TEN FILM AUTOMOTIVE ERRORS

One night, when this writer was at low ebb, he found himself watching the long-forgotten 1987 Burt Reynolds/Liza Minnelli vehicle Rent-a-Cop. However, one moment in the narrative grabbed my attention: Chicago PD using a 24-year-old Plymouth Belvedere. The Police Department were clearly so financially stretched that they were reduced to using their reserve list of classic patrol cars.

In reality, much film was actually shot in Italy, and so the production may well have obtained an ex-USAF base patrol car and hoped that the audience would neither know nor care about its age. Besides, mistakes may occur in pictures of all genres, from Citroën 2CVs making a surprise appearance in a WWII drama or the Morris Marina Mk. II in Quadrophenia. In Robbery, the crashed VDP Princess 4 Litre R clearly lacks an engine.

Meanwhile, at the end of The Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne is driving a 1969 Pontiac GTO in 1966. According to the film’s director Frank Darabont, the original idea was to ship a 1965 Ford Mustang Convertible from Miami to St Croix in the US Virgin Islands. But, unfortunately, its owner ‘baulked at the last moment’. As a result, the location manager ‘scrambled to find a suitable replacement there on the island’.

And so, as British cinema of a certain age is one of my abiding passions, here is a far from exclusive “Top Ten” of notable automotive errors. Enjoy…

• Ice Cold in Alex A Morris Minor and a Land Rover appear in WW2 Alexandria (aka Tripoli)
• No 1962. The villians’ 1939 La Salle magically transforms into a 1949 Humber Super Snipe descending from a cliff.
• The Italian Job The Aston Martin DB4, which in the Mafia confrontation scene turns into a disguised Lancia.
• Sea Wolves A Hillman Minx Mk. VIII appears in WW2 Goa.
• Hell Drivers The Dodge “Parrot Nose” 100 Series Tipper transforms into a Leyland in mid descent.
• Vendetta for the Saint Set in Italy but with a very Maltese Dodge W Series bus plus RHD Bedford RLs and O Types,
• Checkpoint The “Italian” sports cars in the opening sequence are Fairthorpe Atoms.
• Incense for the Damned An utterly awful horror film, partially set in Greece, but with the police driving a Cypriot registered RHD Vauxhall Cresta PC “Standard”.
• The Haunted House of Horror The director photographs the same Wolseley 6/110, registration 873 HPO, from about ten different angles to give the impression of a fleet of police cars.
• Crossplot A low point in the career of Roger Moore, not least for the magical moment involving an Alfa Romeo 1600 Duetto Spider and a back-projected milk float.

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