Ok, so this may be cheating. I didn't go to South America but the Top Gear guys did - Jeremy, James and Richard. Some of you may be familiar with the show - they went to South America and traveled 1000mi through various terrain in an old Land Cruiser, Samurai and Range Rover. It's a bit long but very cool. Please enjoy their trail report. This video may be pulled down. You can get a torrent at www.finalgear.com

Part 1 of 8
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlQ5vsfboQ0[/YOUTUBE]

 

Spoiler alert. fun-ruining details below. Skip this post if you don't want to read it












I watched this one a couple days ago. You can see Hammond push his ride when it... ya'know, wink-wink. Wish it wasn't in the shot, it kinda made me mad. All that effort to limp it along, all that time, all that driving and more-than-likely scripted risk-taking, just to intentionally destroy it? Not cool, Top Gear. Not cool.

 

Spoiler:





Yea, Hammond was just annoying this episode, and I wish they had set up that land cruiser correctly. I'm no expert, but I'm guessing had they done the lift correctly the drive shaft wouldn't have fallen out, and the diff wouldn't have exploded, and then to roll it down the hill? It kinda ruined it for me.

But besides that it was a really good episode. One of their best, by far. I still like the one where they drive to the north pole in a hilux the best though.

 

wow - really???


Ok - my humble thought on the matter:

The LC would have been unsafe in 2wd (fwd only) going down the last decent Best way to make the problem go away is to do away with the LC rather than say it can't make it.

I thought it was fine. People are way to critical of the show these days. Epic episode in my opinion.

 

I agree, totally epic episode, and yea, it makes sense that had Hammond tried to go down in the LC with 2wd and non-functioning brakes it probably would have killed him. But the way they handled it just bugged me for some reason. I guess I really wanted to see the LC make it.

 

I agree with the safety reasoning behind shoving it down the hill, but actually SEEING him push it, then acting like it accidentally got away from him, was irritating. I suppose I just wanted to see it succeed. It looked badass with the lift and tires, but yeah.... it probably would have killed him. Otherwise, it was right up there with the north pole expedition- which is by far the greatest episode ever.

 

Really good episode.

 

Really good episode.

 

Epic fail !!

 

Hammond has definitely played the cute little man over the top recently - but he's the only reason my wife will sit down and watch it. Jeremy and James together attract 0 female audience.

 

Totally fake "accident" but done for the sake of TV and the reality that the LC probably wouldn't have done very well down that grade. I'm a die-hard Top Gear fan and for my 2 cents...
If hardcore, real consumer auto INFO is what you're after, then "Fifth Gear" is also on the BBC. Top Gear has MUCH more entertainment value and is about enjoying cars and car culture. Dare I say it... isn't that kind of what Yotatech is about too?

 

That just goes to show you what "Non-OEM" parts can do to a vehicle. Otherwise that land cruiser would ahve went all the way. The stress of those tires and lift plus the slippy clutch blew the rear diff..... Lift and tires cause severe stress on the leaf spring that broke as well..... why do think the samurai went so long cause it was OEM the whole time.

 

Yeah - but how cool was it when the LC was first shown lifted with big muds?? Worth it.

I agree though in real life I don't like messing with my truck too much - I figure toyota knows what they are doing... but if I'm making a TV show - my truck would have flame throwers and ninjas jumping out of it.

 

We all know that they couldn't let a LC show up a british standard.