Top Gear ...

[kevinshally]

Anyone see Top Gear last night.
So the 997 blitzed the Isle of Man "track", hammering the baby Aston and M6 by a whopping margin.
Much cheaper than the other two, better brakes, better use of power and still J.C. could not bring himself to even consider it.
Sounds like a big step up from the 996.
J.C. finished off with a message of "Only Cocks by Porsches" stuck to his back.
I think he has a problem wit ze germans.

Kev

 

[zeb]

Well he's a cock anyway. Beat the beemer and the Aston by 6 seconds so it was'nt even close, in diabolical weather conditions too.

......and the porker is 15k cheaper as well

......sod him...make your own minds up methinks

 

[Guest]

It's just 'cos he bought the wrong German car. And a hairdressers one at that!

 

[Fen]

To be fair he has never liked the 911 in any guise, however he really rates the 944 Turbo if that colours any of your opinions on him.

Personally I quite like him regardless of his opinion on individual cars. I'd like to see the 997 vs the Cayman as an interesting test, but the Porsche won't supply the cars for anyone to make that back to back comparison is my guess.

Anyway people don't buy cars like that based on how slightly quicker one is than another.

 

[jez_anderson]

What happened to the Ford GT he had. I know he had problems with the alarm keep going off which they didnt seem to be able to fix.

I think Ford took it back off his hands on the basis that Top Gear stopped pulling it to bits on air!!

Anyone know for sure?

 

[Guest]

I thought Shoestring was good value for money, though I do prefer him in a moustache.

Near to where I am working there was an Aston parked in the Suzuki dealers, in the place of the Merc SL something (the bigger one than the smaller one) Anyway he reckons he was going to sell it on as the clutch was too heavy, the back end was too wide for London etc etc but couldn't sell it too soon as the dealer he got it from would not be best pleased.
In other words he probably got it for a deal from his mate (in the trade) did not want him to know he actually bought to look the bizz for a month or two and sell it on for a tidy profit which was the real reason he got it the first place.
That sounded like a Pistonheads thread 'What will be the deprecation if ......' or 'Six months later I got what I paid so put my name down for the new ......'
Back on topic, in the flesh I thought the Aston looked fantastic.

I dislike Jeza intensely, and much of Top Gear and most of all associated with it. Men and Motors is top notch though.

 

[Guest]

The above comment was meant for Jeremy Clarkson, not you Jez_Anderson. You are probably very nice.

 

[carlmthompson]

ORIGINAL: flamingeye

I thought Shoestring was good value for money, though I do prefer him in a moustache.

Near to where I am working there was an Aston parked in the Suzuki dealers, in the place of the Merc SL something (the bigger one than the smaller one) Anyway he reckons he was going to sell it on as the clutch was too heavy, the back end was too wide for London etc etc but couldn't sell it too soon as the dealer he got it from would not be best pleased.
In other words he probably got it for a deal from his mate (in the trade) did not want him to know he actually bought to look the bizz for a month or two and sell it on for a tidy profit which was the real reason he got it the first place.
That sounded like a Pistonheads thread 'What will be the deprecation if ......' or 'Six months later I got what I paid so put my name down for the new ......'
Back on topic, in the flesh I thought the Aston looked fantastic.

I dislike Jeza intensely, and much of Top Gear and most of all associated with it. Men and Motors is top notch though.

Did I arrive in the middle of a conversation? What the when who was what now when? Or do I need to go and wear my denims with tweed jacket?

 

[zeb]

I must say i dont dislike him intensly but he does play to his audience for effect. His book 'world according to clarkson' is very much in the same vein. Top gear as a programme is fairly good sunday night brain out tv.

 

[Diver944]

Once you get into the mindset that it's an entertainment programme that happens to feature cars it's not too bad (Clarkson aside).

I have to say the Aston looked and sounded gorgeous making the 997 look very plain in boring old Silver. Now if they'd got hold of a Guards Red one [8D]

 

[sbloxxy]

Thing is, people believe everything Clarkson says. Years ago, I was a sales manager in a Renault dealership and I remember a potential customer telling me he'd wait and see what Clarkson said about the then new Megane before placing an order. Needless to say, Clarkson slagged it and we actually received written instructions from Renault UK telling us how to handle customers who might quote Clarkson's criticisms and reminding us of their official line that "Jeremy Clarkson is just an entertainer". It was a crap car though.

 

[Mark_Bennett]

It was funny with the babys changing mat on his head though...[]

 

[944cabby]

I find him very opinionated and a bit of a hypocrite.I read an article he wrote once in a magazine about how much he disliked the classic car scene, yet on numerous occassions TG has featured classics as well as future classics.Surely every porsche made is destined to become a classic car if it stays on the road?And as for the 924vs944vs928 show well although it was presented in a "fun" way to me it categorised all of these models as being cheap to buy and crap.I've had a couple of comments from people about my s2 being the same as the one on TG!Annoying or what!

 

[jez_anderson]

As always there are 2 sides to every story. I appreciate you feelings about your car being compared to the one in the programme but it was also that programme that made me realise that Porsche ownership was something within my grasp. Something I only dreamed about from seeing a 911 vs Ferrari write-up in What Car mag when I was about 7. I have my car now and I love it, thanks in part to Top Gear.

 

[Fen]

Of course he's opinionated - would anyone watch the show if he wasn't? 5th Gear for example, even now it is slavishly copying the new TG format in place of slavishly following the old TG format, isn't a patch on it. What he says has to be taken with a pinch of salt in that he has a style which necessitates saying it as he does. That said I do not believe he would call a car crap if it was good and vice versa, so I do believe for example the Vectra is rubbish without driving one (I've driven every generation of Ashtray and I can't imagine the maker of that automotive dirge could make the next car up the range anything but dire).

 

[Guest]

he may look like a toilet brush dressed up in jeans and a jacket, and he may have an attitude as bad as a frenchman who's just been told that Garlic has been banned by the EU, but at least he has a personality (of sorts), which is more than we can say about the wooden donkey they call Tiff on channel 5....... []

 

[John Sims]

Having had the pleasure of being in the audience of Top Gear, I would agree that JC is a bit of a child in a mans body. He is, none the less, very intelligent and a great show man. Above all else he is very entertaining - who, on TV, would you like to be at a dinner party with? He is, of course, an opinionated "lads" man; but he makes no claims to the contrary. I am a great fan of his car reviews in the Sunday Times, much of which are less to do with cars and more related to the world we live in.

Interestingly, while no one else is allowed to smoke within the Top Gear studio/hanger JC does as he pleases. It must be nice to be a star.

Finally, having been to the recent MPH 05 show at the NEC I can confirm that Tiff and JC provided a far more spectacular demonstration of "Drifting" than the professionals that were bought it to demonstrate the sport.

As I understand, he did return the GT to Ford. Ford refunded his money but said they would hold onto the car just in case he changed his mind. After deciding that perhaps the GT was a weekend toy, and not a real life car, I believe the money changed hands again and the car is living in the Cotswolds.

 

[zeb]

Ronnie Barker is entertainment...clarkson is a hack from the Rotherham echo made good...and the best of luck to him. As regards tiff i always had him down as a poor mans jc but saw a repeat of 5th gear last night were there was a feature about his racing career and the cars he used to drive. He waxed lyrical about the bmw 323i but the car that really left him misty eyed was the 944. He went to say were he raced it in the 80's and then got positively wimsical about driving back from dijon over the alps and how it was one of his favourite european driving experiences. He went on to say that the turbo could match most modern machinery and was availabe sub 10k. The closing frame was him saying he fancied one again!

Went up in my estimation did tiff! Probably a repeat as it was on discovery but the car was a blue turbo with cream interior on an H plate....nice it was too

 

[mik_ok]

As has been long stated by many here - TG is primarily an entertainment programme, as there are relatively few "true" petrol heads in the UK. I've read similar comments many times from Mr Richard Porter, who is both author of Sniffpetrol.Com and has been one of the Top Gear scriptwriters for several years. Also contributes to evo magazine.

I have little time for our brillo-headed jezzamonger for two reasons:-
1 - his prejudices come accross as far too deep to allow objective assesement of any product. Surely a core requirement for any journalist(?). The VX220 test was a perfect case in point - the majority of the "article" being "hilarious" (see entertainment prog comment above) rants about "the V-badge".
2 - his abilty behind the wheel is woeful.

Tiff may have little of Jezza's "on-screen character", but he comes across as balanced and objective. The fact that I know he can drive allows me to accept his test criticisms.

Incidentally, there was a big discussion a couple of years ago on Scoobynet where Simon-De-Banke (much respected owner of said site, Guiness World Record Holder for longest oversteer slide (2+hrs continuous) and driving coach) made some unkind comments surrounding tiff's abilities, and the fact that it was easy to throw a car around for the cameras on an airfield. There were comments from others that he was "a crap racing driver" blah blah..

Simon then attended the (Autocar?) Sideways Challenge. Not his first competition, but this time Tiff was also there. After having witnessed his talent "close up" Simon did a complete u-turn, said that he had made an embarressing error of judegement and humbly retracted all previous statements.

I obviously wasn't there to personally verify , but Simon was at pains to point out that this was NOT a case of "I've met him now, and he's a nice bloke, so I'm changing my story". []

 

[Rotorhead]

I'm sure I can recall Tiff Needell conceding, reluctantly, that Jeremy Clarkson is actually a very good driver.

This wasn't always the case, and he had a bit of a reputation for damaging test cars, but in recent years I am sure he has become pretty good - for a jounalist