BBC program "The Gold". Car based.

[vaughant]

Has anyone been watching it?

It's a Brinks Mat cling on but isn't too bad however I've been thoroughly enjoying the car porn related around it, even though a lot of it is period incorrect like the main characters driving a curvy shape Mk3 Granada in 1983 and a Mk 4 Orion on a Y plate but there's a lot of other really nice stuff in it. The ABS appears to work well on the Granada after all this time as well in one scene 🤣🤣🤣.

They do all seem to be actually driving the cars as well rather than bouncing about on the back of a flatbed turning the wheel like Z Cars.

Worth a look.

Plenty of SD1'S, Cortinas, even the street furniture cars are pretty period as well.

Story seems relatively accurate too, well for a BBC documentary.

[eddyramrod]

I'm glad someone else noticed those two Fords!  This site really needs to be marketed as a consultancy for period cars, we would easily eliminate these millennial errors!

[timolloyd]

I’m enjoying it but there are a lot of cars of the wrong age. There was even a P6 police car in the first episode.

Surely the police weren’t still using those in 1983?

[sierraman]

The story isn’t accurate at all. I can’t understand why they’ve renamed people that were convicted of it such as Michael Relton, yet named others such as Gordon Parry. 

[meggersdog]

I watched the whole series on iPlayer . Yes some of the cars weren't quite right at the beginning but it stretched to 1986  for some of the gang to appear in court.  The soundtrack was similar, Temptation by New Order wasn't released until 1986 but was played on an early episode. I enjoyed it . Some great 80's chod and great music. Echo and the bunnymen, The Fall, Gang of Four and The Smiths. What's not to like.

[MiniMinorMk3]

56 minutes ago, meggersdog said:

, Temptation by New Order wasn't released until 1986 

Temptation was released in May 82.

[meggersdog]

2 minutes ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

Temptation was released in May 82.

thought it was '86.... sorry

[MiniMinorMk3]

3 minutes ago, meggersdog said:

thought it was '86.... sorry

They rerecorded/remixed it in 1987 for the compilation album Substance.

[sierraman]

Supposedly in the original raid, Tony White attended in a beige Avenger Estate and Brian Robinson was a Renault botherer, not sure which one but it wasn’t a new one so I suspect it was a 16. Tony Black the guard had an Opel Manta. 

[trigger]

I see a T12 style Nissan Bluebird on their tonight on a A plate and the same blue Mazda 323 pop up 3 different types as a background car. 

[Jerzy Woking]

Biggest error that pissed me off (so much so I didn't watch all of the first episode)? A standard gold bar (those held as gold reserves by central banks and traded among bullion dealers) weighs 400 troy ounces/12.4 kilograms/27.33 pounds.

The characters pick them up like they weigh the same as a packet of biscuits.

[motorpunk]

Like @Jerzy Woking and @timolloyd mentioned already - the P6 and the weighless gold bars stood out for me, along with the complete lack of heat from the smelter. 

There was a LOT of stuff pinched from Ashes to Ashes - locations, actors and so on, but as that's one of my fave ever TV series I really didn't mind.

I loved it, overall, and would love to see more of it instead of celebrity baking masked dancing on ice pottery sewathon featuring Rylan and other squealing simpletons. 

Here's another one. This show was only a pilot, but is a funny, happy daft thing that I cannot recommend enough - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00118tt

[GregZX]

My wife hates it when I point out car anachronisms. We went to see “Empire of Light” the other week and they got the early 80s pretty much spot on although the same Marina was spotted on a number of occasions. 

Something that I found particularly strange and perhaps lazy was the registration of Ian Huntley’s red MK3 Fiesta in the recent drama about Soham. It was a weird jumble of letters and numbers and as a car geek kinda took me out of the drama. I’ve no idea why they couldn’t just have used a normal registration. ITV dramas do feel a bit cheap though. 

[timolloyd]

Good shout, I remember seeing that reg and thinking it was odd. 
 

My theory is that the actual reg was highly publicised at the time. Maybe the producers can’t trace the car, so they needed to avoid any kind of morbid search for the vehicle?

[UltraWomble]

Everything was TOO shiny, undented and un rusty.

But aside from that, it was a good series.

[eddyramrod]

And this is exactly where AS comes in!  We can do dented and rusty!  And, crucially, period-correct!

[martc]

On 2/20/2023 at 9:11 AM, motorpunk said:

Like @Jerzy Woking and @timolloyd mentioned already - the P6 and the weighless gold bars stood out for me, along with the complete lack of heat from the smelter. 

 

The heat from the smelter is a good point, and it seems to be in a wooden hut!

I work with molten material and very high temperature ashes daily using muffle ovens, ashing furnaces and tube furnaces. There's no way you can casually stand over them feeding in the raw material. One of our labs is 20 feet long and, if stood at one end, and some one opens the door of the ashing furnace at the other, you can instantly feel the heat....

(incidently all our high temp furnaces are made by Carbolite in Hope, near Sheffield. They are the top manufacturer of this sort of kit, and the silica crucibles are by Almath in Newmarket, but, of course, we don't make anything in the UK now-a-days).

I didn't catch the Reg No of the P6, but considering they stopped making them in 1977 and The Gold is set in 1983, it may only be 6 years old - not unfeasible that it would still be in service.

[sierraman]

It was an Alcosa smelter in a breeze block shed perhaps 8x12.

[Dan_ZTT]

On 2/20/2023 at 9:11 AM, motorpunk said:

Here's another one. This show was only a pilot, but is a funny, happy daft thing that I cannot recommend enough - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00118tt

I meant to watch that Mammoth pilot before but clearly missed it, hopefully it'll come round again 

A highlight of recent years for me is White Gold, 80s-set comedy series about double-glazing salesmen, there are some good cars in it too - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p050hrdx - annoyingly it's gone off iplayer as they sold it to one of the streaming services, Netflix I think has it now

[motorpunk]

7 hours ago, Dan_ZTT said:

I meant to watch that Mammoth pilot before but clearly missed it, hopefully it'll come round again 

A highlight of recent years for me is White Gold, 80s-set comedy series about double-glazing salesmen, there are some good cars in it too - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p050hrdx - annoyingly it's gone off iplayer as they sold it to one of the streaming services, Netflix I think has it now

That was a cracker. I always wanted them to follow up with a story about used car dealers in the '80s, the characters would have been perfect for that. I think the lead actor was accused of some unpleasantness with an actress, or something, which might have killed the whole thing. I could be wrong. 

[Dan_ZTT]

4 hours ago, motorpunk said:

That was a cracker. I always wanted them to follow up with a story about used car dealers in the '80s, the characters would have been perfect for that. I think the lead actor was accused of some unpleasantness with an actress, or something, which might have killed the whole thing. I could be wrong. 

He was but then it was all dropped, it delayed them making the second series, difficult situation all round I suppose. Seems like they've decided not to do a third anyway though which is a shame.

[cort1977]

Also bored my wife pointing out the vehicle errors while watching this.

Not too bad a series but I'm not buying the 'them and us' narrative that seems to be trying to portray Kenneth Noye as some kind of class-conscious Marxist redistributing wealth by alternative means.  He is a proper wrong 'un who stabbed a copper multiple times and then another man in a road rage incident a few years later.

[timolloyd]

Agreed. I think he came out of it a bit like the Krays - a sort-of cheeky 60s character.

Must be pretty devastating for the family of the guy he killed on the motorway, to see him given all this air time.

[Richard_FM]

4 hours ago, timolloyd said:

Agreed. I think he came out of it a bit like the Krays - a sort-of cheeky 60s character.

Must be pretty devastating for the family of the guy he killed on the motorway, to see him given all this air time.

I remember one article around the time Noye was sent down that was based around interviews of people who knew him.  Even when young he was a headcase, doing things like punching other boys at school hard in the face just for a laugh,

[Wack]

On 2/19/2023 at 8:11 AM, eddyramrod said:

I'm glad someone else noticed those two Fords!  This site really needs to be marketed as a consultancy for period cars, we would easily eliminate these millennial errors!

I'd think a lot of it comes down to they're supposed to be new cars so finding suitable cars that are available to be rented and driven and don't look full of filler sprayed with aerosols must be quite hard. 

 

[sierraman]

I mean ultimately he’s been out now for a few years, having served 20 odd years for murder, were it not such a high profile case people would have said that he’s served his time. He appears to have kept his nose clean, which given he’s on a lifetime licence is no surprise. As far as I’m aware the only ones still alive are the solicitor, Gordon Parry and Kenneth Noye. They seem to have glossed over Tony White as well that was arrested but acquitted but nevertheless still fled to Spain. Curious as well as to why they’ve missed Brian Perry out, him getting nobbled in 2001 was integral to the story. 

[jmsguzzi]

On 2/19/2023 at 3:30 PM, MiniMinorMk3 said:

They rerecorded/remixed it in 1987 for the compilation album Substance.

They used the Substance rerecording in the episode weirdly so I guess Meggarsdog was half right!