Top gear tonight

TG really is a great programme. How i've missed it. A race to the south of france, sanitary towells and an apache gun ship. Its the sort of things you dream up when you're half cut with a bunch of mates!

But the Exige, WOW! Thats the sort of car where a VTEC type engine belongs! Would be interesting to see how the VX220 R thingy would do though...

CityRover: Have you driven in the UK lately? Do you live in some magical wonderland where every roadsurface is suitable for concorde take-offs and speed bumps are just a horrible memory?

It may not be made out of bits of Lexus, rubbed between Mercedes Benz's (the daughter) thighs, and lovingly glued together by French artisans, but it is built to be driven in a country where road maintenance is heaving the dead Elephant off the track, and cows have right of way. In a small, cheap car, I want robust, not class. IMO, it is the real 21st Century Panda.

ST. Erm, ST170? ST220? ST24? TG are a little late with the chance to make that joke, sadly. My girlfriend has never heard the abbreviation ST for Sanity pads, so I guess it's a recent, southern, contrived to make the joke thing. Rather like the Ka Si.

Anyone else think of Airwolf when the Apache came on screen? Now /that/ would be a nice Sera replacement.

Richard (Aston Vanquish? One the one hand, yes, I would. On the other hand, Bentley GT /and/ a Phaeton for running about in).

It's certainly a decent car, just not for the class that Rover have priced it in. It should have been set at a £5,000 starting point maximum, not £6,500 without even power steering. There are variants costing over £10,000 ffs, who in their right mind is going to pay that considering the publicity it's had over it's origins...

*ding*

It's more of a competitor for the Perodua Nippa, rather than the new Panda, Micra etc.

I've seen a couple out and about - they look very dated compared with the competition.

For £6.5k, I'd take the Panda.

The Panda is £6.5k?! Who would spend that kind of money on that?!

I suggest you should take a look at the size / quality and equipment of the new Panda before passing comment..... makes a new Fester look undersized, shoddily build and underspecced.

doh!

Is it repeated?

I have to agree, sadly though it's not for the same niche as the old Panda which was the perfect farmers car.

I saw one a month or two ago (didn't even realise they were actually on the road yet at the time, must have been right at the launch date) on the M1 somewhere around Junc 25 pulled by the Police. Not sure if he was actually giving it some stick, or they just wanted to have a look at the thing :)

Anyone in the market for that kind of car. It's a fantastic machine, for a Fiat.

I like the Stilo as well tho, can't understand why that's pretty much bombed :/

Ah, the fabled cheapest car on sale in the UK. Which never actually was the cheapest car on sale in the UK.

Sounds a more realistic class to stick it in to ne.

I haven't seen any yet. Guess that says it all really.

CityRover gets a mention here; :)

In article , snipped-for-privacy@beeteeopenworld.com spouted forth into uk.rec.cars.modifications...

Well, it was penned by Dirk van Appelstrudel, the dutchman who was with Skoda, designed the Fabia and Octavia.

Created the Skoda Tudor 3litre V6 Coupe Concept.

He was then drugged, stuffed into a packing case, and shipped to Crewe as a punishment for trying to make a Skoda better than Audi/Lambo.

Unfortunatley, when they realised they had nowhere to put him, when he got there, they hastily bought the Bentley brand, after it was left hanging loose when BMW beat them to the Rolls Royce marque and moved it south. They thought they might use the old factory as the VW corporate version of Spandau, and house all the politically incorrect prisoners from the company (an idea that VW stole from Skoda and Soviet Czechozlovakia, where politicals where jailed in and worked as the plant, going back to their cells at the end of a shift).

Unfortunatley, when the Uberluitnants from VW arrived to taunt their wayward designer about his isolation, they discovered the place full of grissled old men in brown coats, making cars. They never actually thought to check whether anyone would still want a bentley after it had nothing to do with Rolls Royce, so hadn't checked that it was still making cars. When they checked the corporate cheque book, they discovered that Bentley was the reason that profits for the group were down. Van Appelstrudel was designing and building cars that were just stacking up, because RR had taken all the dealers with them, but at least his Tudor Coupe got built with an improvement in engine dept, by VW would insist on sticking on those silly "B" badges everywhere.

And that is the story of why it is so easy to think a Continental GT might be a Skoda.

What happened in the crash test thing ? who came out worse etc

I think thats next week

"Dan405" wrote

dan its a seriously good car in its sector. best built fiat I've seen since the popemobile

Which was a Range Rover..... ;-)

There are loads of those new Bentleys round here! Well I work in Wilmslow and live just outside Knutsford.

Couple of weeks ago my housemate who works at a hotel and spa in the area phoned me up and told me to get down to his workplace ASAP if I wanted to see some nice cars.

No less than two of those new Bentleys, plus a Lambo Murcielago and the entire Merc range. All customers cars. All owned by pikeys no less! I kid you not, there was a big pikey wedding and they were all totally minted.

I bet they wouldn't park their bentley/lambo/merc on a driveway THEY laid!!

That's the new Popemobile, is it?

Last one I remember was the Rangie with a conservatory grafted onto the back.

As an aside.... those new Lancias aren't half ugly.