Dare I mention....Top Gear....?

[RedSparrow]

Anyone see it last night?I do like this programme, but Im a little bored of them wrecking stuff that probably deserves a better fate- ie the VP 1500 last night. I think they chose older stuff because it makes it a bit more interesting than doing stunts with Ford Escorts. Seemed a shame though as that 1500 looked in fair condition.

[Father Ted]

And there was a wedge in the "crash pile" tooBut, made me giggle, which was the object I suppose, and whoever had the car in the first place coulnt have wanted to keep it preserved otherwise they would have kept it (etc etc - discussed last time they wrecked some old BL tin)Vuew Here

[r.welfare]

72 scrapped motors (plus the VP1500) will have cost the production team a fair bit more than if they'd done the stunt a couple of years back!I was more intrigued by how cheap 20v turbo Fiat Coupes are now, to be honest (I knew LS400 values were on the floor!), and you could also see from their "series preview" early on in the show that they are going to do a "cheap Alfa challenge" of some kind later in the series, as evidenced by a 75 and GTV crashing into each other on a track...

[Volksy]

I was looking to see if teh wedge was the one previously used in the BL challenge last series, but it looked the wrong colour.

[Spottedlaurel]

Sorry, I can’t bring myself to watch it. I spent a most enjoyable evening tending a bonfire and filling the newly-built shelves in the mega-shed, with a bottle of Asahi beer to keep me company.

[bigstraight6]

I missed the spectical too, watched the football instead which was a very dull match, but sounds like I made the right choice

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Are these wankers smashing up more old cars. Why dont they do a fuggin gardening programme or one about property prices.

[pompei]

I went down to Alfa/Auto Italia Day on 1st June. Guess who was there?

 

 

(I do like JM's shirt which he was wearing on the telly last night)

 

 

They were alll gathered around the Alfa concourse vehicles.

 

Now in this collection of shiny vehicles was a tired looking 75 which had been doctored to make it look worse than it actually was - a load brown paint spayed over it to make it look dirty etc. I overheard someone say that their Top Gear Challenge was to enter a car in the concourse, so I guess it was their idea of a p!55 take. It'll be shown some time during the current series.

 

Sorry, couldn't get a pic of the car, due to the hordes of people.

 

I have to say that I think this obsessive polishing etc is faintly ridiculous, but my instincts tell me that this 75 will probably go the way of most of the other old cars which have appeared on the programme ...

[retrogeezer]

How long is James May going to let his hair get!! When you see the older ones on Dave it's quite tidy & short.....I guess he is paid so much it doesn't matter about his appearance anymore.As as for Hamster, his mid-life crisis following 'the accident' still forges ahead unabated! Does his wife not tell him he looks daft with that haircut!

[pompei]

And Clarkson was wearing that same scruffy outfit on Have I Got News For You

[RedSparrow]

Now in this collection of shiny vehicles was a tired looking 75 which had been doctored to make it look worse than it actually was - a load brown paint spayed over it to make it look dirty etc. I overheard someone say that their Top Gear Challenge was to enter a car in the concourse, so I guess it was their idea of a p!55 take. It'll be shown some time during the current series.

Hmm. I am sure most of the stuff they do and various 'accidents' during filming are staged. Although I remember Clarkson writing in his column in the sun that nothing on TG is staged and that what we see is what actually happened...YEAH RIGHT!

[Father Ted]

Hmm. I am sure most of the stuff they do and various 'accidents' during filming are staged. Although I remember Clarkson writing in his column in the sun that nothing on TG is staged and that what we see is what actually happened...YEAH RIGHT!

Aye, sounds like bovine excrement to me, remember that nice SD1 with the doors that dropped off, what utter nonsense.

[CortinaDave]

The scrap cars were returned to the scrappy after they had finished with them.. One of the menbers of another forum had been told of a mk3 cortina in his local yard so he went to see if it was worth saving.Turns out it was one of the cars sent to top gear for the scrap pile.. scrappy said it might come back ok or wrecked... it came back wrecked.Not by the stunt, but by the beeb who squished all the cars flat after the event to get more on to the trailer :cry:I did enjoy the show last night though i have to say, made me laugh out loud a few times

[Ross_K]

Pile of shite. I dunno why those three halfwits pretend to do a show about cars - they might as well be lighting each other's farts if they want to be 'zany' in a schoolboy way.I know quite a few nerdy loner types at work who think Clarkson is the most hilarious man on telly, but come on... The formula seems to be:1) Smash up a few shit cars2) Minor celebrity on the track in a shit car3) Audience who appear to be held at gunpoint laughing at Clarkson's shit jokes.4) Brief tyre-smoking of the latest Ferrari/Lambo/BMW saloon.5) Take the piss out of the short twat.When's 5th Gear back on telly?

[pompei]

I think I once saw a vid of a young Clarkson lighting farts ...

[mk2_craig]

Bring back Classic Top Gear. The original theme tune, graphics and Chris Goffey singing the praises of the Fiat Uno Selecta

[Rocket88]

I have no problem with TG. It's entertainment, the fact that cars are involved is pretty incidental. 5th gear, on the other hand, if condecending parrot poo, I would happily remove Tiff Needel's spleen with a blunt spoon, if I had the chance. From what I've seen, he's obviously on a huge retainer from BMW, he reckons they're all brilliant, Vicki Snot-Fotherington is an eyebrow arching pain in the arse, and the other two are like Ant and bloody Dec Clarkson and his motlet crew at least bother to tell you [in their opinion] if a car is any good or not, which the old Top Gear always neatly side stepped. Goffey thought the Allegro was a "good effort", though at what I'm not sure...................

[Baz]

When's 5th Gear back on telly?

5th Gear....Indeed all "serious" motoring programmes are just so interminably DULL, I can't bear to watch them!

 

I don't expect to learn anything by watching Top Gear, but I've come to expect that I'll be entertained....It is what it is: A comedy programme in the guise of of a motoring "magazine"....I wouldn't class myself as "nerdy" or a "loner" but I found last night's programme (in particular the Fiat Coupe/BMW 7 pirsuit) very funny indeed!

 

The rear angle shot of Clarkson's detatched wheel and "Boudica spike" whizzing past within inches of May & Hammond proves that it's all scripted, but so were Fawlty Towers and Only Fools and Horses....They're hilarious too!

[Simon M]

The vehicle details for RDV 761R are: Date of Liability 01 01 2009 Date of First Registration 02 08 1976 Year of Manufacture 1976 Cylinder Capacity (cc) 1485CC CO2 Emissions Not Available Fuel Type Petrol Export Marker Not Applicable Vehicle Status Licence Not Due Vehicle Colour GOLD Vehicle Type Approval null The VDP 1500 that met it's doom - I'm not sure whether I'd seen it for sale recently (as I've been looking for an Agro myself), but it looked vaguely familiar.Top Gear can bog off.

[Ross_K]

^^ At least there's six months tax left on it for somebody to cash in...

[Jazzy Jeff]

Smashing up a Vanden Plas 1500!!??? Cooking Funts, how about we all club together and blow up Chatsworth with licence payers money. DESTROYING BRITAIN'S HERITAGE IS A CRIME.Bring back hanging, etc.....

[Richard]

Top Gear in its current guise is an entertainment show. I regard it as a car show for people who don't like cars. My wife watches it.

[pogweasel]

I like cars and I like Top Gear. Does that make me an oxymoron? (Answers on a postcard to the usual address). The Rozzer cars special had me laughing my man-tits off, fantastic. And I can't have been the only one to notice the unsubtle dig at Needell that JC made during the ferrari guff. And what about the Prius-deflation. Marvellous.

[bones96]

why dont top gear get some top of the range motors and test them to destruction ????????

[outlaw118]

Because there will then be all the hand-wringing "tax-payers money" crap.

[marinast]

Another case of "Ha Ha look at the old British banger get crushed to bits in a humourus way".It really grinds to see old stuff like this smashed to pieces for a laugh, at least that VP1500 reached 31 years of age, alot better going than any of that shite Clarkson has owned over the years.I'd take that VP1500 over any of the toss piece exotica machines so beloved by JC and co.An old boy with fifty years experience made those VP seats I bet, the carpets on VPs were all hand made too and the dash on VP Allegros was all matched by the factory and all of it made to a better standard than that found in modern wagons costing £50k plus.Indeed, VP 1500s were supplied to the VP factory as painted shells from Longbridge, then rubbed back by hand and given another several coats of paint, then finished off by hand in the same way as VP had been doing for years. The build quality on these cars was excellent, even late Abingdon made cars were very well made too.

[pompei]

I s'pose the root of the stunt lay in the oft-asserted notion that the Allagro's drag co-efficient was better (or should that be worse?) when the car went backwards.I certainly would not like to drive any car, let alone a 30 year old car in reverse at 40mph

[Simon M]

I'd take that VP1500 over any of the toss piece exotica machines so beloved by JC and co.

Indeed - in the last series I saw May drooling over a new Rolls-Royce that was the most hideous thing on wheels since Davros posed for 'Playgirl'....it was truly vile.I wholeheartedly agree with the rest of your post as well!

[RedSparrow]

An old boy with fifty years experience made those VP seats I bet, the carpets on VPs were all hand made too and the dash on VP Allegros was all matched by the factory and all of it made to a better standard than that found in modern wagons costing £50k plus.Indeed, VP 1500s were supplied to the VP factory as painted shells from Longbridge, then rubbed back by hand and given another several coats of paint, then finished off by hand in the same way as VP had been doing for years. The build quality on these cars was excellent, even late Abingdon made cars were very well made too.

Really?!I didn't know any of this about the standards they were finished too- just makes me even more angry/sad that they trashed it. I would almost say it would have been better if they just used a bog-standard series 2 Leggy.

[Milford Cubicle]

They should have used a chavved-up E36 3-series, that I would have enjoyed as there are too many polluting the roads.Maybe I missed it, but why didn't Clarkson make anything of the old "LOLZ MORE AERODYNAMIC IN REVERSE" shite? I thought that's why they were using the Allegro.