For the love of cars

[richardmorris]

My fault, couldn't find this one earlier.

[KruJoe]

The last one is on in 10 mins, they're gonna flog the lot, so now we can see what they're worth*. Huzzah!

 

Philip Glenister and Ant Anstead have trawled the barns and lock-ups of Britain to find and painstakingly restore six classic vehicles. Now it's time for their pride-and-joy collection to be shipped off to one of the nation's largest and most prestigious car auctions to face their last, and greatest, challenge - the buying public. The auction room fills with some familiar faces as the Ford Escort Mexico, Mini Cooper Mk1, Triumph Stag, Land Rover Series 1, MG-TC and DeLorean DMC-12 all go under the hammer. Last in the series

[CortinaDave]

They knocked back £37.5k for the DeLorean. Ludicrous money for what is - much as I love them- really quite a shite car.

[RichardMoss]

My 12 year old daughter loves the problem - she keeps talking about how brilliant that Landrover restoration was and she says that the MGTC was her favourite of all the cars. 

 

It's all in the DNA

[KruJoe]

They did right to let the DMC go to auction, it made 40 grand.

[KruJoe]

156 grand for all six, that bloody Land Rover made 35K FFS!

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

That was a satisfying conclusion to a fun series. I like how they acknowledged that they weren't expecting to make back the costs of the restorations, since all these programs work on fantasy fun bux anyway.

[The Moog]

It also showed that they restored them properly rather than bodging it up. I thought it was a good series

[eddyramrod]

I enjoyed it.  I liked the varying levels of enthusiasm Phil and Ant showed for different cars, but what world were the buyers living in?  How much for a Mini and an Escort?  Is that really what they were worth?  Can it possibly be? 

 

There followed a trail for Fuzz's show, coming on More4, which is good.  Real people can now see it, not just Sky customers.

[lisbon_road]

Harmless fun, I enjoyed it.

 

Wonder what the auctioneers commission on those is?  That dead posh place in the smoke won't be cheap, will it?

 

I thought I'd have a look at their website (avoiding work - sigh) but it won't let me in.

[dugong]

You know what?

I think old cars and television programmes are incompatible with Autoshite's taste.

AS keeps forgetting that old car enthusiasts make up a tiny, miniscule, microscopic portion of a viewing audience.

 

If AS pitched a programme to a production company it would never get commissioned. I've worked on both sides of the fence, and while I don't support the TV mentality, I am aware of the logistics involved. 

I've finally been able to watch a few FTLOC episodes and while they're nowhere near perfect, they were about as good as it can get for a mainstream production. 

I don't know why the BL crew  seized on the comments about the Marina. If they were hopeless as patrol cars, and the Police weren't catching criminals in them, why all the defensiveness? They were bought to do a job which they couldn't do. The Escort (and believe me, I'm no OSF buffer) was far more effective. They were facts, so why are they being taken as vicious slurs? Model and marque blindness really do distort viewpoints. 

 

How come no-one took offence at Ant claiming Stags were useless rustbuckets? That episode also supported the Stag's cooling system and vindicated what its fans (see what I did there?) have been saying all along. Other shows stuck the knife in far deeper. Clarkson's Car Years (to take one example) missed the fact that the Stag's engine was signed off before the BL merger, which is why it had a unique powerplant. Not saying that the Stag's engine wasn't a botch job as-released (it was), but there was more to it than meets the eye, or scriptwriter. 

 

I cannot remember any other programme defending a BL car like that. People are too quick to criticise. 

The DeLorean episode was pretty interesting. The only blatant flub I spotted was in the VT segment explaining John Z's rise to fame. We got a tape of a load of GM cars leaving its factories (despite no mention of the GTO)....and then stock footage of Plymouth GTXs being signed off. 

The car they found was obviously one of the Wooler-Hodec RHD models, which explains its quality. That would have made for a fascinating history segment that would have lent itself to the subject matter. The DMC-12 has been covered a lot, and giving us something 'new' on the topic would have added to the programme. 

Then again, I know nothing. I buy my brake discs new. 

[cort16]

I liked the bits with cars in it.

[CortinaDave]

They did right to let the DMC go to auction, it made 40 grand.

Were they though? Auctioneers commission will probably wipe out the extra - if not more - and it was a hell of a gamble. Offered a world record price as a cash sale I'd have taken the money and run!

 

I really enjoyed this show though. Much less cheesy than mike brewers efforts and all the "old out your aaaahhhnd" crap.

[cort16]

If it wasn't TV they'd probably have taken the 37500.

I wonder how much they were up or down once you count in the resto costs and it looks like they restored them regardless of cost. I bet the engine in the Mexico was a good few grand on it's own.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

This was the first half-intelligent car programme i have seen for years. Bit of history, bit of spannering, bit of gentle humour, anyone who didn't like it ought to just give all car TV shows a miss. What exactly is there not to like about it?

[Ratdat]

The only one of these I have watched was the one with the old MG they did in blue. I thought the program was generally pretty good and certainly a lot better than most car based programs which are usually so utterly shit as to be un-watchable. Classic Car Rescue being a prime example. I managed about 10 minutes before giving up and turning off. It was embarrassingly poor.

[cort16]

I think the restorer guy is MD of a  mega high end restoration and custom fabrication shop.

 

http://www.evanta.co.uk/

[trigger]

I thought it was a fantastic series, it really showed that classic car rescue a clean set of heals, hopefully that won't get recommissioned again.

 

For those of you that don't get Sky keep a eye open for Car SOS coming soon on More 4, it's well worth watching.

[Micrashed]

Yes. Enjoyed the ones I managed to catch.

 

I rather suspect the auction prices were high because of the TV show. I know I would expect a car restored for TV to have had a more thorough job done than some bloke in his lock up and a can of "back to black", so there may be a perceived impression that the car being purchased is the best they are likely to see for some time.

 

Then again I may be talking utter bollocks.

[seth]

Its nice to see that the response to this has been mostly positive. I know someone who was heavily involved in the production of the series and have told him that the bit of the internet I frequent has been generally approving.  Right from the outset the aim of the producer was to make a programme that got the details right in a way that no other similar resto show has, so that the episodes were not pulled apart for loads of inaccuracies (and ranted about at length) by anoraks like us.  I think it has gone to prove that a car related programme can appeal to the likes of us as well as being entertaining and informative to a wider audience.

[Richard]

What exactly is there not to like about it?

 

Philip Glenister.

[sheffcortinacentre]

cars that rock, with bryan Johnson is worth a watch his enthusiasm reminds me of fred dibnah.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I thought Glenister was superb in it. Yeah he had a long face a lot of the time but do you think he would have done the show if he really found the whole thing a massive tedious ball ache???? There were loads of moments where the 'bovvered' façade fell away, such as when the finished car was revealed, or when he was driving it. His face when they decided to turn down the 37k was priceless, that wasn't acting IMO. So i think you got plenty of glimpses of the real PG and it made great telly I thought. Just imagine if you had some shouty over-enthusiastic bell end off kids telly declaring everything to be AWESOME and shouting WOW!!!!! a lot and trying to inject additional excitement with half-arsed cliffhangers and whatnot. PG's efforts were key to it being so enjoyable I reckon.

[RichardMoss]

Phil certainly gave the impression of being ambivalent (at best) to some of the cars then warming to them as they restoration progressed. I hope there'll be a second series although I suspect that the format may have a limited lifespan after that.

[Cavcraft]

Great series, not a massive fan of PG but it didn't spoil it for me. I think the trouble with car programmes on the telly is that historically AS has been a bit 'anti', almost as if it's not allowed to enjoy something on the small screen.

Sod it, I'd personally welcome more programmes like this. 

[gadgetgricey]

cars that rock, with bryan Johnson is worth a watch his enthusiasm reminds me of fred dibnah.

 

Agree totally... Not much spannering, but can tell he's a real petrol head and has real interest in the cars and the history of the cars they discuss.

[purplebargeken]

I actually really enjoyed the series. PG was a good choice for co-presenter and the job they did on the cars seems pretty impressive. I though PG was pretty sound although I kept wondering if Gene Hunt was going to make an appearance. I saw a bit of the auction and also thought the reactions were genuine. Hope they make a second series.

 

WD is way past its sell by date and has veered off (quite some time back) into the realms of cars that most folk can't afford. Bring back a reasonable couple of grand budget and it might get interesting again. Might. Might not.

[scruff]

I think PG's "attitude" was great, he was gently poking fun at enthusiasts and rivet counters which let's face it does need doing as things often get all too serious. 

[garethj]

I think PG's "attitude" was great, he was gently poking fun at enthusiasts and rivet counters which let's face it does need doing as things often get all too serious. 

Yes, he was pretty good in it.  I thought he overplayed the "MGTC is dangerous without seatbelts, airbags etc" but that might have been the editor getting a bit soft.

 

I suppose if we run through the checklist of features in a TV car programme, they are:

 

1. Obvious fake stuff.  This could be finding the car, cliffhanger restoration bits, haggling at the end.

2. Rubbish content.  Do we need any more information about MGBs or Mk2 Jags?

3. Constant reminders of what happened 2 minutes ago.

4. A presenter you wouldn't piss on if he was on fire.  Unless you could piss petrol.

 

This show was very short on those features, which must make it almost unique these days.

 

It could always be better, but by Christ most other shows are practically unwatchable.

[anonymous user]

I mostly enjoyed it (as much as I enjoy anything on the television these days). I have seen various reports that the Land Rover ended up being bought by Ant's business partner and is now for sale at their company for over £50k (so apparently it was all a stitch up), but I seem to be in the minority thinking that it was bought back because he really liked it and is now for sale at a price that means it will hang around for a while. I used to have a book on Delorean (I think I have loaned it to someone) but remember a lot more in there about the Lotus connection, JZD's obsession over certain details (like the feel of the plastic for the switches) and something about him borrowing, but, not returning a gullwing Merc. Looking forward to Car SOS as I haven't seen it but it seems to have had good reports.