He’s very good at what he does, and he’s been successful at it. His life may actually be cool, but only due to his talent and hard work rather than an inheritance or success in another field.

Maybe I’m not being clear enough. A TV “personality” is someone who just wants to be on TV. Chris wants to be on our screens only to show us how cool cars are. He won’t be presenting game shows anytime soon or appearing in any reality TV/celebrity nonsense. In other words, he’s perfect for the Top Gear job. He can…

The lack of an outright denial from Mr Harris makes me hope that this is the case. I can’t imagine he’d be happy with all of the attention, though. He’s a car man/racer/journalist, rather than a TV personality.

In the UK, you could buy this amusing book about Top Gear:

I’m very disappointed. I wanted them to come back and at least demonstrate what the concept can do when all the elements are working as intended. Even seeing it zipping around in 5th position would have been enough for me. It seems that wouldn’t be enough for the Nissan execs. Major bummer.

Now that is a Kool whip!

When we flew into Rome’s Ciampino airport on holiday in 2006, the “Follow Me” car was an original Fiat Panda. Absolutely appropriate. I can’t find a photo of it on the internet, so this will have to do:

“Zoom in and enhance!”...

Jalopnik would be a poorer place without the Beatnik Jason Jasonovich Torchinsky and his entertaining analysis of Soviet innovateniks.

I have similar issues, comrade.

The spelling tonne pre-dates the introduction of the SI in 1960; it has been used with this meaning in France since 1842, when there were no metric prefixes for multiples of 10⁶ and above, and is now used as the standard spelling for the metric mass measurement in most English-speaking countries

Nobody knows what a tonne is without being told what it is...

I don’t know all the details, but he replaced a lot of components, including every bush, and the labour costs of dismantling everything and putting it back together. There may have been a few non-suspension bits amongst the maintenance, but 7k was the final figure.

ah... gotcha. I’m having trouble starring posts. Consider yourself starred for all previous and future posts in this thread.

America’s first race was held in Illinois back in 1985

I may be able to assist in putting people off. A friend of mine has had an Integrale for many years. It’s been mostly reliable-ish, but he recently spent £7000 refreshing the suspension (after a long negotiation with his wife). A day after getting it back, the engine self-destructed. Eeek!

Now I’m even more confused. Megagram is the new word (to me). It has a logical root, but there is already a widely used SI unit for that mass (the tonne).

Why invent a new name for a unit of measurement that already exists? You tell me...

Good idea. How about nano-megatons instead of kilograms?

Megaton - usually quoted in terms of nuclear destruction, so maybe not as attractive as it could be...