck you. And you know this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I was almost at that state, which is the ultimate low, the Kelvin of human behavior, which is, I'll meet you in that car park so we can have a fight. You know how bad that is? I couldn't do it as well as you. But when you step back from it,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Same in the UK, although they, no, it was 2035, then the last administration moved it back to 2030. Good luck. They're not even ready. They're not ready. The grid's not ready. I'm so torn on this because everyone looks to me as the ultimate petrolhead and I'll sit there and go, they're all shit. They're not all shit. They have a place.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And it's not a real... The pernicious side to it is like all the aspects of life that we know are bad and we shouldn't go there. Be they...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
alcohol or you know relationships whatever it is if you're if you're in a bad place you're susceptible and that's what that's what I I find very difficult about that side of the internet sure if you're in a bad place especially you after that accident it's a magnet it's like it's just there it's the crab with its claw open you're like I'm everything saying don't put your finger there you can't but you do I don't
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I did very briefly. And I'm very glad. Actually, I'd actually left Twitter before then. But I was very – I couldn't believe some of the heartless comments that were made afterwards.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But it's the cadence of conversation and also the quality of silence and the way that you respond. And actually, I'm now going to say something terrible. My podcast is done over Zoom, but it's the same voices every week. So people become used to the cadence of conversation and they can actually – they can – I do believe relate to it. If the comments confirm that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And the most sophisticated assessment of this that I've come across was just a very normal person I was talking to one day in an airport who said, surely the solution is that you just use... what's pertinent to the energy that's easiest where you live. And I think it's the best way of explaining it. If you live here, you drill a hole in the ground. There's oil around here.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But if you had to sit down and speak to a room full of young people... about how to manage third-party opinions of you on the internet. What would you say to them? Just ignore.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
There's another side to that that I had to teach my other co-hosts on this podcast who weren't from a media background at all. I personally believe that to ignore the negativity, you can't wallow in the positivity either. I just think you don't have the right to just pick and choose what people say about you. You can't just absorb the nice stuff and ignore the bad stuff.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah, when you're becoming conditioned by the environment you're in without realising it. Exactly. And with a segue back to the BBC, I've seen that with that network I work with. I think there's a lot of high-quality people that work at the BBC. And at the moment, they're under a lot of pressure and everyone's judging them as individuals within the organisation.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I think the organisation, that environment, is almost impossible to work in now. And it's changing them. They almost have nowhere to go.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
If you live in Iceland, you drill a hole in the ground. There's loads of geothermal. So why wouldn't you have an EV there? It's brilliant. It's everywhere. It's quite a small country. You don't need to travel large distances.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Would you ever make television again like that? No. No.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I've just finished something for the BBC, which this podcast is going to be, he's going to put the cat among the pigeons. So I've got one thing I've just done with the BBC, which is not car related, which will be my last thing I've done for the BBC, probably. I did it with Paddy. I loved it. It was actually about wellness and trying to, you know, which is a word I fucking hate.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It's a captured word. It's not even a word. It's like mindfulness. I can't believe I just said it. So I apologize to you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Spirituality as well. Basically, it's about me being, having let myself go. I'm a shit, I let myself go. I'm a bit better now, but you should have seen me a year ago. And we've gone off and done three one-hour shows about.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I sat and I drank world-class quantities of single malt. I had made, I like a single malt, and I had built up a nice little collection, you know, a really nice little collection. I was quite disciplined. I'd pour myself, you know, a beautiful Glen Farkless 25, and I'd enjoy it, and I'd put it away. I did that collection in the first month after the Top Gear incident.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
The whole lot gone. Oh, wow. And then I slipped into the full, you know, it was terrible. Alcoholism is strange. Yeah, and I don't look back on it as being, I now realize how bad it was, but I'm a bit of a box ticker. You can't talk about it unless you've done it. I've done it. So that was the box you wanted to tick. Let's try being an alcoholic. I didn't want to, but now I've done it. I get it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I get it. And also, I was doing a weekly podcast. My sort of decline was quite publicly documented. Some people saw it. Some people didn't. But sometimes I'd see someone say, is he all right? And I'm like, no, he really fucking isn't. Where was I with that? But I do think that the... Yeah, if you start going down that route, it's a problem. It really is a problem.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I should say... Mindfulness, wellness, what other words? Wellness is worse than mindfulness. They're both the same to me. We went to... So this show we did, all right? And this is, I'm not promoting it. It was interesting because I like cars. And the BBC had me... All I wanted to do was present stuff about cars. And this organization decided to send me off...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah, but also, if you live there and you've got loads of batteries and you have a cartridge system where you can slot them in and out, it's doable, isn't it? I just think we need to be a bit cleverer about it. But at the moment, the subject's approached with... This is good. This is evil. At the moment, we live in a Star Wars reality.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
to go to Sweden to see what it's like, why they have a good quality of life. I know they do. I've got a lot of Swedish friends. I've been to Sweden. It's a fucking great place. It was an amazing experience. I loved it. But it didn't involve cars. I want to be making shows about cars. That's what I love doing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I'm grateful for it. And I think that's a really entertaining television. Although we missed out one bit. You talk about having to drink donkey semen. Yeah. There's a clip from this show that doesn't make it, but I'm given this substance to drink by this guy who's got an impish grin. I'm like, and I'll do, I'm that guy that'll eat most things.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
You know, if you've filmed Top Gear and you've been around the world, you've eaten stuff you shouldn't have eaten. And as long as you've survived, it's another box ticked, you know? I never thought I'd eat a sheep's rectum, but it's fine. It's a bit chewy. But I was given this, this vial of liquid. And I drank it, and it tasted a bit like a really peaty single malt.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Imagine an Ardberg that's like really peaty. I was like, cool. And on the label it said Beaver. I was like, okay, what's that? And this Swedish guy said, yeah, it's essence of a beaver that we make liquid alcohol with. So you flavor it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
like a shine with beaver because it was strong and he went he sort of fudged it and moved on i was like it was dry and it was the flavor was in my mouth i couldn't get rid of it transpires this is a secretion from the anal gland of the beaver so i ate beaver ass i drank it A secretion. So someone milked a beaver. Oh, boy. And I drank it. It wasn't that bad. What's the benefit of this, supposedly?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It has some quality. It does. And, you know, if you see the average Swedish guy walking around, you'd all have some of that beaver juice.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah, I think so. Really? It's popular over there? It's for sale.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Ten days later, I was in Japan. doing some other work. And I remember my host saying, what do you think to that food? And what I wanted to say to them was, I can just taste beaver ass. Ten days later, my olfactory system, such as it is, was only registering beaver. For ten days? Every food I ate tasted of beaver. Did you try to wash it out with alcohol or anything? I tried everything. Wow.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
So effectively, you're either the rebellion or you're Darth Vader and his crew. And you will as well. I've been pushed into the corner of being Darth Vader. I just don't think I am. When I can, I use the train. If I'm in a city, I quite like riding a bicycle because it suits me. I like it. It works. But when I want to go out on an open road and enjoy a 9-11... I want to enjoy 9-11. Why can't I?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I didn't do that. I must try that. I was thinking, how did you burn it off? I don't know. You'd have to just get a new head. Wow.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It did disappear. But after 10 days, you still had it? It was still there. You know when it's just there as a sort of residual taste? I would have been so upset. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But also, when I found out it hadn't made the cut, I was like... It has not made, it has not, I went through the voiceover and it's not in. That's so crazy. But wellness as a concept is something that, as a word, I hate. And I'm proud of the show that will come out at some point. But I like cars. I want to make shows about cars. And, of course, I will go back to the internet.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
We might bring it back. Yeah, do that. We've made some films. And I'm going to give it another month. And then we'll give it another go.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
You lose 99.9% of people. There's too much good stuff for free. Yeah. That's another thing. We come back to that idea of this Chinese guy going, thanks for educating my children or whatever I'd done. There is no monetary value placed on content now. There's a few firewall systems that work. I think New York Times and the Times in the London Times works. I pay for that. And I think they make money.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But the expectation is that content is now free. Right. Yeah. How many listeners would you lose, do you think, if you put a paywall up for this?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I think the way that we relate and interact with content is fascinating. It is. There's an ever bigger appetite. These devices mean that the immediacy means that there can never be too much content.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Well, the iPhone's a funny thing because it's a bit like a steering wheel in a car. That's your contact point. It was designed to feel brilliant. And the iPhone, with that metal ridge, is one of the most pleasing objects you'll ever pick up. So why put a condom on it? Because you don't want it to break. It's made out of glass. It's still working. And I want an unsheathed phone.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But when I sit down, when I get in a car, I don't want something... Oh, yeah, those are disgusting.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I've come here briefly for two reasons. One, because I want to be on this podcast, see you. The other thing I've come to do in this state, and I'm going to need some help with this, I'm not here for much longer, is I saw a bumper sticker advertised on that I think is the greatest bumper sticker ever created. And it simply says, Texas is bigger than France. That's it. It's the statement.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And it's for sale online. And I've got eight hours now to go and find it before I fly back. But I have to get this bumper sticker. Oh, we'll get you one. It literally just says, it's a statement. It is the greatest statement made by any state or county.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I find it very difficult when I'm told to do things I don't think are rational or reasonable.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Also, they've been conditioned to become... animals to be extreme fighters. Once their battle's finished, they don't stop being fighters. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
How does Austin fit into that? Because I think it's viewed as this center of cosmopolitan life within a state that's known to be a bit different. So how does that work? It's good.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
That's the thing about being an English person. Sorry, a British person. The gun thing is totally foreign to us. I'm not going to offer any opinion at all other than to say that it's just foreign. It really is. And at times, I'm sure people in the UK would quite like to feel the security of having that about them. But it's amazing driving around here as a British person thinking...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
That person in that car has almost certainly got a gun. Yeah, almost certainly.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It's maybe the... What's transpired for me, having traveled here so many times and worked here so often in the last 25 years, is that because we speak the same language and we all look quite similar, we assume our countries are really, really similar. But they're not. They're really quite different.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And actually, they're both wonderful places. I love coming here. There's something about all of the states I visited that I love. And I have no strong opinions. Maybe this is the older you get. I no longer have strong opinions really about the way other people live their lives. So that's what you do. I don't have any opinion about that at all, really. It's what you do. It works for you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And in the UK, we're different as well. And the older I get, the more emollient I become, I think, about that. When I was younger, I would have had stronger opinions about that. But the way that Texas operates is Texas's stuff. It's the way you do things. And I'd have to be here a long time to fully understand the layers of it, the nuances of it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And if you came to North Somerset, where I live, there's aspects of it that look, because we speak the same language, that look like they're straightforward, but they're not. Everything has subtleties, doesn't it? Yeah. That's why I see it. I think maybe to come back to some of the comments, it's when people become partisan about without any real information that we have problems.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
People always giving me their fucking opinion about stuff when they haven't stopped to consider it. And I'm not trying to dodge issues here. You can probably tell I'm not completely apolitical. I just don't like politicians. I don't care what side of the fence they sit on. I'm deeply suspicious of people that go into a career of politics. As you should be. As you should be.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
So I don't profess to be on one side or the other. All of them... tend to be an expert. I think the idea that we've created a system where you get promoted because you're an expert is ridiculous. And in my world, that manifests itself in transport.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I've never come across a transport minister in the UK that really has any idea what's going on or any interest or even uses fucking transport other than being driven around. They're just bureaucrats. It's ridiculous. So that's my position on it. is I just sit there bewildered by what's going on. And maybe where I am a total soft cock is I don't have the spine to stand up and shout about it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But I just... It's bizarre for me that we have inexpert people making decisions for us, hence our discussion about electric cars. Yeah. But also we have people that have the right to say whatever they want online without having stopped to think of anything else. that they were talking about or to research what they're saying. It's remarkable.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah, that's a really interesting point, because it's like being a parent. On the one hand, you can respond to that by saying, well, if I'm going to make no difference, I'll just carry on driving around in my Raptor. But then it could be suggested that that means that you should make a difference. But I find it really difficult that we can't understand that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yes. And I don't know whether you've probably experienced this as well. But when I was first on Top Gear. There was a lot of hate flying around. And, you know, I was just hated because I wasn't Jeremy. Which is odd because Jeremy's one of my heroes. I think he's one of the greatest broadcasters out there. I love Top Gear. And to suddenly be the enemy was really weird. I love what he did.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I loved his Top Gear. I was just trying to do my own Top Gear. And I just got shat on for it. But when my children started taking heat... for what I was doing for a living was very difficult. I found that very difficult.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
If I was a political broadcaster or someone that was talking about the NRA, I can understand it. I'm talking about the motor car. Not the third world debt. It's ridiculous.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
When they go for your kids, I'll tell you something. How about this? Never said this publicly. I had a phone call one day from the family home saying that my youngest child had been out skateboarding. It's a farmhouse building now. He's been skateboarding on some little lane. When I heard that, I thought, why would he skateboard there? It's really rough. He just fall over.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But two people in a car had approached him and tried to coax him into the car. It turned out it was two tabloid journalists that were trying to get some dirt on me. But they tried to coax my child into the back of the car.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I agree with you that I want to have a sensible view of this world we live in. But when you've experienced those things or when you've had to sit down and speak to your kids' teachers about the awful things that are being said to them just because their dad happens to present a TV show, it does change you a bit. You don't come back from it completely.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
You're so right. So refreshing to hear you say that. It's just a car. Yeah. Ideal in the least serious subject on the planet. Yeah. It's a motor car.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
No, that guy had left. I met him once, shook his hand. I didn't know who he was. I'm on team Jeremy. Yeah, he's... He's brilliant at what he does.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Jesus, I'm not coming to you on that. I'm going to get in trouble. But I do... No one's ever really asked me what I think of Jim. I think he's just the best.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I shouldn't have... Maybe I shouldn't have tried to follow him. But I wasn't trying to follow him. I think what I now realize I was trying to do was I was trying to be part of the solution. I knew I could do the driving bit. But I thought the other people could carry off the Jeremy bit. Right. And I now realize that's very difficult. It's a difficult act to follow. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
That if there has to ultimately be a change at some point, if it's rational, I don't know if it's now or it's certainly not 2035. That's not reasonable. No. We need to prepare ourselves to make logical and progressive changes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah. That was called the Roadster. That was the original Roadster.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Look, I'll be careful what I say here, but without wanting to shatter anyone's illusions, that's the way those car shows are made. That's the way a lot of reality shows are made, unfortunately. So ultimately, you reverse engineer an outcome. So you're being told, this is what you're going to find. This is what's going to happen. All we need to do is you've got to help us get there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Now, in reality TV, I can understand it. But if you're reviewing a product, as you say, that tens of thousands of people make and they rely on... that thing's selling for their livelihood. It's not.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
One of the biggest problems on Top Gear for me was when things didn't break. So often the producers, and I understand why, they'd want stuff to break. That was the joy. Normally with the older cars we'd buy and mess around with. But actually, older cars are quite reliable now. You buy something and expect the engine to blow up. It won't.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Well, they did a brilliant film about that, and they're trying to kill a Land Cruiser, and they just couldn't. Ended up dropping off a building, and it drove away. It's the cockroach of the car world. They're incredible. I have a 200 Series Land Cruiser V8 diesel, 157,000 miles on it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It's just... They are... They're brilliant vehicles. And actually, I lobbed a bomb on Instagram the other day by saying, I drive around in my Land Cruiser feeling sorry for Range Rover drivers. And I just got a whole lot of... I didn't read it. Yeah. But I do think that...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I have some sympathy for people that make television because, you know, they say don't work with children and animals, but working with cars can be difficult. And one side of Top Gear that I found unpalatable, not just the sort of the silly comedy bit, which I didn't like, was quite often you'd be given a script. I'd be given a script and my review was in it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I'd be like, well, I haven't driven it yet. So this is the part where you say it's great. But what if I think it's shit?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But I can understand why the producer and the director is thinking, well, we've got to get all this packaged together. That's our hour there. That's our hour there. But we haven't stopped to actually evaluate this thing we're supposed to be evaluating. And I have some sympathy with people that make television because actually that bit's just they don't care about that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But for me, that's all that matters. I want to give an honest opinion of the car.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I love, so I've got a GT3 Touring 991. You bring the dog in that? What kind of dog? He's an English Bull Terrier. How big is he? Quite a size. But, you know, he's on with the shark face. It just looks like he's going to kill you. But all he'd do is lick you to death. He's a gorgeous animal. And from as a pup, all dogs have access to all cars. It's really important for me. Really?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
If you have a car that's a million dollars, your dog's going in there. Really? For me, it's like the closest it gets to religion for me. I love it. Because for me, it's a demonstration of...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
who i am i want my things i love the most to share the things i love the most right so the dog goes in it and the and i love patination on cars so my cars are known for being not that clean let's say they just live in them and you know the handle on a gt3 under the bucket seat where you that lovely handle that you move forwards and backwards on mine they're all chewed where he chewed them as a puppy and i leave them like that so when people get in they go
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
What was that? And I would go, oh, the dog chewed that. But the only time I've come to grief is that I now am very suspicious of switch gear that's laid on the horizontal because I was on a slip road in an M3 of mine.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
last year no sorry no it'd be the gt3 and i came off a slip road and i accelerated it was wet and i thought i'd lean on the systems you know when you just get that you lean on the traction or the abs and the car went fully sideways
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
a slip road in the middle of the day and it looked outrageous i mean that's what i'm quite good at so i went well there you go that's sideways wound it off again the dog had put his paw on the esp button oh no he had turned all the systems oh no without me knowing oh no so now i'm aware of that he's not allowed to do that yeah they shouldn't be right there but i suddenly thought that's there he is oh what a cutie that's in the back of the m5 the v10 m5 that's pip dog ah that's nice
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
He's an absolute legend, he is. But he's a great dog companion. No dog sickness. I just love going places with him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I don't want to see a dog like that. No one wants to see an animal stressed. Right. And I have rejected cars because my dogs didn't like them. I had a thing called, I had a thing, I borrowed one and I bought a Golf R estate. I'm not sure you got them over here, but they did a combi sort of station wagon. There's a theme here, I love station wagons.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I think long roofs and curtailed arses look better. Really? Yeah. The three box thing doesn't do as much for me. I like long down.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
So this is the new one. That's actually good looking. I bought the old one. So you type in, click in 2015 Goldfire Estate there. And I, any one of those. Yeah, that'll do. So I went and bought one of these. So that'll be good.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
and that's not it's not too showy and it'll do the job and i at that point i had my old dog boss vimerana and um and i put him in the back and he just got out again i was like he hasn't done that before i put him in the back again and it was quite evident he did not like the car i don't know why so you didn't like the car because you didn't like so i so i took the car back and the guy who sold it said what's the problem i said dog doesn't like it and he went
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
What? The dog? What do you mean? I said, well, the dog doesn't like it. I can't live with it because the dog lives with me. So it goes. Absolutely. Yeah, no, the dog's opinion matters. What could it possibly have been? Who knows? Dogs are, as we know, the most incredible things. We don't deserve them. They are wonderful, but they see and they perceive things differently to us. He knew.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It could be that he didn't like the cologne that the German guy that assembled the boot interior with. Dogs operate on a level of perception we can't even understand. So your fascination with bears, could a man... Be beaten up by a... Could a man defeat a bear? I always love that. It's like, well, what are you thinking of?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I love... I often like walking around trying to think what my dog's seeing of a situation. What's he smelling?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But my... There's an emotional sensitivity to these animals as well. That thing there you've just seen the picture of, I mean, it was bred to fight. Bulls and bears. That was what it was bred to do.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But if, let's just say, at certain times in the month, if my girlfriend is feeling down, my dog will go and cuddle her and sit with her all night and provide heat to the part of her body that's in pain. Really? He will do that consistently. Wow. Every single time. He knows. Wow. He just knows.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I wonder if we over-project on them because when we were discussing earlier about some of this sense of being just so disappointed about – our fellow homo sapiens, I over project onto my dog. The more I get disappointed by human beings, the more I revel in dogs.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I want some bear chat. So I have – I'm slightly fascinated by – these really large bears, big grizzlies. And I do find myself sometimes at four in the morning when I can't sleep Googling just the size of them, their potential power, the potential statistics of what they can and can't do. Are they as awe-inspiring as I should think they are?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah. I think, I think, As a northern European, we're always fascinated by the shit we haven't got. Right. And grizzly bears are up there with Chevy Suburbans, most muscle cars. Honestly, the idea of the other, the foreign, is really fascinating for any person that doesn't have that. Sure. And it's the same with Australia. You go to Australia, it's a very different thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
They have little shit that will kill you. Right, spiders and snakes. You go there, and someone will casually go, yeah, mate, that bites you, you're fucked. You're like, what do you mean? It's a spider. No, mate. Jesus. It's not like a big furry thing. Right. In South America, it's big and furry. Its whole presentation is, I'll kill you. Right. These ones are not quite like that. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
So I do have this fascination with this stuff. And again, that's why YouTube's great. Because as a kid growing up, if you wanted to find out about this stuff, you couldn't really. You had to go and get a book or... There was no VHS. If you went to Blockbuster, you couldn't buy... a documentary on grizzly bears, could you? You didn't get it. Now it's all over there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I think I agree. And there are some basic tests you can apply to it. If you gave most people that love the internal combustion engine an electric vehicle that could do exactly the same thing as well, but be electric, they'd take it. But they can't. We cannot. The technology doesn't work at the moment.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
with Top Gear was with Matt LeBlanc who as you can tell I'm very fond of he's just a he's great fun but he had this idea around Bigfoot so he's a believer in his own way he's not he's not a believer but he presents a really strong argument I like people as you can tell I'll shoot that argument full of holes but I like I like to apply tests to things he's not a believer but he likes to apply tests he said stand in the Washington State Forest
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
and tell me that we know everything that's in there. And if you come from a little island off Europe, the size of your forests are awe-inspiring. And the idea there's so much stuff that we might not know about does interest me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It's not a mythical creature. Right. And I don't want to pitch Matt into something. He's not some crazy believer. And actually, the premise of the whole film was fun. He was there going, I think there's something here. Let's go and have a look for it. And I was just acutely aware as we shot it in Northern California, so North San Francisco, the forest at night is a sketchy place.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It really reminds you of just how insignificant we are and how vulnerable we are without our man-made objects to defend ourselves. Sure. And in the context of that, a bear... For me, it was terrifying, actually. I just thought they were creatures I'd seen on nature programs. The idea that there was something out there that viewed me as food. If you live in England, we don't have that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
We simply don't. We don't have mountain lions. I'm not going to get eaten by a badger. I think the largest carnivore in the UK is probably a fox or a badger. We don't have these things that you have. It's difficult for you to understand. There's nothing that views me as a food source.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I'm talking about the non-enthusiasts. The non-enthusiasts, people like you and I that don't care about that. If you gave them an electric vehicle that did exactly the same job, that could do it as well, and could be as flexible to their needs... they'd take it because it's as good. But no one can do that at the moment. They don't exist.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It's amazing, isn't it, that we anthropomorphize bears more than just about any other creature. Yogi. Paddington bear. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Friendly, cuddly. I think because they do look quite appealing. And they are dog-like, aren't they? They're slightly dog-like. Snout. Sure.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
A friend of mine walked to the North Pole for some reason. I don't know why. And he had a lot of training beforehand. This is a long time ago. But the polar bear training that he talked about was quite... difficult to absorb really. Effectively it was that there was no gun that you could carry on an expedition like that if you're just on your own or with three other people with sleds.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
There was nothing you could carry that you could immediately produce that would stop a polar bear, an adult polar bear. So the best thing they had was a short shotgun. that had a solid bolt, just a solid bolt in it. And if you could get that one thing off, you could stop it. But there's no gauge of shotgun that was going to stop one of these things. It was coming at you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
So they carried this thing. They carried this thing that had a solid bolt in it. That's all you had. I don't know much about guns, but that's what they said they were given.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And also, there are so many other industries that pollute so heavily. Why aren't they the subject of so much sort of pernicious legislation? I mean, we talk about shipping. If you start to look into cargo ships, what they emit is extraordinary.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah. As a parent, you realize it as well. Particularly in the U.K., we don't have dangerous species of animals like that. But we do through anthropomorphizing them in films and cartoons. We make things cute that might not be cute. Sure. We have a real urban fox population in the U.K., And they actually started in my hometown of Bristol. The fox is a clever creature.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And it worked out that it was much easier to come into town and raid bins than it was to stay out there trying to find rabbits in the countryside. And these nighttime foxes, they were very clever. No one really knew they were there. The BBC made a fantastic documentary, I think, again, Attenborough in the early 80s about urban foxes. And they've spread throughout the UK.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And the fox is this... In most cartoons, it's a lovely, cuddly thing with a bushy tail. It's a beautiful colour. But they're predators. They're a real problem for farmers. And they eat a lot of poultry. I'm not even going into fox hunting. That's not my world. But... But there's been a few stories recently of foxes going into people's houses and attacking babies and stuff like that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And then you see on Instagram people feeding the foxes in their back gardens and you think, that's not a domesticated animal. Yeah, you can't do that. You've got to decide one or the other.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I've just had my holiday down in Newquay on the north coast of Cornwall, which is just one of the most beautiful places on the planet. And when you buy fish and chips from the fish and chips outlets, they all have a seagull warning now on the shop front saying, when you buy your fish and chips, protect it. Because all the seagulls just dive bomb people. Wow.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It's like that scene in that Jurassic Park film where the pterodactyls are coming down. You ever seen a seagull eat a rat?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
They'll do it to everything they can catch. There's a wonderful Instagram clip. I'm admitting too much about my search history here. I think it's a cormorant just being given like a black oily thing, just being given fish. And it eats like five. Yeah, I've seen that. You think that the volume of fish you've eaten there is greater than the mass of your body. There's no way.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And actually, to come back to the content discussion, YouTube, whatever it is, I do love the fact it's all out there. I love the fact it's being recorded. I had never seen this stuff. I've got a particular phobia, and it is a phobia. I hate crabs, and I'm not talking about the STD style. I'm talking about crustacea. Why? I think they're horrid to look at. I won't eat them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I'll eat all other seafood. I'll eat all other seafood, but I won't eat a crab. You'll eat lobster? Yeah. How weird is that? Insight into the adult brain. I hate the crab. I also think it's a totally unnecessary looking creature. They're so delicious, though. You love them. Everyone I know loves them. My children adore them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But if there's a big brown crab on a plate, I can't even sit in a room with it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Just an awful thing. Also, and this is a good example, right? In the pantheon of hateful aesthetics, right? Right. You have an exoskeleton. So you're inside out. This thing or someone or something has decided that's going to be inside out. So it has a shell to protect its soft, cuddly, and as you described, delicious innards. Why would you make that exoskeleton hairy? That's unnecessary.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It's also disgusting. This thing has hairs growing out of a shell. That's the worst aesthetic of anything.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And they'll grow another claw. That's from a film. That's not real. No, it's real. No, it shouldn't be allowed. In other words, it should be fiction.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Like anything that you're scared of, you're fascinated by it. Someone did some research into the claw bite force of these things. and they were absolutely shocked at the torque and power they could generate.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Come on, that's unnecessary, isn't it? Well... So type in claw strength of coconut crap, and you will be absolutely horrified at what they found.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Oh, they're just horrendous. There's that lovely guy on Instagram who's a fisherman who does the experiments with the lobsters and he gets the lobster crushing claw and he puts stuff in the claw and works out what they can chop in half. I find that thoroughly addictive. But crustacea like that, that's my ultimate nightmare.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But the stats of that, so stronger than a leopard bite.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
No. And I stay up at night worrying about this sometimes. There's something called the Japanese with a giant spider crab. So where I used to go on holiday as a kid was this lovely old sort of Victorian style hotel in Cornwall. It was run a bit like Forty Towers. In fact, it was like Forty Towers. Had the guy that run it that was the curious guy that made lots of jokes that people found a bit rude.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But he was wonderful. And they only had about three magazines in their very smelly lounge area where all the old people would sit. And one of them was a National Geographic magazine from about 1975. But I'd always sit and read when my parents were doing other stuff. And it had an article about Japanese giants, these giant spider crabs.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And there was just one picture of one in a tank with its legs like seven feet apart or something. Let me see this thing. And it stayed with me. It stayed with me. For years. I was reading about these crabs.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Giant spider crab. Can't believe I'm sharing all this. Crabs are a huge problem for me. They really are. My children know. Look at this. What's that? Wow. Wow.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I'll be glad to see that it's no longer moving. I just cannot get my head... Can you eat them?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I have to say, I'm completely torn on it all, because I... Some days, you don't have so many diesel vehicles here, but some days I drive around in the UK and I see a diesel throwing some shit out the back of it. And I'm like, that's not good. If I can see it, I don't like it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Oh, they eat other crabs. Well, we mostly eat other animals, and we're animals. Deary me. Well, I've shared too much there. So that's my ultimate fear. Crabs. I can remember several times we'd be asked on Top Gear when we were going away, you know, are you okay with everything? And I'd be thinking, I'll do anything. I'll eat my own feces. But if there's crabs there, I've got problems.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And only once did we go somewhere where there was – we were just in Cuba – filming the opening for this film. And we were in Bay of Pigs. So we were actually there. We were right there with a Maserati and an old Camaro filming this intro to a film. Totally random. What is it like being in Cuba? I'll give you that in a minute. Okay.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I was so punch drunk with just travel and filming that I'm working so hard. You'd almost just wake up and go, it's another mad place. We're in Kazakhstan today. Right. I was like, okay, we'll get on with it. And looking back, I was in Kazakhstan for 10 days with Matt LeBlanc from Friends. That's a mad thing to do. That's pretty mad. You know? But at the time, it was just like work.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Anyhow, it's a Bay of Pigs. And I looked at my phone. I thought, this is... This is the Bay of Pigs. Fucking hell. This is where it all went a bit wrong for America. This is historically quite a significant place. It could have been a real problem. Yeah. Anyhow. And I'm looking around and there's lots going on. And I look left.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I'm filming the opening piece to camera, which was typically bad for me. But the reason why it was really bad was I looked left. There was a crab down there shuffling around. And I'm like, I need that. Gone. But I can't admit to people that that big is worrying me. That is really worrying me. I'm thinking that's going to crawl up my leg. Something totally irrational.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I think we all have a creature maybe, a bogeyman or a bogeywoman, whatever it is, that maybe we fear. Do you have one or not?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Yeah, exactly. You can go there on a rowboat. It's a museum is what it is. It's a fully functioning museum. For automobiles. For life in many ways. It's not something that's been allowed to develop the way that a country should have developed over the last 40, 50 years. Right. So you have a society that has limited technology and has evolved the way that it does.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And then you see how resourceful human beings can be. With reference to the automobile, yes, it's fascinating because there's really – it's a strange mashup of – weird Soviet intervention and Americana from the 50s and, well, up to 50s. So they've kept these American cars going that should have died.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I do want things to be different. over time. And I can see that that's the way that we might be heading. But I hate the fact that the timeline is determined by politicians rather than scientists.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
They've also got a whole load of Soviet-era larders that came in when the Russians wanted to help them out. And also, that's where their power stations come from. Their power station, they have a coal-fired power station on the north side of the island that, when it's operating, has a plume of smoke that goes as far as the eye can see. I mean, it's an amazing thing. I couldn't believe it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It's sort of slightly hidden from all the tourists. Yes, it's a country that hasn't been allowed to develop at the same speed as the rest of the world. And it's, what, 100 miles from the coast of the US or something? I think it's 90. Is it? Yeah. It's amazing. It's well worth visiting if you can go just to see it. It just shows you what happens when human beings act absurdly.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Did you feel safe over there? Totally. Totally safe. In many ways, I loved it. In many ways, I wouldn't want to go again. It's one of those curious places where I thought, I've seen the right side of it. If I scratch too deeply, am I going to see something I don't want to see? Maybe that was it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But as a tourist, you obviously presented something completely contorted, aren't you? That's what happens when you're making a TV show.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But Cuba can sell stuff to other countries other than America. So we're full of their cigars and their rum.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
The pollution in Havana was the worst I've ever experienced of a city. I think when the wind changed, that power station just bloomed straight over.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
We went to one of the best things I did with Top Gear, again, a repeat phrase, maybe only to reconsider my negativity, was the Kazakhstan thing with Matt. So we went there and Rory was there as well. And we ended up at Baikonur, which is the Cosmodrome. where the Russian space program is based. And it's an incredible area. I mean, it's just mind-bendingly brilliant.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
The vastness of that part of the world, the Soviet Union, we think that the United States of America is big. The Soviet Union was on a scale that you cannot comprehend. Kazakhstan was just a small bolt-on to Russia, but in itself has, I think, the fourth longest border of any country with Russia. It's enormous.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And this area called Baikonur, the way that the Russians worked was once they'd used the launch site, they'd just go somewhere else. It was so big, they'd just abandon that one and move on to another one. It's a bit like rabbit warrens, you know, just move on. And they plotted all of it in a map.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Anyhow, we went there and we watched – well, when we got close, you were aware of the amount of heavy industry. It was just – the place was – it was the first place I'd been to where I thought, I'm not sure I should be breathing this. It just felt like you were breathing in stuff that was hurting you. I'd never – I've been to –
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Indian cities where there's heavy pollution, but that's just sort of diesel and petrol fumes. There's something else here. You're like going, what is that? But it culminated with us watching a Soyuz rocket take off. And they let us get much closer to film it than you would normally be allowed to be. And I've never watched a rocket take off before.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I haven't been to Cape Canaveral or anywhere in the U.S., It was one of the most awe-inspiring things I've ever seen. Sounds like such a cliche. But watching a vehicle that has enough power to leave our atmosphere. is something I'd advise anyone to do if they have the chance. There's a sort of ripping sound in the air that people who have seen it will understand.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And the internal combustion engine has ironically reached a point where it's really quite efficient. It's quite a clever thing. If you were to invite an alien down in that vehicle there and try and show off what we're capable of, you might show them a Raptor R and go, we did that. We're quite clever.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It does feel like just the power of this thing is shredding the atmosphere around you, and it hits you in the solar plexus. You have no control over this sort of rattling in your chest. I think we were less than a kilometre away from where it went off. It was absolutely sensational to witness. Wow. Just power, raw power. Wow.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And the idea that Mr. Musk has got something that's more powerful than Saturn V about to take off, that fascinates me, all of that sort of thing. We talk about power and engines. Your rat has got a bit of grunt. But these things, they just rattle you. But the smell afterwards is interesting.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I can't even begin to quantify it. 100,000 cars? What are they burning as well? What's in there? What's in there? Talking about ropey fuels, I was talking to some guys that used to race sports cars.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I was on Formula 1 back in the 80s when they were using some very funky fuels because there was lots of technology left over from the Second World War that the Germans had for jet engines that they had pioneered. that had weird lubricants in them that allowed them to run at very high temperatures or have properties that normal fuel didn't have.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And they would use it for qualifying, particularly in Formula One. And the drivers, after one lap, were gone. They were just spent. There was also great stories about the fact that they sometimes have an area outside the Formula One garage. It wasn't as developed a sport then, but they still had sponsors and guests.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And one particular team had all the trees they put outside just died in an afternoon. LAUGHTER Because this fuel was so obnoxious.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I think actually a guy called Andy Wallace, who's a fantastic racing driver, who's now the chief test driver for Bugatti, tells some amazing stories about literally being hauled out of Group C race cars after qualifying because the fuel was just impossible, just poisoning them. Wow. But it gave them an extra 100 horsepower for that lap.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I have somewhere in my house something I bought from the internet, which is... Boots Chemist. So our chemists, your CVS, we have Boots, which is our standard chemist. It's a logo of healthcare, of stuff that's good for you. Boots used to sell cigarettes for coughs. Duh! I've got some. I've got a tin somewhere. It's brilliant. And it shows you how you should smoke them to get rid of your cough.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
No, that's probably after the Second World... No, before the Second World War. Crazy. I would have thought so.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Can't you take menthol without it being in the format of a cigarette? I'm sure.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But what we've learned about metallurgy is fascinating. And it does mean that that's why we have to apply that to what we currently witness in the motor car and the automobile industry. There's technology out there that will change something at some point. We just don't know what it is yet.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It's going to happen because we're having to relearn so much of what we thought was facts in other areas of our lives. And I think maybe that's what I get frustrated by is that you can't wait for that unprecedented change to come. necessarily, but you have to assume at some point someone's going to make a battery that runs on wasp piss or fucking water or something, aren't they?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
It's going to happen. Scientists are clever. They have big foreheads for a reason. At the moment, the argument is where there's not enough cobalt or maybe any of the lithium from... It's a slightly specious argument because I think it won't always be like that. Someone will invent something that means that we won't need the cobalt and the lithium.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Hmm. But I have to believe that... a piece of technology will emerge in the next 50 years that will make us all wonder why we all got so freaked out, you know?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
The few times I've been in one of those things with the most advanced, they've all got levels now, haven't they? And I've let it drive me. I'm there thinking, I'm hovering. I don't like it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But I tell you what, you love a conspiracy theory. Oh, I love them. I know you do. I'm less, I'm seduced by some.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But I'm probably less into them than you are. I will say this. The more you delve into the relationship between business and science and the way that our lives run, it's very difficult not to. To assume that many ideas are quashed because they're not helpful for certain businesses. Unquestionable. And I think the automotive industry is and has been at the forefront of that. Well, the oil business.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Part of me goes... I'll tell you why. Sure. An event that happened here that did shake my... I'm less cynical. I'm less likely to be as interested in conspiracy theories. Maybe because I lack your imagination. I don't know what it is. Maybe I'm terrified of the fact that I'm being taken for a ride in too many areas of my life.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But Dieselgate, the Volkswagen thing that happened in this country, really shook me. Because I didn't think something could have happened on that scale. Explain it to people, because it's pretty crazy. Well, effectively, Volkswagen were... able to put software into their vehicles that allowed them to cheat in emissions tests.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I just, I have to say, I don't, and in this city, there are, a lot of Jaguars with sort of radar-y things on them. Yes, yes, yes. And I presume they're driverless, are they?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And a load of vehicles that had stated emissions qualities didn't have them when they were not on the test rig. And actually, that process had been going on in many different ways for most motor cars forever. But the scale on which they offended and the fact they did it in the US meant they got absolutely hammered for it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But if you have an Audi RS4 from 2007 and you start the engine up, it idles in an odd way. The car feels very aggressive for the first 30 seconds that you start it. That's because there's an air pump inside the car that is basically forcing air through the exhaust faster than it needs to, so that when you put it on a test rig, it has lower emissions than it should do.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
This had been going on for a long time, but the scale of it... was, I suppose, sort of an industrial subterfuge that I didn't think it could happen. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I know. That did shake me. Because I'm a flag bearer for my industry. I'm proud to be part of the wider car industry. And I didn't think that could happen. And it wasn't just a bit of naughtiness. It was lies. And how many people knew about it? One has to assume quite a few.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But I think there was a moral complication to it because they were still making very clever, really quite clean vehicles. They weren't trying to cover up something absolutely hideous. They were in the margins. But it was still wrong. It was morally completely wrong. And once they got away with it, they were stuck with it. They couldn't suddenly sort of backtrack on it. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I think it shook my confidence in those large corporations. I thought they were being more honest with us and probably made me more likely to believe conspiracy theories afterwards. So I thought, well, if they're capable of that, what else are they doing?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
They might have. It makes very good listening. I love listening to you talk about it. Oh, they're fascinating. But I suppose I tend to sit a bit further back. I'd like to hear other people talk about them. But when it enters your world, when something becomes pertinent to you, you suddenly go, hang on a minute, what else have they been doing here? And how bad was it?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Waymo? So I view those like I do that sort of bloke in the corner of the bar that's just a bit shuffly, gets up, does the one-legged walk, comes back from the urinal with a bit of piss down his leg. I'm like, I'm giving you a wide berth, mate.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I was discussing this over a few glasses of wine with some friends. It's a good one. It's got Rogan written all over it. This one has. It's perfect for you. It's so juicy. I'm not going to pass any comment. I'm going to be a soft cock again. But I'm going to say that I read it and my eyes, well, my eyebrows raised. I thought that seems like a coincidence.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
In Cambridge, I think. One incident was a cycling incident in the UK a few days before. Was it a hit and run? No, the person that hit the cyclist, I think they have got. But they were asking for information around it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I don't know. Was it suspicious? I just read it and just thought, like you, I'm like, oh my God.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I think, I suppose, the difficulty I have with that is... That's a tragedy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
They fucked over some very, very powerful... It was Hewlett-Packard. Yeah. So they sold autonomy to Hewlett-Packard and there was a big... He was extradited to the US and... I don't know. It's not my world. I suppose the conspiracy theory thing is fascinating. But then when it's in the context of people losing their lives like that, I'm like, do I want to comment?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Because it's so awful what happened. And also going down in a boat was right up there for me. Jesus Christ. Also a freak water spout. Have you seen the size of this boat?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I'm doing my uncomfortable face. It's so out there. It's so out there. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And I'll bring it back to something more mundane. There were quite a few things that happened in Formula 1, a sport that I follow the most closely probably, in the 90s and noughties, that looking back... You think there must have been, someone had a button that could make things happen. Because it was so beyond a coincidence. And I never stopped to think of the implications of that thought.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
But if someone could do that in a sport, they could do it in the rest of your lives.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
I think actually there's a crossover here between conspiracy and cheating. Now, I think the greatest book that's not been written... and never will be written, is the greatest cheats in motorsport. Some of the stories I've heard over the years are so good. Because what they do is they reveal the competitive nature of human beings, but also ingenuity.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
You will see people at their most ingenious when they're cheating, not when they're abiding by the rules. And Formula One is about... the phrase that the great Mark Donoghue, one of your great drivers, Mark Donoghue was a Can-Am driver who did a bit of Formula 1 as well. He coined the phrase the unfair advantage, which is a phrase I love because it just defines so many sports.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
Whether we like it or not, we're searching for the unfair advantage, aren't we? And in motorsport, some of the cheats I've heard about are just brilliant.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
So... I can remember hearing a guy called Wynne Percy, who was a touring car driver from the UK in the 60s and 70s, describing how there was a famous commentator we had called Murray Walker. He was the voice of our motorsport for 40 years. He had a very distinctive voice. He was a lovely man, met him a few times.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2199 - Chris Harris
And he'd often describe Wynne Percy getting out of this particular car he'd been racing, covered in sweat because it was such a monster to drive. But it turned out that it was a V12 and it was very, very thirsty.