Thoughts on Top Gear vs. The Grand Tour

Image courtesy of www.thedrum.com

Hello you! The name is Luca, but you can call me Luca. Before I begin, I want to thank you all for the people who read and spread (Registered trademark) my last blog post regarding the Curious Incident movie I want to try and get made. Thanks to a load of friends on Taron Egerton social media fan accounts, as well as many real life friends spreading it too, and because of you, it has as of now 138 views. As a result of you lot sharing my blog post around, a few numbers went up on my other posts, the most being 26, but still nothing like my Curious Incident post.

 

So I'm grateful to you all. Hopefully we can continue to convince the appropriate people that a Curious Incident movie can be critically and commercially great, using the hashtags on social media #TaronEgertonForCuriousIncident and #CuriousIncidentMovie.

 

Anyway, to my post for today and it concerns perhaps the separation more significant to someone than their parents. That being between Top Gear and its trio of plebs consisting of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, after the BBC sacked Clarkson for assaulting one of Top Gear's producers.

 

Before we move on, I have to say that as a huge fan of Jeremy Clarkson, I very much condemn his actions no matter the context of what led up to Clarkson punching the producer. The BBC were screwed either way because if they kept hold of him, that would have set a bad example for all employees regarding violence. Of course, we all know what happened since they ended up getting rid of him, and I want to talk about it.

 

So in an attempt to keep afloat without the buoyancy of Clarkson's massive belly, the BBC decided to hire the following; radio host Chris Evans (Not the guy who plays Captain America), Joey Tribbiani himself Matt LeBlanc, former owner of four time GP winning constructor Jordan Grand Prix and former BBC F1 pundit Eddie Jordan, German racing driver and queen of the Nürburgring Sabine Schmitz, and motoring journalists Chris Harris and Rory Reid.

 

Image courtesy of www.express.co.uk

It is safe to say that 2016 is the year of mass dislikes on YouTube. The new Ghostbusters movie with the all-women led team, the latest instalment in the Call of Duty franchise Infinite Warfare and this, new Top Gear. With Clarkson, Hammond and May no longer presenting, this thing was always doomed for failure, and honestly, car shows can no longer be car shows because it will be constantly compared to old shape Top Gear with the old trio. But how did new Top Gear do as far as being its own thing? Honestly, not too bad.

 

There were things I liked and things I didn't like, and I hope to present them to you in hopefully a non-shit manner. So let us start with the presenters:

 

Chris Evans - The lead presenter, and the weakest. I know this is probably out-dated information now because Evans did announce that he would be stepping down as presenter. Nonetheless, Evans was no doubt one of the weaker links of the show, his comedic timing was a tad off and his humour was too Clarkson-esque, which as we know works for Jeremy Clarkson but not for Chris.

 

I heard a lot of hear-say from the Top Gear set that he was very demanding, short tempered and apparently also, he was very demeaning to many members of the crew and audience. Some parts may have been complete lies or exaggerated to an extent, but I can certainly see how that may have been the case by how he was on the show.

 

Overall, he did his best but he's not the best person to lead the show.

 

Matt LeBlanc - We all love Joey, don't we? I was very surprised to hear that Matt LeBlanc was going to be a host on Top Gear and I was very intrigued to see how he would do. He impressed me, even though I felt his humour as well was a tad forced and he didn't mesh with the script, but you could tell his star power had influence and everyone respected him.

 

I will continue to be surprised should LeBlanc continue, I was fully expecting Top Gear to become The X Factor with its musical chairs of judges/hosts. I expect LeBlanc to only get better in time as a host, and I feel will be a great leader for the show.

 

Sabine Schmitz - Unfortunately for me, another weak link though this is through no fault of her own. Schmitz if you somehow have not picked up already, is German (The only time you're reminded someone is German more than in this blog post is in The Martian with the character Alex Vogel). As much as I really like Sabine, she does fall behind with her English not being amazing.

 

That being the only major issue. I felt she gave it her all and had all the best intentions, but with English not being her first language, she could not really work with the script. I feel like I am being too harsh on her, but I do hope she can get better and I expect her to do so.

 

Eddie Jordan - I find Eddie very funny, I always have. Since his BBC F1 pundit days, the banter he had with David Coulthard and all the other drivers. He is very much the grandfather of the group that gets away with murder, but you shrug it off because he's just that much of a laugh.

 

He however didn't have brilliant chemistry with most of the other cast unfortunately and I would much prefer to see him back where he is good, in the F1 circle.

 

Chris Harris & Rory Reid - I put these two together because these two are great. I was already aware of Chris Harris from his many YouTube videos reviewing cars and his racing also. Rory Reid on the other hand was a completely new face for me.

 

Harris and Reid also performed double duties with the BBC Three online exclusive show Extra Gear, which showed exclusive footage and behind the scenes clips from the shoot. They had incredibly fluid banter back and forth, and they in my eyes were the best presenters overall, and I hope that if any two presenters had to stay on from the current line up, it would be Harris and Reid.

 

As for other things I did and didn't like, I have an opinion on the new way they have guests on the show. I really like the touch of having a rallycross layout with a water splash and jump, and the fact they have a Mini with bucket seats, but they have got rid of the challenge that is the follow-through and that really sucks.

 

Then as for the guests, they have two guests every episode and they have one read out the other's reason for going on the show (Promoting something), both mention what their first car is and have an audience applaud vote and another for whatever their best car is. Not really focussing on the guest's career, which I guess since it is a car show does make sense.

 

Overall as a car show goes, it isn't too bad. But it's Top Gear, and if proper 'by the book' car shows are dismissed in favour of three older men falling over in shitboxes then the game is fucked unfortunately. I can see Top Gear continuing if perhaps they sign up a good mix of talent, likeability and enthusiasm, maybe it could hold its own. I know for a fact that the BBC really want to sign Jenson Button as a host, and since Chris Evans has left and the Channel 4 F1 team may be out of a job soon since F1 will become exclusive to Sky in 2019 (Apparently, could be completely untrue) then we may see some more faces we like in the future join Top Gear.

 

Now onto the old trio of dipsticks that are Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May on their Amazon Prime original exclusive, The Grand Tour.

 

Image courtesy of www.telegraph.co.uk

When the first image of The Grand Tour was revealed with Jeremy Clarkson in front of the McLaren P1, Richard Hammond next to the Porsche 918 Spyder and James May next to the Ferrari LaFerrari, that was all I had to work with and I was worried. For some context, the three had been building up the hype for these three hybrid hypercars to lap the Top Gear test track for what I suspected would be the final episode of that particular season. Clarkson had even bet the McLaren would be quicker than the Porsche and if it wasn't, he would change his name by deed poll to Jennifer.

 

This obviously being before the controversy that would lead to him getting the boot, and even in the new formatted Top Gear, they never actually gave the three cars to the Stig. So seeing this image made me think they were going to compromise and recreate the TG format entirely with a purpose built facility, which in that image is probably Algarve in Portugal, I cannot be certain.

 

However now with the name 'The Grand Tour', I've had hopes for it to head in a particular direction. You remember those end of year DVD's that Clarkson made? The first one I saw was his 2005 DVD 'Heaven and Hell', and for the most part with all these yearly DVD's he would hammer a load of cars around an airfield. From 2006 onward beginning with his American centred 'The Good, The Bad, The Ugly', he would travel to many locations around the world with race tracks, wonderful roads and amazing scenery but most of all, some incredible cars.

 

Infact what prompted me to write this blog post was the Perfect Road Trip films that Clarkson and Hammond made where they would tour places like Italy and France, seeing that reminded me what I loved about old Top Gear. My older brother loved the cheap car challenges from old Top Gear, but I can vouch for the consensus when I say that the best part about Top Gear was the inclusion of the exotic cars, that we as the audience long to drive and we live through seeing Jezza, the Hamster and Captain Slow drive across the most amazing places.

 

I know they're filming for The Grand Tour right now, I hope that they do end up using the simple 'Fast cars, amazing roads and race tracks' concept that we love, and it would fit the name incredibly well. They could even have guest racing drivers on the show occasionally.

 

Most of you may not know this, but back when I was in secondary school, I made my own 'car reviews'. It was called (Prepare for the cringe) 'LucarioGear: Driving the Dream', because my old username had the Pokémon Lucario in it (Which is one of my favourite Pokémon) and my logo was a piece of paper, stuck to some cardboard resting against a cushion. On that piece of paper would be a shot of Lucario using Aura Sphere from Super Smash Brothers Brawl, the word 'Lucario' from the Pokémon movie Lucario and the mystery of Mew, 'Gear' from Fifth Gear and 'Driving the dream' from a book I loved reading. I would get my dad to point my camera at it as I spoke, then we cut and point my camera towards my TV and it would be me playing Gran Turismo 5.

 

The first episode I made focused on the Ferrari 458 Italia, Ferrari Enzo and the Ferrari F40, the one I am most proud of. I went on to make videos on the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, the Ferrari California, the McLaren MP4-12C then the Pagani Zonda R. I made it with horrific jump cut delivery, me going off on random tangents, and my poor dad would have to be incredibly precise with the rewinding of the tape if I wanted to re-do something. In my first video, I even had a reset date of something like 01/01/1990 in the bottom corner that you would normally expect to find on You've Been Framed.

 

I stopped because I was getting people from my school sending hate messages to me, but no matter. Originally, I was inspired by a friend of mine who unfortunately, I've never had the chance to speak to him for years. He went by the YouTube username 'salberts93' and he was Dutch, and I idolised him for the longest time after seeing his video he made on the Ferrari California on Gran Turismo 5 (Prologue I believe it was back then).

 

We got talking and he told me he was stopping his series that he had dubbed 'Sixth Gear'. I can understand why but I absolutely adored his videos due to their handheld low-budget charm, and this passion we shared was one that stemmed from seeing powerful and expensive vehicles that in the real world, we stood absolutely no chance of obtaining ourselves. So I hope that we see The Grand Tour focus primarily on what we as the viewers want, as much as the cheap car challenges are fun, I prefer seeing fast dream cars, everything from near 1,000-horsepower hypercars to classic E-Type Jags, and from quick little Fiats with a sliding roof and convertible four door Rolls Royce cars.

So that is what I am hoping for with The Grand Tour, which will be releasing exclusively on Amazon Prime in Autumn 2016, most likely around October. I really do hope they follow this simple formula, if they do so then they will wipe the floor with Top Gear in my opinion. They better do so, my parents are legends for paying for Sky F1, BT, Netflix AND Amazon Prime, and I am forever grateful to the both of them.

But what are your thoughts? I highly encourage you to make a blog post about this yourself, or put a comment below. Who knows? Maybe you'll introduce me to a new insight that I would not have thought about otherwise.

If you're new here, make sure to Follow By Email in the top right so you can be sent notifications of when I next post. You can also follow me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat. I hope to see you when I next post. So until we meet again.

Luca.