TV Shows BBC Top Gear

Just a reminder, its on in 15 minutes.

 

May rocket and lighter that was funny

 

Funniest bit for me was Hammond stationary in his Fiesta, maxing the revs while stopped by the Ruski fuzz.

 

Didnt review or say anything about the 3 cars.... this is the last episode i watch....

 

Not seen Episode 3 yet, but on the P1/4C, my 2c:

I'd be careful about the 4C. It looks gorgeous, and it does appeal. It is however painfully steep, and you could buy a decent Porsche for that cash. Also, according to top gear, it's a bit, erm, shite on british roads.

As for the P1 and the Porsche 918 Spider:
The P1 WILL be quicker, but the Porsche will be the better one to live with. My real question is how much more excitement the LaFerrari brings with it. The development drives I have seen make it seem hysterical in a typical eyes-rolling-Italian-hypercar way.

 

It annoyed me a little bit. Funny, yes, but annoying.

It's "uninhabitable" but there are people living in the exclusion zone. If I remember rightly, they're studying the effect of radiation on crops etc grown in irradiated soil.

They clearly went to the most radioactive places to get some kicks for the camera - Close to the reactor core, the fair ground (Which has, mostly, metal flooring) etcetera.

You can actually book tours that take you, from memory, 400 feet from the reactor building, through some of the apartment complexes, the school, the fairground.

In fact, I recall seeing a video where a guy brushed some dirt off the asphalt part of the fairground (Near the bumper cars) and his Geiger counter went nuts. Put it back on the soil, and it calmed down.

It's a pretty cool place (Despite the massive loss of life, and poisoning the atmosphere..), one group has noticed the resurgence of some wild horses that were struggling elsewhere. Kinda cool really.

They could probably have had a more Top Gear centric episode if they visited the vehicle graveyards from the cleanup efforts. Those are huge expanses of radioactive trucks, jeeps, helicopters etc.

 

I thought it was a faitly well balanced episode for once.
Also, why don't they have separate Power Lap boards for wet & dry?

 

I thought some of last nights ep was funny but mostly I found it boring.

The one part that I really liked was the Zenvo, I wish I had the money for one of those and it that it wouldn't set on fire.

 

yeah the tours operate from Kiev daily almost, you do have to rent a Geiger counter though
few of my friends have been and say its the best day out they have ever had, its so eerie and many landmarks are recognisable from games ( stalker / Cod4 )

the vehicle graveyard

the horses were re-introduced iirc to help keep the grass level down to prevent forest fires and the like
overall a fairly good episode to watch, not so good to find much out about the 3 cars though

 

I don't know why they were making such a big deal about getting 120bhp from the three cylinder fiesta, it's turbo charged, fuel injected with a very accurate engine management system, the Triumph street triple engined bike has 106bhp from a 675cc normally aspirated motor

 

9000+rpm isn't a luxury afforded to most road cars though. 120bhp isn't particularly impressive looking at raw power figures, but for a shopping trolley, that's pretty good.

 

This week's episode is the first time that I have found myself annoyed at the show.
Basically I know that burning a super car around a track is going to be a colossal "waste of fuel" but I'm OK with that. I just found the whole thing of here's some fuel, drive as stupidly and recklessly as you can, for fun, in a standard car that any average Joe can own was a bit, well, irresponsible. I can't really explain it any better than that, and I fully accept that it is an irrational argument, and most of it was just done to camera for the entertainment value.

Or maybe I'm just getting old.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

 

They were making a big deal because of the progress this category has made in recent years. When I was 18 a 1 litre engine got you 55bhp. You might've been able to squeeze another 7-10bhp with some minor tuning and it wouldn't even be worth the cost. A turbo conversion was nonsensical. For the kind of performance this Fiesta gives you would've had to go for a 1.6lt 16v Peugeot Rallye or Saxo VTS, and mileage was still crap compared to this Fiesta. Obviously performance wont be comparable to a sports motorcycle, but bikes sacrifice a lot of mileage for that kind of performance despite their lower weight and usually better aerodynamics.

Anyway, I really like the 4C from the previous episode. It reminds me of the first Exige that came out with the 1.8 Rover K series engine. Very overpriced though imo. I think they should've sold it for around the cost of a Lancer EVO or GT86.

 

Totally this. Combined with painful over-scripting to get an 'end result' just does not endear me to their stunts. And James Blunt can just go away.

If they'd spent more time in the sub bunker and going around Pripyat/Vehicle graveyard it would have been supremely worth watching.

Having said - the Fiesta does look like a nice car; nippy + efficient if I had to get a commute vehicle. 17 grand though.. hmm.

 

It's more about the celebrity, no? I don't think they'd hand over a supercar to an amateur and ask them to race it flat-out on a flooded track when they can get the same viewer response using a car that costs them peanuts. They probably leave the track flooded like that on purpose to make it funnier because I never saw the Stig doing a timed lap in a supercar like that, and I don't believe the celebrity lap-times for a second. "Who do you want to beat... them? Gratz!" I never heard them say "oops, sorry they beat you, bummer". Top Gear is more about the show and less about the cars. I don't trust their biased opinions or staged challenges, and their dialogue sounds annoying and pompous to me. But they feature some really nice things, like the trip to Chernobyl.

Top Gear isn't really the place to learn about cars. They could do some really interesting things if they wanted, like the time they built an electric car. They could've made it a project spanning several weeks where people could learn about the complexity of the conversion, the costs involved and details and caveats you should be aware of if you're considering such a project. Instead they made it a joke that was funny for about 0 seconds. It's not a car show. It's just a show with cars. It's just for seeing cool stuff, like the quadski last week. IIRC Clarkson said it does 100 on water and the quadski website says it does 45, which makes sense when you think about it.

 

Clarkson did say it does 40 on land & 45 on water.

 

Yep. I really think with proper funding, production/editing and some decent presenters, /DRIVE (or similar) could become the next TG. No one will fund YouTube channels like that, though.

Can't stand 5th gear for opposite reasons though; too consumer, far less entertaining. The one I watched recently was "how well can Tiff and Sabine do power slides." That determines the better car? It was practically a static shot of a single corner on a track in grey-country somewhere. Who gives a ****? I want to see real reactions to cool cars in nice places with good production values. Why can't people just be people?

 

Oh, thanks for the correction. I must have misheard

 

You misunderstood my original point, the star in a reasonably priced car, I'm fine with. No grumbles from me there, it is entertaining to see the reactions and stuff as they drive around.

The bit i had the real anger with was the thing on Sunday where they got 23L of fuel and told to burn it all before they get to chernobyl 100 miles away. Weaving around the road, being pulled by the police, driving with boot and doors open, under inflated tyres, accelerate then brake & repeat. It just seems wrong to me.
I can't really explain why it annoys me though, it is completely irrational.

 

Yep, back in 2004, a 1.6l engine would net you less power than there is in the Fiesta. It's a phenomenally good car for the money.