Christian Williams spends his life at the wheel of a supercar as he dashes across the UK and Europe surprising people with the car of their dreams for BOTB.com. In the latest high-octane column, Christian remembers a close celebrity encounter!
Christian says: So, Top Gear is back and so is my voice! After a week of croaking and spluttering — never good when your life revolves around speaking, presenting and voiceovers — my voice is beginning to show signs of a return.
It’s the first time it’s ever happened in my professional career, too, so to say it was a little unnerving is putting it mildly.
Of course, one man’s pain is another’s pleasure, so I’m sure my inability to communicate was a welcome relief to some of the people I work with at BOTB!
Speaking of returns, it was great to watch the first in a new series of Top Gear, although like most people these days I’ve gone from sitting down to watch it live on a Sunday night to grabbing it on catch-up whenever I have a spare hour.
It’s amazing how, as a teenager, my life would invariably revolve around the latest episode of Top Gear as well as the monthly offerings from Octane or Autocar landing on the mat.
I’d then be lost in a world where money was no object and I could drive any car I wanted, drooling over the latest Ferrari, Lamborghini or — closer to home — a Vauxhall Nova SR.
WATCH: The Vauxhall Nova 1.3 SR was at the centre of era defining cars for young British car enthusiasts during the mid to late 80s and early 90s.
Given my larynx was giving up the ghost, last weekend’s enforced rest enabled me to relive a bit of that old life….watching endless amounts of TV and flicking through motoring magazines to see what cars I’ve been missing out on.
In fact, seeing as I no longer do my Sunday radio show, this is the first time in as long as I can remember that I’ve got nowhere to be at the weekend. And if I’m honest it was pure and utter bliss.
Now, those of you used to having weekends off won’t understand the enjoyment of just sitting in your pants in front of the TV. Maybe some of you do that anyway.
But for me it’s something of a new sensation — having an empty diary, or one at least where the activities are purely entertainment driven and at my control.
Top of my watch list was bingeing Below Deck, the Netflix series about life on a luxury yacht (one day, eh?) and then it was great to see Top Gear in full flow, even though I profoundly disagreed with one thing that Chris Harris said during the show.
He’d just driven the incredible electric Rimac Nevera, the £2m electric car, and said petrol manufacturers had to “give up” on trying to compete on performance and instead focus on noise and experience.
Well, if I’m honest, I’d rather they all put their research and development into making brilliant, affordable electrics.
Surely we already have enough cars with petrol engines to keep us smiling?
We need electric cars to have better range, at a better price, or cars more more autonomous capabilities.
After all, I’m not alone in thinking that in ten years’ time we’ll be seeing cars gliding down the motorway with no-one in the front seat!
I also caught up with one of my favourite shows, Brassic. Now I’m a massive fan of Brassic and Michelle Keegan in particular.
In fact, years ago I thought I was going on a date with her only for Michelle to turn up with her cousin in tow…that definitely put me in my place!
This was obviously her pre-Mark Wright days but Michelle and I once did a radio pilot together which was essentially an hour’s worth of mucking about in the studio.
Somehow I plucked up the courage to ask for her number and we spent the next few weeks just texting and having a laugh.
I ended up needing to be in Manchester for a job and so made a massive effort to meet up — getting on my gladrags and getting to this bar half-an-hour early just to prepare myself.
It was hilarious really because all the staff thought I’d been stood up and were taking pity on me, then in walks Michelle and everyone’s eyes are on stalks.
Little did I know that the girl behind her was Michelle’s cousin and she was no doubt there as chaperone.
Even though we had a brilliant night it wasn’t quite the evening I’d dreamt about. So near and yet so far!
- Don’t forget to stay in touch with all the latest car news on my Instagram feed, @christianw
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