[22x05] February 22nd, 2015

[22x05] February 22nd, 2015


  • Total voters
    137
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for a proper, brilliant, funny and joyful episode of Top Gear! Definitely the best episode for ages!

11/10
 
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Solid episode, though i think both the news and the Peugeot bit dragged on a bit, and the Vette vs Cockster could have been a bit longer.
 
The lack of a Ferrari, Porsche and McLaren power lap left me a bit disappointed but the Peugeot film was something I quite enjoyed. The whole "we'll never let that guy buy a limited Ferrari again" was a bit low but I think McLaren should have just said "okay here's a factory car from us" I can sort of understand Ferrari wanting to supply the car, I know everyone immediately thinks thanks to Chris Harris that it'll be a highly tuned unrealistic track monster but It's the only way Ferrari can be certain that the car is in good condition to get its best performance. Tires, Breaks transmission fluids in any case they should just get over it and let the laps happen.
Not sure about the Porsche Corvette film, I did find that the corvette lap was a bit slower then I expected, it didn't beat the 458 or even the 430 Scuderia.
 
Thoroughly enjoyed the show. The LaFerrari seems to be a really nice car but I think no car to be worth that steep a price.

Corvette vs. Cayman was nice. Seems like after a couple of decades the Corvette has finally landed where the European sports car world has already been... for a couple of decades. I never thought the Americans couldn't build a proper car, I always had the impression they simply couldn't be bothered to do it.

Laughed out loudly when McLaren and Ferrari continued their F1 rivalry offtrack on Top Gear. If I were Top Gear, though, I'd shown Ferrari and McLaren the middle finger and ONLY put the Porsche around the track. But since Clarkson and May are such Ferrari fanboys and McLaren is about the only true British carmaker left, that wasn not going to happen. Very sad.

The guest didn't ring a bell but that's the same with many British celebrieties completely unkown to the rest of the world. He was a nice bloke, though.

And then came the Peugeot piece. I think it was brilliant. What's it called again when you take a grievance or an annoyance and blow it out of proportion in order to mock it? Oh yes, it's called "satire" and obviously many people hear on the forum have never heard of it. I think it worked fine to illustrate what's wrong with people who don't care about driving and which car they drive, as long as it was a bargain.

I admit, though, I have never been a Peugeot fan and that has personal reasons as well. Peugeots in the 1970's - when I went to school - were teachers' cars. Mainly French, geography and math teachers, to be precise.

My best mate's father was a math teacher and in 1984, when I was about to get my driving license, he drove a Peugeot 504. Oh yes, I know them firsthand. And I couldn't disagree stronger with Top Gear: It was a horrible car. Not only did it continously break down but the seats seemd to be made completely out of polyethylene foam with no support whatsoever. Sure, it was comfy but in corners your had to cling to the steering wheel for dear life. The memory that stuck to my mind mostly, however, is when my best mate's dad drove us into town and the car stalled at every redlight. The father had to open the bonnet then and hit the engine block with a big mallet. After that the engine started again. Once. I still feel the shame and embarrassment from back then, when I think of it.

And later, when I was in the German air force, a fellow soldier drove a Peugeot 205 GTI. The car was fine but the guy was a complete asshole, so it spoiled Peugeot for me again. I could have gotten a Peugeot as a rental a couple of times but couldn't be bothered. I rather took Fords or Volvos instead.
 
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I laughed through the last third of the show. I got what the idea was, as explained by MWF. Just didn't like the star. Very unusal for me.

I think 8/10 for me.
 
For you and anyone else who felt this way about the Peugeot film allow me to clarify.

For years you could readily identify the inept old farts on the road because they drove Rovers (the ones with any brains, money and any ability at all to drive have Toyotas and Hondas) then Rover went bust. I have been saying for at least five years that as a consequence the useless and ancient have all migrated into Peugeots and that is what they were illustrating, quite accurately, in the film albeit with a certain amount of exaggeration.

Just as at least 50% of the time in the UK the car 30cm from your rear bumper on the motorway will be an Audi, the car that takes forever to pull out of a side turning or which goes everywhere at 40mph regardless of the posted limit will be a Pug.

Anyway on topic I gave this an 8 in spite of the irritating SIARPC. It would have been a 7 but the argument after the The Ferrari film bumped it up a notch.

You have it easy in Britain, it seems: The "the useless and ancient" here in Germany can't be identified so easily and sometimes they drive cars others would consider "classic" or "cult". From my personal experience I can tell that what Peugeot drivers are to Britain, for Germany it's drivers of the following cars:

- Old Mercedes E-Classes (mainly W124 and W210)
- Mercedes C-Class (doesn't matter which model generation)
- VW Golf Plus
- Opel Agila and Opel Meriva
- All kinds of Hyundais, Kias or Daewoos (I refuse to call them Chevys)

I can agree on the Audi drivers, though. They really are a pest (sorry, Ice ;))
 
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There does tend to be quite a lot of regional variation with driver types and their choice of vehicle but the Audi thing does appear to be universal.
 
Apparently according to Mclaren's twitter they were all ready with their car for the laps until Top Gear cancelled the shoot.

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What TG could have done was filmed and shown the Porsche and P1 lap and then gone back to the studio to explain they hadn't been allowed to lap the The Ferrari. The only downside to that would possibly be the suits at Marranello banning them from ever driving a Ferrari again but a) I doubt they would do that and b) Top Gear as a brand is bigger than Ferrari so Clarkson announcing at some future point "We've been banned etc..." would make the Italians look like utter chumps.
 
I don't mind if they delay the big showdown, it only means the possibility of a 4th contender, the Lamborghini Asterion.
 
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Don't forget the AM Vulcan either.
 
Brilliant episode. Peugeot segment could have used a bit of trimming, but great overall. 9/10
 
They're three completely different cars, so it's pointless to compare them to each other. At Monza, the McLaren would probably be the fastest, at Spa, it would be the Ferrari and on the Top Gear track, the Porsche would be the fastest. There's just no point and I agree with Ferrari.

I think it would be the other way round. On a high speed, somewhat twisty track the P1 should out-do it. Same for the LaF at Monza, which is predominantly straights.

It would be fun to see them all go head-to-head, but in the end people won't be rational when choosing their favourite out of the three anyway. I will still like the P1 the most even if they race them and it comes last.
 
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Having seen every single ep since 2002 more than once, I can safely say this season is turning out wonderfully. Classic japery and fooling about with a modern, wide audience twist. :)
 
The Peugeot bit was a disappointment IMO. While I do agree Peugeot in general has been pretty bad that segment was dumb and unfunny for the most part. The 307cc is a pretty nice car to own and that 1007 Jeremy so dislikes, couldve been one of the best cars peugeot made with a few tweaks. Those doors were a great idea (and in general every car should have them really) and you could customize it a lot and it was cute. If they put in a good engine and gearbox and maybe a few gadgets and options, it wouldve been a great hit but sadly as with other Peugeot cars, it was ruined by certain parts. They had(have) bad engines(1,4 8v or 1.6 8v were total cr*p yet they put it everywhere,), bad gearboxes(auto and manual(the manual in the regular 206s was one of the worst ever)), reliability of certain models (206 again)...,
 
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I think McLaren's request that they test 3 customer cars is totally within reason seeing that Ferrari has been known to cheat shit in the past. If it comes from the factory they're going to tune it to the point where it is no longer representative of a customer LaFerrari.

Who cares? As long as they use EU approved tires I don't care who tunes what.
 
2/3 of the episode was brilliant, but the Peugeot thing just dragged horribly for me. From the sounds of it, that segment would really only make sense to the European audiences so I'll just abstain from rating the episode.
 
Also, the Peugeot bit was absolutely hilarious. I remember as a kid thinking they were pretty cool cars solely because of cars like the 106, early 206, and the 406, after that they became atrocious (similar to their Citroen and Renault compatriots).
 
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