KIDNAP & RANSOM (SERIES 2 EP 1) ABC TV
Posted by SIMON ARMS on Jul 30, 2012; 1:28am
URL: http://sundownersadventures.385.s1.nabble.com/KIDNAP-RANSOM-SERIES-2-EP-1-ABC-TV-tp5706490.html
On Saturday night we watched this show and while my wife was getting into the plot I was transfixed by the Bus/Coach.
The scene was Srinagar which I didn’t recognise, it seemed VERY busy, no sign of Lake Dal, not a Shikara in sight and no sign of a “pesky Ralph” trying to sell toilet paper and tampax, (there was a woman in charge of the police on the ground as well???????) all that had me concerned, but what held my full attention was this bus.
A Silver Eagle! Now where the hell did they get one of these and one which was still running? I have since replayed this show on ABC Iview and I am here to tell you that it’s a very rare vehicle and I wondered what Fred Sparksman did with the one he had in Overlanders?
The Eagle and later Silver Eagle was first made in Germany, then Belgium before Continental Trailways in the US had a production line of all left hand drive and mainly 40 footers. The one in the show was a right hand drive with a “pushed tag” which rules out Germany and leaves only Belgium. As it only had two luggage bins I believe it was a 38 footer which is even rarer.
The running gear was a GM 8V71N with an Eaton 4 speed (a bastard of a combination) and to be able to change up you had to go to the full 2250RPM double the clutch while pulling the box into neutral then waiting until the revs came down to 1500RPM exactly, .... before attempting to select the next gear (quite difficult to operate in a chaotic environment).
The 871 was a fantastic motor (lacked torque) producing lots of noise (fitted with a Jacobs engine brake to add to the excitement) and was great to drive on the Cahill Expressway approaching the Sydney Harbour Bridge (a very long tunnel with several corners requiring engine breaking – passengers were definitely awake at this point).
Back to the TV show this bus had been “Indianised” and the most obvious alterations were the mirrors, originally a small square solid mirror on a really strong aluminium arm but I would say that the mirrors had been knocked off as they were quite low and replaced in a typically Indian manner with the horizontal aluminium arms remaining and a vertical extension added with a larger rectangular mirror sitting out of harms way. A few colourful plastic tapes on the vertical extensions completed the alteration.
The airconditioning also had me concerned. When the passenger door was open and passengers were being loaded there was no engine noise? Now these GM motors were not allowed to idle as they lacked oil pressure at low RPM (and they needed Revs to keep the a/c compressor working), engaging and disengaging the increased engine idle management system produced lots of lovely noise. I suspect that this bus had lost its airconditioning system within its first week in India.
So My question is, ....what happened to the Silver Eagle I saw Fred Sparksman driving on the Overlanders promotion video shown to us at the last reunion, you will probably remember the one, it had the classic line “ and here are the Drivers discussing their route notes”.