26 December 2004

This week on Top Gear: James and Jeremy took a look at some Korean cars that cost less than an average meal in London. Richard declared a 25 year old Mercedes G-Wagen to be the best car ever and we met style gurus Trinny and Susannah.

BMW 1 Series

It's hard not to like BMWs. Okay so the designer bloke went a bit mad on some of them, but still, they appeal to most people. Now BMW wants to go after the one market it doesn't currently have a hold on. The Golf/Focus/Astra range. The last time they tried this we ended up with the 3 series compact. Which is considered in some circles to not be BMW's finest hour.

With the launch of the new 1 series, can BMW capture the small hatch market?

Probably not, because it's really too expensive. It costs more than the new Golf, and to many people, that makes it instantly overpriced. With that in mind, who would buy it? Well, the 1.6 starts at £15,600 and the 2.0 diesel starts at a wallet exploding £18,850 and goes up to a divorce inducing £20,800. In fact, if you add the extras on, it is actually possible to end up paying £33,285 for the 1 series. They even want £75 for floor mats and £30 for a cup holder.

If we're being honest, which we most certainly are, Jeremy et al thought it not great value for money. It IS nice to drive, but it isn't especially quick and like a couple of the other BMWs recently, it's got a bit of a cheap interior in places, in fact on some trim they reckoned it looked like BMW have been buying their plastic from Cadillac.

G-Wagen

Richard likes his power 4x4s. A few series ago he declared his undying love for the Bowler Wildcat, which is basically a Land Rover with some serious power and strengthening. Now it seems he's found a new love.

The Mercedes G-Wagen is an ex-military vehicle, but what has happened here is that AMG, the custom tuning division at Mercedes, got hold of one and you can only imagine what happened next. They added a bit of 'bling' and then, they tweaked its performance to resemble an angry bee. The result of this is a military strength chassis with more bling than your average rapper and the performance of a sports car.

It's a pretty great car that Richard said looks good wherever you are. And he's right. Take the kids to school in it, looks good. Take it down to the pub, looks good. Take it to the moon, looks good.

Stars in a reasonably priced car

This week, Trinny and Susannah came by to throw some fashion advice to the motoring geeks, and to prove that they can drive quickly, whilst still looking their best. And they did a good job too, it was a soaking wet day on the track and they still got round in good times.

Korean cars

The Top Gear team is inundated with e-mails about how we "never feature cars real people buy" and "should stop showing off in fast cars and review sensible cars". Well, to keep those people happy, we thought we would take a look at some cars that cost less than a packet of cigarettes. All from Korea.

The team discovered that it was hard to find anything that wasn't instantly dislikeable. The reason is simple. There is a certain cost involved in making a car, mostly parts, labour and so on cost the same, relatively speaking, wherever you are in the world. So the only way Korean cars can be cheaper, is to be made out of cheaper materials. And this is the problem. It shows.

The advice is, if you want a cheap car, don't buy a new one, get a two-year-old Golf or Focus instead. You'll thank us in the end.

Atom

Imagine you are 40-years-old (if you are 40 this shouldn't take much imagination). You've been married for 10 years or so, you have a couple of kids and a stable job. You know what that means, yes, that's right, it's mid-life crisis time!

The time men (and indeed women) buy a motorbike, or sports car and get all whiney about having wasted their lives. Well now, if you don't like motorbikes there is another option. The Ariel Atom is like a motorbike, with four wheels, which means it's hard to fall off it. The supercharged Honda engine develops 300bhp, but the car only weighs 500kg which as those of you with GCSE Maths will know, equals 600bhp per tonne (that's more than a Ferrari Enzo). It also does 0-60mph in 2.9 seconds, as long as you can change gear quick enough.

According to Jeremy, this is how driving should be: fast and close to the ground. You can get one for £20,000 too, which means that your wife may not actually leave you in revenge.