Tiff Needell nails it on Jeremy Clarkson

Do you really need to read another opinion piece on Jeremy Clarkson getting sacked?   God no.

Frankly, Tiff Needle says all that needs to be said right here,

My Theory on Top Gear USA...

Stee and I were saying the other day how watching the US edition of Top Gear is the equivalent of driving a Pontiac Fiero with a Ferrari body kit and how it's not that far from Autoline Detroit but with some fancy photography and hipster plaid.
This, of course, is strange as it's produced by the same team as the real thing, so here is my theory: the only reason Top Gear USA exist is to remind you how good the original BBC version is!

To wit two clips that illustrate, in my opinion, everything that Top Gear USA is not.

Clarkson has a new DVD out called "Italian Job" it's all about Italian cars driven in Italy so of course he starts off by going to some god forsaken part of England to drive an American car and, shall we say, give his unvarnished opinion...



And then of course, there is this priceless gem..



There you have it, no hair on the tongue and humor, along with chemistry and originality is precisely what is lacking in cheesy body kits.

Oh and let me add this one (via @ScarbsF1)


.

Five seconds from the best car program ever, Jeremy Clarkson the Italian Job [Blu-ray]


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Top Gear Moment of Zen: Season 14, Episode 1

(Top Gear)


More TGMZ on Axis

On Sliding...

Recently, a reader complained bitterly that our philosophy of trying to get as much fun out of every corner possible was wrong and that sliding the car is inefficient and a measure of how little control the driver has...not to mention a waste of rubber. To that reader we say, you are probably right about the rubber but you know what, life's too short not to have fun with it!

To illustrate my point I call upon that bishop of bloviation, that master of mirth Jeremy Clarkson and the Supreme Being of Oversteer, the Stig. This is from JC's "DUEL" DVD. Top Gear's new season kicks off tomorrow night.

Order DUEL from Amazon UK (and support A.o.O!)
Clarkson - Duel [DVD] [2009]



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It's like the All-Star game....

Pre-order from Amazon UK (and support A.o.O!)
Clarkson - Duel [DVD] [2009]



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Jay Leno on Top Gear

Leno was on the season finale of Top Gear last night as the "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car".

His lap was not that great but, as usual, his stories were and for once Clarkson seemed to be genuinely starstruck. Here's an anecdote about an outing in Jay's Mclaren F1

And here is the rest of it.

Proper Hooligans

With Top Gear getting all the attention it's easy to forget about the lower budget competition. Fifth Gear may have copycat opening credits and you may get annoyed at host Tom Ford wearing oversized Bart Simpson shorts all the time but they do have Vicky Butler-Henderson, that sideways driving, squealing, motorhead's fantasy poster girl and they do provide actual useful consumer information. You saw the show investigating what it takes to change a Renault Megane headlight bulb? Over $500 for a trip to the dealer apparently. Or that it takes 28000 miles of driving to realize a savings on a set of low rolling resistance "eco" tires.

But what we wait for is when Fifth Gear unleash Tiff Needell and Jason Plato to do their hooligan act on the track.  While Clarkson may just dismiss cars he decides  not to like, the Porsche GT2 for example, Jason Plato and Tiff might tell you the same car is just more of a challenge, more like a race car and proceed to tear up a track with it. 

Then again they are both actual professional racers and their comments on car handling are more interesting if less colorfully described than their BBC counterparts. For example when to sum total of the motoring press was reviewing the Nissan GT-R and finding absolutely no fault whatsoever in its handling characteristics, Jason Plato was the first to say it actually felt a bit heavy and tended to plow mid-corner. After that, laws of physics started timidly showing up in subsequent reviews of the Gorilla from Ginza. 

But I digress, I think this clip will illustrate my point well.



A proper track test




back.

Ham on a Stig

CG raised a good point about the hyper-publicized appearance by Lewis Hamilton on Top Gear this Sunday:

"...will Clarkson pull a "Peter Windsor" and stage everything to glorify the Ham-ego and allow him to beat the Stig time or will Clarkson be honest to his cynical roots and just beat the crap out of the self centered kiddo in the interview?"

Are you kidding me? Let's look at the BBC's very press release:

Hamilton gets behind the wheel of the Suzuki Liana - the same car that the other F1 stars Mansell, Button, Hill and Webber have previously found themselves in - to find out if he can beat our Stig's blisteringly quick time of 1.44.4.
The only difference being that Lewis has to deal with not only water but also oil leaked from Jeremy's VXR8 on track earlier in the day.

sure....blame the Vauxhall in case he does not beat the time!

Speaking of choking, Hamilton has been running around London with Naomi Campbell* again, last time the well travelled supermodel was near the Ham was at Interlagos...need we say more?

* If you remember, we told you about the Naomi-Lewis-Flavio connection in September...

All things horsepower...

..in the end that's what we love, that's why we can rationalize watching the odd tractor pull or maybe even stoop to watching Pinks out of sheer desperation for a mechanical fix.

We covered Unlimited air racing before. BadbadM, a licensed pilot and self described aero-nut, lives for that trip to Reno every year so this is for him.

YouTube mining* yields this nugget from the 90's: Jeremy Clarkson's Extreme Machines.

"Big boy's toys" he starts off " to get involved you really need three things: money, balls and space to play" and with that Clarkson is off to sample a P51 Mustang, an unlimited hydroplane and a 747! Nice.


* thanks to Jalopnik for pointing the way to the nuggets!

Axis likes Tiff...

Ferrari or Porsche, Nikon or Canon, Milan or Inter, Mets or Yankees.... you know the drill.
I'm sorry Jeremy, we love your humor but we choose Tiff. Why? Aside from the fact that he is not trying to stuff his size 47 belly in size 31 pants, well you see, there is this little detail: he can really drive and I mean REALLY drive.
As much as we adore TopGear, we always have the feeling that Clarkson's driving is a bit...edited and the really money shots always seem to be cars with tinted windows. Besides, is there really any point in going up against a man with a name like Tiff Needell?

So Tiff...you are THE MAN!


Thanks to Ray for digging up this compilation clip!


See Jeremy Clarckson's Obituary in the Axis Forums