5 Reasons Why The New Top Gear May Suck

Hello Carmrades!

Yesterday it was announced that carmrades Chris Harris and Sabine Schmitz (❤) were “announced” as new hosts for new Top Gear and immediately the exclamation/question was born: Top Gear is saved !/? Well, here are five reasons for you to prove otherwise.

1. There is no Top Gear left “to be saved”.

What do you see above? Right, (former) Top Gear.

What do you see below?

I don’t know about you, but I see Sabine Schmitz, my dear queen of Nürburgring. I see Chris Evans, but I only know of him because he was announced as the first new Top Gear host a while ago. And I see Chris Harris. Now, I will get back to each one of them later to elaborate on what I see exactly, but let’s paraphrase the question: what do the average Jane&Joe see?

The reason is simple: although every self-respected petrolhead assumes Top Gear is one of the pillars of the car culture (together with Fast&Furious, NFS and so on), it is not the reason it is so popular. Just think of it, the average amount of Uk viewers over TV per season is between 5 and 7 million people. Can you find 5-7 million properly-tuned vehicles in UK? I highly doubt it, therefore another (obvious) proof Top Gear is mostly favored by the mainstream public. Which brings us back to the initial question, what do they see? A girl, who probably got in a racing suit for a photoshoot, because average male public like girls do manly things. Wait, her name is German? Maybe if we combine previous thought with this one, she may be an adult movie star! The guy in the middle? I don’t know, he looks funny. Probably to replace Clarkson as a funny guy, but can he drive? And finally, the guy on the right. That good looking son of a must be an actor. Probably like Patrick Dempsey who is racing for Porsche after his movie career.

Joe: I ain’t watchin him, cus I’m jealous of him.

Jane: I’ll put the TV on, right after I’ve picked up my panties.

To summarize, the mainstream audience does not know them and this may be good or bad. The fact is, they will need to gain the trust of the audience and another variable is one of my favorite quotes: there is no second chance for first impression. This means the cast will need to deliver outstanding performance the very first season or they’ll have a problem. It took “previous” Top Gear about 6 years from 2002 to reach its peak in popularity in 2008. Whether you like it or not, currently we are talking about a completely new series with the same name. Hell, even the executive producers have left the team, we can’t predict what is going to happen, and I definitely ain’t saying the show will be bad, BUT PLEASE, stop saying “saved”. There is no Top Gear anymore, point. And whether you like it or not, the coming four seasons the show will not only need to rebuild everything from 0, they will be constantly compared to the previous holy hosts.

2. Sabine Schmitz, the Queen of the Ring.

is a great racer and business woman, but as a tv host? I loved her performance and creativity in one of my episodes (watch from 4:00 and then 5:50), but she has appeared on professional German TV in the past which made many people say she could better stick to racing.

In addition, without assuming people are racist, but it is a question how the people will receive her with a German accent. Finally, and don’t assume I am a sexist, (as I have worked with various girls in the car industry with success in the past) but she is a girl and again, some people think girls should stick to girly things and ever worse: get offended when a girl is good at manly things. But then again, I will be happy for her if she succeeds and moreover, will bring additional traffic to the Nürburgring which will make me love her even more.

3. Chris Harris on cars. Not Chris Harris&Friends on cars.

And for the petrolheads this is an obvious reason. His presence/performance at his second most-viewed clip so far of the Holy Trinity even overshadowed the great Tiff Needell. Many believe Harris Monkey should stick it to solo performances and rock at it. If he can’t prove to be a team player who can scream during a drift in a Lada on a Top Gear Russia special, rather than relaxed voice-over during a slow-mo powerslide, then Top Gear won’t be “saved” either. Oh, did I mention how he compares himself to Clarkson on his Patreon page?

4. What lies beneath.

This and this. None of it happened (so far), so this makes me question the further promises (to make it a great show by doing x).

5.

Oops, let me fix that.

5.

Damn it, wrong Chris Evans. But imagine Captain America as a host? Okay, I’ll try one more time.

5.

Nevermind, I don’t even know what to say.

Hey, maybe me and carmrade Dale can be new hosts too?

Have a wonderful Christmas, my dear carmrades! I ain’t wishing you a Happy New Year yet, because I ain’t done talking to you in 2015!

And since this is Ask Car Throttle community, and the question of “Do you think this will save Top Gear?” has already been asked (with majority saying no), I ask you the following:

You are assigned as Top Gear’s new Executive Producer and it’s up to you to produce an astonishing episode (even a whole season if you want to). How is it going to look like to be refreshing, but still satisfactory enough for the “oldschool core audience”?