Auf Wiedersehen, Pet – What happened to the Cars

Auf Wiedersehen, Pet is a British comedy-drama television programme about seven British construction workers who leave the United Kingdom to search for employment overseas. The series were broadcast on ITV in 1983–1984 & 1986 and then on the BBC in 2002 & 2004.

We take a look at the vehicles used and what has happened to them
Hopefully we don’t need to say Auf Wiedersehen to them

00:00 Introduction
00:57 Trimuph Bonneville T120
02:11 Ford Zepher
02:54 BMW
04:37 Bedford HA Van
06:23 VW Type2 Camper Van
07:28 Jaguar XJ
08:07 Mercedes 450 SL

Right full disclosure from the off, I was never  into Auf Wiedersehen, Pet when it was on originally   it just wasn’t my thing don’t know why each to  their own however so many of people have asked me  

To look into it I had to give in eventually so  let’s have a look and see what I found out about   some of the cars from Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. Auf Wiedersehen  pet ran for 40 episodes over four series initially  

On ITV between 1983 and 1986, it then moved in 2002  to BBC and ran for another two years until 2004.   It was initially based around the story of seven  out of work builders going to West Germany to seek  

Work. It would provided a real stepping stone  of the career of actors such as Kevin Whately   Jimmy Nail and Timothy Spall. Okay, we’ll start off with  Barry’s bike now this was a Triumph Bonneville T120  

And registration number I struggled on this one  a bit but with a bit of blowing up on this image   I found I managed to find out the registration  number was DXE 63J now doing some searches on  

That one looks like there’s been no activity on  that bike since 1983, no V5’s, you know it hasn’t   been taxed so I had to do a bit more digging  on this one. Now remember this bike appeared to  

Have been destroyed in the fire at the end of the  first series but that was not the case that was   all done for TV and in fact according to the   AufWiedersehenPet.com website who spoke to Timothy Spall’s  

Wife, Timothy had actually purchased this bike at  the end of the the series unfortunately very   shortly afterwards he fell off it and broke his  wrist so he then sold it on to another actor called  

Tim Woodward and he ended up actually having it  stolen from his garden and that we believe is the   last that’s heard of it. So that one I’m afraid  has gone. Now another car that I keep getting asked  

About is the Ford Zephyr driven by Oz now this  is a car which a lot of them used to get over   to Germany and was seen of course breaking down  on the side of the motorway quite spectacularly.   Now XPL 339G unfortunately appears to have died  fairly soon afterwards there was on the dvla  

Records we’ve got nothing happening with it  with regard to V5s, with regard to tax since 1983   so I think we can be fairly confident I’m afraid  and I know this will be upsetting for a lot of you  

That unfortunately Oz’s car is dead. Now another  car that caused a lot of interest was Wayne’s BMW   now of the cars from the main characters this was  the only one that seemed to be actually purchased  

In Germany it was on German plates the the  D refers to Dusseldorf which is where the the   guys were working in Germany and being on German  plates on the IMCDb website someone comments   they believe the car was left in Germany and  sold over there to someone who didn’t realize it  

Significance and eventually scrapped it. Now I  think that’s wrong for two reasons one here’s   a clip of Wayne arriving at Thornley Manor for  the work they did on that building in series 2   and the other thing is and I think this is from  the awpet.com website originally is this advert  

For a number of the vehicles from the program  which I think was from around about ’85/’86 once   the final ITV series had been filmed and within  it is Wayne’s BMW so that was being sold over  

Here now after that very much lost track of this  car the only thing I have found is on AwpGav on   X, formerly known as Twitter, is as his profile  picture he’s got obviously a collection of the  

Items he’s got from the program and in amongst  it is the number plates from that car so I am   guessing that car has very pretty much died but I  believe the plates have survived. After the loss of  

His bike at the end of series 1 Barry moved into  a Bedford HA van for those who remember these they   were basically a Vauxhall Viva front end and a van  back end now this vehicle had the registration  

AEA 735T and bit research shows at the time that  was a fake registration number which obviously   makes tracking down the regional ban really  difficult now the interesting thing was this   came up for sale at the end of the series along  with Wayne’s BMW all in the same advert now  

There were rumors this van was around in the  Nottinghamshire area in the late 80s and early   ’90s but I can’t find anything to back that up but  more recently a van has appeared on the show scene   just like Barry’s van looking extremely shiny  so just maybe it’s it survived but if we do  

Some digging and have a look on MyCarCheck and  have a look at plate changes that van originally   was KDC 686W and in 2019 it had the registration  change to the one that was on Barry’s van now if  

We try and work out what’s going on here we can  go back to DVLA auctions where you can actually   search plates that have been sold in in the  past and this plate was actually sold AEA 735T  

Back in June 2015 and it went for £200 so some  someone decided obviously to put two together   and okay this van isn’t the original but I think  it’s a really fantastic tribute so must trigger a  

Lot of memories with a lot of people when they see  it at shows. Another vehicle from the first series   was the VW type 2 Camper van which registration  number CBE 210K now this came off the road back  

In about 1986 and really hasn’t had any activity  since then I’m a little bit curious because in   the pictures of the van during filming the number  plate spacing seems a bit odd between the two and  

The one and the O there seemed to be a slightly  big gap now that might have just been an error   whoever put the plates together but in the past  we’ve seen this actually been a way that people   have modified number plates something’s been  removed or changed and so on so I don’t know  

But it’s been registered like that since day one  it’s had a new V5 though in 2020 so that suggests   that vehicle is still alive even though it’s been  off the road for a good nearly 40 years so there  

Is a possibility that one will be resurrected. In  series 2 a new character joined and he was called   Ali and drove a Jaguar XJ or in fact he didn’t  he actually drove a Daimler Sovereign because the  

Two cars have slightly different grills even  though the rest of the car is very similar. Now   the registration number of this was A735 XBB and  when we go on to DVLA and do a check it comes up  

As a 1600cc Ford so this was obviously a fake plate  on the car at the time and as we always do with we   run into the problems with fake plates because  if we don’t know the original unfortunately it’s  

Virtually impossible to track the car down. So  the last car I’m going to do is the Merc 450 SL   which Ali drove when he disappeared off to Spain  now this car I’m afraid doesn’t seem to had much  

History it was registration number OBA 8M and  it was last taxed in 1992 now normally we think   that was the end of the road however it did have  a V5 issued in 2011 so there is a possibility that  

Black Merc is still about so sorry this hasn’t been  the most successful search, there are a few of   them that are possibly still about but I’ve done  my best for you so obviously if you know anything  

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