Jeremy - Top Gear Mag

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Jeremy on: Rallying


Is there anything on God's green earth as miserable as watching rallying? You wait around in a wet wood for hours until your lungs have frostbite, and then a Swede comes along and spits gravel in your face. You can't sit down. There's nothing to eat. Your girlfriend is moaning. Everyone else in the wood is a murderer. And there's no overtaking. It's just one car. Then a bit of discomfort. Then another car. Then it goes dark. Then there's some headlights. And then some more. And then one of the murderers murders your girlfriend.

So you go to the end of the stage, where there is a lot of noise and many men with one tooth, standing about watching other men in corporate-branded clothing change the gearbox on a Ford Focus. If this is something you find interesting, why not spend some of your life in the waiting room of your local Kwik Fit? At least you can sit down in there, and there are often tea and coffee-making facilities.

I hate watching rallying. But it could be worse. Because instead of watching the cars go by, you could be driving them. On snow or ice or gravel, we all know that a car will not stop or steer. And yet rally cars do both of these things. That means the whole thing is sorcery, and the people who do the driving must be witches.

I remember well the first time I drove a proper Group A turbocharged 4WD rally car. It was up a hill, in a wood in Wales, and there were many trees. The men in corporate-branded clothing strapped me into the seat very tightly and explained what all of the levers did, but I couldn't hear above the sound of my own heartbeat.

I set off, gingerly, and arrived quite soon at the first corner. I turned the wheel, but the car continued to go straight on. So I braked. And this made no difference, either. The car maintained its speed and direction as though I wasn't there. And then it fell in a ditch.

Of course it did. Because you can only drive a car when you are under the influence of kinetic friction. And in rallying, there isn't any. There wasn't any on our track last week, either. I was in the new BMW M135i, and it was absolutely pouring down. One of our professional drivers came into the office, having been getting some pickup shots, saying I needed to be super-careful on the straight, because the damn thing was aquaplaning all over the place.

Those words were ringing in my ears minutes later when, at 130mph, the rear end snapped sideways, and I became what Martin Brundle amusingly calls "a passenger", and one on his way to the scene of an accident. It was a very long journey. I left the track just past Chicago, and even though I was fully on the brakes by this point, the car wasn't really slowing down at all. At a guess, I'd say I was still doing a hundred as I approached that bit of track between the second-to-last corner and Gambon. "Uh-oh,"

I thought, "if I hit the tarmac here, while going sideways, this thing could roll." Obviously, then, I needed to do something to make sure I was not going sideways when I hit the tarmac. But on wet grass, this is not possible unless you are a Scandinavian witch. And I'm not.

It was blind luck that put me across the track backwards, and then I was back on the grass, heading towards the fuel bowsers that these days are used mostly for topping up James May's Tiger Moth. Luck kept me away from those as well, and I eventually ended up half a mile from where the problem had first arisen. Half a mile! That's why I hate driving when I'm not in control. That's why I hate rallying.

Luckily, I have an imagination. When I am driving a car quickly, my head is consumed by negative waves. I wonder what would happen if a wheel fell off or the brakes failed or the steering wheel jammed. This is all-consuming in the high-mu world of a dry track. But in the middle of a forest on a track so slippery even a horse would fall over, it means I rarely go faster than 4mph. That's why my rural accidents tend to be small.

And that brings me neatly on to m'colleague, Richard Hammond. I hope I'm not being disloyal, but when the sun is out and the weather's warm and he is presented with lots of juicy friction to play with, he is a bit of a spanner. Oh, he can get a car's tail to slide with the best of them, but when it comes to the business of gathering it all up with an armful of opposite lock and a balanced throttle, he does often need the services of Top Gear's editing machines.

I watch him sometimes fishtailing about the place in a flurry of curses, sweat and flailing arms and think, "Perhaps he's been stung by a bee." However, it's interesting. When you take away the friction, he is transformed into a driving god. Give him a Bowler Wildcat and a quarry, and it's like watching poetry in motion. Then there was the time when we were filming an item on Lancias. We were in Wales, and he needed to drive (I think it was a Morris Marina) round a special stage. Well, in his hands, even though it had a piano on the roof, it became a Peugeot 205 T16.

More recently, we were filming a segment for this year's Christmas DVD, and we arrived at a special stage in France. He had a Nissan 350Z. And I had a BMW Z4. And not to put too fine a point on it, he lapped me on lap one. Three times. On a track, I could kick his arse from here all the way to the middle of western Australia. But in a wood, it is the other way round. And I've been wondering. Why is this?

Some might argue that he lives near Wales, where there is a great deal of rain and very little in the way of actual roads. So he is used to slithering to the shops and drifting to the dry cleaners. If they have such things down there. But he grew up in Birmingham, where there is no mud or gravel or countryside of any kind. So it's not like he came out of the womb with his arms crossed and a Swedish accent.

What else, then? Well certainly, it has nothing to do with a lack of imagination. He's quite a sensitive sausage, and I daresay his big accident lives quite prominently in the frontal part of his lobes. He is not possessed with great co-ordination, either. If you watch him playing snooker, you quickly form the impression that there's something wrong with him. And you think much the same thing when he's at the oche. Until he accidentally throws a dart into your eye.

So. In the wise words of Sherlock Holmes, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Richard Hammond is a witch.

www.topgear.com/uk/jeremy-clarkson/Jeremy-on-rallying-2013-12-12

[RedMoon11]

Jeremy Clarkson on: Durable Cars



Before a car goes on sale to the general public, its manufacturer performs many tests. Examples are driven in slow motion into walls and other obstacles to make sure they are safe. Doors are opened and closed thousands of times to ensure they won't fall off. And engines are tested in the vast heat of Arizona as well as the frozen wasteland of an Arctic winter.

Then, when a robot has turned the radio on and off four billion times, and sensitive acoustic devices have established it's still making exactly the right sort of click, the finished product is shipped to the Nürburgring where men in cheap trousers pound round and round and round, ordering stiffer sidewalls and harder suspension until the ride is totally ruined. But the car can tear a driver's face off before it starts to slide.

The result of this exhaustive testing is remarkable. Because, by and large, cars are totally bulletproof. Drop your mobile onto a pillow, and the screen will smash. Leave your laptop unattended for a day, and its systems will jam. Ask your coffee machine to make you a cup of coffee, and it will demand a full service before it will even think about obliging. And then it'll decide not to anyway.

But your car? You can drive it down a track so rutted that your teeth all fall out one by one. You can drive it through rain that's so heavy it's no longer see-through. And you can leave it parked in the midday sun. And still, all of its things will work. Most remarkably of all, cars can even survive the toughest environment in the known universe - a week on a TG film shoot.

I'm not talking now about the cars we're filming. They're mollycoddled and looked after. I'm talking about the cars used by the people doing the filming.

Let me give you an example. Top Gear's big cheese arrived on a shoot one morning this month in a brand-new Mercedes E63 estate. A car that had been meticulously prepared for his appraisal by Mercedes-Benz. It gleamed. It shone. And it bristled. Because it had no idea that it was in for the worst week of its life.

Within an hour of its arrival, it had to be moved, and, unfortunately from its point of view, this job was given to a girl. And as we know, no girl will consider driving a car, even 40 yards across a car park, without first making sure she has enough bottles of water for the journey. These are half-drunk then left in the footwells for the rest of time.

When the shoot was over, the Mercedes was driven to the overnight hotel by someone who was plainly going for a new world record - how many sticks of chewing gum can I eat in half an hour. Judging by the wrappers that were cluttering up the centre console the following morning, he managed somewhere in the region of 4,500.

The next day, someone suggested The Stig should be given the job of driving the Mercedes to the second location in Wales. Needless to say, he arrived exactly three minutes before he'd set off. And you could feel the heat from the brakes and tyres over in Nova Scotia.

Of course, because we were in Wales, it rained. And this turned the whole site into something that could easily have been used as a location for a film called Planet Mud. All of which was transferred from the Earth into the car by a selection of cameramen, sound recordists, producers, researchers and assistants.

We know that many of them must have been girls because, half-buried in the thick, cloying soil, were another 2,750 half-drunk bottles of water.

We know, too, that many of them will have been BBC employees because of the way this car was being driven. It is a little-known fact that on the day you are issued with your BBC identification card, you completely lose the ability to drive a car. You lurch from pillar to post, quite literally. And then you mount the kerb.

In the filming world, all people carriers are called Previas. At home, you know full well you're talking about a Galaxy or a Sharan, but when you are at work, it's a Toyota. Similarly, a Range Rover is a vehicle. Unless it has a camera in the back when it becomes a camera car. In the filming world, there is filming. AND NOTHING ELSE.

By the end of day one, the Mercedes was starting to look rather forlorn. Maybe because it sensed that James May had just said: "I'm going to drive back to the hotel in the Mercedes."

James is a very good driver. He really is. A bit slow perhaps, but smooth and safe and a pleasure to be with. But he does break wind a lot. So, by the time we arrived back at the aforementioned hotel, I was pretty much dead. Also, a lot of the soil in the footwells appeared to be boiling. But the car? Actually, I have no idea how it was faring. It had become impossible to see.

The next morning, a female assistant brought it round to the front of the hotel, via a bush and a golf course, which meant another 200 bottles of water were rolling about under the seats. And there was something sticky on the door linings. Also, a bottle of glue used for attaching fake moustaches to people's faces had leaked onto the handbrake. And worse was to come.

There's a rule known to everyone in TV. Never let a film crew into your house. This is because they'll break it. It applies equally to a car. Offer to run a cameraman a hundred yards up the road, and, when you get there, you'll have no rear-view mirror, no interior trim and a shattered instrument binnacle. After two days, the Range Rovers they use to make TG look like they've been torn apart by a monster.

For the whole of the third day, a crew used the Mercedes as a Previa. And not since Nagasaki has the world seen such devastation. I used the poor car that night to drive back to the hotel and have never felt so ashamed. How could we have turned a gleaming press demonstrator into this in just three days? And why, all of a sudden, was there a sausage roll in the ashtray?

It went on like this for days until it wasn't a car so much as a favela. A steaming, pungent, teeming mass of rotting food, bacteria, disease and soil. Which was producing its own new forms of life. If you treated any other machine like this, it would break. If you treated a person like this, they would die. And yet here's the strangest thing.

When the shoot was over, before the big cheese reclaimed his car for the drive back to London, it was taken to a car wash. And in just five minutes, it was returned to a state of showroom freshness. The carpets. The seats. The boot. The paintwork. All looked new. You could not achieve similar results with your furnishings, fixtures and fittings at home, that's for damn sure.

I'm not singling out the Mercedes for special praise here, because over the years I've seen countless other vehicles and Previas recover from a few days in the hands of a BBC film unit.

Apart from Peugeots, obviously.

www.topgear.com/uk/jeremy-clarkson/Jeremy-on-durable-cars-2013-01-07

 

[RedMoon11]

Jeremy on: Scottish Racing Drivers

After the three of us have performed the last TopGear Live show of the day, we like to repair to the green room for a nice sit-down and 14 bottles of wine. This means that, later, we cannot walk to the car, let alone drive it to the hotel. So, wherever we are in the world, we use a driver.

During our recent trip to Glasgow, we were given a man who - how can I put this? - liked to get a move on. I think perhaps he was auditioning, without either our permission or knowledge, for the part of The Stig. He was so speedy that in the back, James and Richard started to make sick noises.

So, eventually summoning up all the tact I could muster, which isn't much, I had to ask him if he wouldn't mind slowing down a bit. He seemed to find this incredible. Not so much that he'd been asked to ease off by me, the man from TopGear, but that anyone would want to travel more slowly than the car would actually go.

I had to use my stern face and some extremely strong words so that, eventually, he disengaged
the afterburners and the Range Rover stopped knocking over cows with its sonic boom. And then, the strangest thing happened...

Immediately, we were overtaken by a Subaru, and before I had a chance to say, "Holy cow, he's shifting," an Audi A3 tore by. Followed by a car that was travelling so quickly, I couldn't actually make out what it was. Plainly, then, even though we'd been travelling at three or four times the speed of sound, we'd been holding people up.

Later, as I lay in my hotel bed, slightly regretting the 14 bottles of wine, I could hear cars travelling down a road maybe two or three miles away. And it was incredible. You'd hear them max out in second, and then third and then fourth. Even in a rubbish car, that's way past 100mph. Colin McRae may be with us no more, but, trust me, up there, north of the border, his spirit lives on.

All over the world, people's driving styles are as different as the way they make bread or the drink they choose to put in their mouths. The Americans seem to be unaware of there being any other cars on the road and are therefore massively surprised if you join their lane. In Russia, there is naked menace. In Italy, there is flair and style; as I've said before, looking good in Rome is more important than looking where you're going. Then we have the Germans, who simply need to be first, and the Indians who think that a safe arrival is entirely dependent on the mood and the will of their gods. Which, for an atheist like me, is a bit scary.

As a result of all this, you see all sorts of different driving techniques as you move around the globe. But the one thing you almost never see any more is people going really, really quickly. Maybe it's because of the cost of fuel. Maybe it's because governments everywhere have realised that speeding fines are a useful form of below-the-line income. Or maybe it's because of the cars we drive...

In the olden days, when James May was a young man, all cars had wildly different top speeds. A small family saloon could only just wheeze its way to 60mph, while a thoroughbred sportster such as an MG or a Sunbeam could do 80. This meant that ‘racing' on the road was dangerous, but not catastrophically so.

Today, though, if you want to prove that your BMW is faster than your neighbour's crummy little Vauxhall, you have to go way past 120mph. And things get even more tricky if your neighbour has an Audi or a Mercedes or a Jag or something which is comparable to your Beemer. Because,
then, both cars will have a limited top speed of 155mph.

This means the ‘racing' is not just dangerous, but completely pointless as well. You have a ‘race'. You prove nothing. And then you get killed.

Or you kill someone else. Occasionally, if we are on a track filming cars that aren't limited to 155mph, we will go to the max to see which is the fastest. You simply wouldn't believe how much tarmac is needed for this. You go on and on at two miles a minute, then three, for ages and ages and, I'm sorry, but in the real world, there are lorries and Peugeots which get in the way. And when you're covering 880 yards every 10 seconds, it would be quite hard to pull up in time.

So why, then, is all of this plainly still going on in Scotland? Cynics might suggest it's because of boredom or heroin but I think it has something to do with the fact that most of the world's Scottish people don't live in Scotland. Which means you have a first world, Western state full of first world, Western cars. And a road network that's virtually deserted.

And what a road network. The surface is smooth and grippy, the sightlines are good. The bends are designed to tickle the sausagey bits of the petrolhead. Driving slowly in Scotland is pretty much an affront to God, who plainly designed it as a nirvana for speed freaks.

Maybe that's why almost all of Britain's truly great racing and rally drivers have actually been Scottish. Coulthard. McRae. Clark. Stewart. Franchitti. McNish. Reid. Dumfries. Walkinshaw... The list is almost endless.

And there's more. In England, or pretty much anywhere else really, the traffic is bad, so the only place you can realistically ‘race' another road user is the motorway, where no driver skill is required at all. Whereas in Scotland, you really can find a thousand A-roads where there are crests and turns and all sort of other bits and bobs which level the playing field.

If you have the skill, you can have a diesel Vauxhall Astra and still keep up with a more powerful, grippier, and possibly modded, Subaru Impreza. This would force Subaru man to mod his car some more, to overcome his inadequacies, and that's the recipe for more speed and more racing.

Disgusting? Yes, of course. It's absurd that in this day and age, people should use the public highway as a race track. It's mad. Stupid. Reprehensible. But understandable. Because one chap demonstrating to another chap that he is a better driver is pretty much the exact same thing as a lion demonstrating to another lion that he has longer claws and stronger legs and would therefore be a more suitable mate for all the lionesses in the pride. Stags bash each other with their antlers. Giraffes try to knock each other over. Scottish people race their cars.

Other places may say they are more civilised, because that sort of thing doesn't happen. And that may be true. But occasionally, it's quite nice to get back to basics. To remember that behind our suits and our haircuts and our fancy food, we are still just transportation devices for our pen-ises.

www.topgear.com/uk/jeremy-clarkson/jeremy-on-scottish-drivers-2014-03-27

[RedMoon11]

Jeremy Clarkson on: Presidential Transport



Mr Obama has decided to buy a new car. He reckons the old presidential limo, known as The Beast, is getting a bit long in the tooth and that it’s time 
for something a bit better.

As a result, all three 
of America’s big three automakers – General Motors, Ford and Fiat – 
have been invited to pitch their ideas. And I can’t help wondering… why?

Yes, Mrs Queen has a specially made Bentley for official engagements, but other heads of state seem perfectly capable of getting about in normal cars. Mrs Merkel doesn’t feel the need to swan about in 
a limo. But then, why would she? If you’re running Germany, you can turn up in an S-Class, wallowing in comfort and patriotism at the same time.

It’s much the same story with Mr Cameron. He can choose from the new Range Rover or a Jaguar XJL, and, of course, whoever is running Italy this week can rock up in a Maserati Quattroporte.

Things are a bit more problematic for Monsieur Hollande. Now that none of the French carmakers do anything remotely presidential, he is forced to go around Paris on a small moped. He must be a laughing stock whenever the EU power brokers meet… right up to the point when Romania’s president turns up in his Dacia Sandero.

Oh, come on, there must be some snobbishness about this. All of the world’s press are waiting outside the door of whichever palace has been chosen to host the meeting, and you, the president of a major European country, has to arrive in 
a cast-off Renault Clio.

But that’s what he does. Gets out, straightens his tie, turns to the Greek chap and says, “You can shut it. You had to come on a rented scooter.”

The thing is, though, that all of these leaders are juicy targets for terrorists. All are guarded by crack security teams. And all are as important to their country as Mr Obama is to his. So why does he feel entitled to have a specially made, one-off, armour-plated Beast? Why can’t 
he just turn up in a Chevrolet Impala. Or, since he’s so obsessed with battery power, a Tesla?

No, scratch that one. Because, when Mr Obama was campaigning, he made a solemn promise that by the end of 2012 the entire White House fleet would be either plug-ins or hybrids. And so far, the total number of vehicles on the books that match that description is... um... zero.

The fact is, though, that the Americans want 
to see their man in a vehicle quite unlike anyone else’s. It’s a new-money thing, I guess. But, that said, in these hard times, they will not want him to sign a blank cheque. Which means the new limo may have to be built with one eye on the bank balance.

The current car isn’t really a car at all. It’s built on the platform of a Cadillac truck and powered by a truck engine as well. So that it doesn’t look like the sort of thing farmers and murderers use, it has various bits of stock Cadillac trim pieces, such as the headlights from an Escalade. But there are several features which are not stock at all. The blood bank in the boot, for instance, which is 
filled with a supply that matches the president’s. And the night-vision system. And the door seals 
which are designed to resist a chemical attack.

Then we get to the armour plating. Except we don’t, because it’s classified. We are told, however, that it can shrug off a direct hit from anything which a terrorist might reasonably be able to carry.

All of this comes with a few downsides. Size 
is one. Watching The Beast park in Downing Street is hysterical. 
And weight is another. 
It beached itself in Ireland a few years 
ago. But the greatest problem, in these 
times, is cost.

And that’s going to be the big issue for the big three carmakers as they struggle to design 
a replacement. How 
do you come up with something that reflects America’s position in the world and which can take a direct hit from an RPG? That doesn’t cost eleven hundred and twenty-thirteen billion dollars?

Needless to say, I have a few ideas of my own. First of all, the car only needs space for a driver and the president. As we know, the rest of the security detail has to run alongside. Which means it needn’t be capable of doing more than 12mph, or they’ll get left behind.

Of course, it must be airtight and, of course, it must be armour-plated. It should also come with an inbuilt weapons system, and, on top of all this, it’s got to look cool and impressive when pulling up outside the palace of a foreign dignitary.

Well, I’m sorry, but America already makes a vehicle which meets all of those requirements: 
the M1A1 Abrams main battle tank.

It’s thought that 6,000 have been produced over the years, and, if we are honest, today they are useless. They can’t be used in Afghanistan, because you won’t win the battle for hearts and minds if you turn up in a 60-tonne tank. And they won’t be used against Russia because... well, they just won’t, because these days that’d be silly.

Which means they are all just sitting about doing nothing. And that’s madness, because they really are very superb. On smooth ground, they can travel way faster than the chaps running alongside – up to 60mph in fact, because 
they are powered by gas-turbine motors.

And they come with the best armour in the world. It’s British. But unlike the current limo, 
they aren’t designed to simply take fire. They 
can also shoot back.

I once watched an Abrams, travelling at 30mph over rough ground, hit a truck parked a mile away. Watching that barrel lock onto the target and just stay there, irrespective of what the tank was doing, is one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen.

Inside? Well, they are not luxurious. But they are easy to drive. In fact, if you go on the internet, there’s some footage of me racing AA Gill from The Sunday Times through the streets of Baghdad in two Abrams. And if he can manage, a Secret Service numpty should have no problem at all.

Parking is easy too. Partly because they can turn round in their own length, but also because they can sort of go over things that are in their way. Certainly, there will be no more embarrassing incidents of the president becoming beached.

You know I’m making sense. Obama gets to 
run around in an all-American – apart from the armour – product. It costs nothing because it’s sitting around anyway. It will impress, especially if 
it is painted black. And it’s better at protecting him than a converted Cadillac pickup truck.

But, of course, the Americans will not take up my suggestion. Which brings me on to the fields of Challenger 2s that are currently sitting around on various British army bases gathering dust. Hello. Mr Cameron. Hello.

www.topgear.com/uk/jeremy-clarkson/jeremy-clarkson-column-presidents-cars-2014-6-5

[RedMoon11]

Clarkson on: Volvos

Sometimes, a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. Like going to the dentist, or driving a Volvo...

James May is thinking about buying a Volvo. He says it's like going to the dentist, something you have to do at some point, so you may as well get it over with. Happily, I have been to the dentist regularly over the years. I'm now on my third - or is it fourth? - XC90, so as the years advance and my knees begin to ache, I can be a bit more adventurous with my choice of car.

Not that long ago, I'd have bought a Jaguar. It would have suited me with my ear hair and my bald patch and my well-known habit of turning up everywhere with no cash. I would have admired its graceful lines and its pepperpot wheels and I would've looked forward, at the end of a hard day, to climbing into that soft, gentle, leather-lined cocoon for a stealthily quiet and deceptively fast, slushmatic drive home.

Sadly though, Jaguar has pretty much completely abandoned this market now. Its cars are noisy and hard and are therefore of no use at all to anyone over the age of seven. Which leaves me in a pickle. I've done the Volvo thing. Jaaag don't want me as a customer and consequently...

Yes, I agree, the BMW 5-Series meets all of my needs, especially the 530d estate, but I dunno. I look sometimes at the people driving them and I find myself wondering: "Would I like you to come for dinner at my house this evening?" And usually, the answer is: "No. Because you don't look like you'd be very interesting." They all appear to work in the cement industry.

At this point, I could rabbit on for hours about Audis and Mercs, but they tend to be driven these days by men in cheap suits and have Geri Halliwell in the back. And there's no point, because the simple fact of the matter is this. As I turned 54 last month, I decided I wanted a Bentley.

My grandfather always used to drive Bentleys. Big R Types and S Types. He used to let me sit on his knee and steer. And he would send his driver - a chap called Stancliffe - to meet me at the bus stop when I came home from school.

In Doncaster, the local boys used to love that, watching the snotty-nosed kid from the private school, getting off the bus and into a chauffeur-driven Bentley. They used to love it nearly as much as my Chelsea scarf.

But once the door of this vast machine was closed, I could no longer hear their taunts, and as I settled into that sumptuous rear seat, relaxing behind the vast C-pillar, I could no longer see their hand gestures.

For many, Bentleys are all about Le Mans and twits in boaters and W.O., but for me, a Bentley was an island of peace and quiet in a troubled world. Certainly, it was a lot better than my dad's Cortina. Or my mum's hateful VW Beetle.

Today, I'm not interested in the saloons particularly. I'm not an arms dealer and I'm pretty sure that the Rolls-Royce Ghost is a better car. No, I'm interested in the Continental, and that's odd because this is a car I used to dislike very much. It came with an ugly rear end, ho-hum handling and a whiff of Cheshire. It felt like it would only really be happy parked outside a mock Tudor house with pillars and a hallway like the lobby at an airport hotel. And there was always the nagging doubt that beneath the wooden dashboard beat the heart of a Volkswagen.

When I saw someone driving a Continental, I would sneer at them and then huffily turn away.

And then one day, I decided that I liked the Continental a lot. So far as I can tell, there is no discernible reason for this. It was the same shape. It was still a Volkswagen. It was still blessed with ho-hum handling. And yet...

I suppose it's a bit like the cardigan. For all of my life, I have seen these garments

in shop windows and on old people in the street and I have mocked and sneered and vowed that I would never ever wear such a thing, even if I had been shipwrecked on Svalbard.

And yet, last year, I bought one, and I'm now sad that the summer is here because I can't wear it any more. I love my cardigan and am thinking of buying some more in different colours. Maroon perhaps.

It appeared to me, then, that the Bentley Continental had stayed the same and that I had simply grown into it. But, in fact, behind the scenes, the car had changed, just a little bit. The new V8 engine may have started out in life in an Audi, but in the Bentley it growled and snarled. And new wheels and lights had done a marvellous job of disguising the fact that it's a long way from the prettiest car in the world. The radiator grille, meanwhile, had become a thing of great menace, and I loved that.

There have been more changes under the skin as well, because let's be in no doubt, the V8 comes out of the traps like double cream comes out of the carton. Smoothly, and with much control. It's not like milk, sploshing about all over the place, or ketchup which never goes where you want it at all. It is big and robust and you can place it perfectly.

I've driven a Continental V8 on a frozen lake in Scandinavia and along the French Riviera, and it's a dream car. Fun. Fast. Growly. And tenacious in the bends, despite its great weight. But despite all this, it comes with squidgy seats and glidematic suspension. It's not even that expensive. Yes, I know £123,000 is a huge amount ‘for a car', but for a car with a prestige badge it's just not. Not when you look at what Ferrari and Aston Martin and Lamborghini are charging these days.

The Bentley, then, would be perfect. I would buy one in memory of my grandfather. And it would make me happy.

But wait. What's this? Apparently, Volkswagen is saying that the next-generation Bentley Continental must share a platform with the Porsche Panamera. The word is that it will be an altogether sportier machine and that to ready the market for this, the run-out of the current model will be fitted with fixed rear spoilers and granite suspension and seats made from spikes. Versions of this new car - to be badged RS - have been spotted testing at the bloody Nürburgring. They've gone back to their roots. They've built a sporty lorry, and I'm well enough versed in that area to be able to say... It. Doesn't. Work. Sports lorries hurt.

Why have they done this? I'm not alone out here. I'm not the only middle-aged chap who wants 500 horsepower but doesn't want to have my teeth rearranged every time I go over a cat's eye. But that, it seems, is what I'm going to get.

So, James May. Next week. The Volvo showroom it is.

www.topgear.com/uk/jeremy-clarkson/jeremy-on-volvos-2014-06-18

[RedMoon11]

Jeremy Clarkson on: Modern Cars

Just because you like cars, it doesn't mean you like all cars. As Jeremy has found out to his cost

Jul 18, 2014



When I was 11, I had a record collection which included albums such as Who’s Next, Led Zep IV, Fragile, Hunky Dory, Meddle and, yes (he said proudly), something by the Carpenters. So, a wide and varied selection I’m sure you’ll agree.

Not to my grandfather, it wasn’t. As far as he could tell, it all sounded exactly the same. ‘Rainy Days and Mondays’ was completely indistinguishable from ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’. ‘South Side of the Sky’ was, note for note, identical to ‘Black Dog’. It was all just “modern music”.

So, as my twelfth birthday approached, he bought me an album of West Country folksy banjo music. I can see his thought process clearly. Jeremy likes modern music. This is modern. He will, therefore, like it.

Well I didn’t. And getting my face to say I was pleased with my birthday present was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Outwardly, I was making mmm noises and saying I’d listen to it later. Inwardly, however, I was screaming. “You could have bought me The Yes Album. I would have liked that. But you’ve spent your money instead on a bunch of wannabe Wurzels.”

It’s strange, isn’t it? In the whole of 1971, fewer than 700 rock albums were released, so it would surely be safe to assume that as I had an interest in rock, I’d like all of them. But I didn’t.

It’s much the same story with those who like literature. It’s no good saying “Ah. Great aunt Susan is very interested in reading, so I shall buy her this new spy thriller by Dean Koontz.”

We certainly see it with religion. People invent imaginary friends and then have actual shooting wars with those whose imaginary friends are slightly different.

You’d imagine that there can’t possibly be differences between those who operate in the narrow band of fishing. That when it comes to pulling a bream out of a river and then throwing it back again, there can’t possibly be factions. Go on, then. I dare you. Buy a trout tickler a fly and see how far you get.

Or if you really want to see the face I had to present to my grandfather in 1971, buy someone who’s interested in the theatre a couple of tickets to see a schmaltzy musical.

We see exactly the same problem in the world of motoring. When someone says they like cars, it doesn’t mean they like all cars and everything associated with them. So no. You may not go out and buy them a nice pair of MG driving gloves.

Last weekend while filming an item for the next series of Top Gear, I dropped in at Castle Combe racetrack which was playing host to an event called Japfest. It was enormous. Fifteen thousand people had descended on this quiet corner of Hammond County in their Evos and their Subarus and their hunkered-down Supras.

As an event, it was tremendous. I saw more crashes on the track in one day than I’ve seen in all my life. I had a lovely burger. And I’ll be honest: the quality of the drifting was top notch. If this is your kind of thing, well, good luck to ya, fella; help yourself, and have a slap on the back from me. But modified Japanese cars with flames up the side aren’t really my thing. I dunno. Maybe it’s because I don’t have enough tattoos.

The next day, I went to another classic car event which was a bit different. Held in a field just up the road from Castle Combe, it was also for people who like cars but it was a bit more Pimm’s and tweed. Hosted by veteran car collector Nick Mason and his flying chum Vic Norman, guests could wander about in the sunshine looking at a collection of Sixties Ferraris, some old Bentleys and the odd XK120.

It was all too lovely for words, and I had the loveliest time talking to Nick’s guests, who were lovely and interesting. But the cars? Again. Not really my bag. I wish those who like this kind of stuff all the very best. You get priapic over a 250 GTO’s pedigree. I… er… what do I get priapic over? It’s a good question.

On the very same weekend that I was at Japfest and Nick Mason’s right crowd without the crowding, the whole Formula One circus had arrived in Europe for the first time this year and set up shop in Spain. So was I wandering about with an ear glued to the radio, desperate to see who was on pole and how Lewis was getting on? I’m afraid not. I’ll happily watch a grand prix if I’m at home on a lazy Sunday afternoon. But I’m not going to go out of my way to see how far Pastor Maldonado got this time without crashing into someone.

Other cars I’m not interested in are mid-range hatchbacks or any so-called crossovers.I’m not that bothered about big saloons either, or anything made by Hyundai or Seat. Or Peugeot.

I quite like looking at cars that were around in my youth. I’m partial to a BMW 3.0 CSL and would pause awhile to look at an NSU Ro80. I’m always happy to see a Lancia as well, especially a Fulvia or an Integrale. But I wouldn’t want to own any of them. Because there’d be no iPod connectivity or aircon. And, more importantly, no guarantee that I’d get to where I was going.

Supercars? Nope. Been there. Done that. Convertibles? Yes, but I’m too old. I’m bored with the AMG thing now they’ve gone all quiet. And while I still admire a Ferrari, I can’t actually put my hand up and say I’d have one. Not since May did.

I like small sports cars. I like small hatches. I like the V8 Bentley Continental and at this point you are almost certainly sitting there wondering how on earth I can say I like cars when the only cars I actually like are the Mazda MX-5, the VW Up and the Bentley Continental. But only if it’s a V8.

Well, I’ll tell you. My love of cars has become narrowed over the years to the feeling I get when the sun is shining and I’m driving quickly in something that has about 500 horsepower and suspension that’s been set up by a company that knows what it’s doing. I like the feel of the cornering. And the buzz of the acceleration. And I like to be air-conditioned when all this is happening. And it’s impossible to get these sensations from anything or anywhere else.

In short, I like cars but only if they are brilliant and new and reliable and comfortable and I can plug my iPod into the sound system and listen to Who’s Next. There are very, very few which meet all of my requirements but... well, let me put it this way, for my next birthday, I think I’d be very happy with a BMW M4.

www.topgear.com/uk/jeremy-clarkson/jeremy-clarkson-column-modern-cars-2014-7-18

[RedMoon11]

Clarkson on: Boring Modern Cars

Why is the VW Up GT like House of Cards on Netflix? Jeremy has the answer...

Aug 27, 2014

Every couple of months, I sit 
down with the internet and decide which cars I’d like to road test in the coming weeks. It used to be fun. 
But it isn’t any more. Because these days, as I look down the long list 
of all that’s new from the world of motoring, I usually think “I don’t want to drive any of this stuff.”

Mitsubishi’s new plug-in hybrid Outlander. Yes? No, actually. 
I realise, of course, that this is the future and that it features 
many new innovations designed to harness energy from waste by-products and turn them into speed and comfort, but I’m 
afraid I can’t be bothered to be interested in any of it.

I felt much the same about the new Mini Cooper. Partly 
this is because it looked like the old Mini Cooper, but mostly 
it’s because it has a three-cylinder engine and therefore the 
get-up-and-go of a dining table. My diary says that this morning, a four-wheel-drive Suzuki of some kind is being delivered for 
my appraisal. But when the doorbell rings, I may hide behind 
the curtains and pretend to be out because, honestly, I’d rather use a taxi. Oh, I’m sure it’ll be very nice, but I can guarantee that it will be about as exciting as a lecture on BitTorrents.

In fact, I’ve done a bit of thinking, and I reckon that there has never been a time in automotive history when cars have been this boring. The Audi Q3 is a case in point. The BMW X3 is another.

You may scoff at this. You may say that in my youth, we had the Austin Allegro and the Morris Marina and that they were far more boring than anything made today. But this isn’t so. They were not boring. They were terrible. Amusingly terrible.

Then there was the Hillman Avenger, another dreadful 
car. But let’s not forget that there was a model called the Tiger, which had a boot spoiler and a matte black bonnet and excellent sculptured mirrors on the wings and minilite wheels. It was 
also dreadful but it looked fabulous, and here’s the thing: where’s the Tiger version of the Audi Q3? All you get is 
the RS version, which works only because the increased power means you get the journey over with more quickly.

Ford was always good at producing one interesting car from each of its model ranges, and there can be no doubt that the Fiesta ST is a fitting tribute to the XR2s and the Mexicos and the Lotus Cortinas from the company’s past. It’s a little gem, that car.

But where’s the hot Mondeo? Where’s the Ka with a matte black bonnet and wing mirrors? Why is there no Focus Cosworth with four-wheel drive and 300 horsepower?

Then you have Volkswagen. It talked of making an Up GT, and I was very excited about that. It would be the Hillman Avenger Tiger of the modern age. But now VW’s announced that... drum roll... it can’t be bothered. It’ll be sticking with the three-cylinder, non-turbo base car. Which is very good and very sensible and very economical and very well made. 
I admire it in many ways. But I don’t actually want one.

Of course, carmakers will explain that in these modern, difficult times, it is simply not financially viable to go to 
all the bother and expense of making an interesting car, because all people want is four wheels, a seat and 65mpg.

But it has always been thus. Hillman went to the bother and expense of making that Tiger, and it wasn’t exactly a ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ sales success. It was much the same with the droop snoot Vauxhall Firenza or the Opel Manta GT.

Even the more mainstream offerings, such as the Ford Escort XR3i, only ever accounted for 15 per cent of total 
Escort sales. But the XR3i and the Golf GTi and the Vauxhall Astra GTE did something more important. They made the owners of the GLs and the 1.3s feel better.

And there was more. They were realisable dreams for the masses. In the days before EuroMillions and scratch cards, there was no way a shopkeeper from Warrington was ever going to afford a Ferrari or a Lamborghini. But a hot Ford? He could buy the 1.1 L now on the basis that, one day, with a fair wind and a bit of scrimping, the XR3 might be possible. And that made it so much more than a humdrum Ford with a 1.6-litre engine and a spoiler. It made it a dream car for millions.

Which, of course, brings me on to Netflix, the one-stop shop if you have a craving on a Sunday afternoon to watch The Rock or Air Force One. As a wise man said on Twitter recently, browsing through the movies it offers to subscribers is like browsing through the shelves of a Stockport video rental shop in 1994.

If you want to watch Gravity or the Dallas Buyers Club, then you are faced with a choice. Download it now from wherever 
or wait until 2026 when it will be available on Netflix. Unless there is a legal hiccup over rights in the meantime. Which there probably will be. So why then, if Netflix’s movie selection is 
so weak, do I subscribe? Why do you subscribe? Why is it so popular? There’s no sport. No news. Just a lot of stuff you’ve seen already. Ah yes. But there is also House of Cards.

This was made especially for Netflix, and it cost an absolute bleeding fortune. They hired Kevin Spacey to play the lead and the word is he trousered many millions for the deal. They had Robin Wright as well, which is why I tuned in. This was a lavish deal, and if you wanted to see it, and you did because it was superb, you had to have Netflix.

After two series (or seasons, if you want to sound American), it finished. So then they started Orange Is the New Black, which is also fabulous. Especially if you are fond of all things sapphic. It’s set in a women’s prison and, er… well, let me put it this way: watch a trailer, 
and then you’ll be a Netflix subscriber as well.

It’s ballsy stuff this, commissioning very expensive television drama. Because what 
if it doesn’t work? That’s not the end of the world if you are the BBC or ITV, because you have sports and news and panel shows as well. But if you are Netflix, it must work. Because, realistically, it’s all you’ve got. It’s your hook, your bait, your float, your line, your rod and your reel. Like I said, it’s a ballsy strategy, and Netflix is pulling it off big time.

The car firms should take note, because an endless 
array of cars which look like the sort of thing Walter 
White or Dexter might use will one day result in everyone taking the bus instead. We need interesting cars to keep 
us interested. They don’t need to be fast, because that might be passé. But they do need to make us look twice. 
We need a return to the days of the Tiger.

Carmakers need to remember not only Orange Is The 
New Black. But also that orange is the new black. Apart 
from the bonnet obviously. And the door mirrors.

www.topgear.com/uk/jeremy-clarkson/jeremy-clarkson-boring-modern-cars-2014-8-26

[RedMoon11]

Clarkson on: Future Commuting

Jeremy has found a solution to our commuting problems - and it's one you might be familiar with

Sep 11, 2014

As I'm sure you know by now, I am no fan of the bus. In rural areas, I accept, of course, that it is a necessary evil because people who are too old to drive a car need to be able to get to the shops so they can buy potions for their phlebitis and tuna chunks for their cats.

But in cities? No. In cities, everything you ever need is only a short walk away, and if it isn't you can use a bicycle. And if you don't want to ride a bicycle, because you are, say, an adult, then you should buy a car. There is simply no need, then, in urban areas for a bus. It is too big, too noisy and as often as not it's full of rambling drunkards and murderists.

However, I've spent the last week or so in continental Europe, and it seems that many cities there have something even worse. It's called a tram, and I simply cannot see the point.

If you look on the internet, fans of the idea say they are trains that operate in city centres, but as we know, everyone on the internet is a swivel-eyed lunatic and so we must dismiss this notion straight away. A train is a long-distance tool which runs in a straight line. It cannot be converted to operate in a city centre, because it cannot turn left or right at a set of lights.

No. A tram is a bus, which as we've already explained is a waste of space. But it's worse than a bus because its power comes from overhead electricity cables. This means that many streets in the city have to be blanketed with high-voltage cables, which is extremely dangerous not just for tall people like me but also for small children. Because, as we keep being told, electricity, whether it comes from windmills, mobile phones or power stations, causes many different types of cancer.

There's another problem. Because the tram has to remain in contact with the wires that feed electricity to its motors, the driver cannot swerve if someone runs into his path. He must just sit there until his windscreen becomes all red and meaty.

I am always gripped by terror when I'm in a city that uses trams, because I know that if I accidentally stray into their path, I will definitely be killed. In Rome recently, I misread a sign while driving a Lamborghini Aventador and found myself sucked into a tunnel that was full of the damn things, and I don't mind admitting that quite a lot of poo came out.

It's bad enough trying to mix cars, pedestrians, cyclists and lorries. That's a recipe with disaster written all over it. But when you introduce blinkered unidirectional trams as well, you're going to address the housing shortage in double quick time, that's for sure. Because everyone will be dead.

What staggers me is that we have the ability today to build monorails. We see them at airports running on maglev synergy drive systems. This lifts public transport above the heads of the city's shoppers and is undoubtedly the solution. But instead, those in charge always say: "No. Let us use instead something from Dickensian times." It's madness, as stupid as saying you want to go to America in a sailing boat, rather than in an A380.

Which, of course, brings me to Edinburgh. Its new tram service opened a few weeks ago and was hailed by the BBC's online news service as a great success. But it's no such thing. The people of the city had to put up with closed roads and construction traffic for six years, and all they got was one 8.7-mile line that eventually cost north of £700 million. Twice the original estimate.

£700 million works out at £1,400 for every man, woman and child in the city. It would have been cheaper to provide every commuter in the city with a brand-new BMW i3. It is a criminal waste of money, and all so you can get from the city centre to the airport about six seconds faster than before.

The only good thing to come out of the fiasco is that every other city in Britain is now quietly dropping their plans to build a tram network. But even this comes with a worry, because we are talking about local councillors, and there's no telling what idiocy they may come up with instead. A new network of canals perhaps. Or a space hopper docking port.

Well, as usual, I have a plan which could be of some use. Since everyone is obsessed these days with the environment and living in the past, why not scrap all public transport and provide the residents of each city with a fleet of horses. Horses are sustainable and organic, and their exhaust discharge can be used to make the roses on all the municipal roundabouts much more vivid.

Horses are quieter than trams and don't need to be serviced very often. They are also cheaper to run. You don't have to plug a horse into overhead cables - unless it is behaving badly - and you don't need to fill it up with diesel every few hundred miles. Simply leave it in a city centre park while you're at work, and it will refuel itself on nothing but grass...

I will admit that horses are not comfortable. James, Richard and I went for a ride in Burma recently and after just a mile, I had a crushed teste, James had a ruined anus and Richard had a sprained wrist. But this is because we are unskilled. With a bit of practice, I think we could probably get the hang of it and then...? Well, certainly, I'd rather use a horse to get around London than a bicycle. A horse never gets a puncture, its chain never comes off and you don't have to pedal it, which means it's easier to get to the top of Notting Hill. Maybe they could be sponsored by Barclays and called Boris Horses.

I admit there would be one or two issues. If there are 150,000 commuter horses in London, that would result in around 40,000 gallons of horse urine splashing onto the streets every day. As well as three million pounds of manure, which would attract flies, which would spread diseases such as typhoid.

Also, we'd have to reckon on around 40 horses dying every day. Which would be yet another environmental hazard unless they were collected promptly. Which they wouldn't be if it were a council-run enterprise. So pretty soon, there'd be a dead bloated horse on every street corner which...

Hmm. Actually, the more I think about this, the more I reckon it won't work. So how's this for another plan? We stop messing about with Victorian solutions and accept that realistically there's only one sensible way of getting about these days. It's called "a car".

It won't give you typhoid, it doesn't cost £700m, it can be steered round pedestrians that have strayed into the road, it doesn't attract flies, it doesn't ruin your anus and it won't wander off in the night. Sounds perfect? That's because it is.

www.topgear.com/uk/jeremy-clarkson/clarkson-on-future-transport-2014-09-11

[RedMoon11]

Clarkson on: Diesel

Diesel was lauded as the fuel of the future, says JC, but now it seems the experts have changed their minds…

Oct 14, 2014

Just a few years ago, experts decided that petrol was fundamentally evil, and that using it to fuel the engine in your car was about the same as running round a town centre in a polar bear suit, stamping on baby bats and shooting passers-by.

As a result, many people decided to sell their petrol-powered car and buy a diesel instead. There were some sacrifices, of course. There was a bit of clatter on start-up and power was lacking at the top end, but, on the upside, trips to the pumps were less frequent, annual running costs were down and, best of all, the Arctic was full once more of smiling polar bears, rolling in the snow and playing with their cublets.

But now, the very same experts who told us to switch to diesel are saying that it is, in fact, the fuel of Lucifer and that anyone who uses it in their car is guilty of murder. "Murder, d'you hear?"

They say that if you stand on a street corner on a sunny day and watch a diesel-powered vehicle pull away, you can see a haze, and that this haze is made up of unburnt particulates which will work their way into our children's lungs and kill them. They say diesel soot will also cause deformities and death, and that walking down Oxford Street is the same as smoking a thousand cigarettes an hour for two hundred years.

Sensible motor-industry bods point out that a hundred modern diesel cars produce the same amount of polluting elements as just one that was made in the Seventies. They say that modern cars have filters which capture 99 per cent of all particulates and that nitrogen oxide (NOX) emissions from cars were reduced by a whopping 81 per cent between 1990 and 2010.

They say, quite rightly, that science and maths are solving the problem, but it's no good. These rational arguments are being drowned out by the hysteria of the experts who are whizzing about, waving their arms in the air and shouting "child killer" at anyone who works for a car firm.

They say that taking your children to school in a reasonably priced and eminently sensible Vauxhall Astra diesel, is actually more reprehensible than launching a drone attack on a wedding party.

And guess what? The politicians are now saying that the tax on diesel must be raised. They say that it's currently set at the same level as petrol and that this must end. They say that it should be a million pounds a litre. And that anyone who asks for it must be stabbed.

And there's more. Boris Johnson argues that because London keeps breaking pollution barriers laid down by the EU, he will double the Congestion Charge for diesel vehicles by 2020. Other cities are said to be considering similar schemes. This will then raise revenue that can be spent on computer systems for the NHS that don't work, and trams that go nowhere and unjust wars and more climate experts who can disagree with the last lot.

But where does it leave you and me? We bought diesels because we were told that this was the good and correct thing to do. And now we are being told that unless we sell them, our children will be taken away for medical experiments.

So we do as we are told and we sell them... and then what? We buy a petrol car? "Nooooooooo," shriek the experts. "Were you not listening first time around? Think of the polar bears and the South Sea tribes."

So, what then? Doubtless, the experts would say that you must buy an electric car and there are even big government grants for anyone who does just that. But I'll warn you here and now that, after a lot of people have bought a BMW i3 or a Nissan Leaf or a Mitsubishi PHEV, we will be told loudly that Britain simply doesn't have the ability to generate enough power to charge them all up. Boris Johnson is saying that even now, London is facing the very real threat of black- or brownouts.

The solution, of course, is to build more power stations, but what should they run on? Coal? Nooooooo. Oil? Really nooooo. Nuclear? Aaaaargh. Wind? Really? You think you can charge up 28 million cars and 28 million phones and 28 million laptops using nothing but wind. You're deluded. And that's before you get to Mr and Mrs Nimby of Surrey who've heard that windmills make dogs go mad and will therefore be doing their damnedest to make sure none are built anywhere near where they live.

This is the trouble with the whole debate. You have governments imposing taxes based on the evidence of loony experts who want us to go back to the dark ages. You have Nimbyism. You have hysteria and madness, and there's no joined-up thinking. Nobody is saying: "Look. People have to move about. They have to have cars. So what do we want them to use to power those cars?" At present, the answer seems to be "Er..."

Once again, then, it falls to me to be the still, small voice of calm and reason.

So, here goes. Diesel cars are not really the problem. A modern BMW does not trail a sooty haze in its wake. Its exhaust fumes are much like the stuff that comes out of James May's bottom after a heavy night: unpleasant but it won't cause you to grow another leg.

The problem is trucks. But nobody is driving around in a lorry for fun. The nation's artics are delivering buns and fruit to the shops, and if you increase the tax their owners have to pay for diesel, then you will send prices on the shelves through the roof. Bad idea.

So we shouldn't increase the tax burden on cars, because they're not the problem. And we can't increase it on trucks because that would cause inflation.

We must therefore look at what else sends lashings of hot soot into the lungs of our children. And it strikes me there are two things we can do without. The first is buses. So we get rid of those with immediate effect. And then we must have a look at patio-heaters.

Environmentally speaking, they are a menace, but they are currently necessary because people are forced to stand outside pubs and restaurants every time they want a cigarette. This, then, is how we can tackle the issue of pollutants. Don't double the Congestion Charge. Don't increase the tax on diesel. Simply reverse the smoking ban and allow people to have a cigarette indoors.


www.topgear.com/uk/jeremy-clarkson/clarkson-on-diesel-2014-10-14

[RedMoon11]

Clarkson on: the BMW M3

Did BMW's M division lose its way when the i division appeared? JC says there’s only one way to find out...

Nov 13, 2014

It was The Stig who first identified the problem. "The new BMW M3 is s**t," he said, apropos of nothing in particular.

I am often accused of using hyperbole to make a point, but I am a rank amateur compared with our tame racing driver. Not that he knows what the word ‘hyperbole' means. He would almost certainly think it was some kind of soup. But, whatever, every car falls into one of two categories in his book. It is either "brilliant" or it is "s**t". Unless it is a Mercedes AMG Black, a car which causes him to become priapic. And then faint.

He makes the decision on whether a car is "brilliant" or "s**t" depending entirely on what sort of diff it has and how well that diff works. You could give him a car which looked like the Ferrari 458, ran on water, cost 25p and did 200mph, but if its diff prevented him from getting the tail out a bit in the Hammerhead, he would say it was "s**t".

So I didn't pay much attention to his musings on the new M3. In fact, I drove one - actually, it was an M4, but let's not get bogged down with detail here - a few weeks later, and I thought it was pretty damn marvellous. A tad overstyled perhaps, and fitted with silly door mirrors, but fast and comfortable and extremely well balanced. The diff? Didn't even notice it.

A few weeks later, however, I was with an M4 at the Mugello racetrack in Italy. I still don't know how on earth they got permission to build such a place in Tuscany - it'd be like being allowed to build a swan-shooting centre in the Lake District - and I uncovered the flaw that his Stigness was on about.

It's not really the diff. It's the steering. In Sport Plus mode, it is far too twitchy, so that any attempt to perform a power slide - something that was as easy as breathing in the old M3 - is rewarded with a great deal of jerkiness to start with and a lot of tight-buttocked fishtailing when it was over. In Comfort mode, the steering is better, but it's still not right. And an M3, or 4, with steering that's not right? That's like saying a ballet dancer is not right because she has concrete blocks where her feet should be.

There's a very good reason for the problem. It's the same reason that the engine has only six cylinders rather than eight. The Polar bear. To stop his house floating away and crashing into a luxury liner, we are told that cars need to produce fewer carbon dioxides. That means smaller, turbocharged engines. And steering that's powered by the battery, not hydraulics.

It's sad, really, but at the end of the day we can't moan too much because despite the smaller engine, the new M3 is faster than the last model. And that steering? Well, it means that power slides are tricky, but in the real world where there are policemen and shrubberies, who cares if your car is hard to gather up after a 400-yard drift? Because, by and large, the M3 is magnificent. I like it a very lot.

But do I like it as much as the new i8? There has been no subtle nod to the plight of the Polar bear here. This is a car that strides manfully up to his igloo, pops its head round the door and says in a Greenpeacey way: "Hi, I'm here to help."

It is built to be light, and to do 130mpg. It has a small three-cylinder engine, such as you would find in a food blender or a vacuum cleaner. And as a result, it is exactly the sort of car that should be treated by TopGear as the devil. It is what we fear the world is coming to.

And yet, behind all the holier than thou, clean 'n' green hype, this is a car with a carbon-fibre tub. It's a car that will hold a candle on the racetrack to the Porsche 911 and the new Corvette - don't laugh, that's a good car.

When Toyota first showed the world that hybrid drive was possible, they dressed up the technology in the Prius. An anti-car, designed to show specifically that its owner is not interested in motoring at all. It was for people who needed wheels. Not people who wanted them.

McLaren changed the way we think. It showed with the P1 that hybrid drive doesn't have to be dreary. It showedthat a petrol engine and an electric motor working in harmony can be just about the most exciting and alluring combination since Paul Newman and Robert Redford came together to be Butch and Sundance.

And now BMW has offered us that same sense of air punching yes-ness for around a tenth of the price of the McLaren. Trust me on this. The i8 is a car you're really going to want.

It looks unusual and odd and it's all slightly overwhelming when you climb inside for the first time. There are read-outs and buttons that you don't understand. It's like switching from an iPhone to a Nokia. You have a craving to run home to Mummy, but there's no need to be frightened because you can drive an i8 in exactly the same way you drive any other car.

You have a steering wheel, a brake pedal and a throttle. You put the gearlever in drive and apart from the fact there is no noise when you push the starter button, it feels pretty much the same as whatever you're driving now.

Not exactly the same, though. It actually feels lighter, sharper, more responsive. It feels alive and exciting. And if you push the gearlever to the other side of the gate to engage Sport mode, it feels fast. Really fast.

On a twisting country lane, it just flew, slicing with no roll from corner to corner as though it was a bird of prey. I knew, of course, that the petrol engine was driving one set of wheels and the electric motor was driving the other. I knew, too, there was a third, chiming in to give a little extra boost as the forced induction woke up.

I knew, too, there were computers deciding when all of this happened but, from where I was sitting, it felt intuitive. It felt absolutely right. It felt magnificent.

And so, we arrive at an interesting question. Given the choice, which one would I buy: a car from the past or a car for the future?

Sitting here, today, I don't know. So to find out, I'm going to do an experiment. Next week, I'm going to drive an i8 to - oh, I don't know, let's say Whitby - where a new M3 will be waiting. And then I shall choose which one I shall use for the drive back to London.

You will see the film, and the result, in the next series of TopGear which will be screened when we've finished making it.


www.topgear.com/uk/jeremy-clarkson/clarkson-m3-2014-11-13

[RedMoon11]

Jeremy Clarkson’s Top Gear Column Archive
 
When it comes to automotive journalism this man does it best. While he is best known for his boisterous personality on Top Gear, Clarkson’s writing is just as witty. Read his columns on TopGear.com when you have a few moments. You won’t be disappointed.



We’ve included links to some of the older, archived, columns below:
sportscarhunter.com/jeremy-clarksons-column-archive/

The Column archive is from August 2010 to October 1993

Clarkson on: broken Britain - August 2010
Built-in obsolescence is the blight of the modern consumer – you buy something one day, but by the next it’s stopped working. Something must be done…
www.topgear.com/uk/jeremy-clarkson/clarkson-broken-2010-08-01
www.topgear.com/car-news/jeremy-clarkson/jeremy-clarkson-broken-britain

Clarkson on: statistics – October 1993
“Each month this column is going to talk very little about cars and quite a lot about the evils of socialism, smoking and why it’s good for you”
www.topgear.com/uk/jeremy-clarkson/clarkson-statistics-01-1993

sportscarhunter.com/jeremy-clarksons-column-archive/

[RedMoon11]

Clarkson on: Manual Gearboxes

Why put up with yesterday’s technology? Jeremy sounds the death knell of the manual gearbox

December 08, 2014

Oooh, it's happening quickly. Five minutes ago, hybrids were for stupid people who thought that driving a car with two engines would help to preserve the world's resources. And electric cars were for the terminally idiotic.

No, really. They were. I once staged a head-on crash between a G-Wiz and a kitchen table, and the table came off best. And what's the point of driving a car that makes the world a better place, if you're not going to be around to enjoy it?

But that was then and this is now, and everything is very different. The two best supercars ever made are hybrids, the BMW i8 is leaving all who drive it slack-jawed with admiration, and on the electric-only front, we've gone from the G-Wiz to the i3 in one move. Which is a bit like Orville and Wilbur Wright landing at Kitty Hawk and saying: "OK. That sort of works. Now let's build an F14."

The good old-fashioned internal combustion engine is being eclipsed at an astonishing rate, and sitting around lamenting its demise puts me in mind of Neil Young endlessly moaning about the death of vinyl and how digital sound doesn't have quite the same richness. That may be true, but you can't scratch the songs on your iPod.

It was convenience that killed off the LP, and yet more convenience that heralded the demise - in about a month - of the CD. Because when a better idea comes along, it's incredible how quickly it takes off. One minute, you had a phone on your hall table. The next, you didn't. Because it was in your pocket, or on your wrist.

One minute, you were using a typewriter, and then - bam! - you had a laptop. One minute, you were posting your letters in a postbox. And then you were sending emails. One minute, you were recording an episode of Downton Abbey on a video-cassette recorder. Because you'd set the control wrong. And then you were using Sky+.

There never seems to be much of a transition period with these things. The world doesn't sit around for a few years chewing a collective Biro and wondering what's best. One minute, you smoked cigarettes. And then you smoked vapour. One minute, you went to the library, and then you had an internet.

This is what's happening in the world of cars. Because how much time do you need exactly to choose between a Porsche 911 and a BMW i8? You learn that one needs a gallon of fuel to do 20 miles. And the other needs a gallon to do 134 miles, and you make your mind up immediately. Unless you are a raving lunatic.

And let's not forget, shall we, that the i8 is a first-generation performance hybrid. It is the equivalent of those early mobile phones and early green-screen home computers. So if the pace of change is as fast, imagine how good cars like this will be in five years' time.

And imagine what else, apart from the motor, will be powered and run by electricity. Already, it is used to handle the steering and to find the most efficient route and to avoid crashing into the car in front. It's used to keep you in your lane while you're sending a text, and to turn on the lights when it goes dark and to move your seat about.

And I'm not talking about expensive cars here, either. All of this stuff is available right now on common-or-garden hatchbacks. I have an Audi S1 on test now, and it's a forest of electro-cleverness in there.

And yet. It is still fitted with a manual gearbox. So was the brand-new Corvette I tested recently. And so are various Astons.

Don't you find this strange? We live in a world where the auto industry is capable of making cars that won't crash and will do 134mpg. And yet it is still making manual gearboxes. Which is a bit like living in a high-tech flat and using candles to find the loo.

Now I will admit that, when I'm at a track, I spit tacks and use bad words when a car refuses to engage the gear I've selected on its flappy-paddle system. I know why, of course; because if you ask for second when you are doing 70mph, you will blow the engine to smithereens. But it's my engine, and if I want to blow it up, then why should I be prevented by an electronic nanny?

It's much better to have a manual when you are driving on a track for fun. Because then you are in charge and you have more control. But at all other times, a car with a manual gearbox is like a television with no remote control. A damn nuisance.

Speed is one thing. A while back, Richard Hammond and I had a bit of a drag race - with police permission, I should add, in case the Daily Mail is reading this - on a Romanian motorway. He was in a Ferrari California with a double-clutch flappy-paddle gearbox. I was in an Aston Martin DBS with manual. Both cars accelerated at exactly the same rate, but every time I changed gear, I would drop back about 10 feet. His changes were seamless. Mine weren't. Mine couldn't be.

Then there's traffic. It's always bad to be caught up in a slow-moving jam, but when I am in a car with a manual 'box, I am tempted sometimes to get out and kill myself. Because constantly balancing the clutch pedal is wearisome and painful. It's like being in a gym. And nobody in their right mind would choose to visit one of those.

Country roads? Town? Car parks? I can think of no place in the real world when a manual gearbox is better than a modern paddle-operated manual or a smooth-shifting auto. And yet, in cheaper cars, there seems to be no appetite to make a change.

Money is one reason, of course: double-clutch systems are expensive. But so is fuel injection. And that's never cited as a reason by anyone for launching a car these days with twin-choke Webers.

Flappy-paddle 'boxes were lamentable when they first came out. They were jerky and imprecise, and you could never parallel park on a hill. But now they are smooth and there's some inbuilt creep, and they are wondrous. And so surely, it is time to wave goodbye to the manual.

Oh, I know there will be some snuffly noses and damp handkerchiefs from the purists. But look at it this way: when we are all driving hybrid cars that can find their way around by themselves and sipping fuel in the same way that a vicar sips his tea at an old lady's funeral, there's nothing to stop people who crave the past driving a big V8 with a manual 'box and a longwave radio.

In the same way that today the horse is completely useless. You can't even eat it. But the countryside is full every weekend with people using them just for fun.


www.topgear.com/uk/jeremy-clarkson/clarkson-manuals-2014-12-08

[RedMoon11]

Clarkson on: Japanese Cars

5th Jan 2015


The time has come for Jeremy to choose his car of the year. Something Japanese? Not likely...

And so the editor collared me as I scuttled through the office this morning, pretending to be busy. I knew what he wanted. He wanted me to name my Car of the Year, and I don't like making decisions of this nature, or any nature. Hence my scuttling and harassed demeanour.

It didn't work. "Clarkson," he said, when he had me cornered at the water fountain. "What is your Car of the Year?" "It's the Alfa 4C," I said proudly because I'd made up my mind about something. "No, you idiot," he replied. "That came out last year." "But it's the best car I've driven this year as well," I stammered.

It was no good. You have to vote for the best new car, and that's a bit cruel, I think. It's like being told to vote for the world's best dog, and then not being allowed to select your own because you did that last year.

But those are the rules, so I did what I do every year: a country-by-country breakdown of all that's new and fresh from the car-producing nations. From Britain, there was the McLaren 650S, which is breathtaking, and from America, the Corvette Stingray, which is certainly the biggest surprise. Italy has given us the Huracán and the 458 Speciale, which is tempting, if only because it makes James's 458 seem so ‘last week'. Germany? The new Polo is tremendous, and the i8 is a giant leap for humankind, even if it doesn't do what it says on the tin. 134mpg? Yeah, right.

I then had a quick canter through France, stopping momentarily on the Twingo and whatever fast Clio Renault has come up with this week, and then in my head I popped over to Japan where... there was nothing but a dismal grey fog and a spot of light drizzle.

"Come on, Jeremy," I said to myself. "This is Japan. The power house of the East. It must make msomething you like." But it was no good. Once I'd discounted the Nissan GT-R for not being even remotely new, the inside of my head was a complete blank.

I've written about Honda's woes before. There was a time when its showrooms were full of cars with pop-up headlamps and Thunderbird Two electric roofs, and Rowan Atkinson was bombing about in an NSX making growly noises with his induction system. But now what do they do? Some not very attractive soft-roaders, a hatchback with a name I can't be bothered to remember and a saloon that looks like I styled it. Where's the new NSX they've been talking about for so long? I'll tell you where, at the side of the Nürburgring surrounded by firemen taking pictures of the charred wreckage on their mobile phones. And what about the new S2000? That's even easier to answer. There isn't one.

Honda is coming back to F1 and, I'm sorry, but what's the point? Because what F1 fan will say: "Yes, I am much impressed with the power of its engines and the cleverness of its hybrid drive technology, so I will buy a CR-V"?

Toyota is suffering from much the same problem. Yes, it makes the excellent GT86, but where are the Celicas and the Supras? What happened to the days when it made a special rear-wheel-drive version of the Corolla simply so youths could do skidding? And what about that four-wheel-drive coupe that had a nostril? Why do none of its cars have nostrils any more?

Cantering through the cars they do sell these days is like being in a coma. There's the Areola, or is that the bit around your nipple? Same thing, I suppose. Then there's the Prius, about which I can say nothing that hasn't been said before. And the new Land Cruiser, about which I can also say nothing, because there are no words in any language which quite manage to capture its heroic dreadfulness. I'm not even going to mention the RAV4.

Lexus had a spurt a while back. We got the LFA, which remains the finest car I've ever driven. Yes, it was riddled with faults and given a price tag that was higher than George Michael, but, my God, to drive, it was sublime. And what's replaced it? Nothing, so far as I can see.

Subaru used to sell us Imprezas that cornered like asteroids, and the Legacy Outback is the only car on which James, Richard and I agree. It was brilliant. But the new one isn't brilliant at all. And Mitsubishi used to have all sorts of curiosities like the Pinin and the Evo. And now? Nope. Wait... No, nothing.

Daihatsu used to make a car called the GTti. It was the first road car ever to generate 100 horsepower from one litre, and because it had three cylinders it sounded like it was demented. I loved it so much that, on the press launch in Japan, I did half a lap, crashed and flew home. Does Daihatsu make a car like that today? Something fun? Something for the enthusiast that lives in us all? No. It makes something called the Sirion, which sits in the world of cars like a bunch of wilting petrol station chrysanthemums would sit at the Chelsea Flower Show.

Nissan obviously makes the GT-R, and long may that continue. But apart from this, it makes nothing sporty or interesting or pretty at all. It did the 240 and the 260 and the 280 and the 300 and then... it just stopped.

It's hard to know why this is so. We know that Japan's economy has been bumping along in the Mariana Trench for some time, but that's the great thing about the country's industry. It's always had its sights set on the export market, so why isn't it making exciting, flashy stuff now for all of the new money in China and Russia?

I agree that, elsewhere, demand is down. Kids no longer fix sports air filters and big exhausts to cars. Petrol is now so expensive that teenagers talk mpg rather than mph. But you just have to look at how BMW and McLaren and Ferrari are doing to know that the demand for g forces and searing engine notes is still there.

Unfortunately, it's niche stuff, and Japan has never been very good at that. Japan was always about the bottom line, and the truth is, there's more money to be made selling a billion Areolas than there is to be made from selling half a dozen fire-breathing V10 LFAs.

There is, of course, one exception to all of this. Mazda is poised, as I write, to unveil its new and much-hyped MX-5. The only true sports car made today. On its shoulders rests not just the future of the company, but the country that spawned it as an automotive giant.

I pray that it's a huge success. I pray millions are sold in California and the South of France every five minutes. Because that's what's needed to wake up the rest of Japan's moribund car industry: a pointer, a beacon, a car that shows them there's still money to be made out of fun stuff.

I want Japan back. I miss it.

www.topgear.com/car-news/jeremy-clarkson/clarkson-japanese-cars
www.topgear.com/uk/jeremy-clarkson/clarkson-coty-japan-2015-01-05

[RedMoon11]

Clarkson: 'Formula One is a Mess'

Feb 06, 2015

Jeremy reckons motorsport has lost its way. Here's how he'd shake up racing…

As we all know, Formula One is a mess. You've got the head honcho telling all and sundry that no one can afford to buy any of the products made by the sponsors, you've got teams in administration, you've got more overtaking in the average British multistorey, and you've got double points in the last race, which means the whole season has been a complete waste of time. But it could be worse. It could be rallying.

I was staying with a friend recently who did not have Sky television, which meant that, on a Saturday morning, I was extremely stuck for something to watch. There was a rerun of the celebrities in the jungle from 2008, lots of blonde women selling bric-a-brac at auctions and some homes under a hammer... which sounded a lot better than it actually was.

This meant that on a grisly, grey and damp Saturday morning, I found myself watching ITV4, a channel for programmes which aren't quite interesting enough to be shown on ITV1, 2 or 3. The natural home, these days,then, for the World Rally Championship.

Ooh, it was dull. I watched a small Volkswagen - which is nothing like any Volkswagen you can actually buy - driving through a wood in Wales for a few minutes and then the driver, who was either called Dai or Miko, told us in an approximation of English about the problems he had encountered while driving through the wood. Then we saw a Citroen doing exactly the same thing. Before weheard from its Dai or Miko telling us about his problems.

There was a time when the British round of the World Rally Championship was billed as Britain's most watched sporting event. A quarter of a million people would see the cars live, boasted the organisers. No one ever pointed out that this included all the people who saw them going from stage to stage while they were on their way to buy some washers from B&Q.

But, whatever, it sure as hell isn't a quarter of a million people any more. In fact, judging by the footage shown on ITV4, it was about 32. Most of whom were plainly mad.

There was one chap, in a T-shirt, standing right at the edge of the road, exactly where the car would end up if something went wrong, shaking his fist exuberantly at the driver as he whizzed by.

So let's examine his thought processes here. He's woken up and thought: "I know what I'll do today. I'll put on a T-shirt, which is completely inappropriate for the Welsh weather in November, and walk for miles through a wood so that I can cheer on a man I've never met as he drives past in his Hyundai." Needless to say, he was on his own. This is because a) he couldn't make any of his friends see that his planned day out was a good idea or b) he doesn't have any friends.

None of the spectators do, it would seem. All 32 of them were to be seen, standing alone, in their own bit of dampness. Many had old-fashioned Zenit cameras with telephoto lenses so they could take dismal, amateurish pictures of the Hyundai as it rumbled by.

Why? Who are they going to show them to? Who's going to say: "Hey John. Can you show me the 2,000 rubbish photographs you took of that Hyundai last weekend?" Nobody is. They're going to end up on his hard drive, along with all the Health & Efficiency downloads.

Maybe, if he gets a shot of a crash, things would be different, but the chances of this happening are about nil. ITV4 had a helicopter and many cameras covering the black spots but, while I was watching at least, there wasn't even a minor parking bump.

Maybe crashes aren't allowed any more. I mean, according to the rally website, it's a carbon-neutral event - how is that possible? And for all those people in Wales who don't speak English, all of the information is available online in Welsh. Against an inclusive, sustainable background like that, it would be wrong to have one of the competitors rolling down a hill.

So why then are car companies such as Citroen and Volkswagen spending millions to take part, when they must know their efforts are being watched by six people on ITV4 and live by 32 friendless men with questionable hard drives?

Well, Hyundai at least has what it says is an answer. It says the brand is already engaged with sports thanks to its sponsorship of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Yes, that makes sense. The World Cup is watched by pretty well everyone in the civilised world (not America), so why follow it up with rallying? Isn't that a bit like winning an Oscar for your role as a promiscuous cowboy and then doing a car commercial? Apparently not. Hyundai says, "Motorsport is a perfect home for a car manufacturer." You don't say...

But that brings us back to the problem. Since they banned the short-wheelbase quattros and the fire-spitting Peugeots, rallying has lost its sheen. Nobody who has a life is going to trudge through a wood, at night, to watch a Finn go by in a Polo, no matter how big its rear spoiler might be.

And, on a number of occasions this year, F1 has played to 80,000 people, all of whom had turned up dressed as seats.

Elsewhere, we find rich kids in Lambos and old people in historics and God knows who in MGs whizzing about obscure racetracks at weekends... and nobody is watching. The grandstand at the Croft circuit in Yorkshire is the sort of thing you would normally find on a school sports day.

And yet, in America, they have stadiums that can seat 250,000 and they're packed all the time...

This is because in America the organisers know that motor racing needs to be a show. It's not organised forthe benefit of the drivers or the manufacturers' marketing departments. It's done for the benefit of the crowds. Because ultimately, that's who pays the bills.

We need to explain to the drivers that if they want to be paid to drive quickly around corners, there needs to be less run-off area and a bit more fire. And they need to develop personalities. They need to stop talking about the problems they had with the dirty side of the track, or with a broken intercom, and shag their teammate's girlfriend. We need some tabloid villains.

And then we get to the cars. What is a Red Bull? Or a Williams? And why would you want to watch someone you've never heard of driving a Citroen up a hill in Wales?

To motivate the masses, we need to see the carmakers' best cars going head to head. Bentley Continentals versus Nissan GT-Rs versus the BMW M6 Gran Coupe. And we want drivers we've heard of, people we can root for and people we can hate. Pit Darcey Bussell in a Lamborghini Aventador against Anton Dec in an Aston Martin V8 Vantage, on a circuit, or in a wood - or better still, in a bit of both - and half the country would turn up. Stick with Miko and Dai in a Citroen, and motorsport is doomed.


www.topgear.com/uk/jeremy-clarkson/clarkson-on-motorsport-2014-01-06

[RedMoon11]

April 2015



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[RedMoon11]

May 2015

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