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I searched all threads and was shocked to find that a forum like TAI does not have any dedicated thread on Jeremy Clarkson - the most unique, most eccentric, most hilarious, most opinionated automotive persona the world has ever seen, and probably the last such persona it would ever see. So here it is, a thread on which all of us could discuss about this 6 ft 5 in car tester cum destroyer cum lover cum presenter cum journalist and what we like/dislike/love/hate/abhor/despise/drool about him. Adding a poll too to make things a bit more interesting. So come on TAIndians, let's rip ! Attaching a wonderful, wonderful,wonderful article that would give the uninitiated an idea about how he thinks cars should be.
Starting off with some of his witty quotes (Yes, I am an unabashed fan!) :
(On Mercedes dealers): Pol Pot wasn't a Mercedes dealer but he certainly had the right credentials.
(On the Vauxhall VXR Bathurst) : Of course, it is a very big car. So massive, in fact, that very often those on the left-hand side are going through quite different weather from those on the right.
(On the Ascari A10) : The A10 is daft, for sure, and not at all relevant in the modern world. It consumes oil and smashes up its environment. But elephants do that as well; they destroy their habitat and drive themselves to extinction. And I bet you’ll be sad when they die out.
(On the Autodelta 147 GTA) : Driving a front-wheel-drive hatchback with 328bhp is like playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun.
(On the Fiat Panda) : Driving an underpowered car on the motorway is one of the most dangerous things a man can do. It’s up there with sticking your middle finger in the bottom of a sleeping tiger. It’s very nearly as dangerous as driving through Alabama with “Hillary for President” written on the side of your car.
(On the lack of space inside the Jeep Grand Cherokee) : Inside, however, there is one piece of Jeep tradition that has not been lost. No space at all. The new Grand Cherokee may be 5in longer and a wee bit wider than the old model, but climbing inside is like climbing into the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. You’d need to be legless to fit in the back and the only dog that would fit in the boot is one that had been run over.
(On the Swedish - in the Koenigsegg CC review): Anything anyone can do, the Swedes can do better. Only a few years after someone failed to assassinate Ronald Reagan someone shot the Swedish prime minister, Olaf Palme. And, unbelievably, they still haven’t caught him.
(On the quality of German vs. American cars) : When Daimler-Benz merged with Chrysler, the American engineers realised after a short while that the Germans at Mercedes were paying five times more for their seats than they were. So they sent some Chrysler seats to Stuttgart saying, “Hey guys. We think you’re being overcharged.”
Having spent a few weeks examining the Chrysler seats, the Germans replied, “Nein. Ve zink it is you who are being overcharged.”
(On the Mercedes Benz E- Class) : This, then, is a car you buy with your head. But human beings have hearts, too. That’s what gives us passion and makes us lunatics. That’s why I’ve ordered a Ford GT, and why my friend has a Mini Cooper station car. It’s why another chap I know has an old Mercedes 600 Pullman that his wife doesn’t know about. And it’s why we scan the second-hand columns of this newspaper dreaming about Astons and Ferraris.
(On Fiats): You climb into a Fiat and even though the headlining has fallen off and is draped round your head like a nun’s hat, and the engine sounds as if it’s being fuelled with gravel and there’s a smell of melting glue, you always think: “This is fun.”
(On Alfa Romeos): 1. They (Alfas) melt our hearts and our souls, but only the very foolish will actually spend £25,000 on a car that will go wrong every day and suffer from supersonic depreciation. They are like Russian hookers: insanely pretty and willing beyond the ken of man, but you’re going to get a rash.
2. The thing is, though, with the exception of the simply appalling Arna, I’ve loved all Alfas. In fact I’ve argued time and again that nobody can be a petrolhead until they’ve owned one. It’s a rite of passage. Think of it as the great sex that leaves you with an embarrassing itch.
(On his GTV6) : Then there was the complete lack of quality. Nothing worked. And when you got one thing fixed something else would break on the way home. Once it tried to murder me. The linkage from the gearlever to the rear-mounted gearbox fell off and jammed the prop shaft, causing a sound not heard on earth since Krakatoa blew up, and the rear wheels to lock.
But behind the oyster-like impregnability of its ergonomics and hidden in the sea of snot were two perfect pearls. The styling. And the howl from its V6 engine. In a tunnel, at 4000rpm, it was more sonorous than any music. It was like having your soul licked by angels.
(On car brands): Advertising men will tell you that when it comes to cars they need to attach a single word to the brand. So if you want a “safe” car you buy a Volvo. If you want a “reliable” car, you buy a Volkswagen. And if you have a small “*****” you buy a BMW. It’s not just brands either. There are single words that describe the national characteristics of a car too. A German car is “engineered”. A French car is “soft” and an Italian car is “exuberant”.
(On the Aston Martin DB9) : Having a DB9 on the drive and not driving it is a bit like having Keira Knightley in your bed and sleeping on the couch. If you’ve got even half a scrotum it’s not going to happen.
(On the Audi A6): I parked it outside a large Georgian country house last weekend and rarely has a car looked so right. It should be part of the Country Life check list: sash windows, wisteria, Audi estate car.
(On the VW Jetta - Hilarious, MUST READ review) : 1. I spoke to him (James May) yesterday. “I’m driving the most boring car in the world,” I said, and though he’s known as Captain Slow and practises the art of what he calls Christian motoring, he said: “Oh, you must have a Jetta then.”
2. I’d love to meet the man who styled the exterior, to find out if he’d done it as some sort of a joke. But mostly I’d like to meet the man who simply didn’t bother at all with the interior. Because looking at that dashboard gives you some idea of what it might be like to be dead.
3. What I’m most interested in is why on earth this car was made in the first place, because it’s actually a Golf with a boot. Or to put it another way, a Golf that’s a bit uglier, a bit heavier, a bit slower, a bit less practical, a bit less economical and a lot more boring to drive. To paraphrase Mark Twain, then, it’s a good Golf ruined.
4. Anyway, my point is that the Jetta is a £21,000 car. So why not buy a bigger, better and (marginally) more interesting Passat instead? Or why not save a few bob and buy a vastly superior Golf GTI? Or why not buy 2.1m penny chews?
(On Ferrari) : Have you driven a modern-day Ferrari? Because it doesn’t matter what you drive now, you would stumble from the experience reeling in slack-jawed, wide-eyed astonishment at just how good it had been.
In a current Ferrari you have a oneness with the machine that you simply don’t get from any other car. You feel connected, you feel assimilated. The steering, the brakes and throttle don’t feel like a collection of metal and wires and carbon fibre. They feel like they’re organic extensions of your fingers and your toes. This means you have no sense of man handling the beast, of taming the monster. And because everything you do feels as natural and as instinctive as breathing, you can go much, much faster than you dreamt possible.
(On the Skyline GT-R) : I dare say that if Michael Schumacher were to find himself in the eye of an Arctic blizzard, escaping from an exploding volcano, he might discover 10% of this car’s abilities. But you? Me? Here? Forget it.
(On the Mercedes SLR McLaren) : And the noise is extraordinary. No car sounds like this. It’s a big, dirty, bassy rumble. My daughter said it sounded like a big fart. She’s right. A massive, amplified fart from hell.
(On Jean Todt) : I don’t like the way Jean Todt sits on the pit wall every other weekend looking like his dog just died. I want to shake him and say: “Look man, you’re running the Ferrari race team. Lighten up. Go and set a fire extinguisher off in Ron Dennis’s trousers or something.”
(On preferring a Gallardo over the F430) : Ferraris are serious cars for serious people who drive around wearing a serious expression. The Gallardo can do serious, too. It has Audi electrics and Audi engineering. But as you career towards the next bend on a wave of extraordinary sound, half blinded by your own upholstery, you’ll be making the noise of a howler monkey and wishing you were naked.
(On the Maserati Quattroporte) : In a list of five most rubbish things in the world, I'd have America's foreign policy at number five, AIDS at four, Iran's nuclear programme at three, Gordon Brown at two, and the Maserati’s gearbox at number one. It’s that bad.
Starting off with some of his witty quotes (Yes, I am an unabashed fan!) :
(On Mercedes dealers): Pol Pot wasn't a Mercedes dealer but he certainly had the right credentials.
(On the Vauxhall VXR Bathurst) : Of course, it is a very big car. So massive, in fact, that very often those on the left-hand side are going through quite different weather from those on the right.
(On the Ascari A10) : The A10 is daft, for sure, and not at all relevant in the modern world. It consumes oil and smashes up its environment. But elephants do that as well; they destroy their habitat and drive themselves to extinction. And I bet you’ll be sad when they die out.
(On the Autodelta 147 GTA) : Driving a front-wheel-drive hatchback with 328bhp is like playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun.
(On the Fiat Panda) : Driving an underpowered car on the motorway is one of the most dangerous things a man can do. It’s up there with sticking your middle finger in the bottom of a sleeping tiger. It’s very nearly as dangerous as driving through Alabama with “Hillary for President” written on the side of your car.
(On the lack of space inside the Jeep Grand Cherokee) : Inside, however, there is one piece of Jeep tradition that has not been lost. No space at all. The new Grand Cherokee may be 5in longer and a wee bit wider than the old model, but climbing inside is like climbing into the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. You’d need to be legless to fit in the back and the only dog that would fit in the boot is one that had been run over.
(On the Swedish - in the Koenigsegg CC review): Anything anyone can do, the Swedes can do better. Only a few years after someone failed to assassinate Ronald Reagan someone shot the Swedish prime minister, Olaf Palme. And, unbelievably, they still haven’t caught him.
(On the quality of German vs. American cars) : When Daimler-Benz merged with Chrysler, the American engineers realised after a short while that the Germans at Mercedes were paying five times more for their seats than they were. So they sent some Chrysler seats to Stuttgart saying, “Hey guys. We think you’re being overcharged.”
Having spent a few weeks examining the Chrysler seats, the Germans replied, “Nein. Ve zink it is you who are being overcharged.”
(On the Mercedes Benz E- Class) : This, then, is a car you buy with your head. But human beings have hearts, too. That’s what gives us passion and makes us lunatics. That’s why I’ve ordered a Ford GT, and why my friend has a Mini Cooper station car. It’s why another chap I know has an old Mercedes 600 Pullman that his wife doesn’t know about. And it’s why we scan the second-hand columns of this newspaper dreaming about Astons and Ferraris.
(On Fiats): You climb into a Fiat and even though the headlining has fallen off and is draped round your head like a nun’s hat, and the engine sounds as if it’s being fuelled with gravel and there’s a smell of melting glue, you always think: “This is fun.”
(On Alfa Romeos): 1. They (Alfas) melt our hearts and our souls, but only the very foolish will actually spend £25,000 on a car that will go wrong every day and suffer from supersonic depreciation. They are like Russian hookers: insanely pretty and willing beyond the ken of man, but you’re going to get a rash.
2. The thing is, though, with the exception of the simply appalling Arna, I’ve loved all Alfas. In fact I’ve argued time and again that nobody can be a petrolhead until they’ve owned one. It’s a rite of passage. Think of it as the great sex that leaves you with an embarrassing itch.
(On his GTV6) : Then there was the complete lack of quality. Nothing worked. And when you got one thing fixed something else would break on the way home. Once it tried to murder me. The linkage from the gearlever to the rear-mounted gearbox fell off and jammed the prop shaft, causing a sound not heard on earth since Krakatoa blew up, and the rear wheels to lock.
But behind the oyster-like impregnability of its ergonomics and hidden in the sea of snot were two perfect pearls. The styling. And the howl from its V6 engine. In a tunnel, at 4000rpm, it was more sonorous than any music. It was like having your soul licked by angels.
(On car brands): Advertising men will tell you that when it comes to cars they need to attach a single word to the brand. So if you want a “safe” car you buy a Volvo. If you want a “reliable” car, you buy a Volkswagen. And if you have a small “*****” you buy a BMW. It’s not just brands either. There are single words that describe the national characteristics of a car too. A German car is “engineered”. A French car is “soft” and an Italian car is “exuberant”.
(On the Aston Martin DB9) : Having a DB9 on the drive and not driving it is a bit like having Keira Knightley in your bed and sleeping on the couch. If you’ve got even half a scrotum it’s not going to happen.
(On the Audi A6): I parked it outside a large Georgian country house last weekend and rarely has a car looked so right. It should be part of the Country Life check list: sash windows, wisteria, Audi estate car.
(On the VW Jetta - Hilarious, MUST READ review) : 1. I spoke to him (James May) yesterday. “I’m driving the most boring car in the world,” I said, and though he’s known as Captain Slow and practises the art of what he calls Christian motoring, he said: “Oh, you must have a Jetta then.”
2. I’d love to meet the man who styled the exterior, to find out if he’d done it as some sort of a joke. But mostly I’d like to meet the man who simply didn’t bother at all with the interior. Because looking at that dashboard gives you some idea of what it might be like to be dead.
3. What I’m most interested in is why on earth this car was made in the first place, because it’s actually a Golf with a boot. Or to put it another way, a Golf that’s a bit uglier, a bit heavier, a bit slower, a bit less practical, a bit less economical and a lot more boring to drive. To paraphrase Mark Twain, then, it’s a good Golf ruined.
4. Anyway, my point is that the Jetta is a £21,000 car. So why not buy a bigger, better and (marginally) more interesting Passat instead? Or why not save a few bob and buy a vastly superior Golf GTI? Or why not buy 2.1m penny chews?
(On Ferrari) : Have you driven a modern-day Ferrari? Because it doesn’t matter what you drive now, you would stumble from the experience reeling in slack-jawed, wide-eyed astonishment at just how good it had been.
In a current Ferrari you have a oneness with the machine that you simply don’t get from any other car. You feel connected, you feel assimilated. The steering, the brakes and throttle don’t feel like a collection of metal and wires and carbon fibre. They feel like they’re organic extensions of your fingers and your toes. This means you have no sense of man handling the beast, of taming the monster. And because everything you do feels as natural and as instinctive as breathing, you can go much, much faster than you dreamt possible.
(On the Skyline GT-R) : I dare say that if Michael Schumacher were to find himself in the eye of an Arctic blizzard, escaping from an exploding volcano, he might discover 10% of this car’s abilities. But you? Me? Here? Forget it.
(On the Mercedes SLR McLaren) : And the noise is extraordinary. No car sounds like this. It’s a big, dirty, bassy rumble. My daughter said it sounded like a big fart. She’s right. A massive, amplified fart from hell.
(On Jean Todt) : I don’t like the way Jean Todt sits on the pit wall every other weekend looking like his dog just died. I want to shake him and say: “Look man, you’re running the Ferrari race team. Lighten up. Go and set a fire extinguisher off in Ron Dennis’s trousers or something.”
(On preferring a Gallardo over the F430) : Ferraris are serious cars for serious people who drive around wearing a serious expression. The Gallardo can do serious, too. It has Audi electrics and Audi engineering. But as you career towards the next bend on a wave of extraordinary sound, half blinded by your own upholstery, you’ll be making the noise of a howler monkey and wishing you were naked.
(On the Maserati Quattroporte) : In a list of five most rubbish things in the world, I'd have America's foreign policy at number five, AIDS at four, Iran's nuclear programme at three, Gordon Brown at two, and the Maserati’s gearbox at number one. It’s that bad.
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