Dont you non-Brits have any car shows of your own to watch?

In the Netherlands there aren't any good carshows. There are some but in general, they're just very long advertisements for cars. They aren't critical about anything and everything is wonderful. That's very annoying. And the Pimp My Ride rip-off we get doesn't have a very big budget so it's kinda lame.

Top Gear is the best for me (and Fith Gear, a little bit)
 
Re: Dont you non-Brits have any car shows of your own to wat

Re: Dont you non-Brits have any car shows of your own to wat

ejaymclane said:
Just wondering how you came across Top Gear and if you had anything similar where you live.

Also, im surprised that you find mucn of it relevant, but then i guess a supercar is a supercar no matter where you live. :|

;)

BBC World and BBC Canada (you might be suprised how much global domination the bbc has :roll: )

There is nothing like top gear... my brother who is not even a petrolsexual finds it to be quite entertaining :)
 
We Yanks do have our own shows, but they are not nearly as fun and follow one of the following formats:

Take a peice of junk and either A) add a bunch of video screens and decals (I hate this show)
or B) turn it into a 100 point show car in a limited time frame (I really like this show)

Talk about a couple American cars, exploit the Ford vs GM vs MOPAR rivalry, gloss over some modifications and call it a day

Some guy in a mullet talking about how to modify your truck

Aside from Overhaulin' and Rides, most American car shows are very limited and very dry. Top Gear is fun, creative and entertaining. I think I first found it through a freind - I have no idea where he found it. Anyway, he showed me a couple episodes and I was hooked. I'm a serious petrol-head (yes, I learned that phrase from Top Gear) and I enjoy military technology. The first show I watched was the Exige vs Apache, I think - anyone mad enough to come up with that test had to be entertaining.
 
First thing i saw was jezza's review of the H2 - i never laughed so hard at a car review! For the most part, many car review type shows over here seem like they dont want to offend anyone so spend the few minutes not diving that impressively while they read the brochure...
 
My brother forced me to get download some Top Gear stuff for him (He had been living in England for a while) and, well, bored one day I deceided to check it out to see why he wanted it so badly. After that, google some and found this site :D


Anyway, car shows.... In Sweden there are actually a few. Currently there are two on air, apart from Top Gear which is also shown although a chopped up version.


The first is Mera Motor which is decent. Best part of it is usually the history segments where they do a mini documentary on the history of a car maker. The reviews are horrible though. A guy sitting in the car driving along a road at 70km/h talking about one topic at a time. So he will start off with handling, then give the car a grade (from a scale of 1 - 5), then move on to performance, new grade, then interior, new grade, etc :sleeping: Finishes it all off by adding all the grades and then compare it to grades of similar cars :sleeping: :sleeping:


Then there is Motorist produced by the government television company and you can tell because no commercially produced program would be allowed to be this bad. :yucky: The one episode of this program I could bring myself to watch was basically a 30 minute long segment on how the female presenter went to germany to buy a second hand car. What to watch out for, how to get a bargain etc :censored: :thumbsdown:


Scarily enough though, those are upgrades from the stuff we have had on tv recently. There was Bosse Bildoktorn. A 30 minute show by a guy in a garage amongst piles of rubish from old cars taking calls from people. Questions where usually of the kind: "I am the owner of a 1986 Volvo estate and my car is having an electrical problem. How can I fix it?". The host would grab some stuff from his piles of junk and go on to explain how the electrical system of a 1986 Volvo works and what could be wrong. Calls like that for the entire show... season after season.... :censored: :wall:


Then there was Hela K?ret. Dear god.... complete piece of crap. You have a bunch of hosts going to various motorsport events. Not F1 kind of events, you know the kind of race they did in the cheap car challenge in season 7, this kind. And their main season theme was a driving school for non-licensed drivers who along with their parents were competing for a black trans am. Such utter crap.

But thats not it, there have been more... there was Autobahn. They started producing this program because another motor show Motorjournalen was too expensive to produce. Need I say more? The result? Not good, in fact, terrible terrible show produced for like 1? / episode :tvhorror:


Motorjournalen was ok, at least until the final season(s), then they started to lose it a bit.


There have been a few more, but those are the most recent ones. As a side note, there was a poll at swedens largest online newspaper here. If you click on "se resultatet" just below where you can read top gear you can see that Top Gear is by far swedens most popular car show. No wonder we are all here downloading it as well :tvhappy:


You know, thinking about it, Sweden is probably THE most unsuccesfull country ever at producing car related tv shows
 
there are only 2 german shows you can watch, the others just suck.

automotorsport tv <-- moderator ist stupid, lots of small car and minivan testing and stupid reportages - boring

motorvision <-- SOME nice cars, but mainly crap. only good thing is the tracktest on the nordschleife

saw topgear first when i stayed in england for a term.....and I was addicted :D
 
We actually had a great show in Sweden, called "Motorjournalen". It was kind of like Fifth gear. They had segments with normal cars, evaluating them and so on, but the host was a racing driver/journalist type who got to drive racing cars and supercars. Sort of like FG. (not as much godlike powersliding though). It was great TV but of course ,, they canceled it.

Now we have a half-assed show and a consumer type show that sucks.

You swedes know what I?m talking about.

Fortunately there is FG and TG to watch =)
 
We've got two cars show in France but both are boring and lame.
I discovered Top gear in France in 2003 thanks to satellite and have following it since.
 
Haderach said:
And TG is all about fun! Passion over reason. Heart over brain.

Though Clarkson is a journalist by profession, his innate feeling-prefering* temperament is what makes the show entertaining.


ex: -His conclusins about Coolness is objectively based and relies solely on subjective impressions

-He grades supercars on how they feel.

* We both have thinking and feelings potentials, but most of us will have a preference for either. (It's the T versus F)

See more about my theory on Clarkson temperament here:

http://forum.finalgear.com/viewtopic.php?t=11328
 
The "how did you discover Top Gear?" is a repost, so let's bump the old thread to cover that.

As for why do we watch TG rather than our own shows, well... I think pretty much every country has their own car TV show. However, they're all utter crap.

Here for example the only thing we really have is MotorWeek and it's just reviewing minivans and such. I mean sure, it's informative, but that's it. No humor or anything really fun or interesting. Just blah blah blah. TG is more than information, it's fun! :mrgreen:
 
^^

I totally agree: Motorweek and CarAnd Driver do 1/4 mile times of all cars trucks and vans! Not to mention slalom times! :bangin:

As for shows I like in Canada/Quebec, Motoring 2006 is interesting as far as Jim Kenzie's segment goes: it's personnal commentry on the Motoring Indusrty. Sorta like James May's articles.

Car business is also good: it talk about the world of business and product placement and segments. It's interesting and informative.

However, none dwell so much into my emotions and in my heart as Top Gear.

Case and point: Jezza testing the M6 and passionly yelling "SO QUICK!"
 
http://www.mpt.org/motorweek/

motorweek is the only decent american-produced car show, on public television weekly. the only thing it has over TG is that it is HD.

to create an analogy.... motorweek is canned tuna, TG is toro
 
sandor_ said:
http://www.mpt.org/motorweek/

motorweek is the only decent american-produced car show, on public television weekly. the only thing it has over TG is that it is HD.

to create an analogy.... motorweek is canned tuna, TG is toro
I saw an episode of Motorweek (or something) once. They managed to make an Enzo flying around a racetrack at blistering speeds look deathly boring and clinical.

Is the Top Gear formula really that hard to emulate? Of course, if there's a program that tries to be like Top Gear it'll get shot down for being too derivative...
 
^^ I guess the forumla is to highlight our own heart and passion for cars: Clarkson conveys this perfectlythrough his deep feelings in the adventurous, comical situations where he can shine.

He is the perfect entertainer-journalist.

The supercars themselves, mocking Capt Slow, and bashing Hammond are pluses.
 
SL65AMG~V12~612BHP!!!!!!! said:
In Australia, we have a program called Drive which I haven't watched for ages. IT IS SO INSANELY BAD! It is a blatent rip-off of Top Gear in that they have a guy who does a "hot lap" around the track and his name is called "the chip" and you never see him without his racing uniform. Not only that - the host is a dumb blonde who can't pronounce exotic words and there are seriously excessive plugs for their sponsors everywhere. To top it all off - one segment is an old Fifth Gear segment. Like actual Fifth Gear from a few years ago which is a "copy and paste" effort. Oh yeah and they are on Saturday afternoons when nobody watches TV.

I don't think it lasted long and you're right it was BAD ... this link seems dead http://www.drive.com.au/DriveTV/
 
ARM said:
SL65AMG~V12~612BHP!!!!!!! said:
In Australia, we have a program called Drive which I haven't watched for ages. IT IS SO INSANELY BAD! It is a blatent rip-off of Top Gear in that they have a guy who does a "hot lap" around the track and his name is called "the chip" and you never see him without his racing uniform. Not only that - the host is a dumb blonde who can't pronounce exotic words and there are seriously excessive plugs for their sponsors everywhere. To top it all off - one segment is an old Fifth Gear segment. Like actual Fifth Gear from a few years ago which is a "copy and paste" effort. Oh yeah and they are on Saturday afternoons when nobody watches TV.

I don't think it lasted long and you're right it was BAD ... this link seems dead http://www.drive.com.au/DriveTV/
"An unknown error has occured" - Oh I think we know what that error is :p


btw: YEY ITS GONE! :mouse:
 
Re: Dont you non-Brits have any car shows of your own to wat

Re: Dont you non-Brits have any car shows of your own to wat

ejaymclane said:
Just... if you had anything similar where you live.

;)

Let me put it this way.

No.

I came across TG when a friend said, "hey, come check out this video of a Porsche CGT."
 
English are the best for entertainement
but Germany have also got good cars show , not funny at all but the guys behind the wheels know how to drive and very very informative. Auto-motor und sport in DSF , Abendteuer Auto on Kabel eins and Go on sat 1 (the last one is in fact pretty blank ).
 
We still have "the car show" which isnt bad but not great, and "the c word'', on a channel which i think is public access but dont think its on anymore because host is now on "the car show"
 
A few carshows here, but not worth mentioning.

We've got Wheel Crazy (crap from the get-go)
And another show with Tim and Tom Coronel, which is decent enough. Powerslides with Micra C+C was a hoot and the time they took a standard alfa 156 from some TV show host and made it faster and nicer.

Their little studio for car info is in the back of a limo.


None as good as TG though :)


Ow yeah, i'm talking about the Netherlands/ Holland
 
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