Long forgotten British TV motoring shows

[Jukebag]

Was going through some old VHS tapes recently and came across some old motoring shows which most people will have forgotten about. One series was "The Car Show" (what a creative name:-), which was shown on Channel 5 around 1998, presented by Mariella Frostrup and someone called Tristram Payne. One episode they discuss classic British sportscars such as the Caterham 7 and Caterham 21 (never heard of a Caterham 21), Morgan, TVR and the MGB, as well as the Porsche Boxster and BMW Z3. There's a short clip with a young James May and a younger Charles Morgan:




The Car's the Star presented by Quentin Willson in the late 90s was a great series IMO. What a classic motoring programme should be about, straight to the point, informative and no dodgy dealing or idiotic behaviour for the sake of ratings. Another well made series was Sporting Heroes and Classic British Cars presented by the late John Peel.

Apologies for the awful screenshots, typical poor Channel 5 reception of the day.

Anyone watching Granada Reports news in the North West in the late 90s may remember they had a series called Mad About Motors. One episode the presenters talk to classic car collectors, in particular a chap with a green racing E-Type and Lamborghini Contach, amongst others of course.

Edited by Jukebag on Friday 2nd December 13:50

Edited by Jukebag on Friday 2nd December 13:51

Edited by Jukebag on Friday 2nd December 14:03

Edited by Jukebag on Friday 2nd December 16:40

[Jukebag]

Regarding the Granada Tonight short series Mad About Cars, in one episode the presenters travel in a Frogeye Sprite to Keswick to visit a motor museum of film/TV cars. The museum closed years ago. Geoff somebody his name was, can't recall surname, but apparently he used to do his own motors up, including a kit car and was a quite enthusiastic person. No idea if he's still around. Granada Tonight used to do a number of stories around classic motors (which I have on tape), one was of a chap who built his own kit car with a Scimitar Essex V6 engine in it, then it shows him on a large airfield racing in it with an Austin Healey 3000.

Someone told me they remembered watching a series on Channel 4 in the early 1980s in which former Top Gear presenter Chris Goffey re-builds an MGA, as well as other classic cars. No idea what this was called as I don't remember it myself, and nothing comes up about this particular series on Chris Goffey's IMDB page. Can anyone who is old enough shed any light on this programme?.

Edited by Jukebag on Friday 2nd December 17:03

[Jukebag]

I looked up the number of that racing E-Type in the screenshot to find out more about it, and it turns out it is 1 of only 3 built in the early 90s by Bryan Wingfield of DRL engineering. In the clip they stated it was worth £40,000, with the Contach being £80,000, and this was nearly 20 yrs ago.

[Jukebag]

jamesatcandsc said:

Couldn't remember it either so took the liberty of asking Chris Goffey.
He said: "The programme was called “The Motor Show” - one of the earliest shows on the then new Channel Four, and one of the first sponsored shows in television history! AC Delco stumped up some cash, and we travelled around the country doing stories in an AC Delco emblazoned Winnebago. One of the story lines was a redoubtable 100 year old lady in Wiltshire who took me for a drive in her AC Cobra. We only got one series. The MGA was restored by the classic car restoration course at Colchester technical college, and the car was sourced from Richardson’s yard at Colnbrook. It was a bit of a wreck but had a cut down windscreen and some racing bits which suggested a racing history we never identified. Where is the car now?"

Edited by jamesatcandsc on Saturday 3rd December 17:30

Edited by jamesatcandsc on Saturday 3rd December 21:21

Thanks for that, much appreciated you went to the trouble to ask the man himself. Couldn't find this series on IMDb, but then again what info is accurate on there as it's like wikipedia being stuff just gets self edited by users. Finding details on some very obscure TV series on the internet often draws a blank; people assume anything can be found on the net. I wonder how many people would've remembered this short lived series?

How many programmes have there been with the title "The Motor Show?". Wasnt there a Motor Show that was shown on ITV (i think) throughout the 1990s, presented by Eammon O'Neill? can't remember the blonde haired womans name. Used to watch that quite regularly. Driven was another one, more recently though. Didn't know Mike Brewer and James May were presenters.

Edited by Jukebag on Saturday 3rd December 21:59

[Jukebag]

I'd love to upload some of the motoring related programmes I have on tape (if I get round to capturing them with a decent capture software that can cope with poorly worn tapes lol), some you'd be lucky to find on YouTube or any other site. I have quite a few Car's the Star episodes: Ford Mustang, Capri, Fiat 500, Reliant 3 wheeler (I think), E-Type Jag, Citroen DS, Lotus 7, as well as one or two of the John Peel narrated series Sporting Heroes and Classic British Cars. But YouTube will likely moan about them being copyright infringement and all that. You can't even watch an episode of Wheeler Dealers on there without the video being messed with audio speededup and Mike Brewer sounding like a chipmunk.

[Jukebag]

It was the Motor Show, presented by Eamonn O'Neal and Nicky Fox. Nicky Fox apparently was a presenter on Top Gear and is a SKY news weather forecaster. Nothing comes up on IMDb as per usual except this:https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b7e343bfa

Produced by Granada TV. I wonder how long this ran for as I remember it being on all the time in 1990s.

[Jukebag]

The drama series about the garage owner and rallying storyline and the E-Type I've been trying to find out about as well. I managed to find out what it was on a forum somewhere a few years back (can't remember if I got the info from a motoring related forum or just a general TV forum; it mayve been via the digitalspy forum), however, I've since forgotten what it was called. I even looked it up on YouTube at the time and was surprised it was on there, albeit in poor quality and with a matermark over the image. I think the E-Type may've been yellow and was a roadster, either a series 1 or 2.

Edit: Driving Ambition is the one. Glad you managed to find it. Speaking of TV shows, it annoys me with all the endless repeats of old shows and programmes they keep showing on the various terrestrial channels (ITV3/4, drama, yesterday, Quest, etc) that theres just lots and lots of old series that have never been shown. Instead of showing looped repeats of Lovejoy, The Professionals, Bergerac and Heartbeat, they should repeat Driving Ambition. Another one would be Forever Green starring Pauline Collins.

Edited by Jukebag on Monday 5th December 14:05

[Jukebag]

Just a curious observation regarding that E-Type in Driving Ambition. To me the headlights look odd, as if the lamps aren't set further in enough (in other words they appear to stick out abit more than usual), and the surrounds look like they've been modified to fit round the lamps to look like closed headlights. Looks like they fitted series 1 chrome surrounds on a series 1.5 car. Maybe it's just the angle/lighting that makes it look odd.

[Jukebag]

The Citroen DS episode of The Car's the Star was a good one too. I'm currently going through some 180 plus tapes trying to find the episode on the Lotus 7. So far I have:
Fiat 500
Citroen DS
Citroen 2CV
VW Golf gti (why I have that one on tape I don't know, certainly not a classic in my eyes and should never be)
Ford Capri (another overrated "classic")
E-Type Jag
Austin Healey
MGB
Ford Mustang
Austin Mini
Triumph Herald
MK 2 Jag

I also came across a series aired in the early 90s on Channel 4 titled "Classic Cars", which centeted around the early 90s classic car boom.

[Jukebag]

Came across another car related programme (Channel 4 I think) called Ride On, presented by Muriel Gray. According to the net, it ran from 1994-1996.