Lenny_Z28

hah ayeah i remebmer that one, i wonder if he still has it.

FCPorto_Q10

clarkson is my main man lol
the one where he races the evo with the murcialago is the best one:thumbsup:

Hellbent

Of course he still has it, He loves the FORD GT to much.


god, I hate when people take his word and Top Gears words like the bible, jesus christ, Ive never seen such Biased crap.
American have been making some damn fine cars, except U europeans are to ****en ignorant, u think ur better than everybody.

so how come he didnt review the Saleen S7, or the S7R, or the Panoz Esperante. or the countless other ones.

and HOW THE **** CAN U COMPARE A VIPER TO A ARIEL ATOM.
its like comparing and spaghetti.

brandon6976

I have a couple things to say about all that.

First I personally don't take it as "the bible" However overall the video makes a lot of good points.

The first thing, american cars are built with lower build quality and cars generally don't last as long. Which I don't think needs to be a bad thing, one of his arguements actually to me defends that. Which is american cars are built to be "thrown away" after 3-5 years.

Most people don't keep their cars longer than that, so why build something that people won't take advantage of. Of course cars get sold used, however if you want to make it last longer you have to put more work into it. Who has to pay for that, the person paying for it new of course which happens to be the person who won't own all that quality because they toss the car after a couple years.

And yes Clarkson generally will make those competitions to get the desired result. However he generally doesn't flat out lie. Its like when you saw the SRT8 vs the M5. Of course the M5 won, even Jeremy admitted it was over twice the cost. However it would have been a little more appropriate to see the Viper do the 1/4 mile rather than the SRT8, being the viper and M5 are closer in cost. The viper is about half a second faster on the 1/4 mile than the M5. However then you're not comparing 4 door business like cars. However off hand I don't know that the US makes any 4 door business man like car in that price range.

it comes down to is it worth it for you to buy something 2x the cost for that performance gain, specially since a lot of people don't keep their cars for that long.

Nord

Very well spoken!

Hellbent

I'll admit that was well spoken.

and your right about the cars being thrown after 3-5 years.
we north american are encouraged to buy new cars, just like Japan who make it a living nightmare to own any car that has over 50,000KM.
But that doesnt mean that all of them are crap.....

you know what, I'll say this, ANy car is reliable as long as its properly taken care of. its also the fact that we north americans dont know how to take care of our cars, we are to busy of a people to bother learning about our cars or mechanicals.

but ur point about Viper Vs. M5 on price alone fails, because your comparing a 2 door Sport Coupe that is more of a track car/weekend car to a 4 door, family sedan with a F1-derived engine that is meant to be driven everyday.
its still comparing 2 different categories.
Viper Vs. TVR would have been better, the TVR Sagaris or the TVR Tuscan Vs. the Viper would have been approperaite.
both are savage hairy beasts of cars with stupid large engines, no T/C, just engine and car.

brandon6976

its not valid, what I'm talking about was comparing cars at their price point rather than what style car.

Thats why I said I don't know that the M5 has a north american counterpart (so like what car does north america make that closest to what the euro M5 is). Sadly i think the SRT8 is probably one of the closest cars that north america has to the M5 (at least that I can think of), I think the point of that race was say you're a 40ish year old guy who needs a car that looks nice, has 4 doors, can be driven every day and is still fast and fun. What is available type of thing. The europeans have the M5, what do we have ?? it is the SRT8 or possibly the CTS-V (however I don't think the CTS-V would have done all that much better than te SRT8).

dj_jake

M5 is just a better top drawer saloon than anything america can produce. SRT8 300, CTSV, Lincoln LS V8 (dont think they make this anymore) are the kind of american vehicles comparable to the M5. Regardless, M5, like many other european and japanese marques, blow american competition out of the water.

M5's only real competition is in the form of the RS6. E class AMG's, Maserati Quattroporte, and so forth. Alas, those are only european brands, and have similar price tags.

SRT8 is a great car and all, but its half of the cost of an m5, and half of an m5, period.
Thats why a completely different customer will buy the SRT8 or CTSV, than the kind of customer who would buy an M5.

You think even 5% of the BMW, Benz, and Audi sales come from people who would actually consider getting a 30k chrysler? The very nature of the market is what makes these cars in different leagues of their own.

Oh and clarkson make some unfair comparisons at times, because thats part of the entertainment value of this show. When majority of viewers of Top Gear are european, do you think they get a bigger kick out of seeing a tight competition with american brands, or just seeing them get embarassed?

Im in europe, and i can tell you the general attitudes here towards america is fairly poor.

brandon6976

^^ I agree for the most part. I think the cars are built with similar goals in mind (luxury performance car). However its the refinement & price which places them in totaly different markets.

I think if the guy buying the SRT8 (its actually a 50k car Canadian as british pounds are totaly different currency he was talking about) would buy the M5 if he had the money as they are both luxury performance cars. Its just the SRT8 is a bargin to some degree's.

So for 50k what type of euro car will come with that sorta 4 door powerhouse ?? Almost none really.

Hellbent

couldnt have agreed with u guy more.
@DJ Jake - I know about the attitude in Europe, Iam not saying all Europeans are like that, there are some Ive seen that love american cars. but generally they are hated upon, and most of the time, its for stupid reasons, or just because their american.

@Brandon - CTSV and SRT8 are the only ones I can think of right now that america has to compare to the M5, even then its not fair, the M5 is just on a whole different level, it is a Wonderfull machine.

and you guys saying that companies have to make cuts somewhere in order to fit their price range. well thats true too.
generally road cars suck, and Iam talking about all road cars, wether be Ferrari or Dodge, somewhere the engineers have to cut back and make comprimises.


"NO car has its goals and preferences more defined and set than a Formula 1 car"