At first, I thought the car was from a more modern era than this series is set in (mid-1930s). The body style looks like the type of British roadster popular in the '40s and early '50s. Does anybody know the year, make and model?
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It is a Lagonda but I am unsure if it was a Rapier or not.
Not "damn hippies" it's "GOD DAMN HIPPIES"
Considering the cars he's driven on both All Creatures and here in Campion, I've been thinking that Peter Davison has had the privilege of driving more old rare classic cars than almost anyone else on the planet!
I've never even sat in one, (except an old Rolls which a chauffeur kindly demonstrated when I was in London one time) but I think it would be wonderful fun. The appointments of the vehicles were so beautiful; that old Rolls had a rosewood dash and the leather still smelled fabulous. People were very wise who saved and kept their old cars in such good condition.
At one time I was rather interested in where film companies got hold of all these beautiful old vehicles for filming. They really are a very important element in the visuals, and often set the entire scene, for example in the opening credits to All Creatures Great and Small, where the car on the road is the only thing used to give the sense of the time period. There's an interesting article on Bob McRae of Hollywood that covers much of the process studios go through to get classic cars:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0306/p20s01-ussc.html
which mentions Cinema Vehicle Services. Their inventory of older cars is wide:
http://www.cinemavehicles.com/store_inventory.asp
In Britain there are numerous companies oriented towards renting their classic cars out for filming. The website
http://www.4rfv.co.uk/brieflisting.asp?scategory=936&company=36717
is for Action Classic Cars but has links to many others.
There is a "making of" piece on the DVD, in which it is explained that they purchased the Lagonda for around 30,000 pounds, since in two years of production, they would have spent perhaps near that for rental. They expected to sell it afterwards at a profit.
The car AYL 413 is a 1934 Lagonda S Type Special 6 and it was sold at auction Brooks of Chichester on 23 June 1995 for 17000 pounds. It is not stated which engine it had in it. At about that time I believe that the Lagonda engines were mainly a 2-litre, a 3-litre and a 4,5-litre.
In the late 1950s and 1960s we had a family friend with a 1930 4,5-litre Lagonda Pillarless Saloon, kept in near-perfect mechanical condition and in daily use, although there is some dispute about the year from other Lagonda owners saying that the 4,5-litre motor was not available in 1930 - not sure about that. It was amazingly fast for the time - even in the early 1960s - as we achieved 100 mph in it on one occassion on a not-very-big country road. It was most exciting to travel in and made a considerable noise when the accelerator pedal was hard-pressed. Incidentally, the accelerator pedal was the middle foot-pedal, with the brake-pedal on the right. The registration number was either CJ 2424 or it was CJ 4242 - cannot recall exactly now. Does anyone out there know where this car is now?