"I'm sorry, but having a DB9 on the drive and not driving it is a bit like
having Keira Knightley in your bed and sleeping on the couch. If
you've got even half a scrotum it's not going to happen."


"We start tonight with the highlight of my childhood. It's the Ladybird
Book of Motorcars from 1963, and as you would imagine it's full of
rubbish really. Just endless boring grey shapes, until you get to page
40, where you find the Maserati 3500 GT. Now this for me, when I was
little, was like kind of Jordan and Cameron Diaz. In a bath together.
With a Lightning jet fighter. And lots of jelly."


"[about Porsche Cayman S] There are many things I'd rather be doing than
driving it, including waiting for Bernard Manning to come off stage in a
sweaty nightclub, and then licking his back clean"

......"the last time someone was as wrong as you, was when a politician
stepped off an aeroplane in 1939 waving a piece of paper in the air
saying there will be no war with Germany"


"America: 250 million ******s living in a country with no word for ******"

On the Alfa Romeo Brera...
"I only have to imagine this in black, with tan leather and I'm nursing
a semi!"

Illustrating the lack of power of a Boxster - 'It couldn't pull a
greased stick out of a pig's bottom'

On the Vauxhall Vectra VXR:
"there is a word to describe this car: it begins with "s" and ends with
"t" and its not "soot".
Hammond:"So its fairly terrible then?"
Clarkson:"Oh no...losing your leg is fairly terrible: this is another
league of badness!"

"some say, that he used to throw microwave ovens at homeless people -
and that he long before anyone else realised that jade goody is a racist
pig faced waste of blood and organs............all we know, is that he's
called the Stig!"


"the Suzuki Wagon R should be avoided like unprotected sex with an
Ethiopian transvestite"

"Speed has never killed anyone. Suddenly becoming stationary... that's what
gets you."

'The air conditioning in Lambos used to be an asthmatic sitting in the
dashboard blowing at you through a straw'

"Koenigsegg are saying that the CCX is more comfortable. More
comfortable than what... BEING STABBED?"

"The only person to ever look good in the back of a 4-seater convertible
was Adolf Hitler"

(Fed up during the caravanning trip)
"You aren't allowed to have a party, you aren't allowed to have music,
you aren't allowed to play ball games, you aren't allowed to have a camp
fire, you have to park within two feet of a post, you have to keep
quiet, you have to be in bed by eleven. This is not a holiday, it's a
concentration camp!"


"This is the Renault Espace, probably the best of the people carriers.
Not that that's much to shout about. That's like saying "Ooh good I've
got syphilis, the BEST of the sexually transmitted diseases.""

(Mercedes CL S55) "Braking in this car is so brutal, it would be less
painful to actually hit the tree you were trying to miss."


"I don't understand bus lanes. Why do poor people have to get to places
quicker than I do?"

Clarkson's highway code on cyclists: 'trespassers in the motorcars
domain, they do not pay road tax and therefore have no right to be on
the road, some of them even believe they are going fast enough to not be
an obstruction. Run them down to prove them wrong'


"I was reading The Mirror the other day and came across a letter from a
reader who wrote, 'I was riding my bike to work when this red Ferrari
pulled up next to me. Out of the window, Jeremy Clarkson shouted 'Get a
car', and drove off.' What I actually said was, 'Get a car you hatchet
faced, leaf-eating Nazi"


"Britain's nuclear submarines have been deemed unsafe...probably because
they don't have wheel-chair access"


"Now we get quite a lot of complaints that we don't feature enough
affordable cars on the show......so we'll kick off tonight with the
cheapest Ferrari of them all!"


On the Lotus Elise:
"This car is more fun than the entire French air force crashing into a
firework factory"

"Now as you can see I lost the battle to have two engines on the back
because of three very important reasons. One: weight. This is 600 Lbs
and that's the same as having a whole American sitting on the tailgate..."


"I would still buy the DB9 over this, and save myself the £60,000. The
problem with this car is its gearbox, its just........"
Hammond:"THAT bad is it?"
Clarkson:"Oh no. Robert Mugabe is bad, this is in a whole different
league!"

In the olden days I always got the impression that TVR built a car, put
it on sale, and then found out how it handled. Usually when one of their
customers wrote to the factory complaining about how dead he was.


Assessing Hammond's crash:
Clarkson:"you can see from the tape that the tyre is starting to come
apart. now why didn't you spot that?!"
Hammond:"I had a lot on: I was doing 288 mph."
Clarkson: "What do you mean you had a lot on? I can be in the office on
the phone, doing the paperwork, kids are shouting at me, wife etc, if a
lion walks in, I'm going to notice it!"


"Sure it's quiet, for a diesel. But that's like being well-behaved...
for a murderer."

"I don't often agree with the RSPCA as I believe it is an animals duty
to be on my plate at supper time"


"there are footballers wives that would be happy with this quality of
stitching.........on their face"

"Racing cars which have been converted for road use never really work.
It's like making a hard core adult film, and then editing it so that it
can be shown in British hotels. You'd just end up with a sort of half
hour close up of some bloke's sweaty face. "


"Much more of a hoot to drive than you might imagine. Think of it, if
you like, as a librarian with a G-string under the tweed. I do, and it
helps."



"you cant have this car with a diesel, its like saying, I wont go to
stringfellows tonight, I'll get my mum to give me a lap dance, she's a
woman!"


"During the break we got complaints that we don't show enough green cars
so here's one..."
Pointing to a Lamborghini Murcielago... in bright green

Tonight, the new Viper, which is the American equivalent of a sports
car... in the same way, I guess, that George Bush is the equivalent of a
President.



"Honestly, I have seen more attractive gangrenous wounds than this. It has
the sex appeal of a camel with gingivitis."
(Jeremy said this of the Porsche Cayenne!)

"This is the Renault Espace, probably the best of the people carriers.
Not that that's much to shout about. That's like saying "Ooh good I've
got syphilis, the BEST of the sexually transmitted diseases.""

Shame, as we're thinking of getting one

ATB

Simon

I've got one.
The most comfortable vehicle I have ever sat in and that includes a Roller.
SWMBO loves it. Finds it really nice to drive.
50Kg of zinc on the chassis and plastic body panels, can't be all bad.

Hope it's not the v6 one. 72,000 mile service is an engine and transmission out job.

Was looking at Galaxy, but went to Ford (v large) dealer who said Ford were having trouble making them/delivering them etc etc . They had a customer car in, and having seen it, went straight off it. Dash looks like it was new (old stock) Mk 3 Cortina!!!!!

Went to Renault shop and quite like new Espace, especially some of the internet prices I can use to haggle

ATB

Simon

quote:

---

Originally posted by rusty nuts
Hope it's not the v6 one. 72,000 mile service is an engine and transmission out job.

---

What needs doing at 72k that requires it all pulling out?

Timing chain, bit of a fiddle to do when it's in a Golf/Corrado (it's the VW VR6 engine), can imagine why it'll be an engine out job in a Galaxy/Sharan.

[Edited on 19/8/07 by martyn_16v]

Ah fair enough. I thought chains lasted longer than that, or am I imagining things again?

VW think they're a 'lifetime' item (probably why they decided to put them on the transmission end of the engine), but the tensioners and gubbins tend to get rattly around about then so it's not a bad idea to do the lot. I assume that's what Ford want the engine out for...

I've got the new shape Espace - hate the bloody thng, it's a diesel and only does 25mpg, endless electrical problems, and I'm selling it next week!! Getting a nice secondhand 530 diesel BMW tourer instead....