[13x07] August 2nd, 2009

[13x07] August 2nd, 2009


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Good episode. As everyone else has already said, the end scared me -- or rather left me in shock and disbelief. Good thing Final Gear is here to clear things like that up though :)
 
the end was just soo beautiful. This was classic TG. This episode IMO was the second best f the series,only to the 1940's race episode. TG needs to go back to testing cars and having fun in them like they seemed to do in this episode.
 
I thought this episode was the best in an average Top Gear season. A lot of people here seem to feel that Top Gear is as good as it ever was.

I'm not a big car person, so I mainly watch it for entertainment value alone. Maybe that's why I don't share everybody's view?

I think by Top Gear standards which I might add are quite high, this season has been disappointing, anybody agree?
 
10/10. The best episode of the season. Classic Top Gear with everything I love about it.

The end had a very strong message. Cars, mainly sports cars and racing cars are not harming the Earth as much as many would want us to believe. So many other things do much more damage. Everyone is going eco-mad and if we don't stop and realize what we're doing we may end up losing things we can never get back again. It makes me very sad to think about a time when exotics will be nothing but memory to us save for the few garage queens collecting dust in some warehouse.
 
I gave it a 10. Great show, entertained me from minute 1 until the end. I loved the ending, no rambling, no bullshit...just an Aston a V12 and a twisty road. Brilliance. The cinematography was quite good.

I enjoyed the Leno segment, but felt it was a bit too long. The advert segment(s) were ok, but the best segments were the Aston ending and the Vauxhall test Hammond did. The supercharger whine is just pure sex.

Oh and...

1:26.3 - Vauxhall VXR8 Bathurst
1:26.4 - Lotus Exige (mildly moist)
1:26.7 - Porsche Cayman S
1:26.7 - Jaguar XFR
1:26.8 - Chevrolet Corvette C6 LS2
1:26.8 - Ferrari 575M Maranello GTC
1:26.9 - Lexus IS-F
1:26.9 - Mercedes-Benz CLS55 AMG
1:27:0 - BMW M5 E39
1:27.1 - Aston Martin Vanquish S
1:27.1 - Aston Martin DB9
1:27.1 - Holden Maloo
1:27.2 - Porsche 911 GT3 RS (996) (mildly moist)
1:27.2 - Tesla Roadster (mildly moist)
1:27.3 - Spyker C8 Spyder
1:27.5 - Nissan 370Z GT
1:27.5 - TVR T350C
1:27.9 - Wiesmann MF 3
1:28.0 - Roush Mustang

I can't get over how FAST that Ute is--without the supercharger! Good god that Ute was fast! Only 0.8s down from the supercharged Bathurst VXR8, that's just insane. Possibly the VXR8 has too much power? Or not a stiff enough suspension? Either way both are brilliant cars and I encourage every UK member here to buy one of those Utes and ship it to the UK. :D
 
I'm sorry if this has been posted already, but my dial-up forbids me from checking all the pages.


As beautiful as the Aston segment was, was anyone else expecting a stitchback to the Scirocco? While Clarkson was saying this was the end of the high-performance, petrol supercar, I was expecting it to fade-out to "The Scirocco Diesel, car of the Future."
 
This was a great episode overall.

The theme, tone, music, and everything about the Aston Martin film was pure art, it definitely left me feeling rather sad. It's a really melancholy, bittersweet film. :(
 
Well that was emotional! Great Aussie car review by Richard. The Scirocco had me laughing out loud. Great to see Jay Leno on Top Gear, I wish he'd do a car program in the US, he'd be the ideal presenter. Finally the Aston review left me close to tears. Maybe we are watching the end of an era where V12 sport cars are no longer made and we can no longer go for a drive on the open road. I hope not. While I'll never be able to afford one I want to live in a world where those type of cars can be made and more importantly driven.
 
Finally the Aston review left me close to tears.

Yeah, that's how I felt as well. I'm not one to cry usually, and not saying that I was literally tearing up, but watching that film gave me this sinking, depressed feeling. I can't really describe it better than that, I'm at a loss for words. :|
 
Yeah, that's how I felt as well. I'm not one to cry usually, and not saying that I was literally tearing up, but watching that film gave me this sinking, depressed feeling. I can't really describe it better than that, I'm at a loss for words. :|

Car guys are wierd like that I guess, we can get weepy about automotive beauty and the end of a chunk of steel, but chortle at the thought of someone kicking kittens through an electric fan.

Overall excellent episode. Jeremy's closer on that Vantage was fantastic, but the overall morose feeling only reinforced the way I've been feeling about supercars for a while now. Darn you Jezza for making me all maudlin!
 
Car guys are wierd like that I guess, we can get weepy about automotive beauty and the end of a chunk of steel, but chortle at the thought of someone kicking kittens through an electric fan.

Well, I wouldn't go that far. It's actually more about how the segment emphasized that we are at the end of an era. In the near future, perhaps the idea of driving being enjoyable will be phased out completely.

With the end of this era nearing, I'll have to go about buying a red, Italian roadster and store it in a barn for fifty odd years. Then, I can drive it on Sundays - a weekly crime, if you will. I suppose I should watch out for those alloy air-cars, though.

Or I could talk to my uncle. He has a country place, that no one knows about...

:shifty:
 
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I can't get over how FAST that Ute is--without the supercharger! Good god that Ute was fast! Only 0.8s down from the supercharged Bathurst VXR8, that's just insane. Possibly the VXR8 has too much power? Or not a stiff enough suspension? Either way both are brilliant cars and I encourage every UK member here to buy one of those Utes and ship it to the UK. :D

When they reviewed the supercharged HSV Clubsport (essentially the Bathurst) on TGA, they found that the big wheels & low profile tyres were a hindrance & when they changed it to standard Clubsport wheels, tyres & brake discs (the large ones wouldn't fit the stock wheels) they improved the lap time by 3 seconds. Not sure which wheels the Bathurst is using.
 
Personally, not including the specials, this was perhaps my favorite episode in recent years.

VXR8 was one of Hommo's best reviews.

The news segment, lacked real news but had me in tears.

VW commercial was just epic. I have not laughed so hard since the Vietnam special.

SIRPC... decent, but not as good as other ones this season.

Aston... nice... touching, but a part of me would have rather seen the review... but that's next season.
 
With the end of this era nearing, I'll have to go about buying a red, Italian roadster and store it in a barn for fifty odd years. Then, I can drive it on Sundays - a weekly crime, if you will. I suppose I should watch out for those alloy air-cars, though.

Or I could talk to my uncle. He has a country place, that no one knows about...

:shifty:

icwutudidthere........

On another note, I've just recently become a fan of the show, during Season 12. Watching the ending of Ep. 7 Season 13 was like witnessing your new best friend get into a horrible auto collision, wondering if he'll make it back from the brink........:(
 
Hello there!

Firstly I think this eppisode was fantastic! I loved the ending, it was so artistic.

But I was wondering if someone could please explain to me the pie and key reference as I am not british and it has me interested what it means.

Thank you :)
 
My own thoughts on the show:

- Would care a bit more of those Aussie VXR cars, if Opel had the guts to sell them with LHD here. The supercharger, though... can't decide if it sounds like a baby having a tantrum or my cat, when I stepped on its tail. It's not a sound a car should make and you'd probably get stopped by the police here for that.

- The adversiting bit was very funny and I had to smile through the whole section, because I had a Scirocco with exactly that diesel engine earlier this year and I more or less wrote here on the forum, that it's a great car with an engine that doesn't fit. Some guys didn't believe me, but there you have it, folks: Top Gear confirms me :)

- Jay Leno was a very interesting and funny guest, much better than most of the recent guests. I wish they had more people that are actually known outside of the UK.

- The Aston bit, well... as artsy and stylish as it was, it felt odd. I neither believe that this car is "an ending" to all fast cars (that's rubbish frankly), nor that it was meant to be an ending for Top Gear. I just think that Jeremy was being dramatic again :rolleyes:

- The Cool Wall was very funny, I was laughing a lot -- even if it should have been staged in parts. They should do it more often, because one thing that I missed most in this TG series, was the interaction with the audience. And that was always one of the strengths of the show.

- News were nice and funny, liked the stupid driver/bad cars bit. I have the same opinion: If people don't care about what car they drive, they are probably not interested in driving and therefore have to be bad drivers. I just missed the logical conclusion that choosing a car for the wrong reasons is bad, too (looking at all the Twingo girls out there) :p I recently drove a colleague home from work, because her Daihatsu broke down on our parking lot -- and she actually remarked how luxurious my Golf seemed to her :lol:
 
Wow. SImply wow. 1st solid 10 of the series for me. I gave the first episode a 10 as well, but thought there were rough spots.

Hammond's Aussie review: We all need to face it. The Austrailians have figured out how to make awesome cars. I love them all. If you Europeans are lucky enough to get the VXR8 AND the Ute, you may be lucky enough to get the wagon version as well. We in the US will never know, they've killed the entire platform off with the demise of Pontiac. Hammond understands completely what makes those cars great, and you have to be a fan of a good muslce car, be it US or Aussie, to get it. He was the perfect guy to review those cars.

News: No complaints. I hope they do the news like this in the next series as well.

Advert Challenge: Nothing describes it better than LOL. That was great. And when I saw they were going to to do one more film each, I thought for sure James had won it. I did not see Jeremy's ad coming, but it was absolutely brilliant! Made the challenge, no doubt.

Cool Wall: Was this the first time this series for it? Maybe once a series is enough. It was funny, the crane thing was great. It's nice that Richard got his own back on Jeremy after years of abuse. And then who gets the last laugh?

SIARPC: You know what? I'm going to say something to all you Leno haters out there, and I don't care if you don't read it: GROW THE FUCK UP.
If you don't like him as a talk show host or a comedian, that's one thing. I have said on this site I thought was wasn't that funny as the Tonight Show host. But to look at the guy's passion for cars and still hate him, you are just a hater, period. Check out his site if you don't believe me. Look at how many classic British and European cars he has as well as American cars. We need people like Jay Leno to keep the torch going for all kinds of cars. And I'm glad he was on Top Gear, and I'm glad Jeremy wanted him to be there, and I'm really glad that it has pissed you off. I have a passion for all cars, and nothing makes me happier than to finally see two of the world's greatest petrolheads talking about cars on the world's greastest car show. Jeremy did ask some lame questions. But they could have talked for the whole show and some of us would still be saying, "Why didn't they talk about this or that?"

V12 Vantage segment: It was beautiful, the music was beautiful. The car is amazing. BUT, I think Jeremy's got it wrong. This isn't the end for supercars, or even cars with V8s for that matter. Look at the Austrailians, who last year amidst a fuel crisis bought more V8s than ever before. Ferriari is still producing new cars. Lamborghini is going to make a Murcielago replacement. Pagani is making a new Zonda. There are a dozen other small batch hyper car makers that aren't going anywhere. The only thing that may happaen is that you will see fewer of them because the money of the world has moved to the Middle East, so the majority of them will be sold there. So I think it's a bit premature. If and when one of the big supercar makers goes under, I may lend some credence to Jeremy's fear. Who knows? Maybe the whole point of the ending was to keep people talking about the show till Novemeber. If so, mission accomplished I think.

10/10. I didn't get to see the ZR1 review that the Episode 1 teaser promised. I'll have to wait for the next series, which I do eagerly.

EDIT: I'm reading a lot of people think Jay's lap would have been better but he's not used to driving on the other side of the car. He has a half dozen RHD British cars and even a couple Japanese RHD cars, all of them manuals. I think he's OK with it. He is a man in his late 50's. I was originally thinking 1:50.x when I first sawe it.
 
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A couple comments...

First, on the state of Top Gear. I agree that if Top Gear goes on as is it will only last a couple more seasons. They need to come up with something new, especially in the challenge/cocking about arena. They NEED to review more cars. They simply can't continue to fill seasons with cocking about while keeping Top Gear original. The show needs to return to 50% cocking about and 50% CARS.

Next, the final sequence. I am torn between two points of view. I do believe that Global Warming is a major concern and that we as a race can't continue to pollute as we are. On the other hand, I LOVE driving fast cars. I have spent the last month and a half in the Maldives and the thing I have missed most from home is driving. Riding a bike is good exercise but nothing matches driving along a country lane at 60 mph (part of my daily commute, albeit for only ten minutes). Not only is the environment a concern, but fueling our cars. We can't continue to exploit the resources of the developing world in order for us to drive to work. It simply isn't sustainable. We need a solution, a compromise. I would give up the beautiful soundtrack of a V8 in a heartbeat for the continuing ability to drive a sporty car.


Finally,
They don't see that 15 freighter ships pollute as much as ALL the cars in the world.(Citation Needed?)

That doesn't seem right to me? Would love to be wrong though.
 
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Good episode, and that was a strange way to end a series. For a while I was confused as to wheter I was watching one of those high-definition demonstrations they have in shops, or Top Gear. Quite thoughtful though.

Being an Australian, those Holdens are quite common over here (not the Bathurst edition though). Seeing the Maloo on there was the first time I ever saw one and thought it looked good, over here they are only ever driven by bogans (google it). Usually they can be found doing burnouts in liquor shop carparks, and I even woke up to one in my front yard once...
 
Massa. after seeing the pictures of him after the crash before they got him out of the car, and, witnessing first hand what those kinda injurys can look like as well as how they can effect someone's life, and, on a side note, i remember after they showed the video the first time during the race and watching him as he limply drove into the wall

Saw him being interviewed on BBCnews last night, man he must be pretty damn tough to be up & giving interviews already! Respec' Massa :bow:


I can't get over how FAST that Ute is--without the supercharger! Good god that Ute was fast! Only 0.8s down from the supercharged Bathurst VXR8, that's just insane. Possibly the VXR8 has too much power? Or not a stiff enough suspension? Either way both are brilliant cars and I encourage every UK member here to buy one of those Utes and ship it to the UK. :D

:thumbsup: Me too, me too, i miss my utes

As beautiful as the Aston segment was, was anyone else expecting a stitchback to the Scirocco? While Clarkson was saying this was the end of the high-performance, petrol supercar, I was expecting it to fade-out to "The Scirocco Diesel, car of the Future."

:lol:That's a very clever thought! But i guess would have destroyed the mood - the only laugh i had in that film was when the "deer" ran across the road.

OldSkoolGP;1065205 said:
Hammond's Aussie review: We all need to face it. The Australians have figured out how to make awesome cars.
Hell yeah, and there's the Ford Falcon XR8 as well! :D
I will point out the Ford was XR8 long before the VXR8 appeared from Holden ;)
I love them all. If you Europeans are lucky enough to get the VXR8 AND the Ute, you may be lucky enough to get the wagon version as well. We in the US will never know, they've killed the entire platform off with the demise of Pontiac.

That sucks :(

Hammond understands completely what makes those cars great, and you have to be a fan of a good muslce car, be it US or Aussie, to get it. He was the perfect guy to review those cars.

Totally agree, maybe because we Aussies are steak n kidney lock openers at heart ...;)
 
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