Breaks your heart, again.

[55bloke]

Did anyone see Heartbeat last night? I have to admit, I enjoy watching it as gentle, undemanding, Sunday evening telly, plus always lots of old motors to see. I have commented before on the subject of the occasional car-crash they feature, and how and where they get the vehicles. Last night a Police Mk 3 Zephyr was comprehensively T-boned by the villain's Rover 2000. Two nice looking cars, presumably once someone's pride and joy, written-off for the sake of dramatic effect. A simple blocking would have served the plot just as well without destroying the cars, so why do they do it, and who lets them destroy their cars?

[Guest]

I Did read in a magazine once that the crash cars are subsituted tarted up models in poor condition. Who says the camera never lies

[Torsten2001]

saw, cried my eyes out, then wanted to kill the f*ckers

[garethj]

Generally they use ropey old ones for crashes. I dread to think the cost of filming per hour with all those people standing around, so probably crashing a couple of £500 cars is cheap by comparison.There are some car chases of the Sweeny on youtube, I'm amazed there are any Jaguar Mk2s and 420Gs left!

[AnthonyG]

It's not really that different from a banger racer buying a MOT failure and tarting it up (as many do) with filler and rough welding to get it looking presentable for a race - just that Heartbeat have much more money to do so. There was a barn find 1964 Rover 2000 on Ebay and retro rides recently - I think it went for £150-£200 and would have looked presentable enough after a cheap respray - in fact it may have needed a good go with T-cut and some filler.I was shocked a few years ago when HB had a Alfa Romeo 2600 Sprint being used in a chase over some rough country tracks though!

[vicsmith]

You just wouldnt think a shit-soft programme like Heartbeat would become the killing fields for nice old cars, would you? I`ve only seen it once in the last 5 years and even then witnessed a Mk1 Cortina being driven into a stream. I don`t know what it is about these programmes think they have to show off with spectacular stunts, most of the old fossils that watch them would be quite happy if the crash scene happened off camera and consisted of a BBC tinkle sound effect, then the car shown from behind with steam coming from near the bonnet, perhaps one of the wheels loosened and posed at a jaunty angle to underline that fact that the car is supposed to be smashed up.

[MrRegieRitmo]

I winced when seeing it happen on the telly last night, but I decided to put the blinkers on & just told myself half heartedly that it was trick photography or something!

 

It's like these Top Gear challenges when they have to buy an old car within a budget of £1500 to 'have fun with'. Ultimately the cars are destroyed & the cost of the cars written off in the process of making good TV. I always think to myself - how do they find such wrecks for that sort of money when I've ended up with perfectly decent cars (that I wouldn't dream of wrecking) for much less money? and how bad I'm made to feel when these TV shows are so happy to throw away these cars so readily that cost several hundred pounds more than my babies! I know they all have huge budgets but it's so wasteful & it makes Joe Bloggs & his humble dream passion wagon feel so lowly!

[Mr_Bo11ox]

On TG once they had 'car basket ball' or 'car croquet' or some fuggin rubbish, they had a load of little jap cars, suzuki swifts or Yarises or something, all brand new there must have been 15 of them. They were razzing round on a 'pitch' smacking into each other and making a right mess. The pitch was small enough to stop them getting any real speed up and maiming each other, but all the cars got absolutley mullered, all panels bashed, lights etc gone, one even ended up on its side. I couldnt watch it for more than about 8 seconds. THE WASTE! BRING BACK HANGING!

[55bloke]

Some interesting shite getting battered about on this clip.... just don't ask me how I found it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRBCgEnXOco

[AnthonyG]

On TG once they had 'car basket ball' or 'car croquet' or some fuggin rubbish, they had a load of little jap cars, suzuki swifts or Yarises or something, all brand new there must have been 15 of them. They were razzing round on a 'pitch' smacking into each other and making a right mess. The pitch was small enough to stop them getting any real speed up and maiming each other, but all the cars got absolutley mullered, all panels bashed, lights etc gone, one even ended up on its side. I couldnt watch it for more than about 8 seconds. THE WASTE! BRING BACK HANGING!

Football (soccer) was with Toyota Aygos and ice hockey was with Suzuki Swifts. I assumed they are emissions approval/ development / testing cars which have to be destroyed aanyway as they can't be sold on

[garethj]

Football (soccer) was with Toyota Aygos and ice hockey was with Suzuki Swifts. I assumed they are emissions approval/ development / testing cars which have to be destroyed aanyway as they can't be sold on

They could have been new cars, was it 10 cars at £5k each? £50k is nothing for 5 minutes or prime time TV coverage for the manufacturer.You know you're driving shite when better cars than yours gets smashed up on TV or on the banger track

[retrogeezer]

Some interesting shite getting battered about on this clip.... just don't ask me how I found it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRBCgEnXOco

the audi coupe

[MrRegieRitmo]

Football (soccer) was with Toyota Aygos

From memory it was Toyota Aygos vs VW Foxes using a giant inflatable ball. Can't remember who won.

[55bloke]

the audi coupe

My thoughts exactly!! No idea, of course, how old the clip is.

[r.welfare]

Anything that is not Japanese or Mercedes/BMW tends to have a short life in Hong Kong from what I saw. Five days in total and I didn't see a single car - save for one 'old' Mini, possibly - over 10yrs old...But I agree it's a waste of an Audi Coupe. Lovely shape.

[vicsmith]

Some interesting shite getting battered about on this clip.... just don't ask me how I found it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRBCgEnXOco

Superb clip. I`m currently working my way through the entire collection of "Mad mission" films (An early `80s Lethal Weapon Hong Kong equivalent) and I`ve got a feeling I will come across that scene at some point, it looks like their handywork and the woman looks like she could be the female cop from the series, obviously posing as some sort of decoy - with hilarious results!

[55bloke]

Interesting. I've never heard of them, was wondering what the story was.

[r.welfare]

There's a couple of quality Mad Mission clips on YouTube featuring a large number of Mk1 XJ6s getting trashed along with a late 70's Celica, E21 323i (with Alpina badging, hope it wasn't a genuine Alpina!) and some small 70s J-Tin thing which could be a Subaru Rex or some kind of Honda? I dunno.I thought they starred Jackie Chan but apparently not...

[vicsmith]

Mad Mission is essential viewing, the Celica/XJ6 fracas is from Mad Mission 2. Later on 5 more Xj6s are pitted against the BMW 323, this time in silver, though one or two appear to be surviving red ones from the earlier Celica incident repainted. Its stars the unbeatable duo of Sam Hui & Karl Maka - seriously, these two are hilarious, and there are endless car chases involving both popular retros, weird custom things often made out of E21 3 - series and stuff no-one has seen for 20 years - stack headlight Mazdas, Crowns, Glorias, and a few Cortinas etc. being set in Hong Kong there`s just about everything .Other highlights include a Boight Reynolds Trans Am against a bright orange Datsun 120Y, and the engine sounds are not only wrong but the wrong way round, so the Trans am sounds like a Maxi and the Datsun sounds like it has some sort of 8 cylinder truck engine under the bonnet. If you like old cars and hamfisted slapstick crash sequences, I think the whole box consisting of about 7 films is thirty quid or something.

[Torsten2001]

Looking at those clips I reckon it's Kuala Lumpa, always plenty of tat there whereas even in the 90's it was rare to see anything more than a few years old in Hong Kong