A to B. Tales of Modern Motoring

[warren t claim]

13 hours ago, The_Equalizer said:

Ah, yes Martin Parr. New to me, but learning fast. I recognised the style after reading this in February:

The 1980s seaside snaps that sparked a controversy - BBC

I also managed a trip to New Brighton in March, which is no way perfect, but seems (perhaps) to be getting a bit smarter.

Woah there! The New Brighton Martin Parr photographed for The Last Resort bears fuck all resemblance to how it is today! I grew up there when it was really run down as he captured so well in his pics. 

 

This video from the Orion bothering, Driving Away From Home It's Immaterial features New Brighton in its Martin Parr. WTC tearaway teen years.

[warren t claim]

11 hours ago, sierraman said:

Supposedly the guy with the Merc 200E is brown bread, carked it in 2021. According to YouTube. I’d love to know what happened to the guy with the Maestro, he sounded like one of these Derek Wilton types, useless at selling. Probably wound up as a trolley man at Asda or something. 

I wonder if his body lay undiscovered for days in a hotel room he rented to do his paperwork in?

If his W124 was/is a 200E then he's really ragging it but if it's a later E200 with the uprated engine then I can vouch that the one I had was no slouch.

 

[warren t claim]

 

This nearly 13 year old thread of mine overlaps the A to B film and sums up what company cars I had at the time. TBH, I'd have been quite happy with a Maestro Clubman D at several points. If he thought that was miserable then he never had to sample the delights of a Yugo van!

[Wibble]

The most miserable thing I steered from Reading to Glasgow and back in the 90’s  was a 3 door Mk2 Astra Merit non turbo diesel. Fuck me it was slow but fuel cost was minimal.

[warren t claim]

2 minutes ago, Wibble said:

The most miserable thing I steered from Reading to Glasgow and back in the 90’s  was a 3 door Mk2 Astra Merit non turbo diesel. Fuck me it was slow but fuel cost was minimal.

Default bailiff company car back in my day. Most of the lads were chuffed with them. One lad even got so attached to his he gave it a name. He called it Ben as it was Wedgewood Blue.

[Wibble]

5 minutes ago, warren t claim said:

Default bailiff company car back in my day. Most of the lads were chuffed with them. One lad even got so attached to his he gave it a name. He called it Ben as it was Wedgewood Blue.

I only took it as there was nothing left in the pool. Swapped it straight away on my return for a Sapphire 2.0GLSi. Happy days.

[warren t claim]

1 minute ago, Wibble said:

I only took it as there was nothing left in the pool. Swapped it straight away on my return for a Sapphire 2.0GLSi. Happy days.

The general bailiff opinion was that the earlier 4 speed 1.6D went better than the later 1.7D 5 speed MK2 Disastras.

[Wibble]

7 minutes ago, warren t claim said:

The general bailiff opinion was that the earlier 4 speed 1.6D went better than the later 1.7D 5 speed MK2 Disastras.

That is a surprise. I had an Isuzu diesel Mk3 Cav as a courtesy car, shortly after buying the Senator, when it went back to have the correct radio fitted and thought it went quite well, certainly better than the Astra.

[sierraman]

8 hours ago, warren t claim said:

Default bailiff company car back in my day. Most of the lads were chuffed with them. One lad even got so attached to his he gave it a name. He called it Ben as it was Wedgewood Blue.

Inflation would have wiped the debt out by the time you’d got to the address in an Astra 1.6D. 😂

[Dj_efk]

You mean compound interest would have wiped the punter’s chances of ever achieving a credit score again, Shirley.

[MiniMinorMk3]

16 hours ago, Pieman said:

I remember the company car episode being posted in another thread on here a while ago - I thought I was watching an early prototype for Alan Partridge, it's fucking hilarious that all the ridiculous man-children being featured were actually being serious about it all!  And it's proof that people really do think that they should be in front of everyone else in traffic because the price and model of their car makes them more self-important - though nowadays of course they all have Audis or Range Losers.

Also, in that episode I was looking at the background chod, and couldn't work out what the blue coupe on the left was...



I thought at first it was a Toyota Paseo or Sera, but then I noticed it had a US-shape number plate.  After some digging along with a fellow car anorak, it turned out to be a Geo Storm - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geo_Storm .  Goodness knows how or why one of those ended up in the UK!

The discuss about the Geo Storm

 

was after I had posted the episode on YouTube thread

 

[MJK 24]

On 19/05/2025 at 18:14, Lord Sterling said:

I remember Merc-man was gunning the Merc for it's worth in this very scene.

I found it hilarious when this documentary blew popular recently, as if it was buried treasure. Some people were claiming that this was all a set up and the people were actors. I think some people are just sad and want to start an argument. 

I know that there are signatures at the end but I can hardly make out any of the names. Apart from Merc man and Rickety-rentals wife passing away, does anyone else know who these people are and what's happened to them?

I'd be intrigued to know what happened to BMW 7-series man. 

In one of the comments section of the "It gets you out the house" episode, someone did claim to be the first girl in the episode with the red XR2i. She's driving something a bit more boring these days though. 

The posh lad with the Renault Clio Sport became some sort independent film maker and I believe is living abroad (?) or possibly still in London.

I do have my doubts that it was real, and not actors involved.  Every single participant in the film has the exact same driving style at every point in the film.  The way they hold the wheel, mainly!

Its just too much of a coincidence?!

Or is my mind working overtime?  Regardless, it was a great piece of TV.

[warren t claim]

I'm sure it was real.

[Lord Sterling]

11 hours ago, MJK 24 said:

I do have my doubts that it was real, and not actors involved.  Every single participant in the film has the exact same driving style at every point in the film.  The way they hold the wheel, mainly!

Its just too much of a coincidence?!

Or is my mind working overtime?  Regardless, it was a great piece of TV.

It was 100% real. Most of the participants seemed to come over genuine, especially looking at Peugeot 405 lady and her husband, Vauxhall Astra saloon Essex manager bloke, the couple in Birmingham with the Toyota Carina II etc....

Also, think about it, if it wasn't real and using actors;

• The cost of hiring actors, to drive cars and deliver lines and get comfortable with other actors (The 'she likes it hot' segment featured couples, 'red lorry yellow lorry' featured families)

• The time and cost of hiring or accessing vehicles.

• The cost of insuring the vehicles.

• Organising an event like this and meeting actors up and down the country etc...

Even professional TV programme makers might have shied away from taking on such a colossal task. Plus, its a documentary, not a soap. Documentaries are often cheaper and easier to film.

So sticking an ad in various local papers, organising time to meet those who answered the ad, then sticking a camera in these everyday people's faces to understand their relationship their car would have been a great and cost effective way to make a television programme and get a foot into the world of TV.

Yes, the way they drive might have been a little staid, but when you have a camera pointing at you watching you drive on the public highway, your hardly likely to be driving with one hand or your knees or making risky manoeuvres. 

[Split_Pin]

Some of the young people must have got into an awful lot of trouble with their parents after it was released on TV!

[Lord Sterling]

On 21/05/2025 at 10:46, Split_Pin said:

Some of the young people must have got into an awful lot of trouble with their parents after it was released on TV!

Particularly that Beetle lad and the posh lad with the Clio who described his father as being "rather unpleasant" 🤣

[sierraman]

I don’t know, I’d think in most households theres are points of contention that are regularly and openly aired. My eldest certainly is happy to remind me of my failings! 🤣

[wuvvum]

I reckon the people were real but there was some playing up to the cameras.  The Maestro being overtaken by HGVs for example - OK a 2.0D Maestro is slow, but it's not that slow.

[goosey]

Quite surprising when you watch it how many drivers aren’t wearing seatbelts

[comfortablynumb]

Out of my group of friends, one was the first to get a company car. He rang me up to tell me about it.

" So what did you get?"

"A Renault 

19

Diesel

Stop laughing you bastard!"

[wuvvum]

My dad had a Montego diesel estate company car at about the time that was filmed.  Some people laughed at it, until they realised he was averaging over 50mpg on motorway runs and thus pocketing a lot more of his fuel allowance than they were.  It was by far the most economical largeish estate at the time.

[R Lutz]

20 hours ago, MJK 24 said:

I do have my doubts that it was real, and not actors involved.  

Yeah, if it was made now, 100% it'd be so fake that BBC Verify would have come out and confirm it was real. 

Back then, there was no reality TV and this was as close the sun as anyone had ever flown. 

[MJK 24]

I don’t mind one way or the other if it’s real or fake.  I found it really good in period and still enjoy it now!

But…… 😂

The way they turn to talk to the camera to speak?!  

Maybe my imagination is running away with me…..

[R Lutz]

https://onlineshop.oxfam.org.uk/from-a-to-b-tales-of-modern-motoring/product/HD_303203873?sku=HD_303203873

I'll take £50 for my copy if it helps anyone? And you won't be supporting sexual exploitation wrapped up as a charity. 

[Noel Tidybeard]

On 19/05/2025 at 18:51, mk2_craig said:

That Rover made it to 2006, looks like nobody thought the early example of a DVLA Select plate was worth holding onto. 

6 digit plates were just ordinary back then

L24TPO on my renner 19 & D43YRN (mg maestro) were just what came on the car when new

[Scott Chegg]

We had a thread about this on a non-automotive forum I visit. Turns out the brother-in-law of the young lad in the XR2i was a poster.

Sounds like he'd done pretty well for himself, was still in sales and had lived in the States for a while. No idea if he still feels a twinge of sadness leaving a motorway however.

[mk2_craig]

21 hours ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

6 digit plates were just ordinary back then

Yeah, but DVLA always held back from free-issuing the first 20 numbers with each prefix year so that they could be sold. 

[UltraWomble]

On 21/05/2025 at 10:40, Lord Sterling said:

It was 100% real. Most of the participants seemed to come over genuine, especially looking at Peugeot 405 lady and her husband, Vauxhall Astra saloon Essex manager bloke, the couple in Birmingham with the Toyota Carina II etc....

Also, think about it, if it wasn't real and using actors;

• The cost of hiring actors, to drive cars and deliver lines and get comfortable with other actors (The 'she likes it hot' segment featured couples, 'red lorry yellow lorry' featured families)

• The time and cost of hiring or accessing vehicles.

• The cost of insuring the vehicles.

• Organising an event like this and meeting actors up and down the country etc...

Even professional TV programme makers might have shied away from taking on such a colossal task. Plus, its a documentary, not a soap. Documentaries are often cheaper and easier to film.

So sticking an ad in various local papers, organising time to meet those who answered the ad, then sticking a camera in these everyday people's faces to understand their relationship their car would have been a great and cost effective way to make a television programme and get a foot into the world of TV.

Yes, the way they drive might have been a little staid, but when you have a camera pointing at you watching you drive on the public highway, your hardly likely to be driving with one hand or your knees or making risky manoeuvres. 

Perhaps these photos will help you understand how things are filmed in moving cars

Sorry @Lord Sterling - I hot quote on the wrong post

[Split_Pin]

This chap is definitely a real person:

His name is Mark Fielding and he was in a news article a few years ago about weight loss. Apart from grey hair he hadn't changed much. I cant seem to find the article now.

You might not have liked them, but I thought all those being interviewed had really good depth, from the dizzy 2cv driver, recently divorced Mini owner to the Clio driver with no love lost between him and his father.

The Italian couple were funny, the man was absolutely outrageous in some of his rationale. I always felt sad that the lady who drove the 405 never got the 605 she wanted because the men in the showroom wouldn't sell her one. Her hubby really was miserable.

Only guy I did t like was the one who had the 2CV called Fifi. He was creepy.

[JakeT]

Agreed. The people here all came across as actual people. The family in the Mercedes that thought they were too rough and ready for one, the Astra Saloon ‘NOO SHAPE’ fella, and the bespectacled wanker in his glacier blue 320i coupe. (I say that as a bespectacled wanker that also owns a glacier blue 320i coupe on a K plate).

 

Company car drivers were like that, too. My dad opted out of a company car and took an allowance in 1994. He bought a 318i SE saloon with metallic paint, and air conditioning. The usual comments were made, definitely.

 

The sales rep has mostly died a death now, though. When I do commute it’s a 190 mile round trip. If I do stop it’s at one of the services on the M1, the focus of ‘over the moon with the cavalier’. It’s mostly van men, and the odd buznuzzman now,  but nothing like the days of the travelling salesperson. Most of the salespeople that work at my firm are home or office based and travel minimally. Post Covid even more so, most firms are happy to send a purchase order. Client and supplier never even meet in person.