Top Gear on American Cars

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Originally Posted By: Mykl
Originally Posted By: hattaresguy
Generally outside of the US their are better driving roads with higher speed limits and more lax law enforcement. Whenever they come here they always cry about getting stuck on good roads in super cars doing 35...like Clarkson said about his SLS might as well keep it in comfort mode. Vs say Romania or Poland where you can be on better roads and let them fly.


*richpeopleproblems*

I get that I would prefer to live in an area where I had less to worry about when I was attacking an amazing mountain backroad, but after a great many "sport touring" trips in the southeast in the Smokey and Blue Ridge Mountains, I have yet to get a single ticket either in my car or past sport bikes.... going as fast as I felt safe. I've spent a lot of time autocrossing and doing track days, so I'm pretty comfortable pushing a car to the edge of it's traction circle.

Maybe if I had a Ferrari I'd be annoyed. But in my plebian GTI I feel like I can enjoy those roads going as fast as I want.


They were making fun of the US's artificially low revenue enhancing speed limits.

This is one of the reasons they don't Gumball in the US anymore.
 
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Just watch MotorWeek if you want dry facts and testing without strong commentary to bruise your feelings. I'll stick to Top Gear (both versions) for the entertainment value.
 
Originally Posted By: hattaresguy
They were making fun of the US's artificially low revenue enhancing speed limits.

This is one of the reasons they don't Gumball in the US anymore.


That's fair, because I would like higher speed limits, especially on freeways. But I'm pretty sure UK roads have similar speed limits and a lot more automated tax revenue systems to get you with. At least in the US, most of the time, it's a real person collecting the revenue.
 
Originally Posted By: Mykl
Originally Posted By: dailydriver
Originally Posted By: Mykl
Tanner and Rut are both cool, and given time they might be great.


As in Tanner Foust??
(I've never seen the U.S. version of this show.)


yup, that's him

top-gear-usa-hosts.jpg




Is the one in the middle the same one who did all of those goofy/corny NASCAR themed reality type shows??
(IF so I CANNOT STAND HIM!!!)

I thought the "Adam" everyone was speaking of was surnamed "Carolla" (of "The Man Show" fame)?? (Or is this a different Adam??)
 
Originally Posted By: hattaresguy
Generally outside of the US their are better driving roads with higher speed limits and more lax law enforcement. Whenever they come here they always cry about getting stuck on good roads in super cars doing 35...like Clarkson said about his SLS might as well keep it in comfort mode. Vs say Romania or Poland where you can be on better roads and let them fly.


There are some great driving roads in the US if you look for them.

Yeah. I now live within walking distance to the Blue Ridge Parkway (run Mts2Sea). It is one of the WORST driving roads. Actually, the only time it is a good road is when it is closed and you can run/bike long stretches. During the summer, the "caravans" make it suicidal to drive because they will go 20mph... and so will the Buicks and SUVs. So TG was absolutely correct about dissing the BRP. At best, it is a mediocre "cruising" road.

Now, my "anger" about TG is when they talked about DC and showed pictures of Richmond Va. That is a big oops. Not sure if many caught that as RVA is my home town and DC was my previous residence.

Personally, I want them to do a show driving second-hand cars across Russia (dashboard cams are a must).
 
Originally Posted By: dailydriver

I thought the "Adam" everyone was speaking of was surnamed "Carolla" (of "The Man Show" fame)?? (Or is this a different Adam??)

No, that's a different Adam. Adam Ferrara is his name.
 
Originally Posted By: 01rangerxl
Lots of things break in German cars from that era too and they usually smell like crayons, but the finish was better when new, and you paid for it. They are also luxury cars, the F-150 was not, even if people option it up like one today.


I think that was much of the root of their critical look at it. You were paying a lot of money to get a vehicle that didn't drive particularly well, didn't corner particularly well, didn't stop particularly well, and didn't have much interior refinement. It did go fast in a straight line.

For the same coin, you can buy better performing vehicles that offer better refinement. Their argument is that someone who is looking for good performance isn't looking for a pickup bed and a solid rear axle. In many cases, I think that's an accurate assessment. None of the historical "performance trucks" seemed to have any market longevity (Lightning, Typhoon, 454SS, Dakota R/T, Ram SRT-10, etc). To be sure, these vehicles weren't designed to be volume sellers, but I think there's a point to be made that "performance trucks" represent huge compromises, where the drawbacks to performance eclipse the increase in utility offered by the pickup bed.
 
Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd

I think that was much of the root of their critical look at it. You were paying a lot of money to get a vehicle that didn't drive particularly well, didn't corner particularly well, didn't stop particularly well, and didn't have much interior refinement. It did go fast in a straight line.

For the same coin, you can buy better performing vehicles that offer better refinement. Their argument is that someone who is looking for good performance isn't looking for a pickup bed and a solid rear axle. In many cases, I think that's an accurate assessment. None of the historical "performance trucks" seemed to have any market longevity (Lightning, Typhoon, 454SS, Dakota R/T, Ram SRT-10, etc). To be sure, these vehicles weren't designed to be volume sellers, but I think there's a point to be made that "performance trucks" represent huge compromises, where the drawbacks to performance eclipse the increase in utility offered by the pickup bed.


Yeah, in 2001, $32K (in the US, UK I think it might have been more) was a lot for a truck. If you compared that against most other vehicles in the $32K range, it would have done poorly.

Basically, a lot of those "performance" trucks happened in the middle or end of the production run. Thus, any "model" they could pull out of the parts bin and charge more was pure "butter" for the accountants. Put a "marketing" engine in a cheap vehicle and charge a lot. Really, those trucks are designed for "those guys" who can't afford something like a Viper but will go around telling everyone that their truck is "viper powered" and try and drive it as if it was a sportscar. A buddy of mine had the SRT-10 and after a while, hearing about the "viper engine" gets really old.
 
Originally Posted By: FutureDoc
There are some great driving roads in the US if you look for them.

Yeah. I now live within walking distance to the Blue Ridge Parkway (run Mts2Sea). It is one of the WORST driving roads. Actually, the only time it is a good road is when it is closed and you can run/bike long stretches. During the summer, the "caravans" make it suicidal to drive because they will go 20mph... and so will the Buicks and SUVs. So TG was absolutely correct about dissing the BRP. At best, it is a mediocre "cruising" road.


Yeah, but if you can get a go at the BRP that doesn't involve being stuck behind a lot of slow vehicles, it is magical. My wife and I got lucky last summer when we were up driving around and basically got to run at a very brisk pace from Ashville driving west to the end of it.
 
Originally Posted By: FutureDoc
I think US TG needs a whole new line, maybe keep Rut but trying to reverse engineer the BBC version is part of the challenge. They need to do things on their own.


As for Clarkson and the BBC, I enjoy it. The Brit-fandom of their UK products is the same as I see from US journalist toward US products and similar criticism to other "outside" makes. Jaguar is not that good. Folks just use different metrics for vehicles and that is fine and that is part of the fun.

Funny thing, I think Clarkson is the biggest "American" of them all. Patriotic, confrontational, outspoken, independent, and hedonistic.


The best episodes of the US iteration of Top Gear have been when they DON'T try to clone a previously done on the BBC edition.

Their trucks in Alaska was an American thing. Trucks are not really a UK thing, so they've not really done an episode like that, that I can recall.

But when the borrow story lines from the BBC edition, folks who've seen the BBC edition are left wanting, and those who haven't probably were not impressed as the story didn't speak to them.
 
at this point, it almost seems like they are actively trying to avoid a US/UK episode (they did a UK/AUS ep). even the couple times Tanner has gone to England to test a vehicle (Noble, Morgan) he's gone to some Other airfield to blast around, not Dunsfold.
 
One of the coolest episodes I've ever seen is when they had Kris Meeke (Citroen World rally Team driver) take a huge, stock except for the Sparco shell seats, Bentley Conti GT AWD down a rally stage (at Rally GB) at full speed (on STOCK tires no less!
crazy2.gif
) with James May calling the pace notes from the 'co-driver's' seat.

THAT was impressive!
thumbsup2.gif
 
Originally Posted By: dailydriver
One of the coolest episodes I've ever seen is when they had Kris Meeke (Citroen World rally Team driver) take a huge, stock except for the Sparco shell seats, Bentley Conti GT AWD down a rally stage (at Rally GB) at full speed (on STOCK tires no less!
crazy2.gif
) with James May calling the pace notes from the 'co-driver's' seat.

THAT was impressive!
thumbsup2.gif



That was a great episode, and that Bentley took the abuse pretty well too!
 
Futuredoc is right: Clarkson is very 'American' and not necessarily in a good way, either. Loud, arrogant, fat, pretty much the 'Ugly American' with a Yorkshire accent.

In a show about American muscle cars, May pointed out (In that plonking tone of voice of his) that American muscles cars had never really caught on in the "civilized world."

Or in another: "The interesting thing about the French nation, I think, because they are essentially peasants and Communists, is that they are quite good at the fairly small and fairly simple car."

Or the episode with their German counterparts, where the Brits flew to the racetrack in Spitfires. The Germans weren't laughing.
 
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