Scientists claim that we’re currently doing a reasonable job at a mass extinction but not nearly as good as the huge rock that struck Mexico around 65 million years ago. Regardless of what the top five extinctions tell us, the planet is fine, always has been, probably always will be. It appears to have a fairly nonchalant response when it comes to mass extinction. Before you start frantically commenting on why a mass extinction is bad, if they had never taken place, today we would not have sharks and cars, two of my favourite things.

Corvette Mako Shark

That being said, we have to enjoy our short but sweet time here and so far we’ve been pretty busy. Thankfully for me, fellow curious human beings make movies about sharks and cars. Obviously I’m not here to talk about sharks but I was thinking about my favourite retro motors in movies.

Without doubt in my mind Anton Furst’s Batmobile is one of the coolest retro on screen motors of all time. His design work on the bleak metropolis of Gotham was second to none and to have produced a very striking and timeless Batmobile was no mean feat. With inspirations from war machines, aircraft and art deco styling, the final result was the perfect driving machine for a super goth. Batman was charismatic and cool back then, the car was purely an extension of that. With a turbine driving the midnight black machine, it looked every bit intimidating as it did sexy, with its winged rear end and the aircraft like cockpit in the centre.

Twin browning machine guns mounted at the front, armour plating and a grappling hook, need I say more?

The Bat Bastard

In George Millers depiction of the future in Mad Max, a massive percentage of everything has died (Probably including sharks) with the exception of humans and cars. Not just any cars though, modified beasts with armour, guns, spikes and flamethrowers. Whilst there is something refreshing about a world without the Nissan leaf, tax returns, governments and police. The world in which Max lives is rather bleak and unforgiving. What better way to see the day through than mowing down members of a tyrannical biker gang with an armoured, nitro fuelled V8, a Ford Falcon to be exact.

The interceptor was the product of Barry, the seemingly mentally challenged mechanic in Mad Max. Despite his impairment he was quite handy with a spanner and put together what is arguably the meanest looking vehicle for a protagonist. “She’s the last V8, she sucks Nitro!”.

I could go on and mention all the most obvious super star cars, The Back to the Future DeLorean, Ecto 1 or the five hundred bond cars but as a car guy, I think we should all take a moment to remember those unsung heroes of the big screen. Those cars that got people from A-B or a car you saw only for a few seconds before it was blown up by an overzealous director. Knowing what kind of money these relics go for now, I watch some scenes through my fingers.

Take the Ford LTD for example. A large lumbering “yank tank” from as far back as the 60’s, which, in all of it’s variations, ran until the end of the 80s. If you’ve seen any films within this era, you’ve seen many of these land boats smashing into other cars, people, chasing criminals dressed as a smokey or simply driving entire families around in it’s vast expanse of an interior.

For the fans of the synthwave community I guess the go to movie is The Terminator. Kyle Reece came from a future war and needed some muscle. What better vehicle to steal than a sixteen foot long, two and a half ton V8 sedan. With a 0-60mph that could be measured on a sundial, 12 mpg and all the handling of an abused shopping cart, I guess the only bonus was that it was incredibly comfortable. The sheer size and weight was probably Kyle’s saving grace, because if Sarah Conner was born in Europe, Kyle would have stolen a Fiat and subsequently the Austrian death machine would have picked it up and thrown them in the sea.

In a sort of car “cos-play” the Ford LTD has been most memorable in retro movies as the Crown Victoria, in fleet use they were used for primarily police or taxi markets. Again you may remember it as the cop car used to getaway from the T1000 in Terminator 2, similar cruisers in Universal Soldier or from the hundreds of scenes of taxi rides in your favourite movies. The LTD is truly an on screen icon, from action films to crime thrillers, the LTD was stuntman, sidekick, for good guys and bad guys.

Throughout the 70s and 80’s car wrecking was a big draw for Hollywood. Ron Howards Grand Theft Auto (now overshadowed by the multi million dollar gaming franchise) was a wrecking-fest. Dozens of cars, now considered cherished automotive icons, were rolled, crushed and launched into untimely deaths.

If you want to see some of the best chases and stunts, check out Junk Man. Henry Blight Halicki, nickname, Junkman. A stuntman, director and a bit of a lunatic. Using his own vast collection of vehicles, he wrote and starred in Gone in 60 seconds, Junkman and also made a sequel to Gone in 60 seconds, aptly named Gone in 60 seconds 2.

Grab a copy and some popcorn and enjoy some automotive carnage!

My main inspirations for obtaining a licence to ride a motorcycle wasn’t to join a gang, or to race, or to grow a beard, get fat and become fearful of the rain like a Harley Davidson rider; but it was of course, Street Hawk.

Jesse Mach, ex motorcycle cop, now lone wolf working for the government fighting crime in a bustling city, dealing with crooks, robbers and thieves. Jesse was given free reign to deal with wrong doers on a military grade motorcycle which fired lasers and rockets, and could reach 300mph with “Hyperthrust”. At the time I didn’t care that a road bike was achieving speeds of a WW2 fighter plane around Los Angeles, I was more enamoured by Jessie and his exploits. A mysterious man philandering around L.A whose day job it was to protect the innocent, with a licence to kill. Street Hawk was a short lived television series that aired back in 1985 on ABC. It lasted only one season and there were only thirteen episodes ever made. And as with anything this cool and short lived, it gained a bit of a cult following.

He didn’t have a second helmet

Inspired by the enigmatic presence of man and machine dressed all in black, I did include some of that when customising one of my first motorcycles, the Suzuki TS125X. The Suzuki TS was released in Japan in 1970, with a simple and comfortable ride for multipurpose use. It was 2 stroke with a 6 speed gearbox and long fork travel. You could pretty much go anywhere on this little machine and have fun doing it.

A similar bike to the TS was the Yamaha XT ridden by John Rambo in First Blood.

Reliable and good looking, in the 80s the TS was given rad decals and a bright paint scheme. The classic look round headlight was replaced with a square fairing and lamp, emulating that futuristic Street Hawk look even more. My bike was in bright Suzuki yellow with retro decals, but my aim was to achieve more of a “murdered out” look. As it was my first attempt at anything like this, it ended up a bit more “Mad Max” than the high gloss finish of Jessie Mach and his black beauty.

From the same team who built the cars of Bladerunner and The Last Starfighter, the Street Hawk was designed by non other than Andrew Probert who had touched many 80s franchises. FRom M.A.S.K to Airwolf and TRON.

Hondas XL500 and XR500 were used as the base frame and many modified parts were introduced over the series timeline, from the practical to the purely aesthetic. Here are the specs;

MODEL: Top secret government project.

TOP SPEED: 200 MPH, 300 MPH with Hyperthrust

WEAPONRY: Laser Cannon, Machine Guns, Rocket Launcher

OTHER FEATURES: Infrared Cameras, Compressed Air Vertical Lift System, On and off road capability

My TS125 was a little less dynamic, no lasers or Hyperthrust, but I had, on more than one occasion, switched off the headlights and ducked into a driveway or side street to avoid the cops (Stealth mode), and if you drafted behind a truck you could perhaps pretend to “boost” around it.

Dirt bikes were mad popular back in the 80’s, the lethal 2 stroke power of the raspy, smokey on/off road machines gave them a rebellious streak all of their own. I used to stick on The Dirt Bike Kid back in the day, which, if you haven’t seen it, is a lot of fun. The premise is fairly simple to follow, providing you’re a complete lunatic or a child.

Jack Simmons, a small town geeky kid from a single parent family, spends his mother’s last fifty bucks purchasing a self aware dirt cross bike (A Yamaha YZ-80). Infuriated by his whimsical purchase, she sells the bike to a local shop owner but the bike returns to Jack signalling the start of a “friendship” between boy and machine.

Dirt nerd

Jack gets involved in a financial battle between a bank and a hot dog business, ran by a family friend. After hacking the bank with his best friend Bo, they attempt to stop the demolition of said hot dog business by disrupting the bulldozing with a pie fight, enlisting the help of his little league team. I won’t spoil the ending but in a nutshell the kid and the dirt bike win and the hot dogs are ok. A dirt bike was now a childhood dream, yet the YZ-80 was not a street legal machine here in the UK, unless you modified it.

In the early nineties a young man and a robot father figure ran from another man with knives for arms in Terminator 2. Although quite obviously Arnie was a thorough badass in the film, I couldn’t help but admire the rebel without a cause, John Conner, on his stripped down Honda XR complete with a ginger carrying a ghetto blaster. The Terminator 2 bike chase is to bikers what Bullitt is to car lovers and if you have no clue what either of these things are, get in the sea.

The Honda XR however, didn’t sound like it would have in real life, the bike was dubbed with the 2 stroke engine to perhaps further accentuate the dichotomy between the brutal black truck on Johns tail and Arnie on the thundering Harley Davidson. Legally I could only ride small capacity machines until I was 21. So dirt bikes were my preferred mode of transport until that time came.

He may have needed a step stool to hop onto the Kawasaki GPZ900 R in Top Gun but Tom Cruise undeniably looked rad in his flight jacket and aviators riding the iconic Japanese sports bike around an military air base. Whether you’re drag racing a fighter jet or running from an angry blonde in a Porsche, a sports bike is what you need. Like the Street Hawk bike, although this wasn’t a custom dirt bike, it actually looked similar in ways to the futuristic crime fighting machine. The GPZ also known as the Ninja 900, came in a range of quintessential retro colour schemes.

The littlest pilot

Some of the 80’s flagship models from Japan are often now referred to as “Jap Muscle”. Large litre bikes were relatively compact, fast, good looking machines with the edition of plastic fairings which certainly made the naked british bikes look ancient. Fairings were the future!

Talking about fairings, perhaps one of the most badass retro bike movies was Mad Max. Jim Rains or “Goose” rode a 1977 Kawasaki KZ1000, not a bike for faint hearted, a beast of a bike at a little over 240kg yet the strong 1000cc inline four cylinder engine could take you to 130mph. Because of its stability, power and adaptability the KZ was in fact used for many years as a police bike. Notably the KZ1000P was ridden by the T1000 in Terminator 2 in full police fairings.

So that’s a brief history of some of my inspirations for riding motorcycles, it would be good to hear your stories of what got you into biking and what do you ride? For those who don’t ride, maybe make it a news years resolution to saddle up, stick a lid on and go have an adventure.

Cars will literally drive themselves, leaving you to be able to eat and sleep whilst a computer does all the hard work, at a fraction of the cost! Don’t worry about having to wait for your car to charge either because robots will be doing your job for you, so you can chill out at home with your nearest and dearest. Even food will be a thing of the past, no more microwaving your machine excreted pies. Once meat has been deemed toxic or something, food powders, pastes and tablets will be delivered to your door via a drone which will conveniently scan your vital signs and never pass this kind of information onto global authorities. Plastic and other waste will be gone to and all the money you save on buying your groceries with no need for packaging like that, will mean you can go on holiday three times a year.

But until the high times of Star Trek like living there are a few teething problems. Like the cost of making the future happen. For the cost of one battery for a Tesla I could have purchased ten Audi 80’s and still have change to buy a pair Nike Mags. But I only needed one car and one that isn’t a silent Jaguar lookalike.

The Audi 80 was introduced in the 60’s as a compact executive car. Audi were fast growing in popularity, more so since their name change from Auto Union, an amalgamation of four automobile manufactures during the great depression in the 1930’s. Conveniently the world found enough money for yet another war and this gave an opportunity for Auto Union to have a go at armored cars and trucks. The U.S remodeled the landscape and turned over most of what was left to the Russians. The Germans, now pushed over into the East, started to rebuild and no one would know just how successful Audi would become.

I wasn’t drinking officer

The Audi 80 shared it platform with the Volkswagen Passat, a coupe, convertible and the Avant (Audi’s name for an estate car or station wagon). Again, the ever efficient Germans had a logical alphanumerical range of vehicles. The B1 Audi 80 had a face lift in the 70’s, the full range with two door, four and the Avant, they were built to last at the cost of fairly underwhelming performance. The B2 launched in the late 70’s and had the hand of god, or Giorgetto Giugiaro, design the body for the refreshed look. In the 80’s, Audi unveiled their turbocharged rally machine, the Audi Quattro, or Ur-Quattro, the “Ur” German for “primordial”, “original”, or “first of its kind” although some would dispute that back in the 1960’s, Jensen the British car manufacture had a system developed for their awesomely regal Interceptor.

Zero to the shops in 6 seconds

Finally the penultimate B series aptly named the “B3” appeared in ’86, it was finally not having to donor from the VW Passat, this was the all new body with an extensive range of specifications. More aerodynamic and a quattro 20V option was enough to make this a very popular car across Europe and further afield.

Mine in particular is a 1.8 litre 80 E in a rather fetching champagne colour.

Or is it gold?

If you’re thinking about starting a journey with a classic, I would highly recommend the Audi range from this era. They are built well, with parts still in abundance. The mechanical layout is straightforward and would only require a fairly standard set of tools to start pulling things apart. It’s a no frills experience with the Audi gadgets wise, but then again I needed a solid reliable car for my commute and this thing has just survived one of the harshest winters I’ve experienced, putting into perspective the sticker in the rear window which reads “Ten year anti corrosion guarantee”. I was surprised however by the quality of the sound system, the acoustics alone are pretty cool but the speakers sound like something decent from the late nineties. In the back parcel shelf is a small black box with two headphone jacks, I later discovered this is for the option for the front and rear occupants to listen to different soundtracks, in case your passengers listen to pop music.

Punch the four rings for horn

You’ll probably notice the wheels are very much not of the Audi range and you’d be correct. It’s currently sat on some Calibre alloys, similar to something from BBS although probably for around half the price. I recently performed an oil change on the car and didn’t expect it to be difficult and indeed it wasn’t, the only reason I needed a jack was because my oil collection tub was too tall to fit under the car. I could reach the sump bolt with ease and the oil filter is placed in the upright position, on the side of the engine, meaning that I could actually unscrew it and not cause death in the environment, unlike some engines where the filter is often positioned I presume, for a joke.

Four cylinders missing but it’ll do

I admit, mine does hold the road a little better than stock thanks to lowered springs and so far the engine gives out enough poke to keep up with modern traffic. In short this is a very usable and cheap classic and with a few upgrades it can bring life back into an old tank, I mean a saloon, like this.

The wet look