The Classic Car Show - 23rd April 2015 - Channel 5

Tonight's episode begins with Quentin Wilson's article about the Jensen Interceptor. Jensen's were rakish and quick, the 60's fibre glass bodied CV8 was one of the fastest accelerating four seater cars in the world, but it was not a pretty car. In 1966, Jensen asked the Italian styling house Vignale to design a new body, and what a body it was. The new £3,700 Jensen was a hit, the TV and music industry were queuing to be seen behind the wheel of one. Jensen had become the car of the rich and famous. All of this free publicity was great as Jensen were broke, the FF may have been the worlds first four wheel drive production car, it may have been the first car with anti lock brakes and it was car of the year in 1966 but the problem was it cost the same as three terraced houses. So by 1969, Jensen were insolvent and loosing £40,000 a month. Choosing to ignore these financial difficulties coupled with an international oil crisis, Jensen must have been wandering around with their heads in the sand as they kept building new models.

There was the Jensen Healey, a replacement for the Austin Healey, dogged with reliability issues and two more Interceptor models. One of these was rather special. The 1973 Jensen SP.

This car came with a 7.2 litre Chrysler V8 fed by 3 big twin shaped carburettors that meant if you enjoyed driving quickly, you could empty the petrol tank in under 1 hour. 145mph was the top speed with a 0-60 time of 5.7 seconds. Good car or not the timing was wrong, nobody wanted to buy a monster 7 litre V8 during a fuel crisis. Shortly after the SP was launched, Jensen sacked 400 of it's staff and things carried on getting worse. In 1975 Jensen called in the receivers and Jensen closed it doors. This however is not the end, in the early 80's Jensen had the first of many rebirths and the Mk 4 was released. For the next twenty years, Jensen kept bouncing back. As soon as the receivers had closed it down there was another rebirth. But why does this car refuse to grow old gracefully. There are three reasons, the way it looks, the way it drives and its image of being a dark car. Given the Inteceptor has a big V8 engine, you get plenty of noise and torque. You want to accelerate just to hear the engine note. It's light, easy to drive and practical. It if any wonder then that this cars value is rising.

Next up is Will Best driving old and new Fiat 500's to see which is best. Launched in 1957 this car was a huge hit and over the next 18 years, 3 million would be made. It's thought that a nearly a third of these are still in the road. The car small, 9ft long from end to end and is perfect for driving the backstreets of Rome which is what is was designed for.

On the negative side, the clutch is heavy,  the gear change is jerky and the brakes aren't that good. It's easy to see why the car was a big success. Simple design, great looks and fairly easy to drive. Getting into the new Fiat 500 Will discovers that it feels much more spacoius and but its only half a metre longer in congested traffic it's more comfortable, the gear change and the clutch are lighter, the brakes are responsive but as does not feel as nippy as the old one. The new Fiat 500 was launched in 2007 as a rival to the relaunched Beetle and Mini. This one though has stayed the truest to its original design. It would seem that the Great British public prefer the older one based on its looks. Interestingly, Will best does not voice his opinion on which he prefers do I invite Will to confirm which of the two he preferred and why.

Jodie then shows us some classic car adverts from the 1930's.?The first advert is a chap sat on/in a car driving sound a congested London. When the car gathers speed it does look rickety at best. Next up is a car that is 15 times bigger than the average road going car. Next we have a car that looks like it's walking again from the 1930's.!This is followed by an advert for the Dymaxion car. This car could carry 11 people, had a V8 engine and could do 100mph. All this on 3 wheels. Not bad for 1933. 

Next up, Alex Riley meets a man with a huge classic car collection. The 190 car collection is owned by Roger Dudding, the man that gave us the deli counter ticket machine. Instead of keeping these cars locked away, never to be seen, Roger hires them out so that they help pay for themselves. The maintenance cost for this collection is around 1million pounds per year. Some of the cars he has include 18 wedge shaped Lagonda's, a Jensen CV8, a Ferrari Dino,  3 Aston Martin DBR2's, a Triumph Stag, a Lancia Beta Coupe, a Karman Ghia Coupe and over 100 more. This really is a staggering collection and needs to seen to be believed for more information on this please go to www.studio434.co.uk

Next up Bruno Senna drives a classic car around the Brooklands handling track. Today is the turn of the a 1970 Porcshe 911 ST. This was the ultimate road legal competition car of the early 1970's. It's legendary 2.3 litre air cooled engine delivered 230bhp to the widend rear tyres. This car has a top speed of 150mph and a 0-60 of 4.5 seconds. The 1970 ST won the Monte Carlo rally and raced at Sebring, Daytona and Le Mans. On the track the ST looks planted. At the half way point the ST is a quarter of a second down from Ferrari 308. Driving around the rest of the track with no dramas and looking great, the ST finishes seven tenths of a second slower than the 308. 

Next up, Quentin Wilson looks at some cars that are going up in value. First up we have the Porsche 968 Club Sport. Top speed 160mph and 0-60 in a little over 6 seconds. Five years ago one of these cost £10,000, now a good one will cost £30,000. Next up is the Maserati Quattroporte 3. Top speed 130mph, 0-60 in 12 seconds was delivered from a 4.9 litre V8. Currently prices are around £10,000 but prices are going up. Only 2000 of these were made so now is the time to get one. Lastly is the Jaguar XJ6 Series 3. Top speed 125mph, 0-60 in 9 seconds from a 4.2 litre engine with an automatic gearbox. Pininfarina restyled the XJ6 and it is a stunning car. Prices are around £5,000 but will go up.

Lastly Jodie Kidd drives a Chevrolet Camaro on Route 66. In 1965 Chevrolet were wounded by Ford when they released the Mustang. Out for revenge, Chevrolet made the Camaro, named after a small vicious animal that eats Mustangs. This car was built for one reason, for revenge on the Ford Mustang.

In 1965, the Ford Mustang was the car to own, bringing muscle car performance to the masses and selling over half a million cars in 1965 alone. Chevrolet had to react and they did and they did at great speed and a year later the Camaro was born. Initially the Camaro came as an RS or an SS until 1967 when the Z28 was introduced for the Trans Am race series. Of the 100,000 of the Camaro's made that year, only 602 came with the white striped Z28 bonnet. The Camaro's power came from a 4.9 litre V8 producing 290bhp that took it to 140mph. The noise of the engine is amazing and the car looks good at 50 years old. Jodie then makes a great point: "without revenge you would not have the Ford GT, Lamborghini would not exsist and if everyone simply forgave and forgot we would have no Camaro". Ironically the Ford Mustang was the best thing to happen to Chevrolet. This has been a great episode and has been a great finale as next weeks episode is the highlights of the series. For me there have been many so it will be interesting to see what they choose. The Camaro film go me has been one of the best of the series so I hope to see it mentioned next week. Great episode, please watch it on:

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

After having the interview with Jack Burnford, the shows director, I would love to interview the the shows hosts Quentin Wilson and Jodie Kidd along with Alex Riley, Bruno Senna, Will Best and Chris Routledge to be interviewed about their experiences on the show.