John Noakes 1977 Blue Peter - 1970 Marcos V-6 Ealing Studios

[neutral 3]

Couldn’t believe my eyes seeing the Late Great John Noakes and Shep, driving into Ealing studios in a white Marcos 3 Litre reg no BPD 222H
Anyone know if it was Johns own car ?
Sadly, the Marcos has been re painted red.

[neutral 3]

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[Martyn-123]

Hi,

Mention this on the Marcos FB pages, i am sure you will get lots of info, there is a video on youtube of this, not sure if that is where you go the stills from.

I have a 69 V6 stripped ready for a rebuild,


Martyn

[Dapster]

This was sold recently (late 2019) via Redline Sportscars. Blurb claims that it was definitely his!

advert... said:

This Marcos was first owned by British national treasure the late great John Noakes of the BBC Blue Peter fame...

https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C1118676

Interesting Marcos pics here from P5BNij and others

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[neutral 3]

Wonder when John Noakes bought it and how long did he own it for ?

Such a shame it’s been re painted red and had a ghastly Webasto sunroof hacked into it.
The “ wide boss “ Mota Lita, leather steering wheel, looks to be the only thing original on it.

[fttm]

Webasto was a must have for most cars back then , looks better in red also imho .

[Tyre Smoke]

I think it looks better in red and also don't have a problem with the sunroof. It's period and opens up the car.

[moffspeed]

Tyre Smoke said:

I think it looks better in red and also don't have a problem with the sunroof. It's period and opens up the car.

I agree completely. Classic cars tend to have had a blow over at some point in their lives and if it is a different but not outrageous colour - so what.

A Webasto sunroof was a cool accessory back then - back in the late 70’s I was after a Mexico and eventually chose the one with a sunroof, it was a clincher. If the car had survived it would no doubt have been steeled over by now.

By the 90’s the glass hatch sunroof was all the rage. I remember a company working in our local hyper market car park . In the same way that you would spend a tenner today to have your car washed whilst you shopped for groceries they would take the tin snippers to your pride and joy whilst you wandered around Tesco’s & Halfords

Shopping trip over you would return to your newly-sun roofed car and inspect the damage. Alarming.

[Martyn-123]

My 69 has the same sunroof.

They get so hot inside as my last one had no sunroof so hoping this one it will let some hot air out, even Prince Andrew would have sweated in mine

[droopsnoot]

moffspeed said:

A Webasto sunroof was a cool accessory back then - back in the late 70’s I was after a Mexico and eventually chose the one with a sunroof, it was a clincher. If the car had survived it would no doubt have been steeled over by now.

My Firenza has a Webasto roof, had it when I bought it, and I do like it on the occasions I can have it open, though the car shakes more than the other car that doesn't have one. I have considered finding a rusty coupe shell and liberating the roof panel so it can be covered over when the Firenza eventually needs another respray, but then I found out it was fitted by the first owner when the car was only twelve weeks old, so I'm more inclined to leave it in place now, especially as I have the receipt for fitting it.

[aeropilot]

droopsnoot said:

moffspeed said:

A Webasto sunroof was a cool accessory back then - back in the late 70’s I was after a Mexico and eventually chose the one with a sunroof, it was a clincher. If the car had survived it would no doubt have been steeled over by now.

My Firenza has a Webasto roof, had it when I bought it, and I do like it on the occasions I can have it open, though the car shakes more than the other car that doesn't have one. I have considered finding a rusty coupe shell and liberating the roof panel so it can be covered over when the Firenza eventually needs another respray, but then I found out it was fitted by the first owner when the car was only twelve weeks old, so I'm more inclined to leave it in place now, especially as I have the receipt for fitting it.

Same as the Sunbeam-Lotus I had, which had a Webasto fitted by the original owner when the car was only a few weeks old.
I have to admit, I had loved them until owning a car with one, and I grew to hate it.
I had been on the look out for a roof panel as well to be able to delete it when the time came to restore the car, but never found one. I had collected every external panel, bar the roof panel and one sill.

As for glass sunroofs, even worse, and many an AVO Escort was ruined in the early 80's by having a glass sunroof fitted
If you were lucky, as some found out, and it was a small version, there was just enough panel around it that, it could be retro-ised by making the hole bigger and fitting a Webasto instead. I know of a few Mex's and RS2's that were able to be 'corrected' by doing that.
Some though had quite big glass roof's and the hole width was wider than the Webasto, so game over.

Edited by aeropilot on Wednesday 6th January 12:11

[P5BNij]

A lot of the period reviews of the Marcos GT mention the welcome addition of the Webasto sunroof.

Great find OP

[neutral 3]

aeropilot said:

droopsnoot said:

moffspeed said:

A Webasto sunroof was a cool accessory back then - back in the late 70’s I was after a Mexico and eventually chose the one with a sunroof, it was a clincher. If the car had survived it would no doubt have been steeled over by now.

My Firenza has a Webasto roof, had it when I bought it, and I do like it on the occasions I can have it open, though the car shakes more than the other car that doesn't have one. I have considered finding a rusty coupe shell and liberating the roof panel so it can be covered over when the Firenza eventually needs another respray, but then I found out it was fitted by the first owner when the car was only twelve weeks old, so I'm more inclined to leave it in place now, especially as I have the receipt for fitting it.

Same as the Sunbeam-Lotus I had, which had a Webasto fitted by the original owner when the car was only a few weeks old.
I have to admit, I had loved them until owning a car with one, and I grew to hate it.
I had been on the look out for a roof panel as well to be able to delete it when the time came to restore the car, but never found one. I had collected every external panel, bar the roof panel and one sill.

As for glass sunroofs, even worse, and many an AAVO Escort was ruined in the early 80's by having a glass sunroof fitted
If you were lucky, as some found out, and it was a small version, there was just enough panel around it that, it could be retro-ised by making the hole bigger and fitting a Webasto instead. I know of a few Mex's and RS2's that were able to be 'corrected' by doing that.
Some though had quite big glass roof's and the hole width was wider than the Webasto, so game over.

A good pal bought a brand new W plate Venetian red RS2000 from Gates of Woodford. He then “ for some daft reason “ had a glass sunroof fitted to it. Some months later, he noticed that the roof was cracking in one corner. He took the car back to complain, they welded the roof up. But it cracked again. They then told him that the only solution was to fit a Webasto. They did and he sold the car shortly after, in 1983.

[dontlookdown]

My paternal grandma - now long dead - always had a fabric Webasto-type roof in her car. From jer fieat prewar Riley all the way to the 73 2 door Viva Special that was her last. But she never had a Marcos as far as I know;)

She used it nearly all the time so long as it wasn't chucking it down. Even in winter she would don leather gloves and a driving coat so she was warm enough to have the roof open.

As a nipper I thought they were great - twice the size of the sliding metal roof in my Dad's Granada.

[GordonL]

I’ve got a vague memory of John and Peter Purves building a sports car from a kit on Blue Peter in the 60s, could it have been this?

[neutral 3]

I had a bad RTA in my 3 Litre Capri, on a two lane stretch of motorway, in May 82, courtesy of one of those Webasto sunroofs.
As my pal went to close it, the frigging thing came out of its runner and down onto me, as I tried lifting it up out of my line of vision, with my left hand, the Capri veered into the gravel between the tarmac and the crash barrier. I can still see and hear the gravel hitting the screen.
I steered left and then right and then the car went up onto its left two wheels, I can still hear my then pal Harvey, yelling in sheer panic “ Were going over “
Somehow, the Capri then went into a multiple spin, 3 times I was told. I can still see the red XJ6, going past us, on the inside, god knows how he missed us.
A pal behind, in his blue Capri 3000E, said that “ we disappeared in a cloud of tyre smoke “ .
The Capri then headed backwards, I braked but Bang, as the drivers rear 1/4 hit the central reservation crash barrier.
You can clearly see the stoved in drivers rear 1/4 in this photo ( a few weeks after my pal Peter and I had spent a Sunday morning, out side the Horse and Wells pub, in Woodford Green, bashing out it out as straight as we could, with a club hammer ) But we could do nowt about the closed up door gap. Capri shell is very weak when hit on a rear corner.

Found my Late Dads last E Type in October 19. Mortified to see that someone had hacked a Webasto into it......
When / If, i do manage to buy the car back, the ££££ rape that sorting that abomination out, is going to cause me......

[Zener]

Webasto probably wasnt expecting someone to try closing what is essentially a small sail at motorway speeds its why many electric hooded cars are programmed to not attempt opening or closure once over a certain speed

[Turbobanana]

Zener said:

Webasto probably wasnt expecting someone to try closing what is essentially a small sail at motorway speeds its why many electric hooded cars are programmed to not attempt opening or closure once over a certain speed

Quite. The mechanism in my 30 year old Saab requires the handbrake to be on to such an extent that driving would be inadvisable, before activating the motor.