Richard Hammond (Top Gear) predicts Toyota FT-86 will be massive success
 

Richard Hammond, one of the longtime hosts of the ever popular Top Gear program on BBC wrote about the FT-86 in his column today (full article below). The "Hamster" predicts that the Toyota FT-86 will be a massive success due to its RWD architecture, fantastic looks, and affordable price.

It seems that the FT-86 has certainly caught the interest of Hammond, as this is the second time he has written about the car in his Top Gear column. See his first column HERE.

Ah well its nice to see someone as big as him taking such a liking to this car.

Thats good. But 20,000.00 EUR

=

27,495.68 USD


so much for that low affordable starting price...lol

I always feel scary when I convert money from EUR to USD. Lol.. however it's not going to cost that much for The US buyers

Doing these straight conversions from Euro or Yen to dollars is never accurate. We're lucky here in north america to pay much less for cars compared to the rest of the world, so predicting an exact US price based on an direct conversion isn't accurate.

Yes, you're right. However Taiwanese Camry is less expensive and look more beautiful than the US Camry. There are some cases that we pay more for automobiles here in the states. In the FT-86's case, we will pay less than EU or Japan for sure.

I really like Richard. I hope one can reasonably deduce that he will be the one driving/reviewing the car when the time comes.

I just want to see them run it on the top gear test rack, I want numbers

It's not going to be pretty, but yeah we always can give it a try, right? I also would love to see FT-86 in Nurburgring 24 hour endurance.

you just dont want jeremy to call it boring and captain slow to drive it well slow lol
probably gonna be close to the bottom of the list, but would still be cool to compare.

Jeremy is a hater. He will put down anything that is made in Japan, not a Ferrari and will praise anything British! :laughabove:

Jeremy loved the RX8 so maybe he will appreciate the 86. I like Richard because of his personality and because he likes the same kind of cars I do. Like back-to-basics porsche models.:)

... but the RX8 is a step down from the RX7, so... was he doing his judgement based on... the body or something?
I mean.. I love those suicide doors, but the car doesn't perform as well as its predecessor.

Well, that he loved the RX8 does show he's not totally dead-set against anything japanese.. so I guess that's a good thing.

He liked the LFA only thing he made fun of is the price which is true, on the old segment of battle of roadsters he picked the S2000 vs BMW Z4 (richard) vs a cayman (captain slow).

he called the 370Z gearbox rev match "brilliant"

first time i seen him like a american car was the Corvette Z06, ZR1 and ford GT, he also liked the focus RS but thats not even american.

but when it comes to track testing i still like Tiff Needell from fifth gear :thumbsup:

Not sure bout that. I remember Jeremy praised GT-R whole time he driven in the Fuji Speedway

Top Gear Nissan GT-R

We're talking about Jeremy Clarkson... not Kelly Clarkson right!?! :D

"...it's also very noisy... and it's not a nice noise either...I'd rather listen to my own firing squad! The worst thing about this car though... you'll never get invited to a wife swapping party... people would think you were a bit oddy"

I know he hates American cars and motorcycles with a passion too!


This guy's comment sums it up

jbravo324 (4 months ago)
The problem is that jeremy is used to driving supercars and we're used to normal cars to drive so for us it's like WHOA!!!!!!, besides that he likes italian and british engineering over some not all of the german cars.........and hates almost all of the japanese cars. I think 370z is a great sports car and it shoulnd't have been criticized over some stupid things.

:bellyroll: that was funny, took me a few mins to figure out who is kelly clarkson, i was thinking is she in porn?

Na, mang, you gotta use the Porn Name Generator!

"Cara Sticky" classic! :clap:

http://gangstaname.com/names/porn

Jeremy owns a ford GT... I seldom see them totally hating on a entire vehicle, they are there to entertain as their number one priority.

I think Jeremy is all of the above....almost. There are plenty of examples where he criticizes several aspects of an American car, then sometimes tags these condescending associations with American auto manufactures as a whole (occasionally even to Americans in general, lol). I'm not saying he hates American cars, because like mentioned above, he owns a Ford GT, but anyone who's seen more than one complete season of top gear knows that he LOVES to make fun of the lagging technology present in many American 'performance' vehicles.

HOWEVER, I have never seen a single episode where he expresses the same discontent for Japanese car makers. Like other members mentioned above, he loved the RX8. In older seasons, he has nothing but good things to say about the RX7 and Mitsubishi 3000GT. Getting back to more current models, he's loved practically every revision of the EVO, he liked the 370Z (as mentioned above), he was fanatic about the GTR, and he even goes to the extent of praising Honda; he loved the 7G Civic Type R, the ITR, and even the NSX back in it's glory days.

I'm sorry, but there are far too many examples of praise when it comes to Jeremy Clarkson and Japanese cars. Sure, he's given some of them (JDM vehicles) a few negative marks, but I think it's safe to say that he is not biased: he gives credit where it is due (at least in this category.)

Even after all of this, however, I can still imagine him giving the FT-86 crap because, and only because, Richard Hammond is steadily becoming obsessed with it. Therefore, Jeremy may talk shit just to piss off Hammond.

Hammond was talking in Brittish Pounds, not Euros. And there's two factors when talking about prices in Europe, and England in particular. Europe is overall more expensive to live in. A meal at McDonalds here is $6, in England it's still 6 pounds, or about $10. However wages are still about the same, only in pounds instead of dollars, so it evens out. Here's a better comparison: a Yaris in England starts at 10,256 pounds ($15,675 US) but in the US it starts at $12,605 US.

Oh, by the way, I almost forgot..... with respect to Hammond's hypothesis;

http://icanhascheezburger.files.word...bvious-cat.jpg

I think you're the first person to get that! Ive mentioned before that £ != €

I didnt think top gear and 5th gear were watched so much in the US :S

Yeah, he'll throw those little comments as possible cons but that's his nature I guess. His metaphors are hilarious too! That's what happens when you drive all the exotic cars, you'll tend to shit on the other ones.

Better believe it. You've got some die hard Top Gear fans here in the US (such as myself). There has even been rumor after rumor of an American version of TG up and coming, but I hope it's all false. I'd never watch that redneck shit if it came up.. I'm all about the original. Jeremy, Richard, and James can never be replaced IMHO. I'm excited for the new upcoming season, or series, I guess you guys call them. :)




100% agreed.

They tried to do that with MotoGP when they had a race here at Laguna Seca... it just wasn't the same and so boring!

Got to love the British and Aussie commentators though!!

This was an awesome race, so many crashes! :party0030:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGjmd_l843c

WHOA BIAGGI!!!

"max, what are you thinking... that's not the time to do that!!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTm3OF3LXtw

Ya i heard they were gonna have Tanner Foust host it.

It was supposed to have Adam Carolla and Tanner Foust, but NBC couldnt get their shit together so the whole thing fell through after the pilot was shot.

didnt jay leno was part of that? :iono:

sad to say i stop watching US auto TV shows its boring

i used to watch car and driver all the time... sniff sniff

I have a car and driver mag for the 2010 models and it's disturbing how many misprints there are. Many of the facts are wrong - prices, engines.

Sweet vids!!!!! :thanks:

Some say the Stig knows 2 facts about ducks, and their both wrong?:iono:

Some say, he has to take his shoes off with an allen key. :confused0068:

Some say he is Michael Schumacher :scared0016:

Some say he doesn't wear shoes while he's driving.

In the article he uses the pound symbol which is the English currency. The vast majority of europe uses the Euro but not all.

In england if a car is 20,000 pounds, in america it is usually like 19,000 dollars. They get paid 7 pounds an hour minimum wage so their salaries are equal to ours making it irrelevant to compare net value vs. market value.