Secret Super Car Cave - the 'Miura Man'

man cave it's okay but it's not a car cave today we're in bedfordshire to see a fantastic car cave owned by a chap called kevin johnson now on this show i don't cover an awful lot of super or hyper cars but sometimes you have to do it sometimes there's a real good reason why and in this case kevin buys cars that he really wants to drive and that's seldom seen especially with this sort of thing so welcome to a very special episode of the late break show these car caves are proudly supported by ebc brakes [Music] kevin it's really good to meet you i can't wait to get stuck into your sheds because you've got a couple of interesting sheds it's like a beautiful rabbit warren but before we go into your caves let's just quickly talk about your daily drivers because this is interesting quite an old car by your by by your standards you know it's it's uh so who's is the champion that belongs to my wife nicola so she um that's uh she's had that one lady owner from new um since 2006. brilliant and so basically she's kept the same car uh which is actually not um when we first got together you know i was expecting a hatchback to turn up yeah am i drive not a 4.2 liter v8 i know so i thought hello uh but no that's so that's nicola's daily driver um this is classed as a modern classic it sort of is now uh this is my daily driver uh so this is an rs4 yeah um i've always gone for estate cars um even though now with the kids growing up i don't really need a mistake i just like the shape i like i prefer them as as as estates i think most brits seem to like them yeah we like a rapid yeah a rapid estate and i don't want an suv so i live in the country i want four wheel drive but i want a bit of um yeah i don't want to be quite so high yeah so yeah so this is my uh this is my daily driver actually my winter car is it yeah so so um i haven't got a set of winter tires for this but though because i've only just got it yeah but i'll but next week this coming winter i'll definitely get some winter tires for it but then i use the others right that's daily drivers you'll learn in this cave is you're uh you're you're a supercar owner but you're a supercar user yes so everything gets used everything um if nothing is an ornament yeah so basically we use all the cars um and in fact i consider it's sort of you know it's a matter of pride to keep the mileage down on this yeah uh so that i can so because it means that i've been using the other ones yeah but you know we use the other ones as daily drivers it's really only the salt in the winter that i uh that i'm scared of yeah i'm not scared of bad conditions but i am scared of corrosion destroy these things yeah even the modern ones because of all of these you know funny metals that are stuck together yes you get all sorts of unusual corrosive events yeah i drove a 360 modern over winter once because i thought why are these putting their cars away over the winter and actually after i've driven around for a winter and the uh and the mechanic asked if i'd you know been using it as an anchor been lowering it down a slipway exactly is it an anchor boy is it that bad oh god yes i mean it actually more or less destroyed the lower third of the car and that was a modern car wow but no so uh after that one i've sort of learned my lesson so i don't uh i don't use them in the in the winter i just leave it for the modern machinery four-wheel drive and so tell us you must you must show me here yes let's go in and see the first oh look at that that is so damn wide with matching floor yeah and i've just noticed the number plate this is what you call a mid-life crisis which it is yeah if you want to if you're going to buy a red open-top sports car but at least do a proper job of it well look before we before we delve into the f50 which is just so flamboyant i forgot how wide they are yeah crazy this is a really characterful cave this it's lovely because it's linked to the house yeah and it goes around in a sort of uh elbow shape and there's lots of little doors doors in and out you've got sort of double ends it's it's lovely this is you know really you know the peak what i've been aiming for for yeah for quite a long time no this is special yeah oh thank you this is this is really this is this is lovely and that's the thing some people go for a sort of an aesthetic car cave yeah or if it's just a box to put all the machines in yeah all right now f50 is this your first supercar was this your first depends what you call it this is a this is a minefield about what you call a supercar or a hypercar or whatever of course um but i bought this um in 2010. okay um so i didn't have it when it when it when they first came out i wasn't nowhere no way i'd been able to have one of these when they first came out yeah 96 yeah but the um but actually the reason uh i wanted this car was actually the sound was it yeah so there's the sound that was the thing and i like the fact that it's it's it's actually really well engineered and it's a really high quality piece of kit anything you've heard about it it's probably rubbish right this is a really phenomenal car and it's actually on your side this car is on your side it's a friendly is it it's like near the family labrador yeah yeah right yeah it looks you know it's got a fierce park it's so flamboyant it looks it looks fierce but actually it's it's lovely to drive i have no idea how valuable these are all about become yeah you said you bought this what 11 years ago yeah very different value to now yeah yeah i mean now the um when i bought them when i bought this nobody wanted them yeah how much is this one these are these are a couple of million they're so sought after i mean the liquidity in this market is very high i'm really i'm really surprised that you're saying it's a very well put together car because i i i guess in my head i was thinking about the f40 yeah knowing that you forgive the flimsiness because it's what it is this is a difference this is a different philosophy so the the f-40s um this feels like a bigger heavier car so when you get into the details if you want to really geek out on on the details you can see that they've done it properly if you do get it out of shape and it will oversteer quite you know it's got enough power to unstick stick the back wheels yeah what you realize after a while is that it's already correcting before you've even had a chance to put any input in yourself so it's it's it was actually already it already coming back okay to you and and that's just you know the car i think is is quite a friendly one and it's on your side yeah and not all of them are but nobody expects that nobody to look at it because it looks it looks angry yeah i don't think ferrari got it and got anywhere near enough uh praise for what they did on this car because in my mind this is the best they've ever done right so oh my gosh it's heavier than you think so you just just pull that there we go that's the camera it's the whole back of the car isn't it yeah basically this car hasn't been restored no no you know this is it's not standard but it's not restored what what what's not standard the exhaust system this has got a capristo uh exhaust um which is switchable it's switchable it's switchable um and it was you know we we in order to get this this is the only one that exists so this is one of one uh the exhaust system is one of what is it um so we because because actually i wasn't happy with any of the of the uh the available offerings and what we did was we sent it to capristo in germany yeah and they and with them we designed an exhaust system for it and it sounds sounds phenomenal out of you know just under 350 i would guess that about 10 percent of them are used really if that so when you if somebody sees you in this it's almost it's almost always the first time they've ever seen one on the road yeah uh and that's true of the of the other ones as well and so but you know like most sports car owners were you know stopping for petrol which is quite a frequent event um stopping for petrol is usually when you get you can you can never do that quickly because somebody will come up and and have a chat with you which is great i mean i love that bit so it's not it's not really a you don't buy a car like this unless you're expecting no i mean because it happens because people are interested yeah you know it's it's it's an unusual thing and i'm i'm more than happy to uh talk to anybody about yeah about this stuff it's a bored-out version of alain prost's 1990 grand prix car um because it so it went from three this is five liter um they tried to they they bought it out to give it some some talk yeah um it's still not got great talk i mean most of the power's in the top end i've got no intention of of of moving on we're having way too much fun in this to to uh uh even consider uh moving it on now a bit of a unicorn this well i mean we've gone from one unicorn to another unicorn actually i the carrera gt i remember when this was launched i was working on car magazine and i remember and i'm not going to name them the person that was testing it crashed it uh it ended up in a field and it's not the first career gt that's an open field because i'm pretty sure lewis hamilton's dad did it he did the same thing yeah and he's just down the road exactly yes so everybody saw it a seriously special car though and and weirdly it seems to the folklore is almost um increasing with age yeah is it because it was a moment in time that might never be repeated oh it's definitely won't be repeated it's actually indifferent this car is indifferent whereas the f50 is on your side yeah this one's just genuinely indifferent you know you just have to respect that it's it's got a lot of power not you know there is allegedly traction control i've had this car this is the longest i've i've owned the car is it yeah 14 years i had this from you so you've owned it from when it was basically new yes you bought it at a time when it wasn't loved it wasn't particularly desirable no i'm sensing several patterns yeah i'm sensing you like three pedal cars yeah manual manual yeah and we're coming to these manual manual manuals um and it's about the driving experience it's about it's it's built around the motor it's phenomenal what's your likes what's your dislikes is the roof a complete nightmare to do the ruth is brilliant so let's do so we've got the roof on at the moment yeah so it's a targa yeah um but it's the roof is is i think a i have to come around yeah do what you need to do so basically it's got two carbon fiber panels and if you feel that it's actually that's something that's okay it's lovely that's amazing and then it just there's an origami thing in the in the front here oh look at that all the recesses so the recesses i mean you can put the they've got these leather straps if you want to be really wanky and you can keep them in place have you always been into cars and you know have you had a lot of other sports cars other than what we're seeing today not really um so i never had anything on you know i was when i was growing up i was interested in fishing my father had a fishing tackle shop so i was interested in fishing yeah um there were you know where i grew up there there were no fancy cars yeah most of my life i've been skinned yeah and then you know it's like in business in driving you only need to be unlucky once yes right in business you only need to be lucky once yeah so look at you know i had a bit of good fortune and suddenly i could buy something decent yeah so going from a ford sierra 1.8 gl which was my daily driver at the time i went on to to um uh buy what i thought was the best four seater because i had two small kids at the time the best four seater i could money could buy which was a ferrari four five six you went from a sierra to a four five excellent no cars in between nothing in between no what made you get that ferrari it's the best you can get so you know if you wanted a four-seater or you wanted a two plus two because you've got two small kids right yeah yeah what would you go for you could have anything you like what would you go for yeah and and that was my answer then it's not far off that being my answer now yeah i mean they're a bit more choice now you know things you've got like an aston martin repeat or something like that if you wanted something that was really good yeah but you still wanted to be sporty yeah it's beautifully built um except for when they ran out of budget for the cockpit because that's a 996 which is not a high watermark of porsche quality no interiors the seats aren't they were designed apparently around walter roll who's got an unusual shape right he is not he's not your typical um buyer uh but actually you know uh we've been i mean i have used this for touring yeah so i've been to down to the you know driving down to south france a few times the only issue with this car is luggage space you can actually see all of it center lock wheels i remember those yeah they're quite different colors so so uh red and red and blue yeah uh which which is the and that's the other thing about it is that if you get a puncture actually i think i have to check it still is still valid but if you get a puncture porsche will will come and recover you because you can't put because it's got a carbon under tray yeah so you can't actually put there's nowhere to jack it you can't jack it up i wonder if that still applies now well well apparently it does because well i knew it applied the last time i checked was about four or five years ago i suppose they've got a good dealer network haven't they oh yeah i mean you just gotta just give them a call if it was if it was a company that's got in fact i was looking at the the poster just over here that and the d to masso little banner and i was thinking oh have you got a d tomasso that i didn't know about no you don't have a detail no i don't not yet anyway right okay so i've got i've got i've got it on order i don't know if they'll ever make it okay yeah so this is the um the p-72 yeah they launched uh a couple of years ago at goodwood i mean in the meantime i'm not like i'm not i was gonna say you're all right you've got a few things to wheel around yeah not bored of anything which does take us on to to this absolute so the miura oh my word this is a car that doesn't need any introduction and this is one of the reasons why i had to come and see you because your choices of cars is very very cool and you told me something very interesting about it which i think is quite funny which is i i just bought the cheapest mirror that i've yeah this was when i bought it um which is about probably four years ago now it was the cheapest mirror in europe okay one funny thing when when nichola my wife and i uh when we went to first see this down at the car he's in london um there was a far extinguisher that in the between the the two seats there's a fire extinguisher in the footwell and there was one in the um there's one in the front here as well right and and and they're gonna turn to me and say is there something i need to know about this car that it needs fire it's a mirror thing exactly um uh now replaced by a fire safety stick what's gonna say that's how we met that's how we met yes yeah i mean i think these are these are marvelous it just goes in the glove box before this came along the car that was in its place was a 512 bb ferrari 512 bb yeah boxer which i never really got on with so basically um sold that um got this and the deal was that we would drive it around for the summer just uh just as it was and they would go for a light restoration over over the winter but what actually happened was that it went off to italy uh to be restored rather than going down to devon it sort of turned left and went across the channel but the way it's come back i mean it's it's it's better than it came out of the factory and i know that because they told me because they worked on them they worked on them he said basically we were under such pressure to get them out of the door yeah right but we let a lot of things pop you've got pictures of valentino balboa yeah so it's valentino who who he's basically the institutional memory of lamborghini yeah and he uh manages these guys the people who worked on this car um nobody else out there who can do them so you're saying the guy that stitched the interior it's it was a is 82 or 83 he's the guy who did the interiors the the upholstery in the big you know back in the day um but no it's nothing but so basically we took delivery of what was effectively a factory fresh brand new miura from 1968 but in 2020 signing it off we went to bologna and actually that's the uh we only flew once last year because of the lockdown yeah but it's actually good enough that we'd fly to bologna so we braved heathrow flew to bologna to sign off the car just like okay that's it and he's actually signed it so the car is signed it is signed actually i can show you now if you want oh go on then come on come on so it's not a bad line on a mirror this is the thing even if anything even if you're not a super car head i mean bloody i'll look at the shape of the door when he opens the door this is my favorite part of the mirror these louvers with the handle that oh just was it this color when you got it kevin it's the original color for this car urine i've got to go in here sort of baby puke yellow right over and it had a cream interior okay baby puke and cream baby puke and cream and dreadful there is no way i'm recreating that i mean the world is better for it now not not existing anymore yeah yeah and so and in fact this car was delivered in in italy to its first colorblind owner and then it went to sweden okay the guy in sweden repainted it red um so i cream interiors are just too uh they're too challenging yeah yeah you can't wear jeans you you know they break your heart yeah you know so it's got to be something that because they do get used yeah it's not there for show yeah so i need to be able to get in it and not tell people they can't come in the car because they're wearing the wrong color trousers the question i have here kevin is you didn't grow up sort of with posters on your wall with cars you do you race cars i mean have you ever gone down that road i i raced carts okay um and but you know i wasn't good enough to be you know to even have pretensions of of being competitive yeah um but i was more interested in in the racing side of things so i used to trot off to silverstone for the touring cars and the formula three and all that sort of stuff yeah um but no then the cars came along more um because i was able to do it yeah right it's quite cheap to go and watch days racing at silverstone yeah it's not cheap to own a car that then that requires a lot of a lot of tender love and care yeah um but know that they're they're just i just appreciate them you know yeah and i appreciated the engineering in this and this is to my mind one of the most beautiful shapes created by man it is an incredible car and so you know just as machines i get pleasure out of this every day i had the pleasure of park i mean it is as exciting as it got for me i had the pleasure of parking next to one at goodwood i went into the revival car park with my wife we were in the pre-67 or whatever it is parking and the guy just waved us in i was in my dodge and they're just pointed and it was a lime green mirror and they weren't what you want me to partner with i'm like my day's my day sorted yeah this is this was the first car to be called a supercar yeah i mean they they did break all all the molds when they put this together you know the transverse v12 is a pretty big deal one of the other things that we changed the the original cars had shared some for the engine in the gearbox not good idea particularly not for the gearbox no so this has now got a split sump okay so it's got separate engine and gearbox all yeah which is which really is just you just you just weld up the holes the quality of the of the outcome so it may have taken you know damn near three years to restore it but god i appreciate what they've done yeah if there is a theme to any of these cars and why the back catalog of these cars is that they're fun to drive slowly yeah if you have to get if you have to to be on it yeah to be enjoying it it's just no good because the constabulary takes a very dim view of of of that sort of behavior well and that's the problem with a lot of modern sports and supercars is they come alive at speeds which you can't do and by the way spoiler alert we are going to go out in the miura um for another video unfortunately as much as kevin desperately wants me to drive it and i desperately want to drive it i can't get insured on it uh i've got no points on my license i'm just a difficult person sure so i won't be driving it but the man who owns it will be taking us out for a spin in it which is going to be fantastic fun right this is a properly cool car all right i like a if you're just looking at it from from from just a simple shape and color perspective that car next to this car looks so good i agree looks so good and this is such a short stumpy thing isn't it it's it's really small it's got about the same footprint as a as an elise brilliant little thing brilliant little thing oh yeah well you find out yourself but and whether you agree with me but i think this is this is so much fun so talk to me about it lancia stratos this is a listabel replica yeah valancia stratos um not being a dick but i could have bought an original yeah but the problem with the originals is that you know i'm not i'm not a driving god yeah and um they're very tricky uh they've got some tricky characteristics so there's a very strong tendency to to spin on its axis which is what made a great rally car yeah it will change direction very quickly but the reason i got this uh one because there are a few manufacturers notably hawk yes um who make these replicas but i heard about lister bell and they'd really re-engineered it so this is i think calling it a kit car is a disservice to be honest with you yeah i think they'd be a carrots area if they were if they were uh italian um because basically they've re-engineered it and not completely tamed it but they've made it usable um it's got a an alfa romeo busso v6 lovely three liter engine phenomenal engine great engine yeah i've never really got them before but by god it's a beautiful beautiful thing yeah and i think perfect for this so what's this about 200 horsepower uh yeah it'll be 200 and something else but you know this is one of those where i could actually up it i've never gotten into this and i think i need this to be a bit more powerful and faster yeah right it's a it's already powerful enough to scare you and it's really good fun to drive yes so it's got the two things that i that i think make it in this garage very sticky yeah um so it's so actually my my nuclear garage would be this on my little flat nose porsche turbo that car's being restored isn't it that's cars being restored at the moment yes um but i bought that in 2008 i mean about an hour is as far as you want to drive in this you'll understand presumably no sound proofing no no it's it's a fairly aggressive environment for a very long time yeah but intense people forget that they struggled to sell them oh yeah they needed to sell 500 to go rallying yep and they actually not many people wanted to buy them no no and so this was just designed for ally it was it was designed to be to be rallied god i've got to say i'm really looking forward to driving this yeah i think i think you'll i think you'll enjoy it yeah well look this is another little part of your cave yeah two-car section with a nice bit of timber work in between two ferraris we'll talk about the the newer one in a bit because that's your wife nicholas yes this is one of my favorite looking ferraris actually 250 gte what why a 250 gt that's my first question so this is actually um when i sell the 456 this is what i replaced but four seats uh and we do use them we do use this as a four seater because it's a it's a it's a very pretty and practical from it is actually i mean and i i absolutely uh love this it's full of character you know the dynamics aren't you know the front and the back are doing different things they could be in they could be in different they're in different postcodes yeah um and there's you know it's not the last word in in um in structural rigidity but it's so much fun to drive yeah it's the three liter v12 yeah um which we can open up and you see see it but it's a pretty interesting it's a lovely engine yeah um so you know it's very tuneful it's just a lot of fun fun to be in um and and you know it's the you get the sense of well-being when you when you when you when you're driving around in this that you you're transported back to la dolce vita and you know it's um people like seeing them on the road people most people have not seen one of these on the road before no the first thing is it's a db6 it's an aston martin especially this color yeah this color you see yeah um but if james bond had been an italian he'd have driven one of these instead or a short wheelbase but he would have he would but actually um they're incredibly usable um but as i say they're more valuable for the engine and the chassis plate yeah because these are still unloved right so these are they really oh yeah i think they're glorious well so do i but they're but they're unloved you know the prices haven't moved for donkey's years right so the the 1960s car they weren't made in vast numbers they're made in about 950 of them i think yeah 954 because i just looked at the newsletter a few minutes ago at some 954 about half of them are still around and and this one was in pretty good order uh when i bought it a few quite a few years ago now uh but gradually we you you always consider it as like a uh rolling works yeah yeah yeah a car ring this one actually went back to marinello uh because the door the the the sills were starting to rust gosh any other 60s car would just have the sills done anywhere yes um those carbs are a bit of a bugger to set up because so it's got six double show me please show us okay you must show us the um the heart of the machine because this is it is like this is almost peak aesthetic yeah well do you know so you know this is bloody hell there's a bit of irony in all of this because these things get chopped up to for the engine to build something else often gtos yeah and this is a gto configuration for an engine back in the 250 gte i like it going the other way occasionally but that actually it makes a lot of really great noise looks and plenty of power actually it's plenty powerful enough um but actually setting all those um carbs up is is uh not the work of a moment um and so but now it has it it's been on a rolling road um to set it up properly and it um it's good oh wonderful very keen on the the double highly embellished ash trays oh yes i mean one isn't enough ones and it's massive this is cool we need to talk about the modern ferrari now yeah well nicola can talk about the modern ferrari it's hers yeah okay so nicola this is your side of the garage yes the ferrari i i was admiring your jag when we first turned up so uh kevin said you've had that from new york yep 2006 so 15 years yes 22 and a half thousand miles one careful lady owner it's brilliant and this is your first ferrari yes i jokingly say it's my last ferrari as well because it took two years from ordering it to actually arriving did it yeah so and that was six or seven months later than we thought okay more time to save up for it admittedly but they blamed the paint color they said it was my piece of paint i now because i'm a bit color blind so it looks slightly orangey to me is it orange nuevo f1 so it's the color of the formula one cars from about three seasons ago i really like it so it's in here with the roof down so presumably you do actually use it roof down a lot yes yeah yeah i mean i like the practicality of it having the a proper roof as well so you know when it's got the roof up it's like a normal car like a saloon car brilliant and what what um what made you choose this particular model well i'd always like the california's yeah and we've been watching california's and i said after i said 16 years of my previous car and i knew i had to buy something decent in order to justify having a spot in the garages you know you've got 11 spaces and i get one so you know we've been looking at the california's and then it was in the california tea and then when the portofino came out and you know kevin was doing a lot of the reading and he said you know they've upgraded it so much so many things on this version versus the older ones so he said this is a much better better so go with that out of out of the other cars in the cave my final question feet up excluding your own yeah which is the one that my favorite yeah which does it for you this one the other ferrari yeah yeah yeah there's something crazy you know you're down the riviera with your scarf floating behind you i just think it's a beautiful car they look great together yeah just in these yeah okay worst car you've ever owned uh maserati ghibli what era uh i think it was the 90s late 90s awful uh terrible thing absolutely terrible i could use lots of lots of things that would get bleeped out yeah terrible which car would you if you only could keep one sort of special car which one would it be oh if i could only keep one out of this lot it would be the list of l would it really yes definitely the list about incredible not not even close wow money's not everything right no see no and actually that's not the point the point is just how much fun they are yeah and whether you like looking at them yeah um so yeah i think this is gorgeous so uh i have so much fun in that car yeah yeah i've got to say thanks so much for letting us have a look around because this is one of those caves like i said at the beginning where just the rooms are really beautiful it just feels like at the sort of place where i would happily just get a coffee and sit in the middle in fact we did get a coffee and just sit in the middle and just admire it i hope you've enjoyed this episode of cargos one is a big thanks to kevin um leave us a comment maybe you've got a car cave that you think is worthy of being featured if so get in contact with us the latebreakshow.com i want to say thank you to ebc brakes for proudly supporting this playlist cheers [Music] you

Channel: The Late Brake Show

Views: 548,843

Rating: 4.9595394 out of 5

Keywords: car pervert, Porsche v10, supercar collector, super car garage tour, quirky supercar, jonny smith car review, secret garage tour, lamborghini muira, cheapest miura sold, restoring classic lamborghini, miura sv, lancia stratos replica, lister bell stratos, ferrari f50, classic ferrari, detomaso, audi rs4 avant, porsche carrera gt, late brake show, f50 exhaust, porsche carrera gt paul walker crash, v12 supercar engine, man cave tour garage, perfect garage, man cave supercar

Id: eocNMVJQzuo

Length: 34min 9sec (2049 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 05 2021