When Top Gear Gets It Right: Botswana Special

In the Top Gear Special in Botswana, the three presenters show up with very different cars. Clarkson with a Lancia, which was terrible. James May with a Mercedes, which was fine mechanically. And Hammond with an Opel Kadett, which gained hero status during the trip. It had the least power and size of the three cars, and had some mechanical problems (like brakes and electrical) but it had an important advantage: it weighed 1470 pounds, around half the other two cars. It was only 40 HP when new, but the that light weight was its saving grace. Here in America that car wouldn't be legal when new because it would fail the 0-60 time requirement, needed for getting up to freeway speed. To be fair a Beetle would fail too, because they didn't go 60. Mine would hit 55 if you floored it, but the vehicle was pretty much redlined at that point. This is important because the weight of the two bigger cars was a real problem on the terrible road and lake-mud surface of the salt pans in the special. Watch it if you want to understand. Even youtube has this.

The thing about light weight vehicles is they take less energy to get moving, less energy to stop, and feel faster because their light weight means they have less weight to accellerate. This is great fun when driving. The little Kadett is a very plain car, from 1963, but its still fantastic because when you're just tootling along at 35-40 mph it is easy to drive on most surfaces and doesn't take a lot of energy or attention. It doesn't have A/C or fancy electric toys, but its functional.

When Top Gear returns to Africa years later for a Nile and Lake Victoria trip, Hammond turns up in a little Subaru Legacy Rally wagon and its great, right up until he breaks it, and that road broke the other two cars as well. That was again the smaller and lighter car, and it had the fewest problems during the journey. IN the real world, this is also true, up until you start colliding vehicles. Then the light vehicle dies. Heavy vehicles driven badly by murderous people are a prime example of what is wrong with America today, but those same people have to buy a lot more gasoline a lot more often, so they suffer the consequences of their decisions, and moving and slowing the big heavy vehicle also uses more gasoline, meaning they have to spend more of their disposable income on fuel than people with little Subarus. This is also why there are so many little Subarus where I live. They are the eventual revision of the little Beetle with a water cooled engine and more horse power but the same origin: an Horizontally Opposed 4 cylinder engine, just like the Beetle and early Porsche.

What can we learn from this and apply to modern cars? How about buidling Subarus out of aluminum, to reduce weight, and use lots of carbon fiber for body panels, seats (still have the leather tops and padding, just replace the steel frame with carbon fiber at 1/5th the weight), and the doors and hood. You could probably reduce the weight drastically and use the smaller engine for the same speed and better fuel economy. Also, a lighter car doesn't have to deal with so much top-heavy tipping problems, so they can be taller and still go around corners fast. The terrible variety of road surfaces in Africa are unfortunately representative of the post-mining West. We are still paving main roads and arterials and highways, but the quality of pavement is lower than during the 70's and 80's. Many roads have had their paving responsibility shoved lower, to poorly funded agencies and pretend that the govt has made tax cuts, when actually what they've done is screw over the cities and counties. Its evil, not incompetent. Down at our level, on the edge of wilderness there are road that used to be paved, or graded, and aren't anymore and are going back to nature. Here in the mountains there's many roads that are no longer passable even with 4WD. If you absolutely have to cross them you either bring a bulldozer to rebuild the road in dirt, at great expense, or switch to a light motorcycle and use the deer trails. This is dangerous, but it will get you there if you are really slow and careful and wear sufficient safety gear and don't pretend you can carry lots of stuff on a light bike. But that's another topic.

In another couple days, The Grand Tour will be airing their xmas special in Namibia. Clarkson and company will be using dune buggies in Namibia's dunes. This is a fine idea, and while they can be made legal on California roads, few people bother. A buggy doesn't have a roof and can't be locked or left alone in a state where car theft is common. But given time, as roads worsen, we might end up seeing more of them on the road. The public just doesn't care that much about the poor return on our tax investment. California tax payers still pay for racist school programs and don't say a word about Social Justice being anti-white hate crimes. Maybe that will change one day, but I'm not holding my breath. We are much more likely to just buy more capable cars that can deal with worse roads.