Spectrum Saloon Car

The Spectrum Saloon Car or SSC is a vehicle that provide high-velocity mobility for Spectrum personnel. Combining speed with safety, the eighteen-foot-long vehicle is capable of reaching 200 m.p.h., and is fitted with ultra-high-frequency transceiver radios to maintain contact with Cloudbase or personnel in other vehicles. Computerised global-positioning systems linked to the Spectrum satellite network (called "The Peacock Satellites" in fanon) are fitted, along with crash bags and an Infra-Red Beam Car Control system. This ensures that safe distances are maintained between vehicles in normal operating conditions, and also regulates speeds if linked to Motorway Electronic Speed Control sensors. Also included is a long-distance laser viewing projector with an optical telescope, linked to a TV monitor on the dashboard. Magnetic brake drums provide controlled braking, using electromagnets to generate opposing magnetic fields within the wheel-housing's central core and outer rim.

Appearances[]

This particular vehicle played a vital part in Captain Scarlet's death and reconstruction in the programme's first instalment, "The Mysterons". He and the original Captain Brown were aboard it, and he was driving it down a road through the mountains (presumably the Adirondack Mountains) of New York. The Mysterons chose them to help carry out their threat of the assassination of the World President. The aliens then sabotaged one of the tyres, causing it to skid on the road and tumble down into the bottom of a gully, where it crashed, burned, and exploded into flames. Both Spectrum officers were then re-created as Mysteron likenesses. While the Mysteronised Captain Brown, who became a "living bomb," was killed again after failing the first assassination attempt, the Mysteronised Captain Scarlet, who became an ice-cold assassin, was also killed again. But in being killed the second time, he was freed from the Mysterons' control, regaining the memories and personality of his original self, and became virtually indestructible.