[12x01] September 3rd, 2007

This is a great start for the series!
I am absolutely in love with the Maserati. Tiff's review was better than Clarkson's and the footage of the factory was really interesting. I get the impression they tried to show how it is to have one, instead of showing what every other test did and focus on the performance.
Oh, and I laughed so much at the moose test for the double decker Smart... :lol:
 
To me that was a fantastic episode :D

Nice to see no more stupid stunts outside the cafe, keeping the celebrity segments to cars (as much as I love bikes). My only complaints would be the camera work inside the cafe (at least they are trying something new) and the double story Smart. It's a good idea to have a fun segment but please leave the "cocking about" to Top Gear as that's all that show is about.

This episode was a perfect example of exactly what a 5th Gear episode should be; no fannying about - straight into reviews without much filler.

The Veyron segment was worth the download alone. Great tour of the factory & we get to see Tiff acting like a 5 year old giving the car some stick on the road & the track. For those who complain about Tiff not providing more action on the track, you obviously missed Tiff saying Bugatti are watching his every move, hence he couldn't get the car too sideways.

Shoot-out was great, the Maserati test was very good, as was Jonny and the I.

Hope the quality of this episode is a sign of things to come.
 
Best episode I can recall seeing - I slightly prefer last years R8 review over the Veyron but thats a personal thing, show was well rounded and even some of the music (MUSE for one) was good. Yea keep it up.
 
What a great epsiode! (Except for Vicki squeeling, ugh)

Johnny's review was good fun, if a little off the track with the whole double decker Smart thing.

Vicki reviewed some sexy cars, unfortunately, she spoke.

Tom reviewed and even sexier car, wow, I want the Maser GT... That is teh sex car.

Jason's celebrity segment was bearable, looks like that bloke ended up doing OK in the racer.

Tiff's review of the Veyron. WOW!!!!! That car is phenomenal. His review was so much better than the crap that Clarkson came up with in that race... Tiff actually conveyed the sort of speed he was doing and clearly, he was going balls out! His power sliding was great, I wonder what the Bugatti people were thinking.

Tiff = GOD.
 
mooble117 said:
But what i found most interesting. What was that mystery Bugatti which they couldn't show?
Click to expand...

That'll be the convertable bugatti. They have announced it, but have done quite well keeping it under wraps so far.

I can see what people mean about the estate "test". If you are going to do something do it properly, otherwise it is just going to fill time. Neither Ford nor Mercedes would say that the Mondeo estate is a rival for the E-class estate, they are just in different classes of car. At least if they had a C-class or 3-series estate it would have been relevant.

Although that is the only part of the show that wasn't so good, and I have no problem with then focussing on load space and value. A lot of people choose an estate on exactly those things.

Incidentally I don't think I'll be holding my breath for a Veyron TG track test. As supercars.net showed a while ago:
http://www.supercars.net/nurburgring.html

The veyron is no quicker round the nurburgring than an LP640 or SLR, and is slower than a Koenigsegg CCR and Zonda F. And that's on a track that rewards big power, not the tight track TG use.
 
mooble117 said:
I quite liked this episode. That Grand Tourismo is just stunning, right up there with Alfa 8C.
Click to expand...
Actually, and don't hate me for this, if all i saw was that Maserati film i would think the GT was just kind of "good looks but boring". Once he started talking about how it had four seats and a slightly clever automatic transmission and iPod-like trickery i was like... "Yeah, upmarket Nissans have all of that and bullet-proof electrics."

That's not a good way to describe a car that costs three times as much as upmarket Nissans.

Sure, it's unbelievably pretty... but don't start raving about how it's sort of like a car. Yes, it's like a car. That's why i'm buying one. Why am i spending this kind of money on a car? This is something Top Gear gets down perfectly (sometimes too perfectly, to be honest) but Fifth Gear was never particularly good at.

But what i found most interesting. What was that mystery Bugatti which they couldn't show?
Click to expand...
It might be one of the Veyron variants they're rumored to be working on. Although they could have probably shown that as it would have, well, looked kind of like a Veyron. Which implies it's a post-Veyron car... which sounds super-delicious. (Edit: Convertible Veyron is probably the right answer. That definitely wouldn't have looked kind of like a Veyron.)

Also, wow, check out that factory.

Me? I thought the... whatever his name is, the spikey hair kid with the Mitsubishi and the double-decker Smart... I thought he and Tiff did a good job. The racing bit was irrelevant, just more celebrity randomness without any real context. (Looking back at this in ten years time we'll still be able to appreciate the Mitsubishi review and the Veyron... but we'll go "who is that and why do I care?" to the race.)

The cafe scenes were better than last season (ie, fewer completely awkward and scripted "ha ha ha" moments) but still kind of blah. Nowhere even NEAR the Top Gear studio segments, and you add on the ridiculousness of shooting a car show in a cafe. Why is my car show being hosted from a cafe? The S5 vs. 335i was kind of silly. (I know people are going to be buying those cars much more than, say, more interesting cars... but are those people really going to care for that test? About the most useful thing that we got out of it was that the S5's front end is a bit vague and the 335i's front end is not. Brilliant.)

The Veyron review was, of course, the reason i watched that episode. I was afraid Tiff would find some way to make the Veyron boring (after doing that to an Enzo and F1 being driven back-to-back i wouldn't have been surprised) but instead he managed to transmit the car's goodness pretty well. Some of the inside-the-car shots when he was kicking it on the public roads really showed the mechanical monstrosity of the thing, and the engine's completely unique sound was actually filmed properly. The only flaw in the review was that it was probably too short (there should have been another two to three minutes after the end of it in my opinion). Maybe that was Bugatti meddling, though. Like how they won't let Top Gear on a track with one.

The double-decker Smart was brilliant. Classic Top Gear prankery--in fact, maybe even better than your average Top Gear stunt--but just in Fifth Gear instead. That metrosexual reviewer guy, whatever his name is, is actually really quite good. Even if the prank did sort of overshadow the car he was actually testing.

Let's see... was there anything else? Probably nothing worth remembering...
 
Great ep! Though the Veyron didn't look all that fast through the corners.. And I guess that the times it has been doing on different tracks proves that there are faster ways of going fast on a track.. I still want one if i was given one.. 8)

I skipped the celeb stuff and the talking..
 
Very cool episode!
Funny how they peeked to that "secret" (I think it was that Pegasus(?) edition) car in the Bugatti factory. :lol:
 
800.000 viewers? that bad!
 
Good episode.

Certainly waaay better than the abysmal low from two seasons ago.

Found it funny how Tom bashes the old Maserati GT then they give one away.

Next week looks good too.
 
I wish that cameraman would pan more to the right in the factory at the start, I REALLY WISHED.
This would come right along in line with this report : http://www.motorauthority.com/news/industry/bugatti-may-be-planning-second-model-after-all/


And the Veyron part is good, quite, but my idea of a track is not one big piece of tarmac with markings on it, and VW people keeping watch. I wonder what those people would think when the Veyron stepped out...

Imagine of the guys... "Hey, is the ESP on the 'ron that bad ? Or is that brit too good, over-riding the control ? Damn."

The rest was pretty good, liked the GranTurismo part, but the S5 bit was a bit disappointing. Audi is still forever crippled by the BMW it seems, all around the web.
And coming from a country where we actually can get the Mitsubishi i here, its spot on for the points of the car. Jonny is good. Not much interest on the race though. Looking forward to R8 vs 911 (supposing is Carrera S) on the track.
 
That was an exceptional episode! I give it 5-stars :thumbsup:

Vicki looked like she was having so much fun in that Bimmer - oh how I envy her :mrgreen:

I loved the sound of the Maserati and the styling :love: Lucky Tom!!

Ok so the cafe camera shot is just plain weird, but who cares - at least theres less cafe scenes.


I think its inappropriate to compared Top Gear and Fifth Gear since they are both heading in such opposite directions. Nevertheless, I will state that I prefer this episode of Fifth Gear than pretty much anything in the last series of Top Gear.

Anyways - Fifth Gear is back! YEY! I really hope they get the viewers they lost though...
 
Even though I'm not a big fan of the Bugatti, that review with all the surroundings of the factory and Tiff driving was just brilliant. He described it being there just like I would feel when I vwould visit a factory like that...like a child in a toy shop....really great, you could almost feel his excitement.

Don't know what you all see in the Maserati though, to me it looks totally overstyled and the taillights scream Ford Mondeo. I liked the boomerag lights of the 3200 GT much much MUCH better. Still don't understand why they ever changed them. I remeber when I first saw them....
I'd prefer an V8 Vantage over the Maserati Gran Tourismo anytime.
 
It seems Bugatti people choose the track for test and limited what tiff can do while driving.
In a frame we could see bugatti people watching the track test closely.
There was a van a car and about 6-7 people on alert, if anything goes wrong they would probably prevent filming and take away the car quickly.

Last year top gear drove it in between countries, after that they drove up to top speed and at last a small track challenge. I am sure in 1-2 series of time we can see stig driving this car. Will it beat koeanisihushussluhusgiz ?
 
First time poster, long, long time reader :)

First off, I want to say that that Bugatti segment, sans the track bit, was, for me, a pretty thrilling 10 minutes of TV I've seen this year. How Tiff conveyed the feelings of being in the Bugatti shop, driving the car on public roads and the sounds of the car. Gave me goosebumps.

Was the whining noise from the engine, from the gearbox, or both? Since the Veyron uses a manual gearbox with an automated clutch (please correct me if I'm wrong?), the gears, I think, are straight cut gears; when they spin, they create a whining noise. The sounds of the car trumped over May's and Jezza's reviews of the car on Top Gear - it was a sound that I'll forever remember....

The rest of the show was good - Tom's and Jonny's segments were excellent, as usual, didn't really like Vicki's segment, perhaps b/c it was too short, but the cars were very cool; makes me want an S5 even more :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top