Yeah 100%, I’m a bit of an old film and old tv buff myself.And yeah London looks completely different now, I’d reccomend watching the sweeney pilot, Regan (1974), you see some good bits of old London from early 70s and the plot is good too.
@@Mk7adxm The Talking pictures channel is superb for this. Even rubbish old black and white films matinee fillers from the 50s are great for the background. In some its possible to still see bombed out buildings from WWII and of course the soot covering all the buildings.
There’s something that sounds so wrong when you hear the Winkworth bell on the Sweeney’s Consul, even if it is period correct it sounds as if it should be on a 50s Wolseley 😂
Yup, it's usually preceded by Margaret Rutherford straightening up and saying 'I'm afraid he's dead!', then the shot of the Wolseley gunning it down the High Street with people in A35s and Morris 1000s pulling over to let it through.😉
i dont know what was more hilarious the oversteer or the understeer of those 70's cars . but it taught us car control . me and my mates would re-enact sweeney car chases in our second hand motors back in the day . mostly down muddy or gravel tracks was easy getting the back end to let got and of cause the wheels spins . great days
@@timonsolus That's great news - I have a 1978 mini - should be a good market in London for it as its very fuel efficient and would have left the Jag and Granada stuck down an alleyway.
@@davidzof I used to buy them when I was in my twenties and skint. Couldn't afford new Goodyears, so used to head to some backstreet place I knew who could get me a remould to pass the MOT.
@@Glenn1967ful Really I don't know, we drove less I guess but when you think a lot of engines needed a rebuild after 50,000 miles and car bodies could rust out in 3 years.
No way that Granada would have caught the Jaaag. My first speeding ticket in 1987, I was driving a hired 1.6 Vauxhall Cavalier and the police in 2.8 Ghia X Granada said "We had trouble catching you up" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
It's not a Granada, it's a Consul GT 3.0 manual, and it would easily have kept pace with the S-Type Jag in an urban environment- that's why the Flying Squad used the Consul GT, it had taut handling and was lighter than the Granada. It's not just about the car either- it's about driver training.
@@PassportToPimlico They didn't specify that Jags had to be used. The production team used the same S-Type Jag on different plates and sprayed in different colours to reflect on the fact that criminals regularly used Jags on bank jobs in the 60's and 70's as getaway cars.
@ 3:15. A major London road with no traffic on the dual carriageway side they are traveling down (either behind or in front). Not only incredible now; even then I reckon.
I never notice things like that as I'm to busy enjoying the action on screen. That is unless it a real howler such as a Routmaster Bus in WWII London(Hanover Street with Harrison Ford)
Why are most British car chases more exciting than watching the Yanks in action, is it because we know the cars and places. Bullitt is probably one of the most exciting though even that was directed by Peter Yates who did Robbery!
Recommendation: watch "The Driver" - a great modern-day "film noir" starring Bruce Dern as "The Detective" - (none of the characters is burdened with an actual name) - who's determined to nail Ryan O'Neal as "The Driver" - no matter what it takes. No silly stunts like cars leaping through the side of trailers / speeded-up footage etc - just a series of really well-filmed and convincing car chases. Plus it's a good film too.
@@Philcopson Seen it, the assessment of his skills in the multi storied car park is excellent. I have also played DRIVER on Playstation, to get into the game you have to impress the 'Passenger' in a similar game play.
They did these chases at full chat on normal city streets, in late 60s British cars designs. So they had suspension made of Jaffa Cakes & tyres made from compressed turd. HOW DID ANY OF THEM SURVIVE?
My uncle Rob had a mk1 Escort in that very colour. He had some welding done on the sills and the guy somehow burned the front passenger seat. Guy swaps it out for a seat from a scrap yard that turned out to be full of fleas. Rob's then wife was less than impressed.
An awful lot of the stunt driving in these film clips was done by a fella I had the priviledge to know in the early 1970's, Val Musetti. At the time Val was one of Britain's leading film and TV stuntmen, particularly specialising in car stunts. He was also the person who coached Michael Crawford through the stunts he performed in 'Some Mothers do have 'em' as Frank Spencer.
If somebody is driving an old “S” type Jag, you just KNOW that they are going to crash it! At no time has a particular car lost so much value and yet still seemed posh/fast so that it was a prime candidate for being driven through a brick wall!
At 3.40 - is that the exact same location used several years earlier in "Robbery" ? On that occasion, it was the police who had the S-type Jag, and the villains had a Mark 2.
Quite exhilerating! They really throw those cars around don't they! I have many films where there are some very dangerous and fast car car chases. Some are french. These are good. The Professionals did many too!
Yeah - sounds good! And it's a fair representation of the period - because the bell ("or gong" in Met parlance) was a standard fixture on all Met vehicles, even once two tone air horns became widespread. Many of their mid 70s unmarked cars still only had a bell. Bells were also standard as well as two tones on new vehicles for London Fire Brigade until 1978 and London Ambulance Service until 1980. The main reason being that at that time sounding a horn after 23:00hrs in a built up area was strictly speaking illegal, even for emergency vehicles - hence to be law compliant bells continued to be fitted. The Met abandoned bells for its new traffic cars and similar when the Rover SD1s came on the scene in the early 80s, but as late as the mid 90s some of their non-pursuit blue light equipped vehicles such as vans and dog vans still just a bell as their only audible warning. Incidentally - I always thought that car was a Granada but it seems I was wrong - apparently it's a Consul!
@@timwingham8952 i cant get over it that the cars in the UK back than had no Blue Lights whatsoever... pretty stupid if you ask me... i mean its the 60s or 70s... blue or red lights are arround since the 20s
It always makes me laugh when I see the baddies ALWAYS drive Jaguar's! A British car! But the police always use Ford's! American car! I'm a Californian, so I notice this to be amusing & strange. :)
Part of the Ford deal to lend them cars, fords always had to be the good guys car and always had to dominate the baddies car, usually competitiors of Ford 😂
My favourite TV show as a kid and still love watching Sweeney episodes today. The amount of body roll on those 70's cars is quite comical.
The Thames TV opening and music make me feel nostalgic and melancholic at the same time. Reminds me of simpler happier times.
love the 70s car chases! The sweeney rocks! Denis will always be George Carter to me Rip
Lock Stock & A Fistful of Car Chases,
But did he write the feem toon?
@@IAmSoMuchBetterThanYou you are thinking of the minder,.
I always like watching old TV and film clips because you see how bits of London used to look that have since been gentrified.
Yeah 100%, I’m a bit of an old film and old tv buff myself.And yeah London looks completely different now, I’d reccomend watching the sweeney pilot, Regan (1974), you see some good bits of old London from early 70s and the plot is good too.
@@Mk7adxm The Talking pictures channel is superb for this. Even rubbish old black and white films matinee fillers from the 50s are great for the background. In some its possible to still see bombed out buildings from WWII and of course the soot covering all the buildings.
Brilliant actors , fantastic car chases, and Dennis had a Gift of running bloody fast great technique ❤❤❤❤❤
There’s something that sounds so wrong when you hear the Winkworth bell on the Sweeney’s Consul, even if it is period correct it sounds as if it should be on a 50s Wolseley 😂
Yup, it's usually preceded by Margaret Rutherford straightening up and saying 'I'm afraid he's dead!', then the shot of the Wolseley gunning it down the High Street with people in A35s and Morris 1000s pulling over to let it through.😉
@@MorristheMinor 😂😂
the ruc still used them right up until 1983
@@888ssss I think that’s about when the Met finally stopped using them
@@geecars6263 they are starting to use them again in belfast.
i dont know what was more hilarious the oversteer or the understeer of those 70's cars . but it taught us car control . me and my mates would re-enact sweeney car chases in our second hand motors back in the day . mostly down muddy or gravel tracks was easy getting the back end to let got and of cause the wheels spins . great days
Those car chases were the business! 👍👍👍👍👍
In a memorial film for John Thaw Abigail Thaw tells how he would ride with her and excitedly tell about the fun of driving those scenes. RIP
That green Mk1 Escort never stood a chance of outrunning a Rover 3500S, even if it was the RS1600 version.
Which it wasn't
Escort was still faster doing curves
Around town it would destroy the rover plus the rover would overheat after 2 mins 😂
It didn't need to outrun anything, just to stay ahead. Which is easily possible on tight streets
Love the Rover police car so beautiful just like the Sweeney's Ford Granada 😊
1980 - cops jump out of the car and nick the baddies.
2024 - cops jump out of the car and do the Macarena.
Ain't that the inconvenient truth.....
The best series ever on are telly big time I loved it as a kid and still love it now
Love a bit of waste ground tango. The 70s when coppers knew how to deal with criminals .
This is why they invented sway bars.
100%, still, not as soft as the suspension of American cars of this time
Anti roll bars in the UK.
You mean Anti roll bars. You want to reduce the rolling while cornering.
They had sway bars
One of the best police dramas ever still watching it now great actors and they should never be forgotten r i p those who are not with us now
Jack Regan was the best RIP
You can tell it's TV program, the ford is catching the Jaguar.
The good old days !
Love the ford consul such a classic car back in the day 😊
Soft sospensions was spectacular
"A Fistful of Sweeny Car Chases" would be a good title. No Mk2 Jaguars are safe
They were 'S' types, similar but with a bigger boot for the loot and independent rear suspension. Had 3 of those back in the day.
@@brianwood9913 Oo didja fence the loot tah you slaag? Not Reggie the nonce dahn the Ballspond Rahhd. Big Vern is afta ya, yer bleedin coppas nark.
Nice one Guvnor 🖖💯
Khan's ULEZ zone would be expensive for these bangers.
No they wouldn't - 'historic cars' (cars over 40 years old) are exempt from ULEZ.
@@timonsolus That's great news - I have a 1978 mini - should be a good market in London for it as its very fuel efficient and would have left the Jag and Granada stuck down an alleyway.
Khan would not allow this in his politically correct London
@@adrianplatt4907 Rainbow painted Rovers?
Nee naw, nee naw, I miss the old school sirens and the old school British police cars like Granada 3000 GXLs and Rover 3500s.
How many more S-Type Jaguars would still be around today, if The Sweeney had never been filmed?
Loved the car's chasing good drivers 👏 and classic cars
I remember watching the The Sweeney on television .............. in Cuba in 1986!
That poor green Mk1 Ford Escort tyres must have been on the limit to popping off the steel rims the angle the car was being driven at.
Probably remoulds
@@davidzof I used to buy them when I was in my twenties and skint. Couldn't afford new Goodyears, so used to head to some backstreet place I knew who could get me a remould to pass the MOT.
@@Glenn1967ful even worse were regrooved tyres, you could even get a tool to do it at home
@@davidzof How we got by then. I can remember having a car that needed oil every 250 miles, yet got me where I wanted to go.
@@Glenn1967ful Really I don't know, we drove less I guess but when you think a lot of engines needed a rebuild after 50,000 miles and car bodies could rust out in 3 years.
For the time these are amazing!!!
That's some body roll haha those tortured tires
Yes also the different camera positions so many for each corner and building , No drones then for overhead shots !!
No way that Granada would have caught the Jaaag. My first speeding ticket in 1987, I was driving a hired 1.6 Vauxhall Cavalier and the police in 2.8 Ghia X Granada said "We had trouble catching you up" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Ford's sponsorship deal was that they would supply cars but they had to always be the good guys and never crash.
@@PassportToPimlico also given that Jags were often used by the bad guys
@@superplushtiman7ti075 I think that Ford specified that the baddies had to have Jags and crash.
It's not a Granada, it's a Consul GT 3.0 manual, and it would easily have kept pace with the S-Type Jag in an urban environment- that's why the Flying Squad used the Consul GT, it had taut handling and was lighter than the Granada. It's not just about the car either- it's about driver training.
@@PassportToPimlico They didn't specify that Jags had to be used. The production team used the same S-Type Jag on different plates and sprayed in different colours to reflect on the fact that criminals regularly used Jags on bank jobs in the 60's and 70's as getaway cars.
Amazing how he had time to stop and close the boot on the jag
Nothing like some heavy body roll
Brough back memories
This Television series did more to inflate the future price of of Mk2 Jaguars than any thing else.
They never seemed to use the Mk2, all the jaguars here are S-Types.
Wonderful suspension the jaguar body was level all the way
You can't beat a Sweeny car chase, put your trousers on your nicked 😀
That body roll, though!! 👍🏻
That third chase looks like it started on Latchmere or possibly Plough Road in Battersea
Yep looked like the side streets of the latchmere Rd, I recognise the style of the houses , then they head down queenstown Rd. 👍
The White Police Car and the Green Car starts off in the Walmer Road area. Them Buildings are now supposed to be where Verity Close is.
@ 3:15. A major London road with no traffic on the dual carriageway side they are traveling down (either behind or in front). Not only incredible now; even then I reckon.
Four thirty in the morning in July. I assume they had to ask permission even in 76.
@highdownmartin I understand they didn't ask permission and occasionally got stopped by plod during filming.
The jag. Always up for a blanging on the manor GUV 😂 😂
I’m American and at first for a split second I thought the siren at 1:02 was part of the music like the melody kicking in lol 😂
Series 2 P6 V8 on a "G" plate, tut tut....
I never notice things like that as I'm to busy enjoying the action on screen. That is unless it a real howler such as a Routmaster Bus in WWII London(Hanover Street with Harrison Ford)
That Ford Escort lovely mover
2:57 Isn't anyone going to answer that car-phone? It could be important!
The Rover P6 was the best Police car ever, and despite the official line Met Police car drivers loved a chase.
Why are most British car chases more exciting than watching the Yanks in action, is it because we know the cars and places. Bullitt is probably one of the most exciting though even that was directed by Peter Yates who did Robbery!
Recommendation: watch "The Driver" - a great modern-day "film noir" starring Bruce Dern as "The Detective" - (none of the characters is burdened with an actual name) - who's determined to nail Ryan O'Neal as "The Driver" - no matter what it takes. No silly stunts like cars leaping through the side of trailers / speeded-up footage etc - just a series of really well-filmed and convincing car chases. Plus it's a good film too.
@@Philcopson Seen it, the assessment of his skills in the multi storied car park is excellent.
I have also played DRIVER on Playstation, to get into the game you have to impress the 'Passenger' in a similar game play.
The cars in those days were like cupboard on wheels
The cars look like they'll roll over everytime they corner.
Under steer central 🤣🤣
Took a lot of skill to throw that heavy Jag around corners.
They really thrashed those Jags. Goodness!
The film quality made it look current but this was the 70s!
Poor old Jaguar S Type getting hacked to death!
They did these chases at full chat on normal city streets, in late 60s British cars designs. So they had suspension made of Jaffa Cakes & tyres made from compressed turd. HOW DID ANY OF THEM SURVIVE?
And windscreens made of ice.
Always a silver jag
My uncle Rob had a mk1 Escort in that very colour. He had some welding done on the sills and the guy somehow burned the front passenger seat. Guy swaps it out for a seat from a scrap yard that turned out to be full of fleas. Rob's then wife was less than impressed.
Cara really had softer suspensions back then
London at its best !
That escort handles like crap ,the rover grips cos of de dion at rear still looks wicked😅😅
Who taught you to drive . Evil keneeval
Just what I was thinking.
Christ, wasn’t car road holding appalling back in the 70/80’s!
MI6 in action 😊 Cooley and Doyle
When you've got well-iffy suspensions on your jam jars, that's TV magic, innit? 🙂
An awful lot of the stunt driving in these film clips was done by a fella I had the priviledge to know in the early 1970's, Val Musetti. At the time Val was one of Britain's leading film and TV stuntmen, particularly specialising in car stunts. He was also the person who coached Michael Crawford through the stunts he performed in 'Some Mothers do have 'em' as Frank Spencer.
If somebody is driving an old “S” type Jag, you just KNOW that they are going to crash it! At no time has a particular car lost so much value and yet still seemed posh/fast so that it was a prime candidate for being driven through a brick wall!
That police siren was ancient
OOOh taught ya ta drive? EVIL KNIEVIEL.
Remember, clunk-click every trip
At 3.40 - is that the exact same location used several years earlier in "Robbery" ? On that occasion, it was the police who had the S-type Jag, and the villains had a Mark 2.
I was getting sea sick watching them go around corners.
Lol you can't catch a Jag mkII Saloon those gals could handle the road
A common mistake, both Jags were S Type's not Mk11's which did, and still do handle so much better than a Mk 11
Quite exhilerating! They really throw those cars around don't they! I have many films where there are some very dangerous and fast car car chases. Some are french. These are good. The Professionals did many too!
we did have a lot of cardboard boxes lying around in the seventies ;;;
Them cars sure didn't like corners... 🫣
They cornered just fine.
They also rode bloody well.
@@sugarnads more accurately , they wallowed. 🦛
1:11 yeah I think that *plain* police car is illegel
Nope - that's how the MET cars were back then!
The bloke in rbp2282f knew what he was doing
The pre anti roll bar days
Go Granada (:
ATM 's still no dye packs in these machines !
Interesting that the Granada has a bell instead of two-tone air horns in the third chase....
I always wondered why it was like that as well
Yeah - sounds good! And it's a fair representation of the period - because the bell ("or gong" in Met parlance) was a standard fixture on all Met vehicles, even once two tone air horns became widespread. Many of their mid 70s unmarked cars still only had a bell.
Bells were also standard as well as two tones on new vehicles for London Fire Brigade until 1978 and London Ambulance Service until 1980. The main reason being that at that time sounding a horn after 23:00hrs in a built up area was strictly speaking illegal, even for emergency vehicles - hence to be law compliant bells continued to be fitted.
The Met abandoned bells for its new traffic cars and similar when the Rover SD1s came on the scene in the early 80s, but as late as the mid 90s some of their non-pursuit blue light equipped vehicles such as vans and dog vans still just a bell as their only audible warning.
Incidentally - I always thought that car was a Granada but it seems I was wrong - apparently it's a Consul!
@@timwingham8952 i cant get over it that the cars in the UK back than had no Blue Lights whatsoever... pretty stupid if you ask me... i mean its the 60s or 70s... blue or red lights are arround since the 20s
@@Doc_Rainbow Unmarked cars back then were literally that. Covert blue lights were a long way off as were demountable magnetic roof lights in the UK.
@@timwingham8952 true but the marked cars sometimes as well did not had blue lights... just a police sign
Wibbly wobbly cars, with suspensions made from jelly.
The old fashioned police sirens - and even a bell! - are extremely quaint.
Jag getting chased down queenstown rd , battersea
Nothing like stuffing some one into the back of a Mk 1 jag and a car chase
Those suspensions weren't built for racing.
Why does the S Type Jag have a weak boot latch ?
Only on television do British-built vehicles run long enough to be in a car chase!
Were many of these derelict sites back in the day still unrepaired after the blitz? Or were they just derelict from failing industry?
Doubtless all filmed on open public roads on normal working weekdays, no H&S permits required. Get yer trousers on, you're nicked!
Good bye Sadiq !!!
Ahh the days when you could actually drive your car.
@SortedGeeza-br5sc
That's right - I'm sick of all these modern flying cars!!
What was laughably called Kings Cross Coach Station and a Red Bristol VRT, Which company?
The VR is Alder Valley, likely on the Reading via Slough and Maidenhead service.
@@markcf83 Thanks for the information
Understeer galore!!
When men were men and cars were deadly
It always makes me laugh when I see the baddies ALWAYS drive Jaguar's! A British car! But the police always use Ford's! American car! I'm a Californian, so I notice this to be amusing & strange. :)
Part of the Ford deal to lend them cars, fords always had to be the good guys car and always had to dominate the baddies car, usually competitiors of Ford 😂
American company, but Ford had a huge factory in London that made the cars used in The Sweeney. Also the police used Rovers as traffic cars.
The bad guys always seem to have Range Rovers now...
European Ford's are completely different to US Ford's.
Normal day on today's roads ha ha
frying squad
Grange Hill London….
Gee the Jag was very soft