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UK:Feature: Ford's star cars

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Feature: Ford's star cars
Jul 2004 by: Jeremy Hart
Channel4

Jeremy Hart travels back in time to test-drive the Ford cars that have made television and movie history.

For 40 years, on both sides of the Atlantic, you couldn't turn on the telly or go to the cinema and not see a Ford in a starring role. The Blue Oval has been the star of screens small and silver.

Steve McQueen wrapped San Francisco in a layer of rubber from his Mustang Fastback GT in Bullitt. Bond flipped his Mach One Mustang onto two wheels in Diamonds are Forever. There was barely a dent-free bonnet left in the Ford spares shed after The Professionals were finished jumping and rolling into action off their Ford Capri and Escorts. Harry Potter rammed the Whomping Willow in his flying Ford Anglia and this year's biggest celluloid hit, Thunderbirds, has Lady Penelope wafting in to save the world aboard a big pink Ford Fab 1.

Lady Pen's FAB1 from the imminent Thunderbirds remake
You would have thought Hutch, Regan and Lady Penelope would have been dying to have a go behind the wheel of their star cars. But no. They all had their own drivers. More fools them.


Iconic: a tomato red Gran Torino was Starsky's 'hero' car

Starsky and Hutch and The Sweeney had a lot in common: bad dress sense, immortal lines (remember 'Get yer trousers on, you're nicked'?), an unfailing ability to nail 1970s perps either side of the Atlantic. Both featured in the charts, too. Hutch (David Soul) had hits such as 'Don't Give Up On Us Baby' and the boys from the flying squad got a celebrated name check in Squeeze's 1979 No.2, Cool for Cats: "The Sweeney's doing 90, 'cos they got the word to go/ They get a gang of villains in a shed up at Heathrow."

What Squeeze didn't put in the lyrics was the fact that at the time DI Jack Regan was allegedly doing well in excess of the national speed limit on the way to apprehend said criminals, he was in a Ford Granada Consul. As for David Soul? There was not a mention anywhere in his hits for the iconic Gran Torino which turned the dynamic duo into a trio.

In the original TV series, Hutch never drove the car...
Maybe that's because neither Regan nor Hutch ever drove what are known in the business as the 'hero' cars in their hit shows. Regan was always too busy effing and blinding at his 'oppo' DS George Carter and Hutch too occupied with his hair or calling 'Zebra 3' into the radio.


The Professionals: The wall of cardboard boxes was no match for the Capri, but it did manage to overheat when Jeremy tried to road-test it.

With C15 agents Bodie and Doyle handbrake-turning their way round London in their drop-snoot RS2000 and Ford Capri, the cars became the must-have motors of the late '70s and early '80s. It turned out to be the best product placement on British TV. Eighteen million Britons watched the final episode before Bodie, Doyle and the cars went into retirement.

"I haven't seen that car since the day they stopped filming," says Reynolds , pointing at COO 251T, the actual 1979 silver Mk3 Capri used in many episodes of The Professionals. Now COO 251T is owned by Adam Langley. He bought it off eBay 6 months ago. Although he was barely old enough to remember the original screenings of The Professionals, he knows everything about the car.

"In late 1978, Lewis Collins (Bodie) broke his ankle parachuting. The Capri he had been using up to then was VHK 495 S," Adam explains with encyclopaedic detail. "When filming started again they started using COO 251T. In the first episode (titled 'Madness of Mickey Hamilton') using the new car they forgot to screw on the false plates, so COO 251T appeared in the first scene but two scenes later the car is wearing UOO 303T... the false plates. At least now I can be sure it is my car."

Sadly COO 251T overheats before I can get behind the wheel. Disappointment turns to joy though as rumbling through the leafy Sussex lanes comes the thoroughly out of place but nevertheless outrageously dramatic Starsky and Hutch Red Tomato, a 1974 Ford Gran Torino.


Wizard-mobile: Harry Potter's steed: the Anglia. He crashed it into the Whomping Willow, sadly


Shaatit!: Ford's Granada Consul 3000GT ferried The Flying Squad around in The Sweeney

"The keys should be in her," says John Page, owner of a Sweeney-spec Ford Granada. Suitably Seventies, liveried with vinyl roof, the Flying Squad car is lined up between Minder's Capri and the Glam Cabs Ford Consul Cortina from Carry on Cabby at a reunion of Ford film cars at Goodwood. Page has one word of warning. "The brakes are from the 1970s not from 2004..."

His words trail off in a throb of V6 power and Sussex dust as the Granada's rear wheels bite the road and launch the Sweeney machine off at quite a pace for a 25-year-old. Windows down, I hum the theme tune and picture the opening title sequence whilst lurching through the lanes. The Granada is incredibly nimble for such a big and relatively old set of wheels. Chase-emulating tyre squeals come naturally.

Then it's time for a few Regan impersonations. "Shut it... shuttit... shaaaatit," I practice. Then another line comes to mind. "We're the Sweeney and we haven't had any dinner". I only stop shouting out when I get back within earshot of Goodwood - a big grin on my face.


Think pink: Lady Penelope's leviathian FAB1 from the upcoming Thunderbirds remake


Getting in on the action: A SportKa stuntdriver gives it some sideways


Like a Bullitt: Mustang Fastback GT similar to that driven by Steve McQueen in the famous San Fran chase scenes
 
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