Gas Pedal
Against all reason, a quirky BBC show is a worldwide hit
Now that the Frankfurt IAA, the biggest car show in the world, is over, what have we learnt? That, in the future, cars must be reasonable! All the car company chiefs have talked about zero-emission "electric mobility", and visitors marvelled at the green cars of the future.
And yet, somehow equally present was the new generation of supercars. Like the new Bentley Mulsanne, a dream in walnut wood and leather, with more than 600bhp. Or the new Merc flagship - the SLS - with its retro look, possibly the coolest car of all time. For driving a car is not just about the head. Still, when most people buckle up, they're as likely to think about climate change as they are about their tax returns. They'd much rather release their inner speed demon. As an 80s song said, "I'll give it some gas". And that's also the motto of Top Gear - a BBC car show, attracting 350 million viewers around the world.
On Top Gear, cars aren't about fuel consumption or boot space. For Top Gear, cars exist to be turned into brilliant TV viewing. Cars exist to be tested, assuming they have at least 300bhp and cost more than ?60,000. The ringmasters are three middle-aged bullies - JC, JM and RH. Playing up to their stereotypes, and happily prejudiced, the trio are the antidote to politically correct TV. In the world of Top Gear, Americans are too thick and too styleless to build decent cars.
I admit it, the Germans build great cars, but we lost both two world wars and the 1966 World Cup in order to do so. It is, for the eyes of the world, the noise of an efficient German engine that the millions of viewers enjoy. With Clarkson and Hammond in an Audi R8 and a Porsche Beetle respectively, racing against each other on their private track, TV viewers are having more fun than they could with any dry F1 coverage.
Sunday evenings are perfect, with Clarkson, behaving with typical childish exuberance, trying to out-run Challenger battle tanks on hilly terrain in a Range Rover Sport. Of course, he loses. Or when, in a Nissan GT-R, he tries to outrun the Japanese bullet train.
The question is, why can everyone around the world see Top Gear, except Germans? The truth is that the German public would probably break out in a cold sweat when Clarkson appears on German TV, talking about Messerschmitts and Spitfires, and swaggering as only Churchill could. The German carmakers, however, love the English humour on display.
For them, Top Gear is priceless as a free advertising platform. "Clarkson is the ultimate judge", says Jon Zammett of Audi UK. "After Clarkson raced the RS4 up a mountain against two climbers, it became the best-selling car in its class, selling more than the BMW M3 and M5 put together."
It's no wonder, then, that the waiting list for the new ?80k R8 is so long. Clarkson likes German cars, but believes they are "too clinical". He prefers Lamborghini or Ferrari, saying that the Italians build their cars from the heart.
The aesthetics of his favourite cars are what win him over, despite the self-admitted total impracticalness of them. He called the rather quick Alfa Romeo 8C "divine perfection".
Clarkson the car enthusiast may have repeatedly said that "the British are too stupid to even build their own cars" - something only an Englishman could say. But, despite that, they manage to have fun.
