James May: rubber cars

I firmly believe that James May's humor is one of the main reasons top gear is such a success. Here's a shining example of that humor.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/columnists/jamesmay/7881077/Rubber-cars-are-the-future.html

Rubber cars are the future Think how much more fun it would be if there was a pleasing 'boing' and not a crunch when we crashed. By James May Published: 11:20AM BST 09 Jul 2010 [....] Recently, there have been a few minor accidents in the May household's Fiat Panda, the responsibility of one who is in every other respect spotless and makes excellent baked fish dishes, of which I have been fulsomely reminded. Nevertheless, she's crashed the car. The Panda has small rubber inserts at its corners, a damning acknowledgement that it will be crashed at some point and that painting the so-called "bumpers" the same as the bodywork was ludicrously optimistic. These would be great if they happened to line up precisely with similar rubber inserts in the rear bumper of, say, my neighbour's Audi. But they didn't. It follows that if the whole front and rear of both cars was made from soft deformable rubber, I'd be slightly better off. But why stop there? Why not make the whole body out of rubber? [.....] How much easier life would be if cars simply sprang back to shape afterwards, preferably with a comic "boing" noise. Who thought cars that deform only once, and permanently, was a good idea? It would be like having buttocks that remain flattened after you've sat on a chair. You know I'm talking sense here.

I think they use James Mays sense of humor as an off color thing, so it makes JC and Richard look mainstream. I like James the best though.

Close.

That team is comic gold. My favorite episode was the Road Trip America one where they were almost killed by hillbillies.

I was really fond of the reliant robin rocket.

I think the Brits tried that about 35 years ago and we decided it was a bad idea.

I like rubber bumpered baby buggies. Paint the whole car satin black to match or prep and paint the bumpers and they look GRRREAT!

The sad part is, I don't think it's meant as humor, I think James May is just that out of touch with reality.

Not so much out of touch but rather out of his ever loving mind.

What, I'd buy a DD with rubber/urethane body panels. They're gonna get beat up anyways, might as well make them damage-resistant and easy to replace.

The Samurai is the next best thing, you can always fix it in one afternoon with stuff from a hardware store.

Saturn? Didn't they have plastic composite bodies that resisted dings and other impact problems. I remember seeing cracked panels instead of dented panels.

Buell Blast's have plastic body panels that have the color molded in. If you drop the thing and scratch that plastic, or break it, you just buy another really cheap replacement.

I like the idea myself.

I've seen Saturns do much the same BOINGOINGOINGOINGOINGOINGOINGOINGOINGOINGOINGOING action.

I know for sure that the late 90s Celicas had de/reformable front bumpers - well as sure as I remember the old TG episode. Now that was uk/Euro variants, mind.

Xceler8x wrote: Buell Blast's have plastic body panels that have the color molded in. If you drop the thing and scratch that plastic, or break it, you just buy another really cheap replacement. I like the idea myself.

That's an awesome idea. If your car had plastic panels the same color all the way through, scratches wouldn't really matter. And if they cracked you could just melt them back together.