Fuelling Around podcast: Kevin McCloud on his love of Grand Designs and beautiful cars
TV royalty Kevin McCloud is the latest big-name guest to appear on Fuelling Around as the popular motoring podcast returns for a ninth series.
The presenter of the iconic Channel 4 show Grand Designs, which recently celebrated its 25th birthday, joined co-hosts Jason Plato and Dave Vitty to reveal more about his time fronting the nation’s favourite homebuilding programme.
He also shared equally fascinating insights about his love of beautiful cars, his thoughts on the way they’re built and the future of driving during the episode.
Kevin McCloud on his unconventional first car
During the podcast, the TV star joked about his first car having more than a couple of design flaws.
“My dad said ‘I’ve bought a car for your birthday’ and I think it had cost him £40,” the designer, writer and household name said during the episode.
“You have to listen very carefully to identify this vehicle. It was a Bond 875 three-wheeler. It’s not the Bond Bug, that looked like it might have been designed by Marcello Gandini for his baby son. My Bond three-wheeler had a Hillman Imp engine, a great little engine over the back axle, and looked like a cross between a bumper car and a coffin.
“It had dark-green fibreglass, it was just terr(ible)…it was really handsome [said sarcastically]. When my dad said he bought it for my birthday, he actually bought it for his three sons because he thought it would be a thing we could all drive – and we did indeed. I drove it for about three years, I went to university, then my brother drove it. He managed to do great things with it and managed to turn it over into a ditch in the snow.
“My youngest brother took a rotary saw to it and turned it into a convertible, which you could do, of course, with the fibreglass. It was an amazing car because you could take the spare wheel off the front, put it on the back seat, push the driver’s seat right back and you could do a wheelie down the road.
“The two sliding side windows you could not open both of them at the same time. If you did, the air pressure was such that the back window would pop out and disappear down the road.”
Plenty more episodes of Fuelling Around to enjoy
The lights have turned green for series nine but there’s a whole host of great episodes to wrap your ears around if you haven’t listened to the show before.
Our award-winning podcast has been graced by a string of celebrity guests that you can listen to for the first time – or as many times as you want.
You can also tune into Fuelling Around on Spotify, Apple, YouTube or various other platforms if you want to see what all the fuss is about.
