The car is the star

bazzabear

bazzabear

bazzabear

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Something on another forum got me thinking about this - and as this forum is much bigger, I thought I'd raise it here to see if we get any different ideas and views. Wasn't sure whether here or motors was the best forum choice though!

I was born late 70's and grew up in the 80's. During that period, there were a plethora of US hit shows where the car was either the main star or had almost equal billing. I mean, just off the top of my head:
Knight Rider (and a nod also to Street Hawk and Airwolf)
A Team
Fall Guy
Dukes of Hazzard

These led to me having an unhealthy obsession with US muscle cars and (a dark secret) even an occasional hankering for a ridiculously large pickup truck. And, looking back, it occurs to me that there was no similar UK based series during my childhood. So nothing, beyond Bond (which did a brilliant job on it's own of getting me to love Astons to be fair) to get me similarly obsessed with more UK or European motors.

Now, for people slightly older than me, whose formative years were in the 70's, the story is very different. They had things like:
The Avengers
The Persuaders
The Sweeney
The Professionals

Which mostly seems to have resulted in a love of Capri's as far as I can tell.

So, after that long intro, I come to the questions I meant to ask:

Am I wrong, and I just can't remember the car-led 80's action programmes from the UK?

What car's can you distinctly remember starring in UK 80's media, beyond a mucky Reliant Supervan and Nurse Gladys Emanuel's Morris?

If I'm not wrong, what's your theory for this phenomenon? It's not that us Brits are too stuck up to like such things, because the previous decade was full of them. Why did they just stop dead at the end of the 70's? Did the TV makers decide we couldn't compete with the budgets of the US ones? Or maybe with the glitz of Hollywood stars and guns?
 
You're forgetting Brum!

I think you are right about the budgets, of the US productions. They also had a larger market and these shows would serve as vehicle for them too. Product placement before it was overly obvious.
I am probably the same age as you, I don't remember any UK based action shows at all.
 
By the 1980's the British car industry was on its knees and we had better options from Europe. It wasn't a great time.
 
Hades said:
By the 1980's the British car industry was on its knees and we had better options from Europe. It wasn't a great time.
Click to expand...

Interesting point. But there would have been nothing to stop such a series using cars from a non British manufacturer. Except maybe such manufacturers would have been less interested in the exposure because the Uk wasn't their main market?

Bickaxe's point about product placement is an interesting one. Were the US further advanced in terms of commercialism, and it was in their interests to showcase a car because the manufacturer paid them for it?
I know the story of Ferrari providing the Testarossa's for free to Miami Vice as long as they promised to stop using the fake Daytona's.
 
Don't think the cars were given an actual "equal billing" but they were used to add something to a character. Aside from things like KITT which obvious were the crux of the series the car was mainly just for promotional/merchandising benefits, i'd say. UK equivalents as a quick top of my head, Spender had a somewhat inappropriate Cosworth, eg, Simon Templar had his XJS, Bergerac had his convertible thing - they simply made the characters cool/stand out, I don't think they were ever supposed to be a character as such.
 
A few others, although from the 1960's:

The Prisoner - Lotus 7
The Avengers - Bentley, TR7 and various Jaguars including the e-type, Broadspeed and XJS
The Saint - Volvo P1800 and Jaguar XJS

More recent:
Inspector Morse - Jaguar mk2
Ashes To Ashes - Audi UR Quattro
 
Bergerac and Morse were two others I though of - but not sure the car was 'important' enough in either case. And they certainly weren't the type of car to get a teenager wanting a poster or it on their wall.

Also I think Poirot began in the 80's, and had some delicious cars in it from time to time. But none of them central, and of course they were 'period'.

Spender's Cossie I also thought of - but when I checked, that was just into the 90's rather than 80's.

That Broadspeed Jag in The Avengers was awesome, but just helps prove my point. :)

Given that US shows don't seem to centralise the car any more either, maybe we just grew out of it sooner than the Americans did?
 
You might find the odd kids' cartoon that did such things, but we generally had actors of sufficient quality that we didn't need to supplement their talent with anthropomorphised vehicles.
 
ttaskmaster said:
You might find the odd kids' cartoon that did such things, but we generally had actors of sufficient quality that we didn't need to supplement their talent with anthropomorphised vehicles.
Click to expand...
Shots fired! :D
As an aside, I still find myself humming this theme tune to myself from time to time (although it's US so still doesn't help the question!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLV2D05fgj4


The Italian Job is either 10 years too old or 20 years too young.
Mr Bean just doesn't make it as it started in 1990. His Mini certainly is iconic though. Not quite got the same pizazz as a Charger or Gran Torino though, has it? :D
 
No idea why, but as a kid of the 80's I always loved the look of the tyres with the white letters around the side of the tyrewalls on American cars, like the A-team Van and General Lee - I thought they made it look really cool.
 
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