In an interview, Melvyn Hayes, who played Cyril, revealed that he and Cliff Richard had to learn to drive London double-decker buses before going off to film in Greece. The instructors only taught them for around half an hour. With such little training it would have been hard enough to drive on British roads, but they had to drive round bends on the cliffs of Greece. Hayes also revealed that he and Cliff were terrified during those sequences.
Bruce Welch, one of the members of "The Shadows", revealed that the highly popular title song was composed in less than half an hour. He came up with the first line "We're all going on a summer holiday" while "The Shadows" drummer Brian Bennett came up with the line, "We're going where the sun shines brightly".
Jeremy Bulloch, who played the youngest mechanic Edwin, played Boba Fett in "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi."
Because "Summer Holiday" was planned to widen Cliff's appeal to U.S. audiences, where he had only limited success, they would hire an American actress, to play his love interest. So Lauri Peters was cast on the strength of her Broadway performance in "The Sound of Music".
A young Barbra Streisand was first considered for the role of the American stowaway Barbara, but was then deemed "too big" (as in too famous) for the part and would take the limelight away from Cliff Richard.