New new new new Top Gear

[mr_jon]

Missed ep1 but the missus made me watch ep2 last night. What a waste of an hour! Recycled rubbish with no narrative.

[mik]

I watched it this morning over a cup of tea - took me about 4 minutes. Which was enough. That’s the opening 2 episodes dedicated 100% to dicking around. Will wait for some car content.

[dinny_g]

The gulf in professionalism (As presenters) between Chris and the others is impossible to avoid now. It's all so unbalanced. He's great as always and the other two are clowns.

[drcarlos]

Watched both episodes last night. Ep1 I quite enjoyed with the Florida roadtrip as we are supposed to be taking a similar route on the tamiami trail next year in reverse with a stop over in Naples too. Swamp buggies and an airboats will feature hopefully with some gator spotting (although I've seen far more of those in the past out near Kennedy than in the everglades). Also we do mix with some of these rednecks in the mower circles so it's interesting to see some of the sports in the big time, overall I enjoyed it.
Ep2 well I was hoping that they may mod a C5 with a modern motor, lipo battery system and make it into what it always promised. Give it maybe 30mph top speed and a 50mile range, but no they just wasted that. Got bored and left it on while I played a game on my phone.

[scotta]

I watched it this morning over a cup of tea - took me about 4 minutes. Which was enough. That’s the opening 2 episodes dedicated 100% to dicking around. Will wait for some car content.

Emira test next week.

[Ascender]

We caught up with the first three of these last weekend - they were kind of in the background while we both did some work & study. Kids enjoyed them and they were pretty entertaining, but it was only at the end of the three that I realised there was hardly any of the "traditional" car content apart from the Emira maybe? In three episodes?

[ZedLeg]

There's a new series of TG America coming, I much preferred the first (rebooted) series to the recent UK ones. Jethro, Dax Shepard and Rob Corddry make a pretty entertaining team. I think you'll need to sign up for the Discovery streaming app to watch it here though, the first series was never on the Motortrend app on Amazon.

[Ascender]

I'll have to check that out @ZedLeg, sounds good.

Have they done much with Chris Harris on Youtube recently? I seem to remember he did some occasional long-form reviews on there, like he used to do but the only thing I've seen him do recently was some talking heads stuff for the magazine and the Porsche review for Collecting Cars.

[dinny_g]

Decent enough episode but all a bit rushed. Like they crammed 4 ideas postponed from earlier in the series into the last episode.

Can’t believe the hammered a £200k + car in trials

Looking at Harris in the WRC Car in the snow, he really is an awesome driver by any measure

M feature deserved more time

Loved the Lambo and GT3 on synthetic fuel.

Overall, Harris aside, Top Gear is still a bit shit but I still watch every week and will watch the next series

[davecG60]

Decent enough episode but all a bit rushed. Like they crammed 4 ideas postponed from earlier in the series into the last episode.

Can’t believe the hammered a £200k + car in trials

Looking at Harris in the WRC Car in the snow, he really is an awesome driver by any measure

M feature deserved more time

Loved the Lambo and GT3 on synthetic fuel.

Overall, Harris aside, Top Gear is still a bit shit but I still watch every week and will watch the next series

Perfect summary I reckon.

The final episode in the (short) series should not feel so rushed when the other episodes have had features that could be reduced in length or even deleted.

The M feature should have been twice as long and had Harris ( with his M knowledge ) presenting it.
The synthetic fuel was very interesting indeed and hopefully will be further developed to reduce the cost.

[jamcg]

Vettel ran his ‘92 Williams FW14B at silverstone over the weekend on full synthetic fuel. Still made an amazing noise

[Ascender]

Its back and its a pickup-themed road trip through Thailand... Loving Harris' Bimmer...

But also... a car review

[mik]

Couldn’t be arsed with pickup crap, but that Rimac was ridiculous. Wish they had tracked it though….

Power and price pretty much identical to the Evija….

[Mito Man]

Not terrible tonight. As amazing as the Rimac's performance is I just can't muster much enthusiasm for it beyond being a passenger in it for a lap. Even at £100,000 I'd take anything with a nice engine over it.

[dinny_g]

The pick up racing piece had the environmentalists crying into their Avocado…

[duncs500]

Decent episode, if they can maintain that standard I'll be happy with that.

[drcarlos]

Not terrible tonight. As amazing as the Rimac's performance is I just can't muster much enthusiasm for it beyond being a passenger in it for a lap. Even at £100,000 I'd take anything with a nice engine over it.

Neither can I, having raced RC for years and having built a stupid fast Truggy (1/12th 3.5T, 2S) some years ago I took it out twice before it was relegated to the cupboard, where it still lives. It was fun for a couple of batteries but had no soul or passion. A Nitro or Tamiya classic needs a bit of love and coaxing to be good, a human component to complete the package. Anything that is modern, brushless and lipo on the race circuit is so fast and competent there's just no soul in it.
These modern electric cars have the soul of a fridge (white Teslas even look like a kitchen appliance) and leave me totally cold.

Didn't Star Trek the Movie explore this?

[dinny_g]

Agree with all that...

No mention of range either. Or handling. Yes it can drift but that's at 10 10th's - what's it like pushing up to the envelope ?

[duncs500]

No mention of range either.

I think he said 300 miles at the start of the piece. Whether that's 300 miles in some 50bhp eco mode, he didn't say...

[dinny_g]

Ah, missed that - can't imagine it would do that if you drove it like he did...