Top Gear Classic (1977) 1989 eps 5

[Music] [Music] [Music] in tonight's Top Gear Rover's vital new model the 200 takes to the roads police driving under examination as the death toll to rise and the painstaking process of testing a sports prototype racing car hello and welcome to motorfair bigger brighter and more crowded than ever this year and strongly endorsed by the industry with three major new British cars being launched here we should be looking at those cars away from the show but we shall at least be getting a glimpse of the other tempting items on offer here if we don't get round to your particular interest don't worry we've got two other programs coming from motorfair tomorrow evening on BBC 2 at 7:00 p.m. and on Sunday after afternoon on BBC 1 but we start this evening with Sue Baker for Britain the most important new car in The Show Must Be The Rover 200 the latest product of the collaboration with Honda that we looked at last week the old 200 was Rover's version of the Honda Ballard and this car is also being built in Britain as the Honda concerto here's Chris goofy now while it's a joint development this is very much a Rover in its own right the engineers have been closely involved in all Det details of the design from the very first clean sheet of paper and indeed the cars built here are significantly different to the concheros built and sold in Japan the new Rover Range comprises two distinct variants the 214 and the 216 but under the very similar skin they're very different creatures under the Bonnet of the 214 is the Rover group's new K series engine now on paper this is a a pretty exotic specification twin overhead cam shafts 16 valves and fuel injection but in fact it sets new industry standards for engine design it's actually composed of the head block and sump and all three elements are held together by 10 long bolts that run the entire length of the engine that makes her a very rigid and longlasting unit they say that the hydraulic taets will require no attention and the camshaft belt should last for at least 100,000 mil before it needs renewing the whole unit is M to Rover's own version of a Perse gearbox develops 95 brake horsepower from its 1.4 L and that's enough to give it very good performance against its competitors but under the Bonnet of the 216 things are very different this is the Honda 1.6 engine that we've already seen in the Civic it's a 16 valve unit develops 116 brake horsepower and that's enough to give the car a maximum speed of 120 mph now because Honda engines turn in a different direction to the K series they've had to pick the whole unit up turn it right round in the engine bane of course the gearbox is now over on the driver's side but it's a very reliable and wellestablished unit shouldn't give any problems at all the real attraction of these new Rovers though is inside inside Rover are very keen to promote the luxury limousine image in the 200 with the lookalike Walnut and leather seats are very comfortable based on the 800 design with height adjustment the seat belts move up and down the pillar to suit all sizes of occupants the obvious change at the back from the old model is that this is a a hatchback series Unfortunately they put the spare wheel under the boot floor so you've got to unload everything to get at it and that's a Pity I think but that said it's quite a big boot with with the asimetric split rear seat in place 12.4 cubic feet and with everything folded down you've got over 42 cubic feet and that's better than almost anything else in the class let's see how they go on the road Rover say the 214 will be the volume seller of the range there are three versions of the car the SI the SLI and the GSI prices well they range from 8,700 to just under 10,500 there's two option packs and a long list of extras the K series engine in this 214 at first acquaintance is a little bit disappointing it doesn't have the fire you'd expect from a twin cam unit but it's very smooth and very free revving instrument layout well that's quite classical in its design nice black instruments with white figures and the controls very well placed the 214 does score in ride and handling it takes potholes and poor surfaces without bottoming and yet it's tight enough to coat with spirited cornery I found the standard steering rather heavy and I'd certainly want the excellent power steering a 300 lb option and anti-ock brakes are 900 lb extra too as you'd expect the £1,000 216 GSI handles pretty much the same as the 214 but when you put your foot down the response is very different although it's just 200 CC's bigger the engine in the 216 transforms the car it feels very Lively and certainly a a real Performance Machine Rover are very keen to point out that it's a a driver's car both the 214 and the 216 have very high levels of road holding they're very easy to drive and they're very safe so what's the competition for the me2 200 where Rover are setting their sights high they talk about BMW Volvo and perso as rival manufacturers but they'll admit that their target car are when they were designing the new 200 was Volkswagen's Golf and Jetta they say they're looking for aspiring young professionals as customers although they acknowledge there's a healthy Market amongst older buyers looking to move down from Big luxury cars in their retirement but what they have to do above all else is get the 200 onto company car drivers shopping lists because they account for over a third of all sales in this market well it's been a long time coming but here's the car we've all been waiting to see the new Lotus Elan designed to reestablish a British presence in the small sports car market the oldan was renowned for its super handling and its understated styling well you couldn't call this one understated the Alan is the first promp wheeel drive car in lotus's 41-year history it comes in two versions both with a 1.6 L 16 valve twin cam engine this is the the more powerful SE turbocharged to 165 brake horsepower and capable of 137 mph the Alan's dearer than expected this version is going to be almost £2,000 so it looks less a natural successor to the original Elan than the car which is an honest copy Mazda's Miata MX5 which we showed you recently in California we shall of course be testing the lovely land but not it seems until next spring now to a matter of considerable public concern namely the question of the standard of police driving over the past couple of years we've become accustomed to headlines like these the figures for the past two years the only ones available show how big the problem is in 1987 24 civilians and eight police officers were killed literally hundreds were seriously injured last year the Figures were broadly similar and this year there seems to be very little Improvement so what action should the police take Tom Boswell takes up the story this is no practice chase the motorist has already been told to stop several times by the West Midland Police it's their camera which recorded this pursuit in this busy urban area it's the police who must decide whether it's safe to continue the chase there's a school down here be very very careful right yes he's gone the wrong side of the traffic Island dis road yeah carrying on yes we're on to King standing Road wrong side of Carriage Way in the face of oncoming is there training for these situations enough and could they be better prepared binstead Road they abandoned it binstead Road the association of chief police officers responding to public concern over police chases issued the police driving report it made 29 recommendations to improve police driving recommendation 10 said the manual that that's roadcraft should be revised by the National Police driving schools conference the system of car control was designed um by advisers to the Metropolitan Police in 1934 and has been the core of driver training for the police and other Advanced drivers since that date okay it was appropriate in 1934 to the driving conditions and the technology of that day but was no longer um appropriate to uh modern dynamic driving conditions and that seemed to be what was causing the problem sir John Whitmore British and European Saloon champion of the 60s maintains that roadcraft and the system taught by the police is not just wrong it's dangerous roadcraft describes a very rigid system it's very much a right wrong it it opens with a a system of driving that has to be followed in sequence and it doesn't allow for for the creative initiative that is required to be a good driver and if you learn by route to do things in a certain order it doesn't allow you to have the flexibility that's necessary to be a responsive driver one area that he is Gravely concerned about is the method taught to hold the steering wheel roadcraft states that the hands should be placed in a 10 to2 position when driving it's actually a cumbersome way to steer and um more importantly than that perhaps um it is a slower way to steer if you're responding to a skid on ice for example and you have to respond quickly with steering it's much better and quicker to keep your hands on the steering wheel fixed in a fixed position this theory has recently been supported by work done here in Cambridge they've proved the 10 to2 position with the hands near the top of the wheel is outdated inefficient and tiring I think people should be encouraged on long drives to use a 25 to 5 position with part of the weight taken on their their thighs but still leaving plenty of freedom of movement uh so that is is one criticism the other one is that if you actually compare driver's control of a vehicle as I've done in a in a simulator allowing people to use a hand a method of moving the hand through the 12:00 position and then pulling down on one side of the wheel or on the other side rather than the 10 to2 and the push pull method then in fact uh experienced drivers uh keep a much better course uh than if they're constrain to the pushpull method a skid is the most dangerous situation that police officers can find themselves in roadcraft teaches them to eliminate the cause by relaxing the accelerator or brakes but this isn't always the quickest way of regaining control this is the de-clutch method it's contrary to roadcraft but now taught by the West Midlands police following the methods taught to Scandinavian officers it works by taking the drive off the wheels whether that car is rear wheel front wheeel or four-wheel driven the drive is removed so every car then behaves in The Identical manner if you don't take the drive off each individual car behaves in a different way when it developed a skid for the last 2 years every student through the West Midland Police driving school has been taught this method on the skid frames this has LED in a reduction by over 30% on our loss of control accidents in the last 2 years but it's not just driving techniques that can be improved what about the mental approach superintendent Peter Amy of the Kent constab has looked at the psychological aspects of driving Under Pressure I would make the core of driver training mental approach mental attitude to get people to think about what they've just done to think about what effect it has on other drivers I looked at um the accidents in my own force and found that roughly 20% of accidents were caused in the what I would call the high stress situation which is pursuit or going to a call and that was um mainly calls to the driver either exceeding his own capabilities or the capabilities of the vehicle or the road you know going too fast in the conditions David Brady is one who recognizes this he had chased a car which had caused two serious accidents as he approached and face the offending driver he found to his horror that he completely lost his self-control this in spite of being a very experienced police driver I didn't even think about the psychological stress when it was over I thought oh god what have I done you know what made me behave like that and that is when I thought that the job should Institute some sort of psychological training or psychological interviewing which would help a bloker was in my situation and they don't and they haven't the police must always be in a position to respond this is the warshire police filming an 18-year-old driver in a stolen car doing up to 130 mph there may be disagreements amongst police forces as to how best to improve their training and driving but as Sir John Whitmore says they went to the sporting drivers in the 30s so why don't they return to them now to learn the techniques best suited to Modern cars and they must look too at the mental and psychological pressures of driving if all chases are to be safely concluded as indeed this one was well we wait to see what kind of respons is forthcoming from the home office on what is clearly an important issue now on a somewhat lighter note back to Sue it's not only new cars at motorfair this lovely collection of older ones are all for sale they're going to come under the hammer at an auction here next week well usually the only time you'd see such cars on the road is in specialist rallies and almost every weekend somewhere around the country enthusiasts are out in their treasured Vehicles cars Vans even buses each year the Ribble Enthusiast Club meet at a car park in Southport and drive to Blackpool seafront Tony Mason was there hopping on and off buses all the way famous names many from an era long gone on carriages that wants to workers to factory and farm and conveyed gracious ladies to afternoon tea at the Imperial there's over 60 years of nostalgia here at Southport as bus enthusiasts of every age are being flagged Away by the meral party now bus enthusiasts enjoy their old vehicles but surprisingly they also drool over modern ones like this brand new Olympian double decker but the difference is that these are much easier to drive no gears just a lot of knobs and buttons so off we go they came in all shapes and sizes we passed a film star from all Creatures Great and Small a 30s Ribble tiger a postwar London Omnibus and the very first Atlantean but I had to leave the newest for the oldest alen lion it was built uh in 1927 and uh this vehicle was one of an order of 34 uh actually ordered by Riel between uh February and March in 1927 and this vehicle uh when it was new cost the sum of £ 1,47 it's now worth 100 times that amount and is still Pride of the Ribble Fleet rebuilt by the firm's apprentices the lion still licensed to carry fair paying passengers one of the most popular buses ever is this superb Bedford o I think it filled a need just after the war for a reasonably light vehicle which was uh not cheap to buy easy to maintain and they just just got this reputation for reliability and before we got it it had been used for 10 years on a a be picking farm for carrying the workers back and forwards to the field so like it was in a pretty poor condition when we started on it and the body was literally kind of hanging off it you know now it's in Immaculate condition Norman's craftsmanship is superb and everything's authentic it's built to last another 100 years but I canot guarantee see it for the first 50 after that he'll have to take it own CH no I didn't drive all the way there's only one way to arrive in Blackpool and that's on an open top double decker this Splendid 1965 pd2 comes from Southport and it's unusual cuz it spent all its life there in the 70s there were lots of changes in the bus business when companies Amalgamated and buses moved areas but not this one it stayed in Southport so today is a very rare outing for it to foreign Shores the Zen tiger model PS1 coach with duple body work in the delivery of mapole cultures regrettably not displaying an entry number but then being followed by entry number S1 which is a vehicle that was once a bus but is no longer as you can see it's a a breakdown vehicle and behind that the vehicle must have these are pretty pricey do they sell well uh very well yes yes which is the most popular uh today I think it's have to be the new new rang of models uh just come out uh probably the best seller today though ah the leand tiger CB I understand it's the only one left running in the world fabulous but they're not just here for the sake of it there's is the serious business of silverware the 1950 Bedford OB model with d Bodywork of char we don't expect to sort of win anything at this days when you up with four coats but I think uh the main one is the best mechanically veh cuz that's the uh I think that's that's the one me that Jaguar's fortunes over the past year have been strongly tied to the fluctuations of the pound against the dollar desperately low profits have of course led to talk of takeover with Ford Now set to increase their stake to 15% they're already at 10% although Jagua s John Eagan says he wants to remain independent the company is still negotiating with the other major Predator General Motors so it could develop into a real tgof war meanwhile the company is showing here their updated xj6 and since we saw it at Frankfurt Chris has had a chance to see just how well it goes 3 years on from the introduction of their highly successful xj6 range Jaguar have announced some major improvements to the cars principle is the change to the engine the all aluminium 24 valve unit goes up from 3.6 to 4 L gets substantially more power more torque which is developed lower down the Rev range and thus 140 mph Improv performance and Jagua claim there's no real penalty in fuel consumption that's in part due to a new automatic transmission it's a four-speed ZF unit and it features an electronic control to smooth the up changes Jaguar kept their famous J selector control that means you can manually select gears but in automatic mode it's also now got a a sport setting that means you can kick down at higher engine speeds and it'll also keep the engine spinning right round to the red line on the rev counter if you're in a hurry all xj6s have anti-lock brakes as standard now with a a new system from the German TVs company inside the car the other principal change is to the dashboard now that's in direct response to the American Market the Americans love Jaguar's leather and walnut but they don't like the electronic Dash panel we can buy that from the Japanese they say what we want from Jaguar is traditional handcrafted quality so they've gone back in this car to almost oldfashioned black dials with white letters and needles and very nice they look too in fact the the whole package adds up to that old slogan of jaguars Grace space and pace which they've never really improved on now for a sportier version this is the latest result of collaboration between jaguar and Tom Walkin Shaw the XJR 4 liter announced here at the show it joins the Jaguar sport version of the xjs now with a 6 L V12 engine on the circuits this year Jaguar have been defending their World Sports prototype Championship with the sort of car that Tiffany Dell drove Top Gear in the spring but it's up against some stiff competition from the Japanese from Mercedes and from the various private Porsche teams well Becky Adams been looking at the sort of testing that goes on between races in a major sports car team well it's 8:00 on a sunny morning in August we're here at Silver South circuit with Richard Lloyd's Porsche team our man Tiffany D is just about to put the car through its Paces Tiff what are you hoping to learn from today well really Becky it's two parts as the continuous program of developing the car making it that little bit faster but also we've just returned from The nurburg Ring where we had braking problems so we got to specifically look at our brakes and try and get them better also we got the car mounted up with some Tire temperature sensors to monitor that as soon as the circuit opened at 10:00 I was sent out in the newer black Porsche 962 to test various ways of keeping the brakes cool particularly important for the next race at Donington with its heavy Demand on braking on Silver's hanger straight we added an extra chicane and with appropriate gearing and suspension settings the flat Airfield does duty for the swooping curves of Donington Park lap after lap through the morning I have to drive in exactly the same way say to Shar the effect of the engineer's adjustments and each of those laps has to be just on the limit [Music] [Applause] it doesn't always [Music] work so Tiff you uh span off what actually happened it's just that it's a handling problem we have when the tires get hot sometimes that it it over steers into very tight corners and that was a classic case we've seen now of of terminal over steer into a tight corner so uh but you always have to push right to those limits when testing to get a feel of what the car really does at the limit is there anything that can be done about it or is it just more careful driving next time no no you always try and change the car you try to stay driving as hard as possible and uh the team of mechanics now try a suspension change or a wing change aerodynamic change so I can drive in the same manner but go through the corner at that speed a full SL my teammate this year is former World Sports Car Champion Derek Bell five times winner at Lam more always in Porsches most recently in a 962 it's a classic car now really I mean it's been around a lot of years it handles very well but of course technology has overtaken us with the other manufacturers coming in a bit now and we're having a bit of a struggle to keep up but the car basically is a very neutral handling car uh the power is very sweet very nice sort of power the car has no vices it's never had any vices at all throughout the day it's out for a few laps testing then back to the pits to tell team manager re endorsing now the car is affected by the latest modification there's also some bumps right on the Apex which unett even if you go in neutral does it does it feel like it unloads in the rear you know you get a sort of an unloading sensation well that's what I'm thinking it looks a little bit like speed as well it's unload itself so what are you actually gaining from this a little computer print out that's well what this does is it gives you all the temperatures while the car is running uhhuh um as you make changes you can uh you know Way's using the bo BM 2000 and this would basically extract all the information from the engine U if we make adjustments in there this will show up whether the water temperature is higher or lower whether one gets affected the oil is higher or lower it records fuel temperature revs in the engine once more a constant pace is essential so that any changes in the printout are due only to the engineers experiments and not to mind pushing the engine Harder by 1:00 after around 35 laps there's time before lunch to assess performance so far yeah we now have temperatures from the steel brakes we've got our chicane in to be like a Donington circuit where we are next so we got temperatures for the steel brakes again we're monitoring them all the time because it was the steel brakes we had problems with now we'll try the car carbon brakes and see what temperature we get on them having asked Tiff uh what he was going to do with the car really is not up to the driver really the whole secret of testing of being a great driver is being able to put over to your engineer in this case the end dorson what is happening to the car and any changes he does on the car he's being able to put it over and saying that was that was better or that was worse 2:00 and I was ready to try out the red car fitted with the much lighter carbon dber brake discs and pads now in attendance checking up on our progress the captain team owner Richard lyd my job is to put together all all the resources the human resources the the material uh obviously sponsors um and just make sure that we keep it running in the right sort of right sort of way to attract future um cooperation from manufacturers and sponsors alike it's if you like a sort of producers job of getting all the elements together and getting all those elements together costs a lot of money and a private team runs a Sho string compared to the works testing days are a luxury so did I think we'd had a successful day yes half and a half uh unfortunately the guy the specialist do the tide temperatures couldn't make it so we didn't run that experiment today but we run the carbon brakes we've now got the temperatures down on them so they're working so we think we might be able to use them for the next race so do you stand any chance of winning yes we're still up against they up against million pound major manufacturers you know we're now in a good condition for Donington and uh there's was a chance of winning well sadly doningham proved to be something of a disaster for TI he had an engine BL practice and Mercedes clined the world championship so now they L the final run in Mexico in 10 days time for the Richard Lloyd team to end the year on a high note that's really all from motare on Top Gear we do however have a special program go out tomorrow evening you can join no Edmunds Janet Ellis and Chris gofy at 7:00 p.m. on BBC 2 that's where we'll be next week as well but one pram only we're going out on Friday at 7:00 p.m. with Becky Adam investigating some more f Machinery when she goes drag racing Chris goofy visits the remarkable schump Museum in France we report on The Perils of buying a new car so see you next week Friday 7:00 p.m. until then drive safely good [Music] night [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] n

Channel: Anarchy

Views: 38,910

Keywords: Old Top Gear, Top Gear, Classic Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May, William Woolard, Chris Goffey, Tiff Needell, U.K., UK, Top Gear UK

Id: 0D5LXcgbAYM

Length: 29min 9sec (1749 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 01 2012