27-year-old unknowingly buys Top Gear used BMW M3 that has issues

Rob Willis, 27, discovered his flash BMW M3 motor had brake and steering problems soon after buying it from a dealership.

But he was then stunned to see Clarkson skidding round a racetrack in it while watching an old episode of the hit BBC motoring show.

IT operations manager Rob said: “When I bought it, I was told it was an ex-demo which one of the managers had been driving. The brakes were constantly squeaking and the steering wheel made a clunking noise every time I came off the motorway.

“But we were watching Top Gear about four weeks later and my fiancée noticed that the M3 Jeremy Clarkson was driving had the same number plate as my car.

 

 

“You could see smoke coming out from the wheels, he was taking the curves that fast.” In the show, the axed host boasts about the sports car’s performance as he whizzes round a track.

He says: “If a burglar comes, it has the power to rip its throat out. I’m an attack dog now. I’m fierce, I’m bitey.

“Going round a corner like this is like wrestling with the tail of an excitable crocodile.” But Rob, from Dartford, Kent, who had ferried young relatives round in the car, was far less impressed.

He said: “It’s outrageous, I have an eight-year-old daughter and three young nephews whose lives have been risked. The dealers told me it was a mistake and the car should never have been sold as it was unfit for the road.”

Rob says he was given a BMW 330d as a replacement plus freebies from the dealership, which was unavailable for comment.

An AA spokesman said: “Going around a track puts a lot more stress on the vehicle as opposed to sustained mild stress. If someone was told a vehicle was thrown around a track they would probably think twice before buying it.”