Zitat von revtor;90528Alles anzeigenIt is an 850Ci despite the M70 engine. Starting from January 1993 the 850i was renamed to 850Ci. To make things completely confusing the M70 and M73 850Ci were manufactured alongside each other for 10 months in 1994.
Anyway, the point here is not beating the Mercedes on the track. Of course it would have been interesting to see the E31 perform in situations where aggressive turning or corner exit speed are important because AHK would certainly have given it an advantage despite the lack of power. In most other tests the 850Ci would have lost straight away...
The point of Top Gear is finding out whether these cars can compete with a brand new car in terms of reliability. Anyone who starts with throwing money against the BMW or Mercedes to improve them, lost the challenge in advance. Taken into account that one of the most heard comments to potential new owners is that the E31 costs an arm and leg just to keep it on the road, it's not looking good for the E31...
In my opinion the outcome of this Top Gear challenge was already known before it began - just as with most other Top Gear challenges. Top Gear is not a car review program with unbiased opinions - it's just pure entertainment. My guess is that the outcome of this challenge is "yes you can buy supercars for the price of the cheapest new car on the market, but the reliability is nowhere close". If the cars don't break down by themselves, I'm sure Jeremy and Richard will help them a bit ;).
That's the exact point, Top Gear, many years ago was in fact a serious car review program - in the days of the likes of Chris Goffey, Angela Rippon (yes - Angela Rippon - the one with the legs!) and William Woolard. It was drastically restructured and became an entertainment program with occasional references to cars. The challenges should not be taken too seriously. They have done numerous challenges before including buying a supercar for under 10,000 pounds and inventing ridiculous challenges for the cars to overcome. Whilst they are certainly entertaining, if you were hoping for a serious review of the car you'd be disappointed.
The outcome of this particular challenge is obvious - whilst both the BMW and the Mercedes are interesting cars, far more so than the POS Nissan or whatever euro/jap/korean boringmobile they've chosen, they will never be able to compete in terms of reliability nor economy.
Just in case you're wondering about Angela Rippon:
edited to add gratuitous picture of Angela Rippon 
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