TV Cars - But Not The Obvious Ones

The obvious ones would be The General Lee or KITT or The Striped Tomato (or whatever Starsky's Torino was called) but they are all American. The obvious British ones are a bit more mundane like Delboy's Reliant Regal van or Mr.Bean's Mini but here are a few I like...
This very Vauxhall Victor appeared in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) - a series about a couple of private detectives - one of whom happened to be a ghost. The alive detective, Randall, drove the Victor and was played by Mike Pratt who is now deceased while the deceased detective, Hopkirk, was played by Kenneth Cope who is now alive.

This X-Type was regularly driven by Inspector Barnaby in Midsomer Murders - a series which I've never watched but interests me because of the X-Type - albeit a saloon unlike my own estate version. The estate version was (and may still be - I don't know) a regular in the opening titles of Emmerdale - I haven't watched an episode of that since a plane crashed onto the village and I hadn't watched it before then since Matt Skilbeck had some trouble "int' top field." The X-Type estate also took a starring role in Top Gear when Jeremy ski-ed behind one on an icy country lane.

A white Stag like this one (but not this one because I couldn't find a picture of the actual one) was used in Bellamy's People - a spoof travel around Britain show. The Stag would be my ideal classic car if only I had the time and money to invest.

The Dolomite was my first car - not unfortunately a Sprint - but the vomit yellow 1500 Twin-Carb I had was plenty fast enough for me. This particular example is the one Richard destroyed on Top Gear but the Dolly Sprint also appeared in early programmes of The Professionals but BL used to muck about the Production Company by swapping the colours of the cars they supplied so that screwed up continuity so they moved onto the Capris that most people associate with The Professionals. The Dolomite Sprint is also driven by John Anderson in "The Ancestry Team" - a brilliant comedy drama about two people who run a genealogical detective agency but someone at the BBC didn't think it was suitable material for a comedy so it was never made.

Eddie Shoestring drove a Cortina Mark III estate just like this one - a beautiful car and a brilliant theme tune made the show instantly appealing to a young Metro.

A Viva like this one was driven by Bob in "Whatever Happend To The Likely Lads?" - it was meant to represent middle-class, boring suburbia so would be an Insignia today.

This Beemer was driven by Wayne in the second series of Auf Wiedersehen Pet. Gary Holton, the actor playing Wayne inconveniently died while they were making it so there were lots of shots of the back of his head.

The Volvo was driven by Peter Davison in "A Very Peculiar Practice" - a brilliant comedy drama set in a university at the same time as I was at university. I've always had a soft spot for Volvos and the hilarious script gets this one a mention even though the car had bugger all to do with the show.

Finally, after the Cortina Mark III, we have the Cortina Mark IV - although Van der Valk's car here was in Holland so is, strictly speaking, a Ford Taunus...
Great tune too.

Last Chance to Check out the 4-Car Website

Looks like the Channel 4 Car Website is now going the same way as the Car Forum and Driven. It has been declared uneconomically viable and will finish on December 31st. They blame lack of advertising revenue. It is a shame because I have found most of the news articles, at least, interesting and informative. Some of the videos and other articles did feel a bit like they were trying to be like Top Gear but they weren't over the top.

The forum closed about a year ago and although I'd stopped actively contributing to it (mainly due to a few idiots who moved in) it was nice to know it was there and I would still dip in from time to time. It's hard to believe that it must have been about 2002 or 2003 that I joined the forum in a bid to get Channel 4 to do something about the serious dumbing down of Driven. At the time, the producers were using similar arguments as today stating that they had to keep the show fresh to bring in advertising revenue. Unfortunately, their idea of fresh was to stick large pretend nappies onto Japanese cars and drive them at each other in a Sumo ring. Very infantile and very un-entertaining.

Top Gear have since proved that you can be absolutely stupid and extremely entertaining at the same time and long may that continue. I do, however, still want a sensible source of car news reviews and the like as well - remember William Woollard and Chris Goffey? That is why I liked Fifth Gear who did flirt with silliness for a while but always came back to good old-fashioned car reporting. It looks like that has now also gone to Car-Programme Heaven - maybe we need another series of Pulling Power?