Agreed. With a few exceptions (Corvette, GT, GTO - well, that’s really Australian) the US makes terrible cars. Which is probably why the big three are the crapper.
Top Gear is the benchmark for automotive TV shows and I believe it is the most widely viewed motoring show on the planet but somehow can’t find those viewing figures.
If you’re a car guy/gal and don’t watch it, you owe it to yourself to get with the program (ha ha). www.finalgear.com has all the episodes.
The actual axis of rotation rarely passes through the point we define as 90 degrees north. Instead, it wanders around in an irregular circle near that point.
Top Gear followed the route of the “Polar Challenge”, which provided logistics and support. It is a four-month self-supporting cross-country ski race from the Polaris Mine on Little Cornwallis Island, somewhat near the community of Resolute on Cornwallis Island, to the abandoned Isachsen Mine on Ellef Rignes Island, which is near where the magnetic pole was in 1996. It is nowhere near the north pole.
Here is a map: http://www.polar-challenge.com/detail.asp?articleID=10
Here is the Polar Challenge web page: http://www.polar-challenge.com/detail.asp?articleID=7
They lost their secondary fuel tank.
While we’re on the subject of vehicles in Canada’s far north, if you ever happen to find yourself in Eureka (further north over on Ellesmere Island), and need a lift from the landingstrip, it is less expensive to be carried in the bucket of the front end loader than to be driven in the truck. (One of those odd bureaucratic things, according to one of my relatives who is a station manager up there.)
Not four months, only four weeks, of which the race itself takes about sixteen days (the rest being pre-race training and a few days getting to the start line) – sorry, my bad, I had the time confused with my cousin’s shifts.
Looks like the programme’s on YouTube.
I’m not sure I quite understand what the Wikipedia article is saying. Is this a result of the crust slipping around a bit, while the majority of the planet’s bulk underneath the crust stays fairly stable? Or is it something else entirely?
Yes, but not to the extent of 12 degrees of latitude!
It was an annoying feature of the programme that they kept referring to it as the “north pole” when it clearly wasn’t. My TV guide described it was the magnetic north pole.
I’m stuck with dial up until I get in to work tomorrow. 
But before I come home from work, you can bet that I’ll watch it!
It’s even slow-as on broadband here, Muffin (mind you, our broadband’s snail-speed, so we’re told). But yep – the prog’s a good’un! 
Think of some guy spinning a Frisbee on his finger. The Frisbee doesn’t rotate exactly around its center; instead, it wobbles slightly. If you were to take a high speed movie of the Frisbee and then watch it in slow motion, you would see that it rotates around a different point from moment to moment. This is caused by irregularities in the Frisbee’s surface and the guy’s finger motion. Similarly, Earth is not a perfect sphere - it’s somewhat flattened and lumpy. There are also gravitational effects from the Moon and Sun, and to a lesser extent from other planets as well.
That said, it wouldn’t account for anywhere near 12 degrees of difference. I managed to miss that little tidbit…
I watched this programme last night (it was repeated on BBC2). At one point Jeremy Clarkson said “We are the most northern people in the world at the moment*.”
The people at Alert (82ºN and change) might beg to differ…
Heh, heh! Thanks, Colophon. I couldn’t quite get that bit, even though I remember watching Parkinson shows ages ago! Cheers. 
Wow! That was the best ever Top Gear!
Two pieces of sacrilege, though. First, as already pointed out, they were neither at the north pole, nor were they the most northerly people in the world.
Second, and far more serious, was that the Devine Ice Goddess Matti used fixed heel bindings while kite skiing. Oh, Matti, how could you go so far only to go so wrong!