Rant Jeremy Clarkson

It was one of the things he started early on in the show resurection when he said something like "It has thoooouuusands of Torques, whatever those are"

It is part and parcel of the show, if you want to know the technical crap about a car go read a book on it or worse yet watch Fifth Gear. If you want to see what a really big car looks like going sideways then watch Top Gear.

 

Eughhhhhh........Fifth Gear

 

think clarkson had to much cheesecake here...

 

Also when they refer to Torques they are always talking about ft lb, not Nm.

 

The whole joke is that Clarkson pretty much knows nothing about how cars work and has no real desire to learn either - it doesn't interest him.

 

I rant about your rant! haha!

He knows what torque is but why explain it, either people get interested and find out, or just dont care.

Anyway the torque made at the flywheel dosen't really matter, its how the power is transfered via the gearbox, meaning 1000 lbs-ft can either make something go really really fast, with a high gear ratio or in fact pull something really really heavy or accelerate like a scolded cat, with a low gear ratio.

 

That's nothing compared to when people talk about calories.... when they really mean kCal! You're off by a factor of 1000 FFS!

 

I don't like it when clarkson's bias gets in the way, and he either praises or dumps on a car when it's not deserved.

I'd like to race & beat him, but i know that even if i win, he'd have a completely bs story that the crowd would love

I also don't like it when the stig is testing a car, and on his best lap, he's going sideways That's not fair on the car being tested, he should go round again & get it right, so the car gets it's deserved ranking

Cool show tho, minor gripes for probably the best thing currently on aussie tv.

 

But the whole point is that you take a car basically as-is after a couple of laps in the hands of a decent racing driver and rank them. Not take a car and practice until you know its every foible. If it's a totally wild and untameable beast, it'll reflect on its lap time.

 

The only thing I really, truely hate, about Clarkson is his goddamn fighter jet.

I want one, and a garden big enough to have one put in!

 

Nope.

The stig can control any car out there, but some cars, which aren't the most powerfull things he has driven, he lost traction on a corner or two. He should be given more time, to do another lap or two or whatever until he gets it right.

That's actually one of the unfair things about it. A little bit of human error/fun, and it makes a car seem untameable, but then there are some cars with crazy power to weight ratios, which are the hardest to control, but an awesome lap was recorded making a hard job look simple.

 

It’s a sodding entertainment show. Lighten up.

 

But if a man with such brilliant car control loses grip in a few corners that's down to how difficult they are to control, and hence, they deserve a worse lap-time. Either way it's just a bit of fun, and I don't think the Stig trying to lap a car to its most perfect ability would be more beneficial anyway.

Even if you take the view that these lap-times are an absolute reference for how fast they are to you and me, we'd no doubt have problems controlling some of these cars.

 

Clarkson makes his lack of technical knowledge very obvious. I think he knows more than he lets on, but he also talks about superchargers whacking fuel into the cylinders and things like that. It conveys the effect rather than the actual method, and for an entertainment show which happens to be about cars, that's enough. The same thing goes for torque - it's pretty much assumed that he's talking about ft-lb, but torque is a complicated concept and there's no place for those on Top Gear. Listen to him talking about the engineering of the chassis on the first Koenigsegg test - he's going into engineering detail, and with a subject like that, even Jeremy Clarkson becomes boring.

Besides, 'horsepower' and 'torques' are simple and easy to say. 'Foot-pounds of torque' is a long and drawn-out statement, and the time would be much better spent with more powersliding.

 

I think part of the fun of Top Gear is its accessibility to all audiences. I find myself discussing the most recent episodes with girls more often then lads. If Top Gear was to be some sort of anorak fest, I'm sure much fewer people would watch it. My favourite Top Gear episodes are the ones in which Clarkson gets an unbelievably cool car and reviews it well... and more often than not, he manages to convey this using very little jargon at all. For a motoring journalist, that is brilliant, and I respect Clarkson's ability as a presenter.

 

nuff said!

 

That's the thing, there have been cars that are extremely hard to control when trying to get the power down, but the Stig handled them professionally, and then there are a couple of not so powerfull & great handling cars, that the stig went a little sideways on a corner or two on his best lap

Chances are he was doing it on purpose, just having some fun, and maybe the actual best time they recorded was actually a text book perfect lap, i dunno. I spose if we really are gonna rank the cars fairly, we'd have to record best lap times on a couple of different circuits & even a drag strip, to work out which cars have the best take off, top end, tight circuit manouverability & high speed cornering. That would be alot of boring testing tho... best to just leave the show as it is
But hey, don't blame me, i didn't start the rant!

 

Or Badgers racing Tigers.