54 replies to this topic

[z cars chris]

ok just to update you all ive made an approach via a good contact of the production team
we have put several ideas to them to consider
its up to them to review these ideas and hopefully they will like what is suggested
im not sure that a direct approach to the presenters will be as fruitful as the way we are doing it they are very busy blokes doing their own thing apart from top gear so its perhaps harder to get them on board than the team thats looking for ideas and will researh the validity of them they are after all paid to do the research and write the basic scenarios for them to present
chris

[biggav]

I know that his lordship is not doing much at the moment as he is at home, he has the final say on pretty much everything that goes on in the show, researchers and producers do all the leg work. As long as you have got some form of contact with the show then great, but i'd be tempted to stick a DVD in the post along with a brief letter, He'll be hooked!!!

[brandon7]

Great pipe dream.....

However on a similar topic of shaming cars 10x the price around the top gear track for some reason they are very reluctant to put certain models of car on topgear. No Kit cars really go round there. That includes Caterhams as im also a member on blat chat as my dad has a 7 and numerous people have written letters and tried hard for years with no joy. An R500 would own around there.

The answer many have got was from the new producer saying top gear is watched around the world be 200 million people a week. They have a very strict policy on what goes on there and to be honest top gear is doing well as a programme and I doubt they would change it. Just production cars get on it really.

Id put your efforts into just making people think twice at your track days and dont worry to much about about public opinion.... Although it would be a great

Proove me wrong

[R1minimagic]

You could swing it from the Ariel Atom point of view rather than a kit car/track day car.

Clarkson is a big fan of British engineering and cottage industries and Ariel is very much like Z cars, they only have about 10 staff in small premises.

I think Z cars now produce a full working car that you can just buy 'off the shelf' complete with bodyshell etc?? but I am not too sure about registration issues.....

Cheers
Dale

[alexcrosse]

i think a company and your dad are two different things

[Minimade]

Great pipe dream.....

However on a similar topic of shaming cars 10x the price around the top gear track for some reason they are very reluctant to put certain models of car on topgear. No Kit cars really go round there. That includes Caterhams as im also a member on blat chat as my dad has a 7 and numerous people have written letters and tried hard for years with no joy. An R500 would own around there.

The answer many have got was from the new producer saying top gear is watched around the world be 200 million people a week. They have a very strict policy on what goes on there and to be honest top gear is doing well as a programme and I doubt they would change it. Just production cars get on it really.

Id put your efforts into just making people think twice at your track days and dont worry to much about about public opinion.... Although it would be a great

Proove me wrong

Caterhams are one thing BUT a MINI is another!! I know I would say that as I own one. Top Gear have had them on the show before and Clarkson loves the britishness of them.

As for being watched by 200 million around the world, have you ever read one of the mini magazines on sale, I don't think there is a country in the world that doesn't have an owners club of some sort, the people of the world LOVE IT!!! There can't be many cars in the world that has as much of a following as the the mini, The caterham not being one of them (I'm not saying that caterhams aren't a great car, and don't have a large following, because they are, and they do . But you must agree that they don't have a world wide following like the Mini has).

What is anyone asking them to change? Just to feature an intresting car, on a remarkable aniversary, which people around the world would be intrested in!!!!

No one is worried about public opinion, Z cars minis are great for getting the adrenalin going, they sound and look amazing,
it would be nice to share the experience with other petrol heads, who may not know of such an unsuspecting giant killer.
I'm sure Chris and the Z cars team would also like a bit of publicity and recognition for building a great little car, eh Chris!!

I couldn't agree more ".......it would be great", but I, like you have my doubts. I don't think this will happen, but as I said when I started this topic ".......just a thought"

[biggav]

You could swing it from the Ariel Atom point of view rather than a kit car/track day car.

Clarkson is a big fan of British engineering and cottage industries and Ariel is very much like Z cars, they only have about 10 staff in small premises.

I think Z cars now produce a full working car that you can just buy 'off the shelf' complete with bodyshell etc?? but I am not too sure about registration issues.....

Cheers
Dale

Nail on the Head!!!!

Ariel were pretty much unheard of until top gear!!!! to be honest i think they would only be interested in a factory built Monte Carlo but then could quite easily do an add on at the end to say that you can even buy the car in kit form or convert an existing steel bodied mini!!

Either way, i think it would be a fantastic thing to see.... even better would be an Entire Show devoted to the mini for the 50th Birthday.

[R1minimagic]

Clarkson loves minis.

A few years ago he did a piece on a Mini Cooper vs the Fiat Cinquecento and summarised by saying he thought they were 2 of the nicest cars he had ever driven and that they were like finding a diamond down a coal mine. He said to forget buying a new Mondeo and buy one of these

Brought a tear to my eye

[Furyan]

Clarkson has already driven a Vtec front engined mini, think the video is still on You Tube. They have also done a piece on track day cars with the Caterhams against the Atom etc. They seem to be a bit choosy about what cars they want on the programme as Ultima have approached them more than once in the past about featuring there Ultima GTR. Ultima even hired the same track and tested it with their own Stig and it was 4 seconds faster than the fastest car on the leader board around the track, but still TG are'nt intrested in testing it. Ok, some may be of the opinion that the Ultima is a kit car, but you can buy a" turn key" from the factory and that makes it a, low volume, production car. Maybe it can't get over a road hump without scrapping, that seems to be their criteria. As for the Z-Cars minis being featured I think Fifth Gear would be better as they do feature the odd non standard car from time to time, and Needels is as good a driver as you'll get.

[z cars chris]

we will see about what happens with top gear they use my contact regularly for high performance driving on the programme and he is very well known there having been employed for the past ten years by them
none of this is easy as you have to catch their imagination and then be in a position to deliver the goods
we are probably now in the best shape ever to do this having grown and developed over the years
you will only get one crack at this and i dont want a *male chicken* up with it
as far as tiff needell goes he will never as long as i have breath in my body drive another of my cars
the man is a buffon of the highest order as i found out to my cost when he drove our four wheel drive twin engined tiger for fifth gear
he was supposed to attempt to break the world record for a road going car from 0 to 60 mph
he turned up at bruntingthorpe and was a royal pain in the ass straight away
he tried to acheive 2.8 seconds with the car which it was capable of 95% of the time when i drove it either in the wet or dry but couldnt
he was so arrogant and even when told how to do it wouldnt listen (despite the fact that i had built it and have more experiance than anyone else in the world building and driving the things)
he did around 50 standing starts over an hour period and got down to 3.15 seconds at best
in the end he pulled up and said "the car wont do it its impossible "
so i jumped in did one run only and still with the same timing gear and track etc hit 2.8 seconds straight away
i gave him the car back and told him to get his finger out as by that time i was ready to tear his head off h then proceeded to go up the track leaving one engine in 1 st gear and shifting up into 3rd with the other till he blew a rod through the side
he then brought the car back in , laughed and said "thats blown that then"
i had to walk off into the woods to calm down
it cost me £2500 to repair the car 5th gear wouldnt help with the cost and it was a lesson learnt
i wouldnt mind but that car was easy to launch and get the times from
all you did was have the front engine in 2nd gear as it drove the front wheels and they spun up really easily
the rear engine was in 1 st gear you then floored the throttle till it hit the rev limiter at 11750 rpm on both engines, just feather it a little till the rev limiter stopped cutting in and dump the clutch as fast as you can
count to one then shift the rear engine into 2nd leaving the front engine in 2 nd all along
it would do 65 mph in 2 nd gear so thats it you get there in one gear change
in the dry the rear engine would bog ever so slightly and this hampered the time in the et both sets of wheels spun up more but it didnt effect the time as the rear engine didnt bog then
tiff needell may well be a highly paid tv presenter and so called superstar but as a driver he should be able to take on board different requirements of a car to get the best from it
by contrast darren manning drove the twin tiger for sky tv he was bennetons test driver at the time has raced all over the world in indy cars etc etc
he came with a tv crew looked at the car asked me how it worked if there were any tips or tricks to getting the best out of it then proceeded to drive it all day with no issues at all
he was the perfect gent all day long and obviously enjoyed his job and took an interest in what he was driving
vicky butler henderson drove the same car and was as proffesional throughout as darren was
you may have seen the episode with needell on re runs recently on dave i still get annoyed every time i see that
i dont want any problems with a possible top gear appearance thats why its got to be the right sort of item pitched in the right way
i dont mind the stig driving the cars even though its not the same bloke driving every time they are all capable drivers and will get the best out of the cars
it may never happen but i wont lose sleep over it
we have a full order book at the moment and i dare say an appearance on top gear would attract more sales but you then have to build the kits and cars which causes its own problems if you get too busy
chris

[alexcrosse]

deposits for expansion.

All sounds good chris, had any thoughts about what you would take along to them?

Al

[Furyan]

Top Gear it is then!! I remember seeing that episode, sorry to here Tiff is such an ar$ehole!!, he comes across ok on TV, as do you Chris , and he does have good car control even though he broke Chris's car!! They have Jason Plato as well now, just have to ban Needels from driving the minis!!

Edited by Furyan, 16 October 2008 - 05:34 PM.

[R1minimagic]

He's always come across as a stuck up t****r to me!! (not you Chris!)

[drayton min man]

I agree Chris, the only time i met Tiff was at a autograss meeting at border counties, he was a guess driver (for top gear i think) in Simon Bentley rear wheel drive cosworth fiesta, he made a real hash of it, it was everybody else's fault, the car the other drivers, the bloke could'nt drive a six inch nail into a piece of softwood.

Great idea for Top Gear though, lets just hope its practical

Geoff

[brandon7]

.

Edited by brandon7, 16 October 2008 - 07:34 PM.