Live events
My experience of live events started with the Fast Car magazine's Ultimate Fast Car weekends in the 1990s. Since then I've compered, hosted and MCd numerous events in front live audiences.
2018 GREAT Festival of Innovation (above)
Q&A with Craig Callum (LEGO) and Guy Bourgoyne (Geely)
This one-hour Q&A with two automotive designers was conducted in front of a studio audience and was streamed live around the GREAT Festival venue and to British Consulates across the world. Watch the video.
2012 Coventry Car Day
Automotive Careers Workshop
I co-directed this celebration of the car in Coventry which included a car show with more than 100 vehicles (many with Coventry connections), an academic symposium on automotive design and engineering and the Bugatti Lecture by former Ford vice-president Sir Nick Scheele. I ran a workshop with representatives from Jaguar Land Rover, Ferrari North Europe and Coventry University giving advice on motor industry careers.
2006-10 Coventry Conversations
Q&As with automotive journalists and photographers
Whenever this series of Q&As with media people, in front of an audience of students and visitors, featured an automotive guests I acted as the host, asking questions and encouraging participation from the audience. Listen to podcasts of the sessions with Murray Walker and Gavin Green.
1995 Performance Car Show, Olympia
Live car build
Fast Car magazine ran a car build over the weekend of the show, starting with a standard Vauxhall Cavalier and making changes to the engine, suspension, interior and exterior. I did regular on-mic spots explaining the work to the crowd and interviewing the specialists who were doing the work.
In the Santa Pod commentary box with Dave Roberts at Ultimate Fast Car ‘95
1994/5 Ultimate Fast Car, Santa Pod
Event commentary
As one of the new recruits to Fast Car magazine in 1994 I was one of the first to be volunteered to supply commentary for the magazine's Ultimate Fast Car event, where hundreds of readers brought their own cars to compete on the famous quarter-mile strip at Santa Pod in Bedfordshire. Talking virtually non-stop for two whole days proved to be quite demanding...
Interview on BBC World News in 2016
Broadcast interviews
I've appeared numerous times on radio and occasionally on TV providing expert analysis of automotive news stories, dealing with topics including electric and autonomous cars, Jaguar Land Rover's expansion, Coventry Motofest and Mitsubishi's falsified fuel economy figures. For the Mitsubishi interview, with BBC World News, I had only an hour or so notice to prepare and get to the Birmingham BBC studios.
My first taste of radio was for the launch of It's on the Net magazine. I sat in a studio in London for an entire day and talked to local radio stations all over the country. For a couple of years I had a regular website review spot on BBC Radio Kent's Pat Marsh morning show.