Shite you admired in TV and Films

[Lord Sterling]

Being a shiter and liking old cars, I have also been stuck in a era when cars made an impact on me.

So what cars did you see on TV that you fell in love with and wanted to own one day. I'm discounting things like Knight Rider, the A-Team etc... for something more realistic and off the shelf.

Here are mine;

The Jags

(technically, XNG 501M, was a Daimler and owned by one of the 'bad' guys, here it is getting chased around a muddy field in Essex)

We all know Arthur Daley of Minder fame had a few Jags, in fact he was the Jag king. Although technically, some of them were Daimlers, still, it had a huge impact on me and made me want to buy a Jag. Mine isn't quite series 3, but it looks near enough and is recognisably a Jaguar, thays enough for me.

Another Jag hero of mine was Edward Woodward of The Equalizer. He seemed such a classy character in this. An unassumingly tough man who lived the life of good wealth with lovely apartment, nice suits and a beautiful Jaguar XJ6 which befitted his character so well. Again, another massive influence on me. (It helps that I'm about the similar height and size to him)

Speaking of Jags, it's always great to remember that Jags were also often seen on TV as Gangsters and bad guys cars;

Speaking of Bad guys. There also seemed to be run of them using Mercedes W126s:

(From the film "Devils Double" not seen it yet, but have sent the scene with the three W126s approaching and subsequent events)

This brings me neatly to a French film series called "Taxi" which centres around a lad who had modified his Peugeot 406 taxi so much that it can almost outrun anything:

He goes through a few Peugeots to represent the timeliness as the film series goes on (there 5 in total. Last one was a flop due to most of the original characters no longer being in the film)

In the first film, the bank robbers used Mercedes 500Es painted red to rib banks and then painted silver again and plated with German plates to hide in plain sight:

The chase scene at the end was the best cinematic car chase I have ever seen. It brought out the Merc fan-boi about me. 

BMW

The reason for this thread, was this film which gave me the idea. It was a film called "Meteor Man" it was a light entertainment film aimed at a family audience and mainly featured black characters including the hero himself. 

The main bad guys of the film mainly drove stylised Mercedes and BMWs of the era:

I remember this scene well and loved how, despite it being a fairly family friendly film, the bad guys still rolled about in BMWs playing loud rap music 😆 (something that I secretly wanted to do)

James Bond's 750il for me was a memorable car. Living in Belgium at the time, in central Brussels, there was an abundance of BMWs, Mercs etc... seeing these and earlier E32 7s about was amazing to me at the time. Seeing Bond in a European barge was something so different, yet still very classy.

One very minor scene did out me off. As the chases in the carpark is in full swing, Bond does a 180° in the BMW and the acceleration sound sounds very much like a motorbike rather than a car. It always stuck out to me as I know how a 6-cyl or V8 BMW sounds when accelerating harshly, and they don't sound like a motorbike. 

The 535i of a mysterious film.....

I don't have an actual pic. But I've always loved the E34 and always wanted one. I doubt very much it'll happen. The first time I saw one on film, was in an odd German TV Film that was styled like "Alarm für Cobra 11 - Die Autobahnpolizei" but it wasn't that. It seemed to involve a man in a black BMW 535i e34 chasing and scaring a woman who drive a Renault Clio after she tried to protect another man who subsequently ran from them into some ungrowth and disappeared. Or at least thats the bit if the film I saw. I've tried consulting several places but with no luck, so there is a library pic of a e34.

The BMW was driven at speed and erratically, the driver getting more and more obsessed and crazy. He managed bin it off the road onto a field and I distinctly remember a scene when he woke up, even angrier and proceeded to drive the BMW back up the incline out onto road. As he got to the top, we saw a scene of the front of the BMW appearing and revving its engine off, showing how angry he/it was.

On a lighter note, we have a French film called "À Fond" or "Full Speed" which centres around a runaway electric MPV gping at full speed. What attracted me to this film was a long scene of a crazy guy who had his door torn off his BMW yellow E34 by the runaway MPV, he gets very angry thinking its deliberate and proceeds to chase them but encounters all sorts of bad luck on the way, like an open map landing on his screen blocking his view, and a bucket of piss chucked out the MPV but landing on him after he damages and kicks out his windscreen:

The film producers did mostly use the sounds of a 6-cyl BMW, but for some reason, like a scene where Bond's 7-series accelerates, it sounded like a motorbike accelerating. 

You can see the scene here:

Of course, these two need no introduction. I'm no Ford man, but the Sweeney's Granada Consul and the very early Professionals with their Capri X-Pack (SOO 636R) were nice things to see. 

[eddyramrod]

You're very much in my territory here!  I grew up in the 60s, a proper Golden Age of British and American cop/spy shows with car action galore, and at least one signature car to every series.

I pretty much have to start with Z-Cars.

Ford couldn't have wished for better advertising for the lovely big Zephyr, could they?  And then they repeated the pattern for The Sweeney:

...both the star cars featuring in the opening titles to great effect.

As we're bypassing the Gerry Anderson shows, and the likes of Batman and The Monkees, we now turn our attention to the fastest thing on British or continental roads in 1963:

Simon Templar's insanely glamorous Volvo, played by several cars over the course of the show, and good enough that Roger Moore bought one.

Over on the Avengers set, Diana Rigg was issued with a Lotus Elan...

This was her second; her first was white.  Steed's Bentley was an excellent choice but the Elan cheekily stole its thunder.

I could catalogue these forever tbh, keeping things down to a few highlights is actually hard work!  My first exposure to American police cars (perfectly black-and-white, of course) was in Batman:

I've loved them ever since.

There was always a Jag....

The white mk1 going over the cliff, and subsequently spliced into many other ITC shows, was filmed for either The Baron or The Saint in about 1965.  From then on, any character driving off in a white Jag was obviously not going to make it to the end of the episode, in whatever series!  I saw an ep of Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased) the other night, in which exactly that happened, and yes, the mk2 the character arrived in somehow turned into a mk1 down the road.  Speaking of R&H...

The producers made an obvious nod to American cop shows by giving Jeff Randall (played by Mike Pratt) a very Detroit-influenced Vauxhall Victor FD, a model that would later be destroyed in wholesale quantities for The Professionals.  A Mini also featured strongly, as it did in many other shows (memorably, Danger Man), but the Victor was the wheeled star here.

If an episode of, say, The Saint was set in continental Europe, there was every chance of seeing a Citroen ID/DS, or a fintail Mercedes, but they were things primary-age Ed wouldn't expect to see on the mean streets of Southport.  Most of the cars shown above, I could see.  My dad even brought home a brand new Zephyr in 1965.  How cool was that!

[bigfella2]

For me in the early 90s it had to be Jimmy Nails cozzy as seen in Spender. Busting crims in Scotland. Because in the 90s as a youngster nothing came close in the coolness stakes as any ford wearing an RS badge.

Spender span three series and three different Cosworths were used, one 2wd and two 4wd versions. Only the last one survives, and wasn't blown up with spenders wife in the last series.

If you want to learn about what happened to these cars I came across this you tube vid, it also references the autoshite site too. Brucy bonus.

 

[DSdriver]

1963 to 1965 there was a TV series called Crane starring  Patrick Allen, Sam Kydd and Gerald Flood. Set in Morocco they must have had a deal with Fiat because most of the cast drove Fiat 1500s. Am I the only one who remembers it?

[eddyramrod]

50 minutes ago, DSdriver said:

1963 to 1965 there was a TV series called Crane starring  Patrick Allen, Sam Kydd and Gerald Flood. Set in Morocco they must have had a deal with Fiat because most of the cast drove Fiat 1500s. Am I the only one who remembers it?

Yes, but well done!  Those stars are absolutely period-correct, they were in all sorts of shows back then.  I would think the Fiat was indeed a factory deal (or at least, importer deal); they're common enough around the Med.  Sadly, IMCDB doesn't list the series, at least under that name.

[bezzabsa]

Ronin with the BMW and 406 chase..

Black rain has a good bike scene, but spoils it by giving a single cylinder bike the sound of a 4cylinder 'superbike'

[Tayne]

1 hour ago, DSdriver said:

1963 to 1965 there was a TV series called Crane starring  Patrick Allen, Sam Kydd and Gerald Flood. Set in Morocco they must have had a deal with Fiat because most of the cast drove Fiat 1500s. Am I the only one who remembers it?

 

Apparently only two episodes survive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crane_(TV_series)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0159861/?ref_=fn_all_ttl_1

https://televisionheaven.co.uk/reviews/crane

 

[HMC]

A youthful Peter Capaldi fronted this (i think?) tv movie. Made 92-93. I discovered it surfing channels late at night on my inherited 1980s 14 inch CRT sony trinitron in my bedroom in the mid 90s

 

A road trip with a triumph herald.

When i watched it as a teenager not quite of driving age, it made me really want one, even though after recently rewatching it, it turns out to be quite unreliable 

And it turns out Its quite a good watch for early 90s street chod

 

[ETCHY]

The Return of the Saint.

A white pre-HE XJS will always be cooler IMO.

Here is our hero waiting for the RAC..

[ETCHY]

The Baron. Jensen CV8. average show but cool car

[ETCHY]

The Persuaders

I still love a DBS in that colour it's just crazy but cool !

[ETCHY]

The most inconspicuous Cop car ever

Striped Tomato anyone

[ETCHY]

I bet @eddyramrod  remembers this

McGills Hillman Imp from Man in  a Suitcase. I always liked the fact the gave him a normal little car. 

[Metal Guru]

12 minutes ago, ETCHY said:

The Baron. Jensen CV8. average show but cool car

Jimmy Nail (as an Irish traveller) drove one in an episode of Minder.

[Dyslexic Viking]

For years, we only had 2 TV channels and every saturday except during the summer holidays, Heartbeat was on.

And for me, it's this one from that series. And I still want a Morris LC truck today.

[Asimo]

The cars of American Graffiti (1973).

Saw this movie by accident, just a few months after my first Visit to Santa Pod and a few months before birthday #17.

Driving perfection will always involve bench seats, hot summer nights, 3speed auto-boxes and a good measure of home-bodged modification.

And junk-food to go.

 

[ETCHY]

I still think Steeds Jag this was a cool car. Why BL or anyone else at the time never offered a body kit I dunno.

[JeeExEll]

The 1970 Dodge Challenger Hemi 426 from Vanishing Point. 

Lots of pics and vids on the net.

[eddyramrod]

3 hours ago, ETCHY said:

I bet @eddyramrod  remembers this

McGills Hillman Imp from Man in  a Suitcase. I always liked the fact the gave him a normal little car. 

Oh you bet!  I even have an old Corgi Imp remodelled to represent this car.

Incidentally, Man In A Suitcase?  One of the very best of the big-band themes used by these programmes!  TV's really gone downhill in the last 50 years...

[JMotor]

When I was a kid I badly wanted either the Pursuit Special or Max's yellow Interceptor from the first Mad Max. They were so tough looking. I fell in love with the Ford Falcon and Aussie cars in general. 

I was near giddy when I got to see the real Pursuit Special/ Interceptor at the museum in Keswick. But it was in rough shape and still had the extra fuel tanks from Mad Max 2.

Big surprise was many years later seeing this Pursuit Special replica at the Dalemain classic car show a couple of years ago.

Just wish XB Coupes weren't so expensive now. The real movie car was originally a white XB GT Coupe. Which now is worth a small fortune. 

[wesacosa]

5 hours ago, HMC said:

A youthful Peter Capaldi fronted this (i think?) tv movie. Made 92-93. I discovered it surfing channels late at night on my inherited 1980s 14 inch CRT sony trinitron in my bedroom in the mid 90s

 

A road trip with a triumph herald.

When i watched it as a teenager not quite of driving age, it made me really want one, even though after recently rewatching it, it turns out to be quite unreliable 

And it turns out Its quite a good watch for early 90s street chod

 

doesn't Chris Rea do the feeem chooon for this

[wesacosa]

4 hours ago, ETCHY said:

The Return of the Saint.

A white pre-HE XJS will always be cooler IMO.

Here is our hero waiting for the RAC..

I know the guy who has that now, its undergoing a very in depth resto I believe 

[Boycie]

Born in 77 , in 1985 i wanted to be Dempsey .... Still gutted I wasn't in the day they dropped off a car at my work 

 

 

[MrBiscuits]

As a 13 year old boy, I would regularly watch Eldorado to see Marcus Tandy's Alpine (and his Spanish girlfriend too of course 😉)

 

[wesacosa]

45 minutes ago, MrBiscuits said:

As a 13 year old boy, I would regularly watch Eldorado to see Marcus Tandy's Alpine (and his Spanish girlfriend too of course 😉)

 

ive been watching the reruns on tv recently and remembering why I was sad it was axed in 1993!

The A610s are still quite expensive but its predecessor the GTA is now temptingly affordable 

The Eldorado car still exists too

 

 

[Garythesnail]

Condorman........

[JeeExEll]

Vivian's Anglia from The Young Ones.

The Vauxhall Cresta PA from The Specials 1981 Ghost Town.

34 Ford V8 coupe from The California Kid 1974 film.

Kojak 73 Buick Riviera 455.

Christine.

Smokey and The Bandit Trans-Am.

Sweeney Granadas. Say no more.

[Garythesnail]

The Gaffer

[AndyW201]

As a kid in the late '70s, it was Doyle's RS2000 in the Professionals. I've had a thing for hot Escorts (and old Fords in general) ever since.

Can't afford an RS2 nowadays, but at least I have it in miniature...

[eddyramrod]

31 minutes ago, JeeExEll said:

Kojak 73 Buick Riviera 455.

You mean his 1973 Buick Century?  The Riviera was a much more upmarket car with only two doors; think XJS against XJ6.  I had a 1980 Century and a 1978 Daimler Sovereign together for a little while in 2003 and you can believe me when I say the Buick was easily equivalent to the dolled-up Jag.