We love Car SOS in the Classic Car Weekly office. It's proper petrolhead telly - and it keeps the forced drama to a minimum.
There's a new series starting tonight and the opening episode's restoration of a Volvo P1800 has an added draw - the legend that is Sir Roger Moore, who drove one in The Saint, makes an appearance to give the work of Fuzz Townshend and Tim Shaw the thumbs up! I saw the finished car when it was revealed at last November's NEC Classic Motor Show and it looked stunning, so I can't wait to see what restoration wonders the team worked on it.
There's also an AC Aceca, a BMW 2002 Turbo and a Datsun 240Z to look out for later in the series, so if you love classics with a good tale behind them it's well worth tuning in.
Car SOS starts tonight at 8pm on the National Geographic Channel.
ABOUT A YEAR ago I had confirmation of something most car nuts suspect. Given the choice of a quiet evening, your local pub and any of the former Top Gear trio to go for a drink with, chances are you’d pick James May.
It was at a press conference in London where he was announcing a display bringing together his favourite pioneering automobiles, but being a busy TV presenter he had time to field just two questions from the assembled journalists. I can’t recall what the first question was but I definitely remember holding my hand up like a teacher’s pet with the second on the tip of my tongue – if he was going to do it again in ten years’ time, would his choices have changed?
I was looking forward to hearing him contemplate whether the car industry had stopped belting game-changing cars, but instead his PR man picked someone who genuinely asked ‘Did you get back from Argentina alright?’
There was a brief awkward silence at the stupidity of the question, but the Top Gear presenter who’d clearly made it back Buenos Aires just fine just smiled politely and gave a thoughtful intelligent answer that took the mickey out of Jeremy Clarkson. More often than not he’s motoring’s voice of reason.
That’s why seeing his Cars of the People back on the air last Sunday was such a breath of fresh air, particularly at a time when the tabloids are photographing every car Chris Evans gets in or out of.
Given he’d rounded off the last series by neatly supposing the ultimate car of the people is the Volkswagen Golf I had been wondering what ground hadn’t already been covered, but last Sunday’s episode was a genuinely fascinating bit of social history, exploring how Japan had swiped the car market from right under America’s nose. The journey with three Detroit car experts discussing the city’s downfall from a Ford Mustang II was genuinely educational stuff.
Best of all was the gentle ribbing of the car usually fêted as everything wrong with our own car industry. James could have done with the Austin Allegro what he did with the 2CV in the last series – pummelled it with machine gun fire, in the name of TV entertainment – but he didn’t.
Cars of the People is proof you can make great motoring telly without massive egos and explosions – which is why I’ll definitely tuning in for this Sunday’s episode. I’m glad James made it back from Argentina alright.
AT LEAST one of my fellow motoring scribes has found out the hard way. That - perhaps rather predictably - they haven't got the job of being a Top Gear presenter.
I bet I wasn't the only one unsurprised by reports late last night that Chris Evans has signed up three already high profile petrolheads to join him on next year's revival of the world's most watched car show. David Coulthard will be instantly familiar to anyone who knows even the faintest amount about F1. Sabine Schmitz has appeared on Top Gear twice already - including the brilliant piece about lapping the Nürburgring in a Transit van - and Chris Harris is already a petrolhead phenomenom, having translated his success at evo, Autocar and Jalopnik into more than a million YouTube channel subscribers.
Yet they've already been dismissed by the tabloids as complete 'unknowns'. Largely because, I suspect, Chris Evans didn't follow their never-ending predictions of Jodie Kidd and Philip Glenister being given the gigs. Personally, I reckon it'll have a shaky start but providing the Daily Mail doesn't strangle it at birth it'll evolve into some great petrolhead telly - three people who know their onions when it comes to cars and know how to look natural in front of a camera, led by the classic car collector who gave the world TFI Friday. It deserves to be a good show.
It's just a shame about the thing that had us all on tenterhooks - the audition process itself.
Back in June - following the rather dramatic dismantling of the old show - the Beeb announced they were looking for presenters to join CarFest organiser Chris on the 2016 series.
All you needed to be was over 17 and able to ramble on about cars, and apparently the auctions were 'not just for famous people, ex-famous people, up-and-coming famous people, but for people who are watching the show.' Yet by casting three people already famous to the petrolhead world, it's hard to believe anyone sat there at home really had a fighting chance.
Which is exactly why - despite spending my childhood wanting bad jeans, frizzy hair and a gift for a great metaphor far more than a spacesuit - I didn't send in my 30 seconds of fame to Chris' colleagues. I feel bad for the people I know in motoring journalism who did, but worse for all those 18-year-old Top Gear addicts who sent in their clips, thinking that maybe, just maybe, they'd get that phone call.
Don't get me wrong - all three presenters sound like superb choices, and the last thing I'd have wanted Chris to do was go even further down the 'it could be you' route by turning the audition into an automotive version of The X Factor.
I just wish they'd put the job ads up on LinkedIn or something. Telling the world's car fans it could have been them - when clearly it wouldn't - wasn't really on.
Over the past few weeks it’s almost been impossible to visit the loo without someone venturing an opinion on what Jeremy Clarkson did or didn’t do in a North Yorkshire hotel, which is why – until now – I've refrained from weighing in with mine.
Watching the whole Jeremy Clarkson thing unfold has been like watching – perhaps aptly – a car crash in slow motion, made all the worse by the fact I’ve grown up alongside his televisual career. So standing on the edge of the huge abyss his sacking has ripped through the motoring landscape has been like seeing a close relative getting nicked.
It's made worse - especially for the BBC - by the fact there is no clear cut answer. As at least one Champion colleague pointed out, to defend Jeremy would be to defend someone who punches a colleague at work. To agree with casting out would be to disagree with Top Gear's army of fans and to rob the Beeb of one of its biggest stars.
The Corporation has made the only call it realistically could, but it's a sorry end for Jeremy's long career there, A career that not only included some brilliant Top Gear moments, but the wonderfully nostalgic Clarkson's Car Years, the tongue-in-cheek Jeremy Clarkson Meets The Neighbours and the passionate case he made for Brunel to be recognised as Britain's greatest person.
Jeremy looks back at the Lamborghini Countach in Clarkson's Car Years back in 2000
I spent my childhood watching the fuzzy-haired progenitor of dodgy faded denim carefully crafting his metaphors on Motorworld. I laughed when his description of how the Ford Probe was so good looking it could snap knicker elastic earned him a mention on Points of View, and yes, I remember the ripples of derision his televised destruction of the Vauxhall Vectra sent through the motoring world back in 1995. Clarkson, both back in the Nineties when I got hooked on Top Gear and in his mega successful Noughties incarnation, is still compulsive viewing.
Yet everyone who loves Top Gear – and that includes you – will be just fine, because the show’s now been forced into the rethink nobody was prepared to admit it needed.
Top Gear of right now reminds me of Roger Moore donning a space suit in Moonraker – it was brilliant in parts, but proof positive that bigger budget doesn’t always bring better results. Stung by the criticism of a Bond film that tried – and failed – to mimic Star Wars, the producers went back to basics and came back two years later with the excellent For Your Eyes Only.
The BBC – as Doctor Who, Have I Got News For You and, erm, a 2002 series called Top Gear prove – is brilliant at rescuing hit shows from the brink and making them brilliant again. As much as it hurts to admit it, Jeremy Clarkson and Top Gear are not one and the same. Now is the opportunity to reboot it and get back to the basics of the show. The cars.
Jeremy's infamous 1995 Top Gear road test of the Vauxhall Vectra
For all the punches, BBC inquiries, sackings, death threats, wild speculation and newspaper columnists seriously suggesting Piers Morgan should be at the helm of the word’s biggest motoring show despite having no experience of car reviewing, everyone will be fine.
Jeremy will be fine because he’ll either retire and enjoy the contents of his garage or find an equally lucrative job. Top Gear will be fine because the Beeb’s best brains are already onto the job, and you’ll be fine because in the long run you’re not going to deprived of motoring telly.
In fact, the only people who lose are The Daily Mail because they’ll have lost something to irritate the public about. Result!
TOP GEAR is back on form. It seems that no matter how much the tabloids knock its presenters for offending everyone from here to Argentina, the show keeps gorging itself on spinach and coming back even stronger.
Even though it’s been years since it’s done a properly down-to-Earth, sensible set of wheels you really can’t fault it for entertaining motoring telly. I laughed like a drain when Richard Hammond’s ambulance used a pressurised gas cannon to fire a patient through the window of a makeshift hospital, and the race across St Petersburg between a Renault Twizy, a bike, a hovercraft and a Stig was genuinely exciting stuff.
But Top Gear keeping on the edge of your sofa in an occasionally offensively entertaining way is nothing new. All anyone has wanted to ask me this week is what I think of The Classic Car Show.
Chances are – if the petrolhead consensus I’ve been following is anything to go by – you’ll have reached one of two conclusions having watched the opening episode. Either you’ll have been switched off entirely by its unashamedly upmarket, glossy take on the world of old cars and vowed never to watch it again. Or you’ve already committed to watching all 13 episodes because a) it’s motoring telly and you’d rather watch it than Emmerdale, and more importantly b) because it has its moments of brilliance. I’m in the latter camp.
There have been things about The Classic Car Show that made my mind melt slightly – there will, for instance, be a special place reserved at the back of my mind alongside Katie Hopkins and failed 2006 rom-com You, Me and Dupree for the vapid awfulness of the piece which asked Tinie Tempah for his opinion on the Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing. Quentin Willson, however, tackled the Mustang’s 50th anniversary with genuine clout and authority, and the pieces on the £5000 classic cars – TR7, XJ-S and so on – have been packed with warmth and nostalgia.
In fact, I actually admire The Classic Car Show for daring to do something different. Unless you want Top Gear or a show about two blokes buying an old car, restoring it and flogging it on – and after the success of Wheeler Dealers, they’re ten a penny – there hasn’t really been much for people into cars to choose from.
Regular readers will know I've pleaded with TV’s powers that be for a proper, magazine-format show about cars which is filled with fun and facts in roughly equal measure – the sort of thing Top Gear and Driven used to do when they had to make reviewing the Vauxhall Vectra look interesting. This isn't it, but I like it because it's a fresh take on a subject car nuts love.
The Classic Car Show isn't perfect, but it’s won a slot in my Thursday evenings.
A NEW TV series for fans of older cars – presented by former
Top Gear and Fifth Gear host Quentin Willson – starts on Channel 5 next week.
The 13-part series, called The Classic Car Show, sees
Quentin team up with supermodel Jodie Kidd and presenters Alex Riley and Will
Best for the one hour shows, featuring buying advice, motorsport and drive
stories.
The first episode will be shown at 7pm next Thursday (5
February).
IT WAS somewhere in the North Sea where I discovered one of
motoring telly’s genuine surprises last night.
Chances are that if I hadn’t have been stuck on a ferry
tossing and turning through the waves on my way back from a trip to Holland and
Germany, I wouldn’t have flicked on the TV and started watching James May’s
newly-launched BBC series about people’s cars. If you haven’t already seen it
and fancy tracking it down on iPlayer, it’s called – in a magnificent display
of Beeb imagination – James May’s Cars of the People.
Yet despite the unremarkable name, Captain Slow had me
hooked; here, after what seems like months of false starts, was a spot of
automotive telly I found myself genuinely enjoying. I’m sure not the only car
nut who finds his other pet project – an occasional motoring show called Top Gear – has brilliant and tiresomely
slapstick moments in roughly equal measure, but almost all of the other shows
aimed at us petrolhead types have proven tricky viewing.
I get the impression that in a glass-sided building
somewhere in Canary Wharf a boardroom’s worth of overpaid telly executives have
cottoned onto the fact that classic cars are hot property, and between them
opened the floodgates for a whole of slew of motoring TV shows over the past
few months. We had Philip Glenister do a great job with For The Love Of Cars, but I couldn’t help wincing when an old
Series One Land Rover was restored to such an eat-your-dinner-off-it level of
cleanliness that it’ll never see a farm track again, and then auctioned for an eye
watering £41,000. We’ve also had AC/DC rocker Brian Johnson pontificating about his favourite
supercars in Cars That Rock, but the
worst television call by far was whichever idiot gave Classic Car Rescue a second series.
That’s why, after a bellyful of obviously scripted motoring
mishaps and shows which give off the impression all old cars are handcrafted
from unobtainium, it was so refreshing to see James May talking sensibly about
the cars your mum and dad used to drive. I switched off at the end of the show
having learned some genuine nuggets of pub fact gold about the Fiat 124, and
been reminded why the Trabant was so bad that thousands of East Germans happily
headed straight towards a crooning David Hasselhoff in a simultaneous lunge for
motoring freedom. In fact, the only letdown was resorting to some cheap Top Gear laughs by dropping a Lada from
a helicopter for laughs, but James May’s
Cars of the People had me hooked
.
Even though I’m firmly back on terra firma now, I’ll
definitely be tuning in this Sunday for the next episode.
THERE are, I’ve worked out, only three certainties in life. Death, taxes, and controversies involving Jeremy Clarkson.
That’s why I’m sure I can’t be the only person in Britain who felt strangely blasé when they saw THAT headline the other day. CLARKSON’S N-WORD SHAME. It just makes you want to release all that pent-up Clarkson hatred The Daily Mirror bet you’ve been bottling up for months, doesn’t it?
Or rather it would, but these days Top Gear controversies and scandals occur with such cloying regularity that they might as well be episodes of Friends. Was it The One With The Mexican Jokes which offended most? Or perhaps The One With The Staged Caravan Inferno? The One With The Lorry Driver Insults?
On each and every occasion, a tabloid newspaper demands at least one of the Top Gear trio be sacked. Then, a fortnight later, everyone’s forgotten about it and the juggernaut that is the world’s most widely watched motoring show thunders a little further up the Beeb’s ratings.
This time, however, Jeremy has apparently been given a final warning. A final warning about a word which was never actually broadcast and which only appears in a clip which the tabloids have dug up to prompt your sense of disgust. A clip which – even if you listen to it repeatedly on YouTube – features Clarkson mumbling in an outtake so slurred it wouldn’t have been useable in the final cut anyway.
Anyone who actually watches Top Gear – whether they love or loathe it – will know the idea of Jeremy Clarkson being a racist is absurd.
I watched that original N-word clip when it was broadcast, heard absolutely nothing of offence whatsoever, and absorbed it with no emotion other than a slight sense of smugness through learning that TV’s Jeremy Clarkson agreed with me on how brilliant the Toyota GT-86 is. I also watched the supposedly notorious bit of the Burma special, observed that the bridge the team had cobbled together was leaning one side, and only learned how outrageously offended I should have been by reading about it on The Daily Mail’s website the following morning.
I’m not asking you to like Jeremy Clarkson – that’s a bit like asking you to vote Nigel Farage – but I am suggesting that most of the people moaning about Top Gear have no interest in it. I have no interest in The Only Way Is Essex, but I don’t spend every night watching it, looking out for things to be upset about.
Happily, there’s someone out there who’s happy to stick their head above the parapet and tell it like it is. To paraphrase the direct quote from Twitter in a way that’s printable in a family newspaper, Jeremy Clarkson is many things, including a monumental pillock, but he definitely isn’t a racist.
Thank you for being the voice of reason, James May.
IN THE middle of a summer stashed full of car shows, last weekend was all about staying in. Specifically, it was about some of the best petrolhead telly in years.
Whether you’re an F1 addict or someone who – like me - occasionally dips into motorsport’s equivalent of the Premier League, the British Grand Prix last weekend offered up some of the most gripping racing I’ve seen in ages. Bored of Wimbledon and unsure whether I’m either too cool or not quite cool enough to get into Glastonbury, I happily flicked over to Silverstone for a bit of V8-powered relief.
Naturally, being British, I wanted Lewis – who’d qualified on pole – to win. If that’d happened I’m pretty sure the Queen herself would have arrived to congratulate him, the Northamptonshire circuit would have been treated to a flypast by the Red Arrows and the nation would have breathed a collective sigh of relief after realizing we can still win at something. Unfortunately, a bit of a puncture on his Pirellis, early on into the race, left him at the back of the grid.
Lewis’ loss, however, was the fans’ gain, because it was one of the tensest races I’ve seen in years.
The screamer from Stevenage didn’t manage to win, but he did succeed in getting from last to fourth, via some pretty spectacular driving, while Mark Webber came out of nowhere to snatch second. Meanwhile, in my living room, I grunted the excited squeak of a farmyard animal when Sebastian Vettel’s gearbox gave up the ghost. Frankly, I loved the whole unpredictable spectacle.
Speaking of the predictable, I’d been counting down the days until that other great staple of petrolhead telly – Top Gear – romped back into the schedules later that evening, regardless of whether you love it or hate it.
For what it’s worth, I still think there’s a yawning great chasm – probably somewhere in the depths of BBC Four – for a proper, sensible TV show about all matters motoring, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy TG’s return.
The more flak that gets thrown at Top Gear by Daily Mail readers, the stronger the show’s content seems to get – and Jezza, Slow and Hamster have been through the usual barrage of pre-show criticsm. That’s why I’m expecting great things from the hour I swap the driver’s seat for the sofa each Sunday night.
Car shows every other weekend, some vaguely summer-esque weather to enjoy driving for a change and Top Gear on Sunday nights to round it all off nicely. Much better than standing around in a field in Somerset waiting for Mumford and Sons, I reckon!
REAL ale, good food, uncannily accurate Michael Caine impressions and ABBA's The Winner Takes It All.
If that sounds like a familiar celluloid combination then chances are you are - like me - a fan of The Trip, the excellent comedy Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon and the BBC teamed up to make a couple of years ago. In essence, it takes up the two-blokes-on-a-trip-to-Cumbria format employed so elegantly in Withnail and I, chucks in some sidesplittingly funny improvisation from two of the country's best known comedy actors, and then leaves to simmer in some of the finest restaurants the north of England has to offer.
The Trip is probably one of the most worn-out DVDs in my collection - car chase movies and Bond films aside - so it delighted me no end to discover from a friend that plans are in the pipeline to make a second series, this time moving the restaurant-based action from the Lake District to Italy.
I mention The Trip in a motoring blog, however, because it did such a wonderful job of showcasing one of my favourite cars, the Range Rover, in the Lake District, which is one of the places I love taking a car most. In fact, AF59 WEC almost became one of the characters, seemingly featuring in almost every shot which didn't involve Steve and Rob exchanging Roger Moore impressions over a glass of white wine. Somehow, in the cold, muddy, grey Lakeland vistas, the Range Rover just looks right somehow, even if it doesn't actually venture off road once. Repeated viewings haven't helped my Range Rover infatuation at all!
I can only hope, however, the new series retains part of what gave the show a distinctly petrolhead whiff - shots of suitable set of wheels wafting serenely through whatever sublime scenery there is to offer. It'd probably be right, therefore, for the second series to feature an Alfa or a Maserati strutting its stuff in the Italian countryside.
Getting the comedy balance just right is something I'm really looking forward to with The Trip's second outing. Until then, however, savour just some of the stunning Range Rover shots the series' creators captured in the Cumbrian countryside...
A WEST Lancashire motorist who “doesn't suffer fools gladly” is one of the drivers being featured on a motoring programme being broadcast on Channel 5 next week (Thursday, February 14).
Dudley Valentine, a self-confessed ‘inconsiderate driver', will be one of the motorists featured on Dangerous Drivers’ School, which sees AA driving instructors help people from across the country to sharpen their skills behind their wheel, in the latest episode of the show, which will be shown at 8pm.
The retired RAF pilot, 70, said he had been driven to the show after years of complaints from long-suffering partner Lynne, and was given a crash course from AA instructor Ashley Briggs for the show.
Mr Valentine said: "I wanted to address my driving because my partner had been saying to me for years that I was inconsiderate on the roads. After about 20 minutes with Ashley, I realised that I did need to make some changes.
"I have been driving for 53 years and over that time you get into bad habits and you do get complacent. I do feel that it made a big difference and my driving has changed for the better since taking part."
He is the latest in a series of drivers to be featured on the show improving their skills, following famous faces who have their own motoring mishaps, including former-Apprentice star Kate Walsh, actor Melvyn Hayes, comedian Rowland Rivron and ex-MP and author Edwina Currie.
Mr Briggs, who is seen instructing the West Lancashire driver in tomorrow night's episode, said: "The range of problems the drivers face in this series are very varied and it was a really enjoyable process to try and help them become safer.
"Dudley’s problems were more down to his attitude than any lack of driving skill. With something like driving that most people do very regularly, it is all too easy to bury your head in the sand about problems you are having and just try to battle on regardless. But, there is help out there and people should not feel they have to struggle on alone."
To coincide with the programme, the AA is offering 2,000 free courses to motorists who'd like to improve their skills behind the wheel. To find out more go to www.theaa.com.
WORD from the Beeb is that the world's most watched bit of motoring telly is due back on our screens later this month.
There's been a bit of a Top Gear vacuum on our screens lately, most noticeably when over Christmas the TV schedules had plenty for fans of Eastenders, Downton Abbey and Miranda but not much for anyone looking for the petrolhead's usual Yuletide helping of three middle aged blokes breaking down in the middle of nowhere. To be fair, the excellent World's Most Dangerous Roads has made a bit of low key comeback but Top Gear, perhaps stung by criticism of last year's India special, was nowhere to be seen.
Until this weekend, when Auntie announced the show would be back on Sunday, January 27.
From what the official online preview suggests it looks set to be a belting season packed with the trio's usual blend of speed, seriousness, silliness and, er, Stig-ness, with a not-at-all-delayed Christmas special featuring the Aston Martin Vanquish, the Lexus L-FA and Dodge Viper on a trip to Mexico, somewhere where the show has plenty of fans.
It's not as if the trio haven't been idly doing nothing since the last series finished way back in March of last year, with Richard Hammond treating us to a rundown of James Bond's cars last October, and Jeremy Clarkson and James May bringing out the brilliantly funny Worst Car In The History of the World special on DVD, but the return of a new, full series looks set to be a bit of a treat.
