The Car Show on BBC Four

MPG Lover

MPG Lover

Member
I watched a documentary on BBC Four last night called 'The Car Show' which was about how motor shows on TV evolved, such as 'Wheelbase' to 'Top Gear' and 'Driven' to 'Fifth Gear'. The documentary was interesting to a degree (nothing much else was on on) but my interest soon picked up when they showed old clips from 'Driven' with Penny Mallory and the other two comparing a Vauxhall Agila (eeuuww), Mercedes A Class and an Audi A2! The clips showed their comparison tests such as overtaking a lorry. Hmmm. Not surprisingly, our Audi A2 won the day. :)

Given the number of repeats on BBC Four, there will be probably be a chance to watch it again in the near future...
 
Yep, watched the 11pm version last night. Bit of a lame show to be honest, but amused to see the A2 vs. Aguila test extract. I would never have considered the A2 to be a competitor to the Aguila!

Did you get the sense that the Fifth Gear team were a bit bitter about Top Gear's success?
 
Thing is, the current Fifth Gear production team are the same group who were behind the last BBC version of Top Gear before it changed to the format we now watch (the three blokes in a studio format).

They believed that their show had the ability to draw the audience when the BBC pulled the plug (interestingly, James May was one of the presenters) and so they pitched to channel 5 who commissioned a series, presented by many of the former Top Gear presenters.

Interestingly, Clarkson now completely ignores the fact that the first series of the new format was co-presented by Jason Dawes, preferring to say that it was James May in a fat suit!

Fifth Gear should be rightly miffed about Top Gear - it is the best show in the box, bar none and is almost worth the license fee alone. Having worked with Hammond before he joined the show, it's nice to see that he hasn't changed and that success has finally come around for him and Mindy (he isn't that highly paid yet though and both him and May were on the brink of not signing contracts at the end of last year, as they srtived to get more equal pay with Clarkson).

Cheers,

Mike
 
That's right - I'd also forgotten that Clarkson quit Top Gear back in 99. May and Hammond have done a good job of broadening their broadcast reach too - good for them I say.
 
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