In a recent episode of the revised Fifth Gear television program former F1 racer Tiff Needell got some one on one time with the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG ‘Gullwing’. The location for his drive? The Isle of Man. As it is the Isle of Man presents some kind of motoring nirvana; the roads there have no speed limit. However, for Tiff’s drive the roads were closed. With no oncoming traffic to worry about how do you reckon he went? Take the jump to find out.
The fifteenth series of Fifth Gear is currently airing in Britain and in this week’s show they pitted Volkswagen’s stunning Scirocco against the cheeky MINI Cooper S. The cars were tested at the Castle Combe racetrack and Tiff Needell and Jason Plato were at the wheel. You can be sure nothing was left in the pits.
The result was very close, but if you want the winning car you’ll have to pester Volkswagen Australia very hard to get one.
(Thanks to Lee for the tip.)
If you had the keys to a Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 and access to an ice track, what would you do? Thought so.
Here’s a clip from series 15 of Fifth Gear with Tiff Needell at the wheel showing us how it is done. Apart from all the fun and shenanigans that Tiff gets up to, the clip also gives a great example of how modern day traction control and ESP systems work. Amazing stuff!
Almost as much fun as taking a 911 around a snow-covered Nürburgring.
This episode started with a proper old skool hot hatch, the iconic Volkswagen Mk2 Golf GTI. I’ve been fortunate to see a great example of these up close and they really are bloody good cars. Take a well loved Mk2 GTI to a tight mountain pass and it will keep any current hot hatch very honest indeed. Jonny was out to see what sort of improvements he could make at his local tuning shop. After Tiff set a benchmark time, Jonny started the mods. They started with the easy stuff like new suspension and exhaust, but also undertook a complete engine rebuild that was hoped to give a very tidy 50hp increase. The first part of the clip is shown above, check the second part to see how well the mods work at the end of this article.
Read on to see what else was in store for this episode…
Volkswagen Australia, are you watching! Even Tom Ford, all the way over in England, knows the deal—bring the Scirocco to Australia in place of the three door Golf GTI. While GTI production is in limbo prior to the launch of the MkVI model the case for the Scirocco is even stronger. WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!
So we know how Episode 6 started, read on to see what else the Fifth Gear had in store.
The shootout saw Jason Plato in a Lexus IS-F with Tiff Needell in a BMW M3 saloon. The Bimmer was quicker round the track. Just. But no surprise that the Toyota felt softer and more distant. Tom pitted the new Subaru Forester against a Land Rover Freelander II. He reckoned the Forester was tinny and under powered. He wasn’t much of a fan of the auto transmission either. A weclome addition to the cast this week was the Nissan GT-R and the Porsche 911 Turbo. Oh yeah, and Bruno Senna. Fittingly, he was fanging the cars around a wet track in conditions that his uncle would have loved (see clip above). I say, flick Tiff and replace him with Bruno.
Vicki filed a report from a tribute to Colin McRae which saw 1086 Impreza WRXs spell out his name. She also got a fang in McRae’s 1996 WRC winning car. Very tidy indeed! Tom had a go in the Dodge Challenger SRT8. I have to say it looks pretty damn good—for an American coupé. Vicki got the keys to a Vauxhall Astra VXR Nürburgring and a Ford Focus ST (XR5 to us Aussies). Geez, they cram a lot into these episodes. Plato finished the show with John Prescott in a racing Jaguar XK-R. The first three episodes of this series were a bit testing at times, but the last couplf have been much better.
Apologies for the late update to this week’s show. Jason Plato—AUSmotive’s preferred Fifth Gear presenter—started the show comparing the JDM Honda Civic Mugen RR v the UK spec 2000 GT. The Japanese Civic was the quickest around their test track, and by some margin, plus it sounds bloody good, too.
I didn’t want to mention Tim Shaw this week, but given he covered the revised CO2 taxes UK residents will be paying shortly, I thought it would be worth raising, given our federal government’s recent issues with its proposed Luxury Car Tax increases. I’m guessing it won’t be long until we’re paying taxes based on emissions here in Australia too. They highlighted a Volkswagen Golf 1.6 and a Citroen C4 XS, the French car expels 13 grams less in CO2 emissions, but when the new tax laws are introduced, the Citroen will cost almost AU$200 less to register. I daren’t mention the funky and frugal MINI John Cooper Works again (6.9l/100km, 165 g/km), but, well I just did.
A much better showing from the lads at Fifth Gear this week. The shootout saw Jason Plato pit der neue Passat R36 Estate against der neue Audi A4 3.0TDI Estate. TheR36 is Volkswagen’s most powerful and quickest production car to date, but it didn’t have it all its own way against the A4 oil burner. More VAG content when VBH compared a Golf GT TDI against a Kia PRO-cee’d diesel. She reckons the Kia is getting better. While I hate to admit it doesn’t actually look too bad, I’ll take her word for it otherwise. Jonny went to the Ultimate Street Car show, or Summer Nats for chavs. He claimed there was some art and talent there, and to be fair, he’s probably right. But there’s also a crap load of wasted money, including a Civic Type R that has had £90K (AU$193K) thrown at it. Tiff drove around with Jarno Trulli in a Prius. It’s okay, they fell asleep too. Tim Shaw simply has to lose the stupid jumpers and poxy jeans, although, that would leave him with precisely no personality. A point he proved again while trying to match manufacturer’s performance claims in a MINI Cooper S, Mazda MX-5 and an Ariel Atom. Tom drove around in a new Honda Accord Jap, oops, I mean Euro. Tiff closed out the show being a prat against Australia’s own Jason Crump on a speedway track. Predictable results and a whining Tiff followed. Passable.
Fifth Gear is back on UK screens and Episode 1 of Series 14 saw the debut of a new presenter, Tim Shaw. No, not the Demtel man, but someone possibly as, erm, loveable. We also saw Snooker legend and resident bad boy Ronnie O’Sullivan get some advice on how to blow his Crucible winnings. He took his pick from a Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG, a BMW M3 Convertible and a Mitsubishi Evo X. Speaking of the Evo, Jason and Tiff put the Mitsubishi Evo X and the new-ish Subaru Impreza WRX STi to the test to determine which was the best track day weapon. Jonny showed that scrap metal is not always worth more than the sum of its parts. Tom tried to see if the Ford Kuga was a stick in the mud, and, well, it was, even if he reckons it’s otherwise okay. Cast your mind back the the slick Roger Moore James Bond era and you’ll see exactly where Rinspeed’s inspiration for the sQuba came from (pictured above).
See you next week.
This was the last episode in Series 13 of Fifth Gear. The Anglesea shootout was between the early 1990s Ford Escort Cosworth and the early 2000s Ford Focus RS. Interestingly the older Cossie took the honours and was around 1.5 seconds quicker around the track than the RS. Amazingly, and somewhat surprisingly, as seen on last week’s show, my wife’s shopping trolley (Mk5 Golf GTI) is faster than both of these, haha.
It’s new, but it still didn’t keep me awake. Lucky, then, Tiff took the wheel of the new Impreza STi. Well, maybe not if you work for Subaru. He wasn’t exactly glowing in his praise of the car. Seems that, as well as hitting the new Rex with the ugly stick, Subie have hit it with the softly, softly stick as well. Shame.
Oops, a bit late with this precis (Episode 10 aired last night)! Fifth Gear‘s Series 13, Episode 9 kicked off, as usual, with a shootout at the Anglesea track, and we saw the current hot-hatch du jour, the Mk5 Golf GTI take on the newly launched Subaru Impreza WRX. It seems the new Rex has been hit with a curse worse than the ugly stick. (See below for YouTube clip).
Episode six of the current series of Fifth Gear featured the highly anticipated Nissan GT-R and Audi RS6 (see youtube clips below). In fact, Fifth Gear claimed theirs was the world’s first TV clip to review the GT-R. Jonny and Tom had a camp-off, erm, pun intended, with a pair of Volkswagen vans. The second hand star was the R33 Nissan Skyline GT-R. And Tom stacked a Renault Laguna into a big old tree. Vicki kicked off the episode by punting a Fiat 500 and MINI One around Anglesea.