Then there's The Champions and The Saint reruns for the 50s and 60s stuff....
Yep, I am enjoying them as well!!
One thing is that it makes you realise just how crowded the roads are these days compared with what it was like when I started driving in the early 70s...
Edited by b308 on 30/03/2008 at 12:24
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And don't forget Randall and Hopkirk (the Original) with the ever so stylish Vauxhall Victor.
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All of the above, and Department S (admittedly not on the telly, but the DVDs are available) with a Bentley, a Europa (I think) and another Victor (again, I think) with a very similar number plate to Randall's.
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The Saint reruns for the 50s and 60s stuff....
May be all right for whippersnappers but anyone who had read Leslie Charteris's Saint books in their youth, getting to know that tanned, tough, not over-scrupulous gentleman villain-with-principles (not a type often met with in real life), with his very fine thirties-pastiche motors, the Hirondel and the Furillac, simply sneered with disgust on seeing their boyhood hero represented as some sort of dancing instructor chap, obviously very good with old ladies, driving, heavens to betsy, a, choke, Volvo...
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I was moved to post on the TV Saint series because at dinner last night in another part of the Royal Borough there was someone a year older and more talkative than me, and a long-time car freak. We had that very conversation about the utter miscasting of Roger Moore and, puke, choke, a genuine hairdresser's Volvo for the Saint and his very fast-driven thirties cabriolets.
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A Detective Constable I knew in the 80s had one of these in metallic blue. Probably thought it gave him charisma.
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May be all right for whippersnappers but anyone who had read Leslie Charteris's Saint books in their youth getting to know that tanned tough not over-scrupulous gentleman villain-with-principles (not a type often met with in real life) with his very fine thirties-pastiche motors the Hirondel and the Furillac
I've read the books, in fact re-read several last year, and watched the series and enjoyed both - the books are based in the 30s and 40s whilst the tv series is the 60s so there will be differences, but both are enjoyable in their own way and Moore I would say was reasonably cast in a "modern" (60s) version of the books!
As for the car, I read somewhere that they wanted something more "suitable" but the manufacturer wouldn't supply one, but Volvo did....
Everyone to their own, I feel....
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Everyone to their own I feel....
Indeed b308, didn't mean to sound offensive, just, you know, putting it saltily...
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Indeed b308 didn't mean to sound offensive
Wasn't taken that way! ;)
Just though it was worth adding that when period books are "updated" onto tv or film in more modern times they tend to be "different" - the Bond films are a good example... and Moore was miscast in them!!
Edited by b308 on 30/03/2008 at 19:58
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the Bond films area good example... and Moore was miscast in them!!
Spot on there b308.
Had a conversation last night about those movies too. I hate all of them, but my gabby interlocutor quite liked the early ones with that Scotch chap. He also said the last one had an 'interesting' JB, but so far I haven't deigned to look at it, and I have no plans to.
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Yes but what about The Sweeney? In addition to the Granadas and the Capris there are nearly always the villains going about in Mk II 3.8 Jaguars which they race through the arches sarf of the river before losing it on a muddy patch of derelict land. Classic!
Could not agree more. Check out this forum
www.thetvlounge.co.uk/sweeney/index.php
specifically the "motors" section
There is a person who has been restoring NHK295M (the car they used in the first 3 seasons) for the past 17 years.
In his words "just think, JT and Dennis have sat on those hallowed seats!"
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This kind of feeds in to the Death of British Car Manufacturers thread.
The guy who produced the Professionals was as patriotic as patriotic could and so wanted to use BML vehicles.
Ford got wind of the series and were slavering at the opportunity and promising the producers anything they wanted but the producer wanted BML.
So they contacted BML and BML said ?if you want the cars go buy them?. Having been explained at length the free advertising on offer the BML sales department reluctantly agreed to supply the cars but they did not come from BML they came from dealers who had been strong armed in to supplying them for free. So a car would turn up and they would say ?it?s not the model we want?, ?tough? would say the dealer. So they would use the car they got but often the dealer would turn up half way through shooting and demand it back. ?We haven?t finished shooting? said the producer. ?Tough? would say the dealer ?I?ll bring it back tomorrow?. So next day the car that showed up would sometimes be a different colour and sometimes even a different model. The producer tried to explain the idea of continuity to the dealer but got the response ?tough?.
All the time Ford were promising the earth and so mid way through the first series Bodie and Doyle ditched the BML?s and started roaring round in Capri?s and Escorts and a legend was born.
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www.mark-1.co.uk/NewAvengers/navgcars.htm
Have a look in here - check out that BRG XJ12C - that was quite something.
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The Saint may have gone round in a Volvo but it it was a P1800S, I think, and quite a serious car.
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They were, some were built in the UK by Jensen. I had a white one when I was a kd. (albeit a Dinky model !) The 480 was a spiritual successor, but didn't quite have "it"
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Overweight, with Teasy-Weasy styling. Very like Roger Moore in fact. I didn't say they weren't made for each other
:o}
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Linked to the rest of the web, I love this site, we talk about cars from the past and then I happily surf the web doing some research.....en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_P1800
Here's what wiki has to say about the P1800 - the estate was elegantly executed. Interesting to note that Jaguar missed the opportunity to become the Saint's steed. My head pictures created by reading of the books was forever corrupted by RM's interpretation. Ian Ogilivy was closer perhaps, Sean Bean would fulfil the role now nicely - the most bizarre choice was
that American fellow in the mid-nineties film version. Should have been Sean Bean in a TVR.
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Continuing the tangent here...
Some Volvo drivers get quite attached to their cars!
www.autoblog.com/2007/10/26/man-with-2-6-million-m.../
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My headpictures created by reading of the books was forever corrupted by RM's interpretation. Ian Ogilivy was closer perhaps Sean Bean would fulfil the role now nicely -
The way I looked at it was that the Moore version was based in the 60s and the story lines modified to suit both him and the era, as such I felt it worked well... Had they tried to follow the books and base them in the 30s and 40s (and 20s originally?) then he certainly wouldn't have suited it - I was never really a fan of Ogilvy and that film was certainly strange, though does bear watching a second time as it seems to make a little more sense second time round!
Back to the cars, yes I'd heard the Jag story too, and the one about the Professionals - in fact the current reruns are the first series as they have started off with the Dolly and are moving over to the Fords!
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While working in a Renault garage in the early 1980s I sold a 5 Auto to Lewis Collins' girlfriend.
He used the car in the SAS thriller Who Dares Wins? He hares down a cobbled mews in it.
Collins was quite a big star in those days and I remember the girlfriend telling me she was sent several locking filler caps, mats and so on when the fans found out what car she had.
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Didn't he drive a Lamborghini Diablo in the Cuckoo Waltz ?
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Didn't he drive a Lamborghini Diablo in the Cuckoo Waltz ?
He might have done because he didn't drive the R5 that far, as it broke down a couple of times leading to angry visits to the dealer from his dad.
The girlfriend was fine, didn't have much to do with Lewis, but his dad, in my opinion, was the type of guy who gives Scousers a bad name.
So the sun roof leaks, has anybody died? Calm down, calm down!
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De Tomaso Pantera in the Cuckoo Waltz
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