[14x06] December 27th, 2009 [South America Special]

[14x06] December 27th, 2009 [South America Special]


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I can assure you you can easily tweak those Garmin GPS units to show any altitude you like. Just "calibrate" the altimeter manually with wrong values.
Well, I just looked at this site and clicked around some points marked as a road near where they entered Chile, and the altitude definitely comes up north of 15,000.
 
Excellent episode, but left me really sad, I'm from Chile and got no idea about Top Gear visiting my country, I hope they return on a Dakar based special

:cry:

Anybody knows when was this episode recorded?
 
October, maybe?

I don't think they're going to do anything Dakar-related :(
 
Brian,

I understand your pain. It was a pretty lame special compared to... well all the others specials.

Right at the beginning, when they took 1 day just to get the cars on the ground, and not even properly, I knew it was going to be a long ride.

Basically the Romanian episode, and even the train challenge was more authentic to me.

Don't get me wrong, TopGear is still miles ahead of every TV shows, but I think we are starting to see the age affect on our 3 hosts.
 
I wasn't going to bother commenting as I thought it was a great episode and unlike everyone else enjoyed season 14. It's still the only program I bother to sit down and watch.

Can't believe how crazy everyone is going on the tin hat front, must admit that's why I don't spend so much time on here anymore, this has to be one of the best run forums out there and in no way a dig to Viper and Co who do a great job.

What I will comment on is Hammond's Toyota roll, fake or not, trying to attempt that decent in FWD would have been suicide. The only way to regain control on a steep decent is to accelerate down it, on a badly lifted vehicle who's rear is constantly trying to overtake it's self the outcome would be a bad roll, or with the added speed of trying to regain control airborne and a multiple flip.

Shame it was a nice truck, but to add another bit of defence, those Land Cruisers have a transmission brake which disappeared when he lost his rear prop and wrecks the diff. He does find it, but you could assume bits were missing or damaged, thus only way to stop is leave it in gear and turn the engine off. The car had a faulty starter so he may have not been able to turn it off. It's an easy thing to forget, I've done it many times with exactly the same issues in my old range rover.

If it's fake or not, I don't care really, Great episode.


Note:just watched, it was fake, you can see 2 people pushing, still don't care
 
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I watched with my girl. We both enjoyed it thoroughly. I must be in the minority. I don't care how much cocking about they do. It is what makes the show different from dull ass car documentaries on the speed channel or TLC. They do it so well. The part where Richard's toyota goes down the side of a mountain probably faked. Meh don't care. The part with Jezza on the waterfall passing the big toyota. Probably staged. Meh don't care. They couldn't fake the danger. Jeremy looked legitimately afraid. It was probably as simple as one crew car on the inside, Range Rover on the edge of the road. Lets get good shots. I don't care if the show has it's fake moments. Nobody does it better than Top Gear in my opinion.
 
I could believe it wasn't safe to drive down, so just tell the viewers that and have an emotional goodbye to the car. Or perhaps start a running gag with the crew pranking the guys by pushing it. Or set it alight and roll it down the dune in a Chilean-style Viking funeral. How is that so tough? It's not that I thought it was a waste, and it's certainly not an environmental concern to me, it was just utterly uninspired and played exactly into the stereotypes that Andy says the guys have been falling into of late but wouldn't in this episode. I know this team can do better.
 
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10/10 Fo' sure!

I was in Bolivia almost a year ago and I went through all these EXACT places and I was still astound and petrified when Jeremy ACTUALLY TOOK THAT PASS. GOD ALMIGHTY.

This special reminded me why I like Top Gear so much, it's too just awesome sometimes.
 
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Not to be a poopypants here, but we really only saw the altimeter going over 16,000 feet, we can't be sure about the men. Although, I'm not sure how else they'd fudge it to be honest. Unless a local 'second unit' took it with them.

Curiously according to wiki "The vast majority of helicopters cannot fly above around 8000 ft." so that would account for the lack of fancy heli shots.
man i'm from Chile and i've been there close to the chungara lake (wiki that) and the altittude it's acctually 15,000 feet you can't even get 10 steps without needing a brake

that active volcano it's call the GUALLATIRI and as you can see it's 19,918 ft and they where not too far from there
 
Bloody incredible episode. I've been on a few trips with some friends and driven some roads that aren't too far shy of the road of death(old mining roads in Ouray Colorado) at around 13,000ft. stuff like that sure makes you pucker up tight.

Solid 10.
 
There is absolutely no faking about the altitude part. I was at [nearly] the summit of pikes peak (14,000ft) for an entire day (14+ hours) and by the time we left, I was weak, my head hurt like crazy, my arms and legs were tingly and numb, and I was nearly throwing up. I was never short of breath though.

Keep in mind that, at the time, you probably weren't ancient and in awful physical shape, and you didn't have Viagra to help you out :D
 
Or set it alight and roll it down the dune in a Chilean-style Viking funeral.

Although I disagree with your previous comments, I would have loved to have seen this happen rather than the car just rolling. Very Clarksonian.
 
I am really beginning to question reading this forum after watching TG episodes...the people who are saying that we should let the show just entertain us instead of picking it apart needlessly and endlessly are right...

/steps back from the keyboard to enjoy TG for what it is...
 
I was just thinking the same thing and came to a very similar conclusion. They had to pick a locally built car and drive across the Simpson.

Jezz - "I've bought - a Monaro!" from 1984
Hammond - EA yellow taxi with 800k and vinyl seats.
May - Camry/Apollo

Even the crew could go local - with an OKA 4WD!

:)

Totally against them travelling against across Aus.

Half the appeal of these adventures is that they occur in places totally off the beaten track, where only a handful of people have been.

And yes... before someone starts.. Vietnam is a tourist hotspot and Bolivia isn't exactly undiscovered... but they are relatively exotic compared to boring Australia.

Even if they were to travel across Australia.. all you would see is sand and road trains. Where on the bolivian trip they had jungle, cities, roads and mountains to tackle. I.e. You couldnt sustain a full special on such a boring environment.

And yes I am Australian.
 
One thing for the "just enjoy yourself for god's sake!" people: ask yourself why so many FG visitors have started to analyze the show so deeply. After all, there has to be a reason for this, right? Do you think that analyzing things is a current trend they're following? Or that they want to try to destroy the show by flogging it to death?

I can tell you what has happened. The faking has always been there. But once, it was covered by a sweet crust of quality, where the happenings on the screen were so fascinating that noone really cared whether they are staged or not. Nowadays, when happenings are predictable because we know how the boys will act and what gags they'll play out, the crust has crumpled, and we're able to see beyond it. What happens on Top Gear right now simply isn't involving enough anymore to cover that much of it is set up. Bitter, but that simple.
 
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Hi. i was wondering if anyone could post the featured music in this episode.
 
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