Action Vehicles are one of the leading vehicle supply companies to the UK Film and TV Industry.
Our list of credits as sole supplier* is second-to-none.
We are looking for additional vehicles to be included on our extensive database.
If you would like to make your car available for filming, and to earn money in so doing, please apply by filling in a Registration Form.
We are particularly looking for standard vehicles from 1990 – 2016
Q: why are we looking for people to register their standard (i.e. normal, run-of-the-mill) vehicles with us?
A: if a production company asks us for a Ferrari Daytona or a 1920s Rolls Royce then these cars are very simple to find. There are numerous sellers of fabulously expensive vehicles, dealers who are used to requests from a company like Action Vehicles seeking beautiful cars to film on. Furthermore there are owners clubs and enthusiasts forums for most classic car marques and these make sourcing the right car fairly straightforward. But what if the production company ask for a Blue, circa 2010 Ford Mondeo – where do we find one of those? There are no enthusiasts’ forums for those types of cars, they are too old to be on main dealer forecourts, and there are generally no owners clubs. In the end we have to seek them through websites like eBay, looking at vehicles that really their owners are trying to sell, rather than rent for filming…….
This is why we keep our vehicle database. It is as much about people as it is about cars. It is about people who want to rent out their vehicles, who can be available to take their car on to a film or TV location and spend the day there with it, and who can respond to the sometimes short-notice requests that the industry makes.
We are often asked to supply, say, twenty background cars with drivers, perhaps for a traffic-jam scene. This presents us with a problem. Not only do we need a large number of cars that are ‘realistically older’ (we can’t simply fill the screen with brand new hire cars from Hertz or Sixt because that’s not realistic), but we also have the logistical problem of getting all of those vehicles to the location and driving them in shot….!
Fees paid for vehicles used in film and TV vary greatly, generally dependant on numerous factors such as the production’s budget parameters, the location distance, the hours used (day shoot or night shoot, etc.), and the rarity value of the vehicle itself.
So here is a real world, factual example: in March of this year we paid an owner £425 for one day’s filming on a 2004 VW Golf. The owner was probably on set for around twelve hours. He was well fed, supplied with endless cups of tea, and, to be honest, was probably bored to tears by the end of it! But, he earned £425 in one day…..so, read on, or REGISTER NOW
Now, cynics might say why would a company pay £425 a day for a car that’s probably not even worth much more than that anyway, which is a fair point. The essential difference here is that what we were really paying for was the man………he effectively collected the car from its owner (himself), delivered it to the film set for a very early morning call, stood by with the car for quite a long day, then made the car disappear from the Central London location at the end of that day. All of that was worth the £425 to us. If we had purchased a similar car for around £425 all of the logistical movement of the car would have had to have been done by us, which would have incurred a similar expense and would have made our lives so much busier……..plus, what would we do with the car afterwards? We don’t want to own a 2004 VW Golf!
Please note that ANY vehicle can be registered with us, and the more ‘ordinary’ the better. Our database does analyse itself for matching vehicles so if we had, say five Dark Blue Vauxhall Astra Estates already on the database then your application for registration may well be rejected, but generally that doesn’t happen.
The registration process of your car is very simple. However, it is essential that you only register your vehicle when you have some decent quality pictures that, once you've registered, you can upload via your confirmation email. Although we know the difference between a VW Golf and VW Derby most film producers or directors don’t, so we always need to wave some pictures under their nose!
There’s a tenner to pay to cover the costs of our data-management peeps, but obviously if your vehicle is used that’s repaid in spades…….
Please note that registration of multiple cars DOES NOT mean multiple registration fees – we are essentially registering you as the owner, so you can put down as many cars as you own for the £10 fee. All we do ask is that you take the time to inform us if you change your car(s) – we don’t want to offer a car to a production company only to discover the owner sold it a year ago……
Registration of your vehicle is no guarantee of its use – all you can be sure of is that we first look at our own database when trying to source cars, so if yours is there…….
There are numerous Cars-For-Film Catalogues available into which you can place your car but most of these are effectively a scam. These ‘directories’ claim to be put into the hands of film directors and producers so they can select cars directly – in the real world this NEVER happens. I have worked in the film industry, supplying in-shot vehicles, for over thirty years and I can assure you that it never happens. Production companies invariably come to action vehicle supply companies, companies that can provide not only the cars, but also all the logistical back-up and specialist services that go with it. And Action Vehicles are one of, if not the, biggest in the UK film and TV industry.
We ACTUALLY SUPPLY VEHICLES DIRECTLY ON TO FILM SETS AND TO PRODUCTION COMPANIES – we don’t supply lists of vehicles, or directories of vehicles.
Our database of vehicles is kept completely to ourselves. We don’t publish it or share it. We simply use it to provide the services we are famous for: VEHICLES…!!
Absolutely any vehicle can be registered with us: car, motorcycle, van, scooter, truck, 4x4, tractor, anything! Obviously if you have a replica of a moon buggy your opportunities are going to be fairly limited, but pretty much every single vehicle you ever see on your TV, or on your local cinema screen, will have been supplied by an action vehicle supply company (maybe even us!), so we really do mean ANYTHING
Our privacy policy states that your information will only be used by Action Vehicles for the purposes of offering the use of your vehicle in filming projects. Furthermore it states that the information is shared with no persons, no organisations, no other companies, nor any authority other than that as may be required by law enforcement agencies, and that any information held by us that you no longer wish us to have will be permanently erased from our database on request. An opportunity to view and download our privacy policy is included within the registration process.
As already said, but for the purposes of clarity, we DO NOT share our database information with anyone, and never will. Any use of your vehicles will always be through Action Vehicles and we will never put a third party in touch directly with anyone whose information we hold on our database (which is a pretty basic premise anyway, being as Action Vehicles makes its money by supplying actual vehicles for filming, not by supplying the details of people who own vehicles…..!).
*Sole supplier means we were the company used to supply any and all of the vehicles used in shot on the production, every car you would see in the Feature Film, or in the TV Show or Commercial will have been supplied by us. Furthermore, in general our Company Principal was employed as the Vehicle Coordinator on the major productions (see here for the owner of Action Vehicles’ IMDb listing)