Top Gear 'hooligans' damage classic car

Man of Honour
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Originally posted by rare
Theres driving fast and then theres driving which results in
things being damaged.


is there? so doing donuts results in things getting broken ?

hmm, they must break a lot of cars, infact, they must break EVERY car they test.


oh wait... but they dont!!!


like i said, they did NOTHING different to this car, to what they do to EVERY OTHER CAR!


this is getting annoying now, wheres that Big Lad Will Gill when you need him... i need to take my car out and donut it :)
 
Soldato
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who is to say that had they NOT done a donut, it wouldnt STILL have broken ?

Maybe it was on its way out, but do you think driving it like that hepled matters?

If it breaks move on and get something different? Lets just hope you never get the chance to drive one of only 3 cars in the world then.

It is hardly a car like any other, they didnt make hundreds of thousands of these like they the escorts which end up burnt out at the end of roads. As such it needs treating with respect, its like anything else which is valuable or historic.

Thats my opinion, but clearly you dont agree with it.

this is getting annoying now, wheres that Big Lad Will Gill when you need him... i need to take my car out and donut it :)
You go do that sir, and lets hope you dont break anything on it;) :D
 
Man of Honour
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Originally posted by rare
If it breaks move on and get something different? Lets just hope you never get the chance to drive one of only 3 cars in the world then.

Heaven forbid, i might be so devillish as to DRIVE IT :)


Thats my opinion, but clearly you dont agree with it.

I dont agree with it, but i do understand and respect it...

I can see WHY you might think that, but IMHO its defeating the cars reason in being.

I will repeat my earlier comment, showing the mona lisa, is gradually destroying it, the paint is fading, and whilst they do their best to protect the canvas from decay, it still is.

Does this mean we should stick it in a dark dry room, to preserve it forever ?

OR

Should be enjoy it to its full, whislt we still can... even tho it will be to the detriment of its future!
 
Soldato
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Ok before this thread vanishes forever:

The bloke should never have lent it to them in the first place.
The people who drove it should *perhaps:D * have treated it with more respect.

I do think it was good of the man to lend the car out, and as such we get a chance to see it being driven about.

I can also see where your coming from, and you make a valid point.

I would also like to say..Lets just thank the lord Maz never got to drive it! jk :D

Next thread?;)
 
Soldato
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Anyone STUPID enough to lend their car to Top Gear really needs their head looking at. If you were going to lend it, you would imagine you would watch the programme first THEn say "Please do not allow the Stig within 80 feet of my car" and Please do not drive it as hard as you normally do, i.e, no donuts" and list what they could and couldn't do.

The guy is an idiot - plain n simple!
 
Associate
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The owner of that Jag does drive and race it. He lends it out to Goodwood and various revival meetings to be driven hard. It was and still is a race car, and he treats it as such. In fact, he spent a good 20 years restoring that car to it's present immaculate condition and maintaining it as such.

He gave permission for the car to be driven hard. What happened was the Stig (aka Perry Whatshisface) took it out and doughnutted* it in the style of a Max Muppet boy with his Nova. He pulled handbrake turns and things. He did this all without the owner's permission.

By all means, yes, cars are to be driven hard, but this was abuse, and it was without the car's owner's permission. And it's not like parts for C-types come ten-a-penny, either - all these bits will have to be custom made.

*as reported in the Sunday times, if not by the BBC.
 
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Mentioning Mercs, hmmmmm I remember one of them flying god knows how many feet up in the air and landing in some trees, it definately wasn't the drivers car, it cost loads to make, there certainly isn't many of them about, and yes i suppose it was an accident for that car to take off. But it's comparable.

I haven't seen the vid of TG driving the jag so can't really comment on it, but I'd imagine that if the cars been raced recently, then it'll have had several rebuilds including new tyres, brakes, clutches, driveshafts, suspension, regular engine rebuilds.

It also looks like this car is rather well used, I've found countless different stories on this car appearing at many events all around the globe. One interesting article that I found was this one dated 5th Feb 2001

http://www.cwn.org.uk/motoring/jaguar/2001/02/010205-stirling-moss.htm

In that article it states "Of the original 53 C-Types built, 49 still survive and many of these cars will cavalcade from Jaguar's headquarters in Coventry to Le Mans to celebrate the C-Type's first victory."

Hmmm either that particular car has a major design fault the after 50 year they all just disintegrate and disapear or there have been some rather bad drivers wrecking an awful lot of them, or theres more than 3 still left :eek: :cool:

I personally feel that the car may have been driven slightly too hard for what it was capable of at the time, maybe this was the problem, one race too many without enough attention paid to striping it all down and repairing it all, maybe it was time to have a major refit, this car certainly seems to get driven ;) Maybe it was the TG driver, but at the end of the day, this car is a complete piece of genius, I mean considering how old it is, it seems to have survived rather well, with a lot of hard work mind.

I definately think that no matter what this car will be back up and running, new parts will be fabbed, as they appear to have been anyway in the past, many of the original parts have been replaced. And from what I know of the classic car market a car like that aint gonna loose value because of having new parts fabbed, and i'd predict a slight increasee in car value (probably more than the cost of repairs) due to the publicity surrounding the TG show.

I think that the owner is right to ask whether the BBC will help fund repair, I haven't seen the contract written up between himself and the TG show, so I can't tell, he might have every right to ask them to repair it, who knows ?

I believe that this car has been living EyeDot's ideology of being a brilliantly engineered car well driven, and I wish I could say the same about some of the hunks of junk that are produced today, I wonder if they'll last the test of 50 years and still be driven round tracks.

Long live this car, I hope it continues to prosper and hope that the owner continues to maintain it in its working condition, and actually uses it (seen some wicked picks of it driving in the rain, I think that was at goodwood ;))

Myo
 
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Originally posted by Myocardial Inf
Mentioning Mercs, hmmmmm I remember one of them flying god knows how many feet up in the air and landing in some trees, it definately wasn't the drivers car, it cost loads to make, there certainly isn't many of them about, and yes i suppose it was an accident for that car to take off. But it's comparable.

I think youre referring to Le Mans '99.

In three separate incidences, a CLR blew over and crashed down nearly destroying the car(left). The first occurred during Thursday's qualification session when Mark Webber piloting the No. 4 Mercedes flipped at the second kink in the run between the Mulsanne corner and Indianapolis; a section in which the cars are going as fast as down the Mulsanne straight, a lightning fast 320 kilometers per hour. Webber was thankfully unhurt and the car was towed back to the pits to be repaired but pole position was gone. If the car could be fixed in time for the morning warm up, it would be allowed to take the start.

The next day was a day off for the teams in order to prepare for the race, giving Mercedes time to rebuild the car. Nevertheless, the mechanics must have been up all night fixing the crumbled CLR. But, on Saturday morning, one of the first cars lined up to take to the track for warm up was the No. 4 Mercedes with none other than Mark Webber at the wheel. Near the end of the session, the No. 4 Mercedes was scrapping along the race track on its roof. This time it occurred at the Mulsanne Hump where Webber was following slower traffic when suddenly the nose came up and the car did a flip on to its back. Our friend Mark must have thought to himself when he was in midair, "Not Again!" Needless to say, the No. 4 was out for good and had flipped Webber for the last time. Now it was time for Mercedes team managers to cross their fingers and pray that it was either a problem with only the No. 4 car or that it was a fluke that the air got underneath the car twice in a row and not a fundamental flaw in the design of the CLR as a whole.

Under tremendous pressure, Mercedes opted to keep the Nos. 5 and 6 in the race. This decision proved to be disastrous. At dusk, the No. 5 Mercedes flipped right at the same spot where Webber had flipped the first time. This spectacular crash was caught on film and beamed back live to millions of homes in the world. The now infamous images of the Mercedes flipping end over end like a Matchbox model and landing in the forest after disappearing into the trees have made history and must make Mercedes personnel cringe to think about it. Miraculously the driver, Peter Dumbreck was uninjured in the crash but was now part of the lucky duo who made up the Mercedes Mile High Club. As a result, the No. 6 and sole remaining Mercedes was withdrawn minutes after the incident.

© Rainier Ehrhardt January 2001

mercfly1999.jpeg
 
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I remember watching that happen, it was wicked that the people actually got out of the cars. I think it's a great testament to Mercs build quality that after all that punishment the driver got away without dying.

It's what makes motor cars interesting I believe, I mean why have something and not push it to within an inch of it's life. At the end of the day it's only a mish mash of metal components carefully engineered together to hurtle you down a road/track at what ever speed possible.

I mean it makes me cry watching all these flash poncy people with their ferrari's and other expensive cars that never ever use them, apart from a 30mph pootle around town, I don't care how old or priceless it is, it was built for one purpose and that purpose is driving. Who cares that it's worth a million quid and theres only 3 or however many (49 /cough) left, some manufacturers of modern race cars only build a few, they still let them out on a track and I'm sure they get tonnes of abuse.
 

v0n

v0n

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This thread is obviously getting too long to read for some people. For the past X posts it goes into the loop:
- Cars are made for driving
- Driving not donnuting
- They were allowed to drive hard
- But making donnuts is not driving hard
- Guy's an idiot, cars are made for driving
- Yeah, driving not donnuting

And so on, so forth. Now, let's put an end to it - all of you that say it is OK to do donnuts and tyre burning on hand brake in 50 year old limited edition £1mln piece of history because "cars are made for driving" I pray for when you buy your first expensive car with your own, hard earned money your buddies will burn your clutches (on the way out) and donnut your vehicles to death just for you to see what the French Connection UK you are talking about.
All the rest of the folks - glasses up, this round is on me.
 
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Originally posted by v0n

I pray for when you buy your first expensive car with your own, hard earned money your buddies will burn your clutches (on the way out) and donnut your vehicles to death just for you to see what the French Connection UK you are talking about.
All the rest of the folks - glasses up, this round is on me.


oops, onto number 3 already, with number 4 next week...

Have I missed out ?? :)
 
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Von If your referring to my post, I suggest you go read it again m8

I specifically stated that I hadn't seen the TG showing of the driving of it.

I also said that the fact that the clutch broke or tyres were destroyed was probably a build up + the driving (whether it be bad AS I HAVEN'T WATCHED IT, or just pushig it a little far)

v0n - Go read the posts again and stop jumping on people backs and getting all stuck up about the couple of points you make, we all agree that driving a car completely stupidly is wrong, but it's the fact that this beutiful car is DRIVEN

And the car will get put back together, this bloke hasn't kept the car and baby'd it to death in order to let it fall into a state of disrepair now has he. So get over it, he's just made a really big thing over his little car because it's expensive and rare. Good on him but at the end of the day it's not really about the car is it, it's about your opinion of TG, you obviously dislike them and their show well join the club, but I don't rant on how I think they're all crap and don't care I just don't watch the show.

And I've owned loads of nice cars and driven many lovely cars, all my responsibility and it'll be me slaving for the rest of my life if they get broken, the simple fact is that journalist drivers generally don't care about the cars, I mean you hear of lots of test cars getting crashed, happens all the time as the journo's push them too hard for their abilities.

I'm more interested in the fact that the owner himself actually uses this car, it's nice to see someone with something so nice actually using it for its intended purpose. And I wonder how many bits he's broken on it while driving it hmmm

And also v0n what round are you on about you seem to think that your scoring points or something, I never knew that posting here was a competition I thought it was somewhere that people get to discuss opinion and share with others problems and the like, I'm certainly not trying to be one better than you here, whats the point you wouldn't believe it if I was.

Oh and EyeDot how'd you manage to break your lovely little TVR again ?

AND who would love a drive in that little jag, oh boy would that be a blast :D
 
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