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

ejaymclane

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Joined
May 9, 2006
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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. :|

;)
 
I came across TG a sunday evening, when I lived in the UK... it was love at first sight...

italians motoring shows are so lame in comparison, no fun, no supercars, they may consider 'normal' cars for everybody, but they don't really tell you more than you can find in the car's manufacturer's websites or leaflets. TG's presenters aren't afraid to speak their real thought on a car, instead... I also find their websites somewhat better done and useful than, say, Quattroruote, Italy's most prominent example of motoring journalism... ;)
 
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:
Also, im surprised that you find mucn of it relevant, but then i guess a supercar is a supercar no matter where you live.
aaaaa....yeah!! :D

I found about top gearfrom video clips that i found on the internet. I think the first Top Gear clip was the BMW M5 vs. Audi S4! And It was damn funny. I loved it!
I searched for more clips, but then one day a friend told me his friend downloads the episodes and can get me all the series! :shock:
and the rest is history :D

and about the shows in my country...
there are a few, but they are allmost the same. A pretty hostes (the best part of the show :) ) anounces the car and then they show the car driving around town or countryside while a borring commentator reads the text. so it's not interesting as top gear, not even close. +no supercars :(
just average, everyday, affordable cars

God bless TG!!! and the Internet :D

peace
 
German and American shows blow, as we all know. Saw TG on BBCWorld, went from there.
 
My first TG taste was the Mercedes S class review from vipers old site :D. and I think this is a repost
 
I think the first time i really got in touch with Top Gear was the Segment when Tiff was testing the E39 M5, even though it wasn't really Top Gear.
Then i found more and more little clips of the new Top Gear and started searching emule.
And some time later I discovered Finalgear.

And as somebody already said, the rest is history.

I now have all the 7 Top Gear seasons and all the Clarkson Videos and Top Gear Best Of's and Specials and everything...
I think it takes up about 45gigs... :)
 
i actually read a newspaper with an article about jeremy clarkson and how he bashes cars. so that night i downloaded the lamborghini episode and i loved and so i downloaded more and then on one of the episodes i saw this website at the first frame so i checked it out and now i'm here :)
 
I came across Top Gear off www.gtrcentral.com which hosted HTTP downloads of Top Gear clips. They still host but you have to donate money to get access. Funnily enough, my first Top Gear clip was also that memorable S-Class review aswell.

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.

^So you can see why I love AND NEED Top Gear (and Fifth Gear) so much.


I'll leave this thread open as the other one is quite old I think and this topic slightly differs from that one.
 
There's been a couple of attempts at Aussie car shows, but they're unbelievabley lame.

I can't actually remember how I first learnt of Top Gear (or Fifth Gear for that matter), apart from knowing of their existence for a few years now.
 
Clown said:
kekekeke said:
As big a fan of TG as I am, I must say that if TG crew are going to review normal cars, they should at least do it properly. Compare TG's civic review vs FG's civic review. FG is so much more informative and better. TG does almost everything else better, but I feel like I am starting to convert to more of a FG fan. Also, TG should quit on a high, or you will have fans bitching about how it sucks.
Top Gear has always reviewed with the heart not the head.

If you want fuel economy numbers or info on how the rear seat folds down, get a sales brochure.

But what the sales brochure won't tell you if the car is any fun, and thats what Top Gear is about - having fun (in cars).

Many people dont care about how many cup-holders a car has, because to them a car, even a small hacthback, isn't just a piece of steel, it isn't just transport.
Its emotive, it passionate, its entertainment, its tells the world who you are.
These people are Top Gear fans.

I quote this from Specific Episode Discussions - [08x01] May 7th, 2006 thread. Clown said it all.

I think this is the main difference between TG and all the other car shows. Usually in an ordinary car show they review a car. They say how good the engine is, how big is fuel consumption, how practical the car is, how big is the booth... ...how many cup-holders does it have and so on...
It is just... boring!

And TG is all about fun! Passion over reason. Heart over brain.
 
There is actually a pretty good motoring show in Finland which I enjoy as well. It's HEAVILY influenced by TG, similar "look" and the guy hosting it is good for the job, the emphasis is heavy on entertainment instead of facts and numbers (like the other finnish shows, awfull all of them). I like the format and ideas on that show.

And I do find TG relevant, maybe helps that I've lived in the UK? Dunno.
 
I remember i found some clips in different sites and got really curious about where they were from. I then started finding site specifically about the show and that's how it all started. The first clips i remember watching were the Audi RS4, the Lambo Miura, Countach and Diablo (old top gear), the Noble, and some more.

Here in Portugal there really aren't any decent car shows. I can only remember one and it really, really sucks.
 
Top Gear runs on a danish channel, though only the chopped half hour show, but that's how I fell in love with it :D

And no we don't have anything worth mentioning here (prolly because we don't have any cars worth mentioning here :cry: )
 
Just to add that:
In Germany we basicalle have two shows, Motorvision and "Auto Motor und Sport TV".
Motorvision is kind of cool, because the host is alright and they feature Supercars from time to time.
They also have a little 20 second testtrack where they to...well...tracktests really...:D
But at least 50% of the time they feature boring Hatchback-people carrier cars, but overall it's allright.
I've actually recorded about 20 GB of Motorvision as well...

Auto Motor und Sport TV is a bit different since they feature ridiculously boring things about 85% of the time...
And the Christian Danner Safety-Driving Tips...oh my god, am always dying when i watch this. Dunno if you know Christian Danner, but he actually drove in F1 for some time...but he must have been useless because he also commentates F1 on our Free TV and it's sometimes just ridiculous what utter rubbish he's talking... And he seems to be addicted to sleeping pills because he talks just like he's half way asleep already...
The only feature supercars very rarely and even then the clips aren't really exciting

And both shows don't have a studio or audience. Instead the host is driving around in a car and telling some stuff about it between the clips...

So, overall, german TV motoring is pretty useless compared to Top/Fifth Gear...

EDIT:
And i just realized that the topic sounds like "F*** the hell off and watch you own shows" :D:D
 
I still remember the first time I saw Top Gear: I was just watching tv and when I tuned to BBC Word I saw a purple Murcielago driven by Jeremy (so it must have been the first episode of the "new Top Gear"). Back then I had now idea what that show was called but I immediately liked it because I have always liked cars, especially supercars ;) . The funny thing is that after that I watched just about every Top Gear episode on BBC World until 2004 but I had no idea that the original show was longer. Then one day I downloaded some episode from dc++ and realized how brilliant the full sized version is. Finally I ended up here and now I have all the episodes from 2002 on my computer.

As mmap mentioned there is one good car show here in Finland wich really has influenced by Top Gear, but NOTHING beats the original!
 
mmap said:
There is actually a pretty good motoring show in Finland which I enjoy as well. It's HEAVILY influenced by TG, similar "look" and the guy hosting it is good for the job, the emphasis is heavy on entertainment instead of facts and numbers (like the other finnish shows, awfull all of them). I like the format and ideas on that show.

Ajoneuvos? ;) Yeah, it's pretty cool.
 
I "discovered" Top Gear in a Spanish newsgroup back in 2003. One of the first things I downloaded was this short clip of a Ferrari 456 being driven round a track and then its engine blowing up, while a voiceover told the story of the driver, and how he had one of the best jobs in the world: test driver for Ferrari. Later I discovered that this wasn't Top Gear at all, but one of Clarkson's programmes. I then proceeded to download several random episodes of the proper Top Gear until I finally got all 7 seasons, most of Clarkson's videos and most of his other TV programmes.

As for car shows in Spain, they have been going downhill since the mid-eighties. Back then, there was a programme which talked about all things automotive, from motorsport to auto shows, and I remember it being quite entertaining. Then there was nothing, and all we get now is something (a 30 minute long show) where all the car makers can show long clips of their cars telling just how wonderful their products are. Luckily it's usually on at about 3 a.m. on Saturdays (or whereabouts, depending on how long the 10 o'clock film was), so . The worst is that I don't think the situation is going to change in the future. Of course, if you have cable you can catch the Top Gear on BBC World, but having access to the "real" thing I don't feel very much inclined to do it :)
 
in the beginning, when viper didn't have any members yet, he used to announce his releases on racingflix.com forums, where i was active

now i'm active here, and not more there :D
 
I got exposed first to it when I was thinking of buying an RX-8. I frequented the RX-8 forums (rx8club.org), just to see what type of problems they have or what I should watch out for. Whilst I was there I found the TG RX-8 clip, hooked from there.

I think this is a repost too, but i'm not sure.
 
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