[insert Wonnacott exclamation here]note
Antiques Road Trip is a BBC Reality Show that has been running since 8 March 2010. It has been broadcast on BBC One since its sixth series, having aired on BBC Two for its first five series. Tim Wonnacott, who presented the BBC's Bargain Hunt from 2003 to 2015, narrates the series.
It features two antiques experts driving together around the British Isles in a classic car looking for items to buy for antiques stores and then sell at auction. Both experts are given £200 at the beginning of their road trip to spend on antiques found in various antiques stores they find throughout their trip. Each episode shows one leg of the experts' five-leg trip,note where in each leg, both experts spend whatever cash they have on hand on five antiques each. After acquiring their antiques, the experts then go to a local auction house to sell them. Whatever they make at the auction, which can be a loss or a profit, will then be used for the next leg. Rinse and repeat until the end of the fifth day, whereas whatever money the experts have after their final auction of the trip will then be donated to the BBC's charity Children in Need. This format changed in 2023; now both experts are given £1500 for the entire trip, but profits and losses do not get factored back into their budgets. The expert who made the biggest profit (or smallest loss) at each auction wins the leg, and whoever wins the most legs wins the road trip; net profits are still donated to Children in Need.
A Celebrity Edition, Celebrity Antiques Road Trip, as been running concurrently since 24 October 2011. This series has each expert paired with a celebrity on the road trip. It's otherwise the same as the regular Antiques Road Trip, save for the road trip lasting for a single leg instead of five legs.
Additionally, each episode has two segments somewhere in the middle where one of the experts visits a place of historical interest and talks with a historian about a piece of local British history relating to where they're at. Both experts each have such a segment every episode. The segments are filmed a few days later, but the experts (and celebs) wear the same clothes as in the rest of the episode to preserve continuity.
PBS broadcasts the show in the United States; their distribution arm manages the official Antiques Road Trip YouTube channel
where they have uploaded full episodes of both the regular and the celebrity editions. Tubi also has series 15, 16, and 19 of Antiques Road Trip here and Series 8 and 9 of Celebrity Antiques Road Trip here.
Not to be confused with Antiques Roadshow, which has no driving, shopping, or auctions.
This is the Antiques Trope Trip!
- Auction: The goal of the show is to buy antiques to sell at auction for profit, and unlike in Bargain Hunt, auction costs do apply, so it is imperative that they make a significant profit to offset those costs.
- British Brevity: An interesting case; at 650 episodes over 27 series for the regular show (as of the last episode of Series 27 on 15 December 2023), and 230 episodes over 12 series for the celebrity version (as of its Series 12's last episode on 30 January 2024), this trope certainly does not apply for Antiques Road Trip overall. However, remember that each road trip in the regular series lasts for five legs with each leg getting its own episode. Each series in the regular show runs for 20, 25, or 30 episodes (although it's been consistently 25 episodes per series since Series 17). So if each road trip's five legs were altogether treated as one Extra-Long Episode, then each series has only seen four to six road trips per series for a total of 130 road trips as of Series 27. Totally averted for Celebrity Antiques Road Trip, however, since each episode covers a one-leg road trip, and there are twenty episodes per series (except for the first one which only has ten episodes).
- Celebrity Edition: Celebrity Antiques Road Trip
- Cool Car: The titular Road Trip has both experts driving a classic car, usually from The '50s and The '60s, to each destination around the United Kingdom.
- Grail in the Garbage: Rarely, an expert could come across a rare item in a store and buy it below triple digits, only to sell it for a massive profit. One notable instance was when Charlie Ross bought a chipped Staffordshire elephant clock for £8, only to sell for £2,700 at auction. It remains the biggest profit margin for a single item on the show to date at a whopping 33,650%, although two later items have since beaten its record for the biggest sale price.
- Long-Runners: The series has run several road trips since 2010 (2011 for the Celebrity Edition) and it hasn't stopped since.
- Narrator: Tim Wonnacott has served as this since the show's beginning, even after his departure from Bargain Hunt (also broadcast on BBC One).note
- Road Trip Plot: It's half the whole point of the show, although the comedic shenanigans are way more muted and it all feels more like a nice Sunday drive.
