clarksons car years

[Shortcut]

One thing JC knows abouve all is how to tell a good story. He had a great gift for getting to the point and illustrating it in an accesable and entertaining way, be it cars, engineering or his family. On the family tree programme he immediately homed i on the best story (the money).

I think he does TV better than almost any other presenter.

I'm guessing that they changed the stig when the firat one "drowned". motto, don't blow a good gig by getting too greedy (?)

[BigWig]

I rate Top Gear and I think JC is brilliant at presenting and describing the cars, uses great metaphors!

People always say to me "do you think JC is a good driver?" my reply is "anyone with half decent driving skills who then spend most of their days around super cars could drive like that".

But I think he has such a bias opinion, knocks other cars because they don't have 500bhp, active yaw control, 4WD and a giant turbo.

I've just got his new DVD, where he compares old to new, he puts an s2000 against a tr6, the tr6 pulls away, but then almost comedy like smoke pours form the bonnet and it grinds to a hault, yeah I'm sure it did blow up. The S2000 wins.

My all time fav is Tiff Needell for putting a car through its paces, he has a much better understanding of what the car is doing, rather than how it looks or goes in a straight line.

[iRocco]

penski said:

Not any more

He was the original Stig but got fired after penning a book entitled 'I am The Stig'.

The current one is Ben Collins as far as I am aware.

*n

I think you're right about Ben Collins being the Stig......

[nickb]

TaitRacing said:

I've just got his new DVD, where he compares old to new, he puts an s2000 against a tr6, the tr6 pulls away, but then almost comedy like smoke pours form the bonnet and it grinds to a hault, yeah I'm sure it did blow up. The S2000 wins.

The old versus new Datsun / Nissan Z-car challenge is something of an eye-opener though!

I think tiff needell is a bit of a twit actually. He's supposed to be some sh1t-hot racing driver, yet everytime he gets in a racing car he either spazzes up and crashes or gets his ass seriously kicked!

[skoda_norman]

i like clarkson. to be fair, he doesn't know cars that well, but then, not many people do. At least he tests cars on practical things, like when he drove a LR Discovery up a mountain- proving that Discos are good offroad.

Hammond, is just class. Quite a retro bloke me thinks. Loves his Porsches! Just sold his 911 and bought a Dodge Charger!

Anyone see the episode where they all had to buy a Porshce for £1500?

[Revolution 9]

That was a good idea, the funniest thing was that Clarkson thought it clever to buy a huge V8 for the money, and take the curse word out of Hammond, who obviously knew what he was doing and bought a much cheaper 4 cylinder 924, when Clarkson's V8 turned out to be a clapped out old clunker, and Hammond's was actually quite tidy!

[richy]

Funnily enough, I ythink James May's an old-car man. After all, he has that T1 Bentley.

[ImpJimbo]

Top Gear is essential viewing. Clarkson might talk curse word and be abit of a bigot but he is a good presenter. Hammonds great to and James May just makes it a good team. don't think Top Gear could have 3 better presenters.

[richy]

Yes indeed. I bet you're all too young to remember Wheelbase (Top Gear's forrunner) in the early '70s. Even at the age of 10 I thought it was too dull - I was heavily into Yanks in those days, and we never saw a Lincoln Continental or owt like that - even though you could buy them from Ford dealers at the time.

[ImpJimbo]

I remember top gear with William Woollard!

[richy]

Yup - and Frank Page! And Judith Jackson... Strewth, where's me cocoa?

[ImpJimbo]

don't remember Frank Page and Judith Jackson though.

[richy]

Ah ha - too old and a good memory as well! I even remember them testing the Alfasud when it was launched!

[ImpJimbo]

don't remember that far back

I use to get so excited when Top Gear was going to be on. I think it was Thursday evenings.

One episode Tony Mason went to Imp National and slagged all the Imps off. He lived in Banbury at the time and I kept bumping into him.

[richy]

I'm not surprised! Great clip of him on TV over the holidays when he was pelted with snowballs.

[ImpJimbo]

Youre not surprised he slagged the Imps off ;D

[richy]

Not really - unfortunately!

[Ministrone]

Recently BBC2 showed a clip from Wheelbase on one of these "I Love....." look back at the 70s programmes

It was a road test of an Opel Kadett and made a big thing of its Matt black bonnet and Rostyles.

These programmes obviously still exist on tape, I wonder if it'd be possible to get hold of copies??

[richy]

Pretty difficult I'd've thought. Sadly.

[skoda_norman]

shame, coz i've seen a clip of a blonde women test drivng a skoda estelle on top gear. was thinking of writting to the BBC and see if they could get copies.