Unofficial GTP Top Gear Australia thread

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7/10

Still improving steadily, but I've given up of ever seeing a decent shot of a car on the test track. Still, that's led to some great debates around the forums on exactly what shape are 'the question mark' and 'Clarkson corner'.

The story on the BMW X6 was good, but the Black ed. Merc story was a bit short. Challenge was fairly woeful, more due to time constraints than anything else. They seriously need to get rid of the ad breaks.

Good enough that I'll hang in there for next weeks' episode.
 
Why not just look up the airport in which the show is filmed at on Google Earth? You should be able to get an idea of how it looks.
 
Joey D
Why not just look up the airport in which the show is filmed at on Google Earth? You should be able to get an idea of how it looks.
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Even better - they've finally got around to posting it on the website.

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Am I the only one that found that episode to be a complete failure? They seem to have never heard of a "crossover" (SUV/Sports car hybrid). Hint, the Suzuki was not the last "crossover", and if you ask me, it's not really a "crossover" either, technically speaking. The guest was a joke of epic proportions. I almost had to leave the room. Never has a guest rubbed me the wrong way with such profound fervor.

To be fair, the car challenge was not a complete failure, but it wasn't terribly interesting either, not to mention there didn't really seem to be a point to it.

The only upside was the CLK Black review. He's the first person, I've seen on the telly, to give the car a fair review (Clarkson I'm looking at you Mr. "Power!"). Everyone else goes on and on about the power and looks, without touching on the obvious problem of weight. However, he then lost the respect he earned, by not turning the traction control off until the very end of the test drive.

I keep waiting for the show to get better, but it just isn't happening thus far. For some odd reason I am still holding out some hope for season 2.



;)
 
somebody
Even better - they've finally got around to posting it on the website.

circuitmap_large.png
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Hmmm, could be better. The back straight looks boring as hell, and it doesn't seem to have any fast corners. Also, why is the first turn called "The Question Mark"? "Clarkson Corner" looks more like a ... no, wait I get it: it's the first corner, so they're questioning how the cars will take it ...

EDIT: According to Wikipedia, it's Camden Airport.
 
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I forgot it was on and with nothing else to watch I gave it ago, I started watching from the X6 test.....and almost made it to the end of the X6 test before turning it off.

It's just pathetic. I should have taken Turbo Lag's advice and auditioned to be host. At least it'd be watching for my stunning good looks.
 
That seriously looks like the worst track layout I've ever seen. Even I could come up with something more imaginative. Oh and Clarkson Corner (Which dosen't deserve the name it gets) looks like a cheap-ass ripoff off the Hammerhead.
 
In fairness guys, I don't think they had free reign to pick any airport for the sake of making a good track. And looking at it I can't see what other options they would have had, apart from maybe making question mark sooner and cutting through "Clarkson" for the sake of an almsot follow through corner, but then you'd lose the hammer-head-like bend.
 
Casio
I forgot it was on and with nothing else to watch I gave it ago, I started watching from the X6 test.....and almost made it to the end of the X6 test before turning it off.

It's just pathetic. I should have taken Turbo Lag's advice and auditioned to be host. At least it'd be watching for my stunning good looks.
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It's your duty to watch it though. You do realise that if no one watches it, it'll get cancelled and, because no one watched this one, you won't get any more car shows. Ever.

Turbo Lag
That seriously looks like the worst track layout I've ever seen. Even I could come up with something more imaginative. Oh and Clarkson Corner (Which dosen't deserve the name it gets) looks like a cheap-ass ripoff off the Hammerhead.
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They are restricted by the roads, and taxiways/runways, that are there at the airport. You try and come up with something better with the existing roads.

The show is not brilliant, but it's nowhere near as bad as some of you guys are making out.

Always with the negative vibes, Moriarty, always with the negative vibes!
 
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Honestly, I don't think the track is that bad, it's just not well filmed. When they figure out the right camera angles, it will get better, I'm sure of it. Just look at the first two seasons of Top Gear (Extra). The track looked terrible. In fact, The Top Gear Test Track (UK) isn't that great, it's just what most of us are used to seeing.

However....

They don't seem to have a good grasp on car history, models, types of vehicles (i.e SUV, Compact, Coupe, Sedan, Crossover, etc...). That seems like a huge flaw in my eyes. Maybe it will get better, but it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel when the first 3 episodes have so many glaring flaws.

I'll give it a few seasons. If it doesn't get any better. Toss it in the bin as far as I'm concerned. I can live with hosts that aren't as funny as their counterparts, it's the pointless tests and false information that I cannot.



;)
 
I really get the feeling the hosts have no idea, or at least the scriptwriters have no idea about anything remotely automotive related. They hated the Black because of an automatic transmission? They faulted it for stiff suspension? The price? Honestly? At least Clarkson actually understood the point of the car.

It seems like unless the car is a Ford or Holden with a giant engine in it the vehicle sucks.
 
Do you race?
.....And that was my biggest fear with Top Gear Australia: that it was going to be biased in favour of one marque. And given that Holden is still (falsely) seen as being Australian Made (we have an 'Australian Made' campaign attached to all products that are made in the country and wholly owned by companies within our borders; Holden don't qualify for it, but I hear a lot of people say it's Australian Made), a lot of people support it. I guess I was worried that one or more of the presenters would always favour the Red Lion, kind of like the way IGN have a tendency to give the XBox version of a muli-platform game a higher for no apparent reason.
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The Holden Commodore is Australian Made, in a sense, that it is manufactured/assembled in a plant in Elizabeth, South Australia. We have quite a few exports that we provide. ATM all versions of the VE are made in Elizabeth. There are currently talks that Elizabeth plant may start to manufacture a small car, because big car sales are on the down turn, (probably because of fuel costs).
 
Just saw the latest episode, it wasn't that bad actually. I would have liked to see a longer challenge, and for the last, some imaginative challenge like TGUK. Humour? They're getting there, but it managed to put a bit of a smile on my face. Warren and Steve are getting there too, Cox is still too annoying. 7/10 👍, gained some faith in it.
 
About 1/4 through today's episode, and so far it's actually looking quite promising. Hope the rest of the show is upto standard too.

Done, 8/10 good episode. They've pretty much gotten it now I reckon, now for some interesting challenges.
 
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8.5/10

I enjoyed that as much as most of the UK episodes. Loved the Astra lawn bowling, and they are finally getting better camera angles on the track.
 
I actually found todays episode rather boring.


I love how Steve crapped himself in the W427 when he heard the knocking sound at 240ish km/h :lol:
 
The TGA guys are finally finding some click with each other and a better grasp of how to review a car.

Big improvement on the first three episodes. I loved the Lawn bowls, Because :sly: there really i'snt much more use for a holden than biffing and barging with them. :sly:
 
It wasn't bad, not great but not crap either. I wasn't really sure what lawn bowls were though, we must not play that here in America or if we do it just isn't common. The W427 was cool but seemed really slow around the track.
 
Well I guess I can't bother talking about the TGAU episodes all the time as I always am quite late at watching them. :grumpy: The thing is, TGAU has some exciting and interesting segments of the show, but somehow I never feel like watching it again after I finish watching it. Unlike TGUK, they do relatively have a good vibe throughout the show, and keeps me laughing on my chair till I fell over..... :lol:
 
This episode wasn't great, the whole car to a boat thing was way to BBC Top Gear esque. Also what on earth made Charlie think that the CTS is front wheel drive? Or at least imply that it's FWD? I thought it was getting better but I guess not, and what's with that "what were they thinking?" board?

Oh and did they really compare a 1 series to an M3?
 
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Yes they did. They ended up pretty much saying the 1 series was a better buy than an M3. Steve said he could keep up with the M3 on winding roads, although he never said the road was public and had a speed limit. If they wanted to really compare, do it on the track or something. The 1 is a good car, but I would never even consider it over an M3 or any of it's contenders anyway. This episode wasn't too good, I recorded it in HD anyway, may as well delete it since it's a huge waste of space. All Charlie did was do donuts in the R8 and didn't really come to a conclusion. The Audi boat thing was rubbish too. It wasn't their best episode frankly.

I took the time to take a few photos from it though. The photos are actually meant to be 16:10 ratio, but meh.


 
Joey D
This episode wasn't great, the whole car to a boat thing was way to BBC Top Gear esque. Also what on earth made Charlie think that the CTS is front wheel drive? Or at least imply that it's FWD? I thought it was getting better but I guess not, and what's with that "what were they thinking?" board?
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Yeah I thought the same thing except I think he was referring to the 'big' Cadillac sedan (DTS) but never mentioned that point. These episodes are getting boring, and when they try to makle it funny or intesting it is not really working.


Although I did find the Tractor parking funny even though it was clearly rigged, they did pull funny faces when they hit the Saab.
 
Good lord that was an even more worthless episode.

Edit: Just realize I called last weeks episode (that I can't remember) worthless so I fixed my above post.
 
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Even the tractor thing was pulled from the BBC Top Gear. They need to be original. I am waiting for an epic race though.
 
Each episode seems to be worse than the last. This last episode was so contrived it's almost shameful. Try something new guys, and for the love of all that's holy, get rid of Charlie Cox.





;)
 
Charlie is the worst of the 3 presenters. Suprisingly, my faverout so far is Warren, though compared to TopGear UK the show is miles behind. I think it has potential to be good, they just need to get out of the UK teams shadows and start doing thier own things. With regards to the 1 series review, I acutally get what they were saying, the 1 series isn't much slower than the M3 and while it is a big step down overall fro the current M3 it has a lot more in common with what the M3 used to be than the current M3 actually does, I didn't mind that bit but the rest of the episode was forgettable.
 

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