The most amusing bit of the whole thing was the Exec trying to say that it wasn't selected because of its numberplate. If any of those three had a hand in buying those cars, they will absolutely have gone for one that's "funny".
bit in one of the comments saying "Local councillor Juan Manuel Romano claimed the digits 269 on the number plate of the Ford Mustang Mustang Richard Hammond was driving were close to the 255 Britons killed during the 1982 war. He also said the numbers 646 on James May’s Lotus could be taken as a reference to the 649 Argentinian casualties" so you wonder if its made up or the both trying so hard to find smoke and were to blow it. I think its a bit much calling for him to be sacked that now he has nothing top do with ruining the show any more he is just a presenter
All this over a Porsche, a Mustang & a Lotus? From all the fuss, you'd think they'd taken a Leopard II, an Abrams, & a Challenger!
Given how touchy Argentina are atm [and TG's rep], they'd have thrown them out if they'd been in the minis from the Italian Job...
It all stinks of political motivation and searching for a reason to be mad. Honestly, Argentina feel like Tumblr SJW's over this, but that's probably one of their triggers. It's not like Top Gear has a track record of being 100% politically correct - Burqa's in Syria, anyone - So why let them in at all?
'Were going to invade the Malvinas Islands again and you can blame it on Top Gear! I don't think some people will be happy until they can blame a war on TG
So this number plate, H982 FKL, means what exactly. I assume FKL is meant to refer to Falklands and the 82 to 1982 the year we Brits kicked some butt. But what of H9 is there some significance in this bit?
I took it to be the 982 was reference to the year, FKL for Falklands and no relevance being given to the H. Happy to be corrected otherwise of course
I actually wonder why they went there in the first place. However it's not uncommon for 20 somethings in this country and every other country to go on a rampage for no good reason. Heck look at our football hooligans, what reason do they have other than enjoying violence?
Argentina cant afford to pay their bills, let alone launch an expensive invasion again. Mind you that may be the pretext, low government approval ratings - create a war. We've done it here for years so why not Argentina.
After the great depression in the 30s no one should have been able to afford going to War either, yet WW2 happened anyway. Regardless, the UK has no right to those dumb rocks at the other end of the world in the first place, its 2014, not 1420 and humanity should have evolved to the point where the age of territorial warfare and looting the world is over. "insert long rant about leading by example" None of which however justifies kicking up such a stink about a numberplate.
Wasn't that what kicked off the first one? Argentina going to war to deflect attention from the fact they were broke and the govt wasn't popular?
Thing is; we allowed the Falklands to vote for independence on March 2013, if they so chose it, (Which would probably have lead to invasion by Argentina on pretense of reclaiming what's theirs, but still; there was a vote) and it was a landslide victory to remaining part of the UK, as the quality of life and protection as a result is far better than going independant or joining Argentina. For once; I doubt that Clarkson actually intended this, even he, of all the dullards out there, wouldn't be stupid enough to poke the angry populace about that kind of an issue, Plus the plate has been on that car since 1991, which makes it even more unlikely that it was intentionally grabbed for the point of a cheap pun, more likely it was an unhappy coincidence, or the production assistant responsible for buying cars saw the plate and thought it'd make a good joke. I'm still not sure exactly how car purchasing goes on with the challenges, though, so I could be wrong about that.
The alleged War veterans "protesting" were in their 20's apparently. Clarkson came out on twitter yesterday saying it was a political setup by the Argentine authorities.
If it was the authorities or not is somewhat questionable, but it must have been orchestrated by someone cause there is no way a large number of people actually paid attention to a number plate on a specific old car.
I was 100% convinced that the number plate on the Porsche was a set up, but I've just put it into an insurance company website and the registration is legitimate: Still, they should have checked before they went in and going into Argentina was always going to be risky. What a load of thugs in Argentina... (don't get me started on their awful president)
