Just watched the latest, and I have to say, I love the Fulvia and the Delta HF Integrale, awesome cars. I remember seeing an HF Integrale on ebay once and though I'd be willing to do almost anything to own that car. Although, where was the Lancia Aurelia B20 GT? An older car (1950s) and not really all that fast compared to later cars, but beautiful and I think one of the great Lancias still.
They were obviously hamming it up with the Stratos replica, but I had an opposite reaction to Clarkson - I loved it. Awesome car.
Originally posted on a forum. It's by the guy who build the kit-car they slagged off so much. Quite an interested insight...
Not particularly surprising though, is it? Top Gear is generally less about objectivity (which would be boring) than airing Jeremy Clarkson's views on motoring in a spectacular and theatrical fashion. Clarkson isn't really the kind of "car enthusiast" who would actually work on cars or build one from a kit. He's more of an automotive media pundit.
It's interesting to note that they didn't do a direct comparison with a real Stratos - probably because
a) a real Stratos woudn't be any better and
b) nobody would be foolish enough to lend Clarkson a 100,000 pound car just so he could beat on it like that....
The one thing that annoys me consistently about Top Gear is that their deep pockets allow them to buy and destroy cars they don't like - cars I am too poor to ever hope to own.
Are they going to pick up the cost of shipping their cars over to the states to be reviewed by a few unknown hosts on a TV show that only a few are going to watch when they can transport them a few hundred miles by road to what is perhaps the most watched show in the world (if you count both legal viewings and illegal downloads in other countries)?
True - although to be fair, guess which country is BY FAR the biggest consumer of luxury cars? Yep, that would be the United States. Ferrari sells more cars here than anywhere else. So I suspect that they would be accommodating if the show became popular here.
American Top Gear will be about American cars, and while that might make sense, America just doesn't have the automotive industry Europe has. And the non-American cars they review will be Hondas and Toyotas and the like, cars which are easily obtained here and will be quite a snoozer around a track.
IF Top Gear USA ever happens and is successful, it will be because it focuses on interesting cars regardless of their origin, like the UK Top Gear does... If, on the other hand, it focuses only on what middle class people can buy here, or only on American cars...well, let's just say I'm not going to tune in to watch the latest Camry - Accord - Taurus - Malibu shootout.
