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Top Gear Magazine March 2014 - Maserati vs Tesla

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Howdy,

I don't suppose it is the most popular mag amongst us lot, but Top Gear Magazine this month has an article about the Model S.

Phrases such as "Old and New School", "The Tesla Model S feels like the future", "The Tesla Model S is incredible" and "The Silicon Valley interloper has changed everything" are all through the article.

The first line of the text reads "The Tesla Model S is the most important car this magazine has tested. Let's just throw that out there."

Carrying on...
"A handsome if generic-looking exec hatch, it threatens to do to the traditional car industry what Amazon did for retailing and Apple's iTunes infrastructure did to the music business - utterly rewire it."

"Following the slightly tentative Tesla Roadster, the results are game-changing."

and more...

"The Tesla also turns heads. More than anything I've driven in ages, in fact."

A reasonable article... nice to see from the TG team.

If there were a way to share the scanned pdf version I have without getting into copyright trouble I'd be happy to do so.... Maybe just DM me or point me to a shared file system.

Don't know if it's on sale in the US. I picked it up in Gatwick last week.
 
PM sent. I believe the Top Gear magazine and the show are not very similar though in that the articles are not penned by Jeremy, James or Richard so they might be a bit closer to the truth rather than more purely for entertainment. I still like the show, but not as much after the Roadster episode.
 
Thanks, I've downloaded it onto my iPad. Presumably Jeremy Clarkson must have some oversight of these articles? Might be warming to Tesla.

Thanks for sharing! Article is glowing for the S, EM, TM, E, X, falcon wings, buttonless dash and the future gigafactory plans. Very nice to read from TG (even it is only the magazine).

I doubt JC, RH or JM have any say over the contents of the magazine, but if they do then it is surely a turning point for TG.
 
Thanks for pointing it out Mark, I wish there is a way to be able to find it on the internet!

Nice one :)

I feel that sooner or later they will have to recognize that Tesla is kicking ass. Maybe this article is a "peace offering" and a sign of things to come? It would be unlikely they would praise something in the mag and kill it on the show. In the past I've seen a degree of commonality between the two so who knows.... maybe now that the Model S is getting delivered in the UK they will do a test. Mind you, it will be for next winter (series 22) I guess.
 
My daughter loves laughing at Top Gear on the tube. I explained to her that the Geiger counter was fake-triggered when they drove to Chernobyl, as the alpha and beta particles that it detects were likely blocked by the window glass, and the spike struck me as someone waving an atomic watch in front of the sensor wand, not a gradual build-up you'd expect from a decades-old incident. Near as I can tell, it's a brash comedy show involving cars.

Let's hope Tesla Motors remembers the adage ending with "..fool me twice, shame on me."
 
Like it or not, this is a very important cultural step for Tesla and Top Gear (I might add).

Hopefully, but the magazine is a different beast than the TV show. Both are BBC Worldwide properties, but it's rare that there's any cross-over from the TV show to the magazine, or vice versa. The magazine does, after all, cover every car available in the UK. The true significance will come if the Model S ever makes it on the show, and if they can then resist just making a bunch of gags....it happens, but the more it becomes an entertainment show, the less likely there's any serious car reviews. I live in hope though, they've said a few things in this past series that indicates they're softening to EV's (at least, performance ones), and even F1 is fully hybrid now, so there's no denying it. Clarkson clearly has a lot of say about what happens on the show, but the BBC still has the remit to keep it relevant, and unlike many BBC shows these days, they still own and produce it.
 
Some part of the article now up on the top gear website with some nice pics.
http://www.topgear.com/uk/photos/maserati-ghibli-takes-on-model-s-2014-04-03

Have you seen the comments? They are more enthusiastic than us here in TMC! No trolls yet either, which is odd.

Mind you, Gandhi said "A convert's enthusiasm for his new religion is greater than that of a person who is born in it".

I just hope the car get's a fair review, and they ask why the traditional manufacturers are taking so long to respond.