Blayde

^^ If he does get on, they're gonna need a spare car real soon, cos he's definitely gonna depend on his driving skills watching TG ie POWERRRRR!!!



/runs

eldiaoble

Andy Wilman please bring it a lot sooner than January. Personally I was never against the Top Gear America, and after reading all of those reviews it is just getting me a lot more pumped up about the show. It sounds EPIC!!!

PLEASE BRING IT IN THE FALL SEASON!!!!!!

Andrew911tt

I was able to ask Adam Corolla who the Stig was and he said that the producers wouldn't tell the hosts.
(but i bet that's bullsh!t)

Blayde

'Stig' Stig was there? or at least a US edition?

Andrew911tt

not in studio but they do use a "Stig" for the power laps

Viper007Bond

Dude, read the name of the guest -- STAR In A Reasonably Priced Car.

I know you guys appreciate my work, etc. etc. but outside of the TG nuts, no one has ever heard of me.



Nah, if they have to brain cells, they definitely won't tell Adam who the Stig is. Adam would let it slip so damn fast.

Blayde

LIES! you affected change in mainstream programming, not only in the US but also in the UK.

(Methinks they need a viper to tempt him there)

psg

The entire ticket thing was a fiasco. To overbook is one thing, but to overbook by hundreds? Come on.

Luckily, I only live 10 minutes away, and I didn't spend a cent on gas. But boy, I know there were some pissed off people when they turned all of us away.

cvrefugee

I f*cking hate the 91...why in the hell is there traffic at 11am? I get held up on the 15 to 91 then it backs up from Imperial until the 55. I swear that freeway is the spawn of Satan.

Umm, yeah that was a terrible joke dude. I would have lied on here and said you told the Helen Keller joke instead.

thedguy

I think god just hates Corona. The 15 up to the 60 or 10 sucks, the 91 sucks and the only way in or out at a decent speed is by paying a toll fee. And of course anyway around the traffic really ain't any faster since the city "planners" engineered that place to make you generally hate going in or coming out of the place. I can see why they stuck Chino Prison near by

When I lived out there the only time there was a decent pace in westbound traffic between 4am and 2pm was around 9:30am. Needless to say I took carbon canyon a lot.

fbc

Superb - take a well-deserved bow boss-man!

kadajawi

Yeah, I'm sure the FBI waiting in the shadows were disappointed too.
Just kidding

Honestly I never was a fan of the bits of his radio show that have been posted on Final Gear, but this really gets me interested. I've read the spoilers and they sound amazing. I agree, please bring it earlier.

And if Andy reads this: Is there a way to bring TG and TGA to Germany? Preferably subtitled? That would rock, and bring in cash for the BBC I guess.

thedriver

I was there last night and echo the sentiments above, it was very well done. Andy was great, was awesome to watch him work. Hopefully the American producers get everything down so the other episodes are as good as this one was. I was perfectly happy to see that they stuck to the original TG format exactly. Combine that with the same set design and you'd think you were at a BBC studio if it weren't for the different hosts.

Adam is quite funny and may be enough to pull of this version's Clarkson. Tanner and Strummer need a little time, but I think they can do it. They each had a few funny lines, and as Andy said, if you saw the original Top Gear pilot you'd know how horrible it is. The cheap car challenge was probably my favorite. Similar to the original in concept but not directly lifted from a previous UK episode. It's easy to liken this to US The Office. It was very much a copy of the original and over time evolved into it's own even though it kept the same format.

And I liked "moving Stig" in the studio.

My feet still hurt, my back is starting to come around. I still plan to wait outside Chunky's house for him and toss him in my trunk. Just kidding. Maybe. His jokes did go downhill but he gave me an "America's Got Talent" shirt and made fun of my suit & tie so thats something.

Roadster44

So for past half an hour or so I have been reading comments on TGUS filming on Jalopnik and here. It sounds like the producers did a reasonable job in retaining the brilliance of the UK version. If you read my past comments, you'll see that I was (and to extent still am) critical of the show's success. However, I'm pleased to see that there is a real attempt being made to make this thing work.

What I hope will happen is as time goes by, the American version won't deviate too much from the UK one. I believe this happened with US The Office. If Clarkson holds the rights to the show, or at least a majority, then I hope him and Willman are keen on holding a tight grip on show's continuity.

They must not let some marketing goofball at NBC dictate how the show should be more adapted to the American audience. In other words, they must not let it get dumbed down for the "average" viewer. It's a force to be reckoned with, so they must anticipate handling these sorts of "TG challenges."

Also there will be difficulty with cars themselves because US car market is very very very very very very dull. Yes there are some cars on horizon which are worth getting excited about, but for the most part there are very few interesting products. Will Adam and gang going to be ripping apart every boring car (and there is a ton of them here in US)?

Look at Europe with the newly revived Alfa range, Fiat, Seat, Renault, Peugeot. Or the fantastic Ford products (which are not sold in US...it is pathetic, I'm sorry, but Ford Fusion is nowhere close to Mondeo by any measure).

There is an underlying fabric here of US car market which is going to be a major challenge to overcome. I don't see anyone getting excited about Mercury Sable, or Buick LaCrapCrosse review.

Good luck to all. Lastly, I really hope that US car market will start to change soon. I am just fed up with mediocre cars sold here. I much rather be driving 2000 328i w/ sport pckg, than a VW GTi for NA market...decontented, and raised suspension where damn thing now looks like Golf Plus.

macdonaldj2

"Get out of here San Diego"...at least you had the balls to go up there...

Fast Shadow

I was lucky enough to be able to attend yesterday's taping. Going in I had very, very low expectations. I am very much turned around, I enjoyed the taping and I think the show is in good hands. I'm not crazy about Eric. During the live segments he was wooden and uncomfortable. But during the taped segments he was better. Adam and Tanner were very good. The set was perfect. I got a chill when I heard the theme song fire up when they recorded their first introduction.

Hearing the things Andy said made me think this show has as much a chance to succeed as it possibly can have, which as a tremendous fan of the show, is all I wanted. So cheers to everyone involved with TGUSA for your hard work and for staying true to the successful formula of TGUK.

The line debacle was a letdown. I had a ticket for the 1:30 taping and I ended up staying for most of the full show taping. I didn't know that people got turned away - that sucks.

I've been on FG.com for awhile but I hardly ever post. I also wanted to say how awesome it was to hear this site specifically mentioned by Andy, that says a lot about how much value the BBC places in your support.

eldiaoble

I just want to ask a small question about who is Chunky and what kind of bad jokes did he tell and why?


Also with the intro video is it still Jessica by the Allman Brothers?

girloncars

Edit: I answered their question, not asked it. Duh.

I was the girl who asked the question during the news. It wasn't a plant; I was standing right behind the guys and just happened to have an opinion on the matter! (Which is why they had to re-shoot that bit, since I didn't have a microphone.) I'm not an actress, although I am an automotive journalist and have been on TV. But I can pretty much guarantee the directors/producers had no idea who the heck I was. But I guess it went well if it looked planned!

And by the way, I totally agree with the posts here and on the other thread about the chicks wearing the mini dresses and clubbing outfits. WTF?!

The show was way better than I expected, and the producers and crew were fantastic. But but did it bother anyone else that Eric kept pronouncing "Porsche" as one syllable?

Cheers,

Laura Burstein

WagonMonster

Chunky, AKA: Chucky, was the warmup guy.

Carey934

I ended up not going because of the filming fiasco. We got our tickets for 4pm and made our plans to go to California for the day, but then they send another email for a 1:30 show and we were out shopping for homes at the time it arrived. When we got back, 4 hours after the email was sent, they said tickets were no longer available. Since 1:30 folks were guarenteed entry into the 4pm taping, we figured they must have given away way too many 4pm tickets, now that all the 1:30p folks are guarenteed entry, the odds of getting in at 4pm were significantly reduced.

Then to hear they didn't start taping until hours later and didn't get out until 9pm, we're glad we didn't go. Six hours there and six hours back, we would not have been home until 4am. That would have made for one very long day. And had we drove the six hours only to be turned away at the gate because we only had 4pm tickets would have set me off. So we called the ticket company, left them a message that this was handled very unprofessionally and told them to cancel our tickets.