eggbert68b
Member
Hello,
I've been sharing a conversation recently with a work colleague who is both a keen Professionals viewer and Ford enthusiast who recounted a story about why The Professional's production team preferred Ford over BL cars (the Rover P6 was a notable feature in the early series). I thought it may be of interest shared here.
We were talking about the use of British Leyland cars in TV / films made in the era of the Ford Capris (circa 69-79).
Product placement started really with Z Cars – they supplied new yellow cars to the BBC for the series (yellow apparently looks better than white on black & white film).
They didn’t have the Professionals “job” but BL screwed up. They took back the cars after every episode was filmed and didn’t necessarily loan out the identical cars for the next episode – indeed not all models were always available. The film producers were annoyed by the lack of continuity and that annoyance reached the ears of the Ford PR men. They “gave” the producers as many cars as they wanted. In reality the gold and silver Mk3 Capris were more than one of each vehicle (because they got “damaged” in some of the stunts). I believe in the case of the silver one, there were six “identical” examples. Somehow they got around the DVLA in terms of carrying the same registration number (they were largely filmed on public roads). BLs loss was Fords gain.
This may have had an influence on the use of BL cars in other TV dramas made in this era (eg Sweeney), but can't add anything to that.
Regards,
Simon
I've been sharing a conversation recently with a work colleague who is both a keen Professionals viewer and Ford enthusiast who recounted a story about why The Professional's production team preferred Ford over BL cars (the Rover P6 was a notable feature in the early series). I thought it may be of interest shared here.
We were talking about the use of British Leyland cars in TV / films made in the era of the Ford Capris (circa 69-79).
Product placement started really with Z Cars – they supplied new yellow cars to the BBC for the series (yellow apparently looks better than white on black & white film).
They didn’t have the Professionals “job” but BL screwed up. They took back the cars after every episode was filmed and didn’t necessarily loan out the identical cars for the next episode – indeed not all models were always available. The film producers were annoyed by the lack of continuity and that annoyance reached the ears of the Ford PR men. They “gave” the producers as many cars as they wanted. In reality the gold and silver Mk3 Capris were more than one of each vehicle (because they got “damaged” in some of the stunts). I believe in the case of the silver one, there were six “identical” examples. Somehow they got around the DVLA in terms of carrying the same registration number (they were largely filmed on public roads). BLs loss was Fords gain.
This may have had an influence on the use of BL cars in other TV dramas made in this era (eg Sweeney), but can't add anything to that.
Regards,
Simon