Happy tenth birthday* Top Gear!

MANY happy returns, Britain’s most watched motoring TV show. Many have tried to better your three-blokes-and-a-Stig format, but nobody’s really managed it.

Even though I was naive, 16-year-old college student at the time I remember that first programme of the reinvented Top Gear like it been shown yesterday rather than October 20, 2002. What I remember most of all was not being particularly bowled over by the studio, sparsely populated by members of the Subaru Owners’ Club, the tedious piece talking the viewers through their new track, and by Jason Dawe, who despite being a likeable bloke with a lot of knowledge on used cars never seemed to suit presenting the revamped show. No wonder he was quietly dropped after a single series.

But the calls by Jeremy Clarkson and Andy Wilman to give Top Gear an overhaul were well justified. Old Top Gear, as it’s now called, had slowly evolved from the dry, technical show of William Woolard’s day into a thoroughly entertaining thirty minutes of Thursday night telly. Even though I’ve always maintained it was the triple whammy of Tiff Needell’s balletic oversteer routines, Quentin Willson’s caustic commentary and Jeremy Clarkson’s genius quips, in terms of ratings it was Jezza who made Top Gear in the Nineties so watchable, and the drop in ratings after he pulled out in 1999 proved it. By the time the original was “rested” in 2001 it was regularly being beaten in the ratings by Channel 4’s excellent and much-missed Driven.

Top Gear of course, is a very different beast these days;  three knowledgeable petrol heads with a genuine on-screen chemistry, packed-out studios with waiting lists which run into years, the enigma of the Stig and some genuinely brilliant production values and novel scripting have made it into unmissable television not just for car lovers, but their long-suffering other halves too. Admittedly, even I get annoyed when it strays into the slapstick – like that caravanning piece, for instance – but the point is it’s memorable and put together by people who have a passion for the subject.

The pieces which have made me cringe are more than outweighed by the dozens of great pieces of film-making they’ve put together. Take the Aston Martin racing the TGV across France, for instance. Or Jeremy’s poignant Senna tribute. Or any of the lovely classic car pieces James used to do (more, please!). Or my favourite Top Gear film to date – the wonderfully funny and spectacularly efforts to buy a mid-engined supercar for less than £10,000. All pieces which highlight exactly why TG deserves its place in the primetime Sunday night slot.

What Top Gear has left though – and I’ve said it before – is a gap, a void in motoring telly where the old Top Gear, with its enforced diet of sensible reviews of superminis and used car buying guides, used to sit in the schedules. Even though Driven was dropped shortly after Top Gear’s introduction many have tried; many of the old Top Gear crew went onto Fifth Gear, which is still entertaining largely for Tiff’s reviews but has increasingly tried – and failed – to mimic the Beeb’s format. Sky’s The PetrolAge had a scholarly feel to it and a great presenter in Paul McGann, but still felt a little too inaccessible for non-petrolheads just wanted straightforward pieces on cars old and new, while Five’s latest effort, Classic Car Rescue, has been given an absolute pasting for its obviously scripted performances. Top Gear, meanwhile, has pretty much the entire population divided; everybody either loves it or hates it, but all of them, without exception, are familiar with it.

So long live Top Gear, and kudos to the first production company who comes up with the first genuinely enjoyable car show to fill the gap it left.

*Top Gear actually celebrated its tenth birthday yesterday, but what's a day between friends?

World's Most Dangerous Roads is the best bit of motoring TV in ages

CONSIDERING I'M both a car nut and a self-confessed couch potato I find most motoring telly a bit hard to chew.

I've written about Top Gear before, which is by far my favourite car show but even I admit strays from being serious silly, often in the space of a single episode. Then there's the generic rubbish - usually on ITV or BBC Four - which are all directed by someone who deems that all motoring programmes must feature Driving In My Car at least once. It's Madness. Literally.

In fact, since the original Top Gear and the delightfully innovative Channel Four show Driven went west there's been surprisingly little to get revved up about. So I'm surprised that an all-too-short series that's just finished on BBC Two had me hooked.

World's Most Dangerous Roads sounds like the sort of horridly dull show you'd find lingering in the Discovery Turbo schedules but don't let the title put you off, because it's one of the best bits of Sunday night TV I've seen in a long time. The recipe's simple but suprisingly simple; get two go-getting celebs, send them to somewhere remote with a poor road safety record, stick them in a 4x4 and dial the tension up to 11. Well researched, packed with suspense and superbly produced, I reckon it's one of the best things the Beeb's done all year.

Admittedly, the sight of 'slebs swearing at a battered Nissan Patrol was always going to appeal to me but what's surprised me is how many non-petrolheads I know were watching it too, simply because it was a truly tense bit of television. By far the best bit was watching Hugh Dennis and Ben Fogle threading their Toyota Tundra along the narrowest of Peruvian mountain passes, crawling just inches from certain death as knackered trucks thundered past the other way.

If you liked that Top Gear special in Jeremy Clarkson had a similar near miss in Bolivia, you'll love World's Most Dangerous Roads.

It's just a shame that last Sunday's episode was the last of just three episodes, because this series was one that definitely deserved a longer run.

My advice? Catch it on iPlayer while you still can.

Currywurst and cars, but no Clarkson

I'D like to tell you about all the exciting automotive developments in the north west this week, but I can't because I'm in Germany.

Here I have been blasted down the autobahn at speeds which in the UK would be very illegal, I've seen many mouthwatering motors which have clearly had kots of love lavished on them by their owners and - best of all - I managed to gatecrash a gathering of gorgeous old Maseratis earlier today (more on this soon - stay tuned). Germany, clearly, has a lot of petrolheads.

But they don't have my favourite motoring TV show, which is on the airwaves back in Blighty and I'm knowingly missing out on.

Some say that it's never far from controversy, and that it could only ever be presented by three opionated, middle-aged men.

All I know is it's called Top Gear.

Life On Cars writer David Simister is currently overdoing it on the currywurst, but normal, British-based service will resume tomorrow (July 17).

When Top Gear used to have facts in it

THE chap at the bar, despite being someone I'd never met before, turned to me and went all car enthusiast on me.

"Where's your Mini, then?" he asked, deducing that as I was in the pub with mates from the local Mini owners' club, my notoriously fickle example would be outside in the car park, rusting quietly.

"Sold it. I've got an MG now," I responded, expecting that to be that, but a glint in his eyes somehow revealed I wasn't getting off that lightly.

"What sort of MG?" he asked.

"An MGB," I said, smug in the knowledge that the MGB, of course, is a proper MG, crafted centuries ago by stout chaps in the actual Morris Garages factory in the good old days. Not for me some Rover 25 with a Halfords bodykit. Unfortunately, I still wasn't going to be let off that lightly.

"What sort of MGB?"

Now usually I'd panic at this point because - as regular readers - will know, I'm a fully committed car enthusiast but not one who actually knows anything about how cars actually work. This could be a proper grilling from someone who actually knows how carburettors work. This could be embarrassing.

Luckily, the night before, I'd watched an old Public Information Film, which usually cover things like the Highway Code and why not to fish next to electricity pylons, but in this case it was an old Top Gear clip I'd found which might as well have been called Things you should know if you're about to get grilled by an MGB enthusiast. For once, I've actually learned something!

I'd like to lie and show you this clip I found on YouTube for the benefit of everyone who has even a vague interest in old sports cars, but really it's for the benefit of my dad, who despite knowing a trillion times more about cars than I do admits even he's got gaps in his knowledge of Britain's best selling roadster.

What's more, it's from an episode of proper Top Gear from ye olden days, so you get the idyllic image of an enthusiastic bumble through the countryside and some facts.

So there you have it, Mr Man at the Bar; I own a '72 GT in Harvest Gold with the 1.8 litre, BMC B-Series engine, four speed box with the desirable Overdrive option, Webasto sunroof and Rostyle steel wheels.

What's more, it's nearly finished and there's a summer of blasting it down country roads in the sunshine just a few months away. I can't wait.

Peel P50: tiny car, big investment

SUPPOSE you landed a spot on business-savvy BBC show Dragon's Den. Given five smirking tycoons and an audience of millions, what would you pitch?

So far the series has put serious amounts of cash behind a brand of spicy sauce, a treadmill for dogs, an indie band and a teddy bear that doubles up as an MP3 player, so they're not averse to making the occasional odd investment. But a four-ft-long car last made on the Isle of Man over forty years ago? Thanks to James Caan, the Peel is making a comeback!

Most peoples' experience of this miniscule motor is still the slightly ridiculous Top Gear episode from a couple of years ago, shown below, when all 6 ft 5 of Jeremy Clarkson squeezed himself in for a quick spin around the BBC News offices in London. He jokingly said it was the future, but James Caan is serious enough to stack a whopping £80,000 in its favour.

Both the Peel P50 and the Trident, were powered by ancient moped engines when they first appeared in the early Sixties but when it's given the Dragon's Den treatment it'll be propelled along by an eco-friendly electric unit and cost around £8,000, which is about the same as you'd pay for the four-seat treatment you'll get in a Fiat Panda. But no matter how hard you try, you can't get a Fiat Panda into an elevator, and that's the P50's party trick.

Regular readers will already know I'm a big fan of fun little cars; along with owning an original Mini, I've admired the clever packaging of Toyota's tiny IQ since it was launched last year, and the Gulliver's World proportions of the Peel just take things to a surreal new level. In much the same way as you want a phone that fits in your pocket, you know you want a car you can leave in that cupboard under the stairs at night.

Would I buy one? Absolutely, although Champion Media Group might have to take a more liberal look at its car parking policy if I do. I'd leave mine next to my desk in the newsroom.

Top Gear - how hard can it be?

THIS week, I give you the nation's favourite tame racing driver. Some say he's a Formula Three driver and that if he reveals his identity in an autobiography, he'll be going to court.

All we (officially) know is he's called The Stig.

The nationals' ongoing fascination with Top Gear's mystery man in the white racing overalls shows not only how big the Beeb's biggest programme is in 2010, but just how far the show - something its creator claimed would be getting back to basics this year - has moved away from being the pokey motoring show I grew up with.

Like the many millions of you who watched the last series being its usual outrageous self on Sunday nights, I still think the show's rip-roaringly funny, defiantly different and, in the case of the magnificent Senna tribute piece, serious and poignant when it wants to be. But the things that made me love it in the distant old days of, oooh, the Nineties, are long gone.

In case you don't remember, Jeremy Clarkson was part of an equally entertaining triple act with smarmy used car expert Quentin Wilson and the now Fifth Gear frontman Tiff Needell, who doubled up as the closest thing they had to a tame racing driver. They were funny too, but while giving voiceovers on Vauxhalls you might have actually bought at the time.

Sure, some of the pieces were depressingly dull but one of my own favourites from 1995, where Jeremy Clarkson refused to say anything about the Vauxhall Vectra he was testing, would never happen on the current show. In a world of bizarre challenges, supercars and visits by Tom Cruise, they wouldn't have time for a Vauxhall Vectra.

The very different show you get a decade on isn't something I'd ever want Jezza, Hamster and Captain Slow to tamper with - and it'd still be just as entertaining whether you knew who the Stig was - but I reckon Auntie's created a gap for another show closer to the Top Gear I grew up with. There must be millions of people out there who want to know whether a Vauxhall Meriva is better than a Skoda Roomster. Get some talented TV presenters, stick them on BBC Four and make them say something interesting about cars each week.

The BBC are missing a trick!

UPDATE: Andy Wilman, the producer of Top Gear, has thrown his opinion into the mix...

Reasonably priced Kia is a Stig decision for Top Gear

TOP Gear's reasonably priced car is now a reasonably priced Kia, after the producers of the hit BBC show switched their celebrity racer for the start of the latest series.

Anyone who watched Clarkson, Hammond and May in their latest TV adventures on BBC Two last Sunday will have seen them switching their affections to the Kia Cee'd , something the car's makers are keen to promote despite the presenters making mischevious comments about their models in previous shows.

“The last time Top Gear paid us any attention I think they tried to build one of our cars out of washing machines – so this is quite a step forward in their understanding of just how Kia has changed over the last six years,” said Stephen Kitson, Communications Director of Kia Motors UK.

“The Cee’d has become a strong player in the mid-sized family car market and just this year J. D. Power named it best small-medium car in their annual quality survey – so it should stand up well to anything the star guests can throw at it.

The C'eed, which has already been raced around the track by celebrities including Bill Bailey, TV dragon Peter Jones and BBC political editor Nick Robinson, is on sale now at a very reasonable £13,930.

Car killer or motoring magic?

JAMES May needs worry no more about the dubious title of Captain Slow, because I’ve nicked it.

The Southport and Ormskirk District Mini Owners’ Club have granted me the slightly suspicious honour because I’ve just completed their annual jaunt over some of Britain’s steepest mountain passes and managed to hold up a mass of souped-up Minis because I was driving so slowly in mine. Yet the fact I completed it all, I reckon, is incredible.

This is the very same Mini that just weeks ago let me down in spectacular fashion by deciding it’d had enough of being a car and wanted to become a Reliant Robin instead, and tried to shed one of its wheels at 40mph. You can probably understand that even though it’d taken many hours of someone else’s painstaking work just to get it up to the 2010 Lakes Tour, based on the shores of Ullswater in the Lake District, I was still taking it a tad cautiously.

As a drive it’s the sort of thing you’d think twice about taking any car on, but would you entrust a 200 mile drive over some of the country’s most challenging mountain passes to a car with a one litre engine, an automatic gearbox, drum brakes and a ropey reliability record?

From the cramped confines of an old car on a lashing, wet Cumbrian morning it’s hard to appreciate the scale of just what I’d asked the Life On Cars Mini to do, so here’s the route in its epic entirety:


View Larger Map

It’s a real car killer of a drive, as the occasional Mini from one of the many other clubs taking part proved as we spied them sulking at the side of the country lanes. From the twists and turns of the mountain pass out to Alston to the one-in-three cliff faces of the Hardknott Pass, it was a hellishly difficult thing to do.

Then there was the agonising moment when the temperature gauge shot up, the car slowed to crawling pace and steam starting swirling out from beneath the bonnet. As it would if you’re trying to take a Mini 1000 Automatic up the Hardknott Pass. It looked, sounded and smelt awful, but once we’d let it cool down and given it a taste of mountain spring water, it started going again. And just kept going.

The car almost everyone had doubted just kept on going, soldering on over everything the Lakes could throw at it. On a day mostly marked out by dark clouds and constant drizzle, it was a burst of sunshine, and just to prove it wasn’t a one-off it followed the 200 miles of climbing by getting me home as well.

It might have been slower than everything else there but it was motoring magic. You should try it sometime.

David Simister will be appearing on the Live From Studio One on Dune 107.9 FM next Friday (June 25) at 6pm to talk about Britain’s best driving roads

So good, it'll make your ears bleed

FOR anyone following my slightly unfortunate Mini here's the briefest of updates: it now has four fully functioning wheels, rather than three and a knackered swivel hub. Here's hoping it'll live long enough to make it to the Lake District this weekend.

Until then, here's a clip of the Mini I always wanted when I was a child:




I particularly love this Mini's ability to make a young Jeremy Clarkson's ears bleed.

That and the fact it works...