Articles by Andy

[momo]

I've been rummaging around and found these articles about Andy and thought you might like to read them

[momo]

This first is from from an Australian publication - I particularly love the bit at the end where he says I think the female viewers are probably brighter than the males

Wish Magazine (The Australian) Edition: 1
Publication date: 02/05/2008 Pages: 54



REV HEAD

By: MIKE SAFE

TV's Top Gear celebrates boys and their super-fast toys. Now the psyche of the Aussie male is under scrutiny as executive producer Andrew Wilman checks out talent for the local show.

Ever wondered what car is driven by the man who drives Top Gear, the wildly successful motoring-cum-male-bonding TV show that's about to launch an Australian version? Is it a Bugatti Veyron, until recently the fastest production car in the world? Maybe it's an SSC Ultimate Aero TT, the American sports rocket that's inched in front of the Bugatti at 413km an hour? Or is it any old Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Aston Martin, Maserati or Mercedes?

No, it's a tiny Honda Jazz, the city runabout that doesn't even bother to list its top speed, just the price - $15,990 for the basic model. "OK, I apologise," laughs Andy Wilman, Top Gear's executive producer. "I know it's about as dull as a car can get." Well, a Top Gear car, anyway. But Wilman, 45, lives in grid-locked central London where a car, cheap or expensive, is as much a liability as an asset. Hence the zip-about Jazz.

Of course, Top Gear is about celebrating motoring exotica over the ordinary. But expensive machinery is only part of the entertainment. The show - fronted by three squabbling Englishmen: the opinionated Jeremy Clarkson, who writes a regular column for The Weekend Australian; the slightly off-kilter James May; and Richard Hammond, the female viewers' favourite - has a quirky character all its own. It's an exercise in male folly as the presenters test their egos and eccentricities in various cars and situations, from the good and glamorous to the ugly and dangerous, such as a 464km/h jet-powered car crash that almost took Hammond's life in 2006.

Envious program-makers around the world are left wondering why Top Gear works, and totally jealous of the audiences it pulls - it claims an estimated 500 million viewers across 120 countries. In Britain, eight million people a week, about 40 per cent of them female, settle down before their televisions on Sunday nights to watch it on BBC2.

In Australia, it's easily the most popular program on ratings-deprived SBS, with a million viewers per new episode. Importantly, in this revenue-driven age, it's also become an advertising cash cow for the network and this, of course, is one of the reasons for

creating a local spin-off. The laidback Wilman, originally a motoring journalist who, along with Clarkson, re-energised the program after the BBC cancelled its long-running original format in 2001, has been in Australia to discuss the new edition.

It will be the first time an entirely outside version has been produced, although there was a US hybrid (not a Top Gear production) that pretty much sank without a trace. Wilman is eternally grateful for that because, in his own colourful opinion, it was a "load of old bollocks". Its failure also makes him and Clarkson more serious about getting the Australian version right - and he readily admits that's not going to be easy.

For a start, whatever is done here will be compared with what's done there. "Yes, the cynics will be queuing up and, yes, it's a tough job because the show exists here in Australia already and it's getting good viewing figures," says Wilman. "And more than that, people here understand it, they dissect it, and that's our problem with a local version."

The trick in dealing with this, he explains, is to get in first and acknowledge any potential problems before the doom merchants take aim. "So whatever viewers might complain about here, you've addressed it before they have a chance to moan," Wilman adds. And the number-one contention will, of course, be the presenters. The BBC's local partner with SBS, Sydney-based Freehand Productions, has been steadily working its way through a whopping 4000 applicants to find the three front men.

"It's not so much about performance - it's about sensibility and spirit," explains Freehand's Peter Abbott of the elusive qualities the local presenters will need. The veteran producer, whose credits include the Beyond 2000 science shows and, for something entirely different, three series of Big Brother, adds, "We've got to create a group of three who have a similar attitude.

"If it was a case of just getting the comedy right, we'd hire scriptwriters and a bunch of comedians," Abbott says. "If it was just car knowledge, we'd go to the car magazines and hire the three best journalists who can talk. But it's neither of those. As Andy Wilman puts it, it's three blokes with charming flaws who have fun in a relaxed, goofy, male kind of way."

The trio, who might or might not have had media exposure, will need to know their stuff but carry it lightly, says Abbott. "If we don't get that right there's no point getting anything else right." The elusive three must be identifiably Australian but not cringingly so - no Crocodile Dundees, no Steve Irwins "because that's obviously a cartoon of Australia - there's a lot of subtlety needed".

Wilman, who has been on a steep learning curve about all things pertaining to the Australian male, stresses the most infamous derivative of the species, the ocker car hoon, will not be sighted. "I'm imagining women here can laugh at Australian men. I'm being educated about that and it seems the ocker male is just too much. He's a pig and there's nothing funny about him."

Likewise, sexism will be out. "We've got a lot of connecting points (between Britain and Australia), with the big one being this love of males taking the piss out of each other. The show is about the male psyche - there won't be a female presenter. That doesn't make it a sexist show. We hate sexism - all that stuff about women not being able to drive or park. That's hackneyed old rubbish. Conversely, there's no point putting a woman into the mix because males will have a different approach to a group of females." For example, he says, men walking down a road would laugh if one of their fellows tripped, while a group of women would ask, 'Are you OK?' At its broadest, that's what we tap into - that's Top Gear."

The show is often accused of being politically incorrect, usually by those who have political barrows to push - be they environmentalists who loathe powerful, gas-guzzling cars or road-safety authorities that are harangued by Clarkson over speed cameras, which he sees as ineffective, except as government revenue-raisers.

In a recent, light-hearted example of un-PCness, the three presenters lit up pipes before a studio audience and puffed away, creating a smoke haze befitting a small bushfire - and breaking Britain's smoking regulations in the process. "We knew we were going to get in trouble but we did it because it was funny - not because it was breaking the law," explains Wilman.

"Television is supposed to be slick and sharp but this wasn't. For some strange reason, Porsche makes these pipes ... who'd buy a Porsche pipe? The guys were trying to light them and it took about two minutes to get them going. It was the worst television imaginable - and the studio audience was laughing its collective head off. But if we light up pipes, kids aren't suddenly going to be doing the same thing in the playground the next day.

"We don't set out to be un-PC but we do like to make a bit of mischief and, then again, maybe that's a public service because so much of the world is so serious now. Our viewers actually have a lot of common sense and they know something like that just doesn't matter."

Wilman likens Clarkson, Hammond and May to the men in Friends, the long-running TV sitcom where male shortcomings were regularly on display. Abbott's preferred reference point is Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor as played by comedian Tim Allen in another much-loved American sitcom, Home Improvement, where his misadventures with power tools and family were the butt of endless jokes.

In Top Gear, much of the humour derives from endless ridiculous challenges, such as attempting to build the longest stretch limo to ever get stuck in a London backstreet or launching a car into space - well, not quite, but they tried hard. "They bicker, they're always trying to get one up on each other, everything they do goes wrong, they obsess over utter rubbish," says Wilman of his presenters. "Yet the audience - and I think the female viewers are probably brighter than the males - realises that the three of them are doing it for a laugh."

He then evokes another TV hero. "The point of Top Gear is that we live off failure. We're like Homer Simpson - we celebrate not getting anywhere." Except when driving cars at more than 300km/h, of course.

A new series of British Top Gear is expected to start on June 2 at 7.30pm. The Australian version of the show will debut on SBS later this year.

[momo]

Road to Riches
Time International Atlantic Ed.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All Rights Reserved.
By: Adam Smith

How high speed and high jinks turned the BBC's Top Gear from a tired jalopy into a global hit.

To the uninitiated, the BBC show Top Gear might seem an improbable hit. Consider the premise: the weekly, hour-long program features "three middle-aged men fooling around using cars as props," says Jeremy Clarkson, one of its presenters. "That doesn't sound very exciting, does it?" Perhaps these guys are easy on the eye? "They're a bit fat, and they dress like s___," says Andy Wilman, Top Gear's executive producer. "You don't look at them and think, it's Ocean's Eleven coming toward you."

Dowdy and doughy or not, the three men and their show can claim an army of followers. The most popular program on BBC2--the higher-browed of the Beeb's two main channels--Top Gear regularly pulls in more than 7 million viewers, roughly a quarter of all Britons watching TV during the program's Sunday-night slot. Chalk that up to the show's high speed and high production values: crazy challenges and outlandish races--an Aston Martin versus a train between England and Monte Carlo, for instance (the Aston won)--are, like the rest of the show, beautifully shot and edited. Add in the bickering, bantering, male-but-not-macho presenters, and Top Gear has "touched something in the zeitgeist," says Steve Hewlett, a former British TV exec turned media consultant. "It hit this magic combination."

Next step: cash in. The hit U.K. show is already seen in more than 100 countries, from Norway to New Zealand, South Africa to Saudi Arabia; its global audience stands somewhere near 500 million. Almost two dozen local editions of the Top Gear magazine--a best seller in Britain--appear on newsstands worldwide. And foreign versions of the program are next. In September, Australian broadcaster SBS aired the first of eight episodes of its own edition of Top Gear. A pilot of a U.S. version is already in the can, and a Russian series is set to air early next year. With a live arena show about to tour the globe, the aim is to "create the world's biggest motoring entertainment brand," says Wayne Garvie, director of content and production at BBC Worldwide, the broadcaster's commercial arm.

Not bad for a show whose luck stalled just a few years back. In 2001, 24 years after it was launched, Top Gear ran out of gas. Its restart the following year owes much to Wilman and Clarkson, who quit the show in 1999 after just over a decade fronting it. Over beers in a London pub, the two sketched the show's current format: out went the string of turgid, outside-broadcast pieces to camera. In came a cavernous studio. Fresh faces were added. A mystery racing driver, permanently hidden beneath overalls and a crash helmet and known only as "the Stig," injected character into the show. And while Top Gear used to dwell on "What's a car like?" says Clarkson, these days it's "What can you do with a car?" Like: Is it possible to drive to the North Pole? Or drive across the English Channel? (Yes, to both.)

The program's visuals were slicked up, too; deft editing, delicious coloring and crisp sound have made Top Gear as striking as any Italian supercar. Its cool aesthetic, coupled with those proudly uncool presenters, have lent the program broad appeal. Close to half of Top Gear's British audience is female. Kids are drawn to the presenters' mischief and squabbles.

It doesn't hurt that the presenters sometimes crash headlong into trouble. Behind the wheel of their Toyota pickup in the race with a dog-pulled sled to the North Pole last year, Clarkson and fellow presenter James May sipped gin and tonics, earning a rap on the knuckles from BBC trustees. Earlier this month, in a segment designed to find out how hard life is for truckers, Clarkson, at the wheel of a truck, said: "Change gear, change gear, check mirror, murder a prostitute, change gear, change gear, murder. That's a lot of effort in a day." More than 1,800 people complained.

Clarkson is key to Top Gear's on-air attitude, but he and Wilman are also crucial when it comes to squeezing cash out of the brand. The men work closely with Global Brands, the BBC Worldwide unit set up last year to exploit some of the broadcaster's most marketable shows. Merchandising spin-offs--from Top Gear--branded cakes to video games--need the pair's approval long before the goodies hit store shelves. And rather than pay Clarkson and Wilman out of the cash that comes from TV licenses, BBC Worldwide last year took a stake in Bedder 6, a company set up by the men, into which most of the show's commercial revenues are funneled.

Reproducing the English show's success through local versions won't be easy. Unlike more widely franchised programs--The Weakest Link, say, or Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?--there's no easy-to-follow formula guaranteed to work. "Our production bible?" asks Wilman, "It's three men, a thick racing driver who can't speak, they're in a room, and that's it. There's nothing." But some aspects of the British show should travel well. "The Stig," for instance, figures in the Australian and U.S. versions, while inviting local celebrities to race the clock around a circuit should also have universal appeal. Much more crucial: finding a cast as comfortable with cars as they are fooling around. Hiring the comedian, rally driver and TV DIY star used in the U.S. pilot took six months. "What you won't want to do is lose the essence of Top Gear, which is ... the independence of spirit, in which people can say things they absolutely believe in," says BBC Worldwide's Garvie.

That can often mean poking fun at cars the show disapproves of. And in markets where automakers' advertising dollars are welcomed (the BBC doesn't air ads in the U.K.), some worry that freedom could be compromised. In the U.S., "I don't think you could be quite as freewheeling with your opinions as you can on the BBC, because sponsors pay for the programs," talk-show host Jay Leno, a fan of the U.K. show who turned down the chance to front the American pilot, wrote in Britain's Sunday Times newspaper in March. Garvie swats away the suggestion. "We haven't found that NBC or advertisers have put any pressure on us," he says. Top Gear's magazines, Garvie adds, "have the same attitude, and the manufacturers still advertise in their hordes." Says Wilman: "It's the only way it can work, that you have pockets of like-minded souls, doing Top Gear-y things." That means making fun, as much as making money.

[lymaze]

Thanks momo.

[Eclair]

Thanks Momo

The first one is here with some nice pics from the article...(please excuse the sobbing from moi ;D)

jamesmayboard.proboards101.com/index.cgi?board=andychat&action=display&thread=793

Second one I don't think I've seen...I love the quote

"You don't look at them and think, it's Ocean's Eleven coming toward you."

LOL ;D

[lymaze]

I do.

[Eclair]

Yeah, I know I just think its cute Andy's take on 'em....

[momo]

Oops sorry didn't spot that one.

I also found some motoring columns he wrote for the Telegraph in 1999 ish - if you are interested....?

[lew]

I don't think we have those, bung them on, ta momo

[Eclair]

Yes please Momo

[momo]

Ok your wish is my wotsit!

Daily Telegraph, 17/01/1998
Motoring: REAP AS YOU SOW More scary than a F15 jet fighter, combine harvesters put the wind up Jeremy Clarkson, recalls his BBC series producer Andy Wilman
ON JULY 13 last year, Jacques Villeneuve swept past the chequered flag to claim victory at the British Grand Prix. But don't for one moment presume that Jacques's win was Canada's only motorsport achievement that weekend. Oh no. Because 5,000 miles away in Alberta, Jeremy Clarkson, a BBC television crew and I were taking part in no less than the Canadian Combine Harvester Banger Race Championships. Our intention with Jeremy's new series, Extreme Machines, has been to take a break from cars and root out some of the world's more unusual forms of powered movement. You can judge for yourselves if you catch this Thursday's episode, but, for our money, an event that marries Mad Max with the Wurzels is worth loading up the camera for.

The championship is held just outside Red Deer, a hamlet so remote it could be twinned only with the Marie Celeste. For thousands of miles around, there is wheat and wheat, garnished with a bit more wheat. The inhabitants spend the best part of each day driving across it in straight lines, which, you would think, would give them time to think up diverse and artful pastimes. But this is an uncomplicated environment and when the time comes for the annual combine harvester demolition derby, you get exactly what the posters promise: each year, after filling the world's cornflake packets, the locals gather with their old agricultural appliances and keep smashing into each other until their machines have bought the farm.

The rule book is correspondingly sparse: four combines take part in each heat, slugging it out in a circular arena. Before the starting gun goes off, the combines arrange themselves at the edge of the circle, one at the 12 o'clock point, one at three o'clock and so on, with the drivers facing outwards. When the gun goes, the rural gladiators reverse into the ring and commence battle.

Simple. Well, actually, not so simple. On the long and tedious drive up to Red Deer, Clarkson was unusually quiet. Marlboro followed Marlboro in rapid-fire succession as he stared out of the window at the huge combines going about their business. Then it dawned that our presenter was a shade nervous. Now this puzzled me, because so far during the making of the series, for one so naturally inclined to lounge on life's sofas, he'd shown Rorke's Drift levels of dedication to duty. In the same programme, for example, you'll see him whack a light and deadly drag-racing snowmobile across a frozen lake and be reunited with his breakfast as he is rolled around in an F15 jet fighter - missions he'd accepted without a murmur. But today his cage was rattled.

"What if they're a right bunch of Jethros straight out of Deliverance?" he finally confessed. "Those hillbillies don't feel pain. They'll just rip all my arms off in the race and make what's left of me get married to the winner." "Look, don't worry," I replied. "If you get there and you don't like the look of it, you won't have to take part." This seemed to relax him, which was a shame, being as it was complete and utter cobblers; weeks before, without telling him, I'd asked the organisers to prepare Jeremy his own combine and enter him for as many heats as humanly possible.

The silence in the car was, I must say, quite deafening as we parked up next to a combine bearing the legend "British Broadcasting Corporation. Driver: Jeremy Clarkson" on the side. Our eyes met: "Look, you still don't have to do it; it's no big deal," I said. "Nobody round here cares about some telly twit from England having a go" Conversation ceased as we heard the compere announce to the crowd that this was indeed a special demolition day because in a few hours, an honoured guest from the British BBC would be taking part. The applause from the expectant crowd really didn't help. The director was giggling in fits in the back seat; Jeremy ripped the plastic wrapping off another pack of fags; I went for a walk. On first inspection, the locals, who did look like they'd graduated from the Dukes of Hazzard finishing school, were actually complete gentlemen. Patiently, they talked us through the ins and outs of the machinery, which was, in every sense of the word, extremely agricultural. The local champion, Murray (surnames are not a big issue round these parts), told us that a brand new combine costs around $250,000, but the ones used for bangering were the old, knackered models of Vauxhall Viva pedigree. Nevertheless, as Clarkson noted, they still had all their huge iron threshing blades intact. That's a good thing, I ventured. It'll look better on the telly. He didn't reply.

Although a combine weighs several tons, the engine, a straight six, offers a mystifyingly miserable 40bhp, but, as Murray explained, torque is the all-consuming issue when you want to lumber at a steady pace through a field of breakfast cereal: "They're good lugging engines; takes a lot to kill 'em." As for killing the opposition, there are two tried and tested tactics: either attack the tyres or go for the belt. "The power comes out of the engine via a belt which drives the tyres via the transmission," said Murray. "If you destroy the belt, they've got no traction." Finally, he gave Jeremy a guided tour of all the levers and pedals in the cockpit. There were so many it quickly became obvious that just driving one of these things, never mind reaping destruction in it, would be about as easy as flicking through the phone book while wearing boxing gloves.

Out in the arena, the heats were hotting up. Like huge mechanical sumo wrestlers, the combines paced the circle, charging and smashing their bulks against each other. Top speed was only 12mph, but with such huge masses of pig-iron meeting head-on, the carnage was none the less for it. Each time a competitor was incapacitated or could take no more, he would snap off the red flag attached to his cabin and the opponents would retreat to maul each other. "Do they ever roll over?" asked Jeremy.

"Hasn't happened in years," said Murray.

Minutes later, a blue combine, spurred on by a particularly vicious hit, crashed on to its side.

"Right ho, then," I said to Clarkson, giving him a carefree, manly punch on the arm. "Time to get you saddled up." Quite wisely, Jeremy realised that if he got knocked out of the game in the first 10 seconds, we'd have come a long way for nothing, so he asked Murray and his fellow combatants to leave him alone for the first few minutes of the heat, allowing the camera to get some shots of him on the move. "I'll be hopeless anyway; I'll just ninny about round the edges for a bit and then you guys will inevitably take me out," he reasoned. Murray, in line for another championship, wasn't happy about interfering with destiny but grudgingly agreed with a sportsmanlike handshake.

To my dying day, I'll never know why Clarkson did what he did next. Into the ring he went and pranced about a bit as promised. Meanwhile, Murray and the others, also as promised, left him alone. Then suddenly, not as promised, Clarkson turned into the fray and charged. Not only did he hit Murray, but he hit him with the kind of blow that comes from lottery-winning luck or years of practice. With a huge hiss, Murray's tyre deflated. The crowd went ballistic for the Limey underdog. Murray also went ballistic, the difference being that he had several tons of wheat-grooming machinery to hand. And that, really, was that for Jeremy. Standing safely at the side and sipping cold beers, Richard, the director, and I watched contentedly as our man and his machine visibly shrank before us, pummelled into oblivion from all sides by crushing attacks at full ramming speed from the vengeful farmers.

The cameraman looked up. "Some good shots here," he said, nodding as Clarkson's tyres collapsed and huge sections of the bodywork were torn asunder. The soundman lifted his headphones slightly, allowing us all to hear Jeremy's wails and protests coming through the microphone, and gave us the thumbs up.

There really wasn't much more to do. Richard spoke first: "Your round, I think." The billion-dollar mutant that Henry Ford let go THE Model T Ford revolutionised travel for road users the world over. But it did nothing for the good folk inside the Arctic Circle. This 20hp Model T mutant was built in 1924 by Johann and Olof Lofstrom, who, thrilled at the prospect of breaking the husky dog monopoly, dashed off to Detroit to show it to Henry Ford. Ford offered them $130,000 for the patent. The brothers dug their snow shoes in and asked for double that amount. Mr Ford asked them to leave.

That business is now worth $1.6 billion a year. Perhaps he drove it and that clouded his decision. We did. It was terrible.

Jeremy Clarkson's Extreme Machines is on BBC2 next Thursday at 8.30pm

[momo]

Daily Telegraph, 18/04/1998

Motoring: Ultimate getaway car? Ask a Train Robber Bruce Reynolds, who was jailed for that most infamous of robberies, owned plenty of fast cars. But Jaguars were not to his liking - `too obvious', he says. Andy Wilman asks his opinion of the latest supercharged XJR
ANDY WILMAN

THE other week I had the great pleasure of executing a perfect Sweeney-style arrival. I think you know what I mean: Jag screeches to a halt and all doors open simultaneously as villains alight and stride with purpose into East End snooker club.

For my part I had the right car, Jaguar's unbelievably incorrect new XJR, and definitely the proper company, namely notorious Great Train Robber Bruce Reynolds. Fortunately for the garage at which we pulled up so menacingly, however, Reynolds only wanted a law-abiding pee and I quite happily paid for my KitKat.

These days the former Public Enemy No 1 is, like any 67-year-old, more concerned about what young vandals have done to his local bus stop than causing arguments between gelignite and safe doors. Excitement is restricted to a good cowboy film on the telly, except, that is, for today, as we take the new supercharged big cat for a run and a natter about his passion for cars along the way. No doubt Jaguar would prefer us to canvass the opinion of a golf club chairman, but for heaven's sake we aren't talking about some mere adornment for the driveways of Surrey. What we have here is one of the very fastest four-door saloons in the world: 155mph of supercharged gentleman's club moving as swiftly and elegantly as Raffles on the rooftops. It lives by its own rules; it leaves a trail of charisma in its wake. And also, as far as Bruce Reynolds is concerned, it will be guilty until proved innocent: "To be honest, I was never a big fan of the Jags," he says, sipping tea outside Wimbledon's Windmill cafe, the site where he and Buster and Biggs had planned their infamous heist. "The problem was they looked so obvious, which was no good at all in my line of work." Tea cup in hand, he expands on to a shrewd, succinct lecture about the role of the Jaguar in crime: "The XKs, I must admit, were a great villain's car for their time. You see, the Fifties was the era of the country house robbery, and two smartly dressed men driving the country lanes in an XK wouldn't have aroused suspicion, because at that time the police were still susceptible to the trappings of the class system.

"But, in the 1960s, robbery became more confrontational, so criminals would work in groups of four, and the Jaguar Mk2s became the accepted choice." According to Reynolds, that decade was an era when thieves, in terms of wheels, had it all their own way. "The police were stuck with Wolseleys, while even the underpowered 2.4-engined Mk2 Jags would do 100mph," he says. "But the only acceptable Mk2s were the 3.45 and 3.85.

"Roy James, our getaway driver, preferred the 3.4 for its handling prowess over top speed. Roy was a very cerebral driver and understood the value of getting away cleanly. When `borrowing' a getaway car he would always look for one with the BRDC (British Racing Drivers' Club) badge on it. And, as a racing driver, he definitely had world championship potential, because he used to beat Jackie Stewart in the junior formulas." So popular was the Coventry Cat among those in the robbing fraternity that the ne'er-do-wells sometimes got a taste of their own medicine. "He used to park all our stolen cars around Eaton Square in Belgravia, and you'd come out and find some other villains had nicked our stolen Jags," says Reynolds.

"And therein lay its flaw," he concludes. "If there were three or four of you driving in a Mk2 Jag, eventually you were guaranteed to get a pull. We'd had our own way for a brief period, but then the chief constables started buying Mk2 Jags and the balance changed." Were Reynolds to take up his evil ways again, though, the long arm of the law would have trouble grasping his collar with a Jaguar XJR in his armoury.

Our drive route, during which Reynolds will pass judgment on the Jag, is rather appropriate. On August 8, 1963, he and his gang hijacked the Mail train at Bridego Bridge, just outside Leighton Buzzard, and made off with pounds 2,631,684 (around pounds 30 million at today's prices), ferrying the money bags in a series of Land Rovers along the silent B-roads to Leatherslade Farm, about 15 miles away.

Naturally, the getaway drive of Britain's most infamous robbery was a tedious affair, with the Land Rovers proceeding at a gentle, law-abiding pace. The XJR, though, will have none of it. Pressure the throttle and the supercharged four-litre V8 breaks its leash, propelling the big saloon up to greyhound speeds along the straights. On these country B-roads the top speed of 155mph is not the issue, but the twisty ribbons of Tarmac are ideal for revealing the greatness of this car. Coming out of a bend on to a straight, for example, the acceleration is almost arrogant in its effortlessness, thanks to nearly 400lbs ft of torque. Most staggering of all, though, is the handling.

Despite the corporate executive dimensions of this luxury four-door, this is a car that hustles in and out of bends as nimbly as one of Fagin's pickpockets darting through the back alleys of London. Without a doubt, if you bought a new XJR, the first thing to do would be to sack the chauffeur.

At least that's how I feel. And Reynolds, after a few miles at the wheel, appears to be a reformed character: "Well, I have to say that's the best car I've driven of its kind," says the former Jag sceptic.

"The handling is brilliant, the steering is superb and the brakes are very nicely weighted." The exquisite clock and the equally elegant wooden dashboard meet with the approval of a man who regularly summered in the Riviera at the wheel of an Aston Martin. His only grumble, as would be the case with anyone over three feet tall, is the lack of space in the rear seats.

I myself can add one more niggle: Reynolds's share of the Great Train Robbery in 1963 was pounds 150,000, almost pounds 2 million today. Back then, it took him years to blow his slice on fast cars and lying on beaches sipping drinks with paper umbrellas. Today, though, I think a few long journeys in the pounds 50,675 XJR would empty his pocket in half the time, because the fuel tank still screams for food like a newborn gannet.

Pulling up at Leatherslade Farm, Reynolds climbs out of the driver's seat and says: "Thank you. I've had my fun." Now, to me, a mere half hour at the wheel of possibly the car world's greatest all-rounder seems slightly puritanical, but on the way back to London, as Reynolds talks about his past, it becomes obvious that no day out with some nice wheels will ever come close to the life he led.

During the journey he talks about the villains' life of Savile Row suits, supper clubs, motoring to the Monaco Grand Prix in the Aston DB2/4 and drinking with race ace Peter Collins in the pubs of Belgravia. The whole sorry cycle of robbing and spending was punctuated with cars: a Triumph TR2, a Porsche 365B, a race-prepared Healey, a Renault Dauphin Gordini, a Lotus Cortina, all bought and discarded or crashed as often as he heard the phrase, "We'd like a word with you, sir".

"Yes," says Reynolds, snuggled in the leather seat, "speed was definitely of the essence, but it's also the measure of our age, don't you think?" Even on the night of the robbery, as the thieves lay in wait for the train, Reynolds enjoyed a Montecristo No.2 and battened down his nerves by discussing the merits of buying a Ferrari GTO with Roy James. Of course, as we know, it all went horribly and fatally wrong and after several years on the run, Reynolds was jailed and served 11 years of a 25-year sentence.

I'd been putting it off all day, but eventually I had to ask him that most revealing of questions: "Do you regret it?" It was worth it, because his reply surprised me. Yes, of course he'd done it for the women and cars and champagne, but more than that, Bruce Reynolds was a dangerously twisted romantic, fixated with the idea of living the life of Ernest Hemingway as war correspondent. To him, the Train Robbery wasn't simply about money. In his autobiography, describing the build-up to the robbery, he writes: "Every week I searched for my Eldorado. I was beginning to see the thief as an artist, writing the scenario, choosing the cast, deciding the location" "And that was the train job, for me," he adds as I drop him off. "It was my Sistine Chapel ceiling. I have done it." It was hard not to shudder.

That night, I go for one final blast in the XJR and the speed cameras ignite behind me. On this, of all occasions, I should have known that crime doesn't pay.

The ex-Bruce Reynolds Lotus Cortina will be among the lots at a major auction to be held at the Coys International Historic Festival at Silverstone on July 24-26

[lew]

Ta momo now a cuppa and a read ;D

[Wyvern]

Andy's such an entertaining writer. I wish he the time and inclination to do more than the odd blog post these days, but he's a very busy man so revisiting the Wilman Archives is great. Thanks, Momo

[maureen]

I had a great time reading all of these yesterday. Thanks for providing them, Momo. During the Tour Cars segment last night, Richard did mention part of the Ultimate Getaway Car article here. Thank you.

[Eclair]

Thank you so much Momo Do you have any more tucked up your sleeve?

Yes I wish Mr Wilman had time for more writing too but I'm continually astonished at what he achieves all the time with TG The man must be a machine

[momo]

Found a few more - He was writing for the Times in 1999/2000

The Times, 29/07/2000

World's best in miniature
By: Andy Wilman

You can buy three saloon cars for the price of a Gerald Wingrove model, says Andy Wilman.

Britain's Gerald Wingrove is acknowledged as the best little carmaker in the world. The MBE he was recently awarded backs up that fact. Wingrove started small, and that's the way he has stayed - minutely small. The collection of breathtakingly detailed miniature models he has created over the past 30 years is testimony to his skill.

Have a look at your wristw*tch and pretend it's the wheel of a car. Then imagine you have got to fit 28 wire spokes to it. And when you have done that row of 28, you have got to fit two more rows of 28 to the same wheel until your watch face is criss-crossed by 84 perfectly spaced spokes. Then you must repeat the whole operation four more times (don't forget the spare), as Wingrove did with a 1938 Alfa Romeo.

Wingrove has also built a Hispano Suiza H6. The original's bodywork was made from wooden planks, so Gerald did the same with his, creating polished planks 0.010in thick and fitting them into place with 13,000 brass rivets no thicker than cotton thread. We are not really in Airfix territory here.

"Right, well, er, there it is then," he says, pointing at the bench in his shed. This is the underwhelming fanfare for his latest car, a 1931 Bugatti Royale which in its original state was 20ft long, but is now perfectly reproduced at around 12in.

Wingrove has built 223 such miniatures. His workshop is a collection of tiny lathes, dental drills, a spray paint booth the size of a microwave.

By pinching my fingernails together I can turn the Bugatti's breadcrumb-sized doorhandle and open the driver's door. Inside, the white gearknob is the size of a pin-head. Just what sort of mind is behind this? "I know," says Gerald, spotting my bewilderment. "People come here for a day, see everything and it blows their heads off. Let's go and have a cup of tea." The first things I intend to ask are the Hello! questions: who buys the models and how much do they pay? "The only thing I won't talk about," says Gerald, "is who buys them and how much they cost." Apparently they are just plain fanatical model collectors, classic car owners, that sort of thing. Posh and Becks may find a gold-plated DVD player the height of good taste, but a scaled-down 1932 Alfa P3 is hardly likely to blow their frocks up.

As regards money though, he admits that a 1937 812 Cord he made for an American collector was recently valued by an American museum at Pounds 16,000. His prices may be high, but they do include delivery by hand, even if it means flying to Japan with the model in the overhead locker.

Wingrove will accept commissions from classic car owners who want the ultimate models of their own babies, or he will choose the car himself and approach the relevant model collectors who may be interested.

The new Bugatti came about this way. Wingrove has spent 20 years researching the movements of this particular car and its charismatic owner, Dr Josef Fuchs, a racing driver, concert pianist and gynaecologist, who escaped from prewar Germany with his Royale to America, where he drove the car from coast to coast three times in a year.

His favourite era is the Thirties - Bentleys, Duesenbergs, Alfa Romeos, Bugattis - all the big, beautiful handbuilt machines that came from the era when car builders employed the same craftsmanship as jewellers.

"In the end, we only make what we like and sell to people who like what we make," says Wingrove. The "we" includes his wife Phyllis, co-creator of the masterpieces. Together the couple will visit whatever car they intend to model, so they can photograph every detail and note all dimensions. All the tools, including miniature jigs, moulds and bucks for beating out the body panels, have to be made, and this whole preparation process takes around 18 months before Wingrove is ready to start. The actual making of the model takes three to four months of 75-hour weeks.

Bolt heads have to be carved exactly like the originals and the radiator must have the same number of grille holes as the proper car, even though there are several hundred of them. Yet despite all this, Wingrove never uses a magnifying glass: "Everything just seems to get bigger after a while," he explains.

"Every car has an aura, because of its designer," he adds. "Rolls-Royces were built like tanks, with bolts everywhere, and Alfa would have pulled his hair out following that procedure, so you have to try and think like each designer did." Wingrove worked as a young man at Meccano, making prototypes for Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and Joe 90 toys. Then, 30 years ago, he started on his own and joined that small band who make up the "best in the world" club.

I don't think he fully understands why he is up there. He knows he has to do his work instinctively but is genuinely modest: "I suppose I have an eye and I can work a machine. Phyllis always tells me off when I say it's a piece of cake."

[momo]

Another one The Times, 02/10/1999
Drop the ad lads, Nissan
By: Andy Wilman

Andy Wilman ignores empty boasts to find the Primera a plain good car If I were Nissan, I would tell my advertising agency creatives to get out of Soho a bit more often. Time and again these people have proved that ad campaigns that seem like rocket science at 3am in the Groucho Club, are actually complete rot once they hit the real world.

There was the Almera campaign, which won a gold at the Shoot Yourself in the Foot Olympics with its slogan "The Car They Don't Want You To Drive." We had not planned to drive it anyway, on account of its supreme ugliness.

Now we have the latest Nissan adverts, which basically say: "If you haven't got a new Primera then you must be driving an inadequate car." Is that so? Well chaps, we did sneering in the Eighties, and anyway you are hardly selling something whose looks will empty a school classroom as it drives by.

What is more annoying about this drivel is that it does no justice to the Nissan workers of Sunderland who, with the latest incarnation of the Primera, have built an honest, finely honed driver's car. Behind the Soho smugness is a carefully crafted piece of volume engineering.

The old Primera could be summed up by that cliche: nice legs, shame about the face. This had to be fixed urgently, and so we now have a much more interesting, indeed prestigious-looking, front grille which carves in a plunging cleavagey way between new, more purposeful lights. At the end of the day it is a facelift, but the nips and tucks have taken the blandness away.

Inside, the plastic surgeons have also taken their scalpels to the dashboard, and although they have given it a new identity, they have left all the plastic behind. Bits of chrome here and there, along with leather trimmed seats, just about add some executivewashroom pride.

But it just does not have the flair of an Alfa 156 or even Ford's Mondeo. Nissan's designers still seem to have the philosophy of trying to offend the least number of people, when really they should be trying to enrapture the most.

On the road it quickly becomes clear that the Primera retains its crown as the best driver's car in its class. The combination of stiff bodyshell, sophisticated multilink suspension and superbly weighted steering makes this a car that turns with precision, cornering flat and hard These cars are expected to spend most of their lives cruising the motorways, so ride comfort usually elbows the handling aside, but the Primera is so well sorted it manages to proceed smoothly and respond with complete agility on A and B roads.

For two years the Primera has swept the board in the British Touring Car Championships, and although a BTCC racer has very few components in common with your model parked outside the Little Chef, a good racer begins with a well-designed bodyshell and chassis, and that much you do share.

The line up now includes a 2-litre model equipped with Nissan's much-trumpeted Hypertronic CVT automatic transmission, which employs steel belts rather than cogs, and thus supposedly offers an infinite number of gears, with no jerky shift sensation.

It's clever, I'm sure, but in the real world the CVT is woeful to drive. You put your foot down, the transmission moos like the contents of a Wiltshire cattle auction, and a week or so later you are up to 70mph. It is a completely joyless experience, an engineer's dream that should have stayed in the laboratory.

The CVT can be switched to manual-shift mode and if you buy the automatic then for God's sake use it, just to give yourself some involvement.

My faith was restored by the 2-litre Sport+. This is the performance version, with a 140bhp engine, a 0-62mph time of 9.6 seconds and a top speed of 131mph.

More importantly its midrange torque has been beefed up and the power sits right where you want it, ideal for effortless motorway acceleration or for powering through bends. At Pounds 18,000, the Sport+ goes head to head with rivals such as the Peugeot 406, and for the price you get 16in wheels, electric everything, strong air-conditioning and a superb CD player.

The new version, particularly round the front end, is a step in the right direction, but it needs looks of dramatic beauty - looks that make children leave smudge-prints on showroom windows. That doesn't need money, just boldness.

In the meantime, for my ten penn'orth, the ad execs should have stuck with the slogan from the previous model: "It's a Driver's Car..." because, then you would be buying something that does exactly what it says on the tin.

[Eclair]

Thanks Momo! Got any more?!?!?!!

I'm loving all these Andy columns/articles you have!

He's lovely Very funny Very sexy Very clever

*prattles on*

[maureen]

Thank you for those too, Momo.