Clarkson – Heaven & Hell (Automobiles/Sports Cars)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: D     Main Program: B-

 

 

Outside of special order situations, the lack of car and especially sports car DVDs is really bad and a situation fans would find unacceptable.  Jeremy Clarkson is a major writer on automobiles in England including the magazine Top Gear, the main competitor of the also remarkable Autocar.  Heaven & Hell (2005) adds a twist to the usual auto program by celebrating seven fine vehicles and annihilating seven others.  His comments are often hilarious, showing a real love of cars.

 

For the duds, I can understand why he’d dislike most of them, but there were two he despised I actually enjoy.  One is the ever-amusing Citroen 2CV, the Beetle-like eco car best known as the little yellow car James Bond (Roger Moore) and Melina Havelocks (Carole Bouquet) make their classic hilarious getaway with in For Your Eyes Only (1981, reviewed elsewhere on this site) and though he crushes the car here, even his contempt for the 2CV could not match the wit and style for which it is wrecked in the Bond classic.

 

Then there is the Triumph TR7, the 4-cylinder sports car best known to spy fans as the vehicle Joanna Lumley’s Purdey used on The New Avengers, both seasons of which you can find on this site on DVD.  Her version was lemon yellow like the one he has here, which he finds a way to explode on impact.  Fans will note a Red TR7 surfaced in the second season when they went to Canada.  He thinks it is ugly, but though small, I always thought it was an interesting design.

 

Consider anything from here a spoiler….

 

 

He does go after some duds so bring, you can see why they never made it to the U.S. and the mockery of the 2CV is expected, but I can think of plenty of disasters uglier and worse than the TR7.  He never brings up how TVR continued to make a successor to the TR7 and TR8, though he was not happy early TVRs in general.  That is why the TVR Sagaris, a larger sports car, is such a surprise to him.

 

He has interesting criticisms for the Ferrari GTO that are more than just nit-picking, though that hardly hurts its appeal as a valuable car to own.  It is still good criticism to know, but that he revels in his opinion is hard to resist.

 

The VW Golf GTi was a favorite car of his in its original form, but he has been highly displeased with all the successors, until now.  He has been unhappy with Corvettes for a half-century since their debut, but joins more than a few voices in feeling the latest Corvette might be the best one yet.  That leads to segments on the Vauxhall Monaro and Aston Martin V8 Vantage, which he compares to the DB9.  The Mitsubishi Evolution FQ-320 is also thrown in for good measure.

 

His mockery of the BMW M5 and its over-engineering is amusing and then at the point of frustration, he figures it out and likes it.  There is the Aston Martin DB9 Volante, Range Rover Sport, Ferrari F430 and Ferrari 612 Scaglietti, all of which are impressive.  Then there is the new second series Maserati Quattroporte, which is a smoothed-out version of the great late 1970s, Rolls-Royce-like luxury version that is a heavy gas-guzzler that even Hip Hop has missed.  He dismisses about all Maserati’s since the 1970s, but credit’s former owner Ferrari for making it a winner.

 

But he done not just talk about them, he rides them and rides them hard.  All that makes Heaven & Hell all kinds of fun.

 

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is a little soft, in part because of the slight stylization of the slightly overblown Video White, but this is in HD and the result is good enough.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo comes in regular and engines-emphasized mixes.  That does not make it any richer and a 5.1 mix in Dolby or DTS would have been a plus.  There are no extras, despite the room left on the disc, but this is very enjoyable and we hope to see more from Clarkson.

 

For more fun Car DVDs, try the following, including the first six Victory By Design titles:

 

Alfa Romeo

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/1153/Alfa+Romeo+-+Victory+By+Design

 

Aston Martin

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/920/Aston+Martin+-+Victory+By+Design

 

Ferrari

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/981/Ferrari+-+Victory+By+Design+(DTS)

 

Jaguar

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/982/Jaguar+-+Victory+By+Design+(DTS)

 

Maserati

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/1145/Maserati+-+Victory+By+Design+(DTS)

 

Porsche

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/983/Porsche+-+Victory+By+Design+(DTS

 

+ America’s Favorite Cars: Corvette/Ferrari/Fords Of The 1950s

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/1643/America's+Favorite+Cars+series+(Cor

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo