MR2 Toyotas masquerade as Ferraris
Posted on February 17, 2009, under Latest News and Trends.
Excitement was roaring; splitting the seams of the show as Top Gear Live kicked into high gear. The show was supposed to bring 3 top-of-the-pile Ferrari 360 spiders to do some nail biting, scram – inducing, wheel gymnastics across the Acer Arena. The auto-crazy spectators being dazzled by the sight of three Ferraris crisscrossing wild turns and wheelies around the Arena didn’t have the slightest clues that the three Spiders dancing around the stadium were not actual, bona-fide black horses painted upon yellow.
What seemed a bit weird was confirmed when a spectator went backstage to just check up on things. And he found that the snazzy looking mean machines being called Ferraris were actually dolled up, painted versions of Toyota MR2s. The Ferrari V8 engine is conspicuous for its glass covered engine, allowing you to look at the engine closely. But these cars had the engine covered up, making it clear to the whole arena that the polished, red tinted cars just weren’t Ferraris.
The glamour just died after that, and people demanded to be told what was going on since they hadn’t signed up to see Toyotas do what any Ferrari could have managed but looked way cooler doing, not to mention the fact that watching three Ferraris worth well over a million dollars going up in smoke as they were plummeted across the stadium asphalt would be so much more satisfying.
Let’s not forget that back in the day when Ferrari still manufactured the 360, it was worth $400,000.00 whereas the Toyota MR2, although a great car in its own right, I mean it was chosen to become the Ferrari’s double, is a very poor cousin at almost $50,000.00 new.
The trick hasn’t done a whole lot to boost the image of Top Gear in Australia. The grand-daddy of all car shows has lost the halo that sat around its head as the show’s producers thought nothing of reducing mean machines to dust by vigorous driving. But, the rules have been bent for a Ferrari it seems, where do we go from here? Crash driving the Ferraris was a bit too daring for the show, was it? The sound of the feebler Toyota engine was droned out by the loud music playing in the stadium, another trick that has Aussie car freaks up in arms.
The biggest draw of the car show had been its seemingly irreverent behaviour and attitude towards godly cars such as the Ferraris. The reluctance of the show’s producers to actually engage in the act of perhaps destroying three specimens of the very pricey, very haute Italian mechanical splendour has blown the Aussie enthusiast’s love and trust of Top Gear to smithereens.
Mounting pressure to inquire into the incident has the show organisers in a tizzy. Even the local director of the event has admitted that he thought that the Ferraris were real and that he would have to check things out with the show producers in the UK.
The plot thickens…..
