… To the bright side, that is!

Lancia Beta Spyder

Lancia Gamma coupé

Sorry for the hiatus, but that was expected as I had End semesters, and they are still not over. But, since my last post, a lot (I mean, really, a lot) of stuff happened, that I am a bit giddy when I think over them.

Firstly, just had to say Top Gear 14×02 (and indeed TG 14×03) was brilliantly hilarious. My god, the slow motion, and the “saying Look out in reverse” stuff was classic Top Gear stuff. But, then again, this show is losing its focus, or so I thought!

Nope. It isn’t losing its focus, not even slightly. They know what they are on about. They know that they love cars, have a genuine passion for them. Initially, TG started out as a modest car show with three blokes talking about how to get reasonable deals for cars you will actually buy (remember the first series, ah! good ol’ days!). But then again, things change in life, people move on! As they say, change is the only constant of life!

Later, they shifted focus, from reasonable cars, to more “mad” super cars. But it is cool, as they still did focus on family hatch-backs, like ford fiesta’s and VW Golf’s and  Scirocco’s, etc.

But some say that now they have gone too far! But they haven’t. It is us who haven’t moved on along with the flow. At a point, one realises that there is no point in seeing a show for knowing what car to buy. Just like, there is no point in writing a new science research paper by going through Wikipedia. You go through a brochure (or in the case of the “paper”, you’ll go through Science or Nature). They can only give you so much info on consumer advice, as there is only so much. I mean, come on! Even in the newer series’ they did talk about the virtues of “mainstream” cars. They praised car manufacturers for making regular cars like ford’s, etc etc exciting. They also do praise cars when they have exceptionally high fuel economy, like in that race where Jeremy drove the Jaguar and was genuinely surprised to see it so economical.

And, if you are a keen viewer, you do realise that Jeremy Clarkson gives hints every now and then that the Toyota Prius is actually more harmful to the environment due to the lengthy, and unsustainable way it is manufactured: that is it isn’t manufactured in a clean, green way. So, even if it is fuel efficient for you and me, the factory manufacturing it causes so much damage to the environment anyway that the whole point is lost.

And, then they made their own Battery-cum-diesel-generator powered car.

And now, the latest episode reveals that they don’t only care about Lamborghini’s and Ferrari’s but also do care of genuine legends, the Lancia’s. They didn’t make good cars, in the sense they always fell apart: but they did make some great cars! Because, they didn’t compromise; their cars weren’t intended to be practical in an everyday scenario, but they were sensible enough (and well engineered in principle) to win many, many Rally Championships.

Also Note: Stig’s Lap in the kit-car (similar to the Lancia Stratos was hilarious, and the best car control I have ever seen!)

So, there you go. My rambling, and my two cents on Top Gear. After a long time, I wanted to write something about the “so much” that was/is/and still will be happening around me, and I chose TG as my first topic!

There are many more to come! Long live TG! Yay!