He lost all credibility with me when he said he'd take a Golf over the Mustang GT. Also, he is extremely ignorant when it comes to car enthusiasts over here. We don't care about handling? A car is a tool that we don't have to save up for? Okay buddy.

 

So Jeremy, if the British are so brilliant about cars and Americans are so backwards that we can't build a decent car, ahh…so exactly where is the British car industry today? The last major Brit. car manufacturer, Rover, just went toes to the sky this summer. Austin, Rover, MG, Triumph they’re all gone. The ones that are left Jaguar, Aston Martin, Lotus are all in by foreign hands. What he also conveniently neglects to mention is the Jaguar S type is built on a Lincoln platform, the Lincoln LS and the V8 and V6 engines are a Ford design. Sure Ferraris are excellent garage ornaments, beautiful standing sculptures. There’s a reason that when you see them for sale in the back of Road & Track and Autoweek they all only have 5000 to 15,000 miles on the clock, because that’s all the owner could get out of them between breakdowns and garage visits. I’ve owned British sportscars a Triumph Spitfire, an Gt6 MKIII, I have a Jag E-type in my garage right now that I’m doing a ground up restore on. Their fun but American cars do something that all of them don’t do, they actually start up in the morning. I had a joke about the Triumph GT6(it was my daily driver for 6 years) it got to the point that I would only drive as far as I was willing to walk home.

 

Interesting article, thanks !

This said, this Clarkson guy seems to be the typical englishman: full of himself, still high on the fact that England once was a superpower holding on to many other countries (--> deriving from this the notion that they must have been better than the rest of the world, somehow...many of them still think so...and therefore something made in the USA can't be good for him...) and only liking a very limited set of cars (Ferrari, Porsche, Aston Martin and a few selected others like the BMW M5).
Also the fact that in England with 26-30k dollars you can basically buy a tea kettle and put four wheels on it (cars are very expensive in that country, probably the worst in Europe, excepted perhaps the scandinavian countries...) and then try to drive it around must be quite painful to him, I guess.
I can tell you for experience that if Ford wanted to have a good review from this guy or any other brit, it would have been enough to buy them a few pints of beer...

 

I love the Brits, but this guy has his head up his ****. They tend to think of us as unrefined rufians. Thats ok, I am and so is my Stang. And us unrefined guys have saved Europe from itself on more than one occasion.

 

Well one thing is for sure, he got everybody's attention ! And for the record, I like a good european car, but I lOVE the mustang, as you all said:bang for the buck and my God it looks nice !

Geoffrey, from Belgium in Europe

 

Ain't that the truth.

I seem to remember Clarkson making a joke one time on TOP GEAR about how the Americans were late entering WWII. Too funny, considering that they pretty much saved Britain's **** from the **** hordes.

Bit of an ingrate at times, he is. Most of the time, however, he's quite funny, even if I don't always agree with some of his more controversial remarks.

And I still think he liked the Stang, even if he only admitted it in a backhanded sort of way.

 

Hi,
I'm British, I live in the UK, and I have an '05 Mustang GT. And I darn well love it! I had two Corvette's previous to the Mustang. All of them are a rare site on UK roads and turn heads like you would not believe.
But Clarkson. Really... he's an entertainer. His presenting skills are all about giving you the facts (sometimes incorrect) and entertaining you at the same time. Years back, Top Gear was all serious about cars, now it's an enteraining programme about cars.
Having watched Top Gear for many years now, reading his books and newspaper articles. I think I have a true picture of the man Clarkson. Do you know what? I think, secretly Clarkson loves American cars. He's loves the "bare bones" of the Viper. He admitted in a newspaper article that he actually "really did" like the Corvette C6 after taking the p*ss on Top Gear. And I suspect it's the same for the Mustang. He knows its a fantastic car for the money, but would not dare admit it.

 

Guys, I agree Jeremy can be a bit over the top sometimes, but you might change your tune when you watch his review of the Ford GT.

I have the video at home I think - I'll try to find it again and post it. It's my fav Top Gear episode segment ever.

 

Ding. You win.

 

I watched that, and though he seemed to love the GT(after all, the GT40 is his dream car), he couldn't resist making making fun of Americans. He made some cracks about World War II... Where would Britain be without US help in WWII?

 

Top Gear is great, and Jeremy is hilarious ... as long as you just listen to him the in the same light as you would a comedian. All three of them are pretty funny actually. Jeremy, ummm ... the little guy, and the ... ummm .. third guy (never can remember their names).
I saw the one with him reviewing the GT and it was great, thought he gave it a great review and even got a good laugh at what he said about us Americans.
That being said, I think he was the wrong one of the three to do a review of the Mustang. He is the one that always, aaalllwwwaayysss picks the plastic bathtub high performance no character cars, the third guy always picks the luxury cars and the little guy is the one that always seems to like the less refined, kind of retroish cars that have loads of character. He is the one that should have done the review of the Mustang, its right up his alley and i am thinking he would have absolutely loved it.
But, perhaps that why he didnt do it, because he would have raved about it where the others would have ... well ... givin us the kind of review that jeremy did.
Still, I would like to read what the little guy would have said about it, bet it would have been good reading.

 

....Which brings up a very interesting topic I have REALLY been wondering about - although I haven't seen any threads here about pulling horse boxes - does anyone know how many of them a manual-equipped Mineral Grey GT should be able to pull?

I tried the SEARCH function so please don't yell at me if it's one of those frequently-discussed topics......

 

Compare the torque those generate though. There is no comparison. Those cars really need to wind up before they show their "power". The Mustang does not.

Case in point, two buddies decided to race. One drives a 350Z, the other a Dodge RAM with a 4.7L V8. At launch, the Dodge pulled ahead of Z for a good bit. Only when did they start getting up to speed, did the Z finally come into its element. The reason? Torque.

You can't compare the engines 1:1 because their "total" power is different.

 

I'm sure Jeremy doesn't see the importance of torque....... horsepower is FAR more important.

I mean, its not like Horsepower is a quantity based on Torque or anything

Honestly, torque is what makes a fast and enjoyable car. I prefer cars with more torque than horsepower. To me cars lacking torque are cars without b**ls.

 

I think you're right....he isn't going to side with anything built by the yanks all is 'mates' would take the **** and he wouldn't be liked.

 

To be fair, the Jag I saw the door fall off of was made BEFORE Ford bought them....

 

If it was not for the USA in WW II his only choices would be mercedes or VW!!!

 

I had to laugh at this tripe.
This guy is the most upity anti american brit I have ever read.
Remember the GT story? This guy was pissed because of an alarm for G*ds sake.
You bet he doesnt understand the American vision of a hotrod.
He has been stuck over there in a roundabout with his Golf for too long.
He complains about the sound, but thats because he is so deafined by the squeal of the European bee engines that he probably can hear something now. And he was afraid.
Keep it up America. We know what we want and it isnt those Beamer/Golf/MG/ect bee cars.
They say that mess with the hive and you get stung.
But the American way is to douse it with good ol Ethel and light it on Fire.
We will show those bees even if it kills us.
The American Way!!!!

 

I hate to break it to you guys but Jeremys favorite car of all time is american (ford gt40) his second favorite is dum dum...the Mustang

I doubt highly he's anti american..and all i can say is take it with your tounge in your cheek.

 

Actually, the little guy did take the new Stang GT out for a spin on TOP GEAR, and he seemed to like it, though he had plenty of criticisms too. There used to be a link to the video somewhere on these boards... :scratch: