TV cars star in new book for Xmas

UK and US motors from fun times past

By PH Staff / Wednesday, 11 October 2006 / Loading comments

General Lee

Remember the Dukes of Hazzard's Dodge Charger? Now there's a book out about that and dozens of other telly cars. Might make a good stocking filler...

Hairstyles and cars date most TV programmes. But while old-fashioned hairstyles cause amusement, cars evoke feelings of nostalgia, memories of days gone by. Who can watch old editions of Z-Cars without wanting to be behind the wheel of a Ford Zephyr? Don't we all covet that red Jaguar MkII of Inspector Morse? And isn't the Dodge Charger of the Dukes of Hazzard just the machine for a crazy weekend?

If you're having trouble recalling which cars featured in which TV programmes, Giles Chapman can help. Inspired by the Mk3 Ford Cortina in the Life on Mars TV series set in 1973, he has collected all the famous cars from TV and featured them in this new book.

TV Cars is packed with facts, anecdotes and photographs of the cars and their star drivers from the nation’s favourite cop shows, dramas, sit-coms, sci-fi classics and documentaries. There's a brief biography of each car, detailing its history, why it was chosen for the series and modifications made for filming.

Do you remember the Ford Consul, Ford Granada and Jaguar S-type used on The Sweeney? Only Fools and Horses had an infamous Reliant Regal, of course, plus a less well-known Ford Capri. Adam Adamant Lives! featured a Mini Cooper, while Jason King went much more up-market with a Bentley Continental.

From America, The A-Team was always smoking the tyres of either a GMC van or a Corvette. In The Dukes of Hazzard there was the famous white-striped Dodge Charger and the Knight Rider series used an all-back Pontiac Firebird.

However, can you remember the exact make and model of car that Basil Fawlty gave a “damn good thrashing” in an episode of Fawlty Towers? Answer below.

With the added bonus of 25 more television car moments you might like to replay at the back of the book, TV Cars is just the thing to sit in a Christmas stocking alongside some DVDs of classic television programmes. Then all you need is the appropriate hairstyle.

Author Giles Chapman has been a motoring journalist for 20 years. He is former editor of Classic & Sports Car and Your Classic magazines and author of seven books. Currently he works as an award-winning writer for national newspapers and magazines, and is consulted widely on car culture, design and heritage. He lives in Sevenoaks, Kent.