by Thinus Ferreira
The brand-new 10th season of Car SOS, the iconic show restoring iconic classic cars, also reaches its 100th episode on National Geographic (DStv 181 / StarSat 220) this season.
The two Car SOS petrolhead presenters Tim Shaw and Fuzz Townshend spoke to TVwithThinus about what the new season holds in highly-emotional car renovation surprises – including an ambitious petrol to electric car makeover and guest appearances by David Beckham and Sir Paul McCartney.
How does Car SOS decide what car renovation to take on – a combination of the backstory of the person, but also the type of car, and surely also if it’s even possible to restore it?
Fuzz Townshend: I normally go recce the vehicles beforehand and then I have to report back and say “yes, we can do it within the budget” or “no you can’t”. Then what happens is, if the backstory is very strong, then the production company goes: “We’re not going to listen to you anyway, we’re going to do this car, no matter what it takes”.
Tim Shaw: You love it when that happens, don’t you Fuzz?
Fuzz Townshend: I love it when that happens! Sometimes we end up doing cars that in a straight budget way we should say no to, but we say yes to them anyway. Yeah, we get ourselves into some decent trouble sometimes!
How did being car enthusiasts and working on Car SOS together, evolve your friendship over the years?
Fuzz Townshend: We were both car enthusiasts from a very early age. For his 12th birthday, Tim was given an engine called a flat-four out of a VW Beetle, and his dad said “there you go, rebuild that”.
Then of course he got a Karmann Ghia Razor Edge as his first car and restored that from 14.
For myself, at the same age I was working at my cousin’s garage during school holidays in Scotland and learning how to do the basic jobs on cars and helping out and I got my first motorbike and car at 14, 15, and even before that I was a car enthusiast and helping out in the garden so I could use the lawnmower – which was petrol-driven. So I could work with a petrol engine.
Tim is a brilliant engineer, more in the design world that anything else. But he loves restoring cars and getting people to restore cars for him while he pretends he’s doing them a favour! But he’s very good and persuasive at that kind of thing! Before they know it, they’ve done his car for him and he’s saying “thank you very much” and driving it out.
We’re steeped in cars and we’ve not lost our enthusiasm. We’re still looking at cars for sale every and we’re both naughty lads as well. We’ll see something we can do – some mischief we can get up to – and we both see it at the same time.
‘We’re steeped in cars and
we’ve not lost our enthusiasm’
The Car SOS surprises are so emotional and overwhelming when someone is introduced to their old car looking brand new. How do you keep yourself from becoming emotional during the reveal or are there so many technical things happening to get right that you’re in the moment but have to focus?
Fuzz Townshend: Well, when we’re giving the car back there are a number of things going on – obviously we’re filming, everything has to synchronise and remember, we’re pulling somebody slowly in to land and they don’t know what’s happening.
The technicalities of getting the person in and where they need to be, that’s the important thing. Then we build these cars up – between 800 and 1600 hours is what each car takes.
You’re nursing everything along, sometimes working on the car on the day itself, while getting the person to be in the right place.
So actually the emotional attachment – or emotional detachment – is definitely something that is there at the time.
When we watch the episodes back and get to see them in the same way that everybody else does, then yeah, I get the lump in the throat, I have to wipe away a tear, because at that point you get to watch everything without the pressure.
Yes, it’s an emotional thing then, but on the day – yes, sometimes when we drive home it’s a case of “wow, actually that was good”. But when you’re in the thick of it, you’ve got to make sure that all the wheels are turning.
I can’t believe it’s “only” 100 episodes it feels as if I’ve watched a lot more than 100 Car SOS episodes with my dad over the years. How is the new 10th season perhaps different, did you do or attempt something else?
Tim Shaw: The thing about Car SOS is that we always try and evolve it.
Every year we try and make a relatively significant change so that it has a different feel. We’ve got the inclusion of quite a few celebrities in the new season, we’ve got the story of a guy called Darren and it’s a real tear-jerker of a story. With this latest series, we’re trying to create solutions to problems that other car shows haven’t even dared tackle before.
We’re designing and making pieces of equipment that don’t exist and that’s what makes this particular series an extra-interesting watch. We’re inventors as well.
We’re trying not to just restore cars to the way that it was when they came out of the factory, we’re trying to make cars work for people who have a physical disadvantage so that they can get the enjoyment from, in this particular case of Darren, a level of enjoyment from a car that he hasn’t had since his horrible motorcycle accident 12 years ago.
Fuzz Townshend: That’s bang on right. We will look at any situation and try and come up with a solution.
‘It’s the best job on the planet,
neither of us will ever change it’
My dad has two old, rundown cars in garages he inherited also with these unrealised dreams of fixing them; he will never let them go. To what degree doing Car SOS did it enhance your awareness of how big it is that so many people have old cars they want to but can’t restore, just waiting for a renovation?
Fuzz Townshend: Well, people do have these dreams and the thing is that cars resonate with people so much more than you would expect on the surface.
They are inanimate objects and they don’t have thoughts or feelings and they’ll let you down when you don’t want them to let you down.
But there are times in our lives when cars are important. When you look back at if you’ve been lucky enough to go on a family holiday when they’re kids – you get the family photos, but in the background, there’s the car.
That’s the car you went in, and it becomes a family member. It’s like the family dog in a way. It’s there in the background, all the great times you’ve had in that car. Sometimes the car gets sold on and you want to get another one like it to relive that version of it.
Sometimes it gets taken into the garage and it sits there for 35, 40 or 50 years and nobody does anything with it and then it becomes like a family heirloom. So there are all kinds of connections with cars – the sight, the sound, the smells – just everything that goes with them.
It’s no wonder that people become emotionally attached to these bits of tin and wood and vinyl. What cars does your dad have?
A 1947 Ford Consul and a 1978 Datsun sedan SSS and I don’t think they will ever be fixed. And my dad will never let them be taken away.
Fuzz Townshend: Maybe what we need to do is a pan-African Car SOS series. I’m up for that, it’s looking pretty sunny where you are!
You guys have David Beckham and Sir Paul McCartney appearing in this 10th season, how much do they know or not about cars. Did they surprise you with something they said about cars?
Fuzz Townshend: Sir Paul McCartney in 1966 bought himself a lovely green Ashton Martin DB6 which is a proper driver’s car, an enthusiast’s car. Sir Paul is still that person – I think his head would still be turned by a decent car.
David Beckham talked about Renault Clio Williams and stuff like that. So from his younger days before he was a megastar of the football world, his car ambitions were slightly more modest and Renault Clio Williams would have been a lot of young guys’ aspirational hopes. He struck me as somebody who knows what he’s travelling in.
Why do you do this?
Tim Shaw: It’s the best job on the planet, neither of us will ever change it. We’re lucky to do what we do and bring smiles to people. That’s ultimately what it’s all about.
The lucky thing for Fuzz and me is we get to do lovely things for people and we thank National Geographic for backing us, and backing Car SOS as it continues to grow.
Car SOS season 10 is on National Geographic (DStv 181 / StarSat 220) on Tuesdays at 19:00.