Top Gear -- '68 Dodge Charger R/T

[pow]

http://www.topgear.com/content/timetoburn/...connection.html

The video ends a bit early... here's the script of the show part that follows it:

Clarkson: It's not the line dancing that's the problem. And nor is it the fact that if you buy an American car, you're going to have to commit acts of love with your cousin.

Hammond: So what's the problem?

Clarkson: Charger. Wrong Dodge. You need a Challenger, because the Challenger was the star of Vanishing Point, and this was the star of Bullitt. That's why you're interested in it, because it was in Bullitt.

Hammond: Yes, so what you're saying is we choose our cars according to the films they were in.

Clarkson: Yes.

Hammond: That sounds fair enough. But you're saying Vanishing Point is better than Bullitt. But it's just not... Vanishing Point is, if you haven't seen, I should establish it, is basically a load of hippy trippy spaced-out nonsense with some bloke in a sweaty shirt and sunglasses driving through the desert for no reason whatsoever.

Clarkson: And what was the plot of Bullit? Remind me...

Hammond: Well, it was complicated... well it had a plot. It was a menacing, edgy 70's film...

Clarkson: What happened in the end?

Hammond: Oh, stuff! I mean it's better than the end of this... he stuffed it into a bulldozer.

Clarkson: But did he? Did he stuff it into a bulldozer?

Hammond: You cannot claim it's better... it's as sophisticated as a Roadrunner Cartoon.

Clarkson: The man who drives the Challenger in Vanishing Point... Kowalski, he was the coolest man ever in cinema history. He made James Dean look like John Prescott. He was that cool.

Hammond: No, I think I've answered this. Kowalski, in the film, is a kind of tallish bloke, with big curly hair and he wears a shirt tucked into tight jeans... he's you! That's why you like it.

Clarkson: In the film, you've said that there was something a little wrong with the steering in the Charger.

Hammond: It is a tad vague, yes.

Clarkson: A tad vague. If you look in Bullitt, very carefully, we all know the car chase scene, yes? Look very carefully at the end. The director said to a highly trained stuntdriver in the Charger, "I want you to drive into that garage, and it'll then blow up." He missed the garage! You can look... you can see him screaming by.

Hammond: Yeah, and some people might call that a safety feature! And, if your guy had not been in that, and had been in one of these, he would have missed those bulldozers at the end and survived.

Clarkson: Which is the better looking car? The Charger, hands up? Challenger?

Hammond: Well, it's the Charger, then, clearly...

Clarkson: And also, am I right on the film? Can anyone think of a better car chase film than Vanishing Point? ... So, really, there we are. We've managed to establish that Vanishing Point is the best car film... that's a Challenger, you're buying the wrong Dodge.

Hammond: You haven't established that, you're all wrong, I want a Charger, that's that. That's what I'm having.


Between the time the review was aired (May 23, 2004) and now, Hammond bought a Charger, sold it (eBay link: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...4552769364&rd=1), bought a wooden Morgan, and is now pondering the sale of that.

[balthazar]

You really seem to groove on this Clarkson guy, empowah. I finally caught one of his shows on satelite (3 nimrods buy 3 busted up porsches and break down repeatedly) and my opinion from his written ramblings stands: a fat waste of time.