Top Gear seeks to recover cars from controversial Argentina episode

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http://m.autoblog.com/2014/12/01/top-gear-recover-cars-controversial-argentina-episode-report-video/

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Top Gear seeks to recover cars from controversial Argentina episode

A couple of months ago, the team from Top Gear ticked off masses of locals in Argentina and had to flee the country ? leaving their cars behind. Now it seems the BBC crew is trying to get those cars back.

According to the report in UK's Mirror, based on local accounts, representatives from Top Gear have contacted customs officials in the southern Argentinian province of Tierra del Fuego to inquire what it would take to collect the cars. Among them are James May's Lotus Esprit, Richard Hammond's Ford Mustang and Jeremy Clarkson's Porsche 928.

It was the latter that is said to have been at the heart of the controversy when Clarkson affixed to it the license plate H982 FKL ? which many locals believed to be a reference to the Falklands War of 1982 between Argentina and the UK. An angry mob reportedly stormed the hotel where the hosts were staying, forcing them to abandon the cars and flee to the airport while the crew of 30 support staff had to escape on the ground by crossing into Chile under police escort.

The cars are currently sitting in the Argentine customs house in Rio Grande while officials try to figure out what to do with the cars that can either be donated or reclaimed by their owners. If it's determined that the only way the BBC could recover the cars is for the hosts to return to claim them, we have a feeling they'd be better off writing them off altogether. ......
 
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Why would the hosts have to come in person? For nearly all my legal stuff I can also send a representative.
 
Why would the hosts have to come in person? For nearly all my legal stuff I can also send a representative.

Some jurisdictions do not allow anyone but the registered owner to collect an impounded vehicle. No power of attorney or designated representative.
 
Some jurisdictions do not allow anyone but the registered owner to collect an impounded vehicle. No power of attorney or designated representative.

Bollocks! That's needlessly inconvenient. Sad, leaving that Lotus behind. :/
 
Im sad for the Mustang if any .... no disrespect to the Lotus or Porsche, but I that vintage of 'stang is my 2nd favorite.
 
I hope they don't get the cars back, maybe then they will learn something...
 
I hope they don't get the cars back, maybe then they will learn something...

What is there to learn? The Porsche is the only one that coincidentally had a plate that when looked at through a kaleidoscope could be maybe considered offensive, and when that was pointed out to them, it was replaced. They were attacked because a bunch of idiots wanted to riot and would have found a reason to one way or another.

If you tell me Jezza made sure his production team found the car with that plate on purpose, I'm going to tell you to lay off the drugs.
 
What is there to learn? The Porsche is the only one that coincidentally had a plate that when looked at through a kaleidoscope could be maybe considered offensive, and when that was pointed out to them, it was replaced. They were attacked because a bunch of idiots wanted to riot and would have found a reason to one way or another.

If you tell me Jezza made sure his production team found the car with that plate on purpose, I'm going to tell you to lay off the drugs.

Something that might not have been mentioned before is that you can buy private plates like that now, for example I just searched and found pretty quickly that I could buy H466 ARD, H499 ART or H447 DEN and put them on any cars registered after August 1990. This is because lots of 1990 cars have been scrapped and the registration re-claimed by the DVLA. I still don't buy the idea that it's a coincidence, no matter what anyone including Wilman says.

If nothing else this should teach them to check what they're doing in this world where everyone is offended by anything and not all countries take it as lightly as the UK.
 
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Something that might not have been mentioned before is that you can buy private plates like that now too, for example I just searched and found pretty quickly that I could buy H466 ARD, H499 ART or H447 DEN and put them on any cars registered after August 1990. I still don't buy the idea that it's a coincidence, no matter what anyone including Wilman says.

If nothing else this should teach them to check what they're doing in this world where everyone is offended by anything and not all countries take it as lightly as the UK.

Didn't the previous owner of the Porsche come out and say those plates have been on that car for ages? Pretty sure that was mentioned somewhere on here.
 
Didn't the previous owner of the Porsche come out and say those plates have been on that car for ages? Pretty sure that was mentioned somewhere on here.

As did the DVLA who confirmed that was the original registration which was removed for a time when replaced by a vanity plate before being reinstated.

And FFS can a mod please clean up the grammar in this thread title? My OCD just :blowup:
 
What is there to learn? The Porsche is the only one that coincidentally had a plate that when looked at through a kaleidoscope could be maybe considered offensive, and when that was pointed out to them, it was replaced. They were attacked because a bunch of idiots wanted to riot and would have found a reason to one way or another.

If you tell me Jezza made sure his production team found the car with that plate on purpose, I'm going to tell you to lay off the drugs.

Actually, the more I think about it the sillier it seems. It's not even an insult - it's a reference (one they didn't even mean to make if you trust the TG production team). h982fkl is like having a plate saying r75vnm. Big whoop. People need to take a chillpill.
 
I hope they don't get the cars back, maybe then they will learn something...

It's pretty sad if this is how the general population in Argentina thinks. First of all the previous owner of the Porsche has come out saying that the license plate has been on the car forever. Do you seriously believe the Top Gear team went looking for a car specifically to have that license plate? Second of all the response and actions taken by Argentinian people because they were offended by a license plate is almost unbelievable. It is not reasonable for the Top Gear team to have feared for their lives, their cars damaged, have to flee the country, and now you would want to have their property (the cars) taken away for being offensive?
 
It's pretty sad if this is how the general population in Argentina thinks. First of all the previous owner of the Porsche has come out saying that the license plate has been on the car forever. Do you seriously believe the Top Gear team went looking for a car specifically to have that license plate? Second of all the response and actions taken by Argentinian people because they were offended by a license plate is almost unbelievable. It is not reasonable for the Top Gear team to have feared for their lives, their cars damaged, have to flee the country, and now you would want to have their property (the cars) taken away for being offensive?

It's a case of boy who cried wolf. Too many times they've purposely taken low-blows at communities - so whether this was on purpose or not - no one is inclined to believe it wasn't. Now, had they not been so offense on pretty much every other occasion, no one would have batted an eyelash over this plate.

I'm still amazed they got away with their lives when they were in the confederate southern US and started getting pelted with rocks.
 
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Good thing it was, then. Because the locals very well may have shot them. There's no such thing as "southern hospitality" like many people believe. People in the confederate states smile in your face while plotting your death.
 
That's because the whole pelting incident was a fake.

Do you really think, that Top Gear is going that far, to get more entertainment/dramatic in there show ? I mean the recent Episodes showed, that Top Gear obviously is putting moe and more effects in to become more and more entertaining (sometimes a bit rediclious for my taste), but I don't think they would go that far ...
 
Do you really think, that Top Gear is going that far, to get more entertainment/dramatic in there show ? I mean the recent Episodes showed, that Top Gear obviously is putting moe and more effects in to become more and more entertaining (sometimes a bit rediclious for my taste), but I don't think they would go that far ...

Yes, it was faked
 
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