Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[victor 101]

Am I alone in thinking that Top Gear is now just an excuse for three overpaid buffoons to travel the world at licence payers expence, who drive cars with the sole intention of shredding a set of tyres in record time, and wreck anything they dont like.( this week it was a VW Beetle dropped from a helicopter a mile high, of course they wouldnt be allowed to do it here so Richard Hammond had to go to South Africa.

[Greg]

Well I really think the program is loosing it's way, seems to be the same thing week after week??
When you have to resort to destroying things for "entertainment" you've obviously run out of ideas and should really give up!
.....anyone can smash things up, it's not skilful and not even funny!
..I'll stop there

[ukdave2002]

I think we have had this debate before?

At the end of the day Top Gear is an entertainment program and in this format it openly set out to be a blend of TFI Friday, Tiswas and That's Life, rather than a review of cars, and has been very successful, I think the highest ratings on BBC2.
Its not really a car program in the same context that Days Army wasn't a history lesson on UK armed forces!

That said, I also think the recipe is becoming very predictable and I don't think it will last in the current format for much longer.

I still watch it though

Dave

[Rick]

It's one of the few things on telly that I won't miss. Ok some of it is a bit childish, and the star in a reasonably priced car is 9 times out 10 a zzzzzzzzzzzzzz, but I enjoy (most of) it, which is more than can be said for most things on TV now.

RJ
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[Fluffle-Valve]

[47Jag]

The test of the Skoda Yeti didn't do Skoda any harm, in fact I think a few more poeople will consider it in the future. My recently widowed daughter-in-law was looking for a car last autumn and we did look at it. The only failing was it's inability to take a double buggy in the boot with all the seats up. Did you see how it picked away on that hill? Impressive!

Art

[Riley Blue]

Top Gear is the motoring equivalent of 'Ready, Steady Cook' (cookery), 'Ground Force' (landscape gardening) and 'Changing Rooms' (interior design) i.e. it shouldn't be considered a serious programme.

[lowdrag]

I'm looking forward to the next sailing episode. Hopefully, with May in a Moggie 1000 drop-top, mast et al, Clarkson in probably a Hummer, and pint-size in whatever. only this time I want them to cross the atlantic with no assistance. Maybe that will be the end of it.

For some years it has run out of ideas, regurgitating the same stuff, and maybe I am old and a fuddy-duddy but I seem to recall, crap though the presentation was, that Chris Goffey and others did actually tell us about cars we might actually want to buy, but without a helicopter on the roof.

Please, please let it die, and file it under "Comedy series that outlived itself".

[52classic]

I lost interest in TG at the end of the Quentin Wilson/Tiff Needell era!

Simply too juvenile in every way. 'star in the car' is entertaining enough I suppose, but the show has less to do with cars than with Clarkson's ego.

Mind you, that's coming from someone who remembers when any decent car programme had Shaw Taylor or Raymond Baxter in it!

You can't knock the popularity of the show though, they have succeeded in engaging the non-petrolheads as never before.

[47Jag]

[quote]You can't knock the popularity of the show though, they have succeeded in engaging the non-petrolheads as never before.

And spawning clones around the world. The Oz TG team are coming/have been here for a 'challenge' race.

Art

[Minxy]

As much as anything I think what the current generation want from a TV show as changed. TG in its old format would not cut it with the ratings at all – it would just be a minority show on BBC2 at a daft time on a duff day, clearly the BBC are into viewing figures and the current format achieves that. This is reflected in the fact that my fifteen year old daughter loves it and watches religiously whereas I can take or leave it.
Years ago I worked with, amongst others, the TG people on several occasions when I was with Audi sport in the eighties, remember Willy Woolard? Here’s one of my ‘projects’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuzJqH46JzI

I remember Woolard as being a regular type of guy, he had coffee with us in our mess room and he was genuinely grateful for the chance to drive the rally car. One gets the idea that the current trio are and act like spoiled school boys.

[52classic]

I enjoyed the clip Minxy. Something so refreshingly simple about the pace of that presentation. Now I can stat to understand why I find the pace of the current TG just too hectic.

Fact is that as I am getting older I am also moving out of wnat the TG people would consider their mainstream audience.

[Keith D]

According to my Google news, the mouthy pair have just got themselves in hot water by insulting the Mexicans. Apparently somebody has decided to sue them under a new British law.

Keith

[Penman]

Hi
Just read that Evans is being dropped for series 2 and LeBlanc gets the lead, personally I think the 2 that do TG ExtraGear are better than either of them.
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[Peter_L]

It is broken beyond repair. Just let it die alone and without epitaph. Too many personalities steal their wage cheque.

McDonalds culture TV rules the waves, but then modern society does not want anyone to have to think.