Thread: Top Gear’ Gets Attacked in Argentina

Originally Posted by manic

Nope. Its the old plate system H = 1990/91

Looks to be a genuine plate.

I'll agree about it being the genuine plate, the DVLA website has date of first registration as 30 May 1991.

Explanation from the boys.........
Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson speaks after fleeing angry mob

And the Argentinians call the Falklands the Isala Malvinas so unless you have one of the locals who has very good English and a cryptic crossword wizard, I'd guess there is more to it than just the number plate.

Someone on another forum did a DVLA search and confirmed the plate was on the car from the early 90s. This doesn't however, preclude Top Gear from selecting the car because of the plate. Still highly coincidental but they have teams of researchers who could have come across it and thought it would be a clever albeit obscure gag.

According to Clarkson's Sunday Times column though, they removed the plates whilst they were still in Chile and never entered Argentina with them on. This possibly supports his claim that the information was spread by a person or persons intent on making a political issue of it when they arrived in Tierra Del Fuego.

Originally Posted by solmanic

Someone on another forum did a DVLA search and confirmed the plate was on the car from the early 90s. This doesn't however, preclude Top Gear from selecting the car because of the plate. Still highly coincidental but they have teams of researchers who could have come across it and thought it would be a clever albeit obscure gag.

According to Clarkson's Sunday Times column though, they removed the plates whilst they were still in Chile and never entered Argentina with them on. This possibly supports his claim that the information was spread by a person or persons intent on making a political issue of it when they arrived in Tierra Del Fuego.

Ah ha! that explains it....the Argies are such a law abiding lot that they were not upset about the plates per se but rather, that they were driving without number plates!

I don't believe that ANYTHING that trio gets up to isn't planned ...even if they were counting on the Argies being functionally illiterate in English (which they are not!!!many, many, are multilingual) it was no doubt a cryptic nudge nudge wink wink to the "Anglo" audience... Clarkson 'protesteth too much' ...I'll bet May and Hammond were having a good chuckle at Clarkson's expense

Sounds to me like the Argentinians need to harden up, it was more than 30 years ago, deal with it!

Originally Posted by Jonno

Sounds to me like the Argentinians need to harden up, it was more than 30 years ago, deal with it!

Yeah but the city where the trouble occurred was apparently the home port of the General Belgrano, the sinking of which is still argued by Argentina as having been a war crime (they claim it was on its way back to port and outside the maritime exclusion zone). The British tabloids in their usual thuggish manner trumpeted the sinking with the headline "Gotcha". In any case, take a local poll in Sheffield even today and see how much they care for the Argentinians.

Originally Posted by solmanic

Yeah but the city where the trouble occurred was apparently the home port of the General Belgrano, the sinking of which is still argued by Argentina as having been a war crime (they claim it was on its way back to port and outside the maritime exclusion zone). The British tabloids in their usual thuggish manner trumpeted the sinking with the headline "Gotcha". In any case, take a local poll in Sheffield even today and see how much they care for the Argentinians.

Ok, so it sounds to me like everyone needs to harden up, it was more than 30 years ago, deal with it! Almost every country has had war crimes committed against its people in some form, at some time. The sinking of the General Belgrano was an act of war, during a war, simple as that. And lets not forget that it was Argentina that was the invading force, and that the operation was designed to draw attention away from human rights and economic issues within Argentina. Sorry, but the Argentinians are obviously just a very precious lot.