You did make it clear you were less than happy with the magazine than the television program, granted.
Beyond that your comments just suggest that if no one agrees with you then they are sexist, racist and idiotic, but not homophobic? Why hold back?
I don’t watch car videos on You Tube and I’ve never read any comments on there either. From what you are suggesting, it sounds much the same as the comments you find on Yahoo in the news stories. If you want to post and read them I’ll not judge you on that, however, I do expect you to explain why I’m racist and sexist? Seriously? Are you just annoyed because I don’t agree with you and because I don’t conform to your wide brushed stereotypical viewpoints?
I've broken down your comment into relevant sections, I'll cover the rest in a second.
You
aren't racist or sexist. I thought I made myself reasonably clear but apparently not. I was actually doing you a favour - I was saying that your general sentiment was similar to that of the comments you find on youtube, only
without the racism, sexism, idiocy and other negative points that most youtube commenters have.
But congratulations on turning a compliment into a full blown insult, that's a pretty special ability.
I’ve not really read the magazine other than the occasional quick flick through whilst waiting on the barber; I stopped poring over car articles long before I was able to actually buy a car too. I do however enjoy the fact that I can choose whether or not to buy the magazine, an option open to you I’m sure.
Obviously.
But given that I spent several hundred pounds several years ago as a subscriber, it's a pity to thoroughly trash a once very good magazine as much as they have. I'd like to read Top Gear again, but only when it stops being like an awful parody of a car mag.
As for Top Gear being a program made for the people and not solely for you, I don’t see your point. Unless you are suggesting that you must join some special alliance of car enthusiasts, such as the Robin Reliant owners club….(there is nothing wrong with that if you are
), in which case you are wrong. You do not have to have an encyclopaedic mind of car statistics to enjoy them, in fact, to enjoy them for what they are, you are probably better off not having one.
I genuinely have no idea how you interpreted what I said into what you've written above. The bits I think you've been reading (it's hard to tell given how vastly different what you've read to what I actually typed seems to be), are these comments I made earlier:
My objection to Top Gear isn't with the program, it's with a great many of the people who watch it. I'm obviously not referring to most of GTP, as many here are able to take it for what it is - car based entertainment - rather than the sole factual source of everything they know about cars (that said, there are a few on GTP who do seem perilously close to being like that...)
Translation: The show is car-based entertainment. My objection is with people who treat it as their sole source of knowlege for cars, rather than just a bit of larking about. If you glean all your car knowledge from TG you'd end up with a horrifically patchy knowledge of cars.
Actually, no. That's it. I can't find anything else in what I wrote that would make you think what you wrote. I can barely understand the point you're making in the first place.
To clarify ‘motoring’, to me it’s about getting out in your car and exploring, finding new places, going on journeys, short or long. It’s not about admiring your reflection in the pristine paint work of the car parked up in your garage because it’s ‘looking like rain’ on the horizon.
What Top Gear does is show what you can do with motorised transport, take the special programs where they cross continents or take cars where they have never been before or ride bikes…..etc etc.
Ah, so now we're interpreting what words mean.
Okay then, to me, "motoring" is
anything to do with cars. And using my interpretation, Fifth Gear and others are all motoring programs.
And it's
still not an "advertising platform",
whichever definition you use.
There is nothing subtle about reading out a dealership crib sheet whilst driving in an exotic climate because, it misses the point and wastes production budgets to boot. TG gives you the information you need and doesn’t bore you with the anorak data that, unless it helps you brush up on your Top Trumps prowess on average and boring cars is, pretty useless in my opinion.
Again, you have me completely confused.
5th Gear don't just razz off to some Alpine pass or the middle of a desert on a whim, the reason they'll test a particular car in a particular location
is because the company has held the launch there. It's the same reason you see cars on foreign plates in car magazines, because press from all around the country have gone to the same place to test the car for the first time. TV programs just happen to take the film crew there as well.
I hope you were being ironic on the "wasting production budgets" thing, given the amount of money that TG goes through...
And I don't know what you consider "anorak data" but I generally like to know at least something about the car being tested, and in TG you sometimes don't even get that.
Yet, I don't mind, because it's
entertainment, right?
Also, "average and boring cars" are what most of us can afford, so occasionally it's rather useful to know something about them.
Finally, the whole point of the TG feature with the German salons was to advocate buying a beat up old sports salon and wringing it to death on a track day – a disposable toy. It had nothing to do with appreciating it or standing next to its polished exterior on your driveway whilst smoking a pipe.
Generally if I'm going to buy a car I'd like to know it's not going to
fall apart on a track day. You also seem to have a massive gap in your appreciation of cars between beating the hell out of them and sticking them on a plinth in your garden and never starting the engine. Again, I prefer a car in well-maintained condition that can also be used to have some fun in. TG displayed the latter but certainly not the former.
I like how you've changed your mind now and you've decided that the TG segment wasn't a buyers guide, it was actually just a few guys messing about in "disposable" cars.
Here's what you said:
what they presented was a really good look at buying a one of three cars that, 15 years ago were the dogs favourite lickable items. They showed all the pitfalls and things to look out for in finding and buying one of these cars and, effectively carried out a 15 year-on review too. On top of that, they went to locations to show you where to take advantages of motoring laws for the benefit of your motoring pleasure, and demonstrated the practicality of owning one of these cars
I've taken the time to highlight in bold all the bits that aren't particularly correct.
If you want to know any of that stuff, go buy a proper buyers guide. It wasn't a good look at buying any of the cars, they didn't really give a comprehensive guide useful to any future purchasing decision, they didn't
really review them, and they certainly didn't demonstrate the practicality of owning one.
In fact, if I was being as obtuse to you as your comment was to me, I'd have made the bit about "motoring pleasure" bold as well because all they really did is thrashed some knackered cars on an autobahn and virtually killed them on a circuit. They've had much more relevant features to "motoring pleasure" before, such as their trips to find the world's best driving roads, or some of the road trip episodes.
Like I said before - I think you've read
far too deeply into that segment.
And like I've also said before,
I do enjoy Top Gear and I have ever since the early nineties, but if you think the current format is some sort of definitive bible of cars and motoring then you really need to widen your horizons a little.
I will admit, usually I'm a Aston kind of person but for me the Rapide just doesn't have the same impact on me as some of the other Aston Martin's I've seen before. Concerning the Panamera, I'm a bit more sold on the performance of the car but still I can't convince myself that I would buy the ugliest car out of the three, I think the Maserati would be more tempting. It's funny in a way how the Quattroporte has been out for so long, and gone through various different 'upgrades' I guess but is still the one on top. 
