Guy’s Garage gets him on the road once again

Monday:Guy’s Garage; (Channel 4, 9pm)
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With all the recent talk of climate change and environment awareness, you would understand it if Channel 4 curbed the motoring adventures of their resident petrolhead Guy Martin.

Perhaps they think this year’s feature-length doc Guy Martin: The World’s Fastest Electric Car was enough of an environmental angle for now.

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Anyway, motorcycle racer and heavy vehicle mechanic Martin is back on the road tonight, taking part in an idiosyncratic racing tour of Europe.

Guy MartinGuy Martin
Guy Martin

Guy’s aim is to take some of our continental neighbours’ most iconic cars and turn them into unlikely racing machines – and from Citroen 2CV endurance events to Volvo rallying, Trabant road races to Piaggio Ape rallycross, Guy is hoping to beat them all at their own games.

In his garage near Grimsby, aided and abetted by his old mate and fellow mechanic, Cammy (or Cameron Whitworth III, to give him his full title), Guy is going to create four very different Frankenstein racers.

Then, having learned to drive them very, very fast, he’s going to pop them on his trailer and head off across the Channel for the grand finale in each show, where Guy will be aiming to beat the Germans at ihrem eigenen Spiel, show the Italians come farlo, make the Swedes ät damm and teach the French how to sucer des oeufs.

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He begins tonight by revamping a Volvo, which he intends to take to Sweden to compete in the national motorsport, Folk Racing – a kind of super-competitive rallycross.

Guy loves Volvos and already owns two. With Cammy’s help, he strips down a 240 Volvo estate, often dubbed the safest car in the world.

It should be a pretty straightforward project for the boys – but the next few months are dogged with issues, errors, explosions and disasters.

After working their way through two cars, three engines, a brace of gearboxes and countless late nights in the garage, the boys make it to Sweden with their Volvo, ready for some folk racing at the Vasteras Motorstadion.

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Guy is currently the Guinness World Record holder for fastest speed on a gravity-powered snow sled, highest speed on a wall of death, fastest soapbox and fastest tractor (modified).

He was also in the news in the summer when he was dismissive of his Asperger’s (he was diagnosed in 2018) before admitting it might have benefitted him while competing in motorsports.

He wrote in The Sunday Times: “What a load of tripe. They try to put names to it. ‘Oh, he’s like that because of this.’ Everyone’s different. We’re all different.”

Guy went on to reveal that it was his long-time girlfriend, Sharon Comiskey, who had encouraged him to seek help with a psychologist as a result of “turning her crackers”.

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“It’s probably what helps me with endurance racing on my mountain bike,” he added.

Guy retired from motorcycle racing in 2017, following an accomplished career, where he had a total of 17 podium finishes at various TT events.

Despite breaking his back twice between 2010 and 2015, he made a comeback and joined the Williams’ F1 pit crew for the Belgian GP in 2017.

Over the past 10 years or so he has been making documentaries for Channel 4, and although he made his name as a daredevil racer-turned-TV presenter and adventurer, Guy is never happier than when he’s tinkering with crazy machines in his garage with Cammy.

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He says of this new series: “Working in the garage with a mate, doing a bit of learning, then racing the stuff we build, PROPER! THAT’S right up my street.

“We’re gonna need a lot of tea for the job…”

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