Porsche 911 Turbo vs Mercedes SL55 AMG S2 E6 Full Episode Remastered _ Fifth Gear

**Navigating London's Congestion Charge: Alternatives to Traditional Car Ownership**

As one of the most congested cities in the world, London has implemented various measures to reduce traffic and encourage alternative modes of transportation. The congestion charge, introduced in 2003, charges drivers a daily fee to enter certain areas of the city center. While this may seem like a straightforward solution, there are those who prefer not to be burdened by the daily fee or who value their independence on the road.

For those who don't want to shell out a daily five pounds to avoid congestion charges, an amphibious car is a viable option. For 24 grand, a Dutton Commander can travel at six miles per hour on water and has four-wheel drive, making it a convenient way to navigate through traffic. The only drawback is the cost of parking near the river, with slip roads onto the Thames itself limited to just a handful. Moreover, residents who want to park closer to their homes may find that finding a spot near the river is hardly practical.

Another option for those looking to avoid congestion charges is buying a house in central London. While the cost of housing in the city is exorbitant, residents are exempt from paying the daily charge. However, this means that if you're not into people carrying, you'll need to opt for an alternative mode of transportation. Anything with more than nine seats is exempt, whether used or not, while vehicles with two wheels are also exempt, including 1500 cc motorcycles.

For those who prefer something a bit more practical, scooters and bikes can be a viable option. London has several charitable outlets, such as Carter Healy's "Go to B," where you can try before you buy various forms of scooters and bikes. From Christine C5 bikes to waterproof scooters, there's something for everyone. Electric-powered cars, like Ford's Think, are also exempt from the congestion charge and can be rented for a mere 10 pounds a day.

While these alternatives may seem appealing, it's worth considering whether they're truly better than public transportation. Having independence on the road is a luxury that many take for granted, but with the rise of traffic congestion, it's becoming increasingly important to have control over our daily commutes. Moreover, relying solely on scooters or bikes can be a challenge, especially for those who don't enjoy attracting attention.

However, there are some vehicles that are exempt from the congestion charge, including approved LPG cars and hybrid cars. Volvo, Honda, and Toyota all offer such models, which combine conventional and battery power to achieve fuel efficiency. While they may not be as cheap as an LPG car, with prices starting at under 16 grand, they're hardly any more expensive than a standard car. Additionally, these vehicles average 65 miles per gallon in town, making them an attractive option for those who value both environmental sustainability and practicality.

For now, it seems that many will continue to stick with their traditional cars, opting not to compromise on what little credibility they have left by purchasing trendy scooters or hybrids. As the city continues to navigate its congestion challenge, one thing is clear: there are alternatives to traditional car ownership for those who value independence and practicality. Whether you choose an amphibious car, a house in central London, or a scooter, it's essential to weigh your options carefully before making a decision.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthank you in this edition of fifth gear one of the glamest cars from the 70s the Aston Martin Lagonda driving from London to Brighton in a smart crossblade and how to drive round London's new congestion charge just for a minute imagine you're going for a long cross-country Drive in the Wilds of Wales imagine you've got a thousand pounds to spend on a car you want sports car handling but you want it with all the comfort of an executive Saloon what you want is a GT car your money can buy yes you could be all patriotic play James Bond and buy yourself an Aston Martin db7 but in the back of your mind you'd know that when fiction turned reality you'd be blown away by the opposition why because there are only really two choices and they're both German first let me remind you that the Perpetual honing of Porsche's 911 has been going on for 40 years and apart from your specialist racing machine since 1974 the turbo has been its Flagship model it started out with what is now a rather puny 260 BHP but that has grown to a mightily impressive 420 well the price has risen to 87 and a half Grand but for years it's had no real challenges for the cross-country Marathon until another Stuttgart resident stepped into the ring and the Mercedes offer their SL55 with 476 BHP for just two grand more than the basic turbo but it's horsepower load enough to steal the 911's crown let's face it in recent years Mercedes haven't really known what the meaning of fun is fitting an ever-growing army of computers to take more and more control away from the driver but now they've given their in-house tuning Specialists AMG the task of producing something that's hopefully more than just a marketing ploy they've slipped their fabled five and a half liter V8 into the SL and supercharged it to produce that 476 PHP in a mass-produced road car it's almost boring old Madness and in order to be able to cope with it they produce breaks that dry themselves in the west and a suspension system it's got an IQ and a personality but more of all that later First Impressions first all right to make the 55 more Armani and less Austin Reed AMG have given the SL some much needed visual oomph there's no less than 10 scithing fins a stunning set of 18-inch Alloys some extra length side skirts and a Tarmac sucking lower front bib it's a look that works well from the outside but back on the inside it's that wall of power that keeps grabbing your attention oh this SL55 is oh so impressive awesome is a hard word to Define that this defines it it seems to want to ease up the road as it growls along it's daring anything to get in its path now that I've mentioned the huge horsepower of the SL55 I haven't yet mentioned the fact that it weighs two tons and yet you can still get to 62 in just 4.7 seconds with that V8 almost shaking the ground beneath you however you do feel the weight of the car when you're driving it the front wants to about wide when you push into corners and potholes need to be avoided because they send a shuddering shock waves to the chassis and then there's the constant little minor interruptions caused by those ever overprotective computers which want to take away some of my power or put a break on of course you can switch most of that assistance off but then without a limited differential you end up spinning all the power away from the inside of rear wheel and create Antics that really shouldn't be seen on public roads which is why our attention must turn back to the Porsche thank you the 911 maybe 56 horsepower down but it's also a massive 400 kilos lighter and leaps to 62 a full half a second quicker with its four-wheel drive yes the traction control here as well but with a center differential varying the power delivered to the front wheels from as little as five percent to as much as 50 you get a whole lot more action onto the tarmac before those computers spoil the thumb and even ly confidence Interruption and you can Delight in the use of this manual six-speed gearbox yes Top Gear is a bit long but once you've changed the fifth gear things really start to come alive this this as a cover's soul it's a car you drive whereas the SL55 tends to drive you a bit too much whilst the Mercedes was awesome this simply superb and if you really want to you can now order your turbo with a seven and a half grand performance pack to give yourself another 30 horsepower so is there anything the SL55 can do better well of course there is because if summer ever returns it can do this Transformer to Sandra play for the next series now Mike's just changed my mind but for me the 911 is a far better buy some people think smart cars are a bit of a joke and just for Greenies who want to give Mother Earth a big hug but they'd be wrong they're actually driven by lots of improbable Nutters who need a cool car to get enthusiastic about again and a lot of those smart owners decided to get together and have their own rally it's called the London to Brighton run usually the preserver of crusty old Giffords driving steam cars well not anymore it's a simple idea you get a load of mates together and drive from London to Brighton more of an issue when you've got this many mates though this summer around 800 smart cars gathered at London's Alexandra Palace ready for a 55-mile jaunt of vegetarian Brighton any random stray could sign up provided they own one of these and the more individual the car the better which is why this one is covered in plastic grass that means to stand out in the smart Club you need to be a bit uh extra Daft so I got myself this a smart crossblade the same designer pram then it looked like this if Judge Dredd was gay then he'd probably fight crime in a crossblade it's a smart with no roof no doors no windscreen and no idea of weather protection but the interior is entirely rubberized and look how much noise it makes twice the amount of owners expected turned up on the day which made getting the whole thing rolling a bit like chewing tin foil still once we made the parade all we had to do was go and get our picture taken in London and then onto the coast setting didn't quite work out that way it sounds so simple drive up to Hyde Park Corner Circle a couple of times and line up for a snap don't crash and try not to feed the locals but London wasn't playing ball have you ever tried cruising with 800 mates yes it really is that bad you only need one of these crossblades if you're bored of heat comfort and hearing the three cylinder engine is the size of a handbag 0.6 of a liter that's about a pint but with a turbo to give it a bit of a chaser 16 and a half Grand don't make me laugh a crossbay's got 10 horsepower more than a normal smart because it weighs a little bit more it's not actually any quicker but if you take off the windscreen and the doors it means it feels really fast but the crossblade could have been capable of the double turn it makes no difference stuck in traffic moving no faster than walking pace following the photo call the London to Brighton run became the London to Brighton sit still we have traveled two miles in 50 minutes count them 50 minutes why have a city car when you can't go anywhere in it London is crap get me out of this place I hate it I hate it just sort it out London this now I knew this was going to be interesting but on the motorway the crossblade is like repeatedly hitting yourself in the head with a hammer it's no fun and pretty pointless juggernauts pass by spraying you with unburned diesel and small children bound obscenities from the vaccines of coaches you need a really big ego to drive a Crossbay without a bag of your head let's look at that it took five hours but eventually we'd reached the Finish Line where we found more cars and it actually started the rally at least 100 had joined up on the way through London just to see what was going on so smart owners are easy to pick up as well as being a bit um special so you're obsessed with cows though yes it's my pride and joy and this is what vinyl yeah all the paneling is all done with vinyl so you've made a cow out of smart yes and it's got ears it's got ears I put the ears on and it's full of cows and it's full of cows you've really got to get over this thing so if a standard smart will do north 60 in about 17 and a half seconds how fast will this go we're looking at a good 12. maybe 11 nines so it's fairly uh well a lot quicker than a standard smart yeah but this event left me asking myself if there really is such a thing as a standard smart all the panels pop on and off in about half an hour so they're easy to personalize the variety was huge see the whole thing about the smart aluminum to brightness it's actually pretty hard to get into if you haven't got one but this is Pop Culture with vehicles it's a new cult in a world of niches and because smarts are so cheeky and cheap it means you can get into that club for about six grand which is great it's like Bug Jam for people with good hair and furniture from habitat so if you want to get cool Get Smart coveted by schoolboys Arabs and pools winners the wedge-shaped Aston Martin Lagonda of 76 is one of those cars that's in dire danger of being deified and you can see why dramatic startling even the pointy lag sported a blameless bloodline computer Wizardry a stout 4 cam British V8 and a cabin straight out of Captain Scarlet perfect credentials in fact to send it and its used prices ricocheting into the big bucks classic car stratosphere foreign the superlatives to pile up to shoulder height it's worth remembering that this car was nothing more than a publicity stunt for Aston Martin it's 1976 there's a huge oil crisis nobody's buying Aston V8s the receiver has been at the factory for over a year and the bank manager is around the corner with his engine running Aston badly needed some PR and they got it this is the car that saved Aston Martin but it didn't save Aston because it's sold in huge numbers no in 14 years only 645 Aston Martin lagondas were sold no it saved Aston because when it came out 250 people each Place deposits of 2500 quid for this car and Aston used that money to bankroll their future so knowing all this can we really give the wedge-shaped Aston Martin Lagonda a place in the hallowed motoring Hall of Fame and the answer to that one is a big fat no yes it was one of the most designs of the decade and yes it was hand built with a heart-stoppingly heavy price tag of 50 Grand the equivalent of a quarter of a million in the 70s and yes it had a baroque interior that looked like it was furnished for Hugh Hefner and Liberace and I know those touch sensitive switches must have seemed more futuristic than a Sinclair C5 and the digital instrument display would have wowed all those fledgling computer geeks in Silicon Valley but the Aston Martin Lagonda has one character flaw that prevents it being elevated to Classic status it looks like hell and even lady Tavistock who was involved in the original launch and was the first public owner even she sounds well a touch lukewarm the very first time we went on the road in it it was quite terrifying because we had a backup vehicle behind because it could easily have stopped because it was I think one of the first cars with a computer an onboard computer and they were much bigger then and they were also very unreliable so it was very nerve-wracking of course it was exciting but you've just wondered always when you set off on a trip where you going to get there everybody would turn around and look at it and what was it and it created a lot of excitement some people absolutely hated it other people thought it was beautiful I still think you'd have exactly the same reactions today it was fun couldn't put anything in it but it was fun but if you're expecting the performance to be as dramatic as the looks you're going to be very very disappointed it just simply is not that quick it's a typical slashmatic 280 BHP detuned V8 engine and you might top out at 140 but the acceleration it is honestly nothing to to write home about body control is quite good rides quite good but steering there's a bit of slop and this stupid steering wheel like something out of Joe 90 honestly I really could hate this car if I tried hard really really could hate it it's just so horribly horribly 70s one of the most interesting things with these cars is to walk around them spot all the parts from other cars we've got in here xj6 ashtrays we're over 3500 let's take a red lighter the rear shocks the river 3500 the door handles a Ford Cortina and when a lot of the parts were forward sourced what they had to do was to file off the Ford emblem on the parts because most of them went to the Middle East and at that time America was the great Satan so they didn't want some shake pulling a switch seeing the dreaded blue oval and thinking Americans no no no this is an interesting piece of history no more no less now you can buy one of these in reasonable petal for around 10 to 12 000 pounds and if you want something that turns the heads of every single bus queue then fine but as your color advisor I would say no because financially it's going to be a nightmare you'll need friends at Fort Knox to run this car most of them have had not one set of Sills but two three even four the electrics are a complete Nightmare and it's just one of those cars that was just not well built so you'll get all the attention but you and your bank manager will form a long and meaningful relationship this car never really looked comfortable with itself but it isn't old-fashioned it isn't modern it isn't it's itself and perhaps that is a good Epitaph it was only itself it was never an imitation and no one has ever imitated it which let's be frank is probably just as well because the world really only needs one Aston Martin Lagonda so let's not use words like iconic legend or motoring Milestone let's see the Aston Martin Lagonda for what it really is a flamboyant flourish of the designer's pencil meant to whip up some badly needed PR this is not a great car some may say it is it is merely one of those pieces of 70s kitch that has grown old rather two disgracefully foreign love it but I hate the traffic there are 2.8 million registered cars in the capital and the roads are at breaking points if the situation gets any worse our Capital will reach gridlock so mayor Ken Livingston has decided to implement a congestion busting scheme which he hopes will encourage people to use our ailing public transport system whilst cutting traffic and if you live outside London don't think you'll Escape if it's successful other cities will follow from February the 17th next year the city of London are going to charge five pounds a day to enter the central area that's roughly the bit in between the inner ring roads from seven in the morning till 6 30 at night there won't be any barriers or bollards but there won't be any Escape either there's 200 million quids worth of CCTV that's over 230 cameras all armed and anxious to spot my registration and send it back to a Central Computer to make sure I've paid so if you don't want to Shell out a fiver every day but still want to keep the independence of your own set of wheels what can you do easy all you need is one life jacket oh yeah and one amphibious car that's right an amphibious car 24 Grand worth of Dutton Commander it's got a 1.9 liter Renault Megane engine four-wheel drive and on the water it can travel at six miles an hour who said traveling to work had to be boring bon voyage you can drive from your home to a river slip Road near the central zone and Propel yourself to the center there's a lot less traffic and no speed cameras the only trouble is that if you don't want to park near the river it's hardly very handy the law in charges are only a thousand pounds a year which isn't too bad but they're only a handful of slips onto the Thames itself which could make life pretty difficult shiver me timbers I was quite getting into it full head both Mr Simpson of course you could always buy a house in central London residents get a 90 reduction on The Daily charge so it's just 50p a day but with house prices running into millions the songs just don't Stack Up anything with more than nine seats is exempt whether you use them or not so you could buy yourself an old minibus not exactly congestion busting I know but hey I didn't make the rules but if you're not into people carrying don't worry because anything with two wheels is exempt as well even 1500 cc's of Hardcore Hedonism like this or there's the conventional scooter or what about a fold away one this is more like it you can park up a few miles out of town put it out of your car Boot and ride into the City and most people can ride it on an ordinary car license it only costs 1400 quid and we'll do 30 miles an hour it's really easy to use and traffic isn't an issue then you can fold it up again put it under your desk until you want to go home brilliant and London also has a place where you can try before you buy Carter Healy runs a sort of charitable outfit called a go to B where you can explore all forms of scooters and bikes and see how you get on from his haunt under the A40 you can try anything ranging from a Christine C5 bikes that can tow your own wardrobe waterproof scooters bikes without chains Kitty rickshaws and my favorite but least practical this psychedelic homage to the 1970s electric powered cars like Ford's think are also exempt from the congestion charge and he'll rent you one for 10 pounds a day are all these really better than public transport it's better to be self-sufficient it's better to know when you're going to get there it's better to know how you're going to get there and to not rely upon so many factors which you have no control over we have this Independence and luxury of a car and having grown up with cars and the convenience of it we don't want to give that up but it may be the odd sorts of Scooters or bikes aren't for you if you're the sort of person who doesn't like attracting attention of The Unwanted sword you may want to stick with four wheels and a car happily some of those are exempt from congestion charges too such as all approved LPG cars as are or hybrid cars ones that use a combination of conventional and battery power which is ridiculous because even though they're more economical and environmentally friendly they're exactly the same size as ordinary cars so where's the congestion busting in that well we're not sure but Volvo Honda and Toyota Don't Want to Miss a trick so they sell such cars straight off the shelf LPG is half the cost of petrol and the buy fuel Volvo is hardly any more expensive than the standard car at under 16 Grand both the Toyota and Honda are hybrids they may look as though they've been designed in the dark but thanks to combined battery and petrol power they average 65 miles to the gallon in town and all these cars fail and drive like the real thing so there are ways around paying that Fiverr a day but I don't want to buy another car and I don't want to compromise what little credibility I've got left on one of those trendy scooters so for the time being I'm gonna sit with my car I wonder how many of you will do the same we'll see thank you foreign\n"