Lewis Shaw
Another day, another Top Gear controversy. This time, the boys from the BBC’s hit show haven’t enraged a country or British sensibilities – they’ve gone back to their old stomping grounds of upsetting car companies.
In last week’s episode of Top Gear (which is set to air in the United States on Monday), host and head agitator Jeremy Clarkson tested the Zenvo ST1, a wildly powerful new hypercar from Denmark.
Naturally, it all went very wrong. The car broke. Twice. The rear brakes weren’t functioning correctly and the clutch failed. In fact, Zenvo had to take their orange test car back for a time. When it returned, it caught fire after a cooling fan decided to stop functioning. It got worse for Zenvo, though.According to Zenvo, Clarkson later misquoted the starting price in the UK (by some 140,000 pounds, or $233,786) before handing the car to The Stig on a cold, wet track, where it returned a hairy lap time of 1:29.9 – slower than a Ford Focus ST.
Zenvo has issued a rather lengthy response to Danish website Pro Street, which we have available (auto-translated) in its entirety, below. According to the manufacturer, elements of the review were left out by Clarkson and Company, like the car’s 189-mile-per-hour blast down the TG track’s main straight and its 2.69-second run to 62 mph on “damp tarmac.”
The fire and clutch issues were also addressed before Zenvo got on to the lap time. According to the Danes, on the day of the Stig’s lap, “driving was not recommended in many parts of Britain due to low temperature and extreme rain. The weather conditions and the amount of water on the track severely reduced traction on the car’s 345/30 ZR20 rear tires, resulting in a lap time that does not reflect the real potential of the car in dry conditions.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HyEORuSN6w
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