Original episode with my friend Chris Smith from 8/2022, edited and remastered.

This episode originally aired on August 20, 2022. It was one of my earliest recordings and let's just say, my editing skills were not great. This episode has been edited, and it turned out great. 

What makes someone trade a stable trade for a life measured in miles, containers, and pit stops? We bring back a remastered conversation with Chris Smith (aka as Big Car Chris), London-born, Texas-rooted—whose path from construction sites to drag strips to global car logistics shows how risk, grit, and friendship can reframe a life. He takes us from Chelsea Bridge cruises to the One Lap of America, from early missteps and cash-in-pocket hustle to the moment eight solid cars filled two containers and opened a business that protects the machines people love.

The road stories are a highlight. Chris relives his favorite run: a 2015 sweep through France, Switzerland, Italy, Monaco, and Belgium in a patina’d ’67 F100 reimagined with modern brakes, steering, and ice-cold A/C. One booked night in Montreux, then improvisation—choosing the next stop over dinner, asking locals for the better bend, cooking soup by Lake Como on a tailgate with fresh bread. We trade notes on unplanned routes and why they erase stress: Dan’s Channel crossing to the British Grand Prix at Silverstone and a later cross-country drive with his father in a BMW 320, thin tires and thicker memories on US 50.

Beneath the horsepower sits heart. Chris reflects on a father who was his hero and left him with great memories, music, hard work, and the ache of losing him six weeks before retirement. If he had one more trip, he’d aim the Porsche GT2 at Las Vegas, sit his dad at the tables, and fund a joy he’d saved too long. Dan echoes that with a Kenworth cabover that got away and a reminder that time, not metal, is the rarest collectible. We also spotlight Chris’s brothers, now crafting Aston Martin-level Mustang restomods in Texas, and a southbound bucket list: an overland trek to Peru’s Nazca Lines. The mantra that carries it all comes from a wise friend—do something once a week that scares you—because bold miles make better stories.

 If the ride resonates, subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with a friend who’s overdue for a detour.

You can find Chris on Instagram @bigcarchris

Transcript

Remastering A Classic Conversation

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to Dan the Road Trip Guy. I'm your host Dan, and each week we'll embark on a new adventure, discovering memories and life lessons of our incredible guests. From everyday travelers to thrill seekers and everyone in between, this podcast is your front road seat to inspiring stories of passion, resilience, and the pursuit of happiness. So buckle up and enjoy the ride. Well, today's episode is not a new episode. I went back in the archives. Episode 10, recorded in August of 2022. My friend Chris Smith took a chance and took a virtual ride with me back when I first launched this podcast. I have to be honest, I did not know what I was doing. I didn't know how to edit. And clearly our original episode really showed that as I went back and re-listened. I've gotten better, I believe, after almost four years. And I am just really excited to have re-edited and remastered this episode. And I really believe you're going to enjoy it. So let's get on with it. So I'm honored uh today to have a guest on my show. We met years ago on one lap. We're gonna add a little international flair. Maybe that's what we'll call it to my my show. Just honored to have a friend, uh Chris Smith. I usually call him Big Chris. Welcome to the show, Chris.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

How are you doing? It's good to speak to you, Dan.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

It's great to have you here. Chris, I like to give people just a couple minutes. Tell us who is Chris Smith?

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Uh, Chris Smith is a guy from London originally, uh, who now resides in Dallas, Texas. Um, a guy that uh had a construction company, sold that a few years ago, and got into importing, exporting special interest vehicles, at that time mainly muscle cars, and then moving into the collector car market, which led into global shipping logistics for collectors, as they were upset they couldn't move their prized possessions without getting damaged and identified that and would help them. And I got into drag racing around the same time in the late 2000s, like heavily, just as a doing run what you're brungs earlier on, and then came to America and started doing some track events, mainly the one that I met you on, Dan, the D1 Lap of America. And from there onwards, through meeting friends and doing the bull run as well, I extended my network of friends and business partners, if you will, and ended up moving here permanently just over five years ago.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

I didn't know you were in the construction business, so that's that's new for me to know.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Yeah, I used to do a lot of civil engineering. We used to specialise in uh bespoke new builds of houses and also uh barn conversions, which there's a lot of in Lincolnshire, so we would convert them to holiday lets, put indoor swimming pools in them, and just make them into uh something they were never designed to be. You know, something with a little flair and panache, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

When did you do your first one lap?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

I believe it was 2010. I did it with Mike Musto in a 68 Charger.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

That's what I remember. It had the uh Stars and Stripes gun on it.

First One Lap And Charity Wraps

SPEAKER_00 3:14

That's right. Yeah, we was uh we were with two other friends. One was racing a GTR and uh one was in a an F430 Ferrari. The Ferrari and the Charger were wrapped Stars and Stripes and also some uh military motifs and pictures on there to re help us raise money for the VA. And we raised some money for the VA that year. It was really good.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

So we have fifty states here in the US, but you picked uh one of the largest ones to move to. Was there a particular reason?

Why Texas Became Home

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Yeah, there was. I I think over the years from flying to America and purchasing vehicles, I used to concentrate on it's the same as anything. If you're gonna spend money on travel, you want to get what you want out of it. And I used to dot around the good guy shows, the swap meets, and try and cram as much into uh a week or two as possible when I would be buying. I suddenly realized that while I would finish a trip off and see friends in in Dallas, I would realize that the cars that I would purchase in the state of Texas were in much better condition, even though they they wanted full restoration. The sheet metal work was much better because it's such a dry state. So I would stay away from the northern states at that point and east coast and concentrate. It would also save me a lot of money. I think there is such a thing as as Texas hospitality for sure. Uh people are extremely friendly, if fortunate enough to go to most of the other states and spend time there. But I just think Texas is um it's it's a jewel in uh in in the US. I really do. It's unspoiled and the people are very welcoming and very real. I I like it a lot.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Yeah, we do too. And I worked down below Houston a lot in the nineties, and yeah, just uh great people, and then we have very dear friends that are there in Dallas now, so we get to come down and visit them. We enjoy enjoy our trips there. I wish we were driving down the road together. That was kind of the intention of this whole podcast when I started. It was gonna do uh road trips with people, but that's not real practical when we're separated by miles. And and I did try to do one while I was driving, and that wasn't a good idea either. So I'm I'm sitting in a parking lot and you're sitting here at home. We'll jump into this, we'll pretend we'll pretend we're rocking down the road. I I thought about rolling my window down because I am next to the highway, but I won't do that. Talking about uh cars, road trips, and uh whatever else we want to talk about. But what was your first car way back?

First Cars And Growing Up Tall

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Just trying to think what year it would have been. I passed my driving test when I was 17, which is the youngest you can do it in in in the UK. I would have been how that would have been, I think that would have been 1994. Yeah. I purchased a Mark I Ford Eskel, a 1973 1300E, which had the uh the GT engine, one of a couple of colours they were mainly made in, but mine was in uh uh purple velvet metallic, and uh they're it was a two-door, which is um uh the one to have. I believe it had a uh a 1600 bottom end in it from the previous owner. Did a ton of work to it with my brothers, and they were treated me real good, showing me what to do. I've got two older brothers, one's eight years, one's ten years old older than me. And I had that car for I think it was ten or eleven months. I think I had it longer than that, getting it ready to drive. So yeah, I had a lot of fun in that car. And the annoying thing is now, you know, I think I give somewhere in the region of twelve hundred pounds for it, which was all the money back then, and now they're doing in the region of twenty-five thousand pounds because the market's just gone nuts. Yeah, I should have kept it.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Well, that's kind of my uh I've gone through a lot of cars in my life, and that was one of the things my daughter, she's like, Do you wish you had a kept that car? And I'm like, Yeah, I should have kept them all. And so I yeah, I usually ask people, particularly the car folks on on the call, I assume you kept that car, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Yeah, it's it's a it's a funny thing though, and and as much as we wish we would have kept them all, you made the decision at that point in time, which led to another deal. You usually make money, you know, if you if you're good at what you do, and then you go and buy one that you get a good deal on, and you wouldn't be where you are now if you'd have kept them all, that's for sure. And you wouldn't have kept them all because you'd have had two or three because you wouldn't have afforded the rest. So we make these decisions, you have to stick by them.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Yep, yep. No shoulda, coulda, woulda's looking back either. Exactly. Well, that's good. I I assume uh because for my listeners, you you're a pretty tall guy.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

I am, I'm I'm I'm six foot nine the last last time I checked.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Six nine. So I assume back then when you were seventeen, you probably weren't six nine squeezing into that car, were you?

SPEAKER_00 7:31

No, I I think I was I think I was I was nearly there, six, six, seven, six eight. I was I was alwa always a big lad. Yeah. I think when I was twelve, I was six foot two. I was as tall as the headmaster at my school.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

I always enjoy standing by you on one lap. It's like it's really tall.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Well, if you're gonna if you're gonna if you're gonna be word perfect on this then, let's let's tell the listeners what really happens. You enjoy standing next to me on one lap when it's windy or the sun is in your eyes, because I will block it out and you get somewhere safe to stand.

The Unplanned European Thunder Run

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Of course. Yeah, right. Okay. I mean now we have now we have to tell them the truth. Any epic road trips in your life that just road trips that you look back on and you go, wow, that was just a trip, and I would do that one again in a heartbeat.

Dan’s Silverstone Memory And BMW Roots

SPEAKER_00 8:13

I think there's there's a bunch of what I call thunder runs which I've made over the years, which involve questionable, enthusiastic rates of driving around Europe, America, and other countries. But for me, the one that I would take again in a heartbeat would be one that I made around Europe with my good lady in 2015. And we took we took an F100, a 67, which had uh back then it was modern running gear, it had a 5-0 from uh an old police interceptor in it, AOD transmission. I did uh custom interior, uh USB power charging points, so we could have a laptop, we'd fold the glove box down and put your little notepad on there, had air conditioning, and the contractors that you see that work on your house, they usually have those toolboxes that are lockable for their power tools, so they're kept safe, you know, no one can uh can steal them. And I grabbed one of those and bolted and welded it into the bed of the truck so we had somewhere to put our bags and luggage securely. It had modern uh disc brakes all round, rack and pinion steering, and it just drove like a new vehicle, but it was all patina, it was it was it was great. And we left we left on a Friday night from the local pub after having some some dinner. We drove down to the south of England to the the Channel Tunnel or the Channel as we call it, and just kept driving through the night and it was a big bench seat in there, so it gets real comfortable. And we drove to Montreux. I think we got there about one o'clock in the afternoon the next day. I was absolutely whipped. But it kind of put us in the area we wanted to be in Switzerland, Austria, Italy, just as a good starting point. You know, we drove basically the length of of France to get there. And from there we went to Grindelwald, which is at the foot of the Iger, the mountain, if you remember the old Clint Eastwood film, the Iger Sanction. I think we spent about two or three days there, and then went off to Lake Como, from Lake Como to Lake Garda, then to Monaco, then to a vineyard, which was Chateau Neuf du Pape, and then up through France with a few stops, twists and turns in between, and then back to Belgium to one of one of my favourite places which is uh Bruges. And Bruges for for those of you listeners that haven't uh had the fortune to go yet, yeah, is a must a must-ee. It's a medieval town, and you feel like you're on the uh a movie set, and they're sort of ho horses, carriages, lots of stone buildings, cobbled streets, and the place is just filled with chocolatiers, bars, you know, champagne, they're gonna they have great Christmas markets there where you can drink mould wine, you know, the warm wine when it's snowing. And it's like being on a picture postcard, very, very special place. And fortunately for us it it was uh well, it's located about thirty minutes from Zebrugger, which is the um the ferry terminal, which goes back to either I think it's Harridge, which is near London, or uh Hull, which is in the north of England, which was nearer our home at the time. Yeah, it's it's all it's all a stone's throw. You know, you can jump on the autobahn if you want to do Germany. It's just a couple of hours out the way, it's all very close and and inter interwebbed, if you will. So that trip was particularly special because we decided to book one hotel, and that was the one in Montreux, so we knew where we were staying when we got there because we knew it would be a long leg. After that, we used a laptop and a map book and just said this is where we want to go next. And we would have those discussions over dinner and talk to people, locals, and say, Where would you go tomorrow? And I think those those road trips, Dan, are the best there are because they're they're planned. It's kind of like going on a night out, you know. The ones the the best nights out are the ones that are not planned, you know. And I think that that's very vindicative of a road trip as well in certain cases. And we just had the best time. I mean, there's there's we sat on the the bank of Lake Como with the tailgate down, and I took a little gas burner with us, and we got some fresh bread from the bakery and you know, had some soup and some uh some cheese and just it's a very European lifestyle where it's it's very simplistic when you do that kind of stuff. And I just feel that that takes a lot of stress away from what you do day to day. It kind of makes a road trip or a vacation, if you will. I'm very thankful for that one. I would go back and do that again in a heartbeat without doubt.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Well, that sounds fun. I would agree. You know, Linda and I, my wife, we've been on many road trips, and in the midst of it, we'll be like, ah, let's change this up. We're gonna go here instead. And so we did that. And uh I don't think I ever shared with you 1979, I'd graduated from high school. I'd worked every year in the family grocery store, and I was like, I'm taking this summer off. My brother was serving our country by and was stationed in Nuremberg. I spent two months with him uh there and we traveled around quite a bit there, but one trip in particular came to your part of the world, and uh we drove over to the English Channel, of course. Then we had to come by by ship, I guess, uh across the channel. Saw the cliffs of Dover like very early in the morning. That was really cool. And then uh we went to the British Grand Prix and camped out. We actually camped out at Silverstone, real real close. You've never told me that. An amazing thing. It just came to me as we were sitting here and you were telling talking about that road trip, and that was just so much fun. We drove through the night and then came across the channel. I don't know what time it was, but um, yeah, that was that was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Well, do me a favor then. Tell me uh add add some insort of story for me here, because I'm trying to think. What car would you have been in? What would you what were you or your brother driving in 79?

From Construction To Car Importing

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Well, that's that's a great question. And so my brother had the story goes, I thought my and I'll share this with you because it's it's just a fun story, and and he's nine years older, kind of like your brothers. We didn't have a a relationship really. He left home when he was 18, went to college, and then served our country. And of course I was nine years old, and I remember uh looking up to him. I had told him when he left, and and my bedroom walls were lined with cars and motorcycles and and a few pictures of Fair Fawcett or whoever whoever the actress was at that time. Probably uh my mother didn't care for it, but anyway, she didn't care for any of the posters, to be honest with you. There was not one bare spot on the wall. But anyway, I told him when he left, I said, You should buy a BMW when you get over there, since he was going to Germany. And he's like, I don't want a motorcycle. And of course, we grew up around Chevy's and Plymouths and Dodges and all that here. And our uncle was the Chevy dealer, and so that's what we knew. And he goes, I don't want a motorcycle, and I'm like, But they have cars. And so he took off to Dayton, Ohio, and test drove a BMW and decided at that moment that's what he wanted. So when he got over there, he bought a couple of 2002s, one was a turbo, one of them caught fire, you know, that type of thing. And so he had decided he was gonna buy one and bring it home. So he bought a little um a 1979, I believe, 78 or 79, 320i, and uh put some Ricero seats in it. And so that's what we drove around while it was over there, and we just had a blast. You know, I I was not accustomed to going 110, 115 on the Autobahn and being past and people driving past you, and I'm like, okay, how fast are we going? And so yeah, that was that was uh that's a great memory of mine. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

You kept that one back from me, Dan. Yeah, very level.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Well, there we go, you know. You told a little bit about how you got in the car business, but what really drove you to do that? You were in construction, but what took you really to do that? Other than a love of cars, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Yeah, I uh and I think that goes back to the to the earliest memory of of finding that cars were special to me. The whole family had moved to Singapore. My dad was a a draftsman, an architect, and uh the first skyscraper that went up on the island, him and uh my my uncle were were working on. And when we came back from there, my brother, I think he was sixteen at the time when we were there, he'd he'd watched Smoky in the Bandit, and this was around 1984. So the film was fairly fresh then, you know.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

Yeah, right.

Dad, Music, And A Vegas Wish

Brothers, Restomods, And Craftsmanship

Bucket List: Nazca Lines Overland

SPEAKER_00 16:30

And he said to my dad, he goes, I'm gonna have one of those cars. And my dad was like, Whatever. If you think you're gonna you know, good good for you. Didn't really pay much attention, and then when we moved back to England, uh Paul was 18 and he went to the bank and got a bank loan and went and bought a Y82 SE. I remember there being two for sale, one was a manual and one was an auto. And I remember him saying to me, which one should I get? And I said, get the auto because you can at least you can eat an ice cream while you're driving. You know, and I'm I'm a six-year-old, you know, so seven, whatever it was. And uh he did, he bought it. And it had less than 10,000 miles on it. And if I told you this thing was like a hundred point car, I wouldn't be lying. It I was at primary school, so it's like prep school here, you know, in the US. So I was basically the the coolest kid at school because everyone else, you know, all their parents were dropping them off in voxel cavaliers and minis, um escorts, just very mundane, dare I say, boring vehicles that that was all there was around at that time. You know, there wasn't kids being dropped off in Panteras or 9.30 turbos, you know, it was it was a different time, it was a different place, really. And you know, to have the teetops open and and be dropped off at school uh in this this six point six litre beast that didn't really fit on the roads was just amazing. There used to be a an event in in London on the last Saturday of every month in Chelsea, and the where the the River Thames runs through Chelsea, there's Chelsea Bridge, and it used to be called the Chelsea Cruise. And at around seven o'clock at night, everyone that had a hot rod, the American car or a lotus coulta, or a lotus courtainer that had a Rover V8 or a 460 big block that was shoehorned into it. Basically anything that was different, everyone went there. And my brothers used to take me down there, and you know, we used to get back at 11 or 12 at night, it was great. And my dad my mum and dad were were great, as long as my brothers were looking after me, you know. And just being around all those cars, the people, and I think a lot of the adults at the time that were down there were kind of like, You got your kid brother with you? And he's like, Yeah, he just loves the cars. And that stuck with me, really resonated with me. And then over the years, the uh my my brothers they started doing the hot hatch stuff and then you know, sort of XR3Is, RS turbos, and then uh Sierra Cosworths, and I really got stuck on those. It was more of a hobby. With us working together, we was in the cons I was in the construction business with them for sixteen years. And over that period in time, being six foot nine, your back, you know, I wasn't supervisor or anything at that point, it was you know, I was on the tools, I was laying brick, I was digging foundations, concrete in, brickwork, joinery, plastering. Now these are all things that take their toll on your body. And when you're six nine and you've got a uh a long back, as it were, it um it gives you back problems and you get various injuries over the years. My dad, who was who was m and will always be my hero, it was his business, you know, it's a family run business. We had a few guys at work for us. He did he passed away in uh 2003 and I c I carried on with my brothers up until around oh six, oh seven, and I think I came away from there then. I just said to him, Look, I don't want to do this anymore. And when you're the youngest of siblings as well, it's it's always difficult working with family. Um, you know, we g we get on way better now. I you know, I I I said to I said to Christy, my wife, I don't know what to do. And she says, Well you've always been into cars, and you know, I always did a few cars on the side and had an interest in them and I was racing and whatnot. And when I came out of business I had uh some poppy, as we say, some money, and I decided after spending time at a drag strip, I'd seen people there that were I got a lot of good friends from racing, but there's some I don't know, and there's some questionable figures at drag strips, I think that's all around the world, and I saw them pr I saw them importing cars and I thought, well if they can do it, I can certainly do it, and they were making money. So I went to I went to the States and uh um I didn't realise there was rules on how much money, how much cash you can take in and out, and I didn't know that until my second or third trip. But I I came in with a a lot of cash. I flew into Houston and all I did was find a hotel, didn't know the area. I was in South Houston, apparently in the wrong area. It scared the hell out of me because there was an RV in the parking lot and I heard this noise outside at one in the morning and I saw the microwave and then the oven and a TV come out the window being passed to different people and my my my higher car had the hoods lifted in the morning where the someone had tried to take the battery and I'm like, what am I doing here? Yeah, you know, this is just not right. All the cars that I'd lined up to buy that I'd found on the net, yep, we'll hold them for you. We know you're flying over. Every single one of them had sold when I got to the States. So now I'm run I'm running round in a hire car, don't know where I'm going. I got I got a load of cash on me, and I'm like, I'm just spending money that I've accumulated over years. And then I found a guy up in uh Temple in uh Texas. I just drove past his place and I saw all these trucks and muscle cars. I just turned around, went back, introduced myself, and I bought three cars from him there and then. They were good vehicles, test drove them, did some business with him. I bought hundreds from him over the years after that. On that trip I came up to Dallas, I went to Arlington and then to um to Dallas and bought four more and I filled two containers with eight vehicles. That's what got me in the business. I shipped them back and made a bunch and said, Yep, this is better than uh the back breaking work that I've been doing. That's uh that's where it went. That's what started it.

Where To Find Big Car Chris

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Oh wow, that's a great story. I appreciate that and your comments. There about your your brothers and your dad brought back memories. My dad was uh owner-operator of a big truck, so I think that's where I got my love affair of of the road and driving. And when I was nine, I went with him on the road that summer uh in the big truck, mostly around the the eastern part of the U.S. He would later in life go west, but back then it was Florida to Cleveland and and hauling produce one way and fish the other way. That was fun. So he had a lot of cool cars over the years and liked to go kind of fast. I remember when I sold the big truck, he got Alzheimer's and and mom was like, we need to get rid of this truck. That's another one I wish we'd have kept, but it was a 67 Kenworth cab over. He worked on every weekend. He worked on the truck, kept it going, and you know, he was an independent guy, so we uh ended up s selling it and kind of looked back and was like, uh I wish I had the truck back. But it's like where are you gonna put a big truck? You know, I was like, okay. Car's one thing, trucks another. I remember I remember when I sold the truck, so it had a uh it had a Cummins engine in it, and I I don't remember exact horsepower at this point, but it had two transmissions, it was a five by four. At some point you shifted both shifters, and it was always fun to watch him do that.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Balancing engine riffs.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Yeah, and of course, no power steering and the clutch. I mean, it took a man to to push that clutch in. I remember somebody I posted on eBay and and ended up selling it to a collector, so that was a good thing. But I remember one guy asking me, he goes, according to my calculations, this truck will run well in excess of a hundred miles an hour. And my dad was pretty ill at that point, but he still had some about him. And I said, Hey dad, some guy says this truck will probably run well in excess of a hundred miles an hour. What do you what do you think about that? And he goes, Oh, it might. Okay. Yeah, okay. I'm taking that as a yes. Anyway, uh one question I like to ask Chris, and this has just been this is fun. Uh I'm learning things about you, and hopefully you're learning about me. But if you could take a road trip today, you're gonna head out. You can take it with someone who unfortunately is not still here, but you know, we could take it with them, or if it's somebody alive, uh, who would you go with and where would you go?

Closing Thanks And Listener Invite

SPEAKER_00 24:11

That's an easy one for me. It would be my dad. My dad was, as I said to you, was my hero. And he was kind of, I think from the American standards, he may have been a little bit unorthodox from uh from raising me and my brothers, or my brothers and I rather, um, because he he was just the best. My dad used to ha he used to own racehorses and he used to take me out of high school and take me to the track, and he used to teach me about how the real world worked, as he would say back then with money, showed you how people would treat each other, commit commissions, you know. Gave me a life experience before I even left high school. And he'd he did that with the business, and sometimes I would road trip with him three, four hours to wherever the guys were working. At that point, it was a a roofing company that we had, or he had rather and um a lot of memories of music that he would play. He was really into Queen, Freddie Mercury, Rolling Stones, you know, that kind of stuff, that era, and I yeah, uh that that that also passed over to me as to why I play that in my vehicles now. But I think if we was gonna leave you know, if he was here now and I could put him in my Porsche, uh my GT2, I would go straight to Las Vegas because he gave my brothers and and my mum everything. He was so he always said, I'll do this when uh when I retire and do that when I retire. He was selfless in everything he did for us, and he said, When I retire, I'm gonna go to Vegas, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna go here, I'm gonna do that. My old man passed away six weeks before he retired and he was sixty. That was a uh a big a big issue uh for me in in my head because he never got to So I think I think from that point of view I would I would have liked to have sat him down at the tables in Vegas, because he did like to play cards, go from uh from there, uh put a stack of money in front of him, and then uh just said, you know, have fun, enjoy yourself, you know. Because he never got to do that, because he was always spending on us at that time. I think from that point of view, I would have liked to have done something for him and said, you know, this one's for you, because he just gave us everything. You know, it was it was it was very much like that. It was a great, great guy.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

I think our dads would have gotten along just fine. So um, because that it just brought to my mind uh I did get to do that in 2003. I intentionally bought a BMW 320, much like my brother's, it was in 1983 in San Jose, California, with one one goal. There was only one goal, and by the way, I paid$2,500 for it. And I called my dad and I said, Wanna go to California? And he's like, Sure, flew out there. And my dad talked about that trip. Even when he had Alzheimer's, he would remember that trip. Uh-huh. And we just had a blast. We get there, we look at it, and my dad goes, Well, it could use some tires. And we looked everywhere for tires. We could not find that size. So he goes, We'll be fine. And so we we headed out and came across the country. Across uh, by the way, across US 50. So we took the back roads.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

I think the I think I think the only thing that my my dad would have uh probably struggled with was my my rate of pace. He did used to drive fast, I think that's where we all got it from. Yeah. But at the at the point uh at the point that he he left, uh, I believe that there was uh the cars were not as uh rambunctious if you will. I remember him buying uh an Audi 94 in 91, which was had speed lines on it and all the bells and whistles, it was fabulous. And uh I remember him spending uh setting various land speed records with that vehicle over a period of time. Yeah. I think it was just the fastest thing in the world, you know. But yeah, he was he was great, a big influence on on myself and my brothers, and uh got a lot to thank him for for sure. I would certainly wouldn't be where I am now without him.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

One of your brothers lives in Texas, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:02

No? Both live in both live in Texas. Oh good, okay with their families and also my mother. Oh yeah, they live just south of uh Fort Worth. So and not the one brother. Well here's here's the fun here's the funny thing for you because these guys, I mean my brothers are the best, they really are. And they decided to come out of the construction company, and now they build they build uh Mustangs, fastbags, Eleanor recreations, full resto mods. Oh wow. But sort of sort of the the build quality that you'd find at Aston Martin. They're they're perfectionists. So they um they do they do very well at that and they enjoy doing it. And I think that's another thing with you know the construction industry, it takes its toll on you. Now they treat it like a hobby, but as much as they say that we work at our own pace or whatever, they still work 10, 12 hour days because they enjoy it, and that's that's something that I I really like seeing.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

Hey, one more question for you. Anything on your bucket list? Uh top of the bucket list, gotta do this before uh I leave this world. Uh you got anything there? You've been a lot of places.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

Yes, I do. And I set I don't know if anyone else has ever done this, any of your listeners or you or friends or family, but when I was 18, I wrote a list of ten things that I wanted to do before I left. And I've done them all now. And I'm super happy that I've done that. But the one that I kind of added as a caveat some time ago was to go to Peru. I don't know if you're aware of what the Nazca lines are. They're like these stones that are set out in uh like their their desert, if you will. And they're only visible from space and they've been there for thousands of years, and no one can figure out what they're doing there. So I wanna I wanna go to Peru, I wanna see that. But what had entered my mind was to do something completely different from the fast car track car scene. Or maybe do one of those overland vehicles and actually do a road trip. It may be maybe a little hairy getting down there in places, but that that doesn't bother me. I kind of like the aggravation. I used to do uh nightclub security and things like that, so it doesn't really faze me. But I think uh something like that would be very cool. And I think the older you get, I I think I used to think the older you get, the easier you used to take things. You know, you got a little bit of money behind you or you wanted to uh just chill a little. That's totally the right attitude to have, I found out. You've got to keep pushing yourself and do something. A wise lady, a good friend of mine, Gisela Thompson, she said to me, Do something once a week that scares you to make you feel alive. And this this lady in question uh is is super smart, and she said, if you do that, you will succeed in life and you will also enjoy it. I I'm actually passing that one to you, Dan, because you I know you and you'll take that on board, but I want to know what those things are that scare you.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

I really appreciate you and I appreciate your time and tell people how to find you, your business, your charity, or you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

If you want to follow me on Instagram, I'm under Big Car Chris. Hit my page, see some of the stuff I've done, like, follow, whatever. But I'm just uh uh a British guy living in Texas that loves racing and uh loves cars. Yeah, just uh follow me on Insta. I'll I'll be be grateful for the follow. Yeah. But Dan, I want to thank you. You you are and you guys listening to this need to understand Dan Neil is not just a guy who's hosting and and and has got this uh this podcast. Dan Neil is one of the nicest, genuine people you will ever meet in your life. Always polite. Anything he says he he's gonna do, he does, and I always look forward to his stories. And I always call you Mr. Carm in my head because nothing seems to fluster you, and I always try and apply that to myself now. So just so you know.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

I appreciate that a lot. I appreciate always seeing you, and I appreciate you. Have a good uh good weekend.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

Thank you for your time, sir. It's been an honor. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Bye now. Thank you for tuning in to Dan the Road Trip Guy. I hope you enjoyed our journey today and the stories that were shared. If you have any thoughts or questions or stories of your own, I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to reach out to me anytime. Don't forget to share this podcast with your friends and family and help us to spread the joy of road trips and great conversations. Until next time, keep driving, keep exploring, and keep having those amazing conversations. Safe travels. And remember, you can find me on the internet at dantherroadtripguy.com.