James May's Cars of the people

[lornemalvo]

I just watched so called car enthusiast James May shooting up a Renault 4 and a Citroen 2CV with a rifle and a Kalashnikov. The cars looked to be in decent condition so it makes me wonder, just how much of a car enthusiast is this dhead? It's not even as if this sequence added anything to the programme or was even in context relating to what he was saying about these cars.

[AndyF52]

I agree and what was the point of The Silver Shadow at the end. Presume this was meant to be ironic. Shooting or destroying cars for entertainment only is becoming tedious.

[aeropilot]

lornemalvo said:

I just watched so called car enthusiast James May shooting up a Renault 4 and a Citroen 2CV with a rifle and a Kalashnikov. The cars looked to be in decent condition so it makes me wonder, just how much of a car enthusiast is this dhead?

You clearly don't understand how television works.......

[4rephill]

lornemalvo said:

I just watched so called car enthusiast James May shooting up a Renault 4 and a Citroen 2CV with a rifle and a Kalashnikov. The cars looked to be in decent condition so it makes me wonder, just how much of a car enthusiast is this dhead? It's not even as if this sequence added anything to the programme or was even in context relating to what he was saying about these cars.

So funny!

Out of all the cars James May has wrecked over the years (more often than not, with the help of Clarkson and Hammond - Maserati, Rolls Royce, Jaguar, Mercedes, Alfa Romeo, Porsche, BMW, etc., etc.,), you're upset about the destruction of two pieces of French crap, that for all you know, despite TV appearances, could well have been complete wrecks underneath that were too dangerous to ever be used on the public roads again!

[Yertis]

Whilst the rest of your post is correct, the 2cv and R4 are very, very far from ‘crap’.

[coppice]

James May is somebody I have always liked , right back from Autocar days. Nothing I have ever read or seen suggests he isn't a dyed in the wool car guy .

Quite right about 2 CV and 4 - both brilliantly conceived cars , and huge fun to drive.

[shirt]

Hardly rare though. The 2cv ended production in 1990 and the 4 in 1994!

I do love the renault 4. Was thinking of buying one when I was working in madagascar last year and driving it back home.

[phil y]

According to similar discussions at the time the series originally aired, the Renault 4 was an accident damaged car, supplied by a specialist who had removed everything of any value beforehand.

I’d presume the 2CV was the same story. They won’t have been concours cars.

[sgtBerbatov]

lornemalvo said:

I just watched so called car enthusiast James May shooting up a Renault 4 and a Citroen 2CV with a rifle and a Kalashnikov. The cars looked to be in decent condition so it makes me wonder, just how much of a car enthusiast is this dhead? It's not even as if this sequence added anything to the programme or was even in context relating to what he was saying about these cars.

Well it did, as the French used them (or at least were given the option) of using those cars in the army, in such occupations where you would expect a bit of gunfire.

It'd be like telling the story of the Mini, and glossing over the Mini Moke being intended for use for the army and not showing how bloody stupid the idea would've been.

[2xChevrons]

sgtBerbatov said:

lornemalvo said:

I just watched so called car enthusiast James May shooting up a Renault 4 and a Citroen 2CV with a rifle and a Kalashnikov. The cars looked to be in decent condition so it makes me wonder, just how much of a car enthusiast is this dhead? It's not even as if this sequence added anything to the programme or was even in context relating to what he was saying about these cars.

Well it did, as the French used them (or at least were given the option) of using those cars in the army, in such occupations where you would expect a bit of gunfire.

It'd be like telling the story of the Mini, and glossing over the Mini Moke being intended for use for the army and not showing how bloody stupid the idea would've been.

It was scarcely relevant to his point though, and the 2CV/R4's military service is about as relevant to their history and historical/cultural significance as the Moke's army trials are to the Mini story - a sidenote or a briefly-taken dead end at best.

It's more that when JM gets out the AK47 it's a massive, grinding tonal shift. 'Cars of The People' was, overall, excellent, and does what JM does best - a more intelligent, cerebral look at cars, their engineering and their cultural/social history with good doses of humour and wit. But, having done a very amusing segment about VSPs (complete with silly but relevant slapstick by getting a 14-year old to drive one), then waxed lyrical about the social context of the 2CV, the impetus it gave to Renault to develop the R4, the R4's real claim to be the French people's car etc. etc. the whole programme judders to a halt so he can pointlessly shoot up a couple of cars.

I don't care about the destruction of the cars in itself. I'm of the "the production company paid for them, they can do what they like with them" mindset, especially since totally-rusty-but-superficially-OK 1980s 2CVs and R4s are not hard to come by at the moment. It's more that the entire thing screamed of a script editor, producer or commissioning editor looking at the script and saying "y'know, James, it's all very well this erudite discussion of the social history of the car and the motoring culture of France in the 1960s, but I'm worried that we may get some Clarkson fans tuning in and they might be turning over at some point about now...can we throw in some guns, explosions and destruction to keep them hooked?"

It smacks of pandering and it took away time that JM could have used to do more of what he does best. Of course I may be wrong, and maybe May was personally itching to fire a bazooka at a Renault 4 for the LOLs and he fought the script editor every step of the way to be allowed to do so. But I suspect that the man behind 'The Reassembler' doesn't actually think like that beyond being OK with it for the purposes of his job.

[aeropilot]

2xChevrons said:

It's more that the entire thing screamed of a script editor, producer or commissioning editor looking at the script and saying "y'know, James, it's all very well this erudite discussion of the social history of the car and the motoring culture of France in the 1960s, but I'm worried that we may get some Clarkson fans tuning in and they might be turning over at some point about now...can we throw in some guns, explosions and destruction to keep them hooked?"

Bingo, we have a winner..........

[Yertis]

In one episode of his toy story series James made great show of "throwing away" a mint vintage train set box. Sacrilage! Although in the overall scheme it doesn't matter, that irked me like mad, like the better-off kids I met as a child who didn't look after their toys (missing tyres, broken jibs, that sort of thing). I sincerely hope that having filmed that sequence he went and picked it out of the bin, or wherever it went.

[politeperson]

James May didn't destroy the 2CV and R4.

He immortalized them on film.

Those cars will live forever now.