Apologies for the lateness of this recap—Episode 8 was the last in Series 14 and the show starts with Vicki showing us the updated Honda Jazz. You can fit a push bike in the back, apparently. Vicki reckons the Jazz is not so bad. Shame it’s not available with an ESP system (in Australia at least). Tim Shaw finally changed his pants—thank the lord for that—shame he’s still a goat. He serviced his own car and saved a few hundred squids, good for him. Oops, spoke too soon, the clown and his pants make a return in the studio.
In keeping with let’s cram as much as we can in each show theme of this series, Tom was given about 11 seconds to speak about the four wheel steering system in the new Renault Laguna GT. There was a bit of banter about a new British sportscar, the Jetstream SC250, all fine and dandy, but c’mon producers give the show some air, why bother showing this car if all you’re going to give is what amounts to a 15 second advertisement.
The next segment saw Tiff and Plato take to the track … in go-karts (see above). Tiff annoying and whiney as ever was shown the way by Plato. Result!
Tom took a Fiat Punto Abarth out for a spin and says it’s a great option for the junior hot hatch category. The extra £3K for the tricked up essesse version also looks like money well spent. Bargain hunter Jonny took a 2000 model Mercedes-Benz S-class for a drive. It cost him just £6000. He compared it to a current model S600 by taking an A-team b-list celeb for a ride. The newer car costs £100K more than the used model the Fifth Gear crew picked up and if you want some cheap prestige thrills then you’re not missing out on much by getting the oder car.
Plato returned to share some time behind the wheel of Porsche Cayman S with a Westland Links helicopter pilot. Seeing the chopper doing barrel rolls was pretty cool, and taking a Cayman S out on a skid pan would be a great way to spedn a day as well.
That’s it for Fifth Gear until January 2009.