Many readers of a certain age will acknowledge the role TV played in nurturing their interest in American cars. Shows such as Happy Days, Starsky & Hutch and The Dukes of Hazzard were a window into a car culture far removed from that of provincial England. If you weren’t already a confirmed enthusiast, buying Custom Car and going to Santa Pod, you weren’t likely to see an American car anywhere else except, perhaps, for a grainy black-and-white road test of a Chevrolet Vega in Autocar.
Lesley Weller is too young to have caught such shows when they first aired, but she was profoundly influenced by One Tree Hill, an American drama series broadcast from 2003 to 2012 and one of its main stars in particular − a black 1963 Mercury Comet convertible. The coming-of-age series
