TheBBC2 tonight - Real Italian Job: James Martin's Mille Miglia

mike65

Heads up

The Mille Miglia is an annual 1,000-mile race through Italy featuring over 300 classic cars, with past competitors including motoring greats Juan Fangio, Tazio Nuvolari and Stirling Moss. Here, cameras follow TV chef and Formula One enthusiast James Martin as he prepares to compete in the gruelling contest in a 1948 Maserati that cost him more than £800,000
Category Documentary
Director Lionel Mill
Executive Producer Lisa Edwards, Alan Ravenscroft
Producer Lionel Mill
BBC2 N Ireland Digital 9:15pm-10:15pm (1 hour ) Sun 28 Dec

Steve

The cars are truly wonderful but yer man James Martin is acting like a spoiled kid.. all he can do is brag about how much everything costs and then cry at the side of the road when he broke his car by ragging the engine in the first leg...:rolleyes:

Still worth watching though, thanks mike.

kyote00

excellent program but very hard to empathise with the "cook".

Who drives the hole off a car with a rebuilt engine for the first 200miles....

Funny to see all those alfas and ferraris finishing - not a BWM, Audi or VW in sight....;-)

Bearcat

james came across as a prize prick. He goes off and buys a car for 800k stg and the thing calves. He basically p#ssed a million stg against the wall. He could have got an immac 1950's aston remade by aston for 200k and he'd have walked it. I though he was a decent guy as against our pal porking the blonde but they are all the same, spoilt brats.

maidhc

He came across as being a bit of a twit alright (he should have given the girl a chance to drive at least, maybe he would have later), but he likes cars and has the bobs so fair play. It made much more interesting viewing than those idiots on top gear before it anyway!

Btw I don't get the impression he actually drove the car that hard.

pburns

I'd never heard of him

Interesting viewing...

Didn't come across as a COMPLETE prick but definetely hard to empatise or have sympathy for a GrandTurismo-driving, model bonking rich dude with high falutin' ideas...

Missed the beginning - did he insist on doing it in an italian car? 'Cos I bet the Yanks in the MG paid a fraction of what the Maser cost... If he just wanted to do the Mille Miglia I'm sure he could have done it cheaper and smarter. Either that or he could have waited 'til he could afford to do it properly.

ronnie3585

I thought James came off as a complete spoiled brat too. He spends £300k on a top end rebuild and then drives the balls off the car for the first two hundred miles, idiot! No surprise he dropped a valve really.

Hot girlfriend though.

rebel.ranter

He is a chef so it is part of his make up to be a bit ignorant? Most chefs (going by generalisations) have short tempers & are arrogant e.g. "fncking" Gordon Ramsey.
I tried to see it from his point of view, but he still came across as ignorant. I like his Saturday morning slot on BBC, I'm always hungry after watching it!

I thought the car was very nice & I got a feeling from the start of the program that he had to get something "special" in order to gain his spot in the race. As in, he had to get a better, more unusual car to jump the queue so to speak. I got the feeling that he was told by the organisers "get something good or your not in". It appeared to me that was the case anyway.

You'd wonder why he got the co-driver from a track racing background for a rally? Surely a rally co-driver would be more suited to the job of map reading? Also I do think he would have given her a spin in it for a section in the middle of the rally, although he was a bit rude to her on occasion. I wonder did she get offended at the start line when he said he would have preferred if it was Heidi Klum?

I've broken enough engines to know that you cannot drive a newly rebuilt engine very hard. he should have known it too, he mentioned that he had a similar problem with a Ferrari.

lynnes

Watched this programme last week and have to agree that he is an absolute TWAT ! Just goes to show he has more money than sense. And what is with the being rude to EVERYONE?? Plus his girlfriend is a spoiled brat !
But... I am looking to find the music that is played when he is crying because he has knackered his car. Can anyone help ???
Thanks
Lynne

S.I.R

mike65 wrote: »

Heads up

The Mille Miglia is an annual 1,000-mile race through Italy featuring over 300 classic cars, with past competitors including motoring greats Juan Fangio, Tazio Nuvolari and Stirling Moss. Here, cameras follow TV chef and Formula One enthusiast James Martin as he prepares to compete in the gruelling contest in a 1948 Maserati that cost him more than £800,000
Category Documentary
Director Lionel Mill
Executive Producer Lisa Edwards, Alan Ravenscroft
Producer Lionel Mill
BBC2 N Ireland Digital 9:15pm-10:15pm (1 hour ) Sun 28 Dec

seen it... rather boring, some tidy cars alright but after 10 miutes i found myself screaming " what a phail " and turned over to them new episodes of family guy


did he suck or suck bad ??

omb0wyn5ehpij9

It's on bbc2 again at the moment

McSpud

Only saw the second half but he was very annoying, I don't see the BBC letting him out of the kitchen again.

Who was the girl in the passenger seat? I guessed the other blonde was the gf?

Notch000

saw this tool ast week, i think half his thinking was that the 800K spent on the car would be maxamised if he finished the race i.e the car would be 1m Euros +
He did come across as a toss pot and the lack of testing/running in the new engine was questionable. It was pretty ironic too that he only found out after that the 3 original 1948 race cars all retired with bust valves !! you think after spending 800 K he would have dug up that fact

RobAMerc

Watched this last night and quite enjoyed it.

Amazed at the reaction of the italian public towards it - can you imagine if that was in Ireland ! there would be a stack of auld grannies waving their fists at the contestants for driving too fast !

BTW - He had to buy something special otherwise he'd never have been able to enter they take history etc into account to as they do with all classics. that MG driven by the septic tanks was no ordinary MG - It was a Le Mans version afair - may well have been an original contestant or something

green-blood

They have to be original competition cars or a model that competed, you cant just put a trip on an MGB....

WONDERFUL event, but I get the feeling that Martin was out of his depth and taken for a ride. Hey, better to have naive enthusiasts than cynical scholars.
His car was affectivelya 2 seater F2 A6G fomthe late 40s/early 50s... a bit too fragile for him to handle.... he's gone totaly quiet about the "preparation" so it seems some legal actionis underway