308GT4 video from Top Gear

In my search for 308GT4 videos, I discovered this Top Gear segment. I found it to be my closest preview into the ownership of a 308GT4 for now. Very entertaining and realistic look at owning these cars. Happy Viewing - Don

Part 1 - The guys at Top Gear each buy a 70's Italian Exotic and put them through a road trip challenge. A Ferrari 308GT4, Maserati Merak and a Lambo Urraco
http://www.dpccars.com/car-movies/04-15-06pageItalianexoticcarspart1.htm

Part 2 - Each of them put the cars through a fuel economy test and loaded with a limit of 25 liters, then perform an oil change and spark plug replacement.
http://www.dpccars.com/car-movies/04-15-06pageItalianexoticcarspart2.htm

Part 3 - The guys now see which car is the easiest to parallel park.
http://www.dpccars.com/car-movies/04-15-06pageItalianexoticcarspart3.htm

Part 4 - On the track, the 70's Supercars are put to the challenge against a Vauxhall Astra Diesel. At the end, they dyno the cars to find out how much power they had.
http://www.dpccars.com/car-movies/04-15-06pageItalianexoticcarspart4.htm

 

That show rocks. The yellow of the Ferrari is growing on me. The Merak was an intersting car but the Lambo was a heap.

 

That was great !!
I just wish they would do a similar test with 3 pristine cars, instead of beaters. (it was funny though)
Thanks for posting it.

 

That was funny as all hell. I also wish they put some pristine examples to the test.

 

Hilarious!!! Very British, very funny.

Amazing how badly the Merak and the Uracco have aged. The lap time competition against the Vauxhall Astra diesel is classic!

 

Very cool. Does anybody know where or how I can download a copy of these videos?

Thanks,
Dom

 

Dom, Maybe you can get past shows on DVD from Top Gear.

 

Does anyone know which episode this was?

 

Yeah. those cars were all beaters, and the biggest problems were with the fact that these cars were mistreated throughout their lives.

I do wonder how a modern econobox, such as the Vauxhall diesel, would compare with a properly running version of these classics. I have to believe they would fare significantly better. At least they better, or I'm selling my car!

 

THAT WAS THE BEST!!! I felt sorry for the cars. But hilarious! What a nice break from having to work this weekend. Thanks for the links.

 

I love that show.

But I notice that the videos don't contain the post-mortem, where we find out what happened to that Maser post-oil change. (Did someone forget to replace the drain plug?)

The Merak has no brakes without the engine?

 

Ya, I thought that was strange as well. I thought the Merak had conventional brakes and it's the Bora that kept the Citroen hydraulic system.

 

I Love Top Gear and have watched it from the start, yes that was one of the funniest and entertaining episodes, but they do do things for the cameras like when he destroyed the Maserati, no normal owner would do that.
Hammond who drove the Yellow dino bought that himself and had it restored after the show

 

They normally put the best highlights on a Dvd, not whole episodes

 

Yes the Meraks brakes are fed off a hydraulic pump that is driven off the engine.It also drives the headlight pods and the clutch so if you have a leak in anyone of those components you will lose the brakes but I think Jeremy overdid it in crashing into the wall like he did.I have lost my brakes in the Merak before and yes it doesn't like to stop but it's almost the equivalent of losing your brake booster probably a little worse.The later model SS and the Bora's didn't have this set up but as stated in the episode this was an ordinary Merak with a SS badge.I wonder if they allowed for the drivetrain loss when they put the cars on the dyno as those numbers were quite low

 

search for Top Gear S07 E04 (Dec 4, 2005 episode) on a Bittorrent site such as ThePirateBay.org. This will get you the whole program.

 

For some reason, my audio was a few seconds behind the video, so it made watching it a bit tiresome. It was enteretaining, though...

"Not a real Ferrari..." Meh.

Aaron

 

Thanks Gerrit. Do you know if the whole thing is in that episode, or do we also need to load episodes 5, 6, 7 for the rest of it?

Dom

 

S07 Ep 4 is 654 mb avi file. It is the complete broadcast from that day.

 

brilliantly funny.
Except for running out of gas, the 308 faired well.
This is very reminiscent of the 308 vs Merak vs Urraco Road Test Road and Track did when they were new. It would have been interesting to see with three pristine examples instead of 3 beaters, although it would not have been as funny.

 

Did run this afternoon with my GT4 and I can`t stop enjoying it. The engine is just SUPER, no matter what the BBC guys show. Anyway the Opel diesel has a huge torque ( compared to the engine size) and has a nice ratio torque/weight. Would have lappreciated seeing the same Opel driver testing the GT4.

 

Thats what I thought, the Stig is a proper racing driver when Hammond is a journalist with some driving skills

 

Yeah! The little Dino kicked butt!!

Birdman

 

THANK YOU! I like that program and had not seen this episode. Very funny - actually made me a little nostalgic for my Austin-Healey... no, wait... it was much more fun watching someone else break down all the time. Maybe I'll take the Ferrari out and drive past all the places the Austin left huge puddles of oil and antifreeze! Ah yes, good times!

 

So from whence is the appellation 'the Stig' derived?