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Only as hero on TV

involved in accidents

by Wolfgang Golz

Interview published by Welt.de on September 20, 2009: "Nur als Serienheld Unfallgegner"

Link to original German article è here

On the TV screen car chases are his daily business. In "Alarm For Cobra 11 - The Highway Police" Erdoğan Atalay plays a highway policeman who's often walking on a razorblade. While talking about car accidents Erdoğan Atalay really proves himself an expert. Because what looks dangerous on the screen, is indeed dangerous to achieve. The stunts are not computer-rendered. More than 300 vehicles, whose reinstatement value adds up to 5.000.000€, have been crashed during the 200 episodes of "Alarm For Cobra 11 - The Highway Police". So far no official car got away without bumps.

And how does such a man drive if he's privately on the road?

Erdoğan Atalay smiles. He assures me in finest German à la Hanover: "I drive anticipatory." He says this couldn't come as a surprise because: "I know the repercussions of car accidents." He is somewhat embarassed by the fact that his driving licence was once taken away: "On the countryside I‘d become flashed in the middle of the night. I had just been a little to speedy."

His private car actually inspires to go fast. He's driving a Maserati 3200 GT Assetto Corsa with 370 horse powers dwelling underneath its bonnet. To get from 0 to 100 miles per hour requires only 5.9 minutes. Just a limited number of 250 thus sports cars, with those elegant tail lamps (of the shape of boomerangs), were built. Erdoğan Atalay’s Maserati is already 10 years old, but the speedometer displays so far only 60,000 driven kilometres. The actor regards himself a cruiser. The Maserati persuades with a gentle sound which can increase to a awe-inspiring roar. It is the very sound of engines which fascinates men and irritates women. It is the reason why grey-haired veterans still keep on ascending bikes of the brand Harley Davidson.

Erdoğan Atalay appreciates thus sounds, even if it gets really loud. Once he was as a guest of Formula 1 pilot Adrian Sutil at a race in Monza. Because of the brute force of the engine's sounds he was offered a headset. Erdoğan Atalay says: "I refused to take any, because I love the sounds of top-spinning engines. I wanted to enjoy." It didn't do him any harm.

The outlook on future cars that will be propelled by electric motors and go silently, nearly seems to be Erdoğan Atalay's nightmare. But he knows already how he will deal with that situation: "Then I will have the wonderful sound of my Maserati recorded on a CD and ingest it that way." Car acoustians are already for a long time working on how to produce artificial engine sounds and how to perform them in the car's interior space, related to the usage of the accelerator in an elaborated manner.

Erdoğan Atalay accepts without constraints that the trend to electrical cars is irreversible. Considering the global warming "everybody has understood we can't carry on as before. The times of carefree joyriding are gone. The industry got it and has commenced a turnaround."

Atalay's penchant for cars has started soon. "When I registered my first car it meant to me a big deal of new liberty." But that liberty showed in a modest manner: He bought a Mini Cooper. A purple varnished rolling shoe box and "the rain would come in totally unhindered by the sawn-in canopy top". But since occasionally for a man his first car is somewhat like his first love, Erdoğan Atalay still recalls some details. For example how the car eventually started to shiver and shake to the full. Caused was this by an engine mounting which was rusty and cracked. Fortunately there was a good buddy named Paul who was 2 metres tall and who repaired the small runabout for little money. When the car was reconditioned, it was widely feared that during the test drives the Mini would break into pieces, simply because of the sheer weight of the big driver.

But since real love can't be harmed even by persisiting rust, Atalay still owns a Mini Cooper of the genuine type. Atalay says: "Of course, safety-wise it's no good. I have seen how cars can get deformed during an accident, because this confronts me on a daily basis." But since it doesn't bother Atalay wether his cars get rusty, he has also purchased a Triumph MK III Spitfire. The car is used and serviced by his father-in-law, who even pilotes it in races for vintage cars.

In the TV series "Alarm For Cobra 11 - The Highway Police" - the new season started in the middle of the month on RTL - car chases are part of a recurrent pattern. Subsequently occurs the question whether Atalay is afraid that novice drivers could take this as an example. He states: "No. If somebody is determined to break laws, he will do that anyway. Then he will rather watch a Formula 1 race and try to mimic that kind of driving."

The TV chief inspector adds: "We also carry weapons. We don't glorify them, but we use them. In our films we are no super heros and sometimes we get some trashing ourselves. But the good guys win in the end."

Something else about the series strikes Atalay as more important, even though is a kind of by-product. He plays the chief inspector Semir with Turkish roots: "This guy Semir is fully integrated. He works as a policeman like anybody else. I appreciate that there is a policeman with such roots on the TV screen. In earlier times this would not have been understood without saying anything about it."

Semir, respectively Erdoğan Atalay will certainly keep on using his official car for chasing TV rogues. The series is prolific and Atalay enjoys his work. And he doesn't have to worry about speed limits while he is a policeman in hot pursuit.

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Translation by Joachim Schulz - so many thanks !

Online September 21, 2009