Pink Dinosaurs (What happened to Mark Bolan's Millions)
Minimaster was invited by Granada TV to assist in a documentary they were filming
in Manchester for Channel 4 on "Missing Millions". This one was on Mark Bolan,
the famous lead singer of T-Rex (hence the dinosaur), who was killed in Sep 1977 in
Putney, South London whilst being driven home in his purple 1275GT mini by his partner,
Gloria after a party. The mini allegedly belonged to a member of the Pink Floyd band.
Mark had a roller-coaster life, making some superb albums and inventing glamour pop.
However, he suffered at the hands of the tax system, and after returning from being
a tax exile, and handing over control of most of his off-shore funds to a trust, Mark
tried to get things back in order. Sadly, his premature death and the complexity of
his financial position meant his family became the victim of circumstance.
The documentary was about what happened to Mark's millions and the horrendous things
that happened to his family after his death. In it, Mark's mini accident was replayed
using our 1275GT with John and George acting as stunt drivers! To do this, the mini
with a similar number plate (FOX 661K) was fitted with various cameras for one of the
scenes. George drove this one.
John drove the three other scenes. One was with an actor dressed as Mark Bolan as a passenger,
and required John to drive off. This was quite straight-forward, and not plagued with
any actor ego! The next scene involved driving round corners at speed to give a feeling
of suspense.
The final scene was to mimic the actual collision with the tree. This was quite cleverly
done and involved John reversing rapidly from a tree. In the actual episode, this was
played in reverse, giving the impression of racing towards the tree! And it was done on
the first take, much to the delight of the director and producer.
So, what's next? Well, we're considering doing stunt driving for the next James Bond
film where 007 has to drive in a classic mini to catch Spectre running off with the best
secret vehicle designs to East Germany. The trouble is, George has forgotten where he put
the keys! (he'll kill me when he reads this).
