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Un-official GTPlanet BBC Topgear UK ThreadTV
- Thread starter ExigeEvan
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Size = Engine capacity in this context. The ACR has 8.4 litres while the 675LT and 488 have less than 4 litres, thus making it less than half the size. While I do acknowledge calling a 650hp engine powering a sports car "pre-historic" is far fetched, the hp/litre of the V10 is relatively low compared to the competition.
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Hmm, perhaps a good example of imatating Clarkson afterall.
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Joey D
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I finally got around to watching Extra Gear and surprisingly it's way better. Rory Reid and Chris Harris are both easier to listen too and I don't feel the overwhelming need to punch either of them. I liked the Harris actually gave a semi sort of review of the Ariel in his short trip around the track and Reid blended the right amount of humor and facts into his presenting to make him worth watching. I even liked the Star segment which actually talked about something rather that playing who's car is better. I'll be curious to see how it is moving forward.
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- mustafur
Something tells me BBC have made Extra gear so they can get an idea which is a better way moving forward post Clarkson.
Proper with slight Humor, or pure comedy based nonsense which isn't even comedy and more Cringe.
I think the only chance of survival is going back to how season 1 Top gear was and start in a more proper direction and evolve from there, just like they did with the last 3(even though May came in season 2). You allow a natural direction into Stupidity seen in the later seasons that makes people wonder how we got into this mess, rather then have them turn it off straight away and you get cancelled because they wonder why you are trying to be exactly like the last 3 without anyone getting to know you, and allow you to reach insanity.
Proper with slight Humor, or pure comedy based nonsense which isn't even comedy and more Cringe.
I think the only chance of survival is going back to how season 1 Top gear was and start in a more proper direction and evolve from there, just like they did with the last 3(even though May came in season 2). You allow a natural direction into Stupidity seen in the later seasons that makes people wonder how we got into this mess, rather then have them turn it off straight away and you get cancelled because they wonder why you are trying to be exactly like the last 3 without anyone getting to know you, and allow you to reach insanity.
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Does anyone know the song when the Vette, Viper chase starts? the one with the shouting "AAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
pretty vague I know
pretty vague I know
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From looking here & having a quick listen, it seems to be Take You Down by Daniel Pemberton.Does anyone know the song when the Vette, Viper chase starts? the one with the shouting "AAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
pretty vague I know
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I finally got a chance to watch the new episode. Its definitely not horrible. But it feels far more scripted and less enjoyable. I feel bad that Sabine, Rory, and Harris all got stuck with minor roles. I feel like having Rory and Harris as the main two hosts would have been a much better idea. At least they have experience with talking about cars on video. I personally don't like Evans's personality. He randomly jumps around and yells. He's sort of like a small excited kid.
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McLaren
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IIRC, Evans was the one who loaned James that black 250 GT Spyder for a quick review a few years back and just before he took it out, they showed Chris having at least 4-6 other historic cars as nice as the 250.
For me, I knew he was at least a petrol head when I saw that old episode.
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- Kimky
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Yeah I've watched that episode lately and Evans was repainting his ferrari white. He had a white F40, a white 308 and some other which I dont remember. But he does have a passion for cars, that's for sure. But again for me he did try to emulate Clarkson too much, instead of finding his own pace and tone. So his personnality didnt show that much rather it felt like he was trying too hard to be like Clarkson.
Maybe Top Gear is too scripted the way it is now ? Maybe the show script is too tight for Evans to do what he wants.
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Somehow the fact that they're just racing slightly weird cars in that clip immediately makes it more promising. Honestly, I think hiring Evans was a mistake; they would have been better off putting a traditional auto journalist up front; but we'll see how things pan out.
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Robin
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Yup, being rich and collecting cars with your wealth does not make you passionate about cars. Lots of people buy vintage cars just as assets to appreciate in value like Wine or Art and haven't got any real interest in it apart from that. Evan's pretty much falls into that camp. It's like the BBC just looked at people on thier payroll and thought who is the most car-ish... oh Evan's, he has that expensive Ferrari, he'll do!
Robin
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I think it's because everyone found out that Evan's was fronting it early on in its rebirth and the BBC seeing the negative fallout from that choice sort to re-address the balance by putting in more suitable people. I think that’s why we ended up with so many presenters, it was the BBC backpedalling to cover all bases. Matt may not be a big car guy either but at least he has everything character wise that Evan's doesn’t!... plus he isn't pathologically disliked in this country, if anything people love him here more than in the US.
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- Peasantslayer
I was thinking they could have had a segment with Guy Martin every week, I enjoyed his speed challenges on Channel 4.
Regarding the main presenter role I was just watching Fifth Gear and I think that scruffy looking, young lad (Johnny is it?) would do a much better job than Evans.
Regarding the main presenter role I was just watching Fifth Gear and I think that scruffy looking, young lad (Johnny is it?) would do a much better job than Evans.
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McLaren
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Pretty sure Matski & Axletramp posted otherwise.
If the guy is racing his cars & creating festivals about them, he is passionate.
Think folks are letting his job as a presenter get in the way of judging him as a fellow enthusiast.
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Not really. We're quite familiar with Chris Evans in the UK, as he's been a huge part of the culture for a couple of decades now - from BBC Radio 1 to the Big Breakfast, to Virgin Radio and TFI Friday, to BBC Radio 2 today, he's been on the screens and airwaves for 25 years.
His performance on the first Top Gear has very little to do with it. Evans 'became' a car enthusiast when he sold Ginger Media for a quarter of a billion pounds and acquired a new and much younger wife (he bought her a Ferrari after their first date; she was 18 and had no driving licence).
He's also been in the papers too. His car reviews in the Mail on Sunday are amongst the worst things committed to print (including Fifty Shades of Grey and The Da Vinci Code)... More on this lower down.
... about expensive things, famous people and publicity - which is a common thread of his on-screen and on-air character (and, if reports of his marriage to Billie Pipe are accurate, off-screen and off-air character too) across those 25+ years.
I mean, fair enough. He made tens of millions of quid being a jovial 'anti-establishment' celebrity shill and spent it on James Coburn's Ferrari 250GT California, James Hunt's Hesketh, an example of the most expensive car ever sold at auction - and so on (notice how they're all 'the first' something or 'the most' something), and then painting just about all of them white because he likes it and shoving them into a large display case in his garden. Good on him. It doesn't make him a car enthusiast.
Nor does it disqualify him, admittedly. It may be that he's always been a car enthusiast and the Ferraris he's bought have been the cars he really wants after years of passion for the brand were finally brought within reach due to his success. He's also owned a Morris Minor, a VW Beetle, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and an Abarth 500 (Ferrari edition, of course).
Personally, I think his Ferrari collection (and Carfest) doesn't have anything to do with whether he's a car enthusiast or not. It's his writing about cars that really speaks to it - you just have to read a Chris Evans review to show how little he cares about cars outside of his very narrow interest envelope. Unless it's expensive or fast, it barely counts as a car review, commonly featuring eight columns of an anecdote about someone famous and then one column about the car. In fact the one I read last week was an expensive car - the Rolls Royce Wraith - and the car didn't even get a mention until the second page. He gave it five stars.
For me, Evans is no better than Hammond on this front (though he is on many others - he can act, for a start). Evans is not a man who will spend an hour to pore over a Mazda 2 or a Skoda Yeti - though he might write nice things about them (even if it always gives an impression that he's been incentivised to do so)*. His track record is that for him to be interested in a car, it has to be old and quirky or, old or new, expensive - and to me that's too narrow a scope for the generalised umbrella of car enthusiasm.
Which also disqualifies a lot of people who only like American cars, or only like old cars, or only like BMWs - and so on.
*And I'm not saying you have to write nice things about or even like more mainstream cars in order to qualify as a car enthusiast. I just think that Evans's attitude towards cars is more... Sultan of Brunei than Rowan Atkinson
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Even if it's true, he's pretty bad at it. I recall that just about all of his Ferraris sold at losses a couple of years ago, including the Coburn California, which halved in value
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I know that this means finding someone who gets the Mail on Sunday, but read his motoring section in the magazine supplement.
In any case it's merely an impression. To some, the mere fact that he bought loads of Ferraris means he's a car enthusiast. To some the mere fact that he bought loads of Ferraris means that he isn't. For me it's not really important either way and, particularly with the cars he chose, it's merely consistent with someone who likes expensive things and publicity and not a reflection of whether he likes cars or not.
For me, the sum total of his words and deeds in the field of motoring does not add up to someone who is enthusiastic about 'cars'. His interests seem too narrow and become conspicuously absent when you drop out of that tiny zone. I don't doubt for a minute that he's a Ferrari enthusiast, and his SIARPC performances show that he can get a car round a track better than celebrities who are not really into cars, but his writing is a dead giveaway.
For me, to say he is a car enthusiast is like saying that someone who goes to the Grand National, Cheltenham Gold Cup and Royal Ascot every year and has a collection of horse racing memorabilia covering the first, the best and the most is a horse enthusiast - they like the expensive bits and the things that get the most publicity, but you wouldn't catch them at the 4.40 Pukka Pies Chase for 3 year olds from Doncaster on a wet Wednesday in February. Or the Appleby Horse Fair.
Whether he is or isn't... I'm sure only he can say - it was more the fact that it was stated that he is one for sure. I just don't think that it's that clear cut.
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