Past Present and in Between in Pictures (Part 1)

carryfast · 1 March 2023 17:03

Spardo:

Carryfast:
Now awaits you saying that The Sweeney TV producers should have starred the 1100 and Allegro instead of Granada to chase the blaggers’ Jags.
Suggest you read the correct comments on the vid I didn’t write them.

It was the very efficient Ford sales team that made sure all the ‘goodies’ on the Sweeny had Granadas, something like the present day ‘product placement’ operations in films. Which is why all the ‘baddies’ cars were Jaguars.

To be fair every wanabee getaway driver in the day knew from the age of 13 that in the real world the Granada would only see the tail lights of a well driven 3.8 S type disappearing over the horizon if the blaggers could escape London’s streets out onto the dual carriageways and motorways outside of town.
Jags were always ahead of their time in terms of their acceleration and top end performance figures by the standards of the 1960’s in the case of the XK engine then the V12 in the early 70’s. .
While the Granada’s 113 mph top end in the 1970’s wasn’t even as impressive as the big 6 cylinder BMC’s, around the ton, was in the late 1950’s early 60’s.If only they’d have made a Westminster MK2 using the MGC’s 7 bearing engine development.That could ultimately more or less match the BMW 3.0 Litre’s 200 bhp output from a much simpler and cheaper design.
At the end of the day the 690 and Westinster/6110 were arguably the best saloon cars that BMC ever made.