The Top Gear Story by Martin Roach

Author:Martin Roach [Martin Roach]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781857829662
Publisher: John Blake Publishing
Published: 2012-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

The Bugatti Veyron

When cars are sent to Top Gear for testing, it’s usually left for the manufacturer to insure the vehicle and take any subsequent damage on the chin. This is often a new set of tyres or a burnt-out clutch or brake disc and with cheaper cars, writing them off is not necessarily a problem. As former producer Jon Bentley recalls, the car makers are normally fairly laid-back – after all, they are potentially getting a very high-profile advertisement (provided the review is positive, of course): ‘The manufacturers would loan the car for about a week. In the early days, I used to worry about tyre wear. I can recall doing an item on the principles of car handling with Tiff Needell and at the end, I looked at the tyres on this BMW 535 after we’d finished filming and I was like, “Arrgghh! These tyres are in a terrible state!” I rang them up and was told not to worry about it.’

This philosophical approach is not applied to every make of car, however. The most obvious example is the world’s fastest production car, the Bugatti Veyron. In this case, the manufacturer (actually Volkswagen) was perhaps understandably rumoured to be initially reluctant to hand over the Veyron, which sells for around the £1 million mark. This is not uncommon with such supercars. Some years earlier, the landmark hypercar that Ferrari released under their owner’s name – the F60, aka the Enzo – was considered by its maker to be inappropriate to give to Top Gear at all. The show’s producers repeatedly tried to secure a test car but the team at Maranello refused to be moved; they even asked Jay Kay but perhaps understandably, he wasn’t about to hand over his pride and joy!

It was a full two years before they eventually succeeded with typical Top Gear guile and craft. Nick Mason, drummer with rock legends Pink Floyd, had bought an Enzo and he agreed to ‘lend’ the car to the show for testing provided they plug his new book. Of course, any programme on the BBC is not allowed to advertise so in order to comply with the licence fee, Clarkson said they would do no such thing and instead came up with a cunning plan.

He then proceeded to reside over a feature where the greatest Ferrari ever built was described as being comparable only to Nick Mason’s new book. Both he and Mason –‘author and part-time drummer’ – held copies of the new publication while they chatted and Clarkson even waved a copy in front of Mason’s face as he talked. The ‘plug’ even came complete with a Tesco ‘Every Little Helps’-style till ring! It was very funny and somehow Top Gear managed to get away with it.

Perhaps it wasn’t entirely without precedent when a few years later, it was whispered that Bugatti were similarly reluctant with their stunning Veyron. As a quick historical aside, the re-launch of the Bugatti marque in such a phenomenal way seemed a surprise to many, but actually the company had been there before.

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