Fatal car tests by Jeremy Clarkson - The car review as destructive obsession and social criticism

Mickey Plays
Car Bowling by disney

This is an impressive document. The video shows the test person at an early stage of what later became an unfortunate insatiable desire to destroy cars. The hatred against the mediocre contemporaries is expressed in an eloquent monologue, a staccato of well chosen insults that can be taken as the credo and ideological backbone for all that follows in years and years after. The hate which cannot be lived out in a series of murder is desperately shifted and projected on cars that represent the rejected and despised social middle class. This is an example of an unlucky attempt to compensate a massive inferiority complex.

Once the dissipation of destructive energies is channeled and seemingly domesticated as car road test and ironically as entertainment for the much hated middle class the effect wears off and the individual is forced to invent stronger and stronger incentives i.e. more and more brutal and diabolic procedures of destruction to keep the emotional balance.

In addition to that no longer old and cheap cars are the objects of desire. No, to increase the levels of excitement the value of the cars has to get higher and higher.

This first example shows already most of the characteristics of the later deeds. Sadistic joy in cruel details, the use of fire arms and huge cranes or similar aids to throw or drop cars from elevated positions which are essential to transform the dwarf sized ego to larger than life size.

Kill a minivan by Anotherfort

Already after a few seconds the verdict is made :

A Porsche 911 and it's going to die!

The sole purpose of the following test drive is to celebrate the final act of destruction and to rise the levels of excitement by retarding the fatal end and thus to increase the suspension for himself and his audience. On the surface it delivers pseudo rationalised reason for the car slaughter. What Clarkson features here is the reverse or opposite of a car buying process.

Usually people fall in more or less silly love with car model before they buy it. Cars are most of all status symbols and the buying decision is as irrational as making a decision for marriage. for the most part those decisions are based on the strange appeal of outer appearance and the impression of safety or wealth or adventure or whatever.

Once the subconscious has made the decision the super-ego is getting at labour to find the reasons that can justify the whole on a rational basis.

"The engine is in the wrong place.." this sarcastic statement serves on the surface as argument for bad quality. In reality it stands for the total and general disgust with the Porsche sports car as such by discrediting one of the core design characteristics of Porsche sports cars.

What follows are lies that the viewers of the video can expose with the blink of an eye. Clarkson takes the rational argument with purpose ad absurdum and thus demonstrates himself as the autocratic jury that imposes the death penalty without any prove.

In other words Clarkson falls in hate with the Porsche 911 and he knows immediately that he wants to destroy it. Until then he enjoys to torture his audience, especially the fans of the Porsche 911, with a series of perverted pseudo arguments against the car only to increase his own pleasure.

There are no words for the painfully slow and pleasurably prolonged process of destruction.

We cannot deny: Over time Mr. Clarkson refined his methods to some extent and there are performances that deserve some admiration possibly.
Under the pretext of a driving test the unevitable happens as accident in this case. The truth is that this was the end means anyway...
However for a rare moment even less naive viewers might be tricked into the believe that Clarkson really looses control over the vehicle and is taken by surprise himself. Did he really say "Oh my God"??

The Ford Scorpio is selected for victim without any introductory words or the ususal pseudo-test rituals we have seen til here.
All that counts now is to apply the destructive violence of weapons with increasing forces on a middle class symbol.

This example demonstrates the exaggeration of the stageing over time as well. Who ever would develop the fantasy to shoot a car with a bazooka while it is propelled over a cliff into the air.

Up til now Clarkson always acted as the executioner himself. In his later years he developed a love for voyeurism as well which is demonstrated in this documentation.

The performance is a cheap remake of a wild west shoot out. As long as it is just as stupid and raw it seems to please. The plot is missing any effort of thought and fantasy, obviously the killing had to make quick progress. Clarkson watches a guy named Bob firing hand guns at a Toyota Prius with animalistic satisfaction not without insulting the object in his usual manner before.

After so many different ways of destruction have been explored the whole obsession gets more and more absurd to an almost Dadaistic nonsense level.
What starts as a silly contest between two cars finds an abrupt end and leaves the viewer clueless. Clarkson alone knows in advance what will happen and thus can relish the effect of surprise and disappointment of the viewers in full.

The use of a musical instrument instead of the usual fire arms specifically mocks the love of the middle-class for the arts and culture. In this act the hatred against middle class culture is mirrored on a second level and duplicated by destroying not only the car, but also the means of destruction itself.