5th Gear- tonight 8pm Channel 5
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Right on CH5, factual as always
To Quentin Wilson it's north of Watford somewhere so who gives a f*** but it's still not quite in the Scottish Highlands.
perhaps most galling of all is the A68 in the Scottish Highlands. On this one stretch of country road there are 23 cameras.
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No idea where that is 
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Bugger, missed it. Was it worth watching and are they going to repeat it? Probably miss that too cos I'm off to Prague tomorrow for the rest of the week 
VBH... since i've had no better offers of late... yes i would give her one!
Jim
VBH... since i've had no better offers of late... yes i would give her one!
Jim
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No idea where that is
They're all over the place, especially on the main roads into town that come though the suburbs (i.e. through Caversham, Tilehurst, Wokingham Road etc)
Amusingly Quentin Wilson referred to Reading as a city - it has failed in getting city status so far, which hopefully is down to the cr@p traffic management they have there.
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In this week's 5th Gear Wednesday 3rd April 2002
Lamborghini Murciélago
Tiff tames the latest exotic from legendary Italian supercar maker Lamborghini. This is the first car they’ve designed under the control of new owners Audi and the German parentage shows through in the higher quality interior and sleeker body design. In fact the car was styled by Belgian designer Luc Donckerwolcke who was also responsible for the Audi A2 and, shock horror, the Skoda Fabia. You have to admit the man has done a good job – just check out the engine cooling ducts behind the side windows which rise electronically at speed to feed air into the thundering V12 engine but lie flat at rest to preserve the car’s smooth lines. Lamborghini’s badge features a picture of a bull and the company usually names its car after bullfighting terms. But Murciélago is Spanish for ‘bat’ so how do they explain that? Turns out Murciélago was also a legendary fighting bull. So that’s that cleared up then.
Vital stats:
Engine: 6192cc V12, 48 valves
Power: 570bhp
Torque: 479lb ft
Top speed: 205mph+
0-60mph: 4.0sec (estimated)
Be careful out there
Did you know that more than one million speeding tickets were issued in 2000, that’s up a third since 1998. Or, to put it another way, it’s an average of one ticket every thirty seconds. But you’re far more likely to be caught in certain areas. Take Reading for example. In one particular area there are 64 speed cameras within a two mile radius. Or what about Watford? On one stretch of road here there are eight cameras in just one mile making it possibly the most speed camera laden road in Britain. But perhaps most galling of all is the A68 in the Scottish Highlands. On this one stretch of country road there are 23 cameras.
It’s not just roads you’ve got to watch. Some police forces are more aggressive than others. In fact between them Thames Valley, Essex and Northamptonshire constabularies issue 25% - one whole quarter - of all the speeding tickets in England and Wales. Essex police alone account for 10% of all tickets issued in England and Wales, including one camera on the M11 that netted £2000 in fines during just one day.
But forget the familiar Gatso camera because the biggest threat today is the one you can’t see. It’s called SPECS and it’s the first of a new breed of digital speed cameras. This system doesn’t use film so it’s always on and can catch three cars every second. Two cameras are used to track your average speed over a distance and digital images of offending cars are immediately sent to a police computer. There aren’t many in Britain as yet but here are some sites where you could get SPECS-ed:
A43 Lumbertubs Way, Northampton
Linden and Podsmead, Gloucester
A610 / A52 Ring Road, Nottingham
SPECS has also been installed on the M42 during roadworks, roughly from junctions 6 - 9. They are positioned very discretely on the overhead gantries with a small blue plate behind them.
The system is also being used temporarily at:
M62 J7 - 9 roadworks, Cheshire (July 2001 - Feb 2003)
M6 J6 roadworks, Spaghetti Junction, Birmingham (July 2001 - Autumn 2002)
So, as Quentin says, be careful out there.
New car bargains
Fancy a brand new Ford Ka? Or a Jaguar XKR? Or an Alfa 156? Or a Vauxhall Astra? Fancy saving thousands of pounds in the process? Then you need to get yourself down to a car supermarket. Despite so-called ‘price revisions’ in the past couple of years, car manufacturers and their dealers still sell new cars at top dollar. Whereas the pile ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap supermarkets having got massive savings there for the taking. If you’ve got time to do a bit of shopping around you should be able to find the car you want and save money. Okay, so you won’t get fawning, attentive service from a smarmy salesman and the cars are usually displayed in a drafty hanger rather than a swish showroom but, hey, you’re not out to be pampered, you’re on a mission to save money.
More information:
Find your nearest car supermarket at: www.car-supermarkets.com
Europe’s fastest Nissan Sunny
Say Nissan Sunny to most people and they’ll think pensioners and driving schools. Say the same words to Daniel Funnel and his eyes will light up. No, he’s not lost his mind, well not entirely, it’s just that owns Europe’s fastest Sunny. Stop laughing. Okay, so Daniel started with something a bit special – a production spec 220bhp Sunny GTI-R imported from Japan – but he then spent a whopping £25,000 on making it go very, very fast. The turbo alone cost a staggering £1500. The result: a very healthy 400bhp. To really test the super Sunny’s mettle we brought along an 8-litre, V10-powered Chrysler Viper and had a little race. No contest. Erm, the Nissan won.
[Edited by JayRaj - 4/8/2002 12:15:08 PM]
Lamborghini Murciélago
Tiff tames the latest exotic from legendary Italian supercar maker Lamborghini. This is the first car they’ve designed under the control of new owners Audi and the German parentage shows through in the higher quality interior and sleeker body design. In fact the car was styled by Belgian designer Luc Donckerwolcke who was also responsible for the Audi A2 and, shock horror, the Skoda Fabia. You have to admit the man has done a good job – just check out the engine cooling ducts behind the side windows which rise electronically at speed to feed air into the thundering V12 engine but lie flat at rest to preserve the car’s smooth lines. Lamborghini’s badge features a picture of a bull and the company usually names its car after bullfighting terms. But Murciélago is Spanish for ‘bat’ so how do they explain that? Turns out Murciélago was also a legendary fighting bull. So that’s that cleared up then.
Vital stats:
Engine: 6192cc V12, 48 valves
Power: 570bhp
Torque: 479lb ft
Top speed: 205mph+
0-60mph: 4.0sec (estimated)
Be careful out there
Did you know that more than one million speeding tickets were issued in 2000, that’s up a third since 1998. Or, to put it another way, it’s an average of one ticket every thirty seconds. But you’re far more likely to be caught in certain areas. Take Reading for example. In one particular area there are 64 speed cameras within a two mile radius. Or what about Watford? On one stretch of road here there are eight cameras in just one mile making it possibly the most speed camera laden road in Britain. But perhaps most galling of all is the A68 in the Scottish Highlands. On this one stretch of country road there are 23 cameras.
It’s not just roads you’ve got to watch. Some police forces are more aggressive than others. In fact between them Thames Valley, Essex and Northamptonshire constabularies issue 25% - one whole quarter - of all the speeding tickets in England and Wales. Essex police alone account for 10% of all tickets issued in England and Wales, including one camera on the M11 that netted £2000 in fines during just one day.
But forget the familiar Gatso camera because the biggest threat today is the one you can’t see. It’s called SPECS and it’s the first of a new breed of digital speed cameras. This system doesn’t use film so it’s always on and can catch three cars every second. Two cameras are used to track your average speed over a distance and digital images of offending cars are immediately sent to a police computer. There aren’t many in Britain as yet but here are some sites where you could get SPECS-ed:
A43 Lumbertubs Way, Northampton
Linden and Podsmead, Gloucester
A610 / A52 Ring Road, Nottingham
SPECS has also been installed on the M42 during roadworks, roughly from junctions 6 - 9. They are positioned very discretely on the overhead gantries with a small blue plate behind them.
The system is also being used temporarily at:
M62 J7 - 9 roadworks, Cheshire (July 2001 - Feb 2003)
M6 J6 roadworks, Spaghetti Junction, Birmingham (July 2001 - Autumn 2002)
So, as Quentin says, be careful out there.
New car bargains
Fancy a brand new Ford Ka? Or a Jaguar XKR? Or an Alfa 156? Or a Vauxhall Astra? Fancy saving thousands of pounds in the process? Then you need to get yourself down to a car supermarket. Despite so-called ‘price revisions’ in the past couple of years, car manufacturers and their dealers still sell new cars at top dollar. Whereas the pile ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap supermarkets having got massive savings there for the taking. If you’ve got time to do a bit of shopping around you should be able to find the car you want and save money. Okay, so you won’t get fawning, attentive service from a smarmy salesman and the cars are usually displayed in a drafty hanger rather than a swish showroom but, hey, you’re not out to be pampered, you’re on a mission to save money.
More information:
Find your nearest car supermarket at: www.car-supermarkets.com
Europe’s fastest Nissan Sunny
Say Nissan Sunny to most people and they’ll think pensioners and driving schools. Say the same words to Daniel Funnel and his eyes will light up. No, he’s not lost his mind, well not entirely, it’s just that owns Europe’s fastest Sunny. Stop laughing. Okay, so Daniel started with something a bit special – a production spec 220bhp Sunny GTI-R imported from Japan – but he then spent a whopping £25,000 on making it go very, very fast. The turbo alone cost a staggering £1500. The result: a very healthy 400bhp. To really test the super Sunny’s mettle we brought along an 8-litre, V10-powered Chrysler Viper and had a little race. No contest. Erm, the Nissan won.
[Edited by JayRaj - 4/8/2002 12:15:08 PM]
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