Jeremy Clarkson's Motorworld: the long lost UK special episode

[Ironlord]

I found a torrent of the UK episode of Motorworld a couple of days ago, on TPB. It had only one seed, despite being only a couple of months old. I thought I'd give it a go anyway... to find no seeds at all. Then, after a day or so, 2.0 MB spluttered slowly onto my hard disk.

Now, while browsing the FG forums to see if there's any links to the missing episode from years back (there aren't - I've absolutely scoured here, and 95's and Tweeke's FTPs)...

...it's working!

It's not the fastest torrent in the world, but I'm 112 MB into the 180 MB download and I'm now quite excited. It's in .mp4 format rather than .avi, but anyone with a decent media player should be able to handle it (VLC, for instance). It is (from the 11 seconds at the beginning that I can watch so far) what would appear to be a recent re-airing on Dave, so it's only 23 minutes, but the quality is higher than the old VHS rips of the rest of Motorworld that we're all familiar with.

Provided that one seed doesn't disappear in the next two hours (as that's the time I've calculated for the download to finish at the 10 kb/s I'm getting...!), I'll have it complete, and we'll all finally be able to see it. I will, of course, be putting it up on both 95's and Tweeke's FTPs for those of you who prefer that style of downloading, but for now, here's the TPB link...

http://thepiratebay.org/tor/4057022/...B_x264_AAC-HE]

I'll be seeding it for a while yet! No way I'm letting this one die.

EDIT: 36 kb/s! It might even be finished before Top Gear kicks off tonight...

EDIT AGAIN: IT IS DONE! Just as I'm watching the Supercars episode of Clarkson's Car Years and Jezza is waxing lyrical about the Ferrari F40. Superb timing. Now get downloading, yon heathens, and enjoy!

EDIT III: It works! No clicks or pops or anything wrong with the video. Plus point: it contains Richard Burns. Minus: it also contains Richard Littlejohn.

[Ironlord]

Gaaaaaaaaarrrrrrghz!

I've tried to upload it to 95's FTP but it timed out after 88 MB had uploaded and it won't let me fix the problem. As I have to disconnect from the FTP before transferring the queue (so that the server window reads "Not connected to any server") it must assume the connection is idle (when it isn't) and it kills the upload after however long it takes to upload 88 MB.

The torrent is still working, though.

[bartboy9891]

I thought I saw all the Motorworld episodes, but this one doesn't ring a bell. What are some of the things he does in the video?

[tyrell36]

Great find... cheers...

[Bartg.pl]

I'm uploading the .avi 23 mins version to rapidshare now, gonna post as soon as it ends. Not so lost apparently, downloaded some time ago from torrent along will all Clarkson classics ( motorworld, car years etc. ).

I thought I saw all the Motorworld episodes, but this one doesn't ring a bell. What are some of the things he does in the vide

Speaks with Jackie Stewart and Damon Hill about british racing engineering, drives Lancer Evo Rally car with Richard Burns.

[Bartg.pl]

http://rapidshare.de/files/39798578/..._-_UK.avi.html

[Ironlord]

Rapidshare link - marvellous. Now, can someone who has a working FTP client (that doesn't need the tweaks I have to use) get it onto 95's or Tweeke's FTP with all the other Motorworlds?

Originally Posted by Bartg.pl

Not so lost apparently, downloaded some time ago from torrent along will all Clarkson classics ( motorworld, car years etc. )

The burning question of the day is, are you the only one it's been "not so lost" for? I've been looking for this episode for months on end with no success until now - and many others have been in the same boat. There's been threads on here asking about it with seemingly no trace of its existence, despite numerous people asking. Faced with this wall of silence, I've scoured every torrent site I know of with such open-ended searches as "motorworld" (which turns up the occasional hit of one of the original 12 episodes, or, if I'm lucky, the two whole series, but not the UK special) and "clarkson" - where, of course, I have to wade through a sea of Kelly Clarkson drivel to have even the remotest chance of finding what I want, and usually all the Jezza files are all the series I already have. Only now has there been the breakthrough I've been looking for.

Seeing as you've clearly got this Clarkson megatorrent, what's the quality like of all the other series in it? The rest of Motorworld, for instance; recent PDTV rips off Dave, or the old BBC World transferred-from-VHS versions? All I've ever seen up to now is the BBC World rips, and they're the same files in whatever torrent from whatever site I've seen, and the same as what's stored on 95's and/or Tweeke's FTPs.

Ditto Car Years - I sourced these off eMule (waaaaaaay back in the day when we had to get up before we'd gone to bed and ate gravel for breakfast). What's now hosted by 95 and Tweeke are these exact same files - VHS rips, and the Supercars episode is the lowest quality for the largest filesize (about twice what the others are).

Anything else I should know about? Extreme Machines, for instance - a six-part series, with only the first four available on the two FTPs and on every torrent site I've looked on. What happened to the other two? Are they in there? Be sure to make them available if they are.

What I know I have, other than TG episodes, is:

- All JC's annual videos, 1995-2007 (but not counting the Motorsport Mayhem series)
- Motorworld: now all 13 episodes, 12 being VHS rips
- Car Years: all 6 episodes, VHS rips
- Speed: all 6 episodes, better quality than either of these two, TG 350 MB rip quality
- Inventions that changed the world: all 5 episodes, VHS rips with a worryingly small screen size
- Meet the neighbours: all 5 episodes, horrible Jabba rips
- Extreme Machines: episodes 1-4 only
- Victoria Cross
- Greatest Raid
- Brunel
- Who do you think you are?
- Room 101
- You don't want to do that!
- Never Mind the Buzzcocks (one episode)
- Have I Got News For You (various episodes)

On the face of it, all that's missing from my Clarkson collection are those last two episodes of Extreme Machines. Possibly these have gone the same way as the sixth episode of Petrolheads, and all but the first two episodes of series five of Brainiac.

[Ironlord]

Do tell me the torrent you're talking about isn't this one:

http://www.mininova.org/det/1027199

15.58 GB in a single RAR file? If Motorworld UK is in there (and there's no way I'm downloading that much to find out!), that'll be why I never found it.

Incidentally, I've also found a better torrent of Meet the Neighbours. At least I assume it's going to be better (330 MB .avi versus 100 MB .wmv with all that Star Wars spaff at the beginning). Sayonara, Jabba-san!

[Bartg.pl]

No thats not it, got all them from http://www.motorworld.net/tracker/index.php , where all Clarkson movies and tv show are/were.

[txswimboy]

Ironlord could you share the Meet the Neighbours torrent, I am sick of the aston martin hating slob as well.

[Ironlord]

Originally Posted by txswimboy

Ironlord could you share the Meet the Neighbours torrent, I am sick of the aston martin hating slob as well.

...and now that one of the files has downloaded and I can view it properly...

...it's the Jabba rips with the Star Wars stuff at the beginning amputated, and the "Another release from the o'Mighty Jabba" caption at the top crudely smeared out.

And all for three and a half times the file size.

Permission to say "oh, cock!" on the BBC?

[txswimboy]

Are we stuck stuck with that fat bastard, I wish They would reshow the series so we could have a better copy

Originally Posted by Ironlord

...and now that one of the files has downloaded and I can view it properly...

...it's the Jabba rips with the Star Wars stuff at the beginning amputated, and the "Another release from the o'Mighty Jabba" caption at the top crudely smeared out.

And all for three and a half times the file size.

Permission to say "oh, cock!" on the BBC?

[upyourego]

An e-mail to Dave will probably get it re-shown or if not on there I'm sure UKTV Documentary will give it an airing - they seem to show everything by Clarkson and May.

[Ironlord]

Three (I think?) of these rips were shown on UK Horizons - the logo's there in the corner. This does at least mean that UKTV has the series stashed away somewhere. I reckon it's perfect Dave material, even if there's nowhere near as much car-related jabberings (pun absolutely intended), it's Clarkson being Clarkson and that'll do nicely.

The only stumbling block I can see is how many times UKTV have the rights to show the series; the general rule I can see is, once they're gone, they're gone - in that the cable channel involved has to be badgered incessantly to renew the rights they have, and often don't bother. Such is the case with Challenge and Knightmare, for instance... rights to the all-time-classic series 3 ran out three years ago and they've never bothered to renew them.

But still, if you don't ask, you won't get - and I'd do it right now if I wasn't about to disappear for another two weeks round the continent.

[epp_b]

Wow, I didn't even know this existed until now! Thanks for the great find!

[LoudMusic]

I downloaded it (slowly ...) and am now seeding. Apparently I've got 300KB/s outbound these days, news to me, so get in there and download the bugger!

[AJ888]

A Dave rip is on Tweeke's FTP, and has been for some time (I uploaded it a few months ago after nabbing it from some torrent, might still be in the uploads folder).

A BBC2 (full length) version is sitting on a DVD here waiting for me to rip it if there's any interest.

EDIT: Yep check out "Upload\Upload\TG_AJ888\Jeremy Clarkson's Motorworld - UK.mp4" on Tweeke's FTP - that the same Dave version that's in the OP's torrent (and was uploaded to the FTP in May). As I say, if you're interested in the version with 5 extra minutes or so that was aired on BBC2 I can upload that as well.

[Ironlord]

Originally Posted by AJ888

A Dave rip is on Tweeke's FTP, and has been for some time (I uploaded it a few months ago after nabbing it from some torrent, might still be in the uploads folder).

I don't get it... I looked there, I looked on 95's FTP as well, in every folder I could think of that it might be in, and saw nothing... is my sight really failing badly in my old age?

Not that I can really complain given that my share ratio for that TPB torrent is 23.79, so there's been a marvellous amount of interest.

A BBC2 (full length) version is sitting on a DVD here waiting for me to rip it if there's any interest.

Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes with chips and gravy. I would have said this sooner, except that I was in Slovenia, Dacia Sandero-spotting.

In fact, if anyone's got any other original BBC versions of Motorworld episodes, as unlikely as that might be, now is very definitely the time to say so...

[AJ888]

Originally Posted by Ironlord

Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes with chips and gravy.

Alright then, it's now on Tweeke's FTP. If you're using Filezilla, once connected to the FTP where it says Remote site: type

/upload/upload/TG_AJ888/

that'll take you to the right folder - the full version says BBC2 in the filename. Enjoy!

[MadCat360]

Originally Posted by Ironlord

What I know I have, other than TG episodes, is:

- All JC's annual videos, 1995-2007 (but not counting the Motorsport Mayhem series)

Where could I get those? I have the latest 3 but I would dearly like to see the older ones.