Having missed last weeks top gear (the one with the avantime) I watched it last night on iplayer.

I was so pissed off I had to vent

first thing they should have done was to strip out the car

The £3000 brakes were a waste of time for a single lap, better disks and pads would suffice.

the bigger wheels increased the gearing slowing the time.

so they were 3 seconds in the hole and 3K down straight away.

suspension mods were good

uprated arb's next

then look at the engine power

It could have been a potentially really interesting piece had they incrementally done done sensible things and increased engine output

They are not stupid people and it pisses me off when they pretend to be in the interests of entertainment. Is that what they call dumbing down?

I thought the whole point of the piece was "if you want a fast car buy a fast car" not spend megabucks messing about with something that's just never going to be as good.

We ought to suggest a counter challenge - they give a load of people from here an avantime and 15K and two days, and see how fast we can get it to go round.....

@aerosam

On reflection I'm not sure what the point of the piece was. True it is easier to spend loads of money on a sports car, maybe the point they were trying to prove was that its not worth tuning cars?? Either way given the choice of an avantime or an elise (can't remember what car they were trying to beat) pulling identical lap times, I would choose the avantime everytime

it just seems they deliberately did poorly

We could defo do way better than they did

Having NOT seen said episode, my feeling is that they are a bunch of softies, who would always prefer to buy rather than build. They are trying to prove they are superior, in that way only you English can do! In essence, they are promoting the old class system: "We are your betters, and we are right".

Was there an unmentioned exhaust change at the end as well?
Check the tail pipes.

s

If i remember rightly they were trying to beat the time of an Evo of some description.

Your right it was crap......

I'd have to disagree with RK, you should see the ep, they are not attempting to be superior. They are appealing to the lowest common denominator.

I like top gear, watch it every week and find it mostly entertaining it just gets my goat when they pretend to be idiots.

Whats with the "you english"

EDIT
Yup some evo denomination

[Edited on 26/11/08 by liam.mccaffrey]

I'll say this very slowly. IT'S ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION. IT'S NOT REAL.

The whole point is to get as many people watching as possible. Staging improbable "challenges" and editing hours/days of footage together into a neat little story of 3 buffoons playing about with cars has proven to be a good way of doing that.

adrian

ps. The BBC aren't following Merlin the Wizard around making a documentary about his life either.

quote:

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Originally posted by peteday_uk@btinternet.com
If i remember rightly they were trying to beat the time of an Evo of some description.

Your right it was crap......

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I'LL SAY THIS VERY SLOWLY FOR ADITHORP,

if you had read my comments you would know I understand that it is an entertainment show and what i took issue with was people pretending to be stupid for entertainment. I actually really like top gear 98% of the time.

I thought it could have been an interesting challenge but it appears they decided to be stupid about it instead, which was a shame. A discussion unsprung weight, anti-roll bars and engine tuning would have been a lot more interesting. I wonder who enjoyed the piece was aimed at??

quote:

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Originally posted by StevenB
Was there an unmentioned exhaust change at the end as well?
Check the tail pipes.

s

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I watching it and my initial reaction was they were simply taking the wee out of the boy racer mods and showing most of them were worthless other than as a piece of bling to jazz up a polished snail...


[Edited on 26/11/08 by stevebubs]

quote:

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Originally posted by BenB
I thought it could have been an interesting challenge but it appears they decided to be stupid about it instead, which was a shame. A discussion unsprung weight, anti-roll bars and engine tuning would have been a lot more interesting. I wonder who enjoyed the piece was aimed at??

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quote:

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Originally posted by iscmatt

quote:

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Originally posted by StevenB
Was there an unmentioned exhaust change at the end as well?
Check the tail pipes.

s

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haha i noticed that too! though jez did say briefly something about " oh you might notice my new exhaust" as the car was going round the track

Cheeky!!

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quote:

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Originally posted by liam.mccaffrey
I'LL SAY THIS VERY SLOWLY FOR ADITHORP,

if you had read my comments you would know I understand that it is an entertainment show and what i took issue with was people pretending to be stupid for entertainment. I actually really like top gear 98% of the time.

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mine was meant that way too, i guess tongue in cheek doesn't come across too well in written word does it

Guess I ought to remember to add an when I post like that. Second time this week I've cocked up.

adrian

Just think how good that piece would have been if it was on fifth gear!!!! We need to remember top gear is aimed at eastender watching, hello reading, women and 14yr old kids who like seeing things get blown up.

[Edited on 26/11/08 by Daimo_45]

I think it just proved how little clarkson and co know about mechanics!!! but was still funny.

But seen as we are all better how would we have spent the money and in what order, for me.

1, get rid of all the crap inside
2, service, new tyres, uprated discs pads
3, new suspension, bushes and anti roll bars

I thought they were daft going for fully adjustable suspension, takes too long and too much knowledge for them to set up..

[Edited on 26/11/08 by johnston]

1 - Strip out everything that isn't needed. And I mean everything

2 - Fit a bike engine. (Bet nobody expected me to say that!! )

Job done with a few grand to spare.

Phil

As said it's an entertainment show, all scripted, and what they show is not real and just what they think the audience well like.
A few years back they raced a Porsche against a helicopter around a race track. They showed the Porsche winning, but a friend of a friend was the chopper pilot, and he told us he beat the Porsche easily, but it was refilmed and he was asked to go slower so it appeared to show the Porsche winning as that was what they wanted to fit the script.
As I said, it's all made up just to entertain and capture a 'laddish' audience.

with 15k i could have made me volvo go quicker .

Or build 60 of ron champions cars that woulda been quicker

Not based on the time it takes me to build one!!!