Top Gear 1983 Eastern Bloc Shite

[michael t]

Thought id post this link up here, top quality Woollard action with shots from inside the FSO plant in Warsaw, proper Autoshite television. Enjoy

 

[Wilko220]

Fascinating stuff.

You only have to watch the first couple of minutes of this to see that Woollard is a real journalist - and a real contrast to the morons the BBC employs to present shows like this these days.

[fiatdaft]

Journalist?

[RedSparrow]

That was proper interesting, thanks!

[ashmicro]

Good stuff, cheers for the linky. There's a few other ones of that era listed down the side too.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

This is absolutely GREAT! Love the VM turbo diesel-engined FSO!!!!! CLASS

[Wilko220]

This is absolutely GREAT! Love the VM turbo diesel-engined FSO!!!!! CLASS

 

Did any make it to the UK, I wonder...

[warren t claim]

I love the way Sue Baker only drove the cars up and down Pebble Mill Boulevard yet was still able to pass an informed journalistic comment.

[Wilko220]

As opposed to thrashing it around a track - which no real person actually ever gets to do...

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Her findings didn't sound like utter bo11ox at least, they sounded credible to me

[forddeliveryboy]

Plenty of EE stuff used to find its way to the People's Republic of South Yorkshire. Petrol rationing would immediately do away with the yoof keeping everyone awake with their circuits of town centres in Saxos and Corsas with 3 inch tailpipes and 225 tyres.

[jonny69]

Hey, at least she wasn't calling them crap because they only* had 180bhp.

[dollywobbler]

I love the way Sue Baker only drove the cars up and down Pebble Mill Boulevard yet was still able to pass an informed journalistic comment.

 

Funnily enough, I'm willing to bet that she wasn't just making it up as she drove along. I'd imagine she drove the cars a bit before the cameras started rolling. The Beeb aren't going to waste money driving somewhere nice for the image-making bit!

[shedvan]

Man I really want to watch this video, but I hesitate in case as a result YouTube pollute my stream with endless new Top Gear or Jeremy Clarkson videos. Which is a shame because I really enjoy earlier Top Gear, whereas the new stuff is just endless mysoginistic/vaguely racist/furtively homophobic toss shot under an obligatory colour filter as if there is a Bugatti dealership on Mars, now if you'll excuse me I realise my place may belong amongst the rounded corners and wide open padded-spaces of the grump old-man thread...

 

[RedSparrow]

Can you watch it whilst on the 'private browsing' function on your browser?

[shedvan]

Can you watch it whilst on the 'private browsing' function on your browser?

 

Ha!! Apparently yes!

 

Thanks man what a result

[gricer]

I love the way Sue Baker only drove the cars up and down Pebble Mill Boulevard yet was still able to pass an informed journalistic comment.

 

She'd have had plenty of time with the cars beforehand. She'd have driven each one for a week before the shoot - PR departments would have made sure of that. In those days, getting on TG was a big deal for car makers and importers, especially smaller companies.

 

Actually that's a tough day's filming. Four crap cars on a shit day in Birmingham, to camera, with cameraman and sound engineer in the back - then another load of filming of each car with the cameraman following in another car. They've clearly had to scrounge the cars - the FSO is on trade plates.

 

Sue Baker is a proper pro - and she's still going strong.

 

Liked the use of Blue Monday too - which had just come out and was actually quite obscure at the time. Someone in the production dept was a bit of a hip dude.

 

I've been to the FSO plant - about 12 years after this programme was made. It was exactly the same. Really filthy - half an inch of grease on the floors, though basically it was quite a modern line, installed by Fiat in the 70s.

 

Got to drive a K-series engined Polonez too.

 

Went back around 2000 when Daewoo had bought it. Not much change other than some deep cleaning and a lick of paint. Finally stopped production in 2011, though the plant is still there. Tata was having a sniff last year but nothing has come of it.

[Simon M]

I love the way Sue Baker only drove the cars up and down Pebble Mill Boulevard yet was still able to pass an informed journalistic comment.

 

It was great, she went past a lot of the houses you used to be able to see in the background on Pebble Mill At One!

 

I really enjoyed watching this - a decent bit of journalism about a rather overlooked subject. And I loved the way they got the man with the hammer in sync with the hi-hat on Blue Monday!

[Vin]

Enjoyed this Thought the same about the use of Blue Monday...when it came up I thought this didn't 'top 10' for another couple of years...

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I found that properly interesting, amazing to see how a car company operated behind the iron curtain back in the day. Must have been pretty tricky to get set up to make it in the first place, interviewing the big cheeses of FSO. To be honest though I was disappointed they didn't crash the FSO into the Yugo and drop a skip full of cabbage soup on the wreckage whilst making jokes about queueing for a loaf of bread. Now that would have been PISS FUNNY.

[dollywobbler]

My abiding memory of William Woolard is of a man who bored me even as a child. While the Polski footage was quite interesting in a visual sense, his speaking isn't exactly enticing stuff. Facts do not have to be so dull. Much preferred the Barker road footage. She managed to put on a professional face despite driving crap cars in crap weather in a crap city (ie the one I grew up in). I bet her hubby got an instant sex ban when he asked what sort of a day she'd had at work that day.

[Vin]

Due to watching the Poland episode, I'm sure I'm not the only 'Shiter' to have been watching the other episodes of this 1983 series...

 

Anyway, for those that haven't, here is episode 2 from the 1983 Frankfurt motor show.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooI-EQIDouA

 

This is the blurb the 'youtube' poster wrote....

 

"Tx 13 September 1983. From the Frankfurt Motor Show. Sue Baker road-tests the Volkswagen Golf Mk 2, Mercedes Benz 190 and Neoplan Skyliner coach. Frank Page visits the Honda stand and looks at the Saab 900 Convertable. William Woollard interviews Harold Musgrove about Austin Rover Maestro sales."

 

Frank Page is a bit wooden mind - he's a bit better in the 1st episode test driving the new Corolla in Norway, though.

[boobydoo]

Thanks for posting that...very interesting and pretty good of the BBC to even bother to attempt such a subject. At least the content was informative and not ridiculously biased against the products being made.

 

Unlike Clarksons pathetic review of the Polonez in 1997 where he just made unfunny, egotistical jokes about how crap they were . Twat.

[Gaz_Volga]

If this was October 1983, Blue Monday was already Top 10 by that point, and had been hovering in and out of the Top 20 for about 6 months at that point as well as being huge across Europe.

 

Now, if they'd used the Bernard Sumner 12" mix Section 25's 'Looking from a Hilltop', that would've been proper hip!

 

Nice cars too, had a Zastava once. Exhaust fell off but it made a noise like a V8 afterwards.

[ProgRocker]

Thanks for sharing.

 

I'd love to have that Skoda Rapid. Registered in Norfolk too.

 

The Polonez doesn't look like an inviting car to drive...

[Split_Pin]

I found that very interesting and informative and actually learned something about how hard it was to buy a car in Poland at the time.

 

Alas, FSO never did get that new model it so eagerly sought.

 

If Top Gear was still like that, I'd definitely still be watching it.

[Craig the Princess]

That was excellent. First shown on the day I was born too! A proper car show the like of which is missing these days, I like modern top gear (when not wrecking things) but there must be a place for both.

 

Once the house sale is complete a trip back to Serbia to buy a €300 Yugo pick-up must be on the cards.

[Shep Shepherd]

The inclusion of "Blue Monday" makes it for me

[scruff]

Brilliant. Love the trade plates!