Aston Valhalla, £14k fun and spooky cars

Driving a 1,079hp 'go-kart' around Silverstone's Stowe circuit and much more in today's episode of The Gassing Station

By Cam Tait / Tuesday, 2 September 2025 / Loading comments

Hard to believe that our long overdue podcasting debut was a month ago. Launching the PistonHeads app and The Gassing Station in the days leading up to Annual Service, our biggest show of the year, does mean that August is somewhat of a blur for those of us in PH towers, but on the plus side our app’s been downloaded tens of thousands of times and our podcast was (briefly) a chart topper in the motoring charts, which does make up for all the late nights.

On the podcast front, we’re now five episodes in and counting. With the last two episodes coming from our stage talks at Annual Service, we’re returning back to our usual format this week with John and I sinking our teeth into three different topics. First off, John describes in immense detail what it’s like to drive the 1,079hp Aston Martin Valhalla prototype around a tight and twisty Stowe circuit at Silverstone and what it’s like to have Le Mans ace Darren Turner as his driver coach of the day.

Then, we move on to help a PHer in need by offering up some buying advice. This week, we chose ‘best car for under £14,000’ thread, as he’s looking to chop in his Abarth 124 Spider for something different. The criteria, aside from the £14k budget, is that it needs to a good chassis underneath it, must be able to hit 62mph from a standstill in under seven seconds and, ideally, achieve 40mpg. Admittedly, that’s got MX-5 written all over it, but John instead went for the other obvious choice which is a Porsche Cayman. The example he chose has since sold, but this 2006 car with 58k miles fits the bill nicely at £12,990. I, on the other hand, went down the hot hatch route with a Renaultsport Megane. The 275 I found has also sold, but you do however get this 2010 example with 31k miles and over £2k left over. Of course, you can also chip in with your own picks by hitting the link here.

Finally, our ‘anything goes’ (not literally, as John likes to point out) part of the pod, where we find random subjects in the deepest depths of the forums. This time around, we put a car-themed spin on the ‘slightly strange stories of experiences’ thread, where John regales a spooky ABS sensor in an old Rangie and I vent about the countless times autonomous braking systems have slammed on the anchors for no apparent reason. All that and more in this week’s episode of The Gassing Station, which is now available to download on Amazon, Apple and Spotify podcasts.

Subscribe to The Gassing Station podcast on Amazon, Apple and Spotify