There was a lot of rumor and speculation with regards to Jeremy Clarkson’s antics behind the wheel of Chinese cars, would he offend a nation of 1.3 billion by saying their domestic automobiles are rubbish? Would he drop a caravan from a great height onto a Chinese car? Would Chinese nationals be burning up effigies of Clarkson and burning them outside the British embassies and consulates up and down China? Would a diplomatic spat appear? Of course not. Nothing happened.
In fact Clarkson and May were overly supportive of Chinese cars, despite their horrendous pronunciation of some of their names (hint: The Qi in Hong Qi is the same Qi as in Tai Chi), in his own words Clarkson commented that Chinese cars had come a long way in a short time and are likely to gain on improvements in the coming years. Top Gear were quite nice to cloned cars such as the BYD F0 and the S-CEO, just a light mocking rather than a complete ripping that we were expecting. Watch Top Gear China Special on Youku here, the fun starts from the 40 minute inwards mark.
