The real Italian job

[mr rusty]

Anybody catch it on tv last night? James Martin, the TV chef attempting the Mille Miglia in a 1948 Maserati. It was pretty interesting, not only for the cars but also the eye watering expenditure involved. It's a world away from our classic experience I suspect!!

The car cost more than his pretty substantial house, and the cost of bits....three grand for a piston..... He decided he couldn't justify 18 grand for a spare set Still, I suppose if you have the money and chef obviously has then there's worse ways of spending it. Despite his substantial expenditure he didn't make it, the thing dropped a valve and from the racket it was making that was fairly obvious, which didn't stop him thinking there was something wrong with the radiator, he's obviously better at the ommelets than the oily rag stuff

Well worth a watch on catch-up.

[rich.]

i think i saw this last year? oh how the other half lives...

[JPB]

Yes, it was first aired a few years ago now. I watched the repeat in the hope that he'd learned from his mistakes and tipped up for last year's event in something more prosaic and dependable but no, there's no telling some folk.

[spiderbloke]

My sympathy was tempered with the thought that he didn't "have" to drive a Maserati in order to take part in the race, and it was clearly stated at the beginning that he bought it with the Mille Miglia in mind and intended selling the car at a profit once it had completed.
I think to a certain degree I would have felt for him a great deal more if he'd entered a car that he'd developed over a period of time and it had broken down during the first stage.

Even the voiceover for the programme ended up giving the impression that here was a "celebrity" chef entering a trophy car into a trophy race where the car hadn't been road tested and the driver was woefully unprepared for the level of care needed to nurse such a "precious" car through an arduous race. Boo Hoo.

I suppose though the BBC wouldn't have made a programme about someone who wasn't a "celebrity" entering a car that they'd taken the first interest in preparing for competition and completing the race successfully.
To the producers It was proably considered far more fun watching a chequebook waving wannabe throwing shedload of money at an untested car and ending up on his derriere at the side of the road.

It's a malaise of our modern media driven society, so it is