OCTOBER 2007 ISSUE AUTOMOBILE MAG Previews the Coupe

Brookside · 08-30-2007, 05:14 PM

BMW 1-series
ON SALE: Early 2008/ $27,000 (EST)

We’ve lusted after the 1-series- a small hatchback with rear-wheel drive and great four and six-cylinder engines- since it’s European debut three years ago.

All along, BMW has been coy about whether we’d ever get it stateside, but this summer the automaker finally confirmed that, indeed, we would.

The wait will soon be over, and boy, has it been worth it-our 1-series will have 2 doors, six cylinders, and a whole lot more sex appeal than the model we’ve enviously eyed on European roads.

The entry level 128i shares its 230-hp, 3.0-liter in-line six with the 328i. If that’s not enough grunt, check out the 135i: it gets BMW’s delicious 300-hp, 3.0 liter twin-turbo six, one of the best engines in the business.

Critics of the 1-series’s inefficient space utilization miss the point- this is not a cargo hauler. After one drive, you’ll know what makes the 1-series a worthy successor to the cars that made BMW the enthusiast brand it is today. It has the best steering of any modern BMW, a communicative chassis, and monumental power.

Spring cannot come soon enough for this one.

atr_hugo · 08-30-2007, 05:21 PM

This is what I was afraid of - the 'buff books' gushing over the car and driving the price up for us schmucks. *** SIGH ***

:wink:

SCA · 08-30-2007, 05:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by atr_hugo

This is what I was afraid of - the 'buff books' gushing over the car and driving the price up for us schmucks. *** SIGH ***

:wink:

Seriously....

And to imagine there are those that think there will not be a long line to purchase one.

Robert · 08-30-2007, 05:52 PM

:thumbup:

I think we need to keep this as a secret. Anytime someone disses the 135i, whether a 335i, M3, G37 owner, our response should be "You are absolutely right." Let us keep this a special gem for the enthusiast only.

128er · 08-30-2007, 06:06 PM

27,000 sounds good 2 me!!

MastaMind · 08-30-2007, 06:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by robert

:thumbup:

I think we need to keep this as a secret. Anytime anyone disses the 135i, whether a 335i, M3, G37 owner, our response should be "You are absolutely right." Let us keep this a special gem for the enthusiast only.

Pssst. The 1 series sucks--it's for losers who can't afford the 3 series. Pass it on.

:wink:

Brookside · 08-30-2007, 06:21 PM

Yes- total agreement with what everyone has said...and if it base msrp's for 27k it'll be $27,999.

dmboone25 · 08-30-2007, 07:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheUltimateDriver

Seriously....

And to imagine there are those that think there will not be a long line to purchase one.

Those people are nuts--I think this is going to be a relatively rare car. I can't see BMW making enough of them to challenge the sales of the 3, which is their bread and butter.

BForbes · 08-30-2007, 09:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brookside

Yes- total agreement with what everyone has said...and if it base msrp's for 27k it'll be $27,999.

haha, you know it!!!

1ster · 08-31-2007, 10:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dmboone25

Those people are nuts--I think this is going to be a relatively rare car. I can't see BMW making enough of them to challenge the sales of the 3, which is their bread and butter.

Couldn't agree more. That's why I agreed to pay MSRP in order to get my name first on the waiting list.

KingOfJericho · 08-31-2007, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dmboone25

Those people are nuts--I think this is going to be a relatively rare car. I can't see BMW making enough of them to challenge the sales of the 3, which is their bread and butter.

ding ding ding

Robert · 08-31-2007, 12:17 PM

Or they think 1 series buyers are in a different market segment.

kurichan · 08-31-2007, 01:49 PM

It's just math.

If the 1er is profitable enough, they'll sell as many as they can, even if it cannabalizes the 3er - the sacred cow is not the segment, in the end, it's volume, market share, revenue and profits...

That being said, I suspect that it won't be until the second generation 1er that BMW attains any real volume in the US, if ever...

But I thought that about the baby Benz as well and couldn't have been more wrong...

1drive · 08-31-2007, 08:01 PM

The 1 series will flop like the 318ti. :wink::wink:

Propagator · 08-31-2007, 08:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brookside

It has the best steering of any modern BMW,

How do they know this? I am pretty sure no one would ever call the 1 series hatch steering "better than any modern BMW".

atr_hugo · 08-31-2007, 08:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spinzero

How do they know this? I am pretty sure no one would ever call the 1 series hatch steering "better than any modern BMW".

Well it has to be better than the recirculating ball steering gear they had in the M5 early this decade.

blackjoker · 08-31-2007, 09:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brookside

It has the best steering of any modern BMW, a communicative chassis, and monumental power.

That sounds promising :biggrin:

Propagator · 09-01-2007, 07:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by atr_hugo

Well it has to be better than the recirculating ball steering gear they had in the M5 early this decade.

Yeah, but that's not exactly setting the standard high.

I hope BMW becomes the first company to make an electric assisted PS that is genuinely feelsome.

oldblue · 09-01-2007, 03:19 PM

Absent clear driving comparisons between the 3 and 1 series,

I'm not ready to credit this much more than the usual

Motor Trend hype and tripe.

(But I'm more than willing to be misproven!)

mike

oldblue · 09-01-2007, 04:29 PM

OK, here you have it. Just point folks to this early review of the 1 series by Jeremy Clarkson (who writes for the London Times, and is normally a riot to read).

Now, I don't want any death threats. This is just to help steer away those gad-flys who would make it hard for us to get our beloved 1 series.

here it is:

BMW 1 Series December 2004
This car is taking BMW into dangerous territory
Jeremy Clarkson

One of the things I used to admire about BMW was the focus shown by its designers and engineers. They were the snipers of the car industry, lying in wait while the enemy blundered about with smoking tanks and faulty machineguns, and then, boomf, delivering a killer shot that never missed.

Once the company had stopped fiddling about with three-wheelers and converted post office vans, it developed a recipe that served it well for nigh on 30 years. All its cars had double headlamps at the front, a straight-six engine in the middle, and rear-wheel drive at the back.

There were, in essence, three body styles, five engines and a range of options, so the customer could indulge in a spot of pick’n’mix.

You could have a small car with a big engine and no equipment. Or you could have a large car with a small engine and electric everything. But whatever you chose there was a rightness to the feel of the thing. A sense that the company had put driving pleasure above everything else.

Then it did a Coca-Cola. The sniper decided he didn’t want to be a sniper any more and changed the damn recipe. So we ended up with four-wheel-drive cars that were made in America, and two-seater convertibles, and a wide range of diesel engines. And then it put a chap called Chris Bangle in charge of design.

Before Bangle, most BMWs adhered to the same set of rules. They had a lean-forward shark’s nose, they had the double-kidney grille, they had grey paint and then there was that little kink on the rear pillar. It’s called the Hofmeister kink, after the man who invented it, and it gives the car an aggressive, lean-forward stance.

Now, though, all of these design cues have been lost in a sea of planes and creases that probably play well in design circles. But in the real world they don’t look modern or sharp. They look daft.

Still, at least the BMW badge continued to count for something. Apart from dipping their toe into the mass market with the truly awful 3-series Compact, Beemers were always a cut above norm. They were what you bought to demonstrate that life was treating you well.

Only now, with the launch of the 1-series, this last bastion of BMWishness has gone. Because the 1-series, like a Focus or an Astra or a Golf, is a five-door family hatchback.

For now, of course, this is great. It means a large number of people who could never afford a BMW in the past can put that blue and white badge on their drive. The neighbours will be impressed. The curtains will twitch. Men will offer their daughters to your sons.

But how long will it be, I wonder, before the 1-series does for BMW what Freddie Laker did for air travel? Turns something glamorous and exciting into a “win free save!” orgy of packaged mass transportation.

In the early Seventies, if you went to Florida for your holidays you were seen as pretty cool. But now you’re seen as a rather stupid oik.

The 1-series will be the ruination of the BMW brand. Of that I have no doubt. But at the moment, despite the lost vision and the appointment of Bangle, that ruination has not yet got into its stride. For now you can still buy a Beemer and survive the experience with your dignity intact. The question is, should you? And to answer that, we have to work out if the 1-series is any good.

The advertisements tell us, endlessly, that unlike any other family hatchback on the market it has rear-wheel drive. And that’s great. Rear-wheel drive is a significant part of BMW’s DNA.

In a front-wheel-drive car the front wheels have to deal with the steering and the delivery of the engine’s power to the road. It’s a tough job and in most cases, for the purist at least, the end result is deeply unsatisfying. With rear-wheel drive the back wheels do the power delivery, leaving those at the front to get on with steering. It’s a much more expensive option but the result is balance. And balance is a building block on which something spectacular can be created.

You can feel the benefits, immediately, in the 1-series. Even at normal, trundling-about speeds it feels more together than even the Focus, king of the front-drivers.

There’s more, too. In the Beemer you have a thick steering wheel, a short-throw gearchange, and an antilock braking system that cuts in when you’re in real trouble and not because it can’t be bothered to work out when that moment might be. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that as a driving machine this is a significant cut above the hatchback norm.

And now, here comes the but, galloping over the hills with news of many, many problems that will leave you wishing, with all your heart, that you’d bought something else.

First of all there’s the styling. Now I know that when it comes to hatchbacks familiarity breeds indifference. The new Astra is a truly stunning piece of design, but like pylons you see so many you simply don’t notice the grace and cleverness. The BMW, however, is just plain ugly. It may have the double headlamps and the kidney grille and the Hofmeister kink, but viewed as a whole it looks like a van.

So what about the engine? Well, the petrol version will get you from 0 to 60 in about two hours, so if you want any poke at all, and surely that’s the reason why you’re buying a BMW, you have to go for the diesel. It’s not a bad diesel by any standards, but come on. Where’s the fun in a car that sounds like a canal boat? So it’s slow and ugly and now things really go downhill because thanks to the prop shaft and all the other rear-wheel-drive gubbins, there is no space in the back. And I don’t mean that legroom is limited. I mean there is absolutely none at all.

Even BMW says this car will sell to young people with no children, but this is silly. If you have no children, why buy a family hatchback? Because you want a big boot? Well forget that as well, because in the 1-series it’s tiny.

And then there’s the ride, which thanks to the fitment of run-flat tyres is intolerable on anything but a kitchen work surface, and the quality of some trim pieces, which will disappoint those who may have expected granite rather than Plasticine.

But the worst thing about the 1-series is the prices. In the past BMWs were expensive because they were demonstrably better, and more exciting, than all of their rivals. But the 1-series, as we’ve seen, is demonstrably worse.

And yet for the top-of-the-range diesel you are asked to pay £20,700, and anything up to £32,000 if you go berserk with the options list. Even if you show some self restraint you’d be lucky to put a car like this on the road for less than £23,000, and I’m sorry, but you can have two hatchbacks for that.

Park one of these on your drive and the neighbours will not think, “Hmm, that’s an expensive car. He must be doing well.” They’ll think, “Hmm, that’s an expensive car. He must be off his rocker.” You can have a Golf GTI for less, and that, in almost every single way, is a better car.

So if you want a hatchback, buy a Focus. If you want a hatchback with some go, buy the VW. If you just want some action and you don’t care about space in the back, or a hard ride, or the price, buy a sports car. A Honda S2000 would be fine.

I have been accused, in recent years, of having it in for BMW. There was even some talk, after my recent review of the dreadful X3, that I would not be allowed any more press demonstrators. And this is why I’ve devoted the entire column this week to a test of the 1-series rather than tagging it on to the end of a rant about cheese.

And it’s why I’m choosing the words for my conclusion with even more care than usual. So here goes. The 1-series is crap.

VITAL STATISTICS

Model BMW 120d Sport
Engine type Four-cylinder, 1995cc
Power 163bhp @ 4000rpm
Torque 250 lb ft @ 2000rpm
Transmission Six-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Fuel/CO2 49.6mpg (combined) / 152g/km
Tyres 205/55 R 16
Acceleration 0-62mph: 7.9sec
Top speed 137mph
Price £20,700
Verdict Handles well but essentially pointless
Rating 1/5

Propagator · 09-01-2007, 08:34 PM

old blue, that is a pretty old news, at least for those that have been interested in the 1er for some time now.

Jeremy Clarkson is a very good entertainer, but not exactly a reliable automobile journalist. In fact I think he is so good at being the former because he is not so great at being the latter. He is also not exactly a fan of BMW, having been quoted as calling its employees Nazis.

But even he says he's never had as much fun in a small car since the 80's when he drove the 130i against the R32.

321 · 09-01-2007, 10:31 PM

wow 1 outa 5! Something tells me he would have given it a zero if he could...
Is jeremey clarkson the guy who does 'top gear'? Sounds like similar verbiage.

08-30-2007, 05:14 PM	#1
Brookside Major 244 Rep 1,136 Posts Drives: 2016 228i M-Sport Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: KCMO iTrader: (0)	OCTOBER 2007 ISSUE AUTOMOBILE MAG Previews the Coupe BMW 1-series ON SALE: Early 2008/ $27,000 (EST) We’ve lusted after the 1-series- a small hatchback with rear-wheel drive and great four and six-cylinder engines- since it’s European debut three years ago. All along, BMW has been coy about whether we’d ever get it stateside, but this summer the automaker finally confirmed that, indeed, we would. The wait will soon be over, and boy, has it been worth it-our 1-series will have 2 doors, six cylinders, and a whole lot more sex appeal than the model we’ve enviously eyed on European roads. The entry level 128i shares its 230-hp, 3.0-liter in-line six with the 328i. If that’s not enough grunt, check out the 135i: it gets BMW’s delicious 300-hp, 3.0 liter twin-turbo six, one of the best engines in the business. Critics of the 1-series’s inefficient space utilization miss the point- this is not a cargo hauler. After one drive, you’ll know what makes the 1-series a worthy successor to the cars that made BMW the enthusiast brand it is today. It has the best steering of any modern BMW, a communicative chassis, and monumental power. Spring cannot come soon enough for this one.
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08-30-2007, 05:21 PM	#2
atr_hugo No longer moderate 325 Rep 4,401 Posts Drives: '13 135i Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: - iTrader: (0)	This is what I was afraid of - the 'buff books' gushing over the car and driving the price up for us schmucks. * SIGH * :wink:
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08-30-2007, 05:52 PM	#4
Robert Major General 417 Rep 6,968 Posts Drives: 135i -> is350 -> Tesla M3 perf Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Socal iTrader: (1)	:thumbup: I think we need to keep this as a secret. Anytime someone disses the 135i, whether a 335i, M3, G37 owner, our response should be "You are absolutely right." Let us keep this a special gem for the enthusiast only. __________________ - There's nothing in my pocket other than knives and lint
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08-30-2007, 06:06 PM	#5
128er Captain 89 Rep 900 Posts Drives: Join Date: Jul 2007 iTrader: (0)	27,000 sounds good 2 me!!
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08-30-2007, 06:21 PM	#7
Brookside Major 244 Rep 1,136 Posts Drives: 2016 228i M-Sport Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: KCMO iTrader: (0)	Yes- total agreement with what everyone has said...and if it base msrp's for 27k it'll be $27,999.
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08-31-2007, 12:17 PM	#12
Robert Major General 417 Rep 6,968 Posts Drives: 135i -> is350 -> Tesla M3 perf Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Socal iTrader: (1)	Or they think 1 series buyers are in a different market segment. __________________ - There's nothing in my pocket other than knives and lint
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08-31-2007, 01:49 PM	#13
kurichan Mr. Happy 8 Rep 479 Posts Drives: Join Date: Aug 2007 iTrader: (0)	It's just math. If the 1er is profitable enough, they'll sell as many as they can, even if it cannabalizes the 3er - the sacred cow is not the segment, in the end, it's volume, market share, revenue and profits... That being said, I suspect that it won't be until the second generation 1er that BMW attains any real volume in the US, if ever... But I thought that about the baby Benz as well and couldn't have been more wrong...
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08-31-2007, 08:01 PM	#14
1drive Enlisted Member 5 Rep 33 Posts Drives: Join Date: Aug 2007 iTrader: (0)	The 1 series will flop like the 318ti. :wink::wink: __________________
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09-01-2007, 03:19 PM	#19
oldblue New Member 3 Rep 28 Posts Drives: 2011 335is Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: LANCASTER CTY, PA iTrader: (0) Garage List 2011 335is [0.00] 1955 Beck 550 SPYDE ... [9.50] 1955 / 2007 twins ... [0.00]	Count me dubious Absent clear driving comparisons between the 3 and 1 series, I'm not ready to credit this much more than the usual Motor Trend hype and tripe. (But I'm more than willing to be misproven!) mike
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09-01-2007, 04:29 PM	#20
oldblue New Member 3 Rep 28 Posts Drives: 2011 335is Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: LANCASTER CTY, PA iTrader: (0) Garage List 2011 335is [0.00] 1955 Beck 550 SPYDE ... [9.50] 1955 / 2007 twins ... [0.00]	HOW TO MAKE THE 1 SERIES LOOK BAD OK, here you have it. Just point folks to this early review of the 1 series by Jeremy Clarkson (who writes for the London Times, and is normally a riot to read). Now, I don't want any death threats. This is just to help steer away those gad-flys who would make it hard for us to get our beloved 1 series. here it is: BMW 1 Series December 2004 This car is taking BMW into dangerous territory Jeremy Clarkson One of the things I used to admire about BMW was the focus shown by its designers and engineers. They were the snipers of the car industry, lying in wait while the enemy blundered about with smoking tanks and faulty machineguns, and then, boomf, delivering a killer shot that never missed. Once the company had stopped fiddling about with three-wheelers and converted post office vans, it developed a recipe that served it well for nigh on 30 years. All its cars had double headlamps at the front, a straight-six engine in the middle, and rear-wheel drive at the back. There were, in essence, three body styles, five engines and a range of options, so the customer could indulge in a spot of pick’n’mix. You could have a small car with a big engine and no equipment. Or you could have a large car with a small engine and electric everything. But whatever you chose there was a rightness to the feel of the thing. A sense that the company had put driving pleasure above everything else. Then it did a Coca-Cola. The sniper decided he didn’t want to be a sniper any more and changed the damn recipe. So we ended up with four-wheel-drive cars that were made in America, and two-seater convertibles, and a wide range of diesel engines. And then it put a chap called Chris Bangle in charge of design. Before Bangle, most BMWs adhered to the same set of rules. They had a lean-forward shark’s nose, they had the double-kidney grille, they had grey paint and then there was that little kink on the rear pillar. It’s called the Hofmeister kink, after the man who invented it, and it gives the car an aggressive, lean-forward stance. Now, though, all of these design cues have been lost in a sea of planes and creases that probably play well in design circles. But in the real world they don’t look modern or sharp. They look daft. Still, at least the BMW badge continued to count for something. Apart from dipping their toe into the mass market with the truly awful 3-series Compact, Beemers were always a cut above norm. They were what you bought to demonstrate that life was treating you well. Only now, with the launch of the 1-series, this last bastion of BMWishness has gone. Because the 1-series, like a Focus or an Astra or a Golf, is a five-door family hatchback. For now, of course, this is great. It means a large number of people who could never afford a BMW in the past can put that blue and white badge on their drive. The neighbours will be impressed. The curtains will twitch. Men will offer their daughters to your sons. But how long will it be, I wonder, before the 1-series does for BMW what Freddie Laker did for air travel? Turns something glamorous and exciting into a “win free save!” orgy of packaged mass transportation. In the early Seventies, if you went to Florida for your holidays you were seen as pretty cool. But now you’re seen as a rather stupid oik. The 1-series will be the ruination of the BMW brand. Of that I have no doubt. But at the moment, despite the lost vision and the appointment of Bangle, that ruination has not yet got into its stride. For now you can still buy a Beemer and survive the experience with your dignity intact. The question is, should you? And to answer that, we have to work out if the 1-series is any good. The advertisements tell us, endlessly, that unlike any other family hatchback on the market it has rear-wheel drive. And that’s great. Rear-wheel drive is a significant part of BMW’s DNA. In a front-wheel-drive car the front wheels have to deal with the steering and the delivery of the engine’s power to the road. It’s a tough job and in most cases, for the purist at least, the end result is deeply unsatisfying. With rear-wheel drive the back wheels do the power delivery, leaving those at the front to get on with steering. It’s a much more expensive option but the result is balance. And balance is a building block on which something spectacular can be created. You can feel the benefits, immediately, in the 1-series. Even at normal, trundling-about speeds it feels more together than even the Focus, king of the front-drivers. There’s more, too. In the Beemer you have a thick steering wheel, a short-throw gearchange, and an antilock braking system that cuts in when you’re in real trouble and not because it can’t be bothered to work out when that moment might be. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that as a driving machine this is a significant cut above the hatchback norm. And now, here comes the but, galloping over the hills with news of many, many problems that will leave you wishing, with all your heart, that you’d bought something else. First of all there’s the styling. Now I know that when it comes to hatchbacks familiarity breeds indifference. The new Astra is a truly stunning piece of design, but like pylons you see so many you simply don’t notice the grace and cleverness. The BMW, however, is just plain ugly. It may have the double headlamps and the kidney grille and the Hofmeister kink, but viewed as a whole it looks like a van. So what about the engine? Well, the petrol version will get you from 0 to 60 in about two hours, so if you want any poke at all, and surely that’s the reason why you’re buying a BMW, you have to go for the diesel. It’s not a bad diesel by any standards, but come on. Where’s the fun in a car that sounds like a canal boat? So it’s slow and ugly and now things really go downhill because thanks to the prop shaft and all the other rear-wheel-drive gubbins, there is no space in the back. And I don’t mean that legroom is limited. I mean there is absolutely none at all. Even BMW says this car will sell to young people with no children, but this is silly. If you have no children, why buy a family hatchback? Because you want a big boot? Well forget that as well, because in the 1-series it’s tiny. And then there’s the ride, which thanks to the fitment of run-flat tyres is intolerable on anything but a kitchen work surface, and the quality of some trim pieces, which will disappoint those who may have expected granite rather than Plasticine. But the worst thing about the 1-series is the prices. In the past BMWs were expensive because they were demonstrably better, and more exciting, than all of their rivals. But the 1-series, as we’ve seen, is demonstrably worse. And yet for the top-of-the-range diesel you are asked to pay £20,700, and anything up to £32,000 if you go berserk with the options list. Even if you show some self restraint you’d be lucky to put a car like this on the road for less than £23,000, and I’m sorry, but you can have two hatchbacks for that. Park one of these on your drive and the neighbours will not think, “Hmm, that’s an expensive car. He must be doing well.” They’ll think, “Hmm, that’s an expensive car. He must be off his rocker.” You can have a Golf GTI for less, and that, in almost every single way, is a better car. So if you want a hatchback, buy a Focus. If you want a hatchback with some go, buy the VW. If you just want some action and you don’t care about space in the back, or a hard ride, or the price, buy a sports car. A Honda S2000 would be fine. I have been accused, in recent years, of having it in for BMW. There was even some talk, after my recent review of the dreadful X3, that I would not be allowed any more press demonstrators. And this is why I’ve devoted the entire column this week to a test of the 1-series rather than tagging it on to the end of a rant about cheese. And it’s why I’m choosing the words for my conclusion with even more care than usual. So here goes. The 1-series is crap. VITAL STATISTICS Model BMW 120d Sport Engine type Four-cylinder, 1995cc Power 163bhp @ 4000rpm Torque 250 lb ft @ 2000rpm Transmission Six-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Fuel/CO2 49.6mpg (combined) / 152g/km Tyres 205/55 R 16 Acceleration 0-62mph: 7.9sec Top speed 137mph Price £20,700 Verdict Handles well but essentially pointless Rating 1/5
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09-01-2007, 08:34 PM	#21
Propagator Captain 14 Rep 808 Posts Drives: 2011 328i LMB 6MT Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: CA iTrader: (0)	old blue, that is a pretty old news, at least for those that have been interested in the 1er for some time now. Jeremy Clarkson is a very good entertainer, but not exactly a reliable automobile journalist. In fact I think he is so good at being the former because he is not so great at being the latter. He is also not exactly a fan of BMW, having been quoted as calling its employees Nazis. But even he says he's never had as much fun in a small car since the 80's when he drove the 130i against the R32.
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09-01-2007, 10:31 PM	#22
321 Stay a while and listen... 21 Rep 375 Posts Drives: vr4 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: slo, ca iTrader: (0)	wow 1 outa 5! Something tells me he would have given it a zero if he could... Is jeremey clarkson the guy who does 'top gear'? Sounds like similar verbiage.
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