‘A lot of wiring is held together with cable ties. It looks like the back of the hi-fi I had at school’
“大量线束是用扎带绑在一起的。它看起来像我上学时那台高保真音响的背面。”
I did 300 yards in the big off-roader you see in the pictures this morning before I thought, “Hang on, something weird is going on here.” The windscreen was held in place with the sort of amateurish mastic paste you’d normally find in an allotment shed. There was an air gap between the bonnet and the body of the car as big as the air gap between the top of a rapper’s trousers and his shirt. And the seat wouldn’t have been more uncomfortable if it had been a spike.
今天早上，我开着照片里这辆大越野车走了300米，然后脑子里警铃大作：“等等，这地方不对劲。”挡风玻璃是用业余得令人发指的密封胶泥糊住的，那种胶泥你通常只会在自留地棚屋里见到。引擎盖和车身之间的缝隙，大得足以媲美说唱歌手裤腰和衬衫下摆之间的空隙。座椅的舒适度？就算那是一根尖刺，也不会更难受了。
amateurish adj.业余的；不够熟练的
allotment n.配额；份额
This car then, felt like a school project, sounded like a Tube train with a dentistry descant and rode like a chest of drawers falling down a back staircase. And there was no styling at all. It was just an acre of straight edges.
那么，这车开起来像学校手工课项目，听起来像一列伦敦地铁配上牙医钻头的伴奏，行驶质感则像一个五斗橱从后楼梯一路滚下去。造型？完全没有。就是一英亩的直边。
Now, I’ve driven some bad cars over the years. The FSO Polonez sits in my head as a prime contender for the title. It had a steering column that was apparently set in concrete, it bounced rather than drove along and the interior was Soviet-bread-queue austere. But in all fairness I’d have to say Geoff was even worse.
多年来我开过不少烂车。FSO Polonez 在我心里一直是这个头衔的头号种子。它的转向柱显然是被浇在混凝土里的，开起来不是行驶，是弹跳，内饰则是苏联面包排队式的清苦。但平心而论，我得说姐夫还要更糟。
contender n.竞争者
austere adj.朴素的；严厉的；（经济政策）紧缩的
Geoff was an electrical car that we built on Top Gear. The chassis came from a TVR, the drivetrain from a milk float and I made the body from whatever was lying around in the workshop. The bonnet was made from an up-and-over council house garage door and there was the lid from a chest freezer in there too. It had a top speed of 10mph and was hopeless in every way. And here I was, 17 years later, in something that felt eerily similar.
姐夫是我们在《最高档》里造的一辆电动车。底盘来自 TVR，传动系统来自送奶电动车，车身是我用修车房里随手捡的东西拼的。引擎盖来自一扇廉租房的上翻式车库门，里面还塞了个冰柜盖子。极速16公里/小时，每个方面都无可救药。而17年后，我坐在这儿，开着某个诡异相似的东西。
There’s no way an actual car manufacturer would send something like this for a review. And that’s why I stopped: to look for the hidden camera. In all seriousness I suspected I was in the middle of some kind of Candid Camera prank, and that Ant and Lard were going to rear up out the boot at any moment and say, “Gotcha.”
真正的汽车制造商绝不可能把这种东西送来评测。所以我停了车，去找隐藏摄像头。说真的，我怀疑自己正身处某种《偷拍相机》整蛊现场，小安和拉尔德随时会从后备箱里蹿出来喊：“整蛊成功！”
in all seriousness 认真地；以认真的方式
Candid Camera 美国经典偷拍整蛊电视节目，中文常译《偷拍相机》。此处克拉克森怀疑自己正被整蛊。
But there was no camera and Ant and Lard weren’t in the boot, so I turned round and went home to find out what this car was all about. This took a while as you need to turn the wheel four times to go from lock to lock and the last half a turn requires a superhuman effort. But I got the job done eventually and set to work.
但没有摄像头，小安和拉尔德也不在后备箱里。于是我掉头回家，去搞清楚这车到底什么来路。这花了点时间，因为方向盘从左到右打满要转四圈，最后半圈得靠超人的力气。但我最终还是搞定了，然后开始干活。
It was designed and built in Scotland, which, over the years, has given the world such things as television and the refrigerator, but carmaking has always been a struggle for some reason. There was the Argyll, which was terrible, and the Scamp, which was worse and, er, that’s about it. And now we have the Munro, which is Scottish for mountain. Probably because they both have the same turning circle.
这车在苏格兰设计和制造。多年来，苏格兰给世界贡献了电视和冰箱之类的东西，但不知为何，造车一直很费劲。有过 Argyll，很糟；还有 Scamp，更糟；呃，差不多就这些。现在有了 Munro，苏格兰语里是“山”的意思。大概是因为两者转弯半径差不多。
Argyll/Scamp 苏格兰历史上失败的汽车品牌和车型，克拉克森用来讽刺苏格兰汽车工业的坎坷。
The company began electrifying old Land Rovers until one day they thought, “Why don’t we build an electric off-road car of our own?” So they have and, interestingly, on their website there was a link to a review by Tom Ford from Top Gear Magazine.
这家公司一开始是把旧路虎电动化，直到有一天他们想：“为什么不自己造一辆电动越野车？”于是他们造了。有意思的是，他们网站上还挂着一个链接，指向Top Gear 杂志的汤姆·福特写的评测。
Now Tom is a fine car journalist, so why on earth would this tiny little McStart-up provide prospective customers with a link to his review, which I felt sure would be firm but fair? So I checked and, blow me down, Tom loved the Munro. He raved about it.
汤姆是位优秀的汽车记者。所以这个苏格兰小初创公司到底为什么要把他的评测链接给潜在客户看？我本以为那篇评测会严格但公允。结果我一看，真让我大跌眼镜，汤姆爱死 Munro 了。他把它夸上了天。
McStart-up 生造词，Mc- 前缀暗示苏格兰，讽刺 Munro 是一家苏格兰小初创公司。
rave v.狂乱地说；热情地描写
So I did more research and it seems that the electric motor is available in two power outputs, 280kW (381bhp) and 170kW (231bhp). Unusually it has a lithium iron phosphate battery because it’s more chemically stable than the alternatives and because it’s more durable in extreme temperatures. Range? Well, I’m not sure you’d want to drive it this far on the road, but it’s 170 miles.
于是我做了更多功课。电动机有两种功率输出：280千瓦（381制动马力）和170千瓦（231制动马力）。不寻常的是，它用的是磷酸铁锂电池，因为化学上比替代方案更稳定，在极端温度下也更耐用。续航？嗯，我不确定你会想在路上开这么远，但它是272公里。
The car itself has been built so that it’s simple to repair and so that it can tackle any terrain and any gradient, in any weather. Oh, and so it will last, not for five years, but for fifty. Interesting.
这车本身的制造目标就是维修简单，能应对任何地形、任何坡度、任何天气。哦，还有，它要用的不是五年，而是五十年。有意思。
terrain n.地形
gradient n.斜坡
Having established all this, I went back outside and looked under the bonnet, where there’s all the electrical gubbins, and an awful lot of wiring that’s held together with cable ties. It didn’t look like a 50-year proposition to me. It looked like the back of the hi-fi I had at school.
搞清楚这些之后，我回到外面，打开引擎盖。里面全是电气杂件，还有大量用扎带绑在一起的线束。在我看来，这不像一个能用50年的方案。它看起来像我上学时那台高保真音响的背面。
proposition n.事物；主张；观点；提案
But there’s no getting around the sturdiness of the mechanical components and you have to be impressed by the lack of overhangs. You can drive this car down an 84-degree slope — that’s only six degrees off vertical — and it’ll be the front tyres that hit the bottom first, not the nose. Which is a good thing because, oooh, the radiator grille is flimsy.
但机械部件的坚固性无法否认，前后悬之短也令人印象深刻。你可以把这辆车开下84度的坡——只偏离垂直6度——先碰到坡底的会是前轮，而不是车头。这是好事，因为，哦，前格栅脆弱得让人担心。
sturdiness n.坚固；结实
flimsy adj.脆弱的；劣质的
Tom had certainly been impressed with all of this, and the locking diffs and the knobbly tyres that enabled him to keep going up precipitous and extremely muddy tracks. He said it would be an ideal car for people in forestry.
汤姆对这些肯定印象深刻，还有差速锁和越野胎，让他能一路爬上陡峭且极其泥泞的小路。他说这对林业工作者来说是一辆理想的车。
precipitous adj.险峻的；陡峭的
forestry n.林业
Well yes, apart from it’s being very big and it having a very large turning circle, neither of which you want in a forest. Also, prices start at £70,000, which is about £69,000 more than most of the nation’s fingerless countrymen earn every year.
嗯，是的，除了它非常大、转弯半径也非常大，这两点在森林里你都不想要。而且起价70,000英镑，比全国大多数乡下人一年挣的还多大约69,000英镑。
Farmers then? Nope. Same problem on the money front. Plus, if a farmer ever has to do serious off-roading in muddy conditions, he’ll use a quad bike. The only people who ever charge about on muddy tracks in the countryside are motoring journalists. I know this because over the years I’ve been party to this charging.
那农民呢？不行。钱的问题一样。而且，如果一个农民真要在泥泞里认真越野，他会用四轮摩托。唯一会在乡间泥泞小路上横冲直撞的人，是汽车记者。我知道这一点，因为多年来我一直参与这种横冲直撞。
So, the Munro then. The people it’s aimed at can’t afford it. And no one else will want it because it is so rough and basic. And it smells of charred wiring.
那么，Munro。它瞄准的人买不起，其他人也不会想要，因为它太粗糙、太基础，还闻起来有一股烧焦线束的味道。
I was going to end the review there but I want to finish on an upbeat note. And I think I can because what Munro has built here is obviously a very capable off-roader that has no refinement or comfort at all, just a lot of sharp edges and things to bang your head on.
我本来打算就此结束评测，但我想以乐观的调子收尾。我觉得可以，因为 Munro 造出的这辆车，显然是一辆非常有能力的越野车，只是完全没有精致性和舒适性，只有一堆锋利边缘和会让你撞到头的东西。
And that may be its salvation. Because I know an organisation that craves discomfort and sharp edges and cable ties. It’s called the British Army and right now it’s looking for an off-roader to replace its ageing fleet of Defenders and Steyr-Puch Pinzgauers.
而这可能正是它的救赎。因为我知道一个渴望不适、锋利边缘和扎带的组织。它叫英国陆军，眼下正在寻找一辆越野车，来替换老化的路虎卫士和斯泰尔-普赫 Pinzgauer车队。
Steyr-Puch Pinzgauers 奥地利斯泰尔-普赫公司生产的军用越野车，英国陆军曾装备，与路虎卫士一同面临老化替换。
Ford is working on a version of its Ranger pick-up and I’ve heard reports of companies trying to sturdify the Defender. Doubtless Jim Ratcliffe will be hoping his Ineos Grenadier will be in with a shout too.
福特正在研发 Ranger 皮卡的一个版本，我也听说有公司在尝试加固卫士。毫无疑问，吉姆·拉特克利夫会希望他的英力士掷弹兵也有机会。
But why convert a normal car when our friends from north of the wall seem to have made a car that’s ready, straight out of the box? No carpets to remove, no added sturdiness needed and, in keeping with the government’s net zero ambitions, no exhaust emissions either.
但既然来自哈德良长城以北的朋友们似乎已经造出了一辆开箱即用的车，为什么还要改装一辆普通车呢？不需要拆地毯，不需要额外加固，而且与政府的净零排放目标一致，也没有尾气排放。
from north of the wall 指哈德良长城以北，即苏格兰。
net zero 净零；指排放和吸收相抵后净温室气体排放为零。
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