Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16751 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-04-06
• Rating: Exempt
• Format: PAL
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 204 minutes

Synopsis
ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE's Richard Wilson takes you on a journey through the best drives in Britain, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the motorway. Richard takes in routes through the Duddon Valley, the Pass of Llanberis, Dartmoor National Park and more, in a variety of classic cars.

Customer Reviews

I Don't Belieeeeve It....
I saw most of this series when it went out on BBC Four earlier this year and couldn't wait to get the DVD. Richard Wilson is so entertaining, the drives are fascinating, the scenery spectacular and the wonderful classic cars just complete an all round great series. The DVD is also packed full with extra footage that wasn't included in the series that just adds to the overall enjoyment. Heartily recommended.

Britain's Best Programmes are on the BBC...
After what seemed like a bit of a barren period for the outdoors, this is one of a number of recent excellent BBC series, including Monty Halls' Great Escape, Railway Walks, Yellowstone, and of course anything narrated by David Attenborough.

Richard Wilson is at home as a presenter; informative, engaging and nowhere near as grumpy as his Victor Meldrew character would have you believe. He meets young and old who have lived and worked in the locations on his tour - with occasional opinion on whether life was better in the 50s, or now. Why the 50s? Well, he's using 1950s guidebooks to see if what were considered great drives back in the "golden age of motoring" can still hold their own today. Short passages from the guidebooks intersperse Wilson's narrative and interviews.

Each of the six journeys is taken in a different classic car from the era, and having owned only one manual car in his lifetime (and that was a long time ago), amusement is provided by Richard Wilson's constant struggle with the gearboxes of the fifty year old cars. Will that Triumph TR3A with the dodgy first gear (so Mr. Wilson says!) make it up that massive climb in the Lake District? How will he fare when he begrudgingly takes an overnight stay in a VW Camper?

The cars take a backseat though, with the focus being on the people, the social history of the areas and the locations themselves. Stunning scenery abounds, with my personal favourites being The Trossachs (one small criticism of the series is that the visit to his sister in this episode seemed a bit out of place) in Scotland and the North Cornish Coast, journeys I'd love to take myself one day, but even if you wouldn't, this series is well worth watching for the aforementioned people, history and locations.

For those who still don't have access to digital TV (like me), it is well worth browsing the BBC iPlayer or the BBC's DVD release schedule to look out for some of these gems...

(I wasn't sure whether to rate this 4/5 or 5/5, but the rater won't let me edit from 5/5, so it's lucky I aren't reviewing anything bad!)

A much appreciated (but very expensive) present!
I bought this DVD for my parents as they'd seen the last couple of episodes on BBC4 but had missed the first ones. They absolutely loved it, and although the series is now being repeated on BBC, this DVD has some unshown footage so is still worth buying.

It has caused them great expense though, as after watching the Scottish Highlands episode in particular, they booked a holiday there for later this summer as they just had to see the stunning scenery for themselves!

If they were to be a tiny bit critical of this DVD then my father would have liked a bit more emphasis on the cars (him being a classic car enthusiast) but it is titled "Best Drives" rather than "Cars" and there are so many beautiful places and scenes to try and cover in each episode that I suppose it's inevitable the cars take a bit of a back seat.

All in all though they can highly recommend this DVD.