I'd say you were pretty correct there Joe. JC is absolutely fawned over by the car manufacturers which makes him pretty spoiled - and he is, as you say, brutal in his judgements on cars. He loved the GT more than any man has a right to, unfortunately he was unlucky with the aftermarket parts (needed for UK specialist insurance - tracker etc) and the alarm system/immobiliser just kept failing. This was because he had one of the first GT's and I think the alarm installers were still learning where best to site the equipment.
American cars in the UK are seen generally as being rather large, ponderous and very soft when compared with performance Italian, German or (dare I say) British (assembled) machinery. When the GT was launched it was a revelation and remains so, an iconic.... no, THE iconic car. We had to have it - Clarkson included. He loved it. But on the 4th or 5th failure, I think he'd had enough, particularly given his short amount of patience.
Owners like those here, would forgive the occassional failure - he wouldn't. Having said that, I've never had any problems with my GT to make me worry. Sure the transaxle weeped a bit and the odometer needed fixing - but I've had glitches with Range Rovers, Aston Martins, Lamborghini's - we all have.
The problem Clarkson has (as does any 'personality') is that every sentence, every word is analysed.... He's not right every time, but he's never far out - apart from his ultimately harsh and silly view on the GT. Don't forget of course that his co presenters (James and Richard) were desperate to trash the GT because Jeremy had bought one (as boys do), so when it went wrong, I think Jeremy was keen to 'get in there first'.
