Britain's Greatest Machines - S01E04: 1980s - The Future Has Landed (2.0 Stereo, 360p)

we're in a bit of a period time machine here in the age of the machine every decade is defined by its engineering masterpieces so join me on a journey through time as I experience the great machines that changed people's lives and shaped modern Britain the 1980s was a turning point for Britain it was out with the old and in with the new after a decade of strikes oil crises and a steady decline in our manufacturing industries the country was close to bankruptcy Britain's first female Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher or the Iron Lady called for new thinking new ways of doing business out of the ashes of the old ways a new spirit of invention and ambition was emerging this was the dawn of the computer age advanced materials and electronics for me the 1980s was the decade when modern Britain finally arrived ah hello Maggie what's that you say the future has landed in the 1980s the car was the star in 1985 one British car found fame as a time machine in the blockbuster movie Back to the Future the director Robert Zemeckis was after a car that would look like a UFO the shiny futuristic DeLorean was just the job it made its first leap through time in typical 80s fashion by remote control as doc said to Marty if my calculations are correct when this baby hits 88 miles an hour you're gonna see some serious earth stuff the movie was a huge hit but ironically this sci-fi icon had already been taken out of production what on earth was going on it all began with John DeLorean automotive under content vice-president of America's General Motors in 1973 he quit his high paid job to pursue his dream to design and produce a car of his own a car that would be far ahead of its time DeLorean set out to defy the conventions of automobile manufacture by making a unique looking machine with the performance of a sports car for the price of a family saloon and this is the radical bit to make a car that would last a lifetime DeLorean called in Colin Chapman from the Lotus Formula One team to engineer the car and in 1981 backed to the tune of 88 million pounds by the British government the dmc-12 went into production it's pretty well known that things didn't go according to plan DeLorean went bankrupt very publicly and his car was widely slated the what's been lost to the mists of time is whether the DMC was actually any good I've come to a very special workshop hidden away in Kent to check out the engineering behind the icon the vast majority of cars like this classic XJS use regular steel body panels it's strong it's cheap pretty much ideal for mass producing cars but if you don't keep it in absolutely perfect condition it rusts so you either had to restore the car or go out and buy a new one DeLorean wanted his cars to last a lifetime so he used stainless steel instead you yes the DeLoreans striking coat is bare rust resistant metal but you don't see many cars made of this stuff stainless steel isn't cheap neither were the impressive now-famous gullwing doors the doors were intended to give the look of a bird in flight all part of DeLoreans grand plans for a design that would make people stop and stare but they're steel torsion bars and hydraulic rams proved very expensive and the cool doors also created a serious safety issue DeLorean planned a one-piece molded plastic body shell for his car it seemed like a clever cheap solution but Colin Chapman from Lotus took one look at the designs and knew there was a problem a plastic body with massive gaps for the doors just wouldn't be safe with a heavy rear mounted v6 engine so chapman redesigned the DMC with a steel chassis simple solution but not cheap despite spiraling costs DeLoreans dream car went into production and was launched in January 1981 the commercial said drive the DeLorean live the dream today you even received a letter from him outlining his hopes for your car handle well be enormous fun to drive lasts a lifetime well let's see if it measures up shall we you the critics called the DeLorean sluggish with poor handling which you wouldn't expect from a 2.8 litre v6 yeah I'll say this for it does go of it the problem was DeLoreans target market was America where Road laws demanded catalytic converters which sapped 25 percent of the engines power and raised suspension making it wallow around corners not great for a sports car thankfully I'm enjoying an unmodified UK version I'm left with a conclusion that maybe DeLorean almost achieved what he was trying to do in terms of the cost of a family saloon the performance of a sports car and a car that would last a lifetime to stay afloat DeLorean needed to sell ten thousand cars a year but didn't come close a mixture of over-ambition market misjudgment and Lotus re-engineering doubled the price to 12,000 pounds on $25,000 for the American market and it simply wasn't a 25 thousand dollar sports car after less than two years in production with only 9,000 cars in existence and DeLorean embroiled in scandal the company went bankrupt DeLorean did however achieve his dream of a car that would last a lifetime three decades into the future this one still shining a great sci-fi icon but a commercial failure at least the dmc-12 had shown that was huge potential to shake up industry with new ideas and new technology and the British government had shown that it was willing to try new ways of doing business in the early 80s new ideas and new thinking's swept across Britain new looks new music new romantics and there was a new brand of incisive political satire on the scene two whole new industries were starting up fueled by revolutions in electronics and computers and Britain was very much in the frame thanks to one of Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher's favorites eccentric entrepreneurs so Clive Sinclair was the hero of all those British school children who could persuade their parents to buy them a computer to help them with their homework of course with the brilliant ZX spectrum Sinclair introduced the world's smallest and cheapest home computer just 125 pounds paper that paper over that tape of that slow down slow down how to get slowed down now I wasn't going to hit that I'm sorry how would people entertained by this back then I'll never know but I'm finding it strangely addictive let's go again thanks to Clive Sinclair wasn't just a computer boffin and in 1985 he revealed his next trailblazing creation to the world world own to the future the Sinclair c5 was it a car was it a bike this was step one of Sinclair's vision for the future of electric vehicles it was actually an electric tricycle by keeping the speed below 15 miles an hour and the weight below 60 kilos Sinclair was able to build an electric vehicle that needed no road tax no insurance and no driving license you didn't even need a crash helmet it sounds clever and although I've never heard anything good said about the c5 I suppose I should at least give it a chance right I'm approaching a gentle hill now and this I feel may well be a some sort of challenge for it I do have the finger firmly on the button and it's getting embarrassing yes I'm going to have to give it a little bit of pedal assistance reversing was I would have said not one of its strongest if it doesn't reverse I'm doing the reversing now so embarrassing and I've forgotten the expression that Cink Lee gave it but it's an eighty point turn you see your legs it's a useless machine really that's bleeping at me sorry sir Clive I just can't find your trademark genius in this machine Oh before I write it off I'm going to meet a real-life c5 engineer from the 80s can Adam Harper turn me into a believer now let's start with the battery which I gather is a third of the weight of that the entire vehicle but it is a special battery it's designed to be recharged many many times right let's move on to this item here which to me looks like a small washing machine motor the car was assembled by Hoover and many years ago it was written that it was a washing machine motor and the fact is it never was and it was a specially designed motor by philips and it was a technical breakthrough last item is this rather odd check looks one end of a clothes rail to me Adam tell me all about it it's a box section chassis Clive went along to Lotus sports cars and so they designed this chassis which is a fantastic piece of engineering because it's immensely strong and weighs nothing it's it so I suppose as a battery weighing off a ton something's got to be light you're cut so maybe there is more to this machine than meets the eye and its iconic bodyshell is high-tech to Sinclair's team spent months improving the aerodynamics in a wind tunnel making it 75% more efficient than a regular cycle the better the aerodynamic efficiency the further you could go on one charge about 20 miles according to the brochure Sinclair's runabout went on the market in January 1985 for just under 400 pounds a thousand pounds in today's money but before it even hit the streets most journalists were writing it off right from the start the c5 scared people they thought it's low-profile will be too dangerous once you get out amongst the trucks and cars was that fair let's find out I've got a full charge and a tune-up and it's time to give the c5 a second chance off to the supermarket 1980s style and you get amazing looks from people thinking that person there is completely mad and they'd be right on a flattish road it rolls along at a decent lick with no effort on my part there we go we successfully render in the traffic one does feel incredibly vulnerable this isn't even a busy road you've got to give credit to Sir Clive he put his reputation and 7 million pounds behind his creation okay so the boots a bit small in fact the machine is far from perfect but it's actually quite a bit better than I expected bad press may have killed off the c5 but the idea of electric runabout just hasn't gone away with better batteries and electric motors Sinclair's vision is finally becoming reality with quiet clean electric machines but even have decent sized boots maybe Sinclair was just a bit too far ahead of his time although both the DeLorean and the c5 were commercial failures they were iconic trailblazers that embodied the pioneering spirit of 1980s Britain but the nation Thatcher had inherited was in turmoil the 70s had seen oil crises civil unrest and strikes across British industry then in 1982 a war came along that United the nation one of the country's most important and successful industries was about to face a make-or-break test since World War two our engineers have been very successful in developing ingenious military machines but with one type of machine we'd been lagging behind international rivals a versatile complex machine vital to all modern warfare I've come to 81:5 squadron at Royal Naval Air Station Yeovil ttan to see the great british helicopter that raised the bar for all that followed the fantastic Westland Lynx the fastest most maneuverable helicopter in the world this is a Royal Navy H a s mark free links a direct descendant of the original links it took over a decade and tens of millions of pounds to develop and by 1982 Westland was struggling to survive the Lynx was designed to replace two ageing Royal Navy helicopters the wasp and the Wessex and on the international arms market to rival America's great Vietnam icon the bell huey Westlands designers knew their future depended on the success of the Lynx so they pulled out all the stops with new performance enhancing technologies up here we have two rolls-royce gem engines each producing 800 horsepower they were specially designed for the Lynx insofar as they're much more compact than other gas turbine engines of similar output but the real work of genius on the Lynx was its rotor hub the mechanical rotor control system which in most other helicopters has lots of hinges vital for stable flight so fluff why is the rotor head so I'm so key to the performance of this helicopter it is one of the key components of any helicopter with a Lynx aircraft the road hub itself is very very different what heaven Lynx is what's called a semi rigid rotate the reason that is is we only have one hinge the flexible rotor hub becomes the hinge Trotter press down on the head itself you can actually feel the flexing and it's actually the titanium itself which absorbs that flight load the titanium is the key thing that allows us to have this rotor head on this aircraft which makes the aircraft so maneuverable and agile with new materials and innovative design Westland kept the lynxes weight to a minimum maximizing its weapons carrying capability from depth charges to torpedoes and missiles well let's say lethal blue missile attach what is it and what does it do well this is the siskiyou missile it's a sea-skimming missile semi active and is controlled by the radar that's onboard of the Lynx why is the Lynx so good the Lynx is fast it's agile it can hover outside of the enemy's missile zone and it's perfectly designed to give a stable platform for firing skier away from getting a maximum chance of Earth for skiing and prosecute it would the links rotor system was designed to be deliberately unstable giving it spectacular evasive maneuver ability when under attack but it was also given a state-of-the-art automatic flight control system not an autopilot but a computer that assists the pilot to keep the aircraft steady to fire weapons and enabling the Lynx to boast the ability to land on the tiny rear deck of a frigate in anything up to a four save gale the Royal Navy lynx went into service in 1976 bristling with untested potential six years later that potential was put to the most extreme test imaginable in April 1982 Argentina invaded the remote British owned Falkland Islands within 48 hours Margaret Thatcher sent more than 70 vessels and 25,000 troops to war 8,000 miles away in the middle of the South Atlantic winter they would be vastly outnumbered against an enemy fighting close to home 27 Royal Navy Lynx helicopters sailed with the task force to protect our ships against enemy submarines and surface vessels during the conflicts the Lynx performed its role perfectly crippling one submarine with a torpedo and three Argentine surface vessels with the new radar guided sea skewer missiles not a single links was lost to enemy fire back in the UK Westland now had an opportunity to turn the combat success of the Lynx into international sales that would save the company first they made it even better with experimental sweat back blade tips designed to allow the Linksys rotors to turn faster than ever before in August 1986 with the new so-called vert blades and uprated engines a Westland Lynx made an attempt on the world helicopter speed record we're now traveling at 170 miles an hour we can't possibly keep up with a specially adapted link the links clocked two hundred and forty nine point zero nine miles an hour a record that still stands today and cemented the reputation of this great British helicopter a fantastic machine that by staying at the forefront of modern technology has now sold to 18 different countries around the world in May 1982 as the Falklands conflict entered its final stages troops on the ground played the central role not least the men of tu perra backed up by KITT from all over the world I've got my gun from Belgium my pack from China my troop carrier from Scandinavia but one crucial piece of equipment that's very much British the f-107 scimitar reconnaissance vehicle light agile and incredibly fast whatever the terrain one of the greatest military vehicles of all time this amazing machine came into being when car manufacturer Elvis was asked to build a range of fast military vehicles so light they can be dropped onto a battlefield from the air the problem was that a steel machine would have weighed in 13 tons far too heavy for air transport getting the new vehicle down to weight took some radical thinking and a new type of aluminium alloy DGF V one three one eight B to be precise and this is it a lot stronger than pure aluminium but still a lot lighter than steel overall weight saving five tons to keep costs down Alvis use the same chassis for their whole range from the scorpion tank to the Spartan Samson scimitar and Samaritan with roles from missile launcher to ambulance all were eight ton vehicles 7 times lighter than a main battle tank perfect for air transport the scimitar has a ground pressure of under 5 pounds per square inch in other words this 8 ton machine next to me puts the same amount of pressure on each inch of ground as me with my full kit seriously lightweight but the aluminium armor was only strong enough to withstand grenades and small arms fire so the new machines would rely on speed and maneuverability to keep them out of harm's way the scimitar was powered by the 4.2 liter Jaguar engine much the same lump as you'd find in an e-type sports car it was the only engine around that was light and powerful enough to meet the size weight and high performance requirements for the new range of tanks Alvis combined the engine with an ingenious transmission system to produce the racing car of tanks that could speed across the combat zone and up to seventy miles an hour as I'm finding out thanks to my driver tank collector Andrew Baker today it was basically designed to charge around the battlefield reckon oi to the enemy and then run away but it also has a high-precision rapid-fire Rawdon cannon just in case Andrew can either go yes certainly most tanks corner by putting the brakes on one track and skidding but the scimitars clever transmission system sends more power to the track on the outside of the bend so you don't lose speed and you can also spin on a sixpence well nearly I am a beginner that's the most amazing bit of all it can do it all exactly the same in Reverse and in theory at least seventy miles an hour backwards in 1982 this amazing machine was put to the test for the first time in real combat conditions the British Army took four scimitars and for scorpions to the Falklands where the boggy conditions were no place for heavy machines like tanks at least normal tanks the British drivers soon worked out how to handle the conditions this is where the combination of speed and light weight came into and so if a driver spotted some green boss he knew he was coming up to softer ground full throttle 7th gear go like the clappers by early June British troops supported by the tanks had cornered the Argentine forces on the outskirts of Port Stanley the final battles were for high ground overlooking the town including wireless Ridge at 8:30 p.m. on the 13th of June 1982 NB company of two para led the assault on wireless bridge they were accompanied by two scimitars and two scorpion tanks of the Blues and Royals the scimitars and scorpions embarked on what is known as a noisy attack revving their engines and firing their cannons hoping to cause fear and confusion in the enemy it worked by Dawn the Argentine army was holed up in Port Stanley later that day Argentina surrendered the islands a victory for British national pride the heroism of the troops and some great British machines who will done ships like the Lynx the Scimitar has become a global success selling to over 19 countries thanks to new technology and ingenious design our weapons industry has thrived and strong exports have helped us maintain a powerful military force by the mid-80s new technologies were filtering into everyday life okay that was still a bit of work to be done but in the 1980s this was state-of-the-art the Prime Minister please da good news mom in the North Sea Britain had struck black gold and with oil pouring in the economy boomed now we had the cash as well as the ideas to create Maggie's capitalist utopia what better way to get to your city job than in a car built to celebrate an oil guzzling pastime a 1980 Lotus Esprit Turbo in I melting Essex petroleum colors this car was born of a cottage industry which in the 1980s suddenly became big business with Britain holding the reins notice Walt had come of age at the forefront was Formula one many of the fastest and most technically advanced cars on the track were British built and for me the greatest pioneers of all were Lotus the brains behind the team was of course Colin Chapman the man who fixed the DeLorean I've come to classic Team Lotus to learn about the Chapman innovations that ushered in the modern f1 era Chapman's mantra was performance through lightweight if you could make it lighter it would be faster with better handling while being less demanding on brakes and tires all good news for racing Chapman was known for pushing boundaries taking on bigger teams with bigger budgets by out-thinking them in turn driving the evolution of the modern f1 car with cars like this 1970 Lotus 72 Chapman produced a blueprint that all f1 cars follow today the pointed nose the monocoque the side pods encasing the radiators and the front and rear wings in the early 80s the team pushed aerodynamics to the limit creating huge downforce to glue their cars to the track through corners but metal bodywork could no longer handle the massive forces as Colin Chapman's son Clive explains the downforce that the cars were creating meant that they could go round the corners incredibly quickly the suspension gots different stiffer and the paroled aluminium tub wasn't really able to cope and rivet started popping out and what-have-you so that was a problem so with the metal monocoque under so much strain from the various forces what was the answer well at about that time aerospace and defence were starting to investigate the potential of carbon fiber and my father and was always quick to encourage innovation and they said well let's try Carmen and came up with the first composite tab in f1 composites are not only stiffer and lighter but they're also easier to shape than metal first layers of fabric are built up on a mold the completed section is placed in a press where resin is added and it's baked for half an hour the result is a stiff strong and very light component capable of protecting a driver in a major impact we want to get your finger in there with you glass fibre composites absorb the energy and half the crash structure remains intact glass fiber had been around for a while but in 1982 it was the new although far more expensive carbon fiber that interested chapman with carbon fiber the material is three times stiffer than aluminium and half the weight which is why in the early 80s this made a great new material to build a racing car pioneering as ever Chapman and Lotus quickly set to work building a carbon fiber Formula One car in 1982 with the carbon fiber monocoque Lotus 91 Chapman's vision for the future of the Formula One car had arrived with the new lightweight and strong material in place Formula one cars could lap faster than ever before and if you had enough cash you could go out and buy yourself a taste of the action in 1980 to celebrate their glorious f1 career Lotus launched their first ever true super car with a top speed of 152 miles an hour the iconic Lotus Esprit Turbo and here it comes Chapman's latest creation allowed drivers to experience some of the thrills of Formula One technology and today it's my turn with lotuses director of vehicle engineering Roger Becker to guide me on right I'm in good hands Roger was the stunt driver for the Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me the basic principle of fast driving is not being aggressive it's being smooth so getting the car lined up for the corner do your braking in a straight line don't drive the little piece of road a few meters in front of you look way way beyond it so that you always prepared for the next event the new Esprit like most Formula one cars of the day was turbocharged boosting engine power by a massive 30% topping a hundred and fifty miles an hour it was a true supercar although I have to say it's pretty hard to concentrate on Rogers instructions with all this red leather everywhere let's see whether all of us can turn you into a professional no pressure of it now then focus berry feel the road but where you go and get over to the left just keep it smooth always give yourself the maximum width of the track by coming out in the right position for the next formal it should seem effortless if you're doing it right gobble-gobble producing faster lap times with less wear and tear on both Car and Driver these about tits yeah no sweat not even not even a drop of moisture on your brow love it we're no no gear it's all nowt Oh yeah much better ah the wonderful Esprit a true British icon with starring roles in not one but two Bond movies what on earth you doing SS him just keeping the British end up so sadly Lotus founder Colin Chapman died in 1982 aged just 54 never to see the full impact of his company on British motorsport for me Chapman's greatest achievement was his role in developing a whole new industry with Lotus leading the way British motorsport became a magnet for brilliant engineers from Formula one right down to go-karts the sport of racing became an industry worth 7 billion pounds a year and one of Britain's most important revenue earners but the man on the street was getting turbo Envy in the early 80s Formula One and supercars were beyond the budget of most wannabe racing drivers the best he could afford was a dad 'mobile like this classic boxy Cortina but the Cortina would never cut it as a race machine it was all down to aerodynamics so there's very Cortina was the last to roll off the production line in 1982 it was the end of an era for a car which sadly had the aerodynamics of a brick behind closed-doors Ford of Britain was working on a redesign that would change the appearance of its cars forever after the oil crises of the 70s four designers started working on a car that would be more economical than the Cortina and their key to improved fuel efficiency was the aerodynamics in 1982 the Cortinas replacement was unveiled the Ford Sierra the new streamlined design was an impressive 20% more aerodynamically efficient than the Cortina it was an important step forward for road cars but it was what happened next that turned the Sierra into an unlikely British icon this man rod Mansfield who headed up Ford special vehicle engineering team was told to turn it into a race car so rod why did you take a basic family saloon car and turn it into a racing car this car was aimed at racing and winning the World Touring Car Challenge but before they could go racing if they wanted any chance of winning rod and his team had to massively improve the performance of the basic rather pedestrian Ciera so we had to build onto this car here all the things that motorsport wanted did you think retrospectively that this car that you and your department had produced what would become so synonymous for the 1980s no it's become an icon and I must admit it surprised me Ford called in Formula one engine experts Cosworth to sort out the standard Sierra's rather weedy seventy-five horsepower Pinto block they added a new cylinder head and another favorite bit of f1 kit this car just like the Lotus Esprit was fitted with a garrett turbocharger really packing air into the cylinders the uprated engine kicked out a whopping 200 horsepower but with all that added power the streamlined rear-wheel drive sierra would struggle for grip on corners so taking technology from the likes of Formula One the RS was given a rather large highly distinctive rear wing known as the whale tail the iconic Ford Sierra RS Cosworth was complete and to satisfy touring car rules as well as the actual race cars 5,000 road legal causes were built it was in essence a racing car that you could go out and buy then safely pootle about with your grandma although to be honest that wasn't really what most Kazi owners had in mind lovely jubbly we're better to give it a good thrashing than back at Ford's Technical Center on the very same track where rod Mansfield's team put the RS through its paces in the early 80s it has to be said that it is a car that if you give it some beans it likes it it sort of says yes give me more oh yes top speed had rocketed from around 100 to a staggering 150 miles an hour supercar performance from a family car it's a great design really on the racetrack for dominated British Touring cars with a souped-up version the rs500 winning an unbeaten 40 races back to back but it was the iconic Road version that played such an important role in shaping the modern car from the jelly mould aerodynamically efficient shape to excess power and racetrack handling high-performance saloons have become the norm so next time someone's tailgating you at 90 at the m6 I'm afraid you've got the Kazi to blame for me the Sierra RS Cosworth epitomizes Britain in the 1980s bold brash in-your-face and it was something new it wasn't the most elegant of decades but it was a fresh start the teenage years of a more sophisticated high-tech Britain our large-scale homegrown industries may have been dying off but thanks to new thinking new ideas and new technology British engineering and design was alive and well the future had landed here in Britain you

Channel: eirik1231

Views: 165,511

Rating: 4.6661701 out of 5

Keywords: National, Geographic, Britains, Greatest, Machines, Series, 1, 4of4, 1980s, The, Future, Has, Landed, XviD, AC3, MVGroup, org

Id: xtu7-XdcF0c

Length: 47min 14sec (2834 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 04 2013