Jeremy Clarkson on American drivers
08-26-2006, 08:34 AM
#1
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Thread Starter
Jeremy Clarkson on American drivers
Americans, although loud and brash were basically harmless. But now things have changed...
August 25, 2006
We have an image of the American motorist, his big flobbery stomach, flobbering from state to state in a big, flobbery car with big flobbery suspension at a flobbery 55mph. For many years, I've argued that the heart of the average American motorist beats approximately once every 15 minutes. Technically, they're in a coma. But, sadly, this is wrong.
Nowadays, the American motorist drives at the same speed we do, 80 or 85. And he's the most aggressive creature on earth. If you wish to change lanes on the freeway, because, say, your turn-off is approaching, you can indicate all you like, but no one will slow down to let you in.
They won't speed up, either. They'll just sit there until you remember you're in a rental car and make the move anyway. Then you'll get a selection of hand gestures that you never knew existed. I know of no country in the world where motorists are so intolerant of one another.
The slightest mistake causes at the very least a great deal of horn blowing and, at worst, a three-second burst from some kind of powerful automatic weapon. Then we have the question of tailgating. Of course, this happens elsewhere - I've actually been nudged by a nun in Italy - but there's nowhere it happens so often as on the American freeway.
Everyone sits as a matter of course about three feet from your rear end. Which, when you're being followed by a Kenworth truck and you're doing 80, and he has an M16 carbine, and you need to turn left, and the person on your inside won't let you in, can be a bit unnerving.
It isn't how they drive that's changed, either. It's what they drive. Now, for every nondescript Kojak-style saloon, you'll see two Evos or Subarus. And almost every car has been modded in some way. My favourite was an orange Lotus Exige parked at the pumps in the middle of Death Valley.
"Yeah," said the rather serious-looking driver when I approached, "I've given it two degrees more camber on the back, fitted a 25 per cent softer compound on the front, uprated the supercharger..."
"So," I said after I'd had enough, "you've ruined it".
He was genuinely taken aback. I believe there's a sense over there that car makers are pretty incompetent. And that if GM, Chrysler and Ford can't make a car properly, then what chance do those funny little trolls in Europe have? Never mind the l'il yella fellas from under the rising sun.
I tried to explain to our American friend that the Exige was put on sale after much development work and that if a two-degree shift in rear camber would make it handle better, then he could be assured that it'd be sold that way in the first place.
But he was having none of it, launching instead into a long list of things he'd done to make the Toyota engine run cleaner and better than Tojo had managed. If you want to know what these measures are, he'll almost certainly still be there. It's the only garage in Baker. You can't miss it.
Anyway, the thing is that, thanks to the new found fondness for modding and pimping, and the more aggressive driving style, there are a great many modded and pimped cars on the market. Most of which seem to be based on the new Ford Mustang.
That's no bad thing. With its see-saw damping and damp dishcloth V8, the standard product is like one of those 'girls next door' you see featured in FHM. You sense that with a bit of lighting here and a bit of eye shadow there, you could turn the pasty-faced teenager from Pontefract into the next Claudia Schiffer. Shelby's given it a bash with mixed results.
There's lots of power - 475bhp - but the handling, steering and brakes remain untouched. Which means you're paying extra, simply to have a bigger accident. Roush is different. Roush currently fields, I think, five of 43 Winston Cup Nascar racers, which makes the company a bit like Ferrari, McLaren and half of Williams rolled into one.
Roush is also responsible for the alarm/tracker on my GT, so that's not so good. But I don't allow personal issues to cloud my judgement. Actually, I do allow personal issues to cloud my judgement - it's why I punched Piers Morgan - but on this occasion, I'm going to play it straight and say, straight out, the Stage III Roush Mustang is a delightful way of going fast for not much money.
This opinion rather baffled the salesman. "But it's $43,000," he said incredulously. Precisely, that makes it £23,800 and that, for a supercharged V8 muscle car is amazing, really. "Yes," said our man, "but our car only produces 415bhp which is a lot less than you get from Shelby or Saleen." To his astonishment, I wasn't bothered.
415bhp endows the Roush 'Stang with a 0-60 time of 4.9secs and a top speed of something or other. No one's tested it. But I can tell you the speedo only reads to 140. So in a straight line, it's not that epic. It is, however, when you get to a corner because it's lowered, firmed up and injected with a bit of beef. It's 15 per cent stiffer than normal and to be honest, so was I.
There's no finesse, it's not like a BMW in any way, but for sticking the tail out and keeping it there using nothing but the throttle, it's in the same league as that other colonial upstart, the Monaro VXR. This begs a question, then. Would it be possible to import such a car to Britain?
I'm not talking about the technicalities because, of course, you simply put it on a ship, pay some tax and within a few weeks, it'll be outside your house, ready and road legal. No, I'm talking about the sociological issues. Would it be possible to import this car... without causing all your friends to die laughing. At you.
Tell someone you drive a Mustang and no matter what it is, you'll come across as a bit of a local DJ. We think of it in terms of Bullitt. Everyone else thinks we look like we may be married to our sister. And do you really want a car with two stripes down the bonnet? And exhausts which sound like Katrina?
In America, this works. But that's because they are so much more aggressive than we are. They gave the world KFC. We gave the world the cream tea. And I suspect driving a Roush Mustang here would be like dipping a chicken drumstick into strawberry jam.
And then there's the politics. This car means you are aligning yourself with US policies. You're driving around saying you support the war in Iraq and the strategy in Afghanistan. Maybe you do. But I don't.
So why, you may be wondering, do I own a Ford GT? That's simple. The body is British, the gearbox is British, the steering rack is from an Aston, the chassis was set up by a couple of guys from Lotus, the wheels are German and the brakes are Italian. The power is American, yes, but it's tamed and sophisticated by Europeans. It's a metaphor, in other words, for the perfect world.
August 25, 2006
We have an image of the American motorist, his big flobbery stomach, flobbering from state to state in a big, flobbery car with big flobbery suspension at a flobbery 55mph. For many years, I've argued that the heart of the average American motorist beats approximately once every 15 minutes. Technically, they're in a coma. But, sadly, this is wrong.
Nowadays, the American motorist drives at the same speed we do, 80 or 85. And he's the most aggressive creature on earth. If you wish to change lanes on the freeway, because, say, your turn-off is approaching, you can indicate all you like, but no one will slow down to let you in.
They won't speed up, either. They'll just sit there until you remember you're in a rental car and make the move anyway. Then you'll get a selection of hand gestures that you never knew existed. I know of no country in the world where motorists are so intolerant of one another.
The slightest mistake causes at the very least a great deal of horn blowing and, at worst, a three-second burst from some kind of powerful automatic weapon. Then we have the question of tailgating. Of course, this happens elsewhere - I've actually been nudged by a nun in Italy - but there's nowhere it happens so often as on the American freeway.
Everyone sits as a matter of course about three feet from your rear end. Which, when you're being followed by a Kenworth truck and you're doing 80, and he has an M16 carbine, and you need to turn left, and the person on your inside won't let you in, can be a bit unnerving.
It isn't how they drive that's changed, either. It's what they drive. Now, for every nondescript Kojak-style saloon, you'll see two Evos or Subarus. And almost every car has been modded in some way. My favourite was an orange Lotus Exige parked at the pumps in the middle of Death Valley.
"Yeah," said the rather serious-looking driver when I approached, "I've given it two degrees more camber on the back, fitted a 25 per cent softer compound on the front, uprated the supercharger..."
"So," I said after I'd had enough, "you've ruined it".
He was genuinely taken aback. I believe there's a sense over there that car makers are pretty incompetent. And that if GM, Chrysler and Ford can't make a car properly, then what chance do those funny little trolls in Europe have? Never mind the l'il yella fellas from under the rising sun.
I tried to explain to our American friend that the Exige was put on sale after much development work and that if a two-degree shift in rear camber would make it handle better, then he could be assured that it'd be sold that way in the first place.
But he was having none of it, launching instead into a long list of things he'd done to make the Toyota engine run cleaner and better than Tojo had managed. If you want to know what these measures are, he'll almost certainly still be there. It's the only garage in Baker. You can't miss it.
Anyway, the thing is that, thanks to the new found fondness for modding and pimping, and the more aggressive driving style, there are a great many modded and pimped cars on the market. Most of which seem to be based on the new Ford Mustang.
That's no bad thing. With its see-saw damping and damp dishcloth V8, the standard product is like one of those 'girls next door' you see featured in FHM. You sense that with a bit of lighting here and a bit of eye shadow there, you could turn the pasty-faced teenager from Pontefract into the next Claudia Schiffer. Shelby's given it a bash with mixed results.
There's lots of power - 475bhp - but the handling, steering and brakes remain untouched. Which means you're paying extra, simply to have a bigger accident. Roush is different. Roush currently fields, I think, five of 43 Winston Cup Nascar racers, which makes the company a bit like Ferrari, McLaren and half of Williams rolled into one.
Roush is also responsible for the alarm/tracker on my GT, so that's not so good. But I don't allow personal issues to cloud my judgement. Actually, I do allow personal issues to cloud my judgement - it's why I punched Piers Morgan - but on this occasion, I'm going to play it straight and say, straight out, the Stage III Roush Mustang is a delightful way of going fast for not much money.
This opinion rather baffled the salesman. "But it's $43,000," he said incredulously. Precisely, that makes it £23,800 and that, for a supercharged V8 muscle car is amazing, really. "Yes," said our man, "but our car only produces 415bhp which is a lot less than you get from Shelby or Saleen." To his astonishment, I wasn't bothered.
415bhp endows the Roush 'Stang with a 0-60 time of 4.9secs and a top speed of something or other. No one's tested it. But I can tell you the speedo only reads to 140. So in a straight line, it's not that epic. It is, however, when you get to a corner because it's lowered, firmed up and injected with a bit of beef. It's 15 per cent stiffer than normal and to be honest, so was I.
There's no finesse, it's not like a BMW in any way, but for sticking the tail out and keeping it there using nothing but the throttle, it's in the same league as that other colonial upstart, the Monaro VXR. This begs a question, then. Would it be possible to import such a car to Britain?
I'm not talking about the technicalities because, of course, you simply put it on a ship, pay some tax and within a few weeks, it'll be outside your house, ready and road legal. No, I'm talking about the sociological issues. Would it be possible to import this car... without causing all your friends to die laughing. At you.
Tell someone you drive a Mustang and no matter what it is, you'll come across as a bit of a local DJ. We think of it in terms of Bullitt. Everyone else thinks we look like we may be married to our sister. And do you really want a car with two stripes down the bonnet? And exhausts which sound like Katrina?
In America, this works. But that's because they are so much more aggressive than we are. They gave the world KFC. We gave the world the cream tea. And I suspect driving a Roush Mustang here would be like dipping a chicken drumstick into strawberry jam.
And then there's the politics. This car means you are aligning yourself with US policies. You're driving around saying you support the war in Iraq and the strategy in Afghanistan. Maybe you do. But I don't.
So why, you may be wondering, do I own a Ford GT? That's simple. The body is British, the gearbox is British, the steering rack is from an Aston, the chassis was set up by a couple of guys from Lotus, the wheels are German and the brakes are Italian. The power is American, yes, but it's tamed and sophisticated by Europeans. It's a metaphor, in other words, for the perfect world.
08-26-2006, 09:03 AM
#3
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Yep. His last point about his GT was valid. My #1 peeve about drivers here is that they don't MOVE. Half the time the traffic is because people just fool around instead of drive. There are stupid drivers everywhere-we just seem to have more of them here.
08-26-2006, 11:52 AM
#5
Suzuka Master
Originally Posted by Crazy Sellout
...415bhp endows the Roush 'Stang with a 0-60 time of 4.9secs and a top speed of something or other. No one's tested it. But I can tell you the speedo only reads to 140. So in a straight line, it's not that epic. It is, however, when you get to a corner because it's lowered, firmed up and injected with a bit of beef. It's 15 per cent stiffer than normal and to be honest, so was I.
Tell someone you drive a Mustang and no matter what it is, you'll come across as a bit of a local DJ. We think of it in terms of Bullitt. Everyone else thinks we look like we may be married to our sister. And do you really want a car with two stripes down the bonnet? And exhausts which sound like Katrina?
In America, this works. But that's because they are so much more aggressive than we are. They gave the world KFC. We gave the world the cream tea. And I suspect driving a Roush Mustang here would be like dipping a chicken drumstick into strawberry jam.
And then there's the politics. This car means you are aligning yourself with US policies. You're driving around saying you support the war in Iraq and the strategy in Afghanistan. Maybe you do. But I don't.
So why, you may be wondering, do I own a Ford GT? That's simple. The body is British, the gearbox is British, the steering rack is from an Aston, the chassis was set up by a couple of guys from Lotus, the wheels are German and the brakes are Italian. The power is American, yes, but it's tamed and sophisticated by Europeans. It's a metaphor, in other words, for the perfect world.
And then there's the politics. This car means you are aligning yourself with US policies. You're driving around saying you support the war in Iraq and the strategy in Afghanistan. Maybe you do. But I don't.
So why, you may be wondering, do I own a Ford GT? That's simple. The body is British, the gearbox is British, the steering rack is from an Aston, the chassis was set up by a couple of guys from Lotus, the wheels are German and the brakes are Italian. The power is American, yes, but it's tamed and sophisticated by Europeans. It's a metaphor, in other words, for the perfect world.
08-26-2006, 12:15 PM
#6
Senior Moderator
Fair observations. 
Trending Topics
08-26-2006, 01:03 PM
#8
Senior Moderator
You usually have to crawl thru a bit of rubbish to get to the car stuff with this guy sometimes...
Sounds like he doesn't like the Shelby, but does like the Roush, but he's sure if it would fly in the UK...
Meh... I've never really been a big Jeremy Clarkson fan... Sometimes I just want to scream "Shut up and Drive !!".
Sounds like he doesn't like the Shelby, but does like the Roush, but he's sure if it would fly in the UK...
Meh... I've never really been a big Jeremy Clarkson fan... Sometimes I just want to scream "Shut up and Drive !!".
08-26-2006, 01:59 PM
#9
Suzuka Master
Originally Posted by GreenMonster
You usually have to crawl thru a bit of rubbish to get to the car stuff with this guy sometimes...
Clarkson's reviews are a "bit of a dog's breakfast" - as Richard Hammond would say.
08-26-2006, 03:43 PM
#12
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Sorry to go against the flow, but anything he says lately completely turns me off, as he comes off like an arrogant Euro-douche.
I love how he constantly talks down about Americans like we are sub-human.
Yes, the article has some good points about driving habits of some Americans, but he loves the populist stereotypes to get attention.
I love how he constantly talks down about Americans like we are sub-human.
Yes, the article has some good points about driving habits of some Americans, but he loves the populist stereotypes to get attention.
08-26-2006, 03:44 PM
#13
Senior Moderator
Always amusing and always a good read...
08-26-2006, 04:42 PM
#15
Senior Moderator
who let Clarkson into the US!!!!!!!!!! he is a menace 2 society, lol.... 
I enjoyed the article. Esp the bit about the modded Exige.
I enjoyed the article. Esp the bit about the modded Exige.
08-26-2006, 06:08 PM
#17
Senior Moderator
Clarkson needs to rent a Maruti and take it out for a spin in Madras. He would go crazy and leave within 5 minutes.
08-27-2006, 01:42 PM
#20
Senior Moderator
Thread Starter
Originally Posted by cusdaddy
Sorry to go against the flow, but anything he says lately completely turns me off, as he comes off like an arrogant Euro-douche.
.
.
Are we talking about me or Jeremy Clarkson?
08-28-2006, 09:16 AM
#22
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Originally Posted by cTLgo
for the record, India gave the brits cream tea which they inturn gave the world
In his article, alot of point he made about American driving habit is true.... so true. Except for that Cream Tea comment.
08-28-2006, 04:33 PM
#25
Registered Member
Perhaps we should have let the Germans keep them. We surpassed the Brits over 100 years ago.
And some of you who call yourselves Americans should be ashamed.
And some of you who call yourselves Americans should be ashamed.
08-29-2006, 02:04 PM
#28
Drifting
i live in the subs of NYC. i commute into the city everyday. you wont believe the type of drivers all over the area. its as if swerving 4 lanes left and right will really get you somewhere faster. pick a freakin lane, follow the flow of traffic, and keep it steady!
i cruise down one lane and more than 80% of the time, im always ahead of the swervers. only because they get stuck behind a slow driver and the next lane is closed off, or blocked off by traffic. then you hear honking, flashing of the high beams, cursing with half his/her body out the window.. everyone WANTS to get home. no one is gonna go slow because they feel like it!
its very true what clarkson said, and i agree with him all the way. its ridiculous how many times i get rear ended by a taxi or wreckless driver every year. its like, we have to be trained to be DEFENSIVE drivers. why need defensive driving unless we have subhuman idiots on the road? believe me, it seems to be 70% of the american drivers here.
i cant say im the best of drivers, im only 20 and drove only for 4 years. so not much experience but ive driven to florida and back, georgia and back, virginia and back, ontario canada and back, straight across penn and back. ive had three cars during my traveling experiences. 30,000 miles on the RSX-S (sold), 25,000 miles on the used daewoo (junked because of the many problems), and 109,000 miles on my current TL. ive never gotten into an accident where it was my fault. the two accidents happened because of two high school idiots racing in their parents' benz and bmw (i used lived in a rich white town, when i used to be with my parents) and they ran into my rsx. And another incident where the 19 year old college girl was on the phone, doing her makeup while driving and ran the red light where i was still crossing through the intersection.
im sorry for rambling. but its just ridiculous how many idiots are on the road. do DMV's just GIVE out licenses now??
i cruise down one lane and more than 80% of the time, im always ahead of the swervers. only because they get stuck behind a slow driver and the next lane is closed off, or blocked off by traffic. then you hear honking, flashing of the high beams, cursing with half his/her body out the window.. everyone WANTS to get home. no one is gonna go slow because they feel like it!
its very true what clarkson said, and i agree with him all the way. its ridiculous how many times i get rear ended by a taxi or wreckless driver every year. its like, we have to be trained to be DEFENSIVE drivers. why need defensive driving unless we have subhuman idiots on the road? believe me, it seems to be 70% of the american drivers here.
i cant say im the best of drivers, im only 20 and drove only for 4 years. so not much experience but ive driven to florida and back, georgia and back, virginia and back, ontario canada and back, straight across penn and back. ive had three cars during my traveling experiences. 30,000 miles on the RSX-S (sold), 25,000 miles on the used daewoo (junked because of the many problems), and 109,000 miles on my current TL. ive never gotten into an accident where it was my fault. the two accidents happened because of two high school idiots racing in their parents' benz and bmw (i used lived in a rich white town, when i used to be with my parents) and they ran into my rsx. And another incident where the 19 year old college girl was on the phone, doing her makeup while driving and ran the red light where i was still crossing through the intersection.
im sorry for rambling. but its just ridiculous how many idiots are on the road. do DMV's just GIVE out licenses now??
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