London to Bath by Mk2 Jaguar, July 1963
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- čas přidán 12. 12. 2012
- A drive from London to Bath in a mk2 Jaguar by George Eyles IAM (later head of the IAM) in July 1963. The route follows the A4 road which has changed somewhat since the recording (Calne being one such example).
London Airport 0:45
1960s Road Rage 1:16
Reading 1:41
Theale 2:16
Newbury 3:10
Hungerford 4:16
Shill 5:08
Marlborough 6:08
Cherhill (and Shill) 7:20
Calne 7:47
Chippenham 8:22
Ashley 9:11
Bath 9:13
End 9:44
This is an historic advanced motorist instruction video used for driver training. Note the shill driver and the emphasis on observation and keeping a distance from the vehicle in front. Some things don't change at all!
A fabulous piece of archive film. A good lesson in commentary driving and lovely to see glimpses of Calne and Chippenham; my late mother’s old stomping ground.
Moving back to calne from chippenham next month. I'm an 80s baby so to see calne like this is very peculiar indeed
The commentary was obviously written and narrated afterwards and was not spoken as he was driving. Having passed my IAM test, I know how difficult it is to do, because things happen far faster than you can put into words. I found I spoke in brief bullet points, pared of any unnecessary words - and I still spoke gibberish at times! But examiners know that you may go silent at criticial moments when you need to stop speaking to concentrate on a situation that is developing and needs my undivided attention.
I remember on my test, I saw a bend with no view beyond it. Nothing unusual but some sixth sense made me say "Can't see beyond. Slowing in case there's something beyond." And lo and behold a couple of seconds later I saw that there was a huge removal lorry with its tail-ramp down as the removal guys were unloading a sofa." My examiner, a serving (but off-duty) police officer, got me to stop for a second beyond the van while he went back to "suggest" to the men that they put a warning sign around the bend because they were a hazard. I think he was impressed that I'd slowed down. He confessed that he might have been wrong-footed in that situation.
The jag at that time was probably one of the fastest cars on the Rd.... Nice video and scenes of a bygone golden age..
My Dad had a series of jags in the 60s. We used to go to relatives in London from Shropshire on the A5 and in Brownhills picked up the new M1. On that road my Dads uncle was overtaken by a Vincent motornike while travelling at 150mph in his new EType coupe. Optimistic times.
Those were the days, starting out at midnight on a holiday drive down to Cornwall and getting there nine hours later!
What a wonderful piece of film, a pleasure to watch and listen to the running commentary. I did notice how many of those PA model Vauxhalls there were; more than I remember.
They all rusted to nothing six months later...
Vauxhall had a terrible reputation in those days.
Getting a t shirt done with "THE LIGHTS ARE IN MY FAVOUR".
Fantastic film with some lovely images and cars.
I love all things Jaguar, especially the mk 2. and of course the E type ! and these old 60's cine films, they are a wonderful time capsule for all of those of a certain age. The only thing that is missing, Is a working time Machine,Thank you for the clip. very enjoyable.
This is like getting driving lessons from Foggy Dewhurst. I love this video!
I say, old chap, nice video. Thanks for the upload.
Excellent driver here.
Obviously very experienced & some good advice.
Carry on old chap.
This is basically how I drive (born 1958, drivers license since 1977; Saab 95 2,3 Turbo Aero)
Yes, me too. Assertive and decisive when I do overtake, but cautious and suspicious of everyone. Driving at or close to the speed limit when it's clearly safe to do so, slowing down when it's not. I wouldn't have overtaken that bus at 4:58 and forced the oncoming Land Rover to slow down. Maybe it looks closer on camera than it really was.
Travelled this road a few years back but done flat out on a 70s laverda motorcycle . Loved the journey as it's a beautiful route but I wasn't being quite as genteel as this August gentleman in the jag ( don't tell anyone but if no ones looking it's fantastic at around 100mph ) .
WE had a lot of emphasis on overtaking in those days, as dual carriageways were few. Today, there is less emphasis on overtaking and the skill of doing it safely has diminished..
Hi there, we've been enjoying watching this. We film natural sight and sound walks in soulful cities and have just filmed Bath, so it's interesting to see the contrast, thank you for taking the time to add it.
The name of this film is "Journey Without Incident' and it was an excellent film of advanced driving at the time.
+Ian Buckley But do n't you think he was so ''aggressive'' at the beginning ;) , flashing his lights and beeping his horn... the driver of the flashed car gave the Jaguar driver the ''vees''.. Nothing new there, then!
@@Oakleaf700 As an IAM driver myself, I was deeply embarrassed that the head examiner was so aggressive at that point, with two long blasts (and maybe accomoanying headlamp flashes). I'd have given a brief toot and headlamp flash and then I'd have waited for the other car to get the message. And then I'd have raised my hand as a "thank you" once he moved over. I remember at an IAM branch meeting we were shown this film and there were sighs and tuts of disapproval at that point.
I can sit and watch this over and over again
This films an absolute litle gem, terribly English of course but a pleasure to watch.
This is wonderful. It just shows the mess the country has turned in to! In those days he could have stopped off for a couple of quick ones and then wound the old Jag up a bit ! Jolly good old boy.
i live near heathrow (london airport) it's amazing to see how it's changed thanks
Excellent video!
Prime vintage banger material in that clip!
Cars in those days were so small and dainty. You could park up and have enough room to open doors without clattering the next vehicle.
Love these old films, I get to see what life was like back then. I know that section through Reading and Newbury! !!
Dad used to do that route with his parents when he was a kid they did Beckinham, London to Bedminster, Bristol in a Morris Oxford Farina.
+Simon Hammond I used to do this journey as a car sick kid from East Sheen [West London] up the A4 to Marlborough- dad had a morris Minor, then a ford popular..and then a Cortina! [or cortinal as they say in Bristol [or did then] :)
These are my kind of roads:-)
I on the other hand had a driver use his hand to inform me he was listening to Radio 1.
Absolutely wonderful snapshot of time....although looking at the bare, leaveless trees, maybe not July?
Simon Cox, I noticed this, too. Lots of heavy coats and jackets. 😊
Lovely car mark 2 Jaguar especially manual.
Love the lounge music at 2:10 :)
Why couldn't this man have been my driving instructor?! 💝
His comment about the V sign made me laugh out loud alone in my room I must have sounded insane
Fantastic.
I notice that the "new motorway" M4 doesn't have a barrier between the eastbound and westbound traffic...there must have been some really awful head-on crashes before they were added.
Good spot!
I wish people still used Trafficators :-)
Jonny K some people don't use indicators.
Splendid
Lovely
Sounds like an advanced driving test!
Should I ! Shan't I ? I wish I could go back in that error , seems awesome compared to now. It is Boxing Day . December 26th, 2015 .
+Ange Malini So do I......but I still remember traffic jams [usually at the seaside] even as a little kid [as I was in the 60's.] We drove on the A4 a lot, but then the m4 was built- a much less interesting but much less 'carsick' journey. then the old coaching roads.
The guy in the red Herald is unfortunately the norm nowadays, and how many drivers today even think about looking out for pedestrians, i recently even had a driver yell at me on a crossing GET OFF THE ROAD, and one guy had a fit because i pressed the button on a pelican crossing and the poor sod had to stop.
Astonishing example of road rage. I'm surprised you didn't stop him there and thrash him for his insensitivity.
I was a hgv driver for 40 years .not much I haven't seen on the road. Today's driving is terrible. Most don t indicate. Tailgaters so close you can see the spots on the faces. I'm no Angel but I'm better than most.
I suspect Red Herald man was a setup. :)
@@raybarber9526 I think it is 100% certain that it was a setup. I wonder whether V-sign-man "Why should I care about his politics" who hogged Lane 2 *may* have been a setup.
"i'm making time!"
Yes, it's covered by Highway Code rules 163 and 268.
Look at those wonderful empty open roads. I'd rather drive say an MG Midget then, than say a LaFerrari now !!
My father had a Mk2 in the early 60's, he was a terrible road hog! I remember egging him on as a small child to go faster, he got 120 mph out of her, my mother was in bits!
The MK2 was fast, quiet, comfortable. A GT for 1500 quid. My Dad was not refugee from the Raj as this guy. We were country folk from The Welsh Marches. We were wild compared to this pillar of society.
Classic short film, heard about George Eyles in November's Practical Classics magazine. A pleasure to watch. Alas when driving along the A10 in Edmonton the road is full of bad mannered drivers who blast their car horns as soon as the lights have changed! Love the fifties and sixties vehicles too!
In 2018, overtaking has been replaced by tailgating. Nice courteous drivers - or indeed people enjoying driving - mostly seem to be a thing of the past
This man knows what he is talking about, probably a advanced driver, MK 2. Jaguar.
He is. George Eyeles was the head examiner of the IAM.
The man in the red Triumph Herald was probably on his mobile phone.
His wife probably piped up.
The red Triumph man is clearly a disgruntled time traveller from 2020.
Let this police car pass he must be going to an emergency, yeah dinners going cold,😏, I liked the way he dealt with the road rage guy 😂😂
"GET IN THE BACK OF THE VAN"
I've only had a few ales
Marlborough looks much the same :) The music is so like a sort of ''soft porn'' soundtrack of the era, the sort where women strip to nipple tassels and a bunny tail.
Cried laughing on the motorway!
Wonderful car driven in a great era... Yellow lines, speed cameras, lol.
Brilliant cars back then,unlike the featureless blobs everyone drives around in now😔
Yes, and all British too.
After you Claude
60's Dashcam!
England ..... full of English people, blissful!
Top gear watch out!
Drivers were more empathic then. I know there were less. I wish we could go back to this with more freight on the railways as it was then of course. Perhaps with Brexit we can at lat levy higher road taxes foe lorries and lower it for motorists who don't damage the roads with their light cars
maybe it wasnt the V sign, in the rapier...... he was just telling you it was 2 o'clock in the afternoon?
How different from UK road etiquette today 😂😂😂
Nor once did he say about selecting overdrive.
Proper..
I see overtaking a single vehicle just to turn off of the road shortly afterwards isn't a new habit!
Lovely empty roads in those days
Where was all the traffic ?
I hope his black shoes were polished. Enough said. Cheerio.
obviously an officer (used to giving orders, but now, post-war receiving "kickback from other ranks")
never say the point of having an amber light before the green
What exciting times they were. London 1963. You can just see all the people smiling and joyful that The Beatles have come out and changed how they live for ever more.
What a silly piece of fantasy that is from the music 'journalists'.
That's interesting, The Beatles coming out 😂
What's going on with that roundabout in Newbury; waiting to go round if the incoming car lets him?
Yes, that silver Standard (?) in front stops on the roundabout and lets several cars join from the left, and Eyles makes no comment about this and then says "there's a driver slowing down and signalling me to go, so I shall thank him and proceed" as if it wasn't a foregone conclusion that traffic from his left should stop.
Actually, having discussed this on various foums, it sound as if at the time there *wasn't* a rule about giving way to traffic that is already on a roundabout, and likewise where a minor road joins a major road ("the after you Claude" incident), and a lot more indecision. Nowadays I think there are very few junctions where the HC and signage don't mandate who must give way to whom, removing a lot of the indecision. Some things *have* improved over time!
Maybe in cloud cuckoo land. Not for those of us who have a driving licence to lose!
Isn't that Arthur Lowe doing the commentary?
no.
Toodle pip ole boy.nice Jag wot wot.
So much for "progress".
Notice how the roads were free of pot holes, and the sides free of useless sign-age. Also how density of traffic was much less then; unlike today governments then must have been using road and fuel taxes to ensure road capacity kept pace with rising demand, instead of using the proceeds to pay for an army of wet behind the ear social workers and other good causes.
I don't believe for one minute that you have a UK driving licence.
Bit of a toff what what. Even Ol' Boris could learn from this.
The porno soundtrack is great 👍
Interesting video. However things have changed significantly since 1963. The volume of traffic has increased out of all proportion. This should have made the roads more dangerous, but in 1960 there were 6970 fatalities, 1966 7985 fatalities and in 2018 'just' 1782 fatalities; I could not find the figures for 1963. Better car design, compulsory seat belts, better road design (eg central barriers) breathalysers, more rigorous MOT's have all contributed to fewer deaths.
And advances in medical responses etc.
And improvements in road layouts and markings so there are fewer (no?) situations where it's a free-for-all with indecision - as on the roundabout in Newbury. Nowadays everyone knows that joining traffic must give way to traffic already on the roundabout, and likewise (the after you Claude junction) that traffic on a minor road must give way to traffic on the major road.
Those changes probably helped a lot to reduce the number and severity of accidents. It is rather gobsmacking to realise that there was a time before things that we nowadays take for granted like defined junction priority rules.
God I miss this England 🇬🇧
WOW, big tough guy breaking all the rules, what did you do ?,
Jump a red light ? go 5MPH over the limit ? proper little gangster aren't we,
Been playing Grand theft auto for long have we.
Civilised which this country no longer is!!
Obviously a very cautious driver.
No, a proper driver.
A month before the great train robbery
Yes. And four months before the assassination of JFK. It sets it into context.
Trafficator .
Mechanical indicator.
I'm sure that ridiculous philosophy serves you well, but it has no place on the road and especially not in an IAM video.
You don't. You're just another child talking crap on the internet.
This video makes me wonder. Did British people like to make somewhat meaningless videos just to hear the sound of their British accented voice?
Was it meaningless? Of are you just Brit-bashing. Yes, his accent and his slightly pompous delivery sound a bit dated (even as a Brit, it sounds faintly ridiculous), as do his witicisms like "Why should he think I care about his politics" and "after you Claude". But basically he is talking a lot of sense, describing the sort of factors which should be going through every driver's head, either in 1963 or now, as he makes go/no-go decisions.
@@Mortimer50145 The commentary is over the top in being pedantic. Even a German would have thought he was overdoing it.