I’m echoing a post made by Paul from MoDaCo a bit here, but blumey – how good is Top Gear at the moment ? Sure, Mr Clarkson is as opinionated and daft as ever, but that’s part of what makes it good. There’s not many other people who can get away with encouraging more people to get faster and larger cars “so we can at least have some decent weather in this country” or “This new Passat is sculptured ditchwater. It is the motoring equivalent of Belgium: something you simply won’t notice”.
Yes, terrible. Yes, not very politically correct. But we’d be incredibly boring if we couldn’t watch some TV like this. I can’t believe people complain about it when there’s plenty more for them to complain about on MTV or most satellite channels after 11PM if they’re really on the look-out for something. Yes, we do want to see fast cars being thrown around the track. No, we probably won’t ever be able to afford a brand new Bentley at 115,000 or indeed to drive it at nearly 200mph through Dubai. But hey – they can, and we can watch it. It’s amazing really.. can you imagine the scene ? The Top Gear producer walks into the board room at the BBC with all the top executives and says…
“Right, this week we’re gonna review the Bentley Flying Spur. It costs 115,000, it’s got a “w12″ engine, which is basically two V6 engines bolted together. Now, this gives you 553bhp and a 0-60 of under 5 seconds. Now, we think we should send this incredibly expensive car, along with a reporter, to Dubai.. Then we’ll get the local police to close a road off and floor it as fast as we possibly can. How’s that?!”
“Hold up, how much is this gonna cost”, say the BBC execs…
“Well, you’ve got the damage insurance, the flights, the camera crew, the transportation of the car from Britain…”
How ? You’ve got me.. amazing.. Brilliantly filmed, excellently produced and wonderfully written. Top quality programme.