I believe Clarkson when he says they’d removed the number plate as soon as the issue arose. But I keep wondering why they’d bother to ship (right-hand drive) cars from the UK to South America instead of buying left-hand drive cars locally, as they’ve done for most of their overseas trips. Unless they wanted to drive around Argentina with GB in an oval on the rear bumper.
OK, you are going to have to help me here? what is the relevance of UBL?
The fact that I even have to ask sort of proves the point for co-incidence.
Were I a Top Gear researcher in the UK and buying a car for a USA episode, those three letters mean nothing to me and would cause a flicker of concern when purchasing a car.
Actually, while writing this I’m wondering, do you mean OBL? as in Osama Bin Laden?
If so that seems a stretch. Who refers to him by the intials UBL? (or even OBL for that matter).
I assume it’s Usama bin Laden. As seen here. Not the most common version of his first name in English, but I’ve seen it before.
That’s stumped me too. bin Laden is literally the last thing I would have thought of that UBL stood for.
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I assume it’s Usama bin Laden. As seen here. Not the most common version of his first name in English, but I’ve seen it before.
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I think I’ve seen the news spell it ‘Usama’ almost as much as ‘Osama’ and I still don’t get that connection.
And how often you do you pay attention to what the license plate reads anyway? I barely know what my own license plate reads.
Well I understood immediately what Teacake meant, a known troublemaker and someone who makes his living out of offending people driving a Porsche 911 (9/11) through New York with UBL (Usama Bin Laden, though granted I’ve heard it translated as Osama much more often) on the plate?
Again it seems pretty obvious to me, but your milage may vary.
And I’m actually a fan of the show, when they aren’t taking things too far they’re actually pretty witty and entertaining. Of course ‘taking things too far’ is a line in the sand everyone would have to draw for themselves.
Executive Producer Andy Wilman has posted a blog entry about this: http://transmission.blogs.topgear.com/2014/10/10/top-gear-in-argentina-what-really-happened/
Sorry, I’d forgotten about this until reminded today by the Argentinian ambassador to the UK demanding an apology from the BBC - not for the plates, but for Clarkson’s remarks afterwards (see here). Told you they were touchy.
As for UBL - I don’t know. Personally I would refer to him as Osama if the need arose. Perhaps my Guardian reading is getting to me: specifically this article, in which Bush’s Chief of Staff talks about having to tell the president about the attacks, and in which he says “My mind flashed straight to three initials: UBL. That’s what we called Bin Laden then; he was “Usama” rather than “Osama”.” Though it being perhaps a trifle opaque as references go may make it more analogous to the letters on Clarkson’s numberplate, which may not be the combination which would immediately spring to mind in relation to the Falklands.
How pathetic. They’ve suffered no harm and the only offence is one they perceived. I’d tell them to fuck off and grow up. In fact I’d take real pleasure in doing so.
They should be the ones apologising to the BBC crew.
I dunno, I think it’s pretty offensive to start spouting off about how the government of Argentina are foolish and organised the whole thing just to make him look bad, but ha ha joke’s on them, he’s come up smelling of roses as usual. “This time, Clarkson claims, it was a set-up. “They threw us out for the political capital. And these war veterans we upset. Mostly they were in their 20s. Do the maths,” he tweeted. Reports from the scene suggest that although there were young people present, veterans of the conflict were also there. … “We had planned a good ending for the show. But thanks to the government’s foolishness, it’s now even better,” said Clarkson.” He’s a twat.
I dunno, I think it’s pretty offensive to riot over a license plate then get pissy when you get called on it.
No matter what I think about Clarkson, If I have to choose who is telling the truth I’m going to plump for him rather than the Argentinian government.
Saw a rerun from several years back on BBC America last night. His McLaren clearly had the plate “100 Yrs wr” on it. Goes to character. Goes to shows ability to get those kind of plates made.
…when hammering out a counterfeit & having it painted up means its just 4 screws out and 4 screws in between filming and police checkpoints.
Of Course Not! Who are we talking about? Jeremy F-cking Clarkson!
The number of people in All of Argentina that he could out run to get to a border? I’m going with 5.
Still sticking with the discounted “fake plate” story?
Pathetic.
What? Where specifically is it discounted? Who says it couldn’t have been put on and taken off again after driving and allowing for some filler shots to be filmed?
These are people who can build and tear down sets in a day and metal work an apartment into the middle of a stretch limo because they are bored. Do you Really think that this is completely and totally beyond their metal working abilities?
Or is Jeremy just angling for an honor race challenge around the parking lot of The Meadowlands…? 
Look, they are anything but subtle, as your example plates above show. They use silly plates all the time and he had a pair of “Bell End” plates in the car ready to use.
The real plates (and they *are *real, real, real plates, issued by the government, to that very Porsche) would be the most subtle joke I’ve seen from them yet.
Had they wanted to take the piss, they would have done.
That’s what I said earlier in the thread. Way too subtle. So subtle I would never have seen it. Even when pointed out I sorta kinda see where you could make the connection. Sorta.
Or they had to start being subtle because they are in trouble so much?
Bumping because the episode finally aired tonight. The last 10 minutes or so were very intense and not at all amusing, unless your idea of amusing is watching frightened people in Range Rovers get hit by rocks and broken glass. It completely overshadowed the rest of the episode, and it was a small miracle that only two guys got hurt. Usually when Top Gear do a special like this, they leave viewers with an overall positive impression of whatever place they’ve driven through and talk up the country, even places like Iraq, Syria, and Burma that mostly get negative press in the West. Well, they gave quite a nice impression of Chile, but assuming the BBC estimate of a worldwide viewership around 350 million is anywhere near accurate, they’ve probably materially damaged Argentinian tourism.