I'm a newcomer to this group; don't actually have a British car right now,
but that will change. My most recent genuine British car, believe it or not,
was a 1971 Austin America 1300.
(pause for laughter to subside...)
We owned it for eight years from new and sold it for more than we paid for
it, thanks to inflation...
Anyway, regarding cars going over cliffs, let me offer some words of comfort:
1) Often what you see is stock footage, used over and over, though usually
a lot more discreetly than "Toonces the Cat". The production company pulls
some footage that's in reasonably good shape film-stock-wise and rents a
similar-looking car for scenes leading to the tragic plunge. I didn't see
the offending "Murder, She Wrote" episode, but their production values are
so cheesily inept otherwise that I find it a bit unlikely that they'd blow
their budget on a car like that. I DID see another episode of theirs from
a few years back that they filmed in England (my home country) where they
staged a minor collision with a Mini and some other car. It was obvious
that they pushed the cars close together and stuck a smoke bomb in the
Mini's grille. The final shot of that scene revealed that the Mini was in
fact completely untouched. If they couldn't afford to bang up one Mini,
easily obtainable from anyone who flunked the annual M.o.T. inspection,
I rather doubt that they'd push anything off a cliff. (Don't flame me if
I'm wrong, please.)
2) They will sometimes put together a lookalike car from fiberglass and
trash that instead (c.f. "Tucker: The Man and His Dream").
3) Cars that have previously come to grief get a cosmetic repair and get
"wrecked", sometimes with the help of a good push if there's no engine,
over and over again (c.f. "Crime Story").
4) And of course, contemporary films like "The Italian Job" just went to the
dealer and bought the cars off the assembly line. I didn't like watching
that film either, but no one at that time could have known how rare and
sought-after those cars would become. I wonder whether anyone ever
bothered to repair the E-type that got its top squashed in that same
Aston-Martin-over-the-side scene, or if they just scavenged it for parts?
Andrew C. Green
Datalogics, Inc. Internet: acg@dlogics.com
441 W. Huron UUCP: ..!uunet!dlogics!acg
Chicago, IL 60610 FAX: (312) 266-4473
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