The cars they review (including supercars) are donated by the manufacturers; they’re usually delivered along with a team of engineers in order to make sure nothing goes wrong.
The “new” cars they destroy, like in the rugby match, are usually pre-production prototypes which can’t legally be sold. Automakers will make a bunch of them and send them out to various press agents prior to the actual release of the car. They don’t have VIN numbers and may have slight differences from the production model. Since the cars need to be crushed anyway, people often come with creative uses for them.
A lot of their challenges, like the north pole one, also benefit from donations. Afermarket parts companies and tuners will donate their vehicles in exchange for a mention on the show. The company that built the Toyota Hiluxes writes it off as a marketing expense.
The actual costs of the show, which are still pretty substantial, I’m guessing, go into production and travel. There was the review of the last Range Rover where they flew Clarkson and a camera crew to Australia to get a 3 second shot. Something about “will it work upside down” or something. That’s the sort of expenditure that shocks me.
Didn’t they do that Australia stunt exactly becuase they were ‘suffering’ from budgetg cuts… and they continued the entire episode by doing things cheaply, bacause Clarkson had spent the ‘whole budget’ already.
Ah yes, I remember now. That was the running joke through that episode. It was supposed to be a bargain review, and then it ended up being the most pointlessly wasteful things they could come up with. It was pretty epic.
Even still, airfare wouldn’t be the most expensive part of that shot by far. They scouted a location, acquired a vehicle, and assembled a film crew for 1 joke and 3 seconds of footage. The cost per frame for that shot had to have been pretty epic for a BBC show.
Well, I may be exaggerating the time a bit, and it was an X6, not a Range Rover. Curse my faulty memory!
I’ve been on a Top Gear kick the last couple of weeks; I forget which episode it was, but there was one supercar that they couldn’t run a test lap with because of the insurance costs.
I’m not much of a Clarkson fan, but when he puts his mind to it, Clarkson is a terrific interviewer: there was a Stars In Reasonably Priced Cars segment recently where the star was an overawed young Scottish singer. She was clearly nervous as all hell to start with, but Clarkson was wonderful at drawing her out without being patronising. He may come across as a blustering oaf most of the time, but a lot of that is the character he plays: when it counts, he is very very good at his job.
Was that the Ferrari Enzo? I think that was the one that they couldn’t test, until Nick Mason from Pink Floyd lent them his.
I must say I do like Top Gear, despite having no great interest in cars. I’m also glad that the new series currently running on the BBC is a bit of a return to form, after a couple of ropey series where the formula seemed a bit stale. Also, there’s a two-part Africa special coming up, woohoo.
I did a bit of googling to find the episode, and it was a 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO. He says that even though the BBC has all this money, they can’t afford the insurance to let him drive it.
They’ve had problems in the past securing cars (like the Enzo and Veyron) from automakers who have nothing to gain and everything to lose from a bad showing, but ultimately VW caved on the Veyron, and private owners are happy to supply other cars (like the aforementioned 250 GTO).
Aye, I think all three of them have had a go in a Veyron by now: Richard vs a Eurofighter, Jeremy in one of the cross-Europe challenges, and James on a test track taking it to its top speed.
Just gotta say - the Toyota Hilux is NOT a Tundra - the Tundra is a full size pickup - the Hilux is more like the Tacoma in the US market. And they bought it used off a farmer somewhere.
I enjoy the show, but I find that I tend to enjoy it in spite of the hosts rather than because of them. Their banter is SO scripted and SO badly acted…if it were done just a bit better, it would make a huge difference.
Whether it’s a shtick or not, Clarkson does have a knack of getting the “Stars” to let their showbiz facades down a bit during the reasonably priced car segment. In most cases they seem quite delighted to be there and chat with Jeremy about their lap times and other assorted topics. It was really a hoot to see Jeremy (in the “roadie” episode) confess to Pete Townshend that their vans weren’t big enough to carry all of his gear–Pete suggested that maybe he should work with the Arctic Monkeys instead, as they would be less inclined to bash Clarkson over the head with a mic stand. (Clarkson is a huge fan of The Who).
I really appreciate the fact that they spend as much time driving beat up pieces of crap as they do testing out the latest super/hypercars.
