I'm afraid the whole "Top Gear" thing leave me cold. I speak as a motor enthusiast in good standing since the days of "Small Car" and LJK Setright....

Don't get me wrong. I am happy for Jeremy Clarkson to do his "Frankie Howerd for the 21st Century" act (but less gay of course..) and for his acolytes to fawn as obsequiously as they do. Its a great follow-up to "Sunday Night at the London Palladium", but it ain't about cars or motoring. Call it "Caravan Smashing Time" or "The Jeremy Clarkson Show" and be honest.

+1

Mark

That's the point though.

It isn't a show about cars, if you want that you can go and watch fifth gear.

Top gear is an entertainment show that is themed around cars.

Who really needs to know how fast a Ferrari FXX will go round a lap of an airfield runway? No one, but it's good fun to watch!

If they started doing lap times of 5 seater family cars with fuel efficiency of over 35mpg and at least 5 seats then it would start to get boring VERY quickly.

That was 'old' Top Gear. Which, while being a rather successful program, never reached the heights international success new Top Gear has. So while some people prefer an old Top Gear style show, it seems there are significantly fewer of them than prefer new Top Gear.

As for the show being obsequious to Clarkson, well some people might believe that but it's patently clear that May & Hammond don't exactly hold him in reverential high regard. Like it or not, there are awful lot of people driving cars around who ARE like Clarkson and therefore quite like watching him on TV, reading his newspaper columns and all of that. No matter how much of an idiotic reactionary oaf he may be.

That reminds me, I must go off and check if the news out-takes have been put up on topgear.com.

Jon

After more digging around, the FXX isn't actually road legal in it's current form as it hasn't been through homologation. However, it can be made fully road legal by Edo Competition (aparently it doesn't have a handbrake and the neither the lights or the exhaust are legal). Since none of these changes affect the power, I suspect a road-legal version would be just as quick.

As I recall from the article in "Car" magazine when it came out:
The FXX is a Ferrari "special" available only to loyal Ferrari customers (with E1.3million to spare). 30 odd werre made starting in 2005. It is a sort of "rental" deal: Ferrari supply, store and maintain the FXXX; "owners" get to drive it a Ferrari-sponsored trackdays at selected circuits.

As far as I know the car is held by Ferrari on their premises and no modifications by third parties are permitted.

Who would want to mod it when the £1.3mil means Ferrari keep & maintain it for you.... would imagine it includes the stup of the car etc

Just watching this now, I love the race with the steam train! More please.

I was in England over the weekend to see my mum, and caught Top Gear last night. The race was interesting, but the rest of the show seemed a little lacklustre.

I really enjoyed James May's On the Moon documentary, which followed TG. He is actually very good when it isn't being goaded by Clarkson and Hamster.

Finally caught up!

I think the rules about the lap times are that you have to be able to buy the car. There was one car which did a stonking lap time, but wasn't allowed to be left on the board because you couldn't buy it. I guess the FXX just makes it as you can actually plonk your £1.3m on the table and "own" the car.

I have to say I really enjoyed that show. The vintage race was well done, although the constant referral to a steam locomotive as a steam train started to grate after a while. But that's just the pedant in me.

Is this one of those aircraft vs. 'plane things?

The "train" technically refers to the series of carriages, whilst "locomotive" is for the vehicle pulling the "train". I'm not sure where that leaves DMUs/EMUs!

And it's clearly aeroplane.

Do you mean the aeroplane vs airplane one? Not really.

A locomotive is not a train. The train is what the locomotive hauls. I told you I was pedantic. It's more akin to calling a diesel road roller a steam roller, which is something every child does regardless of the source of power.

I should just shrug it off, but being a railway fan, I find it a bit difficult. Sorry.

Heather, in which category would you place Class 158 and the Class 220/221 (Voyager) etc?