Whether background chatter for a home or workplace, or to help while away the hours on a long journey, podcasts have become as much a soundtrack to our lives as music for many of us. The automotive space is well populated with podcasts, especially over the past five years, as global events meant they were one of the few outlets still available in this hobby.
Below we’ve separated out ten of our favourite automotive podcasts, from the irreverent to the in-depth, and from interviews to reviews. Few of us can spare the time to listen to them all, but putting one or two in your library will help make the next road trip pass just a little quicker.
The Evo Podcast
It took a while for Evo to get around to a podcast, but with more than 20 episodes in the bag it’s become a welcome addition to the automotive landscape. Typically hosted by the magazine’s editor, Stuart Gallagher, members of the Evo team talk about the cars they’ve driven recently, and mull over topics such as the greatest era of performance cars, hot hatchbacks, and motorsport, while recent special episodes include interviews with those involved with cars like the Jaguar F-Type and Lotus Elise.
Smith & Sniff
Frequently the UK’s most popular automotive podcast, The Late Brake Show’s Jonny Smith and former Top Gear and The Grand Tour script editor Richard Porter bill their ‘Smith & Sniff’ show as being ‘about cars, and many other things’. That statement somewhat undersells it as the podcast veers from topic to topic like a car navigating cones on an autocross course, but the result is so entertaining you’ll probably forget that there hasn’t been a single mention of a car in the past half an hour. A separate weekly “OTOSOT” podcast (“on the other side of things”, a callback to one of the show’s dozens of unofficial catchphrases) responds to listeners’ questions.
My Week in Cars
Autocar, the world’s oldest car magazine (it was first published in 1895) has its own podcast, with hosts Matt Prior and Steve Cropley discussing the automotive world through the hook of each journalist’s weekly column in the magazine. The affable presenting team makes this an easy one to listen to, and content typically focuses on topics like cars each has recently driven (or indeed bought), and issues affecting the wider motoring world. You may wish to turn up the volume a little if you’re driving though, as both presenters can be softly-spoken.
The Carmudgeon Show
You might have come across Jason Cammisa in his video work for Hagerty. The Carmudgeon Show is the insurance and motoring brand’s podcast, hosted by Cammisa and his friend, Derek Tam-Scott. Frequently profane but always entertaining, they discuss classic, performance, and collector cars from various angles – both are incorrigible enthusiasts with diverse car collections and a huge knowledge bank based on driving everything under the sun. That knowledge bank is both mental and digital – each keeps a spreadsheet of every car they’ve driven, which is sometimes pulled out for an episode of entertaining short-form reviews.
Chris Harris & Friends
Chris Harris is joined by Manish Pandey, Chris Cooper, and Neil Clifford for this weekly podcast covering the world of motoring and motorsport. The matey atmosphere and Harris’s enthusiasm in particular makes it a good background show for a long drive (and is better than the video format on YouTube, which has the vibe of a Covid-era Zoom call), and as each is entrenched in the motoring world, you can be sure of some strong opinions on certain topics – everything from F1, to what the likes of Jaguar and Lotus are doing these days. There’s the occasional guest too, most recently multiple gold medal-winning Olympian, Sir Chris Hoy.
Behind The Glass
We mentioned Sam Fane’s excellent SeenThroughGlass YouTube channel in a recent blog, but Sam has an audio presence too with his Behind The Glass podcast. Sam is joined by Tony, a high-end car dealer, and occasional guests from the automotive sphere, with an emphasis on the collector market, supercars, the occasional classic, and ownership experiences of all of the above – all the topics you’d find on Sam’s main channel, discussed in greater depth.
Fuelling Around (Flux)
This long-running podcast from insurer Adrian Flux is the one to listen to if you want to discover the automotive experiences from motoring personalities and celebrities – to give you a flavour of recent guests on the show presented by former touring car driver Jason Plato, and Dave Vitty, Fuelling Around has interviewed the likes of madcap inventor Colin Furze, musician Justin Hawkins, IndyCar champion Dario Franchitti, and supercar dealer Tom Hartley. The informal chats and interesting personalities.
The Smoking Tire Podcast
Matt Farah’s ‘The Smoking Tire’ series is one of the original YouTube car shows having been around 15 years now, with Farah doing basic video car reviews, developing the ‘one take’ format where he drives a car on a twisty canyon road, and only growing from there. The podcast has been around for a while too – there have been more than 1,000 episodes now. In it, Farah sits down with fellow enthusiast Zack Klapman (and occasionally a guest star) to talk about all things cars. You’ll need plenty of time on hand however, with episodes frequently stretching to two hours.
Road to Success
Ben Fowler’s Road to Success podcast is all about the guests, with personalities from across the motoring world – including racing drivers, other YouTube creators, entrepreneurs and more – joining Fowler in his van studio to talk about their lives and motivations. Don’t be put off by the slightly clickbaity titles of each podcast – that’s just what sells these days – as the interviews are in-depth, and a window into what makes those in the automotive industry tick.
The Autosport F1 Podcast
If you remember going to the newsagent a few days after a weekend’s Grand Prix to read the Autosport report, then the magazine’s F1 Podcast is for you. While the magazine might now be monthly, the podcast remains weekly, with bonus episodes now and then – most recently, covering the shock departure of Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner. Different members of the Autocar team host the show each time and discuss major talking points from each race, and the world around F1 outside of race weekends – with the kind of insight that the magazine has offered for more than 75 years.
So whether you’re driving across Europe or checking in on your car in secure storage,we hope you enjoy our selection of some of the best automotive podcasts for 2025.
