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Gents,
I think it may be worth getting it into mordorian, since not all the people of Mordor speak English quite well. So I decided to first get that episode transcripted and then I could translate it into whatever language needed.
But, unfortunately, I am not quite good enough at english (especially, at the british version of it) so please help me checking my transcript and advise on what did they are actually saying at those episodes which I don't understand or do not get correctly. TIA.
Cpt. James: Now, when we heard the news that Saab had closed down, Jeremy and I were generally (?! may be genially?) very sad. Although, we weren't actually sure why, so we went to investigate.
Clarkson: Saab began as an airplane maker. But after The Second World War it noticed, that demand for fighter planes had dropped off dramatically. So it decided to start making cars as well. The first effort was created by two men: one who designed wings and one who designed bomb racks. Neither had done a car before and it kind of showed. Their prototype had enclosed front wheels which was very aerodynamic. But as you drove it long in winter snow would build up in the arches. And it was only when you got into a corner you noticed that steering had jammed. There were other issues too: the rear window was tiny and there was no boot lid. Mass-production was not their beg (?!bag?! Big? big what?) either: while Austin made their car every 27 seconds, it took Saab 27 minutes. Oh, and all their cars were painted green!
Clarkson: So, a green car with no boot you could use and - in bad weather - no steering. But, the biggest problem in those early days was the engine, as James shall now explain.
Cpt. James: This is the 92. It was Saab's first production car and it came with a thirsty two-stroke engine that produced just 25 horse-power.
Cpt. James: The real problem, however, is that the engine was only lubricated when you had your foot on the throttle. Because in a two-stroke the engine oil is mixed with the fuel. So if there's no fuel going in, there's no oil going in. That wasn't an issue when you were driving along a level - like this - or going up-hill, because you had you foot on the throttle and you had the oil going in (eh... can't really distinguish what he really is saying there). However once you were going downhill - like this - you had a problem: you had to brake with your left foot, but... ouuuh... hit the power on the bet (bet?! I don't follow) with your right foot so the engine still got some oil... oouuuuhhhh.... This is very tricky! And it feels a stupid on driving and stopping at the same time! Only when it comes you arrived at the bottom of the hill, you get brakes completely boiled over and your 65 mph Saab would be absolutely unable to stop. It's hopeless!
Cpt. James: Saab's history is littered with terrible mistakes like this. Then there was the 900 convertible, which was as rigid as a XXXXX (wee... kld; I just don't understand that word) salad. There was the Sonnet, which was supposed to be a sports car, but wasn't. And then in 1992 they even made a car with no steering wheel!
Titles: we would like to apologise for the music
Clarkson: And actual fact: the more you drive this, the easier becomes the temptation...
Titles: and the shirt, the jacket and the hair
Clarkson: temptation just to stare at the end of the bonnet and wonder then if you actually have any directional control at all!
Clarkson: so, lot's of sweedish strangeness and the advertising campaign that didn't make much sense either...
Offscreen: Only one aircraft manufacture makes cars: Sierra, Alfa, Alfa, Bravo.
Clarkson: Yes! Saab loved to remind that their cars came from a company, that made jet-fighters. But it was non-sense. This jet-fighter, for example, had an engine made by Volvo.
Offscreen: Saab - it's a pity other cars aren't built this way.
Clarkson: The idea was that you would buy *butchered* a jed-feighter for the wood (don't get the last word. What did he actually say? Road?). But would you?
Clarkson: So, James...
Cpt. James: uh?
Clarkson: You have a pilot's licence and I believe you've been in a Typhoon fighter aircraft.
Cpt. James: yes.
Clarkson: Is there anything in here that puts you in mind of that plane?
Cpt. James: no.
Clarkson: What, nothing?
Cpt. James: no.
Clarkson: Is the key down here on a Typhoon?
Cpt. James: no.
Clarkson: Do you have to lock the Typhoon in reverse before you take the key out?
Cpt. James: No, it doesn't have a reverse as such.
Clarkson: It has reverse thrust.
Cpt. James: Yeah, but it reverse gear. It doesn't have a key, actually.
Clarkson: It doesn't have the key or reverse... So this is really not the same. However, it does have a night-panel button down here and if I push this, it shuts down all the dial apart the speedo and I can see this would be useful if you were in an F-14 over the Pacific looking for the landing lights on your aircraft carrier. But only 38 just downside dau bee (WHAT?! I don't get it at all)... Why did you want that?
Cpt. James: no... I was used to actually ... (can understand) that they were broken anyway. But how do you know?
Clarkson: I must say I went to F-15 once...
Cpt. James: Oh, really? You did?
Clarkson: This is very very different because nothing in here is covered in sick (please confirm, that's a 80% guess of what he actually says)
Clarkson: Even after Saab was taken over by General Motors in the late 80's their marketing men kept acted (pls confirm, can't really understand what he said).
Offscreen: Breath-taking acceleration!
Clarkson: Here we had an F-22 Raptor, not built by Saab, being used to advertise what is basically the Vauxhall Cavalier!
Offscreen: Saab - Pure Driving Pleasure.
Clarkson: So, Saab - checked (what?) in history, bunk in advertising and lots and lots of hair-brained ideas. But, for every idea that had that did not work, that had another, which did. Often... brilliantly!
Clarkson: And one of the most brilliant ideas of the all was this: the 99 Turbo.
Clarkson: As Saab wasn't (weren't) the first to turbo-charge the cars - there was Chevrolet and there was BMW and Porsche - but they were the first to put a turbo-charge on a sort of mainstream car, which was this. And it was thanks to this car that everything in the 80s went turbo-crazy.
Cpt. James: The word 'turbo' as a result went to just anything that was really good.
Clarkson: oh, it did!
Cpt. James: I had a turbo vacuum-cleaner which was sort of fair enough. But I had met some (please confirm, can hardly hear what he actually says) of turbo sun-glasses! And it actually said it on the lens: turbo. You also got turbo-razes...
Clarkson: turbo aftershave!
Cpt. James: Did you?
Clarkson: I did not, cause I don't wear after-shave cause I'm not from Cheshire (what's that special about Cheshire?)
Clarkson: There was even more too because you can even buy your turbo with water-injection.
Clarkson: I don't understand that.
Cpt. James: Well, I could explain it to you, but you not interested.
Clarkson: Oh, I am interested.
Cpt. James: No, you're not. Are you really interested?
Clarkson: I am interested.
Cpt. James: Ok, water injection in the inlet cools the charge and makes it denser as the job which is later done by intercoo...
Clarkson: No, I'm not interested.
Clarkson: All we need to know is that water injection this turbo-charged pocket rocket could get from 0 60 in 8 seconds. That quick even by today standards!
Clarkson: It accelerates faster, then Mini Cooper. The modern Mini Cooper!
Cpt. James: Yeah.
Clarkson: And the Renault Sport Twingo 133. This is a fast car.
Cpt. James: WAIT!!!11
Clarkson: It is quick! Now, there is some saab weirdness - I'll be honest - the steering wheel come out of the dashboard at an angle, so it's like that. And there's a button here which says 'extra'
Cpt. James: Extra what?
Clarkson: It doesn't say, it just says EXTRA.
Cpt. James: Try it!
Clarkson: Ready?..
Cpt. James: yeah
Clarkson: *clicks EXTRA*
Cpt. James: You haven't got any more interesting or attractive.
Clarkson: Little details aside, this is a fantastic car.
Cpt. James: This is a truly fantastic car. This is a legendary car.
Clarkson: It is. I used to covered (WHAT?) this massively.
Clarkson: It wasn't just the speed I liked either, because when you look at the bumpers, sticking out like a spoiled child's bottom lip, you get a sense that scandinavian engineers cared about the safety of you and your family.
Cpt. James: Do you know I had my first proper road accident in one of these. I was a passenger here on this side. I was only 17 and it belong (belonged?) to my girlfriend's dad. And it was in a quite a rare color, it was lovely: it was white, it was blue stripe on the side and the interior was this... sort of brick red dusty color. And it was a really really nice car, we went into roundabout and the car coming up the road didn't stop. T-bone (what? pls advise) - that's right here - I was perfectly ok!
Clarkson: So what was the girl called?
Cpt. James: eh... Kate?.. no...
Clarkson: Well, you can remember that Saab had brick-red upholstery and had a blue stripe and where you were sitting, but you can't remember the name of your girlfriend!
Cpt. James: The girlfriends...
Clarkson: Was she call Erik?
Clarkson: Because this car was fast and safe and a bit left-filled (what does this mean?) it brought the Saab brand attention of the very specific type of customer. A customer who's remained loyal ever since. This person likes audies, this one like ferraries, this one likes the bus, this one has a honda, he has a peugeot... And then you have this chap: with a black polo made (please confirm, can hardly hear what he actually says) of a thin specks. He is an architect. And he likes saabs.
Research has shown that saab drivers are the best-educated people on the roads. The 99 gave Saab customers other companies can only dream about.
Clarkson: This car then was saab's Dark Side of the Moon, their first big hit. The one we'll remember.
Clarkson: None of the models that follow the 99 Turbo appeared to have quite the same appeal. But they did.
Clarkson: What we have here is an 1980's BMW hanging upside down 8 feet from the ground. And what we gonna to do is drop it.
Cpt. James: You donna wanna be in that if fell from the crane upside down.
Clarkson: If you were Richard Hammond you'd be alright.
Cpt. James: But nobody else. That's toast (not sure). The steering wheel is now touching the ceiling.
Clarkson: So, let's see what happens when we drop an 1980's Saab 900 from the same height.
Cpt. James: God, I really wouldn't have believed that!
Clarkson: I would not have believed that in a million years!
Cpt. James: Look at that! And I think you would probably be able to get out as well.
Clarkson: That's stunning!
Cpt. James: I have heard that Saab made the pillars so strong, that when they were rallying they didn't actually have to fit the roll-cage.
Clarkson: Is that true?
Cpt. James: Yeah. I mean you had to fit cause of the regulations, but it wasn't actually necessary.
Clarkson: You know I was talking on another day to a friend of mine who is... a senior designer with (with?!) another swedish car company. And he said nobody could ever work out why it cost (-s? -ed?) Saab so much money until they crashed it.
Cpt. James: Saab was always pathological at safety. Before putting a car on sale, they make sure it can survive just about anything! Even, a head-on collision with... a moose! This attention to details cost (-s? -ed?) a few problems when they were conceiving the 9000. Because to save coasts it was designed in tandem with the Lancia Thema.
Cpt. James: The idea was that behind the two different badges and underneath the two different bodies, the cars would actually be the same. And it seems like they were up until the point that they were crash-tested. Lancia's engineers described the results as 'Perfect!', Saab's engineers described them - and I'm quoting directly here - 'not good at all'. And from that moment on, the joint-venture completely fell apart.
Cpt. James: Saab ended up with much bigger wheels than the Lancia, and it's also made of a thicker steel. And they had a completely different rear axle! By sticking to principles like that is expensive (WHAT? That's not a proper phrase! please advise). And Saab was loosing money - hand over fist - on every car it made.
Cpt. James: Even advertising it as a jet-fighter for the road didn't help.
Offscreen: Saab 9000.
Cpt. James: So in 1989 Saab was bailed out by General Motors.
Clarkson: To try to launch some fiscal sensible .... (don't get it, please advise) executives from GM went over to Sweden and said 'look, this is a Cavalier from our Vauxhall division. And to make XXX (what?) new car what you do is just to change the body and the badges, that's it. Nice and cheap. Body and badges.'
Clarkson: Saab ignored them so completely, that the new 900 shared only a third of its components with the Cavalier.
Clarkson: When the time came to replace the 900 with the 9-3 the General Motors executives went over to Sweden again and said 'okey, here is the Vauxhall Vectra. Now this time we mean it, only change the body and the badges. Nothing else.'
Clarkson: Guess what? The swedes went even mental! They changes so much, that even the wheel base was different.
Clarkson: At one point the General Motors accountant went over to Sweden to why Saab was costing them so much money. And he got into the new 9-3, turned on the SatNav and thought 'wait a minute, that's not one of our systems!' and he was right! It wasn't. Saab had developed at vast expanse (please confirm) their own system, because they thought that GM's wasn't good enough.
Clarkson: Eventually, General Motors had have enough. And in 2010 as Saab was finishing the job of turning Vauxhall Insignia into a completely different 9-5 the Detroit giants pulled the plug.
Offscreen: The brand itself will have some residual value, but the company's facilities are likely to be broken up and sold.
Clarkson: At the last minute the buyer was found - a dutchman who owned a small car company called Spyker. To get the money rolling in he needed to get the new 9-5 into the showrooms as quickly as possible. That meant it went on-sale before it was finished. And that meant it was a commercial flop (what?). And so in January of this year Saab closed down for good.
Clarkson: so this is it, this is the last ever Saab, that we are in right now.
Cpt. James: Yeah.
Clarkson: This is the final chapter. I really like the way they did it. They did thinkful (absolutely sure I got it wrong, please correct). I am gonna miss Saab.
Cpt. James: It is a sad day.
Clarkson: It is sad.
Clarkson: It's a sad day too for swedish town of Trollhatten, where the 60 years the work force is trying to be different, to be better, to think outside the box. And of course, it's a very sad day for our architect friend, who from now on will have to buy a 5-series. Still there's one cream of comfort (WHAT?) because let's not forget whose engines powered the first ever jet-fighter: B-M-W.
Cpt. James: You ought to know, actually, that the Messershmitt 262 was supposed to be using BMW engines, but they were not actually born (what?), So they had to went with Junkers' engines went it went into action (50% guess from what I can hear, please confirm and advise).
Cpl. Humpster: James, we haven't got enough time for your precise history of aviation of 1944 (please confirm) right now, because now what I'm interested in is will those architects who's got Saabs today, if a company is gone, how do they keep their cars on the road? (please advise on the whole phrase, can hardly get his words)
Clarkson: Wel, you might imagine that if you had a Saab you could take it to the Vauxhall dealer. But because Saab have changed so much, it (unclear) to take to W. X. Smith. I mean (unclear) on servicing.
Cpt. James: But the actually good news is that this month new company has started up specifically to provide parts for Saabs. So if you are an architect, fingers crossed you should be ok for a bit.
Clarkson: Do you know that it's the second week on a raw we ended with a useful piece of consumer advice! And on that bomb-shell it's a time to end. Thanks so much for watchin, good night!
posted by 188.134.44...
, Wed, 7 Mar 2012 10:01:52, Mon, 5 Mar 2012 09:10:30
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