{"id":1891747,"date":"2026-04-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1891747"},"modified":"2026-04-20T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T21:00:00","slug":"romesh-ranganathan-on-cars-i-will-have-to-accept-our-robot-overlords","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1891747","title":{"rendered":"Romesh Ranganathan on cars: \u201cI will have to accept our robot overlords\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Romesh Ranganathan does not consider himself a petrolhead. \u201cNo, I don\u2019t think I\u2019m a petrolhead,\u201d he tells TopGear.com. \u201cDid I prioritise cars? No, not until a bit later on when I slowly started to get into them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went from seeing cars as something functional to something you could enjoy,\u201d he adds. And hoo boy has he got something he can enjoy. But more on that in a bit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Because how he got there is just as important. The multi award-winning comedian, presenter, radio host, writer, actor, Top Gear track star and all-round gent gets serious for a moment when we pose the Big Question: did he pass his driving test the first time around?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. I had a really harrowing experience.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

A beat.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that harrowing actually. I\u2019ve really bigged that up too much. What happened was, I took my driving lessons at 17 and then failed my test in such an embarrassing way. I basically failed leaving the car park at the beginning of the test. And then for the rest of it they were kind of doing it out of politeness.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cIt freaked me out so much I didn\u2019t go back and try again for about five or six years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mercifully, he passed the second time around, and with his new-found freedom spent \u00a33,500 of his hard-earned cash on a 1997 Honda Civic. Solid buy, that. Though he couldn\u2019t afford to mod it, and what he could<\/em> afford, he\u2019s now embarrassed to admit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my dreams I\u2019d have LED lights along the outside. I actually ended up buying a little blue torch that you could connect to the lighter, and it sort of gave the car an \u2018aura\u2019. It looked really good\u2026 until you saw the source of the light,\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n

And while nothing went wrong on the trusty Civic \u2013 why would it, it\u2019s a Nineties Honda \u2013 there was something more fundamentally wrong with it, as Romesh soon discovered. \u201cI\u2019m really into hip hop, and UK hip hop fans growing up in the era that I grew up in will know the pain of playing music that is designed for a much better car with a much better system and to be driving around a different city.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cYou know, playing Dre and Snoop in a Honda Civic in Crawley,\u201d he laughs, \u201c\u2026 it\u2019s not the one. But I spent a lot of my youth doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

TopGear.com confirms this observation, relating our own experiences of blasting early Wu-Tang Clan from a 1.1-litre Peugeot 106. Romesh laughs. \u201cImagine pulling up to a petrol station and Bring da Ruckus<\/em> is playing as you gas it up!\u201d<\/p>\n

From there, he went through a load of second-hand cars because he was \u201cbroke for a long time\u201d, then moved into a Ford Focus which he loved but absolutely destroyed driving halfway around the country doing gigs, then a \u201creally, really old Volvo\u201d, and then \u2014 shudder \u2014 a Vauxhall Meriva. No laughing matter.<\/p>\n

\n

Playing Dre and Snoop in a Honda Civic in Crawley… it\u2019s not the one<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cI\u2019d fallen into the trap,\u201d he admits. \u201cI\u2019d made the assumption that once you\u2019re a dad and you\u2019ve got a family, enjoying driving doesn\u2019t happen anymore.\u201d Hence the Meriva. \u201cIt did a job. But I didn\u2019t particularly like the look of it and I didn\u2019t particularly like the drive,\u201d he says. TopGear.com strongly suspects Romesh is not alone in this opinion.<\/p>\n

So he got his first Volvo XC90\u2026 and then \u201cknackered it out\u201d by deploying it for full on family duty, where it performed admirably, flirted with a Land Rover Discovery but didn\u2019t ultimately \u2018click\u2019 with it \u2013 \u201cit just felt slightly different\u201d \u2013 then went back to another XC90 which he and the family absolutely adore. “That’s the Ranganathan car. I drive it and Leesa drives it. It’s like a member of the family.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Alongside the big Volvo, he also got something for himself. \u201cI also bought a Mini John Cooper Works because somebody said to me \u2013 and this is embarrassing to say to a Top Gear journalist \u2013 it\u2019s the closest thing to being in Mario Kart.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

Then he really came into his stride. \u201cActually this is as a result of coming on Top Gear. I was doing A League Of Their Own<\/em> with Freddie [Flintoff] at the time, and he said to me, \u2018I know you think you\u2019ll look like a flash b******, but it is really nice to get a nice car\u2019.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Romesh<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cSo I ended up trying out a few \u2013 a McLaren, a Porsche 911, a Bentley \u2013 and ended up getting an Aston Martin Vantage. It\u2019s obviously really exciting to drive, but it also doesn\u2019t look too much like a penis extension,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Not one for hiding it under a cover and keeping it away from the weather and other road users or even frail human breath, is Romesh. \u201cI use it all the time,\u201d he says, much to TopGear.com\u2019s relief.<\/p>\n

Nor is he one for driving it in anger, either. \u201cI\u2019m pretty chilled [behind the wheel],\u201d he says. \u201cI basically can\u2019t think of the last time I lost my temper about anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

A beat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do get slightly annoyed with Leesa [his wife] when she’s driving because sometimes she\u2019ll flip the bird at somebody, or she’ll make a ****** sign at somebody. And then I’ll say, \u2018what you don’t understand is if that person gets out of the car and comes over, I’m going to have to get out of the car and sort of step up on your behalf.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I don’t want to, to be clear. I have no desire to protect your honour\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Other times you go \u2018what, do I have to breathe on this screen three times to active it?\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What about if a computer<\/em> was driving? Autonomous cars are coming, after all. \u201cI was filming in Nashville a few months ago and we got into a self-driving taxi and it was great, it worked fine. But it makes you a bit nervous. And the problem is I’ve watched films on AI, like I Robot<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“I use AI to ask questions, and it’s kind of like having this real suck-up on your phone. It will do whatever you want and you don’t have to be polite. And in my head, I just think at some point it’s going to get p***** off with that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think about the times when I\u2019ve been driving back from gigs at 2am and you’re knackered. Driver fatigue is underestimated. And so there are obvious advantages, but I do think there will be an eventual thing where we’re in our cars and you and I will have to accept our robot overlords and just allow them to take us wherever they’ve decided to.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike the next mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

How about too much tech inside the car? \u201cThe people I feel sorry for are those who\u2019ve driven a car for a long time and then they go, \u2018let\u2019s move into a new car\u2019, and then it looks like Knight Rider<\/em> or some s***, and they don\u2019t know how to access any of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes you can get into a car and the stuff feels fairly intuitive, other times you go \u2018what, do I have to breathe on this screen three times to active it?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

There are a couple of cars Romesh has his eye on that don\u2019t require a degree in engineering or knowledge of witchcraft to operate, mind. \u201cGrowing up I remember being really invested in cars that my dad had, and he had an electric blue Ford Capri \u2013 like in Minder<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember feeling really cool with my dad driving around in that car. My dad\u2019s no longer with us sadly, but I do want to get that car again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

I\u2019m going to overpay for a massive obstacle on my driveway<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And the second? \u201cYou\u2019re going to judge me for this,\u201d he laughs. \u201cI really want a DeLorean.\u201d<\/p>\n

A beat. TopGear.com does not respond.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know. Look, I can tell by your reaction. You tried to do a poker face. You tried to hide the fact that it\u2019s one of the worst things that somebody has ever said to you in one of these interviews.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s Back to the Future<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

We share a laugh. \u201cI\u2019ve read it\u2019s a s*** heap. I\u2019m going to overpay for a massive obstacle on my driveway. But it\u2019s the fantasy. Every now and then I scour the internet for a reliable one, and when that happens, I\u2019ll get one.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw the doubt in your face. When I get one that really works, I\u2019m going to take you out in it, and we\u2019ll do a follow-up interview. And I want you to say \u2018I eat my words, Romesh had a dream, I doubted it, but it\u2019s all come together\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Romesh Ranganathan does not consider himself a petrolhead. \u201cNo, I don\u2019t think I\u2019m a petrolhead,\u201d he tells TopGear.com. \u201cDid I prioritise cars? No, not until a bit later on when I slowly started to get into them. \u201cI went from seeing cars as something functional to something you could enjoy,\u201d he adds. And hoo boy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,237],"class_list":["post-1891747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-topgear-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1891747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1891747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1891747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1891747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1891747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1891747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}