When I first found Scratch and Sniff I expected to discover a questionable 1980s motoring chatter, but in actual fact Jonny and Rich are a streamlined duo behind one of the most effortlessly entertaining car podcasts around.
They claim they don’t plan or rehearse their content, which I initially took as tongue-in-cheek modesty. Surely, I thought, no one could wander so fluidly between deep car knowledge, 1990s sitcom references, and anecdotes about damp British service stations without a script? But it soon becomes gloriously clear — they really don’t plan it. And that’s precisely what makes The Late Brake Show podcast so brilliant.
Jonny brings a gentle chaos to proceedings — the kind that can turn a chat about alloy wheels into a meditation on 1980s sci-fi movies — while Rich’s dry wit and perfectly measured delivery act as the counterbalance. Together they form a kind of automotive yin and yang: one a fizz of curiosity and tangents, the other a steady hum of observation and warmth.
Both are gifted storytellers with an uncanny ability to summon entire worlds from a few words — the smell of a Rover’s upholstery, the feeling of a Ford Sierra’s switchgear, or the type of person who still proudly drives a beige Volvo estate. Their ability to paint these portraits of cars and their owners is something rare: it’s not just motoring journalism, it’s nostalgia disguised as conversation.
Listening to Jonny and Rich feels like chatting with two old friends at a motorway café — if those friends happened to know every car ever made and could make you laugh so hard you miss your turn-off.
I’ll finish with the revelation that Johnny and Rich are developing an ambitious new series in which they challenge the former lead singer of Marillion to open a budget airline that only serves destinations accessible by B-road, under the working title Flying Fish. If that’s not to your taste, then there is, of course, OTOSOT.
