TOP FIVE CARRY ON FILM CARS

The Carry On film remains a staple of Bank Holiday television, affording plenty of opportunities to marvel at how the pictures rarely strayed five miles beyond Pinewood. Of course, they also frequently contained some rather interesting cars…

Carry On at Your Convenience 1971

It was a fairly painful entry in the series (Convenience also initially lost money at the box office). Still, it guest starred a very early Morris Marina 1.8 Coupe, a rare post-Healey Austin Sprite Mk. IV and a Ford Capri Mk. I. Plus, the scenes with the budgerigar are genuinely good value.

Carry On Matron 1972

Aka the one with the 1964 Ford Zodiac Mk. III and the Austin LD Wandsworth Mk. III ambulance plus cameos from an Austin 1300 GT and a Ferrari 365 GT 2+2; the latter was the property of the director Gerald Thomas.

Carry On Camping 1969

Shot in the autumn of 1968 with a visibly freezing cast and grass painted green. The ‘Camp Site’ was a field next to Pinewood; the principal vehicle is a 1957 Ford Consul Mk. II with a brief appearance from a Bedford HA. The best performance was from Terry Scott, while the sight of Messers Bresslaw and James in Flower Power regalia was ‘interesting’. Trivia note; Camping was the most popular British film of 1969 while The Italian Job occupied 14th place.

Carry On Screaming 1966

One of the finest of the series, not least for the performance of Fenella Fielding and the 1904 Brushmobile driven by Harry H Corbett. This fascinating machine was one of 11 cars made by Vauxhall for the Brush Electrical Company, and Lord Montagu of Beaulieu loaned it to the production. The Brushmobile now resides at Malaysia’s National Motor Museum in Kuala Lumpa.

Carry On Cabby 1963

Or this writer’s favourite Carry On: Hattie Jacques and Sidney James, Windsor filmed in black and white, ‘Peg 1’, the Austin 12/4 Low-Loader and the familiar police Wolseley 6/99 registration 716 TPD from Action 99 Cars. Plus, several excellent vehicles courtesy of Ford GB. Peter Rogers, the producer of the series, was not one to spend any unnecessary £sd. Approaches to BMC to use the Morris 1100 were unsuccessful, but the ever publicity aware Dagenham had just launched the Consul Cortina Super. The result was that their major dealership F. H. Peacock & Co of 219 Balham High Road, arranged to supply the production with a fleet of “Glamcabs”.

In return, Cabby featured a mock-up of the Balham showroom and a picture of the Cortina on almost every film poster. However, Peacocks faced the challenge of a limited supply of four-door Supers, having only a pair of two-door models themselves. The result was the dealership having to borrow demonstrators from Dagenham and other outlets, hence the strange mixture of trim levels and colour schemes on screen. The enterprise was a vast undertaking, with a service vehicle to return the driver to South London and a special car park for the Cortinas at Pinewood. And when Carry On Cabby went on general release on the 7^th November 1963, the publicity for Ford GB was worth millions…