Driven to distraction!

Mr Bean might seem an unlikely candidate to be a dieselhead and worthy of these columns — but in real life he really is. After tracking down one of his Minis in a car museum, reputedly diesel-powered, DAVE FALL just had to find out more about the incredible duo . . .

Success comes easily to Mr Bean (alias Rowan Atkinson) it seems. Every time he makes a full-length movie he buys himself another sports car. Reputed to be worth £80 million, he has just splashed out £500,000 on a classic D-Type Jaguar to stand alongside his collection of Bentleys, Aston Martins et al.

When he made the original Mr Bean movie he bought himself a £650,000 McLaren F1 supercar that he promptly drove into the back of a Rover Metro that was driven by a little old lady on the Lancashire bypass! She was fine — he was fine, the Rover was OK but the McLaren needed an expensive rebuild.

Atkinson’s brother Rodney reckons: “Rowan, whose Mr Bean character drives a Mini rather than a high-powered super car, is an “absolute fanatic” about wheels — even better if powered up by diesel fuel. The faster they are the more he likes them. He’s a very good driver, there’s little doubt about that —and to my knowledge this is the first accident Rowan has ever had.”

Rowan (52) and father of two young children, takes his hobby seriously it seems. British Car magazine used his services for some time and even gave him his own column, such was the success of the Mr Bean TV series, and of course the collection of Minis he used. In the early shows he had an orange 1969 Morris Mini MkII (RNT996H). This car met an early demise — no, not Mr Bean’s fault this time!

In a series of 14 half-hour Mr Bean shows he went through four cars — another was totally flattened by an army Chieftain tank — the one that accompanies this article survives thanks to the National Car Museum down at Beaulieu, along with other celebrity cars such as another British TV favourite, the Trotter’s (from Peckham) three-wheeler Reliant.

Mr Bean and his Mini were often featured in conflict with a blue Reliant Regal that usually got tipped over, bumped out of a parking space, or crashed into, to become something of an on-going joke throughout the series. Three-wheelers rarely made their way to South Africa for obvious reasons, but Natal readers may remember local motorsport personality Colin Dove from Mayor’s Walk Service Station in Pietermaritzburg who owned a Bond three-wheeler . . . I wonder what happened to that car after Colin shuffled off this mortal coil?

Bean rarely spoke on any of his shows — except mumbling to his Teddy, of course. A dark-brown, knitted oddity with buttons for eyes and bloated limbs, he too often ended up broken or in various states of destruction. Several “Teddy’s” graced the show as well, it seems.

Ever wondered about Bean’s girlfriend that occasionally appeared on the show? Her stage name was Irma Gobb — real name Matilda Ziegler. Usually treated more as a friend than a companion she always seemed to come up short when invited for dinner or taken to a dance.

Atkinson (Bean) has a Phd at Oxford, in English, I believe. An unusual aside to the comedy show was the choral performances that appeared before, during and after most episodes. Sung at the beginning by the Choir of Southwark Cathedral (later Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford) was Ecce homo qui faba (Behold the man who is bean); Pars secunda — Part II (sung after any commercial breaks); Finis parties primae — End of Part One (sung before the commercial break) and Vale homo qui est faba — Farewell, man who is a bean).

Did Bean unwittingly reveal the secret of securing your car in this shows? In Mr Bean Rides Again he hid the ignition key under the car bonnet, the key for the bonnet was kept in the boot, the key for the boot was attached to the sun visor above the driver, and the key to the car door that was heavily bolted was kept on his person!

Are you wondering where Mr Bean, alias Blackaddder and the main actor in The Thin Blue Line will spring from next? He’s reportedly about to star in a new movie version of David Copperfield as Mr Micawber, one of Charles Dickens’ best-known comic features . . . can’t wait for that one!

Setting the record straight

I decided to delve into his car history books to find out who made the shortest, cheapest, costliest, longest, oldest, fastest, the heaviest and the lightest vehicles around.

Don't you hate it when people tell you something and you know darn well they are wrong! It happens to me occasionally so I’ve taken time out to discover some weird and wacky facts in motoring through the ages.

The costliest car ever made is not a current offering from Mercedes that goes by the name of Maybach, but rather NASA’s Lunar Roving Vehicle. Four were built in 1971 at a total cost of £19 million. At £79,000 the McLaren F1 supercar seems cheap(ish) at £799,000, though.

The longest production passenger car ever made appears to be the 15-seater Checker Aerobus at 6,850mm in length. Built in the 60s, it had eight doors. The car with the biggest bonnet is undoubtedly the Bugatti Royale, built in 1930. I’m not sure of the length but it had to accommodate an engine of 12,763cc capacity! The longest road-going two-seater is said to be a special-bodied Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud that was built for the 1957 British Motor Show. It was nicknamed the “Honeymoon Express” for some reason.

The shortest car ever made, meanwhile, is the Peel P50, an upright single-seater, three-wheeled bubble car measuring just 1,350mm in length. It was built between 1962 and 1966 in the UK. The idea behind the original Mini was to create the shortest car to carry four people and their luggage. It was 3,050m in length. Designed by Sir Alec Issigonis, he then asked the mechanical boys to design an engine to fit his car! The shortest car made after 1966 was the simply dreadful 1982 Cadillac Cimarron. It was based on the Vauxhall Cavalier.

The fastest car category will most likely be the most interesting to readers. Yes, there is now the Bugatti Veyron but for a number of years the McLaren F1 proved to be the fastest road car at a phenomenal 384 km/h. And that from a car that didn’t even have ABS brakes! However, Ferrari’s F40 and Lamborghini’s Diablo are also claimed to go faster than 320 km/h.

In 1903 Britain still had a national speed limit of 19 km/h. Times must have been tough at the turn of the 20^th century because the slowest car ever put into production was the Rytecraft Scootacar in the 30’s. Creeping along flat-out at 24 km/h, that also happens to be the top speed of the infamous Sinclair C5 in 1985. French car company Citroen can lay claim to the slowest four-wheeler, four-stroke car. Its 2CV engine had a top speed of 64 km/h, and that from a 6,75kW motor.

But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Power-steering was first seen on a car (Chrysler Imperial) in 1951, while the first anti-lock braking system (ABS) recorded on a production car was fitted to a Jensen FF. 1940 saw air-conditioning fitted — again American — this time in the Packard Super Eight. Meanwhile, the first turbo was fitted to an Oldsmobile Jetfire. Across the Atlantic, it was 1976 before British motorists were able to benefit — and only if you could afford a TVR3000M. Daimler were the first car company to offer a wireless (modern day sound system)  — that was back in 1922. Twelve years later Hillman offered them as standard fare in the “Melody Minx.”

The oldest marque question often turns up at “pub nights” so listen up: Daimler is the world’s oldest marque, having been in existence since 1896. AC can lay claim to being the oldest independent car firm, though (remember, Daimler is now Ford property). AC was founded in 1901, although it has had spells during that time when production was suspended. Apart from the basic profile, today’s Land Rover 90 shares nothing with the first models of 1948.

We now come to the heaviest — and lightest — until well into the 1930s, individual coachbuilt cars were popular. Larger examples would have included the 8,0-litre Maybach Zeppelin saloon and the Duesenberg Model J 6,9-litre sedan. Interestingly, the powerful aluminium 3,5-litre V8 Rover engine, as fitted to the 1973 MGB GT V8, weighed in at an astonishing 18 kg less than the normal iron 1,8-litre four-cylinder lump the MGB was usually fitted with.

To save weight, Lawrie Bond, designer of the 1948 Bond Minicar, even left suspension out of his tiny 197cc three-wheeler. The seat pads and tyres providing all the cushioning your mother-in-law needed!