Top Gear

[Dominic]

Loving my supercar

[tut]

Que?

tut

[Shug]

Loving my supercar

/pats Dom's head

Yes mate, lovely....

[Dominic]

[campbell]

Might just be Jezza being ironic or even patronising.

OTOH, the way the Evora behaves appears to be sufficiently splendid as to generally exceed many supercars on some axes (I accept not ALL, eg top speed or raw 0-60 but who cares...it's how it gets from A to B and the associated experience which matters).

Indeed, the "meadow" excursion was an interesting way to highlight the suppleness of an otherwise incredibly well setup chassis. The Lotus hallmark through and through.

And so to this Sunday then folks eh

[GregR]

It could just be that he's a fan of the marque and always likes to big them up. You could tell it was slightly tongue in cheek from the way he claimed it was aimed at older drivers.

I doubt the Evora would feature in anyone's estimations as a supercar. We seem to have a new definition thesedays of hypercars - that includes Tut's definition of supercars - that falls above supercars. Supercars now are even more difficult to define. People have tried classifying cars in the past - e.g. to be a supercar it must be mid-engined etc. The definition is, with resepct, becoming pointless - you can now buy wasp-like Atoms and Caterhams that outperform their more expensive bretheren and on the other end of the scale, you have 5-door estates that can do likewise. Categorise them!

[anthonyyule]

I really enjoyed it. Perhaps made better by the fact that I was denied watching it live, by my darling 3.84-yr-old and 2.16-yr-old deciding that they would delay bedtime and the dropping off to sleep bit by at least 30 mins So watched on iPlayer just now.

I love steam trains and got quite close to the Tornado recently on the North York Moors Railway, so the race had a special place for me. Always enjoy a ride on the East Coast main line too. Have also driven plenty of the A1 in my time so it was a laugh to see them dicking around on there.

I was immediately suspicious of who on earth was "The Stig" tonight when the FXX appeared. Whilst the car looks appalling, it sounds amazing and was clearly being *driven*. The unveiling thing, as hinted by Craig in his thread, was actually very funny. You have to remember this is essentially an entertainment show, not a factual or hard-core car-nut programme.

The short Evora segment was good, I'm sure it'll get another outing when Lotus PR get working on the BBC and then indeed The Stig will get his hands on it. Which of SE's tame racing drivers do you think TG should hire to pilot it?!?!?

I have to totally agree. Schumi played the part very well - and i think it was a bit of a scoop for the BBC to get him to come along and play the part of the Stig for an evening. Its his Black FXX - there was a rumour that there is only 1 black FXX in the world and it was made for him especially - that got the alarm bells going.

I also loved the race - they dont ever take themselves too seriously - and that is part of the appeal. OK, so the race is a farce - its always a farce, and nearly always staged, but the entertainment is pure class. I would love to have a TG style race - and i guess this is as close as Ill get to living it out.

I dont think TG takes itself too seriously - but it always amazes me how the new format polarises people so much. A bunch of guys, genuinely having a laugh, shouting "cock" too many times, and doing cool stuff. Sounds like the perfect life to me - yet the amount of people that get wound up by it is unreal. Im presuming that the majority of the forum readers here wouldnt like me in the flesh very much either - because i frankly think that TG rocks! - and find almost everything they do to be very entertaining...............

[GenCuster]

Bring back Wiliam Woolard, sports jackets and the Ford Cortina.

Difficult to believe Clarkson was a refreshing change at one time - now it's just wooden, scripted self parody. I like the approach on the whole but why not get some new presenters with a bit of real wit and rapport, and bin the scripts and the audience.

What really gets my goat is the way they're so smug in that English superior way, poking fun at the Germans etc. But they have to go back 65 years to find a British made car, bike and train. What's to be smug about?

And I am English.

Cheers

GC

[campbell]

Er...the Evora is British.

And the train was most certainly built in Britain, throughout the last two decades.

I think they celebrated both fairly well this week

[GenCuster]

Campbell I agree stuff is made here - I'd had a bad day at work and was ranting but do feel ther's something in what I said.

What I meant is could we field all 3 now made by British companies in Britain as we could 65 years ago?

Lotus is owned by Daewoo, Bombardier, A Canadian multinational own all the train works that made Inter City 225 and Turbostar (Scotrail) trains, Hitachi made the new Kent-London fastlink trains etc. I don't know about bikes but does a British owned company make a bike that is a world beater?

I'm not isolationist but I am patriotic - we've lost a hell of a lot over the last 40 years with deindustrialisation, globalisation etc and I don't like the new regime.

Cheers

GC


Tra

[Andrew C]

Lets get it right Lotus is owend by Petronas of Malaysia
Andrew

[Tom]

Lets get it right Lotus is owend by Petronas of Malaysia
Andrew

You sure? I had thought it was owned by Proton, so I had a bit of a dig, and as far as I can see Proton's majority shareholder is Khazanah Nasional Berhad (Malay government investment arm), with Petronas (Petroliam Nasional Berhad) owning 12ish% (ok,11.57% - http://www.proton.com/about_proton/history/index.php).

\Pedantic mode off..

[GenCuster]

I stand corrected

[campbell]

LOL guys!

Custer, points taken. Couldn't agree more, we have little remaining of homegrown manufacturing industry. Of course we do have plenty in the "new economy" of software, gaming, biotech, and a few notable biggies in services like Stagecoach who are in fact Scottish never mind British. Then Virgin, RBS (oops!!!!) etc...

[Mike Scib]

On in 10