Top Gear ....

kyote00

Anyone esle see Top Gear last night. The 'lads' each bought a affordable super car for 10k and carry out some tasks.....Clarkson had a Maserati Merak, Hammond a Ferrari Dino 308GT4 and James a Lamborghini Uracco,

none reached the end of the 60 mile drive. All had major engine or electric failures ..........

The Lamborghini needed to be towed to the starting point.

Clarkson had the Maserti and it died badly when the bottom end gave way thro the sump onto the roadway.......:eek:

It also seems that they were sold the Maserti with an SS badge (200bhp) but was a fake :eek:

Redrocket

http://www.bbc.co.uk/topgear/

what a great episode!

just goes to show what you really get for your 10k sterling

coolcon

T'was soooooooo funny when clarkson ploughed into the hedge.

Redrocket

with his 7000 grand car with a 10000 grand engine rebuild, and his SS badge :P
if you use google in the right way you can download the episode... its the 4th episode of the 7th season and was released 2005.12.04

dubtom

So whats the end result, we're supposed to trust these 'experts' Judgement when buying a car?:D

Oriel

This is the bit where being in the North is great, that episode is about 9 month's old, I think.

Goodshape

sinecurea wrote:

This is the bit where being in the North is great, that episode is about 9 month's old, I think.

You sure?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/topgear/thisweek/ wrote:

4 December 2005

This week on Top Gear, we give Jeremy, James and Richard £10,000 each to go and buy a classic Italian supercar, Captain Slow races a bicycle and the Stig does something remarkable in a Zonda.

Redrocket

its the 4th episode of the 7th season and was released 2005.12.04

anyhow, judgement was something along the lines of dont touch a classic supercar with a 40ft pole. im sure there are exceptions to the rule, but all 3 of them went out and bought a supercar for under 10k, and had a few little tests to put the cars through. they failed most tests. like jeremys engine came out through his exhaust
if your on broadband go download it, well worth it

Dades

A Ferrari identical to that GT4 was on eBay in October. Except the one on eBay was supposed to be "pristine".
I thought the Buy It Now price was low at the time.

A lot of people hate the sharpness of them but I have to say I really like that car.

Johnny Storm

coolcon wrote:

T'was soooooooo funny when clarkson ploughed into the hedge.

I couldn't understand why he did that ?
(other than that IMHO he is a twat);)

Oriel

Goodshape wrote:

You sure?

Actually, sorry I'm getting that confused with the one where they gave them £1000 to buy a car each.
...or was it £100.
Damn my memory.

ds20prefecture

stevenk wrote:

anyhow, judgement was something along the lines of dont touch a classic supercar with a 40ft pole. im sure there are exceptions to the rule, but all 3 of them went out and bought a supercar for under 10k, and had a few little tests to put the cars through. they failed most tests. like jeremys engine came out through his exhaust

It was absolute twaddle. Who the hell goes looking for a mid engined Italian supercar for under £10,000? Not one of the cars would have passed an MOT, and all it did was reinforce mis-informed stereotypes about old italian cars. Top Gear is "The Sun" in TV form - execrable garbage pitched at the lowest common denominator.

Redrocket

maybe they should do the same test for buy a classic supercar for under 20k?, see what the differences are.

ds20prefecture

It depends on what a "supercar" is. A Porsche 928 is a big, fast GT. Never classed as a supercar, even when new. They can be got for £10,000 but you'd want to know what you're buying, and even then it would be risky. Ditto the Citroën SM, or a Jensen Interceptor, or any number of big fast coupes.

Mid engined italian exotics start below £10,000 but they are restoration candidates, not daily drivers (or drivers at all). Clarkson destroyed a newly rebuilt engine in a Maserati - it really isn't that hard to do. You could sense things were about to go wrong when the oil pressure guage read zero - he blamed the guage, anyone with a brain might have checked the oil pressure. Drive any engine without oil as hard as you can, and guess what happens?

junkyard

You pay peanuts you get monkey's. Your better off to buy the best you can get rather than pouring money into something that will never be up to scratch.

PaulK_CCI

junkyard wrote:

You pay peanuts you get monkey's. Your better off to buy the best you can get rather than pouring money into something that will never be up to scratch.

And I think that is exactly the point they were trying to make. They weren't "reinforcing mis-informed stereotypes about old italian cars", but they were warning wanna-be supercar owners to be careful out there in the real world. These small adds and low prices on E-bay might seem very tempting, but what do you actually get for your money....

Mind you, they did exaggerate the whole thing a tad bit, but I thought it was hilarious to watch all the same (I mean, to keep on driving with oil pressure gauge reading 0, mmmm, that;s playing it up a bit )

Johnny Storm

So ... why did Jeremy crash it into the hedge? :v:

dubtom

Johnny Storm wrote:

So ... why did Jeremy crash it into the hedge? :v:

Cause he's a w###er perhaps.

Dades

Johnny Storm wrote:

So ... why did Jeremy crash it into the hedge? :v:

Didn't he lose his brakes too?

Probably figured no point in risking his neck coasting to a stop and just got off the already knackered car off the road - into a hedge.

I enjoy Top Gear. :eek:

PaulK_CCI

Johnny Storm wrote:

So ... why did Jeremy crash it into the hedge? :v:

This would be a question best answered by DS20prefecture. because the Maserati Merak has a Hydraulic braking system, borrowed from Citroen as they had just taken over Maserati and wanted to stuff as much of their parts into the cars.

Having a hydraulic braking system, would theoretically suggest that if the engine were to cut out or if for some reason or other you would loose the hydraulic fluid, there would be no braking :eek:
Of course they weren't completely off their heads and they made sure there were plenty of safety measures so that this couldn't happen immediately, but who knows what can happen with those safety features if they were, say based on electric switches and stuff... In this case, I am sure they were playing it all up a bit for the drama of the camera

Johnny Storm

He did loose the brakes but I dont see how that would make you crash into a hedge.
It seems to me that the only thing ahead of him was the camera car which I'm pretty sure would be well used to keeping out of his way, the road was straight, he wasn't even going very fast, he could have easily and safely coasted to a stop at the side of the road. Or he could have used the gears to slow down. But no.............
The evidence points to dubtom's solution being correct IMHO. :cool:

Lyre61

He would have lost the brakes if the system was so shot it was relying on the hydraulic pump to keep the presure up by itself, normally the accumulator would store a reserve of hydraulic pressure to keep the system alive until you could pull over. From the sounds it was making the timing chain probably was the root cause of the engine giving up the ghost. The C114 engine has a few weak points, the chain, the tensioner and the sodium filled valves. If these are replaced the engine is pretty bullet proof....but if not:D Also on the rolling road he only had something like 80HP not the 170+HP he should have had. So something serious was wrong.

mike65

The reason Clarkson buried the car in a hedge was cos it was good televison!

Mike.

ds20prefecture

PaulK_CCI wrote:

This would be a question best answered by DS20prefecture. because the Maserati Merak has a Hydraulic braking system, borrowed from Citroen as they had just taken over Maserati and wanted to stuff as much of their parts into the cars.

I reckon Lyre would know this better what with him having an SM.

The brakes would not fail if the car's engine cut out unless the hydraulics were very leaky AND the accumulator sphere was dead. If Clarkson had engaged whatever brain he has, he would have checked these before buying/driving the car. Also, if the braking system is anything like the DS's the "handbrake" or emergency brake is actually a second set of pads working on the front discs designed to stop a car from speed, not just stop it rolling. Most likely these weren't working either, or the thought never occurred to Clarkson.

Lastly, I believe he steered the car into a hedge to slow himself down. Good television? Perhaps, but given what passes for television today he's hardly facing stiff opposition.