大猩猩克拉克森与蓝旗亚的浪漫爱情史
Jeremy Clarkson’s love affair with old Lancias
大猩猩克拉克森与蓝旗亚的浪漫爱情史
Back in the 1970’s, buying a Lancia was no more extraordinary than enjoying a nice cup of tea – in Britain alone over 40,000 people did it every year. But by the 1990’s sales of Lancia vehicles had tanked, and the flailing car company ended up pulling out of the British market all together.
回到20世纪70年代，在英国买一辆蓝旗亚就像泡一杯上好的香茗——单单在英国每年就有40,000人能够享受这样的待遇。但是20年后，90年代的蓝旗亚销量搁浅，风雨飘摇的意大利人最终完全退出了英国市场。
For Jeremy Clarkson this was incredibly sad – because he could remember a time where they made cars like this…
对于克拉克森来说，这是一个相当残酷的事实——因为他记得那一段时光里蓝旗亚造出了这样的艺术品…
The Fulvia, in Clarkson’s own words, epitomised everything that was good about cars in the 1960’s. It had a rather sophisticated suspension setup, an unusual V4 engine and disc brakes on all four wheels – and while it may not have been incredibly fast, through the bends it handled like nothing else.
Fulvia，克拉克森自己形容，代表了20世纪60年代的汽车里那些最美好的点点滴滴。它拥有相当复杂的悬挂，不同寻常的V4引擎和四轮碟刹——尽管这辆车不是特别快，但是它过起弯来行云流水，超凡脱俗。
And then you had the Lancia Monte Carlo – a pretty two-door, two-seater, mid engined coupe that was sort of scaled-down Ferrari.
然后就是美轮美奂的蓝旗亚Monte Carlo——一辆帅气的双门双坐中置引擎跑车，可以算作一辆小法拉利了。
“The Monte Carlo was a lovely car to drive too,” Clarkson said on Top Gear back in 1994. “Nimble, fast and flowing. But it was not so lovely when you wanted to stop.”
“Monte Carlo的驾驶感受也非常棒，”克拉克森在1994年的Top Gear上曾这样评论过。“灵活，快速，流畅，但是一旦你想停下来，就不那么轻松了。”
That was because the Monte Carlo had a habit of locking the front wheels far too easily, and Lancia ended up withdrawing the car from sale for two years while they fixed it. Later models had the brake servo deleted from the car all together, meaning it barely stopped at all.
因为在Monte Carlo上市之初，前轮就很容易锁死，蓝旗亚为了这个问题将车辆从市场召回，花了2年时间想办法解决，最后的办法就是将车内的刹车辅助系统直接彻底移除，也就是说这辆车很难将自己刹住。
But the Monte Carlo’s faults were small news compared to the debacle that was the Lancia Beta – the biggest seller in Lancia’s range, and unfortunately the most rust-prone too.
但是Monte Carlo的毛病在蓝旗亚的历史中也不算起眼，特别是与当初拖垮蓝旗亚的罪魁祸首——Beta相比而言。蓝旗亚Beta作为蓝旗亚旗下最卖座的系列，却也是最容易生锈的一款车。
A widely circulated rumour stated that the cars used Soviet steel supplied to Fiat in return for building the Lada factory. The steel problems are more likely due to poor rustproofing techniques as well as the prolonged strikes that plagued Italy at that time rather than the metal’s origin.
当时广为流传的一个谣言是，这辆Beta使用了苏联回赠给菲亚特的钢铁，感谢当初菲亚特为苏联建立拉达工厂。而生锈问题更多来源于当时落后的防锈技术和意大利盛行共产主义时导致的长时间罢工，所以钢铁的来源也就没那么重要了。
“Most Beta’s were bought back by the company and crushed,” Clarkson said at the time. “But a few slipped through the net – and you should avoid them very vigorously.”
“大部分的Beta都被蓝旗亚买回去销毁了，”克拉克森当时是这么说的。“但是有极少数Beta还在二手车网站上流通——大家应该极力避免购买这种车。”
This is an odd thing for him to say, when you consider that he personally selected a 1981 Lancia Beta Coupe to take on one of the toughest Top Gear specials ever filmed – the Botswana Special .
话是这么说，但是在十几年后，克拉克森却又不知道从哪里找来了一辆1981年的蓝旗亚Beta Coupe作为Top Gear特辑中最艰苦的博茨瓦纳特辑的使用车辆，也是蛮奇怪的一件事情。
But Clarkson has a history of buying knackered old cars on the show and then falling in love with them. I mean he could have purchased an old Toyota or Subaru and it would have been utterly reliable and continued running until the end of time, but where’d the fun be in that?
但是克拉克森不是没干过这种事，买一辆破旧的老车参加节目然后彻底爱上它。其实他完全可以买一辆可靠的老丰田或者斯巴鲁，一路安安稳稳地开到终点。不过那样的话，节目就不能像现在这样有趣了。
You see, the real reason Jeremy loves old cars from unreliable marques such as Lancia and Alfa Romeo is they’re so full of character that it is literally streaming out of the radiator hoses and seeping out between every gasket.
而杰里米喜爱那些经典但是不靠谱的老车——比如老蓝旗亚或者老阿尔法罗密欧——还有一个原因，那就是它们的驾驶体验太独特了，哪怕是开一次坏一次，散热器各种冒白烟，油都要从发动机里渗出来滴到地上，也不会放弃。
As humans we cannot and will never ever be perfect – and thus it is extremely difficult to love something that is so close to being perfect.
作为人类而言，我们无法做到十全十美——这也就是为什么，那些接近完美的存在反而让人不敢去喜爱，不敢去靠近。
“If you’re going to form a relationship with a car, if you’re going to develop a bond, it’s got to have human qualities, and if it’s got human qualities it’s got to have faults.” – Jeremy Clarkson
“如果你准备和一辆车度过一段时光，信任它，把自己的命交给它，那么这辆车就拥有了人类的特性，如果你把它当成一个人，那么它一定有缺陷。”
—— 杰里米.克拉克森
Take the Lancia Stratos for example – which is one of Clarkson’s most favourite cars. It was difficult to get into, difficult to see out off, and difficult to drive due to poor visibility and a strange scissor-style driving position that meant your legs were pointing slightly towards the centre of the car. It also weighed only 980kg and had a 190bhp V6 engine from a Ferrari Dino.
就拿蓝旗亚Stratos举例——这辆车也是克拉克森最喜爱的车之一。但是Stratos很难进入，视野也很差，座椅的位置也很奇怪，在你看不太清楚外面的情况时，你的腿还不是直对踏板的，而是略微向汽车中心倾斜，导致驾驶起来非常困难。不过整车重量仅为980千克，还拥有法拉利Dino 上那具190匹马力的V6引擎。
“It felt like you were going sideways even before you’d turned the key,” Clarkson says. “Then, after you’d turned the key, and located the throttle pedal, which was behind the passenger sun visor, you would have an enormous accident, because the Stratos had a wheelbase of about one inch. And the brake pedal was usually still in the factory.”
“奇怪的坐姿，以至于在你一坐上Stratos的时候就感觉自己的车可能要侧滑了，”克拉克森说。“然后，在你点火后确认油门踏板，你会发现它躺在副驾驶座遮阳板的下面，这么开车可能会是一场巨大的车祸，因为Stratos的轴距大概也就几十公分这样子，而刹车踏板一般都还留在蓝旗亚的工厂里。”
“If I were James May, I’d say now that it made the root of my penis fizz.”
“按照老船长詹姆士梅的说法，Stratos能让我的下面的小兄弟非常兴奋。”
翻译：GearKnobs字幕组—飘落的芹菜叶子
