[14x03] November 29th, 2009

[14x03] November 29th, 2009


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That lap is a automatic 10/10.

Jezza and Andy, if you're reading this (probably not) i would just like to communicate you you've peaked, the airship film was good, the news were great, the Lancia bit was excellent (thanks for bringing that Thema 8.32 to my life, I'll be sure to add it in my ?cars you must on or your life will be pointless?list) The faux-Stratos review was the crowning Jewel of the most enjoyable episode i have ever seen of TG.
 
I didn't like the caravan bit very much and I'm disappointed the Lamborghini was given so little airtime, I would have loved to see it do a lap. But the rest of the show was good, 8/10 for me.
And I must admit, I actually screamed a bit when Stig spun that car after the second to last corner, I really wasn't expecting that to happen:blush:
 
9/10, and if they made Stig have a go in Balboni :)shifty:) it'd be a solid 10. Awesome episode, I really enjoyed it. Also, the Stratos lap was just epic.
 
Oh good, TG is back on form. After last week, I was a little worried.

This episode had scripting that worked. Like I said, when they set out to do something completely ridiculous at which no one would succeed (like making an airship from a caravan) it's absolute gold. Loved every moment of it, and it was a clever way to review the Lambo in an episode that was already very heavy on the petrolhead side of things.

And I don't think the Marinas/pianos joke will ever get old. Not to me, at least.

Chris Evans was a good SIARPC. Not being British I don't really know him, but he's genuinely enthusiastic about his cars and his lap time was nail-bitingly fun to watch. The crazy ones are always the best.

And a show where Stig spins a car not once but twice on a lap? That was beautiful. Possibly my favorite Stig lap, just because it was so manic.

Only took away some points because there was nothing side-splittingly funny or breathtakingly epic about this one. However, if every ep was like this, they'd have a really solid series.
 
10/10 Much better than the first two episodes, perhaps now the series starts for real? ;)
 
Out of all the episodes so far in the season, this one has to be the best one that held my attention span. The flying caravan was actually funny. I was just surprised no lap time was done on the Lambo. I got my fill of Lancia history :)

Let's hope this is enough momentum for the rest of the season..
 
Thoroughly thoroughly good episode.

The caravanoblimp segment was a surprise... one minute you're thinking it is a Skoda review, the next it is a Lamborghini review with added crazy blimp visuals. I reckon the boys might be onto something... combine big ticket cocking about with a actual car review. The footage over the airport was pretty hairy too (even though it had to be scripted... heaven forbid if they'd drifted over a functioning airport without clearance). Colossal Aviation Bollocking indeed! Loved it when James said "$*%#! I'm mean, 'Cock'"!

News was funny, as usual. Great to see the big JC again. But...

If I do have one criticism of the news lately it is that they're picking up on just one bit of (usually very UK-centric) news - ie. the M1 - and talk and make jokes/threats to make carve square heads about it for the whole duration. There has been some major news lately (ie. Koeningsegg walking away from the purchase of Saab from GM) in the global car industry, but very very little of it has been mentioned on Top Gear.

Then again, James accused Jeremy of having a big gay dog that his cat would kick its head in - priceless!

The Lancia stuff was great, even if saying Lancia's the greatest automotive company is a bit of a stretch (personally I'd say Mercedes, but anyway...). Lovely old Italian cars, beautifully shot. The Stratos and Delta Integrale are incredible pieces of engineering. Maybe VW should buy Lancia and combine that kind of design and flair with some responsible German engineering to hold it in place?

Chris Evans - what a nutter! Always good to have a true car nut as a SIARPC - makes it so much more bearable ;-) Radio broadcasting must be a well paid gig in the UK to be able to afford to drop ?12M (or was it $?) on a car. Entertaining lap to watch too.

Lancia kit car - admittedly a bit meh until Stig took it out for a lap! Makes you think learning how to do fast J-turns is an important skill if you're gonna drive a short wheel base, powerful RWD car in the wet! Clearly the car is a bit of a dog and needs some serious suspension work, but it was great to watch a real driver attempt to tame a raw car. Noice!
 
What??? No lap in the RWD Lambo??? They must be joking! I know it was raining, but they could've filmed the lap on another day. I really want to find out how much faster/slower is than the Supperleggera.
 
"Or now." :lmao::lmao::lmao: Epic epic episode. Nothing more to say.
 
Now, I don't usually comment on TG episodes these days, having long since given up on the "WORST EPISODE EVER!" versus "THIS IS BRILLIANT I'LL GIVE IT A 10!" hyperbole that has pervaded every single one of these threads for the last five series, but there's a good reason this episode meant rather a lot to me.

First of all, the random bit. I'm 90% sure the Morris Marina was the same one that had already had a piano dropped on it in Duel, which was filmed earlier in the year... anyone see that?

Now, the real substance: I write in high praise of TG's decision to run a lengthy piece on Lancias past and... past. They've been mentioned before, in passing, and there was an old episode where Jezza and Hamster decided we really don't want the Thesis in this country because it's eye-gougingly ugly, it being the culmination of the designers going down the wrongest of wrong paths for the last decade - the rot really started with the bug-eyed Lybra, which was launched several years after Lancia had pulled out of the UK. But, it's always a good idea to remind us of a time when Lancia's designers didn't know the meaning of ugly (we'll forget the hideous Trevi for now), and when they were still here.

You see, Italian cars run in my family. My dad had a Fiat 128 and a 131. My mum had... two Unos and a Tipo. Even my brother had an Uno as well. But my uncle's the biggest Italian car nut of the lot. In the 1970s, he had a Lancia Beta. In the early 1980s, an Alfa Romeo Giulietta. And, more recently, his third Lancia - a Thema. But it was the second one he had, about eleven years ago now, that was the most interesting, and there it was, right at the end of the TG segment, in all its glory - the Delta Integrale. European Car Of The Year 1980 the standard Delta may have been, but when I was 16 and reading Max Power I lusted after the Integrale in a way that other teenage boys lustred after... girls. One day, slightly later on, I was told my uncle had gone to Switzerland to buy a 1993 Integrale and my jaw hit the floor. Still, I couldn't quite believe it really happened until he turned up at my house in it...

integ1.jpg


integ2.jpg


...and that's me, aged 19, when I had a lot less hair everywhere, posing in it. Of course, I couldn't actually drive it... the insurance man wouldn't let me. But I had my fun some other way...

y10_3.jpg


...because I had a Lancia of my own! OK, I admit a 1.0-litre Y10 FIRE LX isn't exactly Integrale territory, and the kind of car bores that we don't talk about on this board will point out it was sold in its homeland as an Autobianchi, but compared to the weedy base model Vauxhall Nova I'd had before, it went... relatively... like a rocket. The Nova had a 1.0-litre engine as well, but in a much heavier body, and it wasn't injected. Unfortunately, the Y10 met a sticky end as its brakes failed rather alarmingly one day on a trip to Colchester, and although it only hit a kerb, it was still doing about 40 mph and the impact bent the chassis and it was written off. So, what could I possibly replace it with...

y10gt1.jpg


Another Lancia Y10, and this time it was the GTie! Admittedly, this was only a 1.3-litre, but it would do well over 100 (I know, even though I'm not supposed to admit it) and I always wondered what would happen if it had had, say, a 1.9-litre engine the way a Peugeot 205 GTI did. Or maybe they should have continued the old Y10 turbo and given if four wheel drive and then it'd have been a "Y10 Integrale".

I challenge Jezza to say I'm not a proper petrolhead because I haven't had an Alfa Romeo. He can ramble on about "soul", "passion" and all those other buzzwords he usually hands around whenever he's within a mile radius of an Alfa (except the Arna, obviously), but if what he's really saying is that chronic unreliability doesn't matter to a petrolhead because it's worth owning an Italian car despite that, and it's worth putting up with all those days of pain for the time you get to open the taps down a B-road and listen to the engine sing... then I've done that, in my two Lancias, or Autobianchis, or whatever you call them, and even the 1.0-litre FIRE engine makes a great noise on the B184 from Great Dunmow to Thaxted when you're 18 - as I was when I bought the red one - and insurance premiums are sky-high. And at the time I could have had another Nova or a Fiesta or a Polo or something unreliable and French (I certainly wasn't going to have a Metro...), but when the Lancia jumped out at me from the pages of Auto Trader I knew it would be mine. And then the gearbox failed and still I dropped a replacement into it. And then there was that terminal brake problem. But it was great while it lasted, as was the white GTie, and so I know all too well the pain and pleasure of Italian cars.

And then, when the GTie also passed on in April 2001, the time came for less painful motoring and I switched to Panzer Division Volkswagen when I was given a deal on an F-reg MkII Golf, and on and on it went, eins, zwei, eins, zwei, eins, zwei, never giving me problems - other than the time I had a window smashed and tried to fix it myself ("that's not gone well", for reasons I won't go into), and if I hadn't sold it after three years to a man I knew wanted a quick runaround while his C-reg Golf was off the road, it'd probably still be doing the rounds today. And there's quite a few things I liked about that Golf. But it did signal the end of the road for me with Italian cars, because I aged and became sensible. In some ways, at least.

Now I'm 30 I may have a sudden mid-life crisis and decide I need a P-reg Alfa GTV that was once owned by James May. Unfortunately, I'll have to move house if I want to do that, as my driveway will only handle one car. Two if both were hateful G-Wizzes, but I'll never have one of those for as long as I have a pulse.
 
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I think the entire episode can be summed up in 1 line

"I'm going to change gear now. It will involve man touching"

:lmao: :lol: :roflmao:

11/10.
 
This belonged to a mate of mine.....

For Sale thread from Scoobynet said:
It is with great regret that I've decided to sell my 16v integrale HF turbo. Its main purpose is for the track, but its mot'd and taxed & 100% road legal

I've recently won a contract which will mean the car will be sat in the garage, unused for pretty much the rest of the year, so I've decided to sell it to someone who can love & appreciate it as I do.

Current spec includes:

Bodywork
1991 Martini Works paintwork as per the Kankkunen-Pironen car which won the RAC rally that year, its all paint apart from the sponsor logos
Evo rear spoiler with high lift brackets.
Sparco mudflaps

Engine/fuel/drivetrain
Engine was stripped and rebuilt 7000 miles ago by the previous owner. New shells were fitted along with Spresso group N head gasket and Group A head bolts. Run with Selenia Racing 10w60 since the rebuild. Oil change last week with silkolene Pro R race.
Evo Engineering chip.
K&N cone filter
Magnecore HT leads
50 litre ATL racing fuel cell plus swirl pot and Facet pump conversion (firewall housing constructed around it for MOT).
Supersprint twin exit rear silencer
OMP centre exhaust section (straight through pipe, removes centre silencer)
Turbo is standard
Samco intercooler hoses
No dump valve
Auto Integrale uprated clutch (2000 miles old)
Standard 16v transmission with the preferred rear bias torque split of 47%f/53%r (8v = 56%f/44%r).

Interior
Full bolt in and weld OMP Roll cage (through to front struts).
Momo Corse Acropolis VTR seats.
Sabelt 4 point harnesses.
Short Shift kit
OMP dished rally steering wheel
OMP pedal set
All interior stripped, original dash, headlining and door cards remain

Brakes
Front Tarox 6 pot calipers and 306mm disc kit (currently with nearly new Ferrodo DS2500 pads).
Rear brakes standard
Goodridge braided brake hoses all round
ABS removed
New brake pipes installed inside the car with Tilton rear brake bias lever fitted
Motul RBF600 fluid .

Suspension/Wheels
Leda emulsified gas adjustable coilovers (tarmac spec)
Rose-jointed front top mounts, standard rear mounts
OMP front strut brace.
OMP rear upper strut brace.
OMP rear lower brace
Rear Diff cradle

Its obviously a hard car to put a price in as you'd be looking in the region of ?20k-?25k to buy and build it (and find one that not infested with the dreaded tin worm), but I'm realistic, so I'll be looking at "sensible" offers please around the ?8000 mark, but like I said, Im open to offers

The car outputs about 250bhp but the fuel pressure has been reduced slightly. If it is increased you can expect a car that has about 260-270 bhp and weighs as much as an empty sardine tin and because of the cage it has no stress crack whatsoever.

It was converted to RHD when it was imported from new and even had the wipers changed to work the correct way

I really wanted to get this car on the track this year and feel awefull that it has to go, so make me an offer before I change my mind, If it dosnt sell then I'll keep it garaged and come out to play next year

Insurance wise, its dirt cheap. With all mods declared on a limited 3500 mileage policy its about ?330

These cars in this specification just dont really exist, so I can safely say its your chance to own a unique track/road car that turns every head & if your a rally nut, then you'll appreciate its pedigree

heres a few pics to get your juices flowing:








I still can't believe the low asking price he advertised it at :eek:
 
A brilliant episode. I really loved the Lancia bit. Until that clip i knew absolutely NOTHING about Lancias, and somehow Clarkson has convinced me they're the best you can get. First alfas and now lancia, the man must have mind control.
 
didn't not care much for the Lancia kit car why was that the only car that went around the track?. this ep would haved been much better if we got to see the other car's.
 
Awesome ep with some solid car content. Love that Stratos! This season is gearing up to be epic.

8/10
 
Do they have to mention Hammond's crash again?

Yes they do. I think it is a law now.

I think it is called the Hamster crash law.
 
Much improved over last week, that's for sure. The Lancia thing was mostly good and Jeremy's own review at the end was great. That lap at the end too, wow!

However, I do have some complaints. Virtually no explanation at all was included in the airship piece. Where did that thing come from? How did it work? Basic background information would have been appreciated. The car also deserved more attention; the car should be the focus, not the afterthought. The news was fine; they actually talked about cars and there weren't any horrendously awkward scripted "spontaneous" conversations. The Lancia piece was mostly good except the bizarre race between the Lancia and the Morris. The piano thing is overplayed and the fire was just stupid. Stop insulting our intelligence! The rest was fine though, especially Jeremy's review of the kit car. Shows that Jeremy on his own is still the same as he always was, even if the others aren't concentrating anymore.
 
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