Top Gear Mishap
 

levensnevel was quoted as saying "Which since the Jaguar D-Type disaster in series 2 (of Top Gear) seems highly unlikely to me. "

To what is he referring, I haven't heard of this incident. Did the stig crash a car?

Is that when the jag took a flying leap off the end of the carrier?

Pimrusis and Graywolf,

no it wasn't the car which was dumped at sea at the beginning of serie 3.
It happened in some 8 months ago during the prepration of an episode for serie 2. The victim was an original Jaguar C type, the one that actually won the 1953 LeMans 24hr race :cry: :cry:
The horror story goes as follows:

qte...
Top Gear 'trashed historic jaguar'
By Lewis Smith

JEREMY CLARKSON'S Top Gear BBC team were called a "bunch of joy-riding hooligans" yesterday and accused of damaging one of Britain's most cherished cars, the jaguar that won the 1953 Le Mans 24-hour race.
The C-type, now worth several million pounds, was the first to average more than 100mph for the race and marked a revolution in racing design that helped jaguar to dominate Le Mans during the 1950s.
To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the victory, the BBC borrowed the car and put it through a series of spins and high-speed manoeuvres on a runway. When the car was returned to its owner, the son of one of the winning drivers, he said he found that the vehicle had been "trashed".
The drive-shafts were mangled, the clutch destroyed, the rear tyres had all the tread burnt off them and the car was in need of immediate repair.

Adrian Hamilton, whose father, Duncan, and co-driver, Tony Rolt, drove the jaguar at Le Mans in 1953, was incensed at the car's treatment. "They were just throwing the car around as if they were some hoodlums who had nicked a Fiesta out of a car park in Birmingham," he said.
"When we got the jaguar back it had obviously been hammered. The idiot who drove it showed no respect for a unique piece of racing history. He drove it like a complete lunatic."
The car, one of only three of its kind still surviving, was driven at Dunsfold airfield in Surrey by Top Gear's regular racing driver, Perry McCarthy, known on the programme as Stig, who is himself a Le Mans competitor, accompanied by James May, a presenter with the programme since 1999.
A BBC spokeswoman said the way the car was driven was the result of a misunderstanding. "The production team asked if it was OK for them to 'drive the car hard'," she said. "Mr Hamilton said it was, but unfortunately both parties have differing opinions of what hard driving is.
"Top Gear has no intention of upsetting Mr Hamilton, the car is being repaired and both parties are in discussion about the cost."
...unqte

Read this information on the messageboard of PistonHeads dot com back in mid june of this year.

I guess Mr Hamilton has not seen many Top Gear shows to know what Driving Hard means to them.

ANyone got the vid clip of this hard driving?

Someone who was actuallly present when it happened wrote in a thread on the PistonHeads messageboard:

qte..
This was ona few weeks ago. I remember it well...
The Stig was driving, with the new presenter in the passenger seat. And yes, thats all they did: burn outs, doughnuts etc etc.
..unqte

Not sure if TG ever aired the Jaguar C-type bit.
If it was it should have been on sunday 22nd of June 2003. So if it was actually aired and anyone happened to capture that part, plse :roll:

Wth? Why would they do donuts and whatnot in such an historic car? Thats terrible. Save that crap for Ferrari's.

It sounds really sad. But I guess it is exagerated a little. I don't think that Stig is so stupid to drive an antique way over it's limits. :?:

You just never know I guess.. sometimes it almost hurts to see those nice cars get thrown around the way that they do with tyres squeling and burning and what not... A little bit is ok, but too much is almost like wilful damage to the cars internals.

That kind of stuff should only be done on cars designed to be abused... most modern sports cars, for instance.

Yea, not old antiques that frequent breaking (like old Jags, or so I read)

i think as long is as it was repaired by TG everything is fine...they probably shouldn't have tried to give it back like that...but all cars can be repaired..drive shafts clutchs and tires are things that were replaced many many times while the car was running lemans..so it will not hurt its historical value by replacing those parts

bah they always blow things out of proportions...

MHN3773,

Money isn't the miracle cure for everything.
Cars which are the integral part of a nation's automotive heritage should be handled with respect and care and driven by able drivers like e.g. Alain de Cadenet and Tiff.
Back in 1953 all was forged, built and assembled manually by craftsmen, a bread of men which have become almost extinct in 2003. And I do know that todays LeMans winners are modular built so that gearboxes can be changed in a whisker during the race but I know for sure that when Jazza's grandson presents the 2053 edition of TopGear such gearboxes will be as rare as the skills of the 1953 craftsman in 2003.

A lot of famous classic cars are still ‘driven hard’ today. Take for instance all the cars that take part in the Goodwood revival race.

They did show their C-type report on TG, I have it on my PC (21mb divx).
I would like to upload it to this site, but I don’t know how...

Maybe Mr Hamilton is just annoyed with TG because the told a rather interesting anecdote about the driver: He was completely drunk when driven (winning) the LeMans race. :o

Driving hard at Goodwood is not the same as doing doughnuts, handbrake turns and nailing the clutch until they break.