In the New Year James May (Top Gear) will be driving Mark Drake's Roadster in a programme entitled “Cars of the People.” Filming of the Stanley has been completed.

Do you have a date when it will be shown Alun?

Hi All,

We're expecting this programme to go out around end of January / February, the BBC told me that they would let me know when it will be scheduled but I don't have a message from them yet. I'll post any news once I get it.

The programme topic is about alternative power systems in cars, attempting to explain how our cars came to have combustion engines as the most popular power source; and explores some of the alternatives that have been tried: gas turbine, steam, hybrid, etc.

We did all the filming in one hectic day in August in the Forest of Dean, I drove the car to the venue leaving home at 6:00 am, and I returned home at around 8:30 pm that evening - a long day! The car behaved well all day; except one burner blowback at the end of the day which made James jump a bit! A tiring but interesting day.

For those of you that may be interested - I also did some filming recently demonstrating a full size Whittle / Rolls Royce 'Welland' jet engine and explaining it's importance in aviation history - I was interviewed 'live' with my hands on the controls of the engine which was running just a few feet away - quite an experience. The programme is called 'Survival in the Skies' and goes out from around March onwards on: Smithsonian channel (USA), N24 (Germany) and Discovery channel. No dates available yet.

Happy New Year everyone, and happy steaming!

Mark

I look forward to that Mark - do keep us posted.

Mike

Thanks for the info Mark, I am looking forward to it, but I don�t think I can get any of the channels for the Jet engine programme.

Don

Hi All,

Just to let you know that I've just had an email from the BBC and the Stanley Roadster will appear on the third and final episode of Cars of the People on Sunday 7th February 2016, 9pm, BBC2 and on Iplayer thereafter.

Regards,

Mark