That would be Sabine Schmitz, a former pro driver for BMW. She’s been round the Ring more times than most people have probably even been in a car … she claims more than 20,000 laps on the fabled track, starting when she was just a few months old and her dad put her in his lap as he went round the track. She did it on her own for the first time at the age of 17, and claims to do an average of 3-4 laps a day, every day, rain or shine. She participated as a driver in the “Ring Taxi” program which is sponsored by BMW, where people can pay to take a ride with a pro driver in an M5. I don’t know if she still does, but I assume so. Most agree she’s the best Ring Taxi driver there ever was. She puts the cars through so much abuse that BMW changes the tires every 10 laps, the brakes every 20 laps, and the entire suspension every 50 laps. She’s also a race announcer and has a funny sense of humor. And, as if the idea of a blonde with a German accent who can get round the Ring in 10 minutes in a Ford Transit isn’t hot enough already, she’s kinda cute too. She is formerly married though … that judgmental part of me wonders whether she might be lesbian, because I don’t know if a straight chick could pull off the kind of driving miracles she does. What do I know, though. Sabine is plain awesome. I love her Wiki quote: “Never enter Karussell when on the brakes! I have gone round there on the roof, I know what I’m talking about.”
That would be the Koenigsegg CCX.
Can you say more about that? I saw the show they did about camping in which they destroyed and set fire to someone else’s camper. (We never see the owners.) It seemed quite unintentional, but the stars were rather blasé about all the damage. Afterward, I wondered if maybe they had faked it. Other incidents in other shows strengthened my suspicion that the production team may exaggerate or enhance or even manufacture some of the mayhem the hosts seem to stumble into.
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The Stig’s Koenigsegg mishap was far from what I’d call a “sheer disaster” and Koenigsegg themselves seemed to agree; they openly admitted that the reason it happened in the first place was due to a lack of rear downforce and later happily resubmitted the car for another proper run on the track after it had been re-tuned. Seems to me that Koenigsegg was nothing if not grateful that Stiggy pushed it to the limit in order to test the handling. So, let’s hear another example of a “sheer disaster” …
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Imagine that, a show with a trio of funny British guys might actually be staging their hijinks in order to make them seem all the more absurd and entertaining? You mean to tell me that the whole reality TV trend that even finds its way into humorous Top Gear segments is actually gasp staged? Well, I never. I shan’t believe it.
That’s a fine example. That was entirely staged, with a fire crew off camera, and when the other caravan caught fire it wasn’t even in the same place, it was a different safer field.
And things like turning cars into boats to race them across the Channel is probably real in so far it was really them driving them. But I’m also pretty sure it would be edited to look more dramatic, and the cars would be rigorously tested for safety before actually being filmed. The BBC would be fools not to.
I vaguely remember an episode in which Clarkson tried some of this on an old 911. Ran it into a wall, set it on fire, took a sledgehammer to the engine bay, maybe dropped a wrecking ball on it as well(?). And it still ran.
I think.
That prototype alternative energy car looked very much like a perfectly ordinary diesel Vauxhall Astra to me. It was also at least three years old at the time of filming judging by its registration plates. Anyway, Clarkson has repeatly avowed his hatred of both Vauxhalls and diesels… in-joke maybe?
As others have said, the Koenigsegg was returned to the track with a rear spoiler fitted, when it went round perfectly. The Stig is thought to be an ex-racing driver (or drivers): exactly the kind of chap who *should * be testing these kinds of cars.
That’s one of Clarkson’s videos, not Top Gear.
As far as the loans of supercars go, I imagine that the manufacturers value the tests their cars get on the TG test track, as it was designed by the engineers at Lotus (who are essentially automotive gods). I like TG reviews because they’re willing to speak their mind about the cars in question, if it’s crap they’ll say so. I don’t trust 5th Gear or Pulling Power because they’re beholden to advertisers. Also, 5th Gear is presented by the most boring people on earth (or else their writers are just the crappiest).
The Stig doesn’t slow down, ever 
And we all know that Top Gear doesn’t have writers and is completely unscripted - they have an International Emmy to prove it 
Si
The wing was supposedly a big thing, mentioned with much chagrin by another magazine I read that’s in no way keen on Clarkson or Top Gear, although Koenigsegg themselves say that it was more than just the wing alone.
I was checking out some older stunts of Clarkson’s on youtube (where I’m sure they’re 100% legally viewed!) he had a stunt driver take apart an Austin Metro in the style of the film The Driver. He then tried to do the same himself to a Toyota Carina but ended up crashing straight into a concrete column and setting it on fire 
It is the most perfectly put together TV show of all time IMHO. I have no real interest in cars at all but lap up every episode of Top Gear even the repeats. The production values are superb and for the filmed segments the scripts and editing are such that no opportunity for a laugh escapes them.
I particularly recall the boys each building their “amphibious car” because surely it can’t be all that hard. The three designs alone were masterpieces of characterisation - Clarkson’s twin outboards, May’s sailboat, the Hamster’s gypsy boat with polished floors.
It was a long while ago but I laughed until I was nearly sick, the funniest continuous bit in years of TV. And many of the stupid “everyday race challenges” are just as stupid.
:smack:
Top Gear does actual reviews of ordinary cars? I thought they gave that up about the time Chris Goffey got the elbow.
You do realise that the manufacturers lend them the cars specifically to be put round the track against the clock? And that manufacturers know full well that when a racing driver is pushing things to the limit, mistakes happen?
The Fiat 500 isn’t an ordinary car?
I nearly choked on what I was eating watching their limousine episode.
Well, its based on the Panda, but with a much higher trim and price to match. Not quite ordinary.
Hijack: are the swear words bleeped out on BBC2? They are on BBC America (e.g. the Hugh Grant interview and Gordon Ramsay’s lap, the soundtrack of which was reduced to something like “bleep, bleep, oh bleep, the bleep”.
It is shown at 8pm, so yes. Later on, on BBC2 especially, they probably would not bleep out so much.
Its broadcast before 9pm in the UK, so anything that’s more than mildly offensive is bleeped out. Strangely enough I’m pretty sure the last time I watched an old episode through on-demand cable TV, it rated it for 15 year olds and over and required a PIN entry to watch.
Oh, and any mention by Clarkson of sat-nav on German cars directing you East through Poland is retained.
No. They aren’t beeped. At the time Top Gear goes out basically only “cunt” would be bleeped. Later on even that would be allowed.
I don’t remember any bleeps on Top Gear. maybe I’m just going senile