Adam Langley stared into the engine of his Ford Capri and shook his head. “It’s going nowhere,” he said ruefully. “Somebody’s left it ticking over and now it’s too hot. You have to be careful: I don’t want the gasket going.”
Quite right. But what puzzles me is: how did Bodie and Doyle manage to defeat the forces of international terrorism if they had to stop the car every so often to cool it down?
Langley’s car is no ordinary Capri. It was one of four used in The Professionals, the classic 1970s TV cop show that remains emblazoned on the memory of a generation. Lewis Collins and Martin Shaw raced about the countryside looking tough in this very car, but I don’t remember them ever filling up the windscreen washer, let alone worrying about water leaks and gaskets.
For me, the squeal of a Ford Capri’s tyres, driven at high speed by a secret agent in flared trousers, was the authentic sound of the 1970s. Cars were as much a part of the detective dramas of that decade as extravagant hairstyles and a date with a blonde at the local trattoria. The Sweeney would not have been quite the same without Inspector Jack Regan’s gold Ford Granada. Would Minder’s Terry McCann have been quite as tough in a Triumph Herald?
Some of the four-wheeled stars of the era were on display at Goodwood House, West Sussex, last week, as Ford celebrated the role of its cars in television and film and prepared its exhibits for next weekend’s Festival of Speed. There was Bodie and Doyle’s Capri, Starsky and Hutch’s Ford Gran Torino, and Terry McCann’s Capri from Minder. There was a Ford Anglia flown — in heavy disguise — by Ron Weasley in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the Mustang driven by Steve McQueen in Bullitt, and — with slightly less in the way of glamour and tough-guy action — a Cortina used by Hattie Jacques in Carry On Cabby.
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Showbiz has not necessarily been kind to these cars. Some have been rescued from the scrapyard, including Langley’s silver Capri, which he bought after spotting it on eBay. “They’ve got such character,” says Langley, a car restorer from Weston-super-Mare. “It’s like the English Mustang. It’s a powerful rear-wheel drive. They’re a bit hairy to drive, but that’s part of the attraction.”
As if to emphasise the hairiness of the Capri, he then drives through a pile of cardboard boxes. In a 1970s cop show this would be mere child’s play before the more formidable obstacles of the dustbins and the men carrying a sheet of glass across a road. What happens in real life, though, is that the boxes get stuck under the front of the car and the engine starts whining like a stuck pig.
The Minder Capri is owned by John Hill, chairman of the Capri Club International, who bought it from a scrap dealer. “He didn’t even know it was from Minder until he was stopped by the police one day,” says Hill. “The police saw it, thought there was something familiar about the numberplate, and stopped him.”
Fans of Minder will recall Terry got his Capri from Arthur Daley, and it’s exactly as you might expect. The brakes don’t appear to work, Arnold Schwarzenegger would struggle with the steering, and there is a rattle. “It’s had new wings, new doors, a new bonnet,” says Hill, starting a list that I have cut mercifully short, “but it’s still the original.”
Celebrity cars can be a good investment. “A Capri in good condition is normally worth about £3,000,” says Hill. “A Capri that’s been in The Professionals could be worth anything up to £15,000.”
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Terry would have had a much more comfortable drive if Arthur had been able to get his hands on Starsky and Hutch’s Gran Torino. Just over two years ago Kevin Christmas, from Peterborough, found the distinctive red and white car — known in the series as “the Tomato” — on the internet. “I used to sit and watch Starsky and Hutch, and I used to think, ‘One day I’m going to own one of those cars’,” says Kevin, 45.
“I normally drive a Vauxhall Cavalier, but occasionally I take the Torino out to B&Q or Tesco — it certainly turns heads. It’s a very different drive. You have to get used to the light steering — you turn the wheel and nothing much happens. The guys who did the stunt driving certainly knew what they were doing. But it’s fine in a straight line.”
It’s a different drive all right. It’s like sitting at the controls of a small flat. The front seat is like a leather sofa. It’s also an automatic with column change that is obviously used to rough treatment: driving it through the grounds of Goodwood I couldn’t once persuade it to leave first.
The man in charge of product placement for Ford in the golden age of film and television was Barry Reynolds, now 56. “When The Professionals started they had a Triumph TR7 and a Dolomite, but British Leyland kept asking for them back, so the producer called us,” he says. “I just had a feeling the Capri would be right. And to be honest, there were only a certain amount of colours that you could use in those days. Primary colours like red and yellow would blur, and you couldn ‘t see black and dark metallic. Which left silvers, golds and blue-green.”
His gut feeling was not quite so successful with Minder. It’s a measure of the importance of cars to a drama that Reynolds was present at the planning stage. “They said Terry was a Jack-the-lad character, so I gave him an Escort with shiny alloys, big tyres, and huge wheel arches. When the director saw it he looked shocked and he said, ‘That’s far too good for Terry’.” So Terry got a Capri and the Escort was seen in the opening titles in Arthur Daley’s car lot.
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Martin Shaw, recalling his time as Doyle in The Professionals, once said the cars spent most of their time being driven in second gear at high speed. So what state were they in when they arrived back at Ford?
“They had a few dented bonnets and boots,” says Reynolds. “What you saw them do on the TV doesn’t do any harm.” But remember, don’t try this at home.