Here we go. Reliant Robin.
Oh, no. I've crashed it. I've crashed it almost immediately.
I mean, literally, 20 feet.
I can't get out, obviously. I'm completely stuck.
Luckily, people in the North of England are friendly and keen to help out.
Excuse me!
Excuse me...
Oh heavens, look who it is! It's Phil Oakey.
Do you think you can push me back on my wheels?
-Yeah, certainly. -Thanks very much.
Thank you, so much.
Thank you very much, Phil Oakey, out of the Human League!
Pleasure.
I suppose, as a Sheffield boy, Phil Oakey spent a lot of his youth
putting Robin Reliants back on their wheels,
when he wasn't rescuing waitresses from cocktail...
Help!
Again! Help!
Where's Martin Fry out of ABC when you need him?
That's a... useful feature.
In the early days, the Robin had a 750cc engine.
With 32 brake horse power on tap, nought to 50 took 22 seconds.
Nought to 60...
wasn't really possible.
In 1975 though, Reliant fitted an 850cc engine.
This improved the acceleration enormously, but the consequences were catastrophic.
The lamppost!
The big engine increased the top speed, too.
It would now do 85.
And that was catastrophic as well.
Not again!
Oh no!
I'm 50 years old. I'm on my side on a street in Sheffield.
Oh, is that the sound of somebody?
Hello? He...
Peter Stringfellow!
Were you just walking by, or...
Oh, nearly!
Yes!
Thank you so much, Peter Stringfellow out of lap dancing clubs.
-My pleasure. -Really, I can't thank you enough.
To try and understand why the Robin was so popular up north,
I pulled over to chat to some enthusiasts.
-How do you drive a Reliant? -Straight lines.
You don't go round roundabouts.
You get to it and you see where you're coming off and you go straight across.
-Right. -Try to avoid t'hill in t'middle.
-I can't... -Cement on the passenger seat.
-Cement? -Yeah, sack of cement on t'passenger seat.
Helps the balance it.
Why do you think Reliant owners have big tool boxes?
To weigh it down. I was going to say... your teeth.
Did you lose these in a Reliant accident? You did, didn't you?
Why do you think, everybody, Reliants were so popular in t'North?
-A lot of miners used them. -But why?
Because they were more expensive than Minis.
Because a lot of miners originally started with motorbikes
and they didn't have a full driving licence.
So, to get out of t'weather in winter, when it were absolutely siling it down,
they bought a Reliant.
So, it was just because miners didn't have a driving licence?
Some of them, but other ones... also in t'winter, with them being light,
you'd get your normal car stuck in t'snow or whatever.
-These just simply glide over t'top of it. -Until you get to a corner!
Well, long as you live somewhere with a straight line to t'pit.
Soon, I was back on my perilous journey.
In this, it feels like I'm driving through South Yorkshire in the 1970s, again.
I grew up not far from here, so did James May, for that matter.
When I were a lad round 'ere, all t'rich people,
them as could afford four wheels on the car, they all had Ladas.
Lah-de-dahs we called them. You didn't want to hit one of them,
I'll tell you that for nowt. They were built like tanks.
One of the best ways to protect your Robin was to lavish it
with an exotic paint job, such as this Starsky And Hutch homage.
The idea was that having spent many hours with the spray cans
and the masking tape, you'd drive more carefully.
But this didn't always work.
It really is a wonder how anyone in the North survived the 1970s.
Of course, a lot didn't.
In 1971, the population of Sheffield was 573,000.
Since then, it's dropped to just 513,000.
Some of the lost 60,000 moved south, of course.
But many, many, many more were wiped out by their three-wheelers.
Today, of course, most of the Robins are gone
and people up here drive Kias and Hyundais instead.
And this means the local TV news channel has to think of things
other than Reliant crashes to put in its bulletins.
Okay, to Braithwell in South Yorkshire now
and a blooming mystery that's baffling its green-fingered residents.
Harry is there for us. Harry, what's going on?
Welcome here to beautiful Braithwell.
You can see the sun exploding on a kaleidoscope of colour.
And I have to say, there's been a real area of controversy here,
because over the last few days... My God!
-Are you all right, sir? -Yeah, I'm getting used to it now, thanks.
-Oh. -Thanks, very much.
If you could just pop me back on the wheels.
Thank you, so much.
Thank you, Harry Grayson, out of Look North.
Pleasure.
Thank you, so much.