The Car Years chose Northern Ireland's picturesque landscapes for this season's backdrop
The Car Years Monday, 8.00pm, 8.30pm ITV4
Ed Grenby - 22 July 2021
The car is very much the co-star in ITV’s latest motoring series. Because, glamorous and exciting as they are, the vehicles are fighting for a share of the limelight with the presenters Vicki Butler-Henderson and Alex Riley and also some distinctly showstopping scenery.
Filmed entirely in Northern Ireland, each episode of The Car Years puts a pair of vintage motors head-to-head against a backdrop of dramatic mountains, picturesque bays and exquisite stretches of blacktop.“The country makes for a cracking road trip,” says Butler-Henderson. Here the pair reveal their most memorable drives, pit-stops – and hazards.
How do you film inside a car while socially distancing?
Alex Riley: Carefully! We took every precaution going, even the ones Donald Trump was coming out with. But because Vicki has to get star treatment, I was drinking Morrisons’ own-brand bleach, while Vicki got Waitrose single-origin artisan vegan bleach.
Vicki Butler-Henderson: We had to pull everything together at the last minute, it was all a bit touch and go. We wear vintage clothes to match the age of each car, and all the charity shops were locked down, so we were just getting ITV4 things from eBay – or from the backs of our own wardrobes. Shoulder pads, mink stoles…
AR: And that was just me.
But at least the roads were empty, right?
VBH: I think even the sheep had gone into lockdown. But some of the roads we filmed on were almost too quiet. We’d be in these hilly areas where the walkie-talkies didn’t work – so you’ve got a cameraman round a bend, and I’d need to drive the car past him, but we wouldn’t know when the other one was ready. I’d toot my horn a bit to make sure no one was actually in the road, but it was just guesswork. This was around Ballygally, a lovely little seaside resort, so mostly I took the opportunity to just sit and look at this beautiful view of the sea.
AR :While you were doing that, I was driving a car that had no roof or windscreen wipers. And it was raining. And the wind kept changing, so I’d have to stop and wipe the outside of the windscreen, and then stop a minute later to wipe the inside.
What was your favourite drive of all?
VBH: For me, it was going north from Carnlough near Ballymena. It’s utterly spectacular – a really sweeping coastal road, with great visibility, and on my right there was the sea. I was in a Ferrari 308, which was the car Magnum PI drove, so in my head, it was just me and Tom Selleck. Rocking it.
AR: Yes, and there’s a rocky outcrop on that road and from a certain angle there’s a little window through it – I found out later it’s called “Madman’s Window”. I was driving a Lotus Esprit Turbo, channelling my inner Roger Moore, and there was certainly something very James Bondish about this high, rising road with the bay and the sea. I felt like I was on my way to some kind of rendezvous – perhaps a life-and-death situation, perhaps something a little more amorous…
Where was the best place to take a break from the wheel?
AR: I had a slightly compulsory stop, when a local guy in his 70s casually wandered over and fixed my 1984 Land Rover (and wouldn’t take any payment for it). This was by Carrick Little Glamping, near Annalong, and it was gorgeous: the most beautiful day, crystal-clear blue sky and sunshine, halfway up the hill, and there’s a patchwork of fields and lovely dry stone walls cascading down the slope into nothing: just the Irish Sea spreading out as far as the eye can see, with the Isle of Man floating in it.
VBH: It was absolutely beautiful on the country lanes round there. The Land Rover and my Citroen 2CV were the two slowest cars but it was just great fun, bouncing down these little lanes.
Tell us about your favourite place to stay…
AR: We filmed in an area of the Mourne Mountains called the Silent Valley, and there’s this stunning peak, Slieve Binnian, that looks like something from a Ridley Scott film. Just near there is Castlewellan, and an amazing hotel called Hillyard House. It’s quite luxurious – at least it felt luxurious after the hotels we’d stayed at previously – but it’s also really warm and welcoming, like staying at your mum’s house. If your mum was a top chef. You can walk right out of it and into the grounds of Castlewellan itself, and up this incredible hill. I was supposed to be writing a script but I almost came up with a poem, it’s so beautiful.
VBH: Alex was puffing and panting, walking up this hill, but I actually ran it. So you can see our rivalry on this programme isn’t just for show, it’s real! We didn’t quite resort to Wacky Races-style “diversion” signs or drawing pins on the tarmac, but I’ll be using them in the next series.
The car is very much the co-star in ITV’s latest motoring series. Because, glamorous and exciting as they are, the vehicles are fighting for a share of the limelight with the presenters Vicki Butler-Henderson and Alex Riley and also some distinctly showstopping scenery.
Filmed entirely in Northern Ireland, each episode of The Car Years puts a pair of vintage motors head-to-head against a backdrop of dramatic mountains, picturesque bays and exquisite stretches of blacktop.“The country makes for a cracking road trip,” says Butler-Henderson. Here the pair reveal their most memorable drives, pit-stops – and hazards.
How do you film inside a car while socially distancing?
Alex Riley: Carefully! We took every precaution going, even the ones Donald Trump was coming out with. But because Vicki has to get star treatment, I was drinking Morrisons’ own-brand bleach, while Vicki got Waitrose single-origin artisan vegan bleach.
Vicki Butler-Henderson: We had to pull everything together at the last minute, it was all a bit touch and go. We wear vintage clothes to match the age of each car, and all the charity shops were locked down, so we were just getting ITV4 things from eBay – or from the backs of our own wardrobes. Shoulder pads, mink stoles…
AR: And that was just me.
But at least the roads were empty, right?
VBH: I think even the sheep had gone into lockdown. But some of the roads we filmed on were almost too quiet. We’d be in these hilly areas where the walkie-talkies didn’t work – so you’ve got a cameraman round a bend, and I’d need to drive the car past him, but we wouldn’t know when the other one was ready. I’d toot my horn a bit to make sure no one was actually in the road, but it was just guesswork. This was around Ballygally, a lovely little seaside resort, so mostly I took the opportunity to just sit and look at this beautiful view of the sea.
AR :While you were doing that, I was driving a car that had no roof or windscreen wipers. And it was raining. And the wind kept changing, so I’d have to stop and wipe the outside of the windscreen, and then stop a minute later to wipe the inside.
What was your favourite drive of all?
VBH: For me, it was going north from Carnlough near Ballymena. It’s utterly spectacular – a really sweeping coastal road, with great visibility, and on my right there was the sea. I was in a Ferrari 308, which was the car Magnum PI drove, so in my head, it was just me and Tom Selleck. Rocking it.
AR: Yes, and there’s a rocky outcrop on that road and from a certain angle there’s a little window through it – I found out later it’s called “Madman’s Window”. I was driving a Lotus Esprit Turbo, channelling my inner Roger Moore, and there was certainly something very James Bondish about this high, rising road with the bay and the sea. I felt like I was on my way to some kind of rendezvous – perhaps a life-and-death situation, perhaps something a little more amorous…
Where was the best place to take a break from the wheel?
AR: I had a slightly compulsory stop, when a local guy in his 70s casually wandered over and fixed my 1984 Land Rover (and wouldn’t take any payment for it). This was by Carrick Little Glamping, near Annalong, and it was gorgeous: the most beautiful day, crystal-clear blue sky and sunshine, halfway up the hill, and there’s a patchwork of fields and lovely dry stone walls cascading down the slope into nothing: just the Irish Sea spreading out as far as the eye can see, with the Isle of Man floating in it.
VBH: It was absolutely beautiful on the country lanes round there. The Land Rover and my Citroen 2CV were the two slowest cars but it was just great fun, bouncing down these little lanes.
Tell us about your favourite place to stay…
AR: We filmed in an area of the Mourne Mountains called the Silent Valley, and there’s this stunning peak, Slieve Binnian, that looks like something from a Ridley Scott film. Just near there is Castlewellan, and an amazing hotel called Hillyard House. It’s quite luxurious – at least it felt luxurious after the hotels we’d stayed at previously – but it’s also really warm and welcoming, like staying at your mum’s house. If your mum was a top chef. You can walk right out of it and into the grounds of Castlewellan itself, and up this incredible hill. I was supposed to be writing a script but I almost came up with a poem, it’s so beautiful.
VBH: Alex was puffing and panting, walking up this hill, but I actually ran it. So you can see our rivalry on this programme isn’t just for show, it’s real! We didn’t quite resort to Wacky Races-style “diversion” signs or drawing pins on the tarmac, but I’ll be using them in the next series.
Interview by Ed Grenby