From Dodgy Cars to Michelin Stars, TV Chef Nick Nairn has shared a wealth of motoring stories including a close call from dubious repairs.
NICK NAIRN BEGAN MOTORING WHILST rallying a minivan around the family farm aged 13, he’d mastered handbrake turns by 14.
Whilst speaking on Scotland the Drive, ‘the motoring podcast for Scotland’, Nick shared many memories which prove his petrolhead persuasion – from a Fiat 500 that he drove Mr Bean style (on the roof), to his time with an Austin 1100,
“…a truly dreadful car” with it’s hydrolastic suspension “like being in a swimming pool”.
Of all the cars he’s owned, Nick declared the Porsche 911 to be his favourite type, despite their impracticality with his current circumstance.
“I’ve had five of them over the years and I’m a major fan but I’ve damaged my back and they’re too low. I can get in but can’t get out again” – Nick Nairn to presenters Ally Bally and Alan Douglas
Nick was unfortunate to have one of his 911s stolen in 2003, a Carrera 4S, which was subsequently crashed by the thieves.
Perhaps Nick’s sharpest motoring memory, though, was made in an MG Midget acquired from his brother.
“It was a great car… it broke down very regularly”
“All the bits to repair it came from the scrapyard… I got some drum brakes for it, but they didn’t fit perfectly.
So I took the linings off of the ones I got from the scrappies and superglued them onto the actual drum brake [calliper]”
Soon after, while driving the questionably repaired MG, it broke down – so Nick’s brother came out to tow him home.
“He was driving too fast and I was having to brake to slow him down…
then eventually the heat of the continued braking parted the superglue from the callipers [shoes].”
“We were coming just outside of Strathblane, coming down those dreadful curves, my brother had to brake to go into a corner.
I had no brakes, so I overtook him, still attached by the tow rope.
The tow rope cut in and he went off the road one side, I went off the road on the other side.
Luckily, [we] walked away from it absolutely intact.”
‘Scotland the Drive is available on YouTube, Spotify, Instagram and TikTok.
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