famous car of all time

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is perhaps the most famous screen car of all time. This recreation is part

of Beaulieu's exhibition celebrating 50 years of the film, which will run until 19 November.

cars are the stars and famous.
A century ago Laurel & Hardy were the original ‘men behaving badly.’ Unlike so many other early film stars, they successfully made the transition from silent to ‘talkies’. Although some people (mainly female, if I’m allowed to make a sexist observation!) just can’t understand why repeatedly falling over and hurting yourself should be funny, the rest of us continue to be amused. ROFL, as they say.

Stan and Ollie used virtually anything as props, from pianos to gorillas and from cabbages to kings, but cars were an intrinsic element of most plots. In particular, Ford Model Ts were routinely battered to death in the cause of humor. It seems only one of possibly hundreds used on-screen survived, to spend its days in an American collection before starring in the now sadly defunct Keswick Cars of the Stars museum, not far from Stan Laurel’s Ulverston birthplace.
In subsequent years cars and motorcycles often became the subject of films, rather than part of the scenery. Men behaving badly in a different sense, 1953 gave us Marlon Brando on a Triumph in
The Wild One inflicting mayhem on a small Californian town. Based on real events, today the movie seems tame (and unintentionally funny), but at the time everyone was busy being morally outraged and locking up their daughters.

The theory that there’s no such thing as bad publicity was sorely tested, so it was fortunate for Triumph back in Blighty that no-one could understand what Brando was mumbling in his silly hat, though imitators recreated the look with headgear unwittingly supplied by British Rail, apparently! Although the BBC had first broadcast television signals in 1932, it wasn’t until the late 1950s that significant numbers of the public had access to a set. In Britain, programs and announcers concentrated on poshness and maintaining a stiff upper lip, so ITV shocked everyone with gritty soap dramas like Coronation Street. In that age, it’s doubtful anyone living in a Manchester terrace could afford anything with an engine, so not much chance of seeing Ena Sharples roar off in a two-tone Vauxhall Cresta, hairnet floating in her wake.

The car’s rise to crystal bucket stardom really began with Maigret’s Traction Avant Citroën in 1960. The series finished in 1963, so I’m not quite ancient enough to remember that, especially as we were one of the deprived families that didn’t own a TV until around 1966. My earliest memory of crocks on the box is an image of the Z- CarsFord Zephyr etched on my mind along with its theme tune. Meanwhile, it’s unfortunate that a fellow crime fighter, Dixon of Dock Green, had to chase villains on foot despite being only slightly younger than Methuselah.

Next came The Saint, featuring Roger Moore’s levitating eyebrow and a Volvo P1800 that could somehow outrun any other vehicle on the road. Why would a British toff like Simon Templar be driving an unpatriotic Swedish car? It seems that the producers approached Jaguar, only to be informed that the E-Type didn’t need any more publicity as the order book was full for years! Oh well, at least the P1800 was assembled in the UK for a while, courtesy of Jensen.
The Saint was a great success, and Volvo’s TV role demonstrated how valuable product placement could be for marketing purposes. One of the various Volvos appearing on-screen also became part of the Keswick museum collection, incidentally.

Most (if not all) car and bike manufacturers soon realized that film and TV appearances were a cost-effective way of advertising and raising awareness. Where would Aston-Martin have been without James Bond, for instance? For the cost of a few write-offs in stunts, millions of people could identify a DB5. While this didn’t really apply to suave John Steed in The Avengers who swanned around in a vintage Bentley, his associate, Emma Peel, spent a lot of time getting in and out of a Lotus Elan, no doubt boosting sales.

From 1967, The Prisoner must have had the same effect on the Lotus Seven, even if no-one had the slightest notion why Patrick McGoohan spent his time driving around a beach being chased by weather balloons. Would Caterham, Westfield and a legion of lookalike kit cars exist without the TV show? At the other end of the glamour scale, Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) was one of my favorites for car spotting. I didn’t really know what ‘deceased’ meant, but I could recognize Jeff Randall’s lurching Vauxhall Victor, and, of course, Jeannie Hopkirk’s Mini. It appears that the latter is still around, while the white Victor was actually one of half a dozen examples with different interiors. But it was the endless stream of cars in the background that added the most fun to car spotters of all ages.
Moving into the 1970s and The Persuaders, Rog ‘Eyebrows’ Moore and his rich but common sparring partner Tony Curtis ran an Aston DBS and Ferrari Dino. For once, it was possible that the heroes really would have been able to keep up with the villains. And after Jaguar’s failure to take advantage of free promotion in 1961, it was ironic that BL kitted out all three of  The New Avengers in the 1976 revival. Steed was still in charge but had scrapped the Bentley in favor of a mean Jaguar XJ Coupé, new recruit Mike Gambit got a Rover SD1 and Purdey a Triumph TR7 or an MGB. As for the baddies, they drove Fords.
By CLASSICS MONTHLY AUGUST 2019