Top Gear's final 'Reasonably Priced Car' auctioned off online
While the media continue to bark about Clarkson, May, Hammond, and even The Stig, one of Top Gear’s most faithful servants remains almost forgotten — the humble reasonably priced car.
Starting with a Suzuki Liana, which the show retained for the special Formula 1–driver board, various different cars proudly wore the ‘reasonably priced car’ moniker. The Suzuki was eventually replaced with a Chevrolet Lacetti, which in turn was replaced with a Kia C’eed.
Then finally the show wound up with a lipstick-red Vauxhall Astra — which you can now find for sale online courtesy of Vauxhall Motors.
With its disabled airbags and roll-cage, the car is not road legal, but you can’t put a price on its novelty. Unless you’re a bidder of course, in which case I guess you can.
In total, 22 stars of varying degrees of celebridom have steered the Astra, the quickest of which was pop artist Olly Murs on a 1:44.6 — topping a list which included AC/DC’s Brian Johnson, Hollywood’s Will Smith and Hugh Jackman, and penis-joke connoisseur Jimmy Carr.
At the time of writing, the car was sitting at a reasonably reasonable £8,800.00, with over five days remaining in its auction. Funds raised from the auction will be donated to BEN, a charity organization that focuses on “those who work, or have worked, in the automotive and related industries, as well as their dependents.”