Love The Beast - The Full & Uncut Interview With Jeremy Clarkson

thanks for joining me Jeremy we're streaming live on the net oh yeah and you think that's going to phase me in some way now I'm not going to ask your age or mention your age but I'm assuming you're just old enough just old enough to remember the let's call them the good old days of motor racing it depends what you was it Nicki L as crash was probably the moment when it just went homosexual probably you know in the nurur the nurburging and he caught fire lost his ears and that was after that Jackie Stewart really got his into his stride with the safety thing and then it yeah you're right just see re can prey loud as crash it was a completely different racing world I can't imagine jel V nerve existing in the world today he went out on the lap that killed him without his seat belts on so The Story Goes he really he was so angry he was his teammate at the time did a Peroni mhm I think it was didd a Peroni who they had an agreement how they were going to finish in the previous race Dido Peron had broken the agreement if it was Peron I'm sure it was had broken the agreement and then set the fastest time at the following race in practice so V was so angry got into his car never even did his seat belt up to go and beat him can you imagine a racing driver today just saying I'm in such a rush to get out there and be the fastest that I'm actually not going to put my seat belts on today it's I despair of it today it's supposed to be you know this glamorous dangerous sport it's more dangerous sitting here but don't you reckon but each driver would say the same thing like if you ask a Nico rosberg if you were to sitting next to Sterling moss and say this guy race when it was dangerous well niik could rightly say yeah but he didn't have to have the reflexes that I have to have what he's got traction control it's it just sit but in terms of the speed at which everything's happening it is a completely different animal it's I would say that Sterling moss and this is way before my time Sterling Moss had it much tougher and in terms of reflexes feeling what those all I've driven some have you ever driven those you know as it moves it's no point thinking well the traction control get there you've got to get it and you've got to know how much opposite lock to put on you've got to know how to balance the throttle you've got to know all of those things and you got to remember in those days as well the the difference between when they were going 11/10 and 9/10 was immense you used to be able to go from the back of the field to the front just by being committed no I disagree I think that the reflexes of people like Sterling Moss would have been would have been more impressive than niik rosbergs today well who knows niiko rosberg could be brilliant we don't know because the car is masking everything the electronics are so much quicker than anybody's brain so how much better do you think the racing would be be without what would you take away traction control traction control ABS I'm not scientifically minded enough to know how it is how to get the to to to mend the aerodynamics but they have the aerodynamics committee now in Formula 1 they're looking at ways of of removing whatever it is that means that the car behind can't follow closely I agree by the way I mean I think olden days and events like tarer Florio m was really where it was at for drivers would you agree without a question of doubt I mean without the the cars were it's muddling up grip and handling is another big issue you know Formula 1 car has immense grip but from what I can tell lousy handling you know there's that sudden twitching it's all so quick whereas in the older days it was much less about grip and much more about handling which is a driver Le event um in a race mastering a car that doesn't handle particular particularly well or even if it handles very well but has a small grip requires immense skill particularly when you've got curbs trees lamp posts and as often as not Spectators here when you're going 150 M hour the tiger Tasmania has elements of that because it is one of the last events you know where you get to race on public roads and yeah the spectators are supposely in safe areas and all that sort of stuff but you know you make a mistake on a track run over the curb maybe hit the kitty litter maybe bounce off a tire barrier but make a mistake on a road course and and anything can happen look what happened to so you're going backwards through the Pearly Gates on fire where are the women it is yeah no you are you're dead you're dead I mean there's there can be no other way and apart from anything else you're in road cars in Tasmania presumably Yeah well yeah modified road yeah exactly modified Road Road Cars road cars are designed to run into one another at 30 mph in traffic accidents when you're setting your sat n you're not designed to hit lamp post sideways which modern racing cars are or trees or trees yeah yeah but a young person growing up today I mean you think of you know not just I'm not talking downtown London I'm just talking the way that the laws have changed the ways that you know traffic has changed from when you were a kid or even when I was a kid I'm only in my late 30s but it's dramatically changed since when I first got my license do you think the days of someone growing up and having a real uh Earthly kind of Car Connection is dwindling no I don't I don't I think the traffic's bad you know we're sitting here right in the middle of London now and I've been to Sydney often enough and I know that the traffic can get pretty bad there too but the fact of the matter is is that you know they if you lined up every new car sold in Britain today you could fill the M1 all the three lanes we you fill the m one but there's still thousands of miles of road that don't have any cars I came down to London last night night about 10:00 was just fantastic you know you occasionally come along A Car drop it down into third floor at you're breaking into the corners you're feeling that sensation of the whole car moving around underneath you this is you know the busiest time the Green Monster breathing down our necks no absolutely not the passion is still there even when I got into London last night there's an area um just to the west of London very popular with people who like to put big base speakers in their car huge wheels and what have you so you come through this area and there they all were last night but you know it's a different it's a different um thing they're looking for from the car but nevertheless it's it's still a car-based culture so whatever it is you're into whether it's racing through Tasmania or belting through the English Countryside or sitting in South Los Angeles you can't go up and down pointlessly like that it doesn't matter the car is still the basis for you know the Fulfillment of a billion kid's dreams what do you look for do you have a a a list of things that you look for when you connect with a car or do you find that Indescribable it is hard it's hard to say it's like if you take the new Audi R8 as a classic case in point there is a car that just as far as I can see it's faultless it rides unbelievably well the handling is extraordinary for the first time ever Audi is managed to make four-wheel drive really work mhm and yet I couldn't Buy one you know it just doesn't there's that final un indefinable strata that's missing somehow from it brilliant brilliant brilliant car but it doesn't go now the Lamborghini gardo twice as expensive built by Italians which means badly and it it's brilliant and I just I've got to have it are you able then given that experience talking about the R8 and stuff to ignore the numbers Define the numbers do you think we get numbers obsessed I do you ignore them no I do I get numbers obsessed but but the fact of the matter is is that while the numbers like on an R8 all add up MH they don't add up to anything they add up to just something you don't particularly want they're impressive keg there's another classic case in point this Swedish super car and numbers are immense numbers are sort of thing that God was sitting at when he was building the Earth right what do I need I need 8 billion trillion tons of hydrogen and I need this of iron know that's what curing zegg we're using to build that car don't want one the 911 you're a 911 fan aren't you I do like 911s but I do prefer XB GT coups that but that says it all you see 911 there it is the drive-in Pinnacle the the poin of the the Mount Fuji there it is the little white bit on the top is the 911 don't want one you don't want one no you don't get it no don't get it it's it's numbers numbers help you quantify when you're reviewing a car on television or in the newspapers but they don't but they can't really they're not the whole story so given what we were talking about being able to ignore you know on paper what looks a logical thing or a good thing can you then relate to my love of the XB GT Falcon well completely I mean perhaps not the XB GT Falcon are you you familiar with the XB GT I am aware of what it looks like and what it looks like is a Hillman Avenger I can I show you a photo do show me a photograph cuz I mean in my mind it's a hman Avenger you hman AV you know that I think they have a lot of them in New Zealand hman Avengers in fact I think they call it a modern car over there first photo I'll show you is how it used to look okay don't laugh okay this is this is when it was new no this is after you made it a racing I no before that this is when I just got my license okay and I'm about 17 years old and this is before I could do anything to the car okay who's that that's me what did you put dye in your hair for well you did that back then did you not no right that's a that's not like a Helman Avenger that is has got big overhangs he's a got leaf springs big overhangs leaf springs correct it's got there's another there's a more modern photo it's it's a muscle car isn't it it's a muscle car as you can see by the 911 behind it these rear guards are what you call a little large this was the car that rescued Ford wasn't it in um in Australia in Australia I wish so you're one of these people that went to barst and had fights yeah you did do that do with GM now here's a photo of what the car look like before I decided to fix it up it's what it was in what you call not great condition am I looking there at catastrophic under steer you can tell by a photograph is that catastrophic under steer or are you just pulling out of a junction I'm GA Spectators are giving me an indication that you're actually in some kind of a race here the helmet is giving me that impression I'm not seeing a lot of blur going on but I'm seeing quite a lot of lock lot of fun should mention that this this is to show you um that's what it was like when you took out the interior trim or this this is what it was like after having owned it for 25 years you owned it for 25 years you never got rid of your first car do you think that's unusual no but it's weird you should say cuz my my first car was at Ford CA 1600e now this was a car that was a wooden dashboard you remember the one it dipped down dashboard four dials on it then you got the two main one leather steering wheel bucket seats 1.6 cross flow engine amazing car row style Wheels twin headlamps brilliant sold it inevitably well not inevitably in your world but I sold it and then many years later there's a TV show over here reunited me with it and it had been destroyed by this imbecile the actual car the car was it was rusted away and he just left it in the front I have never wanted to lean across a table plant one on it do you have any idea dear how much love and attention I lavished on that thing and you've just let moss grow in it so I can I I'm interested you should um you should have hung on to a car for 25 years years so then you know after 25 years of ownership decided that it was you know it was owed the kind of rebuild that it deserved so quite an extensive these these pipes are they're worth more than the oh yeah so we took it back back to that who metal rebuild yeah love your work and we ended up is that Wii do you actually get oo it's like a Dodge Charger are you now thinking this is the missing link in your garage at home no you see the thing is you people that live in really big countries you like big cars but I have driven a great many muscle cars Mustang 390 GTS emys road runners even big Corvettes Callaway Corvette twin turbo they're all crap to drive immensely powerful they make a great noise and they look wonderful and you I look at that guy yeah I also love the pelli p7 look alike tires and I I like your wheels I like the deep dish whe you see I like that very much you ready for this one look at this yeah I can see the visual honestly I can see exactly no no I bet when you get home and you get into that do you keep it at home sometimes not all the time close the door you feel pretty good in starting it's a V8 obious 600 horsepower 408 winds yeah 600 horsepower so broadly the same as you would get in a Ferrari Endzone thereabouts um so 600 horsepower and leaf springs yeah well the category I race in you have to keep the original suspension pickup points and geometry are you mad I didn't think I was but then this happened well now you see I could have predicted that no I see what you did there was you put 600 horsepower in a car with leaf springs and then you went racing in it so do you think that part of what occurred there is that I've confused cuz what's happened in my life is that I've had this car forever I've grown up thinking that it was always a great handling car until the day that I actually drove a great handling car and then I realized no I just love that car but it's not a great driver's car and then I thought well I'll I I'll drag it Kicking and Screaming into a profile of a great handling car spent a lot of time a lot of money a lot of patience developing the car this was its Maiden outing in its you know redesign format and how was it Maiden outing it was it Maiden outing and um was this a hill climb type event or this was in Target Tasmania oh it was the target the accident happened on a really uh simple B or even perhaps in a straight line is one of those gnarly downhill tightening right hand okay so we're breaking downhill and this ways I'm guessing 78 tons uh something in the order is it really still two tons even though it's stripped out racer yeah with me and Tony on board my navigator we weighed in at um 1,00 kg so just shy of 2 tons yeah and so you're trying to stop that with 90 what year this 74 74 breaks are they 74 breaks no I updated the breaks okay should have updated them maybe more because it's hard to pull one up as I'm sure you know two tons of metal rolling downhill so so you went through is this you here yeah this is this is I can show you the actual so if you did this in the UK now and hit that you would be arrested for damaging this this this now in Britain is punishable by death that and shooting the queen hurting a tree can you understand what I've tried to do I've I didn't want I I did not want to part with this car in the same way that I W I'm sure you wish you had have hung on to your coer or your escort yeah are you familiar are you familiar with um the gate Guardian no that if you go past um well what are they called ra Royal Australian Air Force RAF you go past RAF bases in Australia do they have like planes on plants outside yeah yeah some cars I've decided are born to be put on a plen and now my all Ford GT well when I say old obviously it's relatively new that car that car was specifically designed to go on a plint it was not designed to go on the road it was a beautiful beautiful thing you'd stand and go that's mine but then unfortunately you go that's mine and i' get in it and then it wouldn't work and then you'd have to call the tow truck and then it would bring it home what I should have done on day one was put an enormous stick heel plinth somewhere down by the gate a bit of an aggressive angle and just put it there and then I could that's mine and there would have been no chance of ever actually going for a drive in it look at that a lot of cars are like that they really are I can give you there why I know why you've done what you've done is um recently for Top Gear we had to go to America we were given $11,000 I think it was us to buy a car and then we had to drive it from south from Miami right the way up through Florida and Alabama and and to New Orleans and I bought this Camaro it was a it was a V8 just uh Camaro absolutely shock when I got it brakes had had it power steering pump had had it alarming clonking from the front suspension the steering wheel was coming off it was great there was a dead body in the back it was just appalling and it got progressively worse inevitably the air conditioning wasn't working August in the southern states when I got to New Orleans I loved that car more than I loved pretty much life itself I was because I was the only person anyone else that would have got into it would simply not have been able to make it work there wasn't enough clutch play there wasn't you have to work out how to turn the steering everything was you had to be in tune with it absolutely much as you would know every little detail on that Avenger big adventure no much as they you know every detail on that and it's like that's really where a relationship comes from because there was a guy called Charles babage who invented the the computer back in the 18th century he talked about the unring certainty of Machinery okay now the problem you have is that when you have the inuring certainty of Machinery it is a machine when something has foibles and won't handled properly that gives it a particularly human quality because it makes mistakes and that's how you can build a relationship with a car the other people won't get and that's why I can understand what you've done but you should have put it on a plen taking a picture of it really good quality high quality picture of it taking it down to some really good photographic shop in Melbourne had it turned into an enormous poster and put it on your W 25 years of ownership by the way the car's practically written off it's you're not rebuilding it it's it's it's kind of worse than it looks it's um really sort of had a well because it's so stiff and it's got a full cage and it's done a bit of that I'm now at this juncture where um um anything's rebuildable as we know anything is repairable I got a little bit of middle class guilt about the fact that well someone else may not be able to repair that car someone fortunate like myself can entertain the option um I've had these like little tiny glimpses where I go well maybe after 25 years it's time to go that life has come to a natural ending or I really have no choice but to fix it what Would You Do Well if your wife gets a cold do you turn around and say well you know we've been married we've been married 12 years now you're not working as well a runny nose there as as you used to I think if you don't mind I'm probably just going to trade you in for something I don't know much younger so see you goodbye would you do that no well here's my dilemma and it's a tricky one if I rebuild the car if you were me would you race it again no no no no when you rebuild it four big bolts on the bottom that'll be mounted on a plinth that's my car I've lived with that car for 25 years plin it it retire like retire it for real like literally rebuild it say I love you you're done could even rebuild it cosmetically no you couldn't actually cuz it would always know it had a twisted spine I've got you got to reild it properly and also the leaf springs are broken and I feel like in terms of Automotive History I need to at least repare that so as to immortalize Leaf sprs when will people realize they're okay on prams they really don't work on cars bless I've left wiser well I don't think you have hopefully you've left emboldened you're going to get on the plane now emboldened with a desire to get back home plin the car plin the car PL my ride

Channel: NukemSoftly

Views: 1,674,454

Keywords: eric, bana, jeremy, clarkson, love, the, beast, muscle, cars, falcon, coupe, interview, footage

Id: z07nk7EH4rQ

Length: 22min 48sec (1368 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 01 2013