Would you sell your Granny?

Somebody is.

And if I had £5K spare and some space and some time to travel down to East Anglia (as opposed to Ford Anglia - there's one of them for sale too) I would certainly be interested in making a purchase.

After all, she is beautiful:

It's the rarer 3-door coupe style as well.

 

So what alerted me to this sale?

 

This did.

 

It is a story from the BBC about a 1961 Triumph Herald up for sale with just 20 miles on the clock.  It is believed that the "one careful lady owner" never actually drove it. 

Sounds a bit like the story of the Merc I found in Swansea.

 

It goes under the hammer on Saturday together with the car you can just see behind it.

 

The car in the picture behind it interests me because my first car was identical to it.

 

OK, it had a different registration number and was three years younger but it was a Triumph Dolmite 1500HL in Vomit Yellow (aka Sandglow).

 

It must be in excellent condition because it is estimated to go for between £14K and £16K - although they've clearly got the colour wrong in the listing (brown) and the mileage too (69 - maybe they meant 69000)

 

I don't think they are too clever when it comes to the listings.  They have the mileage for the Herald that is making the headlines down as being 3750 (next to a photo of the speedo that shows 20).

 

3750 is still unbelievably low for a 50-year-old car and probably belongs to a second Herald the auctioneers are selling that they have listed as having 20 miles.

 

I would love to have a wander around this auctioneers site - the actual, physical site, not the website, although that is pretty interesting too.

 

For example, they have a 1988 Rover 213 - why on Earth would that be a classic?

 

Well, to answer my own question (and I bet you thought it was rhetorical) it only has 3101 miles on the clock and is expected to fetch £3K.

 

They also have Granny's successor for sale: 

Oh dear.  Maybe not.

The Sweeney - Really!!?

Shut it, you Slaaaaaag!!!!Today, The BBC are reporting on the casting of the new Sweeney movie. Apparently, they've cast some rapper called "Plan B" to play the Dennis Waterman role. What's wrong with using an actor? What's the fascination with rappers? (mind, I will admit Snoop Dog did a good job in Hitch-Hikers)

And, what's with remaking '70s TV shows anyway? Leave them alone, they were classic. The Dukes of Hazzard film wasn't brilliant; the Charlie's Angels movies were OK; and the Starsky & Hutch was OK too - but the best bit was at the end when Paul-Michael Glasier and David Soul appeared with a replacement Torino. Incidentally, They could have got a better Torino for the latest Moneysupermarket ad...That one looks just wrong.

But it's not the casting of the stars that concerns me, this is a car blog after all - it's the casting of the cars.

The story describes the new film as a "contemporary update". Does that mean contemporary to the original series or contemporary to now - I'll assume the latter.

That's a shame, because apart from various problems with modern-day policing rules and political correctness that Regan and Carter never had to bother about, I'd love to see the old cars back in action.

Truth is, that's already been done by "Life on Mars" which was fantastic - maybe they'll make a film of that in thirty years time.
So modern-day means modern equivalents of the brilliant Ford Granadas used by The Sweeney cops and modern equivalents of the Jag S-Types and Ford Transits used by The Sweeney baddies.

These days, we still have Ford Transits and Jag S-Types but the biggest Ford would be a Mondeo. This would possibly be comparable in size but there is no way Jack Regan would be, or indeed should be, a "Mondeo Man".








The metallic-brown Granada in the '70s was the sort of stylish, prestigious, fast saloon that would be driven by a middle-to-senior manager in a medium-sized engineering company.

Unfortunately, the equivalent car, today, and therefore the car for Jack Regan would be...


A SILVER AUDI A6.

Right, the article also says that they are also going to make a film version of "The Professionals". So any thoughts on a modern-day Ford Capri?