Cars and Pints and Pains

Weeks of not selling a single car would break most dealers. Arthur, being Arthur, simply changes the business model. Instead of selling the motors, he rents them out, and the ploy works almost too well. Soon every vehicle on the lot is off the premises, including Arthur's own car, which is the kind of detail that only occurs to him after the keys are gone.

The trouble arrives with a punter who is late bringing back his hire car. Ray and Winston, an eager but clumsy assistant, go to repossess it and end up accused of theft. It is the sort of accusation that is hard to argue with once the one remaining car on the lot turns out to be stolen goods. Meanwhile, a bogus customer leaves a stolen Cortina at the premises and drives off in the Daley Daimler, and Arthur's own car is being tracked by the police as it tours the country at somebody else's wheel.

It eventually comes back, and so does everything else, more or less. And Winston adds his own chaos, particularly once Ray's new girlfriend turns out to be mixed up with a local gang of burglars, which puts the reward money on the table and everyone's judgement in question. Arthur, having had a full tour of the car rental business, decides it is best left in the past and goes back to selling.

David Yallop and Leon Griffiths wrote it, Lawrence Gordon Clark directed. George Cole is Arthur, Gary Webster is Ray and Glynn Edwards is Dave, with Nicholas Day as Morley, Jonty Stephens as Field, Deobia Oparei as Winston, Juliette Grassby as Linda, Rebecca Lamb as Sarah, David Boyce as Dean Cooper and Christopher Hunter as Jarvis.

It is a reminder that Arthur's real talent has never been buying or selling cars. It is finding the one moment in a bad deal where everything can be put right, and grabbing it before the police work out who owns what.