I’m not a car fan. It serves a purpose A->B and thats it. I have a motorbike for my speed thrill, and danger thrill for that matter, having been thrown of the handlebars of one* gives you a constant sense of fear even now ten+ years later. So it followed that car programs don’t really do it for me.
I remember catching the odd top gear in its old format and hating it I never once got through a whole episode. I avoided it ever since.
My mistake.
I recently caught two episodes of this “new” Top Gear an hour long show, the last episode was hilarious, all the car information for the petrol heads but presented with a lighter side for anyone else.
The last one I saw launched a “Plastic Pig”** in a space shuttle type launch. This was just brilliant, it almost worked, well not in the way that a car is an adequate replacement for a re-usable spaceship, but in achieving the goal of launching and returning to earth this unusual space-ship. To see it ignite and propel a Tamworth born plastic pig into the air was spectacular, (Look for it on YouTube I bet someone put it there). This and a previous episode I saw where they tried to lay a road in 24hours and other such features and add clarkeson’s excellent and often scathing car reviews makes this a program for those of us who don’t care about the number of horses in the latest supercar makes this a must see.
So If you’ve missed this program for the last five years I cannot recommend that you take a look you will be pleasantly surprised.
*Luckily quite early in my bike riding history on a small 125 doing 20mph it hurt, I bounced off the road, kerb and finally smacked into a post.
**A Plastic Pig is the rather deferential name given to a three wheeled car called the Reliant Robin. A car once built in my home town. Imagine living in a place (in)famous for the creation of such a nationwide joke. Like any ridiculous idea it had its supporters. I’m not one of them.
February 21, 2007 at 11:50 am
Nowt wrong with Reliants.
Actually, the three wheelers are death traps, but they are a brilliant example of something that could only ever have been built over here and actually made it into mass-production.
They’re now insurance group 7, believe it or not (I know because I got a quote when I was thinking of buying one as a city runabout).
The great thing about the Robin (and of course the Rialto) – and something that’s actually far more amusing than firing them into the air, which would be beyond the ken of most mere mortals, is the fact that it’s possible to get them to do wheelies. It requires careful use of clutch and accelerator and a couple of mates in the back to throw their weight towards the back of the car at just the right moment. But it’s hilarious.
I have one rotting in a garage in Shropshire with my name on it.