Number 6' Lotus Seven

 

While drinks and guns may not be the standard trappings of Number 6’s preferred lifestyle, we do know that he has an affinity for automobiles, particularly his custom Lotus Seven that Patrick McGoohan drives around London during the famous opening credits.

The Prisoner lore tells that the original choice for Number 6’s car was a Lotus Elan. However, when Lotus marketing director Graham Arnold provided both an Elan and a Seven, McGoohan’s preference for the Seven made it his character’s signature set of wheels, painted in British racing green with a bright yellow nose and registered “KAR 120C”. McGoohan’s character proves to be just as invested in the car as the actor himself, explaining to Mrs. Butterworth in “Many Happy Returns” that he had assembled his Lotus himself from a kit and reciting the engine serial number: 461043TZ. (Curiously, McGoohan does drive an Elan in the episode “The Girl Who Was Death”.)

During the production gap before the finale was filmed, the screen-used Lotus had already been sold so Caterham reportedly converted an earlier Lotus to resemble Number Six’s green-and-yellow Seven for its appearance at the end of “Fall Out”, where it was driven by Caterham founder Graham Nearn.

A half-decade after The Prisoner concluded, Caterham Cars was officially founded and took over the reigns from Lotus as official producers of the Seven, continuing to offer both kits and fully assembled versions of the design. Among the thousands of the Caterham 7 cars manufactured in the nearly 50 years since production began, Caterham Cars did introduce a Prisoner-branded trim package in 1989 painted in Number 6’s preferred green-and-yellow livery.

text via : bamfstyle.com

Jeff Wilson's Lonesome Dove photography

 

 

Jeff Wilson's photography career was born in the darkroom of his high school newspaper in Temple, Texas. After graduating from St. Edwards University he spent the better part of a decade working the trenches of state employment. At the Texas House of Representatives he worked on an ongoing documentary project photographing lawmakers during the legislative session. He soon amassed a brilliant catalog of images that were created on a work-for-hire basis and can never be published by him for money. This marked the last time he would ever be paid to shoot 35mm available light with nothing but a Leica and a bag of Tri-X.

At the Texas Department of Public Safety he traveled the state for six years as a Forensic Photographer. There he amassed a brilliant catalog of images he would rather not think too hard about. His work with blood spatter patterns has been called "adequate" by several DNA and Trace Evidence analysts. He subsequently worked for renowned photographer Dan Winters, who put him to work as his assistant for several years. Sequestered in Driftwood, Texas, under Winters' tutelage, Jeff developed his photographic skills, a strong work ethic and a penchant for Red Wings.

One of his not so recent works, a photo essay for Texas Monthly Magazine about Texas high school football stadiums, received a nomination for a National Magazine Award and was recently expanded into a book entitled "Home Fields" published by the University of Texas Press in the fall of 2010.

A more recent work for the afore mentioned Texas Monthly, a piece on Texas dancehalls, was a National Magazine Award finalist. Both times he lost to service pieces describing the best places to eat certain comfort foods within a given geographic area. With that under his belt, Jeff has developed a reputation amongst his pets as a reliable and amiable provider. His family is on the fence, but leaning toward "winsome." Jeff has been featured in the PDN Photo Annual and American Photography, and his photographs are included in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. and the Wittliff Collection at Texas State University, as well as the foyers of several discerning South Austin collectors who live on his street.

Why We Ride

 

What started as a documentary about the legendary racer “Iron Man” Ed Kretz become a 15 month long production studying the “two-wheeled perspective” of the passion of life told through anecdotes of those who live and breath it everyday. This was one of the most transformative filmmaking journeys our crew had ever embarked on. - James Walker, Producer of Why We Ride & Co-Founder/CFO of Motovational, Inc. Why We Ride is a story about who we are. Individuals with a desire to dream, discover and explore. From a kid’s dream come true, to a retiree’s return to freedom. From a family riding together on the sand dunes, to hundreds of choppers carving through the canyons – the bond is the same. It’s about the passion of the riders and the soul of their machines.

An Officer and a Gentleman T140

 

Keith Turk

My T140 USA a few years ago ...

Yes, this is the same Triumph Bonneville from the movie An Officer and a Gentleman. Paramount Pictures made two bikes for the movie, both purchased from Dewey's Cycle Shop in Seattle. The "stunt" bike, with lower gearing and some other differences, is at Planet Hollywood; the other one belongs to Keith Turk. Keith Turk found the bike on eBay in 2002. A Hollywood prop designer had the bike in storage for many years before she sold it. Keith has always been into English sports cars, and he was looking for a motorcycle to go with his Austin Healey 100/4. The movie history was cool, but he bought it first as a Triumph and because it had almost no miles on it and had been stored in California, so it was essentially perfect. Honestly, it’s just not a great motorcycle. It’s from one of Triumph’s worst years. It’s kickstart only. The gearbox doesn’t snick, it snatches through the gears. It’s got a 4-inch over front end, which makes it less than comfortable to ride.  Pretty much everything about the bike is difficult. Keith bought it on a whim. He had enough money to do what he wanted, so he went out and bought this really cool Triumph. He has been without a bike since 1976, when he joined the Army. He put 1,500 miles on it the first year, and it mostly reminded him how much he really loved riding bikes. Then he bought some old Honda 550s, and he as been back riding ever since.

By Keith Turk via motorcyclistonline.com

Daktari - Land Rover 109 Serie 2

The successor to the successful Series I was the Series II, which saw a production run from 1958 to 1961. It came in 88 in (2.24 m) and 109 in (2.77 m) wheelbases (normally referred to as the 'SWB' and 'LWB') as the one in the TV serie Daktari. This was the first Land Rover to receive the attention of Rover's styling department. Chief Stylist David Bache produced the familiar 'barrel side' waistline, with a 5 in (12.7 cm) greater width to cover the vehicle's wider tracks, as well as the improved design of the truck cab variant, introducing the curved side windows and rounded roof still used on current Land Rovers. The Series II was the first vehicle to use the well-known 2.25-litre petrol engine, although the first 1,500 or so short wheelbase (SWB) models retained the 52 hp (39 kW) 2.0-litre petrol engine from the series I. This larger petrol engine produced 72 hp (54 kW) and was closely related to the 2.0-litre diesel unit still in use. This engine became the standard Land Rover unit until the mid-1980s when diesel engines became more popular. The 109-inch (2.77 m) Series II station wagon introduced a twelve-seater option on top of the standard ten-seater layout. This was primarily to take advantage of UK tax laws, by which a vehicle with 12 seats or more was classed as a bus, and was exempt from Purchase Tax and Special Vehicle Tax. This made the twelve-seater not only cheaper to buy than the 10-seater version, but also cheaper than the seven-seater 88-inch (2.24 m) Station Wagon. The twelve-seater layout remained a highly popular body style for decades, being retained on the later series and Defender variants until 2002, when it was dropped. The unusual status of the twelve-seater remained until the end—such vehicles were classed as minibuses and thus could use bus lanes and (if registered correctly) could be exempt from the London Congestion Charge. There was some degree of overlap between series I and II production. Early Series-II 88-inch (2.24 m) vehicles were fitted with the old 2-litre petrol engine to use up existing stock from production of the Series I. The 107-inch (2.72 m) Station Wagon continued until late 1959 due to continued demand from export markets and to allow the production of series-II components to reach full level.

Danny Wilde's Dino Ferrari

 

In the TV series The Persuaders, the character of Danny Wilde played by Tony Curtis drives a Dino 246 GT registered in Modena, the city near which the headquarters of Ferrari are located. A look back at the story of the poor man's Ferrari...
Enzo Ferrari created the Dino brand in 1964 to pay tribute to his son died in 1956. This subsidiary was an opportunity for Ferrari to find a new clientele by offering sports cars at affordable prices. However, Enzo Ferrari, keen on the image of his brand, refused to allow the Dinos to wear the prancing horse badge because he considered the V6 engines less noble than the traditional Ferrari V12s. The Italian brand presented the 246 GT in 1969 at the Turin and Geneva Motor Shows in order to face competition from the German manufacturer Porsche with its 911 equipped with the famous Flat 6 engine. Evolution of the 206 designed by Pininfarina and produced in 153 copies in 1968 and 1969, the new car was 9.4 cm longer and its body made of steel rather than aluminum. It was equipped with a new cast-iron engine with double overhead camshafts and twin ignition, the displacement of which was increased to 2.4 litres. This new block offered more flexibility and proved to be less fragile than the 2.0-litre aluminum of the 206. It developed 195 horsepower and allowed the 246 GT to go from 0 to 100 km/h in 7 seconds and to reach 240 km/h, while retaining impressive handling for the time.

Lord Brett Sinclair's Aston MArtin DBS

 

DBS/5636/R (engine number 400/4665/S) was manufactured in the spring of 1970, complete with certain modifications specifically for its intended role in the television series “The Persuaders!” in which it featured prominently in the almost all of the 24 one-hour episodes. Aston Martin had been invited by the producers of "The Saint" (Bob Baker and Johnny Goodman) to provide a car for Roger Moore in his role as Lord Brett Sinclair in The Persuaders, in which Moore would co-star with Hollywood legend Tony Curtis.  It was to be the most expensive TV series ever filmed to date, with various glamorous locations around Europe.  Moore had expressed an interest in the DBS model which he felt would be ideally suited to the character of Lord Brett Sinclair.  Curtis’ character Danny Wilde was to drive a Ferrari Dino 246GT and the cars were to be an important element of the show. 

Naturally, Aston Martin were eager to provide a car. They even provided one of their mechanics throughout the production to make sure the car was always in good shape.  It made sense to provide their latest model, the recently unveiled DBS V8, in order to gain maximum benefit from the planned television exposure.  However, the new V8 version of their DBS was not quite ready for full production and it proved impossible to provide a reliable V8 engine in time for the start of filming.  The decision was made to opt for a standard DBS with the well-proven six-cylinder engine, but to build the car as a DBS V8 in all visual respects, as if “wearing make-up” for its starring TV role.  A certain standard DBS (chassis# 5636) was nearing completion on the production line in the rare colour of Bahama Yellow and seemed an ideal candidate for the role.  The modifications were limited to V8 wheels (15-inch GKN alloys) and hubs, and V8 badging.  Incidentally, chassis 5636 proved to be the only right-hand-drive DBS ever manufactured in Bahama Yellow.  The car was first registered in England on 15 May 1970 with number "PPP 6H".

Thanks to dbsvantage.com for their amazing job about this fabulous car