Born to be Riled - Couverture rigide

Clarkson, Jeremy

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1405648716 ISBN 13 : 9781405648714

Editeur : Windsor, 2007

A propos du livre

Extrait

GT90 in a flat spinEarls Court becomes the fashion capital of the westernworld this week as the London Anorak Show opens itsdoors to members of the public.Better known as the Motor Show, families will be donningtheir finest acrylic fibres and braving the PiccadillyLine so that they may gawp at all that’s new and shiny.However, if you want to see all that’s really new andshiny, you need to stay on the Piccadilly Line until youarrive at Terminal Four. And then you should catch aplane to Japan.The trouble is that the London Motor Show clasheswith the Tokyo Motor Show, and there’s no surprises forguessing which one is rated most highly by the exhibitors.So, if a car manufacturer has spent all year developing anew concept to wow the crowds at an exhibition, it goesto Japan, leaving London with the mainstream stuff, thekind of cars that are parked in your street anyway.That said, it will be your first chance to see the FerrariF50 (which makes the show worthwhile all on its own)and the TVR Cerbera, but as its astonishing engine willbe off, onlookers will be deprived of its USP.Other notable debutantes include the MGF, theRenault Megane, the really rather nice Fiat Bravo and, ofcourse, the fascinating and interesting Vauxhall Vectrawhich, in case you can’t find it, is the one that lookspretty much the same as a Cavalier.However, pretty well all the one-off concept cars willbe in Tokyo, and in case you’re wondering why we don’tmove the dates of our show, I should remind you that weonce did. But because it no longer straddled the half-termbreak, no one came. And anyway, the new dates meantwe were competing with Paris.And all the manufacturers thought France more importantthan London anyway. We could, of course, moveour event to June but I’ve just checked and there’s a showon then in Pune, a small town 120 miles from Bombay.And I’m pretty damn sure that’s where the car makerswould concentrate their resources.The upshot of all this is that you won’t be able to seethe Ford GT90, and that’s a pity because it’s America’sfirst attempt at a supercar.At this point, I’m sure, Wilbur and Myrtle will berunning around waving their arms in the air and pointingto the Corvette ZR-1 and the Dodge Viper, saying thatthese are supercars. But they’re not.And nor is that absurd Vector which is made inagonizingly small numbers in California, and nor was thePontiac Fiero.Supercars are what the Europeans do. We are the onlyones who know how to make a car go quickly . . . roundcorners.People at Ford in Detroit say the old GT40 was asupercar and that they made it, but again, they’re wrong.It may have had an American engine but the rest of it, theimportant stuff, was as American as Elgar.The GT90 is their first attempt and it seems to workrather well, because it is capable of 235mph, making it thefastest road car in the world. It does 0 to 60 in 3.1 secondsso it is pretty sprightly on that front too. And because it ismid-engined, light and sits on a modified Jaguar XJ220chassis, it should be pretty nifty through the bends too.

Présentation de l'éditeur

Born to be Riled is a collection of hilarious vintage journalism from Jeremy Clarkson. Jeremy Clarkson, it has to said, sometimes finds the world a maddening place. And nowhere more so than from behind the wheel of a car, where you can see any number of people acting like lunatics while in control (or not) of a ton of metal.In this collection of classic columns, first published in 1999, Jeremy takes a look at the world through his windscreen, shakes his head at what he sees - and then puts the boot in. Among other things, he explains:• Why Surrey is worse than Wales• How crossing your legs in America can lead to arrest• The reason cable TV salesmen must be punched • That divorce can be blamed on the birth of JesusRaving politicians, pointless celebrities, ridiculous 'personalities' and the Germans all get it in the neck, together with the stupid, the daft and the ludicrous, in a tour de force of comic writing guaranteed to have Jeremy's postman wheezing under sackfuls of letters from the easily offended. Praise for Jeremy Clarkson:'Brilliant . . . laugh-out-loud' Daily Telegraph'Outrageously funny . . . will have you in stitches' Time OutNumber-one bestseller Jeremy Clarkson writes on cars, current affairs and anything else that annoys him in his sharp and funny collections. Clarkson On Cars, Don't Stop Me Now, Driven To Distraction, Round the Bend, Motorworld and I Know You Got Soul are also available as Penguin paperbacks; the Penguin App iClarkson: The Book of Cars can be downloaded on the App Store.Jeremy Clarkson because his writing career on the Rotherham Advertiser. Since then he has written for the Sun and the Sunday Times. Today he is the tallest person working in British television, and is the presenter of the hugely popular Top Gear.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Windsor
• Date d'édition: 2007
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1405648716
• ISBN 13: 9781405648714
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 583
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible