The Classic Car Show - Channel 5 7pm 26th February 2015

Tonight's episode starts with Quentin Wilson's article about the Range Rover. Known as the best 4x4 by far it gave the driver the ability to drive off road in comfort and luxury that had not been put together before. The Range Rover evolved from the 1948 Tickford Land Rover. Flat sides, a tall roof, big glass windows and a tailgate that can drop down. Land Rover played with the design for 10 years but then they acquired the rights to a V8 from Buick that the project took off. Originally the Range Rover was not meant to be a pretty car, the interior was plastic so it could be hosed down, there were no electric windows or automatic gearbox. You were able to cruise on the motorway at 100mph, you could cross fields and deserts and climb hols with a 1:1 Gradient. The Range Rover has won several awards. Sales really picked up when Prince Phillip wax photographed standing on the split tailgate of a Range Rover. Land Rover then went up market offering a 4 door version with a leather and wood interior, electric windows, automatic gearbox and air conditioning. In the 1980's sales figures rocketed passed 100,000 and it soon had several imitators from Mercedes, Ford, BMW and Volvo. Quentin then puts the Range Rover up against the Lexus RX 450 in an off road test. Quentin drives the Range Rover and the Lexus IS driven by a trained 4x4 driver. Over the course of bumps and hills the Range Rover is better than the Lexus. In the 1990's BMW bought Land Rover and really took it upmarket giving it chrome a stunning interior and a 5 litre supercharged engine. The biggest irony for Range Rover is that most of them never go off road, people preferring to use it for the school run. They soon became a symbol for class hatred earning nicknames, one being the Chelsea Tractor. In 2012, Range Rover came out with its 4th generation Range Rover and it has good reviews. Currently selling 6000 a month with a year waiting list. The Range Rover also inspired every SUV on the market so it has an important place in history as an innovator.
Next up Jodie Kidd and Quentin Wilson travel to Monaco to visit the Historic Grand Prix. This event happens every two years. They travel to Monaco in a Citroen DS Decapotable, this car now makes around £150,000. They take the Citroen around the Monaco track but as racing is due to begin, they are soon ushered off the track. Quentin then goes to the COYS Auction room while Jodie takes a boat to the paddock. Walking around the paddock, Jodie walks past some old Ferrari's Jaguars and many others before meeting up with John Romano, a surgeon from Boston with a passion for classic cars. John will be racing a 1964 Brabham BT11 Climax. They have a chat about how he got into cars.Qualifying day and Jodie has a quick chat with John about how he's feeling and then leaves him to it. We find out ho he got on later in the show.
Alex Riley then does article about classic cars you can buy for £5,000. Today's subject is a Porsche 928. This was the car that was supposed to replace the Porsche 911. The 928 came equipped with a front mounted water cooled 4.5 litre V8. For die hard Porsche fans, this was a hard car to get to grips with although it was voted car of the year in 1978 , a year after its release. The 928 did not fit into a mold as it was too big to be a sports car and too small to be a GT car. Porsche made a lot of refinements to the car over it's 18 year life span to improvements. Alex is driving an S4, one of the later 928's. This comes with a 5 litre engine that produced 320 horse power that would take the car from 0-60 in under 6 seconds and a top speed of 168mph. The aluminium engine was in the front of the car and the gearbox in the back gave the car optimum weight distribution and balance. As for looks, the 928 is a pretty car, there are plenty of windows to light the cabin and a decent sized boot.
Bruno Senna is next with another lap in a classic car. Today Bruno will be driving a 1965 Mustang. This Mark 1 Mustang has been race prepared, with 350 Horse power, a 0-60 of just 5 seconds and a top speed of 145mph. Driving the car around the track, Bruno has to keep the rear end in line as the car has so much power. Power-sliding around corners looks great but it's not the fastest way around the track. At the halfway point the mustang is almost a second quicker than the Mercedes was last week. Bruno is able to keep the car in line without loosing the back end of the car. by the end of the lap he is over 2.5 seconds quicker that the Mercedes was.
We then have part 2 of the Monaco Historic Grand Prix. We return to the qualifying where Jodie is acting as his timekeeper and sign holder. Red flags are then shown which means a big crash has happened. Jodie returns to the paddock to find John. He is OK. Qualifying then resumes as John posts a lap time of 2.06 the session ends. John is happy to have qualified for the race. It's race day and Jodie has a surprise for John. She takes him to a seated area where Sir Stirling Moss is waiting to chat to him about driving around Monaco. They talk for a while and then once finished, John thanks Stirling for taking the time to talk to him. On the Grid, John is in the car and Jodie has goosebumps. Once the race has started, we learn that John  is in 22nd place. as each lap passes, Johns confidence grows, lap times get quicker and he starts to make his way through the field. The winner of the race is Andy Middlehusrt driving Jim Clark's Lotus 25. John finishes in 17th place.
This has been another good episode of the show. I would like to have seen more of the cars at the auction but i understand that they only have an hour show to broadcast.

Below is a link to the episode

http://www.channel5.com/shows/the-classic-car-show