Car Chases from Australian TV Series: Classic Restos - Series 53
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ก.ย. 2023
- In this week's episode, Fletch pays tribute to Crawfords - an iconic Australian radio and TV production company at the forefront of Australian TV and radio production since 1945. Fletch was granted exclusive access to the car chase footage from some of the most popular TV series produced by Crawfords.
Cop Shop, Division 4, Homicide, Matlock Police, and Ryan. These shows have left an indelible mark on the viewers' minds, thanks to the actors who became household names and the cars that stole the show.
Cop Shop, with over seven series between 1977-1984, featured actors like Gil Ticker (Aka: Constable Roy Baker). Homicide, with 510 episodes between 1964 and 1977, starred Leonard Teale, George Mallaby, and Alywn Kurt. And Matlock Police, between 1971 and 1976, starred Michael Paton and Paul Cronin. The 39 1-hour episodes of Ryan, starring Rod Mullinar, were also a hit among the viewers.
However, it wasn't just the actors that made these shows so popular - the cars were the real stars. Australian manufacturers provided real action in numerous car chases over the years, with Ford, Valiant and Holden featuring prominently. Manufacturers took the opportunity to showcase their vehicles in front of an audience watching their favourite TV programs.
If you're a fan of classic cars and TV shows, this episode is a fascinating watch, especially to see the handling capabilities of the vehicles in the 60s and 70s. - ยานยนต์และพาหนะ
Awesome.. the noise the falcon makes around 21 minutes as it pulls away down the road is unbelievable...😮
XR 289 GT
@@paulcost6446 well done, and for 2 bonus points what was the innervation that was on that GT.
Spoiler on the boot.
Too true.
Hell yeah memories loved all of the shows growing up thankyou to crawford production for teaching me right from wrong ..good guys always win..
Love the body roll & the Leylands! Childhood memories - thanks!
They weren't perfect but they were ours and there was a pride in our automotive industry, part of many a childhood😅.
I've been told many times that "Mopar" never won a Bathurst. But I reckon they got more prime time screentime that any other make at the time.
Cheap product placement maybe better value than the Chrysler racing program.
If it had of won, it would have been referred to as a Chrysler.
They won elsewhere though.
The NZ annual big race was won annually by Chrysler Valiant Charger from 1971 to 1978 I think
@@LeopoldoNotarianni-rk9vv Well I recon that evens out score, thankyou.
Love the car chasers but also all the cars in the background are just fantastic.
I was wondering how all the parked cars got to be in the shot. If the streets were closed off for filming, were these cars just left behind?
Never seem to see the public walking down the street when there’s a chase on either lol
Good to see some Barge - sorry - Bluey footage.
Well done to Crawfords for sharing these.
Great episode Fletch! I have been watching Division 4 from the Crawford Productions DVD library, off and on over the past two years and actually just watched 2 more episodes tonight, which makes me currently up to episode 216 (of 301). I too was a kid of the 70’s and I think that when it comes to outright car action, this era seems to be the pinnacle for Australian TV imho. A true time capsule!
Brought back some memorys
Now that was a cool blast from the past, it's sad to think that most of the cars featured are more than likely long gone now at least their memory is immortalized on film. Thanks Fletch and especially Crawfords for the trip down memory lane.
Charger sitting here in my shed, one headlight and rego will be back. I hit a roo so I need a light lol the car is stout as ever 👍
Loved it Fletch, watched all those shows and forgot just how many Aussie classics were driven so irreverently 😂, including the Leyland P76 … thanks for a great episode and good memories
And not a single grey/silver SUV to be seen! The '70s really were the best time to be growing up.
Some brilliant opening theme scores for those shows.
Bluey was a classic one, and SO funny again spoofed on the Late Show in the 90s as Bargearse 🤣
Bargearse was so funny
Donuts! Donuts! So many Donuts!!
I love it Fletch. Best episode to date!
Great footage Fletch. Lots of gems in there and I even noticed an XL Falcon Squire wagon parked in the street.
Thank you. The Bolwell Nagari looked great.
Great compilations from really good shows, they were really giving it to many of those cars. Matlock Police was/is my favourite, I stayed up late to watch it in the 70's.
Thank the good lord that Crawfords kept the Aussie motor industry alive long after it disappeared.😭😭Chargers, Monaro,s and hardtops.
Truly magnificent.
Fantastic episode Fletch! Many childhood memories came flooding back. How lucky I was to be a kid in the 1970s entertained by so many great Aussie cop shows when I was growing up. Thanks for the memories Crawford Productions - may your legacy live on with these wonderful DVD box sets. I have my Xmas presents sorted!
I've got the box set of homicide it's fantastic to pick out the locations, great video Fletch. Love blueys Val. Aussie Graham.
Well done Fletch great episode 👏 ❤
We had some really wonderful shows back in the days
Absolutely brilliant episode mate, it evoked so many wonderful memories of those halcyon times in our history! Loved it! 👍😎
What a great era. Fantastic footage of a slice of Australia from classic cars most made right here through to the pearls people and Australia of yesterday. Great driving. Must have given the actors sweaty palms
I think all made here in that some that look like big American cars were assembled here with Australian content.
Any timestamps of cars you doubt were Australian?
Only the Honda 750 and LandCruiser I just noticed were not.
Thanks Fletch brilliant episode full of great memories of Australian cars and iconic cop shows 👌
Brilliant drive down memory lane. Thanks Fletch.
23:47 45.7c per gallon for Super. That works out to be just over 10c per litre. Wow!
Good stuff Fletch. Maybe rose-coloured glasses, but I don't remember these cars handling THAT badly 😂. How did we survive 🤔
Great stuff
Gill Tucker also did an Ad for the Torana hatchback with the factory tent option attachment.
Shown here on TH-cam.
The XC patrol cars in Cop Shop were my favourite. Wish we got to see CL and CM Vals getting chucked around.
It would have been nice to see a compilation of the XEs used in Special Squad. That was a great series.
Oh wow! Real car chases, as cars back then handled, none of the Hollywood crap where vehicles defy the laws of physics. Seeing those beautiful classic cars, a reminder of era in Australia sadly gone.
Matlock Police was a staple in our household growing up, as my half brother, Colin Gersch, was the set designer for a very long period of the show's production, and my dad would never miss an episode. incidentally, he was also the person responsible for the interior design of Molly Meldrums home, having become friends with him when he was also the designer for the set of 'Countdown'.
Thanks Fletch, what a trip down memory lane
I am a fan of series and australian movies. I remember well BLUEY in the argentine tv in laters 70's . Sorry about my poor english. Greetings from Buenos Aires.
Ahhh the Chrysler 265 I didn’t know until recently that it was developed in Australia!
We were the only ones who got the 265 …
Wow did the yanks miss out !
I actually had a white XC falcon back in the day !
The shows did encourage some ‘enthoustiastic’ driving back in the day !
We has some awesome cars back in the day
Brought back some great memories
The Hemi six was developed and prototyped in the USA. They intended it to be a truck motor- pickup truck I assume but chickened out in favour of the traditional V8's. We had it handballed to us where it was developed further.
The heyday of the Australian car industry. This is what makes these shows so popular today for petrol-heads. Sadly today it's believed that Australia no longer has a car industry.
Great to see all the classic Aussie cars on the road and used in anger !
Wow that was just simply wow!!! there Fletch as some top filming was done back in the day with car chases, fantastic Fletch.
Some brilliant clips and memories. I have recently purchased several box sets of Div 4, Matlock and Homicide from the Crawford store. So many great shows were made back in the day. Cheers.
Hey Fletch. Another awesome *"Classic Restos"* episode. I've always enjoyed watching cop shows. And to watch an Aussie cop show, what a treat! 🙂
This is fantastic. It's such a shame we do have Australian cars these days and show's like these because they look fantastic.
Oh no. Fletch, you just reminded me I always wanted a Bolwell Nagari.. ..
Great viewing better than the crap reality shows on tv today
Loved it. Great memories
Great Aussie car industry RIP.
Love the sound of the XR GT from 20:11 to 21:16! Those ol' 289's sounded so sweet!
Talk about memories!!! Alwyn Kurts was saying to Norman Yem: " Get rid of that bloody suit!!"
Fun to watch, l remembered some of the streets where the filming was done.
Born in 60. Grew up with all that... thanks for the memories mate.
Great clips - well done Fletch and Team! I was a kid in the 70's and we always talked about what cars were in the latest episode of these shows. A lot of the stunts were inch perfect and the majority were filmed and screened in 1:1 time. Sorry actors, you were secondary to the cars and stunts! Our local Police team were also fans of these shows, but as one Sergeant pointed out, in real life, the bad guys could always find reverse gear and were not afraid to use it.
What do you get on regular tv now?
Australia's got talent, Love Island or MasterChef. If only we knew what we've really lost.
Very true. I choose not to watch any of that rubbish. I can remember those Aussie shows and how at the end of each episode you would be left with a preview of the next one. You waited all week for it and arranged yourself around seeing it.
@@area51isreal71
Nothing more entertaining than seeing Valiants chasing after, and catching unsavoury characters!
We haven't watched commercial tv for ten years now because you wont find awesome shows like these nowadays.
That's a change of pace FLETCH but a good one 👍 all the old cars
I owned a red CM 265 sedan as shown in the early clips,and that had some grunt.
Great episode, thanks Fletch.
As a teenager visiting Melbourne I remember finding the on location set of Cop Shop and the brown falcon briefly glimpsed in the footage which was the Detectives car.
Awesome!
That red Charger sounded like it was probably an E55 340.
Or if it was a VJ then possibly the E57 360. To quote Wikipedia :
When remaining stocks of the 340 cu in (5.6 L) V8 depleted, Chrysler ceased manufacturing cars with option E55 and in late 1974 extended availability of the lazy 360 cu in (5.9 L) V8 (from the prestige Chrysler by Chrysler sedan) to the Charger 770 by way of option E57.
@@johnd8892 I wasn't actually familiar with the E57 , Iv'e just Googled it and it appears they all have the vinyl side trim instead of the ribbed metal panel that the Charger in the video had , so probably more likely an E55 , or maybe a 318 car?
All i can think about watching the bluey segment was bargearse & the chase to track down his stolen dimsims.😂
Bucket of soysauce and a shit load of dim sims poofter food from the golden Labrador
That was the best, truly was. Very enjoyable from start to finish.....more please? One thing I have noticed, Homicide decided to use the up spec Valiant Ranger XL in the early episodes before using basic Rangers for some reason. I loved seeing those Valiant's smoking the tyres and getting after the bad guys. Equally enjoyable was seeing the HK to HG Kingswood's and sometimes HQ's. I can remember as a kid waiting all week to see the next episode after seeing the preview for it. Thanks again.
What,s the difference between an up spec Ranger and a basic Ranger ? I,ve got a Vh Ranger XL with automatic, and 2 barrel 245.
The Ranger XL had power disc brakes, door courtesy lights, retractable seat belts and the XL wagon had an electric rear window.@@barrycuda3769
Interesting.
Very different, yet very much the same as U.S. TV,
Streets Of San Francisco,
Baretta,
MANNIX,
C.H.iP.s,
Adam 12,
Hawaii Five-0,
…….
Cool video.
🚗🙂
That was MAD fun thanks 😁
10:45....Best orchestral/big band music Ever! Johnny Pearson.
Brings back great memories watching these shows. Don't make em like this anymore.
Great stuff, you have to admire the skill of the stunt drivers handling those old whales. Well, new whales then.
Holeee god.. Imagine throwing a valiant around like that!!!!
Absolutely Henk. Keep in mind though, cars MUCH larger than these have always been thrown around in movies. Cadillacs, Lincolns, Dodges, list goes on...These cars were up to 1m longer than our compacts & up to 6'' (150mm) wider. Cheers.
Here I am standing next to my CL Charger watching this. Yeeeeah it's the hemi 265 👍
seeing all the o;d cars and how they handles and all the screeching on those skinny tyres some of those cars be worth a fortune nowadays
Car at 12:04 is a Bowell Nagari. Made by the Australian owned Bolwell company at Seaford Vic in the early seventies. So more Australian than any of the cars made here by overseas companies.
More detail from Shannon's Club TV ep 35 :
th-cam.com/video/PTz3HfY2Luk/w-d-xo.htmlsi=-SInlpUHooB6XB3Q
The Nagari cars were rocket ships with Ford 302 or 351 power.
If people here havent seen the 160 episodes of Shannons Club TV then they should do themselves a favour and watch them.
Gold
What a brilliant episode Fletch. I found myself reminiscing. When I saw the green Leyland P76 and saw the Aftermarket Rear Demister I went OMG I remember those unsightly things in the 70's and 80's. They were ugly.
That was awesome but geez I feel a bit old now.
And not a scratch to any of the cars in chases......brilliant. The cost of fuel back then @23.53 was 45.7 cents p/gal for Super and 42.4 cents p/gal for Regular, the good old days.
All great shows in their day, but Div4 had the best theme.
Yes I think Canberra Road in Toorak might have seen its fair share of Crawfords car chases with the upper and lower duel road, very popular with the stunt drivers!
Aside from better television shows (no "reality" TV), no traffic congestion, parking spaces everywhere, no hospital waiting lists, cheap houses, cheap rent, pubs on just about every corner, bands
playing in the pubs Thursday to Sunday, cheap groceries, no speed cameras, no redlight cameras, no mobile phones going off every five minutes, no emails to check, no Sunday trading, no parking fees in beach car parks, short waits at the boat ramp, quiet beaches, no home invasions, no car jackings, full time jobs, only one toll road (the Westgate), a peak hour that lasted 15 minutes, sitting room on the train and often the tram, cheap gas, cheap electricity, cheap beer... aside from those things, the 70's weren't that good.
David, love that. Well written.
Plus David everyone seemed to have a bright happy attitude, AND best of all when you called a business or government dept, someone with a very "Australian" voice answered in a nano second to take a phone call and help you and they really did help you there and right then. OR if you called 000 due to a bad car accident on Pacific highway on Pymble Hill where I lived in Sydney, you would hear the wailing scream of those old & loud police sirens from a mile away as they virtually instantly left Gordon Police station after getting the radio dispatch to attend the accident, jeez they were quick.
@@classicrestostv1fletch764 Hey Fletch I was waiting to see Tony Ward, playing Hunter chase someone in his Mustang. A rare genuine Ford Homebush, Aust ' built RHD Mustang, one of the 1500 they made in 1965/66 to homologate them so they could be used as full race cars. Wildly different to the US ones as we merely welded the ckd kit car Mustang outer panels doors, bootlid & bonnet onto our new you beaut XM/XP Falcon coupe chassis/floor pan with its new massive, reinforced torque box chassis. Unlike the "flippy-flop" flexing US chassis and front suspension structure. I remember as a kid in Sydney the Ford TV adverts on during HUNTER, unusual as Ford "owned" the ad rites for the show, there were only Ford ads thru all the breaks for the whole show, including some great Mustang ones. As for all of 1965 the two Geoghegan brothers Leo & Pete raced big '65 Galaxies then during 1966 they swapped to the new factory RHD Mustangs
@@gregharvie3896 - Great information. Thank you. Tony is a friend of mine. I will be catching up with him soon, I will have to take him down memory lane. Cheers Greg.
I remember all of it, probably never will sink in that we dont make cars anymore
Another great Classic Restos episode, Mr. Fletch.
I watched a lot of “Adam-12” when I was a young lad. The series aired from 21 September 1968-20 May 1975. I still get to watch the reruns nowadays. Did y’all get to watch it “Down Yonder”? One of the best car chase scenes from the show was Officer Malloy driving the Plymouth Satellite police car chasing a Pontiac GTO Judge through a neighborhood.
I have work Law Enforcement for almost twenty years here in Alabama and some of it with the Army as Military Police. I think “Adam-12” is the still the best cop show. Compared to the other idiotic “cop shows” Hollywood has put out. “Barney Miller” being excluded.
I want to look up the series “Cop Shop” that Crawford Productions developed. It appears to be a spittin’ image of “Adam-12”.
Yep Adam 12 was very popular here in Australia in the 70’s as well. I did enjoy Adam 12 but I especially loved Emergency. It was really cool to see the tiny cameo moments when the boys from Adam 12 crossed paths with the fellows from squad 51.
Cop shop was ok, but being second half of the 70’s it seemed to focus a lot more on the private lives of the characters than the 60’s and early 70’s versions did but at least it was all in colour. I did not seem to warm to Cop Shop as much for some reason.
However Homicide on channel 7 being the oldest was absolutely brilliant, it seemed to be dark and heavy at times (or perhaps I was too young for the subject matter) when it first aired but I do remember Alwyn Kurts as inspector Fox was just fantastic. He set a very high standard for those that followed for the boss character of a TV cop show.
Division 4 on channel 9 followed in the late 60,s and was my favourite cop show overall. Again Chuck Faulkner was great as Detective Senior Sargent Vickers but the show really did focus on Gerard Kennedy,s character Detective Sargent Banner. At its peak, they were making and airing two episodes a week.
And Matlock Police on channel 10 was last of the really great cop shows all produced by Crawford and all ran in competition to each other on rival TV stations and at some point and all seemed to be cancelled close to each other as well.
Again Micheal Pate playing Detective Senior Sargent Madden was an excellent choice for the station boss, but who can forget Paul Cronin as Senior Constable Hogan on his 750 Honda motorcycle, and interaction with police radio operator Shirl. He was also lucky enough to have had a spin off show called “Solo One”
These 3 TV shows displayed the perfect art of dealing with and completing a full story within every episode (with the exception of double episodes) with only a very light touch of personal issues connecting each episode, similar to Adam 12 and Emergency.
@@michaelrichter5233 I remember watching “Emergency” and the brief appearance of Malloy and Reed.
I’ll look up the DVD series that are available for the aforementioned programs and see what I decide.
I liked watching “Barney Miller”, as well. Although it was a sitcom the show gained some acclaim for the realism of the day to day life of a detective squad at the fictitious 12th precinct of the NYPD. The show was filmed before a live studio audience. The two memorable episodes for me are “Hash” and “The Hero”. I watched a few episodes of “Blue Bloods” but didn’t get too much into the show.
Always a stack of cardboard boxes to cause an accident 😅😅 A lot of Smiths aftermarket rear demisters on show too 😀
Thanx Fletch, great stuff. How bad did those 70s cars handle? We thought they were cutting edge too.
Good one, Fletch! You just don’t get that today with Hyundais and Kias…
I remember that blue Bolwell!!!!!!
Btw, you can't go past a white skivvy under a sports jacket driving a Charga...Well, at least the sheilas can't...
Not to mention those Melbun night cart alleyways.
My god. You'd pull over just so you didn't have to put up with that siren any longer 😂😂 My ears!!
I hate cops and cop shows, but to be fair, these shows look amazing. Australian cars and setting. Seeing what towns and cities looked like back then. The chases. I might have to dive into these
Random reflections from a near 60-year-old,
Bluey: I'm glad Valiant gave the Bluey production team mostly red cars, because as we all know, they go faster.
Cop Shop: I was a little surprised. I have either owned, driven, or ridden in almost every one of the model of car shown in those clips, including
a Hot Pink GTR XU1 Torana Bathurst Special.
a '67 VE Val, and a VG, and a CM and a Chrysler by Chrysler
an XC
a P76
All the Toranas
etc etc.
Division 4. I remember there always being arguments at school over which was better, Division 4 or Homicide. Div 4 had better cars but I liked Homicide because they had better car chases. 14:30 Trivia: I owned one of those Gold 289 Fairmonts (I think the one in the clip is a Fairlane) for a while. Apparently, the GTs were rare. 14:55 I owned a 1974 Charger in the same colour as that one. I rolled it out bush and nearly died because I got thrown out as the car rolled and my legs got hooked in the door.
Matlock Police was a mainstay in our place, Dad loved the show. In this clip (more boring trivia), I used to drive one of those Dodge/International trucks at a job I had in the 80s. And that P76 looks like the Targa Florio version of which I have/had many photos of after seeing one at The Caves pub, just North of Rockhampton back in the early 2000s.
19:25 to 20:10 We built them tough back in the day. Dangerous, but tough.
21:01 I think the GT might just have had a big lose there somehow. "Cut! Let's clean that up and go to the next shot!"
Ryan. I never did see this series. We lived in Perth at the time, so either it wasn't shown there, or maybe it was because I had more adventurous things to do as a ten-year-old than watch TV.
Great bunch of clips, Fletch. I'm kinda glad you didn't play the Solo One theme track because I would have gotten an earworm. Bloody song gets stuck in my head every time I hear r think of it for too long.
Fuel, 45 cents! (edited) 45 cents per gallon, which is 4 litres!
In 1975, it was 15 cents a litre. I still have some documentation I got when I bought a 1974 HQ Statesman off of the original owner in 2013!
45 cents per GALLON. Australian Imperial Gallon.
So around 10 cents a litre.
It would be good to know the date but from an era when ten cents would buy some useful things. Not regarded as shrapnel then.
@@michaelrichter5233 When i got my licence in Perth in 1977, I do remember standard petrol costing 9.8 cpl. then a bit later it went up to 13cpl. You could also get fuel cheaper if you went to a 'new' self-serve station ! i was filling up my VG Valiant for $10.
The sign says GAL dosnt it? you are correct.
@@michaelrichter5233 it was still in gallons, transitioning to litres at that point. the sign says GAL
Wondering how Ryan managed to get the hood opened from the outside 24:00. 😊
I notice that the VJ Valiant Rangers had no engine size badges. Were they all 215 powered I wonder?
I had 215 underpowered for Fleet owners cops must have gone 245 at least
Police VJ's wouldn't be baseline fleet models with 215's. The Highway Patrol cars in VJ were K12's- a 265 with basically 2 barrel R/T specs and a 727 torqueflite auto. I had a K12 265 in a VG hardtop- went hard.
Yes, I know about the K12 coded cars, but these were not actually real life Police cars. They were supplied to Crawford productions by Chrysler for TV use only.
❤🎥📹📼🇦🇺💯
That fake little blower looks hilarious, like a big exhaust pipe on a tesla.
Edit that's the siren ok. hit me.
Disappointed that the 'Bluey' voices weren't dubbed as 'Bargearse'.
Don't know how the cops expected to catch the 390.😅
There's no need for those Valiants to dive when cornering, my VH Ranger handles like a sports car ,and all it took was heavy duty gas pressurised shocks on the front. 🙂
And a front sway bar.
@@freeagent8225 To be honest, I fitted the shocks first , and it was great , then I put a sway bar on ,and it felt about the same.
@@barrycuda3769 That was such an entertaining video, always loved the Valiants, had 4 cars from Adelaide.
Barry, cars seen were stock standard. Yes, heavy duty shocks and decent front sway bars clean up the "dips" beautifully. Apart from that, I think the speeds they were doing as "compact" size cars was pretty impressive with what they had. Cheers.
@@classicrestostv1fletch764 Yeah, it probably wouldn't be authentic to the era if they had improved suspension, although you'd think those GT spec XY Falcon cop cars would have had beefed up suspension. Can you really call a VH to CM Valiant a compact? they're almost as big as a B body.
Anyone know what is the little blue car at 12:04 ?
That's a Bowell Nagari. Made by the Australian owned Bolwell company at Seaford Vic in the early seventies.
More detail from Shannon's Club TV ep 35 :
th-cam.com/video/PTz3HfY2Luk/w-d-xo.htmlsi=-SInlpUHooB6XB3Q
The Nagari cars were rocket ships with Ford 302 or 351 power.
Thank you! It's very pretty and I was pretty sure it sounded like a V8. @@johnd8892
😎😀
How bad were the roads in the 70s
46.7cpl for petrol!
You need to find the episode of river rats where bank robber in vk he meany gets flogged hard in chase