"Persuaders!" Aston Martin DBS. The race scene between both Moore & Curtis at the open

A sublime opening music by the Maestro John Barry will be the prelude of nothing but a TV show with exceptional quality. So was Persuaders a cult series starring two amazing actors: Roger Moore and Tony Curtis.

Right from the opening scenes of the presentation episode, could clearly be seen that the production was expensive and not saving on the necessary pounds to achieve an almost cinematic accented result of the very best of fine British humor.

The arrival of Lord Brett Sinclair (an aristocratic character by no less aristocratic Moore) driving his Aston Martin DBS V-8 with license plate "BS-1" (Brett Sinclair) at the airport in Nice, accompanied by beauties worthy of James Bond (character who would be in his actor’s career in the near future) and no less than impressive arrival of American iconic Danny Wilde (skin of iconic actor Tony Curtis) at the same place aboard a private jet, with flight attendants hovering around and a Ferrari Dino 246 GT waiting for him at the foot of the steps of the aircraft) everything filmed with a budget almost exorbitant for those golden seventies, where luxury and paradisiacal places that could be seen everywhere.

The race scene between both Moore & Curtis at the opening of “Overture” at the wheels of their Aston Martin and Ferrari (the very first to be aired) to see who was driving faster to get to the Monte Carlo Hotel was filmed on location at the beautiful French Riviera roads.

This scene was shot with a set of cameras that so far had only been seen until the seventies on the big screen only in the "Grand Prix" movie, but never in a product developed for the television market, such as the division of the screen into quadrants, known as “split screen”showing different scenes at once, etc.

In Monte Carlo, both would meet for the first time as a coincidence, but later would be presented to each other by Judge Fulton, played by Laurence Naismith who would contract them to investigate the risky situations, mostly involving beautiful woman, than only two “dandies” should solve.

According to “behind the scenes” stories, "Persuaders" was not an entirely original idea, but a referral and subsequent evolution of an episode of "The Saint", titled "The Ex-King of Diamonds", which was seconded by Moore Stuart Damon.

“Persuaders!” had astonishing ratings across Europe, including in South America, with Argentina leading ratings, but it failed to conquer the American public, because it was said that Curtis was not the epitome of North American, according to United States spectators.

Therefore, “Persuaders!” only would complete one season on the air, with nothing but twenty episodes produced, airing for the last time on 25 February 1972.

The Persuaders! creator was no other than Robert S. Baker, who was also in production of "The Saint", also starring Roger Moore .It was Moore himself that also directed the episodes "The Time and The Place" and "The Long Goodbye", besides being the creator of his own script .

The notorious Brian Clemens, who was part of the production team, was also the pillar of two other success of British television: "the Avengers" and "Professionals".

When Brett Sinclair’s Aston Martin DBS V-8 was delivered to the filming set, mechanic Carl Seager drove the car all the way from Newport Pagnell to Monaco.

The car used the famous “BS1” license plate, and distinguished “Bahama Breeze” yellow color nothing but the initials of “Brett Sinclair”, but, wrong .The initials correspond to “Billy Smart”, the circus owner who allowed this license plate to be used in the TV show, but the genuine Aston plate was “ PPP 6H”.

In the “Gold Napoleon” episode, it can be seen the Aston Martin wearing his authentic ”PPP 6H” license plate. This was an error while filming, but producers left the mistake without repeating the scene.

When Persuaders! Finished filming it last episode, the car was sent back to Aston Martin works with only five thousand miles, and it was restored to its original shape, before it was sold.

This Aston Martin was sold five times, always in private sales and the car was the guest star at the famous Concorso D’Eleganza Villa D’Este, in Lake Como, Italy, with only other forty nine cars featured. It also made the appearance in many Aston Martin Centenary ceremonies during 2013.

At Bonhams 15th annual Aston Martin Works sale in Newport Pagnell, United Kingdom Lord Sinclair’s Aston was auctioned for nine hundred thousand dollars and this price sets a new world record for this model, as top examples usually were sold for one hundred thousand dollars.

The car was shown in screen as a V-8 model, but the actual car that Aston Martin gave to the production team was a straight six version with V-8 exterior touches, as the badges.

Persuaders remains until today as the most expensive TV show ever made with every single of the twenty four episodes fetching more than one hundred thousand pounds each. Now is an iconic show and one of the few in the select group of Cult Series.

Article Copyright Sergio Goldvarg.