How did you discover these forums?

Got tired of watching Google video and You Tube snip-its. Went searching for the full episodes, found finalgear and never left. (No need to, really)
 
i was on schoolies and one of my mates was talking about this site that had a whole bunch of topgear on it. i came here, signed up and have been reading the forums ever since.
 
How come you don't post more often then? :cry:

He got a life!

I found this place like most and before it was finalgear.com

Wanted TG eps, after finding that BBC was only showing us 30mins instead of the full length, and found Vipers old site.
 
I was looking for TG torrents I believe, since I live in the US.
I've been browsing the forums (Although I haven't been active really, but going to try to change that) pretty much daily or bi-daily ever since.
 
I remember exactly my journey.

I was on a Grand Am forum, and someone posted a Youtube link featuring the Holden Monaro (November 2004); the way it was presented, the filming, the presenter...I was hooked watching Top Gear. So refreshing from such bland staple here in the US. I scoured the internet for every and any available episode, and happily found this site.

For some reason, people seem to like me here. And I really like this community. Be in denial or not, we are, insofar as internet forums go, a pretty close knit community.

Because of this forum, I started taking photography seriously, I discovered Live For Speed and all the great people on team Final Gear, and I finally broke a 47 year family tradition and did not buy a Pontiac last year, but a Subaru.

So...thank you Alex, for starting this site.
 
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My friend got me hooked on TG a few years ago (around 2003 I think). After that I was searching the web high and low for TG episodes. I found a few random sketchy geocities and angelfire pages that let me download really crappy quality videos. Then I accidentally hit "find related sites" on my google toolbar, and the first result was FinalGear. I think it was even before the site was called Finalgear.com, I subscribed to the RSS for a while.. and remember getting the news about the name change.

Thanks Viper!
 
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Cant really remember. A friend got me into watching Top Gear, but he only had season 8. I then went looking for other episodes and discovered this site. I was originally looking to download the other seasons from the FTPs (needed registration *dammit*...fine then, I will) that are around. Another reason was the WTS resource which I continually find to be very useful :).

Didn't really intend to post on the forums until I fell into an argument in the then newly created F1 subforum. I quite like it here, so I havent left yet...:p
 
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Happened to see TG on TV (the studio-Verbier race), forgot about it after a while, then saw it again, started searching for it on YouTube, then finally I got to the website from a recommendation by a TG video poster there, on the SLR vs. boat race. Kept myself restricted to the videos, until I signed in on the forums, but it took a long time afterwards to post twice. But then I found the F1 subforum, just like Red_Bull, and here I am now.
 
Ooooh - good thread!

Adunaphel got it pretty much spot on for me too...

I was downloading the TG episodes when it still looked like in Bartboy's post. Read some thread about "hey, i want to move this to a new domain, any suggestions, i've got theis cool logo here.". Followed the site to the new domain, still leeching until May 2005, when Viper had to take the torrent downloads offline and downloads were announced in the IRC channel. I promptly joined there, and became a regular. It took me 6 months to join the forums after that, and another 9 months for me to start posting here.

I was reading posts on the old site loooong before I signed up. But I was signed up before this community became FinalGear and have good memories of some of the threads with the old regulars (fond memories of Renesis' bitching... :lol: ). I remember VUKs early rips too and how superior they were (even the first ones) to "The Alternative"... :lol:
I didn't really need to download - only way back when (think it was in the second series) I missed an episode and a mate suggested I search for it online. This (well, what it was then) was the first place I came to, and I've not found anywhere to beat it.

And it was this site, and the Widget program that got me into doing coding of any kind for fun (i.e. outside of work/Uni!)... (Hence the creation of that old RSS reader widget thingy I did - Alex, you still never put anything about that on the main page or anything... :lol: Too late now though - got no time (or a working copy of Windows) to sort it out...)

For some reason, people seem to like me here. And I really like this community. Be in denial or not, we are, insofar as internet forums go, a pretty close knit community.

Because of this forum, I started taking photography seriously...

Agreed on those points. I am now a mod on one other forum and admin on another, but both are smaller groups and many of the people on those forums have met each other. It still amazes me that here, a large group of people that have never met are all so close...

And although I used to do a heck of a lot of photography years back, I stopped for 4 years - not taking a single photo. It's thanks to Overheat's thread that I picked up a camera and fell in love with photography again! (I really ought to start submitting photos to the lens flair thread again...)

So...thank you Alex, for starting this site.

Yup - many many thanks Alex!

I may not post much at all (especially over the last couple of years) but I am here pretty much every day when time allows (I don't have internet at home; it's hard enough administering the other two forums without spending much time elsewhere online - all while at Uni).
Still, for some reason many of my posts are quite long anyway, so what I've not done in number of posts, I think I've made up for with length... ;)
 
I remembered a review of the Lancia Delta in a British Motor Mag that I must've seen in the late 1990s a few years ago (back then Tiff and Jeremy were presenting together as far as I remember), so I started searching the web for a review via google, didn't find that particular review but came across some other clips that I liked pretty much and discovered this site about 3.5 years ago during my search. Sometime later I was attracted by the guess that car game in the forums that much that I finally decided to sign up in order to participate.
 
I found TG while i was downloading stuff from dc++ and saw link to the old site, then found out torrents and whoa, full eps faster than 5kb/s @ dc++.
i don't remember what season it was when came here, but i have now found more things in life than just irc.

thanks viper, i have liked this site.

edit 1. some typos
 
I first found Top Gear on google videos, some years ago... than google video deleted all top gear content, some time after that I think I found on google, and start downloading the episodes, but I only registered on the forum later.
 
I became interested in TG after they started airing episodes in the US; my brother (also a forum member here) looked up TG episodes online and came across this site, so he told me about it.

Lurked in the funny pictures thread for quite a bit before I decided to join...
 
Looking for fellow people rebuilding Honda CB550s. Found BlaRo's thread about his and I keep checking it for more information.:)
 
Stumbled upon this site while looking for some Top Gear info. Nice place you have here :)
 
I found this place in a very roundabout way. It all started a few years ago when I caught an episode of Top Gear on the Discovery channel at like 3AM. I really liked it but I was never able to see it on again. Fast forward a bit to when I joined a fraternity at college. One of the other new members was big into cars and we got to talking about the show and he mentioned Finalgear as a good place to get the episodes. I freeloaded for quite a while until I noticed the forums link on the main page. How I didn't notice it sooner is beyond me.
 
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