The Cars That Made the World

If, like me, you are interested in the history of how motor transport came to play such a big part in all our lives, then this series will potentially tell the story of the key events and personalities involved. Not too much to argue about historically, as it is pretty broad-brush stuff. However, the dreadful dramatisations - where slick American actors portray figures such as Benz, Daimler, Rolls, Royce, Porsche etc. as temperamental characters prone to having light-bulb moments and throwing toys from the pram when things go wrong, well it is truly cringeworthy. And as for the meeting between Ferdinand Porsche and Hitler.......

Off-puttingly breathy and preposterously over-dramatic commentary gets irritating after a while. It's like he's voicing a commercial or spoof Hollywood blockbuster trailer. Major omissions when it comes to big players in the car industry.

This is quite watchable entertainment, and not at all "dry" in its presentation. There is not a lot of repetition provided for those who forgot what happened before the last commercial break, and it does not get too technical. Unfortunately, this is also a negative, as this coverage of the first 100 years of the automobile has quite a few missing people, companies and events. Benz and Daimler's accomplishments are covered well, although it is rather off-putting to hear Daimler pronounced "Dymler", which is the German pronunciation - especially when "Motorwagen" and "Volkswagen" are pronounced "Motor Waggon" and "Volks Waggon" respectively. My wife also noted that over the many years of Benz's history depicted, his wife is always wearing the same dress! The early French motoring scene is barely mentioned - yet has many inventions stemming from it that are important even today. Likewise the Italian industry. The roles of Rolls, Royce and Bentley are well documented, and their importance in the aero-engine business is given its rightful place, but their continued existence and fortunes are ignored after the 1920's. However, Daimler-Benz similarly produced a huge number and variety of the aero engines used by Germany, yet did not rate a mention on this side of their business. The great racing battles of the 1930's, between Mercedes-Benz, Auto Union and BMW were not mentioned, despite the important advances in technologies of engine, chassis and design they spawned. Honda and Toyoda are well chosen as engineers representative of the birth of the Japanese car industry, but no mention is made of the hugely important involvement in motorcycle GP racing by Honda in the 1960's which was the basis for the sophisticated engine designs they later used in cars as well. The history of Porsche and Volkswagen is somewhat simplified. Ferdinand Porsche's meeting with Hitler (an urban legend?) is handled awkwardly. It would have been good to acknowledge Major Ivan Hirst of the British Army officer who basically rescued the Wolfsburg VW operation after the war and set the company on its road to success. I also must comment on the bombers shown allegedly bombing Germany. They are B29's, never seen in the European Theatre of the War.

Overall, it's not a bad series, though. The characters and how they were inspired to create certain inventions have a lot of dramatic license in their depiction, but that helps to tell the story in an engaging way. Overall, I think most people would enjoy this series.

The many stories of automotive history are always fascinating, although as noted by other reviewers, it is sadly marred by:

• overly breathy narration
• only a selection of the many stories underlying the development of the motor car
• poorly acted re-creations of so-called key moments in the history of each story, by a bunch of frat boy actors with American accents playing their roles like they have put on some fancy costumes in a college play, not trying to recreate historical moments with any sense of accuracy.

Although probably not a surprise given it was made for the US history channel...

Dont get me wrong, the show is informative, but leaves out so many big players. They talk about rolls royce doing engines for the air force, yet leave out FIAT, alfa romeo (both did cars and engines for aircraft) and left out Piaggio (which made aircraft and consequently (after the war) used the excess small tires for the Vespa - this scooter absolutely took over the world at the time!! I don't see how Honda's single stroke motor for bicycles was more revolutionary, but ok. An absolute must was FORD, which is discussed but could have had more story to it as it's one of the most important stories in the automotive history.