[13x01] June 21st, 2009

[13x01] June 21st, 2009


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Excellent show to open up the new series... Great job Boys...

Love the race from the 1940's and Schumacher was a great sport bringing his FXX. Wow how quick was that..

Can't wait till next weekend to see whats up..
 
I throughly enjoyed the episode. It seems a hell of a lot work went into making it great. Just Phenomenal
 
P.S. Hammond should have watched Jay Leno's Garage, because, as far as I remember, Jay owns a another Vincent Black Shadow, and demonstrates rather nicely how to kick start that bike by positioning his whole body weight on the kick start. But still only just manages to start it... :p

I once had the opportunity to ride a Black Knight, which is a related model. It was also extremely hard to start, even when warm. I can't imagine the "fun" of starting it when cold.

Oi! In the intro of the race Richard says that "all heavy metal music traces its roots back to Led Zeppelin."

Hello! Jimi Hendrix?
Hello! Black Sabbath?
Hello! Deep Purple?

But of course, he had to go for the most overrated band of them all...Led Zeppelin.

Jimi: 1967
Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Led Zep: 1968

I you want to get technical, of the precursors of the bands mentioned above, pre-Led Zeppelin The Yardbirds formed about 6 years prior to the others' precursors, with Jimmy Page joining in in early '66.

But if you really want to nitpick, the true precursor to metal is Cream.

Ignoring Blue Cheer as well - though most people don't know that one, so that's excusable. What is inexcusable is ignoring Steppenwolf - which predates the Yardbirds and Zepplin's metal work. See the Wikipedia article.

And if you want to go back into antecedents, The Kinks in 1964 with "You Really Got Me", which predated Cream by two years.


The Lotus review was subpar. Since when does any 'supercar' go 0-60 in 5.1 seconds with a top speed of 162 or whatever with a toyota camry engine?

Um, since the Acura NSX, with a Honda Accord engine?

I look upon the Evora as the second coming of the original NSX - a supercar with a reliable drivetrain that won't beat the crap out of you in daily use that you really could drive every day.

Yes, it handles great and apparently drives well on grass, but this review seemed to suffer from a bit of British bias.

They're British. What do you expect, a Canadian bias? :p

Three-way race was beautifully filmed, too bad that it was really just a two-way race. Also a little disappointed Jeremy tried to feign relief at not having to ride the motorcycle when clearly Hammond was going to be riding it all along - why else would he have his leathers with him in his car?

All three could have been asked to show up with riding gear. Or if Jeremy really didn't want to do it, he would have swapped with the other two (who are avid riders.)


Okay, on to my own unrelated commentary.

First, the nitpicks:

1. Sorry, Richard - but the Black Shadow isn't where all superbikes come from. The 1969 Honda CB750-4 is. The Black Shadow is like the Cadillac Phaeton or the Deusenberg SJ - interesting and significant, plus a great and deserved reputation but nothing really traces back to it. The Black Shadow was a touring motorcycle with a lot of power and excellent brakes, but not great handling. And a gigantic price tag. If anything traces back to the Black Shadow, it would be the power cruisers. Not the sportbikes or superbikes.
2. And guess what - the CB750 was faster than the Black Shadow - in 1969, not 1973. Sure, the speedometer only went to 120 - but the bike would go well over that; many were clocked at 125+. The Black Shadow was notably fast for the day, but it wasn't really a huge and gigantic leap over the competition as other bikes were in the same general league. The CB750, as one writer has put it:

Hemmings Motor News said:
It's easy to overlook just how revolutionary this motorcycle was when it was introduced. Easy because nearly everything this motorcycle came equipped with is now run-of-the-mill on even the most mundane, pedestrian learner models parked at the local training lot.

But in October of 1968, the Honda CB 750 K 0 tripped the RESET button on the entire motorcycle industry. Brands that were once hailed as the state-of-the-art became also-rans, and Honda, the manufacturer of dinky little 50cc mopeds and a few nifty race bikes became an international powerhouse of design and engineering, and not just in the field of two-wheelers. See that Accord parked in your driveway? You can scribe a line from its engineering and performance features directly to this motorcycle.

The CB750 was a huge leap forward, totally unprecedented in history. How big a leap?

This big:

cr7503.jpg

That's the start of the 1970 Daytona 200. That's the Honda 750 (which won, in the end - by a whopping 10 seconds) out in front and everyone else wayyyy back.

3. James is absolutely correct about the XK-series engine remaining in production until the mid-80s. However, he forgot about the DS420 limo by Daimler (a division of Jaguar), which only ever used the 4.2L XK6 engine and remained in production until 1992 - which is a little bit longer...

4. Most production XK120s wouldn't actually go 120, let alone 126, because the cars that set the record were aluminum bodied and made by hand (since Jaguar didn't know if they would catch on) and later ones were made out of steel.

Okay, enough of that. The rest of my thoughts on the episode:

Loved the race. Brits - How the HELL did you let the last of those A1s go to scrap without saving one??? I've sympathy for Richard - the Vincent's ergos are not for most people, and riding in the rain is no fun. And the XK... well, it's said that God drives Jaguars for a reason. :D Seeing Jeremy covered in coal was hilarious. And the train was awesome. The best cinematography and camera work in a race to date - perfect framing, etc., etc. The work with the train shots from the helicopter were astounding, especially the perfectly stable pullback from Jeremy's face in the cab to the wide angle of the countryside - while the train is moving!

News and Schumaker - total loss. FXX sounds great, though.

Evora: Behold the second coming of the NSX. May it do better this time. Excellent cinematography and camera work on this review. I especially liked the rising boom shot going over the tires. More like this, please!

("Jaguar - kicking YOUR ass for 60 years running.")

Jaguar note: James seems to get the classic point of Jaguar - speed, handling, comfort and stunning styling at a great value. (Current and prior management seem to have completely lost sight of this; there is still room for this package in the current market - see what Hyundai is doing with the Genesis and what Lexus and Infiniti did in the 80s and 90s).

Overall, a solid high 9 - the race (and the Jaguar) made up for the rest of the episode; actually more than made up for the faux Stig reveal (Schumaker's breath does not smell of magnesium, from all reports) and limp news.
 
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9.5 for me, The race was epic, Glad the car won(XK120's are my all time favorite) loved the Vincent, The Camera work was awesome, especially the passing shots of the train near the coast. The Evora review was uninteresting, the FXX (yawn!) would definitely be the fastest on the track(Its a track car for Pete's sake, what is it doing on the board). The Shumi Interview and the final lap was absolutely hilarious.


-Some say he has a helmet that looks like Schumacher's face, Others say he drives a Fiat Chroma.....All we know is He is not The Stig!
 
Overall a good episode. I really liked that Evora (beautiful car) and the race was also stunning. The news was not good to say the least. Not much news there. I think I would have liked the episode more if I didn't read the preview beforehand. Not going to do that in the future.

Can't wait for the ZR1 and Ken Block's STi!!
 
Spectre,
Jeremy couldn't kick start that Vespa in Vietnam (which I don't believe was a gag because when they met at the tank at the very, very start Richard says "go get his bike going" or some such as they leave long before the Australian girl bit, which was clearly exagerated). Despite his extra, um gravitational advantage, I doubt he's physically capable of riding that bike.
 
So the FXX(not street legal and on race tires) goes on the board but something like the Caparo T1 doesn't? And, let's not forget, that the Caparo was faster, if only by .1 seconds.

I'll be happy to see the ZR1 vette somewhere near or maybe ahead of the Enzo/Veyron. Let's hope it does get a shot at the track and it's not raining. That and the SV LP640 lambo were the two things that caught my eye in the montage.
 
10/10, because I saw a ZR1.



The rest of the episode wasn't half bad either. :p
 
10/10, because I saw a ZR1.



The rest of the episode wasn't half bad either. :p

Watching it again, it's the ZR1 vs the V10 R8. I'm sure they're already coming up with a good explanation for why the audi, while slower and more expensive, is so much more refined.
 
Spectre,
Jeremy couldn't kick start that Vespa in Vietnam (which I don't believe was a gag because when they met at the tank at the very, very start Richard says "go get his bike going" or some such as they leave long before the Australian girl bit, which was clearly exagerated). Despite his extra, um gravitational advantage, I doubt he's physically capable of riding that bike.

As do I. Vincents are physical bikes to ride (and eye opening for the modern rider unused to it.) However - he still could have been asked to ride the bike, and casually swapped out with James or Richard. Richard clearly wanted it, too.

Or, as is getting to be usual with Top Gear, it could have been scripted and staged to that point.
 
Schumacher is not the Stig.

1.) Top Gear wouldn't really give up that easily.
2.) Stickers on helmet gone.
3.) Credits list BOTH Stig and Schumy.

4.) Stig decked out in overly labled race suite, gloves and shoes.
5.) Much, much shorter than normal Stig
6.) Way to over the top with the build up and presentation.
 
Watching it again, it's the ZR1 vs the V10 R8. I'm sure they're already coming up with a good explanation for why the audi, while slower and more expensive, is so much more refined.

No doubt, but the R8 is much more refined. The basic truth in life is that you get what you pay for. But I'd still take the big Vette over the Audighini. :cool:
 
What a great episode! Top Gear simply rocks! I really don't know how I survived the last months without Top Gear every Sunday ;) And what a great trick to answer all these "Who is the Stig?" rumors by putting Schumacher out there - hilarious! Can't wait for next Sunday... 10/10...
btw: anyone else noticed that Hamster's hairstyle looks more and more like James? ;)
 
Can I take away 2 stars? I have to bring it down to 8. The news part was a total fail of epic proportions, I shall always look back to 21/6/2009 and remember it as the first time I've utterly hated a TG news segment. I've watched it again and it is almost as if it was put together at last second with dried out paper glue. Evora review was good, but not great, why didn't JC explain why Evora is preferred to Cayman/Boxster?
 
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I gave this show a 9, but a really low 9.

The race- this was a 10. The filming was the best I've seen them do. Having Jezza in the train shoveling coal and getting the soot all over him put it over the top for me.

The news- normally, the news is one of my favorite parts of the show. For this episode, it was complete rubbish. I know they packed a lot of stuff into the show, but why couldn't they just skip it like they've done in the past for really packed shows. If I could score this less than an 1, I would.

The Lotus- I would've liked to see a bit more of it, but otherwise a solid review. But not showing the lap hurts it. Score: 6

The FXX- Will probably be off the board next week, but I loved watching that thing on the track. A 10 for that.

The Stig- To be fair, excitement got the better of me and I saw the spoilers saying Schumi would be on the show as The Stig. I applaud Schumacher for playing along with the joke. Obviously, it was a publicity stunt for something he endorses (which I was hoping wouldn't be the case after S12). While I wish the questions Jezza asked were better, still a good interview. I'll say it's an 8.5 when adding the fake lap in the Liana.

Other notes- There did seem to be a different feel about the hosts than normal. I can't quite put my finger on what it was, but there was something odd there. I can't say that it took away from the show, but it didn't help it either.

And to Jeremy: about that shirt your wore. You know, the orange one? KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!
 
No doubt, but the R8 is much more refined. The basic truth in life is that you get what you pay for. But I'd still take the big Vette over the Audighini. :cool:

I don't mind that argument at all, road cars aren't only about absolute speed on a track. But, I do have a problem with cars posing as some pure driver's wet dream(and have the price tag to go along with it) but in reality have less of an ooomph than a well equipped family salloon. You can't really claim to be a supercar AND be run down by a family of 4 in an AMG on a straight road.
 
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