Pete's car was finally on Top Gear US....it is the new leader at 1:18 and change

**silver** · February 28, 2012, 07:43 PM

le sigh, too bad it is no more, if anyone can find a link to the clip please post thanks!

**Norm** · February 28, 2012, 08:03 PM

They will have the full episode here http://www.finalgear.com/shows/topgearusa/2/11/ just don't know how timely they are Edit: they had it up very quickly

**silver** · February 28, 2012, 08:54 PM

cool, I dvr'd it and am watching it now

self thread hijack, had a good weekend with some friends

**bolus** · February 28, 2012, 09:34 PM

That was actually pretty good. Great tribute to Pete's car. Too bad they really didnt get into any details of the car

**AlanP** · February 28, 2012, 11:39 PM

Norm,

Thanks for the link, I just get an episode listing, could somebody tell me which it was please??

Thanks,

A

**Norm** · February 29, 2012, 01:36 AM

Season 2, episode 11 aired 2-28-2012 Fixed the link

**ub2slow** · February 29, 2012, 12:51 PM

Originally Posted by Norm

Season 2, episode 11 aired 2-28-2012 Fixed the link

I watched it last night and was caught by surprise by the Atom in the episode. They stated the atom had 575 hp on the show???? Did they have that right on this particular car? Awesome car! Way to go...number 1!!!

**Norm** · February 29, 2012, 01:18 PM

CalScot always said 475 hp and that is what I thought I heard. He had many iterations though, all fast. He usually ran with slicks and that car looked like it had factory skinny's to me.

Hopefully he will be around to talk about it, but, fishing is time consuming ....

**Calscot** · February 29, 2012, 03:07 PM

Fishing is indeed time consuming Norm but I'm saving it this week for Friday when I'm off to Belize for two weeks fishing and general goofing off

I thought the the US Top Gear episode was good! My biggest fear was they would chop it down to a few crappy scenes and screw it all up. It was edited down pretty heavily but still got the gist of the car and what it can do. They only said good things, showed it in a good light and it got fastest lap so I think that was pretty damn good! The portion with Adam Farrera and Boris Said was shot last March at Chuckwalla in the CA desert. The fast lap segment was in August of last year at the old El Toro Marine base.

The Atom was running on 100 octane at the Chuckwalla portion and on full 110 leaded race gas with the Stig. The dyno resluts for that tune were 475WHP. The UK guys usually show HP in BHP so that would put it somewhere in the 500+ range depending on what conversion % you want to "guess" at. On the fast lap, it ran with DOT Hankook 214Z autocross tires. 255 rears, 205 fronts. The Stig ripped out 4rth gear on the 3rd practice lap so what you saw was only the second practice lap before it failed. He said it was the fastest thing he'd driven. At one point he muttered under his helmet "It's fu*#ing Awesome!". I liked the fact that they speed trapped it at 160mph on the back straight! That particular gear set had over 20K miles on it so it really held up well for a long time considering the abuse I gave it every time I went out.

Top Gear USA paid me for a new gearbox, tires and fuel and other expenses. They were pretty decent about it and never complained at the repair bill. Something they supposedly had a bad reputation for but I found them stand up guys!

It was an interesting experience. The reason they used my car and not a new one was simple. Nobody else stepped up to the plate to give them a newer one! It would not have mattered. Nobody can tell the difference and they never went into any details nor would they have. The "Stig" said he could have gotten another 1-2 seconds of his warm up lap time had the gearbox not failed. That was a big shame!