For The Love of Cars

[ecsrobin]

wolfracesonic said:

Crossflow Kid said:

What the heck. Seems like as good a thread as any to share this......;)

Go on then, enlighten us............

Looks like an airshow or families day judging by the variety of aircraft and barriers to the right.

That episode was awful. I'm also not liking the whole let's see if we can get an auction record aspect of this series, the previous series seemed to be better.

I had to google the liver run and ended up with the show in the background and being far more impressed by an old police camera action.

[Janluke]

I'm enjoying these, like "The Classic Car Show", its not perfect but far far better than most of the dross on TV at the moment. IMO neither programs are aimed at the hardcore petrolhead but a wider audience.

Question for those in the know. The siren on the SD1 soundn't like a modern American style wouldn't it have been the older two tone style(nee narr :-) )

[djdest]

As soon as I heard the siren I thought it sounded too modern too

[HTP99]

princealbert23 said:

Hub said:

He just comes across as sneering and a bit odd at the best of times and downright disparaging on other occasions (e.g. Land Rover episode from the last series).

He is simply an actor who is a bit out of his depth presenting

I think he looks pissed when he's presenting these shows and also; I haven't a clue whether he actually has an interest in cars but he seems to be trying to force out a car interest; not very convincingly either.

[anonymous-user]

Janluke said:

Question for those in the know. The siren on the SD1 soundn't like a modern American style wouldn't it have been the older two tone style(nee narr :-) )

The Mets SD1s were the first of their cars to switch to wailers so maybe not? IIRC the changeover occurred during the SD1 era so maybe some had nee-nars whilst other forces had woo-woos?

Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 27th April 08:52

[anonymous-user]

ecsrobin said:

wolfracesonic said:

Crossflow Kid said:

What the heck. Seems like as good a thread as any to share this......;)

Go on then, enlighten us............

Looks like an airshow or families day judging by the variety of aircraft and barriers to the right.

Have a gold star.

[The Don of Croy]

May I bh a bit?...

Having enjoyed most of the episodes of series one and two, last night's seemed really vague...all of a sudden Ant has employees (but we know it's a different workshop etc etc) and a background...they're doing a 'charidee' job for some chappee who happens to have the car festering on his driveway (unlucky in his health but otherwise I'm none the wiser as to whether he needs the dosh etc)...brief history of cop cars (gorgeous Dart) but almost no mention of the 'original' jam sandwich P6...very little about why the SD1 was popular...

I know it's all subjective - must appeal to wider audience etc etc but with Glenister so natural at taking the pi55 they seem to miss more entertaining opportunities imho. Like comparing the SD1 to a current 5 series GT. Or perhaps making a tenuous link between the V8'ness of the Dart and the SD1.

I think they came up short justifying just why the SD1 was so special, or even superior to what came before and afterwards (perhaps because it wasn't?).

The auction ending is just that - a suitable programme full stop. But the false jeopardy grates sometimes.

[AmiableChimp]

I now know why Philip Glenister wears driving gloves a lot of the time!

Unfortunate camera placement on the Dart showing a skin condition on his left hand.

Liked the show but agree, can't we see a bit more of the actual restoration?

[chris watton]

Didn't enjoy last night's too much - not nearly enough time spent showing the car restoration, and too much time spent on nothing much of note.

Never mind, we skipped through two thirds of it, and then had time to watch the Golf GTi Mk 1 on Car SOS....

[aeropilot]

iSore said:

There are plenty of manual 3500 Plods around. A customer of ours had one back in the late eighties, a 1980 V plate one - CYW479V iirc. It had Minilite alloys, different brakes and was a special build car based on a 2300 with basic trim and no Nivomat rear suspension.

That will be an ex-Met Police one then.

[aeropilot]

Derek Smith said:

Three City of London Triumph 500 motorcycles were used in the run along the Commercial Road. Two broke down (unaccustomed to speed) and the other was the lead vehicle.

I think you'll find all the bikes were BMW's.

No Plod was using old Trumpet 500's in the 1980's or indeed any old Triumphs of any description by then (the Met had stopped using 500 Speed Twins back in the early 60's!!!)

[droopsnoot]

Yes, I'd agree - I always think there's too little of the restoration, but there was almost none on this one. I assume they painted it, unless I blinked that went without a mention, and the "two speedos" section was terrible. The recreation was a waste of time, they weren't going very fast despite the outriders so they'd have been better dumping that, dumping the messing around on the skid pan, and just showing the original run.

Maybe something went wrong with the filming of the work and they had to pad it out to fill out the programme?

[Smollet]

Last night's episode was pants. About five minutes on the restoration(if that) and the rest on the history of the car with the plod and the liver run. Naff.

[FourWheelDrift]

Or there turned out to be less needed to be done than originally thought.

[Smollet]

FourWheelDrift said:

Or there turned out to be less needed to be done than originally thought.

Ten weeks full on restoration would suggest otherwise and that a fair amount was needed

[boyse7en]

Smollet said:

Ten weeks full on restoration would suggest otherwise and that a fair amount was needed

I was surprised that it 'only' went for £9,750 in the end, I'd have thought a 10 week restoration plus the various parts needed would cost more than that.

[gareth_r]

On the subject of traffic cars in general, I was under the impression that, back then, the police preferred manual over automatic, and were purchasing "police (poverty) spec" cars (in white) without stuff like electric windows, leather, or even alloy wheels. (Wasn't there a story of one force ordering Sierra XR4s with steel wheels then having to switch to alloys when, after a few crashes, it was found that the steelies could cause brake fade?)

More recently, of course, they switched to buying civilian specification cars in silver to improve the resale value, and automatics because manuals were no longer available.

Edited by gareth_r on Monday 27th April 12:23

[aeropilot]

gareth_r said:

On the subject of traffic cars in general, I was under the impression that, back then, the police preferred manual over automatic, and were purchasing "police (poverty) spec" cars (in white) without stuff like electric windows, leather, or even alloy wheels. (Wasn't there a story of one force ordering Sierra XR4s with steel wheels then having to switch to alloys when, after a few crashes, it was found that the steelies could cause brake fade?)

More recently, of course, they switched to buying civilian specification cars in silver to improve the resale value, and automatics because manuals were no longer available.

Probably a lot of county Plod were still buying manuals back then 1980's for traffic use, but the Met. Police in London (for obvious reasons) converted over to an all automatic fleet for it's traffic/area cars back in the mid 1960's with the introduction of the Jag 3.4S.

I believe a lot of the current Plod fleets are not civilian spec at all, and are all special Police spec, certainly the Volvo's and BMW 5 series cars are police spec (whether silver or otherwise)

[stichill99]

What a let down last nights show was! I always want to see more of the actual work on the car but as previously said there was almost nothing. The driver training was rubbish,maybe fun for the presenters but crap for the viewer. Lets hope for better next week!

[HTP99]

aeropilot said:

gareth_r said:

On the subject of traffic cars in general, I was under the impression that, back then, the police preferred manual over automatic, and were purchasing "police (poverty) spec" cars (in white) without stuff like electric windows, leather, or even alloy wheels. (Wasn't there a story of one force ordering Sierra XR4s with steel wheels then having to switch to alloys when, after a few crashes, it was found that the steelies could cause brake fade?)

More recently, of course, they switched to buying civilian specification cars in silver to improve the resale value, and automatics because manuals were no longer available.

Probably a lot of county Plod were still buying manuals back then 1980's for traffic use, but the Met. Police in London (for obvious reasons) converted over to an all automatic fleet for it's traffic/area cars back in the mid 1960's with the introduction of the Jag 3.4S.

I believe a lot of the current Plod fleets are not civilian spec at all, and are all special Police spec, certainly the Volvo's and BMW 5 series cars are police spec (whether silver or otherwise)

My dad was Traffic Police from the 70's up until retiring from the force 16 years ago, he would regale me with stories of running development Fords as patrol cars; usually Granada's, Scorpio's and Sierra's, all with non standard engines.