Clarkson's biased...

[Sir_GT]

Incredibly biased. I mean, he talks about the Ford GT during the review, calling it his "childhood dream", and he ends up buying one.

He raves about the problematic RX8, a Mazda, which is owned by Ford, but trashes the 350Z, which won car of the year in two different publications (Top Gear being one of them, but if you read the issue, Clarkson voted against it) probably because it was the RX8's main competitor.

He prefers a Jaguar XKR to a Porsche or a BMW 6 series, the latter two being brilliant cars for the money. Jaguar is part of the Premiere Automotive Group, or PAG, which is owned by Ford.

He always subtley criticizes German-built or owned cars, as long as they are not Mercedes-Benz's, (since he does own an SL55) his reason that they lack character. (So Mercedes Benz has character? give me a break. The last one that did was built more than 3 decades ago.) This is so evident in the June 6 episode where he placed the absolutely brilliant (and I'm not alone on this) Porsche Carrera GT on the uncool side of the "cool wall" and the McLaren-Mercedes SLR on the cool side. His reason? The Carrera is too vulgar. WTF?! The Carrera GT looks like a really fast Porsche, but the SLR? It's more vulgar than an Enzo for pete's sake. I mean, the length of the bonnet, the vertical doors, the razor blade rims, the side vents, the air brake, the alloy-in-glass rear lights... hell, even the exhausts are on the side! And he says its not vulgar?!

I'm bloody happy Hammond and the TV audience stood up to him and forced the SLR down to the uncool side of the board. Talk about double-standard and biased.

He owns and loves Ferrari's, and as long as he's the one doing the review, he will almost certainly choose them over anything else, (as long as it isnt part of the PAG; i.e. Aston Martin) no matter how logical it is to choose the other (i.e. Ferrari CS vs Porsche)

He loathes BMW's, probably because they are the only real competitor of Mercedes-Benz's, and uses his popularity and wit to sway viewers towards his side of the pendulum. One only needs to see the M3 vs S4 review here. With all due respect to Audi, the S4 is a brilliant car, but the M3 is still far better in terms of performance and handling. The M3 is one of the most popular cars bought by racing enthusiasts/teams, and if the S4 was really better than it, then it should follow that they would be purchasing that car instead.

He took a shot at them (BMW) when they reported the 1-series, by mocking the acceleration time, a time which is not exactly trounced by a regular Focus, Mazda 3, or Golf.

In the June 6 episode, he took shots at the Z4, calling it just short of being a terrible car, yet over at 5th Gear, Tiff Needle (who used to be a Le Mans veteran, for those who aren't aware) pitted the Z4 against the Boxster, and the Z4 won. Tiff also called the M3 and the Z4 fantastic cars.

Clarkson's biases are really starting to leak through, and frankly, its starting to get on my nerves. Its very difficult to watch and appreciate a road test/review when you know that the reviewer makes his decisions based on his opinions (and biases frankly), and not on logic, which is what we, the viewers, actually need to base our purchases on.

End of rant.