[14x02] November 22nd, 2009

[JohnnyRacer]

Yeah, I would not say the ZR1 is uncontrollable. It's Nurbergring time is a proff to that. I would also say it's not as forgiving as a lot of sports cars. With the TC off, it doesn't have any gizmos to save you in those "OH SHIT" moments.

 

[dj.TAKA]

News: Awesome
Electric Car Bit: Awesome (extra lols at the slow motion recording)
R8/ZR1: Awesome
SIARPC: Yawn (really)

8/10

 

[Pierc3]

I loved it.
The news with that mustache guy were hilarious, the R8 is just perfect, don't care about the ZR1 though.
The interview with the SIARPC was quite funny and on top of that Geoff.
I definitly woke up my neighbours by laughing unbelievably loud, just love it when the guys are ambitious but rubbish.

 

[ACR_Evo]

Would have been funnier if Jeremy, Richard, and James had each built their own electric cars and competed against each other. Also, when will they pit the '09 Viper SRT10 ACR against that ZR1?

 

[Trollbooth]

6/10 for me. The electric car film was a bit overcooked. It could have been cut down to two-thirds its length and then thrown in a cool-wall segment or another car review.

Where was the electric car power lap?

 

[eckoes4twenty]

This episode was ok... i think it was a bit lacking in substance. The camera tricks were definitely the best part of the show and the R8 vs ZR1 was a nice back to basics review. I do have to say i'm getting tired of these full episode films though, especially when they did one just last week. The older episodes had more different segments that kept the entertainment factor up instead of all this foreshadowing and "get back to the film later" stuff. overall it was a bit of a let down because i was expecting something more regular top gear since the first episode of the season was really epic.

 

[Thrill Yeti]

I thought that this was really, really poor. It was let down completely by the electric car film.

It had all the 'badly scripted jokes' that are never funny, condensed into one predictable and not funny film- ha.ha. the car has rolled down the hill, ha.ha it crashed into the fans in the wind tunnel, ha.ha the Stig has died from the gas, ha.ha. they are causing a traffic jam...
The convertible people carrier film shows how funny these sorts of films can be, but this was just awful.

ZR1/R8 was actually not bad, but nothing special.

Won't be watching again in a hurry.

 

[DubyaStep]

just a 10. have never laughed that hard at TG before. nothing else to say, awesome and great. one of the best.

 

[The Bloody Awful]

FAIL

Next time I'm going to wait to download it so i can just fast forward. Eye gougingly boring 1hr 'car' show only to have 2 cars and a bunch of very over scripted jokes/and setups.

Is it time top gear moved channel to Quest (i think so).

Hahaha. Gotta love spammers! (That includes "Thrill Yeti" above, why do you even bother watching the show if you don't like the cocking about format of it??)

Great episode, and a real contrast with last weeks as well. I'd give 14x01 9/10 and this second episode 8.5/10.

The review at the start was a bit of a letdown, but the camera work was indeed beautiful. Martin Sheen was ok, but the SIARPC segment is losing its appeal IMO.

Nothing to criticize about the Geoff segments, simply HI-larious, especially the second part.

SSSSLLLOOOOOWWWWWMMMOOTTIIOONNNN

 

[the 5tig]

a bit disappointed with that effort really. the news was probably one of the most dullest news ive seen TG do ..... ever. The first half of the electric car film was quite a bore..got a feeling of been there done that.. sorta like theyre running out of ideas..although i do admit the second half of that film did earn some points back.

as far as the SIARPC goes..i get annoyed when they jus call guests to do plugs abt their movies or shows or whatever. i mean this is a car show about cars. get guests who have intersts in cars, this is not a day time chat show that ppl come on to promote their interests on. COME ON TG.. get more petrol heads.

The R8 and ZR1.. not the best review ive seen them do. yes the visuals were top class as always..but it was too much style and not enough substance.

After a brilliant first show..this one was a bit of let down. Lets hope this was the usual one crappy episode per series.
cheers.

 

[Loomy]

Wow! Great episode! Even the SIARPC guest was good, as it was last week. Keep this up and I might not skip it 8 out of 10 times. The R8 test was a bit.. standard.. although there was some great camera work there, and JC (if it was him) did some great drifts there.

But, is it just me or is ANY corvette just as boring as hell? Every time I see one I feel like I'm looking at exactly the same '99 Corvette. It just has no soul. Like those pacific rim cars they tested in 5x09, only faster.

Anyhoo. The electric car part. That might just be the most hilarious thing I've seen this year. Even though it was 6 AM and I'd have four hours of sleep last night, I came dangerously close to falling off the sofa with laughter. Especially the slow motion and doing-it-in-reverse tricks. Pure gold, that was!

8/10!

 

[warren]

It's Top Gear, so I started with 10/10.
Then I deducted three points for New Moon references in the interview.
... and one point for the part they called "the news", but didn't really contain any.
... and two points for The Stig's vegetarian cousin.
Then I added four points back for Hannah, the fastest girl in the office.

8/10.

 

[eckoes4twenty]

But, is it just me or is ANY corvette just as boring as hell? Every time I see one I feel like I'm looking at exactly the same '99 Corvette. It just has no soul. Like those pacific rim cars they tested in 5x09, only faster.

I have to agree with you. I mean i love the classic vettes like the sting ray, but the modern vettes are so common around here (at least here in california) that i don't find them that special. I always get the feeling the 65 year old man driving a vette only bought it because it was the American dream car that they wanted when they were growing up.

 

[JoeBlo1]

That was the worst Top Gear segment in years. It exemplified the silliness that Top Gear has become. They really need to tone down the insanity and get back to proper reviews. But everything else was good so it balanced out my 7/10 rating. It's not the first time someone has complained about the ZR1's brutal character. I'm surprised it's only two seconds faster than the Z06 but two seconds slower than the heavier, less powerful GT-R.

 

[skylock]

I thought the whole electric car was a brilliant concept and I think James is on the right track with the generator used to recharge the batteries as you go. A couple of gallons of disel and you can go a long ways. (that is if your chimney doesn't fall off)

And to have it actually tested by autocar was genius. Thumbs up to autocar for really giving it a fair test. http://dl.haymarket.streamuk.com/autocar/top-gear/top-gear-topgear-test.pdf

I had to watch it twice before I could make up my mind. 8/10

Poor Jeremy, another injury.

 

[tbarbe]

Can anyone rip the English subtitles from iPlayer?

Thanks!

Hello,

Nobody ripped subtitles from iPlayer?

TIA

Thierry

 

[Donington]

The Geoff segment seems very Marmite here, everyone either loved it or hated it. I thought it was very enjoyable. And it's given me a new avatar until the next finalgear meme arrives, backwards and on fire.

As for the car test, I thought it was good, but brief. The Corvette is a monster but the build quality seems far worse even compared to old vettes. If the seatbelts really are that shoddy that is inexcusable.

Sheen didn't seem so bad. He might not be huge on cars but the man can drive. I happen to be a big fan of his films, well except for Twilight. He is excellent.

I gave it a solid seven. Geoff segment should've been shorter, and the news was one huge knob joke.

 

[hughJ]

I think James is on the right track with the generator used to recharge the batteries as you go. A couple of gallons of disel and you can go a long ways. (that is if your chimney doesn't fall off)

Using an internal combustion engine to indirectly power the car via the batteries is *always* going to be more inefficient than simply using the engine to directly power the car. Every time energy is converted from one form to another, you're going to lose a % of it as waste (heat.) Having a combustion engine power the battery and then power the drive train would mean going from chemical(diesel), to kinetic(combustion engine), to electric(generator), to chemical(battery), to electric and then kinetic(electric motor + drive train.) What you have in the end is a convoluted process of wasting more diesel fuel.

You also need to remember that the internal combustion engine of a car is *extremely* inefficient even without all the other steps. You're looking at somewhere in the region of 80% of the fuel wasted as heat.

 

[pebblepixie]

I really enjoyed this episode. Only TG could make an electric car that looked like a baby Hummer. Jeremy's 'mood room' was brilliant. The end of the first section gave me a coughing fit I was laughing so much - it actually went faster down that slope into the woods by itself than when they were driving it

The news was a bit, well, weird.

Loved the Slo-Mo attempts, green Stig, James' leccy tape moustache, and Stig walking down the ramps at the Autocar office cracked me up.

 

[awdrifter]

The only part I enjoyed is the R8 V10 vs Corvette ZR1. While Jeremy is probably exaggerating how hard the car is to drive, the track times speaks for itself. The ZR1 is slower than the GT-R around the track, even in Stig's hands.

The electric car build was rubbish. Why didn't they use a lighter FWD chassis. The E-REV idea isn't new either, it's basically what will power the Chevrolet Volt.

Overall, 7/10.